Testing Ourselves

Mahta Moghaddam
Levent Sevgi

Aspects of Academic Publishing

W. Ross Stone and Levent Sevgi

his article reviews aspects of

academic and scientific publishing, primarily in the context of
IEEE publications and policies. The
intent is to provide a brief tutorial for
those new to academic publishing. The
material on publication ethics and the
IEEEs associated policies should be
useful to all, including those experienced with academic publishing.
The types of IEEE publications and
what they publish are reviewed. The
importance of a publications scope is
explained, and publication and author
metrics are examined. The steps in
the publication process are described
in detail, along with the roles of the
Editor-in-Chief (EiC), associate editors, reviewers, and authors. Ethical
issues and the principles of scholarly
publishing are examined, including
authorship and the responsibilities of
authors, duplicate submission and publication, and plagiarism.

Introduction
The purpose of this column is to discuss a number of issues that arise in academic and scientific publishing. This is
intended both as a tutorial on the nature
and process of academic publishing, and
to examine appropriate practices for
authors and editors. Many of these issues
fall into the category of ethical issues,
but they also are issues about which the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MAP.2015.2488590
Date of publication: 27 January 2016

134

tions. These policies are contained in

the IEEE PSPB Operations Manual [1].
The PSPB consists of approximately 30
volunteers, including elected Membersat-Large and representatives from other
boards and organizations within the
IEEE. The PSPB is chaired by the Vice
President of the PSPB, who is elected by
the IEEE Assembly.

major academic publishers (including the

IEEE) have developed policies. Another
purpose of this column is to review the
IEEE policies concerning some of these
key issues, and to provide references to
those policies for those who would like to
find further information.
It is hoped that portions of this column will be useful to both those who
are new to academic publishing (e.g., students), as well as those who have experience publishing papers. The information
on the basics of the publishing process is
intended for those who are new to academic publishing. The material on publication ethics and the IEEEs associated
policies should be useful for all. Based on
the growing number of incidents of violations of IEEE policies related to publication ethics that IEEE EiCs have seen
in recent years, it is apparent that many
well-meaning (and experienced) authors
are unfamiliar with these policies.
This column is written in the context of the publishing environment and
policies of the IEEE. Other academic publishers may do things differently. However, most share a substantial
degree of overlap in the basic principles.
The publication policies of the IEEE
are set by the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB). The
PSPB is one of the six major boards
reporting to the IEEE Board of Directors. It has the responsibility of setting
all policies related to IEEE publishing,
oversight of IEEE Xplore, and oversight of all IEEE publishing opera-

The IEEE publishes over 190 journals,

transactions, letters, and magazines.
These are all considered peer-reviewed
publications. This means that the technical material in these publications has
been critically reviewed by at least two
independent subject-matter experts before being accepted for publication (see
the discussion of the peer-review process, below). Journals and transactions
typically publish technical papers reporting new results, usually with a relatively
narrow focus. Although some are called
journal in their title and some are called
transaction, they are basically the same
type of publication. In what follows,
these will be referred to as journals. The
terms paper and article will then be
used interchangeably to describe what
journals publish.
The regular technical papers published in IEEE journals usually fall in
the range of six to ten published pages
in length, although this varies widely

December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

Basic Concepts
The Types of IEEE Publications,
and What They Publish

across the IEEE. Some journals have a

firm maximum page limit, others employ
mandatory over-length page charges to
encourage brevity, and some use both.
The IEEE Transactions on Antennas
and Propagation (TAP) currently has
a maximum page limit of 15 published
pages and mandatory overlength page
charges of US$200 per page for papers
longer than eight published pages. Many
IEEE journals also have voluntary page
charges. These are per-page charges
requested from the author(s) of papers
after the paper has been accepted as a
way of deferring the cost of publication.
They are voluntary: the author does not
have to declare whether or not they will
be paid until after the paper has been
accepted, and payment or nonpayment
does not affect publication.
Most IEEE journals, including TAP,
also publish communications and comments (or letters to the Editor). Communications are shorter papers (in the
case of TAP, normally four pages or less,
and not exceeding six published pages),
typically with a scope narrower than a
regular paper. Communications typically expand on a previously published
result, or provide something new about a
specific topic. Comments are brief notes
commenting on (or replying to comments on) other published materials.
Letters are journals that specialize in the rapid publication of shorter
papers. For example, the IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters
limits papers to an absolute maximum of
four published pages, and typically has a
median time from submission to online
publication of 9.2 weeks.
Magazines are publications with peerreviewed technical content, but they also
contain non-peer-reviewed material of
general interest to their intended audience (typically, an IEEE Society). This
magazine is a good example. Magazines technical articles tend to be of
broader interest, and of a more tutorial
and review nature, than the papers in
a journal.

The Importance of
a Publications Scope
Each IEEE publication has a statement of its scope. This is a very imporIEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

tant tool for both the publication and

potential authors. The scope specifies
the technical field that the articles
in the publication must cover. The
scope of a publication is approved by
the IEEE Periodicals Committee as
part of the process of approving a new
publication. Publication scopes are
also reviewed by the EiCs and the
chairs of the publication committees
of all IEEE Societies and Councils,
to ensure that there are no overlaps
that may cause problems. Changes in
the scope of a publication must be
formally approved by the Periodicals
Committee, and undergo scrutiny by
the other IEEE Societies and Councils before being approved.
The scope of a publication is important for authors, because it provides
guidance to an author regarding whether
the topic of an authors paper is appropriate for the publication. The publications
scope usually also gives guidance regarding the types of articles a publication
will accept. One of the biggest problems EiCs have is receiving articles that
are out of scope for their publication.
It is not unusual for as many as 10% of
the submissions received by a publication to be out of scope. Under IEEE
policy, the EiC of a publication can prescreen submitted articles to ensure the
following (this list is quoted from [1, Sec.
8.2.2.A.3]):
a) The author(s) have followed the
IEEE guidelines for style.
b) The author(s) have not obviously violated IEEE Policies.
c) The article is comprehensible (in
other words, not so poorly written
that it is unreadable).
d) The subject and contents of the article meet the scope of the periodical
or a specific issue.
e) The article meets a minimum criterion for technical substance established for the periodical.
If criteria a through d are not met,
the EiC may administratively reject
the submission, without submitting
it for formal review. If criteria e is in
question, the EiC may reject the submission if there is general concurrence
after consulting with at least two other
members of the editorial board. It is
December 2015

incumbent on authors to be sure that

their submission falls within the scope
of the publication. It is often useful for
an author to contact the EiC of a publication before submitting an article, to
check to see if both the scope and type
of the article being considered for submission are appropriate.

