Trafford Publishing: Finding Your Way in Science

Here is the full reference card for this book...

If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Finding Your Way in Science

by Lemuel A. Moyé

282 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1215; ISBN 1-4120-3388-8; US$33.89, C$33.89, EUR23.15, £17.50

Finding Your Way in Science develops principals that guides the character growth of junior scientists who are completing their graduate education or just staring their careers in the early 21st century. These principals, when coupled with a diligent work ethhic and natural scientific aptitude, will guide the development of these young researchers as they struggle with the requirement of scientific productivity.

Read more!

About the Book About the Author Excerpts Catalogue Information

About the Book

Research in science has evolved, growing in breath and complexity. In genetics, agriculture, epidemiology, avionics, mathematics, biology, astronomy, economics, and medicine, the story in the same; experiments today are more complicated then they have ever been before. In the older paradigm that was in operation for hundreds of years, research efforts were crippled by the absence of technology, but propelled by competent, disciplined thought. Time was readily available for research design and personal development.
Today, technological demands eagerly consume our time as we take advantage of an ever expanding world of opportunity. If you permit it, your day is easily consumed with productive activities, e.g. electronic literature searches using a high speed internet connection at the airport, followed by an airborn grant writing session as you travel to yet one more meeting. Computers once had waiting lines of users; they now stand ready to word process, calculate, and even simulate experiments at our behest. The scientific systems can now accept more work product than we can produce. The faster we work, the faster the production of analyses, the quicker the generation of papers and products, the more rapid the pace of progress. In the old paradigm, travel and technological capacity were the rate limiting step. Now - we are.
This new dynamic places a greater premium on scientific productivity, yet there is more to a career than productivity. The principles, judgment, conduct, ethic, and temperament of researchers must develop simultaneously with their work product if these scientists are to develop into mature professionals. Although junior scientists have fine educational backgrounds, they frequently do not yet have the poise, vision, or coping skills that they need in order to identify and sustain the optimum productivity level in their careers. A philosophical approach that would help them achieve this balance would serve as an important foundation. However, junior scientists typically give little consideration to the development of a set of guiding principles. Often neglected, these researchers are left to stumble to this equipoise on their own. Unfortunately, many talented young scientists never find it, and can be confused, disoriented, and ultimately discouraged by their undirected search.
Finding Your Way In Science lays out for the scientist the principles that can produce and sustain the character growth that guides the development of the scientific professional.
The central thesis of Finding Your Way in Science is that the relentless pursuit of productivity is not a worthy career goal for the junior scientist. While productivity is and will be a fundamental attribute of the professional, there are other core themes that must be allowed to develop, appear, and exert their influences as well. The presence of self-control and patience, of moral excellence and compassion, of discipline and flexibility are as critical to the development of the junior scientist as is the acquisition of technical skills. The presence of these traits engenders collegiality, persuasive strength, responsibility, administrative diligence, influence, and vision, i.e. the qualities of charitable leadership.
Chapter One focuses on the need for the scientist to take stock of herself, carefully measuring her strengths and weaknesses. This chapter articulates the theme that is the foundation of the book; productivity, so highly emphasized in academia, in private industry and in government is not the only star by which the scientist should steer. Chapter One delineates the dimensions of the scientist's character that must also be expanded in addition to the natural extension of knowledge that takes place at this time in their career. A broad overview of the role of the scientist's self-respect, ethics, sense of charity, and collegiality is provided. Concentrating on developing the strengths, skills, and outlook of a mature, professional scientist will not only amplify your productive efforts, but will also buffer and protect you as you face the unseen challenges that lie ahead. The specific scientific advances that your work produces will, in all likelihood, be overshadowed and surpassed by the future advances of others. However, the principles for which you stand as both a scientist and as an individual can resonate indefinitely.
Chapter Two discusses the function of data interpretation in research that is based on a sample from a much larger population. The role of the "surprise result" and the importance of result confirmation are provided in clear, non-mathematical language for the scientist. It is important for the scientist to recognize that they are not explorers or "searchers" but "researchers" and that their primary contribution is to provide confirmed scientific results that can be extended to larger populations.
The important of diligent administration is discussed in Chapter Three. This is a topic that many scientists shun because of its non-scientific nature and absence of direct scientific productivity. However, without the development of skill in this area, the scientist runs the risk of inefficiency in his efforts as he struggles to identify and obtain the critical resources that he needs for his projects. The importance of mastering the logistics that researchers require to carry out their scientific developments is emphasized. Three focal points are identified that will help the scientist in his first role as principal investigator.
Chapter Four discusses the role of the scientist in collaborative projects. Being the junior member of a research team represents a fine opportunity to gain the experience and intuition that the scientist needs. The establishment of a clear sense of worth and self-value are necessary for any researcher involved in a productive collaborative efforts. Practical advice is provided for communicating with scientists in others fields whose technical language the scientist does not understand, and who may not understand the language that the researcher uses. Concrete guidance is provided on the role of proper work product documentation; use of email and the development of mature scientific judgment is discussed. Special emphasis is provided on the approaches that one can use when communicating with and educating investigators more senior than you. Junior investigators are advised to master the new scientific knowledge base, and then to be quick to take advantage of the mastery.
Important instruction is provided to the scientist on making presentations before audiences in Chapter Five. The essential component of this chapter is a body of advice to help place the scientist at ease in presenting results to both small and large audiences. Presentation anxiety ("stage fright") is a real concern for the scientist, and its cause, followed by a prescription for its banishment is offered. The investigator is reminded that the biggest cause of collapse in a presentation is not the intensity of the interchange with the audience but the presenter's own fear of failure. Guidance for preparation and delivery of the presentation is given. Specific suggestions for responding during a post-presentation question and answer session are provided.
Chapter Six is devoted to ethical concerns. Examples of ethical failings of scientists in the past are provided and illuminated so that the investigator can determine if the seeds of this unethical behavior reside in themselves. Specific corrective steps are recommended to the junior investigator who has a chief who is abusive, or flagrantly unethical. Guidance on recognizing the unethical investigator, how to have discussions with that investigator, and how to foster an environment of high ethical scientific conduct is presented.
The discussion in Chapter Seven is specifically for the junior scientist who works in academia. This traditional environment is rapidly changing, and the time-tested concepts of academic freedom must now go hand in hand with the newer idea of academic accountability. The definition of productivity within the modern academic setting is provided, and the three metrics of teaching, research, and community service are motivated. Since so much of this scientist's progress is measured by publications, advice is provided for developing a smooth, positive trajectory for being productive in this arena without being consumed with productivity. The concepts of promotion and tenure are discussed. The importance of determining a long term plan, and the need for developing a good and sustaining personal work-lifestyle is motivated. As in other fields, productivity alone is insufficient for career development within the university environment. Character development is essential in this setting as well.
Leadership spirit and capability is locked away in the heart of every devoted scientist, and Chapter Eight discusses ways in which the scientist can discover and develop their leadership ability. The importance of 1) taking authority, but not providing too much direction to skilled subordinates, and 2) the priority of leading not as an exercise of authority but from a force of honesty and righteousness are just two of the several strategies for successful team leadership that are discussed in this chapter. Junior investigators are exposed to the concept that many scientists who disappoint their own expectations do so because they will not accept, at the controversial moment, responsibility for an immediate decision that they are called upon to make. While investigators can fear rashness, they must also fear irresolution. Concluding comments are provided in Chapter Nine.
Each of the topics in this book is discussed with the goal of not just imparting tactical advice to the investigator, but as part of the general theme that the investigator must develop their professional character in parallel with their productivity record. Like the apples of gold in settings of silver, good character and productivity must go together to develop strong scientists.
The audience for this book is broad in scope. It is written at a level for all advanced graduate students, post doctoral researchers, and scientists. It is applicable to all scientific fields, and to researchers in industry, government, and academic institutions.

