Catalogs and order forms. It was time for the school fundraiser.

Every year I was in elementary school, I had to sell something for the school. Christmas paper, donuts, chocolates, stationary… What we sold was different each year, but all students (and by proxy, all the parents and guardians) were expected to participate. We were supposed to be excited about the opportunity to pawn off overpriced trinkets and candies on our families and families’ friends. As added incentive, there were prizes for the top sellers of each class and grade.

I absolutely hated it. I would sheepishly hand the stuff over to the parents and grandparents, wait quietly, and dutifully return the forms to my teachers. I was never in competition for those prizes, and I never tried to be.

I am not a salesperson. I never have been. I would do most anything else for a club or school, but don’t ask me to go out and convince people to give me money…

What’s that?

Why, yes, I am pursuing a career in research.

Yes, as an independent investigator – if I can make it. What are you getting at?

Uh oh. Wait just a minute…

Damn it.

I’m chasing after a career that involves me asking people to give me money!

But this time I’m not selling keepsake boxes, M&Ms, or gift bags.

No, this time I’m selling myself and my ideas… Son of a biscuit eater!

You see, if there’s something that makes me near as uncomfortable as sales, it’s probably bragging about myself. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe it’s a personality thing. Whatever it is, I. Don’t. Like. It.

Yet that’s what I’ve signed up for. Multiple times a year, I am to try to convince a group of people that I am brilliant. That I have clever ideas. That my work will provide some crucial and needed insight.

And this time the stakes are higher. I won’t be missing out on a party. I’ll be missing out on my dream.

I’m starting to pay attention to how I talk about my work and myself and how my adviser and other investigators talk about themselves, their work, and their trainees. And I’ve realized that a big part of this business is the art of the sale.

The art of the sale is about more than simply knowing what you have to offer. Presenting a list of facts, figures, and achievements isn’t enough.

The art is about telling a story. You lead people through the plot, connecting the facts while sparking an interest. There has to be a clear focus and a unique perspective but one to which your audience can connect.

The art is learning to brag – but with subtlety. You must be confident in the cards you hold but without being overbearing. You have to sell your talents without alienating those listening.

The art is about recognizing and creating opportunities. It’s not just about getting the grant. It’s about planting seeds without complete certainty that you will ever benefit. It’s about connecting with people at seminars and conferences. It’s about negotiating with vendors and company reps to get access to materials and instruments. It’s about collaborating with people near and far to push your and their research forward.

The art is knowing which ideas, avenues, and opportunities to pursue. And which to leave behind.

The art is going out and trying. And trying. And trying again. And never giving up.

* Forgive the hyperbole, but it makes the story better than the truth that I didn’t think about until the time of year came along at which point I terribly disliked it

Of course, life has a tendency of running amok amongst our plans and making us wait for things longer than we intended. This is true even in–or perhaps especially in–scientific careers. The experiments you propose to your thesis committee take twice as long as you think. You’re sure you will be able finish your Ph.D. in 4 years, no problem; it takes six. You’re certain that manuscript is almost ready to go; it’s finally published 2 years later… Rarely does research less time than expected. You’re waiting on other people or administrative clearances. Instruments break. You get ‘sidetracked’ by unexpected findings or other projects. Established techniques stop working, animal models aren’t consistent with previous work, or cell lines aren’t surviving, and you spend weeks or months troubleshooting, getting the system back to where it was so you can move forward at last. The reviewers want those additional experiments. Whatever the cause, your plans take longer than you think.

A year ago, I was starting a new postdoc. Then I had the problem of too much time – or rather too little to fill it. As is so often the case, there were components and methods that needed to be established – the sort of things where you work for a couple of hours and then wait 18 more. I would read papers and organize lab areas, but I could only stand so much.

Over the past six months, I have been juggling experiments alternately with grants, manuscripts, or seminar presentations. Now I have more experiments than I have time, energy, or brain power to do. That’s OK: I’d rather have too much to do so long as, on the whole, I like where I’m at and what I’m doing. Over the past year, I have settled into my new lab and have become more like my old self, the one who is engaged, collaborative, opinionated and occasionally sassy. I am beginning to feel hopeful about my career again, as though it’s on the mend.

There are still days when research sucks, when nothing seems to work, getting data from experiments is like trying to squeeze blood out of turnip, and I just want to scream at the cells and instruments. There are many days that I wish I had more time (or minions) so I could do more. With the amount of work I’m juggling, sometimes a ball drops—some experiment is postponed, the apartment isn’t cleaned as well as I’d like, my husband and I forfeit a day together…

Mostly, it is my writing here that has been suspended. I still love to write and love the community I found while doing it. I have no intention of going anywhere, but this is one of my hobbies, a guilty pleasure in some regards. But for it to remain so, the writing cannot be a burden, cannot be forced. Eventually things may settle down or I may learn to manage it all better. I may not be doing everything I want to, but in the end, I’m doing so much that I do want to that I’m trying to enjoy what I’ve got.

