Questions tagged [publications]
Questions related to academic publications including online and traditional journals, books, and conference proceedings.
7,310
questions
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Is it appropriate (as a PhD student) to email other researchers asking about some details in their papers?
It has happened on several occasion now, that I read a paper, understand 95% of it, but there are some niggling details which I simply don't get. I ask around, I ask my advisor, and nobody is able to ...
user42273
81
votes
15
answers
14k
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Preprint services other than arXiv (for other fields)
While arXiv is great, it covers only topics in physics, mathematics and computer science.
Are there any good preprint storage places for other scientific disciplines?
81
votes
3
answers
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What's the point in "the paper is structured as follows"?
Inspired by the recent question on list of figures: what is the point of ending your introduction with a paragraph saying "The paper is structured as follows: in Section 1 we do BLAH, then in Section ...
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votes
12
answers
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I was pushed to submit a mediocre paper to a conference. To my surprise it was accepted. How to save face?
I wrote a paper under pressure from my supervisor who gives high importance for publishing. I feel that both the conference and my paper are mediocre. What is done is done. How to distance myself from ...
user58480
79
votes
20
answers
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Is it acceptable to have a research paper with no references?
I (an undergrad) and 2 other profs from my department have been working on something and we were thinking of submitting our work to a conference (a pretty well known one) this week. The fact is there ...
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79
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15
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Why are academics not paid royalties on published research papers in IEEE, ACM etc.? [closed]
I understand that academics are not paid a single dime on their publications. In my field (computer science), IEEE, ACM, Springer, Elsevier are some known journals/publications and none of them pay ...
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78
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17
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Is it appropriate to mention that authors refused to provide code samples when asked?
I work in a sub field of computer science. There was a recent paper (2020) that was published in a reputable conference that claimed to achieve state of the art performance on a specific data set. ...
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77
votes
4
answers
11k
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During review, I found a superior solution. What now?
I received a journal paper for a review. The paper suggests a solution to an important problem, but the solution is very complicated and has mediocre performance. While reading the paper, I thought of ...
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76
votes
6
answers
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Can I correct a mistake that the reviewers didn't spot in a paper that has not been accepted yet?
Recently my paper was accepted pending major revisions (i.e., not yet accepted), and while following the reviewers' comments and revising my paper, I realized that both reviewers missed a mistake that ...
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76
votes
12
answers
15k
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Why don't I see publications criticising other publications?
This is about technology research specifically.
Often when reading a publication I'll be thinking to myself: "Yeah, you've got that thing, but what about this and that limitation you brush off and ...
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76
votes
7
answers
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What should be included in a disclaimer about the omission of gender-neutral language in a bachelor's thesis?
I'm working on my bachelor's thesis to get my bachelor's degree at a German university. I am not sure about the situation in other countries, but German universities are very sensitive when it comes ...
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76
votes
6
answers
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Cannot present paper at conference. Instructor wants to move me to second author
Due to unforeseen circumstances, I am not able to present my paper at a Computer Science conference. Without the presentation the paper will not be published. My instructor has said that she will ...
- 691
76
votes
4
answers
10k
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Should I do anything if I am cited for something that wasn't in my paper?
I’ve just read a paper in which a previous paper of mine has been cited. The line in which the citation happens is something like:
It has been shown that technique X is successful in this problem [...
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76
votes
3
answers
5k
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A manuscript I refereed gave me an idea for a paper, not sure how to proceed
So, last week I refereed a paper for a journal. The paper in question is a reply to a previous paper by a different author: it points out a serious problem in the original paper and then proposes a ...
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76
votes
10
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How to write an academic paper for the first time?
While writing an answer to that question, I realized I don't really have a good list of resources that could be useful to first-time authors, like MSc or PhD students who write their first paper. I ...
- 72.6k
75
votes
3
answers
12k
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Rampant sharing of authorship among colleagues in the name of "collaboration". Is not taking part in it a death knell for a future in academia?
I am a final year PhD student in chemical engineering. Since the start of my PhD, I was clear on one personal philosophy. I will put my name only on those papers where I have made substantial ...
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4
answers
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I'd like to use a figure from a paper; what's the best way to do this?
So, I've seen a really nice figure in a paper; what's the best way to 'get a copy'?
