A 3-click solution to improving the work/life balance of others

Tags

email, time management, work-life balance

I think it’s safe to say a good number of us struggle with the large amount considerable volume overwhelming flood of email.

And many of us have implemented solutions, and there’s been lots of discussion about how to stem the tide that washes over us almost daily (see this post & the comments over on Dynamic Ecology). But ultimately, the problem starts with each of us as individuals, and the volume of email we send, and when we send it. For those of us who have staff, students, or other trainees, the latter can often send a not-so-subtle message.

With near-constant connectivity comes an expectation of immediate responses. Many of us have email on our phones, or spend most of our working day sitting at a computer with our email client/web page open, where it bings and chimes with each incoming message. Two years ago, I started tracking the outgoing volume of email I generated, and it’s somewhere between 6500-7500 messages a year. And I don’t teach or have student queries.

I’ve also worked in places where I’ve received emails from managers (from my own boss right up to their boss’s boss’s boss) not just outside work hours, but at 10pm, or on weekends. In a sense, this is understandable: it’s quiet time when there are no expectations on them, so they catch up on email. I’ve done it, as I suspect most researchers and managers have. But the not-so-subtle implication is “I’m working this extra time, and so you should be, too”, or at least that work outside the paid contracted hours is necessary to do one’s job.

So to try and combat this, I’ve implemented two strategies, one for me, and one for the people I work with.

1. I don’t respond to work email outside typical work hours

Because I supervise students in different time zones, have managed field staff, and do have some other on-call responsibilities that require me to be contactable, I do have email on my phone, and do check it outside work hours, but unless it’s something that absolutely can’t wait until the next day (or Monday if on a weekend), I read it and deal with it later. Over time, this ingrains the expectation that I’m not instantly contactable outside work hours for work things.

2. I use the “Delay Delivery” function outside work hours

Like I said above, sometimes I do sit down on the weekend with my pot of tea and bash through a bunch of emails that have backed up over the last <period of time>. But there’s a fancy (and easy) tool in Outlook called Delay Delivery that makes sure I’m not creating unsustainable and unrealistic expectations on those I’m emailing.

This is the 3-click solution I mentioned in the title.

This is a feature of Microsoft Outlook, and so far I haven’t seen an equivalent solution for Apple’s Mail, or email sent from a phone. There is a Gmail extension called Boomerang, though. Here’s how it works.

First, write your email/response as usual:

Second, click on the Options tab (click #1), and near the right, click on “Delay Delivery” (click #2).

And lastly, in the Delivery Options section, you can set the time when Outlook delivers the email in the “Do not deliver before” field, by setting the date & time. Click Close (click #3) and you’re done.

The only downside I’ve found is that your computer has to be connected and Outlook open in order to send messages at the defined time, and as I said above, I’m not sure this functionality transfers to other email clients.

It might seem like a small thing, or maybe a giant pain, but it’s a simple solution to help us all walk the walk of improving work-life balance, particularly of those we supervise or manage.

 

UPDATE! Ben Britton pointed me to this VBA code & post of his that will automatically delay delivery!

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How much to charge for independent consulting work

Tags

altac, consulting

A significant non-zero number of scientists do additional paid work on top of their day job in the form of consulting, or being paid for their expertise by someone other than their main employer (a university or research organization, for example). This inevitably leads to the question of how much a given service/task will cost, and as a the usual outcome is an under-estimate on the part of the would-be consultant.

As someone who’s done a bit of this in the past, and in both the scientific & artistic/theatrical side (two areas where professionals, especially early in their careers, low-ball their own value), here are a few tips to get yourself started.

There’s all sorts of geographic variation in how much a given service costs, and that’s a horrendously complex factor that will obviously depend where you are. As a starting point, though, salaries are an imperfect but widely interpretable proxy. I suggest making a spreadsheet. We’ll make two column: one for your day job and one for consulting.

In the first row, enter your gross annual salary (i.e., the pre-tax, pre-deduction “advertised price”).

In the second row, enter your net annual salary (i.e., after tax & other deductions).

From these, you can easily calculate monthly net & gross (divide by 12), weekly (divide by 52), and an hourly rate (divide weekly by something between 36-40 depending on the norms of your area).

