How to Write a Scientific Paper

Professor Jari Saramäki from Aalto University had an excellent talk about how to write a scientific paper. The recording and slides are both available online, highly recommended if you are beginning with academic writing.

Formalize Your Notations

Use commonly applied mathematical notations in the field of machine learning. Check out the following two tutorials.

Prepare Figures

Prepare nice figures for schematic illustration and results presentations. This will make your readers’ life easy.

Schematic Illustration

If you use existing methods, follow a specific pipeline, propose new methods or solutions, and utilize/integrate some specific frameworks in your work, make a schematic visualization for them. You can easily find some nice examples from the Internet, for example, OptimalFlow toolkit by Tony Dong. You can use draw.io (a web app) or OmniGraffle (macOS only) to draw your own figures. These two tools can help you export vector graphics (PDF and EPS).

Plot Scientific Figures

When you prepare your figures for presenting the results, try to plot figures as a pro. Here is a nice step-by-step tutorial on how to make scientific plots. And you can find more in the Internet.

  • If you are using Python, the matplotlib package will definitely help. Here is an excellent cheatsheet repository.
  • Use vector graphics in format such as PDF and EPS. In Python Matplotlib, export pdf format by setting format='pdf' in savefig().
  • Scientific style plots. the SciencePlots package of Python has Matplotlib styles to format your figures for scientific papers, presentations and theses.

LaTex Tips

  • Only one sentence per line (it helps with change tracking).
  • Use \label{label_key} and \ref{label_key} for cross-reference. I know several authors, especially MS word users, use static numbering for their sections/figures/tables even when they are writing in LaTex. Please make a change by using \label{label_key} and \ref{label_key}, and I promise you will benefit from this.

Improve Your References

  • use google scholar to generate bibtex items for your references. Here is a useful Chrome plugin called BibTex Quick Copy for Google Scholar. PS: be cautious about potential errors in the auto-generated bib items.

  • Check your references if everything is complete. Don’t miss pages, volumes, or publication venues.

  • BibTeX (in many bibliography styles, including ACL’s) lowercases the titles of conference papers and needs to be told which letters not to lowercase. So if your title has letters that should always be capitals, please protect them with curly braces, for example:

    title={ {Can LSTM Learn to Capture Agreement? The Case of Basque} }

Checklist Before Sending Your Draft

  1. Proof read your article again. Pay attention to details and fix any minor issues as possible as you can.
  2. Check your spelling and use American English (recommended)
  3. Enumerate all symbols and abbreviations and check if they are consistent.
  4. Check grammar using Grammarly.com.

For Aalto Students:

  1. You can also arrange academic writing consultations with Writing Clinics at Aalto Language Center
  2. Use Turnitin to check the originality for your article and make sure the similarity score is less than 20%.