Generic Paper Outline

This is a generic outline which is an effective general structure for any technical paper, thesis proposal, or thesis. Obviously the specific points and emphasis will change with the purpose of the document and the target audience.

I. Introduction

What is the problem
Why is it not already solved or other solutions are inferior in one or more important ways
Why is our solution worth considering and why is it superior in some way
How the rest of the paper is structured

II. Related Work

What other efforts to solve this problem exist and why do they solve it less well than we do
What other efforts to solve related problems exist which are relevant to our effort, and why are they less good than our solution for this problem

III. Implementation

What we (will do, did): Our Solution
How our solution works

IV. Evaluation

How we tested our solution
How our solution performed and how this performance compared to that of other solutions
Why, how, and to what degree our solution is better than other solutions
Why you should be impressed with our solution to the problem

V. Conclusion and Future Work

What is the problem
What is our solution to the problem
Why our solution is better
Why you should be impressed
What we will do next to:
- improve our solution
- apply our solution to harder versions of this problem
- solve related problems with this solution or a realted solution

Steve Goddard <goddard@cse.unl.edu>

Last modified: Fri Jan 15 11:00:23 CST 1999