FAQ: Resource for Graduate Students
FAQ: Resources for Graduate Students
What’s the best place to start to learn more about the academic life?
Is there a one-stop guide to all the journals in my field?
How can I keep track of upcoming conferences I might want to attend?
How can I keep track of interesting new journal articles?
What are some good guides to grad school?
What are some good books on academic life?
What are some good books on writing?
What are some good books on teaching?
What are the academic organizations in my field?
What’s the best place to start to learn more about the academic life?
The single best guide to academic life I’ve seen is available online. It’s "Networking on the Network" by Phil Agre. It’s long, but worth reading in full. In fact, go print it out now, then come back and read the rest of this FAQ.
Is there a one-stop guide to all the journals in my field?
Yes, if you’re in Mass Communication. Not exactly, if you’re in
a related field. The
Iowa Guide to Scholarly Journals in Mass Communication and Related
Fields lists over 100 communication journals, with information
on each journal’s subject matter, rejection rates (what percentage
of submitted articles get published), and more. If you’re in a related
field such as cultural studies or film studies, the Iowa Guide will
include some but not all journals. See below in this FAQ for more
journal listings.
How can I keep track of upcoming conferences I might want to attend?
Check out this collection of Calls for Papers (CFPs).
How can I keep track of interesting new journal articles?
When you join an academic organization, you’ll start receiving the organization’s sponsored journal. Some large organizations sponsor multiple journals, and give you a choice of which to sign up for.
Beyond that, though, there are dozens of journals that may be publishing articles you’d like to read. There’s no way to subscribe to all of them, and you wouldn’t want to take the time to read them all if you could. The easiest way to keep track of what’s being published in your fields is to sign up for Tables of Contents notification services.
Almost all journals are published by a handful of companies. Each company has a service on its website which allows you to automatically receive the TOC of any affiliated journal. So, just click on each link below, browse through the publisher’s journal, and sign up for whichever ones sound interesting. Every time a new issue comes out, you’ll receive an email letting you know what’s been published. You’ll find some articles you’re immediately interested in reading, others you may want to keep in mind for future references. Even if nothing in a specific TOC interests you, subscribing to TOCs is a great way to begin keeping tabs on different journals, building up a sense of what’s out there.
If you do find an article you want to read, you can track down the journal through the GSU E-Journal Locator. If the library subscribes to your journal, you’ll be able to look up and read your article right away. If it doesn’t, you have a couple of choices. You can request the article via inter-library loan, a simple online procedure. Or, you can file the reference away, and dig it up later. After a period varying from six months to a year, almost all journal articles become available on the major databases, regardless of whether the library subscribes to the specific journal.
Here are the major journal publishers’s TOC delivery signup pages:
Johns Hopkins University Press’s Project Muse New Issues Notification Service
Taylor & Francis SARA Contents Alerting Service
What are some good guides to grad school?
Getting What You Came For
Lingua Franca Presents the Real Guide to Grad School
What are some good guides to academic life?
The academic paper of record is The Chronicle of Higher Education, which available online through the GSU library. In addition, here are some recommended books:
Academic Keywords by Cary Nelson
The Academic Self
The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career
Manifesto of a Tenured Radical by Cary Nelson
Mentor in a Manual
On the Market
What are some good books on writing?
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes
How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation by David Sternberg
Professors as Writers by Robert Boice
Writing for Social Scientists by Howard Becker
What are some good books on teaching?
The Chicago Handbook for Teachers
The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer
The Craft of Teaching by Kenneth Eble
Intelligences Reframed by Howard Gardner
Landscapes of Learning by Maxin Greene
Pedagogy of the Oppressed of the Oppressed by Paolo Friere
Teaching Tips by Wilbert McKeachie
What are the academic organizations in my field?
Communication
International Communication Association
National Communication Association
Cultural Studies
American
Studies Association
Association for Cultural Studies
Cultural Studies Association
Popular Culture Association
Film and Television
Society for Cinema and Media
Studies
University Film & Video Association
Journalism
Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
New Media
Association of Internet Researchers
International Game Developers Association
Society for the History of Technology
Science and Literature Society
Society for the Social Study of Science
Popular Music
International Association for the Study of Popular Music
Science Fiction
International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts
Science Fiction Research Association
Society for Utopian Studies
Posted by tedf at February 27, 2005 05:30 AM
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