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Getting Good at Research

Started by HigherEd7, March 17, 2020, 02:30:55 PM

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saramago

Thank you, polly_mer and  AJ_Katz, for your reactions. Knowing, however, that many young scholars are likely to read, I do want to highlight that your strong belief that one cannot publish in a top journal without knowing the stars in the field DOES NOT APPLY TO ALL FIELDS. I genuinely think that because early-career researchers are reading these boards, we should avoid over-generalization. I have published about 125 empirical papers thus far, in all sorts of journals, from below average to the very top ones in my field. When I started submitting to these top journals, absolutely no one knew me (or my former supervisor). But because the work was well done (as recommended b AJ_Katz, I read and read and read, so as to master the art of scientific writing), those first papers were actually pretty well received (say, one R&R followed by acceptance). Since, I've had a lot of everything, from outright rejection to only minor revisions, but my point is that I first published in the top journals and then (consequently) became known, and got to know the top scholars ("Oh!! This is you, saramago. I've been reading your work and was looking forward to meeting you in person."). Not the other way around.

Of course, this is not about my particular case, no one but me cares about that. But I want the young scholars to know that quality of the work can and does often come first. Basically, good news!

Wahoo Redux

Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.
[T]he tippy top journals are mostly about who knows your work and thinks well of it. With rejection rates above 90% for submissions numbering the hundreds every month, the desk reject for unknown work is about the only way to keep up. 

Thus, in some fields, publishing in the tippy-top journals is more a signal of how known one is to the decision makers in the relevant community and less a signal that one is doing fabulous work that is head and shoulders above literally everyone else working in that area of the field. 

Just curious: Aren't your tippy-toppy journals double-blind peer review?   Or is the volume of research received simply too much?
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

tuxthepenguin

Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know. It depends on the con tent of your paper.

As others have said, this is not true for all fields. In mine, it's more or less impossible for most researchers to submit a paper to one of the best journals and have it sent out to reviewers. The editor will provide a subjective reason like "lack of contribution" even though they know nothing about the topic.

tuxthepenguin

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 19, 2020, 09:15:58 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.
[T]he tippy top journals are mostly about who knows your work and thinks well of it. With rejection rates above 90% for submissions numbering the hundreds every month, the desk reject for unknown work is about the only way to keep up. 

Thus, in some fields, publishing in the tippy-top journals is more a signal of how known one is to the decision makers in the relevant community and less a signal that one is doing fabulous work that is head and shoulders above literally everyone else working in that area of the field. 

Just curious: Aren't your tippy-toppy journals double-blind peer review?   Or is the volume of research received simply too much?

They are in my field but it doesn't matter. In the odd cases that papers by average researchers are sent out to reviewers, the editor will reject even if every review is positive.

Wahoo Redux

Quote from: tuxthepenguin on March 19, 2020, 09:25:25 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 19, 2020, 09:15:58 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.
[T]he tippy top journals are mostly about who knows your work and thinks well of it. With rejection rates above 90% for submissions numbering the hundreds every month, the desk reject for unknown work is about the only way to keep up. 

Thus, in some fields, publishing in the tippy-top journals is more a signal of how known one is to the decision makers in the relevant community and less a signal that one is doing fabulous work that is head and shoulders above literally everyone else working in that area of the field. 

Just curious: Aren't your tippy-toppy journals double-blind peer review?   Or is the volume of research received simply too much?

They are in my field but it doesn't matter. In the odd cases that papers by average researchers are sent out to reviewers, the editor will reject even if every review is positive.

Wowzers.  Even if the work is quality.  How does one move up in your discipline then? 
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

Ruralguy

But the original question was how to get good at research, not how to be an elite publisher.

You can get good by doing. If you need to know more people, then get out an know more people, but by and large, most folks in tenure track positions or long term academic lab positions, etc. can get better at this no matter what the starting point is. No, they will likely never publish in Nature, but they can likely get out a couple of papers in noted sub-discipline journals.  Its very difficult in some fields (say, out of sciences), that only have very few journals, all filled with Harvard prof publications. But in some of those fields, people start their own journals, or publish a book. I've seen some do quite well. Maybe not well enough to jump from a 100-ish ranked SLAC to an R1, but I've even seen 1 or 2 do that (usually via multiple hops) over 21 years.

polly_mer

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 19, 2020, 09:15:58 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.
[T]he tippy top journals are mostly about who knows your work and thinks well of it. With rejection rates above 90% for submissions numbering the hundreds every month, the desk reject for unknown work is about the only way to keep up. 

Thus, in some fields, publishing in the tippy-top journals is more a signal of how known one is to the decision makers in the relevant community and less a signal that one is doing fabulous work that is head and shoulders above literally everyone else working in that area of the field. 

Just curious: Aren't your tippy-toppy journals double-blind peer review?   Or is the volume of research received simply too much?

We do nothing double-blind review in any of my fields.  The relevant associate editor who does a desk reject with no reviewers assigned absolutely knows who submitted.  The reviewers are technically anonymous, but it's not that hard to figure out most of the time who did which review -- unless someone dug pretty deep into the possible reviewer pool to get an early-career grad student on someone's recommendation.

I don't personally know everyone in, say, physical chemistry because that's huge, but I do know well enough to call up practically everyone currently working in my current highly specialized area that has only about 50 active research people in the world.  I still get 3-5 polymer papers to review in one specific area, despite not publishing there for several years, because so few people in the world are experts in that area.

