Philip Clayton on the Academic Job Hunt

Prof. Philip Clayton tells it like it is

Professor Clayton, Professor of Philosophy and Religion at CGU and Ingraham Professor of Theology at the Claremont School of Theology, kindly joined our group to answer some tough questions about the job market for academics.

To learn more about Professor Clayton, be sure to check out his website, Clayton's Emergings.

Would you tell us a little about yourself?

In college, I dropped out, traveled around Europe for a while, did my first Master's, worked for a world hunger organization. I had an idea for my dissertation and wrote it out - I had a 200 page dissertation in hand when I came back to Yale.

They looked at it and said, "Your topic's no good."

"But I have 200 pages!" I said. I call that my "Black Monday."

I've been interdisciplinary from the beginning. I'm in the Philosophy Department at CGU, And the Religion and Philosophy Department at CST.

Before I begin my talk, let me mention this: The days of casting a wide net over the job market and picking the best job for you are over. You have to be specific and you have to be prepared.

* * * * *

“The academic job market is very rough. I advocate that you get very specific about the kind of job you want and create a paper trail for that kind of job.”

- Prof. Clayton, giving the main thesis of his talk

* * * * *

What kind of paper trail do you have in mind?

A portfolio on paper that shows you're more qualified than the other candidates. You create that paper trail with your CV.

Your CV should include:

• Areas of specialization
• Areas of competence
• Publications
• Papers
• Teaching experience
• Community organization or involvement

Those six phrases at the top are really crucial. All of the headings should show the kind of job you're interested in, to show you're the ideal candidate for that kind of job.

Then, you substantiate what you've said through transcripts, letters of rec, etc.

* * * * *

“Whatever you claim you're the best at - you substantiate that through your CV, transcripts, and letters of rec.”

- Prof. Clayton, on making an ideal application

* * * * *

The person who looks on paper to be the best person for the job is going to get the interview.

How competitive is it? Can you give an example?

I was recently on a hiring committee. We received 85 applications and chose 8 to talk to at AAR (Religion's national conference). Of those 8, we brought 2 to campus.

Gulp.

That's why tailoring your CV to a specific job is so important. It's all about fantasizing your way into the future and creating a paper trail for it.

What if you'd be happy with a multitude of positions?

It's so competitive, you need to take a targeted approach. Find the school you want to apply to, then find out the things they really need covered. What are the courses or areas they really need you to teach?

You can change the order of the items on your resume - the areas of competency, for example - to fit the needs of the school you're applying to.

What is the market looking for? You need to get a sense of the market and mold yourself to it.

Are there templates for a good academic job CV?

First, think of the kind of school you want to teach at. For example, let's say you want to teach at Swarthmore College. You'd go to their website and go look at the CVs of each of the faculty members, especially the junior faculty.

Look at the types of formatting they use, the skills they highlight, the types of journals they've published in.

(for a sample of a Swarthmore faculty profile, see here.)

For someone who has non-academic work experience, but little teaching experience, will this hinder a person's ability to get an academic job?

Yes. Academics can be snotty, its best to downplay nonacademic jobs.

People entering the field can be very idealistic, you can think you're going to turn the academy upside down. But to get a job, you have to play into their categories to get hired.

Look at the journals for your field. What are people getting hired in?

There's a ballpark you need to know in advance. You do want to keep this in mind when you pick your dissertation topic.

* * * * *

“No lover is more intimate than your dissertation topic. If you don't love that topic, its going to be really rough."

- Prof. Clayton, on strategically choosing your dissertation topic

* * * * *

Haha! That analogy is fun to play with over a beer some time.

(Note, for more great dissertation analogies, see the notes for our session with Prof. Lori Anne Ferrell, who likened writing a dissertation to being in love)

To give you an idea of the state out there - NIH funding for the sciences reached 30 billion in 2008. For the humanities - 350 million. We are seriously underfunding the humanities.

Throughout Europe and North America, we're seeing the crash of the humanities.

In a tough market like this, if you want to get in, you plan in advance.

I want to start preparing job applications for my field's national conference, which happens 5 months before I graduate. I don't want to skimp on job apps, but I also need to make finishing my dissertation my priority. How do I have time to do both?

You make time. This is good practice for what happens when have the job - as a professor you will constantly be multitasking. You might as well start now.

That sense of being hung out to dry, the dissertation writing depression, you can overcome that. Say to yourself, "I'm doing one of these other projects in the afternoon." Give yourself time for the dissertation, time for applications, time for other projects.

Your breakdown for a typical day might be 2/3 straight writing for the dissertation, 1/3 for other projects, which could include working on your job application material.

How long should the CV be?

Line by line on your CV, you need to show that you're doing more than the other applicants.

So its really important to put a lot of info on there. At the same time, if it's B.S., they'll see right through it.

The people on the hiring committee want to see pages - no more of that "a resume must be 1 page only" business.

First you pad your CV so that you can get at least 2 pages of paper....If you have a book review published, that's a real line, include that. Then as you get more experience and publications over time, you can drop off the weaker stuff.

I have very limited teaching experience. If I was to get an interview, do I focus on my non-academic work experience or should I focus mainly on my research and conference presentations?

