46. The Rollercoaster of Manuscript Publication
The process of manuscript publication, whether it’s your first time being lead or you’re a seasoned published author, is a rollercoaster. You go from excited to overwhelmed, proud once your work has been submitted to annoyed or defensive when you read reviews or comments. And then it’s all over, and you feel numb to it all.
This week, I’m diving into each stage of the publication process to help you see why it’s feeling like such a rollercoaster for you, and what you can do about it. It can often feel like it’s out of your hands, especially if you’re working with other people or relying on contributions, but I’m offering a solution that will help you mitigate the discomfort and stress you’re experiencing.
Listen in to gain a deeper understanding of why the manuscript publication process feels like a rollercoaster. I’m laying out what might be happening at each stage, what managing your mind looks like in this context, and I’m offering new approaches for handling your experience differently in the future.
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What You Will Discover:
Why the process of manuscript publication can so often feel like a rollercoaster.
The different emotional phases of publication.
Why you’re experiencing these emotions at different stages.
How you might not be clear enough about your capacity to contribute.
What managing your mind looks like when you’re putting together a manuscript.
The systemic issues with academic journals.
Resources:
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77: Helping MPH Grads Figure Out What’s Next Through Mindset Coaching with Marissa McKool, MPH - The Public Health Millennial Career Stories Podcast
Full Episode Transcript:
If you're two to five years out of your MPH degree, love public health, but find yourself secretly unhappy at work and maybe even thinking about quitting your job, then this is the podcast for you. I'm Marissa McKool, host of the Thoughts Are Your Root Cause podcast. Join me each week as I share tips, tools, and resources to help you have the career you've always dreamed of without any of the stress you are experiencing right now. Come along.
Hi, everyone. It’s Monday morning if you’re listening to this of course the day it comes out. If you’re listening to it another day, welcome, whatever day it is, how are you? What’s the weather like? What’s going on? I’d love to hear from you all. I love when I get messages from you, you DM me on Instagram, or send me an email, or at LinkedIn, send me a message. I just love to hear from you all and how this podcast is helping you. And I love to feel like we’re connected. Every time I sit here and record I just think about you, and I just love you all so much.
So today we’re going to talk about manuscript publication which it’s funny as I was thinking about writing this episode I kind of was like, well, maybe this will be helpful. And as I wrote it I realized, holy shit, this is going to be so helpful. I just can’t wait for you all to hear it. I was kind of surprised myself as I wrote it of how useful this information is and linking understanding the process of publication to why it’s such a rollercoaster and have so many emotions and what can you do about it.
I wish someone would have gave me this podcast with this information when I first started publishing. And I will say I was very, very lucky. The first publication I was a part of was publishing my master’s, well, maybe not the first but the first where I was lead author was publishing my master’s thesis. And I was really, really lucky because my supervisor at my fellowship after I graduated my MPH helped me so much. Some of you might have had this experience.
In your MPH if you do a paper or a manuscript for your capstone or thesis you are guided through writing it to fit the requirements of the MPH which oftentimes are not the same as the requirements for a manuscript. And if you want to publish it you’re not really taught how to do that after you fulfill the requirements of your degree program. So, I was really lucky that my supervisor at my fellowship helped me figure out, okay, how do you submit, what journal to go to. And what is a revise and resubmit and how do you know?
And how do you respond to reviewer comments? And how do you determine authorship order? Without her I would have been so lost. So, Kim, if you’re out there, you’re probably not listening to this but thank you so much. And I know a lot of you don’t have that. So, what I thought would be helpful today is give you kind of a brief overview of the process of publishing. Some of you might know this like the back of your hand, that’s fine. But I still want to make sure to give some structure and understanding for those of you who don’t.
But mostly I’m going to be talking about what the experience is like, why it’s a rollercoaster and what to do about it. And so, for me, my goal going into public health and even in my degree program was never to publish. I know for a lot of folks it is, you want to be a researcher and you want to publish a lot and that’s great. It wasn’t really my goal, but it ended up happening several times. Several times I was coauthor, other times I was lead.
And every time I was a lead i.e., the first author or one of the leads, working with someone else largely on a paper, I went through this rollercoaster I’m about to describe. And this rollercoaster you do feel most intensely when you are leading either the writing, or creation of the paper, or even the logistics. When you are a coauthor, one of the coauthors who just reviews and gives feedback it’s much more relaxed and less of an up and down.
So, today’s episode can help you whether you’ve published a paper or not. I want to make that really clear because a lot of what I’m describing can be applied to when you’re writing large reports, whether it’s grant reports, or funder reports, or program reports, needs assessment or other big collaborative projects and it will be useful. Even if you’re a seasoned author, seasoned published author, this is part of your job, you do it all the time, this will still be useful. And it will also be useful if you never publish, even if you’re not sure you will publish.
So, no matter your work you will get something helpful out of this episode. And I do want you to know, if you tend to be a coauthor on papers or you are right now and you’re not leading a paper, it can be helpful for you to remember that the person who is leading on a paper is likely on this rollercoaster even if you’re not. And I think it’s just good to have that perspective of what your colleagues might be going through.
So, I call this episode the rollercoaster of publishing because you go through so many emotions in the process of publishing. From excited that the important work is going to be out there, to overwhelmed at how much work it actually takes to put it together, to proud when you submit it, to annoyed, defensive, or frustrated, when you read a review or comments, to relieved once you do the final thing and it’s all over. And then sometimes you feel numb or neutral, once it’s published because you’re like, I am fucking over this.
So today I’m going to talk about all those stages and help you see why you’re feeling any of those emotions, understand what’s causing it and what you can do about it. And those of you who have published before know publishing a manuscript can take anywhere from six months to several years start to finish, whether that’s because the paper’s been denied, and you have to find somewhere else to submit it or because the journal’s really slow. I have had that experience, all of the above it all can be frustrating and quite a rollercoaster.
So, I’m going to categorize as I talk through the process into emotions actually. And then I’ll describe what the steps are in kind of that phase. But I really want to highlight the importance of what’s so challenging about publishing a manuscript is actually what we’re feeling as we’re going through it. So, one of the first phases is exciting. And this is the period where someone decides it would be good to try to publish and you figure out the logistics. And we’ll talk more in detail about each of these stages, but I just want to give an overview first.
