Q: How can I train my students and postdocs to write high-quality research papers?
As: Anatomy of a Research Report is a sentence-by-sentence checklist for scientific communication, both written and verbal. It articulates the purpose of each sentence of a research report, providing not only examples from various disciplines but specific vocabulary to use or avoid. When new persons start a project in your group, use ARR to guide an introduction to their project and to point out what lies ahead. Later on, group members preparing presentations or papers may use ARR to check and correct these before they reach your own desk. This represents a considerable savings in time and effort for you.

Q: It’s my first time formally recruiting students to my program and department.
As: Student recruitment days usually proceed on Science Slam-like lines. Prospects gather at a specific place, day, and time, and, In brief sessions ranging from 10-20 minutes depending on the number of presenters involved, receive accounts of departmental research. Again as in Science Slams, the most successful presentations tell a rousing, even suspenseful story that incorporates clear scientific and social purpose, state of the art graphics and animations, and manipulable or take home props. Visibly show excitement and keenness about your research program.

Q: My first postdoc is applying for jobs. She’s exceptionally good.
As: Two job markets exist in parallel: the visible one that manifests on career sites and job boards, and a shadow counterpart that head hunts within relationship webs. Unsurprisingly, the most prized positions usually surface among the latter. To access the shadow market, the postdoc, and/or you on her behalf, must know colleagues at many universities very well, and vice versa.

For jobs in industry, where you may not have as wide a network, LinkedIn is an essential sourcing tool for recruiters and hiring managers. Facilitate their locating the postdoc by optimizing her profile for discovery by LinkedIn Search. If the profile is a compelling representation of who she is, what she can do, and what she seeks in a career, she’ll receive offers of opportunities.

Q: Is being very overweight working against me?
As: Pragmatically speaking, all persons can learn ways of dressing that spotlight strong points and conceal weak ones. An excellent department store and/or personal shopper can advise you to this effect, if you wish. Beyond that, and far more importantly, health and your positive state of mind come first and foremost. Maintain a strong focus on rewarding interpersonal relationships and job satisfaction. Appreciate your work, family, and friends; encourage student growth; enjoy community and service activities; and associate more with happy, well fed, kind, and compassionate colleagues than hungry, hair-trigger, belligerent ones.

Q: How honest should I be with my group about the realities of life in academia?
As: Fully, because knowing as much as possible is a prerequisite to an informed choice. Should this honest account prove daunting or discouraging, there are alternatives to academic careers: start-ups; industry; teaching at various levels; patent agent or attorney; funding agency program officer; outreach and exhibit design at museums, science centers, zoos, and aquariums; communications, e.g., journal editor, science writer, columnist, public relations, and/or media presenter; public policy advisor; and program/institute administrator, to name only some.

Q: This is my cry from the heart. My partner and I are both assistant professors approaching tenure decisions. How can we balance our careers, a toddler, and an infant?
As: If dividing family and home management between the two of you isn’t working out, you need a helper or helpers. Keep in mind that on your deathbed you’re unlikely to cry out, “Oh, why did I not write another review of the research?” Rather, you’ll want your family rallied around you. Make time for them. Love and enjoy them.

Q: A student in my group attempted suicide.
As: We grieve for the student and you. Following such a shocking event, both of you must seek informed counsel. Offer support to your group too. Many of them will soon supervise junior coworkers, if not already doing so. Through this experience, they may learn to recognize signs of fracture in their supervisors and themselves. Compile helping techniques as a group. Somehow this serious concern seems less cripplingly scary as an exercise.

There are many reasons – interpersonal, personal, familial, medical, emotional, and social as well as professional – that may have taken the student into such a despairing state. Likewise, there are many ways back from the brink. Essential to stability in all of us, we find, is a supporter. It is a crucial safety valve to have someone provide steady interest and encouragement, listen, offer solace, and celebrate along with us.

Q: What are my pre-tenure social obligations?
As: Though campus cultures vary, we suggest accepting every invitation to coffee, fundraisers, barbecues, bowling, and baby showers. Attend as many university events as you can, especially those organized by students. In this context, we mention a recent study reported in Fortune (De Wei, 17 February 2023) to the effect that upper leadership tiers tend to feature not necessarily the highest intellects but rather acumen, charisma, and likability. Put another way, don't skip social hours to get more done.

Q: What should my tenure file contain?
As: Your department will provide directions and guidance. However, it never hurts to be prepared for as many eventualities as possible. We recommend compiling, and keeping up to date, indexed copies of publications, funded grant proposals, conference presentations, annual reports, a listing of upper and lower level courses taught by year, student evaluation summaries by year, names of graduate students and postdocs in your group by year, names of alumni and their current positions, service activities, outreach activities, and fan mail. 

Q: Why do academic adjuncts remain in their positions for years?
As: Many adjuncts consciously choose part-time work for a multitude of personal and professional reasons. Others do continuously seek other opportunities, but are stymied because research skills quickly lose their currency, because they cannot undertake full time employment, or both.

Q: I am the only person of my specialization at my university. My closest mentors are retired or have passed away. Where can I turn for supportive letters required for grants, fellowships, and promotions?
As: Unknown to you, there are likely colleagues elsewhere on campus who make use of the same data sets, instrumentation, methods, and funding sources you do, and who can perhaps comment on your program outcomes. To identify these persons, scan colloquium schedules and identify their hosts. Read university annual reports and press releases; and ask chancellors, deans, and vice presidents of research for introductions. When you yourself publish, briefly inform your department chair, dean, women's studies programs, campus newspapers, university news bureau, town newspaper, and alumni bulletins. Enlarge your network by following up on related campus colloquia, entering into collaborations internal and external to the university, and making contacts at external conferences leading up to organizing your own.

Q: My record of peer-reviewed publications in top journals, citations, service, awards, and other accomplishments is objectively superior to my male counterpart’s. However, our tenure committee has ranked his research of higher quality, and awarded him alone tenure.
As: Our most sincere sympathies are with you. A tiring but, we hope, ultimately more successful road lies ahead. Perhaps you wish to challenge this ruling internally or externally to the university. Taking the latter first, few outside attorneys specialize in academic promotion procedures. Fortunately, many litigators, and virtually all universities and cities, do participate in job discrimination task forces. You can also call on guidance and support from national organizations for women, associations of university women, national unions, and many books. Within the university, faculty senates and faculty unions can help determine how “higher quality” was assessed. Your record appears stellar, but these achievements sometimes count less than they should if your colleagues consider you a misfit or dislike you. We have known an entire institute to disband and reform in new guise minus a colleague considered untenable, rather than retain said colleague. Naturally you may also investigate academic and think tank positions elsewhere, or make further use of your skills by retraining as an attorney, fundraiser, journalist, and/or activist. We wish you every success.

Q: I’m offered tenure but don’t intend to stay at this university forever.
As: It’s not expected that you will stay forever. Especially if you are successful, you will likely be recruited elsewhere. Or perhaps you mean that you’re contemplating leaving academic life period, for opportunities that will eventually result in leaving active research. In the latter case, consider backup options early on, and keep them open.

Q: What are pros and cons of an assistant professorship at a primarily undergraduate college? As: If you seek an active academic research career, the answer is evident. Institutions dedicated to teaching attract brilliant educators who enrich the entire campus. Some conduct hands-on research alongside their group, taking teaching even further, such that powerhouse students hungry to learn receive the education of their lives. Chances are, however, that you will meet more research-trained young coworkers, and have access to better resources, at a research-oriented university.

Q: At conferences I’m asked questions patently intended to embarrass me.
As Summary: Probing, testing questions train us to communicate effectively. Harshly critical, public point-scoring, sarcastic, mean-spirited, or personal questions are inappropriate. The latter may be repeated clearly and resoundingly, prefaced by “You asked–.” In this way, you are ensuring that all the audience hears the question’s foolishness. Continue by answering the question with exquisite courtesy, at face value, as though it were legitimate. 

Moderators should add a request to chat briefly with offenders following the session, and inform conference organizers of verbal abuse or any other untoward behavior.

Q: Some questioners at conferences go on so self-referentially and self-importantly that I lose track of the question.
As: Your choices depend on how tired you are after your talk, and on how charitable or courageous you feel. You may listen to the question until its very end, pause for several moments, then ask the questioner to summarize briefly. Alternately, after ten seconds, you may hold up your hand, palm facing out, and inquire, politely, “Excuse me, what is your question?”

Q: The campus newspaper is requesting an interview. Tips?
As: Beware inexperienced student reporters who garble, sensationalize, or misrepresent research and background at interviewees’ expense, giving rise to amusement or consternation among colleagues and necessitating follow up damage control. Courteously and respectfully, ensure as much editing authority as you can.

Q: My conference slot follows colleagues infamous for speaking long past their time allocation.
As: Before the session block begins, alert your moderator that it may be necessary to intervene. Warn, or more likely remind, her/him of the possible problem, and provide a hard copy of each speaker’s scheduled start and end time.

Q: So many requests for committee and other service commitments.
As: Some requests conveyed as invitations are actually directives, e.g., those from far above. Still, you might try the following formulation, delivered with deference and in evident desperation: “I sincerely apologize that I’m in full tenure press for the next # months. I hope that the next time you do me the honor of inviting me to participate, I’ll be in a much better position to accept with alacrity.” It’s difficult to maintain priorities when requests continuously flow in, but for sanity’s sake you must try.

Q: On what grounds can tenure be revoked and professors dismissed?
As: In our experience, reasons generally cited are neglectful, harmful, unprofessional, and criminal behavior, but these criteria tend to be somewhat subject to interpretation. Assuming the job is conducted scrupulously and well, the chief reason for dismissal, again in our experience, is an unfounded or unproven accusation against a colleague or student.

Q: I'm a technician whose lab is adjacent to a new assistant professor’s. While capable and goodhearted, this young professor is concentrating on all the wrong things. For example, she's started a wonderful community outreach program, but still has no publications midway to her tenure decision. I’m not in a position to advise her, but worry about her.
As: We thank you for caring about this coworker and her career. Might you know of a senior colleague who can be supportive, direct, and helpful in speaking with her? Career counseling should already be taking place, but may not be.

Q: Will male colleagues always resent the recognition I receive?
A: Very possibly, especially in highly competitive environments. Word may reach you that these colleagues attribute your success to gender politics; do not await or expect congratulations from them. Instead, take the high road. Always attribute honors and prizes to your group, colleagues, predecessors, and a strongly supportive departmental and university environment. Repeat and reiterate that visibility for one is visibility for all.

Q: I’m expected to, but can’t, write a recommendation for an angry, under-achieving postdoc.
A: Before interviewing the first applicants to your group, we advise formulating several group performance and ethics standards, and clearing these with the university’s legal counsel. When interviewing, verbally review the checklist, then date and sign it.

We ask requesters to write their own letter drafts. You’ll find that many judge themselves more stringently than you would, though the opposite can of course occur. In this case, we suggest sending a letter that dispassionately summarizes the postdoc’s (unattained) project goals. Make no mention at all of personal attributes. Recipients will interpret this correctly. If you feel strongly enough about this postdoc, place a telephone call. Declining to write a recommendation at all would create many more administrative and legal problems than you want. 

Q: I try to prioritize, but flounder non productively every day.
As: If possible, maintain your boundaries in a very disciplined, scheduled way. You might budget one non-negotiable hour per weekday to group and staff contact, one hour to writing, and one to personal time. On weekends, you could dedicate more time to writing and personal care. Choose TAs carefully and well. Some professional organizations can recommend career coaches payable from grants.

Q: A paper I’m reviewing has independently duplicated work that we are writing up. In short, I’m being scooped. How to proceed?
As: In fast-moving science, being first among several is increasingly recognized as irrelevant. For this reason, journals are adopting “complementary research” policies in which related papers are published back to back, benefiting all parties by expanding the substance and reach of studies that are overlapping but not identical, demonstrating the robustness of related results, making replication studies more cost effective, and increasing readership for all authors.

Contact the editor who assigned you the manuscript. Depending on how far from completion your own article is, it may be possible to publish both articles jointly. Should you still consider it crucial to edge ahead, you might return to the bench yourself and/or distribute small sub-project pieces to friends on an emergency basis. However, we advise avoiding a crisis mode for which there is no real need.

Q: How to triage too many publication and proposal review requests?
As: There are multiple reasons to review, as you know. First, one learns. Second, one hopes that journals or agencies in question will reciprocate by becoming more aware of, and open to, one’s own research. This being so, most of us prioritize journals and agencies most relevant to our research, and formulate for ourselves some rule of thumb such as a ratio of two-three reviews to one published paper of one’s own.

Q: Inter-group writing is going very poorly, impacting the entire collaboration.
As: Collaborative writing requires a priori agreements such as a timeline and the task plan shown in Anatomy of a Research Report. Generally it is the most senior collaborator who issues reminders; checks and compiles contributions; and redistributes drafts for approval.

Q: Authors of an article ignored my review feedback. I’m now asked by another journal to review the identical article.
As: The authors gambled on a new reviewer, and lost. Submit the same report.

Q: On what grounds are my new colleagues most likely to approve of me?
As: Professionally, the gold standard is excellent work well communicated to peers, in speaking engagements as well as in print, rewarded by recognition and financial underwriting.

On a personal level, some would advise keeping your head down, calling no particular attention to yourself, making no waves, pursuing no causes, engaging in no controversy, and remaining quietly deferential to all. We consider that stance not only antiquated but likely to backfire. If you stay a cipher, if your colleagues do not know what is important to you and what you represent, they will be unable to support you now and at tenure time. If you have a choice between causes that benefit outsiders only, and those that also benefit your department or university, you might want to opt for the latter.

Q: The head of my institute has diverted most of a department-wide donation to his own research. I myself, as a new professor low in seniority, will receive no part of it.
As: If it is the head’s prerogative to distribute the funds as he wishes, questioning him, however courteously, will not only fail but create enmity. We regret that you’re unlikely to secure any part of the donation despite your right to fair resource distribution. In fact, the only hope for any positive outcome is future impartiality and greater transparency to come. Consider volunteering for the university budgetary committee. END