The slide is presented by Prof. Dr. Md. Abdur Razzaque in IEEE Day 2018 Celebration at Daffodil International University on 17th October, 2018.

1. WRITING AND PUBLISHING A
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
PAPER
1
Prof. Dr. Md. Abdur Razzaque, SMIEEE
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Dhaka
Vice-Chair, IEEE Computer Society, Bangladesh Chapter
Vice-Chair (Technical), IEEE Bangladesh Section

2. What is a research paper ?
A good research paper addresses a specific research
question.
 The research question or study objective or main
research hypothesis is the central organizing principle
of the paper.
 Whatever relates to the research question belongs in
the paper; the rest doesn’t.
 In applied domains, some papers are written based
on projects that were undertaken for operational
reasons.
 The primary aim of theoretical researches is to
produce new knowledge.
2

3. How many research questions
to address in a paper ?
 Generally, only one main research question should be
addressed in a paper.
 Secondly, but related some other questions are allowed.
 If a project allows you explore several distinct research
questions, write several papers.
 An example…
 The idea is not to split results into least publishable units, a
practice that is rightly decried, but rather into optionally
publishable units.
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4. What is a good research question ?
 The key attributes are : i) specifying ii) originality or
novelty iii) general relevance to a broad scientific
community
 The research question should be precise and not merely
identify a general idea of inquiry.
 A study does not necessarily have to break completely
new ground, but it should extend previous knowledge in a
useful way.
 Alternatively, the research should be of interest to others
who work in the same scientific area.
4

5. What are the requirements of a
scientific paper ?
 Robert Day (1983) emphasized on how the paper was
written and the way it was published. The process
leading to publication is equally important as the
content, style and organization of the paper.
 Publication outlet- Conference or Journal, book
chapter, technical report, etc.
 The first disclosure of the result should enable peers
to
(i) Assess observation
(ii) Repeat the expression
(iii) Evaluate intellectual processes
5

6. Where to publish a scientific
research paper?
 A scientific paper must be published in the right place.
 Right place is a peer-reviewed journal or top ranked
conference.
 For computer Science, paper in proceedings of some top
ranked conferences are equally or even more prestigious
than articles in highly ranked journals.
 For natural science, conference publications have little to
no value in the track record.
 Impact factor, Thomson Reuter’s SCI and SCIE-indexed
journals.
6

7. Structure of a Research Paper
 Title
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Leads the reader from general motivations to problem description, solution mode
and important contribution.
 Body
 Focus on right thematic scape and described research methods /theories /models
and any mathematical proofs.
 Results and Discussions
 Discussion of experimental aims to draw general conclusions
 References
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8. Structure of A Paper
8
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Body
Discussion
References
Logical Order
Hourglass
Model
King
Model

9. Structure of A Paper
9
What was done? What was found?
What are the major conclusions?
What problem was investigated and why?
What other works were done in the related field?
(i.e. a short review)
What is the aim/objective of the work?
How was the problem investigated?
What are the outcomes?
What do these outcomes/findings mean?
What is the take-home message of the work?

10. Title
 The title is the part of a paper that is read the most.
 A good title is defined as “The fewest possible words
that adequately describe the contents of the paper”
 An effective title should
 Identify the main issue of the paper
 Begin with the subject of the paper
 Be accurate, unambiguous, specific and complete
 Do not contain abbreviations unless they are well known
 Attract readers.
10

11. Some example titles
 “A new Framework for Dynamic Adaptations and Actions” --
-- Bad title (What kind of adaptations and actions are deals)
 “GoTo statement is considered harmful” -- Bad title:
Meaningless to non-computer science
 Tradeoff Between Execution Speedup and Reliability for
Compute Intensive Code Offloading in Mobile Device Cloud
– Good title
 A Prioritized Meta-Heuristic Algorithm for Virtual Machine
Migration in Mobile Cloud Computing – Good title
11

12. Abstract (1)
 An abstract comprises a one-paragraph summary of the
whole paper
 Abstracts may serve as a highly aggregated substitute for
the full paper
 It’s important for being searched in electronic publication
databases
 A checklist defining relevant parts of an abstract –
Motivation, Problem, Solution, Results, Implications
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13. Abstract (2)
 1st Line: Problem definition and Challenges
 2nd Line: Existing Works & Limitations
 3rd Line: In the paper, we have developed……..,
that are ..........
 4th Line: Special features of your proposed model
 5th Line: Implementation and Performance analysis
13

