Q: Do you usually collaborate and with how many?

A: I collaborate with both faculty members and graduate students as well as undergraduate
students. So depending on the paper it might have been graduate or undergraduate students who
are also authors
Q: Is there usually a limit as to how many people you collaborate with?
A: No, so the authors on the papers are usually people who have made significant contribution to
the research in some way. So there is no limit as to how many and in terms of who it could be. So
I have had undergraduate students who have worked in a lab and made significant contribution
with research so they could be authors on the paper too.
Q: Does the writing process change depending on who youre working on the paper with?
A: Uhm, it may. So, forif Im working with students, they may do more of the writing and I
may do the editing portion of the paperpart of the learning process as well. If Im working
with the colleague, then I may not do that same kind of editing, I may give more like global
suggestions on how the paper could go and less sort of detail editing.
Q: One of the major concerns is having a voice that is unified across the paper. So working with
students who dont really have experience writing reports, how do you guide them so there can
be a unified voice across the paper?
A: Thats a good question. I think that is a part..i mean Im not sure if I have a consisten way of
just doing that. Its more about being a good science writer Id say instead. And so then I can
kind of go through and look at the whole piece to see if it has a consistent voice. But often times
papers are written, like different sections are written by different people who maybe have more
expertise, and uhm, kind of the lead author or senior author might go through it at the end and
make sure the paper has kind of a consistent voice throughout.
Q: So before you even start, do you need approval or are there any formalities you have to go
through?
A: Yeah. So, the process begins with the Institutional Review Board, that is apart of all
universities or hospitals, or any institution that does research. You have to submit all the uhm
all of the materials for the study, description f the project, consent form wel use, any kind of
data collection materials and theyll approve that. The IRB here takes a few- maybe like 2 weeks
or so to review the protocol; then there may be kind of a back and forth that comes with that- that
they have any questions then we have to respond to their requests and make any clarifications.
Nd then Once we have the IRBs approva, then we do most of our research with human subjects
so we have to- I guess even before the IRB, theres a certification we have to get, an online
certification that requires that we understand working with sensitive data, human subjects, ethics

of working with an kind of research or people. And then we have to permission from the person,
so just like you guys did. Uhm, and because I work with children a lot, that also sort of adds
another layer of the approval process. So uhm, theres certain populations that are considered
vulnerable- children, pregnant women, and people in prison. And so that there, research done
with any of those populations requires an extra level of sensitivity because they are most
potentially at risk, so we have to just be compliant with all of that.
Q: Does the audience you study and observe change the audience that you write for?
A: Not typically. Because Im mostly end up writing science articles for a child development or
educational community of other researchers like myself; that typically the research gets
published in journals geared towards academics. But if Im writing towards..for- we do write
some things for teachers, more of uh, sometimes occasionally parents, sometimes more of a
layer- lay or even popular press articles, then the tone of the writing might change. But the
primary articles, research articles, gets submitted to profess- you know scientific journals, and
thats typical consistent- the writing is typically consistent.
Q: I know the language is very plain, you dont use much rhetorical devices or anything- you
dont right?
A: No
Q: So how hard is it to avoid that and still have to convince your readers?
A: Thats a good question. I dont think its hard, its just a matter of uhm, doing it so long, I dont
think about that aspect of the writing anymore. Because I guess what you learn is that how to
say some of the best science writing is probably the most simplest writing. Uhm, and so the
thought that it needs to beautiful prose, you have to sort of strip that idea down and go for the
language that is going to be the clearest, is going to help you get your point across. It does take
some work. And so when you ask about the editing kind of process, like that may be one aspect I
really work with students in learing how to do, how to write simple sentences with language
thats going to be clear, even though youre writing for a scientific community, you want to keep
the language simpler. And then try to convince your argument, convince your audience, I think
thats sort of like in how you craft your argument- the whole piece, not neccesarrily individual
sentences. Its with the overall argument. So usually what we do is, we start with the main
question that we are trying to address and craft the argument around that. Why is important
question? What why we think the findings could tell us, what we did and why the findings are
important, is really sort of the overall piece that is typical in a science article.
Q: Since you already touched on editing, do you have a set technique or ritual that you would
use?
A: well usually, we start almost always, we start writing a science article with the methods- so
what did we do in the paper, who were the participants. Uhm, its usually the real straightforward

