Professional & Career Development

Online Professional Development Resources

The resources below can help you advance your graduate career and aid you in your professional and personal development. 

Mentoring

• Mentoring Resources via National Postdoctoral Association
• USF Graduate or Postdoc Mentoring Plans (A.C.H.I.E.V.E. IDP and Mentor Plan)

Communication

General Writing Resources

• Writing Studio, University of South Florida - Graduate students can request a consultation or review their online guides
• Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) - Writing resources and instructional materials, including general writing mechanics, english as a second language, citation formats, and more.
• A Guide to Plagiarism and Paraphrasing by Purdue Global - Emphasizes the importance of understanding plagiarism by identifying several forms of it. Discusses the concerns of AI-generated content and the need to verify policies. Plagiarism checkers, citation managers, and writing tools as resources to prevent plagiarism and improve writing skills.
• Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style" - Popular English grammar and style guide.
• Literature Review Workshop - Discusses structuring and crafting literature reviews as well as basic genre conventions and strategies for organizing and drafting one.

Poster Design and Presentations

• How to Design an Award-Winning Conference Poster - Animate your Science Blog 
• Designing Conference Posters - Colin Purrington
• Creating an Effect Poster Presentation - University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
• Creating Effective Poster Presentations - North Carolina State University
• Better Scientific Poster YouTube Talk and Templates - Mike Morrison, Industrial-organizational psychologist at Michigan State University

Oral Presentations

• The Message Box Workbook: Communicating your Science Effectively - COMPASS Science Communication, Inc. (2017)
• Tell them a Story: How to Avoid the Standard Boring Presentation - Animate your Science Blog
• Effective Conference Presentations, Texas A&M University Writing Center - In this video, Dr. Tasha Dubriwny provides tips for developing and delivering creative and effective conference presentations.
• Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, Matt Abrahams TEDxPaloAlto Talk - Practical solutions to handle communication anxiety and tools to empower us to share our ideas and stories.
• How to open and close presentations, Mark Powell - Learn how to hook your audience with these tips for opening and closing presentations. 

 Scientific Communication, Writing & Publication

• Scientific Writing Resource, Duke University - Online course that teaches scientists effective writing strategies, complete with examples and worksheets.
• Designing Effective Scientific Presentations, iBiology - Dr. Susan McConnell gives helpful advice on preparing and presenting an effective scientific talk, provides basics of PowerPoint, and suggests ways to structure your talk.
• Nature Masterclasses, "Focus on Peer Review" - A FREE online course on peer review, containing 4 modules with bite-size videos and interactive activities. It offers a comprehensive overview of peer review, including: the role of a peer reviewer, how to prepare a peer review report, the ethics of peer review, and innovations in different types of peer review. Free to access when you register with Nature Masterclasses website.
• Proteintech Learning Portal - Online workshops and application-based training designed to help early career researchers design, implement, and analyze experiments to industry-leading standards.