Nothing like riding a bike

Posted by Peter Tennant

I probably shouldn't admit this on a public health blog, but I don't know how to ride a bike. I thought I did. But then I took a short (and particularly painful) ride into a ditch. Ever since, I've found myself rather nervous whenever someone describes something as: "just like riding a bike". No thanks. I have enough bruises.

Thankfully, writing academic papers is nothing like riding a bike, not least because there's less scope for physical injury. Firstly, writing papers (apparently unlike cycling) is about constant practice. The more time you spend writing, and the less time since you last wrote, the easier it seems to be. PhD students demonstrate this quite excellently. Their first year review is often a tortuous affair. But come back two years, and 40,000 words, later and they'll be churning out words like a printing press.

Writing academic papers is helped by the fact that most of them follow the same format: introduction, methods, results, discussion. The odd journal might try to stand out with a bit of thesaurus work (e.g. using background instead of introduction), but don't be fooled.

The methods section is simultaneously the easiest bit to write and the most boring bit to read. So boring, that some journals now print it in a smaller font, saving paper in exchange for illegibility. Nevertheless, I always start by writing the methods as it helps me 'warm up'. At least as much as some gentle jogging helps a footballer 'warm up' for an afternoon of theatrically falling over.

Next up is the results, which is again fairly easy to write and fairly dull to read. But at least the results section provides scope for a pretty picture. And there's nothing quite like drawing a picture to relieve the tedium of writing.

Finally, there's the introduction and the discussion. At best, these provide a coherent narrative, elegantly weaving a story around a clump of otherwise meaningless mess. If that sounds hard, that's because it is. I can spend hours struggling to write a couple of sentences. And that's on a good day.

Re-writing

Still, if writing the first draft is tough, it's nothing compared with what's to come. Woe betide the poor soul who thinks the first draft heralds the beginning of the end. Oh no. The real challenge are your co-authors. Those people who seem to take great pleasure in rewriting almost everything you've so carefully crafted. Write more about this. Less about this. Reorder that. Move those. Do a dance. Stand on your head.

In fact, the majority of the time spent drafting a paper seems to be about sending it to your co-authors, making changes, sending it back, making more changes, over and over again until - finally - everyone is equally unhappy. At which point, exhausted, you're ready for submission. Which is a whole other story in itself.

The rejection resubmission

A blog-reader asked me to say something about: "Resubmitting to agents when you've had a 'rewrite and send it back' kind of reject. What do you put in the covering letter?  Do you say what you've changed or just let them see? How much of previous correspondence do you mention? If you want to give them first shot and a reasonable amount of time to read but don't want to leave it forever what's the

Don't give up

Posted by Amy O'Donnell

Before I embarked on my PhD in public health, I spent eight long years at the coalface of policy research. My chosen specialist subject: promoting the participation of under-represented groups in the labour market.

A huge part of that research agenda was engaging with so-called ‘hard-to-reach’ groups to find out their views and experiences of economic and social exclusion. So those eight years saw me reaching out to countless ethnic minority support groups and more fieldwork with long-term benefit claimants than I care to remember. Truly, I had the whole research-engagement agenda licked.

Don't give up

Or so I thought. Right up until the point I started recruiting participants for my doctorate.

For the record, my PhD examines whether we can use routinely collected data to assess the delivery of alcohol interventions in primary care. The fieldwork involves data extraction in 20 GP practices plus interviews with GPs themselves.

I’ve done scores of lone parent interviews. I’ve tracked down Muslim community representatives in the far reaches of Scotland. I’ve recruited peer researchers to access the insular gypsy and traveller community. Bring on the full-time, paid professionals in their permanent, accessible venues!

Turns out that when you don’t have any research funds, when you’re not part of the exclusive Primary Care Research Network, and when you can’t actually get anyone to answer your emails, it’s actually pretty damn difficult to get GPs to take part in your research.

Of course I didn’t quite appreciate this at the start when I posted out my pretty, ethics committee-approved recruitment letters to a select sample of practices and waited for the offers to flood in. They’ll soon come-a-calling, I though, and I’ll go skipping merrily off to collect my data. But they didn’t, so I couldn’t.

Slowly, two key issues emerged. First, I was hardly alone in this endeavour. There are simply zillions of us health researchers trying to grab a few minutes of GPs’ precious time. Understandably, the research that makes financial sense, or reflects a particular interest of the practice tends to take priority. Second, recruiting GPs in the middle of the most significant shake-up of the NHS since its foundation was never going to be easy.

But after many long months of unanswered letters and emails, and playing phone-tag with elusive practice managers, I am delighted to announce that I now have 15 practices recruited and have actually started my GP interviews.

So what happened?

