Can You Publish a Paper Without a Conference? Yes — Here’s How

Missed the deadline? Your work isn’t wasted — a practical guide to preprint servers, journals, and workshops as viable publishing routes for AI and ML research.

Expanded 2025 edition — originally published August 2022

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The quick answer is yes. The full answer involves understanding preprints, journals, transactions, and when each is the right choice for your work.

One of the most common questions I get from students who’ve completed a research project is: “I missed the conference deadline — is my work wasted?” The answer is no, not at all. In fact, for many types of research, a journal or preprint route is the better choice. Let me walk you through the full landscape.

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Table of Contents

• The Short Answer
• Option 1: Preprint Servers (arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv)
• Option 2: Journals and ACM/IEEE Transactions
• Option 3: Workshops at Conferences (Lower Barrier)
• Common Paper Types and Where They Fit
• How to Choose a Venue
• My Personal Experience and Recommendations

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The Short Answer

You can publish research through three routes that do not require a traditional conference deadline:

1. Preprint servers (arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv) — no review, immediate public access
2. Journals (Frontiers, PLOS ONE, IEEE Transactions, ACM Transactions) — peer-reviewed, no fixed annual deadline
3. Workshop papers at conferences — lower bar than main tracks, often rolling or less competitive

Each has different tradeoffs between speed, prestige, reach, and peer review rigor.

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Option 1: Preprint Servers

arXiv

arXiv is the most important preprint server for machine learning, NLP, and AI research. It is free, open-access, and widely read. When you upload a paper to arXiv, it becomes publicly available — and citable — within 1–2 days.

Key facts:

• No peer review; papers are moderated for subject matter, not quality
• You must be “endorsed” by an existing arXiv user to submit in CS categories (most advisors can do this)
• Preprints can be revised at any time (v1, v2, v3…)
• Top researchers upload conference papers to arXiv simultaneously — it’s the standard in ML

When to use arXiv:

• You’ve completed a solid piece of work and want the community to see it immediately
• You’re working on time-sensitive research (e.g., a new method for a trending problem)
• You want to establish a timestamp on your idea before a conference decision
• You’re sharing your implementation paper or technical report

Submission guide: https://arxiv.org/help/submit

bioRxiv and medRxiv

For medical and clinical AI work, medRxiv is the appropriate preprint server. It covers health sciences, clinical research, and epidemiology. Unlike arXiv, medRxiv papers undergo basic screening for potential harm (e.g., papers making false clinical claims are held).

Note: medRxiv explicitly cautions readers that preprints have not been peer-reviewed. If you’re writing for a clinical audience, manage this expectation carefully.

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Option 2: Journals

Why Journals Matter (Especially in India)

This is something I feel strongly about and that is often misunderstood outside Western academia. In India’s academic system, journal publications carry significantly more weight for promotions, PhD completions, and government grants than conference papers. The UGC (University Grants Commission) has historically weighted journal papers more heavily in academic hiring.

If your goal is a faculty position in India, don’t neglect journals.

Types of Journals for AI/ML Research

Open Access (faster, broader reach):

• Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence — where our Parkinson’s paper was published (impact factor: 4.7, quick turnaround)
• PLOS ONE — broad scope, rigorous but fast review
• Nature Communications — high prestige, selective

Traditional (more prestige, slower):

• IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS)
• IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
• Journal of Biomedical Informatics
• ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST)

Special Issues

Journals periodically organize Special Issues with fixed deadlines, focused on emerging topics (e.g., “AI for Rare Disease Diagnosis”). These are excellent opportunities because:

• The scope is narrow and well-defined, making your paper easier to position
• Guest editors are often researchers actively working in the topic area (faster, more informed review)
• Acceptance rates can be somewhat higher than regular issues

Check journal homepages quarterly for upcoming special issues. Conference organizing committees often partner with journals on post-conference special issues — papers presented at a workshop can be invited for expansion into the journal.

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Option 3: Workshop Papers at Conferences

Most top conferences (NeurIPS, ACL, EMNLP, MICCAI, AAAI) have co-located workshops. These workshops:

• Often have shorter paper length requirements (4–6 pages)
• Have separate submission deadlines from the main conference (usually 1–2 months later)
• Are more topically focused (e.g., “Machine Learning for Health” workshop at NeurIPS)
• Are peer-reviewed but with more lenient review criteria
• Are published in the conference proceedings or a companion volume

Workshop papers are a great entry point for:

• A piece of work that’s “interesting but not ready for a full paper”
• A negative result or ablation study that informs the community
• Students publishing their first work before they have enough for a full paper

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Common Paper Types and Where They Fit

Paper Type	Best Venue	Notes
Full novel method with strong results	Main conference or journal	Standard route
Dataset paper	arXiv + NLP/CV data track	Datasets are citable contributions
Reproducibility study	ReproHack or conference reproducibility track	Increasingly valued
Negative result / failed experiment	Workshop paper	Important but undervalued
Survey/literature review	arXiv or journal survey track	Long-form, high-citation
Technical report on implementation	arXiv	Useful resource for community
Initial/preliminary work	Workshop paper	Get feedback before full submission

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How to Choose a Venue

Consider these five factors in order:

1. Research domain — in ML/NLP, conferences > journals for impact. In medical AI, journals > conferences for clinical credibility.
2. Stage of work — preliminary work → workshop. Complete work → main conference or journal.
3. Your career goals — academic position in India → journals. Research visibility globally → top conferences.
4. Timeline — urgent? → arXiv immediately + journal in parallel. Have 6 months? → target a specific conference.
5. CORE ranking — for Indian funding and promotions, verify your target conference has a CORE A* or A rating. https://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/

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My Personal Experience

My journal paper on Parkinson’s disease subtyping was published in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence (impact factor: 4.7). It took about 4 months from submission to acceptance — fast for a journal. The reason I chose a journal over a conference for that work:

1. The work involved clinical data and required more detailed methodology than a typical 8-page conference paper allows
2. The clinical collaborators (from Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Germany) were more comfortable with a journal format
3. The results section needed extensive clinical context that a short paper couldn’t accommodate

If you’re working at the intersection of AI and medicine: journals are not a fallback. They’re often the right primary target.

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Related articles to publishing paper at a conference

You can get a comprehensive list of academic conferences in the field of AI and Machine Learning in another article written by me

If you are new to writing papers using Latex for academic conferences, you can visit the following articles:

1. I cover how to setup up a Tex environment in your local machine (article link)
2. Conference or journal paper template – individual files and how to use them (article link)
3. How to correctly write references or perform cross-referencing while writing your paper (article link)