The surprising truth about your motivation in epilepsy genetics – 2014 update

Update. I re-read one of my older posts when I went through Dennis’ recent discussion on the lessons learned during his PhD, which also included his advice on how to keep your motivation up. Two years ago, I actually wondered where motivation for science comes from in general. Are we driven largely by egoistic motives like money or fame, or are there different factors at play? I am re-blogging one of our old posts from 2012 with minor 2014 updates. These were the answers that I came up with back then. I think they are still relevant. Continue reading

10 strategies to help you get papers out faster

The one question. Early during my doctoral thesis I was confronted with the one big question in life science. The one question that you should always ask yourself when doing research. “What is the paper going to look like?” Don’t get me wrong, there is much, much more to science than publishing, but in this post, I would like to reflect on our attitude towards publications and suggestions how we could do better. And this also includes myself. Continue reading