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<issue_start>username_0: I am already done with my masters but I want to go back to school for another one. The only thing is that I got my masters 9 years ago. I know GRE is only valid for 5 years. Since I already done with one masters, would I be required to take the GRE again if I want to go for another one?<issue_comment>username_1: Short answer, yes. If you want to apply for another masters degree you have to submit a full application (with in-date GRE scores). If you have maintained a close relationship with the university, you may be able to wiggle out of the GRE requirement, but that is because the faculty already know your work.
It won't hurt to ask. You should contact the admissions office and explain your circumstance. If the university is local, it might be worth showing up in person. Be polite, and be ready to have to re-study and re-take the GRE though.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Not necessarily.
I applied to a top department at an RU/VH university in the United States, and asked to have the GRE requirement waived for exactly the same reason, and they waived the requirement, and then admitted me to the program.
**Ask the admissions office/committee if they will wave the requirement.**
Upvotes: 2
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2015/11/25
| 1,807
| 7,626
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<issue_start>username_0: My advisor has multiple electrical engineering masters research students under him. One of them came to me asking for help, saying the advisor asked her (let's call her Jen) to write some code to test out one of his ideas and generate graphs for a paper. Jen is horrible at writing code (her words), so thinking this was a rush job and not related to Jen's research (her words again), I ended up writing all the code. I spent way more time on it than I originally expected to, but it's done, the advisor is happy, and the paper is submitted with everyone's names on it. FYI, this research is completely unrelated to mine.
Turns out, according to the advisor, this ***is*** Jen's research topic. The advisor has now asked that I send the code to both of them so they can make some modifications and continue the research. I estimate the modifications to be 10% of the work that I've already contributed. While this isn't Jen's entire thesis, I feel I have completed a massive part of it for her and don't want to just give it all away, just to have to go and then do my entire thesis as well.
Is it normal for code to just be shared (likely without citation) internal to a university? Should I just send the code? Should I question the request? Should I flat out refuse to share it and make Jen develop the code on her own (given there isn't an immediate paper deadline pending)? I don't want to offend my advisor, but I don't know the standard procedure for academia and want to make sure I'm not being taken advantage of here.<issue_comment>username_1: If I understand you correctly, you were asked to help write code from a colleague, you wrote it, then were a co-author on a paper related to your contribution with this code. Now, your co-authors want the code, and will continue to work with it?
If this is the case, I dont think they can truly publish another paper without more than 10% of the modifications, unless this code has less to do with the research than you think.
You clearly feel attached to the code, but as other questions on this site have found out, developing code does not mean you will be a co-author on all papers that use the code in the future.
You could put the code online as open source software, since you wrote it. They would then cite that link in their paper. Otherwise they will most likely cite the paper you all published together.
If you feel strongly, you could politely discuss this with your advisor, saying something like:
>
> When Jen asked me about writing this code, I did not realize how much
> work it would be. After extensive amount of investement, I have
> become significantly invested in the code. Would it be possible to
> remain an active participant in this research by contuining to develop
> the code?
>
>
>
Again, this depends largely on the real situation. Code itself is most likely not the research, but instead implementation or a tool for the research. In that case, it really would not be Jens focus. Your advisor may agree to keeping you on. On the other hand, your advisor may just say you already have published a paper together, and the code you developed was for the lab.
Be careful of getting too connected to your code early in your masters. This will happen many times, and already having a publication out of your code is in a much better position than many.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Should I flat out refuse to share it and make Jen develop the code on her own (given there isn't an immediate paper deadline pending)?
>
>
>
What would be the purpose of this? You'll upset Jen and your advisor, she'll have to spend time redoing what you've already done, and you'll have substantially decreased the usefulness of your contribution with no corresponding gain to anyone. The only reason I see is a feeling that Jen is getting away with something and not putting in enough work herself, but I don't think you should be concerned with this. Your advisor is aware of the situation and should ensure that she does enough work to justify awarding her degree. Maybe she is doing great things you are unaware of. It's also possible that she won't end up doing as much as the average student, but that's OK: she'll still deserve the degree, but just won't get strong letters/references. By contrast, you'll get glowing reports of how you not only completed a substantial project of your own, but also stepped in to make major contributions to an unrelated project and ensure that it met a deadline. That will put you in a great position.
>
> Should I question the request?
>
>
>
I don't see a purpose to questioning it unless you might plausibly refuse to share the code.
One option is that you could propose continuing to collaborate on this topic. However, you'll have to handle it tactfully. For example, it would be awkward to try to use the code as leverage to force a collaboration (by saying "I'd rather not give you the code, but I'm happy to make further changes if you let me know what you need"), or if it comes across like you are cutting Jen out of the project by offering to play her role and suggesting you would do a better job of it. If you'd like to collaborate, it's reasonable to say so, but you should be open and collaborative, and make sure to allow everyone an opportunity to contribute. (And it's best not to let this distract you too much from your primary project, since you'll have more to gain from a project you have greater ownership over.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think @AnonymousMathematician has already given a great answer explaining why there is no real benefit for anyone -- including you -- to *not* sharing your code. I have nothing to add to this, but a simple observation: You may have some moral reasons for not sharing the code unless you will also be a co-author in the future, but you have no *no legal* argument that supports you in this. At least in the United States, as a graduate student, you do not hold the copyright in the code you write. Your university as your employer does. So at least *legally*, your professor has every right to require you to pass along the code.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: If "Jen" is "is horrible at writing code," how the heck is she going to modify your code without butchering it? Let's imagine that you play along and hand over your baby. The following possible outcomes spring to mind:
* Jen manages to break the code, and she comes running to you each time she breaks it.
* Not understanding the code, Jen draws invalid inferences.
If you and Jen were collaborators on a project together, and there were no PhD theses hanging on it, things would be different. It is very common that on a collaborative project, one member of the collaborative team is stronger on coding and is the one who writes, modifies and explains the code to the other member(s) of the team. In a project of that type, the code specialist can put some code modification ground rules in place, such as a version control system.
I would have reservations too in your shoes. It's time for a one-one-one conversation with your advisor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I would say share the code but make it clear to both the student and the advisor that you expect to get credit for it.
It might be an idea to clarify the copyright status of the code too. This can depend on both local policies of the university and whether or not you were acting as an employee when you wrote the code.
If Jen tries to claim the code as entirely her own work that is serious academic malpractice.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently moved to a Nordic country in an academic position. For my first grant application, I collaborated with other researchers at the university. As I was submitting the proposal along with the CVs, I noticed that two of the researchers had mentioned their religion. I have never seen this in academia, at least in South-east Asia where I spent majority of my work life.
Here are other details that I think are relevant:
* Our research domain is engineering, not humanities or social sciences.
* Both researchers are Muslim.
* The funding agency is a private one that favors industrial collaborations.
My questions:
* Is it appropriate to mention one's religion in an academic CV?
* Does mentioning one's religion help in grant proposals or academic positions? I think in a fair world it shouldn't.
* Do western countries, especially European, favor candidates who are Muslim?<issue_comment>username_1: There are some situations where religion could limit someone's ability to do their job. For example, a Muslim professor may require prayer breaks, which could limit the times at which they can give lectures.
Religion should be mentioned only on a "need to know" basis, unless it's common practice to include it in the country you're applying to. Similarly to if you have a disability, you shouldn't mention it on your CV. It is more appropriate to explain such caveats in the cover letter, during a job interview, or prior to accepting the interview.
We should be judging people on their ability to do the job, not their personal beliefs. Such beliefs are only relevant if they interfere with their work. Unfortunately, particularly as a result of increases in extremism, Muslim candidates in Western Europe are more likely to be at an unfair disadvantage, rather than being favoured for a position.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Some applicants perform significant volunteer work through their places of worship; I would never expect them to elide that on their CVs or résumés. Similarly, attendance at a faith-aligned institution of higher education, or work for a faith-based organization.
Aside from clearly-relevant material such as that, however -- and volunteer work will not be appropriate to mention for all graduate departments; it is for us because we're a professional school for various service professions -- I would not find it appropriate and it would not help the applicant.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I would leave it away. It is probably some relict from older days when it was common to include it, so some people might still do it, but it is most likely neither expected nor actually wanted. For example, I vaguely recall that when I was attending high school in the 1990s in Germany, when we learned how to write a CV (from an older teacher, so it might have been outdated already), we still included our religious affiliation. In fact, it was also common to include the occupation of your parents.
I highly doubt anyone still would expect information like this any more, and in fact, it seems to be of highly questionable value with a lot of possibilities for discrimination attached.
[BTW, in Germany, your religious affiliation has some tax implications, which is why you would have to tell your employer anyway; but the CV is not the place to do it, I guess]
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It should be mentioned here that local practices are important. For instance, applicants for positions based in the US should **never** list factors such as religious affiliation, marriage status, and birth date in a CV, as this runs afoul of equal opportunity and anti-discrimination regulations.
Religion, however, I think is something that is best left off in all cases. There really isn't a valid reason to list it that isn't outweighed by the potential for problems created by leaving it on.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: As the ethics require the professor to be religion - neutral, mentioning the religion will not have any impact. As helpful as mentioning your favorite color, the name or your pet or anything the like.
It is generally better to avoid including uninformative stuff into CV, better to use that space for something that may represent you positively.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/11/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I am part (working part time) of a research project that is funded by the government in another European country (not the one I live in). As part of my contract with that project, I'm required to submit a manuscript reporting the research to a peer-reviewed journal by a deadline.
However, because of unforeseen circumstances (mainly related to methods that didn't work as expected), the manuscript was not ready for submission by the deadline. In fact, it received very critical responses when presented at a conference earlier this year, and it is clear that major changes have to be done before it is ready to submit. That conference is organised by the same association that publishes the two journals that I had in mind when writing the paper, so I think that I should heed their advice.
Yet, I'm being forced to submit it by the deadline or I will face a fine. My co-author, who is from that other country, has been very clear that I have to submit the article, period. That co-author has been very helpful in buying me time, but the changes needed are very time demanding (I need to basically re-do the whole study), and I'm not working full time on that project.
What is the most sensible thing to do? Can I just submit it anyway? I thought about sending it to a journal where I expect it to be desk-rejected just to fulfill my contract, and then do the necessary changes to submit to the journal I originally intended to send it to. Would it be ethical? What other options do I have?<issue_comment>username_1: Contracts for scientific research can often be thought of as having two components:
1. A set of "minimum requirement" fixed deliverables that you *must* accomplish or else face penalties, and
2. A set of actual goals, which may or may not be able to be accomplished as anticipated, given the uncertainties of every sort of interesting research.
Typically, the fixed deliverables are things like "write annual reports" and "create a prototype implementation of X" that should be able to be accomplished as long as the research is progressing well.
"Submit a paper on this research," on the other hand, is a foolish requirement to have in a contract, because whether a paper should be submitted at a particular time or not is very dependent on context. For example, you might have been doing wonderfully, but then be unable to submit as anticipated because of related work that other people have published in the mean time. It is for this reason that in my contracts I typically propose something more vague like, "communicate with scientific community on results of the research" and put the fixed deliverable as reports to the funder on what we've done.
So something's already rather screwy in your contract, and you need to deal with it. I think the most important thing to figure out is whether the pressure to fulfill the letter of the contract is coming from a program manager who cares about the research or an accountant who does not. Talk to the leaders of the project and see if they can figure out, because my recommended path depends on which it is:
* If the pressure to publish comes from an accountant or similar "box-ticking" authority who does not actually care about the research, only about fulfilling the ridiculous contract, then I would recommend fulfilling the technicality by asking something like Nature or Science to desk-reject your manuscript. Confirm the plan with your co-authors and others on the team, and make it clear what you are doing in your cover letter, and I'm certain they will provide you the rejection you desire without doing any significant damage to your career.
* If the pressure to publish comes from a program manager who actually cares about the research, then you are in a much more difficult situation, and the desk rejection ploy is unlikely to satisfy them. At the same time, the program manager could likely grant an exception to the contract to allow you to not submit. In this case, I think that it is important to understand *why* there is so much pressure to submit (perhaps it signifies that the whole project or program is in trouble?), and for the project leaders to negotiate with the program manager. If they've already done so and failed... well, you're stuck in a bad situation.
If you're in the second situation, negotiations have failed, and you really *must* submit, I would recommend *not* submitting results that you believe should not be published. That is the sort of thing that can haunt you for your career. Instead, I would recommend submitting the part that you *are* comfortable with---the study design---in a paper that clearly and honestly says this is all that is done right now and puts the completion of the new study into future work. Make sure that anything you submit is something that you would actually be OK with seeing in print if it does get through the peer review process, and make it clear in your cover letter that you are aware that this is preliminary and will be happy to accept a decision by the editors to either proceed or not.
And then never accept a contract with such a horrible clause in the future.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you don't submit a manuscript to a journal you will get fined? What would [Marshawn Lynch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshawn_Lynch#Media) do in this situation?
Prepare a manuscript titled "I am just submitting this manuscript so I won't get fined". I am not sure it is necessary to write anything more than the title. Submit. Do not be surprised if your manuscript gets rejected without review.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I am rather shocked by what I perceive as the utter stupidity of the contractual requirement to submit your work by a predetermined deadline regardless of whether you have actually produced any work of publishable quality. I will analyze your question from a theoretical ethics perspective, since on the practical level there are already some good suggestions. The way I see it, you are in a uniquely peculiar situation in which almost all options available to you are unethical in one way or another. Specifically:
1. The option to submit research that you know to be flawed with the intention that it gets rejected is very clearly unethical. You would be putting the editor, and possibly a reviewer, through the trouble of handling your submission only so that you can satisfy your contractual requirement. I would see such an action as a clear abuse of the academic publication system and would look very negatively on a person doing such a thing. (As others have pointed out, there can also be a real risk that your paper may actually be accepted, which would perhaps have even worse consequences for your career and raise its own quite serious ethical concerns.)
2. The option to submit the flawed article (or a satire of an article, as in username_2's answer) along with a *request* that it be desk-rejected (and an explanation of your motivation) is a bit better, since it is unlikely to cause a very large burden to the editor handling your "submission". However, it is still essentially a form of spam, and as such mildly unethical. Depending on how high your ethical standards are, you may feel (rightly, in my opinion) that a contractual obligation requiring you to degrade yourself and inconvenience another person in such a way is itself unethical.
3. The option to decide not to submit an article describing the flawed research and pay the fine is unfair to you, and as such, also unethical (hurting yourself raises ethical issues that are quite real and may in fact be no less severe than the ethical issues associated with hurting other people). It may be a minor thing and unimportant to you in the grand scheme of things, depending on the size of the fine, but remember, I'm analyzing the situation from a theoretical point of view.
Finally, I can think of two approaches that don't require you to do anything even a little bit unethical, but they both have their downsides:
4. You can contact the government agency to whom this contractual obligation was made (and other parties who are signatories to the contract), explain the situation clearly and honestly, and ask them to waive or modify the requirement to submit the paper by the prescribed deadline. As stupid as this requirement is, the people who proposed it are still human beings, hopefully with some common sense, so I think there is a chance that you can get them to agree that this is a requirement that might have been entered into in good faith but simply does not make any sense in the current situation (this happens frequently with contracts, where some assumption was made that turns out later not to apply and the contract needs to be changed or reinterpreted). They have authority to modify the terms of your contract, and if they agree to do so you will be in the clear and the problem will go away.
The downside of this approach is that it would be bothersome and time-consuming to explain the situation to all the parties involved (if you can even easily find out who is the right person you need to talk to), and in the end they may turn out to be stubborn and mindless bureaucrats and simply refuse to cooperate.
5. Alternatively to 4 (or in addition to 4 if you tried that and that didn't work), you have the option to not submit the paper *and not pay the fine*. This probably sounds like a dangerous thing to do, and it may in fact be a dangerous thing to do. However, from a purely theoretical perspective I claim that this is the most ethical action of the ones I proposed. In the law there is the concept of an [unconscionable contract](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability), which is a contract or contractual obligation that is morally or ethically unjust and therefore is held to be legally invalid. I am not a lawyer, but I believe the requirement you have described is precisely an example of such a contractual obligation, and ethically speaking I feel you would be completely within your rights to ignore it. This may even be a position that would be defensible in court, but since I'm not a lawyer I can't advise you about that. Of course, it's important to emphasize that **practically speaking**, such a move may very well be ill-advised and could lead to all sorts of negative consequences for you.
By the way, it is possible that some people will counter that since you entered into the contract knowingly, the argument that the requirement is unconscionable is not valid (or less valid). I believe this is false -- in fact, the nature of unconscionable obligations is that by definition they are invalid *even if entered into knowingly*. Moreover, in your comment you stated that "It all boils down to me accepting such a contract, but it is my first research contract of such type and I was foolish to sign it. I can't negotiate with the administrators handling it due to they speaking another language, being in another country, at a university I have not been to." I believe this is a very good explanation and would in my opinion absolve you of any hypothetical responsibility that might be ascribed to you otherwise, even discounting my claim above that unconscionable obligations cannot be entered into even knowingly.
To summarize, from the practical point of view your best options are probably 4 (if it works), 3, or 2. Option 5 is theoretically the most appealing to me, but I recognize it's not very practical. Option 1 is unacceptable and I would advise you to avoid using it under any circumstances.
I'm not sure this answer will be helpful to you in a practical sense, but I hope this theoretical analysis may be helpful to you or someone else (and I am happy to debate the points I made above if anyone thinks they see a flaw in my reasoning). I certainly found it very interesting to think about this peculiar situation.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to change my field from molecular biophysics to theoretical ecology. While they are basically required some same basic background (physics, math, programming), the rest is quite irrelevant. In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt. Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?
Below is copy from [Choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/1529/14341).
>
> What have you already done? What problems have you solved, or at least worked on? What independent projects have you been part of? What were your key contributions? What did you learn? What did you teach the world? How do your results compare to what was already known? What original ideas are you most proud of? Be specific, technical, credible, and confident (but not arrogant). Refer the reader to your web page for more details. Have a web page with more details: preprints, project reports, source code, videos, etc.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: At the very least, focus on transferable skills. These are the tools of academic and scientific research which are applicable to all fields of science (and your ones in particular). Some examples are analytical thinking and [problem solving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_solving).
Sometimes these skills are further divided into 'hard' and 'soft' skills, which are more (and less, respectively) rigorous. [Soft skills](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_skills) are important to make your audience aware that you have a well-rounded experience, and will make the transition easily (from a social standpoint, for instance). [Here](http://www.ceswoodstock.org/job_search/resumeskillstransf.shtml)'s a list to get you started.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I am going to focus my answer on your original question statement (but without getting involved in editing the official title of your Question):
>
> When changing fields, should my past research be written in a way that brings out the maximum relevance to the new area?
>
>
> In my current draft of this part, about a half is about this the problem and the result of the work, another half is for my contribution and what I've learnt.
>
>
>
Good. This is exactly what they're looking for, in that section of your essay.
>
> Having said that, should I focus less on describing the work and leave space for the thing that will be useful for the next research?
>
>
>
No, you can let the "previous work" section stand alone. That's the section where you show the committee that you have done good science, and that you can speak about it in an understandable way.
Just to make sure we're on the same page -- your essay is going to have another major section, where you get to be imaginative about what you would like to do in the new field, right?
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an applied mathematician. A very simplified outline of my situation is as follows:
The leader of my research group is a "big wheel" in his specific research area. His contributions are considered both important and very demanding.
Recently I found a way to get a simplified access to one aspect of his work. I am very sure that no more than a few dozen people have ever made the effort to dig through this and understand it. The simplification is substantial, and even to my group leader it has not been known. Certainly it is not known to almost everybody else.
Other than an alternative simplified manner of setting up the theory, I can round out some things that have previously been done by hand-waving. That is only of theoretical interest.
**So I wonder:** finding this has been difficult, and it would help other researchers to know about it. But is it worth being published, with only a "sugar glaze" of actually -new- results? How can I determine this? How low for a journal should I aim?<issue_comment>username_1: You are not very specific in your question, so much of this is guesswork. However, since you say you are working in applied mathematics, there are two situations that would definitely lead to publishable results:
1. If you have a simplified proof of a significant theorem, that is worth publishing.
2. If you can find a simplified algorithm, especially with better complexity, that is of course also worth publishing.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In general, this kind of result might be worth publishing, also in top journals. However, it is impossible to tell without knowing the specifics. It might well be something that has been known as a "folklore result" for long in your field.
Luckily, you say that the leader of your research group is the major expert on this. So, **ask him** and not a random bunch of people from other fields you found on the internet.
If you have already asked and he disagrees, chances are that he is right. But if you disagree and insist that it is a major breakthrough, you can still write everything up, put it on arXiv, and wait for feedback from other researchers.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2015/11/26
| 427
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<issue_start>username_0: Once per week I check my Google Scholar profile and I can see my citations count is increased. I would like to know, to which papers/works my increase in the number of citations is related to. How can I know this without making my profile public?<issue_comment>username_1: You can set an alert on "New citations to my articles" and receive this information by email.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Well, the easiest way is to create a public profile, because then you can adopt the solution suggested by Dmitry. (The [Google Scholar help](https://scholar.google.no/intl/en/scholar/help.html#alerts) implies the public profile is necessary.)
Otherwise, you can set up an alert for each article independently (by following the directions in [the same help document](https://scholar.google.no/intl/en/scholar/help.html#alerts)):
1. Find the paper that you wish to monitor, say by searching for it by title.
2. Click on the "cited by xxx" link.
3. Create an alert by clicking the large envelope on the bottom of the left-hand panel.
If there are no articles yet citing it, then you can hack the following link: <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=15621263267746567439>, where you must change *cites=xxx* to the cluster id of the paper you want to monitor. For my articles, I can see the cluster id of each paper in the url when I look at details of the paper, but I do not know how to find that for papers that are not connected to a public profile. Nonetheless, if any of your co-authors have public profiles, you can use this approach by navigating to the paper details from their profiles.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/11/26
| 475
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student and I'm T.A. of a graduate course. The professor asked us to give some assignments to the students. I have done so and a homework assignment, which contains an optional part for gaining extra marks, I designed.
Moreover, I have set a policy for late assignment being as follows:
* One day: Losing 25%
* Two days: Losing 50%
* Three days: Losing 75%
* Further outlasting ones: 100%
My intention was turning in both mandatory and optional parts together in one single written document. However a couple of students turned in that mandatory part by its due date, and optional parts after the due date.
Now, I am in a dilemma whether should I penalize their assignment or not. Also how about that optional part? Should I award extra marks or not?<issue_comment>username_1: Follow your stated policy, and follow it *to the letter.*
An important aspect of teaching, particularly with regards to assessment policies is that you have to be **consistent** in how you assign your grades. A main reason for this is that if questioned, you can draw upon the stated policy (especially if this was made clear to the students prior to the assessment).
In the case you described, as @ff524 stated in the comment, grade the mandatory part as normal, and apply the lateness penalty to the optional part of the assessment.
Essentially:
`Mandatory part mark + (Optional part mark - lateness penalty applied to the optional part only) = Overall mark`
(Note in the equation above, the equation in the parentheses has a minimum value of zero)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My response to your question would be: Why are you making these decisions and not the instructor? Even if the instructor may have delegated the task of setting the policy, he/she should at the very least vet such decisions. I would expect this discussion to take place between the two of you (plus any other TAs on the team).
Upvotes: 3
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2015/11/26
| 535
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying to PhD programs in the US and got my undergraduate degree from a German university. My university issues English transcripts of records, yet for special (graduate) lectures, the description is often still in German. Instead, a generic english name is used for the name of the lecture. For example, a generic entry might look as follows:
```
Course Name: Mathematics V
Description: Statistische Inferenz für Netzwerke
Grade: ...
```
Of course, I would much rather the transcript said "Statistical Inference for Networks". What is the etiquette in such cases? Do I take my German transcript and receive a certified translation, even though technically my institution issues "English" transcripts?
Some universities have an additional upload section, where I can describe the most important courses in more detail (including their content). In such cases, it would not be a problem. Yet, other universities only ask for a pdf of the transcript. Would it be OK to include my own descriptions at the end of the transcript pdf file, so that the committee can take these into account? Or would this rather upset the admissions committee?<issue_comment>username_1: Follow your stated policy, and follow it *to the letter.*
An important aspect of teaching, particularly with regards to assessment policies is that you have to be **consistent** in how you assign your grades. A main reason for this is that if questioned, you can draw upon the stated policy (especially if this was made clear to the students prior to the assessment).
In the case you described, as @ff524 stated in the comment, grade the mandatory part as normal, and apply the lateness penalty to the optional part of the assessment.
Essentially:
`Mandatory part mark + (Optional part mark - lateness penalty applied to the optional part only) = Overall mark`
(Note in the equation above, the equation in the parentheses has a minimum value of zero)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My response to your question would be: Why are you making these decisions and not the instructor? Even if the instructor may have delegated the task of setting the policy, he/she should at the very least vet such decisions. I would expect this discussion to take place between the two of you (plus any other TAs on the team).
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I have patiently waited for over six months for my supervisor to review two 30 page manuscripts. They have yet to do so. Furthermore they will not allow me to submit them to journals unless they have had a chance to read them.
I am at the end of my PhD and am looking to submit soon. They have yet to read my thesis - though they have also had several parts since early this year. I have sent many emails and spoke to them in person explaining the stress this is causing. I have heard every excuse under the sun. What can I do about this?
I think I need to approach the department, however I'm not if that will make the situation worse. I believe its to late to find a new supervisor and if the department does talk to the current supervisor, the supervisor could just delay me even further. I'm trying to find some one else to review the work currently and hopefully that will suffice. However the supervisor still needs to OK it before I can send it off - so in that respect I'm stuck. I've pushed the supervisor as fair as I as and have explained to the the stress this is causing to no avail. Any suggestions?<issue_comment>username_1: Follow your stated policy, and follow it *to the letter.*
An important aspect of teaching, particularly with regards to assessment policies is that you have to be **consistent** in how you assign your grades. A main reason for this is that if questioned, you can draw upon the stated policy (especially if this was made clear to the students prior to the assessment).
In the case you described, as @ff524 stated in the comment, grade the mandatory part as normal, and apply the lateness penalty to the optional part of the assessment.
Essentially:
`Mandatory part mark + (Optional part mark - lateness penalty applied to the optional part only) = Overall mark`
(Note in the equation above, the equation in the parentheses has a minimum value of zero)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My response to your question would be: Why are you making these decisions and not the instructor? Even if the instructor may have delegated the task of setting the policy, he/she should at the very least vet such decisions. I would expect this discussion to take place between the two of you (plus any other TAs on the team).
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: We submitted a paper to a fairly average journal and received a major revision decision. We made the suggested changes and resubmitted. The revision was reviewed by three referees and two of them mentioned that they were satisfied with the changes and the paper warrants a publication. The third reviewer made some strong comments and the editor's decision was 'reject'.
The third reviewer again raised some of the same concerns as the first two reviewers' original ones along with some completely irrelevant ones. For instance, one comment was that our technique *did not improve performance*; we were trying to improve the expressiveness of the model and claimed that this expressiveness did not come with a performance penalty.
I have already sent a request for reconsideration to the journal's editors but based on their past communication, I do not expect a positive response.
My question is: Is there a way to report such an incidence to the publisher? At a higher level of abstraction: is there a check in place for editors of journals or do they get a free hand after they have been appointed?
(I do not care much about the paper as I can probably find another venue; the paper is an extension of a highly cited work. I just want to make sure I play my part in keeping the academic process in line because I have seen it slip a little too often.)
If this information is needed: The journal is an "impact factor" journal published by Springer.
**Edit:** Just to clarify, "options" refer to ways to play my part in improving the system. The publication of this particular paper is not an issue as mentioned in the parentheses above.<issue_comment>username_1: When submitting papers you will often get reviewers who dislike your work for various reasons. Often their reviews will leave you scratching your head wondering how they misunderstand your work so badly. This is normal. You got it particularly bad with this happening after a major revision.
If you have the option of a rebuttal, you should politely mention why you disagree with the reviewers' points and hope for the best. Failing that, there's nothing you can really do. Your best option is to throw your hands in the air, curse loudly, and then resubmit elsewhere.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Half-joking, half-serious:
Next time you're having some beers with some *trusted* colleagues, tell this story and gripe about this particular journal. For one, it will blow off some steam. (Caveat: I wouldn't recommend complaining to people you *don't* know well, at least if you are junior.)
Moreover, in the long run, this is how reputations are built or lost. If your colleagues are as upset by your story as you are, then they might tell it to others, avoid publishing in this journal, and/or decline referee requests from this journal's editors. (Conversely, if your colleagues think you're being unreasonable, you might get some useful advice.)
This would have only a minor effect of course, but it would do more than contacting the publisher: in the long run, authors hold all the cards, as a journal is only as good as the papers that get submitted to it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you want this not to go unnoticed, you can apply username_2' suggestion and also write a polite but clear e-mail to the editor *and the editor in chief* of the journal explaining why you consider the handling of your paper unsatisfactory. This may carry more weight if you make it clear that you do not try to change the decision and are already submitting elsewhere.
I would only recommend this if you are in a position where the handling editor cannot hurt your career too badly (e.g. tenured, or working mainly in a different field), as he or she may keep a grudge.
A very minor action you can also take without any risk is to write your very first name on your black list of editors you will never again submit to, and will never referee for.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: From my experience in the "normal" two rewier case the behaviour in case of an accepted and rejected at the same time is to invite a third revier and go for the majority vote. You seem to already have the majority vote cause three persons accepted the review.
The editor has always a chance to "override" a reviewers decision and reject on his own for scientific reasons. I assume you can conisder it as your rights to get access to this decision.
You always have the right to go to the editor in chief. Imo from what I heard very limited success chance. You might be better just to resubmit in a similar journal with few adaptations.
If you feel 100% unfair treated for unscientific reasons try to look for a person which you consider really integer and see if he agrees to your judgement. The decide if it is worth to fight for your justice. Go the editor in chief way. As mentioned before, low success chance. Save all communications. I do not recommend the following but you can "tag" the journal/editor quite publicly. There is sides dedicated for this, look them up yourself. I personally recommend to avoid this. Focus on the people who like your work. Resubmit elsewhere and continue to focus on being a good scientist and not start hunting down the bad ones. There is always a limit how much we can look away, but dont set this limit to low.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: My course-mates and I have a scientific paper to do for a class and, despite having had almost 3 months to do it, no one has done anything (or at least tried to do anything) on the research, and now they're starting to fake the results of the research (which hasn't even been done), and I know that this falls under scientific misconduct.
Since I'm planning on moving to another college (not related to scientific research, because this is not what I want), what should I do in this case? Should I stay in the project or should I ask to have my name removed from the authors' list?<issue_comment>username_1: First of all the term *partner* is a bit confusing here, are you talking about course-mates or colleagues?
Otherwise ask yourself whether or not you want to be associated with forgery, regardless of whether or not you intend to enjoy the fruits of the action. As an analogy, would it be OK to help with forging counterfeit money just because you don't intend to use the fake money to buy anything with it?
Then there are different levels of taking distance from the act; you can either:
* blow the whistle on the data-forgery, which is what I would **strongly** advocate for if this work is supposed to be published on a peer-review journal, or
* just ask to have your name removed from the report if it's just coursework. That way you avoid having a fallout with your "partners" and still maintain some level of plausible deniability.
The first option is important in the case of a scientific publication, because data forgery on a publication is not only cheating and ethically wrong, but also is potentially harmful to others who might try on to build on your research results. That aspect is obviously not as important if the paper in question is just a hand-in assignment for some course at the uni.
The second option isn't really the most ethical alternative, and might still be problematic (e.g. if someone questions why you insist on being removed from authors list).
Bottomline is you can't have your cake **and** eat it at the same time.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is the type of situation that department deanships are created for. Meet with the dean, explain what's going on. The dean will go over your options with you, and probably ask you to sit tight (=wait) while he or she looks into the situation and confers with colleagues.
(The above answer is written for *almost* all countries. The exception would be if you happen to live in a country where corruption is rampant. In that case, the best thing would be to keep your head down and be as little noticed as possible.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Many schools have an Academic Integrity office or officer. Usually you can talk over the problem, learn about your options, and decide to file a formal report or not.
If this situation relates to a for-credit class, I assume you will get a poor grade in the class as a result of not having done the assignment or as a result of asking to have your name removed from the assignment that your partners are submitting. If you are switching fields, maybe that doesn't matter to you.
Reporting academic dishonesty (as opposed to just getting yourself out of the situation) is the right choice, but I know from several personal experiences that it causes short-term stress that you may not want to endure. You probably will find that it's not just the perpetrators who get angry at you. Some people within the school organization may well be annoyed that you are reporting the incident. There will be stress, so if getting yourself out of it is as much as you can contemplate doing, at least do that. Not everybody is ready to be a hero all the time.
Over the years, both as a student and as an employee, I have witnessed academic misconduct. I have never regretted reporting, but I have sometimes decided that reporting wouldn't be worth the trouble it would cause for me. I have taken on a considerable amount of trouble related to reporting, so I don't feel that I have been "weak" on the occasions when I have decided not to. If you've never done it before, you might find it to be an eye-opening experience.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Others have suggest to have your name removed from the project. I would like to add a detail to this.
If you have invested a lot of time and effort into the project, it would be annoying and unfair to be set back by just discarding this work.
Instead I would try:
* Clearly separate your work from the work of others. Denote which work you did. I suggest to set up a 'git' repository for the group, which will connect all additions and modifications with a name and a date.
* Privately but in writing, inform the lecturer that you can only vouch for your own (and denoted) part, not the parts of others. This is justified as you were not given the chance to review their work. They started work late, and it would be unreasonable to assume that you can critically review everything within a few days before the deadline.
* Depending on the circumstances, you may or may not additionally inform them of your suspicions. If you do, it might be possible to arrange a separate submission of your work, such that it is detached from the others.
* As the report cannot be published without you, as an author, being asked, I would not worry much about the report including your name getting out.
The idea is to keep your work alive and grade-able fairly.
I have experienced similar situations myself but at the time, I had not followed the advise I gave above. So I cannot speak to how well it works - I would be glad if anyone can enlighten me on this.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Some days earlier, in the hour of contemplation, I made an extremely critical and paradigm-shifting breakthrough in my field and then, I started writing on it for a publishing and many times checked through the paper and finally submitted it after many days of proofreading.
The paper was committed to the biggest and most popular journal for my field, and I waited for a reply. And the reply was saddening, my paper was mysteriously rejected. As I contacted the reviewer, I was told that he and others "rejected it by simply reading the title".
And my title was very professional, in the sense that it was not something like "X proven wrong and Y revolutionized!".
Now I am confused on what I should do, this paper needs to be published. If not for myself, then atleast for the thousands of other researchers who have hopelessly comitted their lives to this field.
I must add here, as my advisor congratulated me and hugged me on this great discovery, he was skeptical of my paper being published because it is simply too outstanding to be true. And big journals who receive thousands of paper each day will most likely reject it in quickness, and this paper needs to be read with a lot of thought and concentration to be believed. He advised that I should submit it to a lesser known journal whose reviewers he is great friends with, so that he'll tell him to take a good thoughtful look at it. He assured me that my paper would be accepted there. However, I might have naively not considered this and simply went for the biggest journal out of extolment.
So what should I do now? And is rejecting a paper because it is too good even a valid reason?<issue_comment>username_1: Based on your post, I would say that you probably didn't choose an inspired title.
One of the big problems with the top journals in my field is that they get many junk papers from wannabee mathematicians. One of the most common trait of these is a grand title, and many reviewers know from many past experiences that if an unknown submits a paper entitled "The best proof ever" or "Proof of Riemann, Collatz and the ABC conjectures" they are invariably a complete waste of time. The exceptions are so rare that it is not worth the effort, and most mathematicians which are not world renowned experts in their field probably know not to oversell the paper in the title.
Now, think for a moment about this. You make a paradigm-shifting breakthrough in your field, do you need to emphasize this in the title?
If your paper is right, will the readers be convinced by the title, by the contents of the paper or by both? The title will have absolutely 0 impact on this, it is the contents and contents alone which convinces readers.
Now, if you missed something in your paper, and your paper is wrong, then you have a junk paper with a grand title, that's a bit embarrassing.
Last but not least, as I said a grandeur claim from an unknown usually creates a bad impression even before reading the paper, it might detract some of the readers. And even if someone reads it and understands that you indeed found a breakthrough, that title can easily be interpreted as "in your face, I proved this and you couldn't" (most serious scientists wouldn't do this, but I know few who would).
At the end of the day, with such a discovery, it is not important what you think about your paper; it only matters what the community thinks. And you can often achieve more with a modest well chosen title.
Last but not least, in areas where things can be open to interpretation, a wrong title (i.e. This approach is the only one which is right) can be interpreted as trying to impose you opinion on the community; or as telling people with other views that they are wrong...
**P.S.** This advice is based on my understanding on how people in my domain would react in a similar situation, things might be different in other areas.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You don't say what your field is. I think you would get a better answer if you did, as cultural norms differ. My answer is from the perspective of a pure mathematician.
The first thing I want to say is that, given absolutely no specific technical information about your situation, your post gives me the impression that your work is most likely not correct. Or to be more precise: it is an empirical fact that most papers which claim to completely revolutionize a field turn out to be incorrect, so from a probabilistic perspective anyone who says that is most likely not to be correct -- and this by the way is an attitude that you need to be aware of and take into account. What I really mean is that the way you describe your work makes me think it is more likely to be incorrect than if you had just said "I believe I have done work of the highest level of importance in my field, but I have not been able to publish it. What should I do?"
But rather than picking apart your post to reveal why I got that impression, let me concentrate on directly answering your questions.
>
> And is rejecting a paper because it is too good even a valid reason?
>
>
>
Obviously not. Not only is this an invalid reason, it is a reason that does not make any sense and thus is never given. And it was not given to you. If you really think your paper might have been rejected because it was too good, you need to have a long talk with your mentors about how academia works.
>
> So what should I do now?
>
>
>
My advice you to you is to talk to your advisor once more to make sure you've correctly understood what he told you to do. If you have, then I'm sorry to say that I think you may need to find a new advisor -- or at least a new mentor to help you out here. The advice as reported sounds terrible.
>
> I must add here, as my advisor congratulated me and hugged me on this great discovery, he was skeptical of my paper being published because it is simply too outstanding to be true.
>
>
>
Please remember to choose your language carefully in academic discussions. Did your advisor really say "it is simply too outstanding to be **true**"? If so, he is saying that he does not believe your work is correct, and somehow that most important message has been lost. You are acting as if he said "it is simply too outstanding to be published in a top journal", which doesn't make sense.
