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<issue_start>username_0: Currently I am on the second year of my PhD. I started more than a year back and I doing phd in basic science and I am not from basic science.
My problems are:
I don't cope with the ideology people have in my work station. So, I ended up having issues with them.
I lack quiet a bit of knowledge on the subject area.
I lack communication with my supervisor.
Now, I supervisor wants me to quit but I don't. I still want to try even if it's just getting harder and stressful.
I am an open person and have strong personality. I like to make changes about me and on my surroundings.
I don't really know what to do, since if I loose the position now I will be into more trouble. Since I don't have any safety net.
I also will not be able to prolong my residence permit in Europe also if loose the position, which is also a reason that I don't want to quit now.
I am passionate about everything that I do. I have enough will power as well, but being with my supervisor is getting too hard. My study mentor have suggested me to sick for another supervisor but to keep the position I have to find someone from the department. Hopefully there is a possibility there.
Unfortunately, my supervisor is highly known scientist and he told me that he will write everything on my reference letter, which means it will be much harder to find something later.
Please let me know what you all think about it.<issue_comment>username_1: There is no clear question here. However, the fact that your advisor wants you out and that you lack knowledge will make difficult for you to finish your PhD. Hence, switching fields to something in which you have background is your best option.
The fact that your advisor is well-know probably means that he supervised many students and have a lot of experience meaning that asking you to leave is not an uneducated decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: While @username_1 suggested a viable option, I would argue that switching fields may not be worth the effort, as the poster may run into similar issues regardless of which field s/he studies.
Problems that I can glean from the post:
**1. Amateur with lack of direction wasting an expert's time:** OP is coming at a PhD level into an unfamiliar subject area. I can see how this might seem annoying to a highly known scientist who is serious about his work and his students, expecting them to be as focused and dedicated to the field as he is. This may contribute to the resentment i.e., "Why don't you quit, that way you would stop wasting my time and yours?"
**2. Staying in the country as the main and only reason for pursuing PhD:** Despite being "passionate about everything", lack of coherent reason for pursuing advanced study in this particular area, except for unrelated practical reasons such as visa status and desire to remain in a particular geographic area. This alone does not usually cut it as valid rationale for pursuing advanced study for most academics.
**3. Personality/cultural issues:** As OP suggests, "I...have strong personality. I like to make changes about me and on my surroundings." As a student, you are naturally in an inferior position in relation to the faculty. A student's first and foremost role is to be a humble, dedicated, agreeable, adaptable and quick learner who causes minimum problems for the faculty (read: takes the least amount of time to advise and direct, and in return performs the highest quality work s/he is capable of). When a student's assertive personality causes them to fail to meet this expectation, this may earn the student a 'reputation' for being a "loose cannon" who is out of control and creates more problems than s/he solves. This is not a position you want to find yourself in.
*Given the above assumptions, I would recommend the following strategy:*
**1. Carefully consider how your personality may be causing some of the issues you are describing.** Try to find the problem with yourself first, and only then turn to others (better yet, stop with yourself, for now). If you feel that you could possibly express your strong personality a little less strongly when this does not seem helpful in your interactions, try to think objectively about such situations and see how you can change your attitudes, responses, opinions, etc. in ways that would eliminate this as a possible cause of disagreement and discomfort on the part of your supervisor.
**2. Fix the communication.** Focus on developing the following qualities: humility, respect, patience, and politeness. This will go far with communication with any professional colleagues, and academic faculty are no exception. This is difficult, but one place to start may be to have a conversation with your advisor with the main goal of asking questions and listening, not talking. Be honest and say that you are struggling, but are passionate about this field and give specific examples of topics or theories that interest you (hint: there should be some alignment there with your professor's interests!). Ask for feedback on what strategies you could apply to be more successful in your studies. Ask for guidance, direction, and advice on how to communicate better, study better, and work better so that you could succeed and catch up to your peers. Do NOT argue with anything you hear, but thank the advisor for their time and effort in giving you their feedback. If they say "I think your best strategy is not to waste my time and quit your studies ASAP", ask "I appreciate this, but IF there was just 1% or 5% chance that I could succeed against the odds, what do you think I should start doing immediately to make this happen?" You want to turn the conversation from a diagnosis of current situation to a prescription for how to remedy the situation toward a better future state. Good Luck!
**3. Prioritize your studies above all else.** This is difficult, but necessary if you truly want to catch up to your peers and "grow" in the eyes of your professor. Study hard and study all the time. A favorite show on TV? Nope, you have a paper to write or book to read. Great weather outside for a picnic? Walk for 30 min, then go back to your homework. A friend's birthday party? Show up for 1 hr, then head to computer lab to do more data analysis or whatever you need do there for your professor. During the first 3 years of grad school I have often sat in the office late (very late!) getting home after midnight, only to return back to work next morning at 8am. My reward was a reputation of a very hard working and reliable member of the research team, who could finish the tasks that were given to him with quality and on time. Achieve THIS, and it is 100% guarantee that your advisor's opinion of you will change for the positive. Good luck!
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a 6th year Ph.D. student in the sciences. The typical duration of a Ph.D. in my program at my institution is 5 years. I am months away from finishing the last component of my research; however, issues have arisen.
I am having strong doubts that my advisor cares about my success in my future career. In addition, she is forcing me to graduate in 2 months. While I myself would very much like to graduate as early as possible, I am faced with a series of challenges:
1. There is unfinished research work. While I'm not trying to solve the problem at hand completely, I do wish to produce something of quality, and for the manuscript under preparation to have a reasonable chance of being accepted.
2. I wish to spend adequate time preparing my thesis.
3. I need time to prepare postdoc and job application materials.
While someone as capable as my advisor may be able to finish all these in the time allotted, knowing myself, these tasks will take more than two months for me. And yes, I've discussed this with her many times, and she has been quite adamant about not financially supporting me after two months.
Recently, she has also asked me to withdraw my paper in a respected international conference, which has been accepted and selected for a meritorious award.
My specific questions are:
1. As a student, I may not understand the rationale of the decisions of my advisor, who is not only technically competent but abreast of the research community. However, I am having strong doubts that my advisor is advising in my best interest. I've had several arguments with her about the remaining work and I feel even if I do somehow defend my Ph.D., we will be on negative terms thereafter. Is it uncommon for Ph.D. students to leave on less-than-amicable terms with their advisor?
2. One of the options I've thought of is changing research advisors. However, I'd rather not change my research topic - the scope of my dissertation research has been approved my Committee after all. So, is it likely that a faculty member would be willing to serve as the Chairman of my committee in a topic only peripherally related to his/her expertise? As my advisor is senior in her field, I'd think a junior faculty member is unlikely to take on this role, in avoiding any run-ins with my advisor. Are there other considerations I've missed that may discourage a senior faculty member from agreeing to be my Chairman? (The university department is usually able to provide funding to students in their final semesters, so financial support may not be an issue.) And my committee members are either junior faculty or close collaborators with my advisor, so I doubt any of them would be willing to replace my advisor as the Chairman. Should my new advisor approve of my work, he/she may also serve a reference, which I will very much need for my upcoming job search.
Thank you. All advice is surely welcome.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I had to change my Ph.D. advisor (and I'm very glad I did), but it was in the *early phase* of my dissertation process. I'm quite surprised by your "discovery" about a potential of your advisor not caring about your career. Firstly, it is unlikely (why would she "tolerate" you for 5+ years then?). Secondly, if your advisor would truly not care about your career, it should have been pretty clear early in your collaboration, so either your assumption is not true, or you paid no attention to this aspect at all, which is quite difficult to believe in.
Anyway, in regard to your *potential actions*. I strongly recommend you to consider *all possibilities* to **avoid changing your advisor**, considering *how far are you in the program*. Changing an advisor is not only a administrative / logistical nightmare, but, if it would require you to start your research from the scratch or almost from the scratch, it would be extremely depressing, to say the least.
If you could save **five years of work and life** by defending your dissertation and graduating, even if parting with your advisor not very amicably, I would say that it is worth a serious consideration. The two obvious *dangers* in this case would be: 1) being able to defend dissertation successfully; 2) potential problems with obtaining a recommendation letter from your advisor (she could either decline, or give a negative or not so positive one). The second aspect is quite important, as your postgraduate applications, not listing your dissertation advisor as a referee, might raise quite a lot of eyebrows, with potentially negative consequences in regard to your postdoctoral offers / career.
You have to carefully think about all these (and other) aspects, consider feedback from people here and your own environment, but, ultimately, only you can decide the best course of action, based on various details, known to you only, as well as your gut feeling, as [some new research suggests](http://www.fastcompany.com/3049248/the-future-of-work/scientific-proof-that-your-gut-is-best-at-making-decisions).
Regardless of what you decide on the subject and how you part with your advisor, I wish you to successfully graduate and achieve your professional and personal goals in the future. Be *strong* in staying your courses, but *flexible* in ways of reaching your destinations. Or, as L<NAME> has said,
>
> Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist
> it.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One possible compromise would be to look into whether your school has some kind of "filing fee" option. That is, at many schools you only need to pay hundred-ish dollar fee in the semester that you file your dissertation, rather than paying the usual (thousands or tens of thousands) in tuition and fees (which are the main reason you need to be funded through the school rather than at another job). That way you could have another month or two to polish your thesis but your advisor wouldn't need to fund you.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: In my country, in order to teach mathematics (or any subject) to college students one doesn't have to have a PhD. Just a good academic record in the masters level of one's subject and one must clear a (reasonably difficult) national level teachers eligibility test in one's subject. Having a PhD and research publications is a bonus but not mandatory.
So my question then is - would it be necessary to do research once you have secured a permanent faculty position? By necessary I mean, will I face any difficulties in teaching or explaining concepts and ideas to students if I don't spend some time doing research, publishing papers, learning and asking new questions in a given field?<issue_comment>username_1: One of the primary differences between tertiary education and K-12 is producing knowledge. At the K-12 level, teachers share knowledge but normally do not create new knowledge. At the university level, professors do share knowledge but they also contribute to the conversation by producing original research. In other words, the growth of knowledge is one of the main purposes of higher education.
Different institutions have different expectations of research at the tertiary level. However, it is often considered unusual not to take part in some form of research occasionally at the university level, even if your primary occupation is teaching.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Over the course of a long career in teaching, the nature of your instruction will necessarily need to change as both our scientific understanding of the world and our society change. This is especially true for undergraduate and graduate instruction, where the knowledge is more specialized and changes more quickly, but I would argue it is also true for much of one's earlier schooling as well.
To be a good instructor, then, I think that one absolutely must keep up with the evolving nature of one's field. But does that *require* doing research? I don't think so (except, of course, for advising graduate students who are required to do research). Remaining involved in research is definitely one of the easiest ways to keep up with a field, but it's not a panacea either: research is typically extremely focused and narrow, and being up to date in one's particular research sub-field does not necessarily mean you will learn about everything relevant to instructing your students in a course that is only related in the more general sense (e.g., a platinum electrocatalyst researcher teaching introductory organic chemistry). One can consume information about research without producing it oneself, however, and many other forms of professional education are also available.
Bottom line: doing research is a great way of keeping up with your field, but not necessarily sufficient and not necessarily the only way.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> will I face any difficulties in teaching or explaining concepts and ideas to students if I don't spend some time doing research
>
>
>
This is actually a very interesting question. The blanket answer is that no, it isn't *necessary*, but it helps a lot.
In order to be a good teacher, you need a deep understanding of the material, and the only way to make sure you understand it is by using it in practical applications. Research is particularly suitable because you are banging your head against problems at the boundary of knowledge, so you need to know more than just the topic you are working on. For example, if you apply mathematics to a biological problem, you need to understand the maths, the biology, and be able to bridge the gap between them. That means, not only understanding your mathematical objects in theory, but how they translate to the real world.
Researchers also face ill-posed problems constantly. In my research, I am using techniques developed in computer vision to biological problems. The underlying problem, in abstract terms, is pretty similar; but due to the nature of my problem, I face certain limitations that don't exist in computer vision, so I need to squeeze my brain a bit more to get results. With this hindsight, I will be able to teach my students a wider picture. Note that this kind of problem isn't quite evident if you just read the papers.
Doing research also forces you to keep up to date in fast moving fields, so you can keep your courses up to date and useful.
Lastly, one of the tasks of teaching is designing the syllabus. Doing research helps you find out what is important in the applications. This is particularly important if you are teaching maths to not mathematicians: the focus and content of an algebra course that an engineer and a pure mathematician need aren't the same, and you shouldn't blindly follow a textbook designed for a different background.
You can get all this knowledge in other ways than research, like working in industry applications, or just following the literature.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You may not necessarily need to do research to be a good teacher - but depending on where you go, getting a "permanent" position may have its own requirements of research. In the US at least tenure is usually tied to some level of research involvement, which ranges from "you need to be a top researcher" to "you need to get your name on a few minor things, but it's possibly less than you did for your masters", all the way to no research requirement (more typical in small liberal arts places, community/junior/tech colleges, etc). But lets say you got a position and you just want to be the best teacher possible.
To be the best teacher possible, the use of research may heavily depend on what exactly you teach. If you are teaching the first two years of typical math - college-level algebra, geometry, calculus, probability - as far as I'm aware that material has not, and likely will not, be changing from year to year and new research findings in those fields won't much change low level courses. Some of my favorite teachers in this area actually have told me they don't like research and that's a large part of why they sought out the opportunity to teach such classes, and I can't really imagine how having done research specifically enhanced their ability. Low level math classes are usually just so incredibly far from research that I can't see how experience in research would be indispensable.
On the other hand if you are teaching applied math in areas like data analysis, machine learning, statistics, etc - keeping up to date on the newest approaches and techniques would be extremely important to ensure your students are getting the education they'll need for their chosen field. Similarly if you are teaching just about any other high-level class, much of the material can be inspired or based on insights from research.
Finally, if your students might possibly want to seek involvement or even a career in research, not being actively involved in research can restrict your ability to help them down that path. If you will be asked or expected to advise independent study, or teach classes specific to things like research methods in your field, you may find your effectiveness impaired by your lack of experience and ongoing involvement in research.
If you don't fit into any of these special-cases, and the reality on-the-ground in your region/country allows you to be a teacher without research, then I don't think research will be strictly necessary for you. But for many people in many different regions, research is often a requirement to some extent - from a minor requirement to an absolute necessity.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I will chime in on the two questions you ask, in reverse order:
>
> [...] will I face any difficulties in teaching or explaining concepts and ideas to students if I don't spend some time doing research, publishing papers, learning and asking new questions in a given field?
>
>
>
Probably not.
You can think of it in terms of this rather simple model: The 'amount of knowledge' you will be passing to your students as you teach a course will be finite. Learning does not happen immediately - you do not instantly absorb the contents of a book that is put on your desk. Your students will need time to digest the material, and they have a finite amount of time to spend on lectures and studying. Especially for introductory undergraduate courses, the 'amount of knowledge' that you can convey to your students will be a fraction of the knowledge in a field. While you obviously need to have good content knowledge to teach well, you do not need to be expanding the frontiers of a field to be able to teach a course in it.
Obviously this is a very simplified model - to be able to teach well at the university level, you should have practical experience in the subject, keep up with recent developments (including teaching methods), etc. There are many activities that will contribute to the quality of teaching, and research could indeed be one of them. But I would argue that it is not necessary.
I'll refer back to the model and conclude with two examples: You can be a researcher who has command over 100 units of knowledge in a particular field, but if you do not have good teaching skills, you will struggle to get even 5 units across as you teach a course. Conversely, a good teacher who knows their field only half as well (50 units) could be much more efficient and their students could end up with 20 units of information at their command.
>
> [...] would it be necessary to do research once you have secured a permanent faculty position?
>
>
>
Probably yes.
Unfortunately, most universities do not buy into the reasoning above. It is often the case that the 'permanent' faculty position will require that you do a good amount of research and publish. In many universities research is the priority for full-time faculty.
One good resource that I have found on what life is like for faculty is [<NAME>'s writings](http://pgbovine.net/writings.htm) on the subject. He is an assistant professor in computer science, but his experiences do reflect what it's like for faculty in other fields as well. I suggest you check out the following articles:
* [How I've been spending my time as a first-semester assistant professor](http://pgbovine.net/first-semester-faculty-time-inventory.htm)
* [What I would've wanted to know as a first-year assistant professor](http://pgbovine.net/first-year-assistant-professor.htm)
This of course is the general situation, and you will surely find exceptions somewhere.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: In the most general sense: No.
This depends on country, region, and institution. For example, in the U.S.: 4-year research institutions will (by definition) likely require a PhD and an ongoing research commitment to obtain tenure. On the other hand, community colleges will most like **not** require a research commitment, even for tenure, and it's possible that those positions can be filled with a Master's or even a Bachelor's degree in some cases. (On the *other* other hand: Where I am at CUNY can demand a PhD and research component even at its community colleges for tenured positions; while a small number of Lecturer positions do not have that requirement.)
Current example for a tenure-track appointment at a NY-state community college in mathematics, "Bachelor's and master's degree in mathematics or closely related field is required":
<https://www.higheredjobs.com/faculty/details.cfm?JobCode=176283373>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: As a supplement to other useful answers: I think the issue is not about "research" as necessary background for good teaching (apart from bureaucratic requirements), but *engagement* as background for teaching.
That is, I'd claim that intense, ongoing engagement with a subject is necessary for effective (and apt) teaching. We might imagine that "research" has constraints that force us to most accurately or practically engage, rather than delusional or arm-chair engagement. This may be substantially true, but it is certainly not absolutely reliable.
I think it's not so much "creator of new knowledge" that may help one be a good teacher, but, rather, "utilitarian engagement" with the subject, where the sense of "utilitarian" is "to be able to do more of [the subject]". Or applications to other scenarios. Not just "application to didactic situations"... which, without being "informed by" practice, certainly will not reliably reflect *practice*.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: There are many factors that can make you a great teacher: creative instructional design; a good stage presence; the ability to explain complex concepts in an understandable way; the ability to relate to students and read their body language; patience, motivation, and feedback; and subject matter expertise. Teaching is part motivation and inspiration, and part knowledge transfer.
Research can help with a few of these (most notably subject matter expertise, but it can also hone your abilities to explain complex ideas, and your ability to relate to and motivate students). In that regard, research can make you a better teacher. However, it can also hinder your ability to teach well, if you get so focused on your research that you don't spend a lot of time preparing your lessons or giving timely feedback.
Hence, the two main roles of the professor – teaching and research – might work synergistically for some, but, for others, one might get in the way of the other. A lot of it depends on the professor's ability to juggle roles and manage time.
>
> *Will I face any difficulties in teaching or explaining concepts and ideas to students if I don't spend some time doing research, publishing papers, and learning?*
>
>
>
Perhaps not; maybe you can be a gifted instructor in the classroom even without doing a lot of research. However, as others have already pointed out in their answers, there's a good chance you won't be as valuable to your university if you forego that side of your responsibilities (which is why publishing often plays such large a role in tenure decisions).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: An answer from the American liberal arts tradition, with historical links back to the Scottish Enlightenment and further back to Calvin's Geneva...
The primary goal of a university education is philosophical. One learns what knowledge is, the different forms knowledge takes in different subjects, with an in depth engagement in understanding the particular way knowledge is produced in a particular community of inquiry.
This means teaching, not just facts, but the entire context that makes a fact a fact.
If you're not engaged in scholarship (which might not mean traditional research) in some way, it is hard to see how you can keep an understanding of why we consider certain statements true.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: "College" means different things in different countries (and even in different parts of some countries). In Australia, depending on where you are, it can mean:
* A private high school
* A school specifically for the last two years of secondary education
* A post-secondary education provider that does not grant degrees
* A residential accommodation for students at a university
At none of these institutions are teaching staff expected to have PhDs.
In other countries, "college" can mean:
* A tertiary education provider that does grant Bachelors degrees, but does not grant PhDs or engage in much research. PhDs are often not required to teach at these institutions, but may be expected due to heavy competition from well-qualified candidates who do have PhDs.
* A university. Academics at universities are usually required to have a PhD or at least equivalent research experience, in part because they are usually expected to engage in research as well as teaching. There is also the argument of the "[teaching-research nexus](http://www.academicmatters.ca/2009/10/unpacking-the-teaching-research-nexus-and-its-influence-on-academic-practice/)", that teaching is enhanced by having teachers who are at the forefront of their fields and engaged in active research.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Last year, I wrote a 10 page term paper for a geology class that focused on the geochemistry of certain rock deposits. I received an A on the paper. This year, I'm taking a geochemistry class at a different university and have to write another thesis paper. This assignment has the same criterion as the other paper did and the topic I wrote on before is on of the allowed topics.
Would it be acceptable (morally and/or academically) to submit a slightly edited version of the first paper I wrote in the new class?
The paper was not published/distributed in any way (to my knowledge), and is entirely my own work with proper citations.<issue_comment>username_1: Since you said it has not been distributed or published in any way, you probably wouldn't have any issues with plagiarism in that regard. However, in my experience, **teachers expect unique coursework for individual classes.** Thus, it becomes a matter of coursework integrity/ethics. To be fair, I am not saying it is flat out wrong to reuse your assignment, but it might not be aligned with your school's code of conduct or academic integrity policies.
PS. If you submitted your assignment online, it likely would be added to a plagiarism database which might be matched when you submit this assignment.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Almost invariably, the answer to "Is it OK to submit X for a class assignment?" is "Ask the instructor.".
You do need to ask yourself whether your objective for the geochemistry class is to get a good grade, or to improve your knowledge and skills in the area of geochemistry, or both. Even if the instructor agrees with recycling the old paper, you may get more out of the class if you pick a different topic and write a new paper.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: **Academically** it is probably not okay if you don't at the very least ask. Many guidelines for *self-plagiarism* specifically mention submitting coursework completed for one class to another. E.g.
* [U Texas](http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/acadint_multsub.php) requires you to seek instructor permission first.
* [Roosevelt University](https://www.roosevelt.edu/Provost/Faculty/AcademicIntegrity.aspx)
* [U Oklahoma](http://integrity.ou.edu/students.html)
* [U California Davis](http://sja.ucdavis.edu/cac.html)
For example, to quote the UO guidelines:
>
> SUBMITTING THE SAME ASSIGNMENT FOR DIFFERENT CLASSES Submitting the
> same assignment for a second class violates the assumption that every
> assignment advances a student's learning and growth. Unless the second
> instructor expressly allows it, submitting an assignment already
> submitted for another class is a form of academic misconduct. This is
> also known as self-plagiarism or recycling work.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: As far as I'm concerned this is perfectly fine as long as you make it clear that this paper is heavily based on a similar paper written on your own for another course. And includes any citations required by your academic institution.
This is also heavily dependent on culture of the country/school and the opinion of the person grading the paper. So if you are not sure just explain your opinion and ask what is the correct course of action. This way you will know exactly what the prof expects/prefers and there is no question regarding your intent (did you believe you were doing nothing wrong, did you not know and hope it will work, did you know you were wrong but counted on not getting caught, ....).
You might even be told that doing the same thing twice is a waste of his and your time and your old grade accepted or tips on how to improve your old paper and turn it in for a better grade if you wish or get another assignment.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I actually ran into a similar situation to this in my course work. Though this was within the same university. There was a subject that came up to write a paper on that I wrote a really good 20 page essay on for another class. I asked the teacher if it would be ok if I used this paper again since technically I am the one who wrote it and there shouldn't be any issues about copying other people's work. She told me that I can QUOTE my previous paper, quote my previous thoughts, but she still wanted to see my original thinking.
So basically, I ended up writing something to the effect of:
In class HUM405, I wrote a paper called "Rocks rock!" in which I discussed the ideas of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. In this paper, I ascertained that the studies found the data to be inconclusive. "insert a quote of your thoughts from this previous paper" (cite your paper).
That way you still are creating an original piece of work while able to use your last paper to do most of the heavy work for you. You might even find that the paper you wrote a year ago has some incorrect conclusions or that you didn't do something correctly.
You would be able to even state how, in this paper I said that XXXX would be the results but actually, I found that this isn't true and here is why. Then provide the new research to show why your previous paper was actually wrong. You can still use the same references as long as you cite them because you are more than likely going to cite them again anyways. The key though, the teacher wants to see your original work.
When they check for plagiarism, each paper gets scanned into a database that is cross checked across the country. This way, any paper submitted regardless of college is verified to be original. More than likely, your paper is already in that system that you previously wrote. If you were to submit it again, there is a good chance it would come up. Even though it is your own work, the teacher will probably talk to you about it and depending on how nice the teacher is, could still mark you for plagiarism or even a 0 for the paper. So talking to them and telling them upfront what you would like to do would be your safest bet.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I did recycle an essay paper report once. In my poetry and theater classes, two courses required an essay. I turned the same paper in to both professors. One course was 'The Spoken Word', an introduction into elocution or dramatic speaking. The other course was in the same department of education. I believe it was 'Introduction to Poetry & Drama'. They both gave me a high grade of A. Now I know it was immature to assume the professor need not know that I had already used it for the other course.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: This is what my university says:
Cheat/Cheating: means to seek to obtain an unfair advantage in an examination or written, oral or practical work, required to be submitted or completed for assessment in a course or unit of study and **includes the resubmission of work that has already been assessed in another unit.**
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: I am taking a criminal justice degree, in my intro class, in one unit we had to write a paper on 3 areas of Policing, Courts, and corrections.
In unit 6 we are asked to do the same thing ina the bibliography. I was told whenever using your own past work, talk to the instructor, they may make you change a certain amount of it or cite it or re-use it if you are in the same class and its in 2 units it's considered stacking and therefore not plagiarism.
Anywork reused any course without instructor feedback on reuse or re-writing parts is a must otherwise it becomes plagiarism even if it is your own work. That is taught in College Writing 101. I hope that helps.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I really can't understand why an inexperienced PhD student should be allowed to review a research article written by researchers of considerably more experience and expertise.
How do journals/editors select referees for submissions?<issue_comment>username_1: In many disciplines of science, asking Ph.D. students to review papers is considered to be fair by the community. I can only speak for computer science here, but the following arguments may apply in other fields as well.
1. When a Ph.D. student reviews her/his first papers, this is typically done for his/her advisor. Advisors often check the reviews before turning them in, and thus avoid highly unfair or imprecise evaluation of the work of others.
2. Reviewing work is one of the best ways to get started with writing your own work. You get to know first hand what can make a paper weak and what you want to read as a reviewer. This is very valuable to the student.
3. A single review on its own is seldom the reason for acceptance/rejection of a paper. If there is a strong disagreement between the reviewers, then this is normally discussed in the case of conferences (which are prime publication venues in CS), or the editor has a look and will gather further information.
4. Ph.D. students often simply take more time to review a paper. Thus, they can find flaws in papers that senior researchers overlook in quicker reviews.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it is fair.
* The quality of reviews written by highly experienced researchers is low.
* Many manuscripts have obvious flaws that should be spotted by the inexperienced.
* Reviewers are (in theory) supervised by the editor.
* Novice reviewers are more enthusiastic than experienced reviewers.
* If the paper cannot be understood by a PhD student, it will not be useful to very many people.
* PhD students may have more specialized expertise because they work on fewer projects, as compared to senior researchers (per @nayrb)
Of course, it depends on the individual PhD student. Some are better prepared to review than others.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Of course it is great practice for the student (critical reading improves writing as other pointed out).
But it is also fair for the authors of the paper. In general PhD students, specially towards the end, are (or should be) highly specialized in their specific (sub-) subfield and should know the literature better than anybody else. While this does not make them apt to review *any* paper, they are often the best person for reviewing something very related to their field.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The title and body of your question are asking different things. The title asks whether it's fair for PhD students to review research papers, which I think is certainly the case.
The alternative would be for full participation in the research community to require formal certification. For example, should a figure well-known in a field, with decades of experience (say, as an engineer), be refused permission to fully participate in the research process simply for not having a PhD? Otherwise, would they cross some arbitrary threshold of "experienced enough"? What if that figure used their savings to self-fund a PhD? Would any existing permission be revoked, since they're now a student? What if they abandoned it half way through, would they go back to their prior status? These kind of issues seem like an unnecessary administrative burden, for a restriction which needn't exist, and would seem unfair to me, so in general I would say that it's fair for PhD students to review research papers.
The body of your question asks something different: whether *inexperienced* PhD students should be allowed to review research papers. I think the other answers tackle this well, but I would also say that performing reviews is one way of *gaining* experience.
For the record, I am currently a PhD student, I was following work in my field for years before I started, and I have performed reviews.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The assignment of referees to an article is not a random process where a computer draws a random number and matches it to "active researcher X" in the community. At least in my field the *editors* play a huge role in asking the "right people" to referee the article.
By making the focus on "inexperienced graduate students" you are focusing on the wrong things. An inexperienced graduate student who, nevertheless, has done research in similar fields and therefore has the expert knowledge to say something meaningful on the manuscript is certainly a much better referee than Prof. Dr. Messenberg whose recent research only overlaps with that of the manuscript in so much as that they use the same species of animal subjects.
The question you should ask is: "Should utterly unqualified persons be allowed to referee journal article submissions?" And the easy answer is, "No, since it is called *peer*-review not random-Joe-Schmoe-review."
You ask then: "How do we know whether someone is qualified?"
Answer: "You trust the editors; if you don't, don't send the manuscript to him/her/that journal."
---
As an aside: there are two ways that I've seen where Graduate Students come to review a paper.
1. The graduate student is passed the paper by his or her advisor to referee. *Good* advisors will only do so for appropriate papers, and may even provide guidance on how to referee a paper. *Bad* advisors are, well, bad (if an advisor gave an unsuitable paper to a student to referee, do you really think he himself will write a good referee report?)
2. The graduate student has independently came to the notice of the journal editor due to a previous interaction (conference presentation, paper submission, research discussion), and the journal editor feels that the student can fill the duties of the referee.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Why isn't there a standard method at Journals for reviewing reviewers?
>
>
>
There *are* some standard methods at some journals (e. g. keeping track of response time and such) and also there are the editors who keep track of the quality of reviews. Any standardized method on reviewing quality of reviews will most likely be flawed, however.
>
> Why isn't there more oversight of reviews by managing editors?
>
>
>
I don't think that this question is based on a right premise.
>
> Isn't allowing any random PhD student to reject a paper out of hand bad for the state of the literature?
>
>
>
Reviewers do not reject papers. Reviewer *suggest* rejection. Editors reject papers. Editors don't select random PhD students.
>
> Why isn't there any formal training required (e.g. certification) before a less experienced researcher is allowed to review journals?
>
>
>
Who would you like to grant a reviewer certificate? Experienced and reputed researchers probably. These researchers should be able to judge the quality of reviewers and then decide which reviewer could be qualified to review a paper and should choose stronger reviewers for more critical/potentially ground breaking papers and less experienced reviewers for more "standard" papers. Oh wait, that's exactly what editors actually do these days.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: You are asking:
>
> Is it fair that a PhD student should be allowed to review a research
> paper?
>
>
>
**Yes:**
* It should be checked that a paper is written in a clear enough way that anyone with a reasonable background in the research area should be able to understand the paper. A PhD student is more likely to pick up “assumed information” that should be included in the paper, but is not, then someone that is a leading researcher in the given subfield.
* A Phd student can also check that the “logic” in the paper is correct etc, and is more likely to rework all the proofs then someone with less time.
But if you had asked:
>
> Is it fair that **only** PhD students should be reviewing a given research
> paper?
>
>
>
**No:**
* It needs an expert in the subfield to know all the past papers on the subject.
* It needs a long standing expert to know how a paper relates to what is being done in other fields.
**Therefore a mix of reviewers is needed.**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Your question is simply **ambiguous**. You ask:
>
> why an inexperienced PhD student should be allowed to review a research article?
>
>
>
This can be read as one of the following two *different* questions:
* "Why an inexperienced researcher (that is by chance also a PhD student) be allow to review?"; or
* "Why a PhD student, which I assume in advance to be inexperienced, because all PhD students are inexperienced, be allowed to review?".
For the first interpretation, the editor or program committee should take the inexperience of a reviewer into consideration. For the second interpretation, it lies on a false premise, and so is wrong.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: *This question relates to the potential withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, a.k.a. [Brexit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_withdrawal_from_the_European_Union).*
I am an Italian citizen, and I will start a (funded) PhD in the UK in September.
Right now I don't need any particular documents to stay there, but I am worried that if the UK decides to leave the EU my position could be in trouble (especially with regards to funding).
What would happen in such a situation?
*I am aware this question might be labeled as opinion-based, but I am looking for people who already got answers from their universities. I imagine financial plans have been established for the next two-three years already.*<issue_comment>username_1: Even if British people opt for Brexit, it will take time. According to Refs. [1] and [2], it will take years for the Brexit to actually happen. I'm pretty sure you have plenty of time to arrange everything.
But just in case, I would get a signed contract mentioning the funding/salary from the university if you don't already have one.
[1] <http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35921610>
[2] <https://www.rt.com/uk/346505-brexit-how-long-leave/>
Edit: Added additional reference.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Update on 2016-06-28**: The UK Government has [put out an official statement on this issue](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/statement-on-higher-education-and-research-following-the-eu-referendum).
---
The short answer is "We don't know yet, but for a PhD program likely not."
The terms of Brexit have not been negotiated. They will [may](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71304/could-brexit-affect-negatively-phd-students-in-uk#comment173376_71312) start to be negotiated if and after a vote to leave wins the referendum. (So that's the "we don't know".) On the other hand, it will be at least two years after the vote before the actual British exit from the EU (presumably to negotiate and to allow a graceful transition). If you are starting a 3-year PhD program this fall, there's a good chance that the negotiations will not have concluded fast enough to directly affect your research.
---
*Source*: [the BBC](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-32810887) writes
>
> **If the UK left the EU would UK citizens need special permits to work in the EU?**
>
>
> Lots of people asked about this. A lot would depend on the kind of deal the UK agreed with the EU after exit. If it remained within the single market, it would almost certainly retain free movement rights allowing UK citizens to work in the EU and vice versa. If the government opted to impose work permit restrictions, as UKIP wants, then other countries could reciprocate, meaning Britons would have to apply for visas to work.
>
>
> **What about EU nationals who want to work in the UK?**
>
>
> As explained in the answer above, it would depend on whether the UK government decided to introduce a work permit system of the kind that currently applies to non-EU citizens, limiting entry to skilled workers in professions where there are shortages.
>
>
>
and
>
> **How long will it take for Britain to leave the EU?**
>
>
> This was a question asked by many people. The minimum period after a vote to leave would be two years. During that time Britain would continue to abide by EU treaties and laws, but not take part in any decision-making, as it negotiated a withdrawal agreement and the terms of its relationship with the now 27 nation bloc. In practice it may take longer than two years, depending on how the negotiations go.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I was a funded PhD student from Russia in the 90s, before the EU existed. There are no issues as long as you have paperwork in order. I haven't had any problems at all.
The way it works is that British immigration will typically give you a "leave to remain" for 3 years when you enter the country. This allows you to come in and out of the country at any time, open a bank account, phone service, etc. I think you even get the NHS.
If your program takes longer (and again, you will have to supply paperwork) you may have to extend your leave to remain.
You do have to get a visa, which takes a couple of months. Apply at the British Consulate in Italy with all paperwork. Your visa will get exchanged for the "leave to remain" and a stamp in your passport with the expiration date; until that date you are, basically, British.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Noone knows for sure what will happen. The government has not negotiated exist terms in advance of the refferendum. It will likely take a couple of years for an exit to be negotiated which unfortunately for you means that the actual exit may come roughly in the middle of your degree.
There are two aspects to this. Funding and immigration/border control.
I think it's highly unlikey that immigration/border control will stop you from studying in the UK but it's concinvable that you may have to jump through some hoops (get a passport, get a student visa on that passport).
Funding is a far thornier issue IMO. I would hope that funding bodies would put transitional arrangements in place to continue paying existing students but I don't think it can be garuanteed in the face of a major shakeup like this. Especially if your funding is coming from a UK government source.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: As others noted, so far it can only be guesstimates. And for your PhD funding that does obviously depend on the small print, but:
There are other non-EU countries in Europe, such as Norway and Switzerland. My personal guess is that a brexited UK will have relations to the EU that are similar to those.
Wrt. to academia, a lot of the EU things are actually not restricted to EU countries. A number of associated countries e.g. for Horizon2020 are eligible as well (which are far more than just Norway and Switzerland). That are for example [COST](http://www.cost.eu/about_cost/cost_countries) and [Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions](http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions). Which would mean little if any change for a Marie Curie funded PhD if UK ends up being associated.
BTW, there seems (hearsay only) to be quite a distinction already in the UK between funded PhD positions that are eligible for UK citizens only and funded PhD positions that are open to EU citizens (or Horizon2020 countries) such as the Marie Curie funded positions.
As for loosing funding for a PhD position for which you do have a valid contract, I don't think the risk is high. The UK votes on leaving EU, not on abolishing their whole legal system. Retroactively changing requirements for *temporary* contracts would be rather costly in terms of violation of the principle of legality. (Though governments sometimes do have a tendency towards ex post facto rules like "as of *last* year, we'll collect a new tax")
As for the burocratic paperwork, sure there may be some changes. But again, my guess is that it wouldn't be much worse than the paperwork I had to do as a EU citizen when working in Italy as a postdoc (comparison: young worker exchange visum for Canada was less paperwork).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: As other people have said, it is unlikely to affect a PhD that is starting in September.
However when you have finished your PhD **you will want a job**…. If Brexit has completed by then, it may be a lot harder to get a job in the UK, due to the employer having to get a work permit for you. (You may also not be able to take a job to support yourself while doing the PhD, likewise for your wife etc.)
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I work as a research scientist, and I am about to write up the work I've been doing for the past year. I have done all of the big data formatting, set up, edited and run a complex ecosystem model, wrote analysis code, calculated the statistics, produced graphs and map outputs. My manager wants me to pass the final graphs, maps and statistics to him so that he can write up the paper. I have sufficient post graduate research experience and analysis skills to analyse the final data myself and do the write up.
My manager has a good scientific overview of the work but doesn't have the technical skills to run the model or do any of the coding/ statistical work himself. **I feel like he should encourage his staff to write up their own work**, but he said he needs **more papers as first author**.
**Do you have any suggestions for the points I can raise when I discuss with him that I'd like to be first author?**
I want to stay on good terms with him as far as possible, while also asserting my belief that I should be first author. A former colleague done some of the base work for this project, and I think his name should also come before that of my manager's. **My manager's supervision of the project has been minimal** (a 5 minute rushed catch up conversation every month or so).<issue_comment>username_1: You'll learn from this experience. It's a good idea to discuss authorship at the outset of a project, and perhaps again throughout the process. Generally, the person who writes the paper receives first authorship, followed in order by amount of intellectual contribution, with the last author (in some disciplines) being the main PI/lab head. If your superior now insists he/she must write the paper, he/she is probably entitled first authorship. If you can't come to an agreement, you might ask that it be noted that 'the first two authors contributed equally'. That is somewhat common.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: The ICMJE guidelines recommend that authors should state their contribution to the project: ‘authors should provide a description of what each contributed, and editors should publish that information’. Journals may publish this information but in most cases it is for the benefit of the editor,who wants reassurance that the criteria have been fulfilled.( see section II ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUTHORS, CONTRIBUTORS, REVIEWERS, EDITORS, PUBLISHERS,
AND OWNERS of the 2015 recommendations) I'd simply ask via email that each authors contributions be clearly stated per guidelines adopted by ICMJE. Put yours and any other authors in the email and ask him to add his. It doesn't matter that the field you are in isn't biomed, you simply like the idea. If he refuses you can at least submit the email thread and his refusal to the editor and let the chips fall where they may. I'd be a little surprised if I was an editor and the lead author couldn't say what his role was.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I feel confident in my answer because, although norms differ between fields, you are in exactly my field.
You are absolutely correct that it is not ethical for your manager to ask for first authorship on this paper. From the work you describe, this is your paper. He may need more first authorships, but so do you, and even aside from the ethics of relative contributions, his role should be to help you to progress your career.
Managing this situation is going to be very tricky for you. This happened to me during my PhD -- my PhD advisor was first author on all my publications -- and I did not confront him over it. Obviously, this wasn't good for my career. It wasn't great for his career either, because it meant I was unwilling to work with him after I finished my PhD and so he lost the opportunity to be a coauthor on several more papers that followed on from my PhD work.
On the other hand, having a blow-out with your boss that puts your ongoing work in jeopardy or results in your work not getting published at all is also not going to be great for your career.
I suggest you do try to change his mind, but keep it very polite and civil. Mention the benefits to him of having you do well: it will boost his reputation as a successful PI and mentor, it will increase the likely success of future collaborative work with you, and it will reduce the amount of work he has to do on the paper himself so that he can concentrate on getting more of his own work published. If this fails, it may be worth involving a third party -- in the first instance someone you mutually like and respect, if possible, and not his boss -- to facilitate a discussion about setting some more formal guidelines around how authorship order should be determined.
If all else fails, you could appeal to authority - his boss or the journal editor - but be warned that WILL get messy and bitter.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: One compromise to consider is to give him last author placement. This is an honorary ordering that is often used for the person who provided the idea, guidance and resources for the study. It's similar to opening film credits that end with "and", followed by an old, famous actor who does little more than provide gravitas to the work.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a senior PhD student at an American university. I have found over the course of my degree that my mood has largely been influenced by how well my research is going. If I make a small break-through then I feel great - conversely, if I am struggling or have gotten stuck on something then it completely takes over me and my mood declines. I know that this isn't healthy and it isn't really fair to the people who care about me.
Does anyone else experience this? How can I make moves to lessen the impact of my research results on the quality of my life?<issue_comment>username_1: For me, the simple attempt is to achieve at least one positive thing a day and hang on to that. If all else failed, I still have something that I can feel happy about. It might be as small as automating some mundane task that I repeatedly did manually, preparing a couple figures that will be useful for some presentation/publications, etc.
Obviously this assumes you have multiple parallel things running, but that is always good anyhow. (i.e. "not all eggs in one basket")
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I tend to believe that (some) people choose research because it fills them with emotions, either positive or negative. This is a fuel for your interest in searching. The history of science contains a lot of descriptions of both alternating enthusiasm and depression (often in a milder form).
Tricks that work are often subject dependent. Examples are relaxation, a walk outside. It is often useful to have persons to talk to, and who listen. They know not need to understand what you stuck with. Speaking problemes out loud to somebody sometimes expel... something, and help you solve parts of the issues. I do that with colleagues, and offer them to do the same with me in return. Some collaborations arose from that.
As said by @username_1, routine work may help too. When I am good at nothing, I do reference search and fill my reference management library, and leave my mind wander. It feels like gardening, very soothing, which I cannot do at work.
You also have to learn to treat yourself more gently. Savor little victories too, and remember that you often learn more by failures you understand than with illogical successes.
