# A field guide to grad school: uncovering the hidden curriculum #### 2020 - Jessica McCrory Calarco **Link**: **DOI**: **Links**: **Tags**: **zotLink**: [zot](zotero://select/items/@calarcoFieldGuideGrad2020) ###Abstract ``` "Some of the most important things you need to know to succeed in graduate school-like how to choose a good advisor, get funding for your work, and whether to celebrate or cry when a journal tells you to revise and resubmit an article-won't be covered in any class. They are part of a hidden curriculum that you are just expected to know or somehow learn on your own-or else. In this comprehensive survival guide for grad school, Jessica McCrory Calarco walks you through the secret knowledge and skills that are essential for navigating every critical stage of the postgraduate experience, from deciding whether to go to grad school in the first place to finishing your degree and landing a job. An invaluable resource for every prospective and current grad student in any discipline, A Field Guide to Grad School will save you grief-and help you thrive-in school and beyond"-- ``` ### Notes-Highlights [[How to write a scholarly abstract]] - Along those lines, and when I’m writing abstracts, I typically follow this six-sentence formula that outlines the rest of the paper: - Sentence 1: What we know Sentence - 2: What we don’t know Sentence - 3: How you answer that question Sentence - 4: What you found Sentence - 5: What you conclude from those findings Sentence - 6: Why those conclusions are important ([Location 3389](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0859PDXVX&location=3389)) -[[How to write a scholarly essay]] - Paragraph 1: Describe the gap in the literature you will address with your data. - What do we know? (Prior research tells us that …) - What do we not know? (And yet, we do not know …) - What do we suspect? (Given prior research, however, there is reason to suspect that …) - Paragraph 2: Identify your research question and explain how you answer it. What question will you answer/hypothesis will you test? (This study examines that possibility. Specifically, I ask …) - What data will you use to answer this question? (To answer that question, I draw on data from …) - What do you find? (In analyzing those data, I find …) - Paragraph 3: Explain the importance of your findings. - What is your central argument (i.e., the answer to your research question)? (Given these findings, I argue that …) - How does this argument broaden, clarify, or challenge existing knowledge? (These findings are important in that they …) - What implications do your findings have for research/policy/practice? (With respect to research/policy/practice, these findings suggest that …) ([Location 3413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0859PDXVX&location=3413))