| Date |
Topic
& Discussion Leaders |
Readings: |
| 15
Sept. |
Publications,
the currency of professionalism; "publish or perish" Simard & Van de Bogert |
Required
Readings Clapham, P. 2005. Publish or perish. BioScience 55: 390-391. Lawrence, P.A. 2003. The politics of publication. Nature 422:259-261. McCuen, R.H. 2004. Whatever happened to publish or perish? Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management 130:269-270. Some additional articles of interest: Writing for the popular press Allen, M. 2005. A novel view of global warming. A review of State of Fear, by Michael Crichton. Nature 433:198. Mascaro, J. 2005. State of ignorance: Michael Crichton's call to arms. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 3: 131-131. Authorship Culliton, B.J. 1988. Authorship, data ownership examined. Science 242: 658. Writing quality; how to write. Knight, J.A. 2003. Clear as mud. Nature 423: 376-378. Day, R.A. How to write and publish a scientific paper. Oryx press, 4th edition, 1998. (available online through MadCat!) Harley, C.D.G, M.A. Hixon, and L.L. Levin. 2004. Scientific writing and publishing - a guide for students. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 85: 74-78. Rejections Cassey, P. and T.M. Blackburn. 2003. Publication rejection among ecologists. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18: 375-376. Cassey, P. and T.M. Blackburn. 2004. Publication and rejection among successful ecologists. BioScience 54: 234-239. Companario, J.M. 1993. Consolation for the scientist: sometimes it is hard to publish papers that are later highly cited. Social Studies of Science 23: 342-362. Impact factors: use and misuse. Adam, D. 2002. The counting house. Nature 415: 726-729. Duley, J.A. 2004. Tough lessons for survival in hard academic times. Nature 427: 13. Gannon, F. 2000. The impact of the impact factor. European Molecular Biology Organization Reports 1:293. Kokko, H. and W.J. Sutherland. 1999. What do impact factors tell us? Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 14: 382-384. Replies to Lawrence 2003. Nature 423:479-480. Social Responsibility Bradshaw, G.A. and M. Bekoff. 2001. Ecology and social responsibility: the re-embodiment of science. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 16: 460-465. |
| 22
Sept. |
Being
a reviewer. Levitt & Biggs |
Required
Readings 1) Curran-Everett, D. 1999. The Thrill Of The Paper, The Agony Of The Review: Part One. Science Next Wave, 10 September 1999. 2) Boss, J.M. And Eckert, S.H. 2005. Academic Scientists at Work: On Being a Manuscript Reviewer. Science Next Wave, 8 April 2005. 3) Riisgård, H.U. 2003. Misuse of the peer-review system: time for countermeasures? Marine Ecology Progress Series 258: 297–309. You may also want to look at the supplementary readings: 1) An example of the guidelines to reviewers of the ESA journals, and an example of the reviewer evaluation form for the journal Ecology (attached). 2) The scientific and ethical debate around a paper by Myers and Worm published in Nature vol 423 (p280-283) in 2003. On the basis of their results, major changes in marine policy for pelagic tuna have been advocated. However, many scientists have substantial concerns about Myers and Worm’s analyses, and believe they are misleading. Various articles related to this debate can be found at http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/PFRP/large_pelagics/large_pelagic_predators.html . The following forthcoming paper in Marine Policy addresses the analyses of Myers and Worm, as well as the issue of scientific debate, advocacy and responsibility: Polacheck,T. In press. Tuna longline catch rates in the Indian Ocean: Did industrial fishing result in a 90% rapid decline in the abundance of large predatory species? Marine Policy, forthcoming. 3) The ongoing discussion about the peer review system in MEPS. This includes various proposals for changes to the current peer-review system, and critiques of these proposals: http://www.int-res.com/discussion-forums/meps-discussion-forum-2/ Earlier articles in this discussion include article (3) in the above readings, as well as: * Riisgård, H.U. 2000. The peer-review system: time for re-assessment? MEPS 192: 305-313. * Riisgård, H.U. 2004. Peer review: journal articles versus research proposals MEPS 277: 301-309. A related article in MEPS deals with Quality in Science Publishing, including the ethics of reviewing and online publishing: *Browman, H.I. and Kirby, D.S. 2004. Quality in science publishing. Marine Ecology Progress Series 270: 265–287. A critique of the review process: Gura, T. 2002. Peer review, unmasked. News Feature. Nature 416: 258-260. |
