Combating the Academic NO

originally posted on April 10, 2014 on csdoctorsister.blog.com

The language of the academic ‘no’  has its own dialect. In short, there are MANY ways to receive a NO. Let’s see there is “we regret to inform you…”, “the submission is not selected”, “your submission is not appropriate for…”, “your submission is not competitive…”. Do I need to go on? You get the point. Any externally reviewed document is fair game.

Scholarly/Research Work

• 2-page extended abstract/poster submission
• 4-6 page work-in-progress paper submission
• 6-12 page conference paper submission
• 20+ page journal article submission

Corporate  Partnership/Sponsorship

• 1-2 page course development/augmentation proposal
• 2-3 page research project proposal
• 2-3 page non-research project with deliverables and timeline

U. S. Federal Funding Streams

• NSF solicited and unsolicited grant proposals
• NIH grant proposals
• DoD/DHS/DoJ/DoE Broad Agency Announcement grant proposals

You will undoubtedly receive rejection/declined notifications. So what’s next?
First, take a couple of days to digest the NO. You have to let the NO bounce off. However, if you are unaccustomed to receiving a non-favorable response, then you may need more time and experience of how to cope. It’s easy to take the NO as a personal attack. Any faculty in academia has been there. You have poured your heart and soul into that submitted manuscript. It was a lot of thinking, meeting with colleagues, writing and editing. You worked real hard on the content and presentation. You thought you did a great job, but you received that NO. The goal in digesting the NO is to detangle you as a researcher from the manuscript.

Second, parse through the reviewers’ feedback (objectively). You could easy just dismiss the NO and then, simply ignore the feedback. But then you miss your learning opportunity. Few people fully understand the details of your work. It is your charge to share your expertise, ask questions and present a reasonable solution where others have not.  You are learning how to fill in the technical gaps of  your intended audience through perfecting your presentation style. I consider reviewers’ feedback to come in 4 main categories.

• Editorial. If checking for proper grammar is not be your forte and you struggle with grammatical issues, get a copy editor.
• Pitch Problem. The “pitch” is two-fold: the problem and the solution. The act of convincing your technical community, i.e., the 3-4 reviewers, of the problem and/or proposed solution significance can be a daunting task. You must motivate the problem and justify your proposed solution. You may not have sufficiently conveyed the problem scope and thus the proposed solution contributions. Your task is to think through your ideas and arguments as though you are the reviewer. I suggest reading “Made To Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath (http://www.amazon.com/Made-Stick-Ideas-Survive-Others/dp/1400064287).
• Technical Issues. Your subject-matter expertise may not be at the level required by the reviewers. (Yes, subject-matter expertise is a moving target for each reviewer.) For instance, the literature review does not include certain references or the proposed solution has been previously published. You can avoid technical issues by remaining current in your field. To be a researcher is to always be learning. Remember: a good reputation within your research field mainly entails high quality research product.
• Stylistic differences. Some reviewers will like the way you write. Others will not. I don’t tend to focus on stylistic differences. I consider them to be “low blows”, e.g.,  a reviewer just doesn’t like the manuscript and can not justify it into one of the other above mentioned categories. Chalk it up to human-error. Keep in mind that your goal is to make the majority of reviewers satisfied with your research product.

Third, MAKE and then EXECUTE the revision plan. Most people can seamlessly make the revision plan. The execution of said-plan — not so much. Timelines are helpful to a point. Accountability partners, such as project colleagues, mentors or advisors, are much more effective. You can deem excuses rational if you are only accountable for yourself. When you have to say those excuses out loud, then you realize that they are part of your procrastination infrastructure. You have to see your path to a YES notification, then the NO notification becomes a distant memory.

So what happens if you don’t receive a notification at all? Well, that’s another post for another time…