People consider lots of things when writing journal article or chapter titles. Does it capture the meaning of the paper? Is it catchy enough? Is it clear? Is it succinct enough? But, there’s another issue that people may not frequently consider when writing a title, and I would argue it is the most important consideration, because unlike these other things, it isn’t specific to this paper. It sticks with you forever. And that is, how will this title look on your CV for the rest of your career?
 
It appears I’ve yet to write about strong titles, but I have written about strong first sentences. In that post I argued that your first sentence should be strong, clear, and interesting. All true of your title as well. BUT, your first sentence can actually get away with being catchier than your title, because your first sentence is contained within the manuscript, and does not appear elsewhere. It catches people’s attention in the context of the paper, but nowhere else.
 
In contrast, your title appears on your CV, in your tenure dossier, in people’s literature searches. Yes, it’s the advertisement for the paper, and thus can get people’s attention. But it’s also a reflection of you and your body of research, something that follows you forever, for better or for worse. 
 
For instance, when I was asked to write a chapter about erectile dysfunction, I asked my students if they were interested in first authoring it. When one of my students expressed interest, I asked her to think about having the title “erectile dysfunction” on her CV. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it would be on her CV forever, and she would want to think about the kinds of institutions where she might want positions, and if that might matter at those institutions. For a lifelong sex researcher it’s probably not a big deal, but it was a consideration.
 
Another issue is cutesy titles. I support clever titles, but there is a fine line between clever and cutesy (or just silly) titles, and unfortunately, different scholars draw that line in different places. I sometimes do a literature search and come across a title that makes me cringe a little, and I confess, it can affect the way I think of the author. I won’t share examples, but I did find this Slate article about clever and gone-too-far journal article titles. So, before you finalize a clever title, ask a few other people what they think of it. If you're early career, make sure some of the people you ask are more senior than you, because they are the group of people who will evaluate your work for things like tenure. Because again, that title will be on your CV forever.  When you study a topic like sexual health, there are a lot of ways you could go clever, and a lot of ways you could go wrong, and I’ve seen both happen.
 
Perhaps I’m lucky that I’m just not very good at clever titles. I think the most I’ve done are these two:
He Said She Said: Gender Differences in Mother-Adolescent Conversations About Sexuality
and
Never been kissed: Correlates of lifetime kissing status in U.S. university students
 
I’m pretty comfortable living with both of those titles, forever.
 
Some questions to ask yourself before finalizing a clever title:

• Will it look silly on my CV 5/10 years from now?
  
• Could someone misinterpret it?
  
• Would everyone think it’s funny, or could it read as offensive?
  
• Will it fit with any job I apply for? For instance, if you look for a job at a religious institution or a government job, could it offend someone?
  

 
It may help to think of article titles like the CV version of tattoos – don’t just think about whether it’s fun in the moment, but think about whether you want to live with it for the rest of your life.
 
“Your Title Will be on Your CV Forever first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on August 23, 2018.”

Lefkowitz, E. S., Wesche, R., & Leavitt, C. E. (2018). Never been kissed: Correlates of lifetime kissing status in U. S. university students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 47, 1283-1293.
 
I just realized I am finally writing about papers published in 2018.  That was a lot of catch up.
 
Do you remember your first kiss? How old were you? 12? 14? Sweet sixteen and finally been kissed? For many, the first kiss experience is very positive and generally linked to wellbeing. I recently became interested in studying kissing because of my interest in normative sexuality development. Most adolescents spend a lot more time kissing than having penetrative sex, yet almost all of our research is on penetrative sex.
 
While writing this paper we informally called it the “Kissing Virgins” paper. In this paper we considered college students who had never kissed a partner by the first semester of college, and the personal, contextual, and adjustment/health predictors of this delayed onset of kissing. Although by the start of college it is normative to either have or have not ever engaged in vaginal sex, students who have never kissed a partner at the start of college are off-time from their peers.
 
We found that by Fall of first year of university, about 14% of students had never kissed a partner – most (95%) of these students had never engaged in any other sexual behaviors (touching, oral sex, vaginal sex) either.
 