14. Abstract (3)
Abstract: High-throughput data delivery in Wireless Mesh Networks
(WMNs) is a challenging problem due to dynamic changes of link
quality, interference and congestion. In this work, we first develop an
optimization framework for Dynamic Traffic Engineering (O-DTE) in
WMNs that aims to minimize the interference and congestion at each
hop through joint power and rate control so as to achieve high-
throughput data delivery. Due to NP-hardness of the O-DTE framework,
we then develop a greedy heuristic alternate solution (G-DTE) that
enables routers, at each hop, to select outgoing links offering higher
data rates and reduced interferences. Thus, the proposed G-DTE
produces near optimal results by taking multi-path data forwarding
decisions in distributed fashion; it exploits single-hop neighborhood
information only and thus it is scalable. The simulation results, carried
out in ns-3, demonstrate that the proposed G-DTE significantly
outperforms the state-of-the-art works in terms of throughput, delay,
reliability and fairness performances.
14

15. What should not appear in abstract?
Information and conclusions not stated in the
paper.
References to other literature (although this
may vary by journal)
The exact title phrase and illustrative elements
such as tables, figures etc.
Step by step operation method of system
Explanation on contribution
15

16. Introduction
 Establish a territory
Bring out the importance of the subject
Present an overview on current research
 Establish a niche
Oppose an existing assumption or
Reveal a research gap or
Formulate a research question
 Occupy the niche
Sketch the input of your own work and/or
Outline important method/scheme/algorithm of your own work
Outline important contributions of your paper.
16

17. Body
 The body of a paper contains actual research
done to answer the research question.
 It should be written in detail as it unfolds
answers to questions and problems.
 Often, the body comprises several sections
subsections.
 Structure, organization and content depend
heavily on the type of paper, publisher and the
creativity of the authors.
17

18. Body of Empirical papers
 The paper body describes the material and
data used for the study.
 The methodologies applied to answer the
research questions and the results obtained.
 The paper researches must be able to repeat
or reproduce the results.
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19. Body of Case Study Papers
Case study papers describe the application of
existing methods, theory of tools.
Diverse application areas covered by the theory
or tools.
Summarize the value of reflections abstracted
from the experience.
Comparative relevance of methods to defend
applications.
Results of researchers working on related
methods, theories or tools.
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20. Body of Methodology Papers
 Introduce a novel method which may be
intended for use in research
 Describe application domains and
assumptions related to environment
 Evaluation and comparison of performances
of the proposed method in a practical setting.
20

21. Body of Theory Papers
Describe principles, concepts or models on
your work or the related fields.
Portray ideas within a broad context of
related frameworks and theories.
Originality and soundness of the analysis
provided
Relevance of the theoretical content to
practice and/or research in the field.
21

22. Body-summary
 Contains detail of methods, theories and
tools.
 Answers the research question
 States the results achieved through
simulation, implementation, numerical
evaluation, etc.
 Discusses on comparative results with state-
of-the-art works
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23. Conclusion
A brief summary of the results
Focus lies on overall observations and
contributory technology/method of the
paper
Quantified comparison of results with
previously published paper
Hypothesis drawn from the results with
summary of evidence
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24. References
 Different publishers require different formats or styles for
citing a paper in the text and for listing references.
 Name and year system
Check and Norris (2003) define .....“
Sometimes it's very hard to read
 Alphabet number system
As reported in [4]
The reader needs to look back frequently to details
 Citation order system
 The same as Ahphabet-number system with one major difference, The
ref list is not sorted alphabetically but in the order of appearance in the
text.
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25. Common References
Style Guides
 American Psychological Association (APA) style -2003
 Chicago Style (The University of Chicago, 2010)
 Council of Biology Editors (CBE) style (1995)
 Modern Language Association (MLA)-1995
 Practices in Engineering Fields
Variation of number system is the most widely used in
springer-verlag LNCS, ACM and IEEE Computer Society
publications
 Authors have no other choice than adhering to the
style required by publishers
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26. When to write a paper (Davis,
1997)26
Idea Write Paper
Idea Do researchWrite paper
Do Research
 Forces us to be clear and focused
 Crystallizes what we don’t understand
 Opens the way to dialogue with others: reality
check, critique and collaboration