Most definitely not the non-academic work experience. Focus on the conferences and presentations.

There are non-academic positions that could still support your application. For example, if you have community organizing experience, admin experience running a program of any kind.

I own my own business. Is that something I should mention?

Yes! Place that under the Admin Experience heading. Then you tell your letter writers, "Could you mention my business and how it fits?" Then, in your cover letter, "with my extensive experience...I would be able to...fundraising, etc."

A lot of people would see that and go, "Snap! Future Department Chair!"

Spin everything in a way that puts you directly in line with their needs.

What if you want to get more research experience? How do you go about it?

Approach the professor that you're interested in working with. Say, "I'd like to worth with you on your research. I'm really interested in what you do. I have 5 hours a week, I'd like to work with you on your project." You might even offer free services for a semester in exchange for letters of rec.

Once you get in, make yourself indispensable. You may get notes, co-author credit, etc.

You might even offer to run errands, drive for the visiting professors. The students who do the driving get the e-mails, contact information.

Take the initiative, do the networking.

How do I get publications?

Send a note, "I'm willing to do a book review for such-and-such, it's right in my area."

Being a book review editor is a thankless job. They're happy when you come by and offer to help them.

Go to your professors, ask.

Does getting published in popular publications (as opposed to academic journals) count?

That's changing. Popular publications are notable because they are read - less than 10 people read the average academic article.

Remember, online journals also count.


What exactly does "postdoc" mean? Is it something you only do if you can't get a teaching job?

A postdoc is a research position, usually assisting some other professor.

A postdoc is excellent. Hard to get, especially in the humanities. In the sciences though, now that is the way to go! What a great thing to have.

A CV places your most recent activities at the top and moves backwards. Imagine having a postdoc listed first.

Now, this isn't relevant for most people in the humanities. But if you win a 2 year postdoc, you still keep applying for tenure positions. You can always resign from the postdoc, so keep hunting.

Getting a postdoc does not at all look like "Oh, couldn't get a tenure job." Not at all.


Can we talk about adjuncting? It feels like they're just using you, it's slavery.

That classroom experience, it's holy for me. That time of being with your students is yours. You're learning so much during that time you're in the classroom. And each time you do it, you're cutting your hours of prep.

It's way up there from simply TAing.

Adjuncting is important. But if you have that first step and you've taught some classes and you want to stop to finish the dissertation, that's fine. I'm worried about the people with no teaching.

How do you get into adjuncting? I'm not interested in getting a tenure track job.

Get that first class. Once you have that, you're good.

Do you have friends in the department? Find out how it works. Is it only teaching the intro course? Then your task is to show your love of teaching, that you're ready to teach intro, that you have a calling for undergraduate teaching.

Who is the chair? What are her interests? Ask yourself, "How can I convince the chair to let me in?"

You've done a CV that says the thing you love best is teaching Introduction to (Insert). Now bring it to life.

A standard liberal arts teaching load:

1 class a year in your area of specialization
1 intro class a semester
1 2nd year class
+ something vaguely in your area

So if you don't love teaching, you're gonna die...

Remember, on paper - you're thrilled to be teaching that intro course.

What if you're really interested in research?

Then you should look for a research position, or something in industry.

Pure research positions are the hardest to get.

It can be just brutal, just brutal. The total nerd, she's the one who gets the position. She's the most brilliant in her field, she gets the research professorship.

It's all looking so bleak!

I'm here to talk realism with you. This is all true, but at the same time, I want you to know that I love being in this field.


What kind of mistakes do people make in interviews?

Often, they may appear like they're not very menschlich, not very human. For example, I once saw a candidate who only made eye contact with the other men in the room, disregarding the women. Afterwards, one of the women on the committee said, "I wouldn't hire this guy from a dead body."

Another common mistake is during the interview, you sit there and reel off the list of your dissertation chapters ("in the first chapter I argue this....and then I argue that...and in the second chapter I argue this....and then...."). You'll bore them.

What they want to see is a passion for teaching.

We've all heard about people being on the market for 5 years. How long before its time to give up?

We can't control how long it takes. We can only control what we put forward.

Usually, economics determines when you'll stop. You'll need to ask yourself, is it really worth it any longer? The feedback from the people in your life will also give you guidance.

You'll need to ask yourself, "Can I imagine myself happy anywhere else?"

A part of this is living for your dreams. It's like trying out for the Olympics.

Do you have to be willing to go anywhere for a job?

Yes.

What if you can't leave this area?

Then market yourself for getting your foot in the door as an adjunct at a place nearby. Once you get in, make yourself invaluable.

Run meetings, start a student club and offer to be their advisor, do everything.

Does being an adjunct mean that they tend not to hire you?

Depends on the place. Again, make yourself invaluable, that's your best shot at getting something more.

I'm thinking about getting into grant writing. Would that make me a more attractive hire?

Yes. If you have received any grants, put them on your CV, along with the amount. Did you get a GSC travel grant? Put it down. A CGU Dissertation grant? Definitely put it down.

Are there many schools hiring people who haven't finished yet?

