PRAGWATER

I often look at the CV’s of researchers whose careers I admire to get a sense of their trajectory, and to build a rough road map of goals and objectives. How many papers do I want to put out in order to be as competitive as possible for a particular kind of job? How much grant money does the average faculty member generally pull in before tenure? I generally think it’s better to compete with yourself rather than with others, and I would prefer to be driven by good questions and careful science than aggressive CV-building. But I do find it useful to see the range of development of scientists through time (especially in terms of research themes and the kinds of papers published at different career stages).

Over at The Professor Is In (an incredible resource even if you have an amazing advisor and mentors, like me), a commenter on…