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manoelcampos/papers-authors-check-list.md

Last active June 1, 2018 13:23
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A check list for authors of academic/scientific papers
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papers-authors-check-list.md

List of common formatting, style standards and good practices to be applied in scientific papers writing

NOTE: The formatting standards can change depending of the publisher, which usually provide a style guide for authors. This list provides just the common standards usually accepted by the majority of publishers.

  • References for figures, tables, equations and source code listings usually start with capital letter. Examples:
    • the project follows a multi-tier architecture, as presented in Figure 1.
    • communication cost to migrate a virtual machine is computed by Equation 1.
  • Captions of figures, tables source code listings and so on have to finish with a dot, as any other phrase. Examples:
    • Figure 1. Overview of proposal architecture.
    • Algorithm 1. Proposed virtual machine migration algorithm.
  • The use of initial capital letter for acronyms meanings is an "americanization" that despite I think it is cool, it is more formal to use all uppercase only in the acronyms themselves. Examples:
    • virtual machine (VM) instead of Virtual Machine (VM)
    • hyper text transfer protocol (HTTP) instead of Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
  • Figures and other elements should appear in the place where they are referred the first time, but near to it and preferably at the same page.
  • Every figure, table or algorithm in you paper must be referenced and commented. You don't have to expect the reader to make assumptions about such elements.
  • Tables should not be spplited across multiple pages. If you have a really long table that doesn't fit in a single page, at least repeat column captions in each page. Using LaTeX there are some packages such as longtable which automatically do that.
  • It is obvious that you must not have paragraphs of a single phrase. Just check if this minor mistake have gone unnoticed.
  • On the other hand, it doesn't hurt to remember that you must not have looooooooooooong paragraphs. If so, split them up.
  • Make sure you don't have neither too short or too long lines. Too short lines shows lack of language ability, while to long ones may be confusing and difficult to read.
  • Each section has to start with a paragraph. You shouldn't start a section immediately with a sub-section, without any text between them.
  • Avoid using an acronym without its meaning in your paper title, abstract or captions of figures, tables, source code listings, etc. Concerning the paper title and abstract, the use of acronyms without their meanings difficult your paper to be found, once the default option in publisher's sites is to search just in these fields instead of the entire paper content. Despite the user has the option to search by keywords in the entire text, this may give a huge number of papers that aren't directly related to the topic the user is looking for. For instance, if you search for keywords such as "virtual machine migration" in papers' content, you may get several works which just mention these keywords but in fact aren't proposing anything in such a topic.
    • Example: Instead of just Figure 2. VM lifecycle management performed by a VMM, try one of the examples below
      • Figure 2. Virtual machine lifecycle management performed by a virtual machine monitor
      • Figure 2. Virtual machine (VM) lifecycle management performed by a virtual machine monitor (VMM)
      • Figure 2. Virtual machine (VM) lifecycle management performed by a VM monitor (VMM)
  • Your abstract has to give a complete overview about the content of your paper. I think you realize the huge amount of papers one researcher may find about a very specific topic. You know it's impossible to read all papers which you may find. This way, your abstract should be really well written to allow reaserchers to know, in advance, if your paper matters to him/her or not. Don't you think that if your abstract is really "abstract", you'll make everybody to be curious of what your paper is about. It in fact causes the collateral effect of making every clever research, which doesn't have time to waste, to discard your paper. Your abstract should be clear, direct and has to briefly cover all sections of your paper. Further, it has to summarize your findings and achievements. See this guide of how to write an abstract for more information.
  • Avoid using contractions such as don't, doesn't, didn't, wasn't, weren't, etc. Use the full form of these expressions (do not, does not, etc). Also avoid using the possesive case.

References

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