Research Methodology Introduction Paper Reviews Presentation Skills Research Career Skills Research Project Proposal Technical Writing

Research Methodology IntroductionPaper ReviewsPresentation SkillsResearch Career SkillsResearch Project ProposalTechnical Writing

Reviewing research papersResearchers produce papers that document knowledge resulting from

their researchEach paper is refereed by the authors’ peers (peer review)Each referee decides whether a paper makes a sufficient contribution to the field

Someone (area chair etc) makes a decision as to whether to accept the paper, and if so with what revisions

Papers are published in Journals Conferences (often for ‘latest research’)

Note different publication cultures in different scientific disciplines: ! Pharmacy Science values medline and Pubmed and biomedical journals

Reviewing research proposalsReviewer must determine for each proposal

is the proposed topic significant?is the methodology reasonable?do the proposers have sufficient expertise to carry out the research?is the budget reasonable?are necessary facilities available?does the proposal meet specific objectives of the funding agency?

Review committee decides on a ranking of proposals !

Administrators decide on cutoff point for funding

A Taxonomy of Research Papers

Breakthrough: solves a long-standing problem, or introduces a totally new way of looking at the world

Ground-breaking: opens up a field that has not been well explored or understood, and lays a firm foundation

Progress: raises and solves important new problems in a well-established field

Reprise: reworks an existing result (by the authors or others), yielding new insight

Tinkering: extends a known result by a more careful, but non-obvious, methodology

Debugging – elucidates and repairs a flawed previously-published result

Evaluating a Research Paper

! What is the purpose of the paper?

! Is the paper appropriate for the venue?

! Is the goal of the research significant?

! Is the method of approach valid?

! Is the actual execution of the research correct?

! Are the correct conclusions drawn from the

results?

! Is the presentation satisfactory?

! Will readers learn anything new from this paper?

Ethical considerations

For the refereeObjectivit

yFairnessSpeedProfessionalismConfidentialityHonestyCourtesy

For the authorAppropriate attributions for the work of

othersThe same work is not submitted

simultaneously to two or more venuesThe same work has not been previously

published

Desirable attributes for a paper

Correctness - of conclusionsSignificance - of resultsInnovation

Interest –outside of immediate area?

Timeliness

Succinctness crisp & to the point

Accessibility –self-contained, careful explanations of basic concepts

Elegance – proofs should be elegant/intellectually satisfying

ReadabilityStyle –well-structured, flowing technical prose, scholarly vocabulary &

grammarPolish – should reflect care taken by the author[s] in all aspects of its

preparation

Paper Reviews

Plagiarism / paraphrasingWhen writing a one-page summary, you must use your own words. The in-depth

reviews require a more detailed summary of the content of the paper and a detailed analysis of the key contributions, which must also be written in your own words.

For both the one-page summaries and the in-depth reviews, direct quotes must be explicitly cited. Direct quotes should not exceed a very small portion of the submitted work.

Plagiarism will be dealt with as per University/Department’s regulations. This includes:

Cut & paste from a reading assignment Cut & paste from the Web Cut & paste from books, other papers, etc. Cut & paste from anything that is not your own, including other student’s work Changing wording of sentence but keeping the idea (e.g. paraphrasing) Summary which does not include proper references/quotations

Maintain a research journal!Maintain a research journal! -- bound composition book, not a bunch

of scraps of paper or a ring binder…Researchers often look back at their recorded reviews when tackling a

new problem.Always write a 1-page summary of the paper in your research journal

(even for papers for which you don't need to turn in a research summary).

Make thorough enough marginal notes that you can extract a summary/review directly from these notes.

Make summary notes ("great idea but poorly executed," "thorough results but uninteresting work") on the first page.

Keep a list of citations that might be worth tracking down, with at least enough bibliographic information to find the actual paper later on.

Strategies for Reading Papers : “in-depth reviews”

If you're going to present the paper at a class, or if it's very relevant to your own research, you may need to spend more time with the paper to fully understand it.

You may also need to look up citations of work (by the authors or by others) on which this paper builds.

Learn which papers are critically important and which are less so -- it would be entirely possible to spend the next year (or two or three or four) doing nothing but reading, and still not have read all of the papers that you "ought" to. Spend your time wisely.

