--- name: corl-related-work description: Use when positioning a CoRL paper against the literature — the robot-learning lineage across CoRL/RSS/ICRA, the ML-methods stream from NeurIPS/ICLR/ICML, the fast-moving VLA and foundation-model wave, classical robotics baselines, concurrent arXiv work, and PMLR citation hygiene including the year-offset trap. --- # CoRL Related Work Robot learning is a confluence field: any given CoRL paper inherits from at least three literatures moving at different speeds. Reviewers here are typically expert in one lane and conversant in the rest — so a related-work section that covers only the authors' home lane reads as blinkered to a third of the pool. ## The three lanes, plus two overlays | Lane | What reviewers check | Typical miss | |---|---|---| | Robot-learning lineage (CoRL, RSS, ICRA/IROS learning papers) | Do you know the last 2–3 years of the *task family* you claim? | Citing only your lab's chain of prior work | | ML methods (NeurIPS/ICLR/ICML) | Is the algorithmic idea actually new, or a known method re-embodied? | Renaming an established technique with a robotics word | | Classical robotics (planning, control, estimation) | Does a non-learning baseline solve your task? Why learn at all? | Dismissing model-based methods without citation or comparison | | Overlay: foundation-model / VLA wave | Position relative to the current generation of pretrained robot policies | Comparing against a wave that is two generations stale | | Overlay: concurrent arXiv | Preprint culture is aggressive here; overlap appears mid-review | Silence on a widely known concurrent preprint | Practical breadth check: your citation list should contain entries from at least two recent CoRL volumes, at least one ML venue, and at least one classical robotics source — or an explicit reason why a lane is genuinely empty. ## Handling velocity: the field moves during your review Between the late-May CoRL deadline and September decisions, the arXiv state of your subfield will change. Norms to apply: - Work that appeared publicly *after* your submission cannot be held against your novelty; if a reviewer raises it, note the dates factually in the rebuttal and offer a comparison in revision if it is genuinely relevant. - Work that was on arXiv well *before* the deadline is fair game even without a venue stamp — this community treats known preprints as citable context. Sweep arXiv thoroughly in deadline month; "it wasn't published yet" does not excuse missing a preprint your reviewers all saw on social media. - For close concurrent work, add a labeled paragraph ("Concurrent work") that differentiates on approach and evidence rather than priority claims. ## Positioning moves that work at this venue - **Differentiate on evidence regime, not just method.** "Prior work demonstrates X in simulation; we provide the first real-robot evaluation with a measured transfer gap" is a legitimate and well-received axis here. - **Name the assumption you remove.** "Existing approaches assume known object poses; we operate from raw RGB" — a robotics-meaningful delta beats an architecture tweak in this pool's eyes. - **Give the task-family history one honest sentence of state-of-the-art**, including the best non-learning result. Erasing the classical solution to make the learning look necessary is a detectable and damaging move. - **Baselines follow citations**: any method you describe as closest related work should appear in your tables, or the text should say why it cannot (`corl-experiments` covers fairness mechanics). ## PMLR citation hygiene — including the year-offset trap CoRL proceedings publish through PMLR, and two mechanical errors recur: 1. **The year offset.** PMLR volumes sometimes carry a publication year after the conference year — e.g., the CoRL **2021** best paper (Chen et al., in-hand re-orientation) is `PMLR v164, 2022`, and SayCan from CoRL **2022** appears with 2023 pagination metadata. Cite the conference edition in prose ("at CoRL 2021") even when the BibTeX year says otherwise, and keep the pair consistent across your references. 2. **Venue misattribution.** Neighboring PMLR volumes belong to different conferences; copying a BibTeX entry from a random site routinely mislabels a CoRL paper as appearing at another venue or vice versa. Resolve every robot learning citation against the volume index (v205 = CoRL 2022, v229 = 2023, v270 = 2024, v305 = 2025). ```bibtex @inproceedings{chen2022inhand, title = {A System for General In-Hand Object Re-Orientation}, author = {Chen, Tao and Xu, Jie and Agrawal, Pulkit}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2021)}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, volume = {164}, pages = {297--307}, year = {2022}, % PMLR publication year != conference year — keep both visible publisher = {PMLR} } ``` Prefer arXiv-to-PMLR upgrade passes before camera-ready: many robot-learning papers you cited as preprints during writing will have acquired proceedings entries by October. ## Double-anonymous self-citation - Cite your own prior work in the third person, exactly as you would a stranger's; the giveaway is not the citation but the possessive framing ("building on our platform [12]"). - If the paper visibly extends a system with a recognizable name, do not amputate the citation — anonymity through omission breaks the scholarly record; third-person distance is the sanctioned tool. - Watch transitive leaks: citing an unreleased internal report, a thesis, or a dataset only your lab could hold identifies you as surely as a name. ## Section-audit checklist ```text [ ] All three lanes represented (or absence argued), plus VLA-wave currency [ ] ≥2 recent CoRL volumes cited within the claimed task family [ ] Best classical/non-learning approach acknowledged, compared or excused [ ] Concurrent-work paragraph drafted if a known preprint is close [ ] Every "closest work" citation appears in the experiments, or is excused [ ] PMLR volume/year pairs verified against volume indexes; no misattribution [ ] Self-citations third-person; no possessive framing; no transitive leaks ``` Verify volume anchors and any new proceedings arrangements at https://proceedings.mlr.press/ and the live corl.org pages; this file's anchors were checked 2026-07-08.