Here is the process I go through when I get an R&R (revise & resubmit) on a journal article:
1. Hurray!
2. This is all totally doable. And reasonable.
3. Hmmm… some of this may not be all that reasonable.
4. Hmmm… some of this may not be all that doable.
5. [insert inappropriate language here]
6. We did it. Hurray!

I’ve been trying to publish journal articles for more than 20 years, so I’ve received my share of R&R letters (when I’m lucky). I’ve received supportive ones, I’ve received neutral ones, and I’ve received ones that felt unnecessarily harsh. Here is one that felt really harsh at the time – it was in a letter about the first manuscript I wrote from my dissertation, which, in retrospective, was way too long – but also was eventually published in the first journal I sent it to, Child Development.

Ouch. But as my adviser told me at the time, in the end it doesn’t matter how nice the letter is, as long as you can respond to it. So, here is my advice on what to do/write, no matter how supportive or harsh the feedback is.

• Include the original critiques. One of the biggest challenges of an R&R is not only revising the manuscript in response to the feedback, but also explaining every change you did (or did not) make. When your adviser or colleague gives you feedback on a thesis or paper, you don’t necessarily have to respond – certainly not in writing – to each point. But with an editor (and the reviewers who may read your letter and reread your manuscript), you have to respond to everything.
• I was originally taught that in writing a letter to the editor, I should not cut and paste from the actual letters, but instead should paraphrase the points. My mentor told me that by doing so, I didn’t have to quote feedback that was very negative, but could paraphrase and therefore soften some of it. After serving as an associate editor for Developmental Psychology, I changed my philosophy on this point, and I now do cut and paste the original language from the letter, and respond to each point. Then, the editor and reviewers do not have to go back and forth between 3 documents – their reviews, your letter, and your revised manuscript – they only have to look at the letter and the manuscript. Saving others’ time is always appreciated.
• Don’t skip any points. It seems obvious, but I’ve seen authors fail to respond point-by-point far too often. If an editor or reviewer raises a point, you have to address it one way or another. To ignore it is to really annoy him/her, and that’s not in your best interest.
• Be polite. Sometimes you will be really frustrated with editors or reviewers. Sometimes you will really disagree with them. It absolutely does not benefit you to express any of that frustration. Whatever you say, say it in a polite way. I know that there’s variability in the extent to which authors state things such as “this point was a really valuable one.” Some authors use these types of phrases frequently, others cut right to the chase (“we have addressed this issue on p. XX by adding…”). Whichever style you choose, be polite. And, if you do think the reviewer made a good point, be sure to say so.
• Save your “get out of jail free” card. Another term I borrowed from Steve Zarit. There are usually going to be a couple of points that a reviewer made that you strongly disagree with, and thus plan to argue against in your letter. Try to minimize the number of such points, and maximize points in which you do take the editor’s/reviewers’ advice. I have at times changed something that I preferred the way I originally had it, so that I could hold firm on another point. As they say in parenting, choose your battles. I have rerun all of my analyses and rewritten all of my tables, dropping 2 (out of 700) participants because of a characteristic that a reviewer thought could bias my results.

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Although I often groan during the revision process, I usually genuinely believe that the final product after responding to reviews is better than what I initially submitted. That is, I generally have faith in the process.

What if your paper was rejected? The bad news is, your paper was rejected, and you have to start over with a new journal. The good news is, you have a “free” set of reviews, can address concerns you agree with, and can totally ignore what you don’t agree with, before sending it to a new journal.

Just don’t ignore every point, or obvious ones. I once reviewed a paper and provided relatively extensive feedback. Three months later, I received the identical paper to review from a different journal – and the only change was one misspelled word. So I sent the exact same review to the editor. 
 
“The post Writing the letter to editor for your revised manuscript first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on January 4, 2016.”

Every Spring semester, I lose control right around the end of Spring break/SRCD and then reemerge around May. So hello.

Thus, Summer Eva will be catching us up on what we covered in the Spring in Adolescent Development and in Professional Development.  (NOTE: I drafted this post in May, but somehow lost control of the blog again in the Spring, so hello. Again).

