Lennart Nacke, PhD
🧠 Tenured brain, fresh daily takes. Maximum citations but sanity questionable. The prof your prof follows for daily advice. University Research Chair & Tenured Full Professor.
The read that returns your rigour ➜ go.lennartnacke.com/newsletter
- I read papers every week. I highlight the parts that make me stop and think. Then I turn those insights into posts. I either adapt their framework or borrow their core argument. This is how you transform research into content that actually lands.
- Being the best writer in your lab is the worst possible bottleneck. You fix everything because you can. That is exactly why nothing scales: x.com/acagamic/st...
- Research = knowing what to investigate Methodology = knowing where to look for answers Theory = knowing who your findings matter to Publication = knowing how to present your work Together... They turn your curiosity into career-defining contributions.
- 3 must-have academic writing skills everyone should know: Skill #1: Identifying your sacred time (when your brain is most alert) Skill #2: Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals (not mushy "work on paper" goals) Skill #3: Restarting after lapses (without emotional drama)
- Writing a research proposal without a clear problem statement feels like assembling IKEA furniture without the manual. Possible? Sure. Fun? Absolutely not. If your proposal feels painful to write, your problem statement is probably missing. Define your problem first.
- Funded PIs do not wait until their grant makes sense. They submit before it feels ready. Perfect clarity is one of the most expensive ways to lose a grant. Specious barriers burn grant time: • Reformatting citations • Re-reading foundations • Building elaborate templates
- Four professors apply for the same grant. One writes nonstop. One networks hard. One resubmits old work. One co-leads. Who wins?
- The more papers I review, the more I realize gaming metrics is a terrible way to measure impact.
- Nobody taught me how to write. I came up through engineering. Then a PhD where I struggled with my supervisor. The assumption was simple: Collect data and the paper writes itself. It doesn't.
- Your advisor's H-index won't write your recommendation letter. Their citation count won't answer your 3 AM panic about methods. Their grant total won't help you figure out what to do when your experiment fails for the sixth time. Pick someone who will. Kindness compounds.
- Mentoring costs 30 minutes now. Rewriting costs 30 minutes forever. After five mentoring sessions, the student handles it themselves. After five rewrites, the student still needs you. One scales. One doesn't.
- AI workflow for entry point selection: 1. Gap analysis (Elicit + Consensus) 2. Extension opportunities (Claude Sonnet on discussion sections) 3. Correction candidates (methodological reviews) Run all three. Compare timelines. Choose strategically. Don't pick based on excitement alone.
- The longer you avoid reviewer feedback. The scarier it becomes to open.
- "So what?" Two words that kill grant proposals. If you can't answer them, you've confused your research problem with your research gap. Let me explain:
- I'm skeptical of most AI advice on social media. Here's why: Salt and sugar look the same to the untrained eye. Someone can look smart on the surface. Polished threads. Confident takes.
- If you're an academic and you want to publish consistently, stop screwing around. Choose 30 minutes daily over weekend marathons. Choose concrete goals over "working on your paper." Choose snack writing over binge writing. Choose systems over inspiration.
- Stop writing papers like they're essays. IMRaD follows an hourglass: • Introduction: Cast the wide net • Methods: Squeeze through the narrow neck • Results: Stay tight, stay focused • Discussion: Expand back out to meaning Broad to specific to broad. This shape guides readers through complexity.
- Your lab isn't just producing papers. It's where people spend the hardest years of their life. Starting families. Losing friends. Supporting parents overseas. Building careers under pressure. You can't fix everything. But you can notice. You can ask. You can listen. It makes all the difference.
- The typical PI fixes the draft because it's faster. The franchise-thinking PI asks what principle would prevent this problem in the next draft. Every recurring edit you make is a missing entry in your lab's operations manual.
- The hourglass structure saved my last 50 papers. IMRaD isn't random. It mirrors how readers actually think. Intro: Broad context, why anyone cares Methods/Results: Narrow focus, what you did Discussion: Broad implications, what it means Wide → Narrow → Wide. Your paper breathes this way.
- AI tools find extensions faster than gap hunting. Prompt I use in Scholar Labs and Perplexity: "Find papers from [author] published 2020-2023 that mention limitations or future work. Extract specific suggestions." Extension opportunities hide in discussion sections. AI excavates them in minutes.
- "I'm stressed" is academic for "I have no idea what's wrong." My PhD student said this during one of our weekly meetings. Third week in a row. So, I asked her to get specific. What exactly was stressing her? "Everything. The data. The writing. The timeline."
- In your PhD, papers were fun. In your postdoc, papers became mandatory. On the tenure track, papers became your ticket. Academic publishing broke you. You just haven't noticed yet: https://x.com/acagamic/status/2017087582023123019
