Guidelines For Research Papers

This page is to help you write research papers in computer science classes. Please read it carefully. If you have any questions, ask your instructor. Pay particular attention to the section on

Topics covered on this page

Content and Organization
References and Citations
How to Show References

Content and Organization

Regardless of the topic you choose, your paper or presentation must focus on those issues pertinent to the class for which the paper is written. Part of your paper-writing task is to determine what is relevant to be included and what is not. If you do not know what the issues are, look at the title of the course, then look at the topics mentioned in the syllabus, and then look at your class notes and textbook.

• Every paper or document must have a structure that is appropriate to its purpose; e.g., a term paper might have sections called Introduction, Description, Analysis, Opinion, Conclusion.
• Ideas that you have taken from other sources must be clearly attributed. Attributed means that the ideas’ originator(s) must be explicitly identified, as well as the document(s), article(s), book(s), web page(s), interview(s), etc. from which the ideas were taken. This outside source is referred to as a source or reference. Failure to cite outside sources (i.e., identify originator and source) is referred to as plagiarism, and may be dealt with as a serious academic offense, leading to possible disciplinary action by the University.
• If you do not know how to properly cite your references within the text of your paper (this is called a citation), then learn how.
• If you do not think you need to take plagiarism seriously, think again.
• Explain important terms as you introduce them. Do not assume your reader knows what they mean. This is particularly true of acronyms or abbreviations, which must be completely written out the first time the abbreviation is used.
• Use examples where they will add to the clarity of your explanations. If you take examples from references, cite them! If you take figures from references, cite them by page or figure number.
• A paper should begin by saying what it is. If it is a review of another paper, the word review should appear somewhere in the opening paragraph. If it is a survey of a topic, the scope of your paper should be clearly indicated at the start of your paper.
• Clearly indicate which are your ideas and which are others; e.g., ``author X says'', ``this section summarizes paper Y'', etc. Of course, you must cite anyone else’s work besides your own! If you don't know how to do this, then learn it. See below for an example.
• Each page of your paper should be numbered, if possible.
• Proofread your paper before submitting it. Check your punctuation, spelling, formatting consistency, etc. Typographical errors and misspelled words detract from your paper and make it appear that you are doing a sloppy job.
• Read paper aloud. If any part sounds stuffy or unintelligible, then rewrite it.
• Don't write down anything that you don't understand! Chances are that if you don't understand it, neither will your reader.

References and Citations

A reference or source is some source material external to your paper. It can be a book, journal article, web page, email from someone else, conference paper, technical report, user's manual, etc. When you use material from someone else, you must acknowledge their authorship. Every place you use some of their material (see below for details) you must place a citation in the text. In general, a reference may be cited many times, but is listed just once, usually at or near the end of the paper in a section entitled either Bibliography or References.

Each reference should be numbered only once. Every citation to that reference should be shown by either a number (e.g., [3]) or by the first author's name and the year (e.g., [Delugach91]). If more than one reference would have the same identifier (e.g., two papers published in the same year), use Delugach91a, Delugach91b, etc. Do not use bottom-of-page footnotes for citations. Bottom-of-page numbered footnotes may be used to indicate parenthetical material -- useful information that you want to include but would interrupt the flow of important ideas.

Information in the reference must include enough information for anyone to find the original source. All references should include an author (if there is one), a title, the journal or conference proceedings title, a publisher and city (for books and reports), page numbers, and a date. If you have a xeroxed or downloaded article and do not know where it came from, either find out its exact origin (including authorship), or else do not use it and do not cite it. "I found it on the Internet" is about as legitimate as "I found it on someone's desk" or "I found it in the trash bin". Do you believe everything you read?

In general, you do not need to indicate a page number where a quote appears unless you are citing an exact quotation. In that case, the citation should include a page number; e.g., [5, p.345] or [Delugach91b, p.345]. Short phrases from a paper may be copied verbatim, without quotation marks, as long as the reference is cited with the quotation. List all references, whether directly cited or not.

How to Show References

This section describes in more detail the proper use of referenced material. The examples are based on the following paragraph which appears on page 856 of volume 19, issue number 9 of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Sept. 1993 in an article by David Parnas:

Professional engineers can often be distinguished fronm other designers by the engineers' ability to use mathematical methods to described and analyze their products. Although mathematics is not commonly used by today's programmers, many researchers are developing mathematical methods that are intended for use in software development. We hope that these methods will do for software engineering what differential and integral calculus did for other areas of engineering. The shared basis for all these proposals is mathematical logic. In the future, a solid understanding of logic will be essential for anyone who hopes to be recognized as a software engineer.

How to use and cite a reference

If you quote more than one or two sentences verbatim from your reference, you should set the quotation apart from your regular text, enclose it in quotes, and mark it with a citation. Note this example. The reference to [Parnas1993] must appear at or near the end of the paper with the complete reference information.

As one researcher says about the role of logic in software engineering:

"Professional engineers can often be distinguished from other designers by the engineers' ability to use mathematical methods to described and analyze their products. Although mathematics is not commonly used by today's programmers, many researchers are developing mathematical methods that are intended for use in software development. We hope that these methods will do for software engineering what differential and integral calculus did for other areas of engineering. The shared basis for all these proposals is mathematical logic. In the future, a solid understanding of logic will be essential for anyone who hopes to be recognized as a software engineer." [Parnas1993]

If you quote a sentence or two verbatim from a paper, then the quotation may appear within a regular paragraph. Enclose the quotation in quotation marks, and show a citation. Again, the reference to [Parnas1993] must appear at or near the end of the paper with the complete reference information.

As one researcher says about the role of logic in software engineering: "In the future, a solid understanding of logic will be essential for anyone who hopes to be recognized as a software engineer." [Parnas1993] He is referring here to first-order predicate calculus.

If you take ideas from a paper while changing the wording, you still must give credit to the author. Rewriting slightly does not make it yours. In this case, do not use quotation marks (since the words do not come directly and verbatim from the paper), but do include a citation to the paper.

Engineers use mathematical methods to describe their products. Similar mathematical methods are being developed for software development. These methods should help put software engineering on an equal footing with the other engineering disciplines. Logic is an important part of these new methods. [Parnas1993]

Your bibliography section should contain entries like this. The details of the format vary between academic disciplines and many journals and editors have their own style to follow. The important thing is to make sure that ALL the information is included. There should be enough information for the reader to be able to locate the reference and look at it for themselves. For a class paper, use you your instructor's style, or else follow the style of a paper in some IEEE publication.

[Parnas1993] Parnas, D.L., "Predicate Logic for Software Engineering,"IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng., 1993. 19(9): p. 856-862.

When in doubt about how properly use outside sources, consult a paper writing reference or take a look at how your own sources cite their outside sources.

Last modified Sunday, January 15, 2012