最開始看到這本小書的地址是：博士磨難(The Ph.D. Grind) -簡書? ，而后根據這個地址去查看了這本小書的原文網址：Philip Guo - The Ph.D. Grind? ，原書英文版的下載地址：The Ph.D. grind.pdf ，中文有部分翻譯到第二章：科學網—csuliweilong的博文 。
據作者總結介紹，大約超過50萬世界各地的人讀過這本書。
豆瓣里面有一個讀書專欄：科研行業傻瓜入門手冊 ，正如其介紹：
科研行業是個充滿了不足為外人道的潛規則的行當。除少數稟賦超常人士外，每一位初入行的年輕人少有人可幸免于磕磕絆絆滿頭是包依然懵懵懂懂的血淚家史。導師們教讀書教寫作教實驗，就是不肯明明白白教給傻瓜學生們科研這行當到底是怎么回事。幸有少數洞察黑幕又毀人不倦的大牛，愿意從ABC開始指點初入此門如我一般的傻瓜們。
最后，希望考慮讀博士的同學認真讀讀，一窺博士生活；希望在讀博士認真閱讀，思考反思自己的博士生活；希望教授認真閱讀一下，來了解博士生的生活狀況；希望那些了解博士生這個群體的人，認真閱讀。
1. 教授們常說的一句話：
If it'salready been done before, then it wouldn't be research!"
“如果前人已經做過它，那么它就不是研究！”
這里，科學研究就是創新的工作，在某一個領域開創新的方法或者理論。尋找突破創新點。開始創造自己的研究項目。開始”單干”。給了我經濟自由并支持我研究任何我感興趣的方向。完全憑空設想我的新研究理念。
2. 多用Email
Learning to send succinct and effective professional emails has bene?ted my career tremendously.
作者強調了，與同行之間持續的郵件交流的重要性。這與之前寫的文章——科研超高效率(1)——多使用Email和博客文字記錄-簡書 不謀而合。作者文中，不斷強調了cold-Email(冷郵件)的重要性。
3. 帶著問題讀文獻
每天閱讀幾篇計算機科學方面的學術論文并做筆記來激發我的靈感，思考我自己的創新點。但是缺少正確的指導和環境的結果是，我浪費了很多時間，而且從閱讀論文中并沒有獲得有意義的見解。
Everysingle day, I tried reading sev-eral computer science research papers andtaking notes to get inspiredto think of my own creative ideas. But withoutproper guidance orcontext, I ended up wasting a lot of time and not extractingany mean-ingful insights from my readings.
帶著問題來看文獻，或者以一個關鍵點來查閱文獻，即為主題法閱讀文獻的思路，見之前的文章——科研靈感(1)——主題式閱讀文獻法-簡書。
4. (個人注釋為：推動研究進展的秘訣)
需要堅實的智力、歷史有時甚至是物質基礎（例如實驗設備）。在那幾周更明智的選擇應該是更多地和Dawson交流，并且積極尋求和其他教授或高年級博士一起合作。如果我沒有強烈的主人翁意識和熱情，那么努力推進我的博士課題對于我來說真的十分困難。所以我真的想找到一個交集，這個交集是我真正所熱愛的，而且是被教授們和廣大學術圈的確認為是值得研究的。
Thinking back, I’m surprised by how well I understood the Ph.D.game so early on. I couldn’t have worded this sentiment any better now, except that I’d also add fundable as an extracriteria for success.
Irealized from this summer and my previous work experiences that it's going tobe really hard for me to push ahead with a Ph.D. project unless I feel a strongsense of ownership and enthusiasm about it, so I really want to work to findthe intersection of what I feel passionate about and what is actually deemed`research-worthy' by professors and the greater academic community.
Be proactive in talking with professors to find research topics that are mutually interesting,and no matter what, don't just hole up in isolation.
