Concepts learnt from previous lessons -5pt Writing … · Concepts learnt from previous lessons ... Pay attention to the writing style and format, ... y mention the conclusion of

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Concepts learnt from previous lessonsLesson’s contents

Writing Scientific Papers

LATEXcourse

Carmen Alonso Montes

Basque Center for Applied Mathematics

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30th May-2nd June, 2016

Carmen Alonso Montes Computer Vision & Smart Embedded Systems

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Outline

1 Concepts learnt from previous lessons

2 Lesson’s contents

3 Writing Scientific Papers


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In the previous lessons:

Install basic software to use in conjunction with LATEX

Basic topics of LATEX

Advanced topics of LATEXFloats: images and tablesMathematicsBibliographyPresentations

Now, you can start writing any type of document


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Outline



3 Writing Scientific Papers


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This lesson is intended to give some help and guidance on writing scientificdocuments, rather on properly LATEX.

What’s wrong with my paper? Tips & tricks from a reviewer point of viewScientific paper writing in Applied fields: Engineering & BioengineeringA good introduction opens the door to the successStructure of the documentConclusions & Acknowledgements


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AbstractIntroductionExplaining your proposalResultsDiscussionAcknowledgmetsSome format commentsReviewer

Outline



3 Writing Scientific PapersAbstractIntroductionExplaining your proposalResultsDiscussionAcknowledgmetsSome format commentsReviewer


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Writing an effective scientific paper is not easy.

Golden rule: to write as if your paper will be read by a person who knows aboutthe field in general but does not already know what you did.

Tip: Before you write a scientific paper read some scientific papers that havebeen written in the format of the paper you plan to use.

Tip: Pay attention to the writing style and format, it is not the same a medicaloriented paper or a theoretical mathematical paper.


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The content of this document has been mainly extracted from:

http://en.fel.zcu.cz/AE%20III%20Guidelines%20for%20Academic%20Writing/How%20to%20write%20a%20paper/Useful%20phrases.pdf







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Abstract

The paper format is highly dependent on the field.

Example of Software Engineering paper

Abstract

Introduction

State of the art or methods you arecomparing to

Your method

Your results / Experiments

Conclusions

Acknowledgement

Example of Biomedical paper

Abstract

Introduction

Material & Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusions

Acknowledgement


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Abstract

An abstract is a one paragraph summary of the entire paper.The abstract should briefly describe

the question posed in the paper

the methods used to answer this question

the results obtained

the conclusions.

Reviewer Tip

It should be possible to determine the major points of a paper by reading theabstract.

Better write the abstract after the paper is completed.

As a reviewer, I always read first the abstract to try to understand the generalaim of the paper, and what I can expect afterwards. Please, pay attention to it!


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Abstract: suggestions

It must be short and concise

You must contextualize your problem in a couple of sentences

Try to give a brief explanation what your paper is about

Try to draw briefly some of your main conclusions

Don’t place any reference, let them for the introduction

Write it once after finishing your paper

Typical error

A typical mistake I found as a reviewer is that many people copy and paste sentencesdirectly from the introduction and that’s make the abstract. Well, this is the worstthing you can do. You must think that the abstract is a way to answer the question:And what did you do in this work?You can explain it to your boss quite easily and brief, don’t you? ... Then, do it


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Some introductory sentences:

The paper discusses/deals with/analyses/considers

The paper demonstrates the feasibility of .....

The main objective/goal/purpose of the paper/article is .....

Common mistakes

Passive tenses are preferred for paper writing, but take care and use them wisely

WRONG: In this paper there/it is presented a novel method of ....

GOOD: This paper presents a novel method of or In this paper, a novel methodof ..... is presented


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Introduction

Any paper or scientific work always start to answer some specific scientific or technicalquestion, to fill some gap in the literature, etc. The introduction is the place whereyou set up and explain in detail the motivation of your workThe Introduction should

describe the motivation of your work

explain why this is interesting or important

describe the approach used in sufficient detail that a reader who is not familiarwith the technique will understand what was done and why

identify and briefly compare with other solutions found in the literature, this isparticularly important for applied domains

very briefly mention the conclusion of the paper


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Introduction: Suggestions

If it is your first paper, the introduction is the hardest partThe key: The motivation of your work must be supported by the current state of theart in your areaStart by listing what others has doneWhy your proposal is different?What do you have in common with others?

If your paper is around 4 pages, your introduction must be 1 page maximum.

The text flow must guide the author from the context of the current situation inyour area, making aware of the problems, till your solution as the one solving that.


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Introduction: Suggestions

Take care with the format and verb tenses on this text

Make all the references as needed

When you refer other works, it is expected you explain a little on this work or howthis work is connected with yours

As reviewer, I am not going to read all your papers to understand yours! So, please,make some effort on making us the life easier

It is important to have the text easily readable and flowing and connecting all theconcepts


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Typical connectors

Adverbs useful for connecting ideasConnecting: Moreover, Furthermore, Particularly, Indeed, ...Contrasting ideas: However, Despite, Although


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Problem background, state of the art..... plays an important/vital role in .......... is an important issue for .......... is extensively/widely used in .......... is a very effective method for .....In the last few years there has been a growing interest in .....Quite recently, considerable attention has been paid to .......... have/has been gaining importance in recent years .......... have/has been utilized in many applications such as .....


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Literature review/Summary of previous researchReferring to the sources in general

Current research on ..... is focused on .....Previous studies indicate that .....The literature on ..... shows a variety of approachesMuch research on ..... has been done.The focus of recent research has been on .......... has/have been widely researched/investigated.In recent years, research on/into ..... has become very popular.In the last decade ..... has attracted much attention from research teams .....For several years great effort has been devoted to the study of .....Several publications have appeared in recent years documenting .....Previous research has documented/shown/demonstrated that .....To solve this problem/issue, many researchers have proposed various methods of (+-ing)In the literature, several theories have been proposed to explain .....


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Referring to individual authors..... and .... are discussed in [3] and [6].X [4] and Y [3] indicate that .....X et al. [1] argue that .....One of the first examples of ..... is presented in [2].Another/The latest solution is described in [3].The results obtained/offered by X in [5] suggest that .....Recently, several authors [4], [5], [7] have proposed (a new theory) .....X [2] and X [5] have demonstrated that .....In [8] it was shown that .....As reported by X [2], .....In a recent paper by X [9], .....


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Saying that little research has been done in a particular fieldHowever, to the author’s/authors ’best knowledge, very few publications can befound/are available in the literature that discuss/ address the issue of ....

Pointing out limitations of previous researchA key limitation of this research is that (it does not address the problem of .....)The major drawback of this approach is .....However, most of the previous studies do not take into account .....This approach may not be practical/orthodox/conventional in all situations.Reference [3] analyses and compares various aspects of ..... . Nevertheless, there arestill some interesting and relevant problems to be addressed.However, studies on ..... are still lacking.The problem with this approach is in that it .....Although several studies have indicated that ....., little attention has been paid/given to.....


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Problem statement and description of the objective of the paper are very specific partsof the paper and the phrases used depend on the nature of the problem.

Based on the approach presented in [3], the purpose of this paper is to ....

In this paper, while we refer to our earlier work [2], [3], and [4], the focus isdifferent.

Like most authors, we .....

The objective/aim of this paper/study is to propose .....

The paper presents/proposes a new approach to .....

This article introduces a new type of .....

In this paper, we/the authors offer .....

In this paper, we explore the possibility of .....

In this study, a new technique that improves ..... is suggested.

Reviewer tip

If part of your work comes from previous work, please be very clear on what’s yourprevious work and which one is new.


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Finally, at the end of the introduction is advisable to explain how you are going tostructure your paper. This is specially important for long papers.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows/into ..... sections:

Section II describes/outlines ....., Section III discusses/analyses ..... .(Experimental results) are presented in Section IV; Section V concludes the paper.