In the next column, we’ll calculate the starting point for consultancy pricing. First, multiply all these rates by at least 1.5. Why? Because you cost more than your salary. Organizations recover some/all of this in overhead/incidental costs or some other accounting term. Electricity, furniture, phone, computer, heat, and the general support like admin & finance, HR, IT and everything else. And in some places, this also includes the employer’s pension and social safety net (e.g., National Insurance, Employment Insurance) contribution which you as an individual also need to manage.

Taking the consultancy hourly gross rate, figure out what 2 days would cost. This is the absolute minimum to charge. Admin burden & infrastructure don’t scale well with length of consultancy. It takes just as much time to deal with the paperwork for a 1-day contract as a 1-month contract. One option is to use this (or some variation) as a base price on top of which any hourly work is billed. Admin carries on after the contract is over, remember, when filing taxes, or maintaining records.

And of course, this assumes your work is based at your home and on a computer. Travel and field work costs would be extra, of course.

When estimating the time tasks will take, I generally adopt the Montgomery Scott Method for Time Estimating (MSMTE): multiply your original estimate by a factor of at least four (two may be more realistic), particularly for more complex projects. And don’t forget to track your time using a timesheet or other method so you know how much time the task is taking. If you think it’s going to go over, flag this with your client. Chances are it will rarely (if ever) be under.

So let’s walk through an example.

You’re asked to do some desk-based analysis or writing, and you reckon it would take you a week to do (that is, about 40 hours of work). Your current annual gross is $50k (which is about $25/hour), so your consulting rate is $38/hour. The base cost is $1520. Add 2 days’ for admin ($570) and the total contract would be $2090.

This is, of course, just a starting point. It’s at your discretion to change any of the parameters here, of course, and they may also vary depending on the situation (NGO vs government agency vs corporate body for example). But my suggestion here is to simply alter the multiplication factor (for example, 1.3x for NGOs & non-profits, 1.5x for universities/government, 2x for for-profit companies). And this also assumes that you feel your salary accurately reflects the job/skills that you do (which may not always be the case, though I suspect few of us would describe ourselves as overpaid).

One final note – be prepared for there to be negotiations, and don’t undervalue yourself. It’s ok to turn down some work if you don’t think it’s worth your time, but equally there may be personal/professional situations where you might take on a piece of work at a lower rate than you would do otherwise (e.g., when first starting up). And recall that these numbers/figures I’ve thrown around are just a starting point, and will depend on where you are, the kind of work you do, the field, and the competition. But they’re a good place to start.

See also this post by Emilio Bruna on the same topic.

Happy consulting!

 

So you want to “do something about/for diversity”

Tags

diversity, LGBTQ, Women in Science

In the last several months/years, I’ve seen an increasing number of “diversity initiatives”, and attention paid to issues of diversity in STEM fields. Which is, on the whole, good. But as a member of a minority community, these can often come across as botched jobs. Scientists are good at science, but not necessarily (or one might say not at all good) at sociology and psychology.

And it’s become tiring.

Here, dear reader, is a handy, easily digested checklist (because who in science doesn’t like checklists) for how not to completely miss the mark with whatever “diversity initiative” you might want to do. As you’ll see, these are all inter-related, and some/many of them aren’t easy or to be taken lightly.