Demographic factors: Asian American students were less likely to have kissed partners than other students (28% of Asian Americans never kissed a partner compared to 7-11% of students from other ethnic/racial backgrounds). Only 1% of students in current romantic relationships, compared to 22% of students not in relationships, had never kissed a partner.
 
Personal characteristics: More extraverted students were more likely to have kissed a partner than less extraverted students. Although in the bivariate model, more neurotic students were less likely to have kissed a partner than less neurotic students, this result did not hold when all of the predictors were in one model.
 
Contextual characteristics: 32% of students in the honors college, vs. 13% of other students, had never kissed a partner. In the bivariate model, having a mother more facilitative of independence was associated with a higher likelihood of kissing a partner, although this result did not hold when all of the predictors were in one model.
 
Adjustment/health correlates: Students who drank more were more likely to have kissed a partner than students who drank less. In the bivariate model, students with better self-esteem were more likely to have kissed a partner than students with worse self-esteem, although this result did not hold when all of the predictors were in one model.
 
Religiosity was not associated with likelihood of kissing, suggesting that internalization of religious motives against sexual behavior does not transfer to a prohibition against kissing.
 
Overall, findings suggest that never having kissed a partner is associated with characteristics indicative of a lack of exploration – both in terms of having a non-exploratory personality, and less exploration in other domains like alcohol use. It is possible that this decreased experimentation provides fewer opportunities for identity exploration. Overall, findings suggest that not kissing a partner provides some possibly protective factors, and some indicators of worse adjustment.
 
“What Predicts Never Having Kissed by the Start of College? first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on August 14, 2018.”

Leavitt, C. E., & Lefkowitz, E. S. (2018). Erectile dysfunction. In Bornstein, M. (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (pp. 766-768). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.

Waterman, E. A., & Lefkowitz, E. S. (2018). Sexuality. In Bornstein, M. (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development (pp. 1984-1988). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications Inc.
 
About three years ago I was invited to write a couple of chapters for this encyclopedia. Two of my students expressed interest in taking the lead on the entries, so we went ahead with them. Although I’ve written book chapters before, this may have been my first experience with encyclopedia entries. They were fun to (co-)write in that they were less technical and more summarizing than the average journal article or chapter. I think that encyclopedia entries could be a good opportunity for a student, particularly a student around the time of comprehensive exams. They require you to be relatively comprehensive with an area of literature, but also to be able to write about it in a clear, straightforward, succinct way.
 
One strange component (in stark contrast to comprehensive exams) was that we were not allowed to include citations. After a career of carefully citing every point and teaching students to do the same, it was strange not to do so in the entries. We had a further reading section, but no references for specific points. Another challenge was to write only 9 pages of text on all of sexuality across the lifespan for one entry. I think Emily did an excellent job with this entry. She covered childhood through later adulthood, and touched on a number of important topics in the process.
 
The other chapter was 6 pages, but on such a specific topic, erectile dysfunction, that it was relatively easy for Chelom to cover the relevant material. It serves a very different purpose than the overarching sexuality one, but could serve as a good resource for people looking for a summary of what is known on this topic. 
 
We enjoyed writing both of these chapters. My only regret is that I just saw the huge price tag on the encyclopedia. I hope that some people will have access to the chapters through their university libraries, because I can’t imagine any individuals being able to afford the full set.
 
“Our Entries in the Encyclopedia of Lifespan Human Development first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on August 7, 2018.”

I recently described my Supermom/A Student syndrome. That’s a characteristic I have always had. That is, I’ve always felt the need to do the hardest/additional work if offered. Extra credit? Check. Take the harder level class? Check. Join the Honors Society? Check.
 
I have one child who takes after me in this respect. Do music practice every day because you are supposed to? Check. Do extra credit for elementary school classes? Check. Pick the hardest of three options for the 4th grade math project? Check. Do the PA reading challenge and read every book on the K – 3 and the 3 – 6 grade lists because you’re in 3rd grade? Check, and must be first in the school to finish. This past year, this child participated in the National History Day Competition because, in the child’s words, “It was clear from the teachers’ presentation about it that it’s what the smart kids do.” The same kid, in kindergarten, was in a study where they had to push a button to earn some kind of food reward. The kid wouldn’t stop pushing the button and finally had to be cut off due to time constraints [oh look, I found the published paper].
 