Bibliometrics:
How Publications Are Ranked
A tremendous amount has been written in recent years about attempts to
measure the relative quality of publications and of the articles published
in them. Any meaningful attempt to
review that literature would take more
pages than are available in this column. Fortunately, the IEEE, led by
Gianluca Setti, a recent IEEE Vice
President of Publications, has undertaken a significant and ongoing study
of the proper use of bibliometrics: the
proper use of tools to measure the
quality of publications and the articles
published in them. A summary of this
can be found at https://www.ieee.org/
publications_standards/publications/
rights/bibliometrics_statement.html.
This includes a video explaining the
basic concepts, and a link to the full
statement [2] adopted by the IEEE
Board of Directors in September 2013
on the appropriate use of bibliometrics.
It is worth quoting portions of two of
the key tenets of that statement, as
given on the above-cited Web page
(emphasis in the original):
Any journal-based metric is not
designed to capture qualities of individual papers, and must therefore
not be used as a proxy for single-article quality or to evaluate individual
scientists.
While bibliometrics may be employed as a source of additional
information for quality assessment
within a specific area of research,
the primary manner for assessment
of either the scientific quality of a
research project or of an individual scientist should be peer review,
which will consider the scientific
content as the most important aspect in addition to the publication
expectations in the area, as well as
135

the size and practice of the research

community.
One of the most commonly used bibliometric measures is the impact factor
of a publication, computed by Thomson Reuters. For 2014, the impact factor
of a publication is given by the number
of times all articles published by that
publication in 2012 and 2013 were cited
in 2014 by the publications indexed by
Thomson Reuters, divided by the total
number of citeable articles published by
that publication in 2012 and 2013 (and
analogously for other years).
The impact factor has taken on what
many (including the IEEE) believe
to be an inappropriately large role in
the assessment of the quality of papers
and of the quality of work done by the
authors of papers (two uses for which
the impact factor was never intended,
and should never be used). Discussions
on the use, misuse, and manipulation
of the impact factor can be found in the
references cited in [2]. It is strongly recommended that anyone who is likely to
be assessed or have their work assessed
using the impact factor read [2] and the
main references cited therein.

Author Metrics: How Authors

Can Be Ranked
As noted in the previous subsection, the
IEEE believes that authors and their
research should be assessed on the basis
of peer review. That has not stopped
people from trying to assign numbers
for assessing the quality and quantity of
authors work. Most of these numbers
involve measures of the number of times
an authors papers have been cited or
downloaded, often normalized in some
manner. Again, any meaningful review
of these metrics would by itself exceed
the space available for this column. The
literature review in [3] and the references
cited therein provide a current introduction to this topic. The report [4] from
which this was taken provides an interesting look at the United Kingdoms efforts
to deal with the use (and misuse) of metrics in assessing research and researchers.

The Publishing Process

This section will review the process typically followed in processing a paper, from
136

a variety of common file

formats. The IEEE also
Authors are urged to consult
offers a substantial array
the Web pages for the
of author tools for preparing articles. These are availpublication to which they
able at http://www.ieee.org/
are considering submitting
publications_standards/puba paper in order to gain an
lications/authors/authors_
understanding of the process
journals.html. This includes
templates for preparing artiused by that publication.
cles for most IEEE journals
and magazines using Microsoft
Word
and LaTeX, information on
submission to publication. While the prothe style used in IEEE publications, help
cess described is typical for most IEEE
with editing, and formats for references.
publications, there are variations. These
There is extensive information on how to
occur both in the organization of the ediprovide figures and graphics for articles,
torial structure of the publications (which,
and how authors can supplement their
in turn, can affect how the revision and
articles with multimedia files. Authors
decision-making processes are handled),
are urged to become familiar with and
and in the number and types of revisions
use the resources available for article
allowed. Authors are urged to consult the
preparation on the IEEE Web site.
Web pages for the publication to which
Once the article has been prepared,
they are considering submitting a paper
it is typically submitted via ScholarOne
in order to gain an understanding of the
Manuscript. Some IEEE publications
process used by that publication. The foluse other online submission tools, and
lowing subsections trace the processing of
a few accept submissions via e-mail.
the paper in chronological order.
The online submission process typically
involves uploading the manuscript file
Paper Submission
for the article, and answering a series
As discussed in the section on The
of questions. These questions typiImportance of a Publications Scope, it
cally include assurances on the part of
is very important for an author to be sure
the author that IEEE policies related
that a paper falls within the scope of the
to duplicate submission and publicapublication to which it is submitted. If it
tion, plagiarism, conflict of interest,
does not, the paper is likely to be adminand authorship have been followed.
istratively rejected before ever being sent
The author will typically be asked to
for review. If the paper is other than a
electronically sign the IEEE copyright
standard submission for the publicaform. The IEEE copyright form allows
tion, it is wise to check with the publicaauthors to retain significant rights.
tions EiC before submitting the paper
Information on IEEE copyright policy,
to see if it is appropriate to submit the
the IEEE copyright form, and author
paper. Examples might include tutorials,
rights can be found at http://www.ieee.
reviews, and papers that are unusually
org/publications_standards/publications/
long. Articles for magazines typically difrights/index.html (an easy-to-remember
fer in content, writing style, and amount
shortcut to this information is at http://
of technical detail from papers submitwww.ieee.org/copyright).
ted to transactions and journals. It is
important to understand what audience
a publication is trying to reach, and to
The Importance of
make sure that the article being submitAbstracts and Keywords
ted is appropriate for the audience of the
Two important elements that will be
publication to which it is submitted.
requested as part of the submission proThe majority of IEEE publicacess are an abstract for the article and a
tions now use ScholarOne Manuscript,
series of keywords. These may not seem
a Web-based paper-submission sysvery important. It turns out that they can
tem. This system will accept papers in
be critical to the future success of getting
December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

an article found by researchers, and getting it read (and therefore, getting the
article cited).
In this day of digital libraries such as
IEEE Xplore, articles are found using
search engines. While IEEE Xplore and
some other digital libraries do support
full-text searching of articles, the default
searching mode uses index terms. Most
of the other major scientific indices (e.g.,
INSPEC and Ei Compendex) also index
the abstracts of articles, and use keywords to aid searching. A good abstract
and the right keywords can (and often
do) make the difference between a
highly read and cited article, and one
that is rarely found. The IEEE authors
tools Web site, mentioned in the previous subsection, has a document that
describes how to prepare a good abstract
(http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/abstract_description.
pdf). An author who wants to have his
or her work cited and used will spend at
least as much time in preparing a good
abstract as writing the introduction and
conclusions to the paper.
The IEEE has spent a great deal of
time preparing and maintaining a taxonomy (a list of keywords) for authors to
use in submitting articles to IEEE publications. This is available at http://www.
ieee.org/documents/taxonomy_v101.pdf.
This was prepared by subject-matter
experts from each of the IEEE Societies and Councils, and is maintained by
a separate editorial board. If an author
finds that a needed keyword is missing,
there is a procedure for adding words to
the list. Again, the likelihood of others
reading and citing your work may well
depend on the choice of good keywords
to describe the article.

