Writing a scientific paper

Adapted from Caput college hypermedia, VU, Amsterdam given by Jacco van Ossenbruggen and Anton Eliëns.

Writing a good scientific paper is hard, especially if English is not your native language. The best advice: imitate good writing. This is a small list of frequently made errors.

Basics

• A title
• The name and affiliation of the author (including your student number)
• An abstract
• An introduction
• If appropriate, a section about related work of other researchers
• Conclusions
• References

Structure

• After reading the abstract, the reader should know what the problem is you are solving.
• After reading the introduction, the reader should know the backgrounds of the problem, and the way the paper is structured: "In the next section we discuss ... after which we provide ... Additionally, we ... and finally, we ..."

Contents

• Even if you are really famous, readers are not interested in your opinion.
  Wrong: "I think MS-DOS is a bad operating system"
  Better: "The MS-DOS operating system is not suited for our applications because it lacks the following features: ... etc"
• Do not force the reader to share your ideas:
  Wrong: "... because we all know MS-DOS is a good operating system"
• Your paper should give an objective analysis of the topics discussed, not an advertisement for a particular kind of technology. If you provide a list of a system's advantages, you also need to add a list of disadvantages.

Citations

• Cite your sources where ever it is possible:
  Wrong: "Most people think MS-DOS is a bad operating system"
  Better: "Research done by X [reference to X's work] suggests that 90% of all MS-DOS users are suicidal"
• Be careful with reproducing figures or tables, since it is often a copyright infringement. Make sure the reader knows from which sources you copied them.
• Avoid copying large pieces of text. It is often better to summarize the text in your own words, indicating the relationship with other sections in your paper. If you have to reuse larger parts of the text, use statements such as: "The following section is based on [ref]".

Spelling

Bad spelling does not encourage your reader to read your material. Use spelling checkers and let someone else (a native speaker if possible) read your paper before submission. Be consequent in your use of American or British English.

Style

• How formal the text of a scientific paper should be is a matter of taste. However, it is certainly more formal that a personal letter, and far more formal that an e-mail to one of your friends.
• Abbreviations such as "I'll" instead of "I will" or "can't" instead of "cannot" are generally frowned upon, especially in British English. Use apostrophes only for possessives: "The user's mental model". Note: "It's" is an abbreviation of "It is", so do not use it. The pronominal possessives its, hers, theirs, yours and ours have no apostrophe.
• Omit needless words:

  wrong:	better:
  This is a subject that	This subject
  The reason why is that	because
  in spite the fact that	though
  The fact that I claimed	my claim

• A positive statement in the active voice is more concise than its negative, passive counterpart. (A negative, passive statement is considered to be not as concise as its positive, active counterpart)
• Never use exclamation marks!
• Never use ellipsis...
• You may use the word "I" once in a while, but do not make your article into a personal statement. "We" may be used even if you are the only author.
• Use a consequent style for your headers. Tip: Skim through your paper by reading only the headings.