The other child, while also smart and creative and motivated in many ways (parent requirement to add this disclaimer here), doesn’t have the same inclination. This child often chose not to do extra credit – for this child, homework involves more breaks to read and stare off into space, so who has time for extra credit? This child only read the books on the PA reading challenge that were in the fantasy category – the child only wanted to read books of interest to the child. Music practice happens, sometimes, with prodding/reminders.
 
It’s my parenting inclination to try to push this child to do every extra thing. No you can’t play Wii if you haven’t done the extra credit assignment (“But Mama, I did all my homework…”). Why wouldn’t you try the National History Day Competition? “Because it just didn’t sound like fun to me and my friend.”
 
And so one day, in fourth grade, I noticed in this child’s homework planner something about bringing in a bean dish for extra credit. The child never raised it again. I asked about it a couple of times, and the child didn’t bite. Finally, I said okay, I’d let it drop. But somehow I couldn’t, so the morning of the sharing beans activity in school (honestly, it was a couple of years ago and I can’t remember the actual lesson plan), I ended up, without prompting, roasting chickpeas before school (an easy recipe that didn’t require a trip to the store). The child was grateful I had done it, but also would have been completely fine if I had not.
 
It’s taken me some time as a parent to recognize that sometimes it’s not my job as a parent to push my children to do things they are not motivated to do, or more specifically, to push my nature on my child. Yes, I should make sure that my child finishes homework – but perhaps extra credit homework should rely on intrinsic motivation and not parental nagging. Honestly, this particular child sometimes doesn’t finish all of the regular homework, and sometimes, that’s okay too.
 
I find it easy to parent the child who is similar to me, at least around issues of school and achievement. It’s more trying to parent the other child because the choices made aren’t always the ones I would make. It’s easy to want to push that child to make the choices I would make. But I’ve definitely worked on not pushing daily music practice if that’s going to make the child miserable or want to quit playing an instrument, or to let the child decide about extra credit work without my forcing the issue.
 
I think parenting this specific child has provided helpful life lessons to me. First, as an advisor -- I don’t always have to push each student to do every possible thing if the student isn’t motivated to do so, but instead, should support the student’s decisions, within reason. And also, for myself, I’ve learned a bit more that I don’t have to say yes to everything just because it’s one more thing I COULD do or because everyone else is doing it. I try to say no to more things at times, so that I am saying yes to the things that are important to me or that I’m passionate about, and so I can do the things that I say yes to better.
 
I think this lesson is important for graduate students as well. There are certain things that graduate students HAVE to do – there are required course and graduate milestones, there’s your dissertation. But beyond that, you don’t have to say yes to things just because someone thinks you should. Instead, you should be strategic about what you want to do. Let’s say you are being pushed to teach a class, because most students do so during their graduate career. If your career goal is to become a faculty member, then it may make sense to do so. But if your career goal has nothing to do with teaching, perhaps teaching isn’t the best use of your time. You do not have to go to every conference that your advisor goes to just because that’s what’s done. The list goes on… think about what is important for your career, and what is valuable to you, and focus on those decisions.
 
Yesterday I bumped into a former colleague who had been invited to be an associate editor. She said that her current colleagues were all telling her that it’s a great opportunity and it is great for her CV, and that she should do it. It seemed pretty obvious in talking to her that she wasn’t motivated to do it –that it wasn’t a task that interests her. I think the message she was receiving was that it would be helpful for going up for full professor. Yes, it’s important to get service to the profession in order to get promoted to full professor. But there are many pathways to get there, and being an associate editor is only one. For some people, editing tasks are really unpleasant, and I wouldn’t recommend someone take on that role unless they are excited about it. Which is what I told her. Don’t just say yes to something because you might be good at it – pick the things that you WANT to do.
 
I still have to fight the Straight A Student tendencies in myself, frequently. Sometimes it helps to have someone remind you that doing everything you COULD do isn’t always the best path for your goals.
  
“Why I roasted chickpeas at 7:30 AM first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on August 2, 2018.”

Our first paper written in Google Docs
 
Recently I described our paper in a special issue on relationship dissolution. Writing this paper was a completely collaborative experience, and my first time doing it this way, so I thought I’d describe how that process went for us.
 
We read a call for papers for a special issue on romantic relationship dissolution in Emerging Adulthood.  I had three doctoral students at the time, so at our research group meeting we discussed whether we had any data that might fit the special issue. The thing about special issues is that the turnaround time is generally relatively short, certainly shorter than my usual time from paper conceptualization to submission.  It would be challenging to collect data for a special issue in time to write it up, and even challenging (not impossible) to start entirely new analyses on a brand new paper.
 
If you can pull it off, though, there’s value in submitting to a special issue. First, your submission is not a shot in the dark – you know the journal is interested in the topic, so if you submit something of good quality, I believe your likelihood of acceptance is higher. Of course it depends on the submission rate, but the guest editors need a certain number of papers to fill the issue. Second, you are then grouped with similar papers, increasing the likelihood that researchers interested in the topic will stumble upon your paper.
 
In our discussion, we realized we had a conference presentation submitted on long distance dating relationships (LDDRs), and that it wouldn’t be that challenging to subsequently look at breakups in this sub-group to fit the special issue. But, given time constraints, and that all of us were in the middle of multiple other papers, we would need a highly collaborative process among the four of us.
 
I believe the process from start to finish (other than the original analyses for the conference submission, which were only part of the final analyses) was 6 months. 
 
One key feature in making this process work (for us) was that we identified a project leader. Emily had been lead author on the conference submission, and so she agreed to be project leader and first author on the manuscript. She set up timelines and tables, helped distribute tasks, ran the discussions at our group meetings, and kept us on track.
 
We had one google doc that we used for everything related to the project. It started with timelines and outlines and eventually had the fully drafted manuscript. Everyone had full rights on the doc so they could choose to write directly, or to edit/suggest.
 
Emily created timelines to keep us on track. The only one I could quickly find is this one, from the second half of the process:

We started with a lit review, divvying up the literature for different authors to summarize. I really appreciate the note that some of the reviewing is copy and pasted so needs to be reworded. Good reminder and good practice in general.

Then as each author tackled different sections, we could work on it simultaneously. I generally appreciate track changes in editing manuscripts, but one challenge is having two or more people editing simultaneously. Yes, you can merge changes, but I always find it cumbersome to receive three edited versions of the same paper and to try to merge them. In contrast, with everyone working in one google doc, there was no concern about order or turn taking. In addition, if each person was writing a separate section, they could simply write. But if they wanted to edit someone else’s text and wait on approval from the other author, they could use suggest mode.
 
Eventually, when we wanted to finalize formatting and make sure things looked pretty, we switched to a Word version and passed it along in a more traditional way. I appreciated seeing this heading at the top when I opened the original document this week:

Documentation of process is so important for continuity and I really appreciated finding this heading there.
 
Overall, I think all four of us would describe the experience as very positive. I can’t think of any negatives of doing it in google docs, besides having to fix formatting later. I don’t know that I would automatically write a manuscript I first author in google docs, simply because I’m more comfortable with MS Word. But, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again through google docs as a fully collaborative paper. My life doesn’t always have space for writing a manuscript in 6 months, but for my research group at the time, it worked, and we are pleased with the result. 
 
“Our First Paper Written in Google Docs first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 26, 2018.”

Recently I discussed how I work with students to easily follow the edits they make between drafts. Today I wanted to write about how to provide students feedback in Word in ways that will provide them with scaffolding around writing.
 
In my first year of grad school, I handed my second reader a copy of my masters thesis proposal. About a week later, she returned it to me covered in red ink. She said, that’s the last time I expect you to make any of those mistakes. I’m certain I didn’t magically drop all of those errors in future writing, but I did pay close attention to every word she circled and marked up to figure out what I had done wrong, and to get a sense of how to write better the next time.
 
When I started as faculty I always handed students drafts in hard copy. Usually we would sit together and go through my comments, page by page. I even had a list of editing shorthand that I used, things like AWK for awkward and TS for tense switching.
 
Now I almost always email students a copy of their paper as a Word document with track changes and comments. I have mixed feelings, however, about simply correcting things in track changes. You know how you grade students’ exams, spending substantial time explaining where you deducted points and why? And when you hand them back you realize they are just looking at the grade on the last page? Well, with student theses and manuscripts, I am concerned that sometimes, some students simply accept all of the changes without actually going through and seeing what the suggested changes are, or trying to figure out why I wanted to change it.
 
