How to 'do' research (Part 1)

[Sorry about the long wait time since the last post.  The first-year-on-the-tenure-track mid-semester crunch really slapped the hell out of me these past month or so.]

I was chatting with a new Ph.D. student the other day about their research ideas and (eventual) dissertation topic.  They said that they had plenty of statistical training (they have two master's degrees), but haven't had much training (yet) in the way of research methods.  Midway through the conversation about their research interests and background, they asked me one hell of a question: "How do you actually do research?  Like, how do you find the literature, figure out a research question, write up a literature review, choose a dataset, that kind of stuff?"

I think 'doing research' is closer
to this than anything else...

The answer to that question, I think, is both very complicated and very personal.  I assume that everyone does their research a little differently from anyone else, and it likely depends on whose research methods courses you took in grad school, which articles and books about research you read (and understood/liked), your own personal preferences and habits, the kind of research you're doing, and a whole lot of other things that aren't immediately coming to mind.  So, I don't think it's as simple as "Do X, then Y, then Z, and viola!  Top-tier pub here we come!"

Still, it's a fair (and good) question to ask, especially as a new Ph.D. student whose largely expected to hit the ground running.  While my answer right then wasn't really well thought out, insightful, or likely even coherent, I've had a little more time to think about it.  Thus, this is the way that I typically conduct research (or at least part of it -- I'm sure there will be more to come, hence the 'Part 1' in the title).  It seems to work pretty well for me thus far, so feel free to steal anything that looks like it might help you, since I'm sure I stole most of this from other people along the way.

1. Read the literature for stuff that interests you.

Researching uninteresting stuff
is like watching Golf on TV:
Both make me want to stab my
eyes out with a spoon.

Note the second part of that statement -- 'for stuff that interests me.'  I think one of the biggest mistakes people make as Ph.D. students and new researchers is choosing research topics only because it's what's 'hot' in the field, or because their advisor does it, or because they can be funded through a project to do it, or for any number of other reasons that don't involve being genuinely interested in it. (Yes, there's obviously something to be said for doing research that will eventually get you a good job, but you should be able to balance the marketability of a particular research subject with your interest in it.)

There's a reason I left my stable, fairly well paying office job to earn my Ph.D.: I got to the point where couldn't see myself doing something, as my career, that I didn't absolutely love.  I still feel that way, but now instead of that unloved 'thing' being the 9-5 office job of shuffling papers, it is now conducting research that I really couldn't give two sh*ts about (or even one sh*t about). So I try not to do that on a day-to-day basis, and I think I've been fairly successful at it thus far.

So, I guess the precursor to step 1 would be 'figure out what interests me.'  This likely involves reading a lot of broader literature in your field to find the things that you want to read more about.  Once you've done that, and you know that you're really, really interested in X and Y, go ahead and look up more literature on X and Y and read it.

Keep in mind that this isn't simply reading the latest 3 years of top-tier journal articles that used X and Y as keywords, but also involves figuring out who the big names are (and were) in the field, what the major studies on X and Y are that get cited over and over again are, and what types of methods, data, etc. are generally used in those studies.  You should also read studies that might not be on X or Y, but relate to it somehow (similar methods, similar units of analysis, similar theoretical models, etc.).  All of this reading allows you to talk coherently in your research papers about what's been done before, who has done it, how they did it, and how your stuff is similar.

So, now that you're knee deep in the literature of the stuff that interests you, what's next?  Well, it's something that takes place while you're reading the literature...


2. Figure out what people have been doing poorly, or not at all, in those studies (i.e., find the 'gaps' in the literature).

Similar to the UK warnings,
if you don't mind the gaps in
the literature, you'll be hit by a
metro train called 'peer review'

This really only comes from reading study after study after study.  Invariably you'll be able to spot the limitations of studies that you read, whether it's generalizability, unsophisticated methods, not using Theory A, not studying area B, etc. etc. etc.  Sometimes the authors will do you a solid and list the 'real' limitations of their studies in their respective limitations section.  From what I've seen, however, most of these so-called limitation sections are really just a list of one or two of the most minor problems that barely constitute an actual limitation, with no mention of the more serious limitations of the study.  So read the limitations sections with a grain of salt, but if something keeps popping up over and over again (e.g., 'this study only used cross-tabs and not multiple regression', 'we couldn't study X, so we had to study a proxy of it, Y', 'we could only examine one county of data, so generalizability is a concern', 'historical/longitudinal data were unavailable for X, so this was cross-sectional in design'), then it's likely one of the main gaps in the current literature.  You want to figure out what these gaps are, because they can help you either craft a research question or craft your study's methods section.

