Went to a baseball game in Fukuoka last night (Monday – Hawks win!). This is what I it feels like now.
By Evan
A couple of months ago, I wrote at length about the trials and tribulations of revising a paper. Though it was a stressful, difficult time to get through the revisions, it is all worthwhile after receiving this email:
Dear Mr. Evan James Gowan,
I am pleased to confirm that your paper “An assessment of the minimum timing of ice free conditions of the western Laurentide ice sheet” has been accepted for publication in Quaternary Science Reviews.
Of course, publishing a paper, even as sole author, is not possible without the support and advice of colleagues, supervisors, fellow students, and of course, the people who did the peer review. Words can’t describe how happy I am right now, though I am reminded that there is at least one or two more papers that must be done before the end of the PHD!
Publishing a paper is a long an arduous process. The seeds for this paper were planted approximately one year ago, according to the date stamps on some of the files in my analysis folder. I actually started writing in late August last year, while attending an ANU Academic Skills and Learning workshop on publishing papers. I recommend attending such a workshop if you have never been through the process of publishing. I submitted the first draft of my paper in late November, and received a response by late January. Though it was tough to read the reviews, my supervisor told me “either they say ‘major revisions’, or they will reject the paper, and the better of the two options happened”. It was exactly what I needed to hear. I already outlined what revisions were like, but the second round, which I received in late April, were much more manageable.
Having this published is a huge weight off my shoulders. Hopefully it won’t be long until I write about the “in press” draft. 
