Questions tagged [publishability]

For questions about whether a piece of work is sufficient in significance, novelty, credibility, or scope to be publishable in an academic journal or conference.

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86 votes
8 answers
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Are results that are derived simply by using more computational power publishable?

Let's say Alice has written a paper that attacks a well-known problem in a clever new way. Her paper ends with "these methods work up to N = 10; for larger N, the calculations are prohibitively ...
Allure's user avatar
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61 votes
4 answers
7k views

Is improving a simple algorithm without beating the state of the art still publishable?

In a particular field there are two algorithms being used: Algorithm Simple: you understand it in five minutes, you can implement it in fifteen. Algorithm State of the Art (SOA): requires very ...
etal's user avatar
  • 1,055
60 votes
11 answers
14k views

Can I publish a paper which 1) proposes an idea and 2) proves that the idea doesn't work?

I wonder if is it okay for a researcher to suggest a new technique in a field of research and prove that this new suggested technique is a bad suggestion and gives no or negative gain and publish his ...
Ariyan's user avatar
  • 701
57 votes
9 answers
14k views

How to proceed when a mathematical result contradicts existing literature?

An author has proven an interesting mathematical result, but notices that this result contradicts existing literature. Does the author have to find an explicit error or counter-example to the ...
kantadou's user avatar
  • 670
52 votes
9 answers
6k views

Advice on publishing original theorems with easy proofs

I got a rejection recently on a short paper that gave a fairly short proof that a conjecture of a well-known mathematician was false. The reviewer said that “while the results are new and interesting,...
mbsq's user avatar
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49 votes
7 answers
9k views

Publishing a result that is aesthetically pleasing, but has no practical value

I am currently writing a paper that I wish to publish in a mathematics journal. During the course of my research, I have discovered a result that is aesthetically pleasing, i.e., contains a form of ...
Klangen's user avatar
  • 1,276
49 votes
6 answers
5k views

How to publish a paper that does not seem to be within the scope of any journal?

I have written a paper on applying a mathematical theory to a linguistic problem. I privately submitted it to several renowned professors (some of them very famous indeed) in the field of linguistics, ...
Javier Arias's user avatar
45 votes
2 answers
11k views

IEEE conference chair asked to take down the arXiv version of the paper within 24 hours

Recently, an article by one of my colleagues had been accepted at an IEEE conference, and about a week ago, he presented it on the main track. He published a preprint of this paper (without final ...
Michel Gokan Khan's user avatar
42 votes
8 answers
5k views

Can I still try to publish my work if my algorithm's results are not as good as other algorithms'?

I've written a classification algorithm that does a pretty good job at classifying some datasets. However, I compared my algorithm to other classification methods, and their results exceed my results ...
Veil's user avatar
  • 391
39 votes
6 answers
4k views

Is a faster implementation of an existing algorithm publishable?

So a paper exists, it was published 3 years ago and had a novel algorithm (more or less, it's in the area of finite-difference time-domain simulations). I've taken the algorithm and accelerated it ...
Mewa's user avatar
  • 797
36 votes
8 answers
18k views

Which review recommendation should I give to maximize the likelihood that a manuscript is rejected?

DISCLAIMER: As some readers have found the following question and prior title (How to best kill a manuscript as peer reviewer) outrageously unethical, I want to clarify that, by asking this question, ...
Giuseppe Biondi-Zoccai's user avatar
34 votes
5 answers
4k views

Is combinatorial novelty without insight useful? Who cares if we're the first to use tool T on problem P?

I'm a bioinformatician and former student of applied math. I want help to see if I should change my view). Many academics, including all of my PI's on my major projects, justify their work by saying "...
burner account's user avatar
33 votes
5 answers
4k views

Can I publish a paper with new proof but the same result?

I found a better proof for a theorem than a proof from a published paper. Is it possible for me to publish my proof with the same theorem citing that paper?
winston's user avatar
  • 757
33 votes
4 answers
2k views

How harmful is it to submit side-results that are not new?

During my research I often have side results. By a "side result" I mean e.g. a mathematical lemma, that I use to prove something in my game-theory paper, but that may be useful in other contexts. ...
Erel Segal-Halevi's user avatar
30 votes
4 answers
14k views

Why is novelty mandatory for a Ph.D. degree?

The institute I am studying at has added the following requirement recently: A PhD scholar must publish two papers in his/her corresponding field in SCI journals. This means that a student ...
hanugm's user avatar
  • 7,779
30 votes
5 answers
5k views

How can I efficiently check the originality of my work?

I have worked on many ideas where I found later that they were already published, which was frustrating. I usually look around before developing my idea, but sometimes the articles I read or the ...
sapienswatson's user avatar
29 votes
5 answers
10k views

What if someone else published an article on the same topic as my accepted unpublished article

I submitted my paper to a journal in July 2017 and I received an email of acceptance on May 2018 but it hasn't been published yet. Suddenly, while I am searching on my topic I found that someone else ...
Ran's user avatar
  • 291
29 votes
3 answers
8k views

Should I drop my paper after finding a recent very similar paper?

I have been working on a research paper to apply a technique X to solve certain problem Y. The field is in computer science. Approximately some months ago I started to check it up if there was ...
Layla's user avatar
  • 8,737
28 votes
5 answers
3k views

Is developing a cheaper method ever considered to be originality in academic research?

Say, in a particular field of science, method A or equipment B are the standard. Now I have invented method X or equipment Y which cost much less than A or B. What are the necessary conditions, if ...
yokohaman's user avatar
  • 381
26 votes
7 answers
7k views

Recommendations regarding publishing 'folklore' results in math

I've recently obtained some results which I have not found in the literature explicitly. Namely they are hinted in certain published literature, but very shortly and not in a very constructive sense. ...
Keen-ameteur's user avatar
25 votes
7 answers
14k views

Will the PhD degree be retracted if the thesis is found to be not novel?

Suppose a person got PhD degree by properly submitting his/her thesis on a particular topic. Assume that neither the student nor the doctoral review committee including supervisor knows that the ...
hanugm's user avatar
  • 7,779
25 votes
2 answers
2k views

After successfully publishing papers during my Post-Doc, why am I now having trouble publishing as a tenure track academic?

I have had my PhD in mathematics for four and a half years now, completed two postdocs and found a tenure track job at a mostly teaching university. While I provide substantial background information ...
Odysseus's user avatar
  • 363
23 votes
3 answers
5k views

Will mathematics journals accept a non-novel theorem, but with different approach

Suppose a researcher comes up with a mathematical theorem, which can be obtained trivially from discovered theorems, but with an approach, that was never used before to describe or prove the theorem. ...
hind's user avatar
  • 1,225
22 votes
4 answers
7k views

How do I judge the novelty of my paper in the area of algorithms and system design?

I have been working on a research project and have submitted the paper to two different venues(not simultaneously), and both times I have gotten reviews which criticize the paper for a lack of novelty....
RagHaven's user avatar
  • 323
22 votes
4 answers
4k views

Is my mathematics "folklore" paper worth publishing?

I wrote a math paper a while ago which was initially mainly for my own attempt to understand a topic/theorem in algebraic geometry. The methods and results are kind of folklore (not well-documented in ...
unknownguy's user avatar
21 votes
6 answers
7k views

How can I improve my paper with mostly original contents and only two references?

I'm collaborating with another person on a public-key cryptosystem that we intend to publish. I could only think of two references (one to the 1976 Diffie-Hellman paper, and one to SHA-3 FIPS-202), ...
DannyNiu's user avatar
  • 321
21 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is it reasonable to submit a paper to a journal that I have uploaded to the Arxiv 4 years ago?

I have a paper submitted to the Arxiv 4 years ago (with another co-author). At that time, the only reason that we put the article online was that someone asked us to do that in order to cite it. ...
guest91's user avatar
  • 211
20 votes
7 answers
12k views

"Expect" Nature publication for PhD?

EDIT: Original title was "Guarantee" Nature publication for PhD? I am currently applying as a PhD student in a group at the intersection of experimental physics and engineering in a rather ...
CactusSouffle's user avatar
20 votes
3 answers
3k views

Is there a place for publishing ideas (no tangible results)?

While working on my thesis in neutron imaging I got an idea for a new approach to data analysis, involving Machine Learning solutions that are not available at the moment (please note that I am a ...
user avatar
18 votes
4 answers
4k views

Are “DIY projects” valuable or publishable?

I’m 17 and will be joining a UG physics program soon. I’ve done a lot of DIY projects over the years, ranging from electric arc speakers to air-quality and climate-control systems. Most of my projects ...
theenigma017's user avatar
18 votes
7 answers
7k views

Is it plagiarism if I use a text I wrote myself but put on the internet before?

I just rememebered a case when I was still in school: we had to write an essay about a specific topic and one guy put big parts of his essay on Wikipedia before handing it in. When the teacher checked ...
asquared's user avatar
  • 2,560
18 votes
1 answer
1k views

Easy proof of a big conjecture based on possibly faulty paper – what to do?

I’m a mathematician. I noted that, by combining some results from the literature (all published) and some little effort, one obtains a proof of a big conjecture (at least in the field; it even has a ...
noname's user avatar
  • 181
17 votes
6 answers
6k views

Can scientific research be accepted with grammatical errors?

