This page offers a variety of guides and general resources focused on being a student, doing research, writing, and finding jobs.

Quick links:

• Student: suggestions on how to be successful as a student
• Research: suggestions on how to conduct research at UMN
• Writing: advice on how to create written publications
• Presentation: presentation advice
• Funding: proposal writing and gateways to funding sources
• Jobs: links to GISc job information
  

Also check out pages on methods and software and various data and research sources.

Student

Asking for a letter of reference
Ideas on how to be a (successful) graduate student
Taking a graduate exam and timelines for your exam
How to submit an assignment electronically
Guide to note taking in class
How to propose a directed study

UMN has a variety of counseling resources for a variety of challenges, including study help, stress management, and one-on-one basic academic skills (e.g., computing, writing).

Also see DISCCRS, which gives a range of advice to grad students

Research

Literature reviews are fundamental to the research process
Project planning is a necessary skill in research
RefWorks is an online bibliography program and can be linked to EndNote
Geo-publishing provides an overview of several research tasks
UMN Learning and Academic Skills Center has a number of short guides on a variety of topics
UMN  Library has a variety of research resources, including a library research guide
UCGIS Body of Knowledge describes the broad expanse of GISc
Authorship guidelines used by the HEGIS lab

Writing

Guides for writing various kinds of reports or reviews

• Guide to writing a research report for a quantitative geography class
• Guide to writing a literature review
• Guide to writing a technical review
• Guide to writing an article review
  

Guide to avoiding plagiarism
Guide to using track-changes in MS Word

UMN resources include

• The UMN Online Writing Center has a good deal of information on the writing process
• The UMN Style Guide
• UMN Learning and Academic Skills Center, including a nice piece on writing a term paper
• UMN Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing

External resources

• Geo-publishing describes writing a journal article and reviewing other people's work
• Strunk's Elements of Style is a well-established guide to writing
• Paul Brian's List of Common Errors in English is very handy
• Royal Geographical Society Publishing in Geography

Presentation

An excellent guide to posters and presentations is Gargett, A. and Abbott, M. (2005) Scientifically Speaking: Tips for Preparing and Delivering Scientific Talks and Using Visual Aids. The Oceanography Society Council, Washington DC.

Geo-publishing provides an overview of several tasks, but for presentations, pay particular attention to the section on "Good practice for presenting papers" when presenting project reports.

Funding

UMN resources

• The Sponsored Projects Administration has information on the grant-getting process at UMN
• Office of the VP for Research has a list of funding sources
• CLA Office for Research and Development

Gateways to funding opportunities

• Canadian Social Science Research links
• Community of Science funding opportunities
• EPA linked agencies
• ESRI has a list of both ESRI and non-ESRI grants
• Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University

Proposal writing

• NSF FAQs on proposal preparation
• Berkeley's Dissertation Workshop on proposal writing (local PDF version)
• Advice to UMN grad students applying for funding

Of special interest to geographers

• EPA Start Fellowship (EPA)
• NASA NESSF Fellowships (NASA site)
• NIH Doctoral fellowships (NIH)
• NSF Doctoral Dissertation improvement grants (GRS, SBE)
• NSF Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF)
• SSRC fellowships (SSRC)
  

Jobs

Academic jobs: The Chronicle of Higher Education has an excellent, and mostly free, website with advice about the academic job process. Also see the U of M's grad school career page for advice on jobs inside and outside of academia, grant writing, and counseling.

GIS jobs: One of the best places for GIS job information is from the Master of GIS program here at UMN. It has a resources page that includes information about GIS jobs in general, the market, and links to very good gateways.

Finally, check out the CV and resume page for some tips.