Publish and/or Perish: When to Submit that Manuscript?

During my early days in grad school, I couldn't imagine a time when writing and publishing a paper describing my own research wouldn't be just the greatest damn thing to ever happen. But this was before I knew how demanding the process would be. While I have found it to be extremely rewarding in certain ways, I find it also consumes a lot of time and energy that can never be fully recovered. Here's an interesting couple of quotes I came across on making the decision of when to publish:

"In deciding when to publish, you will have to balance several considerations, but try to resist the temptation to rush into print, if you have a choice. Remember, the quality of your publications is what matters most in the long run. A paper that is incomplete or carelessly put together is less likely to be accepted for publication and will be an inefficient use of your time. Even worse, incorrect results will damage your reputation."

"Writing up an incomplete or flawed story is not time-effective, since writing a good or bad paper generally takes the same amount of time."
—Tom Misteli, National Cancer Institute

Quoted from: Making the Right Moves: A Practical Guide to Scientific Management for Postdocs and New Faculty

Of course, waiting until you have the "perfect" paper in hand before submitting is a luxury most of us can't afford, especially grad students in the twilight of that PhD. We need the recognition a paper offers to get funded, finish our degrees and move on to the next career stage. More established scientists, like Nobel winners, NationalHeroes and tenured profs can afford to be as patient as they want. But even for us lowly and desperate students, it's valuable to realize that to "publish or perish" is not always the best path to pursue. Getting a paper to your name is nice, but it comes at a steep cost. You'll only have so many papers in you, so use them wisely!

Gender gap in scientific publications

A surprising study in American sociological review has shown that over a two year period, man produced on average 33% more papers than woman. Over the length of the career that translated into almost double the number of papers. why should that be? An obvious factor is family life. Woman have more commitments when it comes to child rearing. However, in an interesting twist, the number of children a woman has had is a good predictor of her productivity. Perhaps it is a way to learn how to be efficient at multitasking, or perhaps taking care of hungry miserable dirty children is a lot like taking care of graduate students.

The authors go as far as saying "there are relatively more men with exceptional scientific ability than women" because men according to him have a wider skillset (i.e. thinkering, programming etc...). However, when it comes to quality of the publications, women get 20% more citations when compared to men with an equal number of publication. Woman also have a harder time getting started, possibly because of discrimination, and they particularly lag at the beginning of their careers.