Charles Martineau

Guides, Tips, and Tools for PhD Stu­dents and Academics

• Con­duct­ing great research
• Writ­ing great research
• Pub­li­ca­tion process
• On the job mar­ket + becom­ing a junior fac­ulty + teaching
• Aca­d­e­mic Pre­sen­ta­tion Tips
• Great Research Tools

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How to fin­ish your PhD on time by… ScienceWoman

Con­duct­ing great research

How to Build an Eco­nomic Model in Your Spare Time by Hal R. Varian

Lit­er­a­ture Review Notes, Tips, and Tricks by Dan Hirschman

How to Suc­ceed in Acad­e­mia or Die Try­ing Have Fun Try­ing by Lasse Pederson

Expe­ri­enced advice for “lost” grad­u­ate stu­dents in Eco­nom­ics by Ariel Rubenstein

Ten Sim­ple Rules for Doing Your Best Research, Accord­ing to Ham­ming by Thomas C. Erren, Paul Cullen, Michael Erren, Philip E. Bourne

Writ­ing great research

Writ­ing Tips for Ph. D. Stu­dents by John Cochrane

How to write a Research Paper and get it accepted by Good Jour­nal by Anthony Newman

How to write con­sis­tently bor­ing sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture by Kaj Sand-Jensen

Advice on writ­ing research arti­cles by Andrew Gel­man

On writ­ing well by Stephen Walt

Pub­li­ca­tion process

The Slow­down of the Eco­nom­ics Pub­lish­ing Process by Glenn Ellison

Rejec­tions and the impor­tance of first response times, The Review Process in Eco­nom­ics: Is It Too Fast? and The slow­down in first-response times of eco­nom­ics jour­nals: Can it be ben­e­fi­cial? by Ofer Azar

Pub­lish­ing in the Majors: A Com­par­i­son of Account­ing, Finance, Management, and Mar­ket­ing by Edward Swanson

The do’s and don’t’s of sub­mit­ting sci­en­tific papers in the Com­par­a­tive Bio­chem­istry and Phys­i­ol­ogy (2009)

How to Pub­lish in a Top Jour­nal by Dan Hamermesh

Pub­lish­ing in Acad­emy Man­age­ment Jour­nal (AMJ)—Part 1: Topic

Pub­lish­ing in Acad­emy Man­age­ment Jour­nal (AMJ)—Part 2: Research Design

 

On the job mar­ket + becom­ing a junior fac­ulty + teaching

Job Mar­ket Advice I: The Sum­mer and Fall Before Going on the Job Mar­ket by Marc F. Belle­mare (also look here for Marc Bellemare’s exam­ple of a teach­ing phi­los­o­phy statement).

A Guide and Advice for Econ­o­mists on the U.S. Junior Aca­d­e­mic Job Mar­ket by John Cawley

The Young Economist’s Guide to Pro­fes­sional Eti­quette, The Pro­fes­sional Eti­quette for the Mature Econ­o­mist, and Micro­eco­nomic Prin­ci­ples Teach­ing by Daniel S. Hamermesh

Teach­ing the Prin­ci­ples of Eco­nom­ics by Greg Mankiw

The Con­fer­ence Hand­book by George Stigler

Sur­vival Strate­gies for the Fledg­ling Finance Pro­fes­sor by Philip Cooley

Aca­d­e­mic pre­sen­ta­tion tips

“There is no such thing as bor­ing knowl­edge — only boring presenters.”

Tip #1: Never use any pow­er­point or other soft­wares’ templates

Tip #2: Avoid the podium

Tip #3: Fol­low John Cochrane’s advice to presentations

Tip #4: The 8 Key Ele­ments of Highly Effec­tive Speech

Tip #5: No excuse for bor­ing an audi­ence: Advice on giv­ing tech­ni­cal pre­sen­ta­tions by Garr Reynolds

Great research tools

Ever­note

Remem­ber Every­thing is Evernote’s “brand­ing mes­sage” and its cor­rect. With Ever­note, any research ideas that pop up in your mind you can write it down in Evernote’s apps. This app syncs with your PC/MAC, phone, tablet etc.

Google Reader

You may prob­a­bly know what Google Reader is. It’s your own lit­tle hub of all the blogs you fol­low. I like it to fol­low other aca­d­e­mic blogs. I get a lot of ideas from there.

Google Alert

I am sur­prised that many don’t know Google Alert. With Google Alert, you can ask to report you, on a daily basis, any new stuff on the web that was cre­ated in the last 24hours on a topic of choice. A great way to keep track of what is going on in your field of research.

Mind­note (Mac only — free ver­sion and pro ver­sion for 19.99)

Basi­cally, Mind­note is one of the best brain­storm­ing tool available.

Papers ($79)

A per­sonal library of research. Keep track of all your research arti­cles and make sure they are well organized.

Omni­fo­cus (for Mac prod­ucts only, $80)

Omni­fo­cus is per­sonal pro­duc­tiv­ity appli­ca­tion. It’s costly but how effec­tive to keep track of all your work, projects, bills to pay, etc! It is not a per­sonal agenda. The app is in part based on the book “Get­ting Things Done” by David Allen. (look also for the stu­dent discount)

Omn­i­GraphS­ketcher (for Mac, $30)

If you want to make the best look­ing graphs for your research (with absolute total ease) this is the app for you. (look for the stu­dent discount)

Omni­writer (for Mac, $5)

Omni­writer (not part of the same com­pany who devel­oped Omni­fo­cus and Omn­i­GraphS­ketcher) is a sim­ple text edi­tor that allows you to be totally immersed and focused when it comes to writ­ing… it is sur­pris­ingly an amaz­ing app.

Skim

Skim allows you open any PDF doc­u­ments and anno­tate them the way you want. Let’s say it’s eas­ier to anno­tate doc­u­ments in PDF using Skim when shar­ing your research with co-authors.

Stack Over­flow

Stack Over­flow is a web­site where all pro­gram­mers meet and help oth­ers who need help with MATLAB, SAS, PYTHON, C++, etc. I had to learn Mat­lab real fast and with­out Stack Over­flow, it would have taken me an eter­nity. You can get replies really fast and when you sub­mit a ques­tion. Make sure you approve the answers (if the cor­rect one) sug­gested by authors to build up your reputation.