Sam 18 Mai 2019 - 0:03 par 
How to write a great research paper
we write papers and give
talks mainly to impress
others, gain recognition, and
get promoted
Papers communicate ideas
Your goal: to infect the mind of your reader with
your idea, like a virus
Papers are far more durable than programs (think
Mozart)
The abstract
I usually write the abstract last
Used by program committee members to decide
which papers to read
Four sentences [Kent Beck]
1. State the problem
2. Say why it’s an interesting problem
3. Say what your solution achieves
4. Say what follows from your solution
State your contributions
Write the list of contributions first
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”
No related work yet
Problem 1: describing alternative
approaches gets between the reader
and your idea
Problem 2: the reader knows nothing
about the problem yet; so your (carefully
trimmed) description of various technical
tradeoffs is absolutely incomprehensible
Conveying the idea
Explain it as if you were speaking to someone using
a whiteboard
Conveying the intuition is primary, not secondary
Once your reader has the intuition, she can follow
the details (but not vice versa)
Even if she skips the details, she still takes away
something valuable
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
Making sure related work is accurate
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 likely to be your referees anyway, so getting
their comments up front is jolly good.
The process
Start early. Very early.
Hastily-written papers get rejected.
Papers are like wine: they need time to mature
Collaborate
Use CVS to support collaboration
Listening to your reviewers
Read every criticism as a positive suggestion for
something you could explain more clearly
DO NOT respond “you stupid person, I meant X”.
Fix the paper so that X is apparent even to the
stupidest reader.
Thank them warmly. They have given up their time
for you.
Visual structure
Give strong visual structure to your paper using
sections and sub-sections
bullets
italics
laid-out code
Find out how to draw pictures, and use them
we write papers and give
talks mainly to impress
others, gain recognition, and
get promoted
Papers communicate ideas
Your goal: to infect the mind of your reader with
your idea, like a virus
Papers are far more durable than programs (think
Mozart)
The abstract
I usually write the abstract last
Used by program committee members to decide
which papers to read
Four sentences [Kent Beck]
1. State the problem
2. Say why it’s an interesting problem
3. Say what your solution achieves
4. Say what follows from your solution
State your contributions
Write the list of contributions first
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”
No related work yet
Problem 1: describing alternative
approaches gets between the reader
and your idea
Problem 2: the reader knows nothing
about the problem yet; so your (carefully
trimmed) description of various technical
tradeoffs is absolutely incomprehensible
Conveying the idea
Explain it as if you were speaking to someone using
a whiteboard
Conveying the intuition is primary, not secondary
Once your reader has the intuition, she can follow
the details (but not vice versa)
Even if she skips the details, she still takes away
something valuable
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
Making sure related work is accurate
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 likely to be your referees anyway, so getting
their comments up front is jolly good.
The process
Start early. Very early.
Hastily-written papers get rejected.
Papers are like wine: they need time to mature
Collaborate
Use CVS to support collaboration
Listening to your reviewers
Read every criticism as a positive suggestion for
something you could explain more clearly
DO NOT respond “you stupid person, I meant X”.
Fix the paper so that X is apparent even to the
stupidest reader.
Thank them warmly. They have given up their time
for you.
Visual structure
Give strong visual structure to your paper using
sections and sub-sections
bullets
italics
laid-out code
Find out how to draw pictures, and use them
