Alert Me to Anything New in My Area

This is a followup to the previous post about hearing about new scientific
articles in your area as they appear through an RSS feed or email alerts.
What gives me even more of a thrilling feeling of omniscience than alerts
for new issues of journals in my field, is a feature in ScienceDirect
called Search Alerts. If you create an alert for a text string signifying
your sub-specialities, any time *anyone* publishes an article on them in
any of the 2500 journals on sciencedirect, you will get an email. It's
like being a bigtime crime boss with ears and eyes everywhere.

Trollope on the Daily Task

I was looking up that great "spasmodic hercules" quotation, and found this
wonderful passage around it, in Anthony Trollope's autobiography. It
describes how he wrote a bunch of novels despite having a more than
fulltime job as postmaster general. Because I am fascinated with details
of how any successful creative person works, and love this passage for how
it confirms that a good system will cleverly take into account your
emotions, I reproduce a huge chunk of it, at the cost of the pithiness
that should be the virtue of the blogger over other writers:

--

There was no day on which it was my positive duty to write for the
publishers, as it was my duty to write reports for the Post Office. I was
free to be idle if I pleased. But as I had made up my mind to undertake
this second profession, I found it to be expedient to bind myself by
certain self-imposed laws. When I have commenced a new book, I have
always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the
period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In
this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so
that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the
record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and
demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be
supplied. According to the circumstances of the time,--whether my other
business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was
writing was or was not wanted with speed,--I have allotted myself so many
pages a week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as
low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my
page has been made to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched,
will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I
went. In the bargains I have made with publishers I have,--not, of
course, with their knowledge, but in my own mind,--undertaken always to
supply them with so many words, and I have never put a book out of hand
short of the number by a single word. I may also say that the excess has
been very small. I have prided myself on completing my work exactly
within the proposed dimensions. But I have prided myself especially in
completing it within the proposed time,--and I have always done so. There
has ever been the record before me, and a week passed with an
insufficient number of pages has been a blister to my eye, and a month so
disgraced would have been a sorrow to my heart.

I have been told that such appliances are beneath the notice of a man of
genius. I have never fancied myself to be a man of genius, but had I been
so I think I might well have subjected myself to these trammels. Nothing
surely is so potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force
of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small daily task, If it be
really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. It is the
tortoise which always catches the hare. The hare has no chance. He loses
more time in glorifying himself for a quick spurt than suffices for the
tortoise to make half his journey.

I have known authors whose lives have always been troublesome and painful
because their tasks have never been done in time. They have ever been as
boys struggling to learn their lessons as they entered the school gates.
Publishers have distrusted them, and they have failed to write their best
because they have seldom written at ease. I have done double their
work--though burdened with another profession,--and have done it almost
without an effort. I have not once, through all my literary career, felt
myself even in danger of being late with my task. I have known no anxiety
as to "copy." The needed pages far ahead--very far ahead--have almost
always been in the drawer beside me. And that little diary, with its dates
and ruled spaces, its record that must be seen, its daily, weekly demand
upon my industry, has done all that for me.

There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves to such a
taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with his imagination
should allow himself to wait till--inspiration moves him. When I have
heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn.

Don't Break the Chain!

Jerry Seinfeld, at least in certain periods, wrote comedy in a disciplined
way every day. He allegedly uses this technique which I read about here:
http://lifehacker.com/software/motivation/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626.php
Every day when he completed his writing quota he would cross off that day
on the calendar. If he felt like skipping it one day, he would tell
himself, "don't break the chain!" meaning don't make gaps in the sequence
of marks on the calendar, and keep growing those chains as much as
possible.

So far I'm just repeating another blog, but what got me excited about this
technique when I read it is that it is something I've been looking for for
a while, a perfectly balanced motivator. Reward and punishment systems (at
least when self-administered) don't work for me, because I already feel
crappy when I let myself down and can't bear to actually exact the
punishment or deny the reward on top of it. The seinfeld technique
combines a very mild punishment and a very mild reward, which in fact are
just reminders of my own resolution to myself.

You don't need to buy a calendar for this; if you start a new document in
Word, there's an option to download templates off the web, and if you do
a search for "calendar" there are files with pages for the months of the
year that you can print off and put, along with a pen, in a place where
you can reach it from the place you'll be doing this thing.

Tonight I really didn't want to do my 1 hour nonrequired reading that I
have resolved to do every evening; but by repeating to myself, "don't
break the chain", and also something that Anthony Trollope apparently
said, "A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of
a spasmodic Hercules," I made it.

Using RSS to Stay Hyper-Current on the Literature

Another tip from Liz, who writes that it has "allowed me to be almost more
on top of the literature than my supervisor (in terms of finding articles,
anyway)" :

"Ok, so the first step is to turn on your RSS feed reader of choice (I use
google reader, because I check it obsessively for non-academic reasons).
Then, you can do a little bit of research and most journals that publish
online have feeds of the articles that come out as soon as they're
available online.

For example, Journal of Vision (which I believe is online-only) has a feed
link on their website. Vision Research I had to get through ScienceDirect.
I have four journals on my list (JOV, VR, IEEE: PAMI, and JOSA) and I get
2-4 new articles to check out per day. Usually this means skimming the
title and deciding I don't care/don't understand any of the words (I'm
looking at you, JOSA). However, I have found several gems and it's fun to
get them hot off the presses, so to speak. If the abstract (delivered to
my feed reader) is promising, I just download the pdf and enter into my
extremely efficient reference management system.

