Publishing in the Annals of Statistics An Opinion by S.A. Murphy

2 History In 1930 first publication in February, 1930 with support by The American Statistical Association (ASA) In 1933 ASA had a budget crunch and decided to end support. In 1935 IMS was formed with The Annals of Mathematical Statistics as its flagship journal

3 Types of Papers Coverage: Three areas--all theory based-- –mathematical statistics –interdisciplinary statistics –computational statistics. Primary emphasis is on importance and originality.

4 Deciding if my paper is suitable for the Annals of Statistics Does my paper provide a new approach to attack a problem and does it explore this new approach deeply? OR Does my paper pose a new problem (to mathematical statistics) and provide a well developed solution? OR Does my paper solve a problem that has been outstanding despite efforts by statisticians?

5 Common Errors 1.Assuming the audience knows all about your area and thus omitting the context of the problem and why the problem is important. 2.Over-estimating the time/energy/knowledge of the reader/reviewer. 1)Assuming that AOS readers are willing to work very hard to understand the contribution of your paper 2)Assuming that AOS readers are so brilliant that they will not have to work hard to understand the contribution of your paper.

6 Common Errors 1)Trying to impress the experts too early in the paper and thus producing a “unreadable” paper. 2)Focusing on just publishing your paper—it is equally important that the paper is written so that 1)a wide variety of statisticians can appreciate the area to which you are contributing and 2)a wide variety of statisticians can appreciate your contribution to that area.

7 Review To be judged as suitable for review the paper must pass all the following criteria: 1)Quality of writing and clarity of presentation: If a paper is unclear or poorly written, it is unsuitable for detailed review and it should be rejected without making a judgment concerning its scientific content. 2)Novelty and originality: If a paper clearly does not make an original contribution then it is not suitable for review. 3)Interest to potential AOS readers

8 Best Advice 1.Try hard to create beauty and try hard to help others see the beauty of the work. 2.Find a theoretical paper that you really like and imitate the organization and style of the paper. 3.In your letter to the editor tell the editor that you have recently earned a Ph.D.

9 This seminar can be found at: seminars/AOS.SaltLake0707.ppt me with questions!