Addendum to thesis/paper-writing and presentation tips 1

Madhu N. Belur
Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Document updated on December 12th, 2015
Abstract
In this addendum I am listing some of the requirements my own students ought to follow when writing papers and also while writing reports. This is an addendum to what is kept by Prof. Mahesh B. Patil at
http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/belur/rpts/thesis-tips.pdf
http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/belur/rpts/ppt-tips.pdf
Please read them first and then read this addendum. The latest updated version of this addendum is
being maintained at:
http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/belur/rpts/addendum-tips.pdf
Another pretty related document (about journal/conference choosing guidelines and about plagiarism concerns) can be found at:
http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/belur/talks/pdfs/plagiarism.pdf

Disclaimer: Most of the points listed are guidelines. If your supervisor has a different style, please
abide by that. (After ample experience,) please feel free to develop your own style.

Contents
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Paper/report writing related guidelines

1.1 General guidelines . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Tex file guidelines . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.4 Bibliography/references . . . . . . .
1.5 Theorem statements and proofs . . .

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Presentation related tips

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5

Paper/report writing related guidelines

This section is about paper/report writing, following section is about presentation.

1

Please remember to put a footnote about acknowledging a funding agency. This is very important to me.
For queries about this document, contact: belur@ee.iitb.ac.in

1.1

General guidelines

Some guidelines are about how the paper/report should look (independent of your tex-file writing
style). Later part is about tex-file guidelines, since often I also need to work on your tex files. For
that, I need stricter guidelines: please.
1. Install and use a spell-check.
2. If chapter has sections, there ought to be *two* or more sections.
Similarly, if section has subsections, there ought to be *two* or more subsections.
(For just one subsection in a section, why have subsections at all?) If section has subsections,
then no subsection ought have a very similar title as the section title.
3. Inside a section, there ought to be at least *some* general text before its first subsection starts.
If no general text can be found, then at least tell which subsection contains what (as the general
text before the first subsection starts).
4. If you are using a British spelling for a particular word (say behaviour), then use the same
spelling throughout. (Another totally different word could be American, not an issue. All
words do not have to consistently be British or all American English.)
5. Do not start a line with From. This causes problems when sending the file by email. (It results
in a >From.) Reword that sentence by beginning with Using or By.
6. Write abstract and keywords in the first draft too: perhaps not fully polished.
7. For tables, the caption is before the table, and for figures, the caption is just after the figure.
8. Give very suggestive names for theorems, lemmas with the labels as thm, lem, fig, prp, etc.
Please do not use labels like theorem1, theorem2, figure1, etc. Nor theorem:main:result, etc.
9. No capital letter inside a sentence unless that word is somebodys name (Riccati) or an acronym.
(In case of exceptions, I will point out in the paper.)
10. Do not use , , & nor .
11. In case you need to use he/she, try using one.
12. If you need to write text inside equation (like for all), then it has to be written outside mathmode: this can be done using mbox as
\mbox{ for all }
Note the spaces near curly brackets. For more space, use \quad or \qquad (outside mbox).
13. Do not use dont, nor isnt, nor hell nor were. Write them in full.

14. Do not write We can..., nor We could... (It appears like we can or we could, but we are not
doing that.)
15. Use do only with do not. (Not for We then do the optimization, nor for We do some
simplification. For these, rewrite as We then optimize or We simplify suitably....) Look for
do and consider replacing.
16. For an open inverted comma, use the symbol, which is typically above the Tab key (without
Shift).
17. Do not start a sentence with So, nor with And.
18. No particular reason to use passive tense instead of active. In our areas, the sentences are
already quite complicated, and active tense is shorter/simpler sentence, hence use active tense.
19. If a sentence is a whole two printed lines, then consider breaking it.
20. Use an in other situations too, for example, Suppose M is an MRA of R, etc.. Similarly, use
a within a unique x such that. Similarly, honour, heir, etc (require a, and not an).
21. Do not use etc., except in informal documents like this!
22. For matrices and vectors, use \begin{bmatrix} (square brackets and not round brackets).
23. In text, do not use X for (\times)
24. eigenvalue is one word, and is not to be written as eigen value. Similarly for eigenvector.
4

