Igor Alexeff
NPSS Past President
THE “GOOD” PAPER
Introduction
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Igor Alexeff |
We have been asked to find what constitutes a “good” paper. I have made a search and find that there are two aspects of a good paper; format and content. There are also two major time periods for evaluation; pre–publication review and post-publication evaluation. Thus there are four cases in all to cover.
Discussion
The first case is the pre-publication review of the reviewers of the journal, who check out the format. It concerns the layout, grammar, spelling, and typing. We can cover this material relatively easily.
The second case is the pre-publication review of the contents. This is very difficult, as it concerns what the reviewers think is right or wrong. Often papers are rejected because of mistakes in logic or mathematics. However, I have observed papers published by prominent scientists in which the mathematics is just plain wrong! The paper is published because the author is prominent. On the other hand, if the work is new and unusual, it will be rejected by the reviewers because the work is too new and unusual, and so is “politically incorrect”. A recent newspaper article notes that the discovery of a major cause of heart attacks was suppressed for 30 years, because the work was politically incorrect. The danger of publishing too new and unusual material is that the work might be wrong, i.e., cold fusion. On the other hand, the work may be right, i.e., heart attack prevention, and suppression of the work makes the world suffer.
The third and fourth cases, evaluation of form and content after publication, can be done almost automatically. One can collect the citation index material and find out how early, how frequently, and how long the citations come in. I also suggest that we can put mail - in questionnaires in our own publications to evaluate how well the journals are doing.
Conclusion
However, the too new and unusual papers never get published. We should take care because, “Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain, Notebook, 1904.
Igor Alexeff, the NPSS Past President, can be reached at the Electrical Engineering Department, Ferris Hall, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996-2100; Phone (865) 974-5467; Fax: (865) 974-5492; E-mail: i.alexeff@ieee.org.
This article appeared in a foreshortened form (by IEEE during production) in the last issue of the Newsletter. Here it is in its entirety - I hope! Ed.