Anna Marie Skalka - Advisor and Editor
Al Hershey had this policy that he did not put his name on a paper unless he actually did an experiment that was in there. So for many of us we had a really rare opportunity, that was, we were postdocs or associates in the laboratory, but the mentors name wasn't on the paper. And that was in many ways very nice for our careers. But we were always of course very, very careful about getting his input. And he would take a paper and he would read it and correct it and I can remember the first paper that I wrote for him. It was for the journal PNAS [Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences]. And I was really excited-first-paper and I wrote it very carefully and I thought it was terrific and I gave it to him. And the next morning he came back and he said, "This is very nice, very well written." And he gave it back to me and almost every third line was crossed out. I must have looked very crest fallen because he said, "Don't worry," he said, "I'm afraid that I can't help it. The only way to say something is my way and I haven't learned anything else." I think a lot of other people had that experience with him, but he was a wonderful editor. |