Thinking about hiring research assistants

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Jo VanEvery 2 Comments

Are you reluctant to hire Research Assistants?

I was reading a blog post about hiring in a small business and this paragraph resonated with conversations I’ve had with researchers. “I believe that I am a genius at some things and not others. And that I need to hire geniuses in the other areas.” It’s a bit different when you think about research assistants because one purpose of hiring them is to provide apprenticeship opportunities. But that just extends this perspective rather than negating it.

Filed Under: Funding, Research Tagged With: , , , , , ,

From the comments: on criticism

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Jo VanEvery

One of my favorite quotes is by Samuel Silas Curry, a turn of the century speech teacher, “There is nothing so encouraging as good criticism.” He goes on to say that good criticism simply compares the actual with the ideal. Vicky@collegeparentcentral commenting on my post Confidence in the Face of Criticism Thank you for sharing [...]

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It’s more than the grant

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Jo VanEvery

I often feel ambivalent about helping people with grant applications. I know there is a need. I know I can help. But the funding situation is such that many excellent proposals don’t get funded, even with my help. Fortunately, my clients get a lot of value from the support I provide even when they don’t [...]

Filed Under: My services, Research Tagged With: , , ,

Just because it doesn’t feel productive…

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Jo VanEvery

A couple of my clients are working on writing projects right now. And some weeks, their updates are less than enthusiastic. They are discouraged by their progress.

Here’s a different angle on reading that doesn’t feel like real research.

You might spend a lot of time reading with a particular project in mind only to discover that nothing you read is going to end up in what you are writing.

Although that feels like you wasted several hours reading stuff you didn’t need to read, it was actually time well spent.

Filed Under: My services, Research, Work Habits Tagged With: , , ,

What is “research”?

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Jo VanEvery

Back in late January and early February, Rohan Maitzen published a few very thoughtful posts about what counts are research, the apparent conflict between research and teaching, and related issues. The title of one of these posts was “When is Reading Research?” a question that really highlights some of the underlying issues. When we talk [...]

Filed Under: My services, Research, Work Habits Tagged With: , , , ,
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