How to say NO as an (Assistant) Professor

(without feeling bad about yourself) ↓🎓 Maybe you have just gotten your first appointment at a University.

Congratulations (and my condolences), you are on the tenure track.

Colleagues, students, and academic community members will soon tug you in multiple directions.

To avoid this stress, read on...

Since COVID-19 hit, I have digested 100+ podcasts.

Most of them weren't really helpful for academics.

Save yourself the time & just check out the following: ↓🎓 🎙️ Teaching in HigherEd (@tihighered) by @bonni208

ℹ️ Explores the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning and shares ways to increase productivity.

23 sentences that will 10x improve your academic writing skills more than any $50,000 writing tweet ever has: ↓🎓 ❗️The research question guides the entire paper with a clear focus for the writing.

How to come up with research questions

(without getting creative)

(@academicvoices @PhDVoice @PhD_Genie @MasterAcademia_)
↓ Many researchers neglect the research question in the "Introduction."

In scientific writing, all hinges on the initial problem.

This problem comes from a gap.

It sanctions your research questions. ↓

Reading is a superpower.

Learn it, and you will become an unstoppable academic writer.

Use these 9 techniques to master academic writing & reading + stop feeling guilty about it. ↓

@academicvoices @PhDVoice @PhD_Genie @MasterAcademia_ You may be:

• An undergrad writing a term paper?
• A graduate student writing a seminar paper?
• A PhD candidate writing a conference/journal article?
• Any student starting their thesis?

BUT you have no clue how to get started on academic writing?

This 🧵 is for you.

C.S. Lewis was a true visionary, a master storyteller, and a literary giant.

He was also an academic, teaching at Oxford University.

His Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide.

Here are 5 pieces of advice to improve your writing 🧵
@PhDVoice #AcademicTwitter 🟢 1. Use simple words to avoid misinterpretation

Make sure your sentence doesn't signify anything else by using straightforward wording.

Try to use language to clarify what you mean and make sure your sentence means the right thing.

Make someone read your writing out loud.

I have written 300+ peer-reviewed scientific papers in the last 15 years with more than 27,000 citations.

Here is how I use sentence templates to write abstracts at lightning speed. ↓

@acm_chi @academicvoices @PhDVoice @PhD_Genie #AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter #phdlife Most abstracts follow this 3-act mini paper structure:

1. Study purpose & background

2. Methods, analysis, main results

3. Takeaways: Meaning, contribution, limitations & future research

Let's give you some sentence templates to steal for each part below.

Most academic writing is awful at concision.

It's always:

• Verbose verbiage
• Prolix prose
• Jumbled jargon

Horrible to read.

Here's how top academic writers tweak their text. ↓
#AcademicTwitter #AcademicChatter #phdlife #phdvoice #phdstudent 1. 'Irregardless' is a word, but don't use it.

The dictionary shows it's a word but also labels it as non-standard and incorrect in standard English.

Use either 'irrespective' or 'regardless.'

15+ years ago, I decided to go to school for UX design in games.

316 published academic articles and 27,352 citations later,

It was the best decision I've ever made.

Here are 30 pieces of advice for becoming a great researcher (without spending all your money on education): 1. Ask open-ended questions & listen purposefully

2. Use various research methods, don't rely on just 1

3. Get out and observe people in their natural environment

4. Always start with a clear research question & plan

5. Don't make assumptions; understand your users & context

My students got 5+ research papers accepted last year.

Simply because they follow my 5 little-known writing tips.

Implement these now to publish twice as many papers next year: 1. Don't start your paper by writing.

It's counterintuitive.

The best way to start writing an academic paper:

Outline your story.

Then, create bullet points under each section outlined.

Now, fill in the gaps and expand.

An academic writing habit can skyrocket your paper writing productivity.

But if you do it wrong, you might become demotivated and NEVER write again.

Here's how to build a writing habit that sticks (and doesn't get in your way): ↓ Before we start:

I've taught academic writing for 7+ years to HCI audiences at major conferences like CHI and other academic events.

I also sell an online course about academic writing with all 5-star reviews.

Let's go.

PCs killed the video game star in 1983.

Revenue declined 97%. Bad games. Saturated market. Why?

Here's the story of Atari's downfall and how the entire games industry almost died: ↓ The early 1980s saw a major crash in the video game industry.

We know this as the Atari shock in Japan or
the 1983 crash in North America.

Video game revenues plummeted from $3.2 billion in 1983 to just $100 million in 1985.

That's bad

That's 97%

Why did this happen?

Everyone makes mistakes in their UX career.

Junior designers fear them more than others.

Here are 5 mistakes to avoid as a junior UX designer: ↓ 1. Not taking feedback well.

When people give you feedback, try not to take it personally.

Instead, use it as an opportunity to learn and improve your craft.

Grow to overcome the challenges outlined in the feedback.

During my academic career, I've spent 10,000+ hours editing LaTeX.

Want to know a secret?

I use these 5 easy-to-follow LaTeX snippets every time I submit a CHI paper, and this thread will save you the time of searching for how to do them.

You'll want to bookmark this. 🧵👇 1. Use the right documentclass options before submitting your paper to CHI

How it works:

- Comment out this line of code with % \documentclass[sigconf,authordraft]{acmart}
- Then add \documentclass[manuscript,screen,review, anonymous]{acmart}

This is the right review format.

21 sentences that’ll get you ahead of 95% of CHI authors. If you're not passionate about it, don't write it.

5 stupid easy tips to win at University 1. When writing papers, never end your writing session on a completed section.

Always write a little bit into your next section before you finish.

Makes it easier to pick up your train of thought when you come back.

5 UX design tools for designers worried about Figma joining the Adobe fold. ↓ 1. @uxpin has a free version and is also web-based.

It does mockups, prototyping, and wireframing with handoff and collaboration features.

Some deceptive and unclear design about their pricing schemes on their website, though.

Every successful CHI author follows these 13 rules of writing.

Most people do not know them.

Here they are for free to help you become a better research writer.

🧵⬇️ 1. Your credibility comes from using specific numbers and explaining things with specific language.

p = 0.003 not p < .05

Add additional materials/appendix with exact numbers or OSF

NOT: The study had various effect.
INSTEAD: Y increased X under Z conditions.

Be specific.

Sure, IMRaD is a scientist's ballgame, but have you heard of IRMReDiLiFuConcR?

That's how we roll at #chi2023.

Here's what's in that tongue-twisting paper structure:
🧵↓ Introduction:

→ What is known?
→ What is unknown?
→ How and why should we fill the gap?
→ Why should people care?

Use @Grammarly @HemingwayApp @languagetool @Writefullapp @TheQuillBot @ReadableHQ @whoisjenniai when editing this section (and the rest of your paper) to rock.

Every UX researcher worth their salt knows about cognitive biases.

Here are 5 that you secretly wish you knew about when starting your project.

They are exceptionally bad when you are
- observing,
- understanding and
- interacting with users.

🧵⬇️ 1. Selective Attention

You filter out things from your environment when in focus.

(Look up Broadbent's filter model if you want to find out more.)

I've spent a good part of a decade getting a Ph.D. in UX.

I'm a leading professor in the field now.

Let me save you $500k+ dollars and give you back 100 hours of your time every week.

Here are 10 simple-to-follow formulas for UX design I wish I knew when I started. 🧵↓ 1. Grasp the problem before you chase the solution.

You may spend hours fitting your solutions to specific problems.

Rather take time to explore the problem space.