I know, I know, book reviews are so seventh grade. But I am making a conscious effort not only to read more this year, but also to actively engage with the media I consume. So, I thought writing down a few tid bits about each of the books I conquer this year might help me and promote some great popular science literature that I think everyone should get around!
Title: The Effective Scientist
Author: Corey. J. A. Bradshaw
Theme:
ECRs, academia, science impact
Target audience:
ECRs across scientific disciplines
Overall thoughts:
A well written, self-reflective evaluation of the important aspects surrounding scientific research that make or break a scientific career.
As a “first-gen” PhD, I naively thought that being good at the research (understanding concepts, designing and interpreting experiment, analysing data, writing papers and teaching students) would be enough to guarantee me a successful and impactful career in academia. However, very soon into my first post-doc it became clear that there was a great deal more than these qualities required, and that it was not something that is taught in Grad school. Mostly, people garnered “insider knowledge” on how to succeed. With this truthful and frank book, Bradshaw provides some of these insights as a guide for new early career researchers, helping to at least level the playing field for those of us not in the know. So much of his recounts were relatable, and wisdom enlightening. Even those who consider themselves in the know could learn a thing or two from the empathetic approach and good lab-building practice ideas put forward by Bradshaw. Together, these skills may help you survive (maybe even thrive) in the world of academic science, will lead to a more fulfilling and impactful career, and allow you to positively contribute to the betterment of society. And as a side-note, the print version itself is absolutely beautiful (props to Rene Campbell for the images throughout, and for the amazing cover image) – a win-win-win!
Overall, I can not recommend this book enough for early-career scientists of all disciplines. Aspiring post-graduate students, newly-minted PhD’s, post-docs and junior principle investigators alike can all benefit from the wisdom held between this magnificent cover!
Some of the best bits*:
Knowing what or how to achieve what you will be expected to do is not necessarily intuitive or easy
We must compete in an age of on-tap information, most of which is either meaningless drivel or utter nonsense
To most, significant just sounds more authoritative, educated, and erudite than a lot or big. This is, of course, complete rubbish because some people use big words to his the fact that they are not quite as clever as they think they are
…you might be of the mistaken assumption that science is a nice, linear, logical process leading to unambiguous conclusions.
Failure, at least of the temporary kind, is therefore ironically a state that you will necessarily have to get used to if you are to succeed as a scientist.
What lacking novelty really means is ‘we do not think your paper will get as many citations as we would like’.
I could go on and on, but in reality this whole book bears repeating. In fact, I am quite certain that I will return many times over the years to revisit specific chapters or paragraphs – to cherry-pick more than these few phrases does an injustice to the rest, you will simply have to read it!
*Please note these are direct quotes from the reviewed material and do not represent independently conceived ideas.
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