Last updated on October 23, 2018
Tom Reardon is one of my favorite agricultural economists. Not only is he incredibly productive (he has over published over 150 articles and his work has garnered over 27,000 Google Scholar citations), his work also has real-world policy impact (he was the first agricultural economist invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos). Over the years, Tom has been a wonderful mentor, and he has become a very good friend.
To know Tom is to love him, and if you know Tom well, you know that he has laser-like focus when it comes to his research, but that it can be hard to get him to focus on something that is not the writing of whatever he is currently working on right now. Over dinner, he is likely to go from discussing the etymology of an obscure French word to how e-commerce is disrupting food systems to how he has been struggling to make good brisket sous vide… all within five minutes!
So I was particularly happy to receive an email from Tom earlier this week in which he linked to a talk in which he focuses 75-minutes on the art of research discovery and writing good articles. If you are a researcher, whether early-career or seasoned, this is one of those rare occasions where a master craftsman takes the time to generously share some deep insights into his craft.