Responding to Reviewer Comments: It Gets Only a Little Easier

Rachel T. Santiago, PhD, University of Missouri, and Garret J. Hall, PhD, Florida State University 

Academia’s running joke about the hypercritical Reviewer 2 is somewhat exaggerated, but it has a grain of truth. Publishing your scholarship is, at best, a difficult process that often results in negative feedback, rejection, and a potential existential crisis.  Yet you are committed to your work because the (highly) variable reinforcement schedule of publishing is enough to keep you going, including the payoff of that first job or faculty promotion.  

As early-career scholars and associate editors at different journals in the field (RS: Journal of School Psychology; GH: Assessment for Effective Intervention), we experience the joy and exasperation of publishing our own work while devoting substantial effort to making recommendations on others’ work. The peer-review process has its flaws, and manuscript decisions are often very nuanced. It isn’t easy to find an effective way to respond to feedback (especially when your indignation spikes after reading your feedback for the first time), even when the feedback is constructive (and sometimes it’s very unconstructive). Your reviewer response approach depends largely on the specific feedback you receive and the nature of your paper. Unfortunately, this is often not something graduate students or early career professionals are formally taught; much of the learning comes from personal experience and consultation with colleagues and mentors. In 2019, the ECF offered step-by-step guidance to navigating Revise and Resubmit decisions (see here: https://www.sssp-research.org/revise-and-resubmit-now-what/). The current post builds on that prior work by highlighting some of the review response processes to help develop an effective response strategy.

General Tips 

Read, Process, then Read Again 

A Revise and Resubmit (R&R) or Major Revision is still a type of rejection. They’re willing to see a revision, but it is a rejection nonetheless, and it is perfectly normal to have feelings about that and to feel frustrated about the feedback you received. Therefore, it can be helpful to give yourself some breathing space in between your first read-through of the decision letter and your second planning-oriented read-through. (And if you want to print out a particularly rude review and throw it into a fireplace, no judgment here.)  

Importantly, you don't want to get in your own way—don’t count your work out before receiving a final decision. On the flipside, don’t be overconfident that they will accept the revision. Read the review, sort out your reactions to it, then read it again so you can make a plan for submitting the best possible revision and maximizing your chances of acceptance. 

Make a Plan 

Your review timeline is a difficult part of the process to manage, especially when working with multiple co-authors. It is important to develop a plan to finalize your reviewer responses and manuscript edits with your co-authors as soon as possible after initially receiving a manuscript decision. There is no one way to do this, and it depends on the dynamics of the authorship team, but it’s best to have clear author roles at the revision stage. In our experience, manuscript revision timelines have ranged from a couple of weeks to several months. Journals have default timelines that are communicated within manuscript decision letters. Completing a revision within the standard timeline is ideal, and your initial revision plan should be based on that. However, it’s acceptable to ask the AE or editor assigned to your paper for an extension, if needed.  

When you develop a revision plan, you should prioritize how each piece of feedback will be addressed, especially if it is not clear how to address highly variable (or outright discrepant) comments from reviewers. AEs will often provide guidance on which revisions to prioritize. Feedback about core assumptions of your paper, like your theoretical framework or statistical modeling choices, will probably take more time to both revise in the paper and develop a persuasive reviewer response. Communication and collaboration with co-authors are essential for articulating a cohesive response to complex feedback.  

Also, find the big picture of the feedback you received, in addition to paying attention to small details. Often, the whole response is greater than the sum of the individual responses to comments. Give yourself time to evaluate both the finished reviewer response and your revised manuscript before you resubmit. 

Documenting Your Responses 

There are different ways to document your responses to reviewer feedback. A good first step is to read the decision letter carefully to see if the editor or AE specifies how they want you to do this, because there can be variability in what a journal expects. Sometimes an editor will ask for a document with your response to each comment, in addition to highlighting changes (or using tracked changes) in the resubmitted manuscript; sometimes they ask for your responses to each comment without specifying whether you should indicate changes in the revised manuscript; and sometimes they request something else. If the letter or the author guidelines on the journal website do not give specific instructions, you can safely assume that you should include a deidentified document with a response to each editorial and reviewer comment. There are different ways to format this document (e.g., a table or a list). Just know that you may be asked to enter it into a text box in the submission portal or to upload it as an attachment (or both!). You can also ask co-authors or colleagues if they are willing to share an example of how they have formatted their responses to reviewers in the past. 

Regardless of the approach you use, aim to be detailed and clear to make it as easy as possible for the editor, AE, and reviewers to find the changes you made. The easier they can find the changes, the clearer it will be that you were thoughtful and comprehensive in the revision process. 

Handling Tricky Situations 

Sometimes reviewers say or suggest things that are hard to navigate, and there isn’t a handbook for what to do about them. Below, we offer some tips for handling more difficult situations. 

Rude, Harsh, or Unnecessarily Critical Reviewers 

Reviewers are only able to give constructive feedback to the extent that their own characteristics, egos, and biases allow. It doesn’t make it okay, but it means that sometimes reviewers give problematic feedback. In general, AEs are required not to redact or edit a reviewer’s comments; sometimes an AE explicitly states in their decision letter that a piece of feedback is not necessary to consider; sometimes they do not. In general, it is a good practice to respond to ideas, not tone (even if it is tempting to tell them exactly what you think of their review). However, sometimes reviewers’ comments can be bigoted, racist, xenophobic, or prejudiced (e.g., uncalled-for comments about authors’ language proficiency, unsubstantiated assumptions about culturally relevant practices). In these situations, a good first step is to consult with your co-authors or with other colleagues you trust to identify how to best move forward in a way that protects both your scholarship and your well-being. 

You Already Did What They Asked You to Do 

A reviewer asks, “Why didn’t you do XYZ?” even when you clearly stated you did on page 15 of your manuscript. Don’t be snarky in your response, even if you think that detail was impossible to miss. Acknowledge the concern the reviewer is raising and respectfully note the location of the detail in question (page number, specific sentence, etc.). At some point, as a reviewer, you will also miss an obvious detail.  

Sometimes a reviewer may question something you already did because they didn’t understand it in the first place. In this case, first reflect on whether your initial explanation adequately communicated the detail the reviewer misunderstood. After you do that, determine whether you need to revise the manuscript itself as well as provide further explanation in the response letter. You may only need to do one or the other, but we advise that you revise the manuscript for clarity AND provide more context in the reviewer response.  

Misalignment Between Feedback and Methodology 

There might be multiple valid ways to conduct a specific method (assessment strategy, data analysis, research design, etc.), and reviewers may offer legitimate criticism and alternatives/improvements to your methods. Sometimes, however, the reviewers are plain wrong. Sometimes, you and your coauthors are too. It’s important to recognize when your methods demonstrate legitimate flaws and assess whether this can be improved upon in revision, either through changes to the methods or revisions to the explanation. However, it’s also important to be able to identify when a reviewer’s methodological suggestion is incorrect or unhelpful to the goals of your study. When a review recommends something that you believe is incorrect, it’s important to communicate a respectful and thorough response to reviewers that demonstrates you have a clear methodological justification for your design or analytic choices and why their recommendation may be inappropriate for your study. It may also help to discuss with the AE what changes are necessary. For example, feedback that criticizes the methods of single-case designs or qualitative studies by comparing them to group design standards of statistical power or sample size is often invalid. This could come from a place of reviewers’ unfamiliarity with the designs/methods or just a bias against them (or both). Either way, providing a clear and thorough justification will demonstrate that you have a strong theoretical, methodological, and/or practical basis for your choices. At the same time, it’s not your job to teach reviewers a method they are unfamiliar with; they need to recognize the limits of their own knowledge before offering constructive feedback. 

When You Aren’t Going to Implement a Suggestion 

Like the last section, when you decide that you won’t make recommended changes to your study or manuscript, it’s important to provide a clear rationale, especially if the suggestion you are not implementing is a key part of their review. Logically justified responses can provide a compelling basis for saying “We ignored this.” Even when reviewer feedback is clearly not possible to implement (e.g., a reviewer asks why you didn’t collect measures on something when you are using secondary data), remain collegial in your response and just note that the change is not possible for a clear reason. As noted earlier, this also depends on the scope of the changes. A major change you decide against will require more explanation and more nuance. A small change may require only a brief response, like, “We appreciate the attention to detail. We have decided to do XYZ because of XYZ” (i.e., “thanks but no thanks”).  

Thoughts from an Associate Editor's Perspective 

As early-career researchers who also serve in reviewing and AE capacities, we currently navigate the review process from the author, reviewer, and AE perspectives. Based on our experience, we recommend asking the AE assigned to your manuscript any questions or clarifications you may have. Personally, we would rather an author ask us to clarify something than have them experience difficulties in the revising process. 

It’s important to recognize that different AEs take different approaches, and it can be hard to reach an editorial decision. We are balancing methodological expertise and content knowledge across reviewers, and sometimes reviewers’ recommendations don’t neatly align. Some AEs treat the decision as a vote among reviewers (e.g., two recommend R&R and one recommends Reject, so the AE decides R&R), while others base their decision on the overall picture of the reviews. In addition, some AEs need approval from the journal’s editor-in-chief before finalizing a decision, whereas others do not; this varies by journal policy and editors’ styles. Overall, there will be variability across journals and AEs, and multiple factors go into the decision-making process. In short, it is helpful to be informed about the process while recognizing what is within your control: doing the best work you can and communicating clearly with your AE and in your response to reviewers. 

