Princeton Correspondents on Undergraduate Research

Graduate School Application Process (Part I): Deciding to Apply

Posted on March 31, 2020 by

This semester, as I return to writing for PCUR, I will be publishing a series of posts describing my experience with the graduate school application process, applying to a variety of developmental psychology PhD programs. Throughout the process, I was fortunate enough to have guidance from my independent work adviser and other senior members of my research lab on campus. However, even with this support, I often found that the process was incredibly opaque. I spent hours searching for answers to seemingly simple questions, often never coming to a definitive conclusion. I hope to use this series of posts to shed some light on the many facets of the process. Although I can only speak to my personal experience, I hope to provide valuable information that can be helpful to students from a variety of disciplines.

*The author posing with a picture book she wrote for her thesis study. She spent the summer before her senior year working in her lab full-time to collect data*.

Before getting into the nitty gritty of the application process itself, the first step is deciding whether or not you want to go to graduate school in the first place. Graduate school, especially PhD programs, are long, so before you commit to spending up to 6 years in a program, it is important to make sure grad school is the right path for you.

Interlibrary Loan and the Magic of Online (Research) Shopping

Posted on March 30, 2020 by

[Note: This post was written before COVID-19 reconfigured our library access. Interlibrary Loan is no longer accessible for students, but its sister program, Article Express, is still running at full speed!]

Every so often, when reading sources for my thesis, I come across a citation for a book or article I can’t find in the Princeton library catalog. Of course, given the size of Princeton’s holdings, these moments are rare—though somewhat more frequent as I’ve entered the fine-grain stages of my research project. In the past, a dead end in the library catalog was enough to convince me to give up on a source. However, the exigencies of my last month of thesis writing have pushed me to use what might just be the most magical tool in the Princeton library toolbox: Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

*A detail from a 1967 event program I received through Interlibrary Loan this month. Some of the pages were still uncut when I received it!*

Whereas Borrow Direct and Recap only provide access to books listed in the Princeton library catalog, Interlibrary Loan can provide access to… pretty much any source you could possibly need. ILL has two main request options: Article Express (for scans of specific articles and book chapters) and Interlibrary Loan (for larger sources, like books, audio/visual materials, and microreels).

Tips on Writing a Philosophy Paper for Non-Philosophy Majors

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Soo Young Yun

*Writing a philosophy paper can be intimidating for non-philosophy majors.*

Last spring, I took PHI 203: Introduction to Metaphysics and Epistemology. I had never taken a philosophy class before in my life, and in the beginning it was difficult to wrap my head around the theories brought up in the readings and precept, let alone execute a coherent argument in a paper. Throughout the course, I learned a lot not just about the theories and arguments in philosophy, but about the distinct style of philosophical writing itself. In drafting the papers, I realized just how different writing a philosophy paper is compared to writing papers in other humanities and social science disciplines. This post contains some tips on how to approach a philosophy paper for those unfamiliar with the field:

Securing Funding to Attend a Conference

Posted on February 28, 2020 by Kamron Soldozy

In a recent post, I wrote about submitting an extended version of my R3 to the Gender, Work, and Organization Conference in the United Kingdom. Although I’m very excited to attend the conference, a new challenge has recently presented itself to me: securing funding.

In this post, I’ll detail some of my experiences finding funding for my conference. Considering that many of you have recently applied for Princeton Research Day and may be considering submitting your manuscripts for publication in a journal or for a conference, I hope this post is helpful!

5 Tips on Writing an English Paper

Posted on February 27, 2020 by Soo Young Yun

As a prospective English major, I’ve written a handful of English papers and have tried to learn what makes some stronger than the others. While the best way to write an English paper may differ based on whether you are writing about a poem, novel, play, or essay, and whether you plan to take a purely textual, historical, theoretical, or comparative approach, some fundamentals are applicable to many English assignments. Here are just some tips you can keep in mind while crafting your next paper:

No Argument? Return to Your Research Question

Posted on February 26, 2020 by

Last semester, I fell in love with a cemetery. I had been interested in the processes of death and dying during the height of the AIDS epidemic in New York City and hoped to write one (or more) of my final papers about the topic. A quick series of Google searches led me to Hart Island, a public cemetery where nearly a million unclaimed or indigent people are buried, including many victims of AIDS. I was fascinated. I read everything I could find about Hart Island, watched over a dozen YouTube videos, and even scheduled a visit to the cemetery with a friend.