主動和教授們交流以發現互相感興趣的研究題目，而且無論如何，不要只是固步自封。
5. 高效率的會面三個具體問題：
I came into the meeting prepared with notes about three specic ideas and pitched them in the following format:
1. What's the problem?
2. What's my proposed solution?
3. What compelling experiments can I run to demonstrate the effectiveness of my solution?
為了這次會面，我準備了三個具體的想法：
1.問題是什么？
2.我提出的解決方案是什么？
3.我能夠做什么讓人眼前一亮的實驗，來證明我的解決方案是有效的？
The importance of the third point thinking in terms of experiments when proposing research project ideas. Professors are motivated by having their names appear on published papers, and computer science conference papers usually need strong experiments to get accepted for publication. Thus, it's crucial to think about experiment design at project inception time.
第三點的重要性——當提出研究課題理念時要從實驗的角度去思考。教授們的動力是在發表的論文上署名，而計算機科學會議論文通常需要強有力的實驗才能被接受發表。因此，在課題開始階段思考實驗的設計就尤為重要了。
6. 寫文章經驗
The author whose name appears first is the project leader (e.g., Joel) who does more work than all subsequently listed authors and thus deserves most of the credit. All other authors are project assistants usually younger students (e.g., me) or distant colleagues who contributed enough to warrant their names being on the paper. Ph.D. students often list their advisor (e.g., Scott) as the last author, since the advisor helps with idea formulation, project planning, and paper writing.
作者寫了第一篇文章的經驗（雖然作者是第二作者，但是不算Ph.D.畢業論文要求的），但是教會了如何做研究以及寫文章。
this experience taught me a great deal both about how to do research and about howto write research papers.
(總結，需要解決的問題，以及這些問題解答需要的一些技術。注意細化。)
AsI worked, I kept a meticulous log of my experimental progress in a research labnotebook, nothing which trials did and did not work.
(個人注釋：這是一個好的習慣，使用一個筆記本來記錄實驗的進度以及遇到的問題。)
Everyweek or so, I would meet with Dawsonto present my findings. Our meetingsusually consisted of me showing him printouts of graphs or data tables that myanalyses had generated, followed by him making high-level suggestions such as, “Wow,thispart of the graph looks weird, why is that? Split the data up in this way anddig deeper.”
（個人注釋：每周一次組會的推動研究進展。）
These two opposing experiences taught me the importance of deeply understanding the motivations and incentives of one's potential collaborators before working with them.
In effect, Ph.D. students working with those young researchers were more easily able to publish and graduate.
（個人注釋：作者跟過兩個導師，一個年輕導師——需要發文章，所以會推動寫文章；一個年老導師——不需要發文章來評職稱，所以沒有文章壓力。）選定研究方向的重要性，持續地深入下去。
Desperate to generate another plausible dissertation idea, I spent my nights and weekends throughout the summer reading research papers and brainstorming at coffee shops. inspiration suddenly struck.
（個人注釋：發文章要有原創的積累，以及原創的點。需要投入這樣的日日夜夜的思考，突然就會有靈感出現。）
No idea is truly original, so there will always be related projects. However, in order to eventually publish, I had to make a convincing case for how IncPy was different enough from similar projects. Within a few days, I had sketched out an initial project plan, which included arguments for why IncPy was unique, innovative, and research-worthy.
I then pitched them my IncPy idea and discussed possible renements to make it both moreuseful and also more interesting from a research perspective. Each successive generation builds upon the ideas of the previous one.
（個人注釋：這個想法有點類似于之前的一篇文章，科研超高效率(5)——站在前人的肩膀上-簡書，好的靈感和想法也是基于前人的成果基礎上，所以要稱述自己與前人的差別——即為創新點。）
For therest of the summer, I spent my nights and weekends at coffee shops refining myedgling IncPy idea, strengthening its marketing pitch, and getting morefeedback from MSR colleagues. I emailed drafts of my idea to Dawson, but Ididn't actually care how enthusiastic he was about it since this was going tobe my own undertaking. I wasn't asking for his permission; I was just informing him.
