Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People Marie desJardins University of Maryland Baltimore County ([email protected])[email protected]

Presenting Your Research:Papers, Presentations, and People

Marie desJardins University of Maryland Baltimore County

([email protected])

2005 AAAI/SIGART Doctoral Consortium

July 10, 2005

Thanks to Rob Holte for permission to use some slides

2/7/05 Marie desJardins -- Getting Published 2

Research Isn’t Just Research

Who cares what you do, if you never tell them? You’ll need to present your ideas in various forms and

venues: PEOPLE: Networking with colleagues at your institution and

elsewhere PAPERS: Writing and submitting papers to workshops,

conferences, and journals PRESENTATIONS: Giving talks at workshops, conferences,

and other institutions (You should also put together a website that highlights

your interests and research activities)

…oh, and these things also provide useful experience for job interviews, not to mention valuable job skills…

People


Networking

Meet people! It helps to have an objective: Find out what research they’re currently working on Tell them what you’re currently working on Find an area of common interest Learn what their visions/future directions are Suggest a new direction for research or topic for a class

What’s in this interaction for you? What’s in it for them? If you know two friends, and they know two friends, and

they know two friends… Pretty soon you know everybody!


Be Prepared

You need to be prepared to summarize your research For a thesis topic, you should have a 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-

minute presentation already thought through The same goes for other projects you’ve been working on Be able to distinguish between your original contributions, your

advisor’s contributions, and ideas drawn from previous research Practice with other students!

Publishing


Writing and Submitting Papers

For a master’s thesis, you should aim to have at least one “good” conference paper by the time you graduate

For a doctoral dissertation, you should aim for a couple of good conference papers and a journal paper

Writing these papers is great practice for the thesis itself… (and you can reuse the material!)

Where to submit? Look at publication lists of people doing research related to yours,

and see where they publish Publish at the conferences that have the most interesting papers


Paper Writing: Strategies

First, decide where you plan to submit the paper You may not finish in time, but having a deadline is always helpful Two to four months away is a good planning horizon

Next, decide what you will say What are the key ideas? Have you developed them yet? What are the key results? Have you designed and run the

experiments yet? Have you analyzed the data? What is the key related work? Have you read the relevant

background material? Can you give a good summary of it?

Now get started on the work you need to do to fill in the missing holes! Write early and often: You can (and should) write in parallel with

finishing the work!


Paper Writing: Design

Abstract –summarizes the research contributions, not the paper (i.e., it shouldn’t be an outline of the paper)

Introduction/motivation – what you’ve donewhat you’ve done and why the reader should carewhy the reader should care, plus an outline of the paper

Technical sections – one or more sections summarizing the research ideas you’ve developed

Experiments/results/analysis – one or more sections presenting experimental results and/or supporting proofs

Future work – summary of where you’re headed next and open questions still to be answered

Related work – sometimes comes after introduction, sometimes before conclusions (depends to some extent on whether you’re building on previous research, or dismissing it as irrelevant)

Conclusions – reminder of what you’ve said and why it’s important


Paper Writing: Tactics

Top-down design (outline) is very helpful Bulleted lists can help you get past writer’s block

Unless you’re a really talented/experienced writer, you should use these tools before you start writing prose

Neatness counts! Check spelling, grammar, consistency of fonts and notation before showing it to anyone for review If they’re concentrating on your typos, they

might miss what’s interesting about the content. (More about the reviewer’s perspective later...)

Leave time for reviews! Fellow students, collaborators, advisors, … A paper is only done when it’s submitted... and usually not even

then.


Authorship

Who should be an author? Anyone who contributed significantly to the conceptual development

or writing of the paper Not necessarily people who provided feedback,

implemented code, or ran experiments

What order should the authors be listed in? If some authors contributed more of the

conceptual development and/or did most/all of the writing, they should be listed first

If the contribution was equal or the authors worked as a team, the authors should be listed in alphabetical order

Sometimes the note “The authors are listed in alphabetical order” is explicitly included

The Review Process


Conference Reviewing

Program committees Selection process Senior vs. area chair vs. regular members

Paper assignments Keyword-based Self-selection All for one and one for all

Decisions Reaching a consensus Final decisions Conditional accepts (rare) Acceptance rates (~~~20% in good conferences/journals)