1. What? What do you want to get out of this exercise, tangibly? Cut the vagueness. Make your objectives SMART. If you can’t articulate your goals in these terms, you’ll never achieve them (or be able to demonstrate beyond vague hand-waving that “things are better”). Are you trying to have better representation at conferences or on editorial boards? Or perhaps increased membership in your society by under-represented groups? The processes for achieving these will differ. See also: where?
2. Who? “Diversity” as usually applied in STEM fields typically covers sex and ethnicity. There are many facets of diversity, some of which can’t be perceived without interaction. Gender, orientation, and ableness are just three others that quickly come to mind. Each brings a different viewpoint. Or rather, the same multitude of viewpoints found in any grouping of people. And each of these is just a conglomeration of different groups. Gay men aren’t representative of transfolk, who aren’t representative of bisexuals. Which of these groups do you want to reach? See also: why? Also see also: what?
3. Where? The US isn’t the only place with issues around the over-representation of straight white cismen in STEM, and there are local (and regional) areas for improvement, laws, traditions, and solutions to the problems. Even though the pattern may be widespread, what works in one place may (or may not) work in another. Don’t parachute in. Work with someone on the ground (see also: who (part 2)).
4. Who? (part 2). Nothing dooms these kinds of initiatives like the lack of involvement of the groups you’re trying to reach. They will know the language and issues better, and excluding them is patronizing, like saying “we know diversity is an issue, so we’ll fix it for you!” Without this involvement your initiative is almost certainly doomed to failure.
5. Who? (part 3). If I had a dollar for every time I was asked to talk about “Diversity 101” I would have >$1. In this scenario, I should be broke. Do your research. Google is your friend. We’re (often) too busy trying to keep up with a systematically damaging professional culture to “point you in the right direction”. If you actually care about it, read about it or contact organizations who are explicitly designed to help, and then engage on specifics. See also: who (part 2). You might be getting the idea that people are rather important here. Good.
6. What (next)? Don’t just gather information, or email blitz a vague surveymonkey link to your members. What will you do once you’ve identified the problem/need? If you don’t do anything, or don’t follow through (see also: what), think of the potentially hours of collectively wasted time. I’ve filled in enough “it will only take 20-30 minutes of your time” surveys to know this is often true. And it makes me less likely to help you out in the future. Failure to do anything is paying mere lip-service to the careers and lives of honest to goodness people.
7. Danger, Will Robinson! Whatever you decide to do, think (and have others think) about how it will be perceived, especially by those in the group you’re trying to reach. Academic conferences get this one wrong rather often (I’m looking at you, ESA “Ally” ribbons!). Don’t roll something this important out without a thorough look-over. See also: who (part 2). Also see also: when?
8. When? Don’t rush this. It’s important. If you can’t get something together for this year’s meeting, wait for next year. Something good, but delivered later is better than a hatchet-job thrown together to meet an arbitrary deadline. I mean, you should’ve been thinking about and actually DOING something about this ages ago anyway.
9. Expect pushback. In all likelihood, if you get things (mostly) right, you will get pushback from the straight white cismen already entrenched in whatever group you’re trying to diversify. If you don’t, you might get pushback from the groups you’re trying to include. Listen to the second. See also: what (next).

Listing grants on one’s CV

Tags

CV, grants, polls

I was going through my semi-regular update of my CV because, frankly, if I don’t I won’t be able to keep track of everything! It’s as much for me as it is for others (and arguably more so these days).

Which got me thinking about grants, and how they’re recorded. On my CV, it’s a combination of year(s), project title, funding source, and grant amount. So far, all the grants that I’ve received have been one of two kinds:

1. a grant / award for which I was the only applicant, like my two postdoc grants
2. a grant where a small group (<5) of us wrote the application and got the funding

These have all been relatively small, bar our work on Northern Rockhopper Penguins, which was funded by the Darwin Initiative to the tune of £200,000, but where each of the five project partners is involved in just about everything. But as I progress, I expect more and more I’ll be just one part of a bigger piece of work. This inevitably leads to the question of how to list those grants.

I clearly didn’t have a hand in writing the whole grant, and would only be participating in a part of it (i.e., there will be funded activities and outcomes to which I know I won’t contribute, just because of the way the project was designed). So it seems disingenuous to list the full value of the grant (which, for these kinds of collaborative projects is likely to be in the £200,000-£1,000,000+ range). But equally, my specific part of the work package was part of the reason the project was funded.

So over to you, dear readers:

 

I’ll tally the results in a week or so.

 

Example interview questions in conservation

Tags

interviews, job applications, jobs

One of the things I tend to do a fair bit of is recruitment/hiring, usually for seasonal or short (<2 year) contracts. In the last two years, I’ve been involved in well over a dozen competitions as part of the interview or selection panel for what would be termed alt-ac or field tech science jobs.

Recently, several friends have asked for my advice on what to expect from an interview, so I thought it would be worth posting here. I’ve already written a bit geared towards applying for field jobs.

I’ll heavily caveat this, though – my take isn’t everyone’s take, and practices likely vary among (and even within!) organizations. Always remember to consider the albatross. And I’ll assume that you’ve already passed the hurdle of the paper application.

