# ResearchCraft

> ResearchCraft runs live online research-training courses for students and early-career researchers, led by Dr Raktim Mondol (UNSW Sydney). Each course is a single intensive live session (mostly 3 hours) with a small cohort of 15-25 people, held monthly. The site also offers free templates, guides, browser tools, two 5-day email courses and a monthly live Q&A.

## About this site

- Live courses are held online, once a month each, in Australia/Sydney time. Sessions are not recorded.
- Cohorts are limited to 15-25 people so there is time for questions with the instructor.
- Pay by card through Stripe Checkout on each course page; the seat is confirmed automatically. Prices are in USD.
- Full refund if requested before the programme start date.
- Courses assume no prior research experience unless the course page says otherwise.
- The free templates, guides, tools, email courses, quiz and live Q&A need no payment. Templates and quiz results are delivered by email.

## Courses (paid, live)

### Foundations
- [Pathway to Research & PhD](https://researchcraft.dev/course/pathway-to-research): The whole pipeline — literature review to PhD offer — in one session. 3 Hours, online workshop, $490 USD. Runs the First Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 4 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [PhD Application Masterclass](https://researchcraft.dev/course/phd-application-masterclass): SOP, CV, and supervisor outreach — a complete application package. 3 Hours, online workshop, $249 USD. Runs the First Saturday of every month. Next: Saturday 3 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEST.

### Literature & Proposals
- [Literature Review Masterclass](https://researchcraft.dev/course/literature-review-masterclass): Search, screen, synthesise, and find a gap worth a thesis. 3 Hours, online workshop, $299 USD. Runs the Second Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 11 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [Research Proposal & Grant Writing](https://researchcraft.dev/course/research-proposal-grant-writing): A research idea → a proposal reviewers want to fund. 3 Hours, online workshop, $329 USD. Runs the Fourth Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 25 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.

### Writing & Publishing
- [Writing Journal Papers in Computer Science & AI](https://researchcraft.dev/course/journal-paper-writing): From contribution statement to accepted journal paper. 3 Hours, online workshop, $349 USD. Runs the Third Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 18 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [Writing Conference Papers (NeurIPS, ICML, CVPR, ACL)](https://researchcraft.dev/course/conference-paper-writing): Write, submit, rebut, and survive the top-tier CS/AI review cycle. 3 Hours, online workshop, $349 USD. Runs the Second Saturday of every month. Next: Saturday 10 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [Thesis Writing & Viva Prep](https://researchcraft.dev/course/thesis-writing-viva-prep): Structure your thesis and walk into your viva prepared. 3 Hours, online workshop, $279 USD. Runs the Second Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 11 October 2026 · 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm AEDT.

### Technical & AI Tools
- [Statistics & Experiment Design for ML Research](https://researchcraft.dev/course/statistics-experiment-design): Design experiments and prove your results actually hold up. 3 Hours, online workshop, $299 USD. Runs the Third Saturday of every month. Next: Saturday 17 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [AI-Assisted Research Workflows](https://researchcraft.dev/course/ai-assisted-research-workflows): Agentic AI pipelines for literature, experiments, and writing. 3 Hours, online workshop, $279 USD. Runs the Fourth Saturday of every month. Next: Saturday 24 October 2026 · 11:00 am – 2:00 pm AEDT.
- [HPC & Cloud GPUs for ML Research](https://researchcraft.dev/course/hpc-cloud-gpu-research): SSH, SLURM, and cloud GPUs — run experiments at scale. 3 Hours, online workshop, $249 USD. Runs the Second Wednesday of every month. Next: Wednesday 14 October 2026 · 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm AEDT.
- [Research Toolkit: LaTeX, Git & Reproducible Code](https://researchcraft.dev/course/research-toolkit): LaTeX, Git, and reproducible code — the toolkit, fast. 3 Hours, online workshop, $79 USD. Runs the Third Sunday of every month. Next: Sunday 18 October 2026 · 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm AEDT.

Use the [course quiz](https://researchcraft.dev/quiz) to get a recommendation, or browse the [full catalog](https://researchcraft.dev/courses).

## Free templates and checklists

- [Supervisor Cold-Email Kit](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/supervisor-email-kit): Five email templates for contacting a potential PhD supervisor — and the checklist to send them safely. 5 email templates · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [Statement of Purpose Template](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/sop-template): A paragraph-by-paragraph structure for a PhD statement of purpose, with prompts and word budgets. SOP structure · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [Literature Search & PRISMA 2020 Worksheet](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/prisma-search-worksheet): Plan a reproducible literature search and track your screening — with a ready-made screening log. Worksheet + screening log · Markdown, CSV. Delivered by email.
- [Research Proposal Reviewer Checklist](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/grant-proposal-checklist): Score your own proposal like a reviewer would — before you submit. Scoring rubric · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [Reviewer Response Letter Template](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/response-letter-template): A point-by-point response letter for journal revisions, plus a short-form conference rebuttal. Letter + rebuttal templates · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [Viva & Thesis Defence Question Bank](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/viva-question-bank): 44 questions examiners commonly ask, what each is testing, and how to prepare. 44 questions + prep plan · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [Experiment Protocol & Ablation Planner](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/experiment-protocol-template): Fix your evaluation plan before you run experiments — the fastest way to avoid reviewer objections. Protocol template · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [AI-Assisted Research Verification Checklist](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/ai-verification-checklist): Use AI tools in your research without hallucinated citations, wrong numbers, or policy violations. Checklist + disclosure templates · Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [SLURM Starter Scripts for ML Research](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/slurm-starter-scripts): Three job scripts (single GPU, job array, multi-GPU) and a cheat sheet for university HPC clusters. 3 scripts + README · .sbatch, Markdown. Delivered by email.
- [LaTeX Paper Template + Reproducible Repo README](https://researchcraft.dev/resources/latex-paper-template): A clean Overleaf-ready paper skeleton and a README template that makes your code reproducible. main.tex + .bib + README · LaTeX, Markdown. Delivered by email.