piece and so that part you can start writing as soon as you start the study. Then we usually write
the results section, and so usually as we write these sections, we start the editing. And kind of,
with my students and I, we do a back and forth and then uhm the introduction and discussion
kind of gets written kind of simultaneously, or the introduction first and then discussion. Then
each of those sections get independently edited and then we do the whole thing overall so then
there is a flow and consistent language throughout, consistent voice, and that theres not a lot of
repetition cause youve written it in these different sections, you want to make sure there is
uhmm (inaudible)..streamline at the end.
Q: So you guys dont send it off to an editor
A: I dont, no we do all of that ourselves.
Q: is that something within the scientific community or just a personal preference?
A: I think there are people that do that, I dont really know. Like in a psych field, thats typically
not the case. I dont whose typically the people who might do that. I could see someone like
maybelets seea medical physician, who has done some research but is not necessarily an
academic or science writer, maybe thats kind of the person. But usually those people are even
working with a Ph.D, so they might do the writing. So we do all of the edit, the writing and
submitting.
Q: Where does the hypothesis go? Does it go at the end during the discussion section?
A: Usually goes, uhm, you know each field has its kind of own format for the journals, usually it
goes in the introduction. So for the way I usually write my papers, I sort of put the goals of the
study close to the very front like on the first page or so, first couple of paragraphs so people
know what this is about. And at the end of the introduction, I usually have a section about the
main research question and the hypotheses and kind of a justification for that. So its usually in
the introduction somewhere.
Q: So you have more than one hypothesis?
A: Sometimes
Q: And do you acknowledge which one works best throughout? Like which one explains the
most?
A: Usually I might have like a main question and this is the hypothesis for that main question.
Sometimes a paper can have two or three research questions and so each one may have a
hypothesis, or maybe that theres one main hypothesis and then theres some secondary research
goals for the paper. Each sort of study is different, but I think the main thing is people want some
support for whatever research question and hypothesis.

Q: So it goes from a cause to effect? Do you ever go effect to cause? Like historical method
where you have effects and you try to trace it back?
A: No, not for me anyway. I usually start with sort of like the question or hypothesis, you dont
usually start with the finding and work backwards. In a lot of ways, thats what we sort of not
want to tell our students to do because sort of hypothesizing after the fact isnt really what you
want to do. You want to sort of say- you want a theory really that is going to guide what your
question or hypothesis is and you want to guide it by previous empirical work. And so there
should be sort of a thought as to what youre going to predict is going to happen; and so if youre
taking the data and working backwards like I hypothesize this, its sort of a no-no really. You
dont want to do that, in our field anyway.
Q: If you have a different researchers with conflicting hypotheses, how do you decide what gets
written where? Do you include all of them?
A: So sometimes what you may have is- you may have a research question and the hypothesis
could, you know, sort of what you predict is going to happen, could go either one of two ways- it
could go this way, it could go that way. And there may not be any not be empirical or theoretical
way to make that decision. And so Ive written in papers before where we likely think this is
going to happen, however here is an alternative hypothesis that could also happen. So it may be
that each hypothesis is equal amount of support or theres no way of making that prediction, so
you could say that as well.
Q: So moving on to the actual experiment itself, its mostly observations right?
A: Depends on the study, we do observations, we do interviews, we do testing, we do
correlational studies, we do experimental studies
Q: So, with observations, what different techniques do you guys utilize?
A: So we do uhm, I mean you could do natural observation or structured observations. Natural
observations would may be going into a classroom and observing, for example, sort of the
natural or typical actions that may be going during the time. Structured observation is a scenario
that you have created, but even then that could be structured level, like you could tell a parent
and child complete this particular activity, or you could- we have given kids some different
toys and said okay, well be back in ten minutes, so even though its very open because we
have given the kids the toys, and made this like match between two kids, itll still be considered
structured, even though theres no guidance given to the kids.
Q: Is it a lot of video recording?
A: We do a lot of video recordings and with that we can do transcribing, and so thats basically
typing out everything that people say and you can do analyses on transcripts. We also do
behavioral coding, and so our researcher goes through and decides on the actions and maybe

