“Practice (and watch the time of) your oral presentation.”

“For 2nd year students，take one course each semester that requires you to write a paper. It might be that you write a good paper. However, it is more probable that you write a bad paper. But don’t get nervous about it, because before people write good papers they usually write bad papers.”

“Don’t clutter up your life; just write. You might think there are still a lot of things that you don’t understand, but that doesn’t matter, there are a lot of things that I don’t understand. Contrary to taking classes, TAing or going to seminar, research is a very painful thing because there is no instantaneous payoff. You may waste a whole afternoon without any results, but that is what research is about. There are two ways you can deal with this: 1) dedicate a big part of your time for research or 2) prepare for Thanksgiving early.”

“A good paper almost always has 1) a viewpoint 2) a lever 3) a result.”

“If you find yourself thinking ‘But that’s how the game is played,’ slap yourself. If that doesn’t work, take up sheep farming.”