Author: admin

It is important that researchers are socially savvy!!

Posted by admin on in Research 2 Comments

Academic effort is in abundance in the life of researchers and it’s no use if all the effort remains hidden and doesn’t come in public eye. The more is the visibility of the work of a researcher greater is the enrichment of his work. A lot of universities have identified this and therefore are far more focussed than before in establishing their public presence. But some amount of endeavour is expected from the end of the researcher as well on regular basis and it surely has a lot of positive impact on their lives. This positive impact is not restricted to their professional life only but has a positive impact on their personal lives as well.

Internet gives innumerable opportunities to people to interact with others. There are community groups, industries, focussed groups and they have their own special and focused interest area. If a researcher involves himself here, a positive relation can help him to have a lot of   opportunities, ideas and also enhance their professional network in many ways.  If you are socially savvy on different platforms, digitally and otherwise, you would expand your audience and at the same time a leave an impression about yourself and your work potential. Always remember that networking is very important for researchers and each and every contact could be the gateway to newer and better opportunities.

In addition to giving you multiple and diverse platforms, being socially active and savvy is a great motivation booster as well. Feeling demotivated is a phase that comes in the life of the most expert of researchers and often isolation is the cause of this.  But if you simultaneously work around establishing your presence on a public platform, there is no way that your morale would go down and you would be able to always find one or the other source to draw your inspiration. You also get a vent to share your frustrations and joy, thus subtracts your sorrows and multiplies your joys.

Being socially active as a topic remains incomplete if we don’t talk of social media and the kind of role it plays in people’s social engagements.  Various social networking sites such a twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook are great platforms for discussing experiences and achievements. Each of these option has its own benefits and one should not miss onto it.

Researchers must always remember that research, academia and public presence go hand in hand. You cannot move ahead unless you use all of them to your advantage. So what are you waiting for?

How to make the best slides for your research presentation?

Posted by admin on in Research 3 Comments

A researcher has varied roles to play.  They must know how to work at all places, labs, library and the fields as well. They should be versatile in their skills to be not just good readers and writers but also good presenters. When you have results in your research, you go to show them to others.  When you have to transfer your research results on a PPT, you need to know a few things in advance:

Reduce the text quantity: When you are presenting, your audience has to listen to you. The thumb rule for a presentation is to keep the text as less as possible.  This is because, if the slide has too much of content, then invariable the audience starts to read the text on their own and does not concentrate on what you are saying. Try to keep the text as less as possible on the PPT. That is important.

Incorporate pictorials:  think of images that you can include in your PPT. this is because looking at the picture, the audience is able to focus more on what   you are saying. As long as the picture is able to establish connect between the topic and what you want to say then it is a great way to bring down the clutter of the presentation.

Do not over load new information:  when the reader has to read on his own, he is able to control the pace on his own. However, when he is listening to your presentation then the control of the pace is with you. It is not a good idea to show all your text at one else the reader would mentally move ahead from where you are. Graduate slowly in a step by step approach rather than in a way that the information starts to bounce up on the reader.

Take note of the formatting requirements:   there are a lot of formatting considerations to take care of while you are preparing a presentation. The text should be in such a font and size that it should be easy for the audience to read. There should not be any spelling or typo errors. There should be enough space between the lines, make use of bullet points wherever necessary. Keep a light toned background and place your content in such a way that audience sitting at a good distance can also find it visible in a good enough way.

Some things to be cautious about while writing your thesis

Posted by admin on in Thesis Help 1 Comment

You may know of all the larger incorporations that you are making in your thesis and it is easy to know the essential format of your thesis. But there are small little intricacies that you need to careful about and you may not find them easily.

Use of “this” and “it”:  Usually when we use pronouns in our writing, we are thinking from our own perspective and we have the clarity of what we are referring to but the reader doesn’t know what vision you wrote with so he may not be able to identify what the pronouns refer to and this may create confusion for the reader.

“Use of “Never” and “Only”:  Never only are very assertive words and are good to be used when we have statements which we are sure of.  Throughout the thesis, until before the last chapter we are making assumptions so it is better to use words that talk about estimates.  Options such as “it seems” or “appears” are good alternatives. Never use assertive words until you have proof for them.

Commas: We often see writers using commas very liberally as there are no stringent set of rules that are available for the use of commas.  The mistake that writers make often is to use comma in accordance with the pause they would take with verbal language but in written comma should be used more logically when there is a conceptual pause rather than a verbal pause. It is better to have smaller fresh sentences than long and complex sentences with a lot of commas.

Use of mathematical symbols:  one should specifically never begin sentences or paragraphs with complicated symbols such as mathematical symbols.  Sometimes another blunder that readers make is to put up a punctuation symbol right next to a mathematical symbol. This creates a confusion in the mind of the reader that the punctuation is a part of the mathematical symbol.  Try to write the equation in such a way that the reader can read through it like text.

Definition of symbols and terminology: It is imperative that whatever symbols and terminology that you use, u must explain and elaborate them before only. The symbols must be specified quite clearly to ensure that what they are denoting.  Providing the best possible clarity to the reader is the preliminary duty of the writer else the entire effort of research is futile.

A general set of guidelines for writing style

Posted by admin on in writing 1 Comment

Your writing is a reflection of your thinking.  A bad write up shows clouded thoughts. When you make an attempt to write clearly, you automatically improvise your writing as well. Things like the layout, sequence of sentences and punctuation may seem like unimportant  and insignificant but you may not realise that focussing on them can greatly improve  upon your understanding of the material.   By the fundamental approach and a universally followed goal, practising to write regularly, again and again is the way to write well. When you keep doing something again and again, you surely improve at it. But some things to surely watch out for, are:

Sequencing of sentences: reading a document should be as smooth as perhaps walking. Sentences should lead from one to another in a very smooth manner. A good English write up is the one which has short sentences and a lot of structure that connects across sentences. If you abruptly change your topic without actually taking the reader through a smooth transition, you often distract and confuse the reader. A change in topic should be from a new paragraph. Some signal words and phrases should be used to prepare the reader for the new topic or change in idea.

Don’t create sandwiches: sandwiches are common to create in academic writing and easier to find when you are explaining in the concepts. A sandwich is something here by you squeeze in another idea in between one idea and it is a clear cut indication of poor organisation skills in writing and writers must be very cautious to avoid the same. Mostly when arranging, you should be careful of first introducing those topics that are general in nature and then carefully graduate towards more specific sub topics that can only be understood after the basics are clearer. You must say all that you want to say about one topic before you decide to move on to another one. This approach is very helpful for the reader as well.

Create sharp sentences: create short and sharp sentences and include as few commas as possible. Usually writers fear that they would lose the attention of the reader if they write short sentences but that is not the case so and as a writer don’t let that  anxiety develop into you when you create sentences.

Adopt these few techniques and be the writer you want to be. More on this in the next blog!!

 

 

How and where to create a research centric online profile?

Posted by admin on in Research 1 Comment

An online profile is accessible to the whole world without any constraints of geographical or social boundaries and researchers always want to have a profile that revolves around their academic performance and achievements. In particular the publication record of a researcher becomes a mirror of his academic growth and should reflect in the CV or profile. Find few sites here that in particular focus on your research and if you are successfully able to create your profile and update it and maintain it well, it will become a good showcase platform for others to know of your productivity and at the same time help you to know the amount of impact your research and contribution is creating in the academic environment.

  1. ImpactStory: this site helps you to create an impressive research linked CV which is a platform to highlight all your research products. It isn’t just confined to publication record. In addition it has a great feedback mechanism that helps you to know the frequency of your work getting cited, mentioned and discussed over the virtual wold. It is used extensively by researchers around the world and is a very useful medium to demonstrate your holistic research skills.
  2. Kudos: Kudos helps you to enhance the readership for your content, it may not be a site that is specific to research related profiles but it surely helps you to create a framework for your publications and increasing your popularity online.
  3. ORCID: ORCID helps you to identify your work in the huge sea of online work that is available. This medium is one way to ensure that all credit for your work is given to you, wherever on the internet it is published. It does that by created distinct identification ids for each researchers who signs in and it helps to ensure 100 per cent representation for your work.
  4. Figshare: figshare is as research repository, which means that you will not just find it useful for your own work but also to get free access to the work of other researchers. On this platform you deposit any research work for public access and exhibit your expertise in your specific area of research to the academia on internet.

In addition, social networking is another great medium but if you further explore you may find options that may not be very popular but have a special focus/target towards investigators and researchers. They are surely to be tapped if getting popular online as a researcher is your target!!

