Research hacks
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Research Hacks #27: VBA to mark up a Word document for reading
In the past I have posted macros to highlight all the quotations and all the punctuation in a Microsoft Word document. Here is some VBA that performs these two tasks, and also adds line numbers and page numbers to a document. I regularly use it before I read student work or articles to review, and
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Research Hacks #26: A Macro to search for text across all open Word documents
Recently I have been working with multiple long Microsoft Word documents, and I have wanted to search for a particular string across all the open documents. So far I have had to search each ddocument separately, which is somewhat annoying. So I asked ChatGPT to write a Visual Basic Macro to search across all open
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Research Hacks #25: Another time-saving Microsoft Word macro for academics
Small time-saving computer shortcuts are great news for at least two reasons. First of all, as we research and write week after week the seconds saved with each shortcut add up to substantial gains. Secondly, it is helpful for maintaining concentration if we can minimise unnecessary clicks and key-presses. So in this post I want
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Research Hacks #24: What we think about when we think about academic impact
No-one working in academia today needs me to point out the importance of the impact agenda, nor the way in which it coaxes us to understand the value of our work in particular ways and take it in particular directions. In this post I want to explore one narrow but important set of questions within
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Research Hacks #23: Three Microsoft Word macros for quick mark-up of articles, essays and thesis chapters
I have the pleasure of reading a lot of student essays and supervising a number of research students, and over the years I have found that marking up an essay or thesis chapter before I read it helps me to focus and read effectively. The technique also speeds up the reading of articles in Microsoft
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Research hacks #22: Come to terms with a new theory or thinker by using an ‘assumptions pyramid’
After a few posts on planning and presenting research findings, it’s time to return to the core of the research process: understanding, ordering and refining ideas. Let’s think of a particular research scenario: you have to come to terms with a new theory in your discipline. This is a phase of research that can sometimes
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Research hacks #21: One to-do list to rule them all
In a previous post I commended the virtues of planning your research, but one problem with such a laudable aim is that it only holds sway over one part of your life. Bluntly, you can plan all the work you like, but the rest of life has a habit of turning up unannounced and shredding
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Research hacks #20: Why it pays to plan your ideal week, and an Excel workbook to help you
In my last post I pointed out how time logging can help you build an accurate picture of how much time you are really spending on different tasks. That is only half the battle of taming your timetable however. The other half is working out how you want and ought to be spending your time, and
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Research hacks #19: Three benefits of time logging for academics, and one easy-to-use time logging app
Time logging is for executives, not academics, right? It’s for lawyers with billable hours, not for researchers with theses and books that take years to complete. Wrong. I have found that tracking the time I spend on different tasks has brought me three distinct benefits, and in this post I want to share some reflections
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Research hacks #18: 20 further tips on fielding questions after a conference paper
This is the second of two posts on how to field questions after your paper at an academic conference. The first one, which covers preparing for question time and knowing your main point, can be found here. Get to know the main types of question If you want to know how to answer any given
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Research hacks #17: 15 tips on fielding questions after a conference paper
In this fourth post on presenting a conference paper (following on from planning and writing a conference paper, delivering a paper and timekeeping and technology), I want to think through the often panic-inducing issue of how to approach the question and answer time at the end of your paper. This is the first of two posts on fielding
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Research hacks #16: 20 tips on timekeeping and technology for your conference presentation
This is the third post in a mini-series on presenting at conferences. Previous posts covered planning and writing a conference paper and delivering a paper. In this post I offer some tips and advice in relation to two aspects of giving a conference paper that can often sneak up and ambush unwitting presenters: timekeeping and technology. Timekeeping Know
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Research hacks #15: 15 Tips on delivering a conference paper
In the previous research hack I discussed how to plan and write a conference paper. Now we move on to delivering the paper to your conference audience. Delivering the paper Be enthusiastic, but not manic. If you don’t look interested in what your saying, why should your audience be? But if you come over like the Duracell
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Research hacks #14: 15 tips on planning and writing a conference paper
Judging by their behaviour, people seem to approach to the prospect of giving a conference paper wildly divergent ways. Watching some poor souls present, it looks for all the world as if they consider a conference paper to be the modern-day answer to trial by ordeal. Others seem to be approaching the exercise as a gladiatorial duel, the
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Research Hacks # 13: The power of planning your research project
Today I want to share one of the earliest research productivity hacks I ever learned, and one that has served me faithfully over many years. The principle behind it is simple: planning increases productivity, and things that get planned get done more often than things that don’t. By and large, and allowing for all necessary caveats, what
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Research hacks intermezzo: A cornucopia of writing and publishing advice from Stuart Elden
Over at Progressive Geographies Stuart Elden has curated a list of “some of the posts about writing and publishing from this blog”. The list contains around fifty posts and articles (some by Stuart, some external links) with lots of helpful and thought-provoking advice about research, writing and publishing. It’s well worth a browse. To read all the research hacks
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Research hacks #12: Seven ways of keeping up to date with developments in your field
Whether we like it or not, research trends dictate to a significant extent what is published and read in most fields. It’s all part of the room of conversations that I described in a previous post in this series. In order to draw readers to your work and contribute to a conversation that others are
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Research hacks #11: Let your arguments breathe
You’re writing a PhD, research article or undergraduate essay. You’re excited by your topic and you have lots to say. You want to say it all, and you want to impress your reader by your high-powered, complex, sophisticated argument. Good for you. These are all laudable intentions, but one mistake that many research students fall into
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Research Hacks #10: How to present a smart, well-crafted argument
You are writing an essay, journal article, book or thesis chapter and you want to present a smart, well-crafted argument that will both convince your reader of the point you are making and also strike them as authoritative and expertly constructed. How can you write such an argument? Here is a four-stage structure that can help you inform and
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Research Hacks #9: Building an argument with the “it’s not as simple as that” tool
In this post I want to share a great way of building an argument for an essay, article, or thesis chapter. I learned it when I was an undergraduate and I have used it to great profit in my own writing. It is also one of the first research hacks I share with new undergraduate
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Research hacks #8: How to know when “good enough” is good enough in academic writing
It is a given that in academia you don’t have enough time to make everything you do as good as it possibly could be. How should you deal with that? You should know when “good enough” is good enough, stop, and move on to the next thing. You should… know when you’ve read enough secondary material
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Research hacks #7: Read everything, but not in the same way
If one thing is non-negotiable about academic research in the arts and humanities, it is that there will be a lot of reading. In fact, there will almost certainly be too much reading, so you’d better have a strategy to cope with the bibliographical tsunami headed your way. You can’t read every word that has
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Research Hacks # 6: Capture every important thought you have, even on the go
I forget which episode it is, but in season 3 of The West Wing Toby Ziegler declares one morning that he has nothing more to do in the day. It is a situation no doubt rare for a White House Communications Director, but unheard of for a research academic. Here’s why: for a research academic work is
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Research Hacks # 5: Microsoft Word macros for academics
One of the sweetest time-savers I have discovered over my years as an academic is the Microsoft Word macro. Macros are ways to automate common tasks in Word. They save you time, clicks and button presses, all of which allows you to keep your mind on the content of your writing rather than on its
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Research Hacks #4: One important question to increase the focus of your academic research
Strange as it may sound, it is easy to drift along in academia without focus. You would think that, with the long hours and hard work involved in research and publishing, every academic would know exactly where they are going and the best way to get there. Not so. There are so many pressures on
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Research Hacks #3: Help! I can’t settle on a research project
It might sound stupid: You know you want to embark on a research project, you might even know you want to pursue a career in academia, but you just can’t settle on an Honours/Masters/PhD project. In addition to asking the three key questions in research hack #2, I want to help you by providing a cheat
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Research Hacks #2: Three important questions to ask before you choose a new research project
In this second post on building your effectiveness as a researcher I want to share three key questions that can help you choose and refine a research project: What research do you enjoy? What research do you think is important? What research conversation do you want to join? Let’s take them one by one.
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Research Hacks #1: Research Audit
In this new series of posts I want to help you become better researcher and a better student by sharing with you some of the strategies and research hacks I have picked up over my years of conducting academic research and teaching graduates and undergraduates. In my own time as a student, PhD candidate, Junior