Infographics

Whew! It has been a while since I last posted anything to this blog. But here I am with a new resource to share! It's a website that helps you create really nifty looking "infographics". An example is the following:

https://infogram.com/examples

I like this resource because not only can you easily make infographics for print, but you can also easily create infographics for digital use that have interactive capabilities. The best part? It's free! Check it out today: www.infograph.com

Writing in Plain English - www.plainenglish.co.uk

http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/

Let's be honest. As you spend more time in the academic world, whether as a student or as an instructor, you slowly lose touch with how people outside of the academic world communicate via written or spoken word. I heard this told to me so many times as a graduate student, and swore I'd never become one of those types that can't convey an idea in a simple sentence to my non-academic friends and colleagues. Yet I suddenly find myself struggling with how to revise a simple research information sheet down from a 12.5 grade reading level! I happened upon a website about this very issue, and bookmarked it for when the time came that I would need it, and that time is upon me now. So of course this is the perfect opportunity to share with you, my reader(s)!

This website is called Plain English Campaign, and is hosted out of the UK. It's one of many resources of the like, but it's the one that I am using today. Their free guide, called "How to write in plain English" offers some easy to implement tips. The guide also has some easy to digest information on how to write in active vs. passive voice, and other general writing tips, so it seems like it could also be useful for an educator to share with students.

Well, that's enough of a preview, since I need to get working on the project that I'm using this website for! (See the "How to" guide for reasons why it's okay to end a sentence in a proposition) :)

FreeConferenceCall.com - It's free, no catches or gimmicks

www.FreeConferenceCall.com

As a doc student who is doing her dissertation research from a distance, I often need to have meetings with folks, but don't think it's worthwhile to drive 3.5 hours each way for one meeting. Some of the people I need to talk with may not have access to a video chat service like Google Hangouts, so I needed a conference call line. But of course being a broke graduate student, I needed one for free. Enter: FreeConferenceCall.com!

It's really free!

This is a pretty neat service that is offered for free to anyone, anywhere, anytime. When you register (it's really easy, just enter your e-mail and agree to the Terms of Service), you are assigned a unique meeting code and the phone number to dial in so that you actually could start a conference call in about 5 seconds from registration to dial-tone! I read through the Terms of Service, and it says that you retain the rights to the content in your call. That was one thing I thought might be important as a researcher who is gathering potentially sensitive data.

There are other features, too. You can record the call, you can set up a Q&A line (if you were hosting a larger call and had people on mute while listening to a single speaker), you can do lots of things!

Lots of cool things you can do as a host.

So, with this being said, I'm going to go and host my first conference call!

iProcrastinate Podcasts - Because you know you do!

One thing I've enjoyed during my long trips between home and Richmond is podcasts. I usually listen to "Wait Wait - Don't Tell Me" or "Car Talk," but since December I've really been struggling with procrastination. So a Google search on the topic brought me to iProcrastinate Podcasts, which are produced by a psychology professor in Canada named Dr. Timothy Pychyl of Carleton University. His website is www.procrastinate.ca.

Dr. Pychyl's podcasts often have easy to implement strategies for overcoming procrastination.

As a graduate student, I really appreciated how much Dr. Pychyl integrated his own research into his podcast discussions. I think he captures the essence of procrastination really well in his explanation of it as a way to emotionally regulate when we are faced with an averse task. Whether true or imagined, we come up with ways of thinking about tasks that put us into an emotional state that makes us want to feel better - and fast. So instead of sticking with the task, we "give in to feel good" and do something else that will make us feel better in the short term. That's just the beginning of how he explains procrastination, so check out his website for more!

He wrote this fantastic little book called "Solving the Procrastination Puzzle" (renamed from it's former title, The Procrastinator's Digest) in which he provides a short but concise summary of how to understand procrastination, and how to learn strategies to deal with it.

Dr. Pychyl's book on understanding and overcoming procrastination.

