IEEE Journals

Maybe 90% rubbish - do you agree? Why do Universities insist on this
publish or perish philisophy. It leads only to a prolification of
meaningless junk being published and a long trawl to find anything of
real use. The worst is that many countries have followed the US
example.

Hardy

On Dec 15, 1:46 pm, HardySpicer <gyansor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Maybe 90% rubbish - do you agree? Why do Universities insist on this
> publish or perish philisophy. It leads only to a prolification of
> meaningless junk being published and a long trawl to find anything of
> real use. The worst is that many countries have followed the US
> example.
>
> Hardy

Is this question even relevant to this forum? Anyway, my experience so
far suggests that most of this "meaningless junk" takes on immense
proportions if you end up doing something practical/real-world stuff.
If your grouse is against the 'search' mechanism of IEEE Inspec, try
refining your keywords or use an advanced search.

HardySpicer <gyansorova@gmail.com> writes:

> Maybe 90% rubbish - do you agree? Why do Universities insist on this
> publish or perish philisophy. It leads only to a prolification of
> meaningless junk being published and a long trawl to find anything of
> real use. The worst is that many countries have followed the US
> example.

It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
sources of information would greatly improve. 

There are many ideas that, while simple, are very important and useful.
No author or journal should feel that they need to "trump it up" in 
order to appear erudite.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "My Shangri-la has gone away, fading like 
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  the Beatles on 'Hey Jude'" 
%%% 919-577-9882                %  
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % 'Shangri-La', *A New World Record*, ELO
http://www.digitalsignallabs.com

>
> It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
> idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
> main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
> and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
> sources of information would greatly improve.

I agree. For first timers (atleast for me) , reading an IEEE paper
usually turned out to be another session of brain hemorrhage. I
somehow managed to get used to it. But then most (if not all) of
advanced communication and  signal processing theory involves 'a
little more maths' :)  , doesn't it? Just because your brain ends up
classifying it as spiritual abuse doesn't mean that the authors are
'trumping it up' to appear erudite.

> It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
> idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
> main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
> and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
> sources of information would greatly improve.

I agree. For first timers (atleast for me) , reading an IEEE paper
usually turned out to be another session of brain hemorrhage. I
somehow managed to get used to it. But then most (if not all) of
advanced communication and  signal processing theory involves 'a
little more maths' :)  , doesn't it? Just because our brain ends up
classifying it as spiritual abuse doesn't mean that the authors are
'trumping it up' to appear erudite.

Kshitij <kksingh.sdr@gmail.com> writes:

>>
>> It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
>> idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
>> main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
>> and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
>> sources of information would greatly improve.
>
> I agree. For first timers (atleast for me) , reading an IEEE paper
> usually turned out to be another session of brain hemorrhage. I
> somehow managed to get used to it. But then most (if not all) of
> advanced communication and  signal processing theory involves 'a
> little more maths' :)  , doesn't it? Just because your brain ends up
> classifying it as spiritual abuse doesn't mean that the authors are
> 'trumping it up' to appear erudite.

I didn't state that all articles were this way, only "not a small amount."
There are many articles in which the main ideas are actually quite
complex, and in those cases there is no trumping up. 

Even in the "non-trumped" articles, there probably could be a little
more traction offered between the knowledge-base of a typical graduate
engineer in the subject and the deep, specialized knowledge that some
articles require.
-- 
%  Randy Yates                  % "Rollin' and riding and slippin' and
%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  sliding, it's magic."
%%% 919-577-9882                %  
%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % 'Living' Thing', *A New World Record*, ELO
http://www.digitalsignallabs.com

On Dec 16, 10:38 am, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:
> Kshitij <kksingh....@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
> >> idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
> >> main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
> >> and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
> >> sources of information would greatly improve.
>
> > I agree. For first timers (atleast for me) , reading an IEEE paper
> > usually turned out to be another session of brain hemorrhage. I
> > somehow managed to get used to it. But then most (if not all) of
> > advanced communication and  signal processing theory involves 'a
> > little more maths' :)  , doesn't it? Just because your brain ends up
> > classifying it as spiritual abuse doesn't mean that the authors are
> > 'trumping it up' to appear erudite.
>
> I didn't state that all articles were this way, only "not a small amount."
> There are many articles in which the main ideas are actually quite
> complex, and in those cases there is no trumping up.
>
> Even in the "non-trumped" articles, there probably could be a little
> more traction offered between the knowledge-base of a typical graduate
> engineer in the subject and the deep, specialized knowledge that some
> articles require.
> --
> %  Randy Yates                  % "Rollin' and riding and slippin' and
> %% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  sliding, it's magic."
> %%% 919-577-9882                %
> %%%% <ya...@ieee.org>           % 'Living' Thing', *A New World Record*, ELOhttp://www.digitalsignallabs.com

Yes I agree. Trouble is that if you make a paper look simple or
simplify the basic idea then the chances of it getting published
reduce dramatically. For instance, the original papers on Kalman
filtering turned out to be of immense use but who could have guessed
by reading the original papers. Since then many have re-written the
theory for the 'simple' man.On a different note I am always suspicious
of papers that start with Lemma 1!


Hardy

">There are many ideas that, while simple, are very important and useful.
>No author or journal should feel that they need to "trump it up" in 
>order to appear erudite."
I completely agree!!
cheers
>HardySpicer <gyansorova@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Maybe 90% rubbish - do you agree? Why do Universities insist on this
>> publish or perish philisophy. It leads only to a prolification of
>> meaningless junk being published and a long trawl to find anything of
>> real use. The worst is that many countries have followed the US
>> example.
>
>It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
>idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
>main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
>and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
>sources of information would greatly improve. 
>
>There are many ideas that, while simple, are very important and useful.
>No author or journal should feel that they need to "trump it up" in 
>order to appear erudite.
>-- 
>%  Randy Yates                  % "My Shangri-la has gone away, fading
like 
>%% Fuquay-Varina, NC            %  the Beatles on 'Hey Jude'" 
>%%% 919-577-9882                %  
>%%%% <yates@ieee.org>           % 'Shangri-La', *A New World Record*,
ELO
>http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
>

Randy Yates wrote:
> HardySpicer <gyansorova@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Maybe 90% rubbish - do you agree? Why do Universities insist on this
>> publish or perish philisophy. It leads only to a prolification of
>> meaningless junk being published and a long trawl to find anything of
>> real use. The worst is that many countries have followed the US
>> example.
> 
> It seems to me that not a small number of articles "hide" their main
> idea or embed it in a lot of trumped up language and innuendo. If the
> main idea was put forth plainly - even if it were relatively simple -
> and the "fluff" removed, I think my view of the journals as useful
> sources of information would greatly improve. 
> 
> There are many ideas that, while simple, are very important and useful.
> No author or journal should feel that they need to "trump it up" in 
> order to appear erudite.

I think many of these writers are insecure enough to think their work 
sucks, and they need to make it seem deeper by the use of obscure 
language. I also think there are too many people whose first language is 
not English, trying to write in the most obtuse English possible. they 
turn obtuse into incomprehensible. Of course, this works the other way 
too. A huge number of readers of these English documents do not speak 
English as their first language. Anything but the clearest possible 
English goes right by them.

I've often found myself reading an unclear paragraph several times. At 
the end I may not have really worked out what it was trying to say, but 
I might have worked the subject matter around in my head enough to have 
figured things out for myself. :-)

Regards,
Steve

Steve Underwood wrote:

   ...

> I've often found myself reading an unclear paragraph several times. At 
> the end I may not have really worked out what it was trying to say, but 
> I might have worked the subject matter around in my head enough to have 
> figured things out for myself. :-)

This is neither new nor peculiar to the sciences. From Gilbert and 
Sullivan (Iolanthe?):

      And everyone will say
      As you walk your mystic way
      If this young man expresses himself
      In terms too deep for me
      What what a very singularly deep young man
      This deep young man must be.

Jerry
-- 
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������