Developing Extra Skills: The Meta-Skills of How Not to Suck in Grad School

SR Shaw

Graduate school is a force that sucks all your time and the very life force from your body. Each discipline has its own demands, whether they are classwork, clinical work, labs, teaching and grading, fieldwork, writing, or some combination thereof; and then there is the reading (oh, good Lord, the reading). I went from nine hours of sleep per night, heavy drinking, much socializing, with a job, and with a lot of hobbies as an undergraduate to a monk-like existence of little more than grad school and four hours of sleep per night. Not particularly healthy, but there it is. These are not even the frustrating and demoralizing parts of graduate school. To me, the worst part is that I was magically expected to have a set of skills that I did not learn as an undergraduate and was never sufficiently taught as a graduate student. As a professor, I see that the difference between okay students and outstanding students is their pursuit of extra skills, the meta-skills of being an effective graduate student. Although the specific skills vary across disciplines, every graduate student has extra skills to be learned. Rather than being accidental and due to some random experiences, the pursuit of extra skills is best met with mindful and strategic effort.

Nearly every graduate student has had the experience of meeting with their supervisor or PI and hearing, “I thought you knew how to do this.” Good supervisors tend to say, “Okay, let me teach you.” Poor supervisors tend to say, “That is disappointing. I need to find someone who knows how to do this.” This missing skill could be anything from a statistical procedure, assessment technique, lab procedure, ethics proposal formatting, giving feedback, writing skills, oral presentation, or some other specific skill. Usually we acquire the skills in such an ad hoc manner that we usually do not appreciate the skill development until we look back and simply label this as “experience.”

The most difficult part of any problem-solving process is identifying the problem. For new graduate students the hard part is that you do not know what you do not know. Rarely will a PI have a task analysis prepared consisting of the skills necessary to be successful in that lab. Although some professional programs have a list of competencies that need to be developed for professional success, those are typically incomplete. It is always worth checking with your PI, postdoc, or senior graduate student as to whether it is worth the effort to learn a specific extra skill; but the initiative will always be on you. That said here is the process and some common extra skills that are worth learning.

There is a good rule from Stephen Covey’s popular book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People that some time needs to be invested in sharpening the saw. This is a form of professional development, skill acquisition, and self-improvement. Sharpening the saw does not only happen after graduation, but is part of graduate school as well. The general rule is to dedicate 10% of your work time to developing the extra skills that sharpen the saw. Therefore, figure a minimum of four hours per week planned and protected. I am not saying that this is easy — in fact, it is difficult and exhausting. But the ability to protect and use these four hours per week in a strategic approach to developing the meta-skills of graduate school will pay off.

Collective peer improvement sessions are fantastic ways to pool resources and priorities. Many students generate and hold journal club meetings, which are a form of developing extra skills. However, journal club meetings could just as easily be repurposed as coding lessons, organization, writing workshops, lab procedure tutorials, and so on. Working as a team can share the burden and validate the value of the extra skill being learned.

Most extra skill development will be via reading. There is already so much to read that it is overwhelming. Where do you start? I am of the mindset that breadth of skills and knowledge is extraordinarily important, and only a few subsets of knowledge need to be known in depth. For most areas of study, I recommend three domains of extra reading: methods, philosophical underpinnings, and history of your field of study. In nearly every field, a deep dive into the specifics and even minutia of methodology can present golden opportunities. At the least, methods are a tool box; and the more tools that you have the more questions you can answer. Philosophical underpinnings of any field can result in some pretty dry reading. But understanding the philosophy of science for the general context in which your field is situated can help to provide the big picture of your research. Finally, the history of your field is important to provide a temporal context and because many of us experience the ontology recapitulates phylogeny issue. Often, new graduate students think that they have come up with a brilliant novel research question when, in fact, that question was already asked and answered over 30 years ago. You will read the basics in your field through classroom work and suggested papers from your PI. But to be effective, you must go beyond. Focus on methods, philosophical underpinnings, and history are great places to start your literature search and extra readings.

Although the other extra skills vary across disciplines, here are some suggestions that have been helpful for me:

• Finances and Bookkeeping. I am fortunate to have learned these skills as part of a part-time restaurant job I had as an undergraduate and during my first year of graduate school (I also learned to cook at this job). In my career, I have been a lead psychologist in a hospital setting where I was responsible for a budget. The success of grant writing is largely due to the ability to justify budgets. Universities always audit any component of the work that involves money or purchased goods. My elementary bookkeeping skills have served me well.
• Programming and Software Development. Basic coding and programming skills are requirements for many fields of study. These needs will always be changing and evolving. Typically, once you understand the logic of language acquisition, it is easier to learn new skills along the way. I am now in the middle of learning the basics of R for statistical analysis. It reminds me of the old school approaches as we used in the late 1980s era SAS and LISREL, but far more flexible. That I have basic coding skills is quite likely making learning a new method easier than it would otherwise have been.
• Social Media. Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and others are second-languages for the current generation of graduate students. However, the ability to use these approaches (and website design and development) for branding, crowd sourcing information, finding and acquiring funding, inter-university collaboration, and international research sharing is a specific and mindful skill that is worth developing.
• Organization and Planning. Carefully organizing limited time is not something that people are born with. It is worth learning the techniques for study skills, time management, self-care, and structured learning. There is no need to waste time reinventing the wheel, there are excellent approaches and techniques available. It is a good investment of time to develop a highly organized and strategic approach to work.
• Teaching and Supervising. Learning how to provide feedback and communicate complex information takes a lot of practice and experience. If you ask most senior professors how they developed the skills (if they have the skills), then they probably do not have a good answer for you. They will likely say that they learned on the streets or through trial and error. This is not necessary. There are many courses, tutorials, podcasts, and readings that support high-quality teaching and supervision. It is worth developing these skills even early in a graduate career.
• Networking. Go meet people, you nerds. It is much easier to be social at conferences and other professional events than purely social events because you all have one thing in common – your field of study. For most senior scholars, at least one-third of their published papers (likely more) are due to a collaboration or inspiration of someone you have met at a conference or interacted with online. I have a colleague whose entire career success is because he is excellent at conferences. Everyone knows this gregarious professional. Any time there is an invited paper for a special issue, need for a chapter in a book, need for collaborator on a grant, or someone needs support for co-authorship on an article; they remember this guy they met at a conference and invite him. Meet people, find common ground, support those people, and follow-up. Overall, it is somewhat surprising that so many experienced researchers have poor networking skills.
• Blogging. This seems simple, but blogging is an opportunity to write in an experimental fashion without judgment. This is an opportunity to communicate personal, professional, or scientific information in a simple manner. Blogging can range from a sophisticated outreach and knowledge translation activity to personal rants. Whatever works for you is fine. This is an opportunity to develop and practice a professional writing style that is clear, accessible, and makes you mindful as to the tone of your writing.

