October 11, 2017

I call bullshit on pointless ‘hope labour’

About 30% of my work week is classified as ‘service’: work that supports others in the community, such as sitting on committees, writing reviews and references, consulting on problems and so on. As a result of this higher than usual level of service work, the sheer number and range of things I do in acontinue reading.

August 30, 2017

Conference small talk – the definitive guide

This post was originally published on the All things Linguistic blog about a year ago by Gretchen McCulloch. Gretchen started blogging as a linguistics grad student at McGill University, but is now a full-time pop linguist, bridging the gap between linguistics and the general public. She writes pop linguistics articles for various places and is currently writing a book aboutcontinue reading.

August 23, 2017

Why you should blog during your PhD

I’m an advocate for blogging, obviously, but should you blog during your PhD? Will you have time? Will it be a distraction? I find it hard to answer those questions, but a growing number of people are doing it and I’m lucky enough that Gaia Cantelli wrote in to share her experience of blogging, whichcontinue reading.

August 2, 2017

The academic handmaiden’s tale

Content warning – this post contains details and discussion of sexual assault and harassment. For more information and services, please visit the ANU Respectful relationships page. Yesterday we got a damning report on sexual harrassment and assault in Australian universities.  It’s truly harrowing reading. I’m not going to recap the report, you should read itcontinue reading.

July 19, 2017

How to start podcasting your research

This is the second post Dr Katie Linder has written for us on Podcasting. In Part One she discussed some of the benefits of being a researcher/podcast. In this post she lays out a pratical strartegy for starting. I think I might have to give it a go! If you haven’ t listened to Katie’scontinue reading.

July 5, 2017

We need to talk about competition

Competition is like the background radiation of academia – ever present, but rarely visible. Here’s a field guide to some common forms of competition amongst research students and some useful ways to think about it. If just to prove that competition does not have to be a way of life, this post has three authors:continue reading.

May 10, 2017

PhD career capital

My sister is fond of reminding me that, in 1992, after returning from my first overseas trip to Europe, I told her I wanted a career where I could “get on and off planes and talk to people for a living”. It’s appropriate then, that I write this post while flying high above the redcontinue reading.

May 3, 2017

The professor is in

I have a large, ever growing, pile of books sent to me by publishers in the hope that I will review them. Smart publishers know that I have an interest in helping you make best use of your (probably limited) book buying budget. I’m even thought to have quite a lot of influence in thecontinue reading.

April 5, 2017

Why you are not the ‘star student’ (and how to become one)

I have a friend doing his PhD, let’s call him Ronald. Ronald is clever, bright and diligent. He’s spent many, many hours in the lab building prototypes and producing copious amounts of data. He’s clearly on the verge of a breakthrough that would change his field (but has yet to publish anything for fear ofcontinue reading.

March 29, 2017

Silent sufferings

This poignant post is by Dr Cathy Ayres, who completed her PhD in the School of Sociology at the ANU in 2016. She’s worked as a research training nerd at the ANU Research Skills and Training unit, and she is now happily working as the Senior HDR Coordinator in the College of Engineering and Computercontinue reading.