#35 The most is up to you, but not all

Let’s take the example of publishing a paper. The work that needs to be done is: finding a research direction, literature review, finding a missing part, aligning with the supervisor to aim for a publication, doing experiments for the paper, analyzing experiments, putting them in a publishable format, and submitting them to a research journal. Quite some steps to be taken.

After submission, it is not up to us anymore. Now it is up to the editors to find the reviewers, up to the reviewers to accept it, take their time, and provide quality feedback. It will take weeks before we have any answer. We could keep imagining different outcomes in our head, worry if we did everything that was up to us, or we can move on to other aspects of our PhD and of our lives that are there for us. Research continues.

The outcomes can be threefold: acceptance with no revision, conditional acceptance, or rejection. The first scenario requires no further work on the paper, you go on with research and celebrate. Conditional acceptance offers ways to improve the paper, reflect on some more aspects, and learn. Rejection provides the most possibilities for growth, even though it might be seen as a ‘bad outcome’. It offers ways to enrich and see the paper from a different perspective.

Next time you get your paper rejected, remember all the work you have put in beforehand to get to the point of rejection. Similar to dating and relationships, where we put the work of becoming the person who will get to a relationship, now during PhD we are putting the work of becoming the researcher who will get to a publication. Both scenarios will lead to rejections, but both offer lessons for future attempts. Until we get a ‘yes’, at which point it will already feel normal, as you have been preparing for it. 😊

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