Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is an absolute pleasure to be talking with you
today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Today, I'm talking about how you know your manuscript is ready for submission, how you
know your manuscript is ready for submission.
This particular episode is coming to you with my trainees and my mentees, really.
I'll call them my mentees in my research program, in mind, because I want to help them understand
that there really is a process.
There's a process, and sometimes I think when you first come to manuscript writing, especially
scientific manuscript writing, there is a sense that it's like a college term paper
where you maybe stay up all night and then you hammer out this huge manuscript and it
takes you maybe eight hours and you're like, whoa, good for me, I've done it.
Then you send it over to your mentor and they come back saying, wow, this is really good
and here are all the edits and there's what looks like red everywhere, depending on how
the track changes come to you.
Then you're like, oh my gosh, I spent so much time.
Then you take the next time of binge writing and you binge write and edit all the work.
Then you send it back and they send it back to you and it's like, oh, this is really good
and now these are all these edits.
Sometimes it feels like torture where it's like, wait a minute, when is this manuscript
going to be done?
I've now spent maybe 32 of these binge writing sessions writing this manuscript and each
time you keep sending it back to me saying it's not ready, what's wrong with you?
If you are like many clinicians who are trying to write around clinic and around all the
activities that you're doing, these 32 hours didn't happen over four days.
These are 32 hours that have happened over maybe 17 weeks because when it comes to time
to binge write, it doesn't really come very easily.
You have to wait for the right time and for many of us, it's like, oh, a couple of weeks
from now during summer vacation, travel, I can do this.
Unfortunately, the time that is needed to invest in a manuscript is time that is needed.
Whether that time is spread over years or that time is spread over days, it really takes
time and investment to write a good manuscript.
I want to talk about how do you know?
As a mentor, when I edit manuscripts and even when I'm a collaborator on manuscripts, though
there's a little bit of a difference there.
If I'm the senior author on a manuscript, I know when the manuscript is ready and I
think there's a lot of frustration with my mentees in my program because it's like, you
keep sending it back to me.
You keep sending it back to me.
Every time I say, hey, it's getting better.
This is great.
They're like, no, it's supposed to be done.
I just want to be very clear about how I think about manuscripts and how I think about when
they're actually ready for submission.
I hope that my mentees are listening because this is really for you.
I think that this is helpful to anybody who is writing and this really applies to manuscripts
specifically, though it can be thought about for grants as well.
I will tell you because I need to, I just need to get this out of my mind right now,
is that there is a current manuscript that I'm working on right now that sparks this
specific episode.
I will say that at the end of revising and I want to tell you and I tell you at the risk
of my mentees listening and saying, that's our paper she's talking about, but I want
to tell you that we started working on this manuscript in 2021, I believe.
This is 2021, end of 2021, I believe.
So we've been working on this manuscript for three years and no, it has not been three
years of continuous writing, clearly because it would have been done by now, but it's been
three years of staccato binge writing and we're still where we are.
And it takes a long time to write a manuscript, right?
You're collecting data and then you are synthesizing the data and then you're going and you're
writing the manuscript.
So there have been other things that have been going on in between, but I will tell
you that as far as writing the manuscript, we've probably been writing for over a year
and it's still not ready.
And so this manuscript is front and center in my mind as I tell you about this episode,
as I share these insights and I hope my mentees, if you're listening, this is for you.
Number one, writing a manuscript is not about getting a publication, it's about making a
contribution.
I want to say that again, because it's a little bit long, but it's important.
Writing a manuscript is about making a contribution.
I know we need publications.
I know they say you should publish or perish.
I know people are counting the numbers of your publications.
I know you're desperately trying to get into medical school or get into residency or get
a promotion or insert whatever goal you have there.
I know you're trying to achieve a goal and having a number of publications is associated
with that goal.
And for that reason, it drives a little bit of craziness around writing and submitting.
It's like, let's just submit it, let's just get it done so that we can publish this manuscript.
And I just want to say that it's the wrong place to start.
The publication goal, the number of publications you need to check off your list will always
be the wrong place to start.
Now is number of publications important?
As long as we're in academic medicine, it will always be important.
Is publication important to the people who want to look at you as the expert?
Yeah.
If they don't see publications, they don't agree that you're the expert.
If you've sent 3 million patients with a disorder, they don't agree.
They're like, show me the money, show me what you've done.
So publications are important.
And I'm not trying now to diminish the importance of publications.
