Search

The article presents information about the editorial policy of the journal ACM Computing Surveys. The author provides a brief background of the journal focusing on its emergence and purpose. In the late 1960s the U.S.-based Association of Computing Machinery perceived a need to provide a journal to its members to help them discover new specialties, and to help practitioners stay abreast. The journal began publication in March 1969 with Bill Dorn as editor-in chief and Myrtle Kellington as executive editor. The difference between surveys and tutorials are analyzed in the article. The main difference is that a survey paper assumes its audience has a general knowledge of the field, it emphasizes an overall view of the literature. A tutorial assumes its audience is inexpert; it emphasizes the basic concepts of the field. The primary purpose of a survey is a guided tour through the literature in an area, while the purpose of a tutorial is explaining a topic's basic concept. The author throws some light on the choice of publications in the journal.