Finding research articles

1. How to find a mentor?
2. How to contact a prospective mentor
3. How to make best use of your mentor

How to find a candidate mentor?
A previous missive discussed why the semester project is the most enriching thing you'll do in this course. Your mentor is the single most helpful element (besides yourself) that will guide you to a successful outcome. Time devoted to finding the right person will be well spent. Your education is your responsibility. So the search should be high up on your list of things to do. Learning how to approach people who can help you may by itself be worth this year's tuition.

You are looking for a faculty member at VCU who has research interests (related to molecular biology) so insanely fascinating that your life would be incomplete if you could not join in. Fortunately, there are many dozen faculty members from which to choose. You'll surely be able to find something that excites you.

But how? Here are some possible strategies:

• Scan departmental and program web sites
  Probably every department and program at VCU maintains a web site that contains somewhere a list of its faculty members. Their lab web pages are generally no more than a click or two away, and once there, you'll probably be greeted with a description of the research questions of interest to the lab plus a list of people and publications. Here are two opening gambits, just to get you started:
   
  • Doctoral degree programs at VCU
    Click on your favorite program, find a way to get to the associated department's web site, and go as quickly as possible to a page that shows faculty research interests, possibly under "Research" or "People" (or variations). You'd think that departments would love to have a simple page that lists faculty research interests, but, sadly, many don't. More work for you.
     
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics program
    The previous list is a long one, but unfortunately still not complete. This important program is missing from it.
     
• Literature search
  Search Pubmed or Web of Science for someone at VCU (remember Problem Set 1?) who has published on a topic you're particularly interested in.
   
• Search VCU's web site
  Try searching VCU's web site for your favorite topics.
   
• Ask me
  If you've done your searches and haven't quite found what you were looking for, give me a call. If you think you HAVE found what you're looking for, also let me know. I've collected experience from years worth of participants in this course, and I might let you know whether your favorite is likely to look kindly on your request.

How to contact a prospective mentor
First, how not to do it:

Dear Dr. Frostbite,
        Hello. My name is Snively Hornswoggle. I'm a student in a class where I'm required to find a mentor for a research project. I was wondering if you had time to mentor me.

Dear Innocent Victim,
        Hello. My name is Deadly Timetrap. I'm required to find a sucker willing to spend hours, days, weeks, trying vainly to push insights through my vacant eyes. Doesn't matter what the insights are. So long as I get my grade. Wanna do it?

Try the following instead:

• Do your homework
  Don't attempt contact until you have digested the candidate's web site and read an article that has come from the candidate's lab -- not just an abstract, an actual article! Don't feel obliged to understand all or even most of what you've read, but do keep at it until you have comprehended the general nature of the scientific question addressed and taken in at least one experiment that illustrates what kind of thing the lab does.
   
• Talk science
  The candidate entered into a life of science not as an excuse to pontificate to sniveling students but because s/he loves doing science and talking science. Make your e-mail message a possibly rare moment of joy in a day of bureaucratic chores. Use what you learned from the candidate's article(s) to stuff your e-mail with specific scientific issues of interest to you and the candidate.
   
• Talk candidate-specific science
  What could you possibly contribute in a conversation with this titan of science? You'd be surprised. It's possible that there is no one outside the candidate's lab within a thousand miles who shares his/her specific scientific interests. It is possible that your e-mail gives the candidate an opportunity to think about issues that are not likely to arise in the normal course of a day. Your e-mail may help the candidate return to a favorite place... if your message is scientifically specific enough to conjure up the image. Raise questions about specific issues you encountered in the article(s) you read.
   
• Provide context
  Briefly relate the course of events that brought you to the e-mailbox of the candidate. Set forth the nature of the course and the nature of the research proposal. Feel free to include the URL for the course and/or the page that describes the semester project.
   