But I'm saying if you're starting from the place of, I just need publications, I just
need to check off the numbers, you're already starting from the wrong place because you're
starting from a place of desperation and a place of scarcity.
Yeah.
And no good can come out of that.
It's just like, I just need a man, I just need a man.
It's like, okay, all right, you get what you get.
That's the same thing.
It's like, I just need a publication.
It's like, oh, you get what you get.
And so if you're really going to do this well, and if you're going to work in my research
program mentees who are listening, you're going to start from the point of what contribution
can I make?
What contribution can I make?
And why is this different?
It's different because when you start from the place of contribution, you've got to start
from the place of substance.
If you're just going to publish anything, you're just looking for what to publish.
And to be honest, this is one of my biggest frustrations with people who say they want
to work with me.
And it's like, they don't want to work with me.
They just want a publication.
And the kind of energy that comes from just, I just want any publication with my name on
it.
It's just, it's actually now a little bit, a little bit upsetting to me.
I am confessing right now, it is a little bit upsetting to me because the energy and
the frenzy that comes with that is not good.
It's not good because it's willing to just throw things together, throw them in the wash
and hope for the best.
No good can come out of that.
Or it's willing to go borrow things without appropriately attributing credit.
And that is plagiarism.
It's willing to cut corners because it just wants to be published.
And that's challenging.
But when we start from the place of contribution, we start from the place of what can I bring?
What thing of value can I bring?
I know I'm trying to publish.
I know what the end goal is, but what substance can I bring?
And every time you start with value, every time you start with substance, every time
you start with something that's important that you want to give, good things come out
of that space because it drives you in a different way than the desperation of achieving the
end goal drives you.
And it shows up in the way your paper comes together.
I can tell when people are just trying to get a publication because I read it and I'm
like, what is this?
And maybe some people are successful at pulling together publications that they're just trying
to get publication out of and it's like, oh, well, it turned out well.
But I think that's the exception rather than the rule.
In reality, if you are going to have a quality submission, you're going to start with a quality
contribution.
And so the starting point is really making a contribution.
And I want to say that if you don't have contribution as a starting point, what is the point?
Just amass a lot of publications and get those boxes checked.
What is the point?
Everybody has different goals.
And maybe your point is just, I don't even care how awesome those publications are.
I just want the publications.
That's fine.
This conversation is not directed at you.
I really am talking about people who want to do good in the world and they also want
to submit publications.
And I want to say it starts with doing good in the world and saying, how do I contribute?
How does this paper contribute to the discourse in the literature?
So number one, start with contribution.
Number two, no matter the topic, you've got to bring your excellence to it.
Yes.
And I'm saying bring your excellence.
I'm not saying go find excellence because you already have it.
And how do I know you already have it?
Because you are listening to me, which means that you're in medicine.
You're probably a physician.
You've probably done the four years in medical school.
You've probably done the four years of residency or three or 10, however many you needed to
do.
And you're probably in fellowship or maybe you're beyond that.
I don't know where you are in this process, but you've already invested a considerable
amount of time in expanding yourself to get to a place that other people are never going
to be able to get to for different reasons.
No judgment.
But you're somebody who can bring excellence to the table because you've had to do that.
To get to medical school, you have to bring a level of excellence.
To get into residency, you had to bring a level of excellence to the table.
Excellence lies in you.
So when you go to publish a manuscript, don't leave your excellence at the door and then
just try to hastily put something together and say, voila, here is the paper.
You've got to bring your excellence to it too.
And we can tell when you bring anything less than your excellence to the paper because
it looks so bland.
And there's just a quality about it that's like, ugh, ugh.
And for those of you who don't understand that sound, it's the sound of disgust.
Like, what did you bring here?
You're an excellent person, but why did you give me trash?
And when you don't bring excellence to your manuscript writing, that's how people feel
at the end of reading.
It's like, ugh, this is just ew.
And I'm not just talking about typos.
I'm not just talking about grammatical incorrectness, which even when we bring our excellence, we
still make mistakes.
So it's not about the mistake making.
It's about the fact that you're just pushing something together.
You're just pulling it together and saying, here, here, here, take it.
Rather than saying, how do I craft something beautiful that is consistent with the kind
of excellent person that I am?
And you know, I want to say that it's one of those intangibles that it's hard to explain.
Like, how can you tell when something's not excellent?
You just can't.
