Keys to Running Successful Research Projects: All the Things They Never Teach You. By Katherine Christian. London, UK: Academic Press, 2018. 463 p. Paper (ISBN 978-0-12-813134-3).

In any field, research is a process involving many steps and can feel overwhelming even to experienced researchers, with many researchers wondering where to start. As a means to combat this challenge, Keys to Running Successful Research Projects: All the Things They Never Teach You by Katherine Christian is a how-to manual for academic researchers. It accounts for those in every level of the academic experience, from doctoral students to early career professionals to research leaders. However, the focus is on early career professionals, especially in the sciences.

This book assists researchers with research management, not with accomplishing the research itself. It details how to plan a project from beginning to conclusion, acting as an illustrative guide to address a comprehensive list of challenges researchers might face. There are multi-faceted sections on writing grants and managing people, budgets, and time. Just as helpful are chapters on promoting and assessing research, as well as research ethics.

Each section begins with a checklist of topics to be covered and ends with suggested further readings, making it extremely useful as a reference text. The visual layout of the book is not intuitive at first, but it does not distract from the flow of the content.

As a comprehensive guide to managing research projects, Keys to Running Successful Research Projects: All the Things They Never Teach You is an incredibly valuable resource for students in higher education, early career professionals, and research leaders. It is a thorough, comprehensive map to the research world. Through practical examples and case studies, it walks the reader through areas that are often over-looked and with which many are uncomfortable.—Patrick Baumann, Media Services Librarian, Linscheid Library, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma