Tips for Conquering the Literature

Doing Research / Writing & Publishing

As a new graduate student, I struggled with identifying the most relevant papers, organizing interesting publications, and remembering why I flagged an article as “Super Important!!!” months after I read it. I’ve synthesized a few tips for taming the task:

1. Identify relevant articles:

Pick an approach for keeping up with new publications and tailor your strategy to current needs. My favorite methods include:

  • Subscribing to journal table of contents: This is my favorite way to keep up with what’s new in my field. I recommend subscribing to 3-6 journals most relevant to your work. (I can tell you from experience, subscribing to two dozen is too many. You want to manage your subscriptions so you can reasonably follow up and read articles you’re interested in within the week.) If you don’t know which journals to follow, identify those your group typically targets as first choice for a new publication.
  • Citation alerts: Creating citation alerts on PubMed or Web of Knowledge will regularly send relevant literature your way. You can create an alert for a general search using keywords and Boolean logic (e.g., [“Leiomyoma” OR “Uterine fibroids”] AND “Preterm Birth”) or set an alert for whenever a single, pivotal article is cited. For general alerts, I refine the search so it returns 15-30 articles a week. Creating an alert that is too broad (e.g., “Pregnancy”) will lead to time wasted digging for the articles you’re truly interested in.
  • RSS feeds: Instead of receiving regular emails, you can use RSS feeds to keep up with the literature. Apps like Feedly can collect the same information table of contents email subscriptions would give you and prevent inbox clutter. However, I advise you to stick to one method for tracking new publications, since using multiple platforms is difficult to manage and can lead to redundant work.

2. Choose a reference manager:

Select a reference manager early on and commit to it. Knowing and leveraging the features of your reference manager will make your life much easier. Several good options exist, but my favorite is EndNote because of its ability to find and attach the full-text paper for an imported reference, its filing and annotation capabilities, and its integration with Word. Talk to others about the pros and cons of their favorite reference manager. Once you choose a manager, educate yourself on how to use its features (YouTube is a great place to start). The time you invest here will pay off!

3. Stay organized:

Now that you’re set up with a reference manager and you have new articles coming in on a regular basis, you need a plan for organizing what you read. I recommend setting aside time every week to go through your table of contents and citation alerts and read articles that strike your interest. Once you have imported a citation into your reference manager, file it immediately! (If you do not have time to read right away, create a “Read this Week” file and promise yourself to read and appropriately file those articles by Friday evening.) File articles under a folder that will help you remember why you were interested in the first place. Some of my file names are “Quantitative Methods,” “Reproductive Epidemiology,” “Clinical Applications,” etc. Even better, when you have specific projects underway, file the citation under the project(s) for which you may cite it. EndNote allows you to file one article in numerous places, so file away!

4. Read to write:

While reading new science is fun, most of us do not read as an end unto itself. Instead, we should read with potential applications in mind. Specifically, consider how a publication may demonstrate the need for your current project or how it may frame the context for your work. In EndNote, you can create a “Group Set,” which is simply a family of files. I create a Group Set for each planned manuscript and create files within the set for different parts of a paper (e.g., Introduction, Methods, Discussion). Filing articles by specific sections of future manuscripts will make the writing process much easier. Further, it is helpful to record how you hope to cite the article in your current work. I once had a mentor who advised me when reading for a specific project to write a citation on one side of a notecard and, after reading the publication, draft the sentence in which I would cite it on the other. When it comes time to write, organize the notecards to create a story and the manuscript (or thesis chapter) would write itself. While I wish I could say I diligently carry around a stack of notecards, I have modified his advice to fit with my digital work style. EndNote allows you to create custom fields for citations. It’s infinitely helpful to create a “Main Point” or “Application” field where you can record information you plan to incorporate into your writing.

5. You put in the effort, might as well network!

If you come across a publication you think a colleague will enjoy, don’t hesitate to pass it along. Most people will appreciate a short message to the effect of, “This publication made me think of our conversation about your work on Hippogriff mating patterns.” Such a message shows you paid attention when they were telling you about their work and may bring a helpful publication to their attention. If you’re trying to establish a professional presence online, retweet publications you find particularly interesting. The authors will appreciate the extra press and your enthusiasm for your field will show. These two practices will demonstrate your active engagement with the literature and will help distinguish your voice within your field.

