Yasir Jan

College of EME, NUST

Conference papers
 An original paper presented at a formal gathering of peers,
usually at the invitation of the group or organization
sponsoring the conference, which may be subsequently
published in its proceedings.

 exchange of information between researchers.

 Announcement like “Call for Papers” or “Call for Abstracts”

Call for Paper Sites
 General CFP Sites examples
 Conference Alerts
 Eventseer
 OpenResearch.org
 Papers Invited
 WikiCFP
 Specialized CFP Sites examples
 ACM: Computer
 IEEE: Engineering
 H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences
 LingList: Linguistics
 UPenn-English: English Language
 AS@ICU: Distributed systems and pervasive computing
Conference basics
Related issues
NSS / MIC 2009  
2009 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium and Medical
Imaging Conference
website http://www.nss-mic.org/2009
e-mail: nss-mic2009@mit.edu
location: Orlando, Florida, USA
date:25  October  2009  until  31  October  2009  
deadline:11  May  2009  for  abstract
Issues of papers
Paper Title
The Abstract
The Introduction
Related Work
The Body
Performance
Experiments
The Conclusions
Future Work
The Acknowledgements
Citations
Appendices
Sections of paper
 Experimental process
 Section of Paper

What did I do in a nutshell?  Abstract

 What is the problem? Introduction

 How did I solve the problem?  Materials and Methods

 What did I find out?  Results

 What does it mean?  Discussion

 Who helped me out?  Acknowledgments (optional)

 Whose work did I refer to?  Literature Cited

 Extra Information Appendices (optional)

 Title
A general or descriptive heading for a section of a written work
Title
Research Paper Titles are What Your Readers
See at First Glance
A research paper does not only need to have good
results but should also be attractive to the readers.

Use catchy but formal words in the title. Avoid

slang or colloquial words.

You no longer need to put a period at the end of

the title.
Title
Article title
Authors name
Authors school affiliation

[Specific] "Second-order Beliefs and the Use of Self-

Presentational Explanations for Behavior."
[General] "Cognitive Abilities and Social Understanding“

Give example of a specific and a general title related to

computer architecture
Paper Title
Titles can be long and descriptive:
 Linear-Time External Multipass Sorting with
Approximation Guarantees
short and sweet:
Approximate External Sort
The paper (or at least the algorithm) could have a
cute name that sticks in people's minds:
Floosh: A Linear-Time Algorithm for Approximate
External Sort
Example of Title
Example of Title
Business titles examples
 Informational
 "Acquisition is recommended“
 "Project delay due to spec change”
 "Adjust the volume control“
Tease   
 "Should we do the acquisition?"
 "Project status"
 "How to fix it“
Cute
 "Buying spree!"
 "Spec change strikes again“
 "Are we loud enough?"
Titles
Bad Title:
 Web Cleaners and web cleaning key to Process Control
Improvements - Teknek Coverting - Web cleaning
equipment for the coating, laminating, printing, and
converting industries.
This is a company's web site. The title field should
contain only the company's name.
The title contains descriptive information. Titles
should not contain descriptive information about the
site (or in this case, the company). Descriptive
information goes in the description field.
Abstract
Abstract
First, write your paper. While the abstract will
be at the beginning of your paper, it should be
the last section that you write. Once you have
completed the final draft, use it as a guide for
writing your abstract.

Function: An abstract summarizes, in one

paragraph (usually), the major aspects of the
entire paper in sequence
Abstract (Sequence)
 the question(s) you investigated (or purpose), (from Introduction)
 state the purpose very clearly in the first or second sentence.
 the experimental design and methods used, (from Methods)
 clearly express the basic design of the study.
 Name or briefly describe the basic methodology used without going into
excessive detail-be sure to indicate the key techniques used.
 the major findings including key quantitative results, or trends
(from Results)
 report those results which answer the questions you were asking
 identify trends, relative change or differences, etc.
 a brief summary of your interpretations and conclusions. (from
Discussion)
 clearly state the implications of the answers your results gave you.
ABSTRACTS AND
INTRODUCTIONS
COMPARED
 At first glance, introduction and the abstract are very similar
because they both present
 the research problem
 Objectives
 briefly reviewing methodology
 main findings and main conclusions.  
 Introduction
 Should be short, but does not have a word limit; Main purpose
is to introduce the research by presenting its context or
background. Introductions usually go from general to specific,
introducing the research problem and how it will be
investigated
 Abstract
 Has a maximum word limit; Is a summary of the whole
research; Main purpose is to summarize the research
(particularly the objective and the main finding/conclusion),
NOT to introduce the research area.
Example abstract
 Abstract
The long-term performance of various systems was determined and
the economic aspects of solar hot water production were
investigated in this work. The effect of the collector inclination angle,
collector area and storage volume was examined for all systems,
and various climatic conditions and their payback period was
calculated. It was found that the collector inclination angle does not
have a significant effect on system performance. Large collector
areas have a diminishing effect on the system’s overall efficiency.
The increase in storage volume has a detrimental effect for small
daily load volumes, but a beneficial one when there is a large daily
consumption. Solar energy was found to be truly competitive when
the conventional fuel being substituted is electricity, and it should
not replace diesel oil on pure economic grounds. Large daily load
volumes and large collector areas are in general associated with
shorter payback periods. Overall, the systems are oversized and are
economically suitable for large daily hot water load volumes.
Example abstract
(explanation)
 "The long-term performance of various systems was determined
and the economic aspects of solar hot water production were
investigated in this work."
 Here the authors present the objectives of their research (and by
implication their research problem, i.e. the long-term performance
and the economic aspects are unknown and need to be found).

 "The effect of the collector inclination angle, collector area and

storage volume was examined for all systems, and various climatic
conditions and their payback period was calculated."
 Here we are told what was studied and calculated, i.e. we are
given a very brief summary of the methodology. 
Example abstract
(explanation)
 "It was found that the collector inclination angle does not have a
significant effect on system performance. Large collector areas have a
diminishing effect on the system’s overall efficiency. The increase in
storage volume has a detrimental effect for small daily load volumes,
but a beneficial one when there is a large daily consumption."
 This part of the abstract presents the main finding (i.e. results) the
authors obtained. 

 "Solar energy was found to be truly competitive when the conventional

fuel being substituted is electricity, and it should not replace diesel oil
on pure economic grounds. Large daily load volumes and large
collector areas are in general associated with shorter payback periods.
Overall, the systems are oversized and are economically suitable for
large daily hot water load volumes."
 Finally, the main conclusions and recommendations from the research
are given. 
Materials and Methods
When writing a lab report, it is often a good idea to
begin by writing the Materials and Methods section.
Very straightforward
Following this section, it is generally recommended to
write the Results section, followed by the Discussion,
and finally the Introduction. Although this strategy is
only a recommendation, and although it may seem
illogical at first, many have found this approach very
effective for writing scientific papers.
Example (M & M)
A potato and a knife were obtained for this
experiment. Also, distilled water, a blender,
cheese cloth, a clean container with a cover,
and eight spectrophotometer tubes were used.
A Spectronic 20 spectrophotometer was used
for this experiment, as were buffers of pHs 4, 6,
7, and 8. Catechol substrate, Parafilm
coverings, KimWipes, a black pen, and pipettes
were also obtained for this experiment. Finally,
a pencil and pad were obtained for recording
results.
Non verbal factors
Don’t worry about non verbal factors because,
each conference or journal has their standard
format
Writing style
Writing style
Passive voice has no place in technical writing. It
obscures who the actor was, what caused it, and when it
happened. Use active voice and simple, clear, direct
phrasing.
Do not use words like “obviously” or “clearly”, as in
“Obviously, this Taylor series sums to pi.” If the point is
really obvious, then you are just wasting words by
pointing it out. And if the point is not obvious (readers
won't be intimately familiar with the subject matter the
way the author is), then you are offending readers by
insulting their intelligence, and demonstrating your own
inability to communicate the intuition.
Writing style
Prefer singular to plural number. In
“sequences induce graphs”, it is not clear
whether the two collections are in one-to-one
correspondence, or the set of sequences
collectively induces a set of graphs; “each
sequence induces a graph” avoids this
confusion. Likewise, in “graphs might contain
paths”, it is unclear whether a given graph
might contain multiple paths, or might contain
at most one path.
Figure
Figures
Figures
A figure should stand on its own, containing
all the information that is necessary to
understand it.
Good captions contain multiple sentences; the
caption provides context and explanation. For
examples, see magazines such as Scientific
American and American Scientist. Never write
a caption like “The Foobar technique”; the
caption should also say how the Foobar
technique works or what it is good for.
Figures
I am not fond of having many different types
of figures in a paper — some labeled “figure”,
others labeled “table” or “graph” or “picture”.
This makes it very hard to find “table 3”,
which might appear after “figure 7” but before
“freehand drawing 1”. It's best to simply call
them all figures and number them
sequentially; the body of each figure can be a
table, a graph, a drawing, or whatever.
Naming
Naming
Don't confuse the reader by substituting “program”,
“library”, “component”, “system”, and “artifact”, nor
by conflating “technique”, “idea”, and “method”.
Choose the
Choose good names not only for the concepts that you
present in your paper, but for the document source file.
Don't name the file after the conference to which you
are submitting (the paper might be rejected) or the
year. Even if the paper is accepted, such a name won't
tell you what the paper is about when when you look
over your source files in later years. Instead, give the
paper a name that reflects its content. best word for
the concept, and stick with it.
Summary of paper
Introduction
Methods
Figures and Tables
Conclusion