01 August 2008

I hate revisions

There are some parts of the scientific enterprise that are more fun for me than others. Very low on the list are revising manuscripts after they have been reviewed.

The good news is that the manuscript is always better after revision.

The bad new is that the amount of improvement is much less than the amount of effort that goes into making the improvement.

I'm currently trying to deal with an almost off-handed comment by one reviewer. There will definitely a paragraph and a couple of extra lines in the paper that wouldn't have been there without that query... but it's taken me most of yesterday afternoon and all morning to do the research to track down the answer.

This is one reason (though by no means the only one) why a couple of my manuscripts have been awaiting revision for way too long. One is finally in press, and I'm working hard to get the other one back to the editor.

Back to the revision... very close to done now, I think.

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