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<issue_start>username_0: I am a first year PhD student intending to work in convex optimization and its applications. I don't have an advisor yet, so I am still TA-ing. I had a long talk with a very helpful senior grad student in this field at my university today, and he recommended that I focus on taking lots of classes and learning a lot of mathematics for the first couple of years while working on small class projects and reading lots of papers in different areas, as opposed to trying to find an RA. He said having an RA means one is forced to work on one problem, and that doesn't let you explore on your own.
This is a totally new perspective to me. Until now I felt very ashamed of not having an RA, as I thought it reflected professors' lack of confidence in my capability as a researcher. Now maybe I am starting to see this as an opportunity to explore. However, I want to know other people's thoughts on this too; is it wise to spend the first two years just studying? He said that this would make life very easy for me about three years down the line when I am actually attacking problems. But I am just scared that this would be too late.
Do people in theoretical fields typically do this? Or do they learn on the fly? I don't want to be left behind and have regrets after two years at having taken things too slow now.<issue_comment>username_1: Regardless of being a TA or RA, you will have duties you are expected to perform and at the same time you can explore ideas and learn. Those aren't mutually exclusive, but which one will give you more time to do so? RA.
Being a TA means you have duties such as grading, proctoring, tutoring, and lecturing which may not lead to you learning anything or make progress on projects. It is a good opportunity to meet other students, professors, and see how classes are ran though.
Being an RA means you won't have those tasks and can devote *all* of your time to a project and exploring other ideas.
From what I have read, in various science fields, it is recommended to TA for a few semesters but then be an RA. Being a TA won't help you progress in your PhD.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In my field (Engineering) being an RA at the beginning is actually important. You get to work on 1-2 problems, publish 2-3 journal articles and couple of conference papers. This will help you in the long run, since publishing, establishing your name and getting citations needs a long time. The earlier you publish, the better you chances of getting higher number of papers and citations (will help when applying for academia jobs or even immigration in some cases). TAing will help too (but let's as an assistant professor, having a good research background almost wins over having a good teaching exp. Since as a TA, you do not really get to have the full teaching exp. (search committees know that!!). This is my 0.02!!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If you go for a PhD, you want to go into **research**. To get to do research as part of your duties, and get paid for it, is the ideal match. Sure, you should also teach (it'll probably be part of your duties later on), but your evaluation of that as a professor will be more in the line of "OK if no very serious complaints" and move on to the next item.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: There are two separate issues here, and it is important to keep them separate.
* **You absolutely need to get involved in research as soon as possible.** The entire point of a PhD is to do research. It's important to get into the practice of doing research from the very beginning of your PhD program, if not sooner. Do not wait until you're done with classes. Do not wait until you've read another book, or five more papers. Do not wait until you have an advisor. **Start now.** Yes, your inexperience does mean that there are problems you aren't prepared to work on; work on something else.
* **It is not necessary *and it may not even be desirable* to have an assistantship to support your research.** First, you work in a research area that does not require specialized equipment or a laboratory; your research only requires time. You can acquire that time *either* by acquiring a research assistantship *or* by signing up for research/independent study/thesis credits. If you can't do the former, do the latter; arrange your classes accordingly. Second, accepting a research assistantship may constrain you to work on one of *your advisor's* research projects, but *you* need to develop *your own independent* research agenda. It's *your* PhD. *You* need to hunt it down and kill it.
In short: You absolutely need to be doing research **now**. Being an RA is of secondary importance.
(My students and I are theoretical computer scientists.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I had to TA through most of my PhD. Call it Stockholm syndrome, but I enjoyed it, and often found it more fun than my research. Teaching is a good change of pace, and keeps you more active, since you are doing a wider variety of things, and have to be at certain places at certain times. You get more social interaction, both with students and other TAs, and if you TA introductory classes you can really bond with the large number of TAs on your team. It kind of felt like being part of a student organization, except I got paid, and we hosted midterms instead of parties.
If all you do is research, it is easier to get depressed when your research doesn't work, and it's easier to never talk to people.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Some of the guys who posted earlier don't understand that when you are a funded PhD student (i.e., most international students in Engineering including myself!), you can get to choose to be an RA or TA (in some cases), however most of the time this is determined by your adviser and how his/her and the Dept.'s funding is allocated.
For instance, in my case of being an RA, I got more free time to explore research and publish more since I didn't lose any time grading or TAing. But, still even when I was a TA, I still made the time needed to continue my progress and maintain the same number of publications/year. Keep in my mind that some advisers tend to go a lil easier on students with TA since they understand that you need more time to do your own research. I work with a rockstar adviser and he has told me from day one that if you want to be successful, you'll need to find time and stay HUNGRY for more! If you can do 1 paper/semester, next semester you better work twice as hard to get 2 papers done.
I'm still a PhD student (Civil Eng.) and have a high number of publications and citations. To be honest, my adviser has always asked me to be an RA since my record is really good. He gets to travel a lot and I keep the research mill running. He is very supportive and always there to answer my questions.
I see merit for TAing too. You get to directly interact with students and learn how to structure notes and lectures. Get some motivation and learn to improve your teaching skills. But if your TA is pure grading, then that is a very sad job!!
Keep in mind, when you apply for Academia, your research record and not your TA record is what matters the most!!!
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: A colleague recently submitted an article to a reputable journal. The article went to 6 reviewers, one of which completed the review and the other 5 of which completely ignored the request. The ignored requests were not declined, they were ignored such that 3 weeks passed and the requests finally timed out in the system before new review requests were sent out by the editor.
To me, it seems unethical to ignore a request rather than to decline to review. Under a decline, the article can immediately go to new reviewers. Under an ignore, it must time out.
I realize that it is possible that all 5 ignores were *passive* ignores, where the ignoring person never even saw the request for whatever reason. However, let's assume that the requests were *actively* ignored. That is, each person saw the request and chose to ignore it.
This anecdote brings up the following hypothetical questions:
1. **Putting aside the important fact that peer review is what keeps the scientific community running, are there any short term repercussions for those that ignore requests?** For instance, if one of the reviewers who ignored my colleague's request were to submit an article *today* to the same journal and it were put on the same editor's desk, would there typically be any bias against it? Should there be?
2. **If there are repercussions, will they depend on how well established the ignoring person is in their field?**
3. **What fraction of ignores are active ignores?**<issue_comment>username_1: I would presume that there is not much difference between active and passive ignore, it is probably a mix of both (e.g., the reviewer received the request but forgot to followup). For this reason, there are usually very few ramifications for such a lack of followup.
However, it is quite common that review systems maintain statistics regarding each reviewer (such as number of reviewing assignments accepted/declined/unanswered, as well as average review time). In such a situation, not answering requests will make it less likely that a reviewer will be asked to review in the future. Apart from this, I do not believe that there are any negative consequences. Furthermore, reviews and review requests are usually blind, such that only the editor of a paper knows which reviewer declined to answer a request.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: It seems this editor has a problem with their workflow of inviting reviewers, a very common problem:
* The editor is recruiting reviewers via "opt-out" when "opt-in" would be more appropriate.
If the reviewers were asked to indicate willingness to perform a review prior to actually doing the review, then the editor could detect "ignores" of both types and find willing reviewers much more quickly. Consequences for agreeing to perform a review and then not submitting a timely report would be appropriate.
But there is nothing unethical about ignoring a review request. The potential reviewer is under no obligation to take any action at the behest of the editor -- it is fully reasonable to treat unsolicited requests as spam. And it would be unethical for the editor to take any negative action against the unresponsive potential reviewer who has never accepted the task in the first place.
Of course, the story is different for reviewers who have agreed in advance to performing a certain number of reviews. But the workflow should still be based on positive acknowledgement that the materials for review are received. The only difference is the editor's action subsequent to not hearing back -- in case the reviewer has previously committed to accepting a certain number of review tasks per year, then the editor can try a different contact method instead of assigning a different reviewer.
The bottom line is that opt-out sucks.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Actually, there can be some detrimental effects for faculty who actively refuse to participate in peer review processes. For instance, the documentation for promotion and tenure at some universities requires you to list your reviewing activities. If you don't have any, that means your documentation will have an unexpected blank space in the "service" activities. This isn't normally enough to deny someone promotion or tenure, but it is enough to warrant comment from the typical review committee. ("The rest of us are doing this—why aren't you?")
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> For instance, if one of the reviewers who ignored my colleague's request were to submit an article today to the same journal and it were put on the same editor's desk, would there typically be any bias against it? Should there be?
>
>
>
The question asks about what *should* be done, so I'll argue from an ethical perspective what I think should be done, and how I try to handle things myself. The result is that **yes, there should be bias**, and it stems from the idea to give people back what they gave you.
As an editor, you can distinguish reviewers based on two dimensions: How timely they respond to requests and complete their reviews, and how much detail and constructive comments their review contains. Let's consider the situation when an author submits a paper to be sent for peer review, and the author has acted as peer reviewer before. If the author has a positive record as a peer reviewer, I think the editor will have the **moral obligation to also find peer reviewers with similar qualities**. So if the author usually responds timely to review requests and finishes reviews in time, the editor should invite reviewers who are expected to handle things timely. If the author usually gives detailed, constructive comments on a manuscript, the editor should make an effort to also get reviews with similarly detailed and/or constructive comments.
Note that this does not take any bias towards the scientific quality of the manuscript, and of course should not affect the decision for acceptance or rejection.
Upvotes: 0
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| 3,217
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<issue_start>username_0: I just read this article about predatory colleges in the US:
>
> <NAME>, [These students were ruined by predatory colleges. Now they’re getting even.](http://fusion.net/story/204007/students-ruined-by-for-profit-colleges-fight-back/)
>
>
>
I am not from the US and didn't ask in the comments of that site because I wouldn't want to insult anyone concerned.
I just wondered: before you enroll for any degree, would you compare what the college's officials say with reality? Like, looking on the internet to find people with a degree from that school who got jobs, asking a local employment worker, asking at a local employer if they would consider giving a job to someone with a degree from that school, etc.
How is it this article says the students were so young they could not possibly have known they were being tricked? If you are old enough to go into debt with thousands of dollars for a college education, how can you not be old enough to check for the quality of that education first?
Why would people attend predatory colleges?<issue_comment>username_1: A few possibilities:
* These people genuinely don't know any better. They think a degree is a degree. I would guess that they come from parents that did not attend college. A friend of mine started at a for-profit school because she really didn't know that there was a difference between my 4 year bachelor degree and her 12 month online degree.
* People want to take shortcuts and these schools know that.
* These schools spend a lot of money on commercials and marketing to try to convince people to attend. It isn't surprising that people would fall victim if you see a commercial for a school 3 times a day.
* These schools also promote their currents/past students to help recruit their friends. I have certainly seen this on my own social media feeds.
* I once had a manager at a large company that was working on a degree from a diploma mill because the company was imposing a new policy that all managers had to have a degree, but it didn't matter from where.
So to directly answer your questions: No, a lot of people probably don't look into the details of past student success. The type of people that would do this, aren't the ones being targeted by these schools. And even if they do, you're bound to find some successes (confirmation bias) which the school will proudly advertise.
Unfortunately, these types of schools prey on uneducated people, so while it seems like common sense to us, those people may really be getting tricked and yet the government continues to have surprisingly loose regulation.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: There are lots of rubbish colleges in my country that offer "degrees". There is even a place called MIT which is the [Manakau Institute of Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manukau_Institute_of_Technology), not to be confused with the top league place in the USA.
The pass rates are high in the rubbish colleges. In the US they would be probably called "diploma mills". The property developer "<NAME>" wrote a book about it called "Degrees For Everyone". This book was intended as a bit of a joke, but in the future it will become a cornerstone for academic reform.
The real success rate of a college is the employment outcome ratio. The employment outcomes are terrible at the easy colleges and very good at the good colleges. In my country the labour market is relatively deregulated so if someone with a degree can't get a job in his or her field the pay is a disaster. In other words if you end up with a macjob in the service industry you may never pay off the loan and never own a house. People must think very carefully about whether it is worth it to take out a student loan. Unfortunately most young people don't think that way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Another reason people attend a predatory school is that they may benefit from it.
I know plenty of people who work at large companies, government, etc., where there is a flat "Master's Degree = 20% raise" rule, or something of the sort. In these cases, while the student may realize that they are not getting a proper education, and they are paying more than they should for what they are receiving, it is still worth it to them financially. They work full time, so getting a proper degree may take too much time. And while they are over paying for the "education" they get, they still end up making more than if they did not attend the school.
This doesn't account for all the students, especially not the ones who find themselves in great debt, but it does account for some of the schools' students.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Here are a couple of reasons that nobody seems to have mentioned yet.
One common reason why people attend these schools is that there simply isn't enough space in programs at non-predatory schools. For example, here in California if you want to become a nurse your best path is often to start at a community college taking classes such as chemistry and anatomy and physiology. But those classes are usually full, and many students simply can't get into them. They find themselves on waiting lists semester after semester. [Here](http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/For-profit-colleges-alumni-often-in-debt-and-out-5649485.php) is an article describing one such student's experience.
And before we compare predatory schools too unfavorably with community colleges, we should take into account the fact that community colleges are astoundingly bad at producing educated students. username_4 college success rates are amazingly low, and in many ways these schools are incredibly inefficient. Since they have open admissions, they waste many precious seats in oversubscribed programs like nursing by giving them to students who don't have the necessary educational foundation or willingness to work hard.
Another thing to realize is that predatory schools basically exist because government policies are designed to subsidize the cost of education and make it easier for students to borrow money to get an education. These schools are experts in feeding at the public trough, and they do a very good job of hooking up their students with loans and aid. For students who don't have much money, these schools are often the only choice besides a community college that seems financially feasible.
In this respect, predatory schools are very similar to high-quality private universities. One of the big driving factors in educational inflation is the fact that social policy is designed to funnel money into the system. If government provides a 50% subsidy for a product, a natural response by the seller is to double the price and sell the same number of units.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I was a professor at a major for-profit university in the US. A couple campuses, out of *many* had been caught in scandal for preying on students financially. The university, in my opinion, was not trying to scam people. However, when you pay people to recruit students by volume, you will get bad apples.
I taught A+ certification. The academic side was solid. The teachers wanted to teach, the curriculum was correct. The books, the labs, the premade tests, etc were all, in my opinion, extremely satisfactory. If someone wanted to learn, they most definitely could.
My classes were filled with mostly inner-city students that were simply uneducated. They could barely read or write. They could only do the most basic of math problems. I had one student told me he graduated with straight D's because his school didn't want to give him F's and hold him back for a year. I had a couple of students who were there because they committed a crime and a judge told them it is either school or jail. I had a few students who said they were there because their parents said it was go to school or leave the house.
There were a few students who definitely had potential. Mostly, it was the older ones who wanted to do better in life. They were there for the right reasons and were willing to learn.
Needless to say, it was *not* what I thought teaching would be.
The reality is, their public schools failed them. These students have no chance to go to a quality university. Nor would they have a chance in a local community college. They simply did not have the education needed.
So that's were the for profit schools come in. They give these students a chance to learn a trade and be successful. I do not believe they are out to fleece the students out of their money. It does happen, but there are bad apples in every business.
The for-profit schools, admit people who can't go anywhere else. However, some of those students are destined to fail. But in reality, isn't every school like that?
Now, as an employer, I went to a local for-profit school to hire some low level IT techs. We had one employee who graduated from that school and was extremely competent. However, I interviewed many students who had just graduated, or were about to, and I was extremely disappointed. Students who *graduated* from the school could not answer the most basic IT questions. This school failed them horribly. There is no excuse for having students *graduate* and not be able to do the basics.
So here is the real question: Do you deny a student a chance at an education, given their odds might be slim?
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: I remember speaking with my stepfather about social reform, and how my vision for helping people in less fortunate nations involved creating things in first world nations, which would hopefully inspire people in the less fortunate nations. He pointed something out to me: the people in those nations are too focused on their severe problems, like finding out how they are going to get food, and that focus can prevent their ability to focus on things like social reform.
Similarly, unwealthy Americans may notice the riches of others in their society. When a college offers them an "opportunity" that they didn't think they had before, it may seem quite attractive.
They know full well that this college-I've-never-heard-of is less famous than the Ivy League schools (Harvard/Yale/UCLA/MIT). Yet, they don't expect to meet the admissions requirements of those famous schools. When a recruiter says that a local college will accept them, and they can get paid money from the government, that may defy their previous expectations.
Later they may find that the government money is in the forms of loans, not grants. Still, they hear this argument that sounds logical: after you graduate, you'll make more money, which will allow you to pay off the loan.
The most compelling reason to move forward with the enrollment may be this: not enrolling means continuing their life the way it was. And, that didn't seem nearly as spectacular. So, getting guaranteed money immediately, with some hope of having a good situation in the future, and some risk of troubles down the road, may seem more attractive than immediately being guaranteed to live the same troublesome life that a person has been experiencing.
Details, like the college's reputation for an education quality which is less than stellar, are a discomforting thought. However, such concerns may not be significant enough to counter the immediate benefits of going along with the program by the recruiter. After all, the organization does seem to be successful enough to pay its bills, and there is some sort of tie-in with the federal government that is helping to sponsor all this stuff, so there's enough faith in the overall system to begin having a better life right now. If things don't work out, the plan is to simply live life and tackle challenges down the road when (or, actually, if) they come to fruition.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: These schools play into human psychology in two huge ways. One is the Lake Wobegon effect. Many people I know who went to "specialty schools" did so because "it's the easy way and in the end it doesn't matter because I not the stupid one. I am the smart and driven one who will go there and end up with a job / transfer anyways." Sure, some go there, learn some stuff, and then do just fine. The problem is that most people think they are better than the average person, and so "failure" statistics "don't apply to them," so they ignore the warning signs.
Secondly they do a lot of psychological pricing. Just like at 4-year colleges, most people aren't paying the full price. However, when they get a piece of paper saying "We gave you a scholarship! It's only $5,000 a year for you!" you think you're getting a great deal and why would you not go there? It's the same way that stores get people to buy things they don't need by telling them it's a good deal.
In the end, the people going to these schools think they're getting a great deal and any warning signs don't pertain to them. That makes it sounds like a good choice!
[Note: Many people I know were suckered into going to username_4 Colleges the same way. They went into it thinking it was a good deal and the dropout rates didn't apply to them. Sure, some did fine. The vast majority never graduated because they either couldn't get into the right classes or because nobody around them (even the teachers) cared. I think the moral is to be careful of any shortcuts.]
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: **Setting**
I am a graduate student in a quant/informatics group (size = 2 people: my advisor and I) housed within a larger academic group that do wet laboratory/bench research. I have my own project independent of those in the larger bench research group.
**Problem**
We often get requests from the bench researchers for some data analysis. My advisor has been passing all these ad hoc requests to me and I do duly comply.
**Anticipated consequence**
If the current pace of requests continues, I think that my PhD project will suffer.
What actions should I take and why?<issue_comment>username_1: **Step 1: Gather data.** For an appropriate period of time, keep a record of who asks for what task and how long each task takes to do. If you have comparable control data from before the requests started flooding in, track progress on your own project also, so that you can demonstrate the damage to your own work.
**Step 2: Bring the problem to your advisor.** Show your advisor the data. Explain what you need in terms of time: X amount of time for your own work per Y work period. Ask your advisor how best to make that happen (do bring ideas if you have them, but be open to things you haven't thought of).
**Step 3: With your advisor's support, bring the problem to the rest of the research group.** You should do this with proposed solution(s) in hand (one common Organization Hack is to bring two or three possible solutions, any of which would content you, in order to limit the apparent options to wins for you).
Derailment is possible here, especially if your advisor is unsympathetic, but a calm and data-driven approach is likeliest to achieve your aim.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Learn to say **no.**
Also, you should talk to your advisor about this. He should want you to succeed and may not know the effects these tasks are having on you. Perhaps he doesn't know how much time the work is taking you or since you always say yes, he thinks you don't have enough work to do. Communication is key!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Impose resource limits
----------------------
If there is an understanding that it is good to do certain tasks, it doesn't mean that it's good to spend all your time on them so that it hurts your other duties. Make up a reasonable limit (and possibly agree on it with your supervisor) on what is the upper ceiling of hours per week to devote to such requests so that you still have adequate time to work on your own project.
If such requests are common, regular and frequent, then schedule specific times in your workweek to work on them. When that time is up, that's it - go back to your project and you'll resume handling the remaining outside requests next week. If a large backlog starts to accumulate and things start taking unreasonably long then that's what *should* happen in a situation where the volume of such ad-hoc requests is too large - instead of sacrificing your project while hiding the real problem from everyone else. It will be a clear indication to the requesters and supervisors that some other resources or people are needed to handle those tasks.
Upvotes: 1
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| 221
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<issue_start>username_0: In Google Scholar, you can create an alert, such as "neural networks", which will inform you any time there is an article related to "neural networks". However, suppose I am interested in neural networks applied to robot navigation. Is there a way to create an alert that will only inform you when both "neural networks" and "robot navigation" appear in the paper? Essentially, I want to do a logical AND on the search terms.<issue_comment>username_1: **Yes**, all of the typical operators apply.
`AND` is implicit so your alert query could be `"neural networks" "robot navigation"`
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You could create an alert for `neural networks + robotics` this way google will search all the results that have both words, and again if you are more interested in the robotics part you use a quotation mark like `neural networks + "robotics"` which brings all the results that absolutely have robotics in them.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/10
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<issue_start>username_0: Disseminating printed documents in many places on the planet is a very robust "backup" strategy for scientific literature. Printed documents (and other forms of ink-on-paper documents), or fragments of them, are known to last for millennia and with a high redundancy (many copies spread in many geographic locations), the chances of being able to reconstruct the original content is high.
All current electronic data storage require continuous catering (electrical power and servers maintenance) or frequent re-copying (i.e. of laser discs, magnetic hard drives, etc.) to last more than a few decades.
**How do online-only journals and articles repositories intend to ensure very long-term archival of their content?**<issue_comment>username_1: Open access journals and article repositories have a good option of ensuring very-long term access that is similar to how printed documents were handled in the past: **Wide dissemination over several repositories**.
In the life sciences, open access articles are often deposited in additional repositories by publishers themselves, for example at [Pubmed Central](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/) or it's European equivalent [Europe PMC](https://europepmc.org). I think also additional repositories actively mirror some open access journals - at least I frequently seem to get results of such additional repositories through internet searches. That means even if the publisher goes bankrupt and shuts down its servers, the papers should still be easily accessible through these mirror repositories. See for example [Biomed Central's statement on permanency of articles.](http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/policies/permanency-of-articles)
This strategy is only possible for open access journals, since only those typically allow redistribution of their articles and thus permit the mirror repositories to act as they do. I have no idea how commercial, non-open access publishers handle this problem.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Most publishers use a preservation network such as [Portico](http://www.portico.org/digital-preservation/services/e-journal-preservation-service) or [LOCKSS](http://www.lockss.org/). The principle is that numerous electronic copies are saved, and released in case of certain events (e.g. the publisher stops permanently giving access to the works).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Currently lib.gen/sci-hub build an archive of all papers and textbooks. Publishers fight the legal battle to stop the project but it's highly unlikely that they will stop lib.gen/sci-hub and it's various mirrors in every country of the world. Elsevier might win the suit in the US but they probably know why they don't pick the fight in Russia where the lib.gen/sci-hub servers reside.
There are applications like IBM's Watson that work better if they have access to more data. That means that companies like IBM, Google, Baidu and Facebook have an interest to have all the data of all scientific papers.
Isn't it expensive to store all that data? No, it isn't. In 2014 Facebook added [4 petabyte](https://research.facebook.com/blog/facebook-s-top-open-data-problems/) of data per day to it's database. That's likely more data than all scientific papers together. All the arxiv PDF's together are [270 GB](https://arxiv.org/help/bulk_data_s3).
Upvotes: -1
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| 903
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm preparing for a PhD interview and there is one question that I'm not too confident to answer, which is if they asked where do I see myself in 5-10 years or what I plan to do after my PhD.
I know I want to remain in science and do research in molecular biology, so I would do a Post Doc but I'm curious about it because I have heard that there are many levels of it but I'm not too sure what these are. Is there a list of them I could go through and see which suits me most? I'm sorry if this is confusing but I'm a bit clueless about it too.
Also during one of my interviews I was asked about becoming a lab leader. To be honest, right now, I feel that I won't ever be ready for that and I would prefer not becoming a lab leader although it seems like the very final step in the research career. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong but I have seen most lab leaders to be stuck with paperworks, applying for grants etc and they rarely ever work in the lab. My desire is to enjoy doing experiments and I feel that being a lab leader is such a huge responsibility. I kind of wish I could be a Post Doc... forever? Or maybe one day I might feel the need to have my own lab, but how to answer such question without putting yourself at disadvantage?
Many thanks for your help! I know I sounds like a naïve student with all these ideas (which might not be realistic), but because that's exactly what I feel like I am at the moment that I need to know anything relevant about further studies and Post Doc is still such a grey area for me. I know at some point it's all going to be a battle for money...<issue_comment>username_1: Get ready for the part where you stop doing most of the research and start fighting for the money to fund the people who do if you want to work as a professor. Other options are to find a pure research track and not teach (like I do). These positions are often follow a progression like Research Associate, Research Scientist, and Senior Research Scientist. Though, there's a fair amount of grant chasing and personnel management on this track, too, and no tenure so job security is based on winning grants regularly.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In answer to you first question...there aren't formally different levels of Postdoc positions (you'll see references to 'Senior Postdoc,' say, but those are rarely job titles). Essentially, a Postdoc is a position in which you work with a lab boss (called PI, Principal Investigator, in many fields), but also assume larger responsibility than as a Ph.D. student (first author of papers often, help with grant applications, oversee graduate and undergraduate students, ...).
It's a product of the pyramidal structure of academia - not enough tenure track positions for the amount of Ph.D.s graduating, so we need to park them and further sieve some out. To a lesser extent, as going directly from a Ph.D. to tenure track and lab boss can be hard, it provides further training with less pressure than being a tenure track academic right away.
The salary ranges from decent to abysmal, depending on field and school. In some fields, one Postdoc (often lasting 3-6 years) is deemed sufficient to apply for tenure track positions; in others you might have several such positions first (often shorter then, maybe 3 years each). So I think JeffE's comment isn't necessarily off, with one modification - say that you see yourself either in a tenure track position, or seriously thinking about where to go for one. Once you're part of this system, you're likely to re-evaluate wanting to be a "Postdoc forever." These long years prepare you for tenure track, and you'll be eager to finally do your own thing with full responsibility even if this now appears scary.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm an undergraduate right now and in my junior year. I was overloading courses and fell behind one course, leaving me with a B+ as the highest possible grade for the course. Should I retake it next year if I know I can get an A in the class?
Also: it is a core class and I can technically get an A- but thats with a 100 on everything...<issue_comment>username_1: Absolutely not! you should not drop the course for next year, do not waste your time on this. B+ and A is not that far apart if other marks are high. The most important thing to remember is to have an A in your thesis and a good recommendation letter from your supervisor you did your project/thesis with.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with <NAME> that the most important aspects of your application will be your thesis and advisor recommendation, but I want to take a slightly more nuanced angle on whether you should drop your course.
You say that a B+ is the highest grade you can receive. Is it the likely grade? You should not be basing your estimates of what you are going to get in the class on statements like "if I get perfect scores on the remaining exams I can get . . .". If, in fact, you are more likely to get a C+, and the course is a "core" course, then an argument can be made for you to drop until the next time it is offered.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I teach programming, and I myself learned mostly self-taught about 30-35 years ago (pre-internet). I learned mostly by thinking things through and trying out alternate solutions. It never occurred to me that students could, or *would*, just "grep" the solution to many textbook assignments off the 'net. It sometimes seems that they do not make much effort to solve the problem themselves.
Sometimes I see two students's solutions with the same weird anomalies in them and it makes me go, "Hmmm..." It seems that the students who do NOT come up with the obvious best solutions are the ones actually thinking for themselves and not doing "research". In one case I searched on a strange method name and found one and only one hit on the web: a PDF that exactly duplicated the student's submission, including a lot of concepts and methods I have not taught yet.
**Is this a problem generally?**
**How do Instructors deal with the fact that there could be many possible solutions available** (most of them flawed) to students who know how to type some words in their browser?
(I have seen [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64508/is-it-plagiarism-to-use-an-online-tutorial-as-the-basis-for-completing-a-program), and I do not agree and my question is more about how to handle the situation.) The assignments at this point are simple decisions and loops, nothing that requires knowledge of frameworks, etc. Most people should require nothing more than the textbook and my lectures.
**Addition:** I think the real problem is - now that my naivete is shattered, I have two doubts:
1. Could anything they hand in potentially have been copied?
2. *Am I teaching effectively?*<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Most people should require nothing more than the textbook and my lectures.
>
>
>
Probably most professional programmers today *could* do their jobs armed with nothing but the lectures from their programming coursework and the complete official reference material for the programming languages and libraries they are using. But why would they, when there are much more useful resources available online that allow them to do a better job, more quickly?
Your students (understandably) approach this the same way. Why *would* they do their homework with just the textbook and lecture notes, when this isn't the most efficient way (with respect to time, getting a good grade, and actually learning)? (Yes, the Internet can be a tremendously useful aid for *learning* and not just copying.)
In my experience, the best way to deal with students using online resources is:
* Encourage students to use online resources. Recommend specific online resources to them that you consider most helpful and reliable.
* Require students to cite all the online resources that they used. (And depending on the assignment, to also explain how they used it.)
* Educate students who use online resources that are flawed about how to better evaluate the online resources they choose to use. ("This website seems useful at first glance, but it actually doesn't apply to the problem in the homework assignment. Here is how you could have known that...") If you do this successfully, this will probably be the most valuable thing they learn in your class.
* Assign a mix of problems, including some that can't be answered immediately with a simple Google search.
If you want them to have some practice solving programming problems without the assistance of the Internet, you can occasionally give them a small (< 10 minute) problem to complete in class.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You may have the problem of actually giving assignments which are just too simple - so easy they can be effectively Googled - but not at the same time making it clear that this is building to a compound problem that isn't so easily looked up, while building up skills that will make them good at their job.
A simple example: use regex to check to see if an email address might be valid. In theory, this is to help students learn regular expressions, as well as developing their skills of debugging, problem solving, and familiarity with string-handling in their computer language. The problem? Students think the problem is just about checking to see if an email is valid. As a real programmer, you absolutely should not even attempt to build your own solution for this - Google it and find a high-quality implementation suitable for your needs, then conduct your own testing and make sure it works. But your students might only be learning how to copy-paste ineffectively, not testing, altering, or understanding, and they do not learn how to modify the solution to fit custom business rules.
So, in this example I would suggest you twist it. The new problem is "test to see if an email address might be valid, using regex". Encourage them to find a nice regex online if they'd like, or build one on their own if they want extra practice on regex. Now, part 2 of the problem: our business rules only allow certain email addresses in our application. We only want to allow addresses that have a '.edu' extension, and before the @ symbol there must be 3 numbers (of the form: <EMAIL>).
This is not a complicated problem, but now there are two parts: 1) you need to find or build a regex to check an email, and 2) you need to be able to change it so it supports a non-standard rule that's terribly hard to Google. Hey, if you can find an answer on Google, knock yourself out - cite it so I can see where you found it and you'd still get full credit.
You may even want to state the 'hard' version of the problem first, then note how this is actually a few sets of simple problems combined together - then assign those easy ones right from the book if you like.
This is also a perfect way to then have the small in class problem that username_1 suggested. If they did the problem, then they should have no trouble with a solution to a minorly modified version like "this time, we want 4 numbers and a .co.uk extension - and you can use the solution you turned in to help your memory". Done right, at least some students will hopefully get the idea that it's actually harder to take the shortcuts than it is to genuinely understand the material so they can solve any problem that comes up in the future.
As a closing remark: I tend to try to skip most "try this problem from the book" type of assignments as a student myself, especially in anything programming related, because I find them trivial and unrecognizable compared to the kinds of problems I deal with as an actual real-life professional. So I don't really blame other students for not wanting to do them, either. I try to skew all my programming tasks towards real-world issues, preferably grounded in personal experience or existing applications, but I realize this is not always possible for teachers. Still, a little twist goes a long way!
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: When I was about 13, I could guess the answer to most simple algebra problems and then check that my guess was a solution. My mathematics teacher explained that the objective was not to get the solution. The objective was for me to learn and practice techniques I would need later, for problems that would be too difficult for guess-and-check. Similarly, your programming students should be building up skills they will need to write programs they cannot just copy.
I don't know whether this would work or not, but it is something to try. Ask them to over-comment their programs, and give most of the grade for the clarity and quality of the comments.
They should begin by explaining the approaches they considered, and how they picked the one they actually coded.
Each line, or small group of lines, needs a comment saying what it is doing.
Whether or not they got the code from the Internet, they should demonstrate understanding of the purpose of every line in it. I find it easier to understand code at that level if I wrote it myself than if I am reading code someone else wrote.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Reword some Euler problems and assign them to the student to test their strength. I believe that if you become more creative with the assignments, they will be harder to Google and copy
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: What worked for me(\*) was forbidding anything not in class. The syllabus had something like: "The purpose of assignments is to get practice with the new stuff from that week. To solve them, you may only use things covered in class. Don't worry about the exact way. But if someone helps you using a feature you've never seen, tell them about this rule." It seems obvious -- you lecture on loops, then give problems on loops.
The basic problem is a fair one: students have seen lots of mismatches between the material, the tests, the stated goals, what they actually learned, and their final grade. They have no special reason to think the assignment during loop week is even about loops. It's a lot of work convincing students that learning the stuff from class is their only job, and you'll make sure that translates into getting a fair grade and having a useful skill. For examples, solving assignments beforehand for difficulty -- especially after any "minor" changes; double-checking that test Q's are similar to something from an assignment; and cutting busy-work (long unsigned byte, do-while).
The rest of the system that worked for us was having tests be worth 65-75% of the grade, fully closed-book. That emphasizes that by the end of the class, you'll have skills, especially the early ones, down cold, like tying your shoes. The first few test Q's are warm-ups like "what does this loop print?" to help students who freeze-up. 30% for the assignments is enough to make them worth doing, but clearly they're meant for practice (and hardly worth cheating on).
The other thing with assignments was making them oddball: reading a made-up code, or scoring the sport of "tongo-ball". That lets you tinker until it's exactly as complex as you need, good coverage of class material, with ALL the rules in one place (as opposed to assuming everyone knows about football safeties and the 2-minute time-out). It works better than real problems, and also makes googling tough. Some students don't love that -- they want to say they solved a real-world problem. But I go back to the first idea -- we're learning how to write loops. Once we know them, we can solve all the real problems we want.
(\*) for several years at a US state college teaching 1st-year Com Sci.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/11
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a good friend who is in his first year as an assistant professor right now, having earned his PhD last year.
He is frustrated because in his new department, standards for graduate student research seem to be lower than what he was used to in his PhD department. Some PhD students in his new department graduate without ever publishing anything (which is *not* usual in our field). The theses that students in his new department produce would be considered at the level of a good bachelor's thesis in his old department. The graduate students all work fewer hours and are less productive during their working time than what he is used to.
I suspect this is a common problem, since many people who land tenure-track academic jobs end up in a department that's ranked lower than the one where they earned their PhD.
Assuming the graduate students he supervises are actually capable of more, how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't? Is it realistic to even try?<issue_comment>username_1: One strategy would be to explain to the students that their success on the job market after graduation will depend greatly on the quality of the research that they've done as graduate students.
Another strategy would be to expose the students to high quality research being conducted by students at other universities (e.g. by taking them to conferences) so that they can see beyond the provincial confines of their department.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This is, as you say, a common problem. It certainly is realistic to try to get more out of your students than the other faculty. However, depending on how substantial the gap is between the norm and your expectations, getting into a better school *may* turn out to be the only realistic and sustainable way of aligning goals and reality. If the statement that the PhD theses in the new school are like bachelor theses in the old school is not just hyperbole, this may certainly turn out to be the case for your friend.
>
> how can he motivate his students to work harder and produce better work when other students in the program don't?
>
>
>
**Step 1** is certainly to figure out why they *should* work harder than their peers (who still graduate!) in the first place. It's likely that your friend never really gave this much thought, because in his old school, working your ass off was simply what PhD students *do*. Here it isn't, so he needs to find a motivator that works for them. The two solutions offered by Brian (tell them that they won't find an academic job if they don't publish, and show them what cool things they could be doing) are good, but they will work only if they actually have aspirations to stay in academia, or respectively have substantial internal drive to do good research. Both may have been a given in the old school, but not necessarily so in the new one. Other potential motivators may include:
* Getting to see nice conference venues (don't laugh - this works much better than you think as a motivator)
* Serving as a stepping stone for a cool industry internship, e.g., at Microsoft.
* Finding a problem that they personally *really* want to solve, i.e., real curiosity-driven research.
* Bonuses! Most likely difficult to implement in many universities, but depending on his financial capabilities, there should be *some* goodies that he can offer in exchange for going beyond the work of peers. It does not need to be a super-formal, but knowing that the students that work hard and get published are also the ones that get new laptops first is certainly a motivator for some students.
The most important step is really to start giving it a thought why they *should* be working hard in the first place, rather than lamenting why they don't.
**Step 2**, and strongly connected to Step 1, is then to find the right students. This was again something he has maybe not given too much thought, as in his old school most students were good to excellent. In his new school, there are almost certainly also people for which some of the above motivators will work and compel them to produce good research, but he will need to identify and actively recruit them to his cause. The most important part of this is to make clear that *things in his lab are different than in the rest of the department*. Students are not graduating without papers. Students are expected to work on their research X hours a week, for whatever a realistic X is, and so on. If this is the message that your friend is communicating plausibly, most of the students will stay far away from working with him, but that is ok - he does not want those students anyway. However, even at a weaker school, there are likely going to be students who are dissatisfied with the status quo and who are actually going to be appealed by your friend's less lenient approach to PhD school, especially once he builds up a track record of students actually going beyond the norm in the school.