Today, I’m covering the mechanisms of writing a manuscript. We have already reviewed choosing a journal. And for my advice on the specifics of writing, see my intentional writing series.

Tailor to the journal (when possible). Something authors often do is write a manuscript, decide where to submit it, and then go back through to make it fit that journal better – add more adolescent development theory if it’s an adolescent journal; add a prevention spin if it’s a prevention journal; shorten it if the word limit is less than the manuscript, etc. If, on the other hand, you can decide on the journal in advance, then you can tailor the manuscript to that journal to begin with, keeping the journal’s focus, criteria, and word limit in account from the beginning.

Hourglass shape. [Insert bad joke here about how we all want to obtain an hourglass shape].

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I learned this analogy in grad school, and somehow assumed that everyone else did too, but recently learned that it’s not universally taught. So, think of your manuscript/journal article as an hourglass. It starts broad/wide, gets narrower and narrower, and then widens out again. At the start, the introduction starts broad and narrows: it starts with larger/big picture ideas to show how your ideas relate to larger issues. You then move to theory, and then to prior empirical work, before stating your specific hypotheses. Your methods and results are the narrowest because they explain exactly what you did, and what you found. Then your discussion is the opposite of the introduction, because it starts relatively narrow with a summary of your results, moves broader in situating your results in the larger literature, then how your results address theory, and then finally, broader conclusions and implications.

First sentence and abstract. Intentional writing is important for your entire manuscript, but even more so in the first sentence and abstract. Many people will only read your abstract – or will use it to decide whether to keep reading. Be clear, so that if someone only reads the abstract, s/he will know exactly what you did, how, and why. And don’t bore them. Elsewhere I’ve discussed the importance of the first sentence and starting strong: make the reader excited about what you have to say next.

First page. Your first page should summarize why your study matters, and what you plan to do (White, 2005). Sometimes authors work so hard to build a case for their study that they forget to start with the summary of the case. As White says, “Too many authors wait until p. 13 to tell the reader whether they have 20 or 10,000 cases.” (2005, p. 792). Not that many readers will make it to page 13 if you don’t tell them why they should bother.

Literature review. Unless your paper is actually a literature review, it should not summarize everything that has ever been done before in this area (White, 2005). Choose key citations to make your points, and present all sides of an issue, but do not try for a comprehensive literature review in an empirical paper.

Headings. Use them.

Discussion. One frequent mistake I see as a reviewer is when authors write paragraph after paragraph interpreting their findings, without situating it within prior literature or theory. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that you have citations in just about every single paragraph in your discussion, and that the citations are not only to your (or your adviser’s) work. By the end of the discussion, readers should have a strong understanding of your contribution to the literature, both in terms of building on prior empirical work, and addressing theoretical questions. 

“Every sentence matters.” This quote is from my colleague Steve Zarit, one of the most prolific and well cited professors I know. Don’t waste space. Consider the importance of every sentence.

First draft. Get it out. Even though every sentence matters, every sentence does not matter in your first draft. Never let a sentence or a paragraph hold you up. Get through the whole paper, even if you have to use tricks like “INSERT SENTENCE ABOUT RATES OF CONDOM USE IN ORAL SEX HERE” or “SAY SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT WHY THIS MATTERS HERE.” Get through the whole draft, and then worry about tackling the sticking point details.

“The post Mechanics of writing a manuscript first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on November 17, 2015.”

I had this vision that summer would bring an increase in my blog writing. I would write a new post 5 days a week, post them 2 days a week, and come fall, I would have a great store of written posts that I could use to fill in the weeks I didn't have time to write. You know where this is going, right?

There are no back-up posts. There is a list of blog ideas, and that's it. The list grows; the back up posts do not.

On sabbatical, I vowed to bring sabbatical thinking more to my summers.  As many people know, most faculty are not paid in summer, although we are expected to get work done in summer (although I did recently receive the facebook comment, "You work in the summer?") I have a part administrative position so I have a requirement of a certain number of hours for that.  I am trying to get some bigger writing projects done in the summer. And of course, everyone else is trying to get writing done in the summer, so I have a back log (so much worse than back-up posts!) of other people's work I owe feedback on.

