<p>I think you should put this on the ArXiv. I would really recommend against putting papers which are less than a minimum publishable unit on the ArXiv if you are planning to do more work on them and incorporating them into a more complete conference or journal paper later (since I think your ArXiv papers should more or less mirror your conference and journal publications -- otherwise things get very confusing), but if you're not planning on doing anything else along these lines, I would recommend going ahead and posting it. I don't really see a downside.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-07-31T18:42:30.057Z
2011-07-31T18:42:30.057Z
Peter Shor 
<p>I agree with most of what Peter and David have said, but I thought I'd contribute an answer anyway, so that you can have a few different perspectives on this.</p>

<p>I should mention that the criteria people use for determining what to upload is not uniform across the community. Some (perhaps most) people only upload finished papers, while others upload lecture notes or journal club notes, or minor results not intended for publication.</p>

<p>For me, the general rule I use for determining whether I am going to upload something to the <a href="https://arxiv.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">arxiv</a> is whether or not I intend to submit it for publication somewhere. This is basically a practicality: I have a finite amount of time to spend writing stuff up (which is by far my least favorite part of the job), and so it makes sense to spend it writing up the results I consider the most important. As you progress through your research career, you tend to accumulate a lot of minor results. I tend not to bother writing these up, but often save them in case they might make an interesting starting point for working with a new student.</p>

<p>However, the rule I mention above I use simply for practical reasons. There is a much more important rule to bare in mind: Don't put something on the arxiv you are not happy to have people see with your name attached to it. People <em>will</em> see it. Within our community it is far more common for people to read the arxiv mailings than to read any particular journal. Also, it is essentially impossible to totally remove a paper from the arxiv. You'll notice that even papers people withdraw remain there.</p>

<p>I'm not sure whether it is of any use to you, but since we are in the same field you may find it useful to hear a breakdown of my own uploads. All but one are intended for publication (either have been published, are in review, or are waiting to be submitted somewhere, possibly in an updated form). The one which will likely never be published was initially intended to submit to <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PRL</a>, but got superseded by a much more detailed version I wrote for a CS conference. Also, one of my uploads is a review paper which has essentially zero original research in it. Most of my papers are on the arxiv, but there are 4 or 5 which for various different reasons don't appear there.</p>

<p>So where does this leave your paper? Well, as you are already distributing it via your own website, I would certainly say my second rule of thumb doesn't apply. Also, clearly you have already written it up, so the first rule doesn't apply in this instance. With that in mind, I would think there is no reason not to upload. If you get good feedback, you might even consider making a small paper out of it.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2011-08-01T14:52:36.730Z
2019-03-29T23:13:26.043Z
2019-03-29T23:13:26.043Z
Joe Fitzsimons
<p>It is hard to define a "publishable unit" and depends on who you ask. And not every one has a blog. I take a liberal view of what one can post on the ArXiv. Use your judgement and/or seek advice from a mentor if you are unsure but I think there is is room for a wide variety of things that one can post on the ArXiv including small notes and observations, surveys, course notes etc. As Joe said a good criterion is that one should try not be embarrassed by what one puts out for public consumption - that coupled with a reasonable amount of modesty when putting up small observations should work well.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-08-03T17:07:55.427Z
2011-08-03T17:07:55.427Z
Chandra Chekuri
<p>ArXiv papers still need to be recognizable as papers. I'd only put something on the arXiv if I'd feel comfortable publishing it as a letter in a journal (like, say, Information Processing Letters). For stuff that's even smaller than that, but that I still want to put on some sort of public record, I'll just make a blog post.</p>

<p>But in your case, if you've written it up as a preprint anyway, and you clearly state in it how much or how little is new, then why not? ArXiv papers don't actually have to have any new research content — survey papers are also welcome — so a paper that's mostly a survey but that extends the problem a small step in some direction doesn't sound problematic to me.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-08-03T06:29:09.753Z
what is the official distinction between a letter and a paper? It seemed to me like in a lot of top journals letters are just like papers, except more restricted in length.
Artem Kaznatcheev
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-07-31T19:49:56.587Z
2011-07-31T19:49:56.587Z
David Eppstein
<p>In essence, the question is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is the least publishable unit for the ArXiv?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of particular interest are fields that use the ArXiv extensively such as quantum computing. But comments on other fields and preprint services (like, ECCC &amp; ePrint) are also welcome.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Detailed question</h3>
<p>This is based on the following two questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/2328/1037">When should you say what you know?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/6770/1037">How do you decide when you have enough research results to write a paper and to which journal you submit the paper</a></li>
</ol>
<p>In particular, on Jukka Suomela's comment on this <a href="https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/2328/when-should-you-say-what-you-know/2329#2329">answer</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think ArXiving your results ASAP is a good idea. Please keep in mind that an ArXiv manuscript does not need to constitute a minimum publishable unit. I think it is perfectly ok to submit a 2-page proof to ArXiv, even though it would be obviously too short as a conference or journal paper. Resolving an open problem that other people would like to solve is more than enough.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In my field (quantum computing) it seems that every preprint I see on the ArXiv is a publication-level paper, released early so that we don't have to wait for conference proceedings or journal turnaround. It is intimidating to submit something that is not at publication-level. Is it alright to put up results which are partial or only slight extensions of existing work? Is it alright to put up results that are potentially interesting (i.e. you've given some talks on them and not everybody fell asleep) but you doubt would get into a top-conference or journal? Do you have advice on when to share results on ArXiv or similar preprint-servers? Can sharing results early hurt you?</p>
<hr />
<h3>Some specific background</h3>
<p>Just to make the question more personal, I'll include a further motivation. However, I am hoping to receive answers that give <b>more general guidelines</b> that I (and others) could follow in the future.</p>
<p>I did some work on unitary t-designs in which I extended an existing theorem (in a way that is kind of useful, but the proof of the original just needs to be modified slightly -- so no new idea; i.e. when I talked to the author of the earlier paper his comment was along the lines of &quot;oh cool, didn't think about that&quot;, and for the proof I had to say about a sentence and then he was like &quot;okay, I see how you would prove that&quot;), proved some easy results, and provided an alternative proof of a lower bound.</p>
<p>I wrote up a pretty verbose paper that I keep on my website, but unfortunately I am not well read enough in the field to really understand how it fits in the bigger picture (and I think that is the biggest weak-point, that I doubt I could overcome easily). I keep the text around mostly as a sort of &quot;I worked on this&quot; note and since I give talks on the topic sometimes. It has also come in useful once to a friend since I make a pretty gentle intro and so he used it as a basic starting point to relate some of his work to designs (although he didn't use any of the results in the paper, just like a lecture note on definitions).</p>
<p>Would this be an example of something that I should put up on the ArXiv? or is the appropriate measure to keep it in on my website?</p>

<soft-question><advice-request><research-practice><paper-review>
What is the smallest result you publish on ArXiv?
Artem Kaznatcheev
# What is the smallest result you publish on ArXiv?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2011-07-31)

In essence, the question is:

> What is the least publishable unit for the ArXiv?

Of particular interest are fields that use the ArXiv extensively such as quantum computing. But comments on other fields and preprint services (like, ECCC & ePrint) are also welcome.

---

### Detailed question

This is based on the following two questions:

1. [When should you say what you know?](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/2328/1037)
2. [How do you decide when you have enough research results to write a paper and to which journal you submit the paper](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/q/6770/1037)

In particular, on Jukka Suomela's comment on this [answer](https://cstheory.stackexchange.com/questions/2328/when-should-you-say-what-you-know/2329#2329):

> I think ArXiving your results ASAP is a good idea. Please keep in mind that an ArXiv manuscript does not need to constitute a minimum publishable unit. I think it is perfectly ok to submit a 2-page proof to ArXiv, even though it would be obviously too short as a conference or journal paper. Resolving an open problem that other people would like to solve is more than enough.

In my field (quantum computing) it seems that every preprint I see on the ArXiv is a publication-level paper, released early so that we don't have to wait for conference proceedings or journal turnaround. It is intimidating to submit something that is not at publication-level. Is it alright to put up results which are partial or only slight extensions of existing work? Is it alright to put up results that are potentially interesting (i.e. you've given some talks on them and not everybody fell asleep) but you doubt would get into a top-conference or journal? Do you have advice on when to share results on ArXiv or similar preprint-servers? Can sharing results early hurt you?

---

### Some specific background

Just to make the question more personal, I'll include a further motivation. However, I am hoping to receive answers that give **more general guidelines** that I (and others) could follow in the future.

I did some work on unitary t-designs in which I extended an existing theorem (in a way that is kind of useful, but the proof of the original just needs to be modified slightly -- so no new idea; i.e. when I talked to the author of the earlier paper his comment was along the lines of "oh cool, didn't think about that", and for the proof I had to say about a sentence and then he was like "okay, I see how you would prove that"), proved some easy results, and provided an alternative proof of a lower bound.

