"Today was the last day for 2015 official business for the University. In such a day and at around 430PM, the journal office dropped galley proof for my proofreading. Now the proofreading is finished and sent back. Well, it was a nice way to close the official business days for 2015."
Proofreading for a paper is a time-sensitive work. We are usually requested to return it within 48 hours. It was in "urgent/important" category. So I did it. It took about 3 hours, but it needed to be done. I am pretty happy about it being finished.
Proofreading of a paper in press is a final step for a project.
A project goes like this; Know how to plan for a research, find an important research subject, rationalize and build a hypothesis, fund the research project, set up collaboration or work with someone (may include students, technicians or other researchers) and execute the research, obtain the results and interpret them, extract information and evaluate the hypothesis, write a manuscript and send it to a journal office, convince the editor and reviewers to publish it, work with editorial office once accepted, and get it published, .......
....these are a series of steps, and knowing the steps is a very important part of the training to be a research scientist (=PhD course and post-doc training). Of course there are many other things you should know to be a scientist, but this "project building to publication" is one of the core skills to be a scientist in this era of "publish or perish".
Once whole process is broken down to smaller steps, you'd realize these are the same steps for each project. In a sense research is a routine work, just like all other professional works are routine works in their own ways.
Whether you can see what you do as a routine with a structure or not is a point that can differentiate amateurs and professionals. By breaking the routine down to steps, you can expect consistency in your work. And consistent good work is a requirement for professionals.
There will be a time when you are not good enough for a work, especially at the beginning. In the case you need to take training and become good enough for the work. You cannot skip it. After a certain time, they will evaluate your work. One way or the other, the universe will hand out its judgement.
This is my view for professional works. This view is true in my science work at least, and I am assuming the view to be true in many other professions.
Winter break is a good time to step back and see ongoing works from a distance, then decide which part needs more attention. It's much like painting.
[Time to step back and look at the whole picture]