Final Thoughts 

Getting reviews on a piece of writing can be hard, both logistically and emotionally. It is even harder when you are an early-career scholar, when your scholarship is underrepresented in school psychology, or if your work challenges preconceived notions of what scholarship should look like. And if you hold marginalized identities, receiving a difficult review could also activate feelings of impostor syndrome or contribute to your mental and emotional labor. Systems-level problems in peer review will require systems-level solutions, but we feel the impacts at the individual level and don’t often get clear guidance on how to address them. Our goal with this post is to offer general guidance that can supplement the support and advice you get from mentors and colleagues. Ultimately, keeping your focus on the scholarship will mean your work has the best possible chance of finding its home. 

Sustaining Your Writing Pipeline When Research Funding is Scarce

Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University

For many scholars, grant funding is an important component of maintaining an active research program. Cuts in federal funding for research in the social sciences, education, and other disciplines have been sweeping, stalling important projects and ultimately threatening school psychologists’ ability to provide a range of academic, behavioral and mental health services in schools. For faculty charged with maintaining active research agendas, this may also mean a significant interruption to publication pipelines, which can be problematic for junior faculty who must demonstrate productivity in order to obtain tenure.

Given that grant funding from major federal agencies likely will continue to be limited under the current federal administration, junior faculty may need to find ways to maintain their publication pipelines until they are able to resume their planned research activities. Below we offer some suggestions for maintaining an active writing pipeline in the absence of critical grant funding.

Support community partners.

First and foremost, it is important to acknowledge the tremendous impact that cuts to federal funding have had on children, families and school communities. Many of the grant dollars that were terminated had been allocated to provide much needed mental and behavioral health services to school-age youth; as such, schools are coping with a significant loss of resources. This is an important time to support communities that have experienced these losses, and attending carefully to their needs will be important. While some school districts may wish to pause their relations with research teams, others may still be seeking support. Consider some ways that you can support these districts in light of funding cuts. For instance, providing consultation, professional development, or other resources (support through practicum student placements) may be helpful to schools as they navigate these difficult times.

Initiate writing projects that require minimal funding.

There are many types of research and scholarship that require minimal funding. These projects can be helpful in preparing for future, larger-scale projects if and when funding returns. Some examples are as follows:

• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses may be particularly helpful for taking stock of existing work in a given research area. They can also be helpful for reconciling similar studies with conflicting results. While meta-analyses can be time-consuming and require considerable labor on the part of research teams, data collection is often done through online databases typically accessible through university libraries. These types of research projects can be very helpful in summarizing existing work and helping scholars consider future directions for their work.
• Conceptual or other non-empirical articles, or articles focused on advancing new frameworks, perspectives, ideas, or theories, also require minimal financial resources. These articles are important forms of scholarship that can set the stage for subsequent empirical work. Some recent prominent examples include Malone (2024), Sabnis and Proctor (2022), and Fallon et al. (2023).
• Secondary data analysis involves conducting analyses on existing large-scale data sets. Large-scale secondary data analysis can allow researchers with minimal research support to engage in potentially rigorous studies that would not otherwise be possible without substantial research funding (Sullivan et al., 2020). A three-part primer on secondary data analysis that addresses considerations for researchers, practitioners, and dissemination and consumption of research findings in popular media can be found in the NASP Communiqué.Books and book chapters can also be good prospects for projects when funding is limited. Given their time-intensive nature, book projects may be ideal when there are long-term lulls in research funding. A recent ECF blog post described considerations for developing edited books.
• Guest editing a special issue is an important form of service and scholarship. These types of projects allow scholars to integrate emerging scholarship from a range of authors along a particular theme. A recent ECF blog post offered some tips for serving as an action editor. Additional guidance on guest editing special issues has also been published in the NASP Communiqué.

Find creative ways to secure resources, engage participants, and build research teams.

Although federal funding may be limited, there may be other outlets for securing research funds. For example, although likely to become competitive in this climate, foundation funding as well as university seed funding may be available. Notably, several years ago the ECF published a blog post on working with university giving to secure funding, which early career faculty may find particularly helpful in this climate.

When funding is unavailable to engage participants and/or research team members, scholars may find other ways to ensure that these individuals are appropriately and fairly compensated. For example, undergraduate and graduate student workers who need course credit (e.g., free electives) toward their respective degrees may be interested in completing independent studies in research labs. Similarly, research participants may be interested in other forms of compensation (e.g., professional development for participants who are school personnel; graduate school consultation sessions for undergraduate student participants).

General tips for maintaining research productivity.

The ECF has developed several blog posts with tips for staying productive, including tips related to developing productive research partnerships, planning research activities for the first year of academia, and structuring writing time. We encourage you to explore these posts. In general, staying connected with colleagues is also important. Although resources may be constrained for everyone, groups of faculty members may be able to pool resources to accomplish certain projects. Additionally, staying connected through activities such as writing accountability groups can help you feel grounded and keep your research agenda moving forward during uncertain times. Finally, talking with others about how they are handling the situation can be helpful, as it may give you some ideas about to how to move forward yourself.

How have you maintained your productivity in light of cuts to grant funding? Please comment below!

Personal (First-Author) and Student-Led Scholarship: A Balancing Act

Heather E. Ormiston, Ph.D. (Indiana University Bloomington)

Jackie Caemmerer, Ph.D. (University of Connecticut)

Panelists: Matt Burns, Ph.D. (University of Florida), Robin Codding, Ph.D. (Northeastern University), and Amanda Sullivan, Ph.D. (University of Minnesota)

Mentoring students’ research projects is often an essential role in the life of a professor. Theses, programmatic milestone projects, and dissertations can demand a lot of your time. Managing your own personal research demands while balancing the needs and opportunities of your students can be a delicate balancing act. Indeed, in a recent survey early career school psychology faculty reported a strong interest in professional development related to research management and providing students’ with research mentorship (Grapin et al., 2021). Thus, we sought the guidance of three tenured professors on the best ways to balance student-led scholarship with your own first-author scholarship. Dr. Matt Burns, Dr. Robin Codding, and Dr. Amanda Sullivan graciously shared their valuable insights.

What are some effective strategies you have found for balancing personal (e.g., first-author) scholarship with student-led scholarship (e.g., theses, programmatic milestone projects, dissertations)?

Burns: Hopefully, there is little difference between personal and student-led scholarship. My most effective strategy is to use a research-team model in which we all work together on our research. My students (everyone I advise or who works for me, plus other interested) and I meet every week or every other week for 1.5 hours with a standing agenda – 1) Check In (Roses and Thorns), 2) Quick Advising Questions, 3) Check in on Papers and Projects, and 4) Talk Research Topic. There have been very few articles in my career that didn’t involve students. I work with students to find a niche in each study that addresses their interest or to add a component to the research to forward their own interests.

Codding: I tend to organize my work around an established research agenda and set of “next questions” that I can be prepared to answer when the occasion arises. I also aim to balance works in submission, data collection, and preparation. I see my mentoring of student work as parallel to my own agenda. If there are a lot of student works in the data collection phase – I may focus more on writing up previously collected data.

Moreover, the topics of student-led scholarship inform my own research agenda so the projects can work in tandem. Rarely is it the case that a student project is in a topic area that is far outside of my own area of expertise. The match between my expertise and student interest is important as a starting point for mentorship when a student enters graduate school but also can be facilitated during the mentoring process. Students usually enter our mentoring relationship with interests that are similar, and, in the first semester of brainstorming, I meet with students every other week to provide guidance and shape their projects into areas that I am most familiar with. Student-led ideas drive the process and I contribute knowledge on what questions might not be answered in their related area of interest and help them locate existing research as a jumping off point.

There is not always a balance within or even across years; rather, sometimes student-led scholarship takes precedence and I adjust my future priorities accordingly.

Sullivan: To me, a program’s related policies and procedures provide important context to any decisions about this, particularly as they pertain to admission, advising culture, and expectations for students’ research requirements. To the extent that these allow for admissions informed by advisor match, support appropriate boundaries, and set expectations for quality of work, it can help reduce burdens on faculty.  We don’t have a program culture or policy that requires students do their advisors’ scholarship, so student have autonomy in what they choose for student-led projects to meet their degree requirements. This means I try to admit when there’s clear overlap topically or methodologically between my scholarship and a student’s interests so that I can provide the necessary advising of their work. 

I also have to be mindful of what time I set aside for advising, both in terms of meetings and providing feedback, so that it doesn’t eclipse my other responsibilities within the context of a reasonable workload and working hours (I recognize that there’s a certain level of tenure privilege in this). I know I have a tendency to let other people’s projects overshadow my own, so being intentional with how I allocate time for different roles and protecting time for my personal scholarship is crucial.

As a tenured professor, I tend only to engage as a coauthor on student-led scholarship when they express a clear desire for me to do so, I am willing to put in the time and effort to get it to a state where I feel comfortable signing off on it as coauthor, and it fits within my research agenda. I don’t assume that I am entitled to authorship on their projects by virtue of being their advisor. Instead, I try to differentiate for students how my engagement with their projects differs when I am functioning as their advisor versus collaborator.

This occurs within the broader context of research advising where I have conversations with students early in our advising relationship about their goals and preferences. Some people have no interest in publishing, others want to maintain their voice and personal style while completing projects that meet our department and grad school requirements, some just want to get the projects done within the minimum requirements which likely means I would need to be more heavy handed with the process of preparing for submitting to a peer-reviewed journal and that might not be something they or I want. Depending on a students’ goals and interests, I adjust my input accordingly because to me, there’s a difference in advising, for instance on (a) defensible ways to address a particular element of a project within the context of degree requirements and their likely implications for project completion versus dissemination and potential influence within the scholarly community versus (b) what I might suggest as a co-author collaborator. I try to be consistent in being explicit about this with students so that they can make informed decisions. Where students have autonomy in conceptualizing and designing their own work, it’s really important to have conversations about relative contributions and authorship as early as possible so that’s often a feature of my advising conversations early on in projects and throughout to the extent its germane to the decisions students make about their work.

