The Care and Feeding of Your PI: A tip for grad students and postdocs

GMP has a hilarious LOL/sob post up over at Academic Jungle in which she laments becoming PI Pushover.

Although I promised myself I would never do that to myself — let the student graduate before all his/her obligations to the group have been fulfilled (the papers we have agreed on are written up and submitted), it turns out I am as much of a pushover as the next faculty, if not more.
…
I let the temp postdoc graduate at the end of 2010 because we figured a couple of months would not mean much, and graduating in 2010 (sooner) looks better on his CV than 2011 (later)…. in the 3 months he’s been here after the PhD…only just gave me a pathetic draft — unworthy of a second-year grad student, let alone someone experienced in writing papers — of what’s supposed to be the crown jewel paper from his thesis, which clearly demonstrates he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it any more.

Of course, the academic blogsphere is entirely made up of hardworking trainees with distant, out of touch PIs (on the one hand) and PIs who are highly engaged mentors cursed with lazy-ass trainees (on t’ other).
So the comments are lining up accordingly, just like they will do with this post after I publish it.
But here’s the thing Dear Hardworking Trainee….GMP is right.

Once all the threats have been removed, you suck at getting proper manuscripts written. And this is why we get into these little discussions about whether publishing papers, or generating publication quality manuscripts, should be a criterion for the PhD as a general principle.
Here’s my little bit of advice on the care and feeding of your PI where a manuscript is concerned.
Put in the Effort!
Seriously. If there is one thing a PI hates more than anything it is the absence of evidence that the trainee is working on something. With concentration and focus.
Yes, we are here to train you how to put together a paper and all that. Indeed.
But you are no longer undergraduates six year olds.
The PI expects you to go away and come back with some actual progress. New analyses written….knowledge of a literature that the PI knows exists (or knows)… and you clearly haven’t gotten past 2008 in your PubMed search?…a coherent discussion of the data. Some reflection that you understand that the format of the Journal you have been discussing submitting this puppy to for consideration.
Here’s another little tip from the PI side of the office. You have to get it through your head that you will write COPIOUS amounts of text that may not pass muster. Either for this publication or ever. Write, write, write, write. Explain. Cite. Written academic text is not some precious commodity that needs to be hoarded…it is what you manufacture and excrete. Live it. Love it. Don’t be stingy*.
“I don’t know what he meant or wants so I am paralyzed and can’t write anything” says the trainee. HA! Write. It. Every. Possible. Way. You. Think. He. MIGHT. Have. Meant. That. Comment!
This is the only way to get better and more efficient at a given writing task, for one thing, and it is the kind of evidence your PI is looking for that you are actually working. Basic Principle of Life: It is far easier to edit down than to edit up in length.
There is another purpose which is that this is the way you cement your understanding of a literature in your own mind. The way you cement your understanding of what you are about, scientifically. Mike the Mad Biologist has a weird observation in his response to Science Professor’s observation that biomedical scientists are a whiny bunch. Quoth the Mad One:

The problem is that most of the skills you learn are only useful in…the biomedical sciences. Most don’t learn enough ‘generalist’ skills, such as high level math or serious programming skills, to have other career alternatives if academia doesn’t work out. Worse, many of the skills they learn become obsolete. A decade ago, sequencing was a Ph.D. activity, or at least, an activity supervised very closely by a Ph.D. Now, it’s largely automated, and the machines are mostly run by technicians with bachelors degrees.

If you are focused on bench skills (or even “high level maths” and “serious programming skills”, my Mad friend) then you are missing the point of the PhD. This brings me to the observation that it is not just the case that we evil PIs only train PhD level scientists for technical work. It is also the case that some many trainees show little evidence that they themselves understand that bench work IS just technical work. If you don’t have a conceptual grasp of what you are trying to understand, big picture, you are soooo not ready to be a PI. A scientist, yes indeed, but not a scientist ready to head up an independent research program. You don’t get there only by reading papers. You get there by writing. Writing academic text. Whether that be for a dissertation that will only moulder in the library or for a manuscript ready for publication.
The tip is simple: Put in the Effort.
Your PI will respond accordingly.
__
Disclosure: In contrast to a prior time when I may perhaps have written a similar set of observations, my trainees are currently getting. after. it. when it comes to writing. I’m the weak link… 🙂
*I have like 7 draft files of a given manuscript or grant applications before I even get withing smelling distance of a reasonably put-together “First Draft”. Just saying.
[UPDATE: Apparently I should have read a little bit deeper into GMP’s recent rantings.]