By the time reading period came along, I had over forty pages of notes about this cemetery. But I had no idea how to write a paper about it. When I met with one of my professors to ask for help, I started to share all of the data I had collected about this site—its history, its design, its present-day controversies. After a few minutes of this, she intervened: “Great, but what’s your question?” I looked at her blankly. “Do you have a question about this site?”

*Photograph of burials at Hart Island, ca. 1890.*

Developing a research question is hardly a new idea. It’s emphasized in the Writing Seminar curriculum, and professors often require us to articulate questions at the early stages of our projects. But once we get buried in the work itself—collecting data, writing, meeting deadlines and assignment requirements—it can be easy to forget why we’re writing at all.

A Few Tips for Successful Writing

Posted on February 24, 2020 by

Image courtesy of Amazon.com — The cover of Strunk and White’s *The Elements of Style*. In this post, I suggest that consulting a style guide such as this can be a useful step toward improving your writing.

As regular readers of this blog will know, several other PCURs and I are in the throes of writing our theses. Personally, I’ve been thinking a lot about writing: what makes it effective, what strategies are successful, and what I can do to improve my own. I am by no means an expert writer, but in this post I will share a few tactics that have proven useful as I progress towards a submission-ready senior thesis. While this reflection stems from my own thesis experiences, I hope that writers of all class years and departments might find in it some principles of general applicability.

Preparing for your Senior Thesis Before your Senior Year: Tips on Funding your Research

Posted on February 21, 2020February 24, 2020 by

My most recent post focused on gearing up towards your senior year and finding a thesis adviser. I decided to continue this mini “preparing for your senior thesis” series by providing some tips on funding your research! The infamous senior thesis is such a daunting thing to think about as a junior because it is not always clear how early you should begin to plan for it and what steps you should take. At the beginning of the year, I attended an information session through the Woodrow Wilson School regarding thesis research funding. During that meeting, the speakers told students that they should start working on applications for funding as soon as possible if they wanted to receive money for their endeavors.

Princeton University — *The Student Activities Funding Engine (“SAFE”) offers many opportunities to apply for funding!*

Continue reading Preparing for your Senior Thesis Before your Senior Year: Tips on Funding your Research

Thesis Immersion and the Benefits of Freewriting

Posted on February 10, 2020 by

Photo by P.U. Office of Communications — *A Senior Thesis boot camp held in Rocky Dining Hall over spring break, 2016. The author participated in a similar boot camp, organized by Mathey College, during Intercession 2020*.

Working on my thesis over intercession, I found myself thinking about language. As anyone who has studied a foreign language likely knows, there are few substitutes for immersion. If we really want to learn a new tongue, be it French or German or Turkish or Spanish, we should spend as much time and mental energy as possible thinking about it. In this post, I suggest that there’s a transferrable lesson for thesis writers here.

Preparing for a Lab-Heavy Semester

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Saira Reyes

As I began choosing my courses for next semester, I knew I had to take CBE core lab, as this is a requirement for the concentration during the spring semester of junior year. In addition, I was really excited about conducting independent work in a new bioengineering lab, which I am hoping will be the lab that I stay in for my senior thesis. With both 7 hours of core lab per week and an expectation of 20 hours of independent work per week, I know I will be spending a lot of time in the lab next semester, so I have started to prepare for that. If you are also taking core lab while doing independent work, or if you are enrolled in multiple lab-courses, such as chemistry, molecular biology and physics at the same time, you will likely need to plan ahead. In this post, I will offer tips on how to prepare for a lab-heavy semester:

Princeton University, Office of Communications, Denise Applewhite (2013) — *Lab hours can quickly add up, especially if you are not organized with your time. Begin planning your schedule for a lab-heavy semester early in order to set your own expectations for you project.*

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