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2019/03/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a 3rd year Ph.D. student. My field is computer science. I've worked on my topic for a long time, but finally, I found out that there are a lot of parameters correlated with publishing a paper. So I don't have hope for publishing a paper, since I should do it all on my own. What should I do now?<issue_comment>username_1: Apply to lower level journals (not conferences, avoids the issue of travel). Just do some solid basic work to get your confidence up. Not "home runs" or "triples" but singles or bunts. Anything other than a strikeout.
Story: I had a girlfriend who was hired to sell huge enterprise level deals for a packaging company (not software, the boxes, but also box systems, services, etc.) She was hating life because she hadn't sold anything and didn't feel she was getting support to sell these huge deals and all the other salesmen would drop a price list and make little sales (not systems). I advised her to (counterintiutively) go ahead and sell some simple stuff like the Cro Magnon salesmen had advised her. The problem was that she basically had ZERO for a score and hadn't even learned how to use the systems (order entry to cash, credit checks for new customers, etc.) And her confidence was in the dumpster. She took my advice, felt WAY better after making a little sale and eventually got one enterprise deal done.
You need to get your confidence up. Just go to some decent journal. Not a fly by night predatory thing. But second tier decent, looking for datapoint papers. And don't try to claim you've invented hydrogen. Simple, simple, simple. And short ("least publishable unit").
P.s. When asking questions here, it helps if you tell us the field. There are huge differences by field. It's good if we/you can generalize as well (not requiring answers to be field specific), but if you give us the field as well, you will get some targeted answers from practitioners. I'm assuming it is computer science based on "stack exchange" and the comment about conferences, and I am not as familiar with that field, but many others here are.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Since your field is computer science, conferences are important. Much more so than in other fields. I don't know the academic culture of Iran, but in the wider world, your advisors permission isn't needed to publish anything anywhere. Also, in the wider world, degrees in CS are usually awarded for dissertations than for a set of publications, though this varies by country. In the US, you don't normally need publications to complete a degree in CS, though it is valuable if the ideas are worthy of publication.
I don't know what publishing without permission would do in your circumstance, so I'll assume the worst - that it would harm you. Otherwise, just do it. Keep improving the papers and keep submitting until you find success.
You don't seem to be without ideas. But I worry that you may be abandoning them too soon. That may be a problem, especially in a fast moving field. Timing is partly an issue in such fields. If you overly refine a paper before first submission then it may wind up too late in the queue to be considered. It might even be advantageous to submit something less refined, but with a solid core, so that you get in the publication process early enough to be considered.
Perhaps the following would help. Understand that your advisor is partly responsible for your success. Use him/her to sign off on the quality of your work and make suggestions to improve it. Suggest that you co-author a paper, putting the advisor's reputation on the line. You will probably learn something from this process, either how to write better papers or that your advisor is unsuitable. But both are valuable.
The fact that your friends have papers is partly serendipity. They were, perhaps, lucky. If they have the same advisor, then it is likely that there are good ideas floating around.
But, in general, find the shortest path to completion in your case and follow it. It might even involve changing advisors or institutions, though that is normally not a short path. But if you can finish with only a dissertation, then do that. If you can publish without permission, then do that. Etc. You don't need to stay in the current situation longer than necessary. Find a door and aim for it.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/03/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I just got an invitation from an editor of a non-refereed book. Is it considered self plagiarism if I send one of my journal article to the book?
The book is hard to define. It is more like a textbook rather than a review volume.<issue_comment>username_1: If you had published your paper on a journal and you had transferred the copyright to that journal, it's a violation of copyright. And typically you transfer the copyright at the time of submission.
If you want to republish your paper somewhere else, you should first ask permission to the copyright owner.
Beware, moreover, that most of the invitations to "publish your research" in a book come from predatory publishers. In case, you don't want to send them any of your works.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Chances are, yes.** From your description it's likely the editor is looking for a review volume. That means that, even if you hold the copyright, the odds are the book's editor is looking for novel content (i.e. previously unpublished work). If you've already published something elsewhere, that rules it out from the book as well.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/03/31
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<issue_start>username_0: Graduate student stipends on our campus were low, and our new president increased some stipends. This applied to our department. However, I figured out it only apply to the new students. So we are currently getting paid $1,800 per month, they will get paid $2,200 per month for recruitment purposes.
What would be the best way to approach this, so that current student can also get an increase?<issue_comment>username_1: I believe that student unions exist precisely for the purpose of wage disputes. Perhaps you could get involved with your local student union and see if they have any thoughts about the issue.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming the poster is in the United States:
1. You can request a salary increase. Sometimes requests are granted.
2. You can leave the university to get higher pay elsewhere.
3. You can organize students in to a union, which will strike if an acceptable salary is not provided by the university. Most universities in the United States do not have a graduate student union which negotiates an employment contract. These are different from the student union which offers campus recreation at universities in the United States.
On your own, a PhD student has very little bargaining power.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2019/03/31
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<issue_start>username_0: I know this sounds weird. I'm getting a Master in Business (MSc, not MBA) with emphasis in Finance (in my country you can't officially get a master in finance, logistics or marketing, they are all called Master of Business but still different based on what you want to research for the thesis).
Thing is, I really became interested in research and academia recently and have been thinking about changing my plans completely (I was working in business management before starting full-time grad school and wanted to go back to the industry, but not anymore, I found out that I like academic research a lot).
I have two college majors, one in Business and one in IT. Do you think it is possible to start a DSc program in Europe in pure maths with this background? Would I have to go back to 0 and get another, more closely related, college degree or maybe masters? I just don't want to get my hopes high and invest time and effort pursuing something unrealistic. I'll finish my masters when I'm 26 next year, if I had to go back to college for a degree in maths I'd be 30 by the end of it. Is that too old for a career as researcher?<issue_comment>username_1: A general answer to your question is probably complicated and it is likely that someone in your situation will need to get a new undergraduate degree.
But, since you are in Rio, you have another option. Take a summer course at IMPA on one of the introductory courses (e.g. Real Analysis). If you can manage that, then you might be able to switch to a M.Sc. there. With an M.Sc. from IMPA you have a chance to be accepted for a PhD in Europe.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Bottom line is that it will be very hard since you lack a bachelors in math (or even the math training of a physicist).
My advice would be instead to go work for a while. It seems like we get a lot of degree change requests which are prompted from not wanting to leave the nest.
If you don't follow the go work advice, I would at least look for something a little closer to your training. Something in quantitative finance or econ or at least applied math or statistics. Not pure math.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As others have mentioned, answering in general is quite difficult and in reality depends a lot on which University you plan to enroll. It is also dependent on the kind of Mathematics you were exposed to during your undegrad studies.
You mention having a degree both in Business and in IT. Many IT courses I am aware of provide a solid-and given the appropriate choice of extra classes a quite strong-background in mathematics. Also during your business studies you were likely exposed to Math as well. That said, the typical prerequisite is a relevant MSc in Mathematics or a field like Physics, being the most related.
>
> To provide a real example, the University of Athens Math Department allows students with an Msc, but not necessarily in Mathematics, to participate in the exams it holds for PhD students, and in special circumstances-i.e. if you can prove you are realy worth it-even someone without an Msc can apply. The only other prerequisite is submiting beforehand the general outline of what your research topic is about. And of course succesfully participating in the exams which can be quite challenging and in practice require someone being exposed and well-versed to what is typically studied during an Msc course in Mathematics. (And knowing Greek is a must..)
>
>
>
Finally, concerning being somehow "late" at Math research, perhaps you will find this stack post enlightening- [Mathematicians who were late learners?](https://mathoverflow.net/questions/3591/mathematicians-who-were-late-learners-list)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently came across a problem related to image recognition in Deep Learning. One fine morning, I was struck with the idea that possibly I could do something about it if I merged GANs with CNNs. As of now, I only know **what** these networks are capable of.
Now how should I go about this? Should I first pick a standard book (say Ian Goodfellow's Deep Learning) and read it from cover to cover? Or should I straightaway read some research articles, identify areas I am weak in, and then dig deep **into those very areas** from standard texts.
In other words, is it better to complete everything I can get my hands on before starting to work on this idea? Or should I start on it and fill the gaps as they come by.
P.S. My background in courses in statistical learning, probability, and calculus ensures I can completely understand the math behind the above stated topics.<issue_comment>username_1: I am still learning, but this is how a few advisors taught me how to approach my field.
First, look for a recent structured literature review of the filed and taxonomies. They give you a good starting point as all relevant paper (hopefully anyway) are listed there, and this gives you a perfect index to learn about the filed. Of cause, if there is none, you could be the first to create one ;).
Then its time to read a lot, create a stack of all relevant paper — Mark of any references that look to help and add them to the stack. Keep going and once your stack starts to shrink more than it grows you should have a grasp about the filed.
In order to do this in a reasonable time you do not have to read every paper deeply. Try to get the idea, and try to fit them into your understanding of the filed. Only read paper deeply that help you further your research question, other just skim.
Other tested methods include: Ask your advisor and other colleagues in around you, they might have looked into it already and can point you to relevant material.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You are actually asking the question that most new grad students ask: how do I find, understand, and make an impact on a relevant problem in my chosen field of study? Most grad students are new to "the" field in some way. For instance, you say you have a background in stats etc, so you aren't totally new to the field, you are just new to the specific sub-problem. This gives you a big advantage over someone coming in from a totally unrelated field, like zoology :-P
username_1's answer is great and is the basics of how to conduct a solid literature review. The basic underlying idea is you focus on learning as much as possible so that you are no longer new to the field. I'd like to add on to it with a few caveats:
1. In your literature review, pay special attention to whether or not your solution counts as a contribution to the field or an application of it. This will in large part depend on which field you choose to make an impact in. Is the field deep learning? Image recognition? CNNs? What is a contribution in one field might be just a basic application in another. For instance, if you are trying to make an impact in deep learning but your contribution is just "I put these two nets together and look at how good they solve a specific problem", it's unlikely you'll make an impact. However, if your chosen field is image recognition and you prove theoretically that your network has properties that solve a known problem, it might be a big impact.
2. Watch out for people who have thought of this before. The unfortunate problem of academic research is that if you thought of it probably someone else has, too. Look far and wide to see if your specific solution, or something so similar to it to make no difference, has already been published or studied and cast aside. It's possible that the idea you think will work is actually no better than another, simpler idea. It's also possible that someone did a similar piece of work to your own and their paper just wasn't impactful enough to draw attention. This might happen because it's not interesting enough or because they published in a low-tier journal.
3. Be careful about merging techniques. In much of academic research, simply putting two things together and seeing what happens is not sufficient. You should look for how to prove that these two specific things, when put together, are demonstrably better. In your example, why, specifically, should GANs and CNNs be merged to solve this problem? Why not two other things? Why not additional things? How will you know that your network is better?
Ultimately, you're going to have to do more than just learn the field. You'll need to learn to distinguish and sell the value of your research to experienced researchers in the field.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Other early answers here have focused more on how to learn the field. This will be a bit different. There is, in my opinion, no reason to wait before trying out your research ideas. You will probably never stop waiting if you take that too far. But working blind is likely to lead to dead ends and you need to recognize (or get advice) when you are going down a blind alley.
So, it might be a better path to take a blended approach. Start out by spending some of your time (say 10 - 20%) working on your problem and the rest learning the field and reflecting back on the problem based on what you learn. Over time increase the research portion as you gain experience and spend less on reading the literature.
I doubt that such "research attempts" will be wasted even if they are unsuccessful. You will learn a lot about what doesn't work, at least.
I think that too many students wait too long to start working on meaningful problems. Of course, it is helpful to have an advisor to guide you initially on what is meaningful and what approaches might be tried (or have already be exhausted). If you have ideas, you should spend a bit of time on them, but be critical in your self analysis of what you have, not jumping to conclusions.
But you probably also would benefit from advice. If you don't have a formal advisor then you may still be able to bounce ideas off of a faculty member or other researcher in the field. Practice with feedback is a great way to learn.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: My university administration pushes all lecturers to apply to competitive grants from a national science fund. I am new to this and do not know how to start. So I thought to ask my previous advisors, or senior lecturers in my department, who work in related topics, and received such grants in previous years, to send me their past applications to the same fund. This may help me a lot to see how a successful application looks like.
However, I fear that this might be perceived as rudeness, since my application competes with theirs. The fund is very competitive, and if I send a competitive application, it reduces their chance to win a new grant. It's like asking a competitor in a code competition to show me their code..
Is it really considered rude to ask other researchers for their previous grant applications?<issue_comment>username_1: For national funding there exist often official detailed guidelines about expected/prescribed length, style, content, outline of the application. You probably also find inofficial guidelines on single university servers by googling (filetype:pdf, inurl:edu)
Very similar rules of thumb as for writing a paper and getting it through the review process apply: No redundancy, logical consistency, clear structure...
And like publishing papers you learn it by doing. If you never wrote a paper and try now to write your first one and submit it to nature/science, reading a former nature/science article even about research of your field will not help you a lot. In the best case someone who reviewed for that journal takes a look on your paper, which is often the professor.
The big difference to writing papers is the section about your financial/working plan. How much money do you need and for what. This needs advise from experienced PI's, otherwise you might even in the case of funding end with much less than you need to successfully conduct the project, as often only a fraction of the requested money is granted.
Contrary to a journal review, the examiners scrutinizing your application are often no real experts in your field of research, as the pool of reviewers for national funding is much smaller. Therefore, the level of comprehension of the examiner will not be as high as compared to a journal reviewer and you have to write your aplication accordingly. Depending on the goal of your project (fundamental research, prototype -> TRL level), more scientific/technical/economic reseasoning and planning is necessary.
If you have experience in writing papers, I don't think reading old applications will help you a lot and improve your application significantly, as the application guidelines often set so much constrictions to describe your project in the necessary shortness. And if not, I think you might waste a lot of time without an experienced reviewer of your application.
I would also rather suggest to you to take courses on project managment at your university. In the end not the better scientific idea gets the grant, but the project that seems to be well planned and has all obstacles and details foreseen and listed with an according project/financial plan.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience in both the US and UK this is quite common, and in fact encouraged. While technically, we are all in competition for funding, research works best when it is collaborative. There are so many nuances in a grant application that vary from across funding calls, that seeing successful (and even unsuccessful) applications can be hugely beneficial. they can give you an idea as to the scope of the project, how much it should build on previous work, and how much preliminary research should be done prior to applying.
I would hope current and past colleagues will share their funded proposals and would never hesitate to ask, and in fact would be mildly offended if they did not share them. Unfunded proposals are often helpful to see, but some colleagues are more hesitant to share unsuccessful ideas that they may still be trying to improve. In addition to asking to see proposals, you should be asking for feedback on your proposal as well as offering to read the proposal's of colleagues.
One aspect of a grant proposal that is difficult for new investigators (okay they are all difficult), is the budget. Many PIs will not share the budget of the proposal with others since they include salary information that many people consider private.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose, someone does a PhD and a Habilitation from a non TU9 university.
Is there any practical barrier for him to become a professor in a TU9 university?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you can become professor at a TU9 university with a PhD from a non-TU9 university.
* There is no formal difference between PhDs from different universities in Germany.
* There is far from universal agreement in Germany that TU9 are the 'better' or 'elite' universities. Their main distinguishing factor is their focus on engineering subjects. The German ['Universities of Excellence' (*Exzellenzunis*)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Universities_Excellence_Initiative) would be a better approximation of `German elite universities', but even for them the institution granting the PhD would not matter.
* In general the differences in reputation between universities in Germany is smaller than e.g. in the US or in France
* I know of several concrete cases of TU9 professors with non-TU9 PhDs.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: **Of course you can.** Otherwise their pool for hiring would be awfully small.
But don't take my word for it. To provide some evidence we can look at a department at one of the TU9 universities. For example the [Computer Science Department of TU Darmstadt](https://www.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/fb20/organisation_fb20/professuren_und_gruppenleitungen/index.en.jsp) (mainly because I'm somewhat familiar with it)
If we look at the list of full professors and eliminate those that have non-German doctorates, we are left with 18 Professors, 9 of which did not receive their degree from one of the TU9. (Though in practical terms almost none of them did, as the TU9 was only established in 2003.)
* **<NAME> [TU Darmstadt](http://tubiblio.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/105180/)**
* ~~<NAME> [Cornell](https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/6779)~~
* <NAME> [Universität zu Köln](http://d-nb.info/830848258)
* ~~<NAME> [TU Graz](http://www.gris.tu-darmstadt.de/home/members/fellner/11-03-09_Vitae_Fellner_EN_Endversion.pdf)~~
* <NAME> [Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main](https://www.math.uni-frankfurt.de/~dmst/research/phdtheses/mfischlin.dissertation.2001.pdf)
* ~~<NAME> [TU Wien](http://www.ke.tu-darmstadt.de/staff/juffi/cv.pdf)~~
* <NAME> [Universität Duisburg-Essen](https://d-nb.info/971486220/34)
* **<NAME> [Universität Karlsruhe](https://tubiblio.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/101360/)**
* **<NAME> [TU Darmstadt](http://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/591/1/phd-thesis-matthias-hollick.pdf)**
* ~~<NAME> [TU Wien](http://repositum.tuwien.ac.at/obvutwhs/download/pdf/1562445?originalFilename=true)~~
* <NAME> [Universität Freiburg](http://d-nb.info/983957975)
* **<NAME> [TU Braunschweig](https://www.esa.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/twiki/pub/Staff/AndreasKochPublications/1997_koch-diss.pdf)**
* <NAME> [Universität des Saarlandes](https://publikationen.sulb.uni-saarland.de/bitstream/20.500.11880/25771/1/HeikoMantel_ProfDrJoergHSiekmann.pdf)
* <NAME> [Universität Siegen](http://www.digibib.net/permalink/467/UBSI-x/HBZ:HT009215031)
* **<NAME> [Universität Karlsruhe](http://d-nb.info/870902466)**
* ~~<NAME> [University of Southern California](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1329838)~~
* <NAME> [Universität Siegen](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-658-08586-5)
* ~~<NAME> [Brown University](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1354820)~~
* <NAME> [Universität des Saarlandes](https://publikationen.sulb.uni-saarland.de/bitstream/20.500.11880/25783/1/SadeghiAhmadReza_ProfDrBirgitPfitzmann.pdf)
* <NAME> [Ruhr-Universität Bochum](http://www-brs.ub.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/netahtml/HSS/Diss/SchneiderThomas/diss.pdf)
* ~~<NAME> [University of Massechusetts, Amherst](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=170943)~~
* **<NAME> [Technische Universität München](http://d-nb.info/942776429)**
* **<NAME> [Universität Karlsruhe](http://d-nb.info/930097238)**
* **<NAME> [TU Berlin](http://d-nb.info/943509645)**
* **<NAME> [RWTH Aachen](http://d-nb.info/966513118)**
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I feel like I am at dead end of my career, need some guidance to restart it. Here is my status:
* *Masters in Physics* (2009)
* *Industry position* (2009-2013)
In the industry position, I learnt machine learning for applications in biology. After four years of work experience, my career reached a saturation level since I was always at back-end due to field mismatch, even though I was excelling in my work, so I decided to pursue PhD in my own field, Physics, to give a boost to my career (not a wise choice I know). I was doing fine in my PhD and
then my supervisor left the university for a better opportunity and I
had to take up another project delaying my PhD by at least 2 years.
During PhD, I have taken one year maternity break as well, followed
by juggling between PhD work and baby. Now, somehow I have submitted
a mediocre level thesis last month.
* *PhD in Physics* (2013-present)
I am 34 years now, with no
clarity on what I want to do in career and financially broke since my
funding got over more than six months back. Neither I am good at
machine learning, nor at my PhD work. I don't have any teaching
experience as well to go to academia so I am not sure how will I
perform there. Going for postdoc with a two year toddler and at this
age also looks daunting. So I have no clue from where should I
restart my career. My confidence is at all time low level.<issue_comment>username_1: While your path has been difficult, don't think that it leads to a dead end. Others have (and are) traversing similarly difficult situations. But it is probably a mistake to try to do too much on your own.
I'd first suggest that academia is probably a better option for a woman with a young kid. Schedules can be arranged. Universities can sometimes provide day care. Student helpers can be paid to babysit. Some companies have good records recognizing that people have families, but I think that is more rare.
Next, I'd suggest that you try to exploit your contacts as much as possible to find you a suitable position wherever it is. Your current advisor may be able and willing to help, but your previous advisor might also be a good resource, as you were doing well with her/him. People you have met at conferences and such may be able to support you. But try to build up such relationships in any case. Every young (yes, you included) needs a circle of associates with similar interests. Older researchers seem to have these but actually they were built up over time. Other faculty as well, both in your doctoral program and earlier education.
Your age is not an issue. My former spouse started her career at over 40 and did very well (retired now).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You're in the lucky position of having *both* industry and academic experience. That gives you a much better view of what to do next, and you can use your experience to inform yourself about the better option.
If you go to industry, chances are you'll have a more stable life. You won't have to move as often (possibly never). This could be better not only for you, but also for your child/significant other. You'll be paid more. You'll deal with different kinds of problems. If you're considering this path, I wouldn't worry too much about you being "not good" at machine learning because you've already excelled at your previous role. The odds are also good that you'll have learned something transferable in the course of your PhD.
If you stay in academia, chances are you'll have to move, a lot. Postdocs are transient positions that don't usually last longer than a few years. You'll also usually be paid less - often substantially less - than in industry. On the other hand you'll get to think about blue-skies problems that you might enjoy more, you'll have more flexible hours, and you can often work from home quite easily.
So which option do you want? Only you can make that decision. I'll just suggest one more thing: compare the time you spent in industry (2009-2013) against the time you spent in the PhD (2013-present). If you were stuck in a time loop and had to relive those years again and again, which epoch would you rather relive? I would favour that option.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Look into getting a government job. DOE labs, NSA, NIH, NASA, etc. Depending on how it works out, can be interesting work. Pay is decent and job security high. Often in desirable cities as well.
I don't think the postdoc makes sense, given your situation. You can apply for industry jobs also, but even here, they may be looking for someone a little more eye of the tiger.
P.s. Don't sweat the mediocre thesis. Pass-fail. Just get the ball across the goal line. Doesn't matter how fancy as long as you get the Ph.D.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: *I'm going to assume your statements about mediocrity are true, though obviously it is difficult to judge oneself.*
**I would not pursue an academic career.** As you are probably aware, academic careers are hyper-competitive. Even getting a post-doc in physics is surprisingly competitive these days. With your academic background, you may not be able to get a spot even if you try. Moreover, there is absolutely no value in doing a post-doc that does not lead to a permanent position. While you may find post-doc work to be fun, you will eventually find a good permanent career that is also fun -- it's a much more efficient use of both money and time to start down the road to a rewarding permanent career now rather than putting it off further. Even permanent spots teaching college are surprisingly competitive, and that does not seem to be a passion for you.
**There are interesting jobs with your background.** Companies will not view you as a failure -- you got your PhD (in physics, no less) and have some background knowledge in machine learning, which is very useful these days. You need to see yourself in this way as well. So start looking for jobs and doing some interviews -- you'll see a lot of boring stuff that's really depressing, but you'll also find some interesting stuff, and you can narrow your search from there.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'll keep this question short to make it easy to read, but happy to supply details later if relevant.
I recently finished my Ph.D. - computer science, in the US. I have a choice between accepting a post-doc position and a **tenure-track** Assistant Professor (AP) position.
However:
1. The AP position is at a satellite campus of a state university. This is a masters-granting campus (i.e. no PhD students). The teaching load is 3+3, though there is expectation of decent research output, especially (but not exclusively) during the summers.
2. The post-doc is at an R1 research university (though *not* highly ranked or especially prestigious). It appears (to me) to be less-than-ideal for the following reason: the PI applies techniques from my field (CS, AI) to another field (let's call it F2). He publishes (and presumably, I would publish) exclusively in conferences and journals of F2. After 2-years of this, I fear being stuck between two fields, departments of neither seriously considering me for tenure-track positions.
So, both positions appear sub-optimal, which is the source of my dilemma. Eventually, I hope for a tenure-track position at a R1 university. Which of these will best help me meet this goal?
ADDITION:
Thanks for the responses. It's helpful that the responses clearly categorize the AP institution as a teaching-focussed university. When I went to interview, they harped on their focus on research, show-casing the research activities and publications of professors and MS students. Since it *is* a masters-granting university and not an undergraduate teaching college, I was uncertain of what to make of all this. I suppose, in the end, the 3+3 load is telling.
One reason I'm swayed toward the AP is that, as a foreign national, a tenure-track position is a firm step toward US permanent residency, which a post-doc position is not.<issue_comment>username_1: It is uncommon for people to move up from a teaching school to an R1 school. It happens, but rarely, and your chances are slim. So this seems like a dead end regarding your goal, though of course teaching can be quite satisfying for a lot of us.
The offer of a postdoc elsewhere at least allows you to continue dreaming about a permanent position at an R1 university. Of course, there is never a guarantee that you will get such a position, whereas the AP offer you have at least offers this certainty.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This seems clearly to favor the postdoc position. Teaching 6 courses per year, likely not just 6 sections of one or two courses, will leave you no time for research in any field. Moreover, if everyone else is doing this then there won't be a lot of research synergy that will help you build up your CV.
On the other hand, working in an R1 institution doing research in *any* field helps you get papers out the door. And you won't get stuck between fields, though you may need to be flexible when it comes to choosing a field for your first R1 faculty position. But no one is required to stick to any particular specialty once they hold a faculty position. You can move to the field you want, and it may be neither of F1 or F2 when the time comes.
Think long term. The teaching position will likely have you teaching for the long term. The research position will more likely have you doing research for the long term. Both of those can be attractive, but maybe not to the same person. Your call.
Just a guess that it is easier to move "over" from one field to another than it is to move "up" to an R1 from a teaching position.
---
The additional information added by the OP adds some considerations. One that should be considered is the expected size of each section you need to teach. If it is <=10 then it is quite different than if it is 30+.
Otherwise you need to weigh the scales. Citizenship possibilities might weigh heavily depending on your background.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/04/01
| 3,062
| 12,726
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student and the most junior person on our small team (me, a lab manager, a statistical analyst, a wet-bench scientist, a senior statistician, and our PI). The statistical analyst has been on this team for over 15 years--we'll call her Emily. Emily trained me in some areas when I started, but I've learned a lot and I have become very independent in the 5 years I’ve been a trainee.
**Some Context**
Emily and I have been working closely on a project lately. Because we work so closely, I often ask her for documents related to relevant analyses that she has previously done. I have come to realize that Emily is very error-prone, which I believe our PI already knows. Lately, many of these errors have been discovered when I say something like "that estimate doesn't seem quite right to me" in a lab meeting. I nearly always turn out to be correct and Emily is livid with me for pointing it out. She is typically very defensive and it's very difficult to persuade her to re-check her work. She is dismissive of pretty much everything I say to her directly.
When we went to publish a paper for which I wrote the entire first draft, contributed half of the figures/table, and designed ~90% of the experimental approach, my PI said that Emily and I should be "co-first" author. I agreed because Emily had done ~80% of the experimental work (she wrote most of the code). When my boss made the suggestion that we equally share first-authorship, Emily was so upset that she wasn't the sole first author that she literally screamed in my PI's office about it and then didn't come into lab for 3 days after. These things have set up a poor working relationship between me and Emily.
**The Problem**
That paper was published, and I'm currently working on several papers that build on those published findings. In working on these new projects, I've discovered an important error that Emily made in the published paper that we are co-first author on.
I made the decision to go to Emily about the error first so that she had a chance to address it with our PI. She denies that there is a mistake and tells me that I'm "too confident about myself" when I say that I'm 100% certain that there is a mistake and lay out all of the evidence that definitively proves it. Unfortunately, I lost my cool a little bit and some of my responses to her were harsh and less-than-professional.
So, I have an email thread that documents Emily's mistake, that I approached her about it directly, and that she actually doesn’t understand what she was doing and therefore denies that the mistake is real; however, we both made some statements that were unprofessional.
The mistake needs to be corrected in order for me to continue with publishing my recent projects (but fortunately does not change the main takeaway of the paper). Emily plans on telling our PI that I’m just a trainee and that I don't know what I'm talking about and that she did not make a mistake (again, I can definitively prove that she did with the email chain). She also has some clout with our PI because she's been there much longer than I have and is more experienced.
How should I proceed?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> When we went to publish a paper ... my boss made the suggestion that we equally share first-authorship, Emily was so upset that she wasn't the sole first author that she literally screamed in my PI's office about it and then didn't come into lab for 3 days after.
>
>
>
If possible, it is always a good idea to negotiate contributions and authorship of a paper *prior to conducting the relevant research and drafting of the paper*. This kind of dispute can best be avoided by having all the researchers sit down prior to the research project and agree on the roles of each of the researchers, and how the authorship will be allocated (i.e., who is a co-author vs an acknowledgement, order of authors, etc.). In some cases the actual contributions may end up differing from the initial plan, and so a renegotiation of the authorship could occur, but in many cases you can avoid disputes by having a clear set of expectations at the start of the project. Once a dispute arises, there is going to have to be some negotiation and decision made about the dispute, but in the future it would be best to avoid these problems by agreeing on authorship details in advance.
>
> ... I'm currently working on several papers that build on those published findings. In working on these new projects, I've discovered an important error that Emily made in the published paper that we are co-first author on. She denies that there is a mistake... The mistake needs to be corrected in order for me to continue with publishing my recent projects (but fortunately does not change the main takeaway of the paper). Emily plans on telling our PI that I’m just a trainee and that I don't know what I'm talking about and that she did not make a mistake (again, I can definitively prove that she did with the email chain). She also has some clout with our PI because she's been there much longer than I have and is more experienced.
>
>
>
Firstly, you should do everything possible to see if you, Emily, and your PI, can reach an agreement on whether or not there is an error in the published paper. I would suggest making a meeting with your PI where all of you can look over the details of the claimed error, check your working and discuss the matter, and see if you can come to agreement about whether or not there is actually an error. If you can get your co-authors to agree with your view, then you could all submit an erratum to the previous paper correcting the error. If your co-authors can convince you that there is no error, the matter is also resolved.
It sounds like this might not be possible, and so if you try all this and exhaust all possibility of agreement, then here is what I would suggest. You are the author of your new papers, so it is up to you what to write in them. It is perfectly acceptable for you to claim in your new papers that you have identified an error in the previous published paper. For full disclosure to your reader, you should make your claim in the paper, but also note that the claim of the error is *disputed* by your co-author. (You can give relevant details in a footnote, but keep it succinct and professional. Do not bog the reader down with excessive detail or a big shit-fight.) Re-run the previous analysis without the error, note the new results, and proceed with your new papers on that basis. Emily will be just as entitled to submit new papers claiming that she is correct and there is no error. (Both sets of papers would be vetted by referees, but it might be difficult for them to tell who is right, so you might find that some referees will be reluctant to recommend publication.)
If you are unable to come to an agreement on the alleged error with your co-authors, ultimately that is going to mean that you end up claiming one thing and she ends up claiming another. If these are your papers, and you have tried and failed to reach agreement on the matter, I see no reason why this issue would require any further intervention of your PI, so her greater "clout" with the PI should not make any difference. You are entitled to submit research to journals making claims you believe in good-faith to be true. (If you want to, it would also be legitimate for your to submit an erratum for the previous paper to the original journal, notifying your co-authors, and noting clearly in your erratum that your claim of an error is disputed by your co-authors. I suspect that the journal might not accept this, but you could submit it if you wanted to.)
>
> Unfortunately, I lost my cool a little bit and some of my responses to her were harsh and less-than-professional. ... we both made some statements that were unprofessional.
>
>
>
That is a problem, and you are both going to need to cool it. (And it is probably worth apologising for any comments that were unprofessional.) Keep your focus on the work, and the correctness or incorrectness of the methods and results. If you cannot engage with Emily without making unprofessional comments, you should disengage communication with her.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From what I read in your communications, you have a very serious communication problem with your co-workers.
>
> Lately, many of these errors have been discovered when I say something like "that estimate doesn't seem quite right to me" in a lab meeting.
> I nearly always turn out to be correct and Emily is livid with me for pointing it out.
>
>
> In working on these new projects, I've discovered an important error
> that Emily made in the published paper that we are co-first author on.
>
>
>
And some of your other sentences...
Paper writing with a group is a TEAM project. You are not playing as a team player. That error you found does not belong to Emily only. That error belong to all of you as a team, all of the authors. You have no right to say it is Emily's error only. If you insist on this attitude, this means that you want all the positives from the paper but no negatives. Since you are able to find the error now, this means that you did not check it yourself good enough before.
Of course you should point out errors and fix them going forward but to err is human. This problem is not about you finding errors of your co-workers but more about how you communicate with them about this errors.
Lets consider that you become a team leader yourself, in academia or in a company, and a co-worker find your errors, this means nothing. See following wikipedia page about [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert).
>
> His collected works (Gesammelte Abhandlungen) have been published several times.
> The original versions of his papers contained "many technical errors of varying degree";...
>
>
>
But if a person informs rudely you about your mistakes, anyone will become defensive regardless of their position. And this is more about perceived rudeness. You need to think about your communications and talk with some other people so that they can give you feedback.
Take a lesson from this problem. This type of relationship problems will exists everywhere. It will not be different in professional domain also.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: For the current project: **Focus on what the scientific error is. Stop focusing on whose fault it is.** You may need to get the error fixed to continue with the followup work, but presumably the followup doesn’t depend on anyone admitting fault. All the issues about digging up email trails to show whose fault it was are a massive distraction — things like that serve no scientific purpose, and will make Emily more defensive, and make it look to other people like you’re (at best) mean-spirited and intolerant of other people’s fallibility, and (at worst) like you have a vendetta against Emily.
If, instead, you point out a mistake and its content without finger-pointing about the blame, people are much more likely to be willing to admit the mistake and help fix it (and to try to avoid such mistakes going forward).
Even though the water has been muddied, it’s hopefully not too late for damage control. **Apologise to Emily, either privately or in the group setting, for anything unprofessional you said. Hopefully she’ll then apologise in turn, but if don’t try to make her — that won’t help anything. Maybe also apologise, if you can bring yourself to, for having focused too much on finger-pointing. Emphasise that you just want to make sure this scientific point is correct, going forward.** And then if she disputes the issue further, be ready to explain again what you think the mistake is — purely the scientific error, nothing personal, no finger-pointing, describing things as “we wrote X…” rather than as “Emily wrote X…”, and being genuinely open-minded to the possibility you might be mistaken (even though you’re sure you’re not).
On this possibility: bear in mind that happens to all of us sometimes, even when we’re pretty sure about something. If you are phrasing the problem as “Hey, I’m worried we have a mistake in that pervious … could someone else check this with me?”, and it turns out there’s no error after all, then it’s still no big deal — you’ve not lost much face. If on the other hand you phrase it as “Look, Emily made an error here!” and it turns out she didn’t, then that really looks bad for you. Being diplomatic, tactful, and a team player isn’t just about being nice to others (though that is important) — it’s also much better for you in many ways.
Upvotes: -1
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2019/04/02
| 1,070
| 4,774
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<issue_start>username_0: A little background information first. I am about a year out of my undergraduate program where I double majored in Computer Science and Mathematics. My main focus was computer science and the math major was mostly for fun. Since I wasn't considering grad school during undergrad I never partook in any REU programs as I was planning on working in the computer science field long term. However after about a year working as a software engineer I miss studying Mathematics and am not loving my work as much as I thought I would. So now I am looking into applying for a PhD program not just because I am not loving my job but because of my love of Math. My love of Math is what led me to study Computer Science in the first place. The earliest would be starting in Fall 2020 but I think Fall 2021 might be more reasonable given the timeline.
This is where the bulk of my question comes in. Since I double majored, I didn't get to take as many math courses and so I have holes in my education such as Differential Equations and Analysis. I do have textbooks on these subjects that I have begun studying with but how can I show programs I apply to that I have the knowledge in these areas? Will not taking these classes affect my chances to get accepted? I should mention that I did take courses in Stats, Abstract Algebra, Number Theory, Combinatorics and Linear Algebra. My overall GPA was a 3.5 and I did well in most of my classes except for Abstract Algebra and Number Theory where I struggled more in, but I do have a reason for that as I was taking three Upper Level Computer Science classes at the same time as Abstract Algebra and then that led to struggling in Number Theory due to lack of understanding of some of the basics. Are there any other tips that you could give me to help improve my attractiveness to a program?<issue_comment>username_1: I'll assume this is the US. It might apply elsewhere, but I have no experience. In the US, it is possible to apply for a PhD with "only" a BS/BA degree. Those degrees vary widely and some smaller schools don't have enough faculty to cover the very wide mathematics territory very deeply. Graduate admissions people understand that.
On the other hand, most such doctoral programs include at least the possibility of additional coursework before prelim/qualifying exams and research. Some schools require it. My first graduate level course was in Measure Theory (new to me) and I did little but coursework for three years. Another early course was in Topology, and was much deeper than anything I saw as an undergrad.
In addition, a doctoral dissertation requires a very deep dive into a very narrow part of mathematics, and, while breadth is useful, it isn't normally necessary to write a dissertation.
The conclusion of all of that is that you are probably already qualified for admission, other things being equal, though you will find a lot of competition from well prepared applicants.
My advice would be to apply ASAP to one or more programs and write up your background and experiences in the most positive way. You need to give evidence of your likelihood of success and your letters of recommendation need to support that.
But for the direct question - what to do -, you can find a way to improve your math knowledge and skill, either working toward breadth (analysis) or depth. But the way to do that most effectively is with a guide of some kind. If you are near a university you may be able to take individual courses and so obtain the guidance of a faculty member. You might be able to do it for no credit or grade. But the advantage of doing it formally is that you get both guidance and feedback. The feedback is essential, not just for looking at your work, but for suggesting what you should look at next.
Reading existing texts will not have the same effect, though reading along with a lot of problem solving will be better. But, again, feedback on your solutions to those problems can be extremely valuable. If you can only solve things *awkwardly* you need to find ways to "up your game". Practice and feedback.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: (US-specific) The REUs don't matter much for admission. The problem with not having analysis at all on your transcript is that most programs use it as a litmus test for whether you are able to write proofs and handle graduate coursework. The fact that your weaker courses were number theory and abstract algebra is also going to raise red flags in that regard.
There might be programs that would be willing to take you as an MS so that you could remediate, but probably the best course of action is to just register for a year as a post-bac or nonmatric somewhere that offers upper-div math courses.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/04/02
| 1,844
| 7,842
|
<issue_start>username_0: I was reading the transcripts of a [seminar](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html) by Dr. <NAME>. In this, Hamming goes on to say the following statements:
*Explaining why one guy was successful while the others weren't as much successful*.
