This past month has been a difficult time. Two thesis to read. One student whose thesis has to be submitted this year does not have a paper and the University declared that she will not be able to submit her thesis. We have been attempting to get it published since last November but journals kept rejecting it. We modified as per the comments given to us. Each time it took us a month to do the experiments and incorporate them into the revised manuscript. Finally we submitted to a journal who were kind enough to say that the paper can be resubmitted after revision. I got the entire lab working on the paper- we have resubmitted it and are waiting for the decision with bated breath. UGC thinks everyone should fit into one mould. Yes, there are too many Ph.Ds without a paper but just by putting a rule that there should be a paper before submission does not solve the problem. In fact when I talked to the University and when we approached the VC with the problem, remarkably, they had the same solution- submit it to one of the pay and publish journals. Why do you need to submit it to a good journal?
My jaw fell open. Does not the VC know that most of the pay and publish journals are fake? That it is better to wait and publish the work in a good journal than in a dubious journal? Are such rules more important than getting a good publication? And exactly what are we trying to solve here?
Anyway, my only relaxation was reading and I finished reading The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The book traces the history of identification of gene as the inheritance material. The early part was really enjoyable. He talks about eugenics, the horrifying experiments on twins done by the Nazis and the lasting impact it had on genetics. The latter part was I too felt rushed. And it is not the author's fault. The field has expanded so much that it is difficult to compress it in one book. There are too many strands and each strand requires its own book. That said, some of the early history I do plan to incorporate into my lectures for the M.Sc. students.
My jaw fell open. Does not the VC know that most of the pay and publish journals are fake? That it is better to wait and publish the work in a good journal than in a dubious journal? Are such rules more important than getting a good publication? And exactly what are we trying to solve here?
Anyway, my only relaxation was reading and I finished reading The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The book traces the history of identification of gene as the inheritance material. The early part was really enjoyable. He talks about eugenics, the horrifying experiments on twins done by the Nazis and the lasting impact it had on genetics. The latter part was I too felt rushed. And it is not the author's fault. The field has expanded so much that it is difficult to compress it in one book. There are too many strands and each strand requires its own book. That said, some of the early history I do plan to incorporate into my lectures for the M.Sc. students.
