Are we the problem?
I asked LinkedIn research friends last week for their biggest research productivity barriers. Two comments stuck out to me. These comments didn’t stick out because they were weird, but because they were so mundane. Slow collaborators and slow journal responses.
To this day the thought of making someone wait for me on a manuscript makes the little people pleaser inside my head wildly uncomfortable. But the longer I’ve been in this job the more it’s happened. Sometimes administrative responsibilities and committee work have gotten in the way. Other times I’m teaching, and that needs my full attention. And sometimes I know the manuscript needs so much that finding a big enough block of time to get my comments right is hard. I realize that this wait is frustrating for my students and colleagues because they are also balancing many competing demands just like I am.
This brings me to wait times for journal replies. In my fields (pharmacy and health services research) it is not uncommon to wait for 6-12 months for peer reviews to be returned the first time (after waiting up to 6 months for the editor to acknowledge your original submission). And since for most of us it takes at least one round of reviews you can be looking at 18-24 months before an article is published.
Of course I’ve not yet mentioned your addressing the reviews. Wading through the often-contradictory comments and trying figure out what you are going to do takes time. Time to “get over” the sometimes-rude feeling comments. Time to figure out which changes are warranted, or where you need to adjust your language to make your point clearer. Time to wait for your collaborators to return comments. And then still more time for more reviews.
As I thought more about the original LinkedIn comments, I began to see my days as endless loops of waiting for someone to do their part so I can continue with mine, all the while someone else is waiting on me for their part. I ended up feeling was dizzy (😵💫) and unmotivated.
Does that mean we should quit because universities are giant bureaucracies that struggle to change even when they know they should? Not today! Despite how frustrating waiting can be I find there to be tremendous value in the collaborative process. As I have written about before, I have some strengths, but I lack many others. I need a team of people with differing perspectives so my work can have the largest impact possible.
This extends to the peer review process as well. Peer reviewers determine if we’ve made a good enough case for our work to be considered valuable. It’s their job to poke at holes where they exist, make suggestions for improvements, and hold us accountable for how the work was done and described. Without these efforts we wouldn’t be sure if we are headed towards real knowledge.
So, what can be done to make waiting slightly less terrible? Here are a few ideas I’ve implemented:
1. Be the kind of collaborator YOU would want to work with. This means knowing your prior obligations, what you can shift around, and sometimes saying “no” to opportunities. Not right now ¹ never.
This means clear communication with your collaborators. Not everyone works the way you do (or at the pace you work). No one can read your mind. If you need the manuscript submitted by the end of the month, say so (but also be willing to accept the extra work you must pick up from your team members).
Finally, this means doing what you said you said you would do. Follow-though is EVERYTHING.
2. BE A REVIEWER. As a former associate journal editor, I can attest to how hard it is to find people to review manuscripts. It was not uncommon to ask 30-40 people for reviews before you get just 3 people to say yes. This means more time for YOUR manuscript too. A good rule of thumb, shared by one of my colleagues, is to aim for at least 3 reviews for every paper you publish. So, if you publish 3 papers a year that means 9 reviews. That might feel like a lot, but I promise the more you practice reviewing the faster you get 😉.
3. Have multiple streams of work and teams of collaborators. Look I know no one wants to hear, “just do more work”, but please hear me out. Having just one thread of work, with one team of collaborators is a risk. If someone gets sick, gets married, changes jobs, has a kid, or anything else that has been known to happen in life, YOUR work is held up. Multiple streams of work allow you to always be productive.
Honestly this isn’t where I thought I’d end up when I started writing this post (I was feeling a little more 😡 a couple of days ago I guess). But here’s the thing, WE CAN’T CONTROL ANYONE BUT OURSELVES. If we want better collaborators, how can WE show them to be better? If we want faster journal turnaround times, how can WE help that process go faster? Though I sometimes wish these things could be someone else’s responsibility, I’m glad they’re mine because it means I can take the steps needed to make it better.
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