Scientific Papers

Announcements

Office hour will be changed from next week Monday and Wednesday 11:30AM – 1:30PM

Lab on Friday – Individual Assignment Write lab report using the data we collected from

our own personal computers and the analyses you did last week.

Lab Reports are similar to what scientists publish in research journals

Follow format of scientific papers

Key Parts

Title Abstract Introduction Methods Results Discussion/Conclusion Tables and Figures Literature Cited

Title

Specific and brief description of contents Or raise a major question addressed in the

paper. What makes a good title.

PrecisionCatchy, in a scientific way. well…if possible.

Example of Titles

Natural Image Statistics and Neural Representation.

What does the retina know about natural scene? Emergence of Topography and Complex Cell

Properties from Natural Images using Extension of Independent component analysis and Bayesian Probability Models

Sex with Support Vector Machine. (NIPS 1999)

Abstract

Overviews of facts, results, conclusions. Function – between the Title and the article itself. Very important – read more widely than article. Placed at beginning of article, just below the Title. “I” never used. Passive voice commonly used (active voice in the

articles). Should be self-contained. Don’t include footnotes,

references (e.g. Lennon and Ono (1998) concluded that… )

Introduction

The purpose of Introduction: Defines problem, scope, and

purpose/objective of the study. Provides theoretical or historical background. Proposes Hypothesis and predictionsReveals plan of development of article.

Literature review

Part of the introduction. Nothing is totally new, the literature review

serves review scientific literature. explain choice of materials or methodology. show rationale for investigation.

Paraphrase ---Don’t steal other peoples’ word. Quotation --- Keep it minimum.

Hypothesis

Plural is hypotheses A tentative explanation that accounts for a set of

facts and can be tested by further investigation; Dell computer is better than HP’s. (not specifically

defined) people who commit acts of violence are under orders

from the Devil (untestable) Tested and supported, not proved! Come up with hypotheses for study of computer

hardware and performance

Hypotheses of Computer Performance The startup speed of a computer is

determined by processor speed. The startup speed of a computer is

determined by the amount of RAM. The stability of a computer is affected by

its operating system.

Null Hypothesis

The null hypothesis is often the reverse of what the experimenter actually believes; it is put forward to allow the data to contradict it.

H0: "There will be no difference in readability between 15" and 17" monitors."

H0: "There will be no relationship between processor speed and startup time, indicated by a line with a slope of 0.“

Don’t put Null Hypothesis in the paper.

Hypothesis Testing

Hypothesis testing is using statistical values to determine whether the Null Hypothesis can be rejected.

Common Statistical Tests for Hypotheses: t-Test, ANOVA, Regression, X2 (Chi – Square)

Beyond scope of this class

Methods

Explain what steps were taken in collecting data and why

Use past tense Usually described using passive voice

“The image was digitalized…” Using active voice occasionally is fine.

“we conducted out experiment… ”

Results

Present general trends without comment, bias or interpretation

Present all relevant results, even those that do not support the hypotheses

If statistics are used, report statistical value and probability in parentheses

Refer to tables and figures “Startup speed decreased as processors speed

increased (Figure 1). “Most computer used a version of Windows as shown

in Table 1

Discussion/Conclusion

Discuss the results and whether they support the hypotheses

Discuss relevance to work by others Avoid redundancy with results End with a summary of the significance of

your work – a conclusion paragraph

Tables and Figures

Each table and figure has a name, e.g. Table 1, Table 2, … and Figure 1, Figure 2, …

Tables are data tables Figures are graph, maps, photos, drawings, etc. Can be pasted into MS Word document from

Excel Each should have a Caption, e.g. a description

of what the table or figure represents

Captions

Captions are descriptions of the table or figure, include details necessary to understand the item

Tables: Caption above Figures: Caption below

Example

Figure 1. Amount of RAM in MB vs. average startup time for 45 computers with Windows XP operating system. Trendline shows a negative relationship.

Literature Cited

Called Bibliography or Reference section. Provide details of any citations in paper Format varies from field to field and journal to

journal … observed by Hubel and Wiesel (1962) …got the similar result (Smith and Johnson, 1990) …many research work [1][2][3]…

Only list resources cited in paper, not general references

A few words

Don’t consider these conventions as unbreakable.

The function of a scientific paper is communication.

Follow format in Guidelines for Writing Scientific Papers used in LBS 158H (will posted on website later.)

Title Page

Title of project Your name Course number Date Honesty statement with signature

Putting it all together

Title Page Abstract Page Body: Introduction – Methods – Results –

Discussion Tables and figures can be embedded or at

end of body Literature Cited starts on new page

Friday

Work on formal scientific paper on computer hardware and performance

I will provide details on methods, other analyses expected (Posted Friday Morning)

Due next Friday (September 26)