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Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

cs.cmu.edu

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Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#31

Post by ModernMech »

k0stas wrote: post #19
porcoda wrote: post #3

I agree these are annoying patterns, but I honestly don’t notice them. I don’t read research papers like a book, front to back. Often I skip the abstract, skim the intro, skip to the conclusion to skim what they say I’ll find, and then read the core. The table of contents paragraph I skip without thinking about it. I’m more bothered by people who use bizarre notation, don’t provide sufficient definitions/background,…

> I agree these are annoying patterns, but I honestly don’t notice them. I don’t read research papers like a book, front to back. I think you've hit the nail on the head. The articles "sins" don't matter because experts skip over these parts. And this is the reason they are not a focus of the authors. I still think the article points out things that can be improved but the benefit is taking a good paper and making it…

> The articles "sins" don't matter because experts skip over these parts.

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that if you are an expert trying to stay current in your field, you will skip around a lot in most papers.

But no in the sense that when you find a paper that is especially relevant to what you are doing, you will read and scrutinize every single word, symbol, and figure in that paper until it’s completely mined of all relevant information.

I think one reason the intro isn’t always a huge focus is because it’s literally written last in many cases. There are typically page limits, or a cost per page. What you’ve got to say about your research could fill hundreds of pages, so you already have to cut that down. Once you’ve said what you need to about the actual work it’s probably already past the submission deadline, and you don’t want to spend forever writing an intro that will just end up costing you more pages. It’s basically going to fit into whatever space is left to round the paper to the next full page.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#32

Post by pavon »

spekcular wrote: post #14

I disagree with a lot of this. My perspective comes from reading papers in mathematics and physics, not computing, however. Regarding "grandmothering": I agree with the criticism of the first example. Explaining basic points of the field in a vague way is obviously not helpful. The second example is not as compelling. The key point is that the "..." after "In recent years, the study of preconditioners for iterative m…

I like the "grandmothering" practice. Subfields are becoming more and more specialized. As a practitioner and not a researcher, it is not uncommon for me to be unfamiliar with half of the terminology in a paper because it is different from how things are described in my subfield, but once I look it all up, the concepts are pretty clear (and often similar to things I already knew under different names). Having a couple sentences at the beginning to describe in plain english what the context of this paper is, helps me figure out whether it is applicable to what I'm looking for, and identifies the major keywords that I can use to find a primer to get up to speed to understanding the rest.

For those who are active researchers in the field, having to skim a couple sentences before getting to the meat of the paper isn't a big deal.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#33

Post by Ar-Curunir »

tikhonj wrote: post #24
jgwil2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But for longer works where the proof is decomposed into multiple lemmas and sub-lemmas, these can be very useful. Wouldn't they be better off as an actual table of contents though, rather than in paragraph form?

At least in CS venues, page limits disincentivize formatting that takes up more space—even when it's more readable.

another reason why we should get rid of page limits

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#34

Post by cycomanic »

spekcular wrote: post #14

I disagree with a lot of this. My perspective comes from reading papers in mathematics and physics, not computing, however. Regarding "grandmothering": I agree with the criticism of the first example. Explaining basic points of the field in a vague way is obviously not helpful. The second example is not as compelling. The key point is that the "..." after "In recent years, the study of preconditioners for iterative m…

I agree with what you're saying about the introduction and I think a lot of this depends on the exact type of article you're writing for. I also think the other has some point on the intro text. I work in optical telecom and many papers start with "the exponential increase in data demands over the last decades..." literally everyone in our field knows this. You don't need to be that general in technical conference papers. However if you write for e.g. Nature, Science or another high impact journal, the sentence is important because outsiders don't necessarily know about this.

Regarding the conclusion, I disagree with you and the author at least for short (2-4 Page) conference contributions. The Committee members are reading ~50-100 papers and often they read the abstract, intro and conclusion in detail and look at the figures. Those things will get your paper accepted. Essentially you want to stake your claims explain why they are important and show that you actually did what you claim. That should be seen from those things alone. That often means it should be possible to understand the paper/results from the conclusion. This is not a novel with some great reveal. That said, don't just summarize your paper draw conclusions.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#35

Post by evouga »

I’ve tried writing papers without conclusions, only to have reviewers call out that “the paper has no conclusion.”