>
> And big journals who receive thousands of paper each day will most likely reject it in quickness, and this paper needs to be read with a lot of thought and concentration to be believed.
>
>
>
It would be very helpful to know what your field is here. In my field (mathematics) there are no journals which receive thousands of papers a day. Moreover most papers which are submitted to top journals are read with a lot of thought and concentration -- in fact, the very top journal in my field, *Annals of Mathematics*, is a bit notorious for keeping (correct!) papers for more than a year before rejecting them after a careful evaluation.
Of course if your paper does something revolutionary and the arguments are difficult and technical, the burden is on you to present them as clearly as you possibly can, and also to make sure that your paper does not have any superficial flaws that would invite an early rejection. The question which has been suggested as a duplicate of this one has many good answers giving advice about this issue. Let me add that it sounds like it has arisen for you:
>
> As I contacted the reviewer, I was told that he and others "rejected it by simply reading the title".
>
>
>
(Again, please choose language carefully: do you really mean the "reviewer" or the "editor"?) Rejecting a paper simply by reading its title would be inappropriate and unprofessional. Even if the title is terrible or worse, one should read at least a little farther to confirm the initial impression. I have to say that I am skeptical that the editor at the top journal in your field told you this. Could you confirm that this is exactly what happened? (FYI, exhibiting a terrible title that you didn't use didn't convince me that your title was adequate.)
>
> He advised that I should submit it to a lesser known journal whose reviewers he is great friends with, so that he'll tell him to take a good thoughtful look at it. He assured me that my paper would be accepted there. However, I might have naively not considered this and simply went for the biggest journal out of extolment.
>
>
>
This sounds like very bad advice. (Again I assume by "reviewers" you mean "editors".) If your advisor really thought your paper was correct and revolutionary, he should be helping you publish it in a top journal, not a journal in which he can arrange to have his influence exerted. It is really inappropriate for him to ensure that your paper will be accepted: again, how does he know it is correct? But I see a germ of something valuable: if he has colleagues or contacts that can give your work the attention it deserves, why don't you ask him to send your paper, as a manuscript, to those people?
In general the way that you try to publish a truly revolutionary paper is not exactly the same as a run-of-the-mill one. Namely, as I said at the beginning, the better a result you claim the more likely it is incorrect (no matter who you are). Everyone knows this. So -- and here I may be talking more specifically about my own field, which has a vibrant preprint culture -- you can make your life a lot easier by circulating your revolutionary paper as a preprint, giving talks / going to conferences / visiting various experts and so forth. If you can't convince any top person in the field that your work is correct, how will you publish it -- and more importantly, so what if you do publish it? Conversely if you can convince several worldwide experts in the area that what you've done is correct, then the path to publication becomes a lot smoother.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: If I were you I would try:
<http://arxiv.org/>
(<http://arxiv.org/help/submit>)
Once it's there, please share the link here, I'm sure many will be interested to prove your statement right or wrong.
Best
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I read [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24201/should-one-put-their-masters-thesis-online), in which all answers recommend posting one's master's thesis online. My thesis is available from my university's repository, but I'm thinking about posting it on arXiv since it's more easily searchable. However, I don't think I've seen master theses on arXiv. Is this something that people typically do? Are there disadvantages that I'm missing?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is this something that people typically do? Are there disadvantages that I'm missing?
>
>
>
There are **NO** disadvantages, but IMHO, this is not something that people typically do.
At least in my field, CS, nobody care about PhD theses, let alone Master theses. Because if there are any contributions in the theses, they should be published in conferences. That's the version that people want to read.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Posting a master's thesis on the arXiv is uncommon, but not unheard of. My feeling is that there's little point to it: if there's material worth publishing in your thesis, then you should turn it into papers and post them on the arXiv (in which case the thesis is unnecessary), and if it's not worth publishing then it's not worth posting to the arXiv.
If you decide to post both the thesis and the papers to the arXiv, you should indicate the relationship between them clearly in the comments so you don't look like you are inflating your publication record with duplicates, as well as in case you trigger the automated plagiarism detection in the arXiv.
One potential issue is coauthors. If anything in your thesis is coauthored with someone else (either from a previous paper or to appear in a future paper), then I do not think you should post the thesis to the arXiv. The problem is that you'd be pointing readers towards a version that lists you as the only author and relegates your coauthors to a brief note in the text, and you would be increasing the chances that they would cite the thesis rather than the coauthored papers. Instead, it's best to emphasize the papers by posting them to the arXiv instead.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to PhD programs in math. The thing is: I went to a great school coming out of high school, but it didn't work out. (No GPA problems thankfully; just personal stuff.) I ended up going to an engineering program, where I eventually understood math was my calling, and **everything has been going swimmingly since then.**
The question is: do I need to explain myself? Every program I apply to will be getting the transcript from my first institution. It seems to me I should explain why I left and how I've gotten to where I am. That said, only one school I'm applying to actually requires a statement about this kind of circumstance, which has left me a bit confused. Presumably my having transferred will raise questions that I should strive to address in my application, rather than letting the admissions committees' imaginations fill in the gaps. That said, I feel as though anything I can say to explain the situation will detract from the positive developments that transpired after I transferred, particularly given the prestige I chose to give up.<issue_comment>username_1: I feel it's difficult to give an elaborate answer to the question without knowing the specifics, but I'd say you don't have to be too straightforward with it.
Consider the following:
You want the admissions people, whether that is the HR department or the group leader him/herself, to not be suspicious about your transfer, but you are not sure whether you should *justify* the transfer to them in your application. Justification sort of implies that something out of the ordinary (or something that *requires* explanation) has taken place, which puts you in a rhetorical weak position.
Instead of trying to formally explain your choice of transfer, maybe you can take up the subject in a non-direct way in your personal letter or letter of intent or anything like that, which I presume you will have to write anyways.
You can explain where/how you started, briefly touch upon the transfer reasons and work your way to the core: how your transfer caused you to find your calling and how it has contributed to your intellectual development. That way you not only explain that you have transfered and why, but also what positive effects it has had on you, without being a bit uptight about it by writing a separate letter or a specific paragraph about it.
Of course it is possible that I misunderstood your question but that's my two cents :)
Good luck
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If there were no GPA problems at the first school, then there's nothing in that first transcript to look askance at; hence, **no explanation needed**.
However, the specific change you made, from engineering to pure math, might help your application. Perhaps a small anecdote will help me explain why.
When I took my Calculus III (multivariate), it happened that my fellow students had no patience for proofs. They were overwhelmingly engineering students. One of them became a self-appointed spokesman for the impatient majority, and would interrupt the instructor in the middle of a proof of a major theorem: "Excuse me, Ma'am, could you skip the proof, please, and go straight to the applications?"
Not all engineering students are like that; and to be fair, the large number of credit hours they are frequently expected to take per semester isn't conducive to stopping to smell the roses.
Conclusion: a brief mention in the essay or cover letter of your change of major from engineering to math might help your application.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I will finish my Ph.D. soon and am seeking a postdoc position.
To this purpose, I am creating my page, hosted by my university.
Personally, I don't generally take pictures of myself and don't like to.
There is a picture of mine (from 4 years ago) which I feel is fine,
where I was hiking on a mountain, without my T-shirt.
However, people won't see my nips anyway. I am a male, if this matters.
I wonder if such picture is fine in an academic page,
especially for someone who is trying to get a job.<issue_comment>username_1: First, there is no rule that you need to have a picture of yourself on your professional webpage. Most people do, but there's no rule. It's nice to have *some* image that represents you (giving people's visual memories something to hold onto), but that could as easily be something from your research or anything, really.
Second, I would not recommend posting an image of yourself shirtless. Your page will be looked at by (hopefully) a lot of different people with radically differing cultural and personal backgrounds. Many of them are likely to have no problem with it, but some may. When you are in an early and vulnerable stage of your career, it is generally safer to choose a relatively conservative image. Please note that I am not saying: "You Must Conform!"---instead, I am saying that failing to conform can have a cost, and that you should *choose* whether paying such as cost is worth it to you.
Finally, there is a simple solution that will nullify the question of being shirtless: just crop the picture to zoom in on just your face.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: While academics often struggle to separate their professional and personal lives, putting effort into separating out your professional webpage from your personal webpage is important. As a minimum, you should clearly delimitate what is professional and what is personal.
Within the framework of this question, I can think of three situations where you might go hiking:
1. There are some academic fields where hiking is a “professional” activity (e.g., geology, anthropology, physical therapy, ...). In most of these fields, I believe, hiking without a shirt would be considered unprofessional. If my field involved a lot of hiking, I would include these on my professional webpage. That said, I would likely still not use one where I did not have a shirt on, even if the reason for not having a shirt on was professional.
2. In the sciences, and maybe other fields, academics often go on “lab hikes”. This type of activity straddles the personal/professional boundary. I would not take my shirt off on one of these hikes and I would not put these photos directly on my professional webpage. I might add a prominent link (e.g., "lab outings") to the photos from my professional webpage.
3. The final situation are personal hikes. These could still be with colleagues, but they need to be very close colleagues. The idea is that, in the case of a complaint (e.g., sexual harassment), you can “prove” the activity was not work-related. In these cases, hiking without a shirt is fine. Putting these photos on your professional website is a bad idea, but including a link from your professional website to your personal website is fine.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Your appearance as a professional (which usually includes a collared shirt) will influence your ability to be taken seriously by *many* employers. If you are in a technical field, your web presence is of significant importance. And, as a post-doc, you may be considered temporary faculty. So, I highly suggest you shave, do your hair nice, and put some nice clothes on. Take a high-res photo with a white background (any wall will do) that you can crop to the shoulders up. You can use a photo like that for your webpage as well as other needs (e.g. if you get a post-doc, they may put your photo up on the wall next to the rest of the faculty photos). If your field of study is "outdoors", and a photo of you hiking is "work-related", I would advise you to also take an action shot (with your shirt on) of you doing work. However, if you are working at "tropical" university with liberal culture (e.g. in Hawaii) then a shirtless photo will not negatively influence you.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Europe has many universities [founded in the Medieval period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medieval_universities); in the United States, universities started to be founded [almost as soon as English settlers arrived](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University). China, however, I know very little about.
I do know that China has a millenia-long history of scholarship and science, but that is not the same as organizing academia into universities or university-like institutions.
When did "universities" in the modern sense (i.e., permanent institutions that gather scholars to conduct research and provide higher education to students) begin to be founded in China?<issue_comment>username_1: According to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_China):
>
> Peking University is the first formally established modern national
> university of China. It was founded as Imperial Capital University
> (京師大學堂) in 1898 in Beijing
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: * Western Style Chinese Academy
From [<NAME>an 同文舘](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongwen_Guan) wiki page
>
> <NAME> (Chinese: 同文舘), or the School of Combined Learning was a government school for teaching Western languages (and later scientific subjects), founded at Beijing, China in **1862** during the late-Qing dynasty ... It became part of the Imperial Capital University (now Peking University) since 1902. ...
>
>
>
* Government sponsored Chinese style academy
From [Shang Xiang 上庠](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shang_Xiang) wiki page
>
> <NAME> (Chinese: 上庠; pinyin: shàng xiáng; Wade–Giles: Shang Hsiang), was a school founded in the Yu Shun (虞舜) era in China. Shun (**2257 BCE–2208 BCE**), the Emperor of the Kingdom of Yu (虞, or 有虞/Youyu), founded two schools. One was <NAME> (shang (上), means up, high), and the other one was <NAME> (下庠, xia (下) means down, low).[1][2] **Shang Xiang was a place to educate noble youth. Teachers at Shang Xiang were generally erudite, elder and noble persons.**
>
>
>
From [Taixue (太学)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taixue) wiki page
>
> Taixue ... was the highest rank of educational establishment in Ancient China between the Han Dynasty and Sui Dynasty ... The first nationwide government school system in China was established in **3 CE** under Emperor Ping of Han ...
>
>
>
* Privately owned Chinese style academy
From [Academies (Shuyuan書院)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academies_(Shuyuan)) wiki page
>
> ... shuyuan were usually private establishments, ... The shuyuan originated in **725** ...
>
>
>
From [China’s Ancient Academies-Academies Tours to China](http://chinatourwithpeter.blog.com/2013/07/30/chinas-ancient-academies-academies-tours-to-china/)
>
> ... According to “Records of All Officials,” a volume of The New Chronicles of the Tang Dynasty, “in the sixth year of the Kaiyan Reign (AD **718**) Qianyuan Academy changed its name to Lizheng Academy (Academy of Elegance and Rectitude), the newly created positions of supervisors and copy editors were filled and compiler-academicians became auxiliary-academician ...
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: What is the difference between a literature survey and a conceptual paper?<issue_comment>username_1: A literature survey covers scholarly articles on a specific field, topic or subtopics within the field complete applications, advent of new techniques and breakthroughs in that area. A good survey paper ought to compare the works studies and also provide useful insights to open research problems on that area.
A conceptual paper focuses on a specific idea that one wishes to put forward that might seem novel or open new views to a specific research problem.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Here are my definitions:
A **literature review** is a study that searches for scholarly studies on a specified topic, synthesizes and reports the results. The explicit purpose of a literature review is to present other scholars' work.
A **conceptual paper** is a study that does not analyze any data. It is contrasted with an empirical study, one that analyzes data, whether quantitative (numerical, e.g. statistics) or qualitative (non-numerical, e.g. interviews).
Now, to answer a question you didn't ask but maybe you imply: **Is a literature review a conceptual paper**? I personally say most certainly **NO**, a literature review is not conceptual; it is empirical. Literature reviews analyze other people's research as their data source--the unit of analysis is one scholarly study. To me, that is definitely empirical research (even though it is often called a "secondary" study, as distinguished from a so-called "primary" study that treats a subject directly).
In the case of meta-analysis (a literature review where quantitative data from the constituent studies is analyzed statistically) most people would agree that a meta-analysis is not conceptual. There is, however, some controversy or confusion with literature reviews that "only discuss" other people's research. Some people might call such a literature review a conceptual paper mainly because they don't clearly see any analysis of numbers. I disagree with that view, but I do realize that some people take that perspective.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In the continuity with the answers I have to tell you literature survey can be even conceptual paper as well as empirical one. Meanwhile, in conceptual paper we just go through models and theories surrounding our topic without analyzing any data. So conceptual paper can be a subset of a literature review.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I had put up a paper on arxiv about 4 months back, which we had planned on submitting to a journal. However, before I submitted, we got some good reviews and ideas from a colleague at my university. All of the original results were correct and accurate, but now I would like to add some additional simulation results, a more detailed analysis, and also give an authorship to the colleague. However, in this time span, my arxiv paper has been cited a couple of times.
*My questions are:*
1. I would like to change the title of the paper and do it from fresh, and submit the newer version to the journal. In this case, should I just cite my arxiv article for all the background work, and just present the new contributions (which would be only 1-2 pages); or can I copy over all the content from my original arxiv article?
2. If the latter is possible, how do I indicate to others that they should cite the newer article and not the original one?
Field of research: At the interface of applied mathematics, engineering and computer sciences. Paper likely to be submitted to a SIAM journal.<issue_comment>username_1: Manuscripts in the arXiv are permanent and citable, but do not count as peer-reviewed publication. Therefore, there is no inherent problem either with using your arXiv work as part (or all) of a manuscript submitted to peer review or with citing your arXiv work as background on a new work that builds upon it.
If you re-use your arXiv material in a manuscript, however, there are two additional steps that you must take:
1. You must make the source of the material clear, in both the cover letter and the document itself. I personally like verbiage such as:
>
> "Note: portions of this manuscript have been adapted from [cite]"
>
>
>
2. You need to check the policies of the venue where you submit it. In some fields, such as computer science, most journals do not consider non-peer-reviewed venues such as arXiv prior publication, and so including such material is fine. In other fields, such as biology, most journals *do* consider them pre-publication, and will consider it self-plagiarism. These policies vary journal-by-journal, however, so you do need to check the individual policy.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In this answer, I'm assuming that the journals you are considering are not prejudiced against publishing preprints. (If this is not the case, I think you may have hard time publishing the content of the already-uploaded preprint, but this is likely largely dependent on the policy of individual editors and journals.)
If the journal is okay with regards to publishing preprints on arXiv, I don't see why they would mind having a "partial" preprint over there (as long as the "preprint" authors form a subset of the "postprint" authors, of course). But I want to say a bit more about your options with regard to arXiv.
I think one think you can do is to simply update the paper you have uploaded to arXiv, along with the added author and possibly other acknowledgements, and then send it to your journal of choice, and (simultaneously) simply *replace* the arXiv version with this new, updated one. I think this could be a good idea, particularly if the structure of the "old" part is left mostly untouched and you just add more content at the end (and maybe change the abstract and introductory parts a little bit). By your comments about the changes being only one or two pages, I imagine that this is the case here.
If the upgrade will inevitably disrupt the structure of the already-written part, then I think you should [follow the advice on this thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/5316/26631) (actually, you should probably see that thread either way).
I'm reading between the lines here, but I think you're thinking that what you don't consider replacing the arXiv article is because you want to change the title and add an author or because the preprint has already been cited. But you should know that:
1. You can [add an author to an existing paper](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55165/26631) as well as [change the title](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/29146/26631) when replacing a paper.
2. arXiv *keeps all versions of uploaded preprints with timestamps*, so when someone follows a reference to (an old version of) your paper, they should be able to tell by the timestamp that the reference was to a previous version, even more so if the title has been changed, and if the structure (especially numbering) of the old part is left virtually untouched, it might not matter anyway.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently halfway through a PhD in computer science at a good school in the US. After I graduate, I want to stay in academia. I also want to return home to Australia to be closer to my family.
However, I worry that I will struggle to do good research when I am thousands of miles from where the action is happening. It's hard to collaborate when you can't meet in person and are in a vastly different time zone. It's also hard to keep up with recent developments from afar. I find that collaboration and keeping up with developments are essential to doing good research. Computer science is a rapidly-moving field, so being behind can make your results much less interesting.
How do academics in Australia, New Zealand, and other "remote" places deal with this?<issue_comment>username_1: **The following has been exactly my experience**
As an academic in Australia, I can tell you that I don't 'deal with this', primarily due to their not being an issue to deal with in this regard. I know this because I am a lead researcher in an international research group and am based in Australia.
Collaboration realistically has no barriers with the use of the connectivity of the Internet - at the very least: Skype, email, social media can be used for meetings, discussions ad collaborations. Effectively, this eliminates the 'remoteness' of anywhere. The 'action' in research is happening in many places around the world, including Australia - places like these are not some intellectual backwater.
Finally, if you don't want to fall behind in any field of research - step up and innovate! - for that, you can be anywhere (thus you won't be remote from the action, but rather, the centre of action).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: An Australian academic here. Keeping up is no problem. What I find difficult is the ability to establish new and productive collaboration. In the US, you can attend many conferences, see probably the same people every time, and from there, you find new collaborators. In Australia, due to cost and distance, it's a lot harder! In Australia, there is simply not enough conferences and critical mass (people in the same area or $) to do anything useful -- this varies given the discipline/area. My advice: **make sure your connection to your supervisor and his/her students is ironclad**.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I have several Australian colleagues, and the challenges are, in fact, real. The key challenges I have heard them speak of are:
* Time zones isolate Australia/New Zealand from the United States and Europe, though not from India and Asia.
* Travel is very long and costly. Most particularly, it is often difficult to get people from elsewhere to attend conferences in Australia/New Zealand.
The strategies that I have seen employed are:
* Some universities in Australia and New Zealand apparently provide significant amounts of travel funds to make it easier for their scholars to travel and to bring others for sabbaticals to Australia.
* Increased emphasis on collaboration with Asian colleagues. My anecdotal information seems to point particularly toward India, where there are fewer language, cultural, and legal barriers, particularly for computer science.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I am an Australian academic who moved to UK for my postdoc(s) specifically to overcome the isolation problem. However, I do believe your research field is very relevant.
While there are other researchers in Australia in the same field as me, there are no research groups. This makes it very hard to get funding, ongoing employment or supervision, making it much harder to develop as a researcher. Instead, working overseas with a research group means I get to work with others who know what I am talking about and interested in what I am doing.
The second problem is meeting people. Each conference takes much more funding to get to. While in the UK, I am able to attend multiple conferences per year. My research group also attracts visitors, and I have made excellent connections with world leaders because they have visited for a few days. That network would not have been possible from Australia.
On the other hand, if there is a relevant research group for you in Australia, then I expect both of these problems could be overcome. That group would provide both colleagues and network. Also, research groups often have more funding than individual academics to attend conferences.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a paper to a journal three months ago and was told that the review process could take up to three months but that they aimed to do it faster.
Since I haven't heard back within the quoted timeline, would it be appropriate to contact them and ask how the process is going?
On one hand, I could see that they may be very busy and have received more submissions than they anticipated.
However, I also wonder about the possibility that something has slipped through the cracks - like perhaps the review is over and they lost my contact info or something.
What's the appropriate action to take?
The journal is free to submit to, free to read, so I know that folks aren't getting paid, which makes it harder to expect the timeline to be met, but I'd still like to make sure things are on track.
Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: As a sometime-editor, I wouldn't be offended by such an email. Not happy, but not offended. I'd say go ahead and email.
(My first editing stint significantly increased how fast I turn around peer reviews...)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If the three months have passed (and you've waited for the next working day to pass) then you should contact the editor and see what the status is. Depending on the status of your submission, you could still be waiting for an editor to be assigned, or they could be waiting for reviewers to accept the task, or best-case scenario the reviewers just need a little more time to finish writing up their comments. Many large journals have a system online where you can check the status of your submission, so check that first if available.
If an editor is especially busy, your submission may not be a top priority. You might have to wait much longer than the initial estimate. So, a gentle reminder/query about your paper is a good idea so that it gets the attention it deserves. Keep in mind though, the people involved in the peer-review process are basically volunteers, so if you have to voice any type of complaint (e.g. if you aren't getting responses from the editor) then you should contact the editorial support staff (who are paid employees). After all, you are paying for them to publish your paper!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The following are the factors that you ought to be aware of before you send a reminder. The factor might differ from one reviewer to another.
* Journal reviews do take much longer time in charges-free journals.
* Most journal reviewers do their reviews altruistically -- they do not get paid to review your manuscripts.
* Some manuscripts might have priority over others.
* Sometimes the reviewer for your research area might not be available in time.
Apart from the above, also bear in mind that ethical standards usually forbid you to submit your manuscript to any other journal publication while the current submission is under review. A gentle reminder is advisable if you have your own time constraints.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: To add one more aspect to the existing good answers:
A few years ago a well known journal (in its field) had accepted our paper for publication. Several month later we were wondering where it was, and wrote to them. It turned out it was lost somehow on its way to publishing. So do not exclude human error in the presumably busy life at a journal.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to several math PhD programs for the next fall term, and they all require a statement of purpose of 1-2 pages. However, none of them seem to give concrete spacing requirements. My statement is too long to fit under double spacing, but meets the requirement under single spacing. I've looked up this question but I've gotten mixed messages.<issue_comment>username_1: It probably doesn't matter, although you should review the application instructions carefully just to make sure they don't specify this.
My impression is that admissions committees don't care much about issues like this; certainly I don't care when I serve on these committees. In particular, I have no idea how many applicants have used single or double spacing, since I've never paid any attention to this issue.
The purpose of the length restriction is twofold: to keep the committee from having to read unpleasantly long documents, and to keep applicants from feeling they have to write a lot. The precise cut-off is not so important, which is why it is usually not specified carefully (for example, by a word count or detailed formatting instructions).
You may annoy the committee if it looks like you are trying to cram as much as possible into your statement of purpose. If you use a 10pt font and tiny margins as well as single spacing, it will look like you are gaming the system and trying to write a longer statement of purpose than anyone else. That's not the impression you want anyone to have of your statement. However, I don't think single spacing is problematic in itself. Just don't go overboard with space-saving tricks. (If you use an 11pt font and standard LaTeX margins, you'll be fine.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: FWIW, I read tens of SoPs every year, yet I don't remember the last time I read a double-spaced SoP.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: My paper got accepted before 13 days back in AEU journal. But I want to make several changes (only word change) to the accepted manuscript. How do I request the editor to send my corrected manuscript. Will they allow several changes in the accepted manuscript.
Changes are not in the result, tables, graphs.
Changes means reedit some words...
Need help urgently.<issue_comment>username_1: Typically, journals will send you page proofs after your manuscript is accepted and before it's published. A limited number of changes for clarity is usually fine at that stage (especially if it would have to be printed as errata later).
If the journal is not intending to generate page proofs (e.g. it's a rapid electronic publication format), or if there are more than a handful of changes (six or so), or if they are large enough so they might change the layout of the whole paper, simply contact the editor as soon as possible explaining exactly what you wish to change and why. Assuming all the changes are minor and make the paper better, the answer is usually that it's fine.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You ought to make the changes before the accepted manuscript is published. Do check with the regulation of your journal which might include page restrictions before doing so.
In your request to the editor, it would be wiser to include both old and new versions to the editor (clearly stating which is which) and a separate file indicating where the changes have been made and what they are (like in [CSE](http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/wp-content/uploads/v23n3p103.pdf) or [APS](http://www.apsstylemanual.org/formattingAPSJournalArticles/corrigendum.htm)).
If your request is not accepted, then your last option would be to include the changes as corrigendum in the journal site if facilitated, otherwise at your own website.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: >
> How does a graduate student determine if he has a learning disability? Are there any signs to look for? At what point is it worth seeking a professional opinion?
>
>
>
Some people, at least, believe there are a significant number of adults who would be identified as having a learning disability if they were children now. Some of these adults are in academia, and have succeeded academically despite their disability, perhaps through developing good coping mechanisms. Never-the-less, it may be that there are other techniques they have not thought of/come across that would benefit them.
What signs might suggest that this is the case, in a context where past academic success is the norm and future academic success is the expectation?<issue_comment>username_1: Going to a psychologist!! Only a person responsible for mental health and prevention of disorders can diagnose you.
However, before engaging with a psychologist, a student should compare their academic progress with other graduate students from the same field. Also a student needs to know and detect what concepts are crucial in their area of study, so a psychologist can help assess how well person is capable of extending their knowledge of these topics and learning them in depth.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: From <http://ldaamerica.org/adults-with-learning-disabilities-an-overview/> :
>
> Positive characteristics of adults with LD may include problem-solving skills, compensatory strategies, persistence, empathy, and outgoing personalities. Areas of difficulty include: difficulty with reading, writing and/or math; poor memory; difficulty following directions; inability to discriminate between or among letters, numbers, and/or sounds; eye-hand coordination problems; difficulty putting things in the right sequence;
> disorganization; and/or difficulty adjusting to change.
>
>
>
Determining whether an adult has a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) depends on the type of disability (e.g. Auditory Processing Disorder, Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia, Language Processing Disorder, Non-Verbal Learning Disabilities, or Visual Perceptual/Visual Motor Deficit). Each disability will manifest itself differently, and the degree of influence will vary by individual. In general, you will need a professional to determine whether you have said disability (see <http://ldaamerica.org/adult-learning-disability-assessment-process/> ).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: From time to time I receive papers to peer review that, in my view, fail to attain an acceptable level of writing and text formatting. Examples of usual issues are: common erratum, poor use of English, bad formatted equations, inconsistent use of punctuation marks, spacings, citations, references and so on. Bonus track is when the submission has not been processed in LaTeX and it contains poorly written equations (for the record my field is Mathematics). I do not consider myself an expert in any of these points, but I think everybody know how to reach a decent level, of course if you are willing to invest some time on it.
While in certain situations there are interesting scientific contributions to present, it is certainly hard to focus on them with so many styling distractions around. What is worse, sometimes they are hard to decipher because of an inconsistent use of notation or because a misspelling introduces a key change in the meaning of a statement. In my opinion, these are issues that could have been solved by the authors with a careful revision of the manuscript *prior to* submission.
For the sake of argument, let's assume a paper as described before, with a legitimate scientific contribution and let's keep apart from the question the scientific part of the report. When I face the review of such a paper, I often have the next dilemma: **should I point the authors to all the writing/styling/formatting issues? Or should I briefly mention that there are serious non-scientific issues and encourage the authors to fix them?** The two opposite arguments supporting each approach are:
* On one hand, I feel that is my responsibility as a reviewer to ensure that the paper is going to have the best scientific/presentation quality possible after the reviewing process. And that includes helping as much as I can in both points.
* On the other hand, if the authors should have taken care of all the non-scientific issues, I wonder why should I invest so much time pointing towards their improvement. In some sense, I feel they are being a little disrespectful with the reviewers and readers to submit a non-polished manuscript. In addition, maybe this kind of work could be done by the people in charge of the article proofs (assuming that the journal has them and that they do a good job...)
My current approach is to ask for a major revision and reply with a very detailed list of all the non-scientific issues I found, but I wonder whether I am overdoing my referee's duties. In addition, this turns to be also quite time-consuming.
EDIT: I am looking for **an answer that involves a discussion on what are the reviewer's duties and limits regarding writing/styling**. This is only partially addressed in [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17111/what-suggestions-should-i-make-when-reviewing-a-poorly-written-paper) question.<issue_comment>username_1: If you cannot understand the discussion, you may just point out that the manuscript is poorly readable and suggest "reject, invite to resubmit". Some journals allow that option. "Major revisions" will work essentially in the same way.
I would not do proof-reading for the authors, it is not the reviewer's job.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One approach I have taken in the past is to prepare a referee report listing the non-scientific issues for the first couple of pages. I will say that such errors are found throughout the paper (if indeed they are) and urge them to proofread more carefully throughout before resubmitting.
Sometimes I will also try to find the author's website, and find out whether h/she is employed at an English-speaking university, and/or has teaching duties in English. If no, then I try to be lenient and generous with offering corrections; if yes, then I don't feel bad writing a curt request to bring the paper up to an acceptable level of presentation.
Nobody expects you to find and fix all these issues. (That said, it seems that some editors only want you to check whether the content is correct and interesting, and apparently would rather leave non-scientific issues to the copyeditor.)
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: In my statement of purpose I talked about the papers that I worked on and two of those papers are currently under review.
Is it acceptable to submit such papers as part of my application? And are there any concerns on the intellectual property of the work (since it is yet to be accepted)?<issue_comment>username_1: **Is it acceptable to submit such papers as part of my application?**
Yes, you inform people about your work in progress. I do suggest to add the submission date for the two papers, and if a first review has been performed, its date too.
**And are there any concerns on the intellectual property of the work (since it is yet to be accepted)**
I would say yes, if you plan to patent some of the ideas, but it might be too late if you have submitted it already.
And yes in general too. I have seen at a conference C2003 two posters side-by-side, on very similar topics, by researchers from country A, and country B. As I new the researcher from country B, s/he told me that s/he submitted to C2002, which took place in country A. His/her paper was rejected, and s/he suspected his/her idea was used by country A reviewers. No proof though. To maintain your legacy, you can put the paper on a free paper archive, like [arxiv](http://arxiv.org/). Depending on the precisions you give in your applications, this risk is more or less likely. Do not believe in unknown people honesty.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is probably journal and field dependent.
On the legal side, things are relatively easy: if you had to sign a copyright agreement to submit (uncommon, but an existing practice) then read it and see what kind of communication is forbidden. Usually, you would only ensure beforehand some transfer of intellectual property *after acceptance*, but I cannot pretend to know every journal's agreement. In particular, I suspect that fashion magazines such as Nature and Science may ask for no disclosure to ensure better buzz if a special press release is planned.
You can also reread the instruction to author, see if there is anything about your situation. Even if you did not sign anything at the point of submission, there usually is an implied agreement in the act of submission, but most usually only ensuring you do not submit to another venue at the same time.
Joining a manuscript to a non-pbulic application would certainly not qualify as a submission or publication in any way (but in certain field, if the application is public or may be made public, you should probably apply the same rules applicable to deposit of manuscript in a web page).
Last, joining unpublished work to an application may be frown upon by some in your field. I have met this attitude once, in French didactic of math, but it is completely acceptable in math (and as far as I know in physics and computer science) to join manuscript along an application. In fact, we are numerous to put all our manuscripts on our web page and on the arXiv, and then simply provide links or references in the application. To know where your field stands, you should ask a senior academic in the field, or at the very least precise your field and hope someone knowledgeable shows up here with official guidelines.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I've seen papers (e.g., in *Science*) where the first two authors are listed in non-alphabetical order, and yet there are asterisks behind their names to say that they contributed equally.
It seems strange to me, because if the two authors are in alphabetical order, then it could be that the first author contributed more or the two contributed equally, and this can be made clear with asterisks in the paper if it's the latter case. When they're in non-alphabetical order, however, if someone only sees the author list without seeing the paper, they will likely assume that the first author contributed most.
So my question is: Are there particular reasons why people do that? (This [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17239/should-co-first-authors-be-listed-in-alphabetical-order) is related, but I don't think the answers there get to my question.)<issue_comment>username_1: There are some requirements for funding¹², a degree³, tenure and similar for which literal first authorship counts. If one of the equally contributing authors gains an advantage from being the first author due to this while the other one doesn’t or has a smaller advantage, it can make sense to have the order deviate from the alphabetic one.
Another conceivable scenario would be that the first authors is well-known in the respective field and was made first author to attract a little bit more attention to the paper.
---
¹ For example several faculties in Germany have schemes for evaluation and publication-based funding that assign special value to first-author publications. Some of those do not mention joined first authorships and do not make sense with multiple first authors, which indicates that *first authorship* is meant literal ([example](http://www.uniklinikum-jena.de/MedWeb_media/Downloads/Fakultaet/LOM+Kriterien.pdf) in German, search for *Erstautor*).
² [This journal](http://www.geoscientific-model-development.net/for_authors/financial_support.html), e.g., lists a handful of funding organisations that will pay the publication costs, if the first author is funded by the respective organisation. Joined first authorship is not mentioned. Even if this may be dealt with on a per-case basis, just flipping the first authors may be easier.
³ For example, for a publication-based PhD thesis, it may required that the included publications be first-author publications ([example](http://www.studservice.uni-kiel.de/sta/5.2.pdf), again in German) without the case of joined first authors being considered. While the latter may be allowed on a per-case basis, flipping the authors may be much easier and avoid a lot of bureaucracy.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Many factors may affect order in a list of authors. And this is field-dependent. In
mathematics, one usually considers that all authors contributed equally, and use the alphabet order.
In addition to @username_1, one may for instance ask whether [Do age and professional rank influence the order of authorship in scientific publications? Some evidence from a micro-level perspective](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11192-011-0368-z).
I have experienced three other cases, with **globally equal** contributions between authors. "Globally equal" is a very complicated concept, illustrated thereafter.
In [an overview four-author paper (A panorama on multiscale geometric representations, intertwining spatial, directional and frequency selectivity)](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2011.04.025), we (the three other authors) decided to put as "first author" the one who had not a permanent position at the time of submission, and who did a great job in gathering article pieces and assembling contributions. [In a five-author paper (CHOPtrey: contextual online polynomial extrapolation for enhanced multi-core co-simulation of complex systems)](https://doi.org/10.1177/0037549716684026), the first one was the (sole) woman author, and the youngest. This concept took us about 5 years to develop, with people moving in and out, and she did the final programming. And last, we swapped places in a [two-author paper (Lapped transforms and hidden Markov models for seismic data filtering)](https://doi.org/10.1142/S0219691304000676), because the alphabetical order put a too-heavy birth advantage on one of us.
All because of this "silly" thinking that the first author did more work, and since in some disciplines (biology, medicine), the citations are often in the shape "Author 1 *et al.*, Year, Journal". And sometimes there is a strange feeling that, in order or importance, there is some hidden hierarchy like:
* first author
* last author
* second author
* penultimate or second-to-last author
* third author
* while other authors could be straw people.
So, my three rules of bibliometrics:
1. authors' list should be agreed on among authors (sounds odd, but sometimes one guy really does not belong),
2. authors should agree on an order,
3. for the rest, do not let bibliometrics rule the above. Scientific integrity and honesty should prevail.
Linked stories:
* [Not listed as author despite doing statistical work](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/166841/38057)
* [Publish the paper without letting know one of authors?](http://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11192-011-0368-z)
* [Is it appropriate to add a co-author at the stage revise & resubmit?](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sigpro.2011.04.025)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Two authors who regularly collaborate may have a rotation scheme going (with footnotes about equal contribution). That is, they take it in turns to be first author on any of the papers that is about their joint research. This avoids building up a substantial difference in first authorship, which can be important on CVs where the footnotes are not visible.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: There are a couple reasons for doing this - most of which are rooted in the idea that the "first first" author still has an advantage. Some folks will still refer to the paper by "Adams *et al*." In fields where first authorship carries weight, some people "don't believe" in co-firsts. There's some ambiguity about whether a co-first author can put their name first on their own CV, which will be important for quick reads by people evaluating said CV.
Given that, there are a couple reasons:
1. "Alphabetical ordering" inherently privileges one of the authors. They may, in the interest of fairness, "flip for it", or in a series of papers just alternate.
2. "First first" might also be the one willing to field some of the post-writing effort behind a paper - actually submitting, fielding press inquiries, etc.
3. There may be someone that benefits more. For example, a postdoc for whom this is a *big deal* publication may be put first so that they can reap any little residual benefit from those who don't pay attention to the note, instead of an established researcher who doesn't need it as much.
4. Not all journals accept a co-first designation. So the order may be "If it comes down to it, and we *can't* share, it should be you" decision, even if it does make it into a co-first compatible journal.
One publication I'm on has a author order that involved 2-4.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: At the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative, there is an interesting article on "Authorship" by <NAME>, which basically boils down to the fact that practices are completely variable on the issue between different disciplines:
>
> The significance of the order of authorship is also variable within
> fields and sub-fields. Again, universal, definite rules for author
> order are generally lacking. The order may reflect the extent or
> nature of one's contributions, for example, who did the "most" work,
> who had the primary or key idea, or who wrote the first draft of the
> manuscript. Historically, the head of the research team, normally the
> most senior researcher, was listed first. This practice is still
> somewhat common but more recently, that individual may be listed last,
> especially in the life sciences.
>
>
> In some physical sciences, particularly experimental physics,
> authorship is typically alphabetical. An alphabetical listing is also
> used by some journals, and in some research groups, alphabetical (or a
> version of it) may be standard practice. For example, contributions
> may be listed alphabetically except for the head of the research group
> who is listed first or last. When a research team produces several
> related papers derived from the same project, the order of authors may
> rotate.
>
>
> ... In many fields, the first author is the individual who earns the
> most credit by having taken primary responsibility for the
> intellectual core of the work. (On occasion, the last author is
> primarily responsible for the work's intellectual core.) This
> individual may also be known as the "lead" or "primary" author. This
> convention has developed in part because of the practice of
> referencing relevant, related work in the literature by the last name
> of the first author followed by "et al." when there are more than two
> or three authors depending on the journal. Thus, while a paper by
> <NAME> and <NAME> would be cited as "<NAME>", a
> paper authored by <NAME> and three other individuals would be
> cited as "Dunn et al."
>
>
> ... In spite of the emphasis and attention paid to author order and
> the designation of corresponding author, the actual significance of
> any particular order of authors can be opaque and open to
> misunderstanding and misinterpretation. A reader's assumptions may not
> be consistent with the assumptions and intentions of the authors
> themselves. The recognition of individual authors is most likely to
> reflect their reputations, the reliability of their work, the
> reputation of the colleagues with whom they choose to work and of
> their trainees, and their cumulative contributions to the field.
>
>
> Because of the complexities with determining what a particular author
> list means, some journals use an asterisk, or another similar
> strategy, attached to each author's name as a means for more
> specifically spelling out the relevant person's specific contribution
> to a project. At times, it can be used to indicate that the authors
> contributed equally to the work either as co-first authors or as
> corresponding authors.
>
>
>
A sampling of Bird's references that seem on-topic:
* Claxton, <NAME>. 2005. "Scientific Authorship: Part 2. History, Recurring Issues, Practices, and Guidelines." Mutation Research 589(1):31-45.
* Bebeau, <NAME>., and <NAME>. 2011. "Authorship and Publication Practices in the Social Sciences: Historical Reflections on Current Practices." Science and Engineering Ethics 17(2):365-88.
* <NAME>. 2011. "Responsible Authorship in Engineering Fields: An Overview of Current Ethical Challenges." Science and Engineering Ethics 17(2):355-64.
* <NAME>. 2011. "Teaching Authorship and Publication Practices in the Biomedical and Life Sciences." Science and Engineering Ethics 17(2):341-54.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I do not know if *Science* has a convention for this, but let me tell you about the convention in Economics and Finance journals. The most common way to reference articles is to cite by authors-date and in alphabetical order, for instance: Kahneman and Tversky (1979). In Economics or Finance, the order of the authors does not usually indicate any seniority or importance in the contributions.
If the non-alphabetical order of authorship indicated anything, the authors would usually explain it in a footnote. For instance, I have seen authors indicate that the order reflected the winner of a particular game of chess, but I do not recall which article it was.
Authors who publish quite a bit together occasionally swap the order of the authors, e.g. Tversky and Kahneman (1991). This can be done for a variety of reasons and it is up to the authors to decide to do that. The journals would not (as far as I know) make any such request. A common reason for non-alphabetical listing of authors is that the authors have two papers published together in the same year and they find it clearer to use the reference style Tversky and Kahneman (1991) rather than Kahneman and Tversky (1991b).
Examples of References:
Kahneman, Daniel & Tversky, Amos, 1979. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(2), pages 263-91, March.
Tversky, Amos, and <NAME>. 1991.
"Loss Aversion in Riskless Choice: A Reference-dependent Model". The Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (4). Oxford University Press: 1039–61.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: In Brazil,the order of authors defines fellowships and fundings. There are some fellowships that you can not apply for them if you don´t have at least 2 publications as first author.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am making an article about Information Technology, mainly related to policies, and I have a list of some solution providers with their proposals; something like this:
```
Vendor1, Proposal related to...
```
I would like to know if the web links that are related to each proposal can be put inside the same list or should I reference them, in some cases I have only web pages and in other pdfs. So should I do this:
```
Vendor1, Proposal related to ... (information available at http//nosense.com
Vendor2, Proposal related to ... (information available at http//page1/document1.pdf)
```
or like this:
```
Vendor1, Proposal related to ... [1]
Vendor2, Proposal.... [2]
References
[1] ...
[2] ...
```
which one should be the correct way of referencing this information?<issue_comment>username_1: The weblinks can be put within the text. It is not a crime.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If the list is long, you could put it in a table. Otherwise giving the links in the text is perfectly fine.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Personally, I would put them in the bibliography, but either way looks fine, to me. I don't have a strong opinion, and I suggest you to do what you consider more readable.
However, I have often encountered copy editors who *did* have strong opinions on matters like this, so be ready to change it if they complain.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently noticed a failed case of peer review at *The Astrophysical Journal* (ApJ). It is a solid journal in which researchers of astrophysics can present good science without worrying about the topic being fashionable (as opposed to, e.g., *Nature* and *Science*). The peer-reviewed [paper in question](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-637X/812/1/8/pdf) was published in ApJ but [retracted](http://aas.org/posts/news/2015/11/astrophysical-journal-paper-retracted-plagiarism) by the journal within a week after it was reported as a case of plagiarism.
However, the issue I'd like to raise is not about plagiarism but about the review process of the journal. In the aforementioned paper, there are obvious technical errors that do not even pass a basic sanity check. I believe that had it been properly reviewed, the paper could in no way have been accepted in the first place, plagiarized or not.
(For more information, see my [comment](http://scholarlyoa.com/2015/11/20/is-this-17-year-old-korean-ph-d-student-a-plagiarist/#comment-387392) on <NAME>'s blog post about the incidence of plagiarism. Moreover, my [Astronomy SE post](https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/questions/12618/does-this-black-hole-magnetohydrodynamics-equation-even-superficially-make-sense) contains some technical details. The latter was posed as a question but I'm now sure that my suspiscion---that there are blatant errors in the paper---is well-founded. I had at first shied away from the obvious conclusion just because I have no expertise in astrophysics.)
It is disturbing that the acceptance rate of the journal is very high (between 85--90%) while only a single referee participates in the review process. (ApJ seeks an additional opinion only if the acceptance decision cannot be made without one.) As the low quality of the retracted paper demonstrates, any such a single-reviewer model falls apart when a referee hastily signs off the paper.
This incident seems to show the poor review process of ApJ. Could this be justified simply on the grounds that no better practice is available in the field? Or is this worrysome even after acknowledging that academic customs greatly vary across different fields?<issue_comment>username_1: By saying
>
> This incidence demonstrates the poor review process of ApJ
>
>
>
you are already asserting an answer to your question. What you can say based on the facts you have presented is that **the peer review process failed in one instance**. The document you have linked indicates that the ApJ publishes roughly 4,000 papers per year, so one failure per year would represent just **twenty-five thousandths of a percent**. Extrapolating based on that seems wrong (and in any case, you haven't mentioned any failures of the system in previous years).
The term *acceptable* refers to agreement of a group of people. The refereeing process of the ApJ is clearly not only "acceptable", but in fact *accepted*, as it is a leading journal in its field.
More generally, **should a high acceptance rate be a cause for concern?** Independent of other indicators, I think the answer is **no**. A high acceptance rate for a leading journal may be surprising to researchers from other fields. But it seems the ApJ is mainly interested in the correctness of a paper (rather than, as you say, whether it is fashionable). So the acceptance rate should depend on the ratio of correct and incorrect papers submitted. Here of course "incorrect" means fundamentally incorrect and unfixable. I don't know of any fundamental reason that there must be a large fraction of incorrect papers.
**Should the use of a single referee be a cause for concern?** For many (including myself) this is very surprising and goes counter to familiar practices. But the ApJ is being up-front about this, so any group that wants to change the practice could start a new journal or lobby the editors of the ApJ. I think this question is one the astrophysics community should handle for itself. So far, their answer seems to be "no".
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Just to give an example: Advances in Colloid and Interface Science also has an unusually high acceptance rate (I've seen numbers from ~65% to ~85%), and is very reputable / high impact. It has a much lower volume, though.
You can find acceptance rates for all Elsevier journals, but it's a very round-and-about process. I really wish they would give you the same list searchable by journal names. (I'm all ears if someone knows how to find this). Here's how I've been able to find them:
* Go to the Elsevier Journal Finder: <http://journalfinder.elsevier.com/>
* Put words in "Title" and "Abstract" that will give you the journal you're interested in (this is tricky)
* The result is the 10 journals "most relevant for the title/abstract", with the following statistics:
+ Name and Scope (click "Scope and Information")
+ Impact factor
+ Acceptance rate
+ Average time to first editorial decision
+ Time from accept to published
+ Open access status (none/optional/mandatory)
+ Open access fee
+ Embargo time (time from published until access is free (as in, no subscription needed) )
+ License (Creative Commons etc.)
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: but the exam questions -- and often, homework problems -- come from the classics, e.g., <NAME>, Ahlfor's Complex Analysis, Lax's Linear Algebra. This creates a huge discrepancy in one's level of training and practice, compared with the level exams one must take.
The students who know this early on, i.e., the one who go into this dept with their eyes open, are at somewhat of a significant advantage, while those who studied with lower-level / friendlier books, recommended by the dept, struggle on the exams - whether it's for a course, or comprehensive exams that graduate students must pass.
Is this done on purpose to sort of keep the barriers to entry to mathematics as high as possible?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is this done on purpose to sort of keep the barriers to entry to mathematics as high as possible?
>
>
>
Almost certainly not. What makes you think this might be the explanation? Unless you have further evidence, this doesn't seem even remotely plausible. As <NAME> points out in a comment, it wouldn't be a terribly effective policy once the students found out, while there are plenty of other ways to increase standards if that's the goal. Furthermore, it's counterproductive: high standards are one thing, but there's no point to deliberately misleading people regarding what they need to know and then punishing them for not learning more than you asked them to. That's just not rational behavior, so if your department is actually doing this, then something has gone terribly wrong.
I find it difficult to imagine this is the case, though. Instead, I'd bet the department is trying to help students learn. Even graduate students in relatively strong math departments can find these classic books difficult to read, and they often benefit more from studying more accessible books. This may be poorly thought out if the comprehensive exams do not match the level of the suggested reading list, but it's probably well-intentioned. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the faculty assume the students should be able to solve the most difficult problems in these books, while many students assume they are doing fine if they can solve the average problems, which may be quite a bit easier. If this is the explanation, then it's certainly worth clarifying the standards.
Another possibility is that the reading list was set by a committee and is rarely changed, while the comprehensive exams are written each year by faculty members who are guided mainly by tradition and their own sense of what is appropriate, and who don't pay much attention to the details of the reading list. They might be surprised to hear that students actually took the reading list seriously. That would be dysfunctional, but it's a different sort of dysfunction than creating deliberate barriers to entry. A variant of this explanation is that the reading list may have been intended to indicate just the topics to be covered, with no implication that it should be a source of sample problems or indicate the level or difficulty of the exams.
It can't hurt to ask faculty members about this issue and explore ways in which it could be resolved. However, I'd strongly recommend against accusing anyone of doing it deliberately to create difficulties for students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a student, I have experienced this phenomenon before. (Disclaimer: I am only a graduate student (from outside the US), hence can only answer from the student's point of view)
Some plausible reasons I can think of are:
1) Faculty may be required to "bell curve" the examinations and hence have to set some difficult questions. If everyone gets 90% in the exam, they might face some trouble grading on a curve in certain institutions. This is also to separate and identify the exceptionally good students.
2) For Pure Mathematics, setting an exam proof question is not just a matter of "changing the numbers", hence it may be safer and more convenient to set a question from the classic books, rather than risk setting a wrong proof question (asking students to prove a wrong statement).
3) The lecturer genuinely thinks the questions from classic books are "easy", they are not out to make things difficult. It is not hard to imagine that someone who has studied the field for decades would think that Rudin/etc are actually easy. You may reach this level yourself in a few years time.
Personally as a student, I would much rather have the opposite: learn from classic books and have exams from the "lower level" books.
Upvotes: 1
|
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<issue_start>username_0: I had uploaded an arxiv paper about 4 months back which developed an algorithm. After uploading the preprint we got some good feedback from a colleague, following which we have added additional simulation results and a more detailed discussion.
In this span of 4 months, the paper has been cited a couple of times. The original work was primarily theoretical, whereas the papers which cited our work successfully applied our algorithm (with minor modifications) to power systems. Hence, when submitting to the journal, I would like to cite these papers to show that our methods have practical application.
My question is: would this form a citation loop which is undesirable? They have cited my work, and I cite their work. Is this firstly even allowed?
Field of research: Intersection of applied mathematics, engineering, and computer science. The paper is likely to be submitted to a SIAM journal.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is this done on purpose to sort of keep the barriers to entry to mathematics as high as possible?
>
>
>
Almost certainly not. What makes you think this might be the explanation? Unless you have further evidence, this doesn't seem even remotely plausible. As <NAME> points out in a comment, it wouldn't be a terribly effective policy once the students found out, while there are plenty of other ways to increase standards if that's the goal. Furthermore, it's counterproductive: high standards are one thing, but there's no point to deliberately misleading people regarding what they need to know and then punishing them for not learning more than you asked them to. That's just not rational behavior, so if your department is actually doing this, then something has gone terribly wrong.
I find it difficult to imagine this is the case, though. Instead, I'd bet the department is trying to help students learn. Even graduate students in relatively strong math departments can find these classic books difficult to read, and they often benefit more from studying more accessible books. This may be poorly thought out if the comprehensive exams do not match the level of the suggested reading list, but it's probably well-intentioned. If I had to guess, I'd guess that the faculty assume the students should be able to solve the most difficult problems in these books, while many students assume they are doing fine if they can solve the average problems, which may be quite a bit easier. If this is the explanation, then it's certainly worth clarifying the standards.
Another possibility is that the reading list was set by a committee and is rarely changed, while the comprehensive exams are written each year by faculty members who are guided mainly by tradition and their own sense of what is appropriate, and who don't pay much attention to the details of the reading list. They might be surprised to hear that students actually took the reading list seriously. That would be dysfunctional, but it's a different sort of dysfunction than creating deliberate barriers to entry. A variant of this explanation is that the reading list may have been intended to indicate just the topics to be covered, with no implication that it should be a source of sample problems or indicate the level or difficulty of the exams.
It can't hurt to ask faculty members about this issue and explore ways in which it could be resolved. However, I'd strongly recommend against accusing anyone of doing it deliberately to create difficulties for students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As a student, I have experienced this phenomenon before. (Disclaimer: I am only a graduate student (from outside the US), hence can only answer from the student's point of view)
Some plausible reasons I can think of are:
1) Faculty may be required to "bell curve" the examinations and hence have to set some difficult questions. If everyone gets 90% in the exam, they might face some trouble grading on a curve in certain institutions. This is also to separate and identify the exceptionally good students.
2) For Pure Mathematics, setting an exam proof question is not just a matter of "changing the numbers", hence it may be safer and more convenient to set a question from the classic books, rather than risk setting a wrong proof question (asking students to prove a wrong statement).
3) The lecturer genuinely thinks the questions from classic books are "easy", they are not out to make things difficult. It is not hard to imagine that someone who has studied the field for decades would think that Rudin/etc are actually easy. You may reach this level yourself in a few years time.
Personally as a student, I would much rather have the opposite: learn from classic books and have exams from the "lower level" books.
Upvotes: 1
|
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in knowing, what are the differences between Original Paper, Review Paper, Letter and Short/ Rapid/ Brief Communication paper?
Thanks to everyone for reading and taking the time for the great responses.<issue_comment>username_1: "Original paper" is any research paper not falling into below categories. "Review paper" is that reporting a critical overview of recent articles in the field, can be very long, say, 30-40 journal pages. "Letter" is a short research paper, ca. 4 journal pages. "Communication" is essentially the same as "Letter", sporadically can contain comments (there is a specific genre called "Comments" as well) on some recently published paper in this journal.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This will vary pretty heavily depending on the journal in question. But generally speaking, in broad strokes:
* "Original Paper" - This is a generic term for a full-length, original research finding paper that doesn't fall into another specialized category.
* "Review Paper" - This is a paper summarizing the state of research on a topic. These can often be somewhat long, are often but not always by invitation only, and this category can include meta-analysis, but doesn't have to. This may also be the umbrella that commentaries fall under, but again, not always.
* "Short/Rapid/Brief Communication" - A shorter version of "Original Paper", whose methods, findings, etc. don't justify a full length paper. They still contain original findings, but are general much more straightforward.
* Letters - Possibly even *shorter* original findings, field reports, single observations, etc. This can also include arguments about previously published papers, which involve either opinion pieces or snippets of contradictory or supporting research.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Original research articles are detailed studies reporting original research conducted by the author. They include hypothesis, background study, methods, results, interpretation of findings, and a discussion of possible implications.
Review articles give an overview of existing literature in a field, often identifying specific problems or issues and analysing information from available published work on the topic with a balanced perspective. Review articles can be of three types, broadly speaking: literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses.
Short communications are usually a concise format used to report significant improvements to existing methods, a new practical application, or a new tool or resource. These need to be reported quickly as the need to communicate such findings is very high.
Letters are usually short and flexible articles that express readers' opinion on previously published articles, or provide evidence to support/oppose an existing viewpoint.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Original artical is under good headings ,all headings that must be present in every original paper but review sometime have some heading missed like materials and methods but not always happen this ,the main difference is that study is rational , different areas result collecting together .The size of review artical is longer than original one.the short communication have not headings properly but all aspects are clear properly it is much comprehensive.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Original papers are extracted from researches that are innovative
enough and have new and important achievements.
All of d etails are given in these papers. They also have high scientific
value.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. I have little experience with CAD programs, and I have to design an assembly in my project for manufacturing. As my supervisor is busy, and also not a specialist in CAD, I am thinking in hiring a CAD consultant of a company. Her tasks are basically to verify my CAD parts and ensure that everything is fine for manufacturing, and, if it is not, to send correction and comments about what to do to fix the parts/assembly and brief tutorial on how to do it.
My question is: if I do the work myself and only get suggestions/corrections from someone else, can I encounter any problems later, like having my PhD degree revoked?? I don't want to ask help from my supervisor, as I don't want him to spend 20 hours or more with my work.
Please tell me if I can do it; and if yes, if I need to inform someone, or put something on the thesis regarding it, or anything else.<issue_comment>username_1: CAD could be considered as a means of ***presentation*** in the realm of mechanical engineering, not a considerable part of the expected contribution within a Ph.D. dissertation. Therefore, you might be able to benefit from any help to let you depict your work to the audience, vividly.
I know myself a multitude of Ph.D. candidates, who were not noticeably proficient in [TikZ](http://www.texample.net/tikz/) (as a powerful tool for professional graphical demonstration) and just were, considerably, supported with helps from the others to provide high quality presentations. You would utilize the acknowledgement section of the document to thank the helper, in an either general or specific manner.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You need to do two things here:
1. You should ask your advisor in advance whether this is acceptable. The answer may depend on the details of your situation (exactly what is involved in this CAD verification and how central it is to your research), and your advisor is one of the few people who can give you a definitive answer. I'd bet that it will be OK as long as you do the design yourself, but my opinion is not so relevant: if you end up in a disagreement with your advisor, it won't help if you complain that people on the internet assured you it would be OK.
2. You must acknowledge this assistance in your dissertation and papers, the same as any other contribution to the work. This is a matter of intellectual honesty. However, acknowledging the assistance afterwards can't substitute for asking your advisor in advance. (In particular, your advisor might say "There's no issue of honesty, since you described exactly what you did. However, you hired someone to complete a substantial part of your thesis, so you have not done enough yourself to graduate.")
Upvotes: 4
|
2015/11/29
| 346
| 1,444
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently a graduate student that conducts the labs for a statistics course. The labs themselves only form a part of the course and the other part consists of lectures where they get a theoretical background of the subject. I'm not sure what I should put as my job title, since I'm both an adjunct tutor and lab demonstrator of sorts.<issue_comment>username_1: At my university, you would be a Teaching Assistant or TA. This would be true at other universities I am familiar with.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You should list whatever your official job title is, as designated by the university. (If you aren't sure, ask whoever hired you.) You should do this even if the title is vague or misleading, in which case you should add a few comments on your actual job duties.
One reason to stick to the exact title is CV verification. Some employers (both academic and non-academic) actively verify CVs, and if they call up your university and ask whether you were employed at job X during a certain span of time, then it's best if they get a definitive "yes" rather than a "kind of" or "there's no such job title". In particular, some universities care about distinctions between seemingly similar titles, such as teaching assistant and teaching fellow, so you should make sure you aren't inadvertently awarding yourself a title that your university considers fancier or fundamentally different.
Upvotes: 4
|
2015/11/29
| 650
| 2,778
|
<issue_start>username_0: I've applied to the University of ....... for fall 2016 graduate admission. The deadline for my references to submit the recommendation letters is December 01.
One of my references is currently extremely busy and has asked me to request the graduate administrator to contact him regarding the reference letter deadline.
I'm trying to think of some way to communicate this to the graduate administrator. Is the following e-mail alright?
```
Dear .......,
I am a Physics graduate applicant to the University of ....... for fall 2016
entry. My Application Number is ...........
One of my referees, Professor .......... from the University of ..........,
is currently under extenuating circumstances and will not be able to
complete my reference letter in time. He's asked me to contact you regarding
this urgent matter.
I would be grateful if you could contact him at his e-mail address
......@.......... , and also to kindly confirm if you have received this
e-mail.
Yours sincerely,
........
```
Does the e-mail look proper and ready to be sent?<issue_comment>username_1: The letter looks fine. However, it seems strange that the professor would involve you to intercede on his behalf in asking for an extension. Surely he can't be that busy! (I disagree with phys\_chem\_prof on the amount of time needed to write a reference letter. I would estimate writing a convincing letter to take the better part of an afternoon.) Unless this letter is crucial and the grace period asked for is not more than a few days, you may be better off approaching some one else, even at this late date.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: *One of my references is currently extremely busy and has asked me to request the graduate administrator to contact him regarding the reference letter deadline.*
Do not email the department you're applying to -- that would be a waste of time, and would not put you in a good light.
Speak to your advisor (or write to him), saying that you need his advice about something.
Intimate that you contacted the department and were told that the deadline is hard and unyielding, and that the letter has to be submitted by him to the department -- they will not contact him to request the letter. Say that it's important to you to submit a complete application to this university, and that a recommendation from him would be the most meaningful letter that could be submitted, because he knows your work better than anyone else. Ask his advice. Should you write a rough draft for him, to enable him to submit the letter by the deadline? Would it be better to approach someone else, given that any letter that is received late will not be taken into account?
In other words, politely put the thumbscrews on the guy.
Upvotes: -1
|
2015/11/29
| 2,882
| 12,333
|
<issue_start>username_0: My TOEFL score is 85, but the minimum requirement of the school I'm applying to is 90. My GRE verbal score is also not very good. However, I have dedicated a month to contribute to the community of people studying for the GRE (more specifically, I have built a well-designed and information-rich Anki deck). Here is what I can sell in the SOP (they are the last two paragraphs of the [What are you working on now?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/1555/14341) part):
>
> Once complete I posted it on my website, and the result is incredible. Every month there are approximately a hundred visitors visit my site to download it, and within a couple months this popularity has pushed my site to the front page of Google\*. Another good news for me is that I haven't forgotten a single word since.
>
>
> Although my TOEFL or GRE score might not be high yet, the scores themselves don't reflect everything. After all, English should be a medium to communicate, not the opposite. I plan to upgrade the deck to make the it more consistent in the future.
>
>
>
But I'm worried that my application will be screened out before the SOP is read. Even if it is read, after all I built it to learning GRE vocabulary, not to training speaking or listening (my speaking score is only 18). I can take another TOEFL exam, but I want to make sure that my English has improved enough so that the money spent to retake it will not be wasted. It should technically not be a problem, if the deadlines are not coming.
My questions are:
* In schools that care about the scores, is there a way to make the committee read the SOP first? Like the professor I'm following sending an email to them to rescue me?
* After that, do my scores still matter?
* I also have created a deck just for the speaking test, but haven't published yet because I still can improve it. And if I explain that I have generate a feasible, scientific plan to improve my English, with studies back up in psychology and/or neurosciences, would this helps? The only thing it needs is time.
---
\* Just google `gre anki`<issue_comment>username_1: Whether a department will read your file if the scores are low depends on the department. My department generally would, but others do not. While your work to help other students studying for the GRE is admirable, it will probably carry very little weight. Your weak English fluency is evident in the title and body of this question, and departments may find your dismissal of language competence in your statement of purpose offputting.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This may not be a direct answer to the question, but I think the fact that the question is asked reflects some basic misunderstanding of TOEFL and GRE.
I want to point out the TOEFL and GRE are two completely different tests designed to assess different aspects of your language skill. TOEFL is a test for people whom English is not the first language, and thus the emphasis of TOEFL is whether the test taker has sufficient mastery of English to survive the day-to-day interaction with other students and professors on a English-speaking campus. GRE, on the other hand, is concerned with your ability to express, analyze, and comprehend at a level demanded in graduate studies. Thus what you have done for GRE probably does little to rescue your low TOEFL score, given that the two tests have fairly different objectives. Moreover, mastering the vocabulary is only the first (albeit necessary) step to ace these exams. Even if you have mastered GRE vocabulary through your contribution, there is still a long way to go before you can use English to express yourself fluently.
As someone who have been studying in the US as an international student, I want to also point out, from my personal experience, that TOEFL is really an easy test. Of course when you first encounter the test as a non-native speaker, the level of English demanded may seem unreasonably high. But don't complain yet, because actually living in an English-speaking environment demands even more. There is really no excuse for a low TOEFL score if you really want to study in the US, no matter how many Anki cards you've made.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: While I believe you're hoping the answer to your question is "no, the scores won't matter," I believe that the real answer is otherwise.
In many cases, minimum TOEFL scores are required by universities to ensure a certain level of competency which may be necessary for credentialing either as a research assistant or a teaching assistant. In the absence of such scores, securing funding may be much more difficult, if not downright impossible.
Moreover, the fundamental issue is that the work that you've done—creating a website for people preparing to take the GRE—does not actually demonstrate familiarity with the English language. All it demonstrates is your ability to code up a website. It's great that it's helped you a bit, but as far as admissions committees are concerned, it's unlikely to sway their decision in your favor.
Also, as far as graduate admissions committees are concerned: no, there's no way to guarantee that they'll read the SOP before looking at your test scores. And yes, the scores will still matter, even if they read the SOP.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: This differs between departments, so there's no way to predict what will happen without information about your specific case. In my department, it would be nearly impossible to get admitted with a TOEFL score of 85. It would require an exception to a departmental policy and probably a university-wide policy as well (I'm not sure how flexible that one is, because the departmental policy is stricter). The department has had bad experiences with exceptions in the past, with graduate students who were not capable of teaching undergraduates or even communicating effectively with faculty, and it has been years since the admissions committee was willing to even consider an exception. All students with low TOEFL scores explain that they intend to improve their English, but they do not always do so, so these predictions carry little weight.
In my department your application would be read, but it would be rejected unless you looked absolutely brilliant. Other departments might be more willing to make exceptions or have completely different policies. If you are confident that the departments you are applying to will be flexible, then you don't need to worry, but I don't think you can determine this without specific knowledge.
>
> Although my TOEFL or GRE score might not be high yet, the scores themselves don't reflect everything. After all, English should be a medium to communicate, not the opposite. I plan to upgrade the deck to make the it more consistent in the future.
>
>
>
I don't understand your argument here. You start by saying your scores don't reflect your true ability, then you comment about role of English (what's the opposite of a medium to communicate?), and then you suggest the desk needs to be more consistent and say you will improve it.
This paragraph really isn't making a good case for why the GRE review deck should substitute for higher TOEFL scores. I doubt such a case can be made effectively (the review deck is a nice contribution to the community, but it's not at all the same sort of thing), but if you want to try you'll need to restructure things somewhat.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: English competency is not a field in which you can earn "extra credit." While it is possible that a graduate program may be moderately impressed by your enthusiastic creation of study materials (but you can't count on this: as a data point, I had never heard of an "anki deck" until now), such activities certainly do not directly compensate for low TOEFL scores.
No one can speak for every graduate program at once, but in my professional opinion your low TOEFL scores will prevent you from getting serious consideration for admission in most US graduate programs. For instance, you can see [my own university's requirements here](http://grad.uga.edu/index.php/prospective-students/international-application-information/international-supplement/english-language-proficiency-requirement/). Your overall TOEFL score meets our requirements but your speaking score does not, which means that you would not be able to be admitted as a graduate student in my department. Moreover the speaking requirements for TAs are significantly higher: [see here](http://www.ctl.uga.edu/pages/ta-policy). The TOEFL speaking test is truly difficult for many foreign students, and your score is low enough so that admissions faculty would have serious concerns that you would never be able to get it high enough in order to be a TA, which is a significant source of funding in our department. We could perhaps carry one or two graduate students on grading-only assignments, but not many. Moreover, in my field (mathematics) getting a PhD with no teaching or TAing experience whatsoever would be a significant -- perhaps crippling -- disadvantage in the academic job market (as usual, there are a tiny number of exceptions here).
To address your precise questions:
>
> In schools that care about the scores, is there a way to make the committee read the SOP first?
>
>
>
Most (or all) schools I know will care about the scores. No, there is no way to make the committee read the SOP first. Nor do I see any significance in the order your application is read.
>
> After that, do my scores still matter?
>
>
>
What? Of course they do. I think you've been told this before in response to other questions, and I don't want to pile on too heavily, but: you seem to have some very serious misconceptions about the way academia works. You seem to often generate "strategies" for doing things in a nonstandard way or for circumventing requirements. If you want to get into a graduate program in the US and be a successful academic, you really need to stop doing that. You need to learn what the requirements are and acquire at least some understanding of why they're there, and then you need to fulfill the requirements, not sidestep them or talk your way out of it. The honest truth is that your excerpted, proposed statement of purpose would not help your case at all but in fact would make a distinctly negative impression. You don't understand the English proficiency requirements very well at all if you think that making a popular set of vocabulary flash cards is relevant to fulfilling them. It simply isn't. Most of all, your proposed improvement is to make more vocabulary flashcards...but this is a poor diagnosis of the problem. You need to improve your speaking score substantially -- by at least 8 points (out of a total of 30) to be able to take on TA duties in my university. If you raise your speaking score by that much, your total score will meet minimum requirements at most departments I'm aware of.
One final tip: I know exactly one way to use your personal statement to ameliorate commmittees' opinions of your speaking and writing skills -- namely, make sure your personal statement is a flawless specimen of English writing. Thus, rather than *saying* that your scores don't reflect your true ability (which is a worthless thing to say; we understand that various metrics are imperfect and limited, but we are using them anyway in the manner we think best) this *shows* that, which is much more convincing.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: I think there **may** be a way to use the web site to help your application, but not by discounting the English requirement as you seem to be trying to do.
I have never been involved, other that as an applicant, in the admissions process, so take this for what it is worth.
Instead, recognize in your SOP that your English skills are not where they will need to be when you start your studies in the USA. The web site can be cited as evidence of the effort you are putting into improving your English. If you plan to take any English language courses between now and when you would start your USA studies, list them as well.
The general position would be "I know I need to improve my English, and these are the things I am doing to achieve that."
Upvotes: 2
|
2015/11/29
| 409
| 1,842
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student and I had asked for TA/grader position, with a few professors at my institution in fall semester. But at that time there was no position available. Now I want to send another email to them again, asking for a position in spring semester. Should I reply back to the previous email that I had sent, or should I send a new email? How to remind them that I had approached them earlier?<issue_comment>username_1: This is a highly personal opinion due to an individual's emailing habits, but I would not attach pre-existing email on something more than a month old. If you talk to the professor about the opportunity in the future, just add relevant information to the current email. No need to add the entire backstory, unless it has important information that cannot be conveyed otherwise.
"Hello, I had previously inquired about such and such back in the Fall and nothing came of it. I was wondering about any potential such and such for the upcoming semester."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, in the U.S., whether to provide support to a student, through a teaching assistantship, is decided at a department level, and the person to approach is the administrator who supervises the teaching assistants. The department secretary could clarify for you exactly who this would be.
Here's what I have seen: there are a certain number of students who are guaranteed TA work each year. But when the department finds that there are still some uncovered courses, and funds are sufficient, they give support to some unsupported students as well, and these decisions are made on a year by year basis in late August. I can imagine that in some departments this might occur on a semester by semester basis.
When you write your email, proofread it very, very carefully.
Upvotes: -1
|
2015/11/29
| 679
| 2,479
|
<issue_start>username_0: This is to extend the question:
[Getting a dump of arXiv metadata](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38969/getting-a-dump-of-arxiv-metadata)
I would like to download arXiv in bulk, and found a useful answer above for using this syntax:
```
http://export.arxiv.org/oai2?verb=ListRecords&set=math&from=2015-01-01&until=2015-01-31&metadataPrefix=arXiv
```
However, in data there is not a field for citations.
I wonder if there is another dataset.
In
<https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data>
there is no description about citations, apart of an old dataset (KDD) of 2003.
Is there any parameter to extend the above query and also fetch citations?
Is there any reference to see how arXiv metadata are classified?
Any other dataset of articles possible to freely download?
I would like to use a dump for testing visualizations for knowledge discovery. If there is already a sample DB standardized / polished, it will be really helpful not to have to polish / curate data.<issue_comment>username_1: arXiv's metadata does not include any citation information.
If you are interested in citations in arXiv documents, your best bet is probably to extract them from the PDF files using a dedicated tool ([Cermine](http://cermine.ceon.pl/index.html), [pdfx](http://pdfx.cs.man.ac.uk/usage) or [pdfextract](http://labs.crossref.org/pdfextract/) for instance), or from the LaTeX sources, by inspecting the `.aux` files.
You can download PDF or source files using the [dedicated bulk data interface](https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data_s3). Using the OAI interface for this purpose is not recommended as it generates a lot of traffic on the main arXiv site.
You could extract a similar dataset from PubMed Central using [their API](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/tools/openftlist/). If you are looking for something broader (not restricted to a particular topic), you could use [COnnecting REpositories](http://core.ac.uk) (they have full texts from a variety of sources, with an API).
You can also use a pre-curated dataset such as the [Microsoft Academic Graph](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/mag/).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Since recently, arXiv citation information is available from [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/) -- it is the one that is displayed on the arXiv website.
Semantic Scholar apparently provides a [dump](https://api.semanticscholar.org/corpus/) of their data.
Upvotes: 3
|
2015/11/30
| 853
| 3,476
|
<issue_start>username_0: Not sure if you've been following the [story of a South Korean Prodigy](http://scholarlyoa.com/2015/11/20/is-this-17-year-old-korean-ph-d-student-a-plagiarist/), who tried to get his PhD degree based on a proceedings article (copyright protected) that his advisor has previously published thirteen years ago, by duplicating everything word-for-word, and rearranging some equations. Not surprisingly, [his article was retracted](https://aas.org/posts/news/2015/11/astrophysical-journal-paper-retracted-plagiarism). The advisor and the student are still claiming innocence and saying that the reviewers of the article are not experts of the field. Their case is currently under review by their institution.
What I'm curious about is what happens when ***graduate students or more senior people*** are caught by plagiarism. In my fifteen years or so as an academic, I have never seen a paper so blatantly plagiarized, and it got me thinking about what I would do if one of the graduate students committed such plagiarism, and if I were asked to reprimand those who have committed plagiarism in an academic capacity (note that I am not talking about undergraduate students).
I would think that there should be a pretty severe punishment, since when the undergraduate students are caught cheating or copying their homework assignments, after maybe a warning, their transcript contains a record of it. If they continue to cheat, they could get expelled. And obviously, doing this as an academic is a much more serious thing.
So I am interested in those who have served as deans, or otherwise some kind of academic integrity panel in your institutions. Do these things happen frequently (obviously on a smaller scale)? How did you deal with it?<issue_comment>username_1: Different institutions have different policies in place; however, it is the duty of the author's institute to conduct a detailed investigation if there are allegations of plagiarism or any other form of misconduct. If the author/researcher is found guilty is confirmed, depending on the nature and extent of misconduct, one of more of the following actions may be taken by the institute:
* At first, appropriate steps are taken to correct the damage
* Letters of reprimand may be sent to the guilty persons
* Sanctions are imposed on them
* Their work may be closely monitored to ensure compliance with the funders' policies and publication ethics
* The institute informs the funding agency and this can lead to suspension or termination of a grant
* In extreme cases, the guilty person may be suspended or terminated from the institute
If copyright violations or fraud is involved, the institute sends the findings of the investigation to the appropriate agencies. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) releases the names of people guilty of misconduct on its website. This can damage the reputation of the researcher, and he/she might be banned from submitting papers to journals for a certain period.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends very heavily on whether the plagiarism is reported **before** or **after the degree is awarded**.
If after the awarding, it's very hard to get discipline taken; you can find examples here on ac.SO.
If before the awarding, it's possible - it depends on the integrity of the institution and whether it actually performs an impartial investigation and takes action. In the South Korean case, it was before the awarding.
Upvotes: 1
|
2015/11/30
| 1,707
| 7,262
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am writing an essay to outline one of my philosophical theories. My current argument builds upon the work of others that are in the fields of neuroscience, statistics, epistemology, and ethics. If I want to explain my argument am I expected to provide a summary of the two works I am building off of? They are by no means popular so I intend to provide a basic summary but how long would one typically make it? Does this differ in the case of a book v. an essay?
Additionally, am I expected in any way to justify my belief in these works as a basis for my theories? My argument is based on the assumption that aspects of these theories are correct (and they may or may not be). Is it common in modern academic philosophy to explain to the reader that the assumptions in my argument rely upon the theories expounded in these works and then move forward from there? Or do I need to provide justifications of my own?
**Other Information**: I do not have any sort of degree in philosophy but I have been writing some essays and have been trying to follow the general academic guidelines used in the field. I don't know if any publisher will take it seriously but it's a personal project so I may just self-publish.<issue_comment>username_1: The level of detail in which you should explain work upon which you base your own is fundamentally given by the following consideration: *How much do you need to explain so that your anticipated reader gets a complete picture?*. In other words, when writing anything at all, your first question should always be "Why is my audience?". If you know this, then you do not need to worry as much any more about what the "standard" is in a field, what is "expected", etc: you know how much is *necessary* to make your readers understand where you are coming from.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Your citing standards are not just defined by the standard procedures of your journal or the literacy level of your audience, but also by whether the source you cite *argues* the point, *assumes* the point, *entertains* the point as one of many possibilities, or even whether the source exists solely to address the point you are making.
If you wish to quote Douglas Adams to argue that life is meaningless, very little summary is required. *As we see in Douglas Adams's parable of the supercomputer and the meaning of life, "meaning" is not a property of life, and requesting a calculation of "meaning" results in meaningless answers, such as "42"*.
This is a summary not of a book or a story, but of a paragraph of a book. It is a tiny story within a larger story. Those who have read it will appreciate a chance to chuckle, but everyone will see the connection whether they've read it or not, and there will be no need to summarize further.
But if you need to challenge the straightforward interpretation, for example if you're disagreeing with another author who cited the source, more detail is required.
* "*The anti-meaning school of thought emphasizes the results of Douglas Adams's supercomputer*", - summarize opposition,
* "*which was asked to calculate the meaning of life, and which concluded that life is meaningless.*" - summarize opposition's summary,
* "*But in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" it was understood that meaning can exist even when it cannot be calculated, which is why the story called for an organic invention (earth) to discover the meaning of life*" - re-interpret the source,
* "*indeed, what is "meaning" if not "value which defies quantification"?*" - summarize your interpretation of the source.
Your style and level of detail should walk a delicate balance between risk and rigor.
If you publish a correlation between lung cancer and smoking, hardly anyone will care what the more rigorous points of your argument are; the established topic lacks the risk to be interesting. You won't get published unless your writing breathes new fascination into the old question.
Don't worry about being fascinating or risky if you're presenting a correlation between chocolate consumption and IQ though; a fifth of your audience will label you a clown or classist before they read your work, so everyone will have plenty of energy to read every sentence and citation you write as they scan for technical mistakes. Just focus on accuracy and rigor, that'll be your bottleneck to even being published.
So my final answer is, if you justify too much, you'll be boring. If you justify too little, you'll be stupid.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I don't have any idea what your specific competencies and training are (though you point out it's not philosophy) nor what the goals of your book are. My main thought reading your question is that you might not grasp what it is academic philosophy does.
In terms of your summarization question, my answer doesn't differ much from the others already present (2 at time of writing). I would say summarization is not important per se but if you're integrating works across multiple disciplines or depending on idiosyncratic readings or esoteric claims, then you need to spell those out.
To put it another way, if I'm writing something that builds on Kant, no one needs to read my summary of the *Critique of Pure Reason* **but** I do need to spell out the claims I am getting from it. Odds on these claims will not be universally accepted by Kant scholars, so I will need to explain where I'm getting these interpretations relative to his text.
The basic rule of thumb is that you need to state everything you need to make your argument and preferably nothing further. Anything further, such as debatable readings that don't affect your argument cuts the number of people who will look at your main point (being sidetracked by other things).
This gets even harder if you're working with philosophers from disparate fields, because I may be up on my Kant and Hegel, but I'm not up on my neuroscience. So if you write a book on Kant and neurophilosophy, I"m going to need way more neuroscience than Kant where as a neuro-philosophy scholar may not be so familiar with standard interpretations of Kant.
My best guess based on the list of fields that you're integrating is that what you want to write would probably not be publishable within academic philosophy. It sounds too big and too off about what philosophy does just from the field list. I would guess you're grouping together some things you believe into a whole you think makes sense of a lot of things (I could be completely wrong about what you're hoping to do by integrating so many fields). If the goal is in part a personal project, you're probably better off avoiding academic philosophy.
Later, you ask about "essay" versus book. As an element of academic writing, I don't know what a "essay" is per se. You might mean "journal article", but journal articles need to be very limited in scope to fit within publication lengths. Books, on the other hand, can be longer and integrate more ideas together. But again, generally these sort of integrative works should be written by people who are experts in at least one of the areas (not experts as in possessors of degrees but experts as in thoroughly knowledgeable).
Upvotes: 2
|
2015/11/30
| 1,422
| 6,428
|
<issue_start>username_0: I got a letter from a journal editor telling me that they 'would be happy to accept my paper'; the editor asked me to take care of some minor citation issues (I carelessly misspelled one author's last name and I misplaced the publication year of a cited work.) and then upload the final version of the manuscript to the submission system. Although this letter sounds very certain/positive to me. I am still a bit wary and anxious (after all, this is still not a formal acceptance letter). I quickly resubmitted the final version of the paper to the submission system in the same day. It has been two weeks since I heard from the editor and resubmitted the final file. I know that it's impossible to expect a speedy response. But, in my scenario, how long should I wait to write back to the editor and ask for a formal acceptance letter (or is it even okay/appropriate to do this?) At this stage, should I be worried (about any possible hiccups that may stand on the way of getting the paper published)? Thanks very much for your insights and experience sharing.<issue_comment>username_1: You shouldn't worry much. It's extremely unlikely that an informal acceptance will turn into a rejection, although I suppose it is theoretically possible. In my experience, this is something editors do to get leverage over authors: authors are faster and more diligent about making revisions when acceptance has not yet been guaranteed, even when they know it is almost certain.
I wouldn't worry about the two week delay or get in touch with the editor yet. For example, if the editor is in the U.S. the Thanksgiving holiday intervened, and the end of the semester is always a busy time. It's also possible that the editor is checking with a referee (although this may not be necessary for such minor revisions). It can't hurt to ask whether the revised paper was received, but I'd recommend waiting another week or two.
Incidentally, asking you to add citations sounds a little odd. Are these from a referee report, and do they look like important references that you missed? One unethical thing editors are occasionally tempted to do is to pressure authors to add citations to manipulate citation rates. (For example, adding citations to their journal or their friend's journal.) That's not necessarily going on here, but if it is then it's an inappropriate use of informal acceptance to get leverage over authors.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree that you have nothing to worry about, but I slightly disagree with the premises of username_1's answer. Basically, I don't think there is such a thing as an "informal acceptance letter". Or, to be a bit more precise, I don't consider a distinction between formal and informal acceptance letters to be a helpful or a particularly meaningful one. Rather, the distinction that may be worth making in connection with your situation is between simple acceptance and "conditional acceptance". Another distinction that may be relevant here is between a well-written letter and a poorly phrased letter.
Let me explain: a conditional acceptance is one where the editor indicates willingness to accept a paper conditioned on the author making certain revisions to the manuscript that are deemed to be satisfactory. It may be reasonable to characterize the letter you got as a conditional acceptance letter from a purely logical point of view, but honestly, given the fact that you were only asked to make a couple of changes of a purely cosmetic nature, I would view this as semantic nitpicking. If, as username_1 said, the "informality" of the acceptance means that the journal still has a theoretical option to reject your paper, then I would argue that by the same logic they could do that even with a more formal, or less conditional-sounding, acceptance. After all, it would be no less ridiculous for them to argue that they are now rejecting the paper because you failed to satisfy the "condition" of correcting a couple of typos, than it would be for them to retract a completely formal, unconditional acceptance. If you look around on Academia.SE you will find examples even of such crazy things happening on very rare occasions.
Personally, given the "I would be happy to accept" wording and the modest nature of the corrections you were asked to make, your letter just sounds like a simple acceptance letter to me, which brings me to my second point about the distinction between a well-written and poorly phrased letter: some people -- in fact, rather a lot of people -- use language in a careless or sloppy manner and/or are not sensitive to nuances of the English language such as the difference between a conditional and unconditional verb conjugation. I think it's quite possible that the editor used the conditional tense not as a way to pressure you to submit your revised manuscript faster as username_1 speculated, but simply out of a lack of awareness of how the writing would be perceived by you, the recipient of the letter, and without realizing that the lack of clarity on what would happen after you submit your revised manuscript would result in needless worrying on your part, you posting a question here, us writing an answer to your question, etc.
To summarize: **congratulations on your paper being (in)formally and (un)conditionally accepted to one of the top journals of your field!** You have nothing to worry about, but to once again differentiate myself from username_1, I won't tell you that you "shouldn't worry"; it is human and reasonable to worry, and it is human and reasonable to be annoyed at an editor who uses needlessly ambiguous language in an acceptance letter. What I would probably do in your situation is to wait a few more days and, if I still don't hear anything, send an email to the editor politely asking for an acknowledgement that my revised manuscript was accepted and for confirmation that the acceptance is "formal". You may in fact need to do this for your peace of mind, since my guess is that without contacting the editor yourself you may not get any more "formal" acceptance notification than the one you already got. (You will probably get some correspondence from the publisher at some point about galley proofs of your paper, copyright transfer forms etc., which would be an implicit confirmation of the acceptance, but this could not happen for many months.)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: How would a graduate student, at the University of California, Santa Cruz, report their GPA, on fellowship applications, if they have not yet accrued enough letter grade credits?
UCSC seems to not report a formal GPA until the student takes 25 credits of letter grade classes. This excludes credits received from pass / fail classes, which count toward graduation but not toward the 25 credit letter grade GPA threshold.<issue_comment>username_1: It seems the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship states:
>
> What GPA do I enter for my school if I just started attending? You can
> enter 0.0 as your GPA – reviewers will understand that you have not
> yet received a GPA for that school and will not view it negatively.
> Link: <https://ndseg.asee.org/faq/academic_background_section>
>
>
>
Will follow-up if I receive any formal statement from the UCSC Office of the Registrar.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Regardless of whether you have a "formal" GPA or not, you can always calculate your GPA yourself. You know what grades you received and you should know how your school weighs each one. There are also many "GPA calculator" sites online that can help with this.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: My sister is a professor. I was visiting her over Thanksgiving break and my father (who is also a professor) told me not to hang out with her because she had a grant proposal due. Is this normal for professors or is it just my family?
This happens almost every time we have a family reunion, and my father never wants me to talk to my sister because she always has some sort of deadline. It gives me serious doubts about going into academia.<issue_comment>username_1: The extent to which academics lead deadline-driven lives varies tremendously. It differs between fields (even otherwise similar fields; for example, theoretical computer science tends to have far more paper submission deadlines than pure mathematics does), between types of institutions (such as research universities vs. liberal arts colleges), between career paths (such as running a research group that requires substantial ongoing funding vs. doing individual research on a theoretical topic), etc. There's also a large factor of personal taste: some people thrive on deadlines, while others try hard to avoid them.
It's also worth noting that deadlines often repeat in cycles. For example, yearly conferences typically have submission deadlines at the same time of year, as do certain funding opportunities. Which conferences or funding opportunities are most important/relevant vary between people, so two professors could have completely different schedules of deadlines throughout the year. It's possible that your visits with your sister happen to line up with a pattern of deadlines that matter to her. That would be unfortunate, but not necessarily representative of the rest of her time. In my experience deadlines are not particularly likely to coincide with holidays.
If you are curious you could always ask your sister (or, for that matter, your father). For example, "I noticed that you often have deadlines around Thanksgiving. That sounds pretty stressful - is this typical for how you spend your time? What's your job like on a day to day basis?"
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer depends on the referential for normality. This behavior is both about dedication and deadlines. @username_1 was precise about deadlines. Deadlines might be about outer pressure. I will add a word about dedication.
It is not uncommon among other professions (musicians, chess players, philosophers, some religious persons are common examples) where some practitioners (not all) have a strong inner drive to progress, up to very extreme forms. I tend to believe that those professions are biased toward very dedicated persons. So the "normal behavior" might be different. I have a mathematician friend who, on vacations by other friends, spent whole days at home working on a book. Sometimes, he does not eat, unless somebody cooks for him. Not he cannot cook, nor exploits others. He is concentrated on something "more important", and will not complain. One of my close colleague, who I respect a lot, recently complained that another colleague "never works nor answers" between friday evening and monday morning.
If you want to understand that, there are interesting books about the psychology of research and discovery. Scholars might be triggered by forces not quite understandable by others.
Yet, it seems that this situation hurts your feelings. I do understand the situation, I occasionally hurt feelings in my family with the same pattern. May I suggest you to ask your sister for a specific time where you could hang out with her when she is out of pressure?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: No, it's not normal. Is your sister a property of your father? Your sister telling you "sorry brother, I have this awful deadline, how about we spend some time two weeks later?" is perfectly normal. Your father deciding when you are allowed to talk to your own, grown-up sister is not normal.
And it's not about having time, it's about controlling your family.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> It gives me serious doubts about going into academia.
>
>
>
Let me try to put your mind at ease about this by first of all answering a slightly different question from the one you asked: it is very, very, very normal for academics **to have families, *and* to spend a very good amount of time with their families over the holidays** and at many other times.
Put differently: there are some valid reasons why a person may not want to go into academia, but **this isn't one of them**.
Now, getting back to your actual question: is it normal for people in academia to work too hard, at the expense of time with their families? Well, it is indeed somewhat common, at least in the U.S. But this is by no means unique to academia; it is also common in the U.S. for people in many other industries and occupations to work too hard. The fact remains that there are many many people, both in academia and outside it, who manage to lead a very successful and productive professional life while maintaining a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives. Your sister's situation sounds rather extreme and unhealthy to me. Deadlines are a common (though not universal) feature of academic life, but usually one knows a long time in advance that a deadline is approaching, and for most people it is not too difficult to plan ahead and finish a project sufficiently in advance of a deadline to make allowance for things like holidays, family reunions, or any other commitments or plans. If your sister isn't doing this, I can think of several possible explanations:
1. Your sister is a young researcher who still hasn't polished her skills of managing a complex schedule. She will improve with time.
2. Your sister is the kind of person who is most productive under the pressure of a deadline. She may also improve with time as she finds that such things interfere with her personal life, or she may remain like this indefinitely.
3. Your sister has poor relations with you and/or other members of your family, and simply prefers to do work (or to pretend to do work) during family gatherings.
While some of these possibilities are indeed troubling, and you have my sympathy for the frustration that this is causing you, they are unique to your particular family situation and are by no means indicative of a general trend in academia. As I said, academia is a big place and you will certainly find in it all sorts of people leading all sorts of lifestyles, both healthy and unhealthy. If you are considering going into academia, I would advise you to make the choice based on whether you feel that this is the right decision for you given the lifestyle that **you** plan to live, and to not consider the examples of your sister and your father to be representative of anything.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: This is very much culture dependent.
In European science system, it is common to require from a scientist to change a position (PhD, then post docs) every few years, with another position often available only in another city or another country. This may be problematic for the family: even if another side is willing just passively follow together, the researcher salary may not be high enough to get a residence permit (cannot support dependents).
Also, the chances of success strongly depend on achievements during the current limited time position, so the pressure is immense even without the head of laboratory doing anything special.
As a result, a scientist probably should be a kind of monk. My family, both scientists, lived de facto separated for many years before I ultimately decided to drop the researcher carrier and go into industry. It was possible to get the next position for me but again in another country.
From the other side, the European professor position is a very high position that is free from any limitations. However this position is so difficult to get that I advice not to count for that at all. Some countries have the highly limited number of permanent positions below professor, but the main strategy is always to keep the majority of researchers on a few year self-terminating contracts.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/11/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently (6 months) left academia after a three year postdoc at a high ranking university. During my time there, I became the lab's statistics guru having carried out analysis on a lot of our labs data, both my data, and others.
I was let go due to lack of funds, but my previous supervisor is now asking me to carry out a number of analyses on new data for publication, and to finish one or two papers I did not finish during my employment.
So my questions are:
* How do I graciously refuse to touch others data? I wrote the data analysis pipeline, but am not interested in maintaining and rerunning it every time new results appear. It's available on github and well commented, just no one else in the lab knows how to do anything with computers. The actual running is easy for the most part, it is "small" modifications that are causing me trouble. I've offered to train others (and trained an undergrad who has also since left the lab), but the amount of training to teach someone python from scratch is a little daunting.
* How to finish up my own papers? I'm currently contracting to industry at rates 3-6 times what I was paid during my postdoc - my supervisor is asking for me to work for free, or maybe my previous rate if he can get the money. This is a significant time sink, but I do feel obligated (and interested) to finish these off. What is a good pay rate to ask for? How do I do this without offending my supervisor?
Location is USA. The postdoc was a yearly contract, where an informal agreement was made to extend it to a 4th year, which had to be cancelled due to a loss of funding 4 months from renewal, thus the somewhat unorganized departure. In my heart of hearts, I'd like to continue in academia, but due to partner issues have to stay in the current location, making academia extremely unlikely. I'm currently undergoing the recruitment process for two different industry positions, as well as my contracting.<issue_comment>username_1: The easiest way to do this is to politely inform your previous advisor that you no longer have the time to commit to the projects you were working on as a post doc. It is not your responsibility to train others in his lab, or to take on duties beyond what you're comfortable with.
One option to consider, if you're working on a "for hire" basis, is to offer the possibility of hiring you on a contract basis to do the work. You would then be able to set the scope and extent of the work, as well as your compensation. If your advisor was unwilling to accept the terms, it would put the refusal on him, and you'd be more or less "in the clear," so to speak.
As for the pay rate, you should probably select a rate that is between the academic and corporate rates, but leaning more toward the former—remember that academic pockets are typically not as deep as corporate ones.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I am a little unclear about what it means for a postdoc to be "let go". Does this mean that you had a year-to-year contract funded by your supervisor's grant and he found out after three years that he didn't have enough money to keep you for another year? There's a sort of implied abruptness your choice of phrase, but I'm sure you know that many (most?) postdocs are three years or less. Certainly that's enough time for your supervisor to plan for the future of his work. Assuming that someone whom you've hired will continue to do that work after the end of their employment is...well, an assumption.
After reading your post I have one, key, question: you are now working in industry, not in academia. Are you looking to get back into academia, to have an industrial career, or are you not sure?
In my experience, the vast majority of the time when people leave academia for industry they really *leave*. In fact the famous mathematician <NAME> referred to people who left mathematics as having "died" (and thus also referred to people who had died as having "left"), and there is some insight behind this eccentric language. If you're doing a joint project with a student or postdoc and they "leave for industry", then in some ways it is as though they have died (and in others very much not, obviously); notoriously, it is not a good idea to leave such "dearly departed personnel" with work to do on projects; rather it sort of goes without saying that they will completely stop working on whatever they are doing and keep their authorship on all their partially completed projects (with the idea that it won't affect their career much either way, so why not be nice about it). So if you are done with academia then I think you can just communicate that to your supervisor. As I said before, if that's awkward for him it's really his fault rather than yours. If you left things in good working order on your departure, I think you can have a clear conscience.
On the other hand, if you want to continue to have an academic career then in my view your supervisor is giving you an *opportunity* by prompting you to write up your old projects and trying to involve you in new ones. That's exactly what you need to be doing to get back into a research-based academic job. In terms of how much to ask to get paid for that -- maybe things are different in your field, but to me that sounds a bit strange. On the one hand you were "let go" precisely because there wasn't available money to pay you so....how can there be enough available money to pay you? On the other hand professional academics usually do not work for hire: whatever they get paid is for "full time work", and to be honest about it, the payment for much of the hard work that is done in grad school and the years afterwards *is* the promise of a permanent academic job in the future. Whenever I collaborate with students or postdocs, they are "working for free" in the sense that if they write X more papers it has no effect on their salary.
I think you should figure out how much involvement you want to have in academia in the future. Since you now have an industrial job which is paying 3-6 times as much as your academic job, I think you're seeing most of the financial rewards there. I encourage you to stick with the academic work if and only if you foresee getting nonfinancial rewards from it. If you don't, don't be afraid to bow out, and don't overthink how to do that: just say that you are now working full time in industry.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If you can expect a co-authorship for this work (assuming that was the arrangement), then you might consider doing it to bolster your CV. You are presumably on the market for a job now, and having some more papers in the pipeline (submitted, under review, in press, etc) might be helpful to your future prospects. Paper publication doesn't pay your rent or feed your family, but doing this work for "free", especially if the papers are good, might lead to a better job down the line. If you have time between your contract gigs and job application preparation, you might consider it. It might be better to be working than to be doing nothing.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Since your reasons for wanting to finish your own papers are personal, then I think you should seriously consider doing the work for free. The obvious disadvantage is that you have to do it in your spare time (perhaps by deliberately not filling your schedule with contracts), but it has two benefits:
* it forces you to assess whether you really, truly do want to finish them for personal reasons, and that these reasons alone justify your time.
* it forces them to accept that you don't work for them, they are not your boss, that they cannot afford you, and you're involved on your terms now. This stops them expecting you to do whatever they ask as opposed to strictly only what you wish to do as a collaborator on the one or two papers in question. If you take their coin, you may not be able to hold this line.
It also means you only have to do the things that *strictly* need to be done by you, and as far as possible you can encourage other (paid) authors to pick up bulk of the work completing the paper. Of course if you were always the only author doing any actual work then "as far as possible" is "not at all".
However, if your reasons for wanting to finish the papers are professional (that is to say, you're hoping to get back into academia and want the credit) then, although it seems like a paradox, I think you should not do so unless you get paid *at least* at a plausible rate for the role, and preferably for a rate that takes into account any benefits that you're missing out on as an external temporary employee rather than a full-time postdoc. Chances are they can't afford this, so chances are it won't happen and you have to let those papers go. Either your supervisor considers them worth their time to finish, or not, you can let that decision out of your hands.
The reason is that if you want to do something for a living, you have to make sure it's paying for itself. Else you don't have a profession, you have a hobby of acting like someone else's employee and doing what they tell you as if they're your boss. You also give them *no incentive* to do what you want, which is to find the funds to rehire you, since you're doing the work anyway for nothing. It's tough to give up on a vocation, but if academia doesn't pay then you're better off paid in industry than as an unpaid academic, so be that. Or, if you think you can find an academic job elsewhere, focus on that job search and *then*, once you're stable again, figure out with your new employer whether and how you're going to finish the papers.
Depending on your attitude to work and pay in general, you might also consider whether you want to do unpaid work that they "should" pay someone else to do, and therefore you're contributing towards a job not existing where a job "should" exist. I'm not a fan at all of unpaid internships, but if you don't consider them a problem then fair enough.
>
> How do I graciously refuse to touch others data?
>
>
>
First, it's rather cheeky of your ex-employer to even *ask* this, considering they let you go. However, on the principle that it's acceptable for anyone to *ask* anything provided they're prepared to accept no for an answer, say something like:
"I'm sorry, all I'm going to do is complete these 1 or 2 papers. I'm not available to maintain your software or train your staff."
This might mean that the software is no longer usable to them. But letting you go was their way of making this their problem and not yours. They can't hope to rely on your charity to reverse their funding shortage.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
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2015/11/30
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<issue_start>username_0: A friend showed me a paper that literally copied two pages of another paper, without any reference. This clearly is a fraud. He tried to inform the authors of the original paper. Is there any other way to deal with this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: Contact the editor of the journal in which the fraudulent paper was published, present your claims, and be prepared to submit evidence. If there's no response, contact the editor of the original journal - they may be able to use legal means to force the retraction of the fraudulent paper.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think the editor should not be the first contacting person. Because it will be a rude act. Even there is a possibility that you misunderstood the whole thing, and authors should ask for an opinion and explanation. Therefore, first of all, I will advise you to notify the authors and ask an explanation by sending an email. If he/she do not response your email or decline your claim, then send another email to the boss of the author (or the organizational head), if authors have an affiliation. If nothing happens, then contact the editor of the journal. In the email, you need to specify (page number, figure, methodology or idea) that can be considered as plagiarism.
Upvotes: -1
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2015/11/30
| 597
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently studying for my GRE exam and I came across a book which states that GRE essays are sent with the official score reports. How does the admissions committee process these essays?
I am applying for a PhD in computer science.<issue_comment>username_1: I am surprised, but this does appear to be true. From the [ets website](https://www.ets.org/gre/revised_general/scores/) we have the following:
>
> ETS also makes available test-taker photos and essay responses on the Analytical Writing section of the GRE® revised General Test to designated score recipients as part of an institutional portal. Photos and Analytical Writing essay responses of all individuals who report their scores to institutions on or after July 1, 2014, are included in the portal. The photo and essay responses from each GRE revised General Test administration you select from your five-year reportable history will be made available in the portal as part of your score record to the institutions you designated to receive your scores on or after July 1, 2014.
>
>
>
(In some sense, I'm even more surprised they are making photos of test-takers available.) As for how the admissions committee processes these essays, others on the site can speak more directly to this, particularly in computer science. However, I'm certain this will vary from department to department (assuming any department looks at them at all). I suspect the admissions committee of many departments will not even be aware these essays are available through the ETS institutional portal. Of those that are aware these exist, I would be surprised if much weight were placed on these. These will convey almost no incremental information to an admissions committee. (I suppose if you scored a 0 and the rest of your application was outstanding, and the committee knew these were available, someone might look to see what happened. Maybe.)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I'm on my department's graduate committee and read through all of the applications. I had no idea that the essays were available and am quite certain that my colleagues aren't either. The statement posted in one of the other answers also states that the essay is only available via a portal, which is not something you would typically go visit for each and every application.
Extrapolating from our department to all departments (certainly a sketchy process, though maybe not entirely crazy) I would say: don't worry about it -- nobody's going to read the essay.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/11/30
| 1,106
| 4,863
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<issue_start>username_0: I am planning on publishing two distinct papers based on the same dataset – one is looking at policy implications and the other is a more traditional academic article. The methods sections for both papers are largely the same (minus the statistical analyses, which are different) but the survey design, implementation, etc. are, of course, the same.
Can I use the exact same language for the methods section in both papers or does that fall under self-plagiarism and/or copyright issues? It seems crazy to figure out a completely different way of wording something when obviously it’s the same study, but I’m not actually sure what to do.<issue_comment>username_1: There is a divide in how to approach this question based on the type of methods section, as there are two almost entirely distinct forms of methods sections in scientific publications.
* **"Prose" methods:** This type of methods description is part of the main flow of text, and presents the methods in an explanatory fashion. Such a methods description is expected to be either unique or else credited as being reproduced/adapted from another publication. [An example of such a paper (in particular Section VI A, B).](http://username_1.com/Publications/SASO15-EnterpriseDistributedRecovery.pdf)
* **"Cookbook" methods:** This type of methods section comes at the end of a paper, after its discussion and conclusions, and is effectively a compressed "appendix" with no narrative exposition, just an extremely terse summation of particulars. Such a methods section is not generally subject to concerns regarding self-plagiarism (and arguable not even copyrightable!) because they are essentially just [recipes](https://web.archive.org/web/20181108082341/https://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html): there are only so many ways to say "Cells were cultured in LB medium at 37C." [An example paper with such a methods section](http://openmap.bbn.com/%7Ejbeal/Publications/ACSSynBio14-RepliconEngineering.pdf).
For your particular case, then, if you expect both papers to be under review at the same time, then you should already be making sure that the reviewers know this is the case. The papers should likely be referencing one another as "under review", the cover letter should make the existence of the other paper clear, and you should likely submit it as review-only supplementary information. If you are creating "cookbook" methods, that's enough to deal with self-plagiarism. If you are creating "prose" methods, then you should explicitly note at the beginning of the section that it is shared between the two papers, thereby making an explicit declaration of shared/adapted text and defusing concerns of self-plagiarism.
Finally, if one paper ends up significantly preceding the other, such that they are not effectively co-published, then you can simply remove its references to the other publication and change the references in the second to refer to prior rather than simultaneous publication.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You might want to consider having the full detailed description of the methods in the more traditional academic paper and a streamlined version (referencing the other paper) in the policy paper.
The papers have different audiences who are interested in different things. You need the detailed methods to support your results (academic paper). Having established that the results are credible, the other paper investigates different aspects.
It's a little tricky to handle during simultaneous review - but you can supply the (anonymised version) academic paper to the policy journal as supplementary information for reviewer information. Discuss this with the editor of the policy paper journal in advance.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I intensely dislike the notion that reusing your own text across methods sections could be considered plagiarism. This is one of the stupidest bits of self-policing we've subjected ourselves to in years. There are many reasons for my objection, including:
* The first time I write something, I write it as well as I can. Writing it differently just to avoid writing it the same will make it worse. Why should I do that?
* In describing methods, precision is of utmost importance. If the methods used in two studies are the same, the descriptions should be the same to highlight this point.
* It's a waste of my time. If I write code that calls a subroutine to do a specific job, I don't code up multiple different versions of the subroutine for each call. Why should writing papers be any different?
All of that said, overreaching self-plagiarism norms are fact of contemporary academic science. If it were me, I'd duplicate the text, citing the other paper and including a note specifying that the text was duplicated. Even that may be riskier than is optimal, though.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/11/30
| 548
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<issue_start>username_0: I asked this professor for a recommendation letter last admissions season, and got a yes immediately and was very good about sending in letters.
This year it's much much harder to get a hold of them, and haven't responded to my recommendation letter email that I sent yesterday (I only sent it late this time because I figured they'd say yes) and my first deadlines are tomorrow. Would it be rude to just put the name in anyway, assuming they don't reply tomorrow? They've done it before so I figure it wouldn't be a bother for them to just re-send letters, but I'm worried it would be rude. But my future is at stake here.
Update: It ended up working out; thanks for your help.<issue_comment>username_1: You should absolutely NEVER list somebody as a recommendation without permission. Its asking for trouble. Your deadline issue is YOUR issue, not your recommenders. If time is critical, you should have mentioned that in your earlier email. You should consider a followup email, letting him know that time is critical, or even stop by is office or call.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the way this will be perceived comes down to the individual professor.
I've had a student put me down as a reference without asking, and a potential employer call me to ask about him. I didn't find it particularly rude, just a bit surprising. I was also not as well prepared as I could have been, which might have been beneficial in the conversation with the recruiter. It was also lucky that I was available to talk when I received the call. To be honest I was actually happy that the student trusted me enough to put me down as a reference. I'm not a professor, though -- maybe it makes a difference.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: The most scathing reaction I ever gave to a reference check phone call was "I'm terribly sorry, but Jim did not ask my permission to use him as a reference." I did not elaborate and the caller ended the call quickly.
There are two reasons why the professor is not being as good about providing a reference as last year:
(1) They meant to, but haven't gotten around to it.
(2) Their opinion of you has changed and they have been putting off the unpleasant task of declining the request.
Do not use someone for a reference without their permission.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/01
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<issue_start>username_0: Candidate of Sciences degree is awarded in some post-soviet countries for completing a 3-5 year research program, which has similar scientific requirements as a PhD. Here is a wikipedia article about it: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candidate_of_Sciences>
Does it make sense to go after a PhD in a European or American university after obtaining a Candidate of Sciences degree? Would a university consider enrolling a Candidate of Sciences in a PhD program? Would it be possible to apply for scholarship for it? Would an age make any difference?
Also, if I am switching fields and do not intend to work in the field, in which I did my Candidate of Sciences thesis, would it make sense to get a PhD in the field I plan to work in?
I spent some time trying to find an opportunity to get a PhD on top of my Candidate of Sciences degree, but had no success and gave up. I have plenty of job opportunities as a Candidate of Sciences, but I wonder if I will have more and better jobs available to me if I get a PhD from a western university as well.
I am leaning towards a conclusion that having good publications is much more important than getting a shinier degree. If this is the case, then doing a PhD would only make sense if it resulted in some good research results. But then isn't it better to look for post-doc positions that are solely focused on producing good research results and publications?
**Edit:** Some specific information about my situation.
My Candidate of Sciences thesis and publications are in agricultural economics. The field in which I would like to apply for either PhD or post-doc is behavioral economics. Behavioral economics has a fair share of psychology and decision sciences in it and its research methods differ so I still have quite a bit of books to read.
I do not have publications in highly ranked journals. I have two publications in agricultural economics: one in *AGRIS on-line Papers in Economics and Informatics* and the other one in *Studies in Agricultural Economics*. I also have a forthcoming publication in behavioral economics in *The International Journal of Economic Behavior*. These journals are not high ranked at all, but they do appear in some rankings.
I am the only author in all of my publications in ranked journals.
My English is good.
I'm about to hit 30.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Does it make sense to go after a PhD...
>
>
>
**To whom?**
* For someone who has published a couple of papers in Science or Nature as the first author during their *aspirantura* period, the answer is **no** — they should apply directly for a permanent post or a prestigious named Fellowship, and develop their research.
* For someone who has published several papers in top international journals, and at least one without their supervisor, the answer is probably **no** again — they should go for a postdoc or research fellow route.
* For someone who did not publish much (or did not publish in international journals), who may struggle with English a bit, and/or not quite on top of the methods and hot topics in their research area, the answer may be **yes**. Having a PhD from a well-known university definitely improves the position on a competitive academic job market. More importantly, it can provide you with a set of *soft skills* (networking, presentations, etc) which many post-Soviet institutions are not very strong at sometimes.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Try to publish in good journals alone. If it goes through smoothly, then you do not need PhD.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently finished my PhD and continued to work at the same department as assistant professor. Amid lack of funding, and other academic joys, the department went an extra mile to procure my contract and I was assigned to interesting longterm projects. So from the academic perspective I should consider myself very lucky (most people fight for an uncertain short postdoc position), and the conditions for work are quite good in comparison to other departments in the field.
However, just a few months into the position, I decided to leave academia altogether, exclusively for financial reasons. I always accepted some pay gap in comparison to the industry, but recently I run into a few former classmates from undergrad, visited their companies to discuss collaborations, but suddenly ended up in getting a few job offers in comparison to which my current position looks quite inferior. The difference in the salary leaves me no option but to accept one of the offers. Also, since this happened I became quite demotivated to work.
I am expected to start in a few months. What would be the best communication strategy to my department? Considering that they did quite a lot, and I am in a position which looks perfect to them.
Unfortunately stating upfront the financial reason would be awkward and probably not understood, as talking about personal finances in most academic settings is frowned upon, and there is a culture which expects people to be happy with the academic salaries.<issue_comment>username_1: 1. Express that you have enjoyed working in your department. (Even if this is not entirely true.)
2. Explain that you are only leaving because of an opportunity "too exciting to turn down." Don't volunteer exactly *why* it is exciting; if asked, talk about what you'll be *doing*, not what you'll be paid.
3. If there's a way you can help the department while you're in industry -- serving on a committee, helping with accreditation, accepting an intern, things like that -- it would be kind of you (though it is not obligatory) to volunteer unasked.
4. Keep your resignation letter short and cordial.
These tactics should suffice to keep your departure as amicable as it can be, assuming you're doing the normal things to minimize disruption (e.g. not leaving mid-term).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: <NAME>, or perhaps it was <NAME>, wrote: "Never apologise, never explain."
It is sufficient when resigning from any employment engagement to simply state that fact together with the effective date. A cordial thanks for the opportunities afforded at your present position together with an expression of appreciation for the colleagues that you have encountered there are customary when appropriate and are best omitted when not.
There is no requirement to provide any further details whatsoever. Offering vague platitudes respecting 'other opportunities' in their place simply state the obvious and often prove more awkward for both the writer and the reader than anything else.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/01
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<issue_start>username_0: My paper got accepted in [AEÜ](http://www.journals.elsevier.com/aeu-international-journal-of-electronics-and-communications/). I want to make some changes in my article. Can I rewrite some sentences when reviewing the proofs from the journal?<issue_comment>username_1: If the article has been accepted my understanding that it is very poor form to change anything that is not grammar/spelling etc.
If you change the meaning of a sentence in any way, even without meaning to, you may change the interpretation of the work in a small way - therefore this is no longer the work that has been accepted, but a different document.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: The key word in your question is "some."
If "some" refers to a small number (less than about 10), and the "rewrites" are relatively minor, this should not be a problem. On the other hand, if you have an extensive list of changes spanning multiple pages, and the changes affect the interpretation and argumentation of the article, then the publisher will likely balk at making all of the changes without obtaining editorial approval
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Previously, I also did the same. For a minor change, it is valid (specially for text) to do some corrections in the paper. However, change in any form of result must be made only after getting approval from the Editor-in-chief of the journal.
Hope, my comments will help you!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: In my experience, most journals send the proofs with instructions saying that you should only make changes where errors have been introduced during copy-editing or typesetting. That is, you should correct the journal's errors, not your own. Nevertheless, I've occasionally spotted a few (fewer than 5, even in a long paper) small errors of my own, proposed corrections, and never had any trouble. If I found errors of my own on every second page, I'd be very embarrassed and I'm not sure how publishers would react.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/12/02
| 2,382
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a professor who grades all his exams by himself (homework, midterm and probably the final). For whatever reason he seems to be a likeable guy during the lecture but he absolutely "wrecks" the homeworks, etc. when he grades.
For example, if you make a little error he will put a huge X across the page or over the entire question. Absolutely massive. And sometimes he will circle a solution or step he does not understand and write ??????????? in red. Finally, this didn't happen to me but happened to a class mate of mine, he wrote "fail" on a question that had some problems with the solution. Now I remember he put "big problem" on one of my answers, taking out all marks, without further comment.
Also he sometimes do not thoroughly read through a question but just marks it wrong, then he changes the marking a few moments later i.e. he will write a huge X over the entire question and put a minus whatever the total points and then scratch out his reading mistake but leaves the huge X there. His marking is also uneven, sometimes he will put -5 for a question and then for whatever reason scratchs it out with a red pen and put -10.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZYyUR.png)
(picture this, but imagine that the X is over your entire answer)
Honestly, I find that not just homeworks, but also emails. I think he has a way of overreacting to any little thing he doesn't see fit. For example, I asked him a simple question I had regarding some reference I found online which disagreed with his lecture. He said I need to review basic "insert course name here" because everything I said to him is totally wrong. Then I emailed him back telling him that the claim was contained in the link, by another professor. He just replied I should write my emails more clearly next time...what a guy.
By the way he never clarified that issue I emailed him about, which I think he believes is trivial and only tangetial to the course (he tends to cover only portions of his sum total lectures), but a question is a question even if it is not on the exam, isn't it?
Is his behavior reasonable? It just feels like he is on this power trip whenever he grades stuff. I am scared to approach him because I feel like he marked one of my question wrong after he wrote a huge X and probably discontinued to read my solution which was written on the back of the exam. What should I do?<issue_comment>username_1: I would recommend approaching this by thinking about the following question: **what is your goal in *receiving* grades**?
Some things that we commonly do with the grades that we receive are:
* Use them as feedback on our strengths and weaknesses in understanding material
* Certify our degree of education, thereby obtaining further opportunities
* Obtain personal validation from good grades
It sounds to me like you're focusing primarily on the personal validation that you can receive from the professor. Otherwise, it would be the marks you receive that matter, rather than the size of the X used to mark them. I would suggest that you instead focus on the more concrete gains that you can obtain from the class, whether intellectual (point #1) or material (point #2).
In that light, the *style* of markings does not matter, but the precision of his grading does. When you are concerned that he has not graded you correctly, go to office hours and seek understanding of the reason for a grade. Perhaps he is being sloppy, or perhaps not---but if you approach him with an entitled attitude such as you are showing in your question here, you are unlikely to obtain the information that you desire.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you have problems with your professor's grading policy, there are a few ways to address this problem:
1) As mentioned earlier, you could attend office hours.
