10 Key Elements of a

Research Paper:
A Writers Perspective
Dilum Bandara, PhD
University of Moratuwa
1 – Know Your Audience

• Review Phase  Reviewers “Every paper tells a story. Know your story.”
- Jim Kurose
• Aware of domain & problem
• Few may be working on exactly the same problem
• Want to determine whether work is worthy of publishing

• Camera Ready  Researchers

• Novice
• Expert
• General interest on topic
• Few working on exactly the same problem
• Want to gain knowledge and/or want to solve a specific problem
 2 – Follow Template

• Conferences & Journals have their own templates

• Downloadable from conference/journal website
• Carefully read instructions
• Strictly follow template
• A real test of your word processing skills!
• Not following template  Paper Rejection
3 – Paper Title

• Should reflect your work

• Should indicate your contribution to knowledge
• 2-part titles are ok
• Short & simple
• Rest of the paper should be able to live up to your title
4 – Abstract & Key
Words
• Synopsis of paper not exceeding 150/200 words
• Key material to sell your paper
• Content
• 1/3 – Introduction & motivation to problem
• 1/3 – How the problem is addressed
• 1/3 – Key results & conclusion

• 3-4 key words that cover your topic

• Pick key words from related papers
5 – Introduction

• Minimum introduction to topic

• Most readers have an idea about topic & its significance

• Good motivation on “why” your problem is important

• Show gaps in what’s already around/known

• Clearly describe the paper’s contribution

• What & how you did it
• Key results
• Someone writing a literature survey should be able to just extract this para

• Briefly introduce rest of the paper

• Should use less than 20% of paper space
6 – Related Work

• Discuss all literature that’s related to your work

• Focus on seminal work & more recent work
• Critically evaluate them
• Illustrate missing pieces
• Don’t paraphrase  Leads to high similarity score
• Justify there is a place for your work too
• No more than 1-2 sentences

• No more than 10% of paper space

7 – Solution

• Explain your proposed solution

• Better if a formal problem can be formulated & then explain solution in line with that

• Tell how you came up with solution

• Clearly state assumptions
• Tell logic behind your solution
• Logically arrange your ideas

• Draw diagrams
• Give algorithms
• Compare your solution with related work
• Give credit to related work

• Give enough details s.t. one can replicate your solution

8 – Performance Evaluation

• Present experimental setup, emulator, simulator, etc.

• Give enough details s.t. one can run your solution
• Did you collect enough samples?
• Are results within an accuracy of ±5% and 95% confidence level?

• Present findings
• Logically ordered
• Simple to complex
• Explain your graphs, tables, & findings

• Draw diagrams & Tables

• Simple & clear graphs
• B&W & grayscale are better
• No screenshots unless they are essential to explain
9 – Summary

• Know difference between Summary & Conclusion

• Summarize/conclude your work
• Don’t repeat abstract

• Tell why your findings are useful

• Recognize research limitations
• List possible future work
• Limitations could lead to future work

• No more than 5% of paper space

10 – Acknowledgement & References

• Strictly follow given format

• Indicate funding source
• Give credit to essential people who contributed to idea
or solution
• Don’t self acknowledge
• Use proper referring style
• Use tools to generate/convert citations
• Double check final output list of references
Do Repeat

• Spell & Grammar check

• Use special tools
• Choose words carefully
• Plagiarism Check
• Proof read
• Self review next day!
• Friend/colleague who is willing to give “hard”
feedback
• Supervisor
• For Camera Ready paper
• Address all reviewer comments
 “Deadline was yesterday, I don’t have time,
Reviewer's Dilemma so let me find 2-3 faults that are good enough
for me to write a review while rejecting
paper”
• Does Title make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Does Abstract make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Is according to Template? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Does Introduction make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Is Contribution Clearly sated? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Key Related Work discussed? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Does Solution matter given Related Work? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Propose Solution is understandable? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Are Assumptions ok & in line with related work? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Is Experimental Setup ok & use known parameters? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Are graphs/tables ok & well explained? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
• Is summary consistent with rest of paper? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more faults
RESOURCES

• 10 Tips to Write a Paper (Jim Kurose)

• https://paperpicker.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/10-tips-to-write-a-paper-from-jim-kurose/

• How to Write an Abstract (Philip Koopman)

• https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html