For academic writing

1. Prof. Salman Abdul Moiz
School of Computer & Information Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF HYDERABAD
Technical Paper Writing

2. Technical Paper Writing
Writing is easy.All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until
drops of blood form on your forehead.--- Gene Fowler

3. Presentation Layout
 Taxonomy ofTechnical Papers
 Narrative Flow of the paper
 Contents and Logical chronology of the paper
 Impact Factor and Indexing

4. Are you ready to Publish?
 Consider publishing when you feel that you have information that
contributes to the advances in scientific field.
 This can include one of the following:
 One is presenting new, original methods and results
 Rationalising, refining or reinterpreting the published results
 Reviewing or summarising a particular subject or field
 A good manuscript is clear, useful and presented in a logical manner such
that the readers can grasp its contribution easily.

5. Technical Paper
 Technical paper:Writing of organized analysis of a subject to record and
disseminate information or knowledge or to present a point of view on a
selected topic.
 Objectives
 It is usually written for external audience
 Briefly and clearly explained
 Routine details need to be avoided
 Computer Program may not be included.

6.  Conference Papers
 Journal Papers
 Survey Paper
 Term Paper
 Research Paper
 White Paper
Taxonomy of Technical Papers

7. Conference Paper
 A Conference paper is appropriate to disseminate work in progress
research findings.
 Its typically 6-10 pages. However it could also include short papers of 2 or
4 pages.
 Typically contains 15 references and about 3-4 figures/tables.
 A good way to start the research career.

8. Journal Paper
 A Journal paper or full paper is appropriate to disseminate completed
research findings.
 Its typically 10-20 pages. However it may not have any specific limit on
number of pages
 Typically contains 25 references and about 5-6 figures/tables.
 A good way to build a research career.
 Review Paper: Provides a good way to consolidate a scientific research
career, typically consist of 10+pages, 5+figures, 50+references

9. Writing Papers is a Skill
 Model – I
 Model-II
Idea Do research Write paper
Idea Do research Write paper
Idea Write paper Do research

10.  You need to have a Novel idea before you can write a paper
 Write a Paper and give a talk about any idea no matter how
insignificant it may seem to you.
 The talk opens a dialogue with others: reality check, critique and
collaboration

11. The Idea
 Figure out what your idea is
 Make certain that the reader is in no doubt what the idea is. Be
100% explicit:
 “The main idea of this paper is....”
 “In this section we present the main contributions of the paper.”
 Many papers contain good ideas, but do not distil what they are.

12. Narrative Flow
 Here is a problem
 It’s an interesting problem
 It’s an unsolved problem
 Here is my idea
 My idea works (details, data)
 Here’s how my idea compares to other people’s
approaches
I wish I
knew how
to solve
that!
I see how
that
works.
Ingenious!

13.  Many papers are badly written and hard to understand.
 This is a pity, because their good ideas may go unappreciated.
 Following simple guidelines can dramatically improve the quality of
your papers.
 The feedback you get from others will in turn improve your
research

14. Structure
 Title
 Author,Affiliation, Email Id //Blind Review//
 Abstract
 Introduction
 RelatedWork
 Problem
 Idea
 Details
 Conclusion & FutureWork
 References
 Acknowledgements

15. Title
 Title draws readers to your work.
 Its one of the factors for increasing the impact factor.
 Is expected to include keywords of the contribution
 Make title interesting and attractive
 Shouldn’t be long (may be typically around 12-13 words max)

16. Abstract
 Better write it at the end.
 Used by program committee members to decide which papers to
read
 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
Keywords

17. Introduction
 Describe the Problem
 Introduce the problem. //Give examples if needed//
 Background and Context
 Articulate the need of the study/work
 StateYour contributions
 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’s be exciting; I’d better
read on”
 Outline of the paper
 Specify the organization of remaining part of the paper

18. Related Work
Related
work
Your reader
Your idea
We adopt the notion of transaction from Brown [1], as modified for
distributed systems byWhite [2], using the four-phase interpolation
algorithm of Green [3]. Our work differs fromWhite in our advanced
revocation protocol, which deals with the case of priority inversion as
described byYellow [4].

19. Presenting the Idea
3.The idea
Consider a bifurcated semi-lattice E, over a hyper-modulated signature P.
Suppose ai is an element of E. Then we know for every such ai there is an
epi-modulus j, such that aj < ai.
 Sounds impressive...but
 Sends readers to sleep
 In a paper you MUST provide the details, but FIRST convey the idea

20. The details: evidence
 Your introduction makes claims.
 The body of the paper provides evidence 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 more importantly formal proofs

21. Results and Discussion
 Simulate your Ideas
 Collect Data
 Plot Results
 Describe the direct observation first
 Identify the features/characteristics responsible in achieving the results
 Show how the results changes when the features/characteristics are
changed.
 Note down the trends during scaling
 Compare with the earlier approaches

23. Figures and Tables
 The captions should be short and comprehensive.
 Axes in the graphs should be labeled properly.
 Specify the units on each axes.
 If there are multiple curves in graphs, they need to be differentiated
appropriately with proper colors or shadings

24. Conclusion
 Summary of the findings.
 Summarize your claims
 What are key parameters
 How results are related to these parameters
 How good is your solution/model/approach
 How does your work contribute the objectives stated in Introduction
section.

25. Impact Factor
 A measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles
published.
 If a Journal has an impact factor of 3 in 2013, then its papers published
in 2011 and 2012 received 3 citations each on average in 2013.The
2013 impact factor of a journal would be calculated as follows:
A = the number of times articles published in 2011 and 2012 were cited
by indexed journals during 2013.
B = the total number of "citable items" published by that journal in 2011
and 2012. ("Citable items" are usually articles, reviews, proceedings,
or notes; not editorials or Letters-to-the-Editor.)
2013 impact factor =A/B.

26. Thee 2013 Impact factor for the journal A=
Number of times articles or other items published in A during
2011 & 2012 were cited in indexed journals* during 2009
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Number of “citable” articles** published in A in 2011 & 2012
That is:
Cites in 2013 to items published in 2011 + 2012 = 9533 + 12554 = 22087
Number of items published in A in 2011 + 2012 = 343 + 366 = 709
Impact Factor = Cites to recent items/ Number of recent items published
=22087/709 = 31.152

27. Indexing
 Indexation of a journal/conference proceedings is considered a
reflection of its quality. Indexed journals are considered to be of
higher scientific quality as compared to non-indexed journals
 SCI (Science Citation Index)
 SCIE (SCI-Emerging)
 Scopus
 DBLP
 WOS (Web of Science)
 ICI (Indian Citation Index)

28.  H-index:The h-index serves as an alternative to more traditional
journal impact factor metrics in the evaluation of the impact of the
work of a particular researcher. Because only the most highly cited
articles contribute to the h-index, its determination is a simpler
process.
 The h-index of a publication is the largest number h such that at least
h articles in that publication were cited at least h times each.
 I10-index: Number of publications with atleast 10 citations

29. Google Scholar

30. Scopus

31. Web of Science

32. ORCID

33. Microsoft Academic

34. Choosing the Target Journal
 Use the Journals “Guide forAuthors”
 Use Journal Finder(s)
 https://journalsuggester.springer.com/
 https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/
 Check Journal rankings
 https://www.scimagojr.com/
 Journal rank, H-Index,Total documents, citations, etc.
 Special Issues (with Impact Factors)
 http://www.guide2research.com/special-issues/
 Top 600 Journals,Top Conferences,

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