When I was a graduate student, I completely misunderstood the reason publishers come to conferences. I thought the primary purpose of the Book Fair was to sell books. Then I discovered that people that staff those booths are not (usually) people from sales and marketing. They are editors. And they don’t just stand there at […]
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Hook and Eye: Guest Post: Recycling is not a bad thing
Are you worried that you are “recycling” your work? Are you trying to make sure each paper and presentation is completely new and unique? You are not alone. But you are probably more at risk of not publishing enough and not reaching the people you want to reach, than you are of repeating yourself. I […]
Read More »In lieu of my own post on writing
Inger Mewburn at The Thesis Whisperer wrote a brilliant post recently on getting writing finished. The ‘Out The Door’ rant « The Thesis Whisperer In his superb book “Writing for social scientists” (which should be renamed “Writing for everyone”), Howard Becker talks about the importance of being the kind of writer who can get stuff […]
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Your conference paper & how you present it
The academic conference paper serves a couple of purposes. draft of an eventual journal article getting feedback meeting people with similar interests You probably have 15-20 minutes to present. And one of the most common complaints about conference presentations is that they go over time. To manage or avoid this… How do you prepare? Preparing […]
Read More »How I help mid-career academics
You’d think that once you get that academic job and get through whatever process you have to go through to keep it (tenure, probation, or whatever it’s called where you live), it would be plain sailing. You have been judged by your peers to know what you are doing and be doing it well. Unfortunately, […]
Read More »Struggling to make progress towards a goal?
Just a quick post to alert you to a must read blog post by Marissa Bracke: The Real Reason You’re Not Taking Action On Your Goals As I read it, I thought of struggling to write (the dissertation, a book, a journal article, a grant proposal), struggling with the job search, … well, pretty well […]
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Getting useful feedback on your conference paper
There is plenty of evidence that conference presentations don’t necessarily get you any useful feedback.
But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t.
You have to build an audience
Do you tell people you know are going to be at the conference when you are presenting? Do you ask them to come? Do you tell them you would like feedback?
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I wish it were different, too
In an ideal world, my job would be redundant. It is not an ideal world.
It’s okay to ask for help
There is nothing wrong with you. It’s normal to struggle sometimes.
The demands are what they are. The support is what it is. And neither is likely to be ideal.
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The goal of your conference paper
Scholarly work is inherently collaborative. Not in the sense that it should all be co-authored, but in the sense that you develop your ideas in conversation with others.
These may be formal conversations. They may take place mostly in writing, even formal types of writing. But you do your best work in conversation.
The reason you give conference papers is to meet people and build relationships.
Read More »Fear is in the eye of the beholder (PhD2Published)
I have a post on publishing and fear up at PhD2Published. It starts like this: The biggest barrier to publishing is fear. Fear of rejection. Fear of criticism. Fear that you really don’t have anything to contribute. And then I talk about how to move forward anyway under the following headings Look for the contribution to […]
Read More »On the road to an academic career
If an academic career is on your list of possible post-PhD paths, there are a few things you should know. The de facto requirements for an academic position have increased. It is unreasonable to expect that you will have all of these additional requirements at the same time as you are awarded the PhD. For most people, there is going to be a period of some other employment between finishing the PhD and getting that secure position. In this post, I lay out some options.
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Publishing from your dissertation
It is a fact of life that if you want an academic job you need to publish. For most early career academics, or PhD students contemplating academic careers, this means thinking about your dissertation. This post looks at the options: book or articles; and what kind of articles.
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