Academic principles of style

A common format for academic text is the scientific report. In computer science, this format is used both for lab reports, theses, and scientific publications (papers).

A scientific report consists of three parts: an introduction, the main part, and a conclusion. The introduction introduces the work; it contains background, context, purpose, and presents the problem to be solved. The main part describes the work in more detail, i.e., how the experiments or investigations were conducted, and what results were obtained. Different aspects of the work are discussed. The conclusion wraps up and summarizes the work and evaluates it. Conclusions and future work are discussed.

Readers commonly skim the introduction and conclusion of a thesis or paper in order to determine whether they are interested in reading all of it. For this reason, it is important that the introduction and conclusion can be read and understood independently of the main part.

In a scientific report, the text is organized in sections, each with a heading that reflects the main ideas or points of that section. The section headings together form an overview of the contents and structure of the report as a whole. Each section consists of at least one (and usually more than one) paragraph. Each paragraph has a core sentence, a main topic, which is what is presented and discussed.

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