[A4] Research Proposal Revisions
⚠️Submission DeadlineCST 23:59:59 Dec 22, 2023.
The deadline is firm. Submit via this URL.
Improve Your Manuscript
Revisit your research proposal with the mindset of a programmer analyzing code.
In this assignment, you (critically) refine and improve your research proposal by applying principles of “program analysis and synthesis”, with a focus on clarity, precision, and brevity.
- Fix any spelling or grammatical issues.
- Improve the organization of your text, e.g., make topic sentences clearly conclude a paragraph.
- Against Vagueness: Challenge yourself to identify any vague statements in your proposal. Rewrite your “statements” to be as specific and clear as possible, and avoid programming errors like use-without-definition.
- Against Verbosity: Apply the principle of minimization to your writing. Eliminate redundant phrases, and any statement that does not add value to your proposal.
You may ask a peer to proof-read your research proposal. After revision, your proposal should look like a serious research paper. Specifically, you should take good care of different type of readers:
- Junior-year undergraduates. They have some (but limited) background in programming, algorithms, and computer systems. You should try to convince them that you are trying to solve a really interesting problem with really exciting techniques.
- Graduates, but from other areas in computer science. They can have their independent judgment of the quality of your research work.
- Expert, but from other areas in computer science. They read a lot of papers. You should quickly impress them with your good work.
- Your domain experts, maybe the author of a paper you cited. They are likely the most weighted reviewers in the program committee to decide whether your paper should be thrown away. They will have a quick and precise judgment of your research contributions. So don't irritate them!
Try to make your article readable to all the above audiences. Don't worry about writing too much background-Your domain experts will skim your topic sentences and directly jump to your point. See the power of topic sentences!
Useful reference materials:
Typeset with TeX
Use the following document configurations:
\documentclass[acmsmall,review,screen,anonymous]{acmart}
\acmConference[Introduction to SE Research]{The 2023 Introduction to Software Engineering Research at Nanjing University (ISER'23)}{2023}{Nanjing, China}
\setcopyright{none}
Reference format: \bibliographystyle{ACM-Reference-Format}
.
Important note: you should put your name and affiliation (English) in the \author{}
block, such that your research proposal still looks good when anonymous
is removed. The instructors will keep a printed proceeding. The A2's rules still apply:
- Write in English.
- Not exceed six pages (single-column) for the main text (including figures, tables, and appendices). Additional pages containing only references are allowed.
- The research proposal should be anonymous that the author's identity is not revealed. See the “double-anonymous review process” part of the FSE 2024 submission guideline for more details.
Compilation Requirements
- Submit a zip-format archive of source code. The document root should be named
main.tex
(any directory will be okay).
- Build command:
latexmk -pdf main.tex
.
Typeset a Beautiful Paper
Try your test to create a beautiful paper. Please refer to the texdoc of acmart
(texdoc acmart
in command line).
Here is a link to common LaTeX issues. You may also find beautiful papers in POPL/PLDI/OOPSLA/ECOOP.
Another source to learn typesetting is from preprint sources on arXiv.