Reference no: EM131702153

As graduate students, I believe it is essential to produce original publishable research articles during the course of your study. Consequently, in almost every graduate course I teach, I place a significant emphasis on this activity.

The research paper assignment is a culmination of your rigorous study throughout the semester and reflects your ability to bring to fruition and publish your ideas and thoughts in a reputable peer-reviewed conference or journal.

Essentially, it is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your expertise in a very specialized area of study and communicate it to your peers in the academic community. This document outlines this process in some detail. Those of you that have taken my courses in the past know how this works.

Firstly, I have broken down the task of writing your research paper into the following related "assignments". I am going to call the combination of these three tasks the "Research Paper Assignment" 0. Topic Selection - First, select a topic of interest, a topic that excites and intrigues you is probably a good choice.

 There may be times when you will have to reconsider your first choice, that's alright. Please remember that you need to choose topics that you feel confident about and the scope is reasonably feasible to finish in the given timeframe.

While being very ambitious is commendable, you also need to be practical. I won't elaborate on this further, but I trust you understand. (You need to send me by email your chosen topic of research - this corresponds to the "research topic assignment" due 10/29)

1. "Research Paper Summary" assignment -After having selected a topic of interest (within the purview of the course), you need to identify what your peers in the academic community have accomplished in this particular topic. This is called literature review. Lit Review, as it is called, is a first step of a sound research methodology.

After selecting and narrowing down the prior and related research articles published in conferences and journals concerning your topic, you should conduct an in-depth study and thorough analysis of these papers. You are looking for shortcomings, flaws, brilliant ideas, and similar threads of thought as you study these papers. Critique and summarize your thoughts about these papers and write them down.

This essentially fulfils the "summary" assignment. The rest of this document gives you more details on how this is done.

2. "Project" assignment - The project is where the bulk of your original work is done. This part of the assignment is where you "extend" the research work done by your peers (as gathered from prior and related lit review in step 1) to produce your original work.

Notice, "extend" could mean a number of things. You might argue that the past research work done in this area has a number of shortcomings and your solution to the problem is the "correct" way to go about things or it could be an incremental work etc...The rest of this document will explain more about this step too.

3. Finally, you write your research paper following the guidelines outlined in this document below.

Deliverables:

You should deposit your "assignments" in the appropriate dropboxes in BlackBoard corresponding to the deadlines above. As a final deliverable for your research paper, please email me (in addition to submitting on Blackboard) your final research paper as a Microsoft word document, Email Subject: Research Paper. Please note that I place a significant weight on the research paper towards your final grade. The reason is because this is the first truly original academic activity that you are embarking on unlike the assignments that you submit during the semester.

You pretty much have the rest of the semester to complete this task. I would be happy to discuss ideas and assist you with your research project, please let me know and update me regularly so I can respond to your questions on time. I would like all of you to enjoy this process as much as possible. I would hate if this task became a chore and you do not derive any pleasure in this.

 Instructions:

The objective of the research paper assignment is primarily to transform you from being a student to a researcher. You should be able to use what you have learned from the past few weeks in the course and conduct independent research to produce a peer-reviewed and publishable paper. Remember that the goal of this research activity is to publish your paper at a suitable venue, such as a peer-reviewed conference or a respectable journal. To this end, you should treat this "assignment" as a real-time activity and adhere to the instructions below and produce a highquality, original work.

You may benefit by reading some interesting articles online on doing good research and research writing in general. I like the slides, video and the article "How to write a great research paper", by Simon Peyton Jones . In choosing a research topic, you will need to think about what topics excite you.

Was there a problem that you always wanted to research, learn more about or feel that you have a passion for and/or believe that you may have a good solution for it. These problems could be problems/topics/challenges that you face in real-life, at work, school or even at home or could be completely abstract.

 Before you decide on a topic, explore what others in this field have done to solve the problem and assess your contribution to the academic community. Choose any topic (related to the course) of your liking - this is academic freedom.

Requirements:

1. Use the IEEE Microsoft Word template available here to typeset your paper.

2. All formatting, e.g. font size, section headers, etc., must follow the template.

Otherwise, you run the risk of your paper being rejected by the conference/journal simply for formatting errors

• Abstract - briefly describe the problem you are solving, the contribution of your research (about 1/3 of the left column on the 1st page). This should explicitly state why your solution stands out and is novel, worthy of being considered for publication. Brag about your amazing ideas in the paper and why the reviewers should consider reading your paper and consider it for publication.

