On my desk, right in front of the computer screen, lies a pile of paper. This pile gives me headaches, keeps me awake at night, and is a source of frustration on sunny weekends. It is the pile of unfinished manuscripts, gathered and carried along from earlier positions as a postdoc. Every paper has a story attached to it. Some papers are only in their first version, hardly more than a collection of raw data. Others have seen many revisions, have passed the eyes of multiple co-authors, and have got stuck just before submission, because something just is not quite right. There are papers of PhD students, co-workers, and of myself as leading author. Some contain data taken two years ago.

I am wondering how others are dealing with their unpublished data. Do you have a drawer full of brilliant work yet to be published? Or are you completely up to date with your results? For some people, it may be a reason for boasting: look at how many data I still have on the shelf! For a starting academic, unpublished data can be a life saver in times that you are starting a new lab and you need results to cover the gaps in your publication record. However, the pile also represents months of painstaking experiments, data analysis, and theory, lying there going to waste and most importantly – not being cited.

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Social networks are everywhere. Personally I like Facebook to keep track of old friends and add new ones. These friends are mostly of nonscientific background. Until recently I had never realized the importance of social networks in science. When you do your PhD and perhaps some postdoc projects here and there, it is hard to think about what it takes to become a successful scientist other than doing brilliant science. Although scientific skills are undoubtedly important, I believe that one of the key ingredients which can make or break a scientific career is a good network of friends.

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My example presentation
When discussing quality of presentations it helps a lot to discuss on the basis of example presentations. An example presentation is exactly what this post is about. Although I do not expect all the readers of this blog to be interested in the content of my talk, it would probably not harm to sketch the context of this speech. About a year ago I gave a 25minute presentation for an audience of about 75 physics PhD students. That day was organized by the Dutch science-supporting agency FOM especially for the students. The program included workshops on presentations, on writing papers and on career planning. I was the last, plenary,  speaker, just before the good-bye drink. My task was to give them a flavor, possibly with some humor, of what it means to pursue an academic career.

Technical aspects
The idea of posting this presentation is to show some technical details:

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This blog focuses on professional and social survival. Here, I talk about physical survival: Get through your Ph.D., and hopefully also through the rest of your research career without damaging your health or even your life.

The theorists think they are not at risk and can stop reading here. The experimentalists think they’re careful enough and can stop reading now – do you really want to take the chance? There are at least three important categories of occupational hazards for scientists, which I aim to make you aware of.

1 – Laboratory risks. Remember that the most important hazards in the laboratory are everyday objects and substances that do not appear to pose a special threat. Nitrogen gas, water, electricity, vacuum chambers, knives, heavy objects are real killers, and that is not meant as a metaphor. It’s the hazards you don’t expect and are unprepared for that are the most dangerous.

2 – Office risks. Repetitive strain injury, sick-building syndrome, backaches, copier toner allergy, and and falling books are unlikely to kill you in the literal sense. But they may steer your career in a not-very-positive direction.

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