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1.学术新秀采访－陆品燕
2.计算机系2007学术新秀朱军专访
3.How To Get Your SIGGRAPH Paper Rejected
学术新秀采访－陆品燕
精瘦的身形，爽朗的笑容，初见陆品燕，他给我们留下了这样的印象。
今年的学术新秀陆品燕，创造一个了不起的奇迹：2007年前半年，7篇计算机理论方向沉甸甸的国际会议论文，其中两篇被计算复杂性方向的最高会议ICCC接收，使我们实在难以将目光从他身上移开，于是，便有了这次采访。采访地点是在FIT3楼，面对同样是第一次做采访的两个男性大老粗，陆品燕面无惧色，侃侃而谈，向我们展示了一个完整、完美的学术大牛的方方面面。
第一个问题自然离不开那7篇难以置信的论文。陆品燕解释起来显得轻松、自然，但一个一个未知的名次却让我们明白，这轻松背后的深厚理论背景和艰苦卓绝的努力。陆今
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年的工作源于L.G. Valiant在2004年提出的Holographic Algorithms，以及2006年Valiant提出的推广的Holographic Algorithms。在陆的工作里，他提出了一系列定理来刻画怎样的问题可以用上述方法解决；对于推广的Holographic Algorithms，陆证明了其可以坍缩到2维，从而避免了原来Holographic Algorithms中天马行空的直觉搜索，为该方法给出统一的框架。由于陆的工作在计算复杂度方向的突出贡献，他先后应邀在波士顿大学、威斯康辛大学、芝加哥大学和伊利诺大学做专题讲座。
陆品燕总结了自己成功的因素。首先，他认为兴趣是第一位的。陆从小的研究兴趣就一直在数学方面，填报志愿时曾经在北大数学系和清华计算机系间做出艰难的选择。进入清华计算机系后，不得不远离一贯爱好的数学，成为陆品燕一段痛苦的经历。当然塞翁失马，本科的工科背景也大大拓展了陆的视野，为最终将研究方向选择在计算机理论方面埋下伏笔。读研后陆成为姚期智先生的弟子，重新回归数学方向，数学方面的潜力得以爆发，研究起来也显得得心应手。
陆品燕同时强调了导师的作用。他非常感激姚先生为自己的弟子们创造的轻松*的学术氛围，以及全面的学术交流环境。同时，陆还着重强调了蔡进一老师对他的指导，他的大部分工作都是在与蔡老师的讨论中完成的。“每个老师的风格都不一样，但你都可以从他们身上得到很多收获”，陆品燕如是说，“当然，你要尽量协调好各方面的关系。”
在我们的采访中，陆品燕几次强调自己是个比较幸运的人，因为他刚好赶上了姚先生的归来，兴趣与机遇相合，对学术的爱好也与社会的认同相合，而2004年Valiant提出的理论又给他提供了一个施展的舞台。当然，机会总是提供给有准备的人，陆的幸运也不仅仅是天时地利，还有人和。
对于自己所研究的工作——理论计算机，陆品燕有着深厚的感情。他说，计算机理论的工作，原本处于计算机学界做不了，数学界又不屑于做的尴尬位置。但随着理论体系的逐步完善，理论计算机也逐渐为数学界认可，成为一门新的学问。对于今后的研究，陆品燕回答得很实际，也很有自信。他介绍说自己将会在已有的问题上展开，解决一些遗留的问题，然后争取再找到一个新的问题加以研究，为自己的博士研究生涯划上一个完美的句号。
我们很关心陆品燕在繁重的本科学业中，如何还能够保持对理论研究的热情。陆告诉我们他一直也没有放弃对数学修养的提高，一直关注自己喜欢的课程，当然清华的课程系统也给他带来了许多的便利。本科时曾经旁听了很多数学课，包括北大开的一些课程。陆是一个不愿在压迫的环境中学习、喜欢*的学术氛围的人，对科学、哲学都比较感兴趣。在采访中他突然举出《天龙八部》中的扫地僧的例子，告诉我们技术是一种武功，技术之上的哲学是一种佛法……大牛的境界果然高人一等。
对于过去，陆品燕不愿多谈，我们却从他的简历里发现了这样的辉煌：高中阶段数学、物理、化学、信息学竞赛均获全国一等奖，全国数学冬令营二等奖、第八届浙江省青少年英才奖一等奖，2002数学建模北京一等奖，ICM二等奖。进入清华后又获得无数奖学金……
业余爱好上，陆品燕更像是一个数学家，如同GTM丛书倡导的那样，Game、Tea和Math构成了数学家生活的全部，也成为陆品燕生活的重要部分。陆品燕喜欢牌类和棋类游戏，还饶有兴趣的介绍他的几个同学在博弈方面的研究，可惜时间所限，我们不能一睹陆品燕在这些游戏中的风采。
