Summer Research Plans

[AvidReader]

I'm finishing a book project and sending it to the first of what I expect will be many publishers. My goal is to have a polished draft by the last day of June. Fingers crossed!

HAHAHAHA. Nope. Not at all. I finished my rough draft in mid-June, and had hoped to edit a chapter every day (I have many little chapters) for the rest of the month. Instead, most chapters are taking 1-2 days. I have four left, plus a list of changes that I am quietly assembling that will take more time than the polishing. Then I need to read everything aloud.

My new goal is to send it to a copyeditor by the last day of July, to start the new project then, and to look at the edited suggestions whenever they come back a few weeks later.

But I've just received positive reviews of my proposal and sample chapter from a press, with good suggestions for revision, so I'm feeling confident and motivated at the moment.

AR.

[drbrt]

I'm still stuck on Five's paper, but she's nagging for reference letters and over sharing so I'm getting more motivated to make progress.

[nescafe]

Well, my archive has moved nearly everything I came here to look at "into process" for a new collection. I walked into the stacks to find boxes tied up with string, and lots of empty shelving. I've written to the head archivist to offer any help I can in processing the materials, if I may also look at them while I'm here. This has worked for me in the past... but there is an even-money possibility I'm actually here for an 8-week vacation.

[polly_mer]

Well, my archive has moved nearly everything I came here to look at "into process" for a new collection. I walked into the stacks to find boxes tied up with string, and lots of empty shelving. I've written to the head archivist to offer any help I can in processing the materials, if I may also look at them while I'm here. This has worked for me in the past... but there is an even-money possibility I'm actually here for an 8-week vacation.

Wow!  I'd be livid.

[mamselle]

Gutting.

Had you been in touch before, and no-one told you? Or has it always been easy to just go in and do the work?

I do know that particular pain....

I regularly visit a particular manuscript in France at a town library where they know me and practically meet me at the door with the book in its box.

One year, however, I'd neglected to call or write in advance (wasn't certain my schedule would let me get there that year) and then saw a window of opportunity, so I hopped the train down from Paris.

Oops.

The archivist met me at the door, but not with "my" book. Instead she explained that "The Beaux Arts" (national group in charge of art treasures) had come in to do a display in the foyer--and locked "my book" in a glass case to which no-one local was allowed to have a key.

I made do--there are a dozen other books to work from--but the kicker was getting to see "my manuscript" locked in its case with its interpretive card--which was a translation of something I'd written a few years earlier for a presentation I gave, coordinated by the local library...

And at least it was open to one of the pages I needed to photograph...

But I've (mostly) learned my lesson, not to go expecting to see something without checking to be sure it's not on loan for an exhibition elsewhere, out for rebinding, being archived (as you found) or...locked in a case in the foyer for which no-one local has a key...

M.

[nescafe]

Had you been in touch before, and no-one told you? Or has it always been easy to just go in and do the work?

In the country in question, appointments aren't a thing and g*d laughs at your plans. But the good news is that I went back today and met some folks in the special collections dept. They thankfully are happy to let me see some of the items in the working collection, especially if I can help them create a finding aid along the way. A beautiful quid pro quo if you ask me.

But on the other hand, some of the items I located yesterday in the stacks were locked behind a steel gate today, and no one seemed to have the key. So I'll try again Monday for those materials.

[Bbmaj7b5]

I am writing proposals. I've submitted eight pre-proposals and three proposals thus far, have another proposal due next week, and am looking at getting five more proposals out before the end of the year.

It sounds silly to write so many, but a) they won't all hit, and b) it might just take four or five contemporaneous projects to fully fund my summer salary and a couple of grad students.

I feel like I'm in hell.

[mamselle]

Had you been in touch before, and no-one told you? Or has it always been easy to just go in and do the work?

In the country in question, appointments aren't a thing and g*d laughs at your plans. But the good news is that I went back today and met some folks in the special collections dept. They thankfully are happy to let me see some of the items in the working collection, especially if I can help them create a finding aid along the way. A beautiful quid pro quo if you ask me.

