Is anyone else an academic who has not produced enough research while having kids and is now in the s***?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

There are lots of academics on MN, just wondering if there is anyone else in my position.

Am pg with 3rd dc in 5 years. Have had hyperemesis and other problems in all 3 pgs, which on top of 2 maternity leaves means heaps of time off work. In the meantime I have completely lost research momentum and produced sod all apart from a few book reviews. I was not submitted for RAE (though fortunately my dept did very well without me so none of my colleagues are holding it against me personally.)
Every time I come back it takes me all my time to get back up to speed with teaching and admin, get on top of all the changes in my field etc, and I only ever seem to make baby steps towards producing anything before I am sick or pregnant again.
Just had uncomfortable meeting with (supportive) HoD at which she broke news to me that I am about to get a scary letter from Personnel and a process is going to start which will probably include ritual disembowelling/change to a teaching only contract if I don't get something submitted before baby is due. Which would be fine as long as the foetus behaves and sickness holds off - am only just back at work after 2 months off with HG.

Serves me right for having children, doesn't it?

No pubs
Revise and resubmit is not too bad - it could have been outright rejection.
Try and focus on the nice comments - and the constructive parts of the bad one - or try and work out who the bad one is and track them down at the next conference........
There's something to be said for open reviewing which is becoming the norm in my field - it makes people think about how what they are saying will be received.

Forgot to add - yes I think it is normal to feel like that. And yes it is a hard process - I still feel like that.

On a positive note for this thread - I have just had my discussion with HR and they have accepted my application for flexible working (although not through the flexible working scheme - complicated to explain). It means I can now ask for (and get) up to 4 weeks unpaid leave per year, in addition to annual leave, which is what I wanted. Hooray!

Nopubs - revise and resubmit is really good! And in my experience is the norm for experienced authors as well as first time ones. So you should give yourself a big pat on the back.

It can be very hard taking referees comments on board, and some are more tactful than others. I find it helps to print out/photocopy the comments and go through them with a highlighter to figure out exactly what you need to do. This usually makes it seem a lot more manageable.

If you find the 'nasty' referee is way out of line with the others - i.e. they want a total restructuring of the article, or loads more research - you can always get back to the editors for clarification. Along the lines of 'I was planning to do X and Y, but Z seems like a step too far. Does that sound ok?' (At least this would be ok in my field - not sure about universally).

oh lord, nopubs, I remember that - iirc my paper was "glib and fatuous"

my supervisor helped me get a grip, though. She said, well look, there's LOTS of comments, so they'd really had to engage, and once I got past the sting of those horrid words, I realised they actually meant, "this person has not focused clearly enough on what she's trying to get at." think it took me about six months to come to that realisation.

the last paper I had in, otoh, I was tying myself in knots trying to figure out how to make it clearer, when I had a chat to a prof mentor about it, and he said "oh yeah that journal's really precious, they gave me so much criticism I told them to stuff it." No wonder I couldn't figure out what the hell to do for them!

so what I'd say is, put it away for a bit, then come back and see if there's anything useful to get from it.

speaking from my VAST experience of two publications

I'm sure someone more useful will be along, probably before I've even posted

there, see?

SO past my bedtime...

Thanks everyone, that's really helpful. Deep breaths are being taken and I shall try to continue only a little bit daunted!

Congratulations on your flexible working Hammy, that sounds great.

Ooooh you've been nattering again. This thread has dropped off my 'I'm on' list. Is there another way of 'stickying' favourite threads somehow...?

Anyhow, hello! Hope new term going well for everyone?

Was wondering - only half joking - whether we should send a collective (anonymous?) MN response to the REF consultation given our longstanding debate on here? REF consultation

The section about Equality suitably anodyne, and my university are not remotely interested in responding on this issue AFAIK.

Whaddaya think?

OH! Congratulations Kathy! Welcome, erm, 3 millimetres?!

Congrats Kathy!

Thanks all for thoughts on part-time and congrats on the little nipper to be.

HR is trying to find me someone I can talk with who has also gone PT and survived... though they are taking their time so maybe it really is a mythical creature! Chatted to my union rep about workload allocation, to be honest fairly non-specific advice but negociation seems to be the key.

I have 10 - 15 hours teaching all through teaching term. The way I figure it working is that rather than expecting I can drop it by half or so across the term, some half semesters I may be full of teaching and get nothing else done, and others I might have no teaching. I need to reduce the number of modules somehow, rather than expecting to be able to do 0.6 on all of them.

The problem with the negociation thing is that your starting point of your current job is probably 1.2 / 1.3 rather than a 1.0 full time. That said, I'm unusual in that I only very rarely do work at weekends... so I think I've got a decent chance of implementing boundaries. We shall see.

Thank you for the congratulations re baby!

Nopubs - well done on the 'revise and resubmit' - that's a very good result at this stage.

Vulpus - I think a response to the REF consultation is an excellent idea, and I don't think it would take too long to do.

Do we have anything to say about the questions other than the equalities one (which for those who haven't read it is 'Are there any further ways in which we could improve the measures to promote equalities and diversity?)? And what might our answer be, other than drawing their attention to the European Research Councils' accepting that the impact on research goes beyond maternity leave and suggesting something similar?

Re anonymity, this is what they say:
'3. We will publish an analysis of responses to the consultation. Additionally, all responses may be disclosed on request, under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. The Act gives a public right of access to any information held by a public authority, in this case HEFCE. This includes information provided in response to a consultation. We have a responsibility to decide whether any responses, including information about your identity, should be made public or treated as confidential. We can refuse to disclose information only in exceptional circumstances. This means responses to this consultation are unlikely to be treated as confidential except in very particular circumstances.'

At first sight that doesn't sound good if anyone wants to be anonymous, but presumably this just means they won't keep it secret if someone actually puts in a FoI Act request, rather than that they will necessarily put everyone's names in the analysis document. I don't need to be anonymous. Though we would probably have to get the CAWK thread deleted once the name Mumsnet was out there in connection with this.

bump in case anyone else is interested in responding to REF consultation.

Regarding REF - the article in the THES a few weeks ago (referred to below) made a good point about the mechanism for reporting special circumstances (ie it was down to the individual involved to make an argument for a reduction in the number of items, and many women found it difficult or were reluctant to draw attention to such difficulties.) Using my University as an example - I was (off the record) told that a decision had been made to avoid, wherever possible, a woman using maternity leave as an argument for reducing the number of items submitted to the RAE. This was apparently a decision made high up within the University - definitely not restricted to my department (which has always been extremely supportive and understanding.) This makes a mockery of the whole system. I'm not entirely sure how to get around this - take it out of the hands of institutions?; automatically reduce the number of items that can be submitted for those who have been away from work due to maternity, sick leave etc? I hope that makes sense - I'm absolutely shattered today......

"Dear X,
"I'm in the process of trying to submit an article to YourJournal but have run into a hitch with the online registration. It's asking for my institution as a required field, but I don't have an institution. I did my PhD at Y University in 2006, worked there for a bit, then had a baby, moved back home to Australia and had another baby. I haven't been employed since December 2007. However as I do want to get back into it next year I've been advised by my old mentor Prof BigDeal to get publishing. So. What would you advise me to enter into that field?"

ffs.

the sleep deprivation. the artillery. the dh's gallbladder. the car breakdown. the phdlife Family HeadCold. the dh-away-for-a-weekend. the 40th. the dh's gallbladder op. the dh-away-for-a-fortnight. the phdlife Family Vomiting. the bit more sleep deprivation. and now? NOW the frickin' online registration to submit the blimmin' article. d'ya think the universe is trying to tell me something?

Can you put 'independent scholar'?

phdlife, it's just a technicality on a form, put your last university, I'm sure it won't matter. You can always put a note of explantion somewhere. I work for 2 institutions, and another quasi-independent institution which straddles the two, and I choose which institution to put depending on the journal/conference.

Good luck with the submission but don't let the online forms put you off.

Ooh, this thread jumped to the top and I hadn't previously noticed it.
A few comments:
nopublicationsyet they don't sound too bad - are there detailed comments? My first publication involved major work and a rewrite - but that was because it was a Masters essay and it needed to become a journal article instead.

Secondly - we need a thread on here devoted to academia! This one is getting full, so there clearly is a need.

Thirdly - yes to a response to the REF consultation.

I've had major problems at work - and several people on here have given me excellent advice, far better than anything I have had anywhere else, mainly because of the range of experience on here and also possibly because of the anonymity. But we need to use this to our advantage - there are a lot of us, and there is power in numbers.

gah, now (am progressing slowly through form, having entered 'J' into all irrelevant fields, too stupid sleep-deprived to have thought of previous institution, duh)

Now it's asking me to nominate preferred and non-preferred reviewers. Really? Crap. Can I nominate Prof BigDeal? How do you choose such things? The only person I can think of who did something remotely similar, (a) may well have reviewed earlier version that got rejected elsewhere, and (b) is still getting critiqued. Perhaps not him?

I never nominate anyone. The editor should be able to decide who might be a suitable reviewer.

It's another required field, Fennel.

dh is offering

I only nominate people who I know will be sympathetic. As Fennel says that it really is the editor's job. Do you have a previous colleague who you trust who you could ask? Or one of your examiners? A supervisor? Someone from this thread?!

I have a revise and resubmit folks. Which is good. But second ref's comments are pointed, swingeing and pedantic detailed. Fairly sure I know who it is too .

Must take seriously and DO. Have never quite got over the feeling of being assessed and foun wanting though . Help me not blow it please?

bump bump bump

And can any lurking mathematicians and philosophers rock on up on the Mystery Space Thread?

Vulpus, the fact that the eds suggested revise and resubmit must mean that they take ref 2's comments with a pinch of salt.

Can you go through the ref and break it down into individual points? I often find that helps.

Vulpus: what/where's the Mystery Space Thread?

You don't have to do everything the reviewers ask for, especially if the other reviewer and editor don't comment on that aspect. You should of course make sure you give a good justification as to why that wasn't necessary/appropriate/possible etc.

inveterate's advice is good - take it calmly, point by point. I sometimes find it helpful to write the response to reviewers before I actually tackle making the changes; it keeps me focussed on what needs doing and what doesn't (or at least, what no-one spotted!).

One point - try not to do more than they've asked for. I know someone who in revising put so much new stuff in that it ended up being rejected as it was essentially a different paper!

Argh, I just got a revise and resubmit that REALLY pissed me off.

3 reviewers 2 of whom said publish straight away- 1 said r and r and the editor of course goes with that one....

I know WELL that feeling that the most critical review is always the 'right' one. In my case the ed also seems to think so....

AAAAARGH DON'T HAVE TIME. Student references, constant anal requests from MA dissertation students, endless other dissertations to mark, teaching prep (x1000), commuting, blardy kids et al.

Also, wanted people's advice on this- for some weird reason a request to peer review a proposal for the ESRC just popped up in my inbox. It's on a topic I 'm not quite sure is 'me' and also not really sure why I've been sent it (is someone I know with ESRC links trying to do me a favour or not??)

If I don't do it does it look 'bad'? It really woudl be because I think someone else woudl give it a fairer going over.