And then it goes into overwhelmed, writing, and editing, and submitting logistics, all of that. And then pride for being submitted. And then when you get your revise and resubmit a lump of resistance comes up. Sorry, you all, I don’t know if you can hear what’s going on outside but someone is moving into our complex so there is a moving truck outside. There’s lots happening in my complex all the time, garbage trucks, plane going overhead, somewhat unavoidable.
Anyways, the phase of lump of resistance where a whole host of emotions come up. And this is during the revise and resubmit. And we’ll talk about what emotions those might be. And then there is the relieve stage where you are finally done with it and then kind of a neutral numbness when it’s published around the world. So, let’s talk more in detail about all those stages.
So, in the excited phase, well, first I want to say, some of you who have been publishing for a while and have been publishing as first, or lead, or primary author and doing a lot of the heavy lifting in publishing may no longer feel excited in this phase. You may feel dread actually when someone suggests to write a paper or when you know that’s what’s going to come of this grant. Likely that’s because you’ve published before and went through this rollercoaster.
The rollercoaster I’m going to talk about and all the emotions and the idea of getting back on that rollercoaster and raising your hand, let me get in line makes you hesitant. And I totally get that, but stay with me because this will still help you. So, in the excited phase someone decides it would be good to try to publish either you see a call from a paper for a specialty issue, or certain topics that they’re looking for. And someone on the team thinks our work fits, let’s put something together.
Or you’re finishing a research project and you decide it would be good to find somewhere to publish. And so, you’re looking for places to publish. Or you’re doing work that you know, as soon as you get a grant or as soon as you start the project, the team wants to eventually publish. And this applies to whether it’s quantitative or qualitative research or publishing a needs assessment, or a program plan. There’s so much that you can publish.
So, no matter what you’re publishing those are kind of happens where you figure out are we going to publish? And then during the excited phase there’s the logistics you have to figure out. So, who will write what and who will review? And the expectations and the authorship order, who has final say on edits? Who’s in charge of making sure it happens? The timeline, the writing and reviewing and all that.
So, part of the reason it’s exciting phase and you might be feeling excited is because the prospect of your work, of the team’s work, of the impact, of the research, of the program plan being out in the world and having an impact where other people learn from it or more programs replicate it. That’s exciting. You believe in the work and that it’s important to share. And you’re excited maybe even just about being an author and having that listed on your resumé or being the first author for the first time or whatnot.
Where this excitement can get you into a little bit of trouble, if you are not clear, and this can happen even if you’re seasoned at publishing. Because when you’re excited, and honestly, even if you’re not excited, you can get yourself into trouble by not doing these things. You can often take on or agree to take on more than you really can. You don’t want to say no either because you’re stoked on the paper or you’re worried what others will think. And later on, this can bite you in the butt because in the next stage which we’ll talk about in a second, adds to your overwhelm.
And often what happens in this stage that kind of really sets the whole team, particularly the lead author up for some trouble down the line is you and the team do not make it crystal clear who does what and what are the expectations. Discussing authorship order can be awkward because some people care about it and some people don’t. And that’s a conversation for another day. But to be clear about who does what, setting clear expectation about who will be in charge of writing, who will be in charge of writing what section, who will be in charge of reviewing and editing.
What is the timeline. What are the expectations of getting the drafts done and getting your reviews back. And it’s important to be so clear because it’s challenging because some people don’t want to do that much and aren’t clear about it. Some people do want to contribute but aren’t clear about their capacity and you probably aren’t. I mean everyone does that. No one wants to have that really blunt cut and dried conversation of, “Okay, what are you committing to?” It’s funny, I really find that in publishing there’s some commitment phobia which is fine if you communicate that.
I don’t know if I have the capacity, or this is the exact capacity I have to contribute. We just tiptoe around that and it gets everyone in a mess. And what happens when you do that is you start writing the paper with vague and unclear expectations of who will do what, who is responsible for what, who’s committing at what level.
And then most likely if you’re the first author or one of the lead authors, or even if you’re not but you’re early career, a fellow or a student, unfortunately you end up having to pick up the slack or having that awkward and hard conversation in later stages when it’s already moving along. And this just results in more stress for you.
The solution here, and this is kind of where a lot of the stress that you can kind of control, and manage, and do something about comes in because the solution is you need to be super clear. I know I’ve said clear 1,000 times, but on what you can, will, or won’t do. And even if you think you’re communicating well, I’m guessing you’re not. Because saying, “I can help review”, is it not clear enough. You know what is? I only have two hours a week I can work on this. So much more specific and less vague, and very clean.
And if something comes up later where they’re asking you to do more you actually can say, “Remember, I said I only have two hours a week.” So, it’s best for you and the whole team. Also, you need to require that other people on the team get more clear on what they will do. Don’t accept, “Sure, I’ll help.” Find out what that means, how much, in what ways. So, you can say, “Okay, so Jenny has agreed to write the introduction but nothing more. And so and so has agreed to review the first draft and can get it to us if we give it to them within a week’s time.”
Or whatever it may be, just get so specific. And to do this you have to manage your mind because your brain is going to say, “It’s awkward, or you’re being bossy.” Oh, it’ll be fine, get over it. You don’t want to upset anyone. No. Ignore that brain, manage it, coach yourself. It’s going to be uncomfortable and that’s okay because discomfort now can reduce your overall overwhelm and stress later.
I cannot emphasize this enough and I really encourage you if you’re about to start writing a paper, or if you’re in kind of the beginning phases, relisten to that part because it’s so, so important. Because the next phase, overwhelm phase is going to be overwhelming even when you have clear expectations so don’t make it worse on yourself by not setting clear expectations for you and your whole team. And so, in the overwhelm phase it's writing and editing, and getting and incorporating feedback and then submitting it and all of those logistics.
And overwhelm in this phase comes from challenges that largely, there might be some others but I’m just going to talk about two, are related to time and other people. So, with the time piece you’ll find yourself worrying about the timeline, not having enough time to work on the paper, being behind and largely word count, that is a huge one. It seems innocent but it is such a source of stress especially when you’re the one leading the editing and kind of getting it finalized.
And it often can delay the paper either being submitted, or getting finalized, or getting people to review it, or whatever it may be. The word count, it’s a source of stress. The other piece is other people. So, dealing with coauthors who maybe aren’t responsive, who provide last minute, or late contributions, or late feedback, who provide comments and feedback that you find unhelpful or very limiting.
