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Bill Simmons is one of my all-time favorite sports columnists. For those of you who don’t follow sports (I’m looking at you Jerry), Simmons is a combination of a pop culture sponge, a sports geek, a comedian (I think he used to write jokes for Jimmy Kimmel), and a prolific writer. His columns are witty, meandering, ranting, long, and always entertaining. Simmons writes a lot and he writes really well. I’m slowly making my way through his enormous tome, The Book of Basketball, and I’m blown away by the level of detailed knowledge he has about the game (even if it almost makes me cry every time he mentions Karl Malone’s inability to play in the clutch). I saw Simmons on a late night talk show recently, and I got really interested when the host asked him to talk about what it’s like to write as much and as well as he does. Simmons compared writing to the game of golf. It’s something you have to work at every day if you’re ever going to be  good at it. If you stop writing, you’ll likely lose some of that touch it’s taken so long to develop. I thought this was a great analogy for writing, and because I’ve wanted to say something on this blog about the practice of writing social science for a while now, I thought I’d expound on the analogy.

Let me just say up front that I am not a good golfer at all and I consider my writing skills a work-in-progress.  My golf game is so bad that I’ve won the most improved award in our family golf tournament for the last three years mainly because I don’t qualify for any other award and because my loving family thinks that my skills can’t be getting worse. I aspire to be a good writer. I think writing is one of the most undervalued abilities in social science. Great writers can turn a good idea into a great paper. Bad writers can turn a great idea into a pretty confusing paper. So writing is important.

This post is about developing good writing habits. I’m probably not the best person to give tips on how to write. If you want that kind of advice, I recommend Booth et al.’s The Craft of Research. It’s a handy reference book and has lots of good tips for organizing your ideas.  I also highly recommend reading Ezra Zuckerman’s “Tips to article writers.” (I think about Ezra’s advice on framing your argument as a puzzle whenever I start a new paper.)

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Eszter recently had a good post on the role of conferences. Here’s Eszter’s other professional advice columns. I think we’d agree on many points, but not on others. Here’s my take on the conference world. Previous grad skool rulz.

First, you have to figure out how important conferences are in your discipline for publication. For example, conference proceedings are the primary publication venue in computer science. In contrast, most social sciences assign no value to most conference proceedings. Lesson: If conference proceedings matter for your discipline, you had better show up!

Second, find out the informal rules of your discipline. It’s often the case that specialized conferences and department workshops are where work gets vetted. It’s often the case that the people at these venues will be the reviewers at major journals. If you have already responded to their criticisms, it’s more likely that they will help you in the review process. In contrast, panels at national conferences are populated with a random assortment of folks. These people need to hear your ideas, but it’s not likely that it will help with regard to professionalization.

Third, there is no replacement for working hard on your research. Yes, it is good to get feedback, but too many conferences can take time away from data collection, analysis, and writing. There is definitely a trade off. One solid journal hit is more important than attending dozens of conferences.

Fourth, there are important indirect effects of conference attendance. People meet you. They can put a face to a name. You get invited to visit places to speak, even grad students. You might get invited to submit to a journal or edited volume. You might also meet people and make new friends. This is all important.

Fifth, there is conference etiquette. Most conferences have an informal dress code. Nothing fancy, but if you are giving a talk, nice slacks/jacket/dress are good. Also, people expect you to talk about your research.  It’s a conference after all, so people want to hear about your work. So have a 1 sentence summary ready to go. Push your cookie!

Sixth, remember that conferences are business meetings. It’s ok to approach people for business purposes. At ASA, there are job placement services, data sales people, book editors, college deans, and people who give money out for foundations. It’s totally ok to meet these people and start a conversation – it’s the reason they showed up.

Seventh, you can go on the cheap and save money. Drive instead of fly. Student registration fees or one day fees are lower. Double up on hotel rooms. Many colleges and universities have student travel funds. Ask around. Heck, ask your mom for money.

To summarize: Conferences are useful, but not a make or break deal. You should definitely go, but don’t let it crowd out your research or teaching. When you do go, be aware that it’s a business meeting and plan accordingly.

A few weeks ago, I wrote on the importance of publishing in graduate school and how one might do it. A few folks asked for a post that describes the publication process in more detail. Here it is:

• Let’s assume that you already have a manuscript that you’ve circulated and presented multiple times. Let’s assume that it’s a journal article, and not some other form of publication. Now you want to take the big step and get it in print.
• Choose a target. As I wrote before, you probably want to start with a top journal, a respected specialty journal, or a respected regional journal. Ask around if you don’t know the hierarchy of your field.
• Go to the journal web site and make sure the paper is in the right format. Social Science Quarterly, for example, is very insistent on short papers. AJS, for example, routinely publishes longer papers. Editors will tolerate a little fuzziness about length, but they will return a paper if it is way too long (e.g., the limit is 30 pages and the paper is 60).
• Write a cover letter that briefly explains the purpose of the paper. If you are in an unusual field (e.g., Eskimo linguistics), you might want to provide names of possible reviewers.
• Should I suggest reviewers? If you are asked, it might help. But otherwise, don’t do it. Why? You have no idea who is a speedy or fair reader. Why recommend someone who might tank you? Sleep better at night by letting the editors choose reviewers. Remember, that’s their job.
• Upload/send it out once it’s in the format.

What happens next? Journals vary a bit, but it usually goes something like this:

• The journal is run by a bunch of folks: the editors who make the final decisions; the associate editors, who help the editor but usually don’t have final say; the editorial board – a  few dozen scholars who agree to review papers but do not formulate decisions; the managing editors, a secretarial person who does all the paper work. Most editors/editorial board members are scholars/scientists/professors. Managing editors can be a professor, student, or a clerical person.
• The managing editor is the person in charge of shepherding the paper from submission to final decision. This is the person you contact for normal questions like “Did you guys get my paper?” Smaller journals may not have a separate managing editor.
• The journal editor, associate editors, and the managing editor may look at the paper and make a snap judgment about whether the paper fits or is good enough to be reviewed. Soc journals will review most papers if it at least looks plausible, while biological journals will often “bench reject” about 50% of submissions.
• Once the paper is deemed reviewable, the main or associate editor will assign reviewers. How does that happen? A few ways – people who are well known for work in your area may be asked to read the paper; perhaps an associate editor or editorial board member will write a review; they may look at the references and say “if person X is cited, they must be an expert.” If the paper is deemed to be of low quality, a graduate student may be asked to review it.
• Mix of reviewers: Varies a lot. Some journals will rely heavily on the editorial board. Some may mix between a famous person and a new person.
• Once the reviewer agrees to read the paper, they get a hard or electronic copy and a form they have to fill out. Usually, they are asked to grade the paper on some scale, provide comments for the author, and confidential comments for the editor.
• Number of reviews: Varies a lot. If a paper is atrocious in the eyes of the editor, they may simply wait for one review and reject. Most journals will try to get 2-4 reviews. If a review is incompetently done, they may try another reviewer. As a former managing editor and student editor, my belief is that it usually takes about 5-6 requests to get 2-3 decent reviews.
• Once the editor or relevant associate editor reads your paper and the reviews, they make a judgment: accept (with possibly require revisions); revise and resubmit; and reject.
• How do they decide? In most cases, it’s obvious. At the most competitive journals, a lot of papers get 2-3 negative reviews, so it’s easy to make the decision. If the reviews are truly ambiguous, the editor may read the paper herself, or ask for additional advice from associate editors or other scholars. Then, they just have to be the decider!
• What counts as good? In general, well written articles that work within the mainstream do well at many journals. Thus, you should try to show mastery of contemporary ideas and methods. There’s also luck – some reviewers may have a soft spot for your ideas. Connections matter as well – scholars and editors may be more generous to friends. And of course, there will always be editors who just have a special gift for identifying what’s truly original and innovative and they’re willing to go with a cool idea, even if the reviewers didn’t get it.
• The author receives a letter with the decision and copies of comments written by reviewers. Some editors will write a long explanation of the decision, while others will stick to short form letters.
• How long does this take? In many fields, about 1 month to process the paper, 2-3 months to wait for reviews, 1 month for make the final decision. About 4-6 months is decent. Some journals fall into disarray each stage can take forever. Editors don’t have time to read papers; managing editors are lazy about getting reviews; etc.  In some areas, it can take a year or more to get a decision.

Eek! I just opened my journal decision letter! What does it mean?

• Accept or accept contingent on revisions: This is good news! Take the afternoon off! Just do the revisions ASAP and get that guy into print.You’ll have to format the paper in the way demanded by the journals and correct the proofs. You’ll see paper copies (if they still exist) in about a year. An accept on the first round is fairly uncommon in most fields.
• Revise and resubmit: Technically, your paper has been rejected, but the editor thinks it might be publishable if certain changes are made. We’ll talk about R&R’s in some detail below. But this is good news!!!
• Reject: :(  Don’t feel so bad. Everyone has rejected papers. It’s actually the most common outcome in most decent journals.

