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State of the Art and Limits of Current Practice
_State of the Art is the frenetic and relentless pursuit of doing what its best at that time!
_--- Da Anunciação Marco
_Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.
_--- Albert Einstein
_One finds limits by pushing them.
_--- Herbert Simon
How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
The outcomes tell where you want to go. In this section, you will say where you begin. Given a begin point and an end point, in the next section, Research Approach and Description, you will explain your path from getting from A to B. It does not make any sense to layout that path unless the reviewer understands the endpoints. Furthermore, by explaining the state of the art you are defining your domain expertise, what you know, and what types of problems your research will seek to solve. Without this, the reviewer might misinterpret your problem or your approach to solving it. Even worse, they might get lost or frustrated and quit reviewing altogether.
Clearly you hope to improve on something with your research. It is best to clearly define the limits of current practice. These limits define how far others have pushed science, technology, and engineering, and it is beholden on you to clearly explain those limits.
In this section, you want to make a point to be more technology focused. The Heilmeir question is "How is it done today?" This question is about describing how anything related to your goal is currently done. You should explain the current systems, techniques, tools, instruments, procedures, and methods. It is certain that there are a multitude of tool and techniques that are used, so which ones should you focus on? By defining the limits of current practice, there will be some that relate to the approach you describe in the next section and others that are not so relevant. Focus on those tools and techniques that are related to the research approach you will use. In this way, you will setting up the next section, which will start from where this section leaves off and shows the reader how you will achieve your outcomes.
There is a long tradition in academe for students to write a literature review as part of their thesis or dissertation. These have often been long boring disquisitions that say things like "Smith did this thing, but Jones did this other thing." In some sense the literature review is a treatise on the state of the art for the subject of the dissertation. Since students often know the landscape of their work through the sign posts placed by the authors of the papers they have read, the literature review is often overly focused on the author and what they did. The unfortunate thing is that this author centered focus often leads to tedious reading and is very difficult to parse in term of what the real contributions and challenges are. It is these challenges that you want to highlight since they are defined by the limits of current practice.
Think about who or what the actors are when you write this section. When you make the prior researchers the subject of your writing --- "Smith and Jones said ..." --- then they become the actors. This is fine if you are talking about, say, Watson and Crick because they are instrumental in the story of DNA. But, if you talk about Cole and Clark, nearly no one, except a few very informed, enlightened, and brilliant people, are going to know that they did work on optical traps. In that case, it might be better focus on the technology of the optical trap, and make its development your story.
Peer Review: State of the Art and Limits of Current Practice
Offer comment using Acrobat's comment feature. Address the questions below, which focus on whether the content meets the intention of the section, but you can say more about whatever else you think will help. Since it can be hard to know what the writer intended, it is best to highlight parts you find confusing or that you may have had to read several times before understanding. Some questions will ask you to summarize your understanding of what was written. This will help the writer see how well their message has been communicated.
A note about spelling, grammar, and typos: Writers should make a point to eliminate these errors from what they write. Typos, for example, distract the reader and detract from your writing. As editors, it is not your job to ferret these mistakes out. Focus on the message and substance of the writing, and only comment on these annoyances if you just can't stand it.
When you offer a criticism, offer a remedy so the writer can improve their work.
Steps
Read the State of the Art section three times:
- On the first pass answer the questions below. You are assessing the success at communicating the state of the art for the technology area of the PI. Answer the questions in The Review below.
- On the second pass circle the verbs of each sentence. What are the actors doing? Judge whether you can sense what the developing action might be as a whole, just by reading the list of verbs. Tell the writer where verbs seemed to take the story; what action there was.
- On the third pass underline the subject of each sentence. When done look at each paragraph and see who in the paragraph is the actor. Is there one actor or multiples? Do you think this affects the story telling? Tell the writer if there were confusing switches between actors.
The Review
It can be challenging to critique the state of the art for a field for which you are not an expert. That is not your objectives. As the reader, you want the writer to explain clearly what is the state of the art. Ideally, after reading this section you should be able to explain it to someone else and be able to get most of your explanation correct.
- Is the writing clear and understandable? Explain why or why not.
- Does the writer tell a coherent story? Can you follow thread of the story? If it is confusing, explain how so.
- Does the writer clearly identify the limits of current practice? Can you make a list of the limits? If you think something is missing or unclear, explain how so.
- Do the limits of current practice relate to the objectives in the previous section? If the connection between the limits and the objectives is unclear, point that out.
- Does the writer convey only the necessary information? That is, do they explain what is necessary to understand how the state of the art relates to the objectives? Do they not tell anything extra? If something can be deleted without affecting the story, it is probably unnecessary.
Meet with the PI
Meet with the person you have reviewed. Make recommendations and comments. Discuss ways the writing could be made more clear and the communication better.