The Role of the Associate Editor,

and the Review Process
Submitted articles typically undergo a
prescreening process. This was described
in the section on The Importance of a
Publications Scope. If the article passes the prescreening process, it is usually
assigned to an associate editor. The associate editors typically report to the EiC, and
each associate editor deals with a separate technical area under the scope of the
publication. The associate editor assigns
IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

the article to reviewers, and monitors the

progress of the reviewing process.
In the case of an article with multiple authors, one author serves as the
corresponding author. It is the responsibility of this corresponding author to
handle all correspondence with the publication, and to also keep all of the other
authors on the article informed of all
correspondence. A discussion of the ethical responsibilities of authors of multipleauthor articles is given in the Ethical
Behavior Among Authors section.
An author should receive a prompt
acknowledgment of the receipt of the
submission. The IEEE requires that
the acknowledgment include a date by
which the author can expect to receive a
first decision on the article. IEEE policy
states that this date should be no more
than 90 days from the date of receipt of
the article by the editor [1, Sec. 8.2.2.1].
The IEEE requires that every article
be reviewed by at least two reviewers
who are competent and have experience in the area of the subject matter
of the article [1, Sec. 8.2.2.A.4]. Many
IEEE publications use more than two
reviewers. This is commonly done to
either ensure that at least two reviews
are received in a timely fashion, and/
or that there are sufficient reviews to
allow a decision on the paper to be easily made. The associate editor combines
the reviewers comments with his or her
own judgment, and makes a recommendation to the EiC regarding a decision
on the article. The EiC makes the final
decision, and transmits that decision
and the comments of the reviewers and
the associate editor to the author (typically, through the ScholarOne Manuscript system).
Most publications allow four possible categories of outcome to the reviewing process.
Acceptance as is means that the
article is accepted without any requirements for revision. This is extremely rare
in most publications. It is not unusual for
less than a few percent of all articles submitted to be ever accepted as submitted.
A request for minor revisions typically means that the reviewers have
recommended modifications that are
straightforward and do not involve sigDecember 2015

nificant technical issues. The EiC will

indicate whether adequately making the
recommended modifications will likely
result in the article being accepted for
publication, or if additional review will
be required.
A request for major revisions usually
means that the reviewers have identified significant problems with the article.
These can be technical issues, problems
with the organization and writing of the
article, or both. Again, the EiC will indicate whether additional review will be
required after the recommended modifications are made, but in most cases
where major revisions are asked for,
additional review is needed.
The fourth possible outcome is
rejection. IEEE policy requires that
the EiC provide the reasons for rejecting an article.
Some IEEE publications do not offer
all of these outcomes. Rapid-publication
letters journals may offer only acceptance, minor revision, or rejection.
In the broadest sense, most publications in the IEEE review articles
based on three criteria: quality, novelty, and significance. Quality involves
both technical quality (the material has
to be technically correct) and quality
of presentation (the material has to be
understandable and adequately well presented). Novelty is a requirement that
the material be new: it should not repeat
what is already in the literature. Significance implies that the results reported should be of value and importance
to the field. Some IEEE publications
weight these three factors differently in
evaluating submissions. For example,
a magazine that publishes review and
tutorial articles may not weight novelty
as heavily as a transactions that reports
the latest results in the same field. As
originally proposed, IEEE Access, the
IEEEs online wide-scope open-access
journal, was going to weight only quality
and novelty, and leave it to the readers to
judge significance.

Single-Blind and Double-Blind

Reviews
Most IEEE publications employ singleblind review: the identities and affiliations of the reviewers are kept from
137

the authors of the article, but the identities and affiliations of the authors of
the article are known to the reviewers
and the editors. (IEEE policy requires
that reviewers remain anonymous to
authors, unless a reviewer chooses to
waive anonymity.) Some IEEE publications (and some non-IEEE publications) employ a double-blind review, in
which the authors identities and affiliations also remain hidden until after the
final acceptance or rejection decision
has been made. Some publications allow
double-blind review to be requested by
submitting authors.
Snodgrass [7] has provided a thoughtful analysis and comparison of these two
reviewing methods. His conclusions and
those in the references he cites make a
rather strong case that double-blind
reviewing removes several potential biases
from the process, including biases related
to gender and related to prominence or
publishing history in the field. The IEEE
Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S)
annual Student Paper Contest has used
double-blind reviewing since 2009, and
the data from the experience with that
contest support similar conclusions.
It should also be noted that IEEE
policy [1, Sec. 8.2.2.A.4] allows authors
to request that specific persons be
excluded as reviewers or editors for a
particular submitted paper.

The Role of the EiC

Note that in the above description of the
review process, it was the EiC who made
the final decision regarding the disposition of the article. That is a requirement of IEEE policy [1, Sec. 8.2.1.D.1].
However, the degree to which the EiC
becomes involved with a particular article varies widely among IEEE publications, and can vary among articles within
a given publication. For publications with
a very large number of articles, the EiC
must heavily rely on the recommendations of the associate editors. For such
publications, the EiC may only take
the time to carefully look at an article
when there is a significant disagreement
among the reviewers of an article, or
when the associate editor asks for more
involvementor when an author appeals
a decision.
138

One of the measures of the quality

of an EiC is how he or she handles situations in which reviewers (and/or reviewers and an associate editor) are not in
agreement as to what should be done
with an article. The key issues here are
the willingness and ability of the EiC
to become directly involved (and sometimes, to make a difficult decision). In
such cases of disagreement, an EiC
needs to first assess whether he or she is
technically competent to decide among
the differing opinions presented by the
reviewers and/or the associate editor. If
so, then it is the responsibility of the EiC
to read the article and make a decision.
That may involve overruling reviewers
and/or an associate editor. If the EiC
does not feel technically competent to
make such a decision without additional
help, then it is incumbent on the EiC to
independently obtain additional input
from one or more competent reviewers
to resolve the issue.
Interestingly, if an EiC gets directly
involved in such situations, makes a decision based on specific criteria, and communicates those criteria to the author,
there are usually no significant problems.
Authors may disagree with the result,
but if the criteria are reasonable, it is
hard to disagree with the fairness of the
process. In contrast, problems almost
always arise when an EiC does not
become involved in such situations. The
result is that a decision is made where
there are obviously conflicting criteria,
and such a decision is likely to appear
arbitrary to the author. That rarely is
interpreted as a fair process by an author.
Problems also often arise when the reasons for a decision are not fully and clearly communicated to an author.

