Carl Zimmer just gave a short talk at SciFoo on 3 rules for making sure your research is understood: 1. Mentalize - Try to get inside the head of your reader (someone without your knowledge) and see what you are saying through their eyes. 2. Choose *every* word - No jargon. Carl's list of banned words is useful... read more

I got my job at Google due in large part to having a friend working there in a similar position. My Microsoft job I found through a friend of a friend. My postdoc advisor at Dartmouth had met me previously at a conference. The same for my stint at Rice. And so on. Pretty much the only job I've ever gotten witho... read more

Stephen Quake, a Stanford biophysics professor, has been guest writing a column in the *New York Times*. His opening column was on the links between pure and applied research. He raises a lot of great points about how applied research can lead to new ideas for pure research and vice versa (and includes a few nice ... read more

If the people with skills that are the most valuable outside of academia leave universities in disproportionate numbers (as I think they do), students will miss out on what they have to offer, and there the risk that academia will grow progressively more insular. How might one counteract this effect? One straigh... read more

There's an interesting piece in today's Chronicle of Higher Ed on the effectiveness of regular quizzes on learning. Basically, it appears that the act of recalling information (as for a quiz) reinforces the memory of that information. Quizzing people soon after they learn something produces pretty big improvements... read more

There's an interesting new bill working its way through the House: The Scientific Communications Act of 2007. (A tip of the hat to the fine folks over at ArsTechnica for cluing me in to its existence). The bill allocates $50 million over 5 years to the NSF to improve the communication skills of S&E graduate stud... read more

How does one come up with good research ideas? Grad school teaches you a lot about how to pursue them once you have them. You also learn a lot of techniques for evaluating your ideas so you can sift through and find good ones. But are there things you can do to help ensure that your pool of ideas actually include... read more

Quick tip: Want to see who is citing your work? Use Google Scholar! Find your papers by searching for your name (if it's distinctive) or by searching for the titles of your papers. Helpful hints: * Use the exact form of your name that you use in papers and *put it in quotes*. In my case, "Geoffrey M Davis" ... read more

I have been reviewing a few grant proposals recently. One in particular struck me: a poorly written proposal that described what I thought was a pretty good idea. In the end, I couldn't recommend that it be funded -- there were just too many unanswered questions. I imagine it will be revised and resubmitted and t... read more