Riya V. Anandwala | Nov. 13, 2008
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| Photo by Riya Anandwala |
| Retired Florida professor Bil Chamberlin visited Monday to talk to graduate students about academic careers and research strategies. |
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Chamberlin is the Joseph L. Brechner Eminent Scholar in Mass Communications at the University of Florida, where he was named one of the school’s top doctoral mentors. Chamberlin has worked with dozens of masters and doctoral students in a variety of disciplines. Though his own research work has been in law and policy, he helped develop the doctoral program in the College of Journalism and Communications at UF.
Monday, he visited classes to talk about advanced research and met with students to discuss research and academic careers.
"While embarking on a research topic, the most important task is to form your research question,” Chamberlin told students in J572 The Press and the Constitution. “One should then move on to the other areas, like the geographical restriction of the paper, a time frame."
Apart from forming a research question, he advised concentrating on the precision of language used in the paper. He asked students to narrow down their topics. He also recommended using a strong conclusion.
"The research tips given by Dr. Chamberlin were pretty helpful. I had some idea about the guidelines given by him, but it was good to hear him talk about it," said Ethan Tretkoff, research track graduate student.
In the informal afternoon session in Ernie Pyle Lounge, students asked Chamberlin about academic research, some with an eye toward academic careers. Chamberlin said three key criteria to fetch a fine job in research academia are newsroom experience teaching experience and publication.
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