Friday, September 21, 2012

A helpful sentence to write in any paper

This equation/figure/table is the central result of this paper.

I love to read a sentence such as this. First, it helps me know what the paper is about. Second, it helps me decide whether the paper is important and I should read it in detail. Third, it provides a framework to try and understand the rest of the paper.

Some might complain that their paper contains so many "important" results that it is not possible to identify a single equation or figure which is central. However, I doubt this is true. And if it really is true I would encourage breaking up the paper into several publons.

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