So, depending on the student and where in the editing process we are, I may handle this process differently. If we are early in our time working together, I try to mark things carefully and write a lot of comments explaining what I think needs to be done. If there are errors that happen frequently, I may correct it the first few times it happens with a note, and I may even write “I stopped correcting these errors after this one. I marked some of them, but you should reread the whole paper carefully for more instances of it.” After that, I either just write a comment (e.g., tense switching) or simply highlight it for them to figure out what the issue is.
 
Similarly, if there is a lot of awkward phrasing, I may rewrite a couple of early ones as examples, and then just start marking awkward phrases/sentences. Or if, for instance, the student is reporting on 10 betas in a regression, and they are all written unclearly, I may rewrite the first one, and tell the student to rewrite the remainder using the one I rewrote as a model.
 
If we’ve been working together for a while, and the student makes an error that I know she commonly makes and I’ve corrected on prior papers (or drafts of this paper), I likely will comment on the first one, explaining it’s another instance of error X that we’ve talked about before.
 
There are times that I don’t use editing as a teaching moment. If, for instance, the student has defended her dissertation (and thus isn’t a student anymore!) and we are trying to get it published, I may spend more time editing the text outright and less time explaining or asking the student to fix things herself. At that point I’m an author of the document as well, so I’m more comfortable with inserting my own writing.
 
Good, clear writing is such a critical skill in academia. We as mentors have to make sure that, no matter what medium we use, we do not treat the editing of student work as if we were a book editor “fixing” things for someone else. Instead, it’s essential that we use this opportunity to teach students how to be better writers.
 
“Giving Students Feedback in Track Changes While Still Teaching Them to Write first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 14, 2018.”

Lefkowitz, E. S., *Vasilenko, S. A., & *Leavitt, C. E. (2016). Oral vs. vaginal sex experiences and consequences among first year college students. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 45, 329-337.
 
In my continuing efforts to consider sexual health and wellbeing from a normative perspective, we examined how consequences of oral sex differ from consequences of vaginal sex in an ethnically and racially diverse college sample. From a risk perspective, consequences of sex can be reinforcing. From a normative developmental perspective, consequences provide information about how individuals perceive different sexual behaviors that may play a role in building their sexual sense of self or satisfaction.
 
Most prior work on consequences of sex focused on vaginal sex consequences. Work that did compare vaginal to oral sex generally used a between-person model, comparing people who have ever engaged in vaginal sex to individuals who have ever engaged in oral sex. In our study, we examined consequences at the daily level, comparing days individuals had vaginal sex (with or without oral sex) to days they had oral sex (without vaginal sex).
 
We also considered gender differences in perceived consequences, given sexual double standards that suggest sex outside of marriage or committed relationships is more acceptable for men than for women.
 
Here are the frequencies of the positive and negative consequences:
 

Students were much more likely to report positive consequences than negative consequences of both oral and vaginal sex. However, both positive and negative consequences were more common on days that students had vaginal sex than on days they had oral sex. Specifically, students were less likely to report feeling intimacy, satisfaction, and worrying about their health on days they had oral than on days they had vaginal sex. Thus, oral sex may play a different role in normative sexuality development, potentially leading to less change in sense of sexual self and mental health outcomes than vaginal sex. 
 
We also found that gender played a meaningful role in these associations. Female students were less likely to report feeling intimate with their partner and feeling physically satisfied as a result of sex on days they had oral compare to days they had vaginal sex, whereas the difference was smaller for men. For men, these two types of behaviors may be more similar experiences than for women, perhaps because the sexual double standard places a high value on female virginity. In addition, although oral sex resulted in less worrying about health than did vaginal sex for both female and male adolescents, the difference was greater for female than for male adolescents. Because women may experience pregnancy as a more immediate concern than men do, vaginal sex may have more health salience for women than oral sex does.
 
Overall, the findings contribute to our understanding of oral sex as a normative part of sexuality development, with consequences distinct from vaginal sex.
 