Let’s get into detail about R&R and reject. Let’s start with R&R:

• With an R&R, you’ve been given the option to revise. What should you do? In most cases, you should revise the paper and give it another shot. Why? With the current journal, you have a decent chance at getting something out of the process. An R&R means that the editor finds *something* valuable and is seriously considering your paper. If you go to another journal, you usually have to start all over again with no promises.
• Once in a while, you decide that revision isn’t a great idea. For example, if you are persuaded that the revisions are literally impossible, or completely stupid, you might try another journal. If the editor acts strangely, then maybe it’s not worth the effort. But this is rare. You should almost always revise.
• After you read the letter and the comments, put it away for a few days and try to mellow out and develop some distance.
• Read the comments, both from the editor and the reviewers and try to summarize them. Then make a “to do” list of specific recommendations (“you have to cite this,” “use robust standard errors,” etc.).  Then do as many of these things as possible.
• Then think again about the gestalt of the paper and the reviews. How does it all fit together? How can you rewrite the paper so that it will still be readable and offer a coherent argument?
• Once you’ve shown the paper to people and you feel that you’ve put in 110%, write the revision memo. That’s a document where you explain in detail what you changed. In general, I recommend extreme detail so that you show reviewers that you took what they said seriously. Also, sometimes you simply can’t do what everyone asked, so explain why and do so clearly and in detail. Write a new cover letter with a paragraph or two explaining how the new paper has addressed the reviewer comments.
• Then send the whole bundle back to the journal.
• The R&R process varies. Some journals have editors read the new paper “in house.” Others will send it back to the old reviewers, some will mix, and some will (frustratingly) send it back to completely new reviewers. You really don’t have control over this.

Reject – what does it mean? Here you have to be brutally honest and ask why you have failed. A good piece of advice is that nearly any paper can be improved. But aside from that generic advice, here’s more detailed ideas:

• Maybe the paper is good, but not a good fit for the journal. You can tell if this is the case if the reviewers says “this is a good paper and it’s a solid contribution, but to another field.” Solution: Do a few minor revisions, and send it back out immediately to a new journal.
• Maybe the reviewers just didn’t get it or they are incompetent. It happens. Sometimes you have an idea that the readers just didn’t dig. Once again, send it out ASAP to a new journal.
• Maybe your paper has some real issues. Read the reviews. If they raise a lot of good points, then maybe your paper isn’t ready yet. So be honest with yourself. We can all improve and the reviewers are doing you a favor. If three reviewers all say, “Y needs fixing,” then they’re likely right. So go back to the woodshed and do the recommended fixes.
• Maybe your paper is just bad. It happens. We have a cool idea and our friends agree. But reviewer X points out a devastating logical flaw. Suck it up and put it to sleep.
• Appealing decisions: Once in a while you feel that something just wasn’t right. If you can logically explain why the decision was in error (and not just vent), an editor may change her mind. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s worth considering in extreme cases.
• When can I send a rejected paper back to the same journal? In general, once a paper is rejected, send it to a new journal. But in some cases, you may want to go back. For example, if it’s a flagship journal, an acceptance can be a career maker. So here’s my advice: send it back if the paper has been truly revised and is really different. If you did all the changes and it’s way better, then send it back.
• Mixed reviews. Sometimes the reviews are all over. In that case, just do what seems reasonable and send it out ASAP.
• Bottom line: Keep sending them out. If you work hard at revising your work, you’ll get accepted sooner or later. And volume is often the key.

Finally: Where should I send rejected papers? The rule of thumb is: start at the top and let the editors decide where it lands. Some scholars, especially at elite research departments, will only bother with the top. Here’s my view: unless the paper is logically flawed or just lame, the paper was written for a reason, to bring knowledge. Who says that the top 10 journals have a monopoly on knowledge? We should all aim high, but we shouldn’t let career ambition impede our core mission: generating knowledge.  And we sometimes have to go to small outlets to make that happen.

Here’s the bottom line: modern academia is about publishing. Even if you intend on working at a teaching institution, most respectable programs will require that you publish and maintain your active involvement in the scholarly community. Furthermore, if you wish to compete for a research oriented job or top liberal arts college, you must demonstrate an ability to publish in well regarded journals.

So let’s start with an easy question: Who has to publish?

• If you want a good job in most disciplines, you will need to publish something while in grad school.
• Exception 1: Some technical fields have a short time to degree and it is impossible to do anything except complete coursework and write a job market paper. Econ and engineering fit into this mold. It’s all in the unpublished job market paper and sponsorship by disciplinary elites.
• Exception 2: In some qualitative areas, books are the norm, so hiring committees are a little less obsessed about early publications.
• Caveat: Even if you are in a field that is an exception, you will benefit if you can get a good publication.

The harder question – what counts as publishable?

• Learn by reading books and journals in  your area.
• Read what your adviser and professors publishes.
• Usually, it has to be a contribution to knowledge. In other words, it has to tell us something that we didn’t know before.

Next question: where should I publish?

• Every discipline has an informal, but well known, ranking of journals.
• Every field has around 2-5 top journals (In soc: ASR/AJS and many people see SF and Soc Problems as close behind).
• Every field has journals that serve specific specialties. (Org Studies: ASQ. Education: Soc of Education).
• There are well regarded “regional journals” run by professional associations (Soc Quarterly, Soc Perspectives).
• If you want a good job, you will sooner or later have to publish in one or more of these journals. People who get fly outs for good programs usually have one or two pubs in these venues.
• It’s also cool to publish in the journals in related fields – but only if you can persuasively argue that it’s appropriate. E.g., an applied stats person might try to land a piece in JASA. A population studies person might try Demography.
• If you are in a book intensive field, you might try to get a contract in your last year or so of grad school.
• In general, I’d avoid smaller more specialized journals until you get at least one or two higher profile hits in top tier, specialty or good regional journals.

How do I actually get published?

• What counts as publishable is a topic that deserves its own post. But suffice to say that it varies from area to area. Read a lot and talk a lot to figure it out.
• Once that you’ve produced a manuscript, go to the journal website. Now, you can submit through the web site or just mail it to the editor. A few “old school” journals will require paper copies.
• In general, start with more prestigious journals and work your way down. Why? High prestige journals will draw more attention to your work and they have more resources for fast review. They also tend to have better reviewers.  I don’t necessarily mean start with journal #1, but start with a journal that most people consider to be highly regarded and bounce around. Then move to smaller journals after that.
• Get a thick skin. Every academic has piles and piles of rejection letters.

Should I work solo? With a team? What about authorship?

• Working with a team: Pros – teams produce things faster and benefit from a division of labor. Team members (older faculty) may have the connections and knowledge to make the project get published. Also, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There’s a lot less risk. Cons – easy to lose your identity and not get credit. Remember, there’s little reward for being author #8 on four articles.
• Working solo/small team: Pros – more freedom to design your own research. You get the lion’s share of the credit. Cons: Since you’re charting unknown waters, there’s a lot more risk.
• In general, the higher the author’s name in the list, the more credit. After three or four authors, no one notices your name and people may assume your an RA on the project, rather than a contributor. If you are working with faculty or on a team, have a discussion with the team leader/faculty member about how you can get the proper recognition for your contribution.

Let’s talk about some myths:

• Do I need a million publications to get a job? Not really. If you have one or two good ones, that’s enough.
• Is it all an insider’s game? Academia, like any job, has its fair share of gaming the system. All older academics will regale you with stories of “such and such got published because the editor was a friend.” So what? That’s life. But academia is also remarkably open. In soc, we have our four lead general journals, about 5-10 high quality specialty journals, some excellent regional journals, and many more respected journals that don’t fit the mold (i.e., Theory & Society, Poetics, etc.) If you try really heard and put out your best work, I promise you’ll get good results

If you have more ideas about publishing as a grad student, please put them in the comments.

I’ve got planned the remaining grad skool rulz installments:

• getting published as a grad student
• conferences/networking
• how you know you are done
• the job market
• the job interview
• filing your dissertation and the defense
• a few words on starting your career

What other topics should be in the rulz? Here is the list of previous rulz. Please put your suggestions in the comments. Thanks.

Few weeks ago, I dedicated an edition of the grad skool rulz to the subject of when to quit. The comments were good and a number of questions were raised. Fellow blogger and awesome culture researcher Jenn Lena wrote:

Previous grad skool rulz.

I strongly believe that most people who enter graduate school can successfully complete the program. However, it is also important to know that academia is not the right choice for everyone – even among those who possess the talent to complete the PhD degree. Think of this post as a guide for answering the question: “how do I know this is really the best choice for me?”

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In grad skool rulz #9, I argued that graduate students should not pay for their own education. Why? Academia doesn’t pay well. If you want talented people specializing in things like Croatian syntax, don’t saddle people with mortgage sized debts on the way out. Every self respecting arts and science program should have a healthy system of fellowships, tuition waivers, and teaching opportunities to minimize debt.

However, we don’t have that financial system for MBA’s, MD’s, and JD’s. Why? Students in these fields will, sooner or later, have fantastic job opportunities. It’s reasonable to ask them to pay for a resource that yields such a high return.

Economics has shifted from lowly paid arts and science to well compensated professional field. Consider the following: In an article on the crummy academic job market, the Wall Street Journal reports on a University of Arkansas study that shows that entry level econ PhD’s make $86,000 (scroll about half way down). That’s right – an average econ PhD with few (or no) publications makes the same as a full professor in many arts and sciences areas. If an economist lands a job at a leading program, the assistant professor salaries easily start at $100,000+. B-schools start even higher. In the private sector, consultancies and related work are better compensated.