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Writing in Academia: An Interview with Helen Sword

Book Reviews / Writing & Publishing

Helen Sword has made a career of studying how academic writers write.  You may know her from The Writer’s Diet book and online test to tell if your writing is flabby or fit.  Maybe you’ve tried to emulate the elegant expression of ideas surveyed and analyzed in Stylish Academic Writing.  Or perhaps you’ve read her newest book, Air & Light & Time & Space, which describes the many and varied writing practices of successful academic writers (yes, even if you don’t write every day, you can be a successful writer).  If this is your first introduction to her work, check out her catalog for enlightenment.

At the Edge, we think she’s exceptional.  Dr. Sword graciously agreed to a virtual interview about writing in academia:

Your home field is Modernist literature. What brought you into studying and writing about writing?

It all started with The Writer’s Diet.  For years I’d been giving my literature students a handout called “Editing your Prose”; they would accept it politely, take a cursory glance, and shove it to the bottom of their backpacks, never to be seen again.  One day, on a whim, I retitled the handout “The Writer’s Diet” and added some cheesy metaphors about cutting fat from your diet, avoiding the clotted cream of jargon – that sort of thing.  My students loved it; they praised it in their end-of-year evaluations, gave copies to their friends, and started asking me for permission to use it in other contexts such as school teaching and newspaper editing.  That’s when I realized I must be onto something. After publishing my book with that title, I worked with a colleague in Computer Science to program the online WritersDiet Test, which allows you to paste a piece of your writing into a text box, push a button, and get a tongue-in-cheek diagnosis of “flabby” or “fit.”  My Writer’s Diet website (www.writersdiet.com) now attracts more than 70,000 unique visitors per year, so a lot of people seem to find it useful.  And from that point onward I was hooked on writing about academic writing, a field about which there turned out to be very little empirical research.

What did you find most interesting about other academics’ writing habits?

I’ve read a number of how-to-be-a-productive-writer books that contain variations on the same advice: write every day, write at the same time every day, stop worrying or complaining, just write. But when I started interviewing successful writers about their work habits, I discovered that very few of them follow such consistent or virtuous practices.  Some write in the morning, others at night; some write every day, others only in the semester breaks; some “write to think,” others “think to write.”  The amount of variety in their habits fascinated and astonished me.

You’ve criticized “write every day” mantras from the likes of Paul Silvia and Robert Boice.  Do you dislike them because they’re often seen as the only prescription for being an academic writer, when in fact many if not most academics’ writing habits are far more varied, or do you think the advice is actively harmful?

Writing every day is a great practice to try, and I highly recommend it.  But most of the successful academics I interviewed do not write every day; it’s certainly not the only way to be productive. So many writers already carry around a heavy burden of guilt: I’m not fast enough, not talented enough, not skillful enough, not productive enough.  Why add one more stone to the load?  If daily writing works for you, that’s fantastic.  But if it doesn’t, try some other strategies instead.  My new book is full of alternative practices and suggestions, nearly all of which have worked for some writer somewhere.

If you could change one of your own writing habits, which would it be?

I’d love to be able to write more quickly; nearly every sentence or paragraph that I publish takes ages to find its final form, and afterwards I still find myself wishing that I could make just a few more tweaks to the printed version.  But I’ve come to recognize that slow writing and meticulous editing are not “bad habits” that can or should be changed; they’re simply my way of working. Writing this book [Air & Light & Time & Space] taught me not to be so hard on myself: I carve out as much writing time as I can and try not to berate myself if my progress feels slow.  Equally importantIy, I don’t let myself feel guilty or discouraged if my daily writing routine slips for a while.

You found that in writing workshops, the gender ratio is almost invariably 2:1 in favor of women.  We’ve found that many more women than men tend to enroll in our grant pacing (project management) workshops as well.  Why do you think more women than men enroll in these kinds of workshops?

Perhaps female academics are less secure about their writing than their male colleagues?  Or perhaps women are more secure than men about seeking help and development advice?  There’s probably some truth to both these theories; but rather than asking why more women than men enroll in writing workshops, I prefer to shift the question and address the implications of this trend for those of us who support faculty writing.  For example, if some academics (mainly women) are drawn to group environments, while others (mainly men) tend to avoid social learning, what alternative forms of learning might the latter cohort find more appealing and useful than workshops and retreats? (Or are the academics who don’t come to your project management workshops resistant to professional development altogether?)  I’d also be interested in knowing whether the kinds of workshops and learning communities favored by many academic women are undervalued (and therefore underfunded) by the male deans and provosts who hold the majority of senior management roles at universities worldwide.  These are knotty questions that have no easy answers but are certainly worth asking.

From your research, have you found particular writing problems that plague biomedical scientists more than writers from other disciplines?