There are certainly extra meta-skills that will further your graduate and professional career (e.g., laboratory techniques, cleaning and sterilizing, electronics, computer design, construction, welding). Quite a few of those skills are discipline specific. Do not wait for random experiences to inform the meta-skills that you develop as a graduate student. Dedicate at least four hours per week, work with your peers, read extra papers strategically, and develop useful skills.

 

 

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Issues in Letters of Recommendation: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

SR Shaw

I put out a poorly worded Tweet last week that generated more attention and heat than makes me comfortable. Typically, attention on such an important topic is good and fine, but the Tweet in question is misleading (accurate, but still misleading). Here is the Tweet:

Just read about 60 applications to grad school. Letter writers who say applicants are cute, petite, lovely, sweet, appropriately dressed, has a great smile, has a supportive spouse–I’m judging you. Do better for these people.

11:17 AM – 1 Feb 2018

Here are the misleading points that I regret:

·       I read over 400 pages of letters of recommendation in three days. Then I cherry-picked eight or nine words and phrases that seemed a bit icky. These are not common words and phrases in the letters I read.

·       Twitter is a brief format that does not allow context to be presented. These phrases are presented with no context. Then the outrage machine of Twitter can be cranked up, context assumed by the reader, and results can be interpreted in a way that suits the theme and agenda of the reader.

·       I do not feel I could add any contextual information because I did not want to break the implied confidentiality of letter writers. I appreciate and respect the time and energy that all letter writers put in to this process. Their efforts support our program and support new applicants. Shaming or otherwise criticizing people who volunteer their time and energy does not support or improve the process.

·       Some of these words are discipline specific. These letters are for a school psychology program. Words like kind, generous, caring, thoughtful, and compassionate are considered positive characteristics for potential psychologists of any gender. Not only do these words have something of a gendered component, they are not far in meaning from clearly gendered words such as sweet, lovely, and nurturing.

·       The program for these letters has 137 applicants for eight positions in the 2018 cohort. I will be accepting one or zero students under my supervision. I read these letters carefully. I am not sure I read letters of recommendation as carefully in the past.

·       All of letters containing the words that made me feel somewhat uncomfortable and elicited outrage were extremely positive. The writers of these letters wrote at least two pages describing the leadership, scholarship, energy, experience, innovation, and other important characteristics that support admissions to a graduate program. In nearly every case, the offending words were in the final paragraph where testimonials concerning the real human characteristics of the applicant were described. The language in this final paragraph became problematic.

What to do?

Because the language bothered me and apparently about 800,000 other people, some action is warranted. I respectfully choose not to employ some of the suggestions by commenters. They will not be publicly shamed, reprimanded, stabbed with cocktail forks, reported to their universities, murdered, or otherwise be taught a lesson. Power is the ability to get things done. I have power. I will use power to address this issue.

I am not big on outrage, but I am big on solving problems. Here is what I have done so far: reported my concerns to our equity officer, who has set up an opportunity to work with our Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policies) and also a professor in Law to find solutions; spoke with our graduate program director to put this item on the agenda in order to address discipline-specific approaches to educate letter writers; and I am writing this blog post to provide my perspective on letters of recommendation that I hope is helpful. I also plan on working with our faculty development unit (Teaching and Learning Services) to publicize and expand their instruction of faculty members on letter writing. There is a culture that needs to be changed. These are small contributions, but it has only been 48 hours.

Writing Effective Letters of Recommendation

As always on this blog, I am not an expert in this area and these are only my ideas. For those looking for more expert information on how to write effective letters of recommendation, I recommend these sites and documents as good places to start. There are many more resources available.

https://www.thebalance.com/academic-recommendation-letters-2062959

https://theprofessorisin.com/2016/09/07/how-to-write-a-recommendation-letter/

https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/documents/equality/HHMI_WriteReference.pdf

https://www.pace.edu/career-services/sites/default/files/files/pdf/writing-letters-of-recommendation.pdf

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/982/02/

Writing Letters

I write letters for 45 to 55 different students per year. Given that students often need multiple letters for multiple job opportunities, internship sites, grant applications, and such — there are approximately 200 documents per year from me. There are other faculty members in my program who write more. It is extraordinarily time-consuming, but I enjoy the process of writing letters. I am afraid that I do not follow many of the recommendations here for letter writers.

I appreciate that requesting letters of recommendation is difficult for students. I always want to be helpful to their cause. If I cannot write a letter that will substantially help their cause, then I will tell them that I cannot write a letter that helps them. I will not write a poor letter or a lukewarm letter. I understand those who feel a responsibility to warn colleagues of a poor student, but I do not do that. If I agree to write the letter, then I am all in. I will write an honest letter that does everything possible to attain the goal for the student.

I only write what I see. The student may be awesome in many ways, but I only write about my personal experiences with the student. The value of letters of recommendation is that they go beyond the CV and transcript. I have no desire to rehash the CV.

I typically do not use boilerplate information for letters. There are small things such as the details of the activities of the research lab or a specific class that I have taught. I try to write an original letter for everybody. I have tried boilerplate writing in the past, but it never seems to read well.

I do not ask students to write a letter that I will sign. That is not a letter of recommendation. Of course, people are busy. When people say that they are busy, what they are saying is that something else is a higher priority. If it is not that important to you, then do not write the letter.

I attempt to be transparent. If there is enough time and the students wants to see it, then I like students to see what I have written about them before I send it out. Mostly, I ask them to look for typos or factual inaccuracies. I will now ask students to also look for sexist or insensitive language. I have sent letters out without them reading it, but students can read letters of recommendation at any time. I write so many letters and documents, that it is always wise to have someone else review the letters for typos. No one is more motivated than the subject of the letter.

A framework helps with the efficiency of writing letters of recommendation. I divide a letter into eight sections.

