Recommendations for Ph.D. students

• Useful Things to Know about Ph.D. Thesis Research, by H. T. Kung. (original URL)This is a must read before starting your Ph.D. thesis. If you don't agree with this document, making a Ph.D. thesis is probably not for you.
• Everything I wanted to know about C.S. graduate school at the beginning but didn't learn until later, by Ronald T. Azuma (original URL) Another must read before starting a Ph.D. thesis. A small excerpt from this document:

  The most basic question every Ph.D. student must know the answer to is: "Why the hell am I doing this?"
  [...]
  If you do not have an acceptable answer to this question, then don't get a Ph.D. I repeat: if you do not have a rock-solid reason for getting the Ph.D., then it is better that you leave with a Master's.

• Applying to Ph.D. Programs in Computer Science, by Mor Harchol-Balter. (original URL).
• Doing Research Very good advices on starting a Ph.D. thesis (in particular: How to find a supervisor , How to find a topic, How to be effective, How to survice in grad school), by Michalis Faloutsos. (original URL).

• "You and Your Research" by Richard Hamming. This talk from Richard Hamming is about the difference between good researchers and researchers that do first-class work. Here is a link to the PDF
• How to Have a Bad Career in Research/Academia. This talk from Professor David A. Patterson is a must read. Here is a link to the PDF, the PowerPoint with some animations (that you should not use), and the original web page

• Writing a good introduction, by Jim Kurose.
• Strunk and White, Elements of Style The must read for english writers. It is small and cheap, my advice is to buy it if you don't like reading books on the Web.
• Writing Technical Articles, by Henning Schulzrinne
• Dave Patterson's Writing Advice

Scientific writing is an art. It is the art to make clear to the largest audience the most complex ideas. It is hard, it is counter intuitive, it must be learned. You can have a look at my course material on The Art and Science of Writing. How to write easy-to-read text? The two following references are also very good.

• The Science of Scientific Writing, George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan, American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1990), Volume 78, 550-558.
• Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace (7th Edition), by Joseph M. Williams.

• How to Give a Good Talk? Large collection of advices on how to give a talk.
• Tips on Giving a Talk. A single page, but right to the point.

• Efficient Reading of Papers in Science and Technology
• How to Read a Research Paper
• How to review a paper

• How to Increase the Chances Your Paper is Accepted at ACM SIGCOMM This paper is aimed at SIGCOMM authors
• Improving Sigcomm: A few straw proposals This paper is aimed at SIGCOMM reviewers

• Advice on Research and Writing
• The Ph.D Experience
• How to Do Great Research. Creativity and grad school survival advice from Professor Nick Feamster