This process is evidently quite different between labs. Some plan papers from the day they start a project. Others have a more freeform process. Further, it is important to plan a paper but how do you deal with a project that shifts beneath you. How do you find and focus on the ‘scope’ of your work? How do you identify your audience and get them to read it? How do you write a cover letter and generally how do you engage an editor?

The process of peer-review, although a cornerstone of our publishing life, mostly lacks defined rules or stated goals. What should they be? How should we get there? We can explore recent UP review suggestions but also discuss this in the arena of the current publishing and credit-giving industry. Further, there is the question of how to respond to peer-review. We’ll have a few examples of successful or non-successful strategies for getting work accepted/acceptable.

When is the science ready? What are strategies to engage the hearts/minds of other scientist? How to direct your grant (should you?). What are some writing/organization strategies that help convey ideas? What things work on you as a reader?

What happens to grants when they leave your hands? What is the nature of study section? This session should very much cover ‘stories from the trenches’. What are the conditions under which your grant will get read? How will it be presented and what is meant to happen ‘in the room’? What else happens in that room (e.g.conflicts between personalities of members of the section)? How can you deal with all of this?

What resources are available at UCSF and beyond? What do clinicians need/want and how can you form partnerships? What are the issues you need to consider?

When should you go to a meeting? How much should you show? How do you engage editors? How can you engage colleagues and friends to help you? When should you show your hottest/greatest science?

A rapidly changing aspect of publishing is the ‘curation’ of papers through buzz on social media. Consider how you can use this to stay abreast. Consider how you can and should participate to further your science. Are social media ‘influencers’ in the scientific twitter domain really much different from pre-social media influencers? Consider how this affects hype—is it the same as it has always been but with different platforms and dynamics? Is it more or less reliable/fair and how should you participate, if at all.

Open source mandates and the changing publishing landscape bioRxiv has paved the way for some change. Some additional options possibly on the horizon includes that professional societies take over peer review and ‘full’ publishing would not necessitate a for-profit entity. We may also see an era of “Publish first, review later” and/or post-publication Ratings for papers (Tokens? Yelp-esque, using PubMed?). Can we let our science evolve at bit on the page, by considering Living Manuscripts?

Too hot? Too Cold? Find a question that is both? Value of committees and trusted advisers. Hunches and Technology. When is the right time to jump into something new, or double down to focus on the things that have brought you success in the past? How do you decide?

There are typical keys to a good job talk. What are they? How do you best talk about your goals for your career and lab? How do you prepare for a chalk talk? What questions can you expect at the interview and chalk talk? What things should you have firmly established and prepared before the interview? How do you manage your time and productivity during a job search?

How do you choose a person to be in your lab? How do you meet with a candidate f2f? How do you vet a technician (always call their references?). How do you ensure that your process is fair, and that you identify the person best qualified to be successful and make your lab more successful? What are some mechanisms to protect yourself when employing someone? What is an MOU and how can you use them? What is the best way to be on the same page with someone?

How do you decide when to seek outside collaborators, or to DIY and/or bring new technologies, projects, or expertise ‘in house’? What kind of collaborations make the best and most productive partnerships? How and when do you structure collaborations, defining research goals, considering publication plans, funding opportunities, and the who-does-what to reach your shared goals? How do you respond to requests for expertise, research tools and ‘collaboration’. Strategies for staying up to date with literature In the age of so many journals, I find it daunting to stay up to date on everything that is being published, even in my field, let alone broadly.

With a focus on developing a budget and how to accommodate changes in the scope or focus of a project within one’s funding stream. How to prioritize projects with funding versus those without, how to perform important science that isn’t “fundable,” etc.

We might say that this is most difficult in the grey area. No one wants to admit they now know better about something but it does/will happen so what’s the possible courses (this brings up “living manuscripts”)

What is needed for promotion, particularly in an era of team science? Currently we have indices like citation number/h-value. Using these are particularly hard close-to-the-fact (i.e. in the first years). Is there anything better? What, in fact, is ‘impact’ as a measurable quantity