End-of-year ambition

It's December tomorrow, which means there is just one month left to meet my 2010 goals.  I failed miserably on whatever New Year's resolutions I made, but I do have some goals for the next month that are attainable, if a bit lofty.

1. Submit a commentary piece based on the meeting we hosted in October.  Today I finished a draft and sent it to the coauthors.  This has to get done quickly no matter what, since timely publication is vital.

2. Submit the paper that got rejected this summer to a different journal.  I revised it and got comments back from my coauthors over break, so now it's time to dive back into it.  There's more work to do than I expected, but it's not insurmountable.

3. Write a manuscript for a special issue associated with the meeting I attended in September.  I have a decent draft from my thesis, but right before Thanksgiving I got new data to incorporate into it.   I want to have a complete draft to give to the coauthors before winter break so I can deal with their comments before the January 31 submission deadline.

4. Continue helping PI revise a major paper that needs to be submitted -- when else? -- before winter break.  The data were collected before I started in this lab, but the manuscript was a total mess.  We've been working on it together for several weeks and it's looking a whole lot better, but there's still plenty of work left to do.

5. We completed a major field sampling a couple of weeks ago.  I need to get the protocol in place so that technicians can get sample processing underway.  It's unclear how involved I'll be with the processing, so I might need to make time for that, too.

6. Finalize the protocol for the lab experiment that was giving me grief earlier this year.  It kind of went by the wayside between late summer travel, the meeting we hosted, and the field work.  I know PI is very anxious for me to make progress on that project now.

So that's what's on my plate for the next few weeks.  I'm hoping that sharing here will give me some accountability, and I intend to post updates throughout the month.  I really want to accomplish all of this before January, so I think I'll be able to do it!

Not quite write

When you are going to, say, add text to a document, do you say you're going to flush it out?  Or flesh it out?

When you've had a little rant about something, would you write that you've said your piece?  Or said your peace?

I say "flesh" and "peace".

I'm sure you can think of many other examples.  These little things drive me nuts.  

That's why I'm here

Today PI and I did some major work to get a new project going.  It relied heavily on my expertise, which is quite different from that of anyone else in the group.  My old lab group could have done what I did, but they just don't have the time to help initiate new projects like this one.  The whole point of me doing this postdoc was to bridge between my old group and the new group to make work like this happen.

It felt really good to use my skills to do the thing I was hired to do.  I felt valuable.  In addition, it felt good to do something familiar after months of working outside my comfort zone.

fuck time

Ecogeoman recently got a new laptop.  Remember how our apartment flooded due to a burst hot water pipe?  Well, his laptop was in his backpack on the floor and was ruined.  Fortunately, our renters' insurance covered a new one (plus a few small items that were also damaged).  It came with Windows 7, which EGM is not quite used to yet.  He was bitching about it tonight and I said, "time marches on.  you'll get used to it."  To which he replied, "fuck time".

Today I tried to set up a new instrument that is best operated remotely using a Palm Pilot thing.  It is the least intuitive POS I've encountered in about 5 years.  I messed around with it and the instrument for a couple of hours this evening but got almost nowhere.  I wanted to have the thing ready to use tomorrow morning, but I ran out of time.  Fuck time.

Last place

Since sharing my experience with switching fields seems to be my favorite topic since I started my postdoc, how about a discussion of how authorship conventions differ between fields?

My new field works like many of you are probably used to.  There are often many (>10) authors on a research paper.  The first author did the experimental work and probably wrote the bulk of the text.  The second author did something substantial.  The middle authors, usually alphabetized, touched the project in some way - maybe they did one analysis, contributed a reagent, or did some important literature searches.  The last author is  the "anchor", the one who conceived of the project and got the funding.  It seems to me that people sometimes fight more over the last author spot than the first author spot.  The last author is usually the corresponding author.

In my old (still interdisciplinary, but less so) field, papers typically have fewer than 10 authors.  I don't have any data, but I'd guess that 4-6 authors is the norm.  The first author is the one who did the most work and wrote the paper.  The second author did the next most work.  The last author did the least work. Typically, the first author is the corresponding one.  When the corresponding author is somewhere else in the list, it's usually because of a scenario where the first author left research after a master's or something so they get credit as lead author but bear little responsibility for getting the paper through the publishing process.

I guess the anchoring author/lead author thing helps squeeze more credit out of papers with long lists of authors (two important positions instead of one).  Still, I'm having such a hard time getting on board with the way it goes in New Field.  I'm sure I would think it was just fine if I had grown up with that convention and it's a matter of not liking change, but right now I think this anchoring author stuff is kinda annoying.

November Scientiae: love it and loathe it

At long last, I give you the November Scientiae Carnival!  I was a little distracted this month, so if I missed your post please let me know.

The theme this month was best and worst.  I asked, "What is the best part of your job/life as a scientist, and what is the worst part?"  There were some great responses, many of which will probably sound awfully familiar.

Several of us reported that people are either the best or worst parts of our jobs.  Podblack Cat shared a particularly trying (and rather comical) experience trying to teach to a group of high school students obsessed with The Human Centipede*.  I really can't fathom the patience it must take to deal with this kind of nonsense!  Rebecca wrote about her recent experience conducting interviews for postdocs.  While she many wonderful people in the process, she also encountered some truly wacky candidates -- go read to learn another entertaining example of what not to do if you want a job.  I expressed my frustrations with waiting for other people to do their bits, which was pretty similar to Rocket Scientista's complaints about slow vendors.  On the other hand, she loves her awesomely awesome colleagues.

Several of us also wrote about about getting the data, which can be teh suck or teh joy.  Patchi's described her trials with a challenging lab protocol.  She had an experience we all dread -- getting unsatisfying results.  You know the kind, when you feel like you didn't do enough but you can't realistically do more.  Victor Poor offered a somewhat more lighthearted treatment of a related event--probably the worst moment in science--when you realize that months (or years) of hard work resulted in flawed data and no new knowledge.  Sad.  On a happier note, I shared how the thrill of intermittent inspiration keeps me going, and Rocket Scientista reminded us how great it is to get new! data! and gain new! knowledge!

Silver Fox and Karina both have significant field components to their work, and not surprisingly, identified that as both a source of joy and frustration.  Karina loves the exotic places where she gets to work, but misses home and her husband while she's away.  Silver Fox has lots of favorites about her job and finds that they mostly negate the sucky aspects.  After all, it's the sucky stuff that makes the fun parts possible. That's lemonade for you!

If Silver Fox has trouble finding fault with her work, ScienceGirl is momentarily at the other end of the spectrum.  New baby fatigue has her feeling like the incentives for her work have disappeared, leaving her motivated only by avoiding negative consequences.  We're sure this will pass, ScienceGirl, and we're rooting for you!  Likewise, in another post Podblack Cat wrote about her exasperation at being encouraged by Oprah, of all people, to go beyond the call of duty when really the call of duty is quite enough in itself.

Finally, A Life-Long Scholar described her favorite thing about academia - the freedom to set one's own schedule.  I couldn't agree more!  Of course, that comes with the risk of feeling guilty for not working enough (as a commenter noted), but it 's a risk worth taking.

Thanks to everyone who contributed!  The next installment of Scientiae will be hosted by Pat of Fairer Science.

*I saw this movie as a birthday gift to Ecogeoman who loves horror flicks.  The trailer pretty much covers everything.  Ick.

The carnival will be late

I anticipated posting the Scientiae Carnival today, but I'm not going to get it done.  Feel free to send me any last minute posts!