My current primary area of research is new enough that one could do as saramago describes in coming to attention by submitting to the one journal.  However, there's no tippy top journal in that field and it would be hard to demonstrate norms in the field without regularly attending the conferences.  We routinely sigh heavily about newcomers who ignore the published standards in favor of using English buzzwords in ways inconsistent with technical usage.
Quote from: hmaria1609 on June 27, 2019, 07:07:43 PM
Do whatever you want--I'm just the background dancer in your show!

HigherEd7

Thank you for the response and advice makes perfect sense.

tuxthepenguin

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 19, 2020, 12:46:16 PM
Quote from: tuxthepenguin on March 19, 2020, 09:25:25 AM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 19, 2020, 09:15:58 AM
Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.
[T]he tippy top journals are mostly about who knows your work and thinks well of it. With rejection rates above 90% for submissions numbering the hundreds every month, the desk reject for unknown work is about the only way to keep up. 

Thus, in some fields, publishing in the tippy-top journals is more a signal of how known one is to the decision makers in the relevant community and less a signal that one is doing fabulous work that is head and shoulders above literally everyone else working in that area of the field. 

Just curious: Aren't your tippy-toppy journals double-blind peer review?   Or is the volume of research received simply too much?

They are in my field but it doesn't matter. In the odd cases that papers by average researchers are sent out to reviewers, the editor will reject even if every review is positive.

Wowzers.  Even if the work is quality.  How does one move up in your discipline then?

If you want to get a job in one of the very best departments, you need a combination of connections and really good work so you can publish in the top few journals. Even lots of R1 universities will now give you tenure without publishing there. My reading of the situation is that the very best journals have lost their importance because they're letting so much good work get published elsewhere. It's resulted in a stunning generation gap in views of journal quality.

Wahoo Redux

Huh.  I will say that the humanities publishing I am familiar with is pretty, brutally honest double-blind peer-review.  Makes me feel a little better about our publishing protocols...and I just got rejected last week from a prestigious journal----I have no idea who the readers were but they gave very good feedback and I am already working on a revision which I hope to have back out there next week. 
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

Hibush

Quote from: polly_mer on March 19, 2020, 06:02:01 AM
Quote from: saramago on March 18, 2020, 04:42:39 PM
OP,  publishing your work in top journals  does not, does not, depend on who you know.

I've written elsewhere, but I'll say it again here: No one is ever hired for the elite research institutions without already being a member of the elite research community.  Having an article or two in excellent journals on one's CV submitted to an open job ad is not competitive when the short list will be made of applicants who are on a first-name basis with most of the search committee due to already being accepted members of the relevant research community.  Teaching well is something that can happen at any institution; researching well almost never happens in isolation.

Both perspectives are true, and for legitimate reasons.

The tippy-top science researchers who publish in tippy-top journals and work at elite research universities get there because they do excellent research. They do excellent research in part because they talk to the other leaders in the field all the time. The other leaders in the field are eager to talk to them because they do excellent research. That is a virtuous cycle from the perspective of moving the frontiers of the field ahead.

Membership in that group is limited by the amount of money available. Distribution disparity applies just like it does elsewhere in society. The top labs run through a million dollars or more in salary, whereas outsider labs are grateful to get a work-study student and enough pipette tips for them to use. That distribution also creates highly productive top labs who have expertise, infrastructure, and operating funds to pursue the best ideas quickly. Again, that is a good thing for moving the frontiers of the field ahead.

The distribution is not good for a lot of other social goals, of course. Those dynamics create an impenetrable barrier for solo researchers, those with few resources, and those who don't invite themselves to join groups.

It is important to realize that the meritocracy at work in most fields of science does not solely value the quality of experimental design, or the clarity of writing. There is a substantial social dimension, one that recognizes that the best science is done in a social context.

ciao_yall

Use of the term "alt-ac" gives a perception that jobs outside academia are beyond the realm of understanding. "Beyond this point, there be dragons."

There are a lot of great jobs outside of academia that are intellectually satisfying and a fine use of one's general skills learned in a PhD program.

Ruralguy

Although there is certainly a social dimension to gaining grants and publishing among the elite, there are trickle down effects. I've known a number of folks at my dinky school (not a majority of faculty or even a majority of those who actively publish) who had a prominent adviser or prominent enough, and have been able to cash in on that. Maybe they can only publish well and not get big grants, or maybe they got one grant, but then couldn't go much beyond that, but they had more than what you'd typically have at a place like this one. I don't know if that puts those students in the elite---probably not---but it can mean that working with the right people can get you advantages, possibly only for a few years, but maybe for an entire career.

AJ_Katz

#28
But you don't need to be in elite journals to do good research.  I've seen a lot of non-elite research get into elite journals simply because of the organism that they worked on is of broad public interest...  which has nothing to do with the quality of the research.  So, in my opinion, it's a red herring to look to those elite journals to try to learn what constitutes good research. 

Getting good at research is about reading broadly, being creative in your approach, and being persistent so that all of your research is ultimately published.  I would argue that in most fields, doing good research is not dependent on access to grant funding either.  For example, some of the best research out of my lab was done by undergraduates and some of the worst research has been done by my graduate students.  So, just one undergraduate and a small internal or regional grant to pay for supplies can get you into the ball game.  Clever research does not need to be expensive, complicated, or involve a team of people to complete the work. 

HomunculusParty

Quote from: Wahoo Redux on March 20, 2020, 08:56:47 PM
Huh.  I will say that the humanities publishing I am familiar with is pretty, brutally honest double-blind peer-review.  Makes me feel a little better about our publishing protocols...

Mine too, humanities FTW!

This is surely how I have managed to publish in our top journals when I was a relative unknown... and why reviewers (including me) feel comfortable delivering "harsh but true" R&R advice.