And then it’s also really challenging to pull together if there are conflicting feedback or disagreements among the authors, especially because sometimes you might be working on a team where the coauthors don’t know each other that well. It’s kind of just a collaboration between organizations or universities with different people who are related to maybe the data or the program. And not everyone works closely together. So, then you have to pull together everyone’s feedback that maybe it is conflicting.
And then you have to navigate and manage, and are personal relationships there that maybe aren’t built on strong rapport or a history of working together. So, in this phase you are going to want to think, you’re overwhelmed because of other people, because of the paper, because of the journal. And this is wrong. The cause of your overwhelm is your brain. It's not other people, it’s not time, it’s your thoughts about those things. And in this stage your brain is going to be going on, and on, and on with lots of chatter and narration.
It's going to sound like your brain’s saying, “They’re making this so much harder. If they think it needs so much work and have all these comments to give back, they need to make actual edits and not just comments.” This may or may not be a thought that I’ve had many times leading papers. My brain is also saying, yours probably has too, “I don’t have enough time to work on this. I don’t know how I’m going to get this all done. And this is unfair”, and many, many others. Those thoughts are what causes your overwhelm.
And the solution, so this may be redundant but if you’re a long time listener this shouldn’t surprise you. The solution is to manage your mind. So, what does that look like while putting together a manuscript? You need to separate your thoughts about time and other people so you can manage them separately. So, in the time category you are always in charge of your time. You can always say no to other work or always push other timelines back. You can even go back to the author team and say no to your section, or to the timeline.
You are in charge of your time, how you use it, how you create it, what you say yes and no to, how you schedule what you’re going to do, how distracted or focused you are. That’s 100% in your control. Now, other people, you’re not in charge of other people, you can’t control them. So, focus mentally less on what they are or aren’t doing. Focus more on where do you have power, where do you have choice. You can choose to keep complaining about someone not getting you feedback in time and choose not to work on the paper until they do in a form of protest in some way.
Or you can start incorporating other feedback even if someone on the team hasn’t given theirs. Maybe you’ll have to integrate theirs and there’ll be some fixing and some kind of going back, maybe not. But you have a choice, don’t forget that. So, in the overwhelm phase you really need to be aware of what you’re thinking because those thoughts are causing your overwhelm. And on next week’s episode actually I’m going to be doing a whole episode on tips for overwhelm, whether you’re having overwhelm about publishing or anything else. So that will also be useful.
But you need to be very clear with yourself that you’re overwhelmed because of your thoughts and then manage your mind. And so, once you’ve worked through that phase and gotten the paper done and submitted it you will go into the proud phase. This is you’ve finally submitted to the journal. And what you’ll want to do is feel proud for a second and then move on. Don’t do this. Let yourself be proud, don’t run from it, don’t rush it away, revel in it, soak in it, celebrate, treat yourself, be in awe, it is a proud moment.
A lot of work to get a paper to the point where you submit it to a journal. You’ve done a lot of mind management. You’ve had a lot of emotions. You’ve had to interpersonal management. There’s just a lot of work you’ve put into it. And do not dismiss that, celebrate that, be proud of yourself. And you’re going to have to do the work consciously to do that because your brain’s going to want to just move on.
So then what happens, journals can take a really long time to get their feedback back to you or their answer. So sometimes the next phase is, depending if there’s a special issue and the journal is really pushing to get something out sooner, they’ll be faster. Maybe they’ll be three months, four months. But sometimes it’s six months, eight months, I’ve even had it be longer than that. So, by the time you hear the response from the journal other stuff has come up. You have other work. You’ve kind of left that piece behind.
And then you get a response from a journal and a lot of resistance can come up in this phase. So, for those of you who don’t know what a revise and resubmit is. I’ve certainly done it before I was first author on a paper, my first one and luckily had someone who explained this to me. But it’s basically you’ll get an email that says, “We are not accepting your paper, here are the reviewer’s comments, address them and resubmit.” So, when I first saw that when I first did a paper, I was like, “We got rejected.” And I was told, “No, that’s just the way they word it.”
Basically, what they’re saying is, here, if you address the reviewer’s comments we will likely accept and publish it. And even if they don’t on the first revisory submit, they might on the second. It’s pretty much like, hey, we want to publish your paper, you need to fix all this stuff. They just don’t say it that way for whatever reason.
And as a sidenote before we get in too deep in this phase. If you hear back from the journal and it’s not a revise and submit, and it’s just a straight deny, that’s okay. I’ve had that happen. You will have some resistance and some sadness, process those emotions, and allow them. And then you and the team can reassess, okay, do we want to move forward to another journal? Do we want to drop the paper? Whatever it may be. So, when you are in a lump of resistance, when you get a revise and resubmit, a variety of emotions arise in this phase.
So maybe anger, and annoyance, and frustration with reviewer comments. You don’t agree with the reviewer comments, or you think that they’re being rude and dismissive. Or maybe you’re frustrated, upset, and annoyed with coauthors. They aren’t helping as much as you want with the edits and the comments. And they disagree with your or others. Or they request a lot of changes. Or maybe you’re frustrated and annoyed again with time. It’s more work than you had hoped for the revise and resubmit. You have a lot of other things going on now.
Now, if you don’t have any of these emotions or very few of these negative emotions during the revise and resubmit, that is amazing, enjoy that. Enjoy good reviewer comments, enjoy getting the paper published with simple and straightforward changes and coauthors. I love that. I wish more people had that experience. So, if that’s you just enjoy that. But for many of you and many of us, many times it’s not going to be that case. So, when you have this lump of resistance I want you to remember you always have a choice.
Resistance comes when you don’t want to accept what is. You don’t want to accept the reviewer’s comments. You don’t want to accept your coauthors’ behavior. You don’t want to accept how much time this is going to take. But those things are what they are. Most of them aren’t changing and resisting them isn’t helping. And you don’t have to continue to work on this paper. You can ask to be taken off. You can ask for someone else to take more responsibility. You can ask that it not even move forward to be published. You have that choice.
