VCL Guidelines
Conventions, and good group etiquette
- File names for files shared among others
Include YEAR.MONTH.DAY.TIME somewhere in the filename so files
sort by date when listed out.
Make frequent backup copies and keep the base name the same.
Ex: isscc08.2007.09.18.1530.ppt
for a copy saved at 3:30pm on Sept. 18. Include year when versions
are likely to be needed over different years.
Normally use only lower-case letters in filenames and directory
names (for faster typing).
- Write text files (documents, code, etc.) with no more than 80 columns
of text. Many people use multiple 80-column terminals side by side and
wider columns are very annoying.
- Rebooting VCL computers
Reboot our unix computers only as a last resort when you
have tried every other solution without success.
If you do reboot a machine, you MUST check to see if other people are
logged into the computer and you MUST check with them if it is ok to
reboot unless the reboot is extremely urgent. Otherwise, people can
lose important data.
Guidelines for presentations and papers
- All
- Always keep in mind the point or story you are
telling. The readers/audience want to understand your work
and it is your job to get the key points across clearly.
- All ink has a cost (readers' attention); use it wisely.
Your readers will give your work only so much attention before
they quit or tune out.
This includes text, figures, line segments, line crossings, etc.
Use ink only if it deserves to be there, or earns its usage.
- Almost all rules can be broken for increased clarity.
- Common pitfall: use a minimum number of fonts across text and
figures. This includes font types, sizes, bold, italics, etc.
- Common pitfall: avoid opinions and unsupported assertions that
may very well be true but come across very poorly when they
are not backed up by things like data or references.
- Papers
- Units should never be italicized. Use our \mmm latex macro for mm^2.
- If a variable has more than one letter in it, use \emph{}
instead of math mode. Especially when there are mixed
letters and numbers, it looks strange. e.g., "Sp0"
- \log is a built-in math function. It is not italicized.
use \log_2 for log base 2.
Only variables are italicized in equations!
- Avoid saying things like, "Note that..."
Readers should note everything. Just say it.
- Don't leave blank lines between paragraph text and an "eqnarray".
It uses unnecessary white space.
- Generally avoid using "improves". Say what you mean instead.
Say "increased throughput", not "improved throughput".
- Figures
- Watch font sizes in figures—they are sometimes way too small
- Crop figures to remove white space around them (especially for papers).
This is easily done in Adobe Acrobat with:
Tools > Advanced Editing > Crop Tool
- Talk slides
- All text and figures must be easy to read or removed. Around 14
or 12 point fonts are the minimum.
- Normally 3 or 4 fonts maximum per slide/talk.
Ideally includes 1 font type, ~2 sizes, italics for emphasis,
use bold for emphasis sparingly.
- As a rule, only include material in your paper for a conference
presentation.
- Normally, put nothing on a slide that the audience does not have time
to absorb.
- Target 1 minute/slide. ~1/3 minute per slide for title, outline
and acknowledgement slides.
- Talks
- Overall goal: getting a small number of key ideas across to
distracted listeners from a variety of backgrounds.
- Try for a 3 or 4 main points.
- Material on giving better presentations:
Common Errors in Writing
- Citations are parenthetical, not part of the regular text
Do not refer to them in the text, e.g., "In [3], the authors..."
- No unexplained citations in a long row
It looks like you just copied a bunch of cites from somewhere and
perhaps you didn't even read them.
E.g., "Some chips have low clock speeds [5], [6], [7], [8]."
Using range notation (e.g., [5-8]) is just as bad.
The best option is to keep the citations and say something intelligent
about each one—compare, contrast, or summarize them.
- Put entire equations in math mode
Use "$3 \times 3$" and not "3 $\times$ 3".
It makes the spaces correct.
For an extra-nice looking appearance, use "$3 \times 3$" instead of
"3 X 3".
- Italicize all variables
Yes, this means everywhere; including: text, equations, tables, and
figures.
- Do not italicize units such as "V", "ns", etc.
- Put a non-breaking space between a number and its units. For example
in latex: "1.2~V", "2~ns", etc.
- Always define acronyms the first time they are used. For example,
"Many-core globally asynchronous locally synchronou (GALS) processing
arrays are..."
- To get quotes correct in latex, use two "back ticks" for the open
quote and two apostrophes for the closing quote like this:
``in quotes.''
- Watch spaces around commas and quotes. There should never be a
space before commas and quotes should be formatted, "like this one."
Long-running Jobs
We have about 35 cpus in the linux machines in the group that need to
be shared among all of us. Here are a few principles for sharing them:
- Urgent jobs needed for an important deadline have first priority on
the fastest cpus and/or machines
with the largest amounts of memory, if needed.
- Normally, jobs that run more than a brief amount of time (let's say
10 minutes) should be nice'd to at least 4. This is less important
if you are running on your own machine.
- Normally, jobs that run more than a long time (let's say
one day) and also where the user is running many copies of the job
across many cpus, should be nice'd to 19 (the maximum).
- Nice'ing should be done more aggressively if:
- someone is working on the console of the machine,
- you are using the fastest cpus in the group (cookie and olive
currently), or
- you are running multiple jobs on one machine.
- do not run jobs on pizza other than commands that are greatly sped up
with direct access to disks such as search commands like find or grep.
Travel Expense Guidelines
Our sponsors and the university expect us to use our funds wisely.
Therefore, we must follow these guidelines concerning expenses for which
you would like to be reimbursed.
- The lowest cost method of transportation must be used.
- Keep meal expenses reasonable and low—$10 per meal max.
- Normally, rental cars can not be reimbursed and an airport shuttle
should be used if you fly. See if the hotel offers a free shuttle.
- Talk to me first before you spend any money more than:
- Transportation to the conference including a shuttle van
- Basic conference registration
- A reasonable low-cost hotel room (share with others if possible);
normally, it will be ok for a presenting author to stay at the
conference's hotel
- Meals
- If traveling with others, get an individual receipt since a
combined receipt can not be used on a travel reimbursement.
There can be exceptions to these rules when it makes sense and when
funding is available, but you must talk to me (Bevan) first; thanks.
Guidelines for Responses to Reviewers' Comments
- Make sure you know exactly what the reviewer is complaining/commenting
about. Not answering his question is the best way to get him frustrated
and get your paper rejected permanently.
- Normally treat each reviewer's comment as one of three things:
- You misunderstood, let me clear it up, or
- You have a valid point, we have made the following change to our
paper to address it. [followed by quote of new text], or
- A combination of the first two points.
- So there is normally no point in explaining something to the reviewers
if you didn't add it to the paper. It is likely to raise more questions.
- As a rule, every comment by a reviewer should result in 1 or more
changes in the text. Even if the comment is not valid or nonsense, it
should result in a change because it is an indication something can be
explained better.
- Only in rare cases should you very very gently tell a reviewer their
point is wrong and you won't change the paper.
- The ideal response to a reviewer would be several changes made to the
text and/or figures, and those changes listed in the response. If all
comments are addressed in this way, it will be much more difficult for the
reviewer to recommend rejection.
VCL |
ECE Dept. |
UC Davis
Last update: September 1, 2009