2) If, after a visit with the professor, you feel you have not received a satisfactory response, you will always have the option of appealing to the professor's supervisor - depending on the college, this person may be the head of the department for the relevant discipline.
3) If it is not too late, drop the course. This is what I did when I had a professor with a bad grading policy. Note: While I knew I could not get a refund due to the timing, I thought I would be able to register for another class at no additional cost. However, this was not so. Luckily, an Admissions and Records official approved my petition for a refund.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: You will find that your future is filled with busy people who will read what you write as quickly and with as little preparation and attention as they possibly can. If what you write is not immediately, transparently clear, your words will be filed in the "get back to this if there is ever time" pile. (Spoiler: there is never time.) This has consequences:
* Say what you mean.
* Mean what you say.
* Get to the point.
* If there is a standard way to say what you are saying, say it in the standard way. The mental cost of parsing standard forms is much lower than parsing novel forms.
* Produce valid sentences. The mental cost of parsing malformed sentences is much higher than that of parsing valid sentences. (Example of a malformed sentence: refusing to put equals signs between a sequence of equal things. As a result, that sentence no verb.)
Let's express the same idea in terms of grading: The grader reads through your answer until they can no longer see how you are making progress towards a solution. Based on the fraction of the (or a) correct solution you have produced by the time the grader aborts their attempt to make sense of your answer, a grade is assigned. The more harried the grader is, the less hard they will attempt to overcome deficiencies in your answer. The same five points apply. Unless the class actually is Creative Writing, the grader will not absorb and reflect on your answers; if they don't see that what you are writing is correct, it's wrong.
Let me tell you a story: I teach math. I have a one page "How To Write [subject]" that I provide every semester. It contains useful advice: "1. Draw a picture. 2. Label the picture. 3. Write top-to-bottom, left-to-write. ..." When I share this with my friends that teach at other Universities, they cannot stop laughing. "You have to tell them to write top-to-bottom, left-to-write?" Yes. Mysteriously, there are students in college who have not yet noticed that all of the long form textual information they read is in the same format, so they write their math in small islands randomly scattered on the page. If I had infinite time, I would go to the trouble of figuring out what order their answer is to be read and piece together whatever argument they were trying to make. However, life is short and this is not the only problem to be graded -- once the amount of effort to make sense of the answer exceeds the time available to do so, it gets whatever grade it gets.
On changing grades. I have done this. On a particular problem, students were to compute the surface area of the non-circular part of a cone. One student bafflingly had too much area but their computation was scattered around a diagram, so I it was not clear what they were doing. (Actually writing, "First, we compute ..." and "Then we find ..." would be great. It would be as if the answer were written in the style that one would answer the question in direct conversation. But for some reason students refuse to construct their answers in this fashion.) Several papers later, I found another student who had the same incorrect answer but they had organized their answer so it was possible to figure out that they had included the area of the circle. "Aha!" said my brain, "that's what that previous student did." I then went back and adjusted the grade. (The student *had* demonstrated the skill "compute this area", although they had obfuscated this fact.)
I require my students to write identities in columns -- this has a number of benefits. On the first assignment involving identities, I put friendly reminders that identities are written in columns and indicate with boxes and arrows where the student's work should be. On the second assignment, I just refer to "How to Write [subject]" by item number. On the third assignment, refer to the item number and take off a few points. By the fourth assignment, I just write a big, red "X" on answers that are not in the form that has been called out on three prior assignments, and both repeatedly demonstrated and called out in class.
No one will force you to drive on the correct side of the road, or not run with scissors. However, the action of failing to conform to conventions will have their own consequences. With as little context as you have provided for the instances of grading that you do not seem to like, it is difficult to draw any conclusions. Nothing you have written is inconsistent with things I have done in my own grading. Perhaps you and some of my students think that I am mean for doing this. But this is false. If I were *mean* I would tell my students: "I look forward to the future for my children, who can write complete sentences respecting margins and correctly fill out forms. They will have an easy time competing with you for resources. Why? Someone with a pile of 100 requisitions, or 100 proposals, or 100 resumes is not looking for a reason to keep every document; they're looking for a reason to discard them. And 'can't follow simple instructions' is an excellent reason to discard."
Perhaps you feel I am harsh. Excellent. Get out there and change the World so that what I have said is no longer true. I recommend that you find valid solutions to the World's problems and that you explain them clearly and cogently so that everyone can benefit from your wisdom. (Also, keep it short. Until all our problems are fixed, no one has time for long, complicated explanations. If you can't, you're just going to get the listener's equivalent to a big, red "X" -- they stop listening, switch channels, un-friend you, drop your message in "Spam", et al.)
Upvotes: 4
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2015/12/02
| 1,573
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<issue_start>username_0: As a CS PhD student, I'm often surprised at how few papers econ students have when they go into the job market. Even students at top universities typically have 3-4 papers, mostly still unpublished, whereas it is not uncommon for CS students to have more than 10 papers by the time they graduate -- some CS *undergraduates* already have 3-4 papers or more. As this [blog post](https://agtb.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/tips-for-cs-econ-students-on-the-business-school-and-operations-research-job-markets/) confirms:
>
> CS candidate typically have many papers while economics students typically have only a few polished papers.
>
>
>
I can see a few reasons that contribute to this, but I don't think they satisfactorily explain the phenomenon.
* Econ students often spend the first year only focusing on classes and qual exam. However, a 1-year difference in a 5-6-year program is not that much, and CS has classes and qual exam of its own, though admittedly more relaxed.
* The publication venue for econ is journals whereas CS publishes in conferences. However, top CS conferences usually have acceptance rates of 15-30% and people spend a lot of effort polishing their papers before the deadline, so I'm not sure how much more polished econ papers can be, whatever "polished" means. Moreover, many CS conference papers are turned into journal papers without major additional contribution.
* The econ job market places a great deal of importance on a single "job market paper", so there is less incentive to work on other papers. However, wouldn't other papers to go along with the job market paper help toward a better profile? Even if econ students don't want to start big projects, there are journals such as [Economics Letters](http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economics-letters/) that accept shorter papers, whose website even says explicitly: "especially young researchers and advanced graduate students are encouraged to submit their articles."
As I said, I don't think the reasons I described satisfactorily explain this huge difference in number. What am I missing?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't believe what you say is univesally true of all CS areas; it is certainly not true of mine. But more to your point, based on my conversations with colleagues in economics, one factor (possibly of several) is definitely the submission-to-publication delay: A conference turnaround is about three months, but a journal can be much longer, especially if major revisions are involved.
[Here's some insight on the subject (published a while ago).](http://web.mit.edu/gellison/www/jrnem.pdf)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Complementing the answer from the CS perspective, here are some thoughts from the economics one. My experience is a bit dated, mostly in theoretical microeconomics, and for candidates at the better ranked schools.
1. There has been increasing pressure to not have a 5+ year graduation rate, instead, to finish in 4 or at the latest 5 years. The pressure ranges from gentle nudging, hard funding limits, to termination. In the 90s, my program had a number of 8th year students (and longer); around 2000, I've seen actual evictions (or attempts to evict) happening over progress considered insufficiently fast. This obviously limits your ability to produce a large numbers of papers.
2. Except in unusual cases, the amount of coursework in the first year makes research impossible; and the one in the second, unlikely. The first quarter of my second year, I got by on 3-5 hours of sleep per night (no hyperbole). Students are likely working on smaller projects during the summer of their first year, but those rarely lead to useful papers. Considering that you need a strong job market paper about 9 months prior to graduating, this leaves 15 months (to 4 year graduation), or 27 months (to 5 year), which isn't too rich to have the polished paper you need.
3. Theoretical work in microeconomics is mathematical to the extent that few people are ready to engage in contemporary research prior to having taken certain elective classes in their second year. It can happen, but most take extensive preparation in stochastics, or algebraic topology, or similar. While the level of mathematical proficiency doesn't compare to a math PhD, it arguably puts the degree closer to one (or probably theoretical CS, or such), in which the number of papers is low too.
4. A paper in Economic Letters is fairly useless on the job market when competing for the good jobs. It's quality, not quantity that counts; and the quality journals (for this sub field) include Econometrica, AER, JET, and such. You are likely to be measured by the quality of the journal of your first publication; if it's in the above, you are likely a rising star, if not, it might be seen as "That's the best we can expect from you after hiring you?". While I know of exceptions (e.g., a job market star publishing his first (joint) paper in a second-tier journal as it grew out of his Masters thesis), it isn't common. He got his faculty position for his unpublished work-in-progress job market paper (later published in Econometrica).
5. The attitude to value quality over quantity extends to tenure decisions. The just mentioned economist has 21 publications in 17 years as faculty (and 4 as a graduate student). This is exactly one per year over his academic career as an economist (if we count graduate school); and he's tenured at a top 3 institution. While there are extremely prolific economists, quantity isn't generally the way to success at the top.
6. Further to 4., competition to publish in the mentioned top journals, their quality standards, and long submission turn-around time, mean that there is nearly no chance to have a publication that matters (those friends who eventually published their job market papers in Econometrica did so several years after graduating - in the two cases coming to mind, 3 or 4 years after, from memory).
7. There is (or at least used to be) also close to no (no?) market to present papers-in-progress prior to being on the job market, except for any internal forum. Speakers invited to give talks at another department are faculty elsewhere, and you attend the big conferences to listen and meet people, but rarely if ever to show your work (if you even do attend). This is only a comment on something stated elsewhere here.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/12/02
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<issue_start>username_0: I used to be in a field where journals were much more prestigious than conferences, so I kept journals and conferences in separate sections (assuming that people would care a lot less about the conferences). Now I have switched to computer science, where conferences are the main venue of publication, and my only first-author paper is now a conference paper. Do I still keep journals and conferences separate? It feels weird to put my only first-author paper in the same section as a random poster presentation my coauthor gave.
I'm also thinking of having one section for "publications," and listing all the papers reverse-chronologically, except for the non-important conferences, which I'd put at the end.<issue_comment>username_1: It's a hard question since you're likely to confuse CS folks who have different experiences with how conferences and journals compare for quality and selectivity between your old field and CS. In my PhD field, conferences rarely had an actual paper, and were usually just a talk based on a submitted abstract with no peer review. CS tends to have strong archival papers with good peer review at its conferences with occasional post-publication of selected conference papers in journals.
I would have 3 sections: Journals, Peer-reviewed Conference Papers, and Conferences. Whether the latter is just talks and/or non-peer-reviewed papers, you should label the entries clearly.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I work with this situation myself right now, as I am active simultaneously in two fields with these opposing publication cultures. This is further complicated by the fact that some of the publications I am most proud of are not peer reviewed in any fashion (e.g., standards documents).
I thus simply organize all of my publications according to categories and try to include enough information that people from different fields may at least understand that there is a culture gap. The current categories in my CV are:
* Journal Articles
* Book Chapters & Theses
* Peer-Reviewed Conference Articles
* Peer-Reviewed Conference Abstracts
* Workshops, Symposia, and Seminars
* Published Whitepapers and Technical Reports
This allows me to distinguish between conferences that people should take seriously ("Peer-Reviewed Conference Articles") and those which they should view as "light weight" ("Peer-Reviewed Conference Abstracts"). Conference poster presentations that haven't even received meaningful peer review I don't even list at this point, though at an earlier stage I would have put them down as another category.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Create a field called **Most notable publications** and put both of them there. You may decide to sub-divide it by the field or not, but you need not sub-divide it by the publication type. Rather, you can distinguish proceedings and papers by the format:
>
> <NAME>. *My Article on ABC.* Journal of DEF **55**(3):500–540, 2010.
>
>
> <NAME>. *My Conference Paper on KLM.* In: “International Congress on NOP” (Atlantis, 2013), Proceeding Series in QRS **5187**:350–355, 2014.
>
>
>
This distinction is so clear that nobody should be confused. Also, you can then make a list of **All publications** or **Other publications**, if you want to make the CV longer, but that depends on the reason why you write the CV and on your preference.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/12/02
| 1,156
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<issue_start>username_0: **update: My application has already been accepted! Thanks to everyone who has provided me valuable suggestions. I really appreciate your help! This is an important lesson to me: "Don't leave your work until the last minute"**
I just missed the my grad school application deadline....... This is the biggest and most serious mistake I ever made in my life...
This university locates in the Central timezone so I assumed its application deadline was 11:59pm CST. Before I submitted my application, I rechecked everything out of a habit. Then I clicked to submit my application at 11:10pm CST but found that it couldn't be submitted because I was unable to choose the term of enrolment. I first thought it was an internet or technical problem so I restarted my search engine a few times but it still didn't work. At that time, I realized that the deadline might be in EST! (confirmed, as I could still choose term of enrollment for my application to another department in the same university whose deadline is at a later time).
I already sent the department with screenshot of my application with time displayed on the side, along with my application materials. I will also be calling the department first thing in the morning tomorrow to make an appeal. Taking the advice provided by the folks who responded to my question, I am also going to contact my prospective advisor for help.
Is there anything else I can do?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I just missed the my grad school application deadline....... This is the biggest and most serious mistake I even made in my life...
>
>
>
If that's really true, then what a great life you've had. You'll bounce back from this and be back to sunshine and roses sooner or later.
>
> [D]oes anyone of you know if the department would accept my late application in this instance?
>
>
>
Of course not [i.e., we don't know], because you haven't told us what department you've applied to.
>
> Is there anything else I can do? I am even too shamed to contact my prospective advisor regarding this situation.
>
>
>
Taking you at your word, letting shame prevent you from talking to your prospective advisor is the biggest and most serious mistake you've ever made in your life. Don't do that. Talk to your prospective advisor as soon as possible. (There is no need to write about it in a panicked or alarmed tone. If this really all just happened in the last two hours, it is quite likely that you'll hear from the admissions personnel as well. But calmly informing your prospective advisor of the situation will be helpful. If *she* tells the department that it was not your fault that your application was not submitted on time, it can only help your case.) If it's very soon, there's at least a reasonable shot that this can be straightened out. The worst case scenario is that you may have to apply elsewhere or up to one year later. This is suboptimal and you should do what you can to avoid it, but it would not ruin your life. Really.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You should certainly get in touch with both the department and your prospective advisor, but I would recommend against emphasizing the time zone issue. Without some explicit confirmation, I'm skeptical that it is the real explanation, since it would be strange to set a strict deadline based on a different and earlier time zone from the one the university is in. Instead, I would guess that the deadline was substantially earlier than 11:59pm. For example, [Harvard](https://www.gsas.harvard.edu/prospective_students/application_instructions_and_information.php) has strict graduate application deadlines at 5pm Eastern time, and I think this is not uncommon. (One plausible interpretation of a December 1 deadline is "during business hours on December 1", although I'd bet that 11:59pm is a more common interpretation.)
If you emphasize the time zone issue, there's a risk they will simply tell you that you weren't close enough to the deadline for the time zone to matter. Instead, I'd recommend focusing on the ambiguity: if they didn't specify the precise time for the deadline, then any reasonable interpretation of "December 1" should be accepted, and 11:59pm CT is a reasonable interpretation.
If they never specified the exact deadline time anywhere, then they screwed up and I think you have a strong case to submit your application slightly late. However, they may well have stated the time in some obscure webpage, and just not have communicated it clearly. Then the situation becomes much murkier, if you could in principle have found the precise deadline time but couldn't reasonably have been expected to find it. If that's the case, then having faculty members at this university on your side may make a big difference (so getting your prospective advisor on board will be a key step).
Upvotes: 4
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2015/12/02
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<issue_start>username_0: In ads about faculty positions, I often read phrases like "We are seeking candidates with interests in X, Y, and Z, but other related areas will also be considered"
In such cases, do candidates not specialized in X, Y or Z have a chance? Or how "exceptional" do they have to be in order to have a chance?<issue_comment>username_1: To the best of my understanding, that generally means that they really do want a candidate in X, Y, and Z.
However, every candidate and every search is unique, and it might turn out to be the case that somebody good with an unusual combination that doesn't exactly match X, Y, and Z turns up, or that a candidate who is just too good to miss turns up, or that something changes internally during the search process (searches are often negotiated with a university far in advance), or some other such unexpected circumstance. If something like this does come to pass, then the "related areas" clause lets them make the hiring decision they want, even if it doesn't match what was originally written.
Bottom line: yes, there is a chance, but it is probably very very small.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer to your (real) question is: Apply anyway. A department's hiring strategy is many times not fully expressed by an ad, never mind the fact that it's something in constant motion.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2015/12/02
| 4,296
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<issue_start>username_0: Why do many academics write short replies to emails?
For example, I write Professor MK some polite email with salutation, etc., just polite and decent email. MK then responds like this:
>
> OK, MK
>
>
>
Is MK so busy that they have no time to write, for example, this:
>
> Hello,
>
>
> It is fine. This is the correct approach.
>
>
> Best regards,
> MK
>
>
>
I do not understand this.<issue_comment>username_1: Is *hello* acceptable, or should it be more formal (with or without academic titles)? This is a matter of (sub-)culture. Once you know what to expect, you can effectively communicate. This style is minimalist, but it tells you everything you need to know.
If this bothers you, think of it this way: MK is not only saving their time, but they are also saving your time. By using this style it minimizes the time you have to spent reading their message.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Beyond a certain point in their careers, academics (in particular tenured professors) are essentially a subspecies of managers.
And managers literally receive hundreds of emails per day. Some of these indeed require a more formal response, or a lot of work before you can even compose an answer. If you get 20 emails that each require half an hour of work, 50 more that only require a yes/no answer, and another 100 that are just FYI, *you don't spend a lot of time on crafting replies to the yes/no mails*... because the first category alone already is more than you can handle in a normal day, given all your other responsibilities.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: My experience as a professor is exactly the opposite. I write full emails, and most often students' replies have no heading, nor greeting, nor signature.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: E-mail is its own medium, and in some ways is closer to spoken conversation or text-messaging than to letter writing. Many experienced E-mail users dispense with formalisms and basically just write what they woukd say if you asked the question in person. Salutations and valedictions are considered entirely optional. The informality is in no way a sign of disrespect, it's just a different set of social conventions, and I'm afraid the best advice we can give you is to learn to accept it as such. You aren't required to become less formal in your own E-mails, but I suspect that you will, once you get used to it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: A lot of people prefer small mails with meaning rather than large mails that tells nothing. Some benefits:
1. You save time, if you reply a lot of email this is a really reason
2. You skip all the large mails, that is boring and time consuming for others to read.
3. You get directly to the point.
Small replies is a habit not only for the academic staff but also for the business people.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: TL;DR: I completely understand the need to be efficient, but I think that the optimal (to maximize the average pleasure that can be derived from human interactions) ratio of politeness to efficiency lies way above "OK, MK".
I personally disagree with the view that saving time and being polite/considerate are mutually exclusive or even inversely correlated beyond the most minimal of ratios.
Turning that "OK, MK" reply into "This is the right direction, thanks for the update" takes an extra 2 seconds, not even. While it can be generic in its design, it certainly can still be genuine the same way that even though we say "thank you" a million times a day, it can be meaningful every single time.
Should we stop holding the door for people so as to save a few seconds here and there? To me it's exactly the same argument. People are busy, and yes you do take a few seconds extra to hold the door for someone, but it's a nice gesture and personally I think that small gestures of respect and helpfulness such as those increase the overall quality of life in society.
Actually I strongly believe (no research unfortunately, for those who believe that nothing can be stated just from observation without properly methodologized research), a lot can be said about a society based on the manners of its participants. Just think about how you feel around poorly mannered people and children in particular.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: Functionally, e-mail replaces several different forms of paper communication. The question treats e-mail as a form of letter writing, which is certainly one of the predecessor forms.
I think the very short reply replaces a different form. When we used paper memos, a recipient could indicate agreement by writing "OK" or similar on the memo and initialing it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: It depends a lot on the culture. I think professors (for example) implicitly have the right to short or curt emails regardless. In the United states, I think if you are polite to your teachers (avoid the word professor) , you don't have to worry too much about writing long elaborate emails. For example you can call them by their first name rather than using a title.
>
> Hi John, I was curious if x. Thanks, and then just use your first name in the signature.
>
>
>
Think of emails in the Unites States as "business casual" - well dressed but not ornate.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: They mean different things. "OK" means you have approval to continue as outlined in your email. "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach." means that the other person has specific positive knowledge that (a) there is a known correct approach and (b) what you've described in your email is that.
It would be wrong for someone, in an attempt to add extra words to their email for the sake of polite encouragement, to say something that isn't what they really mean.
At risk of perpetrating a stereotype, academics are more likely than average to be the kind of people, and operate in the kind of environment, where accuracy of expression is valued over diplomatic platitudes and polite but unwarranted praise. Whatever their subject, they're familiar with the notion of precision. But it's not just academics: you'll often find enclaves in professional environments where people customarily do the same thing in email. You'll also find groups who *don't* communicate this way in email, rather they always write complete sentences. You'll find people who do different things for different audiences. Maybe this academic is one of them, but since they've offended you they have perhaps misjudged what kind of audience you are. But equally you seem to expect everyone to write complete sentences all the time, and that's just not how everyone uses email.
That's not to say academics are always rude, or that it's necessary to be inaccurate in order to be polite: one can always be accurate and *also* take time to be considerate. But if you consider it impolite or indecent for a reasonably busy person to give a curt but accurate reply, then you're swimming against the tide and you will probably need to consider again :-)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: You should not think of the choice as being "OK, MK" versus "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach. Best regards, MK".
You should think of the choice as being "OK, MK" versus **WAITING THREE DAYS** and then receiving "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach. Best regards, MK".
From this perspective, your professor has shown you great respect by doing what is necessary for them to *respond to your email **promptly***.
(I can say from personal experience that I switched this semester to signing my e-mails to students simply "TC" instead of "Best, username_10". The result is that I respond ~1.5 days faster on average to e-mails from students. I feel this is clearly worth the tradeoff in politeness.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_11: As someone who has a lot of emails to respond to, my approach is the following:
On first contact for a particular conversation thread, I tend to be complete, with "Dear/Hello xxx", and proper conclusion salutations. Further extensions of the conversations then I pick shorter responses, as the "contact" has been established. Sometimes a conversation can extend over a period of days, even in this case, I use the short form as a continuation.
The reason is the following: the cost of writing the email is **not** the net time required to type in the words. It's context switching. The polite forms of communication are polite exactly for the reason that they invest **full attention** to the other person. This is ok for a party or a social event, but if you have papers, grants, reviews to handle, lectures to give and 100 emails to respond to, ideally today, attention is a scarce resource. The other side of the politeness coin is respect for the resource constraints of others.
So, when, on the other extreme, I have to write very long, detailed, emails, I prepend them with a 1-2 paragraph summary, so that people can get a (TL;DR) if they do not want to delve into details.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_12: In the age of written letters, email once was meant for short messages, and used by very few people. When I was younger, it was not (always) considered offensive to write something in the "Subject field" only ("back in my office in 5min"). Mail was meant to inform, shortly.
A friend of mine had a PhD advsisor (before 2000) who, when my friend had sent a "too long" mail, answered in 6 letters: "PLSSPK", meaning "please speak": come to my office, explain in spoken language. Mail is not efficient for everything (try humor, 2nd degree without emoticons).
Now, nobody writes letters anymore, mail is widespread, and some use it for control, to keep track. Some use it to avoid direct contact. Good reasons. The problem is people using mail do not have the same standard.
From "PLSSPK" in the subject, to "Good morning, or good evening if you read my mail at your own timezone" followed by tens of lines, there are worlds. It is about habits, responsiveness, context switching, all good reasons.
Nowadays, I have surendered to long emails because most of my colleagues expect me to do that. They would feel offended if I don't. But on occasion, face to face, I suggest we both could write shorter emails, and ask if the other would feel offended. Very often, not.
It's like shaking hands: some don't like to do that, feel obliged to ([and it is not healthy, smile](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3HVg5RLLzA)). If you ask her/him how they'd like to be salutated, they'd say: "just say hello, or nod". It is a manner of personal trend, and social conventions.
My suggestion: if you cannot see or talk to the person, accept that he/she has answered you, not the way you would have, but in her/his way. And stick to your own way of answering. If you can talk to the person, ask (politely) about these habits, find a common ground. Say something like "You answer quite shortly. I am not used to that (express you feelings, important). Where did this habit come from. Do you mind if I still write long emails, or would you prefer shorter ones?".
People act differently, this does not mean they are SO different.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_13: Of course there is some truth in all these answers... Equally, in my opinion, there is the subtext of the relationship between the correspondents, whether it is stable (if not "peer"), or whether it is yet-to-be-established, possibly peer, possibly not.
The slightly-red herring of "efficiency" is interesting, but I think fundamentally an excuse for taking slightly less care than one might, whether with up-status or down-status correspondents. Yes, if one email is among many in a flurry of back-and-forth between familiars, that's wildly different from isolated emails between strangers who have yet to establish a relationship.
The probably more statistically-relevant question could be about students emailing their instructors, and the replies. If the goal is to show respect, then use of an honorific, and investment of an extra 10 seconds to format the email, is an investment with a great return.
About more-senior students and faculty supervisors: same criterion... namely, if your goal should happen to be conveying a token of respect (as opposed to conveying familiarity), a few seconds' effort will be well repaid. (If a particular person really wants to be first-named, give them the chance to tell you that, rather than presuming, or even asking... the principle is always the same.)
If the person you're addressing is older than your parents, maybe as old or older than your grandparents, ... if nothing else you should imagine that they have had a different cultural experience. Not necessarily better or worse, but different. In particular, some decades ago, in the U.S., in my experience, youngish people would never address older people by first names, except in highly ritualized ways/settings. Some older people in fact chose "radical seeming-familiarity" in their interactions with younger people. This slightly confused me at the time, although, on one hand, it seemed sooo egalitarian. On another, as I thought about later, it is only the really, really powerful people who can afford to pretend to not be what they obviously are. Hm.
(FWIW, my 20-something daughter makes a caricature of first-naming me both in person and in email (and in text), but fairly tongue-in-cheek.)
Bottom line: take into account your recipient. They may have expectations (duh!)... which may or may not include courting "familiarity" in language. They may or may not feel that their own status allows them to be curt with you, should they feel the need... sigh...
Another summary: if the primary information in the emails is pseudo-objective, probably people will be less interested in the social information. On the other hand, if there are significant social issues being negotiated by voice, language, tone, form-of-address, etc., then ... well, gosh, yes, voice, language, tone, form-of-address will matter.
Edit: the form of responses to your emails certainly does convey something about the attitude of the responder... however, it depends (apparently!) enormously on the preferences of that person. There are at least four different cases... (1) brusque, brief, and in fact is not interested in you (2) brusque, brief, but may or may not care about you (3) polite, but does not really care about you (4) polite, and may possibly care about further interaction, but it's unclear from this preliminary communication. You cannot begin to understand the nuances of response to a "cold-call" email without knowing the person and their preferences.
TL;DR, context.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: Lots of good points in the replies, but I think we're collectively overthinking this.
**Email culture varies** as to length and formality. It varies by country, language, sector (including academia vs industry vs business), and by subgroup/industry. It's pointless to overthink it.
It sounds like Prof. MK feels their 2-word reply says all that needs to be said. **It probably did not occur to them that anyone, e.g. you, would feel differently.**
As a 2nd order point, Prof. MK probably feels **secure enough in their position to not think too much how their email is coming across**, while more junior people may anxiously reread and rewrite their emails multiple times to get the tone "just right". It's even possible that Prof. MK might find what you call "polite and decent" emails overlong and fluffy, and might even be trying to telegraph that to you. Impossible to tell.
**Don't take it personally.** Be happy they're in agreement with your approach. And perhaps take it as a gentle nudge to be briefer in your own emails with them. We're all always adjusting our tone based on what we observe around us.
I spend my time weaving across the line between academia and industry/business. Especially on the business side, "OK, [initials]" is fully acceptable and neutrally polite. As is your alternative, though *in that subculture* it would be worth a bit of an amused smirk.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_15: Those short emails will happen more frequently if you are in a good relationship with him.
"OK" is good signal. If he find mistakes in your writing, he will point them out in his long email. You don't want such a long email from him, do you?
Short email also happen more in natural science comparing to social science. It happens more in large group than small group. If you are his only advisee, he might spend more time on you. But if he has 30 advisees in all undergrad, master, phd, pos-doc levels and 200 students in the class he is teaching, short email should be appreciated.
Short email will also shorten the "turn-around" time. If you want him to send long email to everyone, you might need to wait for days for that reply. But if you are fine with concise and clear email, then you only need to wait for a few hours.
Also, a lot people is use the email as a real-time chatting platform. In such platform you don't say "hello" and sign your name each time. You just write the same way as you talk.
I like short emails as long as they are clear and rigorous.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/02
| 517
| 2,105
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<issue_start>username_0: I've just recently learned about BibTeX, rather than manually making a bibliography at the end of everything I write. Now I'd like a reliable source for the citation info.
At school I can use MathSciNet through my university's account, but at home I cannot access that. I have been using Google Scholar to find citation info in BibTeX format but I find that *very* frequently the year listed is wrong, so I need to dig up the article and double check everything. Just to take the most recent example *Lectures in Hyperbolic Geometry* by Benedetti and Petronio is listed as having been printed in 2012, but in my copy of the book it says 1992.
Perhaps it is giving me dates of reprints or something, but that is no good either. Having the date of the original publication is important when surveying the historical context of one's work, which is especially relevant to what I'm writing lately.
Is there a more reliable database for BibTeX-formatted citation info on math articles, which can be accessed for free?<issue_comment>username_1: For mathematical articles I'm not aware of any citation database of (nearly) as good quality as MatSciNet --- your university is probably also paying a significant subscription fee for it.
As <NAME> already mentioned, you can probably access it from home via your university's library. There is actually an even simpler method (at least with a laptop): while at your university you can "pair your device" to automatically have access under your university account for 90 days, when you need to repair it. See the green/blue icon in the top-left corner of MathSciNet, linking to <http://www.ams.org/pairing/pair_my_device.html>
If you have a desktop at home, you might also do this though a VPN or library site of the university, and then you're set for the next 90 days.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The AMS has a site [MRef](http://www.ams.org/mathscinet-mref) through which anyone can freely get citation information, in BibTeX among other formats, for everything in MathSciNet's database.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/03
| 2,675
| 10,788
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<issue_start>username_0: I am considering quitting my PhD in computer science, because after doing a software engineering internship I realized I enjoy that kind of work much more.
My advisor has been very kind to me, on both a professional and a personal level, and if I quit it might make her look bad. She is an assistant professor and I was her first student. I do not want people to think she was the one who made me quit.
Are people going to wonder if she was the reason I quit?
How much of an effect would this have on her career?<issue_comment>username_1: Without knowing more about your situation, it is hard to estimate the magnitude the effect on your advisor's reputation. Under normal circumstances, however, this effect would be minimal. Everyone understands that students may choose not to complete a PhD for any number of reasons.
But what I can tell you is that (1) you have zero obligation to continue for the sake of your advisor, (2) you need to do what is right for you and (3) any harm to her career from you quitting will be vastly smaller than the harm to you and your career, where ever that may lie, from continuing if a pursuing PhD is not in your best interest.
**Addendum**: *Based on information provided in a comment below, apparently the OP is the advisor's first student. This might be a bit different, perhaps, especially if the department has expectations that an advisor graduate students before tenure and there are not others in the queue. Hopefully this is not the case. It seems perhaps reasonable to expect an advisor to be able to recruit students before tenure, but it is in no one's best interest to demand that he or she graduate students before tenure. Still, I've seen that expected on rare occasion. Other examples of "not normal" circumstances would be cases in which an advisor already had a worrisome track record of driving students out of the lab or out of the program. In this case, it might be more reasonable for people to be concerned, particularly if supported by other sources of evidence that the advisor was failing to do right by his or her students.*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I read your original post; allow me to respond to *that* first. In my opinion, based on the information you provide, you may want to examine your Ph.D. situation ignoring the internship for the moment. Do you enjoy what you're doing? Do you like working with your adviser? Is it a good learning experience? Do you value the prospect of holding a Ph.D.?
If the answer is Yes, I would caution you against jumping to conclusions based on an internship. Internships are good fun, in fact they are meant to be since the goal is for you to fall in love with the company as much as they are the other way (if not more). A Ph.D. is a bet on the long run (as is a college degree) and there are sacrifices involved.
If the answer is No, you have a tough decision to make and I can't really tell you what you should do, but in general it wouldn't seem wise to stick to something you dislike or not enjoy.
In general I would disregard what "people have been saying." You have not experienced the kind of jobs that you can access *only* with a Ph.D. Some of them are *insanely* fun. This is your decision, not theirs.
As for your adviser, yes your decision *may* hurt her career if she is an assistant professor on a tenure clock, and/or depending on many other factors. I doubt anyone would see this as a failure on her part, however.
All the best.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: You are a nice guy, but let me tell you this: no matter if it makes your advisor look bad, **if you really like the job in the company and believe it's the best thing for you, then you should quit your PhD and take the job**. Doing your PhD just because of your advisor will not do any good to either you or your advisor.
Because pursuing a PhD requires a lot of determination. No matter how your advisor is kind to you, making your advisor look good will not be enough as a sole motivation for your PhD. If you don't quit now, you will quit later and it may cause more damage to your advisor.
For a complete stranger like me, if a guy quits his PhD after 1st or 2nd year, there are many reasons beside a bad advisor: maybe the guy himself finds PhD too difficult, or he changes his mind etc and etc. But if someone quits his PhD after 5th or 6th year, I would think there must be something wrong with the supervision.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> If I quit my PhD, would it make my advisor look bad?
>
>
>
**Absolutely not** -- at least, not in the eyes of anyone who wasn't born yesterday. Most of us realize that PhD students are autonomous creatures with their own lives, hopes, dreams and ambitions. Although certainly there are scenarios in which a bad advisor is the cause or catalyst for a graduate student's decision to quit their PhD, only a fool would jump to the completely unsubstantiated conclusion that this was the case here.
With that said, it is certainly true that if you *finish* your PhD, it would make your advisor look *good*.
And with *that* said, a PhD is such a huge undertaking that I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks *anyone* should *ever* do a PhD to please someone else. You shouldn't do a PhD to make your mother happy; you shouldn't do a PhD to make your girlfriend or boyfriend happy; and by the same token, **you shouldn't do a PhD to make your advisor happy.** If she was kind to you, go and buy her a present, or write her a poem, or dedicate your first software product at the engineering firm to her. But I strongly advise you to stick with your PhD if, and only if, this is truly what **you**, and only you, want to do for yourself.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: I feel that most of the other answers do not adequately address the question, as most of them focus on the question of what you should do, rather than the effect on your advisor.
If your advisor already had a track record of graduating students with good theses, then you dropping out would have no effect on her reputation. Since you are her first student, however, you dropping out will give her a dropout rate of 100%. Everybody knows that sometimes things just don't work out with a student, but it's a bad omen to lose one's first student, and it puts your professor in a much more vulnerable position with respect to the next students she hopes to graduate.
This will likely be compounded by the fact that your professor is a woman, and likely to be judged more harshly than male colleagues, due to the implicit sexism still rampant in the field.
Moreover, in some fields and departments, **graduating a student is a hard requirement for tenure**. If you are not just her first student but her only student, leaving may make it very difficult for her to obtain tenure.
That said, if you need to quit, you need to quit. But it *will* have an impact on your advisor because she is so early in her career.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: Ask yourself this: If people knew you **stayed on** as a Ph.D. candidate **because** somehow **you** got to **worry more about how this would reflect on your advisor**, this in itself would reflect very poorly on him; and perhaps on you as well. So... don't let the how-it-would-reflect-on-him concern worry you.
H-O-W-E-V-E-R! There is the "Neighbor's grass is always greener" effect. It may be the case that leaving your Ph.D. track has detriments you might not be taking into account, and on the other hand, maybe you're stuck in your Ph.D. work and, arranged differently, it might be more interesting and rewarding. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case but sometime it is. Also, some people switch to working on the rest of their Ph.D.s part-time. Again, that doesn't work well for everyone, I'm just saying you need to carefully weigh your options etc. etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: If one student aborts a Ph.D. on a mentor, or even a few over the course of a career, that's par for the course.
If this sort of thing KEEPS HAPPENING to a mentor, it should raise some red flags for that person's colleagues and any committees involved with placing grad students in labs.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: My mother quit her PhD program back in the 50's, because she wanted to have children and didn't feel that she could put the time into both. This was a disappointment to a number of people, because, in those less enlightened days, they wanted to make her an example of the ability of women to get a doctorate. She decided that the issue of women's equality wasn't as important to her as starting her family. My father said it was her decision and he would support her either way. A number of years later, she became an English professor anyway, spent 40 years at it, and raised seven children along the way.
To quote the old saw: be who you are, because those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter. The trick is finding out who you are.
One more thing. If this lady is good at what she does, you can't do anything to hurt her career. If she isn't, nothing that you can do will make her career. So, your decision isn't particularly important to her career one way or the other.
EDIT: Looking at other answers and reading comments, it's clear that there are considerations that I didn't think of. I guess in the end, we can all spend a great deal of time working out the effect that this will have on your professor, but the only person who really can tell you is the professor herself. You need to "fess up" and tell her you're thinking about quitting and why. Maybe she doesn't share your concerns, maybe she has concerns none of us have thought of. Maybe you can work something out that will benefit both of you. But you never will really know until you face her and tell her what's on your mind.
By the way, I have 30 years experience in the IT field. PhD's in computer science generally make better money than software engineers, and often find interesting work. If, for example, you want to write software programs to calibrate scientific equipment, that PhD will help. If you want to design websites or databases for health care companies, it probably won't.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: The only real effect your dropping your PhD program will have on your advisor, is that it might leave her short on her "stuff profs need to do in their jobs" list. i.e. most universities have a teaching requirement, a research requirement, and a service requirement. She's now lost an advisee, so she's a bit "thin" on her service requirement, and may have to scramble a bit to pick something else up to fulfil that. Other than that, though...no, it will not harm her career.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/03
| 427
| 1,755
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<issue_start>username_0: I presented a paper in one of the IEEE conferences last month. The paper is still not available in IEEE Xplore. The paper addresses the problem of detection and recovery of X in images. However, the recovery of X needs to be improved both computationally and quality-wise. Currently, I have figured out three different ways of improving the recovery of X. Each of these three recovery methods is better than the one presented in first paper.
Is it OK to write three papers demonstrating results with each of the new recovery results, given that the detection part will mostly be the same. Am I doing some sort of self-plagiarism here? Please help me understand this.
Further, if I am borrowing detection method from my previous paper, is it required to explain it in detail again or I can just write about it briefly and put a reference?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Am I doing some sort of self plagiarism here
>
>
>
Formally, you do not commit self-plagiarism unless you repeat sentences ad verbum.
