random advice

for OSU linguistics graduate students

• The linguistics department's graduate program handbook and the graduate school handbook are the"official rules" and in the short term will trump any "unofficial rules" that you might extrapolate when you seek advice from fellow graduate students or faculty.
• The "unofficial rules" may matter as much in the long run, though, but in trying to catch them, you are wise to cast your net broadly by talking with everyone here (i.e., not just the people in your cohort or in the same research interest groups), and also by looking outside OSU (e.g., by reading this "unofficial guide" to getting a Ph.D. in another linguistics program) and outside the field of linguistics (e.g., by reading Ronald Azuma and Marie desJardins).
• It is also important to keep in mind the broader principles outlined in the statements about scholarly conduct and research with human subjects in the introductory section of the department handbook, which really should trump either the official or the unofficial "rules", shouldn't they?
• Part of these broader principles is the scientific method and becoming comfortable with becoming more and more stupid, as outlined in this article on the importance of stupidity, the gist of which "is summed up quite succinctly" in here. [thanks to Ben Munson for finding the Schwartz (2008) piece, and to Ilana Heintz for the link to the succinct summary]

for all linguists

• "It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast." -- Konrad Lorenz
• "Data are a four-letter word." -- Susan Fischer [just as love and food and other things critical to the survial of the species are -- MEB]
• We do well to remind ourselves every day that linguistic models are like any other kind of scientific model. The metric suggested by George E. P. Box is probably more helpful (as well as less demoralizing) than the second of Sturgeon's Laws.
• Richard Feynman's approach to intertwining problem solving with teaching is an inspiring as well as a useful model.
• Also see above on the importance of being stupid.