>
> I have never heard the names of any of the other fellows at that table
> mentioned in science and scientific circles. They were unable to ask
> themselves, "**What are the important problems in my field**?" If you
> do not work on an important problem, it's unlikely you'll do important
> work. But the **average scientist does routine safe** work almost all
> the time and so he (or she) doesn't produce much. It's that simple. If
> you want to do great work, you clearly must work on important
> problems, and you should have an idea. **Most great scientists know
> many important problems**. They have something between 10 and 20
> important problems for which they are looking for an attack. And when
> they see a new idea come up, one hears them say "Well that bears on
> this problem."
>
>
>
Now my question is: If I ask myself the question, ***What are the important problems in my field?***, how should I expect to get an answer to this. Is it by deeply diving into literature and finding loopholes that exist. And even if I do find something worth working upon, how do I know it's an **important problem** of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem?
I am sorry but I am unable to get myself a clear picture of what exactly is meant here. Will anyone please help me out with ideas.
Many thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> What are the important problems in my field?, how should I expect to get an answer to this. Is it by deeply diving into literature and finding loopholes that exist. And even if I do find something worth working upon, how do I know it's an important problem of the field or a trivial subset of some other large problem?
>
>
>
I would interpret this statement not so much as trying to look for "loopholes" in the literature, more as trying to identify what the core problems are that are holding back further advancement in your field, and what would need to change in order for them to become tractable. This requires you to deeply understand the existing work, so as to learn what exactly needs to change for your field to really jump forward.
However, I should warn you - Hamming’s approach is certainly a high-risk-high-reward one. If you implement this, you will almost certainly have to invest quite some work detailling and understanding a large number of difficult problems that you will in all likelihood make no progress on during your lifetime. Really important problems invariably don't have a straight-forward solution (or, in many cases, no solution at all), so even if you bring yourself into the best position to attack them in the right circumstances, there is little guarantee that these circumstances ever come to pass (or that you are the first to recognize if some recent development in the field makes one of "your" open problems tractable). That said, *if* you manage to address even one really big, important problem, your impact will indeed be higher than what you can achieve in decades of incremental research.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Not everyone is a <NAME> or a <NAME>. They did what they did because they were brilliant. It's not like everyone can become them just by deciding to work on something different.
My advice is to keep a notebook and write down ideas. Occasionally do things like putting them in Excel and organizing them into categories (including multiple tags).
Personally, I WOULD find some safe work to do. That you know delivers results and that you can spend time on and get rewards from. Try to at least work up to, and around more fundamental ideas. But it is also good to "grind your pigments", not just jump to painting Mona Lisas.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: The important problems in each field are different, of course. Some of them are well known and well publicized. In CS, "Does P = NP" is one of those problems that every advanced student is introduced to. The same will be true of such problems in other fields. However, one of the reasons that such problems are important and well known is that they are very hard and that lots of people have tried and failed to solve them. There is normally a rich literature on such long-standing problems. But you aren't likely to solve them yourself. Some may even not be solvable at all.
Other problems are important, but unknown. They won't be known to be important until they are solved and the solutions are found to open up new lines of thought and inquiry. These are often solved purely by serendipity. Someone has an "interesting" thought and explores it. That leads to other interesting thoughts. If this work becomes known it may be *post facto* treated as important.
But a solo researcher is pretty unlikely to be the one to solve such problems, though it can happen.
**Collaboration is the key**
Important problems are most often solved by people who are not only able, and well trained, but also connected to other such people. In a research group, whether co-located or not, there are a tremendous number of ideas floating around and discussed. Some of these problems are big problems and some of them are just "interesting looking" areas of inquiry that haven't yet been mined for results. If you can get connected, somehow, to such a group then you will learn about those big, but not well-known, problems that might be worth attacking.
This is why research seminars at large departments are so valuable. People with a somewhat different viewpoint than your own can make suggestions, some of which can bear fruit. Doctoral dissertations often come from such seminars and some of them are important work on important problems, whether they provide a complete solution or not.
So, if there is advice to give here, my advice would be to look, first, for "interesting ideas" not important problems. Many of the important problems aren't known to be such so looking for them directly isn't fruitful. But find a group to work with and look at a lot of ideas. Some of them will, hopefully, turn out to be interesting. Hamming didn't work alone, of course.
And yes, what is "interesting" varies by field and with time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: While I think username_2's answer is relevant, here is a counterpoint.
It is true that not everyone will be able to solve outstanding problems in one's field. However, (imo) a recipe for bad science is to specialize to the extreme and keep working on a narrow set of problems, interesting only to a tiny community that doesn't exchange ideas with the rest of the field.
Here's how to know if a problem is important : talk with other people in your field, see what interests them. Everyone has their own backgrounds and their own interests, but the more attention a problem draws, the more important it is.
The amount of literature is also relevant: if there are a lot of publications from well-established people all around the world on a certain topic, then it's interesting (at least to people from your field). If the only people publishing papers about it are 2 guys in an obscure university, who are only referenced by each other, and who wrote 15 papers on the same topic all published in the same journal, it's probably not a serious topic.
So in conclusion, for most people it may be unrealistic to want to only work on major problems. BUT it doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to tackle (reasonnably easier) problems that are of interest to your community, instead of focusing too much on "what you know you can do".
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/02
| 749
| 3,276
|
<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a major revision of my manuscript on March 12th and the manuscript's status changed to "Editor Assigned" on March 19th. The journal does not allow a second "major revision," so I'm awaiting a final accept or reject decision, which I've been advised will be provided from the editor as soon as possible.
**Can I ask for the decision now?**
I really really need an answer for a grant application<issue_comment>username_1: You can always ask but from my experience you will just a get a copy&paste answer with the status from the journal website.
Putting too much pressure (many emails) on the editor might also have negative effects on the outcome of the decision (if the manuscript is a borderline case).
Concerning your specific situtation with the grant application: You can put the paper as "in revision" into the grant application.
@ "Can I ask for the manuscript's status before I'm sent the answer?" - You will just get an answer with the official status. I doubt that they will give away their decision via email before the official decision.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It is only three weeks since you submitted the revised version. The editor may not yet have looked at your submission and made a decision on the submission (whether to invite the reviewers to review your revised submission or other decision deemed necessary). The editor may be handling several manuscripts (and may have many other responsibilities) and may not process your revised manuscript so soon. Getting "answer from the editor as soon as possible" is relative - it could be days or weeks. Better to wait patiently unless the status of the submission doesn't change for too long.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Not a good idea: it's only been three weeks since you submitted the revision, and if the editor is inviting reviewers, that's too short a time for the reviewers to finish their reviews.
It's unfortunate that you really, really need a decision now, but if you press for one, you put the editor in a bind. They effectively have to make a decision now without the reviews. If they aren't an expert on the topic itself, it would come down to this question: would you rather publish a potentially flawed paper, or reject a potentially good one? That's not an easy question and different people will reach different answers; however, if you believe your paper is good and will pass the second round of review, there's no need to risk the editor falling in the latter camp.
tl; dr: wait however long it took for the reviewers to finish the reviews in the first round of review before asking for a decision.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Update!
First, thank you to the people that responded.
Actually, I was very anxious about the grant application but after reading your responses I just let the paper go through the process. It really was a short period of time to ask and I probably would have received a pre-written e-mail with no useful information.
In April 20th I received the answer: "minor revisions" this time. Pretty fast after all and specially after everything I´ve read about people waiting for months for an answer.
So, fingers crossed, I hope it’s going to be accepted.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/04/02
| 1,403
| 5,615
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am having a hard time deciding if I should go on for a PhD program after my current Master's program. I'm struggling with this a lot and hope to get some suggestions here.
So my situation: I'm doing a second Master's degree in mathematics after finishing my first Master's degree in Engineering. My current university doesn't have a very good ranking, so I'm considering a PhD offer from a university ranked around 160. I want to do research, but my biggest concern is that I'm 29 y/o, after finishing my PhD degree, I would be around 33-34. And I don't have a girlfriend. So by the time I finish my PhD degree, I would have no money, no girlfriend and not clear future, I might be single forever. This sounds so miserable. But the bright side is that I will have a PhD degree from a better university. And this might open more doors for me, I might even be able to go to Google with this PhD degree after graduation. And since I will work on hot CS topics, the professor said he is confident I will have many opportunities in both industry and academy after graduation. But of course there is no guarantee for anything. Though it's somewhat reasonable because I only have two years' background in computing, all my previous background is in civil engineering, I don't know how far I can go in computer science industry without a real degree in CS. On the other hand, if I decide to get a job instead, I can make some money first. And when I have money, I can secure myself and will have more chances to get a girlfriend, and financially easier to get married. Also since I will then have relevant working experience, it might even be easier for me to apply for many more top-tired American PhD programs? But of course this is only my imagination, I might end up losing this valuable PhD offer and not be able to get a better one by then?
Thanks a lot for your time and hope to get some kind advises!<issue_comment>username_1: You should not.
There are only four types of people who do a Ph.D.:
1. (1%) People who are dead-set on becoming a professor. Even within this group, you will find many of them are influenced by their family member who are professors or have Ph.D. themselves.
2. (50%) People from third-world countries who need to spend an obscene amount of time within the country which they plan to immigrate to in order to obtain VISA/green card. A Ph.D. makes tactical sense in this case.
3. (9%) People who are financially secure enough to do a Ph.D. People who fall into this camp are either people who have already done couple years in industry, has a lot of money to live comfortable as graduate student, and knows what's good for expanding their experience. Many of these people are even sponsored by their company. Alternatively, many have rich or well-off parents, usually with Ph.D. themselves, see 1.
4. (40%) People who have no idea what to do after a Bachelor or Masters, has good enough grade as to being able to continue on, but not enough work experience to make it in industry. I have seen many of these people passing through Ph.D. and having a miserable time afterwards. I know people who are in their 40s and still jumping from internship to internship.
Which type are you?
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Don't do it.
It sounds like you don't know why you want to do a PhD. You focus on things that aren't reasons, and where you do mention reasons they are very vague, e.g. in a comment you've said that:
>
> But I will have also opportunities to intern at national labs during my PhD, would that be helpful for my post-graduate career? And their math program is top 50 in QS ranking, sounds so attractive. And I do love research, the main issue is I'm too old and have no money.
>
>
>
First sentence ends with a question mark indicating you aren't sure it's true. You clearly can't make decisions if you don't know if it's true, so you should find out first before even thinking about the question. Second sentence indicates you want to study at that university simply because it's in the top 50 in the QS ranking, which is fine (I suppose we all have different priorities), but are you *sure* it's worth it? There's a high cost to studying: you earn less (if you earn anything at all), you spend time, you have to relocate, and so on. The same goes for the third sentence. If you're too old and have no money, why are you considering a PhD?
My read of your question is that you're studying because you have no idea what to do next and / or want to avoid the job market, which is not a good place to be. You'll have to get a job eventually - even if you do a PhD, you'll eventually finish the PhD and have to find something else. Until you've figured out what a PhD allows you to do that you can't do now, you should not do it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: PhD willnot add to you, it is stressful and lonely long journey, you can only do it if you are going to work with a nice and competent supervisor with a hot topic in CS, it could open doors for you. From your words, you dont know what do you want and that is critical, you dont want to loose many years on something you dont like. Concerning your personal life, I dont know whether it is impossible to find a girl friend while you are a PhD student, but I have witnessed students who get married, there is no problem.
But I think the priority is to ask yourself honestly, what do you want to be, are you going to feel happy if you accepted the offer. It is only you who can answer this question and then every thing would come on the right time and place.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/02
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<issue_start>username_0: The book is *On growth and forms* by <NAME>. It was published in 1942 and Thompson died in 1948. Wikipedia uses the image citing public domain. Can I use extracts and images from the book with proper citation without problem?
The image I want is on this page:
<https://archive.org/details/ongrowthform1917thom/page/322>
As you can see the book is in public domain and is freely available on archive.org<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on whether or not the book is in the public domain in your specific country. In some countries, copyright extends to some amount of time after the death of the author, for example 50 years. However, your country's copyright laws may be different.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> the image has caption and in bracket says (After Rhumbler), I am not sure if it is by Thompson himself.
>
>
>
It appears that Rhumbler, rather than Thompson, is the original creator of the image in question. You will have to dig some more to find out who Rhumbler is and/or where this image is originally from, to evaluate whether this image is in the public domain.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/02
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm trying to do a personal research project on a field, e.g. "quantum physics" and wanted to analyse which keywords are the most important or have the most papers in a field. Is there any way to achieve this?<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on whether or not the book is in the public domain in your specific country. In some countries, copyright extends to some amount of time after the death of the author, for example 50 years. However, your country's copyright laws may be different.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> the image has caption and in bracket says (After Rhumbler), I am not sure if it is by Thompson himself.
>
>
>
It appears that Rhumbler, rather than Thompson, is the original creator of the image in question. You will have to dig some more to find out who Rhumbler is and/or where this image is originally from, to evaluate whether this image is in the public domain.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm an undergraduate student at a research one university. My former instructor and current research mentor is defending their dissertation soon. I asked if I could attend and they said they would be fine with it.
My primary interest in doing so is to see how the defense process works for when I attend graduate school. I am also just genuinely interested in supporting them since we both research the same material and they've been incredibly encouraging and helpful to me.
I know defenses are open to the public, but, in your opinion, would a student attending your defense add more stress or disrupt the process? I just want to make sure I'm not making anything more difficult for them or overstepping a boundary, even though they say they are totally okay with me attending.<issue_comment>username_1: **It's fine.** As you say, these are open to the public, and it's common for family members, department members, and friends to attend. Since you perhaps are not "firmly" in any of these categories, asking whether it's okay to attend is probably a good idea -- but you've already done this and been given the green light. Enjoy.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: I think [@username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127431/15762) ("it's fine") is actually a bit too mild. **Please go if you can!**
Attitudes towards thesis defenses seem to vary a bit from program to program. My PhD program had a pretty strong (but informal) expectation that people would attend defenses, especially if they a) worked together b) worked in the same sub-field, or c) were friendly. That expectation is weaker in my current department: students do go, but it's acceptable to skip defenses due to non-specific 'busyness' too. In both places, it would certainly not be seen as odd or inappropriate to attend, especially if you have some relationship with the presenter or a professional interest in the topic.
On a more personal note, the final stages of grad school are often lonely and miserable, or at least it was for me. It was therefore incredibly touching to have people turn up for the defense: the room was *packed* with friends, family, collaborators, and even a few new people who were inexplicably interested in my work. To the extent that your presence triggers an emotion, I think it's much more likely to be gratitude and pride ("Awww, she came!") than stress or confusion ("What's *she* doing here?!").
Plus, there might be some free food afterward!
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: In the similar situations I know (habilitation kind of dissertations) it will be seen bizarre if you are not there, both on scientific as well as human relationship point of views.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It's fine, I have walked into stressful defence-type lectures which one of my teachers was teaching. I don't mean to put the person off, but it's standard and you have to get used to it. When I first started teaching even though I was nervous I invited my friend to sit in on one of my lectures as it's something you have to get used to. Anyone can walk in there, you could be giving a stressful lecture one day and a family member you haven't seen for ages will randomly walk in and sit down to watch.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: This is a normal thing to do. I was in a similar position and will be attending my mentor's dissertation in May. It's nice to give back to someone who has helped you out a lot by supporting them during a very challenging experience. Just make sure he's okay with it. He will probably be very encouraged!
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I am 3 years into a PhD program at a top North American university in STEM. My daily routine includes working on my research and preparing for courses I am assisting. In general, I would say that there is always work to keep me motivated. I have a good relationship with my supervisor. However, I don't feel valued by my department.
Recently an undergrad in one of my class had a chat with me about deciding on pursuing grad school. He asked me about my research and the courses that I took. I felt that he wasn't very impressed, as he was more industry-oriented and failed to see how real analysis can help anyone.
He then asked me couple things which left me even more self-conscious
>
> 1. I wish to go to graduate school, but I also fear that I will miss out opportunities to make hundreds of thousands of dollar per year
> working in industry. I also wish to be financially independent and
> have an early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this
> reality?
>
>
>
I had really no answer to this question, as I am in constant doubts myself over the rising opportunity cost of doing a PhD. There is a part of me that beckons me to leave academia immediately. It tells me that I could do so much better, be more free only if I had made the choice after I graduated with my Bachelors. Only if I knew how little I would be paid compared to my peers.
>
> 2. Programming and software development are highly valued skills in industry. Almost all jobs nowadays requires some form of it. Do you
> think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?
>
>
>
I cannot say yes to this question either. I do use programming every now and then, but I am in no way comparable to a person who works solely in this field. It does seem that programming skill seems to be the only skill that employers value, a litmus or IQ test for a world of graduate students with questionable credentials. Even newly minted PhDs are directly sent to software developments, albeit more specialized. No, a graduate degree has not prepared me to be a competent coder, the one skill that would make transition from academia to industry so much more smoother.
>
> 3. Do you believe in the theory and methodology you are developing? How do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the
> products people develop in industry?
>
>
>
I cannot answer this question either. All the techniques, theories I developed seemed to only produce more techniques and theories. None of which I can see or use to directly benefit anyone. That is not to say they are bad for publishing paper. In fact I feel that they might be too good for this narrow purpose, and I have lost sight in what excited me about research in the first place: the potential to have real-life impact on real actual people. No, I do not believe in my own research, or that of anyone else who are working in my department, aside from the few people who are doing it along with industry.
>
> 4. What do you do when you are not working on your research?
>
>
>
I paused for a second. I don't know what I am doing besides research and teaching assistance duties. While my peers on instagram or facebook are traveling all around the world, visiting new places, I am bound to my institution. I cannot leave it for there is always more work. It is like a full-time job except that it is from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening, occupying weekends, holidays, and all the moments I could have spent with my loved ones. Have I made the wrong decision?
---
This conversation compounded on a few more I had in the past few weeks with fellow graduate students after the semester started to wind down. Each of them displayed pessimism over the rising cost of living, and missed opportunities. Yet they still have faith in their (however abstract) research, which I feel like act as more of a distraction than anything else.
I wonder if this is the start of a long descent towards regretting my PhD all together. I am really starting to feel that a PhD is a punishment towards my lack of conviction in my studies, or me being unable to develop a passion for something. "If only I was solely interested in anti-jamming self-packing oscillators! maybe I could have been working for the oscillator company and making bank! How do these people get interested in this esoteric thing?"
Am I even better than an undergrad student in any way?
Every day I wake up telling myself that the grass only looks greener on the other side, and I can't really tell if I could have been happier in industry. But there is always the lingering thought of what could have been.
Has anyone ever had these thoughts at some stage of their PhD career?
Is there any way to renew my faith in my PhD degree?<issue_comment>username_1: Oh man, where does one begin...
I am half-way in to my second postdoc at what I consider to be the best research facility in Northern Europe in my field. So take my advice as such, although where you work does not say so much about you, as one might think.
>
> How do I gain back my faith in my PhD degree?
>
>
>
**Short answer:** you don't, as long as you are in status quo. If something changes by an act of serendipity, maybe you do..
**Longer answer:** you might regain some faith, by reframing your reference point. In other words, change your expectations and your feelings might change as well.
Regarding the questions the student asked you:
1. If optimizing your overall income is a primary concern, don't bother with a PhD. Yes, there are cases where having a phd might pay off by making a high-paid job available, but cumulative work experience, raises as well as the confidence and training you get on job will likely end up as a bigger plus.
>
>
> >
> > *... wish to be financially independent and have an early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this reality?*
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
There is certainly no reason to panic if financial independency is what you are striving towards, though. I have been financially independent from my family/loans the entirety of my graduate studies, and even managed to save enough money to get a mortgage loan to buy myself an apartment (small but more than decent) **while** I was a PhD student.
That might be more of a statement of which country you live in (e.g. Sweden vs USA) or which city you want to do pursue graduate studies (e.g. San Francisco vs San Diego). The point is that you do make a living, you are not an undergrad anymore.
Don't even get started with pension subject, that stuff is too complicated. Practically unless you are making a stupendous salary or some wicked investment decisions there is no guaranteed early and relaxed retirement. As populations get older on average, and indirectly their costs to the society increase, the pension systems will have to undergo a significant restructuring, and I for one am expecting that to create some very heated debates and go down not so easily.
Bottomline: Do a PhD if the subject interests you deeply, or if you think you will be gaining a skill that is highly valued in industry. I am working with bioinformatics, and if I want to get a job in this field, without a PhD you are not really respected. I have some friends that have done PhDs in economics, which were highly valued and allowed them to land jobs they would have otherwise. That may not translate to every field however.
2. Doing a PhD is not an education that prepares you for a profession. **It's an academic degree not a professional one.** You need to keep that in mind. Actually, write it on a post-it, put on your mirror at home and repeat it to yourself everyday. Twice, if you can, in the morning and evening when you brush your teeth...
It's so easy to lose track of that insight. Doing a PhD is education to become an academic, to think critically, to be able to read and teach (to some degree at least). You will get to be a better critique of others' work and your own. You will get training on reading and writing. You will most likely face the boundaries of your intellectual capabilities. But no it does not directly imply you will be better at a job, unless that job is specifically related to the things I mentioned above.
>
>
> >
> > *Do you think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?*
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> No, a graduate degree has not prepared me to be a competent coder, the one skill that would make transition from academia to industry so much more smoother.
>
>
>
No, it shouldn't either. That's why there are certificate programs, and bootcamps, Coursera and Khan Academy, and software carpentry etc etc.
However, did you stop to consider that doing a PhD might have you working on an actual problem, to which you get to design a novel algorithm to solve that problem, or to improve the solution? Or maybe a new protocol for networking/encryption etc? Having some specialized experience might make you an indispensable profile for a company looking for expertise in that field. But no by default, graduate studies do not make you a better professional.
3. Re: relevance
>
>
> >
> > *How do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the products people develop in industry?*
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
In most cases, you don't! At least not for sure... You can look at citations of your papers, although even that can be misleading as people cite other papers for many different reasons. I actually asked [a question somewhat related to this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7688/verifying-that-cited-results-are-still-current-before-publishing) a while back...
In some, rare, cases you might end up doing something that changes the landscape of the field; like writing a software that becomes the de facto gold standard for a particular type of analysis. You might come up with a technique or a protocol that is used by others. Or you might even stumble on some key result, by sheer luck.
More likely, you will provide incremental additions of knowledge into an ocean, most of which will go unnoticed, at least initially. If that bothers you, that is OK. It bothers me too, and I do consider my position in academia as well. But that should not cause you any despair. It only shows that you want to be proud of your work and get the acknowledgement you deserve. Unfortunately we don't *always* get what we want.
4. Re:Comparing yourself to the others especially on social media
>
> While my peers on instagram or facebook are traveling all around the world, visiting new places...
>
>
>
Stop! Social media is literally designed to create that feeling. At the end of the day, **you never know who goes home to cry about their day**, no matter how amazing their Instagram photos may look, or how much "fun" they are having wherever they may be.
For many people their life online, or at least they portray their life online, has become their identity. There are many people who have analyzed this in great detail. I especially like [this article](https://www.wusername_7gtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/12/12/former-facebook-vp-says-social-media-is-destroying-society-with-dopamine-driven-feedback-loops/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b9a960ea6321) (go ahead and listen to the talk in its entirety). Also read about online influencers ([here's a starting point](https://www.1843magazine.com/features/meet-alexa-inside-the-mind-of-a-digital-native)).
**Edit:** As @FrankHopkins pointed out in the comments, doing a PhD might actually take you to many exciting places for conferences or courses. I have been to a number of really cool places, most of which I would either not bother traveling on my own or would be able to afford at the time :)
---
Overall my answer(s) might appear very dystopian. But I would rather say realistic, and in any case, they are based on my experience.
I'd like to wrap it up on a positive tone, with hopefully concrete steps to help you find your way around, because ultimately, nobody can tell you if you have taken the right decision.
Here are some concrete steps I can suggest for you to feel a bit better:
* Get a mentor! Someone at least 10 years your senior and *ideally* someone who has a life story that resembles your own. Of course finding a good match might be tricky but check whether or not there is a mentorship program provided by your university/faculty/student council etc.
Listen to that person's story, but make sure you don't fall into tutor-student relationship. How did s/he take the critical decisions in his/her life? What was valuable to them at that time, and how did that turn out later? How does the person define success?
* Speaking of success, try to think **real hard** about what you define success to be. It's great to make lots of money, or have an h-index in the 100s but it's really not the whole picture. You might end up working yourself to the bone and still not be happy/successful enough. As a rule of thumb, I'd recommend avoiding taking anything quantifiable as a measure of success because **anything that goes to *n* also goes to *n+1***.
* Don't let others dictate your mindset, whether they are your peers or seniors. There is a lot of "fake it 'till you make it" out there.
* Try to see where you make/made a difference. That could be helping a peer solve their problem, going to a meeting instead of your boss so that he can go take his/her sick kid from daycare. That could be helping a student in a lab, or writing to a fellow academic on the other side of the world, to help him/her sort out the mess that is a life in academia. ;)
Hope it helps!
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, your reflection triggered by the undergrad's questions is in my view wide-spread among PhD students. I'd be inclined to say that far more than half run into such questions. I went through such thoughts by myself and have to say that there is unfortunately no easy answer, not at all. You basically have to *decide on your own* how to view and create your path, one way is to try to make the best out of what is there.
Second, I agree much with the 4 [sub-answers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127438/94523) of @username_1, adding to 1. and 2. my experience from two of my job interviews in industry: I was asked how I plan to compensate for the lack of professional experience caused by doing my PhD in computer science and how I plan to compete with usually experienced practitioners of my age that spent their postgrad work life in industry? I had a hard time in answering their question.
Point 3. is very difficult: You may have to convince yourself of your results, particularly, when nobody out there cares. It also depends on your own vision. If you don't have one, you can create one. Of course, it gets easier the more feedback you get, and by feedback I mean any kind of feedback. Negative feedback has proven most valuable to me as it helps to learn much much faster.
Regarding social media (4.), I have recently finished [<NAME>'s book](https://www.worldcat.org/title/ten-arguments-for-deleting-your-social-media-accounts-right-now/oclc/1076509683) and conclude it to be a very nice guide to how to view social media. I still use it but with a drastically changed view. :)
My take-away as a computer scientist (!): a PhD in computer science by no means leads to great advantages for pursuing a career in industry, although it is surprisingly often seen primarily that way! However, as @username_1 points out, it is a necessity in the training for a scientific career. And I view it **only** as such.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Welcome to the real world!
My read of your question is, your student is asking questions that you didn't think of before you started your PhD. In other words, you started your PhD without really thinking about why you're doing it. This is of course less than ideal - I firmly believe you should've thought about these questions before commencing the PhD - but that's in the past now, and figuring out what to do next is more important.
So now what? I recommend first to **stop worrying about "gaining back faith" in your PhD**. This wording makes it sound like you want to return to your old state where you just go about your PhD blissfully unaware of what happens after. Abandon this notion because after you graduate you are going to have to face the same questions. In other words, *stop thinking about the PhD as though it is sacrosanct*. You don't have to complete it! If you get less out of the PhD than the effort you put in to acquire it, you can (and perhaps should) leave! There is nothing wrong with leaving - this culture is [prevalent in academia](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/108543/what-makes-academic-failure-different-from-failure-in-another-career) but you should still not feel obliged to stay.
Next, **figure out why you're doing the PhD now**. Better late than never. For example,
>
> I had really no answer to this question, as I am in constant doubts myself over the rising opportunity cost of doing a PhD. There is a part of me that beckons me to leave academia immediately. It tells me that I could do so much better, be more free only if I had made the choice after I graduated with my Bachelors. Only if I knew how little I would be paid compared to my peers.
>
>
>
It's good that you're thinking about this now, but you still can't make an informed decision because you don't have the facts. You need to answer questions such as:
* Is money all that important to you? Of course nobody can do without money, but if you're the kind of person for whom a $500k annual salary means a lot more than $100k/year, even though $100k/year is more than enough to live comfortably, then you want to figure that out now because it indicates you are on the wrong career path. It doesn't mean you should quit, but it does mean you'll be somewhat miserable the rest of your PhD knowing there's something "out there" that you want and can't have.
* If the answer to the above is yes, then just how much money are you missing out on? How much are you being paid now, and how much can you earn if you moved to industry? This is again something to find out. Ask your peers in industry, perhaps other undergraduates you studied with.
* If the answer to the above is no, then you know you can likely earn more elsewhere but you believe that the joys of academia more than compensate the monetary difference. In this case your financial situation isn't something to worry about (as long as you earn enough to get by) and you can put this concern out of your mind.
In conjunction with this I recommend checking out your local jobs portal for what positions you can get if you leave academia now. See if you like the jobs, see if you have the skills, see how much they pay.
>
> I cannot say yes to this question either. I do use programming every now and then, but I am in no way comparable to a person who works solely in this field. It does seem that programming skill seems to be the only skill that employers value, a litmus or IQ test for a world of graduate students with questionable credentials. Even newly minted PhDs are directly sent to software developments, albeit more specialized. No, a graduate degree has not prepared me to be a competent coder, the one skill that would make transition from academia to industry so much more smoother.
>
>
>
This is another tough question that should be answered sooner rather than later. What exactly are you trying to learn? What skills do you acquire in the PhD that makes you more employable than a random MIT undergraduate with a BS degree? Figure it out because otherwise you're going to be in for a rude shock when you graduate.
If you've discovered that to succeed in industry the most important thing is to be a "competent coder", then you should absolutely focus your attention on getting as much coding experience as possible. Direct your PhD towards that. Choose a research direction that involves heavy coding. Write using different languages if you can.
Alternatively, if you're completely uninterested in industry, you can continue doing what you're doing. This commits you to the academic career path, with all its challenges and struggles. Are you game to compete against all the other PhD students out there looking for postdocs and tenure-track positions? Again this is something only you can answer. Think carefully before you answer because you'll feel truly miserable if you say yes, then discover five years in the future that the academic path isn't for you (and vice versa if you say no).
(Similar points apply to the rest of the questions you mention. Get a clear idea of what you want, and what you're missing out on if you stay in academia.)
Finally, after having amassed the facts, then you can decide what to do next. The factors involved in this decision are complex, and again only you can make the choice. You could, for example, decide that since 1) you're already 3 years into a 5-year program and 2) there are interesting jobs that require a PhD in your area, investing the two remaining years is worth it. Or maybe you could decide that it isn't worth it, in which case you can start looking for a job now and quit when you get one. Or maybe you could decide that yes, you can have a better-paying career if you quit, but you don't care about the money and would rather work on blue skies problems. Et cetera.
Good luck. Whatever you choose, it's a major life decision.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Let me give you a perspective from someone who made the opposite choice.
---
I was a stellar undergrad in a top 10 engineering school, got perfect grades. I took a bunch of extra courses across many departments just because I was curious and knew I'd never get an other chance to learn things like chemistry so quickly and rigorously in a guided environment. I bounced around a few labs but always came to the conclusion that the research wasn't going to be worth as much as I'd like and moved on to the next exciting thing. Becoming a CS TA and honing my programming skills earned me one of those sexy internships at a Big 5 software company. But I realized "the real world" I'd been told to be so scared of was a cake walk. At the Institute I worked 60-70 hour weeks at least, every week. In industry all my smartest coworkers, even the full-timers were using 1/3 of their intellectual capacity. It was an easy, well-paid life, but they ultimately just kept the system running and didn't often have chances to be inventive.
So I applied to grad programs at the few universities considered to be a touch better than mine, but without published work I didn't get in to any. Ended up back at my same institution pursuing a Master's in my same discipline (Electrical Engineering), because the department was happy to give one of their best students a tuition waiver if he would TA for them. Got interested in Tissue Engineering, believing it to be the most important revolutionary technology of our age, and got in to a bioengineering PhD program. They used to pass around a list of projects new students could get involved in, just something compiled from all the PIs. I was excited and did the legwork running around talking to many of them, but their work was very much about low-level experimentation, growth factors, and live animal studies. The PhD would take 6-7 years, and I wouldn't be able to study [the broader signaling/abstracted 'library' of cellular commands](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4667987/) that I was interested in. The second year I saw the list, I went through crossing out thing after thing, now having enough knowledge to say "That will never work; that's ridiculous; there are more important questions that should be answered instead; we don't have nearly enough knowledge as a community to be able to succeed at this yet."
Jaded again, recognizing that a tax-break-friendly-science-antagonistic administration would be in control of government, still carrying a significant amount of student debt, and feeling like a child and a ghost to still be in the same place, I decided to take the EE MS and look for jobs. I'd found an ever deeper affinity for the math underlying controls, signal processing, and machine learning in those couple years, and I knew I hated vanilla software engineering, but still going up to companies and hearing "Well, with your experience you could probably do any of these things. So what do *you* want?" was a daunting question. I settled on AI-related software and did the coding interview circuit. In the end a defense company offered me a job in a new research division. But the VP who was pushing that got forced out, and the building never got built, and I ended up bounced around to a different site (which I was okay with) working on an ML-related project.
I loved it at first, got to build a few neat things and explore, and I was well-paid. But not all was roses. I discovered that people liked to look at the org chart to see who was right instead of valuing ideas. Certain bad actors craved control and didn't appreciate any work that didn't originate with themselves, actively stifled initiative and creativity. I'm a strong personality who stands up for himself, for coworkers, for solutions that will empirically save trouble, against bad character and denial. My immediate superiors [didn't believe in healthy conflict](https://www.fastcompany.com/90325341/why-conflict-is-good-in-the-workplace), so it became an ugly cold war. A lead several layers up who had loved all my demonstrative and educational presentations eventually got involved, saw I was right to take a stand on certain things, and moved me to a different program, where I still get a chance to read papers and do academic things and be the "AI guru". I've watched the team I came from continue to devolve as more of my coworkers run up against the same problems and leave (9 so far out of a team of 3 in a <2 year span, many to other companies) while management refuses to admit their mistake and remove bad actors' authority.
---
I love my current group. They're good people, brilliant people, who work very well as a team. They're from diverse industries with complementary strengths, and they've been through a lot together. But they're jaded too! After exciting meetings with other smart groups across the company, they express pessimism that leadership will actually be able to knit efforts together. Time will tell whether that's justified and whether I'll feel the same.
I don't have to work *that* hard, but I'm not just keeping a system going. I'm designing, inventing, exploring. I've gotten in to skiing in the last year even though I live nowhere near mountains, because I have the time and money to go. I've been out of debt a while and am actually investing.
But I'm still dissatisfied. I worry that I lack the academic credentials (a body of published papers and a PhD) to really pursue the kinds of jobs I want later in my career. I feel like I'm left behind by an academia that moves apace. I don't have mentorship from real academics who are way smarter than I am. The climate is too hot. I'm not in a big city, and there are lots of engineers here, so my romantic prospects are limited by demographics--something that eats at my mind since the relationship I had in grad school fell apart, a particularly prolonged, painful process that took me a long time to understand and stop blaming myself for. (She still blames me for all her issues. Not healthy.) These days I've been getting in shape, reading more books, and trying to get back to a mental place where I could do a convincing round of coding interviews. I still want to go back to grad school, but I need to be *positive* the project I'll be working on is a good one in a good lab with good coworkers and a PI who won't abuse me, and I worry there's no way to get the letters of recommendation I would need to break in to such an environment.
---
The moral of the story is you will *always* question yourself. I and my brilliant CS friends who went and got jobs at Big 5 or elsewhere are doing work that's really no more meaningful than the arcane work you're doing. Sure, we as a society have decided we want the [Systems](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B00AK1BIDM) to keep functioning or function better and are willing to throw money at the problem. But even if as a whole that's meaningful, a worker-bee's role is really small, and our products may come to nothing the moment we turn our backs, just like how the body of scientific work is meaningful, yet your role is really small, and maybe no one will read your papers. People are rarely given the chance to have or are fortunate enough to stumble in to [those eureka moments that really make a difference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g). That's a heartbreaking reality, but we soldier on anyway, because to not do so would be giving up, because we want to be better people, because there is a chance we can make a difference, even if only as a tiny piece of that giant who's shoulders someone else gets to stand on, because "[it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/27504-it-did-not-really-matter-what-we-expected-from-life)" It's healthy to question yourself, even to become a little jaded, because it makes you wiser and keeps you on a path you actually think might go somewhere. We'd all rather you and the other bees be on those paths than ones you think are pointless and stand no chance of benefiting us, but we trust your hive-mind to make those decisions, and we'll accept long- as well as short-term benefits. Not all bees need to explore the same territory.
My advice is to excel for the 2 more years it takes to finish your PhD and be proud of what you've done, not because it's great, but because it made you intrinsically better. Sure, you've given up a lot of money, but a PhD carries respect with it because people know you made that sacrifice and walked through fire to get it, and that makes you tough, worthy of the really fulfilling inventive jobs out in the wider world. Instead of being like me, the most academic guy in a room with no others or the least academic guy in a room full of PhDs, you can belong. But also ask yourself the big questions: "What makes me happy?", "What do I want to do with my life?", "Who do I want to spend life with?", and don't neglect the answers no matter how busy you are, because otherwise you'll wake up and have a [Catastrophe of Success](https://genius.com/Tennessee-williams-the-catastrophe-of-success-annotated) moment when the pressure is gone. It happened to me after being so institutionalized for so long. It happens to everyone.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: As to software development, I was a Ph.D. in EE (Signal processing using MATLAB to support research). Today, I am a professional programmer, working mostly with SQL, XML, classic-asp, asp.net, and Visual Studio. {This is called 3-stack development, or N-stack development, sometimes web development). In between, I did real-time firmware and C/C++/C# [even some assembly-language programming] and an occasional MATLAB job/project/task.
One can always learn programming if one has the desire and the time.
If you can think of a way to combine it with your research so much the better.
Even asking if your University has a website where you may post results and coding your own HTML and so forth can be good.
As for the long-term part, if you have begun the journey, I advise finishing it, but of course, that is just my opinion.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Here's my story. I hope it can be helpful.
My first few years in a STEM PhD program at a top-tier research university in the US were tough. I had breezed through college but struggled in grad school and felt the canonical imposter syndrome. I earned the MS when I passed the Qualifying Exams, but I had trouble settling into any particular research group or project. Like you, I wanted to do research that would improves lives around the world, but felt seriously disillusioned with the perception that most projects were doing little more than filling library shelves and advancing the reputations of the most ambitious and cut-throat careerist academics.
At one point I took leave for a term to figure things out. By this time I was married with two children. I came across <NAME>'s book The Trouble With Physics, which opened my eyes to the serious sociological problems in STEM in general and physics in particular, but also reawakened my desire to pursue excellence in research. I spent a year and a half with a group doing research in how my discipline is taught to undergraduates, and that was very enjoyable for me.
After six years in the PhD program, and at a point where I was basically ABD, one night I looked at my wife and told her I thought it was time to walk away from the program and move to my home state. That's exactly what we did.