## Guides

- [How to Email a Potential PhD Supervisor (With Templates)](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-email-a-phd-supervisor): Most cold emails to supervisors are ignored. Here is how to research, write, and send one that gets a reply, with a short template you can adapt.
- [How to Write a PhD Statement of Purpose](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-write-a-phd-statement-of-purpose): A statement of purpose is a research narrative, not an autobiography. Here is a five-part structure, what to put in each part, and the mistakes that get applications ignored.
- [How to Find a Research Gap (and Know It Is Real)](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-find-a-research-gap): Where to look for gaps in the literature, the different kinds of gap, and how to check that yours is genuine and worth a thesis, before you spend a year on it.
- [The PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram, Step by Step](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/prisma-2020-flow-diagram-step-by-step): What each box of the PRISMA 2020 flow diagram means, how to count records at every stage, and the arithmetic checks that catch mistakes before a reviewer does.
- [How to Write a Response to Reviewers (Journal Revisions)](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-write-a-response-to-reviewers): A revision decision is not a rejection. Learn how to structure a point-by-point response letter that answers every comment, disagrees politely, and makes the editor's job easy.
- [How to Write a NeurIPS / ICML Rebuttal That Actually Changes Scores](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-write-a-neurips-icml-rebuttal): Conference rebuttals are short, rushed, and read by tired people. Here is how to prioritise, what evidence to include, and the mistakes that waste your limited space.
- [How to Spot a Predatory Journal Before You Submit](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-spot-a-predatory-journal): A practical checklist for judging whether a journal is legitimate: the warning signs, the independent checks to run, and why no single list can do the work for you.
- [How to Prepare for a PhD Viva (Thesis Defence)](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-prepare-for-a-phd-viva): What examiners are really looking for, a week-by-week preparation plan, the questions to rehearse, and how to handle the ones you cannot answer.
- [t-test vs Bootstrap: How to Choose a Significance Test for ML Results](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/how-to-choose-a-significance-test-for-ml-results): Which statistical test fits which machine-learning comparison: two models on one test set, several seeds, or many datasets. Includes a working paired-bootstrap example.
- [SLURM Job Script Examples for PyTorch (Single GPU, Arrays, Multi-GPU)](https://researchcraft.dev/guides/slurm-job-script-examples-for-pytorch): Three working SLURM job scripts for ML research: one GPU, a job array across seeds, and multi-GPU with torchrun, plus the mistakes that waste the most time.

## Free browser tools

- [GPU Compute Budget Estimator](https://researchcraft.dev/tools/gpu-cost-estimator): Estimate the GPU-hours and cost of your experiments before you run them.
- [Significance Test Chooser for ML Results](https://researchcraft.dev/tools/significance-test-chooser): Answer two questions and find the right statistical test for your comparison.
- [Journal Legitimacy Checklist](https://researchcraft.dev/tools/journal-checklist): Check a journal for warning signs and evidence of quality before you submit.

## Free email courses and events

- [5 Days to a Stronger Research Proposal](https://researchcraft.dev/free-course): a free 5-day email course.
- [5 Days to a PhD Application](https://researchcraft.dev/free-course/phd-application): a free 5-day email course.
- [Free live Q&A with Dr Raktim Mondol](https://researchcraft.dev/live-qa): free 45 minutes live session, First Friday of every month. Next: Friday 2 October 2026 · 7:00 pm – 7:45 pm AEST.

## Other services

- [Thesis and project supervision](https://researchcraft.dev/supervision): 1:1 supervision for serious projects. Apply through the site.
- [Research consulting](https://researchcraft.dev/consulting): for universities, labs and research groups.
- [Research proposal library](https://researchcraft.dev/research-proposals): free example research proposals.

## About and support

- [FAQs](https://researchcraft.dev/faq): audience, prerequisites, format, payment, refunds.
- [Contact](https://researchcraft.dev/contact): questions and partnerships.
- [Sitemap](https://researchcraft.dev/sitemap.xml): every public page.
- Founder: Dr Raktim Mondol, UNSW Sydney. [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=UaGa0S4AAAAJ), [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmondol/).

## Optional

- [Full site content in one file](https://researchcraft.dev/llms-full.txt): every course curriculum, every guide in full, and the FAQs.