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Tools and tips for collaborative writing.Overleaf, Google Docs, or Git?

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Distinguished 730 pts 0 followers
National Institute of Technology Karnataka · Posted
Computer Vision Public Health & Epidemiology Operations & Supply Chain

I have been on both sides.as a reviewer for IEEE and ACM journals, and as an author who has received peer review. The experience has made me wonder whether the current closed peer review model is serving science well.

As a reviewer: I put significant effort into reviews (usually 1500–2500 words). But I occasionally see reviews from other reviewers that are 3 sentences and completely uninformative.

As an author: I have received reviews that clearly misunderstood the paper's contribution. I have also received brilliant reviews that genuinely improved the paper.

Discussion question: What changes to peer review would actually improve quality? Open peer review? Paid reviewing? Double-blind everywhere?

Interested to hear from people across different fields and career stages.

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30 Replies

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Rajesh Kumar · Accepted answer

I found that writing a paper abstract first (before the paper) and then reverse-engineering the paper from the abstract helped with clarity enormously.

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Rekha Shetty Starting 40 pts · Accepted answer

I found that writing a paper abstract first (before the paper) and then reverse-engineering the paper from the abstract helped with clarity enormously.

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Replying to Rekha Shetty
Sowmya Narayanan Active 310 pts · Accepted answer

Could you clarify what you mean by results-blind review? I have heard of it but never understood how it works in practice. Wouldn't reviewers need to see results to evaluate whether the methodology is sound?

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Replying to Rekha Shetty
Vikram Bhatia Active 420 pts · Accepted answer

Really appreciate you taking the time to write this out in detail. This is going straight into my research notes.

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Vikram Bhatia Active 420 pts · Accepted answer

I'd push back slightly on the idea that industry collaboration is universally beneficial for academic research. The incentive misalignment is real.

Industry partners want deliverables on a schedule. Academic research is often exploratory and unpredictable. When the two clash, it is usually the researcher who has to compromise.either by rushing results, constraining publication, or steering away from results that are inconvenient for the sponsor.

This doesn't mean industry collaboration is bad. But the terms matter enormously. IP rights, publication rights, and the ability to pursue negative results should be negotiated upfront and protected in writing.

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Meena Sharma · Accepted answer

I'd push back slightly on the idea that industry collaboration is universally beneficial for academic research. The incentive misalignment is real.

Industry partners want deliverables on a schedule. Academic research is often exploratory and unpredictable. When the two clash, it is usually the researcher who has to compromise.either by rushing results, constraining publication, or steering away from results that are inconvenient for the sponsor.

This doesn't mean industry collaboration is bad. But the terms matter enormously. IP rights, publication rights, and the ability to pursue negative results should be negotiated upfront and protected in writing.

0
Sowmya Narayanan Active 310 pts · Accepted answer

I found that writing a paper abstract first (before the paper) and then reverse-engineering the paper from the abstract helped with clarity enormously.

0
Replying to Sowmya Narayanan
Dinesh Kulkarni Distinguished 730 pts · Accepted answer

This is exactly what I needed to hear. One clarifying question: you mentioned FedProx handles non-IID data better.does that mean I should switch to FedProx by default, or only if I observe poor convergence with FedAvg first?

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Replying to Sowmya Narayanan
Rajesh Kumar · Accepted answer

Overleaf + GitHub integration is underrated. You get version control and collaboration in one place.

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Replying to Sowmya Narayanan
Chetan Jain Growing 100 pts · Accepted answer

Marking this as the accepted answer. Incredibly helpful and specific. Really appreciate you taking the time.

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Anita Rao · Accepted answer

For longitudinal data with missing values, mixed-effects models handle this more gracefully than imputation in most cases.

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Dinesh Kulkarni Distinguished 730 pts · Accepted answer

This is a known issue with XLM-R on code-mixed data. The MuRIL preprint has a section specifically comparing these.

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Replying to Dinesh Kulkarni
Ekta Choudhary Starting 45 pts · Accepted answer

Thank you for this detailed answer! A quick follow-up: when you mention cosine learning rate with warm-up, are you warming up the LoRA parameters specifically or the entire model including the frozen backbone?

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Ganesh Menon Growing 140 pts · Accepted answer

For longitudinal data with missing values, mixed-effects models handle this more gracefully than imputation in most cases.

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Replying to Ganesh Menon
Sowmya Narayanan Active 310 pts · Accepted answer

Strongly agree with the point about choosing venues carefully. One paper in NeurIPS > five papers in obscure workshops.

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Priya Nair · Accepted answer

+1 to everything said above. My experience was identical.

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Hemant Patwa · Accepted answer

The IEEE TPAMI turnaround in my case was 7 months for the first review. Plan accordingly.

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Admin NITK · Accepted answer

Seconding the recommendation for Zotero. Game changer for managing references across multiple projects.

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Geeta Rao · Accepted answer

Seconding the recommendation for Zotero. Game changer for managing references across multiple projects.

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Wajid Khan Growing 110 pts · Accepted answer

Strongly agree with the point about choosing venues carefully. One paper in NeurIPS > five papers in obscure workshops.

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Replying to Wajid Khan
Chirag Mehta Starting 15 pts · Accepted answer

Could you clarify what you mean by results-blind review? I have heard of it but never understood how it works in practice. Wouldn't reviewers need to see results to evaluate whether the methodology is sound?

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Replying to Wajid Khan
Priya Nair · Accepted answer

Really appreciate you taking the time to write this out in detail. This is going straight into my research notes.

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Replying to Wajid Khan
Amit Joshi Starting 15 pts · Accepted answer

CSIR-UGC NET preparation: past papers are the most important resource. Everything else is secondary.

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Arjun Venkatesan Growing 195 pts · Accepted answer

I'd push back slightly on the idea that industry collaboration is universally beneficial for academic research. The incentive misalignment is real.

Industry partners want deliverables on a schedule. Academic research is often exploratory and unpredictable. When the two clash, it is usually the researcher who has to compromise.either by rushing results, constraining publication, or steering away from results that are inconvenient for the sponsor.

This doesn't mean industry collaboration is bad. But the terms matter enormously. IP rights, publication rights, and the ability to pursue negative results should be negotiated upfront and protected in writing.

0
Replying to Arjun Venkatesan
Sowmya Narayanan Active 310 pts · Accepted answer

Just to make sure I understand the Zotero workflow correctly.is the .bib file synced to Overleaf automatically every time you add a new paper, or do you need to trigger an export manually?

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Indira Balan · Accepted answer

For longitudinal data with missing values, mixed-effects models handle this more gracefully than imputation in most cases.

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Replying to Indira Balan
Om Prakash Growing 55 pts · Accepted answer

I am in a very similar situation. Would you be willing to share the outline of your PMRF proposal? Not the content.just the section headings and approximate word allocation.

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Jagdish Rawat · Accepted answer

I have successfully received PMRF (lateral entry, second year). Happy to share what worked in my proposal.

On the research proposal:

  • 60–70% technical approach, 30% context and impact
  • Preliminary results absolutely help. Coursework projects are fine if genuinely relevant
  • The societal impact section should be substantive.PMRF is a national initiative; reviewers want to see why this matters

On citations: Yes, cite your MTech thesis. Framing your PhD as an extension of prior work you did shows continuity of thought.

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Aditya Sharma Starting 45 pts · Accepted answer

Highly recommend checking out the PMRF portal for the actual numbers.they update the stipend structure annually.

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Replying to Aditya Sharma
Rohan Desai Distinguished 950 pts · Accepted answer

Highly recommend checking out the PMRF portal for the actual numbers.they update the stipend structure annually.