TLDR
📺 What’s happening with videos?
Recent: Explaining the ANOVA and F-test: An explainer video for understanding what ANOVA is and how it works. After 7 years, I understand what “variance explained” actually means and now you can too.
Upcoming: my submission to the Summer of Math Exposition (community edition). If you want a hint, you won’t find it in the rural areas.
📰 What is this issue about?
My paper got rejected after a multi-year effort. I talk about my initial and
🧐 What am I enjoying right now?
Book — I’m preparing for JSM (Joint Statistical Meeting) in August. I’m reading some clinical trial textbooks to get ready for on-site interviews. I’m going through Adaptive Design Methods in Clinical Trials by Chow and Chang to buff up my adaptive trial knowledge.
Thing — Melting to the recent heat wave. Buying an ice making machine was a godsend.
📦 Other stuff
I wrote guided solutions to problems to Andrew Gelman’s Bayesian Data Analysis. It’s for advanced self-learners teaching themselves Bayesian statistics
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In this issue…
I wanted to talk about something that recently happened:
I want to talk about rejection.
Context
I had submitted a paper to Biometrics, one of the higher ranking journals in biostatistics. I first submitted in April 2022, got some feedback in August 2022, and didn’t resubmit until February 2023 due to the heavy amount of work that was requested for the revision.
And after all that, I was told that it wasn’t enough.
Initial reaction
My initial reaction was to be depressed. I didn’t want to read through the final referee comments, the fundamental reasons why my paper wasn’t good enough. I felt a lot of things after reading the rejection email.
I felt immense time pressure. I only have a year in my Ph.D program left! How am I supposed to juggle two papers and still get my dissertation ready?
I felt fake. Of course the paper was rejected. I spent months of wasted effort putting together a new results that I didn’t originally think about when I planned the paper. Of course real statisticians could detect that this work was a joke.
And most of all, I felt shame. The same shame I felt when only one Ph.D program accepted me, and 9 others rejected me. The shame of putting in months of effort, only for it
But that’s okay. It’s okay to feel shitty after your hard work doesn’t make the cut. I took a day to let myself sulk, get some fried chicken and forget my research. One lazy day will not keep me from getting my Ph.D.
Processing
That day off gave me some time to really think about the consequences of that rejection. With some clarity, I came to the conclusion that: the rejection was not consequential. At all.
Time pressure? In the exact words of my department:
The dissertation must contain an original contribution of quality that would be acceptable for publication in the biostatistics literature that extends the theory or methodology of biostatistics, or extends biostatistical methods to solve a critical problem in applied disciplines
The key phrase is “acceptable for publication”, not “published”. Even if my paper is still in revision by the time I plan to graduate, it’s okay. So long as the paper is publication-worthy, then it will be acceptable for a dissertation defense. Even though the paper was rejected, I’m still confident that my idea is a worthwhile addition to my research area. There is no time pressure. Sure, my boss will be pressuring me to get this published, but this is separate from my graduation requirements.
Fake? That’s impostor syndrome talking. I may not be the most technical biostatistics student, but I still provide statistical advice to literal professors and medical doctors. I know biostatistics more than them, so I know something.
I felt fake because statisticians rejected me, but I know that these people know much more than I do. I wrote this second paper with an evolving understanding of what a paper should look like and what results are needed to belong in a top journal. The reality is that I’m writing a paper based on a limited understanding of what top journals need. I can draw patterns all I want, but there will just be some nuances that I miss because I’m inexperienced.
But I was given feedback from five people. They have to give me a reason they’re rejecting my paper. When you’re a Ph.D student, you’re often working from you or your boss’ judgment. Feedback is really hard to come by, so you better take advantage of it when you get it. After reading the criticisms, I knew that they were all valid; none of them were personal attacks on me as a person or my intelligence. What I can do now is take this feedback, polish the paper more and resubmit elsewhere. I can be a better statistician if I take their critiques to heart, so I will.
Side note: what makes things easier is also that I’m not pursuing an academic job. I don’t really care where or how much I publish, but this may not be the same for you.
Shame? Like I mentioned before, I’ve been rejected plenty before. And literally no one in my family or friend group will care that the journal rejected me, or even if a future journal accepts me. They’ll be fine with me. My identity is not all tied up in this single paper. After reading some of the criticisms, I can’t believe that some of my old writing made it into the paper. It felt okay back then, but now I know a bit better and understand that it’s part of the growing process for a Ph.D student.
Conclusion
I’m sure that many of you reading this may have experienced rejection of some sort. Some of you might even scoff at some of the worries I had.
Rejection sucks, but I didn’t want it to always suck. With a clearer head, I can try to make my work better with what I learn from the experience. I hope that you will take future rejection with a grain of salt and use it to make yourself better in the aftermath.
Thanks for reading. See you in the next one.
Christian