>
> is it required to explain it in detail again or I can just write about
> it briefly and put a reference?
>
>
>
You have to just put a reference.
>
> Is it OK to write three papers
>
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It is acceptable, but not all reviewers might like this.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Writing follow-up papers building on previous work is not at all self-plagiarism. So long as there is a material difference in the main emphasis of the paper, you should be fine. In your case, it sounds like the original article was the introduction of method X, and the follow-up article or articles will be incremental improvements of method X and descriptions of a practical implementation.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2015/12/03
| 849
| 3,514
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been working on a certain paper for about two years, the first year funded and the other one pro bono.
The data and methods were fixed during the first year. The data has high quality, the sample size is three times larger than in a typical study, and the papers that describe the methods I am using have been cited thousands of times.
Now one of my senior co-authors, for some reason that I do not know, is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses to allow me to submit the paper to a good journal, though he would find low-rank journals just fine! I have rewritten the paper once already but it still does not satisfy him. The other seven authors have given generally positive feedback with good suggestions on how to improve it.
I will soon finish my studies, so I have little incentive to remake everything for a third time. However, it would be wasteful to discard the paper entirely. I don't know. I am very angry about this but I do not know what to do. My supervisors have been helpful but I feel I am not getting anywhere.
I could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that. Any suggestions for further action?<issue_comment>username_1: I suggest that you get all of the co-authors together to have a discussion. When you organise the meeting, say something neutral like "let's get together to figure out what to with this paper".
If your senior co-author has a good point about the methodology being flawed, then the other co-authors may suggest a way to salvage the paper. They also have an incentive to get the paper published, if possible.
If the other co-authors don't agree with the senior co-author, then they can put forward their arguments, and hopefully a resolution will be reached.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Now one of my senior co-authors, **for some reason that I do not know**,
> is saying that the methods are essentially junk, and refuses me to
> submit the paper to a good journal.
>
>
>
I would work to understand what his objections to the methods are. Presumably they are in good faith. Perhaps recruit one or more of your other supportive coauthors (especially if they are peers of the senior coauthor) to mediate if you feel that his objections are not in good faith.
>
> could perhaps file a formal complaint and burn some bridges but then I would only lose more time in that.
>
>
>
Unless you have compelling evidence that your disagreement isn't just academic (like say, your difficult coauthor plans to use your work and publish without giving you credit; very unlikely) a formal complaint would probably not even work. Disagreements like this are common in academia (and professional life in general) and I don't think any department would step in on your behalf. Unless of course you have evidence of something more sinister in which case it's a totally different conversation.
Hope that helps!
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: If they have unresolvable objections to the paper, ask them if they want their name removed from it. This will show whether they are genuinely objecting to the paper or have some other agenda.
username_1 suggests calling a meeting. That would be a good place to ask this question.
If they agree, ask if they want to be acknowledged. They may or may not want their name connected to the paper in this manner.
Then, work with the remaining authors to get it published as soon as possible.
Upvotes: 3
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| 1,321
| 5,668
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<issue_start>username_0: I've heard conflicting advice on this, from 6 months prior to graduation all the way to "wait until after you've graduated so you can start immediately". On the one hand you don't want to give yourself too little time to interview, but on the other I understand that employers may want you to start immediately to fill a need. Is there anything rude/impolite/weird about applying for a job knowing that you won't be able to accept an offer for several months? Do companies routinely wait on Ph.D.'s to finish?<issue_comment>username_1: Most articles found by a search for ["how long does it take to find a new job"](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+long+does+it+take+to+find+a+job) state anywhere between 3-6 months. Anecdotally, both for myself and for my friends, this is quite accurate. This, combined with the fairly frightening statistic that [unemployed people have a MUCH harder time finding employment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/26018/73), would lead me to strongly recommend that you start well before you graduate.
Most positions that hire PhDs are familiar with the nuances of hiring someone who hasn't yet graduated. I currently work in industry, and we've had a number of people who've had to take a few days vacation to defend their thesis. You should mention during the interview process where you currently stand in your PhD work so the employer knows what to expect, but from my experience it shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Do note that some positions *require* the PhD of their employees, so you would not be eligible for those types of positions until you graduate. I would still recommend interviewing anyways so you're not starting from scratch... you can just contact them and continue when you actually receive the degree.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have been involved in hiring several Ph.D.'s (math, computer science, operations research) in the finance industry in the US. (before returning to academia to get my own math Ph.D.). In the US, the answer to your question is that the correct time to apply will depend on the type of industry job you are looking for. My experience is that for jobs at larger companies which routinely hire Ph.D.'s you should start applying in the late fall before you anticipate graduating. These companies generally have a well-developed recruitment process and are recruiting with the anticipation of bringing someone on several months down the road. They may even plan to have you start with other recent Ph.D.'s and have some more or less formal training period. (My experience is in finance where this is the norm, other industries may differ.)
For jobs at smaller companies or start-ups, I would recommend waiting. Typically these companies are looking to hire someone who can start as soon as possible (six months is an eternity for a small company or start-up).
So I would recommend starting applications and attending recruitment events for larger companies in your field right now. As the process evolves and the time until you could reasonably starts decreases, you should then expand the range of places you are talking to.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This may also vary along the size of the company and the plans that company has.
>
> One scenario:
>
>
>
If a company wants someone just to complete a task, them maybe if you say on the interview that you will be available after three - six months then the answer will be something like that: We will contact you after this period, and believe me they never call you back. So, a good policy is to make an proposal for part time job untill you finish you Ph.D. (I know this is not easy in all times).
>
> One other scenario:
>
>
>
If you apply to a big company with a long business plan then you can discuss with them when you are able to get started.
My suggestion is to start looking for a job two - three months before you finish your Ph.D.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: From the company's point of view there are two different recruitment scenarios.
One is simply "maintaining the workforce" to replace the inevitable losses that occur over time. These are usually entry-level positions, and the main objective is to hire the right number of people who are "good enough". The skills and qualifications required are not specific to particular jobs; the successful pool of applicants will be fitted into the overall company structure in a (hopefully fairly optimal) way. This is more common in large companies than small ones, of course.
This type of recruitment is usually done on an annual cycle, and the timing of the process matches the normal academic timetable. It would do no harm to contact the company informally to ask them when they would prefer to receive applications. There is no sense in submitting an application that will not be processed for a few months, and may "get lost during that time.
The other scenario is a vacancy targeted at filling a specific position in the company. The requirements will be focussed on that particular role (even if the statement in the job advertisement seems rather vague and generic - a company doesn't necessarily want to tell its competitors exactly who it wants to hire!) and the objective is to fill the post as quickly as is practical depending on the local norms for notice periods, etc. If you apply for that type of job, being unable to start for a long time may be sufficient to reject you however well qualified you may be.
Such jobs are often *not* targeted at "first-job" college applicants either, since they may be looking for specific practical experience in industry.
Upvotes: 0
|
2015/12/03
| 202
| 934
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a paper to a journal and had it returned with "revise and resubmit". After the revision was submitted, the journal's status page told me that it was under review. Once the reviews were completed the status changed to "awaiting editor recommendation". However, I checked it today and it appears to be back out for review. Is this common? Any ideas what it might mean?<issue_comment>username_1: This might indicate that the editor has decided that another review is necessary. For example, reviewers might have very different recommendations. It can also mean that some of the reviewers did not finish their review in time.
This happens sometimes and is not a cause for concern.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I saw this sequence of statuses in the Elsevier system.
I do not think it means anything bad for you. Maybe just a system mistake. Write another paper in the meantime...
Upvotes: 0
|
2015/12/03
| 1,149
| 3,853
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<issue_start>username_0: I am practicing making citations of quotes and I am currently stuck on
publication dates.
To illustrate my issue, let’s use [this this book](http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do;jsessionid=28DE48124F951130E25EA68F477E7E09?N=0&Ntk=P_Isbn13&Ntt=9780495391326&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial):
* The front pages state the copyright date as three separate years, which I have no idea how to interpret (see image below).
* I checked on Google, and I found [this on Amazon](http://www.amazon.ca/Discrete-Mathematics-Applications-Susanna-Epp/dp/0495391328) stating the publication date of Aug 10, 2010.
* Checking the [official site of publisher](http://www.cengage.com/search/productOverview.do;jsessionid=28DE48124F951130E25EA68F477E7E09?N=0&Ntk=P_Isbn13&Ntt=9780495391326&Ntx=mode%2Bmatchallpartial), I see "© 2011".
Do I need to make assumptions when taking the date, e.g., taking the first date from copyright without being certain that it is the correct publication date? I know I can contact the publisher and ask, but that seems like (a) a lot of work and (b) it’s pretty unlikely I’ll get a reply. I want to know if there are any tips on making sure that the publication date of the book is correct.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5TRud.jpg)<issue_comment>username_1: The three dates you see are the years the copyright was renewed. You probably just want the most recent of those dates, as that's the edition of the book you're working with.
Note that it can get more complex than that—edition and copyright date are not always the same—but its definitely good enough for citations.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Publishers often fudge on the copyright dates by putting one year later than the real publication year. See for instance this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/52181/958), or google for "publication date vs copyright date".
So it is very likely that the book was published in 2010.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Your best bet is probably to [look the book up in WorldCat](http://www.worldcat.org/title/discrete-mathematics-with-applications/oclc/55055561/editions?start_edition=1&sd=asc&se=yr&referer=br&qt=sort_yr_asc&editionsView=true&fq=), which (because it contains records from thousands of libraries) is quite likely to have separate records for each edition of the book. (Why? It's a long story. [Seymour Lubetzky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Lubetzky) was a nitpicker.) Looking at the earliest available records indicates a 1990 copyright date for the first edition of the book, which is probably close enough to the publication date to satisfy an editor or instructor.
The real question is which edition you should be citing. It's probably the one you're actually using, the fourth! WorldCat's consensus (though not unanimous; bad records do sometimes sneak in) answer to the date of the fourth edition is 2011.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Cite 2011. The other two years, 1995 and 2004, correspond to the first two editions of the book. If you're citing this (third) edition you should naturally use 2011.
As for the fact that you can find the book on Amazon in 2010, as the marketing department explained to me when I was in academic publishing, it's because when the book is "printed" (read: arrives at the warehouse) it's already late 2010. From the warehouse the book still needs to be shipped around the world, so that when it's actually available for purchase in Amazon, it's 2011. In the meantime, it's available for pre-order, because once the printing process starts it's usually clear when the book will be complete. The time required to produce a book can be very uncertain, but the biggest uncertainties are earlier in the production process.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/03
| 511
| 2,326
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm working on a social science master's thesis based on a discourse analysis of documents. I finished a proposal a few months ago, which my committee approved. But as I continue to scan my sources, I am getting worried that there isn't as much significant evidence available as I had thought when I started doing research. I've done everything I can to find new leads but there is very little academic work written about the topic. I am starting to believe that the topic is a dud, and that maybe there's little written about because it just isn't that interesting...
Aside from meeting with my supervisor, which I am doing soon, has anyone else had to deal with a similar situation, and how did you deal with it? I want to finish within eight months, nine max, so I do not think I would be able to change topics...<issue_comment>username_1: Don't panic. It's quite normal for the direction of the research to shift a bit after the initial proposal. It's common to find out that for one reason or another it's not feasible to do exactly what was proposed. After all, if you knew exactly how to do it in a way that's guaranteed to work, then it wouldn't be research!
Unless your funding is tied to a specific project, you can probably broaden the scope or make other adjustments. I'm sure your advisors will have some specific suggestions for you, but in the meantime, think about what you could do with the types of materials that you *have* been able to find.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with @username_1 that you should not panic and you are right to be meeting with your advisor. Having just completed a thesis myself, I would say that a large benefit from the experience is to work on a mentored research project. It is an opportunity to learn how to conduct research and not necessarily to find significant results, although that is nice.
As you continue to work on the project it may slightly shift focus, however in your conclusions section consider how you can report on the findings you have and how your work could be used to inform future work. If you don't share this work then someone else will probably find this same question later on. As part of your defense of the work you can definitely report on this as a lesson learned from the research project.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/03
| 510
| 2,139
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an amateur scientist who wants to submit a paper to a peer reviewed journal. While I have an under grad degree... it was in business and I have been out of school for 15 years. Do I put my undergraduate university as my affiliation because I was educated there? It would be nice to put something.<issue_comment>username_1: Affiliation does not mean necessarily an academic place of work.
The best option is to just use a current place of work. Write "self-employed" if you do not like the above idea. This would mean that you have self-employed yourself at home to conduct the submitted research.
I would not recommend the old place of study, since you are not there, you cannot be contacted there and in the worst case the university may get abused that someone who is not their current or recent employee pretends to be such.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Do I put my undergraduate university as my affiliation because I was educated there?
>
>
>
Absolutely not. That could be considered fraudulent, since it would suggest you are still affiliated with this university. You should only list an affiliation if it applies now or applied while the work was done, and in the latter case you should note if it has changed (by including a current affiliation or address).
You don't need to include any affiliation at all. It's perfectly reasonable to publish a paper with a private address rather than a work address, in which case you can avoid this issue. If you don't want to reveal your address, you can always get a P.O. box or the equivalent. The main points are that people can distinguish you from others with the same name and can get in touch with you if needed.
You should not list your current employer unless they are OK with being listed. If the research is not part of your job, your employer may not want to be seen as sponsoring your research, so you should ask if you don't know their policy on this issue.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: The following should be an acceptable affiliation for your specified occupation.
>
> Independent Researcher
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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| 2,020
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<issue_start>username_0: While filling my applications for PhD in computer science I used the percentile scores that I have on the paper score report I received from ETS by mail 3 years ago. However I just logged in to my GRE account to order a copy of the scores to be sent to a university, and I was surprised to see that the percentages have changed:
* Verbal increased by 1%
* Quantitative decreased by 2%
* Analytical writing increased by 4%
Will my application get flagged for reporting wrong percentiles? Should I contact all the universities that I have applied to and inform them about the change in percentiles?<issue_comment>username_1: Here is a quote from one of the [academic forums](http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/13815-gre-percentile-change-over-time/) about the ***changing GRE scores, over time***.
You may find it useful:
>
> The ETS website maintains that the reported score represents the same
> level of academic ability from year to year ..., e.g., a 720 Quant in
> 1999 represents the same level of math ability as a 720 Quant today
> ... though the percentile may change, due to variations in the makeup
> of the test-taking population.
>
>
> That said, an 11% change DOES seem like a lot, given that almost
> 500,000 people take the GRE every year. On the other hand, it seems
> almost universally accepted that the AW is the least important part of
> anyone's score ... unless it's very low (3.0 or less) combined with
> great pre-prepared writing samples, in which case it suggests the
> applicant may have hired somebody to write the writing sample.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Well, you can contact the schools to change it on your application. I do not think that is gonna be a big deal since the admission staff always have acess to your application, and mistakes like this could always happen. Also, they gonna see the official report from the ETS, and they may not look at what you wrote in your applications. Good luck
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
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2015/12/03
| 842
| 3,391
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm doing my bachelors degree in mathematics right now at a state school. I know I'm not a top student and have made just pretty good grades in my undergrad career, but fell behind in others (a D in a conceptual physics course) due to numerous reason like 18 hr semesters while working, got married, had some health and family issues, (not to mention my freshman and sophomore years in which I didn't even want to be in school, and even went on academic probation). After retaking a couple core courses, I have a 3.2 GPA out of 4.0. Also, I will have done undergrad research (starting next semester).
However things are calming down too little too late, and I've got about 2 semesters left. I've really come to love the study of math, and I would really like to study at the master's degree level.
Most of the 'poor GPA blah blah' questions around here have to do with getting into a doctoral program. I'm curious though if it may be easier for me to get into a decent masters program than if I were attempting a PhD? I'm not looking to get into some Ivy or otherwise 'prestigious' school, but I would like to get into something good.
I would be doing it part time (2 courses per semester) so I can focus and make good grades.
Is there hope?<issue_comment>username_1: Not every STEM Master's program is going to be easier to get into than every PhD program, but on the whole they are easier. Universities are much more likely to take you if you're paying your own way (aka. a Masters) than if they have to fund you. In the US it's common for students who didn't do so well in undergrad or are from a lesser known international school to pay their way through a Masters first and then go on to a PhD after proving their worth.
That being said, do not discount how helpful research can be. A published paper or a good letter of recommendation from a known professor can go a long way to erasing some bad grades. What counts in a PhD program is your ability to do research.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Generally, a master program is easier to get into than a PhD because:
* You pay for yourself
* You don't have to find a supervisor
* The university can deliver the same program to many students
That being said, from what I can see, you're very concerned about your academic grades. This is not a good indicator being a good phd student. Nobody cares how many A you have as a phd student, it's your ability to do research matters. Your grades won't matter ("look good" in your words), because every other phd student has the same grades.
Unless you are **truly interested** in research, you should just focus on master degrees.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There are also diversity fellowships/scholarships available for Masters students. Being you completed your undergraduate in spite of personal hardships, this shows strength of character and dedication which is what some fellowship/scholarship grantors are looking for. I managed to get my masters program covered in full with a stipend. So do some diligent research on what fellowships/scholarships are available, and apply to as many as you can. Also think about doing volunteer work, to show how you are passionate about the subject and how you want to give back. For example, tutoring high school students from poorly funded schools could be an option.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/04
| 1,247
| 5,547
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<issue_start>username_0: ***First I have to make it clear that I understand the SOP is not just written for my potential advisor to view; it will certainly be presented to the admission committee first. However, my potential advisor will be the only person who reads both of my SOPs. Below is the complete question with background information:***
I am currently applying for psychometrics in both Department of Educational Psychology and Psychology (Quantitative psychology) in the same university. My potential advisor is a faculty member in both departments, doing research on XXX. When I wrote my SOP for psychometrics in Educational Psychology, I only talked about my research interests in XXX.
Now I am adapting my SOP to application for Quantitative Psychology which allows students to do research in collaboration with other fields in psychology in addition to their own research interests. I am interested in doing research in the Social Psychology and am considering if I should include this in my SOP, given I only mentioned that I am interested in XXX in my SOP to Educational Psychology? In addition, XXX is really different from social psychology in general..in other words, my two research interests are not relevant.
As my potential advisor will be reading both SOPs, I am afraid that having talked about additional research interests in my application for Quantitative psychology would make me appear not firm about my research interests in XXX (am I overthinking about this?) Or is it even necessary for me to mention my research interests in social psych in my SOP, as I will be given opportunities to work on research in other fields of psychology, including social psych, anyways?
Additional information: my potential advisor knows that I am interested in social psychology as I mentioned this to him. Nonetheless, we never had a talk about my research interests in social psych.
In short, 1) do I need to talk about my research interests in social psych in the SOP to Quantitative psychology? 2) if I do, what's the best approach to avoid my advisor feeling confused about my research interests? (for example, just vaguely mention that I would be excited about doing research in social psych etc. ?)<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it's totally fine. Its absolutely normal to apply for multiple positions and obviously promise them that you will do things that are unique to them if you are accepted. This shows that you have twice the interests and also ideas on how to fit in aside from determination.
1) Do I need to talk about my research interests in social psych in the SOP to Quantitative psychology? Yes, as much as you want to mention possible cross-disciplinary researches but not too much. This should be 10-20% of your SOP. The rest should be really aligned with requirements of each program and the possible dissertation committee members from each group. Think of your dissertation topic and board members in each scenario and write for them as audience and signer of your dissertation.
2) if I do, what's the best approach to avoid my adviser feeling confused about my research interests? SOP is not a marriage proposal. It shows that you have interests in both fields and work and degrees. And you really want to be in that school. He will not feel betrayed or anything. If anything he should see how much you are interested in the whole field. Don't deny that you have skills in both fields though. There should be some 10-20% overlap. but you are proposing a whole new direction and possibility of your dissertation work.
Big assumption: universities don't really want you to be firm on your research interest when you are not even accepted yet. And even after that there might be no funding to some topics, so you might have to do other stuff. Research is just another industry that is limited to its resources and can not be idealistic about constraints. Meanwhile, they love to see applicants with muti-dimensional skills sets and openness to cross-disciplinary research. But beware of not looking focused on each of these SOPs.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Speaking purely from personal opinion, I think from a bureaucratic point of view you should write each statement of purpose as is best for the particular application (at least you've then demonstrated you can focus on the question at hand, not just waffle around the subject), but from a human point of view it would be worth discussing the situation with your proposed supervisor, preferably first. I would expect supervisors to recognise that students have varied interests, and may not have pinned down exactly what they want to focus on, and also that they will be making multiple applications. However, I would still feel somewhat confused by reading a statement about a second set of research interests if I had a reason to believe there was only one. I would probably feel misled, if I had had no explanation.
Also, applications are processed differently in different institutions, and you may not be able to tell to what extent your applications affect each other, or are affected by the supervisor's interests, or other applications. Knowing what your preferences are may help the people making decisions about who to accept.
At many (most?) institutions, the number of students applying to work with any one supervisor is low enough that they can afford to have a conversation with each. Personally I would email your potential supervisor and ask whether you could meet up to discuss your applications.
Upvotes: 1
|
2015/12/04
| 841
| 3,381
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<issue_start>username_0: There is a very nice open source toolbox for Matlab which I have used for proof of concept. However, the real implementations in my field are almost always done in C++. I really like to give credit to those behind aforementioned toolbox and I have two of ways of doing so.
One is to add a sentence in the paper similar to:
>
> one can achieve this using toolbox Foo (Foosmith 2015)
>
>
>
I’m not really fond of this approach because not only does it occupy valuable space, but also somehow states the very obvious (somehow an insult to the intelligence of the readers).
My second approach is not to cite them in the paper but add them in the bibliography (can be done with `\nocite{}` in LaTeX). My question is, if I follow this path, would it count as a citation for the creator of this toolbox? If it matters, my paper is to be submitted to an IEEE conference.<issue_comment>username_1: You could cite them in the acknowledgements.
>
> Thanks to Foo et al. (2042) for their toolbox which helped the authors to study migratory patterns in unicorns.
>
>
>
I don't think it would be an insult to the intelligence of anybody. Although papers are not a chronological description of everything you tried, if something helped you but did not make it into the final paper, it can go in the acknowledgements.
Adding an item to the bibliography without a corresponding citation is something I have not seen before (nor have I checked) and it would not surprise me if many journals would have policies against it. At least one family of journals I know has backreferences, i.e. links from bibliography entries to the places in the main text where the citation occurs, so in this case it would be immediately obvious.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the main text, you could also mention the authors by explicitly stating what their tool helped you with, for example:
>
> Our approach was projected/tested/verified using toolbox Foo (Foosmith 2015) and later ported to C++ for performance measurements.
>
>
>
Apart from thanking the authors, this could also be interesting for the reader.
As the other answers mentioned, a bibliography-only citation counts the same as a regular citation, but such a citation is quite unusual and generally not recommended.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Generally, all items in the Bibliography (references) section are considered cited. But the fact that you mentioned IEEE means that all items in the bibliography ought to be cited in the main matter and presented in the order of citation.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Well, you have no option but to cite all bibliographic items in the text. This is the standard in most journals/styles, and it is for a reason: How does the reader know to which part is the cited article relevant? Actually, `\nocite{}` should **never** be needed in an article. But if you push your `\nocite{}` through, the bibliographic item will get indexed by the databases and the authors will get the citation.
What shall you do? Well, whatever you wish, as long as the citation appears at the right place. It's common to see the parenthesized/bracketed citation just after the authors' names in text, it's common to see them put at the end of sentences etc., some people write also things like: *The authors of (Foosmith 2015) showed that...*
Upvotes: 0
|
2015/12/04
| 316
| 1,334
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to a grad school in the US for fall 2016. While filling the application, I stated my initial and terminal degree preferences as Master's only (and not PhD) as I want to work in the industry post MS. Will it hurt my chances of getting selected?<issue_comment>username_1: No. It might even help since a terminal Masters means you'll probably be paying your tuition and are less of a drag on the school's resources.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It probably won't hurt your chances of getting accepted, but it will definitely hurt your chances of getting funding from the department.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Probably not. In fact, each student admitted to a PhD program constitutes a fairly major commitment on the part of the university and department, so admissions standards are generally higher for Ph.D. applicants.
That said, if the program you are applying to doesn't "do" Masters, you won't get in. For your own good, you should be limiting applications to programs that have thriving Master's Programs, because they'll probably be better at providing your education appropriately.
Further, my own opinion is that if you feel pressure from the department you're applying to to accept admission as a Ph.D. student when you've applied as a Master's, beware.
Upvotes: 2
|
2015/12/04
| 1,294
| 5,403
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<issue_start>username_0: He reasoned that I lacked the understanding of the subject and so not competent enough for a PhD. I agree to his concerns, since I was studying this concept for the first time (for my thesis) and was a bit slow in my approach. On the other hand I'm very passionate about this particular subject and intend to pursue an academic career in this field. I did manage to get a decent score in my thesis and graduated with cum laude. The question is should I give up and take up some job since nothing will move forward without a recommendation.<issue_comment>username_1: From what you've written, it sounds like your adviser doesn't think you know enough to be able to research a subject. Knowledge can always be learned. It's actually a very important trait for a PhD student to be able to sit down and learn what they need on their own.
There's no reason not to *apply* to PhD programs. It's going to be very hard to get into one without a letter from your adviser, but it's not theoretically impossible. The worst thing that can happen is that you spent some time and money and fail to get accepted anywhere. The best thing that can happen is that you get into a program and have the chance to follow your passion.
On advice from <NAME>, I'm adding a caveat: You should be careful as to what sort of programs you're applying to and think carefully about whether those programs will lead to your desired outcome. Going into a PhD program is not something to be taken lightly. It will takes years of your life and be a potential drain on you mentally, emotionally, and economically. To land a decent academic position you need to graduate from a top program and produce high level research. Afterwards you may have to put in more time and effort as a post-doc. Once you do finally get a position, you'll have to work your way through the tenure process.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Letter of recommendation is not always mandatory for all PhD admissions. You could still apply for a PhD without it.
You might have to vouch for your talents in other ways to certify your ability. Eg., Online certification, skills development, and independent research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> The question is should I give up and take up some job since nothing will move forward without a recommendation.
>
>
>
You are right, a recommendation from your thesis adviser plays an important part in getting a PhD position (experience!). But ***giving up*** is out of question if your words *I'm very passionate* comes from your heart. I strongly disagree with those who commented, *one have to be good at the subject if you want any hope of pursing an academic career.* It bear a high degree of vagueness with it because the terms ***good*** and ***hope*** are incredibly inappropriate in this context as it is not at all clear that OP indeed lacks the potential to be ***good*** at the subject.
I think you can do a couple of things here
1. Talk to your thesis adviser and ask him politely to explain why he thinks you are not apt for the recommendation.
2. Value your adviser's words and spent some time on working out yourself on the subject core.
3. If you think that your adviser misjudged you, try for a short term project position, which can be relatively easy to find even without your adviser's recommendation.
I think there are plenty of choices before you and tremendous room for improvement, once again in my humble opinion, ***its too early to give up***.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Saying that you "lack understanding" seems like a really vague criticism, especially when you are working on a specific topic for the first time. Ask other professors what they think.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: While I was an undergraduate student at a lower ranked institution in my country, all the professors in the department were thinking that I don't have any academic merit. Just after that I took some time outside the school, and later attended classes at a top-ranked school in my country just as a visiting student.
I was the best in the class and the professor was overly blunt to state that fact in front of the other students. The people in my undergraduate institution were so biased and mediocre that they have never had an intention to give me a chance or were so insidious and sinister to undermine me.
So, sometimes, at some places you simply do not fit with others. You should try your chance at other places, internships etc. A single institution or professor does not suffice to assess your abilities.
A last note: some academics are real jerks, do not give up at the first obstacle.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: There are two aspects of this. One is *Should I forget about a PhD?* and another is *Is this a show stopper?*
But for both questions, a lot depends on the opinions of other elders in your department. Are there other professors in your department who know your work, whom you could approach for career advice?
When you meet with such a professor, try to keep your questions open ended. It's okay to express an interest in pursuing further studies, but in that preliminary conversation try to keep all options on the table, even if in your heart you feel a strong drive to jump straight into further studies.
Unless, of course, the professor asks you what your preference is.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I will be applying for PhD positions starting in fall 2016. Most of the application deadlines are in January. If I send my application now, will it be processed immediately? Or are the recruiters waiting until the deadline has passed? This probably varies somewhat per geographic region (and university, and department) but I would be mostly interested in UK institutions in the STEM fields.<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience (in a large public American computer science department), review of applications *begins* as soon as they are submitted, but no decisions are announced until well after the posted deadline. Reviewing graduate applications actually takes significant time, and admissions decisions are based at least in part on comparisons with the rest of the applicant pool.
My university actually **forbids** announcing admissions decisions before the application deadline. Other universities/countries may have more relaxed policies.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It varies. Last year I applied early, and one (top 20) US school that doesn't do rolling admissions contacted me before the posted deadline to admit me. Then again, other schools explicitly wrote on their website that they don't look at applications until the deadline. Others said they "encouraged" early submission but didn't elaborate what that meant.
I don't think someone would be at a disadvantage for applying late. However, there may be some benefit to applying early. Maybe.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: "Deadline" is a guide and is definitely not set in stone. They could admit you immediately or almost before the deadline to signup for classes. I doubt they'd do it immediately because it takes quite some time, people are lazy, holidays, weekends etc... They'd even do it after the deadline if you're extremely talented. There is no telling.... Good luck!
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: A scientific journal assigned me a paper to review.
During the review process, I realized I have some interesting ideas about the paper project, so I am thinking about to contact the authors and propose them to start a collaboration together.
What should I do?
Should I contact them and explain my proposals directly? But will this invalidate my journal review?<issue_comment>username_1: Finish the review and wait until the paper you are reviewing is published to contact them.
Reviews are supposed to be anonymous and by doing this you waive your anonymity away.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Almost universally, recent collaborators are flagged as conflicts of interest for the purpose of peer reviewing. Once you start collaborating with them, you fall into that category and you acquire a conflict of interest that is incompatible with your role as reviewer. No matter how you cut it, it's not kosher.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The ethics involved are much more muddy than invalidating a review. I suggest that taking action based upon the document you've been handed in confidence isn't right.
To say that reading a privileged document might not change the way you approach a problem somehow is naive, but to out and out arrange a collaboration with the authors during the process is simply over the top. I suspect if your community knew of such action, they would not approve of it. If I were the author, I would be giving the editor a piece of my mind about the reviewer.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I got interviewed by a potential supervisor but she said she couldn’t accept me because I have no research experience related to her projects. I still want to do research in her field; so I contacted some supervisor from the same department as her and will be interviewed next week.
I want to know if it is ok to contact another supervisor from the same department if she finds out about it.<issue_comment>username_1: It is ok, since she already told you no. It is your right to find new one and to apply to us many as possible positions.
I think you should know that if you would like to work on someone's projects, it is highly desirable to have experience.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It is pretty Okay! I have faced the same situation. One professor rejected me, then I contacted to another, who accepted my candidature, and gave me an offer.
There is nothing bad doing so. Go ahead. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Its absolutely fine. even if she did not give you a definite no and she told you that she has to think about it or she is not sure about her funding and stuff you are still free and fine to approach other people in her department. However, if you were asked that have you applied to anyone else to that department you should tell the truce. And it MIGHT even help to mention if you have a non-negative feedback from other colleagues in the department who do not have funding.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I got a request to help comment on a paper in a journal from a professor. It's an informal request -- the professor is the one who officially reviews the paper. Can I put "reviewer" in my CV or not?<issue_comment>username_1: I think not. Ask yourself what the editor of the journal would think if your CV crossed their desk, and they saw you listing yourself as a reviewer and they'd never heard your name before. Having a review delegated to you does not make you a reviewer for that journal. The journal chose your professor, not you, so you should not muddy the waters about what you've been asked to do. If someone asks you about your reviewing experience, feel free to tell them that you did some subreviewing for your professor.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: For the purpose you describe, the answer is no.
However, I would say that in reference to the headline question; yes, you are 'a reviewer'. You are simply not a reviewer in the traditional (but narrow) sense of somebody invited by an editor to carry out pre-publication peer review.
Anybody can be a reviewer. Carry out some post-publication peer-review and upload it to an appropriate website (for example, [Publons](https://publons.com/)). Then you will have a verifiable record as a peer reviewer. You should not upload the pre-publication review you mention as I expect it was shared with you in strict confidence.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a programmer working 6 years in the industry. I am proficient in Javascript/JQuery, PHP, Java, c/c++, MASM Assembly, MySQL/SQL, together with accessory tools/technologies like Git/Github, UML, XML, JSON, etc and the Drupal and Zend CMS/framework.
Is there any way of getting accepted into a computer science, Masters degree program in universities in Europe, USA or Canada?<issue_comment>username_1: What You study in the bachelor in computer science is different from what you do in a working environment. In the bachelor's degree they teach you the basis to achieve a master's degree, like math, science and other subjects that probably you've never studied from an academic point of view.
I live in europe and I believe all the european universities require a bachelor's degree in order to be admitted to the master programme.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: No, all higher academic institutions in the US would require you meet prerequisites before being able to attend. This means that even English 101 and such would need to be completed before even being considered. That said, I do know of situations where if you already have your B.S. you can go straight to Doctorate's without Master's.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You probably don't need a bachelor's degree in computer science to be admitted to a master's program in computer science, but you probably need a bachelor's degree in *something*.
If what you're looking for is academic certification for skills you've acquired (and honestly this seems unnecessary given your extensive proficiency and experience) you probably wouldn't want to go the route of B.S. then a Masters.
I'm aware there are some software certifications you can acquire as proof of proficiency, but they're perhaps [controversial](https://www.quora.com/Are-certifications-for-software-engineers-worth-it).
What about sucessfully completing an online course like those offered by [coursera](https://www.coursera.org/) in one or more of the languages you already know? Some courses provide certificates of completion and even grades.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You need a bachelor degree in something if the institute that is going to give you a Msc is accredited. (e.g. by ABET or similar provisioning institutions)
And a MSc degree from an institute/university that does not require a BSc would probably will not be standing on the same foot when it comes to be used as a university degree.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: No, I don't think you'll find anyone who will admit you to a Master's program without some sort of Bachelor's degree. But I will offer some ideas specific to your field.
If your goal is to have something to frame and hang on the wall, you might consider getting a *Certificate in Computer Programming* ([sample description](http://view2.fdu.edu/academics/university-college/school-of-computer-sciences-and-engineering/academic-programs/computer-science-programs/undergraduate-certificate-in-computer-programming/)).
If your goal is to satisfy your intellectual curiosity, just enroll in whatever graduate level course(s) you're interested in, as an auditor. But if you'd like to have the credits to show for what you did, you *might* be able to enroll as a non-matriculated student. But note, I'm not at all sure this latter idea would work without a Bachelor's degree.
If your goal really is to get a Master's degree to frame and hang on the wall, here are some ideas about how to get a jump start:
1. Find the right institution -- it may be a two-year college to start
with; it may be a university that wants you as a Master's student
and works with you to help you speedstart; and it may be an online
program (but stay away from the private schools that charge an arm
and a leg). You're looking for a place where
* Very few non-major courses are required for the program.
* You can sign up for a wheelbarrow of credits each semester, and churn out the homeworks and projects with minimal attendance;
ideally, they would allow you to simply sit a final exam and then
give you the credits.Note that the best way to sound out a department to find out how flexible they are going to be would be by meeting with a professor
or dean *in the department*. Yours is not an uncommon problem in
your field, and most professors will not laugh you out of the water
if you come in and state clearly that in order to advance in your
profession, you need a degree to substantiate your expertise.
You'll want to target primarily departments that have more of an
Information Systems focus than a Computer Science focus.
Consider getting the non-major credits you need with some [CLEP](https://clep.collegeboard.org/)
credits. However, note that this may not be necessary, since
frequently departments will have their own internal procedures for
waiving prerequisites or giving credit by examination. (CLEP has
some disadvantages, compared to the internal route, such as cost of
exam, the challenge of finding an institution that offers the exam
you want, and the limited list of exams available through CLEP.)
2. As a first step, you might want to enroll as a non-matriculated
student in an upper-level undergraduate course that you are truly
interested in, and give it your all. The professor may be blown
away and mentor you based on what you did in that course.
Note that in this option, you would have to convince the instructor
and/or the department to waive the prerequisites. This is quite
doable in your situation, however.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: In Canada yes. You have at least two options:
1) if you're willing to learn French, you can be accepted at UQAM in Montreal. See here for the conditions for the Master in computer science([Bachelor **or** two years + experience](https://etudier.uqam.ca/programme?code=3281#bloc_conditions)).
What they usually do is that they might ask for what they call a "propedeutique". It means a one or two semesters at undergraduate level with specific courses chosen by the department to put you up at the proper level (in your case it could be French and maybe pure Math, for example). Application to this university cost less than $100, try it.
Note that for the French part, it's not as hard as it sounds. Programming language are the same, the books and resources will be in English and all of your teacher and most of your fellow students will speak some English. Montreal is a very active city computer wise and is bilingual.
2) If you want to go the Master with Thesis route you can study at [ETS](https://en.etsmtl.ca/en/Prospective-Students/Academic-Programs/A-Z-Programs/Specific-admission-requirements#8), a top school for Engineers very industry oriented, again in Montreal.
For nearly all their Masters the requirements are
>
> Hold a Bachelor’s degree .../...
> **OR** have acquired the required knowledge, appropriate training and experience that is deemed to be relevant.
> You can write your thesis in English and as for the French requirement you only need to pass a ridiculously small 3 credit course.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have developed a method that gives similar results (in few cases: better) compared to existing methods and I want to publish it. Can I do this and if yes, how do I motivate it? More specifically:
I am a undergraduate researcher, investigating methods to detect X in images. We have a solution using two images and another method proposed in the literature before also used two images.
Recently we discovered that we can solve the same problem in a very different manner if we use three images (taken differently) and still get similar results. This technique will be based on a particular observation and it is not discussed in the literature. Does it make a good paper given that the problem can be solved using two images with similar results?
How should I write and explain it in my paper about why I am using three images instead of two, because the results obtained are similar? The way in which the three images are taken is different from taking two images and our observation in the three-image-case seems to be novel.
