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- From: dstewart+@cs.cmu.edu (David B Stewart)
- Newsgroups: comp.robotics
- Subject: Re: Help for Technical Report from CMU
- Message-ID: <C097xD.9y8.1@cs.cmu.edu>
- Date: 3 Jan 93 01:24:49 GMT
- References: <103479@netnews.upenn.edu> <58199@dime.cs.umass.edu>
- Sender: news@cs.cmu.edu (Usenet News System)
- Distribution: usa
- Organization: The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
- Lines: 45
- Nntp-Posting-Host: ius4.ius.cs.cmu.edu
-
- In article <58199@dime.cs.umass.edu> connolly@rabbit.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:
- >In article <103479@netnews.upenn.edu> sarkar@tuna.cis.upenn.edu (Nilanjan Sarkar) writes:
- >> I need to locate a technical report from Robotics Institute, CMU
- >>which has been suggested by a reviewer of my paper.
- >
- >In other fields, technical reports are considered "inaccessible",
- >hence not fair game for citation. This is a case in point, where the
- >author is having a hard time tracking the thing down. If the idea is
- >really worth citing, then it should have been published in a more
- >accessible form. At the very least, the reviewer should have
- >suggested a more solid reference.
-
-
- I disagree.
-
- First of all, our university library has many technical reports from
- other universities, as they are considered appropriate for citation.
-
- Second, it is always possible to obtain a copy of a technical report
- at no cost, simply by contacting the department and university directly.
- This is no more difficult then trying to locate a book or journal that
- your own library does not have. In addition, tech reports can be retrieved
- through inter-library loans.
-
- Tech reports often have useful information that will never be found in
- published journals. Due to the length restrictions in all journals and
- conference proceedings, the published work is often only a summary of
- a more complete technical report. For someone who needs all the data,
- graphs, detailed algorithms, etc., then it may be necessary to go
- beyond the published work, and to look at the tech report.
-
- A tech report is often used for pre-published material. Because of the
- significant lag for publication (as much as 3 years in some journals),
- tech reports can be used to publicize a group's work. However, since
- a tech report may not of had any peer review, the person reading the
- tech report must perform the review themselves, before they can accept
- or reject the work in question.
-
- ~dave
-
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David B. Stewart - email: <dstewart@cmu.edu> The Robotics Institute
- snail mail: - ECE Dept., Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213
- Current Projects: - Chimera 3.0 Real-Time Operating System
- - Reconfigurable Sensor-Based Control Systems
-