Live data from Hacker News

How to Read a Paper [pdf]

ccr.sigcomm.org

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#42
post #14

I give all my doctoral students a copy of the following great paper (and I've used a variant of the check list at the end for years - avoids errors when working on multiple papers with multiple international teams in parallel): How to Write a Paper http://www-mech.eng.cam.ac.uk/mmd/ashby-paper-V6.pdf

This may get downvoted, but regarding to writing a thesis: If I open a thesis and see it was done in Latex I always think this guy can't be an idiot.

Isn't that the default? I don't think I've ever done a paper that wasn't in LaTeX...

It makes rendering mathematical notation very easy, also automatically tracks indices, references, labels, etc. I can even embed csv data to display as a table with a few lines of code!

It's also pretty straightforward to break down the paper into various folders and documents and import them all in a master .tex file, keeping your figures and data in their own folders too.

Can't imagine doing all of that in a bunched up in a word doc...

I mean, you can even do all the building in a container, so I often check in my work, push, and the CI builds the paper and makes a release depending on tag/branch.

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may get downvoted, but regarding to writing a thesis: If I open a thesis and see it was done in Latex I always think this guy can't be an idiot.

Isn't that the default? I don't think I've ever done a paper that wasn't in LaTeX... It makes rendering mathematical notation very easy, also automatically tracks indices, references, labels, etc. I can even embed csv data to display as a table with a few lines of code! It's also pretty straightforward to break down the paper into various folders and documents and import them all in a master .tex file, keeping your f…

[deleted]

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may get downvoted, but regarding to writing a thesis: If I open a thesis and see it was done in Latex I always think this guy can't be an idiot.

Isn't that the default? I don't think I've ever done a paper that wasn't in LaTeX... It makes rendering mathematical notation very easy, also automatically tracks indices, references, labels, etc. I can even embed csv data to display as a table with a few lines of code! It's also pretty straightforward to break down the paper into various folders and documents and import them all in a master .tex file, keeping your f…

Not in many technical fields. When I was publishing in physics about a third to a half of my colleagues were using Word - all the top journals accepted it.

This was over 15 years ago.

CS and math are outliers.

With IEEE Word was even more common.

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#45
Thanks for the nice references. When I read documents, I look to organize and link information in a way that helps me recall its context. Another realization is that papers are often read with different 'hats' - as a reader, as a reviewer, or as a writer. To help my own process I built a document-reading that helps me curate, visualize, and recall personal knowledge as I read and annotate research papers; the app also extracts data from documents such as URLs and references - https://www.knowledgegarden.io

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#46
post #27

I used to write research at Goldman. Our chief economist would often give this book as an end-of-year gift. I found it useful in my writing: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/E/bo256745...

I'm not interested in the economy, explicitly. Would you recommend this for someone who is geared towards technical writing and just getting better at it in general? I've never thought about reading a book about how to write better, to be totally honest, but how could it hurt?

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#47
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the default? I don't think I've ever done a paper that wasn't in LaTeX... It makes rendering mathematical notation very easy, also automatically tracks indices, references, labels, etc. I can even embed csv data to display as a table with a few lines of code! It's also pretty straightforward to break down the paper into various folders and documents and import them all in a master .tex file, keeping your f…

Not in many technical fields. When I was publishing in physics about a third to a half of my colleagues were using Word - all the top journals accepted it. This was over 15 years ago. CS and math are outliers. With IEEE Word was even more common.

Currently a med student, and interestingly, some of the most renowned researchers in the world, not surprisingly, use Word. I know it strays from most of the users' fields of interest/research, but this is pretty funny, at least in my head..

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may get downvoted, but regarding to writing a thesis: If I open a thesis and see it was done in Latex I always think this guy can't be an idiot.

Isn't that the default? I don't think I've ever done a paper that wasn't in LaTeX... It makes rendering mathematical notation very easy, also automatically tracks indices, references, labels, etc. I can even embed csv data to display as a table with a few lines of code! It's also pretty straightforward to break down the paper into various folders and documents and import them all in a master .tex file, keeping your f…

It's not the default everywhere- in fact the journal Science actually prefers docx, to the point of asking latex submitters to convert to docx before submitting!

https://www.science.org/content/page/science-information-aut...

Re: How to Read a Paper [pdf]

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in many technical fields. When I was publishing in physics about a third to a half of my colleagues were using Word - all the top journals accepted it. This was over 15 years ago. CS and math are outliers. With IEEE Word was even more common.

Currently a med student, and interestingly, some of the most renowned researchers in the world, not surprisingly, use Word. I know it strays from most of the users' fields of interest/research, but this is pretty funny, at least in my head..

For most people, LaTeX is pretty funny. Most disciplines did not use LaTeX. I'm sure there are plenty of big journals that never supported it. LaTeX became en vogue mostly in disciplines that involve a lot of math. Even in economics, a lot of journals were always majority Word.
Post reply on HN