Writing Paper NA New

5/6/2019 Writing_Paper_NA_new - Google Docs
Art of writing a paper
Prof. N.Anantharaman
Three fundamental
rules
https://docs.google.com/document/d/121hQYN1HZhK3nWgZqyX0jDJAsawUzdJ4BBa5AXMGLMM/edit 1/62
1. Identify your group reader 2.

Think about what it is that
interests your
reader. 3. As you write, always
keep your reader and
their interests in mind.
Steps in preparing a
paper
1. Decide whether it’s worth the
effort (include a search of the
literature) 2. Organize the paper

3. Write the first draft 4. Prepare
figures and tables
Steps in preparing a
paper
5. Revise the draft (several
times); focus on meaning, style,
and conciseness 6. Prepare the

Abstract and pick a Title 7.
Conduct a final detail check for
consistency, grammar, and
spelling 8. Get a second (third,

fourth) opinion!
This could be from your
seniors/juniors
DECIDE WHETHER IT’S

WORTH THE EFFORT
To be worth the effort, a paper should:
▪ Deal with a subject that is important to

engineering /science/Arts/ educators
▪ Do not duplicate work that has already
been published
Decide whether it’s worth

the effort
• Papers describing a research
study should be based on
explicit, measurable objectives
and data that clearly address
these objectives (different
journals and conferences require
different levels and
sophistication of data analysis)

• Review papers should be
based on careful analysis of the
literature.
Decide whether it’s

worth the effort (contd.)
• Before you begin, don’t be

afraid to seek the advice of
colleagues, including seniors.

• Prior publication of a study
similar to the one you plan to
conduct need not deter you if
you can extend the work to a
significantly larger sample,
different types of institutions,
more diverse student
populations, etc.
Search the literature
• Papers on engineering education
are published in a variety of
sources; e.g.: – ASEE’s Journal of

Engineering Education (title before 1993
was Engineering Education) – IEEE

Transactions on Engineering Education
– International Journal of Engineering
Education – European Journal of
Engineering Education – Proceedings of
the ASEE Annual Conferences and the
Frontiers in Education Conferences
Search the literature
• A useful, searchable data base is the

ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education
(Educational Resource Information Center
sponsored by the U.S. Department of

Education): http://www.eriche.org/.
• A search for the words “engineering,”
“education,” and “assessment” may yield
XXXX results.
• Other search resources could be
Yahoo/Google.
Organize the paper
• Abstract : Brief paragraph highlighting the

present article.
• Introduction: why your subject is important
to your readers
• Background: what others have already
learned about your subject (with
references) and also identify research gap.

• Objectives: what you hoped to learn in
very specific terms
• Procedure: what you did to achieve your

objectives
10
Organize the paper

(contd.)
• Results: what you found out?

• Conclusions: what your results mean for
your readers
• Acknowledgements: thanks to those who
helped and provided financial support for
the work
• References: listed in the format specified
by the publication to which the paper will be
submitted
• Highlights: List the salient points in
bulleted form
11
Write the first draft
• Overcome’ block’ - It becomes
less of an obstacle with practice,
but for most of us it never goes
away. At least with a word
processor, you don’t create as
much waste paper!

• Don’t worry too much about
style and grammar; when the
words start to flow, let them
come! You can clean up the
mess in the revision.
12
Write the first draft
(contd.)
• Try to write as much as
possible in a single sitting; a
train of thought may be difficult
to recapture after too long a
break. Writing is difficult because

it forces us to clarify fuzzy ideas,
fill in gaps, organize your
thoughts, and express these
precisely.
13
Notes on Introduction
• The Introduction serves to

make the main point of the paper
explicit.
• A useful way to focus your
introductory thoughts is to
conceive the paper as an explicit
answer to a question. The

Introduction serves to state the
question.
14
Notes on Background
• Unless you are writing a review
paper, the Background section
should be relatively brief and
limited to discussing work that
applies directly to your study.
Editors and reviewers are not
impressed by a long list of
irrelevant references! If your
work extends a prior study, state
clearly the new contributions of
your paper.
15
Notes on Objectives
• Objectives must be clear, explicit,
and (for research papers)
measurable, e.g.,
– “to determine the effect of interactive,
on-line,
measurement of coal characteristics for
combustion performance” – “to evaluate

the value of standardized rubrics to
improve inter-rater reliability in grading
engineering laboratory reports” – “to

describe the historical development of
water treatment in India over the past
100 years.”
16
Prepare figures and

tables - content
• Use tables to present, in

compact form, Indicate the
conditions of the study.
• Use tables to summarize

results, e.g., numbers and mean
grades of students in different
categories completing a course
under different formats.
17
Prepare figures and

tables – content (contd.)
• Use figures to show trends over time; bar

charts may be useful here, since bars can
be placed side by side to compare results
for different groups over time (clearer than

“stacking”).
• A scatter plot may be useful in
demonstrating the correlation between
variables, e.g., % Recovery vs.
Concentration (as a function of Temp).
18
Prepare figures and

tables – content (contd.)
• Results, whether in figures or

tables, should relate directly to
the objectives of the study.

• Include statistical parameters
showing significance of
numerical results.
19
Prepare figures and

tables - format
• Follow carefully any instructions
for the applicable journal or
conference proceedings.
• Figures and tables should be
numbered consecutively in order of
appearance (separate numbering
for figures and for tables).

• Include only figures and tables
that illustrate significant points in
the text.
20
Prepare figures and

tables - format
• Make captions simple but
descriptive, e.g., “Table 1. Effect
of Temperature on recovery.”
• Avoid color and shading in bar
charts (unless journal is printed
in color); use dot and crosshatch
patterns that reproduce clearly in
black and white.
• Computer screen shots often

reproduce very poorly.
21
Bar charts Colour ,

Black and white
22
Revise the draft
• For most of us, this is the most
critical step in writing a good
paper; it needs to be repeated
several times with a rest in
between.
• Here is where we need to pay
careful attention to meaning
(how our readers will interpret
what we say), grammar and
style, and conciseness.
23
Revise the draft (contd)
• Refer to a good style manual; (depends

on Jl.)
• Meher LC, Vidya Sagar D, Naik SN. Technical aspects of
biodiesel production by transesterification—a review,
Renew Sust Energ Rev. 2006;10:248268.
• [25] Bahary, M., Experimental and computational studies
of hydrodynamics in three-phase and two-phase fluidised
beds. Ph.D. Thesis, Illinois Institute of Technology,
Chicago (1994).
• [26] Mitra-Majumdar, D., Farouk, B., Shah, Y.T.,
Hydrodynamic modeling of three- phase flows through a
vertical column, Chemical Engineering Science 52,4485
–4497 (1997).
24
Revise the draft (contd)
“Vigorous writing is concise. A
sentence should contain no
unnecessary words, a paragraph
no unnecessary sentences, and
for the same reason that a
drawing should have no
unnecessary lines and a
machine no unnecessary parts.
This requires not that the writer
make all sentences short, or
avoid all detail and treat subjects
only in outline, but that every
word tell.” (Strunk & White, p.
23) 25
Get rid of needless

words
Students who failed
to complete the
• Before revision:
on-line assignments
The fact that certain
usually scored
students failed to
lower on the
complete the
following hour test.
on-line assignments
(16 words)
resulted, in most
instances, in lower
scores for these
individuals on the
following hour test.
(26 words)
26
• After revision:
Use words properly
*Professor Ernest Brennecke of

Columbia is credited with inventing a
sentence that can be made to have eight
different meanings by placing ONE
WORD in all possible positions in the
sentence:
*"I kissed her in the train yesterday."*
The word is *"ONLY"*.
27
New Sentence
1. ONLY I kissed her in the train yesterday.
2. I ONLY kissed her in the train yesterday.
3. I kissed ONLY her in the train yesterday.
4. I kissed her ONLY in the train yesterday
5. I kissed her in ONLY the train yesterday
6. I kissed her in the ONLY train yesterday
7. I kissed her in the train ONLY yesterday
8. I kissed her in the train yesterday ONLY
This is the beauty and complexity of English language.
28
1. 2. ONLY I ONLY I kissed kissed her her in in the the
The train train yesterday. yesterday.

Message:
_(None _(Did not else do kissed anything her except
except me)
kissing )_
Use words properly 3. I

kissed ONLY her in the train yesterday. _(I did not kiss
any other lady except her)_
4. I kissed her ONLY in the train yesterday _(I did not
kiss outside the train)_
5. I kissed her in ONLY the train yesterday _(Not other
places)_
6. I kissed her in the ONLY train yesterday _(There was
no other train that day)_
7. I kissed her in the train ONLY yesterday _(Not today
or any other day )_
8. I kissed her in the train yesterday ONLY _(Did not
wait for today)_
This is the beauty and complexity of English
language.
29
Prepare and check

carefully the list of
references
• Follow exactly the format
specified for the journal or
conference to which you are
submitting the paper.

• Normally, references are
numbered in order of
appearance in the text (end-note
utilities in word processors do
this automatically, but too often
have minds of their own).
30
Prepare and check

carefully the list of
references (contd.)
• Double-check the spelling of
authors’ names (dangerous
error: misspelling the name of
someone who might review the
paper!).
• Check again for consistency!
31
Reference Styles
S.No Journal Name Reference Style End Reference
Style
1 Powder Technology
(Elsevier Publications)
D. Kunii, O. Levenspeil, Fluidization Engineering, 1st edition Wiley, New York, 1969.
S. Krishnamurthy, J.S.N. Murthy, G.K. Roy, V.S. Pakala, Gas–solid fluidization in baffled bed, IE
(I) J.-CH 61 (1981) 38–45. 2 Industrial & Engineering
Chemistry Research (ACS Publications)
Fluidization is the phenomenon of imparting the properties of a fluid to a bed of
particulate solids by passing a fluid (liquid or gas) through the material [1,2]
The HA structure mainly encompasses both
(1) Stevenson, F. J. Humus Chemistry: Genesis, aliphatic and aromatic organic compounds
Composition, Reactions; which constitute three main functional
John Wiley and Sons: New York, 1994.
groups such as carboxylic acids, phenolic alcohols, and methoxy carbonyls.1
Yuan, W.; Zydney, A. L. Humic acid fouling during ultrafiltration. Environ. Sci. Technol. 2000, 34,
5043.
3 RSC Advances Homogeneous base catalysts have several
drawbacks such as difficulty in the recovery of catalyst from reactant product mixture,
generation of excess wastewater and establishment of a continuous process.1,2
1 D. W. Lee, Y. M. Park and K. Y. Lee, Catal. Surv. Asia, 2009, 13, 63–77.
32
Reference Styles
4 Energy Conversion and
Management
[1] Kouzu M, Kasuno T, Tajika M, Sugimoto Y, Yamanaka S, Hidaka J. Active phase
of calcium oxide used as solid base catalyst for transesterification of soybean oil
with refluxing methanol. Appl Catal A: Gen 2007;334:357–65.
5 Desalination and Water
Treatment
Petroleum-based fuels meet the majority of the world energy needs, but are finite
and not sustainable. Due to the depletion of petroleum reserves and increase in
environmental concerns, new alternative sources for petroleum-based fuel have

been widely studied [1].
[1] D. Wang, W. Zou, L. Li, Q. Wei, S. Sun, C. Zhao, Preparation and characterization of
functional carboxylic polyethersulfone membrane, J. Membr. Sci. 374 (2011) 93–101.
6 Separation Science and
Technology (Taylor & Francis)
The main inherent drawback of PES membrane is its hydrophobic nature, which leads
to the adsorption of solute particles resulting in the fouling on the membrane surface
[1,2].
Handa et al., have discussed various

Handa, B.K.; Seth, R. Xyz, P(1990) Waste emerging technologies such as the
management in distillery industry. J. IAEM, 17: 44 electrochemical method,
photo-catalysis, and sorption as promising techniques for the treatment of distillery
effluent (1)
33
Reference Styles
7 Applied Thermal
Engineering
[1] M.F. Loewenberg, E. Laurien, A. Class, T. Schulenberg, Supercritical water heat
transfer in vertical tubes: a look-up table, Prog. Nucl. Energy 50 (2008) 532e538.
8 International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications
Further, Md. Abdulla Al Masud, Syed Mithun Ali, Dr. Nikhil Ranjan Dhar [3] have
developed an artificial neural network (ANN) model as a function of cutting
parameters in turning steel for predicting chip tool interface temperature. In one
more attempt, H. Meradi, S. Bouhouche, and M. Lahreche [4] have used a back
propagation algorithm to learn the neural nets.
Literatures [1-5] have discussed about this property
[3] S.Koshizuka, N.Takano and Y.Oka, variation , literatures [5-12] have reported the
variation in
`Numerical Analysis of Deterioration heat transfer coefficient due this property variation
and
Phenomina in Heat Transfer to literatures [1], [2], [5] and [9-15] have reported the
impact
Supercritical Water, International Journal in terms of wall temperature variation
indicating that
of Heat Mass Transfer, Great Britain, changes in fluid properties have a great impact on
the
Pergaman Press 1995, Vol.38, pp 3077- heat transfer behavior
3084
34
Reference Styles
(1980). Coupled transport
membranes. II: The mechanism of
9 Chemical Engineering
uranium transport with a tertiary
Communications (Taylor & Francis) amine, J. Membr. Sci., 7, 71–87.
The extraction of zinc from sulfuric Babcock, W. C., Baker, R. W.,
acid media has seen a renewed Lachapelle, E. D., and Smith, K. L.
interest because of the use of this (1980). Coupled transport
process on a commercial scale for membranes. II: The mechanism of
treating wastewater streams and to uranium transport with a tertiary
recover and reuse materials (Sainz- amine, J. Membr. Sci., 7, 71–87.
Dı ́az et al., 1996).
Babcock, W. C., Baker, R. W.,
Chiha, M., Samar, M. H., and
Lachapelle, E. D., and Smith, K. L.
Hamdaoui, O. (2006). Extraction of
(1980). Coupled transport
chromium (VI) from sulphuric acid
membranes. II: The mechanism of
aqueous solutions by a liquid
uranium transport with a tertiary
surfactant membrane (LSM),
amine, J. Membr. Sci., 7, 71–87.
Desalination, 194, 69–80.
Babcock, W. C., Baker, R. W.,
Lachapelle, E. D., and Smith, K. L.
Daas, A., and Hamdaoui, O. (2010). Extraction of bisphenol A from aqueous

solutions by emulsion liquid membrane, J. Membr. Sci., 348, 360–368.
35
Prepare the abstract and

select a title
• After all revisions are completed, prepare
an abstract that summarizes in about 100
words what you did, why you did it, what
you found out, and what it means to your
readers.
• Select a title that clearly conveys your
subject in as few words as possible.
• Remember: many will decide whether or
not to read your paper based on the title
and abstract.
36
Conduct a final check
• Check for consistency: Are you
capitalizing the same terms each
time? Does formatting follow the
instructions for the journal or
conference proceedings to which
the paper will be submitted? Are
tables, figures, and references
numbered consecutively without
gaps, etc.?
37
Conduct a final check

• Check for correct grammar: Do
verbs agree with their subjects?
(Note that data is a plural noun.)
Are you mixing tenses within a
paragraph? Are you using the
correct case for pronouns (who
vs. whom), etc.?

• Check spelling carefully: Be on
guard for errors the spell
checker will miss, e.g., affect for
effect, two for too, etc.
38
Get a second (third,

fourth) opinion
If possible, persuade one or two
(or three)
colleagues to read your paper
and suggest improvements.
(This may require hosting tea or
other forms of gifts , but the
resulting paper will almost
always be better than the

original version!)
39
Acknowledgements
Special thanks for their most helpful

comments on this presentation go to three
friends with extensive technical
communication experience: Dr.K.N. Singh:

Division of Bio-Technology, IIT X, India
Director: IIT, X for support Dr. Sara Joseph:

Department of Chemical Engineering,
XXXX, for technical support CSIR for their
generous funding
40
Thank you!
41
Group Exercise
• Form pairs with your neighbour

• Take about 15 minutes to list at
least five ways your assigned
paper could be improved. You
can consider, e.g.:
– The title – The abstract – The
organization and logical flow of ideas
42
The impact factor (IF)
The impact factor (IF) is a

measure of the frequency with
which the average article in a
journal has been cited in a
particular year.
It is used to measure the
importance or rank of a journal
by calculating the times it's

articles are cited.
43
the number of times

Impact articles were cited
factor by the number of
articles that are
citable.
How Impact
Factor is
Calculation of 2010
Calculated?
IF of a journal:
The calculation is
A = the number of
based on a
times articles
two-year period and
published in 2008
involves dividing
and 2009 were
cited by indexed 2008 and 2009.

