Thought of the day

Why the heck am I still getting “please get me out of [insert non Western country here]” postdoc inquiries? Haven’t they heard our funding situation is horrible in this country?

Goodness gracious.

Stupid CV tricks: Does a lack of middle authorships mean you are a jerk?

Frequently commenter miko offered this up for consideration:

Being only ever first (or last) might make you look independent but also might make you look uncollaborative or, more likely, that no one likes you.

Fascinating remark. Have you ever heard anyone say this for real? Not in terms of mere publication numbers, I’ve heard that one more than once (as in “Can’t you just get on some more papers” from people concerned about a thin publication record from an earlier-career scientist). But in terms of your ability to collaborate productively. Play well with others, so to speak.

I can’t really remember hearing this. Mostly people are only mentioning collaborative, middle-author contributions to denigrate the person’s level of independence and/or to try to subtract credit from their publication count.

Rubber….meet the road. NIH Grant edition

It is all very well to read the tea leaves and to make inferences from what Program Officials are telling you, published paylines, the gossip at writedit’s blog and your anguished colleagues.

But nothing like a little judicious searching at RePORTER and / or a review of SILK listings to let you know just what your favorite handful of ICs are up to.

Happy browsing.

Personally, my biggest takeaway is that I should have ignored all the doom and gloom about R21s last year and submitted a few of them.