• Describe where you are in your journey (Talk Science, part III)
  Tell the candidate what you've done to learn about his/her work. Describe some ideas that have occurred to you concerning your research proposal. These can (and probably will be) crazy ideas. That's OK, so long as the ideas arise naturally from what you read and are not merely plucked from thin air. Don't write vacuously "I have familiarized myself with your research". If you have, it should be apparent from the content of your message, which should be filled with specific questions and insights concerning the candidate's research.
   
• Don't be an undergraduate
  It is a rare week when a faculty member does not receive a message from some undergraduates: "Do you have a position in your renowned lab?", "I need a one-credit upper division class...", "I need research to go on my transcript...", "May I suck your blood?". How can you distance yourself from this odious breed? Talk science (of course), but also avoid emphasizing separation. "Dear Esteemed Dr. X"... you may think this shows respect. Actually it shows leech-hood. There is no requirement for a salutation. Similarly, there's no need for "My name is...". This opening formula marks you as a child. Your name is not important. Get right to the science.
   
• Make clear what it is you're requesting
  What do you want of this person? Faculty members are constantly bombarded with requests to work in their labs. Lab space is often scarce. Money is often absent. Faculty members are used to saying no. Make clear that you are not asking to work in the lab (and if you are, it might be best to hold off on that desire for a bit). Rather you hope your prospective mentor will meet every now to help you sort through the work you do independently on the topic, culminating in a written research proposal or a translated article.
   
• Create space for wonderful surprises
  Don't feel you have to present your candidate with a fully defined idea. In fact, it's better at this stage to stay general. Let the specifics emerge through your interaction.
   
• Seek feedback
  Strongly consider running your message by me or a TA before sending it out to your prospect. Few of you have any experience in seeing e-mail messages through the eyes of faculty members. You'd be surprised.

By the end of your message, the candidate should recall (fondly) this general impression of your message:

Dear scientific colleague,
        I am fascinated by the same things that fascinate you. I am naive and near the beginning of my journey, but I have my own thoughts and I'm fun to talk with. It would be a joy to spend time now and then discussing my project with me.

How to make best use of your mentor
First, how not to do it:

• Don't put the creative burden on your mentor
  There's probably not a faculty member at VCU who delights in the idea of teaching another class. That's what you're suggesting when you put the burden of framing questions on your mentor by asking something like this:
   
  • [You]: Hey Dr. X! I'm really confused about your work on protein defragmentation in purple tongue syndrome. Could you give me an overview of the subject?
  • [Mentor]: (Thinks) (I could, but I'd sooner smother myself in jam and jump into an ant colony)
    (Writes) I'm sorry but I'm tied up with a grant proposal this month. Maybe next?
  
  
• Don't ignore your mentor's strengths
  This isn't a high school science fair competition. There is no requirement and no real benefit in your finding a proposal topic that's independent of all external input. You'll gain much more by reading about your mentor's work with an open mind and discovering the important unanswered questions in the field. Don't do this:
   
  • [You]: I know your work focuses on chromosomal hypermodification during neurogenesis, but I wonder if you would mentor me in my proposal on how green tea affects response time in computer games.
  
  
• Don't accept a lobotomy
  Some faculty members, particularly those with little experience interacting with undergraduates, will attempt to make things real easy for you. They will offer you articles, ideas for proposals, simple explanations that skate over the complexities of an experiment. Don't fall for it! You're not as simple-minded as they may think.

• Help your mentor help you by directing the conversation yourself
  
  • [You]: I've been working hard to understand the protein defragmentation experiment you presented in Furtwangler et al (2014). I think I may have part of the idea. Let me run by you how I understand the experiment, then you tell me if I'm crazy.
  
  
• Show where you are and ask your mentor to fill in holes
  
  • [You]: I've looked for all the articles I can find on defragmentation and purple tongue disease. Here's what I got [show]. Can you see any major topics I missed?
  
  
• Discussions, not classes
  Above all, don't treat your meetings like classes but instead like piano lessons. Bring in the piece you worked on since the last meeting and then ask for your mentor's expert advice. Don't expect your mentor to bring anything except years of experience.