In Section II, ..... will be discussed. Section III is devoted to ..... . Section IVpresents (the experimental results). The conclusion is reported in Section V.


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The core of your paper must be your proposal or method

There is not a fixed rule, but at the eyes of a reviewer most of the paper mustdeal with proving your proposal (methodological explanation of your proposal,experiments, discussion, etc).

The way of explaining your method or proposal it is very dependent on the areawhere you are writing your paper

Engineering fields prefer to have a separated chapter to explain your proposalfrom a methodological point of view, followed by the experiments and results.

Biomedical fields have a dedicated chapter Material and methods, where youclearly define/characterize your data and technical details, and your experiment,followed by results and a discussion of these results.


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Materials and methods

The Materials and Methods section should succinctly describe what was actuallydone.

It should include description of the techniques used so someone could reproducethe experiments

The details of a published protocol do not need to be reproduced in the text butan appropriate reference should be cited

Any changes from the published protocol should be described


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Some useful sentences

Describing what was done and how it was doneWe started by investigating .....We designed a new technique for ......These experiments were carried out to find out .....In order to verify the validity of the ..... method, we carried out several experiments.To illustrate ....., a simulation was performed.The ..... analysis was performed in order to .....

Describing numerical methodsThe equation that describes ..... is as follows: Equation (2)represents/defines/expresses .....The equation can be written as ....., where .....Thus, the following equation is obtained: ..... can be computed by the followingequation:Equations (5) and (6) approximate (the original formulas)...... satisfies equation (3).This is true for ...../This holds for .....We will make the following assumptions: .....


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Be very clear on what is your novelty and your work

Notice that here you must be concentrated on your work, so not many referencesare needed in general (compared with the Introduction)

Use figures and schemas to clarify any process or workflow you are doing

Try to be as much as clear as you can, you are the one doing the work and inyour head is clear, but a reviewer does not know the reasons behind your proposal

Try to explain any decision you take in your workflow, if you do something isbecause you have a strong reason behind. Don’t be shy and say it!

A reviewer is not paid, so, we review in our free time, so, please, be as muchinformative and help us to understand your work


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Results

Results sections is quite different in Engineering and Biomedical domains.

Engineering fields tends to use this section to describe the experiments and showthe results of applying the suggested technique, providing some conclusions andreasoning over the results

Biomedical fields shows the results of the application of the technique ormethodological part but in a more objective way, without real discussion

Some tips to write this section

Begin each paragraph with an opening sentence that tells the reader whatquestion is being tested in the experiments described in that paragraph.

Use figures and tables to display your results and alleviate the reading

The text of the Results section should be concrete but should provide the readerwith a summary of the results of each table or figure. Not all results deserve aseparate table or figure!!

Your paper should focus on what worked, not things that did not work !


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Some useful sentences

it has been found that .....

The results show that .....

The results thus obtained are compatible with .....

As mentioned earlier/above, .....

The previous sections have shown that .....

The method was tested on ...

The method is an effective way to improve .....

The .... analysis plays a crucial role in .....

We have introduced a new approach to .....

To verify this method, ..... is compared with .....

There is no evident relationship between ..... and .....

..... are in good agreement/correspond with .....

There is a good match between ..... and .....

To illustrate the result, a simulation of ..... was performed.

To overcome/avoid this problem/difficulty, it is necessary to adopt a .....


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From reviewer point of view, in Engineering fields this section is crucial. Here, you aretesting the validity of your solution.

You must prove what you say at the beginning (introduction)

The tests and experiments must be reproducible

If there are public datasets, it is not very convincing that you use your own data.It must be carefully justified

Try to be as much objective as you can. Every method has advantages anddrawbacks, but you must be clear and don’t hide anything.


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The discussion section is a key section for biomedical papers, and it is not common inother areas like Engineering. In the biomedical field, this section is the one that isinterpreting and justifying the results with the current state of the art. In this sense,you are entitled to demonstrate that your initial hypothesis is in concordance with theobtained resultsSome useful sentences:

Stating the main objectiveIn this paper we propose/examine/study .....This paper proposes/has proposed .....The purpose of the paper/study is to .....It was the main purpose of the paper to draw attention to .....In our paper, the focus of attention was/is on

Specifying the objectiveParticular attention is paid to .....We have addressed not only ..... but also .....

