Will 2014 be better than 2013?

By what do we measure scientific success?
Articles published, citations, or number in new joint projects?

Well, 2013 was overall a successful year.
Two articles got through the pipeline, and note this is data from my undergraduate time! It took a long time but then, for one article I only wrote it up for publication this spring, and in autumn it was published, now I finished the audioslides.
The audioslide feature was an experiment - it took me longer than thought (over 6 weeks) just getting the hardware sorted out and reasonable quality (still improvable, I know). If one has access to the paper, the slides do not add much, but many researchers may have to wait for accessing the article. For those, the slides present the design and data in under 5 minutes.
Here is the link to it: Effort in Ravens

The second article is on a totally different topic, sound-sensitive neurons in the moth brain. We got some tough requests from the reviewers, but they liked the overall findings. So after some major revision Cell Tissue and Research published the article.
Sound-sensitive neurons in the moth brain

Two more articles I submitted are in the pipeline, for one even the revision is done, but now its holiday season and I expect no reply before late January.

With co-workers another manuscript has been submitted and now the revision, but we give it a final proof-reading after the festive season, so that one will also take its time.

At least four more data sets are ready to be written up, but revisions take their time - and I prefer to focus on one to two projects at a time.
With respect to citations, 2013 is adding a few but still no rush - but a better measurement is citations after 5 years and not after 1 or 2 years, so I am optimistic especially when people met at conferences know our work - they just have not published something citing it, yet!
There were also new joint projects - promising future publications.

Still, the progress is slower as hoped, always too many time-consuming tasks jumping out of nowhere. By numbers, 2013 was average for me, but in the long run, 2013 provided a very good base from which far more papers will find the way into the scientific community.

Exciting data and talks

Now I have 4 papers in the pipeline, one has had its revision and we should get the final decision soon.
To become even better, I registered for an academic writing course and luckily got a place. There I will use a manuscript that shall be submitted soon - all data analysis is done and literature reviewed. So hope the course helps me to polish the language even better.
Good news also from the MAD organisers. My abstract for the conference convinced them to give me a talk slot, instead of presenting "just" a poster. And on the same day we got some cool new data that I will present at the meeting during my talk then! The story comes more and more complete - thanks to Misha and the incredible noctuids - fascinating creatures for deciphering neural circuits.

We also finished data gathering and processing for another project and now I can focus on data analysis. Good timing 'cause there are a range of statistic courses going on this autumn - more on the use of the software STATA but still valuable to refresh concepts and discuss approaches with colleagues - and learn from each other. Quite som synergy I expect from the next workshops - english writing and statistical courses.

We also finished debugging all surveys and experimental tasks, so today and the next weeks we will collect data for two Masterstudent projects and one Bachelor project.

latest manuscripts

it comes in bouts, a while nothing and then 3 manuscripts submitted in short succession.
Now another 3 in the making. Any reason for that?
Any theory on that?
I have none to offer.

Hope, all 3 are soon accepted, would be nice to have some publications for 2013. But then, I learned to be patient. Some reviewers and journals are just slow. You never know beforehand.

Furthermore 2013 brought me my first "job" as reviewer, main supervisor of a Masterstudent (co-supervisor before), and being censor of a Masterthesis.  Of course, I will also teach, one lecture at the bachelor level and one will be in a Master course.

And last but not least, in a few weeks it is time for grant applications ...

New year, new publications

It is still going on, publications being accepted or finally printed i.e. publicly available. I switched a lot to using researchgate. And had some new ideas for research - and just did the experiments. Now time is running and papers need to be written up and submitted. A small break will give me the time to finish some papers. The creativity was written up for a PhD proposal - hope Haghish will succeed with it. Anyway it was another good opportunity to structure the experiments for the next months. And training for the ethical applications (got permissions quickly).