Pennsylvania State University

Graduate Research, Writing, and Careers in Computer Science and Informatics

Useful Books on Graduate Studies, Research and Careers

You can find the slides of a talk that I have often given to new graduate students here

You can find a list of extremely useful books on research, scientific ethics, writing, dissertations, and scientific careers that I recommend to all of my graduate students here.

Online Resources on Graduate Study in Computer Science

• Advice for Undergraduates Considering Graduate School by Phil Agre.
• Notes on the Ph.D. Degree, by Doug Comer
• How to Succeed in Graduate School - A Guide for Students and Advisors by Marie desJardins.
• Graduate Study in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences: A Survival Manual by Dianne Prost O'Leary.
• Graduate School Survival Guide, Wanda Pratt.
• Tomorrow's Professor - Excerpts from Richard Reis's book with the same title.
• Computer Science Graduate School Survival Guide by Ronald Azuma.
• Graduate School Superstars
• How to Choose a PhD advisor by Michael Loui.
• Networking on the Network by Phil Agre
• How to be terrible graduate student (by Graeme Hirst, University of Toronto).
• How to cope with "burnout", by Andreas Gehmeyr.

Online Resources on Ethics

• On Being A Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research from the National Academy of Sciences.
• Course on Responsible Conduct in Research, from Columbia University
  • Responsible Authorship and Peer Review
  • Collaborative Science
  • Data Acquisition and Management
  • Mentoring
  • Research Misconduct
  • Conflicts of Interest
• Integrity in Scientific Research, Videos from American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Ethics in Computing by Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University
• Association of Computing Machinery Computing and Public Policy Page (including Code of Ethics)
• Netiquette, by Virginia Shea.
• Resources on Plagiarism and How to Avoid it MIT
• On Line Ethics Center for Science and Engineering from Case Western Reserve University
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

Online Resources on Research in Computer Science

• You and your research, by Richard Hamming.
• A Letter to Research Students, by Duane A. Bailey
• How to Read a Research Paper
• How to Read a Research Paper
• How to Keep Up With the Literature
• How to do research in Computer Science by Michael Schillo, German Research Center for AI.
• Research Methods in Computer Science Serge Demeyer
• About Computing Science Research MethodologyNelson et. al.
• Research methods in computer science Class notesRyerson.
• Research methods in Computer science lecture notesCunnigham
• How to do Research in the MIT AI Lab, ed. David Chapman
• How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia by David Patterson

Online Resources on Writing, Publication, and Presentation

Grammar and Style