Research Advice I Keep Sending Students

Last updated July 2026

Shiro Kuriwaki

Advice on how to do research abounds on the internet. Listed below are pieces of advice written by other researchers that I most frequently send to my students. I also try to follow this advice myself. I hope you find these resources helpful as well as entertaining.

Making Slides

Giving a 10-20 minute talk? Huber’s guide is a great template that always works. Dumont’s talk has the same message, but involves making charts and graphics for slides. Choi’s essay is about giving good discussant comments.

Gregory Huber, How to present your work at conferences: A lesson as an example, (7 slides)
Jean-Luc Dumont, Creating Effective Slides, (1h talk)
James J. Choi, How to Give a Good Paper Discussion, (6 pages)

Making Good Visualizations

There are lots of resources on how to do good dataviz, but Rauser’s talk has been the most eye-opening, and Wilke’s web book is the most comprehensive with beautiful illustrations.

John Rauser, How Humans See Data, (40min talk)
Claus Wilke, Fundamentals of Data Visualization, (full web book)

How to Organize Files and Write Code

The Gentzkow and Shapiro manual is written with fun anecdotes and should be read cover to cover.

Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro, Code and Data for the Social Sciences: A Practitioner’s Guide, (short manual)

Writing a Research Paper

Read King’s article and the one-page checklist from Imai’s handout for practical steps. Read Fiske’s note for concrete do’s and don’ts for writing sentences and wordsmithing. Watch McEnerney’s talk to get back to the big picture: what makes good research good in the first place?

Gary King, Publication, Publication, (9 pages)
Kosuke Imai, General Tips for Writing a Scientific Paper, (look at p.3)
Susan Fiske, Words to the Wise on Writing Scientific Papers, (4 pages)
Larry McEnerney, The Craft of Writing Effectively, (1h20min talk)