(in progress of restrucing the guide)

Tools, Files and Formats

Use a git repository for collaboration.

• Git is much better at tracking changes than overleaf.

• You can use TexStudio, vim or other editors locally and push you changes to the remote git repository.

Use a grammar checker.

If you are using Texstudio, please follow this: https://tex.stackexchange.com/a/282571.

Short Column Width

Keep a line short. I would recommend to break a line at 60. The benefits of doing this are

• Friendly to version control system. Easy to diff.
• Better bi-directional mapping between the output pdf file and the latex source.
• Friendly to the editor. No need to use the editor's wrapping functionality.

Decompose a single BIG .tex file into multiple .tex files

• Friendly to version control system. Easy to diff. Minimize merge conflicts.
• Better organization of the paper, for example, each section is in its own file.

Have a main.tex file

• Easy to identify the entry of the tex project.

Install Pluverse macro files

• Enter your latex directory, and run the following command

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/uw-pluverse/pluverse-latex-style-guide/master/macro/update-pluverse-macros.sh
$ chmod +x update-pluverse-macros.sh
$ ./update-pluverse-macros.sh

Writing

Capitalize words in your titles properly.

Use this website to check whether your title conforms. Note that this rule applies to paper titles, subtitles, and all (sub)section titles.

Use '~' between the words and '\cite', and '\ref'.

This allows the citation or the figure label to stay together with the previous word with a whitespace in between.

• A and B developed a new approach~\cite{paper-id}
• Figure~\ref{figure-label} shows the overall framework.

Capitalize Figure and Table in 'Figure~\ref{xxx}' and 'Table~\ref{xxx}'

Correct: In Figure 1, we know ...

Wrong: In figure 1, we know ...

Label Naming Convention

• Table: \label{tbl:...}
• Subtable: \label{subtbl:...}
• Figure: \label{fig:...}
• Subfigure: \label{subfig:...}
• Section: \label{sec:...}
• Subsection: \label{subsec:...}
• Subsubsection: \label{subsubsec:...}
• Algorithm: \label{alg:...}
• Line: \label{line:...}

Put captions above tables, and below figures.

This applies to most of the proceeding formats.

Capitalize the caption for meaningful word.

The first word in caption of Table/Figure should be capitalized, but not for preposition and conjunction word.

For example, it should be The Effectiveness of ADF in Three Datasets.

Here is a detailed guideline from the feedback from a proceeding publisher:

Headline-style capitalization should be used.

Capitalize:

• first and last word, first word after a colon
• all major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs)

Lowercase:

• articles (the, a, an)
• prepositions (regardless of length)
• conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor)
• to, as

Always use vector graphs and use the right font in the graphs.

• Try to avoid using .png, .jpg and .bmp, because they look blury when zoomed in.

• Always use .eps or .pdf.

• Make sure the font in the figure is the same font.

Carefully select the color and the markers in the figure.

The color and markers of figures, especially for the line chart and bar chart, should be able to distinguished even in black-white printing.

These two websites can help you pick color https://learnui.design/tools/data-color-picker.html and https://colorbrewer2.org/.

Remember to pick the color that is print-friendly.

The font of the text in figures should be same as the font of main content.

Usually it should be Times New Roman.

The font size of text in figures and table should not be larger than the font size of main content

Be carefully when you use resize.

Use booktab table style.

For table, you can use this website https://www.tablesgenerator.com/. Now it is more common to use the "booktab table style".

Here is a guide on how to design good-looking tables in LaTex by Markus Püschel.

Adjust the horizontal/vertical space insides table

Use \setlength and \arraystretch to change the horizontal spacing (column separation) and the vertical spacing (row separation), respectively.

\setlength{\tabcolsep}{20pt}
\renewcommand{\arraystretch}{1.5}

Write numbers in words.

If you use numbers such as 1, 2, 100, and 1000, you should write one, two, one hundred, and one thousand. If you use number such as 2021, it should write it as 2,021

More information can be found here

Do not use abbreviations.

Do not use English word abbreviations, such as 2nd, no. and approx.. Use the full words instead, such as second, number and approximately. You should also avoid using they're, don't, can't, etc; instead you should use they are, do not, cannot.

Note that you are encouraged to use Latin abbreviations, such as i.e., e.g..