（個人注釋：作者花費很多晚上和周末的時間來精化并完善自己的創新點，并通過與同行的交流反饋來改善，最后還告知導師。）
Of course, those early years weren't actually lost; without those struggles, I wouldn't have gained the inspiration or abilities to create the five projects that comprised my dissertation.
（個人注釋：作者前些年的“浪費”嘗試是有用的，在這中間學會了很多東西，包括能力、靈感等。）
Random conversations with my grad schoolfriends led to tons of unexpected inspiration.
（個人注釋：與同行之間的不經意的談話會激發新的靈感。）
I discovered that this strategy of finding and setting short-term deadlines for myself would work wonders in keeping me focused throughout the rest of my Ph.D. years. Without self-imposed deadlines, it becomes easy to fall into a rut and succumb to chronic procrastination.
（個人注釋：短期目標計劃來嚴格自我管理，能夠推動進展。）
I wouldn’t have gotten lucky if I hadn’t followed my curiosity at that moment. Part of luck is always keeping your eyes open for new opportunities while simultaneously focusing enough to make consistent progress.
（個人注釋：跟隨好奇心，持續地留意新的機會，取得持續地進展。）
One bene?t of presenting a talk on a paper is that people can chat with you about it afterward, which can lead to serendipity.
（個人注釋：參加會議作報告的一個好處，相關領域的人跟你交流，可以有意外發現珍寶的可能。）
Within the next twelve months, though, I would publish four conference papers and one workshop paper (all as the first author), thereby paving a clear path for my graduation. So besides working towards the upcoming paper dead-line, I also spent some time thinking about my next project idea.
（個人注釋：作者博士畢業的文章量達到之后，可以清晰地規劃畢業的路，并且可以進行下一步的計劃想法。）
Both IncPy and SlopPy were software tools to improve the productivity of computational researchers. Thus, to think of my next project idea, I returned to identifying problems computational researchers faced in their work and then designing new tools to address those problems.
（個人注釋：在原有獲得科研突破的基礎上，來進行下一步的研究。）
In many science and engineering fields, this perception is totally inaccurate: The writing is simply combining one's published papers together into a single document and surrounding their contents with introductory and concluding chapters. All of the years of sweaty labor has already been done by the time a student sits down to write their dissertation document.
（個人注釋：作者一語道出了理工科方向博士論文的真諦——博士論文的寫作是整合博士期間所發論文的創新點，每一篇論文為一個章節，最后組成了博士論文。而相應的工作已經在幾年的博士期間已經做完了。）
最后，作者自己的總結20點寶貴的經驗教訓：
參考《The Ph.D. Grind》的筆記-Epilogue
1. Results trump intention.
Nobody questions someone's intentions if they produce good results. I didn't have so-called pure intellectual motivations during grad school: I started a Ph.D.because I wasn't satisfied with engineering jobs, pressured myself to invent my own projects out of fear of not graduating on time, and helped out on HCIprojects with Scott, Joel, and Jeff to hedge my bets. But I succeeded because I produced results: five prototype tools and a dozen published papers. Throughout this process, I developed strong passions for and pride in my own work. Incontrast, I know students with the most idealistic of intentions dreamy and passionate hopes of revolutionizing their field who produce few results and then end up disillusioned.
用結果說話。成功的博士就是成果多的博士。空談科研熱情，強調自己不發爛文章，是對科研活動沒有正確認識。
2. Outputs trump inputs.
The only way to earn a Ph.D. is by successfully producing research outputs (e.g., published papers), not merely by consuming inputs from taking classes or reading other people's papers. Of course, it's absolutely necessary to consume before one can produce, but it's all too easy to over-consume. I fell into this trap at the end of my first year when I read hundreds of research papers in a vacuum—a consumption binge—without being able to synthesizeanything useful from my undirected readings. In contrast, related workliterature searches for my dissertation projects were much more effective because my reading was tightly directed towards clear goals: identifying competitors and adapting good ideas into my own projects.
3. Find relevant information.
尋找相關信息的能力越來越重要。圖書館員在幫助科研人員提供信息素養上有著不可懈怠的責任。
My Ph.D.training has taught me how to effectively find the most relevant information for what I need to accomplish at each moment. Unlike traditional classroom learning,when I'm working on research, there are no textbooks, no lecture notes, and no instructors to provide definitive answers. Sometimes what I need for my work is in a research paper, sometimes it's within an ancient piece of computer code,sometimes it's on an obscure website, and sometimes it's inside the mind of someone whom I need to track down and ask for help.
4. Creat lucky opportunities.
創造機會。如果你不能反復呈現你的工作在各種talk上，與同事的交流中，asking for and offering help, and expressing gratitude,機會不會自己到來。
I got incredibly lucky several times throughout grad school, culminating in getting to work with Margo at Harvard during my final year. But these fortuitous opportunities wouldn't have arisen if I didn't repeatedly put myself and my work on display—giving talks, chatting with colleagues, asking for and offering help, and expressing gratitude. The vast majority of my efforts didn't resulting serendipity, but if I didn't keep trying, then I probably wouldn't have gotten lucky.
5. Play the game.
沒有選擇，抱怨是沒用的，適應它，按照游戲規則來。
As a Ph.D.student, I was at the bottom of the pecking order and in no position to changethe “academic game”. Specically, although I dreaded getting my papers repeatedly rejected, I had no choice but to keep learning to play the publication game to the best of my abilities. However, I was happy that I played in my own unique and creative way during the second half of grad school by pursuing more unconventional projects while still conforming to the “rules”well enough to publish and graduate.
6. Lead from below.
博士是科研金字塔的底層人員。底層人員也有策略去發揮影響力。
By understanding the motivations and personalities of older Ph.D. students, professors, andother senior colleagues, I was able to lead my own initiatives even from the bottom of the pecking order. For example, after I learned Margo's research tastes by reading her papers and grant applications, I came up with a project idea(Burrito) that we were both excited about. If I were oblivious to her interests, then it would have been much harder to generate ideas to her liking.
7. Professors are human.
教授也是人，有癖好，有偏心，有興趣，有動機，有弱點，有恐懼。更進一步的意思，自己去理解吧。
While this might sound obvious, it's all too easy to forget that professors aren't just relentless research producing machines. They're human beings with their own tastes, biases, interests, motivations, shortcomings, and fears. Even well-respected science-minded intellectuals have subjective and irrational quirks. From a student's perspective, since professors are the gate-keepers to publication, graduation, and future jobs, it's important to empathize with them both as professionals and also as people.
8. Be well-liked.
好人緣很重要。但是不可能跟所有的人都很好，那選擇關系好的人一起合作，并花時間經營關系。
I was happier and more productive when working with people who liked me. Of course,it's impossible to be well-liked by all colleagues due to inevitable personality differences. In general, I strived to seek out people with whom I naturally clicked well and then took the time to nurture those relationships.
9. Pay some dues.
盡到自己的責任。把自己應該做的工作做好。
It's necessary for junior lab members to pay their dues and be good soldiers rather than making presumptuous demands from day one. As an undergraduate and master's student at MIT, I paid my dues by working on an advisor-approved, grant-funded project for two and a half years rather than trying to create my own project; I was well-rewarded with admissions into top-ranked Ph.D. programs and two fellowships, which paid for five years of graduate school. However, once I started at Stanford, I paid my dues for a bit too long on the Klee project before quitting. It took me years to recognize when to defer to authority figures and when to selfishly push forward my own agenda.
