Deans' Weblog

Setting Priorities

This week I have been grappling with a brief to the Finance Committee in which I am supposed to identify three issues of great importance to Graduate Studies in Canada, figure out how much these would cost, and then convince everyone that this is in their interest to do. All in 5 pages, including the executive summary, so 4 pages!

Well my wish list is way longer than 3 items, all of which entail serious money, and I only have 4 pages!

So here are my top contenders, in no particular order:
1. Increase funding to the Tricouncils. This makes sense, because they actually lost money in the last budget but more to the point the Tricouncils are the biggest source of government funding to graduate students. Students are funded not only through individual scholarships but through faculty research grants. So increases in research spending always means increased spending for graduate students.

2. Address the balance of basic to targeted funding. The previous budget introduced targeted funding at the individual student scholarship level with scholarships targeted, in particular, to business related areas. While there is rationale for such an approach at some level, at ground level there exists a disconnect with the students available and established research contexts for conducting this research. Furthermore, short term targeting does not necessarily produce long term research productivity if faculty cannot ramp up appropriate projects fast enough.

3. Step up to Professional Skill development. For graduates to be competitive in a strained job market and for the economy to maximize the benefit from a more highly educated workforce we need to collectively provide students with skills that will let them be  successful in the transition from student to employee. There is growing recognition that universities need to step up and provide opportunities for students to gain competencies in professional skills such as project management, grant writing, managing research, business plans, commercialization, cv writing and interviewing. There is not, however, am acceptance of where this particular buck stops! There is an argument that if this is to be truly a benefit to the Canadian economy then the Canadian government will need to step up to provide federal manpower initiatives either through the Tricouncils or directly.

4. Increase funding for Postdoctoral Fellowships. The recent economic downturn has resulted in a collective holding of the economic breath and related tightening of the budgetary belt in virtually every university. Since it takes, on average, 5 years to produce a PhD graduate it is not possible to either stop the production or start production on a dime. So we have a double problem. How to make the best use of the PhDs graduating in a time of hiring freezes and how to make sure we have the best and the brightest available when the hiring thaw begins?  I see two avenues for addressing this problem (i.e., if I were the government). First, provide new funds to the Tricouncils specifically to increase the number of postdoctoral fellowships awarded, possibly over a certain period of time. Second, develop a fund, like the MITEC funds that would encourage more cost sharing with private and public sector to get postdocs involved in nonacademic workplaces, where about 50% will actually end up.

OK There are four. Now, your turn! Email me or post below if you have a preferred priority or, even better, other priorities. I can really use your help. Anyway, what else can we be doing while we wait for summer to actually kick in??

Carolyn

Progress Reports

In an article entitled “Keys to an effective supervisor-student relationship. Six best practices for supervisors, students and supervisory committees,” written by Carolyn, Sunny and myself for University Affairs (University Affairs Career Handbook, Volume 1), our introductory sentence states that “Supervision only works when all participants are working together: supervisor, student, and supervisory committee.” Later in the same article, we note, “The most common symptom of a supervisory malfunction is lack of meetings. Meetings are in many ways a bellwether of progress. Meeting the supervisory committee at least once or twice a year allows the student to demonstrate progress (or lack thereof); both the student and supervisor get a reality check. Regular scheduled one-on-one meetings of the supervisor and student drive the process forward with their odd mixture of guilt, pat on the back, and planning. Regular meetings, of course, increase the pressure to demonstrate actual progress!” The next paragraph then continues by saying “Having structured meetings is useful. For example, sticking to an agenda, expecting a summary or presentation from the student at each meeting, keeping notes of meetings, providing documentation of the process, and keeping that timetable and those deliverables in sight provide tangible evidence of progress and prevent many unwanted surprises.” When such “unwanted surprises” happen, they usually end up on one of our desks to deal with. When it happens to be my desk, the first thing I do is getting the student’s file and reading the student’s annual progress reports. After all, annual progress reports, at least I thought initially, are intended as tools (1) to monitor and evaluate student progress (or the lack thereof), (2) to establish timelines and deliverables, (3) to identify problems and concerns early and (4) to provide an honest assessment of student progress by the supervisor and graduate coordinator including constructive feedback in any given academic year. The progress reports of the “unwanted surprise” cases, I’ve dealt with so far, however, showed a quite different, but very distinct pattern. The supervisors comments were typically restricted to commonplace remarks like “good to excellent progress, student on track and so on,” while the graduate coordinator usually checked the box the “(s)he read and concurred with the progress report” with no comments provided in the comment section. Evidence of regular meeting with either the supervisor or the supervisory committee as a whole was rarely provided in those cases. Is this pattern an indication of an effective supervisor-student relationship or an institutional failure? In my books, it’s hardly the former considering that potential consequences from such “unwanted surprises” can seriously compromise students’ academic and/or career futures. Upon further reflection and discussions with Carolyn, we realized that our recent progress report forms, although well intended, were not a true reflection of our own best practices; for example, they did not require an assessment of student progress from the student’s supervisory committee or an indication that feedback (good or bad) was actually provided to the student. Thus, in an attempt to further minimize the potential for “unwanted surprises" in the future, we revised the annual progress report forms by cutting out evasive options for graduate coordinators and by asking for (1) written feedback to be provided to students from supervisory committee meetings as well as (2) an assessment of student progress on a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (good). The student section has changed as well in that students now have (1) to indicate whether they received feedback from their meetings with supervisors/supervisory committees and (2) to provide information on conference presentations, abstracts and publications. Feel free to check out the revised form on the Faculty of Graduate Studies website. As usual, I welcome your feedback.

As noted in our University Affairs article, “Supervision is not an exact science and varies not only on an individual basis but also along disciplinary lines. Sometimes this relationship works out terrifically and sometimes not so!” However, "the ultimate goals of graduate supervision, although often challenging and varied, are: high quality research, high quality graduate experience, timely completion, development of new expertise, and, finally, the creation of a new colleague." I sincerely hope that the revision of the progress reporting requirements is a step in the right direction to achieve these goals.

Over and out.


Dieter

Rules

I just didn't expect to turn into a bureaucrat.  It kind of snuck up on me over the years.  Maybe it's a natural consequence of immersion in educational administration since 2006. It's a surprise; in my many previous occupational lives, colleagues did not exactly look to me for careful adherence to the rules (this is a very generous interpretation of the facts, to be sure).

Now the university not only expects me to be a model of rule-respecting administration, they also expect me to create and refine the rules on their behalf. 

Every year a predictable number of applicants, students, staff, faculty members, and even administrators ask for "exceptions" to the established policies, practices, rules. You know the exceptions I'm talking about - deadline extensions, waiving of fees, adjustments to grades, bending the thesis formatting rules, etc. Of course we listen to their stories and take individual situations into account.  And sometimes it make good sense to make accommodations.

The chief lesson I have learned from these direct and indirect accommodations is that they need to be truly exceptional. That generally speaking, prior experiences (by which we mean unpleasant and problematic experiences) have led to the creation of many of the rules in the first place. Difficult things happen in our world.  People fail courses. Graduate students are sometimes unsuccessful in the defense of their research dissertations after 4, 5, 6 and sometimes 7 years of work. The rules help us navigate these difficult situations more easily.

By having established practices and by applying them, we increase the degree of consistency, not to mention the real and perceived sense of fairness. When we deviate substantially from the rules without really clear good reasons, we invite a whole truckload of troubles later, beginning with many more requests for exceptions and ending with interminable, time-consuming appeals.

My good colleague Jack Duffy and I have done research on serious threats to Canadian faculty members. I have interviewed a number of professors who have endured threats up to and including death.  When I asked them what they would do differently in future in a similar situation, they invariably say they would work much more closely to the formal rules, and not allow exceptions. It prevents exactly the trouble they have had to endure.

So here I am making the case for rules....  and no-one is more surprised than me.

Sunny

The Student Voice

Last week I had the opportunity to speak with the CASA representatives in Calgary. CASA is the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations and includes both undergraduate and graduate associations. At the annual conference they discuss common issues and themes. For example, the session in the morning was a workshop on identifying and coping with bias as it occurs around us; ethnic, gender, age, ability, etc etc.
In my session I talked a bit about what CAGS does and what I thought were interesting issues and then I was happy to let the students have at me. Two points came across from that discussion. First the need for available and affordable daycare for our students. This came from both undergraduate and graduates. Daycare far from campus means that you needs a car or 30 hour day to get the kidlets there and back home. Affordable means not the equivalent of your student loan or scholarship per month. Since most students, especially graduate students, are not able to live in a city with family support daycare is not a luxury but a necessity. The second point was how CASA could leverage student issues in the political arena both provincial and federal. I pointed out the obvious, that politicians love to listen to students (well those that are articulate and not throwing things, at any rate). Afterall, these are long term voters and one ignores the next generation at one's own peril politically, I suspect. Having ventured (inadvertently) into the lobbying business I certainly think that a workshop on planning and executing an effective lobbying campaign would be extremely useful.

So what did I learn? That CAGS and CAUT and AUCC and... and ... can learn a lot from each other and perhaps we should consult more to  formulate lobbying platforms that have synergy and that have weight and that have stickiness (politcally!).

Carolyn

Academic Program Review: Opportunity for Change or Rant?

At Dalhousie University, all graduate programs are subject to periodic academic review. Reviews are normally carried out on a five- to eight-year cycle. As part of my responsibilities in the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS), I am responsible for arranging reviews based on this five- to eight-year cycle. Programs are either reviewed by FGS alone, or by FGS in conjunction with the teaching Faculty. For joint reviews, graduate concerns are explicitly addressed. Reviews of existing programs include FGS reviews (at least once every 8 years), unit reviews, periodic surveys (Medicine), and post-accreditation reviews for accredited graduate programs. For FGS reviews, Faculty Council will appoint an internal review committee (IRC) of two to four members, depending on the complexity and size of the program. For joint reviews with the teaching Faculties, Faculty Council will appoint at least one member of the joint review committee.

Once the IRC is in place and the unit's documentation is in order, I meet with the committee or with the FGS representative(s) for a joint committee. At this meeting, the committee members select a Chair, decide on the schedule and division of responsibilities, decide on the type and number of external reviewers and tentative site visit dates, and identify concerns that should be addressed in the review. Data supplied in the self-study of the unit under review may have to be verified. The committee's procedures include meetings with all interested parties and stakeholders and consideration of written submissions from faculty, staff, students, etc. Staff support for the review committee is provided by one of the Faculty offices. I normally act as the liaison between the committee and the unit under review and between the university and the external reviewer. Both the external reviewers and the IRC submit written reports. The report of the IRC will include specific recommendations that take into account the comments or recommendations in the report by the external reviewer(s).

Once the reports are received, the unit is given a chance to correct factual errors. When the review is completed, the final report of the review committee goes to the participating Faculties. The FGS procedure for considering the recommendations is as follows.

• The review committee submits the final versions of the internal and external reports (after correction of possible factual errors) to me.
• I then select the portions pertaining to graduate education for a preliminary assessment by the Academic Planning and Curriculum Committee (APCC) and, if recommended by APCC, for final consideration by Faculty Council and notify the unit of the dates of the discussion of the report by APCC and by Council.
• Discussion of the report is included on the next possible agenda of first APCC and then Council. I invite the Chair of the IRC and, for joint reviews, the FGS representative(s) to attend the meetings to present their report. The Chair, Head, Director and/or Graduate Coordinator of the unit are also invited to the meetings to reply to the report and to answer questions.
• After the visitors have withdrawn, first APCC and finally Council advise me about the nature of the letter to be written to the department. In some cases, APCC or Council may request a further detailed response to the report or recommendations. If this is the case, I will request such a further response from the unit, and additional comments from the IRC Chair or FGS representative(s) as appropriate. In this case these responses are placed on the next possible agendas of APCC and Council.
• Faculty Council formulates its final response and I write the unit informing it of Council’s decision. My letter may point out appropriate action on specific points as recommended by Council, including a specific time frame.

Four outcomes are possible as a result of the review, consideration of the report and the unit's response. The program can be rated as:

• satisfactory with no changes required,
• satisfactory but with recommendations and request for follow-up within a specific time frame,
• unsatisfactory with required changes, to be implemented within a specific time frame,
• unsatisfactory with a recommendation to Senate for suspension or closure.

Faculty Council (usually through the FGS office) monitors implementation of the recommendations under outcomes two and three and may establish appropriate sanctions for units that fail to comply.

This week, APCC preliminarily discussed the review reports of two departments, before recommending them to the full FGS Faculty Council for consideration. Both Graduate Coordinators and the FGS representatives from the IRCs attended the meeting. At the end of the question period, Sunny true to form asked his question and this time, the question was much simpler than the ones he used as examples in his blog three weeks ago. He asked the Graduate Coordinators, whether they found the review useful. The replies were worlds apart. One graduate coordinator found the review process quite helpful and described the outcome as a welcome opportunity for change to the better. In stark contrast, the other basically characterized the whole review process as a waste of everybody’s time and a complete waste of institutional resources, i.e., money that should be put to better use like buying much needed equipment for the unit (this is just my much abbreviated executive summary and I apologize in advance for any omissions or factual errors). My first thought was “Thanks, Sunny, that’s what you get for asking two academics the same question.” However, reflecting a bit longer about these contrasting opinions, I started to wonder whether there really is a remote chance of Dalhousie Faculties and the University as a whole wasting valuable resources (i.e., time and money) on useless processes such as reviews of academic units and their programs. After resisting the initial urge to just go home and cry in a beer in face of such a possibility (however remote), I instead started to look for practices/processes of assessing academic outcomes and how other institutions initiate and conduct the process. I focused my search on institutions in Canada and the U.S. that are widely recognized for their quality in teaching, research and service. To make a long story short, all Universities I looked at link effective assessment practices with cyclical program review in one form or another. Rather than directing you to numerous websites and tie up part of your weekend with reading (as if you didn’t have better things to do), I give you the bottom line, which (in my opinion at least) is best captured in the foreword by Ralph A. Wolff to “Outcomes-based academic and co-curricular program review: a compilation of institutional best practices”, a recent book by Marilee J. Bresciani (published by Stylus Publishing, LLC., 2006). Mr. Wolff wrote this foreword in his capacity as President and Executive Director of the Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities, Western Association of Schools and Colleges. He argues “…..If done appropriately, program review provides a singularly effective way of addressing both the need for internal improvement and external accountability. It allows each program or unit to review itself in light of its outcomes and in relation to the institution’s mission and goals. Such outcomes information can be used by the program and the institution to document learning (and research) results and program improvements. In turn, they can be part of a program’s or institution’s external accountability report. Equally, if not more important, however, outcome-based program review can assist each department or unit to determine the extent to which it is successful in serving a wide range of students; identify indicators of learning effectiveness at the program, not just the course level; and assist the program or unit in assessing how well it is contributing to general education or institutional goals and objectives. Outcome-based program review can also be used to assess issues of retention and graduation rates, since these are often best considered at the departmental level. In light of each academic unit’s performance, the role of support services can also be reviewed in terms of their contributions to addressing retention and graduation…..”

Thus, in closing, there seems to be more or less consensus in the public domain that academic program review can be an effective process to respond to external concerns, challenges and opportunities, while at the same time providing much needed information for improvement of quality and the effectiveness of each program or academic (and supporting nonacademic) unit as well as for capacity planning. Thus, when taken seriously, academic program review can lead to discussions that are much needed within a program or unit about these important issues, and external reviewers can bring invaluable insights and significant recommendations for improvement, based on a broader perspective.

As an academic administrator responsible for implementing and sustaining outcomes-based assessment program review, I now (after considering the literature in the public domain) appreciate the purpose and value (i.e., the "whys") of program review to a fuller extent. Having said that, however, I also realize that there likely will never be an assessment process that suits/satisfies all parties involved.

Over and out. Back to Carolyn and Sunny.


Dieter

Careers

Today the good folks at Management Career Services from in my home faculty asked me to participate in a little video project in which they are interviewing people about career development activities at universities in general. It's not at all clear why they've asked me, given my attitude about career planning. In my experience, you cannot actually plan a career; you can only look back on one.

Take my case.  Depending on what you count as a profession, my current responsibility as an academic administrator is something like the 6th or 7th one for me. (On hearing this, one student asked if he could help me settle on something once and for all.  It is entirely possible my wife paid him to make the suggestion.)My career path to the responsibilities of Associate Dean was anything but predictable.

Looking into the future of those graduating today, we can safely predict a career path with even more twists and turns. So the notion of "career planning" is definitely too strong for what is possible and practical, even for those headed for medicine, dentistry, law, physiotherapy, pharmacy, etc.

But helping students prepare for an occupational future of some kind is definitely a good idea, at least for the faculties educating those who will serve in the professions. It's probably a good idea for all graduate students, noting that a number of my colleagues disagree with this assertion.

This brings us inevitably to another discussion about personal and professional skills development.There are some skills which are narrowly applicable, say administering an anesthetic needle prior to a dental procedure.  Definitely a skill.  Definitely professional.  Not a skill I'm going to need in the near future.  Skills like these properly belong in a specific school. 

Some skills are a little broader in scope and in application - say "interviewing skills in a clinical setting". This phrase is more generic in the sense that it involves a suite of behaviors, some of which come under the heading of "active listening".  "Active listening" is necessary to success in a number of professions obviously, but active listening in a clinical setting has dimensions that active listening in a business setting might not.

So how much of this skill development belongs to a program or a given faculty? And how much of this skill development should be career-oriented?   And what other career-related responsibilities to our students do we have? Whose job is it to give students career counselling? Resume help? Interview preparation skills? Writing skills for a particular profession or industry or community of practice?

And most importantly, don't we have enough to do already?

These are not easy questions for institutions that don't have much in the way of resources to rise to the challenge or opportunity.  But I know one thing for sure - the university that finds a unique and difficult-to-replicate process for effectively helping students of all kinds (including graduate students) come to terms with the challenges of career thinking is going to have a meaningful competitive advantage in attracting students and a loyal, generous alumni.

Sunny

I beg to disagree

I want to skip back two weeks to Sunny's blog called Institutional Failures in which he, in his usual eloquent style, points out two (of many to be sure) institutional failures with respect to our tutelage of graduate students. Sunny said "So it seems we are producing PhD graduates who are generally unable to explain their work to an informed lay audience, and who have a poor understanding of the economics of their work."

I do not disagree (much) with either his assessment nor the value in both of these to our graduates.  In fact, I would go further to say that it is pretty important that our graduates, at all levels, be capable of explaining their work to everyone, kids in school, people in bars, globe&mail reporters, relatives, and potential funders. Now, more than ever, we need ambassadors and promoters of the research done in our universities. 60% of all research done in Canada is done in our universities. Who does the work? Graduate students and postdocs. We each need to be able to tell our story (over and over) if we want governments and industry to hear us.  The second point is, not surprisingly, closely related to the first. If we want to convince the government or the private sector that resources are needed we need to know how much what we are asking for will cost and the actual value of the benefit that would be derived from that investment. The old cost/benefit/risk assessment!

I do disagree, however, on Sunny's sign off on this "I count this as two significant institutional failures, neither of which I have much capacity to change." Well, I don't think so! Across the country there is a growing awareness that graduate students and postdocs need professional competencies that complement their academic knowledge. Well, here are two more!

Without waiting for a national agenda there are some things we can do. First, we can make opportunities available for working on these two "failures" long before the defence date. Part of good supervision is helping students gain confidence as well as competence. Making sure the our students have lots of opportunities informally talking with visitors and formally at conferences to talk about their work. Getting students out into the community and schools (also good for recruitment!). Management has a terrific interview competition for their students which provides them with real experience and feedback on interviewing skills. We can and should do the same for the "elevator" pitch.

The second issue/failure, the recognition that there are serious costs to one's work beyond the tuition and living expenses of the student, is, I believe, part of the set of competencies that need to be developed by all students (and probably some faculty). This recognition of "true" cost is critical when it comes to assessing ownership of research results and value  of innovations, to preparing sensible budgets for grants and large projects, and even to coming to an appreciation for the many tax payers who support our work. Again, I would call upon the management people to help us out here with workshops, courses, and best practices.

So I challenge Sunny and all of us to step up to changing these "failures" into opportunities.

Hope spring has sprung where ever you are!

Carolyn

Things to Do to Write Great Grant/Scholarship Applications and Papers

Last week, during the Faculty of Medicine’s Graduate Student Research Day, I was fortunate being able to attend the special presentation "What it takes to become a successful scientist,” given by Dr. Roderick McInnes (Program of Developmental Biology, Research Institute, The Hospital for Sick Children; Departments of Pediatrics and Molecular and Medical Genetics, University of Toronto; Scientific Director, Institute of Genetics, CIHR), a Dalhousie alumnus. The McInnes room in the DSU building, where Rod gave this presentation, is actually named after his grandfather. I was fortunate in a dual sense; first, Rod’s talk was enjoyable and informative, and second, I had the topic for my blog. In his presentation, Rod focused a great deal on things to do to write a great grant or paper, two of the key ingredients to becoming (and remaining) a successful researcher. His take home message was that writing good scholarship/grant applications or papers is formulaic, and a learned skill. As he said “some people are naturally better at it, but you can learn to be just as good. It's not magic or inspiration at midnight.” Rod’s formula to writing a good grant or paper was simple. Start writing early, write daily, write well, write for your audience, and write efficiently. Obviously, as Rod admitted himself, one can successfully deviate from this formula, but “it is a formula that works - so it's a great beginning.”

The following are excerpts from the Guidebook for New Principal Investigators - Advice on Applying for a Grant, Writing Papers, Setting up a Research Team and Managing Your Time, written by Roderick McInnes, Brenda Andrews and Richard Rachubinski, which summarize the highlights of Rod’s presentation. These slightly modified and largely abbreviated passages are not Principal Investigator-specific and apply equally well to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in all disciplines. Obviously, these tips aren’t universal rules. However, since they come from highly successful senior scientists who are extremely familiar with applying for grants, publishing high-impact papers, managing research teams, and running research laboratories, it would be foolish to ignore their suggestions. For those of you, who are interested in reading the guidebook in its entity (a truly worthwhile endeavor), you can do so on the CIHR Institute of Genetics website.

Things to Do to Write Great Grant or Scholarship Applications

Start Writing Early
Start the preparation for your scholarship/grant application well ahead (months!!!) before the deadline by writing the overall research goal and specific research aims. Why so early? Doing so focuses your reading and thinking, and allows you to plan, seek advice, and identify topics you need to read up on. You can't do many of these things well in the last weeks before the deadline – at that late point, you will be concentrating on the writing. It is very likely that your initial specific aims will change as you continue to write, and an early articulation of them forces you to focus and to think clearly.

Write Daily
In preparing a scholarship/grant application, it is a good idea to commit to writing part of the application every day. Researchers who write daily, even 30 minutes/day, are much more productive and successful than those who leave it all to a last-minute cataclysmic effort.

Finish the "Junk" in Month One (but not only the junk)
All the accompanying documents and forms - CV module, references, etc. - take a lot of time to obtain or complete, and generally much more time than you think. Get them done early. Put the references into EndNote^® or Reference Manager^® right from the start.

Tips for Good Grant/Scholarship Writing
Write an application that the reviewers will enjoy reading. Aim for nothing less. Remember, the reviewers are wading through tons of other grant/scholarship applications, so make yours clear, thoughtful and interesting. Good writing reflects clear and precise thinking. In fact, writing generally forces clear and precise thinking.

Unconsciously Imitate Great Style
Before writing a grant or scholarship application, read a couple of successful ones from friends or colleagues in your area (obviously they likely are really well written) to pick up the 'rhythm' of excellence and clarity.

Get it down! Don't be a sentence "caresser!"
Word processors encourage the endless reworking of a sentence, to get it 'perfect'. Don't do this. It is a time waster that creates the illusion of effective progress. To generate a well-written grant or scholarship application, follow the following four steps: 1. Get it down, even rough, ugly, too long and incomplete. 2. Get it right (factually correct, balanced). 3. Get it pretty. Now is the time to do some sentence caressing. 4. Get it out!

The Inverted Pyramid Structure
Good expository writing has two predominant features. 1. Begin each paragraph with a great lead sentence. A strong lead sentence is interesting and says what the paragraph is about. It is worth spending time on, even in the first ugly draft, since it defines the rest of the paragraph. 2. The remainder of the paragraph should elaborate on the topic defined by the lead sentence. Thus, a good paragraph has an inverted pyramid structure. A very common error is to have a rousing concluding sentence that is often, when slightly reworked, a superb lead sentence.

Who is the audience?
Almost all review panels are generally very heterogeneous. Therefore, you are usually writing for intelligent researchers who are not expert in your area, except for maybe one or two who will know more. You have to write with simple clarity for the majority, but also convince the one or two experts that you really know your stuff. "Who is my audience?" is the number one issue in grant/scholarship writing, just as it is in giving a talk. Here, the bottom line is: give the big picture, don't drown the reviewer/audience in details, and state rationales.

Use illustrations
Use illustrations, figures and boxed texts to help the reader easily see the big picture. Nothing is more depressing to a reviewer than to see pages of dense text unalleviated by something visual. Illustrations help the reviewer grasp background information, be convinced of the strength of your preliminary data, and acquire a quick overview of your research plan.

Things to Do to Write Great Papers

Writing a good paper involves much of the same principles/techniques as writing a good scholarship/grant application.

Apply the Tips for Good Writing from above

Unconsciously Imitate Great Style
Before writing a paper, read a couple of papers that are really well written, in the journal to which you intend to submit your manuscript.

Write Every Day
When they have papers to be written, the most productive researchers write daily as an integral part of their research life, even if only for 30 minutes each day. Writing every day is not only a lot more fun and stress reducing (i.e., "Wow - I've actually started!"), it also produces a much better product. In addition, for those who do basic biomedical research, clinical research, quantitative research or qualitative research, if you begin to write months before you plan to submit your manuscript for peer review, you often identify problems or gaps in your data that should be addressed.

Order of Writing the Various Parts of a Paper
Overarching guideline: You are telling a single story. Everything you write should be built around that story line. For basic biomedical research, clinical research and empirical research, write the paper in the following sequence:

Figures, figure legends and tables
Always do these first. If well done, the figures and their legends will present the story almost without the rest of the text!

Results
The Results should be a written presentation of the information that is illustrated and documented in the figures and tables, and not a lot more. The text of the Results section should be able to stand by itself, even without the reader looking at the figures and tables. A common error here is to put Discussion in Results. This is to be done only rarely, and only if you are not going to discuss a relatively small point in the Discussion.

Discussion
In a first brief paragraph, it is often useful to summarize your major findings, but do so in language that is usefully different from the abstract of the paper. In the rest of the Discussion, discuss each of the Results, from two points of view. First, discuss the data itself - what does it mean, what does it allow you to conclude? Second, discuss each result in terms of the bigger picture of the field.

Introduction
In the first paragraph(s), introduce the big picture underlying your story. In subsequent paragraphs, introduce the specific issues that each of your major results addresses. Sometimes it is difficult to decide whether some background information should go in the Introduction or in the Discussion. In the Discussion, you will often want to provide more context on an issue than you were able to present in the Introduction or in the Results.

Abstract
To write a great abstract, it is very useful to read a few great ones from a current issue of the journal to which you are submitting the manuscript. That is all the guidance you need. Writing a good abstract takes at least one day. In the PubMed^® era, your abstract may be the only thing that most people will read, so devote at least a day to it, look at it again a few days later, and have it vetted by a colleague who is not intimately familiar with the work in that manuscript.

Methods
It doesn't much matter when you write the Methods. Just don't pretend that you have accomplished much by getting them done. You haven't!!! Refer to previous papers for details, when possible.

Other Important Issues

• Never, ever submit a sloppily prepared manuscript. You will have lost the battle before you have even started.
• Submit to the correct journal. If it's a lovely paper for a lower-impact journal, don't send it to Nature or Science. However, aim high.
• It is foolish to submit a paper without having a colleague look at it first.

Extending Rod’s suggestions to thesis writing will surely avoid your thesis encountering a similar fate than that of Jill Samoskevich.

Over and out.

Dieter

Institutional Failures

The Dean and two Associate Deans who are your loyal weekly contributors to this blog have been at this post for almost three years - something in the order of 145 posts. At this point, I simply cannot remember what we've written about and what we haven't. So I apologize if I have offered this rant before. It probably doesn't matter since readers aren't likely to remember either.

One of my responsibilities is to manage the pool of PhD Chair volunteers, people willing to act as the independent master of ceremonies at the dissertation defense required of students in the very last stage of their student work. Needless to say, I get to do a fair number of these defenses myself, around 70 or so since coming to Grad Studies.

It is a fascinating perch from which to view the workings of a modern research-intensive university. The variety of work is spectacular - psychology, molecular biology, chemistry, English, French, Interdisciplinary Studies, political science, etc. Sometimes the topics are riveting, even for someone like me - well outside the discipline.  For example, a couple of months ago we heard a candidate discuss his research on the question of "Deterring the Undeterrable: The Theory and Practice of Coercing Terrorists". Yesterday we had a scholar present and defend her work on resisting reconciliation in post-genocidal Rwanda. Serious. Compelling.

