If you have an extra hour this Sunday, read the Little Book of Contentment by Leo Babauta. It's a free e-book, and it will leave you with a smile and some good thoughts to put into practice.The central idea of…
Planning your progress and learning how to manage your time are two essential skills for a successful PhD. As we've discussed a number of times here about systems to track time and manage time, I'd like to focus on a…
Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Koen Van den Eeckhout for a guest post in the Writers' Lab. Koen has recently obtained his PhD in physics at Ghent University, on the subject of glow-in-the-dark materials. In the following years…
I recently joined in a discussion on Twitter about how and why the books of Malcolm Gladwell fill a gap in science outreach. The questions remain open, and popularizing our research results might be a requirement on grant proposals that…
On September 10th 2013, I gave a lecture about my PhD research at my alma mater, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Brussels, Belgium. Even though I graduated from Brussels in 2008, I have kept in touch every now and then…
I'm taking a break from the regular posting in the Writers' Lab this week to introduce my new location to you. I'll be starting in November as an assistant professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito.The following is what Wikipedia…
Proofreading a paper on the trainTU Delft has a large number of Belgian students, mostly in aerospace engineering. Like most Belgian students, they travel back home over the weekend.Since the failure of the new highspeed line Fyra between Belgium and…
For all of us who juggle a lot of data for the analysis part of our dissertation, the following situation might sound all too familiar:You use a very large spreadsheet (or numerous spreadsheets) that holds a certain analysis of your…
On Tuesday, September 14th in 2010, I started PhD Talk. At that time I didn't have much of a defined goal for the blog. The original purpose of the blog, was the following:"However, there are always better ways to do…
Great news for PhD Students! Ben from Literature Review HQ has launched the Literature Review Boot Camp * to teach you the nuts and bolts of writing a literature review.The course lasts about 4 hours - and it is packed…
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