How to write CHI papers

About How to write CHI papers

lennartnacke.substack.com (https://lennartnacke.substack.com/s/how-to-write-research-papers-podcast?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Lennart Nacke, PhD

Category

education · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

19 Aug 2019

Latest episode

24 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

12 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   24 Aug 2026

   12 - Why CHI rejected your paper (w/ Phoebe Toups Dugas)

   This podcast episode marks the relaunch of my dormant How to Write CHI Papers podcast, now broadening into How to Write Research Papers. My guest is associate professor at Monash University and one of the CHI 2025 Papers Chairs, Phoebe Toups Dugas, a longtime friend and co-author. The conversation focuses on three threads: what removing CHI’s page limits did to paper quality, how the conference’s massive federated review system actually works, and what generative AI means for authors who sign their names to archival publications. On the publishing side, Toups Dugas explains the death of page limits (4-page notes → 10-page papers → unlimited) as the biggest change of her career: it accommodates legitimate needs like qualitative quotes and large figures, but also lets under-polished 20-page drafts through. As Papers Chair, she explains the system behind it — Technical Program Chairs appoint Papers Chairs, who recruit 48 subcommittee chairs, who recruit Associate Chairs (the closest analogue to journal editors) — and details desk rejects: broken anonymization (grant numbers, institutions, metadata), grossly broken formatting, non-research objects, and the new-for-2025 criterion that papers must be situated in scholarly/CHI literature (prompted by submissions citing only webpages and encyclopedias). She also explains why CHI hasn’t followed CSCW and CHI Play into a PACM journal: a new journal needs ~5 years of citation data before it can be ranked (e.g., Australia’s CORE rankings), which would strand CHI’s 4,000+ annual submissions in an unrankable venue. On craft and AI, her “secret sauce” is structure: reflexive thematic analysis and substantive positionality statements (which she’d extend to quantitative work too), research questions placed in introductions with subsections — even when co-authors object — and treating your own draft like qualitative data, splitting and merging sections as concepts emerge so readers always have guideposts. On generative AI she draws a bright line: never feed others’ unpublished work into an LLM; polishing a review is murkier, but she’d rather read point-form bullets than ChatGPT paragraphs anyway. Her deepest concern is archival responsibility — “you’re responsible for anything that has your name on it,” for readers far beyond the present toolkit, since you can’t know an LLM’s sources or biases. Her closing tip for junior writers: think carefully about structure, because headers tell readers where they are, what they should already know, and what’s coming. Topics * Restarting the podcast — Lennart opens by saying How to Write CHI Papers is coming back after years of silence and will become How to Write Research Papers, with a CHI special still attached, and that more general writing advice is welcome because listeners sit all along the writing spectrum. * What changed in a decade and a half of CHI publishing — Toups Dugas names paper length as the largest shift: the old 4-page notes and 10-page papers counted references, so graduate students abbreviated names to squeeze citations; references stopped counting; page limits then disappeared. * The polish-versus-space tradeoff — Unlimited length lets qualitative work keep giant figures and quoted material, and it also lets authors submit drafts that never got tightened; she has reviewed 20-page papers that did not need to be 20 pages, while “how long they need to be” stays an open question. * Which sections grew — Asked whether introductions, related work, methods, or discussions took the extra pages, she suspects the data and results portions more than backgrounds; backgrounds that list papers instead of synthesizing them remain a frustration; a longer discussion is the growth she would actually want. * IMRAD, related work, and room for creativity — Nacke cites a paper from this year’s CHI that criticizes the hundred-year normalization of the IMRAD (introduction–methods–results–discussion) scientific article, plus CHI’s extra related-work section, and asks whether writing tools plus no page limit produce more sameness or more invention. * Experimental layouts versus guardrails — Toups Dugas has used the extra space for more creative layouts; as Papers Chair she mostly sees problematic papers, not the experimental ones; qualitative, observational, and argument papers follow IMRAD less strictly and then get hit with “where’s your methodology?” on research-synthesis work. * Updating Contributions to CHI — Papers chairs reviewed and updated the Contributions to CHI document so it would match their sense of what CHI should look like, as the conference tries to include more types of work. * What a CHI Papers Chair actually does — The CHI job is management, not reading papers: Technical Program Chairs appoint Papers Chairs; at least one Papers Chair rolls over (the reason she is doing 2025); they recruit 48 subcommittee chairs (at least two per subcommittee, some three or four), who recruit Associate Chairs; ACs pick reviewers and may serve on only one subcommittee. * Subcommittees and the AC–editor analogy — Subcommittees are concept-driven: Games and Play; three Understanding People tracks (statistical, qualitative, mixed methods). The AC is the closest analogue to a journal associate editor. Nacke points listeners who want the rest of the pipeline to chicourse.com and the YouTube comments rather than