2013 CRA-W Graduate Cohort Workshop

Publishing Your ResearchYanlei Diao

University of Massachusetts Amherst

A Bit About Me

• Grew up in China– Liked math, history, music, dance

• MS, HKUST and PhD., UC Berkeley– Started to pursue database research

• Assistant/Associate Prof., UMass Amherst– Focus: real-time data analytics, big data analytics– Advised 11 graduate students, 5 of whom are

female, and 10+ undergraduate students

1. Motivation for Publishing1. Motivation for Publishing

• You have great ideas and results to show!• A step closer to completing PhD• Travel to an interesting place for free

– We academics love traveling!

• Gain feedback from people– Both in academia and industry

• Get internship or job offers– Job offers are based on your expertise

2. Are You Ready to Publish Now?2. Are You Ready to Publish Now?

Have you • addressed an interesting, important problem?

No, address a problem that matters to the real-world!No, address a problem that matters to the real-world!

2. Are You Ready to Publish Now?2. Are You Ready to Publish Now?

Have you • addressed an important problem?• addressed a technically challenging problem?

– literature survey, research challenges

• developed a good approach?– new, novel, systematic/ principled, technical depth

• obtained interesting, promising results?– preliminary promising results – results of an extensive study, with positive or

surprising results

3. Where to Publish?3. Where to Publish?

• Higher Prestige:– Journal paper, conference paper, book

(chapter)– Refereed, competitive venues

• Lower Prestige– Poster, demo, workshop paper– Gain feedback, timestamp your ideas

• Alternatives– Online archive (e.g., on arXiv), technical report– Early dissemination, timestamp your results

4. Prepare Your Manuscript4. Prepare Your Manuscript

• Start with an outline, then expand– Problem statement (motivation, formal stmt)– Sketch your approach– Argue for your contributions – Several technical sections– Performance evaluation (if system-ish work)– Related work– Conclusions and future work

4. Prepare the Manuscript4. Prepare the Manuscript

• Revise, revise, revise– Everyone does this, even experienced writers.– Start Early!!!

• Enlist excellent proofreaders– For clarity and for grammar.

• E.g., concepts undefined, notation undefined, etc.

– Start Early!!!

4. Prepare Your Manuscript4. Prepare Your Manuscript• Author ordering:

– Standard: based on contribution– Often: alphabetic order (e.g., in theory, papers

on large systems)– Sometimes: students go before professors (e.g.,

my papers, in biology)

• Plagiarism:– Definitely “No!”; avoid self-plagiarism

• Double submissions – General “No”, but the poster-conference-

journal path is common

5. Hone Your Writing Skills5. Hone Your Writing Skills

• Take a writing class (or two or three…)– I took two and found them very helpful!

• Read writing books, e.g.,– http://www.bartleby.com/141/

5. Hone Your Writing Skills5. Hone Your Writing Skills• Take a writing class (or two or three…)• Read writing books• Read technical papers

– for your own work, for class, or in reading group– can’t be a good writer before an intensive reader

• Non-native speakers, read English magazines– e.g., Times, New Yorker, Economist…

• Peer support: critique each other’s writing• Take iterations with your advisor

6. Technical Response6. Technical Response

• Journals and some conferences require revisions and technical responses– Take reviewers’ comments seriously! – Go over each comment, understand the issue– Prioritize things to fix– Write a detailed response, highlighting major

revisions, clarifying all points raised in reviews

Right attitude: ”the reviewers are never wrong”, but they may have different backgrounds and get confused due to poor writing!

Right attitude: ”the reviewers are never wrong”, but they may have different backgrounds and get confused due to poor writing!

7. How to Deal with Rejection7. How to Deal with Rejection

Picture Courtesy of Princeton EcoHydrology Lab

7. How to Deal with Rejection7. How to Deal with Rejection

• Read the reviews!• Cool off for a few days or weeks• Re-read them!

– Use them to improve your paper (for this venue or a future one)

Right attitude: the reviewers may may have different backgrounds and get confused due to poor writing! Right attitude: the reviewers may may have different backgrounds and get confused due to poor writing!

Fun fact: we have all been there!Fun fact: we have all been there!

Paper Accepted!Paper Accepted!

• Celebrate!

• Prepare a good trip if going to a conference

• Give a great talk

• Publicize your work to maximize influence

• Look for internship offers

• Write your thesis

• Look for job offers

yanlei@cs.umass.edu

Questions?