We are currently trying to submit a comprehensive survey article I have been working on for a while as a journal paper. Some of the journals we're considering (I'm in Computer Science) require, for survey articles, submitting a 2-5 page white paper to the Editor-in-Chief, in order to evaluate the relevance of the proposed survey (upon which the EiC would either discourage or encourage the submission of a full survey):
Authors interested in submitting overview articles are required to consult first with the Editor-in-Chief (EiC) of their Transactions of choice before submitting a white paper proposal. White papers are limited to 2-pages and should motivate the topic, justify the proposal, and include a list of relevant bibliography including any available tutorial or overview articles related to the subject matter. (...) The EiC solicits input from the Editorial Board on whether to encourage submission of a full paper.
(specific requirements example taken from: http://www.signalprocessingsociety.org/publications/overview-articles/)
I have found some questions on the topic if white papers, but it looks to me like all of those are either concerning short standalone papers, or white papers for grants, which differs a bit from my situation.
Just to summarize, this white paper (2-5 pages, depending on the journal) is not ment to ever be published, but rather to help the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board in deciding on the relevance of the proposed survey. So, for me as the author, the goal of this white paper is to motivate the EiC to invite me to submit the full survey manuscript.
So, my question is how to structure and what information to include in a white paper, meant as a proposal for publishing a longer survey paper. Some specific questions I'm thinking about:
- Should I divide it into sections, similar to a regular (short) paper (introduction, discussion, etc.) or should it have some different, (specific or not) structure?
- The reqirements mention including a "list of relevant bibliography": as this is meant to be for an survey article, my complete list of bibliography is much larger that 2 pages. Do I just mention "related work" and omit the references used as sources for the survey from this white paper, or something similar to that?
- Should I repeat some parts of the survey, or just include the motivation and explanation of the survey topic in this white paper?