Regardless of the model in place, having conversations about roles, authorship, and ethics are important. I have the APA manual bookmarked on the page defining authorship, something I observed by a former colleague (Thank you, Marley.), and prioritize those conversations with students early and as often as needed. Particularly where students are more independent in conceptualization and design, we’ll have conversations about my potential role as a coauthor as they progress through the project and particularly if they get to a stage of wanting to publish. I find this helpful to minimize misunderstandings and any perceived coercion or exploitation, which I am sensitive to from my own experience as a graduate student. More than once I had to navigate difficult situations with senior scholars making decisions or demanding credit in ways that did not reflect publication standards or professional ethics, and that’s not something I ever want to reproduce with students or other early career scholars I might work with.

How do you make decisions about which student theses or dissertations to submit to peer-reviewed journals?

Burns: It is actually easier to turn a thesis into a manuscript submission. I ask students to format their master’s thesis like a manuscript. When it is finished, we simply revise it and submit it. I encourage students to do a 2-study dissertation, which also makes it easier to submit papers. The question is not “which dissertations should you submit,” but “to what journal should this be submitted?” The only time that I haven’t submitted dissertations was when it was not focused enough to find any specific submissions out of it. Cutting a traditional dissertation to make a manuscript submission is among the most difficult things to do in research. The only times I have not been successful was when we couldn’t find on what the resulting paper should focus.

Codding: My goal is to submit nearly all student-led theses or dissertations for peer-review. My experience has been that sometimes, as a student completes their graduate training and moves into their own professional career, they do not have time to engage in the effort required of peer-reviewed submissions or they do not have workload allocated to such endeavors. That reality is the biggest driver for a thesis or dissertation to not be submitted.

Sullivan: Often, the decision comes down to the likelihood of publication; how much time I anticipate needing for writing/editing and verifying data, analyses, and interpretations; and my likelihood of having the bandwidth to give it the time and attention I’ll feel okay about without having to hold up the timeline for them. I’ll happily advise through the publication process without being a coauthor but my feedback and contributions depend on my agreed upon role.

For early career scholars, their decisions might look very different from mine depending on the expectations and requirements of their positions, as well as their short- and long-term goals. For example, in a position where quantity of pubs is valued, early career scholars might orient their advising and time on personal projects and student-led papers towards whatever gets good enough papers submitted to journals as quickly as possible. Some programs or units also have cultures and policies that require students to use their advisors’ scholarship for their degree requirements, which effectively puts them in more of a supportive/second author role on those projects while advisors provide primary intellectual leadership (e.g., specifying research questions, project conceptualization, methods, etc.). Others might be in positions where supporting students’ scholarship is highly valued, so carving out time to create processes and supports that allow for student-led projects to be easily transitioned to publications would be worthwhile. In general, I encourage folks to consider how scholarship and performance are evaluated in their position and unit because there’s considerable variability in expectations and policy across institutions and roles within them.

Any other comments or suggestions you have regarding navigating your own and students' publications and scholarly products?

Burns: No student should earn a Ph.D. without publishing research along the way. In my opinion, I’d like to see at least one conceptual paper and one study for each Ph.D. student, even if they are interested in working in an applied setting. I don’t think that I’ve ever had a student graduate with only two publications and I think these are the reasons why-

1. The research-team model which makes research more feasible, personally applicable, and the basis for a strong sense of community.
2. I try to build a culture of research from Day 1. I tell my students, “if you are getting all As, then you are not doing enough research.” Every activity in which they engage, I ask them to find the research question. Finally, we do social events around research. For example, in school psychology we have SPR at the Bar – every time the new SPR issue comes out, we go to a family-friendly bar, I buy them appetizers (they buy their own drinks), and we talk about the issue. Each student comes prepared to talk about 1 article from the issue – first year students just tell us which article they picked and why, and maybe the IV and DVs. However, second and third-year students should be more critical and more advanced students should present more in depth critical analyses. The entire conversation is casual, low-stress, and fun. I am also a big believer in other social events and organized activities around research such as future-faculty clubs.  
3. I rely heavily on developmentally appropriate scaffolding. Every study has a student lead, which is usually an advanced student who organizes data collection, helps analyze the data, and shepherds the writing process. First year students will help collect data and might write an abstract, but will be part of the process every step of the way. Second- and third-year students are somewhere in between. They take a little more leadership in studies and write specific sections, but always with support from a more advanced student. Finally, I expect first-year students to present a poster at a national conference in Year 1. Right away, I get students presenting at NASP, APA, or CEC. Year 2, students do a symposium with me. It is a short presentation that is part of a panel and I’m right there to help. Year 3, students present a paper with me or a more advanced student. Finally, Years 4 and beyond they do whatever they want. Students can accelerate this pace if they want and feel comfortable doing so, but they have to at least stay on this progression.

It is all about culture, community, support, and scaffolding.

Codding: I often provide recent personal publications to new students as summer reading, before they enter our doctoral program in the fall as my advisee, which connects their interests to my scholarship area. I don’t spend much time developing non-peer-refereed written products or giving extensive numbers of presentations, both of which may take time away from writing my own or supporting student-led peer-refereed submissions. In addition to participating in idea generation and data collection, I also include students in dissemination activities associated with my personal scholarship - all of which facilitates their own interest in related topics.

When it comes to authorship contributions, which is indirectly related to this conversation, our research team uses a scorecard for determining authorship (https://tipec.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Scorecard-for-Determining-Authorship_APA.pdf) but there are other ways to make this determination as well (https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/resources/publishing-tips/giving-credit). Engaging in this exercise helps organize the project along with roles and contributions of research team members.

Sullivan: Don’t shy away from conversations about authorship and ethics. Make them a priority throughout any research process while being cognizant of the vulnerabilities of graduate students, particularly those from minoritized backgrounds, implicit norms and expectations that should be made explicit to early career scholars, and the potential influence toxic norms and behaviors common in higher education that can make trust more challenging to earn.

What has or has not worked for you? Do you have any other questions about this delicate scholarship balance? Please comment below.

Responding to Reviewer Feedback that is Challenging

Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University

Receiving a decision of “revise and resubmit” on a manuscript is cause for celebration but also a signal to authors that follow-up work is needed. At times you may find that reviewer feedback is straightforward and readily addressed; at others, this may not be the case. This blog post describes some common scenarios in which addressing reviewer feedback can be challenging.  It also considers possible approaches to tackling this feedback as well as issues regarding oppressive publishing practices.

General Tips

Authors are often given substantial time to resubmit their papers (often anywhere from 1 to 3 months for a major revision), so take some time to process any challenging feedback you receive. Doing so may allow time for any difficult emotions (e.g., worry, frustration) to dissipate while also affording you space to develop constructive and targeted responses. When you are ready to respond, you might start by jotting down some preliminary reactions, thoughts, or possible approaches to addressing some of the more challenging comments and then refining and organizing your responses throughout the revision process. In fact, you may think of several different ways to respond to the feedback before deciding on one that feels right.

Aim to respond constructively to all feedback. Reviewers participate in the peer review process on a volunteer basis and generally aim to provide helpful suggestions for improving your paper regardless of whether they ultimately recommend publication. By fully considering all reviewer comments and responding thoughtfully and thoroughly, you increase the potential for constructive dialogue while also providing a more well-developed rationale for your work.

Scenario 1: When a reviewer recommends that you add content to your literature review or discussion but you’re questioning its relevance

Give thoughtful consideration to the feedback you receive. While you may not immediately see a connection between the recommended revisions and the contents of your manuscript, some further reading and research may help you understand how they are linked. Are there changes you can make that would indeed improve the manuscript? If so, make those changes and describe them in your response letter.

Sometimes it may not be disruptive to the flow of the paper to briefly address a point raised by a reviewer. If this is the case, you might consider incorporating the feedback. However, in other cases, you may feel the edits would negatively impact the flow or meaning of the manuscript. In this case, you might note this concern in your response letter. Moreover, if journal submission guidelines preclude such changes (e.g., you are at the top of your word limit and cannot find other places to trim your manuscript), you can note this as well:

We appreciate this feedback and agree that [AREA OF LITERATURE SUGGESTED] is an important area. However, we believe that this area is not as directly relevant to [FOCUS OF STUDY] as the other areas addressed in the review. Moreover, we are aware that the journal does not permit submissions that exceed 8,000 words. Given that a number of revisions were required for this manuscript, our word count will exceed this limit if we add more content to our literature review. Of course, we are open to further feedback from the reviewers and the action editor on this matter.

Scenario 2: When a reviewer requests a major overhaul of your study design/analyses

In some cases, a reviewer may recommend major changes to your study design or analyses. For instance, a reviewer might recommend the collection of additional data and/or a methodological approach that would require you to redo your analyses. As always, maintain a stance of openness to all feedback.

In determining whether to pursue the reviewer’s recommendations, you might first ask yourself, “Are the changes feasible at this point in time?” If they are not (and you feel your current approach is robust), you might respond to the reviewer by noting that their suggestion reflects a limitation of your study or an important direction for future research. A response such as the following may be appropriate:

Thank you for this feedback. While we were unable to [NOTE REVISION REQUESTED], we believe our findings have important implications for [BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF STUDY IMPLICATIONS]. However, we agree that this is a noteworthy limitation of our study and an important direction for future research. Thus, we have made changes to our discussion section to note the importance of this issue in future work.