If you find some way to automate the reading part, let me know :P.

PRO TIP: If you don't already, use your feed reader to subscribe to
something fun like a comic (or five). That will keep you checking it on a
regular basis and comics won't derail you for long."

A good one! I experimented with using google reader for this for a while,
but I tend to use it exclusively for fun stuff - so I can avoid getting
into the habit of checking it during work time. Instead I have been using
email journal alerts, which also works really well, and there's one for
almost every journal (ScienceDirect can cover a few, and then others send
out their own). Whenever a new issue comes out I instantly get an email
with the table of contents, and like Liz I quickly scan it and only read
the abstract of a few, and then add even fewer to my Someday/Maybe reading
list. However at the moment I have a little backlog of those emails in my
Deferred folder (more about my email system in a future posting) so maybe
it's worth considering Liz's method, and interspersing the casual blog
entries with the science headlines.

By the way, if you read any blogs whatsoever regularly, google reader is a
must. It's one of those things that a friend said, "oh my god, you're not
using it?" and I was initially irritated and skeptical but then had to
admit he was right.

How to Sell Yourself in a Letter

This is something I have agonized a lot over in the past, so I was glad to
run across two pieces bearing on it in the last little while. They're both
inspired by looking through real letters that people sent, hoping to sell
themselves to the writer, so this is based on something.

Screenwriter Alex Epstein (Bon Cop, Bad Cop) wrote about emails he got
from people applying to be his intern:
http://complicationsensue.blogspot.com/2008/12/job-applications.html
"First, the most effective letters focused on how you can help me. I want
this to be a good fit for you, but my primary focus is on what qualifies
you to do the job well. What are your qualifications? What are your
skills?

Second, the best letters tended to be shorter. I know this is your shot at
the job, so you want to put it all in there. But a really well crafted,
well-thought out half page impresses more than a page with everything in
it. Anyone who's looking to hire you wants to know that you can
prioritize. What's the most important thing you have to say?

Third, the most effective letters were unapologetically positive. Never
diss your lack of experience or the quality of your work or talk about
your doubts. Almost any letter you write to a stranger is partially a
sales letter. Sell yourself to the person you're writing to. Why give me
reasons to doubt you?"

This second article is by some prominent screenwriters (behind Disney's
Aladdin among other things), about how to write a query letter, which is a
letter you send trying to entice people to read your script and turn it
into a movie.

http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp38.Breaking.the.Ice.html

They write about the many mistakes you can make when writing a query
letter, but I find it more efficient to start by looking at someone
who has best practices (that was the one piece of advice my brain managed
to retain from a personal talk by Jeff Bezos we got as amazon.com intern)
He writes about the subtext that's present in even a short query letter,
and how often letters have the wrong subtext.

"The subtext we most hope to find -- beyond that great film idea in the
text, of course -- is:

'Here I am. I'm serious. I'm capable. I'm talented. I know the
business, and I'm ready to do this job.' "

Then they give a real example of such a letter (that manages to be "warm,
easygoing, straightforward, professional, funny, present the image of a
person that we'd like to meet and work with, all while staying on topic,
and be short, yet compelling"). Some excerpts, with their comments in
square brackets:

"I have very much enjoyed reading your Follywood columns and would like to
take you up on your kind offer to help promote a great script."

[This is a good start. A clear declaration of intent. It's
been personalized a bit -- the writer has read the Wordplay articles from
back in the old days on America Online.]

After the plot description:

"This is not my first stab at writing. A previous screenplay -- OK but
not great -- is currently under option by The Kaufman Company, Citadel
Entertainment (HBO) and another screenplay was a finalist in the Writer's
Film Project run by the Chesterfield Film Company."

[A nice bit of humility here, with the 'OK but not great' line. Subtext:
"I'm a nice guy. I'm not a nutcase." That subtext needs to be there, and
he's found a good way to do it.]

"Sun Dogs is by far the best thing I have ever written. I would like to
get it made -- and made as well as possible."

[This is a nice way to show confidence. Not a claim that the script is the
best script in the world, just the best thing he's ever done.]

(Jane Espenson has similar counterintuitive advice on her blog at one
point: "I'm big believer in high expectations. Tell people that what
they're about to read/see/taste will be wonderful and they'll tend to
perceive what they expect to perceive. This is why, every time I turn in a
script I proudly announce it's the best thing I've ever written.")

And the ending:

"In this spirit, I am searching for an agent to represent it. Any help
you can give me would be very much appreciated."

[A nice send off -- he's just someone who has a great idea and wants some
help, any help, in bringing the idea to life...Overall, there's a
no-nonsense professional feel to this letter.]

Finally, he signs it with the informal "Cheers", though it has the proper
formal letter stuff at the top and bottom.

You can read the whole query letter here
http://www.wordplayer.com/columns/wp38-xtras/wp38x.Sun.Dogs.html

From these essays, I conclude that these things are important in a letter
selling yourself:

- Signs that you know who it is you're writing to and are selling yourself
on the basis of their self-interest
- Prose that is concise and polished
- Avoids phrases that read awkwardly stiff or formal
- Communicates a bit about where you're coming from and a select few of
your most impressive concrete credentials
- No negativity (unless it's important for showing you're not a nutcase)
- Besides that, a general air of realistic confidence, expressing
the sense that you really believe in what you are selling and expect
that others, if not them, will want to snap it up.
- Crisp and polite openings and closings, not lengthy or grovelling.