Hacking Academia [1 ed.]

Citation preview

Hacking Academia The field tested guide on how to become a better scholar, student, and academic. First Edition

※

Hacking academia The Field-TesTed Guide on how To Become a BeTTer scholar, sTudenT, and academic.

Please do not share this book with people who have not purchased it. If someone you know is interested in this book, please direct them to: www.boook.link/HackingAcademia

Use the code “BOOKREC25” for a 25% discount. Each copy of this book contains a unique fingerprint so that we can tell who shared it. No other drm was used, I trust you to do the right thing. If you are interested in purchasing multiple copies of the book, perhaps for an entire classroom, please do not hesitate to get in touch: [email protected]

All Rights Reserved.

Table of ConTenTs

What Is the Hacking Academia Mindset

8

Highly Effective Tactics for Winning Grants and Scholarships

14

Shadow Libraries and How to Use Them

26

Tried and Tested Methods to Read and Comprehend Papers Faster Than Ever

34

Is a PhD Worth it?

40

Dissertation Writing for Dummies

50

The Secret Student Productivity Strategy

58

Journal Submissions Made Easy

68

How to Get Press for Your Research

80

Conclusion

92

7

CH A PTER ONE

What is the “Hacking Academia” Mindset

8

“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” ― Chuck Close

Dear Reader, I love academia. I love it when people spend years researching one specific topic. I love it when attending university awakens the soul of a young student. I love the interesting failures along the way. I love that every country has universities, a vast network of like-minded scholars working together for the betterment of humanity. I love that you have chosen to attend university and help push the limit of our collective knowledge. I am tired of seeing you get your ass kicked because no one taught you better. I am tired of you not getting paid. I am tired of you studying nights and weekends. I am tired of you not getting access to all the papers you need. I am tired of you sitting by and hoping the work sells itself. So I wrote this book. For anyone struggling at university, who feels like they may not belong, who wants to be part of academia but feels like they are not there yet — this book is for you. The goal of this book is to expand your view of your job as an academic to include not only your talent but the business and communication aspects as well.   I made it a short book so you can get back to work.

9

Why “haCking” aCademia?

You may be wondering what exactly we are going to be “hacking” in this book. “Hack” has two meanings: It can be either a compliment or an insult. It’s called a hack when you do something in an ugly way. But when you do something so clever that you somehow beat the system, that’s also called a hack. These two meanings of “hack” are connected. Ugly and imaginative solutions have something in common: they both break the rules. There is a gradual continuum between rule-breaking that’s merely ugly and rule-breaking that is brilliantly imaginative. The chef David Chang calls this “sandbagging“: There was a critic in the house. It was the peak of spring, and they ordered an asparagus dish. Except we didn’t have it. The asparagus from the greenmarket had come in late and there wasn’t time to trim all of it for service. Tom Colicchio calmly entered the kitchen, hoisted the massive crate onto the counter, and with one swift, deliberate movement passed the entire box through a bandsaw, yielding perfectly prepped asparagus stalks. My favorite chef stories are all about sandbagging—the dark art of saving time through tricks that are as ingenious as they are frowned upon. I call it a “dark art” because you don’t want to make a habit out of sandbaggery. Do it once when you need it and you’ve hacked the system. Do it too often and you’re a hack.

10

So what is hacking in the context of academia? It’s submitting your paper to multiple journals at once. It’s handling rejections like a boss. It’s sending out press releases to journalists to get your research covered in the media. It’s taking advantage of opportunities most people do not, like calling a funding body with questions about a grant (with the ulterior motive of getting your foot in the door just a tiny bit). It’s building your network and allowing opportunity to find you. It’s doing the hard thing, because the only reason to do the easy thing is laziness and you are not a lazy person. Will this book tell you exactly what to do? No. But it might help you change your mindset to help you gain an advantage.

WhaT is This book noT?

This book is not a way to cheat. You will not learn how to plagiarise or how to get someone to write your essay for you. It’s about how to most effectively conduct yourself in an above-board manner, not about cheating. Using a shortcut to get ahead is oK, as long as it does not involve cheating or hurting someone else.

11

The “haCking aCademia“ mindseT

As a student, you have been placed in a situation built to take advantage of you. It is on you to turn the power dynamic around and use the system to your advantage. Due to its pyramid shape, academia has to shed itself of low performers. How many undergrad students attend your university? How many PhD candidates? How many teaching assistants? How many professors? The writing is on the wall. The race to the top is a difficult one. How difficult? Look to your left. Look to your right. These are the people who can help you succeed.

The fuTure

I want you to think about the future. Visualise it. Job interviewers sometimes ask where the interviewee sees themself in five years. I used to hate this question: Who cares! Give me this job. I see myself not having to sit through job interviews. Then, the tables turned. I had an epiphany. When I was hiring people, I asked this question too, just to see what the candidate would say. Hardly anyone had a good answer. There is no wrong answer, of course. The question is designed for you to give an insight into your inner self, your plans, and how the company or institution you are interviewing for can fit in with that plan.

12

This question is a perfect example of the mindset that will bring you to the top — the answer doesn’t really matter. A good cV (résumé) and grades go much further. However, this is your moment to shine. The better you describe your future, the better you look. Show me that you are a real person, someone who wants this position in pursuit of a larger goal. Show me your drive, your ambition.   Where do you see yourself in five years? What do you see when you sit on the bench by the river across from the city? Zeppelins moored to the masts of skyscrapers. Men with beards pushing carts filled with fruit. Distant cars glinting in the hot sunshine. Ferries plying doggedly back and forth across the river, sounding their booming horns, adrift in a bluish haze. You smell spices, garbage, and tar.

13

CH A PTER T W O

Highly Effective Tactics for Winning Grants and Scholarships

14

“You don’t get extreme results without extreme actions. Classes set a pace the average student can keep. If you want to be above average, you must push yourself to do more than required. There’s a martial arts saying — when you are not practicing, someone else is. When you meet them, they will win.” ― Derek Sivers

Grants and funding are unfortunately an important part of doing your research. It would be great if we could all just concentrate on our work, and didn’t have to worry about money. But since this is not the case for most of us, applying and getting grants is important. Consider this — If you apply for a grant and receive it, you can do spend the money however you want. This is not meant literally, of course, as you have to use the money for the project, but you can decide how to allocate it — whether that is paying graduate students, buying new equipment, or investing in infrastructure. There is no easy way to get a grant, of course. However, there are certain strategies you can use to make the process easier.

15

sTarT early on

It’s never too early to start getting a bit of experience in grant writing, even if it seems like it’s not important yet. If someone in your office or research group is writing a proposal, ask to be involved or to read the draft. This will give you an idea of the process before you have to do it yourself.

Think small

During your doctorate, you will find that there are funding opportunities for small grants, like travel, equipment, or other activities. Winning a small grant like this is a less complicated process but will give you a chance to flex your grant muscle early on.

iT’s a numbers game

The more grant applications you write, the higher your chances are of winning one. The more times you go through the process, the better you get at it. Practice makes perfect. Do not go overboard with this, though — if you apply for grants whose requirements do not apply to you, you will be wasting your time and setting yourself up for failure.

16

I only apply to grants that sound like they were written to target me. If you are not completely aligned with the requirements, applying may not be worth your time.

use your ConneCTions

Use your network. Not to get the grant, but rather talk to colleagues or friends who have applied for the grant or similar grants before and find out what insights they have gained. Different organisations have different emphases and priorities, so there are nuances in how you should pitch to them. We are all here to help each other, so don’t be afraid to ask. On the flip side, don’t hesitate to help others when they come to you for advice. Being nice is always worth the extra effort.

do your researCh

There’s a website called Open Grants that has hundreds of successful and unsuccessful grant applications. Look at them closely. What do successful grants have in common? You may be able to pinpoint the similarities of multiple winners and match their tone, theme, and technical style. Furthermore, if possible, focus on proposals that earned the highest scores. How do they compare with lower-ranking winners? What did the higher scorers do differently?

17

How were their objectives organised? Did they have more experienced team members? What can you do to compete?

WhaT do you need The money for?

