Some Tips about Writing Technical Papers

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Some Tips about Writing Technical Papers

• Michael R. Lyu
• September 9, 2003

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General

• Writing in English is hard. The only way to
  master it is keep writing in it.
• Read others papers and study their good writing
  skills.
• Read the book The Element of Styles

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When Writing a Paper ..

• Ask yourself "what is the main new idea in this
  paper?
• Clearly specify your contributions
• Abstract gives an overall but concise statement
  about what the paper is doing.
• Repeatedly emphasize key points
• Tell them what you will do in the Introduction
• Tell them what you are doing in the main body
• Tell them what you have done in the Conclusion

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Pay Attention to Every Detail

• Format.
• Grammar.
• Avoid klear errores

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Format

• General You need a space after comma ",", a space
  before and after "", and two spaces after period
  ".".
• Avoid obvious grammatical mistakes. For example,
  analyses is noun, not verb. Its verb is
  analyze.

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Count Them Right!

• Some words are not countable
• research
• Work
• Future Researches is not English
• Do not use the word "work" in plural, unless you
  mean "factory" "a piece of art". "Research
  works" is not a correct term.

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Careful Use of Words Have

• Avoid using the word "have/has" unless it is used
  for a tense.
• This book has three chapters -gt this book
  contains three chapters
• These models have the same property -gt These
  models enjoy the same property.

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Careful Use of Words To

• Avoid using words "to" excessively.
• Opinion is originally a 3-dimentional metric to
  represent belief or trust and is extended to
  contain a 4th redundant parameter in order to use
  in combination with logical operators
• Opinion is originally a 3-dimentional metric in
  representing belief or trust and is extended to
  contain a 4th redundant parameter for simple
  usage in combination with logical operators

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The Word Useful" Is Not Useful

• Choose word with concrete meaning for precise
  expression.
• A word with too general meaning becomes
  meaningless.
• You should provide a concrete word to say how
  "useful" is it.
• XML is useful in the Web.
• XML is innovative in the Web.
• XML is popular in the Web.
• XML is powerful in the Web.

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Words and Sentences

• Don't repeat words. Change them to their
  synonyms. (MS Word gives you a good tool for
  that.)
• Make shorter sentences when possible. The longer
  sentences you make, the more ambiguous it may
  sound.
• And should connect sentences of the same tense.
• Wrong Our solution is based on network models
  in 1 and we proposed a new approach
  for authentication.
• Right Our solution is based on network models
  in 1. We proposed a new approach for
  authentication.
• Better Based on network models in 1, our
  solution proposed a new approach for
  authentication.

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Should I Include The?

• All countable things need an article if they are
  not in plural. When you first mention a thing,
  use "a" as the article make that things plural.
  Since then, you use "the" as the article.
• When in doubt, always use "the" as the article.

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Acknowledgement

• Acknowledge grant in the final camera-ready
  paper. For example
• "The work described in this paper was
  fully/substantially/partially supported by a
  grant from the Research Grants Council of the
  Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China
  (Project No. CUHK4360/02E)." 

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About Reference

• Put reference in either appearance order or
  alphabetical order (according to the first
  author's last name).
• Include your own related papers in the reference
  list.
• No reference citation in abstract and conclusion.
• Consistent reference format, including authors,
  paper title, proceedings names, issue number,
  volume, places, dates, page numbers. They not
  only need to be in a consistent sequence, but
  also with right fonts and punctuations.

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How Do I Correct Your Manuscript?

• "underline" means "in italic face"
• "double underline" means "in bold face"
• "triple underline" means "capitalize"
• "/" means "in small case"
• "?" (a line or a circle with a curvy tail) means
  "delete"
• "???" means "undo"
• "\/" or "/\" means "insert"
• means "connect"
• small circle (usually at the end of a word)
  means insert and connect
• "P " means starting a new paragraph
• "clouded quote " means "my
  comments"

P