For instance, if you find that prior studies have all examined individual states/counties/cities, and no one's compared multiple places, that could be the source of a new study.  Your research question might be as simple as "What are the state/county/city characteristics that influence X", and even though this exact same question might have been asked by multiple prior studies, if your study does something those other studies didn't (e.g., examine multiple places rather than just one), you'll probably be making an important contribution to the literature.  If studies have all ignored Theory A, and you think Theory A could be important in explaining X or Y, then your research question might be "Does Theory A explain the occurrence of X?"

Ok, so you've read (and are continuing to read) the literature on your topic, you've found some things that are missing in the current literature that you might be able to address, and you've incorporated that into your research question.  Now what?

3. Write a good, but concise, literature review. 

You should by now have a handle on who the big names are in your field, what the major studies are, and what the general findings of the literature are on topic X.  Now comes what is, for me, one of the hardest and most boring things: writing the literature review. There are a number of guides on this floating around the interview (see one example here), and I guess now there's one more...

Note that I'm talking not about the 40+ page literature reviews that get published as stand-alone manuscripts in journals. Rather, I mean the shorter, ~5-10 page reviews you see at the front of a 'regular' journal article.

The literature review helps lay the foundation for your study - it talks about what people have done, how they did it, and what they found, but it also connects those findings into a coherent narrative, as well as exposing the gaps that you will be filling with your study. That said, the literature review can vary tremendously depending on how your study is set up. I have most of my experience with quantitative, policy-oriented studies, so that's the type of literature review I'll be discussing. I'm sure this varies for qualitative, historical, theoretical, etc. studies, so buyer beware.

In any case, the point of your literature review should be to give the readers a crash course in what's already been done in the field that relates to your research. Sometimes this will be fairly easy and direct, since a lot of people will have done studies before you on a similar or same issue.

Another research idea:
The effect of access to hoodies
on rates of juvenile delinquency.

For example, suppose you're writing about the relationship between doing poorly in school and juvenile delinquency. If there were a number of studies, or even a specific theory, that can be easily applied to this issue (let's go with Strain Theory, since apparently everybody in my field wants to test this at one time or another), then much of your literature review might be discussing the theory, what it says, and how these studies have supported (or not supported) this theory. So you might want to set up your literature review by first discussing Strain theory generally, and then noting how it easily applies to your specific situation (i.e., doing poorly in school leads to delinquency). Then you can cite prior studies on school achievement and delinquent outcomes, and note whether they support Strain Theory or not. You would note the problems with the prior research, and how more research on this issue is sorely needed (although, really, it isn't in this case... so please stop doing these studies, folks...). This sets up your study by placing it in relation to the prior research and theory, and also helps distinguish it since you've addressed the limitations of prior research.

However, sometimes you're paving new ground, and need to discuss two or three different types of research and blend them together into a coherent story.  For example, maybe you're trying to examine whether access to a cell phone influences juvenile delinquency. It makes sense, since with it you can chat with your friends wherever you are, and you can more easily decide where to meet up to vandalize the school, or burgle the liquor store, etc. Maybe no one has previously looked at this specific issue (if not, I call dibs...). BUT, people HAVE looked at how communicating with friends (in person) can influence delinquency. So, you review this prior research. Then, you realize that socio-economic status (SES) is going to influence who has a cellphone in the first place, and so you need to review the research on how SES can influence delinquency. Now that you've done this, you finish your literature review by pulling together these two prior research fields (communication and delinquency, SES and delinquency), and relate this to juveniles communicating via cellphone, and support why you think this would (or would not) have the same influence on delinquency as face-to-face communication with friends, controlling for SES.

I can't be too much more specific on how to actually organize your literature review, because the organization is going to depend on a number of factors specific to what you're studying, how you're studying it, and what's been done in the past. I recommend reading a lot of articles, mostly from top journals, that have looked at similar things and see how those were set up. This should give you an idea on how to set up your own review section.

Side rant: Tone
Let me take just a minute to talk a little about tone when discussing the prior literature. I'm assuming that the ultimate goal of doing this research will be some type of scholarly journal article that will need to survive the peer review process. If this is the case, then the journal will send your work to other 'experts' in field. While this might include grad students that are just beginning their careers, it might also include some experienced professors whose past research you've cited and discussed in your literature review. How you discussed their research, then, matters a great deal...

Let's consider the following examples:

Example 1: Standing on the shoulders of giants.

Example 1:
"The prior research has been
tremendously important, but
has suffered from some minor
issues which I will address"

Imagine you're one of those distinguished professors reading an article for a journal. The author discusses your article in a neutral fashion, commends certain things that it (you) did well, and even-handedly notes what was missing or otherwise could have been improved upon. The author is acknowledging the contributions of your work, and indirectly suggests that they are 'standing on the shoulders of giants' with their present study. This sets the tone for your thoughts on the article. You think to yourself "Good call, sir! I should have used more than three years of data. I'm glad you're taking the ball and running with it, and glad my research could contribute!" as you sip your brandy and puff on your Meerschaum pipe while sitting by a roaring fire in your study (or where ever/however distinguished professors review journal articles...). The rest of the article is well done, so you send off a positive revise and resubmit recommendation to the editor, with encouraging words for the author.