Pointing out the originality of the solutionOur paper presents an innovative/a novel view of .....This is a novel solution to .....To our knowledge, this is the first study to deal with/examine/investigate .....


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More useful sentences

Interpreting the factsThe data obtained is/are broadly consistent with th e major trends .....These results agree/concur/are consistent/are in good agreement with other studieswhich have shown that .....In contrast to some reports in the literature, there were .....The most likely explanation of the negative result is .....The findings have a number of possible limitations, namely .....

Stating the limitations of the researchThe main limitation of the experimental result is .....One question still unanswered is whether .....


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This part is not really reviewed, but in terms of your institution, this part is crucial forany project you are involved in.Some useful sentences:

The authors would like to thank their colleagues/Dr X and Dr Y for their valuableinsights and recommendations

The author would like to extend his/her thanks to (name of institution) for itssupport in implementing the project.

The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous financial support of (name ofinstitution).

Financial support from the X Foundation, Grant No. ....., (project topic), isgratefully acknowledged.

This research/work was supported by the X under Project No.


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Discussion

Do not simply restate the results ?

explain your conclusions and interpretations of the Results section.

How did your results compare with the expected results?

What further predictions can be gleaned from the results?


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Tables and figures

Tables and images must be used as a support to show data, explain specific results,etc. But, they must be always referred and explained in some point of the text.As general comments:

All tables and figures should be referred in the corresponding text.

Tables and figures should present information in a format that is easily evaluatedby the reader.

Tables and figures should typically summarize results

Tables and figures should be sequentially numbered.

Each table and figure should have a title that describes the point of the table anda specific description (short in the case of Engineering fields, or quiteself-explanatory and long in the case of biomedical papers)


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Referring to/Describing figures, graphs, tables, diagramsFig. 2 shows/presents/depicts/outlines/illustrates/represents .....Such cases are depicted in the following figures.This is illustrated in Fig. 5...... is/are shown/given in Figs. 3 and 4...... can be found in Fig. 8.As shown in Fig. 1, .....Table II summarizes .....The graph/diagram suggests/indicates that ..


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citations and Reference formats

It is essential to credit published papers for work mentioned in your manuscript.

There are a variety of ways of citing references in the text

The style used depends upon the policy of the journal.

Do not rewrite title of references in text.


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Pay attention to the format and way of writing

Certain general rules are commonly followed in scientific writingFlow:The text shall flows smoothly, from background to rationale to conclusion.

Explicitly state the logic behind any transitions from one idea to another.

Abbreviations.Use standard abbreviations instead of writing complete words.Define all other abbreviations the first time they are used, then subsequently use theabbreviationIn general, abbreviations should not be written in the plural form

Past, present, and future tenseResults described in your paper should be described in past tenseResults from published papers should be described in the present tenseOnly experiments that you plan to do in the future should be described in the futuretense.

Third vs first person.Most text should be written in the third personInanimate objects should be described in third person

Redundancy: Avoid it! Try to be concrete.

Always spell check your paper and carefully proofread your paper beforesubmission.

Read your paper to yourself as if you were reading it out loud to ensure that thewording and sentence construction is not clumsy.


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My best advice is that your paper is your presentation card, so, try to communicateyour ideas, and use the English as much simpler as you can. A paper is a matter ofcommunicating your job, don’t forget this!


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What does a reviewer do?

Reviewers do this job for free

Usually, we do it in our free time

I personally, start reading the abstract to make an idea of what comes next.

Not being clear in what has been done, or which is the current state of the artpoints you in the side of rejection

Don’t forget that we don’t know you, so you must convince us that your work isgreat


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Concepts learnt from previous lessons -5pt Writing … · Concepts learnt from previous lessons ... Pay attention to the writing style and format, ... y mention the conclusion of