Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Confidence in the face of criticism I received a request via Twitter DM. Have u any tips on academic speaking eg @ q & a time @ conferences. How can I gain confidence and speak with conviction in the face of criticism? As it happens I do have thoughts […]
Read More »Developing a Practice
Your academic life is more than a string of articles published, classes taught, and meetings attended. You write because this is how you articulate and develop your ideas. You publish to communicate those ideas to others. Posts in this category help you develop the practices you need to do the work you love well without burning out or compromising your values.
You Need a Writing Practice is a good place to start to investigate the Writing subcategory.
Juggling 101: Elements of a good plan is a good place to start investigating the Planning subcategory.
Just because it doesn’t feel productive…
A couple of my clients are working on writing projects right now. And some weeks, their updates are less than enthusiastic. They are discouraged by their progress.
Here’s a different angle on reading that doesn’t feel like real research.
You might spend a lot of time reading with a particular project in mind only to discover that nothing you read is going to end up in what you are writing.
Although that feels like you wasted several hours reading stuff you didn’t need to read, it was actually time well spent.
Read More »
What is “research”?
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · What is research? In early 2012, Rohan Maitzen published a few very thoughtful posts about: what counts as research the apparent conflict between research and teaching and related issues. One of these, “When is Reading Research?“, really highlights some of the underlying issues. “When we talk about “doing research,” I […]
Read More »Volunteer before you’re drafted
If your level of frustration with your working hours is more about what you are doing in them than how many of them you are working, how do you increase the proportion of your time spent doing things that are meaningful? Try this suggestion from the #femlead Twitter chat. (Which sadly doesn’t happen any more.) […]
Read More »
Is “number of hours” the right measure?
Recently a client asked me to help her figure out how to work less. She is frustrated by long hours, working weekends, and so on. She figures at this stage of her career, she should be able to have a better balance. As we worked together, it became clear to me that the number of […]
Read More »
Dealing with email is NOT a task
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Email is not a task Are you treating dealing with your email as one task on your to-do list? Do you get frustrated at how many hours a day you spend on it? Is your measure of success dealing with all of it? Do you then chastise yourself […]
Read More »An interesting tactic for managing ideas
We all know that research produces more questions than answers. You can quickly get overwhelmed with those questions and lose the focus necessary to finish work on one of those questions. The best advice I got as a newish PhD student (some time ago), was to make a file for all the things I would […]
Read More »What’s Your Research Work Flow?
So many academics complain about not having enough time for research. This can be incredibly frustrating, especially if you have research that you really want to be doing. Often, we focus on how to manage non-research tasks to make more time for research. But maybe thinking about how you use your research time might be helpful, […]
Read More »Write Early, Write Often
An excellent post about writing, especially for those with heavy teaching and family commitments. She offers 4 rules: Write Early, Write Often | jliedl.ca.
Read More »
Prove Them Right
Jo VanEvery, Academic Career Guide · Prove them right This post by Charlie Gilkey applies to a lot of academics: Prove Them Right. What about all the people who said you could do it? The people who always saw more in you than you ever saw in yourself. The ones who caught you when you […]
Read More »From Conference Presentation to Journal Article
A conference presentation is an important stage in the development of your research. It allows you to get feedback, helps you refine your arguments, and begins to build an audience for your work. Now comes the hard part: actually sitting down to turn that excellent first draft into something good enough to submit to a journal. […]
Read More »Are you valuing your time?
It is really easy to overvalue tasks that other people ask you to do or see you doing. And to undervalue the tasks you do alone. Writing happens alone. Sometimes it doesn’t even look like work, especially when you have to do a lot of thinking. It takes a long time to get a product […]
Read More »
