Last week I wrote about how I now use a google spreadsheet to keep on top of my editing tasks. Today I thought I would share my strategy for making each editing task easier. I use this method specifically with students’ (or former students’) manuscripts and theses/dissertations, though I also try to practice what I preach and do the same thing when I share manuscripts on which I am first author.
 
I don’t think I ever read a draft of a paper only once. In the “olden days” I would read students’ drafts in hard copy, and make handwritten corrections/comments. When students handed me a new draft, I would ask for the prior version with my handwritten comments and go back and forth.
 
Now that I edit in Word using track changes and comments, I noticed that I was reading new drafts and going back and forth to the old draft to see my earlier comments and whether students replied. It contrasts with when I am a blind reviewer on a journal manuscript, and I receive a response to all of my reviewer points, so I can go through the response letter and see how the author responded to my requests.
 
It felt inefficient, and so I came up with a system that works much better for me. I ask that students follow these guidelines when sending me a previously read draft:

• Turn off track changes
• Go through each suggested edit, and either accept it, or add a comment as to why you didn’t accept it (yes, you can disagree with my suggestions, just explain why)
• Simultaneously you’ll be accepting your edits from the earlier round
• Find any comments that were from an EARLIER round of edits (e.g., I just read it on May 30th, but there are leftover comments from April 27th), and delete those older comments, unless they aren’t resolved (e.g., delete the April 27th comments)
• Turn track changes back on, and go through my comments
• For each comment, either edit the manuscript, or respond to the comment as a new comment (or both)
• Reread the whole paper, and make any additional changes/edits (with track changes still on)
• Send back to me.

 
If we are at a point where I don’t feel that I have to read the whole thing, I will highlight the paragraphs I want to reread, or put in a comment on the title page that says “Eva only has to read first paragraph and whole discussion.” This tracking also helps me immensely. When I was younger and editing fewer things, I likely could remember when someone returned something that I only needed to reread discussion that version. But now, with more years behind me, and more frequent co-authored editing, by the time something returns to me, I’ve lost track of where we left off.  To put it in perspective, not including first-authored papers, I currently have 5 co-authored submitted papers, and 6 co-authored drafted, so I am reading a lot of drafts in any given month.
 
I try to follow a similar process when I’m first author – when I send a new draft around, I have gone through and accepted (or not, with a comment) my earlier changes and suggested changes from co-authors, and then I turn on track changes and make new edits in response to comments. I also respond to comments as needed, e.g., if I don’t make a change, or if co-author had a question about something. Hopefully this annotating helps my co-authors as much as it helps me. 
 
“The post How to Edit Co-authored Papers More Efficiently first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on May 31, 2018.”

My research group has been really productive over the past three years – in part because I had three students simultaneously finishing their dissertations and prepping for the job market. So, I thought I would intersperse professional development posts with quick summaries of some of our recent research.
 
First up: Maas, M. K., Shearer, C. L., Lefkowitz, E. S., & Gillen, M. M. (2015). Sex rules: Emerging adults’ perceptions of gender’s impact on sexuality. Sexuality and Culture, 19, 617-636.

 
Past work (see Petersen & Hyde, 2011) has demonstrated consistent gender differences in heterosexual experiences and behaviors. However, we have little understanding of what drives these differences. We used semi-qualitative methods to ask male and female college students about their perceptions of how being male or female impacts their own sexual thoughts and feelings. 
 
Specifically, we asked women: “‘‘How does being female affect your thoughts and feelings about sex?’ and “‘How would your thoughts and feelings about sex be different if you were male?’’ We asked men corresponding questions about being male/how things would be different if female. Then we coded their responses for content and tone.
 
The most common response for women was that being female caused them to worry about their reputation and emotional wellbeing (more than a third of women). One women stated, “‘I feel that when girls sleep around they are branded sluts, whores, hos…so I don’t do actions that would make people feel that way about me.’’
 
The second most common theme for women (almost a third of women) was about how women should avoid being promiscuous or should engage in monogamy or abstinence. For instance, one woman stated ‘‘Since I am a female, I feel that it is wrong to have casual sex with as many partners as I like. I have to control my urges when it comes to different men I am attracted to, but not interested in marrying.’’
 
The third most common theme for women was concern about physical protection from pregnancy and STIs (almost a third of women). One woman stated, “‘It makes me more cautious because if someone gets pregnant it will be me. It’s a lot easier for guys to run from a relationship if there are children involved.”
 
When asked how their thoughts and feelings would be different if they were male, women most commonly referred to how they could be more promiscuous, or wouldn’t have to think about monogamy or abstinence. The second most common difference was that they would not have to worry about their emotions or reputations, and the third most common was that sex would have different meaning or that they would have different sexual attitudes.
 
Men’s most common theme was that being male affected their sexual desire (more than a third of sample). One man stated, ‘I feel that being a guy makes you think about sex all the time. Women are everywhere…how can you not think about it?’’
 
Men’s second most common theme was related to the control of sexual activity (e.g., pressure to initiate, needing partner’s consent, about a quarter of men). One man stated ‘‘…I feel I must be careful not to do anything without the proper consent. It is easy for a girl to call rape.’’
 
When asked how their thoughts and feelings would be different if female men were most likely to describe changes in sexual desire, and for instance, thinking about sex less. One man wrote ‘‘I probably wouldn’t think about it as much or be as driven to want it.’’ Second most common for men was having different level of control of sexual activity, or being less aggressive. Third most common was for men to refer to being more cautious or using protection more, referring to both contraception and to being more cautious in sexual situations.
 
There were clearly gender differences in these themes. For instance, women were more likely than men to describe that being female caused them to worry about their reputation and emotional well-being; being female meant they needed to remain abstinent, only have sex in a monogamous relationship, or avoid casual partners; being female caused them to worry about physical consequences such as pregnancy or STDs. Men were more likely than women to describe that being male meant they need to be sexually aggressive, initiate sex, or need a partner’s consent; and being male caused them to think about sex a lot or all of the time.
 
