|
In 1709, the English playwright, poet and literary critic John Dennis watched bitterly as his ill-fated play `Appius and Virginia' flopped at the Drury Lane Theatre. Most of his plays flopped, because it turns out that he wasn't a very good playwrite or poet. (He did have a success with `Liberty Asserted' because it made fun of the French, always a surefire hit. The sequel, `My Big Fat French Wedding' was less fortunate.) But the closing of his play was minor compared with what happened next: in a production of Macbeth in that same theatre, he distinctly heard the sound of thunder coming from what he was sure (and correctly so) was his invention of a thunder-making device (a large mustard bowl). "See how the rascals use me," he said. "They will not let my play run, yet they steal my thunder!"
Alexander Pope noted this in mock tribute when in `The Dunciad' he exclaimed: "Let others aim,'tis yours to shake the soul, with thunder rumbling from the mustard bowl." Not that this is relevant, really. I was just showing off.
If you've only just joined us, you won't know what I'm talking about here. But here's a quick synopsis: I got my thunder stolen. Scooped. Great work, great paper, great things just waiting to happen and now it's all to someone else's credit. And now we have two choices publish a "me too" paper in a journal where nobody is going to notice our hard work, ever. Or do something else.
I bet you vote for `something else'. Me too. But who said this is a democracy we're going to do something else whether you vote for it or not. Because I'm in a really bad mood I got scooped.
By the way, this getting scooped thing most scientists agree that it's just awful, down there with getting papers and grants rejected, way worse than experiments that refuse to work. Scooped is such a universal disappointment, that we all have the deepest sympathy. "See that guy? He got scooped. I'm going to give him my car to cheer him up. But it won't."
But sad to say, while fully sympathetic, we remember those who were first and not the others who made the discovery (pop quiz: who was the second one to bring fire from the gods?). Or at least, that's what we think we do and how it feels. The reality though? For the most part, most people are faking it. Years later, when they introduce you at a seminar (or, hopefully, a major award presentation) they will list your accomplishments and nobody is going to say, "Yeah, well, he/she wasn't first." Because it's the accumulated accomplishments, not the one-hit-wonders that a career make. Sure. Keep telling yourself that. You know you want to be first anyway. I hate getting scooped.
So what are we going to do about it?
Aren't you glad you came to me? (And aren't you glad it was me that got scooped, and not you?) Aren't you glad that American advertising techniques are so masterful that we can sell beer to Brits and coffee to Italians? I'm not making that up, and it's relevant. No, really. We're going to use those techniques here and, astonishingly, we are going to do it in a way that actually makes the science better. And we can do that, of course, because I'm an American (although if you want to talk about politics, I'll swear I'm Canadian).
For this to work, though, you have to have been really and truly scooped and not just seen a clever idea brought to fruition by someone else. You know how that works; it goes like this: "Hey Bill, what's wrong? You look like someone just made you drink an American beer."
"No, it's not that, it's just that we got scooped."
"Oh gosh, oh no that's horrible. I'm so sorry. Was this something you'd been working on for a long time?"
"Yes, I thought of it two years ago, but I couldn't get anyone in the lab to actually work on it. And I didn't raise any money to study it, and we didn't actually do an experiment. But just when I started to really think about planning to start to sort of try something, BAM, out it comes in this really high impact journal, the kind with really soft pages. Scooped! And just because they had energy, efficiency, conviction and actually did the work."
"The rodents! It's so unfair. Look, here, I want to give you my car."
Okay, you wouldn't feel sorry for this whiner, and neither do I. So don't whine. But we're talking about really getting scooped you and your lab have been working hard on a project that has been working, the data are coming in, figures for publication look good. You feel like DNA cowboys! It's a real program of research and it's going well. But somebody else's went well-er. It happens, and now there's blood on the saddle. Well, buckeroo, we're going to turn gore into glory.
Our strategy is going to be based on the simple fact that the observation has been published (even if it's by someone else). Because this means two things, both of which are hugely to your advantage: (1) The work is of sufficient interest to be published, and (2) the guys who have just done the publishing are now effectively paralyzed. Why this works depends on the sort of scoop you've experienced: the overscoop or the underscoop.
An overscoop is when somebody simply swoops past you and publishes your work (okay, it's their work, but it feels like yours) in a high impact journal at or above the level you were aiming at. This is actually the best sort of situation to be in (although it feels worse than the other kind). In this situation the scoopee (you) tends to feel inadequate we weren't fast enough, we weren't good enough, we aren't as cool as we thought we were yesterday. But the correct feeling should be: Wow, were we on the right track here. Not only spot on correct, but also right about how important and interesting this really is. (I know you're not thinking that, but you should, because of what comes next.) But before we get there, we have to look at the underscoop.
