a conclusion about reviewers

For the past year, when I haven’t been busy with job market stuff I’ve been busy submitting and resubmitting manuscripts for publication. Nearly all of these use an advanced type of statistical modeling known as structural equation modeling (SEM; I linked the wikipedia reference but be forewarned, the description is likely to put most readers to sleep). The gist of it is that it’s stats based on matrix algebra, and it’s really hard. Learning SEM pre-medication was a bitch. Learning it with medication was a snap, and I’m now pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself. Not everybody in my field can do it, as it’s still rather new in addition to being hard. More “younglings” like me can do it than established researchers, who may not have the time or opportunity to receive training.  But I digress…

As I was saying, nearly all of the papers I’ve done in the past year use some form of SEM. Every SEM paper I’ve submitted in the past year has been designated “revise & resubmit,” which means I get to revise the paper in response to comments from peer reviewers and the journal editors. Without exception, every set of reviews has had some really, really, really dumb comments about basic SEM details. This makes me feel superior to so many other people in my field, but it’s also really annoying because the comments are incredibly stupid and sometimes don’t even make logical sense.

I’m revising a paper at the moment, and one of the reviewers asked for me to include a correlation matrix. If you’ve ever taken an Intro to Psych class, you should know what a correlation is. It’s a coefficient that indicates how strongly two variables are associated with each other. It’s super-basic, baby-level stats. Compared to what I’m doing on a daily basis (i.e., fitting models that are so complex it takes my new computer 30 minutes to crunch all the numbers), it’s insulting. It’s also annoying because now I have to make a correlation table for 18 variables so stupid reviewer A understands my work on a very, very basic level. It adds nothing to the story. They just don’t get it.  Now I will spend at least an hour trying to make all the columns and rows fit on a single landscaped page in 12 point font. Not going to happen!!!

Things shouldn’t be this way. It’s a problem in our field that our methods are changing so quickly that  only a few people are able to keep up with the changes. It’s also a problem that established, highly-esteemed researchers are so poorly trained, particularly since they are the ones who keep getting all the grant money (caveat: They then must use this grant money to hire statsmonkeys like me).

invitation for contributions

If you’re a reader who has an idea for a contribution, this is your invitation to contribute to this blog. Please contact me using the form on the “about me” page. Send me a brief outline of your idea, your desired contributor name, and an email address. If it sounds like a good match, I’ll set you up with a contributor login for this page.

The reason for this invitation: I have always wanted this blog to include more perspectives than just my own. I’m an early career social scientist. The viewpoints of a mid-career biological scientist or a graduate student in humanities could be very different than mine. Others’ strategies for managing their ADD might be different, too.  We should all be learning from each other, right?

job hunt is finally completely finished

I have a contract on my desk, and I’m ready to sign it. My postdoctoral supervisor has advertised my position, and hopes to bring on somebody new a few weeks’ before I depart this summer. These are good things, to paraphrase Martha Stewart.

But, now that my job hunt is officially complete, I just don’t know what to do with myself. I’m still used to having to search for new openings, and having to repeatedly check the academic jobs wiki for updates on interesting positions. Don’t have to do either of those any longer, so now what do I do with my time?

Try to get as many papers out as possible in the next few months? (Probably, although slowing down a bit would feel great!)

Leave my “postdoctoral campsite” cleaner than I found it? (Definitely!)

Start preparing next fall’s classes? (Hopefully…)

Start packing and planning to buy a house?

Now what?!? I have thought about little else but the job market for 8 months and can’t remember what it’s like on the “other side”…

an ADD moment at my conference

I had an “ADD moment” at my conference over the weekend.

By some misfortune, I was scheduled to present a poster at 8 a.m. Sunday morning. This is the *worst* presentation slot, and I’ve now had it two years in a row. I’m a good sport, however, and prepared in advance so I wouldn’t have to scramble on Sunday morning.

I didn’t know about daylight savings time until I arrived at the conference on Wednesday afternoon. But, I still prepared in advance, set several clocks so I wouldn’t sleep in and miss my presentation time, etc. I even woke up on time, had a cup of coffee, and made it to the poster hall early. I was really, really proud of this, because I am not a morning person.
Five minutes after I put up my poster, I realized I hadn’t taken my medication. So on top of being really, really tired, I could barely string sentences together because I was sans-ritalin.

The punchline: I still didn’t remember to take my medication, even though I’d carried it with me to the poster hall! The 1-2 times I remembered I needed to take it I ended up getting distracted. The bottom line… I was too tired to remember to take something that helps me function like a normal person even when I’m tired.

I’m not beating myself up about this too much, and in fact, I’ve been laughing about it ever since. Fortunately only a few people came to the 8 a.m. session (my supervisor was not one of them), and I didn’t need to do any real deep thinking at that point of the morning. Plus, I could joke about not being able to think straight because I was so tired, just like everybody else at the session.

I did experience a cool “first” at this conference: multiple people recognized my name! I was greeted enthusiastically at one poster by name (“Dr. Addled! It’s so nice to meet you! I really enjoyed your article on French pastry techniques, and would love it if you attended my symposium later on croissants!”), and another person purposely found me to tell me how valuable they found my research. This has never happened before, and it’s pretty darn cool!