1.       Why I am writing this letter, how long I have known the applicant, and the context of the relationship between me and the applicant.

2.       Describing the top accomplishment of the applicant. Describing exactly what the applicant did and the role they played in achieving this top accomplishment.

3.       The professional goals of the applicant and how a positive outcome by the target of the letter will help the person achieve those goals. The logic here is that the applicant has a thoughtful, ambitious, and planful approach to achieving career goals.

4.       Describe the process that the person is following to achieve future goals. What are they doing now, what are plans for the immediate future, what are the plans for the long-term future, and what is the trajectory of their work.

5.       Lesser accomplishments. This is often a laundry list of professional presentations, publications, and general everyday awesomeness.

6.       Clinical skills and experience. Sometimes this section is moved up to the second section (when the student is applying for a field placement or internship or clinical job). This relates to training, experiences, and special expertise in clinical skills. Special attention is given to the applicant’s development of unusual skills that the applicant has taken the initiative to develop.

7.       Citizenship. I want to indicate the role of the applicant in the research lab or the classroom. Most often, this involves discussions of leadership, creativity, initiative, and team approaches. This is the danger paragraph when it comes to sexist language. Review it carefully, because this paragraph will be read closely.

8.       I keep open all contacts. Readers are welcome to contact me and I invite questions or additional requests for more information.

This is not too hard. I find this process easy simply because my students are wonderfully skilled, good people to work with, and I truly believe that they deserve the job, experience, or funding. I believe that my sincere enthusiasm and belief that the students deserve to achieve their goals comes through in the letter. I do not use flowery or exaggerated language. Their talents and accomplishments speak for themselves. If the letter is hard to write, then I probably should not be writing it.

Reading Letters

I read a lot of letters. Admissions letters, letters for funding, and all other forms of letters of people applying for limited spaces or resources. I only focus on a few things and generally ignore the rest.

1.       In my world, the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. I want to know what this person has done. I do not care about their goals, dreams, plans, or anything else. What have they done. This is, by far, the most important aspect.

2.       I want evidence of leadership, initiative, and creativity. I am a trainer of professionals. Those people cannot be passive or passengers. I want a future professional.

3.       Many negative things do not bother me. There can always be disagreements or relationship issues, even with a letter writer. That said, any hint of laziness, treating other people poorly, or ethical complaints is a major problem. I do not expect applicants to be perfect, but I want evidence of professionalism.

4.       Is there any evidence that they do things for others? Selflessness and support of peers is far more valuable than ambition.

5.       What skills, abilities, or characteristics does the applicant have that will contribute to our program or research lab?

6.       Evidence of enthusiasm for growth. I want to know what the applicant has done to take the initiative for their own personal and professional growth. Sometimes, I need to look for a hint.

7.       How did the applicant manage or work around difficult times or other challenges?

I really do not care about many of the adjectives that are used in letters. Whether they are called a fine student or the greatest student in the history of civilization, that simply does not matter much. Sexist language in a letter does not really affect my decision of the applicant. I look for specific items. Everything else is extraneous or of minimal value to me.

Let us be mindful in how we communicate on behalf of students. We are their second-best advocates and bear significant responsibility for their success. Letters that are focused, clear, and describe an accomplished professional are most effective.

Finishing Projects with the Sprint Method: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

Finishing Projects with the Sprint Method: How Not to Suck in Graduate School

SR Shaw

Mini – Meta-Blog

As always, this monthly blog post is a palate cleanser between deadlines and projects. I usually write these monthly missives after I complete a project and need to take a breath before starting the next. I find blogging to be a strong method to keep the writing momentum going, but without having to put too much energy into it.

Main Event

All academic positions have their own challenges to research productivity. My situation is that I am in a professional training program. My primary job is to train practicing psychologists to provide the best possible educational and mental health services to children and their families. Very few of our students plan on a research career and most of them would prefer spending their time as a graduate student advancing clinical skills, rather than doing research. Therefore, the labbies have large numbers of classes to take, extensive fieldwork and clinical experiences, and theses. Working on day-to-day research that is important to me is not high on my students’ agenda.

Moreover, our program has changed to increase the amount of clinical activities and increase the clinical requirements for students. These are extraordinarily talented people who would like to be productive researchers, but it is simply unrealistic given the demands on their time. The result is that I have a laundry list of projects that were started with enthusiasm, but got lost in the fog of competing demands for time and energy. Half-completed projects are clear signs of an inefficient research lab. As our training program has become more clinical, my research lab has become less efficient. Finishing projects is hard for everyone and everyone has factors that interfere with productivity. This is why #GetYourManuscriptOut is a useful hashtag on Twitter. In my own head, I identify projects that are “in preparation” as a sign of failure. I have stumbled upon an approach to improving efficiency to improve our finish rate and to make the lab productive despite the clinical demands on the students and the administrative and book writing demands on my time.

We have designated the winter 2018 term to be all about cleaning house. We have been efficient at completing masters and doctoral theses, but it is the other projects that have become low priority. As my time has been spent writing a book and a major book chapter project, my supervision has been lax. Here is how we plan on cleaning house and finishing projects using a sprint method.

The logic of the sprint method is to work intensely on a project over a short period of time until completed. The time periods of the sprinting are negotiated. Accountability for deadlines is clear and strict. Failure to meet exact timelines will result in being dropped as a co-author. In this fashion, students will save a lot of time for clinical, thesis, and classroom responsibilities because they know that they will only need to work intensely for one or two weeks on the specific projects.

Identify the projects. Identify which manuscripts, grant proposals, or other lab task would benefit from an intense sprint in order to bring them to completion. For winter 2018, we have identified six (!) unfinished manuscripts, a website restructuring, and reformatting educational materials as our eight projects that would benefit from a sprint to completion.

Define the team. These unfinished projects tend to have multiple co-authors. Often it is the diffusion of responsibility have led to these papers being not completed. Define exactly who is going to be on this team and earn co-authorship.

Define the project. Most projects are half completed, data are collected and may be analysed, literature reviewed, and project outlined. Some sections may already be completed. Sometimes a project may be unfinished because the original outlined or data analysis may be problematic. Review the current nature of the project, decide what needs to be changed, and what needs to be continued. And develop a plan. Another purpose of defining the project is that sometimes projects that are unfinished are simply not very good. This is the time to be honest and decide that an unfinished projects needs to be deleted from the agenda and move forward with more promising projects.

