PHN Research Agenda

30 December 2010

Holiday Break, Not

The week before Christmas has a reputation as being a low productivity week. The week between Christmas and New Year's has an even stronger reputation as a vacation week. So much so that the University shuts down non-essential services, including closing buildings and turning down heat in faculty offices and classroom spaces. 

For me, December is always busy, with a long list of work that has January and February deadlines. Even more so this year. Early in January, Academy of Management has a deadline for manuscripts to be considered for presentation at the annual meeting. This year I am first author on a manuscript focused on organizational processes of implementing a new service line, and am co-sponsoring a symposium on health care reform. Right after the Academy of Management deadline is the deadline for AcademyHealth. I am undecided whether I have anything this year for AcademyHealth.  Then, in mid-February is the abstract submission deadline for American Public Health Association. I foresee being first author and second on a couple abstracts.  All of this takes focus, apply seat to seat, and type away into the night.

That's not all. The KRISP project is heating up with alots of trainings happening in January.  Collaboratively planning those with the directors of the health departments and getting the schedules worked out takes time. And, then there is the KRISP budget. Problems uncovered and to be corrected. There's a reason why I am a control freak with regard to budgets. Maybe I just haven't had good luck or maybe it's the very weird and shoddy university system. Whatever the root cause, problems arise often and go unnoticed until an auditing approach is taken to account for the pennies. Moments like that require the "Breath!" mantra.

Meanwhile, other manuscripts in process ebb and flow between me and the co-authors. My editorship work rolls on and on, with more manuscripts submitted this year and ever. A good sign with accompanying more work. And, students who don't like their grades are now contacting me (on Christmas day, of all things!).  Gotta laugh and love it!

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17 December 2010

Roller Skate Week

Looking forward to a week is always different than looking back on it. Nonetheless, the week from December 9 through December 17 was what I call a "roller skates" week. Skating, which is slightly faster than running and takes less effort, from task to task, from location to location, from meeting to meeting.

The highlight of December 10 was the little holiday party we had for the KRISP project. We managed to have about an hour of sweets, small present exchange, and photo ops. (see the KRISP blog for the group photo)  It was also a day of problem solving with a couple of my MPH advisees. A mix of paperwork, encouragement and a little hand holding. All in all, a busy, productive, fun, smiling day.

Monday and Tuesday (December 13 and 14) were more unique. For the past month, I served as chair for a search committee to hire a new faculty into our department. After vetting a few applications, we invited the two best candidates to visit with us. The daylong process involves interviews, a presentation, and informal lunch in the commons area. Making the process public and inclusive made the faculty feel as though this was a real opportunity to hire a junior faculty. This may seem obvious, but in these economically bad times in Illinois, hiring a faculty feels like an sweet treat. The foresight and planning of our department chairperson made this hire possible. Each day with the candidate went smoothly. My own preference for one of the candidates was aligned with the consensus of the search committee and faculty who met the candidates.

Right after the last of the meetings with the candidate, I hopped in the car and drove 3 hours to Peoria. I needed to do this because on Wednesday morning Kathy and I were doing a training session with the public health nurses at Tazewell County. I arrived at Kathy's house as she was finishing baking the goodies for the morning meeting. The feds prohibit any purchase of food, so the treats of baked good and fresh fruit will come out of our personal pockets. (I understand the the restriction, but really...)  The public health nurses seemed engaged and ready to have us come back next month.  As soon as that meeting was finished, I had to drive back to Chicago and attend to the candidate selection.

I spent Thursday and Friday in the office working on KRISP budget, trainings and meetings. Whew....

10 December 2010

Publishing as an Art

In August, I participated in a panel discussion on getting published which had been organized by the Health Care Administration Division of the Academy of Management.  Here's a summary of the advise and suggestions I offered.

