Resources
for Graduate Students and Post-Docs: A compilation
email: sprhall (at)
Request: If you find this webpage
useful, or have suggestions/feedback on its content (e.g., certain resources
are great/not so great), I would love to hear from you.
Note: I am compiling a library of published and unpublished resources
for graduate students, particularly geared around those in
Ecology-Evolution-Behavior style departments.
These resources are meant to offer advice, but they should be considered
as food for thought rather than a recipe for success. With that caveat in mind, I hope that you
find these documents useful. If you find
anything yourself which might be useful to others, please send it along and I
will post it.
Again, you may not agree with all of the advice
in these documents, or you may not find some articles helpful. Please view everyone’s advice with a healthy
dose of skepticism.
1. Advice on being a
graduate student and becoming a professional
2. NSF DDIGs
and grant writing
3. Advice on getting a
faculty job
5. Advice on giving good talks and posters
6. Guides/thoughts on
authorship
7. Teaching
8. Other people’s webpages for graduate students
ADVICE ON BEING A GRADUATE STUDENT
John Thompson’s “On being a successful student
in the sciences” – REQUIRED READING (PDF)
Martin Schwartz’s “The importance of stupidity
in scientific research” – REQUIRED READING (PDF)
Steve Stearns classic “Modest Advice” article (PDF)
Ray Huey’s reply to the Stearns article (PDF)
Phil Acre’s “Networking on the Network: a guide
to professional skills for PhD students” (HTML)
Isaak and Hubert’s BioScience
article, “Catalyzing the transition from student to scientist” (PDF)
Carmen Wong’s “Preparing for the field season”
in BESA (PDF)
An orals survival kit, by the Chronicle of Higher Ed (HTML)
David Skelly’s 2003 Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer article on writing a successful DDIG (PDF)
Spencer and Leonie’s observations of successful
and unsuccessful DDIGs (PDF)
Link to advice on “Broader Impacts” from NSF
itself (PDF)
Deneb Karentz's 2006 “Tips for proposal
writing” (PDF)
Marissa Baskett’s list
of funding agencies for ecologists (HTML)
ADVICE ON GETTING A FACULTY JOB OR OTHER KINDS OF JOBS
Faculty jobs:
Anurag Agrawal’s excellent guide (PDF)
Armin Moczek’s equally
excellent guide (PDF)
Brian Inouye et al.’s interview guide (2006
BESA), mostly questions to ask during interviews (PDF)
Alan Tessier’s
thoughts on the socio-intellectual side of interviewing (PDF)
Advice on keeping your faculty job from Phil
Stoddard at FIU (PDF)
Spencer and Leonie’s advice on “Making the
shortlist” (PDF)
Bradbury et al.’s “B&B Primer on first job haggling (PDF)
HHMI’s Making the right moves: a practical
guide for scientific management for post-docs and new faculty (PDF)
An NCEAS compilation on early career advice (PDF)
Wohl and Brown’s Negotiating a faculty salary (PDF)
So many others on Marissa Baskett’s
fantastic page – you must visit it (HMTL)
Postdocs:
Bourne and Friedberg’s “10 Simple rules for
selecting a post-doc” (PDF)
HHMI’s “Making the right moves: a practical guide for scientific
management for post-docs and new faculty” (PDF)
General:
Thoughts on academic vs. other types of jobs for
PhDs (PDF)
Phil Acre’s “Networking on the Network: a guide
to professional skills for PhD students” (HTML)
HHMI’s “Making the right moves: a practical guide for scientific
management for post-docs and new faculty” (PDF)
ADVICE ON GOOD WRITING
Ken Lertzman’s “Notes
on writing papers and theses” (PDF)
Chris Harley et al.'s 2004
“Scientific writing and publishing -- a guide for students” in Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (PDF)
A how-to guide on scientific writing from Bates
College (HTML)
L.B. Railsback's
“Comments on good writing and editing”, from a geological perspective (HTML)
Good writing from William Wells in JCB (PDF)
Steve Ellner’s “Notes
on successful theory papers” (PDF)
Greg Demas’ “Elements of style in science” (PDF)
Kaj Sand-Jensen’s “How to
write consistently boring scientific literature” in Oikos (PDF)
George Orwell’s classic on politics and the
English language (PDF)
ADVICE ON GOOD TALKS AND POSTERS
Talks
Lynda Delph and Curt Lively’s (Indiana U) “Notes for giving good talks” (PDF)
Jamie Smith,
Judith Myers, and Isla Myer Smith's 2007 “Tips for effective communication in
Ecology”, in Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (PDF)
Lawrences Bragg's 1966 “The art of talking about
science” in Science (PDF)
Martin Köchy's 2004 “Things that can go wrong with Powerpoint presentations” in Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (PDF)
John Cairns Jr.'s 1989 “Speaking at length” in BioScience (PDF)
Simon L. Peyton Jones et
al.'s 1993 “How to give a good research talk” (PDF)
Mike Dahlin's
2006 “Giving a conference talk” (PDF)
Simon Pickett
et al.'s 1991 “Strategy and checklist for effective scientific talks” in Bull.
Ecol. Soc. Amer. (PDF)
Thomas Wolcott's “Mortal
sins in oral presentations or How to give a talk if you never want to talk
again” (HTML)
The Oceanographic
Society’s 2005 "Scientifically speaking - tips for preparing and
delivering scientific talks and using visual aids" (HTML)
Melissa Hine’s
“Scientific presentation skills” (PDF)
A list of more resources
selected by the DIALOG group (HTML)
And even more resources
on Marissa Baskett’s page (HTML)
Posters
Thomas Wolcott's “Mortal
sins in poster presentations or How to give a poster no one remembers” (HTML)
Steven Block's 1996 “Do's
and dont's of poster presentation” in Biophysical Journal (PDF)
Collin Purrington's “Advice on designing scientific posters” (HTML)
Carlos Galindo-Leal’s article in the Bulletin of
the ESA (PDF)
Jake Weltzin et al.’s 2006 article on
authorship in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
(PDF)
Kathy Barker’s 2002 “Accountability and authorship” in Science (HMTL)
Karen Wilson and Stephanie
Hampton's 2004 “Ecology teaching tips for first-year professors” in Bull. Ecol. Soc. Amer. (PDF)
OTHER PEOPLE’S PAGES FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS
Marissa Baskett’s (UCSD)
fabulous resource page – you must visit this page (HTML)
Dan Horn’s warehouse of general advice from
Ronald T. Azuma’s guide for computer science
grads (still great stuff for Biologists) (HTML)
Last Updated: 15 June 2009