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This is a re-post. Various readers and clients are looking ahead to the new jobs they are starting in the fall, and I want you all to have a very firm handle on the nature of a tenure track research … Continue reading
Category Archives: Teaching and Research Statements
When writing job letters clients often struggle to understand the distinction between their dissertation TOPIC and their dissertation CONTRIBUTION. In the first dissertation paragraph you talk about the content of your dissertation–main argument, methodology, findings. In the second paragraph you … Continue reading
When discussing teaching in the teaching paragraph of your letter, one of the temptations is to tell a chronological tale of how you taught as an adjunct here and an adjunct there, and taught this class in Fall 2012 and … Continue reading
For the next few months I will be posting the “best of the best” Professor is in blog posts on the job market, for the benefit of all those girding their loins for the 2013-2014 market. Today’s post was originally … Continue reading
Faithful readers know that I have several posts on different kinds of writing tics that plague many academic writers. These include list addiction, dyad addiction, and cheap adjectives. There are two more writing tics that I’ve come to identify: gerund … Continue reading
An expanded and updated version of this post can now be found in Chapter 25 of my new book, The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job. I am keeping a shortened version here, … Continue reading
Do not use the words “unique” or “burgeoning” in any of your job documents. They are painfully overused. The first is just trite. The second is over-dramatic. That is all. … Continue reading
For some reason people love to include undergraduate student feedback in the teaching paragraph of their job letters, and that feedback usually looks like this (from an actual letter): “Former students have consistently told me that I give helpful feedback … Continue reading
Today’s post is a Guest Post from a faithful reader and client on the tenure track, and also on the job market, who discovered some interesting points about “assessment” while she was at some interviews this year. More and more … Continue reading
Today I was doing an interview bootcamp and came upon yet another #Facepalm Fail of the academic interview. The #Facepalm Fail is: “How would you mentor graduate students?” Actually, this might not rise to the level of a full-size #Facepalm … Continue reading