10. Reject bad default.
拒絕不合理的安排。不要一味屈從老板的安排。
Defaults aren't usually in the best interests of those on the bottom (e.g., Ph.D. students), so it's important to know when to reject them and to ask for something different. Of course, there's no nefarious conspiracy against students; the defaults are just naturally set up to benefit those in power. For example, famous tenured professors like Dawson are easily able to get multi-year grants to fund students to work on default projects like Klee. As long as some papers get published from time to time, then the professor and project are both viewed a ssuccessful, regardless of how many students stumbled and failed along the way. Students must judge for themselves whether their default projects are promising, and if not, figure out how to quit gracefully.
11. Know when to quit.
發現方向性錯誤，趕緊改變。
Quitting Klee at the end of my third year was my most pivotal decision of grad school. If I hadn't quit Klee, then there would be no IncPy, no SlopPy, no CDE, no ProWrangler, and no Burrito; there would just be three or more years of painful incremental progress followed by a possible “pity graduation.”
12. Recover from failure.
博士期間的失敗是不可避免的，必然會走彎路。要做的是從失敗中康復，讓每個挫折都能激發我們的熱情投入要建設性的活動中去。
Failure is inevitable in grad school. Nothing I did during my first three years made it into my dissertation, and many paths I wandered down in my latter three years were also dead-ends. Grad school was a safe environment to practice recovering from failures, since the stakes were low compared to failing in real jobs. In my early Ph.D. years, I would grow anxious, distraught, and paralyzed over research failures. But as I matured, I learned to channel my anger intopurposeful action in what I call a productive rage. Every rejection, doubt, andcriticism spurred me to work harder to prove the naysayers wrong. Lessons learned from earlier failures led to successes later in grad school. For example, my failure to shadow professional programmers at the beginning of my second year taught me how and who to approach for these sorts of favors, so I later succeeded at shadowing computational researchers to motivate my dissertation work; and my failure to get lots of real users for IncPy taught me how to better design and advertise my software so that I could get 10,000 users for CDE.
13.? Ally with insiders.
與內行合作。與內行合作好發文章。
I had an easy time publishing papers when allied with expert insiders such as Scott andJoel during my second year, Tom during my MSR internship, and Jeff during my fifth year. They knew all the tricks of the trade required to get papers published in their respective subfields; the five papers that I co-wrote with these insiders were all accepted on their first submission attempts. However, struggling as anutsider with Dawson on empirical software measurement in my second year and then on my solo dissertation projects was also enriching, albeit more frustrating due to repeated paper rejections.
14. Give many talks.
在讀博期間，我做了大量的research presentation，包括有在學校組會的非正式的talk，或會議報告。在talk中，獲得了有用的idea，良好的反饋，發現研究的不足。每次talk都是對在公共場合表達技能的促進。最后，有時talk后的討論會激發出意外的發現。
I gave over two dozen research presentations throughout my Ph.D. years, ranging from informal talks at university lab group meetings to conference presentations in large hotel ballrooms. The informal talks I gave at the beginning of projects such as IncPy were useful for getting design ideas and feedback; those I gave prior to submitting papers were useful for discovering common criticisms that Ineeded to address in my papers. Also, every talk was great practice for improving my skills in public speaking and in responding to sometimes-hostile questions. Finally, talks sometimes sparked follow-up discussions that led to serendipity: For example, after watching my first talk on IncPy, a fellow grad student emailed me a link to Fernando's blog post about Python in science; that email encouraged me to reach out to Fernando, who would later inspire me to improve IncPy and then to invent CDE. Over a year later, my Google Tech Talk on CDE directly led to my super-chill summer 2011 internship.
