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An unsolicited guide to being a researcher [pdf]

emerge-lab.github.io

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Re: An unsolicited guide to being a researcher [pdf]

#6
post #4

Biggest drawback these days is funding (Govt. is not liking research with all fund cuts) and long term opportunities for folks doing research.

There are still opportunities, but they aren’t paid nearly as well as less researchy positions in industry. US post-doc salaries at state universities aren’t that high.

Re: An unsolicited guide to being a researcher [pdf]

#7
As for the notebook part, it's fascinating because it genuinely is kind of like software design if you try and impose more structure onto it - how is it reusable for the future? Can you genuinely predict the space of possible writings that you want, or does it, in the authors words, homogenize?

I've taken an approach where I treat the act of deep writing (or shallow writing, or any writing) as means in it of themselves. Not sure how absolutely effective this is but I can definitely say that my thinking changed.

#1 step to writing is to stop giving a f and I didn't not learn that until I was 21. Too easy to get caught up in schoolwork and the "proper" way to do things I feel.

Re: An unsolicited guide to being a researcher [pdf]

#9
> Also a lot of bullet points are bad

> Slides should have maybe a sentence of text at most

Proceeds to have slides with many bullet points and more than several sentences of text per.

I don't find issue with the slides as they are but if you're going to make arbitrary rules why not follow them yourself?

Re: An unsolicited guide to being a researcher [pdf]

#10
post #9

> Also a lot of bullet points are bad > Slides should have maybe a sentence of text at most Proceeds to have slides with many bullet points and more than several sentences of text per. I don't find issue with the slides as they are but if you're going to make arbitrary rules why not follow them yourself?

I haven't seen the associated talk, but (a) I would imagine the author chuckled while reading this, because it's sort of a joke among scholars, and (b) the point is likely focused much more on the context of presenting research (e.g., at conferences) rather than a blanket ironclad rule for all presentations you ever make ever.

While I think there's some validity to your point that the author's presentation suffers excess verbosity, I'm not too worried about it because the linked slides seem more meant to act as a reference document than an example of a good presentation, and the level of text is just fine for that purpose.

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