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Ask HN: Possible to publish a paper without graduate degree?

10 points by dundercoder ↗ HN
Forgive the naive question, as I know many of you have at least one graduate degree.

One of my favorite courses during undergrad was one on how to read papers and journals, and the vigor that goes through them.

Not that I fancy myself as being on the same level as those in professional research, I have a niche where I’ve tossed the idea around of beginning the years long approach to increasing the boundary of knowledge in a very tiny way with a paper. Is there any chance of it even getting read though without a PhD? Let alone, published?

10 comments

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lkurusa
Yes! Conferences in CS have increasingly begun to adopt a double-blind approach to reviewing papers, meaning that you won't know who the reviewers are, but neither will they know who you are or your credentials.

This way, as long as your paper is well written and clearly presents a worthwhile idea, there is no requirement to having a graduate degree.

dundercoder
That’s great because it would be in CS.
mfrw
In my opinion, if your paper has content, it should not be difficult to publish it. Degree or not, the end result what everyone wants is high-quality content.
matthewwiese
I think it's certainly possible; depending on your subject niche, you may even be able to cultivate a rapport with academics in the field you are interested in. For the sake of discussion, let's say you enjoy pastry filling optimization.

Reach out to those academics who study pastry filling optimization at a variety of institutions. Most won't get back to you, as a professor/academic's day job is busy and requires more than simply conducting research. This isn't out of malice so much as an accident. Heck, some professors I am taking classes with miss my emails!

Eventually you'll build up a relationship with a few who have returned your emails (or Twitter DMs). At this point, you could suggest collaborating on a paper together. Most will probably decline, but there is a nonzero amount of academics more than willing to collaborate with anybody, given they know you have your wits about you. That is, so long as you don't come across as a pastry filling optimization crank. :)

dundercoder
This is excellent advice and very encouraging!
nukeop
I wrote and published two papers while working on my bachelor's degree, so it is definitely possible.
lucozade
As others have said, it's perfectly possible to get published without a PhD. I had a paper published as an undergrad and I have helped a couple of people, who worked for me in industry, get published.

I haven't tried it but I would expect that getting published on your own, and without prior experience of publishing, will be quite hard. There are a fair number of, often implicit, conventions that you're expected to follow.

My recommendation is to ask someone, at a university, who has published in your field to help. Or suggest someone to help. My experience of doing this has been positive but I appreciate that that is very anecdotal. This can work because they'll be named on the paper too so it's potentially beneficial for both parties.

BTW if you don't know of anyone in that position, that would be symptomatic of an issue that you'll have getting published. You'll be expected to have a reasonable understanding of the state of art in the field and be able to cite it. If you're not already in that position I would strongly recommend that that be the first thing you do.

Good luck. Hope it works out for you.

gus_massa
I agree. I was just going to write this. [My version would have been less articulated.]

I want to add a small warning: There are many "predatory journals" that will charge you to publish whatever rubbish you want to publish. Avoid them because they have no real value.