The tone of women’s responses was more negative than men’s, and women’s perceptions about how being female affected their thoughts and feelings about sex were more negative than their perceptions about how their thoughts and feelings would be different if they were male.
 
Overall, these findings provide support for a continuing sexual double standard for men and women, and, I believe, provide a more nuanced perspective than running male/female differences in standardized questionnaires. They are also important to interpret in light of recent attention on rampant sexual assault in Hollywood and other industries, and the associated #metoo campaign.
 
“The post About That Sexual Double Standard…  first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on May 29, 2018.”

In Fall 2016, my family had just moved to a new state, and I was a first time department head in a new department. I was busy. But on top of all that, I had three students at my former institution all trying to complete their dissertations by Summer 2017 so that they could graduate with me as their committee chair.
 
All three students had their dissertation proposal meetings during a 3-day period in November. That October was… intense. There were many nights where I didn’t get to the dissertation drafts until about midnight, and I often stayed up until 2:00 or 3:00 AM editing, sometimes from a standing position so that I didn’t fall asleep. I occasionally took breaks to do down dog, again, so I didn’t fall asleep.
 
[I believe it’s important to interject at this point that I adore all three of these students; they all DID finish by Summer 2017, so 4 years for PhD or 5 years for combined masters/PhD; and they all now have awesome positions as assistant professor or post  doc ]
 
Part of the issue was a problem of perspective. I have a general rule that students can expect a one-week turnaround. To each student, they were sending me drafts at a reasonable rate for my response. But, that rate ignored the two other doctoral students; former students sending me co-authored manuscripts; manuscripts to review for journals; my own writing; and of course, every other aspect of my job, and my life.
 
I know I’m not unique in this situation. Part of being faculty is always having to balance one’s own writing, teaching, and service, with editing students’ and collaborators’ work and reviewing grants and manuscripts for external sources.
 
After we got through the defenses, I decided there had to be a better way. So, my students and I came up with a system to get through Spring semester and their dissertations. And the system worked so well, that I have continued the system and use it for the large category of research that I mentally refer to as “other people’s work” even though, of course, I’m often a co-author. I really think it has revolutionized my ability to get other’ people’s work back to them in a timely manner (I’m human though; I definitely slip up.).
 
What did we do? We created a google spreadsheet to account for my time. Here’s a screenshot that I took this past November, a few months after everyone had graduated:

Yes, I have very productive former students!
 
We created the spreadsheet based on my expectations of how much other people’s work I could handle in a given week. I decided that in any given week I could handle 2 manuscript-length editing projects, and 2 smaller editing projects. Recognizing sometimes I needed to do more, I added the “#3 if desperate” column. And, during that dissertation writing semester, we had to add the “super desperation” column, though fortunately we don’t use it much. I also look a few months ahead and black out cells – Thanksgiving week I cut back on the number of things I would edit by blacking out some cells. Spring break I did the same. I blacked out the whole week of our family August vacation.
 
I also defined for students what category they should use:

• Manuscript: manuscript (co-author or review for journal); chapter of a dissertation or dissertation proposal (if sending multiple chapters, counts as multiple manuscripts); masters or honors thesis; external tenure review letter; dissertation if I’m not the chair
• Lower-level editing task: conference abstracts; conference poster or talk drafts; job talk slides; job talk materials; up to 10 reference letters to write for set of similar jobs (if applying to 2 different types, e.g., faculty & post docs, count as 2 separate ones); looking at/going over analyses before writing up

 
Students all have access to the editing calendar for months ahead, so they can get on my calendar. This system was extremely helpful during the crazy-dissertation writing semester, when everyone had similar deadlines, and we had to figure out a way to make it all fit, so that I wasn’t reading everything in the same week. It also helped students stick to their deadlines, because they knew if they didn’t get something to me as planned, it might be four weeks later when they could get back on my calendar. I think it also provides students with insight as to what it’s like to be a professor, because they get a better sense of the big picture of what my time use is in terms of other people’s work. In addition to students being able to add their own work into the calendar, I will add things myself, such as manuscript reviews for journals, co-authored papers not by students, and external tenure reviews. 
 
I also have other expectations/assumptions, such as:

• Assume I am likely to edit any proposal, thesis, dissertation, or manuscript a minimum of 3 times, often more
• Only use “if desperate” column if truly desperate (e.g., external deadline). Otherwise, use a subsequent week
• I prefer not to read the same thing 2 weeks in a row, so with multiple rounds of edits on same document, make sure there’s a week off between when I receive them.

 
I know this system is unlikely to work for everyone. It doesn’t always work for me. Sometimes, unexpected things come up and I get a couple of weeks behind (a couple of times I’ve cried uncle and moved everything forward a couple of weeks). Other times I am just really tired and get behind because, for instance, everyone in my life is sick and I want to get enough sleep to try to have a halfway decent immune system. Sometimes, a student misses a deadline and she has to get someone else to swap with her. All that said, in my various administrative roles, I’ve talked to students about mentors who take many weeks and even sometimes months to provide feedback on writing, often slowing down students’ progress through the program or marketability for jobs. This system helps me to stay relatively on track with editing other people’s work, but also, not to let it take over my life. I like that when I get asked to review a manuscript I can look at the spreadsheet and see if I have a slot open in the next 4 weeks; if not, I turn it down. I like that on Sunday night I can look at my week ahead and know what my other people’s work tasks are. It works well enough for me that I wanted to share it with you. If you have a system that works well for you, please feel free to share it in the comments.
 
 “The post How I gained control of my editing tasks first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on May 25, 2018.”