And I know you don’t want to explore those options, but you have to let yourself at least know that they’re available and look at them in order to get out of resistance. You are in resistance because you believe, not only should things be different, but they can’t be different. No, you can’t change external factors like other people, but you can change you. You have a choice. And recognizing and looking at your options is important. Taking an active choice has more power than believing you have no control passively.
Make an active choice again about what you want to do. Yeah, all your choices might not be ideal, so what? You have them, don’t take your power away here. Yeah, each have their own challenges and awkwardness, so what. You don’t have to finish the paper if you don’t want to. Don’t take your choice away. No matter your choice you’re going to have to manage your mind. Accept you can’t control other people’s behaviors or reactions to your choice. You don’t cause their feelings or their actions. And you have control of you, your decisions, and your time.
And I’ve done this before actually several times. I’ve had the awkward and uncomfortable conversation of, “I can’t lead this anymore.” I’ve had all the thoughts my brain’s offered me like, you’re burdening them, what are they going to think of you? You’re going to burn bridges. I’ve had all that. and I’ve had times where I’ve decided in the revise and resubmit to clarify, I can only contribute this much because my circumstances or workload has changed. My brain still went on and on about burning bridges and burning others and what are they going to think.
I’ve told coauthors, “Hey, if we get a second revise and resubmit, I can’t lead those changes. It’s uncomfortable but it’s only uncomfortable because of your thoughts about what you’re making it mean about you that you’re making that choice. And what you think they will think of you.
So then in the relieve stage, this is the final submission and editing the paper and you are relieved because you’re relieved from your overwhelm because your thoughts have changed. And you’re relieved because the timeline is kind of that it’s in, you’re relieved from your frustration. And it’s okay to feel that. But I really want to encourage you, we can in this stage just stay in relief which can feel really good. But I really encourage you to drop into pride again.
Pride is there, just bring it to the surface and be proud of yourself, your hard work, how you handled everything even if there were mishaps. And then let’s say they say, “We accept this version.” And then there’s some logistics to finally get it out there and then it’s published. This can be a neutral or numb stage, again, partly because it takes a while from the final submission to them publishing it, but you might not feel much.
You might not feel a lot of pride or excitement. And this often happens because of all the up and down over the past six months, eight months, a year and managing your mind. And that’s okay. You can feel that way, but I want you to know you can also feel proud, or happy, or excited, or anything else you want. Know that feeling relief, or feeling numb, or feeling neutral, or feeling nothing, that’s all a choice too.
So, before I wrap up and give the final thoughts on this I want to address one more thing very briefly. There are a lot of systemic issues with academic journals in general related to things like keeping research behind paywalls. Journals not accepting coauthors who are community or youth members. Bias against publishing no results. Other bias about what is published and what isn’t topically. Reviewers are largely white older males.
There are reviewers who don’t believe racism or other forms of repression are related to health outcomes and they will express that in their comments. Papers by women and papers that study women’s health, especially kind of understudied women’s health issues have been shown to be more criticized and less likely to be published. And it’s the same or even worse for authors of color, or papers that are studying experiences by a community’s color. The same for disabled authors, or work studying experiences among disabled communities.
The same with authors and research in the LGTBQ community and so on and so forth. I think it’s really important to acknowledge this both if you haven’t gone through the publishing experience to know that that does come up. And also, if you have and you’ve seen this, and faced these challenges to remind you, yeah, these are challenges we face. But you still get to decide if you want to publish or not and whether or not you decide to continue publishing, period, or a paper, or with a specific journal or whatever or not doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad person.
If you decide to publish you have the right to fight for what you believe in the process. You have the right to push back on reviewer comments. You can advocate to allow community members to be coauthors. And you can advocate and fight for some changes. And you may encounter more barriers than maybe others depending on your authorship team, or the topics published, and other factors which I’m not saying that’s right. But we have to be honest about the system and remember how it was set up, and who it was set up for, and how we’re still working to dismantle it.
But I want you to remember that you get to decide. You can decide, I want to move forward and really advocate and aim to take some of these barriers down, find a way around it or keep trying until we succeed. Or you can decide, I’m going to have an impact another way and I’m not going to be a part of the academic publishing sphere and academic journals. Neither is right or wrong. You might have some judgments against yourself or shame depending on what you decide but neither is right or wrong.
And either way you’ll have to manage your mind about what’s in your control and what isn’t. And it’s really helpful to just be honest about the challenges that happen in academic publishing, even in public health. So, when those challenges come up you can remind yourself, you get a choice.
So, with that said and I won’t go into more detail about that but as we’ve gone through this episode I hope that now you either have related to what I’ve shared. Because you’ve been there and now have a deeper understanding of why you experienced the rollercoaster or certain emotions with new insights and new approaches to handle your experience differently in the future to help you reduce your stress a little bit more.
Or you’ve learned a little bit about the publishing experience and what it may be like if you haven’t done it and have some perspective, and insights, and approaches to go into the process for the first time. So, I hope this was useful. I would love to hear if it was. I loved making this. I thought this was just a fabulous topic to discuss that I wish when I was going through publishing, whether the first time or the most recent time which was six months ago, someone had kind of talked me through this like this.
So please let me know, one of the best ways to let me know is rate and review this podcast wherever you listen. It would be really, really helpful, and not just for me to hear from you and how it’s helping you but for others in the field. One thing I’ve been working with my podcast team on is how can we get this podcast to more people in public health who need it because every time that someone does access it, or hear about it on LinkedIn, or a webinar, or whatnot, I get so much feedback of like, “Man, I wish I would have had this a month ago.” “I wish I had this six months ago.”
And listen, if you’re just starting to listen or you just found this resource, now is the perfect time to be listening. There’s no shame or anything that you should have known this stuff before. But I’m just sharing this to say I would love to get these resources, and these tools, and these episodes into more ears, or eyes if you read transcripts, of folks in public health so we can all have less stress. And I love public health because of the community.
Omari Richins from The Public Health Millennial asked me when I was on his podcast, “What do you love about public health?” And the thing that came to mind was community. Not just the communities who we serve and we’re a part of in that way, but the community and the workforce and how much we support each other, and how much we root for each other when we’re so overwhelmed and stressed. That’s what I love.
