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PhD Talk

PhD Talk

Eva Lantsoght

A podcast in which we discuss PhD life, research mechanics, and the tools for doing research.

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Top 10 PhD Talk Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best PhD Talk episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to PhD Talk for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite PhD Talk episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

In today's episode, I share my methods for staying engaged with the presentations at conferences.
Here are my seven strategies:

  1. Schedule smart: We all have a maximum capacity of how much learning we can do without a break, and how much learning we can do in a day. Ideally, we have this information available because we know how we study. If not, run an experiment at a conference and track your attention per half hour increments. When do you start to have difficulties staying with the presenter? How many hours of listening on a day can you stomach? Then, use this information to plan which sessions and presentations you will attend.
  2. Take notes: For me, taking notes is key. I’ve learned over the years that taking notes by hand (or on a tablet with pencil) works best, as I like sketching things and drawing arrows in my notes. Typing out notes works much less for me.
  3. Think of questions: To engage more with the contents, you can think of questions you’d want to ask the presenter. You don’t need to actually ask these questions, but just identifying questions will already help you understand the material at a different level.
  4. Relate to research: Try to find out how this research is interesting for your research. Are the findings directly relevant for your work? Is the methodology something that can inspire you? Could you use this information for teaching?
  5. Note down action items: What will you do with what you’ve learned? Maybe you want to try out the methodology they propose on your data, or check their test results against your model, or maybe you want to read the full paper after the conference. Jot down at least one action item for each presentation, and put this task on your schedule for after the conference.
  6. Follow up: If a presentation is particularly interesting for you, go talk to the presenter afterwards or send them a follow-up email after the conference. As you get to talk more about their research, you’ll gain an even deeper understanding of the work and its implications.
  7. Sleep: If you want to be fresh and able to learn, get enough sleep. Getting enough rest at a conference can be particularly challenging if the social program runs late into the enough. I will often have to make a conscious choice between attending an early session and attending a dinner, to make sure I don’t get too drowsy for the actual conference. I also try to add a buffer day when I have a difference in timezone between home and the conference to adjust to the jetlag (and to have a buffer in case something goes wrong with the flights).

This episode is based on an earlier blog post.

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In today's episode, we first catch up on what we are working on, what is currently going well, and what we are currently struggling with.
Then, we dive into the four questions that we received to address:

  • In the spirit of the Holidays: How can one just unplug from work? I used to say there is no holidays for grad students”, but that is bad work cultures
  • What is your WFH setup?
  • How can you attract differently-abled people to work for you?
  • Which country provides maximum employment after a PhD degree?

We also discuss which books we enjoyed reading in 2022, and what we are currently appreciating.
References

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PhD Talk - Interview with Jen Loch - Ep. 99
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01/04/23 • 30 min

In today's episode, we interview Jen Loch. She grew up in Florida (USA) which encouraged her focus on a profession in marine science from a young age. She completed her B.S. in Biology from Florida State University, and M.S. in Marine Biology through the Three Seas Program at Northeastern University. She completed her PhD in conservation biology at the University of Central Florida. We learn more about the PhD program she followed, and the milestones along the way.
In between her masters and doctorate, she spent several years teaching biology at local colleges, worked at an aquarium, and as a biologist for a local government. We talk about her career path and how it took a while for all conditions to line up for her to get started with a PhD
Jen's research has focused on predatory fishes and their habitats, as well as how they are influenced by anthropogenic pressures (e.g., fishing and habitat alteration). We learn about her research, how she used fieldwork, and some of her main insights.
She is married to her husband of 11 years and they have two daughters, who were born during the course of their doctorates, and are now 3 and 5 years old. We learn about their experience being doctoral candidates with children, the support Jen's university offered, and how she combines academia and parenting.
Finally, we will hear Jen's best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries around work, the impact of COVID-19 on her doctorate, and what a day look likes in the life for her.

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PhD Talk - Interview with Dr. Cathy Mazak - Ep. 93
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11/23/22 • 55 min

In today's episode, we interview Dr. Cathy Mazak. Cathy was a tenured, full professor when she founded a writing-focused professional development company for women and nonbinary academics. Cathy and her team are dedicated to changing the way that academics leverage writing and publication to create the careers and lives they want through courses and group coaching programs. We learn from her experience in how she pivoted from being a tenured full professor to a business owner, as well as her focus in her business on empower academic womxn and the ways in which academia tends to thwart the progress of those of minorities.
She has a PhD from Michigan State University and is the editor of several scholarly collections and the author of numerous textbooks and academic journal articles. In her work as a professor at The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez she attracted external funding for her work in bilingualism and higher education and co-founded a research center. We learn from her experience in how she crafted her PhD research journey towards her position at The University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez and how she could get her dream job after her PhD.
Her popular podcast, Academic Writing Amplified, teaches how to use writing to resist the racist, ableist, patriarchal culture of academia. She is the author of Making Time to Write: How to Resist the Patriarchy and Take Control of Your Academic Career Through Writing - part manifesto and part writing advice book, and we get to hear Cathy's advice on how to decide which writing projects to take on.
Finally, we learn about Cathy's experience as an academic mother of three and how she balanced academia and motherhood, as well as her best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries to work, how COVID-19 impacted her work, and what a day in the life looks like for her.
References

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In today's episode, we talk about how to decide on where to publish or present research. We first look at how we decide whether work is suitable for a conference paper or a journal paper.
Then, we zoom in further on conferences. We discuss the differences between big and small conferences, how many conferences to shoot for on a yearly basis, and how to get funding to attend conferences. We also learn from Sarah's and Eva's past experiences.
Then, we look at journal papers. We discuss how to select the right journal, how to identify the right audience for a paper, and look into the discussion on publishing open access or not. We also discuss when we know when work is ready to be sent to a journal, and Eva shares how she usually works with her PhD candidates through various versions of a manuscript.

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PhD Talk - Interview with Chantelle Taylor - Ep. 97
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12/21/22 • 31 min

In today's episode, we interview Chantelle Taylor. Chantelle is a second year Phd student at Loughborough university. She is the mother of 3 boys and uses her experiences of mothering as a springboard for her research. We learn how motherhood influenced her choices with regard to studying, and going for a PhD, as well as how her research is influenced by her own experiences with postnatal depression. We also learn about the institutional and personal support she has received from her university as a mother, and as a mother of children with additional needs.
Chantelle’s interest in self reflexivity and autoethnography as well as her critique of what it means to be a mother has led her to a fascination of challenging the unchallenged both in terms of motherhood and good academic research. We learn about the methods she uses for her research, and the entanglement of feelings of adequacy surrounding doing a PhD and motherhood.
We also learn more about the length and format of the PhD at Loughborough, and how the annual review takes place.
Finally, we round off with learning about Chantelle's best advice for PhD candidates, how she sets boundaries around work, how COVID-19 impacted her daily work, and what a day looks like in the life for her.
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In this episode, I talk about good habits to develop during the PhD, the post-doc years, and the tenure track years.
You can find the associated posts here:
- Good habits to develop during the PhD
- Good habits to develop as a post-doc
- Good habits to develop on the tenure-track

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PhD Talk - Interview with Charles Grimm - Ep. 95
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12/07/22 • 43 min

In today's episode, we interview Charles Grimm. Charles is an assistant professor of English at Georgia Highlands College and a Ph.D. candidate at Georgia State University. Charles uses a heavy focus on literacy and metacognition in his two-semester composition courses. We talk about his career path, and the unique insights he gained as a PhD candidate while also teaching at a community college.
His dissertation focuses on the levels of oppression present in current ideas of "Authorship," especially as practiced with freelance ghostwriters and first-year composition students. We learn about the methods he used for his research, and the findings about the perception of credibility of writing depending on who it is attributed to.
He has been married to his best friend for 13 years and they are raising two children the best they can to live life and each other. We talk about when during his career and PhD the children were born, and what his experience of being an academic parent has been - especially with a newborn during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Finally, we hear from Charles about his best advice for PhD candidates, how he sets boundaries around work, how COVID-19 impacted his work and daily tasks, and what a day in the life looks like
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PhD Talk - Planning your paper writing - Ep. 109
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03/15/23 • 16 min

In today's episode, I answer the following questions:
- How much time does it take to write a paper?
- How can you remain focused on writing a paper over weeks on end?
- How can you quickly pull together a conference paper when the deadline is near?
This episode is loosely based on:
- How to write a paper in two days
- How much time does it take to write a paper?

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I’ve found what really works for me to write an abstract in roughly 30 minutes. As I was googling “How to write an abstract” in the past, I came across this article by Philip Koopman which caught my attention.

What I most like about this website is the questions it has in the different sections your abstract should contain:

Motivation: Why do we care about the problem and the results?

Problem statement: What problem are you trying to solve?

Approach: How did you go about solving or making progress on the problem? Did you use simulation, analytic models, prototype construction, or analysis of field data for an actual product?

Results: What’s the answer?

Conclusions: What are the implications of your answer? Is it going to change the world (unlikely), be a significant “win”, be a nice hack, or simply serve as a road sign indicating that this path is a waste of time (all of the previous results are useful)?

In fact, whenever I now write an abstract, I simply copy and paste these questions into a new document. Then I start answering them one by one. Sometimes I just talk out loud and write it down. Style and grammar don’t matter to me at that point – I just need to get the ideas out first.
These answers then make up the first draft of my abstract. I simply delete the questions, and print out this first version. At that point, I start manipulating the abstract into a readable text, in correct English (as good as possible in my case), and making sure the entire piece flows from its starting point and background description towards the results and conclusions.

Do you have a method which helps you to write abstracts?

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FAQ

How many episodes does PhD Talk have?

PhD Talk currently has 122 episodes available.

What topics does PhD Talk cover?

The podcast is about Podcasts, Education, Business and Careers.

What is the most popular episode on PhD Talk?

The episode title 'Interview with Jen Loch - Ep. 99' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on PhD Talk?

The average episode length on PhD Talk is 34 minutes.

How often are episodes of PhD Talk released?

Episodes of PhD Talk are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of PhD Talk?

The first episode of PhD Talk was released on Dec 2, 2020.

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