Scientific Writing for Computer Science Students

1 Scientific Writing for ComputerScience StudentsWilhelmiina H am al ainenCourse material September 20, 2006 department of Computer ScienceUniversity of JoensuuPrefaceThis material is originally prepared for IMPIT- Students in the Departmentof Computer Science , University of Joensuu, to help them when they writetheir master s thesis in English. Since all Students are foreigners, quite muchemphasis is put into English grammar, but all examples are taken from thecomputer Science context. Another emphasis is the use of LATEX, whichsuits especially well for Writing Computer Science texts containing severalequations, algorithms, tables, and figures. In addition, the literature sourcesand references can be easily managed with style advice are based on existing literature on scientific Writing ( [1, 2, 4, 3]), but once again the instructions have been applied to the currentcustoms in the Computer Science wish that the result is useful for the reader!In Joensuu, 6th Sep 2006,Wilhelmiina H am al ainenContents1 Goal 1: How to write scientific text is cs?

2 Problem .. Example .. Instructions .. Writing treet.. Properties of a good treet.. Goal 2: How to write English? .. Goal 3: How to write a master s thesis? .. Scientific Writing style .. Exact .. Clear .. Compact .. Smooth .. Objective ..92 Searching, reading, and referring Need for references .. Source types .. Collecting literature .. Reading .. References .. Referring in the text .. Reference notations .. Reference list .. References in latex .. Citations .. Your own opinions? ..2134 CONTENTS3 Use of tables, figures, examples, and similar Figures and tables .. General rules .. Vector graphics .. Captions .. Tables and figures in latex .. Expressions .. Lists .. Referring to chapters or sections .. Algorithms .. Examples and definitions .. Definition .. In latex .. Expressions for referring to a definition .. Equations .. Without equation numbers .. With equation numbers.

3 Text inside equations ..294 Grammar with style Verbs .. Number and person .. Tenses (temporal forms) .. Active or passive voice, which person? .. Other notes .. Noun syndrom .. Often needed irregular verbs .. Nouns .. Plural forms .. Countable and uncountable nouns .. Extra: differences between British and American Compound words .. Articles .. Position .. Use of articles .. Hints .. Pronouns .. Unclear references .. Pronouns which require singular verb form .. Every vs. all .. Many vs. several .. Phrases .. Relative pronouns .. Extra material: Tricks for gender-neutral language .. Adjectives .. Vague adjecives .. Comparative and superlative .. When you compare things .. Adverbs .. The position of adverbs in a sentence .. Special cases .. Extra: How to derive adverbs from adjectives? .. Comparing adverbs .. Parallel structures .. Basic rules .. Parallel items combined by conjunctions and, or, but.

4 Lists .. Parallel items combined by conjunction pairs .. The comparative the comparative .. Parallel sentences .. Prepositions .. Expressing location .. Expressing time .. Expressing the target or the receiver: to or for? .. Special phrases .. Sentences .. Terminology .. Sentence types .. Sentence length? .. Word order .. Combining clauses .. Combining clauses by sub-ordinating conjunctions .. Relative clauses .. Indirect questions .. Paragraphs .. Combining sentences in a paragraph .. Dividing a section into paragraphs .. Introductory paragraphs .. Punctuation .. Full-stop .. Comma .. Colon .. Dash .. Semicolon .. Quotation marks .. Parantheses .. Genitive: sorof? .. Special cases where sgenitive is used for unanimatethings .. Whenofstructure is necessary .. Possessive form of pronouns .. Abbreviations ..835 Writing master s Parts of the master s thesis .. Abstract .. Introduction .. Main chapters.

5 Conclusions .. References .. Appendices .. Examples of master s theses .. Master s thesis process .. Reading literature .. Planning .. Difficulty to get started .. Revising .. Technical notes ..916 LATEX instructions and Why latex? .. Latex commands .. Basic latex .. Instructions .. Exercises .. Writing equations and special symbols by Latex .. Writing references .. Including figures into a latex document .. Drawing figures .. Advices .. Tasks .. Spell checking .. Writing references by bibtex .. Idea .. Bibtex entries .. Searching bibtex entries .. Exercise .. Writing algorithms in latex .. Instructions .. Exercises .. Special latex notes .. No numbers to sections or sections .. Other symbols or item names to lists .. Footnotes .. Font size .. Multi-column tables .. Sideway tables .. Special letters .. Removing extra spaces .. Adding extra spaces ..1147 Appendices115 Appendix A: A simple latex template.

