Week 1: The Production of Knowledge

Welcome to graduate school! It has been said that grad school is where you transition from becoming a knowledge-consumer to a knowledge-producer. In Week 1 we will explore what this means, and discuss how to make the most out of your time as a graduate student at the Marine Institute.

Lecture Topics

  • Overview of the MI Fisheries Science graduate program
  • Discuss knowledge production - what do scientists do all day?
  • Concept: The workflow of science. Explain how each MI fisheries course supports this workflow
  • Why communicate?
    • Inside the ivory tower:
      • Communication (i.e. paper) as the fundamental unit of scientific credit
      • The workflow of science is fundamentally based on communication
    • Outside the ivory tower:
      • Managing fisheries is managing people - achieving this requires engagement
      • The public pays for our work and they should get to hear about it
      • Scientific literacy - if scientists don’t speak, who will?
  • Introduction to reference management (with emphasis on Zotero)

In-class Activities

  • Round-table introductions
  • Becoming Discoverable: Set up a Google Scholar profile and ORCID (https://scholar.google.ca/ and http://orcid.org/)
  • Download and install Zotero
  • Begin Individual Development Plan

Resources

I strongly recommend (but stop short of requiring) that you purchase copies of the course reference books:

Heard, Stephen B (2016). The Scientist’s Guide to Writing: How to Write More Easily and Effectively Throughout Your Scientific Career. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 255. ISBN: 9780691170220.

Olson, Randy (2015). Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 256. ISBN: 9780226270845.

I also recommend you visit http://collections.plos.org/ten-simple-rules - a series of papers that provide introductory advice to many topics relevant to reserachers.

Eisen, J (2014). Using Google scholar in scholarly workflows. (http://www.googblogs.com/using-google-scholar-in-scholarly-workflows/)

Here are some excellent videos to get you started with Zotero: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYspUZGexLdDLjHRkuERQlg/videos

Details

Introduction Activity

Students pair up with someone they don’t know. In pairs:

  • Student A: Introduces student B (< 1 min): Name, supervisor, where they did undergrad (and M.Sc) degrees.
  • Student B: Introduces themsleves (< 3 min): How did you get INTO research? And a random fact! (and vice versa)

(5 min prep, 10 min per pair)

Google Scholar, ORCID, and Zotero

Students will be introduced to each of the above products and will be encouraged to register for them.

Lecture Slides

Slides available via speakerdeck