Knowledge

User:Tcshasaposse/stylemanual: Manual of style

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Computer science is a fascinating topic for many high school and beginning university students from around the world. The TCS project can be used to pique their interest in the subject. To keep their attention it helps to put in some good stories and a bit of a personal touch: links to biographies
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The introductory section should not be more than 2-3 sentences long, and having only one sentence is okay. You may include short remarks about closely associated topics (e.g. the PCP theorem is closely associated to probabilistically checkable proofs), but resist the temptation of giving detailed
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When typesetting mathematical text, do not make excessive use of the math environment, especially inline. Text typeset in math mode often looks oversized and ugly. Think twice before using it: Sometimes you can say the same thing in words and avoid introducing unnecessary notation.
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It is hard to give a complete list of references, so use your best judgement. References to original work are not all that useful. Instead is better to put in a textbook that might be more accessible to non-experts. Online materials (e.g. the Arora-Barak complexity book) are great.
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This kind of audience will probably be unfamiliar with many of the basic concepts and will not be able to follow the "technical" parts of the article. There should be enough for them to get at least oriented. For them it should help have numerous links to other wikipedia
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These parts of the article should be written in a way so that at least they make some sense to the non-expert. Stick to a high-level view but be accurate in your description. In particular, avoid as much non-standard notation as possible. For example,
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To achieve these somewhat conflicting objectives, you may find it helpful to structure the article in the following way. While these guidelines are not strict, please try to follow them so that all articles from the project meet a certain standard.
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The definition should be technically accurate, but not overly detailed. Unlike the preamble, where links to other articles are a plus, the definition should be as self-contained as possible. For example, it is preferable to say
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It is better if references are reviewed and more permanent. Avoid linking to blog entries. Links to lecture notes are okay but keep in mind that they are moved or deleted from time to time, and some of them are fairly technical.
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This audience is familiar with the basic ideas of TCS, but may lack knowledge in your area of expertise. To serve them, your article should aim to provide crisp and accurate but not overly technical information.
338: 157:) and proceed by giving an informal definition of the concept. The definition does not have to be too accurate; it is more important to provide links to other notions here. 438:) leave much to be desired but should be much easier to handle once the proper infrastrucure is set up (definitions of basic complexity classes, subareas of research, etc.) 222:
Sometimes there are several possible definitions for a single notion, varying in degrees of generality or in more subtle ways. For example, should one require that a
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Do not write articles that are too long; consider splitting them into several sub-articles instead. If it takes too much scrolling, chances are people won't read it.
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You can provide a few sentences of intuition about significant technical results related to the topic, but this is not the place to go into a lengthy discussion.
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The article should start with a sentence or two that situates your topic within the general context of theoretical computer science. For example, the article on
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can introduce the concepts of completeness, soundness, non-adaptivity, and so on. However, avoid confusing mathematical notation. For instance, instead of
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While it is hard to come up with a single format of what should follow the definition, this could include some examples, highlights, and historical notes.
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Historical references are highly desirable as they are likely to capture the imagination of the reader. For example, in the discussion on
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While mathematical notation is imperfect in html mode, it is often visually better. Make sure you italicize variables properly, e.g.
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Do not try to do too much at once. It may be better to start at the bottom and work our way up to the top. Some articles (e.g.
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be efficiently computable? Should the class of adversaries be polynomials, circuits, or a general family of functions?