I wrote up a pretty verbose paper that I keep on my website, but unfortunately I am not well read enough in the field to really understand how it fits in the bigger picture (and I think that is the biggest weak-point, that I doubt I could overcome easily). I keep the text around mostly as a sort of "I worked on this" note and since I give talks on the topic sometimes. It has also come in useful once to a friend since I make a pretty gentle intro and so he used it as a basic starting point to relate some of his work to designs (although he didn't use any of the results in the paper, just like a lecture note on definitions).

Would this be an example of something that I should put up on the ArXiv? or is the appropriate measure to keep it in on my website?

**Tags:** soft-question, advice-request, research-practice, paper-review


---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2011-07-31. Score: 24 | Accepted answer

ArXiv papers still need to be recognizable as papers. I'd only put something on the arXiv if I'd feel comfortable publishing it as a letter in a journal (like, say, Information Processing Letters). For stuff that's even smaller than that, but that I still want to put on some sort of public record, I'll just make a blog post.

But in your case, if you've written it up as a preprint anyway, and you clearly state in it how much or how little is new, then why not? ArXiv papers don't actually have to have any new research content — survey papers are also welcome — so a paper that's mostly a survey but that extends the problem a small step in some direction doesn't sound problematic to me.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: what is the official distinction between a letter and a paper? It seemed to me like in a lot of top journals letters are just like papers, except more restricted in length.  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2011-07-31. Score: 12

I think you should put this on the ArXiv. I would really recommend against putting papers which are less than a minimum publishable unit on the ArXiv if you are planning to do more work on them and incorporating them into a more complete conference or journal paper later (since I think your ArXiv papers should more or less mirror your conference and journal publications -- otherwise things get very confusing), but if you're not planning on doing anything else along these lines, I would recommend going ahead and posting it. I don't really see a downside.


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2011-08-01. Score: 12

I agree with most of what Peter and David have said, but I thought I'd contribute an answer anyway, so that you can have a few different perspectives on this.

I should mention that the criteria people use for determining what to upload is not uniform across the community. Some (perhaps most) people only upload finished papers, while others upload lecture notes or journal club notes, or minor results not intended for publication.

For me, the general rule I use for determining whether I am going to upload something to the [arxiv](https://arxiv.org/) is whether or not I intend to submit it for publication somewhere. This is basically a practicality: I have a finite amount of time to spend writing stuff up (which is by far my least favorite part of the job), and so it makes sense to spend it writing up the results I consider the most important. As you progress through your research career, you tend to accumulate a lot of minor results. I tend not to bother writing these up, but often save them in case they might make an interesting starting point for working with a new student.

However, the rule I mention above I use simply for practical reasons. There is a much more important rule to bare in mind: Don't put something on the arxiv you are not happy to have people see with your name attached to it. People *will* see it. Within our community it is far more common for people to read the arxiv mailings than to read any particular journal. Also, it is essentially impossible to totally remove a paper from the arxiv. You'll notice that even papers people withdraw remain there.

I'm not sure whether it is of any use to you, but since we are in the same field you may find it useful to hear a breakdown of my own uploads. All but one are intended for publication (either have been published, are in review, or are waiting to be submitted somewhere, possibly in an updated form). The one which will likely never be published was initially intended to submit to [PRL](https://journals.aps.org/prl/), but got superseded by a much more detailed version I wrote for a CS conference. Also, one of my uploads is a review paper which has essentially zero original research in it. Most of my papers are on the arxiv, but there are 4 or 5 which for various different reasons don't appear there.

So where does this leave your paper? Well, as you are already distributing it via your own website, I would certainly say my second rule of thumb doesn't apply. Also, clearly you have already written it up, so the first rule doesn't apply in this instance. With that in mind, I would think there is no reason not to upload. If you get good feedback, you might even consider making a small paper out of it.


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2011-08-03. Score: 6

It is hard to define a "publishable unit" and depends on who you ask. And not every one has a blog. I take a liberal view of what one can post on the ArXiv. Use your judgement and/or seek advice from a mentor if you are unsure but I think there is is room for a wide variety of things that one can post on the ArXiv including small notes and observations, surveys, course notes etc. As Joe said a good criterion is that one should try not be embarrassed by what one puts out for public consumption - that coupled with a reasonable amount of modesty when putting up small observations should work well.


---

