Summarizing five years of research in five paragraphs or fewer is no easy task, finds Elizabeth Moritz, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. In the latest instalment of her slightly tongue-in-cheek blog series “How to land a postdoc”, Moritz explores the delicate balance of preparing a postdoc application when one's research is as yet incomplete.

“The challenge,” Moritz writes on her Nature Network blog, PhD to be, “is to condense each of my projects into a neat paragraph of 4–6 sentences and come up with a snazzy graphic/table/chart to go with each,” (http://tinyurl.com/ojxvf4).

Moritz seeks advice on age-old questions: how many labs do I apply to at once? What's the secret to an effective cover letter? But through social networking, Moritz has gained a broader perspective than she would had she simply polled her lab mates. Her musings have garnered eye-opening replies from different countries and disciplines, as well as from across the fence as professors share what catches their attention in an applicant. Drop in on the conversation and get some tips for your own postdoc application.