最后，我们强烈要求陆品燕给学弟学妹们一点建议和忠告，不出我们所料，陆品燕的答案仍然是“尊重自己的兴趣” 。看来兴趣对于陆品燕确实起了至关重要的作用。同样的，对于自己将来的职业生涯规划，“留在学术界”也一直被陆品燕反复提及，可以看出，陆品燕对于自己的学术生命有着无比的热爱，我们也衷心祝愿他能够在自己兴趣的道路上越走越远，越走越好。
志
计算机系2007学术新秀朱军专访
朱军，2007年清华大学计算机系的学术新秀，一个自信、成熟、稳健的男生，这就是他给我的第一印象。和这样的大牛打交道，开始时我还有些许顾虑，不过短暂的交谈之后，他亲切的笑容，从容的谈吐就将这些顾虑一一打消了。
朱军来自清华大学计研四，2001年9月考入清华大学计算机系学习，攻读学士学位，2005年本科毕业，免试推荐到清华大学计算机系人工智能所继续深造，现在在张钹老师的实验室攻读博士学位。
朱军的主要研究方向是贝叶斯统计学习与概率图模型。他目前的工作主要是“对网络环境下数据的建模与挖掘”。在过去两年，他先后提出了基于统计学习的网页结构分析和数据标注的新的概念和若干新方法，相比于传统的基于模板、基于规则匹配的模型完全不同，他从全新的观点出发，不论在概念上还是方法上都有了很大突破。他提出的这种新方法基于统计学习，能发现数据潜在的特性，通过不断探索和改进，提出了新的结构化数据的模型。
我们都知道现在垂直搜索是很热的一个研究领域，而其中很关键的一步就是把网络上的一些非结构化的数据分析转化为结构化数据，而朱军的研究主要就完成了这个关键步骤；他提出的方法构建的模型相比起用传统方法构建的模型来有了很大突破，为垂直搜索的实现奠定了很好的基础。
基于这些出色的工作，朱军于2005年在机器学习领域*国际会议之一（ICML2005）以第一作者身份发表长文一篇，论文题目为“2D Conditional Random Fields for Web Information Extraction”(ICML录取文章的质量很高，2005年的录取率为23%)。当年，他还获得了该会议主办方资助的学生奖学金（Student Scholarship）的最高金额奖。之后，在2006年，朱军在数据挖掘领域的*别国际会议（SIGKDD 2006）又以第一作者身份发表长文一篇，论文题目为“Simultaneous Record Detection and Attribute Labeling in Web Data Extraction”(SIGKDD2006年的录取率不到11%，只有50篇长文发表)。当年他又获得了该会议资助的Student Travel Award奖。这两篇论文最主要的贡献是它们首次提出了基于统计的对象级别的网络环境下的信息处理的概念和方法，这奠定了朱军他们在相关领域的国际领先地位，另外，与此相关研究成果也正在申请两项美国专利。
（补充一下，2007年，朱军又在ICML和KDD上各灌一篇）
朱军同学攻读研究生不到两年，就在国际顶尖会议上发表了两篇长文，我想这是很多研究生同胞很羡慕的成就吧。那么怎么样才能在这样顶尖的会议上如探囊取物般发表优秀论文呢，朱军同学给出的建议是：做好研究工作，这是最关键的；工作好不好是决定你能否在这些会议上发表论文的首要关键，其次就是论文的书写技巧了；写论文时，你自己首先得对自己做的研究非常了解，这样才能把你的研究、贡献等清晰地表达出来，既不能过分强调，也不能含糊其词；最后就是一些细节的把握了，比如用词等的技巧等等。
当然，朱军的这些研究成果是离不开他的导师和他实验室的同学们的指导和帮助的。导师对朱军同学的指导作用，用朱军自己的话说就是：“他站在一个我想象不到的高度在指导我；看得更远；能很好的把握我研究的大方向，能更清晰地看问题，发现他们的内在关联，从而做出有力的指导。”而同一实验室的同学对他帮助也很大，他们常常在一起讨论，有了
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新的想法，就一起分享，一起讨论，虽然每个人的研究方向不同，但很多领域是相通的，每一次讨论都能得到一些启发。在研究中朱军就借鉴了图像处理、计算机视觉等的一些方法，比如多粒度的概念等。
朱军不仅在发表论文方面拥有令人羡慕的成绩，他还荣获了“2006年度教育部—微软产学研合作教育基地优秀实习生”称号，在200多名实习生中总共只有10人获此奖项。由于表现优异，朱军获得了参观访问微软公司总部的机会。这次访问增进了朱军对产业界的了解，同时也使他增加了做研究的热情。而也正是此次参观访问，使朱军的学术理想有所改变了。本来朱军以前比较喜欢数学，所以他曾经的学术理想更多的是做一些理论上的研究，做一些很强很有影响力的研究。但慢慢地，特别是此次参观访问之后，朱军的想法有了一些转变。他现在的学术理想也是要做很好的研究，但更重要的是，这些研究能被人们所记住、能对人们有用、能实实在在改善人们生活。而朱军目前在“网络环境下数据的建模与挖掘”的研究成果就已经在微软的Product Search和Libra Academic Search得到了应用，对于这些成果，朱军感到尤其的自豪。