My general take is that if you’re being interviewed, chances are you tick all the basic boxes and the organization is at least considering hiring you. Basically, you meet all the technical requirements; the interview will be about how you approach problems, and other things that can’t be easily assessed on paper.

I always advise folks to think of the sorts of questions the interview panel is likely to ask, and how you might answer them.

Usually, there is some sort of fact-based questions pertinent to the job. For a recent post about marine protected areas (MPAs), we asked which international agreements/treaties were important for MPA designation. The purpose here is to see that you know your stuff (or at least where to look for it). The interview panel will likely have various keywords that they’re looking for here (or their general gists), so there can be a right/wrong answer.

There is often a problem solving part of the interview. “How would you do X”? These are almost always technical in nature, and interview panels will probably be looking for broad grasp of how you approach a problem. This could be analysis, data manipulation, supervision, … the content depends on what the job specification includes. No right/wrong answers here, but trying to understand how you might do in the work environment.

And there are usually a couple of more personal questions. Why did you apply for this job? What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness? We ask these, or similar variations, almost every time. In these cases, there are no right or wrong answers, but are about seeing how your self-assessment might match up against what your referees might say about you (we often ask referees similar questions). Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, so the “I can’t think of any” cop-out isn’t advisable.

In all cases, look for “added value” – moving beyond the question to the next logical step. And if at all possible, use concrete examples of how you’ve done X (or similar to X) in the past successfully, e.g., “We did something similar in a recent paper…”. And in all cases, specific, tangible examples are to be encouraged (yay evidence!).

Lastly, we always give candidates an opportunity to ask questions of the panel, so it’s always good to prepare a few queries in a couple of areas – technical specifications about the job like start/decision dates, questions about resources available, like computing, employment policies and benefits, scope of the job and possibility of branching out, details about the ultimate goals or deliverables, etc.

As I said, these are highly directed towards those looking for work in the non-academic conservation sector, but some of the themes are likely to be broadly applicable based on my experiences in academia as well. And feel free to add your 2¢ in the comments below!

Writing retreats

Tags

hiking, writing

One of the things I certainly struggle with now that I’m in a job that involves managing people and programs as much as doing Actual Science™ is finding time to write. About 18 months ago, a colleague forwarded this post from Thesis Whisperer on how to write 10,000 words a day. The secret: turning off distractions, working in a mutually supportive group, and editing later. It’s called Shut Up And Write (or SUAW), because that’s what you do. We’ve merged it with the Pomodoro Technique, and do 25 minutes of writing, with a 5-10 minute break, and repeat 4 times in a morning or afternoon about once every 3 weeks.

But sometimes, that’s just not enough.

In 2015, we had a 6-month expedition to Henderson Island which generated a metric boatload of data. Now, 6 months after the expedition ended, we’d had a preliminary look through the data, and outlined what we thought were the sensible papers that would come out of the trip. We just needed to crunch some data and write some papers.

So I went hiking in Switzerland.

Well, I actually went to a friend’s house, where he, I, and another colleague spent about 2 weeks crunch data, writing papers, and hiking in the Alps and the countryside. We’d get up at about 0630, work for a bit, have breakfast, work for a bit more, and then head outside for 3 or 4 hours, work a bit before supper, and a bit after supper. We still put in at least 8 hours each day on “work”, recharge mid-day (often discussing results, angles for papers, strategies for analysis, and implications of findings along the way). And it was amazingly productive. The last time I had so many related papers in such an advanced stage of preparation (all are now just about complete first drafts for coauthors, if not further along) was in the heady days of my Ph.D.

Now, I realize that I was very lucky in that the only cost of doing this was a train ticket (along with the mental anguish of Paris’s Gare du Nord, and the occasional overly vocal football/soccer fan on the Eurostar), and my boss and workplace was also highly supportive of me basically putting my other work responsibilities largely on hold for 2 weeks (we had only intermittent email, and weren’t checking phones for messages). During my Ph.D. in Newfoundland, especially towards the end, I lamented that there wasn’t a nice saltbox in Trepassey where grad students could go and write up their theses.