Summaries that go into this additional level of detail are called “in-depth reviews”.

In-depth Reviews

3-5 pages longIf done correctly, someone else that reads your in-depth review will

completely understand the paper without having to read the paper

Requires that you review the directly-related references, so that you can summarize that work in your own words, not just rely upon the 1-2 sentences that the author[s] of the paper you are reviewing have provided to differentiate the current work from the related work.When you review papers while developing your project proposal, you need to generate summary reviews of all work to which your

project is directly relatedYou will then aggregate the information from these reviews into the

“Related Work” section of your project dissertation.

Strategies for Reading Papers

Skim (read quickly) the whole paper once

Read through the whole paper, but don't let yourself get stuck.

Go back and work through the details of any (important) results, proofs, conclusions, etc. that you skipped (passed) over.

Fill in the review template

Review TemplateBriefly summarize the paper in 3-5 sentences.What problem does this contribution solve? Is it an important

problem?

What are the claimed contributions of the paper?Upon what (and whose) previous work has this research been based?

What methodology has been used? Is it appropriate?What conclusions are drawn from the results? Are they correct?

Has the research been performed correctly?

Is the presentation satisfactory?

Is the paper appropriate for the target venue?

Review checklist (prepare)Paper TitleAuthor[s]SummaryProblem SolvedClaimed ContributionsDirectly-Related WorkOther Related WorkMethodologyConclusionsDo Differently?What did you learn?

Literature reviewingReviewing literature is a continuous process it begins before a research problem is finalized and continues until the report finished ,there is a paradox in the literature review you cannot take an effective literature review unless you have formulated a research problem yet your literature search plays an extremely important role in helping you to formulate your research problem. Reviewing literature involves A number of steps: searching existing literature in your area of study, reviewing the selected literature, using it to develop a theoretical framework from which your study emerges ,and to develop a conceptual framework which will become the basis of your investigation.

Presentation Skills

Lecture outline - making presentations

• Basic rules

• Structure

• Important points

• How (not) to give a good talk

• Handling questions

• Alternatives / additions - posters

Why make a presentation?

• Convey your ideas

• ‘Sell’ a paper

• Advertise yourself / group / department / …

What is a presentation?

• An illustrated talk• Presenting a set of ideas / findings• Aimed at a particular audience

• Numbers of attendees• Level of knowledge in the subject• Motivation for attending

• Constraints:• Time (of day) (length of talk)• Venue• Audio-visual equipment

What should be said / presented

• What you show is not (exactly) what you say

• Use telegraphese on slides

• Speak ‘complementary’ text

• Graphics / movies (take care!).• A picture speaks 103 words

How many slides? / Preparation time?

Fewer the better1-10 minutes per slide

1 hour lecture → 10 hours preparation ! But you can

reuse slides!

Basic Rules for PresentationsBasic rule (1)

• Know what you want to say

• Give just enough detail to convey your interesting ideas without losing your audience.

• Audiences want to hear what you did that was novel and why they should care.

• They should hear this at the beginning of the talk, over the course of the talk, and at the end of the talk

• If they are satisfyed, they’ll ask questions and/or read your paper

Basic Rules (2)

Know your audienceDon’t waste time on basics if you’re talking to an audience

composed of people in your field

You still need to be sure that you explain each new concept clearly

You will lose people in a general audience if you do not give sufficient background.

The most important thing is to emphasize on what you’ve done and why they should care.

Basic Rules (3)

Know how long you haveHow much time is allocated for the talk? This usually

includes 5 minutes at the end for questions.

Are you expected to take questions during the talk?

Budget 2-3 minutes/slide!If you have too many slides, you’ll end up rushing through

the slides that describe what you’ve done – why give the talk at all?

You are trying to provide your audience with a “taster” for your work, rather than as an in-depth discussion.

Unless you are very experienced giving talks, you must practice your timing2-3 times on your own to get the general flowat least one day run to work out any problemsrun through the talk on your own the night before

Structure

• Talks are linear:

• your audience can’t flip back to see what you said before

• they can’t use section headers as a guideline

• help them keep track of where you are in the talk

• don’t try to cover as much material as you would in a technical paper

• Give an overview (and use it throughout)

• Start with 1-2 slides on key ideas/contributions

• Give a high-level summary (or simple example) before you dive into the (not too many) details

• Recap at the end

Really Important Points

• Use the minimum amount of text necessary

• Use examples and diagrams/pictures

• Use a readable, simple, yet elegant format.

• Use color to emphasize important points, but avoid the excessive use of color

• Don’t read your presentation from a piece of paper!

Slide Rules

• ‘Nice’ font

• Sensible point size (18pt min, 36 pt max)

• Not crowded line-spacing

• Use footer and slide number

• Keep it simple… (slide design, colors, …)

• Keep animation to a minimum

Handling Questions

Questions during the talk If your presentation will answer the question later, say

so and move onIf your presentation does not answer the question,

either: Give a brief answer Defer the question to the end of the talk Do NOT hold up the presentation unnecessarily

Make sure you understand the question before answering it

Ask for clarification if you need itRestate the question, and ask whether your restatement

is correctHave backup slides for anticipated questions

Summary

• Think what you want to say

• To whom you will tell it

• Why they would want to attend

• How long you have

• What appropriate media to use

• Practice on yourself

Research Career Skills

Research Career Skills Overview

• Research career success

• Self-publicity• CV• Web visibility - website• Professional service activities

• Professional social networking

Your Research Career

• Success in your research career will depend upon:• Your technical knowledge and research skills• Your ability to convey your results verbally

and via the written word

• How well you are known!

Self publicity

• An up-to-date academic CV

• An up-to-date personal web site

• Active professional service participation

• Maintaining your professional social network

Academic Curriculum Vitae

• literal Latin meaning - “course of life”

• a comprehensive, biographical statement emphasizing your professional qualifications and activities

• your CV will grow in length throughout the course of your career (assuming that you remain research active)

• not to be confused with a Resume (or the usual British interpretation of a CV)

When is a CV appropriate?

• Applications for admission to Graduate or Professional Schools

• Independent consulting in a variety of settings

• Providing information related to professional activities (e.g. applications for professional memberships and leadership positions, and presentations at professional conferences)

• Proposals for fellowships and grants

• Applications for positions in academia or industrial research laboratories

General aspects of CV’s

All lists are in reverse chronological order (most recent first)You are attempting to publicize yourself, so use strong, but

appropriate, phrases to describe yourself. Grammar errors, mis-spellings, careless formatting reflect on

your attention to detail;have your CV critiqued by several people, with at least one being an

individual that is used to reading CV’s as part of their job;apply any additions, corrections, suggestions that the reviewers provide.

Possible Sections to Include in your CV Heading: Name, address(es), phone numbers (including

country code), email addressesEducation: Listing of academic degrees, beginning with the

degree in progress or most recently earned. Include: name of institution, city/state/country, degree type (BSc, MSc, PhD) and area of concentration, month and year degree was (will be) granted. If a dissertation was one of the degree requirements, it is normal to include the title of the dissertation.

Certifications: List all relevant certifications and the year received.

Possible Sections to Include in your CV (cont) Honours and Awards: Receipt of competitive

scholarships, fellowships, and assistantships; names of scholastic honours; teaching and/or research awards.

Relevant Experience: Listing of positions (part-time, full-time, volunteer, temporary and permanent) related to the type of work sought.

Other Experience: Groupings of other experiences (including volunteer work and/or internships) can enhance your CV.

Grants Received: Include name of grant, name of granting agency, date received, title or purpose of the project, etc.

Possible Sections to Include in your CV (cont) Professional Associations: Memberships in international national,

and regional professional organizations should be listed. Also list significant appointments to positions or committees in these associations.

Publications: Give bibliographic citations for journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, book chapters, patents, or any other publications that you have authored or co-authored.

Presentations: Give titles of professional presentations, name of conference or event, dates, location, and a brief description.

Possible Sections to Include in »" your CV (cont)

• Recent/Current Research: Description of research projects recently conducted or in progress. Include the type of research and a brief description of the purpose.