Example 2: All my predecessors were idiots. 

Example 2:
"The prior work is total
doo-doo done by smelly
caca-heads. My research
is good because it isn't
poop based." 

Now, imagine you're that same distinguished professor reviewing a very similar article. The author cites your work, but does so in a dismissive, critical tone. It's clear that they think your prior research was garbage, and that you were obviously a drooling idiot and/or untrained monkey. While not specifically saying this, they imply that their research can 'save the field' from its past horrific, worthless studies conducted by lesser researchers. "Humph and habberdashery!" you exclaim as you quickly type up your review to the editor with the strong recommendation to reject this horrible, insulting manuscript on the spot. "Little sh*t thinks my research is garbage, does he? Well good luck getting into [top journal of the field], muahahahahaha!" you cackle as you fire off your recommendation to the journal and casually toss the reviewed manuscript into your fireplace.

So kiddos, what did we learn from these examples? Well, first, apparently there are still some people in the world who use the phrase 'habberdashery.' Second, and more importantly, the tone you use to discuss the prior literature can be very important. Yes, you need to point out the gaps in prior studies so you can set up reasons for why your research is an important contribution. However, praising the prior researchers for their contributions, and implying that you're using their research as a basis for yours to help further the field, is a very, very different story compared to one where you're bashing the idiocy of prior researchers to promote your (obviously) much more sophisticated study. You want your manuscript to come across as 'standing on the shoulders of giants,' rather than 'chopping the giants off at the kneecaps.'  So tone matters.

Hopefully what I've written so far will be somewhat helpful to those of you just starting the research process. I'll be posting more on this topic in the future, but this should get you started.

--------------------------------
Image credits: Golf, Hoodies, Old Scholar, Baby Scholar, Mind the Gap, Then a miracle occurs (Harris, 1977)

How to respond to an R&R

[Note: Some of the follow suggestions I picked up from my faculty advisors and colleagues while in grad school, others I came up with on my own, and still others came from Wendy Belcher's excellent book: Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks]

So, you submitted a manuscript to a journal, and the editor liked it enough to give you an R&R... now what?

First, congrats! An R&R is about as good as you can expect for a regular journal, since very few manuscripts are accepted 'as is.'

Depending on the editor's letter and reviewers' comments, it might be an easy R&R that won't take much time, or a very hard R&R that will take weeks or months to address. Also, depending on the journal, an R&R might mean the manuscript is basically accepted, pending a little polishing, or alternatively that there's a good chance you'll still get rejected later on in the process. In any case, your goal should be to address as many of the recommended changes as is reasonably possible in the revision to make the paper better, without accidentally 'messing up' your paper (or your main points) in the process. Hopefully this post helps guide you there.

So the first thing you should do is read the editor's letter in its entirely (you probably opened the letter/email and just skimmed the page(s) until you saw 'revise and resubmit'...).  The editor's job is to read the reviews, make a decision on your manuscript (in this case, R&R), and then (in my opinion) give you guidance on what are the most important things to address in the revised manuscript. If the editor didn't do that, or gave you a generic 'please address the reviewers' comments in your revised submission,' then your job will be a little harder than it probably should be.

Anyhow, read the editor's letter and see if s/he gave you specific instructions as to what to address. The editor might note the important of a missing variable in your model, as mentioned by reviewer 2, or that your treatment of the prior literature was lacking in X area, as noted by reviewers 1 and 3. Whatever the editor says in their letter regarding potential changes should be your first priority in the revision. What I like to do is open a new word document and make a bulleted list of the changes the editor specifically mentioned in the letter (these bullets go under an 'Editor' heading). This will become part of your 'potential revision' list/spreadsheet that you will continue building in the future. (More about this in a bit).

Next, read through all of your reviewers' comments, without taking any notes. Make sure you have your submitted manuscript draft in front of you, so you can reference it when a reviewer mentions something on page X or in Table Y. Keep an eye out for comments that come up from more than one reviewer, such as the suggestion to use robust standard errors in your model, to provide a correlation matrix table, or to cite the work of authors A and B.

Chances are, you won't agree with everything the reviewers recommend, and you'll form the following opinions about the reviewers [note: for ease of comparisons, all three reviewers are assumed to be male in this example]:

Reviewer 1: Even my
bowel movements are
high impact.