My research focuses mainly on tracing commonalities rather than identifying disciplinary differences.  Writing is a complex, emotionally fraught task for nearly all academic writers, and no discipline is immune from these challenges.  Having said that, I’ve noted some stylistic issues that frequently crop up in medical journals, and in science writing more generally. The most common is a lack of attention to craft; many scientists, it seems, have never learned how to construct a strong sentence or even how to spot a weak one.  Here’s an example from an article recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association:

The frequency of false-positive cardiac catheterization laboratory activation for suspected STEMI is relatively common in community practice, depending on the definition of false-positive.

We can drill down to the grammatical core of the sentence by identifying its subject, verb, and predicate:

The frequency of false-positive cardiac catheterization laboratory activation for suspected STEMI is relatively common in community practice, depending on the definition of false-positive.

“The frequency is common” makes no sense; it’s a tautological sentence, like saying “the rain is rainy.”  This article – which has nine named authors – presumably went through a robust peer review and copyediting process in order to get published in JAMA; yet not a single person along the way appears to have noticed that this key sentence is rotten at the core.

What’s the biggest difference between writing a paper for submission to a journal and writing a grant?  What should writers of each keep in mind?

Journal articles generally speak to specialized audiences using specialized language; grant applications, on the other hand, must appeal to non-specialists with little tolerance for disciplinary jargon.  A grant application has to be punchy enough to rise to the top of the pile, persuasive enough to convince a group of highly skeptical readers that your project is worth funding.  How do you manage that?  By telling a clear and simple story; by employing concrete language and examples; by keeping your sentences short and sharp.  If you’re used to writing academic articles that do none of these things, you’re unlikely ever to get your ideas past a grant-making committee.

Writers…with a growth mindset never stop seeking out new ways of developing and testing the limits of their craft. – Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space

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Bespoke Tailoring: Why You Want to Work with a Writer/Editor

Writing & Publishing

Pitching your luxury hotel to investors? Aiming for the executive suite? Moving towards partnership in an international law firm? Odds on you’ll invest in a high-end wardrobe. First impressions dominate. The out-of-pocket expense is a stepping stone to your goal. A $2000 suit makes sense when the gain is millions.

Hiring a medical editor is like having a bespoke tailor. No one cares what I’m wearing, but I want my work to step out completely dressed for success. Because we make our pitch in writing, work products have to be flawless presentations.

I have an undergraduate degree in writing and masters in science writing from Johns Hopkins. I have earned significant income in the past by writing and editing. I regularly work with an editor* for my most important products. Why? Because I and my research team have millions to gain (aka grant funding and publications that sustain our research). More eyes on make a more perfect product.

Don’t pour your intellect and soul into your scientific passions – your start up – and fail to get a foot in the door because of how your science is “dressed.” We write for a living. We write to explain our methods, to convey our findings, to explain the implications, and to inspire enthusiasm for our next research goals. Do not be fooled, we are marketing our findings and selling our next project. We compete our ideas. Writers and editors can help the work be elegant and polished going into the arena. Strong clear writing confers confidence in your attention to detail, deep understanding of your work, and by extension your abilities and trustworthiness as a scientist. Fair? Of course not, but first impressions matter precisely because the individual forming the impression is not consciously doing so.

Enthusiasm for your science is a gut level response you can influence to your advantage at relatively low costs. Writers and editors can help you be more productive and prepare your science to go more quickly and attractively into the world. Illustrators can make the message more tangible, technical editors can redeem your time by formatting to journal specification, clerical support can organize your bibliographic database, writers can draft cover letters or manuals of procedures to free your time to focus on discovery. More people than you imagine are quietly using these resources. I’m not sure why they feel the need to keep it hush-hush. No shame attaches to working smart.

If you have discretionary funds or training grant funds, often these can be deployed through your work to pay invoices. Ask. You don’t have much to lose. Some faculty have discovered a science writer on retainer in their department or deeply discounted costs for early career investigators by asking. Or form a free accountability structure with peers, like manuscript sprints, to be able to learn to edit and to receive feedback on your work. What you want is a durable, ongoing commitment to group editing, not a 45-minute work-in-progress. Work-in-progress with your research team is crucial but unlikely to be enough buffing.

