3 years ago my chair and I presented a paper at the premier conference in our field.  We took the comments, modified the paper and submitted it to a journal.

<crickets chirping>

A year later we heard that the journal had gone through a couple of “changes” and wanted to know if we wanted our paper back or were willing to wait*.  We said we’d wait.

<more crickets>

Friday we FINALLY got the paper back – revise and resubmit.

The number one comment by both reviewers?  The literature review was out of date.

^&(*^%$%$#^&^&()()%$&*)*&&^%#@&*(

Well, DUH!  Of course it’s out of date.  YOU PEOPLE SAT ON IT FOR YEARS!!!

*sigh*

So now, instead of working on my literature review, I’m working on the lit review for this paper instead.

It is always better to have published papers in the field, so I know that this is worth the effort in the long run, but if this takes too long I may never graduate.  Again.

* A while back I did a paper with someone in the law school and discovered that they basically shop their papers around to everywhere, all at once, and take “the best” [read: prestigious] offer.  I am so jealous of that system.