Reviewer 1: You'll probably think this reviewer is a genius, particularly since he gave you the most useful recommendations, and other than a couple minor suggestions, loved your entire manuscript. His suggestions are relevant, fairly easy to implement, and will really help boost the quality of your manuscript. This reviewer, while rarely seen in the wild, is the best you can hope for.

Reviewer 2: "Derp?"

Reviewer 2: You'll probably think the second reviewer is an idiot, but a fairly harmless one. He probably doesn't really know anything about either your analytical methods or the literature related to your topic, but tried to fake it so the editor didn't get angry. Most of the suggestions he offered aren't very useful and/or make no sense given your model, argument, and findings. Still, you can easily address his main concerns, and easily dismiss his unhelpful and misguided recommendations.

Reviewer 3: My comb-over
is horrible, I can't eat sweets
due to my diabeetus, and I'm
going to take my anger out
on you and your manuscript.

Reviewer 3: Upon reading reviewer 3's comments, your first thought will probably be "what a f*cking d*ckhead." You'll probably think that every suggestion by reviewer 3 is complete garbage, that he misunderstood your entire argument, knows nothing of the methods you used, and decided to use his "anonymous" review as an outlet for his deep-seated inner frustrations concerning sexual impotency and male pattern baldness. You'll likely question his academic and genetic pedigree, and wonder how the editor could have chosen such an arrogant jerk. This reaction is completely normal, and has a long historical precedent.



In fact, Einstein even developed a theory related to reviewer comments that largely supports these three general categories, as previously noted in my post on how to get over manuscript rejections:

More useful than relativity.

However, these categories are not exhaustive, nor are they exclusive. You may, for instance, get a review from a reviewer that combines traits of 2 (idiot) and 3 (jerk).

 Regardless of the types of reviewers you get, or the content of their reviews, the fact that you received an R&R meant the editor saw some promise in your manuscript. Therefore, now that you've surveyed all of the reviews, you need to get to work addressing the specific suggestions and critiques, and revising your manuscript for resubmission.

So the next step is to go back through the reviews and add to an excel spreadsheet (or equivalent) every specific suggestion or critique, from each reviewer, that requires you to change something (or might require you to say why you didn't change something.) Each suggestion/comment should be its own entry on a separate line. I recommend five columns in the spreadsheet: ID # (increments up), Reviewer (who made the comment), Comment (what was the change/critique), Importance (How important does this seem to your overall revised manuscript, or to the editor/reviewer?), and Ease (How long and/or how much work is this going to take to address). I also like to color code the importance and ease cells using the an easy to distinguish color scheme - red for important/hard, yellow for medium/moderate, and green for low/easy. If you set it up like this, your spreadsheet should look something like the following (excluding the earlier comments from the editor):

Once you've finished adding the reviewers' comments to your spreadsheet, add the editor comments you previously listed out if they're not already covered by a reviewer, and mark anything the editor said to do as high importance. If the editor says something a reviewer already said, then add 'editor' to the reviewer cell as a reminder, and mark it as high importance regardless of your original importance rank. If the editor specifically says something is not important to address, then mark it as low importance, and if they say not to do it at all, then change the font style for the associated entry to strikeout.

After everything is down on your spreadsheet, you can get a sense of the overall work that's ahead of you by looking at the importance/ease categories for each entry. A roadmap to these combinations, and what they mean for your revision, is below:

High/Hard: These are the changes that will give you the most headaches. You need to do them (high importance), but they're going to take a long time and generally be a P.I.T.A. (hard to do).  Doing these first will make your life much easier later on, and if they're major changes, some of the less important changes may be obsolete once you do these. If you decide not to do one of these, you need a very good reason why not.

High/Moderate: These are changes that will be a little easier than the High/Hard changes. You still need to do them, and they're going to take you some time, but they won't be absolutely horrible to address.

High/Easy: These are the changes that will make you feel most productive, since you can address these important 'need to do' changes very quickly and without much work.


Medium/Moderate: You should probably do these changes, especially if you have the time.  If you don't do one of these change requests, then you should definitely address why you didn't in your cover letter (more about the cover letter in a minute).


Medium/Easy or Low/Easy: Since these are easy to do, you might as well do them, especially for the ones of medium importance. If you choose not to do these, you should at least acknowledge why you're not doing the medium importance ones, if not the low importance ones as well (since not doing the latter will make you look lazy).

Low/Moderate or Low/High: These might be changes you decide not to do, given their relatively low importance compared to the moderate-to-high amount of work they'd require of you. Again, you may want to address why you didn't do these in your cover letter, but given their low importance, if you miss discussing some of these it probably won't be the end of the world.


Ok, so you have your potential changes all in order, you've ranked their importance and ease, you know which ones you need to address, which you should address, which you can easily address, and which you're not wasting your time with. Now comes the hard part: Make these changes in the manuscript. That's about as specific as I can get for this step, but this is what will take the longest.