So if you’re a PI or department head or anyone else who manages people who need concerted time to write, try Shut Up And Write, and throw in the occasional writing retreat. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

How to apply for a field job

Tags

field work, job applications, jobs

I’ve hired well over a dozen field technicians in the last 10 years, and have just wrapped up this year’s recruitment.  Below are some thoughts on what you can do to increase the likelihood of success in a job competition, and also some advice on whether to apply in the first place.  You should also read this advice from Auriel Fournier, which hits many of the same points.  Like Auriel’s post, these are things I look for when I’m hiring; other places likely differ.

 

Don’t be generic

I receive a fair number of what I call “Dear Sir/Madam” applications.  These tend to go along the lines of “Dear Sir/Madam, I am interested in applying for the advertised position in your organization”.  It’s rather obvious that little thought has likely gone into the application, as it doesn’t mention the job, organization, or other details specifically.  This “fire broadly and see what sticks” approach is a waste of time.  It’s not that difficult to personalize job applications, even within a generic framework, and “Dear Sir/Madam” applications go to the bottom of the pile.

 

The skills

Most job postings are looking for people with a given skill set, whether it be bird banding/ringing, data management, blood sampling, or operating specific equipment.  It’s important in your cover letter to go through each of these and demonstrate how you fit the criteria.  The first thing I do when advertising a job is make a spreadsheet with all the different skills I’m looking for.  When I start looking through applications, I check off which of the requirements each applicant has.  Your chances of getting an interview and being successful are very small if you have the necessary skills or experience the job is looking for (or you don’t clearly demonstrate these in your cover letter).

Use the same wording as the job advert. If the job requires someone with bird banding experience, a paragraph/sentence about how long you’ve been banding, which species/species groups, and roughly how many individuals would be a useful thing to include.

 

Location & wage

The assumption is that, if you’re applying for a job, you would accept the position if it were offered.  I was advised in grad school to “apply for everything”, which is not a strategy I recommend.  As a postdoc, I had no intention of working in the US, so I didn’t apply for any jobs in the US. Doing so was a waste of my (and the hiring committee’s) time.  Likewise, if you have no intention of accepting the position at the wage advertised, then don’t apply.  This is usually determined by an internal salary scale or the size of the grant.

 

Follow instructions

In my most recent job competition, I asked for a cover letter, CV, and 3 references (with phone numbers) as a single PDF, yet about 15% of applicants didn’t follow this requirement.  Multiple files, different formats, only 2 references, no phone numbers, … you name it.  Not only is there likely a good reason for these sorts of requirements, but it can also act as a screening mechanism, much like Van Halen’s “No Brown M&M’s” clause – if you didn’t follow these instructions, it doesn’t bode well for the rest.

 

Check with your referees

I don’t like wasting referees’ time, so it’s unlikely that I’d contact them if you weren’t being interviewed (which generally means you have a good shot at the position).  So make sure your referees are current, and can speak to your strengths for the job required. This might mean (gasp, shock, horror) that your referees differ depending on the job.  While I appreciate that your 3rd-year invertebrate anatomy prof can speak quite highly of your academic abilities, are they the most suitable person when applying for a field job?

Make sure your referees also know you’re applying, either for a particular post, or just generally on the job market, so that they’re aware they may be contacted by potential employers.

I don’t simply ask referees “So, how was X at doing job Y for you?”  I’m interested in their take on your strengths and weaknesses, whether they’d hire you again, and how you stack up against others that held that sort of post before, for example.

 

The interview

If you’re being interviewed, it generally means you have the technical skills to complete the job to the required standard, and the decision is down to other factors, such as personality, how well you’re likely to get on with other team members, or how you’d react in various situations.

Before the interview, think about what questions are likely to come up.  I’m less likely to ask you about your technical skills (I can generally assess those from the application package).  I generally propose a few scenarios, followed by asking “What would you do?”  There’s no wrong answer, and some of the questions may not seem relevant to the job at hand, but they will tell me something of the person that a CV and cover letter can’t convey.

I’m also very likely to ask what you think your greatest weakness is.  This isn’t an attempt to weasel out your flaws, but to get your perspective on your own professional development.

