This document provides guidance on publishing research papers. It discusses when researchers should publish, what types of publications they should pursue, and how to select venues. The document emphasizes that writing should start early in the research process and be continually improved. It also offers tips on dealing with rejections, enhancing writing skills, and marketing published work. The overall message is that publishing is essential for researchers, and they must train intensively in effective written communication to disseminate their work and advance their careers.

1. Publications I:
YourWay toWorldwide Recognition
Mohamed Zahran
mzahran@acm.org
http://www.mzahran.com
ES Series on Scientific Research

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When to publish? What to publish?
What to do to
enhance your
writing skills?
Type of
publications
When to start
writing?
Getting your
paper noticed
Dealing with
rejections

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Why publish?
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source: http://awisblog.wordpress.com/awis-in-action/2013-2/june-2013/publish-or-perish/

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Why publish?
• Person A is an idiot
• Person A is smart but does research like idiots
• Person A is smart, does research brilliantly,
but writes like idiots
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To the outside world,
they will all look the same!!

5. ES Series on Scientific Research
When to publish?
• As soon as you have an answer, backed by
data, send your paper
• Have a roadmap: milestones
– Can be aligned with conference deadlines
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6. ES Series on Scientific Research
What to publish?
• Avoid least-publishable unit (LPU)
– May look nice from the outside
– But will give you bad reputation
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Source: http://www.economist.com/node/21552574

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When to start writing?
As soon as you start doing research!!
• Helps you focus
• Editing is easier afterwards
• Acts as your research notebook
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Be Careful:
The way you explain your thoughts and experiments in the
submitted paper may be different than the reality!

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Where to send your work?
• In your field: are journals stronger or conferences?
– In most fields journals are stronger, but in some fields (like
computer architecture) conferences are way stronger.
• If journals
– What is the journal impact factor?
– What is the turnaround time?
– Is it indexed?
• If conferences:
– What are the strongest 6 conferences in your field?
– Arrange them by strength
– Do not overestimate or underestimate your work when
choosing the venue.
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Type of Publications
• Extended abstract
– pitch
• Workshop paper
– work-in-progress
• Conference paper
• Journal paper
• Grant proposal
– I want money, here is why
• Report
– This is what I did with the money/time/duty given to me
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Again …Type of publications
• Review paper
• Incremental improvement
• Negative contribution
• New idea
• Breakthrough (really!)
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0-step ahead … 1-step ahead … 10-step ahead

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The ROADMAP
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• Double-blind
• Single-blind
• None

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When you submit a paper and get
reviews back:
– Accept
• Rare decision, nearly every manuscript may need some work
– Accept with minor Revision
• Authors need to address queries and criticisms, will generally be
accepted
– Accept with major Revision
• Authors MUST address certain major key issues
– Reject Request Resubmission
• Not suitable now, and may not ever be, but could be worth a
second look
– Reject
• Poor science, report without value, redundant or duplicate
publication, “me too” reports, clear bias, or good/great paper but
wrong audience
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How to deal with Rejection?
• Be angry … if you want … but not for long!
• DO NOT argue with the editor
• Read carefully the reviews
– Make aTODO list and plan “to do” it.
– Decide: shall I send it to another journal or this
one?
– Act quickly!
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Acceptance is NOT the end!
• Market your work
– Put it on your website (yes … you need to have
one)
– Put slides to summarize the work
– Give talks
– If somebody is doing related work, you may
email him/her discussing how your work is related
and whether you can collaborate
– LinkedIn, twitter, facebook, researchgate
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Assess yourself: h-index
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• The higher the better index
• Measures productivity
and impact of a researcher

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Assess yourself: citations
• Eliminate self-citations
• Keep an eye on google scholar + Dbases of
your field
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How to enhance your technical writing skills
• Your grammar … If your paper is full of typos
and grammatical errors, it will be rejected …
Hands-down!
• How to sell
• Smoothness
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How to enhance your technical writing skills
• Read a paper every week … at least
• Keep aside the best 3 papers in terms of writing
• Ask yourself:Why they are the best in terms of
writing?
• Do the following … once a month
– Pick one of these model papers
– Read a section
– Put it aside
– Write down, in your language, that section.
– Compare your writing with the original: which is better?
why? what to do to enhance yours?
– Move to the following section
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Some Links
• Thomson Reuters (Web of Knowledge)
http://wokinfo.com/
• Google scholar
http://scholar.google.com/
• Scopus: http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus
• Digital Libraries:
– ACM: http://dl.acm.org/
– IEEE: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp
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• Do your research and write
at the same time.
• How does writing help your
thinking?

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• The classic book for
writing.
• Even for native English
speakers
• Read it once a year!

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• How to select a venue?
• How to revise?
• How to handle rejections?
• How to market your paper?

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• Writing grant proposals
• The book targets NSF
and NIH but the framework
proposed is general enough.

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• Nice compilation of tips
words and rules
• Generic enough to be used
for papers, reports,
proposals, … .

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Conclusions
• If you do research  publish
• Writing skill is not an afterthought … It is
essential
– Need to train intensively
• Depending on your field, have a clear answer to:
– What to publish
– Where to publish
– When to publish
– How to market yourself
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Have questions?
mzahran@acm.org
http://www.mzahran.com