• Professional Service: List programme committee memberships, programme chair (or co-chair) activities, editorial board activities, funding panel/review activities

• Institutional Service: List institutional committees you have served on, including offices held; students you have supervised; special academic projects you have participated in

• Courses Taught/Developed: List the names of courses you have taught, institution and dates where taught, and brief course

descriptions

Possible Sections to Include in your CV (cont)

Narrative summary of your life-long research activities

References: Usual to end your CV with “References available upon request.”

Professional service activities

,

You depend upon time and effort from your colleagues for your success:You submit papers to journals for publication; several people review

each paper, the journal editor has to solicit the reviews, interact with you regarding necessary changes, …

You submit papers to conferences for acceptance; several people review each paper, the programme chair[s] solicit the reviews, interact with you regarding necessary changes, …

You submit funding proposals to funding councils; several people review each proposal, a panel of colleagues will

Professional service activities (cont)

It is only fair that you help provide the same service to other colleagues by:

Being a member of conference programme committees, thus reviewing papers submitted and participating in the discussion that yields the

conference technical programmeChairing conference programme committees Participating in journal activities as a reviewer, member of editorial board,

or editor Reviewing research proposals of colleagues for funding councils,

participating in prioritization panels.Participating in consultation committees

Your professional social network

What is networking , Why is it important , How one

networks

What is social networking

• Making professional connections and using them wisely

• No substitute for doing quality research

• Different styles of networking• Informal - take advantage of situations that arise in

your normal environment

• Deliberate - plan what you want to get out of networking, with whom, and how

Why is it important?

Makes you knownMakes your work known Both are important Ways in which networking can further your research career

Letters of recommendation from respected letter writersJob interviewsObtaining fundingInvitations to give talksProgramme committee invitationsEdge on acceptance of your papers ! Ways in which

networking can further your researchSource of new research ideasDifferent slant on old ideasFeedback on your research

Deliberate Networking

Introduce yourself to people at conferences

Established researchers

Programme directors at funding agencies

Your contemporaries

People who could hire you

People who could give you good technical

advice

Deliberate Networking (cont)

• What to do• The dreaded microphone• Questions and discussion with speakers after their

presentations• Talk to the person sitting next to you• Make lunch/dinner plans• Hall talk• Get your friends to introduce you• Get your advisor to introduce you• Talk to people who come up to you


• What not to do

• Don’t just stand there - speak!

• Ask about their work

• Ask who is working on what you’re interested in

• Don’t hang around with your friends; crowds scare away people who might want to talk to you

• Don’t interrupt heavy or private technical conversations

Deliberate Networking (cont) What to do ahead of time

Prepare a brief description of your work – just the highlights ! Why it’s an interesting problem Why your solution is unique Need to have 30 second, 2 minute, and 5 minute versions of your

description Who will be there that you want to meet?

Most conferences provide an attendance list with your registration materials.

What do they look like (check out their home pages – likely to have a picture)

What do you want to talk to them aboutMake notes of whom you wish to meet and what you wish to discuss

with them


What to do afterwards – the follow-up Send them your related papers Ask for theirs Actually read their papers. Send them comments. Share software and workloads. Do joint work together. Invite them to give a talk. Ask to give a talk there.

Write down what the next step is Write down technical tips Write down what you owe whom/ what they owe you


• Networking outside of conferences• Go to workshops

• Talk to seminar speakers that give presentations at your department

• Make sure that your web page has an up-to-date bibliography and links to the PDFs for your papers

• Take an industrial summer internship

• Use your contacts to obtain new contacts

• Be careful about “cold emailing”

Research Project Proposals

Research Project ProposalsSummary

• Why make a proposal?• Target (audience)• The review process• Research proposal outline• Title / Acronym• Length• Stages• Example• Milestones & deliverables• Resources requested• Research council guidelines• Some advice & common shortcomings

Research Project Proposals

• Why?• Request permission to undertake research

• Obtain feedback on ideas

• Competition for exploitation of ideas

• Request resources (time, staff, … etc)

• Competition for resources

• Clarify ideas

• Need for a plan

• Results can be judged by promises

• ?obtain marks?

Targets of proposal

• Yourself

• Course director / academic supervisor

• Funding body• Research council

• Charity

• Other…

Research proposal outline

• Title. Acronym?

• Statement of the problem

• State of the art

• Aims and objectives

• Research method to be adopted

• Resources needed (researchers, equipment, software, …).