If you must, pay out-of-pocket. But I still shop at Target!?! I can’t afford this luxury. Scrimp, save, take public transportation, don’t go out to dinner or order pizza, eat rice and beans, put stuff on Craigs list, but make the investment in your career. If I had permission (and I don’t per hush-hush phenomena above), I would share the names of senior people who have had writers as assistants for most of their careers. Writers who are now at their sides well into their leadership roles. Most began the practice very early in their careers. I also have testimonials from early career faculty who firmly believe their grants were funded because of the work of an experienced editor. Why make your work compete in Dockers and a serviceable sweater when it can arrive at the party in a custom tuxedo? You’ll slay them with attention to detail. You want to celebrate the win, right?

 

* Disclaimer: No editor was involved in the tailoring of this post.

Resources:

American Medical Writers Association Directory – Freelance Directory Search

National Association of Science Writers – Find a Writer

Australasian Medical Writers Association list of freelance writers/editors

And the publication below finding: “In this sample of open-access journals, declared professional medical writing support was associated with more complete reporting of clinical trial results and higher quality of written English.”

Gattrell WT, et al. Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomized controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Open. 2016;6(2). PMC4762118.

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Avoiding a Mismatch: How To Work with a Writer or Editor

Writing & Publishing

You don’t have to do it all yourself!  Many successful researchers engage scientific/medical writers and editors for help refining grants, manuscripts, press releases, and more.  At our career development seminar, we heard from two medical writers and an early career researcher, who works with a medical writer, about why you might want to hire one, how to use their services, and best practices for working with writers and editors.

Ms. Donna Ingles
Medical Writer

  • How might you use a medical writer?
    • Grants:
      • Helping update background and significance with current literature
      • Proofreading and technical editing
      • Buffing ancillary materials (abstract, narrative, biosketches, etc.)
    • Manuscripts, book chapters:
      • Fact checking and updating background and significance sections with current literature
      • Proofreading, improving flow of document, and technical editing
      • Formatting, references, etc.
    • Social media/PR releases
      • Enhancing interpretation for lay audience
  • What to ask about when looking for a medical writer:
    • Do they have broad background or more specific training?
    • What is their own experience in science?
    • Experience writing for lay vs. scientific audiences?
    • Experience with grant or manuscript formats and requirements?
      • Differences between journals
      • Differences between NIH vs. foundation or other funding
      • Good references/reputation (ask for examples of recent work and contact with prior clients)
  • Best practices when working with a medical writer
    • Find someone who has time and is willing to commit
    • Set a clear schedule/timeline for completion (ideally in multiple steps)
    • Clarify terms of agreement- how will they be compensated? Fee for service, billing hours, % effort, etc.
    • Communicate changes immediately
    • Include writer in research team meetings if possible

Dr. Elise Lamar
Medical Writer
http://www.eliselamar.com

  • Writers are expensive: seek affordable help first (mentors, offices supporting NIH or foundation grant applications).
    • Web-based resources:
    • Biomedical editing companies (my opinion: most useful for copy-editing).
  • Define where you need help: copy-editing? rewriting? effective letter writing? journal selection? research?
    • Seek someone with skills in that area, preferably recommended by a colleague.
    • My opinion: Deep knowledge of your science ≠ ability to write a competitive grant.
    • Or, advertise for a freelancer with professional organizations like American Medical Writers Association (AMWA)
  • Contract prep is time-consuming. Thus, make sure you have the “right” person.
    • Apply professional standards you would in hiring a car mechanic—not necessarily a post-doc.
    • Politely request candidate’s qualifications (CV, publication list, writing samples, or names of satisfied customers/past employers).
    • It is unprofessional for a mechanic (writer) to work for free; but you might diplomatically ask them to look at the engine (i.e., ONE page of an R01).
    • Ask focused Qs about work habits and compensation.
      • Does writer charge hourly or by word count? Do they bill for answering emails or phone calls? Charge more for research time?
      • Does writer typically work or respond to emails on weekends?
      • Does writer charge more for rapid turn-around?
      • If $$ is a problem, would writer charge less for guaranteed high volume?
  • Finally:
    • Early on, explicitly tell a writer what you like/don’t like.
    • Make deadlines clear AND get info to a writer on time.
    • Pay on time with no “surprises”. Don’t make writer ask where check is.

Dr. Maya Yiadom
K23 Recipient, Medical Writing Client

  • As an early career scientist many writing conventions will be unfamiliar. Having someone involved who regularly edits grants and manuscripts can help you learn these in a turbo-boosted fashion and save you resubmissions.
  • Get a referral from someone, with similar needs and scientific content as you.
  • Work with your department to use your training grant funds or start-up to pay for services. Writers are providing technical assistance with your research and career development.
  • Consider developing a longitudinal relationship with a writer, who can coach you as they edit your material over time. Eventually you will need them less and less and gain a stronger return on your investment.