Finally, if all that does not work, or if it worsens, do not hesitate to seek for some mental condition. A lot of creators, artists, scientists, may have a form of mania. It could be [hypomania](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania) (weak form), that often gets unnoticed, and light medicines can help you maintain some comfort. I learnt by my physician friend that some cured maniacs know how to underdose their medicines to remain in a slightly manic phase, and stay more creative and full of energy.
Warning, the backdraft can be severe, do not try this at home.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Does anyone else experience this?
>
>
>
Yes, I'm pretty sure we all do to some extent, and that it's one of the defining characteristics of being a researcher that you get so emotionally involved in your work and are so passionate about it that it has that effect. It can be both a curse and a blessing (see [the fantastic question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2219/how-should-i-deal-with-becoming-discouraged-as-a-graduate-student) linked to by *jakebeal* in the comments). Hopefully if you are talented and work hard, it will be the latter more often than the former.
As for how to manage it:
1. get used to it (I mean that literally, not as a sarcastic admonition) - if you plan a career in academia there will always be ups and downs of this sort. At some point one learns to be patient and not to freak out every time the research isn't going great.
2. Always have other more "normal" work to do, like teaching, that can help you feel like you're doing something worthwhile even during those times when you're stumped with your research.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I agree with others that this is natural, though I'm not sure I would say its unhealthy. It's how you deal with your emotions that may be healthy or unhealthy. Here are some suggestions, which have some overlap with other answers.
* First, realize that your goal is to learn and understand things, not to get a result today. The world's not going to come crashing down if it takes you months longer to solve something than you hoped, or even if you never solve it. This can help you to enjoy the full range of research, of which "struggling in the dark" is a large part. <NAME>'s fond of saying "when something is hard, that means it's interesting."
* Cathart. Talking to other people about your frustrations can help you deal with them, and also give perspect. (Of course, you don't want to vent all the time.)
* Try to find other things to do so that you feel productive. This is one reason it's helpful to have multiple projects going on at one time, preferably each in various stages, which is common for senior researchers though less common for junior researchers. Maybe you can spend time writing up notes on something, reading papers, or learning a relevant topic, to at least feel like you're accomplishing something.
* I personally have not mastered separating work life and home life either (I'm also not sure it's necessary), and sometimes I come home down about work. I find it helpful to have an engaging non-academic hobby, to get your mind completely off work for a time. It could be something physical like sports, or less physical like novels/cinema.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: It's completely normal.
However, if you do not like the mood swings, you could just completely discourage yourself every time you have success, and then you have a consistently bad mood, with no swings (just kidding, of course!).
Perhaps more fitting is a principle of the Old Romans: "better a battle lost with everything done right, than a battle won by luck." I found that a very useful principle to follow.
You can not affect which breakthroughs you are going to have today or how well your daily progress is going to be. But, what you can do is to choose how you want to work, which pieces of work to concentrate on, how to switch activities when you find yourself stuck and similar.
Introducing a discipline of how to manage the different levels of your activity will put you in control and I predict, also your mood swings will subside when you are in control of what you choose to do (rather than depending on lucky breaks). Breakthroughs are often due to the right strategy being consistently applied with a healthy dose of self-scepticism. Good luck!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: This is indeed common.
A partial solution is, as much as possible, to not let "how well your research is going" fluctuate so wildly.
1. Diversify. Have several threads of inquiry within a project, so that success or failure with any given one is not so destabilizing.
2. Be more scientific. It's of course forgivable to see negative results as failures (given the reward system) but in a purely scientific sense these are just as valuable. When doing something, be prepared for it to work or not work, and to extract information and further plans from either eventuality. If you are struggling, why? If you can get to the point of formulating your frustrations as questions, you are stronger: maybe you can answer it yourself, and if not you have a contained question to take to an advisor or colleague.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I have noticed that meditation makes my mood much more stable. I don't get as upset anymore when something bad happens. There are meditation techniques to stop physical pain (have you seen monks committing suicide by burning them self to death), never freeze (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo#Scientific_investigation>), need much less air when breathing (yogis put their head into a small hole for hours, with no air), etc etc etc. Meditation has tremendous effects on your mental abilities and health. Research shows that the brain will change if you meditate a lot, the cortex will thicken (that is where our higher cognitive abilities are). And of course, training does too.
Research have shown that traumatized women that trained and meditated quickly halved their mental problems in a couple of months. Better than medicine, and no negative effects.
Research shows that the only thing that creates new neurons in our brain, is physical exercise. You need to sweat for half an hour, then you create new neurons. But, these new fragile neurons will whither and die unless you exercise vigorously. But, research also shows that meditation feeds these fragile new neurons and grow them so they become full "adult" permanent neurons. So, physical exercise (running) and meditation 10 minutes a day. And in a couple of months nothing will break your peace of mind.
But meditation is a vast subject, monks study it for decades. The easiest meditation is Transcendental meditation. You just repeat a nonsensical word over and over again. That's it. When you reach trance, you will feel a tingling sensation in your limbs, feet and hands. If you are not feeling that, you are not in trance. Read upon transcendental meditation. But do not attend courses, Transcendental schools just try to rip you off money. I've never been to a course, I just repeat a word and listen to transcendental meditation instructions on youtube. That is enough, I get a tingling sensation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: We're only human. To be born without such emotion would be impossible.
To me it sounds like you're more emotionally attached to your results than you are your performance (execution of process). This is extremely common in any line of work/study.
One thing we have to remember is that certain results are out of our control. We can't completely control when we are "winning" or "losing". All we can completely control is the amount of effort we exert.
Instead of totally focusing on the results your actions generate, how about becoming emotionally invested in your performance.
If you work smartly on a research problem all day, then you can feel good. It doesn't matter if you've gained the insight your after. You came, you did your best, you deserve to feel good.
Conversely, if you start researching for the day and find your result instantly, should you feel good? Hell yeah, we have to celebrate the wins we get.
But if you then go home straightaway to watch TV for the rest of the day, do you deserve to feel good? I don't think so. Not if your emotionally attached to your performance.
It's great that you've realized that this is a problem for yourself (most people never will). Now you can work on doing something about it. Got out there and become a better version of yourself.
Good day.
TLDR:
Results are out of our control.
Focus on your performance (execution of process).
Evaluate yourself. Justify emotions based on the amount of effort you exude.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I don't think it is related to academia rather to work in general.
If you are succesfull, you are happy about it. If you are failing, you are disappointed. No matter what you are doing.
In extreme we can identify extatic/neutral, neutral/frustrated, extatic/frustrated or poker-faced mood spectra for people encountered success/fail.
I suppose you are in the third group, so take it easy and try to accomplish a "small win" every day. Or you can divide the task into sequence of tasks and judge them separately.
If we took all the seriousness away, take the inspiration in this [fictional man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1ra_Cimrman) whose scientific outcomes were that he was either late (just bu couple of minutes, honestly) or he proved that something *cannot* be achieved the way he had chosen...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: Yes that is common.
This is due to a strong attachment towards the outcome of the work. [Can easily be understood from Bhagavad Gita]
How to remain detached with the results while still working dutifully?
Well, many people hence take on to various alternatives or "breaks". This might be getting intoxicated a little or munching or chatting (which I consider complicating the dependency or mood).
So that can be tried.
There are many tips on this which depends on time, place and circumstance.
At my office, I know my boss is not gonna kick me anyways. So I always give my best. But if project gets complicated, I slow down (as per his standards). He adds pressure, but I don't freak because I know, he cannot kick me (earlier I would). And what can be the worse? Getting fired? There are worse things that can happen than getting fired. But I try my best to get back in best form.
I know, somehow or the other, the obstacle will clear out. And I also know, another obstacle shall settle in, that's a part of our world. There are no permanent solutions. Only temporary patchworks here and there. And the more we responsibly fight these obstacles, the more we become experienced.
So we can work out many such techniques. To remain detached to the results of work is not an easy task and is a whole subject of spirituality (nicely elaborated in Bhagavad Gita As It Is) to become like that. Most go for the approach - ignorance is bliss. So see, whatever convenient. But very few out of thousands are cry about it [Denotes sincerity, not oddness].
Very few specific meditations help. Not of the types of feeling void and nothingness. They are like forgetting the temporary existence. But fact is, engage one has to ultimately and feel the same. While working, feeling frustrated, one cannot meditate on void. Better give up work and become a full time monk, which also is not very practical in this age. Go for Mantra meditation maybe if you are inclined to spirituality.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: I am guessing that you identify with being a scientist and focus a lot on research. In this case, it is no wonder that a lot of your feeling of self-worth is tied to how the work is going.
Which is a problem if the work is not going well -- which given science, of course there are phases where this is the case (nobody has done it before!).
Strong suggestion to
1. Change the time perspective: Tie your work-related feelings of self worth not to the immediate work, but also to your prior work. A mishap in an experiment do not invalidate years of good work (had to be good, otherwise you would not work in science anymore).
2. Find other sources of self-confirmation (hobbies and the like, something you love to do and are good at). As the saying goes, never place all your eggs in one basket.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: I'd add my personal experience as an answer. I used to have wild mood swings, depending on how research was going. Sometimes, I would be happy doing what I was doing and I was really productive. Then, without much warning, I'd fall into lethargy and one or two weeks would go by with no progress. Later, it turned out I had bipolar disorder.
Even if you are healthy, you could still learn from sick people. So, to reduce the mood swings, you should make sure you get enough sleep and you have a fixed sleep routine, e.g. go to sleep at 11 and wake up at 7. Eating healthy and exercising will also help a lot. The other thing that graduate students often overlook is socializing, and by that I don't mean getting drunk every evening. These are possible if you impose an upper bound that you are comfortable with to your daily scientific activities.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: What is the likely cause for me to feel like I do?
There are many reasons why one can get too good or too bad results. Try and analyze the probable cause for the results. If you are doing research this can be split into two categories you will frequently encounter.
1) **New tools** one is not yet proficient in using. If one does not know how the tools are used one can easily misuse and also misinterpret output of the tools for good or bad which will affect emotions.
2) **New knowledge** one has not yet learned well enough to actually know what one is doing. Expect to be struggling for a bit once you try and get the hang of something you just learned about, and always start with easy examples you know what to expect from (ground-truth).
Hopefully you will over time learn that misunderstandings which boost (or lower) your spirit do happen once in a while. If some result seems too good (or bad) to be true it usually is for one reason or another (of the two above) , so you will learn some skepticism to dampen the worst of the roller-coaster.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/15
| 717
| 3,196
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently my supervisor received review request from very reputed journal of Elsevier and he passed it to me because he is not much familiar with the field in which paper was written, but as I was independently doing work in that field so I think he was right passing it to me for review.
So on what basis the editor of journal could have decided to send review request to my supervisor who is not expert in that field ?<issue_comment>username_1: The authors may have suggested your supervisor, or your supervisor may have previously provided a good review for that editor. It's hard to know what happened without being able to read the editor's mind.
Though you don't state it, I hope your supervisor has approval from the editor for you to do the review. This serves two functions. One, you should receive recognition for doing the review. Two, the editor should know who is doing the review, and they may not want students (this is unlikely).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I am an Elsevier editor. When I am looking for reviewers, I try the following:
1. People who I know personally who are doing work relevant to the paper, if I haven't asked them to review another too recently. Occasionally they disagree about its relevance: for example, I asked a colleague who wrote a paper on thermodynamics of coastal ocean sediments to review a paper on thermodynamics of lake sediments. I thought there couldn't be a better match, but he declined because he thought it was too far from his expertise.
2. People who come up on a Scopus search as having recently published several papers on similar topics. There's a tool built into the editing software to help find them. I usually only check the titles and journals of publication of the listed papers by matched authors to see whether they are in fact a good match, and try to make sure they are first author of the relevant papers.
3. The author's suggestions. Sometimes these are way off base -- last time I declined a review request that was well outside my field, the editor commented that I had been the author's suggestion (and it was an author I'd never heard of).
4. Keyword matches in my journal's reviewer database. I use these only if it isn't a highly specialised paper so the matches to fairly generic keywords are likely to be relevant.
5. Suggestions made by other potential reviewers who have declined review invitations. These can be very helpful.
6. If I am desperate, I will ask people whose work is relevant to only one aspect of the paper and find other reviewers for other aspects to fill the gaps. For example, I might ask a marine chemist to review a specialised marine biochemistry modelling paper, but also ask a marine modeller to review the modelling aspects.
Your supervisor might have come up in a search if he has co-authored papers with you on the subject. He might also be perfectly well qualified to review it, but think you are even better qualified. If you are a PhD student and he is qualified to supervise you, then I'd suggest he is certainly qualified to review a paper on your topic. If you are a postdoc or higher, this may not be the case.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
|
2016/06/15
| 344
| 1,125
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<issue_start>username_0: This may be a bit of hair-splitting, but maybe there is a proper way to do this: In my thesis I present an external application. I want to give a literature reference to the application and a reference to a screenshot. What comes first, the literature reference or the screenshot reference?
>
> The SuperFramework [1] (cf. Figure 1.1) ...
>
>
>
or
>
> The SuperFramework (cf. Figure 1.1) [1] ...
>
>
>
*Figure 1.1* is the screenshot.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think there's any way to stick a citation and figure reference right next to one another in a non-ugly way, so I cheat. When faced with a situation like this, I reorganize the sentence so that they are separated, e.g.:
>
> The SuperFramework [1], for which a screenshot is shown in Figure 1.1, ...
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you have to go with either (and not with what username_1 suggests), I would go with the first option:
>
> The SuperFramework [1] (cf. Figure 1.1) ...
>
>
>
I'm afraid I don't have any reference for this, it's just my copy editor hat on.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/15
| 578
| 2,447
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it possible publishing original work in math research without having an adviser?
I had some thought of matrix multiplication which I posted in this forum which wasn't welcomed that well, I plan to publish it in the arxiv.org but I also want to publish in a journal.
I tried looking for advier for my MSc thesis in PDE but with no success so I am thinking of publishing an article by myself, will that be sufficient with providing me with my Msc degree?
I heard once that <NAME> published during his Bsc studies, I am not sure if he were granted his PhD without an adviser, but I hope it's possible.
P.S
my case is different than the other case as I don't even have an adviser to discuss my paper.<issue_comment>username_1: Of course you can. Anyone can submit their work to a journal. The editor will make an assessment to determine if it should be sent to peer review. It if is, you will be subject to the perils of your peer's opinions. If they think it is good enough, your work will be published. Be advised though, that some journals will charge a fee for publication, and without an advisor or being part of some organization with budget to cover such expenses, you will have to pay yourself.
One published article is not sufficient to be granted a degree by a university. You will need to fulfill the criteria for a degree, which at the very least means an assessment of a thesis by a committee or examiner. You could possibly come to some agreement with your university about submitting a thesis for assessment without having an advisor. However, having an advisor, if only for the administrative aspects, is probably the simplest way to proceed.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Publishing an article and getting a degree are two different things. One can do either of them without the other.
At least at the Ph.D. level, the thesis should be of "publishable quality" but in some exceptional cases may not be published. And of course many get masters degrees without publishing.
You can publish without an advisor. But it seems unlikely you will get a degree without one. (Some Ph.D. programs may have a masters degree by coursework and examinations that you receive during the course of your Ph.D. work.)
Generally, the work for your degree is done after you have an advisor, in consultation with that advisor. It is rare that you have the work done before you have an advisor.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/15
| 2,417
| 10,355
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a math postdoc, and about to start applying for tenure-track (research oriented) jobs soon. Besides writing 2 papers with my Phd advisor while I was in graduate school, all the papers I wrote since then (about 10 papers) were single authored papers. As I start to think about applications for tenure-track position, I started wondering if this solo career I had so far will hurt my chances.
What do people with experience in search committees think about such a situation? should I make a serious effort in the near future to collaborate with others?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you should make an effort to cooperate, although it is not necessary to get a tenure(track) position.
You should make an effort because cooperation can be a lot more fun and a lot more efficient than doing everything alone (it can also be the opposite when done wrong). It also shows that you can cooperate which is something that search committees like.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I am a math professor at a research-oriented university, and I have been on multiple hiring committees for tenure-track positions. If I were reading your file, your situation would raise two questions:
1. Are you doing research that is of broad interest?
2. Do you work well with others? Are you the kind of person that has ideas to share, that I would want to chat math with in the hallway, that would get graduate students interested in your subject?
Your application should offer evidence that the answer to both of these questions is yes. The first point will hopefully be addressed by your letter writers. It will also look good if your CV lists many invited conference or seminar talks.
The second point will again hopefully be addressed by your letter writers. If possible, I would suggest that at least one of them should be written by someone with whom you have talked math a great deal, and not just by your advisor and senior scientists who have read your papers. If you have engaged in any leadership activities (i.e., started a seminar, organized a conference, informally helped to mentor graduate students, etc.) I would make sure that your letter writers include someone who will attest to this.
And finally, like the other commenters, I would definitely recommend striking up some collaborations, although there is certainly nothing wrong with also doing work on your own.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Let me give my own view on this important question. First, note that this is a "probabilistic" question. We don't know precisely how things would work for individual cases, but we do have our own impressions of the statistics and trends in our fields.
So in short, my answer is:
* Not cooperating *at all* is certainly *correlated* with work which is not of high enough impact; and with a non-cooperative personality.
* **BUT** (and this is where I might raise some disagreement): *not being able to work with yourself alone* (i.e., doing research *only* in groups) is *also* correlated with researchers that are devoid of their own research identity, researchers that are not leaders in their field, and researchers whose main mode of work is following others trends.
These are all mere (statistical) correlations, and I'm sure there are many exceptions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It seems like most of the feedback so far is suggesting the OP to collaborate. In pure math, historically most papers have been solo authored, though there has been a trend toward more collaboration over at least the past 50 years or so. See [Grossman's 2002 paper](https://www.siam.org/pdf/news/485.pdf) and in a bit of a different direction [this more recent paper](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.5158) (coincidentally with many co-authors). At least as of 15 years ago, 2/3 of papers were still single authored.
Things are not at a stage where it looks strange for all or almost all of a job applicant's papers to be solo. Personally, when I look at a job candidate's research the main things I look at are the letters of recommendation and the publication list. If you are publishing in a good number of good journals, there's no disadvantage from my point of view if all of these papers are solo. In fact, to me it looks better. If you have papers in good journals, but they're all or mostly collaborations, that takes some of the credit away from you and makes it unclear how independent you are. In fact it can be hard to evaluate the candidate if all of their work is joint with strong people.
Yes, collaboration has some benefits, but **don't collaborate just to collaborate**. Also, getting an extra small paper or two out now won't make much of a difference. What's much more important is that you're doing good work and **people know about your work**. So you should be active in conferences, seminars, etc. If you need to, visit people who will ask for letters to explain your work to them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I second username_4's excellent answer. In my opinion, collaboration is neither bad nor good in and of itself, it is simply a means to the end of producing good research. If you can produce good research by yourself, that's all that matters, and the fact (that many commenters here don't seem to appreciate) is that mathematics in one area where it is a lot more possible to produce good research by oneself relative to other sciences. In fact, some of the best research that can be done in math, the kind of groundbreaking research that is the product of very deep and intense thinking over long periods of time, has been done by people working by themselves (I'm looking at you, Perelman, Wiles, <NAME>, <NAME> and many others). Indeed, I suspect that this may very well be the only way to produce certain kinds of breakthroughs.
With that said, setting aside the extreme examples I mentioned, for normal people in normal situations (and certainly for people at the pre-tenure-track job stage), there are some good reasons to think that collaborating with others can give a modest (or in some cases not so modest) boost to your productivity, and also increase the exposure of your work once it's finished:
* In pure math research, the combined brainpower, talents and skills of two people is often more than the sum of its parts. No one person can be an expert on everything, and often research breakthroughs require putting together different ideas that few individuals could come up with all by themselves.
* Working with others can give you new ideas and teach you new points of view and techniques. It has benefits that will stay with you long after the collaboration is over and can inform your work on the next project and make you a better mathematician.
* Collaborating with others offers a very good way for others to learn about your abilities. If you leave a good impression, that can well help you down the road and also make many other people want to collaborate with you. This can seed a virtuous cycle (a.k.a. "the rich get richer") where people might approach you with exciting ideas for research projects that you would never have thought of yourself, amplifying and multiplying the effect of your initial successes.
* Perhaps my favorite feature of collaborating, which seemed almost too good to be true when I realized it exists, is that when you finish a coauthored paper, you now have a person or persons who will spend the next few months or years traveling around the world giving talks **about your result**. Imagine that, someone working for you for free to go around telling others how great your result is and how great you are! (And keep in mind that they can, and sometimes will, praise you in ways that you could not politely praise yourself...). Of course, I assume you will do the same for them, but again, the result is that your paper can get double or triple the impact with the same amount of effort that you would have to put in for a solely authored paper. (You can also share with them the work of writing the paper, share slides and other "marketing" materials, etc. - the possibilities are endless.)
Finally, I should add that I personally enjoy working by myself slightly more than with others (I've done both about equally - around half my papers are solely authored), so you should not feel that there's anything wrong with you if that's your preferred mode of working. As long as you're doing good work, things should be fine. But as I explained above, you might want to give working with others a try and maybe discover some of the unexpected advantages it can give you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I am a mathematician at a research university. On all the hiring committees I've been on, I've **never** heard complaints about someone collaborating too little. On the other hand, I have heard people shoot down job candidates whose best work was in collaboration with more senior people (the assumption being, of course, that the senior person was the "leader" in the collaboration).
As long as you are publishing in strong journals, I would not stress out about this. Just work in the way that is most natural to you. On a personal note, most of my work when I was younger consisted of single-authored papers. When I was on the tenure track market, I had 15 papers of which only 4 were co-authored. It didn't appear to hurt me at all. I write more joint papers these days largely because my joint papers seem to get written up more efficiently than my single-authored ones, but in many ways I miss my old way of working...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: In my experience , it is worthwhile to collaborate because
1) if you write an n-authored paper, you get more than 1/n times the credit.
2) if you can find a collaborator with complementary skills then you may write much better papers than either of you would have alone
3) if you have more ideas than time to work out, you can get collaborators to do the less interesting parts and be very productive.
Point 3 is the problem with collaboration, hiring committees may think you are the junior partner and give less weight to your contribution.
Now to answer the original question, will the absence of collaboration harm you directly? No. In fact, because you are not prone to the perception of point 3, it may well help.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/16
| 2,392
| 10,253
|
<issue_start>username_0: Suppose that I have submitted a paper to a journal, and I have a list of suggested changes from the referee.
Then, let's say I put the article in the appropriate format and make the suggested changes, but I still want to make some additional changes.
Perhaps I want to be a little more exact with my wording in certain places, or I need to condense/expand some sections, so that my figures are not forced into awkward positions.
Is this acceptable?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you should make an effort to cooperate, although it is not necessary to get a tenure(track) position.
You should make an effort because cooperation can be a lot more fun and a lot more efficient than doing everything alone (it can also be the opposite when done wrong). It also shows that you can cooperate which is something that search committees like.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I am a math professor at a research-oriented university, and I have been on multiple hiring committees for tenure-track positions. If I were reading your file, your situation would raise two questions:
1. Are you doing research that is of broad interest?
2. Do you work well with others? Are you the kind of person that has ideas to share, that I would want to chat math with in the hallway, that would get graduate students interested in your subject?
Your application should offer evidence that the answer to both of these questions is yes. The first point will hopefully be addressed by your letter writers. It will also look good if your CV lists many invited conference or seminar talks.
The second point will again hopefully be addressed by your letter writers. If possible, I would suggest that at least one of them should be written by someone with whom you have talked math a great deal, and not just by your advisor and senior scientists who have read your papers. If you have engaged in any leadership activities (i.e., started a seminar, organized a conference, informally helped to mentor graduate students, etc.) I would make sure that your letter writers include someone who will attest to this.
And finally, like the other commenters, I would definitely recommend striking up some collaborations, although there is certainly nothing wrong with also doing work on your own.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Let me give my own view on this important question. First, note that this is a "probabilistic" question. We don't know precisely how things would work for individual cases, but we do have our own impressions of the statistics and trends in our fields.
So in short, my answer is:
* Not cooperating *at all* is certainly *correlated* with work which is not of high enough impact; and with a non-cooperative personality.
* **BUT** (and this is where I might raise some disagreement): *not being able to work with yourself alone* (i.e., doing research *only* in groups) is *also* correlated with researchers that are devoid of their own research identity, researchers that are not leaders in their field, and researchers whose main mode of work is following others trends.
These are all mere (statistical) correlations, and I'm sure there are many exceptions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It seems like most of the feedback so far is suggesting the OP to collaborate. In pure math, historically most papers have been solo authored, though there has been a trend toward more collaboration over at least the past 50 years or so. See [Grossman's 2002 paper](https://www.siam.org/pdf/news/485.pdf) and in a bit of a different direction [this more recent paper](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.5158) (coincidentally with many co-authors). At least as of 15 years ago, 2/3 of papers were still single authored.
Things are not at a stage where it looks strange for all or almost all of a job applicant's papers to be solo. Personally, when I look at a job candidate's research the main things I look at are the letters of recommendation and the publication list. If you are publishing in a good number of good journals, there's no disadvantage from my point of view if all of these papers are solo. In fact, to me it looks better. If you have papers in good journals, but they're all or mostly collaborations, that takes some of the credit away from you and makes it unclear how independent you are. In fact it can be hard to evaluate the candidate if all of their work is joint with strong people.
Yes, collaboration has some benefits, but **don't collaborate just to collaborate**. Also, getting an extra small paper or two out now won't make much of a difference. What's much more important is that you're doing good work and **people know about your work**. So you should be active in conferences, seminars, etc. If you need to, visit people who will ask for letters to explain your work to them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I second username_4's excellent answer. In my opinion, collaboration is neither bad nor good in and of itself, it is simply a means to the end of producing good research. If you can produce good research by yourself, that's all that matters, and the fact (that many commenters here don't seem to appreciate) is that mathematics in one area where it is a lot more possible to produce good research by oneself relative to other sciences. In fact, some of the best research that can be done in math, the kind of groundbreaking research that is the product of very deep and intense thinking over long periods of time, has been done by people working by themselves (I'm looking at you, Perelman, Wiles, <NAME>, <NAME> and many others). Indeed, I suspect that this may very well be the only way to produce certain kinds of breakthroughs.
With that said, setting aside the extreme examples I mentioned, for normal people in normal situations (and certainly for people at the pre-tenure-track job stage), there are some good reasons to think that collaborating with others can give a modest (or in some cases not so modest) boost to your productivity, and also increase the exposure of your work once it's finished:
* In pure math research, the combined brainpower, talents and skills of two people is often more than the sum of its parts. No one person can be an expert on everything, and often research breakthroughs require putting together different ideas that few individuals could come up with all by themselves.
* Working with others can give you new ideas and teach you new points of view and techniques. It has benefits that will stay with you long after the collaboration is over and can inform your work on the next project and make you a better mathematician.
* Collaborating with others offers a very good way for others to learn about your abilities. If you leave a good impression, that can well help you down the road and also make many other people want to collaborate with you. This can seed a virtuous cycle (a.k.a. "the rich get richer") where people might approach you with exciting ideas for research projects that you would never have thought of yourself, amplifying and multiplying the effect of your initial successes.
* Perhaps my favorite feature of collaborating, which seemed almost too good to be true when I realized it exists, is that when you finish a coauthored paper, you now have a person or persons who will spend the next few months or years traveling around the world giving talks **about your result**. Imagine that, someone working for you for free to go around telling others how great your result is and how great you are! (And keep in mind that they can, and sometimes will, praise you in ways that you could not politely praise yourself...). Of course, I assume you will do the same for them, but again, the result is that your paper can get double or triple the impact with the same amount of effort that you would have to put in for a solely authored paper. (You can also share with them the work of writing the paper, share slides and other "marketing" materials, etc. - the possibilities are endless.)
Finally, I should add that I personally enjoy working by myself slightly more than with others (I've done both about equally - around half my papers are solely authored), so you should not feel that there's anything wrong with you if that's your preferred mode of working. As long as you're doing good work, things should be fine. But as I explained above, you might want to give working with others a try and maybe discover some of the unexpected advantages it can give you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I am a mathematician at a research university. On all the hiring committees I've been on, I've **never** heard complaints about someone collaborating too little. On the other hand, I have heard people shoot down job candidates whose best work was in collaboration with more senior people (the assumption being, of course, that the senior person was the "leader" in the collaboration).
As long as you are publishing in strong journals, I would not stress out about this. Just work in the way that is most natural to you. On a personal note, most of my work when I was younger consisted of single-authored papers. When I was on the tenure track market, I had 15 papers of which only 4 were co-authored. It didn't appear to hurt me at all. I write more joint papers these days largely because my joint papers seem to get written up more efficiently than my single-authored ones, but in many ways I miss my old way of working...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: In my experience , it is worthwhile to collaborate because
1) if you write an n-authored paper, you get more than 1/n times the credit.
2) if you can find a collaborator with complementary skills then you may write much better papers than either of you would have alone
3) if you have more ideas than time to work out, you can get collaborators to do the less interesting parts and be very productive.
Point 3 is the problem with collaboration, hiring committees may think you are the junior partner and give less weight to your contribution.
Now to answer the original question, will the absence of collaboration harm you directly? No. In fact, because you are not prone to the perception of point 3, it may well help.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/16
| 1,769
| 7,479
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have good reason to believe that political party X engages in harmful practice Y more than other political parties. The numbers stack up, it fits into the theories presented in other papers, and so on. Content-wise, I believe there is enough for a paper on the topic.
However, I am concerned about the long-term career potential of this, as this would be my first paper (I'm still an undergraduate student) and there are downsides to appearing as a naive partisan hack. Is such a paper worth pursuing, and if it is, how should I best go about minimizing that potential drawback?<issue_comment>username_1: If you'd like your thoughts and opinions to be directly connected to yourself as a person and follow you as a mark of the understanding you hold for others to openly judge based on their own beliefs, then write a paper with your name attached. Then your writing will be associated with you as your own assessment of the situation at the time.
However, if you're willing to sacrifice any benefit (or harm) that may come with the reprecussions of such an action, there are platforms where you can publish "open letters" anonymously such as <http://www.opnlttr.com/about>
The advantage here is that you can gather your thoughts, assemble them, and make your case without needing to worry that your words will haunt you for ever afterwards and close opportunities that would otherwise be available.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: **A politically-focused paper may harm your standing among those with an opposing viewpoint.** This perhaps *should not* happen, but it's an unfortunate reality of human nature.
If you publish a paper that could be interpreted as "party X is worse than Y", people (even scientists) are going to read that through a lens of their own biases, to some extent. If they support party X, they may be less likely to believe your conclusions, more likely to challenge you, and/or have an emotional reaction against it. Some people will be able to be impartial and rise above their biases; for others, this may lead to a final judgement about you.
**How much this harms you may depend on which side you take.** There have been many studies showing that college professors tend to overwhelmingly favor one side of the political debate in America. [Here is just one example](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/27/99-top-liberal-arts-professor-campaign-donations-g/). This effect is far more extreme in some fields than others.
So, another unfortunate reality is that, depending on the side your paper favors, the results may be very different for your career. You might be confirming the beliefs of 95% of your colleagues, or you might be challenging those beliefs. I hate to say this, because it sounds like a suggestion of "only do this if your finding matches the existing orthodoxy", which is a highly unscientific approach. But I do think this point needs to be acknowledged.
**A political paper may get a lot more attention than the average paper.** Papers like "adherents of party X pick their nose a lot more than adherents of party Y" make great headlines and often get picked up by the media. They are second only to studies claiming that chocolate, beer, etc. are good for you, in terms of press appeal.
More publicity for you is typically a good thing (assuming you are doing good work). The fact that you published a well-known paper can be a great thing to have on your CV. On the other hand, it does raise the stakes. Your paper would be subject to a lot more scrutiny than normal.
In the end, only you can make this decision; there are risks. But my feeling would be **evaluate this very carefully, but do go ahead with it if you think it would make a high quality paper.** Some points on how to proceed:
* **Don't move forward without someone experienced on board.** Make sure you can get some good, respected people's input. Ask them about the general idea before you start, and make sure someone more experienced than you is willing to contribute and be an author if you do go ahead with it.
* **Work hard to overcome your own biases.** I would try hard to find someone with an opposing political viewpoint to review it, to make sure I'm not missing something obvious because of my own bias. There may be an alternative reading of the data which I haven't seen, because I'm predisposed to think ill of party X.
* **Do the work meticulously.** If this paper does get attention, any error or methodological issue is likely to get picked up. Make sure you do everything very carefully, document all your methods, test thoroughly, etc. (Of course you should always do this).
* **Report the findings in as evenhanded a way as possible.** Don't take unnecessary political potshots. Don't assume bad intent where your results don't warrant it. And think about the title you want to give it. Do you want it to say "Party X is more evil than party Y" or something generic like "The relationship between Foo and party affiliation".
* **Make sure not to claim too much.** Be clear about the limitations of what your work actually shows. It's quite common to see papers that jump to unwarranted conclusions or assume causality where they haven't shown that. Steer clear of such things. Make sure to be clear about your limitations, and if there are multiple possible interpretations of the results, make sure to discuss them all.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I would not do this in your case, for the following reasons:
1. As an undergraduate, you almost certainly lack the skills to do top-notch research. That's not to say it's impossible, but there's a reason a PhD researcher takes many more years of much harder courses. The work I did as an undergrad, even one project I won an award for, looks pretty naive to me now. Therefore, putting out partisan research now is very risky; a lot more so than when you're more confident your research can withstand scrutiny.
2. Related to number 1, if your research suggests one party is doing something better than another, it may be *disproportionally harmful* if your results come about due to poor methodology. As others have said, both national and local media loves to pick up this sort of research, and it isn't always critically evaluated.
3. Even if you were able to find a full professor who was willing to work with you on this idea, and get it into a professional journal instead of publishing somewhere that accepts undergraduate work, the professor is facing a very different set of risks than you. Their career may already be established, particularly if they're tenured, so they're risking a lot less by publishing controversial research than you are.
Instead I would suggest two alternate approaches:
* Shelve the idea and work on it after you've advanced into graduate school, or even beyond, when you're better able to do defensible research and/or are more secure in your research career.
* Refocus the research to be non-partisan. Focus on "harmful practice Y", for example, and leave drawing any partisan implications to the reader.
It's good you're having research ideas as an undergraduate, so don't be discourage by this. It's easy to get excited about research ideas, particularly early in your research training, and feel like it's the only good idea you'll ever have. In reality you'll have lots of research ideas, and most of them will almost certainly be better than your first.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/16
| 1,066
| 4,711
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<issue_start>username_0: It seems that US universities usually provide a link to the professor of the applicant, and let him/her directly upload the recommendation letter to that link, meaning that the student would have no access to it. However, when applying to Masters programs offered by German universities, I am surprised to see that they all ask the student to upload the recommendation letter in PDF format/to a text area directly, by his/her own, which seems to make little sense to me.
I'm afraid that some professors will just outright reject writing a letter which is to be handed to and viewed by the student. Or are such worries unnecessary? Is this a cultural difference between continental European and British/American system (My current university mostly follows the British/American system)? What should I do in this case. Should I ask the professors to write and hand me recommendation letters directly, or should I try to communicate with the university and let the professors email them the letter/give me a physical letter sealed within an envelop, which I will send to the university by mail later on?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is this a cultural difference between continental European and British/American system
>
>
>
I cannot surely speak for all continental Europe, not even for a small portion of it and not for all fields, but speaking with a few European colleagues of mine, it appears that the expectations that we have on recommendation letters are completely different from the typical US expectations.
In particular:
1. We mostly consider recommendation letters as a mean to discriminate between those that are not able to provide *any* recommendation letter and those that can provide at least a couple. That is, we expect most of the people *not* to be able to get one (in a distant past, I wouldn't have considered one who just attended one or two classes with me eligible for a recommendation letter).
2. We don't expect recommendation letters to be more than one page long, and half a page is ok (you just have to tell me that you had worked with this person and that they are not that bad).
3. We don't expect the recommendation letters to be sent directly from the reference to the application board.
4. We consider the writing of recommendation letters as a favour to the applicant, and not as a duty of our profession.
Actually, all the recommendation letters I wrote but one were handed directly to the student (or former student). For the exception, I've received a direct request from a university to submit the recommendation through their online system: the uploading procedure, with questions to answer too, was such a hassle that I've decided that in the future I will probably decline any request for recommendation letters to be uploaded anywhere.
To answer your main question:
>
> Should I ask the professors to write and hand me recommendation letters directly, or should I try to communicate with the university and let the professors email them the letter/give me a physical letter sealed within an envelop, which I will send to the university by mail later on?
>
>
>
I understand your reasons, but I'd consider this an odd thing to do. I'd simply ask the student to provide the recommendation letters.
In case the professors were reluctant to hand the letters directly to the student, I'd write an email explaining the different traditions.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A sealed letter is always more effective. If I am asked for a letter that goes via a student, I try to give him/her a sealed version if I have time, as this is much more useful and believable.
An open letter tempts to resort to "codes" which may be understood if one is acquainted with the culture; and may be misunderstood by an institution from a different one.
If they want an open letter, well, there's nothing one can do about it (that being said, for myself, I will only agree to write a reference for a student if I believe it improves their chances).
For pdf submission, one possibility of "sealed submission" would be to encrypt it and let the target institution have only the passphrase. Again, if everything goes through the student, that's obviously not an option.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Why, of course a recommendation letter should be readable by the student - and before you've sent it anywhere; or you just hand it to her/him. It's the other way around that doesn't make sense: Why should the person whom you're recommending not be aware of what you're going saying about her/him? That seems to be mostly an opportunity to "backstab" a person by "anti-recommending" them in the letter.
Upvotes: -1
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2016/06/16
| 601
| 2,562
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<issue_start>username_0: I spotted a serious inefficiency in our algorithm, which was already published. Basically, we have an algorithm to encode a problem A into a formula X. But we later found that we can encode into a formula X', which is equisatisfiable, but with much less (up to thousand) of variables.
This change is very trivial in logic, if we need to correct the algorithm, we only need to change 1 line with one subscript. But it improve the performance drastically, up to 10 times in some instances.
If somebody build on our work, I don't want them to make the same mistake. If somebody want to compare with our work, I want them to compare with the improved algorithm, not the result we reported in the paper.
But the change is so trivial, how could I let everybody know?<issue_comment>username_1: Most journals have errata for published papers. Contact the journal and ask them how you can amend your paper with the updated algorithm. They will likely simply post the erratum you provide to the online version and put a note in the next issue of the print version with the revision.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Sounds like a prime opportunity for a second publication!
In all seriousness, you can cover/publicize this through a white paper. It has the benefit of being picked up by Google Scholar and should be found by anyone doing a literature survey of your work. Most universities have a method of publishing white papers or you could use a service like arXiv.
If you'd like to generate a little more publicity, throw up a blog post or some sort of social media post as appropriate to your field (i.e. Twitter, Reddit, etc.).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: The change only appears trivial to you now that you know about it.
Moreover, while the change may be simple, the validation of that change is not: I'm sure there's lots of experiments to run to verify your statement, and maybe some new analyses to be performed as well.
To me, this sounds like a fine opportunity for a followup. If your paper was published in a conference, then the improved version can go into the "extended version" journal paper. If your paper was already published in a journal, this is a good time to follow up with a short conference paper. If you're in a field that doesn't like conferences, there will probably be journals that take "short papers" or "application notes" or some similar.
Bottom line: one way or another, there should be a good place to put this not-as-trivial-as-you-think piece of work.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2016/06/16
| 436
| 1,859
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm applying to graduate programs in Biomedical Engineering. The University of Pennsylvania application says the author of one letter of recommendation must be a faculty member who is familiar with the candidate's scholarly abilities. In layman's terms, does this mean they want a letter from a faculty member who has served as my research advisor?<issue_comment>username_1: It doesn't necessarily mean your research advisor. It could be a faculty member you've taken classes with, someone you've worked on a project with, etc.
What the admissions committee is looking for is evidence that you will *succeed* in graduate school - and that means evidence that you can think independently, tackle difficult problems, and so on. Choose faculty members who can speak to your abilities as a student and a (future) researcher.
When I asked for LoRs, I asked (1) a faculty member I had taken several classes with and with whom I was working as an undergraduate research, (2) another faculty member I had taken several classes with and had a good working relationship with, and (3) a faculty member who I was currently taking a class with (and who admittedly was an alumnus of my top school) :-)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It means, well...that it should be a faculty member familiar with your scholarly activities.
That *can* be your research advisor, and if you have one, they're likely a good faculty member to choose. But really what they're working for is someone who can speak to your scholarship as a whole, and is familiar with it past "He/she did well on some multiple choice exams...". So a faculty member who you've taken several essay heavy courses with might also be a worthwhile recommender.
What they *don't* want is someone who will just be providing a narration of your transcript.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/17
| 1,160
| 5,277
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am working toward a PhD degree and my major involves lot of mathematics. The problem is that my basis of math is not very strong but after putting a lot of time I can understand the theorems, lemmas, corollaries in the published papers. Sometime I wonder should I start learning the basics again or should I read the research papers only to make my math strong. If I start from the basics then it may consume lot of time however it may help me understanding things better and in applying accepted ideas to more general problems. On the other hand if I learn through research papers then my knowledge will be limited to only the problem I am working on and new ideas of solving the problem may not fluently come into my mind.
In essence which of the following strategy is better in your opinion
1. Start learning from basics.
2. Learn through published research papers during the literature review.<issue_comment>username_1: The way I see it, the answer to this question really depends on your particular circumstance... To find out where you stand, you could seek someone to assess your mathematical ability.
Could you approach your advisor or a colleague about this? Ask someone with a strong mathematical background who understands your line of work to probe you. They could point you in the right direction for what foundational theory is necessary for your success, leading to book and even chapter recommendations.
I totally support building up the basics. I'd probably be driven towards that route, but realistically, your priority ought to be to further *your work* in the most effective way possible.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It will not be very easy to learn a broad subject in mathematics by reading research papers. Books which cover the subject starting from the basics will be more cohesive (for instance, regarding notation and terminology) and will leave you with more approaches to solve problems. If your major requires a lot of mathematics, hopefully you can identify a specific area (like analysis, geometry, probability, etc.) that you need, and find a good text that synthesizes a lot of the research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Why not both?
If you aren't explicitly a mathematician but there is a lot of math used as a tool in your field to solve problems (this is often the case with my field), it is understood that some people are stronger in the math than others. The whole point of having a field where people of different educational backgrounds work together is that you don't have to be an expert at every sub-skill and sub-task - you can have your own unique strengths without starting over at the fundamentals for every subject in play.
A strategy that I've found works very well is read some literature to see what techniques are used by others in their related research. If a technique comes up a few times (like, say, applying Dynamic Time Warping to analyze a time series), read into that bit to get a better high-level understanding of it - how it is used, it's strength and weakness, when it's not appropriate, etc.
At this point you may find that the technique just isn't relevant to your research - so you can probably skip it for now and move on. Sure, you don't understand it from top to bottom - but you just don't have time to learn everything in infinite detail! However, what if the technique seems really useful? Well, some people don't bother to understand it at all and just blindly apply it, because well other researchers have so it's probably fine. I'm not at all fond of this, and I would humbly suggest it leads to bad science, unreliable findings, and missed opportunities.
