How to Write Academic Papers

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Schedule

• Week 1: How to generate ideas?

• Week 2: Title and abstract

• Week 3: Write an impressive introduction

• Week 4: Develop a paper with analysis, discussion, etc.

• Week 5: Conclusions & future works

Schedule

• Week 6: Students present their topics

• Week 7: Students present how to develop their works

• Week 8: Students present their finished papers

Importance of Writing Skills

• Publishing papers is critical for researchers

• Publishing is hard– Low acceptance rate– Competing with good papers– Reviewers are potential competitors

What Makes a Good Paper• Good paper = good content + writing skills

– Content and results: your job

• Writing skills: Structure, flow, argument, …– Logical, clear, succinct, consistent, …– English

• Standard must be high– Your best efforts– Compared with others, yours is good/best– Don’t fool with the reviewers!

A “Template” for Good Papers• Abstract• Introduction• Review of Previous Work• Our Work• Experiments and Comparisons• (Relation to Previous Work)• Conclusions• References• Others (Appendix, footnotes, etc.)

Template - Abstract• Purpose: Summary of your work and

contributions• Style

– What is the problem– What is your solution and results

Template - Introduction

• Purpose: Background, outline of your paper• Style

– Problem X is importantPrevious work A, B, … have been studiedA, B have certain weakness (be careful here)

– We propose D, features of D (how much)Experiment with D, compared with A, BD is better than A, B (in certain aspects)

– Outline of the paper;

Template: Previous Work• Purpose: draw the differences• Style

– Previous work: may split to several classes– Can review each work in one or several sentences– Compare to yours (refer to later sections)

May also put it after sections about your work

– Things to note:• Do not miss important ones. Proper use of “e.g.”• Do not misinterpret; do not overly criticize• Emphasize the differences

Template: Our Work

• Purpose: describe our work – May split to several sections

• Style– Definition, notation (need motivation)

• In the shoes of your readers

– Algorithms: pseudo-code; diagram; explanations– Answer potential questions from readers; – Too much details (such as proof): appendix– Exceptions: footnotes

Template: Experiments

• Purpose: verifications

• Style:– Experiment design

• Detailed enough: can others replicate your work

• Simplest is best: concise, clear

– Comparisons (Is it scientific? T-test?)– Discussions (make sense of the results)– Draw conclusions

Template: Conclusions

• Purpose: summary, future work, closing

• Style– Quick summary– Future work– Closing

Template: References

• Purpose: supporting claims; know well all previous work

• Style– Citation in text: what needs to be referred?

• Universally true: no need; opinions: YES

• Other people’s work: Yes

– Consistent

Template: Others

• Acknowledgements (example)

• Appendix– Proofs: do not stop the flow

• Footnotes– Hide details and exceptions

Abstract, Introduction, Summary

• Similar in nature

• Differences (length; emphasis)– Abstract: short; problem and your work– Introduction: short or long; background, your

work, outline of the paper– Summary: short/medium; your work, future

work

How to generate ideas?

• Generating and refining ideas for documents can be one of the most difficult stages in the writing process.

• Many techniques are available to assist you in generating and refining ideas for your research papers.

How to generate ideas?

• A relevant topic comes from:

• The literature;

• Empirical observations;

• Significance of the problem;

• An economic story.

Background Reading or Researching

• very useful for you if you are not familiar

with a topic

• Begin background reading by looking up a subject idea in general reference works such as encyclopedias, or textbooks.

Background Reading or Researching

• Your next step is to look through periodicals, academic journals, and books.

• You may wish to take notes you can refer to at this stage, and write down your major ideas.

Background Reading or Researching

• At this stage, you don’t want your major ideas to “get lost” or “bogged down” in pages of factual notes. You may want to write down the titles of works that were helpful to you, so you can revisit them when you

Background Reading or Researching

• Whenever you read technical material, or listen to a research talk, ask yourself these canonical questions:

• From where did the author seem to draw the ideas?

• What exactly was accomplished by this piece of work?

Background Reading or Researching

• How does it seem to relate to other work in the field?

• What would be the reasonable next step to build upon this work?

• What ideas from related fields might be brought to bear upon this subject?

Background Reading or Researching

• Once you have identified a topic that looks feasible, make sure you are aware of all of the literature in the area.

• Keep reading and listening, and keep distinct in your mind what is different between your work and others.

Brainstorming

• Basically, you begin by making a list of ideas as you or others think of them.

• Don’t “reject” any idea in a brainstorming session—write all ideas down, even if they may seem silly or unrelated.

• go though the list, and consider the ideas-- arranging, organizing, adding, or eliminating them.

Brainstorming

Using journalist’s question• What? the rise in sea level of Long Beach

Island• Who? it affects the Long Beach Island

community (residents and officials) it affects federal agencies

• Where? Long Beach Island, New Jersey

Using journalist’s question• When? both an immediate threat and long term

threat• Why? rise in sea level comes from global

warming and green house effect• How? Prevent by raising islands (pumping sand

onto beaches)

Talking with others• Talking with others is another technique

you can employ to help you generate and refine ideas for your research paper.

• You may wish to have conversations with friends, relatives, coworkers, librarians, and instructors or with experts in the field.

• Casual conversations will not need to be documented; however, formal interviews and in depth conversations with experts will need to be documented.

Talking with others

Developing a Research Question

• It's absolutely essential to develop a research question that you're interested in or care about in order to focus your research and your paper

• Choose the best question, one that is neither too broad nor too narrow.

Developing a Research Question

• For example, if you choose juvenile delinquency, you might ask the following questions:

• What is the 1994 rate of juvenile delinquency in the U.S.?

• What can we do to reduce juvenile delinquency in the U.S.?

• Does education play a role in reducing juvenile delinquents' return to crime?

Developing a Research Question

• Question "a" is too narrow, since it can be answered with a simple statistic.

• Question "b" is too broad; it implies that the researcher will cover many tactics for reducing juvenile delinquency that could be used throughout the country.

• Question "c," on the other hand, is focused enough to research in some depth. 

How to search literatures?• A literature search is a comprehensive survey of

publications and information on a specific topic. • The result produced at the end of a literature

search is usually a list of references. • A literature search differs from a literature

review, which is the written section of your research report that summarizes the iterature you studied.)

Choose your search words and their synonyms

• Generate a list of synonyms and other words that might be used in discussion of each concept.

• An excellent source for choosing synonyms and search terms is the Canadian Literacy Thesaurus, available online or in print.

• (http://thesaurusalpha.org/thesaurus/index.htm)

Choose your search words and their synonyms

• What effect does health have on literacy learners’ success?

• Concept 1:Learner success; Learning outcome;Learner progress;Goal achievement;Learner assessment

• Concept 2: Health;Wellbeing;Illness

• Sickness;Disease;Medical condition

Choose the right place to search

• You can search in subject specific databases, on the Internet, or in library catalogues.

• Web search engines such as Google or AllTheWeb.com, are usually most useful to find general information of public interest.

• Web of science, engineering village, Social Science Citation Index

Keep Track of What You Find

• When you start finding useful resources, you’ll want to keep a record of them.

• Be sure to record full bibliographic information: title, author, year of publication, journal title and volume number (if applicable).

• This is called a citation or reference. • Keeping good records helps you to locate your

resources at a later date.

Thank You!