Scientific Writing

Fall 2008

Announcements | Course description | Schedule | Materials

Goals and general principles

The goal is to learn to write scientific papers in the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI) or computer science (CS). The official course description is available on the web.

The student papers must be written in English. The working language of the course is English.

Course work

• write a scientific paper in HCI or Computer Science,
• participate in reviewing papers written by other students taking the course, and
• revise your paper on the basis of the comments that you get.

The papers that are written can represent your own research, but this is not a necessary requirement. You can also write a survey of a more general topic, or a paper that summarizes several original papers focusing on a specific problem. In any case, the presentation must follow the format of a scientific publication in the field. A template for the layout of the paper will be available.

The work with the papers will proceed as follows. A schedule with deadlines will be given once the course starts.

• Description of topic: at least one page. Revised until acceptable. You will get the first feedback at this stage.

• Full draft. This version will be peer reviewed: you will get feedback from two fellow students.

• Final paper. The paper that you submit for evaluation, based on revising it as well as possible with the help of the peer reviews.

• how to look for, use, and refer to publications in the field,
• how to structure a research paper,
• how original research are evaluated when they are submitted for publication, and
• typical errors made in papers by Finnish authors.

Grading

• The quality of the final version of your paper. This is the most important criterion. The evaluation is based on:
  • quality of abstract and introduction
  • structure of the paper
  • quality of presentation (includes language and general comprehensibility)
  • use of literature
  • consistency of citations and list of references
  • effort and quality in carrying out the research for preparing the paper
• Your effort in reviewing the papers of your fellow students.
• Your effort in revising your own paper on the basis of the comments that you receive.
• General activity during the course.
• Adherence to deadlines (you lose points if you miss the deadlines).

There is no fixed formula for computing the grade. The final grade can be raised for specific reasons, such as the potential of your work to produce a real publishable paper (even if the current version would not be among the best according to the above criteria).

Policies

• The deadlines are fixed. Late submissions are accepted until a week has passed from the deadline, but being late will lower the grade. Submissions that are late by more than a week are not accepted and will result in failure to pass the course.
• You are expected to work individually. Attempts to directly copy parts of original publications or web pages into your paper will result in failure to pass the course.

Literature

Justin Zobel, Writing for Computer Science. Second Edition. Springer, 2004.