Undergraduates
Why does the space shuttle returning to Earth cause two separate sonic booms?
Celia Elliott is an academic professional with extensive experience in grant and proposal writing and journal publishing. She works closely with the department head and associate heads to develop external and internal resources to allow the department to meet its missions of education, research, and public service, and she works with faculty to increase external funding of their research programs.
In addition to her administrative responsibilities, Celia has been involved with the development of the senior thesis sequence for undergraduate physics majors since its inception in 2000. She is currently team-teaching (with Professor Tony Liss ) two courses on technical communications and research skills, Physics 496 and Physics 499. This semester, she is assisting Professor Lance Cooper with a new writing course for graduate students, PHYS 598PEN. Celia has also contributed to the development of programmatic activities for the department's NSF-sponsored "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" program since 1996.
Physics words to live by: Never confuse motion with action--Benjamin Franklin
Since 1993, Celia has assisted former nuclear weapons and bioweapons scientists from the former Soviet Union (FSU) to adapt to their new world, traveling to the FSU 34 times. She has helped them write technical reports and scientific papers in English, prepare proposals for Western funding agencies, and find U.S. collaborators so that they can redirect their research to peaceful civilian applications. She has presented workshops on these topics at Moscow State University, Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (Moscow), the Science Information Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), the Institute of Physics and Power Engineering (Obninsk), the Institute of Metal Physics (Ekaterinburg), the Institute of Chemical Physics (Chernogolovka), the Science and Technology Center (Nizhnyi Novogorod), Tomsk Polytechnical University, Kemerovo State University, the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology (Koltosovo), South Ural State University, the State Research Center of Applied Microbiology (Obolensk), the Russian Federal Nuclear Center/Institute of Experimental Physics (Sarov), and the Russian Federal Nuclear Center/Institute of Technical Physics (Snezhinsk).
Supported by the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Sigma Xi, Celia has conducted training workshops on grant-writing and Internet resources for scientists for the Moldovan Research and Development Association, the National Foundation for Science and Technology of Armenia, the Georgian Research and Development Foundation, and the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences. She conducted workshops for scientists in Tbilisi, Georgia and Baku, Azerbaijan in June 2003, Odessa, Ukraine in October 2004, and Almaty, Kazakhstan in September 2006.
Celia is the author of two books that have been published in Russian by the International Science and Technology Center, one on preparing grant proposals and one on preparing scientific papers for publication in Western technical journals. Her work in Russia was featured in the November/December 2004 issue of the UI Alumni Association magazine.
Museum of Nuclear Weapons
All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics
Snezhinsk (formerly Chelyabinsk-70), Russia
November 1995
The following resources have been prepared especially for scientists from the former Soviet Union. All materials are in English and presented in PDF, unless otherwise indicated. Because I am most familiar with resources for physicists, there is a strong "physics" flavor to the information presented here, although I have tried to include sources of interest to scientists of all disciplines.
Partial support of this work has been provided by the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Civilian Research and Development Foundation, Sigma Xi, the Biotechnology Engagement Program of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, the International Science and Technology Center, the Elliott Family Vacation Fund, and many friends and colleagues and is gratefully acknowledged.
Note that I frequently update these materials; the English-language version is the most recent.
Successful Technical Proposals—Introduction to Research Funding (English) (Russian)
Successful Technical Proposals—Preliminary Planning (English) (Russian)
Successful Technical Proposals—Goals and Objectives (English) (Russian)
Successful Technical Proposals—The Project Summary (English) (Russian)
Successful Technical Proposals—The Project Description (English) (Russian)
Successful Technical Proposals—The Statement of Work and Management Plan (English)
Successful Technical Proposals—Some Final Suggestions (English) (Russian)
Preparing a Proposal Budget (English) (Russian)
Budget Questions a Reviewer Would Ask (English)
Preparing a CV for a Research Proposal (English)
Finding What You Need on the Internet—Navigation and Search (English)
Finding What You Need on the Internet—Resources for Bioscientists (English)
Finding What You Need on the Internet—Resources for Astronomers and Astrophysicists (English)
Finding What You Need on the Internet—Prospective Collaborators (English)
Writing to a Prospective Collaborator (English) (Russian) (Armenian)
Guidelines for Technical Progress Reports (English) (Russian)
Presenting an Oral Talk at a Scientific Meeting (English) (Russian)
Presenting a Poster at a Scientific Meeting (English)
Additional Resources for Scientists from the FSU
Electronic Resources for Scientists (Romanian) (Armenian)
Developing Successful Technical Proposals (Romanian) (Armenian)
Technical Communications for Scientists and Engineers (Russian)
Guidelines for Publishing in Western Technical Journals (English) (Russian)
Resources for Proposal Writers
Creating Successful Research Proposals: Tips from the Trenches (an ACS webinar)
More Tips from the Trenches: Successful Project Summaries (an ACS webinar)
The Project Summary (an ACS webinet)
Resources for Technical Writers and Students
Ms. Particular's Micro-Lectures on Style and Usage
A Technical Writer's Advice for Physicists
Style Guide for Writing Numbers in Technical Documents
Effective Science Talks
Hyphens, Dashes, and Minus Signs (more than you ever wanted to know)
Capitalization and Acronyms in Physics
Voice and Tense: Making Verbs Work
Building Good Paragraphs
Proper Use of Four-Letter Words in Scientific Writing
Common Latin Terms in Scientific Writing
Writing an "Acknowledgments" Section
Effective Titles
Effective Abstracts
Help with English Spelling