Hold a team meeting. All responsible parties meet to develop multiple goals. Goal one is to reach consensus on the definition of the project and components that require work to prepare the project for final submission. Goal two is to assign responsibilities to discrete components of the project (e.g., James’s job is to develop figures 1 through 3). Goal three is to negotiate timelines and deadlines. The important part for goal three is to ensure that the sprint period is convenient for each member. Determining that a student has no competing major projects, exams, or clinical responsibilities during that week is an important factor. The sprint timeframes are most typically seven days. Some projects that may require additional time may take two weeks.

Negotiate a submission date. Each co-author will have a deadline for their projects, yet there is always integration of multiple authors and final polishing of the manuscript that needs to take place. So the submission date should be a week or two after the sprint period ends, but still needs to be explicitly defined and set.

Be available. When any member of the team runs into trouble or get stuck, they are responsible for solving the problem as quickly as possible. As such, the PI or other senior member on the project team must be available to address concerns, consult, and problem solve within 24 hours.

Celebrate success. Success is the submission of the project. If a project is eventually a rejected manuscript or unfunded grant proposal, then the revision or improve grant proposal can be recycled and put into another sprint list. Generally, I assume that the project is good — but no idea is truly good until it is finished. Celebrate finishing.

Most of us work from deadline to deadline. Usually these deadline-driven projects do not require the sprint method because completion dates are so firm. But our most important works are most typically those that are submitted without deadlines. Sometimes unfinished projects are relatively small projects, literature reviews, or secondary analyses of data. These are also the projects that are most likely to be put off to some unknown date in the future due to systemic constraints, time, or projects that are simply not well-organized. By focusing on discrete and intense work, we can finish projects that have been languishing.

So now — off to start the next project.

Establishing a lab culture: How not to suck in graduate school

Establishing a lab culture: How not to suck in graduate school

SR Shaw

The fall term brings new graduate students, visiting scholars, post-docs, and undergraduate research volunteers into research labs. Integrating new people into the lab and re-incorporating returning students and collaborators creates new issues. It is important to establish a culture quickly, so that the work can be done efficiently, cooperatively, and even joyfully. Sometimes, as an older scholar I make the mistake of assuming that returning members of lab remember the key features of the lab culture and that new members will somehow magically absorb the values that I wish the lab to possess. My twitter account and this blog are ways for me to put the values of the lab and our work in writing, so that there is an archive of ideas and tone. But in the hustle of day-to-day work, values and culture can be forgotten or lost due to busyness. And some labs find themselves adrift and moving in a direction that the director did not intend.

There is nothing that replaces the modeling of these values by the principal investigator. They must be lived or members of the lab will not buy-in and accept these cultural touchstones. In addition, these values must be emphasized explicitly, evaluated, rewarded, and established. Building a culture is a long-term process. However, a quick overview of the established credo of the lab can be a starting place and set expectations and aspirations for all lab work. Below are the 10 components that are the most heavily valued in my lab. I will be sending these to my students over the next week so we know where to begin our work this fall.

The 10 core values of the Connections Lab at McGill University:

1. Strive to become a professional, but do not forget to be a human

Work every single day to become a useful professional. That is, conscientious, independent, skilled, knowledgeable, ethical, and courageous; but realize that you will fall short some days. Always focus on being better tomorrow than you were today. You will never have a problem with me if you do something every day to improve.

2. You will need to trust that I define my success by your success.

My job is to prepare students as professionals. I know what it takes to be a successful school psychologist and the more successful you are, the more successful I am. I welcome challenges from you. A very reasonable question that you should ask me frequently is, “how will this task help me to achieve my professional goals?”

3. Wellness: yours and your team’s.

Consider your mental and physical well-being a central part of your graduate education and work in this lab. Feel comfortable discussing issues and concerns that you may have. Your long-term development as a person and as a professional require attention to your physical and emotional well-being. At the first sign of any issues, let me know and we will develop a plan. In addition, look after your peers. We are a team and need to take care of each other. Although it may be obvious; harassment, sabotage, creating a hostile environment, or any other behaviours detrimental to the wellness of the team, our clients, or individuals will result in removal from the lab.

4. Write it down or it did not happen.

Writing is an essential component of graduate school. Any thoughts, ideas, findings, notions, and other contributions are only real if they are written. This is the most effective way to communicate and to create a trail of your thinking that will have an important influence on research and clinical practice. Writing is also a mechanism of accountability, minimizing misunderstandings, and improving communication.

5. We all do better when we all do better.

There is inevitable competition for authorship, grants, fellowships, and time and attention of senior members. However, this lab is a team. The success of any one of us reflects on all. Share credit, be generous with authorship, listen to the ideas of others, be genuinely happy for the success of your peers, and assist the work of others. When this becomes a habit, everyone benefits.

6. Do more: everything takes three times longer than you expect.

Doing more than the bare minimum is an essential part of professionalism. In addition, it is nearly impossible to plan your time and work accurately. No matter how much time you devote and plan to a specific task, you need to multiply the number of hours by three. Just achieving minimum expectations will require much more time and energy than you expect.

7. Attention to detail.

I completely dismiss the concept that “idea people” are important and effective parts of the lab. Ideas are only important if they are paired with an intense work habit, focus on implementation, and single-minded attention to detail. The focus on detail will certainly annoy most of the lab members at some point. Attention to detail is the difference between a vague idea that is floating in the ether and high-quality research and clinical practice.

8. Ethical behaviour.

Too often, students and professionals gloss over ethical behaviour because they believe that they are a good person who would not ever do anything evil or wrong. Ethical violations are not usually due to bad actors. Ethical violations are usually committed by good people who are tired, emotionally overwhelmed, stressed, overloaded with work, up against timelines, or ignorant of the exact ethical standards and procedures to be followed. Ethical guidelines need to be memorized, automatized, and second nature. They will be challenged when life becomes chaotic.

9. Invest in preparation.

Writing activity is the tip of the iceberg. For every hour of writing there is at least two hours of planning and four hours of reading (not to mention: seemingly endless hours of data collection and analysis). Be prepared for every meeting by having questions or information to present. Investment in preparation allows you to be a better worker, have more clear thinking, reduce stress, and leads to improved overall productivity and success.

