• Question: wants you retire can your work still go on with another person or even carry on helping more and more people!

    Asked by ellaamylee to Christina on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Hi Ella,

      Yes definitely! and that’s true for all scientists – not just me! that’s because an important part of being a scientist is writing down what you’ve done in a formal article – this article then gets checked by some other scientists who had nothing to do with your work (so won’t be biased) and if they agree that your work is good, it gets published in an academic journal (like a professional newspaper). Once you’ve published an article, scientists in the future will be able to read about your work and build on it with *their* work and that’s how scientific progress continues!

      Most scientists publish lots of articles in their career, usually with lots of other scientists who worked on the project with them… so for instance, my name is on about 50 articles and so I know that even if i retired tomorrow (and my retirment is still a way off), other scientists could still use my work if they wanted to!

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