Publishing a Paper

Quotation

Memo from a Chinese Economic Journal:

We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard.

And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity.

When To Publish

A common progression:

• Give a talk about a neat idea
• Write up the talk into a short paper
• Give your friends/colleagues a draft to read
• Submit the draft to a conference [The paper will be 5-8 proceeding pages, and will have obvious limitations. You will, however, get valuable feedback and publicity.]
• Rework the draft, and do more research. Develop a journal paper.

Comments:

• It is often not clear whether to publish soon, or wait for better results and publish later.
• If you wait too long, you may wind up writing too long of a paper.
• If you try to publish too soon, you may get a reputation for shoddy work.
• It may be a bad idea to spend months revising the paper to be "perfect," because the referees may ask you to completely rewrite the paper.

What not to Publish

• fruitless speculations
• polemics and diatribes against a friend's error
• detailed working out of a known principle

Example:

Gauss discovered that a polygon with 65,537 sides are ruler-and-compass constructible. Do not publish the details of the procedure -- it's been tried!)

• Do not publish a solution for a problem in 2 dimensions in 1992, 3 dimensions in 1993, and k dimensions in 199k.
• Do not publish your failures: I tried to prove so-and-so, and I couldn't; here it is --- see?

Exception: Algorithm X solves cases A and B but fails on case C.

• A theory is worth studying if it has at least three distinct good hard examples.
• If someone offered you $1000 for a paper you are about to submit, if you instead tear it up, would you take the money? If so, do not submit the paper.

What to publish...

Criteria:

• Is it new?
• Is it true?
• Is it interesting?

Newness might mean that your paper contains:

• A new fact
• A new proof
• A new method (or algorithm)

Example of new fact:

Answering an open problem definitively (e.g., mechanically prove that 22**7 +1 can be factored).

Example of new proof:

Do in one paragraph what previously others took many laborious pages.

Example of new method:

Proof a well known fact with the same length proof as previous authors, but use a new proof method that opens up a whole new approach to researchers.

Other constraints on what to publish...

You'd like to publish deep results, but it can be hard to judge when something is deep:

• A complex proof does not imply a deep theorem
• A complex algorithm does not guarantee that the original problem was inherently hard
• A short proof or simple algorithm does not mean the original theorem or problem is trivial!
• Sometimes a "surprising" result can be a deep one -- even if it is obvious after it is discovered.

What people publish is often guided by which topics are "hot," which is guided by the current

• social
• political
• military
• financial
• academic

atmosphere.

Halmos's informal survey:

• When asked what percentage of the math literature should have been published, respondents answers ranged from 50% to only 2%.
• Less active, less motivated mathematicians reported about the great pressure to publish, publish, publish.

Publication Vehicles

Typical alternatives:

• Give a talk without a proceedings paper
• Give a talk with a proceedings abstract
• Write an unrefereed proceedings paper
• Write a refereed proceedings paper
• Write a refereed Journal paper

Unusual cases:

• Invited talk
• Invited paper

Choosing a Journal

Questions to Ask...

• Which journal is appropriate?
• Compare the journal's objectives to your paper's content
• See which journals you cite in your references
• Ask the editor -- send an abstract or even the full paper
• Ask colleagues to read your paper and make suggestions
• What is the prestige and quality of the journal you select?
• High quality journals have lower acceptance rates, so publishing a paper can be difficult
• Acceptance rates could be 50% to only 20%
• High quality journals are cited more often
• What is the circulation of the journal you select?
• If you publish in a new journal with small circulation, most libraries might not even subscribe! So very few people will see the work.
• The first issue of most journals lists circulation figures
• Circulation may become irrelevant in electronic journals
• What is the audience of the journal you select?

An Example...

Suppose you write a paper on a new parallel algorithm for searching. Consider the prestige/circulation/audience of:

• Journal of the ACM (very formal, theory-oriented)
• IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Computing (readers work in one discipline of CS/EE; formal research results, theory or experimentation)
• IEEE Computer (CS part of EE graduates, plus CS graduates; >20% of paper must be tutorial)
• IEEE Spectrum (any EE graduate; no math allowed!)

More on choosing a journal...

• What is the delay from submission to publication?
• Some editors are better than others at nagging referees to finish their reviews in 3-6 months.
• Some journals have a longer backlog for publication.
• Some journals publish the dates of submission and revision for each paper, so you know the exact delay.

Note on Special Issues: Special issues have a lower delay, possible more prestige (because they are selective), but are more competitive.

