Yet Another Blog

I have just gotten my first paper accepted for publishing in SIGMOD 2010. Here are some learned lessons:

1. A paper is evaluated based on originality, significance, quality of presentation, technical depth, quality of experiments and whether the experimental results really support the work. You don’t have to be perfect in all aspects, do the best you can in each of them.
2. Make sure your introduction and related work sections clarify the significance and originality of your work. If the reviewer gets beyond those two sections unconvinced of the significance and originality of your paper, then he will never get convinced of that, no matter what comes later! This is a very precious quote from my advisor: “if the reviewer gets beyond the first page without getting convinced, then he will never get convinced”!
3. Related to the previous point, the stuff you leave to the end usually doesn’t receive as much attention as that at the beginning, even if it is of better quality!
4. Don’t stick yourself behind other researchers’ work, trying to improve their results. Instead, spend as much time as it takes searching for something that wasn’t investigated a lot, then your job will be much easier.
5. Don’t read any papers published in low-quality conferences/journals.
6. Read and attend lectures about other subjects, even if they are not obviously related to your research, they may inspire you with new ways to approach your research.
7. Spend more time thinking and imagining than reading and learning.
8. Keep cool and avoid stress!
9. There is nothing called “part-time research” !!