You can just tell that it lacks excellence.
And yes, it is the typos.
Yes, it's the grammatical incorrectness.
It's everything.
But it's just the whole package says, I just swashed this together, and I really didn't
put time and effort into it.
And from people who are used to being excellent, who can be super excellent, whenever you see
work that is less than excellent, you can tell, and it is off putting.
And I want to say that it takes a lot of time and investment to get a manuscript published,
writing, submitting the manuscript, waiting to receive the reviews, working through the
reviews, moving from one journal tier to the next journal tier.
It takes a lot of time and investment.
If you're going to do it, you want to be excellent all the way.
And that's sometimes the challenge with not getting manuscripts published.
Even when your manuscript is excellent, it's hard to get it published.
But when it's not excellent, it is even harder.
And so what a waste of energy to be moving manuscript from journal to journal to journal,
and it's not excellent.
It's a waste of energy.
And I don't want to make that kind of investment.
So I want to invite you, when you're going ahead and pulling a manuscript together, think
about contribution, number one.
And number two, bring your excellence to the writing.
Number three, be careful about making factual statements.
Okay.
So make a factual statement in its very loose definition.
It's something that somebody else has shown in another manuscript.
That's it.
Because you're going to cite this.
You don't even know, is it true?
Is it not true?
In general, you don't want to write in your manuscript things that are not true.
But anything you're saying has to first of all, this is like, for example, you're starting
with the introduction.
Your introduction will always be based on what is already written.
Somebody else has written something.
So go pull what's written, write it in your paper.
Not verbatim, you're going to paraphrase, but you're also going to cite it.
This is really important.
Be factual and write factual statements.
Many times there is an overlap of what is factual and what is opinion, right?
We saw that there was a difference between these two populations.
Therefore, this population must suck while the other one must be great.
Yes.
So yes, the difference between the populations, that's factual.
This population sucks relative to the other population, not factual.
That is opinion.
That is conjecture.
When you go to write in your paper, especially as you're making arguments, laying out the
introduction, you want to be clear to pull in fact and separate all the other stuff.
And so where you go, and I'm exaggerating a little bit to make a point, most of us will
not write that in the paper, I hope.
Though actually I will tell you that I've read many a paper that talks about opinion
as fact.
But what I want to say is that when you bring in elements from other people's manuscripts,
be careful to only extract what is relevant to your paper, but based in fact, right?
They got three.
The median was three.
That's fact.
They got a median of three.
Maybe they made it up.
We don't know.
We hope they didn't.
There was a reproducibility crisis in medicine and medical research, so we know that.
But if they said the median was three in this group and in the other group it was 15 and
the p-value was 0.001, that's fact that you can pull into your paper.
There were differences found between the two groups and you want to make sure you do that.
Now you don't want to say that it means that this group is always bad compared to this
group.
Now you're making judgments.
They may have said that in the discussion because anybody can write whatever they want
in the discussion, but you have to be careful pulling it into your paper.
So my point is that make sure that you are making factual statements and supporting them
with a citation.
Sometimes what I see is that my mentee, one or two mentees, actually this is actually
a common problem, so I'll say a lot of my mentees, will just write a statement and just
slap a couple of citations on them.
And then you go back to the citations, you're like, wait a minute, this citation doesn't
... it doesn't say that.
It doesn't say that.
Yeah, I know we're talking about this disease.
Let's say we're talking about TTP and I know that this is a manuscript about TTP, but it
doesn't support what you said.
Why is this citation there?
And that goes back to the whole thing about excellence.
Don't put a citation.
You didn't even really read, you didn't even really make sure that it actually supports
your assertion.
You just put it in there.
You want to make sure it supports the assertion.
Another thing that sometimes I see done is that someone will make a statement and then
put 16 references and it's like, do you need 16 references?
And do all 16 references actually fit?
Already it arouses suspicion.
It's like 16 references for this one statement?
Now I have to go back and read all 16 because I'm suspicious.
Okay, so I just want to make the point that you want to be factual about the statements
you make and you want to make sure that these statements actually come from other manuscripts.
I mean, there's a part of the manuscript that's going to be your own data, which you can't
cite anybody else.
It's your data.
You're now kind of developing your body of work that other people are going to cite.
But every time, especially in the introduction, even in the methods and in the discussion
where you say, well, somebody else did this and this is what they found.
I want you to pay attention to being very factual about those things and not to add
opinion as fact.
