Introduction to Technical Reading

• It is now imperative for any active researcher to keep oneself abreast with
research outcomes in their field of interest. Finding the right work to read can be
difficult. The literature where knowledge is archived is very fragmented and there
are bits and pieces all over the place.
• Given the abundance of journal articles, it is useful to adopt a quick, purposeful,
and useful way of reading these manuscripts [7]. It is not the same as reading a
newspaper. It may require rereading the paper multiple times and one might
expect to spend many hours reading the paper. A simple, efficient, and logical
approach is described in this section for identifying articles and reading them
suitably for effective research.
• Start out the skimming process by reading the title and keywords (these are
anyways, probably what caught the initial attention in the first place). If on
reading these, it does not sufficiently seem to be interesting; it is better to stop
reading and look for something else to read.
Conceptualizing Research

• The characteristics of a research objective are that it must have new knowledge at
the center, and that it must be accepted by the community of other researchers
and recognized as significant. Besides being original and significant, a good
research problem should also be solvable or achievable. This requirement already
asks us to think about the method and the tools that could be used to obtain that
new knowledge. Now, the significance and the originality and all the theory that
we read and tools and methods that we need to take on a problem, all of these
normally come from the existing recorded literature and knowledge in the field.
• Coming up with a good research objective, conceptualizing the research that
meets all of these requirements is a tough thing to do. It means that one must
already be aware of what is in the literature. That is, by the time one actually has
a good research objective, one is probably already an expert at the edge of
knowledge else it is difficult to say with confidence that one has a good research
objective. If one is doing research at the Ph.D. level or higher, then
conceptualizing the research is probably something that one needs to do oneself.
This is a very tough step because one needs to know all that literature in the field
Critical and Creative Reading
• Reading a research paper is a critical process. The reader should not be under the
assumption that reported results or arguments are correct. Rather, being suspicious and
asking appropriate questions is in fact a good thing. Have the authors attempted to solve
the right problem? Are there simpler solutions that have not been considered? What are
the limitations (both stated and ignored) of the solution and are there any missing links?
Are the assumptions that were made reasonable? Is there a logical flow to the paper or
is there a flaw in the reasoning? These need to be ascertained apart from the relevance
and the importance of the work, by careful reading.
• Critical reading is relatively easy. It is relatively easier to critically read to find the
mistakes than to read it so as to find the good ideas in the paper. Anyone who has been a
regular reviewer of journal articles would agree to such a statement. Reading creatively
is harder, and requires a positive approach in search. In creative reading, the idea is to
actively look for other applications, interesting generalizations, or extended work which
the authors might have missed? Are there plausible modifications that may throw up
important practical challenges? One might be able to decipher properly if one would like
to start researching an extended part of this work, and what should be the immediate
next aspect to focus upon
Taking Notes While Reading
• A researcher reads to write and writes well only if the reading skills are good. The
bridge between reading and actually writing a paper is the act of taking notes
during and shortly after the process of reading.
• Many researchers take notes on the margins of their copies of papers or even
digitally on an article aggregator tool. In each research paper, there are a lot of
things that one might like to highlight for later use such as definitions,
explanations, and concepts. If there are questions of criticisms, these need to be
written down so as to avoid being forgotten later on.
• On completing a thorough reading, a good technical reading should end with a
summary of the paper in a few sentences describing the contributions. But to
elucidate the technical merit, the paper needs to be looked at from comparative
perspective with respect to existing works in that specific area.
Reading Mathematics and Algorithms
• Mathematics is often the foundation of new advances, for evolution and
development of engineering research and practice. An engineering researcher
generally cannot avoid mathematical derivations or proofs as part of research work.
In fact, these are the heart of any technical paper. Therefore, one should avoid
skimming them. By meticulous reading of the proofs or algorithms, after having
identified the relevance of the paper, one can develop sound understanding about
the problem that the authors have attempted to solve.
