Home page of the course
Research Methods

Course Overview

Module 1: Introduction to research and scientific paper reading and writing - D. Calvanese (30/1/2017 - 03/2/2017)

1. What is Research?
2. Research in Computer Science
3. Selection of PhD topic
4. Reading scientific papers
5. How to write a scientific paper

Module 2: Good scientific writing style - E. Franconi (6/2/2017 - 10/2/2017)

• Writing style for computer science
• Slides on LaTeX (by John Lees-Miller, University of Bristol)
  1. The basics
  2. Structured documents
  3. Presentations and more
  The Overleaf online LaTeX tool is used in this course.
• Introduction to SVN
• Additional material on LaTeX

Module 3: Presenting scientific work - M. Montali (13/2/2017 - 17/2/2017)

Example presentations:

• BPM 2014 presentation - Check in particular the introduction and slides 14-16.
• KR 2014 presentation - Check in particular slide 2 and slides 12-23.

Module 4: Empirical/experimental CS research methods - J. Gamper (20/2/2017 - 24/2/2017)

Module 5: How to write a research plan - S. Helmer (27/2/2017 - 3/3/2017)

Module 6: Research evaluation - W. Nutt (6/3/2017 - 10/3/2017)

1. Peer reviewing
2. Bibliometrics

Course Material

Additional useful material

On Writing and Scholarly Publishing

• David Evans, Paul Gruba, Justin Zobel. How to Write a Better Thesis. 2014. Electronic edition available via the unibz library through SpringerLink.
• Robert A. Day. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper. 1998. [Slides]
• Razvan Andonie, Ioan Dzitac. How to Write a Good Paper in Computer Science and How Will It Be Measured by ISI Web of Knowledge. 2010.
• Alice Meadows, Karin Wulf. Seven Things Every Researcher Should Know About Scholarly Publishing. 2016. Original post available here.
• Robert F. Dugan Jr., Virginia G. Polanski. Writing for Computer Science: A Taxonomy of Writing Tasks and General Advice. 2006.
• Donald E. Knuth, Tracy Larrabee, Paul M. Roberts. Mathematical Writing. 1987.
• P. R. Halmos. How to Write Mathematics. 1970.
• Jan Mendling, Hajo A. Reijers. How to Write a BPM Conference Paper? 2015.

On Reading

• S. Keshav. How to Read a Paper. 2007.

On Doing Research

• Edsger W. Dijkstra. Three Golden Rules for Research. 1982. Available on request.
• Dianne Prost O'Leary. Graduate Study in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences: A Survival Manual. 2009.
• Mikael Berndtsson, Jorgen Hansson, Bjorn Olsson, Bjorn Lundell. Thesis Projects: A Guide for Students in Computer Science and Information Systems. 2008. Electronic edition available via the unibz library through SpringerLink.
• Committee on Academic Careers for Experimental Computer Scientists, National Research Council. Careers for Experimental Computer Scientists. 1994.
• Peter Wegner. Research Paradigms in Computer Science. 1976.
• David A. Patterson. How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia. 1976.