Okay.
I feel very strongly about this.
Can you tell?
Okay.
Number four, draw conclusions carefully.
Now this is something I've been learning and I want to say it's become very, it's become
more intense in my learning over the last few weeks, especially because of certain public
case, certain manuscripts that I sent out that the revise and resubmit was like a major,
major, major resubmission or major, major, major revision.
What I recognize to be important is that if you're not sure, don't say you're sure.
And this is a challenge for me because I like to be definitive.
I like to say that I know.
And in reality, there's a lot that's not known.
And so it is important that you make it clear what your assertions are based on.
You can say the recommendations are that everybody should get a platelet transfusion and it's
okay to say that, but it's also important to say, well, you know, there was this randomized
trial that says everybody should get it.
Great.
Or you say, well, there were three case reports.
And then I'm not sure that this is the right recommendation for all patients because we're
not sure based on the case report, right?
Based on the level of evidence, you can be a little bit more firm in your recommendation.
And for the most part, I'm in hematology.
We don't have a lot of randomized control clinical trials that tell us this is exactly
what you should do.
Even when we do, there are patients who stand before us who don't exactly fit.
And therefore, when you come to putting your stake in the ground and saying, this is what
is the interpretation of our data, be careful the way you word it.
Don't say everybody should do this.
And I've gotten dinged for that too.
So this is something I'm learning.
It's important to say based on this survey data, it may suggest that this is what people
do.
And that's okay to say this is what people do.
Rather than saying based on survey data, everybody should do this.
It's like, wait, the survey data can't let you feel so strongly about that recommendation.
And so be tentative when necessary.
And if you feel like you want to really lay down a recommendation, be very clear about
what data allows you to be so confident.
So when you draw conclusions, pay attention and be careful and be aware of your bias as
well.
So the example I gave earlier where there's a difference between two groups and you conclude
that this is the bad group and that's the better group.
There's a lot of that in science.
That's interpretation, that's bias, it's not science.
So be careful about the conclusions you draw because sometimes other people come to your
paper and they just take those conclusions verbatim without really evaluating the work
before them.
So you be careful about the conclusions you draw and be careful about the conclusions
other people are drawing too.
Just because the discussion says this is the definitive strategy that we should use in
this patient population doesn't mean you have to agree.
You go back to the paper and you say, I don't know, but I'm drawing the same conclusions
as you are from this data.
So recognize that you are somebody who can make your own decisions about other people's
data that could be different from the decisions that they're making as well.
And so think about it as you draw conclusions in your own paper to make sure that you are
drawing the appropriate conclusions based on the level of the evidence that you are
presenting.
Number five, and this is something I think that really surprises many of my mentees,
is that this is an iterative process.
Writing a manuscript is an iterative process.
No, there is no manuscript where you write the first draft and the first draft is the
final draft.
It just doesn't happen that way.
And that's because it takes a lot to build a manuscript.
Creating a manuscript is creation.
It's a creative process.
You put something together and you delete half of it and then you're like, well, let's
pull back a little bit more.
And then you shape it.
The final finished product looks nothing like what you started from.
It doesn't look anything like the first draft.
And that's for a reason.
It's important that it is that way because it's a creative process.
And here's the thing, if you're writing by yourself, maybe you could sit down and in
eight hours produce a paper.
But if you're writing with other collaborators and especially if you're working with a senior
person as the person who's the first author, if you're working with someone like me, I
want to shape a paper with you.
I'm not just going to accept what you give me as the final format because there are nuances
to some of the things that we're talking about.
There's some things that you're not aware of.
There's some data that maybe are not yet pulled into the manuscript.
So I'm saying that this is an iterative process.
Do not expect your first draft to look anywhere near the final version.
So if it's an iterative process, you have to expect that there will be back and forth,
a lot of back and forth.
I've had many a times when my mentees will say, Dr. Mimina, the paper is ready.
And I'll read it and I'll say, great, great progress.
And there's more.
And then they'll submit again and they'll say, Dr. Mimina, it's ready now.
And I read it and I'm like, oh, no, it's not.
And that's because it's an iterative process.
And I know how much it takes you to be able to sit down for those eight hours or five,
or however many you spend pulling the manuscript together.
And then you feel as if it's wasted time, if at the end it's not approved.
I just want to say that if you're going to write a good manuscript, it's really going
to take a lot of back and forth.
And you have to expect that.
