1,2,3 pilling errors as if it was an olympic game
I messed up.
No matter how much I apologize for my oversight, panic, egocentric behavior, the truth is, I messed up.
Context
I am in academia as a master's student in a third-world country. Thanks to foreign cooperation, I along with thousands of students can achieve projects and participate in even big ones sometimes.
In general, you need four things for a research project: money, legal documents, people, and backing (reputation). Once you have all that, you go do your project, write a research article, submit it, revise it, then submit again and publish if reviewers approve.
I am a master's student. I read research articles for college assignments, for my thesis, and I participated in a foreign project (field trip) in my homeland. It was gratifying to go beyond textbooks and learn something practical. After it ended, I managed to submit a report to an international conference. Even though the activity I did there with foreigners was not that groundbreaking, it was essentially aimed at learning foundational skills more than finding a cure for Alzheimer's, I found joy in it.
But there started my first error, an ethical one: I did not put them in the author list for the conference. No professors, no foreign students, no friends that helped collect data or review the report at that time. It showed that I was the sole author. At that time, I only thought of myself without thinking to consult more experienced scholars.
My second error came one week after, where I had to present the report and just reused my slides without thinking to fix the author list.
My third one, because why not at this point? I managed to get funding for travel to the big conference. So happy; first time getting such an amount of money, especially when it was needed. In counterpart, they just expected to have some sort of publication of what I did. No problem, right?
At that point in time, I was juggling my thesis. They (the grant funders) did not ask again for the publication for a long time, so I thought it was handled on their end. I mean, my topic was not groundbreaking nor particularly interesting, it was for a field trip.
Then out of the blue (from my perspective), they sent me a link to submit the paper. At that moment, I thought: what paper? Panic, anxiety, headache, frustration, you name it, I had it. What to do, what is this? In the end, I was hasty, not thinking straight. I just filled out some kind of form and sent the report of my field trip, thinking they would bounce it back and the case would be closed.
I am inexperienced as a scholar. I may have read research articles, listened to podcasts with Nobel Prize winners, thought my ethics were irreproachable, watched YouTube videos of incredible research work, but I was inexperienced, easily overwhelmed. Every time I read a job announcement saying "at ease working under pressure", I thought it was a walk in the park.
So, what happened?
I got published, earned recognition and pride from my fellow scholars? No.
I got a review back for the paper where I was listed as sole author (which I was not). At the start of each review: Where are the acknowledgements? Are you the sole author? Did you collect all the data by yourself? Ethical concerns? How did you manage the project? Permits?
Familiar terms, yet headache-inducing. In my panic, instead of stepping back at the first error, I ended up stacking mistake upon mistake, as if it were a game of Hanoi.
Would I make a fourth one, to make it an even number?
No.
I sighed and finally took a step back, thinking about what I had done over those last months. The solution to each problem was evident, but I had blinded myself. I had not asked more experienced scholars for help.
When I watched The Boy, the Mole, the Horse and the Fox, what struck me was when the boy is asked what the bravest thing he ever did was. He simply said: "Ask for help."
So I contacted the main contributor of the project (which was not me) and sent a mail detailing the main issue, in the most honest way I could. They did not answer. I spiraled, thinking it was normal they did not reply, that I had breached their trust, made a fool of myself, and come crawling back to ask for help.
So I wrote to the editorial team of the journal, asking to withdraw the paper on the grounds of being unable to address the reviewers' comments and provide an honest scientific paper. They said yes. I got a mail afterward from the main contributor, telling me they had been out of town and that my course of action was the most appropriate, a great lesson to learn, and the most honest one too.
I got reprimanded by my local professors and instructed on academic ethics and code of conduct. I was lucky the professor did not press charges, halt foreign cooperation, or have me dismissed before even presenting my thesis.
All of that to say: if I had not been stuck in my own head and had asked for help at the start, when I first had doubts about that international conference, I would have sailed through smoothly. But this was a great lesson in not overlooking contributions, asking for help when you need it, and not isolating yourself and suffering in silence.