Status Updates From Becoming an Academic: How t...

Why should you avoid jargon? Because translating difficult concepts into understandable language makes you more persuasive, and being persuasive makes you seem more clever. Apparently communicating clearly isn't a worthwhile goal in itself; it's seeming smart that really matters.

The superficial blog-level analysis continues to drive me crazy at times. She wonders how academics can work productively in cafés and simultaneously push back against open-plan offices, and answers the question by quoting a few people's Twitter comments and self-diagnosing with ADHD. And I just think opening the door to harmful administrative cost-cutting deserves a bit more thought than that.

This collection of blog posts isn't really holding my interest as a full-length book. There's not the depth of research or thought that I'd expect from the book format. The central advice of the current section is to maintain an up-to-date CV as you go, which seems almost painfully obvious and doesn't justify reading a couple of pages about the author's own failure to do this before preparing a promotion dossier.

I find it surprisingly difficult to relate to this author. She's in Australia, where a PhD takes three years; she started working in academia before doing any graduate work, rather than vice versa; and she reports that as an undergraduate she was "more interested in boys and booze" than in her schoolwork, leading her to drop out after a couple of years.