One Startling Sentence

(This pattern was originally enunciated by KentBeck in his many talks on patterns. Kent, would you please come in here and clean this one up!?!)

[ I'm not Kent, but I did track down one written source of Kent's idea, from Ralph Johnson's 1992 OOPSLA panel How to Get a Paper Accepted at OOPSLA. It's on-line at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~wcook/papers/HowToGetaPaperAcceptedToOOPSLA/HowToGetAPaperAcceptedToOOPSLA.htm -- see the "Kent Beck" section near the bottom. Below I have pasted two relevant pieces of Kent's talk. -- EugeneWallingford ]

Most paper reviewers do not have the time, nor the energy to wade through the entire text of a long, technical paper. As a reviewer for a few conferences, I'll agree with this statement wholeheartedly.

In technical papers, as in face-to-face meetings, it's always important to "make a good first impression". In a technical paper, the first impression of the content and quality of the paper as a whole is gained from the abstract.

If an abstract is abstruse, or difficult to understand, then it is likely the paper will be also. Since reviewers are motivated to only spend the energy to read what they believe are the best papers, it is in the author's interest to make the abstract attractive to the reviewer. Therefore:

The abstract should be worded such that very early on (in the third sentence I believe...is that right Kent?) there is a single sentence that is worded to catch the reviewer's attention. This sentence should make a single, eye-catching claim or statement that the paper will substantiate. Examples of this might be:

"We have shown that without the use of design patterns large scale software projects are destined to fail."

"Our study has demonstrated that the FOO language is 400% easier to learn than C++."

KyleBrown (but it really belongs to KentBeck)

One startling sentence. Now that you know you are writing to the program committee, you need to find the one thing you want to say that will catch their interest. If you have been working on the world's niftiest program night and day for five years, the temptation is to include absolutely everything about it, "The Foo System In All Its Glory." It'll never work. I know it's painful to ignore all those great insights, but find the most startling thing you have done and write it down, "network garbage collection is fast and easy." You want the reader's eyes to open wide when they realize what it is you've just said.

: I think some people are reluctant to boil their message down to one startling sentence because it opens them up to concrete criticism. If you write about the Foo System and someone says it isn't neat, you can just reply, "Is so, nyah!" If you say network garbage collection is easy, it is a statement that is objectively true or false. You can be proven wrong. Wait! You spent five years proving it was easy. Make your case.

Abstract. The abstract is your four sentence summary of the conclusions of your paper. Its primary purpose is to get your paper into the A pile. Most PC members sort their papers in an A pile and a B pile by reading the abstracts. The A pile papers get smiling interest, the B pile papers are a chore to be slogged through. By keeping your abstract short and clear, you greatly enhance your chances of being in the A pile.

: I try to have four sentences in my abstract. The first states the problem. The second states why the problem is a problem. The third is my startling sentence. The fourth states the implication of my startling sentence. [...]
: I always feel funny writing an abstract this way. The idea I thought was so wonderful when I started writing the paper looks naked and alone sitting there with no support. I resist the temptation to argue for my conclusion in the abstract. I think it gives the reader more incentive to carefully read the rest of the paper. They want to find you how in the world you could possible say such an outrageous thing.

Kent gave the same advice at a ParcPlace User's Conference ('93? '94?). He also addressed the problem that many papers have with how they address their audience. Many papers aren't clear on who their audience is, or try to address multiple audiences. Both faults make it hard on readers.

Kent advised that it is better to write to one audience than to multiple. If it's clear who the target audience is, then readers outside of the target group can adjust. He gave a strong recommendation for writing a brief summary of some idealized member of the target audience (who they were, what problems they faced, why they would be reading this particular paper, and what they hoped to get out of it) to keep in front of you while writing. --DaveSmith, trusting his faulty memory.

In grade school we called this a "topic sentence", and in high school it became the "thesis sentence". See, your English teacher knew whereof she spoke. --StevenNewton

In standard journalism (as opposed to more literary journalism practiced in many magazines, and alt-weekly papers) they often write in a form called "the inverted pyramid." The lead sentence -- changed to "lede" in journalism-speak for some reason I am unaware of -- is supposed to be the most important, and the last sentence is supposed to be the least important. The reasoning is two-fold: First, you have to grab the reader's attention. Second, if the editor needs to cut your story because of space considerations, it's much easier for em to just lop off the last few paragraphs.

Newspaper writing is a pretty egoless form of expression.

If newspaper writing were egoless they wouldn't need the Pulitzer. -- KyleBrown

Pulitzer writing is different still and stands out as such, especially among fellow journalists. -- WardCunningham

OffTopic: I think journalists spell it a "lede" instead of a "lead" because the same word, pronounced like the dense metal, is a typesetting term and could cause misunderstanding (Eg: a proofreader comment "Change the lead"). ~SeanOleary (who once dated a journalist, so he thinks he's right) Journalists also call paragraphs "grafs". So you'll often hear "You need to tighten up your lede graf" from editors. ~StevenNewton

More information at http://www.uark.edu/~kshurlds/FOJ/HW2.html: "Lede is often spelled lead. The odd spelling was adopted when newspaper type was set in lead. To keep from confusing the word for the metal with the word for the beginning sentence, the spelling "lede" was used."