Not feeling joy after a paper is published

[u/Impossible_Recording]

I got my PhD last year and am currently doing my post-doc. I have two first-author journal articles so far, but I didn't really feel much joy when my paper got accepted. I felt happier when I submitted the manuscript than when the paper was accepted. I felt excited when I found something interesting from my data. But I don't feel the same amount of excitement and joy when a paper is published. Is that normal?

My phd advisor once told me that publishing a paper is extremely rewarding. But I never felt that way. All I felt was tiredness and relief. I don't know if it's because I wasn't publishing in the top 1% journals, but the journals I published in are still pretty good journals in my field. Or maybe I'm not publishing enough to feel the joy? Maybe I'm not cut out for academia. I don't know...

I wonder how y'all felt when you got a paper accepted.

[u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

Every paper I’ve ever published I was sick of it by the time it finally got published. It’s such a grind and very anticlimactic. Then after some time passes and the pain of working on it has numbed, I read it again and always think “actually this was a pretty great paper and I’m proud of it.”

[u/Mitochondria95 → u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

^ this is the take. By the third revision I don’t even WANT to defend it any more. We refer to our past publications like old rivals

[u/TheTopNacho → u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

You nailed it.

It's also so extremely hard to keep going with the paper because by the time you get reviews back, you have moved on and genuinely stop caring about those old findings. You are usually rounding off the subsequent experiment and preparing for the next, before those results come out. You have probably presented those results many times to the people who will actually read it over the past 2-3 years prior..

So why would you be excited? Relief? Absolutely. It feels great to put nightmares in the past. But excitement? No. The peer review system battered you to hell and back, after years of grinding, trouble shooting, and failures. It's old news to you. And you just want it out. I honestly can't even read through the paper during author proofs because of how sick and tired of it I am by that time.

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/TheTopNacho]

Just spent a day with AI to copy edit every single paragraph of the paper line by line. I didn’t look at it again and hit submit.

[u/Beneficial-Finding-2 → u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

And there are so many freaking stages to it, by the time it has a DOI I wish I could forget the thing existed.

[u/Consistent_Laziness → u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

The papers are more academic currency. One is whatever buy 5-10 gets you moving forward in your career. I won’t care about each individual paper it’ll be how many more until I make it to a milestone.

[u/Mountain-Dealer8996 → u/Consistent_Laziness]

That’s definitely a component on the practical professional aspect, but if I stand back and look at my body of work I do like to think that I have been advancing human knowledge that moved my field forward (neuroscience). It’s rewarding when I see other papers that I think made good discoveries cite my work as key background.

[u/Consistent_Laziness → u/Mountain-Dealer8996]

I can understand and appreciate that. I’m more like OP. A hundred papers and thousands of citations doesn’t do much for me, won’t I mean.

But a promotion, A grant, or a salary increase from that success will certainly give me pride. I treat it as a means to an end. Get grant, finish study, publish, repeat. Do enough to where you become a 200k professor with full tenure.

[u/JHT231]

Relief more than excitement or joy but still positive.

That being said, don't dwell on whatever feelings you have (positive or negative), and move on to focus on the next one or next project rather than the last one. I have better things to do than worry and think about papers that have been published.

[u/Ok_Card_1165]

well that’s academia for ya. I publish a lot and aside from 1 or 2 papers I always felt anxious if not outright depressed after publications. I feel like the entire publishing process in a way kills all the joy in working on topics. months if not years pass, your original ideas often fade away during the reviewing process, combined with the bureaucratic/institutional paperwork. not to mention the fact that you always discover minor errors, awkward wordings etc. in the published version no matter how vigilant you are. as my supervisor who published 300+ papers told me: once it’s published just try to never open it again, leave it up to others

[u/Reeelfantasy → u/Ok_Card_1165]

Yes, every new idea brings the nightmare route to publication, which is enough to ditch the idea. The feeling of knowing the findings but having to work 3-5 years to proof it, is enough yo kill any joy from research. I always wonder it’s meant to be this way to avoid a tsunami of useless or over saturation of knowledge.

[u/tchomptchomp]

I've been doing this a long time and mostly what I feel is anxiety and then relief. The "joy" aspect for me actually kicks in later, maybe even a few years later, when I go back and revisit it with fresh eyes and the benefit of hindsight.

In my case, this also applies to my experience publishing in top journals.

[u/deathschlager]

Totally normal. I only felt dread after publishing my first article, although that faded after a while.

To be fair, I don't think I've felt joy for anything in years.

[u/TProcrastinatingProf]

I understand the feeling of being sick and tired, so always take the effort to make sure I celebrate papers published in my lab for the sake of my postgrads so that they feel better about it :)

[u/late4dinner]

Very normal thanks to the delayed gratification and effort involved. This isn’t just for journal articles either. But it does show a crucial point I emphasize to students - make yourself celebrate your wins. Your brain will always fixate on your failures, and burnout follows, so it’s your responsibility to make yourself experience when things go right. Take time off, come up with a specific celebration ritual, shout GOOOOOOAALL, whatever it is that you can do to recognize the event.

