Repost: Researching your CV

A spate of hits on the old WordPress version of DrugMonkey directed me to a recent post on In the Pipeline by Derek Lowe. In this piece Lowe is discussing the relationship of Impact Factor and GlamourMag publication to the conduct of science. Topics in which you know I have a passing interest, DearReaders! Lowe ends with an interesting gentleman-scholar observation:

someone who runs every single experiment to slot into the next manuscript had better also be running the ones that they’d set up even if journals didn’t exist, and we all still communicated by handwritten letters. Good science is still good science, whether it’s published (or even if it’s published!) in Science or not.

Consequently I thought I’d repost some thoughts of mine on researching your CV which originally appeared July 31, 2007.

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Dr. Shellie discusses the semi self-destructive habit of analyzing your publication numbers, types, citation hits, etc in a recent post entitled “Citation Envy”. Key point is:

A public service message, from me: checking your citations is not a good way to determine if your life has meaning. Neither is comparing your publication list to that of other people you know. However tempting, it only ends in distress.
You can, however, benefit from checking your citations (as well as other people’s publication lists) IF AND ONLY IF you view it as an educational exercise. Try to see how other people have built upon and developed their early work in order to make progress in their field. How can you do it too?

I want to underline the part about viewing this as an educational exercise and point out that this is a critical step in career success. How so?

DonorsChoose Week 3: Seed Media Group Prizes

Week 3 of the DrugMonkey Blog Reader Challenge for the ScienceBlogs’ters participation ($10,647 raised so far!) in the DonorsChoose.org Bloggers Challenge is upon us.
As with prior years, Seed will be giving out prizes to Readers who donate! Details below the fold.

Clinical MDMA Brief (14 Oct 2008)

Data! Well, sort of. MAPS has announced that they are trying to launch a new Phase I clinical trial of MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This one will be at a site in Vancouver, BC, Canada. The interesting thing is that they have posted the proposed protocol here. It makes for interesting reading.