**Step 3** is going to be the most difficult, but maybe the most important, step. He then needs to meet his students half-way. Despite all of the above, he is *still* not going to be working at a top-tier research university. That means he will need to re-evaluate his expectations on his students and the papers they produce. This may include both, quality and quantity of results. He needs to realise that it actually *is* much harder for his students to produce good work in this environment than what it was for him. He likely had a stimulating and high-competition environment to work in. They just have him, and maybe one or two other more ambitious students. All the other students (who plan to graduate without papers) are frankly more of a distraction than support for them. All the other faculty are simply of not much help. At the end, he may be ok with his students not, or not immediately, submitting to the very best venues. Instead, he needs to ease them into it (without teaching them bad practices). In computer science, a good way may be to initially submit to workshops at the top conferences. This is allows students to go to the top conferences and see what the work is like that is published there, but getting a paper accepted at those workshops is achievable for most students given a little supervision. Really, the core in this step is to get away from the mindset that is common at top schools that only the very best publication venues are good enough.
What is also important in this step is the right kind of expectation management. Telling stories about your friend's old lab may be a good way to reframe the expectations his students have on how a PhD works, but he needs to pick his time and place. For instance, when his first student gets a paper in the major conference of the field, this is *a big deal* and should be celebrated as such. This is certainly *not* the right time to let everyone know that in his old lab they had papers in this conference every year for the last decade.
Finally, **Step 4** is to make alliances within the faculty. It is likely that there are other (younger?) faculty in the department that are also not happy with how the department currently operates. They won't be able to turn the department as a whole around, but it will certainly be easier to improve their own labs if they share their experiences. From a motivational point of view, it is also a good idea to try to socially align the labs of the higher-aspiration professors more tightly - if your students are friends primarily with the students of the other faculty who expect their students to actually work, it will be much easier for your students to keep up motivation. Ways to achieve this include joint social events or retreats, joint talk series, and of course, if possible, joint research and publications.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In my experience, one of the best ways consists in leading by example. He can try and publish excellent work on a regular basis, and he can require high standards for any publication from his team. He can say that it is a matter of reputation and even point out the importance of international competition in the field. After a while, I bet that there will be at least one student who would like to be part of this "excellence" group and show that his or her work is worthy of the requested high quality. This could become a positive upward spiral, since other students in the team won't like to be left behind.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I am a PhD student and thereby not qualified to answer the question in the intended spirit of the OP. Still I feel an urge to express my opinions in a general context since I find no logical explanation that negate the following. Assuming that the student is interested in the subject, I would advise an ***enthusiastic student*** that there are 3 major ways that you would loose your motivation.
**1. Anxieties of the Past.**
Thinking about something negative happened in the past and worrying that it will happen again. E.g. I had failed to understand General relativity even though I tried 3 times. I am going to fail again.
**2. Anxieties of the Future.**
Thinking of what to say in my Nobel prize speech in the middle of a Gaussian curve fit.
**3. Anxieties of the Present.**
Thinking of the numerous parameters to be given for the fitting function, leaving the data untouched from morning to afternoon. After noon, its lunch and I need some rest.
I would advise my student to block these while doing your work, think of what need to be done **now,** never lose your energy thinking of the results that are yet to come in the future and concentrate all your efforts for the single piece of work that you are doing and thus results will be excellent.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Adding to username_2 answer; specifically step 3 "For instance, when his first student gets a paper in the major conference of the field, this is a big deal and should be celebrated as such." Find out how long it has been, if ever, for the department or even university and celebrate accordingly. If it is the first ever then throw a party with him/her as the guest of honour and after cutting the cake present him/her with a brand new laptop or similar gift. If the university wont fund this but does not object he may want to fully or partially fund the purchase.
He could also see if there are any suitable rivalries with other universities he could use as encouragement.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I am providing this answer as a graduate student who is NOT in a program with perceived underachievers - in fact I am in a well-ranked biology-related program at a public university that vies with Ivy Leagues for students. I am very impressed with my cohort, many of whom work long hours and are very passionate about their research. So perhaps I can provide a graduate student's perspective.
I joined my lab with a great deal of enthusiasm, worked long hours, and found quite a lot of success immediately. However, as time has worn on, I have realized that most of my lab mates are not quite as enthusiastic. They do not always keep up with literature, they do the minimum that they are told, they are generally poor lab citizens, and can even be passive aggressive if not openly antagonistic. My advisor is very hands off and rarely creates or enforces policies to ideally prevent but minimally remediate bad behavior. This has affected my productivity quite negatively. The point of this anecdote is to highlight that the local environment can be just as important as the global climate. I often feel intellectually isolated, and while my advisor is very capable of carrying stimulating discussions and cares a lot, he is not yet tenured, so he's very busy, and cannot be the only one in the group with a passion for science.
Thus, based on my perspective as a graduate student on the other side of this question, I will share what I think your friend can do, as well as open with the note that I am largely corroborating and elaborating the good suggestions that username_2 provided above.
**The goals:**
**1)** Create a *stimulating* and *organized* local environment with lab/group members who care deeply and will support each other intellectually and culturally in spite of the global research climate. The late nights, stress, and social isolation need to be offset if depression and/or absenteeism are to be avoided. My own enthusiasm has suffered because of isolation, lack of organization, and lack of accountability. Maybe this also means putting extra time into mentoring to make the student feel special. If one does not want students to treat a PhD like a j.o.b., then it is necessary although maybe not sufficient that students not be treated like employees.
Your friend should also be honest with himself about whether he has the personality traits to create and maintain a stimulating environment that will not be corrupted by poor organization. If he cannot do this, then he might hire someone who can. In the experimental sciences, we have "lab managers" or "project scientists" who often play the role of "bad cop" and "foreman" since faculty do not have the time or will to wear these hats. Perhaps there is something analogous in your friend's case.
**2)** Related to (1), without the right people, goal (1) is difficult to unattainable. Therefore your friend should try to be as picky as possible with who he recruits, both in terms of students, but also any other members of the lab regardless of their role (e.g. post-doc, admin, technicians, etc...). This can be difficult as a junior faculty member because there is little to no managerial training and little formal framework for more experienced faculty mentoring younger faculty. Nothing in his career up to that point formally prepared him to essentially run a small intellectual business, identify early signs of high achievement based on a 1-2 hour meeting or email/call to a reference, or motivate humans to achieve. This leads to (3).
**3)** He should seek the help and guidance of more experienced faculty where appropriate. They would be more able to ferret out good recruits as well as provide advice on effective management strategies to motivate people.
To summarize, many PhD students have the requisite curiosity and intellect to do great research, but at a minimum the local culture needs to facilitate this as much as possible, especially if the overall culture in the program is one of underachievement, which your friend has limited power to alter. In my case, I am surrounded by brilliant students, but am hampered by a crummy local environment. I hope this helps, and maybe other students can support or counterpoint my arguments. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: In my view as a supervisor, everything comes back to the supervisors. If the level of the students is lower than you, you should try harder in your courses and in the process of the supervision.
In my department, many colleagues are discussing this issue regularly and compare the current students to themselves. But the point I've seen is that if you have an average student and give a good idea and a correct milestone, He (she) surely succeeded in the research process.
The important fact is that many researchers are not great supervisors and just try to imitate the behaviours of their supervisors from the top universities (that is a different story).
My suggestion is to do following works to produce more research results even from average students,
1. Course planning carefully and beginning the research process from it by working on current research works and topics
2. The discipline in your programs and weekly or biweekly sessions with students are very important issues.
3. Begin with simple ideas with your students than the hard and difficult ones
4. You should study more than the students in the research and show them that you are courageous enough to the academics work.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Before saying anything I would like to point out I have no knowledge on the how to apply for graduate schools and this may very well be a stupid question.
I'm getting my Bachelor's degree in Spring 2017 and I plan on applying for graduate programs for art that Fall. I have been looking at different schools and requesting more information and asking the admission offices about the programs I am thinking of applying to.
BUT, a friend of mine told me I definitely shouldn't have done that until I am almost absolutely sure I will be applying to that school and especially not a year ahead. I was just casually requesting more information, and I didn't know they took that so seriously.
So my question is did I somehow hurt my chances of getting into those schools by contacting the admissions very early? Especially when I am interested in more than one program?
I would also like to clarify that I did not contact a faculty member in the program, just the admissions office.<issue_comment>username_1: I am 100% sure you did NOT hurt your chances of getting in merely by requesting additional information. Asking for clarification is never a negative. I expect the admissions office would simply send you links to the school's webpages that give the information you requested, and end their email with "Feel free to email us if you have any more questions".
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I have been part of the admission process of two two-year long master-level courses in the Management fields. While these are not the same as graduate program in the US (e.g. MSc + PhD program), as far as your question goes, I think there is little difference.
I was specifically involved in responding to emails directed to the admission office and I am confident no damage came to you from asking questions.
The reason being that the person who reads the email and handle this kind of questions is an administrative employee which rarely, if ever, speaks with members of the admission committee directly. Those people are the ones who will make the decision w.r.t. your admission, they are typically busy professor and they never got remotely close to reading an applicant emails, as any menial task is kept away from them.
Emails first pass through the employee, who reads them and replies to all standard questions or questions he has been trained to answer (like 98% of the times).
If answering requires a higher level of responsability/expertise, said employee will ask the course admin/manager (who is typically not a professor, but that might depend on country/institution), yet this is done usually without any reference to the name of the specific applicant (because the information is irrelevant to answer the query).
Furthermore, the reason admission offices put their email out is so that people can ask questions, any questions, so to ensure that the application process is as easy and smooth as possible on both side.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'd go further to suggest that the more information you have, the better, because part of your application will be to convince them that you'll be an asset to their program as an apprentice of sorts and then possibly later on to partner on research, projects, and writing while you're a grad student. It's essential to make sure your interests and ultimately your personalities match. I'd go so far as to schedule a visit or talk to the faculty you'll be studying under, if you've done your background work.
This is an exciting part of your life, and graduate studies are less about getting a job and more about finding a compatible place to grow and work.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/11
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a postgrad PhD student. I occasionally participate in answering academic questions a Q & A site when I hit a block with getting on with my thesis.
I often cite a particular large and well-known academic source in my answers. I have my own copy of this book. It costs between £180 and £240 and is therefore beyond the reach of anyone who isn't a very serious enthusiast or a serious academic. It is a very important resource in my field of study.
Recently, I found that this resource is available online in pdf form at a not-for-profit website called Archive dot org. I have done some cursory research into that organisation. It has an entry on Wikipedia. I can't find any substantial criticism of it.
I am wondering whether it would be academically unethical of me to link directly to this resource in my answers, given the unknown copyright status of some of the content on archive.org. On a related note, I'm also worried whether it could get me into trouble academically to do so. Any insights would be appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: I am 100% sure you did NOT hurt your chances of getting in merely by requesting additional information. Asking for clarification is never a negative. I expect the admissions office would simply send you links to the school's webpages that give the information you requested, and end their email with "Feel free to email us if you have any more questions".
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I have been part of the admission process of two two-year long master-level courses in the Management fields. While these are not the same as graduate program in the US (e.g. MSc + PhD program), as far as your question goes, I think there is little difference.
I was specifically involved in responding to emails directed to the admission office and I am confident no damage came to you from asking questions.
The reason being that the person who reads the email and handle this kind of questions is an administrative employee which rarely, if ever, speaks with members of the admission committee directly. Those people are the ones who will make the decision w.r.t. your admission, they are typically busy professor and they never got remotely close to reading an applicant emails, as any menial task is kept away from them.
Emails first pass through the employee, who reads them and replies to all standard questions or questions he has been trained to answer (like 98% of the times).
If answering requires a higher level of responsability/expertise, said employee will ask the course admin/manager (who is typically not a professor, but that might depend on country/institution), yet this is done usually without any reference to the name of the specific applicant (because the information is irrelevant to answer the query).
Furthermore, the reason admission offices put their email out is so that people can ask questions, any questions, so to ensure that the application process is as easy and smooth as possible on both side.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'd go further to suggest that the more information you have, the better, because part of your application will be to convince them that you'll be an asset to their program as an apprentice of sorts and then possibly later on to partner on research, projects, and writing while you're a grad student. It's essential to make sure your interests and ultimately your personalities match. I'd go so far as to schedule a visit or talk to the faculty you'll be studying under, if you've done your background work.
This is an exciting part of your life, and graduate studies are less about getting a job and more about finding a compatible place to grow and work.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I have used and/or adapted several questionnaires for my dissertation study. I have already asked the authors for permission to use their scales. However, I have not received a reply from an author about using his scale.
I wonder if we have to have the permission of the authors when we use their surveys (when the questionnaire items are published and publicly available), or is it a courtesy to ask for the permission. Is it still okay to use a public scale when no confirmation is received from the author who developed the scale?
Thanks for any suggestions!<issue_comment>username_1: **Cite them.**
If the questionnaires are published then you do not need to ask for permission, just give them credit.
In Psychology there are some very popular questionnaires that were presented in papers that have been cited more than 5000 times. It would be a full-time job to reply to every person's email who wants to use it!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If I understand the question, you're talking about taking a published survey instrument and administering that survey to your own subjects as part of your research, possibly with changes of your own to the instrument.
I'm no lawyer, and I'm not in a discipline that uses surveys much, but I'd say you need permission, most especially if the survey form carries a copyright notice. In the United States, copyright exists the moment something like a survey is in "fixed" form, so the survey is covered by copyright, and you need permission to re-use or adapt it, so says the law.
Re-using someone's survey instrument is not like citing their results. Based on the comments to an earlier answer, re-use of survey instruments seems to be common, but I still think that, legally at least, you need permission.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2016/03/11
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in my second year of my PhD and am about to get married. I plan to take on my husband's name with my name and not keep my maiden name. But I have two publications already. What can I do so that I can associate my publications even after my surname change. Also, if I keep on publishing with my maiden name and use my husband's surname socially, and also change my surname in passport, won't there be a conflict when I apply for visa to attend conferences due to the two different surnames?<issue_comment>username_1: The easiest work-around, which completely eliminates ambiguity, is to use the word ***nee*** (more strictly née), which means:
>
> originally called; born (used in giving a married woman's maiden name after her surname).
>
>
>
An example (from Google) is: "<NAME>, <NAME>".
This will ensure complete consistency, and leaves nothing ambiguous.
Hope that helps. :)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: you can use both your maiden name and your husband's surname in parallel.For example if your name before marriage was X Y, and your husband's name is A B, then after marriage you can use X Y(B) as your name. This can be solution of your problem.And during VISA you have to show your marriage certificate and the supportive documents in the context of your maiden name.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: You should also consider registering for an identifier, such as [ORCID](http://orcid.org/) or [Researcherid](http://www.researcherid.com/). This way you can have an additional layer that relates your profile with your work. It is used in many submission websites and it is becoming quite common for funding agencies to require such a profile when submitting applications as well.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Having been in the same situation, let me share my experiences.
I was fortunate enough that I did not have anything published yet, only accepted, so it was possible to get the name changed before the paper was published (if you have anything in the pipeline, make sure to notify the editors as soon as you can). But as it is only a few papers, I would suggest the following:
Clearly you can't get your name changed on any printed versions, but it is certainly worth inquiring whether it is possible to have an addition made to electronic publications stating the new name (with a footnote about the change).
If the paper exists in any other form (such as on preprint servers or personal webpages), make the change to those versions (again with a footnote explaining the change).
If you cannot get the name changed on the papers in any way, make sure you point out on any future CV's and similar that some of the papers are in a different name. For many purposes, this will be the main reason it is important to be linked to those first papers.
Be prepared to sign all mails with both names for a while, at least the first time you are in contact with someone, so that people will be aware of the change. And make sure to keep whatever email you used to use (if you have one that includes your last name), so people trying to contact you about those papers can still do so, even if they are not aware of the name change.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Often your passport will have your maiden name, too. There might even be an empty field in your current passport. If in doubt for a Visa that you already have: call the embassy. Most likely they will tell you to use the name that is in the passport (surprise) until you get the passport changed. If you get a new passport, your will have to get a new visa obviously. Your new passport will likely contain your old name, too. **Ask a friend that is married about their passpoe
rt**. If you just get a sticker/stamp/print in your passport with the new name then it's not a problem. Essentially, consider a Visa to be tied go your passport, and assume that until you get your passport changed you have to use your old name when traveling. **It is fairly standard to become married and change the name, you know...** some people even get married abroad. Authorities know how to process this, and the usual procedure seems to be: use the old name until you get a new passport.
As for publications:
You can't change "printed" copies, but you can make sure all your **webpages and your CV** clarify the name change: "<NAME> (né<NAME>)" such that when someone searches for your old name + affiliation they do get a pointer to your new name. That should be your key objective: if someone googles for the publication and your old name, they should find your new identity.
As for impact: of course some people will not associate these publications easily with your name, unless you do some good follow-up publications or get to know otherwise. But neither for your PhD nor for your scientific career this will matter much on the long run. Obviously your PhD committee will learn about the name change... and you can still add your old publications to your scholar profile as well as list them in your CV (again, you can emphasize the name change by giving your maiden name).
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/12
| 491
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<issue_start>username_0: Will all European applicants count as ‘international students’ then?
Are there any proposals on this yet? I am finishing my BA in two years and was considering applying to the UK, but am worried now that I will have to pay international fees.<issue_comment>username_1: The following are opinion, not fact, as AFAIK nobody has a clue what a potential post-Brexit academic situation would look like:
1. It's standard for qualitative features in regulations and costs to remain fixed for students over the lifetime of their studies. So I would guess that the fees won't change halfway through: you'll know the approximate costs at the start. It wouldn't surprise me if in two years fees for EU students would remain the same, especially if (as your question seems to imply) you've been normally resident in the UK for 3 years.
2. I would always expect a PhD studentship to cover fees. I would be very wary of one that didn't guarantee this. The risk of higher fees should be on the studentship, not on you personally. (Of course, you may self-fund, which is a different issue)
3. In the current UK climate I would be more worried about visas to study. With the current arguments around net migration, and the crazy situation where students are counted as immigrants, I would expect student visas from the EU to become a problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it is possible to know the exact consequences unless and until negotiations are complete on a withdrawal treaty. AFAIK the main rule for this is [Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty](http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html). The UK and the EU could agree to keep some mutually beneficial arrangements. They could agree on a longer or shorter schedule for withdrawal. Or they could fail to agree on anything and the UK would be out in two years.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a 2nd year PhD student at a university in Canada. My PhD program is about environment chemistry. For a long time I wanted to learn computer science, especially machine learning, and I have 1 year work experience in an IT company.
I do not have a diploma in CS, though I have learned some course about programming and have experience in some programming languages.
Now I realize that I do not like my current research about chemistry, and my research has little progress recently. I also keep thinking about changing my PhD program or transfer to another program. I am particularly interested in machine learning, and relevant researches.
What ways can lead me to that track ?
Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: The following are opinion, not fact, as AFAIK nobody has a clue what a potential post-Brexit academic situation would look like:
1. It's standard for qualitative features in regulations and costs to remain fixed for students over the lifetime of their studies. So I would guess that the fees won't change halfway through: you'll know the approximate costs at the start. It wouldn't surprise me if in two years fees for EU students would remain the same, especially if (as your question seems to imply) you've been normally resident in the UK for 3 years.
2. I would always expect a PhD studentship to cover fees. I would be very wary of one that didn't guarantee this. The risk of higher fees should be on the studentship, not on you personally. (Of course, you may self-fund, which is a different issue)
3. In the current UK climate I would be more worried about visas to study. With the current arguments around net migration, and the crazy situation where students are counted as immigrants, I would expect student visas from the EU to become a problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it is possible to know the exact consequences unless and until negotiations are complete on a withdrawal treaty. AFAIK the main rule for this is [Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty](http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-european-union-and-comments/title-6-final-provisions/137-article-50.html). The UK and the EU could agree to keep some mutually beneficial arrangements. They could agree on a longer or shorter schedule for withdrawal. Or they could fail to agree on anything and the UK would be out in two years.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/12
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<issue_start>username_0: I am wondering whether it looks odd if a speaker reads notes during a presentation? I am asking this because, I noticed that a few presenters can’t present their work or research well due to nervousness and other factors such as language, pronunciation etc.
So if a speaker makes notes and just reads them properly along with the slides, how will it look? Will audiences accept or criticize such presentations?
How will it be if the speaker speaks by themself, but they will look into the notes if necessary?<issue_comment>username_1: Twenty years ago it was not at all uncommon at international conferences in physics and electrical engineering to attend at "read" presentations, especially from old researchers from Asian countries who were not used to speak English.
How was it? Boring, utterly boring, and audiences drifted away. Please don't do or suggest it: if you feel uncomfortable speaking, rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: What I recommend you is to present as best as you can and %10 percent of the each slide you can read or just skim realy quick while you are speaking. As @Massimo said listening a presentation that a presenter read from the slides is not nice at al.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: At least in my field, mathematics, in the U.S. (and probably western Europe) it is stylistically quite undesirable to read from slides, because it makes a person look as though they haven't really assimilated the material. For that matter, I've occasionally wondered who actually wrote those slides that the speaker treats as mysterious, surprising, or baffling.
On the other hand, there are indeed possibly even-worse failures, such as becoming completely tongue-tied, incoherent, panic-attacked, etc. But this scenario won't make a good impression on anyone, in any case.
If one's command of the relevant language is so minimal that one can do no better than to read the slides... it still may be better to *not* read *all* the slides, but just emphasize the high points, rather than look a bit silly. After all, people can/will read the slides themselves.
In particular, ideally, the audio portion *complements* the video. They are different mediums. Formulas are best displayed, not spoken. Complicated English (or other) sentences are best spoken, not filling up a slide with small print that makes people squint to read it... Graphics go on slides...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> So if a speaker makes notes and just reads them properly along with the slides, how will it look? Will audiences accept or criticise such presentations?
>
>
>
It will not leave the best impression, but you will survive it.
The biggest problem, however, is the word *properly:* Reading a talk or speech in a manner that is equivalent to ad-libbing is an art of its own and if you have mastered it, you usually do not need it anymore (unless you are a politician, actor or similar). If you have no experience in this manner and are nervous on top, you will almost certainly make frequent mistakes with respect to emphasis, tone and rhythm, usually by losing them altogether. This will make it difficult for the audience to follow your talk and very likely be worse than trying to give a regular talk.
Another problem is that writing a talk is not as simple as it may seem, as spoken language crucially differs from written one: Sentences are shorter and simpler; certain grammatical constructions only work well in written language; other aspects are exclusive to spoken language and essential for a good talk. A simple example for the latter is using the word *here* and pointing at the proper part of the projection.
Here is roughly what I recommend:
* Learn the first one or two sentence of your talk by heart and memorise important aspects of the next few ones. This should give you a safe start and way to cope with your nervousness. What is important is that you have a smooth transition from fully memorised sentences to ad-libbing. If you don’t, you may get stuck at the transition point.
* Rehearse early and often. This way you can spot difficult passages and prepare ways to master them, e.g., make mental notes on how to do a transition, look up vocabulary that you lack, and so on.
After a few runs, rehearse in front of an audience that can give you some feedback – even if it’s your ten-year old brother who does not understand a word you are saying and can only comment on the impression you are leaving (an audience that can give you feedback on the content is better though). This also forces you to rehearse the actual talk situation and makes you avoid starting all over on a regular basis. Most importantly, rehearsing is one of the best wards against nervousness.
Mind you: *rehearse* not *memorise entirely.* A talk that is entirely recited from memory is as bad as a talk that is entirely read from notes.
* Learn to use your slides as a memory aid. Avoid putting full sentences on slides, because you may read them out during your talk (and your audience does not want to read full sentences either).
>
> I am talking about the field of Atmosphere, where many proper wordings are necessary to address the originality of one's work.
>
>
>
I am not in your field, but I am skeptical that this extends beyond using the proper vocabulary and keywords – which you can put on your slides as a memory aid and to tell your audience about them in case you forget to mention them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm in mathematics and I don't think I've ever seen a speaker in a math lecture read directly from prepared notes. I *have* seen many speakers read from their slides, and like <NAME> (and for precisely the reasons he explained) I think this is a bad practice and should be avoided at all costs.
As for reading from paper notes you prepare in advance, while highly unusual for technical talks, if anything this would be less bad than reading from your slides, but whether this is a reasonable idea or not really depends on the execution. Some orators can deliver an amazing speech when reading from a teleprompter or written notes, but most of us who don't have extensive training in this particular artform will probably end up giving a rather dry, boring presentation if we try reading from notes.
My thinking on this can be summarized with the saying **you can't beat the system**. Giving an effective and engaging presentation, whatever your chosen mode of delivery, requires a combination of several skills:
1. A good level of fluency in, and mastery of, the language you are presenting in.
2. Good pronunciation, articulation, and voice projection.
3. A high level of mastery of the specific skills pertaining to your chosen mode of presentation (e.g., good blackboard technique for a blackboard talk; good knowledge of PowerPoint if that's what you're using; good ability to read effectively from written notes if that's what you're doing; etc.).
4. Engaging personality and ability to relate well to your audience, calm nerves, sense of humor, etc.
5. Last but certainly not least: knowing the material well!
None of these skills are easy or trivial, and all of them require extensive training and practice to get good at. So if you're thinking of reading from notes as a shortcut that will enable you to give a good talk despite having serious language deficiencies or suffering from terrible stage fright, think again - there are no shortcuts (which is what I mean by saying you can't beat the system). The bottom line is: reading from notes may be the approach that works best for you, and I wouldn't advise you to rule the idea out, but the point is you'd still have to put in a lot of work to do it well and successfully. Good luck!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Just reading aloud your notes is something that is typically not seen as good in many fields (e.g., computer science). There are many reasons for that, one of which being that it is often the bad presenters who do this.
*However*, I feel compelled to point out that there is nothing wrong with doing that if it actually **improves** the presentation. Two examples are:
* I've once witnessed a super-big-shot doing this for the introduction of his talk at a premier conference. The introduction was ultra-carefully crafted to set the work into a very precise context, in a well-understandable way, in very short time, while speaking clearly and slowly at the same time. After that, he continued with freely talking about the actual novel results in his talk. The introduction was actually great and helped researchers from related disciplines a lot to grasp the main ideas.
* Speakers with a native language that is quite "far" away from English do this sometimes to avoid grammatical errors during the talk. If the errors that they make during free speech makes it almost impossible to understand the talk, then reading from cards improves the talk.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I agree with avoiding reading notes for the reasons already suggested (Death By Powerpoint being one of them).
When presenting (no matter how small or large is the audience) I use slides with one or two words (or a picture) to help me to keep track of the presentation rather than to entertain the audience.
I then use a technique used by Romans speakers (~~it has its own graceful name which I forgot~~ [Method of loci](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci), thanks @MassimoOrtolano) to mentally walk though a house from room to room and attach "things I must say" to elements in that room. It also helps me to time the presentation (I am usually within 2-3 minutes for an hour presentation)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I took speech class a couple of years back and my teacher taught us that we should not read our notes when doing presentations.
It is very boring and you will lose credibility in what you were talking about. It is better to have a speaker who is engaged and knows what they are talking about in order for the audience to listen. This would require plenty of hours to practice. I believe a good example who has done this is <NAME>. He used to spend hours and hours preparing for his Sunday sermon.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Two relatively extreme examples.
---
Digression from notes
---------------------
Consider [Bryan Cantrill on Jails and Solaris Zones | Papers We Love](http://paperswelove.org/2016/video/bryan-cantrill-jails-and-solaris-zones/) (2016-02-11) – 105 minutes of excitable, fast-talking discussion around [a 44-slide presentation](https://speakerdeck.com/paperswelove/bryan-cantrill-on-jails-and-solaris-zones).
How fast? Commentary under <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U> includes a wish for the speaker slow down a bit; the speaker jokes that "[To slow down is to admit defeat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U&lc=z120hxx5gz3retl1122ywtprsleosxg35.1457459334012567)". There are **neither subtitles nor a transcript** (I might joke that the pace of discussion defeats the will of most potential transcribers); if spoken at a more 'traditional' pace, I reckon that the discussion could have spanned three hours or more.
>
> ### Is it good to read notes during a presentation?
>
>
>
At one point, Cantrill appears **to rein himself him** – one of the digressions (from [FreeBSD jails](https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/jails.html)) ends with a salutory mention of [Robben Island](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robben_Island) and whilst **presenter's notes** are at the rostrum, the reining involved **no visible use of those notes**. Instead, there's:
* visible presenter focus on **the audience's view of the presentation**.
At all other times, the audience enjoys presenter focus on the audience; on his maintaining their engagement with what's discussed.
---
Attention to notes
------------------
[username_6 observed](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/65028/12966):
>
> … at a premier conference. The introduction was ultra-carefully crafted to set the work into a very precise context, in a well-understandable way, in very short time, while speaking clearly and slowly at the same time. After that, he continued with freely talking about the actual novel results in his talk. The introduction was actually great and helped researchers from related disciplines a lot to grasp the main ideas.
>
>
>
Back to the opening question:
>
> ### Is it good to read notes during a presentation?
>
>
>
For an introduction of the type described by username_6: yes – it can be **very good** to do so.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: During Speech classes I took in college, I had notecards with notes on them just in case I forgot or needed to add something related to that situation. So I believe it's good to read notes, but best not to read it word for word. You should keep your eyes on your audience and not distract them with sudden movements or bore them as you read your notes.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: Did anyone mention 'rehearse'? Watch TED talks, or any good speaker, whether or not you admire their viewpoint. Pay attention to the presentation, rather than the subject. And rehearse. A colleague can help you get your points down, but a manager (or professor) can help you get your points across. Criticism from these sources is welcome, while criticism from your target audience is not. So, rehearse.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/12
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| 2,263
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<issue_start>username_0: My professor gave me a module on history that contains several spelling and grammatical errors. Should I tell him about this or just ignore these mistakes?<issue_comment>username_1: Many professors are interested in receiving feedback about possible errors in their lecture notes or, more generally, in their course material, albeit they might not be able to amend it immediately.
Since your professor might already know about those errors, ask them politely, e.g. (maybe it's not the best possible phrase, but it's just to get the idea):
>
> Dear Prof. X,
>
>
> Since I'm currently reading your history module, would it be useful for you
> if I compile a list of errata?
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> user50284
>
>
>
In this way you should not have any issue, even if they do not care.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Collect all the mistakes/comments you find throughout the semester. **Wait until the semester ends**, and your grade is assigned. Send email to the professor with all your comments. You can also mention that you enjoyed taking the class, if you did indeed. Professors usually enjoy feedback, when it is made on clear professional grounds.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: For the textbook I've written, I appreciate **any** feedback, including typos, misformed sentences, vague formulations and of course errors. Some points to consider (partly contained in the other answers):
* Wait until you have a reasonable list or, e. g., until a chapter is over, the whole book, or the course.
* Check if there is some errata available somewhere. Some authors maintain an errata on their webpage, sometimes the publisher hosts this, for some lecture notes I have a blog post. Only send the points that are not already in the errata.
* There is no need to ask if such a list would be welcome. I guess it is safe to assume that this is the case (but others seem to disagree - see the comment below).
* For other feedback than errors and typos (e. g. feedback for formulations or the organization of the book) be prepared that your comments may not be taken into account for various reasons.
Oh, and for the lecture notes I reward bonus points for every mistake spotted and submitted by a student.
Upvotes: 5
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2016/03/12
| 1,185
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<issue_start>username_0: Is there any study/survey that tried to quantify to what extent visit weekends impact graduate school applicant's final decisions? (final decision = which school to attend)
I mostly interested in the computer science field in the US, but curious about other fields and locations as well.<issue_comment>username_1: Advisor/program fit is by far the most important aspect of choosing a graduate school. Visit weeks can both help or hinder a prospective student from obtaining this essential fit information. Below is a list of things to consider.
1. visit weeks allow you to see how you get along with the incoming class. These are the students you will be spending a lot of time with in courses and during time outside of your specific research group. They can be an essential part of program fit.
2. availability for meetings: Visit weeks can facilitate professor availability if all professors clear out their schedule for that day. However, if they don't, then trying to meet with professors in the department can be difficult if you are competing for meetings with all the other admits.
3. visit weeks can prevent admits/prospectives who can't make the visit week from getting good information about the atmosphere of the program when they visit at other times. The administrative staff is often a bit burnt out after visit week, and sometimes treats new visitors outside of visit week as after thoughts.
4. Gender equity. The structured nature of a visit week can give you a glimpse into how much the program thinks about diversity issues. A good visit week organizer will think about diversity and gender equity, from the way social events are organized to the gender ratio of the professors giving talks. For example one program I visited had a session for women grad students and women prospectives only, organized by the female grad students. Every female recruit at this visit week chose this school (possibly a coincidence; it was a great program). This event could not have happened as it was structured if every student visited the program individually.
5. Along gender equity and incoming class assessment, a visit week, due to alcohol consumption and group dynamics can lead you to discover important information about "sexual harassment" and "hostile work environments". I've seen many examples of this during visit week and a telling sign is how other students respond when fellow students do something innapropriate.
I visited 5 graduate schools, 3 during visit weeks, one not during a visit week at a school that had a visit week that I couldn't attend and one that did not have a visit week. I was seriously considering all 5 schools. I enjoyed my time the most at the 3 schools with a visit week, but I was ultimately not there to enjoy myself but to make a better decision.
The school that did not have the visit week it was easier to meet with professors I wanted one on one (harder to do when you're competing with 10 other students for meetings).
The absolute worst experience was visiting the school that had already put on their visit week before I visited. The administrative staff treated me as an inconvenience. I had to pay for all incidental expenses (food, transportation to the hotel they were putting me up in). I was not offered to attend anything social. I was often eating meals alone. Ultimately, I didn't choose this school because the professor I initially wanted to work with rubbed me the wrong way (was far more arrogant and judgmental than the professors at the other schools and I perceived the potential for personality conflict, despite his great research). However, had the potential supervisors all been equal, my experience probably would have leaned me against this school. Note this conflict was not due to another visit week but an exam that a professor refused to let me take early.
So for me, yes the visit weeks made me view the institutions more positively. But it probably didn't affect my decision.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I visited 5 schools as well, and did not choose my "dream school" because of visits. I had actually started doing research with a professor there (and it was published during my first year of graduate school), but during the visit I realized that the department was not what I was looking for. One big thing that got me is that, on paper, they (and every program) seemed "interdisciplinary", but when you talk to them you realize that the "math biologists" don't talk to biologists. Add that the students seemed to not be interesting and I started thinking that, although it's a top school in the field (math), I wouldn't graduate as the person I would want to be.
The other program started with biologists and mathematicians together in the same courses, then you split off after the first year. Everyone was really interesting and I kept in touch with them after the visit. I met with a bunch of professors one-to-one and found about 6 I would like to have as an adviser and already had projects I wanted to start. Lastly, they showed the funding statistics and showed the available computing supplies. I got the impression that this school would really help me become who I want to be, and so I chose this school.
Then again, some people choose simply by the ranking.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/12
| 1,339
| 5,331
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<issue_start>username_0: I usually publish my research work at conferences in the field of Computer Science, I do not have so many papers and the question that I am doing here it might sound foolish for some (or maybe a lot) of researchers in different fields. A situation has arosen when a colleague of me wants to publish a co-join work that we have done in a CS journal. For my experience conferences charge a fee for authors when their work is accepted, but I have some doubts about the fees that I found for some journals in the field:
* Some journals I have seen are free and have an open access so that everybody could read or access a research work
* Other journals charge some fees for accepted works that range from 200 USD to 600 USD, they are indexed in Scimago
* Other journals that are indexed in Scimago in quartiles Q1 and Q2 can charge like almost 2000 dollars for accepted article, I have seen those in an Elsevier table, or maybe am I wrong?
I mean according to some PhD students that I have talked, they told me that usually good journals do not charge publication fees, but why for example the aforementioned editorial does that? I mean sometimes a journal could be accused of predatory because it charges for publishing, but it is not almost the same with some respectable journals in the field that do the same?
Bottom line, should one aim to publish only on free fee for publishing journals? Or one should better look out for the quality of the articles accepted within a journal instead of the fees charged for publishing?<issue_comment>username_1: From a comment of yours, you seem to be specifically interested in the [Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society](http://journal-bcs.springeropen.com/about).
From the website it appears that this journal is part of a set of Springer journals with an open access policy ([Springer Open](http://www.springeropen.com/about)). This is also clearly stated in the [fees and funding](http://journal-bcs.springeropen.com/submission-guidelines/fees-and-funding) page:
>
> Open access publishing is not without costs. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society therefore levies an article-processing charge of £695/$1085/€885 for each article accepted for publication.
>
>
>
Among the reputable journals there are usually three different publication policies:
1. *Closed-access journals.* Authors don't pay a dime, or they pay only if their paper is longer than a certain number of pages. Here the publication fees are covered by those -- typically libraries -- who subscribe to the journal. Only the subscribers can access the journals' content. Actually, many publishers require institutional subscribers to buy the subscription to a large number of journals, with very high subscription costs (can be in the range of 30 k$/yr).
2. *Journal with mixed access.* Here the authors choose what type of access they want. If they opt for closed access, they don't have to pay, but their paper will be accessible only by subscribers; if, instead, they opt for open access, their paper will be accessible by anybody but they have to pay a fee, which can be as high as 2-3 k$. The fees should, in principle, pay the article-processing costs (something that is questioned by many people).
