When senior faculty give feedback to early career colleague, it’s a tricky business. For people just becoming senior (eg having a mentee), it can be challenging.
On the one hand, you need to provide substantive feedback on a paper, such that you move it closer to submission.
Sometimes, this means the feedback is tough and uncomfortable, which can demotivate your coauthor.
On the other hand, you need to not crush the ego of a junior colleague, who having heard the ills of the peer review process is already skittish.
Sometimes, this means the feedback can be too nice, inflate their ego, & result in more iterations than necessary.
So what to do?
Because while the goal is to move papers to submission, the goal is also to develop your junior colleague.
Why?
Because only in the rarest of circumstances should co-authorship be seen as a single shot game. Ideally, every working relationship is a multi-round game that should improve with time.
So how do you do it?
First, remember, whole early career colleagues may be fresh in the discipline, they are not without opinions or egos.
If you take too tough a tone, you hurt feelings or create fear.
While some think evoking fear is a management technique (see PMT & cybersecurity research), it’s not very effective over time.
So be mindful of your tone.
Second, you do not favors by dissembling.
While early career colleagues have egos, it’s does no good to inflate them.
So be direct.
Provide detailed comments & possible solutions.
Third, explain your feedback.
Providing constructive feedback requires more than simply a couple of points, it requires detailed notes in the margin that explain why the changes are necessary or why an idea doesn’t work.
I had a senior colleague who loved the three point comment model; but, he complemented them with a conversation. I learned a lot.
Pick what works for you, but offer an explanation.
Fourth, practice self-care.
If a paper is badly written or incomplete, send it back.
I have a standing rule that if grammarly suggests more than 300 edits, I send it back (outside of references).
While you should help with the wordsmithing, you can’t work magic on a badly written document.
Do not over invest in poorly done work - it’ll frustrate you & make you more apt to snap.
Fifth, set clear expectations.
I’m not always fast, but I try to turn around papers, reasonably quickly.
Give a good faith estimate on timeline & let your early career colleague it’s ok to nudge if you don’t get to it.
I often forget bc I’m distractable - a nudge can work wonders.
Sixth, if the person is not your student, they are socialized to a different model.
Take time to learn their model and work with it.
Usually, mutual adjustments are needed.
As long as you keep in mind your job is to publish with & develop early career scholars, you can have a lot of fun.
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