Flip ‘publish or perish’ into ‘be taught, write, and share’
Once I first began my PhD three years in the past, I used to be very new to the world of academia and the method of publishing in journals and conferences. Coming from Laptop Engineering, my PhD concerned design analysis, and I felt that the publishing course of for human-computer interplay, design, design engineering, design analysis, and different associated areas was extra ambigious than laptop science or different purely STEM topics.
Whereas I didn’t know a lot but, one factor that turned immediately clear was that many individuals related publishing with success as a researcher. Publishing appeared essential, even crucial, not just for the PhD, however for my profession as an educational or researcher (even for some locations in business).
Now, three years later and seven first creator publications below my belt, I’m right here to share the whole lot I want I knew throughout that first yr.
I’m referring to publishing as having a paper accepted at a journal or convention. This usually entails a peer-review course of, which implies that two or extra reviewers learn and approve your paper. These reviewers are often ‘specialists’ on the subject you’ve written the paper on, which may imply they’re lecturers, researchers, business specialists, and many others. This course of is often blind, which means that your title and establishment are hidden from reviewers to keep away from any biases.
A paper can solely be submitted to one venue at a time and might solely be resubmitted to a second place if rejected or withdrawn from the primary place. Generally a journal paper describing a research could be repurposed as a convention paper, and vice versa. That’s provided that there’s a considerably completely different angle or extension introduced for a similar research/knowledge, however in any other case it’s often one research = one paper.
Usually, within the areas of human-computer interplay and design analysis, papers can be considered one of two sorts:
A Assessment Paper: That is often a scientific literature evaluate the place you’re simply analysing the literature that already exists on a subject. This entails being systematic (i.e., following a identified course of akin to PRISMA to be sure to’ve collected all of the papers that exist on a subject) and doing a little evaluation (i.e., not simply saying ‘these are the papers that exist’, but additionally on the lookout for tendencies or patterns that may be realized from trying on the mixture of those papers as a complete).
You possibly can see an instance right here the place I have a look at all of the papers which have collaboratively designed conversational AI with completely different stakeholders. Not solely do I accumulate and current the papers, however I additionally analyse various factors like which stakeholders have been invovled and which collaborative design actions they used.
Any such paper is often solely accepted in journals and fewer more likely to be accepted at conferences, which are likely to focus extra on the second kind under.
An Empirical Paper: This can be a paper the place you’ve carried out new analysis and also you’re presenting it. Within the fields I discussed this can usually contain human contributors and embrace strategies like surveys, interviews, workshops, ethnography, and so forth. You’ll give the introduction and a brief literature evaluate to offer background and context to your research, you then’ll summarise the strategies you used and current your outcomes earlier than discussing them.
An instance of this type of paper is this one. I interview professionals who construct conversational AI to grasp their experiences and struggles after which summarise and analyse these in relation to related papers which have additionally interviewed different AI professionals. For extra quantitative work, you may take a look at my information for doing statistical evaluation on design analysis.
Any such paper is generally accepted at each conferences and journals.
1. Do the Analysis Research Effectively!
Do not forget that you’re not doing a PhD or doing analysis simply to publish. Your objective is to do good high quality analysis that’s impactful, after which publishing is only a consequence of that and a method of sharing your work with the broader neighborhood. Take the time to establish what you wish to analysis and develop an air-tight methodology.
By way of a PhD, I like to recommend breaking it up right into a collection of research that reply mini-questions, which then work in the direction of your primary analysis query. In that sense, each research is publish-able as its personal paper (which is what I did). Additionally it is extremely useful to put in writing up the paper for every research as you do it or as quickly as you end it, as a result of then the whole lot is written up and clear, and this can prevent large time if you write your thesis on the finish.
One other method of getting publications is collaborating with different researchers on their tasks and research. This won’t get you a first creator publication, the place the primary creator is often the one that did the vast majority of the work, however it could actually contribute in the direction of your total publication depend and present that you just collaborate properly with others. In my expertise, your first creator publications are essentially the most impactful ones, the place different authors are often ordered by the dimensions of their contributions after which the final creator(s) are the supervisors of the work or essentially the most senior folks.
2. Determine the Venue
The following step is to select the place you wish to publish your work in. I’m going to listing some impactful design journals and conferences under, however rule of thumb is to test the place the papers you’ve got cited in your paper come from. If you happen to discover you’ve referenced a particular journal or convention many instances, that’s indicator that your analysis may slot in properly there. In any other case, it’s essential to test the impression issue of various venues. This quantity signifies how impactful the papers printed at this venue have been (this can be a mixture of variety of instances they’re cited and different metrics). Typically, design and human-computer interplay can have decrease impression scores than a area like medication, the place papers can be rather more impactful total. 3 is sort of impression issue for design analysis in my expertise.
