Free guidelines, checklists, worksheets and a lot of hands-on advice for PhD students, Postdocs, Researchers and everybody interested in boosting their performance in academia.
All related to publishing, getting a PhD and a job, presenting and becoming an efficient researcher.
January often arrives with pressure to plan, optimise, and commit — even before we’ve fully returned to ourselves. In this post, we invite you to pause and reset differently. Instead of building a new plan, we guide you through a...
As the year draws to a close, many academics feel they have not achieved “enough” and head into the holidays with a sense of unfinished business. But from years of working closely with PhD candidates, postdocs, and early-career...
Are you struggling with the pressure of academic life? Do you find it challenging to maintain your mental health and well-being at work? In this blog post, we share five practical strategies for improving mental health and well-being...
Are you struggling to receive timely and constructive feedback on your research work? This common issue can lead to frustration, uncertainty, and a lack of direction. However, there are steps you can take to improve the feedback you...
As a PhD candidate or post-doc, you might think that your research achievements, expertise and specialisation speak for themselves when applying for an academic position. Not quite. Aside from sound academic credentials, you need to...
Virtual research presentations are becoming increasingly common as more and more conferences are held partially or fully online. You might assume that you should prepare a virtual presentation the same way you would for an in-person...
Do you have a good relationship with your supervisor? Are they supporting you with your PhD project and all the nitty-gritty issues that arise? Good for you, but this is not everyone’s situation. While the majority of PhD candidates...
If you want to get your research published but struggle to find time to write a journal paper, you need to consider the habits of effective academic authors. When time is short due to other commitments, the time you spend on writing...
Do you find yourself working non-stop? Feeling like you can’t allow yourself to pause? It’s a hectic time right now for most of us, and canceling breaks might be a normal response if you feel pressured to catch up or increase...
Are you considering a career in the non-profit sector? Do you know which skills are the most sought after by employers? Building up the respective skills early in your career can be a huge strategic advantage in your job search after...
Are you planning to write a PhD dissertation that is based on peer-reviewed publications? If so, consider these 5 tips to help you to avoid common pitfalls. An article-based dissertation can gives you the opportunity to make your...
Taking notes from meetings, conversations or presentations is a very effective way to benefit from what you’ve heard and commit it to memory and practice. You may think it is not necessary because you will remember what’s being said...
In this post, arctic researcher Arttu Jutila tells his story about conducting his PhD study, taking him from Finland to Canada and finally to Germany. Driven by his fascination with snow cover and sea ice, he followed persistently his...
Teaching expertise is necessary when applying for a professorship or any other permanent staff position. Yet how are you going to pick up teaching skills if your current appointment does not include teaching or supervision duties?...
Do you have difficulty getting started writing a paper? For days, if not weeks, you run around with the intention of starting a new paper, but you don’t ever start. Most likely, your expectations are too high at the beginning, you...
Good scientific presentations are the result of preparation and rehearsal. Even if you carefully prepare, you won’t automatically deliver a good talk: You need to rehearse it. But how? What is the best way to rehearse a presentation?...
Have you been invited to give an academic job talk online? Do you have to give a presentation on your research and experiences as part of an application process? There are a few rules you need to follow in order to make your virtual...
Do you want to become a peer-reviewer for an academic journal? Do you want to help journals assess papers but have not been asked yet and have no idea what you need to do to be invited? Here are 10 tips to help you become a reviewer...
Are you near the end of your PhD or a postdoc position? Then thinking about the next career move is a crucial, yet often daunting task. Being in the final phase of one academic career stage and about to enter the next is typically a...
If you have completed your PhD with a monograph, AKA a thesis, you might wonder if you can convert your thesis into journal papers. Are you allowed to do this, and what is the best way to do it? Here, we describe the steps you should...
Publishing a paper in a good journal is not about being lucky or knowing the right people, and it doesn’t require magic either. Getting published in a good journal requires solid scholarship that is presented in an excellent way to the...
Whether you’re a newbie or a more experienced writer, rejections can happen to everyone, and the fear of receiving a negative response from the journal is omnipresent. But you can do quite a lot to prevent your paper from rejection and...
Collaborative writing is the preferred mode of authoring papers with multiple contributors. When writing with co-authors, you may soon realise that not all authors work and write the same way. It’s easier and more fun with some than...
Have you presented at a conference and found yourself wanting more useful feedback from the audience? Were you hoping the audience would recognise the hard work you put into your talk? We all need feedback to learn what we could...
We have all had our experiences with administrative hurdles and likely been driven up the walls more than once in failed attempts and wasted hours trying to figure out how exactly we’re supposed to complete a particular admin task. In...
Is chairing a conference session new to you? Have you always wondered what the responsibilities of a chairperson are? Have you been asked to chair a session at an in-person or a virtual conference and want to do it well? In our...
Is chairing a conference session new to you? Have you always wondered what the responsibilities of a chairperson are? Have you been asked to chair a session at an in-person or a virtual conference and want to do it well? In our...
Are you a PhD candidate and occasionally ask yourself whether what you are doing is good enough? Do you sometimes have doubts about the quality of your research? That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Questioning the standards of your...
In this special post, Dr. Amandine Colson shares her PhD Success story. Her PhD was anything but easy, but she’s here to tell you what helped her persist, and what motivated her not to give up in spite of considering this as a very...
If we asked what your top priority is in your PhD, what would you say? Do you have one priority? Or, for that matter, do you know what is important? Can you single out what really matters from the overwhelming amount of things you...
Let’s get straight to the point: If you realistically want to have a chance of finishing your PhD on time, you’ll have to plan your project. More specifically, you have to apply project management techniques and appoint yourself the...
Often, we’ve been asked “What can I do to increase the chances of my paper getting accepted?” Many might think you should add more references from important people, present a super-cool new method, or be in the lucky position to base...
If you wonder whether joining an online writing community is for you, we are here to help you understand what you can expect from such a community. If you cannot find a suitable writing group and want to create your own community that...
Have you considered looking for a writing buddy for your next paper? Are you wondering about the potential benefit of having someone to talk to when crafting your manuscript? Here, we provide four reasons why it can be...
Just before the festive season, we wonder: what if Santa started a PhD position in your department? What kind of experience would he have? Why would he want to do it, and would there be anything we can learn from Santa as a fellow PhD...
Are you among those who tend to postpone career planning until later? Until you have only a few months or weeks till your current contract ends? We know that it’s not easy to map out the unknown path after your PhD completion, or once...
Take a moment and think about the following: What kind of contracts have you been working under in the past as a Doctoral Candidate, Junior Researcher, or Postdoc? How long have you been funded at a time, and how often were you...
Do you want to know how to write a perfect paper? What does a perfect paper look like? What is it doing differently? How is it written? And what topics should such a paper cover? Is it written by a genius? In this post, we will shed...
Not sure whom to include as (co-)author on a journal paper? Don’t know what defines authorship on a paper? Many rumors and reasons why someone should be an author on a paper seem to go around. Let’s get rid of the myths, and instead...
Is writing a journal paper high up on your agenda? Then one of the first questions to clarify is what you’re going to write about. What is the topic of your paper? We know identifying a topic can sometimes be a painful process....
Get to know what is behind Gunther’s drive to teach researchers how to write journal papers successfully. Find out what language, writing and creating a text means for him, and what the ups and downs in his scientific writing career...
With a PhD or a Postdoc in your bag, you’ve got many options for your career: You can stay on the academic path, or look for a job in the private or public sector. Many PhD candidates and Postdocs find it hard to make up their mind and...
It’s celebration time in the Smart Academics Blog office, as we mark post #100. On this special occasion, we want to put the success of some of our previous students centre stage! Here, we’ll celebrate five researchers who successfully...
Are you experiencing writing problems? Feeling uncomfortable when thinking about dissertation writing? Don’t let the mild symptoms of writing anxiety turn into something bigger! What might start as just low motivation can soon lead to...
Are you experiencing problems with your PhD supervisor? Are you not receiving the support you need, or have you been exposed to misconduct? Have you thought about changing your supervisor for some time, but can’t make up your mind? Are...
Experiencing set-backs is inevitable during a PhD project. But it’s how you deal with these that can make all the difference. Here, we’ll teach you how to turn your set-backs into growth, and get your PhD project back on the...
Are you afraid that you will be accused of plagiarising ideas from other researchers in your paper? Are you worried that someone else is using your work without referencing it? In this post, learn what plagiarism is and how you can...
Are you going to present your research to an audience soon? Do you want to deliver a great talk that your audience will remember? Whether you’re presenting face-to-face in front of a live audience, or delivering a virtual talk at an...
Are you going on a (summer) holiday this year? Really? You dare leave your desk and unfinished work behind? You plan to just stop working for a couple of weeks—in the middle of the year? Leaving your data unattended? Braveheart! You’re...
I recently got an e-mail from a postdoc after my course ‘How to apply for an academic staff position.’ She asked whether or not I thought it would be meaningful to set up a LinkedIn profile at her career stage in conjunction with her...
