- Using Timelines to Diagnose Problems in Career Planning
This post builds on a presentation at the 2019 CTSA Annual Meeting of Training Program Directors.
Reviewing intended career progression is a cornerstone of mentorship. Goals for milestones such as manuscript and grant submissions typically dominate discussion. Often goals are de...
- You MUST Read Dreyer’s English
If Strunk and White is a subtle and respectable Merlot, Dreyer’s English is a Cosmopolitan: light, witty, and slightly pink. Reading this style guide is like going to party with your snarky friend to critique everyone from the bar. Dreyer makes you feel like part of the in-crow...
- Not that Kind of Choice: Tales of Conference Selection
Conference season is here! My inbox is flooded with invites to the big annual meetings for my Terrible Disease of Interest and Clinical Meeting Dealing with Terrible Disease (and Other Terrible Diseases), along with dues notices. Meanwhile, colleagues are already asking about the...
- NFL Combine and NIH Study Section
The 2019 NFL Combine is underway. Once a year athletes who have trained their whole lives to have a shot at a professional career in the sport they love (and are talented at), turn out to be scrutinized before the NFL draft.
Your first R01 will take inspiration, breakthroughs, a...
- Like It or Not, You’re a Negotiator: Getting to Yes
“Like it or not, you are a negotiator,” state Harvard Negotiation Project faculty Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton in the introduction to this clear and concise guide to negotiating on principle rather than position. This book will help you navigate all the negoti...
- Why and How to Plan a Creativity Escape
You have a hundred good ideas that need exploration. But they compete with a thousand perpetually accruing tasks – some key, some trivial. The psychological weight of the latter can dictate your life and grind creativity to a pitiful nub of chewed up pencil waiting in a drawer. T...
- Creating a New Mentor-Mentee Action Plan: MMAP
We need your help redrawing the map for how mentees and mentors make specific plans for their working relationships, optimize a shared vision for success, and keep goals fluid and responsive to career development.
The mentoring literature has become voluminous. Laying hands on e...
- Be Proud of Your Accent! Give Confident Conference Presentations
Is English not your first language?
Currently, and this could well change, most international research is communicated in English. For now at least, all international researchers need to become proficient at speaking English in public. Using interpreters at conferences is trul...
- One-Minute Writing Tuneup: Comprise vs. Compose
“Comprised of” should never exist in formal writing. Arguably, the construction is used so much now that sooner or later, style guides will accept it, but not yet.
First, some background. Per the Cambridge Dictionary, Comprise means “to consist of or to be made up of”; i.e., it ...
- How Not to Blow an Interview
For those venturing into interview season, we offer a roundup of great advice for putting your best foot forward.
Tips for a Successful Virtual Interview - Control what you can control, and prepare to answer the most common questions.
Junior Prof's Preliminary Interview Question...
