Transcript Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People Marie desJardins ([email protected]) CMSC 691B April 24, 2006 Thanks to Rob Holte for permission to use some slides.

Presenting Your Research:
Papers, Presentations, and People
Marie desJardins
([email protected])
CMSC 691B
April 24, 2006
Thanks to Rob Holte for
permission to use some slides
Research Isn’t Just Research
 Who cares what you do, if you never tell them?
 You’ll need to present your ideas in various forms and
venues:
PEOPLE: Networking with colleagues at your institution and
elsewhere
 PAPERS: Writing and submitting papers to workshops,
conferences, and journals
PRESENTATIONS: Giving talks at workshops, conferences,
and other institutions
 (You should also put together a website that highlights
your interests and research activities)
 …oh, and these things also provide useful experience for
job interviews, not to mention valuable job skills…
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Paper Writing: Strategies
 First, decide where you plan to submit the paper
 You may not finish in time, but having a deadline is always helpful
 Two to four months away is a good planning horizon
 Next, decide what you will say
 What are the key ideas? Have you developed them yet?
 What are the key results? Have you designed and run the
experiments yet? Have you analyzed the data?
 What is the key related work? Have you read the relevant
background material? Can you give a good summary of it?
 Now get started on the work you need to do to fill in the
missing holes!
 Write early and often: You can (and should) write in parallel with
finishing the work!
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Paper Writing: Design
 Abstract –summarizes the research contributions, not
the paper (i.e., it shouldn’t be an outline of the paper)
 Introduction/motivation – what you’ve done and
why the reader should care, plus an outline of the paper
 Technical sections – one or more sections summarizing
the research ideas you’ve developed
 Experiments/results/analysis – one or more sections presenting
experimental results and/or supporting proofs
 Future work – summary of where you’re headed next and open
questions still to be answered
 Related work – sometimes comes after introduction, sometimes before
conclusions (depends to some extent on whether you’re building on
previous research, or dismissing it as irrelevant)
 Conclusions – reminder of what you’ve said and why it’s important
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Paper Writing: Tactics
 Top-down design (outline) is very helpful
 Bulleted lists can help you get past writer’s block
 Unless you’re a really talented/experienced writer, you should use
these tools before you start writing prose
 Neatness counts! Check spelling, grammar, consistency of
fonts and notation before showing it to anyone for review
 If they’re concentrating on your typos, they
might miss what’s interesting about the content.
(More about the reviewer’s perspective later...)
 Leave time for reviews!
 Fellow students, collaborators, advisors, …
 A paper is only done when it’s submitted... and usually not even
then.
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Knowing Your Audience:
A Reviewer’s Perspective
 First, I read the title: is it in my area? (self-selection)
 Next, I read the abstract: is it interesting?
(self-selection)
 Next, I skim the introduction and form
my opinion about the paper
 Next, I read the rest of the paper
looking for evidence to support my view
  By the time I get to Section 2, I already have a
very strong opinion about whether to accept or
reject.
 Your job is to give me the evidence I need in the title
and abstract to select your paper for review, and in
the introduction to result in the right opinion!
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Good Reviews Are...
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Polite
Fair
Concise
Clear
Constructive
Specific
Well-documented
Represent the scientific community
 ... but you get what you get!
 Bad, unfair review that missed the point?
Fix your paper anyway!
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Rejected!!  Now What?
 Fix the paper!
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Read the reviews, rail and complain, berate the reviewer
Calm down
Read them again with an open mind
Do more experiments, revise the paper, …
Go back to the reviews again – have you addressed all the points?
Have people read the revision critically
Do more experiments, revise the paper, …
Repeat until the next deadline 
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Some Useful Resources
 Some useful resources:
 Writing:
Lynn DuPre, Bugs in Writing
Strunk & White, Elements of Style
 Giving talks:
Mark Hill, “Oral presentation advice”
Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics”
Simon L. Peyton Jones et al., “How to give a good research talk”
Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia”
 These slides:
http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~mariedj/talks/presenting-research-dc-jul05.ppt
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