Min wordpress-housewarming kommer til at bestå fra følgende fem suveræne råd fra min nye bedste ven (han ved det ikke), Dr. Kaspari. Der er indsigter at hente i den fulde post, men her er dagens fem om hvordan man øger sin kompetence som akademiker:
1) Read the literature obsessively. Read read read. Then read some more. You will get better at it.
2) For each paper, dissect out the hypotheses. They are sometimes carefully hidden! Break the hypothesis down into assumptions, logic, and predictions. Come up with reasonable alternative hypotheses for any interesting results.
3) Practice summarizing to a friendly colleague a paper you just read. Convey concisely the paper’s question, methods, main results. What was the paper’s single greatest strength, and what data you would like to see next? The better you can do this, the better you can give a talk at a national meeting.
4) Think about your research as you fall asleep. Turn it into pictures, graphs, relationships that move about and interact. When you turn your research over to your subconscious, your giving your brain another chance to work on sticky problems.
5) Find a mentor who will challenge you. Everybody who is serious about climbing a steep learning curve needs a coach who can help you recognize, and work to correct, your weaknesses.