 • Introduction/Background - describe the background of your research (What does the reader need to know to appreciate the beauty of your solution and explain clearly why your research is important and why the reviewers should spend time reading your paper. This is also where you tell the reviewers why your solution to the problem is outstanding as compared to others!

 • Prior Work/Literature review ("summary" assignment-Step 1) - This is where you summarize what other researchers have solved the problem and how it relates to your work and where your work deviates from the past research activity. Tell the reader what has been done in this research field by others, pros and cons, and what is still missing and needs to be improved (this is why your research becomes valuable). This is where most/all of your references should be cited (using standard IEEE format). Introduction plus literature review usually spans between 0.75 page and 1.25 pages.

You can use the Google Scholar search engine to identify prior work in the particular topic/problem you are investigating. Learn how to use the search engine, including advanced search and the scholar preferences.

Google Scholar: In addition to Google Scholar, you should of course use the Sam Houston Library for electronic access to the research papers that you would like to read and also use the search engine Microsoft Academic Search . There are many more search engines than what I have mentioned here to find research papers.

• Definitions and Tools - Is there anything that the reader needs to know before reading on. If so, maybe you should educate the reader on the technical jargon you plan to use, non-standard terminology, specialized tools etc. to help him/her comprehend the rest of the paper. Remember, the ideal paper is entirely self-contained and should enable the reader to understand the paper from start to finish without (much) difficulty.
•  It should also (ideally) help the reader reproduce your research from scratch. So, your paper should be transparent, lucid and finally, permit the reader to learn and enjoy your work! Presentation plays a critical role, possibly, more important than the actual content of the paper. If a reviewer is unable to understand your brilliant work, then it is not of much use

 • Main research (use appropriate section headings of your choice) - here you should describe your research in complete detail. The models, detailed algorithms, implementations, configurations, etc. -- all needs to be described in a clear and logical manner. This section can have multiple subsections, numbered and named accordingly. This section ranges between 2 to 3 pages in a 5-page paper. Use any means necessary to explicate your ideas.

• Simulation, experiments, and results - relevant data needs to be collected and analyzed here. Figures and tables are highly recommended. In a 5-page paper, this section is about half to one page. As you may know, figures and visual illustrations are much better than words - use them liberally to illustrate your work.
• Conclusions and future work - this section draws conclusions and gives the direction for future research work (possible extension to your current research). This section is between 1/3 to ½ column.

 • References - list ALL Cited references here using the standard IEEE format. You should have at least 13 and no more than 18 references. Every cited reference should be listed in the references section and equally important ONLY list references that have been cited in the paper.

 • Limit the total length of your paper to 5 pages (unless it is simply impossible). There are some acceptable reasons for going beyond the 5 page limit.

 IMPORTANT NOTES

 • Absolutely no copying others' work and passing off as your own! This is plagiarism and is unacceptable in academic research. All algorithms, text, figures, tables, data in your paper must come directly from your own research. Always be sure to give attribution when you use material from another work. Also, try to avoid redundancy and over explanation if possible.

• The due dates are hard deadlines! No late submission will be accepted. This in part, simulates real-life conference/journal submission attitudes - if you were late to submit your paper to the conference/journal they will simply reject your paper for being late.
• Identify an appropriate venue (conference/journal) for your paper. Use the CFP wiki - call for papers wiki to identify the right venue for your paper.

Use the keyword search to find out which conferences are interested in accepting papers on your topic.

You can use the search engines mentioned before as well to identify the right venues to market your paper.

 • If your paper were to get accepted, congratulations! We will continue to talk and secure the necessary funding, do the needful to travel to the conference and present your work.

 • Why this activity is beneficial to you - Publishing your research is the fundamental mechanism with which you share knowledge and information.

You gain recognition in your field, at work, and of course command respect from your peers. Above all, you have the satisfaction of having created truly original work and contributed to the academic community aside from securing a high grade in this course! You should use this experience to jump start your Masters Project work as well - Good luck! Some Comments on Writing:

 • Demystifying In-Text vs. Parenthetical Citations

• Always use "we" instead of the singular "I" in the research paper.
• For further information on sound technical writing, please consider reading Strunk and White's Venerable Writing Guide "The Elements of Study".