Introduction to Scientific Working (2022/23)

Scientific Guidelines

Slides:

• Scientific Guidelines

General Introduction on Scientific Guidelines

Including topic on how to quote, ethical standards, etc.

Search for Literature

Slides:

• Search Literature

Strategies to search for relevant papers

Main search strategies (search, traverse, community, projects).

Reading Research Papers

Slides:

• Reading Papers

Suggestion on how to read papers

Based on a talk by Andrew Ng, available on YouTube. There is also a summary article available on Towards Data Science

Research Questions

Slides:

• Research Questions

Formulating and Validating Research Questions

Good research questions allow to guide the research and to structure the storyline of a paper/work/thesis:

• Easterbrook, S., Singer, J., Storey, M. A., & Damian, D. (2008). Selecting empirical methods for software engineering research. In Guide to advanced empirical software engineering (pp. 285-311). Springer, London.

Types of Studies

Slides:

• Types of Studies

How to answer research questions

Given a research question or a hypothesis, how does one answer these (or falsify):

• Yin, R. K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Sage. 2002.
• Kitchenham, B., Pickard, L., and Pfleeger, S.L. (1995). Case studies for method and tool evaluation. IEEE Software 12 (4) 52-62.

Being Precise

Slides:

• Being Precise

Exact scientific work and clear statements in scientific writing

Scientific work should be clear, consistent and not ambiguous.

Hedging

Slides:

• Hedging

Common scientific phrases

Often one cannot make a precise statement and wants to weaken the tone:

• Hyland, K. (1995). The Author in the Text: Hedging Scientific Writing. Hong Kong papers in linguistics and language teaching, 18, 33-42.
• Ken, H. (1996). Writing without conviction? Hedging in scientific research articles Applied Linguistics. Hyland, Ken. 1996. Writing without conviction? Hedging in scientific research articles. Applied Linguistics, 17(4), 433-454.

Citing and References

Slides:

• Citations

Introduction on how and when to cite

The reader of a scientific work should be provided with means on how to look up for the sources that influenced the work. This includes references to back up made claims and clearly cite the sources of inspiration.

Tenses in Writing

Slides:

• Tenses in Writing

What part of a paper is written in a specific tense

Statements that are true should be written in the present tense, and other guidelines:

• Swales, J. M. & Feak, C. B. (2004). Academic Writing for Graduate Students. (2nd ed.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. (Pages 254-256).

Writing Surveys

Slides:

• Writing Surveys

Creating and evaluating reviews

Based on these papers:

• Webster, J. & Watson, R. T. (2002) ‘Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: Writing a literature review’, MIS Quarterly, 26(2).
• Boote, D. N., & Beile, P. (2005). Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation. Educational Researcher, 34(6), 3–15. http://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X034006003

Thesis Structure & Template

Slides:

• Thesis Template

Should follow the IMRaD Structure

Thesis template filled with the default chapters and a description of the expected content, also available as Latex.

Also highly recommended for this topic are the slides by Steve Easterbrook:

• How to Write a Thesis

• Lebrun, J. L. (2011). Scientific Writing 2.0. World Scientific.

Thesis Checklist

Slides:

• Checklist

Checklist for Thesis

Compilation of checks and actions to be conducted prior to handing in your work (for thesis and papers).