Evaluation Terminology

• Ratio
  • A ratio says how much of one thing there is compared to another thing. It shows that the number of times one value contains or is contained within the other.
  • Formula: $A/B$
  • Part-to-Part vs Part-to-Whole
    • Part-to-Part: comparing one part to another part
      • e.g., ratio of bug discovered to bug missed = 2 : 3 or 2/3
    • Part-to-Whole: comparing one part to the whole lot
      • e.g., ratio bug discovered to all bugs = 2 : 5 or 2/5
  • E.g., Perses is 2.07x faster, produces 1.13x smaller results, and reduces 3.99x fewer queries than HDD.
  • link
• Percentage change / Relative change / Relative difference
  • This shows that change as a percent of the old value. When the new value is greater then the old value, it is a percentage increase, otherwise it is a decrease.
  • Watchout:
    • A 10% increase from 100 is an increase of 10. BUT! A 10% reduction from 110 is a reduction of 11.
  • Formula: $(New Value − Old Value) / Old Value \times100%$
  • E.g., Perses’s results are respectively 2% and 45% in size of those from DD and HDD.
  • Acronym: %Change
  • link
• Percentage error
  • The difference between Approximate and Exact Values, as a percentage of the Exact Value. Percentage Error is all about comparing a guess or estimate to an exact value.
  • Formula: $(Approximate Value − Exact Value) / Exact Value \times100%$
  • E.g., A bug detecting tool only found 95 bugs out of a 100. The tool has a 0.05% error.
  • Acronym: %Error
  • link
• Percentage difference
  • The difference between two values divided by the average of the two values. Percentage Difference is used when both values mean the same kind of thing (for example the heights of two people).
  • Formula: $|First Value − Second Value| / |(First Value + Second Value)/2| * 100%$
  • Acronym: %Diff or %Difference
  • link

Compare & Contrast

• Ratio: how much of one value is compared to another value
• Percentage change: compare an Old Value to a New Value
• Percentage error: compare an Approximate Value to an Exact Value
• Percentage difference: both values mean the Same Kind of thing (rarely used)
• Commonly, we prefer using ratio and %change in our evaluations. %error and %diff is used less frequently as they only apply to specific scenarios.
• Also see this link

Try to use bib files from ACM Digitial Library and IEEE Xplore.

Please try to download the paper and bib from ACM Digitial Library and IEEE Xplore.

DBLP is a good source for tracking a person's publication records and download bib files. Just be careful: sometimes a paper can appear twice if it is published both in conference/journal and arxiv. Please DO NOT select the one from arxiv.

Avoid the citation from arxiv, if possible.

No citations in abstract

You should not cite any papers in the Abstract section.

Use macros for constants

If you have some numbers, or string literals (e.g., functions) used throughout your paper, create a macro, and use that macro instead.

For example, if you repeatedly mention Our approach is 35% faster than the state of the art., then it is better to refactor your LaTeX into the following

usepackage{xspace}
\newcommand{\PerformanceGain}{35\%\xspace}
......
Our approach is \PerformanceGain faster than the state of the art.

Quote.

Single quotation marks are produced in LaTeX using ` and '.

Double quotation marks are `` and ''.

For example

`Something'
``The title of this paper is hope''

Avoid trailing whitespaces

Trailing whitespaces are not friendly to git, because it introduce unnecessary diff.

If you use TeXStudio, you can enable removing trailing whitespaces on save in the setting.

• On MacOs, From the top menu, click TeXStudio->Preference->Editor, and tick Remove Trailing Whitespace on Save
• Not sure how to set this on other OS.

Referring to a section, subsection, or a subsubsection

Use \S\ref{section-label}. Note that there is no space between \S and \ref{section-label}

Words in the math mode, e.g., \[\] or $$

If you want to use words in a math formula, remember to use \textit to wrap the word.

For example, $time = ComptueTime(t + 1)$ should be written as $\textit{time} = \textit{ComputeTime}(t + 1)$

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS should not be numbered

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS section shall not have a section number. It should be added using the environment \begin{ack} \end{ack} instead of \section{ack}

Please note it is ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, not ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.

Do not start a subsection title right after a section title.

\section{Approach}
ADD SOMETHING HERE!
\subsection{Overview}

Use \usepackage{subcaption} to include multiple figures in one figure environment.

TBD: need to have an example here.

Use cleveref

Cleveref automatically determine the type of cross-reference and fill in the appropate cross-reference (Figure, Table, Section, etc.).

To use cleveref, load the cleveref package last and use the following configurations.

\usepackage{cleveref} % This package must be loaded in the end.

\Crefname{table}{Table}{Tables}
\crefname{table}{Table}{Tables}
\Crefname{figure}{Figure}{Figures}
\crefname{figure}{Figure}{Figures}
\Crefname{algocf}{Algorithm}{Algorithms}
\crefname{algocf}{Algorithm}{Algorithms}
\Crefname{algorithm}{Algorithm}{Algorithms}
\crefname{algorithm}{Algorithm}{Algorithms}
\crefname{thm}{Theorem}{Theorems}
\Crefname{thm}{Theorem}{Theorems}

% https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/81634/cleveref-configure-symbol-for-all-sectioning-types-once-time
\crefformat{chapter}{\S#2#1#3}
\crefmultiformat{chapter}{\S\S#2#1#3}{ and~#2#1#3}{, #2#1#3}{, and~#2#1#3}

\crefformat{section}{\S#2#1#3}
\crefmultiformat{section}{\S\S#2#1#3}{ and~#2#1#3}{, #2#1#3}{, and~#2#1#3}

When referencing labels, instead of using \ref, use \cref.

Other files in this repo

• comment_macror.tex, to leave comments
• auto_counter_macro.tex, If you have a lot of findings/reponses, you can use the following commands to automatic generate counters.
• abbr_macros.tex, macro for common macros.
• response_letter.tex, a rough template for journal response letter.

Tricks

Use \SetKwFunction inside a caption of an algorithm2e environment

Use \protect before the function macro, e.g., \caption{\protect\Fn my function}

See here