I've spent a good amount of time over the last month reading various conference proceedings, and I've come to a few conclusions. First, I think I know why the academic publishing cycle is measured in years. Second, an astonishing number of papers do not include all of the necessary information. And third, the number of mathematical symbols is inversely proportional to the value of the content.
There are many reasons to write academic papers and documents for journals. The main reason is supposed to be "communication". Public disclosure permits open review and feedback concerning the quality of the work, and allows other people to build off a shared knowledge base.
Unfortunately, there are other reasons. For example, publications are frequently a job requirement for academics. ("Publish or perish" isn't just a catchy slogan.) Graduate students and faculty are under constant pressure to publish their work. Papers can also lead to notoriety. If someone wants to claim fame, then publishing lots of papers is a good way to do it.
Motivation
Of course, there are some easy ways to tell what the real motivation is... For example, if the same paper appears in lots of journals with only minor variations, then the author is just looking for a paper count. (Publish or perish.) Usually these papers are not even very significant, or repeat the same significant item with lots of "junk" around it.
Back in college I had a professor who assigned a book that was written by his friend. Every reference paper in the book was either authored by his friend, the professor himself, or a small circle of other friends who all cited each other and almost never anyone else. It isn't that they were the only people in this field; in fact, there are hundreds of other people publishing on the same topic. But this closed clique allowed them to claim notoriety.
When looking over papers, be sure to see who is cited, and who those people cite. It is a common practice to cite friends. But make sure there are other external influences and not a closed circle of knowledge. Many professors are ranked based on the number of people who cite their work, so cliques form of friends citing friends rather than citing notable work. I have trouble seeing how this is different from lawyers and doctors who conduct
insurance fraud through referrals.
Over-Talk
Of course, if you really want to sound important, then use big words and lots of mathematical symbols. This is the head-scratch theory of papers: the longer the reader sits and scratches their head, the more important the paper seems. The average reader will overlook the fact that it is unreadable, missing critical steps, or skips necessary definitions. As long as the paper has lots of symbols, people will think it is important.
As an example, consider these two descriptions on Wikipedia. The first is the description of the
Discrete Fourier Transformation (DFT). This page uses a huge number of mathematical symbols. If you are a mathematician or in academics or work every day with advanced numerical theory, then you won't bat an eye. However, if you are like everyone else -- no college or college was years ago and you rarely deal with theoretical mathematical notation in your day-to-day work, then most of this Wikipedia page is nonsensical drivel. But the page
looks impressive.
(As an aside, I really like how the DFT page says "then the Plancherel theorem states:\sum_{n=0}^{N-1} x_n y^*_n = \frac{1}{N} \sum_{k=0}^{N-1} X_k Y^*_k". Yet the Wikipedia page for the
Plancherel theorem makes no reference to this equation.)
Now, compare the DFT definition with the definition for
Principal Component Analysis (PCA). While PCA does include mathematical notations, it also has English text that describes each equation, defines each variable, and explains how the variables are used. Even if you have not seen mathematical notations in a decade, this is readable.
Back to Work
I never cared for the 1-2 year cycles between submission and publication. However, I do understand why these cycles take so long. The number of overly complex papers must be overwhelming. My disenchantment has led to a biased viewpoint: If it takes months for a paper to be peer reviewed, then it must be poorly written. And if a technical journal waits more than a year before publishing an accepted paper, they they are only delaying technological advancements.
Granted, there are other reasons for the delay. For example, if a professor must teach classes, advise students, grade homework, perform research, and submit papers -- and then asked to peer-review a paper for someone else... guess what becomes the lowest priority?
Of course, the timeliness issue really depends on the field. If a history or art paper takes years to be published, the field will not be significantly impacted by the delay. But in the computer science and security fields, technological advancement is measured in months; a year is a very long time. Something important and cutting edge today may be old news, exploited, patched, or just less valuable by next year.
