Writing a technical paper
- 1. Writing Technical Paper By - Gaurav Parit paritgauravgs@gmail.com Walk With World+
- 2. Three fundamental rules 1. Identify your audience. 2. Think about what it is that interests your audience. 3. As you write, always keep your audience and its interests in mind. Walk With World+
- 3. Steps in preparing a paper 1. Decide whether it’s worth the effort (include a search of the literature) 2. Organize the paper 3. Write the first draft 4. Prepare figures and tables 5. Revise the draft (several times); focus on meaning, style, and conciseness 6. Prepare the Abstract and pick a Title 7. Conduct a final detail check for consistency, grammar, and spelling 8. Get a second (third, fourth) opinion! Walk With World+
- 4. Search the literature • Papers on engineering are published in a variety of sources; e.g.: – ACM Digital Library – IEEE Xplore – Open Access Journals – Springer Archives – Elsevier Archives – ResearchGate – Academia.edu – Seek Digital Library – Your library will probably have other search resources. Walk With World+
- 5. Organize the paper • Abstract: The core idea about the paper, what you hoped to learn in very specific terms • Introduction: why your subject is important to your readers • Background: what others have already learned about your subject (with references) • Procedure: what you did to achieve your objectives • Results: what you found out • Conclusions: what your results mean for your readers • Acknowledgements: thanks to those who helped and provided financial support for the work • References: listed in the format specified by the publication to which the paper will be submitted Walk With World+
- 6. Write the first draft • Overcome “writers’ block;” it becomes less of an obstacle with practice, but for most of us it never goes away. At least with a word processor, you don’t create as much waste paper! • Don’t worry too much about style and grammar; when the words start to flow, let them come! You can clean up the mess in the revision. • Try to write as much as possible in a single sitting; a train of thought may be difficult to recapture after too long a break. Walk With World+
- 7. Notes on Introduction • The Introduction serves to make the main point of the paper explicit. • A useful way to focus your introductory thoughts is to conceive of the paper as an explicit answer to a question. • The Introduction serves to state the question. Walk With World+
- 8. Notes on Background • Unless you are writing a review paper, the Background section should be relatively brief and limited to discussing work that applies directly to your study. • Editors and reviewers are not impressed by a long list of irrelevant references! If your work extends a prior study • State clearly the new contributions of your paper. Walk With World+
- 9. Statistics • Follow carefully any instructions for the applicable journal or conference proceedings. • Figures and tables should be numbered consecutively in order of appearance (separate numbering for figures and for tables). • Include only figures and tables that illustrate significant points in the text. Walk With World+
- 10. Conduct a final check • Check for consistency: Are you capitalizing the same terms each time? Does formatting follow the instructions for the journal or conference proceedings to which the paper will be submitted? Are tables, figures, and references numbered consecutively without gaps, etc.? • Check for correct grammar: Do verbs agree with their subjects? (Note that data is a plural noun.) Are you mixing tenses within a paragraph? Are you using the correct case for pronouns (who vs. whom), etc.? • Check spelling carefully: Be on guard for errors the spell checker will miss, e.g., affect for effect, two for too, etc. Walk With World+
- 11. Thank you! Walk With World+