Will it be on the publisher's website?
Do I need to draw my own version?
Email the author?
And, finally, how does ...
- 2,240
74
votes
14
answers
16k
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How is it possible that [insert known crackpot] has articles published in Peer-Reviewed Journals?
Note: This question is intended to be a generic version of something that gets asked occasionally on this site. I apologize for making it overly-contrived, but it's intended to be a generic template ...
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74
votes
8
answers
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I proved a theorem I heard from another researcher. Can I publish my results?
Some time ago I heard a talk in which the speaker mentioned some theorem. I needed this theorem for another paper I wrote. I looked for this theorem in the relevant literature (which I know quite well)...
- 16.6k
74
votes
10
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19k
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Why are there so many papers written in bad English?
I am pretty sure that anyone who has spent some time reading academic papers have come across quite a few "lemons" among them, with bad grammar, strange word choices and incoherent sentences. Such ...
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73
votes
3
answers
12k
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How much percentage royalty do I get from Springer (as the paper's author) and how I can apply for royalty payment?
I have submitted a paper to a Springer conference and it has been published. The publisher will charge 24.95$ to anyone who would eventually download my paper and 201 copies of my research sold by ...
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73
votes
10
answers
12k
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Where can I publish a parody (but not hoax) paper with a serious message?
I have written a short paper (six pages) in which I empirically analyse publicly available data. Both the data and my analysis are genuine and without (intentional) errors. Still, by using statistical ...
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73
votes
7
answers
14k
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Why use version control systems for writing a paper?
I am following the advice of @Piotr Migdal in Is there an internet Git-like repository for collaboration on a paper?, and I want to ask about version controls: how beneficial are they (specially under ...
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73
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5
answers
145k
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How to write a strong introduction into a research paper?
How does one write a strong (good) introduction into a research paper? Some introductions make me really curious about the rest of the paper while others do not. Although it is relatively easy to say ...
- 2,145
72
votes
12
answers
21k
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Is it OK to generate parts of a research paper using a large language model such as ChatGPT?
Large language models (LLMs) are complex neural networks that can capture and represent world knowledge present in the human-generated text as their weights. LLMs are trained on a large collection of ...
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72
votes
8
answers
15k
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I got a paper to review from a journal that had rejected my earlier works, how to respond?
Recently, I got a paper to review for a journal (Elsevier) which is very reputed. The fact is that this journal had rejected two of my earlier works after keeping it under review for more than a year ...
- 12.6k
72
votes
6
answers
17k
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What to do if reviewers reject a paper without understanding the content?
One of my friends submitted a paper to a reputable communications journal and received some reviews a week back. The paper was rejected, but the review comments were abysmal:
The language was so bad ...
- 22.8k
72
votes
4
answers
19k
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Why are journals telling me that my article is plagiarized even though I wrote it by myself?
Recently, I wrote an article, and I'm trying to submit it somewhere, but two journals told me that my article is plagiarized even up to 70%!
I'm 100% sure that it's not plagiarized because I wrote ...
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72
votes
8
answers
6k
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Is there a good site for holding online discussions of scientific papers?
Many of my computational scientist colleagues used to use Google Reader to share and discuss new journal articles. The loss of Reader's social features killed that, and we have subsequently tried ...
- 35.9k
71
votes
6
answers
20k
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Realized a co-author inserted plagiarism into our paper 8 years ago - what to do now?
Recently, after the acceptance of a paper, the journal said some sentences were exactly copied in my manuscript. I was shocked as I was the first author. Later, we found that during the preparation of ...
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71
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8
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What should you do if you spotted a non-trivial error in a highly cited paper?
I have seen question on here regarding a citation error in a paper here:
What should I do if I found a citation error in a published paper?, but the nature of this problem is very different.
...
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71
votes
7
answers
4k
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How to publish an academic book but make the PDF freely available online?
Background
I like the idea of writing an academic book.
It currently looks better on a CV when applying for jobs, grants, promotions, etc. than a blog post, or a website.
Libraries and people ...
- 20.3k
70
votes
6
answers
12k
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Seemingly-irrelevant papers, all with author in common, suggested by reviewer
I recently received a decision letter calling for minor revisions prior to acceptance. One anonymous reviewer was extremely knowledgeable and provided many helpful suggestions to better explain and ...