If the authors do not agree with a

suggested revision, they will need to be
very specific in explaining why they are
refusing to make the revision. If what
has been suggested is technically incorrect, then this may be straightforward.
If what has been suggested involves
adding or removing material, reorganizing or clarifying the text, or performing
additional work to support the claims
made in the article, the authors probably need to give careful consideration
to what has been requested. At least two
independent authorities (a reviewer and
the associate editor) have agreed that
the request is needed. It is unlikely that
a refusal to respond to the request will
be readily accepted, no matter how good
a justification is provided by the authors.
The authors may need to consider deciding between responding to the request
and submitting the article to another
publication.

Two Keys to Getting

a Paper Accepted

If an article is not immediately accepted or rejected, some level of revision

is almost certainly required. Reviewers
are usually reasonably specific regarding
what revisions they feel are needed (and
a good associate editor or EiC will ask a
reviewer to be specific if that is needed).
If the authors agree with the suggested
revisions, then the article can be revised,
and the next important step is resubmitting the revised article.

When responding to reviews with a

revised paper, there are two key steps
authors can take that in many instances
and with most editors will significantly
increase the likelihood of the revised
paper being accepted. These involve
making it easy to evaluate the revisions,
and making sure that the requested revisions are actually included in the paper.
When a revised version of the article
is submitted, it is a good idea to make it
easy for the associate editor to understand what revisions were made, and
how they relate to the revisions that were
requested. One of the best ways to do
this is to provide a list. Each item in the
list should be one of the quoted specific
requests from a reviewer. Following each
item is an explanation of what change
was made to the article to respond to the
request, including the quoted revised
text. This makes it extremely easy and
quite quick for an associate editor to
verify that the reviewers requests have
been addressed. This is far better than
forcing an associate editor to compare
original and revised versions of a manuscript to determine what changes have
been made, even if a description of those
changes is provided.

December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

Revisions, Acceptance, and Rejection

It is much more likely that an article

will be accepted if an associate editor
can easily verify that all of the changes
requested from the reviewers have been
made by going down a list such as this.
In some cases, this may even allow the
associate editor to avoid the need for an
additional review.
A second key factor is to ensure
that the responses to the reviewers
comments are actually included in the
revised article. It is not uncommon for
authors to provide quite good responses
to reviewers suggestions in the material provided with a revised article, but
to fail to actually include the responses in
the article. Apparently, in such cases the
authors feel that providing the response
to the associate editor is sufficient. That
rarely is true. If the reviewer had the
question or concern, readers are likely to
have the same question or concern, and
the response should be incorporated into
the revised article.

Subsequent Review, and

Acceptance or Rejection
Hopefully, the revised article will be
accepted for publication. If it is not,
it may be sent out for an additional
review. If the scope of the additional
review is limited to the issues raised
in the initial review and any changes
made to the article, and if the same
reviewers are used as were used in the
initial review, that is fine. However,
sometimes either different reviewers
are used, or reviewers decide to expand
the scope of their reviews beyond what
they were concerned about in the initial review. There is nothing fundamentally wrong about this. Unfortunately,
it can result in an iterative situation in
which authors are repeatedly asked to
address new issues with each round of
revision and review, and the process
never converges. That is unfair to the
authors, the reviewers, and the editors.
For that reason, it is best if the editors
involved can use the same reviewers
wherever possible, and limit the scope
to the same issues as were raised in the
initial review. This may require that
the associate editor become directly
involved in evaluating whether a revision has adequately addressed a reviewIEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

ers concerns. That is better than a

nonconverging iterative process.
If the review of the revised article
results in recommendations for additional changes, the associate editor and
EiC have to decide if such changes are
likely to result in an article that can be
published, or if the article should be
rejected. Most publications have a limit
on the number of cycles of revision and
review that will be permitted for an article. If that limit is exceeded, the article
is rejected. If the authors resubmit the
article, it is treated as a new submission
(and this may well mean that it will be
reviewed by a new set of reviewers).
If an article is rejected, there generally is little opportunity for appeal
unless the authors believe that some
bias or impropriety was involved in
the process. According to IEEE policy
[1, Sec. 8.2.1.D.1], The sole responsibility for acceptance or rejection of
an article rests with the editor (in
this context, the policy makes it clear
that editor refers to the EiC). From
a practical standpoint, once an article
has been rejected by a publication, it is
usually best to try to address the issues
that were the basis for the rejection, and
find a different publication to which to
submit the article.
If it is believed that misconduct has
occurred, the IEEE has a well-documented procedure for handling such
complaints. This is covered in detail in
[1, Sec. 8.2.4.A]. The process usually
begins with a formal communication to
the EiC, the chair of the Publication
Committee (or Vice President of Publications) of the Society in charge of the
publication, or to the IEEE Intellectual
Property Office.

Submission
Once an article is accepted for publication, the final version of the manuscript
has to be submitted. The author tools
discussed in the section on Paper Submission should be used. In particular,
it is very important to follow the style
guidelines and citation and reference
formats for the particular publication in
which the article will appear. The IEEE
author tools provide information on the
different formats used by the various
December 2015

IEEE publications. Careful attention

should also be given to the preparation of
figures and equations in articles. Again,
the author tools explain how to properly
prepare these.
One of the most common mistakes
authors make is to fail to use a sufficiently
large font in labeling the axes and other
data on plots and other figures. The best
way to avoid this is to print a copy of the
figure at the size it would appear if printed, and to measure the resultant size of
any fonts. IEEE journal publications typically use a column width of approximately
3.5in (8.9 cm). Figures are typically sized
to be either one or two columns in width.
With a figure adjusted to this size, the
fonts used should be no smaller than 9 pt
(9/72 in, or one-eighth inch, or 3.2mm).
Experience has shown that most people
are rather poor at estimating font sizes: it
is best to measure this.
Articles are typically submitted
using the same ScholarOne Manuscript
submission system that is used for initial article submission and for tracking
reviews and revisions. When submission
of an accepted article is made, the author
will probably be asked several questions
regarding the type of publishing model
to be used, and various page charges.