If the changes are feasible, you might ask yourself some additional questions, such as: (a) Do I agree that these changes are warranted, and will they substantially improve the quality of my work? and (b) Do I or any of my co-authors have the necessary expertise to complete the revisions and/or bandwidth to complete them within the revision window? Should the answer to the first question be “no,” you might explain in your response letter why you feel the changes are not warranted. Alternatively, if the changes are warranted but you do not have the expertise or time to address them within the review window, you might consider reaching out to the action editor about adding a co-author with the necessary expertise (if that individual would be making contributions that warrant authorship) and/or extending your resubmission due date.

Scenario 3: When reviewers’ comments conflict with one another

This can be a tricky situation, particularly when the action editor does not encourage you to prioritize one reviewer’s comments over another’s.  In this case, you might choose to pursue one of the reviewers’ feedback or address the issue in a way that seeks common ground between the reviewers’ recommendations. If you choose to pursue one of the reviewer’s suggestions, you might note in your response to the other reviewer that the overall feedback you received contained conflicting recommendations.

We appreciate this feedback. However, we would like to note that it conflicts with Reviewer 1’s feedback that we should [BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF REVIEWER 1’s POINT]. Given these different viewpoints, we chose to [DESCRIPTION OF REVISION] because [REASON FOR YOUR CHOICE]. We welcome any further feedback you may have as well as any input from the action editor about this issue.

Scenario 4: When a you suspect a reviewer misinterpreted or missed details in your manuscript

As an author, you have likely been steeped in your study for quite some time; reviewers, on the other hand, are just reading your study for the first time and may be unfamiliar with its context, design, and other features. Because reviewers have quite a bit of new information to process in evaluating your work, there are times when a reviewer’s comments may not reflect the content of your study or manuscript.

As an example, a reviewer might request that you perform member checking in a qualitative study even though you have already done so and reported it in your manuscript. In this case, you might first ask yourself “Was my writing clear? Can it be strengthened?” If you can make changes to improve the clarity of your writing, you might consider a response such as the following:

Thank you for this comment. We would like to note that we did perform member checking (as described on p. # of the manuscript). We realize that we could have been clearer in describing our procedures and thus have made the following changes. [INSERT BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF HOW YOU MADE CHANGES TO MAKE YOUR WRITING CLEARER].

If you do not feel that you can improve the clarity of your work and suspect that the reviewer may have misread or missed relevant content, you might respectfully point this out while still conveying openness to further changes. A response such as the following may be appropriate:

We agree about the importance of member checking for this study and thus have described procedures for this process on p. #. We are open to any further feedback you may have about our methods.

Scenario 5: When a reviewer falls in an entirely different theoretical camp than you

            Again, always give thoughtful consideration to the feedback you receive. Even if (and perhaps especially when) a reviewer clearly falls in a different theoretical camp than you do, thinking through their comments and arguments can serve to strengthen your manuscript and possibly even your future work.

If you ultimately disagree with the reviewer’s feedback and are considering how to respond, you might ask: “How have other authors whose approach is similar to mine addressed these types of issues in the past?” Reading articles in your area that address similar types of arguments may help you think about how to respond to the reviewer’s comments.

We appreciate this perspective and have given thoughtful consideration to your points. While we agree that [DESCRIBE ANY COMMON GROUND YOUR AUTHOR TEAM MIGHT HAVE WITH THE REVIEWER], we ultimately/also believe that [DESCRIBE YOUR STANCE] because [DESCRIBE RATIONALE FOR YOUR STANCE.] However, we are open to any additional feedback you may have.

In addition, you might acknowledge directly in your manuscript that scholars have offered different theoretical perspectives in this area and briefly describe those perspectives; you can then note these revisions in your response letter.

To provide readers with some background on the range of perspectives on this issue, we have added some text describing [REVIEWER’S STANCE] while also describing [YOUR STANCE] as well. We are open to any additional feedback you may have.

A Note on Oppressive Publishing Practices

Peer-reviewed journals have a long history of marginalizing historically minoritized groups as well as modes of knowledge-building that diverge from Eurocentric standards. Such marginalization can and does show up in reviewer feedback.  Importantly, “constructive” and “professional” responding does not involve indulging feedback that intentionally or unintentionally perpetuates discrimination and marginalization. In fact, it is quite the opposite; constructive responding involves contributing to inclusive academic spaces and challenging harmful norms that devalue the identities of scholars and communities from marginalized backgrounds.

It is never the job of reviewers or authors from minoritized backgrounds to uproot norms in peer review practices that contribute to their own marginalization. Rather, those who hold privileged identities are responsible for this work (e.g., white scholars are responsible for undoing racism in academic publishing). For those who have experienced marginalization in the course of the peer review process, safeguarding one’s well-being is critical (and may look different for different scholars). Consulting with trusted mentors and colleagues may also be helpful for support. Overall, scholars with privileged identities (especially those in roles of power, such as action editors) must focus on dismantling oppressive practices in academic publishing, including the peer review process. To this end, several helpful resources are provided below.

Resources for Further Reading

Buchanan, N. T., Perez, M., Prinstein, M. J., & Thurston, I. B. (2021). Upending racism in

psychological science: Strategies to change how science is conducted, reported, reviewed, and disseminated. American Psychologist, 76(7), 1097–1112. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000905

Fallon, L., Grapin, S., Newman, D. S., & Noltemeyer, A. (2022). Promoting equity and social

justice in the peer review process: Tips for reviewers. School Psychology International, 43(1), 12-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/01430343211070165

Malone, C. M. (2024). Moving school psychology beyond the clouds of Injustice: A Blue Sky

Discussion. School Psychology Review, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2024.2330111

Settles, I. H., Jones, M. K., Buchanan, N. T., & Dotson, K. (2021). Epistemic exclusion:

Scholar(ly) devaluation that marginalizes faculty of color. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 14(4), 493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dhe0000174

Tips for Serving as an Action Editor for a Peer-Reviewed Journal

Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University, and Courtenay Barrett, Michigan State University

As an early career scholar, you may be interested in serving as an action editor for peer-reviewed journals. Action editors (AEs), also known as handling or managing editors, are scholars who are responsible for coordinating the peer review process, including selecting reviewers, synthesizing reviewer feedback, and crafting decision letters. Some early career scholars perform this responsibility on a regular basis as associate editors or as editorial fellows, whereas others might engage in this activity on a temporary basis as special issue guest editors. In this blog, we offer tips for early career scholars who are interested in becoming AEs. This blog post may also shed light on the peer review process for those who are new to publishing in academic journals. It can also be used in conjunction with other articles and guidance documents on peer review.

Initial Review of the Manuscript

Generally, the Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of a journal will determine whether a submitted manuscript should be sent out for the peer review process, also known as full review. In some instances, manuscripts may be incomplete, misaligned with the journal’s aims and scope, and/or not meet journal quality standards; when this occurs, the EIC may deem full review to be unnecessary and thus issue a “desk rejection” (i.e., a decision of reject without peer review). Alternatively, if the EIC decides that full review is warranted, they will assign the manuscript to an AE with expertise aligned with the manuscript. If you are guest editing a special issue, the EIC may forward all manuscripts received for your issue so that you can decide which ones should be sent for full review. Such procedures should be discussed with the EIC before you begin sending manuscripts out for review.

As an AE receiving a new manuscript, you should first consider whether you have any concerns or conflicts of interest that need to be discussed with the EIC. Such concerns or conflicts may include: (a) close personal relations with any member of the author team; (b) prior interaction with the manuscript (e.g., you previously provided feedback to the authors on the manuscript); (c) financial conflicts (e.g., you have financial ties to a product described in the paper); or (d) theoretical conflicts (e.g., you have concerns about coordinating a fair review process due to personal or professional biases or beliefs). If the EIC deems the concern to be a potential conflict of interest, they will reassign the manuscript to a different AE.

Before selecting reviewers, you should read the manuscript in its entirety to gain your own independent perspective on it. As you read, it can be helpful to note specific areas of expertise that will be needed to evaluate the manuscript as well as your own preliminary thoughts about the paper’s strengths and weaknesses.

Selecting Reviewers

After your preliminary review of the manuscript, you will need to select reviewers who can competently evaluate it. It is likely that multiple areas or types of expertise will be necessary, and you may wish to select reviewers with complementary skillsets. For example, you might invite one reviewer with content expertise (e.g., reading skill acquisition, social-emotional learning, trauma-informed care) and another with methodological expertise (e.g., qualitative methods, single case research design, meta-analyses). You might also invite reviewers whose expertise complements your own, as you may feel more or less comfortable evaluating certain aspects of the manuscript.

Most often, AEs first look to members of the editorial board, who have committed to reviewing a certain number of manuscripts per year; are familiar with the aims, scope, and procedures of the journal; and were appointed for their expertise in relevant areas. Reaching out to board members first may increase your likelihood of securing reviewer commitments in a timely manner. However, you might also consider inviting reviewers outside of the board (i.e., ad hoc reviewers), particularly if the manuscript calls for specialized expertise that is not currently represented on the board. Doing so can also help the journal connect with new ad hoc reviewers or potential new board members. Additionally, you may wish to consult methodological advisors, who are appointed for their expertise in specific methodologies and/or analytical approaches. You can discuss with the EIC when it is appropriate or advisable to engage methodological advisors.

Many AEs aim to secure commitments from three reviewers to ensure a well-rounded and comprehensive review process, although sometimes more or fewer reviewers will be asked to provide input. After you invite three reviewers, be sure to monitor if and when they accept your invitations and submit their comments so as not to delay the review process. If the reviewers do not respond, follow up as needed. Notably, authors can often see the status of their manuscript in the journal’s online portal and may be eagerly awaiting a decision.

