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Some time ago, I was happy to receive a review copy of Karin Bodewits 's first novel "You Must Be Very Intelligent" with as subtitle "the PhD Delusion". This book is a hybrid between memoir and work of fiction about Bodewits's years as a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. The short summary of the book is as follows: You Must be Very Intelligent is the author’s account of studying for a PhD in a modern, successful university. Part-memoir and part-exposé, this book is highly entertaining and unusually revealing about the dubious morality and desperate behaviour which underpins competition in twenty-first century academia. This witty, warts-and-all account of Bodewits´ years as a PhD student in the august University of Edinburgh is full of success and failure, passion and pathos, insight, farce and warm-hearted disillusionment. She describes a world of collaboration and backstabbing; nefarious financing and wasted genius; cosmopolitan dreamers and ...

I recently ran a poll about reading habits in academia. I asked on Twitter how academic read. The four options I considered were: daily weekly whenever a new issue of your favorite journal is released in bulk at the beginning of a new project. The Storify of the results and discussion is shown below. If you want to learn more about cultivating good reading habits, check out this post. [ View the story "Reading habits in academia" on Storify ]

Just like every year, I present you with the 10 best books I read in the past year. I read a fair amount of pulp this year at the end of my pregnancy, as my brain couldn't make it through good fiction anymore, but I also read a few books I'd happily recommend you. 10. 80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good - Benjamin Todd An excellent, evidence-based book on choosing a career path that does good in this world. 9. What the most successful people do on the weekend - Laura Vanderkam Part of a series of books. The other two are "what the most successful people do before breakfast" and what "what the most successful people do at work". Whereas the other two books are a rehash of typical time management tips, the topic of what to do on the weekend is fascinating and gave me some new insights. 8. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: The Book of the Spiritual Man - Charles Johnston I listened to this, and while I found some parts inspiring, I certain...

Some time ago, I read an inspiring post on DoctoralWriting SIG about tracking research . The author, Dr. Abigail Winter, was inspired by Paul Silvia's "How to write a lot", who mentions that he uses a simple database to track his writing each day, as one of his strategies for writing a lot. Winter then started tracking her reading and writing. She adds: "in the first six months of 2016, I read 281 articles or academic books, and wrote 36,477 words towards articles, submissions, applications and reviews" and shares the tool she developed online. Upon reading this article, I decided to start tracking my reading and writing. I had been tracking my writing between February 15th 2012 and May 22nd 2013, mostly to track my word count on my PhD thesis. At that time, my log functioned mostly as a diary. In November 2016, I started tracking my writing again, and in January 2017 I started tracking my reading as well, as I vouched to read 365 papers in 2017. For my writ...