Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
of other researchers' work as new results are introduced, and so on. This approach
can help you to write the paper as a flowing narrative, but makes it difficult for a
reader to assess your depth of understanding of the field, and I recommend against it.
An issue that is problematic in some research is the relationship between new
scientific results and proprietary commercial technology. It often is the case that
scientists investigate problems that appear to be solved or addressed in commercial
products. For example, there is ongoing academic research into methods for infor-
mation retrieval despite the success of the search engines deployed on the Web. From
the perspective of research principles, the existence of a commercial product is irrel-
evant: the ideas are not in the public domain, it is not known how the problems were
solved in the product, and the researcher's contribution is valid. However, it may well
be reckless to ignore the product; it should be cited and discussed, while noting, for
example, that themethods and effectiveness of the commercial solution are unknown.
Conclusions
The conclusions section, or summary, is used to draw together the topics discussed
in the paper. This section should include a concise statement of the paper's important
results and an explanation of their significance. This is an appropriate place to state
(or restate) any limitations of the work: shortcomings in the experiments, problems
that the theory does not address, and so on.
The conclusions are an appropriate place to look beyond the current context to
other problems that were not addressed, to questions that were not answered, to
variations that could be explored. They may include speculation, such as discussion
of possible consequences of the results.
A
conclusion
is that which concludes, or the end.
Conclusions
are the inferences
drawn from a collection of information. Write “Conclusions”, not “Conclusion”. If
you have no conclusions to draw, write “Summary”, which is often the appropriate
way to end a thesis chapter.
Bibliography
A paper's bibliography, or its set of references, is a complete list of theses, papers,
books, and reports cited in the text. No other items should be included.
Appendices
Some papers have appendices giving detail of proofs or experimental results, and,
where appropriate, material such as listings of computer programs. The purpose of an