Let me emphasize this: professional economists do better than nearly any other arts and science field (except maybe computer science) and do well compared to lawyers and MD’s.

Do not interpret this as class warfare. If an economist has more market value than a Bach specialist, that’s fine with me. We need to pay top dollar for highly talented people. But if they are doing so well, it obviates the argument for a subsidized graduate education and we should treat the economics graduate degree more like an MD than a philosophy PhD.

PS. There’s a collective action issue – no PhD program wants to be the first to pull the plug on comfortable graduate fellowships. That doesn’t undermine my main point, but it does show the futility of this post!

For an earlier discussion see “race and career in American sociology.”

In Monday’s discussion of James Coleman, an orghead was worried that rampant political correctness has somehow perverted the graduate admissions process in sociology. As someone who has been a student and faculty member, let me assure you that this is not the case. In fact, as I spend more time in my career, the more I realize that success is a function of creativity, hard work, and some luck.

So what is the role of race and gender in admissions? Frankly, it’s pretty small at the doctoral level and  nearly nil at the faculty level. Some schools practice affirmative action in graduate admissions, though there is much variation in what that means.* But I’ve found that the overwhelming majority of students are selected on the basis of demonstrated academic ability. Later in your career, people want to know what you publish and journal editors could care less about your personal background.

An academic career is a serious undertaking and it’s a bad idea to admit people who don’t have what it takes. That’s ultimately why most admissions *has* to be based on demonstrated ability. If a student simply isn’t serious, or doesn’t have the talent, it’s a phenomenal waste of resources. Who wants to work with a student for the next 5-7 years if they can’t even wing intro stats? That’s why my first question about an applicant is something like “why do we believe this person can get linear algebra? Why did they get a B- in undergraduate social theory? That C+ in Japanese looks fishy to me.”

The bottom line is that you’ve got to write high quality material to be a success in the research game. That message must be sent from the very beginning of an academic career. That’s why I wrote in grad skool rulz #20 that it’s the “end of the line” in graduate school. Sure, maybe the admissions committee might give a few students the benefit of the doubt, but that’s it. After that, produce or get the boot.

* For example, AA might mean that the faculty take a second look at some applicants, or they have to fill a quota, or they have a 2nd committee recommend that the regular grad admissions committee look at qualified minorities. I’ve seen all three. Sometimes it can even just mean that the grad chair reports the ethnic composition of applicants and admits to the dean with a brief explanation. It varies widely by discipline, department, and university.

Have you read all 20 grad skool rulz and thought, “Geez, I really could use some extra feedback on loose coupling theory?” You aren’t the only one. From A Budding Sociologist, who credited a number of blogs for helping him pass his prelim and work through the muck that is modern organization studies:

“No better resource exists for the budding scholar of organizations. OrgTheory is the place for insight into everything from the classics of organizational analysis to conference presentations and works-in-progress. A must-read for anyone trying to quickly master the field and enjoy doing it.”

Dude, we’re here to help!

There’s still a few installments of grad skool rulz left to write, but I’d like to summarize the general thrust of the series. At a basic level, graduate education is about three groups: the students, the department faculty and the university. Here is what each brings to successful graduate education:

Talent: The very first thing is ability. Graduate education is an elite form of education and you need the raw ability to make it. Nobody should start graduate education unless they have external signals of talent. Similarly, the faculty should make talent the primary reason for admission to graduate education.

Professionalism: But you also need more than talent, you need to learn that graduate school is about a trade – research. It’s also about teaching, but even if you want to focus on teaching, you still need to show mastery of certain skills. So graduate students should treat the doctoral program like a job – show up every day, work hard and have concrete goals. Faculty should encourage this.

Reasonable expectations and support: This is where the faculty are important. They need to provide a set of goals that most students can achieve in 4-6 years. They also need to provide a structure so that students either finish promptly or learn that the job is not for them.

Finances and order: This is where the university has a big role. First, universities should not tolerate doctoral programs where students take large loans or work to pay the bills. If you want good faculty, you need to give them time to develop. All else is distraction. Second, universities should police programs that display long completion times, poor placement, and other symptoms of chaos in the graduate program. Universities should penalize departments that behave poorly. Third, universities should police students. Anyone who goes over 10 years should have a pretty good excuse, or else face termination.

I won’t post much during July, since I’ll be moving. In August/post-ASA, I’ll have some snappy stuff for you, like a book forum with Steve Teles, and reviews of books by Tina Fetner and Neil Gross. To tide you over, here’s a post on what I’ve learned since I’ve been an active blogger.

People often ask why I blog:

• Blogging is a fun way to build a community. It’s an easy way to reach people with similar interests.
• Blogging has low barriers to entry. All you need is an idea you want to talk about.
• Blogging is useful. I’ve learned so much about by asking readers and other bloggers. It’s rare that I ask a question and not get at least the beginning of a good answer.
• Blogging is good networking. You wouldn’t believe all the cool sociology people that I met through blogs. I don’t think I’d know the orgtheory crew, if I didn’t leave a comment on a post a few years back. The readers are equally cool, and one person has pointed me in some very fruitful professional directions.
• Blogging is good mental health. Aside from keeping me connected, blogs can be fun. 
• Blogging is great self-promotion. Long as you aren’t ridiculous about it, blogs can be a nice way to promote your work. I’ve gotten some really good media coverage because a journalist stumbled on this blog. I think some people bought my book because they saw it linked on the blog.
• Blogging can make the world a better place, even if it’s just providing information. The Grad Skool Rulz has a fan base because it provides knowledge that people need, but isn’t yet out there in any systematic form.
• Blogging is a memory aid. Harrison White recently compared blogs to index cards – a great comparison. A post may preserve a thought, idea or citation that may be useful later. And it’s easily recalled.

Cons? Honestly, not many. Some people may spend a lot of time on the blog, but I don’t. For me, most posts are meant as a fun, short term communication with readers. People spend more time on things like going to church, writing email, working out at the gym, or watching tv. I’ve found that the occasional negative is vastly outweighed by the community that’s attracted to a fun and academic blog.

A whille back, I was asked to give a talk about life as a professor to minority undergraduate students who were contemplating the academic career. Of course, I recommended that they read the grad skool rulz. I gave them the basics of academic life – it’s about knowledge production, being professional, etc. But I also threw in additional comments for students of color. Here’s what I wrote:

1. The era of overt discrimination has ended. Seriously. It is extremely rare for people to be denied admission to graduate school, or appointment to the faculty, because they belong to the wrong ethnic group. Nobody will stand up and say “we don’t hire X here.” People now understand that is unethical. It is also illegal.
2. However, people of color often have to counter certain misconceptions. I honestly believe that most people in academia know racism is wrong. Most people will treat you fairly. At the same time, certain people may have prejudices that affect their judgments of individuals. It may not even be conscious. Unfortunately, students of color may be seen as inferior and you might have to prove yourself twice over to get the same reward. Be prepared to go the extra distance.
3. Treat your graduate career as a job that deserves respect. If you are lazy, late, or otherwise show poor performance, you will be penalized, often more so than others. Even if people let you slide, you will get a bad reputation that can be hard to shake. As a person of color, you might not get a second chance. Get your act together.
4. Do not depend on affirmative action. Its importance is exaggerated. It is true that many graduate programs have affirmative action in admissions, but that’s the end of the game. While a few professors are hired to fill quotas, almost every hire I have seen at the faculty level was debated on the merits of the person’s research, especially in competitive universities. Few get promoted at any decent school without some serious record of publication.
5. Affirmative action colors people’s perceptions. Ironically, a lot of people think the faculty is filled with armies of affirmative action hires. Strangely, these critics fail to notice that most major university departments, except for area studies (e.g., African Studies), are not filled with minority faculty members. Despite that fact, you will still be seen by many as an affirmative action case. You will have to prevail over this misconception.
6. Do not work with a professor just because they are black/latino/female/etc. Why? The most important trait of a faculty member is that they have a track record of helping students publish and land good jobs. There is no benefit to working with an African American professor if they are a jerk, or if they haven’t published anything decent in years. Just as you wouldn’t want your ethnicity to affect how people judge your work, you shouldn’t judge potential advisers based on their ethnicity. Go for quality.
7. Be nice to people. For some reason, students of color sometimes get the idea that they have to be abrasive and act tough. There is no reason for you to do this, even if some faculty don’t treat minority students well. Instead, be courteous. Without being unctuous, you should return email, say hello to both students and professors, and be a decent person. Don’t let people take advantage of you, but if you can lend a hand to someone who needs a little help, do so.
8. Finally, understand that this is the beginning of your career. It’s not longer about getting good grades – it’s about research output. Everything you do in graduate school should be about getting you closer to working on research. Read the big journals, catch up on all the current theory, build networks with other scholars, and submit your work to those leading journals. Don’t wait for things to happen. Make yourself into the person you want to be!

As usual, please feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments section.

Graduate school is tough for everyone, but in different ways. A few weeks ago, I asked female scholars and graduate students to share their thoughts for the benefit of women working their way through the academic system. Here’s what they said….