Crafting the Decision Letter

When the required reviews have been returned, you might first re-read the manuscript without looking at the reviewer feedback, which will allow you to gain an independent perspective on the paper before synthesizing comments across reviewers. Subsequently, you should review the manuscript again with the reviewers’ feedback in hand to identify strengths and potential areas for improvement.

When crafting decision letters, it is often helpful to have examples of good letters. Consider requesting samples from the EIC, as the journal likely has template language for standard procedures, such as instructions for resubmission. You can also look at decision letters you have received for your own work or request samples from a mentor. Using multiple examples, you can then construct templates that reflect your own style while also incorporating the journal’s requirements and procedures. For instance, you can craft templates for various types of decisions (e.g., minor revision, major revision, rejection). These templates should be tailored for individual manuscripts but may also save you time and ensure that all necessary details and instructions are included.

In crafting decision letters, be direct about the editorial decision you are recommending and what it means. For example, if a decision of major revision is indicated, clearly state that publication of the revised manuscript cannot be guaranteed and is contingent on the author’s satisfactory response to reviewer and editor comments either in a reviewer response letter or the manuscript itself. Although it can be disheartening and uncomfortable to reject an author’s work, especially given that your identity will likely be known to the authors, decisions of major or minor revision should only be rendered when you believe there is a strong possibility of the manuscript ultimately meeting publication standards. In other words, it is important not to encourage a resubmission if there is little chance for eventual publication so that the authors can submit their work elsewhere.

Decision letters should provide constructive and thorough, yet concise feedback. Typically, there is no need to recapitulate all of the reviewers’ comments; rather, you can summarize key points for revision. Even for manuscripts that are rejected, an important goal of the peer review process is to provide constructive, timely feedback to authors to improve their work. You should also bear in mind that authors typically have invested substantial time and effort in developing their submissions. Thus, your decision letters should highlight strengths of the manuscript (often early in the letter) in addition to areas for improvement.

Ensuring a Rigorous and Inclusive Review

Historically, publishing in peer-reviewed journals has been a form of gatekeeping and exclusion for scholars who identify as members of marginalized groups and/or who apply traditionally marginalized research paradigms in their work. Thus, editorial board members and leaders (including AEs) hold power in shaping research and publication norms. As an AE, you should educate yourself about how oppression has been enacted in academic scholarship and publishing as well as how researchers can promote equity through their work.

AEs and all members of the editorial board must work toward promoting rigorous, equitable, and inclusive review processes. In particular, it is your responsibility as AE to coordinate peer review processes that lead to the publication of sound, informative, and innovative work that moves the field forward. Rigorous empirical inquiry can assume a variety of forms, many of which have been historically excluded in school psychology research. It is important to be mindful of exclusionary norms in the field and ways to uproot them in the peer review process.

It is also important to be mindful of harmful narratives or approaches embedded in seemingly “neutral” or “normative” work. For instance, Zuberi and Bonilla-Silva (2008) cautioned against the acceptance of “white logic” and “white methods.” White logic and methods refer to research practices (e.g., scientific reasoning and analytical approaches) that center whiteness as normative and marginalize People of Color (Zuberi & Bonilla-Silva, 2008). Holland (2008) noted that an example of white logic and methods is the framing of race, rather than racism, as a causal variable in predicting students’ academic, social, and behavioral outcomes. Additionally, it is often just as important to consider what is not discussed in a manuscript as much as what is. For example, it would be problematic for an article to discuss the overrepresentation of Black youth in some special education eligibility categories without also discussing institutionalized racism.

Sometimes solutions and/or concerns may lie within the reviewers’ feedback to the authors. It is your job as AE to determine which reviewer comments need to be addressed and which do not, and to subsequently communicate these expectations to authors. For example, if a reviewer notes that the manuscript does not adequately account for issues of privilege and marginalization, you might explicitly highlight this comment in your decision letter and ask the authors to clearly address it in their next submission. Alternatively, if a reviewer recommends using a white comparison group to contextualize the lived experiences of Youth of Color, you might explicitly note in your letter that you disagree with this approach because it would reinforce the centering of whiteness. This may create some discomfort for both you and the reviewer who offered the feedback, as reviewers often see the decision letters that are sent to the authors. However, the peer review process is a critical venue for scholarly dialogue and thus also a space for advocacy. Enacting justice-oriented advocacy in the review process ultimately benefits all those involved including our larger scholarly communities.

Resources for Further Reading

Below are some resources that can assist you in effectively coordinating rigorous and inclusive peer review processes. The references for this blog post are also helpful resources.

• Arora, P. G., Sullivan, A. L., & Song, S. Y. (2023). On the imperative for reflexivity in school psychology scholarship. School Psychology Review, 52(5), 665-677. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2022.2105050
• Buchanan, N. T., Perez, M., Prinstein, M. J., & Thurston, I. B. (2021). Upending racism in psychological science: Strategies to change how science is conducted, reported, reviewed, and disseminated. American Psychologist, 76(7), 1097. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000905
• Noltemeyer, A., Newman, D. S., Grapin, S., & Fallon, L. (2023). Promoting Equity and Social Justice in Manuscript Writing: Tips for Authors. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 33(2), 139-148. https://doi.org/10.1080/10474412.2022.2122980
• Sabnis, S. V., & Proctor, S. L. (2022). Use of critical theory to develop a conceptual framework for critical school psychology. School Psychology Review, 51(6), 661-675. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2021.1949248
• Sabnis, S. V., & Newman, D. S. (2023). Epistemological diversity, constructionism, and social justice research in school psychology. School Psychology Review, 52(5), 625-638. https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2022.2094283

Maximizing Research Productivity During Your First Year in Academia

June L. Preast, The University of Alabama

Starting your first year in academia can feel exciting and new, but it can also be overwhelming and intimidating. You now get paid to work on your research and write papers (!!!), but getting started can sometimes be difficult. Building research relationships with schools or partners in the community can take time, and you might not know how to go about establishing such relationships. Or maybe you’re not quite sure what to do next now that you’ve submitted your dissertation to your graduate institution. Below, we provide some tips for how to maximize research and writing productivity during your first year in academia. 

Publish Your Dissertation

If you haven’t submitted your dissertation for publication prior to starting in academia, make plans to revise the dissertation for (at least) one manuscript for publication. You spent a considerable amount of time completing your dissertation, and it is typically a starting point or foundation for your research agenda. Publishing your dissertation is the next step to getting your work out into the field. 

There are a few considerations for converting your dissertation into at least one manuscript. In addition to cutting about one hundred or more pages of a dissertation down to around 30 pages, you’ll need to consider your audience. Instead of dissertation committee members reviewing your work for your skills to conduct research independently, your audience will be reading your manuscript for its scholarly contributions to the field. One of the most difficult parts of publishing your dissertation is turning your literature review into a concise, yet effective introduction. As you read your dissertation, think about what is needed to make an argument for the study and its contribution to the literature, and to provide the appropriate context for your readers. It may feel painful to delete sentences you spent so much time writing, but just remember that you’ve already submitted the dissertation to your graduate institution and those words are not gone forever. In addition to the tips provided, the seventh edition of the APA manual includes a section on converting your dissertation into a publication.

Conduct a Systematic Review or Meta-Analysis

Often when we move to new places and jobs, it can take some time to develop research partnerships with schools and community partners. While building those relationships, consider conducting a systematic review or meta-analysis to move your research forward. Additionally, if you have been assigned a graduate research assistant during your first year and you’re unsure how to work with them, a review or meta-analysis provides great opportunities to work with graduate students and for graduate students to develop new skills. One important caveat regarding conducting reviews and meta-analyses is that they are time consuming and rigorous. Although they are projects that can be completed without IRB approval or research partnerships, be mindful of the time and effort required to do them well. 

Turn Presentations into Publications

Another avenue for research as you get started is turning your presentations into publications. If you consider the work you’ve already done for the presentation proposal and the presentation itself, you are already halfway to a completed manuscript for publication. Take a look at your presentations on your CV and note any that are not already publications. From there, work on developing the content into manuscripts to build your publications. As noted in the blog post linked above, if your presentation was a research study, you can use your slides to build the method and results sections. Your proposal submission includes the skeleton for an introduction that may only need some expansion. And the Q&A from the presentation itself can support the discussion for your manuscript. 

Turn Coursework into Publications

One last tip for maximizing research productivity in your first year is turning classroom assignments into publishable manuscripts. When designing courses, consider creating assignments that have the potential to be quality scholarship, as described in Hitting the Ground Running: Maximizing Your Early Years in Academia. For a variety of courses and instructors, students write detailed papers demonstrating their knowledge and skills. Rew described the steps to turn student papers into publishable manuscripts. For assignments that require data collection and meet the federal regulatory definition of research, make sure that policies and requirements of IRB are met prior to submission for publication. Most importantly, when turning student assignments into publishable manuscripts, authorship should appropriately and adequately represent the effort of the students. It is important that we as faculty recognize the power imbalance between faculty and students and do not take advantage of their work, especially when submitting manuscripts for publication. APA provides tips for determining authorship credit, including an authorship scorecard.

Conclusion

Above are just a few ideas for supporting your research productivity when you start your first year in academia and as you build your research partnerships. For additional ideas and strategies for research productivity as an early career scholar, consider previous blog posts of Transitioning from Graduate School to Academia, Developing Research Partnerships as an Early Career Scholar, and Setting Boundaries to Promote Your Research Productivity. 

What additional ideas do you have for writing manuscripts during your first year in academia? What advice do you have for early career scholars?