10. Develop productive habits.

Inspiration comes and goes, but habit remains. To be an effective worker in this research lab, your aspirational goal should be to read 100 pages per day and write 1000 words per day. This will take time, practice, and training. Whatever habits you develop, focus on being the most productive person you can be. Positive habits create professionalism.

 

Developing a culture is far more than 10 simple and vague ideas. This only becomes a culture when these 10 points are modeled and lived. However, starting by communicating goals and expectations is a good way to begin the term.

 

How Not to Suck at Identifying and Coping with “Rhymes with ‘Glass Bowls’”

April 2016

From the vocabulary.com definition: “insulting term of address for people who are stupid or irritating or ridiculous or unpleasant. If you call someone an asshole, then they’re probably doing something not just stupid and annoying, but mean. Like all slang words and obscenities, this is a word you need to be careful about using. Saying asshole in class, in a paper, at a job interview, or even on television could get you in serious trouble. If you’re not alone with your buddies, stick to a safer word like jerk or doofus.”

Academia is rife with examples of destructive and hostile behaviour among professors who hold power over others. Not a week goes by without a newspaper report of a well-known university professor who is a serial sexual harasser. Every graduate student has a story of at least one professor who has behaved in a way that can be considered manipulative, angry, insulting, demeaning, degrading, vengeful, and otherwise taking advantage of humans with little power. Careers are often ended before they begin by graduate students identifying their supervisors as assholes too late in their educational process to make changes. Such experiences are devastating personally and professionally. The ability to identify, avoid, and cope with academic jackholes is a major predictor of career success for people without power (i.e., graduate students, postdocs, untenured faculty).

To be fair to assholes, there are many systems that encourage a high degree of assholery. For example, some universities bestow credit or honours for authorship of a refereed publication only if the professor is the first or sole author. In such systems, graduate students or postdocs, who do the majority of work on a study, may be deprived authorship or given secondary authorship. Much of academia has a “zero sum game” approach. In other words, a given professor does not receive credit and the consequent rewards if someone else has success. Therefore, it is just as effective and sometimes easier to undermine others and prevent success of underlings rather than demonstrate quality of work. Although there are cases of active sabotaging the work of others, most frequently passive-aggressive undermining of others is the tool of the asshole. There are always finite amounts of dollars in a grant envelop, usually only one person can win an award every year, and annual faculty evaluations tend to be norm-referenced. As long as there are competitive rewards, there will be assholes. And most galling, assholes often win.

Identifying Bleepholes

A major skill is to identify challenging people as early as possible and then avoid situations where the asshole will have any power over you. There is no level of funding, professional connections, inspiration or knowledge that is worth being abused and slowly having your soul crushed. There are many outstanding well-funded, inspirational, and knowledgeable scholars who are also supportive humans and productive mentors. Most typically we do not find out which supervisors are assholes until it is too late. Early identification and avoidance of assholes is a critical variable in making your life as a scholar easier, more enjoyable, and more productive. There are keywords to identifying assholes — a vocabulary of assholery. Unfortunately, this is one of the confusing aspects of identifying the asshole. The keywords words used to identify assholes are quite similar to the vocabulary used in successful grant proposals or by the orange 2016 US GOP presidential candidate. Self-aggrandizing and superlative language is common. If, in an introductory discussion with a senior faculty member, more than three of these words or phrases are used, then there is a high probability that you are talking to an asshole: best, state-of-the-art, paradigm altering, innovative, superior, elite, most demanding, highest achieving, most productive, most highly cited, award-winning, highly selective, high standards, and hardest working. And it nearly goes without saying that anyone who uses the expression “we work hard and play hard” is to be avoided.

A major feature of senior faculty assholes is their belief that they are the self-appointed arbiters of what is true science. Although they may be talented and productive, and sometimes correct, they insist on evaluating the work of others when no one asks their opinion with phrases such as, “What you are doing is interesting, but it does not reach the level of what I would consider to be science.” Another common feature is that the criteria used to evaluate whether something is true science tends to shift depending on how the outcomes of the evaluation can benefit the asshole.

Egocentrism and the pathological desire to control every aspect of their world are also primary factors. From an academic perspective such people are far more interested in using graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty as mechanisms by which they can leave a legacy. They are far more interested in how others can support and promote the asshole’s own ideas and agenda. The concept that the asshole’s ideas (and therefore the asshole him/herself) are the centre of the universe is quite common. Of course, criticism of the ideas is considered a personal attack. Moreover, even if the junior scholar chooses an independent trajectory that goes outside of the orbit of the asshole’s ideas, then that is also considered a personal attack or slight. Any behaviour that suggest that the asshole and his or her ideas are not the most important thing in the universe will be perceived as an attack or slight. And there will be ramifications.

Faux generosity and selflessness is another common feature. Any senior person who sounds like a martyr by humble bragging about how successful their students are due to his or her extensive and outstanding supervision is a problem. An example of the faux generosity is, “He needed the publication, so I gave him a paper topic and some data that I developed.” Another tactic of the asshole is bragging about how selfless their supervision style is. For example, “My students are so successful because I invest so much time and money in them. Supervision probably detracts from my other work, but I do it anyway because the students need me.” The not-so-subtle message is that the students would not be capable of success without the brilliant involvement and sacrifices of the senior scholar-hole.

When talking with potential supervisors and colleagues, one of the most effective questions involves asking them to evaluate their colleagues. Some will straight out trash talk their colleagues. For example, “Most of the faculty in this department are inept or lazy.” Assholes with a semblance of social skills tend to make comparative and evaluative comments about peers. For example, “Dr. Smith runs a very good lab, but their work is not as cutting-edge as what is done in our lab.”

A common approach to identifying sphincter-centric academics is to interview current students, previous students, and other professors. This is an excellent idea that I strongly encourage. However, there is only one predictive variable. That is the long pause after you asked the direct question. For example, “I am thinking of working with Dr. Jones. What is your experience in working with him (or her)?” If the first word in the response is, “Um” or if there is a noticeable pause before the first word is said, then you have your answer.

You want to examine the publication record of potential supervisors and colleagues. Examining authorship of refereed publications for the presence of student co-authors is an important factor. Graduate student and postdoc co-authors who have first or second authorship on a large number of papers indicate at least some general decency in assigning authorship. In addition, try to find out how many students begin working in that person’s lab, but transfer or drop out prior to graduation. Such information must be evaluated as a function of the norms of the Department; but if the majority of students who begin their graduate school careers in the lab do not graduate, then obviously red flags are raised.

