Scientific Writing (3 ects)
Teachers:
Wilhelmiina Hämäläinen
(firstname.secondname@cs.joensuu.fi, without Scandinavian letters,
official meeting times Tue 13.30-14.30)
Lectures: 8.3.-11.5. Wed 12-14 B181, 14-16 B178
(computer class room).
Material:
Hämäläinen, W.:
Scientific Writing for Computer Science Students (all course
material).
For printing take
this (2 pages per a4, 63 pages) or
this (4 pages per a4, 32 pages).
Final papers
- Akhmetova, Alfiya: Discovery of frequent episodes in event sequences
- Bravo Lopez, Sebastian: Transfinite Turing machines
- Dudochin, Maxim:
- Govases, Tersia: Social information filtering
- Gutnova, Alina: Bit-parallel string matching
- Hashim, Ahmed: Automatic assessment of students' program codes
- Lakhtin, Yuriy:
- Morro Garrido, Cristina:Different approaches to computer adaptive testing applications
- Nikitin, Fedor:Bloom filters and their applications
- Poghosova, Anahit:Parallel random access machines
- Wafula, Belinda: Automatic construction of concept maps
- Wisniewski, Dominik: P versus NP question
Current
- Please, fill the
course evaluation form!
- Corrected page 21
- Referring to literature (A summary + examples)
- The official latex template for this course. Use this template for
everything you write in this course. Please, do not change the
font size, line spacing, marginals etc.
- Feedback on summaries
- Hint: There are graphical editors for latex. In Linux, you can
try kile. For windows, you can find LEd. Our administrators have promised
to install them to B178 and maybe also to other computer classes.
- Hint 2: You can check spelling in a latex file by command ispell myfile.tex.
Description
The goal is to prepare impit students for writing a master
thesis. During the course, we will practise to search relevant
information, read scientific articles, plan logical structure for
writing, write scientific English texts, make references, etc. Useful
tools like latex and bibtex are also introduced. The main part of the
course consists of writing exercises.
Work load
3 ects = 78 hours work
Contact sessions: 8 weeks * 4 lectures =8*3h=32 h
Homework: about 46h, which means in average 5-6 h per week
What you can do before the course begins?
- Save all texts you have written in English -- see above.
- Read as much English as possible. For example, if you can select a
Russian or an English version of a course book, prefer the English one!
- Get a good English grammar. It can be easier to read in your mother
tongue, but you will manage in English as well. We will anyway have to
use all grammatic concepts in English. Check
on-line grammar
- If you know you have problems in grammar, try to recall and
practise them. Check also
typical language problems in ES diaries.
- Try to enlarge your vocabulary, especially computer science terms.
In the course you will be asked to keep your own dictionary, but you
can begin it already now. It is a simple www page, where you list all
new words you want to learn, their meaning and some examples, if the
use context is not clear. Notice that often the words have different
meanings in different languages, even if they are nearly same. Check
the use context from English-to-English dictionary or at least from
English-to-MotherTongue dictionary.
- Practise to use English-to-English dictionaries. For example,
in Linux you can find
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
(command kdict), which is very good one!
Schedule
| Date |
Lecture material |
Exercises |
Work to return |
| 8.3. |
Introduction | Material for exercises 1 | Some previous text |
| 15.3. |
Literature |
Material for exercises 2 | Summary |
| 22.3. |
Grammar and style, part 1
|
The same as exercises 2 | Disposition + articles for the final paper |
| 29.3. |
Tables, figures, etc.
Grammar, part 2 (nouns and articles)
|
Material for exercises 4 |
Definitions, preliminary introduction |
| 5.4. |
Grammar, part 3 (adverbs, parallel structures)
|
Exercises 5 | One section (2,3 or 4) |
| 12.4. |
Grammar, part 4 (sentences)
|
Exercises 6 | One section (2,3 or 4) |
| 19.4. |
EASTER HOLIDAY!
|
| |
| 26.5. |
Grammar - last part
|
Exercises 7 | One section (2,3 or 4) |
| 3.5. |
Advice for master's thesis A cehcklist for master's thesis
|
A latex template for master's thesis | Conclusions. A modified introduction. |
| 10.5. |
THE COURSE IS OVER!
|
DEADLINE FOR | THE FINAL PAPER |
Useful links
Recommend good links!
- Merriam-Webster online dictionary
and thesaurus. In the thesaurus, you can check how to use words +
synonyms for them.
- Searching material
- The Guide to Grammar and Writing
A very easy-reading grammar and instructions for writing.
You can also test your nowledge in quizzes!
- Strunk: The Elements of
Style. A classic book about writing available on-line.
- The American Heritage
Book of English Usage (an online book on grammar and style)
-
Wordnet - a lexical database for the English language Explanations and synonyms for nouns, adjectives and verbs.
- The Not So Short
Introduction to LATEX2 A comprehensive guidebook!
- Zobel, Justin: Writing for Computer Science. A recommended book,
available at least in Amazon.
- Differences between British and American English
- More differences
- Shall vs. will
- More on shall vs
will
Last modified 2.2. 2006