You can be so overwhelmed and stressed but everyone I know in public health, even if they are they’re always rooting for their colleague to reduce their stress, or take time off, or help themselves. We just love each other so much. And so, one way we can help our community and those we love, and our colleagues is to help them get these tools, and these episodes, and these resources. So, one of the best ways is rate and review wherever you listen. And put some information in the review about what’s helped you and what’s been useful.
So, the algorithm can do its thing and other people in the field can have access to it and so we can all collectively improve our experience in the field. That would mean so, so much to me. And in April we have a big surprise with the podcast which I can’t quite share yet. But more will be coming out and you all participating, and rating, and reviewing will help get the podcast out there and really make April the podcast month of April which I can’t wait to share more when I can, be more explosive and more impactful.
And as you can tell, I’m so excited, I can’t stop taking but anyways I digress. I love you all. Talk to you next week. Bye.
Are you ready to make a change? Whether that's learning to love your job, making a career move, or anything in between, I can help. I'd be honored to coach you through figuring out what's next and navigating the steps to get there. So, head on over to mckoolcoaching.com/consult that's mckoolcoaching.com/consult to set up a time to chat and talk about how you can achieve the career of your dreams.
Hi, everyone. It’s Monday morning if you’re listening to this of course the day it comes out. If you’re listening to it another day, welcome, whatever day it is, how are you? What’s the weather like? What’s going on? I’d love to hear from you all. I love when I get messages from you, you DM me on Instagram, or send me an email, or at LinkedIn, send me a message. I just love to hear from you all and how this podcast is helping you. And I love to feel like we’re connected. Every time I sit here and record I just think about you, and I just love you all so much.
So today we’re going to talk about manuscript publication which it’s funny as I was thinking about writing this episode I kind of was like, well, maybe this will be helpful. And as I wrote it I realized, holy shit, this is going to be so helpful. I just can’t wait for you all to hear it. I was kind of surprised myself as I wrote it of how useful this information is and linking understanding the process of publication to why it’s such a rollercoaster and have so many emotions and what can you do about it.
I wish someone would have gave me this podcast with this information when I first started publishing. And I will say I was very, very lucky. The first publication I was a part of was publishing my master’s, well, maybe not the first but the first where I was lead author was publishing my master’s thesis. And I was really, really lucky because my supervisor at my fellowship after I graduated my MPH helped me so much. Some of you might have had this experience.
In your MPH if you do a paper or a manuscript for your capstone or thesis you are guided through writing it to fit the requirements of the MPH which oftentimes are not the same as the requirements for a manuscript. And if you want to publish it you’re not really taught how to do that after you fulfill the requirements of your degree program. So, I was really lucky that my supervisor at my fellowship helped me figure out, okay, how do you submit, what journal to go to. And what is a revise and resubmit and how do you know?
And how do you respond to reviewer comments? And how do you determine authorship order? Without her I would have been so lost. So, Kim, if you’re out there, you’re probably not listening to this but thank you so much. And I know a lot of you don’t have that. So, what I thought would be helpful today is give you kind of a brief overview of the process of publishing. Some of you might know this like the back of your hand, that’s fine. But I still want to make sure to give some structure and understanding for those of you who don’t.
But mostly I’m going to be talking about what the experience is like, why it’s a rollercoaster and what to do about it. And so, for me, my goal going into public health and even in my degree program was never to publish. I know for a lot of folks it is, you want to be a researcher and you want to publish a lot and that’s great. It wasn’t really my goal, but it ended up happening several times. Several times I was coauthor, other times I was lead.
And every time I was a lead i.e., the first author or one of the leads, working with someone else largely on a paper, I went through this rollercoaster I’m about to describe. And this rollercoaster you do feel most intensely when you are leading either the writing, or creation of the paper, or even the logistics. When you are a coauthor, one of the coauthors who just reviews and gives feedback it’s much more relaxed and less of an up and down.
So, today’s episode can help you whether you’ve published a paper or not. I want to make that really clear because a lot of what I’m describing can be applied to when you’re writing large reports, whether it’s grant reports, or funder reports, or program reports, needs assessment or other big collaborative projects and it will be useful. Even if you’re a seasoned author, seasoned published author, this is part of your job, you do it all the time, this will still be useful. And it will also be useful if you never publish, even if you’re not sure you will publish.
So, no matter your work you will get something helpful out of this episode. And I do want you to know, if you tend to be a coauthor on papers or you are right now and you’re not leading a paper, it can be helpful for you to remember that the person who is leading on a paper is likely on this rollercoaster even if you’re not. And I think it’s just good to have that perspective of what your colleagues might be going through.
So, I call this episode the rollercoaster of publishing because you go through so many emotions in the process of publishing. From excited that the important work is going to be out there, to overwhelmed at how much work it actually takes to put it together, to proud when you submit it, to annoyed, defensive, or frustrated, when you read a review or comments, to relieved once you do the final thing and it’s all over. And then sometimes you feel numb or neutral, once it’s published because you’re like, I am fucking over this.
So today I’m going to talk about all those stages and help you see why you’re feeling any of those emotions, understand what’s causing it and what you can do about it. And those of you who have published before know publishing a manuscript can take anywhere from six months to several years start to finish, whether that’s because the paper’s been denied, and you have to find somewhere else to submit it or because the journal’s really slow. I have had that experience, all of the above it all can be frustrating and quite a rollercoaster.
So, I’m going to categorize as I talk through the process into emotions actually. And then I’ll describe what the steps are in kind of that phase. But I really want to highlight the importance of what’s so challenging about publishing a manuscript is actually what we’re feeling as we’re going through it. So, one of the first phases is exciting. And this is the period where someone decides it would be good to try to publish and you figure out the logistics. And we’ll talk more in detail about each of these stages, but I just want to give an overview first.
And then it goes into overwhelmed, writing, and editing, and submitting logistics, all of that. And then pride for being submitted. And then when you get your revise and resubmit a lump of resistance comes up. Sorry, you all, I don’t know if you can hear what’s going on outside but someone is moving into our complex so there is a moving truck outside. There’s lots happening in my complex all the time, garbage trucks, plane going overhead, somewhat unavoidable.
Anyways, the phase of lump of resistance where a whole host of emotions come up. And this is during the revise and resubmit. And we’ll talk about what emotions those might be. And then there is the relieve stage where you are finally done with it and then kind of a neutral numbness when it’s published around the world. So, let’s talk more in detail about all those stages.
So, in the excited phase, well, first I want to say, some of you who have been publishing for a while and have been publishing as first, or lead, or primary author and doing a lot of the heavy lifting in publishing may no longer feel excited in this phase. You may feel dread actually when someone suggests to write a paper or when you know that’s what’s going to come of this grant. Likely that’s because you’ve published before and went through this rollercoaster.
The rollercoaster I’m going to talk about and all the emotions and the idea of getting back on that rollercoaster and raising your hand, let me get in line makes you hesitant. And I totally get that, but stay with me because this will still help you. So, in the excited phase someone decides it would be good to try to publish either you see a call from a paper for a specialty issue, or certain topics that they’re looking for. And someone on the team thinks our work fits, let’s put something together.
Or you’re finishing a research project and you decide it would be good to find somewhere to publish. And so, you’re looking for places to publish. Or you’re doing work that you know, as soon as you get a grant or as soon as you start the project, the team wants to eventually publish. And this applies to whether it’s quantitative or qualitative research or publishing a needs assessment, or a program plan. There’s so much that you can publish.
So, no matter what you’re publishing those are kind of happens where you figure out are we going to publish? And then during the excited phase there’s the logistics you have to figure out. So, who will write what and who will review? And the expectations and the authorship order, who has final say on edits? Who’s in charge of making sure it happens? The timeline, the writing and reviewing and all that.
So, part of the reason it’s exciting phase and you might be feeling excited is because the prospect of your work, of the team’s work, of the impact, of the research, of the program plan being out in the world and having an impact where other people learn from it or more programs replicate it. That’s exciting. You believe in the work and that it’s important to share. And you’re excited maybe even just about being an author and having that listed on your resumé or being the first author for the first time or whatnot.
Where this excitement can get you into a little bit of trouble, if you are not clear, and this can happen even if you’re seasoned at publishing. Because when you’re excited, and honestly, even if you’re not excited, you can get yourself into trouble by not doing these things. You can often take on or agree to take on more than you really can. You don’t want to say no either because you’re stoked on the paper or you’re worried what others will think. And later on, this can bite you in the butt because in the next stage which we’ll talk about in a second, adds to your overwhelm.
And often what happens in this stage that kind of really sets the whole team, particularly the lead author up for some trouble down the line is you and the team do not make it crystal clear who does what and what are the expectations. Discussing authorship order can be awkward because some people care about it and some people don’t. And that’s a conversation for another day. But to be clear about who does what, setting clear expectation about who will be in charge of writing, who will be in charge of writing what section, who will be in charge of reviewing and editing.
What is the timeline. What are the expectations of getting the drafts done and getting your reviews back. And it’s important to be so clear because it’s challenging because some people don’t want to do that much and aren’t clear about it. Some people do want to contribute but aren’t clear about their capacity and you probably aren’t. I mean everyone does that. No one wants to have that really blunt cut and dried conversation of, “Okay, what are you committing to?” It’s funny, I really find that in publishing there’s some commitment phobia which is fine if you communicate that.
I don’t know if I have the capacity, or this is the exact capacity I have to contribute. We just tiptoe around that and it gets everyone in a mess. And what happens when you do that is you start writing the paper with vague and unclear expectations of who will do what, who is responsible for what, who’s committing at what level.
And then most likely if you’re the first author or one of the lead authors, or even if you’re not but you’re early career, a fellow or a student, unfortunately you end up having to pick up the slack or having that awkward and hard conversation in later stages when it’s already moving along. And this just results in more stress for you.
The solution here, and this is kind of where a lot of the stress that you can kind of control, and manage, and do something about comes in because the solution is you need to be super clear. I know I’ve said clear 1,000 times, but on what you can, will, or won’t do. And even if you think you’re communicating well, I’m guessing you’re not. Because saying, “I can help review”, is it not clear enough. You know what is? I only have two hours a week I can work on this. So much more specific and less vague, and very clean.
And if something comes up later where they’re asking you to do more you actually can say, “Remember, I said I only have two hours a week.” So, it’s best for you and the whole team. Also, you need to require that other people on the team get more clear on what they will do. Don’t accept, “Sure, I’ll help.” Find out what that means, how much, in what ways. So, you can say, “Okay, so Jenny has agreed to write the introduction but nothing more. And so and so has agreed to review the first draft and can get it to us if we give it to them within a week’s time.”
Or whatever it may be, just get so specific. And to do this you have to manage your mind because your brain is going to say, “It’s awkward, or you’re being bossy.” Oh, it’ll be fine, get over it. You don’t want to upset anyone. No. Ignore that brain, manage it, coach yourself. It’s going to be uncomfortable and that’s okay because discomfort now can reduce your overall overwhelm and stress later.
I cannot emphasize this enough and I really encourage you if you’re about to start writing a paper, or if you’re in kind of the beginning phases, relisten to that part because it’s so, so important. Because the next phase, overwhelm phase is going to be overwhelming even when you have clear expectations so don’t make it worse on yourself by not setting clear expectations for you and your whole team. And so, in the overwhelm phase it's writing and editing, and getting and incorporating feedback and then submitting it and all of those logistics.
And overwhelm in this phase comes from challenges that largely, there might be some others but I’m just going to talk about two, are related to time and other people. So, with the time piece you’ll find yourself worrying about the timeline, not having enough time to work on the paper, being behind and largely word count, that is a huge one. It seems innocent but it is such a source of stress especially when you’re the one leading the editing and kind of getting it finalized.
And it often can delay the paper either being submitted, or getting finalized, or getting people to review it, or whatever it may be. The word count, it’s a source of stress. The other piece is other people. So, dealing with coauthors who maybe aren’t responsive, who provide last minute, or late contributions, or late feedback, who provide comments and feedback that you find unhelpful or very limiting.
And then it’s also really challenging to pull together if there are conflicting feedback or disagreements among the authors, especially because sometimes you might be working on a team where the coauthors don’t know each other that well. It’s kind of just a collaboration between organizations or universities with different people who are related to maybe the data or the program. And not everyone works closely together. So, then you have to pull together everyone’s feedback that maybe it is conflicting.
And then you have to navigate and manage, and are personal relationships there that maybe aren’t built on strong rapport or a history of working together. So, in this phase you are going to want to think, you’re overwhelmed because of other people, because of the paper, because of the journal. And this is wrong. The cause of your overwhelm is your brain. It's not other people, it’s not time, it’s your thoughts about those things. And in this stage your brain is going to be going on, and on, and on with lots of chatter and narration.
It's going to sound like your brain’s saying, “They’re making this so much harder. If they think it needs so much work and have all these comments to give back, they need to make actual edits and not just comments.” This may or may not be a thought that I’ve had many times leading papers. My brain is also saying, yours probably has too, “I don’t have enough time to work on this. I don’t know how I’m going to get this all done. And this is unfair”, and many, many others. Those thoughts are what causes your overwhelm.
And the solution, so this may be redundant but if you’re a long time listener this shouldn’t surprise you. The solution is to manage your mind. So, what does that look like while putting together a manuscript? You need to separate your thoughts about time and other people so you can manage them separately. So, in the time category you are always in charge of your time. You can always say no to other work or always push other timelines back. You can even go back to the author team and say no to your section, or to the timeline.
You are in charge of your time, how you use it, how you create it, what you say yes and no to, how you schedule what you’re going to do, how distracted or focused you are. That’s 100% in your control. Now, other people, you’re not in charge of other people, you can’t control them. So, focus mentally less on what they are or aren’t doing. Focus more on where do you have power, where do you have choice. You can choose to keep complaining about someone not getting you feedback in time and choose not to work on the paper until they do in a form of protest in some way.
Or you can start incorporating other feedback even if someone on the team hasn’t given theirs. Maybe you’ll have to integrate theirs and there’ll be some fixing and some kind of going back, maybe not. But you have a choice, don’t forget that. So, in the overwhelm phase you really need to be aware of what you’re thinking because those thoughts are causing your overwhelm. And on next week’s episode actually I’m going to be doing a whole episode on tips for overwhelm, whether you’re having overwhelm about publishing or anything else. So that will also be useful.
But you need to be very clear with yourself that you’re overwhelmed because of your thoughts and then manage your mind. And so, once you’ve worked through that phase and gotten the paper done and submitted it you will go into the proud phase. This is you’ve finally submitted to the journal. And what you’ll want to do is feel proud for a second and then move on. Don’t do this. Let yourself be proud, don’t run from it, don’t rush it away, revel in it, soak in it, celebrate, treat yourself, be in awe, it is a proud moment.
A lot of work to get a paper to the point where you submit it to a journal. You’ve done a lot of mind management. You’ve had a lot of emotions. You’ve had to interpersonal management. There’s just a lot of work you’ve put into it. And do not dismiss that, celebrate that, be proud of yourself. And you’re going to have to do the work consciously to do that because your brain’s going to want to just move on.
So then what happens, journals can take a really long time to get their feedback back to you or their answer. So sometimes the next phase is, depending if there’s a special issue and the journal is really pushing to get something out sooner, they’ll be faster. Maybe they’ll be three months, four months. But sometimes it’s six months, eight months, I’ve even had it be longer than that. So, by the time you hear the response from the journal other stuff has come up. You have other work. You’ve kind of left that piece behind.
And then you get a response from a journal and a lot of resistance can come up in this phase. So, for those of you who don’t know what a revise and resubmit is. I’ve certainly done it before I was first author on a paper, my first one and luckily had someone who explained this to me. But it’s basically you’ll get an email that says, “We are not accepting your paper, here are the reviewer’s comments, address them and resubmit.” So, when I first saw that when I first did a paper, I was like, “We got rejected.” And I was told, “No, that’s just the way they word it.”
Basically, what they’re saying is, here, if you address the reviewer’s comments we will likely accept and publish it. And even if they don’t on the first revisory submit, they might on the second. It’s pretty much like, hey, we want to publish your paper, you need to fix all this stuff. They just don’t say it that way for whatever reason.
And as a sidenote before we get in too deep in this phase. If you hear back from the journal and it’s not a revise and submit, and it’s just a straight deny, that’s okay. I’ve had that happen. You will have some resistance and some sadness, process those emotions, and allow them. And then you and the team can reassess, okay, do we want to move forward to another journal? Do we want to drop the paper? Whatever it may be. So, when you are in a lump of resistance, when you get a revise and resubmit, a variety of emotions arise in this phase.
So maybe anger, and annoyance, and frustration with reviewer comments. You don’t agree with the reviewer comments, or you think that they’re being rude and dismissive. Or maybe you’re frustrated, upset, and annoyed with coauthors. They aren’t helping as much as you want with the edits and the comments. And they disagree with your or others. Or they request a lot of changes. Or maybe you’re frustrated and annoyed again with time. It’s more work than you had hoped for the revise and resubmit. You have a lot of other things going on now.
Now, if you don’t have any of these emotions or very few of these negative emotions during the revise and resubmit, that is amazing, enjoy that. Enjoy good reviewer comments, enjoy getting the paper published with simple and straightforward changes and coauthors. I love that. I wish more people had that experience. So, if that’s you just enjoy that. But for many of you and many of us, many times it’s not going to be that case. So, when you have this lump of resistance I want you to remember you always have a choice.
Resistance comes when you don’t want to accept what is. You don’t want to accept the reviewer’s comments. You don’t want to accept your coauthors’ behavior. You don’t want to accept how much time this is going to take. But those things are what they are. Most of them aren’t changing and resisting them isn’t helping. And you don’t have to continue to work on this paper. You can ask to be taken off. You can ask for someone else to take more responsibility. You can ask that it not even move forward to be published. You have that choice.
And I know you don’t want to explore those options, but you have to let yourself at least know that they’re available and look at them in order to get out of resistance. You are in resistance because you believe, not only should things be different, but they can’t be different. No, you can’t change external factors like other people, but you can change you. You have a choice. And recognizing and looking at your options is important. Taking an active choice has more power than believing you have no control passively.
Make an active choice again about what you want to do. Yeah, all your choices might not be ideal, so what? You have them, don’t take your power away here. Yeah, each have their own challenges and awkwardness, so what. You don’t have to finish the paper if you don’t want to. Don’t take your choice away. No matter your choice you’re going to have to manage your mind. Accept you can’t control other people’s behaviors or reactions to your choice. You don’t cause their feelings or their actions. And you have control of you, your decisions, and your time.
