PuBLISHINg Your Research

1. Holly Rushmeier, Yale Janie Irwin, Penn State 2011 CRA-W Cohort Workshop PuBLISHINg Your Research

2. Avenues for publication Tips for writing papers that contain all the right “components” Ethical concerns in publishing (plagiarism, dual submissions) Tools Topics to be addressed

3. In computer science and engineering (CSE), conferences are often more competitive than journals • NAS report • http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2236 • Acceptance rates ranging between 10% and 25% • You want (at least) a couple of these at graduation • A journal paper(s) will add extra value to your thesis and will help with the job search • Ultimately, the number of citations, not papers, is what matters. Citations come from • high quality work • highly visible publication outlets Conferences vs journals

4. Conference vs Journal Processes • Fixed submission date; maximum paper length • Reviewed by members of the Program Committee (PC) and their assignees • For conferences with a rebuttal period, reviews are available at a specific date • PC meeting to decide the fate of all of the submissions • Accept or reject final decision at a specific date; on accept opportunity for minor revisions • Fixed time (~3 months) from submit to decision • Submit when paper is ready; longer papers usually okay • Assigned by EIC to Associate Editor (AE) who handles the review process • AE recommendation made when all reviews completed • Accept, no change (RARE) • Accept, minor revisions • Resubmit, major revisions • After resubmission, paper will go through the review cycle again under the same AE • Reject • Variable time (~3 months to >1 year) from submit to decision

5. Talk to your advisor • Shoot for 1 to 2 top conference submissions per year (after admission to candidacies) • Conferences that require full papers submissions, that provide 3 to 5 reviews, that have relatively low acceptance rates, that are sponsored by a professional society (e.g., ACM, IEEE, SIAM, AAAI, USENIX, VLDB, …) • Nearer the end of your degree, submit your best work to a journal(s) • >25% additional material beyond conf publication What is the right strategy?

6. HOW tough is it? ISCA acceptance rates (source=ACM Digital Library) http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1815961&CFID=12642001&CFTOKEN=89867106

7. Novelty • If not novel enough, will probably be rejected • Incremental work will not make it in top conferences • Enough design work to “prove the point” • Strong experimental evaluation with good returns • 5% to 10% improvement is usually not sufficient (it’s within the experimental error) • Presentation (writing and organization) • An excellent idea may loose if not presented well • Luck (reviewer assignment, mood, program committee champion, mood, …) Important factors

8. OK: you have an excellent idea; design work done, experimental results are also good; now what? • Plan ahead of time (have some internal deadlines) • Do not rush to writing • Think about your story • Put section titles • Put paragraph titles • Spend time in writing, rewriting • Discuss work partitioning with your advisor and co-authors WRITING the paper

9. Whose name goes first? • Depends … in some areas the names are in alphabetical order, in others they are in “contribution” order • Contribution order • The person who contributed the most to the idea, to the design, to the experiments, and to the writing • Usually, faculty name(s) go last • Between the first author and the list of faculty at the end, the order doesn’t really matter • The first author is usually the one to present the work at the conference Author ordering

10. Read Call for Papers (CFP) very carefully • Cover prior work very carefully • Including your own and your friends • Have the paper read by a native speaker • If double-blind review, • Do not reveal your identity in any way (directly or indirectly) • If you violate this, the paper can be rejected • Different conferences have different rules, so check the CFP • Do not play with font size, margins, spacing • Obey all formatting and submission rules • And, of course, submit the paper before the deadline • Allow sufficient time for resubmission (e.g., paper doesn’t pass the format checker) IMPortant points

11. Read them carefully • But, do not read into them too much • Reviewers often think alike but there are sometimes great variances across different program committees • Rebuttal • Be brief and to the point • Do not report additional experimental data (unless explicitly asked) • Rebuttals are read during the PC meeting (sometimes very carefully) – so take them seriously, they can make the difference When you get Reviews Back

12. If the paper is rejected • Talk to your advisor … do not panic • Read review comments very carefully • Address meaningful (addressable) ones • Recycling is OK only after addressing review comments • What if it is rejected again? • Talk to your advisor • Cross-compare reviews • Plan radical changes (in writing, presentation, experimental evaluation, etc) • Consider journal submission instead What if the Paper ISN’t ACCEPTED