Depends. What do your letters of rec say? This is a hot dissertation, she'll be competitive when she goes on the market, you have a chance now to snap her up. Ask your prof to say, "It is virtually certain that she will finish by... I have seen the draft and she's in her final revision stage."

If you're planning on graduating in May, have the draft in January. My advice, go on the job market one year early so that you can make all your mistakes that year and it doesn't matter.

If you're planning on graduating Fall of '09 - go on the market Fall of '08. Apply, get your letters together.

And then if you land a job, great, you'll make sure you finish that dissertation in time.

After graduation, what if there's a gap where you don't have an academic affiliation? Can you still get published?

Yes. In that case, you list the city where you live.



We really enjoyed having Prof. Clayton visit and hope he comes again to the workshop soon.

Mary Martin: Tales from the Stacks

Mary Martin, Librarian Extraordinaire

At our recent meeting, Mary Martin, Reference and Instruction Librarian for Business and Law, came to talk about ways dissertating students can make the most of the resources available at Honnold/Mudd and beyond.

What do you specialize in at the library?

My real speciality/love is government documents. I'm the Business / Law / Government librarian.

I also spend a lot of time at the reference desk and have handled students at the dissertation level a lot.

Recently, there's been a whole bunch of new librarians at the library.

You know, I'm afraid that I'll be bugging a librarian if I ask for help...

As doctoral students, you're after complete depth in a topic. You need to know everything that exists about your topic that you can find.

The most important thing for you to know is that we are here to help you (hooray!).

If I had a hundred bucks for every student who says, "I'm sorry to bother you..." You're not bothering us. That's why we're here.

Honnold never seems to have the books I need. How does the library decide what books to get? Can we make suggestions?

Faculty, classes, students--that's how we know what to get. We will get everything you want, no questions asked. We try to be open to purchasing books that a student is working on. Faculty show up the third week in August and tell us what books will be needed for their classes....it would be nice to know earlier.

So yes, tell us what you're working on, and we might be able to buy some of the books. Send an e-mail to the librarian, not the web mailer.

KGI, sometimes they want reports that cost $5,000 each. We can't quite do that. But we'll try.

It makes us sad in the library to hear students can't get what they need.


How can I make the most of Honnold?

Your first stop - visit the librarian in your subject area. Particularly when you're writing the proposal. How unique is your topic? You can look up full text dissertations in your topic, at least back to 1996.

For people who graduated from CGU, you'll have access to paper copies of their dissertations.

If you're doing Literature Searches - you'll use WorldCat. You can do a comprehensive lit search and see beyond what we have.

Visit the librarian specialist for your field and tell them about your topic.

What's happening over at Honnold? I heard they're moving the books and closing Denison?

The library is in a real state of change right now. The library is under new directorship - John McDonald. He's really committed to opening up the library.You may have noticed that there are no entry gates any more. The building itself will undergo a big transformation, I don't know when. This will include a cafe, a copy center downstairs, and hopefully, a 24 hour study space. That depends on whether or not they can secure the bottom floor for it. If they can secure a floor, they can staff it.

It's been mandated that the first floor must be cleared. To make room for the cafe and other services, they will me moving the journals off site. So there's an embargo period on journals right now - all bound ones are moving to storage. But they'll be retrievable.

The college that uses the library the most is CGU and we know you use the journals. Don't worry, the librarians are on this. I think there will be a 24 hour turnaround time for getting journals.

In June, they will possibly be closing all of the other library branches, including Denison. Nobody really knows for sure yet what is going to happen.

I had to look at medical journals for my dissertation, and I actually found it easier to go to UCLA, UCSD, or Loma Linda, where they have a medical school, to find them.

You can check ILL, Science Direct, Med. If you press a button on the article page it will immediately load into an ILL form. You'll get it in 7-10 days.

You can't request a whole issue because of copyright but you can get an article at a time.

I get confused trying to use the databases...there are so many. Wilson OmniFile, Lexus Nexus...they say there's no article for my search when I know there is. You can't search all the databases at once, can you?

Not yet. That's called a federated search engine - they're working on buying one right now. Vendors of the big interfaces are all competing with each other to sign contracts with these journals. It's a very competitive environment. That's why you need to check in more than one database to make sure you've covered all the possible material.

For example, JSTOR - there's nothing more recent that 4 years ago on JSTOR. Many students do not know this.

Google Scholar - it's imperfect. First of all, it's all over the place. It's not as exact as the databases with controlled indexing.

On the library home page, we list Databases by Subject. Some lists aren't completely up to date.

At the library, we've had a lot of changes with IT too. We lost the people who updated the webpage when IT moved out of the library to CUC. So this can affect the data on the website.

For an ILL request, if you think they've made a mistake, go in to the library and tell someone.

Remember Link+ and our system are all linked, but ILL is not. So if you get books through ILL, they won't appear on your list of books that you've taken out. You need to log into ILL separately to get to that list. This means when you hit "renew all" to renew your library books, it will not automatically renew anything you took out through ILL.

Where do I go for more help?

