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CSCD 555Research Methods for Computer ScienceWinter 2012

Lecture 6More Writing for Fun and Profit

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Topics

• More Writing Advice

• In-Class Exercise

From: Steve Easterbrook University of Toronto

More Examples of Writing

Next slides from: Simon Peyton Jones Microsoft Research, Cambridge

Other Paper Advice• Avoid using "we"

• "we" often used by lazy writers because it provides an easy way to give a sentence a subject• But, it usually dilutes the impact of the sentence or

obscures the true subject.

• Here is a real-world example (taken from a published paper):

"In this paper we focus on statically checking behavioral properties of ..."

• Authors of paper have little to do with main point of paper

• Sentence above would be better as:

"This paper focuses on statically checking behavioral properties of ..."

• Emphasizes true subject of the sentence, "this paper"

Other Paper Advice

Jonathan Shewchuk

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.html

• Every paper needs an introduction.

• Introduction is the most important part of your paper,

• Why?

• Because few of your readers will ever read beyond it. And there's not much hope that any of them will if you don't grab their attention from the start.

Other Paper Advice• So it's a mystery why so many papers begin with twaddle

like this excerpt from a conference on high performance computing ...

Massively parallel computers (MPCs), characterized by their scalable architectures, are a viable platform on which to solve the so-called grand-challenge problems. These distributed-memory systems are expandable and can achieve a proportional performance increase without changing the basic architecture. In order to take full advantage of scalable hardware, the application software must also be scalable to exploit the increased computing capacity.

Other Paper Advice• Why is it “twaddle?”

• Paragraph is entirely superfluous to any reader who knows the meanings of scalable and grand-challenge problems

• Other readers, who don't know the buzzwords, are discouraged from continuing. Everybody loses.

Other Paper Advice• Why is it “twaddle?”• These authors should recognize primary objective of first

paragraph is• To explain the purpose of their paper and thereby

interest you in reading the second paragraph!!!!

• But they don't ... • They're too timid to jump directly to the central idea of their

paper

• But, hey, all the other supercomputing papers they've ever read start with the same paragraph, so it can't be too bad, right?

Other Paper Advice

Jonathan Shewchuk continues ...

• Do not do this ...

• This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we describe local transformations in k dimensions. In Section 3, we describe an incremental approach for constructing k-D Delaunay triangulations using local transformations. In Section 4, we prove that this approach always constructs a Delaunay triangulation. In Section 5, we describe three algorithms and a data structure based on this approach. In Section 6, we discuss the time complexities of the algorithms and present experimental results from our implementation of these algorithms.

• Why might this be bad?

Other Paper Advice

• ... this is really a table of contents, in paragraph format and without page numbers

• It does little more than repeat the section titles, which are more easily absorbed by skimming the article

• What should you do instead?• References to each section of the paper should

have been folded into the introduction, each appearing in its logical place.

• Sections of the paper follow a clear logical progression; Introduction should echo that progression, and include references to sections of the paper as appropriate ...

Abstract Example #1 – Content

• The abstract should state• What you did• What you found

• An example from CHI1

1. Karat, C. M., Halverson, C., Karat, J., & Horn, D. (1999). Patterns of entry and correction in large vocabulary continuous speech recognition systems, Proceedings of ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems -- CHI '99 (pp. 568-575): New York: ACM...

Next slide

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate user performance and satisfaction in completion of a set of text creation tasks using three commercially available continuous speech recognition systems. The study also compared user performance on similar tasks using keyboard input. One part of the study (Initial Use) involved 24 users who enrolled, received training and carried out practice tasks, and then completed a set of transcription and composition tasks in a single session. In a parallel effort (Extended Use), four researchers used speech recognition to carry out real work tasks over 10 sessions with each of the three speech recognition software products. This paper presents results from the Initial Use phase of the study along with some preliminary results from the Extended Use phase. We present details of the kinds of usability and system design problems likely in current systems and several common patterns of error correction that we found.

States what they did

Nothing about what they found

Abstract Example #2 – Writing Style• An example from UIST 1

• We’ll try to revise it to see if there is room for improvement

• See the handout ....

1 Lee, J. C., Forlizzi, J., & Hudson, S. E. (2002). The kinetic typography engine: An extensible system for animating expressive text. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology -- UIST 2002, pp. 81-90. New York: ACM.

Examples of Writing

• Re-write your example

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Revision

Kinetic typography – text that moves or otherwise changes – is a new form of communication. As we illustrate, kinetic typography brings the expressive power of film – the ability to convey emotion, portray compelling characters, and direct attention – to the world of text. Although kinetic typography offers promise, it is not widely exploited outside areas such as TV advertising. Reasons include the lack of support tools and the difficulty in creating dynamic text. Our remedy is an extensible robust system for animating text. Through a set of abstractions, the engine provides a small set of pluggable components to create a range of expressions. It provides new techniques for animating text and provides support for typographical manipulations.

CompareKinetic typography – text that uses movement or other temporal change – has recently emerged as a new form of communication. As we hope to illustrate in this paper, kinetic typography can be seen as bringing some of the expressive powers of film – such as its ability to convey emotion, portray compelling characters, and visually direct attention – to the strong communicative powers of text. Although kinetic typography offers promise for expressive communication, it has not been widely exploited outside a few limited application areas (most notable TV advertising). One of the reasons for this has been the lack of tools directly supporting it, and the accompanying difficulty in creating dynamic text. This paper presents a first steps in remedying this situation – an extensible robust system for animating text in a wide variety of forms. By supporting an appropriate set of carefully factored abstractions, this engine provides a relatively small set of components that can be plugged together to create a wide range of different expressions. It provides new techniques for animating text used in traditional cartoon animation, and provides specific support for typographical manipulations.

Kinetic typography – text that moves or otherwise changes – is a new form of communication. As we illustrate, kinetic typography brings the expressive power of film – the ability to convey emotion, portray compelling characters, and direct attention – to the world of text. Although kinetic typography offers promise, it is not widely exploited outside areas such as TV advertising. Reasons include the lack of support tools and the difficulty in creating dynamic text. Our remedy is an extensible robust system for animating text. Through a set of abstractions, the engine provides a small set of pluggable components to create a range of expressions. It provides new techniques for animating text and provides support for typographical manipulations.

114 words183 words

1. Be concise Original: text that uses movement or other temporal change Revision: text that moves or otherwise changes

2. Avoid superfluous words or phrases Original: As we hope to illustrate in this paper… Revision: As we illustrate…

3. Use the active voice Original: it has not been widely exploited… Revision: it is not widely exploited…

Abstract Deconstructed (1)

Kinetic typography – text that uses movement or other temporal change – has recently emerged as a new form of communication.

Kinetic typography – text that moves or otherwise changes – is a new form of communication.

As we hope to illustrate in this paper, kinetic typography can be seen as bringing some of the expressive powers of film – such as its ability to convey emotion, portray compelling characters, and visually direct attention – to the strong communicative powers of text.

As we illustrate, kinetic typography brings the expressive power of film – the ability to convey emotion, portray compelling characters, and direct attention – to the world of text.

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Abstract Deconstructed (2)

Although kinetic typography offers promise for expressive communication, it has not been widely exploited outside a few limited application areas (most notably in TV advertising).

Although kinetic typography offers promise, it is not widely exploited outside areas such as TV advertising

One of the reasons for this has been the lack of tools directly supporting it, and the accompanying difficulty in creating dynamic text.

Reasons include the lack of support tools and the difficulty in creating dynamic text.

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Abstract Deconstructed (3)

This paper presents a first step in remedying this situation – an extensible robust system for animating text in a wide variety of forms.

Our remedy is an extensible robust system for animating text.

By supporting an appropriate set of carefully factored abstractions, this engine provides a relatively small set of components that can be plugged together to create a wide range of different expressions.

Through a set of abstractions, the engine provides a small set of pluggable components to create a range of expressions.

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Abstract Deconstructed (4)

It provides new techniques for animating text used in traditional cartoon animation, and provides specific support for typographical manipulations.

It provides new techniques for animating text and provides support for typographical manipulations.

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References

Scott MacKenzie

http://www.slidefinder.net/w/writing_research_paper_scott_mackenzie/10154579/p2

Norman Fenton Advice

http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~norman/papers/good_writing/Technical%20writing.pdf

Three Sins of Authors, Jonathan Shewchuk

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.html

Summary

• Writing tips • Must practice writing to become better!!!• A lot of advice is given • Must sift through and find what works for you• There are common techniques that most agree

constitute good papers and writing

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New Assignment up for a short Proposal or Survey Paper - End