• Spouses: A common theme was that women have to really work extra hard to manage their partner’s expectations. Sadly, a lot of men seem not to support their spouses in the academic track: “My talks with others and my own experience suggests that, in general, male non-academic partners are somewhat less supportive of grad school than female non-academic partners. For everyone, being partnered to someone who is not in grad school is difficult but women grad students seem to struggle more with this.” I think this really underscores what I wrote here about family before. Women have to go the extra mile to make sure that their partner knows what an academic career is about and they have to be willing to stand by you 100%. If they don’t “get it,” then you have to sit down with the partner and have a serious talk.
• Family Planning: The unfortunate truth right now is that having children is a career penalty (see this ASA report). So when should someone have children? The ASA report says there is no “right time,” though multiple people have suggested to me that the time is between course work and the job market. I’ll leave it to the readers to assess this claim for themselves. However, what can be agreed upon is that the career hit can be lessened with the use of institutional, social, or financial resources. So seek out your university’s policies regarding funding and children, look for inexpensive quality child care, import relatives for help. Maybe your country, state, or city(e.g., Europe) has child care resources. Resource planning seems to be the issue here.
• Confidence: Numerous respondents addressed this issue. Academia is often a game of seminar room aggression. Many scholars said that women graduate students need to learn that they are not “impostors” and that you have to assert yourself in class and at conferences. Good words: “Women often walk a fine line between being considered too nice or sweet and being pushy, arrogant or bitchy when giving critiques. Graduate school can be an excellent laboratory for figuring out how to be assertive yet constructive. Use seminars and talks as a chance to watch how others give constructive feedback and express their opinions. Figure out how to assert yourself without being arrogant/condescending or without backing down when someone disagrees with you. This is not an easy thing to do – but it’s worth spending some time on.”
• The Old Boys Network: Another issue that men are much more common in many in subfields and it can lead women students to feel out of the loop, even if it is unintentional. Sometimes, women will be excluded from social activities because it might seem inappropriate (e.g., going drinking after seminar). First, as one respondent wrote, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be left out of everything. UItimately, you are judged on your research and teaching. The person who raised this issue even commented that she has succeeded quite well, but it was extremely awkward for her. Second, you can actually show up to these events most of the time. Unless it’s a personal 1 on 1, you can crash most quasi-academic events (snacks, drinks, etc).
• Being the Listener: Students treat their female instructors like their moms or like a free therapist. One correspondent wrote: “Female teachers are more likely to get students who tell them very personal stories about themselves and, in general, look to the female faculty member (or TA) for nurturing. This is really strange if you’re not expecting it and difficult even if you are..” I’ll actually add my own strong opinion here. You don’t have to become the department therapist. Many campuses actually have paid therapists students can go to. It’s not your job. I’d suggest that you kindly listen to the student’s issue, wish them the best, and if they need more help, ship them to the right office.
• Harassment: I’ll add my own view here because it’s actually pretty cut and dry. The university department is like any other workplace. Co-workers and bosses should talk respectfully to each other and keep their hands to themselves. If a student is harassed (rude talk, quid pro quo for sexual favors, a nasty work environment), document it immediately and talk to a knowledgeable third person who can help you. Do not tolerate boorishness and, if possible, truncate relationships where one person is clearly expecting something other than academic work. Also, do this in a respectful way so that you can continue and complete your degree. You’ll learn by consulting with other trustworthy people. Finally, exercise some judgment – sometimes it’s best just to ignore the person if the behavior is harmless.
• Paternalism: A number of people mentioned the fact that many older men will still call their adult female students things like “honey,” “sweety,” etc. I really don’t know what else to add, other than to say that you should beware. If that’s all, maybe you can let it slide. But if it’s coupled with other behavior, you should avoid them.
• Your team, network and Mentors: Many people emphasized the need to build networks and find a mentor. Get more than one friend or mentor to give you a variety of opinions. One person emphasized that it’s important not to insulate yourself with your network. A cohort of supportive female doctoral students can help each other deal with the program, not become a substitute for the program. Help and support are what’s needed, not isolation.

I’ll end with these insightful words: “You didn’t get to where you are because you played according to gender stereotypes, which, as you know, are socially constructed and wrong even if they have a pervasive, pernicious lingering effect. Read bell hooks and Paolo Freire (critical pedagogy), and Power, Race, and Gender in the Academe by Shirley Geok-Lim. Feel empowered. Feel (some) responsibility. Be a good student and institutional citizen by speaking up in class, going to office hours, going to paper talks, presenting your own work, forming the networking connections you know you’ll need now and later, and competing for those plum teaching assignments and fellowships and post-docs. Try to ignore the imposter syndrome. You deserve it, and you owe it to yourself to believe in yourself. That said, recognize that you are human, that sometimes institutional factors and lingering stereotypes and subtle discrimination can hamper even the best of our efforts. So, don’t blame yourself if you can’t get everything, can’t get everything done, and can’t do everything. You don’t have to be a super human, much less Superwoman. You don’t have to believe yourself responsible for all of womankind in ___ discipline.”

So, its the two year anniversary of orgtheory today. (Here’s the first post from exactly two years ago.) Below, some miscellaneous observations:

Orgtheory posts:

• Our favorite categories are: sociology, academia, economics, and of course, what does this have to do w/org theory?.
• Our top posts? The following have been visited the most: doll fight, eppure si muove…or does it?, Fabio’s ferret post. The grad school rulz are also extremely popular. Most of our readers, presumably, come for the more academic, org theory-related content.
• We’ve had our controversies, including this one regarding what is “bloggable.” (I anticipate that a standard caveat before research talks will now not only relate to how one’s paper is still at an early stage, and how one would really like feedback, etc etc, but also something — veiled via a joke — related to whether the material can be blogged about or not.)
• We don’t eschew debate.
• And, we don’t mind “just” theory either, the more obscure the better.
• The orgtheory readers are active and tremendously helpful. For example, this post (and associated reader commentary) is helping me put a graduate readings class together for next fall.
• We’ve had some lengthy posts, this one probably takes the cake.
• And, we had a recent, serious identity crisis. (Only true orgtheoristas hung tight.)
• Orgtheory catch phrases.
• We love performativity.

Friends and family of orgtheory:

• We’ve had some great guest bloggers.
• We had a snarky baby sibling emerge last year, scatterplot.
• O&M, our evil twin, picks on us too.
• Then there’s The Soc Shrine, don’t really know what to say about them.
• I’ve noted that the following blogs and/or news outlets, other than our evil twin and younger sibling, have linked to us in some way in the past: Chronicle of Higher Education, Salon, MarginalRevolution, CrookedTimber, DeansTalk.net, Socializing Finance and many other blogs etc.

About the orgtheory guys:

• We’re guys, but not all white nor American.
• Us orgtheory guys probably have a common academic lineage if you go back far enough.
• Some of us wear fanny packs, along with being rather geeky Obamaniacs.
• A few of us (now) prefer macs.
• Some of our posts may have been too much information.

And, orgtheory in numbers:

• We post about 12.5 posts per week.
• On average about 600-700+ unique visitors come by orgtheory each day, 100-150 are loyal returning readers.
• In addition, 400+ unique folks subscribe to orgtheory via the google feed.
• Most of our readers come via .edu sources, so, it appears our stable readership is largely academic: sociology dpts, b-schools, social science dpts, law schools.
• Akismet, wordpress’s spam filter, has protected us from 168,944 spam comments (I think its actually twice that as I recently emptied the spam archive).

The upshot?

• Its been an enjoyable couple years. I don’t think anyone takes us too seriously, and thats just as well since we don’t either.

I’ve always told people that graduate school is hard for everyone. However, it’s hard in different ways for different people. I think the rulz should have at least one post, or more, dedicated to the issues women have to face in the academy. I’m not qualified to write on the topic, but I would like readers to post in comments or email me privately (frojas at indiana dot edu) what advice or strategies they think that women graduate students should get from the rulz. If you can link to other websites with good advice, that’d be great. I’ll bundle it all together into a post. Your suggestions will be confidential, unless you specifically tell me you want your name in the posts. Looking forward to your insightful feedback.

I’m intruding on Fabio’s turf here to point you at a useful post by Brian Leiter on departments to avoid. He’s writing about Philosophy programs but the principles are quite general.

Fabio

I’ve only been on the other side of the PhD for five years and I haven’t had chaired any dissertations, but I do feel that I should at least mention what faculty can do to help grad students finish in a reasonable time, barring a Skocpol style incentive system.

