ITCS Related Work

At ITCS, related work carries a heavier burden than at a depth venue: since conceptual novelty is the selection criterion, your positioning must prove the contribution is genuinely new, not merely stronger. A reviewer's most damaging finding is not "someone proved a better bound" — it is "someone already asked this question" or "this is a known model under a new name." The related-work discussion is where you win or lose the novelty claim, so it is a load-bearing part of an ITCS paper, not an obligatory appendix.

Delta-first positioning

Lead each comparison with the delta, not the citation:

• Name the closest prior model or question, state what it did, and then state precisely what it did not ask that you do. "Prior work bounds the prover's computation; none bounds its memory of the interaction" is a delta. "Many works study interactive proofs [3-19]" is a dump.
• Distinguish new question from new answer. If the question existed and you answer it better, say so honestly — and reconsider whether ITCS is the right venue (see itcs-topic-selection); if the question is new, make that the headline of the paragraph.
• Address independent and concurrent work plainly. In a small community with heavy arXiv/ECCC posting, a near-simultaneous related idea is common; acknowledging it and drawing the distinction reads as strength, not weakness.

Cover the right lanes

An ITCS paper usually sits at a seam between areas, so its related work must reach across lanes a single-area reader might miss:

Scan the ITCS/ICS back-catalog (dblp conf/innovations, LIPIcs volumes) specifically: because ITCS is where new models are introduced, the venue most likely to already contain your idea is ITCS itself.

Honesty under lightweight double-blind

ITCS review is lightweight double-blind: the PDF hides author names, affiliations, and emails, but the reference list is NOT anonymized, and authors are encouraged to post a non-anonymous full version to arXiv/ECCC/ePrint. Practical consequences for related work:

• Cite your own prior work normally in the third person. Do not anonymize references or write "[removed for anonymity]." Refer to your own earlier papers as "[Author, YEAR] shows..." the way you would cite anyone — the reference stays in the list, the prose stays neutral.
• Do not write "in our previous work [12] we..." — that first-person self-reference is the classic leak the anonymity sweep must catch (see itcs-submission).
• Do not sabotage coverage to hide identity. Omitting the obviously-relevant paper by your own group to avoid a tell is worse than the tell: reviewers notice the gap, and it damages the novelty case. Cite it neutrally.

Positioning the novelty claim itself

Make the newness checkable, the way the rest of the paper makes theorems checkable:

• State the novelty claim explicitly ("to our knowledge, no prior work models X as Y") rather than implying it — an explicit claim is one a reviewer can confirm or refute, which is the honest posture.
• Bound the claim. "New, to our knowledge, in the unconditional setting" is safer and more credible than a blanket "first ever."
• Credit the lineage. Showing your idea descends from a recognizable line ("this extends the non-malleability philosophy to ...") makes it legible and generous without weakening the delta.

Common failure modes

Output format

[ITCS positioning status] novelty-proven / at-risk / unclear
[Closest prior model] <named> ; delta: <what they did NOT ask that you do>
[Back-catalog check] searched ITCS/ICS + connected area for a prior version? yes/no
[Novelty claim] stated explicitly and bounded to a setting? yes/no
[Anonymity] references un-anonymized; no first-person self-cites? yes/no
[Fix queue] <ordered edits>