Once you're done making (or not making) the various changes, you need to reread your manuscript from start to finish to make sure things still make sense. This is especially true if you had to do some serious changing of text. Edit as necessary.

"Dear Editor: Thank you for
the opportunity to revise
my manuscript. Unfortunately,
as I am not fluent in dumbass, I
have been unable to interpret
Reviewer 3's critiques."

After your revised manuscript is re-polished into a final version, you need to draft your cover letter to the editor. I recommend starting the letter with a brief paragraph thanking the editor for the opportunity to revise and resubmit your manuscript for their journal. You should also thank the editor and reviewers for their helpful suggestions and critiques (if even you think most of the suggestions were garbage). Then I recommend stating something along the lines of "I've provided specific responses to each of the suggestions and critiques below. I look forward to hearing your final decision." This will provide a transition between your formal paragraph and the subsequent list of changes that's about to follow, as well as obviate the need to write a closing paragraph after your list.

Skip a line or two, and then list out each change you want to address (all of the high importance ones, most/all of the ones of medium importance, some/most of the low importance ones). Briefly summarize the suggestion or critique, identify who said it, its location in the manuscript, and what you did to address it (or, alternatively, why you did not address it). Examples of wording for this section are provided below:

Reviewers 1 and 2 recommended adding r^2 values to Table 3 (p. 21). This has been done for all three models.

 Reviewer 2 recommended revising the paper to focus on racial threat theory. While this is a valid alternative theoretical focus, I feel that racial threat is not appropriate for the current study given the current focus on non-racial factors, as well as the comments of Reviewer 1 regarding the appropriateness of the current theoretical model. Further, using racial threat would generate the problem of..."

 Reviewer 2 questioned the need for spatial lag measurements in the final model. I have expanded the justification for this measurement on page 4, but believe that the inclusion of this measurement is essential in order to control for the spatial autocorrelation of the observations that was indicated by the Moran's I tests discussed on page 12, footnote 3. As such, this measurement has been left in the final model.

Reviewer 3 recommended deleting the third paragraph on page 2, as it was considered unnecessary. On the contrary, I believe the key points of that paragraph are essential to understanding why the study includes measurements for different types of vehicles as well as the differences in operator characteristics. Without it, the subsequent three paragraphs appear disjointed from the rest of the literature review. As such, this paragraph was left in the article as was originally written.

 Make sure you come across as respectful in your comments, especially when discussing suggestions that you didn't implement, and certainly don't word your responses as attacks on the reviewers' or editor's suggestions. If it's clear that one of the reviewers is clearly confused on a certain point, model, or statistic, spin the wording of your response in such a way so that it seems like it was your fault for not being clear, and then justify your original point/method:

Reviewer 2 seemed confused by my use of the term "spatial proximity" on pages 3 and 6. In order to address this potential point of confusion for readers, I have added footnote 2 on page 3 so as to clarify what this term precisely means for this study. 

When you're done, reread your cover letter to make sure, one more time, that you come across as respectful, attentive, and appreciative of all of the suggestions. When you're satisfied that everything sounds good, send the revised manuscript and cover letter to the editor (or upload them to the journal website, as appropriate), and cross your fingers. With any luck, you'll hear back in a few weeks (or a few months) with good news! If not, then see if you can revise the manuscript any further, and then submit it to a different journal to start the process over again.

---------------------------------------------------------------
Image Credits: The Most Interesting Man in the World, Mr. Bean, Reviewer 3, Einstein, Letter Writer

How to handle a journal rejection

In one of my prior posts I discussed how to write reviews for journals. Sometimes those reviews result in good news from the editor, like a revise and resubmit (R&R) decision. The majority of reviews, though, will probably result in a rejection letter. This is the result of basic math, given that top-tier journals have acceptance rates well below 50%. Having recently experienced two back-to-back article rejections myself (same journal, I might add), I figured it might be useful to talk about how I, personally, handle having my manuscript rejected, as well as some thoughts on how to effectively deal with it.

One of Einstein's more relevant theories

First off, this is typically the timeframe I go through with my rejections, and my actions/thoughts along the way:

Day 1: The editor and reviewers at journal X are complete idiots!! Efffffffff Yooooooooooo reviewers!!!

Day 2: Ugh, I can't read this review again without getting angry.  Efff Yoooo!

Day 3-14: [Do something else]

Day 15: [After rereading the manuscript and making comments on the draft]  Hmmm, maybe my submission wasn't as strong as I thought, and maybe the editor and reviewers are only mildly stupid (Eff Yoo!). Still, they might have brought up a couple things that I might be able to fix.  ...And maybe the manuscript was a little long and did have a few too many appendices.  I'll work on the revision tomorrow.