Developing Productive and Meaningful Collaborative Research Partnerships Within and Outside of Your Institution

By Katie Maki, University of Florida, and Bryn Harris, University of Colorado Denver

For many of us, graduate school was filled with ups and downs – there was the excitement of learning and being engaged in content and ideas about which we were extremely interested and passionate. There was also the hard work, long hours, and days when it seemed like we would never get to the real world of faculty positions. (Rumor has it there may have been times when some referred to the PhD as a “Pretty horrible Decision.”) But, perseverance paid off; you graduated! Now what? 

On my (KM) first day in my first academic job, I was welcomed – I was handed my office keys and shown around, but no one told me how I should actually do my job, especially my research. As an early career scholar, you often have the flexibility to engage in the work you want to do and about which you really care. But, how do you decide where to start? Although scholarship expectations vary across different types of faculty roles and universities, you will likely be expected to engage in some form of scholarship in your position, and it is up to you to determine what and how you do it. Whatever approach to your research you take, don’t try to do it all on your own.

In graduate school, partnerships are often already established and integrated into your research projects but as an early career scholar, you likely will also establish new research partnerships. Most commonly, graduate students are collaborating on research with their advisor and/or mentor, other graduate students, and other faculty in their university. As a result, during graduate school, partnerships typically develop relatively naturally or are inherent to existing systems (e.g., assistantships, coursework). Thus, for many of us, we have not observed the development of new research partnerships or had specific training in this area. Moreover, as a graduate student, you work within a system of research mentorship and support between advisors and students so when graduate students experience difficulties with research, they have other researchers with whom to problem-solve or seek support. As an early career scholar, you need to develop independence in your research. That is, early career scholars often need to demonstrate that they are engaged in their own work. But don’t think of independence as isolation in research. Independence in research includes collaborative research. To develop and maintain a productive, meaningful, and sustainable research agenda, establishing meaningful research partnerships is key.

New Partnerships within A New Institution

As you embark on your new position as an early career scholar, you will likely have opportunities for research at your new institution. There may be colleagues in your program or department who engage in similar or related work with whom you could partner on a project. However, don’t limit yourself to collaborating with faculty in your program or department. There may be researchers within your college or across the university who would be great research collaborators. In fact, collaborating with faculty in other academic departments often brings a unique and different perspective to your work that can enhance your thinking and the project.

When starting at your new institution, take a proactive approach to finding new research partners.

1. Ask colleagues in your program or department if they know anyone in your college or university who engages in work related to yours. Chances are, they will think of someone, and often, multiple people. Depending on your colleague’s relationship with the other faculty member, you may ask them to reach out to the faculty member to connect the two of you.
2. Search faculty profiles in your department, college, and university. Read about their work, and read the work, in which faculty at your university are engaged to explore whose work might complement yours.
3. Reach out to colleagues. Ask them to get coffee or meet to discuss research. Share with your new colleague about the kind of research in which you engage and where you see connections between your work and their work.
4. Look for research networking opportunities at your university. Some universities host events about research topics, funding opportunities, etc. that could provide opportunities to connect with other researchers at your university.
5. Some universities create research profiles for faculty that can be searched in various ways. For example, at my university (BH), early career scholars can request searches through the Office of Research Services for faculty within the institution that have been awarded certain types of grants or by research topic area.
6. Keep in mind that overlapping areas of research isn’t always enough for a successful research partnership. It’s also important that you will be able to effectively (and enjoyably) work with your new colleague.
7. Be judicious in developing research partnerships and don’t feel the pressure to say yes to every opportunity to collaborate that comes your way. Be proactive to push your research agenda forward, but in the way that best serves you.

Although these suggestions may sound intimidating, we have found that researchers are generally open to talking with colleagues about research, particularly early career scholars. As an example, I, (KM) wanted to apply for an internal competitive university grant that required a multidisciplinary team. To identify potential colleagues for the project, I asked colleagues in my program if they knew anyone focused on my project’s variables of interest. After identifying a colleague within my college, I sent him an email (never having met him before), asking him if he’d be willing to meet to talk about my idea for the grant. He responded quickly with an enthusiastic yes and later signed on to the grant. The grant was funded, we collected initial data, and we submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation. These positive outcomes, and moreover, my new enjoyable collaboration, were well worth the very momentary slight awkwardness of sending a cold email to a new colleague.

Research Partnerships Across Institutions

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, our use of Zoom and other virtual technologies has greatly increased, inspiring cultural changes in higher education that have facilitated easier collaboration across institutions. At the same time, during the pandemic, academics have likely attended fewer in-person conferences and networking events, reducing the opportunity to promote such collaborations. Initiation and successful collaboration with scholars across institutions requires intentionality, follow-through, and collaborative purpose. 

Sargent and Waters (2004) further described successful collaboration across institutions as needing two main components: context and interpersonal collaborative processes. Context refers to the resources, environment, support, and climate while interpersonal collaborative processes refers to communication, trust, and attraction among collaborators. It is important to critically reflect on these components prior to engaging in research partnerships. For example, early career scholars may interpret a strong potential research partner as a colleague with similar research aims while mutual content expertise is one aspect to consider from a wider scope of potential needs. Sargent and Waters (2004) further expanded on the needs for cross-institution collaborations as having three dimensions: (1) objective outcomes (e.g. publications, presentations), (2) subjective outcomes (satisfaction with the collaborative relationship, enhanced self-confidence), and (3) learning from the other collaborators. Early career scholars can seek out and evaluate cross-institution collaborations for these components.

Multiple methods can be employed to initiate cross-institution collaborations. For example, when reading an article of interest, you may consider contacting the author to express your appreciation of their work or pose questions about aspects of the research. Depending on the interaction, you may consider asking them to collaborate in various ways (e.g., meet about a particular challenge where they may have expertise, collaborate on a presentation, propose a more substantial collaborative research project). Early career scholars can also network at conferences in an effort to develop collaboration across institutions. For example, you may consider emailing a potential collaborator to ask them if they can meet following a presentation to discuss a particular topic. It is always helpful for a potential collaborator to know that you are an early career scholar and are seeking particular types of mentorship or collaboration. One of my most successful international collaborations (BH) started with an email from a colleague about a recent article I published. This communication resulted in various collaborative research projects, and most importantly, the work is highly meaningful to both of us.

It is important to note that there are multiple other collaborations that can be pursued (e.g., agencies and organizations, community and school partnerships, professional associations,

foundations), yet are not the focus of this post. If you’re interested in learning more about developing research partnerships with schools and community organizations, read ECF’s post from May 2022.

Final Considerations

One of the most common reasons why collaborative research partners may not be successful is a lack of common understanding regarding the roles and responsibilities of the team. The team should be grounded in an understanding of the motivations for being part of a collaborative effort, the nature and type of the research project, the roles of the individuals, and an evaluation of the collaborative outcomes following the conclusion of the task (Sargent and Waters, 2002). Strong collaborative relationships across institutions must be built on communication and clarity – where all members understand authorship responsibilities. It is possible that the original plans for the research project are not effective, and the team needs to revisit them to improve success. It is also common and should be normalized that collaborative research partnerships across institutions are not always effective. Although early career scholars may interpret these as failed relationships, we encourage you to reframe these experiences as guiding you towards more successful collaborative research experiences in the future.

What has led you to develop strong research partnerships? What advice would you provide to fellow early career scholars?

Ten Tips for Developing an Edited Book

By Sally L. Grapin, Montclair State University

Developing an edited book can be a valuable activity for school psychology scholars and their field at large. Unlike authored books, edited books represent the voices and contributions of multiple authors. One advantage to edited books is that they allow editors to connect with authors outside of their established networks, which can be a valuable activity for early career scholars. Additionally, early career scholars might consider developing an edited book when they feel a topic is best addressed from multiple perspectives or when they wish to feature expert voices in areas related to but somewhat beyond the scope of their own work (e.g., a scholar with a particular focus on antiracism seeks to develop an edited book on social justice more broadly). Like many other forms of scholarship, edited books are one way in which scholars can support the advancement of their field and fill in knowledge and resource gaps for practitioners, researchers, and others. 

At the same time, edited books are a tremendous undertaking, and coordinating submissions from multiple author teams can present challenges for producing a cohesive product. The following describes ten tips for early career scholars seeking to develop an edited book.

1. Identify a publisher that is a good fit for your project.

Numerous academic publishers are interested in recruiting school psychology book projects. Whereas some publishers may focus primarily on books for higher education students or practitioners (e.g., many trade publishers), others may focus on books for scholars and researchers (e.g., many academic publishers). Examining recent titles from the publisher and talking with editorial staff (e.g., at conference exhibit halls) may help you identify a publisher that is a good fit for your project. Moreover, some publishers produce book series edited by school psychology scholars; talking with these series editors may be helpful for finding a home for your book. Before signing a contract, you might consider asking publishers (and authors who have worked with these publishers) questions such as:

• How long are authors typically given to develop the book?
• How will the book be marketed?
• Who will prepare the index? Who will be expected to secure and pay for permissions?
• What are the criteria for determining if a second edition is warranted?

Once you have identified a publisher and are ready to sign a contract, be sure to read the contract carefully and ensure that the timelines specified (e.g., due dates) are feasible for you.

2. Carefully consider and clearly identify your audience.

Many books for school psychologists may also be appropriate for other audiences. Because school psychology scholars, practitioners, and/or graduate students constitute a relatively small potential audience, you might consider targeting your book toward a broader range of school-based professionals, mental health providers, students, and/or caregivers. Books that have a wider audience may ultimately be more attractive to prospective publishers.