If you think, "well, if I get off task by listening to or reading this stuff about procrastination, isn't that just reinforcing my problem?" I, too, had that same thought. But I promise, a little time invested here will pay off in the long run. I read the book in early 2014, and reinforce the ideas with a podcast every time I'm in the car traveling for more than an hour. I can't quantify for you how much this information has translated into hours of productivity, but it's done a lot for my emotional health, and self confidence - when I'm starting to get down on myself for being my own worst enemy, I just turn to these strategies and before I know it I'm confidently moving on from my procrastination temptations.

Graduate students aren't the only ones dealing with procrastination... and Dr. Pychyl's ideas are translatable beyond the student life. Professors, business people, even if you're just looking to stop procrastinating from your health & exercise goals, I think this could be of help for you.

New Connections: Everything you wanted to know about publishing your article but were afraid to ask

http://www.rwjf-newconnections.org/publishingwebinar2014

This incredibly practical and insightful free webinar was offered by New Connections on March 13, 2014, and they graciously posted a link to view the webinar after the fact, along with links to their handouts and slides.

This free webinar offered many practical and insightful tips,
applicable to the new or seasoned scholar!

I found this webinar to be very useful for a number of reasons.

• First, they DID answer some of my questions about publishing that I was afraid to ask! 
• Second, they gave insights on the small details that you may otherwise not hear about, such as what to include in a submission letter when you are submitting your  manuscript to a journal. 
• Third, they discussed great strategies about how to decide on and manage your own publication plan, such as the benefits to choosing a smaller journal to submit to first versus a larger journal with a larger impact factor.
• Fourth, they gave some great handouts with practical applications that extend beyond just publications, to even the beginning of your research project.

So be sure to take some time to listen to this webinar. I did while doing dishing and cleaning up, and I'll be sure to archive it for later reference as well! 

As a surprising side note, my browser's spell-check doesn't have webinar in it, and the red squiggly line keeps throwing me off my game. Really, Google Chrome?!?

The Professor Is In: How to write your academic CV

http://theprofessorisin.com/2012/01/12/dr-karens-rules-of-the-academic-cv/

As many of you may already know, writing and formatting your Curriculum Vita is very different than your professional resume. I know I've gotten caught up in figuring out exactly what I should/shouldn't include, but I found a resource that spells it all out clearly and concisely! Of course this resource isn't the final word on the matter, but certainly gives a great place to orient yourself when writing your CV. It gives standard conventions and expectations to help you create a highly professional looking academic CV, from what headings to include, to how much detail to add under individual items, and also a useful list of what NOT to include.

Dr. Karen has a great website, full of useful information!

While you're visiting the link, check out the many other useful blog posts and resources on Dr. Karen's (the author) site! Find it at: http://theprofessorisin.com.

Split up your PDF files into separate pages - for free!

I just found something that's pretty life changing (that is, if you consider a simple tech life-hack life changing). So of course I'm going to share it with you, my good readers!

Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a separate PDF file of a larger file, but with only a few of the original pages? I found myself in that situation today with a scholarship form. In order to electronically send the reference letter forms to my references, I wanted to separate out the form from the rest of the application. I researched how to go about doing this by starting with a Google search, and found a brilliant solution: use Google Chrome! Here are the steps:

1. Download the Google Chrome web browser if you haven't already. It's free.
2. Open a new tab in Google Chrome. 
3. From a Windows Explorer window (or your desktop), drag & drop your original PDF file into the Google Chrome window. (You have to do this twice for some reason. The first time you drag & drop it, nothing will happen. Do it again, and it'll open up the PDF file in Chrome.)



Do this twice. The first time you do it, nothing will happen. That doesn't mean it didn't work. Just do it again.

1. If for some reason this doesn't work on the second try, check your settings to be sure Chrome's PDF viewer is enabled. To do this, type “chrome://plugins” in the address bar without the quotes. Ensure that it's enabled, clicking “enable” if not.
4. Now, you have the PDF file open in your Google Chrome browser. 
5. Next, you'll go to Print the file. But don't actually print it. Just open the Print dialogue box.
6. Now, in the Print dialogue box, click on the "Change" button to change your printer type. Select "Save as PDF". 
7. Then, in the "Pages" section of the Print dialogue, only select the pages you wish to include in your new file.

