Making a Positive Start to Your PhD or Professional Doctorate

Making a Positive Start to Your PhD or Professional Doctorate

Author: Ben Ellway

Publisher: Ben Ellway

Published: 2019-08-26

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13:

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This book is for first year PhD and Professional Doctorate students who want to make a positive and systematic start to their research journey. The book introduces the research design canvas, a design-thinking tool which you can use to simultaneously learn about academic research while bringing together the moving parts of your own project. In the book, you’ll assess your understanding and feelings about ten key building blocks of academic research and corresponding questions. You’ll identify the starting point for your research and consider how to plan the first year of your journey. Finally, you’ll map out some key decisions and choices that will shape your research project by creating your own research design canvas. . Ben Ellway is an Assistant Professor at the University of Canberra. Ben holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and founded academic toolkit to create tools to help plan, design, teach, evaluate, and publish research.


"So What Are You Going to Do with That?"

Author: Susan Basalla

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 0226038998

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Graduate schools churn out tens of thousands of Ph.D.’s and M.A.’s every year. Half of all college courses are taught by adjunct faculty. The chances of an academic landing a tenure-track job seem only to shrink as student loan and credit card debts grow. What’s a frustrated would-be scholar to do? Can he really leave academia? Can a non-academic job really be rewarding—and will anyone want to hire a grad-school refugee? With “So What Are You Going to Do with That?” Susan Basalla and Maggie Debelius—Ph.D.’s themselves—answer all those questions with a resounding “Yes!” A witty, accessible guide full of concrete advice for anyone contemplating the jump from scholarship to the outside world, “So What Are You Going to Do with That?” covers topics ranging from career counseling to interview etiquette to translating skills learned in the academy into terms an employer can understand and appreciate. Packed with examples and stories from real people who have successfully made this daunting—but potentially rewarding— transition, and written with a deep understanding of both the joys and difficulties of the academic life, this fully revised and up-to-date edition will be indispensable for any graduate student or professor who has ever glanced at her CV, flipped through the want ads, and wondered, “What if?” “I will absolutely be recommending this book to our graduate students exploring their career options—I’d love to see it on the coffee tables in department lounges!”—Robin B. Wagner, former associate director for graduate career services, University of Chicago


Doctoral Writing

Doctoral Writing

Author: Susan Carter

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-01-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 9811518084

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This book on doctoral writing offers a refreshingly new approach to help Ph.D. students and their supervisors overcome the host of writing challenges that can make—or break—the dissertation process. The book’s unique contribution to the field of doctoral writing is its style of reflection on ongoing, lived practice; this is more readable than a simple how-to book, making it a welcome resource to support doctoral writing. The experiences and practices of research writing are explored through bite-sized vignettes, stories, and actionable ‘teachable’ accounts.Doctoral Writing: Practices, Processes and Pleasures has its origins in a highly successful academic blog with an international following. Inspired by the popularity of the blog (which had more than 14,800 followers as of October 2019) and a desire to make our six years’ worth of posts more accessible, this book has been authored, reworked, and curated by the three editors of the blog and reconceived as a conveniently structured book.


Mastering Your PhD

Mastering Your PhD

Author: Patricia Gosling

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-11-19

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 3642158471

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"Mastering Your PhD: Survival and Success in the Doctoral Years and Beyond" helps guide PhD students through their graduate student years. Filled with practical advice on getting started, communicating with your supervisor, staying the course, and planning for the future, this book is a handy guide for graduate students who need that extra bit of help getting started and making it through. While mainly directed at PhD students in the sciences, the book's scope is broad enough to encompass the obstacles and hurdles that almost all PhD students face during their doctoral training. Who should read this book? Students of the physical and life sciences, computer science, math, and medicine who are thinking about entering a PhD program; doctoral students at the beginning of their research; and any graduate student who is feeling frustrated and stuck. It's never too early -- or too late! This second edition contains a variety of new material, including additional chapters on how to communicate better with your supervisor, dealing with difficult people, how to find a mentor, and new chapters on your next career step, once you have your coveted doctoral degree in hand.


The Professor Is In

The Professor Is In

Author: Karen Kelsky

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 0553419420

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The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.