The questions that grant reviewers are trying to answer when reading your proposal are “What do they need money for?” and “Why should they get this money and not someone else?” So, decide what you need support for. This could be fieldwork, travel expenses, or a workshop. Once you know that, you can better target your search for a funding body and find someone who supports exactly this kind of expense.

don’T WasTe your Time

Read the relevant guidance notes carefully to avoid wasting your time and that of the funding body.

sTiCk To The formaTTing

The main reason to sticking to the formatting is to not be the only one who doesn’t. Be professional and format your proposal in a way that makes it easiest for the reviewer to

18

read it. Make sure to abide by the word limit too. Sloppy presentation will give the impression that you are not a serious researcher. Inherent in the process of giving a researcher free money is that the funding body wants to be able to trust you, and it’s easier to trust someone who can stick to basic instructions.

Proofreading

This should be obvious, but poorfreading is the bare minimum. Spelling mistakes are an unnecessary embarrassment that you can avoid by getting a friend or colleague to proofread your application. Having an external opinion is vital as one tends to overlook mistakes in one’s work. I like to change the typeface on my document to something completely different, increase the font size, and then print it out. By changing the “shape” in this way it is easier for me to spot mistakes.

signPosTing

Read the guidance for the grant carefully, and take note of what they are looking for. Make sure your proposal addresses every requirement they have and help them see that it does so by signposting. Signpost all the aspects of your proposal that reviewers will be looking for; Things like rigour, value for money, impact,

19

and scientific interest. As the reviewer jumps around your proposal, they should always know where they are.

ask!

Always get in touch with the funder. There will be contact information supplied with the grant application — use it. As you read through the grant information, take notes on any questions you might have. Narrow them down to your most important and specific questions, and then ask them. This is not only important to give you more information but because touching base with the grant organisation might help them remember who you are when you submit your proposal. Furthermore, asking is free, so there is no reason not to do it. (That’s not true of course, there is a really big reason not to do this — you don’t want to ring someone, you don’t want to annoy them, you don’t think your questions are important enough to ask. Those reasons are not true and you need to stop thinking like this. Your questions are the most important. You are not annoying them, you are playing your part in the process. If they did not want you to call them, they would not have put their phone number there. They have opened the door for you to make a good impression. Not stepping through that door is a mistake and an easily avoidable one at that.)

20

ouTside VieW

At the panel stage in the application process, your application will be reviewed by people who are not experts in your specific area. If you get some colleagues from different departments or a spouse or family member to read your application, they might shed light on things that are difficult for non-experts to understand and help you clarify the application. The majority of grant programs recruit academic reviewers with a broad knowledge of the disciplines, program areas of the grant, or both. Thus, when writing your grant proposals, assume that you are addressing a colleague who is knowledgeable in your general area of interest, but who does not necessarily know the details of your research questions. Address them from their starting point, and then guide them towards your speciality.

CaTCh and keeP The reVieWer‘s inTeresT

Imagine your application is the 37th application that a particular reviewer has read today. How can you catch their interest? Use clear language instead of multisyllabic jargon. When technical details are necessary, follow a complex sentence with one that sums up the big picture. Instead of “I propose to study the heterogeneity of forest landscapes in spatial and temporal recovery after multiple disturbances,” try “I want to see what happens when a forest has been logged,

21

burnt and farmed, and grows back.” A grant is about convincing someone that your idea is exciting enough to receive money, so try to sell it as well as possible. Clear and compelling pitches have a higher chance of receiving funding. The reviewer will probably not give your application 100% of their attention. Thus, make sure to start and end each section and paragraph with a strong sentence because the opening and closing sentences are what people read when skimming a document. Always keep in mind that reviewers may not read every word of your proposal: Your reviewer may only read the abstract, the sections on research design and methodology, the vitae, and the budget. Make these sections as clear and straightforward as possible. Don’t be afraid to repeat vital information in different sections.

Try again! really! Try again!!

The most important advice is to just keep trying. Lots of people do not re-submit applications when they can. However, responding to suggestions from reviewers can add value to an application, and, once the recommendations are adopted, some applications do then get funding. Being rejected does not necessarily mean your idea is completely un-fundable. It might be that you need to make changes, or it might be that there just was no funding available in the round you were in. Do not just send the same thing again, but respond to feedback and then try to send it. It can be disappointing if you

22

have put a lot of effort into something and it is rejected, but you should see it as a learning point.

alWays use your righT of rePly

In the humanities, you get a right of reply before the final decisions are made — and people don’t take that seriously enough. It is part of the application. If they have questions, you can defend your answers and provide explanations. If they say something positive, you can reinforce that. It’s an opportunity that you should not miss.

don’T geT disCouraged

Not winning a grant doesn’t mean much. Excellent scientists and applicants are rejected from grants every day. On the day that molecular biologist Carol Greider won a Nobel prize in 2009, she learned that her recently submitted grant proposal had been rejected. “Even on the day when you win the Nobel prize,” she said in a 2017 graduation speech at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, “sceptics may question whether you really know what you’re doing.”   Leave the doubt to the people whose job it is.

23

Tools

Open Grants www.ogrants.org/

An increasing number of researchers are sharing their grant proposals openly. They do this to open up science so that all stages of the process can benefit from better interaction and communication and to provide examples for early career scientists writing grants.   COMPASS Message Box www.compassscicomm.org/leadership-development/ the-message-box/

The Message Box helps you take the information you hold in your head about your work and communicate it in a way that resonates with your chosen audience. It can help you prepare for interviews with journalists or employers, plan a presentation, outline papers or lectures, prepare grant proposals, or explain what you do and why it matters to family and friends.   Funding Institutional www.elsevier.com/solutions/funding-institutional

A holistic view of the research funding landscape that combines over 18,000 active funding opportunities with information on over 6.3 million awarded research grants.

24

25

C H A P T E R T H R EE

Shadow Libraries and How to Use Them

26

“A piece of knowledge, unlike a piece of physical property, can be shared by large groups of people without making anybody poorer.” ― Aaron Swartz

WhaT are “shadoW libraries”

In 2009, a student named Alexandra Elbakyan faced a familiar problem: She was trying to read a paper but did not have access to it through her university library. Faced with the decision of either paying £40 (a not-insignificant sum of money for a grad student in Kazakhstan) or not reading the paper, she went for the third option — building a shadow library so vast it would be used by millions of people every month and touch every aspect of academia, education policy, and scholarly publishing. Before Sci-Hub, students who did not have access to a paper through their institution would email the authors asking for a PdF. Later they would send a tweet with the hashtag #ICanHazPDF and other academics would send them the paper. These small-scale efforts at sharing research were largely tolerated by publishers. The arrival of Sci-Hub fundamentally changed this. Not only could anyone anywhere in the world access any paper, but using Sci-Hub was in many cases easier and faster than trying to get the paper through various library and university login systems.

27

a brief hisTory of sCienTifiC Publishing

Over half of all research is now published by only five big academic publishing companies: Reed-Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Sage Publishing. In 1973, only 20% of papers were published by the big five. This is just for natural and medical science papers. In the social sciences, in 1973 only one in ten articles debuted in the big five’s pages — now, it is more than half. For some fields, such as psychology, 71% of all papers are published by the big players. The consolidation of the academic publishing market and the amassing of power by these few multinational companies have led to increased prices for universities and increased profits for the publishers. Elsevier’s parent company, relX Group, for example, boasts a nearly £35 billion market cap. It has reported a nearly 39% profit margin for its scientific publishing arm. This publishing model was pioneered by Robert Maxwell. He realised that because scientists have to be informed about all significant developments in their field, every journal that publishes academic papers could establish a monopoly and charge outrageous fees for the transmission of knowledge. He called his discovery “a perpetual financing machine.” He also realised that he could capture other people’s labour and resources for nothing. Governments funded the research published by his company, while scientists wrote the articles, reviewed them, and edited the journals for free. He ended up selling his company to

28

the Dutch publishing giant Elsevier, which has continued with largely the same business model to this day. Scientists need journals in which to publish their research, so they will supply the articles without monetary reward. Other scientists perform the skilled and specialised work of peer review also for free, because it is a central element in the acquisition of status and the production of scientific knowledge. Academics and students need to keep up with all major discoveries and research in their field, so libraries pay for access to journals. Because these large publishing companies have so many publications in their portfolio, libraries end up paying a fortune for their bundled journals. For example the state university system in California used to pay £11 million a year for access to Elsevier journals before they decided to cancel their subscription in 2019. If your institution does not have a subscription, as is the case in many developing countries, you are asked to pay £20, £30, and sometimes even £50 to read a single article. In the course of writing a dissertation, you may end up spending thousands of dollars only on article downloads.