E-mail the librarian for your field. Not all of our reference librarians work at the front desk. Sometimes services desk answers librarian chat. They're not all trained in all specialties. So there can be spotty service at the desk, but it is something they are working on.

I always get lost in Honnold. What's the deal with the "new" library, the Mudd side, the Honnold side?

Over the years we've expanded into so many nooks and crannies. No one can find anything over there. The Honnold building was build in 1950. Then the Mudd building was build in 1970, and it had open space in the center of it. That's where the movable stacks are today. In 1987, they connected the two buildings. That's what lead to the bizarre entrance and lobby.

What's the secret to getting a study carrel?

Study carrels are very popular. On the first day of the semester, they open, and they're all taken in a couple of hours.

There used to be study rooms that could be used by graduate students, but faculty need them now.

I use Zotero. There's a Refworks export on BLAIS, but they didn't have the PDF button anymmore. When I use BLAIS, I have to enter my student ID number. Once I graduate, will I lose the PDFs?

The company in this case is ProQuest. E-mail me about this issue. Sometimes we can go back to the vendors and they might change it.

Once you graduate, you can purchase a card for $35 to check out books at the library.

Remote access to the database is out of our control - its the vendors.

I'm leaving for a research trip soon. Any advice for talking to librarians from institutions where I'm not a student?

Emphasize that you're there to use their great expertise but not take up too much of their time. Most librarians will be happy to work with you and glad to have outside scholars interested in their collections.

Q + A with a recent CGU grad

This week we had a special guest speaker, Stephanie McKinney, a Ph.D. in History who specializes in modern war, history, and genocide memorialization. She finished at CGU in December. Her dissertation is titled “Speaking of the Dead: Reconstructing Identity in Post Genocide Rwanda."

Here are some of the questions from the group that Stephanie answered.

Q: Is there any advice you wish someone had told you about the process before you began?

A: “The final stages are really hard," said Stephanie, "I wish someone had said, 'It is not pretty and it sucks and it will be the most humiliating thing in your life.'"

Tanya mentioned how she's noticed that many people she's talked to about their dissertations are all in therapy. The room quickly chimed in about how great the free therapy at Monsour is, and how everyone should be going there.

Stephanie also related a story about attending a recent Halloween party for her kids. One of the other moms said, “I just finished my Ph.D., so of course my self-esteem has never been lower.” Stephanie said she wanted to say, “thank you!” to the woman for expressing the exact same way she felt.

CGU Flame Pumpkin Courtesy of Alexandra Dove, MA History 2006

Q: How long did it take you to write it?

A: “My husband says I wrote the whole thing in five months,” Stephanie said, “ But I had spent about a year and a half researching.”

Leading up to her defense, Stephanie encountered many obstacles. Her initial dissertation advisor left CGU for a position elsewhere. After she returned from research in Rwanda, her youngest child became seriously ill with salmonella poisoning, requiring surgery and a week in the hopsital. Stephanie juggled adjuncting at different universities, raising two children, and trying to power through her dissertatation. And she did it!

Q:Is a 4^th reader a CGU requirement?

A: "No. However, the rules about outside readers depends on your school."

Because CGU doesn’t have any European history specialists (Stephanie’s field), she had to look for outside readers to help her through the process. She made connections at conferences and ended up having a few top genocide scholars willing to read her dissertation and help her polish it.

Paula noted that only CGU people are allowed to serve on your quals committees, you have to petition (as she did) if you need an outsider member. Aris noted that in SBOS, you won’t know who your 4^th reader is.

Paula also reminded everyone to hold onto the CGU Handbook from the year you were admitted. That is a legally binding contract. As a student at CGU, you have to abide by the rules laid out in the Handbook, but so do the faculty members. So if you find yourself getting caught up in some kind of red-tape nightmare, it wouldn’t hurt to check the handbook and make sure you’ve fulfilled everything they originally said you had to, and that they fulfilled their end of the deal.

Q: Can you defend in summer?

A: The general answer was: Yes. You can defend whenever you can get your committee together.

Q: Was formatting it a problem?

A: "Formatting – so, so important." Stephanie noted that when you’re ready to file, they ask for three copies. But she recommends saving yourself a lot of money and frustration by only printing one copy first, making sure its good to go, and then making the other copies.

“These are consecutive pages, not chapter pages,” Stephanie explained, “You

don’t want to print out three copies of the thing only to find out there’s an error on page 2. Bring in one copy, get it okayed, fix it if needed, and then go to Kinkos and get the next two copies made.”

Q: Did you have to make an appointment with Edris to file?

A: "They sent an e-mail and said, 'This is when we’ll be available.' So I dropped in then."

Please note: Edris Steubner, the Assistant Registrar, is going to be your main contact for filing. She will be coming to the Dissertation Workshop on March 23 to discuss the rules for formatting and submission. Stay tuned!

Q: Are they particular about the margins?

A: “She does take out a ruler and she does measure,” laughed Stephanie, “Serious as a heart attack. Always be nice to the secretary and the registrar, they’ll work for you.”

Q: What do you do when you’re not hearing back from your committee members or you feel like you’re in limbo?

A: “Act like it's happening and keep shoving it forward,” Stephanie answered, “If you don’t, who will?”