The A-Z of the PhD Trajectory

The A-Z of the PhD Trajectory

Author: Eva O. L. Lantsoght

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-25

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 3319774255

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This textbook is a guide to success during the PhD trajectory. The first part of this book takes the reader through all steps of the PhD trajectory, and the second part contains a unique glossary of terms and explanation relevant for PhD candidates. Written in the accessible language of the PhD Talk blogs, the book contains a great deal of practical advice for carrying out research, and presenting one’s work. It includes tips and advice from current and former PhD candidates, thus representing a broad range of opinions. The book includes exercises that help PhD candidates get their work kick-started. It covers all steps of a doctoral journey in STEM: getting started in a program, planning the work, the literature review, the research question, experimental work, writing, presenting, online tools, presenting at one’s first conference, writing the first journal paper, writing and defending the thesis, and the career after the PhD. Since a PhD trajectory is a deeply personal journey, this book suggests methods PhD candidates can try out, and teaches them how to figure out for themselves which proposed methods work for them, and how to find their own way of doing things.


Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day

Author: Joan Bolker

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Published: 1998-08-15

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1429968885

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Expert writing advice from the editor of the Boston Globe best-seller, The Writer's Home Companion Dissertation writers need strong, practical advice, as well as someone to assure them that their struggles aren't unique. Joan Bolker, midwife to more than one hundred dissertations and co-founder of the Harvard Writing Center, offers invaluable suggestions for the graduate-student writer. Using positive reinforcement, she begins by reminding thesis writers that being able to devote themselves to a project that truly interests them can be a pleasurable adventure. She encourages them to pay close attention to their writing method in order to discover their individual work strategies that promote productivity; to stop feeling fearful that they may disappoint their advisors or family members; and to tailor their theses to their own writing style and personality needs. Using field-tested strategies she assists the student through the entire thesis-writing process, offering advice on choosing a topic and an advisor, on disciplining one's self to work at least fifteen minutes each day; setting short-term deadlines, on revising and defing the thesis, and on life and publication after the dissertation. Bolker makes writing the dissertation an enjoyable challenge.


The Spike

The Spike

Author: Mark Humphries

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-03-09

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 0691213518

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The story of a neural impulse and what it reveals about how our brains work We see the last cookie in the box and think, can I take that? We reach a hand out. In the 2.1 seconds that this impulse travels through our brain, billions of neurons communicate with one another, sending blips of voltage through our sensory and motor regions. Neuroscientists call these blips “spikes.” Spikes enable us to do everything: talk, eat, run, see, plan, and decide. In The Spike, Mark Humphries takes readers on the epic journey of a spike through a single, brief reaction. In vivid language, Humphries tells the story of what happens in our brain, what we know about spikes, and what we still have left to understand about them. Drawing on decades of research in neuroscience, Humphries explores how spikes are born, how they are transmitted, and how they lead us to action. He dives into previously unanswered mysteries: Why are most neurons silent? What causes neurons to fire spikes spontaneously, without input from other neurons or the outside world? Why do most spikes fail to reach any destination? Humphries presents a new vision of the brain, one where fundamental computations are carried out by spontaneous spikes that predict what will happen in the world, helping us to perceive, decide, and react quickly enough for our survival. Traversing neuroscience’s expansive terrain, The Spike follows a single electrical response to illuminate how our extraordinary brains work.


Leaving Academia

Leaving Academia

Author: Christopher L. Caterine

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0691200203

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A guide for grad students and academics who want to find fulfilling careers outside higher education. With the academic job market in crisis, 'Leaving Academia' helps grad students and academics in any scholarly field find satisfying careers beyond higher education. The book offers invaluable advice to visiting and adjunct instructors ready to seek new opportunities, to scholars caught in "tenure-trap" jobs, to grad students interested in nonacademic work, and to committed academics who want to support their students and contingent colleagues more effectively. Providing clear, concrete ways to move forward at each stage of your career change, even when the going gets tough, 'Leaving Academia' is both realistic and hopeful.


The Unwritten Rules Of Phd Research

The Unwritten Rules Of Phd Research

Author: Petre, Marian

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0335237029

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This title, from Gordon Rugg and Marian Petre, discusses the unwritten rules of the academic world, the things people forget to tell you about doing a doctorate.