Research scientists play a pivotal role in society. Their passion for science will drive them forward, leading to new discoveries that will ultimately make the world a better place. Unfortunately, as the professional environment becomes more and more competitive, research scientists today cannot just rely on technical knowledge to carve successful careers. Besides technical skills, they will need to acquire other skills, such as how to communicate their science to the outside world. A Survival Guide for Research Scientists is a one-stop-shop that will help you to develop those core skills not often taught at school or university. The book has been written by an author with more than 20 years of scientific research experience (across different scientific disciplines). She has not only been a research scientist but also a writer, a consultant, a sole-trader and a project manager. A Survival Guide for Research Scientists takes on a holistic approach in order to help you pave the way for success. As such, it features practical guidelines on how to: • conduct your scientific research (how to: do literature review, design experiments, adopt best practice, ensure health and safety, etc.). • write and edit (reports, bid proposals, peer review publications, etc). • interact with the outside world (be a team leader, manage a project, network, deal with difficult people, do presentations, organise meetings, etc.). • look after your career (and get your dream job). • look after yourself (and how to manage stress). • look for a job (develop your CV, prepare for interviews, etc.). • become self-employed (and achieve business success). • deal with redundancy (and move forward in life, etc) Whatever your scientific background may be, this book is the perfect accompaniment, to guide you at every stage of your career.

During the course of Dutch physicist and Spinoza Prize–winner Ad Lagendijk’s long and influential career, he has published more than 300 articles, supervised over thirty doctoral dissertations, and given countless presentations and conference addresses. Over the years, his incisive consultations, tips, and rules for scientific study have proven themselves so beneficial to the emerging young scientists under his watch that he has been inundated with requests for a written version. Aimed primarily at undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students in the natural sciences, Survival Guide for Scientists presents Lagendijk’s practical how-to advice on essential topics such as the foundations for writing scientific texts, presenting data and research information, and writing and reading collegial e-mails. Each section is organized by a collection of short rules, outlined and numbered in a logical order as self-explanatory pieces of information—allowing the reader the freedom to study any number of them in any desired order. These concrete guidelines are all supplemented by an extensive index that forms a reference text of its own, with easy navigation—securing a place for the Survival Guide for Scientists on the shelves of scientific scholars and students alike.

Everything you ever need to know about making it as a scientist. Despite your graduate education, brainpower, and technical prowess, your career in scientific research is far from assured. Permanent positions are scarce, science survival is rarely part of formal graduate training, and a good mentor is hard to find. In A Ph.D. Is Not Enough!, physicist Peter J. Feibelman lays out a rational path to a fulfilling long-term research career. He offers sound advice on selecting a thesis or postdoctoral adviser; choosing among research jobs in academia, government laboratories, and industry; preparing for an employment interview; and defining a research program. The guidance offered in A Ph.D. Is Not Enough! will help you make your oral presentations more effective, your journal articles more compelling, and your grant proposals more successful. A classic guide for recent and soon-to-be graduates, A Ph.D. Is Not Enough! remains required reading for anyone on the threshold of a career in science. This new edition includes two new chapters and is revised and updated throughout to reflect how the revolution in electronic communication has transformed the field.

This book provides young scientists, from physicists through to sociologists, the counsel and tools that are needed to be their own agents and planners, to survive and succeed, hopefully even thrive in science. Making a good career based on peer-reviewed science means navigating many stressful phases from graduate school through to permanent employment. Performing artists pay agents to help them in this effort. In effect, this book is designed to allow you to act as your own agent. You are counseled to analyze yourself deeply to know clearly what you want and whether you can live with it, how to make career choices and what you should then keep in mind, when to fight and when to yield. The unwritten rules of the ?science game? are explained, including how to become published and known, the pitfalls of peer review and how to evade them, papers and posters, job interviews and getting your science funded. Interspersed with this are illustrative anecdotes and a fair amount of humor. While the book is aimed at young scientists, from graduate students and beyond, more senior scientists will benefit from seeing the world from the point of view of rising scientists and become aware of the preoccupations of people in a system which has changed much from when the present senior scientists were rather younger.

"Fear not, young PhD student, Bodil Holst's Scientific paper writing: a survival guide comes to the rescue." - Chemistry World "Book of the Month" review. This book provides an entertaining, informative and easy to read guide for PhD students and others on how to write and publish a scientific paper. The book is illustrated by Jorge Cham, creator of PhD Comics (www.phdcomics.com). The full Chemistry World review including a podcast about the book with a Nature Chemistry Editor can be found here https: //www.chemistryworld.com/review/scientific-paper-writing-a-survival-guide/1010246.article

What would happen if you fell into a Black Hole? Black holes are found throughout the universe. They can be microscopic. They can be billions of times larger than our Sun. They are dark on the outside but not on the inside. Anything that enters them can never escape, and yet they contain nothing at all. In Black Hole Survival Guide physicist and novelist Janna Levin takes you on a journey into a black hole, explaining what would happen to you and why. In the process you'll come to see how their mysteries contain answers to some of the most profound questions ever asked about the nature of our universe. 'Astrophysics at its sexiest...hugely enjoyable' Sunday Times

Focusing on developing practical R skills rather than teaching pure statistics, Dr. Kurt Taylor Gaubatz’s A Survivor’s Guide to R provides a gentle yet thorough introduction to R. The book is structured around critical R tasks, and focuses on applied knowledge, rather than abstract concepts. Gaubatz’s easy-to-read approach helps students with little or no background in statistics or programming to develop real-world R skills through straightforward coverage of R objects and functions. Focusing on real-world data, the challenges of dataset construction, and the use of R’s powerful graphing tools, the guide is written in an accessible, sympathetic, even humorous style that ensures students acquire functional R skills they can use in their own projects and carry into their work beyond the classroom.