During the interview, take notes of what was asked, and your general answers. This will help you prepare for other interviews in the future, and the task of writing the questions down can help solidify your answers.  You should also be prepared to ask some questions of the interviewer about the post, or the process.  This shows a certain level of engagement with the application, and that you’ve given it thought between the application and interview.

If the interview is by phone or Skype, pick a quiet room where you’re unlikely to be interrupted by pets, family, traffic, or other disturbances, and do your best to minimize any technical glitches.  If in person or video conference, dress professionally.

 

There are many other posts about job interview tips and tricks, and these are just a few that I’ve had come through my mind in this latest round of recruitment that might not be covered as extensively elsewhere.  I think it can be summarized by these three points:

1. Demonstrate explicitly in your application how you satisfy the criteria
2. Provide referees who can speak to the pertinent aspects of your career for the position
3. Be calm, professional, and engaged with the interview process

 

It’s as easy* as that!

 

Footnote – “fit”

My biggest frustration on the job market was being technically qualified, and being interviewed (or at least long-listed), but in the end unsuccessful because of “fit”.  This can be used for any variety of reasons, some more unsavoury than others (like the exclusion of women or people of colour), but for many field jobs, it’s an important aspect as living/working conditions are likely to be very close/demanding, or for a long period of time in isolation. Having a team get on well with each other is very important.  “Fit” should only be considered once the technical skills have been assessed.

 

Footnote the second – online presence

Chances are, I’ll Google long-listed applicants in a professional capacity (are you on Twitter, or Google Scholar? Do you have a website?). I won’t stalk you on Facebook (though other employers may).  Be aware of what you put online.

— — —

*a bit tongue in cheek. For each job, there are far more qualified applicants than there are positions, so try not to despair if you’re not successful.

Canadian government postdocs: revived (well, sort of)

Tags

government, postdoc, postdoctoral fellowship, postdoctoral research pilot program, visiting fellowships

I wrote before about the demise of the Visiting Fellowship program, which placed postdocs in Canadian government research labs, and used NSERC as a middleman (middle-agency?).  Recently, the employment practices around this arrangement, particularly whether postdocs were entitled to benefits.  An employment tribunal reasoned that they were, and the program shuttered (though all current VFs were fine through the remainder of their tenure).

Now, it comes to my attention that an open-ended competition for the Postdoctoral Research Pilot Program (PRP) has been posted on the Government of Canada jobs site.  My guess, and those of some informed government colleagues, is that this is the replacement for the old VF program.  But there has been no announcement, no information page, nothing.

Some other interesting queries… all government jobs are classified based on the broad category and salary scale.  Two important ones for our purposes here are RES and EG.  RES is a Research Scientist, and there are 5 levels (RES-5 being the highest). EGs are scientific technicians, with EG-7 being the highest level.  How are PRPs to be classified?  The old VF program scaled salary to n% of the entry level RES-1 (I think it was 85-90%).  If the new PRPs are to be classified (and they would be, as government employees), an entry RES-1 seems most likely.  This is huge, as the base salary in 2013 (the last year of the current collective agreement) is $53,161 (link; search for “SE-RES-1”).  That’s a big improvement on the $49k of the VF program.  It’s even bigger if it includes benefits, which are quite significant in a government job (pension, medical/dental, etc).  So the actual cost goes up considerably.

Where will this new money be found?  Previously, the VF program paid postdocs from their immediate supervisor’s operational budget.  I wonder if the benefits side of things will be similarly covered, or whether that comes from higher up in the department.  And what about unionization? RES positions are represented by PIPSC, and the current agreement is up for renewal.  Granted PIPSC isn’t known to strike as often as the other major federal government labour union (PSAC), but who knows what the future will bring.

One last, yet troubling, word.  The advertisement linked above excludes two of the most science-heavy departments: Fisheries & Oceans Canada, and Environment Canada.  Sources have told me that there continues to be no internal / government postdoc option in these departments, and no indication that one will be appearing soon.  With an already limited pool of postdoc funding, the loss of the VF program, and unavailability of the PRP in all departments puts further strain on PhD graduates in Canada, and especially those who want experience in the public service.

Possibly pedantic points: scientific names

Tags

pedant, scientific names

When it comes to certain things, I am a pedant. Not the annoying beat-you-over-the-head type of pedant, but the type that has been known to geek out over methods for reporting taxonomic authorities (it’s all in the parentheses).

