How to Communicate

Effectively The Results of

a Research
ESPE 2022

1
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Outline
1. Tips on how to write a research paper
2. Paper Structure
3. Tools to support publications

2
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Research Model
•What to
Problem do?

•The
Idea solution

State of •What
research
the Art there is?

Do
Research X
•Findings

• Show
Report findings

3
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Tips - Roles in a research team
n Manager: provides basic facilities, funding etc.
n Idea generator: provides starting points
n Idea refiner: provides idea elaboration skills
n Technology expert: provides technical knowledge
n Architect: provides general system/tool principles
n Implementor: provides design & programming
skills
n Writer: provides paper writing skills
n Reviewer: provides critical viewpoints (internally)
n Presenter: provides convincing demos &
presentations

4
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips – Why Brother?
n Fallacy
“We write papers
and give talks
mainly to
impress others,
gain
recognition,
and get
promoted”
5
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Papers communicate
ideas
n Your goal: to infect the mind of your reader
with your idea, like a virus
n Papers are far more durable than
programs (think in Mozart’s music)
n The greatest ideas are (literally) valueless
if you keep them to yourself

6
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Writing papers: Model 1

7
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Writing papers: Model 2

8
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Writing papers: Benefits of Model 2

n Forces us to be clear, focused

n Crystallizes what we don’t understand
n Opens the way to dialogue with others:
reality check, critique, and collaboration

9
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Do not be intimidated
n Fallacy:
“You need to have a fantastic idea before you
can write a paper or give a talk.
n Ideas demonstrate their interest and strength
after publication
n ==> Write a paper
¨ Writing the paper is the way how you develop the
idea in the first place
¨ It usually is more interesting and challenging that
it seen at first

10
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Tips - The purpose of your paper

n The purpose of your paper is…

n “To convey your idea
n ... from your head
n to your reader’s head
n Everything serves this single
goal

11
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - The purpose of your paper
n The purpose of your paper is not... “To
describe the ACME system”
n Your readers do not have an ACME
system
n They are primarily interested in reusable
knowledge, not executable artefacts

12
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips – Structure to transmit the idea

• Here is a problem
• It’s an interesting problem Reviewer: I wish I knew how to solve that
• It’s an unsolved problem

• Here is my idea

• My idea works (details, data)

• Here’s how my idea
compares to other people’s Reviewer: I see how that works, ingenious
approaches

13
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips- APA (American Psychological
Association) editorial style: Research Report
Should include:
n A concise description of:
n Your logic
¨ Relevant previous research
¨ Your procedures and results
¨ Your interpretation of the findings

n Everything needed to evaluate your thinking and

your study

14
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Tips - Contribution of a paper
n Concept (e.g. a new kind of architectural modeling
concept)
n Solution (e.g. general architectural solution, algorithm)
n Method, technique (e.g. a method to derive
architecture)
n Tool (e.g. a tool concept & implementation to support
a method)
n Evaluation of an approach (often case study)
n Finding & interpreting empirical data
n Combination of existing ideas
n … and any combination of these

15
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Tips - Paper style
n Empirical science style
¨ contribution: empirical data & its interpretation,
empirical studies of known engineering practices,
validation of results, and so on.
n Engineering style
¨ contribution: solution to a practical engineering problem
& its evaluation
n Mathematics style
¨ contribution:algorithm, formal language, exactness,
complexity, coverage, some path to reality, and so on.
n … or any combination of these

16
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Tips - Antipatterns
n Empirical data as contribution
Present the empirical data (e.g. queries, interviews etc.) you have
collected in a summarizing form
Correction: Decide what is your message, interpret the data, show
that your data supports the message

n Tool as contribution
Present your existing tool and show how it can be used to solve a
problem
Correction: Present the problem and solution on an abstract level, and
use your tool only in the implementation part, as part of the evaluation

n Formalism as contribution
Show how a certain aspect of software engineering can be formalized
Correction: Present the formalism as a tool to get some advantages or
solve some problem in software engineering

17
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper Structure

18
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Paper - Overall structure
Template (engineering style):
Introduction
- context and problem presentation, approach, idea, main
result, main conclusion
Background
Motivating example - needed prerequisites, existing concepts used etc
- concretizing the
Idea
problem with an
example - core of the paper, solution on an abstract level
Implementation
- how to develop the idea (e.g. as a tool)
Evaluation
- demonstrate that the idea works, typically a case study
Sometimes related Related work
work can replace - comparison with other existing work, highlights contributions
background Conclusions
(esp. when work is - work seen from bigger perspective, future directions etc.
difficult to compare) Acknowledgements
- funding organizaton, comment providers, programmers etc.
References

19
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper - APA editorial style: Major Sections of the Report
n TitlePage
n Abstract
n Introduction
n Method
¨ Participants
¨ Apparatus
¨ Procedures
¨ Results/Findings Conclusions
¨ Recommendations
n Discussion
n References
n Reference to necessary appendices Tables if relevant
n Figures if relevant

20
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper - APA editorial style: Levels of
Headings

n Use headings to provide clarity and

give structure – these should be
sequentially numbered
n Use sub headings – correctly
numbered i.ee. 2, 2.1, 2.1.1, etc.

