How to Get Your SIGGRAPH Paper Rejected

Jim Kajiya, SIGGRAPH 93 Papers Chair
Everyone knows what acceptable SIGGRAPH papers look like: just look in the proceedings. When one only sees the accepted papers and not the rejected ones, it is easy to get the wrong impression of what it is that SIGGRAPH likes and doesn't like.
I've submitted a lot of papers that SIGGRAPH didn't like, as well as a few they did. Also, I've been on the papers committee a few times and know what it is they look for. This note tells you something about what happens to your paper as it goes through the reviewing process as well as what people discuss when they're trying to decide whether to accept or reject your paper. I'll try to tell you everything I've learned about the SIGGRAPH secret: What SIGGRAPH wants, and how you can give it to them so they'll accept your paper. I'll also talk about some of the flaws in the reviewing process and how you can protect yourself against them. Finally, I want to share some thoughts on the present course and the future of technical papers for SIGGRAPH.
Before we do this, I would like to say why SIGGRAPH reviews are done the way they are. There are two reasons.
The first reason is the principal feature of the SIGGRAPH conference publication that makes it very attractive: speed. SIGGRAPH is one of the few high-quality publications that can publish a paper in less than a year. In 10 weeks, SIGGRAPH can do what other major publications take 10 months to do. In a fast-moving field like computer graphics, this is crucial.
The second reason is that SIGGRAPH has chosen a very different quality strategy than most other conferences. While other conferences will accept papers of incomplete work in progress, SIGGRAPH has chosen to shoot for the highest quality papers of complete results. Because of this, 80% of submitted papers are rejected. The MacArthur Foundation is more generous with its "genius" awards than SIGGRAPH is with its papers. There are more MacArthur awards each year than SIGGRAPH technical papers.
The emphasis on both speed and quality makes the reviewing process for SIGGRAPH very different from of a journal or another conference. The speed and quality emphasis also puts severe strains on the reviewing process. In a journal, the reviewer and authors can have a dialog where shortcomings and misunderstandings can be resolved over a leisurely pace. Also, even if there are significant flaws in a paper for another conference, the chances are that strengths will overcome the weaknesses in the judging. In SIGGRAPH, if the reviewers misunderstand your paper, or if some flaw in your paper is found, you're dead.
The reviewing process for SIGGRAPH is far from perfect, although most everyone is giving it their best effort. The very nature of the process is such that many reviewers will not be able to spend nearly enough time weighing the nuances of your paper. This is something for which you must compensate in order to be successful. But I'll get to that later. First, let's talk about what happens to your paper.
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