Literature Review and Technical Reading:

 The primary goal of literature review is to know the use of content/ideas/approaches

in the literature to correctly identify the problem that is vaguely known beforehand, to
advocate a specific approach adopted to understanding the problem, and to access the
choice of methods used.
 It also helps the researcher understand clearly that the research to be undertaken
would contribute something new and innovative.
 The quality of such review can be determined by evaluating if it includes appropriate
breadth and depth of the area under study, clarity, rigor, consistency, effective
analysis.

New and Existing Knowledge:

 New knowledge in research can only be interpreted within the context of what is
already known, and cannot exist without the foundation of existing knowledge.
 The new knowledge can have vastly different interpretations depending on what the
researcher’s background, and one’s perception of that new knowledge can change
from indifference to excitement (or vice versa), depending on what else one knows.
 The significance can normally be argued from the point of view that there is indeed an
existing problem and that it is known by looking at what already exists in the field.
 The existing knowledge is needed to make the case that there is a problem and that it
is important.
 The review process must explain how a research item builds on another one. This is
because useful research should elucidate how and why certain technical development
took place, so that it is easy for the reader to comprehend why the present talk is being
undertaken, and a good literature survey would provide a convincing under to that
question.
 An effective review of literature ensures a firm foundation for advancing knowledge,
facilitates theoretical growth, eliminates as areas that might be of interest, and opens
new avenues of possible work.
 An efficient literature review is centred around concepts and not authors.
 Generally, a good literature survey is the first expectation of a supervisor from the
research student, and when done well can create a good impression that the state of art
in the chosen field is well understood.
 Simple rules for writing an effective literature review are important for a research
scholar, are provided.
 A good literature review would not draw hasty conclusions and look into the
individual references to determine the underlying causes/assumptions/mechanisms in
each of them so as to synthesize the available information in a much more meaningful
way.
 A literature review should be able to summarize as to what is already known from the
state of the art, detail the key concepts and the main factors or parameters and the
underlying relationships between those, describe any complementary existing
approaches, enumerate the inconsistencies or shortcomings in the published work,
identify the reported results that are inconclusive or contradictory, and provide a
compulsive reason to do further work in the field.
 A good literature survey is typically a two-step process as enumerated below:

(i) Identify the major topics or subtopics or concepts relevant to the subject under
consideration.
(ii) Place the citation of the relevant source (article/patent/website/data, etc.) in the
correct category of the concept/topic/subtopic (with the help of a, for example).

Analysis and Synthesis of Prior Art:

 After collecting the sources, usually articles, intended to be used in the literature
review, the researcher is ready to break down each article and identify the useful
content in it, and then synthesize the collection of articles (integrate them and
identify the conclusions that can be made from the articles as a group).
 A literature survey grid of N topics and M sources is shown below to help
crystallize the information in different categories.
 A researcher should analyze the relevant information ascertained in Table 2.1 by
undertaking the following steps:

(i) Understanding the hypothesis.

(ii) Understanding the models and the experimental conditions used.
(iii) Making connections.
(iv) Comparing and contrasting the various information, and
(v) Finding out the strong points and the loopholes.

 The goal of literature survey is to bring out something new to work on

through the identification of unsolved issues, determine the problems in
the existing models or experimental designs, and present a novel idea and
recommendations.
 Here are a few criteria that could help the researcher in the evaluation of
the information under study:

Authority: What are the author’s credentials and affiliation? Who publishes the
information?
Accuracy: Based on what one already knows about the topic or from reading
other sources, does the information seem credible? Does the author cite other
sources in a reference list or bibliography, to support the information presented?
 Scope: Is the source at an appropriate comprehension or research level?

Bibliographic Databases:
 “Bibliographic databases” refer to “abstracting and indexing services” useful for
collecting citation-related information and possibly abstracts of research articles from
scholarly literature and making them available through search.
 Performing simultaneous searches through such large databases may allow
researchers to overtly rely on any one database and be limited by the intrinsic
shortcoming of any one of them for quality research.
 A researcher should be able to quickly identify the databases that are of use in the idea
or problem that one wishes to explore.
 we present some details about a few of the popular bibliographic databases most
sought after by engineering researchers, but do not attempt to provide exhaustive
details.