does sort of a count of them and what those actions may have meant and you can do analyses on
those things.
Q: With interviews, how do you guys prepare- is it like a team interview or is it like this person
interviews this group of people?
A: We interview kids usually, so its usually one on one, and its usually a structured interview.
So we have a set of questions that we give to them or were testing them for some kind of
knowledge that were interested so it might be more of like an assessment.
Q: Is it ever decide who writes which parts and how would you come up with that?
A: so this is a very challenging part because you have to decide authorship on different projects.
And so the authorship in different fields is dictated in certain ways in terms of who was the lead.
It could be the very first name that you see or it could be the last name, it depends on the field.
So for me, if Im publishing, like I guess in child development or psychology, often times the
first person plays a significant role and the senior person might play a significant role, thats
usually the last author- maybe the most senior person- so you might have three or four students
and Id be the last person on there. So I may have been the person who got the money for the
study but I was chosen the last position because I was the senior person of the study.
Q: How do you determine where your work gets published?
A: Thats a good question. So theres some top journals in the field andso those are sort of like
the places you aim to publish studies that get the most exposure broadly. And so what a study has
to be- make a significant contribution- so top journals have high rejection rates. You might think
this is a great paper, but they may only accept five percent of the journals they receive. They
receive hundreds and hundreds, and only 5 percent or so get published.
Q: Do you usually aim for the highest one?
A: We usually try to go as high as we think that the paper will go first and then we- theres
different sort of top journals- theres top child development journals. I also publish in educationpsychology journals too. We might also see where the topic of the paper might have its best fit.
Would this be better for that med-psych audience or child development audience, or even a broad
psychology audience? And then you can see, you can gear sort of like the submission to that kind
of field and then theres sort of tiers. You have top tiers, you have middle tiers, and you have
lower tiers, depending on the paper you submit sort of all over.
Q: is it a complicated system within the publication. Or is it just simply the idea and the focus of
the research is not what they want?
A: Oh, as to why they might reject you?

Q: Yeah, like specific or just general? Like does your name matter or anything?
A: The process for most journals is a double blind review process. So they dont know who I am
and I dont know who the reviewers are. So typically- this is not the case for all journal- but most
journals in psychology have this double blind procedure. So Ill submit a paper without my name
on it, a version of it, and so the only person who will know my name is the editor whos handling
the submission or sometimes not even that person, but sometimes sort of like an assistant- like a
middle man. And then this paper will get just the title, the whole paper will get submitted to two
or three people in the field- experts in the field, and theyll review it and I wont know who they
ae either and will get back their reviews of the paper. The whole process, like from my
submission to the time I get my reviews back can be anywhere from three to six months. Thats
pretty long and so hopefully its in three months which is probably the best time frame and then
they will either say we accept the paper as is- that never happens, we accept the paper with
some minor revisions- that rarely ever happens, I think its happened once in my whole career.
The usually thing that happens is we like the paper- but according to reviews and the editor
might write a letter saying we like it but here are things that you need to fix to make the paper
stronger. And it almost always does, the paper turns into a much better paper after the reviewers
have read it. And then you revise it and then send it back, usually you have a few months to do
that, and the other option is they reject the paper right out. You still get the reviews, which is
often nice to like improve it before you send it somewhere else. But then they wont see..you
know..(trails off).
Q: So they give you a chance to edit and send it back?
A: Sometimes, but the rejection- youre done.
Q: So you could get a complete rejection?
A: You could get a complete rejection
Q: And what kind of causes that?
A: It could be like a methodological flaw, it could be a fit for the journal, it could be just the
findings arent strong enough or appropriate for this journal- doesnt make a big enough
scientific contribution, we think. And so it can even get rejected before it get sent out for reviews
at times. And so the editor will read it and say I dont think this is good fit for our journal and
then send it back to you without even sending it for their own reviews.
Q: Does each journal have their own agenda?
A: Yeah, typically. So what you want- So if you go to different journals, there will be a
description about the goal of this particular journal, and so thats what I mean when I say fit of
where its submitted and so if this article doesnt seem like a good fit for the particular journal,
then theres no point in sending it there.