Check out videos from a later seminar on using medical and scientific writers in your work with this five-video playlist, or via the EFS Video Vault. Or watch the first one below:

 

More Resources:

You MUST Read Dreyer’s English

Using Content-Lexical Ties to Connect Ideas in Writing

A Smorgasbord of Writing Pointers with a Side of Wit

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Recipe for Hosting a Manuscript Sprint

Productivity / Writing & Publishing

A manuscript sprint harnesses the power of peer accountability and review to get a manuscript from zero to out the door in 6-8 weeks. We all have competing demands that keep manuscripts on the back burner.  This method forces you to make progress on your paper every week.

Ingredients

You will need…

  • 3-5 people, each with a manuscript they need to finish
  • A place to meet (conference rooms, coffee shops and classrooms all work well, as does a big office)
  • A standing time of 60-90 minutes each week for 6-8 weeks
  • Some way to exchanges drafts and comments, such as email or Dropbox
  • A commitment from all members to complete written comments or electronic mark-up each week before the meeting
  • Agreement to limit meeting time to comments and critique

Directions

Collect your writing peers.  You don’t all need to be in the same research area. In fact, it’s good when you aren’t. This better mimics journal review processes where reviewers may study the same disease, say, but have nothing in common with you methodologically.

Agree on a time each week that you will meet. Keep this time sacred.

A week prior to the first meeting, exchange the introductions to your papers.  (Start with intros so that you each get oriented to the others’ topics.) Use the week to comment on everyone’s introductions. Use Track Changes in MS Word or write a separate critique.

At the meeting, discuss each person’s introduction. Divide your time meticulously equally between all participants and appoint a timekeeper/use a timer. (This ensures those at the end don’t get shortchanged.)

At the beginning of their time, the author whose paper is being discussed can take not more than 1-2 minutes to ask for specific advice or call attention to particular things. After that, the author is silent. Don’t fritter away the limited time you have to hear others’ critiques by explaining and defending.  You won’t get to do that for journal reviewers, so don’t do it here.

Repeat as follows:

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: Methods (+ responses to comments on the Introduction or revised version of the Introduction as needed)

Week 3: Results (Figures and Tables optional)

Week 4: Figures and Tables

Week 5: Discussion

Week 6: References

Week 7: Review of the manuscript as a whole

The order is fungible, so if you want to do results in the second week, go for it. Each week, authors submit a revised version of the manuscript portion incorporating ideas for the previous week’s review. In Week 3, you might be giving your peers both your results and a revised methods section, for example. The manuscripts with rolling, continuous revisions accrue each week.

Here’s an example schedule using real dates:

Why to Do This and Things to Remember

First, do this because you’ll finally get the paper with null findings out the door. But beyond accountability, your peers can also serve as an early warning system.

Are you changing terminology too often? Are you trying to be creative when you really need to be boring because no one’s ever seen this before and they need to see the same thing every single time to get traction? Or if this part and this other part of our hypothesis are two separate things, and someone in the group is saying, “I don’t see how these relate,” that’s a problem, and you can fix it now rather than as part of co-author review or after a reject-and-submit-somewhere-else. And no amount of peer reviewers who say, “I didn’t see that” are defeated by you crying, “It’s in there!” If you find yourself saying that to your sprinting peers, chances are you need edits.

It’s vital to commit to each other to be in every session. When people miss sessions, the wheels start coming off.  You get fewer eyes on your paper, people start extending deadlines to send the next piece, and it all leads to the dark side the group gradually petering out until no one’s left to review the last sections of your paper, which you probably didn’t write anyway because no one was there to keep you accountable.  I’ve seen too many groups fail to finish because their members couldn’t commit to being in the meetings every week.

So don’t do that. Do find your group, set your schedule, and get writing!

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The Write Rules

Writing & Publishing

Are you committing these sins in your scientific writing? Time to repent.

  1. Minimize jargon. If you must use it, do not assume familiarity.  Provide a definition.  A well-written definition will not insult knowledgeable readers.  It will reassure them you are also an expert.
  1. Use the simpler word. Replace utilize with use and within to in.
  1. Define abbreviations early. Start with the first mention and persist.
  1. Weed aggressively. If the word does not contribute to the meaning of the sentence it is not necessary.  A, the, and that are often superfluous. The construct “there are…” is rarely justified.  When summarizing research results eliminate “studies report…” or  “they found…” which are implied.
  1. Reduce repetition. Use word-processing search features to find recurring use of your favorite words or phrases.
  1. Do not editorialize. Avoid unfortunately, only, surprisingly, nonetheless and similar. The facts must speak for themselves.
  1. Keep the subject first. Burying the subject beneath introductory clauses frustrates the reader.
  1. Eliminate passive constructs. An example: “information will be collected.” Active voice is more convincing: “we will collect….”
  1. Be positive. “Patient comfort” is less contorted than “lack of discomfort.”
  1. Unpack long sentences and paragraphs. More short sentences are better than one that is overstuffed. If a paragraph covers more than one double spaced page it likely contains more than one idea.