So if a technique seems useful to you, learn some more about it. Try to delve a little more deeply and find out just what the technique seems to actually do. What do some of the variables mean? How is the calculation performed overall - how does it behave based on some inputs compared to others, and why? Again, you probably have limited time, so don't feel you have to prove everything from first principles.
Next, you still have some time to advance your understanding of the fundamentals. So especially as you read through the literature and useful techniques, what area is really hard for you? Is probability stumping you, or calculus, or dynamic programming, or are the notations and implicit variable meanings alien to you? Reserve a little of your time - perhaps a few hours a week at most - to strengthen yourself on the most fundamental issues. Perform a trivial calculation by hand, or read a textbook explanation of the notations used.
I've found the biggest pitfall is thinking you have to understand everything from square one right at the very beginning, and I have to fight the tendency to get sucked in to minutiae. But then often as little as a few days pass and suddenly I realize I have a far better understanding of something than I thought I did, and it wasn't really as hard as it seemed at first.
Now this works for me, and for plenty of other people I know, but I cannot say it will be the best for you, in your field, with your personality and own unique traits and talents. As always YMMV - find what works best for you!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2016/06/17
| 850
| 2,581
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to cite a [paper](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/72/7/076901/meta) that has a lot of authors. The list of authors take up half a page in my reference list, and considering the prospect of paying for extra pages, I would like to shorten it, if possible. Is is okay to shorten the author list? If so, how many authors should be included?<issue_comment>username_1: Every citation style has some threshold at which it is OK to change a long list into an "et al." citation ("et al." is an abbreviation of the Latin "et alia" meaning "and others"). The particular threshold depends on the citation style, but if you've got half a page of authors it's certainly over any reasonable threshold.
You then simply convert your citation of, e.g.:
>
> A, B, C, E, ... , Z, "Massive Joint Study," *Journal of Big Science*, 1(4), 2012.
>
>
>
into:
>
> A, et al., "Massive Joint Study," *Journal of Big Science*, 1(4), 2012.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As mentioned by @username_1, the correct approach is dependent on your citation style. Here is an example of **6th Edition APA Style**.
Quoting the [following post from the official APA style blog](http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2009/08/formatting-apa-references-with-more-than-seven-authors.html), the following rule applies to articles with more than 7 authors:
>
> The first six
> authors are listed; all subsequent authors except the last are omitted
> and replaced with an ellipsis; and then the name of the last author is
> listed. Here’s an example of the new reference list style, for a
> study with 87 authors (yes, 87!):
>
>
> <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., Ahn,
> C., <NAME>., . . . <NAME>. (2005, October 7). National
> character does not reflect mean personality trait levels in 49
> cultures. Science, 310, 96–100. doi:10.1126/science.1117199
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You should follow a style guide. If your editor, instructor, etc. didn't tell you what style to use, pick one. In this case pick one that doesn't insist on full author lists.
When in doubt I use the [Physical Review style](https://d22izw7byeupn1.cloudfront.net/files/styleguide-pr.pdf). On page 7 of the linked guide you'll find the example for a listing a large collaboration of authors:
<NAME> et al. (XYZ Collaboration), Phys. Rev. D 46, 1 (1992).
For the paper you link it would be:
<NAME> et al. (The LIGO Scientific Collaboration), Rep. Prog. Phys. 72 (2009).
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/17
| 526
| 1,991
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<issue_start>username_0: I use Mendeley to organize and view articles (pdf files). It is almost good, however I wish something similar with one additional feature. A software to make a link for every reference **in the Reference section of any article I read (not my own articles)** and when I click on the link it searches the web for it, or if it has a downloadable version, directly points to that file and if it is already exists in my articles opens it.<issue_comment>username_1: Digital Object Indentifier (DOI) names might be a possible solution. Sometimes article citations in major databases come with them - if so, you can use them to directly access the paper (in a web browser, at least).
For example, for <NAME>'s seminal work *A Mathematical Theory of Communication*, the DOI name is **10.1109/9780470544242.ch1**. This can be resolved either by using [this website](http://www.doi.org/), which also describes DOI names in detail; or by using a direct link, such as <http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/9780470544242.ch1>.
You can find these DOI numbers either by checking reference databases (which often include them) or by checking a website such as [crossref.org](http://www.crossref.org/).
IIRC, Mendeley actually includes a field for the DOI name, if known. I've seen it automatically populated when I use the browser clipping tool (sometimes, not always).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A link for every reference? In the paper or the database?
In the paper this isn't really desirable to have urls, the doi will do. Use the hyperref package in latex to create clickable links in latex.
In the Mendeley database this already exists. Copy the doi of the paper into the doi textbox of the citation and click the search icon to the right. It fills all the reference info, including a link to the pdf on sciencedirect or where ever it is hosted. [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/DUpXD.png)
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/17
| 932
| 3,962
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing my bachelor thesis and since my results were really good, my advisors encouraged me to write a paper about it. The paper was accepted at an international conference and will get published and in the corresponding journal.
I've really invested much time in the paper and the results, thus my thesis fell a bit short. Additionally the topics are identical, because I wrote about the results that I achieved during my work for my thesis. Therefore it is really hard to write a "completely different" text in the thesis compared to the paper.
Moreover the deadline of my thesis ends in 3 weeks...thus, my second advisor suggested to mostly copy+paste stuff of my paper, because it is good and was reviewed several times.
However, my second advisor is always relaxed and calm. I haven't talked to my first advisor about this so far...but I suspect that he would not be too happy if I copy & paste large parts.
What is the "standard" in academia for comparable situations?
Would *you* feel OK with copying certain parts of your paper?
Any advice would be great and really appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: When it comes to *copy and paste*, I'd certainly have a bad feeling. Paraphrasing/rewriting is the least you can do. In general, citing own publications is common practice. Citing your own publication in your bachelor thesis is therefore, in my opinion, completely okay.
Since the research published in your paper is actually part of your thesis, everything should be fine. But in your thesis you should be able to give even more detail than in a conference paper. That way you can reference your paper, showing that you published successfully, and then show your findings to a bigger extent.
Good luck with your thesis!
Edit: Almost forgot about your first advisor: Talk to him/her! There is no reason to feel bad for asking. Ask your second advisor for advice on how to talk to your first advisor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Where I come from it is common for chapters of a PhD thesis to have a lot in common with published papers by the same author - maybe even with copy/pasted sections. The declaration for the thesis is "it's all my own work, and it hasn't previously been submitted for a degree"; there's no requirement that it hasn't been published in a journal.
It's not common for undergraduate dissertations, but that may simply be because it isn't common for undergraduates to publish in the academic literature. In my view the fact that you have done work that is good enough to be published should be a positive thing, not an additional problem for you.
**However**, whether this is allowed will very much depend on the policies of your universtiy - so definitely talk to your primary advisor about it. Assuming it's allowed then you should note clearly, perhaps in the introduction, that the same work has been / is going to be published in $journal, with a citation. This looks good for you, and also provides an explanation if the thesis gets a red flag from automated plagarism detection software.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If your earlier work has been published, then cite it as you would any other work. However, if it has not been published, even by your university, then the rules don't need to be as strict. You could possibly just consider your undergraduate thesis as a "draft" of the publication, in which case there is no need to cite. However, it might be better to cite it, and you should mention somewhere that the work is "derived from" your thesis.
Doctoral theses, on the other hand are regularly published by universities through [Proquest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProQuest), which used to be University Microfilms. I don't know if all dissertations wind up there, but in some fields, they do.
If a prior publication exists, cite it. You can quote or paraphrase as you would any other work, but give a proper citation.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/06/17
| 927
| 3,878
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<issue_start>username_0: I am not happy with my master thesis grade. I wrote down my master thesis in a company. I had three supervisors in this 6 month period, two of them from university and one of them from the company. I worked three days of the week in the company (my task is implementing of an app) and other days I focused on my report. I made all the corrections in the report that my supervisors offered and went to the meetings regularly. I feel really disappointed to grade (2.7); I expected to get 2.0.
How should I explain my ideas to the assistants and what should be the first step? On the other hand, I am really angry and I could not even thinking about the subject in a healthy way. I need to some professional ideas or someone who had the same experience before.
Edit: The company found this chair to me and they have still contact and they are making projects in cooperation. I saw my grade in online system, I have not yet got my diploma.
Edit: The sign of the good work (I presented my work also in the company after making the presentation in university and they liked the results.) Also some of the colloquies of the company think as same as me that I deserve better than 2.7.<issue_comment>username_1: For a start, you should ask your two university supervisors whether you can have some feedback on your work. I do not mean a bare grade, but an extended discussion of good aspects and bad aspects that formed the basis for the grade. Most Bachelor/Master thesis supervisors I encountered routinely offer that to their students, anyway.
If you really disagree with their assessment, you can take it to the respective professor (unless he or she was already included in the aforementioned "supervisors"), but the professor might know quite a bit less about how you worked than your direct supervisors.
These are usually your primary ways to go to - but I would also like to discuss some statements you made about your impression of your work:
>
> I made all the corrections in the report that my supervisors offered and went to the meeting regularly.
>
>
>
This is not a guarantee for a good mark. For a start, I have had many students tell me they "made all the corrections", with very varying results. Furthermore, you making all suggested corrections may mean a solid result, but it is still not as good as if you had found some of the opportunities for corrections on your own. Coming back to the first point, it is very possible your supervisors were only explicit about corrections to make your work acceptable, which is a long way from making it excellent.
>
> Also some of the colloquies of the company think as same as me that I deserve better than 2.7.
>
>
>
People in the industry (even if they went to uni themselves) often have a surprisingly bad grasp of what a university might expect from a graduation thesis. This might be reflected in (your summary of) your task "my task is implementing of an app", which appears to feature no conceptual/research aspect (or maybe you just did not realize?), and also by your statement that you wrote your report at the university and implemented at the company at the stated ratio. Therefore, your company colleagues may well have found you a capable coder, but that doesn't mean that the entirety of the thesis fully lived up to the expectations of the university.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think most universities will have formal procedures for lodging a complaint and requesting a reassessment. I would think this would probably be a tiered process. First you ask for a written assessment of your work, so you can decide wether or not you agree with the examiner. If not, you can request the examiner to reassess. If still not happy, you can probably request a new assessment by a new examiner. However, you might end up with the same or a worse result.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/06/17
| 696
| 2,951
|
<issue_start>username_0: How popular is research in computational neuroscience, or computational medicine in (mainland) Europe? I'm aware that INRIA in France does some good work, but do you know any other such groups and what kind or topic of research do they so? Many thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: For a start, you should ask your two university supervisors whether you can have some feedback on your work. I do not mean a bare grade, but an extended discussion of good aspects and bad aspects that formed the basis for the grade. Most Bachelor/Master thesis supervisors I encountered routinely offer that to their students, anyway.
If you really disagree with their assessment, you can take it to the respective professor (unless he or she was already included in the aforementioned "supervisors"), but the professor might know quite a bit less about how you worked than your direct supervisors.
These are usually your primary ways to go to - but I would also like to discuss some statements you made about your impression of your work:
>
> I made all the corrections in the report that my supervisors offered and went to the meeting regularly.
>
>
>
This is not a guarantee for a good mark. For a start, I have had many students tell me they "made all the corrections", with very varying results. Furthermore, you making all suggested corrections may mean a solid result, but it is still not as good as if you had found some of the opportunities for corrections on your own. Coming back to the first point, it is very possible your supervisors were only explicit about corrections to make your work acceptable, which is a long way from making it excellent.
>
> Also some of the colloquies of the company think as same as me that I deserve better than 2.7.
>
>
>
People in the industry (even if they went to uni themselves) often have a surprisingly bad grasp of what a university might expect from a graduation thesis. This might be reflected in (your summary of) your task "my task is implementing of an app", which appears to feature no conceptual/research aspect (or maybe you just did not realize?), and also by your statement that you wrote your report at the university and implemented at the company at the stated ratio. Therefore, your company colleagues may well have found you a capable coder, but that doesn't mean that the entirety of the thesis fully lived up to the expectations of the university.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think most universities will have formal procedures for lodging a complaint and requesting a reassessment. I would think this would probably be a tiered process. First you ask for a written assessment of your work, so you can decide wether or not you agree with the examiner. If not, you can request the examiner to reassess. If still not happy, you can probably request a new assessment by a new examiner. However, you might end up with the same or a worse result.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/17
| 2,177
| 8,973
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<issue_start>username_0: Preliminaries
=============
I am giving my first lecture at university. The topic is about Big Data and takes 40 hours (1 hour = 60 minutes). I am wondering how to test the students. I am at this university for the first time and I have no idea how full the student's schedule is and how good they are. I am also not sure how many students I will have, but I think it should be between 20 to 30. I think they are going to be at the end of their Bachelor / beginning of Master.
Options
=======
I see three options:
### 1. written exam
It's the least amount of work for the students (only learning) - which might be a good thing if their schedule is very full.
**Disadvantages:** They learn the least I think.
### 2. presentation
I'd let the students present a topic - probably a software technology that wasn't part of my lecture so far.
**Advantages** are that
* they learn more,
* they learn research technologies (I've been working in the industry for a while and researching how technologies work is an important part of the work in this area, so it's a real-live skill in itself).
**Disadvantages** are
* that it might get difficult for me to judge their effort in terms of grades,
* it might take quite some time for them to prepare (issue if their schedules are really full),
* they might not be able to find good information and might not have the skills to put the information into a good presentation.
### 3. **project**
I'd have them do a *small* software project.
**Advantages** are that they would gain practical experience.
**Disadvantages** might be that
* these take quite a lot of time,
* it might get difficult for me to judge their effort in terms of grades,
* the projects might fail if they are not proficient enough, which might be rather frustrating.
Question(s)
===========
I tend to take either 2 or 3 since - back in the day - I learned most from those and little from tests. However I fear that those might fail, because the students don't have the time or skills to excel in those.
For 2 and 3 I would put the students into groups.
I might be able to decide after the first week of lecture, but not just before the course ends.
Going out to fellow professors, lecturers etc.:
1. *What are your experiences? What options would you suggest? What do I have to consider?*
2. *If I'd take 2 or 3: How many students should a group have approximately (minimum, maximum)?*
3. *Can I simply ask them how they would like to get tested?*<issue_comment>username_1: I think, If you want to check a student in cs, you should ask architectural question like if you have to make train booking system how you will design complete architecture.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Here's a partial answer (too long for a comment).
One consideration I don't see here: How secure is this method against cheating (having someone else write the paper)? I would recommend at least some in-class tests as a check that the individual student actually knows what they're talking about. On top of that, I'll note that your non-testing options already have the longest list of significant and real disadvantages.
Also: Definitely don't ask them up front how they like to get tested. This sets the tone that the students get to run the course all semester, and you definitely don't want that. As the instructor you need to set a tone of authority and that you're prepared and an expert at the start of the course.
If at the end of the semester you want to survey students on what they thought helpful or would suggest changing, then that's fine (although hopefully you'll have a good yourself at that point on iterative improvements).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: 1. My experience: One thing I do see in your question is a sensitivity to your students work load. In my experience when I have taught courses involving less "homework" the course may be looked at as "easy." In higher education, students expect a challenge and teachers need to bring it. Worry less about their workload and more about what you want them to learn. If all else fails, grade on a curve.
2. Groups are hard. It's an unpaid environment. Slackers will slack, pushovers will get pushed, and a group of real team players will rarely shine through. If you are going to do groups, let it be a part of the grade, but not nearly the full grade. Information comprehension/retention should be tested individually. Working in groups is a whole other set of skills that some thrive at and some falter at, and that's not the class you are teaching(I assume.)
3. You should know what your students expectations are and they should know yours. Have that conversation, but come prepared.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> What options would you suggest?
>
>
>
As you only have 20 to 30 students, I'd suggest giving them [individual oral exams.](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/6158/3965)
**Advantages** are:
* This format tends to show grade-level granularity very, very quickly.
* It allows you to be a little free-ranging to assess the A+ vs A or D- vs F levels.
* It takes about as long as marking individual written assignments.
**Disadvantages** are:
* Students who haven't taken this form before tend to freak out.
* You can't really do it in a group scenario.
* If you haven't done this before (as a professor), it can be a little strange.
* You need to take better notes to allow you to verify / remember at a later date.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm not sure whether what you are proposing is one kind of assessment out of many, or whether you intend to assess students in only one way and you are asking what that way should be. So first I just want to say, **assessment in a university class should be varied**. In particular you want to make sure you have both [formative assessments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formative_assessment) (where you gauge student learning while it's still in the process of being "formed") and [summative assessments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summative_assessment) (which are done at the end of a learning process). Having just one of these without the other is not going to provide you with sufficient information about what and how well students are learning.
All three of the things you mentioned are legitimate *summative* assessments. Have you thought about formative assessments too? Some possibilities include:
* [Entrance tickets or Exit tickets](https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/sheridan-center/teaching-learning/effective-classroom-practices/entrance-exit-tickets/sample) from class where students submit short summaries of their preparation for class or what they learned in class along with questions they have
* [One-minute papers](https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/sheridan-center/teaching-learning/effective-classroom-practices/one-minute-paper) (similar to exit tickets)
* [In-class quizzes using clickers](https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/clickers/)
Regular quizzes can be formative as well, although formative assessments often work better when they are ungraded, or graded on a Pass/Fail basis rather than something more complicated. The purpose of formative assessment is to gather data about student learning so you can know, in the moment, how students are doing and make teaching adjustments before it's too late.
As far as *summative* assessment goes, I think any one of the three things you mentioned could be useful. Traditional tests do tend to be more *auditive* than educational -- they only tell students what they did wrong, rather than offer an opportunity to learn. So one wrinkle on the traditional test you might consider is having a revision policy. For example if you give three tests during the semester, allow students three revisions (so they can revise Test 1 three times if necessary, or each test gets revised once -- their choice) that must be accompanied by a detailed failure analysis that delves into how they prepared for the test, what was missing from their preparation, what they got wrong and why, how they fixed it, and what they will do differently next time. Your acceptance of the revision is contingent upon their turning in a failure analysis that meets your standards whatever those may be.
Or, you might set up a system in your class where students can choose from among the summative assessments you have in mind. How that might be done depends on the specifics of your grading system but the teaching and learning research shows that **giving students choice increases motivation which then improves learning outcomes**.
Finally if you are concerned about grading practices on non-standard items like presentations, I encourage you to consider [specifications grading](https://www.utimes.pitt.edu/?p=30598) which is predicated on grading items Pass/Fail on the basis of whether they meet professional standards or not -- no points, no hair-splitting.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/17
| 324
| 1,378
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently, I have got an Lecturer position in a UK University. However, when I got the offer letter, it said that "The appointment is for a fixed-term of five years, with the possibility of subsequent transfer to a continuing appointment." It seems to me that this is not a permanent position.
I am wondering how much possible one can transfer to a permanent position after five years. Is it suitable for me to ask this kind of questions to my Head of School? Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: I suspect what it means is that if there is a position available you will be welcome to apply for it but you may not get it.
You are certainly entitled to ask the head of school for clarification.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you should definitely ask the Head of School for clarification of the process.
As an aside, I'm on a similar line at a U.S. school: full-time Lecturer (dedicated service/teaching, no research) with a 5-year clock before being approved for a CCE (Certificate of Continuing Employment, with protections analogous to tenure).
**Note:** The aside is not meant as a prediction of the OP's UK situation, but only to sketch out a wider universe of possibilities (contrast this example to username_1's prior answer/suspicion). Thereby highlighting the actual answer: OP must inquire at his local institution.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/18
| 1,899
| 8,232
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<issue_start>username_0: As a reviewer, what are some obvious signs to you that a paper is low-quality?<issue_comment>username_1: Kind of a broad question, but I'll play along.
It is easier to say what makes a paper high quality: I learn something new and interesting by reading it. A twinge of jealousy -- as in, "Gosh, I wish I had thought of / done this" -- is a good sign there. The absence of all this makes the quality of the paper not too high.
There are some papers that don't teach me anything new and interesting that I nevertheless feel are of medium (publishable) quality: sometimes I don't really understand the value of a result but can't claim (or can't justify a claim) that the results will not be of value to someone else or someone in the future. Sometimes the results are known to me in some form but don't appear in the literature. Sometimes the results are novel when viewed from the knowledge base and comfort zone of one subfield but less so from another (or perhaps from the vantage point of a true expert -- in a field where true expertise is rare), and these can be worth publishing.
Probably what remains is low quality. I am inclined to object a bit to the framing of the question in terms of "obvious signs": as a referee, I aspire to read a paper carefully enough to be confident in my evaluation of its quality. Obvious signs may inform my preliminary impression, but I will read further to confirm. But here are some things that would make me evaluate a paper as of low quality: as I go down the list, the quality decreases:
* The results of the paper already exist in the literature. Usually this means the author was not aware of them.
* The results of the paper already exist in the literature, in a better form than in the author's paper. Thus publishing the paper could actually be a step backwards.
* Same as the above, but the current paper omits a key technique or perspective that is part of the contemporary understanding of the topic. For instance, there are some expository papers, and these do not need to contain new results or even the sharpest possible form of the old results it exposes, but the author needs to have at least the level of mastery of the topics being exposed as an advanced student in the area, or the exposition could have a negative effect.
* The results are faulty, either in ways that are not easily corrigible, or are easily corrigible but when corrected yield absolutely nothing new.
* The results look fishy, but the exposition is so obscure that it is a chore to tell right from wrong from basically-right-but-highly-garbled from totally absent.
* The author cannot or will not make a clear distinction between what is attained in the paper and what is desired to be attained. For me and many others in my field (mathematics), this is certainly the worst. I saw an especially good example of this recently: a paper posted this month on the arxiv begins (immediately following an abstract which is at turns obscure and vacuous) by stating "Registration contains colored markers:" A red dot stands for "a fact which is not proven at present or an assumption". A yellow dot stands for "the statement which requires additional attention". A green dot stands for "statement which is proved earlier or clearly
undestandable [sic]". And then immediately following that, still on page 1, there is a "THEOREM",
which is a statement of the [Riemann Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis) (for those who don't know, this is arguably the single most important unsolved problem in all of mathematics; inarguably [solving it will get you $1 million](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems))...marked with a red dot. Then we have "PROOF", followed by 28 more pages of colored-dotted mathematics, which I spent a minute flipping through out of sheer morbid curiosity. But if I were a referee then, rather exceptionally, this first page would have been all the sign I needed to be confident of the low quality of the paper.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I tend to look for three things:
1. **Clarity** : can I easily understand the paper? Are the language / logic / symbols coherent? Complex ideas can be hard to grok, but are worthwhile.
2. **Correctness** : are there any mistakes in the presentation, mathematics or assumptions?
3. **Contribution** : does this paper present something new?
If any of these three is lacking, then I usually mark the paper down (reject, or accept with major modifications).
Of these, the last (contribution) is the most important.
A low quality paper will miss on two of the three.
If a paper misses on 1 and 2, then I generally can't see whether 3 is true or not.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In addition to the important things mentione by username_2 and username_1, I would add the question "If you had these results and were not under any obligations to publish, would you invest the work of writing it up?". The answer is yes, if you think that the results are interesting in themselves, or might be useful to someone. The answer is no, if the reason to consider the problem is to write a paper.
The difference between these categories is not too easy to judge. Even if someone answers a question someone else asked, it may be that the question was only asked because asking lots of questions means lots of citations. In practice a slight feeling of disgust is sufficient to reject a paper, unless you are reviewing for a rather obscure journal.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I would like to add another aspect, that was not mentioned in the answers by username_2 and username_1.
**Reproducability** - If the description in the paper is not enough to reproduce the results *and* there is no supplementary material, then it *could* be a bad paper. This is especially regarding computer science and the presentation of novel algorithms. If there is not enough information for other research to implement it themselves and there is not reference implementation available, then I would wonder if the results presented are valid. Be aware that the author might only make the implementation available on request.
This might also be applicable to other fields.
If this happens to be the case and some other point from the list is true, I would consider it a bad paper.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Mismatch between advertising and content
----------------------------------------
The unifying theme with low quality papers is a large difference between what they *claim* they've achieved and what they *show* they've achieved. Generally, in such a paper the abstract will look exactly like an abstract of a strong paper, but the advertised promise is not fulfilled by the paper content.
A quick and obvious way to look for that is the following - read the abstract to identify the most significant claims; then read the conclusions to see if the claims are still there (or the vague description in abstract implies something much more valuable than actually concluded), then skim the content chapters to see what evidence they provide that the conclusions are valid to their full extent. Good papers will contain exactly what it says in the description, poor papers will have done something small, but puffed it up to seem valuable.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I don't see mention that you can't (imho) have a high quality paper without a well researched citation list to the literature (I suppose there's a possibility that some concept has no relevant previous literature, but I can't think of any example of such a thing). Inadequate citations/references is a red flag. Vagueness, methodological sloppiness or inadequacies, lack of sufficient statistical power, are all also red flags. If the comment made above that some reviewers must spend months (multiple dozens of hours?) in order to review a paper is true, then there seems to me that quality must be discipline dependent. This brings up the question of the division of labor between the reviewers, editors, and readership. Who is responsible for determining "correctness"? In other words, where should "peer review" happen in the "scientific method"?
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/18
| 1,164
| 5,410
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<issue_start>username_0: What are the major differences between a thesis and research paper literature review? Despite the volume of literature citations between thesis and research article what are the other major differences?<issue_comment>username_1: A literature review in a thesis is there to put your own work into context. It should make it clear that you are familiar with what has been done in the field before, that there is a gap that your work will address, and that you have chosen your approach to the problem carefully in light of previous work.
A literature review section in an original research paper has a similar purpose, but should be much shorter. It should focus on making clear why your work is needed.
A stand-alone review paper has a very different purpose. A review paper should help readers to understand the state of the art in the field with respect to the review topic. It should cover important recent contributions to the field (and make clear why they are important). It should document recent trends and changes (for instance, if one theory or method seems to be falling out of favour while others are emerging). It should document important open challenges and problems.
In all types of literature review, it is important to show critical thinking: not just covering what has been done before, but thinking about how appropriate or successful that work was, or how relevant to current circumstances.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: A thesis generally grants a diploma. Its literature review possesses a part narrowed down to the part where the (junior) researcher is supposed to bring "novelty" or "innovation".
An overview paper generally has at least a more senior author, since more experience is required to compare approaches. There, the authors may credit less known sources, the ones a junior may have overlooked, or spot the major paths. Since they will not be awarded a diploma, wisdom is what readers will look at. However, such a paper may attract more citations than a thesis.
Finally, PhD or MSc students should be advised that a thesis is a good place to learn and prepare for a review paper, later. In some fields (I think about bioinformatics) brand new "doctors" sometimes publish survey papers comparing the most recent works, in short-time frame reviews.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Let me first help you reframe the question slightly: What kind of literature review is necessary to support a thesis, what kind of literature review is necessary to support a research article, and how are these two types of literature review different?
It is hard to give a general answer, because there are many different kinds of theses (and thus different kinds of literature reviews to support them) and different kinds of research articles (and thus different kinds of literature reviews to support them, too). However, in general, I could say:
* **The purpose of a thesis** is to partially demonstrate your qualification to receive an academic degree, usually a graduate degree. From this perspective, the best answer concerning what is expected in the literature review is: **Ask your supervisor!** Different supervisors have different expectations, and so no matter what kinds of general answers you might find here on Stack Exchange, what your supervisor thinks is what really matters. You wouldn't want to spend a lot of time doing work based on what you've read on the Internet, only to find that your supervisor in fact has very different ideas on this point. That said, I would say that in general that a doctoral thesis literature review should serve three main purposes:
1. Prove that your thesis contribution is original: Show that in spite of all the related and similar work that you are presenting in the literature review, what you are offering as your main research in the thesis is original and different from what anyone has ever done.
2. Demonstrate your knowledge of relevant literature: Prove that you have read very broadly and are a general expert in the topic of your thesis and in related work.
3. Contribute to the scholarly conversation: By reviewing related work, you can present how your thesis fits in the ongoing research stream and adds to what is already known, and establishes a platform upon which other researchers can further build.
* **The purpose of a research article** is to make a concise original contribution to knowledge. In general, you should write everything you need to present the new knowledge, but you should not waste your readers' time by writing any more than is necessary. Thus, the literature review here is the minimum needed to help present the new knowledge. From that perspective, while all the three points above for a thesis are still relevant, points #1 and #2 (prove originality and demonstrate your knowledge of the literature, respectively) should be heavily abbreviated and are less important. #3 (contribute to the scholarly conversation) is probably the most important aspect for a research article literature review: you need to explain what the related work is, where it has gone so far, where your new contribution fits, and where you or others can go on in the future. (Strictly speaking, the last aspect on where to go in the future usually goes in the conclusion section, but you should have this in mind as you prepare the literature review section.)
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/18
| 599
| 2,598
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<issue_start>username_0: * I'm currently a Postdoc at Research Institute I.
* I had a paper accepted at a conference. The conference will be in two months. I'm the single author.
* Next month I'll start working as a Postdoc at Research Institute II.
**Question:** In this kind of situation who pays the travel? I should note that both research groups have enough money for travels.
On the one hand I'm hesitating to ask my current advisor to pay for a trip to a conference which I will attend after leaving the group. On the other hand, I'm hesitating to ask my next advisor to pay for a trip to a conference about a paper which was completed before I arrive there.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, I would recommend that one never submit a paper to a conference unless you have some idea who will be going to present it and how their travel will be supported. I would thus have advised you to discuss the possibility of travel funding with your current advisor before you submitted. Of course, it is too late for that now, but it may not be for others who read this answer.
That said, depending on the particulars of arrangements, it could easily be either institution that pays for travel. I have often known people to have one last trip paid for by their former advisor, since it is the completion of their last piece of work. More often, however, I have known the new employer to foot the bill, as presenting at conferences is generally part of their work as a researcher---it's worth noting that the new employer *will* be paying for the trip in terms of your salary, even if they don't cover the travel expenses. I have also at some points known people to end up having to pay for their own travel on a junction like this, but that is unusual and can indicate trouble building with the new employer.
Bottom line: it could be any arrangement. The old employer may be willing, especially if you arrange before you leave. The new employer is more likely to be willing, if they are truly interested in your training as a postdoc and not just exploiting you for cheap labor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have to agree with <NAME> -- all early career researchers will have this year-to-year uncertainty and should keep presenting and be productive no matter what. Travel should be paid by 1st place since that is the work you are presenting. Backup options are: write travel grant, gently ask new place, self-fund. If none of those options are possible consider sending your slides to 1st place for someone there to present or in the worst case, withdrawing.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/19
| 1,401
| 5,934
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<issue_start>username_0: Assume I am involved with a work and the lead author is writing a paper. However, after every draft version, I see that not all my comments are well addressed in the revised version. I expect that if the comments or major suggestions are not addressed, then some explanation must be given. During the previous conversation, the coauthor did not raise any doubts or concerns about my suggestions. Thus I pointed out these issues in the paper again and they again fell on deaf ears this loop continues.
* As I already spent a huge amount of time on this paper and made a significant contribution, I don't want to withdraw my coauthorship.
* Topic is relatively new, in addition the current version is good enough to have a decent chance of getting accepted into a medium level conference.
* Some minor issues (may be major) are bother me. I am not sure whether I am wrong. However, there is no discussion on on my concerns even after they are explicitly highlighted.
Should I just let the paper go? or make some statement? I don't want to burn bridges with any of my coauthors.<issue_comment>username_1: There are at least three possibilities here:
* The quality of your feedback is low. You might be wrong, incomprehensible, or nitpicky. Ask for feedback on your feedback.
* The lead author is unable or unwilling to do a good job. In this case you should do more for them or withdraw your coauthorship.
* There is a third author who is giving advice which contradicts yours. It might be important to the lead author not to upset this third person, so they might not admit this to you. The solution is to talk to other authors.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In every scientific paper that I have been involved in, there has been opportunity for co-authors to directly edit the manuscript themselves, if they wish to make a contribution. If you feel that you have suggestions that are not being taken up, I would advise you to ask something like:
>
> Would you mind if I did a pass on the paper to edit in some of the suggestions I've made?
>
>
>
If your co-author hasn't been editing in your suggestions because they are unclear, overloaded, or not able to do so, this will give you a chance to adjust the paper in the ways that you want. If, on the other hand, they actually disagree with your suggestions, then they may not want you to edit them in, and you can then actually have a discussion about whether and why the proposed edits should occur.
In short: I believe that you need to shift from being a passive critic to being an active contributor who provides actual text that accomplishes what you want to have accomplished.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have had this problem on a few occasions. Usually I got ignored over suggestions on points the lead author *did not want* to discuss directly because (i) s(he) felt (s)he was on the right side; (ii) s(he) felt (s)he was on the wrong side but wanted to push their version nonetheless; (iii) s(he) felt I was not in a position to criticise that part.
In all cases I demanded for an explanation, and this is why I can answer your question here. So, my first suggestion is that you contact this person demanding an explanation. (Mind that most people don't do these actions -- questioning parts of manuscripts where they are co-authors, and later seek to understand why they got ignored -- and that most lead authors prefer having passive "co-authors".)
How did I react in such situations described above? I will briefly explain:
(i) I tried to make my point clearer, which subtly meant I was trying to prove the lead author wrong. The lead author always insisted on their point without seeming to listen to what I said, while emphasising on how they took my suggestions on other points. I had to let these issues go, and they got published, and as a result I do not fully agree with some of the papers I participated in.
(ii) I insisted. This **will** make the lead author uncomfortable, and you will have to make sure this person understands you're not cornering him/her. Typically there is a clear mismatch with data or logic that the lead author doesn't want to hear aloud. Usually I got the problem fixed, usually the lead author wasn't happy and is now unlikely to collaborate with me in the future. I think that is OK, given the circumstances. Once I had to let it go.
(iii) This is the most common situation. Typically it involves a collaborator from a different field under strong influence of their bossy PI, where you're not sure which of the two is doing the writing or even answering to your emails. They do not appreciate being questioned "on their turf". You have to consider the possibility you're wrong there. Which I think is irrelevant, because if you are wrong then there's all the more reason you deserve a clear, logical answer. In such cases I insisted, and was authoritatively told to "keep to my business". I insisted again, and got ignored, and had to let it go. Usually the lead author apparently *did* see my point but was told by their PI (i.e. the last author) what to do. As a result the lead authors in these cases made sure to communicate they were open to collaborate with me in the future, while their boss cut communication.
Anyway, hope that helps. In the long run you're selecting whom you can work with.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: **"If I were a reviewer"**
I think a nice way to get people to step outside of their rigid viewpoints is to explicitly ask them to take the point of view of a peer reviewer. By saying something like "if I were a reviewer, I might wonder if X" (where X is your point). or "If I were your reviewer, I might want more evidence on this, considering XYZ".
This also has the advantage of putting you and your co-author on the same team, anticipating the concerns of a sometimes adversarial anonymous reviewer.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/19
| 940
| 3,942
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<issue_start>username_0: I am going to apply for a PhD in mathematics in north Europe. During my high school and undergraduate years, I was also a semi-professional athlete, and I retired when I was a graduate student to focus on my studies. I think being an athlete at a high level tells many things about a PhD student. A high level former athlete has probably developed a strong attitude for work, knows how to focus and how to manage their time; moreover, high level sport teaches you also how to manage stress and failures. However, I am afraid that a potential PhD adviser might get the wrong idea: I don't know any former athletes doing a PhD in my field, but I know at least one professor who thinks being an athlete could be a distraction. Unfortunately, in my country there is not a strong sports culture, and hence the academic and sport worlds are completely disjoint. Do you think I should mention my former career as an athlete in a curriculum for a PhD application?<issue_comment>username_1: I would put it in your CV. I see several reasons for this: first it completes your CV and you are 'honest' with anyone you apply to. I don't know the sports you are in but if someone googles your name, s/he might end up finding you which in my opinion raises questions (if you did not mention it).
The second reason is that of traits and skills a semi-professional career as athlete gives you: persistance, discipline and so on. Yes, it may distract you, but this is why you have chosen to focus on one path. Be prepared to answer questions about this when you are interviewed. Focus on the positive aspects that this occupation has given you.
Third: I think it highly depends on your sport. Is it athletics, football, or something else (popular) it is perhaps ok. Something like Mixed Martial Arts raises other questions and might put you into a unwanted light (agressive, conflict orientated). Sports like e-sports are also still a problem. Many do not recognise them as sports at all, although they might indicate team and communication skills as well as reflexes.
So I guess you should reflect upon the positive and negative aspects of your sport and why it has formed your character into the person you are know. If you can answer questions about this relation in an interview setting, you are pretty well off I think.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There are several parts of a typical Ph.D. application. In some of them, sports will almost certainly not appear; in others I think it will strongly depend on whether *you* find your sports experience highly relevant to your progress as a graduate student. Here are the places that I think sports might appear:
* In letters of recommendation, your sports will likely not appear at all, since your recommenders are likely recommending you on the basis of your academic work. Still, you likely have no control here, and if one of your recommenders feels that mentioning sports strengthens your application, they may do so.
* In your personal statement, you should only mention sports if you believe that they are highly relevant to your development and goals for a Ph.D. For some [they most absolutely are](https://www.media.mit.edu/people/hherr); for others, they are largely separate.
* In your C.V., I see two places that sports might appear:
1. If your "semi-professional" status as an athlete actually meant you were being paid, then it should probably appear in your list of prior work experience.
2. Sometimes as C.V. has a miscellaneous "other experience" section at the bottom, in which you might put a bullet point on sports.
In short, there is not much place for sports to appear unless you believe it is critical to your path in academia. Nor does there need to be a conspicuous absence, however: if you have just that bullet point at the end of your C.V., that signals "this was a big thing in my life, but it's not what I'm focusing on here."
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: While doing research in statistics, sometimes I came across complex integration that I can't or don't want to solve analytically.
Is it okay to use Mathematica to solve the integration and use the result in my research? Do I need to report this in the academic article? My qualm is that perhaps I am *supposed* to be able to solve these things by hand.
(Some context: I'm from the social sciences and thus unfamiliar with what's permitted regarding these tools.)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it okay to use Mathematica to solve the integration and use the result in my research?
>
>
>
Of course it is.
It might be useful, though, to make the Mathematica code employed for the calculations available to others, either through a public repository or by a note in the paper suggesting to contact the author(s). This will allow reviewers or other readers to check your calculations, or, possibly, reuse or extend them.
In a paper where I made extensive use of Mathematica, I wrote the following note at the end:
>
> To those interested, the authors can provide the Mathematica notebooks of the full calculations developed in this work.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I take this question as not specific to Mathematica, but equally relevant to any other computer algebra system.
You have an integral or an equation that you cannot solve. You have a piece of software that will give you a result. But you don't know how it arrived to the result. Is it okay to use it?
**What matters is whether the result is correct, not how you arrived to it. You *should* understand the problem you are solving, and you *should* verify the solution.**
Personally, I would be very uncomfortable using such a result blindly, especially knowing how easily certain automated symbolic calculations, such as definite integration, can go wrong. But luckily, most of these types of results are much easier to *verify* than to *compute*. You have an indefinite integral? Differentiate it! An equation? Substitute back the solution! A definite integral? Do it numerically and compare to the symbolic solution!
Writing in your paper that "this is the result of the integral *because Mathematica said so*" is not okay, if you didn't verify it. Just stating the result without saying how you arrived to it *is fine* for as long as you have verified it and it is also obvious enough for any reader how to verify it. If it is not obvious, then *prove the result* in the paper, i.e. show how you verified it.
---
Given that you mention integration, I should point out that doing *definite* integrals automatically is notoriously difficult, and *all* computer algebra systems will occasionally return wrong results. That's a very good reason to always verify.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: As username_2 writes, verification is important and that's also the case if you were to do computations by hands using methods you think are reliable. There are cases of erroneous results in the peer reviewed literature that were not noticed for quite some time where researches have actually used the wrong formula taken from the published article for many years.
An example is the article by <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>: Z. Phys. D 32, 73 (1994), a mistake was made in the computation of the cross section for the radiative capture of a charged particle in the ground state. It was an elementary math mistake due to using inconsistent branch cuts, as pointed out [here](http://epjd.epj.org/articles/epjd/abs/1998/08/d8056/d8056.html). That mistake was not noted by the authors precisely because it led to a strange effect of an apparent discontinuity in the cross section, this effect was interpreted as an interesting feature of the capture cross section.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m not a native English speaker and want to get a better grip on the nuances of the term *science.*
In my native tongue, the word I’d use for *science* also refers to humanities and the social sciences. However, I’ve lately been getting the feeling that some people use the term only to refer to the natural sciences (case in point: the *S* in *STEM).* With *scientist* referring to academics working in the natural sciences, and *scholar* more to academics in the humanities and social sciences.
Is my intuition correct? If so, is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?<issue_comment>username_1: Humanities cover everything that is not a "hard science" such arts and social sciences, as well as other fields, like history. The S in "STEM" is used to refer to "hard science"
Social sciences include fields that use empirical methods to consider society and human behavior, such as anthropology, archaeology, economics, education, geography, law, political science, psychology and sociology.
Some humanities are social sciences and some are not. The term "science" does encompass social sciences but does not include all humanities.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: [Merriam–Webster definition of *science*](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science) reads (reflecting my experience with the usage of the term):
>
> **1 :** the state of knowing : knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding
>
>
> **2a :** a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study the ‹*science* of theology›
>
> **b :** something (as a sport or technique) that may be studied or learned like systematized knowledge ‹have it down to a *science›*
>
>
> **3a :** knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method
>
> **b :** such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science
>
>
> […]
>
>
>
So, *science* can refer just to the natural sciences (3b); include every discipline invested in the discovery of knowledge, i.e., natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences , and so on; (3a) or have an even broader scope and include such things as theology (2a).
The only way to know how narrow the term *science* is meant to be understood is usually from context. To exacerbate matters, some people (usually natural scientists) insist that *science* always is meant to be understood in the sense of definition 3b, even if it is not clear from context. In my opinion, this renders the word *science* almost useless for purposes of categorising academic fields, as you can never rely on it being understood as intended.
>
> is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?
>
>
>
I am not aware of a term that precisely covers this but in many cases one of the following terms may suffice:
* *science (in the broader sense)*
* *academic field* or *all academic fields*
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The term "science" in English definitely does not include the humanities. There are ambiguous cases, where it is unclear how to draw the line between humanities and social sciences, but for example literature is never considered a science. If you wish to include the humanities, then you must use a broader term.
Social sciences are a little trickier. At one level, they are obviously sciences: it's even part of their name! On the other hand, people sometimes use the term "science" as shorthand for the hard sciences, without meaning to include the social sciences. This means you are welcome to use the term inclusively, but you shouldn't expect that it always includes the social sciences when you hear other people using it. If this distinction matters, then you'll need to discuss it explicitly.
