A few weeks ago I submitted my first paper to a peer-reviewed journal. At the recommendation of my supervisor, we submitted to Limnology and Oceanography: Methods. I thought I could whip the paper together in about two weeks; after all, I'd already had the paper outlined, collected all data and made the graphs during field season. But no... I was surprised at how much time is required. In the end, it took nearly two months of careful writing, reorganizing details, and bouncing drafts between my supervisors for review. Now we play a waiting game. It could be months or a year before it's published.
I expressed my impatience to a fellow PhD friend at Harvard while visiting Cambridge a few days ago. She laughed: "Two months! It can take years for a paper to form even after data is collected and analysed!" That made me feel better. Likewise, yesterday a friend here at Oxford excitedly said he got a paper published this week... a paper that was first drafted three years ago!
The peer-review process certainly has its faults, and some journals are aiming to fix that like PeerJ and arXiv. That said, it's one of the few means of having others in your field critically analyse and validate your work. It's a delicate balance between disseminating information among the scientific community as quickly as possible and ensuring that information is worthwhile and credible.
A few bits of advice that I received prior to paper-writing that certainly helped:
(1) Don't throw any data away. Save everything. Record everything.
(2) Write down everything and date all your notes.
I expressed my impatience to a fellow PhD friend at Harvard while visiting Cambridge a few days ago. She laughed: "Two months! It can take years for a paper to form even after data is collected and analysed!" That made me feel better. Likewise, yesterday a friend here at Oxford excitedly said he got a paper published this week... a paper that was first drafted three years ago!
The peer-review process certainly has its faults, and some journals are aiming to fix that like PeerJ and arXiv. That said, it's one of the few means of having others in your field critically analyse and validate your work. It's a delicate balance between disseminating information among the scientific community as quickly as possible and ensuring that information is worthwhile and credible.
A few bits of advice that I received prior to paper-writing that certainly helped:
(1) Don't throw any data away. Save everything. Record everything.
(2) Write down everything and date all your notes.
