[Bristol Computer Science | Intelligent Systems Lab | Tim Kovacs ]

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Advice on learning and research

This is a collection of resources written by me, or things by others I found interesting, on subjects such as how to write, how to do a literature review, how to plan a report or dissertation, how to avoid plagiarism and how to do research. In some cases there are local copies of external documents which have disappeared, or in case they disappear, but if the external versions are updated the local copies will be out of date.

Sylvia Miksch [local copy July 2009] has a similar page.

Tips for students at all levels

• Where and when to get help in the department of computer science and the university. If you're having trouble something can be done to help. See someone about it sooner, not later. Tim Kovacs
• Guidelines for Marking Essays by Tim Kovacs
• A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop. Cindi May, Scientific American, 2014.
• Challenges for neurodiverse students (including dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, autism spectrum) by Louise Hilliar.
• Tips on reading and writing from UCL's Philosophy Study Guide [local copy July 2009]
• How anxiety scrambles your brain and makes it hard to learn. Guardian article of 2015 by Juliet Rix
• Student syndrome: putting off a task until it feels urgent enough to motivate you.
• Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology [local copy July 2009]

The "How-to" lecture series

• How to Research: Research, Reading & Synthesis (Peter Flach)
• Doing Research: Planning, Risk & Reflection (Andrew Charlesworth)
• Writing and Referencing (Andrew Charlesworth)
• How to Write: Written Communication, Critical Assessment, and Avoiding Plagiarism (Tim Kovacs and Peter Flach)

Tips on writing by Tim Kovacs

• Hints for written work by Peter Flach and Tim Kovacs
• Hints for oral presentations by Peter Flach and Tim Kovacs
• Examples of bad writing by Tim Kovacs
• Hints for avoiding plagiarism by Tim Kovacs

Writing papers and theses

• Tips for Preparing a Scientific Research Paper from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
• How To Have Your Abstract Rejected by van Leunen and Lipton.
• How to Organize your Thesis by John W. Chinneck.
• An essay on Crafting papers on Machine Learning [local copy July 2009] by Pat Langley, which has good advice for writing papers on any subject
• Notes on presenting theses by Aaron Sloman [local copy July 2009]
• Writing and presenting your thesis or dissertation by S. Joseph Levine [local copy July 2009]
• Mathematical Writing by Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee and Paul M. Roberts. Notes on "Issues of technical writing and the effective presentation of mathematics and computer science. Preparation of theses, papers, books, and "literate" computer programs".

Books on writing

• The Elements of Style [wikipedia page, HTML copy] is considered by some to be a classic, but is also severely criticised by Geoffrey K. Pullum in 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
• You Can Write Better English is aimed at Chinese speakers

Philosophy of Science and Education

• Types of research in computing science software engineering and artificial intelligence by Aaron Sloman [local copy in PDF July 2009]
• A quote from Bertrand Russell on education

Tools for literature searches

• Citeseer^x. Free citation database and collection of scientific papers, mainly in computer science and information science. Wikipedia page.
• Google Scholar. Free search citation database for scientific papers and author profile pages. Wikipedia page.
• Web of Science has citation data. Subscription needed. Wikipedia page.
• DBLP. Free bibliography of millions of computer science papers. Wikipedia page.

For those doing research

• Aims, Objectives and Guidelines for PhD students by Tim Kovacs, 2008. For the impatient there's a much shorter slide presentation from 2013.
• The Value of Group Projects for PhD Students by Tim Kovacs, 2007.
• RA and PhD Skills training, Tim Kovacs, 2009.
• A form for reviewing papers by Tim Kovacs
• Researchers can sit in on courses to become better-rounded. By Tim Kovacs.
• You and your research by Richard Hamming, where he suggests psychological reasons for why "so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run". Bell Communications Research Colloquium Seminar, 7 March 1986.
• The PhD Experience by Mihir Bellare [local copy July 2009]
• A short guide to PhD study by John Langford [local copy September 2008]
• Summary of the "Is there life after a PhD?" conference 2009, by Owen Gower.
• On the role of mathematical formalism in research: Two cheers for formalism by Paul Krugman. You may want to start with section 3, which is of general interest; the earlier parts deal with charges of excessive formalism in economics.
• A blog on Academic Productivity. The site died at some point and the link is to the most recent archive I could find.
• Some articles from Matt Might's blog
  • The illustrated guide to a Ph.D.
  • Productivity tips, tricks and hacks for academics
  • 3 qualities of successful Ph.D. students: Perseverance, tenacity and cogency
• Working with Norman Ramsey. A guide for students on working with a supervisor. [local copy September 2008]

The quality of conferences, journals and books

I think quality is everything in education and research. Many very weak students get degrees, conferences have published computer-generated nonsense papers, and some publishers focus on publishing books of little or no value. So the fact that someone has a degree or has published a book tells you nothing about quality.

Students and researchers must know which conferences and journals in their area are highly regarded and which are not worth their time. Rankings and statistics such as those below can be useful.

• Junk conferences want your money and don't care what you write. Tim Kovacs
• Junk Journals: Open Access Publisher Accepts Nonsense Manuscript for Dollars by Phil Davis, June 10, 2009.
• Scientists credited on ghostwritten articles 'should be charged with fraud'. Ian Sample, 2 Aug 2011.
• Write-only publication: books written to benefit only the publisher and writer, not the reader. Ian Bogost, November 24, 2008. [Local Copy Oct. 2021]
• Computer Science Conference Ranking
• Acceptance rates for computational intelligence conferences until about 2008.

Public communication of science

• Sense about science is a charity that promotes public understanding of science. Wikipedia page.
• Why all our kids should be taught to code. Article by John Naughton in the Guardian, March 2012.

Writing software to run experiments

• Writing Software for Experiments. This is the handout for a workshop run by Tim Kovacs and Rob Egginton on designing and writing software to run experiments.

Principles for web publishing

• The 5 stars of open linked data. June 4, 2010.

Humour

• Fifth-Grade Science Paper Doesn't Stand Up To Peer Review, The Onion, April 2005.

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This page is maintained by Tim Kovacs