I’m hosting a Professional Development session about Responsible AI policies in the classroom on 29th April 2026, and would love it if you could join me in a conversation about how to navigate the evolving AI landscape. We’ll briefly cover AI detection, what other educators are doing, and media literacy in the age of AI. I’ve recently become a GPTZero Ambassador (for those who don’t know, GPTZero is an AI writing detector), so all attendees of this webinar will receive 1 semester of GPTZero Premium for free! Join here: 29 April 2026, 10 am BST https://meet.google.com/qnd-kdtg-epf

You’re not alone. Scroll through Reddit and you’ll see thousands of researchers quietly burning out while telling themselves they’re just “lazy” or “not smart enough.” The reality: you’re running marathon effort on sprint expectations. That’s not a personal flaw. That’s a broken culture. In my 15 years in academia and 70+ papers, the one thing I wish I knew earlier is this: impostor syndrome rarely disappears, but you can stop it from driving the car. Here’s what I recommend: 1. Set a minimum viable day: 30–60 minutes of deep work on your most important task (methods, results, or revision). Once that’s done, you’ve already had a “successful” day. Everything else is a bonus. 2. Keep an “evidence file”: every acceptance, kind email, positive comment from a supervisor, or good result goes in one document. On bad days, don’t trust your feelings—read your evidence. 3. Reduce hidden expectations: write down what you think your supervisor, examiners, or PI expect from you this month. Then reality-check it with them in one short meeting or email. Most of the time, you’re carrying expectations no one actually asked for. 4. Protect one non‑negotiable boundary: sleep, a weekly day off, or exercise. Burning two extra hours at night is not what gets papers published; consistent, clear-headed work does. If this resonates, don’t try to “fix your whole life” this week. Pick one of these changes, apply it for seven days, and see how your stress shifts. 😊 What’s one small promise you’ll make to yourself this week so impostor syndrome doesn’t run the show? Drop your answer below 👇

(Steps 4 and 5 are the ones nobody teaches.) Most researchers treat "major revisions" as a near-rejection. It isn't. It is an invitation to publish, with conditions. Here are the rules I use, and now teach my PhDs and postdocs. 1) Triage before you feel Open the decision letter and make three columns: factual errors to fix, reframing the reviewer wants, and objections you will push back on. No emotion on this pass. 2) Write a one-line summary of each reviewer "R1: wants a broader intro, sceptical of the sample size. R2: accepts the contribution, wants tighter results. R3: silent on methods, has issues with our writing." Knowing who each reviewer is before you write the response saves you from arguing with the wrong one. 3) Answer in their order, not yours Reviewers reread their own comments. If your response letter jumps around, they scan for their point and get annoyed when they can't find it. Mirror the structure of the original report. 4) Quote, then respond Paste each reviewer comment verbatim in a different colour or italics. Respond underneath. As journals are short of good reviewers, such an approach will lower their cognitive load, and they can approve your work in a single pass. 5) Thank, then push back When you disagree, open with one sentence that names the merit of the reviewer's point, and then lay out your counter-evidence. Never use flat "no". Use a specific "I hear the concern, and here is why the data point the other way". One paper. Cleaner response letter. Faster turnaround. Save this for your next major revisions letter.

If you want to have a look at how Octopus actually looks like, here's the link to my two recently published minute publications. https://www.octopus.ac/publications/yxks-sg07/versions/latest It is a piece of work I've been doing as part of the UKCCSRC project, and I am currently working on the full paper. I thought, let's use it as a template or example for the research community to kind of explore how the entire process works with micropublications. And I just want to test whether the journals will be keen on actually publishing my paper. So I'll be updating everyone as we go along. Here's the link. You can see it does have a DUI number. It links the two papers so you can clearly see how the output is shaping up. Let me know whether that is helpful.

For the next 48 hours, I will be answering any of your questions that you might have about publishing. So if you have any questions regarding manuscript preparation publication process, how to make sure your work is not rejected by reviewers or editors, how to handle rejection, how to handle peer review. Anything really that is related to writing academic papers, drop your question below in the comments and I’ll make sure I answer.