taller para autores, organizado por la editorial Elsevier en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Zaragoza (23-05-2012), con el tema "Estrategias para aumentar la calidad y el impacto de las publicaciones científicas"

1. How to publish good papers
Estrategias para aumentar la calidad y el impacto de las
publicaciones científicas
Dr. Diego Gutierrez
Associate Professor
Universidad de Zaragoza
Diego Gutiérrez

2. Associate professor (profesor titular)
Graphics and Imaging Lab:
Computer Graphics
Computational Photography
Applied Perception
Different fields do have different idiosyncrasies!
Diego Gutiérrez

3. As an editor
Associate editor:
ACM Transactions on Applied Perception
IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications
Computers and Graphics
Diego Gutiérrez

4. As a reviewer
Diego Gutiérrez

5. As an author
31 revistas indexadas en el JCR
5 de ellas en ACM Transactions on Graphics, 1/82, I.F.: 4.1
60 congresos internacionales con revisión
15 ponencias invitadas en congresos (9 internacionales)
4 guest editorials de revistas de JCR
9 revistas no indexadas
18 congresos nacionales con revisión
6 capítulos de libro
Diego Gutiérrez

6. As an editor…
The Editor in Chief (or similar position or panel) assigns
you a paper based on your expertise
You can desk-reject it (never done it):
Out of scope
Double submission
You have a few days to find 2..4 suitable reviewers
An expert in the field. At least knowledgeable
enough
Not conflicted!
Diego Gutiérrez

7. As an editor…
Sometimes it seems impossible…
Super-senior people are more likely to decline
Know your colleagues… and their students!
Shake it up: Avoid too many from the same institution or
line of thought. Certainly no more than two at most!
Diego Gutiérrez

8. As an editor…
10 Wait for reviews
20 Remind late reviewers
30 Wait for late reviews
40 Remind again late reviewers
50 Goto 10
Plan B needed? Think ahead! Don’t give up
Diego Gutiérrez

9. As an editor…
Once reviews are in:
Read them. Make sure there are no issues:
Unpoliteness
Clear conflict of interest
Plain wrong
Careful: plain wrong means plain wrong. It doesn’t mean
that you don’t agree!
Diego Gutiérrez

10. As an editor…
Your opinion on the paper does not count in general
You simply make a decision based on the reviews
If conflicting reviews, either assign extra reviewer or
decide yourself
Diego Gutiérrez

11. As an editor…
Make the decision and write a summary review:
Accept as is (very rarely)
Accept with minor revisions
Major revisions
Reject
Be respectful in your reviews. The authors worked
hard…
…but don’t sugar-coat it
You’re not helping them!
Diego Gutiérrez

12. Back to bussiness:
How to publish good papers
Diego Gutiérrez

13. Take home message
Work
Diego Gutiérrez

14. Take home message
Work well
Diego Gutiérrez

15. Any questions?
Diego Gutiérrez

16. As an author…
Good papers come only after good work
The goal is to communicate ideas, not just to create them
Flawed communication (write-up) is a legit argument to
reject a paper:
Live with it
Learn from it
Diego Gutiérrez

17. As an author…
Good papers come only after good work
The goal is to communicate ideas, not just to create them
Flawed communication (write-up) is a legit argument to
reject a paper:
Live with it
Learn from it
So, how to get your point across?
Diego Gutiérrez

18. As an author…
Have a point to get across!
Diego Gutiérrez

19. As an author…
Diego Gutiérrez

20. As an author…
Your work
Diego Gutiérrez

21. As an author…
What ends up
in the paper
Your work
Diego Gutiérrez

22. Choose your message.
Tell a story
Diego Gutiérrez

23. As an author…
Disclaimer: from here on I’m assuming that the work is
good to begin with
Don’t bother to try to write a good paper with not-so-good
work
There’s plenty of not-so-good places to publish
those!
Sometimes excellent work leads to disappointing results:
Oh well
Diego Gutiérrez

24. As an author…
Find the right pitch!
Writing a paper is not a linear process. Sometimes you’ll
change its spin halfway through
Not ideal, but it happens
It’s a little like writing a good script
You have to have good material to begin with
But you also have to string it together nicely
Diego Gutiérrez

25. As an author…
Assume the reviewers (then the readers) don’t know as
much as you do.
Find your main contributions
Sometimes it hurts to leave stuff out. Suck it up
Organize them properly (find the story!)
Diego Gutiérrez

26. As an author…
Let’s assume:
Abstract
Introduction
Previous work
Technical content
Results
Conclusions and future work
Diego Gutiérrez

27. Abstract
The abstract is crucial
It’s used by editors and program chairs to find the right
reviewers
And you do want the right reviewers
Short, and to the point.
The paper should be understood without the abstract
Redundancy allowed (expected)
Diego Gutiérrez

28. Introduction
The introduction is crucial
(So are the results and the figures)
The mainstream reviewing process:
Read the abstract (this sounds interesting…)
Jump to the results (wow, nice results!)
Skim through the figures (ah, so this is how it’s done)
Read the intro (I want to accept this!)
Most of the times, you’ll write intro and abstract last.
Diego Gutiérrez

29. Introduction
About XX% of the decisions
are made after reading the intro1
1
Sorry, you’ll need to be in this room to hear the figure
Diego Gutiérrez

30. Introduction
Motivation of the problem (no grandmothering!)
Why is it important? Why is it difficult?
High-level description of your approach
What are the alternatives? Why is yours different/better?
What is your silver bullet?
Diego Gutiérrez

31. Introduction
Don’t oversell!
You may want to explicitly summarize your contributions at
the end
Most of the times, you’ll write the intro last.
At the end of the intro, the reader knows the problem and
its solution
Diego Gutiérrez

32. Introduction
Can you tease the readers a little?
Diego Gutiérrez

33. Previous work
Is not a grocery list!
Organize the work in categories
Select the most relevant (OK to reference off to a
survey)
Briefly state how yours is different
Avoid direct confrontation. Be positive…
…but not too much. Your work may be seen as
incremental
Diego Gutiérrez

34. Previous work
Don’t summarize the whole field
You can’t!
Position your paper
Diego Gutiérrez

35. Previous work
Don’t summarize the whole field
You can’t!
Position your paper
Previous work
Diego Gutiérrez

36. Previous work
Don’t summarize the whole field
You can’t!
Position your paper
Your paper
Previous work
Diego Gutiérrez

37. Previous work
Don’t summarize the whole field
You can’t!
Position your paper
Reader knows how different methods relate to yours
Diego Gutiérrez

38. On to the technical content!
One technical section for each contribution
You have already weeded those out
Begin with a brief, high-level overview
Not a table of contents!
Maybe a figure summarizing the whole thing
It may become its own section right after the Previous Work
Diego Gutiérrez

39. Diego Gutiérrez

40. On to the technical content!
Explain the whys
before you describe the hows
Diego Gutiérrez

41. On to the technical content!
Use the and our appropriately!
“The clustering algorithm…”
“Our clustering algorithm…”
Use figures wisely. Make sure they can be seen in print
Make them as stand-alone as possible
Diego Gutiérrez

42. Diego Gutiérrez

43. Results
Make sure to back up every single claim you made
Comparisons!
Yeah, it works. But does it work better than X?
Discuss the results (you may use its own section for that)
Walk the reader through them. Explain what they are
seeing, where, and why you are showing it to them. Avoid
ultra-short captions!
Diego Gutiérrez

44. Results
Diego Gutiérrez

45. Results
Diego Gutiérrez

46. Limitations
Discuss the limitations of the method
This is one of the most recurring mistakes
Be open. Be frank. Show failure cases
Good strategy: break assumptions stated at the
beginning
Reviewers want to know how much you can push this
algorithm. Are you hiding any skeletons?
Diego Gutiérrez

47. Conclusions & Future work
Don’t write stupid stuff here. Don’t state the obvious
“As future work, we’d like to make this faster”
Write interesting, thought-provoking ideas
Can this work inspire future research?
Summarize your key contributions, not the paper.
Try to end in a positive tone!
Diego Gutiérrez

48. Just when you think you’re done…
Go back to it
Read the paper. Be critical. Have others read the paper and
accept criticism
If you need to verabally explain me something, redo
it
Forget what you know, and read only what you wrote
This is difficult. Very. Just do it
Writing is an iterative process!
Diego Gutiérrez

49. Authorship
It’s a wild world out there
How we do things:
Discuss at least the first author early enough
Students first. Then supervisors.
Unless of course there’s reasons to reverse that
A supervisor or group leader should not be an author by
default
Acknowledgements
Diego Gutiérrez

50. Some final remarks
Let go of things that don’t work. Fail fast
Let go of things that do work, but need to be left out in the
end. Supplementary material?
Avoid a purely descriptive paper
Anticipate the reviews. Be critical. If you see it, they’ll see it
too
Diego Gutiérrez

51. Some final remarks
Know your field
Be honest about the magnitude and scope of your
contribution. Discuss limitations
Find a good title:
Non-linear volume photon mapping: worst title ever?
Informative. Sexy is good too!
Diego Gutiérrez

52. Some final remarks
Avoid salami-slicing
Please: do not write the same paper over and over
Read/write/speak English
Volunteer to review!
Diego Gutiérrez

53. Some final remarks
Go out. See the world. Go to conferences. Visit other
universities. Learn from every single one
Have passion. Don’t lose heart
There will be bad reviews
Good papers will be rejected
You will feel shattered
But hey, in the grand scheme of things…
There’s always the next conference! 
Diego Gutiérrez

54. Choose your message.
Tell a story
http://giga.cps.unizar.es/~diegog/
Fredo Durand: How to write a bad article
http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredo/FredoBadWriting.pdf
Diego Gutiérrez