Early on, it became evident that Sezen’s chemistry was peculiarly ‘finicky’. Other students in the lab attempted to use the reactions she’d developed – without success. Soon other labs were contacting Sames with similar quandaries. What was the secret that everyone was missing? Eventually – after publication of six papers and Sezen’s dissertation defense – it became clear that there was no secret aside from an elaborate con.

It would perhaps be a relief to leave the blame solely at Sezen’s feet, to believe that Professor Sames was duped, to be able to say that Sames was but one victim of an incredible con game. Sadly it appears this is not the case. There is nothing to suggest that Sames was complicit in the data fabrication, but he created a situation that allowed it to continue and expand. In the face of overwhelming evidence, Sames continued to stand behind Sezen’s work – until a grad student set up a sting operation that left little doubt Sezen had sabotaged the experiment to cover her tracks. Among the documents recently released under Freedom of Information Act requests, the Office of Research Integrity investigation reveals that two graduate students were dismissed by Sames and a third switched labs. Although a redacted someone (I would guess Sames) claims other circumstances contributed to the dismissals, there is an obvious implication that they were due in large part to the students’ failures to reproduce Sezen’s results.

This is where some fault falls on Sames. Things rarely work exactly the same way every time, but there has to be some degree of reproducibility. From the description of what happened in the Sezen case, a dichotomy was established, in which a professor placed absolute faith in one person and viewed failure of others as utter incompetence. This breeds an environment of stress, fear, and contempt. Sezen’s actions are inexcusable, but it is perhaps not so difficult to understand the motivation to provide the expected results.

It is unreasonable to expect a lab head to review every piece of data, to keep watch over every experiment. Not only is it impractical, but also an environment where “Big Brother is watching” would be detrimental to morale and the creative process of science. Trust and integrity are central elements to the success of a laboratory. But trust between scientists, no matter the stage, must not be blind and should never come at the expense of skepticism and sensibility. We should welcome the attempts of others to repeat and build upon our work. And when they cannot, we should be willing to explore why, not with the expectation fraud at every turn, but in the hope of improving our research and advancing the field.

It is an essential element to finding motivation, creative avenues, success, satisfaction…

But where do we find it? Is it in those who have come before us? The encouragement and confidence others give? The goals and dreams we have set for the future? In particular, how do we inspire girls and women to join and remain in STEM fields? This is the theme of the second quarter Scientiae Carnival.

Everyone has her own story, her own source of inspiration, and it varies at each stage of career and life. Elaine Westwick found her inspiration to become a scientist amongst science writing greats, but as she considers re-entry to a science career, she is looking for new role models. J.J. Brown recognizes the importance of success, visible female scientists shares a personal role model, Barbara McClintock. lin at PhD-baby is inspired the women she grew up with, women who had to fight for their education and jobs. Karina over at Ruminations of an Aspiring Ecologist reminds us that mentors come in many forms – including friends and peers. Alyssa at Apple Pie & The Universe and Dr. O at The Tightrope have been learning to entangle the roles of scientist and mother. JaneB shares her difficulty in finding inspiration among role models, a sense of being weighed and found wanting – a feeling I think anyone could relate to.

From my own experience, you don’t have to be a female scientist to encourage girls’ interests in STEM. Growing up with strong and occasionally spunky working women in my life, it never occurred to me that anything of interest was out of bounds. Those women also influenced the men I grew up with – namely my dad and brother – who never told me what I could or couldn’t do because I was a girl. It was a middle-aged white guy teaching chemistry in a small town high school who planted the first suggestion that I, Belle,  could personally make a career out of science. I didn’t think much of it at first, or even for a few years. But that first bit of encouragement laid the groundwork for other fantastic mentors – also male - in college and grad school. The further I go in my scientific career, the more I realize that there are few women at the top and that there are particular challenges and stereotypes to navigate as a woman in science. I now look more for strong, female scientists as role models and potential mentors.

But in this quest for inspiration, we must remember: The goal isn’t to become those who inspire us. It’s to find a spark of motivation, an element of respect, and – most of all – the knowledge that through all our exploits, we’re not alone.

Retraction.

It’s perhaps one of the juiciest words in scientific language. One might think of it as the Scarlet Letter of science, a public stamp that can trigger gossip, speculation, whispers… Something went wrong somewhere, and someone is paying for it by labeling their published work as invalid.

But what exactly has to go wrong to call for a retraction? This is the question posed at Retraction Watch. DrugMonkey is polling readers on their interpretation of the retraction and posts his stance:

… we need to be exceptionally clear in the business of science that a failure to replicate is not, in fact, evidence of fraud.

