Inspiration vs. motivation

I have survived one whole year as PhD student! It has been a crazy year of ups and downs, and I have learnt a lot about what doing a PhD really involves. I still have my confirmation to look forward to, however looking back at the past year I’d like to share one or two things I’ve learnt.

Firstly, to not compare where I am to where others are. It can be hard seeing what stages your friends are in their research. When they’re ahead, it looks scary hard, or they’re so advanced that you think you’ll never get there. If they’re just starting, they have so much potential! Each of our journeys are different (I enjoy stating the obvious), so we shouldn’t look to others for where our paths will take us.


We all start and finish in different places!

One of the most important things I’ve learnt, in my opinion, involves motivation and inspiration. Inspiration comes and goes, and we need to use whatever motivation we can find to ensure that when we lack inspiration, our work doesn’t come to a standstill. This means it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing the work for the “right” reason or the “wrong”, as long as it gets done!

My first blog post was about how difficult the decision to stay in my PhD was. I wasn’t able to find the motivation to continue working. However, once inspiration hit, I was full of ideas and enthusiasm! Throughout this past year, while inspiration has come and gone, I’ve had to find the motivation to come into work even when all I wanted to do is find a rich guy to marry so I'd never have to think again.

It’s on these latter days that doing work is hard. We’ve all experienced it – that feeling that you’re not getting anywhere, that everything you do it pointless, and you’ll never be as good as others. Some days you’re just not going to feel inspired, and you need to find other reasons to continue work. There are days when I have to remind myself that life as a researcher means flexible work hours and paid trips overseas!



It’s ok for these motivations to be whatever they have to be to keep you working. The end product is often rewarding in itself – a PhD! Or a published article, or successful experiment. However it takes time to get there, and you need something to keep you going in the meantime. If you can remember that you’re working to win a Nobel prize, great! But if you need to motivate yourself to finish an article with a chocolate reward, or plan a celebratory dinner to motivate yourself to finish writing up that paper, that’s fine too. It’s even ok agree to give a presentation or work late to try and impress someone (whether it be your supervisors, or that hottie down the hall).

The important thing to remember is that once you’ve decided you want to finish this PhD (or degree, assignment, experiment, or any other goal), it doesn’t matter what the motivation is to get through the tough parts, as long as it keeps you working in between those magical days of inspiration!

One you’ve decided you’re going to finish this thing, if you can’t find the “right” motivation, look for the wrong one!

Nonie

Cognition in the Wild

My posts usually attempt to impart some kind of pseudo-wisdom to unwitting students thinking of doing a PhD. Now I just want to tell you about a freakin’ awesome time I had.

I do basic cognitive psychology research in a lab on human identification of complex visual patterns. But I also try to make it so my findings can be applied in the wild. It turns out that fingerprints are a kind of complex visual pattern and, contrary to what you see on CSI, it’s a human fingerprint expert who decides whether a crime-scene print belongs to a suspect or not.

But, despite its 100 year history, there have been no properly controlled experiments on the identification accuracy of fingerprint examiners. They have even claimed to be infallible, but mistakes made to date have resulted in innocent people being wrongly accused. So, in my PhD, I’m trying to determine how accurate fingerprint examiners are and explore the psychology that affects matching accuracy.

Off the back of this, I was invited by some lawyers to a workshop to help figure out what forensic examiners should be claiming in court and even how best to present their claims to the jury. It was all expenses paid with fine wine, food and my own beach view room in Sydney. I was the only kid in the group and felt privileged to be there.

As Katie said last week, it’s hard to say no (even when you probably should be focusing on your research). But in this case, I just couldn’t resist ;-)

My Sydney view. Lawyers sure know how to spend their money.

Matt Thompson
mbthompson.com
(Post title stolen from Ed Hutchins)

Biting off more than you can chew: How not to, and how to cope when you do

I have been grinding my teeth in my sleep. A bit of an over-share, I know, but it’s relevant to this post. You see, the reason I’m stressed and ruining years of orthodontic work is the eight studies I need to run this semester. I will preface my post by pointing out that this is definitely not the norm in psychology – I don’t want to scare off any potential postgraduates, nor make new ones wonder what they have gotten themselves in for.

Here’s the way things often go during a PhD. You begin a young ingénue determined to run the perfect first study. After realizing that this is an impossible dream you settle for running the best study you can design. Data arrives. You excitedly write your first paper. Meanwhile, you begin running a second study to build on your findings. You remember your Honours research and set about writing it up for publication. You meet a new collaborator and design a study together. Your reviews come back for the first article you submitted – the editor has asked for new data. Your second study gave you completely different results to the ones expected. Now you have two new papers to write (both needing additional data), one to revise, and one currently under review. Wait, don’t you still have most of your proposed project to run? Repeat, ad nauseam.