3. Use the book proposal as an opportunity for in-depth planning.

Publishers will typically request a formal proposal for your book project. While the structure and requirements of these proposals may vary, areas you may be asked to address include: (a) the book’s intended audience; (b) rationale or need for the book; (c) potential competitors; and (d) detailed table of contents with brief chapter summaries. If you are developing a book that could be used in an undergraduate or graduate classroom, you may be asked to specify relevant courses. Often, the questions posed in these proposals will prompt you to think carefully about the content and unique features of your book. Spending time on this proposal at the outset may ultimately benefit you in the long run.

4. Set realistic timelines for your contributing authors and yourself.

Edited books can take a long time to develop (often a full year or more), in part because they involve coordinating multiple rounds of chapter submissions across multiple author teams. Inevitably, authors will experience delays due to work or personal commitments. Being understanding of these circumstances is important, especially given that authors are taking the time to support your work. To minimize potential delays, give authors adequate time to develop and revise their chapters, accounting for summer and holiday breaks as well as particularly busy times of the year (e.g., beginning or end of the semester). More time should be given for initial chapter submissions, whereas timeframes for revision may be somewhat shorter. You might consider staggering due dates for chapters such that you can edit submissions at a steady pace rather than reviewing them all at once.

If you are planning to invite a foreword author, consider securing a commitment from that individual early on. Be sure to let them know when they can expect to review the final (or near final) draft of the book and when their contribution would be due, as there is often a shorter window for preparing a foreword than a chapter.

5. Carefully consider who you will invite to author chapters.

The strength of an edited book relies not only on the work of its editor(s) but also on the ideas, perspectives, and follow-through of its authors. Think carefully about whose voices and perspectives will be represented in the book. For example, editors hoping to cultivate a strong social justice orientation in their work should consider how they will center the voices of scholars and communities with marginalized identities. In addition to considering the lenses, expertise, and perspectives of authors, editors should recruit contributors with strong writing skills and a history of completing projects in a diligent and timely manner. Being thoughtful in recruiting author teams can make for a smoother editing process later on.

6. Provide clear writing guidelines for authors before they begin writing.

Providing clear and detailed guidelines for chapter submissions can be especially helpful for ensuring a cohesive final product. These guidelines should be provided to authors before they begin writing and may include information related to: (a) section headers (e.g., chapter objectives, introduction, recommendations for practice, summary/conclusion); (b) chapter length; (c) guidelines for references; (d) style/formatting (e.g., APA style or other formatting requirements provided by the publisher); and (e) major issues or topics for the author(s) to address (or not address) so as to avoid redundancies or major gaps in content. The more information you provide up front, the less time you will need to spend editing individual chapters for cohesion. Moreover, providing a sample chapter can be especially helpful (perhaps one of your own that you can complete ahead of inviting submissions).

Consider asking experienced book editors about the guidelines they provided to their contributing authors. Sample emails and guideline documents can be helpful in constructing your own, especially if you have the opportunity to see examples from multiple editors.

7. Provide feedback to authors that is constructive but not overly prescriptive.

Providing clear feedback is essential for supporting authors in revising their chapters as well as ensuring timely resubmission. Where appropriate, be as specific as possible about the revisions you hope to see. However, at the same time, respect authors’ decisions about how and where to make edits to their work. One significant advantage of edited books is that they bring together the perspectives and expertise of multiple author teams; as a corollary, it is important to respect authors’ autonomy in deciding which content should and should not be included. Navigating this balance can be difficult, but it may be helpful for you to: (a) clearly distinguish high-priority from low-priority recommendations for revision; (b) give authors the opportunity to indicate which edits they feel are appropriate or inappropriate; and (c) have real time conversations with authors about edits if disagreements arise (rather than going back and forth on email).

8. Implement and maintain a system of organization.

Staying organized is essential for managing chapter submissions, especially when those submissions are at different stages of the writing and/or editing process. Implementing a system of organization early on can be helpful for reducing stress associated with the editing process. For example, you might consider maintaining a Google spreadsheet with chapter titles, author names, due dates, notes about the status of each chapter, and “to do'' items. You might also find it helpful to maintain an inbox folder designated specifically for book-related correspondence so that you can easily retrieve email threads when needed. Whatever organization system you decide on, stick with it throughout the project (even if you think you are likely to remember details without recording them).

9. Work efficiently.

The work for an edited book project often ebbs and flows. There may be times when you are waiting on submissions and have little to do followed by bursts of intense editing. As noted previously, staggering submission due dates can help distribute editing responsibilities across the project timeline; however, there will likely still be lags in your workload from time to time. Be strategic about how you utilize these lags. For example, when waiting on initial chapter submissions or revisions, consider working on other components of the book, such as the acknowledgements, editor bios, preface, dedication, or glossary. Although these may seem like relatively minor tasks, they can be time-consuming, and getting them out of the way as early as possible can be helpful.

10. Don’t underestimate the time commitment of an edited book and pace yourself.

Given that edited books often rely heavily on the contributions of invited authors, it can be easy to underestimate the amount of time, energy, and work that goes into developing them. Before deciding to pursue an edited book project, consider discussing the time commitment with experienced editors. Moreover, recognize that committing to an edited book may leave you less time to work on other projects (e.g., peer-reviewed journal articles). Before undertaking an edited book, consider whether the project is aligned with your professional objectives. If you are a pre-tenure faculty member or are seeking promotion at an academic institution, you might consider discussing with your department chair or dean whether edited books will be valued in the tenure or promotion review process. Finally, remember that book projects are a marathon, not a sprint! Pacing and self-care throughout the process are critical.

Overall, developing an edited book can be an arduous yet rewarding process. What other suggestions do you have for early career scholars who are considering developing an edited book? Comment below.

Setting Boundaries to Promote Your Research Productivity

By June L. Preast, PhD, NCSP, University of Alabama

Within traditional academic positions, our jobs are divided upon research, service, and teaching. The division of responsibilities across those commitments typically varies across different institutions and roles. For example, more research-intensive institutions may have a workload of .4 FTE for research, .4 FTE for teaching, and .2 FTE for service. Alternatively, institutions with more of a focus on teaching may require .60 FTE for teaching, .20 FTE for research, and .20 for service. Faculty, especially early career scholars, often have a lot of flexibility in how they spend their time in a given time period, which has many advantages. We often get to devote our time, focus, and energy to the activities and experiences about which we are most invested. 

However, there are also challenges that come with the flexibility of an academic career due to the abundance of unplanned opportunities that can crop up and assumption of self-management. Plus, many of us are taken by surprise--sometimes frequently--by the sheer volume of expected requests and opportunities that can come up, from staffing crises to calls for proposals to student needs or grading and advising needs that far outstrip allocated FTE. Quite simply, there is never a shortage of work, new opportunities, or time-sensitive demands. Scholars typically must be disciplined, thoughtful, organized, and self-protective to ensure they are able to fulfill their various responsibilities. Doing so, especially as an early career scholar, can be daunting because it requires setting and holding boundaries in a context where demands for your time can seem never ending.

Boundaries can be referred to as how we let others know our needs. And holding those boundaries are important to ensure that we are meeting our own needs. It’s important to keep in mind individual faculty may have different experiences in setting and holding boundaries in comparison to their colleagues. Women faculty are often expected to provide more time on service and teaching obligations, are often approached more often by students for support, and subsequently have less time to devote to research endeavors and their counterparts identifying as men. Faculty of color, especially women faculty of color, experience even more inequity, adding the sometimes hidden additional requirements for achieving tenure and promotion. LGBTQIA+ faculty and faculty of color are also tasked with creating and maintaining safe spaces for community for students. And women faculty often have significant caregiving responsibilities outside of work that limit their ability to continue working on tasks beyond the typical work day. The structure of higher education is designed to get as much as they can out of you before you say no. And with that, the structure easily takes advantage of faculty, especially women, faculty of color, and LGBTQIA+ faculty.

Often, teaching and service have set deadlines (i.e., class times, meetings) and involve working with others or for others. For teaching, you know you have to be prepared for the set class meeting times, grades have to be submitted by a certain date, and students are asking questions that need to be answered related to specific assignments or topics. For service, you usually know when the meetings will be, when your tasks are due, and have other people holding you accountable. But research is self-driven, with deadlines you set yourself or with research partners. Although there are times when you may have others holding you accountable for research, that may not always be the case. And your research agenda is just that, yours, and yours alone. It’s up to you to accomplish your goals related to research. And it can be easy to let the teaching and service needs take over the time you set aside for research simply because of the perceived obligation to others. This blog post aims to provide some strategies for preserving research time in the midst of other responsibilities. 

Strategy 1: Align your time with your job expectations. 

Research suggests that faculty time is often poorly aligned with job expectations. For early career scholars, developing effective habits for time use can be critical for avoiding over-extending yourself or failing to meet basic job role expectations (e.g., publishing). As much as possible, strive to align how you spend your time with how you’re expected to spend your time. This will often require a combination of proactive calendaring, self-monitoring, adjustment, and the strategies above. For early career scholars for whom research is a primary expectation for employment, promotion, or tenure, the ongoing process of scheduling, protecting, and fulfilling research time is especially important. This will likely necessitate firm limits on how much time is available for other responsibilities or endeavors. For example, you may cap the amount of time you can spend on course prep or grading each week, which will likely require use of strategies for efficient feedback.

Strategy 2: Set aside time each day to touch research. 