replaying his course on air. * Desk rejects after killing quick rejects — Desk rejects and quick rejects arrived a couple of years earlier; this past year they kept only desk rejects because a later “fail fast” felt like an extra hurdle. Official criteria live on the CHI website; her list is mechanical: failed anonymization (grant numbers, institution, names in metadata), grossly broken formatting (all-bold caps on three pages), and objects that are not research papers (a patent). * The 2025 situatedness bullet — The controversial addition for 2025 is whether the work is situated in scholarly literature and/or the CHI literature; the extreme case is a paper that cites five webpages, two encyclopedias, and a book and nothing from CHI. Subcommittee chairs can judge that; until this year there was no desk-reject hook for it. * Why CHI stays a conference while siblings became journals — Computer science used fast annual conferences as the publication venue and built heavy review around them; CSCW moved first to a journal that later invites authors to present; CHI Play and most other spin-offs followed into PACM so careers would be legible to tenure committees that read journals. * The five-year ranking trap — CHI keeps revisiting the journal question in steering conversations and at a Future of SIGCHI summit a couple of months before the taping. A new journal needs about five years of citation data before it can be ranked; cutting off CHI for that interval would strand 4,000-plus submissions in an unrankable venue, so the community still uses acceptance rate and process descriptions instead. * CORE in Australia — Beside SCImago journal quartiles, Australia uses CORE conference ranks. Toups Dugas has sat the CORE panel: citation data, global versus regional reach, who attends and how often, prestigious authors. Ranks run A, A+, B, C; CHI is A+ for HCI; she would put CHI Play at A, except CHI Play is now a journal and therefore no longer CORE-ranked. * Writing craft: positionality and structure — Asked for the move that made her papers succeed, she jokes about the field’s love of a rejection badge, then talks reflexive thematic analysis and positionality statements that go past a boilerplate paragraph into how the researcher entered the work. She has been putting research questions in the introduction and adding introduction subsections, which enraged a co-author; she reads the chunking as a neurodivergent need for guideposts, and Nacke recalls work showing more subsections than five or six years ago, now that the 10-page crush is gone. * Organic outlines and multiple backgrounds — She drops an outline into the template near the start, then splits and merges as she writes—sometimes several background sections (game design; historical ways of knowing) so a later unexpected word, including language about transgender experience, can point back. She describes that as a qualitative analysis of her own draft. * Generative AI in reviews and manuscripts — She has not been able to prove a review was ChatGPT; a handful were flagged and could not be separated from ordinary prose, including prose that looks “AI” to neurotypical readers. Feeding unpublished submissions into a large language model is, for her as Papers Chair, ethically off-limits; running a finished review through an LLM to make paragraphs is closer to the same problem. She would rather receive a point-form list of concerns than ChatGPT paragraphs built from that list. * The “inflowful” failure mode — The writing-aid tell she has seen is twisting a field-specific term as if it were ordinary English; the invented example is Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory becoming something like “inflowful theory.” * Policy, water, and archival time — Nacke teaches a how-to-use-AI-productively course, cites a CHI keynote that compared each query to pouring a bottle of water on the ground for cooling and energy, and asks whether backlash or toolkit-embrace wins. Toups Dugas treats embrace as inevitable unless something drastic happens, then shifts the burden: a name on an archival CHI paper is a claim aimed at readers far beyond the present toolkit, and extracted model text does not tell you its sources or the company’s intentions. * Closing tip — For a junior writer she repeats structure: headers as guideposts so a reader knows what they should already know and what is still coming. Nacke thanks her and ends the taping. Highlights “It’s very possible to submit papers that are kind of of a lower level of polish.” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. First answer of the interview, after Nacke asked what had changed across a decade and a half and why CHI dropped page limits. What surfaced. Unlimited length is sold as accommodation for qualitative figures and quoted evidence; the same rule is also a permission structure for drafts that never got tightened. She will not quantify “how long they need to be,” and she later suspects the extra pages landed in results more than in discussion—the one section she would have wanted to grow. The same tension sits under the 2025 situatedness desk-reject: a paper can be a real paper and still be the wrong length, or the wrong literature, for the venue. “Have I been successful in my rejected author position?” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. Around 21 minutes, after the organizational tour, Nacke asked for the one structure or approach that had made her publications stand apart. What surfaced. The invited “secret sauce” question hits a Papers Chair who still wears the rejected-author badge the field jokes about. What follows is not a template; it is positionality, introduction subsections that angered a co-author, and a refusal to treat qualitative craft as optional garnish. The joke and the later advice to junior writers (headers as guideposts) are the same person: success, in her telling, is a relationship to structure, not a win rate. “It takes, I think, at least five years before you can get ranked as a journal, because you essentially need five years of data on citations.” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. Mid-interview, after Nacke asked why CHI had not followed CSCW and CHI Play into a PACM-style journal, and after he floated the political fear that merging would cost CHI its “prime time status.” What surfaced. The blocker she names is not pride; it is a bootstrap. CHI would have to stop being a rankable conference for the interval it takes a journal to grow a citation series, while 4,000-plus people still need a venue they can show a dean. That is why acceptance rate and process talk remain the currency, and why Australia’s CORE panel—which she has sat—can still call CHI A+ and must mark CHI Play “journal published” instead of A. The steering committee and the SIGCHI summit keep reopening a question this arithmetic has not solved. “I’m not entirely convinced that everyone shouldn’t just be writing positionality statements for all of their work.” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. After she described reflexive thematic analysis and the way the researcher enters qualitative work, and after she admitted she has been “grumping at people” who skip positionality in qualitative papers. What surfaced. She then applies the same demand to statistical papers: the choice of which numbers to gather is already a position. Nacke tries to treat that as settled community consensus and asks again for the “Phoebe sauce”; she pivots to experimental structure instead of walking the claim back. Whether CHI will police positionality the way it now polices situatedness is left hanging. “It’s generally not okay to put other people’s unpublished work into large language models because they shouldn’t be learning from unpublished work.” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. Near 28 minutes, answering whether she has seen ChatGPT in the CHI review process; she had just said she could not prove any review was generated. What surfaced. The bright line is training-and-prompting on a submission the reviewer has no right to donate. Polishing a review you already wrote sits beside that line—she calls it “maybe less ethically questionable” and then undercuts it by saying she would rather read a point-form list than ChatGPT paragraphs built from one. The later archival-time argument is the same ethic pointed at authors instead of reviewers. “Humans have spent time and attention on them and have asserted that there is long term, for some definition of long term, ten to hundreds of thousands of years worth of value.” — Phoebe Toups Dugas Context. After Nacke described the CHI keynote’s bottle-of-water image and asked whether policy backlash or toolkit-embrace would win; she had already called embrace “kind of inevitable.” What surfaced. Inevitability is not permission. A name on a CHI paper is, in her framing, a claim about the scholarly record, not a claim about productivity. The worry she describes is not cheaper labour but not knowing the sources or the intentions inside the model. Books * Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (https://www.cgu.edu/people/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi/) — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory, the term Toups Dugas used to show how an LLM can mangle a field-specific phrase. Institutions/tools * How to Write CHI Papers (https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/how-to-write-chi-papers/id1477199050) — the podcast being restarted; also listed as How to Write Research Papers (https://lennartnacke.substack.com/podcast). * chicourse.com (https://chicourse.com/) — Nacke’s writing course; the full CHI review pipeline. * CHI 2025 (https://chi2025.acm.org/) — flagship ACM conference; Toups Dugas is a Papers Chair for this cycle. * SIGCHI (https://sigchi.org/) — parent society; Nacke refers to SIGCHI conferences * CHI Play (https://chiplay.acm.org/2026/) — smaller SIGCHI conference; fewer layers of federation; now a PACM journal. * CSCW (https://cscw.acm.org/) — first of the sibling conferences she remembers moving to a journal-plus-presentation model. * Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (PACMHCI) (https://dl.acm.org/journal/pacmhci) — the “PACM” journal Nacke mentions as the home for those special issues. * ACM (https://www.acm.org/) — publisher of CHI proceedings and PACM. * Contributions to CHI (https://chi2025.acm.org/contributions-to-chi/) — the document Papers Chairs reviewed and updated. * CHI 2025 Papers review process / desk rejects (https://chi2025.acm.org/papers-review-process/) — official desk-reject list she told juniors to treat as the last word. * CHI 2025 subcommittees (https://chi2025.acm.org/subcommittees/selecting-a-subcommittee/) * CORE / ICORE conference rankings (https://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/) — Australian conference ranks; CHI is A+; CHI Play is marked journal-published. * SCImago (https://www.scimagojr.com/) — journal quartile index Nacke names for career strategy. * ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/) — the generated-review and generated-prose system they keep returning to. * Claude (https://claude.ai/) — named with ChatGPT in Nacke’s “uprising of the robots” setup. * Microsoft Word (https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/word) — Nacke’s comparison case for a writing technology the field already absorbed. * IMRAD (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMRAD) — the introduction–methods–results–discussion template in the CHI paper Nacke cites. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lennartnacke.substack.com/subscribe (https://lennartnacke.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   28 Dec 2025