Day 16-???: [Revise manuscript]

Day ??? + 1: Ok, the manuscript has been revised, it's much better than the previous submission, so now where should I send it?  Obviously I can't resubmit to journal X (eff u), so lemme look into journal X...

******************************

Does this above sound like a good timeline/plan that might help you get over a manuscript rejection?  Did you just get a rejection and are still stewing with righteous anger?  If so, then read my step-by-step instructions below!

First, when you initially get the rejection email or letter, you'll likely feel like this:

'Generalizability Concerns?'
Well Effff Yoooooo!!!

...at least, I typically do.  I bet there are few people who can receive a rejection letter and feel fine about it.

I recommend the very first thing you do is print and read the rejection comments (from the editor and the reviewers, if included) as soon as possible, preferably that same day.  

Next, do one (or more) of the following to the pages you just read:

• Burn them (watch out for smoke detectors)
• Smash them into a ball and punch it with your fist
• Shred it in the paper shredder.  Throw in a blank CD-R at the same time for a feel-good crunching sound
• Tear it to bits and toss it in the air like confetti (make sure to do this in a common area that you don't have to clean up)
• Stomp on it (works better if you first crunch it into a ball), and then kick the smushed ball across the room.
• Use them for gun/archery/whatever target practice (this one is probably the most satisfying)

Tony recently had his manuscript rejected from
the Journal of Drug Control Policy...
They didn't like his theoretical model I guess.

...feel better?  Only a little?  Ok, good enough for now.

Now that you're hopefully feeling a little better, reward yourself with a treat.  You've earned it, so treat yourself to a box of cookies (or a drink, or a steak, whatever).  You might be asking: "But my manuscript just got rejected?!? What did I do to earn a reward?"  Ahh, it's what you didn't do that earned you the reward.  Specifically you (probably) didn't:

• Fire off a snarky email to the editor telling them off
• Punch a hole in your LCD monitor
• Throw your laptop across the room and/or into the face of a coworker
• Curl into a little ball and cry (though it's ok if you did this one... you can still have a cookie)

So, treat yourself with cookies or something.

C is also for Craptastic Reviewers

Ok, now that you're hopefully a little calmer and feeling a little better, this next part is very, very important.  If you're not under an extreme deadline to get the paper published (e.g., you're racing against a competing academic so you don't get scooped), then take a week or two without looking at either the paper, the associated data, or (ESPECIALLY) the rejection email/reviews.  Just work on something else for a week or two.

After a couple weeks, you should be feeling a little more like this:

A little less pissed off... that's good!

...so, still a little hurt, and a little pissed off, but you're getting there.  Now, read through your original submission (the one that got rejected), and try and read it as if you're a reviewer and that is not your own writing.  As soon as you're done reading what you submitted, then read the rejection letter and reviews again.


Having read what you submitted, do the reviews seem a little more legitimate in their critiques? Oh really, your submission was perfect?  THEN READ IT AGAIN.  Ok, did you find something that might be worthy of revising a little?  Good.  So, how do you feel towards the reviewers/editor now?

Notice the smile?  That's the spirit!

Ok, that's good!  So, you probably noticed that your masterpiece of a manuscript had a few places that you could improve.  If so, great!  Get to work revising the manuscript, trying to incorporate into the revised version as many of the valid critiques from the reviewers and/or editor as you feel comfortable with.  Eventually, you'll have a finished revision that you can submit to a different journal, hopefully with a better outcome this time (if not, start back at the beginning of this post).

Regardless of whether your coping strategies are similar or different (or the advice above works for you), you should at least be willing to revise the manuscript and send it somewhere else.  Don't let a single rejection result in tossing the manuscript in the garbage (maybe after 3 rejections, but not after the first...).  Also, you have to keep in mind that any decent journal is going to reject more manuscripts than they accept, so chances are if you send them something else, they won't hold your prior rejection against you, and so you shouldn't hold the prior rejection against them (eventually... give yourself some time to be pissed with them).

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Image Credits: Finger Old_Finger Young_Finger Tony Cookie_Monster Einstein

How to drown out noises and concentrate

One of my previous posts noted that I like to use active noise cancellation headphones to help concentrate on writing tasks.What I didn't really emphasize is that even with the noise cancellation technology turned on, the headphones still don't always keep all of the various sounds out, especially if people are talking nearby.

This is what happens when I start listening to the
music playing through my headphones... it's not pretty

With some music playing through the headphones, it's much easier to drown everything out, but then I'm stuck listening to the music, which itself gets distracting since I start listening to the lyrics (I was never one of those people who could fall asleep with the TV on).  I then start tapping my fingers/feet to the music, and pretty soon I'm completely distracted.

Hanson actually created
what is widely considered
to be the first 'White Noise.'
Fact.

