2

Please refer to the following link for details. I am planning to send an e-mail to the conference chairs regarding my withdrawal. I wanted to seek help from the experts in the community for drafting the e-mail since I believe that it should be very carefully crafted since it is going to cause inconvenience to the conference committee(even though I haven't submitted the copyright form and the paperwork hasn't started yet).

What are the details that I should include in my e-mail? Do I need to be specific about the error or just write that I've discovered an error in the paper(considering the fact that I will continue to work on the paper and submit it to a journal)? Also, what possible responses should I expect from them? Any help would be highly appreciated. I am having problems sleeping since the day I've discovered the error and cannot concentrate on my work. I just want to make the fact explicit and move ahead.

user118612
  • 615
  • 1
  • 5
  • 9

1 Answers1

4

You are overthinking it. A simple note is all you really need. "The paper needs to be withdrawn as we have found a serious error that we don't believe can be corrected in time for the conference."

This won't have been the first time that a paper has been withdrawn. It is a matter of scheduling sessions for the program committee but some of the members are probably familiar with that. There may be some scrambling, however, if proceedings have already gone to press. But they should have copyrights in order before that happens. If they don't, then it is their problem, not yours.

No, you don't need to detail the error, just that it exists and that you don't have a ready fix. If the conference is part of a continuing series you may have it ready by next year (or whenever).

Buffy
  • 363,966
  • 84
  • 956
  • 1,406
  • I upvote and add to this that while withdrawing seems to be strictly necessary for the proceeding, it is still possible that part of OP work can be presented either by a poster or a talk as scheduled. This depends much on the field, the conference, and the whole of the data / results. Also often presentations do not really correspond to the programmed title. – Alchimista Jan 27 '20 at 07:39
  • "proceedings have gone to press" — where in the world are physically printed proceedings still a thing? Or did you mean figuratively? – gerrit Jan 27 '20 at 08:40
  • @Alchimista I have already presented the paper and the proceedings are already shared with the delegates in a USB stick. However, they are not yet published in the digital proceedings – user118612 Jan 27 '20 at 09:28
  • @gerrit, at ACM SIG conferences the proceedings are distributed to attendees in printed form (or were a few years ago). They are later distributed to SIG members, though it may be an updated edition. It is possible the practice has changed since my retirement. – Buffy Jan 27 '20 at 11:02