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first page of articles and at the start of books it tells you who has supported that research and thus can give you ideas for who might support yours and talk to older graduate students both in your department and outside don t cast yourself too narrowly maybe your approach to research makes you eligible for humanities or hard science based funding opportunities if you are already post dissertation stage which grants and fellowships you can apply for depends on whether you are in academia or whether you are working e g for a non profit or research facility if you are an academic the same rules apply key is now to make sure you are applying for grants aimed at your target group e g junior profs or post docs finally keep in mind the nih for health related broadly conceived work and the nsf for sociology more generally nsf funds quantitative qualitative and comparative historical research and is particularly interested in funding data collection rather than simply funding data analysis of existing data many foundations support sociological research including ssrc russell sage spencer sloan guggenheim william t grant and many others it is worth meeting with the grants foundations relations people at your university to see if they have ideas about where to look seed grant money can also come from the asa fund for the advancement of the discipline what are the components to a grant proposal where can i get samples of successful grant applications a successful grant proposal should show that it a is about an important topic one with real relevance to the world outside of sociology even when it is basic research b is being carried out by someone who knows the relevant literature and is likely to produce the research funding a proposal is taking a gamble the review panel will try to increase their odds and c has a strong research design one that is likely to yield useful and important insights there are lots of guides available online and the following essay contains great information http fellowships ssrc org art_of_writing_proposals in addition to following general rules about how to organize a grant proposal make sure you read and follow the funding agency s actual grant guidelines for instance if they request information about the broader impact your research will have or how it relates to the funding agency s mission make sure you address this head on how to get examples if you know someone who got a grant fellowship from an agency where you want to apply say nsf or ford foundation ask them many funding agencies will list their most recent grant recipients online even if the proposals are not posted contact the recipients and ask them to share their recipe for success or even the grant proposal they are your peers probably just a year or two ahead of you in grad school tenure track and you will likely continue to run into each other at conferences down the road what are some issues to keep in mind when applying for funding for a quantitative project for a qualitative project regardless of your methodology your proposal needs to demonstrate the elusive theory method data link make sure you understand this part most proposals get rejected because that link is broken for example if you propose to study how gender identity shapes people s conflict resolution strategies doing interviews may not produce the most accurate picture perhaps an experimental design or a survey would be better if you want to examine how different policy contexts affect educational outcomes you need to be clear about whether your theory is better designed to explain cross sectional or longitudinal policy outcome trends and use the appropriate data apart from that good proposals regardless of methodology demonstrate that the pi has or will acquire the skills to complete this project in the intended timeframe that the data can actually yield answers to the questions asked and that the concepts being invoked can be gauged reasonably well with the data available providing the funding agency with a table of what your data sources are what variables you will use to gauge which concepts if quantitative or what your coding scheme is likely to look like if collecting your own qualitative data can go a long way to getting approved beware of falling into the trap of thinking that quantitative proposals have a better chance of getting funded it s the theory method data link that remains key unfortunately in my own experience as a reviewer some proposals simply fail because they come across as what we call trust me proposals in other words the reviewers get the impression that the pi is on a fishing expedition but fails to verbalize a clear research question or expectations grounded in one or several competing or complementary theories or seems to engage in haphazard data collection analysis continue reading new hey jane column finding grants new hey jane column preparing for a job talk july 26 2009 at 4 09 pm posted in hey jane column job market leave a comment hey jane i am currently on the market and preparing for my first campus interview what advice can you offer as i prepare my job talk jane says the job talk is one of the most significant phases of the campus interview process while a good job talk will not ensure that you will be offered the position a bad job talk may very well disqualify you from further consideration by the search committee in addition your handling of the q a is an important piece of the job talk delivering a solid well organized job talk and q a session is thus essential to performing well during the campus interview process so what are the components of a good job talk a good talk is a clear talk you should organize your job talk around a clear question a clear argument and a clear conclusion it s a good idea to simplify your basic argument summed up in a sentence or two state it explicitly both at the beginning and the end of the talk elaborating on the simplified argument throughout the rest of the talk in order to construct a well organized presentation the substance of the talk should be clearly framed around your argument you want to make sure you don t draw the audience into a thicket of other issues structure the talk like a story make clear what you are asking why your research question matters and how you have answered your research question it is also vital that you clearly address the so what question be certain that the title of your talk reflects the argument you ll be making as well a good talk is on something you know well resist the urge to develop a talk around something new a line of inquiry that you have not yet fully fleshed out or examined in the work you ve completed thus far choose a dissertation chapter with which you ve developed a good bit of familiarity even one you have already published or submitted for publication it will take a lot of the stress out of the preparation of the talk and you will look a lot more knowledgeable and smooth there are times to take risks this is not one of them a good talk is interesting to the broad range of sociologists or interdisciplinary scholars that will be listening to the talk the job talk differs from the presentation of a conference paper in that it is more an introduction to your intellectual biography and research agenda not a talk geared specifically toward subfield specialists so don t write a talk that is focused for a specialty audience or journal write a talk that has clear relevance outside of your