怎么样才能做好科研呢？朱军给出的答案是：首先要对你的研究感兴趣，毕竟兴趣是最好的老师，只有对你做的东西感兴趣，工作时才会有激情；而每当你决定去做一项研究的时候，你必然要付出比别人更多的时间和精力，所以还得舍得投入，对你所做的研究专注，另外，坚强的毅力也是必不可少的，研究工作一旦开始，必然会碰到这样那样的困难和挫折，只有拥有坚强的毅力，才不会在碰到困难时退缩，而选择勇敢面对。
当问到朱军有什么业余爱好时，他是这样说的：“业余爱好不管什么，只要能放松，能调节心情，能使自己快乐就行，拥有了好的心情，才能很长时间的投入到研究当中。”也许这也是朱军为什么能在学术方面取得如此优秀成绩的一个原因吧。为了搞好科研，平时得调节好自己的心情，才能以100%的状态投入到艰苦的研究工作之中；当然，健康的体魄也是必不可少的，毕竟我们是要“为祖国健康工作50年”的。
在采访过程中，我不仅走近了朱军这样的一位大牛师兄，而且也看到了他身上的优秀品质：勤勤恳恳、认认真真地做学术、做研究。我想这就是“学术新秀”带给我们最有价值的东西吧。
How To Get Your SIGGRAPH Paper Rejected
by Jim Kajiya, SIGGRAPH 93 Papers Chair — last modified 29 August 2006 02:06 PM
Written in late 1992, this article by the SIGGRAPH 93 Papers Chair provides insight into the SIGGRAPH paper review process at that time. The process has evolved over the last thirteen years, yet maintains the integrity of the process described here.
Introduction
Everyone knows what acceptable SIGGRAPH papers look like: just look in the proceedings. When one only sees the accepted papers and not the rejected ones, it is easy to get the wrong impression of what it is that SIGGRAPH likes and doesn't like.
I've submitted a lot of papers that SIGGRAPH didn't like, as well as a few they did. Also, I've been on the papers committee a few times and know what it is they look for. This note tells you something about what happens to your paper as it goes through the reviewing process as well as what people discuss when they're trying to decide whether to accept or reject your paper. I'll try to tell you everything I've learned about the SIGGRAPH secret: What SIGGRAPH wants, and how you can give it to them so they'll accept your paper. I'll also talk about some of the flaws in the reviewing process and how you can protect yourself against them. Finally, I want to share some thoughts on the present course and the future of technical papers for SIGGRAPH.
