The Mid-Term Evaluation Is Coming Up!

Time flies… I got down to work and worked on the bonkers mode in the recent weeks. I had to rush with my project.

As a result of living in South America, I lost my working rhythm, while the mid-term PhD project evaluation hangs over my head… This is the same evaluation that eliminated me from my PhD project last time. But I’m slowly starting to get control over the situation, and it is a wonderful feeling.

How Has My Work Atmosphere Changed For The Better?

Now I’m sitting in a lab that is different from the two previous labs I’ve dealt with. The first lab I worked in had an atmosphere taken straight from a cemetery.

 It was quiet, which I appreciated. But there was no collaboration between students as each student had an individual PhD topic, separate from all the other students. 

And somehow, the social community was lame in that lab: no friendships, no meetings for drinks, no parties.

 Then I worked in a lab where there were lots of girls chatting nonstop. They were doing research on a topic other than mine, mostly in genetics and genomics. Well, I felt I had no environment, and since there were too many parties and lunches in this lab, I felt constantly distracted.

But now I work in a lab that is very compact, masculinized, but not to exaggeration. It has its own line of research, which is quite well defined.

To the extent that there is software that you can work on, there is the know-how.

And there is always someone to ask for advice, because there are some strong, knowledgeable Postdocs around. So I feel like I’m finally moving forward.

So, How To Create a Highly Ranked Publication?

By the way, I recently had the opportunity to see what it looks like to build a serious scientific article from scratch. I usually encounter articles from the other side. I first get the article in my hand and try to figure out what the author’s intentions were.

I read through the thousands of details of the experiment or methods that were in use. This helps me find the logic behind the paper and figure out the author’s thought process. And eventually, the whole creative process generally fits in one or two sentences, not more. 

This time around, however, I attend lab meetings, where I witness brainstorming sessions on how to make an influential paper from scratch. This is so interesting!

So, it all starts with a very simple thought, such as A = B + C. Then, a bunch of Postdocs sit together and brainstorm how to carry out a detailed validation. The goal is to show that indeed A = B + C rather than A = B + C + epsilon.

And, how to argue that in general, A should be categorically broken into B and C in the first place.

This is despite it has been known for centuries that you simply can. According to Sio and Ormerod (2009), stepping away from a problem before returning to it reliably improves problem-solving performance. This may be part of why these unhurried, exploratory lab discussions are so productive. 

Why Do Scientists Overcomplicate Simple Ideas?

You would think that scientists are hired to simplify things. No, they usually take a simple thought and mold it. They make it so complicated that no one notices anymore how simple it really is.

According to Oppenheimer (2006), needlessly complex language tends to make writers seem less intelligent, not more. Readers judge competence by how easily they can process a text.

And week after week, more and more charts and content grow around this simple thought. It will probably convert into a high-rated paper in the future. At some point hardly anyone notices that what we are going to initially sell is in fact a trivial concept. 

I enjoy seeing this process unfold to my very eyes. This is what science has always been and will always be.

So, it’s good to have an insight into what the process looks like. And apply it by myself in the future if necessary. 

Do You Need to Be a Genius To Produce a Highly Ranked Publication?

Besides, it gives me hope. It turns out that in order to be a successful researcher, you do not have to be a genius touched by God’s hand.

According to Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Römer (1993), years of deliberate, methodical practice predict expert-level performance far better than innate genius. You just need to start from a simple, almost obvious thought. Then you consistently, methodically prove this statement using a lot of long, wise-sounding words, sentences, and complex, colorful pictures.

Science has just lost much of its mysticism in my eyes. But in a good sense — in the sense that science is not art for the chosen ones. It’s a game, available for everyone who likes to take risks and puts their heart into it, including me.

What Does It Mean to Feel a Decade Younger?

Besides, I guess I’ve gotten a decade younger in my mind. Or so I feel. 

I am 28 now, and I remember well what I did in the evenings when I was an 18-year-old college student. Well, I just went to my first year of college. I wrote a lot of emails to my friend whom I had met in high school.

We were both pretty science-oriented and my friend was very talented and crazy. 

Now, in retrospect, we have a completely different life, but we are still friends. But things are similar at this point — it looks like I found my next pen pal.

I remember when, ten years ago, writing emails brought me relaxation after a hard day or a hard week at school. It works the same right now. And of course, it is good to have someone to think about on gloomy, rainy, and cold days in May in the Netherlands.

Speaking of the last decade, I also realized that I have a lot of decade-long friends. We met at the beginning of my studies and we are still in touch.

According to Narr, Allen, Tan and Loeb (2019), strong close friendships formed when young predict higher self-worth in adulthood. They also predict lower anxiety and depression.

And I think that they are probably going to stay my friends forever. If we have endured so much, especially in bad times, then we will endure even more now, when good times have come. It’s touching, really.