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How to write and publish technical papers in English

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How to write and publish technical papers in English

Paper

Title

  • Use fewest possible words
  • Adequately describe the contents of the paper
  • To be read by thousands of people. Few may read the entire paper.
  • Choose all words in the title with great care
  • Carefully manage their association from one with each other

Abstract

  • A sumary of the information in a document
  • A single paragraph of 100-200 words
  • Self contained, no bibliographic, figure, or table references
  • No obscure abbreviations and acronyms
  • Write the paper before writing the Abstarct

Introduction

  • Answer the question "What was the problem?" Why is it important
  • Supply sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand and evaluate the results of the present study without needing to refer to previous on the topic.
  • Provide the rationale for the present study (e.g. a motivating example).
  • State briefly and clearly your purpose in writing the paper and your contributions.
  • Choose references carefully to provide the most important background infomation.

Results

  • Answer the question "What did you find?"
  • Experimental performance evaluation for system work
  • Empirical study for user interaction work
  • Complexity analysis for algorithm work
  • Case studies with real world applications

Discussion

  • Answer the question "What do these findings mean?"
  • Review most relevant work
  • Comment on the similarity and differences of your work from them
  • What makes your work unique and worth doing?
  • Usually as Section 2, or second last section

Conclusion and Future Work

  • Answer the question "What do you conclude?"
  • What actions need to be taken as future work?
  • Any discussion of controversial issues

Acknowledgements

  • Give credit to individuals who have helped you
  • Acknowledge funding agencies that have partially supported your work

References

  • Use statndard bibliographic style
  • Be complete and consistent with sytle
  • Use more recent and more influential papers

Practices

  • Read as many good papers as possible
  • Adapt good sense of writing from good papers
  • Write as many papers (in English) as possible
  • Be serious with reviewers' comments and learn from them
  • Collaborate with other researchers
  • Volunteer to review papers

Specific Rules

  • A sentence should be under 3 lines in a single column or 5 lines in a double-column.
  • Without comparison, do not use "more" or "less"
  • Issues on passive voice ...
    • 避免被动语态除非主语很明确，可以给系统一个名字让系统作为主语
    • 不要总是用 "we"，可以加上半句 "Having done this, we decide ..."
  • Issues on tense ...
    • 过去时态用于描述过去的一个工作
    • 将来时态只用在 future work 中
    • 完成时只用在 conclusion 中
  • Typical Chinglish
    • A lot of -> Many or Much
    • Actually -> In fact
    • Based on -> unnecessary in many contexts
    • Be considered as -> Be considered
    • Besides -> Apart from (和 Except 不一样，后者是不包含， Except for 也是错误用法)
    • Especially -> Particularly, or In particular
    • Firstly, ..., Secondly -> First, ..., Second -> Bullet list
    • For "A" (noun), we (verb) it -> We (verb) "A"
    • Kind of -> Type of
    • Not only A, but also B -> 除非真的想强调A和B不可或缺且互补，否则用and
    • Painted with red color -> Colored red
    • Researches -> 只有 Researchers 或者 Research
    • Some -> 你想说某些，因为你不知道哪些，所以delete它 (避免不能精确的字)
    • Very -> delete it!
    • Want -> Wish
    • We can see from Figure X that -> Figure X shows that
    • Whole -> Entire
  • Common Phrases and Suggested Subsitutes
    • For the reason why -> Why
    • Starting a sentence with "And" -> delete "And"
    • The authors are unaware of the fact that -> The authors are unaware that
    • Their alogorithm is a fast one -> Their alogorithm is fast
    • Try to -> Attempt to