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 Pc 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 pc 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 vital, not just for the PhD, however for my profession as an instructional or researcher (even for some locations in business).
Now, three years later and seven first author publications underneath my belt, I’m right here to share every thing 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 includes a peer-review course of, which implies that two or extra reviewers learn and approve your paper. These reviewers are normally ‘consultants’ on the subject you’ve written the paper on, which may imply they’re lecturers, researchers, business consultants, and many others. This course of is normally 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A paper can solely be submitted to one venue at a time and might solely be resubmitted to a second place if rejected or withdrawn from the primary place.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 will be repurposed as a convention paper, and vice versa. That’s provided that there’s a considerably totally different angle or extension introduced for a similar research/information, however in any other case it’s normally one research = one paper.
Sometimes, within the areas of human-computer interplay and design analysis, papers might be considered one of two varieties:
A Evaluate Paper: That is normally a scientific literature overview the place you’re simply analysing the literature that already exists on a subject. This includes being systematic (i.e., following a identified course of resembling PRISMA to ensure you’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 searching for developments or patterns that may be discovered from trying on the mixture of those papers as a complete).
You may see an instance here the place I take a look at all of the papers which have collaboratively designed conversational AI with totally different stakeholders. Not solely do I acquire 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 normally solely accepted in journals and fewer prone to be accepted at conferences, which are likely to focus extra on the second kind under.
An Empirical Paper: It is a paper the place you’ve completed new analysis and also you’re presenting it. Within the fields I discussed this may usually contain human members and embody strategies like surveys, interviews, workshops, ethnography, and so forth. You’ll give the introduction and a brief literature overview to provide background and context to your research, then you definitely’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 know their experiences and struggles after which summarise and analyse these in relation to comparable papers which have additionally interviewed different AI professionals. For extra quantitative work, you’ll be able to try my information for doing statistical analysis on design research.
Any such paper is often accepted at each conferences and journals.
1. Do the Analysis Research Effectively!
Keep in mind 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 manner of sharing your work with the broader group. Take the time to establish what you need to analysis and develop an air-tight methodology.
When it comes to a PhD, I like to recommend breaking it up right into a sequence of research that reply mini-questions, which then work in direction of your fundamental analysis query. In that sense, each research is publish-able as its personal paper (which is what I did). It is usually extremely useful to write down up the paper for every research as you do it or as quickly as you end it, as a result of then every thing is written up and clear, and this may prevent large time whenever you write your thesis on the finish.
One other manner of getting publications is collaborating with different researchers on their tasks and research. This won’t get you a first writer publication, the place the primary writer is normally the one who did nearly all of the work, however it will probably contribute in direction of your general publication rely and present that you just collaborate effectively with others. In my expertise, your first writer publications are essentially the most impactful ones, the place different authors are normally ordered by the scale of their contributions after which the final writer(s) are the supervisors of the work or essentially the most senior individuals.
2. Determine the Venue
The following step is to select the place you need to publish your work in. I’m going to listing some impactful design journals and conferences under, however an excellent rule of thumb is to verify the place the papers you might have cited in your paper come from. In case you discover you’ve referenced a selected journal or convention many instances, that’s an excellent indicator that your analysis may slot in effectively there. In any other case, it’s essential to verify the influence issue of various venues. This quantity signifies how impactful the papers revealed at this venue have been (it is a mixture of variety of instances they’re cited and different metrics). Typically, design and human-computer interplay could have decrease influence scores than a discipline like medication, the place papers might be rather more impactful general. 3 is sort of an excellent influence issue for design analysis in my expertise.
On the identical time, in the event you’re focusing on conferences, it’s a must to verify their deadlines. Whereas journals usually settle for papers all yr spherical, conferences could have submission deadlines that is likely to be too distant to your plan.
It is usually price remembering that the higher the influence 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-Pc Interplay, Co-Design, The Worldwide Journal of Design.
Good Design/HCI Conferences
The ACM CHI Convention on Human Elements in Computing Methods (CHI), Designing Interactive Methods (DIS) Convention, Design Analysis Society (DRS) Convention, DESIGN, Worldwide Convention on Human Pc Interplay Idea and Functions (HUCAPP), ACM Convention on Data Expertise for Social Good.
Additionally verify 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 write down the paper itself. Typically, as I discussed earlier, this may embody an introduction, literature overview or background part, methodology part, outcomes, dialogue and conclusion. It’s essential to verify papers out of your chosen journal or convention and comply with the format they use as effectively.
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 write down an excellent paper and also you shouldn’t rush the method.
4. Submit and Wait
Comply with the venue’s tips to submit your work and anticipate a call. Keep in mind that writing a paper and submitting it’s in itself a milestone that it’s best to have fun! The overview course of is lengthy and might take a number of months. It’s essential to maintain that in thoughts whenever you’re planning publications, particularly if you’d like them revealed earlier than ending your PhD. The totally different selections that reviewers may make in your paper will range from venue to venue, however they typically might be:
✅ Settle for — Accepted as is with no additional modifications wanted.
⏳ Settle for with Minor Revisions — Conditional acceptance in the event you implement some suggestions reviewers have left you. Often 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 may be promise and worth in your paper, however there are main modifications that should be made. This may imply having to redo part of the research or acquire extra information, or it would 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 an excellent 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 — Meaning there’s both a deadly flaw within the paper or it’s utterly irrelevant to the venue you’ve chosen. I’ve had outright rejections earlier than and they are often discouraging. A superb place to begin is the reviewers’ detailed suggestions to know 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! The vast majority of my papers got here on the finish of my second yr and through my third yr of the PhD. In case you’re simply beginning out, merely put publishing as a long run objective and focus first on structuring the diploma by way of research and carrying these out effectively. Submitting papers on totally different research can be an effective way to get suggestions and catch any points early on, as a substitute of getting a nasty shock in a while 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 School London. My PhD mission noticed me develop a framework and toolkit for collaboratively designing conversational AI that’s higher aligned with human values.
You may try the official web page for my mission on the Imperial College London website. You may also try this different article I wrote explaining the details of my PhD project.
I’ve arrange this Medium account to publish attention-grabbing classes I’ve learnt and snippets of my analysis as I work on my PhD mission. My objective is to unfold information and details about my work in a manner that makes it comprehensible to anybody and everybody.