• Grad students have lives and they need you: It’s easy for professors to get wrapped up in their own publications and promotions and forget that grad students need your time if they are ever to proceed with their own lives. I am not saying you should martyr yourself and spend all time on graduate students, but you should periodically ask “what can I do *this* semester to help my students move along in their career?”
• Expectations: Like all ventures, explain to your graduate students – over and over - what you expect.  From the beginning. Write it down. Also try to gauge their expectations. If they want an R1 career, make it clear what they will need an exceptional dissertation or a top journal hit. Teaching colleges require less spectacular research but a big teaching portfolio. Be clear on what kind of support you can provide, both socially and academically.
• Timeliness: This is real important – respond to dissertation drafts and letters of recommendation in a timely manner. Don’t you hate it when reviewer C takes a year to read your paper? Well, guess what? Your students feel the same way. Every semester you fail to graduate someone because you couldn’t take the time to read a chapter literally costs a grad student thousands of dollars in lost income.
• Calm Criticism: It’s entirely legitimate to tell a student that they need to work hard and do better. However, it’s never useful to do so in a way that demoralizes the student. Be stern and demanding, but be nice, constructive and uplifting. On a related note, avoid changing the goalposts or providing ambiguous advice. Consistency is a virtue.
• Stability: Academia is full of divas. Don’t be that way. You should be the stable coach who taps into the right emotional pool to help students move on with their lives. Don’t turn mentorship into another stage for acting out your bad side.
• Reasonableness: Set research goals that your students can acheive and where there can be a reasonable time table for the completion of the project in a few years.. Also be prepared to help students work to acheive those goals, instead of letting them figure it out for themselves.
• Match students with goals: Notch expectations to ability and career goals. The student gunning for R1 needs an advisor who will demand good work, but the person aiming for community college teaching merely needs to produce a satisfactory dissertation. Also, remember that if you have PhD students, you are probably a respected, if not leading, member of your academic community. You are the best. In contrast, your students may not be.  Most will not engage in the research career that you have. Your talent and career may not be theirs. Set goals that both produce quality scholarship and allow them to work toward goals that match their ability and desires.
• Gentle Triage: This is tough, but needed. You have to really see which graduate students are willing and able to complete the program. Help people make the decision to pursue academia or another career. On the other hand, don’t “write off” students just because they aren’t perfect. Remember, many leading scholars failed a grad school test or acted like morons 30 years ago in that seminar. Give people second, third and fourth chances. Tolerate people who work differently than you do and don’t automatically dismiss them.
• Selection:  Accept students who you think you can have productive relationships with based on research focus or personality. It’s ok to turn down students if the fit is bad. This is the flip side of grad skool rulz #7.
• Face to face time: Get ‘em in the office. Frequently, at least a few times a semester. Take ‘em out to lunch. Anything to keep them on the wagon.
• Let them shine: It’s often the case the students apprentice on the mentor’s projects. That’s great, but make sure they complete their own work as well so they don’t look like they’re just your research assistant.
• They are future professors: Above all, these are adults who have begun a career. Treat them with dignity and respect.

R1 faculty, please add your own advice in the comments, especially if you have a solid track record placing PhD students.

Those yuk-meisters at the Soc Shrine have targeted orgtheory with their savage wit. First, they mock our new look. Then, they profane the holiest of holies: the grad skool rulz. Will the insanity ever stop? Are we defenseless in the path of these Eggers in training? Jeremy admires them, grudgingly. Brayden says they have good indexing skills.

Fabio

A few months ago, I asked about grad school and family life, which resulted in a very useful discussion. Here’s my summary of what people said, with a few of my own comments thrown in, about family and graduate school.

• Communication: Your family probably doesn’t understand that graduate school is a job. You have to show up and do work every day, or you will never get done. It’s not like undergraduate school, where you can wait till the last minute to do stuff. Passing exams and publishing your first papers can take months, even years, of prep work. Your family has to fully understand that.
• Boundaries: Becoming an academic is about acquiring skills and you need time to yourself to work on your materials. Thus, your spouse/partner needs to give you the space to do that. Therefore, schedule “work time” or “alone time” where the partner does their own thing or watches children while you get your job done.
• Expectations: Explain to your family what needs to be done and what the likely outcomes are. Explain early on that you will probably have to move after graduation, perhaps to a small college town. If you tell your partner and family well in advance, then they can adjust and have reasonable expectations.
• Give back: Don’t let grad school completely consume you. Make time for your spouse, kids, and friends. Not only is it fair for them, but you’ll feel better, too.
• Tell your mentors: If you have a sick family member, or other serious family issue, tell your mentors and friends. Even if they can’t directly help, the moral support is needed. Then, of course, a few of them might be able to help in concrete ways.
• Don’t Wait: I thank Chris Uggen for making this point. If you want to start a family and you are ready, “now” is usually the best time to start. You only live once and you will have the rest of your life with your family and kids, while the bumpiness of grad school is temporary. With good work habits and an understanding family, you’ll get through just fine.
• Pay for help if you can afford it: A few people, off line, said that you should pay for help if you can. This can include house cleaning, take out food, baby sitting, day care, have someone mow the lawn, etc. It’s good advice. First, you can concentrate on quality family time instead of house work, and it will free up time for your academic work. Second, while you can always get more money, you can never get back time. And if you have that spouse who’s already making money, this is easy advice to take.

There is much more to be said here, please add your own comments.

Fabio

We have a really fun online community. As good social scientists, we know that communities have special “codes” for insiders:

• Is this bloggable?
• Let’s go hot tubbing.
• I just performed this theory.
• Grad skool rulz!
• What would Omar do?
• Lay off the ferrets.
• Organization theory is dead.
• Orgheads, you only have your chains to lose.
• Right tool for the right job.

Try these out at the next conference to identify fellow orgheads.

Fabio

The next installment of grad skool rulz will be about family issues and grad school. Since people have a wide range of family situations, I hesitate to write this installment based on my own experience. Therefore, I invite all readers to post what they think is important about family life and grad school. Please use the comments section to describe your idea/experience and the specific actions you took to address your issue. I am interested in any family-grad school link, such as marriage, divorce, babies, LBTG issues, death of a family member, caring for sick family, etc. Do not use this as an opportunity to complain about how hard your life is. Instead, tell me about the actions you took to deal with your issue and if your actions were productive. Would you recommend someone else do the same? The goal is to procuce a list of specific things that a person could do to help them through grad school when they have a serious family issue. Post your thoughts in the comments, on your own blog, or if you prefer, email me at frojas at indiana dot edu. All email will be confidential, unless you tell me otherwise.

Fabio

People often ask me why PhD training takes so long. The short answer: incentives. Though graduate students may contribute to the problem, it ultimately comes down to the fact that there is no incentive for professors to efficiently train doctoral students. Department resources, salaries and promotions rarely depend on how graduate students perform … unless Theda Skocpol is your dean.

Here’s some excerpts from an Inside Higher Ed article about the “miraculous” drop in completion times at Harvard that resulted from Skocpol’s reforms at the Harvard grad school. I’m glad that I’m not alone on this incentives issue:

A series of new policies in the humanities and the social sciences at Harvard University are premised on the idea that professors need the ticking clock, too. For the last two years, the university has announced that for every five graduate students in years eight or higher of a Ph.D. program, the department would lose one admissions slot for a new doctoral student. The results were immediate: In numerous departments that had for years had large clusters of Ph.D. students taking eight or more years to finish, professors reached out to students and doctorates were completed.

The common sense continues:

“Losing somebody from one of these very selective Ph.D. programs after the investment of many years of faculty and student time and the students’ own life and after we’ve invested a quarter million dollars or Harvard’s money is really tragic,” she said.

And this shocker:

Skocpol said that it is important to recognize that some fields (those requiring fluency in multiple languages or extensive fieldwork, for example) will have longer duration of doctoral work than others, but that there is no reason ever for a 10-year doctoral program. “Graduate students need to get on to a life where they have their own careers or income before they are entering middle age,” she said. [my emphasis]

In addition, she said that private donors and government agencies are scared away from supporting humanities and some social sciences doctoral education because it takes so long. “If we are going to make claims on resources, we have to do better.”

That means real changes, she said. For starters, she said that professors need to have “realistic” expectations about dissertations, and to factor in the value of getting done along with the value of exploring every possible nuance. “You have to get to a point in a dissertation where you say it’s good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s time to get it done as good enough,” Skocpol said.

I should include this quote in the grad skool rulz:

While the Harvard plan does put pressure on departments, Skocpol said that various pressures on doctoral students will also be a factor. She took seven years to finish her Harvard doctorate, and she said she was “totally unrealistic” about material to cover in it. “I wouldn’t have finished it on time, but I was going to get fired from my first job if I didn’t finish it,” she recalled. “You have to get to the point where you want this thing — no matter what.”

Not only is Skocpol a leading political sociologist, she’s also full of common sense. Let’s hope more graduate schools adopt these policies. [Hat tip to Tyler at MR]

Fabio

Yesterday’s post generated some good discussion:

1. My point is that you should minimize the number of grad school teaching gigs and try to be as efficient as you can with your time. Be smart with time spent teaching so you can complete articles and books. Being efficient is not an excuse for poor teaching or ignoring the obligation to our students.

2. Both Jessica and Jacob raised the question: is it not good to get *some* experience teaching in graduate school? I agree that there is something to be said for exposing students to teaching, especially for people oriented towards liberal arts. I also agree that having at least one course prepped can be a life saver on the tenure track. Perhaps this is best summarized as “teach only if it has a direct and concrete benefit.”

3 . Mike3550 had some good advice that I quote at length:

….Be sure to meet with the professor of record BEFORE classes start to get a sense of the class and to figure out where the bulk of the work is going to come (e.g. midterm assignments, tests, quizzes, etc.). You often have the advantage of not having to prep a course, but it also means that you don’t necessarily have control over when major workloads occur. But, if you meet before the syllabus is handed out, many professors are willing to work with you on the scheduling.

…Refer questions that do not relate to your TA duties to the professor of record — kind of like shifting basic skills to the appropriate department, shift questions about the reason that content was added, departmental requirements, etc. to the professor (”You should try and meet with Prof. X. His office hours are 1-3pm on Fridays and, if you can’t make that, I’m sure he’d be willing to schedule an appointment).

Have all students use a header in their e-mails to ask questions [e.g. SOC 100 - Subject] and create an e-mail filter to filter those e-mails. Then, schedule time to respond to e-mail. Student e-mail, more than any other area for me, was a HUGE time-suck. It was easy to say, oh this will only take 5 minutes and respond. But, those 5 min chunks add up. And, often, I ended up spending those 5 minutes repeatedly answering the same question. If I had waited, I would have realized that I was getting the same question and sent an e-mail to the entire class list.

Also, I had a very clear e-mail policy. On week days, expect a 24-hour turn-around on e-mails and anything sent on Saturday or Sunday would not be answered until Monday evening.

4. What about job hiring? Don’t teaching records matter? It’s about context. At the liberal arts schools and other teaching intensive institutions, teaching matters a lot – but not until you have demonstrated research competence. That makes teaching efficiency even more important – you have to complete a few articles *AND* get solid evaluations. Manage your time!

At research intensive schools, teaching is important, but not until you have shown productivity in decent journals. And to be honest, I have seen a number of people hired with little or no classroom experience, but I have never seen someone hired at a leading school with good teaching and no publications. Research justifies teaching, not the other way around.

5. Finally, am I saying, as Mike Netzley suggested, that we shouldn’t strive to be both excellent in teaching and research? Not at all. However, there are times where you have to make a choice. For leading liberal arts and research schools, you have to focus on the bottom line – getting that crucial first publication. That means being stingy with time and doing exactly what is needed (and nothing more) to become a good instructor. Once you get the job and get tenured, you can do all the things that will win you best campus teacher honors. But until then – treat your time as more important than money. At least you can get more money, but you can’t buy more time.

Fabio

Click here for previous grad skool rulz.

Here’s all you need to know about teaching as a PhD student: Don’t teach in graduate school, unless you are targeting the liberal arts college market or it’s a requirement for the degree or financial aid. If you teach, do it well and commit the smallest amount of time and resources.

Shocked? You shouldn’t be. Ask yourself the following question: what justifies a professor’s position in a university?Teaching the subtleties of Attic Greek or Durkheim’s social theory to 20 year olds? No, you justify your position with your research reputation. No research university has built its reputation by finding the best intro French instructors around, though some research faculty develop exceptional teaching skills. If you are serious about the faculty track, research output is the name of the game. Teaching is a bonus and departments often assume that if you can do research in an area, you can usually teach it, even if you have never done it before. Actual teaching experience is usually not a major factor in hiring, aside from the liberal arts schools. In most cases, teaching is inferred from research.

What about the liberal arts colleges? Well, if you look, top liberal arts faculty usually have distinguished publication records, especially in the humanities and social sciences. It’s the international reputation that motivates the $30k+ tuition at these schools. Teaching skill compliments research output, it doesn’t displace it.

The question is: how do you teach well but efficiently? Here’s some tips:

• Students care that you deliver real content; treat them nice; are speedy, fair, and reasonable in grading; and provide a good classroom experience. Therefore, your work is a waste if it’s not addressing these points.
• Students don’t care how much you prep the class. They can’t tell the difference between a person who spent 5 hours and 5 minutes on a test. Once you get the hang of lecture notes and hand outs, write them quickly and efficiently. Make sure all lectures have one or two solid take home points. They care about class time experience, not how hard you work.
• Spend a little time thinking about at least a few fun and memorable topics in your class. Good evaluations are based on people’s positive memories of learning.
• Spend a little time thinking about the context of the class and what you can do to make it work for both you and the students. An intro soc and senior seminar are way different and you’ll run into problems if you treat them the same. You’ll save a lot of time if you invest a little in figuring what students are looking for and how you can efficiently meet that need and deliver quality content.
• Optimize grading. If the department can provide a grader, that’s great. If you have to do it yourself, optimize. For example, I can’t find out what a student has learned in 5 questions, but I can usually find out with about 30 questions. Therefore, I never write exams that are longer than 30 questions. The students also feel better that I am not wasting their time with endless tests or assignments.
• In the humanities and social sciences, you can usually mix in some speakers, project presentations, and films. These free up time and they actually help students learn if they are well chosen.
• Provide as much as you can online. Personally, I put everything online such as lecture notes, answer keys, syllabus, assignments, and announcements. Helps reduce the # of students who eat up time with mundane bureaucratic matters.
• Grant all reasonable student requests. If you are efficient with class prep and grading, it will be easy to accommodate the occasional student request at almost no extra cost to yourself. You will also buy good will with all those folks and reduce complaints.
• Shift all basic skills students to appropriate units in the university. If the person does not have basic English or math skills, don’t take it upon yourself to teach them (unless it is your job). Simply tell them that you aren’t qualified as a basic skills teacher and it is their responsibility to go to office X and sign up for remedial skills tutoring. Most universities have offices now addressing such issues.
• Re-use and recycle. Borrow other people’s syllabi and other materials. Use old class materials for next semester’s class. Sure, you will be bored once in a while, but that hour spent writing new lecture notes after class can be spent doing research. Once you are tenured, you can try new and creative ideas in class.
• Time budget: Once a week, have class prep time where you complete any teaching work that was not done in class or in office hours (which are often empty). If you do teaching work outside that time slot, then you have to be more efficient.

In a nutshell: prep and grade quickly; deliver real content and create a positive class experience; and do anything reasonable to create good will among students, long as it doesn’t make more work for you. Once you master these ideas, you’ll see that you will enjoy teaching more. You can spend that hour with a student talking about Foucault instead of worrying about grading that marathon 85 question short answer exam.

Fabio

I had the pleasure of spending the last few days in California, first doing a workshop at UCLA and then conducting one of my antiwar protest surveys in San Francisco. Some fun stuff:

• I did a lot of what people recommended around UCLA. Gabriel recommended Loteria Grill at the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax. I didn’t do the chilaquiles because they had the carnitas con salsa morita special (pork with mole sauce + avocado) that was phenomenal. I also took many buses and walked much through many neighborhoods.
• UCLA has a very exciting bunch of graduate students doing political comparative research and I had a lot of great discussions in the “P237 workshop,” hosted by Michael Mann. Shout out to Wesley, Angela, Rob and everyone else who showed up.
• The big question from Bill Roy about my work: So, if you are showing that movements work according to network theory’s predictions, then what’s so special about social movements?
• The Kobe beef ravioli at Palomino is outstanding.
• The UCLA Fowler museum has a number of great shows right now on textiles, photography in Africa, and European silver work.
• “Is this bloggable?” will get you chuckles in certain circles at UCLA these days.
• I know Jeremy loves Giant Robot, so he should love the Japan-o-cute Hotel Tomo in San Francisco.
• The SF Moma has a knock out great show by art super-duper-art-star Olafur Eliasson. There were many, many other wonderful works, including an extensive exhibit of Joseph Cornell’s work, probably the best I’ve seen outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Coolest item from the Eliasson: the “frozen car” (Your mobile expectations). They keep it in a giant freezer and you need a jacket to go in there.
• Actual discussion while I surveying during the San Francisco antiwar protest: “Who is doing this survey?” “My name is Fabio Rojas, from Indiana…” “Hold on, are you the grad skool rulz guy?” Special thanks to Laura, Dan, Amy & Alec for helping out on the survey.

That’s it for now. Have a fun Sunday.

Fabio

Click here for previous grad skool rulz.

Your dissertation committee has to approve your dissertation before you graduate. They can also serve as mentors and coaches who can help you reach your professional goals. Therefore, it’s crucial that cultivate a strong working relationship with them. Here are some guidelines:

1. You should have the most contact with your committee chair. That is the person whose opinion of your dissertation will matter the most. Most of the time, if they approve your work, the rest of the committee wll go along.
2. You should give your chair *frequent* drafts of chapters and if possible, give them an entire draft of the dissertation way before you expect to defend. No semster should go by without the chair getting something substantial from you.
3. Follow these rules even if you live far away from campus and you are doing field work. Get in the habit of sending material to your chair with some frequency. Do not be silent for a year or two and then show up with a complete manuscript. Of course, it’s better than not completing at all, but give people a long time to read you work.
4. In general, give the rest of your committee frequent drafts way before defending the dissertation. Perhaps not as many as you would give your chair, but every person in your committee should get at least one draft of all the key chapters before they get the final product before the defense. Every committee member should feel as they have had a chance to help you at least through one version of the manuscript. You can talk with your chair to get a sense of how well developed the work has to be before you ask other folks to read it.
5. Face to face action is important. Show up to the department and let people you know you live. When you talk with people, give them a sense of when you want to go on the job market.
6. Keep writing while you wait for responses! Work on an article or other dissertation chapter. Don’t waste your time waiting. be constructive.

What can you expect from people in return for all this effort? In general, the chair should return some comments to you within a couple of months. It’s kind of like a journal article review. It’ll take a while. You might expect the same from a second reader, but expect little in return from “outside” readers unless they really, really, really like you. Few third readers will spend much time, unless their expertise is genuinely needed.

Hopefully, you will have a committee of helpful people. But sometimes there are some difficult issues.

1. Tardiness: If a person takes more than a semester to get back to you, they may need a gentle reminder. Often, a friendly email or office visit will work. It’s quite often that a non-urgent dissertation chapter draft gets lost when emergencies pop up.
2. Complete non-response: Sometimes gentle reminders get no results at all. Some professors simply abandon their responsibilities to students. Sadly, I’ve seen it happen a little too often. What you should do is (a) document that you actually gave the person the draft and (b) start working with someone else who will help you. Why? Basically, there is little a graduate student can do to make a professor do anything. If they are unable or unwilling to help, through hostility or simply being overwhelmed by life, you aren’t going to change that. Start getting help with your research from someone else. Sometimes, no comments at all on returned work may indicate that the person has “checked out of the hotel.” And if you have documented that you actually gave them the work, then any later complaints have no basis. Bottom line: if you have an AWOL adviser, document it, suck it up, and move on. Complaining rarely solves anything.
3. Hyper-criticality: One issue is that some advisers are devastating. They seem to have a special ability called “crush student confidence.” Sometimes, they enjoy it. Other times, they don’t even know they are doing it. What I am *not* saying is that advisers should refrain from pointing out student errors. But there is no reason that any well adjusted student should ever leave a professor’s office in tears or in a rage. Instead, a good instructor can say “I appreciate what you are doing, but I got really lost here.” Or, “Are you aware that this argument has been made before? You can really improve this by working on the lit review.” Sadly, some profs just say things in the wrong way, and when your main coach is telling you that you are completely lost, it can be aggravating. But as usual, you’ll probably just have to suck it up and move on.
4. Conflicting advice: A touchy topic is when prof X and Y gives you different advice. Luckily, the response is simple. Do whatever the chair tells you to do. Usually, solves the problem.
5. Adviser divorce: Once in a while, you get to a point where an adviser has completely abandoned you or they are so hostile to you and your work that no progress has been made after you have seriously tried. Normally, I’d say “suck it up,” but in some cases it so extreme that it can hamper your career. For example, it is nearly impossible to get fellowships and jobs without letters from your chair, but this may not be possible if your chair is completely non-responsive. At this point, (a) ask yourself if there is anything you can do to improve the situation, sometimes you need to get your act together academically, sometimes students can annoy profs! Be considerate; (b) consult with other friendly profs, ask if they can help out or give you advice; (c) if you decide that your academic skills are fine and that you have been acting in good faith, then you might consider “adviser divorce.” I strongly recommend against this course of action because a new adviser might require totally new material, and you would have to start from scratch – a very bad outcome. But sometimes, the student-advisor relation becomes so toxic that it’s better just to move on. I had one friend who did exactly that. His adviser was hyper-critical and he wasn’t really able to deal with it. Solution: adviser divorce and he completed the entire dissertation two semesters later with a more normal committee chair. I don’t recommend it, but it can be justified in some cases.
6. Non-responsive outside readers: On the other hand, I do recommend dumping any outside committee member who goes AWOL on you or is just a jerk. You really want to salvage your relationship with your chair and other “core” members of your committee. It’s very, very important. However, what’s the point of keeping on reader #7 from the linguistics department if they are rude or undependable? Answer: None. Just ask your grad secretary or grad director about dumping jerk outside readers. It’s usually no harder than an email from you to the grad chair.

You’ll find that being friendly, persistent, and open to fair criticism will usually lead to a good relationship with your committee and good progress toward your degree. Now that you’ve wasted your time reading this post, get back to work!!

Fabio

Dissertation writing and weight loss share one thing in common. People tell you that it’s easy to do in 15 minutes a day. Well, I’m here to tell you that dissertation writing and weight loss actually do share one thing in common. They both require a great deal of persistent and dedicated effort. It’s not to say that dissertation writing should be a ten year project. Rather, successful dissertation writing, like all writing, means that you sit down everyday for a while and just work. It’s just like any other job. Here’s some things to keep in mind to help you actually create the final product:

1. Most dissertations are built from smaller chunks, which aren’t that hard to do. Therefore, you should write a fairly detailed outline of each chapter, and a sketch of how the chapters fit together. For example, most dissertations have a chapter, or section, that describes prior work on your topic. That’s a pretty easy thing to do that you can work on before you get to harder topics. Even the hard parts can be assembled from easier small chunks.
2. Schedule. Once you have figured out the bits and pieces of your dissertation, establish firm but reasonable goals for each month. For example, a reasonable goal for a semester might be to write one or two good chapter drafts and prepare one for submission to a journal.
3. Daily workout. Prepare a time and place where you can work everyday uninterrupted for many hours, at least 4-5 times a week. At Chicago, the computer lab in the basement of the policy school served this purpose for me. Make sure that you have all the tools you need to work – dictionaries, software, games for relaxation, etc.
4. Breaks. Schedule off time. Most people work in a cycle of high and low intensity, where you recover your spent energy. Go to a movie, play games, hang out with your kids. Also, eat well and exercise. Sustained writing is often an isolating activity, take care of yourself.
5. Learn that every good paper started out as a pretty bad paper. Therefore, don’t worry about how horrid the first draft is. Just do it. Once you have something, you can always revise it. If you haven’t written it, it can’t be improved, and if it can’t be improved and finished, it won’t ever help you graduate!
6. Follow the basic rules of writing you learned in freshman comp. Avoid wordiness, have a clear thesis, avoid passive sentences, etc.
7. Hang out with people who are progressing well on the dissertation. You need all the support you can get. Avoid people who discourage you or distract you. Your friends should be a help and inspiration, not a hindrance. Create a social environment of people who reinforce the right habits and attitudes.
8. Minimize time spent on teaching, committees, etc. All your time at work should be spent working on your dissertation. Even if college teaching is your main goal, you still need to finish the dissertation, which means limiting paper grading, office hours, and the like.
9. Learn that the only good dissertation is a complete dissertation. No matter how bad you feel, keep working and just get it done!

Now that you’ve relaxed by reading this post, I strongly suggest you get back to work! Chop, chop!

Fabio

1. A very, very funny satire of Ingmar Bergman. The New York Times review of Scenes from a Marriage. If you haven’t seen it, do so immediately. A high point of cinema. Yes, and I do mean the 6 hour serial tv version, not the whimpy feature film.

2. You think you know math?

3. Back at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, the new soc PhD students have made their own sociology rap video, called UoC Monday. The best line concerns Ed Laumann and the benefits of co-authorship with a sex researcher. Even worse: The Albion Small Slideshow Players. “Even practice job talks are degrading/ My ego is deflating.” Now, do you all understand the insanity that drove me to write the grad skool rulz??

Update: Check out the other UoC videos – “Chicago Sociology, The Movie,” “Save a Grad Student,” and a puzzling video involving German techno, the social theorist Tonnies and hermeneutic ethnographer Andreas Glaeser.

Fabio

This is a collection of graduate school advice columns I have written for orgtheory. I have tried to make it fairly generic advice. I hope you can find something relevant to your situation.

#1: Get the rules!

#2: The unwritten rules of graduate school.

#3: Choosing a graduate program.

#4: How to make the best of course work.

Omar has useful things to say about learning to be a scholar.

#5: Graduate school exams.

#6: Why friends are important.

#7: Picking your adviser.

#8: Choosing people for your committee who aren’t the chair.

#9: Why you shouldn’t pay for graduate school.

#10: Choose a dissertation topic.

#11: What to do while you are working on the dissertation.

#12: Writing your dissertation, part 1.

#13: Writing your dissertation, part 2.

#14: Sorry, you can’t write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day.

#15: Working With Your Committee

#16: About Teaching

#16.2: More About Teaching

#17 All in the Family

#18 What Professors Can do to Help

Kieran on toxic grad programs, following Leiter.

#19 Words for Women

#20 For Students of Color

It Takes A Village to Raise a PhD

#21 When to quit

#21.2 When to quit, follow up

#22 Publishing in graduate school

#23 Conferences

#22.2 Publishing in graduate school follow up

Fabio

In the year or so since I’ve been on orgtheory, I’ve written about 170 posts. That’s about 3-4 a week. I wondered which of these posts has been the most popular. You might think it was my recent tirade against sociology’s bad public image (about 300 hits), or my reservations about freakonomics (over 500 hits), or maybe one of my grad school advice posts (about 100 hits each). You’d be wrong. Very wrong.

It seems the most popular post is “doll fight,” which is about dispute between the companies that make the Barbie and Bratz dolls. The post has pulled in over 800 hits since I wrote it in December. It’s garners about 15-20 daily hits and is often in the day’s top five orgtheory posts. By the end of August, it’ll probably hit 1,000 readers. Strangely, as of this writing, it’s today’s second most popular post, after Teppo’s discussion of social networks and obesity. It’s the energizer bunny of posts. Never has a big day with hundreds of hits, but every day, about a dozen people click it. I’m confused yet, pleased. So will my legacy on the internet be a post about the superiority of the Bratz doll collection?

PS. Check out my new book: From Black Power to Black Studies - How a Radical Social Movement Became an Academic Discipline. Make this the most popular link!

