TO REVISE OR NOT TO REVISE A JOURNAL MANUSCRIPT: IS IT WORTH IT?

WHY REJECTION?
You’re probably wondering why I write and speak about disappointment, rejection, and failure so often. Or, maybe not. The fact is: Writing productivity is proportional to writing rejection. Since my last blog, I've received 3 manuscript rejections. The more I submit to peer-reviewed journals, the more I get rejected. At least, that’s been my formula for rejection throughout my academic career. Even in retirement from JHU, I’ve been figuratively smacked all over the place by editors several times a month. Those manuscripts that have been published are not produced without significant scarring. It is a continuously humbling experience.

EDITORIAL DECISION OPTIONS
Anyway, the issue is what to do when you get whacked by a journal editor. The rejection menu usually consists of the following:

• Unconditional Acceptance, which means: "We love you!"
• Conditional Acceptance with Minor Revisions, which means: "We like you, kinda!"
• Rejection with Major Revision to Resubmit, which means: "You’re a moron!"
• Rejection, Do Not Resubmit Anywhere in the Universe, including British journals, which means: "Consider another career or stay in your lab and don’t come out!"

YOUR RESPONSE: When you receive 2 or 3 reviewers’ comments, which may be as short as 1 page or as long as 3 pages single-spaced, what do you do?
A. Cry
B. Drink alcohol
C. Take a controlled substance
D. Put out a contract on the editor
E. Torture the editor using Jack Bauer’s techniques on 24 until he or she reveals the names of the reviewers
F. All of the above

Did you get it right? After you've recovered from one of these initial reactions and had time to calm down and put your chainsaw back in the garage, do you revise or not?

So, do you suck it in, buck up, hunker down, and make the revisions or try to dream up other colloquialisms for this sentence?

My next blog will answer this question and suggest strategies to attack reviewers’ comments before you undertake any revision. Let me know your pub experiences. I hope you've had a higher hit rate than me.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

A BAKER’S HALF DOZEN LESSONS WE CAN LEARN FROM OLYMPIAN LOSERS!

HOW DO YOU RESPOND?
Professionally, we get smacked and whacked all the time from end-of course student ratings, peer evaluations, annual reviews, promotion and tenure reviews, journal article and book rejections, and grant rejections, to name just a few. Some of these can be difficult to swallow on a regular basis and you may scratch your hairy or bald heads for answers; others can be devastating to your career path. We encounter all types of disappointments and failures on our academic journey. (See September 6, 2009 blog on “Rejection and Failure in Academe.”)

As noted in a previous blog, the issue is not whether we will fail, because we will; it’s how we respond to failure that our bosses, colleagues, family, and friends will be watching. It’s our response that counts.

ARE YOU A RISK-TAKER?
The athletes we watched for 16 days are risk-takers, baring it all mentally and physically for us to observe. They push the largest envelope you can imagine on the slopes, rinks, and halfpipes. When they cross the finish line, most wear their emotions on their tights.

What about you? Do you consider yourself a risk-taker or do you usually play it safe and operate within your comfort zone? Those of us who teach, write, and conduct research on the edge will take more hits than the rest of you.

A FEW LESSONS ON LOSING:
So what can we learn about “losing” from observing Olympian winners and losers? Although we’re not wearing their skates or ski boots, their messages are loud and clear:

1. A bad loser is always ugly.
2. Take risks, but be willing to take the hits.
3. Put 200% effort into anything of significance worth doing.
4. See beyond your failures. Don’t dwell on your failure; look toward your next event.
5. Learn lessons from your failures. Make adjustments before your next attempt.
6. Don’t let your failure define you. Failing is just a single event; you’re not a failure. Even a long string of failures does not define who you are.
7. After you fail, “KEEP MOVING FORWARD.” Persevere in spite of any setbacks—large or small.

BOTTOM LINE: Maybe this blog said nothing new to you. Sorry about that. Perhaps, at minimum, it’s just a reminder that if you’re a player in the academic game or any other game, you should play because you love it. It’s not just another job, like greeter at Walmart; it’s more of a calling. The operative word is “passion” for teaching, writing, research, clinical practice, or service. The sacrifices are too great and the journey is too hard if you’re only in it for the awards. There are so many winning gold medal professors, but so few awards that recognize them.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT LOSING FROM THE 2010 OLYMPIC ATHLETES?

DOES LOSING MEAN FAILURE?
Of course! That’s the way many of us see it, except in the context of “The Biggest Loser” weight loss program. And even those losers fail.

After years and, in some cases, possibly a lifetime of commitment, training, and limitless personal sacrifices, what happens when you attain a medal other than gold or rank 4th or below? How do Olympians perceive that performance? How do they feel? As we heard in interview after interview, any of those performances can be extremely disappointing. But frequently, that disappointment may be tempered by the circumstances and whether the athlete felt he or she did his or her best. How did it happen? Is any rank less than gold seen as “failure”?

Perhaps, some athletes perceive it as failure, especially when their country heaped tons of pressure on top of them to bring home gold, as in the cases of the Korean and Japanese medalists in the women’s figure skating and every Canadian athlete, particularly the hockey team. Probably the media from most countries piled high expectations on its athletes, which were usually not attained, at least, by medal count. However, putting the event into a broader perspective, it’s only a few minutes in the life of an athlete, albeit significant, possibly life-changing minutes. Most athletes may have failed to achieve their goal in their respective events, but they are not failures. Failure does not define who they are.