So make it your expectation that the manuscript is going to come back a few times to you and
create space for that.
And so this particular paper that I was talking about earlier, and we've been writing for
over a year, it's because my mentees don't really have as much time or they have not
created the space to devote to this manuscript.
And you can't really short circuit the process.
So just because we started writing a year and a half ago, doesn't mean that I'm going
to get the paper and say, let's just accept it and let's just send it out.
Because even excellent papers struggle in the publishing world.
What more a paper that's not so good.
And so you can't short circuit the time it takes to do the work of iteration, create
space for it.
And what's more valuable is time spent working on it regularly.
So create regular intervals during your work week to move forward on the paper, other than
like the weekend binge, which honestly doesn't produce as many good things as we want it
to produce.
So it is an iterative process, have an expectation that it's iterative and create space so that
you can continue to iterate and create space consistently and routinely.
So it doesn't take three years to write one paper.
And I'm not saying that in judgment because as clinicians we are so busy, but we've really
got to begin to create space for consistent, sustained research writing.
Otherwise, we're not going to grow the way we need to as writers, as communicators.
Okay.
Number six, is that the process starts with content, the process starts with content and
it ends with details.
It starts with content and it ends with details.
What do I mean?
When you first start pulling the manuscript together, it's really about, do you have all
the content there?
Let's say you're writing an original research manuscript.
For the most part, the results help you shape the whole paper.
So you want to make sure, is everything I need to include an introduction here?
Is everything I need to include in the methods here?
Is everything I need to include in the results here?
Is everything I need to include in the discussion section here?
At first, you're just worried about content.
And so I like for my mentees to give me an outline.
They want to give me a first full draft and I'm like, I don't want a draft.
I want an outline.
The reason I want an outline is because I want to ask the question first.
I want to answer the question, is the content here?
Now the problem with giving me a full draft is that now I'm like, is this grammar correct?
These sentences structured appropriately?
Is this the right logical flow?
That's distraction.
At the beginning, I just want to know, is everything on the page that needs to be on
the page?
So when you start this process, and this is why the first draft is so different from the
final draft, because at the beginning, you're not worried about beauty or correctness or
even fact, not yet.
You're just worried about content.
Is everything here?
Everything we need to address is here?
Did we bring everybody who's supposed to be at the party to the party?
That's your first goal.
That's the content goal.
Is everybody here?
Is every fact that needs to be addressed here?
Is every result here?
And then as you progress, you're focusing now more on making everything come together
and flow beautifully.
The most beautiful manuscripts, they just flow.
They flow.
It's like a dance.
It's like water just moving about in a wave.
They're beautifully written.
And I know you've read a lot of manuscripts that are just like, oh my gosh, please get
me to the end of this manuscript.
I can't.
I'm going to do the conflicts too much.
You've read those manuscripts and I hope you're not writing them.
I hope you're not settling for writing them.
But a beautiful manuscript is the goal.
I mean, we're not looking for perfection here.
Goal is not perfection.
Goal is to complete it.
But we are looking for something that reads well, because you want your reader to read
your manuscript.
Have you ever had that experience where you start reading, you're like, I can't finish
this paper.
Sometimes my mentees send me work and I'm like, I can't even read this.
This is so bad.
And I have to deal with my emotions and then give them quality feedback because that's
what I do.
But you start with content.
You don't care how the content is put together at first, but then you end up with something
that flows beautifully for the reader to read.
And at the very end, you're paying attention to details.
Are the punctuations correct?
Is the flow of logic perfect?
I mean, maybe not perfect.
I hate to use that word, but is it complete?
Does this read well?
Then you pay attention to detail.
And so one of the things that I think I see challenges at both extremes, sometimes I see
content is missing.
I'm like, how can you talk about this important topic and you don't talk about one of the
most important papers in this area?
That's like missing content.
So it takes completeness and it takes attention to detail to make sure all the content is
there.
So sometimes there are errors in bringing all the content to the table.
And then sometimes this content that's like, is this really applicable?
So it does take time to learn what content needs to come together.
But then I also see mistakes on the detail end where things are missing that shouldn't
be missing, where there's not a good proofreading.
I mean, at this time in our lives, if we're using Microsoft Word or whatever word processing
software we use, there is spell check.
There is no reason ever to have errors in your document.
Now that we have spell check, there's no reason.
Please make use of spell check at a minimum.