All I can suggest is that I just tried harder. So instead of tens of emails to practice managers, I sent hundreds. I forgot my pride and pestered every friend, family member and colleague I could think of who might be able to help. I fine tuned my data requirements so that I could truthfully assure practice staff that I really would take up as little as possible of their busy day. I offered to visit for a ‘quick chat’ at anytime, anyplace, and with anyone that might listen. I was friendly, positive and professional.

Most of all, I just didn’t give up.

Lost in translation

Posted by Jean Adams

“Jeanne A-dams! Zero! Out of twenty!”

Do school teachers still call out the whole class’s marks for each assignment?

I was 13. I had worked quite hard on my 200 word French essay on what my father does for a living. I learnt my lesson from Madame S. Not, as was probably intended, that I needed to try harder next time. But, quite simply, that I was no good at languages, and never would be.

I dropped French as soon as I could. There were other teachers at school who encouraged me to try harder in less humiliating ways.

When I chose to study medicine at Newcastle, it was partly because it had a reputation as an innovative, forward-looking medical school. It still does. There were modules covering things that no-one would have dreamed of teaching my mother’s generation of medical students – sociology, health psychology, communication skills. Jargon was the bad word of the moment.

There are two things that make avoiding jargon difficult. The first is recognising the problem: knowing when you’re using words, or referring to ideas, that are not commonly understood. The second is doing something about it: working out how to say what you mean in real money, without patronising, and without simplifying to the extent that it’s not worth saying anymore.

I am grateful for the effort that my teachers at medical school put into addressing the jargon problem. But more than a decade since graduating I am still not sure that I am entirely there.

Last week I had another of those moments when it became clear that I what I was talking about was specialised knowledge – not the common knowledge I’d assumed. I would like to apologise to the person who I think I embarrassed in front of their colleagues. I didn’t mean to. I really thought you would know what I was talking about.

A few days later I was on the other side of the table. Presented with a series of questions for discussion at the end a seminar, I had no idea what any of them meant. I think I paid attention during the presentation. I think I have some general understanding of the topic of the seminar. But how ever many times I read over the discussion questions I just could not work out what they meant. I couldn’t even work out what it was about them I didn’t understand. It wasn’t a particular word, or phrase. Just the whole thing.

I just don't understand the whole thing

Yes, I was embarrassed when it was my turn to add something to the discussion. Yes, I garbled and deflected. Yes, I think it might have been the universe getting me back for my own jargon moment earlier in the week.

Which all rather reminded me how hard we, as Fuse researchers, have to keep trying to work out what other people are saying to us, and to say something comprehensible back to them.

I really, really wish I could speak French. I am still angry at myself for giving up, when surely if I had just kept trying, and trying harder, I might have got somewhere.

I promise to keep trying hard to fight the jargon.

A reminder of why toffee is not a way to get published

This has remained one of the most popular posts in the three years of this blog's life, so I thought I'd let you see it again. Although it's fun to read, there's a very serious point to it. Take note!

I Take Everything Back

So it finally happened.

For years, I've been extolling the virtues of self-publishing ebooks, and raging against the supposed tyranny of the Big 6.

But my secret shame is that my agent has been consistently submitting my novels to them, which I only self-publish after they get rejected for being poorly written crap. Then, to mask my pain, I self-publish that garbage and criticize those editors who rightfully discarded it, because I'm petty and spiteful.

The truth is, I haven't made millions of dollars self-publishing.

Since 2009, on more than forty self-pubbed titles, I've only earned a combined total of $1782.

That's just $33 a month. Not even enough to buy a nice dinner.

But now I can finally speak the truth, because I recently signed a three book deal with a Big 6 publisher for more than 10 million dollars.

The Big 6 are the ONLY way to succeed in the publishing world. If you're self-pubbing, you're just deluding yourself. You CAN'T make it on your own. Don't be an IDIOT.

Now I'm really rich, and all you poor saps self-publishing can go find some other sucker to slavishly follow around. I'm meeting Scott Turow for drinks later, and we're going to brainstorm some ways to stop Amazon from ruining the industry.

All those screen shots showing my earnings? Photoshopped.

All that bragging about my fabulous sales? Lies.

All my carefully constructed arguments about the failings of the industry? Straw men and misdirection.

My conversations with Barry Eisler? Barry is actually a male model that I've paid to be my online sock puppet.

Blake Crouch? He's just another one of my pen names. The guy portraying him is really a surf bum in St. Pete.

This is my very last blog. See you on my nationwide bookstore tour, suckers!

Also, April Fool!

:)

Sticker

Gara-gara disuruh si Rico bikin stiker, dengan segenap mood yang ada dan pilek yang terus meler, akhirnya jadi ini aja: