A student transferred the "leader" of their research group, a named Professor, here referred to as Professor w's email to all members of the research group. This email is mainly aimed at five members of the group who recently submitted the paper review results of an important meeting in their field, IEEE infocom (the paper acceptance rate is generally less than 20%), and he expressed his feelings and issued guidance to all members. The research group submitted a total of five papers to the conference and received only one. This is one of the two times in their group that the proportion of papers accepted at this conference in recent years is low (the other is 2014). He told me that in order to purify the academic environment, reduce the impact of academic haze and improve the academic quality and academic status of the IEEE infocom conference, strict double-blind review measures have been implemented for all submitted papers since 2015 (the paper review was 2014), that is, the names of the author and reviewer of the papers should be hidden during the manuscript review, At the same time, the author is required not to disclose the identity of the author in any form in the manuscript (for example, suggesting the reviewer in the circle through excessive self citation in the references). The reference of a manuscript submitted by the student did not cite any papers of himself and his collaborators. He told me that on the one hand, this manuscript is a new research direction he involves, and it is not quite right to quote previously published papers; On the other hand, it also actively responded to the call of the conference and supported it with practical actions. Therefore, I specially inquired about a scholar who published more papers at this conference in the past. Sure enough, in the past two years since the strict double-blind evaluation was implemented, the scholar published papers at this meeting, showing a scene of "ice and fire". In the past, there were 3 articles in the highest year, but now there is 1 article or zero. Obviously, adopting the double-blind evaluation mechanism can greatly reduce the "haze" effect of bad academic circles, improve the academic taste of the conference, and make the conference truly a place for academic exchange, rather than a place where participants "get familiar" or aunts flatter "authority".

This time, the acceptance rate of papers in Professor w's group has just reached the average acceptance rate of this meeting. He believes that according to the performance of the group in previous years, the acceptance rate is generally higher than this. In the letter, in addition to congratulating the authors of the accepted papers, he warned all members (mainly doctoral students in the group) to pay attention to improving the quality of academic papers, and first of all, make great efforts to improve their academic research ability. We need to take a close look at what is going on. More importantly, instead of blazing your reviewers and lack of luck, you need to learn from your mistakes and upgrade your standards / expectations. Saying that "my paper was unfairly treated" is one of the things that would never helpyou more forward。 Obviously, the core meaning of the e-mail is very obvious. I hope you should treat the rejection correctly. Don't complain about the reviewers and luck. You should find problems from yourself and improve your academic quality. The only thing you can do is to find deficiencies in your paper. As my blog said: "strengthening yourself is your only choice". This fully shows the rigorous and pragmatic scientific attitude of an academic team leader. This is in sharp contrast to the grumbling, irrational and restless performance of some of us in the face of the normal rejection of manuscripts. In fact, you still have to do what you should do if you "complain too much to prevent intestines from breaking".

The professor also has one thing related to the rigorous style of study, which is worth saying. Professor w will officially serve as the editor in chief of ieeetransactions on Mobile Computing magazine in January 2017. It is said that there is usually a strict procedure for the selection of editors of a serious international professional mainstream journal. The editors of IEEE magazines are mainly selected by some honest, rigorous and senior academics in their field. The editor in chief of the magazine entered the final stage. There were two candidates. After careful discussion, the selection committee finally chose Professor W. The main reason is that Professor w enjoys a good academic reputation in the industry and wins over which candidate. It is said that the unsuccessful candidate has no obvious style of study. If so, it is impossible to enter the ranks of the final candidates. But then someone inquired that the man published 12 papers one year. Some people think that the candidate is usually so busy with his work that he has no time to publish so many papers. Therefore, it is speculated whether there is a risk that his style of study is not too rigorous. Obviously, this is a secret reason. I think it would be inconvenient for the selection committee to inform the unsuccessful candidates of this view. For China's academic circles, someone must publish more than 12 papers a year. A few days ago, ScienceNet introduced a blog post about a "major author", boldly suspected that the author might have academic misconduct, and suggested that the relevant departments should seriously investigate. Two valuable ideas can be seen from the selection of editor in chief of IEEE transactionson Mobile Computing magazine: one is to take a serious, serious and cautious attitude towards the selection of editor in chief of the magazine and put the academic morality of candidates in an important position; Second, Professor w's excellent academic quality has been recognized by his peers. It is a rare opportunity for him to grow into a scholar with rigorous style of study and "international model" if he can work in the team of such an academic leader with "both political integrity and talent".

The students further told me that Professor w has sufficient funds for his project, but there are not many students. At present, there are only five doctoral students. They are from Turkey, Iran, Jordan and Egypt. This is because Professor w strictly adopts the principle of "rather lack than abuse" in recruiting students, never deliberately pursues the number of students, and has strict requirements for students. He strictly implemented the elimination mechanism in the process of students' postgraduate study. Therefore, there is basically no phenomenon of "mixed diploma" in him. Everyone is working hard and expects to learn some real Kung Fu during his doctoral study. In the words of Professor w's "Anming notice" to students: "if you can't meet the basic requirements, you must leave halfway". The whole research group is full of a strong academic atmosphere of "chasing each other". Professor W is an effective measure in guiding students, which is worth learning by our tutors. He asked each student to make a serious summary of each manuscript he modified, and make a serious response to all his modifications, that is, analyze and think about why Professor w modified it in this way, and send the manuscript and response information to all members of the research group. If each student reads two manuscripts, each of the five students can enjoy Professor w's detailed guidance on 10 manuscripts, which is very beneficial to the academic growth of doctoral students.

Professor w attaches great importance to the quality of the research group meeting. Because there are not many members in the group, the group meeting is held once a month to make every member well prepared. As long as he is in the school, he will participate. The research group will mainly discuss in depth the problems encountered by each student in scientific research, and everyone will fully discuss their ideas. The results of this group will benefit all members of the group. People outside the group (including undergraduates, except for other guidance for undergraduates) are not welcome to participate in the group meeting, because he believes that members outside the group generally do not know the specific situation, and hasty participation may affect the quality and effect of the group meeting.

Professor W is currently the head of a broadband wireless access and Applications Center (bwac) organization composed of five universities such as Virginia Tech funded by the national foundation of the United States. He has presided over a number of National Natural Science Foundation projects in the United States and has a unique understanding of writing the foundation book. He said that when you face the guiding research field published that year, don't rush to write a book, but first focus on the "topic" and "blind thinking" in the research field for a few days (in fact, give play to your accumulation and understanding), hope to make a full comparison between "ideas" in the process of "blind thinking", and finally choose the best "ideas" Write a book. Otherwise, if you write too early, you will have to start writing again and waste time. He said: "before the submission deadline", do not submit fund applications. In addition, he told students that when introducing their achievements in the basic research part of the fund book, they must not use the word "tall" of "exaggerating their achievement level", because the reviewer will study your representative achievement paper and judge your research ability accordingly. If you approve your project, it naturally indicates that the reviewer has recognized your research foundation and level, and vice versa.

Professor W is modest. Sometimes he will say to the students who come alone to ask questions, I don't know this question very well. You can consult a young researcher in the research group. His mathematical foundation is better than me and can answer your question well. This seemingly ordinary performance is quite different from the "authority" performance of some of us wearing some honorary hats. These "hat professors" talk loudly as "missionaries" everywhere, point out rivers and mountains, gain both fame and wealth, and are the producers of China's academic "haze".