A paper, eh?

Last winter I did some research work in the environmental faculty. It involved performing a statistical analysis* on Brisbane River tide-times and outlining their effects on salinity levels in "fresh" groundwater in a neighbouring region (a important research area in recents years as the farmers keep draining "their" groundwater dry in Oz).

What do I know about salinity levels and statistical analysis? Nothing. Well, I knew pratically nothing before I did the 4-week project. After I knew next to nothing. I simply googled a few key words, sent a couple emails out and then received some tidal data (apparently some government office has been recording hourly tide-times for the last couple of years). I ran a random sample of data through some programs I wrote/pinch and modified and produced some pretty graphs.

I wrote up the results, handed it in and cashed my cheque. No worries. Imagine my surprise last week when I discovered the researcher has polished my report up (significantly) and submitted it to a journal, which has accepted it on a number of conditions and changes to be made. Now I have to remember what I did a year ago and try to fix up a paper in an area I know next to nothing about. Also, do I know anything about writing scientific papers? No.

The due date for the final submission is the end of this month. Hence, future blog entries may be slightly fewer in number. Who's to blame here? Well, probably me or the researcher but I'm going to cast the blame squarely on the farmers. Or I could blame El Nino?

*A statistical method that is highly used in finance.