Web of Science:
 Web of Science (formerly known as ISI or Thomson Reuters) includes multiple
databases, as well as specialized tools.
 It is a good search tool for scholarly materials requiring institutional license and
allows the researcher to search in a particular topic of interest, which can be made by
selection in fields that are available in drop down menu such as title, topic, author,
address, etc.
 The tool also allows sorting by number of citations (highest to lowest), publication
date.
 Put quotes around phrases, add more keywords, or use the “Refine Results” panel on
the left to narrow down the search by keyword, phrases in quotation marks, type of
material such as peer-reviewed journal articles, date, language, and more.
 Expanding the search results is possible by looking for alternate word endings,
breaking the search concepts down, thinking of alternate search terms (including
scientific names if applicable) and connecting them with OR, and using the database’s
features for finding additional references.
 “Cited reference search” option enables a researcher to trace articles which have cited
a formerly published paper.
 Using this element, it is possible to find how a familiar idea has been applied,
improved, or extended subsequently.
 When clicked on any of the search results, this website provides the title of the paper,
authors, the type of journal, volume, issue number and year of publication, abstract,
keywords, etc., so that the researcher has enough information to decide if it is
worthwhile to acquire the full version of the paper.
Google and Google Scholar:
 Google is a great place to start one’s search when one is starting out on a topic.
 It can be helpful in finding freely available information, such as reports from
governments, organizations, companies, and so on.
 However, there are limitations:

(i) It’s a “black box” of information. It searches everything on the Internet, with
no quality control—one does not know where results are coming from.
(ii) There are limited search functionality and refinement options.

 What about Google Scholar? Google Scholar limits one’s search to scholarly
literature. However, there are limitations:

(i) Some of the results are not actually scholarly. An article may look scholarly at
first glance, but is not a good source upon further inspection.
(ii) It is not comprehensive. Some publishers do not make their content available to
Google Scholar.
(iii) There is limited search functionality and refinement options.

 There are search operators that can be used to help narrow down the results. These
help one find more relevant and useful sources of information. Operators can be
combined within searches. Here are some basic ones that one can use:

(i) OR—Broadens search by capturing synonyms or variant spellings of a

concept. Example: Synchronous OR asynchronous will find results that have
either term present.
(ii) Brackets/Parentheses ( )—Gather OR’d synonyms of a concept together, while
combining them with another concept. Example: RAM (synchronous OR
asynchronous).
(iii) Quotation marks “ ”—Narrow the search by finding words together as a
phrase, instead of separately. Example: RAM (synchronous OR asynchronous)
“Texas Instruments”.
(iv) Site—limits the search to results from a specific domain or website. This
operator is helpful when searching specific websites such as the BC
government, which is Example: RAM (synchronous OR asynchronous)
“Texas Instruments” site: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
(v) Filetype—limits the search to results with a specific file extension one could
look for pdf’s, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and so on.
Example: RAM (synchronous OR asynchronous) “Texas Instruments” site:
http:// ieeexplore.ieee.org, filetype: pdf.

 The Search Tools button at the top of the Google results gives you a variety of other
options, such as limiting the results by date. There are other operators and tools that
one can use in Google and Google Scholar. Google is but one search tool a researcher
can use—it is not the only one!
Effective Search: The Way Forward:
 A scholarly publication is one wherein the published outcome is authored by
researchers in a specific field of skill.
 Such work cites all source contents used and is generally peer reviewed for accuracy
and validity before publication.
 Essentially, the audience for such works is fellow experts and students in the field.
 The content is typically more complex and advanced than those found in general
magazines.
 While most of the engineering researchers need to refer articles that appear in
scholarly journals, books or other peer-reviewed sources, there is also a substantially
useful content in more popular publications.
 Research outcomes are not typically first disseminated here but are usually meant for
general reading.
 A researcher must consider what type of information is needed, and where it could be
found.
 Not all information is available online. Some information is only available in print. It
can take time for scholarly and peer-reviewed information to be published.
 The information may not be available, or studies on a topic of interest to the
researcher have not occurred. In such a case, the researcher should look for similar
studies that would be applicable to the specific topic; look for broad information
(general process, technology, etc.), as well as information that addresses the specific
context of the researcher’s report.
Searching is an iterative process:
(i) Experiment with different keywords and operators;
(ii) Evaluate and assess results, use filters;
(iii) Modify the search as needed; and
(iv) When relevant articles are found, look at their citations and references.