About the Author

Dr. Lemuel A. Moyé, M.D., Ph.D. is a physician and a biostatistician at the University of Texas School of Public Health. He earned his medical degree at Indiana University Medical School in 1978 and completed a Ph.D. in Community Health Sciences with concentration in Biostatistics in 1987. He is a licensed physician in Texas and has actively practiced general medicine from 1979 to 1992. He is a diplomat of the National Board of Medical Examiners and is currently a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston where he holds a full time faculty position.
Dr. Moyé has carried out cardiovascular research for twenty years and continue to be involved in the design, execution and analysis of clinical trials. He has participated in the mentoring of junior scientists for many years. He has served in several clinical trials sponsored by both the U.S. government and private industry. In addition, Dr. Moyé have served as statistician/epidemiologist for six years on both the Cardiovascular and Renal Drug Advisory Committee to the Food and Drug Administration and the Pharmacy Sciences Advisory Committee to the FDA. He has served as an ad hoc member on other FDA advisory committees as well. He has served on several Data, Safety, and Monitoring Boards that oversee the conduct of clinical trials, and taken part on many reviews of grants that have been submitted by fellow scientists for federal funding.
Dr. Moyé has published over one hundred manuscripts in peer-reviewed literature that discuss the design, execution and analysis of clinical research. He is author Statistical Reasoning in Medicine -The Intuitive P-value Primer, published by Springer in 2000, and sole author of the textbook Multiple Analysis in Clinical Trials: Fundamentals for Investigators that appeared in the summer 2003 published by Springer. He has also co-authored two published texts in mathematics.