I had all sorts of friends and acquaintances telling me what a mistake I was making, and how much I would regret not finishing. I came under quite a bit of pressure that I didn't quite expect. But that gut feeling would not quit. It was almost a physical insistence that I no longer be there.
So we left. I got a job in my home state teaching my discipline, and eventually I made my way into semiconductors and later software development. Although there have been hard times and difficult decisions, careful consideration and honest thinking has inevitably served me well and brought me to a better spot time after time.
It's been almost a decade since I walked away from my PhD, and I can say honestly that not once have I regretted it. In fact I'm doing better than I have at any time in my life in various facets: financially, emotionally, and the degree to which I enjoy my work and feel that I am making a positive difference. I am content.
I also continue to come up with research ideas that I trust will have their time.
I would advise anyone in your spot to get somewhere quiet and carefully think about the situation and your deepest feelings about it. Whatever the nature of intuition, it will come and it is a trustworthy and reliable guide to what one should do next.
Whether it's renewed faith in your PhD or the space to allow yourself to move on, you'll find what you need, and I encourage you to trust that intuition.
All the best.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Short life story that parallels the questions:
Q1. I wish to go to graduate school, but I also fear that I will miss out opportunities to make hundreds of thousands of dollar per year working in industry. I also wish to be financially independent and have an early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this reality?
A1. Sort of. Looking back, I was an okay grad in physics - took some time for a startup, but finished PhD, found my spouse along the way - the reality of post-doc was that life wasn't going to be real productive financially. Applied to small colleges to teach, and got some very lovely rejection letters from a few Chairs that urged me to try again. I had some experiences running the official campus tutoring for undergrad physics for the university which seemed to help, but not put me over the edge. Anyhow, I quit pure academics and worked in a large scale academic simulation lab working on bleeding edge code that it productized and that is now widely used and considered a benchmark in the field. Took that experience got an MBA and shortly after was making low six figures and as a consulting partner ended up much higher. Not retired, but switched to startups and other paths recently. A lot more fun than the grid of consulting.
Q2. Programming and software development are highly valued skills in industry. Almost all jobs nowadays requires some form of it. Do you think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?
Not directly. I was always programming as a child and still program today. I ended up doing a mix of hobby programming, research-academic programming, production programming, large systems programming along the way. I feel like a competent-but-uninspired programmer. I did mostly self-education and then demonstration through tangible projects over the years. I was lucky to have coworkers who were in our CS department in grad school and later and learned a lot from them. As a mgmt consultant, did not do any programming for the job but it helped me work with SW and SaaS companies on their ops and strategy. Today, in my current path - I'm again semi-self taught in machine learning / AI / CV - and learning more all the time. Its fun, but I still hate the act of programming. However, Physics was good background.
Q3. Do you believe in the theory and methodology you are developing? How do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the products people develop in industry?
Yes, but No, but then later Yes. As a college student, I worked on product code for my startup. In academics, my code worked fine and was performant, but was barely readable academic codes, not very practical in real life, but I learned a lot about simulation, numerical methods, and high performance computing along the way. In the simulation lab, our code was used widely for large scale and nearly-production quality work - it was at the time very modern, distributed computing, OO design using a clever mix of C++ and Python - and is still widely used (and cited) today.
Q4. What do you do when you are not working on your research?
In retrospect, I should have stressed less, pursued studies more in things that just interested me even if off the beaten path, enjoyed other things, and invested the $ I had in Apple, Ebay, Google, and Amazon when I first started using their products or services...I would be retired :) Today, I find a mix of talking with my family, taking piano lessons, doing photography, taking late night walks, talking to people about their business problems, hacking at the odd tech a lot of fun.
I look back and see things went pretty okay - could have been better, and could have been much worse. I personally would do the PhD again - I would probably take it more seriously but also I would also know it wasn't a life commitment as much as a commitment to a life of thinking. At least for me, I found over time many changes and opportunities that worked for me along the way. It was good I found things through my MBA that (1) followed the money (2) had good demand (3) I did like (4) I was good at. Consulting worked for me - but it was not a life goal, nor was it the 100% fulfilling passion of my life. But it was a practical way to do well and like what I did. I had lots of doubts along the way, and still do. But my family is well, the kids are good, and I like what I'm doing - and I'm glad I had the modest academic career I did have.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Yourself and others here have pointed out the uncertainty in evaluating the direct opportunity cost of doing a PhD vs being in the industry. Clearly there's no right or wrong answer there and it really depends on the individual and many factors. I would just like to point out that there are some "indirect" benefits to doing a PhD, that I myself didn't realise until I was much older.
Depending on your background and circumstances, doing a PhD may be the most challenging thing that you have done in your young life, primarily due to the inherent uncertainty that exists within research. If this is the case, then what you're learning is also how to cope with and manage these challenges, and a good deal of self-knowledge. Once I mentioned in a conversation with a senior person in a company that I learnt exactly how my own learning curve looks like after doing a PhD, he was so impressed that he practically offered me a job there and then.
In addition, you're learning to solve problems using a high degree of intellectual capacity, so this is what you can eventually "sell". There are many programmers and, but if I was looking to hire one, I would probably pick someone who can understand and solve the bigger problem with less actual programming skill if the choice came down to that.
There is also an element of "moral" satisfaction you get from doing research, depending on your area, as it is not usually geared towards making more money for someone else - definitely possible to find this outside research but not that easily within the industries employing STEM professionals.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: There have been a lot of answers and I just want to share my experience in that academia-industry topic, However, I don't have a PhD, though.
**TL; DR**
You gave the answer: **"the grass only looks greener on the other side"**. This applies both for the being on industry/being on academia discussion. But also in your specific question regarding your PhD degree, It might not have a clear or real impact for you (you are on this side), but someone outside the project, even outside the main field of your project (the other side), could find it useful and interesting, and could find a high value in it.
---
Since I while doing my bachelor degree, I had been changed my focus/field between industry and academia, not in a bad sense of indecision, but sometimes forced, sometimes aimed and found that there is a narrow, fuzzy band where the two can co-exist: R&D in industry, well-driven R&D.
My interest never was the money, but sometimes it was my need, but what I most value is to have life/work balance and to enjoy what I do.
Answering your student questions:
>
> I wish to go to graduate school, but I also fear that I will miss out
> opportunities to make hundreds of thousands of dollar per year working
> in industry. I also wish to be financially independent and have an
> early retirement. Can doing a PhD for five years offer this reality?
>
>
>
If your priority is money in short-term, go to the industry as soon as you finish your undergraduate. The matter is that with postgraduate, you have chances to increase your income in the long-term and enter directly to a higher position than a junior one. But note this: **chances**.
>
> Programming and software development are highly valued skills in
> industry. Almost all jobs nowadays requires some form of it. Do you
> think your degree has prepared you to be competent in these areas?
>
>
>
Just software related degrees prepare you to be a professional programmer. Experts and professional programmers make beautiful and excellent programs and applications. But someone who *can* code at a decebt level, and have experience in another field, could link these two skills to articulate a software solution for a non-software problem/opportunity. It is a personal decision which skills to improve and to what level.
>
> Do you believe in the theory and methodology you are developing? How
> do you know that your model can be used by actual people, like the
> products people develop in industry?
>
>
>
When you plan a project in academia (Thesis, research, etc) and you like and enjoy your field, you could begin with higher expectations of your project and yourself. Even you could overestimate what you can achieve. But when you are executing the project, you could become the main critic of your work and think it is useless and has no impact. But as you said, *"the grass only looks greener on the other side"*, others could see the value of your work more than yourself.
>
> What do you do when you are not working on your research?
>
>
>
If at this stage of your life, your priority is your career, it is completely fine to have work/academia-related hobbies. If you are ok with your career and you want to spend your out-of-work time in gym, traveling, sports, family, sleeping, volunteer that is fine too.
---
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: (These are not particularly much advice for getting a PhD at all but for life in general.)
---
You should work on *stopping to focus on feeling "valued"*.
The point of doing a PhD is to get so damn good at something so most people have no idea what you know or what it signifies. The more you know the lonelier and further it will be between every new person you meet who happen to know the same thing and know how to value it.
So you should learn to find happiness in your work and focus on the excitement you have for your field and your subject. Strive to distance yourself from wanting praise - because if you get any good at your trade - most people will simply have no clue how good you are.
If all goes well, you are supposed to surpass your own teachers... perhaps by such a margin that they also don't know how good your work is or if it is worthy of praise. By that time you will have needed to learn how to find happiness in your own work and to trust your own skills and instincts enough to both value and verify it all on your own.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: Remember why you ever pursued PhD and find happiness in what you do. Everyone in academia came for science and stayed for science. If you did not, then you should leave for academia has nothing to offer you. Academia is the place of science for the sake of science.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: It's a normal case for researchers to have some manuscripts under reviewing. So, can such only-submitted and currently-unpublished papers add some value to CV of whom apply for a PhD program? Should they be included in CV at all?<issue_comment>username_1: The rule of thumb with writing a CV is to **keep things relevant**. If what you are writing is relevant for the purpose you are writing your CV (you should really have a template CV, and customize it for each application), then yes add them.
So a couple of ways how I could see that being relevant for you, specifically:
* you mention applying to a PhD program, so it might be relevant to show whoever is taking the decision that you have worked on something similar before
* in a similar way, it could be meaningful to show that you have some research experience, as opposed to other graduates that have 0 research experience.
* if your manuscript in review has been uploaded to a preprint server (like arXiv or BioRxiv) then you might even be able to showcase the work you have done.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Unpublished texts are not only OK, but sometimes essential. When considering applicants for a PhD position I want to have samples of the applicants' scientific writings. In the absence of published articles, these have to be unpublished texts, or even internship reports. (Reports are sometimes better than articles, because articles can have several authors, while a report is typically written by the applicant alone.)
So the answer is: yes, list all your relevant writings, published or not. Give links to the full texts that are available online, otherwise be prepared to send them on request.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a manuscript (in the field of biomedical research) close to submission with four authors: me (as first author) (ME), my ex-boss (as senior author) (EB) and two more authors of which one is a very senior professor (SP) and the other one is a junior professor (JP).
The SP contributed considerably more than the JP. My question is now which order of the authors would be more appropriate:
1. ME, SP, JP, EB (higher contribution of SP means further to the front)
2. ME, JP, SP, EB (SP is more senior therefore closer to the senior author position (which is already occupied by EB) and it is not going to be a shared senior authorship)
I will of course ask them directly but I would like go get some opinions first ...
--------- EDIT --------
All authors are professors and independent PIs without a hierarchy between them.
--------- EDIT --------
We discussed it and decided for the option:
```
ME, SP, JP, EB
```<issue_comment>username_1: Assuming you are a junior researcher like a PhD student, I would defer to the professors to sort this issue out themselves. Voicing any opinions about this matter could have a non-zero probability of stepping on someone's toes.
Given that, there is essentially no perceived difference between second and third author. And in the two possibilities you just described, all authors 'get their due', so there is no issue about fairness here either.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm not in your field, but personally I would lean towards option #1
>
> 1. You, SP, JP, EB (higher contribution of SP means further to the front)
>
>
>
since that seems to be the appropriate order given the relative contributions (neglecting other concerns). Since all authors (including JP) are professors, the distinction between second and third author shouldn't matter much at all. Of course, individual concerns might exist. For example, JP could potentially benefit more from having an additional near-senior author paper in future evaluations, see answers to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/82059/17254). Or SP might prefer the near-senior position.
In your situation I'd propose option #1 (possibly by sending out a draft of the paper), and asking if it looks good to them, or if they want to change the order.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Given that funding rates are notoriously low, often in the single digits, what happens when a professor is unable to fund his or her own students? Given that TA positions are also limited, they may not always be able to get their students to be funded as a TA.
I am guessing that most of the time a professor only ever takes on a student if they think there is a good chance they can obtain sufficient funding to see them through. However, I am guessing the edge case of running out of funds has happened before.<issue_comment>username_1: If there is no money, then there is no money. What happens quite often is that some of her or his colleagues help out by hiring deserving students instead till extra funding has been found. This has the advantage that it diminished the risk everybody faces because of uncertain funding, but it requires quite a bit of trust and good will in the department. So the worst case scenario, that the professor has no money and nobody wants to help her or him out, can definitely happen.
This also depends on the contract you have. In my case I got a 5 year contract to do my dissertation and some teaching. In that case, my position was safe: if somehow the professor's funding somehow failed the university had to come up with the difference, since the contract was not between the professor's lab and me, but between the university and me. This is in line with @IanSudbery s comment that, however much professors think of "their" lab as her or his private kingdom, it is only part of the university and not a separate entitiy. The fact that the university is finally responsible for paying the wages meant that the university required my professor to have guarantees for the funding for those five years before agreeing on the contract.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Normally a professor should not hire students/postdocs at all if the funding is not secured (the admin persons will not let him anyway most likely).
In the labs I know positions are only advertised once a grant was obtained.
The only problem that could happen is that there might be funding for e.g. 2 years left from some big grant that was originally planned for something else and the professor decides to hire a student for those 2 years based on the left-over funding and the PhD takes 3-4 years minimum. In this case he might make a bet with himself that he will be able to get the remaining funding within those 2 years. Therefore it is always a wise decision for a prospective PhD student to ask if the full funding for all years is secure before starting a position.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: My friend helped me with my assignment. I was having a bit of trouble and he showed me what he did.
The assignment was a speech with a powerpoint in the background.
I did not receive any help in the speech and it was all my own work but two of my slides are similar to his, and I copied his table. The speech is the part directly getting assessed while the powerpoint is merely for the theatrics. This was all done with his permission and he himself showed me how he did the slides.
The powerpoint was twelve slides long. Does this constitute plagiarism?
Edit: I did cite him in a bibliography which I submitted for his contribution. I, however, did not cite him in the PowerPoint. Also, the similar slides are not in the PowerPoint anymore but the table still is.
Edit 2: I was not found guilty of plagiarism, however, I did lose 10% due to academic misconduct.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> My friend helped me with my assignment...I copied his table...does this constitute plagiarism?
>
>
>
Yes: You copied his work, doing so without attribution is [plagiarism](https://www.google.com/search?q=dictionary#dobs=plagiarism).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Whether it is plagiarism or not, and it is, may be less important than the bigger issue that it is almost certainly academic misconduct. Only your professor can give you advice on whether it is acceptable.
Getting some help may be fine, depending on the rules. Copying a table is less fine and becomes plagiarism if done without attribution. I would disallow it if I learn of it and would encourage you to do better. Since you are a student, I would even discourage your use of "similar" slides since you learn more by working independently and that is the point of the exercise.
The proportion of the copying makes no difference. I assume that you didn't reference your friend in the slide deck, making it plagiarism. I suspect that you think it is probably wrong to do this if you didn't cite the work of your friend.
Don't lose track of the lesson that learning is the real objective, not the production of any artifact.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is definitely **not** plagiarism. It's like saying you copied Microsoft's works for using PowerPoint to do your presentation. Both Microsoft and your friend created an environment for you to do your works. You **don't** have to give them any credit.
Your friend didn't do the works for you. You did all of it yourself.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: Some of the publications have cited my work. But Google scholar is unable to identify those citations and link with my account. I think it is because my name in the references of article has been written differently. Is there a way I can change that?<issue_comment>username_1: You think
>
> Google scholar is unable to identify [some citations to my work] because my name in the references of article has been written differently
>
>
>
But, I doubt Google works this way, because numerous mistakes appear in references throughout the literature. Perhaps this issue will resolve itself over time as Google has more time to crawl.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When your publications are cited, the full reference is the name of the journal/publication, date, volume and maybe even page number, on top of your own name. There is also the DOI.
So if they have misspelled your name when they cite your work, it should not matter, if they ***actually cited*** your work. Google Scholar or Pubmed or Web of Knowledge etc should be able to discern that.
What might be the case, I suspect, is that your own name is not the same between your google scholar page and the name you used in your publications.
That might be the case if you have multiple middle names (and/or initials). Or if you have changed names, due to marriage or some other reason. If you have non-standard latin letters in your name, how they are "latinified" into English might be an issue as well.
Hard to say without a concrete example
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It is possible that citations to your work are not recognized by Google Scholar because of errors in (or incompleteness of) the reference string. Such 'stray' citations can be corrected, see [<NAME>'s guide to correcting stray citations in Google Scholar](https://harzing.com/resources/publish-or-perish/tutorial/google-scholar/stray-citations).
Note that the same problem occurs in all citation databases to some extent. Most of them have some mechanism for reporting and correcting (besides Google Scholar, at least Web of Science and Scopus do).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Your problem is known to Google and they offer the following fix via <https://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/citations.html#citations>:
>
> ...
> To fix this, you'll need to identify the specific citing articles with
> indexing problems and work with the publisher of these articles to
> make the necessary changes (see our inclusion guidelines for details). ...
>
>
>
In short, Google claims it's always reflecting the state of the internet right now. Misspellings may be part of that, but Google doesn't want to play the corrector.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been recently offered an interview call for my dream job - Asst. Professor (above lecturer grade, but below Assoc Prof/Reader grade in the UK) in a newly founded research group at a mid-tier UK university.
I have just finished my PhD last month (Mar 2019) from a top-tier (Oxbridge) university in the UK and had applied for this position without really expecting an interview call. At the start of the interview, I am asked to deliver a **10 minute** presentation titled ***"Your 3-year plan to become an independent academic"***
My current problem is that this interview is scheduled immediately (within 2 days), and this doesn't give me sufficient time to contact my former PhD supervisor(s) for their valuable advice.
I have *zero* post-doc experience as an independent researcher. My questions are:
* How deeply technical should I go in the presentation slides for such an opportunity? (i.e. are details at the equation-level required and journal citations expected?)
* Should I have identified specific research methodologies, potentially leading to the PhD title for the students I shall be supervising?
* Is it appropriate to be more modest and aim to only *co-supervise* (rather than be primary supervisor for) my first PhD student?
* Is an individual year-wise breakdown/Gantt chart expected at such faculty interviews?
* Should I identify the grants that I shall be applying to (in particular, the specific EPSRC schemes that exist for early career researchers)?
* Are there any other aspects that I may have completely missed here?
I am really sorry to be naive in asking a lot of questions here. This faculty position is in the exact same area as my PhD (in energy engineering/alternative fuels) and I'd like to give it my best.<issue_comment>username_1: This answer is a bit speculative so use caution in accepting the advice. You have only a few minutes and they will slip by quickly.
I would focus on *work in progress* and on funding opportunities. If the audience is well familiar with your field, you could spend a bit of time on how you can appeal to grad students (whether as advisor or co-advisor). The time frame they are expecting you to cover is short, so work in progress is most important, but a mention of long term goals might get a short mention. If you use novel techniques or approaches that could be where you put any (short) bits of detail.
Also, it is probably worth saying a word or two about your ability to work cooperatively/collegially and your experience with it if you have any.
However, the word *independent* in the call is probably what they really want to hear about. Work in progress, again. You don't have much time for depth, though.
Try to give your talk at least once to a friend before the big day. You probably have too much information for 10 minutes. You want to know that beforehand.
And if this is a "cattle call" with four such talks in an hour, then you will need to find a way to stand out a bit from the crowd. Something positive that people might remember. But if the rest of the hour is for the faculty to ask questions, then you can be brief about a lot of things you mention.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Congratulations on your interview! Let me answer from the perspective of a current academic staff member at an institution like the one you describe. I'll give a few general points, rather than focusing on your questions individually. Of course, these are based on my personal experience and point of view, so don't take them as gospel.
---
First, be aware that 10 minutes is *really short!* Have you given a talk of this length before? If not, you may be surprised how little you can say in this space of time without rushing through things. Before worrying too much about fine details of what to say, try putting together a few slides and giving them a run-through at a comfortable pace. This will give you a better idea of how much you can fit in, and help you to prioritise your material. (Ideally, you should do this with someone listening.)
Second, know your audience. Your invitation email may or may not specify who you are going to be talking to, but if not, it's really worth writing back and asking for this information. If the audience is going to be made up of members of the research group that is hiring, then more technical detail may be appropriate; if the talk is open to (say) the whole Faculty of Engineering, you may want to give a more high-level talk.
Third, stick to your brief. If you are supposed to talk about *"Your 3 year plan to become an independent academic"*, then focus on that. In particular, talking about grants that you plan to apply for is very much on-topic. Of course, you should make sure that the items you mention are realistic for someone at your career stage: a "plan" to win a £10 million Network grant from EPSRC (or whatever) is probably not going to impress anyone.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: While really short, 10 minute job talks in the UK are the standard and I actually think they work pretty well in that they do a good job of weeding people out. Sure, there were applicants that we turned down because they screwed up the job talk, but generally if the job talk went well, we were happy with the candidate. The best job talks accomplish 4 things.
First, they demonstrate ownership of your research. Many recent graduates were handed a PhD project and really never made it, or a portion of it, there own. Schools want to hire people that own their research. Talk about what your supervisor envisioned the project as being and how you transformed it into something even better.
Second, they frame the research in a way that makes it broadly accessible and highlights links to other members of the faculty. You don't need to hit the faculty member over the head, but you can talk about how your work on underwater basket weaving is important to consider when studying transportation of goods. During the Q/A portion of the talk, there is almost always a question about how your work relates to someone else's in the department. Alice may ask you how your work links with Bob's.
Third, they highlight which aspects of the technical details you have mastered and what things you still need to master. They will want to see that your current technical skills will allow you to pull off an interesting and funding worthy project. The best talks bring the audience to the weeds, acknowledge you are at the weeds and that you are happy to talk about them all day/night, all without actually going into the weeds. At the end of the talk you will inevitably get a probing technical question about some detail of your method from someone who has read your papers and understands what is going on (at least in a narrow scope). For these questions you apologize to the audience that you are about to jump into the weeds and give the technical answer.
The final thing is that they present a set of aims of the next research question. Ideally, the whole talk builds towards these so the faculty can see how your previous work leads to the aims and that your skill set will let you answer them. Even better is when a couple of other faculty can see ways to collaborate with you on the project. You do not need titles of sub projects or a timeline. Having identified a funding mechanism is always nice. You don't want to sound too independent at this stage, rather you want to come off as receptive to input and willing to modify the project to capture the strengths of the school. If there is a dinner/lunch afterwards, this will be the foundation of many of those discussions.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: First, congratulations on your interview. Preparing well and asking questions here is a good step. You may be surprised how little the other candidates have done. Hopefully the other answers all give some insight. I hope to add some more.
My (limited) experience of job interviews of this type normally focus on what you will bring and how you will link to others in the group/department. What you will bring can include expertise, connections (you have mentioned your links to the university in India) but also money. In the UK this means:
* REF: you really need to know what this is and what you can submit as part of the next REF submission,
* grants/external funding opportunitues: RCUK may be the main source but look at European grants, charitable organisations and industry collaborations,
* students: there is increasing pressure to increase student numbers at all UK universities, in particular from overseas. Students in the UK pay high fees (especially if they're not from the EU).
You need to be aware of all these things for both the presentation but also any interviews and other discussions.
To answer your questions:
>
> * How deeply technical should I go in the slides for such an opportunity? (Any equations/journal citations are expected?)
>
>
>
I would answer this with another question: how does technical detail help you demonstrate how you will build your independence? I think technical details are better left to other discussions. You should mention which journal/conferences your publications are published in (and any other submitted to). This gives the audience a clue about your REF-ability.
>
> * Should I have identified specific research methodologies, potentially leading to the PhD title for the PhD students I am supposed to supervise
> * Is it more appropriate to be modest and put in the slides to aim to just co-supervise (rather than be primary supervisor for) PhD student
>
>
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I think these questions are best lumped together. I would answer them more generally about how would you build a "group". Straight from a PhD you may not have much supervision experience (PhD or Post-Doc level). How would you build that? Is that important for your next three years?
>
> * Is an individual year-wise breakdown/Gantt chart expected at such faculty interviews?
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A clear plan is a good option. What you do in the first year should be quite clear in your mind (see for example: <https://www.jobs.ac.uk/careers-advice/working-in-higher-education/2579/planning-for-a-fantastic-first-year-as-a-lecturer>). Further years can be less detailed but you should know where you are going.
>
> Should I identify the grants that I shall be applying to? (In particular, what specific EPSRC programmes exist for early career researchers?)
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*Yes* - it is important that you have a handle on what funding opportunities are available but you do not need to commit to these applications.
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> * Any other aspect that I may have completely missed?
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The final point which is less tangible is "fit". The department you are applying to are making a large commitment in you - getting rid of you after the interview isn't straight forward - so all the people who are at the talk will be judging if they think they can work with you (either in research or more likely in teaching, recruitment or other administration). You describe the university you are applying to as mid-tier - be careful that you are not insulting anyone.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: The situation occurred in the first lecture of an undergraduate course in a STEM field at an university.
The professor said that there are less than 20% female students in the class, while the usual ratio is 40% (across fields and different academic degrees). The topic was brought up to "discuss microaggressions", such as letting female students do the easier tasks in group work. It should be noted that there is **no selection** of students for the field of study at the university (apart from a high school diploma) and AFAIK there also is none for the course.
Then the male students were told to "not think they are smarter than their female neighbor", that "your female neighbour not asking questions does not mean that she is not following, maybe she is a lot smarter than you think" and that the professor is much better at the field than all of the male students (the last part was told with a smirk, not sure if it was a joke or a sign of satisfaction) and it was finished with a "GO GIRLS".
These main reasons why I find this offensive/disrespectful:
1. The students were viewed and addressed primarily through the lense of
group membership, and not as individuals.
2. Replacing "male" with any other group makes the statements offensive or absurd.
3. While the instructions to not look down on/patronize female students
are correct, they are (in my view) indirect accusations of sexism.
4. The contents of the talk, which took 5-10 minutes, were not related to the lecture and thus
were a waste of time for students. The issue might be important, but I was there to learn different contents.
Is my view justified? Is such behavior acceptable for a professor? Should I let the professor know the way I feel?<issue_comment>username_1: *(edited this answer to consider some points raised in the comments and try to address OP more constructively)*
Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to work to counter the effects of gender discrimination.
Yes, it is acceptable for a professor to warn a male-predominant class to not discriminate against women by giving them the "easy" tasks.
The professor is not accusing you as an individual of sexism, they are pointing out researched ways in which women are discriminated against, especially in STEM areas where women are under-represented.
Although your initial reaction was that this was a waste of time, I think you can use this experience and the feedback you get here as an opportunity to reflect - it seems from your comments that you are open to this.
I'd suggest you try the [implicit bias test](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html) from Harvard, I was surprised by how much implicit bias it showed that I have. Some research has shown that people who take this sort of test are more introspective about their own biases afterwards. Even if you show little bias on that test, it may be instructive to see how much bias is seen in the population as a whole because people tend to underestimate bias experienced by other groups.
I don't think having implicit bias is something that reflects poorly on any individual, it's more of a product of society. What reflects on individuals is whether they try to become aware of the biases experienced by others and how their own implicit biases might influence their behavior.
I think your professor was trying to point out some of these biases to make students in the class more aware of them. It seems unlikely to me that any men in the course would literally think to themselves "Let's give the women the easy/secretarial tasks in group work!" (and if they do, they are probably never going to be convinced otherwise) - instead, they might accidentally do it by simply not thinking. By simply thinking about it more, and even by asking this question here, it seems to me like your professor was successful, even if you ultimately decide that you disagree with the approach.
---
[<NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2018). Women’s visibility in academic seminars: Women ask fewer questions than men. PloS one, 13(9), e0202743.](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202743)
[<NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2017). Why are some STEM fields more gender balanced than others?. Psychological Bulletin, 143(1), 1.](https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000052)
[<NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2014). Threats to objectivity in peer review: the case of gender. Trends in pharmacological sciences, 35(8), 371-373.](https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tips.2014.06.005)
[<NAME>., & <NAME>. (2017). Journals invite too few women to referee. Nature News, 541(7638), 455.](https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/541455a)
[<NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2002). Putting the brakes on prejudice: On the development and operation of cues for control. Journal of personality and social psychology, 83(5), 1029.](http://www.psych.purdue.edu/~mmonteit/assets/monteith,-ashburn-nardo,-voils,---czopp-(2002).pdf)
[<NAME>., & <NAME>. (1996). He's skilled, she's lucky: A meta-analysis of observers' attributions for women's and men's successes and failures. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22(5), 507-519.](https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0146167296225008)
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is my view justified?
>
>
>
It sounds like you feel disrespected by the professor’s implicit assumption that some members of your gender engage in sexist behaviors and need to be told not to engage in them any more. And yet, you yourself acknowledge that this assumption is likely correct. Her statement was of a general nature; she didn’t personally accuse *you* of anything, so personally I don’t see why you would feel offended.
**Edit (part 1):** *@ASimpleAlgorithm commented that the professor’s behavior can be seen as a form of gender-based profiling. That is a fair point, and after thinking about it some more, I can see how some people might take issue with that. Given the very minor extent of the profiling, and the fact that OP accepts the premise that the profiling (such that it is) is based on empirically real phenomena of male sexism, I still don’t think there is much to be offended about, but at least I can see where OP is coming from, and think it may be reasonable for OP to find the professor’s behavior annoying.*
You are *perhaps* justified in thinking the discussion was not the best use of the class time, but that would be your opinion, which may differ from other people’s opinion. Not all students have to agree all the time that what a professor is talking about at any given moment is the best thing for them to talk about. Some disagreement on such things is perfectly reasonable and probably unavoidable. But just the fact you think something was a waste of time does not imply that the professor is doing something wrong by talking about it.
>
> Is such behavior acceptable for a professor?
>
>
>
Yes. The professor is doing their job of trying to achieve the best educational outcome for their class. Whether or not I agree that this topic was worth bringing up in class in the way they brought it up, there is nothing about it that qualifies as “unacceptable” behavior, such as harassment or discrimination, as far as I can tell.
**Edit (part 2):** *see the comment I added above in part 1. The professor’s behavior still seems acceptable to me, but I acknowledge that it can be seen as objectionable by reasonable people. And if the professor engaged in similar behavior on multiple occasions even after receiving feedback about the profiling aspect of her behavior, I would probably agree that that would become unacceptable.*
>
> Should I let the professor know the way I feel?
>
>
>
You are free to do so, but it’s not clear to me what you are hoping to achieve by doing that. I can’t advise you on whether you should or shouldn’t do it.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Is such behavior acceptable for a professor?
>
>
>
Yes. This the whole idea of academic freedom (as exemplified by tenure) -- professors should be able to work with uncomfortable issues without worrying about getting fired. I recognize that academic freedom would likely not protect them if they had made similar but politically-incorrect statements, but that's a separate issue.
>
> Should I let the professor know the way I feel?
>
>
>
Depends on the professor. If they are a good professor, there might be an opportunity for discussion and perhaps you would both learn something. But sadly, many professors view this matter as sacrosanct, and will just write you off as a misogynist without allowing an open discussion. (In their defense, many students also broach the matter in a very hostile way..."you hate men" sounds very different than "Some of your comments made me uncomfortable.")
>
> Is my view justified?
>
>
>
Doesn't matter. This is a well-studied, very controversial subject where tempers run hot and everyone thinks they are an expert. Studying such subjects has its place, but I'm assuming you are not currently an expert in gender relations. You're certainly entitled to tell the professor how their comments made you feel, but rather than getting into a debate with your professor, I would suggest you focus on learning STEM.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: No, it’s not acceptable. Discrimination against men is just as unacceptable as discrimination against women, and, moreover, the message that she was sending to the women in the class was essentially “Prepare to get discriminated against,” which isn’t a good message to send.
What should you do about it? Talking to her is unlikely to have an effect, because it is very difficult to convince people to alter their political ideologies, and she might have tenure so she might not have anything to fear from you making a complaint to the university.
Instead, just give her a poor rating in your feedback survey for the course, and leave a comment in the general feedback comment section explaining why. Universities use these surveys as a way of evaluating the performance of their instructors, so a poor review may well hit her where it hurts: in the wallet.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: Unless your university is very far from the standard in the field, the offense you had to endure by feeling blanketly targetted because of your gender will be minuscule to the offense a female in a STEM career will have to endure not once but on a recurring basis.
I've been in engineering with about 3% of female students. Of those, the majority had a *father* in a STEM field and *no* male siblings providing an outlet for the father's role modeling that would have talked down their ambitions.
That's probably the situation from one generation before yours and society's clichés and images (the stuff feeding TV tropes) don't change all that fast and prejudices tend to double down before they move. I've seen my fair share of mansplaining in a number of disciplines including less male-dominated ones, and I've *delivered* my fair share of it as well: falling into the respective patterns is really easy.
You feel belittled by this advice. Would you also feel belittled by the suggestion to electricians to always keep one hand in the pocket when poking around live circuitry with a screw driver or probe? It is also an advice to behave in a manner minimising the results of stupidity that intelligent people should not be prone to in the first place.
I've brushed stuff in a TV set while pointing a grounded lamp with the other hand. I've seen a physics professor demonstrate the effectivity of a large Faraday cage from the inside while holding a wired microphone.
If you think yourself proof against stupid shit, it's probably because you haven't had enough opportunity to see yourself in the mirror.
Telling your offense to your professor will prime her to put your gender-related behavior under her scrutiny. You have nothing to gain from that.
Maybe wait out a year and keep your eyes and mind open. If you then still think that all-in-all her advice was unwarranted, reconsider telling her.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I don't really see this as some version of reverse discrimination or sexism against the men in the class, STEM fields have been dealing with a gender diversity issue for years now and efforts to curb this are only in their early stages. As someone who is currently pursuing an advanced degree in a STEM field, I tend to be optimistic and say the issues of sexism and discrimination in the sciences are (at least now) primarily implicit and unintentional, but that arguably makes this statement from your professor even more important. It may not have been intended to presume a discriminatory worldview, but instead to assuage any unconscious bias by trying to make students aware of these issues (which again, are salient in STEM fields right now).
I would also say the professor may have thought the warning more necessary given the proportions of the class. To quickly address your reasons point-by-point:
1. This does address group membership, but there's no way to treat it individually in this environment and it's still an important issue.
2. This is kind of true, but only because the fields have been male dominated in the past, which is what makes the statements necessary in the first place.
3. Could have been sexism, but I'd give the professor the benefit of the doubt and think of it more as just an attempt to encourage awareness of this potential issue.
4. This is a STEM class, therefore the diversity of the STEM fields are a pertinent topic, it may not have been a discussion of Newton's Laws, but that doesn't make it unrelated to the field. Plus, what's 5 or 10 minutes over a semester?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: This sort of an approach is becoming increasingly popular as a way to fix the gender imbalance in academia. Gender discrimination is a problem that exists almost everywhere in society, including in academia. So, this is obviously a problem that needs to be addressed. The professor cannot be criticized for addressing this issue in class, but one may question if this is going to be effective. If the professor is concerned about social dynamics among students affecting female students adversely, then that suggests that one should not organize group work where such effects can manifest itself and compromise academic results.
The bigger picture is that Western countries where efforts to curb gender discrimination have led to a lot of success when it comes to getting women in leading positions in industry, still perform quite poorly when it comes to curbing the [gender imbalance in academia](http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/4753/6/symplectic-version.pdf). As pointed out in the linked article, the more gender equal a country is, the bigger the gender gap is in academia, despite a lot more effort to promote women to choose STEM subjects:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CLXx1.png)
The article puts forward some ideas to explain this that I personally don't find all that compelling. I.m.o. it's better to study the case of the Soviet Union where the participation of women in science was an order of magnitude better than in the West. The way the Soviet Union differed from the West was that as a communist country, job security was not an issue. Also, the educational system was much better than the Western educational systems.
So, the reason why today we have such a huge gender imbalance in science is because we've organized science within a capitalist framework. Society doesn't value science all that much, this leads to quite a lot of pressure pushing people away from science. One important issue is that job security is a problem for quite a long time into a scientific career. Both women and men are affected by this, but all we notice is the difference between the participation of men and women, which is just the tip of the iceberg. Long term job security tends to be more important for women than for men in determining career choices. Also gender discrimination will have a far greater effect when job security issues are also at play.
If society makes more room for science by making available more funds, then this will lead to more jobs in science. Scientists will have better job security, this will go a long way to get far more women (and also men) into science and keep them there. Women are then affected more by these issues because long term job security tends to be more important for women than for men in determining career choices. Also gender discrimination will have a far greater effect when job security issues are also at play.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: Yes this is acceptable behavior. Your issue with her speech is that you're thinking that the professor was talking directly to you and you take offense at being accused of something you didn't do. In fact in a comment you made the analogy of being invited to a house and being told not to steal. That is not what happened here. The professor was simply encouraging the greatly underrepresented female sex in a male-dominated field with a confidence boost, but rather than speak directly to the females and come off as having favoritism, she is speaking indirectly to them by speaking to the males. Many universities have programs to encourage more females in STEM so this sort of talk is not particularly exceptional.
>
> These main reasons why I find this offensive/disrespectful:
> The students were viewed and adressed primarily through the lense of group membership, and not as individuals.
>
>
>
No actual individual was identified as a male instead of an individual. The objective of the professor's speech was to address sex discrimination so the fact that "males" and "females" come into the talk is sort of a given. The professor is speaking to the "males in the room" so there is no actual person being seen through group membership rather than an individual.
>
> Replacing "male" with any other group makes the statements offensive or absurd.
>
>
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You can take any sentence and change one word and make it seem absurd or offensive. This is why context matters.
>
> While the instructions to not look down on/patronize female students are correct, they are (in my view) indirect accusations of sexism.
>
>
>
The professor did not accuse you of sexism. The male sex cannot be accused of sexism. No one was indirectly accused of sexism here. If the professor reminds the class that an assignment is due, but you already handed it in. Are you going to tell him/her that you already handed it in? Of course not because you know the professor was not talking to you, even though you are part of the class. This is the exact same situation. No one is being spoken to directly here.
>
> The contents of the talk, which took 5-10 minutes, were not related to the lecture and thus were a waste of time for students. The issue might be important, but I was there to learn different contents.
>
>
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This is honestly not your business to decide especially when you can't assess at this point if you learned the required curriculum material. Don't forget the professor doesn't "owe" you their time.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: It sounds to me that your professor was telling you to let go of any preconceived notions you had before entering this course. You may feel this is sexist or disrespectful, but what it really boils down to is adhering to the scientific principals. You can't determine a reliable and just conclusion simply on what you have come to believe is true during your own experiences; you must PROVE those experiences are true or false. It is a common misconception that girls just don't 'get' sciencey stuff -- and I'm sure I'm not the only female to have simple concepts 'mansplained' to me.
To me, it sounds as if the professor was trying to prevent wasted time as the course progresses -- if 5-10 minutes can be spent now telling students to base all conclusions on proven facts rather than suppositions, many wasted minutes will probably be prevented during the semester, not to mention spared frustrations among any/all group project members.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: This is absolutely disrespectful. The professor is passively aggressively attempting to assert an inaccurate worldview, by implying what you are thinking, and how you are seeing the world.
Also note that while the professors statement "does not apply to everyone" it will certainly apply to anyone that disagree with it. Ie, if you try to critique it it will be assumed you think you're smarter than women even if that is not the flaw you are pointing out.
Considering this is a progressive, I would be very careful about noting this to them, as they are liable to try and shame you, slander you, possible trash your grades, or even try to get you suspended or otherwise ostrazised. If possible it might be better to drop the class, or otherwise keep your head down.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Girls were always highly appreciated in my university (I studied Applied Physics), and nobody needed to make that explicit. I consider this professor excessively patronizing, and probably sexist if she thinks girls need her help.
Instead, I noticed a minor bias in favor of girls/woman, both in university and later looking for jobs:
* Most Employers prefer a balance of the genders (those who shared their reasoning with me said that a mix prevents hostile subcultures - men tend to behave more civilized and work harder around women, women tend to pay more attention to detail around men), and because there are many more males who work in the field and apply to jobs, the females are accepted much sooner.
* While not as enlightened as the previous bullet, boys generally still like girls, which put them in higher demand when forming groups. Some used similar reasoning to the above.
* To write a good report/document/whatever, you need a variety of viewpoints. Since men and women are different, this is useful. Since women are more scarce.... you get the picture.
I also noticed that girls, in the admittedly to-small-to-be-statistically-relevant case of just my year in my study, tended to get higher marks and drop out less then boys. My personal hypothesis is that it's because they chose the course because they were interested, while some of the guys chose the course because they weren't interested in anything and had to choose *something* (and therefore were more likely to drop out due to lack of motivation / figuring out there was a more fitting study for them). Therefore, it's ridiculous to assume girls need the protection/encouragement your professor talked about.
Of course, it may depend on the country you're in. Local culture matters a lot. If you'd live in, say, Egypt, I'd consider it perfectly normal to have a speech like that, since the local culture tends to assume that women are somehow inferior (and for the record, I couldn't disagree more).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_11: This is Acceptable and a start!
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As other answers have stated, those are plain facts and come a long way to make things better for less prevalent groups in Academia and providing a healthier environment with more ideas.
Could it have been delivered in a better way?
---------------------------------------------
I think so! I can understand why you felt awkward about it.
Keep in mind that the core message was "let the girls handle a hard time as *they are just like you*" rather than "you are less", so it was calling for more workload to be distributed but it doesn't apply general logic to it, having it simply loop back into gender:
* This may lock the mentality that if you are not pushing the girls, you are being sexist; but pushing girls because they are girls is in fact sexist.
* Stating she is better than the students came off ambiguous because it can be interpreted that either she is better *because* she is a woman, or *despite* being a woman. It's neither: she is better because of her merit as *a student*.
While bringing up microaggressions, her message could have still been entirely about women, but then *extended* at the conclusion:
* "Your neighboring *student* may be quiet but they may also know more than you think!"
* "Don't ever think you are smarter than *your colleagues*."
* "You may be tempted to *hoard more difficult tasks*, but everyone is entitled to some crappy time in Academia! :) Push everyone as necessary for common growth."
This holds much more coverage (at least for me). This applies to every other gender, race, disability, etc; and doesn't fall for the loopholes aforementioned.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: I would like to point out that, from my experience, addressing ongoing issues by communicating the problem to the entire group is a generally accepted method in professional environments. The intent usually is to *avoid* accusing individuals and thus minimize embarassment and resentment. Those who transgressed, knowingly or just by mistake, get an opportunity to save face and correct their behaviour. Those who are innocent have no need to feel that it concerns them beyond a basic awareness of the problem.
From a comment:
>
> "Would you feel offended if someone invited you to their home and instructed you to not steal anything?"
>
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They **didn't** single out a specific person, and the issue **wasn't hypothetical**. A more fitting example would be:
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> "We'd like to remind the personnel in building 3 that peripherals are company property and not to be taken off the premises."
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after many years of office equipment going missing. Would you feel personally insulted by that? Would you feel less insulted if they sent the e-mail to the entire company and not just the branch where stuff tends to go missing?
Now, being "doubted", even as part of a group, can make one uncomfortable. That's a very human reaction, and one that I'm prone to myself. However, I would recommend that you distance yourself from that feeling. The only way to reduce implicit biases is to create awareness, and that requires everyone to look critically at their own thought processes. This is rarely a comfortable process, but don't see it as an accusation, see it as your professor pointing out a flaw that all humans have to some degree.
I agree that addressing not just "the males", but simply the entire class might have been more elegant, and worth pointing out to your professor, however, **no matter how it's phrased, addressing implicit biases tends to cause a little discomfort**. It's **minimal compared to the damage** those biases tend to do, however, so I would consider it a "necessary evil". There's room for disagreement, and discussing the issue with your professor seems like a sensible course of action, but their behaviour was certainly within acceptable bounds.
Also, please keep in mind that to someone who has been the victim of discrimination, calling addressing the issue "a waste of time" might come across as... insensitive, to put it mildly.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_13: There's nothing unacceptable in what the professor said, although telling the students that they didn't fit the quota is rather pointless, since the students typically don't have any say in how a course is advertised or shaped to make it equally attractive to male and female students.
A word of warning though: people who are overly enthusiastic about an idea and have some power to implement it often [go over the reasonable limits](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24028/my-professor-gave-me-a-bad-grade-and-wouldnt-discuss-it-further-i-think-some-p) when implementing it. Warning the students beforehand that discrimination against the female minority will not be tolerated is one thing. Applying quotas or "reverse discrimination" when grading for example will be a different story.
Of course, since we didn't meet your professor it's impossible to tell whether they are "overly enthusiastic" or not.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: I can't disagree more with some of the answers you have on here. They are the cheery rah-rah types of things people say online without thinking of the implications of these actions in real life.
The professor should not have brought these things up without context. Period.
Here are some reasons why:
1. Bringing up the student gender %s is ludicrous. Universities should not be deciding to neutralize areas of study they should be used to foster learning for those that want to learn those subjects and meet the criteria. Women have just as high or higher admission rates at all major universities in the US. Why would this be a topic? What are the students in the class supposed to do about this?
2. Discussing micro-transgressions... Oh boy. So after hearing this what are the males in the class supposed to do when working with the female students? Basically the professor is saying - treat them differently than you normally would. I know this isn't their true meaning, but this is the psychological take-away. So now the male student is in a state of flux because they might have taken the message as "give the female student the hard things" or "important things" and now instead of rationally doing what is best for the group or what each group member wants to do, there is now a wrench of assignment based on gender.
This kind of group "push" influencing phenomenon often ends with resentment. You have a group of males that are accused of something they haven't done. The initial resentment will be against the professor (proof - this question on this site). The resentment will subconsciously filter to the females in the class on a meta/micro level. This cannot be good for group projects.
3. I know that we read your question and did not hear the tone of the professor but I am not sure it matters. From a female perspective (if I were female) I find this discussion and forced support as rather patronizing. Psychologically the professor has made the women out as victims and professor as leader/savior. Audibly the students are hearing treat women better, give them more responsibilities, give them important work... in the core of our brains these are true micro-aggressions that formulate in a simple expression - males please handle these delicate females that need help with extra care. The professor is trying to express "woman power" (fine) but really is expressing their power to influence the males for the women.
4. "Go Girls!" Clearly sexist. It isn't a rally for the women in the class it is more of a decree that the professor will treat males differently. I know I am generalizing here but that is what every answer is doing.
---
The professor should have handled this better if the subject needed to be broached. The advice should have helped empower the females not demonize the males and put the females in a victim role. It would have been a better tactic to address the females, not the males. Saying things like, "please don't fall into old gender roles and actively speak out on things you want to work on and overparticipate in your group's activities". General things like this would instill more confidence in both females and males and foster a group environment of collaboration, not resentment.
Before I mentioned the male resentment but there is female resentment too. First (and less) for the professor having to speak for them. Then in a micro way resenting the males for what-they-are-going-to-do-according-to-professor. What a mess!
Even if the professor were to address the males it could have been done in a more tactical matter that would have probably worked better and made the conversation less awkward. "In one of my past group STEM projects we had a male-dominated group that did not have confidence in some of the females or maybe felt that they worked better together as males. Be cognizant that intelligence is gender blind and the best teamwork always involves very smart people that have different points of view."
---
So what do you do? Depends on how much you will be dealing with this professor in the future. If you speak to someone that is as bold as your professor and you disagree there is a good chance you get railroaded and I hate to say it, could affect your grades/standing. Nothing good will come of it.
If you really felt it was that bad and could impact you in the future you need to go over professor's head and have a confidential talk about their actions and how you don't want their attitude affecting your work or studies. I would not go into such discussions as a witch hunt but (confidentially) expressing your concerns and getting advice from the person you are meeting. The professor has expressed hints of sexism but has done nothing sexist yet. You should let this play out before passing judgment as this could be anywhere from professor that doesn't express their concerns or opinions good in a group setting to a really sexist professor that treats females better or something in the middle.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_15: I think the actions were well within what is acceptable, but I still find the way it was done quite ill-advised, for the following main reason:
It brings the issue of gender balance (and the underlying reasons, such as (implicit) bias or outright discrimination) from the big picture to the little picture, both in terms of time and in terms of population size.
Let me clarify what I mean. The issue of women being less represented in STEM is a statistical phenomenon, which means that whatever underlying reasons it has may well be distributed in a way that makes them less applicable in the setting of a single class. Compounding this is the fact that the class being addressed consists of people who have already chosen a STEM field, so on average, the women present are less likely to have experienced these underlying reasons to the same extent an arbitrarily selected woman would (not to say that none of them will, but on average fewer will).
What I think makes it ill-advised is not, however, how it will be perceived by the female students (as I do not feel qualified to speak to this).
My issue is the way this sort of thing will make a certain subset of the male students feel.
Think of it this way: You are a male student in a STEM field. While you have not experienced the sort of discouragement women do in terms of going into STEM, you have instead been bullied throughout your school years for being nerdy/quiet/smart/whatever. You are now finally at university and in an environment where you can be yourself, and where people will appreciate you for your intelligence.
Only you are now told by this professor that while you may finally be in a place that appreciates smart people, it will appreciate them more if they are female. So you should expect that whenever you do better than one of your female co-students, you will be reminded that maybe you are not really as smart as you think.
This will be really discouraging to a specific subset of the male students. And this subset is precisely the subset that have the most need of encouragement.
This brings me back to the point of big picture versus little picture. It is often mentioned that males just need to such it up when this sort of thing happens because the females will have experienced whatever it is on a daily basis. But once we are at this scale, there is a good chance that many of the females will not have experiences nearly as much of it (I am no longer certain any female will have gone completely free from it though), while there is also a good chance in a setting like this that many of the males will in fact have experienced similar behavior plenty of times, just in slightly different ways.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_16: >
> It should be noted that there is no selection of students for the field of study at the university (apart from a high school diploma) and AFAIK there also is none for the course.
>
>
>
The university may not apply a formal selection process, but there are *always* selection effects going on. High schools encourage some students more than others, parents decide whether they're going to support their children in higher ed, couples decide whether they can afford to have one person studying full-time... all of those, and countless other factors, play a part in selecting who does and doesn't show up in your class on Day One, and who completes the course and the degree.
In places where overt discrimination is illegal or socially unacceptable, this kind of "soft pressure" is very important in understanding things like how your class ended up 80% male.
>
> These main reasons why I find this offensive/disrespectful:
>
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> The students were viewed and addressed primarily through the lense of group membership, and not as individuals.
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Forget about gender for a moment, and suppose you're a doctor studying lung cancer. You notice that within a certain population, 10% of people who smoke regularly get lung cancer, and only 1% of those who don't smoke get lung cancer, even after controlling for other factors that might affect cancer rates.
It is impossible to point at any single case of lung cancer and say for certain that it was caused by smoking, because even non-smokers get cancer occasionally and any given person is exposed to thousands of factors that might affect their cancer risk. But in a large population, when ten thousand smokers get lung cancer, we can be pretty sure that nine thousand of those cases were caused by smoking.
So it is with issues of gender bias. It is very hard to point to any one person, any one decision, and say with certainty that *this one decision* came down to gender bias. But looking at the group level provides quantitative evidence that many decisions *are* affected by such bias - even if we can never identify exactly which ones.
If you're aware of instances where the issue *could* be addressed at the individual level, by all means do so and/or let your professor know, as appropriate. But given that this is the start of term, it sounds as if they're trying to prevent such behaviour before it starts.
>
> Replacing "male" with any other group makes the statements offensive or absurd.
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If you change words to different words with different meaning and different history, then yes, just about any sentence can be made absurd.
Your class is over 80% male. Most areas of STEM are historically male-dominated, with [quantitative evidence](https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-0000022.pdf) of subtle but important biases against women. (Sometimes [not so subtle!](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/08/02/a-medical-school-in-japan-didnt-want-too-many-women-so-it-lowered-their-grades/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.59c410036cf2) Whether or not one agrees with your professor's approach, it is very much influenced by that context; if you change "male" for some group that *hasn't* dominated STEM and your specific class to such an extent, then of course the statement becomes ridiculous.
(Just because I know somebody's gonna bring it up if I don't address it: yes, there are a few professional fields like teaching or nursing which skew heavily female... and those fields *do* acknowledge this as a problem, and are trying to improve that balance.)
>
> While the instructions to not look down on/patronize female students are correct, they are (in my view) indirect accusations of sexism.
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>
>
Well, yeah. Chances are very high that there are some sexist people in your class, and it sounds as if your professor is trying to address that. Unless somebody is able to provide her with a list of who is and isn't sexist, I'm not sure how they could do that without the message also being heard by people who aren't sexist. If you're certain that you're not one of those people, then don't take it personally.
When I did first-year chemistry, our instructors warned us not to mouth-pipette dangerous chemicals. They were not accusing *me*, <NAME>, of being silly enough to take a mouthful of hydrochloric acid. But they didn't know who the silly ones were, so they had to warn the entire class.
>
> The contents of the talk, which took 5-10 minutes, were not related to the lecture and thus were a waste of time for students. The issue might be important, but I was there to learn different contents.
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Every class has a certain amount of admin content. Professors will talk about how your assignments are to be graded, safety rules for prac classes, what to expect from exams, etc. etc. None of that is "what you're there to learn", per se, but it's important to the learning process. Whether the professor handled this *effectively*, I can't really gauge without hearing the full version, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to give a few minutes to something that's important to ~ 20% of the class and may affect *their* ability to learn.
>
> Is my view justified? Is such behavior acceptable for a professor? Should I let the professor know the way I feel?
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>
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As you may have gathered, my take on this is different to yours. But let's assume that I haven't persuaded you to my way of thinking, and you still think her approach is wrong...
IME, when you want to change somebody's behaviour, the most effective approach - where possible - is to understand *why* they're doing what they're doing (what is the problem they think they're solving?) and then to offer them an alternate way of achieving that goal.
In this case, it's pretty clear that your professor is concerned about possible discrimination against women in your class. One way or another, they *are* going to act on that concern. If you don't like the way they're currently handling it, then you need to offer some other way of handling it. If you don't want them addressing the whole class on this, what alternative are you suggesting?
(I would *strongly* recommend doing a fair bit of background reading on these issues first. There's been a lot of research done into things like selection and retention of women in STEM, and it's quite likely that they're familiar with that research. If you want to offer workable solutions, you need to be familiar with it too.)
Otherwise... I can tell you for nothing, they already know that quite a few guys feel the same way you do about what she's saying, and they've decided to say it anyway. Unless you have alternatives to offer, it's unlikely that arguing it with them will shift their position, because you won't be telling them anything new.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/03
| 375
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<issue_start>username_0: I heard that a Ph.D. by publication is better than the one by a monograph.
Does that mean academic positions are available only for a researcher who has a Ph.D. by publication? In other words, if she/he has a PhD by monograph then she/he cannot be a lecturer at a uni, where a lecturer need to have some publications,<issue_comment>username_1: No. Even if we accept your premise (which sounds dubious to me), there is no reason to assume that academic positions are only for those P.h.D.s.
Of course, it could be that a certain person who is hiring has a certain bias. You probably cannot do much about this anyway (and, very sadly, gender bias seems to be much more common..)
I don't understand your title, by the way.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I have never heard on a difference between the degree. If you've finished a Ph.D. in some subject, you have finished a Ph.D. on the subject. You've done the research necessary and was approved by your committee and the university's senate (or whoever approves it there).
Whether or not you get a job depends on the quality of the content of your dissertation, your reference letters, networking skills, and just plain luck with timing.
Even if we agree that Ph.D. based on publications is better, then the only difference is that it might give you a slight edge with regards to the content of your dissertation. But ultimately, it's about what's inside rather than what form it ended up in.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/04/03
| 1,393
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<issue_start>username_0: I am going to submit my Mechanical engineering PhD thesis in July, with defense probably scheduled in September or October this year. I am about to submit few papers and I was thinking of applying for postdoc positions after submitting them.
My question is, as I am already late in applying for postdoc positions, will it be wise to wait till June before searching for the positions?<issue_comment>username_1: In general, the earlier the better; but there is no "too late."
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Advertised positions will have deadlines and application procedures. You should start looking for those now and work to meet them rather than waiting. If you are looking for unadvertised positions then it will take time to make contact and establish rapport with any research groups and PIs.
But make sure you also pay attention to start dates and can meet the requirements if you are offered a position. It won't do you any good to be offered a position that you can't accept because of timing.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I absolutely agree with [username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127486/4249): the earlier the better. That being said, I didn't apply for a single postdoc position until the date of my defence (I was looking at that time already, but haven't found anything interesting).
There are several factors that may differ from person to person, so make sure the advice you take fits your situation:
* some places, you actually work on your manuscript *or* thesis presentation until the day of your defence (e.g. France). In some places, there is a big "waiting period" between submitting the manuscript and your viva (e.g. UK)
* funding: do you have funding up until the date of your defence, or does it finish earlier?
* connections: the people you have met in conferences, through your supervisor, etc. Some people establish strong enough connections during their PhD that their postdoc search simply comes down to contacting those connections. If you have to search "blind", it could take much longer.
* location and/or immigration: A perk of looking for a postdoc in a country/locale you are familiar with is probably knowing where to look, understanding the language and familiarity with the system. A perk of looking broader is that you have more options (and a lot of places value mobility during postdoc even if you do return to your country of "PhD origin" afterwards); but depending on your nationality and target country, immigration documentation might take some non-negligible amount of time.
* finances after the viva: How easy it will be for you to get along if you have a few months of gap? Do you have enough savings (as a PhD student, likely not); is there a good social support in the country you're in (in France, I could get a very nice unemployment package for some months which allowed me to search in peace); are both you and your parents happy for you to move back in with them for a few months, etc.
So, when you start looking will depend on the above factors. I.e. if you are in a system where months leading to the defence are very work-intensive (no "waiting period"), it might simply be too stressful to look right now. That was my case: I was not sleeping regularly (in the holy trinity of work-rest-social, I opted for work+social and ignored sleep...), under a lot of stress, and my social activities were absolutely essential to keep me going. I think I would've had an easier time if somebody told me: **don't feel pressure to look if you are already under too much pressure from finishing.**
Some additional advice for looking for postdocs at the end of your PhD:
* if you find yourself in a pinch and have a good rapport with your supervisor, talk to them. It is not uncommon for PhD supervisors to "magick out" a short-to-mid-long postdoc for their former PhD students. My supervisor (France) was able to offer me a short 4 months contract, which gave me the "buffer time" I needed for a proper search while I was not stressed about my defence. My current lab (UK) has offered some of the PhD students a 1+ year postdoc after graduation.
* a lot of places will happily offer you a postdoc position even before you have a PhD diploma in hand (i.e. as long as you show them you have submitted your manuscript and are just waiting for the defence; in case of "waiting period" type systems), and let you take a few days off for your viva, so this should not be a limiting factor.
* almost all institutes everywhere are used to receiving applications from different academic cultures, and therefore are accustomed to different "standard" dates applying elsewhere. This is especially true for postdoc positions which typically have little to no teaching obligations.
* almost all advertised postdoc positions typically have a contact e-mail for questions. If unsure about how strict the starting date or any other criteria is, asking can only help. If I was worried about whether the advertised starting date could be a problem, I might send something like:
>
> Hi, I'm X, currently finishing my PhD on topic Y from University Z, and am very interested in applying to your open postdoc position on topic M. As I see that the advertised starting date is in September, I would like to ask if you can offer any flexibility with the starting date. The reason is that the likely date for my defence is early October, and I was wondering if you would still consider my application under these circumstances if I applied?
>
>
>
* some applicants manage to establish a really good relation with their examiners, and I've heard of PhD students obtaining postdocs from them (with the connections established during their defence). I find it a risky option, but it is one.
* talk to your supervisor; he could have more specific advice either on where to look, when you can expect the bulk of open positions, stories form older students.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/04
| 887
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<issue_start>username_0: I have another year in my contract as a visiting assistant professor. However, it is possible that I might be recruited for a non-academic position before the end of the next academic year.
Would it be okay for example to accept a job if it meant having to leave before the end of the contract? Obviously I couldn't just leave in the middle of a semester, so at worst I'd be skipping out on a year's work or just the spring semester.
Additionally, the potential job(s) are in the same relative location, so I can't cite moving as a reason. (I know people have broken contracts for spouses relocating for work for example). Does anyone have experience with this? Especially considering that the question revolves around leaving academia, I'd be interested to get any feedback.<issue_comment>username_1: If you leave between terms, I think you can be guided by the terms of your contract without other ethical considerations. You have no non-contractual obligations to the students at that time so it is a question of your relationship to an institution. The institution has power to enforce contracts of course.
I'll note that the institution imposes contracts to protect itself and make its processes work smoothly. But it probably assumes that people will take advantage of better opportunities.
You can ask to be released from a contract, of course, and it is sometimes (often?) permitted. The university doesn't benefit from unhappy faculty. There might be no *consequences* at all, and people will wish you well.
Leaving in the middle of the term raises ethical considerations due to the relationship with the students. But disruption happens sometimes even if not by choice. Severe illness for example means that a faculty member needs to be replaced at short notice.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Just to clarify, the standard terminology for the action you are considering taking is “resigning”, “quitting”, “handing in your resignation” etc., NOT “breaking a contract”. I’m not just being pedantic here: “breaking a contract” suggests that your contract (together with the applicable labor laws that govern your employment and may override anything the contract you signed says) does not allow any permissible way for you to stop your employment prior to the end date of the contract. Well, I haven’t read your contract and don’t know where in the world you are, but I am extremely skeptical that a normal academia job for a visiting assistant professor would have such draconian restrictions that forbid the normal act of resignation over a multi-year period.
With that said, let’s rephrase your question to say what I think you actually meant, which is: is it okay to *resign* your visiting assistant professor position to take an industry job? The answer to that is simply: **yes**. That is what people all over the world in all industries do when they find a professional opportunity that better suits their skills, ambitions and needs. You don’t need to make up excuses about moving or otherwise explain yourself. There is nothing to explain: you simply wish to change jobs, that’s all there is to it.
Hand in your notice, finish the semester or academic year, and go be happy in your new industry career.
One final thought: if your current job includes long-term responsibilities such as advising students, it would be courteous of you to help your current employer by offering to keep some of those responsibilities on an informal basis after leaving. Especially where students are considered, it will likely be frowned upon if you simply abandon them. Or if you are in charge of a lab, you could offer to help train your replacement even if that requires coming in a few times after you’ve already switched jobs, etc. But those are the only caveats I can think of to the general principle I discussed above.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/04
| 824
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<issue_start>username_0: I absolutely have to take General Chemistry next semester for my major, as it's a prerequisite for nearly all of the other classes. However, all the sections are full. Only two of the sections would work with my schedule, anyway. If I can't take this class then I'll have to change my major. Should I just wait and see if a class opens up and only email someone if it nears August? I feel like they might just tell me to wait and see if something opens up. It's actually one of 3 classes I have to take next semester that is full, so I only have 2 of the 5 classes I need to take. I'm going to talk to my advisor tomorrow but thought I'd ask here to get some ideas first.
If I should email someone, who should I email? The professors of both sections or the Chair of the Department? Also, what should I say? I'm not very confident in writing emails.
Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: Welcome to college. This is an exceptionally common problem.
You should e-mail the instructor now and get on the waiting list. They can advise about how to proceed. Be **concise** and don't go to town explaining how you *absolutely have to take this course next semester* -- they have heard it all and are well aware of the difficulties.
One "pro tip" is to find out whether the professor is willing to let you attend class, submit homework, etc. in the hope that a slot will open for you. While this seems risky (in that you waste two weeks of effort if you don't get in), it's actually **very** likely to work out for you -- there is usually a huge wait list at the beginning of add/drop, but two weeks later, the professor will have extra seats going unclaimed because all the students will have made other plans.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Send several emails, NOT just to the professor(s). Make sure that someone at the department level knows of the problem. The head/chair is a good person to notify. It is their job to manage such things and they have the power to open new sections, find bigger rooms, etc.. The instructor is limited in what they can do. In many places the professor is forbidden to allow extra people into class for a variety of reasons including liability.
If there is a waiting list it may be prioritized to give students in the major an advantage.
But, they have some sort of obligation to you if you have been accepted into the major and it was their actions and procedures that caused this issue and not something you did. Insist on that if you are able.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: This is so common. Here are a few things I did:
1. hit refresh every few seconds to see if a seat opened in the class I needed/wanted.
2. email professor
* they'd either tell me to sign up for the waitlist
* or that I should show up to the first day of class and approach him at the very end because first day attendance is mandatory and if someone missed the first day then their spot would be mine.
3. I've also emailed the department that offered the course. I found on their website a contact person and send them an email asking for one of the reserved spots. This was a class combined for undergrads and graduates so they gave me one of the graduate spots.
Also, there's nothing wrong with changing your major. I hate to say it but if this was a class you knew you needed and you didn't sign up for it the moment registration opened, then well, tough luck.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/04
| 527
| 2,344
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose I'm writing a research paper on topic T.
Additionally, suppose there is a textbook or research paper on topic T that covers all the progress of the topic from its initial time to 2018 December.
Since I'm writing a paper during April 2019. Can I cite the research paper or textbook for literature from early days to 2018 December and only explicitly cite the remaining literature from January 2019 to April 2019 or do I need to also write a total literature survey for my research paper? If yes, what is the need to write again if I'm citing a credible source for literature?<issue_comment>username_1: Imho there's no such thing as a "total" literature survey, a survey is a summary of the research in a particular field so there is some selection involved.
If the research paper that you're writing presents a new contribution to the field, then you should show how this particular contribution relates to previous work. This usually requires you to give some level of detail about who has done what before. You don't have to of course, but reviewers are likely to take this into account.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: **Your intended audience should be able to read your paper without referencing other papers.** So, unless your entire target audience will already have read the survey in question, you should summarize it for them. Saying "go read this survey, then come back" is a dereliction of duty. Note my reference to "your intended audience" -- a publication in *Nature* has a wider audience than *J. of Machine Learning*, and so your *Nature* paper must explain past work that the latter journal's readers would certainly already know about.
Further, **the survey in question is unlikely to be suitable for your specific purposes.** Yes, it may contain all relevant information, but it is likely addresses all the major results for the field as a whole. In contrast, your paper is offering a specific advance on a specific problem -- so, you need to explain which aspects of which results are relevant, and which avenues have not been addressed. Further, it is typical for survey to omit results that are unimportant for the field as a whole, but important for the topic of your paper.
Either way, the survey sounds like a great resource -- you should definitely cite it.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/04
| 575
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a student doing my Masters in India, and was considering doing a PhD (in computer science, specifically ML) in a university in Taipei, Taiwan. I went to their website, but couldn't find some of the details I was looking for. These were the questions (in no particular order)
1. Will language be an issue? Are we expected to learn Chinese? The website said that there are courses in Chinese and English, but nothing more. I wanted to know in terms of doing courses, communicating with the advisor and his other students, as well as writing papers.
2. What about food? I am a vegetarian.
3. Can i get scholarship there? From the govt or TAship/RAship?
4. What about the coursework which I will have to do in my PhD? How long would it take(duration)? And how is the workload?<issue_comment>username_1: Imho there's no such thing as a "total" literature survey, a survey is a summary of the research in a particular field so there is some selection involved.
If the research paper that you're writing presents a new contribution to the field, then you should show how this particular contribution relates to previous work. This usually requires you to give some level of detail about who has done what before. You don't have to of course, but reviewers are likely to take this into account.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: **Your intended audience should be able to read your paper without referencing other papers.** So, unless your entire target audience will already have read the survey in question, you should summarize it for them. Saying "go read this survey, then come back" is a dereliction of duty. Note my reference to "your intended audience" -- a publication in *Nature* has a wider audience than *J. of Machine Learning*, and so your *Nature* paper must explain past work that the latter journal's readers would certainly already know about.
Further, **the survey in question is unlikely to be suitable for your specific purposes.** Yes, it may contain all relevant information, but it is likely addresses all the major results for the field as a whole. In contrast, your paper is offering a specific advance on a specific problem -- so, you need to explain which aspects of which results are relevant, and which avenues have not been addressed. Further, it is typical for survey to omit results that are unimportant for the field as a whole, but important for the topic of your paper.
Either way, the survey sounds like a great resource -- you should definitely cite it.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/04
| 846
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a postdoc in the process of applying for faculty position in universities. Most applications require you to apply all the materials on an online portal or careers page, which I do.
Now there must be hundreds or more applications. To stand out from the rest of the applicants and to bring to attention the application to the head of the department (HOD), would emailing the HOD enhance my application or would it affect it negatively. If it helps, what should the content of the email be?
I have seen a similar question on SE: [emailing contacts after applying for faculty jobs](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38580/emailing-contacts-after-applying-for-faculty-jobs), but my question deals with an unknown person at the university.<issue_comment>username_1: First, the person most involved with a search is the chair of the search committee. Sometimes this is the HoD, but often it is not. Sometimes the HoD is on the search committee and sometimes they are not. Often, and in my opinion ideally, the HoD is not involved in the search until the end.
Now to answer your question. If you know someone in the department you can, and should, email/call them that you are applying. You should also ask for whatever inside information they have. If you have questions (e.g., I am in subfield X, is that within the scope of the search), then you can email search chair (or whoever the contact point is).
**Do not email the head of department**, the chair of the search or anyone on the search committee in an *attempt to stand out from the rest of the applicants*. That is surely going to backfire.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> To stand out from the rest of the applicants and to bring to attention the application to the head of the department (HOD), would emailing the HOD enhance my application or would it affect it negatively.
>
>
>
Realistically, it does not affect your application at all. Firstly, this does not make you "stand out" nearly as much as you think it does, because quite a few people have the idea that writing some sort of personal letter to the head of the hiring committee improves their chances. Secondly, what do you expect will realistically happen? That the HoD thinks *"gee, nxkryptor certainly shows initiative, better put them on the shortlist"*? This is really not how academic hiring works.
The most realistic effect is that the HoD sees your email among the >100 mails of the day, exhales a short sigh, and then either directly moves it to "read" or writes you a polite "thanks for letting me know". 120 seconds later they have forgotten your name again, and it won't impact the evaluation of your package in any noticeable way.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In disagreement with the other answers: Depending on your field, there may be many people applying who
1. Are applying for every opening without thinking carefully about it, or
2. Are likely to receive multiple job offers.
Nobody wants to waste time offering a job to someone in those categories. An additional contact that informs the head of the search (which may or may not be the department head) that you are aware of the nature of the job and actually want it may make you stand out from people in those two categories.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Your application includes a job letter. Sending an email means that you're simply sending a second job letter. Why would they want to read two job letters from one person?
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/04
| 432
| 1,737
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted my phd thesis and immediately joined as a faculty member in another institute. My final phd viva will be in around 3 months time. Now, I need to publish some of my thesis work which I haven't published yet. Do I need to give my affiliation from both my institutes? Can I give both?? I will be the corresponding author.<issue_comment>username_1: How you list your affiliation is field dependent. You could probably ask your advisor what is best for you. I assume you *can* list them both.
See this [answer to a meta post](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/a/4473/75368) for part of the discussion on variability in academia.
If your doctoral institution funded you in any way they probably want an acknowledgement, at least. Maybe so even when they don't. But your readers will also want to be able to find you if they have questions, etc.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I had the same thing recently and was advised to include both if you have used any resources (including time) while working at the new institute on the paper. I chatted with my advisor at the new institute and we agreed that as any work I had done on my PhD paper was done in my spare time, not during time my new institute was paying me for, I didn't need to include them as an affiliation.
But if you're taking significant chunks of the working day to work on this paper (including during review response) and the institute is paying you for that time, I would include them, as they have then been funding the time you're spending to work on it. Also in my case, I totally switched fields to one my new institute doesn't do any work in so they didn't really want their name on my old work.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/04
| 918
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a CS PhD program in the US, next year, as an international student. I will complete my CS undergrad in a few months. I already have research experience with my project advisor. Also, I did a research internship at another well-known school with a similar topic. This project was presented in an international conference, too. I think this should be beneficial for my application.
However, I am not that interested in my research topic. It is related to computational neuroscience. At first, I just wanted to gain experience working with Machine Learning but I did not have an idea what problem I should be working on. Neuroscience sounded interesting to me, so I picked that sub-field. I did apply ML in my research project as I wanted but the neuroscience stuff was definitely not my thing. It has been an exhausting time for me to work on a project I do not like. I am still OK with ML and I am passionate about it. The thing is that I want to get away from neuroscience when I apply for a PhD. Right now, I have an idea to work with ML on low-power IoT device (such as camera) but I still have time to think about it thoroughly.
The question is that how can I write a strong SoP in this situation? If I write all about ML & neuroscience in my SoP, I am afraid that I will end up in a lab that I do not like. On the other hand, if I mention ML & IoT, I may have a weaker SoP since I have no experience in this sub-field. From my understanding, SoP is not a commitment but I am not sure that this will affect my journey or not.<issue_comment>username_1: In my own SoPs I wrote about my past experience and how it informed what I wanted to do in the future. For me in particular, I had done some computational research and some bench work unrelated to neuroscience, but I wanted to do some more wet biology in neuroscience. I wrote about how those relatively unrelated pieces of experience would apply to what I wanted to do next. I think it makes a lot more sense in a statement of purpose to talk about what you want to to study and learn rather than only what you've already done. If I said "I've been growing walnuts my whole life and I want to do this PhD to grow more walnuts" - that might be great in a job application to be a walnut-farmer, but if I read that in someone else's SoP I'd wonder why they were after a PhD and if they had any idea what a PhD actually was.
Presumably in your work with machine learning in computational neuroscience, you've learned about some of the benefits and limits of machine learning in that domain. You now know a bit what it's like to work with those tools, and you'd like to apply them to a new problem. Presumably, in a CS PhD, you'd be expected to do more work developing the tools rather than just applying them. That seems like a pretty straightforward SoP to me.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: For CS doctorates in the US, you don't normally need to come with a research topic. This is especially true for someone coming straight from an undergrad institution. You can start fresh. (Note that "undergraduate" has different meanings in different places.)
However, if you apply to a program that, itself, has a strong neurological science focus then you will probably get stuck there. But there are a lot of possibilities outside that area. Most such US programs expect incoming students to have a broad education with some focus on a field, but not an especially narrow focus.
Make your SOP forward looking for the most part. The CV tells what you have done already, make the SOP about what you want to do: Machine Learning or whatever. Talk about why you can be expected to succeed in the new endeavors.
In some other places, students may need to already have a strong research focus to begin. That isn't true here. Expect that most PhD programs will include some coursework.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/04
| 602
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<issue_start>username_0: I am Ph.D student works in theoretical computer science (algebra). I will be graduating next year. I have been able to publish 2 paper currently writing a paper. Idea's are comming into my mind these days, and also I start writing as soon as possible. I try to write the things as early as possible. The problem from which I am suffering most is "writing skill", as the feedback I have from my collegue I have good idea's but writing is not that much good even after two months of writing ( I have written many drafts). Note that in those two months in which I were writing the draft of the paper, I was also working on some other problems.
I know that my writing is not great, but I have heard that good writers are good theoreticians. I may have very good idea but I may not be that much good writer and due to this thing I may not be much successful, Please help
Question : Are good writers are good theoreticians?<issue_comment>username_1: Since you started studying computer science, has anyone spent significant time teaching you how to write? Of your whole time learning, what proportion was spent learning computer science, and what proportion spent learning writing skills?
If your answers to these questions are what I expect them to be, then you need to put time into learning to write. It is a skill, not a gift. It can be taught, and it can be learnt. (I should know. I spent five years studying pure mathematics at undergraduate and postgraduate level without ever writing more than about three consecutive words. When I first attempted to enter my chosen profession, which required a written examination, I failed.) I subsequently put a lot of effort into learning how to write. People in my profession, which is very much based on use of words, tell me that my writing is very good.
For me, the career enhancing book was <NAME>'s "The Pyramid Principle" that makes the case that clarity of thought leads to clarity of thinking. The logical approach she takes appealed to me as a mathematician, and maybe that might appeal to you as a computer scientist. But there are lots of books.
I suggest it is not helpful to comfort yourself with such thoughts as 'good theoreticians are never good writers, and vice versa'. If you are bright enough to be good at computer science then you are bright enough to learn how to be a competent writer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Not necessarily**.
Case in point: JK Rowling is a world-renowned writer, but I don't know anyone who has called her a good theoretician.
Upvotes: -1
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2019/04/04
| 992
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<issue_start>username_0: I will finish my PhD in Applied Physics (simulations of quantum transport and light scattering in nanowires) in around 6-8 months and I have already made the decision of leaving Academia as soon as I graduate. The main reason is that I consider that my publications record after the PhD will not be good enough to be able to compete for good positions in the post-doc world. I have also lost the motivation and my interest in the field due to the lack of satisfying and rewarding outcome (I tend to blame myself for this, but I had almost no supervision during the last year). If I stay in Academia I will most likely be jumping from post-doc to post-doc contract in mediocre/low level research groups for the next decade.
I have recently started to consider pursuing a career in Data Science: job offers seem to be abundant and the salaries are good, plus it seems that it is possible to work in many different fields once you are experienced (which is something I love since I'm interested and curious about many, many things).
I currently lack the core-set of technical skills a data scientist should have (R, Python, SQL, Statistics, etc.) and I will not have that much time left to take on-line courses until I write and defend my thesis. However I have strong experience working with other programming languages and I know that I could easily get familiar (not talking about proficiency) with everything needed in short time. After all, everything should be conceptually much easier than the theory of my PhD/MSc and I also have a good background in Statistical Mechanics.
Do you guys have any advices or experiences to share on how to make this transition? I am a bit afraid of the real world after I finish. Also, what would be the most optimal way to get a data scientist job after the PhD? I have thought of looking for an internship, but I do not know if I could just do it by taking on-line courses and doing things on my own.
Thank you very much in advance!
Edit: As it may be relevant, I am not in US but in Europe<issue_comment>username_1: There actually is sufficient demand for data scientists and engineers that there are specific 7-8 week long postdoctoral training programs. Such a program could be a good idea, both as a way to build skills and to show that you've actually completed a relevant project. I have no first-hand experience myself, but I know a former physics postdoc who successfully attended the (free) [Insight Data Engineering program](https://www.insightdataengineering.com) and now works as a data scientist. (They also have a program focused on data science.) Another such program is [The Data Incubator](https://www.thedataincubator.com/fellowship.html), and I imagine there are more out there.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Here is a theoretical physicist phd graduate who did the transition into data science within few months before graduation. Currently [he is Senior Computer Vision Engineer](https://www.linkedin.com/in/iglovikov) at Level5, Self-Driving Division, Lyft Inc. & Kaggle Grandmaster :
[Interview with Kaggle Grandmaster, Senior Computer Vision Engineer at Lyft: Dr. <NAME>](https://hackernoon.com/interview-with-kaggle-grandmaster-senior-cv-engineer-at-lyft-dr-vladimir-i-iglovikov-9938e1fc7c)
**TL;DR**
Invest in learning datascience and machine learning by doing [kaggle](https://www.kaggle.com) competitions.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not difficult to learn Python if you are experienced in similar languages (mostly MATLAB) and a background in statistics is very useful (as you mentioned statistical mechanics). I agree that you can compete in Kaggle, although it may be hard in the beginning. For sure you need to acquire hands-on experience, it is one of the most important requirements in industry. You can start from easy data science projects in Python and proceed fast. Build your own portfolio which is what you are going to outline a lot when applying for jobs and during interviews.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/04
| 400
| 1,711
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in a PhD program and want to approach a professor that I'm interested in working with. I've already sent him a couple of emails describing my background and asking for a meeting but he hasn't responded yet (it's been a couple of weeks). I've heard that he is very busy but always looks for new students. I also couldn't find his office hours(he probably doesn't have any). Is it rude if I dropped by his office? If I do, should I ask to schedule a meeting or just start talking about my interests?<issue_comment>username_1: It is not rude to drop by his office. Office hours tend to be associated with classes so if they are not teaching this semester, they may not have office hours. Show up with a print out of your CV and one of your past publications (if you have one) and be prepared to talk, but also have your calendar available. Introduce yourself, hand over the CV and papers and tell them you would like to setup a time to meet. Go from there.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I've advised nearly 30 Ph.D. students during my academic career as a professor. My advice to you is to be careful here. You've sent him a few emails, and you've received no response. Hopefully you attached your CV to those emails. If he is looking for someone to join his research group and he thought you were an exciting candidate, he should have responded to one of your emails by now (or maybe he still will). Given that you are already in the program, he really should either invite you to meet with him or else let you know that he doesn't have an opportunity for you. Given his lack of responsiveness, maybe he isn't a very good choice as a research advisor in any event.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/05
| 1,583
| 6,825
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in a PhD program and I'm preparing myself to meet a prospective advisor for the first time. I want to know what questions do they usually ask students in their first meeting? What do they expect? I've looked at the following discussions and they were helpful but did not answer my question completely.
[How do I impress my prospective grad advisor? (first meeting)](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/87555/how-do-i-impress-my-prospective-grad-advisor-first-meeting)
[Etiquette for an initial meeting with a prospective advisor: What is expected of the student?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2186/etiquette-for-an-initial-meeting-with-a-prospective-advisor-what-is-expected-of)<issue_comment>username_1: From the perspective of the prospective advisor, their goal in the meeting will be to determine whether they want to take you on as a student, so their questions are likely to be based on accomplishing this goal. This is very much like a job interview with a prospective employer, so you should prepare yourself in the same way.
* **(1)** Make sure you have "done your homework" on the research interests of the advisor, and whatever research group they are in. This means that you should have read their faculty webpages, read about the projects they have done, and have a reasonable idea of the kinds of publications that advisor has done. I would expect that you have at least looked at the list of papers published by the advisor, and if you are well-prepared, you might even have skim-read a couple of them. You might be asked questions about why you want to be supervised by that advisor (or work within that group), and you should be able to respond to these with specifics.
* **(2)** Depending on how this university works, you should either have some existing knowledge of projects that they want to put you on, or if you are expected to come up with your own project, you should have some reasonable ideas for this. If you are proposing your own ideas, make sure that they are within the expertise of the prospective supervisor, or else consider a different prospective supervisor. If you have already constructed a research proposal, bring this with you. You may be asked about your ideas for projects, or broad fields of research, and in this case the most important thing to do is to make sure you can explain your ideas *in clear and simple terms*. When a potential supervisor asks you to describe a project idea, often they are just looking to see if you can communicate your idea in clear non-technical terms to someone who has never heard it before. They want to know that you can communicate about your subject clearly, without falling into a muddle, or giving a stream of jargon.
* **(3)** Your prospective advisor might ask you about your previous experience and courses, to get an idea of your level of existing knowledge. If you have sent them a CV and academic transcript in advance then this will help to narrow down the questions. Some advisors like to ask detailed questions about past courses, grades, etc., and others will just assume that if you got into the PhD program then you have the desired background. This varies a lot, but be prepared to talk about your past education/work, and give some highlights of things you have done well in (without appearing to brag).
* **(4)** You ought to be able to make a plausible case for how you will fit into the advisor's research group, and how you can *add value* to this group. Expectations will be modest here, since you are a novice, so they are not going to expect you to have any expertise that is lacking in the research group. Still, you should be prepared to explain why you think you would fit well into that research group/project, and show that you have the potential to learn the material rapidly.
* **(5)** Make sure you display an attitude of eagerness and flexibility, and are not too rigid in your desire to work on a particular project. A prospective supervisor will generally look for a student who is able to be slotted into projects where they are needed, and who can adapt to changes in a research project. At the level of a PhD candidature your supervisor will also generally want you to have a broad interest in the field, rather than a narrow interest only in a particular project. It is therefore helpful if you can display an enthusiasm and knowledge for the your field generally. (Some PhD students occasionally ask if it will harm them to show interest in multiple research subjects at once, on the basis that this might dilute their commitment to one project. Although academics often become highly specialised, this is not an expectation that applies to starting PhD students, and at this early stage it is best if the student has a broad interest in the discipline.)
Initial meetings with a prospective supervisor vary wildly, depending on the attitude of that academic. For some academics it is treated as little more than an informal meet-and-greet, while others may ask detailed questions and "grill" the prospective student. So, **hope for the best, but prepare for the worst!**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The best I can do is to let you know what I ask and want to talk about in these situations. I have worked with 30 Ph.D. advisees in my engineering faculty career to date.
I will not ask technical questions in the same way I would on an oral examination. But, I will certainly bring up technical ideas closely related to my research that I would expect an interested student to know at least a bit about. If the student has something interesting to say on these ideas, then I know that they are seriously interested in my research. I will say that it is better if the student admits that they do not know much about an area rather than "pretend" to be better informed than she/he really is. I'll have to say that I value honesty in these settings above all else.
I will be very interested to understand why the student wants to get a Ph.D., so she/he should be ready to talk about career goals with some specificity. In my view, it is not enough to simply say that they wish to have a career as a faculty member. Why? Where? What do they hope to accomplish?
I'd like to know a bit about their research goals. What types of research are most interesting? What impact do they hope to have with their research and scholarship? What journals do they hope to publish in?
Finally, and probably most importantly, I like to see some evidence of passion about a research problem or subfield or a particular aspect of academic research or the academic career. Students who have a passion to accomplish something and then can set goals that enable them to make it happen are the ones we want to work with most.
I hope this helps!
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/05
| 2,356
| 9,856
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<issue_start>username_0: In my field of computer science it is not uncommon to see professors who, after many years at a highly ranked university, choose to take on a position at a lower ranked (though generally still good) university. I see this happen even if the professor does not get a promotion or endowed chair. What might incentivize a professor to do this?<issue_comment>username_1: The most important reasons I can think of are private reasons. People do not live to work, but work to live.
What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if your family/your friends can not live there or are unhappy to live there?
What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if it is in a place you find boring or don’t like?
I would suggest you to change your mindset from highly ranked university to high quality of life (which is subjective and also includes a little bit the rank of the university, if you value this).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Adding to the family and personal reasons mentioned, I would like to point out some **professional reasons** as well;
* High rank universities tend to be bigger, which means they might be busier, impersonal and more stressful.
* A smaller university, (probably of a lower rank), would have a smaller load of students which means the relationship and interaction between professor and students is more direct, more personal and surely fore some, more fun.
* Being part of a lower rank institution can be a challenge for the professor to add significant value to it and try to improve its reputation.
* And finally yes, there can be tons of other reason such as contributing to a particular local community, living in a smaller and more quiet town, more nature closeby etc. etc.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: The question seems to imply that university ranking is the most important component or aspect of a university career. I think many would disagree with that. In fact, there isn't *any* single feature of academia that is of primary concern to everyone. You can't in general list the various positive and negative aspects of academia on a linear scale that works for anyone but yourself.
Sadly, a lot of questions here seem to make the same sort of assumption. Students want to go to the top university in their country, when it might be better just to want an excellent education.
However, such things as the ranking of a university come with both good and bad aspects. You can brag to your mom, of course, that you are teaching at Harvard or Cambridge. But your life will be pretty hectic and there will be quite a few things that you are expected to do that may not appeal to you. The ranking, of course, is there because everyone is working very hard all the time and take few personal breaks with pressure all the time to do even more. The rankings don't *just happen*.
So, the title of the question is a bit off. There is no "typical" here, other than perhaps that people desire a change of some sort. But what sort of change is a personal thing. Some want to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Some want to take on admin responsibilities not open to them where they are. Some want to move to Montana because of the fishing. Or maybe to Florida.
Your academic career will be a mix of things. Some good and some not so good. If the good outweighs the bad you will probably stick with it. Unless you get a desire for a change.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Malo hic esse primus quam Romae secundus
----------------------------------------
"Better to be first here than second in Rome." <NAME> (according to Plutarch).
In many way, prestige, influence, freedom to choose research lines and implementation times, workload level, collaborators, quality of life, sunshine hours per year ...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Money
-----
It may not be the only driving factor, but I am surprised to see a lack of people mentioning that just because they are going to a lower ranking university doesn't mean they are being paid less.
I would be willing to be a reasonable percentage of professors moving institutions have been offered a better salary. It is quite common across all career paths these days that in order to get the best salary you need to change employers.
Particularly if you have been working at one institution for a long time the raises you receive may not be inline with the actual increase in your value due to your experience.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Adding to the other answers here: It might very well be that a professor does not give any value to such rankings, maybe because they know on what data the ranking is based on. From my time as a student representative in Germany (Fachschaftsrat/Fakultätsrat), I remember rankings where the data for some universities consisted of around 10 survey returns...
Therefore, they might base their decision on personal reasons, on the faculty-to-student ratio, on the staffing and research facilities they are offered or maybe even on an upcoming research project. Or maybe they want to conclude their career on a chair at the same university they currently are at -- at least here in Germany, climbing the professoral career ladder is harder if you don't switch to another university (in my universities' senate, which I was part of for a while, such "Hausbewerbungen" (applications from researchers of the same university) warrant a very sceptical look onto the candidate list).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Turn the question around: what are the benefits of the highly-ranked school? Maybe those don't apply (anymore).
For example, ease of gaining grant money and attracting good graduate students. But if a professor has had a reasonably long and successful career, they may be able to do these things from anywhere.
A second point is that professors often care more about colleagues in their research area than overall prestige and ranking.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Among the academics I've known who have done that, the most common reason is that they are going from a university that is good all-round to one which is doing interesting work in their particular sub-field of interest even if it is lousy in everything else.
Those who like teaching also tend to like smaller cohorts, because they can be personally involved. Apart from the really top-end sandstone institutions, the higher ranked universities tend to have rather low academic staff-student ratios and education can become an afterthought. The smaller universities also tend to end up with more senior staff actively involved in research, which is generally considered a lot more fun than administration.
I also know one who switched because he was in love with a postdoc at that lower-ranked uni.
Aside from that, wages matter, and not just headline cash sums. A nicer town/city or a lower cost of living, better opportunities for one's spouse, and so on can all make somewhere else more attractive.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: The answers about personal reasons are excellent and worth a read.
But also remember that metrics are never neutral: any ranking system inherently makes choices about what is important in order to turn a school into a single aggregate number.
Many rankings prioritize things like funding, selectivity rates, peer evaluations, publicity, etc. Some professors may have different weightings, such as:
* Teaching over research (not everyone becomes a professor to write grants!)
* Access to specific collaborators within their subfield (lower ranked school, but strong in one specific area)
* Joint appointments with nearby facilities (national labs, industry collaborators, etc) that boost the attractiveness of the offer
* A desire to support certain student populations that are, uh, not well represented at some big programs
* Ability to find a good job in the same area as their spouse (who may or may not be in the same field, much less work at a university at all)
* Specific terms of the offer that their original host is unwilling or unable to match (more space, director of a new program, etc)
There is an old census joke that "the average family has 1.9 children, but all the families we checked only had whole integers". Faculty are the same way: the average "best" ranking is not a good way to describe an individual.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: [Here](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html) is an example of a black mathematician who was a full professor at Purdue, but he recently left for Pomona because he felt racially isolated and excluded.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: I think an observation I made while applying to both high and low ranked universities could go a little way to explain this phenomenon; I have found that low ranked universities treat students and staff very well in order to encourage good academics and students to remain there and Improve the uni’s ranking. While high ranked unis don’t have to try so hard as there is always a surplus of student and quality staff applications.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: Yet another possible reason: they might have been head-hunted.
A somewhat singular example of this, dating back to 1964, before the quantified ranking of universities emerged, was at the nascent University of Warwick. Had universities been ranked then, Warwick—as a complete unknown—would have been assigned a pretty poor score. [Sir] <NAME>, charged with setting up Warwick's mathematics department, invited six distinguished researchers to fill the initial positions, the lure for each being that the other five (plus Zeeman) would be there. The bluff worked, and the department went on to be a cornerstone of what is now a highly ranked university.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing my Mechanical engineering PhD thesis. My research was based on modeling a 3D printing process. The work was interesting but I feel that there's not much rigoresness in the modeling aspect of the work. I tried to think differently from existing published works by other researchers, but still the inherent problems with the actual process makes it hard to develop an accurate model using current theories and modeling techniques.
Thus, I want to explore different topics post PhD. However, on discussing my future career with her, she advised that I should stick with my area of expertise/experience and should also pursue similar endeavours during post doctoral research. According to her, that would make you stand out as an expert in the modeling aspect of the field.
I don't know what should I do? Should I deviate from the PhD research area post graduation or should I listen to my advisor and stick to my 'less rigorous' area of expertise? I would eventually like to stay in academia.<issue_comment>username_1: The most important reasons I can think of are private reasons. People do not live to work, but work to live.
What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if your family/your friends can not live there or are unhappy to live there?
What good does a job at a highly ranked university do, if it is in a place you find boring or don’t like?
I would suggest you to change your mindset from highly ranked university to high quality of life (which is subjective and also includes a little bit the rank of the university, if you value this).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Adding to the family and personal reasons mentioned, I would like to point out some **professional reasons** as well;
* High rank universities tend to be bigger, which means they might be busier, impersonal and more stressful.
* A smaller university, (probably of a lower rank), would have a smaller load of students which means the relationship and interaction between professor and students is more direct, more personal and surely fore some, more fun.
* Being part of a lower rank institution can be a challenge for the professor to add significant value to it and try to improve its reputation.
* And finally yes, there can be tons of other reason such as contributing to a particular local community, living in a smaller and more quiet town, more nature closeby etc. etc.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: The question seems to imply that university ranking is the most important component or aspect of a university career. I think many would disagree with that. In fact, there isn't *any* single feature of academia that is of primary concern to everyone. You can't in general list the various positive and negative aspects of academia on a linear scale that works for anyone but yourself.
Sadly, a lot of questions here seem to make the same sort of assumption. Students want to go to the top university in their country, when it might be better just to want an excellent education.
However, such things as the ranking of a university come with both good and bad aspects. You can brag to your mom, of course, that you are teaching at Harvard or Cambridge. But your life will be pretty hectic and there will be quite a few things that you are expected to do that may not appeal to you. The ranking, of course, is there because everyone is working very hard all the time and take few personal breaks with pressure all the time to do even more. The rankings don't *just happen*.
So, the title of the question is a bit off. There is no "typical" here, other than perhaps that people desire a change of some sort. But what sort of change is a personal thing. Some want to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. Some want to take on admin responsibilities not open to them where they are. Some want to move to Montana because of the fishing. Or maybe to Florida.
Your academic career will be a mix of things. Some good and some not so good. If the good outweighs the bad you will probably stick with it. Unless you get a desire for a change.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Malo hic esse primus quam Romae secundus
----------------------------------------
"Better to be first here than second in Rome." <NAME> (according to Plutarch).
In many way, prestige, influence, freedom to choose research lines and implementation times, workload level, collaborators, quality of life, sunshine hours per year ...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Money
-----
It may not be the only driving factor, but I am surprised to see a lack of people mentioning that just because they are going to a lower ranking university doesn't mean they are being paid less.
I would be willing to be a reasonable percentage of professors moving institutions have been offered a better salary. It is quite common across all career paths these days that in order to get the best salary you need to change employers.
Particularly if you have been working at one institution for a long time the raises you receive may not be inline with the actual increase in your value due to your experience.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Adding to the other answers here: It might very well be that a professor does not give any value to such rankings, maybe because they know on what data the ranking is based on. From my time as a student representative in Germany (Fachschaftsrat/Fakultätsrat), I remember rankings where the data for some universities consisted of around 10 survey returns...
Therefore, they might base their decision on personal reasons, on the faculty-to-student ratio, on the staffing and research facilities they are offered or maybe even on an upcoming research project. Or maybe they want to conclude their career on a chair at the same university they currently are at -- at least here in Germany, climbing the professoral career ladder is harder if you don't switch to another university (in my universities' senate, which I was part of for a while, such "Hausbewerbungen" (applications from researchers of the same university) warrant a very sceptical look onto the candidate list).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Turn the question around: what are the benefits of the highly-ranked school? Maybe those don't apply (anymore).
For example, ease of gaining grant money and attracting good graduate students. But if a professor has had a reasonably long and successful career, they may be able to do these things from anywhere.
A second point is that professors often care more about colleagues in their research area than overall prestige and ranking.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Among the academics I've known who have done that, the most common reason is that they are going from a university that is good all-round to one which is doing interesting work in their particular sub-field of interest even if it is lousy in everything else.
Those who like teaching also tend to like smaller cohorts, because they can be personally involved. Apart from the really top-end sandstone institutions, the higher ranked universities tend to have rather low academic staff-student ratios and education can become an afterthought. The smaller universities also tend to end up with more senior staff actively involved in research, which is generally considered a lot more fun than administration.
I also know one who switched because he was in love with a postdoc at that lower-ranked uni.
Aside from that, wages matter, and not just headline cash sums. A nicer town/city or a lower cost of living, better opportunities for one's spouse, and so on can all make somewhere else more attractive.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: The answers about personal reasons are excellent and worth a read.
But also remember that metrics are never neutral: any ranking system inherently makes choices about what is important in order to turn a school into a single aggregate number.
Many rankings prioritize things like funding, selectivity rates, peer evaluations, publicity, etc. Some professors may have different weightings, such as:
* Teaching over research (not everyone becomes a professor to write grants!)
* Access to specific collaborators within their subfield (lower ranked school, but strong in one specific area)
* Joint appointments with nearby facilities (national labs, industry collaborators, etc) that boost the attractiveness of the offer
* A desire to support certain student populations that are, uh, not well represented at some big programs
* Ability to find a good job in the same area as their spouse (who may or may not be in the same field, much less work at a university at all)
* Specific terms of the offer that their original host is unwilling or unable to match (more space, director of a new program, etc)
There is an old census joke that "the average family has 1.9 children, but all the families we checked only had whole integers". Faculty are the same way: the average "best" ranking is not a good way to describe an individual.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: [Here](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/us/edray-goins-black-mathematicians.html) is an example of a black mathematician who was a full professor at Purdue, but he recently left for Pomona because he felt racially isolated and excluded.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: I think an observation I made while applying to both high and low ranked universities could go a little way to explain this phenomenon; I have found that low ranked universities treat students and staff very well in order to encourage good academics and students to remain there and Improve the uni’s ranking. While high ranked unis don’t have to try so hard as there is always a surplus of student and quality staff applications.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: Yet another possible reason: they might have been head-hunted.
A somewhat singular example of this, dating back to 1964, before the quantified ranking of universities emerged, was at the nascent University of Warwick. Had universities been ranked then, Warwick—as a complete unknown—would have been assigned a pretty poor score. [Sir] <NAME>, charged with setting up Warwick's mathematics department, invited six distinguished researchers to fill the initial positions, the lure for each being that the other five (plus Zeeman) would be there. The bluff worked, and the department went on to be a cornerstone of what is now a highly ranked university.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I [have read](https://libanswers.snhu.edu/faq/215024) that references in scientific papers should be no more than 2-3 years old, since such fields move fast, and no more than 10 years for arts or related fields:
>
> A good rule of thumb is to use sources published in the past 10 years
> for research in the arts, humanities, literature, history, etc.
>
>
> For faster-paced fields, sources published in the past 2-3 years is a
> good benchmark since these sources are more current and reflect the
> newest discoveries, theories, processes, or best practices.
>
>
>
However, I believe that's subjective, so how old is it for a reference to be "too old" to cite?<issue_comment>username_1: References can be as old as they need to be to cover the material. I had some that were more than 30 years old. But if *all* of your references are "old," people are going to want to know why.
You must also be sure you cover the *most current research in your field.* A few in my own dissertation were for material published in the same year as my own work.
The link given in the comments and the revised question seems to be directed toward undergraduate research assignments, and the "ten years" reference is a part of an example assignment, not a requirement given by the Shapiro Library. The key idea in the link is that references must be "somewhat current."
For a thesis or dissertation, one must cover the field, including both early and very new research.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There is no rule about the age of citations. For example in my PhD-thesis I quoted some math-papers from 1600s that were originally written in latin (but those were exceptions).
Much more relavant than the year is the content of a citation and that you cover the relevant literature.
Also, you might want to include a few (relevant!) citations from recent years in order to show that you did your reading not just at the beginning of your thesis and then ignored everything afterwards.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your rule has a large fraction of exception that you should always consider. Make sure you cite the relevant papers for your claims and that you cite the papers which were the first introducing the idea. Don't cite a textbook for ideas just because they are recent. Instead, try to find and cite the original works.
If you cite an idea originating back to Aristoteles it does not make sense to use a recent source. The idea is that old! Also, if you want to prove your claim, that some method was used in the 70s, it's useful to cite papers written in the 70s.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: A group of researchers published this very interesting paper:
**The nearly universal link between the age of past knowledge and tomorrow’s breakthroughs in science and technology: The hotspot**
From a pure data science perspective, they try to understand how the distribution of reference age affects the forward citations of an article. They analyze all publications (~ 28 million) in Web of Science published between 1945 - 2013.
Unfortunately, they do not show an aggregated histogram of age differences between a publication and its references. But in Fig. 1 we see the mean (0-50 years) and variance (0-4) for all published papers and it is all over the place. So the take away might be to cite what you want.
However, they echo in their paper the comments and answers that you got here. Impactful and hopefully good research seems to differ from the "cite what you want" approach. If you want to increase the likelihood of your work having an impact you should base your work on recent advances but also be aware of well-established theories or overlooked ideas from the past. They show this in the paper by finding a hotspot of highly cited papers that have a low mean age distance to their references but a high variance in age distance.
Here is a link to the paper (super interesting):
<http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/4/e1601315.full.pdf>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: There's no limit on how old they can be. In biology people often cite Darwin (1859) and geneticists who work on pedigrees can cite government records from hundreds of years ago. Work involving theology may cite the Bible. Historians cite original documents from thousands of years ago. Sometimes a fun game is to see what the oldest citation you can get away with is. Plato or Aristotle is often a safe bet.
Generally, you are supposed to cite the *oldest* paper that made a discovery, as the credit belongs to them. When in doubt, you can cite one old and one new paper.
However, your work must be in the context of contemporary scientific literature. If you cite a 50 year old paper for a theory, you better make sure the theory has not been disproven in another paper published 30 years after. If you say the state of the art in a field is a paper published 10 years ago, it would look really bad if somebody brought up a 5 year old paper that advanced it further. This is why citing old material is risky: You can't easily tell that it's still current. If a paper came out last monday, chances are pretty low that somebody refuted it in that time.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: The rule you quote is total nonsense for the sciences, and I have a hard time taking it seriously for the humanities.
You cite whatever you need to cite, regardless of its age. Typically, if you're referring to something that is decades old, it's now either common knowledge (e.g., Newton's laws) so probably doesn't need citation at all, or it's in textbooks (which are probably more appropriate to cite than the original source). Both of those things are a consequence of age but age *per se* is a completely spurious reason to not cite something.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I have cited a book on farming by [Columella from the 1st century CE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columella).
It provided crucial evidence for the use of a word at that time. But I did not take the evidence as the final say on the matter. I also cited 15th century academic analysis of the evidence as well as 21st century work. There is a fundamental difference between saying
>
> It is true because X says so
>
>
>
and
>
> X says so, so let us analyse it and cite more recent opinions on whether it is true.
>
>
>
In any discipline it may be necessary to contrast older and younger opinions on the same subject, and you will have to do some work yourself to argue that any given source, whatever its age, is - or is not - reliable.
As it happens, I rejected all the academic analysis and accepted my own interpretation of the original evidence. You as a researcher are expected to determine on a case-by-case basis what evidence needs to be cited, and what can be accepted.
Of course, at some stage, you have to accept that a certain claim is true because X says so. To do this you have to cite something that is fairly recent (which will depend on the discipline) and, if it not the most recent, argue why you are accepting it in preference to the most recent.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: To be honest, just like you’ve said, all of this is quite subjective... Personally, I believe that if a paper is relevant to the point you are trying to make and hasn’t been categorically disproven then it’s fair game. However, what I think is irrelevant; it depends on the person marking your dissertation and how they feel about it. Some academics I know don’t care while others do. I was once marked down for using a 7 year old paper as a reference even though it was very relevant to my work, simply because the lecturer marking my work didn’t want to see anything older than 5 years.
For the most part, it should be fine. Academics who insist on only recent papers are few, in my experience.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently completed a 3 year bachelor degree in Computer Science at an Australian university. I graduated with a GPA which is roughly the equivalent of a “C” in the US. I only blame the grades on my poor work ethic and wasting time studying content unrelated to my course. The pathway to a PhD in Australia is to do a 3 year Bachelors degree and then complete an honours year which involves a significant research component.
I emailed the honours coordinator and unsurprisingly, they replied that with my transcript I stand no chance. The only post I found online by someone with similar transcript got the advice that they shouldn’t even be thinking about doing honours and that it is sad enough that people with such low grades get degrees. I have tried to give up my desire to do research (in Machine Learning) because it is naive to think about doing an honours program, let alone harbour any delusions of doing a PhD.
I know at some point I’ll just have to accept the truth. But before I give up I want to fail one more time - only this time I want to give it my 100%. Is there any way to get a “second chance”? No matter what I do I feel that my transcript will forever haunt me. Even if I somehow found an honours program which would accept me (unlikely) and I managed to get straight A’s, my past grades mean that my average GPA would still be very low. My fate is sealed, and a criminal record would be less of a burden. I want to work hard but with a best case scenario so grim I don’t know what to do.
Should I do a second bachelors degree?
Try to gain research experience (with problematic marks)?
Or just get a library membership and call it a day?<issue_comment>username_1: A friend of mine dropped out of college after failing general chemistry twice in a row. He was going through a lot at the time that contributed to his lack of motivation and clear thinking. After his life situation improved, he started fresh with a different major at a different university and did well. If you have the financial means AND you are confident that you would succeed given another chance, then a second Bachelor's degree is a viable option. Be honest with yourself in evaluating the probability of success with this option if your situation has not changed.
You should absolutely try to gain research experience and self-teach machine learning. I successfully applied for financial aid to take a [machine learning course on Coursera](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning?utm_source=gg&utm_medium=sem&campaignid=685340575&adgroupid=32639001341&device=c&keyword=coursera%20machine%20learning&matchtype=e&network=g&devicemodel=&adpostion=1t1&creativeid=243289762778&hide_mobile_promo&gclid=CjwKCAjw-ZvlBRBbEiwANw9UWocBB7firTGWyZxa09VEIrZSE67hp6Q-JbZ-8QBJPTU-SfLU-Hg-ZRoC-eoQAvD_BwE). The course was useful and enjoyable, and I now display the certificate on my Curriculum Vitae as evidence of my basic knowledge of machine learning. Furthering your education like this has multiple benefits: 1) demonstrates your interest and ability to academic programs and employers, 2) lets you advance your knowledge in a field of interest, and 3) lets you find out if you're actually as interested in the material as you think you are.
In addition, heed @Prof. <NAME>' advice. There are a lot of programs out there. Apply around and see what sort of feedback you receive. You may be surprised by the extent to which some programs will look past sub-par academics if you can demonstrate your aptitude and interest in other ways (see self-teaching above). Lastly, the options you're considering are not mutually exclusive. The best strategy will likely combine applying around, furthering your knowledge on your own, and considering options outside of academia to get relevant work/research experience. Hope this helps.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This begs the question: what were you *"wasting time studying content unrelated to my course"* on?
If it was your boy/girl friend, well that wont help much.
However was it something you could call academic or even something like playing xbox?
**Well then I would look at doing a 'Graduate Diploma' in a different but related field.**
(In NZ) a Graduate Diploma consists of (the equivalent points of) one year of final year Undergrad papers (300-400 level)
*Personal Story:* I graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science (Medical Imaging), but found the real world work (taking X-rays) unsatisfying. So after a year taking X-rays (where I did get some interesting work stories`*`) I went back and undertook a G.Dip Sci (Computer Science) at a different University. I have never looked back`*`.
So if you under took a G.Dip in say Game Development. You could use that opportunity to get better grades and still be able to move back towards Higher level, Machine Learning (As AI is a part of game design) qualification.
For this to work you will need to:
1. Find a side step G.Dip you are going to find interesting
2. Apply your self and get good grades
3. Figure out what your end game is going to be
At the end of the day getting a Degree (etc) is about getting a job (for the most part). Even if that job is teaching at a university.
So once you have Honors or a PhD what are you going to do?
Remember Grades are only important to move from Student life to your first 'proper' job. Then how you apply yourself to work and self improvement (which is not graded) is what is important.
`*` When you are at a bar and some one asks how was your week, Saying you solved a tricky race condition bug, is **way less impressive** than 'Oh I had to tape down a dead guy in the morgue at work to day'. Still beats doing the shift work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Regarding your hypothetical argument about getting accepted to honours and good grades there not mattering: if you did get accepted and get great grades in the so-called honours program, It would almost certainly help you far more than by just averaging up your GPA. Universities will notice the upward trend and some will be willing to believe you have turned things around.
More generally, no matter what you do next, poor grades say two things, both of which you need to overcome:
1. You have poor study habits, hence you'd probably fail out of grad school by doing more of the same, because a "C" average isn't acceptable in grad school.
2. You didn't learn as much of the material as you should have, and are now behind everyone else who got better grades. And now you will be in over your head in graduate courses which build on those undergraduate courses.
You can address #1 by showing a pattern of improvement in taking new classes and doing well. For #2 you will need to basically learn the material in a second try. If you had non-existant study habits in school with all the support and pressure on you, I don't have too much hope for self-study. I'd suggest finding a way to retake some key classes.
I'd also note that machine learning may be very different than what you expect coming from a computer science background. It is a heavily mathematical subject, where the programming is the easy part. So you may be gaining some edge by focusing on a topic that is more interesting, but you're also doubling-down on what is likely the hardest component of your studies.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You should get a job in machine learning. You are fortunate that there are many job opportunities in that area right now. Get a few years relevant work experience, and then your ability to succeed in a PhD will seem more credible.
Edit: This won't work in Australia. Australian universities have hard grade/mark cutoffs for graduate study and don't consider your work experience. It will work in other countries that have more sensible policies.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Research is not about getting good grades, and grades are not necessarily strongly correlated with research skills. Don't be put off by your abysmal grades - really nobody cares about them later!
I'm not familiar of how this works in Australia. In Europe I would try to:
a) volunteer for a small research project with a friendly group leader. Knock doors and asks nicely. If you offer free (and hard) work, there is always stuff to do. Don't try to hide your grades. Whatever content unrelated to course work you studied, maybe it's useful for getting a project, too.
b) Try to identify the topic that is most crucial for what you want to do/are doing right now (i.e. the research project). It might be programming or some aspect of theory - pick something manageable. Study it such way that you know how to apply it (particularly in research), before picking the next topic. That's a long-term strategy for acquiring new and relevant skills.
Of course, for above strategies you need a bit of time, as you won't earn money directly.
Don't be put off. You're having a bit a bumpy start now, but in the long run enthusiasm, genuine interest, focus, and creativity matter more.
So no, don't get a second bachelors degree. Yes, try to gain research experience (with problematic marks)!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: This answer is based on Australian observations.
Most Phd students at a university are selected from honours students within the same department, and sometimes the honours students are accepted with the hope they will prove to be a good Phd candidate.
I have seen one average undergraduate student accepted for honours - but they had a high grade in the one subject that was especially relevant and that they were really interested in.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently I had a conversation with a very well known scientist in my working field about the most important indicators to get a tenured academic position. This person is 80 years old and has been a member of selection committees several times during his career. During our conversation I told to him my opinion that I think that the ''research quality'' must be the most important indicator on being selected for a tenure position. After I told him my opinion he commented like this: ''yes I agree with you that it should be like that but at the end the committee mostly looks at the number of papers and the number of citations''.
The response of this scientist surprised me a lot since when I read similar topics on internet about these issues it is always concluded that the research quality is the most important factor. I also had a similar conversation with another scientist and she confirmed to me the same as the person which initially spoke with. Based on these two my experiences I have the following question:
Is the commonly said statement that ''quality is the most important factor on being selected for a tenured academic position'' only superficial?<issue_comment>username_1: It is impossible to make a general statement here that applies universally. There are certainly places where publications and citations etc will be just about all that is considered, but I would guess that is relatively rare.
One reason that publications and citations are used is that it is easier to count such things, depending on previous reviewers and other academics to make the determination of quality rather than the committee having to do it independently.
In fact, in many places, the tenure committee may not be qualified to really judge the quality of your work independently, since they have different specialties and aren't current in yours. This is certainly true in mathematics, for example, where an algebraist is probably a poor judge of the quality of work in analysis. So, if editors and reviewers are happy to publish you and other people in your field are happy to cite you then your work probably has high quality (or so we hope). Because of the difficulty some committees have in fairly evaluating your work themselves, they may depend fairly heavily on letters of support from your colleagues and others in your field.
But, for tenure to be achieved in many places, there are many other things that will make or break your bid. Can you teach effectively is actually more important in some places. What have students said about you. Do they go to the head/chair to praise or condemn you? In research places, do you attract graduate students? Are you collegial or a thorn in everyone's side? Do you embarrass the department or the institution with outside activities? Lots of things.
At the end of the day, your tenure bid will succeed or fail based on the judgments of a group of people, each of whom have different criteria, some of it unstated. There is a political element.
There are other factors not related to you or your quality on any scale. Do we need a person with your special talents? Is your field becoming more important or less? Can we afford to make you a guarantee of perpetual employment?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends very much on the university and country.
But yes, mostly they will first count "hard" factors:
* Number of papers (especially first-author + senior author) - this is often weighted by "quality" criteria of the journals as impact factors and/or rank of the journal in the respective category
* Number of citations
* H-index
* Grants and other 3rd party funding
* (teaching evaluation usually count not very much - only if they are bad they might be counted against the person)
Why these factors? Because: who can decide what good science is? Everyone will say their own science is excellent - so it needs to be objectified somehow.
**But:** Something that many people are not aware of is that personal empathy might play a huge role as well. A brilliant scientist that is not liked by the rest of the faculty - they will find whatever reason to turn this person down. A mediocre scientist that has a good relation with the head of department (might play in the same tennis club etc) will most likely make it.
It should not be like this but unfortunately the reality is different (as I have often observed in several countries).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I've chaired numerous tenure review panels in my department. (These are the panels that evaluate candidates for promotion to tenure and make recommendations to the department executive committee and to the department's tenured faculty.) I don't recall citation counts ever being seriously considered in these panels' discussions. The number of a candidate's publications may come up if it's unusually high or unusually low; the journals in which the papers are published is likely to matter more than the number. But more important than any of these things are experts' opinions of the candidate's work. The experts here can include people in our own department but will also include external reviewers, i.e, researchers at other universities (or occasionally in industry) whom we consider highly qualified to evaluate the candidate's work.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: *TL;DR; I accidentally made the solution of an assignment visible to some of my students. How can I now fairly address that problem?*
A few weeks ago I set a programming assignment to be done using Processing (a graphical programming tool), and to make sure the goal was clear I implemented a solution on openprocessing.org, which I made available to the students. On openprocessing.org, they can look at the working program (a little graphical game similar to tic-tac-toe), but the source code is hidden to them (I took a paid account to get private source code).
But then I embedded the openprocessing.org 'sketch' (a web page that displays the working program as described above) in a different web page, and failed to notice that the embedded version has the source code readily available (the person viewing the sketch just clicks an icon at the top and they get the editor with the source code). I think that's a bug with openprocessing.org and I complained to them (and there's obviously also an oversight on my part), but that's not relevant to my issue.
So basically the solution to the assignment was available to anybody who clicked that button at the top. It's not obvious, so I think only a few students noticed it. One team emailed me asking whether it was intentional and expressing their concern.
The assignment deadline is in 5 days (it's been up for 2 weeks) and it's the end of the term. This was supposed to be 10% of their grade.
I took down the visible solution, and I' trying to come up with a contingency plan. I could cancel the whole assignment, or give everyone full marks... Just let those who saw it submit as is (and indicate the source). I just don't know how to handle this best.
Any suggestions or recommendations?<issue_comment>username_1: I would just give them all the 10% saying that you made the solution available by accident - they will laugh and forget in 10 minutes. And, yes, been there, done that... You are not alone.
Just rely on the other 90% to give you the grading curve - nothing wrong with those I hope.
Based on one comment below, Just for clarity for some, I am not suggesting forcing the results to some arbitrary grading curve - just that the results will have a « curve » some in the highest band, others in other bands.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Very simple actually. Abandon the assignment. Apologize for the error, but not for wasting people's time. Those who didn't find the solution and worked on it certainly learned something. Those who found the solution used their time otherwise and hopefully learned something else.
Mistakes happen.
If you use a large number of exercises in grading it is probably harmless to give everyone full marks. They will be happy and it won't really matter otherwise. But trying, in any way, to discriminate between various levels of "performance" on such an exercise is a minefield.
One thing to remember, however. Presumably you gave that assignment because students would be expected to learn some specific thing(s) by doing it. That may not have occurred, so you need to assure that you find some way to reinforce that lesson in some future activity.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: **You might be able to measure the damage by just asking the students.** Most students are honest if you're transparent with them (though some campus cultures might be different than others). Consider asking each student to attach a signed statement to their assignment saying that they cited any resources, including solution sets, that they referenced. You can explicitly mention why you're asking -- tell the students that you will not penalize anyone who saw the solutions, but you do consider it cheating if they lie about it.
If it turns out that everyone saw the solutions, or if you don't feel that the above approach would work in your situation (e.g., very large class, too many unscrupulous students), then I agree with the other answers -- don't grade for "quality." Instead, just grade for effort -- all working solutions get 10/10, regardless of whether they just barely met the requirements from the assignment or whether they are as good as your solution. That way no one who made a good effort would get a lower score than someone who used the solutions.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Plagiarism is always something you should be worrying about. Especially for an undergraduate class like this where there are plenty of solutions online for building a tictactoe game, or even building it in processing. If people wanted to copy, they would likely have found someone else's solution online due to yours being hidden.
If you are worried that someone may copy of it, the simplest way to address the problem is to tell the class what happened and to remind them that copying your solution is plagiarism.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Leave the solution visible. Comment on it to everyone (so it is fair). Still require everyone to turn in a solution, but cannot be verbatim copy (but they can copy the algorithm/ideas/etc).
Then, announce and include that same tool/problem solving technique in the final exam. Those who work the hardest on understanding (not just copying) will be rewarded for their effort. Those who do not, will not do as well on the final.
Naturally the final has less time to do the work, but they have already seen an explicit way to work out that type of problem. If it is too big, you could provide some pieces, and they have to add the remaining functions.
The net effect of leaking the solution will just that everyone studies it to learn the tool for their exam.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: You could make the leaked solution available to everyone. However if you only do this, it will be somewhat inequal to students who have already put a lot of work in on the problem, compared to students who have not done much/any work on the assignment yet. That is somewhat balanced by the intrinsic unmeasurable natural usefulness of having worked on assignments, however.
To iron out that inequality, you could also modify the assignment slightly so that it now involves a slight (not major, or else you would be unfairly increasing the expected work load of the class) twist, that will require them to both implement the leaked solution, and then solve some additional problem on top of it that requires understanding the leaked solution and expanding slightly upon it. The extra work should be designed to be more than balanced by the reduced work resulting from having the original solution provided. (Weight the assignment a bit less since most of the assignment solution was provided.)
The advantage of adding a twist designed that way, is that the students still need to do the work and understand the original assignment, and get the deeper experience of building upon it (which is of course a good sort of experience for programming problems).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Instead of a programming task, make them explain in a short paper how your solution works, what advantages and disadvantages there are, what compromises you made and so on.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: Ask whoever is responsible for teaching in your department for guidance. It is likely that your university has a policy in place for these sorts of events, and there's no way for strangers on the internet to know what those are.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Firstly I'd make all the students aware of your error. The students will do one of two things.
1. They'll copy the solution verbatim which means they at least *looked* at your provided link, either before (good) or after (not so good, but at least they looked) you published your mistake.
Or
2. They'll either write it themselves entirely without your source code, or they'll rewrite your source code enough that it's not easily recognisable as your source code.
Now, you *could* penalise the first group if they don't give recognition that it's copied from the source you (accidently) provided, but depending on the wording of the assignment (if it said find a way to do X) then they may of technically done nothing 'wrong' by copying your source anyway. Much of the open source's world's code is simply copied from elsewhere, sometimes sadly without reference to where it's copied from.
The second group have at least put some effort into either writing the original code and then referring to your solution, or re-writing your code enough that it no longer looks like your code, hopefully learning something in the process.
What maybe interesting, is if you do this disclosure in a sensible fashion (i.e. only in the lecture, go to the website and show students 'Look, if you click here, you can see my solution'.) Only students paying attention, coming to the lecture will benefit directly from you disclosing your mistake. I may of had lecturers do things like this, such as displaying via a overhead projector (rather than the shared lecture slides) certain questions which may of been very like those questions you'd find in the final exams.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: One option would be to change the objective of the assignment. Instead of implementing a solution from scratch, improve the one that has been given.
Of course you may have to define what *kind* of improvements are going to get good grades (just changing the color scheme of the game probably isn't going to be worth much, unless the new scheme gives better user feedback of the game status, or whatever), and may sure the new task is consistent with the learning objectives of the original assignment. This idea would probably be more useful at an advanced level than for complete beginners.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: *Not ideal*, but you *could* give an alternative criterion: explain the working example source to satisfaction (works better if you don't have to change the assignment for everyone, but can rather ascertain who discovered the source; although it will surely leak to others if some have already discovered it), so that it is equivalent to having come up with the solution themselves. As I said, not ideal, but you seem to be in a pickle, so I thought I'd suggest it anyway.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: I would take the answers away and give everyone the 10%, but sneak a question or two from the assignment into the final (if you have a final) so that the people who put the effort in and learned it properly would still get rewarded
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: one idea:
Announce the error. Post the source code. Extend the deadline.
The assignment is now to annotate your code full, detailed explanation of how it works and why. Provide office hours for students to bring in what they have completed, and try to help them understand your implementation in terms of (what there is of) theirs.
This way, students who have put in a lot of work up to this point can still benefit indirectly. But still, probably err on the side of forgiveness with the grading.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/05
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently my invited manuscript submission was finally recommended by the Editors and reviewers for publication after one round of revision and changing the manuscript type. However, I am both concerned and confused that the Associate Editor appended revision comments and declared the MS requires "Major revisions". Any advice on how to deal with this?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm going to guess that, assuming this is a reputable publisher, that your "acceptance" was a bit tentative and that you need to satisfy the associate editor. You need to go over your manuscript with the comments in mind and make revisions that satisfy you and will hopefully satisfy her/him. Otherwise you might not get a happy result.
On the other hand, if it isn't a reputable publisher, then they will probably publish anything you give them so long as you pay the fees. But it is still preferable to make the editors happy.
I doubt that many would consider a letter indicating "acceptance" to be a contract and they can afford better lawyers than you can in any case.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The short answer is of course "Ask the Associate Editor"! It's not only their job to come to some conclusion about a paper, but also to explain it to the authors. So, rather than trying to read the tea leaves, just ask the question to the only person who can answer it!
In the end, a conditional acceptance can come in many ways. Often, it is given in the form of a "minor revision" where the reviewers are likely not going to see the paper again because the Associate Editor thinks that the changes don't change the content of the paper, just the presentation. The same can be true for "major revisions": Maybe the editor knows you well enough to know that you're going to make the changes required, and trusts that you're going to do what was asked of you. Or maybe the fat-fingered the response and really wanted to make it a "minor revision". Or the acceptance was fat-fingered. The reality is that nobody other than the editor in charge of the paper will know, so that's the person should ought to ask.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering and my GPA is 2.6/4 (German scale, so it was like 2.9/4 in American GPA), mainly due to years of depressions and a bad break up. If I picked up work for a year or two in software development, is there a chance (and if it so, how far it is) to get accepted for a Master in Data Science in the US/Canada?<issue_comment>username_1: You will probably need to take the GRE and get a solid score. It also depends how you did in particular courses. E.g. did you bomb all the hard classes and ace a bunch of easy ones to pass overall? In grad school they may all be hard classes. Not to discourage you too much though. If you apply far and wide you may be able to get in somewhere with just about any background.
The concern of the school admissions is not just some competitive cutoff for merit, but that you will fail out and waste your time and money. There are definitely benefits of working, and it will help you. Especially if you get a job that uses some of the skills you need for your Master's program, like programming. If you can get a job precisely in "Data science" it may help significantly.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes. But, it will depend on you "building a case" that your GPA is not the important part of your story. Good letters of recommendation, good essays on the application, good test scores, etc. will help show that your GPA is not all there is to know about you.
Another good route to take (worked for me) is to take a grad-level course that would be a natural way to talk to a professor in the program. Do well, and you have another part of the story that you are not the same student that you were. AND, you may have a recommendation from a professor in that program (and potential advisor). The downside is that you are likely to have to shell out for that course, unless you can get your work to pay for it. (Check your employee benefits. I was a teacher, and continuing education was important enough that the district would help foot the cost for grad courses that were directly applicable.)
Don't focus too much on the metric of the GPA. It is only one of the ways that universities evaluate potential students.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I presented a paper at a conference last week. The organizer website has mentioned that selected papers will be published in IEEE Xplore. Following my initial paper submission, there was a selection process after which I got a mail intimating me that my paper was selected and the list of selected papers was also put up on the website and my paper was there. After this, I was asked to edit my paper according to the IEEE format. A deadline was set for the final camera-ready submission and I made it in time for that. After this, there was no intimation of anything related to publishing and I attended the conference and presented the paper. Since I read online that it takes a while for the papers to be put up online, **I assumed** there must be another review by the IEEE committee but I probably have been wrong. That last deadline asking for the papers in IEEE format was the final mention of publishing. I have a couple of question regarding my situation.
1. Can I include my paper in my CV under publications? Does this count as an electronic publication since it's going to be on IEEE Xplore? Or should I write it under conferences? This is my one and only paper. And when the proceedings are on IEEE Xplore, will they also be available in the book format or are they just digital publications?
2. Since the paper isn't out yet, I heard that forthcoming/in review/in press,etc must be used on the CV. Which term should I use here since my paper will probably not count as "in press" material? Also, what format must I use in my CV to mention this paper?
3. I read that depending on the area, a conference paper has much value or no value at all and in some fields like Computer Science, a conference paper has good value. Is this a fact?
4. What are "refereed" conference proceedings? Do IEEE proceedings fall into this category?
I am sure these questions have been answered before but I couldn't find the right answers and being new to the world of publishing in academia, things are quite confusing. If this question is a duplicate, please notify me so that I can delete it.
Edit: Added a few details to make my case clearer.<issue_comment>username_1: I would be a bit hesitant to include it as a "publication" rather than as "under review". I don't know what field or conference you are referring to, but in CS, my experience is that review happens before the conference (and before acceptance) rather than after. And since in CS, conferences are a main publication venue, it would seem appropriate to include under those circumstances. You seem to be describing something different, however.
But your words "will be published...after the papers have been reviewed" makes this seem a bit tentative.
I suggest you wait before you include it as a publication unless you qualify it in some way. You don't need to omit it entirely, just be honest and clear about the actual state of the world when you send it out.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Can I include it in my CV under publications? Does this count as an electronic publication since it's going to be on IEEE Xplore? Or should I write it under conferences? This is my one and only paper.
>
>
>
It sounds like your paper has been accepted for publication, so yes, you can list it in your CV as a publication (assuming your research community accepts refereed conference papers as publications).
Even though you've already submitted the final camera-ready version, the proceedings has to work its way through IEEE's publication pipeline: assembling the table of contents, adding page numbers, possibly checking for compliance with formatting instructions, extracting and indexing metadata, creating cross-reference links for the bibliography, printing and shipping paper copies (if they still do that), and so on. The conference organizers should be able to tell you when they expect the proceedings to appear.
>
> Since the paper isn't out yet, I heard that forthcoming/in review/in press,etc must be used on the CV. Which term should I use here since my paper will probably not count as "in press" material? Also, what format must I use in my CV to mention this paper?
>
>
>
I would list it as either "to appear" or "in press", but the precise format doesn't really matter. Just be clear.
>
> I read that depending on the area, a conference paper has much value or no value at all and in some fields like Computer Science, a conference paper has good value. Is this a fact?
>
>
>
Yes, this is a fact. In most (but not all!) fields of computer science, conference proceedings are the primary venue for publishing research, not journals.
>
> What are "refereed" conference proceedings? Do IEEE proceedings fall into this category?
>
>
>
Refereed conferences (which are fairly typical in CS) typically have a "program" or "papers" committee, which is charged with reviewing submitted manuscripts and deciding which to accept for publication in the proceedings *and* presentation at the conference (either as a talk or a poster or both). Typically, every presented paper appears in the proceedings, every paper in the proceedings is presented, and the proceedings is published (slightly) *before* the conference begins. The submission itself is either a full paper or an extended abstract, typically between 6 and 12 pages long (depending on the conference), *not* just a single-page abstract. The initial submission deadline is several months before the conference, to give the committee enough time to gather/write multiple reviews for each paper, choose which papers to accept, have authors revise their papers and prepare the camera-ready versions, and actually publish the proceedings. (The publisher is only involved in the very last step.) Conference reviews are exactly analogous to referee reports for journals, and for many conferences just as thorough and detailed.
Of course, details vary significantly from one conference to the next. The details for *your* conference should have been spelled out in complete detail in the call for submissions.
Whether a given conference proceedings is refereed (and if so, how stringently) is up to the conference organizers. You can't tell from the publisher. Most proceedings published by IEEE are refereed, but not all.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: **IEEE Xplore**
I looked up [IEEE Xplore](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp) and saw that it is a digital library, not a journal [[1]](https://www.ieee.org/publications/xplore/index.html):
>
> The IEEE Xplore® digital library provides access to IEEE journals, transactions, letters, magazines and conference proceedings, IET journals and conference proceedings, IEEE Standards and IEEE educational courses.
>
>
>
Therefore, it does not count as a publication beyond your original conference publication. It currently contains over 4 million items [[2]](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/home.jsp).
**Conferences and Journals in CS/CE**
That said, an IEEE conference publication should not be considered unimportant due to not being in a journal. In some fields of computer science and engineering, conference publication is the gold standard. The Computing Research Association published a best practices memo, [Evaluating Computer Scientists and Engineers For Promotion and Tenure](https://cra.org/resources/best-practice-memos/evaluating-computer-scientists-and-engineers-for-promotion-and-tenure/) written by 3 senior computer scientists at top departments: <NAME> (who went on to win the Turing Award), <NAME>, and <NAME>. The first paragraph reads:
>
> The evaluation of computer science and engineering faculty for
> promotion and tenure has generally followed the dictate “publish or
> perish,” where “publish” has had its standard academic meaning of
> “publish in archival journals” [Academic Careers, 94]. Relying on
> journal publications as the sole demonstration of scholarly
> achievement, especially counting such publications to determine
> whether they exceed a prescribed threshold, ignores significant
> evidence of accomplishment in computer science and engineering. For
> example, **conference publication is preferred in the field**, and
> computational artifacts —software, chips, etc. —are a tangible means
> of conveying ideas and insight. Obligating faculty to be evaluated by
> this traditional standard handicaps their careers, and indirectly
> harms the field. This document describes appropriate evidence of
> academic achievement in computer science and engineering.
>
>
>
My colleagues and I used to include that memo in our promotion and tenure dossiers, to positive effect.
That said, not all conferences are created equal. You should research and document the ranking of the conference that published your paper. The [CORE Rankings Portal](http://www.core.edu.au/conference-portal) is a good place to start if your area is computing.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for a PhD at a new university. But my grade is a little off to the scholarship line. The student service told me that I may get a scholarship, but not for sure. Now I have found two potential supervisors now. I have been working with one for years but he doesn't have much power in the university. However, another one, who he is working for and will be my main supervisor, weight a lot in the faculty. I am not familiar with the latter. Just met him once through the Skype interview. Is it polite that I ask for their help? How should I ask for the help? I am in Australia, but an international student.<issue_comment>username_1: It might be a bit risky and it is impossible to know what the reaction would be. However, if you actually need the scholarship in order to be able to accept any bid, then it would be appropriate for the supervisors to be told that.
If they really, really, want to accept you then it would be to your advantage that they know that you have financial constraints. However, if they are a bit ambivalent toward your acceptance, then it might be easier for them to invite someone else.
But, since you know one of them, and think he would support you, you could ask him to make your needs known to the other, rather than doing it directly yourself.
And it does no-one any good for you to hide the fact of your need.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have only a little experience with Australian universities, but I doubt that the supervisor or your financial need is going to have much influence over whether you get a scholarship (as opposed to funding through a grant). Australian unis really want international students to pay themselves, although they do set aside a little money for international students with unusually strong research records and credentials.
To answer your question, there's nothing wrong with asking your potential supervisor, but they will probably not be able to do much to help.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a 5th year Mechanical engineering PhD.
I just have 1 published paper and 3 others are pending with my advisor
I was wondering if I can get some advice on what should my approach towards postdoc applications without publications be like? Almost all of the positions requires sending a reference work to prove for competence.<issue_comment>username_1: [Misunderstood the question in the first version, edited]
>
> I just have 1 published paper and 3 others are pending with my advisor
>
>
>
I agree with username_2's answer, but it would be useful to clear the backlog of publications with your advisor anyway. With 3 publications waiting, I assume that this has been going on for months, so talk to them to identify the issue:
* if they think the papers are not good enough for submission, ask them for general guidelines about how to improve them.
* if they simply don't have time, ask them for a quick proofreading and if they are satisfied enough the paper can be submitted as is. In the worst case it gets rejected and you can improve based on the reviews, this is still better than leaving papers waiting in a drawer.
When you apply for positions you should mention your pending publications, either as "submitted" (under review) or "accepted, to be published in...". The community is well aware that the publication process can take time and that PhD students tend to produce more publications towards the end of the PhD. If possible, you can also give a link to a preprint version of your paper.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that any position as a post doc won't be awarded based simply on who has the highest publication count. There is more to it than that. Most positions expect you to fit into a given department or lab in some way and there can be a lot of expectations on that beyond research record. While publications may be important, and more so in some situations, it is unlikely to be the entire story very often.
Read whatever the offering institution says about the kind of skills and person who is desired and match your own skill set to that as best you can. It may be something as simple as expertise in a field, but there may be an expectation of participation in the educational process, especially of grad students. How well do you fit the expectations, however they are. Some special experience may be needed that you may have or not.
Of course, you should list your work in progress as such without overstating it. If the papers are written, then you have titles for the work and abstracts. Try to get something submitted so that the process toward publication is started, at least. Get good letters of recommendation, preferably tailored to your suitability for the specific positions you seek.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: Unfortunately I failed the last class I needed to get my undergraduate degree- even after walking on stage in front of my whole family. I emailed the professor back and forth to no avail and even applied to repeal the grade with the chair of my school (didn't work). This course is only offered during working hours for me and I don't think it can be done online. I am in panic mode and don't have a clue what to do at this point. Theres no way this is the first time this has ever happened to someone? Does anyone have any advice on what I should be doing? Thanks so much.<issue_comment>username_1: You have to work this out with the school. No one else has any authority to help you. Talk to someone in the department or at the Dean's level to find out your options. They will have some incentive to help, most likely. But you may have to go through a painful journey to find a suitable ending.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You're going to have to find a way to retake that class, or an acceptable substitute, if you want to get your degree. So that's the starting point.
I would suggest you begin by speaking to your academic advisor. They will know about possible options for retaking the class, or other classes you might be able to take as a substitute. You can also ask about the possibility of taking an equivalent class through another university (which might include online options) and transferring the credit - but be sure to get the specific course approved by your university in advance.
Ultimately, you might have to consider rearranging your work schedule, or even looking for a different job with more flexible hours, in order to retake the class. Which is more important to you in the long term, this specific job, or having a college degree?
(Another thing to keep in mind - if you were offered your current job on condition of having a degree, you would likely be obligated to inform your employer that you haven't yet graduated. If that's the case, then going on with your current job and forgetting about the failed course may not be an option anyway.)
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/06
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<issue_start>username_0: We have a forum in which students can ask questions about the course material, homework exercises, etc. Usually I answer all the questions. I want to encourage students to answer some questions too.
One option is to give some bonus points in the final exam to students who answer a substantial number of questions. Another option is to create a reputation scheme like in stackexchange, and give bonus points to the three students with the highest reputation at the end of the term.
The problem is that these two schemes are manipulable: two students can conspire to have student A ask questions and student B immediately answer them, and vice versa.
Is there a better way to encourage students to answer their peers' questions?<issue_comment>username_1: I used to have a course mailing list that subscribed every student in the class. Students were permitted to ask and answer any question on the list at any time. I encouraged people to help one another using this list.
The list was used quite a lot by people when they were doing their homework, and they wanted quick answers. I would try not to answer immediately so that students would have a chance to chime in. With such a list, you can even respond to a question by asking for answers from anybody monitoring the list.
I learned over time that about half of the answers came from me and also that I would have to occasionally issue a correction to an incorrect answer. I might also comment on the excellence of a post if appropriate.
Basically, it just worked. I didn't have to offer points and such to encourage participation.
However, you will find that most of those giving answers are the same people. I think it is harder to get some people to participate. Participation was far from uniform.
One advantage of such a list is that even if you, the student, didn't ask a question yourself, you get to read it and one or more answers. And another advantage is that students don't get stuck between class meetings and stop progress when they could have been learning. People could work in the middle of he night and still get questions answered in a timely way.
This has a different dynamic from asking for solutions in a face to face situation. However, I think you will find that it is the same people willing to answer, rather than a uniform spread of participants.
If you want something that will encourage wider participation during class time, make sure that every student has a few index cards at all times. When a question is asked, ask the class as a whole to write a hint for the answer on an index card. Collect and scan these, picking out one of the good answers to read. You can make it anonymous or not. But note that it takes some time to do this so it works best with small groups and flipped classrooms where participation is the main goal of the face to face sections.
I've found in general that index cards have so many uses in teaching that I basically required their use; note taking, for example.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Weight the score by the answers to different students:
so if student A has answered 10 questions from student B then
10\* 1 = 10
But if student C has also answered 10 questions but to 5 different students then
10 \* 5 = 50
Which would help mitigate the "tricking" you describe...
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: My classes have a similar online forum (Piazza).
The best way I’ve found to encourage student participation is to have an explicit policy, published in the course syllabus, that **the TAs and I will not answer any question about course content in less than four hours**. Not “may not”, but “will not”. (Questions about course administration or potential errors in lectures/notes/homework/labs/exams/solutions are exempt; we answer those as fast as we can. We also try to upvote good student answers on course content quickly.)
I also offer extra credit for especially helpful questions or answers. (Notice I said “helpful”, not “numerous”; it’s important to reward quality, not quantity.) But I have the sense that this helps considerably less than just getting out of the way.
It’s also important to encourage a supportive and collaborative environment elsewhere in the class. So among other things, I encourage students to work together: in small teams (up to 3) to write homework, in larger groups in discussion sections, and with whatever groups they want to *figure out* the homework, study for exams, and so on. (Homework teams that work together are still required to write solutions independently, and they are required to cite each other.) So students are already used to helping each other offline.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/07
| 841
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<issue_start>username_0: I am having a hard time figuring out the difference between excellent,good,average and bad journals.
I checked this link <http://mjl.clarivate.com/> from where I figured out about ESCI,SCI,SCIE journals in my field of Mathematics.
I read [ESCI Journals vs SCI/SCIE Journals](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/127292/64442) and [What is the difference between SCI and SCIE?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/26656/64442).
But still cant figure out how does a journal categorise as being excellent,good,average and bad journals.
Can we make some sort of algorithms which helps us to answer this question?
Is there any relation between them like ESCI is less than SCIE and SCIE is less than SCI?
Are all SCIE indexed journals of higher value than any ESCI journals?
I have noticed that there are many ESCI journals which have many leading mathematicians as their Editor-In-Chief and many SCIE journals whose editor in chiefs are not so well known.
Will still a SCIE indexed journal score more than a ESCI?
Kindly shed some light.<issue_comment>username_1: The journal doesn't decide to call itself "good", "excellent", etc. This is done by a third party - in this case Clarivate Analytics.
The general idea is that they have a list of the most notable journals, which they group into the SCI. From this initial list, to get into the SCI, a journal needs to publish articles that are cited by journals that are already in the SCI. Naturally some journals will have more such citations, and some fewer. Clarivate Analytics can then impose a cutoff whereby if a journal is above that cutoff, it becomes included in the SCI; otherwise, if it is above a second cutoff, it is included in the SCIE, and below the second cutoff it's not included anywhere.
The same idea can be used to create the ESCI (which is even lower-ranked than SCIE).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This is what Clarivate Analytics says, "The Science Citation Index (SCI) is a highly selective subset of journals found in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Journals in SCI are typically the most consistently high impact titles in many scientific disciplines."
"Emerging Sources Citation Index provides Web of Science Core Collection users with expanded options to discover new areas of research in evolving disciplines, as well as relevant interdisciplinary scholarly content across rapidly changing research fields... These titles are also being evaluated on a continual basis for inclusion in the SCIE, SSCI, and AHCI."
(<http://mjl.clarivate.com/#journal_lists> and <http://info.clarivate.com/ESCI>)
From these excerpts, it seems that with respect to the way they measure impact, Clarivate would probably put SCI journals at the top, SCIE journals that are not also in SCI in the middle, and ESCI journals in third place, although they don't say this directly. My own view based on my field (law) is that some of the journals in the ESCI are much more well-regarded (and more impactful) than some in the SSCI, so I would caution against using these indices as your sole criteria to determine quality. Nothing replaces reading the journals and asking your colleagues and experts in your field about them.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/04/07
| 417
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<issue_start>username_0: I do not know the exact meaning of pre-doctoral?
Can someone be a predoctoral in university X and then goes to university Y to start Ph.D?<issue_comment>username_1: What it is exactly will vary between institutions, but often includes things like:
Library use - services for researchers etc
Research methods - a reminder / review of research practices - some are coming back after a period away...
It could also include some courses that are relevant for some while not others ie advanced calculus if that is needed and the student did not take it in the studies they have done already.
So, it may or may not be identical, but the purpose is the same. Some institutions will have this as a prior requirement others run it in parallel during the first 6 months...
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In some parts of the world, this is the term used for a PhD program.
Before you obtain your doctorate (i.e. PhD), you are a pre-doctoral fellow or a doctoral candidate. After you have obtained it, you may become a post-doctoral fellow.
Example: <http://www.ral.uni-leipzig.de/en/home/postdocs/pre-doc-award/>
---
In other parts of the world, "predoctoral" may refer to the period before a student enrolls in a PhD programme.
---
On a related note, the term "PhD" is much abused these days with students who have not yet obtained a PhD being referred to as "PhDs". This is quite inaccurate as they have not yet obtained the degree and are thus not "doctors". They are a "PhD *students*", i.e. studying towards obtaining a doctorate.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/07
| 1,615
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<issue_start>username_0: I am going to write a manuscript based thesis. It will be having 4 manuscripts as chapters 3,4,5,6.
Chapters 1 and 2 will be introduction and literature review. While 7 will be on conclusions. Now, I still have 50% work left for chapter 6, which I will complete withinn two weeks max. And will write the chapter as I go about doing the simulations to get the results.
My question is, I have to submit my thesis by June end. Extension is not an option. I am freaking out about deadline approaching so fast.
So, what should be my strategy be to complete the thesis on time? I know this is a vague question. But any advice would be most helpful!!<issue_comment>username_1: I did it in 10 days. Painful. But possible.
Chapter 1 intro/lit review summarized the organization and cribbed some applications and overall intro stuff from a school paper I had done. Chapter 2 methods was synthesis of methods from 4 papers. Then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 were just the specific papers (cutting the methods section and intro and light editing for consistency). 4 of the 6 papers were already published. The other 2 were close to publishable (work done, wrote it up).
I did not bother with a general conclusion chapter (3-8 chapters had conclusions by chapter within them). Avoided the LaTex rathole and did it all in Word (significant amount done from published papers already). Didn't do a large Word file as Word tended (back then and probably still now) to break down for book length projects...and dealing with section breaks and the like is a pain (easy to mess up). Did each chapter as a separate Word file.
Endnotes were by chapter and at the end of whole thesis. Figures not embedded, but at the end of each chapter, just like a paper submission (even copied one diagram in on a transparency, totally old skool).
Did a chapter a day and had 2 days at the end to compile and print (used Kinkos for the print job). I typed at night, all night for isolation and concentration (this was before PCs at home were common, so in the lab). Would go for a run and eat breakfast and sleep in the day. Very disciplined.
Set all the pagination of the different files at the very end manually to make it all work (once edits done). Then printed all the different files and compiled them all (then went to Kinkos). Even did the TOC/TOT/TOFs manually (was easier to just kludge it).
Obviously follow the rules for margins and double space and all that.
I offered the advisor to see each chapter as I finished it, but he didn't give any input and huffed a little about how most students did their thesis with more warning. (But really the papers were all mine 100% in content anyways.) I just told the old man that I was treating him with the same rules as the rest of the committee (10 days to read and then a defense). If it wasn't good enough, he could fail me. He wasn't going to do that since I was a little golden boy with national award and first to graduate and fancy job (and really I had aced the Ph.D. program, written lots of papers, so why fuss about the thesis drill).
It ended up being fine. And was way faster to just hack it together like I did than people who told me I should spend a few months learning LaTex at the last minute or stuff like that. Just saw so many people struggling with huge documents but my hacking it into little Ricci flow segment approach worked great for being under the gun.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Make an output schedule that will let you finish. By "output" I mean completed material, *e.g.* a page a day. For each day, work *at least* as long as necessary to stay with the schedule.
If you can do that, you'll finish on time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Proposed Approach
=================
First, do a critical path analysis.
* You cannot finalize **all** of the conclusions (Ch 7) until you have validated **all** of the analysis.
* You cannot finalize **any** global introduction or review until you finalize **all** of the content by itself.
* You can draft whatever you want in parallel while you complete the remaining analysis.
* You cannot submit your thesis until your advisor has approved of it.
* You cannot use a Chapter in your thesis until it is approved for journal publication (my presumption).
Next, pick your significant milestones and deadlines (backward).
* Thesis (June) <- Advisor's Approval
* Advisor's Approval <- Review of All Chapters
* Chapter 6 <- Acceptance by Journal
* Acceptance by Journal <- Approval for Submission by Advisor
* Submission Approval <- Review by Advisor
* Intro + Review <- All Content Chapters
* Conclusions <- All Content Chapters
Finally, realize what you have done and what you need.
* Chapters 3-5 Completed, Reviewed, and Approved
* Chapter 6 In Progress
* Conclusions Yet to Be Started
* Intro + Review Yet to Be Started
Recommendation
==============
Finish Ch 6 by the start of May. While your advisor reviews it for approval, start the Introduction. As your advisor gives you back Ch 6 for update, do it. Submit Ch 6 for publication soon after the first week in May. Complete the Introduction at the same time. While your advisor reviews it, start the Literature Review. Work back and forth on Ch 1, Ch 2, and Ch 7 between you and your advisor. Have it all done by the start of June. In the meantime, hope that you get Ch 6 accepted for publication without need to amend it significantly. Put all the chapters together by the middle of June. Submit everything. Take a two week vacation or not depending on how you have had to expand the deadlines in between.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'd strongly recommend consolidating chapters 1 and 2 together. The introduction and lit review will easily fit in the same chapter. Each manuscript should have an associated lit review anyway.
Focus 80-90% of your time on completing your last manuscript. The largest risk for you not finishing on time is if that last paper is grossly underdeveloped and gets rejected.
If you are indeed the first author on 4 papers, you should be fine. You are getting a degree based on the quality of your research which is contained in those middle 4 chapters. Throw together an introduction and conclusion chapter just before submitting to your committee. Don't waste your time on long-winded chapters.
Don't forget to leave time for editing. Believe me, your committee members will appreciate a succinct tightly written thesis over a super long-winded one.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/07
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<issue_start>username_0: **Summary** Between my Ph.D. offers, I narrowed down my choices to two. Right now, my decision is mostly dependent on a few factors I didn't discuss with either advisor. I want to ask about these issues directly, but am worried about alienating either or both advisors.
**My two options**
Option 1:
* Advisor is a veteran of the field and some of his recent graduates have landed excellent postdoc positions
* Institute is well-established in the field and widely recognized as one of the bests in the world
Option 2:
* Advisor is much younger, though so far very successful. His first advisees will graduate this year (so can't yet gauge their success).
* Institute is very young and its PhD program has had too few alumni so far to give a good image of how successful they are in landing jobs in academia. That being said, institute X has been able to attract excellent faculties and postdocs from top universities (top 10 of the world) and some of their more experienced faculties left tenured positions at those top universities to join X. They also invite world-class faculties and postdocs from the best institutions from all around the world for their weekly colloquium. They're not still as successful in attracting PhD applicants though (perhaps because, as I saw during their interview event, those other offerees that also hold offers from more prestigious universities have the same concern as I do).
* Good program structure and flexibility
* Good resources and opportunities
* Tempting financial offer.
**My concern:** I like option 2, but I want a job in academia. If I choose option 2, the name of the institute I'll have done my PhD at may not carry enough weight to help me get into excellent postdoc positions and eventually land a tenure-track job in a decent university.
**Question:** Is it inappropriate to share this concern very frankly with the advisor at institute 2 (who himself has graduated from an incredibly prestigious university)? Could asking that question upset the advisor and negatively influence my chances for later becoming a postdoc in their group? I was thinking of describing the situation as I described above (with a little more details) and ask for Prof. Q's opinion fully honestly. If that's inappropriate, is there a more appropriate way of doing that?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Could asking that question upset the advisor...
>
>
>
You have a legitimate concern. If advisor 2 is angry that you brought up a legitimate, important concern, you're probably better off working with advisor 1.
>
> ...and negatively influence my chances for later becoming a postdoc in their group?
>
>
>
It is far too early to start worrying about specific post-doc options.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it's fine to ask this question politely. Most PIs will appreciate that this is a concern and have had similar choices to make themselves, and they may well be impressed at how forward-thinking you are at this early stage of your career. Butter them up by emphasising why you like their project and you'll be fine.
However, to give you some unsolicited advice, it sounds like your option 2 is the better offer from the way you have described them. Having a degree from a top institution or under a famous supervisor helps a little, but it doesn't count for a huge amount. What's more important is that you remain happy enough and motivated enough to achieve the best you can in your PhD (which is harder than it sounds!). Factors like the support you get from your supervisor and other lab members, your interest in the project, the training available to you, and frankly whether you are paid enough not to have to worry about paying your next bill, will make a much bigger difference to your productivity - and ultimately productivity is what prospective postdoc advisers want.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/07
| 467
| 1,955
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in nominating my female supervisor to be a speaker in a workshop for women in an international conference, she is quite intelligent, helpful to other female students and that triggered why I cannot nominate her.
Currently, I am a Ph.D. student and I am one of the organizers of the workshops. I have nominated other speakers and writing an invitation email on behalf of our organizers team to the potential speakers.
I am quite afraid as I am still new in my position and maybe she could think that I am licking shoes or being a hypocrite person. I am also thinking that she could consider likely humiliating as her student nominating her.
I have never been in such position like that, but I do think she deserves, but I am afraid that this could be counterproductive in our relationship.
The question is: Is it impolite to nominate my female supervisor to be a speaker in a workshop for women?<issue_comment>username_1: Why don't you simply ask her about her willingness to be a speaker? If you explain it properly to her, I think she might see it as a nice gesture (especially if she is as helpful and intelligent as you describe). However, I personally wouldn't nominate her as a speaker without her approval, since that gives off a vibe of you deciding over her head, which you should avoid.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As long as the nomination is **manifestly** justifiable in academic terms, I do not think it would be "counterproductive". To take an analogy, I often cite work by my supervisor (as well as work by other authors whom I do not know) in my papers without consulting him first.
If the nomination were justifiable yet counterintuitive, be prepared to explain your rationale to the nominee and to the rest of the committee, since it may come across as awkward if the nomination would be a "wildcard" (e.g.: speaker not a specialist in the discipline under discussion).
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/07
| 586
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to follow articles that cite several researchers in my field.
I created a google scholar alert on those researchers, however, I'm getting around 70 emails per week and most of them contain duplications (if the same article cites two of the researchers, I'll get two emails).
I would be happy to hear about a way to filter the duplication. Some possible approaches:
* A way to export those alerts into google spreadsheet automatically.
* A way to parse those emails using python or other tools.
* A different tool that gives a list of recent papers that relate to those researchers (e.g., using Zotero or Mendeley)
(Parseur.com did not work for those emails, for some reason).
Many thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: I've been using Google Scholar Alerts for the paper discovery for a while now and faced a very similar issue.
Here is a [scholar-alert-digest](https://github.com/username_1/scholar-alert-digest) script that I wrote to aggregate all unread messages in a Markdown report [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uIOSN.png).
Hope this helps!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For the python lovers, I created a small script that parses those mails using [Gmail API](https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/quickstart/python), combines similar papers and asks for further actions.
The code can be found [here](https://github.com/username_2/scholar_alters).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I create a script for this problem: <https://github.com/lizeyan/GSAsummary>
>
> If I follow many researcher on Google Scholar (especially subscribing citation or related papers), I will get dozens of emails every week, but many of the items are repeated. And the massive volume of emails makes my inbox particularly crowded and cluttered, making it difficult to find emails.
>
>
>
>
> This script generates a HTML report for Google Scholar Alerts by reading your emails from your Mail.app (only for macOS), and send this report to you by email. I have only to read this report and can automatically move the orignal alert emails out of inbox via mailbox rules to keep my inbox clean.
>
>
>
Upvotes: -1
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2019/04/07
| 1,443
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<issue_start>username_0: *To encourage new answers, I will award the bounty to **any** new answer. (e.g. answer and you will get the bounty) I understand this question is difficult to tackle and do appreciate all new insights.*
According to this UK [report](https://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn277.pdf):
>
> There were 48 UK institutions offering physics degrees in 2005. This is 31 fewer than there were in 1994.
>
>
> Since 1996 26 universities have ceased to offer chemistry degrees.
>
>
> 5 [mathematics departments] have closed since 1999.
>
>
>
While the report may be from 2007, this is still a current issue. The Royal Society for Chemistry has [reported](https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/bangor-university-proposes-shutting-down-its-chemistry-department/3009930.article) on a proposal to close the chemistry department at Bangor University. Apparently, [Bangor Needs Chem](https://www.facebook.com/bangorneedschem/).
Additionally, Bangor University no longer has a mathematics department ([source](https://web.archive.org/web/20181226113640/http://maths.bangor.ac.uk/)). Also from Bangor University, the Computer Systems Engineering [major](https://www.bangor.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/H603-Computer-Systems-Engineering) states:
>
> This degree has been designed especially for candidates without the usual qualifications in Mathematics and Physics to be able to pursue their interest in electronics and computer science to degree level.