Submitting a Manuscript

Where to send the manuscript:

Look at the inside cover. Read the instructions for authors (usually in one issue each year).

For some journals, submit to the editor; for others, and area editor. Choose the area editor carefully (possibly consider sending e-mail if you are unsure of whether you've chosen the correct area editor).

Be sure to get the address from the most recent issue! Editors move, and new editors are appointed.

Cover letter:

State:

• the journal to which you are submitting the paper
• the title
• the address for correspondence -- just one author
• a note that your address might change (if this is a possibility)

Manuscript preparation:

• Double space the manuscript with wide margins!
• Submit single sided, stapled copies
• Consider putting a running head (with date) on each page
• Always put a date on the cover (helps identify different versions if your manuscript is revised)
• Be sure that cross references are correct (especially with LaTeX)

Number of copies to send:

The instructions for authors will state the number of copies (4-10).

Keywords and Subject Classification:

Some journals require key words and subject classification. However, it is a good habit to put these on all papers. These may be used by the editor to assign the paper to an area editor, or to assign referees.

If your manuscript cites unpublished work:

You may consider enclosing copies of unpublished work that is critical to the submitted manuscript, or copies of omitted proofs (which are likely to be in technical reports).

Acknowledgement:

Contact the editor if you do not receive an acknowledgement in a month.

The Refereeing Process

1. If paper was submitted to editor-in-chief, editor assigns to area editor.
2. Area editor assigns paper to two to five referees.
3. Referees are asked to return paper in one month.
4. Three to twelve months later, the area editor receives the reviews, recommends action (accept, accept with minor changes, ask author to prepare major revision, reject) to editor-in-chief.
5. Editor-in-chief (but sometimes area editor) informs author.
6. Author revises, if necessary. Returns manuscript (with original art work) as instructed in step 5. Include letter stating how referee comments were addressed. Possibly summarize differences between original and revised manuscript.
7. Editor may review paper on his/her own, or asks referees to review.
8. Repeat steps 4 and 5. Possible repeat steps 6 and 7.

Submitting a Revised Manuscript

This may be the last manuscript version you submit. Be sure that it is completely polished and error-free.

If you see a non-trivial error later (e.g., months later when you read the page proofs), you may not be able to correct it -- so proofread carefully!

Send the editor:

• Original art in a separate envelope marked as such.

Consider printing the art larger than true size, so that the typesetter can reduce it to a high quality figure.

• An original laser printer copy of your paper.

Why do this? The typesetter might treat a table or algorithm as artwork and merely photograph it, rather than typesetting it!

• Memo detailing how you addressed the referees' comments.

The Role of Copy Editor

After your manuscript is accepted for publication, it goes to the copy editor.

The copy editor will:

• do limited rewriting or reorganization of material to make the paper more readable
• edit to correct grammar, syntax, and inconsistencies
• impose the journal style

The copy editor tries to minimize the number of changes to preserve the author's style.

Typically you will receive the copy-marked manuscript when you are sent proofs of the paper.

• Most marks are instructions to the typesetter concerning layout.
• A note marked "Au." is a question to you, the author.
• If you are unhappy with a change to wording or grammar, you can attach a note to the proof or even reverse the change on the proof.

(Sometimes a copy editor misunderstands your wording:

          Original:  "stable in a sense weaker than"
          Copy-marked: "stable, and in a sense, weaker than"
          Author's revision: "stable in a weaker sense than"

Checking the Proofs

Months after your manuscript is accepted, you'll receive page or galley proofs showing your paper in typeset form.

Galley proofs: Sheets without page breaks
Page proofs: Sheets with page breaks (used with TeX)

You must return the proofs in 48 hours to 1 week, or the journal will postpone publication of your paper.

Often the copy-marked manuscript is enclosed.

You should

• compare line by line the marked manuscript to the proofs to find errors
• read the proofs by themselves "for meaning"
• check globally equation numbers to look for omissions
• check for consistent use of fonts and spacing for changes that the copy editor made
• check the correctness of running heads
• check the correctness of the submission date, because it may help to establish priority if similar work is published by other researchers
• check any tables, algorithms, or programs that were typeset

Publication Peculiarities

Greatest number of authors of a refereed paper:

P. Aarnio et al., Study of hadronic decays of the Z0 boson, Phys. Lett. B, 240 (1990), pp. 271-282.

This paper has 547 authors from 29 institutions. The list of authors and their addresses occupies three journal pages.

The shortest title:

Charles A. McCarthy, c_p, Israel J. Math, 5 (1967), pp. 249-271.