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With a little help from my friends....
08 December 2009
By Elizabeth Dodson
Journal papers... I don’t know about you, but I always struggle to find the time. They’re always there on my to do list – giving me that slightly guilty feeling in the pit of my stomach, and yet I continue to neglect them because I have so much other work to do (and by other work, I mean the proposals, data collection, analysis and report writing that all pay my wages).
Actually, this defeatist attitude is just the old me talking and things have changed...
Having recognised how difficult it can be to prioritize journal papers when a million other tasks are shouting for your attention, a small group of early career researchers in my department have set up a paper writing group. This initiative was spearheaded by one of my colleagues, and it is already changing the way I work. The idea is that we meet on a monthly basis and each time we have targets to review as a group. So at the last meeting we all had to bring at least one new abstract and look at who within the group we could collaborate with.
As a result of this, I now have 4 papers planned, abstracts and outlines written, with writing of the first seriously underway. I am working on these with a colleague who shares my research interests and is equally in need of publications. Together we work far more effectively as the guilt of letting another person down is far greater than the guilt of simply letting yourself down! Of course as the papers develop we also each bring our own unique experience and perspectives, which I hope will make our combined work far richer than if I’d written these papers on my own. Talking through our ideas has even given me inspiration for additional research that I will now seek funding for.
In a world where we are judged by our outputs, it’s important to make them a priority at least some of the time and as I’ve discovered recently, that’s a lot easier when you’re not working in isolation.
So I’m wondering, are these collaborative initiatives common in other research groups? If not, and you think it might work for you, then why not give it a try?
Nick Dickens09 December 2009 at 10:32 AM
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This is a great idea, writing articles is a big priority for me - and again actually finding the time to sit down and plan things out seems to get put to the back of the queue of other priorities. But in the end I will be assessed on my publications and when job-hunting the list of publications can (in my experience) be as important as the rest of your CV. Very inspiring post - Thanks, Nick
Anthony Curran10 December 2009 at 05:16 PM
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I don't think such initiatives are very common, but I agree it's a good idea in principle. Unfortunately, for me and I guess many, this is just another one of those 'I should get round to doing something about this' ideas which will never see the light of day.
Tennie Videler16 December 2009 at 11:28 AM
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I agree with Nick that you will be very heavily judged on your publications, especially for academic positions. Maybe the publications writing process is also discipline specific as I have always found my co-authors fulfilled the role Liz describes. I am a pretty deadline driven sort of person, which can push writing articles to the bottom of the to-do list because of their long pay-off times (peer review and everything). But rumours (or more concrete indications) that you are about to be 'scooped' can be pretty motivating...
Matthew Salois16 December 2009 at 05:38 PM
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What a great idea! Actually, I have never encountered such working group, but now that you have brought this up, I cannot imagine why. Time is of course always an issue, but then if you do not purposefully make the time for something, it will never just magically appear. Though I do think for something like this to work, there needs to be some critical mass of people ready to participate. Sadly, there is only 1 other research fellow in my department that I can collaborate. And we actually did evolve a paper idea over idle-desk chat which was turned into a conference proposal. I can only imagine that if 4 or more researchers were availble the new ideas we could develop!