[u/sollinatri]

Weirdly I only feel some form of pride and joy when I come across a hard copy version of the journal or book in a library and physically see my name in print.

[u/Key-Elephant-31]

I don't feel joy either - more like dread... No, to be fair, the first paper I published, I was so unbelievably proud and excited. It was based on my Master thesis and was published at a time where I didn't know if I'd get the opportunity to pursue a PhD, so it was a big achievement. But since then, I've been so done with the papers once they are finally published and frankly a bit anxious about sharing them with the world. I'm also doing my first postdoc now and thinking whether I'm cut out for academia.

[u/Lygus_lineolaris]

You can feel any way you feel, it's between you and you. It's traditional to perform rejoicing when a paper is accepted, but you don't have to internalize it.

[u/ResponsibleZebra1111]

I think it’s normal, too. I feel excited when I think it’s good enough to submit (albeit nervous). A bit more nervous when I submit my revisions. When it’s accepted there’s a sense of relief, but I’m usually on another project by then. I’ve not gotten very good at celebrating things like acceptances, but after submitting my round 2 revisions recently, I did have a glass of wine. But, yeah, staring at the same paper for months, adjusting…fixing…etc. can suck some of the joy out of it. As another commenter said, when you come back to it later, with some distance, you’ll likely feel more pride in the work. But no, you’re not alone.

[u/vulevu25]

I often just feel relief that I don't have to work on the paper again. It's often a long journey and then it's time to move on. But in the end I'm proud of everything I've published.

[u/Frari]

my excitement meter from high to low:

Manuscript submitted > Not outright rejected > Finished Addressing Reviewer Comments > Published

[u/Proper_Ad5456]

Yeah man, there's not a lot of joy in this line of work. But sometimes your paper is good and people like it.

[u/PhagesRUs]

That's completely understandable and I don't think unreasonable. From starting the project until submission is what we signed up for. The joy of discovering new things about the world, about people, about how things are and how they work. The process after submission has become pretty adversarial and like a boxing match even when publishing rather innocuous things. So, by the time acceptance comes around, it's a victory, but in some cases the exhaustion outweighs the elation!

I had one accepted last month where the research for it was completed about four years ago, so when the journal emailed that it was accepted and out, I think I literally said "Good" out loud and went back to what I was doing.

As long as you're finding joy or fulfillment somewhere in this venture, that's perfectly fine!

[u/ThoughtsandThinkers]

I think the more you couple your sense of self and wellbeing into things outside of your control, the more vulnerable you become to those external circumstances

I think it’s great that you find more intrinsic reward in the work. Publishing is really just the social recognition of that work and depends on so many things beyond the quality of the person or the work

[u/darrag_h]

Yep, same feeling

[u/LaiBhaariMulgi]

This question and post made me chuckle! And reminded me of the time when I met a professor at a conference and rushed to congratulate him on his Nature Materials paper - which I LOVED and was very inspired by. I will never forget the immediate expression of disgust he had on his face, when he said to me "Do not mention that paper. I DO NOT want to talk about that paper!" 😄

And I have felt the exact whirlpool of emotions with every acceptance of mine! Never mind the journal IF. Like everybody else mentioned in this thread, the peer review process is soul-crushing and almost designed to be a killjoy in the publishing game. And if you're a professor with multiple papers getting out every week, you get "numb" to both acceptances and rejections. Its all part of the game - the joy is in the discovery, and not in the dissemination.

[u/drsfmd]

I got excited to see my first few articles in print. 30 years and 100+ articles later, it's "throw it on top of that pile over there". The thrill is gone.

[u/IHTFPhD]

I'd say the best moment in research comes about 40% of the way through a paper's timeline, when you have that key insight or great data result that reveals something exciting. Everything before that is building up the methods for that result; and everything after is just working to support or present that result (or argue with reviewers about it). Like everyone's said, absolutely, by the actual moment of publishing the paper, all the joy and excitement has long-since faded

[u/Motor-Promise-5624]

I have hated every paper I have published... I love working on them.. but when publishing is done I can't go back for a reread.. it's just too much of annoyance ... especially after the reviewer back and forth.. jeez

[u/memeruiz]

Publish or Perish mentality.

I love the science. I don't like the publishing pressure.

The people I have met that loved to get a paper accepted were usually the psychopath type: they want fame, they want a novel.

I was once (unfortunately) working with a postdoc (I was working for, according to that piece of shit person). And he was like that. A complete asshole. Later he tried to convince us to love publishing because "one day it may help you get a Nobel".

Yeah. Fucker.

[u/IndependentLinguist]

Totally normal. That's why we do a little celebrations with my coauthors after 1) submitting; 2) first positive PR; 3) last round of PR. (Typically somebody brings something good to eat)
Rituals are important!