As for the comment about bad project names and acronyms: Jonathan is most famous for developing the “Triangle” code for Delaunay triangulation, and “Triangle” is of course impossible to Google. Should have chosen a more distinct acronym! :)

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#36

Post by foobarian »

porcoda wrote: post #3

I agree these are annoying patterns, but I honestly don’t notice them. I don’t read research papers like a book, front to back. Often I skip the abstract, skim the intro, skip to the conclusion to skim what they say I’ll find, and then read the core. The table of contents paragraph I skip without thinking about it. I’m more bothered by people who use bizarre notation, don’t provide sufficient definitions/background,…

> I agree these are annoying patterns, but I honestly don’t notice them.

Right, these things have become a bit ritualized. To continue flogging the religious analogy a paper is like the Mass, you do your readings first, then you chant a bit, then you tell your audience an uplifting story, etc. You notice only when a step is skipped, otherwise the steps don't feel redundant but comforting. :-)

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#37

Post by mjw1007 »

spekcular wrote: post #14

I disagree with a lot of this. My perspective comes from reading papers in mathematics and physics, not computing, however. Regarding "grandmothering": I agree with the criticism of the first example. Explaining basic points of the field in a vague way is obviously not helpful. The second example is not as compelling. The key point is that the "..." after "In recent years, the study of preconditioners for iterative m…

Also, I can imagine that the "in recent years" part might be helpful to someone reading the paper thirty years after it was published, even if today anyone who can get value out of the paper knows that.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#38

Post by IggleSniggle »

truly wrote: post #12

In CS, another sin is that you have to "justify" the significance of the results even in theory conferences. Hence many papers contain exaggerated claims with respect to practicality, importance and so on. Another sin is that the results need to be "difficult" and "surprising" in order to publish. Hence, if you present your story in a simple-to-understand fashion, you run a high risk of rejection. Better not simplify…

As someone with a background in music within the Academy, where acoustics is an undeniable physical foundation for the making of meaning, and semantics are frequently well established, but the application, usage and interpretation is entirely up to humans...I have (good/bad?) news for computer science:

(from my relatively uninformed perspective)

As an academic discipline, it seems that computer science is quickly returning to its roots in philosophy of logic, now with a strong connection to sociology.

In journalism, if it bleeds, it leads.

In academia, if it begins as an inscrutable mess but unlocks to a "Eureka! It's so simple!" moment in the audience, it's a sure hit. If you've found it, expound it?

Like in journalism, a lot of academia chases its own tail. Publish the bleed/Eureka moment regardless of its inherent value, as long as it produces the desired consumption by the audience.

"The fool looks at the guru who points at the moon" and all that. Lots of focus on how to go about pointing, often too little focus on the searching.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#39

Post by anticristi »

rrobukef wrote: post #28

I don't agree with the author. For me each of the sins have their goal that isn't in what they state. I wonder what the author thinks of this almost 25 years later. ----- * The grandmothering: Too often have I read an abstract, not understood it (since an abstract is allowed to be dense), and quit on these first lines orienting the paper in the field . If it's your field these lines don't cost, if you're a newcomer,…

I still give these sins to my PhD students.

* Table of contents: The 'inline' ToC, proposed by the author, is way more aesthetical and terse.

* Grandmothering: Don't grandmother. Either be pedagogical or skip to the meat.

* Conclusion: I nowadays prefer the paper-paper-paper format: The abstract is the whole paper, the introduction is the whole paper and the paper is the whole paper. Just the "zoom" level differs. Hence, the conclusion should really bring something new.

Re: Three sins of authors in computer science and math (1997)

#40

Post by anticristi »

pfortuny wrote: post #6

The “table of contents in a paragraph “ is almost compulsory in any engineering (even applied maths) paper, in most journals… As far as I can tell.

I tend to include a footnote and link to this URL:

"The authors of this paper chose not to include a table-of-contents in a paragraph, as promited by ... ."

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