It has been a while since Sun has published something. With working conditions improved, moral standards raised, publishing does and don’ts altered, the methods of funding acquisition have changed greatly during his quietude too. All puffed up again to get back in the game, Sun seeks to throw his hat in the ring:
How can you make your research sexy more appealing?
Dear Sun,
Oh my … How could you be so insensitive? For your sake, I have replaced your geriatric and abject choice of adjective with a more appropriate one. You should know by now that uttering such a question is incredibly misogynistic, and no… the fact that your last publication is dated a couple of millennia ago is not a valid response. Beware. I am now too; a short trip to a hearing care professional subsequent to a nice zoom meeting with some members of this blog, a somewhat longer trip to the opticians in hopes to improve my sight after some TB of compulsory reading material thereafter, and two weeks of sitting on an inflatable donut (I don’t think I have to elaborate on that…). A worthwhile experience indeed.
OK, back to the question. As you’re probably well aware, any and all situation in academia can be described as a war. A war against yourself when you’re not feeling completely up to the tasks in your to-do-list, a war against reviewers and your co-authors when you’re writing a manuscript, and of course a war against your supervisor when you’ve been told to get some more details about that one parameter you already know is not going to matter at all but you simply did not make a plot of it yet and the numbers in the table are not sufficient to ….. Never mind that… The most appropriate situation you’ll get into when in academia, i.e., that is closest to a war, is when you try to acquire some funding; you, your co-authors/workers, supervisors, the reviewers and committee, the institution and last, but definitely not least, the other people submitting a proposal to the same program you are. You’re at war with all of them. And no …, not everyone is able, willing or ambitious enough to come up with a community effort proposal. There’s just a few things (about five) you need to remember.