journals during
2010. B = the total A/B = 2010 impact
number of "citable factor
44
items" published in
The h-index
The h-index is an author-level metric that
attempts to measure both the productivity
and citation impact of the publications of a
scientist or scholar.
The index is based on the set of the

scientist's most cited papers and the
number of citations that they have received
in other publications.
45
G index
The g-index is an index for quantifying

productivity in science, based on
publication record (an author-level metric).
It was suggested in 2006 by Leo Egghe.[1]
The index is calculated based on the
distribution of citations received by a given
researcher's publications, such that given a
set of articles ranked in decreasing order of
the number of citations that they received,
the g- index is the unique largest number

such that the top g articles received
together at least g2 citations.
It can be equivalently defined as the largest

number n of highly cited articles for which
the average number of citations is at least
n.
46
i-10 index
It is the number of publications with at least

10 citations.
This very simple measure is only used by

Google Scholar, and is another way to help
gauge the productivity of a scholar.
47
Scopus
Scopus is a bibliographic database

containing abstracts and citations for
academic journal articles.
It covers nearly 22,000 titles from over

5,000 publishers, of which 20,000 are
peer-reviewed journals in the scientific,
technical, medical, and social sciences
(including arts and humanities).
It is owned by Elsevier and is available

online by subscription. Searches in Scopus
also incorporate searches of patent
databases.
48
Science Citation Index

(SCI)
The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a

citation index originally produced by the
Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and
created by Eugene Garfield.
It was officially launched in 1964. It is now
owned by Clarivate Analytics (previously
the Intellectual Property and Science

business of Thomson Reuters). The larger
version (Science Citation Index Expanded)
covers more than 8,500 notable and
significant journals, across 150 disciplines,
from 1900 to the present. These are
alternatively described as the world's
leading journals of science and technology,
because of a rigorous selection process.
49
SCI and SCIE
The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a

sub-set of the Science Citation Index
Expanded (SCIE), containing journals that
rank competitively among the most
highly-cited core journals in their category

or categories. The Science Citation Index
Expanded is essentially the web version of
what used to be a database available only
on CDRom/Diskette.
50
ESCI
The Emerging Sources Citation Index is

a citation index produced since 2015 by
Thomson Reuters, and now by Clarivate
Analytics. According to the publisher, the
index includes "peer-reviewed publications
of regional importance and in emerging

scientific fields".[1] It has been observed that
among the databases produced by
Clarivate Analytics, the Emerging Sources
Citation Index is the easiest one to get into
and that as a result it contains many
predatory journals.
51
SSCI
The Social Sciences Citation Index

(SSCI) is a commercial citation index
product of Clarivate Analytics. It was
originally developed by the Institute for
Scientific Information from the Science
Citation Index.
The Social Sciences Citation Index is a

multidisciplinary index and indexes over
3,000 social sciences journals – 1988 to
present.
52
Thank you
53

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5/6/2019 Writing_Paper_NA_new - Google Docs

Art of writing a paper

1. Identify your group reader 2.

1. Decide whether it’s worth the

effort (include a search of the

literature) 2. Organize the paper

5. Revise the draft (several

times); focus on meaning, style,

and conciseness 6. Prepare the

consistency, grammar, and

spelling 8. Get a second (third,

DECIDE WHETHER IT’S

To be worth the effort, a paper should:

▪ Deal with a subject that is important to

Decide whether it’s worth

• Papers describing a research

study should be based on

explicit, measurable objectives

and data that clearly address

these objectives (different

journals and conferences require

different levels and

sophistication of data analysis)

based on careful analysis of the

Decide whether it’s

worth the effort (contd.)

• Before you begin, don’t be

colleagues, including seniors.

similar to the one you plan to

conduct need not deter you if

you can extend the work to a

significantly larger sample,

different types of institutions,

more diverse student

Search the literature

• Papers on engineering education

are published in a variety of

sources; e.g.: – ASEE’s Journal of

was Engineering Education) – IEEE

the ASEE Annual Conferences and the

Frontiers in Education Conferences

Search the literature

• A useful, searchable data base is the

sponsored by the U.S. Department of

Organize the paper

• Abstract : Brief paragraph highlighting the

references) and also identify research gap.

• Procedure: what you did to achieve your

Organize the paper

• Results: what you found out?

Write the first draft

• Overcome’ block’ - It becomes

less of an obstacle with practice,

but for most of us it never goes

away. At least with a word

processor, you don’t create as

much waste paper!

style and grammar; when the

words start to flow, let them

come! You can clean up the

mess in the revision.

Write the first draft

• Try to write as much as