Carnival of GRADual Progress

Welcome to the 15th Carnival of GRADual Progress! I have spent the past month searching the blogosphere; traversing its borders in search of content, glorious content. I found some great posts. I'm sure there were some great posts I didn't find. But let's not dwell.

For individuals in transition:
Those of you applying for grad school or jobs in academia would do well to heed the advice of Eric at The Edge of the American West: Do thy Homework:

Graduate school applicants: applying to graduate school is like applying for an medieval apprenticeship — you’re applying to study with someone, as much as at someplace. You need to show that you know why you should be an apprentice to this person, and not to some other person...
AND
Job applicants, let me repeat: if you are invited to a campus interview at a department, you are invited to a campus interview at a specific actual department with real people in it who have real expertise. You are not being invited to Platonic Ideal History Department. Find out who’s in this department, especially within your own field. Interestingly, the same caveats apply as with graduate students, but need slightly stronger phrasing....

And for goodness sake, if you ask a prof for a recommendation, and their response is that they don't think you're the best person for the job, take their word for it, lest your recommendation letter sound like the one drafted by Angry Professor at A Gentleman's C.

For the teaching grad student:
There is a wonderful PowerPoint over at Academhack on the Do's and Don'ts of a good PowerPoint presentation. A must-see for anyone who is, or will ever, teach a lecture course.

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Also, orgtheory.net has an ongoing series called grad skool rulz. The most recent entry contains rules for teaching as a PhD student. An excerpt: "In a nutshell: prep and grade quickly; deliver real content and create a positive class experience; and do anything reasonable to create good will among students, long as it doesn’t make more work for you." Also, see grad skool rulz #16.2, where Fabio expands upon some issues raised in the comments on the first post regarding the teaching-research see-saw.

Still on the other side of the desk?
Of course, many of you are still taking classes, in which case you might like to check out Tina's post over at Scatterplot on advice she intends to give her graduate students. She gives wise instructions on such seemingly intuitive tasks as reading a book and participating in class.

And on doing research:
Carly at Adventures in Confusion waxes eloquent on how academic research can be like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

Scott Eric Kaufmann at Acephalous discusses Funyunization, or How to Add Bulk to Dissertations.

Just for fun:
The Fashionable Academic suggests we bring back the monocle. I think it's a swell idea. Who's with me?