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) :)

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.

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!

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!

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! 

ICPSR - summer learning programs

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/index.jsp

I attended a webinar hosted by the folks at ICPSR (the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research) on their educational opportunities. The part I found most interesting, and applicable to my readers, was their summer learning series. They have seminars on almost every topic of quantitative data analysis you can imagine. So if you are a doc student who needs to learn (for example) about group-based modeling (or, "latent class growth analysis") you can attend a workshop by Daniel Nagin on that very topic! The workshops are pricey if you are a poor graduate student, but if you can find a way to pay for it, then you should definitely consider attending one of these specialized training opportunities for your dissertation analysis strategy. They also have workshops geared towards undergraduate and graduate students, so be sure to share this with your students. Head on over and check out the summer programs!

Academia.edu - like Linked In

http://www.academia.edu

This website is becoming more and more popular as more folks embrace social media as a means of professional networking. On the site, you can create a profile with your current affiliation and position, post your publications, identify what areas of research you are interested in, and "follow" any other Academia.edu member (similar to "friend-ing" someone on Facebook or following someone on Twitter).

On your profile, you can add your CV. But that's not all! You can add specific sections to highlight your experience, such as talks/lectures, paper drafts, conference presentations, book reviews, and more. So, this seems like a similar features to Linked In, because you can specify your qualifications and experiences for colleagues and employers to see.

You can also use analytic tools (similar to Google Analytics) in order to find out how many times your page has been visited, how many unique visitors you've had, how many times your papers have been uploaded, and some other generic website stats. This could be useful during a job search, or if you are just curious about how many people in the Academia.edu world have clicked on your work! It's easy to start following your Facebook friends and Gmail contacts who also have profiles on Academia.edu. You simply import them during your account creation process.

I know that many of my readers don't have time to upload a profile or start a new social networking venture. But consider making a profile on this site... it literally only takes 5 minutes to set up, and then you can get e-mail notifications whenever someone interacts with your page, follows you, or wants to contact you. As a doctoral student, I know that networking is key in this stage of my career, and I'm sure many of you can relate!

So, create a profile. Then, follow me! :) Just click on this link:

Follow me on Academia.edu

Google analytics - Stalk in secrecy

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Thanks to the paid subscription provided to me by the VCU library system, I get access to subscription content of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is an online periodical about topics related to higher education.  I signed up for weekly e-mails that pertain to my interests. One of the recently highlighted articles discussed how an academic job candidate created a website with his contact information, CV, and links to his publications, then started using Google Analytics to gain detailed information about who visited his website (Dunn, 2013).

Google analytics is yet another nifty tool provided by the Google universe that tracks information about visitors to your website. You can find out what seems like an endless amount of data about your site visitors, such as how they found your website, how much time they spent on your website, and what pages within your website they visited. The job candidate used it to track when visitors from a geographic location also matched up with schools at which he applied. So, once he submitted an application to a potential employer, he could watch out for when he got 17 visitors from the same locality, and assume that it was a department or school reviewing his application materials.

I'm not on the job market yet, but I can imagine how stress-inducing the process is when you don't even know if your application has been reviewed. Of course, not every potential employer will look at your website, and also you never know why they might be visiting, but at least you have an idea of what's going on behind the scenes.

So, to test it out for you, my readers, I added Google Analytics tracking to my blog. It's pretty interesting! (Says the quantoid.) One of my posts had visitors from Richmond, Charlotte, and Davidson. I can tell you that it is not extremely user friendly for a novice webmaster. But if you are savvy enough to create a website, you can  figure out how to use this tool. Even if you can't create your own website, you certainly don't need to know HTML or other coding languages in order to use this, but the part that was difficult for me was navigating through the website itself. It was difficult for me to find even the simplest features. But when I did, it was easy to add the tracking code to my blog. But, proceed with caution.

As a note, for those at VCU, if you want to view the original article, you must either access it from a university computer (or your computer that is connected to the VCU wifi), or you  must log in remotely and use the proxy connection from home, because it's subscription-only access.




Dunn, S. (2013, Feb 18). Some job candidates watch a potential employers' every click. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/article/Some-Job-Candidates-Watch-a/137355/

SSWR's doc student resource center

http://www.sswr.org/studentcenter.php
The other day, I discovered that the Society for Social Work Research (SSWR) has a very useful website devoted entirely to resources for social work doctoral students! The topics include:

• Writing
• Funding
• Teaching
• Presentations
• Methods
• Employment

Each topic has multiple resources associated with it, including documents and websites that you will definitely find helpful. Head over to the website today!

Journalogy.net - your source for scholarly stalking

Today while researching an author that publishes often in my substantive area of interest, I came across a cool new website called Journalogy.net. It looks like it is currently in beta-test form, and it's by Microsoft, so those are two things to consider when viewing it. So, what is it? Basically, it looks like a place to find scholars who are publishing in your area of interest. It featured a nice profile on the author I was searching for: Brian S. Mustanski, http://journalogy.net/Author/21326638. I also went to the home page, and found that you could view a graph that displays trends in publications in certain disicplines, and then find the top most published authors in that discipline. A warning, though: the disciplines are VERY broadly defined, so I am not sure how useful it is to have a 100,000 ft. view of the published authors in a disicpline. But, I'll let you decide its usefulness for yourself!