- Not that Kind of Bias: Tales of Survivorship Bias
I am in my fourth year as a faculty member and experiencing the typical “how do I get these grants funded” struggles that many, if not all, of us face. Over the past year, I have been given a truly staggering amount of conflicting advice from mentors. This has led me to thinking ...
- Writing Your K or CDA Progress Report
Writing your annual progress report is both an art and a science. T. Alp Ikizler, MD, mentor of so many early career faculty trainees he’s lost count and winner of the 2016 Award for Excellence in Mentoring Translational Scientists at Vanderbilt, shared his thoughts on how to put...
- Not that Kind of Letter: Tales of Rejection
I have been thinking about rejections in science. Rejections come in all shapes and sizes, from the grant you need to build your program, to an awesome rotation student picking another lab, to a manuscript rejection at yet another journal. While I definitely had my share of rejec...
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended on It
Getting to Yes may still be the bible of negotiation books, but Chris Voss's Never Split the Difference offers an intriguing alternative perspective. Instead of preaching objectivity and separating the people from the situation, Voss, a former FBI crisis negotiator, teaches how t...
- Paper-Writing Checklists To Prevent Headaches Down the Road
Avoid authorship headaches and streamline the path from data to paper with these checklists.
CRediT Taxonomy
Developed by a group of librarians, information scientists, and the director of the MIT Press, the CRediT Taxonomy allows authors to define precisely the contributions...
- Interviewing Do’s and Don’ts (from Those Who’ve Seen It All)
Interviewing for faculty positions is riddled with potential missteps. Two department chairs and a vice chair for faculty affairs share how to put your best foot forward.
Do…
Prepare Your Elevator Pitch
Draft a brief, pithy statement of purpose (“elevator pitch”). Give a co...
- 5 Steps For Effective Communication In The International Workplace
How do you communicate across international differences in the workplace?
We inhabit a global workplace. We can now leave a message for a colleague in Germany, China, Ghana, or New Zealand and perhaps give only a quick thought to what time zone they are in. ...
- One-Minute Writing Tuneup: Energize Your Words with Active Voice
Sentence after sentence in passive voice is wordy, invites errors such as dangling modifiers, and grates on readers' nerves. Use of active voice improves even science writing.
In active voice, a clearly stated subject performs the action of the sentence. In passive voice, the ...
- How to Make an ESI Extension Request for Childbirth/Adoption
You’re a new parent and a scientist. Somewhere between the sticky hands, tantrums, and lack of sleep, you’re 10 years into your academic career from earning your MD and/or PhD and you haven’t made the transition to an R yet. Your circadian rhythm is messed up from dealing with ni...
- Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter
Are you a genius or a genius maker?
We've all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drain intelligence, energy, and capability from the ones around them and always need to be the smartest ones in the room. These are the idea killer...
