Quarreling with Advisor over figures. The primary reason: Advisor needs reading glasses, but refuses to get them. Axis legends are usually in 8-point font. Hilarity ensues, or what would pass for hilarity if we weren't on a very very tight deadline:
Advisor: I just don't think that's going to photocopy well. [Meaning: I can't read it.]
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15 years ago
9 comments:
If what your mentor is telling you to do is consistent with the style rules of the journal, then quit moaning and fucking do it. One day, you will be a mentor to post-docs, and you are going to need them to trust your judgment in matters such as this.
well, I left my pride when it comes to figures and paper writing in my post doc. We have so different opinion and I'd rather just do all with minimum of efforts* so I just do what he tells me to do.
*as in me getting annoyed or angry
It might not be the best way of showing assertiveness but it beats me getting mad at him being so enourmously tedieous and changing it all between every take....
Good luck with the resubmission!
It's got nothing to do with the style rules of the journal, everything to do with eyesight. Like, "I think we should use 'deg' instead of the degree symbol in this figure legend because the symbol won't photocopy well." Nobody photocopies papers any longer! The degree symbol is SI notation, as far as I'm aware. But Advisor just can't see it.
But I went ahead and did it, on the theory that some battles are just not worth fighting.
And really, with the deadline we're operating under (Monday??), these things are irritating me more than usual because they take time away from actually, like revising the damn manuscript. We just reorganized the entire discussion yesterday--which is fine--but the thing is due on Monday and I'd rather not be fucking around with degree symbols unless it's really important.
what fraction of your intended audience also "needs reading glasses", hmmmm?
so nobody photocopies. how are your figures going to look when someone cuts/pastes them into a powerpoint slide for journal club?
Yeah, yeah, my point is that you middle aged people are ruining it for the rest of us. I hear those frameless Palin-style glasses are popular now. Hint.
And anyone who hasn't figured out by now that using the grab function from acrobat reader is the best way to keep figure clarity in powerpoints doesn't deserve help on the figure formatting end.
Yes, I am in a bad mood.
Yes, I am in a bad mood.
Cheer the fuck up! I've got friends who are stuck in a motherfucking law firm all weekend doing document review. (If you don't know what that is, it's about eleventy bajillion times more painfully boring than doing minipreps.)
Thanks comrade hobo :)
I am indeed more cheerful now, since we've gotten through the worst of the revision problems. Advisor and I then bonded (or at least made tentative peace) by watching the debate online and mocking McCain.
And if I believed in a deity, I would give thanks every day that said deity did not make me become a lawyer.
MANY of your readers will be old and blind, just like your advisor.
Think of it this way: More people over 70 have grants that people under 30. That's your target demographic in science.
Bigger fonts are not that much trouble to fix. I think this gets filed under 'pick your battles when it comes to figures'.
But, uh, 'deg' instead of the symbol is just STUPID and UNSCIENTIFIC.
Just make the symbol itself 2 font sizes larger.
All of this stuff is well known in the publishing biz. What was that you were saying about not wanting to reinvent wheels?
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