I am a 5th year PhD student, and I have been writing scientific papers for conferences for a few years now. One constant in the feedback that we get from reviewers is what I call, for lack of a better definition, the "you didn't consider this" comment.
I am working on an emerging technology, let's call it E, that has certain advantages with respect to the industry standard, let's call it S. E has of course its disadvantages too, and my job as a researcher is trying to address the major shortcomings, let's call them E.a, E.b, E.c, and E.d.
The problem that I am facing is that, when I write a paper addressing E.a, a common feedback that I get is "you have good results, but what about E.b? There is no way this is going to work when you consider E.c and E.d as well".
While I understand the concern of the reviewers, I am also frustrated by the fact that a paper is rejected not because my work on E.a is poor, but because there is a lack of research and solutions to address E.b, E.c, and E.d. Moreover, I don't know how to improve a paper that was rejected based on those reviews, because they are not specific about the content of the paper.
My question is: how can I present my work in a way that makes it clear that only E.a is addressed, and minimize the chances of getting those unhelpful reviews? Is it possible to be explicit about it without being unbecoming?
A few notes:
- I am concerned about conferences, so paper are limited to 4 to 8 pages, and this limits the amount of background that can be covered in the introduction,
- Because I am addressing an emerging technology, I usually have at least one page introducing the basic principles of it before moving on to my contribution on E.a,
- I do mentioned E.b, E.c, and E.d and cite relevant research in that regard.