It’s important to make time in your schedule dedicated to research. Treat it like you would an important meeting or class period, limiting distractions for that scheduled time. If you struggle with carving out large chunks of time, one idea is scheduling 30 minutes each day to make any sort of forward progress towards research. Committing to smaller amounts of time throughout the week may be more beneficial than setting aside say all of Friday, especially as the needs of earlier in the week may overflow into your research time at the end of the week. Or if you prefer larger chunks of time, try to make sure to schedule those earlier in the week before other work responsibilities are able to get in the way. Regardless, make a point to cut distractions as much as you can during your research time and make note of all that you accomplish, even if it feels small. Avoiding distractions may mean ignoring email during writing time, limiting apps or internet access, or working where others are unlikely to disrupt your time.

Strategy 3: Schedule times in your day to answer emails. 

Very rarely are there emergencies in academia, so it’s okay to not answer all emails immediately after receiving them. Give yourself some time each day to answer emails, but only during that time each day. If it’s too hard to do all emails that way, consider setting aside time just for student emails. You can also use email templates to streamline your email time by preparing standard responses as the basis for common inquiries. These can include templates for graciously declining an opportunity that is a poor fit for your goals, role, or availability.

Strategy 4: Start saying no to opportunities that don’t align with your research and professional goals

The ECF has repeatedly addressed the importance of saying no to opportunities that aren’t aligned with your goals and interests because the tendency to say yes to every opportunity can derail goals and contribute to exhaustion and burnout. As an early career scholar, it may feel hard or seem mean saying no to committees or opportunities. But if those opportunities don’t align with your research and professional goals, it's okay to say no, especially if you are already meeting the expectations for service for your institution. You may feel better about saying no by visibly and frequently reminding yourself of your goals and role expectations. Write out your research and professional goal(s) and keep it either on your laptop, desktop, or maybe as a post-it note. Look back at your goal(s) when presented with an opportunity and ask yourself if it aligns. If you find it difficult to say no, text a couple friends (especially fellow academics) who are willing to provide guidance. Our previously mentioned post provides additional suggestions for how to navigate this tricky process.

Strategy 5: Resist the urge to fix to every student issue

Student issues (or situations that students perceive as issues) are inevitable. And when students come to you upset and in need of support, it can be easy to instantly want to help and find solutions for them. However, be sure to take the time to understand the issue before saying yes and jumping into the problem-solver role. Not all student issues are ours to solve. Feel free to ask colleagues for guidance. Consider directing students to other resources or personnel who are better positioned to support their needs. Where infrastructure is lacking, it might be helpful to work with colleagues to build out procedures or resources so that you’re not always in reactive mode every time a concern emerges.  

For most (if not all) of us, research is enjoyable and the questions we strive to answer drive us and our work. However, our various work responsibilities sometimes take away the time we plan or hope to spend on research. Prioritizing research is possible with a little planning and strategizing. Hopefully you find something helpful in our suggestions. What other suggestions do you have for effectively setting boundaries to support your research?

Opportunities for Pivoting Research Part 2: Getting Started with Secondary Research

By Amanda L. Sullivan, University of Minnesota; Ethan Van Norman, Lehigh University; and Ryan Farmer,  Oklahoma State UniversityIn our March 2021 post, Katie Maki and Bryn Harris discussed how scholars whose projects were disrupted by the pandemic can leverage meta-analytic methods to jump start their research programs. In many settings, scholars may experience continued challenges to returning to their past work when school partnerships and processes remain hampered by various effects of the pandemic (e.g., remote schooling, P20 staffing or enrollment challenges, budget challenges, administrator reluctance). With many scholars looking forward to the winding down of a uniquely challenging (and long) academic year, we wanted to take a bird’s eye view and discuss the broader utility of secondary research and provide some resources to help you get started (unless you plan to spend the summer on much needed rest and recuperation which you absolutely should—without guilt). Secondary research includes a broad range of approaches that use existing qualitative or quantitative data in a systematic study. They may be particularly attractive to scholars whose applied projects were derailed by pandemic-related challenges to recruitment, data collection, or community engagement given that secondary approaches rely on data that are already available for use. Potential secondary data sources include public or private documents (e.g., state or federal policy, case law, education or health records, as well as other research as was the focus in the previous post), media (as in bibliographic methods, textual analysis), and extant quantitative datasets (e.g., re-analysis of prior study data or large-scale quantitative data), to name a few. Notably, there’s no one way to do secondary research or specific problems that can be answered through secondary methods. And secondary research needn’t be a solitary activity—it’s highly amenable to team science and community-engaged scholarship. Our goal here is to give you some resources to learn more and potentially get started if secondary methods would be useful to your program of research.Although misconceptions about secondary research are commonplace, secondary researchers follow the typical empirical process of generating and refining research questions or hypotheses, identifying data appropriate for addressing those questions or hypotheses, designing a study to address those questions or hypotheses, gathering and preparing data, and analyzing and interpreting data to offer interpretations and recommendations. The data collection process often involves exploring potential data sources and isolating relevant data from the universe of available options, often before finalizing research questions and hypotheses. These processes generally replace the effort typically involved in selecting or developing study implementation, participant recruitment, and data collection, but may be no less time intensive or important and can certainly offer scholarship as rigorous and consequential as any other approach. The following publications provide a helpful introduction to secondary research approaches:

• Jones, C. (2010). Archival data: Advantages and disadvantages for research in psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 1008-1017. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00317.x
• Heaton, J. (2004). What is secondary analysis? In Reworking qualitative data. Sage.
• Smith, E. (2008). Pitfalls and promises: The use of secondary data analysis in educational research. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56, 323–339. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8527.2008.00405.x
• Chatfield, S. L. (2020). Recommendations for secondary analysis of qualitative data. The Qualitative Report, 25(3), 833-842.

You may not have a specific question in mind and rushing hypothesis development could lead to false-starts, false-positives (especially in large data sets), and wasted resources. It’s okay not to jump straight to hypothesis testing (Scheel et al., 2020). Exploring secondary data may provide a wealth of information, including better problem definitions, more informed questions, a more complete picture of the relationships between variables, and so on. This may be especially useful at the beginning of a research line, but may still yield fruit for more established scholars. In addition, large-scale quantitative data can be useful in estimating causal effects and can allow for exploration of other research problems and questions not otherwise feasible without massive financial and human resources. Given that early career scholars don’t generally have millions of research dollars and a team of experts, data collectors, coders, and other staff at the ready, secondary quantitative analysis can be a cost efficient way to investigate consequential questions by taking advantage of others’ prior investment in study design, data collection, and database preparation. The following resources are especially useful to aspiring secondary quant researchers.

• Andersen, J. P., Prause, J., & Silver, R. C. (2011). A step-by-step guide to using secondary data for psychological research. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5(1), 56–75. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00329.x
• Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., & Lucas, R. E. (Eds.) (2011). Secondary data analysis: An introduction for psychologists. American Psychological Association.
• Else-Quest, N. M., & Hyde, J. S. (2016). Intersectionality in quantitative psychological research: I. Theoretical and epistemological issues. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 40(2), 155-170.
• Sullivan, A. L., Weeks, M., Kulkarni, T., & Nguyen, T. (2020). Large-scale secondary data analysis—Part 1: For researchers. NASP Communiqué, 48(5), 16-19

Many popular publicly available datasets are already formatted appropriately for cross sectional and longitudinal analyses. In addition to learning the quantitative approach (or collaborating with individuals well versed in the analyses you intend to conduct), it can be wise to familiarize yourself with methods to format or otherwise “clean” quantitative data. This point is especially salient if you are partnering with schools or other community agencies who may not necessarily be mindful of the requirements of data formatting for quantitative analyses. Although different software will have different requirements for data formatting, in general, you can differentiate between “long” format and “wide” format. In the latter each row represents outcomes from one unit of interest (e.g., school, student, etc.), whereas “long” format includes repeated rows from an individual unit. Some analytic approaches (e.g., SEM) often use “wide” data whereas others (e.g., “linear mixed effects regression) use “long” data. It is very likely that you may need to convert raw data from one format to another, such as changing data from wide to long and vice versa (e.g., Reshaping Data in R, Reshaping Data in SPSS, and Reshaping Data Long to Wide in SAS).  To learn more, there are a variety of archived webinars available that provide general information and training, such as this one by the American School Health Association or this handout and archive (scroll past the COVID webinars) from Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for research on child health, autism, and other salient topics.For quantitative researchers in particular, there are a variety of ways to find and access potential data sources, including:

• Pamela Davis-Green's List of Secondary Datasets
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Find Data Tool
• National Surveys of Children's Health
• Virginia Tech’s Data Resources For Social Science
• Google Dataset Search Engine

If you are interested in datasets available from the National Center for Education Statistics, the Distance Learning Dataset Training is a great way to familiarize yourself with specific longitudinal and cross-sectional datasets. Scholars using these datasets and others are also eligible for targeted funding opportunities like these from AERA or the HRSA Autism Secondary Data Analysis Research Program, as well as being eligible for general funding opportunities from various agencies and foundations. As you get started, keep these tips in mind: 

1. Take time to learn about secondary data analysis.
2. As you hone in on a potential data source, be sure to read any technical materials, methods reports, and previous research using the data. Take time to really get to know the data so that you aren’t misusing it.
3. Leave time in your research plans for completing necessary procedures to access the data (e.g., application processes, security requirements, university approval) and secure IRB approval of your project (if applicable; when in doubt, ask your IRB).
4. Document everything you do in the process (e.g., any data manipulation) and keep backups of everything. (Many an analyst has wept over failure to document something key or to save prior code or data files after realizing they needed to backup a few steps to change course). 
5. Don’t be afraid to consult with the original researchers or methodologists if you have questions about the data source.

What questions or concerns do you have for getting started with these approaches? If you’re already doing this work, what professional learning materials and opportunities have you found helpful?