The psychology of being stuck

All week I floundered on a paper. It's one from my PhD that was really in pretty good shape in my thesis. I just had to extend the data analysis I did for the thesis, edit the text based on the new statistical results, and then do some other editing to include literature that has been published in the last two years (TWO YEARS since I defended! Reallly?!?!?!). Relatively straightforward, right? And that's good because the publishing plans of other groups is motivating me to get this thing out now.

I couldn't figure out how to do the analysis. I knew what I wanted to do conceptually, but I couldn't figure out how to execute it. The papers I found were like, way beyond my level. I found some helpful advice in some stats forums, but it wasn't specific enough to my problem. Finally on Thursday I talked with my old advisor, told her what I had figured out and where I was stuck, and we came up with a plan to move forward that puts the ball in her court for now.

The interesting thing is that once we figured out what to do, it became clear what else I could do on this paper that doesn't involve the stats results. All week I had been feeling like I couldn't do anything else until I had these stats nailed down. That's partly true because the outcome will have a big impact on how we tell the story. But, there are some sections that don't hinge on that outcome. I was just so caught up in my imposter syndrome that I couldn't see all the things I could do. Why do I (repeatedly) let this happen?

Working without a net

I think we can all agree that writing grants mostly sucks.  But: would you feel comfortable starting a new project without having first formally proposed it?  Would you feel ok about carrying on with an idea without spending time on a comprehensive literature review?  without crystallizing your ideas in a structured document? without the approval of peer review?

I'm in a position to do some new experiments without having to get funding for them.  That's very, very cool for so many reasons, so trust me when I say I'm not complaining.  I'm just observing that writing a proposal has its merits.

Peer reviewing: then and now

I refereed two papers this week. I think that between the commentary we wrote for our meeting session and the research paper I have in press, I got integrated into the publishers' systems, and associated with certain keywords; neither paper was passed to me by my adviser, rather I was asked to review directly by the subject editors.

In contrast to my earlier experiences as a reviewer, these went really well. Both papers were fairly straight forward and right up my alley, with nothing that I felt was outside my expertise. I think that the growth I attained through writing my dissertation made me feel much more equipped to critically read these papers. Moreover, both papers were really good. The combination of nice manuscripts with my defense-enhanced confidence made doing the reviews something of a pleasure instead of the anxiety-filled example of impostor syndrome that I felt when writing reviews in the past.

That's nice.

Reminding the Passengers that I'm not a special snowflake

The last two days didn't go so well. I got stuff done, but not as much as I wanted. My normal emotional stability vanished, and I was a bit of a mess. The passengers on my bus were screaming at me, and it really distracted me from my work. They were saying things like your dissertation is going to be a mess; your defense is going to be awful because Difficult Committee Member isn't going to understand this train wreck of a dissertation; you'll be wasting Out-of-State Committee Member's time with your shitty diss.; and so on.

But then today I was venting to Awesome Technician, as usual, and she reminded me that I'm not the first person to feel this way, which of course I know, and that I'm not the first person to have a diss. that's not perfectly polished, which I also know. But somehow her reminder kicked me out of my self-pitying state so I could work again. There's a reason I call her Awesome.

Another helpful thing happened today as well. Academic Advisor had indicated he wanted to review the main introduction to my diss., so I sent him a rough draft of it on Saturday. I ran into him yesterday morning when he was on his way out the door. He he said he had been reading it, had found some issues, and would finish with it and send me comments in the afternoon. Then I never heard anything else. So late this morning I sent him an email saying, basically, that it was shitty to tell me he had problems with my intro but to not tell me what they were. I got comments within an hour. They were super helpful, and really pushed me through the remaining work on that part.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I now have a finished introduction.

Learning to review

Yesterday I said how my work is all log-jammed by an overdue review. I feel bad that I haven't finished it, yet I can't get myself to get it done. I think the reason is that I feel unsure about my comments. Although I'm still green enough to feel sort of honored to be a reviewer, I hate doing it because I'm not sure if I know what I'm doing. Chuck recently wrote a nice post (with some good advice) about how learning to peer review is a major gap in grad student training. I agree.

This is not my first review. Occasionally, Research Advisor will get asked to review a paper that looks straightforward but she doesn't have time to read. If she thinks I can handle the content, she'll suggest me as a reviewer, letting the editor know that I am her student and that she will assist me if needed. So I read the paper and write the review, asking her questions as necessary. I also rely on her vast experience to help me determine how serious any errors are. I know that grad students are notoriously harsh reviewers and I have to admit I don't always have the judgment to decide if the fact that the authors used technique x instead of y is enough to kill the paper*.

This system works, I guess. It gives me an opportunity to cut my teeth on reviewing, a job I'm going to have to learn sooner or later. It's great to have a safety net. I think I'd be paralyzed with nerves if I had to submit the review without confirmation that it was sensible.

On the other hand, I would have really liked a little more training for this. If feels weird to me to write reviews when I have not received any for my own work. Sure, I've seen the reviews from a few of my colleagues' papers, but that's different from reading comments on your own work, which you know much more intimately (I hadn't even read the versions of my colleagues' manuscripts that were reviewed). I think the best scenario would be -- with the editor's blessing -- for RA and I both to review the same paper, with her having responsibility for it. We'd both write comments, discuss them, and then she would submit the review but I would get to read what she wrote. Perhaps we could do it that way a couple of times and then switch roles so that I would submit the final comments. After that, I could do my own reviews with the opportunity to check things with her as needed. I know that creates a lot more work**, but this is such an important part of the way we do science that I think it's worth it to take the time to properly train new students how to do it.

*I know the editor makes the final decision and all, but reviewers are still asked to give an overall judgment of the paper.
** I haven't asked her to do it this way because usually if she passes a review to me, she's totally swamped and I feel bad asking for her time. Plus, by the time it occurred to me to do it this way, I had done enough that I think she probably thinks I'm doing just fine.