Guide for PhD students in science

Tips by Georgia Chenevix-Trench

1. Choose a supervisor whose work you admire.
2. Get involved and take responsibility for your project – train yourself in independent and effective thinking, critical analysis, problem solving and time management.
3. Work hard.
4. Take some weekends off, and decent holidays, so you don’t burn out.
5. Read the literature in your immediate area, both current and past.
6. Plan your days and weeks carefully.
7. Keep a good lab book and write it up every day.
8. Be creative.
9. Be active in your approach to research – seek information and advice.
10. Try to keep a three-part portfolio of sub-projects that are safe, moderately safe and challenging.
11. Go to as many seminars as you can.
12. Make the most of any opportunities to attend a conference or workshop.
13. Take a notepad and write down the action items when you meet with your supervisor.
14. Develop good writing skills.
15. Make the most opportunities to talk about your work.
16. Appreciate that research is expensive and is mostly funded by taxpayers’ money or private donations.
17. Look ahead.
18. Set yourself deadlines and try to keep them.
19. Plan to work abroad at some point.
20. Think very early and very carefully about what you plan to do after your PhD.
21. Start collaborations.
22. Talk to Sales reps.
23. Look for opportunities to write small grants.
24. Koin professional societies.
25. Take courses.
26. Get involved in institute or department events.

 Source: http://www.cooperlab.wustl.edu/

Advice for setting up new lab

1)    Establish research program – be more focus for first few years.

2)    Create milestones (5 or 10 year) to accomplish – expand the lab slowly.

3)    Create a list for management – laboratory equipment, computers and office furniture, personnel costs, supplies and other recurring laboratory expenses, and travel to conferences and for fieldwork.

4)    Hire good people (RA & postdoc) and recruit good student – Train people good.

5)    Get grants / funding – get help, collaboration.

6)    Plan your time well – spend time doing research, read paper. Do not waste too much time on meetings.

How to initiate a new research project?

Find an interesting biological question from

1)          Literature research – read papers/reviews, particularly top-tier journals. Some review paper lists hot questions and new problems in the field.

2)          Experiences – Identify interesting gene from transcriptome, proteome analysis, mutant screening, etc.

3)          Observation – controversies and unexplained findings, new methods to study old problems, etc.

4)          Discussion with mentor, senior, people in the field.

5)          Collect information from meeting and conference.

6)          Database search/survey – use keyword to see volume and impact of recent research in an area.

 

Select a topic to do survey.

1)          Understand the research history related to that topic. (literature study)

2)          Understand the current knowledge related to that topic. (the current state-of-the-art)

3)          List the interesting questions still unknown related to that topic.

4)          List the tools and resources available to answer those research questions.

How to network with scientist?

Why networking is important?

–         Interact and communicate with others can increased our knowledge.

–         Networking is important for seeking jobs, as most jobs are NOT advertised.

 

General tips:

–         Try to remember people’s name.

–         Be polite.

–         Be yourself (honesty).

–         Be initiative.

 

How to introduce yourself in 15 seconds?

–         Name.

–         Affiliation (Lab, Institution, …)

–         What you do in one sentence.

 

How to introduce your research project / interest in 30 seconds?

–         Be prepared.

–         Research question first before any details.

–         Cater to the interest of the audience.

 

How to ask question?

–         Simple and straight forward.

–         Differentiate comment from question.

 

How to answer question?

–         Allow the person to finish asking.

–         Make sure you understand the question before answer. “Let me rephrase your question…”, “Do you mean …”

–         It’s OK to say “I don’t know.”

 

How to initiate a conversation?

–         Say “Hi” and introduce yourself. (“I’m …”)

–         Ask question (science related or general). “I have a question on…” or “Is this your first visit to Taipei?”

–         Comment or pay a compliment. “Your talk just now is interesting.”

–         Be curious on people and things and show your interest on them. “This is interesting.”

–         Say something general. “The weather is nice, isn’t it?”

–         Make an observation. “I noticed that you were reading book on evolution, do you work on this?”

–         Tell something related to earlier event… “Do you know that…”

 

How to continue a conversation?

–         More questions / answers.

–         Try to ask open-ended questions rather than close-ended questions.

–         Comments.

 

How to end a conversation?

–         End in a nice way. “I’m sorry that I got to go. It is nice talking to you.”

 

How to build your confidence?

–         Practice more.

–         Train yourself.

–         Get more exposure.

 

How to impress on people?

–         Don’t be shy.

–         Do not oversell.

 

Improve work process to improve results

To improve performances in your work, review your work process.

For example, one will use more time to prepare progress report if they do not have the practice to arrange data/result after finishing work/experiment.

If you create a clear work process map, you can detect your work process problem easier.

Work process is the way the work is done to produce result. Ineffective work processes are the causes of problem.

– Set up a clearly defined work process. Create a process map.

– Follow the procedure process instead of just follow the procedure. Think about “Is there a better way to do what you do?”

Advantages of Process map (A visual representation of the steps in the process)

1)          Visual dialogue

2)          Objectivity (talk about the process)

3)          Documentation of the steps

4)          Business continuity

5)          Captures experience

Things you must learn to master Ph.D.

1)          Learn critical thinking. (Logical thinking, etc.)

2)          Learn how to think like a scientist. (Understand the biological question, hot question of your field, etc.)

3)          Learn how to write a proposal. (learn how to create a new project)

4)          Learn how to learn from reading scientific paper.

5)          Learn how to design your experiments.

6)          Learn about the methodology used. (how to interpret the result, advantage and disadvantage, etc)

7)          Learn how to give science presentation (present paper in journal club, progress report in lab, poster presentation)

8)          Learn how to write paper for publishing.

9)          Learn how to manage your time. (learn how to arrange your works)

10)      Learn how to express your thoughts. (learn how to communicate with others.)

實驗秘訣(Secrets in lab work)

實驗秘訣(改編自陶朱經商十八法)：

1)          實驗要勤快，懶惰則百事廢。(work hard)

2)          目標要定明，含糊則爭執多。(objective must be clear) (實驗目標明確)

3)          用度要節儉，奢華則錢財竭。(be economical)

4)          代理要識人，濫用則血本虧。(deputize well)

5)          實驗要百驗，濫作則信譽減。 (experiment repeatable)

6)          錢財要明慎，糊塗則弊端生。(use budget well)

7)          臨事要盡責，妄托則受害大。(be responsible)

8)          報告要多讀，懈怠則靈感滯。(read paper)

9)          接納要謙和，躁暴則贵人少。(be humble)(耐心聽別人的觀點)

10)      立心要安靜，妄動則誤事多。(keep calm)

11)      工作要精細，粗糙則出劣品。(be meticulous)

12)      談話要規矩，浮躁則失事多。(be polite)

13)      實驗要謹慎，隨意則錯誤多。(be serious)

14)      觀點要公正，歪斜則信任難。(be objective) (客觀看待實驗)

15)      結果要細辨，混淆則判斷難。(differentiate critically)

16)      記錄要修整，散慢則查點難。(keep good record)

17)      期限要約定，訛延則枝節生。(accomplish in time)

18)      實驗要隨時，拖延則失良機。(keep up with trends)

How to learn from reading scientific paper?

1)          When you read a paper, find the biological question that the authors want to study.

2)          Do some background studies, check the related previous studies. Understand the importance of these questions.

3)          Try to figure out what approach can be used to answer the question.

4)          Guess the hypothesis made is based on what observations.

5)          Understand the experiment designs that used to test their hypothesis.

6)          Understand what the experiments done can prove and cannot prove.

7)          Read the results and try to interpret them on your own.

8)          Read the authors’ conclusion and discussion to understand how they interpret the results.

9)          Ask questions and find points that unanswered in the paper.

10)      Try to evaluate the paper on their experiment designs, arguments, and organization (structural framework of their writing).

11)      Review the strong point and weak point of the paper. Think how to improve the paper.

12)      Ask whether there is novelty in this paper. Is there a scientific breakthrough? Their find a new gene or answer a question?

13)      Discuss the paper with your friends, etc.

Reading advice for graduate student

– Read paper instead of read book. When the author writing for a book, the content is based on papers published on that time. Then the book will go through editing process and finally published. Since science publishing is fast, the book content sometimes already outdated when it is published.

– Select paper from prestigious scientific journal.

– Do not just read review article, read the research articles.

– Try to appreciate the design of experiments, not just read the results.

– Question instead of just accept what you are told in the paper.

– Follow closely on the work of competitors, don’t just read paper. Attend seminar and conference, listen to talk and check out poster.

 

How Advances in Science Are Made

by Prof. Douglas Osheroff (American Physicist and a 1996 Nobel Laureate)

• Advances in science are seldom made by individuals alone. They result from the progress of the scientific community, asking questions, developing new technologies to answer those questions, and sharing their results and their ideas with others.

• To have rapid progress, one must support scientific research broadly, and encourage scientists to interact with one another and to spend some of their time satisfying their own curiosities.