Adopting a historical perspective on things we take for granted is often fascinating. For example, measurement is not something one usually spends a lot of time questioning. But did you know that the meter was last redefined in 1983, only 39 years ago?

In a recent column, Tim Harford said: While this claim might seem simplistic, I believe that there is something fundamental in it. Sure, debunking certain claims is time consuming and require skills that we might not have, especially when the claims are made with data. Often, however, even limited amount of poking can help us assess the robustness of claims we are exposed to on social media or offline.

In this sentence from On Writing Well, William Zinsser gives us four important pieces of advice to write better: use good verbs, prefer the active voice, simplify, and, finally, be concrete. Use good verbs One of the best advice on verbs is found in McCloskey’s Economical Writing.

Deep Work by Cal Newport is a book about getting more done. For once, I like the title, it both summarises the book well and is more or less unforgettable. In the introduction, Newport suggests that to do important work, you need to find the time to focus deeply. He says that this has gotten harder with the advent of the internet and social media.

Do not read This one is easy: you should not read from notes. It does not matter if you stutter, search for your words, nothing—NOTHING!—is worse than someone reading from notes instead of presenting. Reading prevents you from connecting to your audience! If you read because your are unsure what you have planned to say, you need to move to the second piece of advice below: rehearsing.

Super courses by Ken Bain is a book aimed at University teachers and describing a new breed of courses in Universities. According to the author what sets these courses apart is the fact that they are designed using insights from learning science.

I just finished what I call marking season a few weeks ago. It is the period from the last week of August to the end of the second or third week of September when we do most of our MSc dissertations marking. I have had the pleasure to read very interesting work on a broad range of topics during this period.

Thriving in a degree programme (and I would argue—as Carmine Gallo does in Five Stars—in most careers) especially at MSc level requires the ability to write clearly and convincingly.

There is an easy trap that too many of you fall into. It is a trap so common that some, if not most, of your professors (myself included) have at some point fallen into it. This trap comes from looking at your calendar, seeing a few classes here and there each week, let’s say between 2 and 5 classes, and believe that your workload is totally manageable. After all, you are only in class for anywhere between 4 and 15 hours a week.

This little book makes for delightful and terrifying reading. Delightful because it is very well written, and hilarious at times. Terrifying because many of the rules expose flaws in one’s writing. The book packs a lot of very useful tips in a small format. It is a very good complement to the often recommended Strunk and White Elements of Style, with advice that is particularly useful to the social scientist.

I have been teaching Data Analytics modules in various forms for the past five years. I started teaching class using R, because it was what I knew and what I used in my work. But over the years, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what software to teach. I have given thought to replacing R with Stata, Python, Julia or SPSS.