Publishing Models and Page Charges

Most IEEE publications use a hybrid
open-access publishing model. This
allows the author to choose whether his
or her paper will appear on IEEE Xplore
as part of a subscription package, or will
be available to all readers for free.
If the subscription model is chosen,
there is no charge to the author. However, a reader may be required to have
a subscription to view and download the
article. Some subscriptions are included
in Society membership fees. For example, access to all articles in TAP, IEEE
Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, IEEE Antennas and Propagation
Magazine, and many of the proceedings
of conferences sponsored by the IEEE
AP-S is included in the Society membership. Other subscriptions are purchased by institutions (e.g., universities
and industrial companies), and include
access to essentially all of the material on
IEEE Xplore.
139

If the author chooses the open-access

model, the author agrees to pay a fee
(this is typically US$1,750 per article for
hybrid IEEE open-access journals) for
article processing. The article will then
appear on IEEE Xplore as available to
all readers for free.
Some IEEE journals are open access
only. For these journals, the only option
for the author is to pay the article-processing fee, which is typically US$1,350.
All IEEE publications offer one of
these two open-access options. If an
author cannot afford to pay the articleprocessing fee, there are provisions
under which a journal may waive the
fee, if a request is made. However, this
is usually only done where circumstances require that the article be published
using an open-access model and the
author does not have the resources to
pay the article-processing fee.
The author is not asked which model
will be used until after the article has
been accepted for publication. The choice
of a publishing model cannot therefore
affect the acceptance of the article.
Whether a subscription or openaccess model of publishing is chosen, an
author may also be asked to pay some or
all of three types of page charges: voluntary, mandatory overlength, and color.
Voluntary page charges do not arise
if an open-access model of publishing
is chosen. Voluntary page charges are
indeed voluntary: they are a per-page
charge requested from authors to help
offset the costs associated with processing and publishing the paper. The
amounts vary by publication. A list by
publication is available at http://www.
ieee.org/advertisement/2012vpcopc.pdf.
Mandatory overlength page charges
are imposed if the published length of a
paper exceeds a limit established by the
publication. These charges serve at least
two purposes: they help to encourage
authors to limit papers to a desired maximum length, and they pay the costs associated with papers that would otherwise
cause the publication to exceed its budgeted number of pages. Again, the amounts
vary by publication, and are given in the
same list with the voluntary page charges.
Color page charges are imposed by
most IEEE publications when an author
140

desires that material on a page appear in

print in color. Note that these charges
apply only to color in print. If the material appears in color in the online (IEEE
Xplore) version and in black and white in
the print version, there is no additional
charge. The amounts for such charges
are discussed in the aforementioned
author tools.

Proofing
Almost all IEEE publications edit
accepted articles prior to publishing
them. After editing and formatting,
a proof copy in PDF format is sent to
the author. The author typically has a
few days in which to go through the
proof and return any corrections. It is
very important that this proofreading
step be carefully and thoroughly done.
While the editors have experience editing technical material, they are usually not engineers, and they are usually
not subject-matter experts in the field
of the article. Changes that are made
to correct problems with English can
affect the technical meaning. Symbols
and equations may not appear as they
should after being formatted. Depending on the file format in which the original manuscript was provided by the
author, it may have been necessary to
rekey all of the equations and symbols.
The degree of accuracy with which that
is done is amazingly high, but it is not
perfect. Proofreading the proof copy of
an article is a critical step, and it needs
to be done carefully.

of grammar, punctuation, and style. This

editing usually cannot overcome problems with unclear meaning.
There are a number of English
resources available to authors. The previously mentioned author tools include
an extensive IEEE Style Manual (http://
www.ieee.org/documents/style_manual.
pdf). The IEEE has also identified a
fee-based editing service that will perform several different levels of English
editing on manuscripts (http://www.
journalexperts.com/).

Reprints and Posting

With very few exceptions, articles in

IEEE publications are to be written in
English [1, Sec. 8.1.1.H]. English is not
the first language for the majority of the
world, although it arguably is the language shared most in common, at least
in technical fields. Regardless, it is estimated that over half of the articles submitted to IEEE publications are written
by authors for whom English is not the
first language. Even where English is
the first language of the author(s), many
engineers are often lacking in English
skills. The editing done by most IEEE
publications helps with this, but it is
intended primarily to correct basic issues

Once an article has been accepted,

authors typically want to be able to start
sharing the article with their technical
community. The issue of author posting
of accepted (and published) articles on
the Web is tremendously complicated,
and the policies of academic publishers are the topics of a great deal of controversy. The SHERPA/RoMEO Web
site (http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/
index.php) permits comparing posting
policies for journals and publishers. The
IEEEs policies are considered to fall in
the green category, which is the most
author-friendly category. These policies
are detailed at https://www.ieee.org/
publications_standards/publications/
rights/authorrightsresponsibilities.
html. The basic IEEE policy is to allow
authors to post the accepted version of
their article on their personal Web site or
on their employers Web site. The IEEE
will provide the author with a preprint
version of the article that includes the
IEEE copyright notice, the digital object
identifier (DOI) for the article, and a
notice that the article has been accepted
for publication. Authors are also allowed
to post versions of their article on certain not-for-profit third-party Web sites.
Posting of the final version (the edited,
formatted version that is published on
IEEE Xplore) is not permitted. However, because the accepted preprint version
contains the DOI, users can link to the
final version on IEEE Xplore.
Authors can order printed reprints of
an article. This tends to be rather expensive. Information on ordering reprints is
available in the author tools mentioned
previously. Reprints are substantially

December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

A Note About English

more expensive if they are not ordered

at approximately the time of final article
submission.

A Final Comment About Timing

Most authors are very anxious to get their
papers published. This leads to authors
querying editors about the status of their
papers. If such a query is received when
the paper is undergoing normal processing, that query will only divert the editors
time from work that could spent helping to complete the processing of some
authors paperand perhaps, irritate the
editor. Irritating editors usually does not
benefit authors. If such a query alerts the
editor to something that has gone astray
in the processing of the paper, then it is
a useful query. Knowing when to send a
query regarding a paper requires that the
author have some idea of the time line
associated with the steps in publishing.
The mandated goal for IEEE publications is that the first decision on an
article will be returned to the author
within 90 days. Many IEEE publications
meet this; some do not. The time to the
first decision for some rapid-publication
(e.g., Letters) journals is shorter. Many
IEEE publications post the statistics on
the time to first decision (and in some
cases, on the times to other steps in the
process) on the publications Web page.
If the information is not there, it may
be useful to ask the production editor or
editorial assistant for the average time
when the article is first submitted. If an
article has been under submission for a
time significantly longer than the average
time to first decision for the publication
involved, then a polite query checking on
the status may well be appropriate. However, sending queries before this only
diverts the time of editors from more
useful pursuits, and irritates them.
ScholarOne Manuscript provides some
facilities for tracking the status of articles.
These should be used. It should only
be necessary to query the editorial staff
regarding a submission when an article has
been shown in the wrong status (or without an update to the status) for too long.
If an editor asks for a response from
an author by a certain time, either meet
that schedule, or at least provide an
explanation as to why the schedule canIEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

not be met and an estimate of when the

response will be provided. Ignoring such
requests can mean that nothing happens
on your paper until the editor finally
hears from you, regardless of how long
that may be.

Ethical Issues: Principles

of Scholarly Publishing
There are certain key ethical issues
that the the IEEE considers to be at
the heart of the principles of scholarly
publishing. These include the definition of authorship, the responsibilities of
authors, duplicate submission and publication, and plagiarism.

