Skills Soft Skills Structuring Academic Papers: Body and Appendix

Structuring Academic Papers: Body and Appendix

v20260724
mobicom-supplementary
This guide provides essential best practices for structuring technical academic papers, especially when facing strict page limits (like a 12-page cap). It teaches authors how to properly divide content into the core body (main results, mechanism) and supplementary appendices (derivations, full protocols). The goal is to make the contribution self-contained while maximizing clarity and impact for reviewers.
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Overview

MobiCom Supplementary Material

MobiCom gives you a hard 12 double-column pages including figures and tables, with references and optional appendices (placed after the references) outside the cap. The skill is placement: what must a reviewer read to judge the contribution, and what can wait in an appendix without hollowing out the body.

The placement contract

Content Where it goes Why
Mechanism, headline result, main figures 12-page body reviewers judge the contribution here
Channel-model derivation, proofs appendix (after references) needed for correctness, not for the argument's flow
Full protocol / state machine appendix body states the idea; appendix has the detail
Extended sweeps, extra conditions appendix supports, does not carry, the claim
Instrument/measurement setup detail appendix provenance, not narrative
All citations references (outside cap) never trimmed for space or anonymity

The controlling rule: the body must be self-contained enough to judge novelty and correctness without the appendix. An appendix strengthens; it must not be load-bearing. Reviewers are not obligated to read appendices, so the strongest result cannot live only there (mobicom-writing-style).

What must stay in the body

  • The mechanism, stated with its operating regime.
  • At least one headline over-the-air result with its condition and uncertainty.
  • The baseline comparison that supports the main claim.
  • Enough method that a reviewer can see why the mechanism works.

If moving something to the appendix would make the body's argument incomplete, it stays — find the page elsewhere by triaging a figure or tightening prose, not by shrinking geometry.

HotCRP fields are part of the submission

The form is not an afterthought; reviewers meet it first:

HotCRP submission fields to treat as content:
  title/abstract  -> verbatim-match the PDF (drift reads as sloppiness)
  topics          -> chosen for the reviewer sub-community you want (routing)
  authors/conflicts -> full list at abstract time for conflict computation
  optional fields -> artifact/ethics declarations per the current CFP (待核实 wording)

Anonymity crosses the body/appendix line

An appendix is still part of the double-blind submission. A channel-model derivation that names your testbed, a protocol listing with your repository URL, or a measurement appendix with a site identifier de-anonymizes exactly as a body leak would. Run the blindness sweep over the appendices too (mobicom-submission).

Rebuttal and revision packets are separate

Do not confuse post-review material with submission supplementary material:

  • The rebuttal is a bounded response entered after stage-2 reviews; it is not extra paper pages and has its own length limit (mobicom-author-response).
  • A one-shot revision returns with a change-highlighted PDF and a change summary as auxiliary material — again outside the 12-page count and governed by the revision instructions, not the original CFP page rules (mobicom-review-process).

Neither is a place to smuggle content that should have been in the body; both are governed by their own limits.

Audit checklist

  • Body self-contained: novelty and correctness judgeable without the appendix.
  • Strongest result in the body, not only supplementary.
  • Derivations/protocols/extended results in appendices after references.
  • References complete and outside the cap; none trimmed for anonymity.
  • Appendices passed through the blindness sweep.
  • HotCRP title/abstract/topics/conflicts audited as content.
  • Rebuttal/revision material kept off the page count and to its own limit.

Output format

[Body completeness] can the contribution be judged from the 12 pages alone? y/n
[Placement] content mis-shelved (body<->appendix) with the move
[References] complete + outside cap? y/n
[Anonymity] appendix leaks found
[HotCRP] fields needing attention
Info
Category Soft Skills
Name mobicom-supplementary
Version v20260724
Size 4.33KB
Updated At 2026-07-28
Language