WhaT sCi-hub means for oPen aCCess

Because there is now a way for anyone to download any paper they need for free, the pressure previously placed on university libraries to provide access to as many journals as possible has eased. Many universities in Europe have cancelled their contracts with Elsevier and other publishers, insisting that the prices asked by the publishers

29

are too high to sustain. This has significantly helped the Open Access movement — most contracts that institutions in the eu have with publishers now include Open Access provisions. A consortium of European funders, including major research agencies in the uK, France, the Netherlands, and Italy, have agreed to something called “Plan S”. It insists that research that has been paid for through taxes will no longer be behind a paywall. Any researcher receiving money from these funders must publish their work only in open-access journals.

The moraliTy of doWnloading Pdfs

If youu’re looking to access an article behind a paywall, the only way to legally read it is to pay. However, there is a grey area: you can ask an author for a copy. If an author of a paper sends you a PdF of the paper, is that immoral? What if the author sets up an automatic email inbox that answers every email that comes in with a copy of the PdF attached? The only difference is how much manual work the author has to do. What if we remove email from the equation and make it a website instead? Surely, the medium of communication does not make a moral difference. Do journals fund the research? No. Do journals pay royalties to authors? No. Do journals pay the peer reviewers who evaluate the quality of submissions? No.

30

What is the goal of publishing a paper? Is it prestige? Is it to establish yourself in your field? Or is it to contribute new knowledge to the world and help other scientists push the envelope further? For all of these goals, having more people read your research is better. If a student buys a paper for £40, how much of that money goes to the paper’s author? None, of course. The publisher keeps it all. There is no upside to the author if students have to pay for the paper, except that fewer people will read the paper.

hoW does sCi-hub Work?

When a user searches for an article in Sci-Hub, the site checks every university proxy server until it finds one through which it can download the paper and then downloads it automatically. The first time a paper is downloaded in this way, a copy of it is saved on Sci-Hub’s servers so that the next time the paper is requested by a user, the service does not have to check the university websites. Alexandra Elbakyan lives in hiding, beyond the jurisdiction of the us courts, and moves Sci-Hub between domains as it gets taken down. She is by no means the only person to have challenged the big publishers.

31

hoW do you use sCi-hub?

As an end-user, Sci-Hub is quite simple. First, you need to find the doi of the paper you are searching for. What is a doi? It’s numbers and letters that identify the article you are searching for. Think of it a bit like a phone number. The same way that dialling your phone number will only make your phone ring, searching for a doi will give you exactly the article you are looking for. You find the doi by googling for the paper's title, clicking one of the links, and identifying the doi somewhere on the page. Once you have the doi, you need to find Sci-Hub. Due to various legal cases around the world, the site continuously switches domains. Usually, a quick google search will show you the latest working domain. Alternatively, the Wikipedia entry for Sci-Hub always has the latest working links. When you have found the link, head over to Sci-Hub. On the main Sci-Hub page, there is a big search field — this is where you paste the doi. Then click the “open” button. And voilà! It takes us straight to the PdF. To download the PdF, just click the download button in the PdF preview or click the button on the left with the downward arrow.

is There a legal risk To using sCi-hub

No. (I am not a lawyer, and can not give legal advice.)

32

No one has ever been accused in court by anyone of using Sci-Hub or has gotten into any kind of legal trouble for using it. PdFs of papers are not contraband, they are not illegal. There are no risks attached to using Sci-Hub.

33

CH A PTER FOUR

Tried and Tested Methods to Read and Comprehend Papers Faster Than Ever

34

“Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” ― Zora Neale Hurston

Do you feel overwhelmed by the number of papers you need to read? Does it take you two hours to get through a single paper and that just leads you to an increasing number of papers to add to your to-read list? This is very common and completely natural. Every researcher starting out faces this. “Reading” a paper is not the same thing as reading a good novel. Rather, it could more accurately be described as “interacting” with a paper. Some confusion when reading papers is both expected and desirable. When you are entering a new field, the best resource to start with (if it exists!) is a well-written literature review that takes you through the history of the field and tells you about the main papers, research questions, results, and so on. For example, Fang and Moro (2010) give an excellent summary of the economic literature on discrimination, which is pitched with a level of detail that allows a good overview of models without going into too much detail. This kind of resource allows you to learn about some of the main papers in the field without a huge reading investment. After you have read a good literature review of the field, the next step is to read the “core” papers in detail, to get a good understanding of the main investigations and results. (Even if there is no literature review, when you look up

35

papers in a new field, most of them will cite some of the core papers in the literature somewhere in the introduction to establish themselves within a broader context. If you see that multiple papers in the field all cite certain core papers in their introduction, this can be a good indication that those papers are important starting points in the literature.) Reading and re-reading the main papers in the literature is a good way to gain good core knowledge of the main results of the field. This is a good platform to learn the field in the long-run. My #1 trick is to print out a paper, sit somewhere away from my computer, and read it there. The point is to not look important things up right away, but concentrate on the paper at hand. Setting aside time like this can be a greatly enjoyable experience, especially if your normal mode is skimming. No matter what question you have, do not search it right away. Write down the questions and leads that you have and search for them later. Use the margins! I can always tell whether I have carefully read or skimmed a paper by seeing how many notes I’ve added to the margins. Lately, I’ve been using my iPad and Notability for reading and annotating PdFs. I like to give myself a set time for reading a paper. After that time is up, I write down any open questions I have and ask a colleague or re-visit the paper later. Note-taking should be a priority, not only to avoid confusion but also to help you get an overview. Set a target to summarise the paper in about one page and try to capture the following:

36

1. What is the major question covered by the paper? 2. Why is it important? 3. What was done (experiments, observations, data)? 4. What are the major conclusions of the paper? 5. Did you find any new information of particular interest to you? You may come up with similar or different key questions depending on the purpose of your reading. The point is to write the summaries to help you remember what is important about the paper for you. Once you have the summaries, you could consider organising them in some fashion. There is no exclusive model to use, and the organisation may depend on the purpose of your reading. You may find that after reading several papers, a possible way to organise them becomes clear. The main purpose of this step is to bundle papers that have points in common. I use a folder in my Dropbox to keep all my PdFs in, which ensures that they are always backed up and I do not need to worry about losing them. I have yet to find the perfect application for organising, cross-referencing, and tagging all of the papers I read. Commonly used applications for this are Mendeley or Endnote. One tactic that works for many people is reading the abstract first, then the conclusion, and then the rest of the paper. This ensures that you don’t get lost in the middle section. Knowing which papers to focus on is another issue that can arise.

37

One solution I’m a big fan of is joining a reading group. If there isn’t a reading group at your institution or if you’re not a fan of the existing reading group, you can start one yourself. Reading groups work basically like book clubs — you decide together what paper to read next, set a date for the next meeting, and collectively discuss the paper. This provides great motivation to stick to the deadline and keep up with the pace of reading, but hearing other readers’ perspectives is also extremely helpful. It will show you how other people think and what they learn from a paper, and the differing levels of expertise will help everyone. Founding a reading group, leading it, and keeping it going will not only give you a good reputation at your university and with the other members of the group, but it will also provide you with invaluable experience in organising a group of people. Looks good on your cV (résumé) too!

aPPendix — furTher reading

How to Read a Paper by S. Keshav web.stanford.edu/class/ee384m/Handouts/HowtoReadPaper.pdf

38

39

CH A PTER FIVE

Is a PhD Worth it?

40

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he'd had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’” ― Anne Lamott

WhaT is a Phd?

The exact structure and requirements for a PhD vary by country and institution, but, almost everywhere, a PhD is the foundational requirement for a career in academia. It is what sets you up to do independent research and push the boundaries of human knowledge. In a master’s degree, you are writing about things that have been explored — your PhD thesis is for discovering something new, something that has never existed before. Some PhD students will receive a stipend; others will pay their own way. Some PhD programmes involve only research, some require classes and examinations, and some require the candidates to teach undergraduates. The PhD thesis’ length can range from dozens of pages

41

in mathematics or many hundreds in history. As a result, newly minted PhD holders can be as young as their early 20s or world-weary forty-somethings.

WhaT are your goals?

If your goal is to make academia your home — as opposed to someone who does a master’s degree, who is merely visiting — and build a career in your field, then a PhD is definitely something you need to do. Keep in mind that the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Of course, you can also use a PhD to get a private-sector job, for example in industrial research. If your goal is to work in the private sector, consider whether losing out on 4+ years of work experience and wages is worth it. Dropout rates suggest that many PhD candidates become dispirited. In the us, only 57% of doctoral students will have a PhD 10 years after their first date of enrolment. In the humanities, where most students pay for their PhDs, this figure is 49%.

42

WhaT makes a good Phd sTudenT?

PerseVerance To receive a PhD, you have to extend the boundary of human knowledge. To be more precise, you must convince the experts assembled at the boundary that you have done so. The first half of a PhD is figuring out where this boundary lies. You take classes and read papers and get closer and closer; This is the easy part. But when it comes to breaching the border, you need to dig deep. It will take all you throw at it, and leave you a failure. When you reach the border, there is no test to cram for or procedure to follow — that’s the whole point. This is the time when most PhD students get depressed and drop out. The thing you need to make it past this phase is perseverance. You have to be willing to fail, and fail again, and again, maybe for years. By definition, you cannot know what you need to do to reach your goal. BeinG aBle To eXPress your ideas clearly This is a theme that weaves its way through the whole book but it’s worth repeating — academia is almost as much an act of persuasion as it is of scientific discovery. If you cannot express your ideas and thoughts clearly — in writing and in person —— there will always be a limit to how far you can make it. In a perfect world, simply showing your peers the data would be enough. Unfortunately, it rarely is. You need to convince reviewers, university boards and everyone else

43

by spoon-feeding them the information. As you write, you have to consciously minimise the amount of time and cognitive pain it takes for them to realise you’ve made a discovery. You will have to write compelling abstracts and introductions that hook the reader and make them feel like investing their time in your work. You will have to learn to take your reader by the hand and slowly, precisely lead them along your thought process and experiments until you arrive at your destination together. Most PhD candidates start their PhD programme without much experience writing and pitching their ideas. My advice is to write as much as possible and as soon as possible. You need to get all the bad writing out before you get to the good. comPeTiTiVeness Due to the pyramid shaped structure of academia, competition is tough. If you want to get a professorship after completing your PhD (and this is one of the main reasons for doing a PhD), your competitors will by definition also have a PhD. All your degrees and years spent reading and writing are the bare minimum to get your foot in the door. To actually get the job, you need to go above and beyond. A PhD on its own may not even get you a job interview. The more papers you publish, and the earlier you start publishing them, the more you improve your chances.

44

The doWnsides of doing a Phd

One thing PhD students are known for is dissatisfaction. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay, and uncertain prospects are widespread. . You know you are a graduate student, one quip goes, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant ramen. Universities have discovered that PhD students are cheap, highly motivated, and disposable labour. With more PhD students, they can do more research, and in some countries more teaching, with less money. A graduate assistant at Yale might earn £20K a year for nine months of teaching. In 2009, the average pay for full professors in America was £109K.

do Phds make more money afTer graduaTing?

Yes. Compared to those who have a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree, PhD graduates do on average earn more money. The question you should be asking yourself is how much more do they earn. A study in the Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management by Bernard Casey shows that British men with a bachelor’s degree earn 14% more than those who could have gone to university but chose not to. The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. However, the premium for a master’s degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%. In some subjects, the

45

premium for a PhD vanishes entirely. Those with PhDs in maths and computing, social sciences, and languages earn no more than those with master’s degrees. The premium for a PhD is smaller than that for a master’s degree in engineering and technology, architecture, and education. The premium is only high enough to be worthwhile in medicine, other sciences, and business and financial studies. Considering all subjects, a PhD commands only a 3% premium over a master’s degree. Of course, nobody hires you or pays you more just because you have a degree. Having an advanced degree does not somehow magically entitle you to higher pay even if you do the same job with the same quality as somebody without a degree. Generally speaking, as a PhD holder, you will have less experience than somebody who worked in the industry for five years. However, you should (at least hopefully) have a higher level of formal knowledge and understanding of underlying principles. One advantage of having a PhD is that it forever removes any objections anyone can raise about your academic qualifications. You cannot lose out on a promotion because someone else has a PhD. If you are going to work in an area where your peers have both ms and PhD degrees, having a PhD will be a competitive advantage. If it is very unlikely you will find yourself in competition with peers who have a PhD, do not bother to get one; enter the workforce and start accumulating experience and making money.

46

enTrePreneurshiP

If you are interested in starting your own company, getting a PhD could be an excellent starting point. After all, you get to dedicate five years to solving a problem. If you successfully do so, you may then be able to develop a product based on your research. For example, Google was based on the founder’s PhD thesis at Stanford. Having a scientific background will also help you with founding a company. User research, surveys, A/B testing are all things that you can learn from your academic experience. A PhD will also strengthen your ability to do independent, self-directed work on a flexible schedule. It also teaches you to live on a small salary and not get discouraged by failure. These are all qualities that are important for entrepreneurship, and even if you do not start your own company, you will be in-demand at many startups.

WriTing skills

Going all the way and finishing your PhD will push your writing skills to the next level and put you in an elite category of writers. Most people will never even attempt to write something as ambitious as a PhD dissertation, let alone finish it. Compiling years of research — and hundreds of pages of notes — into a cohesive thesis requires organisation, talent, and most of all, diligence. Once you have completed your PhD degree, you will be an expert in one

47

of the hardest parts of the writing process: sitting down and getting started every day. Even if you do not pursue a career in academia, you will still be grateful for your wealth of writing experience. In non-academic fields, your writing skills will give you even more of a competitive edge.

ConClusion

Many of those who embark on a PhD are the smartest in their class and will have been the best at everything they have done. They will have amassed awards and prizes. As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed to benefit others, that even hard work and brilliance may not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else. For those that succeed, their PhD will provide an excellent starting point for a career in academia or their chosen field. Plus, you get to put PhD after your name.

48

49

CH A PTER SIX

Dissertation Writing for Dummies

50

“You are alone in a dark room. Across the floor are the scattered pieces of three or four or five floor lamps. You don’t know how many. There are screws and bulbs and fixtures mixed together. You try not to panic as you feel your way across the floor in search of these pieces. This is what editing feels like.” ― Eric Maierson

The biT-by-biT meThod almosT guaranTeed To helP you finish ThaT Thesis

The Bit-by-Bit Method (commonly abbreviated as BbB) is a clever way of writing a paper or thesis (or even book!) that forces you to structure your thoughts first, and then to write. It may sound basic, but it works surprisingly well. By breaking up the monumental task of writing a thesis into manageable bits, we look only at the step in front of us and not the top of the mountain. It is designed to minimise pain and stop you from feeling overwhelmed. Here’s how to do it: 1. Write the title 2. Write the sub-headlines 3. Write the sub-sub-headlines 4. Write a one-sentence summary of each section

51

This way, we approach the paper from the top, a bird’s view, and fill in the parts we know. Writing the table of contents first forces you to look at the complete structure of the dissertation. As you research the separate parts to fill in the sub-headlines and summaries, you will find missing parts or incomplete chapters — add them to the structure. When you have completed a draft structure, with headlines and sub-headlines and one-sentence summaries, questions, or both, you can use this document to get feedback. Your advisor or a colleague can see the dissertation for what it is without having to read thousands of words, and, at this stage, structural feedback is very easy to implement — just fix the table of contents. This way, you do not waste time writing things you will then discard. Your table of contents is a living document that reflects your current plan of attack. The above BbB method uses the structure of the work as the titular “bits.” You also have another set of “bits” in your arsenal — time. For me, one bit of time is 20 minutes. I commit myself to work on my writing project for at least 20 minutes each day. In my opinion, 20 minutes is a perfect period to commit to. It is short enough that it does not feel like a burden (one episode of Friends!) but long enough that I can get into the writing. After 20 minutes, I am allowed to stop — but I can also keep going. I find that starting by telling myself I will work 20 minutes helps me overcome the blockage in my brain that prevents me from sitting down and working on something, and more often than not I keep going after the 20-minute timer goes off. Continuing to write once you have entered the flow is easier than

52

starting to write. It only takes two weeks to build a habit, so commit to doing 20 minutes a day for two weeks.

