Give advice to some graduate students

Reprinted from www.sixf.org Xingfeng SI's blog http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-720485-784084.html

Stephen c. Stearns ; Xingfeng si translation

Translator by: With the consent of Professor Stephen Stearns, this article is translated from his famous non-academic paper "Some modest Advice for graduate Students". Stephen Stearns is professor of ecology and evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and offers an exciting Yale open class, Principles of evolution, ecology and behavior. Professor Stearns admits that the advice was the most frequently read in all his writings, but was cited with the least number of papers. This translation was published in the Science blog on April 11 and has been visited in the past two days. Click here (722KB) to download the PDF version of this translation and the original English text. It is a school of translation. One school on May 1, 2014

One, always do the worst of the plan

The Ancients said: Everything is pre-set, not pre-waste. A little early foresight may help you avoid some of the devastation of your study. If you want to spit groove, you can spit it (be cynical). Let's say your experiment was ruined, and one of your mentors didn't support your research project, but he sniffed at it. Then, it is advisable that you should consider changing a subject quickly.

Two, no one to control you

In reality, some professors will take care of you, others will not. Most professors think they want to control you, but they're too busy, which means they don't have the extra time to take care of you. So you have to be totally on your own, and you'd better get used to it. I say this, mainly has the following two layers meaning:

1. You'd better identify your research project as soon as possible. Your degree requires you to fight for it yourself. Your mentor will guide you and will help you to solve your graduate training and funding problems, but the instructor will not tell you what to do next-these things all depend on you. If you need guidance, ask your mentor-it's their job.

2. If you plan to learn other people's knowledge and skills, you must take the initiative to find him/her, because they will not come to you.

Three, you must be aware of the importance of your research work

When you are a newcomer, you have to read the literature extensively in the first year and think deeply about it. When you start reading the literature, you may feel that these papers are all nonsense, but later on, you will gradually realize that this is not the case. If you don't understand something in the literature, don't be frustrated-it's not your fault, it's the author's problem, because he didn't make the paper clear enough.

If some pundits tell you that you're going nowhere because you didn't go to class and didn't collect data, tell them that the research you're doing will work out in the future. If they are still opinionated, please let them go, because you know the importance of the research work you do best, I went!

This stage will be more painful and even feel like a few more, because you will be very anxious because your research is stagnant. At this point, you need to constantly torture yourself: what am I doing now? Be calm and calm, because this stage is critical to your personal career development and a critical time to generate new ideas. At this point, you need to think carefully about what the elements of an important scientific question should be. This decision must be made by yourself independently for the following two reasons:

1. First of all, if the problem you are studying is someone else giving you, you will feel that the "ownership" of the problem is not your own, but rather it feels like someone else is asking you to do it. Therefore, you will not take the initiative to study the problem, to defend it, and to fight for it, so as to achieve beautiful results;

2. Secondly, your research work during your PhD will affect your future development. You have to make this decision independently as to where you intend to study in the future and for the rest of your life.

It is also important for the development of science to decide your research direction after thinking carefully. You can develop a whole new field of research based on a research point. Remember: If you don't know why you're doing this research, you're starting to collect data blindly, what's the point?

Iv. psychological problems are the biggest obstacle

In the early years of your graduate career, you have to start developing tough mental qualities so that you don't get distracted by all the setbacks that come up later. If you relax your vigilance, the stresses of schoolwork, teaching, language, and other unexpected pressures will keep you busy, being pushed around like a tame macromolecular to do the messy Brownian movement. Here, there are some things to note:

2. You have to think carefully about the research you will be doing during your PhD, and will be able to persuade you to fight for life. Then, no matter how hard you work, you will have trouble bypassing the research you did during your PhD. For this, everyone is the same, because it stems from the openness of research (open-ended nature). You need to learn how to judge the "good or bad" of a thesis project. The more often the paper changes, the better it is, which makes it possible for you to revise your paper indefinitely.

   You have to understand that you can't write a "perfect" paper. As with anything else, the paper is always flawed. Calm down, arrange your time, money and energy wisely, and try your best to revise the paper to the greatest extent possible.

   You can ease the stress of writing a little bit by completing other established learning tasks earlier in the PhD. Please complete the required course credits as soon as possible and finish the appropriate exams. This not only allows you to clean up the hurdles before you start preparing your dissertation, but also adds confidence to yourself and makes you feel like I'm doing a good job after you've successfully completed these learning tasks.

4. The act of obedience is not a good performance. Expect and urge others to look at you like a colleague. Publishing a paper is a tough that you have to achieve in your PhD career, and the attitude of coworkers or collaborators can sometimes be more uncertain. If you act like a colleague, others will treat you like a colleague.

6. Graduate students can influence your future development, but this is only one of the options you can choose at this time. If there is a better chance, consider giving up studying for the time being. Here are three scenarios that you might be worth trying to do:

   1. First of all, a really exciting opportunity may appear in front of you, and this opportunity is more creative and challenging than anything you did during the study. When you have a long enough time to prove that it is a good choice to give up study, then give up the study for the moment. Such opportunities as an African field work project unrelated to your PhD program, a contract for software development, an opportunity to be an assistant in the capital's science and technology policy-making department, or an internship with a major newspaper/magazine as a science program, etc.

   2. Second, only graduate students who pay attention to these opportunities during their studies are truly self-reliant graduate students. If you think that graduate school is the only way out of life, then your mentality will become unstable, and will gradually feel a bit frustrated, and even lose confidence, so that you can not reach your best state;

   3. Finally, if the study is not suitable for you, then the choice to continue to study will hurt yourself, and even you will lose many other job opportunities. In addition to being a scientist, there are many interesting things to do in life, or you can go straight to the labor market and find a job that might be better than being a scientist. If you really don't like doing research, you might want to try other jobs. But don't act rashly (go off half-cocked). This is a very serious decision. Before making a final decision, make sure to communicate your thoughts to the relevant person in charge of the college and to a good-character teacher.

V. Avoid classes--classes are usually inefficient

If you are already familiar with your field of study, try to take as few extra courses as possible. This suggestion seems to be a bit contradictory to the previous one, but it also makes sense. Now, you should learn how to think about your PhD project. This requires you to take the initiative instead of passively listening to the lectures and mechanically repeating them.

Learn to think, you need two things: first you have a lot of time, and secondly, you need to communicate with as many people as you can to better understand the scientific problem.

Class may be a hindrance. If you are motivated, reading and discussing will be more efficient and instructive than lectures. Organize a handful of colleagues to discuss a topic of common interest and invite one or two of teachers who are equally interested in this topic – which is usually a good idea. Teachers will generally be willing to attend such seminars. After all, they are also interested in the topic of discussion, so they will also like your ideas. This kind of discussion will also give the teachers of the course a certain reputation, and they do not have to do any work. Why not?

Of course, these "avoid class" recommendations do not apply to courses that introduce professional skills, such as electron microscopy, histology, and light diving techniques (scuba diving) and so on.

Vi. write a research plan and ask for advice from peers

A research program has many features:

2. Summarize the literature you have read and think about them for a year. To further inspire your new ideas by combing through these documents and ideas;

4. A systematic summary (concrete demonstration) proves that you can use your time wisely to show that you can learn it consciously.

6. Others can help you. The idea of direct verbal communication is quite complicated, because the thoughts in the mind can be quite trivial and disorganized. Only after carefully collated and organized into concise documents can they be circulated among peers and consulted for their review. It is only after reading your research plan that the peers will be able to give some concrete constructive comments.

8. You, including others, need to practise writing skills.

10. It is important to find a scientific question that you are satisfied with. You need to show your colleagues that you have a certain degree of understanding of this issue, and that your ideas can be supported and helped. One way to propose a research project and achieve this goal is to:

    1. A brief statement of your research plan can be a scientific question or hypothesis.

    2. It is important to point out from an academic point of view why the hypothesis is so significant, rather than from your own point of view. And, what is the general suitability of the hypothesis with the field of research you are engaged in?

    3. The above (b) point is confirmed by a detailed literature review.

    4. Break down your scientific problems into a series of small problems, and then solve them individually. In the design of experiments, observation or analysis of the various steps, you will be one by one to exclude some unreasonable alternative results. You need to get these results sorted out and begin to solve these problems. By turning big problems into a series of small problems, you can clearly know what to do next, so as to lessen the need to face a big problem at first. You can know which steps are laborious or difficult, and thus you can list the priorities of each step. When you encounter certain steps that are difficult to resolve temporarily, you can do something else right away.