   Why Your Team Can't Write CHI Papers

   How to Write CHI Papers with Jim Wallace - Episode Shownotes Episode Overview Getting a paper into CHI (the top Human-Computer Interaction conference) is harder than ever. In this episode, Professor Jim Wallace from the University of Waterloo reveals the exact writing process, template, and mindset that gets papers accepted. We discuss the abstract-first method, the three-paragraph expansion technique, and why hard and fast iteration is the only way papers actually get written. Guest Professor Jim WallaceAssociate Professor, School of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo Former CHI Associate Chair (Games and Play subcommittee) CHI Science Jam organizer Creator of the CHIzen LaTeX template Key Topics Covered What Types of Papers Does CHI Want? Harder to publish: Systems papers, bibliographical work, meta-reviews Growing trend: Reflective and meta papers about HCI research methods Exciting developments: Papers examining research practices, statistical methods, and theoretical foundations The balance between artifact-driven research and methodological reflection The Abstract-First Writing Method Jim's recommended approach for writing CHI papers: Start with the abstract Address these key questions: What problem are you solving? What's your solution? Who should care? What are your contributions? Expand to introduction Turn each abstract sentence into a paragraph Develop related work Expand each paragraph into three paragraphs Iterate hard and fast Write, realize it needs work, revise, repeat The CHIzen Template Jim created a LaTeX/Overleaf template called CHIzen (meaning "continuous improvement") that includes: Visualization wrappers and graphics tools Transparency and best practices for sharing materials Ethics materials templates A comprehensive checklist for paper submission Tips and tricks collected from working with many researchers Find it on GitHub: https://github.com/JimWallace/CHI-Zen (https://github.com/JimWallace/CHI-Zen) CHI Paper Structure & Narrative CHI balances being both a scientific and design community Unlike health sciences with rigid structure, CHI emphasizes storytelling and narrative Key framework: Problem → Solution → Who Cares? Persuasion is essential You must convince reviewers the problem is valuable Quality Criteria & Review Process What reviewers look for: Context: Is the problem valuable and well-positioned? Methods: Are methods appropriate and rigorously applied? Clarity: Is the writing clear and well-presented? The evolution of expectations: 20 years ago: "The Wild West" - almost anything could be published Today: Power analyses, rigorous methods, careful justification required Risk: Expectation inflation may crush good ideas that aren't perfectly executed Being a Champion Reviewer Essential reading: Ken Hinckley's paper on being a champion Reviewers should champion good papers, not destroy them Be constructive and focus on positives Your job is to help papers succeed, not sink them Students often think reviewers are out to destroy their work - this shouldn't be the mindset Advice for Junior Researchers On writing your first paper: Pick a niche contribution - you can't please everyone Small steps and iteration are essential Learn from feedback from advisors and co-authors Don't expect perfection on the first draft On reviewing papers: Get involved early to see behind the scenes Be honest about what you don't know It's okay to decline reviews for methods you haven't used Focus on what you CAN comment on constructively On learning new methods: This is a career-long process, not something finished in a PhD Be honest about expertise gaps Reviewing helps calibrate your understanding Fairness in the Review Process Everyone in the process has the best intentions Authors don't see all the work happening behind the scenes Consistency is a major challenge When is a power analysis required? For which methods? Revise and resubmit processes (like CHI Play, ISS, CSCW) are moving in the right direction Second chances mean papers are only rejected for big, important reasons Current Trends & Future Directions CHI Play's new rubric system: Separating methods expertise from domain expertise Revise and resubmit models: Gaining traction across HCI conferences Transparency and reproducibility: Growing emphasis on sharing materials Qualitative methods: Increased popularity, especially during COVID-19 Key Papers & Resources Mentioned Inter-rater reliability paper by Norm McDonald et al. (CSCW) Statistical methods and null hypothesis testing (CHI Play) "HARKing No More" (CHI) Ken Hinckley's "Being a Champion" paper Essential reading for reviewers and ACs Greenberg and Buxton's "Usability Studies Considered Harmful" (2008/2009) - Including Dan Olson's panel comments on value networks Workshop on challenges for qualitative research/transparency (CHI) CHIzen LaTeX Template Available on GitHub (https://github.com/JimWallace/CHI-Zen) Memorable Quotes "You could get almost anything published 20 years ago... you look at the types of rigor and the things that reviewers ask for today, and it's not even close." "The abstract, the intro, the related work - they're all basically the same thing. It's just longer versions of the same piece of writing." "You can't just write the whole paper and revise it. You've gotta focus on small pieces or small chunks that you can revise easily and then expand out as you go." "Students going in today just think that reviewers are complete... they're just gonna tear papers apart... I actually think we need to ease up a little bit." "Every single person in the process has the best of intentions... everyone really wants to have very constructive feedback and do the author's justice." Episode Notes This episode was originally recorded approximately 5 years ago and is being re-released as part of the relaunch of the podcast, now titled "How to Write Research Papers." The podcast is expanding its scope while maintaining its focus on helping researchers improve their academic writing. Host: Professor Lennart Nacke Production: How to Write Research Papers Podcast Episode Length: ~29 minutes For more episodes and resources, visit https://lennartnacke.substack.com (https://lennartnacke.substack.com) Or join me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennartnacke (https://www.youtube.com/@lennartnacke) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lennartnacke.substack.com/subscribe (https://lennartnacke.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   31 Aug 2021