25. Use the define symbol := when defining a new variable or a set. I prefer := instead of =.
26. If a result has appeared elsewhere in the literature and you are rewriting in your own report/paper for easier referencing, then call it proposition, no matter whether that result was
called theorem or lemma when it appeared in the literature. Do write the following result
is helpful for so-and-so purpose: see [3, Theorem 8.3], etc. Look up the exact result number and write it inside the tex file as \cite[Theorem 8.3]{reference3}. Please give
suggestive bibitem labels.

1.2

Tex file guidelines

1. All fileNAMES (figure, code, tex-file) should have no spaces, no commas, no brackets within
the fileNAME.
2. For labels, the label should be in the same line as
\begin{theorem}\label{thm:controllability}
or
3

\caption{Graph of marks versus students}\label{fig:filename} (for

figures, tables)
3. For repeated use of certain symbols, make a newcommand. For example,
\newcommand{\R}{\mathbb{R}} for R, the set of real numbers. Make suggestive newcommands, and thus ensure the tex file is easily readable.
4. I prefer \[ and \] for beginning and ending (un-numbered) equations, rather than $$. One
whole line devoted to each of \[ and \] each. This improves tex-file readability.

1.3

Figures

1. Keep figures in a directory called figures and put \graphicspath{{figures/}} before

\begin{document}.
2. When making figures, make the line-widths thicker than the default: this is relevant for most
packages, including xfig, Scilab.
3. For figures, use the filename as the label, for example, fig:filename (and choose suggestive
filenames), not file1.pdf, file2.jpg, file3.png.
4. Make the figure in xfig package (for other package, ask me explicitly with justification) ensuring
that the source is retained.

1.4

Bibliography/references

1. Bibliography style: I strongly prefer alphabetical (by surname of first author), unless the journal/conference explicitly asks for another style. For references, do not expand first names: put
initials and surname only.
2. For initials, follow the spacing policy exactly as written below:
S.R. Khare, P.M. Surname, Q.E. Masood and H.K. Pillai
(Note carefully above where the spaces are and where not.)
3. I prefer that each person uses a bib file. And then uses bibtex. Do share bibtex files with me
and others.
4. For all bib-labels (either bibtex or not), use the following suggestive way of building label from
author surnames and the year. For the above example, suppose that paper appeared in year
2001, then the label will be KhaSurMasPil:01 (without quotes). Please note capital/small
carefully. If there are multiple papers with same label as above, then at the end use b, c, d, etc.
For example, KhaSurMasPil:01b, etc.
4

5. Please see for how to cite websites:

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/style/reference/tf_APA.pdf . This is also currently kept
(for convenience) at http://www.ee.iitb.ac.in/belur/rpts/taylor-francis2013.pdf.

1.5

Theorem statements and proofs

1. With one exception (explained in the next sentence), each sentence should contain just one if.
The only exception is if and only if. The whole phrase if and only if needs to come together.
Only this sentence has two occurrences of if. No sentence should have three ifs. In any
sentence, the then cannot precede if.
2. A sentence ought not have (just) only if, unless it is within if and only if. Reword sentence
to avoid this.
3. In case the theorem/lemma statement contains if and only if, then the proof should also be
if part and only if part. If the statement is a necessary and sufficient condition then write
necessity and sufficiency. If the statement had , then proof needs to have a part and
a part.
4. When stating a theorem, use different words, rather than repeating the same word: Let, Suppose,
Assume, Consider, etc. Only after all assumptions are over, start with the Then.
5. While writing proof, avoid excessive repeating "Hence" or "Therefore". Use other phrases
(and make prose less-repetitive): This means", it follows, this implies, due to which,
consequently, etc.
6. Typical phrases that get repeated We now show, discuss, it is clear that, etc. (Each of us
has some pet phrase that ends up getting over-used. Look for them, and replace them.)