3. *Open-access journals.* Here authors have always to pay a fee which covers the article-processing costs. The articles are however free to access to anybody.
I would highlight two points from the fees and funding page that may be of interest to you. First:
>
> If the corresponding author's institution is a Member, the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable.
>
>
>
And the final paragraph:
>
> It is the wish of the JBCS team that all quality articles will be
> published in the journal independent of the funding capacity of the
> authors. Thus, if the authors are unable to pay the APC charge, we
> recommend that they contact the editors. The JBCS team will provide
> support to find alternative ways of funding. In particular, a grant
> from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee helps sponsoring the
> publication of many JBCS articles.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is less a response to the main question than to one of the answers, which says, "[At full or non-hybrid OA journals] authors have always to pay a fee which covers the article-processing costs."
It's not true that all OA journals charge publication fees. In fact, it's not even true that most charge publication fees. On the contrary, most (about 70%) peer-reviewed OA journals charge no fees at all, and about half of all articles published in OA journals are published in the no-fee variety.
To find no-fee OA journals in CS, go to the Directory of Open Access Journals < <http://www.doaj.org/> > and look for journals in CS < <https://goo.gl/imUOGt> >. To learn whether or not a given journal charges a publication fee, just click through to the DOAJ record on that journal.
BTW, even when OA journals charge publication fees, the fees are seldom paid by authors. They're usually paid by the author's funder (59% of the time) or the author's employer (24%), and only 12% of the time by the author out of pocket. See the SOAP study < <http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.5260> >, Table 4.
Upvotes: -1
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2016/03/13
| 583
| 2,503
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<issue_start>username_0: I was a business student for my first two years of undergrad but then switched to computer science. I took classes over the summer before my junior year at another school. During my junior year (which I am in now) I am/have taken 7 CS/upper level math courses. During the summer I am doing research and taking non-cs/(core classes for my undergrad curriculum) so that I can take only CS classes senior year. Fall semester of senior year I plan on doing an undergraduate thesis class and take two grad classes, along with another course.
How bad is it for my application if I only have my junior year and first semester of senior year for the admissions committee to review.
I have pretty good grades in my cs/math classes post sophomore year (A's/A-). I plan on having two good recs at least. My main concern is the lack of semesters for the admissions committee to judge me on.<issue_comment>username_1: The first two years of undergrad in the US are mostly general education classes anyway, so I wouldn't worry about it. It is common to switch majors.
You seem like you are in great standings. You've taken a fair number of CS classes, received good grades, and will have two good letters. On top of that you'll have research experience and plan to take a few graduate courses.
From the little info you've provided, you seem like you are well on track!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: People have gotten into CS graduate programs (including PhD programs) from separate fields before (such as math/statistics, etc.) so it is definitely still possible in your situation; although since you switched to CS junior year it may take a little longer for graduation, but it depends on how far you are along the required coursework at your school.
If you are worried about this, you should be able to explain it in your statement of purpose, and keep in mind several people are in similar situations (switched fields, maybe had a not so great first couple of years).
To start, I would definitely recommend that you continue doing research if you are dead set on getting a PhD, especially since that is the best source to get you good recommendations that you will need for grad applications. I'd also start figuring out what your interests are in, and take electives/grad classes based on those to help develop those interests so that you will have an idea of what programs/areas you may want to work in and how to articulate that in the statement of purpose.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/13
| 668
| 2,903
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<issue_start>username_0: There is a postdoc from another group in my department that frequently helps PhD students in his area when they have questions or want to talk about a particular subject. I would like to know if this is expected/normal. In other words, can I go to a postdoc looking to talk and ask questions related to our field?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes. Helping students is commonly part of a postdoc's job. They are not obligated to help with every problem a student brings, but they probably will if they can.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Part of the idea of gathering professors, graduate students, postdocs and others is precisely to encourage exchange of ideas.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> In other words, can I go to a postdoc looking to talk and ask questions related to our field?
>
>
>
It depends on what you mean by "can", as well as the culture in your field and department.
If you are asking whether it's an ethical and reasonable thing to do, then the answer is certainly yes. You can talk with and ask questions to anyone you'd like, provided you appropriately acknowledge any assistance you receive.
If you are asking whether the postdoc has an obligation to provide substantial assistance or tutoring, then the answer is quite possibly no. It's hard to give a definitive answer, since precisely what the word "postdoc" means varies between fields and departments, but you shouldn't assume supervising graduate students is a serious part of the job unless you have some confirmation that this is true in your scenario.
If your questions are genuinely interesting and thought-provoking to the postdoc, then they will probably be happy to chat with you. You may also get a good response if you ask about topics that are truly difficult to learn about elsewhere, so that the postdoc will be sympathetic. On the other hand, if you try to lighten your workload by asking the postdoc relatively routine questions so you don't have to bother looking things up, then they will probably lose patience with you.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Yes, it's definitely ok as other answers suggest; I'd like to add a few more points though:
* Remember if you receive help beyond a certain level, you have to give that person credit afterwards, either in a thank-you note in a paper/poster, or perhaps even a coauthorship. I'm not saying that to discourage you from getting help, just so you don't forget later on.
* You can sometime reciprocate by offering them help with problems they're working on, if you feel it's too much of a one-way communication.
* Try to use the opportunity of getting help on something specific to maybe get a broader perspective on your research directions from someone who's pursuing something else. You don't have to agree with what he says but these can be useful reality checks sometimes.
Upvotes: 4
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2016/03/13
| 1,253
| 5,642
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<issue_start>username_0: Good Morning!
I'm a French student graduating this year in [Computer Sciences from Paris Dauphine University](http://www.mido.dauphine.fr/fr/apprentissage/licence-informatique/presentation.html) and I'm applying to master's degrees at the University of Virginia. I was wondering what was the difference between:
* [Computer Science](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/acad/graduate_program/)
* [Computer Engineering](http://www.cpe.virginia.edu/)
* [Systems and information engineering](http://web.sys.virginia.edu/graduate.html)
Reading the handbooks, I understood that the second one was more focused on hardware than the first one. Yet, I have no idea of what the last one was about or where would it lead me.
I'm asking because I'm not sure whether to apply for the second link or for the first one and the second one or for all of them.
Thanks in advance for your enlightenment.<issue_comment>username_1: Computer Science is mainly theoretical with a heavy "cutting edge" theory and research focus. This is where you would study things like memory management, compiler design, programming language design, artificial intelligence, etc.
Computer Engineering is mainly hardware focused and is usually a subset of electronic engineering. This is where you learn to design processors and build hardware devices.
Systems and Information Engineering is like Computer Science, but is more "practically" focused - it is more about application to real-world problems, with a focus on information systems. This is where Security often falls, as well as other fields like human-computer interaction, information systems, and other applications that are closer to the user.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I've some experience with the University of Virginia so I can help shed some light on this.
Computer Science is programming. AI, compilers, memory management, security, operating systems, etc. If it's part of software, it falls under CS.
Computer Engineering is a mix of CS and more traditional Electrical Engineering. It deals with computer hardware as well as the software that interfaces with it (i.e. firmware). CE at UVA is that Venn Diagram overlap between CS and EE. It covers everything from chip design to Operating Systems.
Systems Engineering is sort of a higher level overview of engineering principals. I'm the least familiar with this one. It deals with things like product life cycles, risk management, and the work process. Looking at the list of [Systems concentrations](http://web.sys.virginia.edu/graduate/concentrations.html) might give you a better feel for it. UVA has one of the few Systems Engineering undergrad programs. Most people who do Systems major in a more normal engineering program in undergrad before pursuing a Masters in Systems.
To get a better idea of the programs, you should check out the grad level classes you would be taking in each. For this, you want to use the unofficial class listing site called [Lou's List](https://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/mySIS/CS2/). All three departments are part of the Engineering Department. Gradate classes will be those numbered 5000 or higher. Look at listing for both this coming semester and previous semesters.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You'd have to check out the classes offered, and their research. Most of the time the name is just a historic artifact. It might be called "Computer Science" because if was born in the misty past in a science faculty from e.g. a Mathematics department, or "Computer Engineering" because it started under Electrical Engineering, or "Systems Science" because it is linked to Management, or it might come from an interdisciplinary line between some of the above.
Whatever the name says, the vagaries of people hired and their interests, the funding they could secure, and perhaps e.g. state funding for specific research can have shaped the work very much.
Instead of looking at the name of the program, look for people working in the area(s) that interest you. Check out their latest research, perhaps even contact them for research ideas and guidance.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I remember when I was trying to choose between Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Systems and Information Engineering for my master's degree. At first, I found it quite challenging to understand the differences and make an informed decision. I realized that Computer Science delved into the theoretical aspects of computing, while Computer Engineering combined hardware and software integration. Systems and Information Engineering, on the other hand, focused on system analysis and data management.
To clarify my confusion, I reached out to professionals in each field and researched various career paths. Through these conversations and my exploration, I discovered that Computer Science was more suited to my passion for programming and algorithm development. Computer Engineering intrigued me with its emphasis on both hardware and software, making it ideal for individuals interested in designing computer systems. Systems and Information Engineering fascinated me with its integration of computer science into optimizing complex systems and managing data.
By understanding the nuances of each discipline, I was able to make an informed decision based on my interests and career aspirations. So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, I recommend exploring the core subjects and career prospects of each field to determine which aligns best with your goals. What specific areas of computer science or engineering are you most interested in?
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/13
| 1,294
| 5,657
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a teaching assistant for both master and PhD students. Part of my work included helping and supervising them during several lab experiments (physics). One task of the lab experiments is to write a program to numerically calculate values and simulate them afterwards. The students are allowed to use any programming language they want to use (except stuff like Brainfuck and Whitespace, of course), as long as they provide the source code with the result.
While the master students are not having any problems with the problem, I got was asked by the PhD students if I can help them do the programming in Excel, as that is the only thing they can use and know for "programming".
How far should I now go and help them? I know that doing the task they are assigned to is impossible to do in Excel, but they never used any other language or programmed themselves. I am able to teach them how to achieve the programming goal, but based on their current knowledge that will take a lot of time, which I also need for my own lab tasks. Should I thus simply tell them to drop the course, or should I try to help them, and if yes, in which extent?<issue_comment>username_1: I'd state my competences (where I can help without having to study a week to come up to speed) beforehand, and tell them I can't be of much help outside that range.
That said, being able to use Python (perhaps as part of sagemath), or perhaps some language like Mathlab will be very valuable for them later on. Yes, spreadsheets are Turing complete, but that doesn't mean anything. It is much more important that the program is clearly written, and can be fixed/extended by somebody else (even yourself after not looking at it for a couple of weeks).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> How far should I now go and help them?
>
>
>
**You probably shouldn't be spending any time whatsoever teaching prerequisite skills one-on-one to any individual students.** As you say, it is not anywhere in your expected priority queue of work that the university expects you to be doing (plus: it's simply an inefficient use of the time resource). Perhaps the most that is reasonable is to point the student in question to a relevant class, book, or tutorial from which they can learn on their own (and as an aside, to explain why it's a bad idea to use Excel for a task like this).
That said, you note in a comment that "As far as I know there were no requisites stated beforehand". This is, indeed, very bad. I would say if that's the case that the instructor may now have a responsibility to give them an **alternative and equivalent assignment that does not involve programming**, if that failed to be stated up front in university prerequisites, or on the first-day syllabus information.
Definitely speak with the teacher of the class (and advisor if that's a different person), tell them there are students in the class who don't know any programming, and ask about how to handle this case.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are a TA and have questions about what to do, almost always the first thing you should do is ask the instructor. The instructor should clarify exactly how you should be assisting them, and what the prerequisites for the course are. I would be wary, as a TA, of suggesting students to drop the class.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: This is definitely an issue for the instructor.
Perhaps programming should have been mentioned as a prerequisite for the course. On the other hand, the prerequisites probably did not list "Must be able to find the physics lab given a campus map.", even if that is required for success on the course. The instructor may have, not unreasonably, assumed that graduate students in a STEM subject can do simple numerical programming in at least one language.
You may want to have a list of options to present to the instructor:
* If the assignment can actually be done using a spreadsheet, show you how so you can help the students do so.
* Set an alternative assignment.
* Pick a time period when you would normally be doing TA activities, and tell the students who cannot program to meet you then. Teach them really, really basic programming in some language with which you are familiar.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Personally, my go to is to provide as many resources that are available to them, and then it is their prerogative to take advantage of what I have provided to them. There are a number of excellent resources for students to learn how to code and program in all the languages available online, and for free! I've have used both the free options, and they give practical and immediate feedback on their progress.
Being a TA takes a lot of time, and it being a post-secondary education course these students should be responsible enough to seek help and use the resources available to them. You could put a task from these sites as a lab, or do quizzes based on the activities in each module on the sites below.
If you are looking for free options I would recommend:
1. Free Code Camp
2. Code Academy
A paid option is [Udemy](https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?ref=home&src=ukw&q=programming&lang=en)
Free Code Camp is a collection of many resources from all over the Internet. It has 300 hours of total practice available, all split by the different programming languages.
Code Academy is a website that has a built in lab with it that requires the user to successfully write the code in order to advance through the module. It also has a support community for people to ask questions if they get stuck.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/13
| 1,552
| 6,531
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<issue_start>username_0: Thanks to some great SE answers on a previous question I posted, I realized that even though I don't have an RA at the moment (I am a first year PhD student), I must start my research ASAP. I am convinced that this is great advice and want to follow it.
But the concept of 'doing research' is still not perfectly clear to me. I am interested in convex optimization, that's what I intend to do my PhD in. So as of now, for my thesis, I have this vague idea in my mind that I'd solve a problem by maybe coming up with a cool algorithm and give some nice proofs using convex analysis.
But exactly how to start is a mystery. Here's what I *think* I should do: read a paper that looks interesting to me (this could be because of the abstract, or maybe it's a paper that has suddenly got very popular, or it could simply be based on the author's reputation, etc), thoroughly understand their results by working out proofs of all their statements, and then try to see what happens in slightly different cases than what they mention. Maybe relax some assumptions they make; or go the other direction, add a constraint and see if the algorithm can be *improved* because of this constraint, etc.
Is this how it's done? I feel so lost right now. When I try doing this, I have so far (in six months) not been able to really think of anything new. Even the existing proofs that I get are so complex, I can't think of any way to come up with something new. Can someone please give me some tips on how one gets started in theoretical research - how to come up with a problem, and how to proceed from there?
EDIT\_ Adding more information: I don't have an adviser yet, and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/64826/is-it-better-to-not-have-an-ra-and-instead-be-doing-a-ta-for-the-first-couple-o) is the post I am referring to in the first paragraph.<issue_comment>username_1: What you describe (look at paper, understand it in minute detail, look at next paper) is a depth-first search. [This is probably a bad idea (oblig. xkcd).](http://xkcd.com/761/)
It's very common at the beginning of a PhD to do a proper literature study. This means writing a report (maybe just for yourself and your supervisor) that summarises everything the human race knows about convex optimisation. Of course, this will not include detailed proofs of everything. The point is to get an overview of the field. If you're lucky, someone has recently written a review paper in your (sub)field, which helps a lot.
When you have an overview, you will (hopefully) at least know one very important thing: which problems have been solved, and which problems are still unsolved, or solved in a poor way? Then comes the hard work: trying to come closer to solving the unsolved problems in your chosen sub-sub-field.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In mathematics, a paper with 20 pages of proofs does not have twenty pages of original ideas. It might have a page worth, maybe. The rest are combinations of 2-6 previously known ideas, often with little or no acknowledgements of their first appearance [footnote 1].
To beginning graduate students, I strongly suggest to read much older papers. They are usually much shorter, much simpler, and actually allow to learn ideas in their simplest. In my branch of mathematics, that means papers that are at least 30 years old. General useful mathematical background papers go at least 60-100 years.
A good way of doing research is just to be curious --- after all this is what got you into the position you are now, right? Whenever you are curious about something, try figuring it out, look for some way of doing it, search references, read whatever looks interesting, swear at whatever does not. Keep journal with your questions, observations, dead-ends, ideas and swearing. Occasionally, when there is something particularly nice, add those 5, 10 or 15 pages of formal expository and technical scaffolding that is needed to convey your message to others [footnote 2] and share with the world. That is research.
[1] Many find it embarrassing, awkward and out-of-place to write ".... by Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. (This way of applying Cauchy-Schwarz inequality I learned from [ref] which is completely unrelated to the current topic). Next we can bound (5) by..."
[2] After spending much time thinking about X, you will find that you need to spend much time to explain the basics of X to anyone who has not spent the same time thinking about X. That is why you need all that scaffolding.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'm a Ph.D student who seems to be doing well and from my perspective, I think it came really naturally by finding an interesting problem, and just "doing it". I started in a Math Bio program and switched into the Math Ph.D, but what I made a bunch of connections with Bio students and found some interesting problems in zebrafish that I wanted to model. However, there weren't the right mathematical tools to computationally simulate it at the error I wanted (stochastic dynamics), so I started doing what made sense, went through the literature to find everything out about the area, and started making algorithms to solve the problem.
Convex optimization is a field a lot like stochastic dynamics where you can find real problems that need to be solved. Go find one that's interesting: cancer biology, mathematical finance, etc. and try to solve it. Maybe you get a free "applied" paper because existing methods work. Most likely, it hasn't been done because it's mathematically/computational hard, and now you have a problem that is both mathematically and scientifically interesting. With a concrete idea of what you need, it will be much easier to move forward. Even if you don't want to do applied work, you will find "pure" theoretical work that needs to be done that is also very applicable.
Also, I second Semi's suggestion to start writing. I started by thinking that reading counted as doing work. How many times have you read a proof and thought you understood it, but couldn't reproduce it with the book closed? I took my advisers advice: reading doesn't count as work, only count writing time. Read everything and compose your own notes, or basically your own book on the subject. Prove extra generalizations / interesting side stories as you think of them (some of these will later go into a paper!). Sooner than later it will become the best source of information that you know of on the subject.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/13
| 917
| 3,845
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<issue_start>username_0: I would really like to help out my professor and get some 'research experience', and I asked her the other day, but she said that me writing my thesis would already be 'research experience'.
Does she maybe not want me to help her? Or is there no need? How can I prove myself useful?<issue_comment>username_1: Like any other organization, the university has a hierarchy. People work hard to promote themselves within these hierarchies and be useful. You can't just show up to the head of department's office and tell him/her: "well I'm here to help". You see what I'm saying here? You need to finish your studies, and get the research position (e.g., PhD, Postdoc) and then you can help, because then you have the knowledge to do so.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Your thesis will be your research experience in the humanities, absolutely.
Speaking quite broadly, in comparison with the sciences, most research is done individually and published individually. Thus, as your professor has said, focusing on your thesis —which you're doing individually, though with some general oversight from your advisor— is getting you that experience.
Again speaking broadly, consider the process that you've gone through / are going through / will go through for your thesis.
* Read a lot of books and articles.
* Come up with a really cool idea about something in one or more of them.
* Talk to your advisor to decide how you want to approach the topic, maybe getting a handful of ideas of important articles or viewpoints, etc.
* Find articles/books/chapters that contribute to your arguments.
* Write your thesis.
* …
* PROFIT! (except for that student debt...)
Now, consider the process for most of us in the field when we write articles:
* Read a lot of books and articles.
* Come up with a really cool idea about something in one or more of them.
* (Optional) Talk to colleagues (either friends, or via conferences) about how you're approaching the topic, maybe getting a handful of ideas of important articles or viewpoints, etc.
* Find articles/books/chapters that contribute to your arguments.
* Write your article/book/chapter.
* …
* PROFIT! (except this is academia, so not)
The only real difference is that you're working closely with your advisor, and later in the "real world" (academia), you're going to mainly work solo, except for occasionally consulting with others when you present preliminary work at a conference or when you bat ideas off of friend or colleague's head. In both cases, though, the actual research work is done by you, the actual planning and development of structure/ideas is done by you, and the actual writing is done by you.
Or consider it another way, what kind of research help could someone give you that would *actually* be of help to you? They can't come up with the ideas, because, well, then they get credit. You don't want them writing it, because then it's not your thoughts and anyways you'd probably end up wanting to reformulate 90% of their arguments/word choice/etc to fit with your exact idea. At best maybe helping you track down some obscure article that mentions some obscure factoid, but that's almost always going to be inconsequential to your overall development of the topic and hell, half the time when doing those searches is when you find the *really* good stuff for later articles.
There *are* some projects that are useful to have multiple people working simultaneously (especially nowadays under the banner of digital humanities), but if your professor needs people, they'll let you know, and as their advisee, you likely be the first student they ask.
tl;dr: Don't feel the need to be useful, just do a good thesis. That will get you the best experience (and the best letter of recommendation). If they need help, they'll let you know.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/14
| 813
| 3,375
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently had a change of interest and would like to focus on a different area within my field. That being said, I want to stress that the area happens to differ quite a bit from my current area. I am not too far in my studies, so it's not like I am changing my PhD thesis midway or anything like that.
However, I would like to know how I can most effectively get to grips with my new topic. I am obviously not completely new to it, but I have so much more knowledge in my old topic and am now worried that it will be a disadvantage, because I might be competing with people for PhD spots that have had their focus for many years and thus much better writing samples etc.
Any advice on how to become good relatively fast?<issue_comment>username_1: The simple answer is: Review Lectures, then read the referenced books / papers (in this order).
There are a variety of good lectures on free course websites out there. (For example on youtube or coursera.) It'll give you a good introduction and - more importantly - will tell you what is relevant to know about in this field.
If you can't find a lecture or at least slides, try to find a few (recent) PhD dissertations in the field and read their introductions / related work / background chapters. These are usually available for free and they will give you a good overview of what is considered relevant.
You could then move on to study recent research papers, but - depending on your prior knowledge - you may not know half the methods that have been used here.
In any case, find out which are the most relevant conferences in this field and see which Professors publish there a regularly. (The Prof. is usually last on the author list). From there you'll hopefully find the most key people in the field and check out their websites and latest publications to see what they are working on.
I'll have to stretch that the *right* approach will largely depend on how well you are familiar with the basics of the field already. You may have to study a few books or some additional mathematics course work relevant to this new field you are interested in.
Since you appear to be going to university - maybe it's also a good idea to just ask the Prof. most relevant to this field on campus for references and guidance. They will most likely know who's book and publications to read. Maybe this should actually be the first thing you want to do ...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Sorry to disappoint, but the "toil away at a topic for 3 to 5 years until your thesis is done" ***is*** the fast track.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Try this:
1. Read a lot of original papers in the field, ideally by the best and/or pioneering people in the field (they usually write better and they *know* why they are doing particular things, rather than regurgitating it from textbook knowledge).
2. Then go to a few of the best conference(s) in the field and listen to as much as you possibly can. Visit posters, talk to people, as much as you can handle.
3. If you can find a friendly local expert, buttonhole them to explain the big picture to you.
4. Then give a seminar or seminar series on the topic.
5. Write mini "lecture notes" for the seminar you gave. Estimate 8 pages for 2 hours of seminar.
6. Voila, instant-expert! (well, not quite, but you now have a head-start).
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/14
| 985
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<issue_start>username_0: A month ago I received the referees' comments on a paper: two are positive, but the other one is negative. In particular, there is a very "negative" comment in this report:
>
> All of the physical effects considered here have been considered before,
> and model equation is an obvious and not especially interesting
> generalization of similar equations elsewhere in the literature.
>
>
>
How can I give an appropriate reply to this comment?<issue_comment>username_1: Well if you disagree with the comment, then you offer a sound, well-reasoned counterargument that addresses the concerns. If your equation is interesting, then why? If it is not obvious, then why? Do these alleged equations/models only look similar, but in fact there's a deeper and possibly subtle distinction? If so, point it out. Non-combatively.
These are the sorts of things that often get addressed in the introduction. Possibly the remark is ultimately a reflection on your paper having a weak introduction that fails to address the "what's new here and why should I care?" questions with sufficient flair, clarity, and authority. More than one legitimately good paper (to whatever extent such a benchmark exists objectively) has been rejected because the authors failed to do an adequate job of "selling" and explaining the paper in the abstract and introduction.
Of course, there's also the possibility that the remark is spot-on. One reason journals tend to use multiple referees is because there's no guarantee that any one expert has authoritative and unbiased knowledge on whatever bits of arcana your paper is using. Nor is there a guarantee for two, or three, or whatever, but the odds are better that if something is "wrong" from the standards of the journal then it will be found.
A literature review is the way to delve into this possibility. "Elsewhere in the literature" would suggest to me that the reviewer believes you have intentionally or accidentally excluded some important pieces of the literature, and this can only be resolved by looking further into the literature (and possibly asking colleagues if they know of anything that might seem relevant).
If ultimately you end up agreeing with the comments, in part or in whole, that can be a tough pill to swallow, but reality is what it is. You can still try to rewrite portions of the paper to properly address preceding similar work and argue why yours is in some sense novel, interesting, and/or useful. And then you either hope this placates the negative reviewer sufficiently to earn acceptance, or you submit it to some other journal after a rejection. "Minor generalizations" are sometimes simply not up to snuff for certain journal standards, while it is well within that of others.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As it has been said, a negative review of this type at least indicates that your paper did not convince this reviewer that the topic is interesting.
>
> All of the physical effects considered here have been considered before, and model equation is an obvious and not especially interesting generalization of similar equations elsewhere in the literature.
>
>
>
In your answer you should try harder to show and motivate why you did this work and why at least you find it interesting (I hope, this is the case!).
I suggest an answer along the lines of the following (if possible and true):
"The referee is right that the physical effects has been studied already [it's good to show that you appreciate the comments, but only write this if it's true]. We considered this particular generalization of the model because [explain a specific phenomenon, combine different effects, make the model simpler to analyze, investigate a specific feature, anyway, you need some good reason here]. We agree that the model equation may indeed appear obvious and in fact, this was one of our motivations to study this natural generalization which we have apparently not studied before, despite it being somewhat obvious [it's good to adopt the reviewers point of view and turn it into something positive]. In the previous version of the manuscript we motivated our generalization [on page…, in the introduction,…] and in view of the responses we reformulated the motivation as follows: […]."
By the way, feel free to use the above phrasing, in whole or in parts even without proper attribution.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: There are questions on here about [getting married](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9192/points-to-consider-when-deciding-whether-to-get-married-during-a-phd), [having kids](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/11421/advice-for-having-children-during-graduate-school/11431?s=9%7C0.0740#11431), and other major time commitments during graduate school. But one thing that I haven't seen posted -- but that I've seen come up with some frequency (at least in the US) -- is concerning people getting pets during their PhD. Yea, I know certain pets (e.g. fish and reptiles) take less time to care for than others (e.g. cats and dogs), but I'm specifically wondering about what to consider in the latter case.
Pro: Pursuing a PhD can be a very lonely process, so having some companionship can be worthwhile and perhaps even lead to increased focus and productivity.
Con: Cost and time commitment, particularly early on with a pet.
What are other things to consider in getting a pet during the PhD? Does the timing make a big difference? That is, should I wait until I'm ABD, or should I get one over a summer?
Does having a companion, like a dog, for example, often help students' productivity when they were otherwise adrift in isolation?
Also, I'd be interested to hear from a faculty perspective as to whether it's ill-advised to get a pet during the PhD. I assume most don't care as long as the student stays productive, but I'm curious if there are any anecdotes that support either the pro or con I listed above. Same goes for anyone who got a pet during grad school.
NOTE: The [help center](https://academia.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) explicitly states that questions pertaining to "**Life as a graduate student**, postdoctoral researcher, university professor..." are on topic (emphasis added). Thus, this question appears to be fully within the stated guidelines.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm going to presume in my answer you're looking to stay in academia post-Ph.D.
One of the biggest concerns you're going to have isn't *now*, but *after* the Ph.D. Consider if you get a [super playful mega cuddlebug kissing dog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Staffordshire_Terrier), there are many places with ignorant breed-specific legislation that would mean you couldn't bring your dog with you.
Unlike in other fields where you probably have a good idea (or decent say in the matter) of where you'll be living at, jobs in academia are scarce, and if you're only offered a job in, say, Denver which bans the aforementioned nanny dogs, are you willing to leave your dog behind to advance your career?
If you're in a field that may require a lot of traveling (public health, foreign languages, anthropology, ecology, marine bio, etc), I would absolutely not recommend getting one unless you have someone that you can *consistently and always* count on to be willing to watch your animal for extended periods of time. Let's face it, you're not going to be able to afford boarding on a GTA stipend. OTOH, if you're needing to be in the same on-campus lab virtually all year, that might not be a concern at all.
Lastly, consider something else: fostering. You get *all* the benefits of pet ownership without the long-term complications (unless you become a decide to become a foster failure and decide to adopt). You can also often workout with the foster coordinator to give you dog/cats that are a year or two or older to reduce the initial time commitment because even if not house trained, they can hold it for a work day.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I bought a cat recently - I'm in the 4th year of my PhD, but I wish I had done it sooner. Particularly if you are working at a very high intensity, a pet provides 3 incredibly useful things:
1. ***A reason to go home***. Many students, particularly international PhD students working at top-tier institutions where 18hr work days is not uncommon, tend to spend their entire life at work - after all there's nothing else to do. If you have a particularly one-sided work-life balance, a pet will force you to break up your day into work time and home time.
2. ***Time management skills***. Before I had a pet, I would go to sleep when I was too tired to continue working, and so it doesn't really matter when I go to bed or when I wake up, so long as that period of time spent asleep is short. However, doing this for several years can enforce some pretty bad habits! With no strong circadian rhythm and poor eating schedules, you get worn out faster. Having a pet forces you to adopt a healthier schedule, for your pet's sake. New mothers/fathers often say the same thing, although a pet is certainly less work. It's not just sleep though, it filters down into everything you do - because you're responsible for two now.
3. ***Perspective***. If the other two were wishy-washy answers, this one certainly is - however it's also the most important. I don't know about other pets, but cat's don't live all that long, depending on the breed. Mine has about 10 years, which means for every day I am alive, my cat burns up 7 or 8. 'Is he getting the most out of his life?' quickly becomes 'am I getting the most out of my life?'. Another similar but slightly different emotion that you get when you are the only person responsible for something else is, "am I being responsible with his life?". If I was to get hit by a bus today, there's a good chance the cat would also perish. Asking yourself how responsible a pet-parent you are, forces you to ask yourself how responsible you are being with your own life too.
There are obviously a bunch of practical reasons like time, energy and money (although honestly its not so bad), but im sure you have considered all those things already.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: There is a middle option you can take between having a pet and not having one: you can volunteer at a local animal shelter for a few hours a week. I've listed some pros and cons compared to getting a pet.
Disclaimer: I have neither worked at an animal shelter nor have I ever owned a pet.
**Pros:**
* **Contact with animals:** Although you won't spend as much time at the shelter as you would with your own pet, you still have many animal friends.
* **Social element**: You can bond with other volunteers and like-minded animal lovers.
* **Cost**: Both your time and monetary investment are much lesser compared to actually owning a pet.
* **Less direct stress**: If your pet falls sick, you have to take care of it all the time. At the shelter, there are other people helping out with the work, so it's less stressful for you.
* **Flexibility** (possibly): While a shelter will most likely ask you to give a regular schedule, you might be able to ask for different dates etc. if you have extra work or have to attend a conference. Asking somebody to take care of your pet at short notice might be relatively difficult.
**Cons:**
* **Compassion fatigue**: If most of the animals are usually kept in poor conditions or if most of them are sick, and there isn't much you can do about it (lack of funding, poor management), then taking care of the animals all the time can take a toll on your mental well-being.
* **Possible "break-up"**: If your favourite animal at the shelter is adopted by somebody, you might not be able to stay in touch (of course, this depends on the owner).
* **Lack of intimacy**: If you have a pet, you are probably best chums. You can cuddle them, take silly pictures, take them for a walk anywhere etc. However, if you don't spend much time at the shelter (say 3-4 hours a week or less), it may take a much longer time (and it will be more difficult) to bond with the animals.
**Other factors to consider** (depending on your priorities and opinions):
* **Animal welfare**: You are helping a large number of animals at the shelter. Even if you are adopting one animal as a pet, you are just improving the life of one animal.
* **Young animals**: A young animal like a puppy or a kitten will demand roughly the same amount of time from you as an infant (of course this also depends on the breed/infant in question). This can be difficult to manage unless you have a partner helping you out. At the shelter, there are others helping you out.
Note: Some shelters do not keep young puppies/kittens but give them out to foster parents who take care of them for 8-10 weeks or more.
Guifa has mentioned fostering as an option as well in the answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/65067/31940). With fostering, you have the pros of "Contact with animals" and "Cost" and the cons of "break-up" where it might be difficult for you to separate from the adopted animal and possibly "lack of intimacy" depending on your fostering duration.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: When I was an undergraduate (engineering) , I wanted a dog. The summer before my senior year I got a large blue-heeler mix from my cousin. Immediately my life changed because my dog was a bright smiling face for me to return home to at the end of the day, which cured alot of loneliness that I had during that time. In addition, my dog would require 2-3 walks per day of about 20 minutes each, so I got much more exercise than I would have if I did not get a pet. 6 years later I still have my dog and she still provides the same benefits as when I got her. I enjoy the responsibility and companionship of a dog and it definitely helped me during school because of the social aspect. I would walk her around my university and people would often stop to pet her, compliment her, etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I have always wanted a dog, then I started my PhD and thought it is better now, the first year is always a bit calmer... So I got a puppy, a whippet puppy, indeed the first 2 months my productivity went waaaay down because I could sleep and had to go home many times and was worried. But after those 2 months I had the most perfect dog - does not chew, was house trained (after much effort xD), did not bark, did not scratch and I let her loose on the house (this took many months, increase one division of the house per month).
Now, half-way through my PhD, I actually want another :)
nothing helps more those awful tired days than that dogs smiley face. I force myself to have lunch at home and never do more than 6 hours morning 6 hours afternnon because she needs to potty, so I never work more than 12 hours, and my productivity is higher, my lifestyle too! and social stuff, I try to take her!
is great to have a best friend living with you during the PhD, and I would chose a dog everytime!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Recently, I rescued a cat, and he is the best thing that could have happened to me. I am getting prepared for my Ph. D. journey, and I am taking him with me. On commencement day I plan to have a cap and gown for him. Interestingly, we both will be PH. D.s!
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I gave a LaTeX manuscript file to the supervisor for revision. The paper is fairly long and complex, with lots of cross-referencing and citations. I use BibTeX for managing the otherwise unmanageable task of generating the correct list of references, which is recommended by the journal. Most of the BibTeX entries were generated by querying the [ADS database](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/default_service.html) so there wasn't even much manual typing. The journal provides a high-quality `.bst` file that correctly sorts and formats the BibTeX database entries.
Before I gave it to the supervisor, I told him that he's free to come to me if there should be any technical difficulties such as BibTeX. He didn't, so I assumed that everything would be OK.
It was agreed that I'd have the final control of the master copy, and I assumed that meant that he would try to "patch" the manuscript in a way similar to updating and merging a codebase, i.e. you follow the convention of the mainline source code, transforming the project by incremental updates, and only introduce drastic changes in the face of absolute necessity.
It turned out that he's mangled the manuscript file in a combination of creative ways:
1. He seems to have *manually* converted the BibTeX-generated reference list to his manually typed (based on his own understanding of the style), embedded `\bibitem` entries, which contain errors.
2. The [ADS bibcode](http://adsdoc.harvard.edu/abs_doc/help_pages/bibcodes.html) keys, as unique identifiers for reference items in the BibTeX file and citation keys in the manuscript (using `natbib`'s `\citep` and `\citet` mechanism) were converted to his own mnemonic keys based on no apparent rules.
3. He also added his own references, again as manually typed text, that are incomplete and not necessarily correctly-formatted.
4. He has mangled the `\ref` and `\label` mechanism by stripping quite a lot of the labels arbitrarily, so that much the cross-referencing no longer makes sense.
I have to write several text-transformation scripts, at one point interfacing a simple search AI of the ADS web API, attempting to revert the damage he has done to the manuscript source files, but this task is not fully automate-able. It is also rather likely to introduce additional human errors in this process. All these take time.
The point is that, it shouldn't have been necessary had he not mangled my manuscript file -- which was arguably written with maintainability and automate-ability in mind -- in the first place.
Now I have a second manuscript given to him, and I want to ask him for a favor, namely considering *not* mangling the source file in his way this time.
However, it is complicated by the following considerations:
1. Training him on the use of BibTeX etc is definitely a waste of his time and resources (as well as mine).
2. Imposing source-level conventions and tool-compatibility is a kind of power over others, and I shouldn't be in that power, even if I'm the ultimate controller of the manuscript.
3. [It may incur the wrath of The Powers That Be](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/43424).
So what can I do to reach a compromise?
**Do you think it's a good idea to say/write to him like the following?**
>
> Hi XXX, thank you for your time revising the manuscript. I am really really grateful for the improvements in the quality of content.
>
>
> However, for the second manuscript, may I suggest trying BibTeX this time? It saves us the time of manually typing, checking and correcting the bib list. The journal we're targeting already provides high-quality bibliography style file that does the magic. In addition, if we're to change the target journal, it would be simply a matter of changing the `.bst` file.
>
>
> You don't even have to type anything to fill the entry fields in the `.bib` file. There's the ADS service, and each entry is a few clicks away, with some minimal copying/pasting. If you like I can show you this in a 2-minute demo.
>
>
> If we don't have many references to add, this is a non-issue anyway. If we do, I'm willing to help with the technicalities any time. Of course, you can even forget about BibTeX and directly add your additional references [this way](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/54011/additional-references-in-bibtex), and I'll take care of the merger. It saves your time of manually re-formatting the references that are already in the BibTeX database, and you can better focus on the important science rather than the style.
>
>
> Thanks!
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: My PhD supervisor got to the point where he could edit LaTeX files just fine after several gentle reminders not to mess with the backslashified stuff. He'd just work on the large text blocks and drop any equation edits by the lab handwritten on paper. I'd suggest giving your supervisor the both PDF and the source file you want them to look at so that they can either make notes on the PDF or small edits to the `.tex` files (and hopefully not both). If they happen to find you working diligently to undo their edits to the LaTeX and understand that you shouldn't be wasting time on that, hopefully they get the point.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If your advisor isn't fluent in LaTeX, send a printed copy (or a PDF), to scribble over, and incorporate changes yourself.
Use a version control system (I like git, you might want to try mercurial (hg)), and keep a branch for *your* work. Create a branch for "external" inputs, and use e.g. git's tools to break up the differences into patches you will apply and stuff you just omit.
With my students the policy is that the work is *theirs*, I'll write into a branch of the shared repository with *suggested* changes, which they cherry-pick. Only in rare circumstances will I override their writing.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I myself have very heavily automated systems which I know, but nobody else does. Therefore, all I suggest is to edit the plain LaTeX with simple annotations for citations or other modifications (which I later polish) or annotating the pdf are both viable options.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am giving a thesis for review by several supervisors, who will comment and request changes. It's written in LaTeX, but I don't want to bother the people involved with having to compile that themselves. Instead, I would send a PDF as it'll represent the final product most accurately.
My question is, what can I use / do you use for the review process?
I know they can just comment inside the PDF, but maybe there is a tool that allows everyone to see everybody's comments?
If supervisor A and supervisor B disagree on something or don't want to have to correct the same mistakes, then it'll be easier for them to see the other persons comments. Kind of like a shared Dropbox file, but something that's a bit smarter about keeping the history of all comments.
Have you used anything like this or do I just have to rely on built-in PDF highlights / notes?<issue_comment>username_1: Adobe Acrobat has a feature called [Shared Review](https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/starting-pdf-review.html).
It lets multiple people in real-time comment on a single PDF so long as the PDF is hosted in a single place (e.g., if your department has network storage or there are services online to host such files).
It works pretty well and is already built-in.
Alternatively, you can email them each the PDF and then use the [merge comments](https://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/feature-details/acrobatpro/pdfs/merging-and-managing-comments.pdf) features to combine them, then send out that PDF. Not as nice but it doesn't have to be hosted.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A good option that I have used for effective shared review is [Overleaf](https://www.overleaf.com/), an online shared LaTeX system, plus the LaTeX [todonotes](https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/9796/72771) package. Overleaf means everybody is looking at the same shared document (and also has a git interface, if you wish). LaTeX todonotes let you annotate inline or on the margin, and can be customized in various useful ways, e.g., with a different color for each reviewer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This is a good question and I don't want to discourage you, but let me explain what you will likely find most of the time.
They each already have a preferred way of giving you their feedback and some or all of them will not want to use whatever tool you choose. Since they are doing you a favor, you will need to respect their preference. For instance, I prefer to take a hard copy and a red pen and go to a coffee shop or library in order to focus.
Also, when I review a thesis I do *not* want to see comments from other reviewers before I form my own opinion.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: I've been a reviewer for many thesis, and here is my 2 cents:
1. It is preferable that you ask each reviewer for her review process and stick to it. For instance, I will always print the thesis and write my comments with a couple of pens (color value = type of the comment) and then send back the annoted manuscript (paper or a scanned version). Why? Because I read and comment mostly in transportation, in the waiting room at the doctor/local administration, etc. All places where it is not convenient/possible to use a laptop or similar device.
2. I don't need and want to see the comments by other reviewers. As an author, it is **your responsibility** to arbitrate in case of contradictory comments
3. About grammer/spelling/etc. Those errors must be anecdotal in a manuscript sent to reviewers. My policy is that if there is too many typos/grammatical mistakes in a sample of 5 pages, I'll send a message to the author saying that I will wait for a "more final version". As a reviewer my job is not to correct the spelling, but to assess the quality of the work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Not really a tool for commenting, but very useful for review: if you go through many iterations, you might want to consider using a tool to generate a "track changes" PDF file, which shows the supervisors what parts of the thesis have changed since the previous version. Especially if you are at some point making many changes scattered throughout the thesis.
I would recommend [latexdiffcite](https://latexdiffcite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) for this purpose. It's an improvement over the earlier `latexdiff` program. `latexdiffcite` even understands `git` and can give you diffs between different commits. Illustration:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iVjRe.png)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I would recommend:
* sharelatex : <https://www.sharelatex.com/> - an online collaborative LateX editor
* Authorea: <https://www.authorea.com> - sometimes called "google doc for academics". It's online and collaborative too, but you can also work offline because the document is stored under a git repo which you can clone to work offline. On the online version, everyone can comment on the document and edit it. There is a chat too. This is also present in sharelatex I believe.
HTH
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: My preference, as a reviewer, has been to print a hard copy from the pdf file and then attack it with a red pen. As my handwriting becomes less legible ("benign essential tremor"), I'll switch to the second-simplest system: Ask the student to send me the TeX file and insert my remarks into it. (I have some simple macros defining an environment for my remarks, causing them to show up in red in the pdf file.)
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: There are many questions on this site which involve [authorship disputes and ethicality](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/authorship).
In fact, there are often people who are [greatly distressed](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29572/my-first-authorship-is-being-turned-into-co-first-authorship-what-can-i-do) when their contributions to a paper are "lesser" than they expected, for whatever reason. This could range from having a co-first author added, or having other secondary authors added to the authorship list. Another famous example woudl be the [Alpher-Bethe-Gamow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpher%E2%80%93Bethe%E2%80%93Gamow_paper#Bethe.27s_name) paper regarding Big Bang nucleogenesis, where the first author Alpher greatly resented the addition of Bethe to the authorship list.
However, I do not understand why adding co-authors would be a bad idea. Surely, the fact that you were helped by another person means that they should be co-authors on the paper, as long as they made significant intellectual contributions.
None of the fields mentioned in [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2467/what-does-first-authorship-really-mean) regarding authorship norms had any explanation of the potential detrimental effects additional authors have to the first author.
What, then, are the possible negative effects that the first author can suffer if other authors are added to the paper?
Note: I do not intend to ask regarding issues where the [original author is *removed* from consideration](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13700/my-advisor-submitted-a-paper-with-my-work-without-including-me-as-an-author), only those where the first author is kept, but other coauthors are added to the authorship list.<issue_comment>username_1: I think for some people, the principle is important: they didn't feel that the person whose name has been added contributed enough, and humans hate the feeling of giving up something unfairly.
That said, there is a very real cost in terms of credit. This will not be consistent across different people looking at your record, but every new co-author decreases the chance that the important part of the work will be attributed to you. There was actually a recent [study about this](http://nyti.ms/1Jz6TSO) which found that women pay an especially large price on this score: when they do joint work with men, the evidence suggests the men tend to get the credit (the actual observation of the study is that their chance of getting tenure do not improve). You'll note though, even for men a solo paper improves chances of tenure by more than a jointly authored paper with anyone.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Following the link to the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper I found that there is an answer for this particular case that seems important. From the Wikipedia page:
>
> He [Alpher] felt that the inclusion of another eminent physicist would overshadow his personal contribution to this work and prevent him from receiving proper recognition for such an important discovery.
>
>
>
For this paper is seems save to assume that many people will consider that the order of the authors has not been decided by contribution. I am not sure about the rules for author order in physics at that time but for sure people would immediately get the intended pun. Hence, I can understand Alpher's concern.
So in fields where order of the authors is not by contribution (or for special paper like this one), having one more big shot in the list of authors may really lead to the wrong perception. In fact, for PhD students in math is in not at all unusual to have papers written directly under the supervision of the advisor appearing with only the PhD student's name on it, even if the supervisor may have contributed some ideas. In this way it is ensured that the work will be perceived as the PhD student's work.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/14
| 430
| 1,866
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<issue_start>username_0: A program I participated in for six years, while I was in junior high and high school has just had a huge chunk of their funding removed by the school. I credit this program with the majority of my success in college and my general interest and capabilities in science, and a lot of my maturity (which was sorely needed in junior high...).
The program has a new coach (who I worked with, but has just now taken over) who is not a confrontational person. I would like to write a letter to the school expressing my support for the program, and would encourage other alumni of the program to as well, many of whom also have a lot of respect for it.
This is just a thought I had while drafting my letter. Is it appropriate to find some sort of letterhead or something like that from the university (perhaps my major department?) to give more weight to my letter?
I am personally an undergraduate student, but would it be appropriate for a graduate student or postdoc to use letterhead? Or should use of the letterhead be reserved solely for faculty and staff?<issue_comment>username_1: Do not use any professional letterhead when you are not speaking "on behalf" of the entity it comes from.
Using your status, like explaining who you are or whatever, is fine. However, the sole fact of using entity's letter head, implicitly involves your employer and can only ends in a bad situation.
If you are writing to another department of the same university, like in case of an internal matter, this can be deemed acceptable, but otherwise I would refrain from doing it.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You **can not** use official letterhead (or other official institutional material) unless you are talking in official capacity in the name of the referenced institution.
As a student, you certainly aren't.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/14
| 3,025
| 13,658
|
<issue_start>username_0: One of the fundamental features of science, maybe even the most important, is that publication of scientific results is peer-reviewed.
I want to understand why peer review is effective in the scientific community, because I want to apply principles of peer review to a different domain.
As I understand it, a researcher is reviewing work of a competitor who is producing scientific results in exchange for grant funds and reputation, usually same as the reviewing researcher does. Of course, this competition may not be very direct, but the reviewer is in an overlapping area of research. In addition, there is some natural bias of every human being to groom their own ego. Based on this, I expect most reviews to be very negative. However, it seems that biased and extremely negative reviews are rare for decent submissions.
What stops reviewers from providing biased negative reviews?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the main factor that makes the peer-review system to not fall in the trap you described is that academics are finally interested in the advance of science. If I have to review a good paper, then I enjoy it and want to see it published. If I review an almost good paper, I suggest some improvements and enjoy if these are incorporated and the work is published. The very mild advantage I may have if I reject more papers does not really seem to be worth it, if I have to act unfair and unreasonable to get this advantage.
Another factor may be: The reviewer is not anonymous for the editor. Editors are often influential people and writing consistently bad and unfair reviews will make you look like a mean and unfair person. Also, the editor will not choose you again as a reviewer if you write such reviews and you will be effectively eliminating yourself from the review system for that journal (while you can still submit papers).
In view of the bounty I gave the question another thought and here is one more thing: Community. Science is well organized in communities (e.g. I consider myself as part of the mathematical community, the applied math community, the community on mathematical imaging, the optimization community and some more). As part of a community one has a sense that there are some rules one should follow to be a valuable member of the community and of these rules is fairness. Being unfair is misconduct by the unwritten community rules. So even though one may get away with several cases of unfair behavior, it feels like one is cheating the system. But staying a respected member of the communities is very important both for the scientific standing and also for productivity. This reasoning also explains that bad behavior sometimes happens, when several competing communities form which are somehow "enemies of each other": One can stay a respected member of one of the communities while still treating members from the other community unfair.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Double-blind review (neither reviewers nor the reviewed are shown who the opposite parties are) was invented to help with some of these issues. It's used almost exclusively in some fields for conference and journal peer review (various parts of CS comes to mind). Mostly, it's to help prevent unconscious bias against underrepresented minorities and women cropping up and tainting reviews. Given that it's relatively easy to spot women and foreigners from names, double-blind review tries to stop these biases from creeping in by hiding the names from reviewers, too.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The term **competitors** does not really describe the relationship between different scientists in the same field. Of course there is some competition for grants or such, or even to put one's name in a new result, but some aspects are deeply different:
* A publication in your field is **a good thing**, even if it's not from yourself. It makes your area important, and alive. It's actually very important when it comes to applying for grants.
* You cannot benefit from someone else's work by writing negative reviews. There is no way to simply slow down publication of one paper in order to publish the result first.
* A rejected paper will not slow down the "competitors" research. Sure they will have to improve it and submit it elsewhere, but this takes a marginal time compared to the research process itself.
* Dishonest reviews are clearly dangerous, as some people will see your review with your name on it (I'm thinking of other reviewers on such systems as Easychair). These people might very well be the ones reviewing your grant application a few weeks later.
* why would one risk being exposed as dishonest, when anyway there are several reviews for the same paper, and any deep difference should trigger an in-depth investigation by the editor?
The most frequent bias I have seen are review of the form "you should cite those 5 obscure and vaguely related papers all from the same author", which clearly indicate reviewers in need of citation, but nothing much worse.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Your methodology itself is biased. Anytime you are doing something to alter the review process you are creating a biased review. This could be as simple as wording before or during the review process and at the other end of the spectrum leaving out some potential reviewers.
My advice:
* worry more about your science than your review
* welcome the biased reviewer. I would rather see the flaws that my research/science has as soon as possible, not after it has been fully publicized.
* understand that there is an element of risk or wasted time involved. If someone is biased and using corrupt review tactics this is more time consuming. But and big but this also allows you to learn more about the outside forces you are going against and how to refute them better.
* and a further point is an obviously biased review will be easily refuted. As it is, it will lower the reviewer's stance/reputation and highlight the work that you are doing. People are far more passionate when there is an A vs. Z dynamic than just hearing about A.
So really the only thing that you need to do (and I write review/survey systems) is to have a mechanism of review rebuttal and make sure the person writing the review understands this. If I cared about my name I would not write an untrue/biased review about something if I knew that someone could refute my stance directed at me. Transparency is key.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: In addition to the mechanisms listed by others, most journals I've published in so far allow the authors to list people who they feel have competing interests and thus should not be considered as reviewers. So if there's someone who you know is working on competing research, you can put them on that list.
Of course, this isn't perfect, but if you get three reviews out of which two are largely positive and one is deeply negative, the editor is likely to decide in your favor anyway.
(I'm in biology, specifically plant genetics. I'm sure it varies a lot between fields.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I have nothing to do with academy, so take my answer just as something that I'd expect based on my understanding of human interaction and behaviour.
**Reputation**
The main resource you have is your own reputation, and that will be severely harmed if people are accusing you of being unfair, biased or "not objective enough". You might be able to get away with it once in a while, but overall, it's quite enough for the system to work. Worst case scenario, you slow down the propagation of the work in question, but in practice, the paper will find another way (another reviewer, journal...). Even if you succeed, you risk harming your reputation, which is extremely important in a field centered around collaboration with peers and promising understudies.
**Competition**
You only considered competition between individual scientists, which is mostly a thing of (1) competing for grants and (2) competing for reputation. I've already dealt with reputation. Competition for grants might be important for you if you're trying to adapt the process for something like performance reviews - it's the clearest cut case where hurting others can help you. However, it doesn't have much to do with the peer review process - that would indeed introduce a very strong motivation to be "as unfair as you can be without actually appearing unfair".
However, there's also another competition going on - that between individual reviewers and their journals. If your paper was rejected based on grounds that are seen as fair and objective, you'll likely also be rejected by other journals. If not, the other journals might jump on the opportunity to publish your paper, while also implying that another journal has treated the paper unfairly. You can't do this very often if you want your journal/reviewers to keep being relevant!
**Points to take away**
If you want to use a similar system for another domain, make sure that similar incentives are at play.
* Have multiple independent reviewers, and let people choose their reviewer (while the reviewer has a chance to decline).
* Make sure there's not a lot of "authority" in play - for example, superior-underling relation doesn't make for good peers. Peer review works best with consensus and with reasonably objective / shared values.
* Make everything public (in the team / company). No anonymity, no "hidden" reviews. This is necessary for the reputation-based controls to work. In a way, it's a redundancy in the peer review system - it allows people to "review" the reviews themselves.
It works best in mostly flat hierarchies. Thinking in terms of a performance review in a company, peer review will be a poor choice if managers order people around. On the other hand, if managers have to *persuade* others to follow with their plan, it might work great :)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: We've seen randomly generated papers accepted, Universities acting like paper mills, and researchers being scored soley on the number of papers published.
The review system is based almost soley on the wish that everyone has good intentions. Unfortunately this doesn't make the system work flawlessly.
The most common complaint is that a lot of reviewers don't take enough time to review the material. Making people invest precious time in a peer-review system might be a harder problem than making them behave honestly.
I haven't heard of cases where reviewers intentionall gave bad reviews. Though I have heard of feuds between authors. This is especially problematic in small fields where the reviewer isn't as anonymous as we would like. Note that feedback might identify a reviewer. Also note that the author is never anonymous (and is hard to make anonymous) which makes the system more suspectable to malicious reviewers.
The partially mitigating factor might be the editor. Which acts as a sort of referee. But what if the editor is malicious?
To answer your question: there is no definitive factor that prevents malicious use of the academic peer review system. There are instances where the system has been abused. I also do not believe that scientists are less often malicious than any other person :).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: There is one aspect that has been mentioned in @username_5's answer, but not been stressed enough in my opinion and probably not obvious to the author: *There is usually more than one reviewer.*
In my area there will normally be three different reviews, which seems to be a good compromise of keeping total workload low and allowing to identify "outliers". An editor may not be able to see if a single review is biased, but if they see reviews contradict each other considerably, an unfair review might become noticeable.
---
Added for clarification: Three reviewers are certainly not enough to get meaningful statistics (that's why I wrote "outlier" in quotes), and only multiple choice or numerical ratings in the reviewers' sheets could be compared in a statistical way. But there are several critical factors that can reduce the quality of a review, and their possible impact can at least be reduced by having more than one reviewer:
1. inadequate knowledge in the field of expertise,
2. negligence or missing time, and
3. bias or malicious intent.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: To be honest, it is very hard to justify (or in this matter to generalize) the behavior of a group of people (reviewers). I'm sure some of us were victims of irrational and unfair reviewing process i.e., getting reviews after 4-5 months with poor questions, harsh language or the most obvious case where you can find a very similar work to your paper published couple of weeks of your article that you received after a delayed review!!
Even with double-blind peer review process, a reviewer can guess who are the authors of a certain paper based on their research topic, wording, experimental set-up and/or even funding account/agency (usually mentioned in the acknowledgement section). So, it is very PERSON dependent! Think of it like athletes who compete in sports, all of them are subjected to the same rules, however some will always try to cheat the system!! whether with drugs or with exploding loop holes!
The good news is there are more reviewers who are genuinely interested in advancing science than those who are eager to unfairly compete with other researchers. Don't let any of this put you down, think of it like this.. You must have been doing some very interesting research!!
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/14
| 486
| 1,947
|
<issue_start>username_0: If you are applying for some [fellowships](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19774/postdoctoral-fellowships-calls-to-work-in-europe-for-scientists-mathematicians-e/19781#19781), there are many fields which you have to fill in. For example, what will be benefits for a host country, what will be the benefit for your home country, what will be the benefit for you or for your host supervisor, what will you learn, what have you learned yet, etc. There can be a scientific abstract, lay abstract or questions like [what will be the impact of a fellowship on your future](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58899/what-to-write-in-the-section-what-will-be-the-impact-of-proposed-research-on-de).
Who will read your whole application?
Scientific reviewers of your project will get only your research proposal, or is it their role to read all this fields? Are these field kept just for cases, when there are two similar candidates to get support, and than these fields can be critical?<issue_comment>username_1: From my experience, reviewers get the whole proposal and also read the whole proposal. Reviewers try to get a complete picture of the applicant and skim the proposal for all relevant information in this regard. This means, that probably no reviewer will read every word of the proposal, but potentially, every word will be read by some reviewer. The reviewers base their review on the whole picture they get, but usually their feedback is only for the part for which they are specialists (e.g. the scientific strength of the applicant and so on…).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I'd say it *could* depend. I've been part of review committees (not for fellowships) were I got only a part of a proposal (say the scientific proposal, or the funding summary) to analyse, others in which I got all. Sometimes I got all, but was to evaluate only certain aspects.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/14
| 395
| 1,741
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have collected sea water samples from a location to study the microbes. The study is basically divided into 2; one is considering the total community and another one is specific to a particular groups. If I write 2 papers considering these two matters, can I use the same physico-chemical properties?<issue_comment>username_1: Researchers frequently have to decide how to publish journal articles from a large data set. When it is not possible to write a single, integrative article from such a data set, the issue of publishing multiple journal articles arises. [Here is good article about the issue](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/M_Fine_Publishing_1994.pdf)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is not unethical if you are asking a different question, and thus, analysing the data in a different way. If the publication re-uses data that was previously published/submitted elsewhere you will need to be clear about that in your manuscript and possibly the cover letter/email to the editor. Depending on the journal, you could simply reference the previous manuscript rather than re-publish the data in tables/figures. In this case, the second article might fit the style of a short communication/letter. But it would be preferable if you include some novel data in each manuscript, which seems to be the case (i.e. additional community members in one of the articles).
It is important to recognise that each journal (and even editors within the journal) will have a different preference on this matter (see the article provided in a comment by `user3624251`). Make sure you revise the journal requirements and potentially contact the editor prior to submitting to inquire on their policy.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/14
| 476
| 2,004
|
<issue_start>username_0: I had my Mathematics paper today. Its of 90 marks. In the past, I have always scored 90 or at least 88. Today, the paper was extremely lengthly and I made a silly mistake in a question of 4 marks although I knew the answer perfectly well. I am sure other answers are correct. But I am feeling very depressed for failing my expectations. I have got my Science, Social Studies and English Paper in the next week. I think I will mess up in other papers too. I am afraid my classmates will tease me. I am afraid someone else will get full marks. How to lift my spirits?<issue_comment>username_1: Researchers frequently have to decide how to publish journal articles from a large data set. When it is not possible to write a single, integrative article from such a data set, the issue of publishing multiple journal articles arises. [Here is good article about the issue](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/M_Fine_Publishing_1994.pdf)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is not unethical if you are asking a different question, and thus, analysing the data in a different way. If the publication re-uses data that was previously published/submitted elsewhere you will need to be clear about that in your manuscript and possibly the cover letter/email to the editor. Depending on the journal, you could simply reference the previous manuscript rather than re-publish the data in tables/figures. In this case, the second article might fit the style of a short communication/letter. But it would be preferable if you include some novel data in each manuscript, which seems to be the case (i.e. additional community members in one of the articles).
It is important to recognise that each journal (and even editors within the journal) will have a different preference on this matter (see the article provided in a comment by `user3624251`). Make sure you revise the journal requirements and potentially contact the editor prior to submitting to inquire on their policy.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/14
| 596
| 1,993
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing my thesis with Latex and I use Mendeley for the citation.
When I add a book and specify some attributes, like title, author and ISBN, Mendeley automatically adds some missing attributes.
One of those attributes is the URL of a book. Usually, this is a URL from `amazon.com` or `books.google.com`.
After generating the document with Latex, the URL also appears in my bibliography. It could look like:
```
<NAME>. A Long Book Title. Pearson Education, 2008, p. 530.
isbn: 0-123-54431-2. doi: 10 . 1336 / 976 - 3 - 434 - 03844 - 5. arXiv:
arXiv : 1011 . 1889v3. url: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/012345678?ie=UTF8&tag=petersmith-20&linkCode=as2&camp=4321&creative=4567&creativeASIN=087239586.
```
So the URL is very long and, in my opinion, useless. This is not the "real" URL of the book (not the URL of the author or the publisher) and I don't think, it adds any value to the bibliography.
In Mendeley, when I click on `Tools->Options->Document Details`, I can specify which attributes I want to appear. Sadly, I can't uncheck URL in the document type `Book`. So I assume, this is important?
Can I just manually remove the URLs of all by books?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes you can remove the URL as you have the ISBN number for each book; which is a unique identifier, universally given and searchable.
**Note On The Generated URLs by E-Commerce Websites**: Also make sure the on the URL you are using. The URL you posted is a generated one from Amazon that has number of variables for marketing purposes.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A trivial web search with the author name and the book header should usually return Amazon and similar sites where the book could be purchased, as well as probably some alternative sites, and the authors website as well. Same about ISBN number.
Hence, I think, URLs are redundant. Also, it is not uncommon for them to "rot" (disappear or change over time).
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/14
| 416
| 1,835
|
<issue_start>username_0: I applied for summer internship(BSc level) in applied math in one of the North European countries a month ago. I would consider myself as a good applicant but I suspect that they accept very few international candidates, and range of countries of applicants is pretty wide. It is stated that the time of selection decision is march-april. I'm very curious and impatient about knowing the answers to "am I accepted or not?", "when will I get the answer?". In addition to curiosity, the reason of sending such email is to show that I'm ambitious(?) and serious and didn't applied just for fun. I believe that this might increase a little bit my chances. But I'm afraid that this email might turn against me, because I disturb the committee for almost(?) no reason, and it might give them an image of impatient student.<issue_comment>username_1: Sending a simple email politely asking about the status of the applications should neither hurt nor hamper your chances of acceptance. Anything more and you risk annoying the committee and hurting your chances.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would not suggest to write an email that does only ask for the status of the application before the announced time of selection is over—even when the email is totally calm and polite. The program has a schedule, the applicants are supposed to know the schedule.
However, you may have some other good reason to write an email. As Thomas commented to another answer: A good reason to ask for the status would be an offer for another opportunity. You could also try to find another good question to ask (but be sure that it is not already answered in the FAQ or wherever). Also, you could provide some new relevant information, if there is any (e.g. some new grades, completed projects,…).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
|
2016/03/14
| 149
| 574
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a Phd position advertised by the university. Should I address my letter of motivation to the potential supervisor? Please help me out.<issue_comment>username_1: Usually, you address your letter to the contact mentioned in the advertisement.
As last resort, you can always used an undetermined Sir, Madam.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> To whom it may concern
>
>
>
Really, don't loose any time on the header of the letter, keep your focus on the rest, that is the part they are actually going to read.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/03/14
| 1,196
| 4,929
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<issue_start>username_0: I tried looking this up online and could not anything related to this, so figured asking here would make sense. Kind of related to [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18755/implications-of-being-accepted-without-funding-to-a-computer-science-phd-in-the). Here is the story:
I live in US (not an International Student), and applied to few graduate programs in engineering (MSc program). Last week of January, I got an acceptance letter from my top choice with no funding currently available (my top choice because it has consistently been top 3 in its program for the last decade). Since this school was out of state I have never visited and I emailed the coordinator asking how to go about scheduling a visit. The reply said the department would invite selected students to campus for campus visit events.
Well, I wasn't invited for campus visit. So now I called the advisor and essentially stated "before making a decision I would like to visit the campus see how I fit in. What would be the best way, to make sure I get to talk to someone." I kind of emphasized I don't want to show up there unannounced and not be able to communicate to the faculty. The reply was that they had an event couple weeks ago, which was invite only and if I want to visit the campus I need to reach out to the faculty and schedule something with them on my own. This particular part kind of got me irritated. This advisor also stated no reimbursement will be available (this is okay as I am currently working but some sort of reimbursement helps, plus I live in west coast and school is in mid west which would be an expensive trip). Every other school I have been accepted, have stated that they encourage me to visit and to contact them if I want to visit and offered some sort of reimbursement.
This is the highest ranked school I have been admitted so far. Earlier, I would have loved to go here without question but am not so sure any more.
Am I just being overly sensitive here, or is this pretty common? I feel like why would you accept me so early, and not even be courteous enough to schedule a visit (wasn't even asked about campus tour)? Again, I'm not complaining about reimbursement, I can accept that. So now, should I contact each professor who I would be interested in working with or take this as cautionary sign on how life would be when I get there?<issue_comment>username_1: I was accepted into multiple MS programs in math. None of them invited me for a reimbursed visit. When I applied for a PhD, every program gave me an all expenses paid tour. It has been my experience that if you are an MS student, you are not going to be cared for much. If you are a PhD student you will get much more in terms of "acceptance perks."
That being said, they should at least be willing to guide you to the proper resources for learning more about their school. If it was me, I would not accept the offer from your first choice. They do not sound easy to work with.
I would reach out to a few people that you want to work with at your first choice school. If they also blow you off, that would be a bad sign. A really bad sign. A degree from a middle of the ranking program is worth more than five blown years on trying to get an MS at a high rank institution and banging your head on the wall. My experience is that it is much better to go to a school where they care about you and you will be happy than to go to a school where they do not even know you and are totally unwilling to help you.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Am I just being overly sensitive here, or is this pretty common?
>
>
>
This is extremely common in the U.S. In general, masters students are not invited to campus visits. For better or worse, masters students are seen as professionals who plan on entering or returning the professional world after 2 years, and not as life long academics.
Factor in that disrupting research for several days (for the visits) is expensive, and its easier to see why colleges (especially competitive ones), highly prioritize recruiting PhD students.
While I'm not sure why there is such a gulf between masters and PhD student experiences, I have some theories.
* The ROI of training a PhD student is higher than a masters student simply because they will be in school much longer.
* The university has skin in the game for PhDs. I've never seen a self-funded PhD. Either the professor or the university is paying tuition + a stipend.
There is no reason this should make you less excited about going to your top choice. Since the school is top ranked, they likely have to do less outreach to get qualified applicants, and you're seeing the logical ramifications of that.
You mention lower ranked school that seem more engaged with you - it may be worth your time to see if they can offer you tuition assistance or RA/TA positions to offset the cost.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/03/14
| 457
| 1,808
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm having a hard time understanding some concepts not explicitly taught in a course I took recently, but quite related nonetheless. I'm wondering if it's okay to e-mail the professor who taught this course and ask them for advice regarding this matter, considering:
* I am no longer a student enrolled in one of their courses,
* The subject matter I want to ask about was not part of that course's curriculum, even if it does come (very?) close.
Knowing this I've been wondering whether or not it's reasonable for me to approach this teacher and ask for help.
I've tried my best to research this site for simliar questions, but I've come up with little. [The best I could find](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/54765/what-to-do-with-students-coming-to-office-hours-asking-to-check-their-homework/) is only tangentially related at best, since it's not a homework matter.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it acceptable to ask a professor for [...]?
>
>
>
Yes, the worst it can happen is that it doesn't answer.
But: *be polite, short and to the point (if you have a long question, ask for an appointment), and don't expect an answer in two hours.*
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Teachers teach some courses, yet they can be knowledgeable in other fields. They sometimes even prefer different topics. Sometimes, they are passionate enough to enjoy talking about them outside lectures. Part of my present research is related to off-course discussions with passionate teachers.
With only a slight addition to @rusername_1 you can offer to explain it briefly with a phone call, people are sometimes uncomfortable answering even small questions by email, as explaining context if often easier with spoken words, or on a blackboard.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/15
| 695
| 2,826
|
<issue_start>username_0: I applied to several tenure track positions this season. For some of them, I received an e-mail letting me know that I was no longer considered. That's cool and expected, since most of them were in US/Canada and I don't have any official experience working in neither...
My real question is: In some of those, they said that there were impressed by my resume/background/publications or something similar, always followed by a ", but". Are they being polite saying that? How much should I trust this kind of information?
(I could really use this kind of feedback to direct my search. It is not trivial to not over/underestimate yourself...)<issue_comment>username_1: This sounds like a standard US rejection - they may be sending this exact same text to all other candidates that were rejected. I do not believe you can learn anything from it and it does not reflect on you specifically in any way.
You can, however, try to get feedback, but it can be quite difficult - you must realize that the chances of getting good sincere feedback are not high. It is probably best to try getting this from someone with whom you felt there was a good connection or that this person was relatively open. Probably this person would prefer to do this over phone rather than by mail. You may also want to look at [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/58777/requesting-feedback-from-a-postdoctoral-application).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> Are they being polite saying that? How much should I trust this kind
> of information?
>
>
>
Yes, in general the goal of the email is to inform you of the search results in a way that is polite and avoids any not strictly necessary emotional distress, confrontation, antagonism, and (this being the U.S.) risk of litigation. Sadly, this comes at the cost of depriving you of meaningful feedback that would actually be helpful to you. Thus the statements in the email may be completely true, or completely false, or somewhere in between... there is just no way of knowing.
Note that your problem is a common one for job applicants both within academia and outside it, especially in the U.S. where the job application process is especially fraught with potential legal consequences, and where the culture strongly favors euphemistic face-saving politeness over blunt truth-telling (at least compared to some countries I'm familiar with, though other countries are even worse in this regard). See [here](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/662/how-can-i-ask-my-interviewers-for-feedback-following-an-interview) and [here](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/31868/what-are-the-risks-of-me-following-up-with-feedback-to-an-interviewee?lq=1) for some related discussions on Workplace.SE.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/15
| 1,709
| 7,458
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<issue_start>username_0: Maybe I'm just frustrated and nothing can really be done (or nothing that will affect me). But anyway...
I'm taking an upper level course (an elective directly related to my major of Computer Science) and the professor has been horrible. Lucky for me, I came in with a pretty solid knowledge of the subject. My friends (and group mates for that class) didn't have this and I have explained much of the material to them. The professor has to stick to his notes and while he "prepares" for the class, it often feels like its the first time he's actually thoroughly reading the material (despite having taught the class before!)
Our quizzes so far have been from an online reference source and our professor admits that. Our projects have been from another school's website for an equivalent course. Which okay, it can be hard to come up with projects (though the instructions are horrible and the guy seems clueless when he is explaining them to us). We recently had our midterm. Considering the *years* of experience I have in this subject, it should have been a cake walk. It was not. And it was also taken from the same source as the projects.
Now i'm not complaining about a bad grade (and it was even open note/book, which didn't actually help any for honest students). I actually don't know my grade yet, but I came out of that test surprised at how hard it was for tricky, dumb reasons. But that isn't even entirely the point. Today in class, he goes over the exam. On the questions I found most difficult, he says something along the lines of "I haven't got this working, maybe you guys could help me out?" Murmurs rippled through the class. It wasn't just him trying to engage the class in working out a solution together, he could not get his code to work.
I am not the only one who knows where the solutions are on the other school's site. My professor had shared his attempt with the class asking for anyone to give it a try to see if they can get it to work. I look at the solution and compare it to his code. They are practically the same, except that my professor had attempted to get things working by changing a few things that really made no difference.
The question said to assume that we had a resource (a javascript framework). I included this framework (which was not included in the solution) and his code worked. This should have been an obvious thing (I think) or at least something he should have figured out prior to giving us the exam. This framework, by the way, has not been taught in class and we have not been allowed to use any framework in our projects thus far.
I've bombed tests before and this test is only 10% of my grade, so my grade is not why i'm complaining. Its what I have explained prior combined with the high likelihood of cheating from those previously mentioned solutions. The open note/book test included the use of digital books - on laptops. He never walked around and there we no TAs in the room to monitor people, he only asked for everyone to put their device in airplane mode. I could see the guy next to me googling stuff.
I have had some bad teachers over my time at Uni - mostly just boring, can't convey information well, long/super hard assignments, etc. But overall, they have been fair courses. The sum of everything this professor is doing is just beyond frustrating.
Should I just suffer through this guy and move on with my life (only 1 semester left) or should I make a fuss about this?<issue_comment>username_1: You asked the question "What should I do". I cannot answer that, as you have given no more information about your situation (Is it a required course? Is this course otherwise important for you?).
I think there are two separate issues. The first one is that the professor is not as well prepared as he should be, and it would be perfectly within your rights to invoke a process around academic grievances (or whatever it is called in your institution) when you have **evidence** that the professors behavior affects your learning or your grades. Clearly, you should raise this with the professor first and only escalate to the next steps (head of department, dean etc) when no resolution could be found.
I suspect that the second issue is that this professor should not have taught this course in the first place. It all sounds like he/she has no experience at all with the material of the course, and if "upper-level" course means a course that is already close to some area of active research, then this course is perhaps completely outside the research area of the professor. In that case any feedback to the department could help them to re-consider teaching allocation next year.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You've mentioned your primary concern is not grade. In that case, the most important thing you can do is leave a candid review at the end of the semester. Apart fro that, be grateful your past experience let you pass the class (in spite of klutzy teacher), and move on. If he get enough poor reviews, he will either do some self-analysis, or get some training, or realize that teaching is not his strength. Or maybe he won't. But that is the most you can do as a student.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In the same way that a strong teacher can get a weak student, a strong student can get a weak teacher. However, it seems that the student in the latter situation is at a disadvantage when compared to the teacher in the former situation.
1. Students pay the school to get good teachers, but teachers do not pay the school to get good students.
2. Teachers are paid to help the students get stronger, but students are not paid to help the teacher get stronger.
3. Weak students fail the course, but weak teachers do not fail the course.
Teachers are expected to be stronger than their students, and not the other way around. I believe that you have the right to "make a fuss about this" but I am not so sure if you have the obligation.
When I started as a teacher, I had no experience and so I made a lot of mistakes, just like the teacher you describe. If the teacher is a beginner to the course (that is, has taught it before only once), I suggest that you be lenient and "cut him/her some slack." But if the teacher has taught this same course many times, you might want to alert the administration, either through a student evaluation or (for extreme cases) through a signed letter (in which case, you'll need strong evidence of incompetency).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Education is a very important resource and I'm glad you're concerned in getting your moneys worth from this course and more specifically the aforementioned teacher.
While I cannot completely understand your grievance (I come from a completely different field) I do see a similarity in dealing with difficult people in the first place. What I would suggest is talking to your professor and sharing some of your concerns, I'm not telling you to go up and flat out tell him he's doing something wrong but perhaps give it a more suggestive tone and phrase your concerns in the form of questions. Remember a teacher can learn from his students too.
If all else fails and your teacher continues to show his incompetency then I suggest reporting this to the proper authority, whether that be the department in question or other staff related to administration. Remember to be respectful when voicing your concern.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/15
| 503
| 2,356
|
<issue_start>username_0: Let's say that one author has a paper under review, and continues on subsequent works based on the paper under review.
When the author puts preprints of subsequent works available online, should the author let the editor of the first paper know about those subsequent works?<issue_comment>username_1: That's a somewhat tough question to answer (though a good problem to have!).
It depends on the journal you submitted it to's policy on the subject. The biggest issue will be if some of the work you're publishing elsewhere will be required by the reviewers for the current project. You can find yourself in a sticky situation.
For instance, let's say they want you to do an experiment or report on data that you were planning to publish elsewhere...that data hasn't yet been published so you can't include a reference to it yet, but if you include it in your currently submitted paper during the rewrite/resubmission, then you can't submit it as new work.
Also many journals won't accept the newer manuscripts for review until you've published the reviewed work on which it was based.
Each situation is unique. Best thing to do is just ask the editor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: No, there is no need to do this.
If you submit a work to a journal you submit it as is and related to the current state of the art at time of submission. Things that happen after submission should in general not interfere with the current submission. While it could be in some exceptional cases that events after submission may influence the perception of the article, in general the article should be processed with respect to the date of submission.
If I imagine that people would start sending any kind of "additional information" after an article has been submitted, I would expect that this could lead to a great mess (articles submitted which are in fact only preliminary, additional appendices added at a later stage, corrections/amendments…). So I would guess that an editor would generally ignore the additional information and even may find this a bit strange.
However, you may add additional information in case of a revision/resubmission and this is the right time to add anything that could be relevant (with the only exception of severe error in your work - if you find one inform the editor immediately).
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/15
| 1,603
| 7,080
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm in/from the US. I'm finishing my PhD this semester. I've been offered a research postdoc, via email, by the dept. chair at one of my top choices, but outside the US (would rather not give too many details). I replied to say I'm accepting the position. Everyone seems very happy: me, the chair, the professor I intend to work with. But I have nothing in writing.
In the meantime I have an offer for a teaching job at another place much closer, which I would definitely take if I were not getting the above postdoc. I don't feel comfortable turning this down until the other setup is official.
I emailed the postdoc place asking for an official letter. They said they would send it out by mail, but ignored my request for a scanned emailed copy, and I need to give a yes or no answer to the second place before their alleged letter would arrive. I emailed them again about the scanned copy and no response though it has only been a couple days.
How confident should I be that this postdoc is really happening? How common is it for informal agreements like that to be backed out of? Are scanned emailed letters less customary outside the US? It would be terrible of I turned down the teaching job and then the postdoc fell through.
Also, what should I say to the other place if I am still unsure about the postdoc by the deadline for my yes/no?
**Update:** I got the requested scan of the official letter today. I ran it by my adviser and he says this seals the deal and I can cancel any other interviews. Whew!!!<issue_comment>username_1: **Don't count on an offer until you have it officially, in writing.** A verbal offer is not an offer. An email or call saying you will get the offer is not an offer.
You say you "emailed the postdoc place". Who did you email? If it is an administrator they may not understand the urgency of the situation. I would email the professor you will be working for and (politely) make it completely clear that you have a non-negotiable deadline for replying to another offer. You should also state that if you don't have at least a scanned copy of an official offer from him/her before then, you will have no choice but to accept the teaching position, even though the postdoc is your first choice. If they really want you, they will take the 5 minutes to scan a copy of the letter. If they don't, maybe it's best to turn down that offer anyway.
In the meantime, I would also negotiate with the second place for an extension of the deadline.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: **An offer in this type of situation is almost always a real offer**. However, this kind of delay in getting a written offer is nonetheless quite common and has to do with the way the university's internal bureaucracy works. And as the word "almost" indicates, there is always a chance that something will go wrong, so you are absolutely right to be concerned.
The way it works (**in the U.S.**, and probably in some other countries) is this: postdoc offers are often made by a department chair, but are often subject to approval by a higher university authority such as a dean. Naturally, the dean needs to actually review the file before approving the appointment, and this takes extra time (sometimes several weeks, since deans are busy with many other things) after the department chair or search committee have already recommended making the appointment. In the meantime, the department wants to ensure that they can secure the candidate's commitment to accept the position. Waiting those extra weeks before contacting the candidate is completely impractical and means that they will almost certainly miss out on the opportunity of hiring the person.
The result of this dynamic is that the university will try to play a game whereby the department chair will contact a postdoc candidate with an email, formulated to look as formal as possible (e.g., containing salary and other details, and a response deadline) without actually entering the university into a legally binding commitment. (By the way, IANAL, but just the fact that it's an email rather than a letter is not necessarily the issue; I believe an email could very conceivably be held up in court to be just as binding as a "written" offer, and that it really all depends what the "offer" actually says, including nuances such as whether the word "offer" is used, and whether it contains weasel phrases such as "recommend your appointment to", "subject to approval by", "pending review" etc.)
Note that the way this process is designed is more or less well-intentioned and done in good faith, at least in places I'm familiar with. The goal is simply to achieve an optimal outcome under the constraints of how the university functions, while protecting the university's interests to the extent possible. In all likelihood, no one is trying to scam you into accepting an offer that they will then not offer you. At the same time, as a department chair myself I often think that this way of conducting the university's affairs is somewhat unfair and places an undue burden of worry on the candidate's shoulders. After all, there is always a chance that something will go wrong, there will be a disagreement between the chair and the dean or some other step in the process will fail and the appointment will fall through. And I wonder if when push comes to shove, the university's position of sending emails that are carefully optimized to get people to think that they have a real offer when the language of the email actually avoids making any concrete promises will really hold up in court. At least from an ethical point of view it seems problematic to me. But that's the way things work in many places, and usually things work out in the end.
The bottom line is that a lot of this comes down to a question of trust: did the hiring department manage to instill in you a feeling that they "got you covered" and are backing up their claims with concrete actions? Or are they behaving in a way that seems suspicious and alarming? The lack of willingness to email you a scanned copy certainly seems like a possible red flag (depending on whom you sent it to - never discount the possibility that that person may simply be incompetent or forgetful, so consider looking for other people in the department whom you can turn to for help). Only you can decide how risky the situation feels, and how much risk you are willing to tolerate to secure the position. The only general answer we can give is "an offer is usually a real offer, except when it's not".
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This may seem obvious but the fact that you are asking the question implies that you are unsure as to certainty and that alone should encourage you question anything that is not a signed contract.
Personally I would approach this by contacting them directly and explaining your position. If they are 100% on their commitment then expediting the written confirmation you need will not be an issue. A little pressure will work wonders.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/15
| 1,357
| 6,090
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have multiple questions regarding talks and poster presentations. I am in my second year of PhD (computational biology) and have not yet published any paper. Keeping my background in mind do answer my question if possible:
My question is: Is it okay to give poster/talk of your unpublished work? Is there any risk of leakage of research idea via this?
(Leakage in the sense that I do a work and someone probably was thinking in the same line, now gets the idea from my work and works fast enough to publish it before me)<issue_comment>username_1: **Don't count on an offer until you have it officially, in writing.** A verbal offer is not an offer. An email or call saying you will get the offer is not an offer.
You say you "emailed the postdoc place". Who did you email? If it is an administrator they may not understand the urgency of the situation. I would email the professor you will be working for and (politely) make it completely clear that you have a non-negotiable deadline for replying to another offer. You should also state that if you don't have at least a scanned copy of an official offer from him/her before then, you will have no choice but to accept the teaching position, even though the postdoc is your first choice. If they really want you, they will take the 5 minutes to scan a copy of the letter. If they don't, maybe it's best to turn down that offer anyway.
In the meantime, I would also negotiate with the second place for an extension of the deadline.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: **An offer in this type of situation is almost always a real offer**. However, this kind of delay in getting a written offer is nonetheless quite common and has to do with the way the university's internal bureaucracy works. And as the word "almost" indicates, there is always a chance that something will go wrong, so you are absolutely right to be concerned.
The way it works (**in the U.S.**, and probably in some other countries) is this: postdoc offers are often made by a department chair, but are often subject to approval by a higher university authority such as a dean. Naturally, the dean needs to actually review the file before approving the appointment, and this takes extra time (sometimes several weeks, since deans are busy with many other things) after the department chair or search committee have already recommended making the appointment. In the meantime, the department wants to ensure that they can secure the candidate's commitment to accept the position. Waiting those extra weeks before contacting the candidate is completely impractical and means that they will almost certainly miss out on the opportunity of hiring the person.
The result of this dynamic is that the university will try to play a game whereby the department chair will contact a postdoc candidate with an email, formulated to look as formal as possible (e.g., containing salary and other details, and a response deadline) without actually entering the university into a legally binding commitment. (By the way, IANAL, but just the fact that it's an email rather than a letter is not necessarily the issue; I believe an email could very conceivably be held up in court to be just as binding as a "written" offer, and that it really all depends what the "offer" actually says, including nuances such as whether the word "offer" is used, and whether it contains weasel phrases such as "recommend your appointment to", "subject to approval by", "pending review" etc.)
Note that the way this process is designed is more or less well-intentioned and done in good faith, at least in places I'm familiar with. The goal is simply to achieve an optimal outcome under the constraints of how the university functions, while protecting the university's interests to the extent possible. In all likelihood, no one is trying to scam you into accepting an offer that they will then not offer you. At the same time, as a department chair myself I often think that this way of conducting the university's affairs is somewhat unfair and places an undue burden of worry on the candidate's shoulders. After all, there is always a chance that something will go wrong, there will be a disagreement between the chair and the dean or some other step in the process will fail and the appointment will fall through. And I wonder if when push comes to shove, the university's position of sending emails that are carefully optimized to get people to think that they have a real offer when the language of the email actually avoids making any concrete promises will really hold up in court. At least from an ethical point of view it seems problematic to me. But that's the way things work in many places, and usually things work out in the end.
The bottom line is that a lot of this comes down to a question of trust: did the hiring department manage to instill in you a feeling that they "got you covered" and are backing up their claims with concrete actions? Or are they behaving in a way that seems suspicious and alarming? The lack of willingness to email you a scanned copy certainly seems like a possible red flag (depending on whom you sent it to - never discount the possibility that that person may simply be incompetent or forgetful, so consider looking for other people in the department whom you can turn to for help). Only you can decide how risky the situation feels, and how much risk you are willing to tolerate to secure the position. The only general answer we can give is "an offer is usually a real offer, except when it's not".
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This may seem obvious but the fact that you are asking the question implies that you are unsure as to certainty and that alone should encourage you question anything that is not a signed contract.
Personally I would approach this by contacting them directly and explaining your position. If they are 100% on their commitment then expediting the written confirmation you need will not be an issue. A little pressure will work wonders.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/15
| 249
| 1,066
|
<issue_start>username_0: In theses, students typically write acknowledgments thanking their supervisor, co-supervisor, other advisors, etc.
Maybe everyone can just do it at will, but is there any best practice, if academic degrees should be used in the acknowledgements?<issue_comment>username_1: In the ones I have seen, they are mostly omitted, but my guess is that this is pretty country and field dependent. You should look at other thesis published in your department, and see if they include them.
Once you know what the norm is, do as you wish. Acknowledgements are the part of your thesis that is *most yours*, and you should write whatever feels right.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The best course of action, as this depends a lot on local (country, area, university, maybe even department) customs, is to go to the library and check a few (more or less recent) theses in your area or closely related ones. Perhaps ask the librarians, they are people trained in much more than storing books. Ask some trusted faculty.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/15
| 848
| 3,606
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am currently attending the meeting of the American Chemical Society and was surprised by the way people were dressed for the poster presentations. In particular, many young women (and some young men) seemed to be dressed for a night out (tight clothes, heels, make up, etc.). This is not what I'm used to in European or international meetings (including international meetings at the US). More senior female (and male) researchers were wearing clothes I'm more used to in this kind of setting.
This made me wonder: is there some sort of implicit sexism at play here, and do some of these young female researchers feel the need to impress other researchers (both male and female) with their appearance?
I probably should also add that I usually attend physics meetings rather than chemistry meetings, where the ratio of female/male is much higher (we really need to work on improving this in physics). So perhaps dressing habits are simply different across fields.<issue_comment>username_1: The way people dress is their own business, I don't know how you conclude sexism out of it. You could go with an old never washed before shirt or wear your nice clothes for the conference. People are there in the conference to learn/present ideas and their contributions.
Your conclusion on sex/sexuality of individuals based on their clothes, should be kept to yourself.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> This made me wonder: is there some sort of implicit sexism at play here, and do some of these young female researchers feel the need to impress other researchers (both male and female) with their appearance?
>
>
>
It is certainly possible that this is because of some sexist problems in this specific society / community that are not present in the international community. However, given [Occam's Razor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor), I think we should assume that the more simple and straightforward answer is that this is just a regional peculiarity of these meetings, and that we should not extrapolate too much from this without further evidence.
It is not at all uncommon for individual conferences or communities to develop their own standards and behavioral patterns. Basically, this is true for each event where students are likely to attend over multiple years, hence can learn from their experience in the year past. Assume, for instance, that you are a young female PhD student that attends such a meeting for the first time in casual wear, and you see many other students in a similar career phase dressing more formally. Would you not bring more formal clothing next time? I don't think that this should be qualified as "feeling the need to impress", or as any problem that needs addressing.
It is also not overly weird to see more senior people wear differently - they have been attending this meeting for a long time, and (a) don't care much about the current dress code culture, and (b) have probably been nurtured at a time when the dress code was completely different anyway. These things change over time.
Also keep in mind that your own expectation of what is "normal" wear in conferences has also likely not been set in stone from day 1, but is the product of what you have seen in "other conferences". There is no god-given law that jeans are more natural to wear to a conference than nice dresses, heels, or suits.
*(Actually, in most non-science conferences, it is normal to dress rather formally, so one can argue that what you have seen in your conference is closer to "normal" than what you are used to)*
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/15
| 637
| 2,747
|
<issue_start>username_0: Is it any biased view from a viewpoint of a big country, where you have many chances to change laboratories/universities/working groups, vs. a small one?
Suppose you are from a small country when there is only one laboratory in your field and you want to stay in that country due to family reasons. Then you probably have these options:
* stay there and get published with your supervisor;
* move to another country for some years and come back (and you will
end up with your supervisor);
* move to related field and you will probably end up with some sort
of collaboration with your supervisor anyway.
Are these options considered *"weak"* from an academic's perspective?<issue_comment>username_1: Do good work and publish in high impact journals. As long as you're doing good work, then it really shouldn't matter who you are publishing with. I don't think I've ever read a paper from a small country and had a preconceived notion about the quality of the work. However, if your lab becomes well known for a research area then I think that's a benefit and not a hindrance.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When you say "is bad", it very likely depends on who will be doing the judging, and for what. In my university, in Canada, publishing without your supervisor is seen as a sign of an independent research career; this is explicitly mentioned in the criteria documents. I also know that this is not necessarily the case in other countries.
The bottom line is that if you publish in good venues, speak at conferences, and interact with other researchers, you will make a name for yourself. The more you do this, who you publish with will become irrelevant.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't get why publishing with your advisor would be considered bad. Actually, it is expected that unless you left in bad terms, you will keep collaborating with him/his lab. In a world where connections and good collaborations are gold, why would you cut a good one?
That said, the problem is if you publish **only** with your supervisor for some time after your PhD. This shows that at the least you are unable to form any new collaborations, or even worse produce your own independent work.
Do not confuse the two between them. For example, my PhD advisor is a brilliant researcher and we work amazingly well. So, I keep working with him. However, I also work with many other people that I met through him or after I left his lab.
In your case, if you choose to stay in the same lab, then gradually try to set up your own collaborations. Any well respected professor wouldn't ask you to be included in your publications if he hasn't contributed. If he does, then it's another problem altogether.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/03/15
| 1,556
| 6,334
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<issue_start>username_0: My question is similar to [Is verbatim copying several paragraphs of text with citation considered plagiarism?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/20270/36457), but
I want to ask about very short, concise wordings. As an example, I read a paper in which the author uses the following sentence:
>
> While in the above description we have specified a local algorithm as
> a function that maps local neighbourhoods to local outputs, we could
> equally well […]
>
>
>
Now, instead of copying the exact sentence with its grammatical structure, I
want to point the reader to this paper and briefly mention one of the
conclusions made in this paper. Consider the sentence
>
> author et al. [citation] show that a local algorithm is a function that maps local neighborhoods to local outputs.
>
>
>
The wording "function that maps local neighborhoods to local
outputs" is a verbatim copy from the original source. Of course, I could
replace this wording with something else that expresses the same, but I find the original citation very concise and I could not come up with a completely
different and equally concise sentence.
I always use quotes in addition to a citation to tell the reader that not only
the conveyed ideas and concepts, but also the wording, is not my own
intellectual achievement. But in this case, one might argue that a person that
has understood the ideas described in the original paper might come up with the exact same wording, hence the wording is not a result of the original author's linguistic style, but rather a direct conclusion of the idea he wants to explain.
Is it acceptable to use this wording with a citation and no quotations, or
should you always use quotes for verbatim-copies?<issue_comment>username_1: While in the above description we have specified a local algorithm as a function that maps local neighbourhoods to local outputs, we could equally well […]
You can quote like this:
author et al. [citation] show that "a local algorithm is a function that maps local neighborhoods to local outputs".
If you do changes to the wording due to grammatical necessities, mark them with within the quote and if you leave out parts of their wording, mark it with [...]
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I disagree with the two existing answers ([gerrit](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/65167/10685) and [Patric](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/65185/10685)).
In mathematical writing, it is not necessary to put quotation marks around very short fragments of descriptive text where that text is the obvious and natural way to express the idea. For example, if Smith has written a paper whose main result is
>
> **Theorem.** Every even number is divisible by two.
>
>
>
then it is perfectly acceptable to write
>
> Smith [cite] shows that every even number is divisible by two.
>
>
>
without quotation marks and without clumsy rephrasings such as
>
> Smith [cite] shows that all even numbers have two as a factor.
>
>
>
The significant intellectual contribution of the work you're citing is the theorem itself, not the obvious wording that they used to express it. As you say, anybody who understood the concept would probably choose to phrase it in that way, even if they'd never seen the paper you're citing. Mathematical writing would be completely unreadable if every phrase that had ever appeared before was put in quotation marks. After all, Smith was hardly the first author to talk about even numbers – are we going to accuse him of plagiarism for not acknowledging that the phrase "even number" is a quotation from somebody else?
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: At our Physics Department we would not consider such a sentence without quotation marks as plagiarism, due it is below a threshold of originality. In technical writing words are less important than in humanities. Of course it is not allowed to copy whole paragraphs, but single sentences and phrases, which describe technical terms or lab procedures are too trivial and too standardized concerning the wording so there is no need for quotations marks.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Hm. Well... when determining whether something is plagiarism - or really, whether you are going to suffer the consequences of plagiarism - what matters is not *your* opinion, and not *ours*, but the opinions of the people who are in a position to impose those consequences. So you should ask *them*, if you can. ;-)
The message I've always gotten is that this particular example *would* qualify as plagiarism. There is some threshold of genericity below which you don't have to identify a quote as a quote, but for a lot of people, the phrase you consider quoting doesn't fall below that threshold. I've heard stories of grant proposals being rejected due to instances of plagiarism on the same scale you are talking about. I think that's rather silly, but again, it's not my opinion that matters.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I know that many physicists, mathematicians, and computer scientists don't like to use quotations, because they assume they are dealing with truth and of course that transcends any sort of ownership of the ideas (although the expression of the idea could be quite original). I think it comes down to how much and how often one is copying text. I find a 5-word phrase here or there to not be problematic if it is clear who is speaking here. But when paragraphs and paragraphs are taken, entire proofs (including the mistakes), page after page: it is no longer acceptable. There is no "legal" amount to copy. Just do your best to make it clear what is from you and what is from others. Be very careful not to interpret things into what they published that they did not say, as above.
Why not
>
> Author et al. specify a local algorithm to be a function that maps local neighborhoods to local outputs (2014). In this thesis, a local algorithm will be used as .....
>
>
>
This makes it clear that the local algorithm definition comes from Author et al. and the year closes out the use of their text/ideas nicely.
For computer scientists I say: ( ) -> is how you quote: Where does it begin, where does it end, where did you get it from? If you make all three clear, you are on the safe side.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm starting my bachelor's degree thesis and i will do some research work. If I achieve good results can my work be published? If so , who should get the credits? I'm afraid that my prof or his research lab can publish/include my work in some their future papers without my name.<issue_comment>username_1: If your work is good enough, it deserves to be published. It doesn't matter if it is the result of a hobby, undergraduate studies, or your main job as a researcher.
Summarizing it to make it fit into the space allotted in a journal or conference proceedings will be a daunting task, ask your advisor for guidance and help.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As username_1 has said, it is the quality of work, rather than the degrees behind the person who wrote it, that should determine whether or not something can be published. There are *very* few journals who have standing bans on publishing undergraduate research, though be aware that preparing a paper for publication is a fairly daunting task.
My advice would be to talk to your advisor about whether or not your work is in the position to be published as a stand-alone paper, or if it's going to be incorporated into a larger paper.
In the first case, the next step is to talk to them about what still needs to be done, what journal to target, and the steps you need to take to get going on that path. In the second case, it's largely a matter of asking if you'll be included as an author on that paper, or end up in the acknowledgements section. Having a clear and direct conversation up from will help things in the long run.
For reference, my undergraduate thesis was published with me as the first author on it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, my first PhD student published a paper on his undergraduate work (I was also a co-author of the paper), so it is certainly possible (and indeed a good way of learning about research practices if you are interested in that as a career). As the other answers suggest, quality is the key.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: To add to the above answers, there are in fact, some journals which are dedicated exclusively to the publication of undergraduate research. It might be easier for your paper to get accepted in such journals. The [Council of Undergraduate Research](https://web.archive.org/web/20171125142254/https://www.cur.org/resources/students/undergraduate_journals/) provides a list of popular undergraduate journals.
However, you can also submit your paper to any regular journal as very few journals have restrictions on publishing papers by undergraduates. Here is [an article](https://web.archive.org/web/20171113065743/http://blogs.plos.org/thestudentblog/2014/03/25/final-steps-undergraduate-research-experience-peer-review-publishing/) on publishing as an undergraduate that you might find interesting.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: We submitted a research paper to a journal for publication and we received the reports of the reviewers. However, the two reviewers pointed out a flaw in one of our proofs. Unfortunately, we cannot find another proof and we cannot also find an exemple in which the result doesn't work. One of the reviewers said that we can remove the result. The editor-in-chief asked us to send the revised version as new submission. What we can do in this case?<issue_comment>username_1: First, notice that the question asked in the title has already been answered: your paper has *not* been rejected solely because an incorrect proof has been found. So your real question seems to be "What do I do now?"
The obvious answer seems to be to do what you have been advised: resubmit the paper with the faulty proof removed. To me an "unproved theorem" sounds a bit self-contradictory; although there are some things that you might want to informally describe that way, using that language in a paper seems to be asking for trouble. Rather you should decide whether you want to include the statement that you now realize you cannot prove in some form, e.g. as a question or a conjecture. If you think the work would be much more valuable if the statement was proved, you might want to delay resubmission while you make a more concerted effort to prove it. Or you may decide that without the theorem you had, the paper is not in your opinion worth publishing. All this is up to you.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: You are worrying about a superficial consequence of doing mathematics research instead of what really matters, which is the research itself. This kind of thinking is an example of what's known as "[putting the cart before the horse](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cart_before_the_horse)", and is in general a recipe for trouble.
What you should do is to do your best to try to prove the conjecture you thought you had already proved. If you succeed, great. If you fail, go back and revise the paper to reflect the new state of affairs. Treat this writing assignment as a completely new and independent project to the one you had before you discovered the flaw in the proof. Right now you seem to be emotionally attached to the idea of mentioning the "theorem" in your paper, but you should let go of that notion: you should decide on whether to mention it or not by taking a fresh look at the situation and asking yourself whether as a conjecture it really deserves to be mentioned, in the sense that it truly serves the interests of the readers and of the mathematical theory you are working in.
The bottom line is, don't second-guess the reviewers' advice. Just do the best job you can do to write the best paper you can, resubmit, and hope for the best.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you have no proof, anything could be the case. You could formulate a conjecture, this is legitimate. However, you have no idea whether it is true or not, and, as such, this is *not* a theorem. If you can show independence, you can take it (or its opposite) as axiom. However, hoping to getting an unproven "theorem" published is not serving science, and, by extension, not helping yourself, either.
If you consider the paper without this conjecture as too weak, you could collect more results before resubmitting - however, the editor recommends resubmission, so it does not sound as if all is lost.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: What's the flaw in the proof? That can really matter. Have you looked at adding any extra assumptions which are required in order to make your proof work? If you can find such assumptions, you can include the proof of this weaker statement, and then have it as a conjecture that the result can be generalized (and give reasons/examples).
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/15
| 516
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<issue_start>username_0: This question is asking how to bridge the gap between knowing programming to research.
I'm an undergraduate in a decent BA computer science program at a college with a decent-to-low reputation. Most of the professors here aren't PhDs. I can't transfer to another college, because a close relative of mine is at a prominent member of this college's staff and all eyes are on me. I've taken data structures, architecture, etc but it's much more of a trade school than a rigorous theoretical foundation.
After reading a few advanced data structure books, I've become very interested in certain theoretical computer science topics. If I want to do research after undergrad, how should I go about it? I'm a pretty motivated person and I am good at self studying. Should I try to create interesting projects? work on open-source? work at a prestigious company?
Thanks for any advice.<issue_comment>username_1: A common piece of advice for situations like this is to apply to master's programs.
This will give you time to catch up on any background that you may be lacking and give you the chance to become more competitive for PhD programs by getting letters of rec, good grades, and research experience.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: perhaps look into publication options? Grad schools often look at whether the person can do research, which will work against a trade school background because it is more hands-on. However, there is nothing to stop you from writing up articles on the areas that interest you. It *wont* be easy, at all, but if you can get published in a peer reviewed journal--or at least a trade publication--that should help. See if you can get a professor to work with you, if you aren't sure. If there aren't any professors at your school willing to help, network out with professors at other universities if at all possible. Also, see if you can be a research assistant to a professor (preferably one who has a PhD).
I would also directly address this in any grad school applications through the essay. You can focus your essay on your passion for research and how you went above and beyond to find research options. That will show commitment that committees will like.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/15
| 398
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<issue_start>username_0: After reading this question on [What is wrong with continuing to publish with your PhD adviser](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8709/what-is-wrong-with-continuing-to-publish-with-my-phd-adviser) I wonder whether there is something like an "unwritten rule" for how long after getting your PhD is it suitable to publish with your supervisor.
Is there some sort of, let's say *"secret statistic"* related to the ratio of your own papers vs. your papers with your supervisor, upon you are rated among fellow scientist long after your graduation?<issue_comment>username_1: There is no limit. You can always write and publish with any other researcher(s) (e.g., PhD supervisor) as long as they like to do so as well.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You should not *only* publish with your advisor, because it suggests a lack of independence, and that rather than emerging as an independent researcher, you are still essentially "doing the work" for your advisor's ideas.
That being said, I know a number of people who still work with their advisors on projects - the key is to project an image of "long-standing partnership". This is especially compounded in public health (my field) where a single large study is a vast mine of potential papers, and so it's likely someone will be working on the same data with the same people long after they've started their own careers. The key is to have a place carved out that's clearly "Yours".
If there's a secret statistic for it, I must not have gotten my copy in the mail yet.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2016/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to understand positive and negative effects for a host country and for a home country of a student.<issue_comment>username_1: **To the host country:**
Positive: A host country that is able to import top talent from other countries has a greater chance of keeping them in the country after graduation. This, undoubtedly, is an effort to promote national interests in a specific field (typically, scientific). Often, importing students to to do research is low cost (in comparison to hiring full time scientists or professors) and typically yields lots of deliverables (e.g. research papers) in a short time.
Negative: A host country takes a lot of risks when it invests in a foreign student. There no guarantee that student even graduates, much less that he/she remains in the country after graduation, or in any way promotes the host country's national interests.
**To the home country:**
Positive: A home country that can produce top talent gains a reputation international level for its education system (for better or worse, regardless of whether this is actually true or not).
Negative: A home country has the potential to lose its top talent to other countries, which is often counterproductive to its national interests (especially scientific interests).
In addition to the countries, i feel it is important to discuss the benefits and risks that this presents to the student as well:
**To the student:**
Positive: The student can gain a high quality education, typically with no strings attached. When they graduate, they are free to choose their destiny (assuming that they even have the option of staying in their host country).
Negative: The student effectively becomes low-wage, indentured migrant labor to the host institution. Students are often not promised jobs or citizenship in their host country, but are often led to believe that "it is possible if you work hard enough". This will often lead to foreign students out performing their domestic counterparts, but sadly offers little pay, benefits, or guarantees to the foreign student. As J.J. points out, if a foreign student screws up in some way, they lose (potentially) their only chance of a better life outside of their home country.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Home country positive: Sometimes the students come home to teach and do research after earning their degree bringing knowledge, expertise, and maybe prestige with them to help build programs back home. In some of these cases, the home country pays for them to go, earn their degree, and come back, and the student is under some form of legal incentive to come back (contract, release from compulsory military service, denial of departure if they ever come home for a visit, etc.). These kinds of things can occur in areas of research that are of national importance.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: To add to the previous answers: the host also wins by having ex-students in positions of influence, presumably favourably disposed to the ex host.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/15
| 826
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently applying for an intensive language program, and I've taken courses with a professor whose letter of recommendation would likely carry a lot of weight– he speaks the language fluently, and has spent years studying the country. His course is also the only one I've taken that is directly relevant to the language program I'm applying to.
However, I'm not sure if it would be appropriate to ask him for a letter of recommendation. In the first course I took with him, I did relatively well; I got all As on my assignments, but I rarely spoke with him, and never really stood out.
The second course I took with him (the one that's relevant to my language program) is what worries me. During that semester, I had a family emergency/mental health problems, and, after multiple meetings with this professor, I ended up receiving a G grade in the course (meaning that I have to submit the coursework I missed by the end of this year). He's seen my outlines for the essays I owe him, and he's admitted that they're pretty much perfect– but I haven't submitted any actual essays. However, we've spoken at length about my family emergency/mental health issues, and we've grown somewhat close (he also has had some experience with mental health issues). I feel like he understands why my work ethic suffered, and doesn't seem to hold my delayed coursework against me.
**So, my question is:** should I ask him for a letter of recommendation? I feel like his recommendation would go a long way on the application, but only if his recommendation is actually a strong one. Despite his understanding of my personal circumstances, I'm not sure if my coursework has been good enough for him to feel comfortable giving me a glowing recommendation. I also don't want him to feel pressured (out of, I don't know, pity for my situation) to give me a recommendation letter. Any advice?<issue_comment>username_1: You can always request for a letter of recommendation from any academic you interacted with while studying.
If you don't have any other choice I recommend to ask the professor about the recommendation letter. If you don't feel comfortable with him/her and you have other academics to ask for the recommendation letter, then you cannot skip asking this professor as you are not 100% sure about his/her feedback.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I've had students ask me for letters with some wording along the lines of "if you feel you can write me a strong letter." From what you've said, it makes sense asking him for a letter, but you might consider this approach:
First let him know that you're interested in this program and see what he thinks about it. If he's very supportive of the idea, then you should have nothing to worry about asking for a letter. If he's not, you could ask for other suggestions. (And even if he thinks it's a good idea, he may suggest some other other opportunities as well.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Sounds like you're not 100% confident in his ability to write a glowing recommendation in which case I would ask someone else, who you have a closer relationship with, to write the letter or forego it altogether. Especially if you rarely spoke, never jumped through flaming hoops while suspended 100 feet in the air on a trapeze or did anything else that stood out. In that case, your request comes out of the blue and then the pressure is on him to figure out what to say about a student he doesn't know much about.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/15
| 662
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<issue_start>username_0: I received a B.A degree in political science with a minor in natural resource conservation & management last year but after an internship in Washington D.C. and looking through job postings I have decided that I studied the wrong thing and would like to make a career change already. Ultimately i would like to do research in a lab with plants in regards to nutrition (which my internship opened me up to the possibility of) but since I got a B.A and not a B.S I am lacking in a strong science foundation that would help me get into a science graduate program. I would study Food Science and Nutrition now instead but ever school has such different course offerings I'm not sure what classes to take to help me get in to grad school. My GPA was average when I graduated but I am now really passionate about this new career field and need to go back to school I think I order to make this shift. Do I take a lot of random science prerequisites at a community college and then transfer them to the university I apply to to show I have taken the necessary steps? Too bad there is not a post-bacc program for non-medical majors. Any advice on what I need to do?? Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: First, do some research on graduate programs you're interested in, to see what the entrance requirements are. Since students come from different majors, programs want to make sure you have the right background. Anything you don't have, you'll want to take as a course, so it depends on how many holes you have to fix.
Side projects and volunteering opportunity in your area, are great to gain experience and show interest, and ensures your passion is solid. Show you have a good work ethic -- since your GPA is average, find other examples to convince graduate admissions that you work hard. Look at what you've done during college and figure out how show you've developed soft skills (communication, leadership, presentation skills...), and so on.
The overriding theme is you need to convince the admissions representatives that you are as likely to succeed as students who took this as their undergraduate degree and did well. This means you will probably need to get a better foundation, as well as experience in the field to document interest.
You can read other related questions for related advice. For example, check here [Is it possible to attend graduate school in pure math after undergrad in CSE?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2950/is-it-possible-to-attend-graduate-school-in-pure-math-after-undergrad-in-cse/3000#3000)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Other than what <NAME> suggested, another way may be to enroll in a graduate program in a community college, and then transfer to an accredited university of college down the road.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/16
| 336
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<issue_start>username_0: This question is limited to only academic subjects that exist in internationally recognised universities (eg: exclude celebrities and Internet sensations), and is inspired by a discussion with a teenage family member who questions the maxim that interest is most important for deciding your academic subject: are there any academic luminaries who succeeded in a subject that they (secretely or not) despise?
For example, has any Nobel Laureate or [Rolf Schock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Schock_Prizes#Laureates_in_Logic_and_Philosophy) winner despised the subject in which he/she won, or has any Fields Medallist despised maths?<issue_comment>username_1: To succeed in any highly competitive endeavour requires long, concentrated, hard work. To put this into something you hate would certainly be a novel type of masochism, even if not successful.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Actually, there is a nice example, Einstein himself: he helped inventing/discovering Quantum Mechanics (by linking quantum hypothesis to photoelectric effect) but later fought against significant aspects of it (especially probabilistic outcomes, and incomplete state knowledgeability); nevertheless, he even later contributed the EPR paradoxon as a "counterexample" (but it became one of QM's foremost illustrations for nonlocality).
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/16
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<issue_start>username_0: I have just had a look at admissions statistics for grad school. Oxford seems to have much higher acceptance rates than, say, Princeton or Stanford. I do not want to conclude that it therefore is easier to get into Oxbridge than Ivy League Schools, lets say (for grad school that is), because I am probably forgetting some crucial factors here.
Or is it just that getting into Oxbridge is easier than Top US unis?
[PrincetonAdmissions Data](https://gradschool.princeton.edu/about/quick-statistics) (about 11% acceptance rate)
[Oxford Admissions Data](https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/facts-and-figures/admissions-statistics/graduate-admissions-statistics?wssl=1) (about 24% acceptance rate)
[Cambridge Admissions Data](http://www.graduate.study.cam.ac.uk/admissions-statistics) (about 39% acceptance rate)<issue_comment>username_1: The **odds of a given individual being accepted** (which is how I would interpret the phrase "difficulty") depend on the **number of similarly-qualified and better-qualified applicants**, as well as on the number of students the school intends to admit.
It is not correct to equate a lower percentage of applicants accepted with lower probability of a given individual being admitted, unless you can verify that the applicants to different schools come from similar distributions. One school may receive a large number of applications that are very weak, while the other school receives only highly-qualified applications. **The presence of all those weak applications has essentially no effect on the probability of a strong applicant being accepted**.
The situation described above often occurs due to **differences in awareness** among potential applicants of the realistic minimum qualifications for acceptance. The cost of submitting an application can also influence this, as can the general notoriety of a school.
Finally, a school will try to admit enough students so that the number of acceptances reaches the intended number. To do so, they will over-admit by a factor equal to the inverse of the yield rate. The schools may have different yield rates, which will lead to different acceptance rates even if all else is equal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Acceptance rate is one of the factors used by U.S. News and World Report in their influential "Best Colleges" rankings. Specifically, it currently counts for 1.25% of the [total score](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/ranking-criteria-and-weights). So universities in the US have a clear incentive to decrease their acceptance rate (by increasing the number of applicants, whether qualified or not). This may play some role in the difference.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: For PhD acceptance rates, many schools/departments essentially require PhD candidates to find a potential supervisor prior to applying. My, non-Oxbridge, department's acceptance rate is something like 90% for students who find a supervisor prior to applying and 0% for those without a supervisor. This "requirement" really changes the dynamics of applying for a PhD.
For Masters programs, I think there are a number of minor factors and one large one that result in UK universities having a higher acceptance rate than US universities. Graduate classes/modules in the UK are only taken by Masters students. PhD students and advance undergraduates do not take graduate level classes. This means departments need to accept enough Masters students to make teaching the classes worthwhile.
Getting enough fee-paying students is hard and the competition between programs is fierce. Departments tend not to pass up on students that they think can pass. While "entry tariff" (basically the GPA of admitted students) is starting to count in league tables, in my experience UK universities are not as adapt at manipulating the league tables. Further, UK universities generally have a hard minimum "GPA" of a 2.1 degree classification in a related field. Since undergraduate education in the UK is more specialized than the US this means that a "related" field is much more narrowly defined. Minimum requirements are strictly enforced in the UK so Brits tend not to apply to positions that they are not qualified for. Overall, this cuts out the bottom of the application pool. That said, something like 80-90% of students get a 2.1, and I do not think thesee factors substantiallychange the acceptance rates.