27. 27 Planning stage
Identify questions to be answered,
analyses to be reported and target
place of publication
Set framework for document
(page size, outline, headings, …..)
Excellent fourth draft
Grotty first draft
Presentable second draft
Good third draft
Final document
Submit
Outline structure,
Construct tables & figures
Use journal checklists and
instructions to authors
Circulate to coauthors
Circulate to peers
and coauthorsPolish up presentation,
revisit checklist

28. Publishing A Scientific Paper
28

29. Who are the audience ?
 Papers must be written for a specific audience
 A scientific paper is written for the editor and audience
of the intended publication outlet
 A thesis is written for supervisor, board of examiners
and the follow peers
 A doctoral student typically publish parts of his/ her
thesis in scientific journal
 “Know your audience, know your subject, know your
purpose and write accordingly”--- Davis (1997)
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30. Is your work ready for
publication?
Make sure that your results are designed to
answer precisely the research question(s)
under examination
Experiments meet accepted standards and the
process of the keeping the research records is
agreed upon
Whether extension of knowledge or advance
in practical application is observed
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31. So ..
5
A scientific paper must be published in
the right place at the right time

32. 32

33. Have you completed rigorous
peer-review ?
 Each of the team members must review all sections of
the paper
 Check cleanliness, conciseness, correctness and
coherent writing style.
 Many revisions may be necessary on
 Checking unique interpretation of statements
 Use of the correct word with appropriate meaning
 Checking types and grammatical errors
 Plagiarism
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34. Who/What are the obstacles to
publication?
 Editors/ TPC chair
 Reviewers
 Software that check plagiarism
percentages
 Reputation of your university, your
lab, your team members and
yourself
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35. Review process of an article(1)
Blind review
Double-blind review
Roles involved
Reviewer
Editor-in-Chief (EiC)
Associate Editor (AE)
Managing Editor
Publisher
35

36. Review Process of an article(2)
36 Author Editor Reviewer
Editorial pre-
selection
Prepare camera
ready
manuscript
Submit to
publisher
Check
revisions
Revise and
resubmit paper
Review and
suggest
decision
Assign
reviewers
Submit
paper
Decide and
notify author
[Reject] [OK]
[Accept] [Reject]
[Review required]
[No review required]
[Review required]

37. Key roles of a reviewer
To provide information on thematic relevance to
the journal’s scope of the areas
Significance of contribution
Originality of the work
Clarity of writing (readability, organization,
conciseness, and technical quality of the paper)
Appropriate title and abstract
Conclusion and discussion
37

38. Notification message from
the Editor
Accept
Revision
Major revision
 Try to answer all comments and revise
your manuscript accordingly
 React politely to adverse comments
 Use different font color to help reviewer
identify the texts you have updated in your
revised manuscript.
Minor revision
Reject
38

39. Conference Paper Publication
Very similar to that of a journal paper
CFP with topic and deadlines
Areas of interests
Submission, notification, camera-ready and
registration deadlines
Either accepted or reject, typically major
revisions are not given
Change of authors
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40. What makes you a great
research supervisor?
Highly motivated to quality publications and
knowledge
Clear understanding on the area and care
about student understanding
Flexible, contractual, respected and pushes
approachable
Good sense of humor
Positivity and encouraging for students
Keep time and trust mutually
40

41. Ethics of Scientific Writing
Persons who have significant contributions in conducting the
research must not be excluded from the authors list and persons
without having any contribution should not be included as an
author
No Plagiarism but rephrase or rearticulate giving proper reference.
Be cautious about the novelty and copyrights of others.
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42. The most common offense under the Academic
Code of Conduct is PLAGIARISM
Repetitive publication of the same
data also falls under plagiarism
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Ethics of Scientific Writing

43. Direct plagiarism Unintentional
plagiarism
without crediting the
author of the original work.
Direct
● It can be a copy of an entire
paper or just one/two sentences
or paragraphs or pictures from
someone else's work.
● Due to lacking of
knowledge about
plagiarism.
● Not knowing
when and how to
cite.
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Ethics of Scientific Writing

44. 32
Ethics of Scientific Writing

45. 45
Thank you all for
your patience
hearing…