It's worth noting that there are a lot of other things that don't fall under "science" in English, besides the humanities. For example, engineering has some overlap with science, but engineering fields are usually not classified by universities under the sciences, and references to science will not be understood to include engineering. (This is one reason the term STEM is popular: it's the shortest way to refer to both science and engineering in English.)
>
> If so, is there an umbrella term describe everything from social science over STEM to law and what not?
>
>
>
Unfortunately, I don't think there is. (Maybe there are obscure terms out there, but there certainly isn't one that is widely used and understood.) You could use broad phrases like "all academic disciplines" if you really want to include everyone, but there is not a specific term like "science" for this.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Does the term "science" include the humanities?
No.
===
Does the term "science" include the social sciences (sociology/economics)?
If you ask the physics department, no.
If you ask the economics department, yes.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: The past year, I've been reading a mathematical manuscript from a well-known university on a particular well-known, graduate curriculum subject. The manuscript language is not English. One can imagine a manuscript on, e.g., Algebra in, e.g., Spanish in the form you usually give it to your students before you hand it over to, say, Springer.
At a certain point I found myself latexing my comments; now they have a subjectively better quality than the original manuscript, and they can be used as auxiliary material for everyone working with that manuscript. The comments are in English. Today, the manuscript volume is around 300 pages. The comments are around 50 pages, are 90% self-contained, and could be potentially turned into a small booklet. The comments are evolving and growing. The comments do not repeat any manuscript material except the usual stuff such as defining notation and claims which deserved new, better proofs. Subjectively, the students who wish to comprehend the manuscript need such comments or equivalent ones.
I have no time for 100% self-containedness (which would take me a few weeks), not even any time to find a coauthor (which would take me at least a few weeks till infinity). But I do have time to put the booklet into a publishable format, which will take me less than a week.
The author of the manuscript is out of question to be contacted in any way (the reasons therefor are private and cannot be elaborated on here).
Now I learned that the manuscript is in the process of being turned into a book by a well-known research publisher. What would be the best way for me to publish my comments
1. to get research credit by entires in traditional listings of research papers/journals/books,
2. to get an ISBN, if possible?
I would like to know whether such auxiliary material is typically accepted by an established research publisher (say, AMS, or Springer, etc.) and, if so, what are the typical conditions. Or, otherwise stated, if it is possible to get it published at the same publisher as that of the manuscript at all or whether I should take another one?
PS. This question contains no personal details in comparison to a previous one, which I deleted.
UPDATE: It is no more my intention to earn a bit from selling. It would be just a moral support to get 1 cent per sold copy, but nothing else.<issue_comment>username_1: From your description, about the most it sounds like you could do is post your notes online.
Why? Your notes are not self-contained and I haven't seen things like "study guides" published in concordance with graduate texts, which indicates that there's little market. Even if there were some market for this, if you don't have time to make your notes self contained, you likely don't have time to get them in a publishable format either. In any case, the amount of money you would get should be minimal. Grad texts are not a cash cow. I also don't see much advantage in an ISBN, but you could get an arXiv id if you post to the arXiv.
Free online notes can give you just as much if not more "recognition" than publishing, depending on the situation (free notes are easily accessible, hence can get wider distribution). I've done this for some courses I've taught, and while I don't have any measure of how much recognition I'm getting (nor is it that important), sometimes I meet people at conferences or what not and they say nice things about my notes. Conversely, I've gotten a good impression of many young people by coming across some nice notes they've written.
Of course, if you do this, you should make sure to give the author due credit and that you will not be infringing on copyrights. Note that the presentation of material and choice of definitions is a big part of the originality of the author's manuscript. I spend a lot of time thinking about order of presentation when I write notes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> The author of the script is out of question to be contacted in any way.
>
>
>
Under this circumstances you should *not contact the publisher* since the publisher would almost certainly contact the author and ask for his opinion anyway.
Publishing such notes without contacting the author seems a bit strange to me and I may guess that the author would not be happy to see such a publication without him having been involved. On the other hand, being contacted by somebody who asks "I have written extended notes for your manuscript and would like to ask if you would approve these notes to be published in some way." would be totally ok for me (although I am not sure where this would lead to - but in general I would not be offended in any way (unless somebody would claim something like "I have better proofs and more clear explanations for you incomprehensible gibberish")).
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Inspired by the question [Does the term “science” encompass humanities and the social sciences?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/71538/546), I would like to ask a question that has been in my mind for decades.
Does "Science" include Mathematics? Or, put in another way, is Mathematics part of Science?
What I understand about Math are: Math is not humanities. Math is not natural science. Math is not social science. If Math is part of science, what kind of science is it?
When people say STEM, do they mean Math is separate from Science? Or they just say it for the sake of convenience?<issue_comment>username_1: This is a good question, but there is no consensus as to a good answer. Some people think mathematics is obviously a science, some people think it obviously isn't, and some just aren't sure.
It's common to include mathematics as a special case of science in general discussions. For example, universities usually classify mathematics under the sciences, and "scientific publishing" would generally be understood to include mathematics. However, there are exceptions, and abstract discussions of science often don't apply very well to mathematics.
If this distinction matters in a given case, then you'll have to discuss it explicitly, since you can never assume everyone will agree by default.
>
> If Math is part of science, what kind of science is it?
>
>
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The most compelling answer I've heard is that it is a [formal science](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_science). However, this terminology is somewhat obscure, and it is certainly not a consensus answer to your question.
>
> When people say STEM, do they mean Math is separate from Science?
>
>
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I don't think the intention is to assert that they are definitely separate, but rather just to have an inclusive acronym we can all agree on.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The first definition of science that [Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science) gives is:
>
> : knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation
>
>
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Math doesn't investigate the natural world and thus isn't a science according to that definition.
In How to Think Straight About Psychology <NAME> defines 3 main traits of science.
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> Three of the most important are that (1) science employs methods of systematic empiricism; (2) it aims for knowledge that is publicly verifiable; and (3) it seeks problems that are empirically solvable and that yield testable theories (the subject of the next chapter).
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>
>
Math isn't employing empiricism and thus doesn't fulfill criteria (1) and (3).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The answer to this question is perhaps not as clear-cut as it might appear, i.e. the issue is not merely definitional.
Some (for example the physicist <NAME>, in his book `The Emperor's New Mind') believe that mathematical structures exist in a non-physical, Platonic realm.
Conversely, the quantum physicist [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch) has claimed (notably in his book, `The Fabric of Reality') that, since the brains of mathematicians are physical objects, then the structures they can apprehend are constrained by the laws of physics (more specifically, to be computable by a quantum computer).
In `Where Mathematics Comes From', the cognitive linguists Lakoff and Nunez claim that, even if a transcendent Platonic mathematics existed, we would be unable to experience it, since our conceptions are analogised from our physical experience of space, force, motion etc.
[Here](http://www.ams.org/publications/journals/notices/201606/rnoti-p614.pdf) is a quote from a recent article in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society by AMS President <NAME>:
*People say that mathematics is logical, but the logical aspect is only part of it. Mathematicians usually don’t proceed logically. They make guesses, see patterns, do experiments, develop beliefs. Almost nothing in that process
is purely logical.*
I'd personally say that this alone puts mathematics on a conceptually equivalent status to physics, but not everyone would agree with this.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Are you a Popperian falsificationist? Then you believe that only those statements that can be disproved by experiment can be classified as science, and as such, mathematics is not a science.
Of course, there are [those](http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/OPINIONS.html) that believe that mathematics *is* an experimental science, and the lab is the computer. If you are of this opinion, then math is a science in the Popperian sense, but most people think that software and hardware bugs are so common that this stance is untenable.
If you find <NAME>'s [epistemogical anarchism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemological_anarchism) convincing, then you will claim that mathematics is a science, as it produces tangible value.
I personally wouldn't classify mathematics as a science. The best definition I can offer is *mathematics is a set of techniques for thinking clearly about quantity and shape*. But even that definition can be challenged with little effort.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I'll go for a semi-yes (maybe more).
When one says mathematics is not real, as compared to physics, I generally question the person about the reality of an electron. How does he know an electron is real? Ever seen one? Or guessed through models and measurements?
I long believed mathematics was not a science. However, parts of mathematics have become quite computational. Think about [proofs for the 4-color theorem](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gonthier/4colproof.pdf). Mathematics can teach about real-world problems, see [the Pentium problem](http://www.willamette.edu/~mjaneba/pentprob.html). And I am seduced by <NAME>nes views on the existence of an
>
> archaic mathematical reality outside space-time yet as inexhaustible as normal physical reality
>
>
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discussed in details on SE [Archaic mathematical reality](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/8219/archaic-mathematical-reality-as-referred-to-by-mathematician-alain-connes):
>
> Take prime numbers, for example, which as far as I'm concerned,
> constitute a more stable reality than the material reality that
> surrounds us
>
>
>
So, along with the increasing use of some mathematics in nowadays data engineering (data science/big data buzz words), I am more and more convinced that large parts of mathematics can be considered science... at least no less that string theory ([Why String Theory Is Not A Scientific Theory](http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2015/12/23/why-string-theory-is-not-science/#1ae7c88f17e7)).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Unfortunately the duplicate in mathematics hasn't got good answers, so I will give it a try.
The answer is: *Mu*.
It means that the question must be unasked or that neither "yes" nor "no" is right or wrong.
Mathematics is examining the properties of consistent mental models or structures. It started with numbers and geometric figures and it was used for applications (counting, area calculation) from the beginning. It would not be completely wrong to name it "number philosophy" although it has expanded greatly and examines now a innumer...*a very great number* of concepts.
An example to show the difference to science: Let's say a scientist would try to prove the Pythagorean theoreom without mathematics. He would find out
that if we draw squares on the side of a right-angled triangle, the smaller ones look like they have the same area as the big one. He would experiment with it and while they really look very similar, he will never achieve an equal result. The cuts are not completely straight, the material bends, the lines have always some extent. Even if he succeeds in determining that for all tested right triangles the values are mostly equal, he/she can never be sure that it will stay so.
A mathematician can *prove* that the sides are *exactly equal*. This is possible because s/he does not use real-world modelling and is therefore not limited by their applications. But while it is not the real-world, it still allows discoveries. It is not self-evident that right triangles have this interesting property.
Mathematics is a necessary part of science because it is a building block for any precise models we need to refine the work. Physical values are models by numbers (or matrices/tensors) and a concept of a dimension. In higher physics countle...*a big number of* mathematical models are used.
For the reason that mathematicians and other scientists are sharing many mental similarities (curiosity, challenging matters of course and relishing hard, but interesting problems) their faculties are often joined together which results in the STEM field.
So mathematics is "sciency".
But...it is not really a science because it is more fundamental: *It does not require knowledge or experience from other scientific fields.* If a mathematician travels back in time 20 000 years (the humans were on a comparable intelligence level as today) he would be able to teach a bright kid modern mathematics which is impossible for modern science because there is no infrastructure to replicate experiments. Mathematics also has no room for error or reevaluation. Once the axioms are set (yes, if the axioms change, the result can change), a result is valid for all times.
Mathematics is also used massively outside science including the humanities.
So mathematics is not a science.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: On my journey through Computer Science, Machine Learning / AI, and Cryptography I've often wondered the same thing. Here's the way I currently see the interactions between math and its related disciplines through the branches of mathematics that I've studied:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pvn3v.png)
I imagine there's a fair amount of subjectivity here, and that other branches of mathematics will have their own unique place on the Venn diagram.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Similarly to how a Postdoc researcher is a researcher, I think that a PhD student should be considered a researcher. Especially when:
* A salary is obtained for the research that is done as part of the PhD studies. Per definition, I would say that students pay, they are not paid.
* A research master has been studied before and there are no lessons, classes, exams, etc. So in fact the person is not a student, but "at least" an "apprentice".
I know that naming things in one way or another may not make a big difference for those in academia that read the CV, but it may evoke different ideas for those out of academia that read it.
AFAIK, they are absolutely equivalent, even if one is more used than the other (mistakenly, IMHO). Nevertheless, I would like to get confirmation, if possible from an authoritative source (like a dictionary for titles), and at the same time I think that the question may be useful for many people.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't see the point in your distinctions in either bullet. Some students get a salary, some do not. Neither of these is determinative of whether a student is a researcher. Not every PhD student did a Master's degree before the began their PhD studies. I certainly did not.
Why do you care if PhD students (who I agree do "research") are "researchers" or not? Of course they are researchers because I think that anyone who does research is a researcher (paid, student, or otherwise). Are you looking to validate your ego, to overcome an officious rule that says that only "researchers" may do some thing or other, or are you looking for something else? Except in a few places, titles matter little. If titles matter where you are, then find the law or bureaucratic codes that define "researcher" and follow them. If you don't like the answer you find, you can either live with that, find a workaround, or fight (presumably through a legislative body if that place has one) for change. You haven't given us enough detail about why you care for us to helpfully answer your question.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: PhD students and PhD researchers are not the same thing.
A "PhD researcher" is a researcher who *has* a PhD, while a PhD student is working on a project in order to *obtain* a PhD (i.e. does not have the degree yet).
I agree with you, that the term "PhD student" in English is rather unfortunate - in reality, it is much closer to an apprenticeship, as you are training to perform research. And you do this by performing research under guidance.
Other languages have separate words for people doing a PhD, e.g. "Doktorand" in German, which give less of an impression of "studentship". In English, this is (AFAIK) not possible, and the closest I can think of is "PhD candidate".
If you just would like to avoid the term "student" on a CV because you believe that it could be misinterpreted by people outside academia, I would instead refer to something along the lines of e.g.
>
> "PhD project (in SUBJECT)"
>
>
> "PhD research project"
>
>
>
This still covers what you have done, but avoids giving the job title you feel is ambiguous.
Making up new "job titles", especially if they can be misinterpreted, is not a good idea, as unilateral "bug fixing" of a language does not work: communication requires both parties to buy into the premise. In the best case, you will create confusion, in the worst case you will be guilty of fraud.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The generally accepted job title of a researcher who already has a PhD is a post-doctoral researcher. Unless you want to argue that doctoral and post-doctoral mean the same thing then a doctoral researcher is a researcher who is seeking a PhD. This makes sense considering that we do not say doctoral student for students that already have obtained their doctorates. The purpose of avoiding saying "PhD Student" as your job title on your CV is because a common prejudice against people with PhD's seeking to work in the private sector is that all they know about is life as a student. This is obviously not the case if you work at a research institute where some of the researchers may not even have a phd and get to claim there time there as work experience. In German and French this is not an issue because the meaning of the words "doktorant" and "doctorand" are commonly known. In English, "doctorand" is actually the word you are looking for (<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/doctorand>), but it is not as widely known which makes it less suitable for a resumé/CV. When I did my PhD there was a person from human resources responsible for all the doctorands in the French speaking part of Switzerland who explained all of this using survey data and examples. My suggestion is to use "Doctoral Researcher" because "PhD Researcher" could potentially be confused with "PhD-level researcher".
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Perhaps the difference is in what Masters and PhD entail in different countries. I've spoken to several people in the US who have very different course content in comparison to what we have here in the UK. In the UK, Masters level research is of higher quality and rigor than a Masters in the US (the same can be said about Bachelors in the US and the UK). By the time we finish our Masters here in the UK, we are quite familiar with how to do research. We are no longer students of research. From this perspective, I believe those who are doing PhD are researchers, not merely students. Someone who is already granted a PhD is a post-doctoral researcher, not a doctoral researcher.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: "PhD Researcher" implies that this person has a PhD. Also a post-doctoral researcher is something more specific. It usually refers to a person taking a short term 1-3 years individual Post-Doc after his/her PhD. Also, if you are a Researcher it should imply that you have a PhD since a PhD candidate/student is learning how to be a researcher and therefore not a qualified researcher yet. Also, a "PhD Researcher", "Researcher" or "Researcher PhD" could be more experienced than a Post-doctoral Researcher and it usually implies a more permanent position.
Personally I think it is important to stick to the title to avoid confusion. Personally I would like to see "PhD candidate" instead of "PhD student" since it sounds better. PhD candidates should be paid in my opinion as they do research for the university. But payment is independent of the title. Avoiding using wrong name is also advisable. If I was an interviewer and I had found out that I was cheated on thinking that you have a PhD, then I would not appoint you. I will loose trust on the rest of your skills on your CV. Keep your CV as truthful as possible.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Six years late, but I would say they are the same.
An undergraduate researcher implies an undergraduate student who does research.
Similarly, a Ph.D. researcher implies a Ph.D. student who does research.
In my opinion, *Researcher*, in general, without the degree as prefix, is someone who does research as a job.
Upvotes: -1
|
2016/06/19
| 1,020
| 4,727
|
<issue_start>username_0: There is a large database maintained by a group of scientists. This group of scientists have made a considerable effort to get many other scientists to contribute to this database, and make it available to other researchers, on the condition that to access some of the data, some data contributors may request authorship. This project has been very successful and many publications have resulted from this database.
Recently, some authors used the *entire* database in an analysis, and gave associated authorship to respective authors when requested. However, this analysis is published in a journal with a specific data sharing policy that reads,
*"(Journal X) requires authors to ensure that data and materials integral to the paper are available to readers in a form which allows for verification and replication of the results in the paper. Where feasible, data should be included as part of the article or as supporting information, however if this is not possible, we expect authors to make use of public data repositories and include the appropriate links and identifiers within the article. **It is the strict requirement of the journal that authors will agree to make their data and materials available to readers upon reasonable request, and corresponding authors will be reminded of this at acceptance stage.** Please note that this policy also applies to any custom software described in the paper."*
To me, this means that if I request this data, then the original authors can no longer require me to include them as authors in any subsequent analysis I generate and choose to publish. However, it only says they have to share the data with me. It says nothing about how I am allowed to use said shared data.
Question: if I request this data, am I somehow obligated to offer authorship to the original data generators?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not a fan of "mandatory authorship" on published information: I feel that once something is published, one should collect one's rewards by means of citation rather than by strong-arming people into giving you an authorship. Mandatory authorship on already-published data feels to me too much like a form of [salami-slicing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_publishable_unit) on a dataset.
That said, the journal's policy does not appear to say anything at all regarding authorship. Therefore, the default position would seem to be that the authors must share the data with you (as mandated by the journal), but are also free to require authorship as "payment" for sharing.
The journal, however, may feel that this goes against the spirit of their data sharing agreement, and if so, then you may be able to obtain the data without being coerced into authorship. I would thus recommend, like @BrianBorchers notes in the comment, that you write to the chief editor(s) and ask for a ruling.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Your argument here strikes me as incredibly flimsy. As you point out, the data is in fact available, just with the restriction that it cannot be used in further papers without offering coauthorship, and that restriction in no way contradicts the journal's stated policies.
It's not clear whether it violates the intent of the policies. One argument that it doesn't is that the journal specifically says this data must be available "in a form which allows for verification and replication of the results in the paper", which is different from allowing use in other work. Furthermore, the policy says "reasonable request", which suggests that some requests could be considered unreasonable. It's not 100% clear what the policy's authors had in mind (presumably requests for materials could more easily be considered unreasonable), but they certainly didn't say "everyone is entitled to the data and can do whatever they want with it, no questions asked".
So it seems to me that the written policy offers no support for your position.
I do not think it's fruitful to ask the journal editors for permission. Even if they declare that these restrictions are not what they had in mind, they have no authority to impose this interpretation retroactively.
If you try to use the data without offering coauthorship, there's a real risk that the data generators could file a misconduct complaint against you with your university, a relevant professional society, or the journal you end up publishing in. If I had to adjudicate such a complaint, I expect I would decide in their favor.
This is not to say that they are behaving reasonably, and I agree that username_1 that this is a questionable practice. However, you haven't found a loophole that justifies ignoring their request.
Upvotes: 4
|
2016/06/20
| 1,961
| 8,485
|
<issue_start>username_0: When I give a talk (e.g. in a department seminar) it is more convenient for me to sit down, since my body is more relaxed and it is easier for me to concentrate in the talk.
But, I have been told that sitting down makes me seem less serious, and it is more professional to stand up while talking.
So, is it better to sit or stand?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it's about preference. It's impossible to say one way or the other is right or wrong. It's better to be prepared and to know exactly what you are trying to do and communicate. What is the benefit of looking more serious and professional by standing if your talk is unclear and lacks direction? In addition, what is wrong with looking less professional and serious by sitting if you deliver an exciting and clear message that the audience finds riveting?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You should do what is expected, which in my experience is always to stand, but perhaps is different in other contexts.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: As the others said, it is circumstantial. In my experience so far a proper talk/presentation should be held standing up. The fact that you are standing itself should get you in the situation where you should automatically remember all the things that you should do in a talk (look at audience, speak loud and clearly, don't talk to fast etc.).
If you just want to present some results on a few non-formal slides, sitting down is okay and standing up might even look a little too stiff. But in the end you should observe or ask what the others do and adjust to that.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I have never seen anyone sit down to give a seminar talk (or even a lecture that I can think of), it would come across as extremely unprofessional (unless there were some sort of issue that restricted the ability to stand).
Your ability to feel relaxed and to concentrate on the talk should not be an issue: your talk is prepared ahead of time. What is important is your ability to interact with the audience, to command their attention and to draw them in to your presentation.
I don't think there is any question, and indeed, people have told you that you should stand; so stand.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Personally, I believe that it depends. I recently was in a conference where speakers were sitting at a table having their laptops in front of them. It was how the conference leaders have design the presentation.
If they want you stand up then that's how you should do the presentation. Think about it as an experience. You say that it's more relaxing for you to sit down, but this is exactly what maybe they want to avoid. Standing up helps you communicate better with the audience, speaking not only with words but with body language as well, and gives you more confidence. (This is the why they told you standing will make you seem more serious).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I personally find that sit vs. stand strongly depends on the degree of formality and interactivity of a presentation.
* When the presenter stands, it signals a strong differential between the roles of presenter and audience (who sit). This generally creates a much more formal atmosphere and means that the audience will not contribute to the discussion except to ask occasional questions.
* When the presenter sits, it signals a more equal discussion environment, where it just happens that the presenter is the one who is structuring the discussion and/or controlling the slides. I almost never see this except in the most informal sorts of meetings within a project or group, but in such meetings (e.g., coordination of a project team) it is very common.
For the specific case that you give, of a department seminar, I would strongly advise standing. The reason for this is that, even if it is a fairly intimate and informal group, a strong motivation for the organization of such seminars is to give you practice for more formal talks. You may find it more comfortable to be sitting but this is a good opportunity to practice and find ways to be comfortable when standing as well.
Two caveats to all of this:
* If a person has a medical condition, they should take whatever position the medical condition encourages. I've stood and walked around at the back of a talk when my back was having issues; nobody expects <NAME> to stand and speak. If the condition is not obvious, you may wish to inform the audience so they know not to misinterpret your position.
* If you are giving a presentation remotely, the position that you are in generally does not matter, as a well-adjusted camera will typically only pick up your head and shoulders.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: When you stand and present you focus the audience on you - your speech and your gestures having the slides and other material as a support for your speech.
When sitting, you focus the audience on the slides, video, etc. putting yourself in the background. It can be understood that your slides are self-explanatory and you are here just to comment it if it is needed.
If you want to actively present yourself and your work, stand. If you want to hide yourself, sit. If you sit down during your speech you are saying "And now I'll show you awesome video!" without any word actually said; when you stand up you are saying "Show is over; listen to me now."
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: When a speaker sits, it sucks the air out of the room. I've only seen people sit when teaching a class, not when giving a seminar, and when they've done it, it's because they're hunched over a laptop or scribbling on a piece of paper under a document camera. It's horrible regardless of the level of formality. I can't see their face, and often can't see their body at all. They're interacting with a machine, not with me. It feels like being at the dinner table when someone's phone rings and they start having a conversation.
The only exception I would make would be if it's a situation where you arrange chairs or desks in a circle and everyone can see each other. This sends a message of informality and equality, and if your intention is to encourage everybody to participate, it's great.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I remember attending a mathematics conference. One lecture was presented by <NAME>. At that time (because of muscular dystrophy, I guess) he was confined to a wheelchair. But for his lecture he managed to lever himself out of the chair using crutches; lock the knees of his leg braces; and deliver the lecture while leaning against a pillar. (He had an assistant writing the appropriate things on the chalkboard as he spoke.)
He clearly thought standing was the proper way to do it. And I doubt your difficulties in standing are greater than his were.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: Thus far I've found it depends greatly on your field. In some (Such as Media Studies), the sitting/standing difference comes baked in with the difference between a seminar or lecture structure. You would not be expected to stand during a seminar except for utility purposes.
On the other hand, in the 'suit fields' (business, law) you'd be expected to stand for both types of talks.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: As a mathematician who has attended several philosophy lectures and seminars, I think this depends to a great extent on the discipline. I have never seen a mathematics talk delivered seated, while most philosophy talks I have seen were given by a seated speaker; occasionally, and particularly for bigger lecture rooms, the latter have been given by speaker standing at a lecturn. This most likely stems from the fact that in maths there is typically a lot of detail (notation, definitions, assumptions, results) to be stated more or less precisely and referred to later by the speaker or audience. Much writing or referring to slides follows from this requirement, which is not easily done while seated and facing the audience.
On the other hand in my experience of philosophy talks, the speaker typically reads or talks around a set text such as a written essay, so there is little if any need to write on or refer to a blackboard or projected slides. This leaves the speaker with the option of being seated while giving the talk.
I have never detected any suggestion that a talk was considered less serious or professional for being delivered seated.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/20
| 801
| 3,408
|
<issue_start>username_0: While working on my thesis in neutron imaging I got an idea for a new approach to data analysis, involving Machine Learning solutions that are not available at the moment (please note that I am a physicist, with little computer science background). I spoke about it with a few colleagues and I got good feedback, even if nobody wanted to collaborate on it (sounds too abstract, I guess). I contacted a few computer scientists, and nobody had time for this ;-)
I am now job hunting and I can't work full time on something where I need to start from scratch, but I still think it would be worth try to publish the idea somewhere (it seems none is working in that direction). Do you know if there is a journal or something similar for publishing suggestions on possible research directions in computer science and/or data analysis and algorithms development? Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: While you might struggle to publish something like this in a journal, in Computer Science there are other venues to look out for, such as conferences and workshops. These are smaller (and sometimes less prestigious) than journals, but usually with a tighter focus: you can often publish work-in-progress or position papers.
Edit: Some conferences are large, prestigious events, and will expect a substantial contribution to the field, so before you decide where to submit, take a look at past papers, and the sort of thing they tend to publish.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: If you can write down what you want to say in <200 words you could give [The Journal of Brief Ideas](http://beta.briefideas.org/) a go. Publications there are archived, searchable and citeable.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Short answers: A blog. An e-book.
A blog meets the basic criteria of your question. You can publish your ideas on the Internet and there will be no tangible results. And you can make a blog for free.
You can also write your idea down into a Word document, put some graphics in it, and output a PDF. Then convert the PDF to a few e-book formats and upload to Amazon. This might cost a little bit of money to get started. But think about it - people might pay money to read your ideas!
There are also "idea websites" that come and go as well. You can publish there too knowing that two years from now, they will no longer exist.
Ideas are a dime a dozen - maybe cheaper now due to inflation, population growth, automation, and get-rich-quick schemes. In my experience, actually doing the work to implement the idea, doing the research, etc. is the only way to make real headway. An alternative strategy, if you truly believe that the idea is valuable to society, is to KickStarter it (or, if you are from the future reading this, whatever crowdsourcing/project funding platform is available to you) and then hire some people to help you do the research and implement the idea. Ideas are brainfarts. Research and implementations require blood, sweat, tears, money, and sleepless nights.
Okay, all of that was a bit cynical. But there was truth in there too. And you can definitely publish both blogs and e-books and slowly gather a following of those who hang onto your ideas. Good educators are always on the lookout for good, doable ideas they can have their students work on. So it really depends on how far you are willing to take your idea.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/20
| 832
| 3,557
|
<issue_start>username_0: I've sorted out a list of professors from few Canadian Universities and I've sent customized emails after reading their papers and detailing in short on why I am particularly interested in their research and how it relates with my goals. This took a lot of time for just one email. Most have replied by saying they don't have suitable projects in their labs or are not accepting Masters students. I am bit worried now that I am nearly towards the end of my list of potential supervisors. Should I find more professors and broaden my research area of interest, as suggested by some senior friends? I am an international student and don't have any publications although I do have research experience. Could my lack of publication be a factor for all the rejections? My average GPA is 3.6/4.3 and my field is Biology.<issue_comment>username_1: No, do not keep emailing the professors.
Often professors get too many emails, and they may not have the time to reply.
It might have been helpful to see a sample email. What information were you asking them? What were you expecting out of emailing them?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Professors are quite limited with funds and resources (or already have a full team). The likelihood that someone who emails out of the blue to be a suitable choice is slim. Some places probably need a commitee to hire, as a safeguard against discrimination and errors.
You are far better off looking for universities with open positions, I think, or strengthen the connections with professors who already know you (and might write a recommendation letter for you).
Also, publications are way better than grades, research experience is very valuable (at least in maths, I suspect other fields are similar).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Some options:
* Check to see if the institutions you are interested in studying at have a Graduate School. Sometimes they will run an **Expression of Interest (EoI)** process on behalf of academics at their institution. Sometimes this is all done online. These work especially well where the grad school manages the workflow for these inquiries, saving academics from doing a lot of the correspondence themselves;
* Check to see if some other part of each university manages inquiries of this kind. It could be that the college/school/faculty/department **has a system** for divvying up research supervision. This is increasingly common practice;
* If you are set on particular academics and they are in high demand, **consider signing up for whatever seminars or conferences they are likely to speak at**. Asking a sensible question at the end of their session will get you on their radar, and this also gives you an opportunity to get **a bit more of a sense of what they would be like to work with**. Could you see yourself working with them for the next three-four+ years? That's an important question!
* Don't forget to **look abroad**, if you are able to relocate for study. Pandemics permitting...
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: It sounds like you’re sending the right kind of emails: personalized, research centered and to people you want to work with. I don’t know what the market’s like in your field but it could be that the professors you emailed are representative of a more general trend: times are tough and it’s hard to get funding for students.
I’m sure this is not an encouraging answer, but at the very least you should know that you’re absolutely *not* doing the wrong thing. Stay optimistic, and keep trying!
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/20
| 920
| 3,605
|
<issue_start>username_0: I applied for a PhD position and I was invited to give a talk about my Master thesis, but I didn't get the position, because:
1. Maybe my talk wasn't as good at it could be- I wasn't ready with my thesis then and I made some mistakes. I guess I could work on that.
2. My current thesis advisor probably didn't give me good references, although I'm not sure about that. There is nothing I can do about that- try to explain the disagreements I had with him to the committee? No one asked me about that, so I won't get that chance in the future. But I could ask someone else to write a reference letter for me.
My question is:
>
> Should I apply to the institution again (in few months or 1-2 years) when they have another open position? How will it be perceived?
>
>
>
My main concern is that the application will be reviewed by the same people I talked to, the people who took part in my seminar. Will I be allowed to give another talk on the same topic?
Also, the person who wrote to me, didn't suggest that I apply there in the future.
I'm not going to get more experience in research, because I work in a company, but I can have some publicaitons.
Note:
1. This is not a duplicate of [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/39009/how-is-it-perceived-to-withdraw-an-application-to-graduate-school) question, because I didn't withdraw my application- I was rejected.
2. This is not a duplicate of [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52075/is-it-alright-to-reapply-to-a-phd-program-you-got-rejected-from-if-you-work-on-y) question, because I was invited to the university, I had a talk with the group members and I gave a talk there. My experience isn't a problem, its the general impression, my knowledge (?).
3. This is not a duplicate of [this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29094/are-there-any-restrictions-on-applying-to-the-same-graduate-school-in-two-consec) question - see my explanation for the second question.<issue_comment>username_1: It is, most likely, a waste of your time and that of everyone else as well: If they rejected you once, what do you think would make them reconsider? The reality is that they probably didn't reject you for only one reason (talk, one letter missing), but for a number of reasons. It's unlikely that bringing one more letter would make them forget about the talk, or whatever else it is that they didn't like about your application.
It is true that that may not be fair. But it's just how humans work: Once you've made your decision that someone doesn't meet your expectation, there doesn't just have to be a small amount of extra information to change the outcome. You'd have to be able to demonstrate some extraordinary progress for people to be willing to change their perception of your application.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If I were in your position, instead of submitting a 'cold' re-application, I would first contact the committee and ask them for advice about what I could do to improve my prospects of being accepted as a PhD student. I have seen people do this a few times, and the strategy receives positive responses from faculty; but of course you will then have to do the work and actually improve on the things they suggest.
Re-applying with exactly the same material will probably not get you anywhere. However, if you get advice from the committee and/or from other people who are experienced in the field about what to improve or what skills/experience to acquire, and if you can demonstrate the results well, it will be noticed.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/20
| 813
| 3,189
|
<issue_start>username_0: I might collaborate with an old supervisor in the future and would like to keep in touch. Is it a good idea to send an email to him about the progress I've made in my career? Also, what's the best way to approach this? I feel like emailing just to talk about myself is a bit narcissistic -- is it?<issue_comment>username_1: I just did that, and I often do. If I'm honest, I don't do that as much as I should. Anyway, unless told otherwise, which, imho, would be rare, that should be acceptable/desirable.
Of course, you won't just talk about your stuff, but ask about his/hers. You do have common interests after all.
Professors are people too! There is no secret in talking to a fellow professional that you know. And, of course, never send a professor a lengthy message.
Be polite, be direct, and informative...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: As a supervisor, still being in interaction (on their own initiative sometimes) with former students, MSc & PhDs is one of my greatest pleasures.
Still planning (long after supervision) joint work, collaborative projects with your supervisor should be welcome quite positively. Even for sheer information. Good supervisors, teachers, most of the time, do this job to **elevate** or **guide**. They usually are happy when they have succeeded. They are often happily surprised. Apparently, this does not happen so often, and they cannot know. Students forget.
You can cope with narcissism by "sharing" or "returning" your progresses to a person you estimate for what s/he brought to your line of research. Whenever this happens to me (so very rare), I am happy.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I enjoy getting periodic updates from former students. It's nice to think that I've made a positive impact in their lives, and it's nice to hear that they are doing well professionally. And I've sent periodic updates to my advisor every now and then.
As for the best way to approach it, and it not coming off as narcissistic, I'd simply recommend that you keep it brief. Don't delve into lengthy details; professors are busy people! Keep it short and simple. Of course, you can always wrap up with a line like this:
>
> If you're interested, I could give you the particulars. Feel free to get in touch.
>
>
>
Then wish them a good day and include your contact information in your signature block.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Yes, do it. Of all supervisors you've had, there's just this one that you're thinking of reaching out to. That means this supervisor is special. If this is the only supervisor you're caring to follow up with, then that's a compliment.
>
> Also, what's the best way to approach this? I feel like emailing just to talk about myself is a bit narcissistic -- is it?
>
>
>
The best way to avoid making it sound like you're only talking about yourself is to avoid only talking about yourself. Mention someone else, too. For example, the supervisor you're mentioning.
Let them know that one of the topics you really want to bring up, because this topic is quite important, is this: thank you.
Really, ex-supervisors don't get told that nearly enough.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/21
| 374
| 1,611
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<issue_start>username_0: I have, since completing my PhD (in pure mathematics), worked in both non-academic and post-doc positions. I am brushing up my CV, and I would like some advice as to how one should detail non-academic work. My non-academic work has been quantitative, but otherwise entirely unrelated to my field of academic expertise, so my gained skills (in eg statistical packages) are of no use to the purely research position I am aiming to apply for.<issue_comment>username_1: Simply list in the section about employment who you worked for. The places you apply for may ignore this if they so choose, but at least you can document that you were working during this time and were not, as one could be tempted to speculate, in jail, unemployed, or homeless.
But then, it may also be that the people who look at your application think that it is quite beneficial to the program to hire someone who has seen other parts of the world, whether or not you learned specific tasks and skills there that are useful for your postdoc work.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have two categories for work expiereince in my CV. The first, I call 'academic' and I list my academic employments there. The second, I call non-academic. It contains any work I currently am doing or have done without any academic background.
This makes it easier for anyone to skip the parts that is of no interest for them. However be sure to list your tasks and experiences for both categories and the respective jobs. Mixing both kinds of employment makes your CV intransparent (in my opinion).
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/21
| 1,672
| 5,527
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<issue_start>username_0: Can someone please help me get an insight into the use of images, specifically paintings from the 16th to 18th century that reside in churches, museums, etc., and how can one use them in a PhD dissertation without falling into copyright issues?
I am aware there are different options. For instance it is legal under German law to use a picture of a painting if it was taken by you and in a place that allowed it. However, I’m not sure about the following in German law:
* Is it legal if I use an image from a book or catalogue?
* Can one claim a “quotation” of a work?
* Can one claim “fair use”, like in the US, since it is part of a critical/review/academic/research type of purpose?<issue_comment>username_1: I begin with a ton of quotes from the German copyright law (Urheberrecht, [original](http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/urhg/index.html), [English translation](http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/index.html)):
>
> ### § 15 Allgemeines
>
>
> (1) Der Urheber hat das ausschließliche Recht, sein Werk in körperlicher Form zu verwerten; das Recht umfaßt insbesondere
>
>
> 1. das Vervielfältigungsrecht (§ 16),
> 2. das Verbreitungsrecht (§ 17),
> 3. das Ausstellungsrecht (§ 18).
>
>
> (2) Der Urheber hat ferner das ausschließliche Recht, sein Werk in unkörperlicher Form öffentlich wiederzugeben (Recht der öffentlichen Wiedergabe). […]
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> ### Article 15 – General
>
>
> (1) The author has the exclusive right to exploit his work in material form; this right shall in particular include
>
>
> 1. the right of reproduction (Article 16),
> 2. the right of distribution (Article 17),
> 3. the right of exhibition (Article 18).
>
>
> (2) The author further has the exclusive right to communicate his work to the public in non-material form (right of communication to the public). […]
>
>
>
---
>
> ### § 51 Zitate
>
>
> Zulässig ist die Vervielfältigung, Verbreitung und öffentliche Wiedergabe eines veröffentlichten Werkes zum Zweck des Zitats, sofern die Nutzung in ihrem Umfang durch den besonderen Zweck gerechtfertigt ist. Zulässig ist dies insbesondere, wenn
>
>
> 1. einzelne Werke nach der Veröffentlichung in ein selbständiges wissenschaftliches Werk zur Erläuterung des Inhalts aufgenommen werden,
>
>
> […]
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> ### Article 51 – Quotations
>
>
> It shall be permissible to reproduce, distribute and communicate to the public a published work for the purpose of quotation so far as such exploitation is justified to that extent by the particular purpose. This shall be permissible in particular where
>
>
> 1. subsequent to publication individual works are included in an independent scientific work for the purpose of explaining the contents,
>
>
> […]
>
>
>
---
>
> ### § 64 Allgemeines
>
>
> Das Urheberrecht erlischt siebzig Jahre nach dem Tode des Urhebers.
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> ### Article 64 – General
>
>
> Copyright expires 70 years after the author’s death.
>
>
>
The questions relevant to your situation are:
* **Do you have to publish your thesis?** If yes, copyright applies (§ 15) as you are reproducing and distributing the images or photographs thereof. If not, more lenient laws for private copies apply (§ 53).
* **Did the creators of the images die more than seventy years ago?** If the images are from the 18th century or earlier, this should apply.
* **Did you take the photo of the image yourself?** This is the most tricky question, as the photo may be a copyrightable work on its own.
Last year, a court rejected a lawsuit against Wikimedia Germany which was about using a photo of a public-domain image. The court argued that this would be an invalid prolongation of copyright that surpasses the public domain and also mentioned that a purely technical reproduction is generally not considered to be copyrightable. You can read about this [here](http://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/) and [here](http://hoesmann.eu/reiss-engelhorn-museum-scheitert-mit-klage-gegen-wikipedia-foto/).
However, these links also mention lawsuits with other decisions and there is no general law about this situation.
* **Does § 51 (quotations) apply?** – For the images, this is something that only you can decide. However, if the photograph is considered a work on its own, one may argue that you do not explain **the photograph** in the sense of § 51.
So, to summarise, there are several laws in your favour if you made the photographs yourself. Otherwise, you run a small risk of a copyright lawsuit, which I would consider rather low.
In general, I suggest asking the owners for their permission to be sure. Also, they may have high-quality photographs, which they can provide for you. After all, museums and similar places generally like if their exhibits are the subject of scientific works.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know if this helps, but the following is from the Europeana Public Domain Charter:
What is in the Public Domain needs to remain in the Public Domain. Exclusive control over Public Domain works cannot be re-established by claiming exclusive rights in technical reproductions of the works, or by using technical and or contractual measures to limit access to technical reproductions of such works. Works that are in the Public Domain in analogue form continue to be in the Public Domain once they have been digitised.
<http://www.europeana.eu/portal/rights/public-domain-charter.html>
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/21
| 3,612
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<issue_start>username_0: There are so many debates and criticisms around the topic of publishers, who are accused of charging excessive fees for access when all the work of the journal is done for free by academics. But why don't some of the big journals just go independent and open access? What do publishers actually provide as a benefit?
These are some of the things that publishers might provide, but it seems to me that they are easily replaced:
*Typesetting*
I edited a postgraduate journal and typeset it myself on LaTeX. It looks as good as any other journal. Surely there are many students familiar with LaTeX who would typeset for not much money, especially if people submitting papers were required at the minimum to provide an endnote/bibtex file of references and use proper document styles etc.
*Paywall*
Obviously, this would not be a problem for open access journals.
*Promotion*
Do academic journal publishers really need publishers to do this? Do publishers actually do this?
*Website*
I design and host my website on Weebly. It looks professional and costs hardly anything.
*Printing*
Well it's the 21st century, so print articles out yourself or read on a tablet. If this is absolutely necessary, print on demand.
---
It seems to me at least that to cover the costs of typesetting and webhosting, a journal would require hardly any money. They could raise this through a combination of charging authors (but not crazy money), donations and grants.
Either I'm missing something really important that publishers do or there is something holding back the likes of Mind (top-ranked philosophy journal) from doing this. All I could come up with was that perhaps publishers own the past content of the journal.
---
**UPDATE**
Some great responses below. To summarise, it seems there are broadly two answers to the question:
1. Journals offer more than I and other people sometimes think (e.g. secure web hosting, submission handling, registering papers with various databases).
2. There are costs associated with trying to leave a publisher. The name of a journal can be owned by the publisher, and the impact factor etc. are all held along with that. These costs present a barrier that already overworked academics rarely consider taking on.<issue_comment>username_1: Typesetting, running a website, and many of your other suggestions take time and organizational skills that many academics do not want to invest in.
If you outsource all of this to a publisher it allows you to focus on other projects. Why chase money to run a journal when you need to chase money for other forms of research?
Your ideas are reasonable but few are interested in having an entrepreneurial mindset toward an academic journal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am going out on a limb here and disagree with Darrin. I think there are plenty of academics who would be both, capable and perfectly willing to run a university- or self-published journal. I think it is an illusion that academics want to do *only* research, all the time. A lot of (tenured) academics do plenty of things that require lots of time and don't directly contribute to their research, be it writing entry-level text books, maintaining scientific software, communicating their work to the broader masses through events or magazine articles, running for offices in their university or various societies, etc. etc. I fail to see how running a journal would be so different to these activities that no-one would take up the task.
The main reason, in my opinion, why this rarely (although not *never*) happens is because of legal issues. Most journals (and, in computer science, conferences) are mostly identified through their name, and this name is owned by whoever currently publishes it. For instance, the editorial board of the [IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering](https://www.computer.org/web/tse) (TSE) is *not* free to just decide that the journal now goes self-published. Sure, the editorial board can decide to jointly quit and start a new journal, but it is *not* guaranteed that the community would see this new journal as a continuation of TSE. Much more likely, the new journal would need to start building a reputation from scratch, which is not easy at all. TSE, in the meantime, would continue even with a completely new editorial board, because I can guarantee you that there would be many qualified new people waiting in the wings for a chance to get into the board of the most important journal in their discipline.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Many journals are publishers' own products, "going solo" makes no sense. It's like asking why Gmail does not segregate from Google. In some cases, professional societies hire publishers to take care of their official publishing organ, I imagine your question relates to these cases. Otherwise, there have been cases of the entire editorial board leaving for another journal, I've heard it happened to a Frontiers journal over concerns on quality, but in this case the journal is still there, just edited by other people.
Running a professional-level journal is not trivial and there are reasons to favor established organizations, commercial or not, to handle that part. These include administration, secure web hosting, a long-term back-up strategy, typesetting, distribution, submitting accurate and complete article metadata to third parties like Pubmed or Web of Science, printing when applicable, etc. and of course finding the money to do all of these.
For many editors, it's a pretty straightforward decision to outsource these hurdles to a specialized organization, be it for profit or not, especially if there is an ongoing issue-free relationship going on for years.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I have been thinking about starting a "startup" journal owned by academics in my discipline and it seems to me that getting community support (authors and reviewers + quality content) is by far the biggest challenge. There is a strong feedback cycle where people don't want to submit to you unless you are reputable but you cannot get reputable without good submissions.
Note that the publishers own the ISSN + name and thus the impact factor and all the prestige of the journal - you cannot "move" a journal (and publishers will not be likely to just give it away). You need to start a new one. You are IMHO correct that most of the technical aspects can now be done with little cost that could be easily covered with minor financial support from a university/society.
Another problem is that with a slightly "punk" journal (which you will be, if you do not have money) you may run into trouble getting indexed by Web of Science and thus not get impact factor, which is sadly a necessary thing to attract submissions. While there is no charge to get ISSN ([ISSN guidelines](http://www.issn.org/services/requesting-an-issn/your-issn-guidelines/)) and to submit your journal contents for indexing ([WoS guidelines](http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/),[Scopus info](http://suggestor.step.scopus.com/suggestTitle/step1.cfm)), the people who review the application might be suspicious about you.
Succesful examples exist, e.g. <http://www.the-cryosphere.net/> Though I am not sure the journal is completely owned by academics - it seems to be. It nevertheless started quite recently and is reasonably modern in its publishing and pricing policies.
So if you are angry about publishing, you can actually change it - but you need strong support from the community. Good ideas to improve the publication process to fit better with your field than the current one should also help.
See also this question: [How is a new academic journal born](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8708/how-is-a-new-academic-journal-born/)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Actually, some journals *do* successfully go solo, just as you suggest. A nice high-profile example is the [Journal of Machine Learning Research](http://www.jmlr.org/), a top-ranked journal that formed [when the entire editorial board of Machine Learning resigned to create this free alternative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Research).
This points to the main reason why traditional journals have much inertia. The reason that JMLR could work is because:
1. A large fraction of the key players in the community coordinated to make the change (thereby immediately granting the new journal a high academic reputation) and,
2. They were able to arrange sufficient support from their home institutions to bear the start-up costs of organizing the journal.
These are both difficult to arrange, requiring quite a bit of coordination and personal investment, and so it is not surprising that it is rare to happen.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: Scientific journals and also some other parts of the academic infrastructure like universities, will be replaced by online resources. The reason why journals don't start to move in that direction all that much, is because it brings them closer to their eventual doom. The change to the new 21st century system will have to be implemented by the authors, they have to stop submitting to traditional journals, online resources replacing traditional journals will have to be set up. The reason why this isn't happening is because of tradition. We're all indoctrinated to use the resources we grew up using, and change requires considerable effort even if sticking to the old system is inefficient.
A good example is the [arXiv preprint server](http://arxiv.org). This server was not set up by Elsevier, the American Physical Society, or some other major publisher. It was mostly due to [Paul Ginsparg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ginsparg)'s efforts. We may see the peer reviewed analogue of this appearing in the near future for specific subjects. But like arXiv, this will then not be considered to be just another online open access journal, it will be more like an entire field of science becoming an open access science.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: There are more organisational issues than you think. Take the website for example: you say that you run one for peanuts, but is it suitable for a journal?
* is it compliant with personal data processing regulations?
* does it have a backup strategy?
* do you have your own certificate for secure connections?
* can your website process payments and/or donations?
* is it guaranteed to stay online when facing the slightest DDoS attack?
A similar list can be brought up for other tasks as well. So it's not impossible to run a free journal, but this activity is hardly compatible with full-tile research, teaching and other activities scientists already have.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: If you own the journal's brand (which is seldom the case), this is in fact possible quickly if somebody champions it (assuming authors do their typesetting). You can also recreate a brand, but that's a big *coordination problem*: it requires getting enough scientists to agree that it's worthwhile in some form, which is hard, like herding cats; then each must believe enough people agree to switch. There are partial success stories, but I never see evidence they worked (did the original journals die out?) and I still see too few of them. The brand of your accepted papers *is* in practice your curriculum, and this motivates lots of inertia, especially when junior, untenured researchers are involved.
Here's a case study on the first possibility, which I believe to be generally relevant from my computer science subfield, the one of programming languages (PL) (where we use conferences, but this is mostly orthogonal), where the switch happened in months (after some time for discussions).
CS doesn't use arXiv so much, but pressure toward open access is rising. Most of PL publishes at ACM, except for ECOOP which is run by its own association. They had a contract with Springer. But since Springer refused to allow for open access, organizers surveyed submitters, and submitters voted overwhelmingly to switch immediately (even for already submitted articles). They switched to Gold Open Access with a 15 € open access fee.\*
Here's the rest of the story: <http://2015.ecoop.org/track/research-track#Open-Access>
The *same* people who organized this switch so quickly are much more cautious about ACM, *exactly* because ACM owns the conference brands. Also, lots supported the switch, but most of the work was done by few who cared enough for it.
On the downside, this move is good, but it didn't seem to move submissions from ACM to ECOOP—most still submit to the closest appropriate deadline, and young researchers often can't afford waiting. And of course most old papers are still behind an expensive paywall—Springer is so expensive I've never been able to get through their paywall without workarounds.
\*The organizer explained that a few minor issues about metadata & C. are not handled satisfactorily by arXiv, but this is only worth 15 €, not the thousand of € asked by publishers for gold open access. Since the publishers have huge profit margins but not absurd ones, I assume traditional publishers *still* have huge actual costs—I don't think they fired all employees whose jobs have become irrelevant. (Not that those people should be thrown on the street without concern, but that's no reason to support publishers.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: These and similar things always look very simple until you try it yourself. "Why do we need professional flutists? You just blow into the flute and twiddle your fingers" is a similar sentiment.
I'm going to focus only on high-ranking journals. Low-ranking ones have a whole set of additional problems that need their own answer. If your journal is so high-profile that promotion is unnecessary, then:
* You need people who can provide XML files to Clarivate when they ask for it (Clarivate is the company that manages the Science Citation Index and calculates the impact factor of your journal).
* You need people who can deal with the law. E.g. journals will usually qualify as newspapers, for which you need a legal permit.
* You also need to acquire DOIs for all your papers ...
* And you need to actively maintain your website with new featured articles and such ...
* And if you publish things other than research papers (e.g. *Nature* publishes editorials, book reviews, comments, and more) then you need to figure those out.
This is in addition to the (lots) of academic staff you probably need to handle the large number of submissions you receive. See e.g. how many full-time editors *Physical Review Letters* has, and the fact that [*Nature* receives ~200 submissions per week, about 60% of which is rejected without review](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8755/what-proportion-of-papers-submitted-to-nature-are-actually-sent-for-review).
Can the journal hire lots of employees and do all this anyway? Sure, but if they take on this many staff members they'll have a different set of problems to worry about, such as providing HR. Can the journal hire some HR executives then? Sure they can, but at that point why call them a journal? They are effectively a publisher who call themselves a journal because it sounds better to academics.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/21
| 383
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<issue_start>username_0: I am wondering if It is appropriate to contact the university and let them know that I will be in the area if by chance I am under consideration. We are moving back to our home state and my husband will be taking a tuck load there. I can join him or not. They stated that they would begin looking at applications on June 16th. Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: If there is anyone in the department you applied to that you know personally or have sufficient shared research interests with that you think they might be inclined to support your application, I don't think that it would be inappropriate for you to contact them and let them know that you have applied for the faculty position and you would be nearby and available to drop by for a visit one day if they would like you to. I see this as highly unlikely to have a negative effect on your chances, and somewhat more likely (though still not especially likely) that something good could actually come of it.
Note that this recommendation pertains to contacting someone you know, or at least have some small affiliation with through shared research interests, shared acquaintances, coauthors etc. By contrast, sending a generic "look at me" email in connection with a faculty position application to a department chair you have no such connection to is in my opinion inappropriate, annoying, and may very well be counterproductive. Good luck!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I take, you have applied to a position at said university? I would not propose that you contact them. They are making a decision on the applications, not bechause you are in the vicinity. It could sound a bit to clingy for them and result in a rejection.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/21
| 794
| 3,742
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a postdoc position, and one of the required documents is a covering letter. Internet has models and templates and guides for such letters in rich supply. One thing, however, strikes me as strange: they normally contain the address. At first glance, maybe it is to be expected that a letter should have an address - but in this situation, I am uploading the file directly into an electronic application system, so it is utterly obvious what the document is, and who it should reach. I suppose almost all applications work in a similar way these days.
Firstly, I am curious if the address still serves any useful function. Or is it just a decorative element / historical artefact / etc.?
Secondly, should I actually include the address in an electronically submitted cover letter?
*To clarify:* I am asking about the address of the recipient of the application, not my own address. (While it is the case that I give my contact details in a separate form, I see how it could be convenient to duplicate this data.)<issue_comment>username_1: You can of course omit the recipients postal address, but you need to properly identify him (incl. his institute, faculty, university). Otherwise a number of people will simply discard your letter.
Definitely put your own full postal address. Email addresses, even if signed and certified etc., do not feel very trustworthy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: While your submission may indeed be electronic, you should be aware that your packet may not be reviewed fully electronically. It is not at all uncommon to verify a packet is received and complete electronically, but then various workers at the institution may be responsible for printing out each element individually - often on a shared printer in a busy office, collating all the items together into actual filers/stacks/folders - at times in multiple copies - and then physically delivering the items to the intended recipient.
This may all be done by a particular office, such as HR, and regular employees - even department chairs - may not even have access to the online system (this varies by institution). Or they may have access, but a secretary or office manager handles it all for them anyway. Your physical printed documents may journey all the way across town from a business office to your intended recipient, by courier or other such means. It could be mislaid in any of dozens of ways, including by your recipient themselves (have you seen the stacks of papers some people accumulate?).
If the institution you are applying to doesn't do things this way, well then of course the address may indeed serve no useful purpose at all. But do you know how exactly they interact with and use the system, and how all other people who review your application use it?
This is ultimately a large part of why some old fashion methods, like addressing documents that we expect to be digitally delivered to the intended recipient, remain in use today - because the paperless office is still not a universal, especially in academia, and especially for anything hiring or committee related. If it doesn't cost one anything significant to ensure their materials will fair well regardless of the complexity or nature of the intended institution, it remains reasonable to go ahead and slap that unnecessary address on it - because if it isn't used, no one is likely to care.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The reason for placing your address on the cover letter is so that the recipient can contact you, and/or email you required documents. Since you are applying for this position, don't you want to make it easier for the recipient/committee to contact you?
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/21
| 1,632
| 6,669
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<issue_start>username_0: A couple of colleagues and I were thinking about publishing a book in engineering. I have heard repeatedly that people who go with a traditional publisher don't get any royalties, they transfer the copyrights, and on top of that, the book ends up being sold for a lot of money (which is something we're against as people from developing countries don't have access to them). Thus, after a short discussion we all agreed that going through the traditional means is no longer necessary. We're all skilled in LaTeX so we don't need the services that publishers usually provide for formatting the book. As a matter of fact, we're not planning on making any profit either, so we're very excited about the opportunity to provide the book as an open electronic document.
The main question we have is how do we make sure that people can cite our book and that we have a way to count the citations?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I have heard repeatedly that people who go with a traditional
> publisher don't get any royalties,
>
>
>
* this is true if you freely decide to sign a contract renouncing any royalties. Not otherwise.
>
> they transfer the copyrights,
>
>
>
* this is true if you freely decide to sign a contract transferring the copyright. Not otherwise.
>
> and on top of that, the book ends up being sold for a lot of money (which is something we're against as people from developing countries don't have access to them).
>
>
>
* this is true if you agree to it and if you freely decide to sign a contract giving exclusive worldwide rights to one publisher, as opposed to using different publishers in different territories.
If you choose to give a publisher print rights only, and the publisher chooses to buy the print rights only, then you are free to publish electronically. Moreover, since e-books are such a rotten medium for textbooks, quite a proportion of e-book readers will end up buying the print edition anyway.
If you don't find a publisher who is happy to do what you want, **self-publish a printed edition.** To do this:
* Get an ISBN. There are official agencies for this in most countries.
* **either** find a printer who will print you 100 copies (this is very common nowaday, and cheap: they will digitally print short runs and if it ever gets hugely popular they'll lithographically print long runs even cheaper).
* **or** go for print-on-demand, with Lulu or even Amazon. Do this if the price doesn't matter because you're mostly interested in free e-books.
* In the process of getting an ISBN you enter the full bibliographical data into a public database, so everyone will know how to cite you.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Judging from the things you have said in comments, it seems you may believe that
1. either a DOI and/or ISBN is *required* in order for services like Google Scholar, Scopus, or Web of Science to list a document and count citations for it, and
2. that your document *only* needs to have the "right" identifier for these services to "count" it.
Neither of those is true. Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science each have specific inclusion criteria that determine whether it will index a document. The inclusion criteria do not care what kind of identifier (DOI or ISBN) the document has. Rather,
* Google Scholar is not selective: if a PDF document has a title, a list of authors, and a bibliography section, it may be indexed.
* Scopus and Web of Science are selective: they only include documents that have been specifically chosen for inclusion (or, that have been published in a serial, like a journal, conference, or book series, that has been specifically selected for inclusion.)
If a document is indexed by one of these services, citations of that document in other indexed documents will be counted, even if the citations don't include a DOI or ISBN. Each of these services has an internal record identifier for every document it indexes, and counts a citation when it encounters a reference with the same title, authors, date and other publication information (e.g. journal name and issue, or book publisher.) They do not rely on DOI or ISBN to identify a document for purposes of counting citations; many citation styles don't include DOI or ISBN.
In particular, here is more information about inclusion criteria for each of those three:
* A document will be indexed by Google Scholar if you make it available online and make it ["look" like a scholarly document following these criteria](https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/inclusion.html), and citations of your ebook in other documents indexed by Google Scholar will be counted in Scholar's citation count even if it has no ISBN or DOI. (See e.g. all the arXiv documents that are indexed by Google Scholar, with "citation counting".)
* A document will be indexed by Scopus if it is published in one of the journals, conference proceedings, or book series [included in Scopus](https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus/content/content-policy-and-selection). In particular, here are the criteria by which they select books to include:
>
> Book selection is via a publisher-based approach (no individual book suggestions are considered). As the selection is evaluated on a per book basis, the Content Selection and Advisory Board (CSAB) is not involved in the evaluation of this content type. A dedicated group of highly educated individuals are responsible for the publisher selection process. All books from selected publishers deemed "in scope" will be selected for coverage. Priority and selection of book list from a specific publisher depends on:
>
>
> 1. Reputation and impact of the publisher
> 2. Size and subject area of the books list
> 3. Availability and format of the book content
> 4. Publication policy and editorial mission
> 5. Quality of published book content
>
>
>
* A document will be indexed by Web of Science if it is published in [a journal that has been selected for inclusion](http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/), a [conference proceedings that has been selected for inclusion](http://wokinfo.com/products_tools/multidisciplinary/webofscience/cpci/cpciessay/), or if it is a [book that is selected for inclusion](http://wokinfo.com/media/pdf/BKCI-SelectionEssay_web.pdf). Judging by their book selection criteria, it does not appear as if self-published non-peer-reviewed books will qualify:
>
> As with journals, a peer review process is also associated with scholarly books, and <NAME> relies on the integrity of the publisher to insure that book content is valid and original.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2016/06/21
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<issue_start>username_0: I am pretty confident that I will be getting answers pointing out that this is something too specific and should/will be decided by my university and that a general answer does not exist. But anyway, I just want to have an idea.
I was aiming at 120 pages of my upcoming marketing master's thesis but I thought that I could reduce it to 100 (pure text speaking of course as I am pretty sure that with references and appendices, it will be +120 though). So what is the average length of a master's thesis? Business and marketing field. As for what I've found online, the general consensus seems to be between 60 and 120 pages.
As for its literature review length, again, the general consensus seems to be between 20% and 40% of the overall thesis length, any personal experience with that? I was aiming at 50% but after doing some research, I am decreasing it to somewhere between 20% and 30%. However my instructor demanded it to be between 30% and 40%.
Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: I found 5 theses related to my master's thesis topic on the [Open Access Theses and Dissertations](http://www.oatd.org) website. All of them were 120 pgs - 150 pages, although this was for engineering. The literature review was (appx) 30% of each thesis. My suggestion is to check the OATD website, find theses in your field and closely related to your topic to get a pretty general idea of the length and breadth of literature review.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you pretty much answered your question yourself (as you expected). You seem to have a good idea of what the length of related theses is and you know that your university has the last word. 100 to 120 pages seems reasonable for your area.
If you really want to know you have to ask you advisor or former students who already wrote their thesis in a related subject.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/22
| 516
| 2,239
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<issue_start>username_0: Pretty straight forward. I am starting to apply to grad school and I was discussing possible projects with some (grad student) friends of mine. When I mentioned something in particular one of them said "that might even be too good for a Master's, sounds more like a PhD..." Then he also went on to say that I could use part of a project like that for a Master's and then use the rest to finish it off with a PhD. For some time I thought about this, then I decided to ask it here.
So is there such a thing as a project that is too good for a Master's? And if so, should my future advisor generally know where this "boiling point" is?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Note:** if you need more info about my major of study or the specific sub-field, leave a comment and I can make an edit.<issue_comment>username_1: From my reading of the conversation between the two of you, he meant 'too good' in one of two ways:
1. "Too Good" as in the topic will yield many high-quality results, potentially many publications, and opportunities for continued/extended research.
2. "Too Good" as in requiring too much time to complete in the typical Master's degree time period, and actually should be understood as "Too advanced" or "Too in-depth".
In answer to your second question 'will future advisor know the boiling point?' Yes. That is what they are there for, to help guide the scope of your project to a Master's level.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't see a problem here.
If the project is too good, then
(a) you will not be able to finish it in the timeframe of a Masters, in which case you can continue working on it for your PhD, OR
(b) you will finish it for your Masters, in which case you have a great Masters thesis, and then you can tackle something else for your PhD.
You should not kill yourself to achieve case (b). If you find that the problem is too difficult, just do case (a).
Finally, be aware that other graduate students may not be able to gauge the difficulty very well. Only you will know once you have begun working on it.
Upvotes: -1
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2016/06/22
| 2,606
| 11,139
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<issue_start>username_0: Some time ago I heard a talk in which the speaker mentioned some theorem. I needed this theorem for another paper I wrote. I looked for this theorem in the relevant literature (which I know quite well), but did not find it. I emailed a question to the speaker, he confirmed that the theorem is correct, but did not supply a proof. I also looked at the speaker's working papers, but it was not there. So, I proved the theorem myself.
Now, I think this theorem is interesting and would like to publish it as a stand-alone short paper (maybe in a 'letters' journal). The problem is, I believe the speaker has some proof of this theorem unpublished, so I might be "stealing" his result.
Obviously, the optimal solution is to contact the speaker, but he does not seem to reply. What can I do?<issue_comment>username_1: If the proof is yours then of course you can publish it. And it is your duty to do it, because the literature is incomplete without it.
Basically you say (but in more formal language):
* at the Holcombe Colloquium (August 2015), <NAME> asserted the following, without giving a proof: *insert theorem here*.
* no proof was given at Holcombe and there appears to be none in the literature.
* this theorem is interesting and useful, for instance in the context of… *insert description of & reference to your paper*
* here is a proof
You have thus acknowledged Blenkinsop as the source of the idea and asserted the originality of your own contribution. Both halves of this action are true and ethically sound.
Of course a referee may contact Blenkinsop who, now that fame and glory are involved, may take the trouble to look up his own proof. But unless it's already published ("see my *Simple Sums for Simple Minds*, page 2"), you still have priority.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, I would try discussing this with a couple other people in the area, just to make sure (1) it indeed seems not to be in the literature, and (2) it is worth trying to publish this. (If you want, you can "discuss" with them by sending a preprint and asking for their opinion.)
Then, I would write this up, with part of the introduction being something like "I learned of this theorem from A, but was not able to find a proof in the literature." I can't tell (and I guess you can't either) if A is considering this to be his own theorem or if this is just one of these theorems that experts are aware of but no one has bothered to write up.
Before submitting, I would send this preprint to A to ask if he has any comments, particularly on the attribution of credit to who first discovered the results.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Obviously, the optimal solution is to contact the speaker, but he does not seem to reply. What can I do?
>
>
>
You certainly *can* try to get your proof published as a stand-alone paper, but unless your proof is by itself a major intellectual achievement, I would advise against it.
The problem is that you'll need to acknowledge in your paper that the result has been claimed as a theorem by someone else and you're publishing the proof because you could not locate a proof in the literature. That means you're acknowledging that you're probably not the first person to prove the result, and that will greatly undermine the publishability of your paper. Probably the result is of a kind that any person with sufficient expertise in your area who learns of its existence would be able to prove it. So, despite the fact that quite possibly you'd be making a useful contribution by writing up the proof that someone else hasn't bothered to write, the credit you would get for doing so probably isn't enough to make for a paper you should be proud to put your name to and that would be good for your reputation (it may be publishable in some lousy journal, but I consider that to be much too low of a threshold to aim for).
It's worth noting that there certainly have been many cases (e.g., Fermat's last theorem) where someone claimed a theorem without providing a proof and it turned out later they didn't actually know how to prove it, or the proof was a lot more difficult or interesting than they had let on, and other people had to work very hard to fill the gap. If this is such a case and your proof is something that would be genuinely very interesting by itself even with the knowledge that someone else had already (either erroneously or correctly) claimed the result, then my advice above doesn't apply and your proof could well be worth trying to publish as a stand-alone paper.
Finally, another suggestion is that your proof might be useful to include in a paper you end up writing that includes additional original results that are truly your own. Then the proof doesn't have to carry the weight of the entire paper, and it could serve a useful purpose in making your paper more valuable and potentially increasing its chances to be accepted in a good journal.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Depending on the complexity of the proof and the theorem, you need to consider a couple of things:
* Is the theorem original to the speaker?
* Is its validity intuitive?
* Would the speaker have reason not to publish their own proof?
* Does the proof add value to the theorem?
In essence, what it boils down to is that there may be solid reasons you have not been able to find a proof. In fact, this should at least give you enough pause to question the validity of your own proof. Otherwise, if the theorem is only in support of a model, the validity of the model verifies the validity of the theorem without required explicit proof.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: This is a delicate situation, which you should handle as carefully as you can. In particular, I strongly advise against publishing this paper without first discussing it with seniors mentors who know all the details of the situation, and then having a (possibly awkward but necessary) discussion with the speaker if your mentors think publishing could be the right idea.
The problem is that there's a tricky balancing act:
1. If the speaker plans to publish within a reasonable time period, then trying to scoop him by publishing first would be somewhere between incredibly unfriendly and unethical (even if you give him full credit for the theorem statement itself and anything else you learned in the talk). It's not dishonest, but it's still a violation of the usual norms of professional behavior. It would be a major blow to your reputation, and you'd be much better off not trying to publish.
2. If the speaker doesn't plan to publish it, or at least not without unreasonable delay, then it's OK for you to publish a proof while explaining the situation and giving appropriate credit. But in the case of unreasonable delay there's an implied criticism of the speaker, which makes the situation extra contentious. (Don't do this unless you're confident that the community will side with you.)
Unfortunately, nobody can say with any certainty where to draw the line for reasonable delay. I think it's safe to say nobody would consider ten years reasonable, while many mathematicians would consider one year reasonable. (It's common to give talks on work that you plan to write up for publication only after completing a few more things.) A several year delay in writing something up is long but not unheard of. There are also personal factors that can affect what's reasonable: you'll look really bad if the speaker goes around telling people "I intended to write up my proof of this theorem as part of a longer paper, but I got delayed due to my cancer treatments. After 18 months someone who had been in the audience of my talk sent me his own write-up and threatened to publish it himself if I didn't quickly produce a paper of my own."
Maybe none of this matters. It could be that the speaker doesn't care or has no intention of publishing this result, and would be happy to give you his blessing to publish it yourself. It could be that he would be happy to write a joint paper (although you should be very reluctant to propose this, since it too involves awkward issues). The only way to find out what he has in mind is to talk.
>
> the optimal solution is to contact the speaker, but he does not seem to reply
>
>
>
Even if the speaker is reluctant to correspond in general, it seems likely that he would discuss this issue. If you send a reasonable e-mail outlining your perspective and asking what his plans are, and you still hear nothing, then you can try to get in touch by other means. For example, maybe a mutual acquaintance could put you in touch (such as an organizer of the seminar/conference at which he spoke). Of course you need to handle this tactfully, but if you'd like to publish then you shouldn't give up on talking with the speaker if your first attempt fails, since there's too much at stake.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Make a collaborative paper with the speaker! Both of you will be stating this theorem and its proof.
UPDATE: The reasons behind this simple proposal are:
* IMHO science and research are a team sport: the primary goal is knowledge, and as an old verse says: "two heads are better than one"
* He's mentioned a theorem in *an open/public speaking and his report papers*, so basically by the international Bern's convention it *is an actual claim*, so he definitely has established an authorship right for that theorem if he's the first one speaking about it and formulating it
* But since there's no proof supplied in any report, nor in papers - it leaves the proof claim all yours. Why don't you guys just join your forces and make the world better by opening a proven theorem to the whole world?
* And - as far as I understand - you've proven it while doing your research, so it can be a very fruitful collaboration start for both of you - give it a try!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Here are the main situations where it's ethically ok to write up a result that someone else has already announced. (Of course, even in these scenarios you should be extremely generous in giving the other person credit.)
1. The author has explicitly told you that it's ok for you to write it up.
2. It's a lemma that's not the main interesting part of their work, and you need this lemma as a part of something else interesting that you're working on.
3. The author is being completely irresponsible in terms of announcing results and never writing them up, to the point that it's causing major delays in the development of the field.
The situation you're discussing doesn't sound like it's anywhere close to justifying trying to publish someone else's result.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: In game theory there are `folk theorems`, that is theorems that were discussed but for which no written proof was ever published. Then it turned out there were several ways to prove them. Eventually proofs were published: some buried in books and some as short papers, something like "A New Proof of the Folk Theorem". Could be a way to go in your case.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/22
| 1,038
| 3,626
|
<issue_start>username_0: Based answers to [Is Academia.edu useful?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/44632/is-academia-edu-useful) it seems that there are some legitimate reason why many people would prefer not to have academia.edu account.
On the other hand, it might happen that you see a paper there which is interesting for you and which might be difficult to obtain in a different way.
I have noticed that when I find some paper on academia.edu using Google Scholar, I will also have a direct link to download. To give one random example, when searching for [ultrafilter site:academia.edu](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_subj=eng&q=ultrafilter+site:academia.edu) you can see that I get direct download link to [this paper](http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37277308/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=<KEY>&Expires=1469695028&Signature=nu7JRVImZUDnRMdO7Pc9vqQiI10%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DIntroduction_to_the_Keisler_Order.pdf). (The link contains the string "expires", so it is probably only temporary.) On the other hand, when I try to find the same paper [on academia.edu](http://www.academia.edu/11902653/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order) and try to download it, I am asked to login/sign up.
Is there some way to get the url for download from academia.edu website without being logged in? (This could be useful if neither Google Scholar nor some other searches give me a direct download link to the article.)
**EDIT:** To clarify (since I received an answer copying parts of the above paper). When I made this post, I was able to download it via the direct download link I have mentioned above. And this particular paper is also available [on another website](http://math.uchicago.edu/~may/REU2014/REUPapers/Gannon.pdf). So this is *not a request for a paper*. (Requesting papers would clearly be an incorrect use of academia.SE.) It is a question whether the annoying restriction to be registered before downloading something from academia.edu can be somehow bypassed. I have simply chosen a random paper as an illustration.<issue_comment>username_1: use inspect element (ctrl + shift + i). find (ctrl + f) the link with this word >>amazonaws.com<< . you need to copy the link from 'http' to 'pdf' >>http......................pdf<< , then paste it in new tab or download manager
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Google Scholar provides the direct link `http://www.academia.edu/download/37277308/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order.pdf`. It seems like there are two identifying elements: the code `37277308` and the filename `Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order`. Both appear in the source of the [article page](https://www.academia.edu/11902653/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order) on academia.edu even when you are not logged in, for instance here:
```
registrationParams: {
doc_id: 37277308,
splash: true,
redirect: "https://www.academia.edu/11902653/Introduction_to_the_Keisler_Order?auto=download",
}
```
So in theory it should be possible to recover the direct link by piecing them together. I don't know if there is software already available, but it does definitely seem possible to write, for instance, a Greasemonkey script that adds direct download links to these pages.
Of course, all of this depends on the specific format of academia.edu's webpages and direct download links, which are subject to change at any time. In particular, if they find out that many people are using them, I suppose they will quickly change the format to pull the plug and force people to login.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/22
| 396
| 1,711
|
<issue_start>username_0: On a form for a job application, I am being asked to list, among others, what “service lectures” I have given. What exactly is meant by that? What does, or does not, count as a service lecture?<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience, *service lecture* is used to refer to a lecture (course) about your field given to students of another field, usually an introductory course to give those students the basics that they need for their studies.
For example, at my university, there is a course *Physics for Chemists, Biologists, and Geologists* which is organised by the department of physics and given by a physics professor and which teaches essential concepts of physics to students of the named fields. In contrast to “physics for physicists” lectures, the department of physics does not benefit from the effort put into this lecture as it’s not teaching its own students. Thus giving this lecture is a mere service to the departments of chemistry, biology and geology.
Of course, to be sure about the intended meaning, you would have to ask the issuers of the form.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: As this is for a job application in a presumably academic position, reaching out for more information in a state of ignorance demonstrated you grasp one of the most basic academic principles and virtues. This would do more to improve your reputation with said institution than hurt it.
Even outside that, there does not seem to exist a general consensus as to what the term means. I've seen references mentioning similar definitions to the other answers, but also places where service lectures are described as the mandatory lectures given during a PhD track.
Upvotes: -1
|
2016/06/22
| 813
| 3,566
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have recently noticed that for one of my papers [Web of Science](https://webofknowledge.com/) shows that it is cited in a paper from totally unrelated area. This looked strange, so I checked the paper and found out that it does not cite my paper. (One of my coauthors has the same initials and surname as author of some papers cited there, so the problem might have be caused simply by automated script.)
I have contacted them using the [form on their website](http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/techsupport/datachange/), explained the mistake and asked them to remove the incorrect citation. The reply was along the lines: "Thanks for contacting us. Cited references have been reviewed. Requested cited reference already available in WOS." This reaction suggests that they thought that I am requesting adding a citation rather than removing it. I am not sure whether I should waste my time in trying to contact them with the same issue again.
>
> Are there some reasons why having some superfluous citation in WoS or similar database could cause problems for me?
>
>
>
When I think of any situations where numbers of citations of my papers would be needed for some kind of evaluation, the list of citations would be very probably prepared by me and not drawn directly from some indexing service. So I can simply omit the incorrect citations indexed in WoS. And even if there were some situations where somebody uses WoS as a way to evaluate my work, being cited in one paper does not influence the total result too much.<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that you have answered yourself in your question:
>
> And even if there were some situations where somebody uses WoS as a way to evaluate my work, being cited in one paper does not influence the total result too much.
>
>
>
Nobody expects databases to be perfect. You are expected to do a reasonable job of self-curation, such that you are not, say, doubling your citation count by adding in many papers by other people. Small percentage errors, however, will change nothing significant in any evaluation of you and your work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Basically, the problem comes down to weighing two different kinds of effort on your part: Either you personally have to sift through the citations to make sure none of these 'Phantom' citations exist, or you keep in contact with WoS to make sure they can improve their service. Considering that the latter may in fact result in a better experience for many users and seems less strenuous for you, it appears to be the obvious course of action.
Whether merely having these citations there could cause an actual problem for you... Well, even if you were cited or even miscited in an unrelated field that in no way affects the work you yourself produce. At worst, miscitations could be taken at face value as being representative of your work.
But such is not the case here, as you've already shown such citations do not actually exist. So this is at worst a clerical error that in no way truly misrepresents you or your work.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It could potentially cause issues for someone else down the line, if said person is performing some sort of study of the graph formed by the citations and papers - especially if it links two unrelated areas of the graph together. Even if it might not harm you, there's probably no harm in emailing WoS back and telling them that they misunderstood you, and you were trying to get the citation removed since it was incorrect.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/22
| 1,484
| 6,420
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am early in my career (postdoc) and don't get many papers to review. Thus when I do, I try to put in the work, do a good job, and write a constructive report that is actually useful to the authors. This is the story of how a report I wrote got ignored.
A while ago I was asked to review a paper. I had 3 weeks to do it. Partly due to my own fault and partly due to a lot of work coming up around the review deadline, I was not able to finish on time. Before the deadline, I sent an email to the editor and asked for two more days to finish the review. There was no response to this. Two days later I submitted the review, as I promised. I repeated most of the calculations in the paper (something I don't expect most reviewers do in this field) and found some – fixable – mistakes that affect the result.
Since I was interested in this paper, I checked its status in the editorial system several times, and it always said "under review".
Then about 6 weeks after submitting the report, I got a new request, with a revised version of the paper. Surprisingly, the authors were clearly responding to only a single reviewer who only recommended fixing typos ... it was obvious that they have never seen my report.
Thus I contacted the editor and asked if there was a mistake and if the report was sent to the authors. Just to be clear, at this point my report was still clearly shown as submitted in the editorial system and could still be downloaded. I got back a (probably canned) response from the editor within an hour, saying that: (1) they asked me to review a paper but they never received a response from me (2) due to time constraints they decided to make a decision without my input. At the same time, my access to the manuscript in the editorial system was revoked.
I wrote back again, explaining that I did in fact send a report – which was confirmed received by their automated system –, and offered to send it again. The editor never responded after this.
---
Questions:
I am extremely disappointed because of the time I put into this and because of what I see as dismissive treatment by the editor. It's really hard to let this go.
* Should I keep pushing this and write again, or just let it go? I want at least an acknowledgement and and explanation of why the report wasn't sent out.
* Is being two days late with the report (though giving advance notice before the deadline) a serious offence?
* I am worried that the misunderstanding that I never sent a report will leave a permanent black mark on my record with the publisher. Is this possible? This is another reason why I want to push it.
* At this point I am quite tempted to just send the report to the paper's authors privately. While I would have preferred to remain anonymous, I would rather reveal myself than let it all go to waste. I made an effort to keep a constructive tone throughout the report. I do think they will find it useful, whether they will act on it or not. Is it a bad idea to do this?
I posted this question because I am upset and want to do something about the situation but I am worried that I might end up doing something stupid that will damage my career. Some comments from people who are themselves editors will be helpful.
In the end I am thinking of just giving the report to the authors privately with a short explanation and not bother with the publisher any more.
---
**Update:** In the meantime the problem got resolved. It turned out to be caused by an editorial system problem, and the rest can be explained with the editor being busy, as many people suggested. The moral is to always have good faith ...<issue_comment>username_1: **Let it go.**
Occam's Razor would suggest that what happened is that the editor, a busy person just trying to get their own deadlines met, didn't see (or read) your email, looked at the automated system and concluded that your review had not been submitted, and proceeded before reading your email. It's unfortunate that the review process was so impersonal for you this time, but that's sometimes the way it is, especially when interacting with people that you haven't met.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> At the same time, my access to the manuscript in the editorial system
> was revoked.
>
>
>
Maybe you could aim to review the revised version, contact the editor explaining that you no longer seem to be able to access the system but that you're happy to send in a review. You've already done most of the work, you can return the review in good time, and the authors benefit from your comments. Just make sure they haven't already fixed the mistakes you noticed. Editors won't normally have reviewers falling over themselves to submit a review.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with Patrick that you should let things go with the journal and not take things personally--what happened was probably just a result of everyone being too busy. I doubt your relationship with the journal or editor will improve by pushing more.
To address your last question, yes I think it's worth contacting the authors. You have a chance to fix some mistakes in a paper before it gets published, so I would probably contact the authors, and just say that you were asked to review but couldn't finish on time so the journal didn't accept your report. (You also don't have to send them the exact report, but could just point out the mistakes.) **Edit:** To be clear, I am suggesting your explanation of this situation is short, and matter-of-fact, in a way that doesn't blame anyone or anything except your tardiness.
I *think* this is okay, because you did not end up being a referee for the paper, you don't need to maintain anonymity. There should certainly be no problem if their preprint is publicly available, in which case you don't even need to tell them you were supposed to be a referee. However, if their paper is not public, you may want to first check any secrecy agreements you may have made when you agreed to referee the paper.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: If this was a single-blind peer review, contacting the authors directly would mean divulging your identity. This might go against the journal's confidentiality policies, and could lead to complications for you and the authors. I think it would be better to leave a comment on arXiv as suggested in a comment above.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/22
| 1,115
| 4,798
|
<issue_start>username_0: I was a part of a project course for about four months working as a team member in one of the teams, the project was extremely hard for all of us, but we were working real good together keeping up, but out of three of us, one was being a bit lazier than the other and usually me and one other of team members was doing most of the things, I hate to say I did everything, but as far as this is a case of rights and equality, I want to say that preparing all the presentations, writing the final reports, programming-side, all was on me.. Now when the grades have come out, the person that did the least has got the highest grade (5), while me and the other team member who did most got lower grades than them (we got 4). It wouldn't irritate me as much if all three of us had gotten 4, but it's ridiculous when the person who had put the least effort has gotten 5..
Grading was based on team members grading each other plus the instructors in charge of the course grading people too. In grading team members, I gave everybody full points, and I am very sure everyone else in my team also gave me full points, I have no doubts about that.
How would you deal with such an unfair case?<issue_comment>username_1: If it's exactly the way you say and you are not wrong about this, then think like this: it's a lesson that life is very unfair . It has happened to me too, I was a student in Strasbourg - a human rights master. There was someone from a certain country and there is no friendship between her country and mine, if you understand what I mean and this girl did everything she could to make others think badly about my team work, she even tried this in front of a Professor. Just because I was from my country. I was lucky that the French did not believe her . Anyway what you say there it can happen in a big company, a law firm too and so on.
Talk to your professor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If every member of a team is marked individually, then obviously there was a component to the work that was done individually. Perhaps how the work was written up or a presentation? Regardless, the lazy individual scored the best mark presumably because their individual component was better than the rest of the group.
You may see this as unfair, but where does that inequality really stem from? The professor marking the work? The lazy individual who maximised their effort in areas that yielded the most reward?
This is a *"don't hate the player hate the game"* scenario, but really it goes one step further than that, because the actual source of the inequality came from you and is not inherent to the game. You put in far more effort than the lazy person, and caused an imbalance. In short, you were unfair to yourself, and this matter won't be concluded until you pay back what you owe to yourself.
If that doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to you right now, don't worry, the concept that people can be unfair to themselves is not something people learn until they're really quite mature. Cheating yourself often requires you to forgive yourself, which is an even harder concept to wrap your head around. But this is how we grow as individuals.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It seems to me that faculty fall into two camps on graded group work: the first is the camp that avoids it where they can, because it seems to always involve asymmetric work and annoyance, and the second uses it **because they think working in groups and dealing with the inherent difficulties therein is an important skill.**
Without any additional context, it seems like your professor falls into the second group. Either that or they simply haven't reflected on the matter and are doing it because they (or the people who taught them) have always done it. Regardless, they are unlikely to be receptive to your complaints. Unless this is their first time doing it, you can be **certain** others have complained about this in the past. In other words, part of the lesson was probably you handling the dynamics of group work, including asymmetric productivity and quality.
**I should also point out that you gave this person you claim did less work a top score.** This leaves you with a very difficult case to make.
If you do decide to protest to the professor about it, I would phrase it as a question. **You want to do better, and you thought your whole group worked well together, so you want to be clear on how one person on the same project got a higher score than everyone else.** Was it based on some work they did? Was it based just on grades from each other? You'll get a feel quickly if the professor is interested in hearing your defense of the issue, or if you should just move on and treat it as a lesson for the future about group work.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/22
| 1,351
| 5,679
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm an undergraduate physics student in EU.
I created a politics related android app that is to be released soon. Nothing fancy; I was just practicing a bit with GUIs and various programming tools.
Part of this app discusses modern world war propaganda (e.g. pretexts used to start a war), along with other similar topics. It also makes fun of various political beliefs and ideologies, including pro-vote propaganda.
Needless to say, its content would displease some people.
Initially I was thinking of being open about it (e.g. include it in my CV), but now I'm having second thoughts on how it could affect me in the future. Be it being granted a visa or being accepted in a research program.
I read [a similar post](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/31451/43087) but it wasn't helpful since many things differ in my case:
* I don't "exist" on the internet. I don't use social media and the
few search results about my real name are related to physics. The only way to establish a link between my app and my identity is through my CV, and then the person searching would have to use the app to learn my political views.
* I am not left or right nor anywhere in between, I consider elections (in their current state) an inefficient, resource-wasting [game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_People_Play_(book)). Therefor, I don't know people's stance towards my beliefs. Also, considering elections a game (as defined above) is **open to misinterpretation** (which has happened before with my professor; he initially assumed I'm far-far-right).
* The app strongly criticizes various policies **without** naming the governments or countries involved.