Before we do this, I would like to say why SIGGRAPH reviews are done the way they are. There are two reasons.
The first reason is the principal feature of the SIGGRAPH conference publication that makes it very attractive: speed. SIGGRAPH is one of the few high-quality publications that can publish a paper in less than a year. In 10 weeks, SIGGRAPH can do what other major publications take 10 months to do. In a fast-moving field like computer graphics, this is crucial.
The second reason is that SIGGRAPH has chosen a very different quality strategy than most other conferences. While other conferences will accept papers of incomplete work in progress, SIGGRAPH has chosen to shoot for the highest quality papers of complete results. Because of this, 80% of submitted papers are rejected. The MacArthur Foundation is more generous with its "genius" awards than SIGGRAPH is with its papers. There are more MacArthur awards each year than SIGGRAPH technical papers.
The emphasis on both speed and quality makes the reviewing process for SIGGRAPH very different from of a journal or another conference. The speed and quality emphasis also puts severe strains on the reviewing process. In a journal, the reviewer and authors can have a dialog where shortcomings and misunderstandings can be resolved over a leisurely pace. Also, even if there are significant flaws in a paper for another conference, the chances are that strengths will overcome the weaknesses in the judging. In SIGGRAPH, if the reviewers misunderstand your paper, or if some flaw in your paper is found, you're dead.
The reviewing process for SIGGRAPH is far from perfect, although most everyone is giving it their best effort. The very nature of the process is such that many reviewers will not be able to spend nearly enough time weighing the nuances of your paper. This is something for which you must compensate in order to be successful. But I'll get to that later. First, let's talk about what happens to your paper.
The Reviewing Process
How does your paper get accepted or rejected by SIGGRAPH? Let's follow it through the entire process.
First, you work for months, slaving away at equations, hacking code, and feeding slides to your local photofinisher. SIGGRAPH fever rises to absurd heights at the last week: "Let's see I only have 105 hours until the deadline...". You put everything together, accomplishing superhuman tasks to make the Federal Express deadline at the very last minute. Your six copies are taken by the courier safely to the papers chair, then you-and everyone around you-collapse.
The next day, as you and hundreds of other morlocks around the world come out of sub-basements to blink at the first natural sunlight you've seen in weeks, is deadline day. Fully 85% of the 200 or so SIGGRAPH submissions arrive at the papers chair doorstep. Everyone else has worked until the last possible minute, too. The papers chair and several dedicated assistants then spend their long all-nighter giving your paper a number, entering it into the database, and typing and mailing a letter acknowledging receipt of your paper.
Immediately after this, the papers chair, along with two or three others on the papers committee, sorts through all the papers and assigns your paper to the pile for a particular senior reviewer. The papers program committee is made up of 25 or so of these senior reviewers. With the large number of papers, this partitioning process takes a full day.
One copy of your paper is retained by the papers chair. One copy is mailed to the secondary reviewer, and four copies are mailed to the senior reviewer. Thus each reviewer receives a large Federal Express box of your papers and video tapes. This usually happens a week after the deadline.
The senior reviewers receive a set of 14-18 papers. For half of these they act as secondary reviewer and for half as senior reviewer. As senior reviewers, they look at your paper and choose three additional reviewers-at least two of whom are external to his or her institution. The senior reviewer sends a list of these reviewers to the chair within two weeks.
The reviewers then each receive a copy of your paper, slides, and video. The reviewer reads your paper, evaluates it, and fills out the review form that eventually makes its way back to you. He or she may fill out the hard copy or may email the review back to the senior reviewer. The reviewer has four weeks to do this.
After the senior reviewer gets each review of your paper, a review summary is made and a score is computed. Copies are made of the summaries and reviews. The originals are then Federal Expressed to the chair.
The chair tabulates all the scores, sorts your paper according to score, records it in a database, and prints out a set of custom lists for each senior reviewer summarizing all the papers.
