Computers & Graphics
University of Toronto April 30 2014
Top 10 ways to get your paper rejected
Joaquim JorgeEiC Computers and Graphics
Journal Head of Group
Visualization and Multimodal Interfaces@ INESC-ID Lisboa
http://web.ist.utl.pt/jorgej
Research Interests: Calligraphic Interaction, Multimodal Interfaces, Graphical Modeling
Writing is Important
GREAT ideas not enough
Need to Communicate them
What I know about good writing
What I know about bad writing
Author – papers rejected due to bad writing
Reviewer – many bad papers (1000+)
Editor – handled 1500+ as EiC
The Journal in 2013
Published since 1975
EiC since 2007
Experience to share
Lots of Submissions
698
Quick Decisions
5 Weeks
Reject Lots of Papers
82%
Scientists MUST Write
Great ideas are worthless
if nobody can understand them
Top 10 Ways to Get Your Paper Rejected
Make Editor’s life easier!
Desk Rejects make us look good
Less Reviewers invited
Shorter response time
Higher rejection rate
Happier reviewers
DO NOT READ THE INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS
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Content
Pattern Recognition
Robotic Motion Controllers
Graph Theory
Algorithms for Neural Networks
Control Theory
Desk Reject
Ignore the style instructions
Author names (CAG is double-blind)
Old-style manuscripts
Reviewers in Graphics are picky
Check requirements
DO NOT CHECK FOR GRAMMAR OR SPELLING
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Sloppy!
Tehre is rseraceh taht sohws grammer or bad spllenig are not iapomrtnt
Tihs is bseauce the hamun mnid cmnepstoaes
Sloppy writing
why bother ?
Reviewers turned off
It is not their responsibility to get it right
PROVIDE NO MOTIVATION
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NO MOTIVATION
Present your results Out of the Blue Sky
Provide No Hints To
Origin of your ideas
Direction
Relevance
Practical Application
Why you are submitting
NO BACKGROUND
Remove
Acknowledgements / References
Or, IF You Must
“Submitted”
“In Preparation”
“Private Communication”
“Well known” results published in Aramaic
PROVIDE NO RESULTS
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NO RESULTS
If you provide no results it will be impossible to duplicate your work
Thus your assertions cannot be disproved
Ignore the state of the art
Do not compare your work to others’
Who cares if Obscurovich et al [uncit] did the same 2 years ago ?
Saves a LOT of work (NOT!)
Unsubstantiated Conclusions
Do not overreach
Do your data support your claims ?
Can you really claim your approach is free of limitations or shortcomings ?
Can you provide
Code ?
Examples ?
Video ?
Overstated Claims
Overselling a problem akin to lack of results
Will get your paper rejected
“Truth in advertising”
IGNORE THE READER
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Audience knows as much as you
You know your contribution
So they know
you don’t need to write it!
Audience knows as much as you
If you could do the research…
so should they (they’re experts, right?)
No need for details!
Write for yourself
Write a “descriptive paper”
We did this, we did that, and we did that
other thing
A dump of your lab book Will Do Fine
The 4 Don’ts
Don’t
discuss tradeoffs / alternatives
comment results
give insights
provide take-home messages
WASTE SPACE WITH IRRELEVANT DETAILS
5
flickr.com/photos/dphiffer
Small Details Are Important!
Spent 9 ½ weeks optimizing two lines of code?
The world needs to know about it!
Who cares about big ideas?
Real Authors ™ “If it was difficult to write…”
Why describe your work ?
Hamilton’s quaternions are only 170 years old
Nobody knows about them, right ?
Dedicate at least two pages to explain in detail
journal papers are the stuff of textbooks, right ?
OBFUSCATE YOUR WRITING
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Adopt a rambling style
Focus ? What focus ?
Provide at least 7 +- 2 ideas per page
Digress
Treat reviewers like mushrooms
OBFUSCATE
Use the Passive Voice. Always. LOTS of acronyms Change notations: χ(ξ) instead of f(x)
Preferably mid-paper
OBFUSCATE
No sentence smaller than a paragraph No paragraphs! Gender, Subject and Number should not
agree Use Footnotes
Recurse
RESUBMIT YOUR REJECTED PAPER WITH NO CHANGES
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Resubmit AS IS
Do NOT make any changes to the rejected version
Unlikely that the Associate Editor or
Reviewers will be the same…
If they were, they would be PO’D
Resubmit as IS
Personally OffendeD!
No kidding (I wish I could show)
The 3Rs
Reduce – get rejected in NO TIME (thanks!)
Reuse – receive the Same Reviews
Recycle – and Rejection Slip!
2PLAGIARIZE
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Need a previous work section?
Just copy somebody
else’s!
Or your own´s !
Reuse, Recycle,
Resubmit!
(see previous slide)
RRR
Those people are The Specialists,
Unlikely to check, read or review your paper….
Right ?
Plagiarize
Submit the same paper to different journals
and conferences
at the same time
CONTRIBUTION ?
1
Who needs a contribution ?
Make sure you write a boring paper
Do not bother to identify novelty
YAP (Yet Another Paper on…)
Do something similar to “X”
Suggestions (new problems!)
255th paper on Hidden Line Removal
2D Boolean polygon intersection
-1 equality test / point
Optimize ‘60s Bresenham’s DDA algorithm
-1 integer product
Quaternion-Free 3D Arbitrary Rotation
The Ten Commandments
10 Do Not read instructions
9 Do Not Proofread
8 Give no Motivation
7 Provide no Results
6 Ignore the Readers
5 Dwell on Unnecessary Details
4 Obfuscate Writing
3 Resubmit As Is
2 Plagiarize
1 Provide no Contribution
How to write a better paper
Begin with the end in mind
Write the paper before carrying out the research
Write desired research outcomes before carrying out the experiments / coding
Focus early on the contribution
Useful Pointers
How to have your abstract rejected by van Leunen & Lipton
www.sigsoft.org/conferences/vanLeunenLipton.htm
How to Get Your SIGGRAPH Paper Rejected by Jim Kajiya www.siggraph.org/publications/kajiya.pdf
How to Write a Paper by Ralph Martin
www.itn-insist.com/uploads/media/HowToWriteAPaper.pdf
How to Run a Paper Mill by John Woodwark
www.johnwoodwark.com/inge/docs/Pmill.pdf
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