paper style

[gusl]

The first section of my paper is not titled "Introduction", because I want the title to be informative. I cannot think of any other papers violating this regularity.

Likewise, the titles of my sections and subsections tend to be long. Seems like a good alternative to having a "table of contents, in paragraph format and without page numbers (yechh)".

--

I'm also very fond of footnotes, it seems. There's normally a trade-off between accuracy/completeness vs. conciseness/clarity. Footnotes let me have both (by apologizing for the inaccuracy/incompleteness in the main text).

Comments

[joyful-vydra.livejournal.com]

I see a lot of papers (in materials science) with the first section not title introduction. Not the majority but it's not unheard of.

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

I disagree with Jonathan on that one. The TOC is useful for two things: laying out the organization (if the paper reasonably organized, which isn't that rare), and because on a second reading it is a true table of contents with section numbers. What's so magical about page numbers anyway?

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

(the only oozing cyst is "we conclude with some final remarks", which should also be excised from all talk outlines)

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

why not make a proper table of contents in a box at the end of the introduction?

[bhudson.livejournal.com]

What's improper and non-boxy about a paragraph?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

a TOC should be easy to locate visually.