Specifications for Research Paper
CS 496: Senior Seminar II, Spring 2010

Rational

1. To report what you have learned through the research portion of your project.
2. To practice your writing skills in the context of computing.

Requirements

1. 15-30 pages.
2. Summarize related work.
3. Describe your project in the context of other work in the area.
4. Your paper should have the standard expository form (not all of these may apply):
   • introduction
   • related work or background
   • your methodology/theory
   • implementation
   • results
   • conclusion
   • future work
   • bibliography
   For example, see Sample1 and Sample2. You are not expected to understand these papers, but look them over to see the structure.
5. All figures should be labeled with a number and brief desciption. All major equations (or those that you must reference from somewhere else in the text) should be numbered.
6. The are many formats for citations. Given that you are computer scientists, it is worthwhile for you to experience the process of formatting for a real conference. It is suggested that you use the format for an ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 technical paper. You may use the Word format or LaTex.
7. Write clearly and simply. There is an art to expressing complex ideas so that others can understand them; don't be discouraged if writing seems difficult -- good writing is.
8. Find someone willing to read your draft for content/organization, for example, make use of the writing center. Ask them to initiallyfocus on the overall structure and ideas, not the grammar or spelling (those are details to be fixed up after the big issues are cleared up).
9. Write/revise/revise/revise.