The PhD time of a researcher’s life may be one of the most trying times; you work long hours for little pay, but at the end of the tunnel is the satisfaction of a thesis and good work done. But it can sometimes be hard to stay motivated throughout.

Mendeley is teaming up with Next Scientist, a site and community dedicated to “helping PhD students stay motivated, graduate, and then find a job in industry,” run by Julio Peironcely, PhD.

Here is more from Julio about his love of Mendeley and our The Next Scientist promotion!

You know that feeling when you discover a new product that makes you wonder how you lived without it before?

I had that when I switched my note taking in pieces of paper to a Moleskine. And when I went digital and I started using Evernote. Or when I ditched that Windows Vista laptop for a Macbook pro.

It’s that feeling of using a superior product. You know what I am talking about, right? I had that feeling with several products during my PhD.

I had that feeling at the start of my PhD. That was fall of 2008, right after the first release of Mendeley. Before that, for my master’s thesis, I had used a certain reference manager, let’s call it NotaFinal.

Not liking NotaFinal at all, I switched to Mendeley to give it a try … and I got that special feeling. I went from the absolute pain of adding the bibliography to “oh, I just added all the citations and I hardly had to do a thing”.

Well, I guess I don’t need to convince you of the virtues of Mendeley, right? You wouldn’t be reading this here at Mendeley’s blog if you were not aware of them.

If you are still with me, allow me to do a shameless plug for my blog.

Next Scientist, a blog for PhD students

Next Scientist started as a self-help blog. I wrote advice I would give to myself during the darkest months of my PhD (you know the PhD dip, the Valley of Shit). To be honest, I had plenty of those dark months. I thought that if I wrote this advice out in the public, I would be forced to follow it.

Writing an academic blog helped. I got out of the Phd dip and eventually finished my PhD.

The unexpected result of the blog was that it resonated with other PhD students. I was not alone in this suffering. Slowly but steadily visitors started coming to the site. Thank you emails began dripping in my inbox.

All this gave me joy. Think about it. How many times do you get a thank you email during your PhD? In my case, zero. Thank you emails for my blogging efforts? More than I can count.

I am so thankful for my readers that I thought I wanted to give back something meaningful. Something that could make their PhDs easier and better. Since I didn’t have much to offer myself, I looked around for somebody that might have some useful product for my readers.

Giving away 5 Premium Mendeley Team Plans (for 4 years)

So this was my thinking. On the one hand I have my readers, to whom I want to show my gratitude. Let’s give them something that can benefit them.

On the other hand, I have my network. I had interacted a couple of times with people at Mendeley and I knew they were cool and forward thinking, so they could be interested in some partnership.

The idea was to give something of value (Mendeley Premium) to my readers and at the same time help a product I love (Mendeley) reach the audience it deserves (Next Scientist readers).

The chaps at Mendeley were all enthusiastic. Not only this, to make it a bit more fun, they suggested to give five Premium Team Plans of 4 years, which is what (in theory) a PhD should last. Match made in heaven, I would say.

You heard it right, we are giving away five 4-year Premium Mendeley Team Plans to the readers of Next Scientist and Mendeley blogs.

Here’s what you need to know about the Mendeley giveaway

It’s a contest/lottery draw. You just need to register with your email (and share it with your colleagues to win more entries) to have a chance to win one of the five premium accounts. 

This is what you will get the next 4 years with a Premium Team Plan from Mendeley.

• 100GB cloud space = all the papers you will read in a lifetime, almost. That’s a bit more than the 2GB of the free account.
• Unlimited private groups with up to 15 collaborators. So you can share papers and collaborate with your colleagues.
• Each account is worth $6,000 and you can get one for free!!
• You will get the chance to write for Mendeley’s blog your story on how you are using the Premium Plan in your research.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Go to the Mendeley giveaway page.
• Register with your email
• Share with your colleagues and friends (the more you share the more chances of winning you have)

The giveaway action runs till December 14th at midnight CET. From all the entries 5 winners will be drawn and awarded a Premium Mendeley Team Plan for 4 years.

Click here to enter the Next Scientist competition to win a Premium Team Plan from Mendeley.

 

Also check out a post by Julio at The Thesis Whisperer, which we really enjoyed!