Key parts and steps in writing a research paper and how reviewers see it. Simple but key facts to focus on.

1. 10 Key Elements of a
Research Paper:
A Writers Perspective
Dilum Bandara, PhD
University of Moratuwa

2. 1 – Know Your Audience
• Review Phase  Reviewers
• Aware of domain & problem
• Few may be working on exactly the same problem
• Want to determine whether work is worthy of publishing
• Camera Ready  Researchers
• Novice
• Expert
• General interest on topic
• Few working on exactly the same problem
• Want to gain knowledge and/or want to solve a specific problem
“Every paper tells a story. Know your stor
- Jim Kurose

3. 2 – Follow Template
• Conferences & Journals have their own templates
• Downloadable from conference/journal website
• Carefully read instructions
• Strictly follow template
• A real test of your word processing skills!
• Not following template  Paper Rejection

4. 3 – Paper Title
• Should reflect your work
• Should indicate your contribution to knowledge
• 2-part titles are ok
• Short & simple
• Rest of the paper should be able to live up to your title

5. 4 – Abstract & Key
Words
• Synopsis of paper not exceeding 150/200
words
• Key material to sell your paper
• Content
• 1/3 – Introduction & motivation to problem
• 1/3 – How the problem is addressed
• 1/3 – Key results & conclusion
• 3-4 key words that cover your topic
• Pick key words from related papers

6. 5 – Introduction
• Minimum introduction to topic
• Most readers have an idea about topic & its significance
• Good motivation on “why” your problem is important
• Show gaps in what’s already around/known
• Clearly describe the paper’s contribution
• What & how you did it
• Key results
• Someone writing a literature survey should be able to just extract this para
• Briefly introduce rest of the paper
• Should use less than 20% of paper space

7. 6 – Related Work
• Discuss all literature that’s related to your work
• Focus on seminal work & more recent work
• Critically evaluate them
• Illustrate missing pieces
• Don’t paraphrase  Leads to high similarity score
• Justify there is a place for your work too
• No more than 1-2 sentences
• No more than 10% of paper space

8. 7 – Solution
• Explain your proposed solution
• Better if a formal problem can be formulated & then explain solution in line with that
• Tell how you came up with solution
• Clearly state assumptions
• Tell logic behind your solution
• Logically arrange your ideas
• Draw diagrams
• Give algorithms
• Compare your solution with related work
• Give credit to related work
• Give enough details s.t. one can replicate your solution

9. 8 – Performance Evaluation
• Present experimental setup, emulator, simulator, etc.
• Give enough details s.t. one can run your solution
• Did you collect enough samples?
• Are results within an accuracy of ±5% and 95% confidence level?
• Present findings
• Logically ordered
• Simple to complex
• Explain your graphs, tables, & findings
• Draw diagrams & Tables
• Simple & clear graphs
• B&W & grayscale are better
• No screenshots unless they are essential to explain

10. 9 – Summary
• Know difference between Summary & Conclusion
• Summarize/conclude your work
• Don’t repeat abstract
• Tell why your findings are useful
• Recognize research limitations
• List possible future work
• Limitations could lead to future work
• No more than 5% of paper space

11. 10 – Acknowledgement & References
• Strictly follow given format
• Indicate funding source
• Give credit to essential people who contributed to
idea or solution
• Don’t self acknowledge
• Use proper referring style
• Use tools to generate/convert citations
• Double check final output list of references

12. Do Repeat
• Spell & Grammar check
• Use special tools
• Choose words carefully
• Plagiarism Check
• Proof read
• Self review next day!
• Friend/colleague who is willing to give
“hard” feedback
• Supervisor
• For Camera Ready paper
• Address all reviewer comments

13. Reviewer's Dilemma
• Does Title make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Does Abstract make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else –
Find more faults
• Is according to Template? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Does Introduction make sense? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Is Contribution Clearly sated? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Key Related Work discussed? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Does Solution matter given Related Work? Yes – Read carefully, Else – Find more
faults
• Propose Solution is understandable? Yes – Read carefully, Else –
Find more faults
“Deadline was yesterday, I don’t have
time, so let me find 2-3 faults that are
good enough for me to write a review
while rejecting paper”

14. RESOURCES
• 10 Tips to Write a Paper (Jim Kurose)
• https://paperpicker.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/10-tips-to-write-a-paper-from-jim-
kurose/
• How to Write an Abstract (Philip Koopman)
• https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~koopman/essays/abstract.html