Certainly there are different conventions in different areas of psychology and with different supervisors, so this may not be representative of everyone’s experience. It has been my experience, however. Hence, my desire to run eight studies in 12 weeks and subsequently poor dental state. If you would prefer to avoid this experience, I would recommend becoming familiar with saying ‘no’. You may need to say ‘no’ to potential collaborators who see an overlap with your work. You may also need to say ‘no’ to your supervisor if they recommend running an unnecessary study. You may even need to say ‘no’ to yourself, to stop exploring that new and interesting topic that has caught your fancy. I would definitely not recommend turning down every opportunity that comes your way during the PhD, but be judicious in the choices you make. Remember also that what might seem like a manageable number of projects at the start of your PhD can balloon out into a teeth-grinding fiasco by the end.

How I plan to cope with my behemoth study load this semester is with lots of forward planning and lots of external support. Firstly, I am making sure that I am only running studies that are absolutely crucial to finishing developed projects–no new topics, no matter how interesting. I am prioritizing those associated with my PhD and those that will be packaged into papers that need to be resubmitted to journals by a certain date. Secondly, I have made sure that my supervisor is on board. She is assisting me by hiring RAs to help with data collection and data entry. Without her support I couldn’t hope to accomplish all that I aim to this semester. With it I am hoping that data collection will be completely finalized for my PhD by June, leaving me a breezy six months to write my thesis and get the contents published.

For people just starting the PhD process I’ll give you this advice: don’t bite of more than you can chew. For those who already have, I recommend getting a good dentist.

To a PhD and beyond

Recently I attended a session on post-doctorial positions which prompted me to give some thought to my career options once (if) I finish my PhD. For those like myself who are interested in research and aspire to forge a career in academia the obvious and arguably necessary next step is a post-doctorate position. A post-doctorate position is exactly as it sounds. It is a position for those who have completed a doctorate and it is often used as a stepping stone into a fulltime academic position. In fact as I understand it, a post-doctorate is becoming a necessary position to fulfil in order to progress along the academic career path. The trouble is there is an oversupply of PhD students in the system and as a result the competition for securing a post-doctorate is fierce, very fierce.

Although I already had some appreciation for how just fierce this completion is, I would be lying if I said that walking out of the information session I didn’t feel a little anxious and unsettled. The CV’s of UQ post-doctorate and ARC post-doctorate recipients were intimidating. Far beyond what I can imagine, at this point in time, achieving over the next couple of years. There are of course other avenues to securing a post-doctorate position, namely academics recruiting you using grant funding. This I am led to believe is the more common method of securing a post-doctorate position though be aware, the competition for these positions would seem to drop off only marginally if at all. On top of this I came across the following article published in Nature by Jennifer Rohn which paints a pretty grim picture for aspiring researchers.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/471007a.html

All of this together, I can’t help but let my mind wonder to a number of my friends who many years ago completed 3-4 year business degrees and are now reaping the financial benefits.

So have I made a huge tiny mistake? Well time will tell I guess. Perhaps I am naive but for now I am comforted by the fact that I can honestly say I love what I do and that I wouldn’t trade it for close to anything. I chose this path because I am driven by curiosity to no other end than to finding answers to my questions and right now I am being funded to do so! That I think, as well as being infinitely cool, is a privileged position to be in and I intend to make the most of it as this opportunity may not arise again. (Warning! Cognitive dissonance detected)

May your curiosity drive you to success.

James

"In Pavlov We Trust"

One new year, two new presidents and a HUGE range of social events, information sessions and good old support! But first, the story so far...

...The year was 2009, I began psychology inundated with preconceptions about clinical psychology – being a first year, and a naive one at that, I didn’t realise the full extent of where my degree could take me. All I knew was that I wanted to do something that directly related to the brain and helping people.

Interested in clinical neuropsychology, I began looking for a club that could connect me to people with similar interests. Luckily for me, orientation week was right around the corner! As market day finally arrived, I scouted the stalls for anything that resembled psychology; the Psychology Students’ Association seemed to be just that.

After joining I realised that the club was really a non-entity. There was barely a mention of the society and nobody really knew why it was there and what it did. For whatever reason, the PSA had fallen into disrepair and was barely surviving - which is through no fault of the previous PSA committee; it’s just that the enthusiasm from students wasn’t there. The next year appeared to be a catalyst for the PSA, with Zan and the other exec. putting in much effort to return the association to its former glory!

BUT! That was then and this is now. Voted in as president, I paired up with Ben Cochrane (Co-president), Maria Lee and Jocelyn Chak (Co-Secretaries), and Richard Bunker (Treasurer) to create a new face for the PSA. After supplying psychology merchandise and re-vamping the entire image, we collaborated and reached a decision as to what we will do for 2011.

The first thing will be to hold a “Back to School” themed trivia and band night where students can interact and socialise with each other. Continuing down the same road, more social events will be held, as will information sessions (PhD Roundtables, Honours information sessions, Masters Roundtables and more), general meetings and at the end of the year a psychology ball.

