How To Write Scientific Papers

Hadi Susanto

Disclaimer
1. I am not a successful writer yet.

2. Workshops
p will never make us a good
g writer.

Practice will …

Why do we need this workshop anyway?

In need of writing skills …. But why? Perhaps for a historical reason?

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Once upon a time …. Soliton
1834 J Scott-Russell (1808-1882)

Once upon a time ….

1834 J Scott-Russell observed barge on aqueduct

. . . a boat drawn along a narrow channel . . . suddenly stopped . . . the mass

of water in the channel . . . accumulated around the prow [and] rolled forward
with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded,
smooth heap of water, which continued its course along the channel [at 8 or 9
miles an hour for 1.5 miles] preserving its original feature some thirty feet
long and a foot and a half high . . .

Recreating Russell’s soliton in 1995

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"Report on Waves": (Report of the fourteenth meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, York, September 1844 (London 1845), pp 311-390, Plates XLVII-LVII)

3
Solitons and nonlinear waves
 1895 Korteweg & de Vries derived KdV equation

 localized wave solution

KdV solitons

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Disclaimer
1. I am not a successful writer yet.

2. Workshops
p will never make us a good
g writer.

Practice will …

Why do we need this workshop anyway?

In need of writing skills ….

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 Lack of writing skills ….

1. Tidak jjelas ((dalam menyampaikan

y p ide)) alias buram

2. Tidak menjual (dalam promosi hasil for impact) alias hambar

3. Padahal ….

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The story of a paper

 Here is a problem
!
 I ’ an iinteresting
It’s i problem
bl
 It’s an unsolved problem
 Here is my idea
 My idea works (details, data)
 Here’ss how my idea compares to other
Here
people’s approaches

6
Structure: IMRAD
!
 Introduction:
I t d ti : whath th hass b
been done?
d ? Wh
Why
did you do it?
 Methods: how did you do it?
 Results: what did you find?
 and
 Discussions & Conclusions: so what?

Sebelum lebih jauh …

Why should I do research?
 Internal drive
 Research
R h iinterest
t t ((sense of
f
achievement/fulfillment, curiosity)
 Strong ambition (self-expectation)
 External drive
 Degree and diploma
 Parents, teachers, friends
 Peer pressure (sense of honor and responsibility)
 Small success

14

7
 Established researchers would say
y…

those are bad reasons!!!

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Papers communicate ideas

Your goal: to infect the mind of your reader

with your idea,
idea like a virus

The greatest ideas

Th id are (literally)
(li ll )
worthless if you keep them to
yourself

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Paper writing is teaching

 It is useful to think that you are teaching

your reader your idea
 What you did
 Why it’s important
 How it works

 Well-written
Well written papers contribute more than
just their described results
 Readers understand the topic better

Writing papers: model 1

Idea Do research Write paper

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Writing papers: (provocative) model 2

Idea Do research Write paper

Idea Write paper Do research

 Forces us to be clear, focused

 Crystallises what we don’t
don t understand
 Opens the way to dialogue with others:
reality check, critique, and collaboration

!
Idea Write paper Do research

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Stage of writing
!
Multi-pass writing style:

1st pass: Detailed outline

2nd pass: Rapid writing
3rd pass: Fine Fine-tuning
4th pass: cross cross-reading

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Research Problem Selection

 Good research largely depends on the selected
problem
 90% of a research job is done when you find a good
problem.
 A good problem is difficult to find
 Not too easy nor too difficult
 How to select a problem?
 Is it an old problem or a new problem?
 Usually, new problems have more opportunities
 Is it a significant problem?
 Practically important yet technically challenging

22

11
Read! Read! Read!

Type of Research Problems?

 New solution to old problems (classical

problems)
 New problems
 New areas

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One ping

 Your paper should have just one “ping”: one

clear sharp idea
clear,
 Read your paper again: can you hear the
“ping”?
 You may not know exactly what the ping is
when you start writing; but you must know
when you finish
 If you have lots of ideas, write lots of
papers

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Structure: IMRAD
 Title (1000 readers)
 Abstract (4 po
points,
nts, 100
00 readers)
 Introduction, problem & idea (100 readers)
 Methods (10 readers)
 Results (3 readers)
 and
 Di
Discussions
i & Conclusions
C l i (3 readers)
d )

The abstract

 Should be brief, not assume too much,

and highlight items of importance
 Four sentences [Kent Beck]
 State the problem
 Say why it’s an interesting problem
 Say what your solution achieves
 Say what follows from your solution
 I usually write the abstract last

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Structure: IMRAD
 Title (1000 readers)
 Abstract (4 po
points,
nts, 100
00 readers)
 Introduction, problem & idea (100 readers)
 Methods (10 readers)
 Results (3 readers)
 and
 Di
Discussions
i & Conclusions
C l i (3 readers)
d )

The introduction

1) Describe the problem

What is the broader context?
What is the particular problem?
- Why is it interesting?
2) State your contributions
What is new? (novelty)
Why is it useful? (features of your solution)
How do you know? (evaluation)

Decide who will be your reader

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Literature review
 Write the list of contributions first
(Google scholar, trace forward, trace backward)
 The list of contributions drives the
entire paper: the paper substantiates the
claims you have made
 Reader thinks “gosh, if they can really
deliver this, that’d be exciting. I’d better
read on
on”
 Follows style of claim then evidence
 More on this later

Related work

Fallacy To make my work look good, I

have to make other people’s
work look bad

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Be humble

Giving credit to others does not

di i i h th
diminish the credit
dit you gett f
from
your paper
 Be generous to the competition. “In his
inspiring paper [Foo98] Foogle shows.... We
develop his foundation in the following ways...
ways ”
 Be fair to your own work, too - acknowledge
limitations and justify your contributions

