Holiday strategies to honor your all-important academic project

The holidays can be wonderful times for reconnecting with family and friends, taking breathers from the daily-weekly-yearly chase of accomplishment, kindling or rekindling feelings of love, warmth, and generosity even to those who have published much more than you, and indulging in delectable seasonal goodies. But we academics often feel conflicted about how much time to “take off.” Maybe we’re feeling the pressure of having to participate in holiday events. Maybe we’re worried about being grilled by well-intentioned family or friends about the progress of our dissertation, article, or book. Maybe we’re very aware of the dangerous loss of momentum from our work. Maybe we just don’t like all those jolly gatherings.

Here, from clients who have suffered through such “maybes,” I suggest three holiday strategies you can apply, depending on the severity of your “maybes” and your fortitude. We don’t have to be at the mercy of the holidays!

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Busy TAA People: David Lucander to appear on Travel Channel’s ‘Mysteries at the Museum’ tonight at 9 pm ET

TAA member Dr. David Lucander, an assistant professor of Pluralism and Diversity in America at Rockland Community College, will appear on the television show, Mysteries at the Museum, Friday, October 16 at 9 p.m. on the Travel Channel. This will be a special episode about the most famous protest that never happened: the 1941 March on Washington. As the author of a recent book about this subject, Winning the War for Democracy, Lucander was interviewed by the show’s producers for this episode.

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Join us 10/15 for the TAA Webinar, ‘Expressing Yourself Clearly in (Academic) English’

Is English not your first language? When you submit an article to a peer-reviewed journal do the reviewers advise having the article professionally edited? Does the information you’re imparting get lost among the words or tangled in syntax? Join us Thursday, October 15 from 2-3 p.m. ET for the TAA Webinar, “Expressing Yourself Clearly in (Academic) English”, where Jane Mackay, owner/editor of Janemac Editing, and freelance writer and editor Amanda R. Smith, will share tips for polishing your prose and expressing yourself clearly, teach you how to recognize typical problems, and give you techniques for fixing them. Register

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GUEST POST: 4 Ways to work-life balance in 4 minutes

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “work-life balance” so often that it makes you want to punch someone in the face  — but you don’t have time to do that because as you read this, it’s not even 8 am, you’re late for a deadline, you have a class to teach, your daughter’s soccer coach wants to talk to you later today, you have 24 unread emails, and you forgot (again!) to pack a healthy snack for your daughter to eat before practice.

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Join us 9/24 for the TAA Webinar: ‘Designing Your Online Presence to Communicate Your Academic Brand’

Increasingly, PhD students and junior scholars are creating an online presence to promote themselves and their work. Academics are also designing an online presence to assist in their transition to a career outside of academia or a different academic path within the university. But, there are so many platforms to choose from. How do you evaluate which ones to use, given the number and variety of options? Join us Thursday, September 24 from 3-4 p.m. ET for “Designing Your Online Presence to Communicate Your Academic Brand”, presented by Lee Skallerup Bessette, a Blogger and Social Media Advisor, and Paula Thompson, an Academic Coach, both from Academic Coaching & Writing, for an introduction to the most popular platforms and tools to help you decide which ones might be right for you.<

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How to edit and polish statistical writing

Effective statistical writing is important for many writers because it helps explain key pieces of information typically found in the methods and results sections of academic documents. In a TAA webinar entitled “It’s All Greek to Me: Translating Statistical Writing”, Ami Hanson, an editor for Elite Research, LLC, provided many helpful ideas for polishing statistical writing, specifically in dissertations, journal articles, and grant proposals, for maximum reader impact.

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