12. List the key steps that might occur during your experiment and have a devastating impact on the entire experiment, and then list the other alternative experiments for these critical steps in turn. In case there is a real error in these critical steps, there are alternative experiments to remedy.

14. It might be a good idea to design two to three experiments, and simultaneously, to determine which experiment is most likely to succeed. While validating your idea, there may be two or three models with similar explanations, but some unsuitable models are gradually excluded from the actual operation. When designing experiments, "Rainy Day" is more effective than "mend".

16. Select a deadline for the oral report of your doctoral dissertation, and then make reasonable arrangements for the period from today to the scheduled deadline. Set a deadline for yourself, and you will feel as if you are on your back with a sense of urgency. Don't panic-the sense of urgency will be even stronger after spending some time with this mindset.

18. When you're finished reading, schedule three weeks to write a research plan and try to get as many reviews as possible by having more peers review your research plans. It is helpful to hope that they will return, and then you will be careful to revise those comments.

20. When these steps have been completed, you are almost ready to write the introductory part of your doctoral dissertation, and at this point, you may have less than a year to 1.5 of your time from school to the present.

Seven, "tube" Good your mentor

Let your mentor know what you're up to, but don't disturb him. You need to choose the right time to report your progress to your mentor, which means you should be present at the right time, rather than letting your mentor see you as seeing "vermin." Submit a one-to-two-page research progress report to the instructor at least once a year. They will appreciate it and will make a good impression on your actions.

Anticipate and try to avoid personal disputes with mentors. If you and your mentor are really hard to get along with, then change your mentor. So, the first thing you need to be cautious about choosing a mentor is that you are interested in the direction of your mentor.

Viii. Types of doctoral theses

Do not say a bunch of flashy clichés on some ready-made but vague ideas. Straight into the subject, and verify that some of the main links have important research implications but untested hypotheses, or directly list a new field of research outline. Of course, there are other types of papers:

1. The conventional thesis includes deduction of the model. These models should be quite novel and can be surprisingly predictable. After that, if you can objectively verify that this hypothesis is unfavorable, it will be a multiplier measure.

2. A review of some important existing research theories. Similarly, if you can explain it properly, you can be a few respectable winners.

3. A thesis of pure theoretical research. It takes courage, especially in an experiential-dominated institute, but if you are strong enough in math and reasoning, you will succeed.

4. Collect some data that others can collect as well. This is the worst paper, but sometimes it can help you get through the storm. For those of you who have a lot of data, it's not that he's not validating a hypothesis, and sometimes it makes a big impression: at least the result is that you've worked hard, and you can therefore "blackmail" your jury and ask for a doctorate blackmail.

The types of doctoral theses are actually quite many, as there are many types of graduate students. The four papers listed earlier provide good, bad, and bad cases respectively. In the process of preparing your doctoral dissertation, you are given the opportunity to try out a variety of studies, and let you know which approach is best for you: Theoretical research, field work or indoor work? Ideally, if you can reasonably weigh these three kinds of studies, then you will become a rarity: to think about theoretical issues from an empirical perspective and to solve real-world problems from the perspective of a theoretical historian.

Nine, early to send the article

Don't deceive yourself. You may already be in the "publish paper" game, and may have temporarily put aside your beloved flora and fauna, the curious nature and the passion to explore the truth. Because, if you don't have an academic paper to publish, you won't find a job. You will need to publish your paper in an internationally recognised peer-reviewed journal. If you don't have a paper, you can give up the road to scientific research. It sounds cruel, but it's not unreasonable. Publishing a paper is actually a very interesting challenge. Science is the sharing of knowledge. The results of scientific research can exist because they are fully communicated ("No communication, unscientific"). Publishing a paper is only a part of the entire scientific work, until the article is published, which means the end of the work. Writing academic papers requires brevity and organization, and you have to master these skills. Here are a few tips on how to publish your paper:

1. Collaborate with scholars who have more experience in publishing papers. Communicate with professors who are currently interested in common research, and if he or she is willing to work together, he or she will provide some guidance during the publication of your paper. As a reward, he was named as the co-author of the paper. He will be grateful for the signature and will give you a lot of good advice on how to make changes to your paper.

2. Don't think your first article will be blockbuster. Many of the best scientists have started with very small research work. The average amount of information reported in academic papers may be less than you might think. Publish one or two complete papers in some of the less well-known journals before moving on to mainstream magazines. You will quickly find that, regardless of the reputation of the magazine, all the editorial board will be strict with their manuscripts and make every effort to ensure the quality of the published paper-which is their duty!

