July writing challenge

[darkstarrynight]

Thanks for keeping this up, Puget!

July goals

• Finish long neglected paper and submit manuscript to target journal - my co-author and I are at the finish line!
• Start manuscript from grant project
• Finish up manuscript with superstar and rising star for target journal
• Continue to help colleague transform part of her dissertation to an article - target journal identified
• Start new project with the only person in my subfield who I have not collaborated with yet - meeting has been set for the end of the month
• Finish multi-author report of project I got to present at an international conference two years ago!
• Hope my conditionally accepted paper for journal special issue gets published, my third revision for another journal finally gets accepted, and my currently under review paper that I wrote with three current and former students gets a R&R

Update

• Three papers are under review (third R&R, long neglected paper, and manuscript written with three current and former students.
• Got the word today that conditionally accepted paper will be out in the next two weeks!
• I did start the grant project manuscript, and have several people working with me on revamping the grant report into a publishable paper.
• I had not gotten anything from rising star in our trio, so I wrote hu today since the draft had not been updated since July 10th. Hu wrote me and superstar author that hu was having lots of issues and I can go ahead and take over, so I will start that tomorrow.
• I meet tomorrow morning with colleague to help hu transform their dissertation into at least one article.
• I meet Friday with colleague in my subfield to see if we can work together on a project finally.
• I added to the multi-author international manuscript which will be a report published by an organization, and am waiting to hear next steps.

So far, I still feel rather productive for this crazy time. I am going on a road trip with my spouse this coming weekend to a neighboring state to meet up with the in-laws and hope we all stay healthy.

• Met with colleague today to discuss a new project, it is in infancy but going!
• Put comments and started adding words to superstar/rising star trio project

Happy Friday!

[nonsensical]

I've been working on an R&R that came in toward the end of June. I've been going comment by comment and doing other stuff in between, but I had a chunk of time today and just finished all the remaining comments, which were less intimidating than I had remembered. The next step for this paper is to read through the whole thing and make sure that all my edits have resulted in a paper that still sounds cohesive, then put together a cover letter with responses to reviewers. But it is the end of the work day on a Friday and I am putting this down for now.

[Parasaurolophus]

Congrat,s darkstarrynight and nonsensical! Well done!

I think I need a change of paper scenery, so:

• Work on Book Review
• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper

It's been a slog today. I'm just not into it. I'll be taking a couple days off mid-week next week, so I'll probably try to do a bit tomorrow and Sunday.

[Parasaurolophus]

Ok, well. Today (in lieu of one of my next weekdays):

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper

[Parasaurolophus]

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper

Today:

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper
• Work on Book Review

[Parasaurolophus]

Today:

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper
• Work on Book Review

Did not succeed today, because lots of other (more important) things intruded, including prepping final submission of my newly accepted paper. But that's OK. I'll do better tomorrow.

[mamselle]

Aargh.

Good work getting done on book project, but it keeps rear-ending into other time-delimited projects that feel less important for the moment.

But they're not unimportant, and some have deadlines.

Don't wanna leave the book stuff behind...the connections to trains of thought can be fragile, and once something else intrudes, it can overtake things like focus, too.

Today's plan was to stick with the book, but a meeting has been changed and now I'm reshuffling...!

Struggle. Gurgle. Urgh...arrgh!

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Courage!


For my part today, it's yesterday's goals with a vengeance:

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper
• Work on Book Review

[nonsensical]

I've been working on an R&R that came in toward the end of June. I've been going comment by comment and doing other stuff in between, but I had a chunk of time today and just finished all the remaining comments, which were less intimidating than I had remembered. The next step for this paper is to read through the whole thing and make sure that all my edits have resulted in a paper that still sounds cohesive, then put together a cover letter with responses to reviewers. But it is the end of the work day on a Friday and I am putting this down for now.

Finished the remaining to-do items for this paper today and just sent it off to my co-authors. They are both junior members of my lab (tech and honors thesis student), so I am especially excited to get this paper out with them.

[ergative]

I finally finished the R&R I've been working on for way too long and sent it off to my co-authors, with a firm date for them to get me comments by. One auto-reply indicating they're on vacation until the day before that date. A second reply from the flakiest co-author who always promises to do his bit and then never follows through. Honestly, if the whole project hadn't been his idea I would have talked myself into removing him from the paper that I've basically written entirely by myself (including all the analysis and coding).

[darkstarrynight]

I had a strange back-and-forth email exchange with the superstar author on the trio paper. Once I got the manuscript back with her results/discussion section, I realized the methodology section was incongruent with how hu actually analyzed and reported the data and results. At first, hu agreed with me, then retracted, then re-agreed, then retracted, and finally agreed with me (I think). The expert methodologist in this space is a mentor of mine, so I offered to talk to the expert if that "proved" this methodology did not make sense with what was done.

It is an awkward situation because the superstar author had the data and did analysis with other people (probably hu's students), but added rising star and I to write this up, and we did not collect or analyze the data. Thus, the methodology section got "off" from what was actually the case. Hopefully this gets resolved because I do not want my name on something that will be wrong, or otherwise anticipate reviewers will skewer us and reject it because it makes no sense.

[ergative]

I had a strange back-and-forth email exchange with the superstar author on the trio paper. Once I got the manuscript back with her results/discussion section, I realized the methodology section was incongruent with how hu actually analyzed and reported the data and results. At first, hu agreed with me, then retracted, then re-agreed, then retracted, and finally agreed with me (I think). The expert methodologist in this space is a mentor of mine, so I offered to talk to the expert if that "proved" this methodology did not make sense with what was done.

It is an awkward situation because the superstar author had the data and did analysis with other people (probably hu's students), but added rising star and I to write this up, and we did not collect or analyze the data. Thus, the methodology section got "off" from what was actually the case. Hopefully this gets resolved because I do not want my name on something that will be wrong, or otherwise anticipate reviewers will skewer us and reject it because it makes no sense.

Yikes, what a mess. I'm new to co-authorship, but usually I do the analysis myself, so I know exactly what is getting reported in methods and results. I can't imagine writing up a paper on work I didn't do myself. It must be so frustrating to be so divorced from the analysis and have to navigate these weird interactions.

[Parasaurolophus]

• Work on Unusual Outlier Paper
• Work on Book Review

I just don't have the energy these last few days. Maybe it's that I've lost my focus a bit, and should just concentrate on clearing one thing at a time.

Or maybe I need a break. But I don't want a break...

[nonsensical]

Also, a manuscript I wrote with one of my grad students got an R&R at a Very Fancy journal. A journal I thought would definitely reject this work. We found out about that a few days ago, and I am still excited about it!

Student has been working on editing this manuscript, and I just sent him back some final comments on his revisions. Hopefully this will be submitted soon, and I continue to be excited about it.

[Parasaurolophus]

Today:

• Book Review

If there's time and I have the energy, I might also finish up a new syllabus for the fall. But I'ma just focus on one thing at a time for the rest of the month.