Six resources. One email. No sequence.

• 01 · The reviewer-response letter template

  DOCX with annotated examples

  The structure that gets a revision read as a revision. Which objections to concede, which two to defend, and where to put the sentence that decides whether an editor reads the rest. Includes the five-class triage table that tells you what a normal review looks like, the three phrasings that turn a hostile Reviewer 2 into a citable one, and two worked exchanges: one where the reviewer is right, one where the reviewer is wrong.

  What the file adds

  • The response block already styled, so a fifteen-objection letter is fifteen paste-and-fill units rather than an afternoon of formatting.
  • The triage grid as an empty fourteen-row table, with the five classes and their default moves printed above it, so you sort into the sheet rather than onto a scrap of paper.
  • Two kinds of scaffolding, both designed to be deleted: a blue box wherever your evidence goes, and a red instruction line wherever we are talking to you rather than to your editor. Delete the red, fill the blue, and the finished letter is clean.
  • A third annotated exchange, not published on this page: the case where two reviewers contradict each other and the editor has to break the tie. It is the exchange that decides the most revisions and the hardest one to write.

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• 02 · The journal shortlist matrix

  Spreadsheet: .xlsx and a Google Sheets copy

  Score six candidate venues on fit, speed, audience and realistic acceptance in one sheet, before you write the cover letter. Every anchor names where the evidence comes from, six kill switches run first, and the fit cap stops a poor-fit venue scoring well on acceptance. The point is not the ranking. It is finding out that your first choice was never plausible.

  What the file adds

  • The formulas, live. The fit cap, the weighted score, the ranking and the weights guard all calculate as you type, which is the whole instrument and cannot be a web page.
  • Weights you set yourself in row 1, so a nine-month contract can outrank a prestige venue.
  • The worked six-venue example on a second tab, to score against.
  • An index-status tracker with a date-checked column, which flags any venue you have not rechecked in 90 days. Indexing gets withdrawn while your paper is in review, and this is the sheet that catches it.
  • A Google Sheets copy link as well as the .xlsx, because most of you will use that one.

  Read it in full →The journal shortlist matrix

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• 03 · The Specific Aims one-pager skeleton

  DOCX skeleton

  Paragraph by paragraph, what each one has to do and what a panellist is looking for while they read it. Built for the page that carries the decision on most project grants of ordinary size. Includes a word budget per slot and a mapping of which paragraph feeds which of the three review factors NIH has scored against since January 2025, which almost no free resource has published yet.

  What the file adds

  • The five slots as styled headings, each carrying its own word budget in the heading, so you write to the budget rather than checking against a table somewhere else. Select a slot and Word’s status bar counts it.
  • Page one set at 0.5-inch margins, the tightest most funders allow, so what fits on your screen is close to what fits on their page. All five slots fit on that one page, which is the claim the file is making.
  • A blank factor-mapping worksheet: paste your own P1 to P4, and it shows you which of the three factors each paragraph is currently feeding, and which factor you have left with nothing.
  • The fellowship variant note, for awards where the aims sit alongside a training plan.

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• 04 · The defence question bank

  PDF, by discipline

  A hundred and fifty questions, grouped by the part of the thesis they attack and by discipline, across ten fields from clinical research to practice-based arts. Not for memorising answers. For marking each one green, amber or red in 45 minutes and finding the four you cannot yet answer, while there is still time to.

  What the file adds

  • The printable with a mark box beside every question, for the mock viva and for anyone who would rather use a pencil. You carry paper into a room; nobody carries a laptop.
  • The log sheet as a fillable table: the gap in your own words, what fixes it, and a date. That is what turns a red list into a plan.
  • Your own discipline’s seven on their own page, so you carry seven sheets into a supervision rather than a hundred and fifty.

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• 05 · Twenty-five gamification mechanics, with LMS build notes

  Three PDFs, one per platform

  Each mechanic with the engagement problem it solves, the failure mode it has, the build steps for Moodle, Canvas and Blackboard, and the weekly upkeep it costs you. Written for somebody who has to ship it next term, not for a literature review.

  What the file adds

  • Split by platform, so a Canvas instructor never reads a Moodle step. One file, one system, twenty-five mechanics.
  • The week-4 checkpoint as a one-page printable, to put in the calendar now.
  • The re-verified edition, every September. Click paths were verified on 6 September 2026 and are rechecked before each northern-hemisphere term. This page carries the current edition; the recheck goes to the list first, with a note on exactly what moved. Platforms retire features on their own schedule and a build guide with a stale click path wastes an afternoon of yours.

  Read it in full →Twenty-five gamification mechanics, with LMS build notes

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• 06 · Academic wellbeing boundary scripts

  PDF, one situation per page

  What to actually say when a supervisor asks for a chapter over the holidays, when a collaborator adds themselves as an author, when somebody asks for your unpublished data, or when you need to decline a review. Sixteen situations, each in two registers: one for a peer, one for somebody who decides something about your future. Sentences you can send, not principles you have to translate.

  What the file adds

  • One situation per printed page. You take the page you need into a supervision and leave the other fifteen at home, which is the entire point and is not something a scrolling web page can do.
  • The start-of-project email as a standalone one-pager. Script 13 is the conversation that prevents about half the situations in this file, and it works only if you send it in week one. It ships as a page you can put in front of a new collaborator today.

  Read it in full →Academic wellbeing boundary scripts

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