Advice

Here are some resources about doing research that I found useful.

Inspirational

• “You and Your Research” by Richard Hamming.
  Transcript of a very inspirational talk in which Hamming discusses the atmosphere at Bell Labs where he worked with famous researchers like Claude Shannon and John Tukey. He discusses the different traits of researchers who do “great” work — such as courage, drive and commitment.
• “Technology and Courage” by Ivan Sutherland.
  Great article by one of the pioneers of human-computer interaction, computer graphics and virtual reality. Sutherland talks about the courage required to do creative, technical work.

General

• “On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research”, National Academy Press
• “How to do Research At the MIT AI Lab”
• “How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia” by David A. Patterson
• PLoS Computational Biology Ten Simple Rules Collection

PhD

• “The Art of Doing a PhD”, by Jakob E. Bardram
• Chapter 1 Club by Saul Greenberg
• “So long, and thanks for the Ph.D.!” by Ronald T. Azuma

Presentation skills

• “How to give a good research talk” by Simon Peyton Jones (video)
• “How to Give a Great Research Talk”, internal seminar at Microsoft Research with John Krumm, Patrick Baudisch, Mary Czerwinski and Rick Szeliski
• Presentation Zen, a blog on presentation design with lots of useful tips

Writing skills

• “How to write a great research paper” by Simon Peyton Jones (video).
  This is one of my favorite resources about paper writing. Covers both the writing process and how to structure a research paper.
• “How to Get a Paper Accepted at OOPSLA” by Kent Beck.
  Great advice on how to write a compelling abstract using four key sentences.

Reviewing

• “Twelve tips for reviewers” by Henry L. Roediger III.
  Provides several guidelines for reviewing, based on the book “Reviewing Scientific Works in Psychology”. There are a few interesting points being made here, such as watching out for egocentrism (“The author should be citing my work more often”), explicitly making a recommendation instead of letting the editor guess what your overall opinion is, and signing your reviews (or at least write the review as if the author will learn your identity and you wouldn’t be embarrassed).

Conferences

• “How to get the most out of conferences” by Scott Berkun.
  Lots of practical tips about going to conferences, from shipping the printed proceedings back to your office to how to meet and socialize with many people.