One way around this is to play white noise through the headphones along with the noise cancelling turned on.  White noise can also be used to help fall asleep, meditate, etc.  Here's a very useful YouTube 'video' of 12 hours of just white noise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KaOrSuWZeM

However, listening to YouTube requires internet, and sometimes you won't have access to it (like when you're on a plane with your laptop).  If you're somewhat technologically savvy, you can use a special program (or if you're not, use this website) to capture that white noise YouTube video as a (very, very long) .mp3 sound file. Then you can cut it down to ~5 minutes using any sound editing program, and set it to loop on your desktop, laptop, or portable music player.  Voila!  A small, non-internet-based white noise audio file on an infinite loop.

Enjoy!  (And remember to turn off the noise cancelling option when you're done with it!  On a related note, the dollar store is great for finding cheap packs of AAA batteries that you will no doubt burn through fairly quickly with the headphones.)

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Picture Credits: Headphones Hanson Jay_and_Silent_Bob

Things that make me Productive and Happy

As a grad student or new professor, you'll likely be spending hours (and hours, and hours) sitting in your office doing supposedly scholar-like things.  Here are some things I've found extremely useful for writing and conducting research while sitting in my office.  Maybe they'll be useful in thinking about what you'd like in your office to help make you more productive, happy, or both:

Perfect for slouching!

1. A High-Back, Comfortable Rolling Chair with Arms.  I prefer a rolling/swiveling chair with 'arms' that can fit right up to my desk and that also allows me to 'slouch' in it while writing (my preferred writing position, bad back be damned!).  My current chair also has the ability to lean back pretty far without tipping over (don't ask how I know the limit of this), which allows me to put my feet up on my desk when I'm reading a physical book or paper. One of the most important things, for me, is that it is a 'high back' chair that I can actually lean back in, if I so choose,

Flawless Victory!

without the top of the seatback breaking my spine in two like a sweet Moral Kombat finishing move.  I've tried the smaller 'secretary' chairs before, and they always end up hurting my back after a week or so.  Part of that could be that, in the words of a friend, I'm "big as sh*t!", but I like to think that it's instead because I'm now a professor, not a secretary, and so my body desires the finer professorial things in life. (But seriously, it's probably because I'm big as sh*t and should lose some weight.)

The reality of dual monitors

2. Dual Monitors.  The jump in productivity this option gives you is simply amazing.  I have a 17" laptop that's essentially a desktop replacement, and use an external monitor attached to it that lets me use dual-screens.  I can be writing in a manuscript on one, and have Stata, EndNote, Google Chrome, PDF files, etc. open on the other without having to swap back and forth. It's also nice when I'm using the Stata program for something, and can have the syntax file open for editing at the same time. Most laptops will automatically be able to support dual monitors (that is, the laptop screen and 1 external monitor), but small laptops and netbooks may not, so keep this in mind when selecting a laptop.  Also, dual monitors on a desktop may require a special video card (or multiple video cards), that may not come standard on an off-the-shelf desktop.

Screenshot of Endnote

3. Citation Tracking Software.  I use EndNote, though I know others who think it has a massive learning curve to get to work right (and even then, it's prone to bugs and crashes).  Using any kind of citation software that links in with your writing software (I use MS Word) will save you countless hours of formatting citations, cross-checking things, and making the bibliography at the end.  Also, with the right software, you can also keep track of your notes and have PDFs of the actual articles linked to each citation entry. If you don't have a citation manager, start NOW, and throw everything you get your hands on into it. The time you take setting up the entries initially will pay dividends for years to come.

Like a filing cabinet,
but actually useful!

4. Dropbox Software.  Dropbox is software that lets you store files in your online 'Dropbox', but it acts as if it's a simple folder on your computer that you can drag and drop files into, rename things in, etc.  The best part, aside from the automatic backups stored offsite (and the backup history option, which has saved my ass in the past), is that you can link multiple computers to a single Dropbox account and thereby 'sync' all of your important folders and files between these computers.  I have my EndNote file/folders in my Dropbox, and this lets me get to my citations from wherever I am, assuming I have EndNote installed on that computer.  I also installed Stata into a folder within my Dropbox folder, allowing me to use it from any of my three linked computers. You can get your free 2GB dropbox account here: http://db.tt/QLD94wc.  They also have paid accounts with much more space.