Q: What was the sequence of your revision?

A: “I revised it chapter by chapter,” answered Stephanie. “I had one chapter out in circulation and one I was working on. The sequence was: first I’d send a draft to the Writing Center, then I

’d make corrections before sending that draft to my committee, and then I’d make revisions and have my revision draft.”

Stephanie reiterated how helpful the Writing Center was in getting feedback on her writing. As a reminder: you can send up to 50 pages a week to the Writing Center, with a 1 week turnaround, up to 8 times a semester. For more info about the Writing Center's services for dissertation reading, click here.

Q: What happened going into the final weeks before your defense?

A: Dec 12 was the paper signature deadline for January graduation. Her committee told Stephanie, “These are the problems in your dissertation…can you fix them in 4 weeks? Here are the problems. These are what you’ll have to fix for us to sign off on this.” At her defense, Stephanie laid out her strategy for addressing remaining problems in the work.

Q: Do you have any advice about writing proposals?

A: “The proposal saved my butt in the end. I had a chapter that had to be two chapters. But one part wasn’t that good. It wasn’t in my proposal…so that allowed me to take it out completely. I’d added a chapter that was underdeveloped, but it wasn’t in the proposal, so it was easy to pull it. Your proposal changes, but it can also save you.”

Margaret noted that in some fields, there is no wiggle room in the proposal. In other fields (particularly the Humanities) it is quite common to have a final dissertation that isn’t that close to its original proposal.

Q: Did you use Endnote or Refworks?

A: Stephanie answered, "I think you have to start that from the beginning. I wish I’d know about it before I started, but I didn’t, so I just typed my own footnotes and such. It’s easier that way when you know how to do it already. I did get a new laptop during my dissertation…and it did all kinds of things more easily!"

Q: What were your methods of backup?

A: "CGU gives you a free webpage – I put it up there. You can e-mail it to yourself, even the copy you send to the Writing Center will be saved."

Lynda reminded everyone to keep a backup flash drive, but don’t keep the drive with your laptop (if the laptop is stolen or damaged, the flash drive could be as well).

Margaret mentioned SuperDuper, a system recovery resource that makes a mirror image of your hard drive.

Q: I’m writing my bibliography, and it has 500 books! And there are more being published. How do you make it manageable?

A: "You hit the point where you decided you’re done. You know, 'our library doesn’t have it, I can’t LINK + it, it’s $127 on Amazon…I’ll let that one go!' At some point, you have to figure if you get something wrong, your committee will let you know. At some point, you just make an executive decision to stop," said Stephanie.

“My bibliography is about half of what it was at the proposal,” noted Lynda. “The same, same things kept showing up in everything I was reading. I decided that those texts had to be my foundation.”

"You hit the point where you have to throw it out there and see what happens.”

“There was a day when I realized I was done reading,” said Lynda.

“It’s like on Thanksgiving, deciding when you’re going to stop eating.”

Q: How do you decide what goes in the footnotes and what goes in the main text?

A: "That’s where your readers come in," replied Stephanie.

The group brainstormed places to get a quick glimpse of the current work in your field:

Wikipedia (no one will cop up to using this, but there it is)

Amazon lists ("very up-to-date")

Google Scholar

Dissertation Express ("You’ll say, well, if they got that published, I can get mine done.” "You’ll look and be surprised by the ones that aren’t very good. Makes you feel better.")

And remember, no matter how careful you are, small mistakes are bound to happen. “After I turned mine in,” Stephanie admitted, “I realized I forgot to print out the appendix. The dissertation refers to an appendix that’s not there. Oh well, that’s there for history.”

Rainbow over Harper Hall

Teaching Myself Zotero

When we discussed formatting / info gathering software such as EndNote and Zotero in the group, several people said they thought using one of these programs would have been helpful...but now that they're knee-deep in their dissertations, it's too late.

I dabbled in RefWorks years ago for a project, but after hearing Aya singing the praises of Zotero, I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm still in the buying-and-hoarding-and-sorting books phase of my dissertation, and already I'm starting to forget which copies of what I've bought online. I decided that I could start learning Zotero by creating a list of books that I've purchased for the dissertation.

I began by going to the Zotero website and downloading the newest version. It requires Firefox 3.0, which I have. I also watched the very helpful demos on the website.

Right off the bat, I couldn't get it to work. I couldn't see the "Zotero" logo at the bottom of the screen, the key point for accessing the thing. So I searched on the very helpful forums on the Zotero site, and sure enough, within a few minutes, found the solution to my problem (for me, it was simply going up to the "View" bar and selection "Status bar.")

Once I figured that out, I began going to amazon.com and the Honnold library site to find the books on my shelf. It's so easy to use Zotero for this - you find the book you have, then click on a little blue book icon next to the web address in the browser. And Sha-zam! It's sent to your Zotero folder.

I made a couple of mistakes where I uploaded the right book but the wrong edition. It was easy to fix. I also uploaded a few dissertations on my topic that I've printed out (and gloriously 3-hole-punched one night).

