Writing advice for trainees by Anny Reyes

Anny Reyes, Postdoctoral Fellow at UCSD, shared on X/Twitter:

“Officially reached 50 publications before *hopefully* starting faculty next year. Although I do not agree with the pressure of publishing and recognize that there is so much variability in labs/institutions, I have learned lessons/strategies that have helped me achieve this.

1) If you are a trainee, sit down with your mentor at the beginning of the year to discuss projects you could lead and also opportunities for collaboration. Collabs can include running the statistics for a project, as a trainee this is an important skill to offer!

2) Think of conference abstracts as the first step toward a manuscript. Turn these abstracts into publications and if you are too busy, ask a lab colleague if they would like to co-lead the writing. You could always return to the abstract at a later time!

3) Work on projects that are closely related. This will help with the literature search and future ideas for projects. I did this with phenotyping and have 15 pubs on this topic. It provides the opportunity to gain expertise on the topic or methodology which leads to collaborations.

4) Ask your mentor if there are data available for you to analyze if you are in the midst of collecting data, including publicly available datasets.

5) Grants/scholarships provide protective time to focus on writing and leading projects.

6) Writing gets easier the more you do it. I am ESL and never really thought I was a proficient English writer but I have noticed a drastic change since I started graduate school.”