Somewhere in almost every faculty interview, a committee member will ask some version of this question: “What is it about this opportunity that excites you?” Or: “Why did you apply to our department?” Or simply: “Why us?” It sounds like an invitation to be enthusiastic. It's actually something more specific than that. The committee is asking whether you did your homework — and whether what you found there genuinely connects to where your work is going. What the Question Is Re

I don’t enjoy giving academic talks. Weird choice to be a professor, right? Public speaking makes me nervous. Actually, it’s not the speaking part. It’s the question and answer part. I’m always afraid I might not know the answer, or “that guy” who wants to be the smartest person in the room will walk up to the microphone. What I have learned over the past decade is: hostile or aggressive questions are not a sign that your skills are in question. In many fields, they are a sig

Below is a sample email I asked AI to create. While the details are different, it looks almost identical to the dozens of emails I get from prospective students each week. I don’t bother to respond to these emails if they are obvious products of AI and they are not tailored to me, personally. Read each paragraph and note the mistakes to avoid, so that you increase your chances of getting a response to your PhD application inquiry. Dear Dr. [Last Name], I hope this message fin

Interviewing for an academic position in English when it is not your first language is challenging. You are expected to present complex research, discuss teaching techniques, and demonstrate your “fit” within the department all while processing questions in real time.   The good news: search committees are not evaluating you as a native speaker during your faculty interview. They are evaluating your ideas, clarity, and professional communication.   The first part of this mul

The second part of this multi-part guide provides concrete strategies used in professional Academic English coaching to help international scholars perform with confidence.   Interviewing for an academic position in English when it is not your first language is challenging. You are expected to present complex research, discuss teaching techniques, and demonstrate your “fit” within the department all while processing questions in real time.   The good news: search committees

The third part of this multi-part guide provides concrete strategies used in professional Academic English coaching to help international scholars perform with confidence.   Interviewing for an academic position in English when it is not your first language is challenging. You are expected to present complex research, discuss teaching techniques, and demonstrate your “fit” within the department all while processing questions in real time.   The good news: search committees ar

Don’t know what a logical connector is? I didn’t either until I started to notice students using them incorrectly. Logical connectors are the linking words or phrases we use to connect our thoughts together in complex sentences - words like “however,” “yet,” and “additionally.” You need to match the connector to the actual relationship between your thoughts; that is, are you contrasting or adding to your ideas? These small words can make your writing sound illogical even when

How is academic writing different from writing an essay or even a term paper? The biggest difference, in my opinion, is the need for citations. Citations are the "receipts" that prove your arguments. Here are some examples:   “The link between obesity and carbohydrate intake has been studied at length in other research with inconsistent results.” Citations, please! By citing who did this work, you prove it has been done.   “These differences could be due to the fact that wo

When I review manuscripts, I often have to ask the authors what they mean due to a lack of precision in their writing. Let’s look at some examples: 1.     There was a significant difference between the two groups. Help! How were the two groups different? Did the intervention increase or decrease the outcome of interest compared to the other group? If it’s significant, you don’t have to say “significant”, but you do need to provide evidence. A p-value or some other measure is

Presenting your research is an important part of the scientific process. In most cases, you will need to submit a research abstract to the conference for acceptance. Not all abstracts are accepted, so use the following tips to maximize your likelihood of success. DON’T DO THIS: In many cases, conferences will not accept incomplete research. If you are writing your results section using the future tense, (“We will use logistic regression to determine the outcomes.” “We expect

The saying, “Comparison is the thief of joy” is attributed to American president Teddy Roosevelt. Not to be overly dramatic, but when I heard this statement, it changed my life. For me, it means that I should not be judging myself against the accomplishments of others. I will always be able to find someone else who is more successful than I am in some way. They might have more publications, more grant funding, more citations, more awards. If I compare myself to these people,

The final project for our master’s degree students is a systematic review. The hardest part of this project is developing the research question. The second hardest part is describing the results. The biggest problem: students summarize individual studies rather than synthesizing the information. But what does it mean to synthesize?   Before we answer the question about what it means to synthesize, let’s start with a discussion of summarizing because it will help to explain th

Often, I have students who struggle getting started writing. Whether it’s a research article, an abstract, or their dissertation proposal, they just can’t get started. Some of it might be procrastination – the feeling that it will be easier when there is some time pressure. (And no, you don’t do your best work under pressure; rather, you just do work.) But I think a lot of it comes down to fear. Fear comes from a lot of places. The fear that what you write won’t be good. The

Nobody enjoys discussing their flaws, but we all have them, your study included. When you design a study, you will have to make choices that inevitably weaken your ability to definitively answer your research question. These choices are usually because of limited resources: time, money, access to the population of interest, etc. For example, you don’t have 25 years to follow a cohort of people; you didn’t have grant funding to run the fancy analysis, so you used something les

While grad school admissions processes differ across universities and even across departments within the same university, in many cases, you will have to identify a possible PhD advisor.  That advisor will decide whether to take you on as a student. I get dozens of these emails each week . I currently have three PhD students in my lab, so you can see the number of applicants and the number of placements are very competitive. Here are some things to consider when trying to ma

The short answer is, it depends. In many cases, the professor you want to work with has to have the funds available to support you. These funds are usually through grants they have successfully applied for, but in some cases, money might come from the department or university. Regardless of where the money comes from, it must be available. This dynamic means that you could be an outstanding candidate, even the best in the country, but if the professor doesn’t have money avail

Avoiding this common mistake will elevate your writing.

Follow this easy formula to improve the flow of your writing.