---
**What should I do:**
There are possible benefits from displaying some of my programming knowledge along with some risks, and I can't decide whether I should:
1. use a pseudonym in the app (copyrights holder, author etc) and never disclose my affiliation with the project.
2. use a pseudonym, and include the app in my programming portfolio. (is it worth the risk?)
3. or another option.<issue_comment>username_1: If it's exactly the way you say and you are not wrong about this, then think like this: it's a lesson that life is very unfair . It has happened to me too, I was a student in Strasbourg - a human rights master. There was someone from a certain country and there is no friendship between her country and mine, if you understand what I mean and this girl did everything she could to make others think badly about my team work, she even tried this in front of a Professor. Just because I was from my country. I was lucky that the French did not believe her . Anyway what you say there it can happen in a big company, a law firm too and so on.
Talk to your professor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If every member of a team is marked individually, then obviously there was a component to the work that was done individually. Perhaps how the work was written up or a presentation? Regardless, the lazy individual scored the best mark presumably because their individual component was better than the rest of the group.
You may see this as unfair, but where does that inequality really stem from? The professor marking the work? The lazy individual who maximised their effort in areas that yielded the most reward?
This is a *"don't hate the player hate the game"* scenario, but really it goes one step further than that, because the actual source of the inequality came from you and is not inherent to the game. You put in far more effort than the lazy person, and caused an imbalance. In short, you were unfair to yourself, and this matter won't be concluded until you pay back what you owe to yourself.
If that doesn't make a whole bunch of sense to you right now, don't worry, the concept that people can be unfair to themselves is not something people learn until they're really quite mature. Cheating yourself often requires you to forgive yourself, which is an even harder concept to wrap your head around. But this is how we grow as individuals.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It seems to me that faculty fall into two camps on graded group work: the first is the camp that avoids it where they can, because it seems to always involve asymmetric work and annoyance, and the second uses it **because they think working in groups and dealing with the inherent difficulties therein is an important skill.**
Without any additional context, it seems like your professor falls into the second group. Either that or they simply haven't reflected on the matter and are doing it because they (or the people who taught them) have always done it. Regardless, they are unlikely to be receptive to your complaints. Unless this is their first time doing it, you can be **certain** others have complained about this in the past. In other words, part of the lesson was probably you handling the dynamics of group work, including asymmetric productivity and quality.
**I should also point out that you gave this person you claim did less work a top score.** This leaves you with a very difficult case to make.
If you do decide to protest to the professor about it, I would phrase it as a question. **You want to do better, and you thought your whole group worked well together, so you want to be clear on how one person on the same project got a higher score than everyone else.** Was it based on some work they did? Was it based just on grades from each other? You'll get a feel quickly if the professor is interested in hearing your defense of the issue, or if you should just move on and treat it as a lesson for the future about group work.
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/22
| 270
| 1,259
|
<issue_start>username_0: Is it inappropriate to share a proof of a manuscript online, such as ResearchGate? The manuscript is part of a large special session in a journal that currently has no publication date yet..<issue_comment>username_1: Take a look at your copyright agreement - many will differentiate between the preprint, postprint, and the final published version.
Default language in copyright agreement tends to be most restrictive with the final published version and least restrictive with the preprint.
You can always contact the publisher and specifically ask for permission. I've done this in the past and even gotten special permission to post the final published version (they asked I prominently add the publication and DOI to the 1st page).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: For what it's worth: [this link](https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/simultaneous-submissions), from the website of ACM (a large publisher in computer science), says that "An author posting a paper on commercial piracy sites (such as ResearchGate) knowing they have assigned copyright to the publisher is in violation of the copyright agreement the author entered into with their publisher as it is illegal sharing of the published work".
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/06/22
| 898
| 3,940
|
<issue_start>username_0: I know it has a lot to do with who is graduating and how many students the professor has already, but I just want to get a feel of how this process works. Do professors take in 1-2 students each year until they don't have any more room? and then wait for some to graduate before taking in more?
Someone I want to work with isn't taking new graduate students next year, and I'm wondering whether that means I need to wait one year or more.
Also, It would be nice if someone had an estimate of what the chances a professor isn't taking new graduate students for any given year.
Thinking about PhD for cognitive psychology/science.<issue_comment>username_1: There is no way to guess how many students an unknown professor is likely to accept, because professors vary wildly in the number of graduate students that they accept each year. Reasons for this variation include, among others:
* Amount of funding varies, from professors who are totally broke to professors who need lots of warm bodies to feed into their research machine.
* Personal taste and scholarly style vary, from some professors who love to be in charge of a big lab with lots of things happening, all the way to others who would prefer to have just an occasional disciple or two.
* Career and life events vary: a professor about to go on sabbatical may not want to take any new students, while one in the fresh excitement of an opening line of research may want many.
* Program structure varies, from some programs that admit students almost entirely without reference to professors and the students don't even link up with professors for their first year, all the way to others where the individual professor is almost entirely in charge of admission.
The best way to *guess* how many students a particular professor is likely to be hiring is to look at the web pages of their students and see when they started their programs. Even that, however, only gives you some indicators about the past, and not the likely near future, given all the sources of variability.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My personal observations:
There are many different styles based upon which professors search for doctoral candidates, how they prefer to get in touch, how picky they are when choosing doctoral candidates1, and, in general, how much effort they tend to spend to personally guide doctoral candidates in different phases of their projects.
Yet, one thing at least I have almost never witnessed is that a suitable doctoral candidate as well as funding for them is readily available, but the professor decides against accepting them for merely organisational reasons (such as "having too many people to guide at the moment"). Reasons for this may be, but are probably not limited to:
* **The funding is time-bound.** With funding that is available in specific amounts per specific timespans, you cannot "save" the money for later. If it is not used now, it is gone.
* Even worse, **the opportunity might be gone in the future.** If significant amounts of funding are not used, this can create the impression with some administrations that the respective money is not required and thus it will not be granted again in the next year.
* Another, unrelated, but common reason is **professors have to coordinate a lot more than their personal guidance schedule.** Chances are that an open position for a doctoral candidate is a part of a larger project. People in other institutes or other universities or organisations are expecting to start working on the project at a fixed date, and the open position (or even several at a time) need to be filled by then in order for the team to fulfil its contractual duties.
1: This does not mean that anyone will be accepted, but professors have different stances as to how "exceptional" their applicants need to be and how much "shaping of their researcher personality" still has to happen.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/22
| 763
| 3,506
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<issue_start>username_0: What usually happens if the typesetting process for a paper puts it overlength? I imagine if the conference has an extra page charge, this will be applied; but if the conference has a hard maximum limit for pages and the paper is squeezed to fit it, and the typesetter makes some formatting changes that puts it over the limit, what happens?
Will the conference allow the author to make some adjustments to fit the paper into the limit? Assuming the formatting issues were an honest overlook and not purposely trying to circumvent the limit!<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience, my co-authors and I typeset articles ourselves using a template provided or referenced by the conference and submitted in PDF or PDF plus source form if the source is LaTeX. Overlong papers are often rejected by the Program Committee before being sent out for review or are asked to be reduced in length to meet the standards. If the paper is to be typeset by a publisher after the conference for a proceedings volume, there may be some wiggle room, but not much.
One goal is to not allow the authors to make substantial changes after the deadline. PCs have to be careful about allowing one group of authors to make too many changes after the deadline because they were overlong. This isn't fair to others authors, and so many PCs are strict about length restrictions.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It used to be the case that proceedings articles submitted to
a Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science volume were published
in unchanged form.
Regrettably, this has changed. Since a few years, Springer sends
the LaTeX files submitted by the authors to some copy editing office.
The copy editor inserts a copyright notice on the first page,
checks the bibliographic entries, and possibly makes some further
changes to the formatting of the submission. This has some
undesirable consequences. One of the consequences is that
the authors have to spend an afternoon checking
the PDF proofs that are sent back by Springer
by visually comparing them to the original submission
(and no, the modifications introduced by the copy editors are
not always sensible).
The second consequence is that the copy editing process may
change the number of pages required for the paper.
In fact, I've seen proceedings volumes where virtually every
paper had been carefully
formatted by the authors to fit into exactly 15 pages,
and where virtually every paper
used 16 pages after the copy editor had inserted the copyright notice.
But in all cases I've seen so far, this was nothing that
the authors or proceedings editors had to worry about.
In fact, making the authors or proceedings editors responsible
for changes introduced by the publisher would be absurd.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I have had a similar experience with a paper for an IEEE journal. The paper was already overlength and we agreed to pay the overlength fee, but the editing on the publisher's side added one more page (meaning higher overlength fee). Their system counts the overlength fee from the number of pages of the edited manuscript, so we would likely have to pay for it. The overlength was quite big, because some minor edits caused a heading to overflow to next page which moved some other headings and so on...
Nevertheless, we were allowed to make a relatively big correction to the edited version and got the paper back to the original number of pages without any problems.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/22
| 846
| 3,601
|
<issue_start>username_0: I know this might seem like I'm worrying about something too early, but I am a rising sophomore (undergrad) that is anxious about independent research. I am currently in a physics lab right now that I think is decently interesting. However, my current role is helping out the grad students and postdocs with their projects, whatever they need me to do.
Part of the reason that this is my job right now is because I haven't come up with an idea for my own project. I have lots of things that I think are interesting regarding this field (optics/quantum), but the physics being done is way above the level that I can understand in my current year of schooling. Although I just started here, there will come a time where the professor will approach me and ask if I want to start something on my own, and I just don't know what to do. Should I be asking people now? Trying to learn these things on my own? Or is this common in physics labs?
To put it in perspective, I am the only undergrad in the lab, so I'm not sure anyone really knows how to deal with me either.<issue_comment>username_1: There is no sure path to research. And it is never too early to think about it.
A [colleague](https://dsp.stackexchange.com/users/13320/marcus-m%C3%BCller) on another side of SE claims:
>
> Spending two days in a lab can easily save you up to one hour reading
> literature
>
>
>
You are lucky enough to be in the right place. Start asking people, be gently curious. Some won't answer, some will. Some may begin to give you more and more interesting tasks. And on the side, read. Some books won't tell you anything. Some will.
There is no sure path to research. But doing nothing is unlikely to help.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all, let me start by saying that you are currently doing EXACTLY what you need to be doing to put yourself in a fantastic position to do research as a graduate student: in particular, working with graduate students in whatever capacity you can and regularly working in a lab. You are learning the skills necessary to perform the job while developing a professional network. Stay inquisitive and engaged and you will be fine. Your future research project will most likely be from an area where you are interested. In a nutshell, here's my advice: keep doing what you are doing (working in a lab), keep asking questions (on stack exchange and in person), and begin reading articles in your subject area that you have an interest in. You are on the path to becoming a great researcher by being exposed to great resources (stack exchange, your professors and co workers) and by starting early.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I can't comment on your specific field1, but you should understand that there are fields where there is *absolutely no chance* for an undergraduate to come up with a good research idea on their own, however strong their commitment is. And sometimes it might be hard even for a graduate student toward the end of their studies.
However, you are in a perfect position to rapidly improve your knowledge, discuss your ideas and understanding with others, listen to other people's idea and get the gist of what research is. When you will integrate this hands-on experience with a sound theoretical background, you will be ready to start your first steps on your own.
Be patient, then, and take profit as much as possible of this experience.
1 I had been in love with quantum optics for a long time when I was a student, but too much time has now passed to comment on the current situation.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/22
| 781
| 3,500
|
<issue_start>username_0: Recently, I have noticed that I have been visiting Wikipedia more and more frequently for finding information on technical materials that I need for my work and research. Over time, I have noticed that many entries on Wikipedia are well-referenced and reliable and also, I have found it rather comprehensive, at least in my field of work and study. Consequently, I wonder if it is necessary to publish and/or purchase new technical encyclopedias? Is it merely because Wikipedia is not still very comprehensive or reliable that new encyclopedias are published or updated? If the answer is no, then what are the reasons that authors and publishers still invest on encyclopedias?<issue_comment>username_1: Because of its anonymity, nobody is ultimately responsible for the veracity of the information. This is one major point which makes Wikipedia vulnerable and of limited sustainable reference value. That is not to say that there are not excellent entries there. Unlike free software, there is no easy way to say that the article is wrong on less well-understood or contentious topics. An authored article at least has someone with a reputation to lose on the producing end of the text. Plus, if you know the reputation of the author, you can judge how far you want to follow him/her.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You don't want to rely on one way of doing things for something that crucial. Every way of doing things, however great, has its weaknesses. For a robust provision of such crucial services we need different systems to coexist and compete. That is the big contribution of Wikipedia; it improved the robustness of the system by adding another way of doing things. However, it should not undo that benefit by becoming too dominant. Not that I see any immediate danger of that happening, in part because of the reasons mentioned by @CaptainEmacs.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There are a number of specific policies and practices of Wikipedia that reflect judgment calls, and it's perfectly reasonable to treat them differently for different projects:
* Above all, creators of another encyclopedia might want to exert editorial control over the product. The rest of this list expresses some of the specific ways they might do that.
* Wikipedia explicitly aims to serve a general audience; another encyclopedia might be designed for an expert (or afficionado) audience in a certain field
* Wikipedia contributors may be anonymous, and the majority are
* Wikipedia maintains a strict egalitarian ideal, which makes it difficult for subject matter experts to exert special authority
* Wikipedia's peer review mechanisms are very specific; publishers of another encyclopedia might design them differently
* Wikipedia's standards for sourcing, and its threshold for inclusion, are very specific; publishers of another encyclopedia might design them differently
* Wikipedia has very specific standards around copyright of text and media
On my connections to Wikipedia: I have been editing Wikipedia (almost exclusively the English language edition) as a volunteer since 2006. I designed the first formalized program to support university instructors assigning Wikipedia composition, on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation, in 2010. I have run a Wikipedia training and consulting company, Wiki Strategies, since 2009. I have served as editor in chief of the *Signpost*, Wikipedia's volunteer-run newspaper, since August 2016.
Upvotes: 4
|
2016/06/22
| 773
| 3,143
|
<issue_start>username_0: I go to community college so our professors aren't busy with lab research. They're still busy people though and I wish to respect that.
I'm pretty much just working through some neuroscience textbooks for the sheer heck of it, but I often get stuck. It would take forever to ask every single question on the internet. Plus, sometimes a discussion with a real person is just better in many ways; it could lead to further questions and answers plus instant clarifications.
Thus, would it be weird/wrong to just ask a random professor (with whom I've never taken a class...just one with the relevant biology expertise) for help with specific questions about my side project?
I'm guessing it depends on the professor; but on a scale of 1-10 how weird/ intrusive would this be? I mean, some people would be ok with getting hugged by strangers, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to try and hug them.<issue_comment>username_1: If you don't ask, the odds of getting help are zero.
Admittedly, even if you do ask, you're unlikely to get very far—as you mentioned, the professor doesn't know who you are, and therefore would be very unlikely to respond unless the email is written in such a way as to grab her interest.
However, if you're a student attending the same institution as this professor, asking to set up a meeting might be a more productive route, so long as you show genuine interest in the professor's work. Most professors will take the time to talk to someone who's interested in their work (we're human, and we usually like the attention!).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: One of the perks of being a college or university student is access to the faculty for academic purposes. Ph.D's become professors at community college particularly because they want to be engaged with students and their curiosity without the enormous overhead of excessive grant writing, etc. In short, they basically live to work with curious students like you.
>
> Ok to ask random professor questions relating to hobby-project?
>
>
>
**Yes,** and if you show half the courtesy and respect in your introduction to the professor that you did in this posting, you can rest assured that the response will be solely a function of his/her current availability.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, it is entirely appropriate, especially if you come to them in person and just knock on their office door when they're around and ask if they can spare 5 minutes to answer a question or two. If you are nice, polite, curious and fun to talk to (and you sound like all of those things to me) they may easily end up talking to you for an hour. Busy or not, professors are people and love to procrastinate just like anyone else. :-)
Email is a lot less likely to work, but again, I don't see it as inappropriate, simply less effective.
And don't overthink it. Knocking on someone's (even a stranger's) office door is not the same as hugging them, and not every decision in life should be agonized over and analyzed in minute detail. Just try it, the worst that can happen is... nothing.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]
|
2016/06/23
| 1,898
| 8,205
|
<issue_start>username_0: About one year ago, I submitted a paper to a top journal in my field. After waiting for 4 months, the manuscript is rejected with one positive, one negative, and a neutral (including many revise suggestions) comments. There is one common comment: the manuscript is too long. Nevertheless, the editor kindly suggested that I could revise my paper along all the lines suggested by the referees and resubmit my paper.
I carefully modified the paper according to the comments and replied the questions and suggestions from the three referees point by point, then resubmitted it after about four months form the first rejection. This time, after two months, the editor replied us as following without any further comment from any referee.
"I would like to thank you for taking the time to redraft your manuscript, to be considered as a resubmission to xxx. I have carefully read your new manuscript, and I am sorry to have to inform you that your paper is not suitable for publication in xxx. The manuscript still lacks a clear statement of its aims and motivation. (Two example from the editor's viewpoint). While I appreciate that you have taken significant steps to reduce the manuscript length, I still found it overly long, and the writing still suffers from many grammatical errors. I am sorry not to have more positive news."
There is no any comment for us after the two+ months' review. I guess our paper was not even sent to referees (previous or new ones). In my supervisor's experience, editorial rejection is typically very fast, a couple of weeks at most.
My questions are:
1. Being forced to wait two months for a desk rejection without any comment, is that normal for a reputable journal? What should I do to acquire a potential comments, if any?
2. Is it appropriate to send an email to coordinate with the editor for a new resubmission? And how much is my chance?
3. What is the most probable attitude of the editor: does the editor really not like it?
Thank you very much for sharing your invaluable experience!<issue_comment>username_1: The editor's comments clearly point to three things:
1. The manuscript lacks a clear statement of its aims and motivation
2. The manuscript is too long even after revision
3. There are grammatical errors in the manuscript
Regarding the second and third points, I think getting the manuscript professionally edited might be a good solution. However, regarding the first point, for a study to have reasonable impact, its aims and motivations need to be clear. You can perhaps do some rethinking around this point and take your supervisor's guidance to make these aspects clearer.
Now let's come to your questions.
1. Timelines and procedures are not uniform across journals, and it is not uncommon for a manuscript to be rejected without any reviewer comments after two months, particularly, since, it looks like the paper wasn't sent for review a second time. However, you can write a polite email to the editor requesting him/her to send you the reviewer comments if any.
2. I think the editor has made it amply clear that the paper is not suitable for publication in the journal. I personally feel it would be better to submit the paper to another journal, but if you are very keen on this journal, there is no harm in writing to the editor inquiring if he/she would be willing to take another look at it after it is professionally edited to reduce the length and fix the grammatical errors. You should also inform him/her that you will rework on the aims and motivations to make them clearer. Regarding how much of a chance you have, I am really not sure; depends on the editor.
3. I don't think the editor doesn't like the manuscript at all: he/she has probably seen some merit in it; else you would not have received the revise and resubmit decision the first time. However, the editor is clearly not very satisfied with the revisions. You should actually have taken care of the length and grammatical errors at the time of the revision. That would definitely have given you a better chance.
One word of advice: even if you submit to another journal, make sure you get the grammatical errors corrected before you do so.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: **TL, DR**; There is nothing you can do. The paper is rejected from this particular high-impact journal and you have to find another venue for publication.
Regarding your individual comments:
>
> Being forced to wait two months for a desk rejection
>
>
>
Two months for a desk reject is normal. Could be done a little faster but it is not that long.
>
> What is the most probable attitude of the editor: does the editor really not like it?
>
>
>
He obviously does not like it. This is why he desk-rejected it.
>
> Is it appropriate to send an email to coordinate with the editor for a new resubmission? And how much is my chance?
>
>
>
It does not matter if it is appropriate or not. As things show, the paper has almost zero chance to get published in this journal. By writing another email, you are wasting your time and the editor's time.
In a nutshell, after the first paper rejection, your paper had very slim chances (probably none) to be published in this specific journal. The editor in his initial response was probably being polite, since the unpolite alternative "do not send this paper ever again to our journal" would sound too harsh. In my case, I have never heard of any paper rejected in a high-impact journal and then resubmitted to the same journal and get accepted. I do not say that it may never happen but you should understand that it is not the most common scenario. In the majority of cases, rejection of a paper to a specific journal is permanent.
Also you were given very specific comments.
* The manuscript still lacks a clear statement of its aims and
motivation
* It is too long
* The writing still suffers from many grammatical errors
Understand that every one of those comments would justify rejection on its own. You should focus your energy on improving your paper instead of believing that one more email or another negotiation round with the editor would change the outcome. Sending the same manuscript to the same journal a third time would make no sense. Thus you should find a new journal to submit your paper and only AFTER significantly improving your paper.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I suspect this may not have happened quite as you think. It's possible that the editor tried to send it out to one of the original reviewers, perhaps the one judged most relevant, but that reviewer wasn't available. This took a little time. Subsequently the editor decided to look at the paper themselves, taking into account the previous reviewers' comments. Essentially this means they performed a review, and this will have taken some time - from the comments you got it's clear that this was significantly more involved than a simple desk reject. Bearing this in mind, the timescale does not seem unreasonable.
There is no reason to suspect the editor was looking for a reason to reject. If they had wanted to do that, they had ample chance to do so on the first round.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Don't think of this as desk rejection after two months. Think about it as the editor choosing themselves as the reviewer, and reaching a reject decision. The decision letter here is quite detailed, and indicates the editor has looked at your paper carefully; I'm sure you'll agree too that if the editor is an expert in the field then they might not need help from reviewers to make a decision.
For your questions:
1. You did receive comments. They clearly say that you need to improve the aims and motivation section, addressing in particular the two examples raised; you also need to reduce the manuscript length as well as fix the remaining grammatical errors.
2. It's a straight reject decision as opposed to revise-and-resubmit, so your chances are not good. You could do it of course (and you can email to ask), but there's a strong chance it will be desk rejected.
3. Yes, chances are the editor does not like your paper, or they would not have desk rejected.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/23
| 461
| 2,067
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am terminating in these days the first year of my PhD in computer science. As I come from a different field, I spent the first semester doing courses, and most of the second in posing the basis of the thesis project: we have a couple of results, still nothing actually published, and only one paper waiting for approval (with a very low probability of being accepted ).
At the same time I can see many colleagues who already have published a couple of papers during the first year, so I am a bit worried. Am I going too slow? How common is for a PhD student to publish zero papers in the first year?
Also consider that the length of my PhD is 3 years, and this further worries me..<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience (in environmental science), it is unusual for students to publish in their first year, and typically only happens if they are publishing work that was largely done before starting their PhD (e.g. from a research Masters degree).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The number of papers published in the first year by a PhD student depends on the research area, country, university, the student and the supervisor. Comparing with other students in your department can give you some rough idea about their progress. However, you cannot always compare easily. For example, a student who is pursuing a PhD in the same topic as his master degree may be able to produce paper more quickly than a student who is starting a completely new topic and need to learn everything. To know about how well your pace is, the best is to ask your supervisor about it. By the way, the number of papers it not what matter the most. The important is to publish some quality papers in good conferences and journals by the end of your PhD. Some prefer to rush in publishing many papers, while other spend more time to write better papers. In my personal experience in CS, it is not uncommon that students will be busy during the first year with coursework and getting to know the research area so they may not publish much.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/23
| 1,353
| 5,296
|
<issue_start>username_0: In my country, re-examinations are a common thing. Basically, if you miss your exam for whatever reason (or, if you do not pass), then you get an extra chance, under the same circumstances, and if you miss that one as well, you get one last chance.
My question is, is such a protocol normal? Are other countries also doing this? What are the benefits/drawbacks of such a policy?
My personal experience is that I can abuse this policy really easily. If I think I am going to do really badly on an exam, I may as well fail it on purpose (basically you hand in an empty piece of paper) and try to do better on my next attempt. Or, you can take the exam just to get a taste of how it's going to be like, what kind of questions you are going to be asked, and so on, and then you can fail it, and retake it this time being well-prepared. So is it really as 'bad' of a policy as I feel it is, and if so, what are the alternatives?<issue_comment>username_1: The answer to your question will depend on a lot of variables. Even within my department, there is a big difference between exams in particular courses and the qualifying exams taken by doctoral students. In courses, it would be very unusual to have a second for those who fail on the first try. The qualifying exams, in contrast, can be taken as often as you want provided you pass one by the end of your third semester and the other by the end of your fifth semester; the exams are given three times per year, so you have many chances to pass.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Are other countries also doing this?
>
>
>
Yes, sure. In my country, Italy, Bachelor's and Master's exams are usually structured in that way: in theory, you can retake the exam for an unlimited number of times. I had once a student who set a kind of record in this sense, by failing one of my exams 21 times, along 4-5 years. As a student, I failed several exams 2-3 times. In practice, however, there might be other time limitations or local policies that can prevent a student to retake an exam an unlimited number of times.
>
> If I think I am going to do really badly on an exam, I may as well fail it on purpose
>
>
>
For what purpose, *exactly*? And where's the abuse of the policy? What do you think you're going to achieve by coming unprepared? Do you want to rely on the *tunnel effect* to pass the exam? It's mostly your time and knowledge that you're going to waste.
>
> Or, you can take the exam just to get a taste of how it's going to be like, what kind of questions you are going to be asked,
>
>
>
Maybe in your country is different, but most professors in my country, and I'm among them, distribute to the students all, or most of, the past exam papers: if you want to get the taste of an exam, you can get it already, without the need of going to an actual exam.
>
> So is it really as 'bad' of a policy as I feel it is
>
>
>
No, it's not. Such a policy, like others (e.g. the level of fees), is usually deeply rooted in the attitude that a country has toward education.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> My question is, is such a protocol normal? Are other countries also doing this? What are the benefits/drawbacks of such a policy?
>
>
>
The obvious benefit is that students do not suffer disproportional and unfair consequences because they had a bad day, were sick or totally misjudged what would be relevant for the exam. Also you give weaker students or those for whom the didactics of the course did not work the chance and time to have another take at learning the material on their own.
Unless you want to split the requirement for passing the course over several exams for everybody, the only alternative would be to make exams so easy that almost everybody passes, but this strongly diminishes the value of the degree.
>
> My personal experience is that I can abuse this policy really easily. If I think I am going to do really badly on an exam, I may as well fail it on purpose (basically you hand in an empty piece of paper) and try to do better on my next attempt. Or, you can take the exam just to get a taste of how it's going to be like, what kind of questions you are going to be asked, and so on, and then you can fail it, and retake it this time being well-prepared. So is it really as 'bad' of a policy as I feel it is, and if so, what are the alternatives?
>
>
>
The problem you are describing is exactly the one experienced by many students in my department (in Germany) after switching to the bachelor/master system. Before, you only needed to pass an exam and there were no grades, while afterwards exam grades were essential to your final grade.
Now, inevitably there soon was an exam whose focus was quite different from what everybody expected and that was passed only by a few students, mostly with bad grades. When the re-exam came, everybody knew what to expect, and it was passed by a lot more students with much better grades. Due to the resulting outcry from those who passed the first exam, the general rules were changed such that now **every student may take the re-exam and the best grade counts**. Note that there is only one re-exam per course and if you fail both, you have to re-take the course in the next year.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/23
| 1,063
| 4,434
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<issue_start>username_0: **Question**. I'm going into my third year as a PhD student in oceanography, and due to my interest in law, I'm considering applying to the concurrent PhD/JD program at my university. I’m wondering whether this might damage my future prospects as an academic scientist.
**My background.** I have long been interested in both law and science, but I'm not sure whether I would end up pursuing law, science, or both after graduation. My scientific research (computer models of the global carbon cycle) has implications for law and policy, but is completely independent from law and policy in itself. I think my background places me at the very top in being able to understand the science, but that is only one of my interests in law. My interest in science has not waned at all, and my scientific career is going pretty well. It’s my interest in law that has grown.
**The program.** I've come to learn my university has a pretty flexible joint program (7 years instead of 4-5), and they’ve stressed that the course load can be made flexible to accommodate thesis research in my home department. At this point I believe I could maintain a level of scientific productivity even when studying law half- or three quarter-time. Financially, I think it's likely I could do the program for free, but worst case I might no longer be eligible for my $25K/year stipend. This would not be a dealbreaker, and I would find out before having to commit
**My concern.** My concern is that I don’t know exactly how I would want to use the two degrees. I'm interested in many different types of law. I would never be unhappy that I took the time to study law, if only to quench my intellectual interest. I would only regret the decision if I decided to pursue an academic career in science and this damaged by chances. Specifically, I'm worried that:
* It could suggest a lack of commitment, i.e. a kind of 'Carl Sagan effect', where a professional interest outside your area of research is counted as a lack of seriousness.
* A JD would obviously reduce my scientific productivity for a few years while studying. While I believe I can maintain some productivity, the number of papers, citations, etc. would necessarily decline over that period.<issue_comment>username_1: Interesting question. There are so many factors to consider, including time, cost, workload, etc.
It does seem though that having credentials in both disciplines can give you both a unique perspective and a means through which you can influence public policy. Forward-thinking academic departments may see that as a plus. Of course, others could see it as a lack of commitment to pure science, but I'm speculating.
You should consider that the merging of science and law is not uncharted territory. A great example is Vanderbilt's law and neuroscience initiative, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. See
[Vandy Law & Neuroscience](http://www.lawneuro.org/) for details.
However, Vandy does not have a 'law and neuroscience' department, and I doubt that the law school or school of psychology (housing neuroscience) would specifically look for a candidate with both a PhD and JD. But, it would certainly fit. This may be true of other institutions as well.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: To me, the answer is simple. If you prefer being out in the open, setting-up field labs and are not too worried about the loss of revenue (in the near to medium-term) that will be lost by not pursuing Law, then go for the Oceanography research. However, if you are more of a people person, looking to change personal outcomes of clients and would welcome the extra certainty and financial security of being a successful law practitioner, then law is the way to go. Law is always changing -- just as science -- so both topics will keep you stimulated. Always go for the topic that you would do for fun, then you will succeed as enjoyment will be a huge motivator for achievements in your chosen field of endeavour.
IF CASH IS A PROBLEM IN THE NEAR TERM...
Look into the most attractive, yet future-proof, and marketable combination of unique research interests in oceanography and/or Law that can be pitched to funding stakeholders. A good, well planned and articulated PHD proposition and pseudo-business plan can be all that's needed for great PR for the university and guaranteed funding, together with a pathway into business afterwards.
Upvotes: -1
|
2016/06/23
| 790
| 3,455
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<issue_start>username_0: As LinkedIn is a network of professionals, there is a great scope for sharing one's professional expertise in the form of a short piece (or otherwise write something to influence a cause).
Most posts are well researched (often hyperlinked to relevant sources) and reflect the writer's knowledge and experience in a particular professional field.
I am wondering what perceived value is there for this contribution in terms of any academic recognition. Would it be appropriate to list these posts in a job CV?<issue_comment>username_1: LinkedIn certainly has some value, as a *general professional networking* tool. However, that value has been *declining* for quite a while and rather rapidly more recently due to *various factors*, mainly inability (or lack of care/desire) of LinkedIn's management to manage the quality of the community, provide consistent user experience, fix issues and improve features, just to name a few. Whether the *recent acquisition of LinkedIn by Microsoft* will help LinkedIn to remain a major player in the market and improve its dominance or, vice versa, will enable its stagnation and transform it into Microsoft's technology- and talent-focused support division, remains to be seen (I make no bets).
Having said that, the value of LinkedIn from the academic publishing perspective is *quite bleak* (which is a nice way to say *"close to zero"*), in my humble opinion. The following are some of the **reasons** for my such assessment.
* **Quality / scientific rigor.** LinkedIn lacks a *peer review process*, which means that any published piece there should be taken with many more grains of salt than, if such process would be in place (not that is expected).
* **Relevancy.** LinkedIn is not very *relevant* to academia. LinkedIn's network of people from academic circles tend to be *much less comprehensive* than academia's specialized networks due to some of their colleagues, collaborators, etc. using LinkedIn rarely, if ever, or just not having any presence there at all. Therefore, *disseminating scientific information*, using LinkedIn, is a much less effective option. Nevertheless, if one has important academic contacts on LinkedIn that are missing from the person's other networks, it might make sense to publish there a *brief post* (similar to an abstract) with a link to a full-text article (preferably, a DOI link).
* **Information persistence.** LinkedIn lacks a mechanism of *persistent identifiers* (again, not that we can expect that from a general networking platform), which implies lack of guarantee that a link to an article published there will not become broken over time (which jeopardizes scientific information dissemination).
P.S. There is no such term, as "job CV" - I understand what you're trying to say, but IMHO it sounds pretty bad and, thus, I would recommend against using such word combination in any context. HTH
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The two major reasons why LinkedIn is not taken seriously by anyone who knows what they are doing are
1. LinkedIn don't verify what you put on your profile (so possible identity theft, false credentials, etc)
2. major security flaws (~120 mil accounts were leaked a few weeks back).
Honestly, just stick with your university space or personal website. I know of plenty people who would think that actually using LinkedIn references in your CV is rather unprofessional.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/24
| 1,167
| 4,782
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<issue_start>username_0: I am working to get a PhD, maybe next year this time around. Currently, this is my second year. I have published 3 papers. All of them are not about one problem but consider different problems. My strategy to find a research idea/problem is given below.
1 - Read papers whose titles are either interesting or I have some apriori understanding of those titles.
2 - Understand those papers as best as I can. That is, I try to understand each detail presented in the paper except the simulation results (this is because I think simulation results are hard to reproduce).
3 - I analyze the paper and try to find a very small problem which can be addressed (i.e. I can solve it) by the methodology of the paper.
4 - If I am successful at step 3 I start working on that problem otherwise I repeat the process from step 1.
By applying this strategy I have been able to write 3 papers and I have submitted a fourth (I am not satisfied with those papers because at very best they can be considered average papers). But my concern is that the problems addressed in those papers do not belong to one area. As far as I have seen, for the profiles of some of the renowned researchers in my field their PhD work is focused on one area. One main thing I console myself with is that almost all of those researchers had good supervisors. My supervisor does not even read the draft/reviews of my papers and the suggestions that he provides during the meetings are so broad that the problem becomes intractable. Under these circumstances what are your opinions: Is there any better strategy to do research?
I will be very thankful to you for providing me suggestions or commenting on my dilemma.<issue_comment>username_1: **This is a really important question**, and it's one that isn't asked enough.
From reading your question, though, it sounds like you are rushing a bit. Renowned physicist and biologist Uri Alon (34k+ citations) has written an excellent paper on 'How To Choose a Good Scientific Problem' and one of his main points is that one, however cliché it sounds, should take ones time to conceive a good project.
I strongly suggest you read [his paper](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1097276509006418). It's not exhaustingly long, and reads like a good talk. He also has a [TED talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/uri_alon_why_truly_innovative_science_demands_a_leap_into_the_unknown?language=en) that challenges the 'A to B' dogma in science, which has helped me a lot.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I feel that if you want to survive in academia and climb up the ladder, you need credibility in the community, which gets somewhat hurt by your step no 3 ( I am assuming you are not being modest like some super-genius people I know, by calling your papers average). Because, as you said you are using their "methodology", so people will eventually know that. Ideally you should start with a big question, then narrow it down to some level and then pick the papers accordingly to know the state of the art. The "question" is really important and it is very hard to formulate a good one. Therefore, I would suggest to focus on this part.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Generally finding good problems you can solve is not easy, and in my view it's one of the most important abilities of good researchers. Personally, I spend a lot of time thinking about what is interesting to me and what I want to be working on. Then I end up only having time to think about a small portion of that.
I don't know about your field, but in mine, it's hard for young (and even some not so young) people to figure out both (1) what are interesting problems, and (2) what are doable problems. Your approach could result in good problems, but it also sounds a bit haphazard and might not. It's good to get input from other experts. Here are a couple concrete suggestions:
* Go to as many conferences/workshops/summer schools/seminars/etc you can. This way you can meet people, see what they're doing and see what they think about what you're doing. This way you get a better sense of the field and current research, and if your lucky someone might be able to suggest a good problem to you.
* Look for another advisor. It sounds like your advisor is not giving you the support you want (note: some advisors are hands-on and some are hands-off; hands-off is not necessarily bad). Maybe it's too late to find another primary supervisor, but maybe you can either get a co-advisor or get an unofficial advisor for a new project. Of course you should make sure your current advisor won't have serious issues with this and frame it in the right way (e.g, "I was talking with Prof Y about ABC. What do you think about me working on that?").
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/24
| 639
| 2,612
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<issue_start>username_0: I am almost at the end of writing my Ph.D. thesis. I study in Germany, the language of the work is English and my mother tongue is Turkish. The doctoral study was a result of an international project, in which Turkish cooperation partners have also participated. I want to write the abstract section in 3 languages (English/German/Turkish), as I can reach a wider community thereby.
There is also an emotional part. My Ph.D. thesis is the most important work of my life till now, I want it to have a part in my own language. Is it allowed at all?<issue_comment>username_1: Whether it's 'allowed' or not, formally speaking, is exclusively the decision of your institution. However, this is *your* thesis, and within reasonable parameters you can and should do with it what you feel is right. Adding an abstract in your own language is certainly well within the field of reasonable.
In particular, it's important to note that many universities in Germany actually *force* you to write an abstract in German even if the thesis is in English ([example](http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/md/bio/studium/phd/howtodefense2016.pdf)), so adding an abstract in German is simply part of a standard practice in the country. Adding an abstract in a third language, which only adds value to the thesis without subtracting anything, is not that far from that.
That said, to be safe, you should still check with your institution - the library, or the director of postgraduate studies, or whoever is in charge of thesis submissions - that this is OK. If they say no, then you can still try to negotiate your way around it (leveraging your supervisor and other staff if necessary), but it's unlikely that they'll refuse.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It all depends on your institution. I did my PhD in Barcelona and while the PhD program was in English, the University insisted on an abstract in Catalan. The result was two abstracts, one in each language.
Furthermore, I chose to write the Acknowledgements section in a mixture of English, Greek and Spanish, depending on whom I was thanking, bringing the total number of languages used in the thesis to 4 (or even 5 if you count a couple of phrases in French).
In other words, yes, it is indeed possible, at least in some universities, to mix languages in your thesis. I doubt any would allow you to do so in the main body of the document, but both the Abstract and the Acknowledgements should be fair game. Nevertheless, the only people who can answer this for you are the relevant employees of your university.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/24
| 579
| 2,540
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm about one year into a math Ph.D. program. With some scientific computing background in undergraduate and master study, my research interests are in numerical analysis/PDE or probability. All of them are analysis orientated.
Recently I took (written) qualifying exam in several subjects, and passed all of them. However, I noticed my real analysis score was bare minimum passing score (i.e. I would have failed had I lost one more point.) and my algebra score was more than 30 points (out of 100) above the require passing score.
That result makes me a little bit confuse. Should I stick to my original interest, where the exam result indicates my knowledge is mediocre at best, or should I switch to a more algebra orientated field, where I did well on the test but had almost no related research experience or elective courses in the past?
People who are not in mathematics are also welcome to answer the question in the title in the context of your department and research field.<issue_comment>username_1: The most important direction to choose is the one you feel a real passion for. Anything else is a waste of your life.
If real analysis (or numerical analysis) is really your passion, then stick with the subject you love, and *be prepared to work hard* to bring that love to fruition. Do **not** switch to algebra so that one day you can tell your grandchildren "I wasted my whole life doing something I have no interest in, because I seemed to be good at it".
You have to remember **how little meaning exam results have**. They indicate your performance, on a particular day, in certain artificial circumstances. They are no predictor of your ability to deal with the research tasks you may set yourself in the future. And there may not even be much overlap between the "real analysis" of examinations and the kind of analysis you need to use when you are following your interests.
**Do not hurry to make a decision.** The exam is almost irrelevant, but it may have told you *a little* about what you are good at, and you could listen to that. You could also reasonably ask yourself, "Can I fall in love with something more algebraic?" But answer that question on the basis of love, not utility.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I believe an aptitude test such as this one would help you to decide early on (such as high school) which fields would be best to focus your energy on, at this stage in the game it would be folly to focus your topic solely on the results of this test.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/24
| 539
| 2,246
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing my masters thesis and have the following formatting problem: should I restate acronyms once for each new large section?
When I for example introduce the term "evolutionary psychology" (which has the acronym EP) in the introduction, I state the acronym so the sentence reads like:
>
> ...has roused significant interest in the emerging field of evolutionary psychology (EP).
>
>
>
In the following sections, should the EP acronym also be stated in the same manner upon first mention, or can I rely on the reader to have read the introduction and know that it means evolutionary psychology?<issue_comment>username_1: My approach to the issue of acronyms is to restate them only after a significant gap in their use. How long I consider to be "significant" depends on how salient the acronym is in its usage. Some extremes of how I would tend to approach it:
* If the paper is about EP, and you're talking about EP and using the acronym quite frequently, then even if you have a page or two where it happens to not appear, I would not bother to redefine.
* If EP only appears a couple of times as a side point, then even after only a few paragraphs break I might redefine the acronym.
One exception: when I define an acronym in the abstract, I also define it in the introduction, no matter how close it is, since the abstract somewhat stands apart from the remainder of the paper.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: No.
A separate list somewhere at the front or the back would be helpful and may even be mandatory at your institution.
However. Whenever you think to yourself, hmm, I haven't used this one for a while and it is non-standard, so the reader may have forgotten, just use a formulation that gently reminds them, e.g. remark that EP must integrate ideas and approaches from both evolutionary science and psychology, or you know, whatever turn of phrase feels natural in context.
By the way: *has roused significant interest in the emerging field of evolutionary psychology* is just the sort of thing students are very fond of writing, but I never quite know exactly what it is supposed to mean that lots of people have been talking about something recently.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/24
| 807
| 3,359
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<issue_start>username_0: Assume that a student has a continuous involvement in any community of Stack Exchange.(consider 1,000+ reputation).
Does It has a positive impact to mention this involvement in order to show you are passionate about that field? I am asking this because the Statement of purpose has a great impact on your MS/Phd application.<issue_comment>username_1: My rough answer would be that you need to convey to your reader:
1. What SE is. Many people think of it as a place to cut and paste answers without thinking too hard, but the community side isn't as well known
2. How to indicate your interest/passion. The reputation number is fairly meaningless to an outsider. Possibly a statement like 'contributed daily for 5 years' has more weight.
Personally I'd view it as a plus but not a massive benefit. It would be more remarkable at undergrad entry to show engagement in the subject, but at masters/PhD level I'd assume you're already engaged. It does show interest in teaching which could be positive (eg if you're likely to be a TA at some point).
I'd weigh carefully what you convey by this statement against the space needed to convey it: it may be there's a more impactful way to use the space.
