9 and a half weeks

[spoonless]

I turned in the forms a few days ago to apply for finally receiving my Ph-Dizzle. My defense is tenatively scheduled for May 26th... yup, that's right. After nearly 6 years of work, I am exactly 9 and a half weeks away from being done. That is, assuming I stay focused and get it all done. Oh yeah, maybe it's a good time to start writing my dissertation soon! Seriously, I initially budgeted myself about 2 weeks for that, but now I'm starting to get paranoid that it may take longer.

Oh yeah, and PhysRev has finally accepted the paper I submitted in December. In February, they sent me a notice saying that they were rejecting it (because the first referee was a dick)... and I had to fight them on it, but fortunately the second referee agreed with me, so it's all good now. I may make a friends-only post with more details on this... I was pretty worried about it for a while, but it feels really good to have been vindicated in the end. Apparently, when you try to publish without someone else famous on the paper, they have a much tougher time believing that you're saying anything interesting. My faith in peer review has been considerably shaken by this whole incident... at the very least, I have realized how subjective the whole thing is.

As ikioi said to me recently, anyone who has come up with anything really important or world-changing has been told at least once that their ideas are completely worthless. So perhaps the best reaction to being told that is just to say "oh good, now I've got that one out of the way." :)

Comments

[veleda.livejournal.com]

what now that you are Dr. Spoonless?

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

The same thing happened to me, though the paper never got published. Fortunately, the paper became my dissertation and will probably some day be a better paper as a result of the rejection, but I really do think it was publishable as it was. The problem is that this one guy keeps popping up and causing trouble. But everyone in the field knows that's how he is.

Anyway, good luck on finishing up!

[fermi.livejournal.com]

I wish you luck in your writing. I had to have my dissertation done before my defense, which had to be finished one month before the final version was due. That month was for corrections my committee was sure to want, and I just finished. The actual writing took me 3 months of 7 day weeks and 12-15 hour days of just endless typing.

My advise, start early. Better to be done early than not finished in time.

[killtacular.livejournal.com]

congratulations on the PhD-getting, at least! That does suck about the publishing, but ... being able to write a dissertation in two weeks surely makes up for that inconvenience :)

[flamingnerd.livejournal.com]

"Ph-Dizzle" - i like this!

congrats on almost being there!

I'm a little freaked about peer review too. I wonder how well it can be done when people have both so little time, and are ignorant of how the work is done. I know you're supposed to get experts in your area looking over your stuff, but it often doesn't happen that way.

[moonaysl.livejournal.com]

There's a pretty famous story about Jim Gates about a very fucked up peer review situation. I think it's discussed briefly in an easy-to-find interview somewhere on the internets. It's definitely in the really, really really long book about the Black experience at MIT, which is basically just a compilation of biographies/interviews.

We ran into trouble with our paper because our referee turned out to be the guy who invented the model we were taking apart. It seems like that's not necessarily peer reviewing in good faith ...

[ankh-f-n-khonsu.livejournal.com]

My faith in peer review has been considerably shaken by this whole incident... at the very least, I have realized how subjective the whole thing is.

If you look for anecdotes, you will find legion. The process means well, but is far from "value free".