Paper Writing
You do research so you can publish. If you publish, you prosper. That's the accepted way it works in academia.
So, writing should feel like a "reward" after all those months at the bench, right?
Unfortunately, writing can be the hardest part of grad school. First, it takes so much more time than you'd ever expect. Second, it requires going through many, many, many edits as you get input from your advisor, labmates, and anyone else you care to share your drafts with.
On top of the writing, you have to make figures. Sometimes, this can be fun, but if the journal is particular about things then you can find yourself (again) spending way more time on it than you'd have ever expected.
Right now I'm writing up a paper based on research that has been going on for a couple of years. It's hard to believe it's taken this long for these results to be ready for publication. This project was one of those unusual ones where you see the hot result on the first day and then you spend the next two years sorting out a bunch of the details and trying to work up some other data to support/strengthen the initial findings. So, after two years of trying to bulk up this story, we've finally decided to write it up and see what the reviewers think about it.
My last paper went through about 50 revisions over the course of about 6 months before it was submitted. With this one, I'm on version 2 now, but I expect it to get to 10 (at least) before submission for publication. My boss and I have to engage in the longest rally in the history of manuscript tennis before he'll give it the green light. What it comes down to in the end is who's willing to finally give up and just give in. We try to wear each other down until we get our way on each point. When one of us gives in, we send it along to everyone else in the lab and get their input.
After hearing back from everyone in the lab, we have to go through it all again and see how it looks in it's final form. Then, it's off to the reviewers so we can start our battle with them...
So, writing should feel like a "reward" after all those months at the bench, right?
Unfortunately, writing can be the hardest part of grad school. First, it takes so much more time than you'd ever expect. Second, it requires going through many, many, many edits as you get input from your advisor, labmates, and anyone else you care to share your drafts with.
On top of the writing, you have to make figures. Sometimes, this can be fun, but if the journal is particular about things then you can find yourself (again) spending way more time on it than you'd have ever expected.
Right now I'm writing up a paper based on research that has been going on for a couple of years. It's hard to believe it's taken this long for these results to be ready for publication. This project was one of those unusual ones where you see the hot result on the first day and then you spend the next two years sorting out a bunch of the details and trying to work up some other data to support/strengthen the initial findings. So, after two years of trying to bulk up this story, we've finally decided to write it up and see what the reviewers think about it.
My last paper went through about 50 revisions over the course of about 6 months before it was submitted. With this one, I'm on version 2 now, but I expect it to get to 10 (at least) before submission for publication. My boss and I have to engage in the longest rally in the history of manuscript tennis before he'll give it the green light. What it comes down to in the end is who's willing to finally give up and just give in. We try to wear each other down until we get our way on each point. When one of us gives in, we send it along to everyone else in the lab and get their input.
After hearing back from everyone in the lab, we have to go through it all again and see how it looks in it's final form. Then, it's off to the reviewers so we can start our battle with them...
posted by pro_blogger at 2:10 PM
1 Comments:
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
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