One of my favorite researchers is Chandra Sripada. Sripada is a professor of both philosophy and psychiatry. My research also crosses the humanities-science divide(s). So, I often wonder how to replicate a multi-disciplinary career like Sripada’s. A look at Sripada’s CV reveals a career path involving multiple advanced degrees, internships/residencies, etc. If you are like me, then you (or your partner) might want a more efficient path to a career. In this post, I share advice about how to obtain multi-disciplinary training from philosophy graduate programs. Continue reading Multi-disciplinary Philosophy PhD Programs
Category: Grad School
4 Steps Toward A 40-50 Hour Work Week
A handful of people have asked me about my daily and weekly work routine. Some people just want to know what philosophers do all day. Others are looking for ways to impose structure on their work week. In this post, I will share four (probably predictable) steps that have increased my productivity and lowered my stress.
Writing Bloopers
Early in graduate school, I attended a writing workshop that began with a Writing Bloopers activity: in small groups, outline a really bad paper on a topic with which we’re all familiar. Unsurprisingly, the activity was fun. But the activity was also instructive. I learned how some of my writing habits can annoy my readers. And more importantly, I realized just how easy it is to write badly.
1. Modified Writing Bloopers Activity
I sometimes wonder if the Writing Bloopers activity would work with high school or college students. When I pitch the idea to other teachers, they are sometimes skeptical. The skeptics worry that the students do not sufficiently understand what makes writing good or bad. After all, students sometimes turn in papers that contain comically bad writing.
I take the skeptic’s point. However, I wonder if the activity could be modified to work for less experienced writers. For example, perhaps I could present examples of bad writing and let students explain how they are bad. I find that this works well for teaching students about arguments. So it perhaps it would work for teaching students about writing as well. If you’ve done a Writing Bloopers activity, then feel free to share your experience in the comments.
2. A List of Writing Bloopers
Here’s a (growing) list of writing bloopers that could be used for the activity. Feel free to add writing bloopers in the comments.
Introduction Bloopers
“From the beginning of time, philosophers have argued about abortion.”
“Since the beginning of time, there has been American history.”
“Since the dawn of time, man has wondered whether computers can think.”
“Since the dawn of time the sun has risen in the East. (Well, that first dawn? The sun may have risen all over at once, but after that things settled down.)”
“Throughout history, man has wrestled with the concepts of cyclic versus linear time.”
“Since the invention of the Nintendo game controller in the 1980’s, scientists have been increasingly worried that computers will take over the world…”
“Throughout the ages, women have been the cause of trouble for men. I, personally, have seen this.”
Continue reading Writing Bloopers
Why Make an Academic Social Network Profile (and a Website)?
Reality check: if I am not automatically notified of your research, I’ll almost certainly never know about it. And if I can’t find you online, you might as well not exist beyond your classroom, office, or lab. So if you’re an academic who wants people to actually read your work or even know that you exist, then read the following 300 words. They explain how to make your research followable and visible. It’s really, really easy. Don’t believe me? Check out the two videos to watch me do it in less than 15 minutes. So stop making excuses. In the words of the great scholar, Shia Lebouf:
Continue reading Why Make an Academic Social Network Profile (and a Website)?
Research Questions & Mental Shortcuts: A Warning
Daniel Kahneman talks extensively about how we make reasoning errors because we tend to use mental shortcuts. One mental shortcut is ‘substitution‘. Substitution is what we do when we (often unconsciously) answer an easier question than the one being asked. I find that I sometimes do this in my own research. For instance, when I set out to answer the question, “How can X be rational?” I sometimes end up answering easier questions like, “How does X work?”. In an effort to avoid such mistakes, I will (1) explain the question substitution error, (2) give an example of how we can distinguish between questions, (3) give a personal example of the substitution error, and (4) say what we can do about it.
1. Substitution
In case you’re not familiar with Kahnemen’s notion of ‘substitution’, here is some clarification. In short, substitution is this: responding to a difficult question by (often unintentionally) answering a different, easier question. People use this mental shortcut all the time. Here are some everyday instances:
| Difficult Question | Easier Question |
|---|---|
| How satisfied are you with your life? | What is my mood right now? |
| Should I believe what my parents believe? | Can I believe what my parents believe? |
| What are the merits/demerits of that woman who is running for president? | What do I remember people in my community saying about that woman? |
For further discussion of mental shortcuts and substitution, see Part 1 of Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow (2012).
Now, how does this mental shortcut apply to research? Continue reading Research Questions & Mental Shortcuts: A Warning
4 Student Feedback Policies
If you have a lot of students, then you can spend nearly all of your time on student feedback. Here are a four policies designed to make my feedback workflow more sustainable. Continue reading 4 Student Feedback Policies
5 Email Workflow Policies
Like most technology, I love and hate email. In this post, I’ll list some policies designed to make my relationship with email more about love and less about hate. Continue reading 5 Email Workflow Policies