Four Audiences for whom you actually write ~

1. The Editor.
The journal editor will check that your submission has adhered to the Instructions for Authors. If the answer is no, you could quickly get a desk reject. The Editor has the responsibility to assure that your submission fits with the mission and audiences of the journal. Again, if the answer is no, your submission will be rejected. To avoid this situation, send a brief (please, brief) note to the editor asking if your idea is a fit. Most editors will reply with useful information. Just don't turn this into a dialogue. Lastly, editors also act as reviewers. They read the articles and will add their critique to that of peer reviewers. They are smart people who know the field, so anticipate that.

2. Reviewers.
Depending on the journal, reviewers will be more or less rigorous in their critique of the work submitted. At the high end of rigor, you can expect to have theory and methods both scrutinized. Reviewers can be unpredictable, so be emotionally prepared for the unexpected.  For example, a reviewer might not like your statistical analysis and ask for a redo using x as a control variable. Or, a reviewer might ding you for not citing his or her work (naturally, you won't know this is happening) or for not being compulsive about the punctuation in the reference list. Lastly, reviewers do rely on the journal mission and submission guidelines to frame their critique. So, again, pay attention to those.

3. Readers.
It might seem odd that the journal readers are listed third, but they will never see your work if it does not get past the editor and the reviewers. Readers want a clear, concise take-away message. They also will not read articles that take effort to read; so, keep the syntax simple, minimize the jargon, and include visual aides that can be readily absorbed.

4. The Publisher.
The publisher of the journal wants a successful, profitable journal. Editors know this and make decisions (sometimes) based on this; hence, the need to select manuscripts that fit with the journal mission. Also, the publisher is in control of the steps that come between getting your accept letter and seeing your manuscript in print and online. Most of the time those publishing processes go smoothly, but glitches can happen which can delay release of your publication.

Do Your Homework
Given these audiences, here's my list of what you need to as homework before submitting your manuscript
a) Remember that your abstract gives the first impression. Make a good impression by having a well-written abstract that follows the Instructions to Authors guidelines.
b) Follow the Instructions to Authors TOTALLY! (Need I say more?)
c) Make sure that your submission is aligned with journal mission and have selected the type of article.
d) Edit. Edit. Edit.  There is nothing more frustrating than finding track changes, misspelled words, or contorted sentences, not to mention bad punctuation.
e) Get feedback on the draft version before submitting and then make changes it based on their comments. If your own colleagues see problems, it's guaranteed that the reviewers will too.
f) You can usually find out how long the process will take from submission to release by reading the Editorial. Most editors and journals will provide that information roughly once a year.

Lastly, as an Editor, here's my list of pet peeves.
* Tables need to carefully done, with attention to the title, formatting, columns, explanations of all abbreviations. Remember that in some article retrieval systems, these will stand alone.
* Don't forget to include the n when showing statistical results. DO NOT copy and paste output into your manuscript. Remember Audience #3, the Readers.  And, do NOT use more decimal points than are meaningful given the n.  What's the meaning of a thousandth of day hospitalized in a sample of 86? Really...
* References must conform completely to the reference style of the journal. Period.

So, that's my notes. I hope these tips have been helpful and reinforced what you probably already know or have been told.  If you have questions, leave a comment.

03 December 2010

Week 15

15 is the magic and highly stressful number in a semester. It's the last week of classes, which means finals and final papers happen next week.Students look sleep deprived and slightly more grungy than usual. Faculty increase their scurrying around to get the last of the committee work done before the University closes for the holiday season. And, the central heat becomes functional and very necessary.

I like Week 15 because I can breathe. The students who are going to "get it" have gotten it. I don't need to prepare a lecture because students do presentations of their papers this week. I do have a slight anxiety about the upcoming stack of papers that I'll have for grading next weekend. But, that's not so bad.

Week 15 is also when the invitations go out to faculty for this Department or that School Holiday Party. That somewhat obligatory, bright light, non-cocktail, mid-day event. Everyone is expected to bring a gift donation for the announced charity. Great, I can do that and have put something under the tree each year. But, my thing is why December? Why not have the party in February when the winter seems like a permanent condition and we all suffer from a slight case of SAD.