I've been mildly successful with sabbatical thinking. I have been working from home more. Evidence that I rarely do so was the recent email I received to "get better soon!" when I told our administrative assistant I would be working from home for the second day in a row, if she needed me.

All of this preamble is to say: Working from home more; getting some writing done; mostly working on other people's stuff.

In some recent conversations, people have said things like, "how long does it really take to read someone else's paper?" A legitimate question. So I decided to start tracking it given how much of my summer has been engaged in this very act. My conclusion: I just about never spend less than 3 hours on someone else's manuscript (or thesis). I can easily spend 4-5 hours on someone else's manuscript (or thesis). And, if the manuscript is a revision, and thus also includes a letter to the editor, I may spend a bit longer.

Now I'm a bit of a perfectionist (this poorly written at 1:00 AM blog post notwithstanding), and so I do spend a fair bit of time microediting. But it would be great to get data from others about how long you spend reading/editing co-authored manuscripts. Please share in the comments.

“The post Time spent editing other people's manuscripts (and other things keeping me away from blog posts)  first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on July 11, 2014.”

I mentioned in a previous post that we had a grant writing marathon for 3 days in May. It was an excellent experience for me, in that my 3 students spent those 3 days basically supporting me in various grant related tasks. We had also scheduled a full week in June for paper writing. It turned out that I didn’t need to submit my proposal until late Tuesday of last week, so Monday and Tuesday were still grant writing for me (and a bit of support from my students), but otherwise, we all worked on various manuscripts (and 1 thesis). Here is the line up:

So we worked on 1 grant proposal, 1 thesis, and 8 manuscripts in various stages ranging from conceptualization, to responding to an R&R (note: fully drafted doesn’t mean it started from nothing!).

The end of the week tally was:
1 grant proposal: Submitted!
1 thesis: fully drafted and in my inbox
2 papers: analyses finalized and partially drafted
2 papers: revision & accompanying letter fully drafted and feedback given
3 papers: fully drafted & feedback given
1 paper: analyses run but more to go

If I hadn’t spent so much time on the grant proposal (both during our group time and late each night), I’m sure I could have accomplished more than I did on the paper I’m primary author on, though I did make some progress there. However, my biggest accomplishments of the week (other than, did I mention, the grant proposal?) was giving feedback to students and other co-authors on 4 papers, and meeting with students about other papers.

Overall we were generally happy with the week. It generated a fair bit of conversation in the department as people came by to see what we were up to. And we all agreed that when my lab space is next door to my office in our future building we are going to be more productive together (drop the lag time between sending emails and replying to them). The verdict was mixed on whether 5 days was the ideal – some people thought it was too long, and others liked it and were ready to schedule the next marathon. We may try for mini-marathons – either one day, or paper specific or both – in the next couple of summer months.

Couple of other observations – one of my students fashioned herself a standing desk and seemed to really like that. We had snacks every day and went out to lunch on Friday which helped morale, though morale likely would have been higher if, like Cindy Berg, we had a better setting than a window-less conference room.

But generally, we all really liked being near each other, and all engaged in the writing process. The collaboration was excellent, too, knowing we were involved in similar activities and able to check in with each other throughout the day.

Have you ever tried something similar? What worked about it and what would you change?

“Writing marathon first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on June 9, 2014.”

I’m feeling particularly sensitive to hyperbole after days of listening to reports of snowmageddon/snowpocalypse, and also worry about the 18 students trying to fly/drive/bus to our prospective graduate weekend right now. In addition, there is a food blog I enjoy reading, but I’ve discovered over time that each of her posts is so hyperbolic, it is difficult to take her recommendation seriously. Every recipe she provides is the most delicious/amazing/it-will-change-your-life recipe. Now when she posts a new recipe, my enthusiasm is dampened, because they can’t ALL be the best way ever known to prepare chicken.

That said, I do think that if you are not already writing introductions the way I’m about to describe, it may actually change your life.

