The salutation you use in an email matters.

A salutation is the first thing most people read, it sets the tone for the rest of the email, and it demonstrates your level of professionalism. For good or bad, it also carries the power to influence your reader. And you don’t want the person who reads your email to be annoyed or offended right from the start—especially if your plan is to ask a favor.

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology has a monthly publication called ASBMB Today that has both print and online distribution.

Your lab is a bubble. You work with a team of people with supporting, overlapping, or related projects. You might use different techniques, methods, or approaches than your labmates, but overall you’re all working towards common objectives, and trying to solve a few big questions with the science. It’s good to be in that bubble.

Every time someone writes a letter of recommendation for you, it’s important to send a thank-you email expressing your gratitude. It doesn’t need to be a long email (in fact you want to keep it under six sentences), but it should be sincere.

For the maximum benefits, send the thank-you email the same week the letter is done. However, if someone wrote a letter for you last summer and you didn’t know to send a thank-you email, get it done today. It can still count.

Although there are more, here are three reasons you should send a thank-you email:

Note: This tip won't work for all research environments. In some labs, there is no-phone policy. Usually, it's because the work being done is easily compromised by having a phone around (because the phone cannot be sterilized) or because having a phone distracts the researcher in a way that is a safety hazard. So, this tip only applies to students who have discussed the lab's cell phone policy with their in-lab mentor or PI, and are allowed to use the phone.

If you find yourself in the enviable position of getting to choose between two research positions, don’t let the fear of missing out prevent you from making a decision.The best strategy is to start by considering each position individually without comparing them to each other.