2023S Technical Writing (Plus a bit of Research Methodology)

Course Description:

This course has three goals. (1) Develop & practice effective technical writing skills (English) for publishing high-quality academic research papers in Computer Science (or CS-related fields), so that your papers have a high chance of gaining acceptance to top CS conferences (e.g., ACM SIGs). (2) Learn how to evaluate/critique strength and weakness of research papers. (3) Revise/rewrite/write your own research papers (and/or master/PhD theses).  

This course covers two essential aspects of strong writing: paper structure (論文結構) and research content (研究內容). On paper structure, this course explains how to breakdown a paper's structure, and how to extract paper structure (e.g., from an award-winning paper) that can be replicated in writing your own papers. On research content, this course explains what are basic research steps/components necessary to provide content in writing a research paper, and/or how to extract content from your existing research work to filling into different sections/paragraphs outlined by your paper structure.  You will learn that paper/thesis writing (and research method) is mechanical. By following steps, anyone can learn to be competent in writing quality research papers. 

This course is NOT about teaching general English writing (e.g., vocabulary, spelling, grammar, etc.) Students are expected to have basic competence in English writing and reading. 

This course has two parts: regular lectures and (one-on-one) writing studio. For studio sessions, you are expected to bring your own research projects/ideas to write (i.e., thesis, conference, journal, etc.). This course is best suited for: (1) You want to revise and re-submit a rejected paper. You have completed most of research work, from which you have completed almost all content to writing in a paper. (2) You want to write a new paper. You have decided on a research problem with your advisor, and have done enough research (e.g., with a partial build and evaluation) from which you can extract most (e.g., over 50%) content to writing a paper.  (3) You want to write a new research proposal/plan. You have identified a research problem with your advisor, you may have some proof-of-concept feasibility study, and you want to work backward, i.e., writing a research plan first and see whether this idea could lead to a good enough paper?

Prerequisite:

• Sufficient English skill (readings are in English)

• Willing to work in groups

Teaching Staff:

• Instructor: 朱浩華 (Hao), email: haochu@ntu.edu.tw

Lecture Schedule:

2-21-2023

Lecture: Introduction

3-7-2023

Lecture: What is typical (ACM) paper review process? 

3-14-2023

Lecture: How to structure a research paper?

3-21-2023

Lecture: How to extract structure from (an award-winning) research paper?

3-28-2023

Lecture: How to develop paragraphs?

4-11-2023

Lecture: How to write paper reviews?

4-25-2023

Lecture: How to evaluate a paper's novelty and validity? 

5-09-2023

Lecture: How to choose evaluation/experimental methods?

Assignments:

• Assignment #1: Select your best/most favorite paper (also shares similar type of research with your work) for dissection.

• Assignment #2: Dissect and extract your best paper's structure. 

• Assignment #3: Write a review for your best paper. 

• Assignment #4: Create your paper's outline by replicating the best paper's structure. 

• Assignment #5: Write your paper by filling in content from your paper outline.