Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
41–50 of 88 posts
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#42I really like this question. I’ll make a few brief points: - Most computer science research can be categorized into one of three forms: preprints published on arxiv or similar websites, papers published in conference proceedings, and source code. In artificial intelligence research, it’s typical for research, if there’s demand, to be promoted from a preprint, to a paper published in a conference proceeding, to public…
Where's the best place to reach you? I'm work in cv and would possibly be interested in contributing.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#43There is no requirement to be affiliated with an institution to publish, or even hold any kind of degree. If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials. Of course, credentials do imply some skills and content quality that cause publications to be accepted, but the reverse isn't true.
> If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials.
That is not necessarily true. The style sheet for the journal may require the author to specify his/her institutional affiliation right under his/her name. Then, before the paper goes to a referee in a double-blind peer review process, it is first examined by the editor or editorial board who decide if it is even a good match for that journal. If the journal staff have had a problem with crank submissions or even just a vague fear of cranks, they may simply decline to handle a paper without a clear institutional source.
I left academia for an outside career but I still publish a paper in my field from time to time. However, I have heard through the grapevine that my submissions are welcome purely because everyone knows I used to be affiliated with one respected university department. Without that established reputation, my papers might have been refused straight away.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it’s your first paper, co-authors can be extremely useful to help guide the author through the publication process. It’s also helpful for marketing purposes. Hell, this is basically the graduate school route.
It seems like having all those arbitrary requirements is good for nothing but gatekeeping higher education. Why not have those requirements publicly known and not unnecessarily complicated so that everyone can submit info?
The requirements are straightforward and publicly known. Here's everything you need to know to submit a paper to JMLR (http://www.jmlr.org/author-info.html). Here's the complete instructions for NIPS (https://nips.cc/Conferences/2017/CallForPapers).
The problem with amateurs publishing papers is emphatically not that the requirements are secretive and arbitrary. The problem is that virtually no one is able to write a publishable paper without basically going to graduate school where you have years to become an expert in the minutia of your chosen field of study. There are a lot of amateur researchers who have the ability to contribute to cutting edge research, but the vast majority of them lack the background to know exactly where the cutting edge lives and how to design, conduct, and then describe a convincing experiment proving to others that the idea stands up to scrutiny. And those aren't things that anyone can or does secret away so they can form some artificial gatekeeper. They're just things that usually require a lot of concentrated effort to study and learn.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Off topic, but you weren't kidding about it being the "crackpot" version. A quick check of the recent papers in the "Set Theory and Logic" section gave me this gem: http://vixra.org/abs/1708.0156 . Which seems to argue that Cantor Diagonalization, a method of proof known for over a century and taught in most undergraduate abstract math courses, is completely wrong. There's also a 2-page proof that P != NP http://vixr…
If you want to seed doubts in your mind about the real numbers, you can get that at: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0404335 ...as well (skip to chapter 5 for the impatient).
This is super interesting, thanks! I love articles that dive into the historical context and philosophy underlying important math discoveries. Context is everything!
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like having all those arbitrary requirements is good for nothing but gatekeeping higher education. Why not have those requirements publicly known and not unnecessarily complicated so that everyone can submit info?
the 'requirements' that are being referred to go well beyond objective rules (e.g., no more than 4 journal formatted pages) and include things like lingo, citation standards, ordering of sections, and general academic writing voice. Written communication of science is hard, especially when you are new to it. I think a good 50% of what I have learned as a PhD student was how to more effectively communicate through wri…
It's worth mentioning that some of those standards may not be producing the best outcomes (see https://lemire.me/blog/2017/08/15/on-melissa-oneills-pcg-ran..., for example).
In my own experience, I once wrote a paper in a much more casual and approachable style. I had what I felt was the same scientific rigor around the experiments and data, but tried to make the text more generally readable. I had Simpson's references sprinkled here and there, that sort of thing. The response was generally negative. The paper was accepted for the mid-tier conference I submitted it to, but on the condition that I revise to take care of reviewer concerns, many of which boiled down to "you should write with a more appropriate tone". No one complained that the paper was imprecise as a result. They just didn't like that it didn't read in the standard passive and bland academic voice. I found that somewhat depressing.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#47> "college dropout"?
For the two best papers I published, both as sole author, I just submitted the papers to a journals I selected as appropriate to the content of the papers. Both journals were highly respected.
The submissions had nothing about my educational background.
Net, being a "college dropout" should be irrelevant.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#48There is no requirement to be affiliated with an institution to publish, or even hold any kind of degree. If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials. Of course, credentials do imply some skills and content quality that cause publications to be accepted, but the reverse isn't true.
> If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials. That is not necessarily true. The style sheet for the journal may require the author to specify his/her institutional affiliation right under his/her name. Then, before the paper goes to a referee in a double-blind peer review process, it is first examined by the editor or editorial board who decide if it is even a good…
My area (PL) is dominated by conferences, and I'm pretty sure the chair doesn't screen out submissions, even ones that are obviously cranky.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If the journal or conference is double blind, they will never even know about your credentials. That is not necessarily true. The style sheet for the journal may require the author to specify his/her institutional affiliation right under his/her name. Then, before the paper goes to a referee in a double-blind peer review process, it is first examined by the editor or editorial board who decide if it is even a good…
My area (PL) is dominated by conferences, and I'm pretty sure the chair doesn't screen out submissions, even ones that are obviously cranky.
Funny you should say that, I just recently registered for a conference where the HTML form could not even be submitted until the "Institution" and "Role at institution" fields were filled in. I don’t know if unknown people who wrote "None" would be filtered out, but it shows the general expectations that the organizers have.
Re: Ask HN: How and where can I publish my research on AI as a college dropout?
#50This is a great question. Not to highjack the topic, but I think it would be great to have a clear path for publishing novel (if credible) research in reputable journals. Could be a great hack for someone to enter a grad program for which they're otherwise unqualified.
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