[Disclaimer: I come from a UK perspective. Other countries may be different]
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would argue that in itself, participation in Stack Exchange is not a major benefit nor hindrance to getting into graduate school. What is important is demonstrating that you are engaged and well-versed in the norms and culture of academia, which participation in SE.academia could possibly demonstrate. Is there some way for you to show that your participation in SE enhanced your ability to perform research, or communicate with like minded individuals? Listing "1000" Reputation on StackExchange Academia is unlikely to produce your desired results, however, a short paragraph in your Statement of Purpose, something along the lines of "Engaged with diverse, multi-national academic populace through popular website 'Stack Exchange Academia' for over 2 years helped me to develop the professional communication skills necessary to become a highly effective researcher, as well as developing a professional reputation as someone with high-quality questions and problem solving abilities".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: From a US perspective too, listing a 1000 rep is unlikely to be helpful. Something that goes onto your SOP should probably involve hundreds of hours of dedicated work; it should be hard and compelling. Perhaps you could weave it into your technical narrative-- listing a discussion you had here that is particularly relevant to the rest of your SOP.
Academia.SE would probably not help at all, unless your PhD was centered around education. I would suggest that you weave it in only if you can find some posts which were significant contributions on the Electrical, Computer Science, Math, Physics SE (basically the area of your PhD).
Most programs do allow you to specify a web page (though these are often ignored). If you're planning to include one, you could add a [SE flair](https://stackexchange.com/users/flair/6939450.png) and link it to [your SE network profile](https://stackexchange.com/users/6939450/virange).
EDIT: [Yay!](https://i.stack.imgur.com/K7mOg.jpg)
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/24
| 1,246
| 5,045
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<issue_start>username_0: My name is Andrzej and I am going to graduate in July with MSc in physics from one of major Polish universities. Last holidays I thought a lot about my future and what transferrable skills I have that could get me a job after graduation. I identified that two main are:
* ability to code (a few courses related to numerics / C++
programming)
* analitical and critical thinking, good numeracy.
Therefore last academic year I was applying to a lot of jobs in two fields: IT and finance to try to squeeze something from my coding and analytical skills respectively. However, sadly, I got turned down from any of the positions I applied for. I managed to get invited to a couple of interviews but that was it.
In the meantime, I applied for PhD position at my university under the supervision of the same PI I am now finishing masters with. The topic is pretty interesting, however I do cannot imagine myself following an entirely academic career path. For example, I don't think I'll ever be able to lead my own research group.
I got this position without any major problems. The PhD position is fully funded. The stipend is 1800 PLN net (around 400 EUR) monthly. However as this is a stipend, they do not pay any kind of pension/insurance contributions. IT/finance jobs usually compensate better: around 3000 PLN (670 EUR) net and many times do provide pension and insurance.
Now the question comes: what to do? I think there are three possibilities:
1. Go for the PhD and fully concentrate on it, and not write any IT/finance applications during the PhD.
2. Go for the PhD and apply to IT/finance during the PhD; quit PhD once being hired for a decent position in commercial sector.
3. Reject the PhD offer, graduate unemployed, apply for government benefits and fully concentrate on the job hunt for IT/finance positions.
Which option would you recommend? If option 2 or 3, do you know any really good pieces of advice how to increase chances of getting industry job with a theoretical physics MSc?
Zero is a good first-order approximation of my job experience: I did two unpaid internships, one during BSc, second during MSc, both in local research institutes.<issue_comment>username_1: Make an in depth analysis of your needs and wants and also look at your attitude, motivation and passion. If you are motivated and you like doing research then go for it without taking care of any job opportunity. When you will be doing PhD with a passion there is likely possibility you can come up with some interesting findings which will open many new horizons for you and new opportunities. In case you want to do PhD just to kill time then it is better to be unemployed and job seeking
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Get the Ph.D.
As long as you won't hate the experience (it is stressful at times) you should get it - a Ph.D. makes you very marketable. You could then go into Finance (which is what I did) or do what graduates are doing these days which is Data Science.
It doesn't even matter what your Ph.D. is in as long as an employer considers it "technical". Physics / Math / Computer Science are all interchangeable for a lot of jobs, certainly for Finance or Data Science.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Go for the option 1. Try to do as good as you can. In the meantime, study whatever you need (for programming that would be i.e. Java and databases, I don't know anything about finances). Then after four years you will have some knowlegde and it will be easier for you to find a job.
If during the four years you decide you are fed up with working in academia, you could consider having a non-academic job and leaving your PhD. But if you can have some income now, it doesn't make any sense to graduate unemployed.
Also, I think you should try to find a better PhD position. Students often stay with their master thesis advisors, because it's convenient for them. I suggest you at least try to find a professor who can offer you an additional scholarship (~2 000 zl). It's pretty common- many professors realize that the scholarship offered by the university is pretty low, so they pay their PhD students from a grant. Then you would have a decent salary. It's worth to consider it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Job hunting is a long process, and depends on your luck, skills, and networking. I would go for getting a certification if you intend to pursue computer science jobs. This will help you get extra skills. Another option is a coding boot camp with a project to work on - you can include this on your CV. There are many that are free and will help you get a job. A final option is a paid internship to learn and work on the same time.
From another perspective, your master's in physics can help you, if you intend to do a PHD. Quantum computing is a subfield of physics, and you could use your master's degree to enter quantum computing research. If you like physics and you are interested in this research field, I think this is a better long term path.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/24
| 664
| 2,702
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have friends who went to pretty good universities (world top 10), and I would love to apply too after my Masters although I am not sure how realistic this is, as I also had some personal problems during my undergraduate degree affecting my grades. However, I feel bad every time I think about it and realise that my university *right now* is not Oxbridge / Ivy League -although I too ultimately am interested in a career in academia.
One of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted *at all* to be honest, -but I just don't understand? - And: yes, I should know that it doesn't matter that much, and that I should not compare myself and not let this take over my thought processes. But I cannot seem to help it, it's on my mind *a lot*. And it's even keeping me from studying. - any advice?<issue_comment>username_1: Since nobody seems to answer this somewhat vague question, I will:
1) Your question is not related to Academia directly, it is simply a question about fighting negative emotions (perhaps, jealousy?) that stem from failure in some sort of a competition. You say your negative emotions interfere with your everyday functionality, so the standard advice is to go to personal psychological counseling.
2) The one bit that is related to academia is:
"*One of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted at all to be honest, -but I just don't understand?*"
The answer to this is that academia is not an intelligence contest. It doesn't matter at all whether someone is intelligent or dumb. What matters is, for better or worse, whether you can deliver good research results.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My Two cents... I have to agree with username_1...This is not an academia issue but a personal one that you should pay attention to. I would suggest seeing a therapist who can help you with the recurring "rumination" regarding your worth as it relates to top universities. I think it is important to question, with the end goal of understanding, why this is such a big deal for you. The reality is that this kind of dilemma generally has it's roots in ones childhood and feelings of not measuring up to someone's (usually a parents) expectations. Even if you did make it into Oxbridge, you are likely to find something or someone else to compare yourself to and find that you come up short. You suggest that prestige is a big part for many people in academia... and it is... but so too in sports, the work environment, who you marry, the kind of car you drive, where you live, etc. You are more than all of those things!
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/24
| 732
| 2,949
|
<issue_start>username_0: July 2015 : We four authors (Fabio, Alex, Haris and Mark) have submitted a paper in July 2015 and transfer of copyrights to the Journal A. Alex was corresponding author and I am Mark the 4th author.
October 2015: The paper got accepted and published also appeared online.
June 2016: I suddenly came to know through Google search that same article has also been published by three authors (Fabio, Haris and David) in December/January 2016 in Journal B. Fabio is corresponding author, I was not aware of this and also I am not an author in this duplicate publication.
At the time of submission in July 2015, as per my knowledge this paper was not submitted/or being published anywhere else.
This duplicate publication was accepted in December 2015 and appeared online on January 2016 in Journal B
In this whole situation being the 4th author in the first publication (Published in Oct 2015 in Journal A) where do I stand ? Are authors of duplicate publication guilty of plagiarism or copyrights violation ?
What are suggestions for me ? What should I do ? Does it all effect my authorship ?<issue_comment>username_1: Since nobody seems to answer this somewhat vague question, I will:
1) Your question is not related to Academia directly, it is simply a question about fighting negative emotions (perhaps, jealousy?) that stem from failure in some sort of a competition. You say your negative emotions interfere with your everyday functionality, so the standard advice is to go to personal psychological counseling.
2) The one bit that is related to academia is:
"*One of my friends got into Oxbridge and I don't think he's more intelligent than me or particularly gifted at all to be honest, -but I just don't understand?*"
The answer to this is that academia is not an intelligence contest. It doesn't matter at all whether someone is intelligent or dumb. What matters is, for better or worse, whether you can deliver good research results.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: My Two cents... I have to agree with username_1...This is not an academia issue but a personal one that you should pay attention to. I would suggest seeing a therapist who can help you with the recurring "rumination" regarding your worth as it relates to top universities. I think it is important to question, with the end goal of understanding, why this is such a big deal for you. The reality is that this kind of dilemma generally has it's roots in ones childhood and feelings of not measuring up to someone's (usually a parents) expectations. Even if you did make it into Oxbridge, you are likely to find something or someone else to compare yourself to and find that you come up short. You suggest that prestige is a big part for many people in academia... and it is... but so too in sports, the work environment, who you marry, the kind of car you drive, where you live, etc. You are more than all of those things!
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an undergraduate student in mathematics, and I will be starting my third year of university in the fall. I recently attended an NSF "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" (REU) program.
Unfortunately, the program did not go well for me. I can't engage with the material at the proper level, and I've accomplished very little while I've been here. For reference, the others here are writing multipage papers about things they've done or at the very least, learned, and some plan to submit theirs journals or present their findings at undergraduate-friendly conferences. I could probably write a paragraph of what I "learned" but in my opinion, I don't have enough background to even coherently think about what I was supposed to accomplish.
Here's a rundown of other possible reasons that I performed poorly:
* As I said before I don't have much background. I've taken all of the pure math courses my school offers, but the others here came in knowing things like category theory, algebraic geometry, etc. that I simply haven't been able to learn well in my short time here. Notably, the program website never indicated that I would expected to know that stuff. I certainly exceeded the "minimum" requirements to apply.
* My research advisor is advising three students and we're sharing projects. Since the others knew so much more than me, I feel like he was unwilling to help me with things that was probably trivial to others. (I know that in graduate school that attitude from professors might be common, but the other students had semester long classes on things I was trying to pick up in a few days.) This was also his first experience involving undergraduates with research.
* While my program is considered competitive in the sense that they apparently get 300+ applications only accept 9 - 12 students each summer, I'm pretty certain that I only got in because I'm a member of an "under represented group" in mathematics and the program tries to favor such individuals. I was clearly not accepted on merit based on the caliber of the other students.
I am concerned about my performance because these programs are "designed to expose undergraduate math students to research to the extent that they are encouraged to attend graduate school in the mathematical sciences". Considering this experience makes me want to do anything but graduate school in math, I'm worried. Should I let this experience be a wake up call?<issue_comment>username_1: "Should I let this experience be a wake up call?" Absolutely.
"Does being a poor undergraduate researcher mean that I have a poor chance of being successful in graduate school?" Not necessarily.
Everyone starts out as a poor researcher. Becoming a good researcher requires hard work, preparation, and some chance. It is pretty clear you do not have the preparation yet. If you have taken all the pure math classes at your home institution, this suggests that your home institution may not be able to prepare you for math research.
It's a personal decision to pursue research. If you decide to do that, you should talk to your advisors at both the REU and your home institution about what you need to change to be better prepared.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: To address the titular question, no, being a "poor undergraduate researcher" does not mean you are not cut out for graduate school. First, many people who go to grad school in math have no research experience in advance. Second, having one bad research experience does not mean you are a poor researcher--you're not even in your third year yet.
Having bad research experiences is pretty common, and I know several professional mathematicians who've had bad experiences. I was part of a summer program and a workshop where I felt I was in over my head and everyone else seemed to know the topic much more than me. Fortunately they weren't my first research experiences, and they didn't last as long as an REU, so they weren't too discouraging as a result. These experiences also provided no gauge as to whether or not I could be a successful researcher.
Research takes a lot of time, usually more than you expect (even when you expect it's more than you expect), as well as adequate preparation. It's also hard to find good problems that are suitable for undergraduates to do in 6-10 weeks. Part of the problem is, before you work on a project, you don't know how hard it will be or exactly what it will involve. Therefore lots of REU projects don't amount what was hoped for. It sounds a least like this project wasn't appropriate for you at that time. Whether that was due to the supervisor being too ambitious or you not having the expected background, I can't say. (There could be other reasons for your admission besides your "minority status.") What I can say is that is easy to get the impression that everyone around you understands or knows more than you just because they're more vocal or they know *different* things from you.
To address what seems to be your principal concern now, the primary reason to go to grad school in math should be because you want to learn and do more math. Getting a master's or a PhD in math does not mean you will be a math researcher, and you often don't even need to do any research to get a master's. It's unfortunate if this experience turned you off from math, but I suggest you wait a little while to see how you feel about math. Maybe after this experience fades from your memory, you'll get more excited about math again. Or maybe you'll find something else that excites you, which is good too.
By the way, if you've already taken all the math classes offered at your school by your second year, then possibly your school doesn't have an environment as conducive to developing mathematical maturity as other schools. If you do want to pursue math further, you might look into transferring, a semester abroad, or taking classes at other nearby schools.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: No. In mathematics **all** undergraduates are poor researchers.
You might object that if an undergrad did research that was strong enough, it really would serve as evidence that they will succeed in graduate school. However this simply does not happen: I am a math professor in pure math who has served on graduate admissions committees, and in the past 5 years I know of 2 undergraduates in the US who I'd say did research at this level. Others might argue the number is higher, perhaps on the order of 1 or 2 per year; but in any case it is extremely rare.
Along the same lines, <NAME> said [in this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/67732/563):
>
> I am the director of graduate admissions in the pure math department of my university.
>
>
> In my experience, we basically ignore "research" conducted by
> undergraduate and masters students ... It just isn't a good predictor
> of whether or not you will be successful in a PhD program.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You'd think it might - but a counter example.
I was an appalling undergraduate researcher. I had a project I chose - but it turned out I wasn't that interested in it. I scraped a pass.
I got back into research about 15 years later - 5 years ago. In those 5 years I've obtained around £10m of funding, about half of that as lead applicant. I've published in multiple high impact journals and impacted national policy. People from across the country seek me out as a collaborator.
The difference - The first project was wet lab immunology, and I learned I detest lab work. The last 5 years has all been near patient pragmatic research.
If you can find an interest and a passion, you'll find the background you need will be little effort to acquire.
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I hold a M.Sc. in Finance from UK and currently live in Toronto, Canada. I want to Co-author research paper(s)/article(s) with a professor/PhD academic and get the paper published in good journal. I want to do this on volunteer basis to gain experience of conducting high quality research and publication. Is this possible in Toronto or Canada?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't see why not. Anyone with any degree from any country can publish. as long as the publication is up to the standard of the journal.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Is this **possible**?
Yes, it is possible that one could volunteer to co-author something and find someone who is willing to let you do it with them.
Is this **probable** or **likely** in the abstract?
No, it's very unlikely that someone will just take on a co-author who has nothing to offer but their time to the project. What could increase the probability is if you have some thing to contribute to authoring the paper. For instance, there would need to be some particular feature of your finance knowledge that they lack or would find useful in producing the paper.
Primarily, the issue is that academic researchers in most fields are not looking for apprentices that can watch the research process and then learn how to do research in this way. Instead, they often co-author things with (A) each other by bringing different areas of expertise or (B) graduate students who undertake the research.
Upvotes: 3
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2016/06/25
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<issue_start>username_0: She was a really nice professor and she wrote me a good recommendation letter that resulted in a lot of good results with applications. Recently, this professor died from brain cancer, which was a fast and shocking death for me.
Tomorrow is the deadline for a grant. What should I do? Is it professional to use letters from the deceased?<issue_comment>username_1: I am in, more or less, your exact situation. My PhD supervisor died of a brain tumor in 2011. However, he did not leave behind a letter for me, nor am I on the market. I think you should be careful of the culture that you are applying in. If the culture demands, usually, that the letter be blind to the applicant, then you should probably not use it unless you state in your cover letter the reason why you have included it. If it's an open system, then you will probably benefit from it unless it's been 5 or 10 years since your recommender's passing. Either way, as the comments say, you should disclose what's going on.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: One option would be to have the letter sent to a colleague who knows your work and was close to your late professor. That person could then write you a letter which could incorporate some of the information from your late professor's letter. For example, they could include an excerpt from that letter put into context. This both gets around some of the ethical issues (since the new letter writer can explain that the old letter writer passed away) and also avoids some of the issues with the letter being out of date (since the new letter writer will be able to include comments on recent developments).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: If I cared enough about a person to write a letter of recommendation, I would be pleased to think that one day after I am gone that the person could use my letter for their benefit.
You will possibly benefit from this recommendation and possibly someone else will suffer if you are selected based upon the recommendation; however, competition is not generally considered unethical.
There are no legal questions raised that I can imagine.
It seems unconventional, but not extreme.
My feelings are that it would be ethical to use the letter.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: >
> I attach letters of recommendation from Dr W and the late Professor X.
>
>
>
Perfectly reasonable.
The point is, it's courteous to refer to the deceased as *the late* Professor X to prevent confusion or embarrassment and to avoid unnecessary pain to the bereaved.
If you don't do this, and the widower receives a letter addressed to his wife that assumes she's alive, then has to write back to someone he doesn't know explaining to *save your skin*, shame on you.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: I have no ethical qualms about using a letter from a deceased professor. I would however also seek out at least one letter from a colleague of the professor, not because it's unethical but because only having a letter from a deceased professor will at least raise eyebrows.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I have letters of recommendation, which I have publicly published (online).
I don't bother to keep track of whether each of the authors behind these letters continues to breathe.
If I found out that somebody has passed away, do you think I ought to go into my collection of published material and delete the content? The person's life has been snubbed away from the planet. You think I should go remove a positive thing that provides some ongoing evidence of this person's activity?
The point of these rhetorical questions is point out some of the reasoning to my opinion, which is obviously that it's fine to use the letter. If I were on my death bed with a week to live, but I knew I could help someone by writing a letter of recommendation, and if I bothered to write that letter, I wouldn't want them to tear up the letter into pieces in a couple of weeks just because I will have left my death bed by that point.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/25
| 518
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<issue_start>username_0: If you carefully and adequately paraphrase and quote in a given school assignment or a master's essay or thesis (i.e. act ethically), should you use a software or a website to check for plagiarism? Is there a need for such an act? You know, 'just in case'?<issue_comment>username_1: After completing an assignment where references were cited and paraphrased, it may be beneficial to run your paper through plagiarism checking software for the following reasons:
* You can be relatively confident that your teacher will be performing plagiarism checking themselves, and by performing your own due-diligence, you will be more prepared to understand what they will see. Perhaps a sentence in your essay will be flagged by the software as plagiarism. By receiving this information before submitting the essay, you can modify and/or cite this sentence.
* You may believe your essay to be 'perfect' but in a multi-page essay it is easy to make a mistake, miss a citation, or paraphrase a little 'too closely' to the original. By performing a plagiarism check you will protect yourself in this situation.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Being certain that you quote correctly is pretty straight-forward (if it's not your words, use quotes), but learning to paraphrase well is difficult for some people. I think this may be more often the case for those who are not native English speakers: my observation may be less about language than about differences in educational culture.
For a person who doesn't have confidence that they are paraphrasing sufficiently differently for typical scientific writing standards, I could see that running through a plagiarism checker might be useful as an educational tool. Much more effectively, however, such a person might want to work with a trustworthy writing service (most American universities provide something of this sort free to their students) to get an independent evaluation of the quality of their paraphrasing and help in improving it if needed.
Once you have enough experience to be confident in your ability to paraphrase, however, I would not bother to do any sort of double-check unless you have an extremely nervous personality and it will help you to sleep at night.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2016/06/25
| 803
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing my masters thesis. My instructor told me not to use "I, we, us, his, her, he, she" in the thesis anywhere. Are all these words prohibited in thesis writing?
I am writing my thesis in cloud security (computer science), specifically homomorphic encryption in the cloud.<issue_comment>username_1: These words are not necessarily prohibited, but there is an old norm in academic writing to avoid personal pronouns (the pronouns you listed). The reasoning behind the norm is that it makes for more objective writing, but it can also lead to the use of quite awkward passive voice phrasing. Because avoiding these pronouns does not necessarily make writing *better*, there is a counter-trend today which emphasizes writing clearly, even if that means you occasionally use "I" or "we".
Your supervisor will ultimately be one of the people evaluating your thesis, so it is important to take their preferences into account, but if you feel that writing without pronouns leads to too many awkward phrasings or otherwise makes your writing less clear, then I think it is worth pointing that out to your professor.
Note that this also tends to vary by discipline. In some fields, for example, the use of "we" to refer to the author (and collaborators or the readers) is entirely normal. In other fields, though, I have heard that it sounds pretentious. Try asking your colleagues and other mentors what they think the norms are in your field as well.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The particulars vary incredibly by field and by journal. It's a fairly old practice to try and use passive form instead of active form, which appears to be what your instructor is suggesting. There is no "list" so much as the idea is to talk from the standpoint of what was being done (The experiment was conducted vs. I conducted the experiment). It has been suggested that the former passive form is harder to understand and the latter active form is preferred for clarity, but many academics (typically older professors, set in their ways) like the "traditional" passive style.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This is highly field dependent. Actually, in certain social fields such as women/gender studies, African American studies, ethnography, etc. it is **required** to use "I", to disclose any biases. "I am a 30 year old white male" etc.
I know advisers that would outright reject a thesis that **doesn't explicitly use "I"** in this manner (or at least something like "the author is \_\_\_").
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There are two potential problems in using *we*.
* It can be ambiguous.
* It can place undue emphasis on the researcher.
A sensible rule for *we* in science is that you can use it if and only if you mean "*we, the author and the reader*".
So you can't say "*we did experiment X*" in chemistry but you can say "*we differentiate this function to obtain fact A*" in a mathematical proof. The latter use does not suffer from the ambiguity and egotism of the first.
From the same rule it follows that you can never use *I*. **Unless you really have to**. This would be very rare in computer science.
Some people have lists banning the use of words like *we*. These people should be ignored unless they are your professor.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/25
| 402
| 1,617
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<issue_start>username_0: Occasionally I need to refer to my master's thesis itself in its text, e.g. in the sentence "These rules are sufficient to compute any differential in this \_\_\_\_".
I was wondering which of the following terms are appropriate to fill the gap: paper, thesis, text, work.<issue_comment>username_1: It's not a paper because this term usually denotes journal articles.
You can use the term *thesis* or the more generic *work*, instead.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: ***Thesis*** and ***work*** are widely used terms. I would use *thesis* to refer to the text itself, and *work* to refer to the actual work that has been done, prior to the writing, which is reported in the thesis; e.g. the experiments, implementation, process, etc.
***Text*** would also be correct but I have not encountered it very often in the context of science and engineering.
I have also seen the term ***book*** used for this purpose. Usually this is within theses of which many copies are printed as books and circulated.
I would argue that *paper* is not a correct term to refer to a thesis.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: "document" seems to be a good general solution.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I personally referred to mine as a study, or more specifically "the current study" (text or work would fit as well). This was you can avoid using the first person.
Examples:
* the aim of the current study was to...
* Smith *et al* demonstrated that.... which is in agreement with the findings of the current study
* Results of the current study challenge the notion that...
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/26
| 712
| 3,288
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<issue_start>username_0: Why do some publication venues prefer TIFF over some vector formats?
[Example](http://www.oxfordjournals.org/en/authors/figures.html):
>
> Most figure file formats are acceptable, although TIFF is preferable.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: TIFF is an image file with all elements of the image in a fixed position relative to one another(assuming layers are flattened). As such, it is easy to ensure consistency regardless of differences between the software used to create and display.
With files where the elements are separate, there can be alignment and compatibility issues if a file is opened in a different piece of software. A very clear example of this can be found with written documents. A .docx file opened in Microsoft Word, Apple's Pages, or LibreOffice, even something like a two-page essay with minimal formatting, can look quite different in each of these applications.
When compared to JPG, TIFF is a much higher quality format. JPG compression greatly reduces the quality of text and blurs hard edges between solid colours that are not exactly horizontal or vertical.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: TIFF is the preferred pixel format for print due to being able to use CMYK (the colour format relevant to printing) and being lossless in typical use (using lossy compression cannot happen without clear intention in most programs). Moreover, this was already the case long ago, when formats such as PNG and PDF were only beginning to emerge or not even created and creating a good vector graphics was not feasible for your average scientist.
On the other hand, today where online publication is standard and graphics software has advanced a lot, TIFFs cannot really compete with vector graphics for most applications. Either the TIFF is of good quality, but then its usually huge, which is not desirable for online dissemination. Or the TIFF is reasonably sized but rasterisation shows. Moreover, almost all problems in vector graphics can be easily repaired by the production department, whereas repairing pixel graphics can be much more cumbersome. There are some exceptions where a TIFF is the best choice but even this requires, e.g., that the authors and their programs are CMYK-aware to gain an advantage over formats such as PNG.
So, I cannot imagine that any reasonable production department would prefer over TIFFs over vector formats in most cases, let alone allow TIFF as the only format. Thus, the reason, why the journal is preferring or requesting TIFFs is probably is probably one of the following or somewhere in between:
* It was a reasonable requirement twenty years ago, and they never changed it.
* The person making the specifications asked the production department which format they prefer for graphics, and they answered with TIFF. The actual question, namely which format they prefer scientists to use for submitting graphics, would have probably received a different answer, but was never asked.
Note that the specifications you linked seem pretty reasonable to me at first glance and also marks EPS as a preferred format alongside TIFF. Moreover, it mentions embedding fonts, which only makes sense for embedding text as a vector object, which is not possible with the TIFF format at all.
Upvotes: 4
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2016/06/26
| 1,457
| 5,395
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<issue_start>username_0: Over my career as a student, I have found that traditional 'Bricks and Mortar' schools are not conducive to a proper learning environment for me, so I switched to home-school for 10th grade\*. I have/am learning the equivalent of regular high-school courses, but on a deeper level, and at a faster pace. I also added in extra material that better suits my interests (e.g. for my 'sophomore' year I learned Chemistry, Algebra II, Biology (from an AP textbook), US History I & II, Hebrew Language and Python 3.x).
I want to study Biology. I find myself to be very passionate while learning about the world in which I live, and I would love nothing more than to dedicate my life to studying different fields in Biology.
How likely is it that I could find a college which would accept me based on this learning program I have developed, and allow me to attend their school for a higher degree in Biology?
\*Note: I had been cyber-schooled for 5 years between 4th and 8th grades.<issue_comment>username_1: Almost all colleges in the United States accept home schooled students into undergraduate programs. Usually it is necessary to submit a portfolio of work and test scores.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I too learn much better on my own, but I had to stay, and agonize, throughout high school.
I though that that would change, but for me it did not. My community college and undergrad university experience was nearly as bad; I bit the bullet and stayed the course.
It was only at the master's level that I found the latitude to work, freedom to learn, and do independent research as I saw fit.
Yes, there are some “Alternative” universities for whom you aren’t just a square peg to be fitted in a round hole.
I did apply to Antioch back then, but I was put on a waiting list, I also remember a very good “no grade” university, for gifted students, in the east coast, but I can’t recall the name, something like school, or center for advanced studies, or something. Anyways, do some research, here are some links:
[List of alternative universities](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alternative_universities)
[Best colleges for non-traditional students](http://www.bestcolleges.com/features/best-colleges-for-non-traditional-students/)
[Non-traditional colleges](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj80NzL_-zOAhXEbxQKHcAYDdAQFggpMAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teenvogue.com%2Fstory%2Fnon-traditional-colleges&usg=AFQjCNGUYLs5BWzF_3jndaCu4Ot6SzTzvg)
For that ivy+ > Brown, Cornell, Columbia (school Gen Studies).
You can also learn on your own, you don’t necessarily need formal education to learn all about biology or do research. If you later when the title, you can apply for a PhD by “publication” in some countries like England.
Though that might be radical and you won’t have access to top lab equipment and loose on the possibility to be inspired by colleagues or professors.
My advice would be to at least avoid a traditional bachelor, try one of the alternative colleges.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: It sounds like you are saying that your primary barrier is not having a formal high school diploma. This can be remedied somewhat easily.
* You can take the [GED](https://gradlime.com/college-ged/) exam. Some colleges are known to not accept it, but many do.
* There are adult high school programs that you can attend online. Penn Foster is famous for offering one, though it can be pricey and may end up taking a year or more as you complete actual coursework.
* There are brick-and-mortar adult high schools in places, but it sounds like you probably don't want that. It's possible that you could find one with a generous acceptance of homeschool credits, credit-by-exam, and/or portfolio credit (you can use the projects that you did in homeschool, or enhance them) that would allow you to graduate after taking only one or two actual courses there.
* You can try the [National External Diploma Program](https://www.casas.org/nedp). This is more performance-based than adult high school (so you can just pass the assessments promptly rather than spending months or years racking up high school credit hours), but isn't just a single exam like the GED. If you really do know your stuff, like it sounds like you are saying you do, this shouldn't be too difficult. Just block out some time to speak to a counselor and get started on the required projects, availing yourself of a little tutoring if and when it is needed. This one seems to be more based on broad higher-order thinking than specific content memorization or mastery - e.g. there is less of a focus on regurgitating Boyle's Law on an exam than on "thinking scientifically", etc.
* Even without a high school diploma or GED, you can still try to get in to an open enrollment or low-prestige school based on [Ability to Benefit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ability_to_benefit) (ATB). Community colleges are good for this. Once you have 30-odd credits, you can transfer them pretty much anywhere and your lack of a high school diploma no longer really matters. ATB has been defanged pretty heavily in the past few years, and IMHO it's about the same level of effort as just passing the GED (which is also useful for getting a job or getting in to vocational education/trade school).
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/26
| 1,455
| 5,559
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<issue_start>username_0: I have just completed an article in which results are interpreted by means of 3D-plots; there are almost 15 plots in my article. Since plots could have a major impact on the reviewers’ decision, I am little worried about the colors used, which are actually very bright. Do the colors used in my plots really matter? If so, what type of colors should one should use in graphs?<issue_comment>username_1: Some people will tell you that colors shouldn't matter because only data should matter. Those people are wrong.
All human readers (including reviewers) find some graphical presentations easier to digest and comprehend than others, and the choices that matter include color. Of particular note, it is often important to consider color-blind readers, who are [up to 10% of males, depending on population, (though many fewer females)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness#Epidemiology).
Color sets that work well for color-blind readers often work well for non-color-blind readers as well. You can find a number of good resources online to help you decide what colors to use, such as this ["Color Universal Design"](http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/) site, among many others.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In very general terms bad design from trying too hard has more of a negative impact than lack of sophistication. So the best advice is to keep things as simple as possible.
Some basic guidelines are :
* Keep to a consistent colour palette : it doesn't matter too much if this is bright primaries or more muted tones but be consistent. Primary RGB or CYM are both fine as are teal, beige and maroon but don't just mix and match and keep to one palette across a single document.
* Think about what information you are trying to convey. If you need to use different colours to make superimposed plots distinct then use as many contrasting colours as necessary. If you are just making a simple side-by-side comparison of quantities then stick to one or two complimentary colours.
* Don't use graphic effects (such as drop shadows and colour gradients) which are not strictly part of the information you are trying to convey.
The basic thing to take away is only use graphic elements and colours when you have a clear idea of how they help to make your information clearer. If your graphics work as monochrome flat images then stop there, only add additional complexity to graphics where it has a clear and definite purpose.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, the choice of colours matters and <http://colorbrewer2.org/> is a good place to find colour combinations that work well.
Also think about whether 3D plots are really the clearest way to present your data. Though occasionally unavoidable, there are usually better options. 3D plots work best in an online, interactive form, so if people are likely to read your paper as a PDF or in printed form, avoid them if you can. Can you show the same relationships in 2D form? Would a contour plot or heat map be sufficient? If so, one of those is probably a better option.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Recently, the default colormaps of several programs were changed:
* [Mathematica](https://www.wolfram.com/mathematica/new-in-10/plot-themes/default.html) has a `blue-orange-yellow` colormap (before: `white-blue`)
* [Matlab](http://blogs.mathworks.com/steve/2014/10/13/a-new-colormap-for-matlab-part-1-introduction/) ([and this](http://blogs.mathworks.com/steve/2014/10/20/a-new-colormap-for-matlab-part-2-troubles-with-rainbows/)) has "Parula", which is a `purple-blue-green-orange-yellow` colormap (before: jet)
* [Matplotlib](https://bids.github.io/colormap/) has "Viridis", which is `purple-blue-green-yellow` colormap (before: jet)
Unfortunately, I couldn't find specific information about Mathematica's changes (i.e., why did the choose this specific colormap). However, the linked posts for Matlab and Matplotlib provide some insight, which mainly agree to the answers provided here.
I highly recommend [watching the video](https://youtu.be/xAoljeRJ3lU) from the author of "Viridis": He explains, how he created this colormap, how you could create your own one and why "Parula" is a bad colormap.
Additionally, I'd like to point out that "Parula" is non-free according to a [post of <NAME> from MathWorks](http://blogs.mathworks.com/steve/2014/10/20/a-new-colormap-for-matlab-part-2-troubles-with-rainbows/):
>
> The colormap is, however, MathWorks intellectual property, and it would not be appropriate or acceptable to copy or re-use it in non-MathWorks plotting tools
>
>
>
YMMV, but I recommend the "Viridis" colormap, because it enables gray-scale printing and is "compatible" to many kinds of colorblindness. You can find the RGB-colordata on [github](https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/master/lib/matplotlib/_cm_listed.py).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Of course, because a picture is worth a thousand words. A well-chosen bar-chart, a clear graph, add a lot to an already good paper.
Yet, since reviewers sometimes review "black-and-white" printed versions, it can be useful to combine colors with different line styles (solid, dashed) and markers (circles, squares), especially when curves cross.
Remember however that some journals require additional charges for color figures. If this is the case, and you cannot afford the cost, it would be a pity if you convince reviewers, but fail to convey your nice results to readers, because of poor graphics.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/26
| 609
| 2,741
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<issue_start>username_0: My book is about a theory that is based upon existing theories and recent experiments in biology. Since biology is not my main field, and since my theory is interesting to the general public, I self-published my book.
The response to my book has been good.
But now I am afraid because I have described several mainstream biological experiments in my book, which although I accessed through my institution, and are not in the public domain. I was careful to cite the original research and describe results in a short, non technical way, in my own words. I also included several graphs in my book that I drew myself in a qualitative way, based upon the diagrams of the research papers.
So, can there be any legal issues with my book? A friend of mine is suggesting that I need to get permission from publishers of the research papers before describing the content of their papers, because I used their material for commercial purpose (to write my book).
I must clarify that the experiments that I have described are only a part of my book, about 20%, and the rest of the book uses the experiments to develop a semi-original biological theory of my own. I needed to describe the experiments to let the readers know the basis of my arguments.<issue_comment>username_1: In general, copyright protects words, sounds, images, and similar artifacts. Copyright does not, however, protect ideas or knowledge. The *use* of ideas and knowledge can be protected by a patent. No intellectual property right, however, can be used to prevent a person from describing a published piece of information in their own words.
In your case, it sounds as though you are taking what you have learned by reading about this scientific work and presenting it with your own original words and images. As such, I think that you have nothing to fear, as long as you are certain to give appropriate references and credit to the original authors whose work you are describing. In a popular science publication, such citations might be more informal than in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, but as long as they are clear to the reader, what you describe doing appears to be entirely ethical and appropriate.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to what Jakebeal said in [his answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/71917/7734), what you are worried about is common practice in [review articles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_article), science journalism, textbooks, and of course other popular-science books. Producing either of these would be extremely tedious if there were a copyright issue. Also, if this were an issue, I should have encountered it in my experience with the former two.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/26
| 404
| 1,775
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<issue_start>username_0: Currently I am not in a good relationship with my research advisor and I do not think it will be good as previously. So I decided to change my research advisor if it's possible. Would you guide me how I can find another research advisor? Is it possible to have two PhD advisor?<issue_comment>username_1: In general, copyright protects words, sounds, images, and similar artifacts. Copyright does not, however, protect ideas or knowledge. The *use* of ideas and knowledge can be protected by a patent. No intellectual property right, however, can be used to prevent a person from describing a published piece of information in their own words.
In your case, it sounds as though you are taking what you have learned by reading about this scientific work and presenting it with your own original words and images. As such, I think that you have nothing to fear, as long as you are certain to give appropriate references and credit to the original authors whose work you are describing. In a popular science publication, such citations might be more informal than in a peer-reviewed scientific paper, but as long as they are clear to the reader, what you describe doing appears to be entirely ethical and appropriate.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In addition to what Jakebeal said in [his answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/71917/7734), what you are worried about is common practice in [review articles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_article), science journalism, textbooks, and of course other popular-science books. Producing either of these would be extremely tedious if there were a copyright issue. Also, if this were an issue, I should have encountered it in my experience with the former two.
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/27
| 493
| 2,267
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<issue_start>username_0: I have submitted a manuscript to a journal, but after 14 months they have not given me any answer while I have sent email to them many times. Now, What can I do?
(I only received a revision 12 months ago, and after I sent the revise version of the manuscript, I have not received any response. Also, a mailed them many times to everyone who I can find his/her email, but no response. It's current status is under review.)<issue_comment>username_1: I was an ejournal senior editor for four years. Although few of them are really professionally acceptable, there are numerous confounding factors that can cause a break between an editor and authors. These include unanticipatable reviewer declines, lingering sponsoring institution policy changes including threatened journal cancellations, journal management system breakdowns, and of course, gross editor mismanagement. A submitting author should hold a journal to a published timeline (including any extensions the editor requests and the author formally accepts) and withdraw their manuscript quickly for resubmission elsewhere if that timeline or negotiated extensions) isn't being met. This withdrawal should be written (electronically is fine) with copies to the Journal editor AND the Department Head of the sponsoring department/institution. An acknowledgement from either is to be welcomed but not necessary to terminate the relationship and allow the author to move on. When resubmitting elsewhere, an author may be requested to submit evidence of previous submission termination. I only made this request once (out of 300 manuscript submissions) and it was willingly supplied.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In your conditions I would withdraw the paper. Find the editor surface mail and send a formal withdraw letter explaining your reasons and precisely says that if you have no answers within a month you will consider your paper as withdrawn.
Send the same letter to the editor via email. Wait a month and in case of no answer start submitting elsewhere.
It arrived to a friend. After the surface mail letter, the editor answer that the paper for some unknown reason was simply lost!
It arrives, we can simply hope that it won't arrive too frequently ;-)
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/27
| 2,507
| 10,324
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<issue_start>username_0: I finished preparing a math paper, and am now trying to decide where to submit it.
I read [How do you judge the quality of a journal?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/101/how-do-you-judge-the-quality-of-a-journal),
but it seems that the answers there mostly deal with how to judge if a journal is good at all.
The journals I am considering (see list below) are all very good. But how can I know how do very good journals rank?
I know my paper is not at the level of Annals,
so I considered the following journals:
Selecta mathematica,
Duke,
Compositio Mathematica,
American journal of mathematics,
Advances in mathematics,
International mathematical research notices,
and Crelle journal.
How can an author compare the quality very good journals such as these? Is there any reasonable way to use public data in order to sort them from best to worse?
*Note: this question is looking for an answer about a general method, not necessarily a particular ranking of those particular journals.*<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is there any reasonable way to use public data in order to sort them from best to worse?
>
>
>
Not really. To start with, there isn't a remotely well-defined notion of ranking. For example, it depends on the subfield (some journals attract better papers in certain areas than others), it can vary over time, and it depends on the specific goals you have in mind. More importantly, people just don't always agree: I know some people who would argue that one of the journals you listed is clearly a better choice than the others, but they wouldn't all choose the same one.
The explicit rankings I've seen do a poor job of accounting for these factors. At best they are mediocre (perhaps valuable as a first cut for distinguishing between journals at very different ranks, but useless for fine distinctions). At worst they are positively misleading.
Fortunately, choosing between well-known journals like these is not so difficult. You should look them over and try to gauge which ones look to you like they are publishing the most important papers in your area, while also asking around to get other people's opinions. (Ask mentors of yours, ask your friends or collaborators, ask colleagues at tea.) If there's a clear consensus among the people you ask and it's consistent with your own impressions, then you're done. If there's a clear consensus that disagrees with your impressions, then you need to think and talk a little more. If there's no clear consensus among several options, then it doesn't really matter which of them you choose. After all, journal prestige matters only to the extent it is perceived to matter by the community; if the community can't make up its mind, then there is no right choice.
Carrying this out takes a little time, but it's worth it since you learn more about how things are perceived in your research area.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with everything in username_1's answer, but are some additional thoughts.
First, there is no object well-ordering in terms of quality, in the sense that everyone will agree upon it. This is a necessary consequence of there not being a well-defined measure of quality for individual papers, variation among referees and editors, and that the value of a paper often can't be properly assessed until years after publication.
In math, unlike some other fields, there are typically a lot of journals that would be a good fit for your article, and in most situations it shouldn't make too much difference picking one over the other. I personally don't have strict mental ranking of journals in my field in mind when I submit, but some vague notion of tiers and it's more like, okay these are all in the same tier and I'll just pick one of them. (I also usually have no sense of how good my papers are when I submit them.)
I would never think, *oh, we should hire this person instead of that one because one has a paper in American Journal and the other has a paper in Advances*. (Note: I would not put all the journals you listed in the same tier.) I just think, *oh this person has 1-2 papers in great journals and 2-3 papers in good journals, and the rec letters are stellar*.
There *are* some situations where rankings of journals are directly used for evaluating people (either impact factor, or Australia's letter grades, though these do not line up with most people's notions of quality), though these are relatively rare in the US, and I would only worry about this if your colleagues tell you too.
So, I would talk to some colleagues in your field, to see if they have further input. A couple of other things you should consider are what kinds of paper the journals in your field have been publishing recently (look through some recent issues as well as at the editorial board---I often choose a journal just based on an editor--an editor who can better appreciate your work can both better choose an appropriate referee and is more likely to push for your paper to be accepted), and the general operation of the journal (e.g., some are much faster than others---[see the AMS data](http://www.ams.org/notices/201410/rnoti-p1268.pdf)).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There are many different journal rankings or numerical scores that you can compare. Out of the ones I've seen, the one that corresponds closest to my own subjective impression of journal strength is definitely the Mathematical Citation Quotient (MCQ). The MCQ is listed on the MathSciNet page about each journal. I think that's a good starting point.
That said, I'll agree with what username_1 said: most people don't pay much attention to various journal rankings. Instead you continuously update your impressions of different journals based on discussions with colleagues (at tea, during meetings, while ranking job applicants' CVs, etc) but also based on where you see papers get published: if you see a paper appear in a journal you would've thought too strong then you'll think the authors got lucky, but if it happens several times with the same journal you'll downgrade your opinion of the journal.