We really want this to be the BEST year ever for the PSA, so if you are interested at all, please feel free to contact us either by: email psacommittee@psy.uq.edu.au or via our social networking page and we will set you up with membership, merchandise or tickets to any of our events!
Rob (co-president)

Learning for the first time all over again

A new year has started. This means two things for PhD students - we again have to fight for car parks, and we have a new batch of first year students that “volunteer” to participate in our experiments.

I’ve been looking forward to this fresh batch of participants because I have a fresh batch of experiments I want to collect data for. The problem that I faced today, however, is that for the past few months of uni holidays I’ve only been testing a handful of my friends in my experiments. My friends participate in a lot of my experiments so I don’t need to spend too much time explaining the tasks... After testing the first few fresh students, I quickly found out how much I take my friends’ participation experience for granted.

For some of the participants who showed up for my experiment today, this may have only been their second day at university ever. Wow. I can’t even remember my first week of uni - I can’t imagine how I would have dealt with having to participate in an experiment that challenges my basic perceptual abilities...

And I realised that for someone who has never thought about cognitive psychology (and I can admit that’s probably 95% of everyone), participating in one of my experiments is probably outright weird. I ask my participants to rest their chin in a chin rest and to rest their head against a headrest that mostly immobilises head movements. Oh, and I turn off the lights so participants are in darkness. I then tell them to stare at flickering images on a computer monitor for about 30 minutes, pressing one of two buttons over and over again. I’m halfway through my PhD and even I find this completely abstract.

But I rediscovered one of the joys I take in testing completely naive participants - working out how to explain my seemingly abstract concepts in a way that any person can understand. This is a huge challenge for anyone doing research. You can’t use any lingo or jargon, you can’t talk about other researchers, and you can’t talk about statistics. Most importantly, being able to communicate clearly to an average Joe or Jane requires that you know exactly what you are doing and why.

I think it’s important for our participants to get something out of their participation, even if it’s just a basic understanding of a methodology. So with the new uni students who are learning how to do experiments for the first time, I am re-learning how to test new students!

Hopefully my participants don't end up feeling like Little Albert:

-Will

www.willjharrison.com

2010 wrap up!

The first post of 2010 summarised the UQ Psyc Blog’s first 6 weeks. I thought I’d start this year with another summary of the past year from January 1 to December 31, 2010. Our blog certainly has grown:

Instead of our original 5 writers, we now have 17 PhD students, postdocs, and academic staff writing stories on a regular basis. We’ve had over 3000 people view our site 9300 times!

The vast majority of views come from Brisbane, but as you can see in the following map, people from all over Australia now read the UQ Psyc Blog:

Last year only a handful of other countries had read the blog, but this year, a list with countries that haven’t read the blog would be shorter than countries that have. We’ve had hundreds of views from the US, and quite a few from Canada, and check out some of these other countries (10 points if you can spot the 1 view from Estonia!):

Stef Becker’s post “Reply to the Zero Sum Game: Should PhD students tutor?” got the most views while single-post-blogger Felicity had the second most with her post Purpose of the lanyard. Maybe her popularity will help me convince her to write another post! On average, people spent the most time reading Stef’s post - (4 mins 47 seconds compared to the blog average of 1 min 30 seconds).

About 35% of people who came to our website came via one of our self-promotions on Facebook, and it was good to see that 1742 visits (19%) were from people who bookmarked our site, or new the address from memory! We also got a plug from the official School of Psychology website, which drew in almost 1500 views! And I exposed myself in a video.

Thanks to the contributors who provided the regular, interesting content. Thanks to all our readers for, well, reading. 2011 will hopefully see the continuation of regular posts about some of the behind the scenes stuff of research, and a few more posts from overseas conferences - I alone have at least two planned this year.

As always, feedback is welcome, and if you have any suggestions, comments, or want to contribute to the blog, please write to me at the email address below.

-Will
www.willjharrison.com

Psychology Christmas party!

As psychologists, it's usually our patients who get to put their feet up (haha get it?), but last Friday night was this year’s end of year celebration for Psychology. This year has been very busy and productive for me, so I thought it was my personal responsibility to celebrate hard. We all headed to the Toowong Rowing Club and got our drink on...

Mark, me and James getting stuck into our first drinks.

Silly party-hat shannanigans with mystery person! Actually, it's not that much of a mystery - I just couldn't get a hold of this person to ask if I could use a photo where you could actually see her face!

Mark and James often take photos together, so I asked them to take some snaps of the party with my iPhone. What I didn't realise is that they were walking around pretending to take photos of people, but were actually using the phone's front camera to take photos of themselves! Hilarious guys...

Emma and Blake. Not sure if Blake knew how hard it was to take him seriously with that hat/jacket combo...

Blake and me after realising our entry fee only got us two free drinks!

