Presenting Your Research: Papers, Presentations, and People

1. Presenting Your Research:Papers, Presentations, and People Marie desJardins (mariedj@cs.umbc.edu) CMSC 601 April 18, 2012 Thanks to Rob Holte for permission to use some slides

2. Research Isn’t Just Research • Who cares what you do, if you never tell them? • You’ll need to present your ideas in various forms and venues: • PEOPLE: Networking with colleagues at your institution and elsewhere • PAPERS: Writing and submitting papers to workshops, conferences, and journals • PRESENTATIONS: Giving talks at workshops, conferences, and other institutions • (You should also put together a website that highlights your interests and research activities) • …oh, and these things also provide useful experience for job interviews, not to mention valuable job skills…

3. People

4. Networking • Meet people! It helps to have an objective: • Find out what research they’re currently working on • Tell them what you’re currently working on • Find an area of common interest • Learn what their visions/future directions are • Suggest a new direction for research or topic for a class • What’s in this interaction for you? • What’s in it for them? • If you know two friends, and they know two friends, and they know two friends… Pretty soon you know everybody!

5. Be Prepared • You need to be prepared to summarize your research • For a thesis topic, you should have a 1-minute, 5-minute, and 15-minute presentation already thought through • The same goes for other projects you’ve been working on • Be able to distinguish between your original contributions, your advisor’s contributions, and ideas drawn from previous research • Practice with other students!

6. Publishing

7. Writing and Submitting Papers • For a master’s thesis, you should aim to have at least one “good” conference paper by the time you graduate • For a doctoral dissertation, you should aim for a couple of good conference papers and a journal paper • Writing these papers is great practice for the thesis itself… (and you can reuse the material!) • Where to submit? • Look at publication lists of people doing research related to yours, and see where they publish • Publish at the conferences that have the most interesting papers

8. Paper Writing: Strategies • First, decide where you plan to submit the paper • You may not finish in time, but having a deadline is helpful • Two to four months away is a good planning horizon • Next, decide what you will say • What are the key ideas? Have you developed them yet? • What are the key results? Have you designed and run the experiments yet? Have you analyzed the data? • What is the key related work? Have you read the relevant background material? Can you give a good summary of it? • Now get started on the work you need to do to fill in the missing holes! • Write early and often: You can (and should)write in parallel with finishing the work!

9. Paper Writing: Design • Abstract –summarizes the research contributions, not the paper (i.e., it shouldn’t be an outline of the paper) • Introduction/motivation – what you’ve done and why the reader should care, plus an outline of the paper • Technical sections – one or more sections summarizing the research ideas you’ve developed • Experiments/results/analysis – one or more sections presenting experimental results and/or supporting proofs • Future work – summary of where you’re headed next and open questions still to be answered • Related work – sometimes comes after introduction, sometimes before conclusions (depends to some extent on whether you’re building on previous research, or dismissing it as irrelevant) • Conclusions – reminder of what you’ve said and why it’s important

10. Paper Writing: Tactics • Top-down design (outline) is very helpful • Bulleted lists can help you get past writer’s block • Unless you’re a really talented/experienced writer, you should use these tools before you start writing prose • Neatness counts! Check spelling, grammar, consistency of fonts and notation before showing it to anyone for review • If they’re concentrating on your typos, they might miss what’s interesting about the content. (More about the reviewer’s perspective later...) • Leave time for reviews! • Fellow students, collaborators, advisors, … • A paper is only done when it’s submitted... and usually not even then.

11. Authorship • Who should be an author? • Anyone who contributed significantly to the conceptual development or writing of the paper • Not necessarily people who provided feedback, implemented code, or ran experiments • What order should the authors be listed in? • If some authors contributed more of the conceptual development and/or did most/all of the writing, they should be listed first • If the contribution was equal or the authors worked as a team, the authors should be listed in alphabetical order • Sometimes the note “The authors are listed in alphabetical order” is explicitly included

12. The Review Process

13. Conference Reviewing • Program committees • Selection process • Senior vs. area chair vs. regular members • Paper assignments • Keyword-based • Self-selection • All for one and one for all • Decisions • Reaching a consensus • Final decisions • Conditional accepts (rare) • Acceptance rates (~~~20% in good conferences/journals)

14. Journal Reviewing • Executive editor  Area editor  Board members or reviewers • Longer decision cycle • Typically higher quality, longer, and deeper reviews • Decision options: • Accept as is • Accept with minor changes • Accept with major changes (subject to re-review) • Reject with encouragement to resubmit • Reject out of hand

15. Where to Publish • Workshops vs. conferences vs. journals • Length of decision cycle • Quantity vs. quality • Aim high! (or at least appropriately) • Acceptance rate vs. time to prepare/publish

16. Purpose of a Review • Evaluate the paper’s scientific merit • Check the validity of the paper’s claims and evidence • Judge the paper’s relevance and significance • Provide constructive feedback to the author

17. Typical Conference Review Form 1. How RELEVANT is this paper? 2. How SIGNIFICANT is this paper? 3. How ORIGINAL is this paper? 4. Is this paper technically SOUND? 5. How well is this paper PRESENTED? Additional comments for the author(s)

18. Knowing Your Audience:A Reviewer’s Perspective • First, I read the title: is it in my area? (self-selection) • Next, I read the abstract: is it interesting? (self-selection) • Next, I skim the introduction and form my opinion about the paper • Next, I read the rest of the paperlooking for evidence to support my view •  By the time I get to Section 2, I already have a strong opinion about whether to accept or not. • Your job is to give me the evidence I need in the title and abstract to select your paper for review, and in the introduction to result in the right opinion!

19. Good Reviews Are... • Polite • Fair • Concise • Clear • Constructive • Specific • Well documented • Represent the scientific community • ... but you get what you get! • Bad, unfair review that missed the point? Fix your paper anyway!

20. Ethical Issues • Multiple submissions • Journal versions of conference papers • Authors and author order • Listing papers in your CV

21. Rejected!!  Now What? • Fix the paper! • Read the reviews, rail and complain, berate the reviewer • Calm down • Read them again with an open mind • Do more experiments, revise the paper, … • Go back to the reviews again – have you addressed all the points? • Have people read the revision critically • Do more experiments, revise the paper, … • Repeat until the next deadline 

22. Presentations(Hey, I already told you all about that!)

23. Some Useful Resources Any Questions? • Some useful resources: • Writing: • Lynn DuPre, Bugs in Writing • Strunk & White, Elements of Style • Giving talks: • Mark Hill, “Oral presentation advice” • Patrick Winston, “Some lecturing heuristics” • Simon L. Peyton Jones et al., “How to give a good research talk” • Dave Patterson, “How to have a bad career in research/academia” • (An earlier, longer version of) these slides: • http://www.cs.umbc.edu/~mariedj/talks/presenting-research-dc-jul05.ppt