"Life in Academia never seemed livelier than in this humorous take on grant writing, academic dress codes and the many uses for lab coats. Follow the phenomenon known as PHD Comics in this fifth book collection of the popular online comic strip. What would happen if Newton tweeted? If TV 'Science' shows were more like real science? If research papers had a comment section? Also included are excerpts from the script of the recently released 'The PHD Movie' and author Jorge Cham's comics journal of his travels and his detention by the U.K. border police"--Amazon.com, viewed Feb. 27, 2012.

This textbook is a guide to success during the PhD trajectory. The first part of this book takes the reader through all steps of the PhD trajectory, and the second part contains a unique glossary of terms and explanation relevant for PhD candidates. Written in the accessible language of the PhD Talk blogs, the book contains a great deal of practical advice for carrying out research, and presenting one’s work. It includes tips and advice from current and former PhD candidates, thus representing a broad range of opinions. The book includes exercises that help PhD candidates get their work kick-started. It covers all steps of a doctoral journey in STEM: getting started in a program, planning the work, the literature review, the research question, experimental work, writing, presenting, online tools, presenting at one’s first conference, writing the first journal paper, writing and defending the thesis, and the career after the PhD. Since a PhD trajectory is a deeply personal journey, this book suggests methods PhD candidates can try out, and teaches them how to figure out for themselves which proposed methods work for them, and how to find their own way of doing things.

A doctoral dissertation is arguably the most important journey that students will embark upon in their professional careers, so smart travelers will want E. Alana James and Tracesea H. Slater’s Writing Your Doctoral Dissertation or Thesis Faster: A Proven Map to Success at their fingertips. James and Slater identify the key places and challenges that create extra stress during the dissertation process, and offer effective strategies and tools to address those challenges and ensure academic success. Their map walks readers through each step of the process, including: • determining the research topic, • choosing appropriate methods, • turning a hypothesis into a study, • completing a literature review, • writing and defending a proposal, • collecting and analyzing data, • writing up the study, and • ultimately defending the dissertation. Building on years of experience with doctoral students, the authors provide a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use tool that encourages student reflection; includes student stories, hints, and writing tips; and provides end-of-chapter checklists and ideas for incorporating social media. With the proven techniques and guidance of this indispensable book, doctoral students will finish their thesis or dissertation—faster!

Little is know about the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh (CHT), an area of approximately 5,089 square miles in southeastern Bangladesh. It is inhabited by indigenous peoples, including the Bawm, Sak, Chakma, Khumi Khyang, Marma, Mru, Lushai, Uchay (also called Mrung, Brong, Hill Tripura), Pankho, Tanchangya and Tripura (Tipra), numbering over half a million. Originally inhabited exclusively by indigenous peoples, the Hill Tracts has been impacted by national projects and programs with dire consequences. This book describes the struggle of the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts region to regain control over their ancestral land and resource rights. From sovereign nations to the limited autonomy of today, the report details the legal basis of the land rights of the indigenous peoples and the different tools employed by successive administrations to exploit their resources and divest them of their ancestral lands and territories. The book argues that development programs need to be implemented in a culturally appropriate manner to be truly sustainable, and with the consent and participation of the peoples concerned. Otherwise, they only serve to push an already vulnerable people into greater impoverishment and hardship. The devastation wrought by large-scale dams and forestry policies cloaked as development programs is succinctly described in this report, as is the population transfer and militarization. The interaction of all these factors in the process of assimilation and integration is the background for this book, analyzed within the perspective of indigenous and national law, and complemented by international legal approaches. The book concludes with an updateon the developments since the signing of the Peace Accord between the Government of Bangladesh and the Jana Sanghati Samiti (JSS) on December 2, 1997.

On May 21, 2010, Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt posted the following provocative questions online: “Can an algorithm edit a journal? Can a library exist without books? Can students build and manage their own learning management platforms? Can a conference be held without a program? Can Twitter replace a scholarly society?” As recently as the mid-2000s, questions like these would have been unthinkable. But today serious scholars are asking whether the institutions of the academy as they have existed for decades, even centuries, aren’t becoming obsolete. Every aspect of scholarly infrastructure is being questioned, and even more importantly, being hacked. Sympathetic scholars of traditionally disparate disciplines are canceling their association memberships and building their own networks on Facebook and Twitter. Journals are being compiled automatically from self-published blog posts. Newly minted PhDs are forgoing the tenure track for alternative academic careers that blur the lines between research, teaching, and service. Graduate students are looking beyond the categories of the traditional CV and building expansive professional identities and popular followings through social media. Educational technologists are “punking” established technology vendors by rolling out their own open source infrastructure. Here, in Hacking the Academy, Daniel J. Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt have gathered a sampling of the answers to their initial questions from scores of engaged academics who care deeply about higher education. These are the responses from a wide array of scholars, presenting their thoughts and approaches with a vibrant intensity, as they explore and contribute to ongoing efforts to rebuild scholarly infrastructure for a new millennium.

A journalist's obsession brings her to a remote island off the California coast, home to the world's most mysterious and fearsome predators--and the strange band of surfer-scientists who follow them Susan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon Islands, their dark fins swirling around a small motorboat in a documentary. These sharks were the alphas among alphas, some longer than twenty feet, and there were too many to count; even more incredible, this congregation was taking place just twenty-seven miles off the coast of San Francisco. In a matter of months, Casey was being hoisted out of the early-winter swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast Farallon Island-dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the "devil's teeth." There she joined Scot Anderson and Peter Pyle, the two biologists who bunk down during shark season each fall in the island's one habitable building, a haunted, 135-year-old house spackled with lichen and gull guano. Two days later, she got her first glimpse of the famous, terrifying jaws up close and she was instantly hooked; her fascination soon yielded to obsession-and an invitation to return for a full season. But as Casey readied herself for the eight-week stint, she had no way of preparing for what she would find among the dangerous, forgotten islands that have banished every campaign for civilization in the past two hundred years. The Devil's Teeth is a vivid dispatch from an otherworldly outpost, a story of crossing the boundary between society and an untamed place where humans are neither wanted nor needed.

"A collection of the first five years of 'Piled Higher and Deeper,' a comic strip about life (or lack thereof) in graduate school, as it originally appeared in Stanford University's 'The Stanford Daily Newspaper' and online at phd.stanford.edu."--Amazon.com.