More Resources

Writing Science in Plain English: Clarity Rules 

Becoming a More Productive Writer

The Guiding Principle in Scientific Writing

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“Modifying the Current Flow from Negative to Positive (Data!)”

Doing Research / Writing & Publishing

Scientists are experts at asking questions, analyzing, and critiquing. We are also taught that while there are rules and facts in biology, exceptions to rules exist – in fact, we expect them. I’m going to talk about critiquing to the point of publishing, about negative (but important!) data, and how science as a whole would benefit from learning from others’ troubleshooting.

One of the greatest accomplishments of modern science is that one does not have to “reinvent the wheel.” If you are trying to detect some biological phenomena, chances are there is a kit made by a company that claims to do exactly what you are trying to do for x amount of dollars. While many kits are truly spectacular and save us time, energy, and tears trying to reinvent the wheel, there are some that are not so spectacular. Or they are, but they don’t do precisely what you’d expect them to because BIOLOGY – there is always an exception to the rule.

Our lab got excited about a kit that uses fluorescent dyes to simultaneously detect hypoxia and reactive oxygen species in live cells. WICKED! I already love imaging and making neurons fluoresce pretty colors, so this would be an added bonus for my project to show that a particular protein is sensitive to hypoxic stress versus oxidative stress. Using the kit was simple. Add red hypoxia dye, add green ROS dye, and image immediately after stressing out my neuronal cultures.

The kit worked! Except…

So these are unstressed neurons. See their happy dendrites extending everywhere? They’ve got great cell bodies too. Happy neurons are happy… except they’re all RED. The fluorescent dye is labeling my non-hypoxic cells as hypoxic, in addition to actual hypoxic cells (who are not as happy).

Why are non-hypoxic cells labeled as hypoxic? Without digressing far into chemistry, the red fluorophore is activated by a diverse class of enzymes that are abundant in every cell – nitroreductases. Some of these enzymes are dependent on oxygen levels to function, while some are oxygen-independent. The red dye is supposed to only fluoresce when in contact with oxygen-dependent nitroreductases – in which we infer detection of hypoxia. However, it is not always wise to make conclusions based on inferences. In this case, what the dye is actually and only measuring is nitroreductase enzyme activity, which are known to be affected by both endogenous and exogenous factors (i.e. not just oxygen!).

After struggling with different parameters to make this kit work for us, we decided to publish negative data (*GASP!*) comparing this kit’s detection of hypoxia to the current standards of measuring hypoxia. Gathering this data only took about six months of work, but about two years to publish because many journals – even methods journals – remain hesitant to publish negative data or data based on non-novel concepts. Eventually, we were able to publish this work, but it took much longer than expected. In that timeframe many other labs could have purchased the same kit and obtained false-positive results.

Publishing negative data and data that fail to replicate previous findings are as important as novel data in that they save you time and keep you from going down rabbit-holes. It’s so important that PLOS ONE recently launched “The Missing Pieces” collection that publishes such valuable negative findings. BioMed Central also provides such a platform in Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine, stating that “publishing well documented failures may reveal fundamental flaws and obstacles in commonly used methods, drugs or reagents such as antibodies or cell lines, ultimately leading to improvements in experimental designs and clinical decisions.”

Another bonus of publishing this paper is that we got to publish a pun. As you can tell from this blog title, I LOVE puns.

Hehe, get it? The current dogma, as in electrical currents? Going from negative to pos- okay I’ll stop.

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Tools for Team Manuscript Preparation When the Data are In Hand

Writing & Publishing

Here’s a map to get your best work out the door efficiently. It’s never too soon to plan the journey to a completed manuscript.

Get moving.