Fabio

Last time, we discussed the importance of knowing your dissertation’s genre. Next step: internalize the following advice:

1. You are the only one responsible for your dissertation. While a few advisers will write your dissertation, it’s usually a lonely job. If you fail to produce, you alone will suffer the consequences. Why? If you fail to write, you loose jobs and you will have wasted your time. And what happens to the adviser? Nothing. Thus, you are solely responsible for your dissertation. If you ever wonder why your dissertation isn’t done, I strongly suggest you look in the mirror.
2. Dissertations are *not* masterpieces! Sure, a few dissertations are home runs, but 90% are, at best, rough drafts of promising work. Many are simply useless pedagogical exercises. Even Einstein’s first dissertation draft was junky. Therefore, you should write a well crafted, competent work. The goal is to show you can actually complete competent research within a reasonable time period. You can write a masterpiece later in your career.
3. The only good dissertation is a complete dissertation. Seriously. The overwhelming majority of dissertations are not read, published, or cited. In fact, if you submit your unrevised dissertation for publication, the reviewers might reject it on the grounds that “it reads like a dissertation (= tendentious student work).” Therefore, once you have mastered the basics of research in your field, just get it done! You can always revise it later. There is no benefit at all to spending extra time on a scholarly product that no one will read. Exception: If you are in a field where the dissertation functions as a first draft of your book, you should probably spend more time on it so it looks good to editors. A lot of them will review dissertations, if they are well developed and already “book like.”
4. Write a *decent* dissertation. Does that contradict my previous advice? No – I just said that you shouldn’t expect your dissertation to win you a Nobel Prize. At the same time, the dissertation is often a pedagogical exercise and if your adviser is worth anything, they will expect a serious attempt at real science, not junk. It doesn’t have to be a masterwork, but show you’ve learned something and how your dissertation might lead to important future work. Also, employers might ask to see your dissertation. It’s in your interest to make sure the dissertation is in good shape. And heck, if you try your darndest, you might actually accomplish something!

Next installment: Can you really write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day?? Answer: Probably not.

Fabio

Ok, here’s the biggie in the grad skool rulz series: how to actually write your dissertation! I’ll break it up into two posts. This post is about a very subtle point – what a dissertation actually does for your career. The dissertation works very differently across departments, subfields and disciplines. You should get a grip on what it’s about in your area before you start writing. Here are some options:

1. Dissertation as useless distraction. At some programs, the faculty have taken the attitude that it’s much more important to author articles than work on the dissertation. Thus, some students may not write a single word of the dissertation until after they get the job. The dissertation in some cases is just a slightly altered version of the published articles that got you the job.
2. The “job search paper” model. In some fields, like economics, there is less expectation of publication pre-PhD. Placement depends mostly on faculty recommendations and a single writing sample called the job market paper. This is sometimes a published article or a strong dissertation chapter, so you need to show some progress on the dissertation, but few people expect much progress beyond one or two strong chapter drafts.
3. The dissertation as article drafts model. In this model, you don’t worry about pre-PhD publications. The dissertation is supposed to be a handful of essays on a topic, which are then sent to journals soon after graduation. In this case, you need to have extremely strong samples, or even a complete draft, upon entry into the market, so people can be pursauded that you are worth betting on.
4. The dissertation as book draft. This is the model in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. You might publish an article or two in grad school, but your real mission is to write the first draft of the book that will rock your area. When you enter the market, you need to have a lot of it worked out and if you want a top job, a contract with a good press. Otherwise, no one will believe you can actually publish anything.
5. The “sui generis dissertation.” As you will learn in the next installment, the dissertation is a pedagogical tool designed to help people master the research techniques of their area. Therefore, it has lots of stuff that you would never publish. In some departments and fields, you are expected to go through the motions and conform to the genre, even if the result is essentially unpublishable. Think of the “sui generis” dissertation as a very ugly car you are required to build and then completely reassemble.

Once you understand the model you are working with, it will help you develop a healthy attitude towards your dissertation and you can formulate a rational game plan. If you are doing #4 (diss as book draft), you are probably looking at a multi-year project and it has to be good enough to attract the attention of a major scholarly press – before you go on the market. You should really just concentrate on the diss and getting funding to see you through. You might even spend some time chatting with editors to get a sense of which presses might like your work.

If you doing #1 or #2, you might be looking at less than a year of work. Once you place an article or two in decent journals, you immediately become a plausible job candidate. You might not even bother with a formal dissertation proposal unless the school requires it. If you are living in situation #5, just do your best to go through the motions until the committee approves the final product and be prepared for a complete rewrite soon as you finish. Work from “sui generis” dissertations is often rejected, or if it’s published, it’s relegated to journals and presses that specialize in quick dissertation conversion (names ommitted to protect the guilty). You don’t want that.

What you should learn from this post is that “dissertation” can mean very different things. To get the most out of your graduate experience, compare the dissertations from your program with what is actually published and highly valued in your area. If you don’t, you could expend much effort on work that is completely useless.

Fabio

This edition of grad skool rulz focuses on the murky period after the dissertation defense but before the job market. It’s often called “dissertating.” In addition to the data you promised to collect and analyze, here’s some rules of thumb about what you should do during the dissertation period:

1. If you haven’t done so already, this is a really good time to try to get your first article published. Your adviser should have told you, but let me remind you as well: publications = jobs. The publication process deserves its own post, but you should know that it can take a while. Therefore, you should have at least one or two pieces under review while you are working on the dissertation. Ideally, one, or more, will hit while you are working and then you can go into the market with a record of research and a dissertation in progress. What should you publish? How about brushing off that MA thesis? Or asking a senior faculty member if they can help you write an article. Lots of opportunities if you look around.

2. Minimize teaching obligations: Let’s get this straight – you are not rewarded for teaching, except if you are at a liberal arts college. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t advocate bad teaching. Teaching should be adequate and competent, but you don’t have to be great at it. Wait till after tenure to pile up those teaching awards. Teach only if you need to make ends meet and be ruthlessly efficient in running your class. Time spent grading papers is merely a distraction from your main work. Exception: liberal arts schools place a huge emphasis on teaching, so if that’s your career goal, get the extra experience and do well. But even then, these schools now expect publications, so don’t ignore your research.

3. Work: Same as teaching. Only take a job if you will otherwise starve. Ideally, take a job that will lead to more academic opportunities. For example, working at NORC might put you in contact with survey people, which might lead to publications. In contrast, student counseling, while important, won’t get you closer to your career goal (unless you want to be a student services administrator!). Same as above – work only if you have to & try to do work that leads to academic opportunities.

4. Grants/fellowships: I am of two minds here. Obviously, getting money is great and a fellowship can you bring prestige. But it’s not as important as publishing. Thus, if you feel crunched for time, work more on dissertation and pubs. Remember, a grad school hit in a top journal is often the first step to good jobs, while no one was ever hired because of a fellowship.

5. Don’t move. Seriously. Faculty are overworked people. At the R1 schools, they usually teach 2-2, have grad students, grants, committees, etc. They also have children and families. Thus, if you move away from the campus, they can easily forget you exist. It’s not malignant, just human nature. Therefore, if at all possible, stay around campus. Also, if you move away from an academic environment, you might easily get off “the wagon” and spend too much work time on non-academic issues. Exception: field work. Even then, stay in touch (see #6 below). Send them field work updates.

6. Be in frequent contact with your committee. You don’t have to visit everyday, but keep close contact with your adviser. Send chapter drafts to the adviser and other committee members who have agreed to help out. You can also email questions to folks while you work. Your committee should know that little by little, you are accomplishing something, even if it is a crummy first draft. It also creates positive expectations for your work.

7. Keep track of all comments/suggestions provided by the committee. Be consistent so that later drafts of your work reflect the suggestions of the committee. If the suggestions conflict, just ask your adviser for his/her opinion about the best way to go. Also, if Prof X contradicts themself, you can gently remind them that you only tried your best to revise the work they way they suggested last time.

Next grad skool rulz … how to write that dissertation!

Kieran

Individual productivity is the science of organization and management writ small. It is also a key internal component of the Grad Skool Rulz. Thus, for deskbound workers of all sorts, tools and systems to enhance one’s productivity and make one a better person abound. Or, from a different point of view, techniques of self-disciplining and governmentality seep ever deeper into everyday life. At any rate, I can confidently say that having a new baby in the house increases my incentive to make and abide by to-do lists. There is lots of Care Of The Small But Noisy Self to be done, and I’m so tired that I keep forgetting what else I need to do besides change nappies and so on.

What’s the hot system these days? I’ve been observing the cult of GTD for a while now without being able to get into it. Lack of usable software was one reason. But having messed around with it for the past ten days or so, I have to say I’m impressed with iGTD. It’s the first GTD appliation that I’ve kept using for any length of time at all. Neat features, free, syncs with iCal and .Mac, Quicksilver integration, etc, etc, and also comes with a tireless developer who keeps adding more goodies. Recommended to other Mac users out here.

But. The caveat is that my semi-successful adoption of this thing may have more to do with my present circumstances than the software per se. As is well known, the Zen of Organization is Not to be Found in Fancy Software. Instead, it lies within. For instance, my wife is vastly more productive than I am, and her task-management system consists of random bits of paper with to-do lists scrawled on them. Her seekrit trick is that she actually, you know, writes stuff down and completes the tasks one by one. Or, to raise an even deeper problem, we have someone like Jeremy Freese, who — if his own repeated testimony is to be believed — has no appreciable organizational skills at all, but who nevertheless manages to score rather highly on objective measures of scholarly productivity. In this respect Jeremy is the Italy of academia: unstable and seemingly chaotic governance structure; mysteriously still the seventh largest economy in the world.