Some Advice

Tinnitus: Some Sound Advice

There is an old music-hall joke that applies to timitus, an affliction suffered by many millions of people the world over. The joke: “I’ve got bells in my ears, so I went to the doctor.” “Did he do you any good’?” “Yes, I can hear them much better now.”1 The joke is not likely to bring belly laughs to tinnitus sufferers, but perhaps wry smiles. For no two people seem to be afflicted in the same...

Some Skepticism About Normative Constitutional Advice

Some Advice on Writing (Algorithmic) Papers

The introduction. The introduction usually starts with a description of and a motivation for the general problem area. After introducing the general problem area, you zoom in to the specific problem studied in the paper. I like to already discuss previous work here. This way you can explain where the specific problem fits into the state-of-the-art and why it is interesting. Ideally, the discuss...

Statistical Research: Some Advice for Beginners

Editor’s Note: Research is essential to the health and growth of the statistics discipline. The following article discusses some basic strategies for doing and presenting research based on the authors’ experience and conversations with other statisticians. The August 2004 issue of The American Statistician will feature a discussion on the topic “How to do Statistical Research.” All readers are ...

What Makes a Good Empirical Software Engineering Thesis?: Some Advice

An empirical software engineering (ESE) PhD thesis has some special features, which makes it slightly different from a thesis any other different field. One of the differences between the two is the intensive use of empirical studies in an ESE dissertation. This talk starts by giving students advice on what makes a good ESE PhD thesis in the form of a list of do’s and don’ts. The keynote later ...