All in all, it was a pretty fun party and a great way to celebrate a big year. If the UQ Psyc Blog ever gets a budget of more than $0/year, I'll be sure to host a party for all our readers!

-Will
www.willjharrison.com

Excuses excuses...

Well the UQ Psyc Blog is back after a brief hiatus. Life has been busy for all the bloggers - conferences, holidays, confirmation seminars, assignment and exam marking, and data collection are just some of the excuses I won’t use to justify why there hasn’t been a new post in a while. What I will use, is this (be sure to watch in full 720p):


That’s a “teaser” video for James and my experience at Psychonomics, a cognitive psychology conference held in St Louis, Missouri, USA. I presented a poster about my work on OKN, and James presented a poster about his work on how unexpected visual events catch our attention.

While we obviously had a lot of fun, a conference is by no means a holiday - if you get a chance to go to a conference, you are there representing yourself professionally, your supervisors and their reputation, and your university. So even though the 30 hour trip to St Louis left James and I a little jet lagged, we couldn’t use that as an excuse when talking about our research, and especially not when talking to the big names in our area.

A definite highlight of conferences is getting to meet people you've only really read or heard about. In my case, this happened during a dinner we had with our supervisors and their colleagues. We got to meet Chip Folk, who, if you search for his article “Involuntary covert orienting is contingent on attentional control settings”, you’ll see has been cited over 700 times (and that's just for one paper co-authored by Roger, our supervisor). We also got to meet Shu-Chieh Wu who still works at NASA where she met Roger, and is another of Roger’s co-authors.

From left: Chip, me, James, Shu-Chieh, Stef, Roger.

Conferences are a lot of fun, but they're also a lot of work. I'm certainly not complaining - in fact I've just submitted an abstract to attend another conference in 6 months!

Stay tuned for regular UQ Psyc Blog updates (again)!

Come hear the UQ Psyc Bloggers talk about our research!

Did you know PhD students contribute to about 50% of all the research published in the School of Psychology?

This Friday, 5 November, the School of Psychology is holding the inaugural Research Higher Degrees Day. 16 students from very different areas in psychology will be talking about all the cool things they've discovered during their PhD research.

Contributors to this very blog will be well represented on the day. Here is a list of our resident bloggers' presentation times and titles:

• 10:20 - 10:40am Rachel McDonald "Conflicting norms: Do multiple groups matter?"
• 11:20 - 11:30am Katie Greenaway "Of aggression, desire for money, and belief in psychic octopi: The strange and sundry effects of lacking control"
• 1:50 - 2:10pm Will Harrison "OKN suppression, perceptual mislocalisations, the universe, and you"
• 2:10 - 2:30pm Joyce Vromen "Does the spider always win the fight for attention? Top-down modulation in fear-relevant Interference"
• 3:30 - 3:50pm Matt Thompson "The psychology of crime-scene fingerprint identification"
• 4:10 - 4:30pm Nonie Finlayson "Attention! And the depths we go to capture it"

You can download the full program (which includes abstracts of each presentation) by clicking here. All Presentations will be in room S304 (Level 3 of Social Sciences Building, #24).

I'll leave you with the first slide of my presentation which will hopefully be indicative of the style of presentation I'll give, as well as arouse your interest in the subject of my presentation!

A reply to a reply to the zero sum game: Should PhD students tutor?

A couple of people have asked me what I thought about Stefanie's comments about tutoring.

I think she makes a good argument for the benefits of having a strong publication record. She is correct in saying that it is very difficult to get short-listed for a job without a strong track record. And I would certainly agree with her central premise that any time spent away from publishing might not be helping you get a job, but only if you are aiming to create your own job through applying for a competitive postdoc or if you are applying for a research only position.

Given, however, that the majority of positions that are advertised are teaching and research oriented positions, then I would argue that tutoring and perhaps teaching a course or two can be valuable experiences during your PhD. I have been on several selection panels for teaching and research positions, and candidates who have had amazing publication track records have not been short-listed, or not been successful at interview because they were not able to demonstrate an ability to teach the required courses.

It is also worth keeping in mind that if you are looking at jobs within Australia, there are many more positions outside of the GO8 universities than there are within the group of top tier universities. Most of our graduates aspire to work at research intensive institutions, however by not looking for opportunities more widely, graduates may miss out on some interesting and enriching jobs. Many of the lower ranked universities now have extensive research aspirations, however when recruiting new teaching and research staff, especially for entry-level positions, they place a strong emphasis on demonstrated teaching ability.

Graduates may be reluctant to apply for these positions due to a fear of having a high teaching load, however, with some planning and negotiation, it is possible to strike a balance between teaching and research. One of the great benefits of working at universities with a different culture is that recent graduates are given a great opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

There are two other benefits of teaching that I think can sometimes be overlooked. First of all is that I don't think you truly come to grips with a research area until you have to stand up and explain it to a room full of people. It is a great way to learn more about areas of psychology that may be related to your research. Many of my research ideas have come from having to teach courses in psychology and law and social cognition. The regularity of teaching also trains you to become more disciplined in how you research topics, as you have to manage your time carefully.