8. Finally, click "Print" and a box will pop up asking you to save your new PDF file. Type the new name, save it, and you're finished!

Thanks to WikiHow for the tip!

Doodle.com - so you can finally get a meeting scheduled!

So you have this really busy group of people who you imagine can't all coordinate their schedules for that one meeting, or even a series of meetings, that you MUST get scheduled. Like a dissertation committee. Enter: www.doodle.com! It's the easiest meeting scheduler I've seen, and it works across platforms and in any web browser (for that one person who doesn't know how to sync her calendar and e-mail). You can use it for free, and if you want to pay to upgrade you can sync it with your Google account. It's super easy to set up a meeting request. Plus if you have multiple possible days but want to use the same time slots in each day, there is a simple copy and paste feature. Another feature I love is the option to let people choose not just yes/no to each proposed time slot, but also "IfNeedBe" for those slots that people could be flexible around if it was absolutely necessary.

Whether you're a busy doc student like me, or just someone who is tired of the seeming endless e-mail chain required to get a group of people together, try out Doodle.com!

toggl.com - Time tracking without taking up time to track it

www.toggl.com

Have you ever looked back on your day, having so many items on your to-do list still not completed, and wondered where all your time went? Or do you feel that you might be giving more time to a project than it needs? Or do you have a job where you want to easily complete your timesheet and export it to your boss or client? Then Toggl might just be the tool you need!

Toggl helps you keep track of your time with a simple click of a button. You can access your account across platforms (e.g., on your computer desktop, on your mobile phone, on your tablet, on any browser with an internet connection). It's available for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Windows.

You can export your tracked time in a spreadsheet format, or you can have it e-mailed. You can even e-mail it to yourself once a week!

How much does this cost? Nothing! You can even make your account via your Google account. There is an option to get more features for $5/month. You can even track your time as "billable" or "non-billable".

Finally, be sure to watch these two videos, which are about 1 minute long each, to get the hang of how to use it.
http://youtu.be/xc_Z19pWllQ
http://youtu.be/8hdCOnW6oH0

Then, download it on your devices, and get ready to open the black box containing the information about where all your time went! For instance, I just spent about 5 minutes researching and downloading Toggl, then about 10 minutes writing this blog post. Easy as pie!

Coffitivity - Just the right sounds to spark your creativity

http://www.coffitivity.com

This is an innovative - and scientifically supported - app/website that gives you just enough ambient sound to spark your creativity! It is a steady stream of just the right volume and type of sound to replicate a coffee shop atmosphere. The science behind it suggests that creative, abstract processing occurs most often in a moderate sound atmosphere (around 70 decibels) versus low (50 db) or high (85 db).

You can download the app for Mac, iPad, or iPhone, or just stream it right from their website. The iPhone/iPad app is $1.99, but the stream from their website is free.

Here's the link to the journal article that supports their product: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/665048

So if you can't make it to your favorite coffee shop, or you just want the right amount of sound to ease you into some productive working time, check it out!

Gradhacker.org - Writing your academic biographical sketch

http://www.gradhacker.org/2011/09/23/narrating-your-professional-life-writing-the-academic-bio/

Hello dear reader(s)! I have written a few biographical sketches for myself, but I decided to find out what Google had to offer for advice on how to write one. I found this lovely article at www.gradhacker.org. It offers advice on:

• The three most important points to consider when writing your bio.
• What to include for a short, medium, and long bio.
• Organizing your bio.

It's a great read for its helpful advice, and might give you some clarity on what should go into your biographical sketch.

Happy sketching!

Teachingwithdata.org - "Pathway to Quantitative Literacy in Social Sciences"

http://teachingwithdata.org/

I found this website via the Resources for Instructors section of the ICPSR website. It has many useful resources and features that a research instructor would find very practical in lesson planning! Some of the features include:

• Data In The News: useful for talking about ethical use of data, whether its represented correctly, etc.
• Charts & Tables: visual aids to enhance learning (e.g., use of census data).
• Lectures and Lessons: on a variety of topics.
• Activities & Assignments: for use in class or out of class.
• And lots more!

