Advice and Resources for Academics

My #1 Best Piece of Advice

I have one top piece of advice to offer grad students and faculty at all levels: read Robert Boice's book, Advice for New Faculty Members.  This is The Book.  It is the book that changed my life.  It is the book that completely altered how I think about writing, teaching, and service.  95% of it is as applicable to grad students as it is to assistant professors (the intended audience). Read. the. book.  Just read the book.  And here are some other handy links.

General Academic Advice and Resources

• How to Not Die: Some Survival Tips for Black Women Who are Asked to Do Too Much: very important advice from Robin M. Boylorn of the Crunk Feminist Collective. See also the brilliant "Back-to-School Beatitudes: 10 Academic Survival Tips." The CFC aims to "create a space of support and camaraderie for hip hop generation feminists of color, queer and straight, in the academy and without, by building a rhetorical community, in which we can discuss our ideas, express our crunk feminist selves, fellowship with one another, debate and challenge one another, and support each other, as we struggle together to articulate our feminist goals, ideas, visions, and dreams in ways that are both personally and professionally beneficial."  Consistently one of the best sources of insight into gender and race in and beyond academe.

• Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia, edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, Angela P. Harris.  This is a phenomenally important book, self-consciously in the tradition of This Bridge Called My Back, that combines personal narrative with empirical research on women of color and white women in the academy.  The book's sections include "General Campus Climate," "Faculty/Student Relationships," "Networks of Allies," "Social Class in Academia," and "Tenure and Promotion."  A vital resource.

• How to Grad School While Poor, an excellent crowdsourced resource maintained by Dr. Karra Shimabukuro. 

• Conditionally Accepted, a site that "aims to provide a space for academics on the margins."

• "Lessons from a First-Gen Working Class Latinx Student," by Alicia M. Reyes-Barriéntez.

• Latinas Completing Doctoral Degrees, a useful blog by Sofia Bautista Pertuz.

• Surviving Blackademia, by KC Williams and Shannon Gibney. Practical strategies for negotiating racism in academe.

• Melissa Febos's utterly brilliant essay "Do You Want to be Known for Your Writing or For Your Swift Email Responses?" provides feminist analysis and advice on setting priorities.

• Kerry Ann Rockquemore is a former columnist for Inside Higher Ed (she's also co-author of the excellent The Black Academic's Guide to Winning Tenure--Without Losing Your Soul, which I discuss below).  Check out her columns on how to mentor junior faculty and other crucial topics.

• Victoria Reyes, another columnist for Inside Higher Ed, offers excellent advice on a range of topics. I especially like "How to Write a CV for the Academic Job Market" and "10 Tips for Thriving, Not Just Surviving, in Grad School."

• "On Mentoring First Generation and Graduate Students of Color," by Marissa López (in collaboration with the MLA's Committee on the Literatures of People of Color), presents “a nuts-and-bolts outline to working with PhD candidates who are either first generation or students of color, making readers aware of the issues such students face and offering concrete, practical suggestions on an individual level.”

• "Should-ing All Over Ourselves." Wisdom from Koritha Mitchell about black feminisms, the pressures of "should," and how and when to say no. My favorite part of the essay: "Because saying 'no' is so difficult, it is important to remember that it is not someone else’s job to censor themselves by not asking you to do things. I always tell people: 'Never hesitate to ask if you think I can help with something. It’s your job to take initiative by drawing into yourself the resources and support that you need. It’s my job to say ‘no’ if I need to.' Don’t take the approach that someone is putting you in a bad situation by asking. They are just asking. It is not their fault if you haven’t learned how to say 'no' when necessary."

• "To Teach and To Mentor: Toward Our Collective Future," brilliant sanity for mentors and mentees from Jill Dolan, a.k.a. The Feminist Spectator.

• Guide to Faculty Mentoring in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard's handbook.

• The Southern Association for Women Historians offers a terrific "Mentoring Toolkit" with advice on research, teaching, life, and other important topics.  The site is intended for historians but much of the advice is generalizable.

• "Career Advice From an Oldish Not-Quite Geezer": Robert J. Sternberg's wisdom on what's really important in an academic career.

• "What I Wish I Knew Before Becoming a Professor," by Carole McGranahan, is a must-read.

• Mental Health in Grad School: Articles and Resources

• "Zombie Nouns," Helen Sword's excellent essay on nominalizations and other linguistic monsters.  Bran Dougherty-Johnson animates Sword's ideas in "Beware of Nominalizations (AKA Zombie Nouns)." See also Sword's 25-minute lecture, "Stylish Academic Writing," after her book of the same title.   See, too, Sword's superb "Writer's Diet" assessment tool. I don't care for Sword's "fit vs flabby" metaphor, but this assessment tool provides useful, automated feedback that will help you tighten your prose. All highly recommended.

• "10 Top Writing Tips and the Psychology Behind Them" by Josh Bernoff teaches you to write, as he puts it, "without bullshit."

• Walter Benjamin's Thirteen Rules for Writing

• "How to Write a Sophisticated, Dynamic Scholarly Argument," by Katie Van Heest, explains why list-based arguments are rhetorically ineffective.

• Wendy Belcher offers brilliant advice for academic writers. Her book, Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success, is stunningly effective.

• Ig Nobel Prize winner John Perry advocates Structured Procrastination, a technique of getting crucial things done by avoiding something that's even more important.  This method really works!

• Phil Nel maintains "Nine Kinds of Pie," a great blog about children's literature and related topics.  His academic advice is excellent.  I especially like his idea of "procrastigrading."  And his "Advice for Aspiring Academics" is simply brilliant.

• "Why I Love Academic Conferences," by Devoney Looser.

• Many people find that ambient noise helps them to work. Free online noise generators include Coffitivity, Noisli, and MyNoise.

• I quite like Eric Barker's blog, Barking Up the Wrong Tree, which offers pithy, evidence-based advice on productivity, happiness, negotiation, and related topics. Check out, for example, his helpful post on the relationship among exercise, happiness, and mental capacity (spoiler alert: the first enhances the second and third).  And here's a related post on the best ways to motivate yourself to exercise.  You can subscribe and receive the short, well-written, well-documented posts by email.

• Beall's List of Potential, Possible, or Probable Predatory Scholarly Open-Access Publishers

• "Humanities Unbound: Supporting Careers and Scholarship Beyond the Tenure Track" by Katina Rogers, Senior Research Specialist for the Scholarly Communications Institute.  This white paper provides useful information and ideas to help departments support graduate students who seek careers outside academia.

• I offer students the option of "walking office hours" in which the student and I talk while strolling around campus.  For more information about the intellectual and health benefits of walking meetings, see Nilofer Merchant, “Sitting is the Smoking of our Generation.”  On the intellectual benefits of walking (not necessarily during meetings), see Ferris Jabr's "Why Walking Helps us Think."