In my view, a correction suffices… in most cases where there is not fraud.

Retraction, to me, implies that there is reasonable evidence of some sort of shenanigans.

I’m certain we could all agree that shenanigans (e.g. data fraud or fabrication) should result in retraction.

I also strongly agree with DrugMonkey’s first point, that lack of reproducibility is not in and of itself a strong enough reason to retract a paper. I think anyone who’s been in the lab for even a year can understand the difficulty of repeating a protocol from someone else, step by step, in the same way and getting exactly the same answer-especially with biological systems. Sometimes there are small differences in how we do certain steps that we would never think to write down. Occasionally something as innocuous as cell passage, density, or reagent batches can affect our results. Environmental changes (e.g. building temperature or humidity) can wreak havoc on instruments or growth conditions.

However, with the current publishing structure, I think an inherent problem with the data does warrant retraction. I’m talking about things that directly influence outcomes and conclusions, such as contamination of a sample or reagent, realizing that your reagent isn’t what you thought or has an altered specificity, etc. This retraction in PNAS provides a good example.* Experiments were done, conclusions made, paper accepted. Then the authors realized they had “made an error in interpretation”. They go on to explain in detail how this occurred. The original paper is still accessible, now with a note to See Retraction in bold red letters at the top of the page and a link to the retraction in the side bar. This approach allows us to learn from other’s mistakes but makes it clear that the original results do not mean what we first thought.

One day the scientific community will trade the static print-type approach of publishing for a dynamic, adaptive model of communication. Imagine a manuscript as a living document, one perhaps where all raw data would be available, others could post their attempts to reproduce data, authors could integrate corrections or addenda. Maybe the future of scientific publishing will make retractions for technical issues obsolete.

But we’re not there yet-and there will be some time before we reach that future. In the meantime, we should be making it clear that retractions do not always mean that someone did a bad, bad thing, that sometimes it simply means someone made an honest mistake. After all, we are only human.

* Admittedly it’s a little odd that one of the authors did not sign, but according to the corresponding author, that’s because Xu was an undergrad student not involved in the erroneous portion of the project.

To prevent being investigated by the Office of Blogging Integrity, I should note that part of this post was originally written by me at DrugMonkey’s What does a retracted paper mean?, provided comment moderation did not eat it.

I am not going to apologize for my lack of blogging this year. I am still here. I have no intentions of giving up blogging. I miss it-not just writing but also reading and commenting on so many other blogs I love.

The intermittent posting and silence are the direct result of a crazy hectic quarter (which is why this isn’t an apology ). There have been grant and award applications (and I have to get to work on another soon), new collaborations, grad school manuscript that I’m re-writing, setup for various parts of my projects, and typical getting-shiznit-in-order-in-the-lab business. There’s lots of stuff going on, but I’m having a blast.

Several things are kicking around in my head and, when I find the time, I will post them. So keep your RSS feeds tuned in. I’ll be back!

As scientists, the use of particular terms and acronyms expedite communication in our day-to-day work. Imagine if you were a toxicologist and every time you spoke with a colleague about an experiment, you explicitly stated cytochrome P450 3A4. It is faster–and less tongue-tying–to call it CYP3A4. Likewise jotting down MAPK in your notebook instead of mitogen-activated protein kinase is going to save some hand cramping. Most chemists don’t pause to process terms like LC, MS, CID, TLC, NOESY, or Rb flask. For immunologists, it’s all about FACS, CD11, Th₉, IL-4, CD68 and M2 macrophages. Those working in computational biology rattle off things like MM, MD, ODE, and MCCM without second thought. Similarly a cell biologist is in the loop when people start throwing around MAPK, JAK, ERK, PP2, IKK, PAMPs, and DAMPs.*

Acronyms have their utility and place, but sometimes we are overzealous in their use. We are simply so accustomed to using shorthand everyday that, when we sit down to write about our work, the jargon just flows from our fingertips. It doesn’t occur to us that our second language may not be widely used. Sometimes these abbreviations actually interrupt the flow of a paragraph. These issues are particularly relevant when writing or speaking to an audience that may be hearing your jargon for the first time.

Scientists should reevaluate the use of abbreviations outside our microenvironments. We should carefully consider whether an acronym helps our presentation–or just turns it into alphabet soup. Here are a few guidelines I am trying to adopt:

• Is the abbreviation unique? Some abbreviations mean different very different things in different disciplines. Sometimes they mean different things in the same field. Your audience is smart enough to recognize the discrepancy between their definition and the context. Still, seeing an acronym that is familiar but seemingly out-of-context can distract their attention. My view: If reasonable, avoid its use; if not, make sure it is clearly defined with the first use.
• Is the abbreviation widely recognized? In some cases, full-length terms are not particularly descriptive, and over the years, abbreviations have been adopted in place of names. I often see this in cell signaling with things like ERK and Jnk. Other terms are more descriptive but may still be as readily recognized by their acronym as by their name.  If the short form is as readily recognized as the long form, I use the conventional notation.
• Does the abbreviation enhance the flow in subsequent usage? For long or complex terms, introducing and using abbreviations makes reading and speaking easier. I daresay most people would prefer reading MAPEG over membrane-associated proteins in eicosanoid and glutathione metabolism. On the other hand, shortening a relatively simple 12-letter word to a 3-letter abbreviation often does little to help the flow and can even hinder it with the introduction of a parenthetical.
• How much space does the abbreviation actually save? This links in with the previous point and is particularly relevant for abstracts. You’re writing an abstract or short grant that’s going to be read by people outside your field. You include an abbreviation–because you always use that abbreviation–that appears 6 times. The space it saves is half a line. This is a case where I revisit the guidelines above to decide whether the abbreviation is necessary. If it’s just a space saver, then I can probably find other cuts to make while improving the overall flow of the paragraph.
• Who is your audience? You can get away with more shorthand if you’re among peers in your field. However, you should still consider whether the jargon you’re using is widely recognized or more specific to your lab. If you’re writing or speaking to a broader audience, you should certainly define your acronyms on first use, more than once for an oral presentation. More importantly, minimize the use of acronyms where you can.

These ideas may simply be founded in personal likes and dislikes, but I think they can improve the clarity, cadence, and continuity in scientific communication. What are your views on acronym usage?

Thanks to Zoonotica, Josh Drew, Simon Lancaster, Wardatron, Steven Saltman, Geeka, and tevetorbes for discussion earlier in the week, which partially inspired this post.

*If you’re bored, see how many of these abbreviations you can decipher–without the help of Google.

This quarter’s Scientiae topic is Inspiring Women in STEM. Contribute your stories of historical or contemporary women in STEM who motivate you. Write about how individuals, male or female, STEM or not, who have encouraged and supported the careers and advancement of women in STEM. Share the things that help you stay focused on your goals as a woman in STEM. Offer anecdotes of how you are inspiring girls and women to get involved and stay involved in STEM.

As always, you can write a new post or pull one from your archives. And feel free to submit more than one! If you don’t have your own blog yet but would like to contribute, I will definitely consider publishing guest posts here (check the “finding belle” tab above for contact info).

By the way, we love to hear stories about inspiring women in STEM from non-female bloggers as well

The June Scientiae Carnival will be hosted right here by yours truly. Send your links to scientiaecarnival@gmail.com no later than Friday, June 17. I will post the roundup on or about June 20.

Happy writing!

There are certainly reasons to complain. There are no direct routes between certain points, so it can take you more than 3 times as long to get there as it should. There are the constant signal problems and disabled trains. Of course, this all once you’re on the train. Out my way, it’s not uncommon for a train to roll right past a platform without stopping, leaving behind many confused, frustrated, annoyed, and/or angry people.

A scientist explaining science can have quite similar effects.

My alter ego recently played the role of such an offender. I was given the chance to write a research highlight for a journal. Basically I needed to summarize a paper in 500 words or less at a level for a science grad student or undergrad. As it so happens, I’m married to an undergrad majoring in science, and after finishing my draft, I asked him to read it and give me his impression. He thought the intro paragraph was good, but then he got lost in the middle because it was so technical.

Many potentially great presentations and papers have precisely this problem. There is simply too much detail. The reasons for this vary. For some, it’s as simple as not having learned the importance of telling a story. Some may simply be excited about their results and fail to temper it. Others, I think, are trying to prove their effort, their intelligence, their worth. Some perhaps want to overwhelm or intimidate the audience with their grandeur. For me, it’s usually a mixture of the desire to share knowledge and the way I process information.

When I hit a writing block or lose my train of thought in a conversation, I sometimes resort to a brain dump. I just start listing facts, sometimes with little regard to pertinence. I have to take a break, look at it anew, and often just start over because I’m lacking the critical thread. I go back with a fresh view and focus on the point I want to get a cross. Anyone can dryly list facts on a page or go through every mundane experimental detail in a presentation. It’s actually quite easy—but no one gets much out of it.

As scientists, we need to pay attention to detail, but we also have to learn how to translate detail into discussion. This has always been important. It is increasingly critical as the boundaries between fields continue to blur, and we engage in more inter-/multi-disciplinary science. I am a biochemist working in a lab with a pharmacologist and an immunologist. I work in a department that is mostly cell biologists and physiologists. I am entering into collaborations with computational biophysicists. Who knows what other sorts of  people might cross my path in the future? I do know that, if I am to have a successful and exciting scientific career, I have to continue learning and refining my approach to science communication.