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- One Minute Writing Tuneup: Readability
While helping a brilliant scientist revise her abstract to a 10th grade reading level for a foundation award application, I wrote down some tips for converting writing intended for audiences with a scientific background to readers with less formal education:
Smaller words. Hal...
- 10 Tips for Supervising Research Interns
I recently came across this post on Twitter that said, “I’m mentoring an undergrad researcher for the first time! What advice would you give for how to be a good mentor?”
Supervising students is one of my favourite parts of academic life. The post made me think about how I sup...
- Writer’s Toolbox: Creating Sentences That Flow
Have you ever had a high-tech remote control that has multiple features but you only use the off and on button? Or a computer application like Excel (guilty) that can perform many functions and you only use it for addition? Using words and sentences can be akin to using tha...
- Mentoring for Grief & Growth at the End of a Dissertation
Just yesterday one of my Ph.D. students whose dissertation is due to the committee next week asked me "Please tell me the truth. Am I okay?" I assured the student that they were indeed okay, and not just okay but that they had completed an impressive body of work, that they had...
- Working with the Kids at Home? Tips from an Experienced Parent
The ongoing pandemic has made working remotely with kids a reality for many parents. With schools mostly back in person, it's less of an all-day struggle, but with exposure quarantines and canceled aftercare/activities, the kids are still at home more often than usual. Reports ...
- Sell Your Specific Aims Using the PASTOR Method
I am often struck by the similarities between selling methods and grant writing. Of course, grant writing is selling, but scientists don’t usually think of themselves as salesmen. I recently read a blog post about the PASTOR method, which was conceived by a well-known copywriter ...
- 5 Things That Help Me Write
I remember a seminar that I organized when I was a postdoc. The speaker was a science communicator with a PhD in biomedical science, who also had published a novel. She started the seminar by asking the audience “Who considers themselves a writer?” A few hands went up. Next, ...
- Celebrating Team Wins
Favorite traditions for basking in the glory of a first-authored paper or awarded grant
Celebrating lab successes creates a culture of compassion, motivates lab members, and teaches the next generation of scientists to lead with kindness.
Accomplishments
...
- How to REALLY Manage Your Time
A few years ago, I was sitting in my office with a few first-year graduate students. They had recently attended a session on setting goals that I had given and wanted to set goals that would allow them to maximize their experience in school.
We were in Utah where there were many...
- Not That Kind of Tale: Roundup for the Academic Job Season
From the clutches of a search committee to the interview gauntlet, a plethora of protips from Pipette Protagonist:
Application Tales
Not that Kind of Summer: Tales of Preparing for Academic Job Season
A guide to the first step: putting together the application. Each ...
