2nd Edition

How to Be a Researcher A strategic guide for academic success

By Jonathan St B T Evans Copyright 2016
174 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

174 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

174 Pages 8 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

How to be a Researcher provides a strategic guide to the conduct of a successful research career within a university environment. Based on the author’s extensive personal experience, it offers down-to-earth advice, philosophical guidance, and discussions of the political context of academic research. This is not a research methods book, and the topics it covers are rarely discussed... Read more

1. Foreword 2. Introduction Part One: Advice 3. Scholarship and the origin of ideas 4. Research and teaching 5. Designing empirical studies 6. Research funding 7. Developing and testing theories 8. Collaboration and supervision 9. Communication of research Part Two: Philosophy and Psychology of Research 10. Hypothesis testing and reasoning 11. Statistical inference 12. Final thoughts

Biography

Jonathan St B T Evans is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Plymouth University. He has over 40 years’ experience of experimental research and has published more than 150 journal articles. He has also authored eight books, and he served as Editor of the journal Thinking & Reasoning for 17 years.

Well organised, thoughtful and thought-provoking, I strongly recommend this text to postgraduates in psychology. It drips with experience and is bang up to date. - James Hartley, The Psychologist 

I found this book eminently readable, full of advice, wise and witty. The discussions of issues like collaboration, giving talks and publication were just so helpful. I think this book will be as useful to students as to junior researchers, lecturers and assistant professors. Jonathan Evans is not only a first-rate researcher, but truly a thinker and a mentor.
Robert Sternberg, Department of Human Development, Cornell University, USA

So many young researchers have to navigate the stormy waters of academia without a pilot. Here finally is a guide, a book full of practical wisdom about how to succeed as an academic researcher in psychology. Jonathan Evans, one of the most prolific psychologists around, is a fount of useful career advice stated with his usual clarity and directness.
Steven Sloman, Cognitive, Linguistic, & Psychological Sciences, Brown University, USA

Drawing examples from his 35 years of experience as an academic in the area of psychology, Evans tackles the practical aspects before moving on to the philosophy and psychology of research.  The organization and execution of a creditable literature review is discussed in detail.  Each chapter ends with a list of helpful hints.  Filling a gap in the literature, this book is the next best thing to having a senior faculty member looking over one's shoulder while one attempts to get tenure. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty

- A. Salter, Oglethorpe University CHOICE September2016