Reviewer Information

The IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology is an archival technical journal published by the Control Systems Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The first issue of this journal was published in March 1993. As indicated in the information for authors, this Transactions publishes papers, brief papers, and letters on new developments in the theory and application of technologies relevant to the analysis, design, and implementation of control systems. A companion journal, the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, publishes papers on the theory and application of formal mathematical methods in control system analysis, design, and implementation.

As a reviewer of a manuscript submitted for publication in the Transactions, you are helping with the evaluation of both the technical content and quality of presentation. To be acceptable for publication, the manuscript must describe a new, previously unpublished contribution to the knowledge base and toolbase for control systems engineering. Contributions can range from experimental results using a new method for a given application, to new concepts for real-time control architectures, to novel modeling techniques, or to innovative sensors. Descriptions of new application domains where control-engineering methods have not been applied previously are also acceptable contributions. The overriding question regarding the content is: does the paper present new information of interest to the control systems engineering research and development community? If it does, we want to publish it as promptly as possible.

Assuming the manuscript has passed the test of novel technical content, the presentation must be clear, concise, and complete. These criteria can often seem to be conflicting, but it is critical that the papers published in the Transactions be readable. The best way for you to evaluate the quality of presentation is to consider your own experience reading the manuscript. Could you understand the point? Could the authors have said it more clearly, or more briefly? Which sections were hard to follow? Which sections could be compressed or expanded? Should they add something to make the article accessible to a broader audience? The key to a good evaluation of the presentation is to be as specific as possible. Your review will guide the authors in making revisions to the paper. You need not re-write the paper for the authors, but you should tell them as precisely as possible where the revisions need to be made and why.

Finally, the manuscript must be classified as a paper, brief paper, or letter. Papers should be reasonably self-contained reports on the results of a major project or development in control systems technology. Brief papers are more focused presentations of some particular research results, or summaries of larger projects, with references that can be consulted for details. Letters are brief comments on previous papers, or technical remarks making a single point with the context provided by the cited references.

Thank you for taking the time to review a manuscript for the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. If you have any questions or suggestions, especially concerning the review procedures and review form, please contact the Associate Editor who sent you the manuscript. Alternatively, you may want to contact the Editor in Chief or the Editorial Office:

Editorial Assistant

E-mail: [email protected]