So far, so good. I also began adding notes on each of the books describing the covers of the actual books. Because so many of my books have the author's name as the title, it's helpful for me to remember, ah yes, this is the one with the peacock on the cover, this is the one that's orange, etc. I'm very visual.

It's too soon yet for me to know how well I like Zotero or how easy it is to use, but based on the helpful forums and my initial forays tonight, it looks promising.

RefAware

A wonderful piece of information in the mailbag, from Dissertator-On-High, Katie:

Hi scholarly friends,

I went to a presentation yesterday on the libraries' new utility: RefAware.


Basically, it's a way to sign up for regular updates on publications on topics of your choice. For instance, if I want to be made aware of any new publications that deal with Paul's letters in the New Testament in a feminist way, I could set up a search strategy for that, and RefAware would email me daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, bimonthly--or never, and I justlog in periodically to get my results.

So here's how it works. At libraries.claremont.edu, you go to Quicklinks>RefAware. You have to create an account WITH A CLAREMONT COLLEGES DOMAIN in your email address. So not your Gmail account, e.g. Those of you at other institutions, see if you can access it, too! Then you create a "search strategy" you can give it a name, define the discipline(s) that you want to hear from, and give source criteria. The search is boolean, so you can do "ands" and "nots". NOTE that each line is logically separated by an OR, not an AND. So if I had a search strategy for the topic I suggested above, line one might be "Paul and Bible". (I don't want articles about any old Paul!) The next line might be "Paul and New Testament", since maybe not all the articles will say "Bible", but they might say "New Testament." Does that make sense?

You can also set up a search strategy for an author you want to keep track of. And you can make multiple strategies, obviously. You can check to see if any given publication/periodical is listed, as well. Sounds like the database is just growing and growing.

So I hope this might be helpful for you. I periodically wonder if my own work is still relevant and worry that someone else has come up with my ideas, too. This should put those concerns to rest, and keep me educated in my field, as well.

Cheers!
Katie

Archrival Archivals

In the last session, Bryan did a "show 'n tell" about his recent trip to Princeton to look at some archives for his research.

Some special collections / archives allow you to bring in only some paper and a pencil, some allow hand scanners - the one Bryan went to allowed hand-held digital cameras (no flash). After several days of perfecting his Hunchback of Notre Dame impersonation, Bryan came away from his trip with thousands of image files...and no clear way of organizing them.

So he started off organizing the pictures by creating files for each day he was at the archive: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, etc. Because there were lots of little thumbnail pictures, it was still difficult to see what was what.

We discussed a few options - printing out the pictures in greyscale, taking them to a printer, transferring them to PDFs (print first, then scan), using ZoomIt to allow for the capacity to write notes on the images. Of course, it all depends on what you need your materials for and what kind of access you want.

Bryan ended up creating an Excel sheet with columns that he filled in as he went through and read and cataloged each image. He created 7 columns at the top of the sheet, labeled:

- Photo No. (ex. DSCN9906.JSP)
- Title / What It Is (ex. Letter to John Smith)
- Box # (for later citation purposes)
- Folder (where he's keeping it in his computer)
- Description (brief description of what that document contains)

Lorie recommended FreeMind, an open source program to help you map out your ideas and keep track of their connections. She said Bryan could use it to keep track of documents and create links that would immediately take him to the originals he wanted.

Cataloging all of the pictures will take Bryan quite some time, however, once he is completed, it will be an incredibly valuable resource not only to his own scholarship, but perhaps even to the host institution where he found the archive.

The one piece of advice everyone gave Bryan: back everything up! All of it! Print it out, use an off-site backup service, get an external hard drive, whatever - save, save, save. Which is excellent advice for all of us.

You're the WorldCat's Pajamas

During our next workshop meeting, Brian will be giving a "show and tell" about research he conducted at special collections in Princeton in July. They allowed him to take a camera into the room!

While we're on the subject of special collections, there's a good possibility that you'll need to travel to a library and peruse special archives in your own research.

So...where do you start?

Well, if you need to find out where your primary documents are held (for example, original documents / texts / letters from a specific author) you can use WorldCat. This collects all of the library catalogs of the world together in one neat place.

1. Start at the libraries' homepage.

2. Go to the middle column and select "most used databases."

3. Scroll down to "WorldCat."

4. Type in your search terms.

5. Select the box that says "Archival Materials."

6. There you are! You'll get a list of what collections are out there along with websites and info. If you're lucky, your documents will be held in a city you've really wanted to visit.

The ILLiad and the Odyssey

Starting this fall, the library began using a software program called ILLiad to process all interlibrary loans. You have to register an account with the library to use the interlibrary loan service (ILL).

This can be your last resort if the library doesn't have the book you want and LINK+ doesn't have it.

The librarians recommend that you set up your ILL account now, even if you don't need it just yet. That way, when the time comes, you're golden.

Be kind to librarians

Today I went to Honnold Mudd and had a chat with Meg Garrett, one of my favorite librarians (and a science fiction guru). If you haven't already befriended a local librarian, I highly recommend stopping by. They know everything.

Here's a list of the librarians at Honnold and their specialities.

If you live far from campus, they have a great service called Librarian Chat, which is a real-time instant messager that allows you to ask librarians questions. I've used it several times and have been really happy with the level of service it offers.

Finding Dissertations on Your Topic and Printing Them at ACB

Just for you! Clear instructions for how to get to the Dissertations database off of the Honnold website. You may want to print these out or minimize this window and use it for reference.

1. Start at the Libraries home page.

2. Click on the link that says "Databases" in the middle column.

3. Under "By type & format" you'll see "Dissertations." Click on that. This brings you to the page "Databases: Dissertations."

4. Click on "Dissertations & Theses."

5. Now you'll be sent to a page that says "ProQuest" in the left hand corner. (To skip steps 1-4, you could also just use this link: Jump straight to ProQuest page). Here, you can type in keywords for your topic under "Basic Search" and you're ready to go!

6. Next, you go to the "results" page. You have several options: You can read the Abstract, Preview, get the Full Text PDF, or Order a Copy.

What's really great about this is that you can get that PDF (for most dissertations after 1995), download it to your desktop, and print it out! If the dissertation you want is before 1995 and doesn't have a PDF available, you'll have to buy it (Order a Copy).

Let's say you're lucky - there's a PDF of it. But if you're like me, you need a hard copy...none of this fancy interweb stuff for you! You like to get your hands on cold, hard, paper. But this involves printing out 200 pages and your ink cartridge at home costs $30 a pop.

This is where ACB comes in handy. The Academic Computing Building (ACB) is the building between the Blaisdell fountain and the parking lot on 8th street. On the first floor is ACB is room 111, the computer lab. Each CGU student gets something like $30 of free printing a semester. So this is cheaper than you printing 300 page dissertations at home.

The downside is that printing large things in ACB is sort of a pain in the ass. The printer is shared, so your stuff can get mixed with other people's stuff, and it's finicky - it doesn't let you do jobs of over 100 pages at once, so you need to send it in smaller chunks.

Here's what you do:

1. Download the PDF you want.

2. Right click on the PDF for "print." Print in small batches. For example, 1-99, 100-199, 200-299, etc. Remember that the page numbers you type in won't necessarily correspond to the page numbers on the dissertation.

3. After you send it to print, a blue popup box will show in the center of your screen. It will tell you your current balance and how much your print job will cost.

For example, mine says: "You are printing 49 pages at a cost of $2.49"

4. You HAVE to hit "print" in that box for the doc to print. Sometimes, the box doesn't appear where you can see it, and you have to click on the pop-up balloon at the bottom toolbar, or close your applications, to see the box behind everything else.

5. If your thing doesn't print, first check for all those popup boxes and make sure you have enough money in your account to print the pages you sent. If that doesn't work, try logging off the computer. Sometimes that will make it print. If that doesn't work, check the printer - it may be out of paper. If none of that works, go bug the lab attendant.

6. When your account runs out of money, you just take cash up to the lab attendant and they'll add it to your account.

P.S. Remember, this is the chain for finding PDFs of dissertations that you want. Weirdly enough, you can find dissertations listed in other databases (such as the MLA database) that don't give you the PDF option, even though it is available - so you wouldn't know you could do this! So any time you see a diss you want, go through these steps to find out if you can get the PDF.

P.P.S. If you have to write an abstract for your dissertation and want some samples to look at, this is another source that's helpful.

Publish or Perish

This is going to be a long entry. Just so you know, it will cover peer reviewed journals and some examples for the type of timeframe you might expect from submitting an article to seeing it published. Of course, it varies widely by journal.

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In today's workshop, Aya brought up a great strategy: sending out parts of your dissertation-in-progress for publication in journals.

The benefits:

• You may get helpful feedback from the journal editors for improving your chapter before it goes to your committee.
  
  
• You might get to take your paper to a conference and test it out on an audience of your peers, giving you more ideas about how to proceed and feedback about what's working (or not working).
  
  
• Your committee might be less inclined to significantly change that part of your dissertation if it is already published (hey, it could happen!)
  
  
• You'll build up the publications section of your resume and get a head start on the process of eventually publishing your dissertation as a book.

So how do you go about it?

First you need to find a peer reviewed journal for submitting your work.

What does "peer reviewed" mean? It means that every article the journal publishes is sent to a panel of professionals, usually the top academics in a given field, spread across several universities throughout the nation. All of the members of the panel read the articles carefully before accepting them for publication. This means that the quality of the published articles is trustworthy - that the journal maintains a certain standard and that several people in the field have carefully looked through the articles before publishing them.

You know what you're getting with a peer reviewed journal - it's a reliable, credible, trustworthy, consistent source.

As a researcher, you should be focusing on peer reviewed journals when you're doing your literature review. As an aspiring published scholar, you should also be sending your work to peer reviewed journals for their consideration.

How can you tell if a journal is peer reviewed? Well, one easy way is to get your hands on a copy of the journal and look inside the front cover. Look for a list of Editors, Advisory Editors, or the Editorial Board. If there's a long list of names and their scholarly affiliations (well-known universities), then you've got a peer-reviewed journal.

