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Getting a paper accepted

maxwellforbes.com

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Re: Getting a paper accepted

#61

Post by intended »

whatshisface wrote: post #25
Fomite wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have definitely said that people can't resist a network diagram, and "people love a good map", and I'm not in ML research. There are things that appeal to people. This tends to not manifest as "We need one of these" but "If we have one of these, lets be sure to use it."

People like witty epigraphs underneath chapter titles too, and that's great. Now imagine saying, "the difference between this paper getting accepted or rejected is the presence or absence of a network diagram..."

The difference between getting fatigued reading one paper vs one that makes it easier to see the point you are making.

Evaluators are human.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#62

Post by tomsmeding »

eru wrote: post #47
keiferski wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A secondary and less visible consequence of this is that many people don’t go into academia in the first place because they are put off by the publishing system. And so many people that would otherwise be contributing to human knowledge are working in an office somewhere helping a random company sell more widgets.

Figuring out how to improve industrial processes also contributes to human knowledge.

It does, but it would contribute more if said knowledge was published openly for others to learn from.

Yes, I am aware of the irony of paywalled academic publications.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#64

Post by intended »

auggierose wrote: post #50
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarity is and should be absolutely crucial, though. As an academic I need to be up to date in my discipline, which means skimming hundreds of titles, dozens of abstracts and papers, and thoroughly reading several papers a week, in the context of a job that needs many other things done. Papers that require 5x the time to read because they're unnecessarily unclear and I need to jump around deciphering what the authors…

Clarity is relative. You can be super clear, but if it goes against what the reviewer thinks they know, it will be perceived as unclear. You can also point to references that clear up any remaining doubt about how something is meant, but of course the reviewer will never check out these references. In the end, getting a paper accepted is a purely social game, and has not much to do with how clear your science is desc…

That is not clarity in a paper.

1) The whole opening segment is the literature review.

2) If you are coming up with a novel concept, then you would be explaining how it shows up in relation to known fact.

Then you would be providing evidence and experiment.

The entire structure is designed to ensure as many affordances for the author to make their case.

Being accepted as a social game is the cynical view that ignores that academia still works. It’s academia itself which recognizes these issues and is trying to rectify the situation.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#65

Post by intended »

fl4tul4 wrote: post #51
techas wrote: post #49

I work in academia and have over 70 papers published. I Agree with most ideas in the article. Another dimension not covered is what I called “author engineering”. Many times it is very difficult to “get into” a new field if you don’t have an author known by the editors. I work in applied math (very transversal) and happen to me often to be rejected because “I don’t belong to the area”. PhD students usually don’t suff…

That's not the way science is supposed to work...

Platonic ideal, meet human reality.

As long as It has some capacity to self correct, it’s a stable function.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#66

Post by auggierose »

intended wrote: post #64
auggierose wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarity is relative. You can be super clear, but if it goes against what the reviewer thinks they know, it will be perceived as unclear. You can also point to references that clear up any remaining doubt about how something is meant, but of course the reviewer will never check out these references. In the end, getting a paper accepted is a purely social game, and has not much to do with how clear your science is desc…

That is not clarity in a paper. 1) The whole opening segment is the literature review. 2) If you are coming up with a novel concept, then you would be explaining how it shows up in relation to known fact. Then you would be providing evidence and experiment. The entire structure is designed to ensure as many affordances for the author to make their case. Being accepted as a social game is the cynical view that ignores…

As you have seen in the post (did you read it, dear reviewer?), references on the first page where unhelpful, so 1) comes already with a caveat.

And so on.

I think the social game view is at this point entirely justified, and there is nothing cynical about it. And no, academia does not still work.

A given "structure" is also ridiculous, and part of the problem. Once you care more about the form than the content, form is what prevails.

The truth is: To understand a paper properly, you need to deal with it properly, not just the 5 minutes it takes to skim the first pages and make up your opinion there already. Fifteen pages is short enough, and if you cannot commit to properly review this, for a week or so of dedicated study, just don't review it. We would all be better off for it.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#67

Post by nicce »

techas wrote: post #49

I work in academia and have over 70 papers published. I Agree with most ideas in the article. Another dimension not covered is what I called “author engineering”. Many times it is very difficult to “get into” a new field if you don’t have an author known by the editors. I work in applied math (very transversal) and happen to me often to be rejected because “I don’t belong to the area”. PhD students usually don’t suff…

I thought that blind peer-reviews solved this?

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#68

Post by IronyMan100 »

Fomite wrote: post #20
MPSFounder wrote: post #5

I have a problem with this. In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen. I did my PhD in the US, and it is very unfortunate that "gaming" publications and focusing on "grants" is the meat of research. Before I get criticized, I was part of this process at a top 10 university and I am a proud American. It is because of this pri…

"In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen." In the old days, scientific careers were largely restricted to the independently wealthy or those who could secure patrons. I also feel like there's a sort of tension with what Hacker News broadly wants out of science. There's often a lament that there aren't enough staff science…

The Idea of a staff Scientist is to Help with writing proposals, teaching and doing Research. It's also the only way of conserving the tacit knowledge of the Research group. Your PhD Student and Postdocs are gone after 3-6 years, and often enough the knowledge generated in this time is leaving with them. You are Not sitting around and writing Up your thoughts.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#69

Post by auggierose »

intended wrote: post #61
whatshisface wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like witty epigraphs underneath chapter titles too, and that's great. Now imagine saying, "the difference between this paper getting accepted or rejected is the presence or absence of a network diagram..."

The difference between getting fatigued reading one paper vs one that makes it easier to see the point you are making. Evaluators are human.

Yes. That is indeed the problem, and might be resolved sooner than later.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#70

Post by mobeets »

I was surprised to see the author claim that citations in the Introduction are a bad thing. I do think ML papers are generally pretty bad at acknowledging other relevant literature, but this makes me think it’s an active decision somehow
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