

The Quantified Anatomy of a Paper - superfx
http://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/the-quantified-anatomy-of-a-paper/

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privong
First off, congratulations to Mohammed AlQuraishi for the paper! Carrying out
a big project like that and seeing it through to completion is a solid
achievement.

> The fact that [writing the paper] consumed so much is a little
> disconcerting, and suggests, for me at least, that writing a paper is a
> major commitment.

I think the amount of time needed to write is something people generally
underestimate the first time they write a scientific paper (I certainly did).
It is a bigger undertaking that most people expect. There is a lot of writing,
editing, rewriting, etc.[0], and it takes a lot of time and effort. I am not
the first person to say this, but I think most people (in science at least)
underestimate the importance of writing and so underestimate how much time it
takes.

But I do not think it should necessarily be "disconcerting". The author goes
on to say this, and I agree: sharing the results of the research is very
important. I would even go so far as to say it is as important as doing the
research (if the research is not spread to others, it difficult to make use
of). So putting in the time to effectively communicate the process and results
is critical. For some types of projects, I could envision the writing taking
_more_ time than the actual research, in order to effectively communicate the
research.

[0] I have tracked the text of one of my current papers in git since I began
writing it; once it is finally published, it would be interesting to go back
and look at how the text evolved with time. How much did I write in comparison
to the amount of text that survived to the published form? How long do
passages "survive" in the draft before being edited or removed?

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whitten
This analysis of the activity of writing a paper (and the paper that was
written) are both interesting because of the dedication of Mohammed AlQuraishi
to data (and evidence) driven activity.

Perhaps this will decrease rarity of someone collecting this data, and the
introspection to understand the data collected.

