Speedy manuscripts

From 0 to 1 project manuscripts in a week! At least, that was how it felt for me. The first manuscript about our old project will be submitted this month. It is a review paper Tasha is writing; she decided to use one of our field areas as an example. So it counts as a project paper. I was involved in the fieldwork, lab analysis, and discussion, so I’m on the author list, but Tasha did the writing. So by the time I got to see it, it was not only already in a state of near-readiness; it was also in a state of near-deadline-ness.

As we have distributed our field sites between us, and she “had” these, I didn’t feel like I had contributed that much to it. When I mentioned that to Tasha she mentioned some specific aspect of the paper could do with some closer attention. I took the hint, and left the lab to itself and dedicated myself to it. When it wasn’t done on Friday I went back to the office on Saturday. At 6PM I was done. My head was reeling. Maybe it hadn’t been the most enjoyable Saturday, but now I feel much more involved, and also much more comfortable with my name on that author list. I think it’s a great paper! I look forward to its publication. That’s quite worth some weekend work!