What I think matters the most is the fact that students only apply to a select few schools. My UK students tend to apply from between 1 and 4 Masters programs. I have less experience with US students, but my intuition is they apply to a lot more schools. I think that the reduced number of UK applicants increases the UK acceptance rates.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: For UK PhD programmes those figures can be highly misleading.
Unlike US PhD programmes, you really need to first get the endorsement of a potential supervisor before making your application if you want to have a chance at admittance. For example, my supervisor was contacted by around 40 people but only endorsed 5. 3 applicants (including me) were made offers. I checked their Linkedin profiles and all had graduated at the top of their department as undergrads and earned distinctions on one or more masters' degrees. From what I hear, this scenario is not uncommon for Oxbridge, and the true acceptance rate must be closer to something like 5-10%. What's more, UK PhD programmes do not provide funding. Because of this, many offer holders have to decline their offers unless they are awarded a scholarship. These are extremely competitive. For example, only 17% of graduate students at Cambridge receive full funding. Prestigious scholarships such as the Gates Cambridge scholarship have success rates of 0.5%. So, as you can see, getting accepted into Oxbridge for graduate study, particularly a fully-funded, is a rare feat and a huge honour.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/16
| 485
| 2,059
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<issue_start>username_0: I have got an email of invitation to review a paper in a best journal of my field. I had a paper there and somewhere else almost in that field.
As I must invest serious time and attention to complete the review, I wanted to know if that does any advantage on improving my resumé for getting a better chance of acceptance and scholarship for my future PhD program abroad?
Basically, should I mention in my CV that I am a reviewer of that journal, when I am sending it to other universities?
P.S. I have graduated from M.Sc. two years ago.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, this helps.
Regarding the CV, I've seen frequently that people include sections like "Other scientific activity" or "Community service" where there is subsection like "Referee for:" followed by a list of journals (sometimes even with numbers indicating how many reviews have been done). So you can make this service visible in your CV.
There is another way in which reviewing may help your career: If you write a sensible review for a relevant paper it will be read by at least one editor of the journal and it's safe to assume that this editor is a respected and reputable member of the community. In this way, writing good reviews helps to build your reputation (albeit slowly as not many people see your reviews with your name attached, but at least these are the "right" people).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: It can definitely help - acting as a reviewer is a signal that an editor somewhere (and in this case, a decent journal) thinks you qualify as an expert in a particular field - that's a good signaling mechanism for trying to get into a PhD program. It should absolutely go on your CV, and likely stay there - reviewing is a form of service, and that's a way many postdocs and faculty are evaluated as well.
Beyond just the direct benefit, it's also a good way to see "inside" the process of peer review, which I've found generally helps the quality of my own work. "Doing better work", while an indirect effect, can only help.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/16
| 751
| 3,352
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<issue_start>username_0: I came across a paper with an interesting title/abstract which was published in a rank-A journal. However, the article is missing from all online listings (Project Euclid, ScienceDirect, etc.) and is *also* missing from the journal's website. The article has volume, issue, and page numbers `x`–`y` (listed as such on arxiv). The journal website and other online listings have the previous articles (up to page number `x–1`) and the following articles (from page number `y+1`), with the article in question just being omitted.
I contacted the journal about accessing the article a couple of weeks ago¹, but still haven't received a reply.
¹ A formal version of "Hey, I tried to access [this paper], but it wasn't available [here] or on your website. Is it possible to access this paper electronically?"
The article itself is posted on arxiv and is listed as a publication on the authors's professional websites.
I am very much interested in the result, but I am not familiar enough with the methods in the paper and it would take me a lot of time reading and working through the details of the paper. Time that would be better spent if the paper was withdrawn for containing errors. I don't quite feel comfortable contacting the authors blindly, asking if their paper contains an error. I can't really use "Please send me a version of your paper" as an excuse, because the paper is published on the arxiv.
What should one do in such a situation? In particular,
1. Are papers sometimes withdrawn "without comment"?
2. Do publishers usually reply to requests by email?<issue_comment>username_1: Are you sure that the paper *has been published*, or is it rather *accepted in* the journal?
I see no situation that would make a paper disappear from the publisher's website. Even in case of fraud, papers are still mentioned, but are added a retraction notice explaining why the paper has been retracted. This is so to ensure the integrity of the research record, and is taken very seriously.
If the paper is only *accepted*/*to appear*, then what you write makes sense. It happens that papers wait up to years between acceptance and publication. Many journal in this situation of heavy backlog have a list of papers to appear, which enables one at least to check the author's claim
**Added in edit:** the question now makes it clear the second scenario is not what is happening, but a comment by DCTLib proposed a possible explanation for the situation. During the process of editing a volume, journal attribute pages and format papers accordingly. If after that stage but before actual printing and online posting, something wrong about the paper is detected, it could a priori happen that the publisher decides not to publish the paper but does not change the pages numbers of the remaining article to avoid reformating. That would still be weird and quite unheard of, but it does seem possible. Then the paper would not formally have been published, and the claim by the author would be wrong. Of course, that says little about why the paper was not published.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: After forwarding my email to the director of the publishing company, he put the paper online, so it appears that this was an administrative issue. I thank everyone for their input and apologise for the noise.
Upvotes: 5
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2016/03/16
| 979
| 4,433
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a new grad student who is both excited and scared as I embark on this transformational journey. One concern that I have is establishing a current snap shot of my field and identifying boundaries that are ripe for further exploration. This seems like an impossible task given the number of journals out there and rapid pace at which new material becomes available.
I have been reading some posts on this board and it sounds like literature review is only one phase as a graduate student and then you move on. Given that you are on a time constraint one has to move from a reading focus to a doing focus eventually. My concern is I am moving forward with only half the story.
My field is life sciences, specifically gene therapy.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> This seems like an impossible task.
>
>
>
You're right, it is impossible. One can really never hope to gain a "complete" knowledge of a field, or even a subfield. You just have to do the best you can, in the time you have, to identify the most significant basic work related to your area of interest, and work that specifically addresses the questions you are studying.
Part of your advisor's job is to help with this; they should have a broader knowledge of the field, and be able to help direct your literature search and point out any glaring gaps. But despite your combined best efforts, there will almost certainly end up being significant work that you overlook, or whose relevance you don't recognize. That is just part of doing research. Someday you'll learn about it and wish you had known it earlier, but all you can do is move on from there.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It is impossible to capture everything in any field of academic literature, but the good news is that you don't need to. To proceed, you need to have a clear view of your purpose for conducting a literature review (other than, "I have to, as a grad student"):
1. For your own learning about the relevant knowledge in your field
2. To help you narrow down to a concrete dissertation topic
3. To publish a summary that is helpful for other researchers
On one hand, these are three distinct goals that require somewhat different strategies. On the other hand, since they are all related, it is possible to combine these three goals and achieve them all with one general strategy.
I recommend that you target your dissertation topic, and to do it in such a way that you gain relevant knowledge in your field and can publish a summary of your review that is useful to other researchers. You could proceed in this general way:
* Begin with a good idea of what topics interest you (you must like your dissertation topic!) and also interest your doctoral supervisor (your supervisor must also like your dissertation topic!). (If you don't have a supervisor, then make it a priority to get one right away, or else you can easily add a few years to the length of your doctoral program.)
* Conduct literature searches on one definite topic of interest. You must target a concrete topic. It is when you try to find "everything" that it gets overwhelming and impossible. Your goal in searching is to find the seminal research (that is, the research that is most highly cited) and the most interesting unanswered questions. They must be interesting to you for the sake of your intellectual engagement, and they must be unanswered so that you have the opportunity to make a real contribution. (That said, your supervisor should help you later on to add one more requirement: feasibility. It must be practical for you to answer the question within the timeline and resources of a doctoral dissertation--your supervisor can help you assess that.)
* When you have a concrete topic from these literature searches, do related searches for literature that is related to your topic and might have some bearing on it (treatments of the same topic in other disciplines, potentially relevant methodological approaches applied to different topics, etc.)
Hopefully, with a general outline like that, you should be able to advance. Again, the result would be a concrete dissertation topic, you will have learnt relevant knowledge along the way, and your publication of your findings should be helpful to other researchers.
Also, note that my outline was sufficiently general that it should be applicable to almost any academic discipline.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/16
| 502
| 2,277
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<issue_start>username_0: My ultimate goal is to secure a position in industry post graduation. I figured a solid approach would be align myself with current problems and try and partner to solve them. This gives me resume wins for when I am back on the market. Also industry may have deeper pockets than NIH for my field. How would one go about this assuming no contacts are known a priori. Also how would a PI react to such activities if say I were to land one with funding dollars attached? I figured it would be a win-win.
Any comments are greatly appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How would one go about this assuming no contacts are known a priori.
>
>
>
Likely you can't go for this without any contacts at all. You are thinking about this in the wrong order - you can't get money from industry first and use this to build up contacts to industry; rather, you would build up contacts to industry to achieve a level of trust so that you would be later on in a position to receive industry funding. This also means that getting direct industry sponsorship as a PhD student is at least uncommon - typically, companies are more interested in sponsoring a professor or chair that they have positively interacted with over a sustained period of time.
**Slightly longish story short, your planned approach (acquiring industry funding) is not a suitable means to your stated goal (landing a job in industry).**
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My answer probably only applies to certain fields of study and I've mostly seen it done in engineering. In many PhD programs you can focus on course work for the first year or so before getting into research. My suggestion would be to try to land an internship at a company that is active in your area of interest. You may be able to use the internship to get research funding for the remainder of your PhD and even a job offer afterward. In most cases where I've seen people successfully pull this off, they worked hard during the internship to exceed expectations or even defined a new project of interest to the company such that the company would find it worthwhile to have the intern continue working on it at school rather than have someone else continue their work after the internship is over.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/16
| 601
| 2,669
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am currently trying to manage around 100 references from [ISI Web of Knowledge](http://apps.webofknowledge.com/). To manage them in a useful way, I need to manage a table, one row for each reference, with 4-5 user defined structured columns (like: which climate variable they correlated with which demographic variable etc.).
So for this purpose **I need to add custom fields to each reference; then display the table of selected references, and be able to sort and filter using these fields. Is there any reference manager that supports this?** Unfortunately [Zotero doesn't and is not going to](https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/18587/custom-fields-on-the-radar-at-all/).
PS: Of course I don't like the idea of having separate excel table besides. I would then miss the comfortable link between the table rows and the PDF and personal notes and other things which I manage through the reference manager (currently Zotero).<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How would one go about this assuming no contacts are known a priori.
>
>
>
Likely you can't go for this without any contacts at all. You are thinking about this in the wrong order - you can't get money from industry first and use this to build up contacts to industry; rather, you would build up contacts to industry to achieve a level of trust so that you would be later on in a position to receive industry funding. This also means that getting direct industry sponsorship as a PhD student is at least uncommon - typically, companies are more interested in sponsoring a professor or chair that they have positively interacted with over a sustained period of time.
**Slightly longish story short, your planned approach (acquiring industry funding) is not a suitable means to your stated goal (landing a job in industry).**
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My answer probably only applies to certain fields of study and I've mostly seen it done in engineering. In many PhD programs you can focus on course work for the first year or so before getting into research. My suggestion would be to try to land an internship at a company that is active in your area of interest. You may be able to use the internship to get research funding for the remainder of your PhD and even a job offer afterward. In most cases where I've seen people successfully pull this off, they worked hard during the internship to exceed expectations or even defined a new project of interest to the company such that the company would find it worthwhile to have the intern continue working on it at school rather than have someone else continue their work after the internship is over.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/16
| 956
| 3,667
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am writing an academic CV for artificial intelligence PhD programs. However, when it comes to mentioning my master's thesis, I am embarrassed at how horrible the title is. It was even criticised in my feedback for the work.
The title is:
>
> INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS ON THE FLEXOELECTRIC RESPONSE AND SWITCHING SPEEDS OF LIQUID CRYSTAL MIXTURES DUE TO THE ADDITION OF VARIOUS ADDITIVES
>
>
>
Is it bad to simply mention your thesis topic, and not the title itself? Is this going to haunt me for the rest of my academic career?
For example could I use:
>
> Thesis topic: *Flexoelectricity in Nematic Liquid Crystals*
>
>
>
when discussing previous projects on my CV (as I do not currently have my name attached to any publications).<issue_comment>username_1: You could use a summary statement like the one you've proposed as your thesis topic - and I'd assume that it was for brevity and clarity rather than because you hate the title.
That being said, that title is far from the worst paper title I've read *today*, let alone something in need of outright hiding from the world.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Sorry, but the thesis title is the thesis title. Until it gets so famous that, like the "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" came to be known as "Principia", it is known by a shortened title.
Good luck with that.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't think the title of the thesis matters very much once you've moved beyond your graduate work, and are into a postdoc or permanent position. I'm not about to throw out a perfectly valid CV because the title of the work is unusual. (I might chuckle to myself and shake my head, but I'm not going to rule it out of consideration.)
That said, in most cases, it is also not necessary to post the full title of the thesis. You are perfectly free to cover the general area of the thesis rather than the full title. You can say something like "Reasearch in [area of work]" instead of listing "Thesis title: [Something Awful]."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You can simply abbreviate your title. "Flexoelectric Response and Liquid Crystal Additives." People talk about "Hamlet" when the full title is "The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark."
Alternatively, paraphrase. "MSc in Chemistry, with thesis on flexoelectricity in nematic liquid crystals."
No one in your new field cares about the exact title. In fact, the only reason to mention the thesis at all is to emphasize that you did a thesis on a sophisticated topic.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Trust me, it will definitely catch attention. That's about it, and that's good.
The way i see it, it will work out favorably for you. If you've ever heard of the adage: "There is no good or bad publicity, just publicity" This is as good as it gets. A highly likely scenario on an interview would be that It would catch attention, and if you're lucky enough, you'd then be given that extra edge over the others to talk about the content of your paper.
In the case where you aren't physically present at the time of reading your CV, it sure helps to have an odd (unique?) content on your paper catching attention that would give them more time to consider to add you on the shortlist compared to all the hundreds if not thousands of application papers just like yours.
In the end, once you've successfully acquired their attention, the thing that will get you to whatever you're applying for or why you're writing an academic CV is your overall delivery and the quality of content you're delivering. The thesis title is just a part of a whole.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/16
| 341
| 1,457
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<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a Masters thesis. Can I use a quote to begin each chapter of my Master's thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes unless your university's rules forbid it. You should check your university's master's thesis formatting rules and guidelines.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Epigraphs are generally fine unless otherwise proscribed by university rules or the style guide used in your field. (MLA has specific formatting guidelines for them, I'd imagine others do too)
But first ask yourself if they add something to your paper. For example, a quote from Borges on an section on recursion would go rather nicely, setting up the ideas/theme far faster than a stale introductory paragraph. A quote from a historical leader might establish a link between the past and a chapter on modern day politics or society. But an inspirational quote about hard work probably doesn't belong in methodologies chapter.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, I would say it depends on the context. If you are using the quote later for your work, or if it is connected somehow to your work, it is ok, otherwise the quotation would not have a purpose (for example in theory this can be a copyright law issue in some countries, e. g. Germany, whereby it is unlikely that someone will pursue it.).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: "I always have a quotation for everything - it saves original thinking." - <NAME>
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/03/16
| 475
| 2,102
|
<issue_start>username_0: Got a manuscript accepted and then pulled because of a similar manuscript submitted by another group to the same journal. Per the request of the editor, two groups combined the manuscripts. Now the manuscript was held up for unknown reasons.
I re-read the other group's manuscript and found a number of serious flaws. I don't think any reviewer would pass those up. Now I really regret combining the manuscripts with the other group, but it was the editor's request.
In addition, there were some ethical issues with the other group (gift authorship), which may have been reported to the journal by our research integrity officer.
Should I just ask the editor if they will reconsider publishing our data alone with addition of the new data that the journal wanted without having to take the whole mess with us? I am really frustrated now.<issue_comment>username_1: While I understand your ethical doubts, I see two reasons why going along with the merge may be in your best interest:
* If you have access to their manuscript, I assume the other group has access to yours, and is possibly able to correct their flaws. If you pull out, the journal may accept them to publish the result without you.
* As the other group is working on the same problem, chances of having them as reviewers in your next submission are probably not small. It is not unthinkable that they would have adversarial behavior and stall your paper while they try to get their own published.
I don't have all the details and I will not make a full judgement, but I hope this can be useful for your evaluation of the situation.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: If there is any kind of ethical problem with the other group, you need to avoid involvement in unethical behavior as much as possible. Tell the editor that, owing to ethical concerns, you are no longer willing to work with the other group. You can ask them to consider publishing your work separately, but you should be clear that you would prefer to take your work to another journal instead of combining the manuscripts.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/17
| 578
| 2,549
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am graduating this semester with a bachelors in physics. My goal is to do theory in my graduate level course work. The problem I am in now is that I missed the deadline to take the physics GRE (I'm taking it in April) so I also missed the deadline to apply to most graduate schools. Fortunately, I was accepted to pursue masters degrees by both the math and physics departments of my current school. My plan is to do one or the other and apply to other schools next semester. My question is which one will be more beneficial to me? Our math department is all around phenomenal... but it won't say "physics" on my applications. Our physics department is good, but it is completely geared towards experimental nuclear physics, which is not my interest (and there is no non-thesis option). Every day now I have been swinging back and forth; math... physics...etc. So, which one would be more beneficial when applying to schools with top theory programs, Math M.S or physics M.S.?<issue_comment>username_1: If your MS in physics will be experimental and you want to do theoretical physics, the math route could work. But we are basically guessing at how an admissions committee will see your application; so I encourage you to keep asking. Hopefully other answers here will help.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not a physicist (I'm a philosopher of science who loves mathematical perspectives), so my opinion doesn't count, but here are things to consider.
You may want to think beyond the immediate challenge of getting into a good graduate program.
What possible drawback could there be to a masters in math in your situation? It's not physics, but deeper knowledge and improved ability with math can only help you as a physicist. Surely physics admissions committees will see that. @MartinArgrrami's answer is a good reply to this argument, though. Perhaps certain kinds of experimental physicists will be more impressed by a physics degree with experimental emphasis. On the other hand, deeper experience with math may facilitate additional insights and theoretical opportunities even in experimental research.
The fact that you're even considering a math MS, and the paper you linked, suggest that your orientation to physics will be such that math is *not* merely one among many tools. If it's the more mathematically inspired corners of physics that you love, then why not work toward that orientation (even if you think you'll exercise your mathematical interests in experimental contexts)?
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/17
| 1,279
| 5,445
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a thesis to hand in at my university.
Am I allowed to ask a grad student who is an expert in my field to have a look at my thesis and give me feedback (more than merely grammatical / stylistic feedback that is) before handing it in at my university?
**Some personal background to this:**
I was asking my lecturer once if he knows anyone who is good at subject X. He referred me to Daniel. Daniel wanted me to pay him for his service, and I was ready to do that.
However, he then asked me whether I intended to hand in the paper, because *if so*, he could not give me *proper* advice / would have to withhold certain criticisms from me. I told him the truth and did not end up doing it.
But is this so? Was I unknowingly trying to 'cheat'? Would it not have been good conduct, because I would have paid him? Does this make it somehow different from "just asking a friend"?<issue_comment>username_1: One of the objectives of gathering professors, postgraduates, graduate students and undergraduates at an university is precisely to encourage working together and cross-checking. Nothing wrong here.
If another graduate student in interested in your work, good for you! Perhaps the basis for future collaborations. If she helps you out by helping proofread your thesis, she is certainly entitled to an acknowledgement of the help in your final writeup. And you should also lend a hand, either to her or some following students, in gratitude.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Some people are just looking for a way to get their money out of what could be "ground breaking findings". By having you pay him for his "services" he ensures that his "expert knowledge" is paid for if you then turn around and use this to make money in the future. It also seems like he feels that his advice is too good for the paper which is why he would need to "hold back and question your choice to submit it".
To me at least by the way you present this, he seems arrogant and just looking to make a quick buck. I have found that generally, people are willing to help someone out and offer advice. Some times, they might even strike a deal with you if they think that your subject is worthy of pursuing outside of academics. Like say, you have a thesis paper that will help lay the foundation to later provide technology that will drastically change the way hearing aids work. Someone might say hey, I will offer you help and provide you X, Y, Z if we do this and pursue this farther than academics if you will provide me X% of any profit made due to this. I had someone do that to me actually when I was looking for help with my senior college project. My group turned them down because we felt we shouldn't need to give away anything for scholastic help.
Also as a side note, he may have also miss-understood your intentions of going to him. He may have thought you wanted him to basically rewrite the paper for you, instead of providing criticism (though I am sure you probably clarified that at some point). Either way, he doesn't sound like a good resource to go to. I have found that when teachers refer you to students like that, most of the time they are looking for payment. You may be better off doing some googling for anyone local that might be an expert and contacting them, seeing if they will be willing to sit down over lunch and look it over (maybe even offer to buy the lunch as courtesy of their time). Though it probably would be easier if you emailed them the paper and they can do it at their leisure.
I have found that established people in the fields are more generally willing to help out college students for free and provide quality feed back. They don't need to make a name for themselves because they are already in the field, and generally they want to encourage people to have interest in their field. It is how their field grows and in turn better technologies are created/provided.
Sorry for the TLDR but hope my 2 cents help!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes it is fine, as it will help you and other PhD students like you to communicate and discuss about PhD thesis and its contribution(s).
However, I would also add another aspect to this: seeking perfection from others makes projects/publications go forever. So as long as you do this in timely manner you be fine, so don't be picky too much.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: The upvoted answers are correct. You can and you should ask other people to proofread your work, and this will continue well beyond the times, when you have to submit theses and such. Senior scientists have their work reviewed by colleagues all the time too. For example, the internal review procedure at our institute - the internal guidelines basically say, we shouldn't submit a paper anywhere, before a couple of members of the institute have proofread it.
**However**, I wanted to make a different point here. I can see, that you're being cautious, and questioning your actions and that's a good thing. But, apparently, some (malicious at worst, unethical at best) people will take advantage of that.
Don't let the strange reaction of this Daniel character lead you into thinking, that you're doing something wrong here. You are not cheating in any way and are doing precisely the right thing by getting someone to review your work. You simply got a bad reference from this professor. **Look for a different reviewer.**
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/17
| 1,776
| 7,035
|
<issue_start>username_0: **Context:**
As I am writing my first paper, I cannot determine what, when and how I should cite scientific literature. It is because I don't know why I should cite (or not cite) other work.
My fist 'newbie' approach was "*Every assertion you write should be proven by a relevant citation, so that other can believe you*". Given that "I know nothing", no one would then take my word for it and thus I must prove that what I'm saying is true.
However, this lead to overcitation (and, I must admit, over-generalization of results), and frustration since I must find a paper corroborating what I want to say for every sentence, or so`*`
Then if I'm leaving this strict rule, I tend to think I am writing triviality, or affirming things I am not 100% sure. I also fear to unintentionally plagiarize, when I say something someone else already stated.
**Question:**
***In a scientific writing, why do we [have to/need to/should] cite?***
Clarifying this might help answering corollary questions: *what to cite?* and *when should we cite?*
* *What to cite?* Should I cite a paper (i.e. give credit) for ideas that are in its literature review, and that are totally not related to the core/added value of the paper? Should I cite every paper related to one field? Can I cite only not-that-much-cited source and not classic ones? etc.
* *When to cite?* If I am writing an assertion that is general (e.g. *"Polar bears have mostly white fur"*), should I justify it?(!) Which is the criteria to determine when an assertion need to be proven by a citation, and when it is admited? When I define a key term for my paper, should I always rely on past definitions?
---
**Disclaimer:** Of course, I am aware of some obvious reasons for why we cite, such as giving credit and proving assertion, and I've read [Arno's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/44377/50010) (who lists *giving credit*, *for proof/evidence*, and *providing context* as reasons) on a similar question. The originality of this question would be, to detail the link between the theory (why) and the practice (what, and when) of citing.
Furthermore, I am conscious that there are multiple questions in this post, especially in the bullet point list. However, these are just here for explanation purpose, and should of course be asked separately to get a specific and detailed answer.
---
`*` I know this should be done the other way (i.e. basing what I want to say on literature, and not looking for someone who could corroborate what I want to say)<issue_comment>username_1: You are telling me whatever you wrote is your pure thoughts and based on nothing else? If then, bravo! You don't need to cite and you shouldn't. However, if it is based on some other people contribution, the reviewer will easily reject your paper based on your title/abstract and not have any citation.
Think about it as a simple logical sentence. Assume that A, B, C are others people work, so you have:
```
A && B && C => True
```
Now you add your publication D which is based on A, B, and C, and **you** think your contribution is true:
```
A && BB && C && D => True
```
Then the reviewer finds out, yes it holds. So from now on your research community know about D; and if other people want to keep adding publications they need to *cite D*.
**Confusion on Citations Is Curable By Reading More Publications**
Yes we cannot just cite everything, however, it is always goes back to lack of reading. That is why you see academics need to keep reading all other papers if they want to keep publishing. So I would recommend you to read more and see what other people in your field are citing and contributing.
**"Giants" Are Shifting**
Same as a kid sees a red balloon and thinks it is the best invention, when you start your research, every little thing impresses you and you really do not have a solid foundation and understanding on who is the real giant in your field. This goes back to reading again. So, after reading more and more you will see who is the real "giant(s)" in your research topic; which then you need to cite for your work.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I recommend that you discuss these issues with an academic mentor who understands your discipline. You may also find it useful to visit the writing/tutoring center at your institution.
That said, I've provided some short answers below. My answers are not intended to be complete because many of the questions that you are asking cannot be answered by people who are not experts in your discipline.
>
> Should I cite a paper (i.e. give credit) for ideas that are in its literature review, and that are totally not related to the core/added value of the paper?
>
>
>
Generally, no. If you encounter something that you want to cite in a literature review, track down the original source. This should not be difficult, assuming that the paper you are reading cited the original source properly.
>
> Should I cite every paper related to one field?
>
>
>
No. Unless you are defining "field" *extremely* narrowly, it will be neither possible nor desirable to cite everything.
>
> Can I cite only not-that-much-cited source and not classic ones?
>
>
>
There is no universal answer to this question. The answer depends on your purposes for the paper and the disciplinary expectations in your field. Talk to a mentor.
>
> If I am writing an assertion that is general (e.g. "Polar bears have mostly white fur"), should I justify it?(!)
>
>
>
You do not have to cite things that are considered common knowledge, but the question is this: What exactly gets to be considered common knowledge? There's no universal answer. It depends who you are writing for and what you are writing about. Here are some rules of thumb that should generally serve you well in American academic writing situations:
* If you would expect any given high school graduate to know something (like the color of polar bear fur), then you probably don't have to cite it.
* If you aren't sure whether you need to cite something, cite it, or at least mark it as a problem. You can always read back through the paper later with a mentor, colleague, or tutor who can help you to identify unnecessary citations.
>
> Which is the criteria to determine when an assertion need to be proven by a citation, and when it is admited?
>
>
>
Again, there are no universal criteria for this. You'll learn the criteria that writers in your discipline go by as you continue to read and study in your discipline.
>
> When I define a key term for my paper, should I always rely on past definitions?
>
>
>
In general, you should rely on past definitions if those definitions are (1) technical and specific and (2) an important issue in your paper. If you wish to break away from established definitions, you should explain why and make an argument for the new definition. Finally, a tip: It is practically never necessary to cite a dictionary definition in an academic paper.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/17
| 1,114
| 4,424
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<issue_start>username_0: So during exams and as of late, I started to informally cite scholars sometimes and as much as possible to backup the written ideas, however and due to the very nature of exams, I am facing the below issues:
1. Sometimes I memorize ideas almost word-by-word from the textbook or course book, and as a result of answering the exam question, I almost write everything as it is and without paraphrasing or even citing, is that plagiarism? The doctor would definitely identify my answer as being from the book we learned...
2. Other times, I get some ideas from outside the book and I do cite them in that case, however I do not paraphrase as I am learning by heart the thoughts in order to answer a specific question in the exam, is that plagiarism? (e.g. lack of paraphrasing)
3. And lastly, since I am memorizing by heart, I sometimes misspell the name of an author or even change a bit of details in his or her idea, is that a bad thing?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I almost write everything as it is and without paraphrasing or even citing, is that plagiarism?
>
>
>
Yup -- submitting work created by somebody else (the author of the textbook or course book) without crediting them is absolutely plagiarism. The solution, as you point out, is to cite them.
More worryingly for your educator, reading someone else's content -- even if properly cited -- makes it hard to evaluate whether *you've* understood the material. If the question is "How does pigeon domestication support the theory of natural selection?", you could quote directly from <NAME>'s *Origin of Species*, chapter 1 --- but all that does is show that Darwin understood the connection! It's not clear if *you* understand the connection and, if I was grading your work, I'd want to know if there's evidence that you understand natural selection well enough to find a connection.
>
> Other times, I get some ideas from outside the book and I do cite them in that case, however I do not paraphrase as I am learning by heart the thoughts in order to answer a specific question in the exam, is that plagiarism? (e.g. lack of paraphrasing)
>
>
>
Direct quotation isn't plagiarism as long as its properly cited; however, as I pointed out earlier, saying "Darwin (1859) believes that the connection between domestic pigeons and natural selection is ..." doesn't tell your evaluator much about whether *you* understand the connection, which is what they're trying to evaluate.
>
> And lastly, since I am memorizing by heart, I sometimes misspell the name of an author or even change a bit of details in his or her idea, is that a bad thing?
>
>
>
For a closed book exam, definitely not -- it's understandable that you can't cite a work that isn't in front of you. For an open book exam, it would depend on your subject area: I teach biology, and I routinely overlook grammatical, spelling and minor mathematical errors as long as it's clear the student understands the biology they're describing.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I do not think it is necessary to cite or give exact bibliographical information during a written exam. Even in publications, textbook knowledge does not have to be equipped with references.
In more detail:
>
> I almost write everything as it is and without paraphrasing or even citing, is that plagiarism?
>
>
> I get some ideas from outside the book and I do cite them in that case, however I do not paraphrase as I am learning by heart the thoughts in order to answer a specific question in the exam, is that plagiarism?
>
>
>
What troubles me here is not that you do not cite correctly, but that you just reproduce the exact wording from the textbook. To the examiner, this does only show that you are able to find the relevant section of the textbook to the question, but not that you understood the subject sufficiently to explain it in your own words. With this approach, you are completely lost in essay questions, and later in your thesis.
>
> And lastly, since I am memorizing by heart, I sometimes misspell the name of an author or even change a bit of details in his or her idea, is that a bad thing?
>
>
>
Misspelling the name is certainly not a problem. Changing the ideas depends on what exactly changes, but I think this is a problem that arises from learning by heart instead of learning the theory, facts, and connections therein.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/17
| 1,058
| 4,317
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<issue_start>username_0: So let's say I have a problem (X) that needs to be solved. Most people in research use several approaches around a sub-topic Y. Most of these algorithms have performance of 80-95% accuracy so there is a space for improvement. I understand that a proper PhD topic would be to find a better solution here.
But what if I just use a new technique (K) to solve this problem? It hasn't been addressed yet in literature. I expect the performance of it to be lower or near the conventional methods. I justify using it because it's outperforming in imagery tasks and it would open up the literature to a new method.
If I use K to solve this problem and get lower performance than conventional solutions Y, does that count as a proper PhD thesis?
In other words, to define a PhD topic, should I find the problem to solve or use a tool and see how it solves a problem?<issue_comment>username_1: Here are my couple of rules that worked for me, students and friends:
**What can you publish?**: Find an area/sub area first, not the specific topic until you have a publication. For example, I choose the area of code generation, I keep working on it and then when I'm collecting my thoughts and findings to write a publication, I need to put a title on it. That title of the paper becomes my title, lets say: a code generator for the domain of X. If I can't publish more then well that will be my PhD thesis title. However if I keep working on it and then come up with more publications then that would effect my title as well. You see what I'm trying to say here?
**Tools**: The rule of thumb is that research-based tools developed by researchers are not that good in general. Their quality of code is not that great, and if you put all of your eggs in their basket, then you are risking many things, like time, effort and so on. However, if the tool is developed in your research group so then you can trust it to some extent, because then you can talk to the creators if you hit a problem.
**Passion and Problem Not X and Problem**: Find a problem that you are passionate about, that you will work couple of years on it; so why not something that you like or love? You did your Bsc and Msc, what topic/problem made you mad? What problem you saw that you think you can solve? Finding an easy path to a problem ends in disaster. You will talk about your problem/solution to other researchers, don't be a lifeless researcher that just roams around and have no passion about his/her topic. Again, you see what I'm saying here?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: *The following answer/story is more to address the titular question, and the last line of the OP (free of the context of the rest of the post)...*
I once attended a talk by <NAME>. He had the following to say (which I recall from memory; these are not guaranteed to be his exact words) on the matter:
>
> My student had just recently finished solving a problem for his thesis. He was very excited to have found a new way to approach the problem that worked. He said to me,
>
>
> "Okay, now that I have these new tools, what can I solve with them?"
>
>
> To which I responded:
>
>
> "No, no, no! That's not how you do research. You don't pick up tools and then take them to a problem to solve with them. I mean, sometimes you can get lucky that way, so you can try it if you want. But that's not the smart way. What you do is, you pick up a problem and then you *invent* the tools you need to solve it.
>
>
>
*As far as the more specific question of the OP...*
Ultimately, this is something to discuss with your advisor. Expecting worse results is not likely to sound very appealing as a project idea, unless you can make a convincing argument that it will make some sort of improvement—be it computation time, memory consumption, cost to implement (maybe it can be run on data obtained by cheaper technology that other methods basically can't), or a basic proof of concept that could lead to more meaningful breakthroughs after suitable adjustments and investigation, etc. If you can do those now, your advisor may decide this could be a fruitful area of investigation.
Either way, talk it out and see what his opinion is, and if he knows if this actually has appeared in the literature before or not.
Upvotes: 3
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2016/03/17
| 950
| 4,285
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it ethical to withdraw a CS conference paper after being accepted, but before the final version is due (because of authorship disputes). What other consequences would there be (like re-submitting to other conferences if withdrawal is is successful)?<issue_comment>username_1: These sort of things do occur and are of valid concern. It would be best to withdraw your paper with a kind apology note to the conference committee. There is not an unethical conduct as your reason should be perfectly valid and you have no gain in this act.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: IMHO, withdrawing a paper is never a good practice, and this is much worse if you withdraw after acceptance. Indeed this means that you (and the co-authors) asked for a peer-review, several reviewer worked (for free) on your paper, then a committee accepted it, and at the end you decide to discard all this work.
Moreover, reviewers give you also some useful advices. If you decide to withdraw, then one can imagine that you will use those comments for improving the paper and (for instance) submit it to a journal or to another conference. And this would not be fair...
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: You should be extremely careful with this. It's possible in principle to have an authorship dispute in which everybody is behaving completely reasonably and ethically (and it's just a really delicate, borderline case), but generally this means someone is behaving badly. If you announce to the organizing committee that there's an authorship dispute without clarifying, it could give everyone involved a bad reputation.
It's also unclear how withdrawing will help you (since that won't resolve the dispute), unless there's a newly added author who just doesn't want to publish in this venue.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: If you are able to resolve the authorship dispute, then clearly that would be the best solution. On the other hand, if you are unable to resolve the dispute (at least on a timeline compatible with the conference's schedule), then not only is it ethical to withdraw the paper, but in fact **that would be the only ethical course of action**. Basically in this situation you have no reasonable choice and you simply *have* to withdraw the paper, which is why it is clearly ethical despite the fact that it means you will have wasted the time and effort of the organizing committee and reviewers.
With that said, even though withdrawing the paper is ethical, there may still be some hurt feelings and a small amount of loss of credibility on your and the other coauthors' part, so it is important to do all you can to minimize the damage by being as honest and transparent as you can about what happened and about your motivations. As username_3 points out, just telling the organizing committee that there's an authorship dispute might come across as a lame and possibly suspicious explanation. What I would do is make sure to include in my withdrawal email:
1. an apology;
2. a relatively detailed explanation of the nature of the dispute, which establishes the claim that withdrawing the paper is the only reasonable course of action open to you (if there are some highly sensitive or personal details, you can omit them, but try to provide as many details as possible to make your claim that you have to withdraw as credible as possible);
3. an apology! Specifically, acknowledge that you should have sorted out the authorship issue before submitting the paper and that you and the other authors are at fault for not taking proper care on this matter. Make it clear that you understand what went wrong and will be more careful in the future.
My feeling is that with the proper explanation, no one will bear you any hard feelings for creating this somewhat awkward situation -- reasonable people understand that these things can happen (as username_3 points out, in rare cases they can happen even when everyone is behaving reasonably and has the best of intentions). Your reputation will survive. In any case, letting the paper be published when there are unresolved issues surrounding authorship is almost certain to lead to a much bigger mess and much greater damage to the reputations of everyone involved.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2016/03/17
| 629
| 2,690
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<issue_start>username_0: I am thinking about a career in synthetic biology, but I am not sure what route should/needs to be taken. I don't want to do technician work--I want to be involved in the planning. Y'know, the exciting stuff. :)
[By 'planning' I mean things like, for example, looking at symptoms (assuming we are looking at a person), pinpointing underlying causes, designing a molecule that stimulates X, modifying it to avoid inadvertent binding to Y, etc]
I'm wondering whether I should go for a Master's or a PhD (or is a Bachelor's enough?)
