How to write research statement

[Music] hi I'm Stanton wertham I'm the Dean of the lead School of Education and human development at Boston College I want to talk to you today about research statements and cover letters when you apply for a job an academic job or when you have to prepare a dossier for our reappointment or a promotion or a tenure decision you have to write a research statement or you have to produce several paragraphs a page or so on what your research plans are what you've done and what you plan to do this is a crucial document this is a crucial thing to spend large amounts of time on because the people who are thinking about hiring you or the people who are evaluating you and considering whether to reappoint or promote you are going to spend a lot of time focusing on what you say in that statement in a typical dossier if you're coming up for a promotion or a reappointment at a university as a faculty member one of the two things people are certain to read is the research statement they'll also read your curriculum vitae so the first thing to think about when you do one of these statements is to try to think about your audience different universities are different they are teaching institutions they're institutions that are focused mostly on research they're institutions that expect both their institutions that expect more practical research research that contributes directly to practice and others that want basic research pure research that's his focus just on issues in the field so the first thing to know is what kind of university am i applying to or what kind of university am i working at and what is it that they want what kind of work are they most interested in you should talk to colleagues you should talk to people who would know about the values of the particular institution and try to tailor your letter or your statement to what it is that they're focused on themselves many institutions that focus on teaching and service also ask for teaching statements and service statements and the same thing will apply to those that you want to try to figure out what they want and give them an account of what you've done conforms with the goals and the ideals that they have I'm going to focus today just on research statements or the research paragraphs in a cover letter so you have to understand it from the point of view of the people who are evaluating it the people who are thinking about hiring you or thinking about promoting you have a notion in mind that they want a colleague that they can rely on for a long period of time so they're trying to infer from what you've done so far what it is you're going to do if they're hiring someone who's 55 years old into a distinguished professor position it's different but for most of the jobs that you were going to be considered for for the slots that you're going to be promoted in they're looking at someone who's relatively young and who's hoping to be able to stay at this institution for a long time so from their perspective they want to hire somebody who is going to be a decent colleague but with respect to research they want someone who's going to contribute over a long span we all know and have experience with faculty colleagues who get into a job and then don't really do anything anymore so their primary consideration is are we going to get someone who's going to contribute to the field over an extended period and what that means is you can't just write about what you've already done you have to write it so that it extends forward into the future and gives an image of you as a successful scholar 10 years from now who's going to be making important contributions that will be recognized in the field will be a value to students and colleagues can be proud of so the critical thing in writing these statements is of course the primary thing you have to talk about is what you've already done the research trajectory that you have already lived through so the primary subject matter is what I have to say about my prior projects but you need to structure that in such a way that extends forward into the future so here are the two central strands of my research here's what this one has shown so far here's why it's a contribution here's the other strand here's what I've shown here's why it's a contribution why it's important to the world into the field but I'm telling you about these two strands because I expect that as I move forward in the future I'm going to combine them and the overlap of these two strands will give us something that's really going to be an exceptional contribution because I'm bringing strength in both or here's the work that I've done so far this work is important because it contributed X here's why it's systematic robust and reliable and you all should take me seriously as a researcher but you see I'm now set up to address this new problem that people in the field have been hoping to address or I'm now set up to have a productive line of research with this new kind of a data set that nobody looked at before or you can expect that five years from now I will have produced a book on this because you can see that I've set up I have the methodological skills I have access to the data and this is my goal this is how I'm going to move forward so you want to get give a picture of how it is you want to tell a story of how you in five or ten years will have done something that continues to be an important contribution not just I've done this and I'm great but I've done this in such a way that you can see how I'm moving forward and how my future trajectory is very promising they're also trying to get a sense of commitment and energy so for you to move forward and continue to make contributions over a long period of time they're gonna want to know that you have good research knowledge good methodological skills the capacity to do the next project but they also want to know that you're the kind of person who will be able to do it they want you to be energetic committed the kind of person who we can count on actually following through with these ideas and producing something that will be an important publication or contribution of some other sort so try to tell your story in such a way that it communicates that you're exactly the kind of person who has the drive you have the energy you have the commitment you have the interest and the skills to be able to pull off becoming the kind of colleague they want someone who is a nice person but who also is going to consistently contribute at a high level in ways that will be recognized by others thanks for listening if you need more information information entering website

Channel: DK Mentoring Online

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Length: 6min 21sec (381 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 19 2019