The following week, the paper selection meeting occurs. This meeting, where the fate of your paper is determined, lasts for two full days. If your paper is on the very bottom or very top of the list, very little discussion is given to your paper (unless the senior reviewer wants a short discussion by full committee). This no-discussion acceptance/rejection eats away at the top and bottom of the list until the density of discussion slows the process.
Then a "triage" session occurs. During this time, the senior and secondary reviewers, as well as others who might share expertise in the subject area, discuss your paper. They then decide to accept, reject, or discuss your paper. If they decide to accept or reject, your paper will receive a short summary in full committee session. But let's say they opt for discussion.
Toward the latter part of the first day, the triage session is over and the real work begins. About 60% of the papers could not be judged easily one way or the other. Yours is among them. So the entire committee discusses each paper and decides its fate. Often the discussion is postponed while more people read your paper and discuss it with the other senior reviewers. These papers are then discussed, often over dinner.
The second day is taken up with full committee discussions of your paper. I've been in sessions when some papers have been discussed and then postponed and then discussed again for five or six times. There's a lot of argument, some shouting, photos are passed around, and the slides are peered at. Usually the videotapes are viewed during the breaks. For difficult cases, summary letters are written to you that described the final opinion of the committee. At the end of the day, consensus has been achieved on all submissions, and your paper is either accepted or rejected.
After that, the disposition of each paper is double checked by the entire committee. All materials that go back to you are collected, and all copies to be destroyed are collected. People say good bye and rush off to the airport. Some stay to help the chair to group accepted papers into sessions for the conference, try to make up some sort of silly theme for each session, and to assign session chairs among the senior reviewers.
The chair then takes the database and generates acceptance or rejection letters and packages it up with any additional material to be sent back to you. You find out whether your paper was accepted or not in about 10 weeks' time.
If all this sounds like a scheme to exercise Federal Express, you're right. SIGGRAPH's Federal Express bills for this process run over $3,000. That doesn't count your Federal Express bill, which in toto probably matches this.
The SIGGRAPH Secret
Just what is it they are discussing about your paper? Why are they shouting?
The SIGGRAPH paper selection meeting is an intense experience that only a few dozen people have ever encountered. It is not coincidental that the same people who sit on the selection committee will author many papers that appear in SIGGRAPH year after year. This is not because they're part of the "in" crowd whose papers are given favorable treatment-I haven't seen anything like that the times I've been on the committee. There are two real reasons. The first is that the program committee members are all accomplished authorities in their respective fields-they tend to do good stuff. The second reason, though, is due to their experience as a papers committee member. In this, they do have an advantage over you, an ordinary author, who hasn't been among the chosen few.
The advantage these people have is that they know what it takes to get a SIGGRAPH paper accepted. They know what the reviewers like and don't like. They know what kinds of things get discussed in the selection meeting. In short, they know the secret of what SIGGRAPH is looking for.
Review Criteria
What the technical program committee talks about when they consider your paper in their secret discussion is not really complicated. They discuss the questions in the review form you receive back with your paper.
They discuss what the reviewers said in their answers and whether they believed the reviewers. They talk about their personal answers to the review form questions concerning your paper. They sometimes are absolutely positive, or other times may admit they're unsure. Often times they want other committee members to read your paper and form an opinion. Several people who are intrigued may volunteer and enter into a small separate discussion on the various points in your paper.
The questions on the review form change slightly from year to year, but the basic thrust remains the same. If you know the questions asked on this form, you'll be able to predict what the discussion topics will be in the committee meeting. Let's look at the questions and see what kind of discussion goes with each.
Briefly summarize the paper.
This question really is a sanity check to make sure the reviewer understood the paper. The most dangerous mistake you can make when writing your paper is assuming that the reviewer will understand the point of your paper. The complaint is often heard that the reviewer did not understand what an author was trying to say. Remember, SIGGRAPH operates under the twin constraints of speed and quality. If you have quality, but it can't be recognized by reviewers who are in a hurry, you'll get rejected.
What does this paper contribute to computer graphics?
This question often generates the most discussion. Is your paper a pioneering new direction? Or is it just a small delta over previous work? The collective memory and knowledge of the papers committee is truly awesome. Obscure work that has appeared in a seemingly unrelated journal, or work embodied in some commercial product is at the collective fingertips of the committee. Nearly any facet of computer graphics, no matter how small, seems to be known by someone on the committee. Thus, your work is judged against a very rich context and history.
