Abstract - The careers of many people depend on their success in writing and getting their papers published. More important, the scientific process requires that scientific findings be published so that other researchers may build on your ideas or refute your findings. If authors are not able to publish their papers, then their careers are hurt and scientific progress slows and stops. Therefore, it is critical that researchers and engineers understand the process of writing and getting published their papers in reputable and cited journals and scientific conferences. However, often, authors’ papers are rejected because they did not understand what reviewers, Associate Editors, and Editors are looking for in a paper, even if the technical results are good.

This presentation will cover the steps that an author should take to increase the acceptance rate of their papers in journals and conferences. It will cover the reasons most papers are rejected and how an author should organize their paper to avoid those reasons. Then I will present what steps you should take if your paper is rejected to get it published in the same journal or in a different journal. Finally, we will cover the things that authors must not do to avoid getting into trouble with IEEE.

George E. Ponchak received the B. E. E. degree from Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH in 1983, the M.S.E.E. degree from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH in 1987, and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI in 1997.

He joined the staff of the Communications, Instrumentation, and Controls Division at NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH in 1983 where he was now a senior research engineer until retirement. In 1997-1998 and in 2000-2001, he was a visiting professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH.

Dr. Ponchak is a Fellow of the IEEE. Dr. Ponchak was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions Microwave Theory and Techniques from 2010-2013, the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters from 2006-2009. He received the 2014 N. Walter Cox Award that recognizes an IEEE MTT-S member who has given exemplary service to the Society, the Distinguished Service Award in 2023, and the Best Paper of the ISHM’97 30^th International Symposium on Microelectronics Award.