Sometimes before you send it out the door, you want to make sure you spell check.
And yes, the spell check will catch the list of references with all these names and flag
them as wrong.
And it's very frustrating to go through it, but it's still worth doing just to make sure
that your tired brain, which is not as scrupulous about catching these errors, can be helped
by the word processing system.
So yeah, detail orientation is just sometimes about making sure you're using the tools that
are available to you.
But it's also how do the figures look?
It's also the font.
Is the font the same throughout?
Sometimes I'll get papers sent to me and the font for the introduction is different from
the font for the methods.
And then the pages are numbered and that font is different.
It's frustrating.
And it's frustrating not because I'm trying to be annoying and nitpicky.
It's frustrating because when a reader sees a manuscript that is nicely formatted, the
font is all the same.
The sizes are exactly as they need to be.
There is a certain psychological release of stress that happens.
It's like, okay, this is a nice paper to read.
As opposed to when you get a paper and everything is everywhere and things are not organized
and the font and the images is different from the font in the writing, it brings a certain
amount of chaos to somebody's mind.
They may not be thinking about it, but your paper makes them mad.
The moment they look at it, they're already frustrated.
You don't want that.
You want to address the psychological background of the person reading your paper.
Before they, they're not even thinking about this, but you're going to think about it for
them because you're going to prepare.
You're going to prepare by formatting and making things look good.
Okay, that's the detail orientation.
That's number six.
Number seven, you know the manuscript is ready for submission.
When you look at the manuscript, you read it and you're like, this is a good, this is
a good contribution and that's it.
You look at it and you're like, oh, this is good.
Actually, you know what I really wanted to say is, damn, this is good.
Yes, excuse my French.
That's what I'm saying is after you've done all this work, you've invested a lot of time
in the paper because any good paper requires time investment.
You look back and you read it and you're like, oh yeah, this is good.
This is good.
Now, you know, your reviewers may look at it and be like, yep, this is crap and that's
fine.
That's their opinion.
They're allowed to have their opinion, but if at any point in time you look at your manuscript
and you don't think it's good, please do not submit it.
Do not pass go.
Do not collect 200.
Do not make another person read it because you don't think your work is good.
Then there is no point sending it out to anybody else and asking them if this is good.
And whatever it takes for you to get to a place where you're like, this is good work.
That's exactly what you need to do.
And many times I see like my mentees will write something and hope that it will work
out.
I hope I hope Dr. Remenow will fix this.
And I'm like, no, if you will not give me your best work, it makes it harder for me
to give you my best work because I'm going to be so distracted trying to fix your work.
That's not your best work.
I can't really get to the higher level of building on your on your best work.
It's how you get good feedback.
You submit your best as close as you can get, and then they give you their best feedback.
But if you submit nonsense and you could have made it better, people are giving you feedback
in areas where you already know you needed improvement.
You submitted something that was full of typos.
You knew the typos needed to be addressed.
And then the reviewers come back to you.
All they can give you feedback about is the typos.
It doesn't help you.
I mean, it makes the paper better, but that's stuff that you could have done without the
reviewers.
So the feedback you want from anybody looking at your paper is feedback you can't give yourself.
There is a fine line with, you know, getting to the point of submission and not not trying
to be perfect.
It's not about perfection.
You look at your work like this is good work.
Let's submit it.
If you look at your work and you don't think it's good work, and it's not ready for submission,
that is the summary.
All right.
I talked about seven things.
Number one, writing a manuscript is about making a contribution.
Number two, bring your excellence.
Number three, make factual statements carefully and add citations.
Number four, draw conclusions carefully.
Number five, expect feedback to be iterative.
Number six, it starts with content and ends with detail.
Number seven, when you look at the manuscript and you're proud of what you wrote, it is
ready.
All right.
I want to tell you today, as always, if you're looking for a coach, I'm always here to help
you, especially as you think about how do you manage mentees within your research program?
You want them, you love them, but they overwhelm you.
You're like, I'm better off doing it by myself.
I want to say you are never better off doing it by yourself because you are only better
off when you multiply yourself.
And yes, it takes work and investment.
Yes, it takes you longer, but it's always absolutely worth it.
And you want to choose your mentees carefully.
All right.
I'll add more when you reach out to me and let me know how I can help you.
All right.
It's been a pleasure talking with you today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I look forward to talking with you again next time on the Clinician Researcher Podcast.
Thank you for listening.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academically
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