Your paper will get rejected unless you make it very clear, up front, what you think your paper has contributed. If you don't explicitly state the problem you're solving, the context of your problem and solution, and how your paper differs (and improves upon) previous work, you're trusting that the reviewers will figure it out. Don't try to make the reviewers dig it out from inside your paper. Maybe they will, or maybe they won't.
Is the paper stimulating?
Is your paper likely to create a new direction for research in computer graphics? Are people going to read your paper and want to extend your ideas? Are they going to read your system paper and say "Yes! I've been wanting to implement something like this, and now I know how." Is your application paper going to make people talk about your great new way to use computer graphics? Will your algorithm be implemented by dozens of people to become a standard widget in the graphics toolkit? Or is your paper a dead end? Is it just going to take up pages in SIGGRAPH, not be read or referenced, just drop out of sight?
Again, stating the problem and its context is important. But what you want to do here is to state the "implications" of your solution. Sure it's obvious....to you. But you run the risk of misunderstanding and rejection if you don't spell it out explicitly in your introduction.
Is the paper of interest to the SIGGRAPH audience?
Does your paper solve a long-standing problem that people want to know how to solve? Is your system or application interesting to a wide swath of the audience? Or is your paper so narrow that only ten people at the conference will care about it? When you speak will the auditorium be packed, or will everyone leave?
Well, to get rejected, pick a subject no one cares about. But, if your subject has less than obvious application to a wide range of graphics problems, you'd better figure out how to say it convincingly in your introduction.
Is the paper well written?
Your ideas may be great, the problem of burning interest to a lot of people, but your paper might be so poorly written that no one could figure out what you were saying. If English isn't your native tongue, you should be especially sensitive to this issue. Many otherwise good papers have floundered on an atrocious text. If you have a planned organization for your discussion and you not only stick to it, but tell your readers over and over where you are in that organization, you'll have a well written paper. Really, you don't have to have a literary masterpiece with sparkling prose.
Can an experienced practitioner in the field duplicate the results from the paper and the references?
This question often gets people shouting in the committee meeting. Basically the question is about completeness. Your paper may be doing something very interesting, of obvious importance to graphics. But your paper leaves something out. Your description of what you're doing is so sketchy and abbreviated that no one will be able to do the same thing. The key purpose of a technical or scientific paper is that it contains enough information so that an experienced practitioner, say, a graduate student in graphics, can reproduce the experiment. If you've not explained enough about how you do things-even if you think it's just obvious-then it's quite likely your paper will be rejected.
Should we accept this paper for SIGGRAPH 93? Why?
This last question is the final recommendation about acceptance. This recommendation is tabulated to make a score for your paper that determines where in the sorted list your paper will find itself. I used to think that if just one reviewer didn't like the paper, you'd be dead. But since I've been on the committee I've found that that's not true at all. I've seen some rejected papers that have had four "accept" recommendations and one "maybe." This is because the committee doesn't blindly follow the scores at all. They really discuss the merits of each paper. A paper might be a solid technical paper, written by well-known names, but it might be boring. It might be just so small an advance over existing techniques that it's not very exciting. The committee has a detailed discussion trying to isolate a new twist in the paper. The discussion goes back and forth about whether the new twist is obvious or not. Even though it gets favorable reviews, the committee decides to reject.
On the other hand, a paper might have a really neat new idea. That idea may open up a whole new line of work. But the paper is badly written, and it doesn't really explain things enough so that someone without a Ph.D. in mathematical physics would be able to do anything with it. Because of this, all the reviews are bad. Someone says that one of the authors is a responsible person and will probably rewrite the paper into something decent. Someone else says that there's no guarantee that anything at all will be changed, then the proceedings will have this horrible paper in it: why not reject and wait till next year? Finally the committee votes, it passes by a narrow margin. Thus the committee has decided to gamble on the authors to fix the problems once they're pointed out. Sometimes the gamble pays off; sometimes it doesn't.