subfield one that will allow the audience to connect with your arguments don t use highly technical or specialized terms and if you are presenting sophisticated statistical analyses that some may not be familiar with present them as simply as possible but offer to answer any additional questions during the q a portion of the talk in the same vein rather than focusing narrowly on the significance of your work within your subfield or within your discipline for those interviewing for positions in multidisciplinary departments make clear the broader context of your work and its implications in the wider world continue reading new hey jane column preparing for a job talk hey jane says back up your work july 16 2009 at 3 40 pm posted in technology writing leave a comment do you regularly back up your work your data your photographs and videos most people would probably answer no to that question but hard drives die everyone knows someone who has had a hard drive die beyond retrieving anything from it don t let it happen to you i didn t used to back up my computer s contents regularly and i m still guilty of not regularly backing up photographs but about a year ago i started using mozy com s free back up service and now every single morning at 8am a complete back up is made of my most important folders i e my dissertation folder job market folder and teaching folder i don t have to even think about the back up or remember to do it it just happens to back up my entire hard drive i have to plug it into an external drive so that happens less often even so i know that everything has been backed up at least once a month and the important stuff once a day and that s peace of mind here s some links to advice on how to keep regular back ups backups are one of your most important tasks back up your pc s hard drive geek to live complete free mac backup online storage comparison commuter relationships from the hey jane archives june 11 2009 at 8 38 pm posted in work life balance leave a comment hey jane my partner and i have both been offered fantastic jobs in different states we are trying to decide whether or not to attempt a commuter relationship what advice can you give us jane says congratulations on your job offers should you decide to begin a commuter relationship much of your experience will be unique to you and your partner and your individual personalities and relationship dynamics let me begin by saying that some people report many positive aspects of commuter relationships if the job opportunities that present themselves are as fantastic as you suggest then your actual work lives might be much more satisfying than if you accepted less than fantastic jobs in the same location also consider the joy of eating whatever you want for dinner whenever you want to having flexibility in your daily schedule having time to write without interruption to develop friendships or to attend an evening lecture without cutting in to couple time some of this may not be possible if you have children and are the primary parent however there are also some positive aspects of being the primary parent in your children s lives you can develop special routines and rituals and have more flexibility in those routines as well as be involved in the children s school and other activities while being the primary parent can be exhausting it also has some great rewards with that said there are some challenges that you may want to consider as you make your decision continue reading commuter relationships from the hey jane archives what kind of retirement plans do i need to make from the hey jane archives june 5 2009 at 8 27 pm posted in retirement leave a comment hey jane i m beginning to think about retiring from academia and i hear people talk about planning for retirement what kinds of plans do i need to make jane says first let me say congratulations on reaching this new chapter in your life often when people refer to planning for retirement they mean making sure their finances are in order that is certainly an important piece of the puzzle however there are a few other things that you might want to take into account as you transition into retirement when to retire you may or may not want to consider the timing of your retirement on a political level the interests of your department or specialty area might be a factor will your line be renewed or terminated will it remain in your department will it remain in your area of specialization another issue to consider is that you may need to start planning well in advance in order to take advantage of your final paid sabbatical the rules at most universities require a person to return for a full year after a sabbatical see hey jane column 13 this means that one has to determine when she is eligible for a sabbatical and plan at least three years in advance to coordinate sabbatical and retirement a year to apply for sabbatical a year to go on sabbatical and a year to come back to campus before retirement the progress of your graduate students may influence the timing of your retirement would you want to be able to continue directing theses and dissertations would you be allowed to do so after retirement some universities require emerita status in order to continue serving on graduate student committees more about emerita status below grants and grant funds might be an issue as well once again emerita status may allow you to apply for grants to be administered by the university and to use grant funds you have already been awarded if you are receiving or expecting grant money you should check with your research office and or the funding agency to clarify the details you may find yourself in a situation where a grant is postponed until after you are scheduled to retire you may not be allowed to receive salary from the grant after retirement but may be able to continue to receive expenses there is likely to be a great deal of variety depending on the grant service on key committees may influence the timing of your retirement no one is indispensable but sometimes the right senior person can make a difference on a project or an important committee once again emerita status may allow you to continue to serve on department or university committees after retirement emerita status continue reading what kind of retirement plans do i need to make from the hey jane archives can i cite my friend s work in my own from the hey jane archives may 29 2009 at 8 26 pm posted in networking professional development publishing leave a comment hey jane i want to cite my friend s work in my new book but i don t know if it is appropriate to do because of our relationship i don t want to recreate the old boys network of which i ve always been critical jane says i say if the work is relevant to cite of course you should cite it you should also let your colleague know that you have cited her it is particularly important for young scholars to know when and where they have been cited for tenure and promotion consideration and citations in books are often harder to track than citations in articles i would also add that if your friend s work is good you might consider assigning it in your classes recommending it to other colleagues and nominating it for an award while the exclusivity of the so called old boys network can be very frustrating we could all learn a thing or two about self promotion networking and supporting our colleagues in fact the mission of organizations like sws is 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