The second benefit, as I see it, is that teaching gives you a chance to actually talk to students. It is by spending time with students and engaging them in the areas of research that you are an expert in that you interest them in psychology, and perhaps even your area of specialisation. I know that I would not have been successful in recruiting some of my early students if I hadn't done some teaching at the end of my PhD.

Now, all this is not to say that research is not important, quite the opposite. You have to strike a careful balance between publishing and teaching, and so my point is that you should do both. It is very easy to think that teaching is not important or valued, even after you get a teaching and research position. I think this is partly due to the mixed messages academics sometimes receive. Universities don't run as a monolithic organisation (despite how it seems), and the research goals and teaching goals are managed by somewhat separate parts of the university. Not only that, external pressures operate on these two goals at different times.

There has been a lot of noise lately in Australia about the ERA, which is the research quality assessment framework by which universities will be compared. This has generated a lot of focus on research productivity. There are however, major changes coming in how universities are evaluated and compared in terms of their teaching quality, and so we should all expect there to be a greater focus on this shortly. Not only that, but there is a growing awareness that teaching quality impacts directly on student outcomes such as attrition (which is a very expensive problem for universities), as well as demand for courses. And let's be completely honest here, it is through undergraduate students wanting to take our courses that we can afford to spend time on research.

So in sum, you should think about teaching and research as being inter-twined rather than separable. Doing each of them well enhances your ability to do the other. Excellent research attracts students, both at the individual and institutional level. Excellent teaching attracts research students at both levels as well.

(I wrote this at the start of UQ's Teaching and Learning Week, during which it was announced that UQ had won the maximum number of national teaching awards possible…)

Dr Blake McKimmie

Note: While I am the Deputy Head of School (Teaching and Learning), these comments reflect my own personal views on the matter!

Enriching the PhD experience

After several years of hard work, I have just been awarded my PhD and look forward to “walking the stage” in December. My research topic was patient monitoring in anaesthesia with head-mounted displays – one that turned out to be fascinating, challenging, and amazingly rewarding.

When I first started, however, I had thought that the process would be relatively unexciting – enrol, work on your own for a few years, submit, and graduate – but soon discovered that Australian programs are actually remarkably flexible. In fact, your advisers and the university are often willing to help you “enrich” your education.

Enrichment involves participating in activities that, while not strictly necessary for completing your PhD, provide complementary educational experiences that help you become a better scientist. These activities include the summer schools, theses-by-publication, and science communication activities recently described on this blog, plus many more.

If you’re a big picture type of person who likes to take on challenges, then you’ll probably enjoy working on interdisciplinary research projects. For my thesis, I brought a background in software engineering to a team of psychologists, doctors, nurses, and biomedical engineers, and investigated fundamental problems (such as inattentional blindness with HMDs) in the exciting and dynamic environment of operating rooms.

Collaborations are the foundation of academic research; take a look at any journal article and you’ll probably find several co-authors. You can work with your fellow students on side projects (in addition to your PhD), and even expand your professional networks through collaborations. Hosting academic visitors in your lab and going on academic tours is a great way to find future collaborations and job opportunities. The global academic “family” that develops throughout your career is one of the greatest perks of academia.

Other opportunities for travel include internships and fellowships. Internships give you the opportunity to apply the research skills that you learn during the PhD to practical problems in industry. Research fellowships, on the other hand, let you collaborate with internationally renowned researchers and may be part of prestigious scholarship programs such as the Rhodes and Fulbright.

The gap between the academic and corporate worlds can be dramatic at times, but research commercialisation bridges that gap for the benefit of both. Your hard work and expertise helps the wider community, while industry provides funding and support to enhance or continue your research. It also happens to be a great way to supplement your scholarship and travel funds.

Beyond work-related activities, the flexibility of PhD programs also lets you cultivate hobbies that might otherwise be impractical or too expensive if you work in a typical corporate environment. I enjoyed surfing California’s world-class waves during an internship and went snowboarding in the 500+ inches of annual snowfall while on a fellowship in Utah… almost for free!

Enrichment activities are a great way to learn new skills, build up your CV, and enjoy the PhD journey. While there are many potential opportunities available for every student, you’ll have to take the initiative to find the right ones for you.

Dave Liu

PS: I’ll be giving a more detailed talk to HFES-UQ members about my own enrichment experiences in the near future. If you’re a prospective or current PhD student and would be interested in attending, feel free to contact me at naskies@acm.org

The final stages: An account of thesis submission and review

My PhD thesis was compiled one rushed November. I plonked together some papers with a linking page between each and wrote my introduction and discussion sections. “Don’t spend too long on it – only three people are ever going to read it”, intoned my advisor. “Keep it simple, don’t waffle on. Your papers are what count.”

Waffle I did. This was my Magnum Opus, was it not? As far as theses go it was still on the short side, but not as succinct as it could have been.

It was submitted in December. I knew it wasn’t the most carefully pruned piece of writing in history, but I was proud of my achievements. Now a move overseas. The thesis was gratefully out of mind.

It took until the end of May to receive my reviews. One assessor liked it, thought it could have been more fleshed-out, but was happy with it overall. The other assessor, a preeminent scientist in my field (assessed 50 theses, supervised 23)… hated it. Dismay. Some choice quotes from the review include:

“It wanders, it addresses important points then slides into other things. It’s a mess.”

“In conclusion, the thesis is poorly organized and self-contradictory.”

Ouch.

Perhaps arrogantly, this was not what I had been expecting. The positives noted were for “a substantial body of innovative experiments… that lead to provocative results”. However, upon reading the assessor’s comments, it became clear that his reading was… less than complete. He pointed out that I had not done an important control experiment, rendering some of my main conclusions invalid. However, I had indeed done this very experiment. More broadly, it seemed like this assessor had missed the central point of what I was trying to say. He saw contradictions where I did not, and seemed to miss paragraphs of my discussion where (I feel) his concerns were addressed.

The lesson I’ve learned from all this is that, just as for journal articles, it is important for a thesis to be clear and concise. Don’t feel that your introduction and general discussion must provide some great new insight, or be an epic work of deep scholarship. Summarising what you did and saying what you think it means is sufficient (even if this feels on the short side).

It also helps to consider who your markers will be, and what academic system the likely markers work in. One of my assessors (the first) was Australian – hence the feeling towards a longer thesis and “more evidence of traditional scholarship”. The second assessor worked in the US. I am told that my 103-page thesis (including preambles, but with 26 of those pages formatted as two-column journal articles) is a little on the long side for a US audience – perhaps this is why it was only skimmed?

That said, don’t worry too much about the actual thesis write-up: if the chapters are all manuscripts (hopefully submitted / accepted), you can’t go far wrong. It’s worth noting here that even though the second reviewer believed I’d missed a crucial control experiment, his recommendation was still “pass with minor revisions”. At the end of the day, my thesis passed, and three people have read it (well, some at least). Focus on turning out a couple of manuscripts during your candidature and the actual thesis becomes a formality.

Tom Wallis

Reply to the Zero Sum Game: Should PhD students tutor?

This post was written by Stefanie Becker.

In a recent blog (Zero Sum Game) James asked whether it’s a good idea to tutor during your PhD. Let’s assume that you need to earn some money: Is tutoring the best option? Tutoring is highly paid, and you’ll gain some teaching experience, so you may think that tutoring is the thing to do, especially if you want to apply for a university job later.

Weeell, I must say I disagree: Actually, in my view, tutoring is advisable if you’re NOT striving for a university job. However, if you want to take on a job that promotes your university career, the smartest thing is to get the money in by being a research assistant (RA), and in particular, an RA to a productive researcher. The reason is that the researcher may include you as co-author on his papers if you're doing a good job. And, let's not be mistaken about that, PAPERS ARE EVERYTHING.

If you want to stay at a university, you'll need a strong publication record. Even when you want to be a lecturer, there will be many applications for each lecturer position, and the applicant with the most publications will get the job. Of course, there is some weighting, with first-author publications being rated much higher than co-author publications, publications in peer-reviewed journals being regarded more highly than book chapters, etc., and there will be considerations about the field in which you've published, and possibly, the methods you've used in the past, etc., but the most decisive selection criterion for a university job is "number of publications".

Teaching experience may matter at some later stage in the decision processes of universities, but long long long before that, the university will ask (1) whether you are able to produce high-quality research on your own (hint: always publishing with the same senior person may work against you), (2) whether you are able to attract funding, (3) whether your expertise matches with the department, (4) whether you are easy to work with, and only THEN may somebody ask, "Oh and by the way, what courses have you taught in the past?" General teaching experience may not even count for much, but experience with a specific course may get you some points -- but note that it is VERY improbable that this will make a difference in the selection process, because usually, the differences in the other, more decisive, criteria will already determine the rank of each applicant. If you do need teaching experience, it’s likely that experience from teaching one course or being tutor once is sufficient to fulfill the criteria – so you just need to tutor for a single semester.

If you want to teach (for reasons outlined in the full essay), then my advice would be: Start tutoring when you've got your publication record up to where you want it to be. Warning: If you want to go to Harvard, you should go for 7 or even 8 publications and no less than 4 first-author papers; if you’re targeting one of the top-universities in Australia, you may get in there with significantly less, but to be on the safe side, go for at least 5 publications (3 of which should be first-author publications). You may always get in with less, but if you want to make sure... Well, the competition is fierce and growing fiercer every year. As impossible as the numbers above may sound, the people you’re going to compete with have these numbers of publications, or even more. Check out other PhD students in your field of work! I am always amazed at the achievement levels of current PhD students, and I am always happy that I am not competing with the "new generation", but with a slightly lazier bunch. :-)

On the other hand, there is really no reason to cling to universities or research institutions. Your PhD certificate is like a magic door opener to positions that you have never even dreamed of. With a PhD in Psychology, you are eligible for several high positions in well-known and prestigious organizations and companies. You can be a project manager at Siemens and earn in excess of $90,000 per year instead of the $60,000 the university will pay you. You could be working in quality management and control, consulting, or have a high position in administration; you could be an editor or freelancing journalist for a scientific or not-so-scientific journal -- the possibilities are endless.

So, the good news is: Once you've got your PhD, you've proven yourself to be suitable for almost any job that requires brains. The skills you have acquired during your PhD – making yourself familiar with a new research field and its methods, making logical inferences, deriving or making predictions, testing of a hypothesis, taking a critical stance towards the work of peers and your own, writing research reports, working in a team, dividing tasks among multiple people, and so on and so forth – all these are typical managerial tasks and skills, which are required at various different stages in all large organizations. And, non-university employers will NOT base their decisions about employing you on your publication record. So, if you can conceive of a life outside university, there is no reason to avoid tutoring during your PhD -- unless it keeps you from working in the company or environment you're interested in.

If you can’t imagine doing anything else but hanging around university: Check out some cool companies, write them an email and tell them that you’re going to have a PhD in 2 years, and you’d like to do some voluntary work at a companies’ robotic department, or developing sky cars and jet-packs... because you know? with the PhD, the sky is no limit! ;-)

--Stef

Editor's note: Are you a postgrad or academic? What do you think about Stef's post? If you'd like to write a reply, please contact Will Harrison.

A zero-sum game?

A few weeks ago I received an email from a colleague in the late hours of the night regarding a manuscript I am working on. Attached was a paper recently published by researchers overseas investigating an effect very similar to that which I am attempting to publish. Although my immediate reaction was one of panic I thought it best to neglect the paper at least until the following morning as I saw no point in jeopardising a night’s sleep. Alas the damage had been done and after a restless hour or so in bed it became evident that sleep was a remote possibility. I reluctantly began reading the paper.

Long story short, having read the paper I’m optimistic that my work still has something to offer and will hopefully still be published. However a visit to the researcher’s website invoked a second wave of anxiety. This particular researcher, who is now a postdoctoral fellow, had four first author publications and eleven publications in total prior to completing their PHD.

This is not a discussion of quantity versus quality; I just wanted to raise the perhaps bleeding obvious point that as PHD students who aspire to forge a career in research, we are inevitably competing against other PHD students for career opportunities. Thus the bar is determined by the hours put in and quality of work produced by the post-grad researchers in our respective fields.

As a relatively new PHD student this is something I’d, until recently, neglected to think about. I’ve been travelling along optimistic (naively?) that as long as I conduct good science and work hard the publications will come and opportunities will arise. Ultimately though, as hard as I may work, if those around me are working harder then I’m in trouble.

Having discussed this with my supervisors they are strongly of the opinion that 99.9% of my resources should be devoted to publishing papers and that time spent away from this endeavour carries with it a cost. Initially I scoffed at the idea that the little time I spend away from my research is detrimental. The more I think about it though the more I’m beginning to questioning whether I’ve struck the right balance between PHD work and additional work such as tutoring and RA-ing. I’m even questioning whether I should be writing this blog given this could be 400 words towards my manuscript...

The reality is that time is a precious commodity in this business and it would seem that to succeed it must be treated as such. So how do you strike the right balance in what in many ways seems to be a zero-sum game?

Thoughts?

James Retell

Your life in Three Minutes

If you had to tell a complete stranger a summary of your life in just three minutes, what would you say? That’s what the Three Minute Thesis Competition is about... sort of.

This year, resident UQ Psyc blogger Will Harrison is in the UQ finals of the Three Minute Thesis Competition and has to summarise his PhD research in three minutes. Will has to explain the topic of his research, why it’s important and why his results are so special. And if he takes even one second longer than three minutes, he’ll be disqualified.

The main challenge of the competition is for the PhD student to explain their research so anyone can understand it. This means not using any technical language, such as referring to specific parts of the brain—the general public simply don’t know what the ‘parietal cortex’ is.

Although it only takes three minutes, Will has put a lot of time and effort into preparing his presentation—as I’m sure the other seven competitors have—and the stakes are high. The UQ winner gets a $5,000 travel grant and goes on to compete against the winners from universities across Australia and New Zealand.

