Publications, part 4: If at first you don't succeed, revise and try again

We’re down to the last 3 papers – the ones that I’ve written myself, babied through other author revisions, reformatted, formed countless figures and tables to aid in reading the text, and made large strides in understanding my work by clarifying it for others. There are 2 manuscripts on my thesis project. One details my method in a small sample – something like 22 datasets. There was some optimization, and many areas were exciting and encouraging, but it contained little in the way of true validation. And that’s a problem. I’ve done simulations, attempted ways around the lack of data, but realized early on that I’d be fighting an uphill battle. But I believe in this work – I think it’s important and innovative and think that if someone has the means to do some additional testing and application, I’d like to let them know how I think it should work.

This paper originated in my second year of study, and was abandoned after only one submission. Taking lessons from that experience, the description of my novel technique was much more concise and clear. But it was rejected from another 2 journals in its new form.

The second rejection came immediately before I boarded the plane for an industry job interview. I don’t know how I can describe the feeling of a rejection when you’re praying for something positive. It’s crushing – demoralizing and awful. I read over the reviews after I landed at my destination – taking 10 minutes before catching a cab, needing to understand the rejection – pick at the scab that had barely formed over my tender feelings on the 2 hour plane ride. It was hard – one author was clearly pushing his methods and criticizing some fair but very minor points of my overall work. I felt that some additional explanation would clarify the issue at hand for the readers. But the priority score was not adequate to merit a second look by that particular journal.

The third journal accepted the paper though, asking for some large-scale rewrites but without demands for additional data. It was a low-tier journal – I don’t know that I’ve ever read a paper from it. And I am completely realistic about the audience for this paper. My feeling was that it had to go out there.

My impression is that people in my field are quite prolific in terms of putting material out there, and it’s not like there are a shortage of journals to choose from. So, at the advice of my advisor, I continued to push. Sadly picking up the pieces from negative reviews, wallowing in feeling pathetic and picked on, then regrouping and trying to create a paper that would be better received. So my first paper found a home, and I found a journal that has a very great deal of my affection and gratitude.

The second paper is more of a case study. It takes some reasonable results from my method and compares them to another relatively new technique with promising results. There are clues as to the important questions that my work will have to answer. But if I had a sample size issue with the first paper, I have a catastrophe with the second. Again, I believe in the work – I think it’s novel and important and credit it with my job search success. But is it publishable? I’m starting to have questions on that point. I’ve been through 2 rejections on it – one from a journal that requested the paper in a different form and was incredibly encouraging in terms of the quality and importance of the work. But the resulting case study was rejected, and now is awaiting the assignment of yet another set of reviewers. It’s at a moderate impact factor journal – around a 2.1, I think. So I’ll see what happens there, and reevaluate its future in case of another rejection.

The last, and the most disappointing and baffling of the three, is based upon the work I did with Carrie. I saw some holes that an additional experiment would fill, and collected the data, analyzed it, saw what I expected and thought I would, and thought I had a lovely little paper. Some reasonable experimental data validated in a somewhat novel way merited a try at a high impact factor journal. It failed there, which in itself isn’t that bad, but there were 3 reviews. One very positive, noting 2 very minor issues that a single sentence would have corrected. The other was very negative, noting multiple problems that were the result of not reading the manuscript carefully. I asked several people who had read the pre-submission paper if they saw any problems in similar areas – thinking I may have been vague or worded something awkwardly. They assured me that the questioned sections were quite clear. I truly believe the reviewer didn’t exercise proper care when reading my paper.

The third reviewer was fair – noting positive points and refuting some of the issues reviewer 2 had discussed. But his opinion of the paper wasn’t high enough to merit publication. So I fixed the problems they found, noting that all but one were quite feasible. The only issue I didn’t repair was based upon the entire validation theory that we had. I thought that Carrie’s work was adequate, and even designed, to provide enough information to validate new studies. It took several conversations and my personally reviewing all of our claims, making new outlines, examining every statement for speculation vs. what we could prove. It was an excellent exercise and created what I believe to be a cute little paper. It’s not earth shattering, but it could help someone out. I submitted it to its second journal about a month ago, and expect to hear within the next several weeks.

I think it’s important for me to review all of this. To look around and think about where I am, how I got here and where I hope to go. I don’t think the academic world, or any world, is all about accomplishments. Sometimes it’s about lessons learned – building character, furthering your understanding, allowing people to figure out their own paths, even knowing that sometimes they won’t act in your best interest.

The cool thing about publishing science in some sort of public forum is that people can think about it with me. The same is true for my thoughts in this space. Charlie can say that other people experience authorship problems as I did with Kermit. That’s unfortunate – giving comfort on one hand that I’m not alone in handling a situation badly or in allowing myself to be pushed aside, and giving me confidence that the stories, mine included, add to the collective good of the community. One of my great problems is that I allow myself to feel like a failure when I’m experiencing some situations that occur with many people.

I don’t consider myself to be a great heroine in all of this. I’ve made mistakes, been foolish in some cases, mean-spirited in others. To review my graduate career, and even my post-doc so far, is not to be completely proud. I don’t look back over every day and smile over how mature and lovely a woman I’ve become. Some days I suck – I make bad choices, get lazy, and let people down.

I don’t pretend that my publication record is stellar – I don’t look over the CV and see triumphs, although there may be an element of that. I also see areas where I need to improve and some problems I continue to ponder where some outside input would be completely welcome. I also hope that some of my experiences – the kindness shown by others, the problems with some colleagues, work with friends, and the times I’ve stumbled with each of my own first author papers – might be read by someone who’s discouraged. Maybe she’s feeling isolated because she failed a test, or depressed over a poor performance at a conference, or irritated over lack of interest in her work. In any case, perhaps knowing that I’ve gone through my own challenges and made it to a place where I feel content, even knowing I’ll face greater problems in the future, is something worthwhile.