An underscoop is more insidious, more difficult to handle, but ultimately fixable as well. An underscoop occurs when someone goes for the quick fix, the easy but key experiment and publishes it in a low impact journal (even if the experiment didn't work especially well) and, worst of all, puts something in the title that clearly indicates that their conclusion scoops you. Rather than feel inadequate, the victim of an underscoop tends to feel indignant they knew they couldn't beat us with proper experiments, so they passed off this junk so that they could claim the finish line first. But now no high impact journal will touch your paper, because it's old news. Really. And it's stupid, but it's how the journals work. Say you've discovered that an extract of parrotfish can make you transiently defy gravity and fly. If you've been underscooped, the editor of Amazing Things Weekly will say: "Sorry, but there was a paper last week in Tropical Lagoons and Puddles that showed that parrotfish are lighter than they look. Sorry. But thank you for your enquiry. And by the way, would you review these eight papers for us?" Nevertheless, stay in there, we'll fix it.
Whether you've been overscooped or underscooped, we're going to fix it by the leapfrog method. Your competition has just jumped over (or under) you, and you're now going to jump over them. You simply ask the next question, and you do it immediately. What if there isn't a next question, you say? But there is there always is, because if there isn't (or you think there isn't) then you haven't really been working hard enough or deeply enough on this project to get scooped. So think hard what's the next big question you can address with a couple of insightful experiments? Figure this out, now, and get right on it, because I guarantee that in this situation, the previous scooper will get scooped.
But you say, that's unrealistic. They've not only beaten you, but they are months ahead they already published the paper that you haven't written yet, and they have most likely already submitted the one that you're planning to leapfrog. Right? So this is just begging to get us scooped again.
It can happen like that. Some labs are just masters of the universe and they will scoop you and scoop you. But that hardly ever happens. And it's because of one simple fact they just published a paper. The guys in the lab have been killing themselves to get this work out, the paper was written, rewritten, refined, experiments were repeated and repeated, and they submitted the paper to a journal and waited anxiously. Then reviewers told them to do it all again, but in a different colored dish, and they did that (and every other stupid thing the reviewers could think of) and they got their paper published. And now you think they're racing to the next paper? Extremely unlikely. The graduate student is setting up his committee meeting, the postdoc is visiting her parents for the first time in a year, and the lab head is giving lectures on their recently published findings. The lab is paralyzed.
By contrast, your lab is fired up. Experiments are working, you know the next big question and you will kill yourselves to get the work completed in record time, the paper written and rewritten, all of the reviewers' comments answered briskly ("as requested we have repeated all of the experiments while standing on one foot"). And best of all? Most of the data in the paper you are writing is simply the work that just got scooped! That's right you can publish these results (or the best of them) together with the new stuff, because we all know that it really is important to confirm work by others as quickly as possible, and this time we know it's true because it's already been published by others (you don't, of course, claim priority on this aspect you simply describe it as something we've all known for ages, since it was published last month). You openly and enthusiastically acknowledge the work of the scooper, which was important only because it allowed you to make the really essential finding you are describing here.
Now, this is easier if you've been royally overscooped, because you don't have the difficulty of convincing editors and reviewers that the subject is important. It is by definition (since only really important things get published in shiny glossy journals or the ones with the really soft pages). You simply have to convincingly explain why the next question is even more important. And it will be, because attention has been drawn to the subject by the first paper.
If you've been underscooped, the problem is trickier, but still do-able. Here you have to point to the other work and imply that they missed what was really exciting and important. Make sure that the title and abstract of your paper does not resemble theirs (or point to their conclusions) in any way rather, their finding is taken as obvious and pedestrian, and yours is what is really astonishing. Hopefully, then, when the reviewers see how much nicer your data is (because you took the time to get it clean and right hence the underscoop), they likely will give you the nod.
None of this is automatic, and there is no guarantee that the next leapfrogging question you choose will be viewed as more important (or at least as important) as the original finding that got pulled from under you. But in the meantime, you are getting work done and the work out (which is just as important) and things are moving forward rather than just lying there. And you are setting an excellent example for your trainees (or will, when you get some). Hey, who ever said science is easy? Not me.
Related articles in JCS: