SAE: Paper Presentation Workshop

Research is creating new knowledge.

                                                                                                                  -Neil Armstrong

For all those folks doting on Preeti Shenoy last night, or attending the MATLAB workshop by IE EnC, you might have missed out on the big talk about how to present a paper, organised by SAE. Professor Balbeer Singh of the Automobile Department was kind and gracious enough to speak on the topic, highlighting the various facets of paper presentation and the norms one has to follow in order to start his/her research from scratch and publish it.

Seated in an NLH classroom, I saw around me tons of enthusiastic faces waiting to know how to write a technical paper. A technical paper, in its true sense is a presentation of your ideas in a proper manner, with technique, style and the ability to interest the reader. Essentially it should contain the facts, estimates and statistics that back your claim. Technical writing is one extremely important factor during your graduation level and not only does it enhance your Curriculum Vitae but could help you attain recognition in various fields.

As the speaker enlightened us in the very beginning, the first step to writing a paper is to read everything that has been covered regarding the topic. For that, one needs to enroll as a member of the Manipal University Student Research Forum (MUSRF) since it is a common platform where you can collaborate on various levels with people who share the same interests as yours, read what your peers have to say about their research and think about improvements you can make to carry out their legacy.

A good research needs to follow few quintessential guidelines in order to be successful. As the speaker put forth the analogy, the paper should have a summary so short that you could recite it during an elevator ride. He called this an elevator pitch. Your approach to saying the story should be a top-down approach, with an introduction which is crucial to the success of the story. Also, most importantly, you need to master the basics of organized writing. He emphasized on the part that a single sentence paragraph is a strict NO while you write your paper.

One must always put themselves in place of the reader while writing a paper. As the professor rightly said, “No one (not even your mother) is as interested in the topic as much as you”, hence it is important that you generate interest among readers with the paper you would love to present. Results needed to be stated carefully with no mistakes, no overstatements or understatements of your theory. Possessing the art of writing happens to be an advantage for those who wish to write a technical paper since it enhances the quality of tone and style.

The workshop included certain papers as examples to show how to be good with the title, and the main constituents of the title page. A title page mostly included a description of the major conclusion, author’s names, footnotes, and key notes.

The workshop saw a good haul of more than fifty people who were keen on knowing how to write a technical paper. It concluded with a question-answer session where the participants cleared various queries they had about paper writing. It was indeed very well organized, helpful and provided a quick insight into how to go about while presenting a paper.