• Deliverables & Milestones.

• Contingency plan

Approaching a proposal

• Two Golden Rules: 1. Ask lots of people to help you improve your proposal.

Give it to your colleagues, your friends, your spouse, your dog, and listen to what they say. If they misunderstand what you were trying to say, don't say "you misunderstood me"; instead rewrite it so it can't be misunderstood. If they don't immediately see the value of what you want to achieve, rewrite it until they do. And so on.This isn't a big demand to make on someone. Ask them to read your proposal for 10 minutes, and say what they think. Remember, most committee members will give it less time than that. 2. Make sure that the first page acts as a stand-alone summary of the entire proposal.Assume (it's a safe assumption) that many readers will get no further than the first page. So don't fill it up with boilerplate about the technical background.Instead, present your whole case: what you want to do, why it's important, why you will succeed, how much it will cost, and so on.

Common shortcomings• It is not clear what question is being addressed by the proposal.

In particular, it is not clear what the outcome of the research might be, or what would constitute success or failure. It is vital to discuss what contribution to human knowledge would be made by the research.

• The question being addressed is woolly or ill-formed.• The committee are looking for evidence of clear thinking both in the formulation of the problem and in the planned attack on it.

• It is not clear why the question is worth addressing.

• The proposal must be well motivated.

• The proposal is just a routine application of known techniques.Research funding agencies are interested in funding research rather than development. Industry are expected to fund development work.

• Industry ought to be doing it instead.If the work is `near market' then it should be done by industry or industry or venture capital should be funding you to do it. If no industry is interested then the prima facie assumption is that the product has no commercial value.

Common shortcomings• There is no evidence that the proposers will succeed where others

have failed: Evidence required:

1. "We have an idea".Sketch the idea, and describe preliminary work you have done which shows that it is indeed a good idea.It is not good saying "give us the money and we will start thinking about this problem".

2. "We have a good track record".Include a selective list of publications, and perhaps include a short paper (preferably a published one) which gives more background, as an appendix.

• A new idea is claimed but insufficient technical details of the idea are given for the committee to be able to judge whether it looks promising.

• The proposers seem unaware of related research.Related work must be mentioned, if only to be dismissed. Proposal should have a list of balanced references like any paper. Do not make the mistake of giving references only to your own work!

• The proposed research has already been done - or appears to have been done. Rival solutions must be discussed and their inadequacies revealed.

Common shortcomingsThe proposal is badly presented, or incomprehensible to all but an expert

in the field.

The proposers seem to be attempting too much for the funding requested and time-scale envisaged.! Such lack of realism may reflect a poor understanding of the problem

or poor research methodology.

The proposal is too expensive for the probable gain.

The proposers institution should be funding it. If it looks like your proposal might be done by a PhD student on the

departmental computer then that is what should happen.

Research Plan outline

• Title. appropriate

• Statement of the problem . clear, complete

• Aims and objectives. appropriately worded

• Research method to be adopted . sufficient detail

appropriate

• Resources needed (researchers, equipment, software,

…).

• Deliverables & Milestones. appropriate timing

• Contingency plan (if parts of the research method fail)

Take home messages

• You ask for grant for your research• Somebody else makes a decision -- in <5

minutes….• Only the top 10%-20% get funded• You have ONE chance to get your ideas over• Convince the reader -- in the first page!• Sell your idea• Be realistic and also daring• Sound convincing• Believe what you write

Technical Writing 1

Technical writing 1 - overview

Why write

What is technical writing

Research paper: characteristics of a good one

Checks to make as you write


• Success in your research career will depend upon:• Your technical knowledge and research skills• Your ability to convey your results verbally and

via the written word

• How well you are known!

Technical Writing

Doing the best research in the world in a particular topic is useless if you are unable to convey the results to others in the field

Primary mechanism for communicating research results is through journal articles, conference papers, workshop extended abstracts, book chapters, and books (research monographs).

Your submissions to these publication channels are peer-reviewed before publication. You must write your submissions so that they survive the peer-review process and are published.

Characteristics of a good research paper

Clear statement of The problem the paper is addressing ! The proposed solution[s] The results achieved

Describes clearly What has been done before on the problem ! What is new

The paper must provide an easily-followed line of argument.