There is a tendency when writing an introduction to write about past research in a list. I see it in undergraduate papers, master’s theses, dissertations, manuscripts I review, and yes, published articles. It is not necessarily incorrect, nor is it terrible writing. However, it is another area where you can move to intentional writing, working harder as the author to make the reading easier for others. It is easier to write a list of past research, but it is easier to read a summary of past work that integrates across studies. Undergraduate students are more likely to have one paragraph or so per study, and writers with more experience tend to have a sentence or so per study. The sentences are often linked with phrases like “similarly,” “in contrast,” or “other work has also found.” But nevertheless, the writer leaves the work of drawing connections to the reader. When a writer does the integrative work for the reader, the reader can quickly arrive at the big picture of past work, and see how it relates to the authors’ own ideas.

Here’s an example. In this paper, I could list past work as follows:

College students are more likely to drink, and drink more heavily, on their 21st birthday compared to other days (Smith, Bogle, Talbott, Grant, & Castillo, 2006). Rutledge, Park, and Sher (2008), in a more representative study, found similar increases in drinking on 21st birthdays. Neal and Fromme (2007) found that alcohol use was elevated on holidays like New Year’s Eve, as well as on football weekends. Similarly, Del Boca, Darkes, Greenbaum, and Goldman (2004) found that alcohol use increases on New Year’s Eve and other holidays. Other researchers have also found elevated rates of drinking on Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day (Glindemann, Wiegand, & Geller, 2007). Another event with higher rates of drinking is Spring Break (Patrick, Morgan, Maggs, & Lefkowitz, 2011). Grekin, Sher, and Krull (2007) found that increased drinking during Spring break occurred only when students were with friends.

I find that paragraph really challenging to process, because the connections are rarely drawn for the reader. In contrast, here is the start of our paper as actually published (Lefkowitz, Patrick, Morgan, Bezemer, & Vasilenko, 2012):

College student alcohol use is known to increase during the celebration of special events such as 21st birthdays (Rutledge, Park, & Sher, 2008; Smith, Bogle, Talbott, Grant, & Castillo, 2006), football games (Neal & Fromme, 2007b), Spring Break (Grekin, Sher, & Krull, 2007; Patrick, Morgan, Maggs, & Lefkowitz, 2011), and holidays like Halloween and New Year’s Eve (Del Boca, Darkes, Greenbaum, & Goldman, 2004; Glindemann, Wiegand, & Geller, 2007).  

In the latter example, we have summarized across studies, integrating studies that have similar findings.

I’m not comfortable highlighting any examples of published work that is not well integrated, but if you look at 10 articles you have recently read, I guarantee you will find several that list rather than integrate. And here’s another example of well integrated writing, from Dalton and Galambos (2009):

Moving away from parents is a major task of the transition to adulthood. Although some studies have indicated an association of leaving home with less depression and better relations with parents during the transition to adulthood (Aseltine & Gore, 1993; Smetana, Metzger, & Campione-Barr, 2004), others have found that living away from parents was related to a significantly higher risk of binge eating (Barker & Galambos, 2007), more depression (Galambos & Krahn, 2008; Seiffge-Krenke, 2006), and higher alcohol use (Kuo et al., 2002). In any case, living away from parents creates opportunities to engage in sexual activities due to freedom from parental detection.

In this example, I particularly appreciate the way they have set up the “some studies have found X, whereas other studies have found Y” in an integrated way.

We recently discussed this writing issue in my graduate seminar. Some students expressed concern that when they summarize and integrate, they may misrepresent, or at a minimum, miss the nuances, of past research. Of course, you should never misrepresent someone else’s work, or selectively omit things that contradict your argument. However, it is okay if you don’t provide every detail of their work. If someone found that peer rejection was associated with anxiety, depression, and substance use, but your paper focuses on substance use, you don’t need to mention anxiety and depression.

There are other benefits to moving toward more integrated writing. You will find that you have a much better sense of past work when you force yourself to summarize rather than list. In addition, integrated writing often means fewer words, and who doesn’t want that?

