Writing your paper

A thesis, plan B paper or dissertation is never "I wrote a program and this is what is does." In all cases you are to be solving a problem. I suggest you write a one sentence description of the problem you are solving. If you must you can use up to three sentences, but no more. Once you have this sentence, it will take a little more to explain the underlying concepts. After the sentence, provide a few more paragraphs explaining what the concept is and why it is important. Make sure you start with you one sentence statement of the problem or of what important thing the program or project does. What you have written so far is a good start on a proposal or introduction to your paper. Now write the rest of the paper. You are not to put anything in the paper unless it comes from the first sentence.

All writing is to be your own. You do not copy a full sentence from any source. The one exception is very rarely, there may be commonly used phrase or sentence that is included because it known by the reader and it is important to make the reader aware of the context. In that case, include the sentence in quotes and include the citation information with the quoted text. In all other cases, each sentence is to be your own.

A typical structure for the disquisition (one of thesis, plan B paper or dissertation) is the following:

  1. introduction
  2. history (history, nomenclature and supporting systems and competing technology)
  3. the solution (from the users point of view, not the code view)
  4. how it works (the architecture and the results, this includes testing, validation and how well it solves the problem)
  5. conclusions and future work (the future works needs to be a serious evaluation)
  6. references
  7. user manual (if a program) (normally will include a walk-through using the program, with screen shots)
  8. system manual (including architecture and installation instructions)

If you are going to say your product is free, you need to include a FreeBSD or GPL copyright section with the software. You must also produce a web page and directory for access to the software. This directory is to have everything including a tar ball or other packaging for people to get their copy of the system. This will indicate how to install it and how to use it. It will also have the source code and all needed material for installation. You will also turn over to me a soft copy of this for use and distribution. It is a nice idea to include some sample test data.

Some advise from another site on "what am I writing about?"