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Today, Dr. Shoshanah Jacobs shares her experience of the PhD Defense. Dr. Jacobs is a professor of biology at Guelph University with research interests in seabird foraging ecology and biology education. Seated around the table was the cast of the comedy of errors that would become the chorus of years’ worth of restless night. Jester A hadn’t read my thesis; I could tell because the highlighting stopped abruptly at page 40. Jester B had sent his regrets and accepted the thesis as is but had been located, publically embarrassed, and brought against his will to my defense. Jester C, was a committee member who had been undermining my work for years and would continue to afterwards. “ I’ve got your back”, he said, putting on a sheep’s costume, after we realized that the Graduate School had forgotten to invite my supervisor to the defense. The Chair of the department and my external examiner were also there. I felt bad for them. They were kind, prepared, and looking forward to a positive di...

Today, I have the pleasure of inviting Marwa Hassan to talk about PhD defenses in Egypt. Marwa soon will be awarded the PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia. However, she is originally from Egypt and has a Master of Science from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. During her Master’s degree she learnt about the PhD system and defenses in her country and now feels that she needs to share it with everyone. She is passionate about microbiology, bacterial interactions, diagnostics, teaching and science communication. To reach to the stage of the PhD defense in a developing country like Egypt is quite challenging. It takes a lot of efforts to overcome the hurdles of the system for a countless number of years. When you reach this stage you would have invested a lot of money on your research and spent a lot of long nights working hard either on the PhD or taking an extra shift to compensate for the income. It is definitely advantageous for students attaining their degrees in...

Today I welcome Dr. Amber Davis as a guest author. Amber is a political scientist and PhD coach, who studied at the London School of Economics and Leiden University, and holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence. She teaches stress-management and productivity seminars for PhD students and created the The Stress-Free PhD to help you increase your productivity, re-ignite your inspiration and lower your stress levels. She is currently hosting a giveaway for this program . Check out her blog for more of her writing. What if you could sit down at your computer every morning, click open your documents, and have your work simply flow? Ah, how wonderful would that be? Maybe academic work can’t be quite that effortless, but there are simple things you can do to increase the odds of focus and flow happening. First point to note is that focus doesn’t happen spontaneously. It requires the right conditions. Ironically, academic culture with its insistence on working long (and...

Today, I have the pleasure of welcoming Iván Carrera as a guest author. Ivan is a professor at the Department of Informatics and Computer Science of Escuela Politécnica Nacional in Quito, Ecuador. His research interests are Performance Evaluation, Distributed Systems and Bioinformatics. Check out his webpage: http://fis.epn.edu.ec/sistemasdistribuidos/ . You can follow him on Twitter. I majored in engineering in Ecuador, my homeland. When I finished, I wanted to do grad-school in Brazil. I had studied Portuguese, and for me it was a dream to have the opportunity to do research. I applied to several universities, got a few yes's and a lot of no's. In engineering they say that you shouldn't worry about communication skills, but it was very difficult for me to write. I had to learn how to write formally. I got accepted in University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, and went to do a Master's in Computer Science. During my Master's I felt that my research wouldn...

Vanessa Corcoran earned her Ph.D. in medieval history in 2017 at The Catholic University of America and wrote her dissertation, "The Voice of Mary: Later Medieval Representations of Marian Communication," under the direction of Dr. Katherine Jansen. Her research interests include the medieval cult of the Virgin Mary, the intersection of gender and popular religious practices, and the textual representations of medieval women's voices. Vanessa was the Assistant Director of Tutoring Services at The Catholic University of America. Currently, Vanessa is an Academic Counselor in the Office of the College Dean at Georgetown University. She's working on a forthcoming memoir of her experiences in graduate school, entitled "It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint: Lessons Learned on the Road to the Marathon and Ph.D." Follow her on Twitter @VRCinDC . My dissertation, "The Voice of Mary: Later Medieval Representations of Marian Communication," investigated the eme...

Today, I have invited Dr. Karin Bodewits to share her defense story. Karin Bodewits is a PhD graduate from the University of Edinburgh and is the author of the humorous but tragic campus novel ‘You Must Be Very Intelligent — The PhD Delusion’ (Springer Nature, 2017). She founded the career platform NaturalScience.Careers. She works as an author, speaker and seminar leader for a range of communication topics, and regularly writes short stories about the peculiarities of academic life. This post is adapted from You Must Be Very Intelligent - The PhD Delusion . I follow Prof. Gilton through the chemistry building on auto pilot. Is my PhD defence really finally happening?... I have postponed this exam as much as anyone can. Under my arm I carry a copy of my thesis, full of dubiously scribbled notes, while my legs move forward unprompted and my hands all but squelch with sweat. For two months I have revised. Felix, a lab friend, had explained me every bit of chemistry in my thesis right dow...

Today, I am welcoming Dr. Nancy R Gough who shares her views on academic publishing as an editor. Nancy R. Gough is the owner and founder of BioSerendipity . After 17 years with AAAS, she stepped down as the Editor of Science Signaling (a weekly journal on the topic of cellular and organismal regulatory biology), she left to start her company. She is dedicated to helping scientists communicate effectively. Dr. Gough has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the University of Maryland Medical School and was a post-doctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University. You can email her at ngough@bioserendipity.com and follow her on Twitter @NancyRGough and Facebook . Science Signaling is a weekly journal about regulatory biology at all scales. Submitted papers included those about mechanisms of molecular regulation, cellular regulation, regulatory biology in model organisms, and in plants and man. I also had the opportunity to evaluate basic and applied or translational re...

Today, Dr. Philip Shields shares his experience of the PhD defense. Dr. Shields is a scholar-practitioner in the field of Executive Leadership. He currently works as a manager for a General Electric Company and as an Adjunct Professor at two universities. His undergraduate degree was in Chemistry and he holds a Master's degree in Management with a focus in Integrated Logistics. His passions include faith, family, flying, friends, and bridging the gap between public and private organizations so that both may benefit through strategic alliances. May 16th is a day that I remember fondly and with pride, but like most highly anticipated events it was not quite what I expected. Three and 1/2 years of preparation and hundreds of hours of research/writing on my topic prepared me for the technical aspect of this day, but the psychological component of the day was a different story. Preparation quieted most of my fear of failure, but the prominent question in my mind that day was "...

Cindy Lee studied linguistics and microbial biology at UC Berkeley, where she researched genetic engineering in sorghum. She then did her PhD at The Ohio State University, where she researched DNA repair in the context of breast cancer, but she would have graduated much sooner if her dissertation focused on cake. Now, she works as a science writer and editor. You can find her Tweeting @geneandtonic and blogging at Genes and Tonic . The ball was in the red zone, and the crowd was chanting, "DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!" Well, not quite. These are some ways my PhD defense differed from an American football game: There was no whistle for time outs: When I wasn't in the lab, I was supposed to be thinking about my research. If I procrastinated by baking cheesecake or watching sports, then I probably wasn't trying hard enough to be a Real Scientist (hello, imposter syndrome ). If I took a 20-minute nap, then I probably delayed my graduation by 20 years (there's always that fear...

Today, I am inviting Michael Kulakov to share his best tips for writing papers. Michael is a freelance writer, who mainly works in the field of art, academia and education. He is also majoring in Linguistics. You can reach him at his Facebook page . Writing a paper, whether it is a PhD research or a short essay, may be a huge pain. While it is fun, given that you enjoy the topic, the process of putting it together in writing takes an awful amount of time. Follow these tips and you will find that the time you spend writing your paper will decrease significantly. Take breaks As counter intuitive as it may seem, to work more efficiently, you should take breaks rather often. It may be appealing to think that you can finish the paper in a 5 hour writing binge, but more often than not, working for too many hours straight will actually decrease your productivity. Eye strain and mental fatigue will build up over time, making it harder for you to concentrate. Make sure to have a 5 minutes break...

Today, Eugene Feygin shares with us some tips and tricks for using Google Drive. Eugen has a B.S. in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. As an SEO expert, he has published articles on the SEO trends and presented at multiple conferences on marketing research and tactics, user experience and social media management. He is the founder of a Chicago digital marketing agency Raw SEO, and enjoys studying UX from both sides—as a user testing products and as a designer using the results to spur innovation. Think of all the ways that technology has made your life easier, both at home and in the office. For starters, you’re able to store documents, photos, and more, and have access to them no matter where you are. You’re also able to share things with other people, and one of the best tools to do that is Google. Google, of course, is known as a search engine, but that’s not all that Google is. Google has a host of cloud-based tools that make accessing and editing doc...