By this point in your program, you'll be expected to know what the major associations and publications in your field are (for example, AAR for Religion or MLA for English). But if you don't know, that's okay - just ask. It's better to find out now than to pretend you know when you don't. Find a professor you're comfortable with and say, "You know, I should know this...but which professional organizations would recommend that I join?" or "What would you say are the most important conferences for my field?"

If you're too embarrassed to ask a professor, consider talking to a classmate who is further along in your program than you are.

Once you find out which journals you should be reading, take a look at them - what kinds of articles do they publish? How long are they? What are their submission guidelines? (you can usually find this information on the inside cover, the first few pages, or on their website) Think about whether or not a chapter of your dissertation might fit the type of thing they publish.

Another idea to consider is doing a book review. A book review is basically like any review you'd read in the newspaper: short (usually 250-500 words), covers the basics about what its about, how well it accomplishes its task, etc. Many journals are hungry for people to write book reviews, and book reviews are often easier to get published than articles.

You might write to a journal editor and say that you're interested in writing book review for them and see if they have any books they need reviewed. Or you might do a review for a recently published work and send it to them to see if they need reviews.

You might be thinking, "How the hell will I have time to do that on top of everything else?!"

Well, you can kill two birds with one stone: look at the books you have to read for your dissertation. Were any of them published in the last two years? If so, you could easily read it for your dissertation research, keep notes, then write a little book review for it and submit it for publication when you're done. You've got to read that book anyway - might as well get a little something extra out of it!

For anyone who is reading literature related to Women's Studies: Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal is based here at CGU and is always looking for people to do book reviews. So if you're reading any recent books that would be of interest to feminist scholars, definitely contact the journal about doing a book review for them.

During our recent meeting, someone asked, "How long does the process take?" Well, it really varies. But it probably takes longer that you'd imagine.

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Here is a sample timeframe I experienced for submitting an entry for a book that was going to be published:

2/22/05 - I see a CFP asking for short entries for a reference book that is going to be published. I submit my entries and they are accepted.

7/7/08 - I receive e-mail letting me know that the book will be published at the end of 2008.

8/8/08 - Still waiting!

Lapse time: Three years and counting... (this can't be normal!!!)

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Here is a sample timeline that I experienced: from a CFP (Call for Papers for a conference) through publication in a journal:

2/3/07 - I first see a CFP for a conference happening in July.

3/1/07 - Deadline for submitting an abstract. I choose a paper I've written for a class at CGU.

7/13/07 - I present the paper at a major conference. At the end of the conference, the organizers invite participants to submit papers that were presented at the conference for a special issue of their journal.

7/31/07 - The deadline for submitting papers. I submit.

1/12/08 - The editors ask me to shorten the paper by two pages and convert it from MLA format (the usual citation for my field) to a type of modified Chicago (which I've never used!). They give me until the end of February as the new deadline. I chicken out.

3/18/08 - I decide its ridiculous of me to chicken out. So I e-mail the editors, acknowledging that I've missed the deadline and checking to see if they'd still accept a submission. They say they will.

3/24/08 - I submit the revision.

5/14/08 - My essay has been accepted! But not by the journal I sent it to! They're actually publishing it in a sister journal. They accept my essay, conditional upon accepting their suggested changes using "Track Changes." It involves me clicking "yes" multiple times. Awesome.

7/30/08 - An editor from the new journal e-mails me for two corrections.

8/25/08 - Still waiting to find out what issue it will be in.

Lapse time: 1 year and counting...

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Turn around time for creative submissions (a very different process from academic essays, but might be important for some of you doing Fine Arts degrees or wanting to keep doing your creative work on the side)

Submitted 11/15/04, rejected 12/15/04
Submitted 11/22/04, rejected 3/29/05
Submitted 11/30/04, accepted 2/13/05
Submitted 12/15/04, rejected 1/13/04
Submitted 4/9/05, accepted 6/1/05
Submitted 4/2/05, rejected 6/30/05
Submitted 10/20/05, rejected 11/15/05
Submitted 3/24/06, accepted 5/6/06
Submitted 11/18/06, accepted 2/17/07
Submitted 3/19/08, rejected 6/10/08
Submitted 4/21/08, rejected 7/1/08
Submitted 6/11/08, accepted 8/11/08

Typical Lapse Time: about 3 months

You'll also notice a decent amount of rejection in there. Toughening up your skin is a great, great thing to do. I recommend creating a "rejection letter" collection. Or wallpapering your bathroom with them. That way, when you get a rejection letter, it's weirdly kind of a good thing ("Now I can finish papering the right wall!")


So as you can see, it can take awhile. But don't let that discourage you! If anything, it is even more of a reason to start the process if you haven't already. Send stuff out into the ether, forget about it, and you might be pleasantly surprised in a few months. And if not, that's cool too. There's no shame in a rejection letter - that's simply an opportunity to send your piece somewhere else. There's a home for it somewhere!

(By the way, these cheeseball photos of motivational words? I totally took them in Honnold Library. Did you ever notice them there before? Me neither!!!)

If I could turn back time...

What do you do if your research requires knowing what a particular website looked like...say, in 1990?

Try the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. (thanks for the link, Margaret!)