Excerpts

Comments from Chapter 3 "Investigators and Administration"
"Make no mistake about it _ you will spend a good deal of your time carrying out administrative duties. While you have no choice about this, you can nevertheless choose how to spend this time. You can spend it consumed by and attitude of time-selfishness which will stunt the development of your project. Alternatively, you can be governed by a spirit of time-generosity. Being charitable with your time when there are already so many demands on it is difficult for many, and will appear impossible for some. Since administrative diligence requires this generosity, insist on, and encourage the character growth required for you to accomplish it. This character growth begins with the recognition that your innate value as a scientist is not affected by the external circumstances and demands of your day."
Comments from Chapter 4 "Investigators and Collaboration" "Completing work on time can, in and of itself, rise up to become an all important goal. Thus, the researcher may criticize herself when it appears that she is not able to meet the expectation of her calendar. By falling behind, she can sense that new required tasks will not be completed on time, and that new opportunities cannot be explored. As the backlog builds, the worker falls irretrievably behind schedule, and fears that her career progress is beginning to stagnate."
Also, lurking in the shadows is the link between your assessment of your own daily performance and your self-worth. Intense days that spiral out of your control can painfully rob you of an important sense of self-satisfaction. This is a dangerous trap that can all too easily ensnare you. In fact, you may indirectly build this trap yourself. On those days when your work has been particularly good, productive, and fulfilling, it is all too easy to let your sense of self-worth soar. You are buoyed by your own performance. However, the price that you pay for this self-image construction on good days is self-image destruction on disappointing days. Thus, the combination of the increasing occurrence of days that do not permit you to reach your performance goals with the strong link between your daily performance and self-worth is a destructive one, robbing you of the some of the excitement and enthusiasm of your young career.
There are two important realizations that are available to you that, when viewed, can reverse your reaction to these particularly bothersome days when you are unable to meet your performance objects. The first, and perhaps most important of the two, is to separate your assessment of your own value from your performance. Performance is an external metric that changes from circumstance to circumstance, and from day to day. Commonly, it is out of your direct control. Linking your own sense of self-worth to your ability to complete your task list is like strapping your sense of self-value in for a jolting roller coaster ride. There will be dramatic highs, and disorienting, disruptive, and painful lows. Your schedule, and the execution of your abilities might certainly enjoy this ride, but it should not be inflicted on your sense of value and adequacy.
Instead, your appraisal of your sense of self-worth must be insulated from your day-to-day activities. Consider the most expensive and valued diamond. It has high, perhaps immeasurably high, value. This value is constant, in the face of sun or rain, war or peace, prosperity or poverty. Regardless of its external environment, the diamond retains its value. This is the unwavering measure that you should ensure be placed on your self valuation. Your sense of adequacy should be well supplied, remaining even, constant, and steady... "
From Chapter 4: Chaotic Days
"The dizzying, unplanned, even chaotic work days are disconcerting. However, the problem is not the disorienting days, but the junior investigator's reaction to them. In fact, the days are exactly as they should be. It is your flummoxed reaction to them that requires adjustment.
The hectic days with their simultaneous and multidirectional activities are the days that promising junior scientist are supposed to have. The forward movement generated by a progressing career produces unpredictable activity and chaos. Chaotic days are to be anticipated and faced not with stupefaction, disappointment, and self-criticism but instead with resilience, strength, and curiosity.
Unpredictable activities that force their way into your schedule are the hallmarks of a career in motion. Think of your career as a rapidly moving river, producing rapid currents and strong eddies at is splashes forward. Its movements are unpredictable, sometimes fearful, but there is power behind it. Of course, one way to control this river-force it is to dam it up. converting it into a quite lake. However, the placid lake, while peaceful, is not powerful. It shapes nothing but is itself shaped. It is both platonic and motionless. That is not what you want for your career.
Forward progress needs command and movement, and these characteristics are translated into frenetic and unpredictable activities that don't make it onto your calendar, but nevertheless make there way into your activities. While chaos should not be produced for its own sake, it is the expected byproduct of the natural good momentum of your own career movement.
Therefore, recognizing that predictable chaos is an anticipated byproduct of your advancement, and that your sense of your self-value is not linked to your daily performance, free yourself from the tendency to stop the chaos, and instead just divert and shape it for the good of your colleagues and yourself. You need not feel guilty for not completing your task list for the day. Begin your day by recognizing that the most important event that will happen to you is the one that is not on your agenda but one for which you must watch for. A new opportunity that allows you to influence and shape the ideas and work of others, or that provides a new path of progress will intrude on you and require your attention. You don't want to miss this merely because it wasn't pre-announced and not on your calendar. Staying on schedule is only worth your total commitment if nothing can be gained by deviating. Your calendar is not your career, the events that swirl around you are. "
Chapter 4: Evolving into an investigator
"Once you have mastered the new material that was necessary for your comprehension of the program, move rapidly to take advantage of your efforts. Begin to see your own participation in this project not as the contribution of a junior scientist, but as a co-investigator.
Junior researchers commonly wonder when they can stop being junior researchers. The answer is that you are a full-fledged investigator when you perform like one. A mature investigator seeks all of the ways that her knowledge base can contribute to the project, then sees to it that her contribution is most clearly, attentively, and accommodatingly made. When you are functioning at this perceptive and incisive level, you can drop the "junior" descriptor from "junior investigator".
Having mastered the background knowledge base, do not hesitate to take quick advantage of your mastery by using it to serve the project. Make a full contribution to the project's effort. Be cognizant of what is going on in all aspects of the study, and act of your knowledge. Cease trying to become an investigator and start being one.
Many junior investigators try to remain as quiet and as inconspicuous in a new project. While they may believe that there is safety in silence, in fact there is only the false peace of being content with their level of knowledge (and ignorance), and the sham serenity of assuming that the problems of others in the project are not their problems. This is a mistake. Specifically, by not being a full participant in the discussions of the project, by intellectually walling themselves off from and separating themselves from the ongoing activity, they are not testing their own knowledge base about the material. Remaining inconspicuous and quiet stunts the junior investigator's growth, and prolongs his maturation period in the research grant.
From Chapter 4 on gaining experience
It is experience that gives you the sensitive feel of action that in turn leads to solid and reliable intuition. Extend your influence in the project by identifying ways that you can work with co-investigators for the good of the group effort. Look for every opportunity to expose your education and background to others in a way that supports them. Not only will this benefit the overall research effort, but it will reveal critical weaknesses in your own developing thought processes, allowing you the opportunity to repair them.
It is, of course, important to avoid the rash statement and the thoughtless action. By the same token, avoid the mistake of the opposite extreme. While rashness should be avoided, irresolution should likewise be shunned. If you have something useful to contribute, then make the contribution. "

Catalogue Information