how big of a commitment is writing up a research paper once you have the data?

[ss123]

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we finished a project (have all the data)... there's nobody else working on it other than me and the PI (everyone else associated with it left). if i decide to write up the entire thing, how much of a time investment will that be? i've never done something like this before so just wondering

 

[Ansar]

My friend has been procrastinating on his paper for the past...two years or so.

 

[ss123]

Hmm so it sounds like it's pretty grueling. Any others with experience writing a paper?

 

[mcloaf]

It will depend on your familiarity with the subject, how nice your data are, and how much time a week you can devote to it.

 

[FedExDoctor]

Depends on a lot. Did you complete your statistical analysis yet and get any meaningful correlations? This is more something to talk to your PI, research mentor, or another prof. at your university about. But to answer your question, formatting and writing a paper for possible publication can be a really drawn out process, at least at my college it has been.

 

[La Presse]

Are you the only one writing the paper? If so, you best hope that your writing skills don't scare off the reviewers. 😎

I typically coerce a number of people into helping me write with promises of being an author. It is never an issue.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

I've written three papers (one currently in revision). It really depends on the project and your PI. One of my papers took three years to write (PI was a terrible procrastinator and an obsessive-compulsive perfectionist who demanded hundreds of rewrites of the paper), whereas another one took two weeks (PI wanted it out the door ASAP).

That's just writing the paper though. You can expect several more months for the peer review process (most of which is just waiting around and usually isn't too bad as long as you don't get a reviewer who wants new experiments). Also, if you don't have all the data already analyzed, that can be anything from trivial to extremely involved depending on the nature of the project.

 

[TheBossDoctor]

One night to do the rough draft. Another night to polish it up/make the changes my PI wanted. Worked out well.

 

[deleted393595]

Do what the legendary George Whitesides says: Start writing up your manuscript while you're doing your experiment because it works out better that way.

 

[CyberMaxx]

I recently finished this whole process and was surprised at how long it actually took. Putting the paper together took about four months (analyzing data, running control experiments we realized we left out, making figures, multiple drafts, etc.) and it took another four months for it to get accepted. Granted, this was my first time writing on this level so that added a lot of extra time.

 

[ANATOMYgirl22]

I recently finished this whole process and was surprised at how long it actually took. Putting the paper together took about four months (analyzing data, running control experiments we realized we left out, making figures, multiple drafts, etc.) and it took another four months for it to get accepted. Granted, this was my first time writing on this level so that added a lot of extra time.

Same. I'm over 2 months in to writing mine and I just finished a full rough draft (with figures, legends, stats, etc). I'm sure the editing process is going to take a while now because it's going to get ripped apart by my PI 🙄

 

[inycepoo]

Great points made above.

Also depends on what journal you're aiming to submit to. Many don't take this into consideration during the manuscript process, but that's extremely myopic IMO. Journals have biases, traditions, and editors following past conventions, plus some more. Bad writing (due to inexperience, most often) is often overlooked as a factor of why papers with okayish experiments and conclusions face trouble being published).

If your target journal is pretty down there and you're just publishing to get it on a med school app and don't really care anyone reads/cites it and actually adds to the literature conversation (cynical view I realize, but c'mon let's be real; we know this happens), you can afford to spend less time writing and making it good. Obviously, the higher up the ladder your target journal, the more time you should pour into rewriting and revising, which is the only way to ensure great writing, asking other professors for comments, and so on, before submitting.

Like the others said, if it's your first time, it's gonna roll up your balls and smash them to smithereens to get it done well. My first group paper took 10 months from data cleaning to submission, accepted at JACC (3rd in cardio). My two PIs are all writing monsters who rewrite an average of 25 times for a potential high-impact paper, and those are the ones that have made it to JAMA/BMJ/Annals in the past. Some 5th year (MHS year) med student got his done in around 3 months and only ended up in BMC Med, but it wasn't like his research was any crappier than most, which is why I strongly believe in the writing quality factor.

 

[deleted393595]

Great points made above.

Also depends on what journal you're aiming to submit to. Many don't take this into consideration during the manuscript process, but that's extremely myopic IMO. Journals have biases, traditions, and editors following past conventions, plus some more. Bad writing (due to inexperience, most often) is often overlooked as a factor of why papers with okayish experiments and conclusions face trouble being published).

If your target journal is pretty down there and you're just publishing to get it on a med school app and don't really care anyone reads/cites it and actually adds to the literature conversation (cynical view I realize, but c'mon let's be real; we know this happens), you can afford to spend less time writing and making it good. Obviously, the higher up the ladder your target journal, the more time you should pour into rewriting and revising, which is the only way to ensure great writing, asking other professors for comments, and so on, before submitting.

Like the others said, if it's your first time, it's gonna roll up your balls and smash them to smithereens to get it done well. My first group paper took 10 months from data cleaning to submission, accepted at JACC (3rd in cardio). My two PIs are all writing monsters who rewrite an average of 25 times for a potential high-impact paper, and those are the ones that have made it to JAMA/BMJ/Annals in the past. Some 5th year (MHS year) med student got his done in around 3 months and only ended up in BMC Med, but it wasn't like his research was any crappier than most, which is why I strongly believe in the writing quality factor.

We have an inside joke in my department about people who publish to those journals

 

[inycepoo]

We have an inside joke in my department about people who publish to those journals

Care to share? They're crawling at my research center lol

 

[Ruskithin]

we finished a project (have all the data)... there's nobody else working on it other than me and the PI (everyone else associated with it left). if i decide to write up the entire thing, how much of a time investment will that be? i've never done something like this before so just wondering

Writing a research paper can be a very daunting task! However, I think it's definitely worth it to give it a go! When I write my papers I like to skim articles of the journals I'm interested in to gain a better understanding of the "style" of writing etc. Next, I always work on my materials/methods section first (I think this is the easiest part of the writing and you can accomplish it within a couple of hours if you've maintained good records of your protocols). The results follow next, then the discussion. You will most likely need (some) assistance on the discussion part from your PI. These two sections will probably take the longest time to write because of the critical thinking involved, realization that you need to do more experiments etc. The Intro and abstract, I write last.

I think the hardest part of writing research papers (at least for me) is coming to terms with using passive voice. In English class, professors are constantly drilling active voice into your head...But scientists aren't English professors, so don't be too intimidated with the language. I've written for basic science journals (PNAS, JBC, Cell) and if there is something wrong with the wording, they will most likely return it to you with the "suggestion" of the more proper way of saying it.

The great thing about writing your own paper is that you gain a deep understanding of the subject matter and you can present it at many poster sessions and engage in critical discussions about your research (which looks great on CVs; I still present research I've done as an undergrad in med school now). So go for it!!! Good luck!!!!

 

[mvenus929]

It took me about a month to write my case report. That included the time doing the literature search and figuring out how to actually write it (probably working on it for 1-2 hours every other day). My attending has had it for about a month now, and as far as I can tell, still hasn't read it.

So yeah, it varies.