Report Writing

The RELATED WORK Section

Dr. Anwar Alhenshiri

What is “Related Work”

• The section that often follows the introduction is the related work section.

• May also be called the literature review.

• Highlights work done by others that somehow ties in with your own work.

• It may be work of others on which you are basing your work.

• It may just be work that shows the attempts of others to solve the same problem.

A few suggestions to make writing your related work section easier:

• Every time you read a paper, write a short summary of the paper and highlight an important sections. • This way you can read your own recap of the paper to decide if it’s applicable instead

of relying on the abstract.

• Use the reference section of the papers you read to search for other papers to read.• If paper a is closely related to your topic, then likely the papers they reference are

papers that are also closely related to your topic and you should read them.

• Look through the history of papers published at the journal/conference you’re submitting too. • It’s likely you can find papers related to your topic.

• When writing a paragraph on a paper, make sure you can answer the question “how does this relate to my work?” If you can’t, consider not including it.

Related Work

• Q:What is the point of writing a related work section?

• A:To establish .... • Need for work.

• Why previous works don’t get it done

• The limitations of past work

• Mastery over area. • Established bona fides

• Relationship to other scientific areas.• How relates to bodies of other works

• Others?

Tips

• Common, wrong, way to write a paper. • Algorithms a, b, c, and d. have been done.

• A is good because of Blah, bad because of Duh.

• B is good because of Blah’, bad because of Duh’.

• C is good because of Blah’’, bad because of Duh’’.

• .....

Narrative

• Tell a story about the field in which it exists. It should try to organize the field in such a way as you

can see how the work evolves from start to finish.

• Ideally, ends with the conclusion that the present work is needed.

• Example:

• (para 1) The early algorithms, A and B, sought to solve the requirements X,Y, and, Z by bit-twiddling. However

such approaches eventually lead to blah and duh, to differing degrees.

• (para 2) C, D, and other also tried to solve the same problem, but failed ...

• (para 3) Ultimately, the authors were not attractive enough to solve the problem, so it was left to me.

Related Work (Summarized)

• A good related work section should include works:• If they address the central problem • If they address a related problem • If they identified the problem• If they use the same methodology for a similar problem • If your work was inspired by them

• It should be a narrative about the field, its logical relatives, the problems it faces, advances and failures, and motivating articles.

• It should show how the body of work holds together in some philosophical or technological way

• It should demonstrate mastery of subject matter to establish credentials for paper (often a fatality if done wrong)

More on Related WorkResearch Review

Your Review Should

• Summarize existing research, products and systems

• Talk about trends in the field

• Discuss research themes that emerged from your review

• Place your work in the context of cited work

• Explain why the proposed project is better than or different from what already exists.

The Perennial Question

•Should related work be covered near the beginning of the paper or near the end?

Beginning

• if it can be short yet detailed enough,

• Or if it's critical to take a strong defensive stance about previous work right away.

• In this case Related Work can be its own Section 2.

End

• If it can be summarized quickly early on (in the Introduction or Preliminaries).

• Or if sufficient comparisons require the technical content of the paper.

• In this case, Related Work should appear just before the Conclusions, possibly in a more general section "Discussion and Related Work".

Your Related work …

• Should cover 8-15 related works beyond just citation It should be at least 2 pages long, add figures if necessary and relevant (be

legible)

Writing style counts, so use good grammar (get readers)

You need to make some critical assessments about what work is relevant and why.

Assume I know nothing about the project and the area

This should be ready for publication, so it better be perfect and exhaustive