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Research Methodology
Lecture 4:
Paper skeleton and template Your paper must show that:

• you have identified a worthwhile problem or

question which has not been previously
answered;
Outline:
• Last lecture reminder • you have solved the problem or answered the
question.
• Paper skeleton
• Paper template
• Milestone 1 © Prof Wlodek Kulesza

Title
Authors
1. Introduction
Abstract
Background Information (optional)
Key words
List of acronyms (thesis only)
2. Review of the Related Works
List of figures (thesis only)
List of tables (thesis only)
3. Objectives and main contribution
List of contents (thesis only)

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4. Solution
4.1. Modeling
4.2. Implementation q Could be used separately from the paper
4.3. Validation/Verification q Define all abbreviations and symbols used in
4.4. Results the abstract
5. Conclusions q Do not cite references in the abstract!

References
Appendices

This is a general introduction to what the thesis is all

q Use maximum 3-4 keywords in
alphabetic order.
q Do not use keywords used in the title!
q Some data bases provide lists with
most common keywords e.g. IEEE
about -- it is not just a description of the contents of
each section.
Briefly:
§ summarize the problem,
§ motivate your project; give some of the
reasons why it is a worthwhile problem,
§ outline your main results,
§ summarize the contents – optional.

2

A section giving background information may be
necessary, especially if your work spans two or
more traditional fields.
It is required if your readers may not have any
experience with some of the material needed to
follow your thesis/paper.
This section has four main parts:
1. Concise statement of the problem that
your thesis/paper tackles.
Justify, by direct reference to the previous
section, that your question/problem is
previously unanswered e.g. “As the review of
related works shows there is a lack of …”
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Review the works relevant to your thesis.
Present the major ideas in the state of the art
right up to now, but not including, your own
personal brilliant ideas! A critical analysis
comes later in your problem statement.
Organize this section by idea, and not by author
or by publication!
2. Objectives in a form of indirect speech
research questions e.g. “The objective of the
paper is to find out how …”
3. Related hypotheses.
Please remember that “a good hypothesis states as
clearly and concisely as possible the expected
relationship (or difference) between two variables
and defines those variables in operational,
measurable terms.”
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4. Description of the paper main contributions; Show what you did that is relevant to
“Reviewers are lazy, they do not want to have to figure out answering the question or solving the problem.
what your message is. Spend some time telling us exactly
what your contribution is. Spell it out, do not assume we
The best is to have in mind three stages of the
will read the paper carefully.”
engineering research:
A. Modeling,
E.g. The main contribution of the paper is an improvement
B. Implementation/application,
of measurement method. The solution has been modelled
and then implemented on Matlab. The validation C. Validation/verification based simulation,
scenario has been proposed and simulated. The results survey, measurement or accessible data.
were analysed.

You generally cover three things in the Conclusions are not a rambling summary of the
Conclusions section, and each of these usually thesis: they are short, concise statements of the
merits a separate subsection: inferences that you have made because of your
work.

1. Actual conclusions It helps to organize this chapter as short

2. Summary of contributions paragraphs, ordered from most to least important.
3. Future research
All conclusions should be directly related to the
research question.

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The Summary of Contributions will be much

sought and carefully read by the examiners.
The Future Research subsection is included so
that other researchers have the benefit of the
Here you list the contributions of new knowledge ideas that you generated while you were
that your thesis makes. working on the project.
The thesis itself must demonstrate any claims
made here.

There is often some overlap with the Conclusions,

but that's okay. Organize from most to least
important.

• The list of references is closely tied to the review

of the state of the art given in section 3.
• All references given must be referred to in the
main body of the thesis.
• Note the difference from a bibliography, which
may include works that are not directly
referenced in the thesis.
• Organize the list of references either
alphabetically by author surname (preferred), or
by order of citation in the thesis.
• Use Zotero as reference organizer!
Append any material which could make
difficult the smooth development of your
thesis/paper, but which is important to
justify the results of a paper.
Examples include program listings, large
tables of data, survey questions, lengthy
mathematical proofs or derivations, etc.

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5. Fulfil the front page of the template!

6. Keep the template styles when copying
1. Load the template from Canvas!
7. Create new captions in your Insert caption
2. Save the file on your PC!
- ‘Figure …’
3. Practice some tricks with the instructor!
- ‘Table …’
4. Study the main used styles - equation ‘(‘

8. Insert your own figure into the document 7. Open the equation enclosed in the document
9. Add the figure caption under the figure, use 8. Type a new equation
‘insert caption’ 9. Number the equation
10. Insert your own table to the document
11. Add the table caption over the table, use
‘insert caption’

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Wednesday, Nov. 11th at 8:00 -11:00

Place: Conference room G313;

Week 47:
Thursday, Nov. 19th: 13:00 - 18:00 Wednesday, Nov. 11th at 13:00 – 17:00
Friday, Nov. 20th: 8:00 - 16:00

Booking via Doodle