Journal Reviewing

Executive editor Area editor Board members or reviewers

Longer decision cycle Typically higher quality, longer, and deeper reviews Decision options:

Accept as is Accept with minor changes Accept with major changes (subject to re-review) Reject with encouragement to resubmit Reject out of hand


Where to Publish

Workshops vs. conferences vs. journals Length of decision cycle Quantity vs. quality Aim high! (or at least appropriately) Acceptance rate vs. time to prepare/publish


Purpose of a Review

Evaluate the paper’s scientific merit Check the validity of the paper’s claims and evidence Judge the paper’s relevance and significance

Provide constructive feedback to the author


Typical Conference Review Form

1. How RELEVANT is this paper?

2. How SIGNIFICANT is this paper?

3. How ORIGINAL is this paper?

4. Is this paper technically SOUND?

5. How well is this paper PRESENTED?

Additional comments for the author(s)


Good Reviews Are...

Polite Fair Concise Clear Constructive Specific Well-documented Represent the scientific community

... but you get what you get! Bad, unfair review that missed the point?

Fix your paper anyway!


Knowing Your Audience:A Reviewer’s Perspective

First, I read the title: is it in my area? (self-selection) Next, I read the abstract: is it interesting?

(self-selection) Next, I skim the introduction and form

my opinion about the paper Next, I read the rest of the paper

looking for evidence to support my view By the time I get to Section 2, I already have a very

strong opinion about whether to accept or reject. Your job is to give me the evidence I need in the title

and abstract to select your paper for review, and in the introduction to result in the right opinion!


Ethical Issues

Multiple submissions Journal versions of conference papers Authors and author order Listing papers in your CV


Rejected!! Now What?

Fix the paper! Read the reviews, rail and complain, berate the reviewer Calm down Read them again with an open mind Do more experiments, revise the paper, … Go back to the reviews again – have you addressed all the points? Have people read the revision critically Do more experiments, revise the paper, … Repeat until the next deadline

Presentations


Know How Long You Have

How long is the talk? Are questions included? A good heuristic is 2-3 minutes per slide If you have too many slides, you’ll skip some or—worse—

rush desperately to finish. Avoid this temptation!! Almost by definition, you never have time to say everything

about your topic, so don’t worry about skipping some things!

Unless you’re very experienced giving talks, you should practice your timing: A couple of times on your own to get the general flow At least one dry run to work out the kinks A run-through on your own the night before the talk


Know Your Audience

Don’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience in your field

Even for these people, you need to be sure you’re explaining each new concept clearly

On the other hand, you’ll lose people in a general audience if you don’t give the necessary background

In any case, the most important thing is to emphasize what you’ve done and why they should care!


Know What You Want to Say

Just giving a project summary is not interesting to most people

You should give enough detail to get your interesting ideas across (and to show that you’ve actually solved, but not enough to lose your audience

They want to hear what you did that was cool and why they should care

Preferably, they’ll hear the above two points at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk

If they’re intrigued, they’ll ask questions or read your paper Whatever you do, don’t just read your slides!


Preparing slides

Don’t just read your slides! Use the minimum amount of text necessary Use examples Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format Use color to emphasize important points, but avoid the

excessive use of color “Hiding” bullets like this is annoying (but sometimes

effective), but…

Don’t fidget, and… Don’t just read your slides!

Abuse of animation is a cardinal sin!


How to Give a Bad TalkAdvice from Dave Patterson, summarized by Mark Hill

1. Thou shalt not be neat

2. Thou shalt not waste space

3. Thou shalt not covet brevity

4. Thou shalt cover thy naked slides

5. Thou shalt not write large

6. Thou shalt not use color

7. Thou shalt not illustrate

8. Thou shalt not make eye contact

9. Thou shalt not skip slides in a long talk

10.Thou shalt not practice


Some useful resources: Writing:

Lynn DuPre, Bugs in Writing Strunk & White, Elements of Style

Giving talks: Mark Hill, “Oral presentation advice” Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics” Simon L. Peyton Jones et al., “How to give a good research talk” Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in

research/academia”

Some Useful Resources

Documents

Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People Marie desJardins University of Maryland Baltimore County ([email protected])[email protected]