This weekend, I had two related thoughts about something that many of us biologists use on a regular basis – those agreed-upon names, comprising species and genus, that transcend our own “common names”.  The first question is what, exactly, we should call them?

It’s rather common to refer to “Alca torda” as the Latin name for the Razorbill, but a more proper title would be the bird’s scientific name. Not all scientific names are Latin. Some are Greek, Arabic, or even Swahili. In this case, Alca is Icelandic or Norse for “auk”*. Calling “Alca torda” the Razorbill’s Latin name is akin referring to all lightbulbs as “fluorescent”; some bulbs are, indeed, fluorescent, while others are not, yet they are all lightbulbs.  Some scientific names are Latin, while many are not, yet they are all scientific names.

 

Another oddity, and one for which I don’t have an answer, deals with parentheses around such scientific names (we’ll leave the discussion of brackets and braces for another day).  While it’s all well and good to talk about Alca torda eggs, and Diomedea dabennena diet, or even Alle alle altitudes, it’s more common to call them Razorbill eggs, Tristan Albatross diet, and Dovekie** altitudes.  It makes our science more accessible, even among specialists.  While I know that a Fluttering Shearwater is Puffins gavia, it’s different from a Great Shearwater, which is Puffinus gravis. And someone who isn’t up on their classification of the Procellariidae might be easily confused, or have trouble following along.

So for better or worse, we often use common names, and insert the scientific name at each species’ first mention.  But how we do this is inconsistent, and I don’t know if there is a right way.  Some options are:

• Razorbill (Alca torda)
• Razorbill Alca torda

I tend to prefer the first, as the italicization doesn’t often render well in some typefaces (notably sans-serif), and it’s easier for my brain to parse the scientific and common names.  It also identifies to me that it’s an aside, and we will use “Razorbill” as our collective shorthand for “Alca torda L. 1758″.

I realize that this is likely discipline specific – some taxa simply do not have common names for all species, and some disciplines have a culture of using scientific names.  Some journals insist on one of the styles above, but the decision appears to be editorial or stylistic, and not founded in any actual logic.  I don’t know what that logic is, but perhaps some fellow pedants could point it out.

 

*You can check out Roger Lederer & Carol Burr’s fantastic book “Latin for bird lovers“, and ignore the gross error in the title, as I do.

**we’ll discuss common English bird names later.

Manuscript necromancy: challenges of raising the dead

Tags

data management, manuscript necromancy, manuscripts, necromancy, publishing, students, writing

If you’ve been doing research for any length of time, you probably have data that aren’t doing anything but taking up space on your hard drive.  Stick around a little longer, and you’ll eventually have entire projects with half-written (or even completely written) manuscripts that, for one reason or another (or indeed no reason at all) have fallen by the wayside.  At some time in the future, you’re organizing files, or chatting with a colleague and you suddenly think “Oh yeah. Whatever happened to that?”.  Or, if you’re a PI/manager, you’ve had students write their theses/reports, which should have/could be manuscripts, but aren’t.

I’ve dubbed the process of (re)discovering a dead manuscript, and breathing new life into it manuscript necromancy. I think the comparison works.  And like true resurrection from the dead* manuscript necromancy isn’t without its challenges and limitations, and you might need some … interesting tools to get the job done.

I should point out that in a perfect world, necromancy wouldn’t be needed, and all data would be formatted beautifully with wonderful metadata and reproducible analysis scripts.  But this world is far from perfect.  This is the scientific dark arts. Hold on to your tracked changes, boys and girls, we’re going in, and it could get ugly.

 

Slash and burn

Student theses aren’t often written with tight language, good grammar, and in the style of a journal article.  There’s frequently lots of exposition and background, a verbose writing style, mixed tenses, inconsistent formatting, … the list goes on.  The first step is to go through the current draft with a take-no-prisoners edit to remove unneeded text, straighten out the grammar and style, and to give yourself a general feel for the manuscript.  This is, often, the most labour intensive part of the job.  A recent manuscript we resurrected took me 3 full days of editing, which ultimately reduced its length by almost half.