It's a young field, so I'm having trouble finding this kind of information online. Any help would be much appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: From what I personally know, biology in general is a very competitive field.
Being involved in planning tasks always requires from its holder a deep insight and valuable experience in its field.
These two elements lead me to think that you will need at least a Master+some years of experience with demonstration of excellence, or a good PhD+some years of experience too, but PhD will already be a strong asset.
Either way you will need to practice some "technical work", it's an imperative in order to get to higher levels.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally speaking, if you wish to be involved in designing, proposing, and interpreting experiments, you need to be a PhD. (This isn't specific to synthetic biology.)
That's not a hard and fast rule. There are certainly Masters and Bachelors out there who will propose experiments and do analysis, and any organization worth their salt will consider intelligent proposals for experiments from technicians. However, a PhD is usually taken to be the sign that someone is capable of designing and executing an independent research program. -- In some respects, that's what a PhD degree *is*. It's a certification by your peers that you are able to intelligently propose and carry out an independent research plan that is sufficiently novel. *(Cue grumbling from older PhDs about the dumbing down of modern degree programs and lack of intellectual rigor these days.)*
So that's where the line is usually drawn. The PhDs design the experiments, and the Bachelors and Masters (and lower-ranking PhDs) carry them out. The Bachelors and Masters may do some routine post-analysis, but ultimately they hand the results back to the PhDs to interpret and plan the next round of experiments. It's not that you can't find positions where Bachelors or Masters are significantly involved in planning and analysis, it's just that if you want your primary responsibility to be planning, you should probably shoot for a PhD.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/17
| 683
| 2,975
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<issue_start>username_0: I had emailed a professor for a summer internship opportunity. He had accepted me and aksed me write a proposal for applying through a fellowship.
I replied back putting down some points for my proposal. I got no reply from his side. I emailed him again after 2 days and continued to do so for the next 3 weeks. Afterwards, due to no response, I believed he was not interested in me due to no email response and stopped mailing.
But now, after the deadline is over, I found out from another source that he was not happy with my behaviour for not applying for the fellowship.
How do I convince him that this was a honest mistake and I did not intend to be rude and am still interested in working under his guidance?<issue_comment>username_1: I was in worst than this situation which was solved by meeting the person or people involved. So:
**Request a Meeting**: First thing, request a meeting from the professor and see if he/she accept your apology during the meeting.
**Moving on**: Lets say the professor in the question still doesn't want to work with you. Then, you need to move on and don't get in the apology cycle forever. Keep another professor from the same or other university and move on.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Agree with Dave, as supervisor/student relationship is like a marriage, communication is essential for it to remain healthy.
However also note that, since you have emailed him quite a number of times and he never responded with any feedback, he did not want to help you, and hence he might not be the kind of person you want to work with. There is nothing worse than a bad supervisor in academia.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Why is it your mistake, honest or otherwise, if he never responded to ten or so emails? If he didn't feel like he should give you advice, then the professional thing to do is respond to your emails and tell you so. It sounds to me like you bent over backwards to establish communication with this guy, and he somehow failed to hold up his end. So, you might think about turning this around. I don't know why you would be interested in working under his guidance if his behavior raises some questions about his character--he does seem to be willing to make negative comments about you behind your back to another source.
I would first establish whether you might have sent the emails to the wrong address (probably not), or that whether he might have not gotten them for some reason. You might call him and ask. If he says he got them, you might ask him why he didn't respond and see what he says for himself.
I suggest that you keep in mind that you are the one paying the bill, not him. Perhaps you are better served to find someone else to work with, especially if you don't like his response to your attempt to find out why he didn't respond to your emails. You don't need to spend your money working with someone who is going to make you miserable.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/17
| 775
| 3,158
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<issue_start>username_0: Here is my story.
I was accepted to top-30 world university to MS in Electrical Engineering(EE) progaram. In total I already have 3 degrees: MS in EE (GPA:4.0/4.0), BS in EE(GPA:3.9/4.0), and Bachelor in Economics(GPA:3.8/4.0).
In my application I misunderstood instructions, which wanted me to list "all universities attended". As far as all my degrees were from one single university I though that I was not obliged to enter all of them, because formally I did list "all universities" by mentioning at least one of those degrees. That is why I decided not to enter "irrelevant" Bachelor in Economics degree and entered only BS in EE and MS in EE degrees.
After few months I was successfully accepted to the degree program I had applied to.
But after talking to some other applicants I understood that in application form they wanted me to enter not "all universities" but rather all degree programs attended. So I believe that I should have listed that economics degree as well.
Apparently, concealing this degree didn't give me any benefits during admission, but most likely even might have "downgraded" my application to some extent. So I unintentionally presented myself to be worse that I am in reality.
What do you think I need to do? If I contact admission office I can end up being rejected and I cannot risk that much.
On the other hand, If I enroll and then they disclose this fact what they most likely will do?<issue_comment>username_1: It's something that you should disclose, and is potentially quite serious. In undergraduate admissions, at least, most colleges try to ascertain not just whether or not the applicant is *qualified*, but also whether they would be *benefit* from attending the program. Thus you may actually have received a benefit by failing to disclose your full educational history.
I can't give any advice as to what to do, it is entirely possible that this may jeopardize your admittance status regardless of what you do, however my guess is that it will be judged more harshly if it is discovered rather than disclosed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd leave it alone, or disclose to your department, not the admissions office.
First, You got all your degrees at one university. Presumably, the school you applied to was sent an official transcript, and that transcript would show all the degrees conferred by that school. They have the info.
Second, the odd part about your application package is the MS in EE, given that you're applying for a second MS in EE. Your new department knows this. They wouldn't even bat an eye at the second BS. Dual BS's are fairly common, and it wouldn't be a negative in your package.
Lastly, you gave them what they asked for, which was all universities you attended. You followed their instructions to the letter.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If still relevant: call the hotline or support at the university you want to go and ask the exact meaning of the question without giving your name.
This way, you will find out how they react without risking anything.
You can then decide on this information.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/17
| 671
| 2,442
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing an introduction section, which says "this is an important question but currently there is few (or little?) literature available".
Which one should I use, few or little?
Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: They both sound strange. I would personally say "limited literature" instead.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: [*Little literature*](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=) is common. You could also say "there is a [paucity of literature](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=) on this problem"; "the literature on this problem is
[*scarce*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=),
[*sparse*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=), or
[*still in its infancy!*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=)"; or as @AliJamali and @paulgarret suggested, [*limited*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=) or [*scant*](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=) literature.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It depends on your context, I have heard all three, "Few", "little" and "limited". For your case as suggested by somebody "limited" would be more appropriate. Now, where to use 'few', suppose if you are talking in context of large sample size and out of that few has what you want then use few. E.g. "There are few journals which provides free access."
Now, 'little' If you do not want to consider sample size or considering sample size is not appropriate. E.g. "There is very little information available on that topic." Here number of sources of that information is not that much significant as information itself is very little in all available sources combined.
**So, use 'few' when you want to express *Number/Counting* and use 'little' when you want to express *Amount*.**
little and limited has somewhat similarity, so you can use either one.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: "Research" and "literature" are a mass nouns (i.e., it's like water; it's not countable). "Studies", "Papers", "Publications", and "Researchers" are all countable nouns. The choice of adjective depends on whether it precedes a mass or a countable noun.
* "few": this is suitable for countable nouns but not for mass nouns
* "little": to my ear, this is not quite the right adjective to describe the amount of "literature";
Examples of acceptable phrases
* Few studies have ...
* Few researchers have ...
* There is limited literature on ...
* There is limited research on ...
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/17
| 1,695
| 7,181
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently in an anatomy class and had an issue. I and three other students worked on an 18 page packet together. We had the same answers since we worked on it as a group.
However, two of us received a 35/50, one of us had a 50/50 and the other had a 30/50. When we asked the teacher why we got different grades, we were scolded for sharing grades with each other and told we were not allowed to.
I can't seem to find this anywhere in our welcome packet or any paperwork and I was wondering, are we really not allowed to tell other students our own grades?<issue_comment>username_1: I have a lifetime of experience in academia in the US, and in all of my experience your instructor's claim is completely without merit. There is no regulation or cultural norm that requires students to keep their grades confidential from other students. Moreover, comparing assignments or exams for learning purposes and/or to confirm that the grades have been assigned fairly is a very common practice among American students: at any American institution I would assume students have a "right" to do so unless given explicit information to the contrary.
So, bottom line: there is a very good chance that what the instructor has told you is bogus. What should you do about it? I would begin by politely asking your instructor whether there is any written confidentiality agreement that you are subject to. If he says yes: good to know! If he says no: I would seek aid from someone at your institution. Good places to start are (i) your faculty advisor or (ii) your student ombudsperson. Eventually you may want to speak to the department head and/or the relevant dean, but I would proceed carefully and get as much advice as possible rather than escalate too quickly. It is very likely that you are in the right here, as others should recognize without your needing to press too hard or further antagonize your instructor. (Someone at an American institution who says this to a student is likely to be well towards the "unreasonable" end of the spectrum, so I would try not to hand them an excuse to retaliate against you.)
Good luck.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know of any university in the U.S. that does not allow students to share grades. I would not worry about sharing grades. No university in the U.S. (or probably anywhere) would make such a stupid, unenforceable rule.
**What to do next assignment**
While its not unethical, don't continue to let the prof or his TAs know you're sharing grades. When you have questions about grading next time ask.
>
> Could you explain what changes I would have to make to receive full credit. I'm not asking for a re-submission, I just want to know the best way to answer the questions next time.
>
>
>
Also, if this grade is the difference between pass/fail for you, you can usually contest the grade, and use the other grades as proof. Be warned though, doing this is likely to cause retaliatory behavior from the prof (which would be unethical). This is the nuclear option, so use it as a last resort.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There may be absurd non-disclosure agreements who-knows-where, but I would consider such a ban a violation of my rights. This raises the suspicion that they have a problem with marking consistency and wish this not to be exposed.
However, it may be that your submissions are indeed of varying quality, despite you having worked together, so be prepared for a response, but a response you deserve.
Finally, take into account that they might cite you for collusion if you insist on a very similar submission quality.
As for the comparison with salary, this is quite a different issue: different people may negotiate different salaries for similar work and that may be considered part of the skill gradient of the worker/employer coupling; introducing a comparison may, however, damage work relations; some countries, however, have transparency, so the attitude to this is country-dependent. Whereas marks are supposed to focus exclusively on the quality of the particular work, everywhere in the world, at least in principle.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: That sounds absolutely absurd.
If you are banned from sharing the grades, checks on legitimacy of the academic system, teacher, class can't be confirmed.
Sharing grades in my view is one of the most fundamental checks and rights of a student by any common sense.
If it is banned legally in your specific case I highly doubt but yeah i can't really comment on that I'd say.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Working in higher ed, I'd have to say this comes off as a professor who either is doing lazy grading (unfortunately common), or who's letting their opinion of the students affect their grading, even if unconsciously.
To the issue of saying you can't inform other students of your grades; that is completely false. I have never heard of an institution having this policy. Perhaps mention to the professor that you do not believe this is a policy of the school, and if they continue to insist on it speak with your advisor or possibly that department head depending on who you're closer to (I know that at my university I worked much more closely with my major's dept. head than my academic advisor).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Just wanted to throw in my .02:
Whether your professor is correct depends on two things:
1) As others have stated, college/university policy.
2) The legality of said policy. In the United States, any attempt by a public college to regulate the speech of its students is technically illegal, as such colleges are government entities. Private colleges are another matter.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: I would have to point out that grading is not and never will be entirely fair. I understand that this goes against the generally accepted truth, that grades are or should be entirely objective.
They can not really be. There are so many factors at play. For example: I made a few tests about this and secretly submitted two, as near as possible, identical exam answers on several occasions(I was in a position to arrange this and neither actually gave anybody a real mark just to test). The only difference in these papers was the style of the handwriting. I would expect there to be a fluctuation. But the fluctuation is about twice as large as I expect when I use a good handwritten style versus a poorer one.
Simply everything matters making some statement even slightly different can lead the grader to wonder about whether it is the right answer.
But in general because of this I am always open for a discussion on the grade. And it seems weird that you couldn't compare, in fact it is in students interests to do so. It is not possible to be infallible. So I expect people to come forward with these things, but in general they do not.
Anyway, the 30-35 difference sounds well within error margins and the 50 sounds like an error to me. Are you really interested in dropping the grade of the wrongly marked one? Most likely in this case the end result is the same as now as the damage is minimal.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/17
| 833
| 3,633
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<issue_start>username_0: I came across the question "[Attitudes towards self-plagiarism](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2893/attitudes-towards-self-plagiarism)" on this site, which asks whether it is OK to reuse text from your own papers without quotation formatting. It seems the answer is no. I didn't know this and I have in fact done this in the past, before I even heard the term "[self-plagiarism](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/self-plagiarism)."
Here is the precise situation: I wrote and published paper A. Then I kept working in the same area and I extended the results, so I decided to write paper B two years later. When writing paper B, I started by taking paper A and editing it. Consequently, much of the text in paper B is directly copied from paper A. In particular, many paragraphs in the introduction, related work, and background sections are either identical or lightly edited. There is no indication which sentences are copied and which are not.
Of course, paper B clearly explains the difference between the *results* of paper B and the *results* of paper A. In particular, paper B solves an open problem posed in paper A. As far as *content* goes, there is no problem, in the sense that, if I had rewritten the copied parts, there would be no problem.
When I did this, I didn't know it was considered bad practise. I figured that, since the motivation, related work, and background for both papers is essentially the same, there was no point in writing paper B from scratch, given that paper A had already covered these things.
What should I do about this (if anything)? I don't think I did anything malicious, but it seems this is not acceptable.<issue_comment>username_1: In paper B, if you cited paper A, the paper from which the major content of paper B is from, then your act would not completely be pictured as *self-plagiarism*. This is because plagiarism is an act of inclusion of matter without attributing the original source.
There is also another case of duplicate publication, which also doesn't apply to your condition as you stated that you've improved the method and differentiated the results.
Final verdict: Provide the methods and results are clearly differentiated, **there is no need to worry**. You haven't done anything seriously unethical to be concerned too much about. If this still bothers you, then you may suggest for a revision of your paper to the publisher of paper B to make necessary changes in the related work and background section.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This following response is highly personal and does not claim universality: it is my personal 2 cents, and my opinion is that your approach sounds perfectly fine. You do not claim other people's results as your own and you do not claim previous results of yours as novel.
I do not know where this fashion that one has to rewrite everything from scratch comes from, even unchanged aspects in a new paper. Perhaps it comes from humanities where language and formulation is central. But in technical topics it does - in my personal opinion - not really make sense to reformulate obvious intro sections; as little as it makes sense to rewrite code for which there is a library.
Personally, I like to rewrite even intro material sections because I do not like to bore my readers that have read other papers of mine, and also I sometimes discover novel aspects just by writing. However, as long as above conditions of 1. attribution and 2. clearly delineated novelty are fulfilled, I would not join in a negative judgement about repeated sections.
Upvotes: 3
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2016/03/17
| 620
| 2,632
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a sophomore student building some software with friends that are heavily based on various articles about distributed hash tables, networking, and various topological mathematical concepts. Since we do plan to sell it after completion, we are worried about potential legal obligations of citing our sources (from different scientific journals)
If we cite some professor, will they be entitled to all our work, perhaps even lay claim to profits and or have the right to sue for copyright infringement? Obviously, I am not asking for the nitty gritty details, but a general rule of thumb.
Is copying theories from scientific journals a big bad idea. Or is it "public knowledge" kind of and I have nothing to fear.
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Summary
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*Does citing scientific sources for your program entitle the researchers to some intellectual property? Am I legally bound to them as if I were to a Lady Gaga if I used one of her songs in my videos?*<issue_comment>username_1: The *knowledge* in the articles is for all to use, what you can't do is to copy text. There is a fine line if the article contains e.g. code listings and you use a fragment, or if you take pseudocode and rewrite it in your favorite programming language, that *might* be a copyright violation. I very much doubt they'd go after you, in any case.
I'd say that citing the articles is very good practice, somebody (even yourself in a year or so!) trying to understand the code later will thank you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In Europe, theoretical ideas, algorithms or mathematical theories cannot be patented, only "engineered methods" (whatever that means - note MP3 was patented, but common sense indicate that this was, despite being an algorithm, a heavy engineering effort rather than a mathematical insight). So, in Europe, you can, in principle, use ideas from papers in Europe and develop your software based on that. I am not a lawyer, though, so in any case of doubt, details should be checked by a professional.
In the US, it's more difficult. Software can be patented, and possibly some theoretical concepts, too (not in principle, but in practice it happens). The patents then may be tested in court.
If there is no patent of that kind, you should be able to use it without repercussion and citing is very highly regarded in this case (after all, others might consider use of the idea without revealing it, namely treating it as a trade secret). However, you could use your decision to be open about the method to your advantage by making your high ethical standard define your brand.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/17
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m a math PhD student in a university in Europe, working in a highly abstract field. I’m halfway through the intended three years. But I have the feeling I’m not doing it right.
When I look back, two years ago I knew almost anything of the theory I’m working in. So from that point of view, it’s reassuring. But I am still learning. My supervisor has given me a problem which is not very definite or well-defined: I have to abstract some structure from some old, classical scenario and try to update it to some more modern objects, in hopes of gaining insight and computability.
This has proven a bit formidable to me, even if he said it shouldn't "take me more than some weeks". After trying the “hands-on” approach my supervisor had some months ago, I got to realize that it wouldn't work, at least not naively. So I started thinking of an easier case, and then the problem started to divert and I feel like I’m on very loose ground now.
The situation is the following: my supervisor has a very computational approach to math, whereas I err on the conceptual, abstract side. So when I started getting farther away from his line of thought, he progressively stopped being helpful to me, to the point where in our meetings I usually tell him what I have thought of or learnt, he nods, sometimes gives me an idea, but most of the times he just doesn’t help me. And the main problem is, I think, he doesn’t think about my problems at all outside of our short meetings (even when our meetings end up with a very well-defined, specific question from me). So it’s all up to me and I feel inept and insecure, especially because I try to apply stuff I learn on my own, stuff my supervisor doesn't really know, many times.
I also think that I’m thinking -too- conceptually, I think much more by analogy than by computation, but since I’m a beginner I don’t know if I’m really thinking about the objects like I should, but my supervisor doesn’t speak to me much so I’m confronting articles, books, monographs by myself. I have learned much more by myself than from him. It's been a long while since he's tried to transfer some knowledge to me (as I said, our meetings consist mostly of me showing my current problems). Honestly, I feel like I'm doing my PhD unsupervised, and I'm scared to be leading my mathematical thoughts into unfertile regions.
My question is: how can I know that I’m working through my PhD correctly? I feel aimless, and moreover for the moment I feel like I’m just juggling with other people’s knowledge. I keep incorporating knowledge that I try to juggle. To put it differently, I feel like I’m collecting by myself pieces of a puzzle, and I’m just putting them together, without creating any pieces. I’m just picking up other people’s fruits. I feel like whatever result I might end up converging to will be just a trivial consequence of some stuff done by others. When I read articles, I many times skip the proofs, and I feel like I know many things at a “moral” level. I really don’t have the time to go through the technicalities, and at the same time, they look so daunting! I always skip the hardest parts, stacking them into “black boxes”.
I have read other posts about the “impostor’s syndrome”. I certainly suffer from this and other related issues, but this question is not about coping with the issue “how not to feel worthless”, but rather “how can I be sure that I’m doing this right?”. I feel like this will just go on and it just doesn’t feel like anything will come out of my struggling. Am I wrong?
I am a hard worker and I have had good results getting here (as in, grades, scholarships, etc.). I have managed to learn a lot of different math successfully. I have a very good memory and an uncanny ability to find references, which is what my impostor’s syndrome tells me it’s what has been saving me; I feel like I am a good bibliothecologist, a good organizer, a good cleaner, but that doesn’t imply I’m a good creator; I have given no signs of being able to -create- anything. How should I cope with this?<issue_comment>username_1: This we can't really answer, without a truckload of information on your particular situation. Which we wouldn't read if we had it, anyway.
You should talk this through with your advisor, trusted faculty, fellow graduate students. Preferably all of the above.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> My question is: how can I be know that I’m working through my PhD correctly?
>
>
>
Well, you can't as you haven't done it before, but in some sense you can never truly know anything, if that makes you feel better. In any case, there's no "right way" to do a PhD. Research is by nature a process where you wander into unknown territory, and at first you have no maps or guideposts. Then maybe you find what you are looking for, and maybe you don't, but as some measure of reassurance:
* After wandering around long enough, you can usually discover something new. Many times it may just be a different point of view or minor results, but at least you have understood something new. Still, usually when you spend a long time on a project you can get something publishable out of it in my experience.
Here are some other points regarding other things in your post:
* Many PhD advisors are very hands-off. It's also natural that they become less helpful as you go beyond the bounds of their expertise. However, it's probably not great if your advisor is thinks what you're doing is uninteresting. (I don't know if this is the case or not.) It's probably worthwhile to have a meta-research talk with him, including whether he thinks it's worthwhile to continue along these lines or consider a different approach.
* If you go out of the realm of your advisor's expertise, it might make sense to try talking to an expert who can give you better feedback. Conferences are one good opportunity for this.
* No professional mathematician has time to understand all or even most papers of interest to them. You need to learn to prioritize, which it sounds like you're already doing.
* You actually don't have to be that creative to do new things, or have too many new ideas, or be successful in research. Many PhD theses boil down to learning a bunch of stuff and then doing computations. This does not mean they are bad--many of them are very good. It's also hard to be creative before you reach a certain level of understanding, so you may not realizes your creativity till later, at which point you will almost invariably think, "How did it take me so long to come up with that? That's so simple."
* Organizational skills are not so separate from creativity. Many times problems can be understood easily after organizing your thoughts about them in the right way. This was part of the Grothendieck philosophy, and I doubt many mathematicians criticized Grothendieck for not being creative enough.
* While research can be frustrating and disheartening, you should generally enjoy learning and thinking about math, otherwise a PhD or academic track is not for you. Most people have good times and hard times with research. This is natural. I view one of my most important duties as an advisor is to encourage my students to help them get through the hard times.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: My simple answer to your complex question is try to publish papers before hand. The reviews give you a good understanding of what is required, and also the publications can make your viva effectively a formality.
Upvotes: -1
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2016/03/18
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<issue_start>username_0: My university subscribes to various online journals. Sometimes I print off articles that I know I will read over and over again. (I'm all for saving paper, but some things I do prefer reading on paper. I print on recycled paper and I bind the articles, so they will last a lifetime.)
Now I tried to print an article from *Advances in Mathematics* (published by Elsevier) and it took me a while to figure out why part of the text was blurry: The PDF has seemingly random snippets that are not black (#000000), but in a dark grey (#231F20). On screen the difference is hardly noticeable
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QWDRC.png)
especially if it is text:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/my68J.png)
However, when trying to print it, the printer is trying to make it *less than black*, which results in blurry text:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5CJVI.png)
As most other publishers manage to produce pure black PDFs, I must assume that this is intentional (it's not just "all italic text" or "all math mode symbols", the colour changes mid-sentence). The question is just *why*?
I doubt that this is an anti-piracy measure: surely there must be a less intrusive way of marking a PDF file digitally to record the IP from which a particular copy was downloaded. (Some journals add text like "downloaded from [this IP], [university name]", which I don't like, but at least the text itself is not blurry.)
I also doubt that it is to promote their offprint sales: Elsevier [sells offprints of their articles](http://webshop.elsevier.com/myarticleservices/offprints/), but *only* 25 copies or more and *only* to the original authors of the article (or someone acting on their behalf). In other words, it's not to "encourage" me to buy "quality" offprints of a single article of which I am not the author.
(Of course, it can't be to encourage purchasing of physical volumes/issues of the journal. It is entirely unreasonable to assume that researchers buy an actual volume/issue of the journal just for one article, if only because a single issue contains so many unrelated articles and researchers typically live in small offices.)
**What benefit do publishers have from mutilating their PDF files?**
Making a printable (= pure black) PDF would also have benefits: I'd be convinced that Elsevier is a great publishing company, publishing high-quality research papers in a good format for everyone's benefit and, as an author, would be more likely to consider publishing in *Advances in Mathematics*.
This also makes me wonder:
1. Just to check, I am allowed to print PDF files (for use in research) of online journals, right?
2. Am I allowed to open the PDF in some other software, modifying the file so that it prints in pure black?
3. Am I allowed to use another method of getting a pure black printout of the PDF (e.g. by loading a special printer colour profile that treats the dark grey as black¹)?
¹ Unfortunately, I haven't found out if this is actually possible.
*Note.* I have not tried to investigate this issue systematically, but I observed this in 3 articles from *Advances in Mathematics* (Elsevier) from around 2005–2006.<issue_comment>username_1: This often happens when a document uses the CMYK color space and the black is set as (0,0,0,100).
When you go print in a monochrome environment, the document's color information is converted to grayscale first. Because black ink on white paper can't actually create gray, a [halftoning](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone) process is applied, where the shades of gray are hinted at by using a circular-like pattern.
Because CMYK (0,0,0,100) black isn't seen as being [as black as it gets](http://www.bittbox.com/all/photoshop-101-true-black-cmyk), in the conversion process, it gets turned into something more like 90% dark gray, and the halftone pattern appears.
Probably somewhere along the production process, someone got their blacks mixed up, and if it's consistent with all their PDFs it could be in the scripted part of the process, there's an issue either between color spaces (CMYK vs RGB) or a conflict between the source documents and the imported parts.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It may be deliberate redistribution control. I recently did work on an eLearning system for a university where the content provider wanted visible per-student watermarking as part of the licensing process. Given the permissible tools (maintenance overhead), document sizes, and the number of students, it wasn't possible to produce a workable solution (too resource intensive when on-demand, too storage intensive to pre-calculate).
In your case, the publisher may be using an old technique for protecting against a lecturer printing one copy, then photocopying (which historically was faster than multiple prints and enjoyed analogue degradation). That's reminiscent of some copy protection mechanisms used in the 8-bit home computer/monochrome copier days, which would need a word typed in from a printed manual. By chosing colours that had very close luminance values, a photocopy became fairly useless making pirated software useless.
Individual academics and their supply chain can be slow to update their thinking - and indeed, since mutual trust is largely respected (both parties trading on reputation), there's no real driver either.
It's equally possible that some of the source material for the PDF came from a low-quality scan of typed or printed materials (or a high-quality scan of a low-quality source).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: If the text is changing fonts mid sentence it's more likely to be deliberate. You could convert the PDF to PostScript and then look at it in a text editor to see if there's a systematic and unnecessary change in the font where you are seeing this issue.
If it is deliberate, I can think of why. Elsevier may be wanting to track down those leaking their credentials to sci-hub to shut them down <http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/the-research-pirates-of-the-dark-web/461829/>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: guifa is correct in their analysis of why this happens, but I would like to note that there is often an easy fix available once you know what is going on and so long as the PDF is saved as text rather than as a scanned image.
When you go to print from the PDF, click Properties from the Print menu, and on the advanced tab hopefully you'll see something like this:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/PxAbk.png)
Under your printer you'll hopefully see Document Options -> Printer Features. If so, you may have a "Print All Text as Black" option (hopefully you do), and this is Disabled by default. Turn it to Enabled and try printing an example of the dotty-page you were getting before.
If the page is actually text and not just a scanned image, you will now hopefully enjoy a print of pure monochrome, crisp black text. This problem is quite common especially with older monochrome laser printers, as they attempted to accurately print the "less than 100% pure black" using the only tool it had available - black toner. With this option enabled your smarter monochrome printers will understand that you don't want an accurate portrayal of the text - you want a readable one!
This option will cause a problem for text effects that use a gradient, but honestly outside of the print-proofing world I've always turned this feature to on by default to produce nicer text prints.
Upvotes: 5
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2016/03/18
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<issue_start>username_0: I was asked to serve as a reviewer in a peer-review process. I remarked some issues and suggested a minor revision to the editor. Now I received the revision back and generally think the authors did a good job revising the manuscript. The field is psychology.
There is one issue that I was not sure about. That is, the authors changed their hypotheses between drafts. This has something to do with the way they treated their data. In the first draft, the experiment provided data from two instruments (very similar instruments) and were analysed separately. Hypotheses were formulated separately for the two instruments.
Now, in the 2nd draft the instruments were combined and the data treated as coming from one instrument. Hypotheses were adapted to these new circumstances, but also were partly contradictory to previous hypotheses because then, the authors expected some differential results from the two instruments.
I am not sure how to judge this. Is this a big issue or just a minor thing? Why is it an issue at all? I have a feeling that this not too uncommon in my field (psychology), I mean to treat hypothesis testing somewhat lax. I believe that in grad school I learned that hypotheses have to be stated before conducting the experiment and cannot change. But I was googling a little about this topic and did not find anything that would indicate that post-hoc hypotheses are a bad thing.<issue_comment>username_1: There is substantial divergence between fields and individuals to what extend twiddling with the original hypotheses post-hoc should be tolerated. Defensible positions range from *"it's not a big deal if the experiment / write-up still makes sense with the new hypothesis"* to *"hypotheses shall never be changed"*. Only you can tell what your and your field's methodological stance on this is.
As Boris says, the main issue to avoid is "p-value hacking". That is, it should not be that the authors decide that whatever they find support in their data is redefined to have been their hypothesis all along - while *exploratory research* per se is not bad, it is distinctly different from hypothesis-driven research and should methodologically not be sold as such. You will need to evaluate whether this has happened for your manuscript. If the answer is "yes", this is certainly grounds for rejection.
However, from your explanation, it sounds to me like the authors did more of a technical refinement of their hypothesis, without changing the nature of it. If that is true, it sounds somewhat nit-picky to reject a paper on this grounds. I tend to be of the opinion that methodology should be considered a means to an end, not a strict rulebook that needs to be followed to the letter even if there appears to be no reason for some of its details in a specific case.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes! This is statistically a problem, regardless of whether it is accepted in your field or not. If it is accepted in your field, then perhaps reflect on what that means for your field. At a minimum, the authors should accurately describe their two different groups, the two different instruments, and then argue why they can be treated the same instead of omitting this from the reader.
Consider the following thought experiment: Suppose you randomly select two groups of people, and call them the "control" and "experimental" group. Then you apply the *same* treatment to both groups, for example, giving them both sugar pills. You collect a bunch of health data- blood pressure, weight, height, changes in all of the above, etc.
Due to the nature of probability, *you will always measure some effect between two groups*. We know, intellectually, that there is no difference between the control and experimental group. But, sometimes the measured effect will be large, which is also due to the nature of probability, even though the two groups have no reason to be different. Sometimes that measured effect will be large enough to pass a statistical significance test, like a p-value test, even though there's no actual reason for the two groups to be different.
***Post-hoc analysis is dangerous because you don't actually know why a statistical difference exists.*** Maybe there is a real correlation, maybe your specific data set just looks that way. For example, maybe your data set shows that the control and experimental groups have a statistically significant difference in their heights. Well, any researcher will throw that out because obviously the treatment cannot possibly effect their height before they came into the study. However, maybe your data set shows that your experimental group had a statistically significant drop in blood pressure over the experiment- Eureka! right? Not really- those two conclusions are equally valid, scientifically. Maybe the blood pressure effect is real, maybe it isn't. You don't know.
If we allow post-hoc analyses, then I go back and change the title of my paper from "I literally treat my control and experimental groups identically." to "Landmark study finds convenient and cheap treatment for high blood pressure." I rack up some great grant funding and continue conducting low-effort, meaningless science with great optics.
This is also called [data dredging](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_dredging).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The more hypotheses you have, the less power your evidence has to reject wrong hypotheses. This is a very big issue for science in general. It is probably a very minor issue for this paper in particular, but it depends on the paper.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/18
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<issue_start>username_0: This question is in part related to [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24285/what-does-it-mean-if-a-professor-does-not-answer-your-email-in-time) question and [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9542/is-ignoring-emails-acceptable-in-academia) one. In my case, I’m part of a double-degree Master’s programme¹, and am having a lot of difficulties at my German exit university. There are two coordinators/supervisors:
1. one that handles more of the organizational aspects of studies (recommends courses, seminars, internships, thesis topics, etc.);
2. one that takes care of all matters concerning thesis work.
Both have been incredibly unprofessional; because of the first, I was the only student who:
* was not paid for his contributions while working on the thesis, the others enrolled at the same university and company (we have to develop our thesis project in an “outside” company)
* due to some bogus reason, which was not made entirely clear, had to retake a seminar while working on the thesis even though it has been passed. The main issue was that I had to commute from the company to the university in order to participate in it.
Other aspects include:
* I have to deal with inconveniences such as being called to the coordinator’s office for meetings scheduled by him, that he would not show up at (this can become incredibly infuriating after a while). When contacted, he mentioned that he was on a trip for two weeks.
* Extreme favoritism towards other students. There were students who did not finish their thesis, but “graduated” nevertheless.
* Very, very high unresponsiveness to e-mail messages (I always keep them short and to the point – usually between 5 and 10 sentences).
* Toxic attitude; when confronted with the situation, the coordinator mentioned that he doesn’t care. I stated that, because of him and his thesis recommendation I had lost little over 23000$ (the amount that the other students earned during the more than one year period of study/thesis work at the company) and a few months of my time. He again mentioned that he doesn’t care.
What would be the most preferable course of action to take?
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¹ The first year of my Master’s studies is spent at one university while the second at another. The second university is the one at which I’m working on my thesis. The double degree means that I will get a degree from both universities, when I graduate at my current university.<issue_comment>username_1: In my limited experience this is the BS many have to deal with in academia, which is the main reason why doing a PhD made me change my mind about working in academia.
Universities are a place where bureaucracy thrives, however this can be to your advantage, when it comes to complaints procedures, which are taken very seriously (usually).
Find out the university's official complaint procedure (usually two stages, first stage is dealt by the school and if issues continue you may raise it to university level, at which point the supervisor, if at fault, will be dealt with in a biblical format ;).)
Make an official complaint, provide all of the evidence required (including emails unanswered), and it should be dealt with withing a couple of months.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Without further details, I see essentially three courses of action:
1. Talk to your student union (Fachschaft). They are much more familiar with your circumstances and should know the organisational structures and know where written rules were broken. They can escalate things for you (and keep you anonymous as far as possible) or at least give you better advice than we can.
2. Escalate your situation to someone superior to your supervisor or coordinator – which would probably either be a superior program coordinator, a department head (Fachgruppenvorsitzender) or dean (Dekan).
3. >
> extreme favoritism towards other students. There were students who did not finish their thesis, but "graduated" nevertheless
>
>
>
If this part is true, it can likely be blown up on its own. If somebody graduated and no proper thesis can be found, this is very bad for whoever graduated them. An investigation of such cases alone might lead to your supervisor and coordinator being much more careful about what they do.
In all cases, be aware of the possibility that taking action might lead to repercussions. In particular, the superiors of those people may be equally unconcerned about these issues. The student union should be more safe and the first you should contact anyway.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/18
| 364
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<issue_start>username_0: I have published a paper earlier in a journal and would like to submit a continuation of research paper to build on the earlier paper's results. I was wondering how is the second paper identified as a follow up of the original.
Also, I have changed my name since (same co-authors), do I have to indicate this?
**Details**
The first paper contained a series of experimental and modelling results for a pure system, and the new paper will contain experimental and modelling results of non-pure versions of the original system.<issue_comment>username_1: If it builds on previous results, just cite that normally. You might want to link them by the title, but that isn't required.
It will be accepted for publication if it is significant enough. You might also consider publishing it elsewhere, if the outlook warrants it.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I assume you would cite your earlier paper somewhere in the introduction of the new paper. You could write something like this:
Recently, we (Author1, Author2, & Author3, 2016) presented a series of experimental and modelling results for a pure system. With the current paper, we would like to extend ...
Alternatively, a footnote may be appropiate to indicate that the first authors are the same.
Also, see this publication on the topic of name changes in academia: [The Ripple Effect of Women's Name Changes](http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=refinst_pubs)
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/18
| 1,272
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to know particularly how is regarded in a scientific community since it is not peer reviewed.
>
> It should be noted patents do not go through similar peer review as journal publications. Of course, this is slightly depending on whatever requirements patent laws in a specific country put on the claims put forward bu the patentee. But no country really requires another researcher to scrutinize the claims made by a patent at the point of filing it, like a publication does.
> There are patents of cars that run on water, fusion-powered space craft etc.etc, ie. things that do not work. So as a reference a patent is definitely a weaker source, especially if it is not something someone is using/selling yet.
>
>
>
Is it allowed to publish patent and then paper?<issue_comment>username_1: A patent is a legal document written by lawyers trying to say as little as possible while protecting an idea. Peer reviewed papers are trying to inform people and say as much as possible about an idea.
one makes you money, the other one keeps you a poor academic.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You're asking multiple questions at once, so let's start with:
>
> What are the differences between a research paper and a patent
>
>
>
There are many, but briefly a research paper has the purpose of communicating research findings to the relevant scientific community and the general public. Patents are legal documents used to prevent other people from commercializing the process or devices they describe. Research papers typically report **results** of a scientific process, whether experimental or not, while patents describe processes and devices along with their respective intended **applications**.
Patents are typically very open-ended, not unlike a very long "future works"-section of an academic paper. The strategy is to cover a maximum of possible usages for the technology.
>
> it is not peer reviewed
>
>
>
That is correct, peer review is a strategy used by researchers to filter, improve, and curate scientific literature. For patents, the review is driven by the legal requirements only. A major point is absence of overlap with existing patents and other publicly available material\*. In some regions, a minimal demonstration of how the process/device works is expected by patent offices, but it's not the same as peer review.
>
> Is it allowed to publish patent and then paper?
