Scientific Papers

1. Scientific Papers

2. 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

3. Key Parts • Title • Abstract • Introduction • Methods • Results • Discussion/Conclusion • Tables and Figures • Literature Cited

4. Title • Specific and brief description of contents • Or raise a major question addressed in the paper. • What makes a good title. • Precision • Catchy, in a scientific way. well…if possible.

5. 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)

6. 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… )

7. Introduction • The purpose of Introduction: • Defines problem, scope, and purpose/objective of the study. • Provides theoretical or historical background. • Proposes Hypothesis and predictions • Reveals plan of development of article.

8. 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.

9. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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… ”

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. Captions • Captions are descriptions of the table or figure, include details necessary to understand the item • Tables: Caption above • Figures: Caption below

18. 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.

19. 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

20. 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.)

21. Title Page • Title of project • Your name • Course number • Date • Honesty statement with signature

22. 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

23. 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)