 After the search is complete, the researcher needs to engage in critical and thorough
reading, making observation of the salient points in those sources, and summarize the
findings.
 A detailed comparison and contrast of the findings is also required to be done. This
entire process may be needed to be done multiple times.
 The conclusion of the entire process of literature survey includes a summary of the
relevant and important work done, and also the identification of the missing links and
the challenges in the open problems in the area under study.
 One must note that the literature survey is a continuous and cyclical process that may
involve the researcher going back and forth till the end of the research project.
 It is mandatory for a Ph.D. scholar to write a synopsis of the topic and submit it to the
doctoral committee for approval.
 During this stage, the scholar needs to undertake an extensive literature survey
connected with the problem.
 For this purpose, the archived journals and published or unpublished bibliographies
are the first place to check out. One source leads to another.
Introduction to Technical Reading:
 While reading an engineering research paper, the goal is to understand the technical
contributions that the authors are making.
 Given the abundance of journal articles, it is useful to adopt a quick, purposeful, and
useful way of reading these manuscripts.
 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.
 Amount of time to be spent will get ascertained after an initial skimming through the
paper to decide whether it is worth careful reading.
 There will also be papers where it is not worth reading all the details in the first
instance. It is quite possible that the details are of limited value, or simply one does
not feel competent to understand the information yet.
 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.
 One should then read the abstract to get an overview of the paper in minimum time.
Again, if it does not seem sufficiently important to the field of study, one should stop
reading further.
 If the abstract is of interest, one should skip most of the paper and go straight to the
conclusions to find if the paper is relevant to the intended purpose, and if so, then one
should read the figures, tables, and the captions therein, because these would not take
much time but would provide a broad enough idea as to what was done in the paper.
 If the paper has continued to be of interest so far, then one is now ready to delve into
the Introduction section to know the background information about the work and also
to ascertain why the authors did that particular study and in what ways the paper
furthers the state of the art.
 The next sections to read are the Results and Discussion sections which is really the
heart of the paper. One should really read further sections like the Experimental
Setup/Modelling, etc., only if one is really interested and wishes to understand exactly
what was done to better understand the meaning of the data and its interpretation.

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.
 So, when working at the Ph.D. level, one needs to be prepared to become that expert,
one needs to be continually reading the literature so as to bring together the three
parts:
(i) Significant problem,
(ii) The knowledge that will address it, and
(iii) A possible way to make that new knowledge.
  How these three aspects would come together will be different for every person doing
research and it will be different in every field, but the only way to be that expert is by
immersing oneself in the literature and knowing about what already exists in the field.
 However, if one is working on a research project that is of a smaller scope than a
Ph.D., let us say a master’s thesis, then conceptualizing the research is possibly too
tough to do, and one does not have the time that it takes to become that expert at the
edge of knowledge.
 In this case, the researcher needs the help of someone else, typically the supervisor
who may already be an expert and an active researcher in that field, and may advise
on what a good research objective might be.
 An established researcher in any field should be able to immediately point to the
landmark literature that one should read first. Otherwise, one would need to spend a
lot of time reading the literature to discover.

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.
 Use of judgemental approach and boldness to make judgments is needed while
reading. Flexibility to discard previous erroneous judgments is also critical.
 Additionally, it is important to ascertain whether the data presented in the paper is
right data to substantiate the argument that was made in the paper and whether the
data was gathered and interpreted in a correct manner.
 It is also important to decipher whether some other dataset would have been more
compelling.
 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.
 There is a well-known saying that the faintest writing is better than the best memory,
and it applies to researchers who need to read and build on that knowledge to write
building on the notes taken.
  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.
 Such efforts pay significantly when one has to go back and reread the same content
after a long time. 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.
 A thorough reading should bring out whether there are new ideas in the paper, or if
existing ideas were implemented through experiments or in a new application, or if
different existing ideas were brought together under a novel framework.
 Obviously, the type of contribution a paper is actually making can be determined
better by having read other papers in the 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 quickly to check if it actually works.

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. On occasions,
researchers in other fields may also need to incorporate a certain electronic part in
which case careful reading of the datasheet is imperative.
 The same principles like initial skimming of the datasheet are required to ascertain
whether further careful reading is needed.
 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.
 One should be also in the lookout for truth tables which describe what sort of inputs
provide what types of outputs, and also timing diagrams which lay out how and at
what speed data is sent and received from the part.
 Datasheets usually end with accurate dimensions of the packages a part is available in.
This is useful for printed circuit board (PCB) layout.
 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.
 However, the objective of the authors here in has been to use datasheets as an
example to state the need to pay attention to the art of reading such documents.
Technical published papers or books are not the only contents that a researcher has to
master reading!

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
 One should avoid distress and embarrassment by learning exactly what to cite.
Depending on the exact type of material, the researcher may need to give due credit to
the creator of the original source.
 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.
 It is a way to tell readers that certain material in the researcher’s present work has
come from another source and as an ethical responsibility, appropriate credit has been
given to the original author or writer.
 Materials that can be cited include journal papers, conference proceeding, books,
theses, newspaper articles, websites, or other online resources and personal
communication.
 Preferably, citations should be given at the end of a sentence or the end of a paragraph
as can be seen even in this particular paragraph. Citation must contain enough details
so that readers can easily find the referenced material.
 There are three main functions of citation:

(i) Verification function: Authors have a scope for finding intentional or

unintentional distortion of research or misleading statements. Citation offers
the readers a chance to ascertain if the original source is justified or not, and if
that assertion is properly described in the present work.
(ii) Acknowledgment function: Researchers primarily receive credit for their
work through citations. Citations play crucial role in promotion of individual
researchers and their continued employment. Many reputed organizations and
institutes provide research funding based on the reputations of the researchers.
Citations help all researchers to enhance their reputation and provide detailed
background of the research work.

(iii) Documentation function: Citations are also used to document scientific

concepts and historical progress of any particular technology over the years.

 There are certain cases when references do not fulfil the actual goal of citations and
acknowledgments, and thus do not benefit the reader.

(i) Spurious citations: In certain cases, when citation is not required or an

appropriate one is not found, if the author nevertheless goes ahead with
including one anyways, it would be considered as a spurious citation. These
sorts of citations do not add any value to the reader in terms of properly
understanding the paper. Such actions result in loss of time of the reader or
reviewer in looking for the cited paper that is otherwise not relevant.
(ii)
Biased citations: When authors cite the work of their friends or colleagues
despite there being no significant connection between the two works, or when
they do not cite work of genuine significance because they do not wish to give
credit in the form of citation to certain individuals, then such actions can be
classified as biased citations. Neglect of citations to prior work whose
conclusions or data contradict the current work is also biased.

(iii) Self-citations: There is nothing wrong in citing one’s prior work if the citation
is really relevant. Self-citation of prior papers is natural because the latest
paper is often a part of a larger research project which is ongoing. Sometimes,
it is also advantageous for the reader because citations of all the related works
of the same author are given in one paper and this may reduce the effort of the
reader in trying to find the full versions of those papers. However, it is helpful
and ethical only if all the papers are really relevant to the present work.
 (iv) Coercive citations: Despite shortcomings, impact factors remain a primary
method of quantification of research, one side effect is that it creates an
incentive for editors to indulge in coercion to add citations to the editor’s
journal.

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.
 Title is the most important attribute of any research paper.
 It is the main indication of the research area or subject and is used by researcher as a
source of information during literature survey.
 Title plays important role in marketing and makes research papers traceable.
 A good title is informative, represents a paper effectively to readers, and gains their
attention.
 Some titles are informative but do not capture attention of readers, some titles are
attractive but not informative or related to the readers’ research area.
There are three different aspects which provide a particular behaviour to the title:
(i) Types of the title,
(ii) Length of the title, and
(iii) Presence of specific markers

 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.
 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.
 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:

 Knowledge flows through verbal communications, books, documents, video, audio,
and images, which plays a powerful role in research community in promoting the
formulation of new knowledge.
  In engineering research, knowledge flow is primarily in the form of books, thesis,
articles, patents, and reports.
 Citing a source is important for transmission of knowledge from previous work to an
innovation.
 Production of knowledge can be related to the citation network.
 Knowledge flow happens between co-authors during research collaboration, among
other researchers through their paper citation network, and also between institutions,
departments, research fields or topics, and elements of research.

 The figure shows the relationship between citations, knowledge flow, and elements
such as researchers, papers, journal publications or conferences, and institutions.
 If paper A is cited by paper B, then knowledge flows through citation networks across
institutions.

Citing Datasets:
 The nature of engineering research has evolved rapidly and now relies heavily on data
to justify claims and provide experimental evidences and so data citations must fetch
proper credit to the creator of the dataset as citations of other objects like research
articles.
 Data citations should have provisions to give credit and legal attribution to all
contributors, enable identification and access, while recognizing that a specific style
may not apply to all data.
 Ascertaining the ownership of data can be a complicated issue especially with large
datasets, and issues of funding can also make it a difficult matter.
 A researcher should obtain necessary permission for using data from a particular
source. Citations related to datasets should include enough information so that a
reader could find the same dataset again in the future, even if the link provided no
longer works.
 It is proper to include a mixture of general and specific information to enable a reader
to be certain that the search result is the same dataset that was sought.

 The figure shows a relationship between co-authorship and different types of

citations.
 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:

 Citation styles differ primarily in the order, and syntax of information about
references, depending on difference in priorities attributed to concision, readability,
dates, authors, and publications.
 Some of the most common styles for citation (as well as other aspects of technical
writing) used by engineers are as follows:

1. ASCE style (American Society of Civil Engineers):

(a) Reference list: This part is to be placed in the bibliography or references at the end of
the article or report. A template with example for the same is given below:

(b) In-text citation for journals or books: The following part is to be placed right
after the reference to the source of the citation assignment:
 2. 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:

3. ASME style (The Association of Mechanical Engineers)

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.
 Acknowledgment displays a relationship among people, agencies, institutions, and
research.
 In some case, certain individuals may help in the research work but may not deserve
to be included as authors. As a sign of gratitude, such contributions should be
acknowledged.
 Classification of acknowledgment into six different categories like moral, financial,
editorial, institutional or technical, and conceptual support.
 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 theory shows a relationship between citations, acknowledgment, and
authorship.
 In engineering research, acknowledgments are meant for participating technicians,
students, funding agency, grant number, institution, or anyone who provide scientific
inputs, shared unpublished results, provided equipment, or participated in discussions.

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.

(ii) Authors should acknowledge people who give appropriate contribution in their
research work. Non-research work contributions are not generally acknowledged
in a scientific paper but it may be in a thesis. Persons must be acknowledged by
authors, who gave a scientific or technical guidance, take part in some
discussions, or shared information to author. Authors should acknowledge
assistants, students, or technicians, who helped experimentally and theoretically
during the research work

(iii) If the researcher received grant from a funding agency and if those funds were
used in the work reported in the publication, then such support should always be
acknowledged by providing full details of the funding program and grant number
in the acknowledgment section.

(iv) Acknowledging that results have been presented elsewhere: If the results were
presented as an abstract in a journal, then there should be a suitable citation.

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.
 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

proceeding, 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.