  1. Huddle with your lead investigator, statistician, research team members, clinical lead, and other contributors from the start to plumb everyone’s ideas and assure buy-in.
  2. Set a brisk but reality-based timeline, and establish a standing meeting cadence.
  3. Use the first meeting to nail down the exact research question(s), agree on roles, document analysis approach, and decide authorship order.
  4. Use subsequent meetings to review data, text and tables. Projecting documents onto a screen or sharing screens for real-time group editing can dramatically accelerate group writing and keep everyone involved.
  5. Consider adapting the generic author agreement from American Psychological Association. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has in-depth information on their site defining authorship requirements. This gold standard demystifies individual responsibilities and helps distinguish between authorship and acknowledgement criteria.
  6. Remember to get IRB approval early, as coverage is intended to be prospective even when using extant data.
  7. Use reporting standards and examples for your specific study type from the EQUATOR Network to plan.
  8. Divide and conquer by mapping specific subsections unambiguously to the author who will be drafting the content with deadlines at each upcoming standing meeting. 

Choose your target journal and write into their format.

  1. Base target journal decision on where similar research typically appears, the audience you want to reach (practitioners or researchers), aims and scope (listed on the journal’s website), and any submission and publication costs. Impact factors are formally catalogued by Journal Citation Reports (subscription required) but typically readily available by googling – compare to understand the options.
  2. Check author guidelines posted on the journal website to get the abstract structure, word limits, and specifications for figures and tables. Even if your target changes, author guidelines can help create a more detailed map for items to be produced.
  3. Use bibliographic/reference management software such as BibTeX, Zotero, Endnote, or Reference Manager/Mendeley to create a shareable repository for full-text articles, and instantly format the manuscript bibliography using cite-while-you-write add-ins to word processing software.
  4. Remember writing is a two-step process: first get the thoughts down, then edit. Perfectionists will need to learn to let go of drafts.
  5. If needed, as a forethought send the abstract when drafted to the Editor in Chief and/or editorial board of the target journal to check on fit. This is also your first chance to briefly explain the importance of the work and to let them know if the work has been or will be presented at a national meeting.

In review.

  1. At submission, expedite the review process by suggesting one or two potential reviewers who are considered experts in the content area.
  2. After submission, monitor the journal website again to check on the status of the manuscript, determine if/when it was sent for review, estimate time to receiving reviews, and plan ahead to have time set aside among the writing team to tackle the comments.
  3. If you need to communicate with the editorial staff always use the manuscript ID number assigned in the submission confirmation email.
  4. Address all the points and potential revisions suggested by the reviewers and Editor in an item-by-item response. Sweeping summaries or ignoring specifics even if they seem minor is a “no-no”. Always review comments and revisions with the group. A benefit of having a team is the range of insights available.

Struggling?

  • Enlisting the help of a medical writer can help keep the project on track if none of the authors is a project manager.

Momentum, role clarity, and accountability are key to group writing. Aim high, and remember that the average number of rejections is 2.5. Learn from reviews and do not give up!

 

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Recapture Your Free Time with How to Write a Lot

Book Reviews / Productivity / Writing & Publishing

Do you find your grant-writing intruding on time you’d rather spend with your family?  Did revisions to that last journal article ruin your vacation?  Then this book might be just the thing you need.

Author Paul Silvia wanted to call How to Write a Lot  “How to Write More Productively During the Normal Work Week With Less Anxiety and Guilt, but no one would buy that book.”  As the brevity of the volume indicates, his secret is simple: Create a schedule and stick to it.  Of course, simple in theory and simple in practice are different things, so Silva spends the rest of the book on methods to make keeping a writing schedule easier, and includes sections on how to write more clearly, better organize a manuscript, and submit your best work to journals and publishers, all of which will help you become a more productive writer.  Although Silva is an Associate Professor of Psychology, his tips and tricks hold true for academics in almost any field.

“If you allot 4 hours a week for writing,” Silva says, “you will be surprised at how much you will write.  By surprised, I mean astonished; and by astonished, I mean dumbfounded and incoherent.  You’ll find yourself committing unthinkable perversions, like finishing grant proposals early….You’ll be afraid to talk with friends in your department about writing out of the fear that they’ll think, ‘You’re not one of us anymore’—and they’ll be right.”  Though four hours is a good starting point, your own schedule and needs will dictate how much time you allot.  The key is the regularity rather than sheer number of hours.

Still unconvinced?  Silva breaks down several “specious barriers” to keeping a writing schedule in the second chapter.  If you need to do more reading, your allotted writing time can be used for anything related to writing, including reviewing page proofs, crunching statistics, or reading articles.  Can’t write without a better computer/desk/printer?  Check out page 21 for Silva’s Spartan setup, including a plastic chair and a laptop with no internet connection (it keeps distractions to a minimum).  Waiting for inspiration?  That’s the most specious barrier of all, because as a chart on page 25 shows, in an experiment where some people were asked to write on a schedule and others only when they were inspired, those who write on a schedule wrote three times as much as the “spontaneous” writers, and had twice as many creative ideas.  Silva backs up all his recommendations with evidence from behavioral studies and personal experience that is often as witty as it is insightful.