   Episode 10 - Interview with Jacob Wobbrock

   In our tenth episode, I finally get to meet up with Jacob Wobbrock, a Professor of human-computer interaction (HCI) in The Information School and, by courtesy, in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. He was one of the people that inspired me to teach the first version of this course. The interview is full of fantastic tips for writing CHI papers, Jake's personal writing process, what it takes to get cited, lots of great anecdotes, mentoring advice for junior students and faculty, and thoughts on why reviewers should be chasing value in every CHI paper.

4. 

   28 Aug 2021

   Episode 9 - Interview with Munmun De Choudhury

   In this episode, my guest is Munmun De Choudhury, an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Munmun has a fantastic track record and high impact in citations, worked countless service hours for the CHI community, and because of her work in the health field, she has many good tips that put the human first in any CHI paper project right from the first brainstorm.

5. 

   26 Aug 2021

   Episode 8 - Interview with Elisa Mekler

   Elisa Mekler, Assistant Professor at Aalto University shares some profound paper writing strategies and tips about reviewing CHI papers. She dips into her wealth of experience of writing award-winning papers and chairing papers tracks. In addition, she talks about her mentoring approach to her own students for writing CHI papers.

6. 

   25 Aug 2021

   Episode 7 - Interview with Kathrin Gerling

   Kathrin Gerling, Assistant Professor at KU Leuven, talks about her experiences as papers and subcommittee chair in the SIGCHI world. In our interview, we explore strategies for publishing papers at CHI and she gives some excellent tips for junior Ph.D. students looking to get published.

7. 

   14 May 2021

   Episode 6 - Interview with Kasper Hornbæk

   In this interview from 2017 with Kasper Hornbæk, who has won on IJHCS’s most cited paper award 2006-2008, talks about his writing process in good detail. He answers the important questions about finding a good research direction and taking it from idea to manuscript. I hope you enjoy this interview.

8. 

   13 May 2021

   Episode 5 - Interview with Vero vanden Abeele

   In this interview with Vero Vanden Abeele, papers chair of CHI PLAY 2017 and 2018, we discuss the writing practices that have contributed to her success in writing research papers for CHI and other conferences. I hope you enjoy this interview.

9. 

   12 May 2021

   Episode 4 - Interview with Regan Mandryk

   In this interview with Regan Mandryk, chair of CHI 2018, we dive deep into the writing practices that have made her a successful author for the conference. Take away some tips and tricks from her prolific writing structure and learn how to bring the 'boom'. I hope you enjoy this interview.

10. 

    12 May 2021

    Episode 3 - Interview with Jofish Kaye

    In this interview with Jofish Kaye, former co-chair of CHI 2016, he provides some hands-on tips about cutting through to the essence of paper writing and finding good research questions. I hope you enjoy this interview.

11. 

    10 May 2021

    Episode 2 - Interview with Carl Gutwin

    This is an older interview when I had the pleasure of interviewing Professor Carl Gutwin (https://www.cs.usask.ca/faculty/gutwin/) from the University of Saskatchewan (http://hci.usask.ca/) in 2016 for the How to write CHI papers course (Carl has been papers chair of CHI in the past and has an incredible amount of experience in writing for SIGCHI conferences). Having worked with Carl at the University of Saskatchewan before, I knew that he was going to have some excellent advice for new CHI writers. In fact, it was Carl who taught me the first CHI writing course when I was a postdoc.

12. 

    19 Aug 2019

    Episode 1 - Interviews from CHI 2019

    In this episode, Dr. Lennart Nacke introduces the podcast to listeners and conducts interviews with several people at CHI 2019 about what it takes to write CHI papers.

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