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that have probabilistically checkable proofs with completeness 1, soundness α < 1, randomness complexity O(log
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Provide an encyclopedic style reference for researchers and students from TCS and related disciplines.
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This page contains guidelines and recommendations for the style to be used in the TCS Wiki Project.
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Use the definition to introduce related notions and parameters. For example, the definition of
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of famous TCS people, historical remarks, popular science articles on the internet, and so on.
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on Knowledge. When writing articles, it is useful to keep in mind the following objectives:
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The first sentence should begin by specifying the general area of your article (i.e. in
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Communicate the basic ideas and highlights of TCS to a general audience.
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Do not forget to include links to celebrities from our community.
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I don't think there is a single way to make these choices, but
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The purpose of the TCS Wiki project is to improve coverage of
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Cryptographic pseudorandom generators were intruduced by
316: 332: 430:Articles like this can cause more harm than good. 416:. Avoid overusing superscripts and subscripts. 231:resist the temptation to do everything at once 104:) is a type of proof that can be checked by a 344:This is not the place to prove your theorems! 8: 324: 323: 315: 7: 333:{\displaystyle X\sim {\mathcal {U}}} 60:Attract curious young minds to TCS. 86:probabilistically checkable proofs 24: 242:probabilistically checkable proof 106:randomized verification algorithm 98:probabilistically checkable proof 94:computational complexity theory 426:pseudorandom generator theorem 272:ε against adversaries of size 108:with bounded query complexity. 1: 151:theoretical computer science 128:) and query complexity O(1). 36:theoretical computer science 206:such that the disttibution 182:such that the disttibution 452: 436:computational complexity 351:pseudorandom generators 307:is more desirable than 235:alternative definitions 334: 266:pseudorandom generator 254:pseudorandom generator 224:pseudorandom generator 200:pseudorandom generator 176:pseudorandom generator 155:error-correcting codes 335: 314: 302:uniform distribution 68:Structure of article 424:See the article on 153:, in the theory of 330: 353:you could write: 300:sampled from the 122:decision problems 18:User:Tcshasaposse 443: 339: 337: 336: 331: 329: 328: 260:consider saying 120:is the class of 115:complexity class 451: 450: 446: 445: 444: 442: 441: 440: 422: 420:Things to avoid 392: 379: 312: 311: 298:random variable 283: 167: 82: 70: 32: 22: 21: 20: 12: 11: 5: 449: 447: 421: 418: 391: 388: 378: 375: 371: 370: 341: 340: 327: 322: 319: 305: 304: 282: 281:Other sections 279: 278: 277: 258: 257: 220: 219: 202:is a function 192: 191: 178:is a function 166: 163: 161:explanations. 147: 146: 130: 129: 110: 109: 81: 78: 69: 66: 65: 64: 56: 55: 47: 46: 31: 28: 23: 15: 14: 13: 10: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 448: 439: 437: 432: 431: 427: 419: 417: 415: 414: 409: 405: 401: 396: 389: 387: 383: 376: 374: 368: 364: 363:Silvio Micali 360: 356: 355: 354: 352: 347: 345: 320: 317: 310: 309: 308: 303: 299: 295: 292: 291: 290: 286: 280: 275: 271: 267: 263: 262: 261: 255: 251: 247: 246: 245: 243: 238: 236: 232: 227: 225: 217: 213: 209: 205: 201: 197: 196: 195: 189: 185: 181: 177: 173: 172: 171: 164: 162: 158: 156: 152: 144: 140: 136: 132: 131: 127: 123: 119: 116: 112: 111: 107: 103: 99: 95: 91: 90: 89: 87: 79: 77: 74: 67: 61: 58: 57: 52: 49: 48: 44: 41: 40: 39: 37: 29: 27: 19: 433: 429: 423: 412: 407: 403: 399: 397: 393: 384: 380: 372: 348: 343: 342: 306: 293: 287: 284: 273: 269: 265: 259: 253: 249: 239: 234: 230: 228: 221: 216:pseudorandom 211: 207: 203: 199: 193: 187: 183: 179: 175: 168: 159: 148: 142: 138: 137:states that 125: 117: 101: 97: 88:begins with 83: 75: 71: 59: 50: 42: 33: 25: 359:Manuel Blum 135:PCP theorem 390:Typography 377:References 367:Andrew Yao 165:Definition 100:(in short 30:Objectives 321:∼ 54:articles. 369:in 1982. 80:Preamble 365:, and 276:is ... 256:is ... 296:is a 252:, ε)- 214:) is 194:than 16:< 270:bias 133:The 113:The 96:, a 268:of 248:A ( 139:PCP 118:PCP 102:PCP 92:In 413:NP 410:, 361:, 264:A 198:A 174:A 143:NP 141:= 408:E 404:x 402:( 400:f 326:U 318:X 294:X 274:S 250:S 218:. 212:X 210:( 208:G 204:G 188:X 186:( 184:G 180:G 145:. 126:n

Index

User:Tcshasaposse
theoretical computer science
probabilistically checkable proofs
computational complexity theory
randomized verification algorithm
complexity class
decision problems
PCP theorem
theoretical computer science
error-correcting codes
pseudorandom
pseudorandom generator
probabilistically checkable proof
random variable
uniform distribution
pseudorandom generators
Manuel Blum
Silvio Micali
Andrew Yao
NP
pseudorandom generator theorem
computational complexity

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