Abstract: The aim of scientific research is to produce new knowledge. To be useful, new knowledge must be able to stand up to critical scrutiny, be developed and communicated in an ethical way, and its presentation to other researchers or the public must be persuasive. These lectures are a brief introduction to the processes of science as they apply to computer science, including writing, presenting, and experimental design. They are based on the presenter's two texts on research methods, Writing For Computer Science by Zobel and the forthcoming How To Write A Better Thesis (third edition) by Evans, Gruba, and Zobel.

Introduction to Research Methods & Scientific Communication

Writing Papers & Theses Part 1

Writing Papers & Theses Part 2

Hypotheses & Experiments

Giving Presentations

Biography: Justin Zobel is Professor of Computational Bioinformatics in the University of Melbourne's Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering, and leads the Computing for Life Sciences activities within National ICT Australia's Victorian Research Laboratory. Professor Zobel received his PhD from the University of Melbourne and for many years was based at RMIT University, where he led the Search Engine group.  In the research community, Professor Zobel is best known for his role in the development of algorithms for efficient text retrieval, which underpin applications such as search engines deployed on the web.  His research areas includes search, bioinformatics, fundamental algorithms and data structures, compression, and research methods.  He is an author of two texts on postgraduate study and research methods.  He is an Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Information Retrieval, and an associate editor of ACM Transactions on Information Systems, Information Processing & Management, and IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering.