Advice for a young researcher

The advice here comes from a book of advice to young PhDs. I can't remember the author.

Choosing an advisor

This is pretty important, to understate things. What you should look for in an advisor:

• Get an established advisor, who doesn't try to put you down but is proud of you.
• Get one with an 'old-boy' network. Contacts are important.
• Does the guy take time to teach beginners?
• Are you comfortable with him?
• Does he teach 'survival skills'?
• Do he and his group have a sense of purpose?
• Do his students have a good story? If not, move on.

Try to ensure that your advisor is a mentor. At least two mentors is a good thing. One more thing: be yourself when it comes to research. The advisor is there to help you with your research, you're not there to help him with his.

Things you should do

• Get advice from all over. Scientists do enjoy human contact; it's a break from working behind closed doors!
• Get people to talk about their work. Who doesn't?
• Be in one or more short-term projects rather than a single long-term one. Most of the people involved in hiring you later will not be specialists in the field and will be impressed by a lot of projects on your resume. So it's an unfair world. Tell us about it.
• Post docs are more important than graduate work.
• Hang out with three or four staff members - both theorists and experimentalists. Offer to join projects, be interactive, work hard.

Research

• Do NOT just do interesting problems. (Unless you happen to be a genius.)
• Have a THEME, around which to base your research. That way, whenever you begin a talk or paper, you can tell the audience/reader why you're interested in this particular esoteric topic. Let them know that you know where you're going.
• Make your theme COMPELLING. Make it a program that maximises the chances of a continued job and scientific achievement. Yes, strategy is important. Get on a good track, then you can have fun in it.
• Do not be single minded. Sure, you may have a single theme, but if it's a good one then there should be many ways to branch out from it.
• Read widely in the related literature.
• Ask questions about where the field is going.
• Don't get involved in research with someone who's out to make a name for himself no matter what. Work with someone established or with someone with different skills from yours (e.g. knowledge of a different subject area.)

Publishing

• You're doing work, right? Of coutse you are. Publishing is just a way of telling the world what you're doing. Concentrate on the work and the publishing will follow. (Of course, don't go for anything high-risk if you're just starting out.)
• have interesting titles - compelling, concise, accurate.
• before you begin a project, think of an introduction for your paper in it.
• Use the pronoun 'I'.
• Reduce use of words like 'and', 'now', 'thus', 'therefore', 'hence', 'whence', etc.
• You'll need many drafts. Use a lot of words in the first, then cut. That way you can worry about style in the second and later drafts, not content, i.e. whether you've left anything out.
• Remember: the purpose of the paper is to communicate. For God's sake be clear.
• Many small papers is better than one big paper. (Publon: a (small!) unit of publication.)
• Remember that they guy refereeing your paper may well be probably a competitor.
• Cite your rivals' work. Then they like you.

Presentations

• Don't be too slick with your drawings. This is science, not business school.
• Write big. It forces you to put only the main results on the slide. Oh, and people in the back can see then.
• Audiences cannot be underestimated. Please the audience, not beat them into submission.
• Talk, don't read off the slide. The slide is there as an aid to your chatter.
• Rehearse talks with peers.