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70
votes
5
answers
116k
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What is an extended abstract?
Some conferences ask for an extended abstract. What are the differences among "abstracts," "extended abstracts," and "full papers?"
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69
votes
9
answers
11k
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Is it a bad idea to point out flaws/weaknesses of your model in your paper?
In a modeling paper I am writing, I know that there are some limitations.
Is it a bad idea to point out the limitations? Am I just giving the reviewers more straw for them to reject my paper?
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69
votes
7
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Supervisor has said some very disgusting things online, should I pull my name from our paper?
I’ve been interning at a research lab for 8 months now, putting upwards of 10 hours a week into our project. We find out if our first of three papers was accepted for a significantly-sized conference ...
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69
votes
9
answers
8k
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Creating a permanent URL to put in a publication
In an upcoming publication, I need to link to the data I used for the publication so that others can see/use the data as well — both for reviewing the given work and also for intended use in the ...
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votes
10
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6k
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Should academic papers necessarily carry a sober tone?
I was reading this paper titled "Optimal Symmetric Rendezvous Search on Three Locations." While talking about the history of search problems, the author mentions the following anecdote in passing.
...
- 22.8k
69
votes
6
answers
73k
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Easy way to see historical trend in keywords in publications?
Is there an easy way or existing tool to generate a historical chart with the occurrence of one or more user-specified keyword(s) (combinations) in academic publications, based on the words in the ...
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69
votes
7
answers
15k
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Is it possible take take part in a research project if I'm not a part of a university?
I graduated with a Masters of Engineering, concentrating in digital signal processing, in particular medical and audio, almost two years ago. I've always been interested in research, but due to ...
- 1,403
68
votes
17
answers
29k
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4 Years in PhD. No publications and adviser keep changing my research
First of all, I need to apologize for writing a really long description.
I started my PhD in Mechanical Engineering 4 years ago and working with a professor, who has no idea on what we are doing and ...
- 559
67
votes
6
answers
13k
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What should raise red flags to detect fabricated data
In academia, there has been recently some cases that came to light of very well known scientists that have fabricated their data out of thin air.
In some instances these papers have been cited many ...
- 12k
67
votes
8
answers
200k
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What is the difference between Abstract, conclusion and summary?
The above question is self explanatory, still I would like to break it into two parts.
Q1. What is the difference between abstract and summary/conclusion?
Q2. What is the difference between summary ...
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66
votes
14
answers
15k
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How to deal with people judging your 'overproductiveness'?
I am in 4th year postdoc working in applied math areas in which 1-3 papers a year is considered a good publication rate. I have been publishing 10-13 papers a year for the last 4-5 years (have never ...
- 2,085
66
votes
9
answers
13k
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How to prove that a paper published with a particular English transliteration of my Russian name is mine?
My first name is Евгений (it is Russian; the usual transliteration is Yevgeny). I was born in Ukraine in 1990, when it was still in the Soviet Union, where Russian was the official language. I lived ...
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66
votes
6
answers
16k
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Is it right and polite to ask for a free copy of a published paper?
There is a published research paper I would like to read. The website it is published in, charges what I think is quite a lot of money, considering that I won't use this for research or work.
I want ...
66
votes
8
answers
12k
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What good is my paper if the code is not open source?
I have been working with my research group on a number of papers in a certain area of Computer Science. These papers have a certain portion which is theoretical (i.e. contains theorems, formalisms, ...
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66
votes
3
answers
70k
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Why do people publish on arXiv instead of other places? [duplicate]
I work in engineering and I was warned by a colleague years ago that I should not cite materials on arXiv because they are not peer reviewed. Although it was never clear to me what peer reviewed meant ...
- 11.4k
65
votes
12
answers
43k
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PhD and postdoc with no first author publications- realistically what are my career prospects?
I am a UK based researcher in life sciences. My research is in neuroscience, mainly involving in vivo electrophysiology. My PhD project was a disaster for a number of reasons (technical difficulties, ...
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65
votes
2
answers
20k
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In what tense (present/past) should papers be written?
That is, should it be present tense or past tense?
Should there be a difference between the abstract, main body and the conclusion?
Does the field of publication have any impact?
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