15. Sell, sell, sell.
推銷自己的研究成果。在激烈的學術競爭中，要學會推銷自己的ideas給有影響的人，否則你的工作就有可能被埋沒。
I spent the majority of my grad school days heads-down grinding on implementing research ideas, but I recognized that convincingly selling my work was the key to publication, recognition, and eventual graduation. Due to the ultra-competitive nature of the paper publication game, what often makes the difference between an accept and a reject decision is how well a paper's “marketing pitch” appeals to reviewers' tastes. Thus, thousands of hours of hard grinding would go to waste if I failed to properly pitch the big-picture significance of my research to my target audience: senior academic colleagues. More generally, many people in a field have good ideas, so the better salespeople are more likely to get their ideas accepted by the establishment. As a low-status grad student,one of the most effective ways for me to sell my ideas and projects was to get inuential people (e.g., famous professors such as Margo) excited enough topromote them on my behalf.
16. Generously provide help.
慷慨地給予幫助。不要跟你的同班同學競爭。他們好，不代表你就差。彼此慷慨地給予幫助，特別是對ideas和paper drafts提出反饋意見。
One of my favorite characteristics of the Ph.D. experience was that I wasn't incompetition with my classmates; it wasn't like if they did better, then I would do worse, or vice versa. Therefore, many of us generously helped one another, most notably by giving feedback on ideas and paper drafts before they were subject to the harsher critiques of external reviewers.
17. Ask for help.
陷入困境的時候，及時的找人幫忙。可以是找自己的朋友，可以是找某個referrals，或發cold-mail給專家。
Over the past six years, I became good at determining when, who, and how to ask for help. Specifically, whenever I felt stuck, I sought experts who could help me get unstuck. Finding help can be as simple as asking a friend in my department,or it might require getting referrals or even cold-emailing strangers.
18. Express true gratitude.
表達真摯的感激。對別人給予的幫助表達真誠真摯的感激。盡可能盡力感謝每個人的特別貢獻。
I learned to express gratitude for the help that others have given me throughout the years. Even though earning a Ph.D. was a mostly-solitary process, I wouldn'thave made it without the generosity of dozens of colleagues. People feel good when they find out that their advice or feedback led to concrete benefits, so I strive to acknowledge everyone's specific contributions whenever possible. Even a quick thank-you email goes a long way.
19. Ideas beget ideas.
從一個想法產生后面的想法。
As I discovered at the end of my first year, it's nearly impossible to come up with substantive ideas in a vacuum. Ideas are always built upon other ideas, so it's important to find a solid starting point. For instance, the motivations for both IncPy and SlopPy came from my frustrations with programming-related inefficiencies I faced during my 2009 MSR internship. A year later, some of my ideas for extending IncPy, mixed with Fernando's insights on reproducible research and Dawson's mention of Linux dependency hell, led to the creation of CDE. Also, ideas can sometimes take years to blossom, usually after several false starts: I started pondering Burrito-like ideas during my second year and then at the end of my fourth, but it wasn't until my sixth year that I was able to solidify those fuzzy thoughts into a real project.
20. Grind hard and smart.
沒有一個PhD，不是經過一萬個小時單調乏味實實在在的磨練得來的。所謂有創造的想法不是別的，就是極端的努力。在辦公室里，老老實實坐在椅子上，做出微小的但實質的進步，休息一下，然后在日復一日的連續的重復。聰明的努力也很總要。從錯誤的角度提出問題，用了錯誤的工具，干了無用的差事，這些都是要不得的。要想聰明的努力，需要洞察力，直覺，和尋求幫助的真誠意愿。
This book is named The Ph.D. Grind because there would be no Ph.D. without ten thousand hours of unglamorous, hard-nosed grinding. This journey has taught me that creative ideas mean nothing without the extreme effort to bring them to fruition: showing up to the office, getting my butt in the seat, grinding hard to make small but consistent progress, taking breaks to reect and refresh, then repeating day after day for over two thousand consecutive days. However, grinding smart is just as important as grinding hard. It's sad to see students blindly working themselves to death on tasks that won't get favorable results: approaching a research problem from an unwise angle, using the wrong kinds of tools, or doing useless errands. Grinding smart requires perceptiveness, intuition, and a willingness to ask for help.
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