Guidelines
Preparation
- Consider the content of your paper.
- Think about the messages that you want to give to the reader.
- Consider the expected background of the reader.
- Domain expert, scientists in possibly other field, student of this or of other field, layperson.
- The less relevant background the reader has, the more basic your explanations have to become.
- Consider the length of your paper.
- Publication: page limits are strictly enforced.
- Plan the structure of the paper accordingly.
- Sections, section titles, section lengths.
Head Material
- Title: a first approximation of the paper.
- One to two lines of text.
- Important keywords: domain, problem, solution.
- 90% of the potential readers will just read the title.
- Author(s): who wrote the paper and/or actively contributed to the result.
- No "honorary" authors.
- Full name, affiliation (department, institution, city, country, email address)
- Multiple authors may share affiliation.
- Sponsor note: who gave money to produce the result.
- Sponsoring organization, project number, project title.
- Footnote to title (LaTeX: \thanks), alternatively: "Acknowledgment" section at the end of the paper.
- Date: usually only for technical reports, not for publications.
- Journals may automatically insert dates.
Abstract
- The second approximation of the paper.
- Of those who go beyond the title, 90% will just read the abstract.
- Must be self-contained.
- Stored in bibliographic databases and the like.
- No citations, no references to specific parts of the paper ("in Theorem 5").
- The problem domain, the problem addressed, the solutions/results derived.
- Make clear what is original in the paper.
Introduction
- The third approximation of the paper.
- The first section of the paper (usually written after the rest of the paper has been written).
- About 1-3 pages (not more than 15% of the whole paper).
- Of those who go beyond the abstract, 90% will just read the introduction (and the conclusions).
- Make sure that the reader understands the problem that is addressed.
- An introductory paragraph about the problem domain (citations).
- Some paragraphs about the actual problem addressed (citations).
- At least one paragraph about the solutions/results derived in this paper.
- Make explicit what is original in this paper.
- State of the art
- A description of the relevant prior work with citations.
- Shorter papers: part of the introduction (also mixed with description of problem domain and problem addressed).
- Longer papers: potentially a separate section (after the introduction or before the conclusions)
- Publications: make sure your state of the art description is reasonably comprehensive.
- Referees get annoyed if their own relevant work has not been cited
- Structure of the remainder of the paper.
- One paragraph that describes each of the remaining sections in one sentence.
Conclusions
- The last approximation of the paper.
- Most actual readers of the paper will just read introduction and conclusions.
- A concise summary of the results of the paper.
- About 0.5-2 pages (not more than 5% of the paper)
- Assumes that the reader has read the introduction.
- Highlights the main results.
- Outline of future work
- Sometimes title: "Conclusions and Future Work"
- How can the results be applied?
- How can the results be generalized?
- How do the results pave the way to new research?
Acknowledgements
- Acknowledge work of non-authors that contributed to the paper.
- Possibly: acknowledge sponsors (if not in head material).
References
- List of papers and other resources cited in the paper.
- Order and format typically automatically generated
- BibTex, BibLaTeX.
- Must be comprehensive enough to find the resource.
- List of authors (full names preferred, avoid "et al.", if possible)
- Full title.
- Year.
- Journal: title of journal, volume, number, page numbers.
- Conference proceedings: title of conference, acronym, city, country, date, publisher (name, city, country), publication series, volume, page numbers.
- Book: publisher (name, city, country).
- Report: type of report ("technical report"), number, department, institution, city, country.
- DOI (Digital Object Identifier):
- Use DOI rather than URL, if possible (URL may change, DOI is stable).
- BibTex: note={\url{https://doi.org/...}} (package "hyperref")
- BibLaTex: doi={...}
Core Content
- General: the material must be understandable in the presented order but also communicate the goal of its presentation.
- Put yourself into the position of a reader who sees the material for the first time.
- On the one side, has the reader really seen already all material on which the explanation depends?
- On the other side, does the reader see what all of the presentation amounts to?
- Recommendation: mix "top-down" and "bottom-up" presentation.
- Top-down: first explain first what the point of the subsequent presentation is.
- Bottom-up: then present the material in the logical order (define before use).
- Applies to whole paper and to each part (section).
- Main structure: sections (LaTeX: \section{...})
- Thesis/book: chapters (LaTeX: \chapter{...}}
- Sections are numbered
- Long papers: also numbered subsections (LaTex: \subsection{...}}.
- Within longer sections: also named paragraphs possible (LaTex: \paragraph{...})
- 10 page paper: typically 2-3 sections (in addition to introduction and conclusions)
- Language: English
- Spelling: typically American English ("center", not "centre")
- Use a spelling checker!
- Grammar: simple.
- Use complete, short, and clearly structured sentences.
- Use active voice rather than passive voice.
- Vocabulary: simple.
- Prefer words that everyone understands to less well-known ones ("intention" vs "premeditation")
- Terminology: define before use.
- Not universally known terms (notations, abbreviations, constants, functions, predicates) have to be introduced (formally defined or at least informally described) before they may be used.
- Consistency: same application everywhere
- All applications of the same term must have the same form ("f(x,y) vs f(x,y) vs f(x) vs f[x,y]")
- Formal Units: definitions, theorems, proofs.
- LaTeX package "ntheorem" for defining all kinds of mathematical environments.
- Numbered (with \label) for later reference (with \ref)
- Optionally also named.
- Formal Well-Formedness:
- In a definition, every variable that occurs on the right-hand side of the definition must also occur as a parameter at the left-hand side (wrong: f(x):=x+y; wrong: "Let x be a natural number. Then f(x) is x+y.")
- In a theorem, every variable must be appropriately quantified and it must be clear which quantifier is applied (wrong: "we have ∀x. f(x,y)", wrong: "we have f(x,y) for every x", wrong: "we have f(x,y) for x,y")
Last modified: Wednesday, 30 January 2019, 10:12 AM