Writing the PhD. proposal and research papers .

1. Writingthe PhD. proposal and researchpapers. I N A O E Niusvel Acosta Mendoza

2. The PhD. proposal. I N A O E

3. I N A O E

4. What is a thesis proposal? • Academic exercise known as thesis proposal is a prerequisite of the preparation of the thesis designed to prevent future problems in a student’s degree. • It is an exercise arbitrated by a committee of researchers with high expertise in the subject at hand. • Through the proposal, the quality of the doctoral program is guaranteed.

5. Main aims of having a thesis proposal • The main aims of having this exercise are: • To ensure that you are preparedto undertake the work that you are proposing. • To ensure that the work being proposed is of appropriate scope for an PhD degree and has value to the computing community. • A proposal must ensure that these two points are clearly addressed so that the committee can approve it.

6. Structure of a thesis proposal • Title • Abstract and keywords • Introduction • Background or theoretical basis • Related Work (literature review) • Justification and Motivation • Research problem • Evaluation • Proposal • Preliminary Results • Conclusion • References

7. Title • It should be as concise as possible to delimit the phenomenon. • It is convenient to set a title early in our PhD, helping us to centering the thesis main topic. • This might not necessarily be the one at the end of your thesis (in fact, it will likely not coincide). • A rather generic title may give a wrong impression to the thesis committee.

8. Abstract • Usually, it has less than 200 words, and it has to include: • The purpose or specific aim of the thesis • The methodology or experimentation procedure • The expected results • The main expected conclusion and impact • Communicates the content of the document. Sufficient for a reader to decide its relevance.

9. Characteristic of a good abstract • Concise • Communication is effective and efficient • Informative • Regardless of the type the reader gets a quick overview of the contents of the document • Connected • Flow is smooth and without breaks • Conservative • Does not include new material over the material contained in the main document

10. Introduction • It should describe the importance of the work and some relevant prior knowledge. • It should mention the motivation and research problem. • In some cases, it contains a brief summary of the state-of-the-art. • A rather naive way of doing it is by enumeration: “This fellow did this. This fellow did that, …” • You will be shouting that you are a novice in the field. • A more elegant/smart way is to tell the story with a good flow of ideas, and simply drop the key references where suitable.

11. Background or theoretical basis • It should describe (in detail) and define the basic concepts and notation needed to understand the solution proposed. • Only the needed definitions and notations should be described.

12. Related Work • It should describe relevant works of the state-of-the-art, which are related with the proposal. • Summarizes the related work • Those closest works to the proposed are described (in detail) to show their problems and highlight the differences with respect to the proposal. • Analyze and criticize the closest works

13. Justification and Motivation • You do not take over a PhD because you are bored at home… • …but because there is a real need to understand a phenomena • Economical • Scientific • Academic • Others • Nope! “…because I need it to get my degree” is NOT a valid justification even if it is the only real one. • Research hypothesis statement.

14. Research problem • It should indicate the problems to be solved in the research. • It help us to define the limits of our work. • The PhD is not the moment to get a Nobel prize • Try to be realistic, it is easy to under-/over-estimate your capacity • It is at times hard to differentiate limits from your goal • If too short; maybe not enough to get the degree • If too ambitious; maybe unfeasible and unable to defend

15. Evaluation • The way to evaluate the proposal is clearly stated.

16. Proposal • It should describe the proposal: • Research question (may be several questions) • General aim (should be only one aim) • Specific aims • Expected contributions • Methodology • Clearly indicate the limits of your work • Limits are stated in terms of what’s going to be implemented • Work plan

17. Proposal • Research questions: • They represent open problems regarding the phenomenon of interest • They ought to guide your research • All goals (main and specific) are collateral consequences of them • All experiments are driven to answer them • All experimental hypothesis are stated to (educated) guess about them • All conclusions are stated to satisfy them • A rather bad habit is to state them (just because you’ve been told to), and ignore them the next minute…

18. Proposal • General aim: • The general aim states what is to be achieved during the thesis • It is a long term aim. • It may fall beyond the reach and limits of the proposal. • The aim in science is to understand a phenomenon

19. Proposal • Specific aims: • Short term goals. • They will be covered during the thesis. • They may include developing specific tools/algorithms, among others. • They often/should also include validation as one of them. • Each one of them has to be describable in at most 1 paragraph. • It is not enough to state them, it is necessary to describe them.

20. Proposal • Methodology: • Planning and description of tasks and experiments • They should refer to the achievement and solving of the research questions and goals. • It is important both; identification and description • The more detailed, the easier will be to carry out them later on

21. Proposal • Work plan or scheduling: • This is the chronological timing in weeks or months of the expected times when the tasks will be carried out. • Always leave enough time for reading and writing.

22. Conclusion • At the time of writing the proposal it is early to have final or definitive conclusions • …so these do not refer to the intermediate results in case you have some • … they more often refer to the feasibility of the thesis, the foreseen hinders, a brief discussion over the literature read so far, among others. • It should state the impact of your thesis.

23. References • Cite ALL relevant references read so far • …so that the thesis committee can assess whether you are reading sufficiently and effectively • Be coherent with the style format throughout the document • Include: • Scientific papers • Books • Other thesis (regardless of the degree) • Technical reports • Other sources of information; private communications from other researchers, public documents,web sites, standards, patents, etc.

24. Thesis committee’s response • The committee as a whole will consider the comments of the reviewing members and will place your thesis proposal in one of four categories: • Acceptable as submitted (This category is rarely used) • Minor changes required • Major changes required • Rejected as submitted

25. Researchpapers. I N A O E

26. What is a research paper? • It is a published written document which describes original research results • … writing for others not for me. • It refers to a scientific problem. • The research results should be valid. • Communicates for the first time the outcomes of an investigation. • It has only one goal: • report the result of an investigation. • Research papers are the largest source of information in the research world. 1. M. Alonso and N. Piñeiro, ¿Cómo escribir un artículo científico?, Alcmeon, Revista Argentina de Clínica Neuropsiquiátrica, 14(2): 76-81, 2007. 2. G.A. Slafer, ¿Cómo escribir un artículo científico?, Revista de investigación en educación, 6:124-132, 2009.

27. Some type of papers • Scientist or research papers • Notes • Short papers • Review and survey papers • Conference/meeting reports • Conference papers • Books • M.d and Ph.D thesis • Textbooks and research monographs

28. Structure and content

29. Structure and content • Front (including information of the authors), abstract and keywords. • Introduction (may be include the related work) • Background • Related Work (optional if and only if it is included into the introduction) • Proposed method or algorithm or …. • Experiments • Discussion • Conclusion • Acknowledgment (optional) • References

31. Writingthe PhD. proposal and researchpapers. I N A O E Niusvel Acosta Mendoza

32. Bibliography • C. G. Burke, The doctoral dissertation proposal • U. Manitoba, Guidelines for writing a successful MSc thesis proposal • Luca Aceto, How to write a paper (Versions 1 and 2) • M. Alonso and N. Piñeiro, ¿Cómo escribir un artículo científico?, Alcmeon, Revista Argentina de Clínica Neuropsiquiátrica, 14(2): 76-81, 2007. • G.A. Slafer, ¿Cómo escribir un artículo científico?, Revista de investigación en educación, 6:124-132, 2009. • Writing technical articles • R. Ferriols and F. Ferriols, Escribir y publicar un artículocientífico original, Ediciones MAYO s.a., 2005. [book]