I am an Arab, and I am not fluent in English, not even my mother tongue, and I am sure that my scientific research will have many serious linguistic errors. Can the magazine accept the research or ask ...
Red bel's user avatar
  • 559
17 votes
3 answers
4k views

How often do good journals publish amusing little corollaries?

I've had a little corollary sitting around a while now. It is closely related to a major theorem in my area. Its statement is easy to understand (and rather interesting/amusing on the surface of it) ...
Forever Mozart's user avatar
17 votes
4 answers
1k views

How to make your small ideas into a research paper?

I am a computer science PhD student who works mostly in theory. I always have multiple ideas in my mind about the research problem I am working on and also on problems which are related to my research....
abaa's user avatar
  • 1,351
16 votes
6 answers
6k views

What is an "un-reproducible result"?

In order to publish a research paper in a journal, one of the requirement may be the reproducibility of results. I'm wondering, in academia, how does an un-reproducible result even exist? Is there any ...
hanugm's user avatar
  • 7,779
16 votes
5 answers
3k views

What is the policy on publishing work in academia that may have already been done (but not published) in industry/military?

I am interested in pursuing an area of computer security that is very likely already being studied by security professionals in industry and perhaps the military as well. Some of it is published, but ...
user308485's user avatar
16 votes
4 answers
1k views

Is it research to just combine other people’s work?

I am currently a second-year undergraduate double-majoring in math and computer science. I am currently doing a joint research paper with one of the faculty in my university. My advisor gave me ...
user3508551's user avatar
  • 3,888
16 votes
2 answers
611 views

Can blogging about research results first affect your ability to publish them later?

There are the obvious worries about getting scooped (discussed here http://www.quora.com/When-is-it-wise-to-blog-or-talk-about-your-academic-research-work-before-you-submit-it-for-publication). But I'...
user833970's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
4k views

Are new experimental verifications of well-understood theories publishable?

As an example, consider the deflection of light by mass. This is a general relativistic effect wherein a large body causes light to not travel in straight lines. Deflection of starlight by the Sun was ...
Allure's user avatar
  • 128k
15 votes
7 answers
4k views

Professor dismissed error I found in her work. I need more feedback, but the field is small

Background / My problem: I believe to have found a substantial error in my professor's original research. After getting answers to my previous question, I emailed her about it, but she was ...
K. Schaffer's user avatar
15 votes
4 answers
672 views

Strict prohibition on overlapping data. Why?

The journal Immunity says on this webpage "As a matter of publishing ethics, we cannot consider any paper that contains data that have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere." Why ...
eric_kernfeld's user avatar
14 votes
4 answers
1k views

What can I do with my paper that is out of a work which contains no improvement of the methodology?

I've started a research, and after replicating methods of other researchers (running experiments on my data), I've realised that I cannot add anything new to the field. The work contains no ...
Lam's user avatar
  • 143
14 votes
4 answers
3k views

Where can/should I, as a high schooler, publish a paper regarding the derivation of a formula?

For a high school engineering project, a friend and I have found ourselves deriving an equation for how to most efficiently configure a system. We found an equation that, given a few parameters about ...
user avatar
14 votes
2 answers
2k views

Found better technique just before publishing old, but still good technique – can the old one still be published?

In our lab, we hypothesized that a technique T1 should be able to solve some problem with high performance. As per our hypothesis, we got an excellent result. We started writing a short paper to be ...
Coder's user avatar
  • 12.7k
14 votes
4 answers
3k views

Publishing dissent

My team has been trying to replicate a study published in a journal. After a month of effort my team is convinced that the details provided in the paper are incorrect and the study cannot be ...
pkj's user avatar
  • 339
14 votes
3 answers
708 views

What should I do if I discover a paper I rejected because of methodological flaws has been published in another journal?

I recently discovered that a paper I reviewed a while back and rejected as a result of major methodological flaws had been resubmitted to another journal and published without addressing any of the ...
aeismail's user avatar
  • 174k
13 votes
3 answers
3k views

How to know whether my submission to a mathematics journal is significant enough?

I have received the following referee comment: This paper is well-written and the results appear to be correct. But I don't think the research is significant enough to warrant publication in ....(...
Semsem's user avatar
  • 473
13 votes
7 answers
11k views

Consequences of publishing work using text from millions of Sci-Hub articles

I have a project that involves large-scale text embedding of biological literature. In this case, each biology article would be given a set of numbers (embedding) based on the text in the article. We ...
duncster94's user avatar
13 votes
4 answers
3k views

Why is explainability not one of the criteria for publication? [closed]

A paper is eligible for publishing in reputable journals in general if it satisfies the criteria objectivity, reproducibility and (optionally) novelty. But why are they not considering Explainability ...
hanugm's user avatar
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