Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Yo, Dr. Editor, WTF?

Along with my blogging, I've been way behind on my blog reading and just finished reading a "recent" post by Dr. Jekyll and Mrs Hyde about a paper she just had soft rejected. What caught my attention was the following statement: "I sort of wish that GradAdvisor would call the editor for a chat, just to get more information (did the normal reviewers vote for revise/resubmit? were there other comments we should be aware of? does the editor realize how insane a few of Crazy Reviewer's comments were?) but that doesn't seem to be the plan."

Whoa. Can we do that? Can we call up editors and ask WTF? I mean, I've joked about calling up editors and suggesting they send an ambulance to Reviewer 1's office because their review is a clear diagnostic of a brain aneurysm, but I never thought about seriously contacting them. This is totally news to me, so I really am asking if that's legit. And if so, is this a biomed/cell/molec thing? Do you need to be "friends" with the editor? Is this only a viable route for serious bigwigs? My advisor was a serious bigwig and not once in all my years did he ever do such a thing - for anyone, not even himself. Now, he is also not good at "playing the game" or whatever you want to call it. I don't think I've ever seen him wield whatever Jedi power is bestowed on bigwigs. (I have to admit while I suspect this has hampered his career in some ways, it has also given me some hope that serious science skills alone can get you pretty damn far). So, perhaps he's not a good indication of whether or not this is acceptable in my field.

But now that the possibility presents itself, my head is full of conversations I could have. Questions I've been burning to ask, like: Do you seriously want me to revise in the light of reviewer 1's wackaloon belief that a core concept in my field - that has been tested and used for decades and frequently published on in the Glamour Magz - doesn't actually exist ? Or do you secretly want me to knee cap this deluded jackass in my reviewer response, causing you to hail me as your intellectual hero? Inquiring minds want to know....

EDIT: Whoops, forgot to link to DJMH's post, which is here

Saturday, February 7, 2009

The River Tam Blues

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been having some....completion issues. As I sat and thought about this last night, I realized that my completion issues resulted from a lack in my normal zeal for science. I would get part way through the post and realize that I was simply too demoralized to finish. So why am I demoralized?

The main part is that science hasn't been a lot of fun recently. I've had a variety of papers going through the review process over the past year and the crazy blowback I've been getting has really started to take a toll. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big girl. I know how the review process works, but it has definitely seemed stranger and angrier lately. Every paper is a multi-round trench warfare-type slugfest, often lasting double (if not triple) the typical time from submission to acceptance for that journal. (I won't go into all the details because one of my half-finished posts is about the bizzaritude I've been experiencing). The Professor Chaos part of my personality knows that the weird blow back is actually a good sign for my research direction, but the River Tam part is feeling a little battered and bruised.

You might be wondering why my bitter reviewer battles might give me the impression that I'm on a good research direction? Let me digress for a moment. A while back, Drugmonkey made an open meme on creating your own index/law. When I was a graduate student a big name professor told me a story about one of his papers that is now a citation classic. He said that the responses to his work fell in one of two categories: it was wrong or it was trivial. Over the years, I have listened to other big names say similar things and based on this data, I have created the novelty test - a modified version of what the big name told me when I was a young whelp. I present: The Professor Chaos Novelty Litmus Test. The Professor Chaos Novelty Litmus works as follows: if the response to your work contains all of the following three elements (either separately from different individuals or all together from one individual) there's a high probability that your work ranks high in novelty:

1) "This work is wrong". This can take the form of nitpicky details that actually don't affect your results - which you may already have demonstrated in said paper - that are blown up as if you committed scientific fraud. This is the low - but still indicative -end of the "wrong" scale. Or it can take more bizarre turns resulting in weird statements that make you feel like you just had a stroke, like: "The author's logic about the nth dimensional constraint on the ecology of dogs rests on a critical assumption that dogs behave like dogs, but trees don't behave like dogs. This obviously invalidates this entire study on dog ecology." In my opinion, the more bizarre the reason, the more your work has messed with a reviewer's preconceived notions and therefore it is more likely you are truly on to something. Congratulations.

2) "This is not novel because it has been done before by a really big name". The key for this one to count as a positive novelty result is that the paper must not actually exist. There are two forms of this response. The first is an explicit reference to the "original" paper (i.e. you could easily locate the paper that is being referred to), but upon examination, the paper may be on dogs, but that's the end to the overlap. This ranks low on the "not original scale",  because its always possible the reviewer honestly didn't understand your paper.  On the high end of this scale is the "you have displayed your complete lack of competence in this area because you have missed the fundamental paper that has already published your idea which was published by either big name X, big name Y, big name Z, big name A. But I don't have the time to tell you which one of them did this, or which of their over 100 papers is the one you should care about. I won't even give you hints on journal or year. But boy it makes you look bad that you didn't know about this paper." I used to think this was just sloppy reviewing, but in my cynical older age, I am beginning to suspect that these are actually either conscious or subconscious attempts to throw the novelty of the paper in to doubt when the reviewer actually has no evidence of such...especially since I have on more than one occasion now gone through the multitude of papers by the list of big names and never found that my work had been done previously.

3) "This is just trivial". In contrast to #2 which may not debate the importance of the idea only that its already been done, this is the 2+2 argument. Your idea is so fundamentally trivially true that its not even worth publishing. Variants of this include: Everyone already knows this, its common knowledge, even if there is no record of the idea ever being tested - or maybe even proposed - in the literature. What's important about this critique is that you can go to the top journals in your field and pull out numerous, highly regarded papers published in the last 2 years that clearly ignore this "trivially true" statement about how the world works and in fact are actually operating on an assumption that the world does not work that way at all. You cannot, however, find any papers that actually are using the "trivially true" idea that everyone already knows.

So that's it, the Professor Chaos Litmus Test for Novelty. This is really only an indicator and not a measure of novelty - but the more absurd the responses the higher the likelihood that you're on to something good. Oh, and you get extra bonus points for receiving a review or other response that actually says all 3 of the above points.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Music Meme

You are not aware of this, but I have been a blogging fiend. The problem is I haven't finished any of them. There are six different half-finished posts sitting on my computer. I don't know what's wrong with me, I could blame my class or how busy I am or anxiety over the budget crisis but the fact is I am having focus problems right now. But maybe I can do a meme, so if it works a 'thanks' to DamnGoodTechnician for giving me something I could complete! However, after seeing how oddly my iPod answered the questions below, I don't think it's going to replace the Magic 8 Ball anytime soon.

RULES:
a) Put your MP3 player, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle
b) For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
c) YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS
d) Tag at least 5 people
e) Everyone tagged has to do the same thing
f) Have Fun!


1. IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
Drift & Die (Puddle of Mudd)

I am feeling a little antisocial these days...
2. HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Breaking the Habit (Linkin Park)
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
On Almost Any Sunday Morning (Counting Crows)
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Know your enemy (rage against the machine)
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
He Got Game (Public Enemy)
6. WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Caring is Creepy (The Shins)

Huh, not exactly my motto, but if its my iPod's motto, I'm a little disturbed
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Stones in the Road (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
8. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Gardening at Night (R.E.M)
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Shed Your Skin (Indigo Girls)
10. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
7 minutes in heaven (Fall Out Boy)

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Goodbye (Alicia Keys)
12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Hunter (Dido)
13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Sophmore Slump or Comeback (Fall Out Boy)
14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Paddle Out (Sublime)
15. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Mayonaise (Smashing Pumpkins)
16. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
The Gunner's Dream (Pink Floyd)

Wow, that one is a little eerie....perhaps I should fear the Pod
17. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Crime for Crime (Ani DiFranco)

18. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Come Alive (Foo Fighters)
19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
Trynna Finda Way (Nelly Furtado)

20. WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
F**k Me Pumps (Amy Winehouse)

LOL! What are the odds?

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Fall Out Boy)
22. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Good Times (Tommy Lee)

Don't ask about how that song ended up on my iPod....I won't answer anyway.