AAA Battery Quickly Drainer

5. Noise Canceling Headphones.  When doing work that doesn't require a lot of 'quiet time' concentration (like data cleaning), I like to listen to music through a pair of Phillips noise cancelling headphones.  They run on a single AAA battery, and you can definitely hear a difference when the noise cancellation is turned on (background noise is more 'hushed').  They still work great as regular headphones when turned off, and they're the type that cover the entire ear.  If you're looking to buy a pair of these, make sure you get the active noise canceling kind, and not the passive noise isolating kind.  The difference is that the active noise cancelling ones electronically damper external noises, while noise isolating are ones that just try and physically block out the sound waves.  The only trick is to these headphones is that you need to remember to turn off the headphones when you're done, otherwise they can double as a AAA-battery-quickly-drainer (with all due respect to Mitch Hedberg, R.I.P.).

Yep, that's about right

6. A Red Pen.  While most of my writing is done electronically, when I'm proofing or otherwise reviewing something, I like to actually print it out on paper and go through it page by page, marking errors as I find them and making notes in the margins.  For that, I can use red ink to make any changes, and it's easy to spot them later when I go through and fix the electronic document.  I also learned at one of my previous jobs that by putting a small checkmark in the right margin whenever you make a change on the paper, it's easier to find all of your changes later on no matter how minute they might be.  As I transfer these changes to the electronic document, I circle the checkmark in the margin to show that the change has been made.  Red pens are also great for grading papers, as there's nothing that says 'Wow, this is totally wrong' to undergrads as a graded paper that's filled with red ink.

They come pre-sticky.
Try not to think about how they do that.

  7. Sticky Notes and a Large Writing Pad.  When I'm reading articles (typically online as electronic PDFs), as things pop into my mind I jot them down on a pad of paper under a heading that relates to what I'm doing (e.g., "Media examples to use in paper").  When I have something that I want to remember later and it's REALLY IMPORTANT, I'll put it on a sticky note and place the note on the wall next to my desk.  These notes might be something like an important phone number, a formula I'm going to need to refer to over and over again over the next few weeks, or snippets of data that I'll need to reference in my methods section (like how many cases were excluded from a sample and for what reasons).

Meet Bunga Bunga.
Yes, he's holding a
severed head.

8. Interesting Things to Look At.  So I typically stare at a computer screen for hours and hours on any given day.  That's a horrible thing for both my eyes and my sanity.  When I need a break, it's nice to just push back from the computer and looks elsewhere.  Whether that's staring out the window, or at the pictures/things around my desk, I need something to keep my mind distracted from the computer screen.  So rather than staring at a blank wall, I've got a couple of weird statutes (see image on the left for an example), paper weights, pictures of my family, and other interesting posters that I like looking at.  I like to think they keep me sane, but even if they don't, they at least make for interesting conversation pieces when someone stops by my office.

Surrenders faster than
a regular coffee press

9. French-Press and Coffee/Accessories.  So I admit, I'm not coffee's biggest fan.  When served black with nothing in it, it tastes absolutely horrible.  To me, coffee is mostly used as a medium to provide my mouth with copious amounts of sweetener (Splenda) and sugar-free hazelnut or french vanilla creamer.  However, a cup or two in the morning does help me focus on working on my research, so I figured if I'm going to drink coffee, it'd better be damned good coffee.  I also don't want to drop $2-4 per cup at Starbucks.  Therefore, I bought myself a little french press ($10) that's good for a couple of cups of coffee at a time.  I buy a couple of pounds of good coffee (1# decaf, 1#...umm... caf? recaf? whatever.) at a time (use the 'french press' crush setting!), store it in a couple of airtight containers ($5 each), supply the Splenda and (powdered) creamer I previously mentioned, and have a nice big coffee mug and associated coaster.  Since I have access to an office water-cooler that provides (almost) boiling hot water, I can make my own french-pressed coffee whenever I want, with very little effort and expense.  The only pain to this method is having to clean the grounds out of the press every day, but that only takes a minute or two in the restroom sink, and if I'm saving a few bucks per cup, I can't really complain all that much.

Science and History
combined! Muahaha!

10. A/C, a Small Fan (and Associated Paperweights).  I'm the type of guy who likes cool weather, preferably 65 degrees with a breeze.  My office has self-controlled A/C, and on my desk, I've got a small fan and a few paperweights placed strategically on important piles of paper that I don't want to blow away (I obviously don't care if the unimportant papers blow away).  The paperweights also offer an opportunity to provide something interesting to look at (see #8).  One interesting type of paperweight I'm currently fascinated with are old glass power-line insulators.  You can find them cheap at flea markets and antique stores (~$5/each), and every one is a unique piece of history. They're about 3-4" in height, and maybe 2.5" in diameter.  Other ideas for paperweights could be small statues, office suppliers (tape dispenser?), those large blocks of sticky notes (see #7), or deactivated metal grenades (yes, I've thought about this, and will be checking with my department head soon...).

I'll add more things as I think of them, and if you have any recommendations, let me know!

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Picture Credits: Headphones Sticky_Note Glass_Insulator Red_Pen Dual_Monitors Others: Amazon.com