Efficient Academic

I planned to write this post about a week back but since then i've been constantly playing around with Windows Live Academic Search Beta and well i don't see a reason to switch over from Scholar. Yes the interface is kinda catchy..but then all search products of MS are undergoing some serious design overhauls.Well Live academic like its competitor Google scholar directly indexes content directly from the journals allowing better results. Infact they've given a list of the journals that have associated with.I must say the list was impressive but could have been much longer. Of-course you can hang around Academic Search Beta to see all the cosmetic/user experience makeovers.But then its still in BETA and should not be compared with Scholar yet.

If you need a comprehensive review of all the features and nitty gritties check out the links below.For now i am sticking with Scholar..waiting on Academic Live BETA.

Windows Live Academic Search

MSN Search Blog

Well no matter how bad we hate Microsoft their products are the most widely used and ofcourse the easiest to use.And excel..its in the veins of academic work.There are several much more specialised tools available to the academic community but there is never the less a preference for excel.Enough said,need some tips on Excel -ling,here's a whole page dedicated to just that,look its got a feed too…i've got it on my Bloglines asap.Its arranged alphabetically and wow..it's always there and updated for that quick look up .

I came across this post during my Bloglines session, and wanted to share it.I completely agree with the idea expressed in the post.The most simple thing that one could do could impact the greatest.

So probably you haven't come across any post (atleast as far as i can remember) on improving your writing skill on EA.Well here you go.Expressing oneself clearly is always advantageous, well if you can make that attractive as well you can really kill your competition.So here a few sites that can help you improve your writing skills.These sites are tailored for students..so get going.Once again from Lifehack..guess i should add it to my blogroll.

This is a very interesting post.Its not that this one is the only post that i've come across,but definitely this is brief and to the point.Not everything fits for academics but several from this post do..so head over and check for yourself.Thanks to Lifehack for finding this one.

I have created an Efficient Academic Flickr which will have all pictures that are related to the blog and which generally fall under the category of academic hacks,tips,tricks and advice.Feel free to join the group and contribute what you feel would be useful to academicians like ousrselves.

The group address: http://www.flickr.com/groups/eacademic

Surviving a PhD is not all about benchwork and papers.After all everybody who join in do that..but what can you do to make a difference.Yes a graduate school does make the best attempt to train students in all facets of research and make them competent for the competitive world that they have to face,but is there something that's missing..is there some part you have to acquire without them being taught.Definitely that's a yes.I would not like take much more time..here's what i'm talking about.

Most scientists would agree that graduate school packs in an incredible amount of education. But do PhD programmes teach all the right things? Most PhDs would probably say that they learned a lot about science — from research methodology to literature reviews and experimentation. But there are many other, equally important, skills that often fall through the cracks. As science and technology continue to move on, this 'soft' skill set remains more or less constant.

Soft skills include learning how to pick mentors, write grant proposals, assemble interdisciplinary research collaborations and manage labs. Without mastery of them, meeting scientific goals and climbing the ladder towards tenure can be more difficult. Most young scientists scramble to pick these skills up on their own, when they realize they need them.

Sound's interesting then check out the editor's choice of the Nature Graduate journal.They've got an interesting line-up of articles like

Off-the-Bench Skills

• Time, project and team management
• Financial management and grant-writing
• Networking
• Picking a postdoctoral fellowship
• Finding full-time employment
• Presentations
• Mentoring
• Teaching
• Work-life balance

Have a productive Research life.