TiP: don’T WriTe and ediT aT The same Time

Writing and editing are two separate sets of skills. Writing is about flow, editing is about fixing something that already exists. When writing, just write. If you can’t think of the perfect word for something, just add a quick placeholder and keep going. Try to not break your momentum by thinking about structure (the whole premise of the BbB method), but also don’t get distracted by things that you will get to when editing. Ignore grammar, spelling mistakes, missing words, and anything else related to editing. Concentrate on getting the words onto the page.

TiP: seTTing a daily goal

Many people advise setting a daily minimum word goal. That is good advice! I would add part two — don’t overshoot your goal. If you aim to write 500 words a day, you have to stop writing when you reach 500. If you have any ideas left, jot them down as bullet points — this gives you a head start for the next day. That way, you don’t sit in front of a blank page with no idea of what to write.

53

TiP: ediT mode

For editing, I like a change of scenery. For me, that means changing the typeface in the writing app I use. For writing, I use a monospaced font (it looks like a typewriter, which feels nice), but for editing, I switch to a serif font (like Georgia or Menlo or Times). This helps my brain switch context and get in the right mindset for editing.

TiP: don’T CoPy ediT and ediT aT The same Time

An early draft of a paper typically has many issues. Some of these are high-level issues, such as weak motivation, sections in the wrong order, or a key description that is difficult to understand because it lacks an accompanying figure. These problems need to be identified and fixed, but this is almost impossible as long as the text is crappy and drafty. All of the little problems — run-on sentences, filler words, paragraphs that switch topics without warning, and so on — tend to take priority and make it hard to see the big problems. In contrast, when sentences and paragraphs are clear and polished, high-level problems often become more evident, making them far easier to fix. So, first, you should copy edit until a high-level problem becomes apparent, second, you should fix the high-level problem, and then you can back to copy editing until there is nothing left to fix or the deadline arrives.

54

TiP: rubber-duCk iT

There is a traditional approach in programming for solving a problem that has worked well for me with writing too. It’s called rubber-ducking. I place a rubber duck (like you’d find in a children’s bathtub) on my desk, and when I run into a particularly tricky problem I explain it to the duck. I read a sentence out loud, and if the duck doesn’t understand what I meant, I explain why I wrote it this way and what I am trying to achieve. This technique hooks into something you are probably already familiar with — explaining something to someone who knows nothing about the subject and then magically hitting on the solution as you go through the problem. And of course teaching something makes you look at it from a different perspective, and often leads to deeper understanding. You explain it to the duck so that you don’t have to bother a real person. It probably works with other rubber animals too or perhaps even other inanimate objects. Why risk messing with a working formula, though?

TiP: moTiVaTion is eVeryThing

Some people can work long hours and sustain a career in something that they have no interest in. Most of us cannot. It is easier, more fun, and especially more productive, to work on something that you are interested in and curious about.

55

When choosing your thesis topic, it is very important to keep this in mind. You may not know what it is that interests you. To find out where your interest lies, look at the work you have done in your academic career. Which projects excited you? Which ones were the most fun to work on? Make a list of these projects, and try to find something they have in common. This pattern will show you what it is that gets your engine going. You may find, for example, that your best papers were comparative studies, or that your strongest work was heavily theoretical, or that surveys always seemed very easy to you. If you can find no such pattern in your own work, think about what kinds of papers and research by other scholars you most enjoy reading. Is there something they have in common? Once you think you have found a pattern of things you find interesting, try to apply it to your thesis and use it to sustain your motivation and curiosity.

aPPendix — furTher reading

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott boook.link/BirdbyBird

  On Writing by Stephen King boook.link/OnWriting

 

56

Ohio State University: The Function and Value of Academic Writing cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/5/7046/ files/2014/10/UnivChic_WritingProg-1grt232.pdf

  Copy Editing for Professionals by Edmund J. Rooney boook.link/Copy-Editing-for-Professionals

  Line by Line by Claire Kehrwald Cook boook.link/LineByLine

57

CH A PTER SEVEN

The Secret Student Productivity Strategy: Do Deep Work in Less Hours

58

“In life, the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you’re playing.” ― Kwame Anthony Appiah

What is the worst advice a student can get? “Work long hours.” Many successful academics give this advice — they think their success comes from working long hours. I think they became successful despite working such long hours. “Work long hours” is a brute force approach to productivity. Brute force productivity is a waste of your resources — your time, your health, and, most importantly, your happiness. Why should you work until exhaustion if there is a more efficient way to do this? In this chapter, I will present you with a productivity strategy that has worked for thousands of students and that I consider the secret to eliminating crazy work hours.

“deeP Work”

Two years into my degree, I came across Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work.” It was an absolute revelation. Newport lays out a way of working that uses time effectively and specifically applies to contexts that require a lot of thinking, thus making it perfect for academia. Cal Newport is an Associate Professor of Computer Science who works regular hours and yet manages to stay ahead

59

of the game. He publishes consistently and also manages to write books and run a blog. The concepts discussed in the book will help you accelerate your studies without eating away all your free time. Deep work is “Distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capacities to their limit.“ Picture this: You are finishing up a paper. It’s the day of the deadline. Your back is up against the wall, and you are working through the night to finish everything up. Is it not true that these last hours, fuelled by coffee and determination, turn out the be the most productive ones? Why do you get so much done in these sprints? This is deep work. What if you could take the performance from times like these, and use it more effectively? I don’t mean pulling all-nighters regularly, I mean taking the power of this kind of work and using it to save time while getting everything done on time. So let’s take a look at how to master the skill of deep work and apply it to your academic work.

Train your brain musCle

What is the difference between a skill and a habit? A habit is something that you want to do regularly, but that doesn’t require you to push your limits. A good example is flossing. It’s not hard to floss, it’s only hard to remember to floss every evening. A skill is something that pushes you to your limit, and requires training. For example, running a 10k is

60

a skill. Your first try will probably not be very successful — you will have to train and work up to it. Deep work is more like a 10k than flossing your teeth. It requires you to condition your brain by training it. Your first try at deep work will probably not be as productive as you hoped, but that is by design — you will get better at it the more you practice. If you practice a skill consistently, you cannot help getting better. Academia requires a lot of deep work, and it is never clear how to succeed. You’re reading scientific literature, analysing complex data, and writing papers. With time, this gets easier. This is because you have more knowledge, of course. However, what makes the work easier and faster is also that you have been practicing deep work and training the skills you need for these tasks by using them regularly. If this is how much you can improve your productivity just by training “on the job,” imagine what gains in productivity you could get by doing it intentionally. One of the practices to enhancing the deep work skill is “productive meditation.” In productive meditation, you use periods when you are physically occupied but not engaged mentally (e.g., going for a walk, doing the dishes, or brushing your teeth) to focus on solving a specific work-related problem that requires deep thinking. Every time you catch your mind wandering off, bring it back to this single task and ponder it. Take the problem into your hands and look at it. Poke it until it moves. What makes this “meditative” is that there is no pressing physical task — you can’t take notes or write a paragraph — so all you can do is ponder it.

61

esTablish a rouTine / don’T rely on deadline Pressure

Imagine doing as many push-ups as you can (for me, it’s 12), and then forcing yourself to do another two. Imagine running your regular route and going round the block another time to run a bit more. This is what deep work is for your cognitive capacity. The resistance that kicks in, that tells you 12 push-ups are enough, that you need a break, that it’s time for a snack — this is the mental barrier you need to break through. The barrier can have different heights depending on circumstances, your mood, and the exact type of work you’re doing. But, the task is always the same — to overcome it. One thing that helps is setting up a routine. Dedicate several hours in a day to deep work — no distractions at all. Try doing this one day per week. When I have an annoying task coming up, I like to spend the day pottering around the office doing menial tasks, catching up on emails, wiping down my desk, cleaning up my computer’s desktop. You see, these are very important tasks that need to be done so that I can then “shine under pressure” when the deadline looms. How about rather than relying on random deadlines set by other people to kick us into deep work mode, we decide on our own when it suits us best to buckle down? This is where your routine comes in. Commit to doing deep work at specific times of the day and in specific surroundings. It will be easier to follow through as you condition yourself to get into deep work, and there is less space for mental sabotage. I also like to pick out specific albums or genres that get me in the mood. This also removes the

62

twenty minutes I used to spend picking through my music library.

disTraCTion eliminaTion

One of the core elements of deep work is “distraction-free concentration.” A distraction is an escape route from having to focus on your task. It’s like a red light when you’re out running — you’re glad it’s there so you can stop for just a second. The trick is to run in place so as not to break your focus. For deep work, it’s even easier than that — do not allow distractions. Why are late nights and early mornings such a magically productive time? As I’m writing this it’s 9pm and it feels like I’m the only person in the building. It’s magically productive because there are fewer distractions. Of course hardly anyone has a private office with a door they can close. We are doing our work from shared spaces, in libraries, at home with kids running around. Being distraction-free is harder the more distractions there are. Timing is one thing you might be able to control. If you’re working from home, get up an hour before your partner for some uninterrupted deep work. Wait until the kids are in bed and grab two hours for yourself then. Find a different location that you can use. When the author John Cheever lived in Manhattan, for five years he’d get up every morning, put on his only suite, and take the elevator with all the other people commuting to

63

work. He’d go down to the basement and set up his desk in the boiler room, where he’d strip to his underwear because of the heat and write until lunchtime.

