eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) (12/09/89)
When you are writing a technical paper, where are some suggestions
for authored papers or collectors of references. There is nothing
worse that a set of keywords which mimic say the title of a paper.
Some guide lines for keywords and style
Selecting key words for search is tough. The worse possible use of key words
is repeating words already used in titles or added citations.
What's useful?
Well, your peers in conferences and journals frequently collect papers
in SECTIONS and SESSIONS (1). These are sometimes useful key words.
ACRONYMS (condensed as well as the expanded) and new definitions
(2) [e.g., "here we define some called XXX"].
Useful because you can find all the name collisions like MIDAS.
(What not to use.) Harder to find are NEW CONCEPTS (3). These are perhaps
the most useful because we give similar things different names and
computer's aren't smart enough to distinguish.
People like to know if implementations are APPLICABLE to them (4). Can I
run it on my machine? [No, it was written in PL/1 and APL for IBM CMS, or Yes,
it was written for an NCUBE, but I have an Intel but can make do, definitely
Yes.]. This type of communications is what science is all about after all.
So tell what hardware, languages, and operating systems are needed.
In the matter of style, we should tend to use complete names because
it is useful to have a person's COMPLETE NAME if a searcher is seeking
the real person. Reformatting to print initials can always be done
later. Eugene to E. for instance. Macro packages are useful.
Some disciplines strictly use initials: I think this should change
as this is not a paper and people have real communications needs.
This contrasts with some disciplines' formatting style to use initials
as a means of being indiscriminate of gender, etc. But computers can
reduce initials for formatting, they can't invert the initial into a name.
Some conventions are the use of %X for annotations (A Berkeley-ism),
%# for notes to myself. Compound names are a problem. Hypen works in
some cases, but Dutch names like van\ der\ name. I use the backslash for
refer searches.
It is interesting to observe the development of IDENTICAL TITLES with
different subjects. Do a literature search before titling. As an aside,
it seems SIMD parallel paper people tend to be worse offenders than
MIMD parallelism people. This is a source of personal amusement.
"Massive parallelism" is a buzzword in more ways than one.
It would be most unfortunate to lose a good idea or significant advance
because of ignorance.
Spelling:
It is said that the United States and England are two people with
separated by a common language. This belies the greater problem of
different languages. Computers have something of a problem as well.
"Synchronization" is the spelling in the US where as "synchronisation"
is common in parts of the British empire. This is just one common
problem, there are many others. This is just an acknowledgement,
not a recommendation of style.
Mathematical symbols, Greek, tables, and equations are all difficult.
I defer to troff, eqn, tbl, pic, and chem. Tables are too complex in bibtex,
and you can't really do pictures nor chemistry figures.
Remember the point is to convey the information, not get too wrapped up
in the above details.
Another gross generalization from
--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov
resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
"You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
"If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology."
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