3. If your research plan is perfect enough, you can try to publish it in a review. If the paper is published, it suggests that you may have chosen the right research area and can continue to study it.

4. Don't write your doctoral dissertation in monograph (monograph). Write your doctoral dissertation in a series of articles that can be published and throw them out as early as possible, thus ensuring that at least one or two chapters in the doctoral dissertation can be published or published before the doctorate's defense.

5. Buy a copy of William Strunk and E. P. White co-authored "Elements of Style". Before you start writing your first paper, read the book carefully and read it at least once every three or four years. Robert Day's "How to Write a scientific Paper" is also good.

6. Before you contribute, ask a colleague who has time to make constructive changes to your essay's writing, ideas, and rationale.

Ten, do not underestimate the master's thesis

The reason for not reading a master's degree often becomes a common misconception: I'm good enough to do something like a master's thesis. In fact, completing a master's thesis has many benefits:

1. If you have a heart to change a school or go to another institute, you can re-choose when you graduate from your master's degree, which is the most common way. You can take advantage of this opportunity to broaden your research background. In addition, the idea that you are growing up is likely to change quickly about what elements of an important scientific issue should be. By changing schools, you will immediately learn more about the research work of other scholars and the field sites of their respective research work. If you change school, choosing a master's degree is the best way. You leave your alma mater, if your alma mater's peers are very satisfied with your performance, then they will help you write a very strong letter of recommendation. At this point, you've actually reached most of the requirements for a PhD.

2. You have accumulated a lot of experience in scientific research and have written a master's thesis that is less difficult than a doctoral dissertation. You can gradually challenge yourself. Through scientific training, you will be able to roughly judge how easy it is to solve a scientific problem. Students who have experienced a master's degree training are often more likely to work on the doctoral dissertation.

3. You have published a paper.

4. What's your hurry? If you start looking for a job too soon, you may not be fully prepared. It's better to take a little late shot, to build up your personal strength, and then to find a job when you accumulate more capital.

Xi. publish papers regularly, but not too often

The pressure to publish the paper has eroded the quality of the magazine and eroded the spiritual life of scientists. Publishing a handful of high-quality papers that can be widely read is much better than publishing a bunch of quickly forgotten essays. However, the reality is always cruel. In order to apply for a PhD, you need to publish several papers, and to get a job or tenure, you have to publish more papers. However, if you can continue to publish your research work as a continuous series of high-quality papers, it is a great thing for both you and the subject you are engaged in.

Most people can only publish a small amount of paper, and the contribution to the development of the discipline is very small. Most articles are referred to with little or no reference. 90% of citations come from 10% of papers. The absence of a quoted article is actually a waste of time and energy. The pursuit of quality, not quantity. However, it takes courage and perseverance, but you won't regret it. If you can publish one or two fine-grained, well-researched articles in the same research direction, and can be consistently quoted every year, then you've done a good job, and you've spent your time on the edge.

Thanks

Thanks to Frank Pitelka's proposal and working with Ray Huey to provide these advice to a broad range of aspiring graduate students in the future. And thanks to Peter Morin's advice, let me finish this piece of advice and make it published.

Some very useful reference books.

• Robert A.Day. 1983. How to write and publish a scientific paper. 2nd ed. ISi Press, Philadephia. 181 pp. wise and witty.

• r.v Smith. 1984. Graduate Research-a guide for students in the sciences. ISi Press, Philadelphia. 182 pp. Complete and practical.

• William Strunk Jr, and e.bWhite 1979. The elements of style. 3rd Ed Macmillan, New York. The paradigm of concision.

Translator's sequence

The 11th Supplementary Note (Postscript) in the original English text has not been translated, and its content is a brief introduction to the writing background of the advice. After I translated the original author's "Designs of Learning", and then published on my blog.

The translation of this article in the early reference to Zheng Chunmei part of the translation, the late revision process adopted the Liu Li of this translation part of the proofreading, here to express my thanks!

page Link:http://sixf.org/cn/2014/04/some-modest-advice-for-graduate-students/

translation and original PDF download (722KB):http://sixf.org/files/others/ModestAdvice.pdf

Give advice to some graduate students (turn)