21
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Paper - Title
n Is important for selling the paper
n Should attract right kind of readers
n Should not assume special subarea (e.g. ”software
architecture” rather than ”architecture”)
n Technique to find a title:
¨ Collect all the keywords
¨ Find all possible sensible combinations of them
¨ Connect with auxiliary prepositions, verbs etc. (Method for…,
Technique for…, Using X for …, -Driven, -Based, etc.)

Antipattern: Long Title

22
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper – The abstract
n Althought the abstract is first, it is usually
written last, after the paper is finished
n Used by program committee members to
decide which papers to read

23
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Paper – The abstract
n Four sentences [Kent Beck]
1. State the problem, e.g.: “Many papers are badly written and
hard to understand”
2. Say why it’s an interesting problem, e.g.: “This is a shame,
because their good ideas may go unappreciated”
3. Say what your solution gets, e.g.: “Following simple
guidelines can dramatically improve the quality of your
papers”
4. Say what follows from your solution, e.g.: “Your work will be
used more, and the feedback you get from others will in turn
improve your research”

24
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Paper - Introduction
n Remember audience: do not use too much text for painting
the scenery
n Introduction is very important for acceptance: hook the
reader (but do not promise too much, either)
n Template (6 paragraphs):
¨ basic context
¨ Problem description
¨ deficiencies with previous approaches
¨ basic idea/approach of the paper
¨ contributions of the paper
¨ textual contents description

Antipattern: Promise the sky

25
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper – Introduction - Describe the problem

26
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper – Introduction - State your contributions
n Write the list of contributions first
n The list of contributions drives the entire paper: the paper justify the
afirmations you have made
n Reader thinks “gosh, if they can really deliver this, that’s be exciting; I’d
better read on”

• Do not leave the reader suppose

what your contributions are!
• List of contributions as items

27
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
Paper – Introduction - No “rest of this paper is...”
n Not:
¨ “The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2
introduces the problem. Section 3 ... Finally, Section 8
concludes”
n Instead: Use forward references from the narrative
in the introduction
n “The introduction (including the contributions)
should review the whole paper, and therefore
forward reference every important part.”

28
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Background
n Take into account the audience
n The paper should be self-sufficient (with respect to
expected audience)
n Try to be as concise and to the point as possible
n Can be given as ”related work”, if that work is more
like starting points for this work

Antipattern: Tutorial

29
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Idea
n Don’t overestimate the understanding and supposing
capability of the reader
n Use figures to illustrate the main ideas
n Use examples to concretize the concepts
n Use subsections to structure the presentation
n Avoid your own new terms as much as possible
n Don’t create your own world, but a delta for existing world
n Explain it as if you were speaking to someone using a
whiteboard
n Transmit the intuition is primary, not secondary
n Once your reader has the intuition, she/he can follow the
details (but not vice versa)
Antipattern: Explain for your Team

30
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Implementation
n Often necessary to show that the idea has been
implemented
n Architecture-level system descriptions
n Generally interesting technical implementation
solutions
n Information about the technical environment
n Use screenshots, whenever appropriate
n Can be rather short

Antipattern: Detailed Document

31
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Evaluation
n Often in the form of a realistic (industrial) case study
n Example is not a case study
n Make clear what is the thing in the case study you are
interested in
n Recall that a case study never proves anything
n May provide ”circumstantial evidence” for evaluation
n If possible/sensible, characterize results by quantitative
measures (e.g. performance, footprint, lines of code,
working time etc.)

Antipattern: Toy Example

32
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Related work
n Comparison of the contribution with existing
literature (e.g. one mentioned in Background)
n Template:
n One paragraph per each existing research
n 1-2 affirmation at the end of each paragraph
n Discuss the differences between researches
n Be careful when discussing about weaknesses of
other approaches, be diplomatic
n Perform literature reviews to find relevant
references
Antipattern: Crucify Everybody Else

33
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Conclusions
n Idea: provide a high-level perspective on the work
(abstract: outside-in, conclusions: inside-out)
n Template:
n Rephrasing the main contribution (paragraph)
n Significance of the work from larger perspective (paragraph)
n Defects (paragraph)
n Future directions of the work (paragraph)
n New viewpoints (but no new results or detailed
discussions)
n Usually no references

Antipattern: Cut-and-Paste

34
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.
 Focus, focus, focus
n You do not get extra points for extra contents
n You should be able to give the main message of
your paper in one or two sentences
n If you are not sure whether a particular ”additional”
subject should be discussed or not, probably it
should not be discussed
n Make the paper a story, with highlights in the
middle

35
Diseñado por: Efraín R. Fonseca C.