Credit is not like money

Failing
g to give
g credit to others
can kill your paper

If you imply that an idea is yours, and the

referee knows it is not, then either
 You don’t know that it’s an old idea (bad)
 You do know, but are pretending it’s yours
(very bad)

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Structure: IMRAD
 Title (1000 readers)
 Abstract (4 po
points,
nts, 100
00 readers)
 Introduction, problem & idea (100 readers)
 Methods (10 readers)
 Results (3 readers)
 and
 Di
Discussions
i & Conclusions
C l i (3 readers)
d )

The details: evidence

 Your introduction makes claims

 The b
Th body
d off the
h paper provides
id evidence
id
to support each claim
 Check each claim in the introduction,
identify the evidence, and forward-
reference it from the claim
 Evidence can be: analysis and comparison,
theorems, measurements, case studies

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Structure: IMRAD
 Title (1000 readers)
 Abstract (4 po
points,
nts, 100
00 readers)
 Introduction, problem & idea (100 readers)
 Methods (10 readers)
 Results (3 readers)
 and
 Di
Discussions
i & Conclusions
C l i (3 readers)
d )

Conclusions and further work

 Be brief.

 Share a glimpse of your future plans

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Cross-reading
1. Tidak jelas (dalam menyampaikan ide)

2 Tidak
2. Tid k menjual
j l (dalam
(d l promosii h
hasil
il for
f iimpact)
t)

Bagaimana mengetahui dua hal di atas teratasi?

1. Metode ‘split personality’

2. Metode laci

3. Meminta bantuan

37

Summary

Tujuan akhir:

1. Jelas dalam menyampaikan ide

2. Menjual kerjaan kita dengan baik

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 Questions?

39

Getting help

Get your paper read by as many

friendly guinea pigs as possible
 Experts are good
 Non-experts are also very good
 Each reader can only read your paper for the
first time once! So use them carefullyy
 Explain carefully what you want (“I got lost
here” is much more important than “Jarva is
mis-spelt”.)

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Getting expert help

 A good plan: when you think you are done,

send the draft to the competition saying
“could you help me ensure that I describe
your work fairly?”.
 Often they will respond with helpful
critique (they are interested in the area)
 They are likely to be your referees anyway,
so getting their comments or criticism up
front is Jolly Good.

The process of submission

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Listening to your reviewers

Treat every review like gold dust

B ((truly)
Be l ) grateful
f lf
for criticism
i i i as
well as praise

This is really, really, really hard

But it’s
really, really, really, really, really, really,
really, really, really, really
important

Listening to your reviewers

 Read every criticism as a positive

suggestion f
for something
h you could
ld explain
l
more clearly
 DO NOT respond “you stupid person, I
meant X”. Fix the paper so that X is
apparent
pp even to the stupidest
p reader.
 Thank them warmly. They have given up
their time for you.

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 Details

Basic stuff

 Length of sentences
 Keep to the length restrictions
 Do not narrow the margins
 Do not use 6pt font
 On occasion, supply supporting evidence (e.g.
experimental data, or a written-out proof) in an
appendix
di
 Always use a spell checker
 Well prepared figures

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 Writing Procedure

 Carefully determine the paper title

 Proper use of names and notations
 Tell them what you are going to do, tell them
what you are doing, tell them what you have
done.
 Motivation! Motivation! Motivation!

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Motivation! Motivation! Motivation!

 The introduction is by far the most important section in the

entire p
paper,
p especially
p y for conferences.
 Readers are always very busy.
 If a reviewer can reject your paper without reading it all, it
saves time!
 The introduction is the first section they read, so make sure
your paper does not get killed in Section 1.
 “5 years ago I used to write the introduction last. Now it is
always the first section I write.”

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Strong Statements Are Dangerous…
 Be very careful when you make strong statements about
some research issue: there are people that think otherwise.
 Be especially careful when taking position on some hotly
debated topics in the community, like:
 Supervised learning vs. non supervised learning
 Parametric vs. non parametric
 Statistical vs. analytical
 Partitioned vs global multiprocessor scheduling
 Hard real-time wireless
 Testing vs static analysis
 Etc. etc. etc.
 Instead of saying “X is black”, say “X is usually black, but in
some cases that are not considered in this paper it is
white”.
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… But If You Are Confident, Go For It!

 However, high impact papers are those that successfully

challenge existing preconceptions.
 So do not be shy when you state the main contribution of
your paper!
 If it is somehow controversial, you might have some troubles
getting the paper accepted at first, but it is well worth in term of
impact.
 If it is not, you should still stress your contribution so the reviewer
gets more interested in the paper.
 Just be sure to prove your point well enough; the
keyword here is “successfully challenge.”

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Criticize Your Writing in the Reviewer’s View

 A main factor of your success is to know how others

think and feel
 Reviewers’ mindset: “You are assumed guilty until
proven innocent”
 Remind instead of assume, but don’t humiliate their
intelligence
 Proper use of citation
 Clearly and articulately indicate your contributions
 Criticize yourself first, and leave reviewers no room for
further criticism
 Remember, our reviewers are hostile …
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You Cannot Make Everybody Happy

 Different people are looking for different things.

 Also they are often biased
biased.
 You must accept that it is simply impossible to make
everybody perfectly happy; you are forced to make
trade-offs.
 For the same reason, take all people’s reaction with a grain of
salt.
 The key: two half glasses of water are better than one
full and one empty glass here.
 Just one negative review is enough to kill a conference paper.
 The lesson: bad results can turn out good, so don’t loss
your heart.
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Plagiarism

 A severe problem
 Intentionally and un-intentionally
 Properly cite and paraphrase
 Always runs Veriguide

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