WhaT is your desTinaTion

You’ve gotten the basics out of the way — when and where to work and how to achieve optimal distraction free working time. Now, we need to add intention. Define the outcome you are trying to achieve. Define for yourself what the specific end goal is. With a paper, it’s usually a deadline. The reason deadlines work so well is that they force you to focus. So before starting a deep work session, define what it is you want to achieve: Write two pages. Skim three papers and take notes. Define the goal beforehand, and you will know when you have achieved it. Decisions and planning take up mental energy. By separating the process of deciding what to do and actually doing it, we can concentrate our work session on only the work.

eliminaTe shalloW menTal disTraCTions

The whole point of deep work is to keep you focused on your task at hand. Our brains crave stimuli. Our phones provide endless shallow stimuli. This is a great combination if you want to never think about anything deeply.

64

When was the last time you were bored standing in a queue? Our shallow habits — scrolling through Twitter, watching YouTube videos, having a TV on, listening to podcasts — deplete our capacity to practice deep work. Focusing intensely on a single task is per definition eliminating additional stimuli. Once your brain is used to being constantly tickled by incoming bits of information, it will look around for more entertainment instead of staying focused on your task. Step one is to start taking notice of your bad habits. For me, it’s scrolling through Twitter every chance I get. I’m writing, I get a text message, I check the text message, and I take a couple minutes to read Twitter since I’m distracted anyway. Notice these habits so you can counteract them. In my case I activate night mode do not disturb mode in my phone, and give myself pre-scheduled phone breaks.

Take a break

The whole point of deep work is to do more work in less time. This means you need to take regular breaks to rest from work. Once your mental energy is depleted, you will be wasting hours trying to do work that you could easily finish up in twenty minutes the next day. Take the time off that you need to recover fully, so you can attack the next day.

65

ToP of mind

There’s a theory I heard that we always have one, and only one, problem “top of mind”. This is the problem our brain goes to when we’re in the shower or driving around listening to music. The thing that takes no effort to think about, because thinking about it is the point. Our mind works on this problem even when we’re not actively working on it. Have you ever noticed how after spending a day solving a challenging problem with no result, you would effortlessly find the solution the next day after having “slept on it”? We often explain this by saying we have rested or are looking at a problem with “fresh eyes” when, in fact, our mind could have been working on it intensely while we did not even realise it. If you have a particular problem to solve, try to make it top of mind. One trick I like to do is to take all the small stuff that my brain is trying to hold in — what I need to buy from the grocery store, the dripping drain, the dentist’s appointment I need to make, replying to this person about that thing, and so on — and I write them down. I know, it sounds so obvious. But once you write them down, your brain can relax. You no longer need to juggle them all and are in no danger of forgetting them. This frees up the top of your mind.

66

deeP Work is PraCTiCe

Doing the things we outlined above will help you focus and do deep work — but more importantly it will train your mind to do deep work. You will see incremental improvements over time. But to see these improvements you need consistency. Do world-class athletes train once in a while when they feel like it? Do they take a couple of weeks off when they’re not in the mood? You have to be consistent. Jerry Seinfeld has a clever productivity trick called “Don’t break the chain”. His goal is to write every day. He has a big wall calendar, and every day that he writes he marks that day with a red x. The goal is to never break that chain of xs. It gives you a nice visual reminder of how far you have come. Don’t break the chain.

67

C H A P T E R E IG H T

Journal Submissions Made Easy

68

“This is how the game is played. If you feel poorly about it, you’re like a batter who feels poorly about stealing bases in baseball: you’re not morally superior, you’re just playing poorly.” ― Patrick McKenzie

inTroduCTion

Why are you writing for journals? Are you trying to get your research out there, or your name? Are you writing to get citations, or to cite people? Do you want to develop a profile in a specific area, or drive forwards progress? Have you researched other academics in your field? Where do they publish? Is there a conversation you can contribute to? These are questions you should ask yourself (and answer!) before deciding to write and submit a paper. It is important to have both external motivation — getting promoted, earning prestige, seeing your name in print — as well as internal motivation — why does writing and publishing your research matter to you personally. This will help you maintain the motivation you’ll need to write and publish over the long term. Writing for academic journals is highly competitive. It is not enough to have a valuable piece of research or idea — you also need to write about it in such a way that will get the reviewers interested. Once you have the idea you need to be able to sell it.

69

Of course, there is no easy formula for getting your paper published. Editors’ expectations vary wildly between journals, subjects, and publishers. But, there are some things that all journal submissions have in common and simple techniques that can help us with.

make iT easy for The ediTor

Someone who knows little to nothing about your research or even your field asks you what your new paper is about. What do you tell them? In the startup world, they call this an elevator pitch. Imagine you are on an elevator with an important potential investor. Can you explain what your startup does in the time it takes for the elevator to arrive, and, more importantly, can you do so convincingly? Try to come up with such an elevator pitch for your paper. Once you have the elevator pitch, put it in the abstract. Put it in the first paragraph of the paper. Use it in the emails you send out to journalists (more on that in Chapter 9). You can come up with the pitch before writing the paper. Hone that pitch down until it is perfect. Next time you are at a party and someone asks what you’re working on, pitch them. The goal is to get a random person interested enough in the problem that they ask you to email them the paper when it’s done. A good way of testing the efficiency of the elevator pitch is to pitch someone, and then follow up a day later and ask them to tell you what they remember. The parts they

70

can remember are those that stick out most. Optimally, these would match with what you think is most important. Okay, let us say you have the pitch down, and you have written your abstract. How else can you make the process easier for the editor to review your submission? What they want is to get to the essence of the paper. “Why should we not publish this?” is the question on their mind. Don’t give them a reason not to. If the paper is badly written and you cannot highlight your main point, the editor might care enough to untangle your bad syntax and try to understand what you are trying to. Chances are, they won’t. Please get your paper proofread. I know it’s annoying. Find a colleague or someone you know, and agree to proofread each other’s papers. If English is not your first language, don’t let that become a disadvantage. Find someone who can proofread for you and fix the mistakes you might be making. At this stage, it’s important to address any of the easy reasons that they could reject you. The formatting and referencing styles should match exactly what the journal requires. Do not stand out by looking different. This will make you appear sloppy and careless, but more importantly, it will distract from the work.

doing Things The “Wrong Way round”

It’s tempting to do things the “correct” way — do some groundbreaking research, submit it to a journal, get accepted, win. However, since everything in your paper

71

— content, focus, structure, style — will be shaped for a specific journal, why not do things the other way round?s First, decide on a nice juicy target journal, and work backwards from there to write the perfect paper that they will not be able to resist. A surprising number of papers are submitted to completely inappropriate journals. Once you have found a journal you’d like to target, skim a couple of recent issues to make sure they are publishing the kind of work you are thinking of submitting. Make note of the quality of the work and its impact. Analyse the abstracts. Look closely at the first and last sentences. The first sentence gives the rationale for the research and the last sentence outlines the paper’s contribution to knowledge. Scan other sections of the articles: how are they structured? What are the components of the argument? Highlight all the topic sentences — the first sentences of every paragraph — to understand the stages in the argument. Can you define the different types of paper and different structures and decide which one will work best in your paper? Select two types of paper: one that you can use as a model for yours and one that you can cite in your paper; in this way, you are joining the research conversation that is ongoing in that journal.

absTraCT, absTraCT, absTraCT

You know what they teach at university about writing papers — the abstract is 90% of what matters. Okay, so

72

they don’t actually teach this, but they should. The abstract is the only part of the paper that a potential referee sees when he is invited by an editor to review a manuscript. The abstract is the only part of the paper that readers see when they search through arXiv or PubMed. The abstract of a paper is the only part of the paper that is published in conference proceedings. The abstract is what readers leafing through a printed copy of a journal will skim, at most. The vast majority of potential readers will see the title of your paper and nothing more. Only a reader with a very specific interest in the subject of the paper and a need to understand it thoroughly will read the entire thing. Thus, for the vast majority of readers, the paper does not exist beyond its abstract. One thing you can do is contact journals in advance with an extended abstract. Ask if they are interested in the full article. If they get back to you in the affirmative, not only do you have a foot in the door but can start the process of writing and formatting the article with more confidence. If they reject you, they may tell you why — often the “fit” is wrong and they may even suggest an alternative journal to submit to. In general, make sure you tailor your papers to the right journals. This means that if this is your first paper, maybe a very prestigious journal is not the right fit (and vice versa, of course).

