Some General Principles for writing

p p
papers

Dr. Zhuo-Jia
Dr
Zhuo Jia Fu
Department of Engineering Mechanics
Email: paul212063@hhu.edu.cn
November, 2016

These slides are come from notes by Simon Peyton Jones (Microsoft Research, Cambridge)

Writing Papers is a Skill

Increasing importa
ance

Many papers are badly written

Good writing is a skill you can learn
Its a skill that is worth learning:
You will get more brownie points (more papers
accepted etc.)
Your ideas will have more impacts
You will have better ideas
Really
ll more than
h papers, --- research
h proposal;l presentation

 Writing Papers: Model 1

Idea

Do research

Write paper

When I was a doctoral student five years

ago this is my model of writing papers
ago,
papers.

Writing Papers: Model 2

Idea

Do research

Write paper

Idea

Write paper

Do research

The Purpose of Your Papers

These slides are adapted from notes by Simon Peyton Jones (Microsoft Research, Cambridge)

- We publish because findings and opinions

need to be shared with a wider community.
- Publish or Perish is a cynical
reminder of the importance to get published.

The greatest ideas are nothing if you keep

them to yourself!

The purpose of your paper is

NOT...
To describe the already made system,

But
To share NEW ideas with peers.

Th Idea
The
Id

Idea
A re-usable insight,
useful to the reader

Figure out what your idea is

Make certain that the reader is in no doubt
what the idea is
is. Be 100% explicit:
The main idea of this paper is....
In
I this
hi section
i we present the
h main
i
contributions of the paper.

The process of writing paper is actually the

one of constructing your IDEA.

One Ping
Y
Your paper should
h ld h
have jjustt one ping:
i
one clear, sharp idea
Read your paper again: can you hear the
p g
ping?
You may not know exactly what the ping is
when you start writing; but you must know
when you finish
If you
o ha
have
e lots of ideas
ideas, write
rite lots of
papers
Thanks to Joe Touch for one ping

The purpose of your paper is

not...

To describe the
WizWoz
system
Your reader does not have a WizWoz
She is primarily interested in re-usable brainstuff, not executable artefacts

Your Narrative Flow

Here is a problem
Itss an interesting problem
It
Its an unsolved problem
Here is my idea
My idea works (details
(details, data)
Heres how my idea compares to
other peoples approaches

I wish I
knew how
to solve
th t!
that!

I see how
that works.
Ingenious!

Structure of a scientific paper

13

14

15

What is a good/ordinary paper?

16

Example: IEEE Council Van

Duzer Prize (The Best
Contributed Paper) from 937
published papers in 2007.

What Is a First-Class
P
Paper/Research?
/R
h?
Major advance in a classic field (Classical and Quantum
Mechanics)

New techniques and methods that can be widely used

(Improved FDM)

Discoveries with obvious practical implications

(Bionic Materials)

Conceptual

breakthrough, novel ideas (Nanotechnique)

Challenge

to traditional views, break dogma (Geocentric

and heliocentric theories)

Opening up new area, cross board (Biomechanics)

What is a Mediocre Paper/Research?

p
Horizontal growth
I made the discovery in rats,
rats you find the same in cat.
cat

Filling gaps
A activates B which is known to induce C-Jun expression.
expression You
show that A enhances C-Jun expression.

Working out details

I found NO induces the production of cGMP, you work out dose
response and time course.

Support existing idea, me too

EGF-R endocytosis requires dynamin, PDGF-R too.

Follow
F ll up
CREB binds to CRE. Working out CRE sequence.

Incomplete
I
l t study,
t d preliminary
li i
Deeply completely dig the mine until the gold is found!

Major or
minor revision?

The evaluation process

rejected before in-depth review

Editorial staff
Board of Reviewing Editors

rejected after in-depth review

published (Biological
(
)
published (Physical sci)

REVIEW
20-30%
REJECT
70%

ACCEPT
(~10%)

REJECT
70%

6%

4%

20%
70%