• Nonetheless, one might skim a technical section if it seems like an explanation of
something already known, or if it is too advanced for the research at the present
moment and needs additional reading to be understandable, or if it seems to
specialized and unlikely to be needed in the course of the research program in
which case one can get back to it later on. Implementation of an intricate algorithm
in programming languages such as C, C++ or Java is prone to errors. And even if the
researcher is confident about the paper in hand, and thinks that the algorithm will
work, there is a fair chance that it will not work at all. So one may wish to code it
Reading a Datasheet
• Researchers in different fields of engineering will need to read certain types of
documents. For example, mechanical and civil engineers would need to read
drawings related to mechanical parts and buildings. Researchers in the field of
electronics need to read datasheets.
• Datasheets are instruction manuals for electronic components, which (hopefully)
details what a component does and how one may use it. Datasheets enable a
researcher (or a working professional) to design a circuit or debug any given
circuit with that component. The first page of the datasheet usually summarizes a
part’s function and features, basic specifications, and usually provides a
functional block diagram with the internal functions of the part.
• When working with a new part, or when deciding which part to use in the
research work, it is recommended to carefully read that part’s datasheet to come
up with a bit of shortcut that may potentially save many hours later on
Part 2 module 2: Attributions and Citations: Giving Credit Wherever Due
• In this chapter, we highlight the importance of expanding attributions and
acknowledgments to roles and responsibilities beyond primary authors of journal
articles or principal investigators of grant proposal documents. This would be
applicable especially to scientific research projects that involved diverse skill sets
and expertise.
• Acknowledgment in research publications indicates contributions to scientific
work. However, acknowledgment, attributions, and citations differ in the manner
of their application. Acknowledgment is arguably more personal, singular, and
simply an expression of appreciations and contribution. In this chapter, we
address these issues in detail apart from the legal challenges when attributions
and citations are not adequately done
Citations: Functions and Attributes
• Citations (references) credit others for their work, while allowing the readers to
trace the source publication if needed. Any portion of someone else’s work or
ideas in papers, patents, or presentations must be used in any new document
only by clearly citing the source. This applies to all forms of written sources in the
form of texts, images, sounds, etc.
For eg: © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 D. Deb et al., Engineering
Research Methodology, Intelligent Systems Reference Library 153,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2947-0_3

• When a bibliography of previously published patents or papers is placed in the

new works of a researcher, a connection is established between the new and
previous work. As per relevance to context, the researcher provides due credit
through the use of a citation. Citations help the readers to verify the quality and
importance of the new work and justification of the findings.
• A researcher needs to cite each source twice: (i) in-text citation, in the text of the
article exactly where the source is quoted or paraphrased, and (ii) a second time
in the references, typically at the end of the chapter or a book or at the end of a
research article. Most citation styles have the same or similar elements, but differ
on the order of elements and layout. Unless otherwise specifically required by a
particular journal or a book, one may choose any style of one’s choice as long as
one is consistent. The citation elements differ and so what is to be recorded can
differ from one source to another. It is also important to mention the date the
source was published and sometimes also the particular date it was accessed by
the researcher if it is related to web content.
• LaTeX, a document preparation system often used by engineering researchers to
automatically format documents that comply with standard formatting needs, is
very effective to track and update citations. LaTeX has a steep learning curve and
will be repeatedly used in this book to address different issues pertaining to
technical writing which is intimately linked with research for engineers
• Impact of Title and Keywords on Citations: The citation rate of any research paper depends
on various factors including significance and availability of the journal, publication types,
research area, and importance of the published research work. Other factors like length of
the title, type of the title, and selected keywords also impact the citation count.
• In general, titles containing a question mark, colon, and reference to a specific geographical
region are associated with lower citation rates, also result-describing titles usually get
citations than method-describing titles. Additionally, review articles and original articles
usually receive more citations than short communication articles. At least two keywords in
the title can increase the chance of finding and reading the article as well as get more
citations.
• Keywords represent essential information as well as main content of the article, which are
relevant to the area of research. Search engines, journal, digital libraries, and indexing
services use keywords for categorization of the research topic and to direct the work to the
relevant audience. Keywords are important to ensure that readers are aware about research
articles and their content [15]. If maximum number of allowable keywords are used, then
the chance of the article being found increases and so does the probability of citation count
of the article. Usage of new keywords should be minimal as such keywords may not be well
known to the research community and so may lead to low visibility of the article.
• Knowledge Flow Through Citation.
Three articles (X, Y, and Z) and five references (X1,
X2, X3, Y1, and Y2) of article X and Y, respectively,
are considered. A, B, and C are authors of article X,
and D, E, F, G, and also A are authors of article Y.
Article Z has two authors H and E. References X1,
X2, X3, Y1, and Y2 have authors (A, P), (H, R), (D),
(Q, B, F), and (R), respectively. Based on co-
authorship citation network, references X1 and Y1
are considered self-citation, reference X3 is a level-
1 co-author citation because author of article Y is
direct collaborator of author A, reference X2 is a
level-1 co-author network because author A is
collaborator of E who collaborated with H. We
conclude that papers which frequently cite
collaborators will also often cite collaborators of
collaborators. Collaborations certainly impact
citation counts
Styles for Citations
• ASCE style (American Society of Civil Engineers)
• IEEE style (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) IEEE style is standard
for all IEEE journals and magazines, and is frequently used for papers and articles
in the fields of electrical engineering and computer science. The IEEE style
requires endnotes and that references be cited numerically in the text. Those
submitting to an IEEE publication should see guidelines for the specific journal or
magazine and may also refer to the complete IEEE editorial style manual. Some
examples of IEEE styles of citations for different types of sources are enumerated
below:
Acknowledgments and Attributions
• Acknowledgment section is a place to provide a brief appreciation of the
contribution of someone or an organization or funding body to the present work. If
no particular guideline is available for the intended publication, then it can be
introduced at the end of the text or as a footnote. Acknowledgment is a common
practice to recognize persons or agencies for being responsible in some form or
other for completion of a publishable research outcome.
• Acknowledgments and attributions are also very important in the publications of
journal or conference papers. Giving proper credit wherever it is due is very
important and even if the contribution is minor, it should not be neglected. A
researcher should always recognize the proprietary interest of others. Whenever
possible, author shall give name of persons who may be responsible, even if
nominally, for designs, inventions, writings, or other accomplishments. Given the
importance of work published, authorship is also important. The reward triangle
What Should Be Acknowledged?
• Every author should know that what should/should not be acknowledged. Author
should acknowledge quotation, ideas, facts, paraphrasing, funding organization,
oral discussion or support, laboratory, and computer work.
• (i) Quotation: In technical writing such as in the field of engineering, quotes are
used very rarely. Quotations are of two types: (a) Direct quotations are used
when author use actual words or sentences in the same order as the original one.
Author should use quotation marks for the words or sentences with proper
acknowledgment. (b) Indirect quotation summarizes or paraphrases the actual
quote. In such cases, it is important to acknowledge with proper name and date.
Acknowledgments in Books/Dissertations
• A page of acknowledgments is usually included at the beginning of a thesis/
dissertation immediately following the table of contents. These acknowledgments
are longer than the one or two sentence statements in journal papers or articles
in conference proceedings. These detailed acknowledgments enable the
researcher to thank all those who have contributed in completion of the research
work. Careful thought needs to be given concerning those whose inputs are to be
acknowledged and in what order. Generally, one should express appreciation in a
concise manner and avoid emotive language. The following are often
acknowledged in these types of acknowledgments: main supervisor, second
supervisor, peers in the lab, other academic staff in the department, technical or
support staff in the department, colleagues from other departments, other
institutions, or organizations, former students, family, and friends
Dedication or Acknowledgments?
• Dedication is almost never used in a journal paper, an article in a conference
proceedings, or a patent, and it is used exclusively in larger documents like books,
thesis, or dissertations. While acknowledgments are reserved for those who helped
out with the book in some way or another (editing, moral support, etc), a
dedication is to whomever the author would like it to be dedicated to, whether it is
the author’s mother, the best friend, the pet dog, or Almighty God. And yes, it is
possible to dedicate something to someone while also mentioning them in the
acknowledgments. For example, one may dedicate a book to one’s spouse, but
acknowledge them for being the moral support and putting up with when one got
very stressed.
• The acknowledgments in technical books can be sometimes as brief as the ones in
journal articles. The acknowledgment section of a technical report may be a
paragraph that is longer than a journal paper but shorter than dissertations.
Generally, the length of the acknowledgment may have some correlation with the
length of the document