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Our Communication Lab teams are always thinking about new communication skills and scenarios that we can help to demystify and support. Find our latest resources below:

Blog posts

Quick tips on handy skills and first-hand reflections about communication experiences, from Communication Fellows and MIT community members

Faculty applications can be daunting. Drafting your application package. Putting your vision out there for hiring committees to evaluate. Getting your hopes up and being rejected or possibly never hearing back. One thing to keep in mind is: you’re not alone.

One constant concern throughout grad school is funding. You could take many routes to secure funding, but fellowships are a popular option. Fellowships are typically merit-based awards to support a graduate student’s personal, academic, and/or professional development.

So, you’re thinking about applying to grad school in the U.S. and you’re still an undergrad? Kudos to you for planning ahead! Applying for graduate school can feel like a monumental task, but with a strategic approach you can navigate the process smoothly and confidently.

Read EECS Fellow, Rachel Yang’s, essay, which was published in Science, about discovering that writing doesn’t have to be so intimidating if you treat it as trial-and-error – like research.

Studying abroad is becoming increasingly frequent, but applying to grad school in another country is still a challenging experience.

After four and a half years (and 158 coaching appointments!), my role as a CEE Communication Fellow is coming to an end. Our Comm Lab manager, Jared, suggested I write up some thoughts on my time in this position, and I considered this an excellent opportunity to say goodbye to the lab and reflect on this experience.

This blog post discusses the concepts that should be considered for anyone looking to define their research topic. While students have varying degrees of autonomy in shaping their research due to funding constraints and advisor expectations, the concepts discussed in this blog post account for these facets and can serve as a framework for any situation.

In both conference submissions and grant writing, writers are often asked to describe the broader impact of their research. In some cases, writers may be asked to address how their work will contribute to diversity and equity in their field.

Memos are a formal but simple method for communicating technical details with an audience which is already familiar with your work. Compared to emails, memos are more standardized, more referenceable, and tend to be more detailed.

Sooo… What are you avoiding right now? Come on. There’s no way you’re reading this unless you’re avoiding something. You’ve got an Overleaf document open. You’ve copy and pasted the abstract that was accepted into the conference you applied to months ago. You’ve got your literature review spreadsheet, your results, and code open.

We’ve all sat through scientific presentations to find our focus drifting away from the topic at hand, as the patterns in the ceiling tiles suddenly become more interesting than the projected slides. Where does a presenter lose the attention of their audience, and why does this happen?

At conferences, slides with walls of text are often the cue for the audience to take out their phones and check their email as the presenter hurries through a summary of their findings… It doesn’t have to be this way!

Scientific figures do not equally suit all contexts. A figure designed for a paper will often be information-dense; multiple panels illustrate multiple ideas, multiple axes and color bars show the impact of numerous variables, annotations highlight specific caveats, and an extensive caption explains the whole thing.

New & updated CommKit articles

Discipline-specific how-to’s and annotated examples, covering both technical and professional communication.

You can also see CommKits in other scientific/engineering disciplines.