AsianScientist (Jul. 7, 2015) – Publishing. The lifeblood and bane of a scientist’s life. As a native English-speaker with a bonus liberal arts degree, I’ll admit that the verbal diarrhea one might need to write a paper isn’t much of a problem for me. That is unless you consider using sentence structures that are not commonly encountered in scientific writing to be a ‘problem’.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t really make things easier when a boss waltzes up to my desk and happily announces that they’ve been invited to submit a manuscript and have decided my data is most suitable… but the submission deadline is in three weeks—so hurry up get it done. But there are some tricks to making publishing your studies a little bit easier.
1. Figure out what kind of journal you are going to publish in.
Many, many moons ago when I was a bright young tadpole of a student casually hanging out at the pond that is a departmental kitchen table, a group leader adult frog said that the first thing they do when they’re planning a study is decide what kind of journal they are going to publish in.
This was not said in jest. When a younger frog at the pond pointed out that this is somewhat counterintuitive—after all, how can you write a paper without any data—the leader let out a big, “Ah-ha! It seems so, but if you know which kind of journal you want to publish in, you can tailor your study to their desires!”
To an extent, they were right (which is probably how they ended up group leader). If the journal you want to publish in has a reputation for printing beautiful figures or for publicizing datasets, you should decide if you want to invest all that time on the microscope or doing all that sequencing.
2. Find the person in the lab whose skill set best complements yours. Make them your best friend.
If you’ve gotten far enough to be ready to prepare a paper, you’ll also be aware by now that not all people are created equal. Some people are wizards at image software packages, while others are masters at writing.
Apart from having someone with whom you can bounce ideas off, by giving your new best friend a token experiment to complete for your paper, you’ve got someone you can learn image artistry from or have a proof reader who has to help you write the paper!
3. Write out the outline of your paper at the top of a fresh page (with page breaks).
Although PhD comics covers this with regards to thesis writing, again this is not a joke! When your outline shows you all the blank space you need to fill in with words that will somehow show how you’ve redefined the universe, it will really light a fire under your chair. Or make you see the hopelessness of the situation. Sometimes both.
All I know is that when faced with complete ‘Materials and Methods’ and ‘Results’ sections bookended by blank ‘Introduction’ and ‘Discussion’ sections, I’m ready to go. Bonus points if the journal of choice has a template that removes all formatting concerns.
4. Throw out everything I just told you
Who am I kidding with points 1-3? If you have done a really good job and have a Big Boss, they might decide after (maybe) reading your paper that the quality is too good for that journal you’ve chosen—you’re much better off aiming for THIS OTHER journal because it has more impact!
What’s that? The journal they want you to edit your manuscript for has a limit 1,000 words less than what you’ve currently got and only accepts CMYK figures? That’s okay—you’ve got a few days before they want to see the final submission version.
5. This is the thought process timeline after submission:
- 1 hour: Yes! Done!
- 6 hours: Has it been assigned to an editor yet?
- 12 hours: C’mon, an editor must have it now
- 18 hours: Does this mean it hasn’t been rejected yet?
- 24 hours: OMG, please don’t reject it without review!!!
- 48 hours: IT HASN’T BEEN IMMEDIATELY REJECTED WITHOUT REVIEW!!!
- 1 week: IT’S UNDER REVIEW!!!
- 2 weeks: Yep, definitely under review.
- 3 weeks: Why are the reviewers taking so long?
- 3.5 weeks: Why are the reviewers taking so long?!?!
- 4 weeks+: WHY ARE THE REVIEWERS TAKING SO LONG?!?!! (plus checking for emails every few minutes).
6. Curse your reviewers
I’m sure we can all relate to this video (CAUTION- SALTY LANGUAGE!). They clearly don’t work in this field because anyone who does knows the answer to the basic question they asked. And how dare they pick up on all those grammatical errors you made while dropping those 1,000 words?!
7. Celebrate or commiserate
Your paper has either been accepted or rejected, so you’ll either be cheering or crying. Either way, go back to step 1 and load up on cake and alcohol!
This article is from a monthly column called The Sometimes Serious Scientist. Click here to see the other articles in this series.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
