 Before you ask what sections should be contained in a survey paper, you should first understand

what is a survey paper. What it is *not* is simply a core dump of a bunch of papers in a common
area.

Think of a survey as a research paper whose data and results are taken from other papers. This
means that you should have a point to make or some new conclusion to draw. And you'll do so by
collecting data from a broad collection of previous works.

As a previous responder has said, you should have a thorough and deep knowledge of the field
that you are surveying. This knowledge should be sufficient to be completely aware of the the
main themes, directions, controversies, and results in that field.

The point you will make will determine the organization of survey paper. The structure of the main
sections of the paper will reflect the structure of field. Some possible example structures (which of
course depend completely on the topic) might be:

1. Increasingly complexity or scale: There may be a spectrum of solutions and you might organize
them by complexity or scale.

2. Static vs. dynamic: Many field organize by static techniques, dynamic techniques, and even
hybrid.

3. Partitioning the design space: Lots of systems are made up of components, so maybe for an
compiler paper, you could divide by the classic scanner, parser, symbol table, code generator
and optimizer.

4. Major techniques in a field: For example, in fault tolerance, you see fail stop vs. fail forward, or
logging vs. hot-backup. In concurrency control, there is a natural divide between optimistic vs.
pessimistic techniques.

5. Historical: sometimes the course of development of a field has a clear linear nature and is
intrinsically interesting in itself. This is an over-used techniques in many cases where it really
doesn't add understanding.

There are lots of possibilities for a given topic and it is this organization that is the hardest part of
writing a survey paper. (I'm sure that many of you can give good examples of organizations that
have worked well for you.)

You'll have written a successful survey paper if you can communicate not just the list of results,
but more important, your understanding of the structure of the field.

This is a high bar to set. And it is also why I never ask students in my graduate classes to write
such papers; they just don't have the experience and perspective to write a good survey.
 Jun 28, 2013

Hafizur Rahman · King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals

"a paper that summarizes and organizes recent research results in a novel way that integrates
and adds understanding to work in the field. A survey article assumes a general knowledge of
the area; it emphasizes the classification of the existing literature, developing a perspective on
the area, and evaluating trends."

Goals of a Survey

Provide reader with a view of existing work that is well organized and comprehensive
Not all details must be included, which one’s should/shouldn’t?
Make sure to cover all relevant material completely
Logical structure of organization
State-of-the-art view

Your survey paper should …

Summarize the research in 5-8 papers on a particular topic

Include your own commentary on the significance of the approach and the solutions presented in
each paper
Provide a critical assessment of the work that has been done
Include a discussion on future research directions

REMEMBER
Everything you write in this survey paper has to be in your own words
All ideas, paraphrases of other people's words must be correctly attributed in the body of the
paper and in the references
Any evidence of it in the survey paper will result in a fail grade

Article Structure

It should not be just a concatenation of paper reviews

A typical structure of a paper includes:
Title
Abstract
Introduction
Body of paper
Conclusion/Future Work
References

Introduction
Importance and significance of the topic
Discuss the background and target audience
Summarize the surveyed research area and explain why the surveyed area has been studied
Summarize the classification scheme you used to do the survey
Summarize the surveyed techniques with the above classification scheme

Survey details/Body of paper

Present the surveyed techniques using the classification scheme in detail
Identify the trends in the surveyed area. Give evidences for your decision
Identify some leading research/products/companies/web-sites
Identify the unresolved problems/difficulties, and future research issues

Conclusions/Future work
Summarize the conclusions of your survey
References
List all the citations referenced in your paper

Regards,

Hafizur Rahman
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frGvVRtfh1c

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