Even if you are not teaching a research methods course, this is a great way to integrate research into other class content, in order to help students better understand the link between research and practice.

Screen shot of their homepage.

So don't delay, check it out today!

Have your iPad read out loud to you

http://lifehacker.com/kindle-for-ios-can-make-siri-read-your-books-aloud-sor-486241369

Have you ever been traveling by car, and wished that you could get your iPad (or iPhone) to read books aloud to you? I was in that situation the other day, and came across this useful article on a "life hack" to do just that. But it's not the article that provided the key information, it was a comment below the article!

Here's the steps (in case you can't/don't want to click on the link):

It's this simple.

1. Go to "Settings", and in the "General" tab, scroll down to "Accessibility" and select it.
2. Scroll to the bottom of that page and find the section that says "Triple-click". Press it, and select "VoiceOver" from the list of options.
3. Now, all you have to do in order to have a page read aloud to you is to triple-click on your home button, and VoiceOver is turned on.
4. In order to have an entire page read aloud, you must simply swipe down with two fingers.
5. Ta-da! You can now hear your ebook read aloud! You can tweak the rate of speech, among other options, in that same settings menu that you were at when you did the Triple-click thing.

Next, go to Kindle or iBooks, open one of your ebooks, triple-click the home button, swipe down with two fingers, and you are good to go! To turn off VoiceOver, simply triple-click the home button again.

I am going to be listening to a textbook as I drive 3.5 hours each way to teach! Shameless plug, here's the blog for the class: http://LGBTQsocialwork.blogspot.com.

Cheers!

Evernote - organizing with Table of Contents

http://evernote.com/video/#D7oSS4i57MY|1|1

I know I already posted about the Evernote app, but here's some additional information for those of you who use the desktop version (PC or Mac). You can create a "table of contents" for a notebook, which will link directly to each note that you wish to include!

An example of what a table of contents in Evernote could look like.

This seems like a great idea for those of us who keep a compilation of ideas or documents for future use. I'm definitely going to start using it to keep track of notes, so I can organize them into ideas without having to create new notebooks just for one "subtheme" (e.g., LGBT Research is the notebook, but LGBT Youth could be the sub-theme, and I could list all the notes related to LGBT Youth in the Table of Contents).

A quick reference on how to create a table of contents.

You can watch the video (see link at top, or click here) for more details on how it works.

And if you haven't downloaded the desktop version of Evernote, do it now! Click here to download it from Evernote.

CloudOn - The best app for Microsoft Office on iPad

http://site.cloudon.com/

It seems that my technology time has been mostly spent fiddling with my new iPad mini. Of course, with that comes the need to open, edit, and save Microsoft Office documents. So, here's another app - and it is a cross-platform app, meaning that you can use it whether you have Android or iOS. As a newbie iPad user, I figured that the Apple developers would surely be able to make a decent Microsoft Office app with decent compatibility with the Windows Microsoft Office. So I opened and edited a document using the "Pages" app. Much to my chagrin, the compatibility was horrible, and it ruined the formatting on a table I was editing. This caused me to have to re-write the entire document, because of course it saved over my original, unscathed document.

Unsatisfied with all of the "top 10 apps for Microsoft Office on iPad" lists, I decided to go for the more direct approach. Through a lucky search, I found an app called CloudOn. It is WONDERFUL and I will tell you why. First, I was able to open, edit, and save that same document mentioned previously, but this time with NO compatibility issues. And it was effortless to save back to my DropBox account, unlike the Pages app which required a few un-intuitive, manual steps.

One of the best things about the CloudOn app is that it looks and feels just like Microsoft Word. Here's a screen shot to prove it:

As you can see, it has the familiar "ribbon" navigation at the top. Plus, it improves your keyboard selections to include alternate keys such as CTR, ALT, and all the F-keys!

Also, CloudOn automatically saves your file as you modify it, and you can see an ongoing list of when you made revisions. Plus, you can "track changes" and make in-document annotations, just like you would in Microsoft Office on Windows.

On the left, you see the ongoing list of revisions and annotations. On the right, you see where you can annotate and track changes using the "Review" ribbon.