Presentation related tips

1. Give a mock presentation to yourself or to your friends. Time the presentation to avoid overshooting. Keep backup slides, but do plan carefully.
2. Do not give reference *number* in the presentation. Give just first-author-surname (no initials),
journal-name (a short-form) and year on that same page (and not last page).
3. Just textual information in a slide should not take more than one minute.
4. Talking during the title slide should take at most 20 seconds. Less the better.
5. Always have a problem formulation slide.

6. About using *colours*: excluding the backgrounds colour and the slide-titles colour, the main
text of the slide should not use more than 3 colours. Use at least two, and preferably three
different colours per slide in most slides. Spend time on what word/phrase is important in each
line.
7. Decide the amount of motivation/preliminaries very carefully depending on the audience. Ensure that you know exactly what the examiner already would know. Please do not assume
examiner has read the report. Importantly, please do not point out (howmuchever politely) to
the examiner that I already wrote so-and-so in the report, thus implying that the examiner
ought to have read the report better. (All examiners might not appreciate this.)
8. Too elaborate preliminaries only means you have to skip your own main work.
9. No sentence should be too long. Do not just read the sentences on the slides. No need of
grammatical correctness in presentations text.
10. No bulletted point should have more than 10 words. Short sentences are better. Sentence need
not be grammatically full and correct.
11. Use more symbols, like , to save on If, then, it follows from..
12. If you are putting figures, make font sufficiently large. Viewing from a distance is hard with
normal font.
13. If there are many symbols, then explain what the symbols are. Give insight into equations,
rather than flash formulas to the audience.
14. When the time to present is quite tight, then use slide-space fully.

15. When asked how many slides are remaining, give an accurate number, not a bad/crude underestimate. Overshooting time indicates bad planning and speakers inability to decide what is
important and what is not.
16. Please do not shuffle between slides while presenting. Just proceed from start to end.

17. Keep possibly relevant stuff as backup slides. Ensure that those slides are not counted in framecount.
2

This can be done by getting rid of section/subsection display on the very top (often in beamer). This extra info on the
top eats up valuable slide-space. Use multiple columns to efficiently use space, but avoid crowding the slide.
3
If you need to recall some information or figure or something, then please plan this by reproducing this within
your presentation. Do not jump front and back. Giving a mock to yourself is important for you to realize that you must
reproduce some relevant slides. Of course, if somebody asks a query, then jumping might be essential: no rules there.

18. If somebody asks a query which you will anyway address soon, then please answer the query
briefly right then. At least a brief answer ought to be given right then. Do tell that you will
elaborate later. 4
19. When speaking, look at all in general: not just at one person. (This makes that one person feel
quite awkward.) Look at different people. 5
20. Do not ask the audience any question, unless you are teaching a course.6
21. If somebody asks a question, try telling (in new innovative ways) that question is nice: maybe
well-timed, I was hoping somebody will ask this, very reasonable concern, etc (depending
on formal/informal nature of the presentation). Never reply that answer is obvious or something
like that.
22. Encourage questions by announcing in the start that you prefer questions/clarifications midway.
23. Do not allow audience to digress for too long: after a quick answer, tell that you will visit this
at the end since that discussion is not required for other things in your talk. (Do remember to
talk about it.)

In case the query is not being addressed later, then elaborate right then. If the query addressing is a big digression,
then please tell that it is not relevant and we can return to it later. (And do remember to return to this matter.)
5
If you prefer, you can look just above all: at the windows, etc.. This item is to be developed slowly as a skill.
Practise this and ask your friends for feedback explicitly on this point.
6
For example, while presenting, do not ask Should I go into this in more detail?. Do not ask this. You plan your
ppt for the time allowed. Present if you like/have-planned. (If you are asked to elaborate, then of course, do elaborate. If
asked to skip, do skip.)