PS - about the journals you asked about - my ranking would be Duke > Crelle, Compositio, Advances, Amer J Math > Selecta > IMRN. The difference between the strongest and weakest of those you listed is significant - I'd put Duke at 6th or 7th best out of all math journals, and IMRN outside the top 20.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: One important factor which the other answers haven't mentioned is the editorial board. Given two roughly interchangeable journals, I'd expect a better experience at the one with an editor whose expertise is closer to the paper. You're more likely to get an unfair referee report if the editor isn't close enough to the subject matter to pick appropriate referees.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I would not bother too much about this question. Both as an author and as a member of a hiring committee I just look at four categories: The four top journals, the may be 10-15 very good journals, the many journals that are well known, and the many journals which are obscure. The only discussions which might actually happen in a hiring committee is whether a certain journal is obscure or not. Here opinions are especially divided if a journal is only known within a certain community, but does not say so in its name.
So if you are aiming for the second tier, you should look at the article and compare it to articles in those journals. Apart from editors and cited/influential articles which are already mentioned, you should also check whether your article fits into the usual length range of the journal.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I have a bone to pick with some of the posters here.
First, let me make clear that I agree with certain general premises. You should definitely take into account whether a particular journal is geared towards certain fields. As an example, if you have a truly outstanding paper in algebra, you would do well not to consider submitting to Acta Mathematica. Said journal, while top 5 overall, is geared towards analysis rather than any other field. And you should look for trends, and look at compositions of editorial boards.
Next, let me address a minor point: it is a little silly, in my opinion, that Annals is considered the best of them all, when it is abundantly clear (to me at least) that Publications Mathematiques de l' IHES is really the best. I think that Annals is simply more geared towards papers which finish-off problems, and is thus more fanciful than other top 5 journals.
Now, as to my main grievance: I find it annoying that people think that quality cannot be measured. Yes, in art for example, it is virtually impossible to measure the quality of a piece by any scientific method. Ranking the quality of journals, however, is a very different game. While we may disagree how to measure quality in principal, I put forth the proposition that the only reliable such measure is the article influence score. This thing takes into account not only number of citations, but also where these citations come from. If you look at impact factors only, you might get an approximately accurate picture of the scene, but you are liable to make mistakes in your judgement, if it is based solely on that. An example here is Aequationes Mathematicae. This journal is average at best, yet it has an impact factor of 1.0, which places it at number 58 out of the 312 math journals in the Thompson Reuters database. Its article influence score, however, is 0.465 which puts it at place number 201.
Alright, so here's a list of the top 20 journals based on their article influence score:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/iTIYg.png)
P.S. IMRN is nowhere near the top: it is currently sitting comfortably at place 39.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Don’t forget to look into the journal backlogs. Getting accepted at a top journsl is not going to be as useful to your career if the acceptance happens only after you do your next job hunt, submit your next grant proposal, or go up for tenure. The AMS published them:
<https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/notices/201710/rnoti-p1184.pdf>
Upvotes: 2
|
2016/06/27
| 993
| 4,322
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm teaching a course that introduces linguistic field methods. We have fewer lectures than a typical 3-credit course, but the students have ‘lab’ sessions eliciting data from speakers, and they're expected to work a lot on their own.
Analyzing the data requires the use of specific linguistics software. The software doesn't teach concepts; it's just helpful for analysis. In the past, some instructors have taken lecture time to introduce this software, but that has always rubbed me the wrong way:
1. I found such demonstrations tedious to watch as a student, and tedious to teach as an instructor.
2. Most students seem to be able to figure it out on their own; for the others, there are succinct instructional videos, and there are office hours.
3. Teaching students how to use software just doesn't feel like university education to me. I would much prefer to talk about bigger picture issues—e.g., database technology or data portability in general, rather than how to use one particular piece of software.
Computer work has always been easy for me, and I recognize that I may underestimate how difficult it is to learn new software. I wonder if anyone has a sense of how much computer competence we can expect of the ‘average’ student.
I am also curious whether my intuition about the content of university education is appropriate. This is a practicum, after all.<issue_comment>username_1: "Modern Approach": I would suggest creating a video demonstrating how to use the software. Free software like CamStudio makes this easy to do. There might even be a video already online.
The video would allow students that need the assistance to view the video outside of class or follow along in class. This puts the freedom in the students hands and would also free up your time to focus on the subject matter. This could save time for future classes as you integrate it into your class structure.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Software is a tool for academic practise and research. It implements algorithms and principles that are the foundation of what we do. Whilst the minutiae of any individual software package is usually not relevant for university education, the practical implementation of the underlying principles is.
In this context I'd strongly recommend [this paper by Jacobs et al.](http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.05425), with [this associated blog post](http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2016/06/teaching-python-to-undergraduate-geoscientists.html) and [this set of slides](http://christianjacobs.uk/hen-2016-sticky-notes/#/).
Done properly, teaching the software can be a very useful way of embedding core skills in a practical fashion. Done badly, it's very easy for students to disengage and copy each other.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think it depends on the software in question. Some software has ample resources to learn how to use it. OneNote, EG, can be easily researched and learned via video, text and online lessons and can be incorporated on any device. I simply presume that the notebooks and course information I distribute in OneNote will be consumed. In the 5 years I've used it as my primary distribution solution, I have had exactly 1 student that needed handholding on the use of the system. Telling a student to use Revolution R Open (now Microsoft R Open - statistical analysis software) and presuming they will just figure it out is an unreasonable demand. The idea that a student has infinite time to learn my selected tools strikes me as disrespectful of their investment in my field.
If I thought that the specialized software was something all students would have used in the past, I would still record a video or provide notes for how to use the software in my labs (in general) so that a neophyte would not have to take too much of their time to learn my selected tool. I would not at all rely on the supplied documentation, particularly in specialized or complex software. A rule of thumb is that the likelihood of documentation being useful to the average human is inversely proportional to the factors of the complexity of the software, multiplied by the specialization of said software, (and often multiplied by the price of the software). As an example review the Linux/Unix man page for awk.
Upvotes: 0
|
2016/06/27
| 895
| 3,408
|
<issue_start>username_0: I wonder if there are any arguments for or against the use of "some of us" in a research paper. In a paper by "(myself), <NAME>, and <NAME>" about an "Update on previous research", I wonder if it would be OK to write
```
Some of us have previously shown that ... [1].
[1] (myself), <NAME>, and <NAME>. Previous Research. Fancy J.
```
I usually write "we" to speak about the set of authors of the current manuscript, so I don't see any problem myself. But there may be, so: are there any rules I should follow?<issue_comment>username_1: This probably depends on the area of research, but in mathematics, the sciences, or engineering, "A subset of the authors..." might be better. "Some of us..." is a little informal for my tastes.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Depending on your field and publisher, there might be a tendency to reduce the overly impersonal nature of scientific publication.
If this tendency exists and is encourages by the publisher, then "some of us" is even recommended.
If not, then stick with "part of the authors" maybe try "some of the authors" if you try to make the scientific writing style less impersonal but still want to stay within the boundaries.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Adding to @username_2's answer, IEEE is an example of a publisher that encourages both active voice and first-person style, as mentioned in their [How to Write for Technical Periodicals & Conferences](https://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/authors/author_guide_interactive.pdf) guidelines.
Section 7, Improving and Revising, reads:
>
> Avoid the passive voice, in which the subject is acted upon. In the
> active voice, the subject performs the action. “It was hypothesized,”
> is passive; “We hypothesized,” is active. The active voice is more
> interesting and less ambiguous. Edit passive sentences to active
> sentences as much as possible.
>
>
>
and
>
> Write in the first person (“I,” “we”) to make it clear who has done
> the work and the writing. It is particularly helpful when you are
> comparing your work to someone else’s work [3].
>
>
>
This does not answer whether "some of us" is a good formulation, but it shows that "we" is certainly OK to write.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Other questions have addressed formatting styles, but I want to address whether saying "some of us" is ever necessary. There's nuances to writing about work previously done by some co-authors, such as citing their names "X, Y, and Z suggested A [1]", cited in a paper by W, X, Y, and Z is certainly proper, if "surreal".
But what does it matter? If someone wants to know what the previous work was, they'll look at the citation. Why refer to the people who did it? Why note say "previous research has shown that A causes B [1]" doesn't say "MY previous research" but it isn't a necessarily weaker statement. If someone seeks out the reference, they'll know it's you and some of your co-authors. It also doesn't loudly point towards Author W as the only guy who wasn't on the cited publication.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The usual construction I have seen is "The first author..." or "The first and third authors...". This is compatible with the (unfortunate, but standard) rule of writing in the third voice, and with double blind refereeing, but gives more information.
Upvotes: 1
|
2016/06/27
| 1,569
| 5,104
|
<issue_start>username_0: Are there any known Universities that refuse to pay for paywall access (for moral, intellectual, inability to pay, or other reasons) to academic journal articles?<issue_comment>username_1: No University has [enough funding](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/29923/452) to spend on subscription fees for all existing paywalled research articles (e.g., [Harvard University says it can't afford journal publishers' prices](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices)). As a result, some of their faculty and student resort to free alternatives SciHub/LibGen/emailing colleagues/[etc](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/51940/452).
Many universities located in developing countries [cannot afford paying for paywalls](http://ent.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html).
If you need a particular University name, here are some:
[University of Sierra Leone](http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21696673-sierra-leones-university-system-collapsing-trials-running-universities):
>
> When he needs new books to teach one of his courses, Professor <NAME> orders at least two from abroad: one for himself, one to give to the university library. If he needs scholarly articles, he writes to his friends overseas and asks them to send copies, since the university cannot afford journal subscriptions.
>
>
>
All public universities, research institutes and state agencies in [Peru](http://rpp.pe/ciencia/mas-ciencia/cientificos-ya-no-pueden-acceder-a-crucial-banco-de-datos-por-falta-de-dinero-noticia-1016735) (translated by Google):
>
> Bad news for research and technological innovation come from Peru. The
> National Council for Science, Technology and Technological Innovation
> (Concytec), a government agency, will no longer offer free access to
> the ScienceDirect and Scorpus databases by the end of the year. The
> lack of funding from the central government has been the cause of the
> closure of these platforms for Peruvians.
>
>
> Access had been enabled for public universities, research institutes
> and state agencies. ScienceDirect (Freedom Collection) gathers more
> than 1,800 titles in full text scientific journals in 24 thematic
> areas and Scopus meets "relevant sources for basic research, applied
> research and technological innovation and is a tool for bibliometric
> studies" according to the portal Concytec .
>
>
> Access was open since 2014 and during that time 3.7 million full-text
> documents were downloaded. The downloads, according to Concytec, would
> have cost US $ 131 million if they had been isolated. While
> subscribing to these services for three years cost the agency only US
> $ 10 million.
>
>
>
A few other places:
* [Dutch universities start their Elsevier boycott plan](https://redd.it/3bwp2q)
* [Germany-wide consortium of research libraries announce boycott of Elsevier journals over open access](https://redd.it/5inrwd)
* [Taiwan Tech to Discontinue Subscription to Elsevier ScienceDirect Starting 2017](http://library.ntust.edu.tw/files/14-1025-58346,r1-1.php?Lang=en)
---
Some [interesting](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/survey-most-give-thumbs-pirated-papers) [maps](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/whos-downloading-pirated-papers-everyone) showing the location of Sci-Hub users (at least the location of the machine that makes the final request):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/OuFJt.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Grl64.png)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HkJUg.png)
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Universities in the US do not refuse paywall access to journals for moral or intellectual reasons. However, budget limitations may mean that subscriptions that are deemed less important may be canceled.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: This is not about a university, but I guess it also fits the bill:
The german "Hochschul-Rektoren-Konferenz" (German's Rectors Conference) has lauched "Projekt DEAL" where many (all?) German universities jointly negotiate with Elsevier about prices. Since the negotiations did not went well for the universities, **the over 60 German universities and libraries canceled their subscription to all their Elsevier packages to the next possible date**. My university has no subscription to any Elsevier journal starting 01.01.2017. It is currently analyzed what actions shall be taken with other publishers.
Read some background:
* [Official project website](https://www.projekt-deal.de/) (in German)
* [An article on ip-watch](http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/12/16/no-deal-german-universities-prepare-cut-off-elsevier-journals/)
* [News from Göttingen's university library](https://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/en/news/details/voraussichtlich-keine-volltexte-von-zeitschriften-des-elsevier-verlags-ab-dem-112017/)
Upvotes: 3
|
2016/06/27
| 1,868
| 7,846
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a postbac working at a national lab. I have a project that is funded through an outside source, but my PI and postdoc informed me that they need me to spend the next two weeks completing a series of repetitive experiments they don't have the time to do for an alternative project. These experiments are required to satisfy the peer review criteria of the paper. Can I make a case for myself to attain authorship within the paper?<issue_comment>username_1: The short answer:
It does not hurt to ask, and a good mentor or PI will explain the criteria for authorship and their reasoning for why you have/have not earned authorship. It is a teachable moment.
The longer answer:
Different journals give different criteria for authorship, and this is usually explicitly stated in the guidelines for authors. In your question you mention that the experiments need to be performed to satisfy peer review. If the article has already been reviewed for a particular journal (and perhaps now it is in a revision stage) then you and your advisor know which guidelines to check for their description of authorship criteria. That said, it is a common criteria to require intellectual contribution (rather than simply data). If that is the case, and if you are very interested in this work, you could offer to help edit the paper. However, if the paper has already been submitted, it can be challenging to add an author (for some journals this requires all other co-authors to sign off on the new addition). If the paper has not yet been submitted, and the target journal is undecided, you really should discuss this with your advisor (which you should do in any case). Personally I have worked for months on projects where I was not a co-author on the write-up when I was paid to primarily collect data.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to [the answer provided by username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/71993/26477), you may also need to consider the policies of your university. In germany, almost all universities follow the [recommendations of the DFG (German research agency)](http://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_profil/reden_stellungnahmen/download/empfehlung_wiss_praxis_1310.pdf) (pdf, german). It explicitly excludes "honorary authorships", and states as one of the reasons that do *not* qualify you as an author (page 30 of the linked PDF) "purely technical assistance in data collection" ("lediglich technische Mitwirkung bei der Datenerhebung").
To qualify (as per these rules), you would need to make "significant contributions to the concept, development, analysis / interpretation and writing of the paper" ("Konzeption der Studien oder Experimente, zur Erarbeitung, Analyse und Interpretation der Daten und zur Formulierung des Manuskripts"). Disregarding this policy is academic misconduct and may, in the worst case, lead to your degree being revoked.
I have not heard of a case where a degree was revoked because they gave someone a honorary authorship, but be aware that these rules exist if you work in germany, and that your institution may have similar or additional rules for this. Enforcement of these policies probably varies across institutions and countries.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This is just my 2 cents, but I think far too many of the answers here reflect "ideal science" rather than what actually happens. You don't get authorship on a paper because you met all the requirements for authorship that the journal asks! haha, gosh, no way. Here are what I suspect are the most important factors that contribute to authorship ranking (in Biology):
*1) **P**erson **D**irectly **R**esponsible for the project.*
Is it a PhD project (where a PhD student is directly responsible), or it's a project being supervised by a post-doc (who is directly responsible) but work is being carried out by others? The PDR has the most right to authorship, regardless of how much time at the bench they put in. When i was a BSc, I did months of work for a post-doc, and of course I wasn't an author on anything, because it was his project not mine.
*2) Person who wrote significant portions of the paper.*
This is surprisingly the second most important factor, after the PDR, because it's very difficult to justify being higher-up on the authors list of a paper that someone else physically wrote. Often the PDR is also the person who writes the paper, so this is rarely an issue, but when thats not the case it's important to bare this in mind. There's a person in my lab who wrote up a paper using the results from a PhD student who after graduating (but before publishing) left for a post-doc. The ex-PhD student being the PDR is number 1 on the paper, and the person who wrote it up is number 2. Myself, a PhD student who contributed a key experiment (and considerable time) to the project, was somewhere in the middle, because I obviously have no leg to stand on demanding authorship on something i didn't write.
*3) External lab wild-card bonus.*
The more your PI wants to collaborate with an external lab that did something on a paper, the more likely that external lab will be placed high on the authors list. This is particularly true if the external lab is a medical facility which provided sample material. I've seen people who have supplied biopsies being credited as 1st author over the PhD students who worked for 3+ years on the project because the PI *needs* to maintain a good relationship with that medical facility if they are to expect more samples in the future. More often than not though, these people end up as 2nd/3rd authors with everyone else apart from the PDR and PI wondering who the hell they are.
*4) Results contributed.*
This is different to work, because results are measured in figures, not hours. Basically, if one of your experiments *determined* the take-home message of the paper, you contributed a result. If your work added support to the take-home message, that may or may not be a result, depending on the PI. Statisticians/Bioinformaticians can get lucky or unlucky here, depending on how well their PI understands their job. If you run data through a standard analysis pipeline and the results end up looking interesting, and this may give the bioinformatician more authorship credibility to some PIs than the PhD student who had to optimise the protocol to get that data in the first place (even if that optimization took months/year), because the output of protocol optimisation is what we expected to work now works, whereas the running of data through a pipeline lead to a new research direction.
*5) Work.*
As you can see, work comes pretty low on the list - in fact it takes considerable work to even make it on a paper if you have not contributed results. If you are proving something the PDR knows is likely to be true, as is the scenario in the OP, the chances of authorship are essentially up to the benevolence of the PI/PDR.
Finally, I don't agree with the system we have, obviously, because i've been stung in just about every way imaginable by it - but that's just how it is. Authorship ordering is not a science, it's political, but having been in Academia for a while now i'm slowly coming to appreciate why the system works the way it does - there are often just too many diverse stakeholders in a paper to apply any system other than a political one. There is no authorship formula.
These days, now that i've nearly finished my PhD, i've noticed that this system benefits me more than it used to. I've contributed in small but important ways to numerous projects, and as a result my authorship average is getting higher for less work. No doubt, any system that benefits those who know it the best, is a system that is likely to remain until it gets overthrown by the angry masses.
Upvotes: 1
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2016/06/27
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<issue_start>username_0: Is there evidence that Universities network administrators are aware of, or actively tracking student and/or staff usage of free online journal article databases such as Sci-Hub or LibGen?
My question is not meant to address any legal issues. I am merely asking about knowledge of student and staff usage by network administrators and by extension the University.
Unless faculty and students are using Tor a VPN or some other sort of anonymity network, University network administrators can easily track what web pages are being accessed over the University network.
University network administrators commonly track access to social media, gambling, pornography, plagiarism related sites and more. Are Universities also tracking faculty and staff usage of sites like Sci-Hub and LibGen?
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis><issue_comment>username_1: There easily could be, so don't do marginally legal things on your university's network. Mine doesn't appear to do more than shut down bot nets and torrent hosting, but it's not hard to track the rest. It's mostly only in the university's interest to stop crimes and copyright infringement committed on its network so that it doesn't have to deal with law enforcement and/or lawsuits (i.e. paperwork and cooperation). I don't think Sci-Hub and LibGen have risen to that level quite yet. You might get away with it for awhile, but if enough people start accessing scientific content that way, then the paperwork will start to flow in, and the accesses will start getting shut down.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Enhancing on @BillBarth's answer: while universities do not typically monitor access to services on their websites, they are quite capable of doing so when the need or desire arises.
[The handling of Aaron Swartz's JSTOR mass-downloading by MIT](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside-story-mit-and-aaron-swartz/YvJZ5P6VHaPJusReuaN7SI/story.html) may be instructive here: MIT information services was apparently fairly unexcited about the incident for quite a while, treating it as relatively routine network misbehavior. Eventually, however, it changed positions and began carefully monitoring him and cooperating with the prosecution that would eventually lead to arrest, massive charges, and <NAME>'s suicide.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Are Universities also tracking faculty and staff usage of sites like Sci-Hub and LibGen? Yes, they are.
[Source](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/17/universities-ignore-growing-concern-over-sci-hub-cyber-risk)
>
> <NAME>, university librarian at the Arizona State University Library, said that news of the investigation of Elbakyan had not changed his views on Sci-Hub.
>
>
> “We are very aware of Sci-Hub. They make assertions about their business practices that cannot be verified -- they’re very untransparent,” he said. But the ASU Library does not tell academics and students to specifically avoid Sci-Hub, nor has it blocked the site. “Our advice to users is that they should abide by the law and follow our university policies,” he said.
>
>
> The investigation into Elbakyan has “created more smoke, metaphorically speaking. But all we’re doing is a little more coughing,” said O’Donnell. He added, “We observe, we watch, we wait.”
>
>
>
Upvotes: 0
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2016/06/28
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<issue_start>username_0: Do postdocs in the United States get raises in general? (Is this different for postdocs hired under specific grants vs postdocs hired through departments, such as in mathematics?) If there are raises, how are they determined?<issue_comment>username_1: In the UK, postdoctoral Research Fellows, just as permanent academic members, are normally entitled to a annual increase of a salary spinal point, up to a maximum of the salary band. The precise arrangements are of course University-specific.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: From my experience in the US, it is typical for a postdoc to be on a fixed "short term" contract where there are certainly no "promotion" raises, but might or might not provide cost-of-living increases.
A one-year contract will almost certainly contain no salary increase; for a 2- or 3-year contract, they will be minimal at best.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In my experience (U.S., both East and West coasts) where postdocs are state employees, they will get whatever nominal raise is given across the board to state employees, if such a raise occurs. This is what happened both when I was a postdoc, and it is standard practice for us to build small raises into the budget for postdocs.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I initially got rejected by the two schools I applied to (horrible pGRE scores, lackluster GRE scores, and only did research at my undergraduate institute), but then I got an NSF fellowship, and was almost immediately accepted by both schools.
I feel a little hurt by the whole acceptance process. I feel like I was essentially told: "you are not good enough to pursue space physics in our program, but because you have money we will let you in".
**Question**: In this situation, is it normal to feel like you essentially bought your way into graduate school? Or that people will always look at you as not good enough?<issue_comment>username_1: From what I've heard the NSF fellowship is not an easy one to get, and having one seems to carry some sort of prestige. Sure, the program may have accepted you on the ground that they don't have to pay you, but the fact that you have an NSF fellowship may have changed the admission committee's perception of your ability, which could be what tipped the balance in your favour. No matter what, there is no point in dwelling on the past. What matters is how you perform in the program now, not how you got in. Don't be the college freshman who keeps talking about his high school athletic achievement; truth be told, nobody cares.
As for your lack of passion for the subject, I want to point out that passion usually does not precede mastery of a subject. Rather, people usually develop passion after they become good at something. So I don't really think lacking passion at this point is a deal breaker. I'm sure astrophysics is large enough for you to find something that you are good at and can develop a passion for. Of course, if you can't see yourself doing research, teaching, or anything science-related in the future, you might want to rethink about your decision to go to graduate school in the first place.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There are plenty of people who would feel like that, especially when they are young and insecure. I'm not a psychologist, but I think it's some kind of manifestation of the imposter syndrome. When I got admitted into graduate school, I was coming after 2 years of inactivity and I was sure I'd get kicked out in one semester. At the end of that semester, I had passed my qualifying exam. Then, I was sure no one would hire me after graduation. In the end, I got 5 postdoc offers, one from each place I had applied to.
The fact is, your admission committee had little to go on by just looking at your GRE scores, and it is possible they had other candidates with better scores and research experience. But, as a faculty, I'd view your NSF fellowship as a better predictor of your future performance in the graduate program, especially if your undergraduate research contributed to obtaining it. Besides, I know personally people with poor GRE scores that are full professors at US universities now. I think a good GRE score predicts better how you would do in your graduate classes, than in research. But, however nice is to get high scores on the exams, no one will ask you about them after graduation.
As you will get more confident with what you can do as a researcher, you'll probably stop asking yourself the question if you are "good enough". You'll just focus on doing quality research work, and leave those doubts to your referees.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: "It's not about you, it's about them."
This is a good thing to remember whenever you feel like this. The vast majority of the time, what people do and say doesn't have much to do with you personally, and is instead just a result of them doing the best they can with the knowledge and abilities they have.
In this case, think about it from the acceptance committee's point of view. They have a presumably large stack of applicants, and only a few openings. "Openings" in graduate school are created when a professor is fairly confident that they can secure funding for a student for at least 5 or 6 years. It's kind of a catch-22 in that you need the students to do work to get the funding, but you need the funding to get the students. So there is always an element of risk where you *think* you will be able to provide support and that you will be able to find students to work on your project, but you aren't completely sure.
When application season starts, the department tries to predict how many funded positions there will be, given the number of awarded or likely-to-be-awarded grants, teaching assistant positions, and fellowships provided by the school. They then try to select a number of students to accept that is a little larger than that (because not everyone who is accepted will end up joining), but not *too* large.
Given these constraints, you can see how important it is to correctly guess which of your applicants will have the skills needed to succeed in the program and also have interest in one or more of the available funded (or likely to be funded) projects. How do you do this, given only GRE scores, transcripts, reference letters, a CV, and a statement of interest?
When you need to quickly cut down a large stack of applicants to a much smaller number, the easiest way is to filter based on some pre-established criteria. GRE and GPA are probably not the best measure of potential success as a researcher, but they are a proxy measure for the basic skills you need as well as an indicator of an ability to do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it. For those reasons, they are often used as a first-pass filter to reject applicants. Most professors I have talked to know that in doing this, they are potentially rejecting people who would have made very capable researchers, but this is a game of odds - you are trying to predict how likely a person is to succeed without knowing much about them. A pool of students with high GPA and GRE scores is more likely to contain a higher number of successful researchers than a pool with low scores.
There is no way of knowing (unless they tell you) whether you were rejected because of this filter or not. Usually a department will tell you up front what the range of GPA and GRE scores that they accept is, so that applicants don't waste their time. Since you got in with an NSF fellowship, let's assume you were at least past the minimum.
Now the committee has a smaller but still too-large pool of applicants that they are betting has a higher chance of success. The next step is to go through and find the best candidates. One way to predict future research success is if you have a record of previous success - that's why undergraduate research experience is so valuable for a graduate school application. You said you have that - so as long as you had a good letter of recommendation from your PI, that probably helped you. Letters of recommendation carry a lot of weight at this point, because they are the only way that the committee can get a sense of what it is like to work with you. A lot of very capable people don't have great letters of recommendation because they didn't interact much with their professors. Even if you did extremely well in a given class, if the professor doesn't know you very well, they can't say much besides "this student made good grades."
The last thing they look at is your statement of interest. Remember - they are trying to match interested and capable students to funded positions. If your statement of interest doesn't communicate a strong match to one or more of the areas that have openings, then they might not want to risk accepting you over someone else who *is* interested.
Notice that in all of these scenarios, at no point were people making a judgement about how "good" you are as a researcher - they were instead making a *bet* about whether or not you would be more likely to succeed in *their* research program compared to other candidates. For whatever reason, they decided that based on the information they had, the other candidates had a higher chance of success.
Remember that the two constraints which made estimating these odds so important were a limited number of funded research positions and the fact that not every student is interested in every project. Once you secured NSF funding, you changed three very important things:
1) You created a new funded position
2) You proved that you were interested in working on that project
3) You got the equivalent of a strong letter of reference from the NSF
Once you add these things to your application, you are practically eliminating risk for the department. As long as there is a professor who has the capacity to advise you and an interest in the project, you would be very likely to get into *any* school.
Thinking about it this way, hopefully it is clear that it was not that they thought you weren't good enough before, but now that you are bringing in money you are. It is more likely that you were too risky a bet, and now you are not. In that sense, it wasn't that *you* were not good enough, but that your *application* was not convincing enough. Those are two very different things, and I believe that most professors understand that. The application and the NSF fellowship are just two different types of keys letting you into the same door. Once you are through the door, you will be judged by how well you do in your classes and (more so) by your research work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: First, congratulations on doubting yourself. That you doubt yourself will make you a better researcher. You will check your findings and take more care in your work. A little self-doubt is important in the world of research. Alas, it is a weakness in the world of promoting your research, so there is certainly a balance.
Second, congratulations on the NSF Award! That is very prestigious! Consider that the NSF Panel which reviewed these awards had more information about you and more time to consider each specific application than members of the admissions committee. They literally made a more informed decision. And that decision did then influence the admissions committee to update its own decision.
And yes funding matters. You did not *buy* your way into graduate school. You *earned* your way into graduate school. Getting a NSF Award is the hard way.
Yet while funding does matter, no one will take a "free" student they are not interested in. Every PhD student is a significant commitment in terms of time if nothing else. Graduating doctoral students is the core of what we do, and why many of us are professors. They would not have admitted you if they did not expect to want to work with you. You made it possible for the school to afford to admit you.
In every admissions committee I have ever worked on any serious application is read by at least one committee member. That committee member then makes a recommendation for further review, so some applications are reviewed by only one faculty member. **In my experience nearly completed doctoral application is see by at least one faculty member.** Unreviewed cut-offs for test scores alone may actually occur, but I have not seen it. It is, at most, quite rare. So it is likely you were reviewed by multiple faculty members, put on an alternate list, and then everyone else they asked did accept. Then when your funding came through, acceptance was possible.
You will find your passion. Did you know that the current lead of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, <NAME>, started in astrophysics? He was a lead in the Paris Climate Accords. And stop calling it "space physics". Sec. of Defense Ashton Carter, who just appointed the first openly gay Sec of the Army, started as a physicist. Physics is your five year plan.
If you look at my cv I started as a Math/EE in a nuclear plant, went into computer generated holography, wrote my dissertation on the then-imaginary idea of Internet commerce, worked at Sandia Labs in CS, moved to Kennedy School of Gov, then moved to an Info/School. I probably have at least one career left. You will find your passion.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Too long for a comment:
Don't feel bad -- full stop. Stop thinking about how academia is an emotional roller-coaster or it will drive you crazy. I am also an NSF recipient, I know I earned it through hardwork, and multiple people have told me/implyed that I only got the award because I am an indigenous-mestizo, brown, and/or poor. The idea that "you are only good enough if you have money" is an often encountered feeling/obstacle in academia, so get used to it, and teach yourself to overcome whatever feelings of inadequacy you may have with respect to it; I would actually suggest seeking psychological counseling at your new university if you feel very perturbed by the situation. The acceptance of people based on their economic-resources/merit in an inherently biased world is assuredly a questionable practice (academia is full of them), and we all know that, but there is nothing you can do about it except work hard and get the money/credentials/grants you need to do the research you are interested in. If you have the money now, however you got it, put it towards achieving your goal of a graduate degree. Whatever happened in the past, you are at a great advantage now, don't waste that opportunity fretting about how academia can be mechanistic, inhumane, and unforgiving; that's just the way this game goes.
Feel free to reach out to me: <EMAIL>
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I can speak to this, as I served on the graduate admissions committee of one of the top three ranked astrophysics programs in the United States. Here are some things to note.
**The admissions process does not separate qualified from unqualified candidates.** Typically, about 20-30 candidates are excellent candidates, another 30-40 are marginal, and another 40-50 are unqualified. Of the 20-30 that are excellent candidates, 8-12 are offered admission, and financial, programmatic, and other considerations play major roles in who is offered a slot, with randomness being rampant. The fact that that you were granted admission means that you were placed in this first group.
You seem to be obsessed with your low test scores. Admissions committees are not. There is no correlation between physics GRE scores and graduate school success. None. [External](http://arxiv.org/abs/1512.03709) and informal internal investigations show this. There is a very weak correlation between general GRE scores and graduate school success, which is mainly carried by the verbal score. This verbal score correlation is not present for foreign students like yourself, for obvious reasons.
Finally, some of our most heavily recruited students fizzle out. Some of the ones who get in off the waiting list win the most prestigious postdoctoral fellowships in the country. Treat it as a clean slate. No one really cares about how you got in once you're in.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently received the reviews for an article I submitted a few months back to a journal. Reviewers did not comment on the results proved; i.e., they did not indicate the presence of any errors in the proofs. They only commented on grammar mistakes, which I need to correct. They also mentioned that the revised manuscript will undergo a second round of review by the same reviewers.
What is the probability of acceptance of the article?
The number of changes I have to make is : five (grammar plus spelling mistakes)
***Recommendation is :*** "Consider after major changes".<issue_comment>username_1: It means there are plenty of grammatical mistakes in your manuscript those must be confusing the actual message of your work or what you want to say. So need to be corrected before taking any decision. By the way, if it grammatical correction only, then high chances of getting accepted. Good Luck!!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Nobody here can guess the probability of your paper being accepted. Make sure you didn't miss a part of the comments somewhere when downloading them. If there are indeed only such comments, correct the spelling and grammar and re-submit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Possibilities:
1. There are so many grammar and spelling mistakes in the manuscript that they pointed out a few by way of example and sent it back for English language editing before a full review. Given the quality of writing in the question, this seems unlikely.
2. There is a missing review that was not sent to you that has asked for more major revisions. Sometimes this happens if the reviewer uploaded their comments as a file. Log into the submission web site and see if you can find any extra review files associated with your manuscript.
3. The editor accidentally clicked the wrong button in the editing software and meant to send it for minor revision. This seems possible, but it is very strange that the reviewers did not comment on the results at all, and suggests a very poor review process.
4. The editor doesn't like the paper very much themself and has sent it back hoping for a major revision, but has been too lazy to provide review comments that would help.
5. The editor is particularly annoyed by grammatical errors and sent it back for a small number of minor errors to be corrected before being willing to send it to reviewers.
To me, the "missing review" hypothesis seems most likely. I would check the web site, and if you don't find another review file, contact the editor to clarify whether the grammatical changes you mention are really the only changes required.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2016/06/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently finished a vector calculus course in which I received an A and I'm considering asking my professor if he would write a letter of recommendation for me when I begin applying for grad school. My biggest problem is that I did not perform well on the first exam. It was a "wake up call", so to speak, and due to grading policies and a substantial improvement in my subsequent performance I was able to get the A grade. I had articulated my concerns in his office hours and met with him again after my second exam went significantly better, but I'm concerned he will view me as lazy for only performing after I had initially done poorly. Is this request ill advised? I should mention that I still have two years of undergraduate studies left, but I've been regrettably lax when it comes to making faculty connections (something I fully intend to remedy in the upcoming semesters), so I'm trying to capitalize on relationships I've already begun to establish.<issue_comment>username_1: * You did well in the course. Your less than stellar performance on your first exam should not stop you from asking for a recommendation
* It is good that you are making faculty connections now, keep doing that
* My only concern is that it might be premature to ask for a grad school recommendation now when you still have two years of undergraduate studies left. If you really like this professor and have a good relationship, then keep in contact. You can go back to him and ask for a recommendation closer to graduation.
* Hopefully you will find more professors over the next two years that you can build relationships with.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that the poor performance on the first exam might actually help you to get a good recommendation. In general, faculty like for someone to learn from their mistakes and make up for it.
Or, the faculty member may not remember your performance on the first exam and just go by the final grade. Especially if you ask after the semester/quarter is ended.
Other things that can help you get a good recommendation include asking for help in a polite and formal way (e.g. without complaining) by visiting during office hours, and asking for specific assistance with something.
If you have more classes and have the same instructor/professor, then do well there too. Ask them, in person, "Would you provide me with a positive recommendation for graduate school" and if they seem to grimace or have another negative expression, immediately ask "How can I earn a positive recommendation from you?" People, especially faculty, want you to earn.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It is completely appropriate to say to the professor "I am applying to graduate schools such as NAMES in the program for FIELD OF STUDY. Can you write me a strong letter for my applications?" I can't imagine why your professor would lie (who wants to take on the extra work of writing for a student they won't recommend) and you don't want a letter from anyone who would say "no".
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the process of responding to my first peer review (major revisions). There seems to be a lot of advice out there, (even some stuff here: [How to write good Response Letters for the reviewers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/4928/how-to-write-good-response-letters-for-the-reviewers)) but there are still a few etiquette and structural things I'm not sure about.
1. How do you structure your response? Do I respond to the comments chronologically in the order they appear in the paper, or do I create two separate sections for each reviewer? Maybe a "general" section, followed by separate comments for each reviewer?
2. Do I write a cover letter thanking the reviewers for their helpful comments?
3. How casual/formal should I be? Should I use contractions and a conversational (yet professional) style, or keep it as formal as the article itself?
4. Any dos/don'ts that would be helpful for me to know?<issue_comment>username_1: Variations are possible, but I have found that the following seems to be a fairly typically form of a response to reviewers:
* Begin with a letter to the handling editor and reviewers, in which you thank the reviewers for their useful feedback (even if it wasn't) and say you believe you've addressed all comments. If you've made any really major changes, a sentence or two here is a good to address them.
* Quote the reviews as sent and address each comment inline, either saying how you've done what they wanted or explaining why you haven't. I always organize by reviewer and address in the order of their comments (rather than the structure of the paper) because the goal is to clearly show that you have addressed all comments.
I recommend adopting a polite and semi-formal style. You can be a bit more informal than the paper, but I still don't use contractions.
Do *not* get argumentative with the reviewers, and do *not* blow off their criticisms. Even an apparently crazy criticism should be treated politely, and as a matter of confusion rather than as a personal attack.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I recommend the following. (Taken & modified from my answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/116150/should-i-write-rubuttal-for-all-for-the-reviewers-or-just-the-rejecting-reviewer/116155#116155)).
**How to Respond to a Review**
Every time I respond to reviewers, I create a document. I write a short paragraph thanking the reviewers for their time and state my responses to their comments are below. I copy each reviewer's comments, organized by reviewer (my preference). Beneath each comment, I write a response. If I make a change, I specify where and how I've updated the paper. If I disagree, I state that I respectfully disagree and then elaborate on why. I may choose to include tables, figures, or references in this document that are solely intended for the reviewers.
By doing this, each reviewer can quickly and easily see my responses to their comments as well as my responses to the other reviewers. Where there are similar or duplicate comments, I have similar or duplicate responses to make it easier for the reviewers. I have found this approach to work well---it also helps the editor weigh the totality of the review and my responses.
I send this PDF with the updated paper back in; my hope is that it demonstrates to the editor and reviewers that their comments have been taken seriously.
In terms of **style**, I prefer to write confidently, respectfully, in a semi-formal style. I explicitly address *every comment*, even if only by saying "changed", "complete", or "added two sentences to page 3, para 2 to clarify this.". When I disagree, I say so respectfully and provide a narrative to persuade and/or provide clear evidence as to why I take the position I do. I use bullets when it makes more sense to do so but I use them sparingly. I do not use a cover sheet. (Thank you to @Anyon for suggesting I add some style notes as well)
---
**Sample Format**
*Authors’ Response to Reviewer Comments*
Manuscript: con575r1
We thank the reviewers for their time and helpful comments - their feedback substantially improved this paper. Our responses to each comment are provided below (reviewer comments are italicized in bold). The references listed at the end of this response are intended for all reviewers as cited in our responses.
Response to Reviewer 1...............p. X
Response to Reviewer 2...............p. Y
Response to Reviewer 3...............p. Z
***Response to Reviewer 1***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
***Response to Reviewer 2***
**Comment 1 Text**
*Response:* Response here to include any required evidence such as tables, figures, additional results, etc.
**Comment 2 Text**
*Response:* Response here.
*References*
Reference list (if needed) for anything in this Response Document that is solely for the reviewers & the editor. It is not just the references from the paper.
Upvotes: 2
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2016/06/28
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<issue_start>username_0: If I were asked to review a paper,
under what circumstances would I be expected to decline out of a conflict of interest?
Could I review a paper for someone...
* I have collaborated with N years ago?
* Who I am currently collaborating with, but we have not yet published a paper together?
* Who is currently or was once in the same institution as I?<issue_comment>username_1: The answer to your question depends on context. I find three key elements to the decision of whether or not to declare conflict of interest:
1. Formal rules: some venues have an explicit conflict of interest policy; if so, abide by it.
2. Size of reviewer pool: sometimes, you have an extremely specialized subject, in which the number of people qualified to review a paper at all are quite small. In such a case, one should generally be more permissive.
3. Formality of venue: conflict of interest for a journal or top conference is generally more strict than for less formal venues like workshops, especially for ones intended to discuss early-stage work where all you're really looking for is a sanity check.
Now, to address some specifics:
* I generally hold that it's a bad idea to review one's current or recent collaborators except in the most informal of venues.
* Co-authors is often the same as one's collaborators, but not always --- one might be collaborating but not yet be published together, or might be a very distant co-author (for example, I'm not going to worry about conflict of interest with most of the co-authors on my 600+ author paper).
* I also don't generally count co-organization as collaboration, since that's often a fairly narrow relationship.
* Being at the same institution (currently or in the recent past) may or may not be a conflict depending on how close the organization is: in some places different departments might as well be different institutions; in others, it's one tight family.
* Being funded by an organization is almost certainly a conflict of interest.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Barring a policy at the venue asking for the review, I tend to use the US NSF Rules which basically come down to:
* Family
* In the last five years:
+ Co-author or co-editor
+ Co-PI on a grant
* PhD Supervisor or supervisee
* Direct financial conflict (such as an industrial funder, etc.)
And I ignore the same institution requirement (at the NSF people at the same university or other institution cannot review each others' grant proposal, but I think that's too much for paper review).
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I have prepared all answers to all the queries raised by reviewers in major revision. Would it be ok if I respond to both reviewers in single pdf file in following format:
>
> **Reviewer #1:**
>
>
> Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
>
>
> Author response: This is my explanation.
>
>
> Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
>
>
> Author response: This is my explanation.
>
>
>
and so on....
>
> **Reviewer #2:**
>
>
> Query 1: Reviewer's first query.
>
>
> Author response: This is my explanation.
>
>
> Query 2: Reviewer's second query.
>
>
> Author response: This is my explanation.
>
>
>
In this way both reviewers can see queries of each other. Is this right way of response to reviewers ?<issue_comment>username_1: As a reviewer I have no problem with all the responses in one document. In practice I will quickly scroll down to my comments, but I may glance at responses on comments I find interesting.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't know which journal you were talking about, but mostly journals with online submission facility give accessing the reviewers' comments to each reviewer. Though there are two different options:-1) comments to editor and 2) comments to authors, but the 2nd one i.e comments to authors can be viewed by all the reviewers. Moreover, in general, editor sends all the reviewers' comment in one file along with his own comments and decisions to authors as well as to the reviewers. So it is always good to make it in one file.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, it is usually ok tobrespond to all reviewers in one file or message. After all, answers to one reviewer might well be interesting for the others, as well.
Coming from a field where answers to reviewers are generally subject to a tight length limit, I would even go a step further and mix/aggregate the answers to different reviewers. Different reviewers often ask the same or related questions, or make suggestions that complement or even contradict one another. As you have to produce one revised version of the paper that needs to suit all reviewers, the comments by different reviewers also need to be considered as a whole rather than per reviewer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As a referee I would expect the author's reply to mention all of the ways that the paper has changed since I last saw it (whether those changes were prompted by my comments, another reviewer or editors comments, or just the authors realizing that something should change). After all, these changes might introduce new errors or problems!
Upvotes: 2
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