Systems Paper Writing

# Pre-Submission Checklist for Systems Papers

Comprehensive self-check before submitting to OSDI, SOSP, ASPLOS, NSDI, and EuroSys. Combines community best practices (MLNLP-World/Paper-Writing-Tips, RU-System/Paper_Writing_Tips) with systems-specific and academic integrity checks.

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## Stage 1: Structural Completeness

### Thesis & Contributions
- [ ] Paper has a clear thesis statement: "X is better for Y in Z"
- [ ] Thesis appears in Abstract (sentence 3), Introduction, and Conclusion
- [ ] Introduction lists 3–5 numbered, testable contributions
- [ ] Each contribution cross-references a paper section (§N)
- [ ] Each contribution is verified by an experiment in §5

### Section Presence
- [ ] Abstract: 150–250 words, self-contained (no undefined terms)
- [ ] Introduction: Problem → Gap → Insight → Contributions
- [ ] Background/Motivation: Technical terms defined before use
- [ ] Design: Architecture figure + module details + alternatives
- [ ] Implementation: Language, LOC, framework, key decisions
- [ ] Evaluation: Setup + end-to-end + ablation + scalability
- [ ] Related Work: Grouped by approach, explicit differentiation
- [ ] Conclusion: 3-sentence summary (problem, solution, result)

### Page Budget
- [ ] Total pages within venue limit (see venue table below)
- [ ] Design section: 3–4 pages (not overlong)
- [ ] Evaluation section: 3–4 pages (not underweight)
- [ ] Related Work: ~1 page (not a bibliography dump)
- [ ] Implementation: 0.5–1 page (concise)

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## Stage 2: Writing Quality

### Clarity (Gernot Heiser)
- [ ] No forward references without explicit pointers ("as we show in §N")
- [ ] Every acronym defined on first use
- [ ] No orphan terminology — every technical term defined before use
- [ ] Consistent naming: system name capitalized uniformly throughout
- [ ] Active voice preferred over passive where possible

### Figures & Tables (MLNLP-World/Paper-Writing-Tips)
- [ ] Every figure/table referenced in text before it appears
- [ ] Figure captions are self-contained (readable without text)
- [ ] Evaluation figure captions include the key finding
- [ ] Architecture figure appears within first 3 pages
- [ ] Fonts in figures ≥ 8pt (readable when printed)
- [ ] Colors distinguishable in grayscale (for B&W printing)
- [ ] Consistent plot styles across all evaluation figures

### LaTeX Quality
- [ ] All code blocks have language tags (```python, ```bash, etc.)
- [ ] Non-breaking spaces before references: `Section~\ref{...}`
- [ ] Consistent citation format: `\cite{...}` not mixed with `[N]`
- [ ] No overfull hbox warnings in LaTeX log
- [ ] Bibliography entries have complete metadata (authors, title, venue, year)

### Prose Quality (RU-System/Paper_Writing_Tips)
- [ ] No hedging without evidence ("we believe", "it seems")
- [ ] Quantitative claims have numbers ("significantly better" → "37% better")
- [ ] No first-person unless venue style requires it
- [ ] Contributions are specific, not vague ("novel" without explanation)
- [ ] Related work comparisons are fair and accurate

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## Stage 3: Evaluation Rigor

### Experimental Methodology
- [ ] Baselines are state-of-the-art (not straw men)
- [ ] Baselines configured optimally (not default/untuned)
- [ ] Hardware, software versions, and configurations fully specified
- [ ] Workloads described in sufficient detail to reproduce
- [ ] Statistical significance: error bars, multiple runs, or confidence intervals
- [ ] Warmup runs excluded from measurements

### Result Presentation
- [ ] Every conclusion stated 3 times: hypothesis (§ opening), result (§ closing), caption (figure)
- [ ] Ablation study isolates each design component
- [ ] Scalability experiments show behavior at increasing scale
- [ ] Both favorable and unfavorable results discussed honestly
- [ ] Performance numbers are absolute (not only relative percentages)

### Reproducibility
- [ ] Source code availability stated (or planned)
- [ ] Key hyperparameters and configuration values listed
- [ ] Workloa