Inger Mewburn

Managing Your Research Project is a practical and accessible guide that will help researchers navigate the complexities of project management. This user-friendly resource offers valuable insights and tools for funded, commissioned, unfunded, and student research in academic settings. Instead of advocating for a single project management approach, the book provides a variety of options, empowering readers to develop a style that works best for them. Each chapter is packed with practical tools and examples, offering easy-to-follow guidance on how to keep a project moving forward. Key topics include selecting the right project management approach, utilising effective tools, addressing ethical considerations, and managing critical aspects such as time, relationships, finances, bureaucracy, visibility, and quality assurance. While project management can be demanding, this book shows readers how to approach it so that it can be a satisfying, collaborative, rewarding experience. Along the way, the authors address the potential challenges and pitfalls of managing research projects and offer strategies to overcome them. This essential guide equips researchers with the knowledge and strategies they need to manage their projects efficiently and effectively. ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often-implicit rules of the game – the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors – and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

Managing Your Research Project is a practical and accessible guide that will help researchers navigate the complexities of project management. This user-friendly resource offers valuable insights and tools for funded, commissioned, unfunded, and student research in academic settings. Instead of advocating for a single project management approach, the book provides a variety of options, empowering readers to develop a style that works best for them. Each chapter is packed with practical tools and examples, offering easy-to-follow guidance on how to keep a project moving forward. Key topics include selecting the right project management approach, utilising effective tools, addressing ethical considerations, and managing critical aspects such as time, relationships, finances, bureaucracy, visibility, and quality assurance. While project management can be demanding, this book shows readers how to approach it so that it can be a satisfying, collaborative, rewarding experience. Along the way, the authors address the potential challenges and pitfalls of managing research projects and offer strategies to overcome them. This essential guide equips researchers with the knowledge and strategies they need to manage their projects efficiently and effectively. ‘Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often-implicit rules of the game – the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors – and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

The world of the academic researcher is changing; it used to be enough to work hard, do your research and get your results published. Not so these days. Universities now expect researchers to share their work with the world, as widely as possible. ‘Publish or perish’ has been replaced by a new mantra, and the pressure is on. In this insightful book, Inger Mewburn and Simon Clews look at some of the most common presentation scenarios that researchers will face when talking about their work. Starting in academia with the deceptively simple art of writing a good email and working through lectures, conference presentations and lightning talks, the book then moves ‘off campus’ and explores talking to the media, making elevator pitches and creating an effective digital presence on social media. Offering detailed looks at 19 different presentation formats, Mewburn and Clews tap into their vast experience in the field to analyse the challenges and opportunities aligned with each case study and to map out the route to success. With a lightness of touch and an often humorous approach, Be Visible Or Vanish: Engage, Influence and Ensure Your Research Has Impact will show you what it takes to achieve that holy grail of modern academia… impact. This text will be invaluable for students, academics and researchers hoping to effectively communicate complex information in a way that can be understood and appreciated by their peers, colleagues and the wider world. The 'Insider Guides to Success in Academia' offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game -- the things you need to know but usually aren't told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors -- and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

The world of the academic researcher is changing; it used to be enough to work hard, do your research and get your results published. Not so these days. Universities now expect researchers to share their work with the world, as widely as possible. ‘Publish or perish’ has been replaced by a new mantra, and the pressure is on. In this insightful book, Inger Mewburn and Simon Clews look at some of the most common presentation scenarios that researchers will face when talking about their work. Starting in academia with the deceptively simple art of writing a good email and working through lectures, conference presentations and lightning talks, the book then moves ‘off campus’ and explores talking to the media, making elevator pitches and creating an effective digital presence on social media. Offering detailed looks at 19 different presentation formats, Mewburn and Clews tap into their vast experience in the field to analyse the challenges and opportunities aligned with each case study and to map out the route to success. With a lightness of touch and an often humorous approach, Be Visible Or Vanish: Engage, Influence and Ensure Your Research Has Impact will show you what it takes to achieve that holy grail of modern academia… impact. This text will be invaluable for students, academics and researchers hoping to effectively communicate complex information in a way that can be understood and appreciated by their peers, colleagues and the wider world. The 'Insider Guides to Success in Academia' offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia. These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game -- the things you need to know but usually aren't told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors -- and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