My next step is to tackle the references.  Theses often cite everything under the sun (Smith et al. 1758), regardless of how useful it is (Jones 1877).** 9 (or 10) times out of 10, the references are incomplete or missing, and almost certainly aren’t in your reference manager of choice (let alone the journal’s style, but that’s another argument for another day).  One trick is to look for references that are only in one place, and ask whether they are truly needed. If they are, keep them. If not, away they go.

The last item on this first step is to look at the tables and figures.  Are they all needed? Are they all necessary?  Are they clear?  Hopefully the answer is yes, or requires minimal changes (though see some spooky possibilities below).

Congratulations! You’re now a Level 1 Manuscript Necromancer (and are entitled to the post-nominals M.N. in certain circles).

 

The festering wound

But a manuscript can still be alive, though severely wounded.  In some cases, you’ll discovery (to your utter dismay) that you need to re-analyze data, or re-draw a figure.  Both of these require necromancy of the most troubling form: data.

Data management has been improving as  whole ***, but student thesis data is not known to be the most friendly for outsiders to wrangle.  You just have to check out #otherpeoplesdata on Twitter to get a taste of the frustrations.

While your initial reaction would be to re-create the analyses done in the original draft, and obtain the same results before moving on, I strongly recommend against it unless the data are well archived with appropriate metadata and explanations of the analysis (in the form of notes, an R script, etc).  You will not get the same results, and you will tear out your hair (and possible scalp) looking for it.  The situation is already less than ideal, so cut your losses, and use what you have.  By all means, cull anything that’s rubbish (and document it!), and then proceed with your analysis/graph.

Level 2 completed.

 

Communicating with the dead

One of the biggest challenges of necromancy is in the final stages. You have a draft with the right analyses & figures, and you’re ready to submit. Assuming that someone else started this science (be they a student, technician, contractor, or sorcerer’s apprentice), I’d argue that there’s an obligation to include them as a coauthor.  The exception might be if the end product bears no resemblance to the original, but that is less about manuscript necromancy, and more manuscript transfiguration (a topic for another post).

Make every effort to get in touch with the originator so they can a) see what changes you’ve made, b) approve of them, and c) know your plans for the paper.  This means old email addresses, good old Google searching, contacts through third parties (e.g., friends of friends) and the like.  And keep records of these in case you can’t track them down.  If you can’t, and have made every effort to find them, they should still be listed as a coauthor. Most journals require you to state that all authors have read and approved the submission, so in this case, my pragmatic argument is that, unless there were major changes to the conclusions, their first draft is implied approval****. If there were major changes, you absolutely must track them down, or remove them from the authorship list.

 

Rest and recharge

Manuscript necromancy can be more work and is certainly more exhausting than writing a manuscript yourself.  Don’t resurrect more than one manuscript at a time, and don’t do more than two or three in a row.  You need time to recharge your mind, and to many resurrections in a short period can lead to botched necromancy (and no one wants that) because of reduced effort, particularly in the Slash & Burn phase.

 

Preventing (manuscript) death in the first place

The best solution, though, is to avoid necromancy in the first place. This isn’t always possible, though, and just because something doesn’t get written up doesn’t make it less Science.  Some things, though, can vastly improve the chances of successful necromancy, and are good research practices to boot:

• encourage good writing. This isn’t easy, and Terry McGlynn has some good thoughts on this issue more broadly.
• give good, timely feedback (which increases the chance of a successful manuscript before it dies for the first time)
• encourage good data management.  The easier it is for someone else to piece together the analysis, the better chances of necromancy, especially when deeper techniques of the academic dark arts are required.
• encourage good data management.  Have I said this yet? It’s sort of important.

 

Glass houses, stones, and all that

One last note – manuscript necromancy need not apply to just someone else’s work, but is equally applicable to your own work from the past that’s being revisited. The same tools and techniques (and problems) apply. In this sort of case, your familiarity with the manuscript may be overwhelming to your necromancy techniques.  Having an outsider read it over as a friendly reviewer is strongly recommended.

 

Wishing you all much success in your exploration of the scientific dark arts.

— — —

*well, not exactly “true”, sensu stricto, but more widely known

**see what I did there? Not exaggerating either.

***or at least I hope it is.

****ONLY in the absence of actually approving it, mind you, and as an absolute last resort.