Self-assessment of paper quality (courtesy of SIGKDD 2003)

Self-Assessment of Paper Quality
Originality
Are the problems or approaches new?
Is this a novel combination of existing techniques?
Does the paper
point out differences from related research?
address a new problem or one that has not been studied in depth?
describe an innovative combination of techniques with ones from other disciplines?
introduce an idea that appears promising or might stimulate others to develop promising alternatives?
Significance
Is the work reported important?
Does it advance the state of the art?
Does the paper stimulate discussion of important issues or alternative points of view?
Technical Quality
Is the paper technically sound?
Does it carefully evaluate the strengths and limitations of its contributions?
Are its claims backed up?
Does the paper offer a new form of evidence in support of or against well-known techniques?
Does the paper back up a theoretical idea already in the literature with experimental evidence?
Does it offer a theoretical analysis of prior experimental results?
Presentation
Is the paper clearly written?
Does it motivate the research?
Does it describe the inputs, outputs and basic algorithms employed?
Are the results described and evaluated?
Is the paper organized in a logical fashion?
Is the paper written in a manner that makes its content accessible to other researchers in the field?
If you answered "Yes" honestly to every relevant question, then you have a reasonably sound paper.