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594 Converting rejectionsespecially if the reviewers come across as real experts in their reports, butappear to have off-target comments.49.1 My first attempt“A non iterative algorithm for least squares estimation of missingvalues in any analysis of variance design.” Journal of the RoyalStatistical Society, Series C, vol. 21 (1972), pp. 136–141. [Number ofcitations: 58]This was my first sole-authored submission, and of course, I thought it wasvery clever, combining simple matrix manipulations with simple computationsto generalize an old “Rothamsted” (to use Cochran’s word) method to fill inmissing data in an experimental design with their least squares estimates —a standard objective in those days (see the target article or Little and Rubin(2002, Chapter 2), for the reason for this objective). When I submitted this,I was still a PhD student, and when I received the report and saw “tentativereject,” I was not a happy camper. Cochran calmed me down, and gave mesome advice that he learned as a wee Scottish lad on the links: Keep youreye on the ball! Meaning, the objective when writing is to communicate withyour readers, and the reviewers are making useful suggestions for improvedcommunication. He went on to say:“The Editor is not your enemy — at this point in time, he has noidea who you even are! The Editor sent your draft to people who aremore experienced than you, and they are reading it without pay tohelp you and the journal.”I was calm and the paper was accepted, a revision or two later. I was onlyfully calm, however, until the next “tentative reject” letter a few months later.49.2 I’m learning“Matching to remove bias in observational studies.” Biometrics, vol. 29(1973), pp. 159–183. Printer’s correction note in vol. 30 (1974), p. 728.[Number of citations: 392]“The use of matched sampling and regression adjustment to removebias in observational studies.” Biometrics, vol. 29 (1973), pp. 184–203.[Number of citations: 321]