Avoiding Bleepholes

A major mistake that many students and postdocs make when selecting a supervisor is that they focus entirely on the subject area, funding, and the reputation of the potential supervisor in their field of study. A better method is to look for signs of assholiness and, if found, keep looking for a supervisor with a productive style of respectful supervision.

Because assholes tend to be egocentric their sphere of influence in any academic community is limited. Despite the grudging respect of colleagues, most of them have peers who understand how challenging it is to work with these individuals. Even if you have managed to avoid the direct supervision of an asshole they can still make your life difficult. Assholes will frequently offer their opinion on their peers, provide passive-aggressive commentary, and dismiss students who are not working directly with him as being inferior. This is not so bad because you have the support of your own supervisor, lab peers, and other colleagues who can be supportive. My favourite response to digs, passive-aggressive slights, and veiled or not-so-veiled insults is to say: “I am having a difficult time interpreting what you said in a productive manner. Can you please reframe that in a manner that I can use it productively?” Sometimes the jerk will actually rework the statement so that the statement or question is actually helpful. However, the true and irredeemable asshole will say something like, “I did not intend that statement to be productive.” Your only logical response should be, “ I know.”

Coping with Bleepholes

Although my default line of recommendation is that everyone should avoid working with an asshole, many of us find ourselves in an unavoidable situation. Moreover, one person’s asshole is another person’s driven and inspirational advisor. I know that many people considered my mentor to be an asshole, but I have always found him generous and to be an excellent advisor. So how does one survive the challenges of being supervised by one of these people?

Find the Strengths. I have a colleague who has a mentor, who is well known far and wide to be an asshole. This mentor moves from university to university as he wears out his welcome. However, my colleague finds this supervisor to be an inspiring and generous mentor who opens career doors. She speaks glowingly of his kindness in working with others. She is well aware of the flashpoints and topics that will lead to conflict. She is aware enough to avoid these areas while benefiting from his skill set. She simply refers to the challenges of working with this mentor as “the price of admission.”

Negotiate everything, then get it in writing. Perhaps the most important feature of working with the asshole is the lack of trust and capricious nature of decision-making. Write everything. I like to have students summarize our individual meetings and send that summary to me in an email. This is an excellent idea to protect yourself from the whims of a senior author who have been known to change their minds. Everything must be negotiated before beginning. Make sure that all financial, vacation, responsibilities, hours to be worked, authorship on papers, travel opportunities, and other relevant issues are in writing. Ensure that the supervisor has a copy of all this writing and agrees to it. Likewise, having student or collaborator write exactly what they will contribute to a project or to laboratory life is equally important. It is not insulting to insist on all commitments being clarified.

Resilience. There are many, if not most, graduate students in this difficult situation simply accept their situation. They do their work, take abuse, and then go home. The next day they wake up and repeat. Although I am impressed with the perseverance and resilience of these quietly desperate young professionals, I hope they are not paying too large of a price for their compliance. Constantly working in a stressful environment is corrosive to one’s mental health. We know that graduate students and new scholars have a high incidence of anxiety disorders, depression, and withdrawal from their studies due to abusive mentoring relationships with supervisors. In addition, I am concerned that the asshole mentor serves as a role model for the behaviour of the next generation of senior scholars. However, quietly avoiding the wrath of the asshole and escaping with a degree or research experience is enough for many people. Frankly, that does not work for me. I do not have the strength and resilience of many graduate students.

Confrontation. Confrontation can be a valuable tool, but is extremely difficult to use. Being firm, polite, and professional in establishing and creating boundaries in working with superiors is an extremely difficult social skill under any circumstance. I have a friend who engaged in weekly hostile shouting matches with her mentor. The tone was often ugly, dramatic, personal, and emotional. They screamed at each other for at least 15 minutes and then the conflict was over. Neither seemed to hold a grudge for long and their work was productive. When asked how they can function in such a hostile environment, the response was, “This is not hostile. He respects me for standing up to him.” Okay. I am not sure that this is an approach that I would recommend, but I guess it works for a few brave souls. Some people thrive on drama.

Conclusions

If you are working in the academic world, then you have almost certainly failed to avoid working with assholes. No matter how resilient and strong you may be as an individual, everyone working with difficult supervisors or senior colleagues will eventually get tired and discouraged. We all require external supports to serve as protective factors to the corrosive effects of working with assholes. Some protective factors include personal supports (significant others, family, non-academic friends), peer supports (colleagues, virtual communities, co-authors), and systemic support (high status academics, ombudsmen, administration). Do your homework, prepare, and protect yourself. The early stages of your academic career do not have to be miserable. Identifying, avoiding, and coping successfully with assholes is a major predictor of your success, satisfaction, and long-term mental-health.

SRShaw

How Not to Suck at Co-authorship

December 30, 2014

Among the most common sources of conflict between supervisors and graduate students involve credit for authorship in scholarly papers. Although most professions have formal guidelines concerning the ethics of authorship and order of authorship, it is fairly rare for supervisors and students to read these ethical practices. Read your professional guidelines for authorship or read these solid papers: http://www.apa.org/science/leadership/students/authorship-paper.pdf and http://www.apa.org/research/responsible/reflections-authorship.pdf. At McGill University we have an excellent website devoted to issues in graduate level supervision. However, I am not sure how many supervisors or students read and follow the suggestions (http://www.mcgill.ca/gradsupervision/supervisors/roles-and-responsibilities/expectations). Most commonly, students are left to negotiate issues of co-authorship with their supervisors. Yet, the primary problems are that students do not know what is reasonable, have little leverage in negotiation, and are not clear as to the expectations of authorship.

Culture
The culture of the University and scientific field sets the context for graduate student authorship. For example, it was once extremely common for university professors to receive university credit for publication only if they were the first author or sole author of a published paper. In these cultures, graduate students rarely received appropriate credit for their work or were completely shut out of any authorship. Fortunately, most universities value student authorship and professors receive significant benefits from having students as first authors and co-authors. Most supervisors behave in the way that they were trained. As such, some supervisors have been trained in this old-fashioned model and make it extremely difficult for students to receive co-authorship. Also, different fields of study have different norms concerning authorship. For example, papers in medical journals are generous with authorship. It is not uncommon to find papers with 15 or 20 co-authors. This is in contrast to the humanities, where single-author publications are often the norm. Although there may be general professional guidelines for what constitutes authorship understanding the philosophy of the University, training and philosophy of the supervisor, and culture of the field of study are critical contexts for graduate student authorship.