Today, I'm hosting Daniel Sherwin with a guest post. Daniel is a single dad raising two children. At DadSolo.com , he aims to provide other single dads with information and resources to help them better equip themselves on the journey that is parenthood. Tell people you’re considering a PhD as a single parent and they’ll look at you like you’re crazy. A PhD is a grueling journey under the best of circumstances; add in a child or two and it looks near impossible. But when there’s something you’re passionate about, not doing it simply isn’t an option. So in true single parent fashion, you buckle down, set your eyes on the prize, and find a way to make it happen. If you’re a single parent considering a PhD, this advice will get you started. Choosing It Your experience in a PhD program depends heavily on where you work. As you search for the right graduate program for you, look for schools with family-friendly benefits . Depending on the institution, you might find: Paid health insuran...

Today's guest post is written by Dr. Laura Pipoly. Laura earned a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in both school counseling and community counseling. Laura graduated from Nova Southeastern University with a doctorate in both special education and in Instructional technology and distance education (ITDE). Her dissertation focused on Counselor Education Curriculum and Online Counseling and was published in part in the Journal of Instructional Research . Laura has also published and presented at the national level. Her most recent work is Meeting the Challenge of Bipolar Disorder: Self-Help Strategies that Work . Laura is both a Licensed Professional Counselor and a certified School Counselor. Throughout the years, she has worked as a school counselor, psychotherapist, behavior specialist, mentor, dissertation chair, methodologist and clinical site supervisor. Laura currently works for University of Phoenix as a full time faculty member. As a dissertation chair, method...

Today, I'm hosting Dr. Rasheda Weaver, who shares with us what she learned about writing during her PhD. Rasheda L. Weaver, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Community Entrepreneurship at the University of Vermont where she teaches classes and conducts research on social enterprises, businesses that seek to combat social problems. She conducted the first large-scale study of the social, economic, and legal activities on social enterprises in the United States. You can email her at Rasheda.weaver@uvm.edu and follow her on Twitter @RLWeaverPhD. After graduating with a PhD in Public Affairs from Rutgers University in May 2017, I wanted to take some time to reflect, discuss, and share some of the lessons that I learned about writing for peer-reviewed journals throughout my doctoral program. The lessons are organized below by the following three themes: 1) The Writing Process, 2) Organization and Interpretation, and 3) Peer-Reviewed Publications and the Job Search. The Writing Process * ...

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Karra Shimabukuro to the "Defenses around the world" series. Dr. Karra Shimabukuro recently defended her dissertation from the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include how issues of class and nationalism function in literature and popular culture, and reflect the fears, anxieties, and desires of a specific historical and cultural moment. Her most recent work exposed the whole cloth creation of Elfego Baca as a New Mexican folk hero for Western Folklore, an examination of the folkloric forest’s impact in Twin Peaks for Cinema Journal: In Focus, Freddy Krueger’s folkloric roots as a bogeyman in Studies in Popular Culture, and the functional aesthetics in the Nightmare on Elm Street series in Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film. I started my coursework at the University of New Mexico in August 2013. I comped in Middle English literature, early modern literature, and folklore and methodology in February 2015. I de...

Today, I am welcoming Olga Degtyareva to the "How I Work" series. Olga is Productivity Mentor for Scientists and president and founder of the Productivity for Scientists Ltd. She helps scientists around the world to overcome overwhelm, become more productive, get in charge of their day while feeling happier in their life. Olga teaches through workshops, lectures, online courses as well as private and group coaching programs. Over the past 7 years she worked with 100's of scientists personally and 1000's benefited from her online lectures and resources. Prior to this Olga has had a successful research career in science, having studied and worked for 15 years in the area of high-pressure physics and crystallography. She is a recipient of an international prize for her high-pressure physics research and an author and co-author of 38 scientific papers. She is also a mother of three children whom she unschools together with her husband. Olga shares her experience on "...