If you want to come along and here about some of the amazing research going on at UQ (or just to support Will), the finals are being held next Monday 20 September at 3.30pm in the UQ Centre. For more info about the finals and to register your attendance follow this link: http://www.uq.edu.au/grad-school/three-minute-thesis

Here Will’s summary:

“Have you ever failed to find something even though it was right in front of you? To “see” something we are looking for we need to do more than just “look” for it - not only do we need to move our eyes around, but we also need to move our attention to notice the things that are important to us. My aim is to understand how our brains coordinate eye movements with shifts of attention to accomplish simple tasks like playing sports or crossing a road. My findings tell us why we sometimes fail to see something right in front of us and may help us to understand medical conditions in which vision and attention are compromised following a stroke.”

Hope to see you there!
Matt Thompson

School’s in for summer: The joys of summer schools in psychology

Other entries on this blog have mentioned the chance for travel as a major perk of the PhD lifestyle. Speaking as someone who is currently halfway through a six-week trip to Europe, I wholeheartedly agree. So far the highlight of my trip has been the summer school organised by the European Association for Social Psychology. This summer school, like others, offered the opportunity to delve into a research topic over an intensive two-week period. Oh, and did I mention that it took place on a Greek island?

I’ll give a bit of background for readers who are unfamiliar with the concept of a summer school. Many psychological associations hold these events for postgraduate students every few years. They can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks and are designed to bring postgraduate students together to explore a particular research topic and collaborate with likeminded researchers.

The typical format is of three to five topic “streams” with an internationally renowned expert (or two) acting as workshop coordinator. Students work on a broad research theme (e.g., intergroup emotions) in workshops and often break into smaller workgroups within the workshop to develop research projects. Many students go on to run and publish the studies they design at summer schools.

Summer schools are a different from conferences. First, they are designed specifically for postgraduates. Second, they give the opportunity to learn intensively about a specific research topic for an extended period. Third, they often involve more raucous partying than conferences, because postgrads can be sure that their supervisor isn’t watching.

I really enjoyed my recent summer school experience. Not only did I get to explore a new research area with top-notch experts to guide me, I also have a research project ready to run with international collaborators. Summer schools give people the intellectual freedom to move beyond the narrow research project that makes up a PhD. We tend to get so bogged down in our own little research topic that it will be a breath of fresh air to work on a completely unrelated project for a while.

In addition to more practical outcomes, I have developed professional relationships and collaborations that will continue throughout my career. It was also bloody good fun and is probably the only time in my career that I will attend a research meeting in my swimsuit.

I think that experiences at international summer schools are particularly important for Australian PhD students. We are so isolated from the rest of the world, it is important for us to develop reputations and professional relationships overseas. I would urge all postgraduate students, particularly those who have just started their PhDs, to attend a summer school in your research field. I can’t guarantee it will be held on a Greek island, but at least you will get the chance to travel!

For interested parties, UQ will be hosting the Australasian Summer School in Social Psychology in 2012.

It's who you know

Research is about who you know. I’m not suggesting that if you know a journal editor, your article will get published without the hard yards. What you know is still important.

I’m saying that, as research is all about sharing ideas, it stands to reason that the more people you know, the bigger variety of ideas you’re exposed to. If you know intelligent or creative people, you’re going to be involved in smarter or more novel ideas. Other PhD students are great for bouncing ideas around, and also help you learn about other fields. Your advisors not only give you access to extensive knowledge about their field; they have a lot of experience with theories and ideas.



The people you know also affect the people you have access to. If your advisor has international collaborators, you have access to a broad and prestigious range of people in your field. If you’re part of a lab group, there are all the students and researchers involved. Attending school events expands your horizons to different fields and specialties, opening opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

Furthermore, the people you know can change how you keep up to date with research and news. If you don’t know anyone, new ideas and information are limited to your own imagination and what you read about in text books. On the other hand, you could read certain blogs because your friends do, attend particular conferences with your advisors, or even participate in competitions your co-workers get involved it, all of which exposes you to different people, research, and ideas. The people you meet might collaborate with you in new ways, expose you to better job opportunities, and expand your knowledge field.

It is important to take advantage of the opportunities presented. The people you know could be your future advisors, employers, collaborators, a great source of new research or ideas, or just a friend to keep you sane during PhD!

Being somewhat of an introvert, I often find it difficult to take my own advice, but when I eventually emerge from my lab, the benefits always outweigh the outside light burning my eyes. In my field (cognitive psychology) I have a huge access list. Not only friends and advisors with seemingly unlimited pools of knowledge and international colleagues, but also a large and active school of psychology, collections of psychology blogs through friends, up-to-date journal subscriptions through my university, state-of-the-art 3D vision lab, and vision mailing lists. I still need to put in the hours, but by taking advantage of all of this, the work I do has a much greater impact on my future.

Now, I apologise, as this somewhat ruins the stereotype some people have that academics are socially inept: most wouldn’t have a job if this were the case! We’re not socially awkward, you just don’t understand us ;)


Nonie