“Writing is a grim business,” Silva writes, but if you follow the advice in this book, you can find ways to release its stranglehold on your free time, leaving you much less grim.

How to Write a Lot, Revised Edition
Paul J. Silvia
Washington, D.C.: APA Life Tools, 2018

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So You Want to Be On An Editorial Board? Some Protips for That.

Faculty Life / Writing & Publishing

A mere month ago, I was a humble researcher with an amazingly cool lab. But this month, things are different. I’ve been named a Reviewing Editor at a society journal. And that’s sort of a big deal for academic folks. So let me dust off a bit of confetti from the ticker tape parade I forced the lab to have for me and share some pointers on how to get those editorial appointments that mean so much for career advancement and staying at the top of your field.


My lab’s party for me looked like this

1. Misunderstand Your Adviser:* One of my early advisers said “never turn down a review.” He reasoned that as a trainee, I had a chance to meet people who were having their first shot at serving on editorial boards and that they would hopefully continue to think of me for turning in solid, timely reviews. I accepted a lot of reviews from lower impact journals, as a way to hone my reviewing style into something that the journals liked and authors seemed to appreciate.

*I say “misunderstand your advisor” because my adviser later claimed this was horrible advice and disavowed all knowledge of it. But only one of us is a Reviewing Editor, so let’s just pretend it was real advice because it worked.

2. Stay In Your Lane: I’ve gotten some requests to review manuscripts with a drug or tool I use in a totally unfamiliar system. After reading the abstract (usually provided along with the request to review), I wrote back that I won’t be the most knowledgeable about all the working parts, but I’d be happy to share my critique of my area of expertise. Owning up to my limitations seemed to go a long way towards helping Reviewing Editors get to know me and feel comfortable having me turn in reviews that they could balance out with other experts. It also helped me broaden my expertise as I grew accustomed to new systems.

3. Be Nice: Getting reviews back is rough. Say things nicely. Like you would want someone to say to you. And then say things that are consistent with the scores you turn into the editors. It saves tired editor from trying to fill in gaps. I have a comparable rejection rate to other reviewers, but I think I have distinguished myself in that I always try hard to see the value in a manuscript. I start my first paragraph summarizing what has been done and why it is important. And I believe what I’m saying. I think that people are trying hard to do good work and if I don’t see the value in their model/question, I’ll do more background reading.

4. Review What’s in Front of You: One of the worst author experiences I had as an author was when we submitted a grueling paper on molecules and mechanisms and got a reviewer telling us we should test our hypothesis in a stroke model. Not hypothetically as a future direction…they wanted actual data. Which would have been an extra 2 years of work and $100,000. I responded to all the other comments and when I got to that one, I just wrote “No. This is absurd and untenable.” *mic drop* I probably should have gotten out the thesaurus and found word other than “absurd,” but the editor agreed and the paper got in.

While I would not recommend this kind of show down, I’d like to think I am keenly aware that my job as a reviewer is not to show folks how smart I am.

My job as a reviewer is to

  • critique what authors turn in,
  • make sure I can see what they are showing me
  • evaluate the interpretation,
  • do my best to ensure everything is ethical
  • ensure that the journal I’m reviewing for is the right audience
  • fill in some gaps on relevant literature.

That’s it. If you don’t hit the standards for innovation, mechanism and appeal for the journal, you will be getting the dreaded “better suited for a specialized journal” email. Sorry/not sorry.

5. Know the Editors: Many societies give editorial board members fancy ribbons for their badges and what not. I made a habit of knowing who was sending me reviews, going to their talks and introducing myself. I’d thank them for the opportunity to review or offer to review if they hadn’t asked me but I read the journal consistently. I’d follow up with an email welcoming any feedback they had. And I meant it. I really wanted to know if I was doing okay.

Additional protip: I use to wonder why no one at meetings who was on the editorial boards was saying “hi” to me. Here’s the truth. Once you hit 45, you have the vision of a naked mole rat. Seriously. I can’t see anything, much less your face at a conference.  Touching base once a year is helpful without being needy.

6. Big Brother is Watching You: Yes, editors have a database. Yes, you’re in it. It has your expertise, turn around time and a rating on the quality of your reviews. Turn in your stuff on time. Don’t be mean.

I hope this helps. Happy reviewing!

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