On the identical time, should you’re concentrating on conferences, it’s a must to test their deadlines. Whereas journals typically settle for papers all yr spherical, conferences can have submission deadlines that is likely to be too distant in your plan.
Additionally it is price remembering that the higher the impression rating or the extra prestegious a venue is, the extra aggressive it’s going to be to get accepted there!
Good Design/HCI Journals
Design Research, ACM Transactions on Human-Laptop Interplay, Co-Design, The Worldwide Journal of Design.
Good Design/HCI Conferences
The ACM CHI Convention on Human Elements in Computing Programs (CHI), Designing Interactive Programs (DIS) Convention, Design Analysis Society (DRS) Convention, DESIGN, Worldwide Convention on Human Laptop Interplay Idea and Purposes (HUCAPP), ACM Convention on Info Know-how for Social Good.
Additionally test extra domain-specific journals and conferences, relying in your analysis. For instance, AI Ethics and AI & Society are good AI-focused journals, whereas there are different nice journals for medication/medical analysis.
3. Write the Paper
The following step is to put in writing the paper itself. Typically, as I discussed earlier, this can embrace an introduction, literature evaluate or background part, methodology part, outcomes, dialogue and conclusion. It’s essential to test papers out of your chosen journal or convention and comply with the format they use as properly.
Get suggestions from colleagues and supervisors each time attainable and don’t be afraid to scratch some components and begin over! It takes time to put in writing paper and also you shouldn’t rush the method.
4. Submit and Wait
Comply with the venue’s pointers to submit your work and await a call. Do not forget that writing a paper and submitting it’s in itself a milestone that it is best to have a good time! The evaluate course of is lengthy and might take a number of months. It’s essential to maintain that in thoughts if you’re planning publications, particularly if you need them printed earlier than ending your PhD. The completely different selections that reviewers may make in your paper will range from venue to venue, however they often can be:
✅ Settle for — Accepted as is with no additional adjustments wanted.
⏳ Settle for with Minor Revisions — Conditional acceptance should you implement some suggestions reviewers have left you. Normally that is minor stuff across the writing itself and also you’ll be given round a month to do them.
⚠️ Settle for with Main Revisions / Revise and Resubmit — This implies the reviewers suppose there’s promise and worth in your paper, however there are main adjustments that have to be made. This may imply having to redo part of the research or accumulate extra knowledge, or it’d imply a serious re-write of the paper itself. On common you’ll get round 3 months to do these. In my expertise, this resolution is an efficient factor. It means there’s no deadly flaw the place the paper have to be rejected. With some onerous work and response letter the place you clarify the way you’ve addressed reviewers’ suggestions, you’ll be bumped as much as settle for or settle for with minor revisions.
🛑 Reject — Which means there’s both a deadly flaw within the paper or it’s fully irrelevant to the venue you’ve chosen. I’ve had outright rejections earlier than and they are often discouraging. A very good place to start out is the reviewers’ detailed suggestions to grasp how one can enhance the research or the paper. I’ve had rejections that ended up being accepted ultimately, so don’t throw work out simply due to a rejection!
5. Don’t Panic!
Rejections are regular, iterations are regular, it’s all a part of the method! Nearly all of my papers got here on the finish of my second yr and through my third yr of the PhD. If you happen to’re simply beginning out, merely put publishing as a long run objective and focus first on structuring the diploma when it comes to research and carrying these out properly. Submitting papers on completely different research can be an effective way to get suggestions and catch any points early on, as a substitute of getting a nasty shock afterward in your protection/viva, or when it’s too late to repeat a research. By taking it as an opportunity to be taught and get suggestions, you’ll realise that you just at all times profit from submitting a paper, even when the result is a rejection for now.
I’m a final-year PhD scholar at Imperial Faculty London. My PhD challenge noticed me develop a framework and toolkit for collaboratively designing conversational AI that’s higher aligned with human values.
You possibly can take a look at the official web page for my challenge on the Imperial Faculty London web site. You may as well take a look at this different article I wrote explaining the particulars of my PhD challenge.
I’ve arrange this Medium account to publish fascinating classes I’ve learnt and snippets of my analysis as I work on my PhD challenge. My objective is to unfold information and details about my work in a method that makes it comprehensible to anybody and everybody.