What Typically Constitutes Co-authorship
I have a research lab in the field of school psychology. Most of my students plan on going into clinical practice after graduation. As such the motivation for most of my students is to become competitive for national and provincial fellowships and bursaries. Career prospects are more dependent on their clinical skills than their publication record. This culture makes for far less competitive attitudes toward publication and students are much less stressed in my lab than in other fields of study. Because I have a large number of graduate and undergraduate students in my lab, it is easiest to have general rules of what constitutes co-authorship.
• Authorship is earned by anyone who makes substantive contributions to the product.
• Data entry, line editing of manuscript, statistical analysis, brainstorming of initial ideas, data entry, and locating research to be cited do not necessarily constitute a substantive contribution.
• Substantive contributions involve design of the project and writing of the manuscript.
• Authorship and order of authorship are negotiated before the project is begun.
• Renegotiation of order of authorship can be initiated by any contributor of the project at any time. A consensus among all co-authors will be attempted before any change of order of authorship can take place. The most common situation is that someone who has planned to have a small role turns out to a larger role in the project and I recommend that that person moved to a higher level of authorship. And in these cases, consultation and consensus building with other authors is sought.
• Authorship and order of authorship are not dependent on seniority or status. Undergraduates, new graduate students, or collaborators external to the University are equal. The exception is that as lab director, my default order of authorship will be to serve as the last author.
This is a fairly new approach in my lab. Most of my previous work was with medical professionals from outside of the University. I am now in the process of developing a self-contained lab culture within McGill and within my lab. So far, so good. However, I may need to revisit this topic when flaws in the system are uncovered.

There are generally four types of projects in my lab. The first type is a Masters or doctoral thesis. For this type of project one student conducts and carries out all of the substantive work. However, they may receive administrative or other logistical support. The expectation is that any published manuscripts derived from the theses will have the student as first author and lab director as second author. The second type is an invited or theoretical paper. These are projects in which I take initiative and do most of the substantive writing and organization. I may invite students to make contributions or assist as second or third author. The third type is a substantive literature review. We tend to write one or two papers of this type each year. Although such papers are difficult to write and organize, they are good opportunities for new students to learn the literature extremely well and make an early and substantive contribution. Typically, a senior level student runs this project, is expected to be first author, selects and manages a team of co-authors, and negotiates roles and expectations with each member of the team. These papers often have four or five co-authors. The fourth type of paper are the single-study projects. These papers are typically the easiest to write. Like in the literature review paper, one student is designated as the lead student who selects the team for that project. We tend to have small group paper team meetings. This is where the 2 to 5 co-authors meet weekly to discuss progress and make plans for the next stage.

Becoming a Co-author
New graduate students know that authoring papers that are published in refereed scientific journals or presented at professional conferences is the currency that will make them competitive for fellowships, internships, postdocs, and desirable academic jobs. I have had many students approach me or an advanced graduate student and say, “Do you have any papers that I can be a co-author on?” This is not an effective method of entrée into co-authorship. Two better ways to become a co-author on a paper are to say, “I have an idea for a paper and would like to talk it through with you.” Or “I see that the lab has a paper in progress and I believe I can make the following contributions to that paper.” Initiative, preparation, and the presentation of new ideas communicate that the student is prepared to make a substantive contribution that is worthy of authorship. Earn it.

Revisions and Journal Communications
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of publishing scientific papers for graduate students is communication with journal editors. Most submitted papers receive a final decision of accept with major revisions or reject and resubmit. Both outcomes require a detailed, point-by-point description of how the revised manuscript meets the specific concerns of the editor and reviewers. This is a task that requires experience. There are cases where writing the letter to the editor is my primary contribution to the published paper. Communicating with journal editors may be the task in which I work most closely with students. We often sit side-by-side as this letter is discussed, planned, and composed. This task seems to be a rite of passage for students in my lab. When a student receives an editorial decision and says to me, “I’ve got this.” And I say, “Yes, you can do this on your own.” Then that student is ready to graduate and engage in independent research.

Communicating Expectations
I have written in previous blogs about the importance of interviewing and understanding how supervisors work before entering a graduate program agreeing to a supervisory relaitonship with a professor. I still think that the biggest mistake that many students make is selecting a supervisor based on a shared content area of interest. Although content is important, supervision style and match with student needs is even more important. Students need to research to determine how many of a professor’s publications have student co-authors and how many students have first authored publications. Moreover, professors should be asked about the expectations and supervisor support for publications. Some supervisors work closely with students, meet weekly, and are actively involved in every aspect of data collection and writing. Other supervisors may meet with students as little as twice per year. The expectation is that students will figure out how to conduct research on their own when given maximum independence and freedom to succeed. Students should know what they are getting into. A list of yearly expectations developed between student and supervisor in September is extremely valuable and is required by most universities. Revisiting these goals and evaluating the success in meeting the goals at year end is equally as important.

Quality of Work
We talk a lot about writing in the lab. Helping students to revise and improve their writing is a part of this process. I expect their work to show care, professionalism, and expertise. But I do not expect the work to be perfect. I refer to any project as the project or the paper, not your project or your paper. Keeping a distance between the work and the person takes practice. But I want the students to be open contributors to a paper and not paralyzed by perfectionism, ownership, and criticism. Students know that a heavily marked up paper is a good sign—it means I was engaged enough to meticulously consider every word. A bad sign is that the first three pages are heavily marked up, but later pages receive few marks. That usually means that I got bored. If each draft is better and more clear than the last, then I am happy with the progress of the work of my co-authors.

