About Publishing

That is a secret given by Michael Faraday. He once mentioned that the secret to success contains 3 steps. Work, finish and Publish.

Towards the end of my PhD journey, I gradually appreciate the spirit of Publish. The Work is the easy part. We set a goal. Sometimes the goal can be a bit vague, but we roughly know where we are heading to. Then, we move towards the destination, step by step; after a while, for a PhD study, this "awhile" is a bit longer than others, normally 4 years, at one particular moment, I finish the work and think, ok, this is the end of the journey, but it is really not.

The work needs to be published. The publishing I meant here is not to put an article on some fancy journals. The publishing meant here is to introduce the findings to other people. Well, "introduce" is not a precise word. I should use "persuade," instead. The action of "publish" can be in any form, either oral or written presentations. Essentially, the spirit of publishing is to persuade others what I have found is meaningful and most importantly "correct".

And that is where the barriers, or evil monsters, will be passionately waiting. With friendly smiles on faces, and with their hands raised. It looks like they are going to say, "hey, congrats, give me a high five," but what it actually means is "stop here, you have not done enough yet". That hand is rather like a great wall. A wall to everything really. A wall to stop one from becoming a scientist,  a sociologist or an economist. Well, that is not true. Nothing can stop one from being what they want to be. But that wall can stop one from being recognised as a certificated identity.

Publish can be hard. How to make people think in my shoes is not always that straightforward. A quote from my supervisor, "the good news is it's not that easy, so it is worth doing; the bad news is it is not THAT easy."

I presume this is the perfect time to put an emoji of smiling with tears.