Some advice for post grads on how to add value to the experience: make your work visible, join the academic community, use an electronic workflow

1. RESEARCH METHODS
Workshop: Part 3 on adding value to your post-grad
studies
28 January 2013

2. What added value?
• Writing a Master's degree dissertation is a lot of
hard work, but very little of it is visible.
• You can read for days and then write only a
paragraph or two.
• The same is true for empirical analysis.
• Even when you have finished up a chapter, only
you and your supervisor know about all the effort
that went into it.
• The question is, is a Master's degree about
obtaining certain knowledge and skills, or about
signaling.

3. What added value?
• It is probably a bit of both, but finishing up with
the degree certificate and a book that 4 people
have read may feel a bit disappointing.
• Your supervisor will probably ensure that the
knowledge and skills are developed, but you have
to work at strengthening the signal.
• There are a few ways to add value and also
prepare yourself for the job market:
• Make your work visible.
• Become part of the academic community

4. Visibility
• Why should you make your work visible?
• You are in a process or reading, writing and revising.
• In this process you are learning to analyse, synthesise and
evaluate.
• But you want to demonstrate these competencies long
before the dissertation is finished.
• Showing what you can do, and how you have done it, will
make funding applications and the eventual job search much
easier.
• It also helps with sanity: sharing the progress, getting
feedback will help you to keep going.
• And it helps with becoming part of the academic community.

5. Visibility
• How can you make your work visible?
• You can talk about it with friends and family, or get them to read
some of the stuff that you are writing.
• But the best is to start a blog for your research:
• Start with a basic page: what is your project about, why is it relevant,
how will you tackle it.
• Compile a bibliography – as you read papers, put them in a list and link
to source. This comes a resource to share.
• Link to news stories related to your topic – helps with showing
relevance.
• As you read and write, blog about it – say what it is that you are writing
about, simply and in your own words.
• Maybe you will develop a data set, or software code for a specific
application – share it.
• If you are presenting your proposal at a colloquium, share your slides.

6. Visibility
• How can you make your work visible?
• A blog is best:
• It keeps you writing and that helps with thinking.
• You don't need to have a whole chapter done before someone looks at
it, you can post your thoughts on the paper you read last night.
• You are establishing yourself as a voice in a certain field.
• You can link to and share resources in one place.
• You may get feedback.
• Use Blogger, WordPress or whatever - the platform and the look
matters less than the quality of the posts.
• Then look for some examples of what is possible and get going
• E.g. check out Mr Wait's blog for his PhD.
• Or Nic Spaul (at US) for his research blog.

8. Academic community
• The second important step is to get out there and
mingle:
• Don’t sit on your own, working in the library all day, you have to talk
to fellow students and staff to get ideas, share ideas and
resources.
• This means seeing you supervisor regularly.
• Coming to the School for a cup of coffee with other staff members.
• Attending the seminars – ask questions and comment.
• Making a road trip to a seminar at UP, UJ, or Wits.
• Maybe, apply for an ERSA workshop.
• Or you can even attend the Economic Society's conference.

9. Academic community
• There is also an electronic part to this:
• Make the blog the first place where people find you and your work
on the web.
• What do prospective employers find when they Google you?
• But don't forget to build your professional network on LinkedIn –
connect with other researchers or practitioners.
• You can use Twitter to follow people working in your field, to find
and share resources.
• Tweet smartly and establish your self as a voice in your field.
• Again, look at how @RequierWait and @HenriBez is doing it.

10. Workflow
• Finally, I think that you should integrate all this into an
electronic workflow.
• I recommend Mendeley and Dropbox: