The “one week paper” sounds ludicrous, so it’s important I make some important caveats:

1. The paper must not require any primary empirical research (i.e. there is no data collection or analysis involved).
2. The paper is an article, therefore you’re predominantly citing/drawing upon journal articles and not books.
3. The paper fits into an area that you have already published on, and the topic is something you have been thinking about for a long time and have already collected material
4. You have a publication lined up, so that you know the journal/edited volume it will appear in, you know the editor’s requirements, and you know the audience.

If the above apply, the one week paper is feasible. Here’s the schedule:

Monday Gather the large pile of existing material that you have been keeping over the last few months/years. Print out references and articles that you’ve been keeping (e.g. draft emails, filed emails, blog posts, RSS feeds – however you “keep” articles to follow up on later). Conduct primary desk research to assemble your literature review. Take the key references, and go through their citations. Bust Google scholar, JStor, and whatever other databases you use. Print, print, print.

Tuesday Get the cafetiere on the go, find a comfortable chair, and READ. Go through the printouts and read everything. Annotate as much as possible – both in terms of comments and general thoughts.

Wednesday The aim now is to settle on the structure of the paper. Do *not* switch on your computer. Collate the printed material, lay it out on the floor, and formulate the key sections. Use a blank piece of A4 to write out the structure of the paper. Label the INTRO, Sections 1, 2…, CONC. on the printouts, and pile them up (loosely) into sections. The paper should now be laid out in front of you.

Thursday Have a lie in. Think about the paper as you drift in and out of sleep. Then, start writing. Consider the writing process to be similar to an oil painting. Create a base layer in terms of the structure: i.e. create the sections within the word document. Then begin populating each section by taking the pile of papers and working through them methodically.

Friday Keep writing. I find I’m at my peak from 10pm – 2am, so I try not to feel as though I’m slipping behind if I’ve not made much progress before lunch.

Saturday Write.

Sunday I don’t have a printer at home, but at this point you should print out the draft. Go to the pub, get a decent pint of lager and make corrections. Come home and revise the draft (crossing through each annotation with a thick black marker once it’s been adopted). Ensure spelling/grammar/formatting is sensible. Save a PDF version. Upload onto SSRN if you want broder feedback. Submit. Relax.

I’m still not sure how I managed to complete my PhD within 4 years and also get married in that time, but it must come down to:

• Pick the right school – I was immensely fortunate to go to the dynamite George Mason (that dares to be different), and it meant that knowledgeable people, who shared my passions, surrounded me. If you study in an environment like that, you can’t go wrong
• Preparing well – find out the textbooks for the core subjects and read them before you start
• Find/create a good study group and stick with it – I find that learning is a social process and therefore a stable group of close colleagues is gold dust
• Have realistic expectations – for me the first year was about survival. I’m consistently told that ambition and aspiration should exceed merely “survival”, but for me lower expectations seems to work
• Drink productively^ – if you’re going to get drunk a lot, make sure it’s productive
• Love what you do – my PhD mattered to me. I was willing to sacrifice a great deal. If it’s a chore then it’s a struggle, but I never grew tired of my subject and still want to discuss and develop the ideas I pursued.
• Change the title at the last minute – without trying to contradict the previous advice, in the final few months of intense writing/rewriting of my dissertation I changed the title. As the formatting requirements began to take priority over the content, you begin to question everything. At about 4am I had a revelation and rewrote the abstract and changed the title. It was a good decision – not only was it a more accurate title, but it reinvigorated me and breathed new life into the project
• Endure: it is a test of stamina. Pete Boettke likes to recite James Buchanan’s advice of keeping your butt in the chair. I believe that most academics are lazy, and if you work hard you will succeed. All writing is work and all work is work in progress. Just get it down and keep moving forward. If you go straight to grad school from undergrad you’ll realise that you’re open all hours. You can have a healthy work/life balance by realising that:
  • Your life is your work and your work is your life
  • You’re not working 9-5. Whenever you’re awake, you’re working.

Bottom line is that ideas matter.

More grad school advice:

• Grad School Rankings
• Econ Grad School
• Why Study Economics?
• Applying to Economics PhD Programs Memo, by Alvin Christian
• Recommendations by Walter Williams
• You and Your Research by Richard Hamming
• Writing, Research, Publications links from the New Economist
• Grad School Rules from Fabian Rojas
• Guide for the Young Economist comments by Pete Boettke
• Ariel Rubenstein’s advice, some of which I agree with
• Anton Howes’ thoughts.

As a warning, don’t ignore 6 bullet points on why people go into grad school in the Humanities (via Tyler Cowen). Mike Moffat has a guide here. Some funny cultural insights in grad school are here and here. Michael Munger has an excellent series of videos providing a Guide to Academic Publishing.

“If you ever go to the ballroom of a hotel where there’s been an academic conference you see men and women who roll uncontrollably to the music… off the beat…. waiting for the end so they can go home and write a paper about it.”

Sir Ken Robinson

Although I get anxiety about presenting at academic conferences, they are an incredibly important part of academic life. In addition to receiving feedback on works in progress, they permit a survey of the contemporary state of your discipline. The best ones provide a mixture of confidence boosting rubbish and inspirational insights into elite scholar’s work. They also provide an opportunity to visit interesting places and socialise with good people.

The best fictional account of the role of conferences in an academic career is David Lodge’s ‘Small World‘ (see the Guardian book club series, starting here).

The modern conference resembles the pilgrimage of medieval Christendom in that it allows the participants to indulge themselves in all the pleasures and diversions of travel while appearing to be austerely bent on self-improvement… For that’s the attraction of the conference circuit: it’s a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else’s expense” (prologue & p.231)

“As long as you have access to a telephone, a Xerox machine, and a conference grant fund, you’re OK, you’re plugged into the only university that really matters – the global campus… The American Express card has replaced the library pass… [and] A young man in a hurry can see the world by conference-hopping.” Morris Zapp (p.44 & p.64)

Even if you don’t receive useful comments from the audience, the act of writing the conference talk and thinking through potential criticisms is valuable. In a strong department this would be better achieved through an informal speaker series. But for those of us without a strong department, the conference does serve as a useful focal point.

Conferences are an expensive way to get offsite and away from distractions, but it is important to market your papers and to network. Sharing stories and experiences in a collegiate, regular manner is an integral part of academic life.

When I’m in the audience I place papers into one (or more) of the following categories:

1. Find your focus – at least two papers in one, way too ambitious, naivety of youth, yes it’s obviously a fascinating topic, but to become a serious scholar you need to contribute to the literature, not write about what interests you.
2. Go do it – makes sense, but where are the results??
3. Robust but trivial – what have I learnt?
4. Important, but flawed – yes, I’m afraid the obvious comeback does invalidate your findings, regardless of how praiseworthy your efforts might be.
5. WTF? – Possibly genius, but way over my head…

Increasingly I ask myself “Would the planning committee of the Soviet Union be interested in these findings?” And if so, I stop listening. And every time someone says “right?” I wonder at what point the need for constant reassurance and affirmation replaced a confidence in simply explaining oneself .

Here are my thoughts on various conferences:

EU management

• The most important is the European Academy of Management. I found the selection process to be competitive (I’ve had a submitted paper rejected) but worth it. The session that I participated in was organised with great attention and there was excellent feedback. It was quite expensive, but is usually in an interesting European city.

EU econ

• The Royal Economic Society is well regarded but I’ve never been. I would also like to attend the European Conference on Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
• For several years I have been impressed by the programme for the Prague Conference on Political Economy.

US management

• The two front runners are the Academy of Management and Strategic Management Society. Both of them have had Austrian panels but I am yet to attend. They are typically pricey and competitive.

US econ

• The most important economics conference is the American Economic Association. I haven’t submitted to attend because it’s in the first week of January, which is a crazy time to have a conference. However, it is a great opportunity to see the most famous economists, and is also a focal point for the US job search.
• The Southern Economic Association is a wonderful conference because there are many sessions organised by the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics. This offers a great combination of professional prestige and direct relevance (note that there tends to be a trade off). The SDAE is full of friends and I enjoy seeing what they are working on. There are also appointed discussants so you are guaranteed quality feedback.
• There have been some SDAE panels at the Eastern Economic Association as well. The main advantage this has over the Southern’s is that it’s more likely to be a direct flight from the UK. There’s a heavy presence of assorted heterodox economists, with a fair share of cranks.
• I regularly attend the Association of Private Enterprise Education. It alternates between Las Vegas and somewhere more exotic and has a youthful energy. The emphasis on pedagogy is excellent because I always feel that my teaching, as well as research is benefitting from attendance.

US political science

• I’ve never attended but would like to periodically keep in touch with the very interesting programmes at Public Choice and American Political Science Association – I have presented at, and attended the Midwest Political Science Association.
• I’ve been to the ASN convention, hosted by Columbia University, several times. The panels are eclectic and the setting fantastic. I also enjoy the ASEEES.

“No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there”

F. Scott Fitzgerald