Characteristics of a good research paper (cont)

A paper should focus on Describing the results in sufficient detail to establish their

validity Identifying the novel aspects of the results – i.e. what new

knowledge is reported and what makes it non-obvious Identifying the significance of the results; what

improvements and impact do they suggest?

Questions to ask yourself while • you are writing the paper

• Are the ideas in the paper new?• Can you state the new ideas concisely?• What exactly is the problem being solved?• Are the ideas significant enough to justify a paper?• Is the work described significantly different from

existing, related work?• Is all related work referenced, and have you actually

read the cited material?

Questions (cont)

Are comparisons with previous work clear and explicit? Does the work comprise a significant extension,

validation, or repudiation of earlier but unproven ideas?

What is the oldest paper you cited? The newest? Have you cited similar work at another institution? Have you cited technical reports, unpublished materials, personal communications?

Questions (cont)

Does the paper describe something that has actually been implemented?

If the system has been implemented, how has it been used, and what has this usage show about the practical importance of the ideas?

If the system hasn’t been implemented, do the ideas justify publication now?

What have you learned from the work? What should the reader learn from the paper?

Questions (cont)

How generally applicable are the lessons? What were the alternatives considered at various points, and

why were the choices made the way they were? Did the choices turn out to be right, and if so, was it for the

reasons that motivated their choice in the first place? What are the assumptions upon which the work is based?Are they realistic assumptions?

Questions (cont) How sensitive is the work to perturbations of these

assumptions? If a formal model is presented, does it give new information

and insights? Does the introductory material contain excess baggage not

needed for your main development? Do you include just enough material from previously

published work to enable your reader to follow your thread of argument?

Are the ideas organized and presented in a clear and logical way?

Questions (cont)

Are terms defined before they are used? Are forward references kept to a minimum? Have alternate organizations been considered? Was an abstract written first? Is the paper finished? Is the writing clear and concise? Are words spelled and used correctly? Are the sentences complete and grammatically

correct? Are ambiguity, slang, and cuteness avoided?

Technical writing 1 - summary

Why write

What is technical writing

Research paper: characteristics of a good one

Checks to make as you write

Technical Writing 2

Technical writing 2 - overview

When in the research process to write

Summarizing other papers

It can wait another day…

General rules

Logical connectives


• Success in your research career will depend upon:• Your technical knowledge and research

skills• Your ability to convey your results verbally

and via the written word

• How well you are known

Technical Writing

• Writing should be a regular part of the research process• it is very difficult to “do the work” and then “write it up”

• “the work” is never done; it is constantly changing

• writing helps pin down the details, and helps to focus ongoing research

Paper Summaries

• Writing one-page summaries of papers you read:• makes writing the related work part of your dissertation

much easier• creates a record of your understanding of the paper

(because you WILL forget the details)• helps you to organize and synthesize the threads of

related work• encourages you to analyze and think about prior art

and its limitations

Procrastination

Procrastinate – to delay intentionally and habitually the doing of something that should be done

Procrastination-busters:write something every day, even if it’s an outline, a paper summary, or a

“trivial” bit of commentaryschedule your writing before something that you really enjoy doing, and

force yourself to complete the writing before rewarding yourselfwrite sloppily and fix it later (organize well, though, since bad

organization is much harder to fix later)

General rules for scientific writing

Readers interpret prose more easily when it flows smoothly, from background to rationale to conclusion

Use standard abbreviations for units instead of writing complete words (hr, min, sec)abbreviations should NOT be written in plural form (i.e. 5 ml,

not 5 mls)With two exceptions (degree symbol and percent symbol),

leave a space between numbers and the accompanying units (5°, 8%, 12 ml)

General rules for scientific writing (cont)

• Results described in your paper should be in the past tense (you’ve done these experiments, but your results are not yet accepted “facts”)

• Results from cited published papers should be described in the present tense (published results are “facts”)

• Experiments you plan to do in the future should be described in the future tense.


Use active voice rather than passive voicee.g. use “Figure 5 shows …” rather than “… as shown in Figure 5”.