Also, you can easily access any file in your cloud storage, including popular ones like DropBox and Google Drive.

A screen shot of what it would look like if you were browsing your DropBox through the CloudOn app. No need to hit "save", as CloudOn automatically saves and syncs back to your cloud!

Last, but certainly not least, a great thing about this app is that it is FREE! It does have additional features available if you buy the Pro version. I've only used the app once, so I can't say whether the Pro upgrade is necessary, but I had no problems opening and editing my document in the free version.

This post is just about the Microsoft Office option in the app because that's all that I've used so far. But it was so good that it inspired me to hop on here and write you a blog post about it! It also works with Microsoft Excel and Powerpoint, plus other document types like PDF's. If the rest of the document types are anything like Word, then I guarantee that you will not need any other app for your Microsoft Office document management needs!!

Papership - An iPad app for Mendeley

http://www.papershipapp.com/

Okay, so just as soon as I said I wouldn't provide support to iPhone users, I bought an iPad mini. So, never say never, I guess :) .

Anyway, many of you have told me that your favorite resource that you learned about from my blog is Mendeley. Well, Mendeley does have their own iPad app, but it crashes and is relatively useless. But thankfully, another developer picked up on the need for such an app, and here it is! Papership is a free app that allows you to download and sync all of your Mendeley library back and forth from your iPad to your computer (and other devices).

Papership logo

This free app allows you to open, re-organize, and highlight files for your references. And it keeps your files in the folders that you have them in your library, or you can re-organize them to your liking.

Read your PDF's using the in-app viewer!

You can pay for additional annotation tools such as notes and drawings (they offer the tools separately for different price points, or as a package for $9.99). And the best part is, the annotations are compliant with the PDF standard, so you should be able to view them in other places as well! I haven't downloaded these yet, so I can't give you a report on whether or not they were compliant for my documents.

Additional annotation tools are available for purchase through the in-app store.

I should note that this app is also available for the iPhone. Click here to go to the App Store and download it today!

Scholarly Communications @ Duke - Your guide to copyright and publication issues

http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/

This is a great resource for the grad student, new academic, or seasoned scholar alike. There are many times when we come across puzzling situations regarding copyright law and permissions to post information, especially in the new digital age. This resource at Duke offers a good place to start seeking guidance when a copyright question comes up. They offer a "Scholarly Communications Toolkit" which has a flow-chart for decision-making when it comes to teaching materials. They also have templates for letters of permission for things such as: releasing a student's work, letter requesting copyright permission, and guest speaker release form.

Screenshot of the home page.

For those seasoned faculty members, you may think that you don't need such a resource. However, this website has a page dedicated solely to faculty authors.

The page is technically a blog, so you can subscribe to future posts.

Happy publishing!

Evernote - There's an app to keep your brain together

Evernote.com - "Remember everything!"

Let me tell you a story of a first-year doctoral student who, when researching for papers and presentations, would go to the library for 1 book and come back with 12. You know how it is, when a title grabs your attention, and you're craving new knowledge, you want as many sources as possible! So, this book collecting started to get overwhelming. Plus, that student didn't have enough time to read all the books that she grabbed. She wanted to keep track of the books that caught her attention so that she could go back to them later. But, her arms were full whenever she went to the library, or perhaps all she had with her was her smartphone, so it was hard to create a reliable list of these books of interest. Enter: the app called Evernote! She began using Evernote to keep track of the books that caught her eye but wasn't yet ready to pick up. She could take a picture of the book and the table of contents so she could remember what interested her, then save the picture in a note in her Evernote notebook called "Books to Read". She could even tag the note with its relevant topic. The organization of this new method was wonderful! It was life-changing, because a new doctoral student has a lot of things to keep track of, and new sources of information is important but sometimes unwieldy. This method of organization was great because no matter if she had her hands full or if she just had her phone with her, she could still keep track of what was important.

A photo I captured of a book I found interesting but was not yet ready to check-out from the library.

My on-going list of sources to look into in the future.

