I realise that for many of you none of what I write here will be news. Especially in the social sciences and the creative arts, the practices that have in recent years become known as public or community engagement often have long been an integral part of research and other academic activities. However, I feel […]
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Now is an anxious time for new academics, with pressure arising from both the REF and the uncertainties introduced as a result of Government policies on Higher Education, all of which tends to add to the challenge of securing a permanent post. I have some understanding of this, having spent time on various fixed-term contracts […]
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If you plan to stay on the academic route after your Ph.D., you will certainly, sooner or later, have to apply for some sort of funding, be it for the organisation of a conference or a funded conference place, funding to explore new teaching methods, or – perhaps most commonly – to carry out your […]
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This post is based largely on my defense of my doctoral thesis in December 2011, though much of what I write here also comes from the mentors whose advice and help I’ve been fortunate enough to have since the very beginning of my Ph.D. (and, indeed, before). If you’d like to hear a more personal […]
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Academia is a wonderful profession, but being a PGR or ECR these days is tough. There are fewer jobs and the structures and demands are changing – great in terms of adding accountability to ‘old school’ models, but also creating a lot of pressure, especially for junior staff. I was an ECR in the mid-2000s […]
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I was gripped by self-doubt. I couldn’t possibly show anything to my supervisor. What if I was ‘found out’? And so I read and read, but still I didn’t write. And then I had a conversation with a friend who asked what I had written. “Nothing,” I said. “Everything I write is shit.” “Sure,” she […]
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Dr Nathan Ryder is a freelance skills trainer and consultant. He completed his Ph.D. in maths at the University of Liverpool in 2008. He works exclusively with postgraduate researchers and research staff. Last year he started the Viva Survivors podcast, and in January 2013 he published his first e-book, Fail Your Viva. Find him on […]
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The second season of The New Academic returns us, after several requests, right to the beginning of every Ph.D. student’s journey – the Ph.D. proposal. This post is dedicated to tips and thoughts on what makes a good Ph.D. proposal that is likely to win over your potential supervisor and perhaps funders, though (not) securing […]
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EDITING ESSAY COLLECTIONS Last week we looked at the basics of being at the authorial end of academic publishing via the writing of book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. This week, I’d like us to turn the tables, as it were, and consider some of the essential aspects of taking on the role of (co-)editor […]
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So far, we’ve looked at how to communicate a topic verbally, in front of conference audiences and students. What I’d like to consider in this post is how to begin publishing your research in writing, be it as a book chapter in an edited collection or as an article in a peer-reviewed journal. It’s important […]
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Like conference papers, teaching is something that you may well be expected to begin early on in your career as a researcher, most likely from the second year of your Ph.D. onwards, though rarely earlier than this. It is needless to say that there are numerous teaching strategies out there, and that their suitability depends […]
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The prospect of planning an academic event often causes scholars’ faces to contort into shapes expressing mixtures of panic and dread, or – much less often – excitement and joy. Running a conference is largely an administrative and – quite obviously – organisational task rather than an intellectual exercise, and many of the processes involved […]
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No matter if as part of a seminar or a postgraduate conference at your own university, as part of your job interview, or as a requirement for your annual progress review as a doctoral student, at some point in your academic life you will – for better or worse, some might say – be asked […]
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Up until now we’ve taken a closer look at presenting, teaching, writing and editing, and, staying within the realm of publishing, in this post we turn to two final aspects of this area: the challenges of acting as a peer reviewer and of writing book reviews. It is likely that you will have a chance […]
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It is notoriously difficult to advise people on how to get shortlisted for an academic job. In the end, someone can satisfy all of the relevant criteria but not get shortlisted simply because someone else satisfies them to a greater degree. The reality is that not all ‘minimally qualified’ candidates can be interviewed; this is […]
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