73

The imPorTanCe of formaTTing

Formatting your paper correctly is very easy. All you need to do is read the instructions, and execute on them. If you don’t take the 10 minutes to do that, you will be wasting the editor’s time and it will make you look lazy.

CoVer leTTer

The cover letter is your opportunity to highlight what you think is most significant and interesting about your paper. You should also explain why you think this journal is a good fit for your paper. Don’t repeat your abstract or go through the content of your paper in detail — they will read the abstract and paper as well. A cover letter is a place for a bigger-picture perspective. Show them where your research sits within the scholarly landscape. What gaps is it filling? A common reason that articles are rejected is a lack of context and clarity. Your research is important. Tell us why.

referenCing sTyles

Different journals require different referencing styles. Since you are most likely submitting your paper to multiple journals, save yourself a lot of annoying work by using a reference manager. Not only will this make it very easy

74

(and quick!) to convert between different referencing styles, but the main benefit is that it will free you from having to think about how to format your references while you collect them. Many PhD students use apps like Mendeley or EndNote to do this. Another popular, free, and open-source app is Zotero. My personal favourite is Citationsy due to its ease of use and pleasant interface. Which application or system you use specifically doesn’t really matter as long as it works for you. Get in the habit of collecting all the research, articles, and papers you read in a central place so you can easily access them once the time comes. Don’t be one of those people who try to remember where everything is — make it easy for yourself. It’s never too late to start collecting all your research in a central place.

Think small

Don’t tale your whole PhD and try to turn it into a single paper. Think small, and think specific. One research project can probably yield enough material for three or four papers, each highlighting a specific aspect.

75

Pre-PrinT PubliCaTion — should you do iT?

Yes. Pre-print portals such as arXiv and bioRxiv provide a valuable service to scientists: You can upload and publish your paper before it‘s peer-reviewed and published in a “real” journal. While arXiv doesn’t have a peer review system, they do have some basic moderation in place. They will check to make sure your submission is in the right category and that it is in fact a scientific paper. Most of these “e-prints” are also submitted to journals for publication, but this is not always the case. The biggest argument for pre-publishing is speed — people immediately have something to read while your manuscript waits in the submission queue at the journal. You can stake your claim to the idea early on, other scientists can read your work, and you can immediately influence the field. Pre-publishing databases also offer open access — meaning you can send the e-print to anyone you want, and anyone in the world can read your research without having to pay a publisher a fee and without emailing you asking for a PdF. In many fields of physics, like condensed matter theory, the default is to post your pre-print to arXiv and then get your paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. There are no cons to putting your paper on arXiv; it is expected of you. There are, however, cons to not putting your work on arXiv: substantially fewer people will notice it. Once your paper is published in a journal, you can go back to arXiv and add a reference with a link to the published paper. This adds some credibility to your paper on arXiv

76

and gives readers an easy way to find the peer-reviewed version.

afTer submission

Your paper was rejected. This happens to everyone. This is the expected outcome in most cases. When your paper is rejected the only thing to do is to give up. If they rejected your paper it means you wasted all the time spent on it. All your work was for nothing. Perhaps it’s best to just give up completely. Obviously not. So stop moping around and get to work. Don’t respond to reviewer feedback as soon as you get it. Your job now is to read carefully what they are asking you to revise and do it. Your decision to resubmit already puts you one step closer to publication than the large number of authors who don’t. Isn’t that silly? Imagine being so short-sighted that you don’t want to make a couple changes to your paper to get it published. Rejection and resubmission are part of the process and it is on you to play your part. Open up a new document and as you make revisions and changes, document them. Write down everything you are changing, and why. What exactly are they asking you to do? Work out whether they want you to add or cut something. How much? Where? Write out a list of revision actions. When you resubmit your article include this in your report to the journal specifying how you have responded to the reviewers’ feedback.

77

If your article was rejected, it is still useful to analyse the feedback, work out why it was rejected, and revise it to send it to a different journal. You do not have to revise everything the reviewer mentions — it is completely acceptable to decline a suggestion if you have a good justification or if you can argue that the reviewer is wrong. A rational explanation will be accepted by editors, especially if it is clear you have considered all the feedback received and accepted some of it.

78

79

CH A PTER NINE

How to Get Press for Your Research

80

“Libraries are core symbols of an ethic of non-commodified knowledge. Anyone, regardless of how much money she or he has, can check out a book, and a book is passed from person to person in a chain of knowledge sharing.” ― Zeynep Tufekci

Why you Would WanT Press

If you have something interesting to say, or groundbreaking new research, if you have discovered a new fact about the world, or a perspective that you think is valuable for the current public debate, if you want to contribute to the public marketplace of ideas — you need to get your results out there. It is tempting to think of oneself as an academic who only cares about science in their laboratory or office. However, communicating your findings to the wider world is important.   The falsehood academics believe about PR: If I write a great paper, the press will find out about it   Yes. And maybe if you write a great paper, someone will get in touch with you and offer you an amazing PhD position. But this is not especially likely. Take the opportunity to to quit playing the waiting game and generate your own buzz.

81

Taking maTTers inTo your oWn hands

So — how do you get the press to cover your research? If you think your paper or research is worth publicising, there are things you can do to take matters into your own hands. It boils down to seven steps: 1. Publish your paper 2. Write a press release 3. Publish the press release 4. Create a media kit 5. Write a catchy email 6. Send it to journalists 7. Be available Let’s take them in order. 1. PuBlish your PaPer There’s not really much to say about this. Get your paper published in a journal or in a pre-print database. 2. wriTe a Press release The main purpose of all press releases is to promote something significant and specific and to do so clearly. You want to convince the journalists that this story is worth covering. Journalists’s are interested in results, so do not waste your social capital by announcing partnerships or new ventures unless they are news-worthy. A press release is a document that adheres to a strict format and serves two marketing and promotional purposes:

82

1. To notify the media about something in the hope that they will spread the word. 2. To share something about your research, hoping a reporter will see a story in your press release and write a news article about it. So what does that mean for your paper? Think of the press release as an extended abstract for a lay-persons audience with a couple additional things. The first paragraph should answer the “who,” “what,” “why,” and “where” questions. The press release should be one to two pages at most. It should also contain understandable language and a quote. Try to use as little technical jargon as possible, while adding enough to show credibility. Make sure to stick to the formatting that is common for press releases. Optimally, the journalist would find everything they need in the press release. They are going to copy and paste sentences from the press release into their story, so keep that in mind. A press release includes the following components: 1. Headline 2. Subheadline 3. City, Date -- The main text of the press release 4. Quote 5. About Section 6. Contact Information Don’t forget to include your quote! This can be one quote if it is just one author or even two quotes if there are two

83

authors. In partnership announcements, it’s customary to include quotes from both partners. Mark the quote clearly with quotation marks, and format it in italics. Make sure the quote is not too long, and try to make it as catchy as possible. The quote gives you a little room to play and highlight the possible consequences of your research or what it could mean for the world. At the bottom of the press release, add your contact information. Here is a great example of a press release: www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2016/november/researchers-use-novel-analysis-technique-to-helpsolve-beagle-2-mystery