Authorship: Who Is (and Is Not)

an Author
The IEEE reserves authorship for individuals who have met each of the following conditions (quoted from [1, Sec.
8.2.1.A.1]):
a) Made a significant intellectual contribution to the theoretical development, system or experimental design,
prototype development, and/or the
analysis and interpretation of data
associated with the work contained
in the article;
b) Contributed to drafting the article or
reviewing and/or revising it for intellectual content; and
c) Approved the final version of the
article as accepted for publication,
including references.
Note that neither a manager, an advisor, nor a funding sponsor, who has not
made a significant intellectual contribution to the work reported in an article,
would qualify for authorship. Note that
authors are expected to contribute to
the writing of the article. By the same
consideration, excluding a person who
has made a significant intellectual contribution to the work from contributing
to the writing should not be used as a
method of denying that person authorship: authors should be included in the
writing and approval of the article.

The Responsibilities of Authors

The IEEE PSPB Operations Manual [1,
Sec. 8.2.1.A] places certain responsibilities on authors (this section is based on
the manual). Any part of an article that
December 2015

is essential to the main conclusions of

the article must be the responsibility of
at least one author. In the case of articles
with multiple authors, all authors must
approve the submitted version of the
article and the final version of the article
submitted for publication.
All authors have responsibility for all
work submitted under their name. This
is important. There have been a number of cases in which an authors name
was added to an article without his or
her knowledge. This has led to significant trouble when there were problems
with the article. There have also been
cases where an advisor allowed his or
her name to be put on an article without
carefully reading the article. When the
article was subsequently found to contain
errorsor worse, plagiarismthe advisor was held equally as responsible as the
others listed as authors.
When an article is revised and resubmitted, all coauthors should be asked
to approve the revised version. While a
coauthor has the right to remove his or
her name from an article at any time, an
authors name should not be removed
without his or her permission. Similarly, adding an author after an article
has been initially submitted should only
be done in cases where an honest error
of omission was made, and the person
being added meets the requirements for
authorship.
When an article has multiple authors,
the order of the authors is at the discretion of the authors. Some authors choose
to list authors in the order of their perceived importance of the contribution
to the work reported. Some list authors
alphabetically. Some use other criteria.
The IEEE leaves this to the authors.
However, once the order of the authors
and the list of the authors have been
established, it should not be changed
without the permission of all of the living authors.
Authors just starting out in their
careers should give some consideration to
the order in which their name is listed on
publications. Some institutions give more
credit to publications where an authors
name is listed first. The validity of that is
very questionable, given that at least the
IEEE (along with some other academic
141

publishers) leaves the order of listing of

authors up to the authors, themselves.
Those starting out in their career
should also give careful consideration to
how they list their name on publications.
The key point is to be consistent: you want
search engines, indexers, and all of the
various citation mechanisms to be able to
consistently find your articles as belonging
to you. As an example of what not to do,
listing yourself as W. Stone, W.R. Stone,
R. Stone, and W. Ross Stone on different
papers would be likely to result in those
papers being identified with four different
authors. Since Ross is not an uncommon
family name, even W.R. Stone and W.
Ross Stone could result in confusion (even
though in this case, Ross is a given name).
Similar considerations apply when a name
change occurs (e.g., due to a change in
marital status).
Fortunately, the use of unique identifiers for authors has become more
widespread. ORCID (orcid.org) is one
example (as this goes to press, the IEEE
is just in the process of establishing a
policy that will require authors of articles
in all IEEE publications to have and use
an ORCID identifier). Another similar
problem occurs for those whose native
language is not based on the English
alphabet (of course, that is the majority
of the world). The issues with languages
such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are obvious, but even the inherent
importance of accents in names in such
languages as German and Spanish have
created problems for systems that were
not designed to recognize them. Fortunately, the IEEE now has support for
rendering author names in their native
language in submitted papers [6].
Authors have a responsibility to report
both financial support for the work being
reported on and for themselves in an
article. Any potential conflict of interest
should be identified and explained.
Authors have a responsibility to
describe the methods and processes
used in performing the work reported
in an article in sufficient detail to allow
someone else to duplicate the work.
This can be a problem when proprietary methods or processes are involved,
but if such considerations preclude giving an adequately detailed description
142

of the work so that it can be properly

evaluated, then it probably cannot be
published.
The IEEE has adopted a policy that
all data associated with an article shall
be made available upon request of the
editor to support the reviewing process.
This policy is consistent with policies that
have been adopted to a greater or lesser
degree by many academic publishers.
The American Geophysical Union has a
more-pervasive policy [5]:
...all data necessary to understand,
evaluate, replicate, and build
upon the reported research must
be made available and accessible
whenever possible....authors are
expected to curate the above data
for at least 5 years after publication and provide a transparent
process to make the data available
to anyone upon request.
In practice, most IEEE publications rarely ask for data, and then only
ask where there is a question regarding
the likelihood of the ability to reproduce results. However, authors should be
aware that they may be asked to provide
the data they used to produce the results
they report.

If an article that has already been published somewhere is submitted to a

journal, that is duplicate submission. If
an article that has been submitted to
another journal for possible publication
is submitted to a journal, that is duplicate
submission. If an article makes extensive use of previously published material
and the author fails to cite the previously
published material and identify the differences, the IEEE considers that duplicate submission.
Part of the issue with duplicate submission has to do with what is defined
as publication. The IEEE PSPB
Operations Manual does not specifically define publication for this purpose. There is therefore some leeway
in the definition among the EiCs and
across the IEEE. However, in general,
most EiCs consider a work to have been
published if it has been made available
in a public forum with some record or,

otherwise made publicly available in a

tangible form. If a paper has appeared
in a proceedings handed out at a conference (whether that proceeding was
printed, or distributed on a CD-ROM or
USB drive), most EiCs would consider
the paper to have been published. If the
paper appeared on IEEE Xplore or a
similar digital library, it would be considered to have been published. If the
paper appeared in a non-peer-reviewed
newsletter with limited circulation, most
EiCs would consider it to have been
published. If the paper was presented at
a conference but did not appear in any
conference proceedings, then most EiCs
would not consider the paper to have
been published.
Duplicate submission is not permitted. The key to totally avoiding any
problem with duplicate submission is
full disclosure. If an article is submitted and some portion of it has been
published in some manner, or is under
submission somewhere else, then disclosure of that in the article (and to the
EiC of the publication at the time of
submission) removes any ethical issue
for the author. It then becomes the
decision of the EiC as to whether to
accept the submission.
The IEEE requires that when previously published work is used as the basis
for a new article, the new article must
1) cite the previously published work,
and 2) very briefly indicate how the new
submission offers substantive novel contributions beyond those of the previously
published work(s) [1, Sec. 8.2.1.B.9].
This is probably the most poorly understood policy in IEEE publishing. In practice, it is simple, as can be illustrated by
an example. Suppose you present a paper
at the annual AP-S/USNCURSI summer Symposium, and publish a two-page
paper in the Symposium proceedings.
You then write a six-page journal paper
based on the same work, substantially
expanding on what was presented at the
Symposium. So long as you cite the Symposium paper, and include a sentence or
two explaining what is included in the
journal paper that goes beyond what was
included in the Symposium paper, you
have satisfied the IEEE policy. From
a practical standpoint, many EiCs and

