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 from 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