All this brings up a phenomenon that happens inside the paper selection meeting. Often a committee member may take up the cause of getting your paper "in" and argue for acceptance of your paper. Tom Sederberg, the SIGGRAPH 91 chair, has called the people who can ferret out the good features of your paper "paper champions." On the other hand, there may be a committee member who is very articulate, forceful, and negative, who argues against your paper. They look for and find flaws in your paper, they sway the committee to reject your paper. Ed Catmull, the SIGGRAPH 92 chair, has called these people "paper killers."
One job of the papers chair is to see that the committee is staffed with people who are paper champions. We want to avoid paper killers.
So that's it. That's what goes on in the discussion. I must admit that as a paper author I've been guilty of screwing up on almost all the points mentioned in the review criteria. My long string of paper rejects have been due to repeated deficiencies in not stating the problem or its context, not explaining why the subject is interesting, writing disorganized papers, and leaving out key points that I thought were obvious. And just writing stuff that was plain hard to read, so that some of the reviewers just missed my point.
Mistakes
The characteristics that make SIGGRAPH so attractive - speed and high quality - also make SIGGRAPH an imperfect vehicle for technical dissemination of graphics ideas. The review process is far from perfect. The chair needs to get your paper quickly distributed. The first mistakes are made right there: among the 200 or so papers, some are just sent to the wrong senior reviewer. The senior reviewer may not carefully read your paper and ask the wrong people to review it. Those people may not read your paper carefully, they misunderstand it. Finally, you may have your paper attacked by a paper killer that the chair mistakenly appointed.
How can you protect yourself against these mistakes? You must make your paper easy to read. You've got to make it easy for anyone to tell what your paper is about, what problem it solves, why the problem is interesting, what is really new in your paper (and what isn't), why it's so neat. And you must do it up front. In other words, you must write a dynamite introduction. In your introduction you can address most of the points we talked about in the last section. If you do it clearly and succinctly, you set the proper context for understanding the rest of your paper. Only then should you go about describing what you've done.
Another point is why rendering papers have an advantage in SIGGRAPH. If you have good-looking pictures, you've got your foot in the door. SIGGRAPH reviewers are like everyone else. They first look at the pictures in your paper. If your pictures are really good looking, they're going to go to some effort to find out how you did them.
You can use those pictures in another way. Ivan Sutherland once told me that Scientific American articles are constructed so that you can get the point of the article just by reading the captions to the illustrations. Now, I'm not suggesting that you write a technical comic book; but you should take a look at those SIGGRAPH papers you were initially attracted to and see how they went about getting their point across.
Unless you write about a very limited subject, or unless your results are technically incorrect, rejection has very little to do with the subject of your paper. It has a great deal to do with how you wrote your paper. After all, if everyone misunderstood your paper, you might consider that it might not be quite as clear as you thought. Reviewers are in a hurry: you have to get your paper just right or you will suffer rejection. Rejection doesn't come from the subject area, it really just comes from an imperfect understanding on both sides.
But on the whole, it's a very noisy process. The SIGGRAPH review is done quickly, by the best people the chair knows, and by the best people they know, with everyone earnestly committed to put out the highest quality proceedings possible. Mistakes are sometimes made.
What SIGGRAPH Wants...
There seems to be a number of prevalent myths and misunderstandings about what it is that SIGGRAPH wants and doesn't want for its papers. Each year, the papers that appear in the proceedings appear to be more and more technical, about narrower and narrower areas. I've spoken with many people who've been concerned about the path that the papers sessions for SIGGRAPH have taken.
I fear that this trend is all too real. I'm very worried about it. I believe that the papers sessions at SIGGRAPH are in trouble. Only about 10% of the technical program registrants go to the papers sessions. Sometimes fewer than 200 people are in attendance at a paper session. This tells me that very few people find the SIGGRAPH papers interesting anymore.
For some years, people thought of the papers sessions as almost exclusively about rendering - SIGGRAPH as "SIGRay" or "SIGRadiosity." Or people have viewed the papers sessions as valid only for those papers that have been about "pure" graphics. Almost everyone agrees that the papers are the exclusive domain of the academics, exploring esoteric and obscure corners of graphics.
