Academia is an often strange and frequently wonderful place to work, but it has its issues. On this page we've compiled random bits of helpful advice, perspectives and humor on issues faced by some or all members of the lab. Of course, just about anything you might want advice about you can find by searching the Chronicle of Higher Education online, but here are a few gems...
Why is Graduate School so Hard???
Graduate school will test your self confidence constantly as you jump through the hurdles of classes, qualifying exams, proposal and paper writing and defense of your dissertation. It is inevitable that a graduate student will reach a point where they question the decision to pursue a PhD and question their own ability to make it to the finish line. Here are a few perspectives that may help graduate students cope...
How do graduate students choose a research question? this is an essay by Stephen Jenkins that explores the challenges to coming up with THE question that will motivate and guide your dissertation research.
The importance of stupidity in scientific research this is a great essay by Martin Schwartz in the Journal of Cell Science about why feeling stupid is actually a good sign that your research is on the right track
This 2009 exchange in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, "Embracing Criticism, Fostering Feedback", provides some perspective on the challenges of receiving advice from an advisor or reviewer
in the same vein - here's a funny "illustrated guide to a PhD"
and, even less serious, here is a cartoon "The Thesis Repulsor Field" from phdcomics.com - a good place to learn to laugh at ourselves
and our latest favorite, the YouTube video "Bad Project" - Lady GaGa meets disgruntled graduate student in a lab full of potential costume materials
Other People's Better Complilation of Advice for Graduate Students
This page of advice for graduate students put together by Dr. Spencer Hall at Indiana University is really great
Dealing with Writer's Block
Everyone struggles with the writing process, it can be hard to start writing a proposal or paper, but its even harder to decide when you have finished. Here are some good resources.
The Online Guide to Scientific Publication supported by the Commonwealth Foundation provides some excellent pre-writing strategies for scoping your manuscript as well as good advice about reaching your target audience and dealing with paper criticism and rejection
Gopen and Swan (1990) published a paper on the Science of Scientific Writing in American Scientist. This paper gives good advice on how to structure your scientific prose most (and least) effectively.
In a 1967 paper in Science, F.P. Woodward worried that "communication between scientists will degenerate into chaos and scientific thinking will decay into a haze of fruitless intuitive feeling" without more attention to training young scientists in scientific writing. His main thesis is that clear writing is key to clear thinking and he rails against "fashionable foundationese". A great article that provides an inadvertent introduction to many lesser known adjectives.
**Here's a nice, new article by Cahill, Lyons and Karst from a 2011 ESA Bulletin entitled "Finding the Pitch in Ecological Writing". One of the main points of this paper is to help ecologists navigate the space in between 2 important rules of thumb: 1) A high-pressured “sell” won't work in scientific writing and 2) A paper without pitch won't work.
The Online Guide to Scientific Publication supported by the Commonwealth Foundation provides some excellent pre-writing strategies for scoping your manuscript as well as good advice about reaching your target audience and dealing with paper criticism and rejection
Gopen and Swan (1990) published a paper on the Science of Scientific Writing in American Scientist. This paper gives good advice on how to structure your scientific prose most (and least) effectively.
In a 1967 paper in Science, F.P. Woodward worried that "communication between scientists will degenerate into chaos and scientific thinking will decay into a haze of fruitless intuitive feeling" without more attention to training young scientists in scientific writing. His main thesis is that clear writing is key to clear thinking and he rails against "fashionable foundationese". A great article that provides an inadvertent introduction to many lesser known adjectives.
**Here's a nice, new article by Cahill, Lyons and Karst from a 2011 ESA Bulletin entitled "Finding the Pitch in Ecological Writing". One of the main points of this paper is to help ecologists navigate the space in between 2 important rules of thumb: 1) A high-pressured “sell” won't work in scientific writing and 2) A paper without pitch won't work.
Assessment - what makes a good scientist?
Good ideas, hard work and great papers, right?? Well, that's the idea, but in actuality there's a lot of other parts to the job. Posted here are a collection of interesting articles about how faculty are assessed.
The h index and career assessment by numbers - Kelly & Jennions 2007 TREE
Bibliometric evaluation of individual researchers - not even right, not even wrong by Laloe and Masseri 2009 Europhysics News
The mismeasurement of science - by Peter Lawrence 2007 in Current Biology
The h index and career assessment by numbers - Kelly & Jennions 2007 TREE
Bibliometric evaluation of individual researchers - not even right, not even wrong by Laloe and Masseri 2009 Europhysics News
The mismeasurement of science - by Peter Lawrence 2007 in Current Biology
The Two Body Problem
(by E. Bernhardt) I had never heard this phrase until I was a postdoctoral scientist getting my first interview offers for faculty positions. As I prepared for my interviews, one of the most important issues I had to resolve was whether to tell anyone about my academic spouse, and if I did tell anyone who should I tell and what should I say. This is the "2 body problem" - the issue that many academics find themselves partnered with another academic, and finding two jobs for two people in the same place can be incredibly challenging. My husband and I met and married in graduate school and we are both ecologists - we now both have tenure track positions at Duke. I often get asked by graduate students and postdocs - how did you do that? The truth is we were lucky in our timing and our faculty colleagues at Duke were supportive of both of us and interested in making things work. Here I have posted links to some of the most useful commentaries and analysis of this important topic. All of these resources have good advice about job hunting with an academic partner and about work-family balance.
Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know - results of a survey of nearly 10,000 academics by Stanford's Clayman Institute for Gender Research
Dual Career Couples Feature in Science - a collection of essays from couples with various experiences with the two body problem (published in Science magazine)
Dual Career Couples in the Geosciences - a really excellent and well maintained site that collates writings, links and case studies
"Was it a mistake to apply as a couple?" - career advice column from the Chronicle for Higher Education
Dual-Career Academic Couples: What Universities Need to Know - results of a survey of nearly 10,000 academics by Stanford's Clayman Institute for Gender Research
Dual Career Couples Feature in Science - a collection of essays from couples with various experiences with the two body problem (published in Science magazine)
Dual Career Couples in the Geosciences - a really excellent and well maintained site that collates writings, links and case studies
"Was it a mistake to apply as a couple?" - career advice column from the Chronicle for Higher Education
Collaboration - Trials and Tribulations
Working on research questions as teams is necessary but hard. Here are some useful tools.
First, talking openly about responsibility and authorship is an essential aspect of collaboration. Here's a good guide "A New Standard for Authorship" by Paul Friedman
First, talking openly about responsibility and authorship is an essential aspect of collaboration. Here's a good guide "A New Standard for Authorship" by Paul Friedman
Work-Life Balance
How can you manage an academic career and a family? This is a question that is often asked about women in science, but which in truth everyone in academia struggles with to some extent. The structure of the typical academic career can make it difficult to find the right time to start a family and to find a way to be both an involved partner/parent and a successful scientist. Once you get tenure, academia offers enormous flexibility, but en route to that goal there are a lot of constraints. Here are some helpful articles and essays on the subject.
"Women in Science: in pursuit of female chemists" from Nature (18 Aug 2011)
"Housework is an Academic Issue" time invested in housework/childcare commitments varies greatly with gender in dual career couples (where at least one partner is a scientist) by Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin, posted on "Academe Online"
"Women in Science: in pursuit of female chemists" from Nature (18 Aug 2011)
"Housework is an Academic Issue" time invested in housework/childcare commitments varies greatly with gender in dual career couples (where at least one partner is a scientist) by Londa Schiebinger and Shannon K. Gilmartin, posted on "Academe Online"