**Edit** (from comment): In some cases our previously proposed method which uses 2 images gives inaccurate results compared to 3 image solution.<issue_comment>username_1: As your three-image method takes a new approach, it is novel in the academic sense: It adds to the existing knowledge. Thus you should be able to publish a paper on this, though probably not in a high-ranking journal (unless you blatantly underestimated the advantages of your method). The rationale for this is the following and you may use it to motivate your method in your paper: Your new approaches may inspire other methods which in turn may drastically outperform existing ones or yield entirely new information.
You could write the paper directly in this tone, not focussing on the method you are presenting but on the fact that you can extract the information your method (and the others) yield in a new way. In this context, you may consider not presenting your method primarily as a method, but as a way to verify your approach to extract the existing information.
You might get bonus points, if you actually have suggestions how to improve your method to outperform the existing ones.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Anything that is considered novel in literature *can* be published. This includes methods that doesn't exceed the performance of that of the state of the art. Eg. PLOS ONE Journal welcomes research including negative results.
Just make sure that the method yow are to propose isn't so obvious in application to your research problem. This should be done with appropriate literature survey. Also make sure you go through the Journal guidelines and consult with the publisher/editor prior to manuscript submission.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: In the US all the universities that receive federal funding must ensure (or so I heard) that all their employees and students take one class about the Title IX law, concerning sexual harassment and related subjects. Can refusing to attend these classes be a motive for firing or suspending a tenured member of faculty? Is there precedent of tenured faculty being fired for this?
[I ask the question not for myself, but because at my university (Brandeis), the administration has decided on its own to add to include in the title IX course a new "racial awareness" training that I find highly objectionable. Before encouraging others to boycott these trainings, I would like to know what I expose them to.]<issue_comment>username_1: The short answer is **yes, employees can be fired for not attending Title IX training**. One example from Ohio State is [here](http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/29/osu-move-impacted-by-title-ix.html) (the band director was fired). I could not find any examples in which a tenured professor has been fired for this. Failure to comply with Title IX is serious for any university receiving federal funding (which is essentially all universities in the US), so it would be an extremely serious situation.
Also, the premise of the question is misleading. It is not true that all university students and employees are required to attend Title IX training. From the [US Department of Education's document](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/qa-201404-title-ix.pdf) on this
>
> **What type of training on Title IX and sexual violence should a school provide to its
> employees?**
>
>
> **Answer:** A school needs to ensure that responsible employees with the authority to address sexual violence know how to respond appropriately to reports of sexual violence, that other responsible employees know that they are obligated to report sexual violence to appropriate school officials, and that all other employees understand how to respond to reports of sexual violence. A school should ensure that professional counselors, pastoral counselors, and non-professional counselors or advocates also understand the extent to which they may keep a report confidential. A school should provide training to all employees likely to witness or receive reports of sexual violence, including teachers, professors, school law enforcement unit employees, school administrators, school counselors, general counsels, athletic coaches, health personnel, and resident advisors. Training for employees should include practical information about how to prevent and identify sexual violence, including same-sex sexual violence; the behaviors that may lead to and result in sexual violence; the attitudes of bystanders that may allow conduct to continue; the potential for revictimization by responders and its effect on students; appropriate methods for responding to a student who may have experienced sexual violence, including the use of nonjudgmental language; the impact of trauma on victims; and, as applicable, the person(s) to whom such misconduct must be reported.
>
>
>
So, the training is to teach employees likely to be confronted with sexual misconduct or receive reports of sexual misconduct how they should deal with that, including to whom at the university they should report the incident.
In particular, [Section J](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/qa-201404-title-ix.pdf) deals with what training universities should provide.
Of course, you are free to do what you like, but I don't think you should advise people to refuse this training. They are putting themselves at risk of being fired over sessions that are designed to give them information on how to deal with a potentially traumatic situation. It seems a bit like refusing CPR training if the university decided to make that mandatory: I suppose the session is a bit of a pain, but is designed to help you deal with a situation in which responding appropriately could be critical.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: From my very limited understanding of labor law, refusing to do something that your employer deems is mandatory is generally grounds for termination. This is in essence the difference between mandatory and optional/recommended. There is of course a grey area related to an employer mandating employees to do things beyond their power. An employer is probably not legally allowed to mandate an employee give them $1000. If that demand was made and you were fired for not complying, you would might be able to sue for damages. Mandating employees undergo training related to sexual and racial awareness seems well within an employers right.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Put yourself in the shoes of a university administrator. The federal government has made a law requiring your university to do certain things if it wants to maintain its federal funding. Those things are to some extent subject to interpretation, but according to legal opinions of your university's lawyers (e.g., the general counsel or other high-ranking legal advisers) requiring your faculty to undergo Title IX training about race is a good way to comply with the requirements and minimize the risk to your institution. So, you institute these requirements as mandatory. Some months later you are informed that a tenured faculty member is refusing to take the training.
What do you do? Select the answer that applies:
>
> A. Invite the faculty member over for a chat in your office, where
> over cigars and a glass of scotch you both joke about the silliness of
> the federal requirements. You congratulate him on his good sense in
> objecting to these requirements, ask him to keep quiet about not
> taking the training so as to not make trouble for your university, and
> jovially send him on his way with an invitation to meet soon for a round of golf.
>
>
> B. Invite the faculty member over for a chat in your office, where you
> tell him that you are dissatisfied with his disregard for university
> policy, but that you understand that he is objecting to the training
> on principled, conscientious grounds, and confide that you even agree
> with him to some extent. Taking that into account, and taking into
> account the fact that he is tenured and that you value his research
> contributions, you tell him that you have decided not to take any
> disciplinary action. You caution him to keep quiet about not taking
> the training and not encourage others to follow in his footsteps so as
> to not make trouble for your university, and send him on his way.
>
>
> C. Send the faculty member a sternly-worded memo, with a copy to his
> dean and department chair, where you inform him that following his
> refusal to follow the mandatory requirement to undergo Title IX
> training, you are initiating disciplinary proceedings against him.
> You caution him that disregard for university policies on Title IX
> will not be tolerated under any circumstances, and that such
> proceedings could lead to various sanctions up to and including his
> termination. You conclude the memo by saying that until the
> proceedings have been set in motion some weeks from now, he has one
> last chance to satisfy the training requirement.
>
>
>
Now, it may be that you are the kind of person who would select answer B, or even A. I'm not saying it is unreasonable or wrong to be such a person, but if that is the case, I maintain that that would be in strong correlation to the fact that you are not a high-ranking university administrator -- let alone a successful one -- and probably never will be (I say this as a completely neutral statement, which I consider to be neither an insult nor a compliment). In practice, **answer C is the only answer that a REAL university administrator (and certainly a successful one, who has a good ability to weigh the consequences of each of the different options on his/her own career and institution) will realistically choose.**
To summarize, the answer to your question is an emphatic **Yes**: refusing to take mandatory training not only *can* lead to suspension or termination, but that is in fact the most likely outcome of such an action, by an overwhelming margin.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: In California, state law (specifically AB 1825, [bill text here](ftp://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/03-04/bill/asm/ab_1801-1850/ab_1825_bill_20040930_chaptered.html)) requires that
>
> ...an employer having 50 or more
> employees **shall provide at least two hours** of classroom or other
> effective interactive **training and education** regarding **sexual
> harassment** to **all supervisory employees** who are employed as of July
> 1, 2005, and to all new supervisory employees within six months of
> their assumption of a supervisory position. ... Each employer
> covered by this section shall provide sexual harassment training and
> education to each supervisory employee **once every two years**. The
> training and education required by this section **shall include
> information and practical guidance** regarding the federal and state
> statutory provisions concerning the prohibition against and the
> **prevention and correction of sexual harassment** and the **remedies
> available to victims of sexual harassment** in employment. The
> training and education shall also include practical examples aimed at
> instructing supervisors in the prevention of harassment,
> discrimination, and retaliation ...
>
>
>
Since a professor is certainly a supervisory employee (for example, when advising graduate students), this legal mandate applies to professors. I have not tested this, but I would imagine that if I took deliberate actions that put my employer in conflict with state law, this would jeopardize my employment; similarly, I would not expect to remain employed if I defrauded the NSF or NIH on my employer's behalf.
As a side note: one might not be aware (as I was not, before this training) that if a student mentions a sexual assault to you, you might be legally **obligated** to report this to the authorities, even if the student asked you not to tell anyone. If not, one might well commit to the student "sure, I won't mention this to anyone"; especially if you are someone who values your word, you might find it quite difficult to betray this commitment once it is made.
But your ignorance of the law then opens up your employer to liability, no different from a manager who violates labor laws governing overtime pay because of ignorance of the law. In cases like these, an employer is quite wise to make sure its employees are aware of their legal obligations. You may not *like* your legal responsibilities, but the proper response in that case is to advocate for changes to the law.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I want to begin by saying that I don't have any direct experience with the firing of tenured faculty, nor am I intimately familiar with Title IX issues. In particular, the requirement mentioned by the OP regarding Title IX training for all faculty are not in place at my (public, US, research) university.
But I do have experience with the way universities and university administrators work. For instance, I had a colleague who in his first year did not want to sign a standard intellectual property agreement (which I have no memory of signing upon my arrival two years before, but I assume that I must have done it). It seems like a somewhat analogous question to ask: would the university fire this (untenured) person? The answer that I would give to that is "Eventually perhaps, but there would be a lot of intermediate steps, and the professor would have to be durably intransigent in a way that tired out the higher administration and their lawyers." In the particular case at hand, this issue went on for several months, and my colleague was satisfied by being permitted to sign an earlier version of the intellectual property agreement that he found more favorable.
As another example, every once in a while I am required to take an online test to make sure I am sufficiently cognizant of certain current laws: not related to Title IX but rather to FERPA. How does this work? In many stages: there is some announced deadline, and as it approaches I get reminders from someone in my department. If I miss the deadline I will get more personalized, urgent reminders. If I were durably unresponsive then (I am told) I will get locked out of access to certain student records: e.g. I would not be able to look up any student grades online. The idea here is that if my lack of training is viewed as a liability, the university will take steps to remove me from the specific situation that is causing the liability rather than suspending me generally. Of course, being removed from that situation may cause annoyance or hardship for me, and it may even interfere with my job.
Coming back to the question asked: in my own opinion it is very unlikely that a tenured faculty member would be suspended or fired for not complying with a Title IX training course...at least not as a first or even fourth step. Rather the university would on the one hand take steps to assess the liability involved in that specific faculty member not having the training, and if that liability feels considerable to them then they will try to reduce that liability while keeping the faculty member and/or squeeze the faculty member in such a way as to make carrying out the training preferable. By the way, there are many ways that an administration which is unhappy with a tenured faculty member can make that faculty member's life less pleasant which completely circumvent the expectations surrounding tenure: e.g. they could mess with the teaching obligations of that faculty member, regulate or limit their access to certain groups of students, give them less of an annual raise or no raise at all, and so forth. If the administration really thinks it is dead right and you are dead wrong, I think that they can, while keeping you around, make life more miserable for you than you can for them. In the case of the OP, he says that he will just leave. Exactly: that's a much more likely outcome.
I think that in order to consider suspension or firing in the short term, the administration would have to find some specific, *actual* legal liability rather than just a potential one. If a university fires a tenured faculty member for their own interpretation of a federal law, the probability of a huge fuss including censure from faculty associations and unions and/or a big lawsuit seems rather high. I would expect them only to risk that in the face of some other similarly proximate scandal or lawsuit. Another answer contains a link to a university band leader (untenured) who was fired for refusing Title IX training until after he mishandled a sexual harrassment / assault case between students under his direction. In that case they pretty much expect legal action either way, and they're weighing one lawsuit against another. If the OP has not had any actual dustups or issues with students, I would be absolutely flabbergasted (note: this could happen, obviously!) if he were fired rather than squeezed or forced out in a more subtle way.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: If you just officially boycott the training, there is a good chance that they will fire you after lengthy proceedings. There is also a chance that this boycott will achieve absolutely nothing.
Luckily, in dealing with administrators there are many other ways:
* Keep a low profile. There is a good chance that they will overlook you. That is what I did, and they never caught up with me till I (very happily) left academia. If they call you up, just offer to call back and forget about it.
* While some administrators really do care, many more that I've met are just drones that would happily enforce any regulation. They might just as well enforce segregation instead of Title IX training without any difference. So it makes absolutely no sense to argue the subject with them. Probably they have no clue what is even going on. To deal with administrators, you have to argue the process itself. Big chance that they violated some of their own procedures, missed deadlines, the wrong person signed the documents, documents are not on the right letterhead (e.g. faculty often uses their personal letterhead for university administrative. How are you supposed to know that a letter by Prof. X from the department of sociology is an official document stating a university policy?)
* I assume that the reason you don't want to attend the Title IX training is not because you are against discrimination, but because this 'training' is itself blatantly racist and sexist. Point out how you are feeling 'threatened' by the training, how it is 'creating a hostile work atmosphere', how you feel singled out because of your skin color and so on. Good chance they won't touch you. This is such a hot potato that I see it as the most efficient way to get a more reasonable training class established. If you get the training changed to something neutral and non-racist, you have achieved your goal. This is the right approach IMHO.
* Make up some pc reason why the training is highly offensive to someone in your situation.
* Often administrators responsible for this very special area are highly biased prejudiced partisans that try to push their own agenda. It is quite possible that the university itself just wants to fulfil the Title IX requirements on paper to avoid possible lawsuits (after all, why do they care). So to check of a box they hire some nutcase who tries to push his own agenda, as are most people offering services in this field. Point out to the university that they've hired a loose cannon that actually puts them more at risk for a Title IX lawsuit, because they force everyone to sit through a racially biased class.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: When people speak about Title IX they are referring to a United States federal law, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a), which states:
>
> No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded
> from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
> discrimination under any education program or activity receiving
> Federal financial assistance.
>
>
>
The law itself, as you can see, is short and sweet. However, legal decisions and guidance from the U.S. Department of Education have given it a broad scope covering sexual harassment and sexual violence.
It is the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) which enforces Title IX, and it has published a helpful document which outlines what needs to be done to be in compliance with Title IX (see [guidance letter](http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201104.html)), and tells schools how the Department will review and enforce Title IX complaints.
If you are still in doubt about what is objectively required vs. what your own institution has put in place, you can ask OCR for clarification. The document I referenced guides you in finding the appropriate contact information for your geographical region.
---
As an additional note for your particular situation:
OCR "is committed to ensuring that all students feel safe and have the opportunity to benefit fully from their schools’ education programs and activities." The guidance letter explains that when a complaint is filed, OCR is on the look-out for **conduct that creates "a hostile environment [and] interferes with or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from [a] school’s program."**
I invite you to put yourself in the shoes of a woman in a department where you are teaching. How would you feel, reading this thread, and contemplating taking a course from the OP? Frequently, women already feel uncomfortable in male-dominated fields. Do you think your published remarks will tend to increase or decrease their comfort level in a department where you are employed?
Here's an analogy. Suppose you are a student from the Philippines. Now suppose that you are enrolled in a department that has set up a required training session for staff, to remedy some civil rights issues involving people from the Philippines. If one of the professors publishes things online describing his negative views about a requirement to attend the training session, will that increase or decrease your feeling of being welcome in that department?
Upvotes: 4
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2015/12/04
| 1,330
| 5,520
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying to PhD programs in mathematics and need to complete a purpose statement as part of the application. There are several things I'd appreciate any advice you can give me on the following:
1. What is a good way to end the letter in a strong way? I wanted to say something along the lines of "I greatly look forward to further understanding the intricate theory of XYZ" but this seems a bit cliché.
2. I wanted to mention my specific interest in school XYZ/professor XYZ, but I don't know enough about his/her research to say something intelligent or insightful about it. What should I do? Is it better to have some indication I did my research for this school than to say nothing at all? To be clear, I am interested in the *field* of these professors but my knowledge is too shallow to fully understand the impact of their work. How can I add something substantive but not sound like I'm making things up to sound smart?
3. For one of the schools I am applying to, a big reason I want to go there is due to their well funded program. Should I mention this or will it seem tacky?
4. What is a "smooth" way of mentioning I want to work with a professor? It seems too abrupt to just say "I want to work with professor XYZ". What if this person doesn't have any current students (or at least doesn't have them listed in his/her Web page). Should I take it that this person is not currently taking students?
Any and all advice would be helpful. Thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: Tips\*
1. I would NOT follow rubric guidelines that are plastered all over Father Google. Advisors, committee pupils etc that are reviewing your app amongst a thousand others will see the same "This got me into Yale so you should do it to" ;goes straight to the trash.
2. What I would do is make sure I answer all necessary criteria they have with no glossing/rambling and make it sound meaningful. Definitely follow proper grammar structure, rules etc but make sure that you standout
You'll know it's ready when you read it and you're like I wrote that? :)
\*I didn't answer your questions directly because our input on how to write what will sound like someone else wrote it. Needs to be consistent!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> What is a good way to end the letter in a strong way?
>
>
>
It doesn't really matter too much as long as it's not too cliched (although even that's probably fine) or overly memorable. An example is to say something nice like "Given my background and the excellent research faculty at University of State, I look forward to making a contribution to the research program at University of State."
>
> What should I do? Is it better to have some indication I did my research for this school than to say nothing at all?
>
>
>
It's definitely better to have some indication that you did your homework. You don't have to have any particularly insightful things to say, just explain why you found their work interesting and why you want to work with them. Those are questions you should answer for yourself anyways! Definitely don't make things up to sound smart.
>
> For one of the schools I am applying to, a big reason I want to go there is due to their well funded program. Should I mention this or will it seem tacky?
>
>
>
Mention it tactfully. Say something like you appreciate the commitment they make to their graduate students and that it speaks to their commitment to good scholarship.
>
> What is a "smooth" way of mentioning I want to work with a professor? ... What if this person doesn't have any current students.
>
>
>
There's nothing wrong with mentioning that you want to work with specific faculty; it's expected that you have some ideas of what you want to work on before you get in. So say who you want to work with, but make sure you list several faculty members who work on things you're interested in. This way, should it happen that the person is not taking students, your application will still get a fair shake.
This next piece of advice is maybe controversial given how many emails professors get, but *after* you have applied, you can send a short email to the faculty you mention in your statement of purpose telling them that you've applied, you are interested in their work, and if they're looking for students to keep your application in mind.
>
> Should I take it that this person is not currently taking students?
>
>
>
Not necessarily but it is strange for an active research professor to have no students. Ask a graduate student in the department why they have no current students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: 1. You don't need a strong ending because this isn't an article, and you want to keep your essay concise.
2. Mention the field or sub-field you are interested in. The department will know who is working in it. Don't worry about sounding pretentious -- this essay is not going to be published anywhere -- but do make sure you don't make statements you really don't know enough to make with confidence.
3. Don't mention the financial support available at the particular school. However, since many supported students at UW and many other schools are expected to serve as teaching assistants, it might be helpful to say something about your experience and interest in teaching.
4. See Q2; also, don't assume the person is not taking students.
I would also add that the link @username_1 found looks very helpful. And it's a model of conciseness!
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/04
| 1,599
| 6,959
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<issue_start>username_0: I am the advisor of an absolutely brilliant but unusually young student.
He has written an outstanding paper relating to this field, one which I am extremely certain will be worked upon and appreciated by many, because of the paper's influential value.
However, he has asked me to publish the paper under my own name because he wants to "expose himself to the insights of others regarding his own insight." He doesn't want to publish under his own name, because he feels that when people find out that the author of the paper is so young, they'll give him the treatment that a clown gets in a circus; praise and praise. Such praise he believes is extremely detrimental to this stage in his career.
He says, further, that he doesn't want to feel like some child prodigy, which in turn feels like being some painting on an exhibition that people admire and later walk by, and that it's likely for his peers to feel "intimidated" or be struck by some other negative thought which will come naturally.
I insisted that none of these things will happen and that he should take the credit for what he has rightfully done, but he says, "They need to know and if you publish this paper, they will know. And if I publish this paper, they will know and later forget."
I don't know what to do in this scenario.<issue_comment>username_1: If he's a PhD student, he has to publish papers regardless of his age. I doubt many journal publishers would ask for the authors age (even the top tier ones). Make him understand the importance of publication and his destiny as a researcher.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Well, of course, you absolutely cannot publish the student's work under your own name, so take that off the table right away. You can explain to the student that a fundamental principle of academic ethics is that one absolutely does not take credit for the work of another, and that doing so would jeopardize your entire career. So whatever the resolution of this situation is, it can't be that.
Ethically, the student could publish under a pseudonym, but I don't think it is a great idea. If the work really is that significant, researchers in the field are going to want to talk to the author: contact him to ask questions about the paper, invite him to conferences and seminars, suggest collaborations. In principle he could refuse it all, or decline to give any contact information, but this would ultimately limit the impact of his work, and it seems that it's important to him that his work should have an impact. Moreover, I think using a pseudonym would actually divert the attention away from the work and toward the mysterious author, and when his identity eventually is discovered (as I think it must), the result would only be more of the unwanted "circus clown" treatment.
Now, I think I can understand the student's fear. I think many people in fields like math and physics have had the experience of laypeople saying "I don't have any understanding of what you do, but you must be really smart." It may be meant as complimentary, but it can be very frustrating - there's an implication of "You are different from me, I cannot relate to you, and I don't want to try". It's emotionally uncomfortable. So for a person who not only works in a specialized field, but shows unusual talent at an early age, this effect must be greatly magnified, and I can sympathize with the wish to avoid it.
The difference, though, is that people *within* the field really don't behave like that. Their attention really will be on the work itself. There may be just a little bit of extra amazement at the author's age (since physicists are human too), but it won't overshadow the work. It seems that you've tried to reassure the student of this, but he's not convinced.
So perhaps you should try to put the student in touch with one or more people in your field who has had the experience of being a "prodigy", and gone on to be a successful, mature researcher. This person should hopefully be able to better relate to your student's concerns, share their experience of what it is actually like to enter the field from such a background, and offer guidance for managing unwanted attention or similar issues. This might help the student understand that his fears are unfounded, and encourage him to go ahead with publishing under his own name, which I think we can agree is ultimately what's best.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I will attempt to answer this question from experience. In the comments @tonystg suggested that 17 would count as "exceptionally young." I started my research career at approximately that age. I got to know quite a few young people who were making exceptionally rapid academic progress.
Sometimes a student will make a lot of progress in one academic field; this does not mean they will have equally good understanding of the broader social context of that field. The solution is socialization with other people who are exceptional or unusual, preferably including those of a similar age and with similar disciplinary interests. Personally, I got this sort of experience at Simon's Rock College. You should also teach your students, exceptional or otherwise, about how to strategize effectively to achieve their career goals; tell them how admissions/hiring decisions made.
Imagine an African American student came to you and said they were concerned they would face racism in an academic setting. Hopefully you would advise them that while racism is not normal, it does occur. It can also be overcome by a variety of strategies, such as persistence, education, and unity among those who support diversity. You can support an academically talented student in a similar way. Please do not suggest that they will not be mistreated. This will only increase the harm the student experiences because it implies the student deserves the unfair treatment. Personally, I was frequently treated like a clown at a circus when I was young. I was also occasionally physically assaulted. However, I do not regret my efforts to learn and become a scientist one bit. It's worthwhile to learn to cope with other people's bad behaviour so it does not stand in the way of your goals.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: 1. Ethically, you cannot publish that student's work under your name which you will need to assertively convey to this student. The suggestion of a pseudonym can be a viable solution.
2. A conversation that needs to happen is about the value of research & publishing papers. Make sure to acknowledge the student's fear and explain why you feel this paper has merit and should be read by others.
3. Especially with younger students, the feeling of being outside the norm makes them uncomfortable. They struggle to fit in and often choose to conceal any ability that makes them "different." As it was suggested, connecting them with peers of similar age and talent can help.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/04
| 467
| 2,020
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to some schools in US for my PhD studies. In the application form there are two different places for uploading CV and Resume.
What is the difference between them?<issue_comment>username_1: Resume is shorter.
Resume provides a summary of your education, previous employment, skills, and accomplishments.
CV includes all the above in more details plus publications, presentations, detailed teaching experience, etc.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A resume tends to be a one page summary of what your background is with respect to the position you are applying for. informally needs to be a very dumbed-down version of what you have done so it can be understood by a general audience specially the early-stage selection committees(read departments staff, random volunteers, HR personnel).
In a resume, a person might focus on marketing his accomplishments in a context of the positions this person is submitting the resume to.
CV or curriculum vitae can go any number of pages and can include all aspects of you. I have heard people having 150 pages of CV and using them for applying to positions like a program manager at NIH with 40 pages for their publications alone.
A CV is in a way an absolute document and you don't edit it based on the position you submit your CV to. It is generally all there is to it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It may be worth pointing out that the distinction made between resumes and CVs in the other answers is very much a US thing. Outside of the US, things are different. In Europe (including the UK) resumes are uncommon. Instead, CVs are used for everything. However, CVs are generally expected to be much shorter. As a rule of thumb, a European should fit on two pages A4, and is tailored to the job you are applying for. Also, unless specifically requested, a European CV will not contain a list of publications. European CVs thus fall somewhere in the middle ground of American resumes and CVs.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/05
| 502
| 2,200
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<issue_start>username_0: There is a PhD position at a university. I have sent an email and also a follow-up email (after one week from my first email) to the corresponding professor and I haven't got any reply yet (it has been 4 days from the follow up email!).
somewhere at the personal webpage of the professor it is stated that to apply or if you are interested to postdoc please first email your CV to Prof. X. On the other hand, the "Apply online" button in the open position list is active. What should I do now? send another email to the professor?<issue_comment>username_1: Faculty members often reply the emails coming from applicants, within which there is anything interesting for them. Unless a professor goes for a sabbatical, he/she would read your email, considerably; and with due attention to the available vacancy, your CV will be analyzed, carefully. If nothing would be reflected from the professor, you have not been discerned as a right fit for that position. You can resend the email, once again, after a couple of days, again. But after that, it is up to the faculty member to either reply you or neglect your email, at all.
The aforementioned links are typical at the faculty members' webpages. They are devised because annoying emails from the applicants often bother them and such links just direct the applicants toward the right way of application: the official applying, instead of sending email to individuals!
Best
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: My answer will be general -- not specific to the particular institution you want to apply to.
* You could contact the department and ask, "I sent my CV to Prof. X, as suggested at the application instructions page (provide link), on [date], but have not heard back yet. May I go ahead and submit my application, or do I need to wait for a response from the professor?"
* Note that four days is not very long. Depending on the application deadline, you may want to give this a bit more patience.
* You have submitted your CV as instructed; unless the instructions say you must hear back from the professor before submitting your application, I suppose you could go ahead and submit your application.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/05
| 1,047
| 4,218
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a friend who is unable to find a job in the industry. He's a fresh university graduate. He's now applying for a PhD position because he's found a supervisor. I have every reason to suspect that he wouldn't enjoy the degree because:
* He's very good at memorizing text-books and past-exams, but never able to come up with a solution independently.
* He doesn't enjoy reading unless it's required for exams.
* He plays and socializes a lot.
* He came up with this idea after failing some job interviews.
I think he just wants to go back to university because job interviews are tough.<issue_comment>username_1: How about introducing your friend to [PhD comics](http://phdcomics.com/comics.php). At least someone who has read those and still goes for a PhD cannot say they haven't be warned.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> I have every reason to suspect that he wouldn't enjoy the degree because:...
>
>
>
All the points you listed must be your personal opinions about Mr. X unless you are really Mr. X. If you are not, I suggest strongly against persuading someone against their plan to do a PhD if you only *think why* he is doing so.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I think improving your chances of finding a job you want is one of the primary reasons people pursue academic degrees, so there's nothing strange there. If you think he's completely clueless and will be utterly unprepared for the challenges of a PhD, you can try to educate him so he can make better informed decisions. It might be appropriate to suggest considering master's degrees first to try out graduate studies, depending on the kind of PhD programs he's thinking about.
(It was unclear from the question if he found a supervisor who is willing to take him already, or just someone interested in working with--I assumed the latter.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Don't persuade him. Being a PhD is better than being unemployed. And although you seem to despise your friend, the supervisor has another opinion of him.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Ph.D.s are really tough. You live below poverty, for about 5 years (although you probably have stable housing and pay so it could be worse). Your workload will fluctuate well above the coveted 40 hours a week and may eat up weekends and holidays if your research gets out of hand, either because the *project* is behind or because *you* are behind. Unless you plan to become a professor your career would have been better off if you were working, even in science fields. You go to a school in a random location then do a string of post-docs in random locations. The two body problem happens because your career path has become inflexible. You feel bad about quitting early, which there's a good chance you'll do because 5 years is a long time for anyone.
Those are some of the better reasons not to pursue a Ph.D. The reasons you gave are useless and condescending - no *wonder* your friend is ignoring you - and I actually disagree with your central point that pursuing a Ph.D. is a bad alternative to not finding a job.
I would even surmise your friend is better prepared for it than you might think because he is not approaching it from the standpoint of having glorified it through all of undergraduate. Perhaps he'll leave for a job in just a year or two. In which case he had a roof over his head (you know, literally) for two years, and good for him.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: If you haven't already it might be interesting to show your friend this discussion, for the sake of enriching the conversation. But often the only thing to dissuade someone from pursuing a PhD for the wrong reasons is the pursuit of the PhD.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: Some people are late bloomers. If his Prof decided to give him a studentship, and he passed the entry requirements, your friend has the right to try. You can state your qualms to him, but the decision is his. Don't nag.
Once his mind is made up, respect the decision, and support him unconditionally, if you are really a friend. His future not your judgement to make. And, who knows, you may end up being surprised.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/05
| 852
| 3,894
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it socially acceptable to present a conference paper which is not (yet) highly original research?
Being in the humanities, research requires much of literature reading rather than experimental or lab work. So, in a sense, it's inevitable that I need to take the existing literature as a starting point.
Personally, I consider journals to be the proper place to disseminate original research. As a starting PhD student I am trying to participate in workshops and conferences as much as possible.
Many times my presentations are work-in-progress and a personal synthesis of the vast amount of literature I have been processing. These presentations help me to make a "coherent story" of months of reading work. Making such a coherent story also helps me to orient my future research and accomplish intermediate research goals. Many times I submit an abstract to conferences to have some "external motivation" to finish some work before a certain deadline. Repeating this process, eventually, I am able to integrate these research goals to a higher plane where truly original research can be done.
Furthermore, I also consider conferences in a more broad sense. Rather than being a place to impress other people with your results, it's an opportunity to receive feedback and criticism. I also consider conferences as occasions where people with different backgrounds can meet each other, that is, meet each other qua human beings (not their research).
To formulate my story as a question: (a) How common is my vision of conferences? (b) Is it socially acceptable to present something which is derivative work-in-progress (and not yet revolutionary research?)<issue_comment>username_1: It is indeed acceptable as long as you state it as a survey.
Many papers published in both conferences and journals present only the collated information of existing work. Such papers can be classified as a survey. Not all papers that are published propose novel methods.
The quality of the survey paper, however, lies in the credibility of the sources cited and the way in which the information is collated. Writing a good survey paper is not just about putting all the pieces of research in a field together. An admirable survey paper ought to explain in detail the comparison of proposed methods, the state of the art and show open areas of research within the field.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Although I'm in the social sciences rather than in the humanities, I'll give a general response:
"Socially acceptable" is an odd question. I understand that you are asking about if people who attend your session might find your presentation appropriate or not. However, academic conferences are peer-reviewed. That means that before youre presentation can be presented to an audience, it is evaluated not only by the conference committee, but by two or more subject experts. So, if your presentation is acceptable to the committee and to the peer-reviewers, then I expect that that answers your question--yes, they have approved it for presentation before an audience. (Of course, and especially if you are only submitting an abstract for consideration, you must be explicit that your final presention would be of a literature review.) If they don't accept it, then no--though their rejection might not be because it is a literature review per se--it could be for many other reasons.
Also, note that what is acceptable for one conference might not be acceptable for another, and indeed, what is acceptable for one conference one year might not be acceptable another year (since you often have different evaluators). Only by actually submitting would you know.
So, in short, submit it for peer-review and then you'll get your answer. You don't need to worry about the audience; the peer-reviewers are there to protect them from inappropriate material.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/05
| 597
| 2,467
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<issue_start>username_0: This past fall I taught three lecture courses back-to-back-to-back on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. Although I enjoyed it, and felt I did a good job of it, I felt physically exhausted afterwards and usually did not manage to accomplish much those afternoons.
What strategies (yoga? meditation? long walks?) have others used to quickly recover their energy for research or other duties in such situations?<issue_comment>username_1: When I was a graduate student, I was a teaching assistant for several terms for the big introductory artificial intelligence class at our school. There were 300-400 students in the class and 4-5 TAs, each of whom was responsible for leading tutorial sections of ~10 students/section. Because of other constraints, the tutorials all had to be scheduled Monday afternoon or Tuesday, which meant we all had long, long blocks of tutorials all through every Tuesday. At the end of every Tuesday, I would be exhausted, covered with chalk dust, throat sore, and *very* well versed on the material.
We TAs thus had a tradition of meeting at the lab afterwards to socialize and drink together and generally blow off verbal steam. We'd hang out for about an hour, kibitzing about the class and our experiences, and by the end of that time we'd be sufficiently unwound and recovered to be speak about other things as well.
These days, I don't think I would use alcohol, but would still take a "palette cleanser time" to do something different and give myself time for things to settle out of my head. Half an hour to an hour seems to be able the right amount of time for me. Overall, it's much better for me to do something active (e.g., walking, talking with others) than to do something passive like reading blogs, because the I find the more passive activities to be more about emotionally detaching rather than cleansing, and I am likely to not recover emotionally in the way that I need to. Others, of course, may find that different things work well for them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Don't forget to eat and rehydrate. If possible, get out of your building to do so; that adds a change of pace, which also helps. Give yourself permission not to do anything intellectual while you fuel up.
When I have a schedule like that, I intentionally save relatively mindless chores for afterwards. Work gets done so I don't feel like a slacker, but I don't have to break my brain either.
Upvotes: 4
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2015/12/05
| 472
| 1,934
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<issue_start>username_0: I was working during the last year on developing an approach that determines human age class (young or old), but after I got exciting results I've discovered that I made a mistake when implementing some lines of code. I think that the mistake is a bit critical because I was comparing my approach and literature's ones. The mistake I made was during the classification task, where the data was entered in the right way but the experience was badly managed.
What should I do? Do I have to stay quiet or do I have to fix it? Note that the paper is not yet published nor peer reviewed.<issue_comment>username_1: Publishing things that you know are erroneous is a good way to get a really bad scientific reputation. Depending on how severe it is, it might go so far as to be labelled fraud and formally sanctioned, basically killing your career.
If it's important, then yes, you need to fix it.
If it's not published yet, then fix it before you publish it. If it's published, then you will need to submit a correction or possibly even a retraction. Good scientists do this, and [it's much better to acknowledge your errors and retract than to have others expose you as a liar](http://retractionwatch.com/2015/06/16/life-after-retraction-in-many-cases-its-forgive-and-forget/).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it is better to do so.
Because when you have results which are inaccurate or which are wrong, people who have access to that paper will surely have to redo the results and even the whole paper (study) if necessary.
By doing this, some of the missed concepts of the study may be filled up during the second study.
I had a task to come up with a term paper within a semester. Little did I know that the results were inaccurate. My lecturer instructed me to redo the paper and to my surprise I found new information which I didn't find during the first study.
Upvotes: -1
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2015/12/05
| 583
| 2,489
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<issue_start>username_0: I am finishing up a MA in Global Affairs, and I am in the process of applying to several doctoral programs. Two and a half weeks ago, I asked three of my professors if they would recommend me. I made sure to note in my emails to them that if they chose to support me, one of the program deadlines was substantially sooner than the others. Two responded positively almost immediately, but one did not. However, he has encouraged me on numerous occasions to apply, and speaks very highly of me. Needless to say, I was very surprised when he responded 5 days before the first deadline to say that he was not prepared to recommend me. He said that he normally only write recommendations for students who have served as his GA, and that if I want him to write one for me I have to draft the letter I expect him to write. I said I could do that... but would we be able to do this in time for the upcoming deadline? He said no, and there was no way I could ask someone else with such short notice.
However, I really do not know what I should say to the other people who recommended me. I know they have already submitted their letters. Do I say that I simply couldn't get my act together in time, and risk looking unprepared? Do I tell them that one of my recommendations fell through, and look like I must have done something to change that person's mind? Do I tell the full story, and look like I am just trying to place blame elsewhere? Or, do I just not tell them at all? They all know each other, so they could find out even if I don't say anything. None of the options seems great, and I am kind of at a loss.
**Edit to add (taken from comment):** My main concern is that asking someone else to submit something last minute or late might not be appropriate.<issue_comment>username_1: Get another letter. Grad app deadlines are many times not as strict for letters as they are for your application materials.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> and there was no way I could ask someone else with such short notice.
>
>
>
This may be the conclusion of your analysis but in my opinion it doesn't hurt if you'd actually try to contact another potential referee. I agree with Prof. <NAME> in his answer and I would like to add that this should not be your ***only*** reason for not applying. I think your questions reflects concerns in the *not so near* future that you can actually try to find another person for the recommendation.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/05
| 827
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<issue_start>username_0: Wikipedia states that '*Although the arXiv is not peer reviewed, a collection of moderators for each area review the submissions.*'
If a paper is not published in any other publication, does it means that it will not contribute to your C.V. when you are applying for an MS or PhD program? Because on arXiv it is not reviewed specifically implies that it does not have the same weight as compared to other publication.<issue_comment>username_1: You are correct that, since arXiv is not peer-reviewed, a paper in arXiv generally counts less than a paper in a peer-reviewed publication.
That does not, however, mean that it does not count. This is particularly true when it comes to graduate admissions, where few students have any publications at all. An admissions committee that is considering whether you have potential to do well in their program may find a strong manuscript in arXiv to be a very good sign. Note, however, that the degree to which this is true will be strongly field-dependent: in a field that makes heavy use of arXiv, such as physics and mathematics, faculty may be quite accustomed to arXiv and understand how to judge such manuscripts; in a field that does not, such as many biomedical fields, faculty may ignore it completely.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The arxiv preprints are eligible for CV inclusion. It is better when you have both traditional journal publications and preprints.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Having a paper that was not peer reviewed but is available from arXiv will help you just as much, and in exactly the same way, as having a paper that was not peer reviewed and is available from any other easily accessed online source. The main things that are important are that:
1. You have written a paper (according to some definition of "paper").
2. The paper can easily be accessed and looked at by anyone wishing to evaluate your strength as a grad school applicant.
