I put together this list of journals with some info on their fees during my PhD research, and I’m sharing it here in case others may find it helpful. This information is likely to change fast, so make sure to verify.

Link to the Google Sheet.

During my PhD research, I became a convert to Latex for scientific writing, specifically using the website Overleaf.com. However, one feature that is missing is a good spelling and grammar checker. I like to use Microsoft Word for copyediting, as it has good built-in tools, and there are also plenty of addins available, like grammarly and ProWritingAid.

But first you need to get a clean export from Latex to Word, which is not straightforward.

Here is a method that works using Google Drive. It does not do a good job converting figures, tables, and equations, so I suppress those before continuing. It also helps to turn off hyphenation.

1. Add the following block to the preamble of the Latex document.

\usepackage[document]{ragged2e}
\usepackage[none]{hyphenat} % Turn off hyphenation
\usepackage{environ}
\RenewEnviron{figure}{} % Removes figures
\RenewEnviron{table}{} % Removes tables
\usepackage[nolists,nomarkers]{endfloat}
\renewcommand{\processdelayedfloats}{}
\pagestyle{empty} % Removes page numbers

2. Create a PDF document.

3. Upload the PDF to Google Drive.

4. In Drive, click the file to view it. At the top, click “Open with Google Docs.”

5. Choose File > Download > Microsoft Word (.docx)

Now you can download the Word file and copy edit at your leisure.

If you are interested in the Earth Sciences, you should consider attending the annual American Geophysical Union annual meeting. It is massive, with over 50,000 attendees, and thousands of scientific presentations, posters, lectures, and films. This can also make it feel overwhelming. Here are some highlights of the December 2023 conference in San Francisco from my point of view.

A former professor of mine, Rich Vogel from Tufts University, gave the Langbein Lecture. Being invited to give a named lectures is a big deal, equivalent to a lifetime achievement award. Even though he retired several years ago, he still publishes tons of papers and hasn’t lost any of his pep. It was a lot of fun.

I have really mixed feelings about poster sessions. On the one hand, it can be fun to get a quick view of a huge amount of research, and to meet researchers in person and talk to them about their work. On the other hand, it can be hard to learn much given the format. The Better Poster movement seems to have made very little impact. A good 95% of the posers are inscrutable walls of text.