Feedback on the Christmas Gateway reports

General comments

The abstracts are too short - no more than about 50 words means 40-52 words. An abstract is not a statement of the paper's subject (that is what the title is for) - it is a LOOK AT ME billboard of what a wonderful advance this paper describes.

The algorithm was often described in lots of words - a few had insights into how it operated, and were able to describe it with these to good effect. But for the most part, the words said little beyond what the pseudo-code conveyed.

The conclusions were (i) too short, (ii) content-free, (iii) just a summary. Like the abstract, this is where you say REMEMBER ME. The game is not to say: "the paper has reviewed the basic operation of the algorithm" - I mean for goodness sake, the reader has just read it - but rather something like: "this implementation is the best and you are so lucky we are giving it to you ..."

Too few reports contained information beyond the original paper. Yet all of you (should) have performed implementations and gained some insights from that experience. Less explaining someone else's algorithm, more detail on your implementation.

Specific comments

it's means "it is" and should never be used in a learned paper (or electronics letter); it's is NOT the possessive of it

References should be included in the text whenever you borrow information for another source. They are included thus[1]. At the end of the paper, the references should be given in full (including conference title, page numbers, date, etc).

The word "I" does not appear in scientific publications - occasionally the word "we" is acceptable, even when there is only one author.

datum is now normally written as data

When describing your design it "is" rather than it "was" or "will be". One assumes that the design/idea still exists - so do not talk about it as though it were dead.