>
>
>
Yes, it's the other way that's problematic because as stated above, if you (or someone else) published a paper about your process or device you cannot patent it anymore.
Most journals are interested in novel results and all (legitimate) journals don't want to re-publish existing literature but the fact that the processes are patented is not an issue. As stated in my first paragraph, both documents should have very little overlap.
---
\*On that subject, see the entertaining if not entirely historically accurate
[Donald Duck as prior art case](http://www.iusmentis.com/patents/priorart/donaldduck/)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: A patent is a paper that describes an invention. When the patent is accepted, the invention is protected to the extend of the made claims. This means that you can sue people for replicating your invention into their product, within the scope of your patent.
The deal of patents is you get exclusivity in exchange of detailed public disclosure of the invention, which become free to be exploited after a certain period of time (namely 20 years?)
Research paper on the other hand, aim to disclose a finding regardless of any application. Its main focus is results of some experiment, which may or may not include products, inventions or applications of any type.
The peer-review makes for more credibility to the content of the publication.
Making a publication after a patent should be possible, on the other end the opposite is not. While filling a patent, the invention must not have been already disclosed. Otherwise it is considered prior-art.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Patents and publications are completely different in several regards.
Technically each patent has to be a solution to a given problem in the form of an application. You cannot patent ideas such as for example the idea of using electric engines in a car, which is not elligible to be patented unless you have the exact implementation. Only this specific implementation will be protected.
Many things cannot be patented, such as algorithms which are protected by copyright, and math formulae, which are not protected. US system is notoriously bad as far as granting computer related patents go. Each patent can be tested in court and might get annulled: look at Samsung v. Apple cases.
In short for something to be patented it has to be new, innovative and monetizable.
What most people view as broad and unclear definition is usually not the case with good lawyers and I woukd advise to look for another one, since in court every unclear point will be challanged. If a technology can be used with pneumatics and hydraulics it should be in the patent.
The main reason why you cannot patent after publishing, is because from the point of law from the moment where the technology is available it is part of the stand of technology and is publically available, therefore not patentable since it is part of "common knowledge".
Upvotes: 3
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2016/03/18
| 625
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<issue_start>username_0: Many postgraduate theses include as part of their front matter a List of Figures and a List of Tables, plus lists of various other special environments. Many institutions, including my own, directly require the inclusion of at least those two Lists at the front of the thesis.
However, I have never really understood why a thesis should have those two environments at all; they've mostly just been yet another page to scroll past on the way to the meat of the thesis.
On the other hand, if you have a print copy of the document, I generally find it much easier to flip through the pages, since graphics tend to stick out, and more so if you have a general idea of where the figure is (such as having a figure identifier that gives the chapter) or what it looks like (as when looking for a figure one has seen previously).
What use cases are lists of figures or tables meant to serve? In what situations are they meant to be useful? Do they still work, or are they simply an artifact of pre-pdf days?<issue_comment>username_1: When I refer back to a thesis to find a piece of information, I find the lists of tables and figures to be extremely useful. I often have a general idea of what I am looking for. Turning that general idea into a simple text search that does not yield hundreds of hits is difficult. By reading the short captions in the list of figures, I can generally find the figure I want.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You appear to start from an assumption of reading on screen. If some actually wants to *read* a thesis (as opposed to looking something up in it) there's a fair chance they're working on paper. An examiner for example. A list of figures/list of tableswill help them track down some of the important material quickly.
If someone has a paper copy, good lists are really useful, but xcost a couple of pages
If someone has a PDF copy, the list costs them nothing. A few bytes of data, and there's no need to scroll past it as any decently-produced thesis PDF will allow you to click on the headings (or "Contents") in any decent PDF reader.
So even with primarily electronic distribution (which is an optimisitic assumption) these lists will benefit some of your readers, including some important ones.
I found them quite useful when checking the print copies -- text was easy to spot-check, but ensuring that the figures came out right was important.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: When I go through a thesis (especially a voluminous one) I tend to look for comparison and performance graphs; some of which are not always in the results and discussion section. I feel that the list of figures are pretty much helpful in this aspect.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/18
| 859
| 3,798
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm planning to apply to phd programs in economics and I'm hoping to eventually work in academic research on economic theory, social choice theory, welfare economics or related areas. I'm wondering if doing a masters in math before applying to economics phd would be worthwhile? Seems like it might be nice to have the math stuff down really solid, so I can focus on economics in grad school.
By the time I finish undergrad (in U.S.), I will have taken the following math courses (one semester each): Multivariable calc, linear algebra, abstract algebra, real analysis, topology, optimization, probability-statistics, basic numerical analysis with matlab programming. Econ courses that I'll have taken: year of micro, year of macro, year of econometrics, year of graduate micro.<issue_comment>username_1: The main problem with taking a course/major/degree in a subject like math, in the hopes of it improving your ability to perform at some other field, is that the math program will most typically not have been designed to cater the curriculum to the tools that will be most helpful to you in your future career. So effectively a 2 year degree program in math might be equivalent to 3-6 months of "math for Economists", or whatever degree program you might seek. While math is useful in many fields, exactly what specific kind of math is useful varies tremendously!
A simple example of this is statistics. Most math programs may only require 1-2 classes in any kind of statistics (Northeastern's [Applied Math](http://www.northeastern.edu/cos/mathematics/applied-mathematics-master-science-program/program-information/) program, for instance), and beyond introduction to statistics the methods used in one field are often very different than one taught in another. Depending on how you choose your electives, you could very well come out of the program with little more than the equivalent of "I took some extra math classes as an elective" during your undergraduate degree, as far as actual ability to perform useful research at a PhD level is concerned. I'm not going to say it's a total waste of time - but it's kind of a weird "side quest" to go on.
Its not that you wouldn't learn anything useful - it's just that the time would not be spent very efficiently if "being a great non-mathematician" is your end goal. In comparison, you might instead take advanced math classes or an independent study while still an undergraduate (especially if you can identify someone with advanced knowledge of math useful to economists).
You would also do well to look at prospective PhD programs and see how they handle classes. Many PhD programs in the US require you to take advanced classes catered towards your degree, while also allowing/requiring you to take some advanced classes in an area outside your key classes - and you could use those slots to work on improving your relevant mathematical knowledge.
I would only remind you that everyone contemplating high level research - even mathematicians - wishes they had a stronger background in math, because there's always more math to learn and you'll have long died of old age before you learned all that might be of potential use to you. But if you plan to use math as a tool to aid other goals, then you can expect to pick it up like any other tool as you progress in your work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My father, a retired Civil Engineering professor, used to say that it was easier for a good undergraduate math major to succeed in a graduate economics program than for an economics major (without heavy math). His idea was that "math" was the most critical part of advanced economics, and the math students had a head start.
This advice would apply to *graduate* math majors as well.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/19
| 874
| 3,688
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<issue_start>username_0: This will be my first post on the Academia SE so apologies if there are some conventions I break!
I am an undergraduate student of mathematics at a university in the UK whose emphasis lies a lot more in statistics and applied mathematics than it does in pure mathematics, there being only 2 modules in the entire degree program that focus only partially on higher algebra, and only 4 weeks of the entire 3 year program that have anything to do with number theory. I am in this position because my A-Levels did not go as well as I had expected as I had a few issues and did not achieve the grades needed to go to a more "pure based" university. I am deeply interested in the area of Algebraic Number Theory and intend to go on to study a master's degree in pure mathematics and eventually/hopefully a PhD.
My question is this; what should I/can I do to "boost" my application to a master's degree in pure mathematics if my undergraduate degree has a relatively low pure mathematics content?
I will be applying for an undergraduate research bursary from the London Mathematical Society to fund an 8 week research project, be it expository or otherwise, in the field of Algebraic Number Theory.
Thank you in advance for any information you can give me.<issue_comment>username_1: Although I am doing a PhD in the field of Computer Science, I of course cannot give specific advise on what you should do about mathematics MSc, but here are some of my observations on the general case.
In the last two years, I have applied a lot of PhD programmes across Europe. I have been accepted to one recently. And that is probably one out of fifty if not more.
As far as I have observed, the priority is not a student with "a lot of knowledge", but a student "who can study hard on the given task." This observation is based on the profiles of accepted students instead of me (stalker alert).
Some of them have lower GPA, and almost none of them have publications. I think what they somehow proved that they can study harder and be more productive.
The interesting part that matches with your question is, *both their theses and their stated area of interests were less related to the research area*.
Surprisingly, someone who took his degree from mathematics was accepted to a research group that focuses primarily on application rather than theory.
If we switch from PhD to master's degree, I don't really believe having a relative background should have more weight than being a hard-worker (of course I am not talking about another discipline like psychology) in the process of decision.
If I were you, I would direct the exactly same question to a professor from the department you want to apply. Questions like
>
> How can I convince you that I am good enough to pursue a master's
> degree?
>
>
>
or
>
> Are there any specific criteria you are seeking such as having a
> relatively strong background on pure mathematics?
>
>
>
would do no harm. I think being *deeply interested* as a master applicant in a research topic puts you one or two steps further. Of course you somehow have to show that you are actually deeply interested (this is the hard part that I could not figure out how).
In short, do not over-try to "boost" your application and do not hesitate to contact one of the faculty members.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: For Algebraic Number Theory you can try reading up the topics of group theory, ring theory, field theory, Galois theory. Perhaps write up some notes using LaTeX and solve some of the exercises in books. Showing the notes/exercises to the professors should be quite impressive.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/03/19
| 561
| 2,220
|
<issue_start>username_0: It is commonly known that using LaTeX is the best option for formatting a scientific paper (including references). I know.
But recent versions of Microsoft Word use a quite interesting reference management system (see [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeVPoOWUT-4) for a demo). However this system only include few formatting styles, e.g. APA, IEEE, ISO, etc...
Is there a way to "install" a new style, to get reference formatted as required by ACM journals (and, possibly, as required by any other scientific association, journal or conference guidelines)?<issue_comment>username_1: At [this link](http://learn.yancyparedes.net/2014/06/automatically-format-reference-to-acm-style-in-microsoft-word/) there is an interesting tutorial that explains how to use Microsoft Word for formatting references in any style.
Below I summarize the salient parts.
First of all, we need to download some additional formatting styles, and we can found some of them at [this link](https://bibword.codeplex.com/). Here, we will find a .zip file containing several .xsl files, which represent the formatting styles used by MS Word.
What we need to do is to copy those .xsl (all of them or just the ones we want to use) in `C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\Bibliography\Style`. Actually this directory can vary according to the MS Office version or the system architecture (32-bit or 64-bit). However if you look at the main Office directory, the `Style` directory should be easy to find.
Then you just need to close MS Word and reopen it. And you will find all this additional formatting styles available in the dropdown box, under the Reference tab.
EDIT: For some Office version (I had this issue with Microsoft Office 2013, installed on Windows 8.1), you will probably need to copy the citation style (.xsl files) in
`C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Bibliography\Styles`, as explained in [this website](https://www.captiga.com/tips-tricks/install-additional-word-reference-styles-mac-windows/#comment-2324301908).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Another option is to use a citation manager that has a Word plugin. RefWorks and Zotero both do.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/19
| 686
| 2,773
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<issue_start>username_0: A friend and I are arguing about the number of pages needed for a coverletter, to apply to postdoc in electro-engineering.
Usually, the postdoc offer (what I called a job offer) says up to 3 pages.
My friend fills the 3 pages for the coverletter.
To me, he should stick to one page , presenting himself, his work and why he is the most qualified for this position like any regular jobs actually.
I feel I'm right but as I do not have much experiences applying to postdocs, I cannot validate my claim.
Any insights are more than welcomed.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, cover letter should be one page and that should always contain what you have mentioned in your question. It may be extended up to 2-3 pages. But mostly it is asked to restrict a single page. Do you know why? Because, this tells everything about you in few sentences. Moreover, a cover letter is always kept in the top of application whether it is a hard copy or soft copy. So if your cover letter tells anything impressive about you then reviewer will go inside with much more interest. Just like abstract of a paper. So you should be very concise and more focus when writing a cover letter. It is not a good idea at all to elaborate everything in cover letter just to increase the page number.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Like a CV, it should be as long as it needs to be. For a post doc, you need an intro paragraph (what job you are applying for, who you are, where you are coming from). You also need a paragraph that describes what you want to get out of the post doc. Finally a paragraph (or two) on your thesis. That is likely a page. If you did research during undergrad or an MS, then you need to include that. If you have a side project to you PhD or have already done a post doc, then you need to include that research. If the position has a teaching requirement, you need a paragraph for that.
I would be surprised if a Post Doc cover letter hit 3 pages, but trying to get it down to a single page seems hard.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Please follow the link. Everything is properly mentioned as follows.
<http://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english-communication-for-scientists-14053993/118520525#headerAndCitation>
>
> The structure of a letter written for an entry-level position will differ from the structure of a letter written by a master's or Ph.D.-level researcher.
>
>
> Typically, a more advanced position will require a lengthier cover letter.
>
>
> In all cases, however, remember that your readers are extremely busy. Therefore, keep your letters from extending beyond two pages, unless the job advertisement specifically requests more details about research or work experience.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
|
2016/03/19
| 471
| 1,972
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have applied for a PhD position in October 2015. I was not informed about the result since then.
Is it appropriate to send a mail to a member of the hiring committee (with whom I have contacted before applying) to ask about the process? Or should I wait for them to contact me?
The university is in Sweden and I have contacted with the member prior to the application since he is the head of the research group that I intend to work in.<issue_comment>username_1: It depends. What does your acknowledgement say when you had submitted your application?
If you were told something like "you will be informed your result by XX month/year" and you have not received anything in that regard by that period, then you can write an e-mail to inquire the status of your application.
If you were told something like "only successful candidates will be informed by XX month/year" and you have not received anything in that matter, then you can write an e-mail to your contact person to know the status.
In any case, you can write email politely to know about your application status if you think it is already too late. There is no harm to inquiring application status.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it is inappropriate nor rude to send them an email. It's your right to be informed with your result as time is passing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you're waiting 6 months for someone to write you back, perhaps that reflects poorly in their eyes on your skills as a researcher... seriously, though, you have to be more assertive about these things. If you feel it would be rude, try to make it as un-rude as possible: Ask about applications in general, not just your own; say you want to make sure you haven't missed a reply by mistake; ask whether they can estimate when a reply can be expected (rather than asking whether you were accepted); etc.
But don't just wait for it to happen!
Upvotes: 3
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2016/03/19
| 745
| 2,828
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm trying to figure out if I can put a PDF that I give Springer on arXiv.
Note that this PDF has had further changes made to it **after** it has been already accepted by a conference; it's not the same as the conference submission.
[Springer's copyright transfer form](http://www.springer.com/cda/content/document/cda_downloaddocument/copyrightlncs_16_02_2016_CH_final.pdf) says:
>
> Prior versions of the Contribution published on non-commercial pre-print servers like ArXiv/CoRR and HAL can remain on these servers and/or can be updated with Author’s accepted version.
>
> The final published version (in pdf or html/xml format) cannot be used for this purpose.
>
> Acknowledgment needs to be given to the final publication and a link must be inserted to the published Contribution on Springer’s website, by inserting the DOI number of the article in the following sentence:
>
> "The final publication is available at Springer via `http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI]`".
>
>
>
...but I can't tell what "the final published version" refers to.
Does it include the final PDF that I submit to them for publishing?
Or is it only the official PDF that they actually publish on their site?
(I presume the two could be different, since they could make their own edits?)
My guess is that it's only the latter, since they seem to imply the final version is the one with the DOI, but I'm not sure.<issue_comment>username_1: The usual workflow with Springer is:
1. You prepare your paper, and submit it as a PDF file to the conference.
2. The conference reviews the paper, and you get the acceptance notification + conference reviews back.
3. You revise your paper, and submit the source code to Springer.
4. Springer does copyediting, and you get the page proofs back.
5. You check the page proofs and submit your corrections to Springer.
6. Springer prepares the final PDF and posts it on their web page.
(Note that steps 1–3 involve work from you + research community. Steps 4–6 involve some added value from the publisher.)
The **"author-created version"** refers to **your output after step 1 or 3**. This is what you **can** self-archive.
The **"final published version"** refers to **Springer's output after step 6**. This is a version you **cannot** self-archive.
(IANAL, etc.)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As in any legal doubt, you should ask a real lawyer, not a bunch of more or less random gals and dudes on the 'net. In this case, if in doubt ask your Springer contact for clarification.
I believe Jukka's answer covers this specific case quite nicely, but obviously doesn't address the wider question it implies, what can an author legally publish when transferring some rights to a publisher (of a conference, journal, or book).
Upvotes: 0
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2016/03/19
| 701
| 2,867
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<issue_start>username_0: If my ultimate goal is to obtain a tenured teaching position, is it more desirable to get a PhD from a different university than the one where I obtained my BA? What are the possible pros and cons?
The original university has a large philosophy department, which is also a factor for me.<issue_comment>username_1: My BS and PhD universities are the same, and I have a good life. Although, I've never applied for a tenure track position.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: My BS and MD will be coming from different organizations. I know tenured professors who have all their degrees from one school and other professors that went all over the place. The advice that I have been given over time is to focus on ideas that interest you, people who inspire you and institutions that provide enough resources for you to pursue your intellectual curiosity. In the end, academia is about publishing work that interests you and pushes science forward. If you are good enough to do that than you will find tenure somewhere.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Many people refer to PhD programs accepting students from their BA programs as "**academic incest**." (The same term is used for hiring PhD students from the same program into the tenure track). The reasons why doctoral programs generally don't want to commit academic incest are:
* As with physical inbreeding, academic incest reduces the intellectual gene pool. You've already studied under a singular group of faculty for your BA, go to another program for your PhD to widen your intellectual horizons.
* As with physical inbreeding, if your program is known for academic incest, it dissuades possible future candidates from applying -- or at minimum, feeling that you prioritize your 'own' over others.
There are clear reasons why a **program** might not want to be known for incestuous tendencies. However, the question is whether this hurts a **candidate**. Here, the risk/benefit analysis is a bit more murky.
**Pros:** If your program is indeed the best in X-Studies, why not remain at the best?
**Cons:** There is a risk that you might be seen as parochial -- that you only really know the intellectual currents at your single alma mater. To be honest, I'm not sure how significant a risk this is in terms of *jobs* although I would for the reasons of scholarly diversity above, still suggest that students *not* apply to their own PhD programs.
---
Fine print: Note that claims of the negative aspects of academic incest are much more pronounced (and pernicious) in the humanities and social sciences; and are much less common in the lab sciences. If there's only one university lab in the USA that does the type of gene splicing you want to do and you're continuing a project that you've done as an undergraduate, it'd be silly to think of going elsewhere.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/03/19
| 2,812
| 12,123
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<issue_start>username_0: I gave my students an opportunity to rewrite one of their papers for extra points. As I was grading, I realized that two papers were almost identical. They had a similar structure, organization, and presented ideas in a similar manner. I asked the students about plagiarism but they denied it. Since it was a rewrite, I told them that I wouldn't add any points to their grades and they should never do this again.
One of the students, however, emailed me stating that she is worried their final assignments might look similar as well. She was trying to convince me that her paper is her original work and the second student "worked really hard to make sure their papers don't look alike!".
She included screen shots of their fb conversation as evidence. In FB conversation the one with the original work is telling her friend to use her paper as a basis but change the sentences and examples so it won't look like plagiarism.
This is a clear case of plagiarism. Correct? I am not sure how to handle it. I know they are not realizing that's plagiarism, otherwise they wouldn't have shared those fb conversations. So I don't want to report to the school (yet!). But I am also not sure how to penalize them? Give a zero for the assignment? What do you recommend? Should I give zeros to both of them?<issue_comment>username_1: Learn about your school's policy. Learn about whether your school has an honor code, defines plagiarism in its catalog, or requires mandatory training such as an online orientation. Many schools have specific rules about what kind of punishments are allowed, and these rules may be based on their own interpretations of local laws or their past experiences with lawsuits. For example, my school's policy specifically tells us that we are not allowed to give a student a failing grade in the course for dishonesty, and it also spells out different levels of consequences for a first and second offense.
Look at your own syllabus to see what you said about plagiarism; usually administrators will support you on anything that's laid out clearly in your syllabus.
Don't assume that administrators will support you. Their priorities may be very, very different from yours.
Once you have done all your homework, talk to your dean and propose how you want to handle the issue. Make sure your dean is on board with what you plan to do. Consider "soft" penalties such as forcing the students to meet with the dean.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a matter of education. Some students think plagiarism is only copy and pasting from one another. They also think placing a citation is a license to copy. Some also define it as ok if software, eg turnitin, cannot detect it.
In my case I make it clear. If they steal one sentence it is an automatic zero. It is also a zero if they steal the structure of a paragraph or section. These need to be emphasized multiple times until they eject their old ways out of their system.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> This is a clear case of plagiarism. Correct? I am not sure how to
> handle it. I know they are not realizing that's plagiarism, otherwise
> they wouldn't have shared those fb conversations. So I don't want to
> report to the school (yet!). But I am also not sure how to penalize
> them? Give a zero for the assignment? What do you recommend? Should I
> give zeros to both of them?
>
>
>
I'm going to disagree with <NAME>'s answer, despite it being well-written and mostly sensible except for one crucial detail. The students have perhaps committed what we technically define as plagiarism (or more precisely, as StrongBad commented, one of them committed plagiarism and the other allowed her work to be used), but the element of [mens rea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea), the "guilty mind" that we consider morally necessary to inflict punishment, is clearly lacking. So my verdict is **not guilty**.
The bottom line is, it doesn't matter how much we educators wring our hands about "kids these days". If someone clearly doesn't know that a behavior is wrong then it is foolish and harmful to penalize them for it. It is our job to educate students about what constitutes plagiarism and what are the standards we expect of them for independent work and citation of sources. All the things that <NAME>'s answer lists are basically irrelevant, since if a student is showing you a facebook conversation proving that they did not realize what they were doing is plagiarism, that means your institution has failed to properly educate the students about this subject, whether it's written in the catalog or not.
I should add that in my opinion part of the problem with this common misunderstanding of plagiarism by students is that plagiarism is in fact quite a subtle concept, and that our expectations of how fast and easily students can understand and adapt to it are simply unrealistic. To criminalize a behavior that can result from a misunderstanding or lack of sophistication that is very common among students entering university is very problematic, and can backfire in all sorts of unexpected ways. (On the other hand, of course plagiarism is a real problem that needs to be dealt with; I don't have all the answers about what is the correct approach or balance to strike, and a detailed discussion of this topic is in any case beyond the scope of this question.)
To summarize, in my opinion **it would be wrong to penalize the students in this case**. You can and should use this as a teaching opportunity, and it would be reasonable to require the plagiarizing student to submit a revised paper that satisfies your standards for academic writing, after very clearly and carefully explaining to her what those standards are. This is also an opportunity for all of us to reflect on what we are trying to achieve with various "zero tolerance" policies that impose an unrealistically high standard of behavior on students who may not be adequately prepared to be capable of satisfying those lofty standards.
**Edit:** thanks to all the commenters for their lively and intelligent discussion and criticism of my answer. You have persuaded me that the answer is perhaps more subjective than I thought. I am willing to tone down my recommendation and say that the plagiarizing student *may* be deserving of punishment. I think ultimately it would all depend on specific details about the facebook conversation and other evidence that we do not have. At the same time, given the information presented in the question I still think an educational, rather than punitive, approach, would be the most appropriate one in this case. The key question that needs to be answered in my opinion is whether the student "knew what she was doing" in the sense that she had an understanding that basing her paper off of another student's paper was wrong. It doesn't sound like she did, but I'm only speculating and am open to changing my mind about this if presented with new information.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: This isn't just plagarism - it's out and out cheating - and both students are guilty and one of them has kindly produced proof of their guilt. I would escalate to whatever process is usually undertaken for cheating students.
That they apparently have failed to grasp the concept doesn't make them any less guilty of the infringement and it simply doesn't matter whether they "meant to cheat" - they did.
The appropriate way to deal with cheating students is to escalate it to the system for dealing with cheating students. You should trust that this process will take their ignorance into account while (a) being fair to other students and (b) expressing the appropriate level of opprobrium for their actions.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: Some students, myself in particular, get taught incorrectly in the early years of education that "putting something in your own words" is how to avoid plagiarism. This is of course, overly simplistic and wrong of course. If you give **both** students the benefit of the doubt, that neither know what plagiarism is, I don't think they should be penalized for this naivety.
I think you should probably invite the students to your office to teach them or send around the school's academic honesty guide to all your students (it *should* be pretty small and thoroughly define the terms it uses). If this is happening to one pair, it is likely happening to others or these two students are doing similar in other courses. Example: Jill reads something online and simply rewords it for the report while maintaining the structure and flow of the original material.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Honestly, I have been a bit irritated by the two of them throughout the quarter, especially the one who copied the work. They kept challenging me on their grades constantly. The one who copied the work emailed me saying "if it will make you feel better, I will write the essay again!"
>
>
>
It sounds like you have a student who is eager to learn how to do the right thing and get it right, even if she isn't doing so right now. This is a good thing because you have a much stronger opportunity for a teachable moment where the teaching is more likely to be effective, than a student whose attitude is "I'll try this minimum that I think might scrape by, and in the unlikely event someone is paying enough attention to catch it, oh well, that'll just be the end result." Further, you have students who care about their grades, and you control at least one of those, so you have some leverage that seems likely to be effective.
How about having that student write the essay - or a similar one on the same topic or another topic still related to your course - in a supervised environment\* where she would have no access to classmates' work? If network-isolated, you might have to provide some printed reference material, but (a) it might be a good thing for students to get at least one experience writing in that way and (b) this exercise/test is focusing more on the student's ability to critically analyze content and discuss the material with some potentially original insights, than on breadth of a background literature search.
You do apparently need to teach the distinction between **copyright infringement** (which involves copying the particular expression of ideas, and for which paraphrasing all the content is a valid way around), **plagiarism** (which relates more to passing off another person's ideas as one's own), and **failing to write original content/ideas** (which may involve proper citation of the others' ideas and is honest, but may not meet the course requirements for a top grade). It appears the students in question are confusing the first two, and those in the third sentence of username_2's answer ("They also think placing a citation is a license to copy") are confusing the latter two. These distinctions are not obvious and the ethics of each are not universal. It does take teaching them, and it might be worth you having a conversation with the dean to try to make sure this gets into the curriculum in a first semester writing course or something like that.
Here, your students at least seem willing to learn. Good luck making the most of the teaching opportunity!
---
(\*): *Where there are more people present than just you and the student, in case the student would otherwise come up with false accusations against you should she receive a poor course grade.*
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: When my mom was a TA back in the day, she had a similar situation where one student thought she was helping her friend by letting her see the paper, but the second student was straight-up copying. My mom and the TA of the other student came up with this idea: Grade the paper as though it were submitted singularly. Then, go to both students and let them decide how they want to split the points. For instance, if it were worth 80 points, they could do a 40-40 split, or the original writer could take all, or whatever else.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/03/20
| 656
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a non-US citizen, considering a post-doc in the states. I'm eligible for a 'green card' through marriage (my wife is a US citizen). I'm deliberating whether I should apply for permanent residency right now or go through the standard path of a student visa (e.g. J1) once I find a post-doc position.
I understand that not being a 'US person' somewhat limits the funding options of prospective advisors. Does searching for a post-doc as a permanent resident holder indeed opens up more opportunities?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of holding a green card instead of a student visa, both prior and during the post-doc?<issue_comment>username_1: Get your green card as soon as possible, do not waste your time with J1 visa. As Patricia said, you have to go back to your country where the visa was issued and you can't come back to USA for period of time (there is 2 years rule) stated on your visa. It is very restricted visa. Talk to an immigrant attorney and find the quickest way to get the green card.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I was on an F-1 visa, my wife is American and I got my GC through EB2-National Interest Waiver program while I was a in my 4th year as a PhD student. For NIW, you'll need two applications I-140 and I-485. Once I-140 is approved, I-485 will adjust your status from whatever visa you are at now to that of a permanent citizen.
My friend was on J-1 (he is single), he applied for I-140 (NIW), but even if he got approved, he will still will need to go back home for 2 years then apply for I-485 (adjustment of status) after that to get his GC.
However, in your case since your wife is American, you can get a waiver and out-rule the 2 years rule. You will need to have a good lawyer and spend some time at the court. But again, since she is American, she can go back home with you (if possible). Keep in mind that count for citizenship starts ONCE you get a GC (and not when you got married).
For instance, I got married in 2013, but in 2015 I applied for NIW and got my GC within 10 months. It would have been cheaper, faster and easier to apply for GC through marriage [in my case since I was on a F-1!]. But, to be honest, my credentials are extremely good and I figured getting GC through NIW would feel like an accomplishment and looks much better in my resume.
Good luck,
Upvotes: 1
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2016/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a master’s student and I cautiously and properly cite in my essays and works as per Harvard’s guidelines. However, I only learned how to properly cite just this year which made me go back and look at my BBAs graduation projects (I have two licenses) and, frankly, they are horrible when it comes to referencing!
To make a long story short, these projects are made up of ‘copy-and-paste’ chunks from online websites, Wikipedia pages and some books, all without putting quotation marks, however still referenced at the end with (some of them) a poor style. Back then, I never thought about it and was like, yeah I am just referencing the ideas. I was not aware of direct quoting, quotation marks (save for small definitions), proper paraphrasing and a proper style of citation. It is important to note that it was totally unintentional to plagiarize, just out of ignorance.
**What to do now?** Frankly, I feel so guilty about it since I am an ethical person. Although both projects were positively accepted (one of them is a technical one; a website, so the report was only to define some concepts), I, first and foremost, do blame myself for my ignorance and carelessness, however I also blame my instructors for **not** throwing the projects at my face and telling me to go home and correct everything! What can I do now? No instructor told me anything about it and this was four to five years ago. However and ethically, I am suffering because of this, I feel like I don’t deserve to be a graduate student (unlike what my current instructors think as I am seen as an excellent student at this part of my life and my current master’s grades are excellent and I even cite during exams!) and should just drop out and not use my bachelor degrees in life, yes I feel that way. Why to bother pursuing an MBA and even a PhD if my BBAs projects were built on academic dishonesty (even if unintentional)?
I am so glad that I learned how to properly cite this year just before my master’s thesis so that I can produce a well-written one, but again, I am not motivated due to the aforementioned reasons.<issue_comment>username_1: This is not really an academia question, unless you're only looking for what the academic community considers right. My answer is going to be based on what I consider right, so take it or leave it but think about it.
Judgement of any action cannot be based on things that you could not reasonably be expected to be aware of at the time of the action. This is the same reason we distinguish in the court of law between premeditated murder (intent to kill) and involuntary manslaughter (no killing intent but possibly due to negligence) and accidental killing (neither killing intent nor negligence). Similarly, you have to judge your past unintentional plagiarism according to what you personally feel you should reasonably have known.
If you had honestly thought at that time that what other people write can be freely copied without using quotation marks as long as you duly record your sources (which is not an unreasonable opinion, since anyone who checks the sources can determine which parts you have copied), then you cannot blame yourself for not knowing that the academic convention is to put explicit quotation marks even if you cite the source in the bibliography.
If this is true, there is no reason for you to feel guilty. However, note that other people may not share this opinion, so it would make no sense to go and tell the people previously involved (such as your school), since consequences may not be fair to you. At the same time, if you can discreetly correct any part of your prior work, such as if it is on a website, just do so.
The issue is a bit more troublesome if your previous work was in a publication of some sort, for which there is a related question and some answers at [What to do (years later) with otherwise good student who has accidentally plagiarised part of PhD thesis?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/10733/15940), and I think you'll agree that what *Anonymous Mathematician* prescribes in that case ought to be done. As for his opinion that one should turn oneself in to the university, it is a fine approach to take but you have to use your discretion. Say you recall that you wrote an essay about some topic during an English exam as a 12-year-old where you made the same mistake, copying some sentence you remembered somewhere about the topic, and of course you did not cite it (it's an English essay after all!), and the results of this exam let you later go to a good school, and eventually it leads to you being where you are now. Should you trace your whole path and tell everyone that you don't deserve to have what you have now? Certainly not!
There is a limit to how much you should condemn yourself to other people, when you did not do any intentional wrong.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: First, it is unreasonable to blame your instructors. For what reason? If they had done something years ago, you wouldn't feel bad now? Probably it was not obvious to them that you had plagiarized. (Plagiarism can be more obvious or less obvious, depending on many factors.)
Second, people make mistakes in life, and not all mistakes are fixable. You just have to do your best to be honest and correct now and in the future. You might consider contacting your old professors to let them know what you did, and that you now realize it's plagiarism and that you are sorry. If you need to do this to feel you are "deserving" of your situation, you could also redo your projects and send them to your old professors, but this is not ethically necessary. Who among us deserves the fortunes granted us? Not I. I can only appreciate them.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I sent an article to Annals of Mathematics and after 4 months of review process it was rejected. I received a report from an anonymous expert. Could I send this report, together with the manuscript, to another journal?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Could I send this report, together with the manuscript, to another journal?
>
>
>
This is a confusing wording: the first two times I read it, I thought you meant you were submitting the referee report for consideration of publication! But I think I understand what you mean now: I'm guessing (though please confirm) that the referee said some good things and in particular regarded, either implicitly or explicitly, the result as being correct, but just not good enough for publication in *Annals* (as are at least 99.9% of mathematical results), and you would like the positive aspects of the referee report to follow you to your next submission.
If all of the above is right, the answer is that you **cannot** do this directly: it is simply not the part of the established protocol for paper submission. And there are good reasons for this. On the one hand, how does the next editor know that you did not fabricate the report or modify it in some way? On the other hand, referee reports are never anonymous *to the editors*, so "submitting an anonymous referee report" undercuts most of its value. However the next journal could contact the *Annals* and get the report officially and the identity of the referee. Which brings me to what you should do: if you want a referee report from Journal A to be carried over to Journal B, you should write to the editors at both journals and request this to happen. This definitely happens *sometimes*, although in my experience it is most commonly initiated by someone other than the author.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Could I send this report, together with the manuscript, to another
> journal?
>
>
>
I have several times thought of doing just that, and one time decided to take a chance and try it. Somewhat to my surprise, the strategy worked brilliantly: the editor of the second journal decided to accept my submission on the spot without sending it out for another review. Looking back, I think that the forces in play that made the strategy successful (which is also why at the time I decided to try it) were:
1. The editor of the second journal I submitted to was already somewhat familiar with the work in question and was someone I had a relatively high level of confidence would give my paper a fair hearing.
2. The referee report from the first journal was fairly detailed, actually said several positive things about my paper, and did not question that the results of the paper were correct.
3. There was only one particular issue that led that referee to recommend rejection, and that was a somewhat unfair judgment (in my view, which I thought the editor of the second journal would agree with, which he did) regarding the novelty and importance of the paper's results.
Note that this is just an anecdote and offers little predictive value about what would happen in your situation. However, it demonstrates that unusual strategies of this sort can sometimes pay off and that there is nothing that makes them invalid or taboo.
Upvotes: 3
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2016/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently been admitted to a few PhD programs, and have to decide where to attend. One of them has a massively famous professor (over 50k citations, 'Reuters Highly Cited Researcher'). Other potential supervisors at other institutions are still quite famous (~15k citations). Could anyone share some potential differences in my experiences if I work with someone who is that famous, or not? The group sizes/number of current students are all comparable.<issue_comment>username_1: I knew somebody who started a PhD with a super-rockstar in Computer Science. He told me he met with his advisor thrice in a year or so, once (a short meeting) when defining the thesis topic, once crossed him in a hallway, and came across him at a conference. It turns out the rockstar was on the road almost 24/7. He changed to a not-so-famous advisor, and was much happier.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Agreed with username_1's answer, but I would like to add one thing. If the rockstar professor is nearing retirement, he could actually have a great deal of free time to supervise you.
I took a topics course with a "massively famous professor"; there were only two of us in his course. After classes every week, he invited us into his office for casual conversations about his life in grad school and in academia - and what were the biggest surprises in mathematics during his younger days. We learned that he hadn't taken on a student in many years. My classmate convinced him to advise him on his thesis. The problem given to my classmate is an especially tough one, it seems, but he is thrilled to be working with this famous, yet gracious, professor.
OTOH, if the professor that you are thinking of is still highly active in research, he will likely be on the road often -- he may not even attend many of the classes that he is assigned to teach for the semester. I've also experienced this, too.
Good luck with your decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend you perform the following experiment. Choose several established people in your field whom you admire. Look up who *their* advisors were. See whether or not they were, themselves, ``famous''. Draw your own conclusions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As indicated in a couple comments, using citation counts (solely) to judge what kind of advisor someone is a bad idea. First, citation count isn't an accurate representation of how good a research is for many reasons, one of which is citation counts vary greatly within subfields. Another is that they change over time and comparing citation counts of younger versus older researchers is unfair. What would be better is to visit the groups and get a feel for them if possible, and find out where the advisor's former students ended up.
However, here are some possible things to consider with rock star versus cover band advisors:
* A famous advisor is likely to have a stronger group, particularly if they are at a more prestigious institution. This can benefit you in many ways (learn more, explore better ideas, stronger collaborators). Cf: [University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/90/19607)
* An eminent researcher may have a more refined/greater perspective on the field, which you can absorb by osmosis.
* An eminent researcher may have better connections, providing more opportunities and "advertisement" for you. This includes benefiting from the chance to meet many established researchers coming to see your advisor.
* An eminent advisor may give you better problems/give you better tools to solve problems.
* A rock star advisor may not have much time for you, and may not even remember your name. Therefore, you may be expected to be more independent (but this expectation is not limited to rock stars).
Upvotes: 3
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