December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

Duplicate Submission
and Publication

reviewers apply a simple test to see if the

expansion of the paper beyond what was
presented at the conference is sufficient
to justify publication. If a researcher
spent the time to find both the original
conference paper and the subsequent
journal paper, would the researcher feel
adequately rewarded by the amount
of additional information in the journal paper? If so, then the journal paper
probably contains sufficiently substantive novel contributions beyond those
of the previously published work(s) to
justify publication.
There are some IEEE publications that use formulas in making
the aforementioned determination. For
example, some ask for an X% difference between the previous publication
and the current submission. Frankly,
most EiCs have never been able to
understand how to choose X to be a
meaningful value, or how to measure it.
When the PSPB adopted the previously
quoted wording for this policy, there
was a great deal of discussion regarding whether a quantitative measure of
the difference between the previous
publication and the current submission should be included. The strong
consensus was that such quantitative
measures did not really make sense.
Interestingly, duplicate publication is
permitted in IEEE publications under
certain circumstances. However, this
has to be done with the express intent
and permission of the EiC, and is only
allowed in certain very specific cases.
There are penalties for authors who
engage in duplicate submission and publication. An initial duplicate-submission
offense typically results in the paper
being rejected, and a warning being
given to the author(s). IEEE policy prescribes stiffer penalties for subsequent
offenses, including up to prohibition
of the author(s) from publishing in all
IEEE publications for periods ranging
from one to five years. Similar penalties can be applied in cases of multiple
instances of duplicate publication. Some
IEEE publications have policies that
impose such penalties on a stricter basis,
including on the first offense.
Some authors (this appears to be
most common among students who are
IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

new to academic publishing) have tried

submitting the same article to two or
more publications at the same time, with
the idea of allowing the publication that
first accepted the article to publish it.
The plan was to then withdraw the submissions from the other publications.
This is unethical. It is also a clear violation of IEEE policy, and of the duplicate-submission policies of all legitimate
academic publishers. If an author is
caught doing this, the result will almost
certainly be rejection of the article, and
quite possibly imposition of penalties
such as those described above.
The key to avoiding duplicate submission and duplicate publication is disclosure. If an article is based on previously
published work, that fact needs to be disclosed in the current article; the previous
work needs to be cited; and the difference between the current and previous
work needs to be explained.

Plagiarism
The IEEE defines plagiarism as [1, Sec.
8.2.1.B.7] the use of someone elses prior
ideas, processes, results, or words without explicitly acknowledging the original
author and source. Note that this is not
limited to copying someone elses words
without adequate credit. It extends to
the use of ideas, processes, and results. If
you use someone elses work, you have to
give them proper credit. If you do not, it
is plagiarism.
Unfortunately, plagiarism has become
a far-too-common problem in academic and scientific publishing. Because of
this, the IEEE has mandated that by
2016, all IEEE publications (and soon
thereafter, all IEEE conference papers)
shall be checked for plagiarism using an
automated plagiarism-checking tool. As
this was written, almost all IEEE publications have implemented this checking using CrossCheck (http://www.
crossref.org/crosscheck/index.html).
CrossCheck compares the text of a submitted article to the CrossCheck database, as well as to material on the Web.
The CrossCheck database contains millions of published articles made available by a very large number of academic
and scientific publishers (it is a far larger
database than just IEEE publications).
December 2015

CrossCheck returns a score indicating a cumulative percentage of overlap

between the submitted article and the
articles in the CrossCheck database, and
shows the overlap with each article. If
that score exceeds a threshold set by
the publication doing the checking, an
individual (typically, the EiC or an associate editor) reviews the identified overlapping material.
Some identified overlapping situations are benign. For example, it is common for totally independent articles to
cite the same papers as references, and
CrossCheck will find those same cited
references and flag them as overlapping
material. However, if plagiarism appears
to be involved, the IEEE has a standard
procedure that is to be followed [1, Sec.
8.2.4]. This is a very extensive process. It
is designed to be completely fair, but also
to treat allegations of publishing misconduct, including plagiarism, with the very
serious attention they deserve.
The IEEE identifies five levels of
plagiarism [1, Sec. 8.2.4.D]. The least
serious of these is credited verbatim
copying of a major portion of an article
without clear delineation. An example
might be a quoted portion of an article
for which a reference is given, but where
the portion was not set in quotation
marks or otherwise clearly identified as
having been copied from another source.
The most serious level is uncredited
verbatim copying of a full article, or of
a major portion (more than 50%) within a single article, or within more than
one article (totaling more than 50%)
by the same authors. The penalties for
such offenses range from authors having to write and publish letters of apology and retraction and/or correction,
to being banned from publishing in all
IEEE publications for periods of up to
five years.
It should be noted that the figure of
50% is the amount of copying associated
with the most serious level of plagiarism
as defined in [1]. There are other levels
of plagiarism defined as associated with
other amounts of copying. Note also that
these levels are not necessarily related to
any thresholds used with CrossCheck in
screening submissions. Such thresholds
are set by the individual publications,
143

and can significantly vary from publication to publication.

The IEEE takes plagiarism very seriously. Given the tools and processes that
are now in use, the likelihood of getting
caught is high, and the consequences
are significant.
It is perhaps worth commenting
on one practice that is certainly not
intended as plagiarism, but can end
up being interpreted as plagiarism. If
English is not the first language of an
author, writing a scientific paper in English can be difficult. There have been
instances in which authors have written papers by taking sentences that say
what they needed to say from papers
that have been published, and putting
them together to create a new paper
(sometimes changing a few words, as
needed). Given the ability to search for
phrases on the Web and the cut-andpaste capabilities of browsers and wordprocessing software, this actually is not
that difficult to do. Unfortunately, such a
process will almost certainly guarantee a
very high overlap score in CrossCheck.
Is this plagiarism? In one sense, it is,
although that is probably a question best
left for ethicists to argue. Regardless, it
is not a good practice in writing a scientific paper.