13. Let the sender know promptly if you can not do the review (e.g., outside your area, no time, etc.) • Be fair, positive, and timely in your review • Look for the good; remember there are no perfect papers so don’t use this as your accept metric • Let the sender know if you know this is a double submission, plagiarized work, etc. (more to come) • May want to recalibrate scores when reviewing multiple papers submitted to the same venue • If advisor assigned, go over your review with them • Never use an offensive language Reviewing papers Yourself

14. Avenues for publication Tips for writing papers that contain all the right “components” Tools Ethical concerns in publishing (plagiarism, dual submissions) Topics to be addressed

15. Google Scholar tools Popular because it is free! # Citations high relative to others, but unreliable Follow “Cited by” to find more recent work on a topic Type in your own title (has someone else worked on something close that you have missed?)

16. ACM/DL tools Bibliographic information freely available Subscription needed for article content Reliable (conservative) bibliometrics. Links to author pages

17. ACM/DL tools Hyperlinked forward and backward (References and Cited by) May include additional data (e.g. images, video – conference presentation videos can be excellent introduction to work)

18. IEEE/Explorer tools Can follow links by topic Refine searches Computer Society DL is approx. a subset Depending on your area, different IEEE Societies are relevant

19. Other DL’s, Scopus, DBLP etc. tools

20. Measures: ISI Journal Impact Factor Used across all disciplines, computed by a company tools Example calculation from: http://thomsonreuters.com/products_services/science/free/essays/impact_factor

21. Measures: H factor for individuals Computed by various programs, using various databases (often Google Scholar is source) tools The h-index was proposed by J.E. Hirsch in his paper An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output, arXiv:physics/0508025 v5 29 Sep 2005. It is defined as follows: A scientist has index h if h of his/her Np papers have at least h citations each, and the other (Np-h) papers have no more than h citations each. Explanation from: http://www.harzing.com/pophelp/metrics.htm#hindex

22. Double (a.k.a. simultaneous) submission is not allowed • What exactly is double submission? • Essentially the same work under consideration in overlapping time periods • When in doubt ask editor/program chair • Why not? • Referees/Reviewers are a precious resource • Publication outlets are a precious resource • Does it hurt to try? • Angers reviewers, damages your reputation Ethical Concerns

23. Plagiarism • Can destroy your entire academic career • See http://www.acm.org/publications/policies/plagiarism_policy/ • Self plagiarism can be equally bad • In general, do not use any published material without properly referencing it • Includes figures, images, paragraphs, … • Use quotes and citations properly Ethical Concerns

24. Presentation • When you submit a paper, you promise to present it • You can not plead poverty after acceptance • Traveling costs money – are there funds from your advisor? Institution? Special student funds to apply for from the conference? Paying for it yourself? • Why is this a big deal? • People pay conference registration to see papers presented and talk to the authors. • Conferences cost money to organize. Ethical Concerns

25. CS conference rankings and impact ratios • http://www.cs-conference-ranking.org/conferencerankings/alltopics.html • http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/impact.html • http://libra.msra.cn/ • Journal rankings • ISI: http://www.ceraj.com/journal_information_isi_ranking.htm • Acceptance rates • ACM DL: http://portal.acm.org/dl.cfm, prefaces of proceedings, Google • ACM/IEEE code of ethics • http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics • http://www.ieee.org/portal/pages/iportals/aboutus/ethics/code.html • Useful presentations • Paper/abstract preparation and tips on technical writing • http://www.siggraph.org/publications/instructions/rejected • http://www.sigplan.org/conferences/author-info/vanLeunenLipton.html • http://www.sigplan.org/oopsla/oopsla96/how91.html • http://www.docstoc.com/docs/3661639/Effective-Communication-Tips-on-Technical-Writing • Presentation strategy • http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~markhill/conference-talk.html • http://www.docstoc.com/docs/7187060/How-to-Make-a-Good-Presentation • Technical paper reviewing • http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/mckinley/notes/reviewing-smith.pdf • http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/hcd/reviewing.html • http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=74090 pointers

26. QUESTIONS