Writing Technical Documents and Research Papers

Why Write Papers

Simply doing excellent research is not enough. Progress can only happen when ideas are understood and adopted by other researchers. Peer-reviewed papers in reputed journals are the best way to get your work out to the scientific community.

The second important reason is that a published paper implies that the work has been endorsed by some of your peers, the people working in related research areas. As a result, peer-reviewed publications have become one of the important criteria to judge the quality of your work.

Before writing paper, it is worthwhile to know about plagiarism. It is important to be aware of how to give credit to others for their ideas, what items require to be cited and how to use and build on other researchers’ work.

How to Write Research Papers

• Dr. Paul Doughty’s advice on how to write your research for publication.
• A comprehensive guide to writing papers by Dr. David R. Caprette from Rice University:
  • Writing research papers
  • Common Errors in Research Papers
  • Selected Writing Rules
  I have copied all the above information and put it in a single PDF file for easy reference. Download Dr. Caprette’s paper writing tips here.
• Dr. Levine’s guide to writing dissertation thesis.

English Style Guides

• Element of Style by Strunk and White. Dr. Keogh calls is “The BEST resource on writing style – read it 10 times and then read it a few more.”. The online version of Strunk and White is available here.
• Another useful resource is The Economist Style Guide.

Using the right tools

LaTeX

LaTeX is a popular documenting and typesetting language and a very powerful tool for writing papers and theses.

• MS Windows version of LaTeX, called MiKTex can be downloaded here.
• David Wilkins provides a good primer for getting started with LaTeX.
• Several LaTeX packages are available from the CTAN website.
• WinEdt is an excellent Windows-based editor for LaTeX documents. On a Linux system, Emacs or Vim are my preferred editors.
• Figures can be inserted into LaTeX documents. Encapsulated Postscript (eps) is the preferred format for figures. Mayura Draw is my preferred program for making figures in EPS. Matlab figures can be exported into EPS format for use with LaTeX. I have provided a more detailed discussion on plots and figures here.
• (Update: 18-Feb-2023) I have moved to Overleaf, an online LaTeX editor, since sharing and co-editing papers is much easier.

Microsoft Word

Some tips on using Word in a better manner follow:

• Writing better documents with MS Word
• Embedding figures and writing captions
• Use Equation Editor or MathType for all equations. Writing equations in plain-text is unprofessional
• EndNote is a powerful tool for managing bibliographies
• My preferred plotting software is Kaleidagraph