Resources for written reports and oral presentations

Crediting others

• Proper citations are a hallmark of any solidly written report, and are often useful in other forms of publications. Citation and Style Guides (2013) refers to several style guides; pick a suitable style and use it consistently. Especially see its section "How to cite sources."
• For citations, submit a working link to a freely-readable copy if available, and also submit a working link to a URL based on Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) if available. Here is an example citation using Vancouver system format:
  • Sakr S, Liu A, Fayoumi AG. The family of MapReduce and large-scale data processing systems. ACM Comput Surv. 2013;46(1):11. doi:10.1145/2522968.2522979.
  The citation's title hyperlinks to a freely-readable resource <http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.2966>. Unfortunately, these versions are often preliminary or ephemeral or both, so it's better to also include a DOI to the final, stable version even if it's not freely readable, as shown in How to find a DOI and create permanent links to online articles. The DOI reference in the above citation hyperlinks to <http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2522968.2522979>.
• If your publication uses an active format such as PDF or HTML, URLs should be clickable.
• See Web of Science Journal Title Abbreviations for a list of reasonably-standard journal-title abbreviations.

Written reports

• Simon Peyton Jones's Research skills (2013) contains a brief and pleasant section about how to write a good research paper; it is a companion to the "How to give a good research talk" section cited above.
• Roy Levin and David D. Redell's An Evaluation of the Ninth SOSP Submissions –or– How (and How Not) to Write a Good Systems Paper (1983) points out common problems in technical papers, and gives suggestions for how to fix them.
• The UNC Writing Center's Scientific Reports (2012) describes how to write and organize a scientific research report.
• David A. McMurrey's Online Technical Writing (2006) contains many examples and much discussion of technical writing. For example, it has a chapter on recommendation and feasibility reports that contains several sample reports.
• George Gopen and Judith Swan's The Science of Scientific Writing (1990) briefly summarizes some of the science behind writing clear writing for scientific audiences.
• William Strunk, Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1918) is the classic style guide for American English writing. It excels at showing how to omit needless words.
• The Requirements for USENIX ATC '13 Authors provides LaTeX templates for computer science research papers. The USENIX templates use a two-column format with 10-point font for most of the text, on an 8½"×11" page. LaTeX typically generates higher-quality output for technical papers. An example of the output format and an example student paper are available.
• The Cabrillo Tidepool Study's Scientific Report Rubric (1997) is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your report.

Oral presentations

• Simon Peyton Jones's Research skills (2013) has a section "How to give a good research talk" almost makes it look easy and covers the essentials. He's brave enough to point you to a video of himself, giving the talk.
• Michael Ernst's Giving a technical presentation (giving a talk) (2011) contains workable and up-to-date advice for giving computer science talks.
• Mark D. Hill's Oral Presentation Advice (1997) briefly describes how to give a good talk. It contains a summary of David Patterson's classic How to Give a Bad Talk (1983).
• Judith P. Rhodes et al.'s Scientifically Speaking: Tips for Preparing Scientific Talks and Using Visual Aids (2005) contains advice and observations on preparing and delivering a scientific talk. Its advice on poster presentations is also valuable, though you can skip it if you are not making a poster.
• The Science and Engineering Library (SEL) has a learning center with equipment with which you can rehearse your presentation. Reserve a time slot by visiting the circulation desk in Boelter 8270.
• Caroline McCullen's Student Presentation Rubric (1997) is the sort of thing we use when evaluating your presentation.