Graduate Student Resources
This is a collection of Internet and print resources that have been helpful for me as a graduate student. The specific categories are aimed at students in East Asian studies and History. I want to thank the many students and faculty at Princeton and other schools who have suggested links.
General Advice
- Scholarly Pursuits: A Guide to Professional Development During the Graduate Years (PDF): Essential reading!
- Surviving and Thriving in Graduate School: Good general advice.
- Writing Tools and Skills: Especially useful for historians.
- Tips for Comprehensive Exams
- How to Study
- Links to Advice on Study Skills
- Reading, Writing, and Researching for History
- Graduate School Survival Guide
- OWL Notetaking
- Guide to Surviving Graduate Schools
- Taking Notes in Graduate School
- Graduate Student Survival Guide
- How to Achieve Your Personal Best in Law School: Much of the advice applies to any student.
- reading effectively and efficiently
- Questions One Should Be Prepared to Answer for Job Interviews: I think these would work well in preparing for a prospectus or dissertation defense as well.
- Some Advice for Postgraduate Students: ( byScott Keogh)
- The 12 Minute Talk
- The 12 Minute Talk (PDF)
- How to be a Terrible Graduate Student
- How to Be a Leader in Your Field: A Guide for Students in Professional Schools
- Choosing a Research Project: (by Paul Doughty)
- Ph.D. First Thoughts to Finished Writing: Packed with information.
- Eight Attributes of Highly Successful Postdocs (by Constance Holden)
- PhD Comics: hilarious.
- Some dos and don'ts of giving a good 15 minute talk : (by Scott Keogh)
- Maxims for Malfeasant Speakers
- Learning the Lingo
Writing and Research
- Writing and Presenting Your Thesis Or Dissertation
- Writing the Research Paper (WORD)
- The Three Legged Stool: A Primer on Planning, Conducting, and Writing Major Research Projects (by Morgan Pitelka)
- Dissertations
- How to Write a Dissertation
- Writing a Dissertation: Some Helpful Suggestions
- Preparing and Writing a Dissertation
- Quick Guide to Dissertation Writing
- Literature Reviews
- Olin Shivers' Dissertation Advice
- Prospectus Guidelines: (by Robert Hatch)
- Final Year Projects: "Mike Hart's site which will help you with practical sources of advice to help you successfully write your final year project, dissertation or thesis."
- Notes on Writing Papers and Theses: (by Ken Lertzman)
- NThe Literature Review: A Few Tips On Conducting It: (by Ken Lertzman)
- How to Write-up Your Research for Publication: (by Paul Doughty)
- How to Write a PhD Thesis
Notetaking By Hand / Dictation
- 5 Notetaking Systems
- Dragon Naturally Speaking: Highly recommended if you want to use the computer, but have weak wrists or poor typing skills.
- Cornell Method PDF Generator
- Taking Notes By Hand
- Geek to Live: Take Great Notes
- Recovering the Lost Art of Note-Taking
Software
- Notetaking Template (WORD): I think this is a nice format, especially for historians, if you take notes on a PC. You can also print it out and write directly onto it.
- Keynote: Notetaking software.
- Evernote: Notetaking software.
- Scribe: Notetaking software.
- Go Binder: Notetaking software.
- BasKet: Notetaking software.
- EndNote: Software for managing bibliographies. Free at some universities, expensive at others, but available for a nominal cost at Princeton.
- RefWorks: Software for managing bibliographies. Most institutions, including Princeton, offer free access to this. I prefer this one because I can access it from anywhere, but it probably does not matter in the end, because you are supposed to be able to convert files to and from EndNote. You can find comparisons of their pros and cons online.
- JWPce: a useful piece of software for Japanese language learners. See the Wikipedia page about it for more information.
Teaching
- CASE Practical Guide to Teaching for Graduate Teaching Assistants: If you can find it, I recommend the 2004 version of this guide because it had a lot more in it.
- UMKC Handbook for Graduate Teaching Assistants
- UCSD Graduate Teaching Assistant Handbook
Historiography / Bibliography
- Classical Historiography for Chinese History (by Benjamin Elman)
- Japanese Bibliography: extensive bibliography put together by Henry Smith at Columbia University includes advice as well as resources.
- East Asian Buddhist Studies: A Reference Guide: (by William Bodiford)
- Bibliography of Japanese history up to the end of the Meiji period (1912): compiled by Peter Kornicki, University of Cambridge.
- Duke University East Asian Collection: comprehensive bibliography that is well-maintained.
- Kambun Bibliography: (by Erin Brightwell)
- KU Japan Studies Bibliographies: helpful bibliography, especially for local resources.
- Bibliography of Asian Studies 東洋学文献類目検索: searchable database material published in Japan.
- Indiana University East Asian Collection
- Wikipedia: Japanese Bibliography Project: "comprehensive group of articles describing Japanese bibliographical resources, including reference works, libraries, and research institutions"
- Japanese National Bibliography Weekly List 日本全国書誌: a comprehensive list of books being published in Japan
- Basic Bibliography for Research on Japanese History
English Dictionaries
Japanese Dictionaries
- ALC (J/E)
- Yahoo! (J/J/E)
- Digital Dictionary of Buddhism
- Infoseek(J/J/E/Kanji)
- GOO(J/J/E)
- Excite(J/J/E/C)
- Breen's JDIC(J/E)
- Jeffrey's(J/E)
- Babylon Japanese(J/E)
- Rikai
- RNN News
- 日本国語大辞典: Link to dictionary through Princeton. This is one of the best Japanese dictionaries available.
Chinese Dictionaries
- MDBG (E/C)
- Dict.cn
- Lin Yutang(E/C)
- SunRain(E/C)
- Collins (E/C)
- Tiger NT(E/C)
- Yahoo! 字典(E/C)
- GBCDICT(E/C/J)
- ChineseLib(E/C)
- Lexiconer(E/C)
- Babylon Chinese(C/E)
- 國語辭典 (C/C)
- Dictionary of Chinese Character Variants
Databases
- 故宮【寒泉】古典文獻全文檢索資料庫: The database of the Palace Museum in Taibei--unlike Academia Sinica, it provides punctuated texts.
- JSTOR: "comprehensive archive of important scholarly journal literature"
- Historiographical Institute 東京大学史料編纂所: "analysis, compilation, and publication of historical source materials concerning Japan." No password necessary.
- ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: "massive body of work available through ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT) represents the most comprehensive source of academic research in the world." Refresh the page if you receive an error message.
- Japan Knowledge ジャパンナレッジ: a single search accesses several databases about Japan including the Encyclopedia of Japan.
- Bibliography of Asian Studies: "contains over 640,000 records on all subjects (especially in the humanities and the social sciences) pertaining to East, Southeast, and South Asia published worldwide from 1971 to the present"
- WorldCat: incredibly useful for finding books, it gives "access to a rich collection of reference databases. With FirstSearch, materials in your library’s collection are highlighted in results from searches in dozens of leading databases."
- Project Muse: "collaboration between libraries and publishers providing 100% full-text, affordable and user-friendly online access to over 300 high quality humanities, arts, and social sciences journals from 60 scholarly publishers"
- Questia: "world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles." Even without a password, this is rather useful.
- National Museum of Japanese History 国際日本文化研究センター: No password necessary.
- National Museum of Japanese History 国立歴史民俗博物館: No password necessary.
- High-definition Image Database of Old Photographs of Japan 幕末・明治期 日本古写真 超高精細画像データベース: No password necessary.
- National Diet Library (NDL) 国立国会図書館: "the Library acquires all materials published in Japan, preserves them as national cultural heritage, compiles catalogs of these publications in a database or other format, and with these collections provides library services. "
- NDL Asian Language Materials OPAC 国立国会図書館アジア言語OPAC: "Search is possible for the books in Chinese, Korean , Mongolian, Vietnamese acquired in and after 1986, and all periodicals and newspapers in Chinese and Korean held by the NDL."
- Japanese National Bibliography Weekly List 日本全国書誌
- Books on Japan
日本関係欧文図書目録
"'Books on Japan' on the web provides bibliographic information of books on Japan in Western languages processed by the National Diet Library (NDL) in and after 2002 on a quarterly basis (issued in January, April, July and October). " - Bibliography of Persons in Modern Japanese Politics
近現代日本政治関係人物文献目録 - Database Navigation Service
(Dnavi)
データベース・ナビゲーション・サービス
"Dnavi is a portal site that has recorded a large amount of information from Websites in Japan and that navigates users to a variety of databases." - Electronic Journal List
電子ジャーナルリスト - List of indexed periodicals in the Japanese
Periodicals Index
雑誌記事索引採録誌一覧
"This is the list of indexed periodicals in the Japanese Periodicals Index." - Directory of Japanese Scientific
Periodicals
日本科学技術関係逐次刊行物総覧
"The Directory of Japanese Scientific Periodicals Database covers serials on science and technology edited and published by organizations operating in Japan." - Digital Library from the Meiji Era
近代デジタルライブラリー
"Image database of the books published in the Meiji era and held by the NDL. As of April 2005, 54,957 volumes, almost all the books whose copyrights are expired, excluding children’s books and books in Western languages, are available." - Rare Books Image Database
貴重書画像データベース
"Colorful images (approx. 37,000 items) from the collections of the NDL published mostly in the Edo Period. Image data can be searched and enjoyed." - Japanese Historical Text Initiative (JHTI) : "a rapidly expanding database made up of historical texts written during the last 1292 years." No password necessary.
- Web Archiving Project (WARP)
インターネット資源選択的蓄積実験事業
"This page introduces an experimental project that collects and preserves websites and online periodicals on the Internet as cultural heritage." - Full-text Database System for the
Minutes of the Diet
国会会議録
"Full-text database of the Diet session proceedings since the 1st session (May, 1947)." - The Database System for the
Minutes of the Imperial Diet
帝国議会会議録
"At present, the proceedings from the 91st session to the 92nd session（November 1946 to March 1947）are available." - Index of Japanese Laws
日本法令索引 - National Institute of Informatics 国立情報学研究所: "The National Institute of Informatics (NII) was founded in April 2000 as an inter-university research institute organized to conduct comprehensive research on informatics and to develop an advanced infrastructure for disseminating scientific information."
- GeNii NII学術コンテンツ・ポータル: "GeNii: Pronounced like "Jeanie", GeNii is the NII's academic content portal, providing services related to provision of academic paper information, book information, etc. In addition to providing these individual services, GeNii connects the services together. "
- Webcat Plus 国立情報学研究所の検索サービス: "Retrieval service for NACSIS-CAT Databases on World Wide Web"
- Academic Information Resources at Universities 大学Webサイト資源検索
- Cultural Heritage Online 文化遺産オンライン
- Book Contents Database ブックコンテンツ・データベース: "The Book Contents Database allows you to search for books held in the libraries of the University of Tokyo by looking at their tables of contents or information taken from their summaries and dust jackets. "
- Doctorial Dissertation Database 学位論文データベース
- Newspaper Holding List 新聞資料所蔵一覧
- National Institute of Japanese Literature 国文学研究資料館
- Naraehon Database 奈良絵本
- Nihon Koten Bungaku 日本古典文学
- Ancient Works Integrated Database
国書基本データベース - Classical Books and Materials Database of Japan 日本古典資料調査データベース
- Modern Literature Image Database 近代画像データベース
- Modern Bibliography Database 近代書誌データベース
- Database of Meiji Period Print Advertising 明治期出版広告データベース
- Database of Meiji Period Print Advertising 明治期出版広告データベース
- 21 Daishu (Waka) Database 二十一代集検索（和歌）
- 21 Daishu (Jobun) Database 二十一代集検索（序文）
- Pictorial Tale of Genji Database 絵入り源氏物語本文検索
- 中西正和 歴史データベース: Japanese searchable database of historical events.
- 世界歴史事典データベース: a free database that is great for finding brief Japanese summaries of many historical topics
Print Resources
- The Craft of Research
- Choose the Right Word
- Chicago Manual of Style
- The Synonym Finder
- The Thinker's Thesaurus
- Student's Guide for Writing College Papers
- 全訳古語辞典 （角川）: A really good one for beginners, because it anticipates a lot of the mistakes you will make looking up words.
- 新字源 （角川）: A great character dictionary for kanbun.
Conferences, Workshops, and Lecture Series
- Graduate Student Conference on East Asia: Held every year in February at Columbia University.
- Harvard East Asia Society Conference: Also held in February at Columbia University.
- American Historical Association Annual Meeting
- Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting
- USC Kambun Workshop: Held every summer.
- Japanese Komonjo/Kuzushiji Workshop: Held every summer.
- Japan Studies Association
- Association for Japanese Literary Studies: This site does not seem to be regularly updated. The most recent meeting was at Princeton.
- Shelby Cullmon Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton)
- EAS Department Colloquium (Princeton)
- History Meetings and Seminars
- Asian Studies Conferences: A regularly updated list of East Asian conferences.
Getting a Job
- Getting an academic job (by Michael Ernst)
- Ph.D. Interview and Preparation Advice (by Trina Sego and Jef I. Richards)
- Academic Job Interview Advice (by Mary Corbin Sies)
- Questions One Should Be Prepared to Answer for Job Interviews
- The B and B Primer on First Job Haggling
Miscellaneous
- The Stingy Scholar
- Frog in a Well
- Morgan Pitelka
- History Cooperative Historian's Web: History Department Webpages: History deparatments in the USA. You can also search around the world.
- History Matters: Annotated guide to best U.S. history websites. I wish we had something like this for East Asia!