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<h1 class="title">The Micro-Paper: Towards cheaper, citable research ideas and conversations</h1>
<p><a href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6849-5893">FRANK ELAVSKY</a>,
Carnegie Mellon University, [email protected]</p>
<p>Academic, peer-reviewed “short” papers are a common way to present a
late-breaking work to the academic community that outlines preliminary
findings, research ideas, and novel conversations. By comparison,
blogging or writing posts on social media are an unstructured and open
way to discuss ideas and start new conversations. Both have limitations
in the proliferation of research ideas. The short paper format relies on
the conference and journal submission process while blogging does not
operate within a structured format or set of expectations at all.
However, at times the demand exists for late-breaking ideas and
conversations to arise in a raw form or with urgency but should still be
archived and recorded in a way that promotes citational honesty and
integrity. To address this, I present: The Micro-Paper, as a micro-paper
itself. The Micro-Paper is a small, cheap, accessible, digital document
that is self-published and archived, akin to a pre-print of a short
paper. This meta micro-paper discusses the context, goals, and
considerations of micro-paper authoring.</p>
<p><img src="./images/projects/micro_paper.png"
alt="The Micro-Paper: fast, cheap and archived. A spectrum is shown between fast, cheap, but risky to cite and rigorous, archival, but costly and slow. All items on the spectrum, starting from fast and cheap and moving towards rigorous are: Casual chat Twitter thread Blog post Micro-paper Preprint paper Short paper Book chapter Journal paper" /></p>
<p><strong>Fig 1:</strong> The micro-paper fills a gap on the spectrum
between fast, cheap ideas and rigorous, archival work.</p>
<h1 id="what-is-a-micro-paper">1. What is a micro-paper?</h1>
<p>A micro-paper is a paper between 1 and 4 pages in length that engages
a single idea clearly. A micro-paper can be anything from focused blog
post to a preprinted short paper, but it is published through an open
archive.</p>
<h1 id="the-context-of-micro-papers">2. The context of micro-papers</h1>
<p>Ideas and conversations often arise in research settings in response
to problems, gaps, or issues. But some ideas and conversations also come
about in a more generative fashion: they are still responding to
something within a context but are not concerned with problems and gaps.
So, whether filling gaps or otherwise, a micro-paper (and even the
authors at times) must clearly and reflexively be situated within a
conversational context.</p>
<p>At a meta-level, this paper <em>is</em> framed as a gap-filler (see:
Fig 1). Currently, academic publishing is expensive, time-consuming, and
high risk. And while much of the process could be argued as a necessary
set of procedures to ensure we aren’t making claims that are misleading
or unfounded, there exists a gap for disseminating ideas that should be
cheap, accessible, and intended to inspire other work [<a href="#ref-Mastroianni2" id="Mastroianni2-1" aria-label="4, Mastroianni, Things Could Be Better." title="4, Mastroianni, Things Could Be Better." role="doc-noteref">4</a>]. Not all
research conversation needs to have answers. The heart of research as a
community is due to the dissemination of ideas that aren’t only
congealed or refined, but raw and messy as well.</p>
<p>Generally, the gap for disseminating cheap ideas is filled by
academics today through Twitter, blogging, or in some form of social
media or another. Sometimes the gap is filled through workshops,
position papers, or conversation pieces (such as ACM’s Interactions).
There are many options for sharing ideas, all with different tradeoffs
between editorial and authoring expenses, time, archiving,
accessibility, and democratization of the process.</p>
<h1
id="a-micro-papers-goal-is-the-free-cheap-open-and-honest-dissemination-of-ideas">3.
A micro-paper’s goal is the free, cheap, open, and honest dissemination
of ideas</h1>
<p>The micro-paper’s focus is on <em>ideas</em> for the sake of
generative work, conversation, and inspiration. In contrast, a
micro-paper is not an appropriate venue for sharing findings, claims, or
experiments. The nature of methodological generation of knowledge is
most trustworthy when there is a more rigorous process in place. Some
avenues generate <em>good</em> or <em>trustworthy</em> knowledge and
ideas, but the micro-paper is a place for sharing <em>potentially</em>
<em>useful</em> ideas. Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more
careful review [<a href="#ref-Mastroianni1" id="Mastroianni1-1" aria-label="3, Mastroianni, The rise and fall." title="3, Mastroianni, The rise and fall." role="doc-noteref">3</a>, <a href="#ref-Mastroianni2" id="Mastroianni2-2" aria-label="4, Mastroianni, Things Could be Better." title="4, Mastroianni, Things Could be Better." role="doc-noteref">4</a>, <a href="#ref-Why" id="Why-1" aria-label="6, Why Do People Publish." title="6, Why Do People Publish." role="doc-noteref">6</a>], but potentially useful ideas should at least
be archived.</p>
<h2 id="a-micro-paper-must-be-small-and-cheap">3.1 A micro-paper must be
small and cheap</h2>
<p>Whether having peer-reviewed work or an editorial team, most writing
is costly in both time and money. It is also risky: your work could get
rejected or require slow iterations of feedback and review.</p>
<p>In contrast, this micro-paper took me 3 hours on a random Thursday in
February (when I should be crunching for another deadline). Most
micro-papers should ideally be short enough in length to encourage both
rapid authoring and reading.</p>
<h2 id="a-micro-paper-must-be-archived">3.2 A micro-paper must be
archived</h2>
<p>While blogging and tweeting is cheap and fast and encourages ideas to
be shared, these aren’t trustworthy archives. And sometimes good ideas
arise in these faster, cheaper contexts that should be captured,
articulated, and stored for later reference. With the existential threat
of twitter disintegrating at any moment and the entirely unmaintained
space of many academic blogs, it is important for some ideas to be
archived [<a href="#ref-Sanderson" id="Sanderson-1" aria-label="5, Sanderson, Analyzing the Persistence." title="5, Sanderson, Analyzing the Persistence." role="doc-noteref">5</a>].</p>
<p>While some blog maintainers may have higher standards for their
longevity, url stability, dois, and records of changes, it may make
sense for most to use an existing pre-print archival platform, like
arXiv for ensuring trustworthiness and reliability in your readers.</p>
<h2 id="revisions-must-also-be-archived">3.3 Revisions must also be
archived</h2>
<p>In addition to archival processes for the sake of accessing later,
many archival sites (such as arXiv) also keep track of revision
histories. The ephemeral and non-standardized way that individuals
operate their own blogs and social media means that not only might
something move or cease to exist (a findability problem) but there is
also an honesty problem when contents change or update without record
[<a href="#ref-Zittrain" id="Zittrain-1" aria-label="7, Zittrain, Perma: Scoping and Addressing." title="7, Zittrain, Perma: Scoping and Addressing." role="doc-noteref">7</a>].</p>
<h2 id="a-micro-paper-must-be-accessible">3.4 A micro-paper must be
accessible</h2>
<p>Blogs, twitter, and mastodon have done more for disability discourse
than most other media, but especially more than the dreaded PDF favored
by academics. This is because text-based media online (generally in HTML
or Markdown) has immense accessibility potential over PDF [<a href="#ref-Bigham" id="Bigham-1" aria-label="1, Bigham, An Uninteresting Tour." title="1, Bigham, An Uninteresting Tour." role="doc-noteref">1</a>] (and paper
publications). All artifacts of academic discourse, including every
paper publication, should be more accessible. Due to a micro-paper’s
size, it is easier for authors to learn accessibility for than a
full-size paper with proprietary formatting involved. This micro-paper
was authored in Microsoft Word, exported as a PDF, and then converted
into HTML using pandoc.</p>
<p>With the push for arXiv to transition more towards accessible formats
of publication [<a href="#ref-Brinn" id="Brinn-1" aria-label="2, Brinn, A framework for improving." title="2, Brinn, A framework for improving." role="doc-noteref">2</a>], I believe that trustworthy archives that are
accessibility-first are near. Micro-papers will compliment this
push.</p>
<h1
id="considering-when-a-micro-paper-is-the-write-choice-pun-intended">4.
Considering when a micro-paper is the write choice (pun intended)</h1>
<p>If someone has an idea, conversation, or late-breaking work, they
might consider the following questions:</p>
<p><em>Why wouldn’t I write a short academic paper and submit to a
traditional venue?</em></p>
<p>It is time-consuming, expensive, and requires waiting for the
publication cycle. It is also higher risk, in cases where the peer
review process might reject it.</p>
<p><em>Why shouldn’t I write a piece in a non-peer reviewed publication,
like ACM Interactions?</em></p>
<p>This is also time-consuming and higher risk, because editorial
interest may conflict. In addition, these often require an existing
network of colleagues, invitation to contribute, or formal submission
and selection process.</p>
<p><em>Why shouldn’t I write a blog or twitter thread?</em></p>
<p>Blogs and social media posts raise concerns about archival quality
and trustworthiness. Accessing the piece later may become difficult or
cumbersome. Some great ideas and discussions have been lost in time due
to the ephemeral nature of these cheap and fast options.</p>
<p><em>When is writing a micro-paper a good idea?</em></p>
<p>Notably, there is no formal peer review for a micro-paper. Our
currently imagined peer review process may not make sense for all work
published with the intent to push new ideas and conversations. It is
even worth considering if this practice should continue at all [<a href="#ref-Mastroianni1" id="Mastroianni1-2" aria-label="3, Mastroianni, The rise and fall." title="3, Mastroianni, The rise and fall." role="doc-noteref">3</a>,
<a href="#ref-Mastroianni2" id="Mastroianni2-3" aria-label="4, Mastroianni, Things Could be Better." title="4, Mastroianni, Things Could be Better." role="doc-noteref">4</a>].</p>
<p>A practical use for a micro-paper may be as a preprint or early draft
for an eventual short or full paper submission, position paper, or book
chapter. The greatest strength of both the pre-print and short paper
process is that they can invigorate scholars with new or raw ideas to
see those turn into full projects. Short papers also have a core
readership and opportunities to present that are not afforded to
micro-papers, so for early career researchers it may be important to
consider ways to use these two formats together.</p>
<p>For folks who simply want to get a citable idea out into the world
without regard for submission and publication cycles and procedures, a
micro-paper is a good choice as well.</p>
<p>And lastly, there may be authors with too many ideas to pursue (even
when some are useful) and they are willing to admit that they won’t
pursue every idea that they have. A micro-paper is a way to put the idea
into the discussion and let it run its course. In my case, I recognize
that some problems and patterns are outside of the scope of my leverage
and experience to address, such as contributions to design or behavioral
domains of accessibility (when my area is strictly technical
contributions).</p>
<h1 id="conclusion">5. Conclusion</h1>
<p>The hope is that both the procedural and systemic inaccessibility of
the short paper authoring process and the citational uncertainty of
blogs and social media can be addressed with the micro-paper. I hope to
see early, usable ideas shared more freely and especially hope to
invigorate young scholars and include historically excluded folks, such
as those with disabilities, in the larger research conversation.</p>
<h1 id="acknowledgements">Acknowledgements</h1>
<p>Special thanks to Jonathan Zong, for your encouragement to make my
cheap ideas citable and for feedback on this micro-paper. Also thanks to
the folks at the MIT Vis Lab (Arvind, Crystal, and Alan) for supporting
my not-traditionally-publishable ideas over the past couple years
especially. Hearing that my “tweets are a public service” encouraged me
to make the heart of that service last longer than Twitter does
(hopefully).</p>
<h1 id="references">References</h1>
<p id="ref-Bigham">[1] Bigham, Jeffrey et al. “An Uninteresting Tour Through Why Our
Research Papers Aren't Accessible.” <em>CHI</em>, May 2016. doi: <a
href="https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2892588">10.1145/2851581.2892588</a>. <a href="#Bigham-1" aria-label="Return to: or Markdown) has immense accessibility potential over PDF" title="Return to: or Markdown) has immense accessibility potential over PDF" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Brinn">[2] Brinn, Shamsi et al. “A framework for improving the accessibility
of research papers on arXiv.org.” <em>arXiv</em>, Dec. 2022. doi: <a
href="https://www.doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2212.07286">10.48550/ARXIV.2212.07286</a> <a href="#Brinn-1" aria-label="Return to: With the push for arXiv to transition more towards accessible formats" title="Return to: With the push for arXiv to transition more towards accessible formats" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Mastroianni1">[3] Mastroianni, Adam. “The rise and fall of peer review.”
<em>Experimental History,</em> Accessed: Feb. 24, 2023. <a
href="https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review">https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-peer-review</a> <a href="#Mastroianni1-1" aria-label="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" title="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" role="doc-backlink">1 ↩︎</a> <a href="#Mastroianni1-2" aria-label="Return to: It is even worth considering if this practice should continue at all " title="Return to: It is even worth considering if this practice should continue at all " role="doc-backlink">2 ↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Mastroianni2">[4] Mastroianni, Adam et al. “Things Could Be Better.”
<em>PsyArXiv</em>, Nov 2022. <a href="#Mastroianni2-1" aria-label="Return to: there exists a gap for disseminating ideas that should be cheap, accessible, and intended to inspire other work" title="Return to: there exists a gap for disseminating ideas that should be cheap, accessible, and intended to inspire other work" role="doc-backlink">1 ↩︎</a> <a href="#Mastroianni2-2" aria-label="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" title="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" role="doc-backlink">2 ↩︎</a> <a href="#Mastroianni2-3" aria-label="Return to: It is even worth considering if this practice should continue at all " title="Return to: It is even worth considering if this practice should continue at all " role="doc-backlink">3 ↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Sanderson">[5] Sanderson, Robert et al. “Analyzing the Persistence of Referenced
Web Resources with Memento.” <em>arXiv</em>, May 2011. doi: <a
href="https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1105.3459">10.48550/arXiv.1105.3459</a> <a href="#Sanderson-1" aria-label="Return to: it is important for some ideas to be
archived" title="Return to: it is important for some ideas to be
archived" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Why">[6] “Why Do People Publish on Arxiv Instead of Other Places?”
<em>Academia Stack Exchange</em>, Accessed: Feb. 23, 2023, <a
href="https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75325/why-do-people-publish-on-arxiv-instead-of-other-places">https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/75325/why-do-people-publish-on-arxiv-instead-of-other-places</a>. <a href="#Why-1" aria-label="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" title="Return to: Good or trustworthy knowledge may require more careful review" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
<p id="ref-Zittrain">[7] Zittrain, Jonathan et al. “Perma: Scoping and Addressing the
Problem of Link and Reference Rot in Legal Citations.” <em>Harvard Law
Review</em>, Mar. 2014. <a href="#Zittrain-1" aria-label="Return to: but there is" title="Return to: also an honesty problem when contents change or update without record" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p>
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