INF-2310:

Academic Writing
A quick tutorial (from my perspective)
Why write….

• To remember and learn

• To demonstrate knowledge

• To Convince and teach

What makes sense in your mind might not work

out at all on paper.

Writing allows us to reach beyond our mental

limitations.
Before we start, a note about plagiarism
Don’t do it. We will know!
• Sources for plagiarism:
• Other students, web, books, paper
! Self plagiarism might or might not be ok !

• Accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism

• Don’t cut & paste text from others with the intent of modifying. You’ll forget!

• Limited text quotations are ok (remember reference)

• Figures / artwork is borderline ok when source is provided (avoid at all cost)

• Check copyrights permission (particularly for official publications)
Master theses are public…
 eduwriter.ai

New AI tools, new possibilities?

• Text generation
• Essays, thesis

• Paraphrasing
• Rewrite, expand

• Text summarizing

• Reference generation

• Grammar checking

• Plagiarism tool
NB! Only guidelines
Grade A - Excellent
• An outstanding thesis which clearly demonstrates a talent for research and/or originality, in a
national perspective.

• The candidate has very good insight into the scientific theory and methods in his/her field and has
demonstrated scientific knowledge at a very high level. The objectives of the thesis are well defined
and easy to understand.

• The candidate is able to select and apply relevant scientific methods convincingly, has all the technical skills
required for the work, can plan and conduct very advanced experiments or computations without help, and
works very independently.

• The thesis is considered very extensive and/or innovative. The analysis and discussion have an extremely
good scientific foundation and justification, and are clearly linked to the topic that is addressed. The
candidate demonstrates extremely good critical reflection and distinguishes clearly between his/her
contributions and the contributions from others.

• The form, structure and language in the thesis are at an extremely high level.
Grade F - Fail
• A thesis that does not satisfy the minimum requirements.

• The candidate does not have sufficient scientific knowledge and insight into the scientific theory
and methods in his/her field. The objectives of the thesis are not clearly defined or are lacking.

• The candidate demonstrates a lack of competence in the use of scientific methods, does not
have the required technical skills and independence for the work, and has scarcely utilized the
research group’s expertise in his/her own work.

• The thesis is considered very limited and fragmented. The analysis and discussion do not have an
adequate scientific foundation and justification, and are loosely linked to the topic hat is
discussed. The candidate does not demonstrate sufficient critical reflection, and does not clearly
distinguish between his/her contributions and the contributions from others.

• The thesis has major shortcomings with respect to form, structure, and language
Writing is hard …

• As with most things, to be good at it you

need to practice.

• Start practicing the writing skills you

need for your Master / Bachelor thesis
The phases of writing

think
expand shrink

edit write
Suggested template
Title • 11 pt serif fonts for body text.
Author
1. Introduction • Monospace fonts for code
2. Background
• About 75 characters per line
3. [Main content]
• Enumerate sections
4. Conclusions
References • In reports: no need for TOC or list
of figures.
Introduction
• Puts the report in context
• Why is your work important and interesting (you do not need recap the
history of computing).
… but get to the point quickly!

• Make the report self contained

• So, the reader do not need the assignment text

• Summarize what you think you were expected to do

• … and hence what you did do.
Background
• Details the reader needs to know
• ... but that you cannot assume is common knowledge

• Show that you have vast knowledge & understanding on the topic
• Establish yourself as an authority on the subject of the report

[May also be merged with introduction if there is not sufficient text to warrant a
separate section]

[Related work is similar to background, but more specific to the paper topic.]
Main Content
• Design / Implementation
• Describe what you worked on. How is it designed?
• Describe the challenges and problems?
• Describe alternatives and why you did not go for those?
• What were the tradeoffs?
• Algorithms listings, system architecture drawings, protocol diagrams
• API specs, data structures, ER diagrams

• Evaluation
• Describes how well your implementation worked
• Argue that you achieved your set goals
• Include graphs & statistics
Conclusions
• Summarize the report and what you have done
• No surprises here, you're not writing a crime novel (e.g., the butler did it)

• Argue that you have done what you were supposed to do

• e.g., why should you pass the assignment

• Highlight interesting or difficult parts

References Reference section at the end of the report.

• Listing of other work that you use actively in your

report so that your readers can find them.

“Various approaches have been proposed for dealing with

Sybil attacks, including packet latency triangulation [1], credit
payment schemes on top of social networks [5], client puzzles
[23], and physical artifacts like smart cards [12].”

For instance, [4] argue that avoiding multihop DHT routing

“For instance, DeCandia et al. [4] argue that avoiding

multihop DHT routing was necessary to keep latencies
sufficiently small in Amazon’s Dynamo key-value store. A Learn how to use end-note,
similar argument was also used by Kreitz and Niemela [21] for Bibtex, or some other tool to
the Spotify music application.”
handle references.

Recommended: biblatex + biber

Main Structural Elements
• Words
• Verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.

• Sentences Learn what these are

and how use them.
• Paragraphs

• Section, subsection, subsubsection Use formal proper

• Figures, tables, etc.
language.
• Floating or inline
Read and edit your own text
• Nobody gets it right the first time (or the second time)

• Write over multiple iterations

• Find weak spots: elaborate, clarify, exemplify, and expand

• Whenever you do/think/read something interesting, write it down immediately

• It doesn’t matter were you put it or that is well articulated

• Do not get hung up on covering everything

• There’s always an angle that you cannot fit into your narrative

• Cut and move on

• Do not get hung up on pet sentences and points if they turn out hard to fit into the narrative.

Less is more (often literally)

Does it make sense? Is it interesting?
For each sentence:
• Check that it complete, that it parses correct, and make sense.
• What is it trying to express?
• Does it follow from the previous sentence?
• Does it fit in its enclosing paragraph?
• Can it be split in two or joined with the surrounding sentences.

Each sentence should convey one single message only.

Use the active voice
At the heart of every good sentence is a strong, precise verb.

• Passive: It was earlier demonstrated that heart attacks can be caused by

high stress.

• Active: Brown earlier showed that high stress can cause heart attacks.

Hence, you can say I or we in your report

… but not in every sentence. That quickly becomes tedious.

Try to reduce wordiness
Consumer demand is rising in the area of services.

It was her last argument that finally persuaded me.

The opinion of the working group.

Try to reduce wordiness
Consumer demand is rising in the area of services.
=> Consumers are demanding more services.

It was her last argument that finally persuaded me.

=> Her last argument finally persuaded me.

The opinion of the working group.

=> The working group's opinion.
Put wordy phrases on a diet
the reason for
for the reason that
due to the fact that => because, since, why
owing to the fact that
considering the fact that

in the event that => if

if it should happen that
under circumstances in which
Put wordy phrases on a diet
despite the fact that => although, even though
regardless of the fact that

It is crucial that
it is necessary that
there is a need => must, should
it is important that
cannot be avoided
Misc. other tips
• Sections indicate a set of paragraphs with similar topics, summarized by the title
• You can still talk about that topic elsewhere

• Try to make sections and paragraphs self contained

• You can then easily move them later on

• It’s better to write in the wrong place, than to not write at all
• You can always restructure later on

• Do not over explain (have faith in the reader)

• .. but do not assume the reader remember what you talked about 1 page earlier
Suggested literature