And I’ve done this before actually several times. I’ve had the awkward and uncomfortable conversation of, “I can’t lead this anymore.” I’ve had all the thoughts my brain’s offered me like, you’re burdening them, what are they going to think of you? You’re going to burn bridges. I’ve had all that. and I’ve had times where I’ve decided in the revise and resubmit to clarify, I can only contribute this much because my circumstances or workload has changed. My brain still went on and on about burning bridges and burning others and what are they going to think.
I’ve told coauthors, “Hey, if we get a second revise and resubmit, I can’t lead those changes. It’s uncomfortable but it’s only uncomfortable because of your thoughts about what you’re making it mean about you that you’re making that choice. And what you think they will think of you.
So then in the relieve stage, this is the final submission and editing the paper and you are relieved because you’re relieved from your overwhelm because your thoughts have changed. And you’re relieved because the timeline is kind of that it’s in, you’re relieved from your frustration. And it’s okay to feel that. But I really want to encourage you, we can in this stage just stay in relief which can feel really good. But I really encourage you to drop into pride again.
Pride is there, just bring it to the surface and be proud of yourself, your hard work, how you handled everything even if there were mishaps. And then let’s say they say, “We accept this version.” And then there’s some logistics to finally get it out there and then it’s published. This can be a neutral or numb stage, again, partly because it takes a while from the final submission to them publishing it, but you might not feel much.
You might not feel a lot of pride or excitement. And this often happens because of all the up and down over the past six months, eight months, a year and managing your mind. And that’s okay. You can feel that way, but I want you to know you can also feel proud, or happy, or excited, or anything else you want. Know that feeling relief, or feeling numb, or feeling neutral, or feeling nothing, that’s all a choice too.
So, before I wrap up and give the final thoughts on this I want to address one more thing very briefly. There are a lot of systemic issues with academic journals in general related to things like keeping research behind paywalls. Journals not accepting coauthors who are community or youth members. Bias against publishing no results. Other bias about what is published and what isn’t topically. Reviewers are largely white older males.
There are reviewers who don’t believe racism or other forms of repression are related to health outcomes and they will express that in their comments. Papers by women and papers that study women’s health, especially kind of understudied women’s health issues have been shown to be more criticized and less likely to be published. And it’s the same or even worse for authors of color, or papers that are studying experiences by a community’s color. The same for disabled authors, or work studying experiences among disabled communities.
The same with authors and research in the LGTBQ community and so on and so forth. I think it’s really important to acknowledge this both if you haven’t gone through the publishing experience to know that that does come up. And also, if you have and you’ve seen this, and faced these challenges to remind you, yeah, these are challenges we face. But you still get to decide if you want to publish or not and whether or not you decide to continue publishing, period, or a paper, or with a specific journal or whatever or not doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad person.
If you decide to publish you have the right to fight for what you believe in the process. You have the right to push back on reviewer comments. You can advocate to allow community members to be coauthors. And you can advocate and fight for some changes. And you may encounter more barriers than maybe others depending on your authorship team, or the topics published, and other factors which I’m not saying that’s right. But we have to be honest about the system and remember how it was set up, and who it was set up for, and how we’re still working to dismantle it.
But I want you to remember that you get to decide. You can decide, I want to move forward and really advocate and aim to take some of these barriers down, find a way around it or keep trying until we succeed. Or you can decide, I’m going to have an impact another way and I’m not going to be a part of the academic publishing sphere and academic journals. Neither is right or wrong. You might have some judgments against yourself or shame depending on what you decide but neither is right or wrong.
And either way you’ll have to manage your mind about what’s in your control and what isn’t. And it’s really helpful to just be honest about the challenges that happen in academic publishing, even in public health. So, when those challenges come up you can remind yourself, you get a choice.
So, with that said and I won’t go into more detail about that but as we’ve gone through this episode I hope that now you either have related to what I’ve shared. Because you’ve been there and now have a deeper understanding of why you experienced the rollercoaster or certain emotions with new insights and new approaches to handle your experience differently in the future to help you reduce your stress a little bit more.
Or you’ve learned a little bit about the publishing experience and what it may be like if you haven’t done it and have some perspective, and insights, and approaches to go into the process for the first time. So, I hope this was useful. I would love to hear if it was. I loved making this. I thought this was just a fabulous topic to discuss that I wish when I was going through publishing, whether the first time or the most recent time which was six months ago, someone had kind of talked me through this like this.
So please let me know, one of the best ways to let me know is rate and review this podcast wherever you listen. It would be really, really helpful, and not just for me to hear from you and how it’s helping you but for others in the field. One thing I’ve been working with my podcast team on is how can we get this podcast to more people in public health who need it because every time that someone does access it, or hear about it on LinkedIn, or a webinar, or whatnot, I get so much feedback of like, “Man, I wish I would have had this a month ago.” “I wish I had this six months ago.”
And listen, if you’re just starting to listen or you just found this resource, now is the perfect time to be listening. There’s no shame or anything that you should have known this stuff before. But I’m just sharing this to say I would love to get these resources, and these tools, and these episodes into more ears, or eyes if you read transcripts, of folks in public health so we can all have less stress. And I love public health because of the community.
Omari Richins from The Public Health Millennial asked me when I was on his podcast, “What do you love about public health?” And the thing that came to mind was community. Not just the communities who we serve and we’re a part of in that way, but the community and the workforce and how much we support each other, and how much we root for each other when we’re so overwhelmed and stressed. That’s what I love.
You can be so overwhelmed and stressed but everyone I know in public health, even if they are they’re always rooting for their colleague to reduce their stress, or take time off, or help themselves. We just love each other so much. And so, one way we can help our community and those we love, and our colleagues is to help them get these tools, and these episodes, and these resources. So, one of the best ways is rate and review wherever you listen. And put some information in the review about what’s helped you and what’s been useful.
So, the algorithm can do its thing and other people in the field can have access to it and so we can all collectively improve our experience in the field. That would mean so, so much to me. And in April we have a big surprise with the podcast which I can’t quite share yet. But more will be coming out and you all participating, and rating, and reviewing will help get the podcast out there and really make April the podcast month of April which I can’t wait to share more when I can, be more explosive and more impactful.
And as you can tell, I’m so excited, I can’t stop taking but anyways I digress. I love you all. Talk to you next week. Bye.
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