Friday, February 15, 2019

Technical reviews and mentoring

Recently a novice engineer sent a technical document for review, for which I was one of the reviewers. When I opened the document, I saw that it was littered with problems typical of a novice: No proper introduction explaining why this document was created, not specifying assumptions, simplifications and constraints, endless rows of data instead of clear graphs (i.e. signal buried in lots of noise), no clear conclusion, missing references, what still needs to be done, i.e. future work. See Why I gave your paper a Strong Reject

I told him that I will not review it and forwarded the document to a less senior colleague. As a grizzled veteran, I find it untolerably boring to provide basic feedback because I have done it a thousand times before.

How can we make both the novice and the veteran happy:

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