“The post How Consequences of Oral Sex Differ From Vaginal Sex Consequences first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 5, 2018.”

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.”

When you’re working on a paper of some sort (class paper, thesis, manuscript), how do you approach it? Do you agonize over every word and sentence and paragraph as you go? Or do you work to push through relatively quickly, leaving holes as you get stuck on things?
 
I used to do the former.  I would start a manuscript with paragraph one. I would take an inordinate amount of time agonizing over that paragraph in particular, to get the perfect first sentence, and perfect first paragraph. As I went through, if I wanted to cite something to make a particular point in a sentence, I would pause from writing and track down that reference immediately. If I struggled over an idea or thought, I would stay with that paragraph/idea until I could hash out at least some form of a draft of that paragraph.
 
I have modified this style slowly over time. Now, if you look at a draft of a paper I’m working on, it will have multiple comments and/or statements in bold. So, instead of getting stuck, I will skip over a sticking point and come back to it later. I often don’t even attempt to tackle the first paragraph until the rest of the introduction is done. And sometimes I outline the introduction, paragraph by paragraph, and write out the hypotheses, but don’t fill in the line by line details of the introduction until I’ve drafted the methods and results.
 
Now I allow holes in the draft (drafty drafts) in order to keep moving through it, rather than pausing to fix every detail. So, opening up some current in progress manuscripts, they include some of the following comments:

• Do we need more of a transition here? Probably…
• (CITE)
• (CITES OF LOW % AT YOUNG AGE)
• Religiosity:  FIND ANYTHING ON KISSING? AND THEN IF NOT, GO TO LIFETIME VAGINAL SEX
• MORE HERE ON WHY THIS MATTERS???
• Despite these limitations, this paper provides… WRITE A CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH!!!
• SAY MORE HERE ABOUT WHY THIS IS INTERESTING.
• (AH, FIX THIS SENTENCE!).
• ORAL SEX MATTER? THEY ARE REINFORCIING – SEE TALK FOR THIS, BUT BASICALLY, IF ORAL SEX IS LESS POSITIVELY PERCEIVED, MAY BE MORE LIKELY TO ENGAGE IN VAGINAL IN FUTURE, WHICH CARRIES EVEN MORE RISK

The point is, rather than getting stuck on trying to explain why oral sex matters, if I’m really stuck on that issue in the moment, I can move onto the next paragraph, and return to it later with fresh eyes.
 
I’ve been collaborating with someone new over the past couple of years, and his style is quite different. He will send a draft around with fairly significant gaps in it. Often he sends it before the discussion is touched, and often there are holes in the manuscript, either where he’s asking for help/advice, or where he wants to return to later, but he wants input from others on other sections first. Sometimes I’ve tried to follow his lead, in terms of allowing my draft to be draftier when I send it to co-authors. In the past, no matter what order I worked on things, I didn’t send the paper to co-authors until I had a full, relatively solid draft. Now, I should pause to note that if you’re a student working on a thesis or a manuscript with your adviser, it’s unlikely you will draft a full manuscript before sharing with your mentor. I usually have my students share their manuscripts (and theses and dissertations) in stages so I can have input before they have written too much (and potentially wasted a lot of time down the wrong path).
 
By emulating my collaborator and sending drafts around at earlier stages, I find that the back-and-forth pushes me to get moving more quickly, and the early input can help shape sections that I might have had to rewrite more drastically later. Also, some section I’m struggling with may come more easily for a co-author. So if you open up drafts I recently shared with co-authors, they contain some of the following comments:

• You’ll notice reading through that I haven’t really settled on a term to refer to this age period. Once we pick one I promise I’ll use it consistently.
• At this point reading through, ignore APA style for et al as I tried to mostly write things out in case order changes or earlier references get dropped. 
• WHAT ELSE CAN WE PUT HERE? DRINKING SODA (KIND OF KIDDING); RISKY DRIVING? TANNING?
• OTHER BETTER IDEAS HERE?

 
By allowing myself to have drafty drafts, rather than letting perfectionistic-Eva take over and agonize over the placement of every word, I increase my efficiency. And fresh-eyes-Eva often can tackle the problem that tripped up yesterday-Eva.
 
“The post Drafty drafts first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on January 24, 2016.