Are you an engineering (or computer science) researcher writing a thesis or technical paper in robotics? This page offers some tips from the Offroad Robotics team, including style, consistency, and grammar suggestions that are suitable for research publications and technical writing.
It is of course acceptable for everyone to have their own writing style. Despite this, there are some common practices that we believe should be followed in most good technical writing.
If you are writing a thesis at Queen's, learn about the requirements for formatting your thesis at Queen's University. In particular, review the General Forms of Theses document.
Statements Require Evidence
All statements of fact or conjecture require some form of evidence. Evidence could be, for example, reference to a peer-reviewed paper, your own mathematical proof or argument, or some experimental or simulation results. If you cannot provide evidence for a statement that you wish to make, then either do not say it or clearly admit that you have no evidence.
Keep It Focused
Use short, to-the-point sentences in technical writing. Good descriptions are useful, but wordiness for its own sake is not. If an equation will do instead of a paragraph, use an equation and accompany it by a brief written explanation. Do likewise for a well drawn figure or table.
Similarly, avoid long paragraphs containing too many ideas. Do not forget to break up your ideas and thoughts by using paragraphs.
Verb Tenses
Be careful with verb tenses. Use only the present tense to describe things that exist now or persistently. For example, "Below, Figure 1 illustrates" something, not "Below, Figure 1 will illustrate" and not "Below, Figure 1 has illustrated".
Use only the past tense to describe experiments or activities that are already complete. For example, "The robot was used to map the building" not "The robot is used to map the building", and also not "The robot will be used to map the building".
You should not (or at least, rarely) need any other verb tenses in a technical document. If you find yourselves using the future tense, or some other tense, then question this yourself.
Spelling
Use the spelling conventions for the venue in which you are publishing. For example, if you are preparing a manuscript for an American journal, use American spelling.
In Canada, we use Canadian English, which is not the same as American or British English. You can find correct Canadian spelling by using The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. If you are writing an academic thesis in Canada then it should be written in Canadian English.
Learn a bit more about Canadian English.
Abbreviations
Correct usage of "that is" and "for the sake of example" abbreviations is "i.e.," and "e.g.," respectively. E.g., this is the proper usage. I.e., make sure you write it correctly.
Capitalization
Words that are titles or named items are usually capitalized. For example, "see Figure 1" not "see figure 1". Or, "in Step 1" not "in step 1". Similarly, always capitalize proper names such as, "Cartesian", "Euclidean", "Gaussian", etc.
Connecting Words
Do not end sentences with connecting words. Write, for example, "This is the surface on which the object was placed" not "This is the surface the object was placed on".
Use of "As"
The word "as" means "while", not "because". If the word "as" can be replaced with "because" then it is best to use "because". For example, "This technique is not useful because it is not practical," not "This technique is not useful as it is not practical."
In Canada (and in most of the scientific world) we follow conventions of The International System of Units (SI).
Learn more about writing in SI.
Use of Italics
Units are never italicized. For example, write $3.5~\rm{m}$ not $3.5~m$.
Similarly, standard functions are not italicized. For example, $\cos\theta$ not $cos\theta$.
Mathematical variables are almost always consistently italicized, whether the variable appears in a figure or in the body of the text. For example, $y=x^2$ not $\rm{y}=\rm{x}^2$.
Numbers with Units
There is always a space between numbers and associated units (e.g., $23.3~\rm{m}/\rm{s}$ not $20.3\rm{m}/{s}$). There are very few exceptions to this rule. One set of exceptions includes the symbols for angular degrees, minutes, and seconds (i.e., $341^\circ~23’~46’’$). Notably not among the exceptions is the percent symbol (i.e., write $50~\%$ not $50\%$).
Writing Numbers
Numbers less than ten are usually written as a word (e.g., “two-vehicle case” not “2-vehicle case”, or “two-dimensional” not “2-dimensional”). The exception is numbers with units (e.g., $2~\rm{m}$) or indices (e.g., “Step 2 of the algorithm” or “Figure 3”).
Mathematical Expressions
Mathematical expressions are always written as part of sentences, including all relevant punctuation. This includes numbered equations or expressions that appear on their own line(s). Equations should not float around (like figures and tables). So, for example, let $x\in\mathbb{R}$ be a variable such that $$y=c\int_0^\infty x^2{\rm d}x,$$ where $c>0$ is a positive constant and $y$ is the output. Notice how the above equation is part of the previous sentence.
Code Snippets
In technical writing, it is often useful to include code snippets. Do so using a monospaced font and a code block.
# This Python program finds the product of two numbers
num1 = 1.5
num2 = 6.3
# Multiply two numbers
prod = num1 * num2
# Display the sum
print('The product of {0} and {1} is {2}'.format(num1, num2, prod))
Also, never mix coding notation (syntax) with mathematical notation. For example, when writing maths (i.e., anywhere outside of a code block), write $1.5 \times 6.3$ not $1.5 * 6.3$. Similarly, when writing maths, write $p = n_1 \times n_2$ not $prod = num1 \times num2$.
These are some tips for creating useful figures and tables in technical documents. Figures and tables are almost always a better way to communicate technical information than long, wordy paragraphs.
Axis Labels
No axis (of a graph) should appear without labels and units.
Fonts
Figures (and tables) should not contain text that is too small to read. If you are exporting a plot from MATLAB or Matplotlib into LaTeX or some word-processing tool, make sure that the font size on the axis labels is big enough to read.
Ideally, text in figures should be nearly the same size (on paper) as the text in the body of your document. Thus, font sizes that are too big are also unadvisable.
Fonts and styles used in figures and tables should be the same as the fonts and styles (including fonts used for maths) in the body of your document. Font sizes between 10 pt and 12 pt are recommended.
Republishing
Do not include images, drawings, or other figures in your paper or thesis that you did not create yourself. If you must include such a figure then technically you need to obtain permission from the copyright holder to reproduce their figure in your document. The reason you need this permission is because, presumably, you also plan to publish this work (but under your name). If necessary, you may re-draw a figure on your own and then state (in the caption) that your figure is adapted from an original source, which you must cite in place.
Learn about copyright and your thesis.
These are some tips for effectively referencing your sources.
Complete & Consistent
Bibliographic citations must be complete and use a consistent citation style. For each citation, be sure that you have included all of the information available for your reference (e.g., dates, places, volume, number, institution, type, etc.). Incomplete citations are not accepted by publishers and it also looks very sloppy.
Websites
Websites are not usually good sources to cite in a conference or journal paper (or thesis). We suggest that you cite websites as footnotes in a document, but only if absolutely necessary. If you can find a real, peer-reviewed, archival document that can replace your website reference, then it is strongly suggested that you do that instead.
It is highly advisable that you typeset your technical documents (including academic theses) using LaTeX. There are many reasons for this, which include typesetting maths, easy cross-referencing, and bibliographies. Most conferences and journals will request that you do so anyway (and provide you with a template).
Learn more about getting started with LaTeX.
Overleaf
Queen's students, faculty, and staff have access to Overleaf Professional, which is a user-friendly, web-based LaTeX typesetting tool.
Learn about accessing Overleaf for writing in LaTeX at Queen's.
Custom Templates
Here are links to some custom LaTeX templates from the Offroad Robotics team for documents and presentations.