Ambiguous referral to concepts in the preceding sentenceoften use “it” or “they” to refer to a concept in the preceding sentence;

if there is more than one concept in that sentence, reader will be confused; repeat the concept name

often use “this” to summarize sense of previous sentence; almost always clearer if “this” is followed by a noun – e.g. “this result”

General rules for scientific writing (cont)Eliminate empty phrases

adding together → adding cancel out → cancel during the course of → during for the purpose of → for in view of the fact → given the vast majority → most a number of → several whether or not → whether it can be seen that → it is a fact that →


• Eliminate single numbered subsections (e.g. 5.2.1 in section 5.2) - either fold the text into section 5.2, or change the text that precedes the subsection into another subsection

• When referring to chapters, sections, figures, and tables, capitalize when referring to a particular instance - e.g. Chapter 1, Section 5.3, Table II, Figure 1-5

• Label percentages in tables with %, currency with the appropriate currency symbol

General rules for scientific writing (cont)Each sentence should consist of one or more complete

thoughts – subject verb objectwhen two complete thoughts make up a sentence, there are two forms

of legal punctuationFirst thought; second thought.First thought, <connector> second thought.

" <connector> can be “and”, “or”, “but”

Enclose parenthetic expressions between commase.g. The best way to see a country, unless you are pressed for time, is

to travel on foot.

General rules for scientific writing (cont)A paragraph is about a single idea, with a single, key, topic

sentenceThe topic sentence is almost always the first sentence, but

may sometimes be the last sentence.The rest of the sentences in a paragraph support the topic

sentence.Note that you can get a quick summary of a section by

reading just the topic sentences (if the author has followed this rule).

General rules for scientific writing (cont)Don’t write overly long words, sentences, paragraphs, or

sectionsKnow what each section, paragraph, and sentence is about,

and stick to the subjectDefine your terms and use boldface or another font format

convention to make them stand out (in particular, do not use quotes)

Expand your acronyms on first use (and use as few as possible); if you must define and use an acronym, you must use it at least three times


Avoid slang and idioms“crop up”, “lose track”, “it turned out that”, “play up”, “right

out”, “run the gamut”, “teased into”“lots”, “a lot”, “write up”“get”Avoid contractions (considered too informal for technical

writing)


• Avoid qualifiers and adverbs• “very”, “rather”, “simply”, “possibly”, “of course”,

“naturally”, “obviously”, “just”, “pretty”, “pretty much”, “more of”, “extremely”, “seriously”

• particularly avoid qualifying non-qualifiable words such as “unique”, “intractable”, “optimal” and “infinite”

• avoid personalizing your remarks with phrases like “I think”, “I feel”, “I believe”, “It seems”

Logical connectives

buthoweveralthougheven thoughin spite ofnonethelessNeverthelesswhile ! whereas

in addition to not only … but ! besides ! as well as ! too

Furthermore ! Moreover ! Also


• its (something that belongs to “it”) vs. it’s (a contraction for “it is”)

• which vs. that• that is the defining, restrictive pronoun - e.g. The lawn

mower that is broken is in the garage.• which is the nondefining, nonrestrictive pronoun – e.g.

The lawn mower, which is broken, is in the garage.

• between (two items) vs. among (more than two items)

General rules for scientific writing (cont)affect vs. effect

effect – as a noun, “result”; as a verb, “to accomplish” ! affect – as a verb, “to influence”

utilize vs. use – there is never a good reason to utilizehyphenate compound adjectives

e.g. the database is a knowledge base, while thecomponent that provides access to the knowledge base is known as the knowledge-base component.

commas, commas, commas, commas, … (298 errors in 263-page PhD dissertation)

General rules for scientific writing (cont)Parallel construction

expressions similar in content and function should be outwardly similar; the similarity of form enables the reader to recognize more readily the likeness of content and function:the French, Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese OR the French, the

Italians, the Spanish, and the Portuguesein spring, summer, or winter OR in spring, in summer, or in winterHis speech was marked by disagreement with and scorn for his

opponent’s position.

Technical writing 2 - summary

• When in the research process to write

• Summarizing other papers

• It can wait another day…

• General rules

• Logical connectives

Documents

Research Methodology Introduction Paper Reviews Presentation Skills Research Career Skills Research Project Proposal Technical Writing