Note that the value of such a paper to your admission prospects can actually be negative if it is clearly of very poor quality, shows delusional tendencies (e.g., a paper with the title "A simple proof of the Riemann Hypothesis"), or comes across as a dishonest attempt to create a false impression that you have done something important when clearly you haven't. Setting aside such obvious exceptions, an arXiv paper will probably have a positive, but in most cases not very large, value for your applications.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: In my field, you often see the CVs of post doc applicants listing preprints, but **usually such a paper has been submitted to a journal for review**, i.e. you will read
>
> <NAME>, "On the existence of sentences with eight words", preprint (2015). arXiv:1215.12345. Submitted to Famous Journal.
>
>
>
People who have a sizeable number of publications usually stop adding preprints, but that's just an observation, not a rule.
Edit: I should have mentioned how much these publications count. I would say that depends on the individual case: these entries are looked at on the arXiv and their merit is judged individually. (There should just be one or to "submitted" publications, or things look fishy.)
On the other hand, I would say that an arXiv-only publication that is not marked as submitted, either in the CV or on the arXiv, does not count very much, as it looks like the author does not value the paper high enough to try to get it through peer review.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/06
| 692
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently looking to send my Statement of Purpose to an English TA for editing. The problem is that I am afraid my Statement of Purpose might get plagiarized. However, since my statement is highly personalized, is my worry unnecessary?<issue_comment>username_1: This is very unlikely if you do your statement of purpose well: the document should be too specific to your situation and interests to apply to your English TA.
To reduce the chances of it being plagiarised, try considering some [standard tips for a good statement of purpose](http://grad.berkeley.edu/admissions/apply/statement-purpose/) [emphasis mine]:
>
> * Tell them what *you’re interested in*, and perhaps, what sparked your desire for graduate study. This should be short and to the point; don’t spend a great deal of time on autobiography.
> * [Summarize...] *[r]esearch you conducted*. Indicate with whom, the title of the project, what your responsibilities were, and the outcome. Write technically, or in the style of your discipline. Professors are the people who read these statements.
>
>
>
And so on. The common theme among these and the remaining tips is that the statement of purpose should really highlight your *unique* qualifications and interests.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you and the TA are careful with your email accounts, and change passwords regularly, etc., you can trust email with your document. But you need to be trained in using a spell checker, and you should work with your TA in person (over at least two appointments) on improving your essay. Otherwise, you'd be using the TA as a glorified copy editor. That's not fair to him or her, and it doesn't help you produce an admission-winning essay.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You assisted a grad student in [robotics research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49322/how-to-get-good-recommendation-when-working-under-a-phd-student-as-an-undergradu) as an undergrad. This would imply you're probably not a liberal arts student. The edit history of your posts by others also points to you not being a native English speaker. *There is actually nothing wrong with that. I am also not a native English speaker. I am just pointing out what should already be obvious to you about your situation.*
On the other hand since you're in Canada, this would mean that your English TA is probably a native English speaker and most likely not in the same field of study as yours.
Not only such a person would have no use for your statement of purpose in his field of study, but you must be overestimating the quality of your writing in English, if you believe that it could be useful for him to give to any of his other ESL students (who may be applying for grad school in the same field of study as yours). It simply wouldn't be.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/06
| 702
| 2,936
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in my third year of computer engineering studies, and was offered a position as lab assistant in the electronics lab. I am oriented towards software, so I'm not exactly interested in the subject itself, but to my understanding, being a lab assistant is quite a good thing for the CV, plus it's good to be a familiar face to a professor or two, and I like the work, so I'd generally like to continue.
What makes me skeptical is the fact that I am in the lab for two hours on Monday evening (I miss the first hour due to an overlapping class), three hours on Thursday evening, and six hours on Friday from 3pm up to 9 o'clock, which brings the total time up to 14 hours. While I can probably cope with that, I was also asked to grade some reports (is it even legal for undergrads to grade undergrads?), a subject I want to discuss on another question.
At any rate, I have felt a big impact on my independent pursuits since I started, namely some days I'm at the campus all day so I don't feel like I'm doing much, and I really can't stand not doing stuff.
**The question** comes down to this: As an undergrad lab assistant, how much time am I expected to devote to the lab, and how much work am I expected to do at home? How serious a commitment did I make?<issue_comment>username_1: It all depends on your institution's regulations.
Explanation:
The workload for a TA in a lab depends on the resources and constraints. By resources I mean the lab instructors and other lab TAs allocated for the same subject. I'll list some of the other dependant factors below
* Whether the subject or its syllabus is new
* Complexity and density of the lab subject subject syllabus
* Number of students per batch
* Amount of work imposed by the department for the subject
* Professor who handles that subject.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: In graduate school, this would be dictated by your GRA (graduate research assistant) contract, which would specify a minimum number of hours you would be expected to work on research each week.
As an undergraduate research assistant, if you're getting paid OR if you're receiving credit for your work, I would expect this to be dictated by your contract or a syllabus (respectively). If neither of those conditions are true, then this is a matter to take up with the professor you work for. Consider telling them that you would like to cut back on your responsibilities to pursue other interests, but know that they might counter with telling you that you're no longer needed. Negotiate carefully and respectfully.
For the record, 14 hours doesn't seem too extreme, even for an undergraduate research assistant. And if you're being paid, whether or not you can be asked to grade depends largely on the terms of your contract, though it doesn't seem unreasonable. In any event: negotiate respectfully with your boss, just as you would do in any other job.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/06
| 2,680
| 11,152
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<issue_start>username_0: As an undergraduate, I've been working as a TA in an electronics lab for a while. Recently I have been asked to grade other students' lab reports. I have also done some oral examination, but I guess that's relatively fine, since there you can indeed see if he knows what he's supposed to know.
However, when it comes to grading reports, they may be to some extent copied from other reports, may have data tampered with after the lab so they look correct, and in general are made to look correct through collaboration and some Google copy-paste, it becomes very hard to tell who deserves the grade and who doesn't.
Also, I myself wasn't getting good grades at those reports, and I never could understand what those correcting were expecting from me, so I would be grading on a different basis than they are. In fact, I really can't find much wrong with the reports, so I feel like I'm doing a lousy job (even though any time I express doubt about my judgement I am assured that stuff can't go wrong).
One final detail is that it's a hardware lab, and while I'm not bad at it, I'm headed straight to software, so I probably look at things from a different perspective, not to mention that what's important for me may be quite different.
Considering the above worries, does it seem fair that undergrad students grade the reports of younger undergrads, does it seem professional for those in charge of those groups assign such work to undergrad TAs, and finally, is it even legal for an undergrad to affect another undergraduate's grade by handling grading processes?<issue_comment>username_1: It's a fairly common practice at some universities for older undergraduate TAs to grade younger undergraduates' work. My undergrad institution relied heavily on this - it's perfectly legal and ethical SO LONG AS you, the TA, do not discuss one student's grades/work with another student. More generally, a TA in the United States is bound by [FERPA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Educational_Rights_and_Privacy_Act) as to what is legal or not.
If you're concerned about not knowing what to mark as wrong, consider asking the professor you are grading for for an answer key or an example solution set. They may be unwilling to give this to you outright, but hopefully they will at least walk through an example with you and point out what they're looking for in a fully correct answer.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Undergrad students grading other undergrads
>
>
>
I've seen much more: undergrad students grading grad students, grad students grading postgrad students and research scholars! Before my opinion I'll state the basic concept:
*Any of those who are qualified with the course subject are considered eligible to evaluate the answer scripts of the subject.* This includes those who didn't complete the degree *per se*. Undergrad students who have completed the subject are said to have more up-to-date knowledge in the subject enough to grade other students of the same.
As a PhD research scholar myself, I felt the same. However, this even occurs in IITs (Indian Institute of Technology, some of the most prestigious institutions in India). Hence, this is something one has to accept. I'll be happy enough - if the grader who doesn't know the subject doesn't grade my course work - irrespective of their age or degree.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think this is not a matter of ethics or something more. It’s all about sharing. I think if you have prepared yourself and gained some skills that give you some advantages over the others, you can evaluate a master. There are some graduated people who do not have the correct prerequesites for certain areas and somebody who has a only master degree in title, but from experience can give any advice and many times correct graduated people.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: As to the question in the title it is certainly ethical, professional, and legal. More than that, in the US at least, it is extremely common (in my experience at both public and private universities). However, undergraduate TAs should be handled by faculty somewhat differently since the potential for conflicts of interest which arise from grading students in their peer group is higher.
<NAME> has some very nice resources available on their website for both undergraduate TAs [here](https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/resources/PublicationsArchives/UGTA_TAs-v2.pdf) and for the faculty supervising them available [here](https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/resources/PublicationsArchives/UGTA_Faculty-v2.pdf). One of the points in your question about which you seemed particularly concerned was grading other students' assignments. An interesting point from the document for faculty above is the following instruction for faculty:
>
> Provide clear, explicit grading guidelines to undergraduates involved in grading and evaluation. Without clear guidance, undergraduate TAs tend to be tougher graders than faculty.
>
>
>
So, I would say if you are in doubt about how to grade a particular assignment, you should not hesitate to ask for more guidance from the faculty member you are grading for. You should also certainly speak to your faculty supervisor if any conflicts arise. Another quote from the above documents on this point:
>
> We expect the undergraduate TA to be neutral in teaching or grading, but we must understand that this is a very difficult ideal for anyone to meet. Following are some tips for averting such challenges:
>
>
> * You and the student should work together to identify potential conflicts of interest. Before the start of the semester, review the list of students with the undergraduate TA. Faculty cannot simply assume there will be no problems; likewise, undergraduate TAs may not be aware of these difficulties or their potential severity. The undergraduate TAs have interacted with the “potential conflict” students prior to the class, and may continue to do so for many semesters afterward. In our survey of undergraduates involved in teaching, a significant number of the students identified problems of this nature.
>
>
>
You might also find [this article](http://college.usatoday.com/2015/06/30/should-you-be-an-undergraduate-ta/) from earlier in the year in USA today interesting. It's just a quick overview of the social aspects of being an undergraduate TAing for undergraduates.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: I'm sorry, but it isn't about sharing like @username_3's [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/59520/7319) suggests. This is - almost certainly - the result of universities cutting costs by hiring under-experienced teaching staff. While you may be able to effectively check your colleagues' lab assignments, you're probably being used as a pawn against the graduate researchers, to lower their overall employment/upkeep costs. University managements very often try this "juniorization": non-tenured Doctors head courses, Ph.D. candidates teach, and undergrads check homework or even serve as teaching assistants. For shame.
What you - not personally, but collectively - should be doing in my opinion is forming a academic staff union (or overthrowing the comatose leadership of the existing union). At the very least people in your situation should get the same pay as their seniors (if not more), to de-motivate this kind of practice.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Allowed and legal? yes. Ethical? Absolutely NOT *in practice* in my opinion. I have junior psych majors grading the papers of junior psych majors whom they will almost certainly be competing with for honors.
I do agree with the information from Carnegie Hall shared by @bamboo. HOWEVER, as the information also states, it is nearly impossible to actually achieve these standards, yet universities use UG TAs anyway.
I should mention I have faculty appointments at two undergraduate institutions. One in Europe and one in the US. Comparatively, grading in the US (where I was educated) is laughably subjective. In the UK, exams go through three rounds of refereeing and there are clear and genuine appeals processes. There is also often calibration exercises before the exam is issued or before grading even starts.
In one class I took as a student returning for a second undergrad degree earlier in my career, undergrads graded papers where a rubric and the grading sheet was provided to all students. This transparency was a great practice, but the undergrad TAs **didn't use them** AT ALL and when one TA was asked why she marked something wrong, and then had it pointed out by the researcher who wrote the article that was being summarized by the student who was marked wrong, that the student was not wrong, the undergrad TA said "oops, well I wouldn't appeal it to the course faculty because here are some other things that could have been better." AND COPIED THE FACULTY MEMBER.
The faculty member showed the same deference to the undergrad TAs as they do graduate teaching fellows and other faculty members. THIS is why it's unethical. In other words, like 99.9999999% of any grading questions or appeals in the US, the initial grade stands because faculty in the US are infallible (yes the same group of people who tout intellectual rigor and a peer review process)
*The idea might not be unethical, but in practice it almost always is.*
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: My post grad psychology paper was graded recently by another post grad. It became clear to me by this marker's comments that they, in fact, had no idea of the context of the assignment question, had no idea of the peer reviewed literature surrounding the topic, and, worst of all, could not recognize diagnostic-criteria quotes from the DSM-5 in the diagnostic section of the paper.
It was also obvious that this marker had absolutely no idea of HOW to mark a written/research assignment. I was given a mediocre pass across the board, ie: for every aspect of my paper: referencing, content, synthesis of research, and written communication skills.
My paper was given a poor grade and I am now fighting for my life for the second time in 4 months for some justice in the marking process. This practice is just plain dangerous. These so called markers hold the future of other students in their hands. Why are we paying excruciatingly high fees for university courses if our work is not going to be graded by a qualified professional who is getting paid to do the work.
I work in a psychology clinic where two ex-graduate students attend as patients. Their lives have been destroyed by this practice. They are anxious, depressed and traumatised. One of them, once a promising student, now crochets blankets and throws as her therapy. She does not leave her home unless accompanied by her mother and only leaves home to come to sessions at the clinic. This practice of students marking university papers is borderline criminal.
Students pay high fees and pay the salary of the teaching staff. Thus it is within the students' right to demand a refund, just like any other commodity.
Upvotes: -1
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2015/12/06
| 249
| 1,002
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for MS/PhD in Petroleum Engineering. My dilemma is that my academic project is under a non-PhD faculty member. She is currently undergoing PhD. Would it be wise to take LOR from her? I am thinking of applying to MS because my LOR's wont be strong enough for PhD in my opinion. Suggestions please<issue_comment>username_1: If you've been working on research with her, then it should be fine. It's akin to asking a boss in industry to write a LoR for you if you were applying for an MS/PhD after several years in industry.
Additionally, most programs ask for at least 2 LoRs, so just make sure the second one is from a PhD-holding faculty member.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When it comes to graduate school applications the fact that your reccomendation is from a faculty member is orders of magnitude more important than their credentials. (unless they are a undisputed leader in a field, then credentials might matter, but not negatively.)
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/06
| 345
| 1,385
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<issue_start>username_0: What would you call someone who had a doctoral degree in nursing? I wouldn’t think you’d be able to call them doctor as this would be confusing in the hospital setting. Is there a title used for a nurse with a doctorate degree?<issue_comment>username_1: You call him "<NAME>" unless you are sufficiently well-acquainted to call him by his given name. (I worked with someone with a DScN degree and she was called "<NAME>" by the physicians in committee meetings, etc.)
If you and this person will be working with patients, ask "How should I address you when there are patients present?" before the need arises. As guifa states in the comment above, the badge, or embroidered name, will show the degree, not the honorific.
*Edited to add:* The scope of practice of licensed healthcare professionals is set by state law, and the doctorate in nursing does not widen that scope in any state that I know about. Guifa's comment that some states, including my home state, restrict the title "doctor" in the context of health care is correct. You can expect the holder of a doctorate in nursing to know the restrictions, and to have a preference, so the best way to find out what to do when there are patients around is to ask.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Dr.
PhDs in psychology go by Dr.; so can PhDs in nursing.
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/06
| 2,351
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<issue_start>username_0: I have dedicated time and effort to solve a theoretical problem posed by two other people.
Now I think I have resolved it, and I have material for a publication.
Should I involve them as co-authors?
Here are more details:
* those other two people (hereafter, "they") are academics (as I am), but not colleagues: I have met one of them once, the rest of contact was by e-mail.
* while I resolved their problem, I have no idea of the relevance or applicability of it (they are in a less theoretical field than I am). I assume they do;
* their only contribution has been to make me aware of the open problem I resolved;
* my work has developed completely independently, with methods, techniques and formalism utterly different from theirs; indeed, I think they'd never have been able to reach the result with their approach;
* at one point, they informally made me their collaborator, by just saying "welcome to the project" by e-mail, and sending me a draft of their attempts to resolve the problem; we had very little contact on the project, besides that;
* one of them is "strategically relevant" for me: despite the mere feeble connection established by the fact that we were working on the same problem, he provided recommendation letters and proactively promoted me when I was in need;
* I already have a paper illustrating my solution; however, since I don't have the competence to understand how this result is useful in the application domain, my paper at the moment is missing proper introduction, conclusions, and, generally, context;
One strategy could be to publish two disjoint papers, one with their problem with due context, and the other with my solution.
However, I would like to hear any piece of advice or consideration on how to move: I would like to do what is globally most convenient for me (e.g., balancing the good of having a publication with that of keeping my allies in the academia), while not infringing any ethics.<issue_comment>username_1: It sounds like you resolved a part of a problem, and they resolved the other, but that neither makes nearly as much sense without the other. That is, I perceive your-and-their enterprise as larger than just a mono-thematic one, involving both your part and theirs. From what you say, joint paper(s) would present things most coherently.
Presenting your work together with them, in the context of their work, would also be the most friendly route, to my perception.
(It's not that every smallest fragment of a paper has to have equal contributions, etc. That hardly makes sense, in the first place... "Localization of contribution"?...)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: If you solved an open problem working independently, the polite thing to do is acknowledge the source(s) of the problem in your paper, and perhaps send a preprint to the source(s).
But, if they have not contributed towards the project, it would be inappropriate to include them as co-authors. Co-authorship is properly used to recognize joint work, not as a gift. If you are able to write a publishable paper of your work, there is no reason etiquette would require offering them a co-authorship, based on what is written in the question here.
On the other hand, it *might well* be reasonable, depending on your field, to ask someone else if they would like to join with you to extend your work to something that is publishable. For example, if you cannot provide enough context or application to make a publishable paper, and they can, then you could collaborate with them.
The main drawback of the collaboration (I don't view collaboration in itself as a drawback) is that it would take time for them to work on their piece, delaying publication.
One polite alternative would be to send them your preprint and ask them whether they feel it is publishable, or whether additional material is needed. If they say that additional material is needed, that might open the door to a collaboration.
**P.S. added a few days later** I do agree with others here that it would be very valuable to discreetly inquire about what the others meant by "welcome to the project". The question describes them as "not colleagues" and "their only contribution has been to make me aware of the open problem I resolved"; this answer is written under the assumption that those are correct. If the others don't think they are correct, you run a significant risk of burning bridges. The advice to write a joint paper combining your work with theirs, which was also mentioned in other answers, shouldn't be dismissed too easily.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It seems to me that a joint paper, containing their application of the result and your proof of it, would be better than two separate papers. As you said, you don't have a proper introduction, conclusion, and context for your paper as a stand-alone paper; they, on the other hand, lack a solid technical result for their paper if it's a stand-alone paper. Since they've already welcomed you to the project, I'd recommend continuing in that direction. Send them your result and act as though you regard it as part of that joint project. This approach also has the advantage of continuing and, I hope, strengthening your relationship with the person you described as strategically relevant.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I think that it is time to shine on your own - it has to happen someday, if you want to move up, so why not now? It was your work. Your accomplishment. Sometimes, you just have to flaunt a little bit and be your own man /woman. I know it's hard to do, but you may not solve another open problem for who knows how long. Good luck.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Posing a theoretical problem could be even harder than solving the problem. The issue arises in the "welcome to the project" part I assume.
What are the agreed conditions of being a part in the project?
Did you reject their welcome or not?
If not, that shows you that you silently approved to be with them.
Instead of eating yourself by not making them co-authors and regret, better to make a joint work with clear conditions...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: The Britsish Medical Journal recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:
* Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
* Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
* Final approval of the version to be published; AND
* Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The important (and relevant) point is that
>
> all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript
>
>
>
To me, it seems clear that "they" conceived and formalized the problem.
*Link to the [BMJ](http://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-submission/authorship-contributorship).*
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: **They made a significant contribution to your work** by posing the problem.
**They shared their work with you:**
>
> at one point, they informally made me their collaborator, by just
> saying "welcome to the project" by e-mail, and sending me a draft of
> their attempts to resolve the problem; we had very little contact on
> the project, besides that;
>
>
>
Even if you had little contact since them, the fact that they sent you their work is a significant contribution, as well. And even though you took a different approach, you still considered and rejected their methods, a significant part of solving the problem.
**They helped you out:**
>
> one of them is "strategically relevant" for me: despite the mere
> feeble connection established by the fact that we were working on the
> same problem, he provided recommendation letters and proactively
> promoted me when I was in need;
>
>
>
**They can make a needed contribution to your paper:**
>
> I already have a paper illustrating my solution; however, since I
> don't have the competence to understand how this result is useful in
> the application domain, my paper at the moment is missing proper
> introduction, conclusions, and, generally, context;
>
>
>
Add all this up, and the case for including them as authors seems overwhelming.
* It would be wrong to exclude them, given their contributions.
* It would be "not nice", given how generous they have been to you.
* They can help strengthen the paper.
Limiting the author list does not help one's career in any way in many fields. What matters is that you are the first author on the paper. Yet despite this, in my experience some people seem to look for ways to limit the author list. Don't do this: there is no upside, and it will create a reputation that you are not a good team player and someone to avoid collaboration with. Be as generous as possible with the author list (for anyone who made a meaningful contribution to the work).
It is possible that in your field the size of the author list is a bit more relevant, but I still think generosity is the way to go. Recognizing anyone who has made a meaningful contribution is just the right thing to do, and your personal connections are often more important to your career than slightly strengthening your publication record.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: One of my professors once said
>
> Give love, and you receive love.
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He was referring to acknowledgement and the like (co-authoring) in academia: If you acknowledge others and "make them big" you get made big by them as well.
Upvotes: 1
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2015/12/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm looking for PhD but I'm having issues with my referees. I did a placement year and for my second referee I was advised to use one from my placement. I worked only with 1 Post-Doc there but I was told by my uni tutor that I cannot get a reference from him as I need from somebody with a stable/fixed position, here is her reply I asked about that:
"You are normally expected to get the person who officially supervised your research work to write your reference. This must be a person who has a permanent position at the place you worked i.e. the lab leader (so never the post-doc, Ph.D. student or a technician i.e. anyone who is a colleague and not in official charge)"
I was quite surprised, I was planning to simply just use a reference from my Post-Doc. Now that leaves me with my placement lab leader. Well, the thing is she is very strict, moody and hard to please and we pretty much never really talked apart from maybe 1 or 2 short chats. She was away on conferences when I gave a lab presentation and when I had a short seminar. It's a shame, I wanted to show her that I really worked hard in her lab. Anyway, when I left I wanted to personally say thank you and ask if she would be willing to write a reference for me. Again, she was away on a conference so I ended up sending her an email. She never replied. I got too busy with uni and family issues and a month has passed. Now I really want to submit my PhD applications so I sent her another email and now I'm dreading what if she won't reply again? Maybe that was her answer? A 'no'?
Additionally, I got close to another lab leader who said she would be willing to write a reference for me. She also happens to be a very close friend with my Post-Doc supervisor. I wonder if that would acceptable? I didn't work in her lab but she holds a fixed position.
Please help me. On my CV I will mention my placement with my Post-Doc and the lab I worked in, wouldn't that be weird to not provide a reference from my placement lab?
I wonder how much this could affect my application?<issue_comment>username_1: It is more important to submit a strong letter than to submit a letter written by someone who precisely fits a particular niche.
Basically, when you choose a reference, you want someone who knows your work well and who will write with enthusiasm about you.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: One option is to ask the postdoc and professor if the postdoc can write a strong first draft that the professor would be willing to sign (and ideally edit). Most admission committees will probably know that the letter was written by the post-doc, but the fact that it is signed by the professor (in addition to the postdoc) means that the head professor agrees with the assessment.
This letter will likely be stronger than if only one of the two wrote it because (1) The postdoc will be able to provide detailed examples that the professor doesn't know about (2) The professor's name recognition, through the signature, adds credibility (3) the professor will typically have more experience writing these things and hence he or she may improve the letter by carefully recrafting a few of the post-doc's sentences. Note that (3) and (1) work synergistically. Without the examples provided by the postdoc the professor's experience in letter writing is likely to be less helpful because their letter will sound too generic.
Additionally, this option will also provide the post-doc good feedback for future letter writing (assuming the professor shares her/his edits with the postdoc). So it is really a win-win situation for everyone.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/12/06
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<issue_start>username_0: In Computer Science, sometimes we're assigned to reproduce the results presented by a paper that already have been published. In many cases (most of them) the code is not available, making the task more difficult.
But this questions is related to the cases where the code is available, however, many things author do in his code are not described in the published paper.
* Is this ethical?
* How to proceed when many things presented in the code are not explained in the original manuscript?
* What if the code disappear from author's page? Will the results exist in the universe once again?
*Disclaimer*
* This is not about **minor** details in the code, but huge holes of dark matter.
* Let's assume that we're talking about Journal papers with more than 10 pages.<issue_comment>username_1: **Short answer**: You are at the cross road situation of blaming the game, the player, or neither. Show the paper/journal to your supervisor or someone in a senior position if you can; to help you with your decision.
**Longer answer**: It all comes down to one thing: whether writing a piece of code is a contribution or not. Well, it is actually a grey area. I would judge a computer science paper/journal, with code, like the following:
1. **Know the Context and the Promises**: What is the context? Is it just a tool that demonstrates something? Or a language that promises that it does wonders? If it is heavily code oriented, then the code should be presented clearly in the publication.
2. **Semantical Backup**: Do the author(s) prove their promises with semantics? How deep do they go into their semantics?
3. **Clean Links Between Semantics and Programs**: Do they clearly demonstrate the relation between the semantics and the program? If not, it is a red flag in my opinion. Something is lacking here and the authors are hiding something.
4. **Track Records of The Authors**: You can also simply look at their records as well, see what they did achieve so far; and base some judgement on this as well.
5. **Some extra work**: You could also look at their code as well, if they provided a link. It is not hard to compile any mainstream languages, most likely a one line command will compile the code and you can see for yourself. You can even copy/paste part of their code into a search engine box, and take it from there.
**Conclusion**: You see all these points are not hard hitting rules that help you with judging an implementation part of the paper. It is the best to get a helping hand by a senior academic (e.g., supervisor) to look into it to help you with your decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is this ethical?
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>
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I don't see this as a question of ethics. Is it unethical to write a bad or not useful paper? No, it's simply the best that some people are capable of (or interested in) achieving. By not including implementation details, the paper's authors are clearly limiting the usefulness and future impact of their papers. Nonetheless, the paper may still have *some* usefulness, so I don't see why anyone would think publishing such a paper is unethical. The only exception is if the authors are dishonest about their claims of what the algorithm can do or how well it works, and are *deliberately* hiding implementation details to prevent their dishonesty from being exposed. Obviously *that* would be unethical.
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> How to proceed when many things presented in the code are not
> explained in the original manuscript?
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>
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Do your best to fill in the holes. If it seems too difficult or too much work to reconstruct the missing implementation details yourself, talk to your professor -- he or she may not realize that they've given you an unreasonably difficult assignment, and it would be their job to figure out how you should proceed.
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> What if the code disappear from author's page? Will the results exist
> in the universe once again?
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>
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Again, it's up to the author to decide how much work they want to invest in ensuring their paper has a long life and makes a meaningful contribution. It's also up to the journal editors and reviewers to enforce some minimal standards. But at the end of the day, if the author doesn't care enough about their work making an impact to deposit their code in a repository that would outlast their personal web page, that's really their decision, but it doesn't reflect well on them, and potentially limits the cumulative usefulness of their work to the community.
To summarize, what we are seeing here is an example of **short-termism**, which is something you see in all walks of life. Some authors write a paper just with the goal of getting the short-term reward of getting their paper published (and the attendant professional rewards the academic environment will give them for such a publication: jobs, promotions etc.) and will just put in the minimum amount of work to achieve that immediate goal. Others care much more about the long-term impact their work will have on the research community, which will also eventually translate to a personal benefit to them since they will develop a reputation as better researchers. It is the researchers who belong to the latter group whom you usually hear about as the famous, super-successful authorities in the field whom everyone admires, so I certainly recommend trying to follow that approach yourself.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think it's entirely understandable that details of a code example will be undocumented. Let's say, for example, that the paper is about exception propagation in an instruction stack. In the example code, the author does some tricky little obfuscated sorting of an array, which will be iterated over to produce an example exception. Is it relevant to explain that little sorting routine? No...it's just some example code that gets you to the meat of the problem.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: As a researcher, I'm generally very keen on including as many implementation details as possible. However:
1. There is rarely the room available in a paper to describe every detail of an implementation.
2. Describing every detail of an implementation in prose often takes substantially more work than writing the program in the first place. The meaning of code (which is written in a formal language) is generally unambiguous; the meaning of prose (which is written in natural language) can often be ambiguous. Resolving the ambiguities in the prose takes time, effort and care -- it's often harder than writing the code.
3. Researchers are generally both very busy, and under a lot of pressure from above to produce quick results and move onto new projects. Resisting this pressure to bring existing work to a tidy conclusion is a good thing, but there are limits to how long you can spend doing this, and sadly the reward structure in academia provides little incentive to do it.
There is a reasonable case to be made that implementation is not valued in academia to the extent that it should be. However, even if it were appropriately valued, and even if there were no page limits for papers, there would still be an opportunity cost for individual researchers when it came to producing copious documentation describing the implementation details of their code. Human lifetimes are finite: the time spent describing every detail of old code could alternatively be spent coming up with and implementing new ideas. Some old code is so useful and valuable that it's worth spending a lot of time describing, but that's certainly not true in all cases. A lot of code (particularly hacked-together research code) just isn't that valuable in the long run: time spent describing it could be better spent on something else.
To directly answer your questions, then:
* Yes, it's ethical to not describe every detail of your implementation -- most of the time, you can't, and of the times when you can, a decent proportion of the time it's not the best use of your time. Having said that, I'm of the school of thought that says you should at least make a reasonable effort to write good, clearly-documented code, to publish it on the web for all time (e.g. on GitHub) and to at least describe how the method works in a way that will enable someone reading the code to know what's going on.
* If things in the code aren't in the original manuscript, start by reading and running the code to see if you can figure out what's going on. If it's not clear from that, do some reading around to see if other sources can give you any hints. If all else fails, and it's crucial that you understand the details, email the authors. If they ignore you, give up on their method and use something else.
* The code can disappear from the author's page for a variety of reasons -- maybe they stopped paying for hosting, for example. If you need the code in that situation, email them. As mentioned above, good practice involves putting your code in a public repository so that it will hang around, but it's not *unethical* if you don't (just unhelpful).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: **No.** It's not ethical.
If we stick to Eliezer's scenario, I cannot trust a paper that posits wonderful things, but fails to at least outline how they were accomplished. I've read several papers extensively detailing mathematical models for stuff, and the enormously successful results achieved thereafter, but left the code implementation out. Obviously I can't confirm the non existence of associated code. It might have existed once, somewhere.
There is a very well known web site in my sad sphere of interest that is held in high esteem by all. Except me. It features detailed information of what it does, and published analysis of it's output (even some in real time). It doesn't publish any actual code of how it does it. Hmmm.
Facetious example: I've just invented true Artificial Intelligence. Hussar! Here's the kit I did it on. Here's the conversation I had with it that passed the Turing Test. The (easily understood Java) code I wrote is on my web site for you to read. Including the bit in (opaque) compiled machine code that I happened to use. Do you believe me? People believed Volkswagen.
Upvotes: 3
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2015/12/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I had a bad relationship with my advisor. He told me evidently that he won’t write the recommendation letter for me in the future.
Of course, I will not put him in my reference list in my future career. But I don’t know if the future employer will contact him or question my working performance or attitude? I feel very bad about this. Can you guys give me some suggestions?<issue_comment>username_1: There is not much you can do to prevent anyone from talking to your postdoc advisor, particularly if they do so informally as part of the hiring process. This is sometimes frowned upon by HR departments, but there is not much that can be done about informal questions like "What do you think about ZZZ's potential?", which could be asked in person at a conference.
For certain types of applications, you can list people who you would *not* like to review you. This is often true for grant applications and tenure applications, in my experience, but not for job applications.
The safest advice is just to not mention anything about your advisor in your job application and hope for the best. It could be more dangerous for your application to suggest that you do not get along with people, than to try to explain why you don't get along with your advisor.
If you absolutely cannot bear to do that, one option is to talk to another reference writer who you know well, and ask them to mention it very discreetly in their letter.
(The OP has clarified that they are applying for positions in industry. This answer was written more from the perspective of academic job applications. I have never applied to jobs in industry, so I cannot speak to them.)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: There are two issues in my mind. The first is not having the post doc supervisor as a reference. As you get further along in your career, you will have to leave someone that knows you well off your list of references. If you can develop a strong enough network that you have 3-5 people who know you and your work well and are willing to write you strong letter, then the absence of your post doc supervisor will not be seen s odd.
The second issue is more problematic and that is if your post doc advisor is contacted informally, he may actively or inactively sabotage you. In order to get around this, you need to repair the relationship, such that it is not a problem. As a first step, make sure that he is really unwilling to be a reference. If that is the case, then make it clear that you will not use him as a reference. Ask him if he is willing to tactfully deflect informal enquires. If he is, and you believe him, that you do not have much to worry about. If not, consider having one of your letter writers address the issues you have with you post doc supervisor.
Having a reference point out bad things is always dangerous in that it makes the hiring committee aware of something they might not find out about. The advantage is it is the only way to really get your side of the story told. It is worth talking to your other references about how to address the issue.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: If you have a viable substitute, there probably won't be much fuss about it. I am talking about the case of still being able to churn out a decent list of academic references, having the requisite number (whatever that may be), who are all safe choices (*so to speak*), i.e. can be trusted to put in a good word for you.
If that is not the case, the situation can get comparatively tricky if your apprehensions about people contacting him turn out to be true. In that cases, it always appears safer to leave him out, but I think the best strategy would be to not make any *a priori* assumptions. He might have said what he said in a fit of rage when he was extremely pissed off over something, and that anger may have abated later. I'm sure he knows how a bad recommendation can adversely affect your career, so while he may not give you a very strongly favorable recommendation, he may settle for a more subdued form of the same as a safe and neutral stance. (Like a brief letter just saying you are good, and no real supporting details or instances where he found you good to back it up. This won't really count as something prospective employers would count a strong point in your favor, but it still does count as a positive recommendation.) I would say, it is always best to ask him explicitly. Write him a polite email, saying something like the following:
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> ... while it is true that our association didn't really work out (for whatever reasons), a favorable recommendation from a person I've previously worked with is still valuable for my career.
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> ... Please let me know whether it would be acceptable to you if I include your name in the list of academic references in applications for my further endeavors.
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A short, positive response to this shall serve your purpose - include him then. Negative rants of why you are so pathetic also clears the air - leave him out. No response to this email means he's too pissed or too busy. In the former case, you can surely leave him out, in the latter case, things are indeterminate - you can't be sure either way. The safest bet then is to leave him out.
Hope that helps :)
Upvotes: 0
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2015/12/07
| 962
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<issue_start>username_0: I worked for a while with a company developing software, at which I also used mathematics (my field of undergraduate study) often. I was close with my employer until the company shut down, but we still keep in contact every so often.
When applying to master's programs, alongside the normal letters from my undergrad professors and research advisor, would a letter of recommendation from this employer hold any weight? I know he could write a very positive one, but it would be more concerned with work-effort, attitude, etc than anything academic.<issue_comment>username_1: There are quite a few issues to be careful about when considering a recommendation letter from an employer. Some examples:
1. Make sure they understand the culture of academic recommendation letters. In industry, lots of the time recommendations are more-or-less a token statement that someone worked for you and didn't cause any issues. Academic recommendation letters are very different, so make sure they have an idea of what kind of letter to write.
2. What exactly is the background of your letter writer? This is a bigger issue with PhD (or research-based masters) recommendations, but if your recommender doesn't have the background or credentials to understand what it takes to become a successful researcher or academic, then it's unlikely that they will be able to speak intelligently about whether you have those traits.
3. How common are industry to graduate school moves in your field? In a field like mathematics or physics, my guess is that most candidates do not have significant work experience and any work experience is usually far removed from the subject material. In a field like that, the people evaluating your profile are more likely to discount an industry recommendation, especially if it comes from a non-PhD, non-researcher. On the other hand, fields like business or engineering have many more applicants from industry and are probably used to seeing those recommendation letters, so it is unlikely to put you at a significant disadvantage.
4. How well are your other bases covered and what are your alternatives? If you have recommendation letters that already focus on your undergraduate classes and research, then it may be more valuable to have a letter describing traits you exhibited in the workplace than another "he got an A in my class" letter.
In general, an employer's letter is never going to be as good as a great letter from an active researcher that you worked closely with. But most applicants don't have three of those on hand. Can a letter from an employer be *useful*? Definitely. Given the alternatives, is it the optimal decision for you? It's possible, but that depends on a lot of factors that you should probably spend some time thinking about.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I've been on math grad admissions committees before and our school gets a number of applicants from people who've been in the work force for some time. For these applicants I generally look for 3 things: (1) academic background to date, (2) how far they are removed from academic math now, and (3) motivation to pursue grad studies.
(1) is about your abilities, preparation and your work ethic in the past. This is something your former professors/research supervisors discuss and is reflected in your transcript/CV.
(2) is mostly about if you've forgotten too much advanced math to succeed in grad classes. This is reflected in your CV/letters/statement, including how long you've been out, and your GRE score.
(3) is because motivation and work ethic are just as important as ability and preparation to succeed in grad school, and these may have changed quite a bit since you finished undergrad. So I want to see evidence of this in letters from people who have had recent interaction with you, which might exclude your former professors. Also, this should come through in your statement and may be supported by your CV as well.
Assuming your employer can address (3) and possibly (2) in a compelling way (e.g., by giving concrete examples rather than a pro forma generic statement), I would find one letter from an employer quite useful. You should still be able to submit 3-4 additional academic letters, which should be sufficient to discuss your academic experiences, so I don't see this letter taking away anything from your application.
Upvotes: 2
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2015/12/07
| 257
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm interested in pursuing a PhD program but will not complete my undergraduate degree until December. Most PhD programs require their application to be completed in December. Does that mean I have to wait an extra year to apply (since it could take a few weeks past their deadline to receive my final transcripts)?<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly not. Most students graduate in the spring, but apply to graduate school several months before graduation. It is not expected that you will have your final transcript in hand when you apply. However, it is expected that you will have the transcript prior to the actual start of your graduate school studies.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Most PhD admission have a 'provisional acceptance' scheme that would enable you to apply for the degree even if you're in the final semester of the qualifying degree.
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> Does that mean I have to wait an extra year to apply?
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No. Most institutions (at least in Asia) allow PhD applications for every semester. So a year-long wait won't be necessary.
Upvotes: 2
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