The Effective Scientist

22 03 2018

final coverWhat is an effective scientist?

The more I have tried to answer this question, the more it has eluded me. Before I even venture an attempt, it is necessary to distinguish the more esoteric term ‘effective’ from the more pedestrian term ‘success’. Even ‘success’ can be defined and quantified in many different ways. Is the most successful scientist the one who publishes the most papers, gains the most citations, earns the most grant money, gives the most keynote addresses, lectures the most undergraduate students, supervises the most PhD students, appears on the most television shows, or the one whose results improves the most lives? The unfortunate and wholly unsatisfying answer to each of those components is ‘yes’, but neither is the answer restricted to the superlative of any one of those. What I mean here is that you need to do reasonably well (i.e., relative to your peers, at any rate) in most of these things if you want to be considered ‘successful’. The relative contribution of your performance in these components will vary from person to person, and from discipline to discipline, but most undeniably ‘successful’ scientists do well in many or most of these areas.

That’s the opening paragraph for my new book that has finally been release for sale today in the United Kingdom and Europe (the Australasian release is scheduled for 7 April, and 30 April for North America). Published by Cambridge University Press, The Effective Scientist. A Handy Guide to a Successful Academic Career is the culmination of many years of work on all the things an academic scientist today needs to know, but was never taught formally.

Several people have asked me why I decided to write this book, so a little history of its genesis is in order. I suppose my over-arching drive was to create something that I sincerely wish had existed when I was a young scientist just starting out on the academic career path. I was focussed on learning my science, and didn’t necessarily have any formal instruction in all the other varied duties I’d eventually be expected to do well, from how to write papers efficiently, to how to review properly, how to manage my grant money, how to organise and store my data, how to run a lab smoothly, how to get the most out of a conference, how to deal with the media, to how to engage in social media effectively (even though the latter didn’t really exist yet at the time) — all of these so-called ‘extra-curricular’ activities associated with an academic career were things I would eventually just have to learn as I went along. I’m sure you’ll agree, there has to be a better way than just muddling through one’s career picking up haphazard experience. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : author order, authorship, bad grammar, blog, book, co-author, conference, education, Endarkenment, ethics, Flinders University, gender, jobs, journalism, mathematics, media, modelling, research, science, science communication, science writing, scientific publishing, scientific writing, statistics, writing tips

Death of the question

17 12 2015
Zombie apocalypse

Zombie apocalypse

It’s something I’ve noticed over the years going to scientific conferences and seminars — the number of questions, and more importantly their quality, have declined.

Sure, it’s anecdotal and it might just be that my perspective has changed, but I’d bet my left testicle that it’s true.

But why? There are possibly many contributing factors, such as increasingly jam-packed conferences with multiple concurrent sessions, a massive and increasing number of participants and less time for each of us to present our work. However, I think the main reason is that we’re now all glued to our electronic devices.

Yes, I’m talking about the Twitteratti, but also the tablet-tossers, laptop-layabouts and the iPhone-idiots. We have a saying in our family when we spot a smartphone zombie oblivious to oncoming traffic that she/he looks like a “… spastic fingering a sandwich” (not my quote, but I am particularly fond of using it).

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Categories : conference, conservation, science communication, societies

Challenging the traditional conference model

28 08 2015

keeping-the-audience-awakeAn interesting take on conference culture by Diogo Veríssimo (mastermind behind I Fucking Love Biodiversity).

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Just a few weeks back, more than 2000 conservationists got together in Montpellier, France, for the 27th International Congress on Conservation Biology (ICCB). I have been attending these conferences since 2008, and once again had a blast. Yet as I went through the usual talks, posters, work meetings, and this and that social, I could not help but feel that the traditional conference model was hindering, not helping me, maximise my benefits.

In my experience of conservation conferences, the content is largely delivered via a one-way channel, and attendees listen passively until the chance for a question or two comes up at the end. If time allows, that is, and it rarely does. Given the huge costs (and the footprint) of these events, how can we maximise the outcomes of these meetings?

Let’s look first at what is currently the backbone of most conferences anywhere: the oral presentation. Currently, the gold standard for the vast majority of ICCB presenters is the 15-min presentation, and those who are denied that chance often say they have been “downgraded”. I find this unfortunate.

My biggest criticisms of our current approach to content management during a conference is that it leaves the discussion to happen informally and without the benefit of the collective knowledge that comes together at these meetings. Many conservationists are keen to avoid long-winded lectures in their classrooms, but when we come together, those concerns seem to go out the window. The Q&A after a talk should be the most important part of a session for either the presenter (expert feedback can save a lot of time and resources) and the audience (who otherwise cannot focus on what they think is important).

Giving sessions enough Q&A time, which I argue would have to be as long as the time given to presentations, would imply having fewer presentations — unless we have shorter presentations. The ICCB already has the speed presentation, a format that lasts just 5 minutes. Why not make that the default? Yes, presenting your content effectively in 5 minutes is an acquired skill, but not much different in kind from writing an abstract to a paper. Having presented in both traditional and speed format, I am convinced presentations strongly suffer from the law of diminishing returns, meaning the difference from the audience point of view ends up being small. This is particularly true if fewer talks means more time for the audience to interact and ask about the things in which they are interested, rather than what the presenter thinks they should learn. Read the rest of this entry »


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How to give a scientific presentation

15 08 2015

fearHaving just attended the joint 27th International Congress for Conservation Biology / 4th European Congress for Conservation Biology in Montpellier, France, I have a renewed vigour for proffering advice on the DOs and DO NOTs of giving a scientific presentation.

There are of course many different styles, formats, media and audiences for scientific presentations, so I’m going to outline only general issues of which you should be aware when preparing and delivering that often stress-inducing presentation. There are also many different durations of a scientific talk — including, but not limited to everything from a 5-minute speed talk to a full-on, dazzling, TEDx-like performance that can last for over an hour. Many of these principles apply to the full gamut of talk types, although various elements will have to be adjusted according to format. Only experience and plenty of advice can assist you in the tweaking.

Without further ado, here are the top 15 most important things to consider when preparing and giving a scientific presentation: Read the rest of this entry »


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Give some flair to your scientific presentation

18 11 2014

Smoko3—

As the desert spring came to the great Centre Red,
Scores of sandalled folk from tin birds descend-ed.
Alice Town had been invaded,
Bearded alike and unshorn-legged.
 
They sat and stared at words and the odd trend.
Billies boiled to get them through to day’s end
They swapped bush stories that made good sense,
Trying to understand Aussie environments.
 
One bloke‘s tales caught the punters’ attention,
So this bush poet deserves special mention.
To standard rules he would not kowtow,
So his special science verse I present to you now.

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If none of that made any sense, then let me help you out. At the last Ecological Society of Australia meeting in Alice Springs, I witnessed a rather unique way to give a scientific presentation – via bush poetry. Dr. Dale Nimmo of Deakin University was particularly engaging, and he agreed to have his presentation poem reproduced here. Who said scientists were boring? Honourable mention too to Simon Watson for another audience-engaging, bush-poetry seminar (but I don’t have that to reproduce here). There also might be a slidecast of Dale’s presentation coming soon. For now, please enjoy the poetic delivery of science in text.

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The Old Grey Box of Heathcote Town

Dale Nimmo

Down around old Heathcote town, just east of Bendigo,
A big old grey box tree casts an eye.
The sallee fills the understory bright as sunlights glow,
As the silvereyes and thornbills flitter by.
 
This landscape, bruised and battered from 200 years of change,
Holds the secrets of a time lost somehow.
One of Jaara land, where lowan dug and dingoes howled,
The latter two, here, just distant memories now.
 
The gold rush came like bushfire, ring barked trees fell like boughs
Of the red gums scattered on the old flood plains,
That made way for sheep and cattle, while, fighting a losing battle,
rufous bettongs were never seen again.
 
When a man of English gentry, Professor Bennett was his name,
Found the woodlands to his aristocratic tastes.
Many days he’d venture in, binoculars under his chin,
He never let a single bird call go to waste.
 
While at the old St Arnaud Inn, over a couple pints of gin,
Bennet and a bloke called Radford got to talking.
Stealing horses was his game, but he’d give it all away,
To join Bennett in woodlands, bird walking

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Categories : Australia, birds, conservation, decline, deforestation, drought, habitat loss, research, science, science communication

Upcoming conservation, ecology and modelling conferences

7 03 2014

IMG_34271Our lab just put together a handy list of upcoming ecology, conservation and modelling conferences around the world in 2014. Others might also find it useful. Some of the abstract submission deadlines have already passed, but it still might be useful to know what’s on the immediate horizon if attendance only is an option.

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Conference Dates Venue Call for Abstracts Deadline
Queensland Ornithological Conference 31 May Brisbane, Australia Open 10 Mar
Spatial Ecology and Conservation 17 Jun Birmingham, UK Closed 21 Feb
Asia-Pacific Coral Reef Symposium 23 Jun Taiwan Closed 5 Feb
International Statistical Ecology Conference 1 Jul Montpellier, France Closed 13 Jan
International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade 2014 7 Jul Brisbane Closed 31 Jan
World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling 8 Jul Vilnius, Lithuania Open 31 Mar
Society for Conservation Biology Oceania Section 9 Jul Suva, Fiji Open 7 Mar Read the rest of this entry »

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How to make the most of a conference

5 09 2013

conferenceHaving just attended two major international conferences back-to-back (ICCB 2013 in Baltimore, USA and INTECOL 2013 in London, UK), I thought it might be a good idea to proffer some advice for those who are relatively new to the conference carousel. Having attended some larger number raised to the power of another conferences since I started this science gig, I think I’ve figured out a few definitely do-s, and positively don’t-s.

Some might argue that the scientific conference is a thing of the past. Now with super-fast internet, Twitter, open-access, Skype and video conference calls, why would we need to travel half way around the planet to sit day after day in some stuffy room to listen to some boring snippets of half-finished research? Why indeed would I get jet-lagged, spend a sizeable chunk of my research grant and emit a bucket-load of carbon just to listen to some boring old farts tell me the same thing they’ve been doing for the last 20 years?

If that were all conferences were about, I would never attend another for the rest of my career. Thankfully, that’s not why we go.

Yes, it’s easy to go online these days and see what your colleagues are up to (and if they don’t have a good online profile, they almost don’t exist these days). It’s also easier and easier to download important papers from almost anyone and in almost any journal. So clearly conferences are not primarily about finding out what research is being done; in fact, I argue that that’s not their role at all.

The most important aspect of a conference are the social events. Yes, the social events.

That might sound like a joke, but I’m dreadfully serious. Read the rest of this entry »


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