Writing a Good Research Statement for a Faculty Position

In brief  

For prospective faculty applications, a research statement is a crucial document. This blog enables applicants to communicate the significance and effect of their previous and, most crucially, future research to their probable colleagues. As an application, you should use this blog to write out your research plans for the following few years, making sure to include a description of how your research will add to your part ⁽¹⁾. Finally, this blog briefly describes the research statement for the faculty position.  

Introduction  

An excellent research statement achieves three main objectives:  

1. It effectively explains your study in non-specialist language;   

2. It sets your findings in a larger scientific medical communication and societal perspective;   

3. It lays out a clear path for future success in the new environment (the institution you’re applying to).  

Task #1: Recognise the Purpose of the Research Statement  

The most common error people make when creating a research statement is failing to recognise its objective. The goal isn’t just to list and quickly discuss all of the projects you’ve accomplished as if you were a museum curator with your research articles serving as exhibits. Most importantly, presenting your research proposal statement as if it were a narrated tour of your life ignores the research statement’s principal goal: to persuade the reader of the value of your accomplished work and the thrill of your future path.  

Task #2: Communicate a Section  

The first paragraph (introduction) reads as follows:  

• a broad phrase or two describing your study subject;   
• a thesis statement stating your perspective (e.g., my research is significant); and  
• a report summarises your three bodies of evidence concisely (e.g., my research is necessary because a, b, and c).  

The second, third, and fourth paragraphs (each of which covers a body of evidence that will support your claim):  

• a subject sentence (about a single body of evidence);   
• a fact to back up the assertion made in the topic phrase;  
• another fact to substantiate the assertion in the subject phrase;  
• a third fact to back up the assertion in the subject phrase; and  
• sentence of analysis/transition  

The fifth paragraph (synopsis and conclusion) reads as follows:  

• Three sentences that restate your topic sentences from the second, third, and fourth paragraphs  
• One sentence that restates your thesis (e.g., my research is necessary); one sentence that restates your hypothesis. 
• A phrase that summarises or sums up the analysis/conclusion.  

Although the five-paragraph persuasive essay style appears conventional, it is effective. It appears in almost every effective option ever written and may also be doubled, as with many good recipes.  

Task #3: Visualise Each Audience  

When drafting research statements, the second error individuals make is medical writing for the specialist as if they were speaking to another lab member. In most situations, however, your research statement’s audience will not be well-informed professionals. As a result, without becoming delayed down in terminology, you must explain the value of your work and the contribution of your study. While certain specifics are necessary, an educated reader who is not familiar with your field of study should be able to comprehend every word of your research statement.  

Job Applications. Even in the largest department, it’s unlikely that more than a few people are as knowledgeable about your study field as you are. And those two or three individuals are unlikely to have to recruit an authority.   

Tenure Review. Your research statement will have two target audiences during the tenure review process: members of your department and, if your tenure case obtains a favourable vote in the department, members of the institution at large.  

Award Nominations. Award selection committee members are unlikely to be experts in your specific profession.  

Task #4: Be Succinct  

Many people wander on for much too long while composing a medical research statement. Consider limiting yourself to three pages at most and aiming for two. To help break up the wall of text, use subheadings. If it would help you make a point, you can also include a well-designed figure or graph. (If this is the case, use wrap-around text and make sure your figure’s axes are labelled.)  

Also, don’t attempt to squeeze more in by lowering the margins or font size as you did in college. Most individuals reading your study statement will undoubtedly be older than you, and we older people dislike reading small fonts. It makes us complain, and you don’t want us to feel irritable when reading your study statement⁽²⁾.  

Conclusion  

Writing a good research statement is critical for a researcher, but it takes a lot of time and effort. In this work, we suggest the research statement generation (RSG) job, which seeks to summarise a researcher’s research accomplishments and assist in preparing a formal research statement. It executes a complete effort for this assignment, which includes corpus generation, technique design, and performance evaluation⁽³⁾. Finally, according to methods, our approach beats all baselines in terms of content coverage and coherence.  

About Pubrica 

Pubrica has expertise in medical writing. Furthermore, the team of medical professionals at Pubrica provides unique medical writing services such as pharmacology, clinical research, public health, Regulatory Writing, biostatistics, Clinical Report Forms (Crf), psychology, life science, dentistry, radiology, dermatology, diabetes, gynecology, cardiology, biochemistry, forensics, surgery, neurology, psychiatry, genomics, pharmaceutical, medical device, nutraceutical, hospitals, 

References  

1. Bhalla, Needhi. “Strategies to improve equity in faculty hiring.” Molecular biology of the cell 30.22 (2019): 2744-2749.  

2. Gernsbacher, Morton Ann, and Patricia G. Devine. “How to Write a Research Statement.” APS Observer 26.8 (2013).  

3. Wu, Wenhao, and Sujian Li. “A Comprehensive Attempt to Research Statement Generation.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.14339 (2021).