Paper Writing Guidelines: a work in progress
Created by Tracy Hammond, Texas A&M University, hammond at cs dot tamu dot edu

---

CONTENT: 50%

Clarity: 25%

· There should be no spelling mistakes

· There should be no grammar mistakes

· Writing should be clear and cogent

· Writing should be as brief as possible, i.e., not rambling

· Uses images when necessary to clarify ideas

· Sentences flow from one to the next

· Overall flow is good

· Does not use 'I'

Ideas: 25%

· Ideas are original

· Ideas are interesting

FORMAT: 50%

Overall: 5%

· Title, Author, headings, etc. are properly formated

Abstract 5%

· A one-paragraph summary of your paper

· One sentence motivation

· One sentence what you did

· One sentence results

· Do not make this a story

· People should be able to *only* read your abstract and know exactly what you did

Introduction/Motivation: 5%

· Introduce the area

· Describe the problem you are trying to solve

· Why is this problem important

· Provide any background information necessary to understand the problem

· Any intelligent person should be able to understand, and be motivated by, your problem

Previous work: 5%

· List at least 2-3 of the most related work in the field

· Describe how your work differs from theirs (i.e. why their work does not solve the problem you are trying to solve)

· Does your previous work appropriately set the stage for your work? - Does it tell a story?

Implementation/Methodology: 5%

· What did you do?

· How did you do it?

· How can other people reproduce what you did?

Results: 5%

· What was the outcome of you work?

· What statistical test did you use to determine these results (i.e., a t-test)

· Graphs and tables

· Make sure there is some way to measure what you have done

Discussion: 5%

· Analysis of the results

· What worked

· What didn’t work

· Why do you think things worked

· Why do you think things didn’t work

Future Work: 5%

· If you had more time to work on this, what would you do next give the results of your paper? Why?

Conclusion: 5%

· Summarize what you told them

· What were the key findings

· Similar to abstract, but you can assume people have read the paper

· What did you want people to get out of the paper?

· What should they walk away remembering?

Bibliography: 5%

· References are properly cited

· References consist primarily of archival publications, as opposed to websites