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quasigeostrophyMet with my adviser today. Last week, she had given me the task of going back to my research and finding "just a couple of specifics" to punch up the conclusion of our AMS paper with better examples. This after I had rewritten the entire draft from a different perspective when we had decided the previous week that we needed to take the paper in a new direction, a draft which she loved.
This morning, she liked my new examples. I need to do a few small calculations and tweak the figures in Photoshop and such, and wait for her revisions (which she always classifies as "minor" to my papers despite visibly large amounts of red text), but we're down to the wire and may just make our latest self-imposed submission deadline of Labor Day.
We were about to wrap up the meeting when she said, "And I've been thinking,..."
I cut her off with "Uh-oh."
"No. I think you'll like this thinking," she responded, and, turning her monitor toward me, showed me the title page of the paper on which she had switched the order of our names.
Big fat hairy deal? I know a few of my classmates and other people in other fields and other schools have gotten first-authorship on their first papers from Master's degrees. My advisor, despite being a few years younger than me, is pretty old-fashioned when it comes to a lot of science politics and the student caste system (undergrad, M.S. student, Ph.D. student, post-doc), though, and is pretty stingy about granting first-authorship for a paper based on M.S. work. With my M.S., I was going along with it, too, because I was led much of the way since I was still learning cloud physics.
She said that with the new direction of the paper (selling the visualization application since the cloud physics results aren't particularly earth-shattering and submitting it to the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology rather than the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology as was our original plan), I know a lot more about the bulk of it than she does, and it's the right thing to do.
To some it might not be a big deal to get first authorship on a first scientific paper, so pardon me while I crow a bit. :-) Of course, it also means I'm corresponding author, and will be the first one to deal with the AMS and the reviewers during the submission/review/publication process.
This morning, she liked my new examples. I need to do a few small calculations and tweak the figures in Photoshop and such, and wait for her revisions (which she always classifies as "minor" to my papers despite visibly large amounts of red text), but we're down to the wire and may just make our latest self-imposed submission deadline of Labor Day.
We were about to wrap up the meeting when she said, "And I've been thinking,..."
I cut her off with "Uh-oh."
"No. I think you'll like this thinking," she responded, and, turning her monitor toward me, showed me the title page of the paper on which she had switched the order of our names.
Big fat hairy deal? I know a few of my classmates and other people in other fields and other schools have gotten first-authorship on their first papers from Master's degrees. My advisor, despite being a few years younger than me, is pretty old-fashioned when it comes to a lot of science politics and the student caste system (undergrad, M.S. student, Ph.D. student, post-doc), though, and is pretty stingy about granting first-authorship for a paper based on M.S. work. With my M.S., I was going along with it, too, because I was led much of the way since I was still learning cloud physics.
She said that with the new direction of the paper (selling the visualization application since the cloud physics results aren't particularly earth-shattering and submitting it to the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology rather than the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology as was our original plan), I know a lot more about the bulk of it than she does, and it's the right thing to do.
To some it might not be a big deal to get first authorship on a first scientific paper, so pardon me while I crow a bit. :-) Of course, it also means I'm corresponding author, and will be the first one to deal with the AMS and the reviewers during the submission/review/publication process.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 08:45 pm (UTC)I admire people who do the right thing when it comes to giving credit.
Also, congratulations!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 08:50 pm (UTC)Despite shortcomings I've heard from labmates and elsewhere during recent venting sessions, I continue to be impressed with how she operates. Sure there are still some rites of passage inherent in her system, but when common sense prevails, she lets it.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 09:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:45 pm (UTC)Although the First Author isn't by necessity the Corresponding Author. :) SWICMB has been corresponding auth on a number of papers she wasn't first on.
Which, you know, just means that she had all the hassle and none of the prestige. ;)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 01:53 am (UTC)How exciting!
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 01:38 pm (UTC)