| 29
Sept. |
Choosing
a research problem and
its pursuit Meadows & Gilroy |
1)
Medawar, P.B. 1979. Advice
to a Young Scientist. Harper & Roe. New York. [chapters 1-4 scanned, chapter 3 most pertinent to 9/29 discussion] 2) Loehle, C. 1990. A Guide to Increased Creativity in Research--Inspiration or Perspiration? Bioscience 40: 123 3) Weinberg, S. 2003. Four Golden Lessons. Nature 426: 389 4) Fisher's Research Tenets - a rich-text file (.rtf) (thanks to Steve) |
| 6 Oct |
Extramural
support: |
Required
Readings: 1) Kling, J. Funding Outside the Box. ScienceCareers.org. 16 July 2004. 2) Giles, J., A. von Bubnoff, I. Fuyuno, T. Gruener, V. Stephan, and D. Butler. 2005. The nightmare before funding. Nature 437: 308-311. Some additional articles of interest: (1) Austin, Jim. The federal trough: an exhaustive list of funding sources. ScienceCareers.org. 22 February 2002. (2) Barinaga, Marcia. 2000. Soft Money's Hard Realities. Science 289: 2024-2028. (3) Boss, J.M. Academic scientists at work: I can't believe they didn't like it! Part II - Grant Proposals. ScienceCareers.org. 12 December 2003. (4) Boss, J.M. Academic scientists as work: To fund or not to fund. ScienceCareers.org. 13 May 2005. |
| 13 Oct. |
Scientific
meetings: Presentations, interactions and
networking Fox & Weidel |
Required
Readings: Goldberg, M. and M. Wolfner. 2001. Another thing they never taught you in grad school: how to organize a scientific meeting. ScienceCareers.org. 11 May 2001. Agrawal, A. 2001. The all-important research talk: learning how to do it better. ScienceCareers.org. 1 June 2001. Parkinson, J. 2001. Make this the year that you improve your public speaking skills. ScienceCareers.org. 5 January 2001. Jensen, D. 2005. Tooling Up: More than just a job-seeking skill: Networking ability forecasts future career success. ScienceCareers.org. 18 February 2005. Burke, I. 2001. The national meetings: a primer on professional development and etiquette for graduate students (and others). The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America: 198-199. July 2001. Some additional articles of interest: Fiske, P. 2000. Advanced networking: six techniques for maintaining professional momentum. ScienceCareers.org. 2 June 2000. Jensen, D. 1998. A step-by-step protocol for networking, part two. ScienceCareers.org. 11 September 1998. Video: Olsen, R. Talking Science: the elusive art of the science talk. University of Southern California - Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies. (see Jim K. for video) |
| 20
Oct. |
No meeting (Sapelo course) | |
| 27
Oct. |
No meeting (Sapelo course) | |
| 3 Nov. |
Being
a graduate student, advisor-advisee relationships, etc. (JFK gone) Kuhman & Kamarainen |
Fiske, P. 1998. Dysfunctional
advisee-adviser relationships: methods for negotiating beyond
conflict. ScienceCareers.org. 24 April 1998. Dee, P. 2001. Your PhD boss: adversary or super-advisor? Part One. ScienceCareers.org. 15 June 2001. Dantley, Kathi A. 1998. Advisor vs. Mentor: Intervention in Competitive Science. ScienceCareers.org. 9 January 1998. |
| 10 Nov. |
Career
choices: Selecting
prospects and being selected Jones & Solomon |
Panel: Jim Kitchell; Bobbi Peckarsky; Emily Stanley; Jake Vander Zanden; Greg Sass; Julian Olden; Pieter Johnson |
| 17 Nov. |
Your
role as a scientist: Ivory
tower, agencies, NGO’s, good citizen or street fighter Lottig & Diebel |
Panel: Helen Sarakinos - River Alliance of Wisconsin; Jim Lorman - Edgewood College; Brian Weigel - Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Dale Robertson - US Geological Survey Handout: Matrix of pros and cons of various career choices (Word Document or pdf) |
| 24
Nov. |
No meeting
(Thanksgiving) |
|
| 1 Dec. |
Goals: The mix of personal,
practical, conflicts and crises Schmidt & Jensen |
Levine,
S. 2005. Mind
Matters: On Balance. ScienceCareers.org. 22 July
2005. Jacobs, J.A. and S.E. Winslow. 2004. Overworked faculty: Job Stresses and Family Demands. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 596: 104-129. Powell, K. 2005. Balancing Act. Nature 438: 390-391. |
| 8 Dec. |
Expectations:
Research, teaching
and service Rogers |
Recap of the semester - no new
readings... |
| 15 Dec |
DIALOG Greg Sass |
Greg Sass recounts his
experiences at the recent DIALOG
symposium. |