Charting A Course For A Successful Research Career

This guide helps a researcher plan and work on a number of important activities that complement the research record in order to optimize a research career and outlines the major points needed to formulate a career plan.

Not that long ago there were fairly clear divisions between researchers at different stages throughout their career, starting with doctoral students then progressing to postdoctoral workers and finishing with academic staff. However, more recently the term Early Career Researcher (ECR) has been introduced partly as a response to their growing importance which has been reflected by their increased respect and status shown by national, international and funding bodies. There are several common features of an ECR’s job including the need to establish a professional identity and develop into an independent researcher, competing for grants and increasing one’s output of research publications; this book offers proven practical advice to help ECRs kick-start a successful academic career. With advice on: Choosing research topics Making best use of a Research Supervisor/Mentor Developing your research writing Getting published: journals and books Writing a research grant/fellowship Becoming a supervisor Becoming a teacher, and Developing your career This guide will help academics at the start of their career no matter what discipline they are engaged in... Arts, Humanities, Sciences or Social Sciences. For example, in sciences and engineering, ECRs are commonly part of a large research team and often have to work in collaborative groups; requiring strong interpersonal skills but can lead to tension in the interaction with one’s supervisor or mentor. In contrast, in the arts and humanities and perhaps the social sciences, an ECR is more likely to be an independent scholar with a requirement to work alone, leading to a different type of relationship (but not necessarily any less stressful) with one’s supervisor or mentor. Using case studies from across the subject areas to illustrate key points and give suitable examples this vital guide will help all early career academics.

Written for advanced undergraduate students, postgraduate students planning theses and dissertations and other early career researchers, Designing and Managing Your Research Project helps you successfully plan and complete your research project by showing the key skills that you will need. The book covers: " choosing research methods " developing research objectives " writing proposals " literature reviews " getting ethics approval " seeking funding " managing a project " software skills " working with colleagues and supervisors " communicating research findings " writing reports, theses and journal articles " careers in research. Designing and Managing Your Research Project includes lots of examples, case studies and practical exercises to help you learn the research skills you will need and also to help you complete crucial project tasks. A key feature is its user-friendly guidance on planning projects and accessing information from the Internet.

Success at seeking and gaining funding is now a vital component of building of a successful research career. The book sets out the case for why success at winning funding is so important, from both an institutional and individual researcher perspective. Primarily based on research funding available to researchers in the United Kingdom, the author explores in depth the main forms of research, research funding organizations, and modes of funding. The book takes researchers through the process of applying for funding, and suggests ways in which they can improve their chances of being successful. The book covers research funding in all the key areas: The sciences Life sciences Social sciences Arts and humanities And it also has a depth of coverage that will be useful to established researchers as well as those in the early stages of a research career.

This book offers faculty and leaders of academic institutions insights on issues surrounding faculty mentoring and how national and international co-mentoring networks can contribute to the success of their members. These networks help female faculty and faculty from traditionally marginalized groups to engage positively with their careers, to create supportive systems that help them navigate the often-difficult path of academia, and gain success in their research work and publications. The book discusses the international women’s network C-Y-F, which works across national and international boundaries, embracing women from five continents, diverse linguistic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, different generations and academic ranks. Contributions by authors from traditionally marginalized groups add to a better understanding of mentoring and co-mentoring from a variety of perspectives.

This book provides a clear and straightforward guide for all those seeking to conduct quantitative research in the field of education, using primary research data samples. While positioned as less powerful and somehow inferior, non-parametric tests can be very useful where the research can only be designed to accommodate data structure which is ordinal, or scale but violates a normality assumption, which is required for parametric tests. Non-parametric data are a staple of educational research, and as such, it is essential that educational researchers learn how to work with these data with confidence and rigour.

This book shows scientists how to apply their analysis and synthesis skills to overcoming the challenge of how to write, as well as what to write, to maximise their chances of publishing in international scientific journals. The book uses analysis of the scientific article genre to provide clear processes for writing each section of a manuscript, starting with clear ‘story’ construction and packaging of results. Each learning step uses practical exercises to develop writing and data presentation skills based on reader analysis of well-written example papers. Strategies are presented for responding to referee comments, and for developing discipline-specific English language skills for manuscript writing and polishing. The book is designed for scientists who use English as a first or an additional language, and for individual scientists or mentors or a class setting. In response to reader requests, the new edition includes review articles and the full range of research article formats, as well as applying the book’s principles to writing funding applications. Web support for this book is available at www.writeresearch.com.au

Providing a timely and much-needed resource on LTAs, the book helps readers recognize the importance and nature of teachers’ professional development, while also contributing to the process of educational change. In order to achieve a suitable level of educational and policy change, a research base for LTAs is called for. This book represents a step in the right direction, introducing readers to essential research on the central role of LTAs in language teachers’ development. Although pre-service and in-service education programs, to be found at government and/or private institutions, are of great value, it is impossible to prepare teachers for all the challenges they will face throughout their careers. In response, many professional associations also provide a wide range of professional development activities for their teacher members. The book will be of interest to language teachers, graduate students, teacher educators and researchers, educational leaders and policymakers, as well as teacher associations.