Technical Program
The web site for submitting papers is open and has already received several papers. The deadline for submitting papers is Dec 8th, but it is time to begin preparing your papers to avoid the last minute crunch and the oversights that sometime come along with last minute submissions. In this issue we will describe what the reviewers are looking for to give your paper the best chance for acceptance. We also remind authors to start the review process to get permission from your employers to submit your papers. Often this can be a lengthy process and without permission (if required) from your employer, we can not accept your paper.
In this issue of the IMS Insider we want to give you the inside information on what the Technical Program Committee reviewers are looking for when they review your paper. A careful reading of the call for papers makes it clear what you should address in the content of your paper: Originality, Quantitative content, Clarity and Interest to MTT-S membership. We will describe these in more detail.
Originality: You should give enough background information about the paper so that the reviewers can understand the original contribution of the paper. The questions that the reviewer has about originality are: How is this work an advance over other work reported in the field (including other work that you have published on this topic)? What is unique? How does the performance, size and/or power consumption compare to similar work? Are references to previous work by the authors and others included? A table comparing your results to the current state-of-the-art is often very helpful.
Quantitative content: You should fully describe the work so that someone else could reproduce the results. With a 4 page limit, clearly some of the details will be omitted, but don’t report just the performance. In addition to the details about how the work was performed, include a complete description about the results. For example, if you are reporting on a new amplifier certainly report the design approach, frequency of operation, gain, output power and power-added efficiency. However, a more complete paper would also include: details on how the measurements were made, operating conditions (bias voltages), input and output match measurements, gain compression curves, intermodulation distortion, EVM, etc. as appropriate for the intended application.
Clarity: The reviewer will be looking for how well is the work organized and presented? Is it easy to follow the progression of technical ideas and is the English correct? Are the figures and captions clear and understandable – do they reinforce the main points being made in the paper? Whether English is your native language or not, you should have colleagues and/or editors review you paper.
Interest to MTT-S membership: The symposium is held to benefit the members of the Microwave Theory and Techniques Society, so the paper should be relevant to the MTT-S technical charter. Further, the reviewer will be assessing the overall significance of the results. Does the paper only report incremental results of interest to a small number of MTT-S members, or does the paper report a significant new approach or result that a large number of MTT-S members will want to hear?
You paper will receive a score in each of these areas, and all of the scores are used to compute the final paper score. If you make sure your paper addresses all of these topics, it will have a better chance of being accepted.
A few final thoughts: We encourage you to use the summary submission format provided on the web site (http://www.ims2009.org/submitpaper.html), but it is not required. However, the page length is limited to 4 pages, and it must be in pdf format. And we never accept late papers, so don’t wait to the last day.
In next month’s news letter, we will describe the updated schedule of events for Microwave week. We have fine tuned the schedule to give you more time to attend papers, visit the exhibit floor and socialize with colleagues.