Level Up Your Essays is the essential guide to essay writing for university students. Written by the people who mark your essays, it will show you step-by-step how to write high quality essays that will get you top marks. This book will guide you through all the stages including your essay plan, developing research strategies, writing with distinction, and getting your editing and referencing right every time. Bursting with insider tips and tricks on what markers look for, this clear and easy-to-use guide includes:Over 20 worksheets with exercises and checklistsThe secret formula for a good essay (yes, there is a formula!)Practical knowledge on digital tools to help you with research, writingand referencingGuidelines for writing in academic EnglishCommon mistakes and missteps and how to fix themStraightforward information for international studentsSuccessful time management strategies so you never hand in an essaylateNo matter what grades you get now, this book you will revolutionise your essay writing – and get you the marks to prove it.

Dr. Inger Mewburn, founder and editor of The Thesis Whisperer blog, shares her secrets for becoming a more productive researcher and writer. Inger finished her award-winning PhD in three years - despite having a small child, husband and demanding academic job. This book is a selection of her blog posts on thesis writing, which have been re-edited and expanded. This book introduces you to Inger's most important success strategies for getting your PhD finished and acts a companion to The Thesis Whisperer blog.

Are you confused by the feedback you get from your academic teachers and mentors? This clear and accessible guide to decoding academic feedback will help you interpret what your lecturer or research supervisor is really trying to tell you about your writing—and show you how to fix it. It will help you master a range of techniques and strategies to take your writing to the next level and along the way you’ll learn why academic text looks the way it does, and how to produce that ‘authoritative scholarly voice’ that everyone talks about. This book is an easy-to-use resource for postgraduate students and researchers in all disciplines, and even professional academics, to diagnose their writing issues and find ways to fix them. This book would also be a valuable text for academic writing courses and writing groups, such as those offered in doctoral and Master's by research degree programmes.'Whether they have writing problems or not, every academic writer will want this handy compendium of effective strategies and sound explanations on their book shelf—it’s a must-have.'Pat Thomson, Professor of Education, University of Nottingham, UK

Welcome to the world of university academics, where the Academic Hunger Games, fuelled by precarious employment conditions, is the new reality – a perpetual jostle for short-term contracts and the occasional plum job. But Inger Mewburn is here to tell you that life needn't be so grim. A veteran of the university ‘gig economy', Mewburn – aka The Thesis Whisperer – is perfectly placed to reflect on her experience and offer a wealth of practical strategies to survive and thrive. Here, she deftly navigates the world of the working academic, from thesis and article writing and keeping motivation alive, to time management, research strategies, new technologies, applying for promotion, sexism in the workplace, writing grant applications and deciding what to wear to give a keynote address. Constructive, inclusive, hands-on and gloves-off, How to be an Academic is a survival manual for aspiring and practising academics that will confirm that no matter what your experience in academia, you are not alone. Sales Points: Inger's The Thesis Whisperer blog (https://thesiswhisperer.com/) and Twitter feed (@thesiswhisperer) are hugely popular; she has 31,500 Twitter followers (May 2017) Short articles are easily navigable – readers can dip in and dip out Full of examples from real people in real situations, grappling with research, teaching, committees, grant-writing and publishing, and real life Plenty of humour and a light tone make the text really enjoyable to read Despite permanent positions being hard to come by, the university sector and the PhD business are booming – so there's a huge potential readership for the book Relevant to the university academic experience internationally, and at all levels, form those starting out to those who are squarely on the track to tenure Relevant across all disciplines Emphasises the importance of diversity, as universities have traditionally been mainly white, male spaces