6 115 Appendix B: A latex template for articles ..118 Appendix C: A check list for the master s thesis ..123 References123 Chapter 1 IntroductionThree learning to write scientific texts in Computer Science ? to write in English? to write a master thesis? Goal 1: How to write scientific text is cs? general style how to use references equations, pictures, tables, algorithms useful tools (latex, bibtex, picture editors)12 CHAPTER 1. ProblemWritingwis a mapping from a set of ideasIto a set of scientifictextsS,w:I : Given a set of ideasi I, producef(i) Instructions1. Organize your ideas in a hierarchical manner, as a tree of ideast( mini-mal spanning tree of idea graph)2. Write the treetas text such GOAL 1: HOW TO WRITE SCIENTIFIC TEXT IS CS?3 The root node oftcorresponds to your topic (title) Its children correspond to chapters Their children and grand-children correspond to sections and subsec-tions Leaf nodes correspond to paragraphs (actual text) Writing treetEach noden tcontains three fields: title(n): the main title or the name of the chapter, section or subsec-tion.

7 In leaf nodes (paragraphs)NULL children(n):n s children (chapters, sections or subsections). In leafnodeNULL. content(n): description of the idea inn. In non-leaf nodes very brief,in leaf nodes following algorithm descibes how to walk throughtin preorder and writeit as a sequences S(scientific text) Properties of a good treet tis balanced: all paths from the root to a leaf are approximately ofequal length, usually 4 or at most 5. Each node inthas a reasonable number of childrenk:k 2 andtypicallyk 7 (in maximumk= 10) For all leaf nodesn, the sizes ofcontent(n) are balanced: each para-graph contains at least two sentences, but is not too long ( 7 or 10 sentences) For all non-leaf nodesm, the sizes ofcontent(m) are balanced. Theseintroductory paragraphs can be very brief. They just give an overviewwhat will be covered in that chapter or section. Exceptionally you canuse more than one paragraph. Notice that it is possible to skip themtotally, but be systematic!

8 4 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTIONAlg. 1 WriteTree(t)Input:tree of ideastOutput:scientific texts1begin2 Writetitle(n)3if(nis not leaf node)4beginWriting an introductory paragraph:5 Writecontent(n)6forallu=child(n)7 Writetitle(u)8forallu=child(n)9 WriteTree(u)10end11elseWriting a main paragrap:12 Writecontent(n)13end For all leaf nodesniin preorder,content(ni) can refer only to previouslywritten contentscontent(n1), .., content(ni 1). you cannot definedeterministic automaton as an opposite of non-deterministic automa-ton, if you haven t given the definition of non-deterministic automaton,yet. Exception: you can briefly advertise what will be described in thefuture. This problem is solved in Chapter X . Goal 2: How to write English?Every week we will spend some time with English grammar and will practice at least the following topics: dividing the text into paragraphs, sentences and clauses possessive case (expressing the owner) verb tense and GOAL 3: HOW TO WRITE A MASTER S THESIS?

9 5 word order in sentences use of articles punctuation useful words and expressionsOther important topics??Idea: personally selected exercises! Goal 3: How to write a master s thesis? Writing a master s thesis is not just Writing , but you have to read a lot ofmaterial, make experiments, and analyze the process has the same phases as a software project or any problem the problem: Discuss with your supervisor and define whatis the problem. Try to understand it in a larger context: other relatedproblems and subproblems. Read some introductory article about thetopic or select the main books written about your topic. You canalready generate several ideas how to solve it, but don t fix anything, : Specify your topic carefully. Don t take too large topic!Invent a preliminary title for your thesis and define the content in acoarse level (main chapters). Ask your supervisor s approval! Decidewith your supervisor what material you should read or what experi-ments to : Define the content more carefully: all sections and a brief de-scription what you will write in each of them.

10 Define the main conceptsyou will need and fix the notations. Then you can write the chaptersin any order you want. Make also a work plan: what you will do : You can write the thesis after you have read allmaterial or made all experiments. However, you can begin to writesome parts already when you are working. Often you have to changeyour design plan, but it is just life! Ask feedback from your supervisor,when your work 1. work: Check language and spelling, missing or incomplete ref-erences. Check that the structure is coherent. Write an : In practice it is easier to write other chapters, if you have an intro-duction, which defines the problem. However, often you have to write theintroduction again in the end, when everything else is ready. Conclusions arealso written in the Scientific Writing styleMain goal: exact, clear, and compact. Compact is usally clear! Other desirable properties: smooth and Exact Word choice: make certain that every word means exactly what youwant to express.