Be Visible or Vanish: Engage, Influence, and Ensure Your Research Has Impact

The world of the academic researcher is changing; it used to be enough to work hard, do your research and get your results published. Not so these days. Universities now expect researchers to share their work with the world, as widely as possible. ’Publish or perish’ has been replaced by a new mantra, and the pressure is on.

In this insightful book, Inger Mewburn and Simon Clews look at some of the most common presentation scenarios that researchers will face when talking about their work. Starting in academia with the deceptively simple art of writing a good email and working through lectures, conference presentations and lightning talks, the book then moves ’off campus’ and explores talking to the media, making elevator pitches and creating an effective digital presence on social media.

Offering detailed looks at 19 different presentation formats, Mewburn and Clews tap into their vast experience in the field to analyse the challenges and opportunities aligned with each case study and to map out the route to success. With a lightness of touch and an often humorous approach, Be Visible Or Vanish: Engage, Influence and Ensure Your Research Has Impact will show you what it takes to achieve that holy grail of modern academia... impact.

This text will be invaluable for students, academics and researchers hoping to effectively communicate complex information in a way that can be understood and appreciated by their peers, colleagues and the wider world.

The ’Insider Guides to Success in Academia’ offers support and practical advice to doctoral students and early-career researchers. Covering the topics that really matter, but which often get overlooked, this indispensable series provides practical and realistic guidance to address many of the needs and challenges of trying to operate, and remain, in academia.

These neat pocket guides fill specific and significant gaps in current literature. Each book offers insider perspectives on the often implicit rules of the game -- the things you need to know but usually aren’t told by institutional postgraduate support, researcher development units, or supervisors -- and will address a practical topic that is key to career progression. They are essential reading for doctoral students, early-career researchers, supervisors, mentors, or anyone looking to launch or maintain their career in academia.

Inger Mewburn, known throughout the academic world as The Thesis Whisperer, is the Director of Researcher Development at the Australian National University. Her blog is considered the ’go to’ place for all things PhD-related and her hugely successful podcasts have taken those insights into a whole new dimension. Visit: https: //thesiswhisperer.com/

Simon Clews, the inaugural Director of the Melbourne Engagement Lab at Melbourne University and Australia’s most experienced literary events creator, works with writers and academics around the world to help them improve their written and oral communication and develop their careers as effective communicators and providers of creative, well-written non-fiction for non-academic audiences. Visit: www.simonclews.com