There is a lot of advice for graduate students about research available on the web. These links should help you get started!

• Research and Writing Advice
• Some good books on research and writing
• Advisors and Mentors, Mary Lou Soffa (University of Virginia), Kamalika Das (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
• How to Have a Bad Career In Research/Academia David Patterson (U.C. Berkeley)
• How to Do Research, Jeff Chase (Duke University)

• All About Research, Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech), Elena Jakubiak (Tufts University)
• Getting Started, Jeanne Ferrante (University of California at San Diego)
• Finishing Your Thesis, Lori Clarke (University of Massachusetts)

• Finding a Research Topic, Mary Jane Irwin (Pennsylvania State University)
• How to Perform a Systematic Literature Search
• Try reading recent PhD thesis in your field of interest from notable researchers (recent graduates who are or work with someone respected in the field and are publishing in top conferences). The related work and future work sections should give you good insights into the open problems in the field.
• Look for conference and workshop call for papers, these may contain some new and open topics.
• Read papers in top conferences in your field to get a feel for the problems that are still out there.

There probably isn’t a silver bullet for this. Inspiration may come at any time–in the shower, while walking the dog, driving, or even eating out at a restaurant. As nice as it is to think about the theory of a problem, many solutions and insights come from hands on experience. Think a long-standing algorithm could be improved? Implement it, or try it on some specific cases. Think no one’s solved a problem to your satisfaction? Come up with examples where the other approaches break down, and figure out how to address those limitations. Many people find working with concrete examples helps them to get the research juices flowing.

• Scientist: Four golden lessons by Steven Weinberg
• You and Your Research by Richard Hamming

Remember, papers don’t sell research, people do. Attending conferences and networking is vital to selling your research, and yourself.

• Oral Presentation Advice, Mark D. Hill (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

• Networking Skills, Kathryn McKinley (University of Texas), Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech)
• Networking Skills, Jan Cuny (NSF and University of Oregon)
• Remember to network with grad students, not just professors. Graduate students will one day be professors or professionals and may be good contacts in the future. Also, graduate students talk with their advisors, so you can get some free advertising to professors if you can impress your peers.

• Publication Strategies by Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Tech) - geared toward software engineering research in the “Where to Publish” Section but mostly general advice
• Writing a Technical Paper by Michael Ernst (MIT)
• How to Write a Good Research Paper – by Mary Shaw (CMU)
• Style: Toward Clarity and Grace – A very good general writing book

After you’ve published your papers, make them available on line. Your research group may have a place to put all publications, or you’ll need to start your own page! Others reading your papers may find your presentation slides to be a useful resource as well, so make them available too.

• Poster Advice

• Dr. McCoy's Communication Skills
• Giving Technical Talks by Scot Drysdale

The following summary is by Jeff Chase (Duke University):

Science is political. Scientific careers depend on publication of research results: “publish or perish”. Moreover, those research results may be threatening in some way to other scientists or to various other interests. It is increasingly common to hear claims that scientific conclusions are politically driven, e.g., with respect to climate disruption, destruction of ecosystems and species, stem cells, toxicity of pollutants, and so on. The response of the scientific community is that science is an ongoing process of refinement and consensus that is inherently self-correcting over the long term. And the primary mechanism for that self-correction is Peer Review. The integrity and authority of the scientific community depends on scientists continually checking up on each other.

As a scientist, your work as a scientist will be subjected to peer review. One of your most important responsibilities will be to review the work of your colleagues.

As an author, you should strive to make your reviewer’s job as easy as it can be. As a reviewer, you should strive to write fair, honest, well-calibrated reviews that are helpful to your community as well as to the authors.

In either role, it is crucial to understand the culture of peer review and its pitfalls and limitations, and some of the ethical issues you might face as an author or a reviewer. A key aspect of the job is to assess the nature and weight of scientific contributions (yours and others), and match the contribution to the forum (workshop, conference, journal). Here are some readings that discuss these issues.

• The Task of the Referee – by Alan Jay Smith
• The Invisible Hand of Peer Review – by Stevan Harnad
• A Guide for New Referees in Theoretical Computer Science – by Ian Parberry