├── writing_paradigm.png └── README.md /writing_paradigm.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Uehwan/how-to-write-research-papers/HEAD/writing_paradigm.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # How to Write Research Papers 2 | 3 | I'm a Ph. D student working on robotics and deep learning. Like most researchers, I also need to publish research papers. Preparing research papers takes much effort and time. Sometimes it even gives pains. However, I realized that there are a bunch of materials on the web I can benefit from and started summarizing those materials. This document might contain disputable statements since it is for my personal retrieval. I welcome comments and collaboration. Please send me e-mails or pull requests. 4 | 5 | ## Key Things to Keep in Mind 6 | 7 | ### Write Now! 8 | 9 | 10 | - "Writing first" forces you to be clear & focused 11 | - It helps you develop the idea 12 | - It makes what you don't understand concrete 13 | 14 | ### Top Down 15 | - Identify your key idea and contributions 16 | - Just one clear and sharp idea 17 | - If you have lots of ideas, write lots of papers 18 | - Tell a story 19 | - Not what you did, but rather new idea or insights 20 | - Basic flow 21 | - Here is a problem 22 | - It's interesting and unsolved 23 | - Here is my idea 24 | - My idea works (details or data) 25 | - How my idea differs from others 26 | - A lead sentence to set context for a paragraph 27 | 28 | ### Reader Centered 29 | - Get to the message ASAP 30 | - Convey the intuition primarily; details are secondary 31 | - State your contributions clearly 32 | - Visualize (figures) & summarize (tables) 33 | - Don't let readers work hard 34 | - Be consise, accurate and clear; present enough context & information 35 | - Not too many equations or graphs or paragraphs 36 | - Check what readers might (want/not want) and (know/not know) 37 | 38 | ### Take Time 39 | - Reflect, write, review, and refine 40 | - Take time to write less 41 | 42 | ### Where to Focus 43 | - Title (1000 readers) 44 | - Abstract (4 sentences, 100 readers) 45 | - Introduction (1 Page, 100 readers) 46 | - The problem (1 page, 10 readers) 47 | - My idea (2 pages, 10 readers) 48 | - The details (5 pages, 3 readers) 49 | - Related work (1-2 pages, 10 readers) 50 | - Conclusion and future works (0.5 pages) 51 | 52 | ## How to Write Actually 53 | 54 | ### Title 55 | - Catchy buy avoid being cute 56 | - Should represent the key idea and contributions 57 | 58 | ### Abstract 59 | - Describe the work not the paper 60 | - Present concrete results rather than abstractive desription 61 | ``` 62 | 1. General problem space/motivation 63 | 2. Approach taken 64 | 3. Key findings/results 65 | 4. Why the findings/results matter 66 | ``` 67 | 68 | ### Introduction 69 | - Motivation for the work 70 | - Prepare readers for the structure of the paper 71 | - Start broad and progrssively narrow down to the issue (problem) 72 | ``` 73 | 1. (Context) State of the world: the problem area & why it is important 74 | 2. (Need) Narrow down: gap between actual and desired situations (the big BUT) 75 | 3. (Task and Object) To achieve (object), we study/develop/investigate/design/evaluate/implement/assess ... 76 | 4. (Outcome) The key results are ... 77 | 5. (Contribution) In summary, the contributions of this paper are ... 78 | 6. (Structure) The rest of this paper is structured/organized as follows. 79 | ``` 80 | => Need a section for "related work" 81 | 82 | or ... 83 | ``` 84 | 1. (Context) State of the world: the problem area & why it is important 85 | 2. (Problem) Narrow down: the desired goal which is not achieved 86 | 3. (Previous Works) Approaches taken in previous works and limitations (gap between actual and desired situations) 87 | 4. (Task and Object) To overcome the above-mentioned limitations, we ... 88 | 5. (Outcome) The key results are ... 89 | 6. (Contribution) In summary, the contributions of this paper are ... 90 | 7. (Structure) The rest of this paper is structured/organized as follows. 91 | ``` 92 | 93 | ### Materials and Methods 94 | - Sufficient detail for reproducibility 95 | 96 | ### Results and Discussion 97 | - Interprete the results 98 | 99 | ### Conclusion 100 | - Present the outcome at a higer level of abstraction 101 | 102 | ## Userfule Tools 103 | - Thesaurus: [Thesaurus](https://www.thesaurus.com/), [Onelook](https://www.onelook.com/thesaurus/) 104 | - Grammar & Style: [Grammarly](https://app.grammarly.com/), [HemingwayApp](http://www.hemingwayapp.com/) 105 | 106 | ## References 107 | 108 | * Professor Kim's lecture note 109 | * How to write a great research paper 110 | * Top-10 tips for writing a paper 111 | * Writing scientific papers 112 | * The elements of style 113 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------