And the resulting media coverage: bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37940445 theguardian.com/science/2016/nov/11/beagle-2-marsprobe-was-excruciatingly-close-to-success-new-researchreveals

3. disTriBuTe and PuBlish The Press release Press releases are usually published in the institutions “press centre” (for example, academic.oup.com/journals/ pages/announcements_from_oup), but there are several

services that can take your press release and distribute it. If you just want to have your press release online and available as a link to send to journalists, these services will do: pr.com prweb.com  

84

It’s not usually worth paying for the advanced packages on these press release sites. 4. creaTe a media KiT To understand what a media kit is and what you need it for, consider what a news article consists of from a journalists perspective: Headline, sub-headline, body text, a quote or two, and images. For a busy journalist that wants to file a story based on your research quickly, we need to provide as much of that as possible. This is why we include a pre-written quote they can use, and that’s also why we supply the images they might need and make it as easy as possible for them to use them. In practice this means you need to take any diagrams, maps, charts, and other visual materials in your paper and export them as separate files. Try to include multiple formats. This is customary: • PNG with transparent background • PNG with white background • JPG with white background • EPS (this is a vector file format used in print) • SVG (this is a vector file format commonly used on the web) • PDF (just in case) For the PnGs and JPGs, try to include multiple sizes — 500px width, 800px width, 1200px width.

85

Creating these is very annoying, and you might not be able to export all of them, but the easier you make it for the journalist the better your graphics will look in the end. You may have a bunch of these formats available anyway from the journal submission. Name these files sensibly (“Name-Paper-Chart-ChartTitle-PNG-transparentBG.png”) and put them all into a folder. Add a photo of yourself (as professional as you have) and a PdF of your press release, as well as a PdF copy of your paper of course. Make sure the PdF of the paper is a real PdF with copyable text, and not a scanned copy. 5. wriTe a caTchy email Journalists get hundreds of emails a day with press releases. Your subject line’s job is to stand out from the crowd enough to get clicked on. Don’t do anything weird like writing in all caPs or adding emojis. Try to include the most important thing about your research — that which makes it newsworthy — in the subject line. The journalist is looking for the golden needle in the haystack of their inbox - that could be you! However, this can only happen if your email is shiny enough to catch their attention. Your subject line can probably be very similar to the headline for the press release, maybe slightly simplified or with your institutional affiliation added. Think of the subject line as a Tweet. You have about a second to make a good impression. Would you open this email? After the subject line, you need to write a catchy email that takes the momentum you have built and expands on it to drive the deal home.

86

Make the email easily scannable. Be really direct. Don’t waste their time! Could be something like this: Hi X, I am a researcher at _____ University.   We / I just published a new paper about ______ and I wanted to give you a first look.   Here are the main points:    1. __________  2. __________  3. __________   I am attaching a copy of the paper, the press release, and an extended abstract as PDFs. If you’re interested in learning more about this, let me know — happy to send over any additional materials or get on the phone.   All my best,     Your Name, your title Your Institution Email: Phone: Twitter: LinkedIn:

87

6. send iT To JournalisTs Now that you have all the materials and the email ready to go, let’s send it to some people! The more work you put into finding the right journalists, the higher the chances are that they will be interested. But keep in mind that the chances of your work getting press are probably very low. A 1% answer rate on your emails is optimistic. What does this mean? Time to go find 200+ email addresses. Google your way around and find every single person writing about things that are close to your subject. Whether they cover research in your area, research from your university, the subject of your research in a non-scientific manner — anything vaguely related counts. If they are writing about the things that you are into, chances are they will be into the things you write about. Write down everyone’s names in a spreadsheet. Google all of them and find their contact information. This can be annoying. See the appendix to this chapter for a couple tools that make it easier. 7. Be aVailaBle If a journalist that you sent the email to is interested in doing a story about your research, the might not even get in touch with you — after all, the point of this exercise is to give them everything they need to write the story. They might email you back though or call you using the contact information in the email. If that happens, be available. Answer their email if they have additional questions, and pick up the phone if they call.

88

mass emailing made easy

Remember those 200+ emails I told you to send? The best way to send them is to do it manually, adding each journalist’s name to the email and adding a sentence about why they might be interested. That’s a lot of work to do, and you are a busy person. An alternate approach would be to use a mass emailing software to make the job a bit easier. A tool I have used in the past yamm (Yet-Another-Mail-Merge), a Google Sheets based tool built for Gmail that makes the process very easy. You add columns for first name, email address, and any other data you want to include in the email. Then you configure a draft email with placeholders for the fields from the spreadsheet, and the software combines the two to send out personalised emails. It’s a tiny bit unethical, but if you’re only using it to send emails you would otherwise have sent manually, the only difference is in how much annoying manual work you have to do, right?

Timing is … someThing

The best time to send out these emails is Tuesday or Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are too close to the weekend, and Monday is for reading all the emails that people sent over the weekend. Shoot for Tuesday mid-morning, when your target is on their second cup of coffee and

89

caught up on all the emails that landed in their inbox over night.

To folloW uP or noT To folloW uP

You’ve sent out your emails, and nothing happened. What now? Time to follow up! The most important part of following up is that you try not to be annoying. Send one (1) follow up email per journalist at most: Hey _______, Resurfacing this just in case it got lost in your inbox. I really think this would make an interesting story, especially considering ____________ . Let me know if you need any other info from me. All the best,

my #1 dirTy TriCk

Okay, this is where we move our toe even closer to the line. One way of getting more attention for our email is by starting the subject line with a lowercase letter. Like this: “new study on _________ that might make a good story”. Why does this work so well? For one, it stands out. But it also makes the email seem more genuine, like a real person typed it out and sent it manually.

90

(Do not use this exact subject line of course, because it will not stand out if everyone who reads this book uses it.)

aPPendix - Tools

YAMM - For automating some of the emailing processes Rocket Reach - for finding journalists contact information Hunter.io - for finding journalists contact information

91

CH A PTER 10

Conclusion

92

“The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.” ― Ta-Nehisi Coates

I hope this book has been helpful. It is not perfect — in fact, I plan on sending out updates to the book as I make changes and improve it — but I think it can be a useful document for anyone in academia. If I had to distill the message of the book into a couple of bullet points, it would be this: 1. Learn to sell your ideas 2. Reading papers is a skill you can train 3. Write as much as you can 4. You can make a home in academia if you want to 5. Don’t feel bad about downloading PdFs Academia can be hard. It can feel like banging your head against the wall, again and again, for years. It can feel like a long, slow-motion crawl to an unknown destination, with failed experiments littering the way. But when it’s good, it‘s really good. When your experiment is successful, when your hypothesis turns out to be true, when you understand something no-one has ever understood before — that is what makes the journey worth it. The times you get stuff right? Those are the good times.   Now get back to work.

93

 

94

aCknoWledgemenTs

This book would not have been possible without the support of the early backers who pre-ordered the book without reading it. The trust you placed in me, a first-time author, means a lot.   My friends L, J, D, and N helped me with encouragement, feedback, and typesetting. This book would have been much worse (and uglier) without you. Thank you.

95

bibliograPhy

Chapter 1 Storr, R. (1998). Chuck Close. The Museum of Modern Art.   Chapter 2 Sivers, D. (2008). 6 Things I Wish I Knew The Day I Started Berklee. https://sive.rs/berklee Newport, C. (2016). Deep Work. Hachette uK.   Chapter 3 Swartz, A. (2016). The Boy Who Could Change the World. The New Press.   Chapter 4 Hurston, Z. N. (1942). Dust Tracks on a Road. Hutchinson.   Chapter 5 Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor.   Chapter 6 Maierson, E. (2013). This Is What Editing Feels Like. MediaStorm. m e d i a s t o r m.c o m / b l o g /2 0 1 3 /0 6/0 3 / this-is-what-editing-feels-like

    Chapter 7 Goodreads. A Quote By Kwame Anthony Appiah. Retrieved November 12, 2020, from goodreads.com/quotes/1274078in-life-the-challenge-is-not-so-much-to-figure

96

  Chapter 8 McKenzie, P. (2011). Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, and Other Career Advice. kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/ dont-call-yourself-a-programmer

  Chapter 9 Tufekci, Z. (2017). Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. Yale University Press.   Chapter 10 Coates, T.-N. (2015). Between the World and Me. One World.

97

98