the fractal nature of review articles
Sep. 4th, 2007 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianI thought I was mostly done with this paper weeks ago. Nope. My sketchy first draft was a pale shadow of what it needs to be. At that point, I had read n other papers, so I knew what I was going to say in my paper and had written a shortish version without references. Then I went to fill that out -- putting in the citations should be easy, right? Ha. I had to read approximately n more papers for each section of the paper to figure out whom to cite where (and why). And then I went to the paragraph level and found that I had to read n papers for each of those! Maybe this is different if you have read the important papers in a field for years and years. Anyway, I am still working at paragraph level but I feel safe in saying that this fractality bottoms out at sentence level, where the largest number of papers I've had to read per unit has been three.
My biggest problem with the sketchy first draft is that when I mailed it to my PI she said nothing. (When I asked about it, she said it was "too drafty" to give useful comments on, so at least I got amusement along with my frustration.) It's similar to the problem I had with her today, actually. We had talked about my maybe doing a rotation in her lab during fall quarter, because she's losing both techs and one postdoc, and the initial replacement tech washed out; it doesn't make sense to work as an assistant with her but rotate somewhere else, which is what I'd originally offered. She wanted me to spend another quarter with her only if I thought it was beneficial to me, which is a fair point, so I thought about it. There's a project I've worked on a lot but not quite finished, so I figured if I could finish that it'd be a nice publication credit. Another lab has done the bulk of the work, and I don't have contact with them; they may not want this info any more, or may have duplicated it. I ran this idea past PI, who does talk to them, to check whether my idea made sense.
When I said hi to her this afternoon, she jumped in to answer my mail in person... but then didn't say anything directly. I now know that she is pretty busy during fall quarter, she doesn't think that project would be enough for me to do (I had assumed we both knew that), what I'd suggested isn't enough for a co-authorship, and plants take time to grow. I am thinking she doesn't like the idea. When I suggested aloud that she didn't like the idea, deflection occurred. Argh.
I got the impression that (1) she would actually rather not bother with me right now or next quarter and (2) she doesn't like making plans cooperatively -- she really seemed to want me to have thought out every aspect of what I wanted to do before talking to her about it, whereas I am more comfortable bouncing ideas off her and getting information she has and I don't, then making plans. (The heaps of praise she places on a former grad student, who had more than one mentor and thus worked basically without input from PI at all, accorded with my impression too.)
So then I thought, well, I really want a mentor I can plan with; that's what kinda turned me off one of the other profs I interviewed with, who seemed to be so hands-off about student projects that I didn't think I would know where to start.
And then I thought, am I now going to put too many expectations on everyone I rotate with, that they be super-mentor who meets all my needs? A thing to watch out for, but of course when I actually think about it I know I don't have to have the perfect relationship with everyone as long as I'm not completely cut off, and the danger of that seems small.
My awesome news for the day is this: I found a begonia with grouped but functional stomata! Yes!! (A book has a photo of groups of 3-4 stomata that are still functional, but the credit was just Begonia and I need to take original photos for this article. I've been on an epidermal scavenger hunt since, and because there are a zillion kinds of begonia and the book's author died recently, I wasn't at all sure I'd find this.) PI was preoccupied, but I showed both postdocs and then PI came and admired it too. Yay! The problem now is that the epidermis is very bumpy so hard to photograph, but I can cope with that one way or another.
The big winner: Rex begonia "Roberta" (looks similar to "Shamus")
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to make a celebratory apple pie with clustered steam-vents.
My biggest problem with the sketchy first draft is that when I mailed it to my PI she said nothing. (When I asked about it, she said it was "too drafty" to give useful comments on, so at least I got amusement along with my frustration.) It's similar to the problem I had with her today, actually. We had talked about my maybe doing a rotation in her lab during fall quarter, because she's losing both techs and one postdoc, and the initial replacement tech washed out; it doesn't make sense to work as an assistant with her but rotate somewhere else, which is what I'd originally offered. She wanted me to spend another quarter with her only if I thought it was beneficial to me, which is a fair point, so I thought about it. There's a project I've worked on a lot but not quite finished, so I figured if I could finish that it'd be a nice publication credit. Another lab has done the bulk of the work, and I don't have contact with them; they may not want this info any more, or may have duplicated it. I ran this idea past PI, who does talk to them, to check whether my idea made sense.
When I said hi to her this afternoon, she jumped in to answer my mail in person... but then didn't say anything directly. I now know that she is pretty busy during fall quarter, she doesn't think that project would be enough for me to do (I had assumed we both knew that), what I'd suggested isn't enough for a co-authorship, and plants take time to grow. I am thinking she doesn't like the idea. When I suggested aloud that she didn't like the idea, deflection occurred. Argh.
I got the impression that (1) she would actually rather not bother with me right now or next quarter and (2) she doesn't like making plans cooperatively -- she really seemed to want me to have thought out every aspect of what I wanted to do before talking to her about it, whereas I am more comfortable bouncing ideas off her and getting information she has and I don't, then making plans. (The heaps of praise she places on a former grad student, who had more than one mentor and thus worked basically without input from PI at all, accorded with my impression too.)
So then I thought, well, I really want a mentor I can plan with; that's what kinda turned me off one of the other profs I interviewed with, who seemed to be so hands-off about student projects that I didn't think I would know where to start.
And then I thought, am I now going to put too many expectations on everyone I rotate with, that they be super-mentor who meets all my needs? A thing to watch out for, but of course when I actually think about it I know I don't have to have the perfect relationship with everyone as long as I'm not completely cut off, and the danger of that seems small.
My awesome news for the day is this: I found a begonia with grouped but functional stomata! Yes!! (A book has a photo of groups of 3-4 stomata that are still functional, but the credit was just Begonia and I need to take original photos for this article. I've been on an epidermal scavenger hunt since, and because there are a zillion kinds of begonia and the book's author died recently, I wasn't at all sure I'd find this.) PI was preoccupied, but I showed both postdocs and then PI came and admired it too. Yay! The problem now is that the epidermis is very bumpy so hard to photograph, but I can cope with that one way or another.
The big winner: Rex begonia "Roberta" (looks similar to "Shamus")
Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to make a celebratory apple pie with clustered steam-vents.