REACTION TO FAILURE
Unfortunately, there are a few athletes who receive silver or bronze medals who exhibit screamingly bad sportsmanship because they feel they deserved gold. One example is Evgeni Plushenko in the men’s figure skating. His behavior was reprehensible. His verbal comments and body language were ugly. The net result: His distinguished quad performance among his competitors will be dwarfed by his bad sportsmanship in the memories of the viewers. Despite his skating virtuosity, his bad behavior may be his legacy in his attempt for gold in successive Olympics.

Contrary to Plushenko’s previous Olympic success, many 2010 Olympians failed miserably in their previous Olympic appearances. Others who prepared just as much never made it to the Olympics? How did those athletes overcome those failures to try again? Their reaction to persevere instead of giving up in spite of the major hits that they already experienced is what the Olympic spirit is all about. That’s what can inspire all of us to tackle our daily challenges in the workplace and at home, which are not nearly as grueling, maybe.

So how do you respond to disappointments and failure in your professional world? Some suggestions for how you might respond will be offered tomorrow.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC

How Can You OVERCOME PROCRASTINATION? Part I

Causes of Procrastination

What are the most common causes of procrastination? Fear of failure is frequently the primary cause. Tasks that seem difficult or overwhelming can be the objects of this fear. Rather than trying to tackle them, you just push them aside and avoid them altogether. Once this procrastination begins with one task, such as writing an article, it can become a cycle that’s repeated with other similar tasks, such as writing reports, grants, etc. It will be increasingly difficult to break this cycle. In writing, for example, “writer’s block” becomes the rationalization or justification for procrastination in any writing project. It legitimizes the procrastination.

In addition to failure, the literature identifies other possible causes:



• Fear of rejection, responsibility, criticism, disappointing others, imperfection, making a mistake, change, inadequacy, or success


• Feeling overwhelmed


• Desire for attention


• Boring or difficult tasks


• Resentment


• Unclear goals



7 Steps to Overcome Procrastination

The challenge is how to regain control and conquer the tasks that produced your procrastination. Here are seven steps you can try:


1. Identify the source of the problem


2. Break down your tasks into subtasks


3. Apply the “Swiss Cheese Method”


4. Focus on the outcomes and deadlines


5. Review your daily, weekly, and semester schedules regularly


6. Find an accountability partner


7. Reward yourself for small and large victories



My next blog will describe these 7 steps. I hope this is helpful to you or a friend who could use a bit of guidance to snap out of a procrastination rut. Let me know your thoughts. Have you tried any techniques not listed above that have worked? Please share.

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC & Coventry Press

Rejection and Failure in Academe: How Do You Deal?

As academicians, it seems as though we are gluttons for punishment. We feast on rejection. We are the Hannibal Lecters of disappointment and failure. It comes with our territory. I would guess that only performers (actors, singers, dancers, and stand-up comedians) encounter more rejection than we do. Consider the number of opportunities for rejection:

1. Articles, book chapters, and books submitted for review
(Personal Note: During my first couple of years at Johns Hopkins, I accumulated enough rejections from journal editors to wallpaper my office. About 22 years later, my 1st book on humor in teaching--Professors Are from Mars, Students Are from Snickers--garnered 30 publisher rejections. My acceptances have been disproportionately small compared to my rejections.)
2. Proposals for research funding
(Personal Note: With an 80-90% rejection rate for federal RFP submissions, how can one not experience a life of rejection in a research university?)
3. Promotion and tenure review
(Personal Note: It doesn't get any more demeaning than the promotion process. Even for an overachiever like me, when you're promoted, it's anti-climactic. I will never forget the day the committee met to review my credentials for "professor." No one ever called to tell me the decision. I finally called at the end of the day to find out what happened.)
4. Teaching
(Personal Note: Getting whacked by your students on end-of-course evaluations is not a pretty sight. When you put an enormous effort into your teaching and receive personal attacks by a few students, it always hurts. Peer observation can also be a humbling experience.)
5. Miscellaneous
(Personal Note: There are so many other ways our bosses (chairs, associate deans, and deans) can undermine our spirit and demoralize us in the way they treat us; there are too many to count. Academe has found so many ways to discourage their best and brightest faculty and devour their newbies. It should be ashamed.)

If none of the above applies to you, consider yourself blessed beyond description. For those of you to whom one or more of those forms of rejection apply, how do you respond? Just buck up, shrug it off, and keep on moving? That's easier said than done.

Obviously, perseverance is involved. I'd like to pass on an inspirational quote that I present in my keynotes on stress management that's in DVD form. It's from one of America's most creative screenwriters and actors: Sylvester Stallone. The context is Rocky Balboa talking to his son, who is discouraged, hates his job, and blames his dad for his predicament. Here's the quote:

Rocky Balboa (2006):

“I don’t care how tough you are.
It [life] will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody is going to hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard you hit;
it’s about how hard you can get hit,
and keep movin’ forward.
How much you can take and keep movin’ forward.
That’s how winning is done.

Now if you know what you’re worth,
now go out and get what you’re worth.
But you gotta be willing to take the hits and not pointin’ fingers, sayin’ you’re not where you wanna be because of him or her or anybody.
Cowards do that and that ain’t you.
You’re better than that.”

This quote is such an eloquent expression of what to consider when we face disappointments, rejection, and failure inside academe as well as outside. I hope it will touch your mind and heart as it did mine. Stay focused, honor your commitments, and "keep movin' forward."

COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC