One of the hardest things for some researchers (including myself) is getting to the big picture. This might be an overarching research question for your research, a way of describing the research that you do that encompasses all of your work, or just getting to a broad enough contribution statement (or so what?!) in an …
After doing most of my qualitative data analysis solo during my time as a graduate student, I have spent the last 7 years readapting to coding in teams. Unlike many of my fellow sociologists, I began as a qualitative researcher in a team-based setting. In evaluation research, I worked with as few as 2 and …
At the end of the term (fall, spring, and summer), I take about an hour to write down what I did in the term. That’s everything from writing to teaching to service to mentoring. For each of these completed tasks, I answer four questions that capture what I accomplished, what I learned, what I want …
About a month ago, I realized I had stopped planning somewhere along my tenure journey. With the pressure to produce, I was so focused on individual articles, I had lost sight of the big picture. So I set out to fix that and get back to a systematic, strategic approach to my research work. Strategic …
A big part of the transition to being on the other side of the PhD is figuring out how to manage a pipeline of research. One piece of advice I’ve heard a lot on the topic is to prioritize my research starting with what’s closest to done. It’s advice that makes sense. Finish what is …
There are some questions you never want to get when you’re presenting your research. I got my least favorite question during the Q&A of a job talk. Things had gone relatively smoothly (phew!) and then I was asked: “Aren’t these findings…….expected??” I could see during the pause that the person was looking for a nicer …
I recently did a virtual panel discussion with first year graduate students in my program. It was a moment of realization that the constraints on research, particularly qualitative research, that we are currently experiencing due to coronavirus are even more extreme for first years. Faculty and advanced graduate students have data and works-in-progress that they …
There’s a common refrain that academics should write every day, which you all already know I don’t do. But many folks, myself included, reframe this to that we should be touching our research every day. Yet, even touching your research every day isn’t always possible. During the semester, the demands of teaching can make it …
One missing part of many social science graduate programs is learning how to work with others. Research in graduate school is predominantly a solo endeavor through the MA and dissertation. Additionally, there are limited opportunities to work on research with faculty, other graduate students, and undergraduates, particularly for those doing qualitative research. Unfortunately, I’ve found …
At the end of 2018, I was on a panel about graduate school. While I enjoyed providing guidance to these potential future graduate school applicants, I was left with a nagging feeling that I had not sufficiently addressed one comment that arose in the discussion. When one attendee asked about the choice between an academic …
practical phd 