I believe that the reason for this alarming narrowing of SIGGRAPH papers is a dangerous positive feedback loop. You see, people can't see what papers are rejected. They can only see the papers that are accepted. Thus when you look at a proceedings you see a certain set of papers and you say, "Ahh,...THAT'S the kind of thing that SIGGRAPH wants." So, if you have an idea for a paper that isn't like the kind that have been appearing in SIGGRAPH for the last ten years or so, you wouldn't send it in to SIGGRAPH. You say, THIS is not really what they want at SIGGRAPH anymore, they want THAT. If you are brave, do submit to SIGGRAPH, and your paper becomes a casualty of the 80% rejection rate, you feel that SIGGRAPH really doesn't want your type of paper anymore. Thus you don't send anything in to SIGGRAPH about that subject again.
Well, the papers committee and the papers chair don't really determine what SIGGRAPH publishes. The authors who brave the SIGGRAPH review process are the real controllers of what appears in SIGGRAPH. The committee can only select among the papers that are submitted. Consider this: if there are 150 rendering papers submitted, only two systems papers, one interactive techniques paper, and no applications papers submitted, what will the proceedings look like? Then everyone will say, "See, SIGGRAPH only wants rendering." But what really happened is that SIGGRAPH "rejected" 127 rendering papers, and rejected only one systems paper, and didn't reject a single application paper!
How Can Papers Sessions Be Fixed?
Is there a way to make a kinder, gentler SIGGRAPH? Can something be done about the 80% rejection rate? Actually, something has been done about it. Several years ago, there was an institutional constraint on the papers session and proceedings to fit in a single track. Because of this, there was a limit on the maximum number of SIGGRAPH papers that would be accepted, no matter how many good papers there were. During those years, one thing that was watched very closely was the number of papers that were accepted as the paper selection meeting progressed. As the limit was approached, people tended to get a bit more critical of flaws in the paper under discussion. Almost as a confirmation of the policy, the limit was never reached. Meanwhile, the number of SIGGRAPH submissions (and rejections) steadily increased. Today, that constraint has been lifted. There is no longer any limit on the number of papers allowed. And pleasantly, I found that during the last meeting, concern about the number of accepted papers was not a big issue. In SIGGRAPH '92, no parallel sessions happened to be required. We're still under the old limit. But now, the number of papers accepted is solely determined by the big issue. The big issue, of course, is "Is it above the [quality] threshold?"
It is foolish to capriciously tinker with the speed and the quality of SIGGRAPH in the hopes one might fix the serious positive feedback focus problem. Frankly, I'm afraid to make big, sweeping changes in a process that works well a lot of the time. However, you'll note that this year there is a new class of papers: long papers. Only systems and applications category papers will be admitted in the long class. Andy van Dam has pointed out that the page limit for regular papers favors research papers. A research paper can usually state the problem, its context, and the solution in a short space. A system paper needs more pages to do this and it must also describe the experience that the builders have had with the system. Eight pages was just not enough room to write a decent system or application paper.
The root cause of the positive feedback loop, however, remains. It is self-censure. People just won't send in papers on subjects they think SIGGRAPH doesn't want. I can understand this: even after all my SIGGRAPH rejections, it still hurts.
The entire reason I've written this document is to try to break the loop. I want to communicate to you, and I want you to communicate to your colleagues, that SIGGRAPH is in the business of publishing good technical work in graphics of "all" flavors.
SIGGRAPH really does want papers about user interfaces, visualization, graphics hardware, graphics software systems, interactive techniques, displays, innovative applications, video games, combined graphics and sound, hypermedia, virtual reality, typesetting, color, paint systems, image and video compression, image and video processing, and how to make pictures that aren't just pretty but say something too.
Sure it's true that they've rejected papers in all these areas over and over again. But, it's also true that they've rejected 10 times as many papers on ray tracing. The narrowness of the technical focus of the papers can be fixed only if you and your colleagues send in quality papers about a wider range of subjects. My earnest hope is that the SIGGRAPH 93 technical papers program will not just be about modeling, rendering, and animation.
Jim Kajiya, SIGGRAPH 93 Papers Chair