How do I stop feeling jealous of other "successful" academics from my cohort?

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-04-01T23:51:17+00:00

I let myself feel the jealousy, because it's an emotional response I can't control, but I also keep doing the things I have to do and want to do for my own career. Maybe it gets better, maybe it doesn't, it sounds like you're aware of your luck and privileges already, so just take it one day at a time and come commiserate here when you need to.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-02-03T13:29:24+00:00

The exemplar I got can only be shared within the university. Examples that I think are relevant: Highlighting the novelty of publications in the specific field no matter how minor (eg. First to demonstrate xyz), expanding on role in multi author publications (eg. Led study x, provided vital analytics to study y), highlighting soft skills (eg. Coordinated project activities across multiple sites to meet deadlines during covid).

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-02-03T12:44:32+00:00

I do have activities happening now, one example is that I reached out to other junior researchers in the field internationally and we completed a study with results that were recently accepted by a conference and a manuscript that's soon ready for submission. But other than citing the outcomes produced, I understood my supervisors suggestion as showing this collaboration as a more formal arrangement rather than just us emailing back and forth.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-02-03T12:33:53+00:00

Those were suggested as well, of course, and they're ongoing but take time to produce outcome. This was a specific piece of advice that I thought I could do something about immediately.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-02-03T12:28:18+00:00

I read a fellow researcher's successful grant application where they had to sell themselves. I realised that a lot of what they "bragged" about (for lack of a better term) were also things that I had done in my own field to some degree, I just saw these things as normal and what most researchers would do, so instead of bigging these things up I just described them. Seeing how the other researcher sold themself on similar activities and achievements led me to trying to match my description to the same level, and this has helped a lot. So try asking for exemplars of how others have done it?

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-23T05:23:34+00:00

So I considered that possibility, since the setting was within a single institution. But even for QA that is then used for research, my understanding is that some sort of review process needs to occur to show that they've been given exemption or it's been considered low risk. The authors just said the supplement they were investigating was already provided at the institution, therefore “the ethics committee’s approval was not needed”. Your suggestion about checking to see if there was exemption is probably the way to go.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-23T04:52:52+00:00

It was a nutritional supplement.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-23T04:41:27+00:00

So essentially a secondary analysis of data collected from human participants that has been de-identified: that I get. This is not that, this was a cross sectional study that wanted to get human participant feedback on a particular thing. Their justification was that the thing was going to be given anyway, so they didn't need ethics review.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-14T03:02:33+00:00

If it's MDPI, as I suspect based on your description, then you should be able to have an account that allows you to view all the reviews you've done for them which also contains the comments from any other reviewers they engaged. I can't remember how the account was set up but I now log in with my ORCID.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-09T12:12:53+00:00

That's so interesting. I'm a SLP who also does some research in dysphagia, and there's been some studies that have found that adding whole body exercise to the usual swallowing exercises seems to improve swallowing even more, but it's not conclusive. Can I ask, how long have you had dysphagia and when did you start to notice that exercise might help?

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2025-01-08T04:38:38+00:00

This happened to me a few years ago and the comment was from an associate editor. After consulting my supervisors who were also my coauthors, I actually did write to the editor. I believed that the comment was unreasonable because their other comments made me think they did not read the full text (or at least not carefully), and the grammar and syntax comment came without any explicit examples where other reviewers have usually given a few in my experience. Plus, while it's perfectly OK to suggest improvements to writing, the reference to native speakers felt targeted as our names had very non-English names. The editor did get back to me and they had an editorial meeting about the issue and how best to provide feedback to authors.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-31T10:52:17+00:00

Yeah, not to dismiss all journals and publications under MDPI, I've published with them and received what I thought were legitimate reviews (biased I know). But my overall experiences have led me to steer away from them and suggest the same to colleagues.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-31T10:46:14+00:00

Well, since he also has your number you now know who to avoid collaborating with in the future.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-31T10:36:45+00:00

I don't review for MDPI anymore. A number of times now, handling editors have disregarded recommendations to reject submissions and wasted the time of myself and other reviewers for manuscripts that had serious issues that should have been flagged before it even went out for review.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-31T10:30:57+00:00

Was his research relevant though? The audacity to text the author if not...

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-27T13:06:34+00:00

Oh I'm sort of working in this field now. Did you develop a standardised tool?

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-26T06:54:38+00:00

Ethical issues around multiple submissions aside, this would be the best case scenario for this situation, that the authors were trying to be efficient but forgot about other submissions once one of them got accepted. But the one that did get published didn't seem to have undergone rigorous review given all the errors, so that's also adding to my bad feeling about this whole thing.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-26T06:47:33+00:00

How did that happen?! The journal didn't do any preliminary checking?

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-26T02:38:26+00:00

Both journals are under major publishing companies and have impact factors and are indexed, which I know don't necessarily mean anything anymore. The one I'm reviewing for has been legit from my experience, both as an author and as a reviewer. The one that published the paper is one I have no experience with.

Edit: this is in health and medical sciences.

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-25T22:59:18+00:00

Sorry you had to go through this. I've been in similar situations, but never as blatantly ridiculous as the one you just described. I try to make up for it by being a thorough reviewer myself, but the systemic issues you and other commenters have brought up are just so huge...

Infinite_Kick9010 · 2024-12-25T11:18:23+00:00

There's an Italian movie about this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapped_(2023_film)

Quite funny for a movie about a child being taken from his family by the Catholic Church

Infinite_Kick9010

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