All defenses at this university are open to the public, and members of the audience are permitted to ask questions, assuming the questions are related to the research.  Whether they do (sometimes) or whether they don't (most of the time), I ask every candidate questions on your behalf, since you can't be there and since you obviously have a deep interest in development of young scholars. (You are reading this blog, after all!)

And on your behalf, there are three questions for each candidate. Question 1 "As a married man, at the end of the day I like to share my experiences with my wife. Can you give me 3-5 sentences to summarize your work in a way that I can help her understand what has happened here today?" 

The rationale for this question is simple. Every scholar is going to have ask someone else for financial support. Getting that support will depend how effectively they can communicate with a semi-informed audience.  My estimate is that fewer than 20% of the candidates can do this well. One candidate in mathematics was struck mute by the question, sat in total silence for well over 20 seconds. Among the 70 candidates heard this question, only one had the insight to ask "what might your wife know about this topic already?" A very excellent response, indeed, especially given the topic was bio-science and my wife has a deep background in the general area.

Question 2 is where I try to pose a question specifically directed at the research.  This is a serious challenge when it comes to molecular biology or biochemistry given the depth of my ignorance.

Question 3 - "My estimate of the direct cost of the dissertation defense this morning is about $1500 so far, given what everyone around the table makes. What did the rest of the research cost?"

Apart from those students who have heard me pose the question before, virtually none of the candidates can provide an answer. Not one of them appears to have ever considered the question.  Not the cost of the lab chemicals. Not the cost of the infrastructure. Not the cost of the technicians. Not the cost of their supervisor's time. Not the opportunity cost of their own time. So it seems we are producing PhD graduates who are generally unable to explain their work to an informed lay audience, and who have a poor understanding of the economics of their work. 

I count this as two significant institutional failures, neither of which I have much capacity to change. Something to think about.

But not on the Victoria Day Weekend - let's all get some rest.   Golf.   Run the Bluenose.   Anticipate summer.

Sunny

Taking care of visitors

There is much talk about the value of student exchanges and research visits of graduate students especially between Canadian and international institutions. Even at the federal level we now have initiatives to encourage study terms abroad and exchanges. Making these work, however, is not quite as easy!Students here on research terms often fall through the cracks of the system.

Here is an example. A graduate student arrives to work with a professor for a term on research with the living stipend paid by their home institution and tuition paid to the home institution. Student arrives, prof picks them up at the airport, settles them in some accommodation near the university and says see you tomorrow. Next day the student shows up gets a desk and off they go. Seems pretty straightforward. That's what I thought too!  But what happens when the student needs access to the library system, proper health care, a security card, proper visa, etc. Well, if they are not registered with the university as a student of some kind, we have a problem.

At Dalhousie, and I expect other Canadian universities, there are different types of visiting graduate students. There are formal exchange students who take courses here as part of their home program and there are visiting grad students here to do research in a research group  or with a particular professor. Exchange students, whether graduate or undergraduate, are governed by pretty explicit policies on how to apply, interaction with the International Student Services offices, registration status, and fees, such as bus pass, health coverage, gym etc. The exchange agreement determines how many at any one time, how tuition is settled, and any transcript issues. This seems to work pretty well. The visiting research graduate student, however, may easily, like the hapless example above, fall between policies. We do have a cagtegory called, not surprisingly, Visiting Research Student. This allows students who register for this status to have a student number and be recognized by the university. Visiting students who are not recognized by the university, it turns out, are at risk of not having the appropriate health care, of not being known to be here if there is an emergency either here or back home, and not having a rounded experience while here. The problem really is that, like post docs, visiting research students generally are supported by their home university and so often no one thinks to interface them with the system until... Until they need a security card; until they need library access; until they need medical care; until they need help from the International Student office; until there is an IP issue; until...

So what to do? Well we have just finished the first step where five parts of the bureaucracy sat down to discuss the status quo and articulate the issues. So next we need to align the policies to cover the gaps and then, for sure, we need to get out there and make sure every professor understands and every visiting student gets understands and that registering is as straightforward as possible (within the limits  of the bureaucracy, of course!).

Since we all benefit from students coming here and our students going there, I am sure we can do better.

Carolyn