Ethical Behavior Among Authors

The corresponding author for a multipleauthor article has several responsibilities.
This author must keep all of the other
authors informed of all aspects of the
processing of the article. This includes all
results of and comments from reviews,
and all decisions regarding the disposition of the article. It is IEEE policy
that all authors approve all of the article
as originally submitted, and all changes
to an article throughout the reviewing
and revision process. The corresponding
author has the responsibility to see that
this occurs.
If an author is added or removed, or
the order of authors is changed on an
article after the initial submission, all (living) authors must agree to the changes.
The consequences of an author not
being fully aware of what is in an article, or of changes made to an article,
can be very significant. There have
144

been instances in which a student submitted an article, adding the name of

the advisor of the student as an author,
without the advisor even being aware
of the article. When the article later
turned out to involve misconduct (e.g.,
double submission in one case, plagiarism in another case), the advisor was
initially held equally as responsible as
the student. In both cases, the advisor was able to provide a reasonable
basis for believing that the advisor was
unaware of what had been submitted,
and the student had to take full responsibility. However, in yet another case,
the advisor was aware of the submission, but simply did not bother to carefully read the article. In that case, the
advisor had to share the penalties for
the misconduct with the student.
There have been cases where changes involving misconduct were made
to a paper as part of the revision process, without one of the authors being
informed of the changes. That created
obvious and serious problems.
It should be apparent from the aforementioned examples that coauthoring
a paper involves placing a significant
degree of trust in the ethics of your
coauthors. It is also incumbent on all
coauthors to carefully read and review
the original paper and all revisions,
whether or not they are the author of
the revision.

that the subject was of little interest to

readers of the journal to which it had
been submitted.
As discussed in the section on The
Importance of a Publications Scope,
an EiC can reject a submitted paper
without full review only under certain
specific circumstances. These basically
involve issues related to whether the
paper falls within the scope of the journal. If the paper fails to meet the minimum criteria for technical substance,
the EiC can reject the paper without
full review if two other members of the
editorial board concur. However, in this
case, the basis for rejection did not fall
into any of these categories. What the
EiC decided in this case was that the
paper was not of sufficient significance
to be published. That is a determination
that should be made through the normal
review process. This paper should not
have been rejected for the reason given
without having gone through the normal
review process.
It would be appropriate for the
author to point out that the basis for
rejection did not fall within what was
allowed for prescreening of articles, and
to insist on a full review of the article.

Case 2: Comments and Replies

In this example, a paper was submitted

showing significant errors in a model
that had been the basis of several previous publications in prestigious journals.
The EiC responded to the submission
that although the submitted paper may
have been correct, it was being refused
for publication on the basis that the original papers discussing the model had
received few citations, and this indicated

In this example, an Author B had published a paper showing significant errors

in a model previously published by Author
A. Author A submitted a comment on
the paper. The EiC forwarded Author As
comment to Author B for a reply. Author
B submitted a reply, which was sent to
Author A. This resulted in Author A substantially changing the original comment.
What should be published?
The IEEE does not have a clear
written policy that covers this situation.
However, best practices of editors suggest that in this situation, ideally discussion between the two authors would
be encouraged, in the hope that some
degree of convergence (or at least some
clarification) of their positions might
result. Experience has shown that it
probably is not productive to try to document the stages of this process, nor to
share those stages with readers. However, the outcome, in the form of the
final positions of the two authors, should

December 2015

IEEE Antennas & Propagation Magazine

Provocative Examples
In prior Testing Ourselves columns,
two provocative hypothetical examples
related to academic publishing were
posed. These are considered in this section, primarily from the standpoint of
IEEE publishing policies.

Case 1: Proper Grounds

for Refusing Publication

be shared with the readers. In other

words, the result may be a publication of
a comment and a reply that differ from
what were originally submitted, but that
reflect the final positions of the two parties. It is often necessary for the EiC to
impose a time limit on the discussions,
in order to bring closure to the process.

The August 2014 Quiz

The following question appeared as the
quiz in the August 2014 Testing Ourselves column of this magazine [8]:
Which of the following cannot be the
subject of a comment/reply exchange?
1) claiming different references for the
origin of a method;
2) incorrectness of a method, an equation, or a solution;
3) the efficiency of a solution or an
algorithm;
4) the degree of the dependence of a
parameter on the solution;
5) the accuracy of the results of two different methods;
6) the significance of a contribution of a
modification of a method or an
approach;
7) the dominant contributions of different researchers on a novel method,
an approach, or a model;
8) the determination or choice of some
critical parameters for a model or
solution;
9) a faster way of numerical computation of a tricky integral having critical
singularities.
Neither policy nor best practice prevents any of the above topics from being
included in a comment/reply exchange.
However, items 6 and 7 are topics that
any wise EiC would approach with great
caution, since claims associated with
these topics likely would be based more
on opinion than on demonstrable fact.

described in detail, along with the roles of

the EiC, associate editors, reviewers, and
authors. Ethical issues and the principles
of scholarly publishing were reviewed,
including authorship and the responsibilities of authors, duplicate submission and
publishing, and plagiarism. Finally, some
case studies presented in previous Testing
Ourselves columns were addressed.

Author Information
W. Ross Stone (r.stone@ieee.org) is with
Stoneware Ltd., 840 Armada Terrace, San
Diego, California, United States.
Levent Sevgi (ls@leventsevgi.net) is
with the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at Okan University
AkfiratTuzla, Istanbul, Turkey.

References

[1] (2015). IEEE Publication Services and Products

Board Operations Manual 2015. [Online]. Available:
http://www.ieee.org/documents/opsmanual.pdf
[2] (2013, Sept. 9). Appropriate Use of Bibliometric
Indicators for the Assessment of Journals, Research
Proposals, and Individuals. [Online]. Available:
https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/

publications/rights/ieee_bibliometric_statement_
sept_2013.pdf
[3] P. Wouters, M. Thelwall, K. Kousha, L. Waltman, S. de Rijcke, A. Rushforth, and T. Franssen.
(2015). The metric tide: Literature review. Supplementary Report I to the Independent Review of the
Role of Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. HEFCE. [Online]. Available: http://www.
hefce.ac.uk/media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/
Independentresearch/2015/The,Metric,Tide/2015_
metrictideS1.pdf
[4] J. Wilsdon, L. Allen, E. Belfiore, P. Campbell, S. Curry, and S. Hill. (2015) The Metric Tide:
Report of the Independent Review of the Role of
Metrics in Research Assessment and Management. [Online]. Available: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/
media/HEFCE,2014/Content/Pubs/Independentresearch/2015/The,Metric,Tide/2015_metric_tide.
pdf
[5] AGU Publications Data Policy. American Geophysical Union. [Online]. Available: http://publications.agu.org/author-resource-center/publicationpolicies/data-policy/
[6] Instructions for Submitting Author Names
in Native Languages. IEEE. [Online]. Available:
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/auth_names_native_lang.pdf
[7] R. T. Snodgrass, Editorial: Single-versus double-blind reviewing, ACM Trans. Database Syst.,
vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 129, Mar. 2007.
[8] L. Sevgi, Testing ourselves, IEEE Antennas
Propagat. Mag., vol. 56, no. 4, Aug. 2014.


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