“The post Writing an introduction: Integrate, don’t list, past research first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on February 13, 2014.”

There are numerous techniques that people use for being successful writers. Profhacker has 677 posts about productivity (not all about writing, of course). Common advice is to write every  day. Write first thing in the day. Put writing on your calendar just like a meeting/class. Set up a writing (support) group. Start with an outline. Write freely without editing as you go. Just write. We in HDFS know that individual differences require distinct contexts. Figure out the strategies that work for you and use them.

I spent much more time writing during sabbatical than I do in my regular life. Without teaching and meetings, and with decreased emails and responsibilities, I had many more long dedicated stretches for writing.

But sabbatical reminded me of something else about writing. I don’t need a full day ahead of me to get writing done. In my office, if I have a 1 hour break between meetings, I often fill that hour with email responses, a course-related task, or a task for someone else. But on sabbatical, with fewer of those obligations, I often filled small blocks of time with writing. And guess what? You can write a lot in one concentrated hour. I knew that – but I forgot.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about how to leverage this reminder about the importance of using the time I have to write.

For the past 3 years, I have organized an exercise challenge. Everyone who participates comes up with a personal goal for the number of hours they will exercise that year. Each week, they log their hours exercised, and the system (I use a google spreadsheet for easy sharing and calculating) computes their percentage for the year so far. It has helped me reach my exercise goal each of these 3 years (though as with last year, I’m cutting it close at the end here). Thinking of it as a big picture annual goal, rather than only daily or weekly goals, helps me reach the goal without getting discouraged. Some weeks life slams you, which can interfere with meeting a weekly goal. By tracking annually, you can compensate for a crisis-filled week during a less busy week. It also helps that others are logging, too. The shared nature of it helps with some public accountability, and the weekly percentage helps me stay on track.

So, for 2014, I am going to try a writing challenge, and I hope that you will join me. Here are the parameters/guidelines. I can provide more details by email to anyone who joins:

• If you are interested, comment here or email me, and I will send the google spreadsheet link to you.
• Everyone is responsible for adding their own name and 2014 goal to the google spreadsheet.
• The goal is for the year, so think about your weekly goal, and multiple it out. I like to multiply by 50 instead of 52, because it allows me a cushion for holidays and sick weeks.
• There will be one column per week. Daily, or weekly, add your writing hours to that week’s column.
• The spreadsheet will track your total # of hours and % of your goal for the year. It’s easy to see if you’re on track by noting what week we are on. If it’s week 10, you should be at about 20% of your annual goal.
• Set a goal that’s realistic for you. No judgment from others. If you’re working on your dissertation, you’ll likely set a high weekly goal. If you’re in a brand new tenure track job with 4 new preps, set a lower goal. Set something challenging but achievable. The people who have dropped out of our exercise challenge have tended to be people who set something unrealistic – e.g., someone who rarely exercises and sets a goal of 6 hours a week.
• Make it flexible. If you’d rather set the goal that you write at least every day, rather than a certain number of hours, think of your goal as daily, and set it as such.
• Define “writing” however you choose. For me, I’m including anything I’m first author on: manuscripts, chapters, and grant proposals. I’m including first words to paper and editing. I’m excluding co-authored papers and other types of writing.
• Worried that others will judge your goal? I hope that won’t be the case, and I hope that everyone understands that different people have different work/life circumstances. But if you’re really worried, join with a fake name, or disguise your actual goal with a multiple of your goal (e.g., if your goal is to write for 2 hours a week, write it as 10 hours and give yourself 5 credits for every hour). Of course, we could then all feel guilty that everyone else has such high goals, so if possible, be honest.

I hope some of you will join me in this challenge. But I also know that this type of structure doesn’t work for everyone. When, right before I left for sabbatical, I showed a colleague my excel spreadsheet, structuring my tasks for my 6 months of sabbatical, he broke out in hives. This type of structure and external pressure won’t work for everyone. But if it might work for you, please join me!

“The post Join the 2014 Writing Challenge first appeared on Eva Lefkowitz’s blog on December 18, 2013.”