But on the other hand, some of the items I located yesterday in the stacks were locked behind a steel gate today, and no one seemed to have the key. So I'll try again Monday for those materials.

Oooh, yum, yes, we like finding aids...good way of putting two problems together and getting a solution!

Here's hopes the elusive key to the stacks appears as well.

M.

[phattangent]

Lecturer in CS at R1:

• two grant proposals (one proposal written and submitted as PI; one collaborative proposal still in the works as CoPI);
• two classes (one class face-to-face; one class online); and
• two education-based grant projects (both complement item 2).

Exciting times!

[risenanew]

It's good to be among my people and realize I'm not the only one with too many plans and too little time!

Thanks to my college's odd quarter-semester schedule, I've finished over a month of vacation and have another 40 or so days left to go. (Yes, we have a *really* strange schedule and *very* short regular semesters -- although we meet for more hours during said semester). I've already managed to finish a very difficult revise-and-resubmit (which needed a whole new analysis, which in turn needed a heavily revised intro/discussion) and started on a new grant-funded study where I shepherd a small group of undergrads through their first research project.

In my remaining time, I would like to:

1. Finish off that grant-funded study -- which requires my teaching 4 more weeks of class (albeit only at 3 hours a week), co-creating a research survey with the students, getting them to finish their CITI training, and ushering the survey through the local IRB;

2. Finish an invited book chapter on pedagogy that's due in early September;

3. Do reliability analysis for two massive quant studies that I've coded already;

4. Revise and resubmit a previously rejected paper that I've already worked on to some degree.

5. Revise my courses for Fall 2019 -- mostly by tweaking the syllabi so I have far less grading to do during the semester. (First year hubris made me assign far more papers than I should have and oh boy do I regret it dearly).

6. Start up a fellowship application for submission early in the Fall semester -- I need that time off from teaching, damn it!

7. Maybe find some personal time...

God, does the summer grind get any more easy once you're past the early tenure-track years? Pase tell me things stop being so hectic eventually!

[darkstarrynight]

I am plowing through a bunch of things but am excited because my first book's publication date got moved up and it is less than a month away!

[ergative]

In order of closeness to completion:

1. Finish up edits on two papers and send off to coauthors for comments (then submission when comments are done). One paper is done; the next might be done by tomorrow.

2. Get grant pre-proposal submitted

3. Rewrite (once again) The Paper That Wouldn't Die

4. Install in the lab my big piece of very fancy equipment that my department bought for me because the end of the fiscal year somehow left them with an extra 30k and they decided to buy me toys with it. That was a very nice email to get!

[mamselle]

Checking in.

Several gravestones started. 60 more to do for this chapter.

At least the archives with access to the online state deeds and probate records are super-cooled for the sake of the books.

Not so great in winter, but very pleasant right now...

M.

[drbrt]

Well, I'm down to four major things that have to be done before September 15:

1. Write the last instrument for the grant pilot study and submit grant pilot IRB
2. Rewrite and resubmit the article that was rejected
3. Five's paper
4. Three conference proposals and a full board IRB

[Parasaurolophus]

I'm teaching all summer, with just two weeks off in which I'm expected to perform 74 hours of service. Sigh.


Still, there are a few modest goals:

• Write a piece for a special issue to which I was invited.
• Sort out what's going on with Prize Pub (i.e. remind them to publish it, fix it up a bit).
• Revise Rejected Paper, and get it back under consideration/finally published.
• Make real progress on book (i.e. 1-2 chapters).

There shouldn't be any trouble accomplishing the first three. That last one, though...

I just sent in my paper for the special issue. Not bad, on the whole, since I had to prep and teach two classes at the same time, look for additional work, and had to read the whole book the contribution is based on before I could even write it. I'm pretty pleased.

I've sorted out some stuff with the publisher for my prize essay, too. I'll give it a few tweaks this coming week, and send it in.


Beyond that... I have two papers that I'm keen to revise and get back out into the world by the end of this coming week, now that I've got the writing bug again. After that, there's progress to be made on two co-authored pieces, and the stupid book. Which I should just buckle down and do, especially while I'm still in writing mode.

Looking forward to crossing off more of that list!