kinhluan Publication Strategy
Get your work published efficiently without wasted submissions.
Venue Selection
Note: Deadlines and acceptance rates shift year-to-year. Always verify current CFP at the official venue site before planning submissions.
AI/ML Top Venues (Tier 1)
| Venue | Type | Deadline pattern* | Acceptance rate* |
|---|---|---|---|
| NeurIPS | Conference | May | ~25% |
| ICML | Conference | Jan | ~27% |
| ICLR | Conference | Oct | ~30% |
| CVPR | Conference | Nov | ~25% |
| ACL/EMNLP | Conference | Feb/Jun | ~25% |
| AAAI | Conference | Aug | ~23% |
*Approximate — check official CFP each year.
Systems / Distributed Computing
| Venue | Type | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| MLSys | Conference | ML systems, FL efficiency |
| EuroSys | Conference | Systems |
| IEEE TPDS | Journal | Parallel/distributed |
| IEEE IoT Journal | Journal | IoT applications |
Choosing Your Venue
Answer these:
- Contribution type: algorithm → ML venue; system → systems venue; application → domain venue
- Novelty level: incremental → workshop or journal; significant → top conference
- Timeline: PhD submission date → work backwards from deadlines
- Audience: who needs to read this? → they attend which venue?
Strategy for PhD students:
First paper → workshop at top venue (NeurIPS/ICML workshop) — lower bar, builds CV
Second paper → Tier 2 conference (ECML, ICDM, PAKDD)
Third paper → Tier 1 attempt (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR)
Thesis compilation → journal version (IEEE TPDS, JMLR)
Submission Checklist
- Paper within page limit (main + appendix)
- All author information removed (double-blind venues)
- Code anonymized (no usernames in comments, no personal paths)
- All figures are vector (PDF) or ≥300 DPI
- References formatted per venue style
- Supplementary material within size limit
- Ethics statement if required (NeurIPS mandates it)
- License statement if releasing dataset/code
Rebuttal Writing
Most top conferences have 5-14 day rebuttal windows (NeurIPS ~6 days, ICML ~7 days, ICLR ~2 weeks). Structure:
We thank all reviewers for their detailed feedback. We address the main concerns:
**[R1, R2] Missing baseline [Method X]:**
We ran [X] under identical conditions. Our method achieves Y% vs X's Z%
(see attached Table). We will include this in the final version.
**[R3] Concern about dataset diversity:**
We acknowledge this limitation. We plan experiments on [Dataset B]
which we can include in revision. Preliminary results show [outcome].
**[R1] Unclear notation in Section 3:**
We will revise Section 3.1 to clarify [specific point]. The key insight is [explanation].
Minor issues raised by all reviewers will be addressed in revision.
Rebuttal rules:
- Don't be defensive — acknowledge valid concerns
- Promise only what you can deliver in revision timeline
- Focus on fatal flaws, not nitpicks
- Keep it concise — reviewers are busy
Revision Plan
After receiving "Major Revision" decision:
## Revision Plan for [Venue] [Year]
**Deadline:** [date]
**Review decision:** Major / Minor revision
| Reviewer | Concern | Action | Owner | Due |
|----------|---------|--------|-------|-----|
| R1 | Missing baseline X | Run experiments | Me | +2 weeks |
| R2 | Unclear Section 3 | Rewrite 3.1 | Me | +1 week |
| R3 | Needs ablation on Y | Design + run | Me | +3 weeks |
**New experiments needed:** [list]
**Sections requiring rewrite:** [list]
**Estimated revision time:** [X weeks]
After Rejection
Rejection ≠ bad paper. NeurIPS accepts ~25%, reject = 75% of all submissions.
- Read reviews carefully — identify legitimate weaknesses
- Rate each review: valid / partially valid / wrong
- Decide: fix + resubmit to same tier OR resubmit to next venue
- Don't submit same paper to next deadline without addressing reviewers
Typical path: NeurIPS reject → fix → ICML (3 months later)
Links to Other Skills
- Requires →
internal-critique(paper must pass internal check first) - Requires →
paper-writing(clean draft) - Feeds into →
milestone-tracker(add submission deadlines)