Once I started using Evernote for this type of organization, I started seeing other uses for it. I could take notes in class and attach relevant documents as I typed. I could easily access those notes later no matter if I had my own computer with me, or if I was just using my phone, or at a hotel conference using a public computer.

Ta-da!

The best way to keep track of all your random notes to yourself, notes from meetings/classes, to-do lists, and more, is to use Evernote. It is a web-based platform that allows you to create notes, organize them into notebooks and stacks of notebooks, and share them with other people. Not only can you save notes that you write, but you can also attach documents, images, and links, too.

Evernote also has a desktop program that runs just like its web-based platform does, except you can use it when you are offline, and it will sync back to your online account when you're back on the internet.

Desktop version.

Evernote also has an app for smartphones (Android and iPhone) and tablets (Android and iPad). You can do everything in that app that you can in the web-based platform and the desktop software.

Screen-shots from the mobile version.

All-in-all, whether you are a student or a professor or a clinician, this app can be a life-saver for your organizational woes. It is free to use, but you can also pay for the premium version which gives you full access to all your notes when you are offline.

Evernote has tons of other cool add-ons, such as a foodie app:

Screen-shots from the mobile version of Evernote Food.

It also has a web-browser add-on that I use a lot, called Web clipper. It "clips" information from websites and stores that information in an easy to read format in your notebook. I use it whenever I want to remember a website, but not just the URL - I also want to remember why I wanted to remember that website, so I include content as well. It's also helpful to clip user guides or tutorials so you can have them on-hand later without having to navigate back to the same page over and over again.

Screen-shot of the webclipper add-on.

So, the final word on this Evernote thing is that its free, its easy to use, and it has so many useful applications that you can't go wrong to at least try it out.

StudyDroid - Flashcards on your Android phone

www.StudyDroid.com

Its about time I published a post about a smartphone app. I just so happen to be studying for comprehensive exams for my program. I have never been one to use flash cards, but I'm going to try it out for this exam. Anyway, I didn't want to bother with keeping up with a set of index cards, so I decided to try out an app for my Android phone. I looked at a few apps, namely StudyDroid, FREE Flashcards Helper, and AnkiDroid Flashcards.

I first tried AnkiDroid, but it would freeze on my phone. I liked its features, especially the way that it is responsive to what cards you need to study more or less. You can rate each card as you answer them, and decide whether you know that card, need to see it more, or less. It also has a desktop interface, so entering new cards seems relatively painless. The problem with the app, as I said above, is that it kept freezing on my phone (Android version 2.3.7), so I moved on.

I tried this app but it kept freezing on my phone.

I looked at the FREE Flashcards Helper, but it didn't have the same cool features, and the design seemed a bit too simple for what I wanted.

Then I tried StudyDroid. It works great on my phone, has a simple to use interface, but still has the kinds of features I was looking for.

StudyDroid - Screen shots

It has a browser based account, so you can create cards from your computer and sync them with your phone. Also, you can upload a CSV file (aka, an Excel file) to create your flashcards. This app also has the feature to mark whether or not you know a card. It doesn't have as many options as AnkiDroid, but still gives you the option to mark "known" so it puts that card at the back of the pile. You can also shuffle your cards, or turn them all over. I downloaded the free version, but might buy the paid version because it offers a quiz feature.

This is the app I decided to keep.

So, if you are studying for comprehensive exams, or just need an easy to use flashcards app, I suggest this one! If you are an iPhone user, sorry I can't offer any advice!

www.phd2published.com - Academic publishing advice for first timers

http://www.phd2published.com/ - Academic publishing advice for first timers.

This website offers a friendly and nonthreatening way to gain insight into the world of academic publishing. It is unique in that it offers useful advice in areas that are otherwise left with vague instructions. For instance, how to write a peer review:

They also offer "top tips" on pitching and publishing, and the title of all these posts start with "how to be a hackademic." Their advice ranges from "be adaptable" to "don't eat junk food", "write in moderation", "drink more alcohol", and "hack your time".

Of course this advice is to be taken with a grain of salt, since it's hard to judge the quality of the advice with it being self-published blogging. But it does offer insight into the background of the editors, so you can judge for yourself whether or not it's trustworthy!