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This page describes the Papers category. Categories are briefly described HERE.

Posts in the Papers category are meant to be one-directional writeups presenting useful information to the world, much like research papers published in scientific journals. Only one post can be written per paper. Others can't "answer" like they can in the Q&A category. They can comment, but these are short and only meant for suggesting changes to the author.

The requirements are a bit looser than formal research papers, but the concept is similar. Attributes of papers here:

1. Intend to educate.
2. Relevant to our community.
3. Substantiated by experience, experimentation, careful logic, or the like.
4. Well thought out.
5. Well written and formatted.

A paper is more than just a few paragraphs, and more in depth than most answers. The starting level for a paper is about a detailed answer over in the Q&A category, and goes up from there. This is not something you bang out in a spare hour.

Some example paper topics:

• Idea for a new method of doing something you have tried and found to work. This should solve a problem others have or might reasonably have, and your idea has some advantages over what is traditionally done.
• A neat trick or circuit you developed that was useful, but you haven't seen it out there after at least a little bit of digging. This can be fairly short, but should explain the theory behind why it works.
• Extension to existing theory. Having implemented and tested it is good, but it's also OK to give new ideas as long as they are well-derived and justified from existing theory.
• A case study. This needs to be more than just show-and-tell. It's not about what you did, but what you learned by doing that could apply to others. The problems you encountered and solved should be ones that reasonably competent electrical engineers might also encounter.
• A survey of scattered information, with the paper putting it all in one place. Beware of time-sensitive information. That doesn't work well on this site. If you think the information would still be useful 10 years later, then it might be appropriate.
• Report of original research or an investigation you personally performed. Again, the result should not be obvious to a reasonably competent EE. The setup and methods must be described well enough for others to duplicate the experiment.

What we don't want:

• Looky me world! I done blinked an LED with my Ardiuno!!
• Quad 3-input frammabobbles are 1.39 dollars at Digikey, 1.04 at Mouser, and 7 cents at Alibaba.
• You all should be figuring out how to tap into the free magnetic energy of the earth. I don't have all the details, but I know this is a brilliant idea.