Conflicts and Problems
I am not a fan of drama in research. Life is too short for avoidable drama, stress, and strain. Projects are planned out so that we meet deadlines without having to do all-nighters. Cooperation rather than competition is stressed. Authorship is negotiated in advance and everyone knows what role they have to play in order to earn their authorship. The intent is that preparation, planning, and a culture of open communication will head off any conflict. However, conflict still occurs. Most conflicts occur within a project team. There is a perception that one member is missing deadlines, doing poor quality work, or trying to have other people do their work for them. I hope I have made it clear that letting down your team is among the worst offenses possible in my lab. I have had a student resign from a project because they did not feel they could meet the demands. I appreciated that sentiment. And that student went on to be successful on other projects. However, I have had students who simply did not reach the levels of work quality expected, had interpersonal problems with other members of the lab, or believe that their work merited first authorship. Meeting surrounding these problems are private. We attempt to renegotiate expectations and develop a plan for remediation. That plan is also sent to students via e-mail to provide clarity, mutual agreement, and create a paper trail. Sometimes students are asked to seek a different supervisor and other times students choose to leave voluntarily.

Students are encouraged to be open as to their limitations of time and energy. I do not mind when a student requests to renegotiate a deadline due to a conflict with exams, conferences, exhaustion, or other issues. I also encourage students to seek help or renegotiate when a task proves to be beyond their current levels of expertise (usually because such situations are due to my error). Stress and anxiety are also common for graduate students. Some students receive reduced research expectations if we agree that too many research projects may be overwhelming. Recall that I am in an accredited school psychology program with a large student class load, and field and clinical practica experiences, in addition to research. As such allowances are made for the time demands of their program.

Summary
Co-authorship does not have to be difficult. Problems are almost always due to conflicting needs and misunderstandings. Keeping students from earned co-authorship due to massive ego, power issues, or control is simply evidence of unethical and poor supervisory practices. Some old school professors have been socialized along these lines. Trying to force a professor socialized in these practices to comply with the ethics in university policies concerning co-authorship is unlikely to be resolved in a positive way for the student or the supervisor. Receiving co-authorship on a scientific paper does wonders for the confidence and careers of students. Witnessing and contributing to student success is one of the best parts of being a supervisor.

S. R. Shaw

How Not to Suck at Finding a Match with a Supervisor (or PI)

As always, I acknowledge that there are many ways to find a good supervisor. The culture of matching with a supervisor also varies across fields of study and universities. However, these are my experiences and what I have learned in trying to find the best possible graduate student and supervisor match.

The quality of the relationship between student and supervisor is probably the best predictor of graduate school satisfaction and success. Therefore, the decision concerning matching with your supervisor is the most important graduate school decision that you make. The basics of finding a supervisor are fairly simple and well known: identify supervisors at the same time that you are exploring universities for graduate school; contact potential supervisors as soon as possible; determine the style of supervision that the potential supervisor uses; find out graduation and success rates of students working with this supervisor; interview current and past students who are or have worked with this supervisor; find out if most of the supervisor’s publications are with students and if students have the opportunity to be first authors on papers; and interview trusted people in the field. Obviously, there are the other criteria that are important as well such as, acceptance to the program and university, financial package, quality of life, mobility, and such. The biggest mistake that students make is that they pursue potential supervisors who study in a specific field of interest or are major leaders in the field. Although these are important factors, I would argue that matching supervision style and how the supervisor treats students is far more important.

The most valuable information that students can gather is from current and former students. Any potential supervisor should make current grad students and graduates available to be interviewed. Refusal to do so is a major red flag. Phrases such as task master, high expectations, demanding, and even slave driver are not really bad things. Harsh and extremely demanding supervisors are often most effective. Look for evidence of unavailability, unfairness, or general lack of respect for students. As a prospective student, how professors treat you in this interview process will tell you how they will function as a supervisor.

Anyone looking for a supervisor also must know their own needs. Do you need someone who is more nurturing and supportive? Someone who will leave you alone to do your work? Someone who makes frequent deadlines and continuous oversight? Do you want to be a member of a team or have a more individual relationship with your supervisor? The style that professors use to supervise students varies more than teaching quality, research productivity, and other more easily identifiable traits.

The other part of the equation concerns what potential supervisors are looking for in a graduate student. After all, a match must work for both parties. Again, I am only speaking for myself. The nature of McGill graduate programs is that we have an extensive system of fellowships at the provincial and national level. When students win these awards, then there is no pressure on the supervisor to provide grant or other funding. I look for people who have a record that makes them competitive for fellowships. I am also looking for folks who will produce and work well as a team mate. For me, the best method is to make a follow-up phone call to research supervisors and others who write letters of recommendation. Few people put their reservations to paper, but will discuss them with an interested colleague. The next method I use is to encourage prospective supervisees to talk with my current students, and then I ask my students what they think of the potential student. Students are honest. And they know that I trust and count on their opinion. Letting my students help to select their colleagues is a good way for me to find a solid match.

Although I supervise many students, I do not mentor all of them. Some students do their research and graduate, but I do not have a close personal relationship nor do I give a lot of career advice. That is fine. One cannot force a mentorship relationship upon students or supervisors. The best supervision situation is to have students who are protégés. They become trusted colleagues and research partners. It is with these students that we have the most productive and rewarding relationships. With these students I argue, share, create, and develop partnerships that will last for a long time. I look for students with potential to be protégés. Therefore, I am looking for leadership, initiative, work habits, toughness, confidence, drive, and energy. Passive students do not tend to work for me. In my lab, we have “stupid question time.” This is where students develop their most weird and assumption-challenging questions and comments. The expectation is that people will take chances, be creative, and trust their colleagues not to tease or mock out-of-the-box ideas. I want people who are creative thinkers, are always prepared, and can contribute to stupid question time. In addition, toughness and persistence are enormous factors. Few, if any, graduate students go through an entire graduate program without challenges or rough times. Is there any evidence that they have a drive to complete their goals and can overcome difficult situations? I do not want followers or minions. I want partners and butt kickers. Sometimes I think a student has potential to be a butt kicker, but they do not see it yet. Ultimately, my question is: what can this student bring to my lab? I look for skills or interests that will add to the lab, not duplicate what we already have. Diversity of ideas and background keep the ideas of the lab creative and dynamic. Any evidence of interpersonal problems, arrogance, potential divisiveness in the lab, or lack of work ethic will exclude the student from joining my lab and being under my supervision. Not everyone will be a protégé, yet I am always searching for people with potential to take on that role.

Finding a supervisor is a major life decision. There are so many stories of graduate supervisors abusing, neglecting, or otherwise providing poor supervision as to be cliché. Students can prevent some of these problems by vetting potential supervisors, knowing their own needs concerning supervision style, and determine if they have the skills and temperament to meet the needs of the supervisor in this essential partnership.

Steven R. Shaw