Why and how should researchers have an impressive online presence?

Posted by admin on in Research 0 Comment

Most of the activities around the world take place online. Research work has all become easier and simpler with the virtual presence. Researchers are able to store data online, communicate through the mail and find all relevant data online. Other than finding data online, there is more to being online. Like most of the other jobs, it is most important to control and have an impressive presence online. When somebody would type your name on Google, what   do you want them to find?

It isn’t difficult to improve your online visibility by just adapting to some basic tips and suggestions. Here they go:

  1. LinkedIn: It is the most rapidly growing professional networking site. It is not just important to have a LinkedIn profile but having an impactful profile is important. Remember that your LinkedIn profile in the top most item in the list of options when your name is searched on Google so it has to be not just  complete but impressive and engaging at the same time. You could do the same by taking care of some of these small little intricacies. Add a professional looking photograph of yourself as mostly profiles that are without photograph do not seek the attention of the reader. Have a clear and formal photo.  Just one more step to customise the URL of your profile to have your name would surely increase the traffic when your name is searched by people online. Your public profile URL with your name should be right below your picture on the profile page. Whatever percentage of your LinkedIn profile you make public, as a researcher your list of publications, presentations, conferences and editorial contributions should be visible to all.
  2. Twitter: among the stream of science, twitter is becoming increasingly popular. It is the medium to share opinions and publications and gets you response, opinion and feedback from colleagues, peer, friend, critics from around the world in a jiffy. You must try your hand at having as twitter handle  and have access to a sea of colleagues, journals , publishers and sometimes even universities or institutes. Some basic and useful tips for a twitter handle are having a short and suitable user name that signifies your profile. Try and make your tweets short, succinct and comprehensive as usually you have a word limit of 140 words. The key is to be recognizable here while being brief. Another very important tip is to look for hashtags and short make use of URL shortners so that you are able to save space when you send links.

In the next blog we will discuss the profiles focusing on your research products. Happy being virtual till then!!!

 

 

To start writing a dissertation………………………..!!!

Posted by admin on in Dissertation 1 Comment

 There isn’t any correct or wrong way to start writing a dissertation, what is important that you have to start writing for sure. This appears very basic and you may think it is so obvious that there wasn’t any need to mention it also in the first place. However, this very basic requirement may become one of the most challenging requirement to overcome. At a time when you got to start some textual analysis or a literature review, a lot if scholars go through a phase of anxiety, fear or even writer’s block. The usual course of action followed is discussing the initial draft of the research and couple of meetings with the researcher, however still many a times no positive and concrete results may show up. There needs to be that apt solution that is the sure shot right path for scholars to be able to face upfront this challenge of being able to start the process of writing.

So like we discussed in the beginning that there isn’t any correct or wrong way to start writing, but here is a set of few tools that may come handy to  you and guide you through well:

First thing is read, read and read as much as you can.  The more you read, the stronger is your foundation of your dissertation that you have to write. Reading will help you to learn the skill of separating the good content from the bad content. Reading will help you to understand the nuances of writing and intricacies such as consistency, patterns and flows and how to they help in improvising the quality of any write up.

 The second important tool is to create a mind map of the course you have to follow in the writing process. You must know the key areas and the way you would organise them into a mind map so that you have good clarity about which step is to follow after which step. This mind map has to be in a format that is something you understand and it is comfortable to you. You needn’t worry if others follow a similar one or no. you can find various formats online for this but isn’t mandatory to choose any one from there, you can have your own customised and self-designed mind map as long as it helps you to give direction to your research.

 The third tool is to write your first index,  if you do that successfully , you have successfully cleared the first stage of being able to structure your research and then there isn’t any looking back to it, you would see in a patterned way how writing flows out without getting stuck anywhere.

 

If you decide to collect data online……..!!

Posted by admin on in Data Collection 0 Comment

Most of the thesis are about primary data collection and usually to prove the authenticity of the data, a large amount of data has to be collected.  You will surely have to collect both qualitative as well as quantitative data.

Internet has come up to be one such boon for researchers, it gives one the opportunity  to connect thousands, millions of people sitting at one place and in that sense, there couldn’t be a better time for statistical research. If you are planning to use the net to collect data for your thesis, here are few things that can come to your help:

Generating an online survey:  the net gives you many options to generate surveys online. Options like Google forms or survey monkey are some of the options. However, if you want a more professional looking survey that is also not a very difficult job on the internet. Typeform is one such option that can help you to design a colourful and attractive survey.

Contacting people: if you wish to contact people as your respondents for your study you would need a large database of respondents. You can get information about people from social media or a blog. One very popular tool used on the internet is MailChimp. It is a place from where you can collect email addresses so you can contact them to participate in your survey. Not only this, to your surprise you can also manage your contacts through some special tools.

Creating a focus group: if your research is more qualitative in nature, you would need to create a focus group. It surely is a challenge to find a group of people together at the same time. Do not get into the hassle of streamlining the process through multiple email exchanges. Rather switch over to Doodle. It is a one place that would help you to coordinate everyone’s ability and also lets you know what the best time to meet them is.

Proposing incentives: researchers are aware that in the process of data collection some amount of incentive is important and leads to more high quality responses.  The internet gives you the option of rewarding people with some gift for sparing out time for you with I tunes download or perhaps some voucher from Amazon or any other similar site.

So now use the internet to your advantage because so far you are the most fortunate lot of researchers!!

Why to incorporate goals for a creative task like writing?

Posted by admin on in writing 2 Comments

Setting up of goals is more of a task that suits the corporate world. Sounds so not matching with the free spirited task for writing which we all say, works best without any restrictions and constraints.  Still, experts in academic and non-academic writing suggest time and again that setting up goals is a means to enhance the productivity of writing and not stifle it down. When you set up goals for your writing assignments you are clearing up your thoughts to make sure that you do the tasks that are most important first and get accomplished to pave the path for the less important ones.

You are able to track your progress when you have goals set:  When you have benchmarks set for yourself, end of the semester you are able to measure your productivity against your benchmarks.  You automatically start feeling more productive when you know you have accomplished the goals you set for yourself in the semester.

You can be fair to yourself and not feel overburdened: slow and steady is the best approach. When you are in the habit if setting up regular goals for yourself, you know how much is fair for yourself and hence you are able to achieve realistically without actually overburdening yourself in any way.

You are able to maintain a steady pace:  when you have writing goals, you know approximately how much you need to work in each day to be able to accomplish what is required. You become more dedicated and find time each day for your activities. It further helps the content to stay fresh in your mind because you don’t leave it unattended for many days, rather you touch it every day, even if it is for a while only.

You know the stop signal: a seasoned goal setter knows his capabilities and limitations. When you achieve your goals ahead of time, you know you can afford to stop for a while, take a break as a reward. You know the feeling to enjoy the free time without any feeling of remorse is only possible when you accomplish the goals you have set for yourself.

Some of you may disagree with me here that setting goals is necessary for productivity. Well, you may be right in your own way but what I can surely say is that, setting goals gives  you the time to accommodate other important things in your life as well, which you may not be able to find time if you did not organise  your work pattern and commitments.

Proofreading Promises Error-Free Documents

Posted by admin on in Proofreading 2 Comments

A final proofreading comes as a must before submitting research paper. A student pursuing PhD should always be prepared to handle the task of proofreading in a proficient manner. He should know how to proofread his own edits. Proofreading will remove any chance of error at the 11th hour. It will make your paper look clean and hence will enhance readability among readers. The submission of a flawless report will also enhance your chance to stand our as a winner after submitting your final document. Let’s discuss the points where and how you can become experts in proofreading.

Read thoroughly what you have written:  You need to make sure that you read it thoroughly what ever you have written as there is no point in taking any last minute risk. As it’s an academic paper, it will decide your future. No matter that if you have hired a proofreader even, you should still go through the entire exercise on your own. Read each and every line in detail to avoid any kind of mistake.

Keep an eye on grammar, punctuation and vocabulary: As you expect your paper to be well-written and well-documented, you need to have a quality language and grammar usage for the same. Also, make sure that your spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary are correct in each and every line. Hence be extra cautious and avoid any bottleneck. Try to check that there shouldn’t be any silliest of the mistakes in your paper.

This is how proofreading promises an error-free document: 

Proofreading enhances the quality of a write-up and document
Proofreading eliminates errors
It makes your academic paper more valuable
Proofreading and editing is the key to successful submission
It adds the last touch to your document
It polishes the document before final submission
Poorly framed sentences and wrong usage of preposition can be corrected by proofreading