On Writing a Technical Paper
There is a joke that a technical paper published in a professional journal is read on the average by five persons – the author, the editor, and the three reviewers of the paper. This is not far from the truth because most technical papers are difficult to understand and follow even for the professionals. This does not even take into account the other approximately three times of the amount rejected due to poor writing and incomprehensibility.
Thus, if the purpose of your writing a paper is to have it accepted AND to have your ideas widely known, then special care must be taken to write the paper. It is worth remembering that three entirely separate, different , and equally important tasks are:
1. having a good idea and work out the required analysis, experimentation, and verifications.
2. devising a powerpoint presentation that can impress your audience and "sell" your ideas.
3. write a technical paper of archival quality that will be read and referenced by others; and in some rare instances, stand the test of time.
Most young or beginning authors consider #1 to be 90% of a technical person's effort. Tasks #2 and #3 are considered as unpleasant and minor exercises unworthy of much attention. When most authors undertake tasks #2 and #3, they tend to follow the recipe of recording their stream of conscious thought – a totally self-centered experience. However, if tasks #2 and 3 are to be accomplished successfully, the effort must be READER- or AUDIENCE-CEDNTERED. We have discussed the "how-to" for #2 elsewhere [see Introduction To The World Of Science For Young Scholars, Y.C. Ho, et al Tsinghua University Press 2004]. This short article is devoted to task #3.
There are generally three types of readers for your paper. First type is the reader who only wish to find out if the paper contains material of interest to him. A well written abstract is what you need here. Generally, as far as transmitting contents are concerned, short paragraphs is much more difficult than long texts (Recall here the famous quote attributed to Samuel Johnson who apologizes for writing a long letter because he does not have the time to write a short one.) Thus do not dismiss this as a simple task. Secondly, there are readers who is only interested in the basic idea and/or history of the paper but not necessarily the detail "nuts and bolts" of the paper. S/he is willing to spend sometime reading the introductory section or two to accomplish his/her goal. You do this using everyday not technical language so that the maximal number of readers can follow your text. Remember an average reader can retain the definition and meaning of only four or five mathematical symbols at anytime . Thus use mathematics only when absolute necessary in introductory sections and these must be repeatedly reinforced later on. Appeal to intuition and common sense to convey the big picture here and avoid details like the plague. The second type of reader may stop reading after the introductory sections either because s/he got what they wanted or decided that s/he has no more interest to read further. Ineither case, s/he will thank you for not waste his/her time which is often the most precious resources a scholar possesses. Even if you are the third type of reader who is interested in all the gory details, a well written introductory sections will have properly prepared you to follow the details. A map reading metaphor is appropriate here. If you have a clear picture of the general geography of an area in terms of major roadway and sign posts, then it is much more difficult to get lost and easier to follow a detail map. Several of the advices and techniques discussed in carrying out task #2 in the above reference are also conceptually applicable for writing the introductory sections. Finally. when you write for the third type of detail oriented reader, you still need to differentiate important details from those that are side issues or branches of thought. Thus, you often see a theorem or result precisely stated and its significance carefully explained. But the proof of the theorem or the detail derivation is relegated to an appendix. The principle to observe here is that you want the reader to follow the details in one smooth reading without constantly pausing to think, backtracking, remembering a particular definition several pages earlier, (or worse, to have to read another paper referenced) and any act that interrupts the thought you want him to follow as you develop your text.
To get a paper accepted, you must win the approval of the reviewers of your paper. They are not willing readers of your paper. They are forced to be reader type number three. Thus, the more you make their job easier, the better impression you will make. You may also want to go a step beyond a reader-centered writing by becoming reviewer-centered. Again this is discussed elsewhere in the above reference. The main point is that "walk in other people's shoes".
Other specific comments:
o Don't over inflate your claims or over promise what is to come in your introductions. It is bad form and often you live to regret it.
o Give proper credit and reference to others. Don't be stingy.
o Don't turn one paper into three slightly different versions of the same idea. You can give a good presentation talk several times. But publishing essentially the same paper several times is bad form.
o Do not submit a paper to several journals at the same time in the hope of increasing the chance of acceptance. This is unethical and waste valuable reviewers' time which are always in short supply. .Editors will hate you for it. Unfortunately, at least in areas I am familiar with, Chinese authors have already acquired a bad international reputation for doing this.
The discipline of mathematics has her own set of traditions and protocol for writing mathematical papers. This note applies only to scientific and engineering type of technical papers.
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