Professional
Resources
The political science department requires students to take a two course sequence in professional development. The first course focuses on a set of issues related primarily to success in graduate school itself and also in teaching. It is taken in the spring semester of your first year in graduate school. The second course, to be taken in your third your in graduate school, focuses on writing and transitioning successfully through the last stages of graduate school and into the profession. Details and resources for both courses can be found on this page. More coming!
PLSC 597C: Teaching, Writing and Professional
Development, Syllabus, Spring 2005. We will cover a variety of topics
over the course of the semester including professionalism topics such as
planning your graduate school years, putting together a curriculum vita,
preparing for candidacy exams, selecting MA topics, and writing the MA;
teaching topics including planning a course and recitation sections, preparing
lectures or discussion classes, promoting active learning, dealing with
problems in the classroom, as well as grading and evaluating learning; and
writing research papers topics such as defining problems, crafting arguments,
and outlining and revising manuscripts.
PLSC 597C: Writing and Professional Development, Syllabus, Fall 2004. The course will focus on the challenges that lie in the last few years of graduate school and beyond: comprehensive exams, the dissertation, publishing and the job market. Class sessions will cover a variety of topics including writing for publication, criticizing as a professional, writing reviews, writing the dissertation, finding grant opportunities, writing grant proposals, preparing for comprehensive exams, responding to anonymous reviews and editor letters, creating posters, presenting your research, networking/presenting yourself to the profession, and preparing dossiers. Topics will vary from week to week, however, over the course of the semester students will work with a single manuscript that written for a previous course, a conference, or perhaps as an MA essay, redrafting the paper and preparing to send it out for publication.
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Selected Discussion Topics |
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Handouts and Other Information |
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Preparing a talk (powerpoint) |
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Presenting your research as a Poster (powerpoint) |
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Poster Helps courtesy of Fred Boehmke Designing
Effective Posters, from Jeff Radel at “Do's and Don'ts of Poster Presentation” by Steven M. Block (1996). |
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Planning your time in graduate school wisely, aka the backward calendar. (pdf slides) |
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See Frank Baumgartner’s Resource page. Frank created the backward calendar, you’ll find it here. |
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Advice for finding grant support and writing proposals. |
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Where do I look for opportunities to get my research funded? Check out: RGSO’s grant information pages and the Community of Science. Also see Frank Baumgartner’s Resource page. |
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Writing your first CV. (pdf slides) |
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Some advice on writing research papers, comments based on Booth, Colomb, and Williams. |
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Here are some other links to things I find helpful in my own work. These include Latex information and other methods stuff, for the most part!
v The basics for WinEdt
v Miktex
v Latex commands by subject (from Hilde Ravlo).
v The Political Methodologist: see the political methodology web page for links.
Go back to my homepage, the Political Science Department, or email me questions: sdeboef@psu.edu