>
>
>
Looking specifically at the words "without the usual qualifications in Mathematics," doesn't this speak negatively to the reputation of the college and its graduates? Is there a benefit (e.g. and in addition to financial) to closing STEM departments?
In summary, what are the effects (both positive and negative) of closing STEM departments? It is preferable if answers draw upon both theory (research studies, government reports, etc.) and practice (historical studies, your original research on past events and effects).
While the examples are from the UK, the question is about the effects of closing STEM departments *in general* and not specifically in the UK.<issue_comment>username_1: I can't give you a 100% answer (your question is kind of too wide) but I will try to give you some ideas:
* The UK evaluates all departments of universities and research institutes on a
regular basis by a so-called Research Excellence Framework ([REF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Excellence_Framework)). A bad REF evaluation might force a university to shut down a department. This is because universities are only allowed to teach a subject if they also do well received research in this field. Similar evaluation evaluations might be in place in other countries.
* It might be a financial issue of why a department shuts down. Too few students and too high costs (in STEM there are often not enough good students applying)
* "without the usual qualifications in Mathematics" I would not see this necessarily as a negative point. If you allow people with different backgrounds into a degree you might create a cohort of interdisciplinary graduates that might be in demand in industry. (They might not be competitive with e.g. pure math graduates but how many people really work in pure math later?) But it might also be due to the previous point that not enough people apply with a strong enough math background.
* One more possible reason is that the university is not able to hire/hold sufficient professors in STEM fields as the pay in industry is usually much better and people with strong technical background might be aggressively recruited away.
Impacts:
* It is difficult so say what the impacts are as they are university specific but some degrees will not be offered anymore and/or they get external lecturers for e.g. math courses in non-STEM-degrees.
* On a whole population level: Fewer people with STEM degrees means
fewer qualified workers
* On the positive side: The university might have free-up resources in
order to persue other fields more intensively - but that is more a
strategic decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I can't speak to the wider effects of closing STEM departments, but will look at the specifics of this Bangor University example. Where it says "without the usual qualifications in Mathematics", this refers to the entry qualification; generally in the UK, entrants to universities will have studied 3 or 4 A-Levels in subjects related to the subject they wish to study at university. For instance, I studied physics, mathematics and history at A-Level, and went on to study physics at university. For a course in Computer Systems Engineering at most UK universities, an A-Level in mathematics would usually be a prerequisite, but this is not the case at Bangor University.
This is not to say that the undergraduate students won't study mathematics; if you look at the [modules](https://www.bangor.ac.uk/courses/undergrad/modules/H603#year1) of the degree course, they will take three mathematics modules in the first year, and another in the second. These modules would usually be taught by academics in the department the course is in, so Engineering in this case. My own undergraduate physics degree had two mathematics modules taught by academics from the Physics department - no mathematicians involved!
So the closure of a department would generally have little or no effect, from an academic point of view, on students from other departments in the university.
(When I say UK here, in reference to A-Levels, I mean England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The system in Scotland is slightly different.)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/08
| 364
| 1,418
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<issue_start>username_0: Today I just found this website viXra.org
the paper I looked at has author name but no other info about the author such as university or work.
in addition there was no references at all?
Can I still cite this paper in my PhD thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: You can, without doubt, but it might not be a good idea.
The first question is, of course, if the content of the paper is good.
The second question is, if you can find a more reliable source. Given the reputation of Vixra, almost any other source is more reliable, generally speaking.
I would suspect that, most of the time, when something is posted on viXra, either the content is not of high quality or you can find comparable material elsewhere.
But if you do happen to find a gem on viXra, certainly cite it. Just be very, very certain of the quality.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You haven't specified your field, so I don't know whether any of this applies.
If you want to cite the paper as bringing evidence for a theory you're proposing (or defending, or attacking), you should make sure that the content is good, and not blindly trust it - it's not peer-reviewed, and it's on viXra, after all.
If it contains a theoretical point that you agree with, or want to use in your dissertation, then not only *can* you cite it, it's your **duty** to cite it, just like any other source.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/08
| 661
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m currently writing a personal statement for a PhD application I am putting together and I have the sentence, “Not to be overly dramatic, but when I saw the advertisement for this project I breathed a sigh of relief because...”
I’m wondering whether this sentence is a bit too embellished and casual to have here, because in the past I’ve been told that a personal statement shouldn’t be too formal but it shouldn’t be too casual either.<issue_comment>username_1: That sentence already sounds very flippant. Contrary to its name there is very little that is "personal" about a personal statement (and it's definitely not the kind of soul-searching essay you write for college). It's mostly a document to describe your research experience and how the program fits within your vision of a scientific career. You should certainly demonstrate your interest and passion (in a concrete manner devoid of cliches, of course), but I'd rather err on the side of being too formal than the other way around.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd say that's too casual. I agree with the previous answer that it's best to err on the formal side. Something more like: "The XXX element of this project particularly excites me because..." would be more appropriate - it's good to be personal, but keep a measured tone. You can demonstrate your enthusiasm for the project by being specific about why it suits you and vice versa.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The issue with that sentence is not that it's too casual, but that it's devoid of relevant content. Personal statements (like all academic writing) should be as factual as possible, and the facts should help the committee determine whether or not you would be a good candidate. That is an academic decision (are you strong enough and independent enough, are your interests a good fit for the department, e.g. is there a suitable advisor, etc.), not an emotional one (whether or not you would be a good buddy to hang out with in the evenings is, ideally, not part of the considerations). The people reading these statements are busy, they typically have to read a number of these, and teach, do research, and discharge other administrative duties the rest of the time, so you will help them by keeping your letter to the point. Waffle, whether in research papers or in personal statements, is annoying because it wastes time.
Note that there is no contradiction between being factual and being personal: statements about your academic and other related experience (e.g. *relevant* jobs and work placements, olympiads, etc), about the courses you have taken, about the courses you found most interesting, about the possible directions that you think you might want to take your research, and so on are relevant; dramatic descriptions of your emotions at a particular point in time are not.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/04/08
| 395
| 1,732
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<issue_start>username_0: [This link](https://ias.virginia.edu/university-stats-facts/graduate-admissions) states that the university has a yield rate (acceptance rate) of 40%. Does that mean 60% of seats are not filled at the end of cycle?
Or does it mean university makes more offers than seats present and 40% corresponds to seats the university has?<issue_comment>username_1: Usually universities make more offers than they have space available. Admissions makes an estimate of the yield using historical data. They make enough offers to fill most of their spaces based on that estimate. Then they wait. If yield is too low to fill the spots, they make more offers of admission.
If too many people accept and there are more students than funding, the next year very few offers will be made. Occasionally, admissions will be closed the next year in a small department.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I had a look at the link you shared. The *yield rate* is defined as the number of applicants who accepted offers of admission divided by the number of offers of admission. Yes, it is indeed true that graduate departments send out more offers of admission than "available seats" and forecast a number of enrollees that is approximately the capacity of the program.
This creates some challenges when admitted students receive offers of graduate financial aid like teaching assistantships, research assistantships, or fellowships. But it is the job of the graduate programs director in any particular department to develop an admissions strategy that meets program goals while remaining financially feasible. For this reason, you often see active waiting lists for graduate programs admission.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2019/04/08
| 205
| 852
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<issue_start>username_0: I applied for a Summer Programme, but l forgot to save the attachment I have sent. Now I need the attachment. Should I do the work again or ask for it from the recipient?<issue_comment>username_1: There shouldn't really be any problem with this other than a bit of embarrassment. Just explain what happened and ask if it is still possible to have a copy back. Worth a chuckle, but no more. I don't see how it should affect your application provided that the institution is ethical. Humans make mistakes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: First I suggest as have others in the comment, that you look in your "sent messages" folder, it should be there with the attachment.
This may depend on the mail program as well as how the detail is set up ie keep a copy locally etc
But it is the first place I would look.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/08
| 952
| 3,529
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been invited to give a talk at a university in Canada, with a view to getting a postdoc job there (although there won't be a formal job interview at this stage). I'm female and in biomedical sciences. I'm currently based in the UK, and based on the dress code I'm used to I would go for business-casual: blouse and jumper, smart black jeans, maybe a blazer as well. Is this what would be expected in Canada? In the UK I wouldn't dream of wearing a suit, but I'm not sure if there's a cultural difference in what is normal to wear for this kind of thing, so I would appreciate any tips!<issue_comment>username_1: Note: I am not Canadian, so this may be a bit off. However, I do hire post-docs fairly regularly into a research group at a US National Lab.
First - for an official post-doc interview your proposed attire seems appropriate. Dress slacks rather than jeans would be an upgrade, but probably not necessary. (Note that standards in the US can vary regionally, I'd assume similar in Canada. What is needed in Toronto might be different than Vancouver or Saskatchewan. An interview in New York City is different than Denver.)
As an added comment, you should treat this as a job interview because it definitely is one. While it may not be the formal interview, they have asked you are going out to give a talk. Any impressions from this visit will apply to a more formal interview. If it goes well, there may not even be a separate formal interview. Good luck.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I am Canadian and am at a Canadian university. However, I am in engineering, so your field may be different.
Here are some thoughts:
1. Business casual is usually acceptable for giving talks here, and I am in full agreement with username_1's answer. I have been to many talks from visiting academics and other than when they are being formally interviewed I have never seen anyone wearing a suit.
2. Your chosen attire is perfectly fine, given (1) above.
3. It has been my experience that no one really pays attention to the speaker's dress. As long as the talk is engaging, business casual will be fine.
4. The vast majority of professors I've interacted with dress business casual, with some being more casual than business. Only very rarely do I work with someone who wears a tie, and then it is even more rare to see someone in a full suit.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This topic reminds me of a local news story I saw last week:
[speaker issues update of dress code at bc legislature sleeveless dresses ok](https://vancouversun.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/speaker-issues-update-of-dress-code-at-b-c-legislature-sleeveless-dresses-ok-2/wcm/9b69430a-0dc9-4713-8ed6-f5531d63c146)
There are still some sectors here that do, in fact, have out dated dress codes, but when they are talked about it's usually a shock to the rest of us.
I would assume that you're good to go with your usual dress, but I still wanted to share that article anyhow.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Female, Canadian postdoc at a Canadian university here who was recently hired into a biomedicine lab after a job talk. I wore dress pants and a trendy button up shirt with trendy flats for my interview. FWIW, I would have felt very underdressed in jeans, but not overdressed with an additional blazer. What you've described fits perfectly with the academic culture I've experienced at three different institutions in Southern and Eastern Ontario. Good luck!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2019/04/08
| 449
| 1,906
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose, I want to add machine learning proficiency to my current skillsets. What should my strategy be like? I already have done two machine learning courses on Coursera, but without doing actual projects, I have nothing to show to my future employers. That should be one of my targets during my next 1 year.
What other things I should do? Basically, I have now come to my senses about the reality of the world and I have realized that I could have prepared well for it. But I don't want to live in regret and be in same position after a year too.
I understand that the question is vague. But specifically, I want advice of improving my profile for (1) an academia future (2) A fallback option of industry.<issue_comment>username_1: Even if your Ph.D. is less than stellar, you can still have a career in academia. In the US there are many lesser universities, where the emphasis is on teaching rather than research. This can still be an intellectually rewarding career for many.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If you want to stay in academia, you should keep working on your research portfolio. Ideally, you should do that as part of a full-time occupation, such as being a postdoc in an university or a scientist in a research lab.
Given that you have already studied the basics of machine learning, I believe that using machine learning in your research projects would be a good way to acquire further practice, since you will be driven by a research question and will end up getting hands-ons experience with ML techniques as you try to tackle something you care about.
That said, you should keep in mind that carving a niche is very important to succeed in academia. Hence, as you consider new topics to master, you need to think about how they would fit with what you have done up to this point and what kind of academic position would that lead to.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/08
| 1,705
| 7,170
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<issue_start>username_0: I think I made a dire mistake a few days ago. I asked a potential PI for their CV (I wanted to get a full record of their credentials along with the information I could find about him on Google Scholar and his website), but I was met with a curt response telling me I should look at his website and papers. I felt ***really, really*** bad after that. I sent him an apology e-mail, saying I meant no disrespect, and will look at the materials he suggested.
For context, I am trying to decide between two reputable graduate schools for an EE PhD, and I am interested in a particular person at both. One guy had his CV publicly available, while the other did not (the one I may have offended). I naively thought I could ask for a CV since I've seen professors post theirs. I thought this could help me decide.
I'm going to wait a few more days to make a decision because I don't want it to seem like I intentionally provoked him to make it easier for me to pick an option.
Does the guy despise me now? I'll be seeing him in the next few years (these particular people know each other and work together, and go to the same conferences). Is there any way to undo any damage I might have caused to his impression of me?
Edit: Thank you everyone for your input. I will try not to make this mistake in the future.<issue_comment>username_1: It is in principle ok to ask but the tone is very important. Something along the lines of:
>
> I am very interested in your research and would like to know more about ...
> but on your webpage I could not find detailed information about ... would you be willing to send me your CV? This would really help me to get a better idea/picture of ... etc
>
>
>
If your email was friendly but the response was not then it might not be the right supervisor anyway. But if your email was something like "Hey, send me your CV" then I would not send you mine eigther and give an answer as above. And I have to say that many students write emails in quite rude tones and/or like in a facebook chat directly from their mobile phone and such emails are usually not very much appreciated by the receiving professors.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It would be a strange person who starts “despising” someone for making an innocuous social faux pas. In novels one reads about such people, but real life people are, by and large, more reasonable.
I can only speculate, but I suspect the professor was mildly annoyed and/or amused by your request, told about it as a funny anecdote to his spouse later that day, and has by now forgotten all about it. The fact that he bothered to answer your email, and that the reply was polite, even if curt, suggests that he wasn’t terribly offended.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, it is unlikely that they despise you but it could certainly be seen as a major faux pas.
You see, asking for a CV has a hint of "convince me you are good enough for the role". And while it is true that this relationship affects the student a lot more than it does the professor, the power dynamic heavily favors professors/schools: it is students who are at the bottom of the ladder here. Not to mention most people (I believe) do not have an up-to-date CV ready at all times; I certainly do not. And asking to produce one might be quite a request.
The whole situation is a bit like coming to a store and saying "I'm not so sure, why don't you tell me why should I shop here". There is an expectation that you make this decision based on publicly available information and possibly ask more specific questions as needed. Sitting back expecting them to court you might make some owners/managers irritated or outright angry. It is unlikely the prospective advisor has reacted so strongly, and you still should be able to make amends, but this was out of line.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I think this is an [XY problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem). I suspect what you want to know are things like:
* What topics have you worked on and what papers have you and your group published?
* Where have students and postdocs that have worked in your group ended up?
* Do you have funding to take me on as a student?
* Do you collaborate with other groups and if so which groups?
* Can I talk to some of the students in your group?
These are totally reasonable questions, and you should feel free to ask them in a polite way.
There are a few issues with asking for a CV in your situation. The first is that the CV very likely contains *much* more information than you really want or need to know, such as
* What are all the talks this person has given at conferences?
* What are all the courses this person has taught?
* How much funding was achieved in every successful grant proposal?
* What is the list of every research visit this person has taken?
* What is the name and current job title of every student this person has ever advised?
Given how much information is in the CV of a tenured professor, it is a choice whether the person makes it publicly available or not. If the person has chosen not to post it online, they might be worried that giving the document to anyone who asks could very well result in someone spreading the document around. Additionally, keeping a CV up-to-date is a lot of work, and they might not feel comfortable giving you an out-of-date document and not have the time to update it. Finally, there is generally an expectation as a PhD student that you will do due diligence to find information that is publicly available on your own. Sending a request for a CV subtly implies that you did not try to do any research on your own. On the other hand, explaining that you have a question about $X$ specific piece of information and could not find it shows that you have done your homework.
Having said that, I don't think this matters enough that you should be worried about what they think about you. If your advisor is a reasonable person, they don't expect you to know all the unspoken rules in academia as a starting grad student. Professors are busy people, and there just are not enough spare cycles for them to think about the social skills of a *prospective* PhD student. They gave you the information you needed, just thank them and move on.
I also don't think this on its own is enough of a data point that you should be worried about them. You *should* try to find out if you will be able to work with this person successfully. Talking to students in their group, finding out where past students have ended up, asking your current mentors what they know about this school/group/advisor, and reflecting on the tone of the other interactions you have had with this person are good ways to do that. But, I don't think the email you are describing is so far out of the norm that it indicates that they are an unreasonable advisor. It doesn't indicate they are a reasonable advisor either -- this is just too small of an interaction to mean much of anything, and so I would recommend moving on. Certainly, I would not recommend making the decision to go to one school vs another, based on this interaction alone.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/04/08
| 1,625
| 6,553
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been working with another postdoc on a paper, here is what happened: I presented a work of mine before it was published (but it is in my thesis and on arxiv) and he decided he will use the same exact model with a slight change. I have talked it out with him and finally with my lab adviser as he was not collaborating, and we decided to send the paper as coauthors after our adviser mediated the issue (though it was bumpy), even sorted out whose name goes first etc.
The methodology belongs to me and the application area is the same (topic), although he has written all the code practically (he said he wanted to learn and build a more modular code etc) I did contribute by writing small scripts but he ended up not using them.
My advisor has asked their collaborating institute whether I could join (the irony that my methodology is stolen but I need a pass to join the project) and they did approve it (I have all exchanges and emails). I spent countless hours discussing and working on the project with him, as he is working on another project I have little clue about the execution but he had to travel often and he made a presentation to the partner institute. I also suspect that my adviser got the patent of the code on his name as I have noticed he took my name out of contacts on github recently. I had not asked to be in the copyrights of his code but he has told me that I was going to be there relating the model. My adviser only wants to please the partner institution I am afraid. I was away for a week and before that my colleague and I saw each other very briefly and all sounded to be on track. He has run over time for the completion of the project so he is not working here anymore technically. Today I get no reply from him on multiple attempts and I learnt that he has removed his computer's hard drive and my adviser is off for vacation for an unknown time.
I suspect that my colleague will try to send off the paper we were supposed to write together without my name on it, I have email exchanges as proof but most relied on my adviser, whom I don't know if I should trust after the copyright issue. What do I do if he sends the paper without my name? Do I write to the editors? His partner institution? Is there a board for this?<issue_comment>username_1: There are two issues here, one is that your "colleague" is engaging in plagiarism. This is a big no-no for most if not all journals. Just being accused of plagiarism can end someones academic career. As such, I am surprised anyone would do this so blatantly. If you know which journal the submission might go to, I would contact the editor in chief there and talk to him. With the method being in your thesis and on arxiv, you have a very good starting point in proving that the method belongs to you and the other guy is just a leech. (There are ways around this by properly attributing, but I doubt he does that)
The second issue is one of copyright. If you worked on code and wrote part of it, then your advisor has no right to remove your name. That's tantamount to stealing. And there are some nice fines for that, including jail time in severe cases. I would talk to your advisor about this, explain that it's not ok to remove your name. After that discussion, you should put it into writing and send it to him **on paper**, so he cannot refute anything later.
If your advisor or colleague are not cooperating in this, I strongly suggest to contact your universities legal department. Most universities do not like their students work being stolen, not even by their own professors.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I have been working with another postdoc on a paper, here is what happened: I presented a work of mine before it was published (but it is in my thesis and on arxiv) and he decided he will use the same exact model with a slight change
>
>
>
There is a misunderstanding about "publishing": you probably mean that it was not published in a journal/conference, but apparently you did publish your model, which means two things:
* Your authorship on this is established
* Anybody can reuse it, provided they cite your work appropriately
>
> The methodology belongs to me
>
>
>
Not really: yes you are the established author of the methodology, but it is now available for anyone to reuse it, as per the usual academic process (the only exception would be if you patented the work prior to publication).
>
> I have talked it out with him and finally with my lab adviser as he was not collaborating, and we decided to send the paper as coauthors after our adviser mediated the issue (though it was bumpy), even sorted out whose name goes first etc.
>
>
>
This is what gives you a (moral) right to be a co-author for this particular work.
>
> My advisor has asked their collaborating institute whether I could join (the irony that my methodology is stolen but I need a pass to join the project) and they did approve it (I have all exchanges and emails)
>
>
>
Avoid using the word "steal" if you published it: if all that the other author did was reading your thesis/paper, the only requirement is for him to cite the origin of the work.
>
> I also suspect that my adviser got the patent of the code on his name as I have noticed he took my name out of contacts on github recently.
>
>
>
Are you talking about an actual patent? If yes, for what? If this is about your methodology which is already published or about a code publicly available on github (under a particular license maybe?), it's unlikely that a patent would be granted, but IANAL.
>
> Today I get no reply from him on multiple attempts and I learnt that he has removed his computer's hard drive and my adviser is off for vacation for an unknown time
>
>
>
Multiple attempts over how long? If it's only a few days there's no reason to panic, he might be busy. Did you agree on a method to write the paper together, a venue to submit it or a deadline?
>
> I suspect that my colleague will try to send off the paper we were supposed to write together without my name on it, I have email exchanges as proof but most relied on my adviser, whom I don't know if I should trust after the copyright issue. What do I do if he sends the paper without my name? Do I write to the editors? His partner institution? Is there a board for this?
>
>
>
You should rely primarily on your advisor, and if they don't cooperate you should seek support in your institution, e.g. head of department or ombudsman.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/08
| 501
| 2,630
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<issue_start>username_0: A paper we submitted was rejected without a review because of journal scope issues. After the rejection, I decided to send the same manuscript content (changed formats only according to the journal's guidelines) to another journal where I believe it fits. However, I missed informing other co-authors about the rejection as I presumed it is unnecessary because I am submitting the same version of the MS and we are not particular of the journal and its metrics as long as it is fitting. I experienced the same thing before where the primary and corresponding author did not inform us of the rejection rather send it to another journal without our consent (for me that time it was fine). However, this time one of the co-authors scolded me because of the actions I made and I realised it was wrong. Any advice on how will I handle and respond to this?<issue_comment>username_1: You should apologize and admit you were wrong. Don't try to defend your actions. It is a head-slapping error. Send the apology to everyone. Offer to immediately withdraw the submission if anyone desires it. Ask for advice going forward. That should cover it.
All authors need to be on the same page for actions on their work.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: You should apologize, but even more importantly, you should **understand why it was a mistake**, and show that you understand why, so that your coauthors know that you will not make the same mistake in the future.
if various authors of a rejected article resubmit it separately to a distinct journal **without coordinating with the other authors**, there will be **parallel submissions** of the same work, potentially to distinct journals (which is not allowed in the rules of most journals), or even several times to the same journal (which is just plain waste of the editor time).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it was merely a lack of respect of the etiquette of this kind of situation, it would be unreasonable to expect you to "simply" know it. In this case however, it is more like good sense, so humbly apologize and promise to think more symmetrically in the future (not just for this particular situation, for any situation involving collaboration with peers), and hope that you convince them... :)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/08
| 2,498
| 10,763
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<issue_start>username_0: Two years ago, I collaborated\* (briefly) with a professor (whom I will call Professor Jim) on some research in mathematics. At the time, I was a PhD student and Prof. Jim was on my dissertation committee. I now work full time outside of academia and Professor Jim is looking for a new position. (Prof. Jim was denied tenure last year).
Because Prof. Jim is looking for a new position, he is interviewing for numerous positions around the United States. As part of these interviews, Prof. Jim gives a seminar talk on research. The only issue is that, instead of presenting research he performed himself, he is presenting research from my dissertation as if it was his own. No attribution is given to me on his slides (which are a direct copy of the slides I presented at my dissertation defense).\*\* I feel that this is a clear instance of plagiarism.
**My question is as follows:** Should I contact the universities where Prof. Jim presented this research? Professor Jim has ignored my emails on the matter for three months now.
---
\*I use the term collaborator very loosely here. Prof. Jim provided a data set for the data analysis. This was not a data set he himself had collected. Rather, it was a data set from the National Institute of Health (NIH) that he had been granted access to. Prof. Jim also attended (while nodding off to sleep at times) some of the early meetings where I presented my thoughts. He gave a few points of feedback and wedged his way onto the associated **unpublished** paper as an author. (Easy to do when you can leverage your authority over graduate students). I would not include him in a million years if I was in my current, unleveraged, position. The only published source of this research is my dissertation. He does not cite my dissertation in his presentation. In at least one seminar, he made no mention of either me or another colleague who actually did substantive work. (This is according to a contact I have at said university).
\*\*Many universities publicly announce seminars on their website. Professor Jim has a rather unique real name and Google finds him relatively easily. I have traced several instances of Professor Jim presenting at seminars. Departments are usually happy to send you materials from old seminars if you just email and ask.<issue_comment>username_1: Ask yourself:
* Did <NAME> have a significant role in the design, planning, or
execution of your research?
* Did <NAME> engage in longer discussions with you on how you will
perform the research and/or did he give qualified feedback on your research?
* Did he possibly interact with your (main) supervisor about it and made a significant contribution by this way?
If he did then it is most likely OK to talk about your research as long as he gives sufficient credit to you with phrases like "the student X under my co-supervision did ...". Some professors even make a game out of it putting pictures of their students on the respective slides in their presentations.
More senior professors will not have their "own" research at all as they work fully in research management (getting grants and hiring+supervising people to do the research).
Before you take action (plagiarism is a very serious accusation):
* Investigate if he gave credit to you for your work or not. If he
presented it really as his own without credit to you this is certainly not
ok. I am just not sure that he would really do this as at his career stage it might even be more beneficial to him to show that a student of his did great work than that he did some work by himself.
* Maybe ask your main supervisor for his opinion before taking action
* Contact Prof Jim directly and ask for his point of view (in friendly words)
*If this does not lead to satisfying results for you then you should contact the universities.*
**One more note on this:** To defuse such problematic situations many fields have introduced the concept of first-author (the student who did the actual work listed first) and senior authors (the professors listed last). At least in a journal publication it is then clear who did what.
**UPDATE**:
As the question was now edited and it is stated that Prof Jim is co-author on a paper that presents the research in questions the situation changes: Even if he didnt give you enough credit (which he should have done!) it is not plagiarism and you will have little ground to file a complain.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Short Answer
------------
No, you should contact <NAME> and request that he properly acknowledge the source of the work that he is presenting as being your dissertation research.
Longer Answer
-------------
You state the work is from your dissertation. You state that <NAME> was a committee member, meaning he was not your primary advisor. Finally, you claim that <NAME> is presenting your dissertation work *as if it was his own*. Let's leave aside how you know this.
First to the case of plagiarism. At its core, this will mean that <NAME> is giving you **absolutely no** acknowledgement at all for the work AND that he is claiming explicitly that the work **is** his. **This** is plagiarism. What does **absolutely** mean? It means, not only do you not have any written notice on the presentation, you are not given any verbal acknowledgement during the presentation. Are you certain that <NAME> does not start or end his talk with a verbal statement such as this: "All of the work that I am showing today was done by Vladhagen who was a graduate student at the time"? Alternatively, are you absolutely certain that <NAME> is saying something such as this: "To explore this problem, **I** did this type of study". Absent such evidence, you cannot conclusively prove plagiarism. You can only state that Prof Jim is negligent and thereby potentially engaging in plagiarism.
In summary, your feelings aside, this is NOT a **clear** instance of plagiarism.
Your case is solely that <NAME> gives no written acknowledgement anywhere in his written slides for your work. This borders on being dishonest to the extent that Prof Jim was not your primary advisor and the work was your dissertation research. But then, Prof Jim is co-author on a publication. So, Prof Jim does have a right during his presentation to demonstrate the work because it was done in collaboration and is *already published as such*.
Your case is therefore solely that Prof Jim is taking a negligent approach to acknowledge in writing in his slides that the work is your dissertation research.
At this point, your first approach must be to contact <NAME> for clarification. You are at an equal footing here as a colleague. You need only state two things.
* I know that you are presenting the research work that we did in collaboration for my dissertation during your interviews.
* I am aware that my contributions to the work are being mis-represented because a written acknowledgment is not given on the slides to state that I was the principal contributor on the work.
You have already contacted <NAME> by email and he has not responded. What does that mean? You have a responsibility now to contact him by phone or visit him directly. In addition, you might engage your primary dissertation advisor. He or she can apply a counter pressure to <NAME> to drive the point home further. He or she should also be in the better position to inform the universities as needed when the contacts continue to go unanswered.
You are also within your bounds to ask for an official copy of the written presentation, since it represents work that you did.
Finally, as someone on the other side (responsible to do faculty interviews), I can say that faculty are not oblivious to cases such as this. When we interview, we have a CV that lists publications. We hear an oral presentation. We pay attention to whether the presentation fully acknowledges the records in the CV. When they do not, we ask questions. Specifically, when I hear an oral presentation that does not have a concluding list of students who contributed to the work, my alarm bells immediately start ringing. This is NOT NORMAL! In other words, rather than rushing to contact faculty for what you believe could be true, trust that WE will contact YOU should the case reach that level of seriousness (i.e. indications of plagiarism).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Yes! I think you should tell the university that he is literally presenting your work as his. It would have been different if you and he worked on a separate paper together while you were still a PhD student, that way, it could be that he saw you as a research assistant and didn’t think your name should go on it.
As it is, he is LITERALLY stealing from you. You should tell this university and then go to your university where you submitted this dissertation and let them know what is happening. Maybe they can help in some way, because even though neither of you is at that university any more, a student of theirs is being exploited by one of their hires.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Once he *wedged* his way into authorship, the battle is essentially lost unless there is a section that makes the individual contributions of authors clear. As an author he has ever right to refer to the work and while he should acknowledge co-authors (and provide a citation) at worst this would be a case of *self plagiarism*.
On the concept of *wedging* his way into authorship, students often under estimate the impact that advisors have on their work. It is quite possible that the professor thinks he made substantial contributions to the work. Unless you have had a discussion with him about the relative contributions, going around his back with an accusation of academic dishonesty seems out of place.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I can't tell from your question what you're saying he's actually doing, so I don't know to evaluate whether it's unethical or not. It would be great if you could be more precise in your description.
If he is mentioning results from one of his papers during a talk and passing it off
as though it's single-authored (i.e. writing only his initial next to the theorems) that's clearly unethical. If a talk is solely about a particular joint paper, then the collaborators are typically mentioned in the abstract ("this is based on joint work with X,Y,Z") but sometimes people forget to do this and I'm not sure I'd say it's *unethical* to leave them out of the abstract if they're properly attributed during the talk. If a talk is based on many papers with many collaborators, then I wouldn't expect all the collaborators to be mentioned in the abstract, just in the talk.
Upvotes: 0
|
2019/04/09
| 2,410
| 10,598
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<issue_start>username_0: In many of my undergraduate classes, professors required up to date editions of textbooks. This was across a number of subjects from Computer Science to Accounting and across introductory and more intermediate levels.
What is motivating new editions of textbooks? Are professors who published contractually obligated to publish new editions? Are they incorporating student feedback?<issue_comment>username_1: They can update a book for several reasons:
1) new material,
2) updating material (addition or removal), chapters or sections based on feedback - changing the order of sections
3) more examples with solutions and/or practice problems with or without solutions
So technical books are updated as necessary but they are not done for lucrative reasons - fiction authors sell more copies and do make money... technical books don’t sell in the same numbers...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Publishers want new editions so that they can make money selling copies of the new edition and reduce the market for used copies. The new edition might be significantly updated, but in many cases the updates are small. For textbooks in lower division general education courses, new editions come out as often as every three years.
It's quite common for textbook publishing contracts to include clauses that give the authors right of first refusal to produce an updated edition but allow the publisher to add a new coauthor and produce a new edition if the authors are unwilling to do so.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: There're many possible reasons for writing a new edition:
* New discoveries in the field (e.g. detection of gravitational waves)
* Removing outdated material (e.g. if an exercise question involved a lecturer using transparencies, it would make sense to switch to a lecturer using Power Point)
* Change in syllabus (e.g. new discovery means courses should cover that, and to make room, another topic is removed)
* Student feedback (as you mentioned)
Authors are not usually obliged contractually to produce a new edition. At most, they might be contractually obliged to publish new editions with the same publisher.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: * Error corrections. Somebody pointed to a typo or more serious error, this is corrected. Teaching a course can be difficult if some students have the errors and some have the corrections.
* Media rights. An image might have been licensed for the initial print run, it is not possible to renew the license. Or there never was a license to start with, things were more sloppy in previous decades. An image might have been licensed for print only and now they want a digital edition, too.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: When sales start to lag on a popular title, publishers want a refresh. They want to try to boost sales back to where they were. Adding a chapter on new material is relatively easy. Adding or changing exercises makes it harder to use older editions for adopters.
Note that authors normally give up copyright to the material so publishers are free to leave authors behind in the preparation of a new edition, but are unlikely to do so even in the absence of a contract. This is because adopters often (usually?) associate the book with its author as much or more than with its title. So including the author has value. But, as [username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127801/75368) says, there is usually language in the contract about this.
I think it is very unlikely that student feedback is used in the preparation of a new edition, other than from students of the authors. But book representatives (*acquisition editors*) usually attend professional conferences and ask for feedback on books from attendees. They will also sometimes poll adopters of the book to get feedback and this can be given to the author to aid in the preparation of the next edition. Some of that feedback is contradictory, however, and some is contrary to the ideas of the authors.
In fact, some acquisition editors will ask for feedback on the (popular) books of competitors to learn why those books were chosen instead of their own.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Have you ever been involved in someone teaching a lecture from a "script"? I don't know if there is a specific English term for this, I mean that the teacher/professor collates the material beforehand without publishing it in a book form, and makes it available to students.
If you see this being done year afer year, you will see what kind of changes are made.
* The importance/length of sections is changed relative to each other, due to changing emphasis, the need to make space for new material, and the time needed by the professor and/or students to get through a section
* practical problems are changed to be more understandable, new problems are added, etc.
* material that was difficult to bring across is rewritten to be presented in a new way
* small new discoveries are mentioned, such as using the results of nifty new studies as examples that emphasize a point
* corrections are made, since there are usually errors at the beginning
I would say that textbooks go through similar changes between editions. This is entirely normal - a large and complicated artefact like a textbook is best created in an iterative manner, not unlike a software programm.
Major discoveries in the field are much less likely to trigger a new edition. First, the future impact of many discoveries is not recognizable when they are made, and they linger in some small journal before the discipline notices them and makes something out of them.
Second, even when something is recognizably new and different, and excites scientists, it is still not "fleshed out" enough to be taught to students, since it doesn't yet have its own ecosystem supporting literature, successful application in large projects, whatever. Third, the kind of professor who gets to publish a textbook is usually old, experienced - and set in his ways. If he dedicated his life to building superconductors out of metal alloys, and some young upshot shows that graphene can be used in a superconductor, the professor will wait for a few years whether that new technology (which is in direct competition to his own research) will establish itself, before starting to give it space in his textbook.
I think there are a few exceptions to that "discoveries percolate slowly into textbooks" tendency, for example I heard somewhere that CRISPR/CAS entered general genetics textbooks rather quickly. But it is much more typical, especially in undergraduate level textbooks, that changes between editions are incremental improvements of existing material.
There are also some fields where the changes are very impactful. This happens in fields which study human-created rule systems, typically law, but also accounting. In a law textbook, a subset of laws changes every year, and their interpretation by courts also changes with new case decisions. The new editions of textbooks have to reflect these changes.
A reason for professors to want the newest edition (beside monetary ones) is simply that it makes it easier to teach. With a class where the students use multiple editions at once, there will be difference in the text, but especially also in the problems. Making sure that everybody reads the same text, or is solving the same problem when homework is given, is a huge headache if students use different editions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I am an author currently updating a textbook. It's been out for several years. Many of the exercises are based on "current news" - what was current then is not current now. While updating the exercises I've found more places than I had anticipated where I see ways to say things better.
I am arranging the new version so that a second hand copy of the old version will still work. Exercises I've removed will be available on the web with their original numbers, new exercise numbers start where the old ones left off.
To answer the more general question: I think that the point of many new editions is new revenue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: In something like English, clearly the field is not changing hugely -- incorporating technology has been done pretty well. (Although I want to update a book I used in Tech Writing because it was pre-google docs, and assumed emailing around a single document, taking turns editing.)
Mostly instructors find other approaches that work, and they want to create a text to allow other instructors to use the same one.
I often would incorporate a chapter from a textbook I had a sample from, while my main text for the class stayed the same. I didn't outright steal (Xerox or scan it in), but I'd take the organization of the information for that chapter, and make a presentation (PPT) based on that, and come up with my own examples, and find exercises in my existing text that could be adapted. This was a tech-writing class, and that other book went into more depth on layout topics and strategies. To get even a portion of that book for the class (I wrote the publisher and asked for a 2-3 chapter excerpt) would have been $30/copy, and my main book in that class is only $30ish already. If my preferred text lacked adaptable examples though, then I may have switched or added in that supplement fully.
Some teachers in my department ADORED a text that gave a lot of "models" for how to do academic writing, but I despised it. So I'm glad other people had created books that focused more on the analysis and deep-thinking parts of the writing process. So while not new editions, they were various approaches being represented. (I did stop using one ENGL 100 book when 3rd edition was 250ish pages, but by 6th, it was 550 -- each individual change made sense, but it was overall too overwhelming for a student to cope with.)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_9: 20 or so years ago while in the army, we had some rule book (The Rules of Military Discipline, printed in 1965 I think) which were erata-ed the hard way: new text written by typing machine, cut and pasted (glued) over the old text.
As another example, children today learn Mathematics at least one year earlier than I did in the eighties, so new manuals are necessary. Also, the things that MUST be studied (government mandates what) change - if not every year, then at least once every four. While dealing with things that disappear from the manual is easy (just ignore them), the changes are all ADDING things.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have some published papers and in my CV, I mention them under the heading of "Publications".
However, I have some papers that I have not yet submitted to a venue (conference or journal). I think that I cannot mention these papers as "Publications".
What is the best and more appropriate description for the papers that have not been submitted yet? e.g. "Research Papers"? Or "Research Manuscripts"? Or something else?<issue_comment>username_1: **Work in Progress** might be good as it implies that there may still be some work to do in the writing - and even some uncertainty about the final title. In addition it also subtly says that you are still active and not resting on your old achievements.
You could, in addition, mark each paper according to its readiness, or at least those that are *ready for submission*.
I think that *Research Papers* carries a connotation that they are internal and may not be published.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I suggest using subdivisions in your list of publications, for instance:
* Peer-reviewed journal articles
* Peer-reviewed conference articles
* Non-peer reviewed publications
* [edited] Future submissions
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend to take a positive attitude and just list them in sequence (i.e. reverse chronological, right up front, along with the rest) and say "in preparation for J. Appl. Phys." or whatever journal is planned. Use your common sense. But if you publish all the time in J. Appl. Phys. and know the paper meets the subject and quality hurdles, fine, list that. If you seriously think it is a Science/Nature/Phys Rev paper, than list that. I'm going to assume you are an accomplished paper writer and getting publisheder. Or well on your way to being there. So this should not be rocket science to know where you plan to submit. And you should be submitting to places you plan to get accepted at (not chasing rainbows or submitting junk).
Given that you say "in preparation" or "submitted" or whatever qualifier, it's OBVIOUS that the paper may never get finished (or might evolve, split, merge, etc.) Even "in press" still has some wiggle room in that there is a remote possibility it shifts venue or the like (I mean it's not in the archived literature yet). So what. Not a big deal. Note, I see many CVs on the web that have this exact structure. The simple caveat is plenty. You don't need to obsess about different sections or the like.
The other, not insignificant, benefit is that it concentrates your mind. And makes you more likely to finish, submit, get published. Because you have identified the target.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I want to second the idea that your "Publications" or "Scholarship" section of your CV should have subsections. Typically, there would be separate subsections something along these lines: books and book chapters; peer-reviewed journal articles; peer-reviewed conference proceedings; non-peer-reviewed publications; unpublished manuscripts; manuscripts in preparation.
I also recommend highly that any piece of scholarship that you list on your CV in this section should be publicly available, if only by request. This is of course the case for published materials. For unpublished materials and papers in preparation, I think the best practice is that you should make them available upon request. Thus, it is best not to list something until it is in state where you are ready to share it.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a master's student currently, with a focus in pure mathematics. I would like to apply to PhD programs this fall at other universities (as well as the program at my current university).
Last semester I got an A in graduate Topology and graduate Analysis, but a C in graduate Algebra. I am going to retake the Algebra class this fall (required to get a B for my concentration.)
This semester has been rough. The second half of the graduate Topology sequence is going well, but I'm struggling in Analysis. Right now I'm feeling like I'll be lucky to get a D, but I'm holding out hope that if I throw myself into it I can squeeze out a C.
My undergraduate transcripts are good, but not stellar. They got me admittance and funding here. I might look into some research next year, but probably not before my applications go in.
Will I still be able to get into a PhD program? I'm not looking to go to a top school, but I was looking at some that are bit nicer - UVA, UMD, etc.<issue_comment>username_1: Well, a D certainly isn't going to help. But then, a C won't either. That doesn't necessarily make it impossible, but certainly harder. In any admissions (or job, actually) application you need to give a lot of evidence that you will be successful and your grades aren't pointing toward that now. You will also face competition from people with better grades.
I wonder if you are doing well enough that you can continue to a doctorate at your current institution. That might be an option if it is available.
But, at a minimum, you will need some outstanding letters of recommendation and even, perhaps, a personal touch to get over the wire. If your professors know people at doctoral institutions and can give you a push, it might help.
On the other hand, a PhD in mathematics is awfully specialized. If you want to work in Topology and are good enough in a small area, someone might be willing to overlook the other issues. But just getting a good mark in one class won't be sufficient.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I know nothing about how PhDs in mathematics work, so I’ll just speak generally. I got a first class degree at undergraduate level and As and Bs in all my modules during my Masters but because of circumstances out of my control I got a C- in my dissertation. This pulled down my grade from a distinction to a merit. This was two years ago, and I have been trying to get a PhD position ever since and so far have been unsuccessful. I have great references and have been working as a research assistant where I’ve published two articles and a book chapter, but some universities have been kind enough to tell me that although my proposals and supplementary documents are impressive, my applications are not competitive enough because of that one C- because understandably my dissertation was significant.
However, I keep on trying because I know of people who have substantially worse grades than I have who got into PhD programs with funding attached. I know as academics we hate to admit it, but sometimes it just comes down to luck. You need to apply to the right supervisor at the right university at the right time, but also work hard to prove that you can conduct independent research.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Sorry, I think I have to be blunter than the other answers.
Unless there are extenuating personal circumstances that have led to your poor performance, a C or D in one core graduate course combined with a C in another core graduate course (even if you will retake the course, presumably with a better grade) should make you seriously question your goal of getting a PhD. Keep in mind many lower-ranked programs admit students in part so that they can have cheap labor to teach classes, while hoping rather than expecting that the student will be able to earn a PhD and get a job using their degree afterwards. This means you could easily be admitted to some programs without necessarily having a high expectation of success.
Most PhD programs in (pure) math will require you to take comprehensive exams in analysis and in algebra. Generally speaking, the problems on these exams will be like the most difficult problems in the final exams for your courses, although you will not be expected to solve all of them to pass. Unless your current professors are exceptionally tough graders, or you have something else going on that indicates your performance this year is not indicative of your mathematical abilities, or you have some sudden gain of insight that significantly improves your ability to solve math problems, you will likely have great difficulty passing these exams.
Moreover, while there are quite a few exceptions, generally speaking, your ability to learn graduate level mathematics is correlated with your ability to do research. Therefore, difficulties with your courses suggests that you are likely (but not certain) to have difficulties writing a dissertation. (Since you might be doing a research project next year, you might have more information about this then, so I wouldn't give up yet, but keep this in mind.)
Finally, the job market in pure mathematics is quite dismal and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. Someone graduating with an average or mediocre dissertation will not get a postdoc. If you are a good teacher (and you presumably have some idea by now of whether you could become one or not), you can get a teaching-oriented position, but you can (in reality, not just theory) get most community college positions and many lecturer positions with a Masters degree. There are almost zero industry positions that you can get with a PhD in pure math that you could not have gotten with a Bachelor's degree (and an undergraduate record that can get you into graduate school).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I've had a teacher tell me that I needed to have 3 citations per paragraph in my paper. The paper is to be 20 pages long. Is this level of citation (over 200 individual in-text citations in the paper) too much for undergraduate work? The way that she phrased it left uncertainty whether this was for every paragraph, or only for the quoted ones, so the context of whether similar works have this level of quotation in them is the only standard I have to go by.<issue_comment>username_1: Trying to get the people here between you and your instructor will annoy her even more. Whether it is excessive or not, it is her requirements that matter.
But I'll just guess that she wants to push you a bit to give you good habits of backing up everything you say in your paper using the available literature. She probably also wants you to do a lot of literature searching.
Treat it as something like a "wind-sprint" ordered by a football coach to give you endurance and prepare you for the big game. As Nike said: Just. Do. It.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all, the number of citations needed doesn't have anything to do with whether it's undergraduate work or a professional article. My guess from what little you've said is that she gave you a rule of thumb that you're taking too literally.
Citations are used to support a statement you make with an authoritative source, since presumably you aren't an authority. Three citations per paragraph would mean that you are synthesizing a variety of sources and not relying on any one source for long chunks of text, which could border on plagiarism. As long as you are making good use of multiple sources and citing them properly, I doubt that she is going to count the exact number of citations per paragraph.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are asking whether it is a general "best practice" for a research paper at any level to have three citations per paragraph: no, it is not. In any level research paper, you should cite as often (equivalently, as little) as necessary in order to inform the reader of relevant prior work. If seven papers are relevant to what you are saying in a given sentence, you should cite those seven papers. If in a paragraph you are not saying anything that makes reference to or would be aided by making reference to prior literature, then there should be no citations in the paragraph. You never insert citations to meet numerical requirements.
However, this is an assignment for a course, so the best practice is whatever your instructor told you.
>
> The way that she phrased it left uncertainty whether this was for every paragraph, or only for the quoted ones, so the context of whether similar works have this level of quotation in them is the only standard I have to go by.
>
>
>
No, you can *ask your instructor* which of the above is what she wants. I encourage you to do so.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I am sure this is somewhat field dependent, but 3 citations per paragraph seems like perfectly reasonable advice to give. In terms of general advice, paragraphs have 5 sentences (yes sometimes they have more and sometimes they have less, but we are talking in generalities). The first sentence is a topic sentence and the last is a concluding sentence. These should be (to continue with the sweeping generalities) original ideas that do not require citations. The other 3 sentences are you supporting arguments and should each have a reference (possibly to multiple works).
When you extrapolate this out to a 20 page paper, there might be 40 5-sentence paragraphs. The first paragraph and the last paragraph may not have citations also (as again they are the original ideas). Finally, some works would be cited in multiple places. That might put the total number of unique references in a 20 page paper at around 80-100. I don't think I have ever seen an undergraduate paper get to that number, but I also write **citation needed** an awful lot.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: **Yes and no**. This is highly field dependent. Here are two examples:
1. [Mastering Chess and Shogi by Self-Play with a
General Reinforcement Learning Algorithm](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.01815.pdf). This is an artificial intelligence paper about creating a neural network engine that plays Chess & Shogi better than conventional engines. Notice that it starts by citing a lot of previous articles in the introduction, but by the time it goes into detail about how AlphaZero is created and trained, there are much fewer citations. This is natural: after all, the authors are doing something that hasn't been done before, so one cannot expect there to be references.
2. [Princes’ Wars, Wars of the People, or Total War? Mass Armies and the Question of a Military Revolution in Germany, 1792–1815](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0968344513483071). Here we have a history paper about Germany during the Napoleonic wars. Now we see citations everywhere. The entire paper is filled with it, almost uniformly. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find a paragraph that doesn't have three citations.
Since expectations vary by field, the answer to your question is also going to depend on your field. But there's an easy shortcut: since your lecturer is requesting 3 citations a paragraph, you are probably in a field more akin to history and less to artificial intelligence. In that case, three citations per paragraph is not excessive, and you should conform to the field's standards.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: So I am attending a polytechnic(Tech school), getting a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, I am wondering if I am expected to do presentations/speeches and if so, am I able to somehow not do them but still earn my degree.
I am diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder(On my medical records it says I have Extreme Anxiety) so in my bias opinion this is beyond the " Fear " aspect and is mentally scarring. While attending middle school/High School I failed and outright skipped 99% of the presentations I had to do so I sort of digged myself a grave in terms of experience and preparing for this.
Side note, I remember in middle school I told my teacher about my distress towards having to do a history presentation, and although she made me do it(And I failed), she let me practice infront of her and another student instead of the whole class, which helped a little.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know anything about your specific condition, but for some things that seem similar there is a possible solution.
It may not be possible to overcome the *actual* fear of speaking, but it may be possible, with practice, to overcome the *appearance of fear*, so that you can actually be effective in spite of it.
Unfortunately most careers, even those that are quite technical, require some interactions with people that may be very stressful. Autism is a different condition in which people don't pick up the cues that others do, making them awkward in public situations. Fear isn't the issue for them, but the solution is similar - or can be.
The trick is to learn to "play a role" when you are forced to speak in public so that it is your "character" standing in front of those people, not you. You deliver the lines as if you are Romeo on the stage, simply separating yourself from your role. In fact, one way to learn to do this is to join a local theatre group and take a role in a locally produced play.
But one iteration isn't going to make much difference. Your experience with the prof who let you give a more private presentation is a start, but from there it is possible to branch out to put yourself in other situations so that they become more familiar and you learn to quickly turn on your "speaking role" that you hide behind.
Not easy, but others have done it. Most people can do hard things if they want it badly enough and find a path to the goal, even if it is difficult.
It is even possible that with enough practice, in safe environments especially, you can learn to overcome the actual fear.
It would be wise, of course, to check this advice with your advisor/physician.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: While studying for bachelors in Information communication technologies in UK I had to do project presentation once in my first year. And presentation for my dissertation in my third year. That was it. Both times it sounded lore scary that it actually was. I used to hate public speaking but something changed and I don't mind it any more. I doubt you will need to do many of them.
Of you feel that public speaking is letting your grades down is there no department you could speak to about this to make some exceptions for you? Especially if you have doctors note saying you been diagnosed with particular illness. There should be an possibility for you to make suitable changes in order for you to achieve best you can.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The general answer is that, in most degree programs, you are likely to encounter the need to do a presentation at least a few times. Some of these may be expected, like when you do an undergraduate / honours thesis and are asked to present it at the end of the project duration, and sometimes it may come out of the blue. For instance, quite a few courses in our program have presentation elements, even if the courses themselves are not in any direct way related to presentation technique. In a nutshell, being able to give short presentations is often seen as a general tool that can come up in virtually any academic context, similar to writing academic essays.
If you are indeed unable to overcome your fear, you need to get in touch with whatever office handles special needs students in your university. They may require additional documentation, and the entire process may potentially be somewhat of an annoyance, but if your condition is medically diagnosed you typically have a right to an examination procedure that replaces all assessments that you cannot partake in with a suitable alternative. For instance, you may be asked to report on projects in a one-on-one session with the teacher rather than presenting project results in class, videotape your demonstration, or write a report rather than presenting.
However, of course, your life would be significantly easier if you could overcome this fear, because realistically it will remain a constant problem that will continue to haunt you for the rest of your professional career in many jobs - and unfortunately industry will oftentimes be less forgiving on your inability to use this basic tool.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Your college should have something called LAP which you are eligible for with your diagnosis. Usually this will allow for testing accommodations, extra time to complete tests ect. I will say this, I too have your diagnosis, and I too am not a fan of presentations however, if I want to complete my degree they are necessary. Getting more time to do something is not the same as getting out of. In your field, you will likely have to do presentations, so I would suggest finding a way to work through this rather than avoiding it. It really isn't as scaring as you think it may be in the long run, it will help prepare you for actual work experience. My brother in law has your degree, he in fact has to run meetings. Go to your colleges LAP, see what they can do. Good luck.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently had a paper accepted by a journal which doesn't provide author proofs. Unfortunately, a typographical error was introduced during typesetting, but I had no way to know this until the paper went in print. I'm trying to determine what is the line between a minor typo and an error which requires issuing a correction.
To get into some more specifics, a constant was left out of an equation. Although that sounds really bad on its face, the equation is very standard and everyone in the field already knows the correct form of the equation. I can't realistically conceive of anyone being misled by the error. In fact, I doubt most readers will even notice. But it's technically incorrect as it stands.
This is one of those instances where I feel damned if I do and damned if I don't. Issuing a correction looks bad, but leaving the mistake looks bad as well. I double checked the revised manuscript we submitted and confirmed the error was definitely introduced by the journal staff. What do I do here?<issue_comment>username_1: You should inform the editor of the error just to get it on the record. Ask that a correction be issued if possible. There are probably people who *will* in fact misinterpret it. It is a simple thing. Just let them know.
Maybe they will improve their process in the future.
I don't understand why you suggest issuing a correction looks bad. Leaving it untended seems worse.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When you say that issuing a correction looks bad, I imagine that you mean issuing an Erratum/Corrigendum. Now, these really don't reflect [that badly](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/110965/17254) on you and your career in the first place, but the error honestly sounds so minor that an erratum would be rather overkill. Actually, I imagine many journals might even decline publishing an erratum for such a trivial case.
However, especially if the publication was quite recent, it might be possible to correct it anyway. At least some journals are willing to make small corrections to published articles, sometimes with a small notice, sometimes accompanied by something like a Publisher's note. In such cases it's quite common to see the journal accept responsibility for errors they've introduced in the notice. It might be worth checking if the journal would be willing to do that.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Not sure if this happend to anyone, but it is my first I ever recieved this notice. I have this professor and like to be called Dr., who hasn't been very understanding. I've been turning my work in on time or sometimes a day late due my full time job. I've explained this to her in the past because I previously had this professor in my other class and she gave me a C and said I did plagiarism in the other class. Apparently, in this class, I have done plagiarism on my essays when in my perspective I've been citing every piece of sentence that I know I am paraphrasing and I add my references. How come I never received a first or second notice? Also, I don't understand why she did this when I know I cited every detail. The rest of my professors that I have had in the past has always given me As and Bs on my essays why this teacher is giving me these grades? I have another class with another professor and he is very understanding. I get As with him and he tells me I do a fabulous job. I just don't understand and now I have a conference with the faculty coordinator about how we are going to fix the issue when in my perspective I think I've been following the guidelines of citing my work.<issue_comment>username_1: I think two things should be pointed out:
* This professor has already warned you that you are doing "plagiarism in the other class". She's presumably taking that as the first or second notice.
* Citing something doesn't necessarily mean there's no plagiarism. For example if I construct a paragraph where I quote verbatim from three different sources, even if I cite them all explicitly, that's still plagiarism. There's no hard and fast line, but if your work contains more direct quotations than your own words for example, that could lead your professor to conclude you plagiarized.
If you still think you didn't plagiarize, or if you are still not sure why this professor is accusing you of plagiarism, go to the meeting and explain your point of view. Note you haven't been found guilty and there's a chance the faculty coordinator doesn't know the full details (or wants to know your point of view). You'll be given the chance to defend yourself and it's possible the coordinator will agree with you. Either way, the meeting is an opportunity for everyone involved to solve this conflict like adults.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Maybe there is a misunderstanding about plagiarism here:
**Plagiarism example:**
-----------------------
There is considerable controversy about the mechanism of T cell receptor (TCR) triggering, the process by which the TCR tranduces signals across the plasma membrane after binding to its ligand (an agonist peptide complexed with an MHC molecule) [1].
*(because you copy&paste the text without quotation marks - the citation does not fix it here)*
**No Plagiarism:**
------------------
“There is considerable controversy about the mechanism of T cell receptor (TCR) triggering, the process by which the TCR tranduces signals across the plasma membrane after binding to its ligand (an agonist peptide complexed with an MHC molecule)” [1].
*(because you cite and use quotation marks)*
... and yes, it needs to be quotation marks. Using italic, indent or similar does **not** help as recent decisions about plagiarism in PhD theses have shown.
**No Plagiarism:**
------------------
The mechanisms that cause T-cell receptor triggering are still a matter of discussion [1].
*(because you cite and rephrase and no quotation marks are needed - this is most common in natural and technical sciences)*
[1] **Correct citation here with authors, title, year, journal/book, pages etc**
What can you do in your situation (i.e. when meeting with the faculty coordinator)?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe your professor did not clearly point the above out (sounds like it from your text)? Then it was a misunderstanding. If you are an undergrad student this will most likely be an "honest mistake" - as a PhD student that line will not help you.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a current PhD student, still a couple years off from graduation. I'm still keeping my options open, but I've started to idly consider interesting places to do a postdoc.
Fit with a mentor and relevance of research is of course the most important thing, but the postdoc period is also a chance to live in cool places for a few years at a time. Work-life balance is also pretty important to me, though, and I have heard some crazy stories about work-life balance in general in Japan.
How is it in Japanese academia as a postdoc from the west? Does it depend on who you work for/what university you are in, or where you're from?
For reference, I did a bachelors in the US and a masters and (currently) PhD in Finland, where home life is highly respected and you're basically not expected to work on weekends/evenings unless you want to.
Edit: If it's relevant, my field of study is genetics, but I mostly work on the computer and don't expect to have much to do with wet lab experiments in the future.<issue_comment>username_1: My personal experience is positive -- at least, in our institution, I don't really feel pressure from colleagues or management. However, I suspect it depends on a particular place. There are certain situations that I consider unavoidable, and thus I don't think people disrespect one's life-work balance, but unpleasant things happen.
For example, we might have grant deadlines or other paperwork in the middle of vacation, and of course, we are expected to get things done. Certain events like open campus, student competitons or entrance exams typically happen on weekends, and someone has to take care.
So, at least for me, most pressure comes from objective reality rather than someone's direct requests. When I have to work on a conference paper day and night to meet the deadline, that's for my own good, and I won't do myself a favor by missing it. The situation is more complicated in case of joint work when I can let down my colleagues, but perhaps Japan isn't special in such matters.
From the perspective of regulations, labor laws of course protect employees, and our administration actually asks us to take *more* vacation days to improve their stats, and they even offer *additional* vacations on top of what we have during the summer break. Your mileage may vary, but most professors around me don't push their students/postdocs too hard. I believe it might depend on the source of funding as well.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am currently a PhD student in Japan. I think if you work for the company, that would be stressful. However, working in university or academic institution, that may differ. With my experience here, I think it is not so hard. You don's have to work on the weekend unless you want.
Of course, it also depending on each laboratory or professor rule. Since, my lab now, they work from 9 am to 6 pm. But another lab I know is more stressful.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I graduated a couple of years ago performing a master thesis with two supervisors. They both were happy about it and wanted to write a paper from my thesis, including me as author, but after my graduation I didn't hear from them again. It is worth to say that my supervisors had the pdf file of my thesis and all the figures and plots in vector graphics.
To my surprise and deception, I found out that my two former supervisors have published a journal paper based on my master thesis, which is not cited. Not only they have reported all of my plots, but they have also copied the captions (with almost no modifications), equations, tables, and entire sentences (some of them just copy-pasted, other ones with very minor modifications). Moreover, the simulations section reports 2 simulations that I carried out during my thesis, and both the parameters, the plots, and the analysis of the simulations is basically copied from my thesis. After all this content taken from my thesis, I only see that the authors have just acknowledged me in the article for the simulations only, and not even for all the plots and all the sentences they used.
Needless to say, this situation makes me very angry and frustrated. I would like to know, given this situation, whether:
* I can accuse my former supervisors of plagiarism, contacting the editor of the journal and proving that a very large portion of the paper is taken from my thesis, which is not cited. Although my thesis is not available online, the authors could have included it in the list of references, and I can prove that they have a copy of it;
* I can ask to be included as author of the paper, since most of the work published is based on my master thesis, and not only the "simulations", as the authors wrote in the acknowledgements.<issue_comment>username_1: If they supervised your work, they do have some right on the result. Check the exact guidelines, any licenses you gave to your school or funding entity. Before doing anything rash, *do* ask somebody knowledgeable *with all details*. Could be a trusted colleague or your lawyer.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Accusing a colleague/former colleague of misconduct will likely cause you big problems. Hiring managers will always try to contact them and they will sense trouble in you. Unfortunately, if they cite you in the graphs it is arguably enough.
Outside of academia, the problem is worse, people will always take credit for your work. I would recommend to wait until you are a bigger fish, get more experience and then you will be able to do something about it. We all go through this.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I can accuse my former supervisors of plagiarism, contacting the editor of the journal and proving that a very large portion of the paper is taken from my thesis, which is not cited. Although my thesis is not available online, the authors could have included it in the list of references, and I can prove that they have a copy of it;
>
>
>
Yes, you can do that.
>
> I can ask to be included as author of the paper, since most of the work published is based on my master thesis, and not only the "simulations", as the authors wrote in the acknowledgements.
>
>
>
Yes, you can also do that. Based on the information in the question, you should be an author on the paper. I suggest you contact your supervisors and ask them to fix the author list first. If that is unsuccessful, you should follow your university's grievance procedure. Contacting the editor should be the last resort.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I understand your situation as I had gone through the exact same thing. Am sorry that it happened. Anyway based on my experience I would suggest you need to assess the extent of copying based on that you need to first try contacting the authors(if you want to maintain the relation request for the addition of your name give them time and wait for the reply). Otherwise, proceed with second step, get the contact info of the journal get in touch with the editor(if you are not able to directly get there don't worry try the section contact us to )obtain their email and mail that you need to contact the editor as the article with DOI is plagiarised/having significant overlap with your thesis.
Once you get hold of journal head/editor you may explain the case with proof (thesis) this step may take quite a lot of time. Then wait for their reply if your claim is genuine the editors may offer to add your name as author or retract. The entire process may take months, say 6-10 months or can be fast if its in press. Remember you need to be patient and follow up.
Goodluck
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I got the outcome of my paper after 2 months from IEEE Transaction. The editor said its out of scope and suggested to submit in a sister journal and he cc the outcome to the editor of that journal.
There were 5 reviewers, 2 said minor revision, 1 said i dont have any question. 1 reviewer asked one question. And 1 reviewer said the idea is not very novel and gave same major comments.
However, associate editor summerized that the quality of work is recognized by the reviewers but encouraged to submit in the sister journal.
Here, i want to know that what could be the reason of having 5 reviewers when there are usually 2-3 reviewers and i also reviewers of this IEEE TRANSACTION?
Secondly, do i need to talk to editor that it could be major revision but how they decided out of scope with reviews?
Lastly, does out of scope means rejection and editor encouraged me to submit to sister journal of that transaction does it means it will go through complete review process of that journal?<issue_comment>username_1: To make it clear, you need to actually submit to the "sister" journal. I doubt that it is automatic, since the paper is still yours. So, you need to formalize the submission.
The "major revision" suggestion might have been a consequence of the "scope" issue, and may not be required at the second journal, but there is no way to decide that here.
Once you submit, the editor will make decisions about the paper. One would be to utilize the existing reviews in whole or in part and another would be to start the review process over. It is their decision and depends on their quick look at what they have before them.
Since you have a set of review suggestions, you could incorporate the simpler ones in a new edition of your paper and send it to the new editor, delaying the major work until you know more.
Why there are five reviewers is known only to the original editor. Perhaps something in the early reviews suggested that more was needed. But perhaps it was as simple as wanting to give a new reviewer some experience and to see how the reviewer did. Only the editor can explain "why".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: One at a time:
**Why are there 5 reviewers instead of the usual 2-3?** There're many possibilities, the two most likely of which are 1) they routinely invite five reviewers because historically, not all of them will accept. This time they did. 2) Some of the first reviews received were poor (your description makes it seem like so, but I don't know the details) so they invited more reviewers.
**Do you need to talk to the editor about how they came to an out-of-scope decision with major revision reviews?** Probably not. The editor's decided that your paper is out of scope already, which is usually equivalent to a rejection.
**Does the editor suggesting you submit to a sister journal mean you have to go through the review process of that journal?** Yes. The sister journal will have different requirements, and the editor might not even be a member of the editorial board of the sister journal.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I agree with username_2 that as the editor already mentioned "out-of-scope", save your time to immediately consider the suggestion for sister journal.
I had personal experience, good comment from one of the reviewers but it ends with saying out-of-scope. We did not waste time and submit for the more suitable journal.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am pursuing my PhD in Canada in Mechanical engineering and will graduate this November. This brings my PhD time to a total of 5 years 3 months. I already had a master's degree. I have not yet started looking for postdoc positions but I have heard from one of my lab's alumni that they were asked about their extended PhD duration during postdoc and industry position interviews.
I had coursework in first semester, but after that, all my time was invested in my research. So, I don't have the reasoning that my US counterparts have for their PhD extending over 5 years. I was unfocused for a better part of a semester during my 3rd year, so that might have caused this delay.
On top of that, I am submitting my research to journals now, so I don't have any proof of productivity for the past 4 years.
I have two questions:
1) does an extended PhD duration really frowned upon in academia and industry (for a research scientist position), if so, any suggestions to counteract a question on that?
2) A vague question: How can I stay motivated and optimistic about completing my thesis and working towards an academic or a research scientist career in the future?<issue_comment>username_1: I'll say something only about your first concern.
You can't change the past. You are where you are. However, I wouldn't be overly concerned with anecdotal remarks about what is expected or not. You have a history and if asked about it, just recount it honestly. Don't apologize for taking a few extra months or even years.
The funny thing about (real) research is that you can't do it on a schedule. The insights and the background work take time to mature. It isn't like manufacturing a complex artifact like an automobile that can be optimized to the second. Research problems worth the effort are hard and the solutions come when they come. Sometimes spending more hours on them helps. Sometimes taking a break, especially a mental break, helps.
But anyone who says "I will do *this* significant piece of work and be done in three years" is deluding themselves. I expect other people with research experience to recognize and respect that. If they don't, I expect that they haven't really worked on anything difficult lately and carried it to completion.
You do what you can do with the constraints that you have. Hopefully you learn something valuable and are able to write it up and get your degree. But the path is both winding and difficult.
When I went to grad school it was still possible to get a math PhD in four years out of undergraduate. I took seven. My career wasn't what I expected, due to economic factors beyond my control, but I had a rewarding career in academia. Nowadays seven is closer to the norm, unfortunately.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I finished my MS in three years where normal time is two years, but that did not stop me from getting into a PhD and finish in 5 years. I have numerous examples of people taking up to 8 years finishing up their PhDs. Everybody has different reasons, some took time off, some had a family emergency/planning (had babies), some had failed experiments, some went on internships, or some just goofed around. However, all those people had good job offers of their choice when they graduated. Therefore, do not worry much about if you have taken a little over five years to finish. You will be fine.
About publications, usually students do not publish while they are doing their MS or PhD, unless you are very enthusiastic or your department has a policy to publish before you graduate. Many students publish their MS or PhD work in the next couple of years after graduation. If a potential employer ask you about the publications, you can always say that you are working on them, although this answer is more acceptable in industry than in academia.
About staying motivated, just think about the bigger picture. I know it is hard. I was supposed to finish my MS thesis in 6 months but took 12. It wasn't because I was super busy with anything else, but because I was too distracted going out with friends, watching TV or doing some other non-academic stuff. But I learned a lesson from that and finished my PhD dissertation in time. You can do all the stuff other than writing your thesis/dissertation and have that stress in the back of your head about finishing for one year, or you can finish in 6 months and then do all that stuff without any stress. Good luck!
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/10
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<issue_start>username_0: Lately I have been developing a good relationship with Prof. Wright.
She has clearly\* gone out of her way a few times to help me, having a very pleasant, generous, and kind personality. Prof. Wright is searching for students (in her university of course, undergraduate, Master, or PhD). I really like her research and would love to work in her area. However, there's no researcher working in the field anywhere near\*\* the university I study at.
This brings the reason for this question: I have been thinking about
asking her if she could advise me.
1. Is this unreasonable?
2. If not, how unlikely is it for her to accept? (To make this practical: what would you do if you were in her shoes?)
3. Is there a chance of this ruining our relationship? If yes, what can I do to make **sure** it won't ruin it?
4. Finally, if I'm going to ask her to be my advisor, it won't (of course and unfortunately) be in person, which means email. What can I do to enhance my chances here?
A few remarks which are (probably) important:
1. Of course such a setting should benefit both people! I would like to contribute to her research, in a way that is useful to her **too**;
2. My field is in Mathematics, being purely theoretical and not requiring lab/field work;
3. I am moderately independent when it comes to research. More details (in view of comments/answers on this point):
3a. In terms of learning: I've been learning graduate topics by myself for the past two years (I also learned the prerequisites for them in the same way). In particular, I'm used to approaching new topics and learning them by myself.
3b. In terms of producing: I believe\*\*\* I would be capable of producing a review article on recent (<10 years) research on certain topics in my field by myself. On the other hand, I can't produce original research. This means I'm used to academic writing, somewhat used to reading original research papers and slightly used to asking original research questions (i.e. can this work be extended for such and such case, what are the main problems this would entail, etc.), but have zero experience with actually producing new research.
4. I can't move to (anywhere near) her university for now.
5. (In view of anon's answer) I really don't mind if this won't count for my degree, or that I will be working unpaid.
6. On the other hand, I *will* have to do coursework next year, and
would like to know if (assuming <NAME> accepts me as her student) carrying another project while working with her would be a problem either to her, or to my local, next year, advisor, provided that I can handle these two projects concurrently. (In this case, I would choose a not project with my local advisor sufficiently undemanding (yet not "pointless") for this to work.)
This question is heavily lacking some *specific* details. I can't provide those, for <NAME> is in the SE network too (and these might identify myself).
---
\*To prevent against any kind of bias I may have in making this judgment, I have explained my situation to a few people, who agreed this is indeed a(n unusually) good relationship.
\*\*Near here means less than 2000 km (probably even more).
\*\*\*I have been doing something similar recently.<issue_comment>username_1: It's probably not impossible, but distance isn't the only impediment. If you want her to be your *formal* advisor then you may need permission from both universities and they may need to work out some compensation, depending on the rules. This will be especially the case if she needs to formally approve (perhaps sign) your dissertation.
Distance is a problem of course, but with today's communication options it can be overcome in such a case. But you should also consider the possibility, even the necessity, of working face to face on occasion. One way to do this is through attendance at a conference with an extra day or so to work after or before the conference itself. There are other options, of course, including trying to get a small grant from somewhere to cover travel - either yours or hers.
But asking is certainly appropriate if you are willing to also work to obtain the necessary permissions and deal with the distance issue.
If she is to be only a secondary advisor it is a bit simpler, but needs the buy-in from your main advisor at your current place. This is easiest if the two know one another and are comfortable working together. But there may still be permission and compensation issues to deal with.
Make sure you know at the start everyone's expectations about joint authorship of anything you produce, of course.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Since you have now added that you're an undergraduate, I think it's actually pretty unlikely she will agree.
A few issues:
1. Advising people is hard; advising undergraduates is even harder; and doing that long-distance is basically impossible. Although, you haven't stated your field. Maybe it's easier in your field than mine, or in theory. Still, personally, I would never accept to tele-mentor someone, especially someone I hadn't met in person.
2. In principle, she has a commitment to undergraduates at her university first, before those a continent away. If her department requires research credit (called "499" or "independent study" at my university), that's taking a slot away from one of their majors.
3. If you are required to have a mentor in *your* department, they most likely won't accept an off-campus one.
Asking won't ruin your relationship, although it might make you seem a little out of touch with what's required from such a relationship.
I think your best bet is to find faculty at your current university who can be your mentor on paper (and can actually contribute!) but is open to working with the distant professor. Maybe you can ask her if she knows anyone in your department.
Collaborating with her now will certainly help you get into her group in graduate school! I'm sure she's happy to have someone excited about her work and wanting to work with her, but I think it's pretty unlikely she can/will do anything official for you.
(Like I said, I don't know your field, but I'm not sure if "but can write an introduction to this area" is "moderately independent.")
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You should establish in what capacity you are hoping for the professor to "advise me". You mention that you are open to collaborating on a project to mutual benefit; that can encompass a lot of things, including not-for-degree-credit and/or unpaid. You should consider what parameters you would find acceptable in your present circumstances. You should also consider how you can **show** the professor (briefly) what you have to offer.
**If** you are seeking for the professor to be involved in advising you for credit-bearing work at your own institution **in a formal capacity**, you should ask your course convenor or administrator about the procedures for appointing an external advisor/supervisor. It may not be a routine occurrence, but it does happen sometimes, for the reasons you have given, so explain that you have already corresponded with a professor about a specialist subject not covered at your own institution, and that you intend to approach her about acting as an external advisor/supervisor. Having ascertained your institution's procedures, you can then write to the professor asking if she would have the time to act as an external advisor/supervisor, giving a **very brief** outline of the credit requirements at your institution and its procedures for appointing an external advisor/supervisor.
You have already made clear that, quite reasonably, you are not prepared/able to travel to another continent at this time. However, it is possible that the professor has plans to visit your continent, so an in-person meeting **may** still be a possibility (although do not bank on this -- a professor is likely to have a busy schedule when travelling overseas, and may not be able to make time to see an undergraduate).
In order to avoid sounding demanding, I would include something to the effect of:
>
> Your feedback to date has been very useful to me, and I am hoping to pursue a project in interrogating postnihilism, as part of my final-year coursework for my degree of Bachelor of Arts in Futile Studies. Unfortunately, there are no specialists in postnihilism at my institution, so I am in the process of looking for an external advisor/supervisor. The degree requirements are quite flexible, so it could be a collaborative project with the advisor/supervisor. Is that something you might be able to do, or, if not, do you know any other postnihilists who might be up for a remote collaboration with a very junior research assistant? Ideally, I would like to work with you, but I realise you may be too busy, and you have, of course, already been enormously generous and helpful with your responses to my various research enquiries to date.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I have done my Master's thesis project with a supervisor who was ~700km away, so I can kind of relate to your situation. I will address your questions one after the other:
1. I think it is absolutely reasonable to ask her. Nobody's getting hurt by a kind and polite request for a collaboration / advisory project.
2. Most researchers love to work with motivated students and sometimes it is really hard to find them (especially in niche research areas). Thus, if she is not drowning in other projects or has any formal obligations at her institute that could prevent her from advising external students, your chances should be rather high.
3. yes, there is chance that asking her can ruin your relationship. This could happen, if you ask in a way that seems rather *demanding*. You have to see it as really *asking for a favour* and that she has every right to decline even without any reasoning. However, if she is a kind and intelligent person, she probably won't simply decline without any additional information.
4. Your last question is, I think, the most important one. From my experience, the most challenging thing with long distance advisory relationships is to set a clear structure. Things can go in the wrong direction much faster, and it is much more difficult to realize that one has gone astray. Especially if you are an undergraduate student, this is a big issue. Probably, if she declines your request, this will be the most relevant reason.
You can a priori address these problems when making your request by:
* proposing a thoroughly planned proposal structure for your research project. This does not need to be perfect, but should show that you are able to work independently and in a structured manner.
* offering that you will be available for video chat meetings (Skype calls, Google Hangout or whatever) e.g. once a week.
* offering that you will try to meet in person something like once a month. **If you cannot offer to come to her in person at all**, my guess is that this collaboration won't happen.
* suggesting someone from your university who will be a co-advisor, so that she does not have to work into any of the special formal requirements that your university is demanding (most likely, your university will require you to have one "local" advisor, anyway)
Further, be prepared, that if she agrees to advise you, you will have to work harder and much more independently than if you had a supervisor next door. You should be 100% motivated and absolutely keen to working on this project.
As a last comment, even if it may be true that there is no one in your area who is doing research in this very particular niche, most likely there are other, closely related fields where people nearby are doing great research. As an undergraduate it is somtimes hard to get an overview which topics are closely related and who is working on what topics. When I was starting one of my research projects as a student, I thought there were only handful of people working in this niche research area - as I continued doing my research and have attended a few conferences and presented my research, I figured that alone in my country there are dozens of researchers working on it. One of them is actually working just around the corner from my original faculty where I started my research!
Hence, asking the professors from your faculty whether they know somebody can be really helpful. And you can still ask your Prof. Wright, whether she'd like to support you.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I want to add an answer here that is as encouraging as possible, especially for undergraduates just initiating a (hopefully enduring) research career.
Yes, you can be advised by a professor who is far away. Yes, skype-style videoconferences and other online collaboration tools make this easier than ever. Sure, it will be more challenging in many ways than setting up the typical weekly research meeting with someone on your own campus, but if the topic area is one where you are really passionate and the professor is willing to commit to make it work, then you should absolutely give it a go!
Many senior researchers in non-lab STEM fields collaborate this way with colleagues for the entirety of their careers, and it is very rewarding and has led to important results in my field for sure. If possible, see if you can plan a trip or two in advance when you can meet together live. Lots of progress is often made on these trips, and they provide helpful deadlines that can be motivating!
Upvotes: 2
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2019/04/11
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it good to prepare slides to present during the video chat even if the search committee say you don't need to prepare slides?
What's the strategy of impressing them then?<issue_comment>username_1: No. I have done eight Skype interviews, and I have never been in a situation where I would need or want slides. I am probably not in your field, but I don’t think my experience is unusual.
It is a better use of your time to practice your answers to common interview questions. Make them succinct and compelling. Also prepare short ideas on teaching every class mentioned in the job ad. Finally, learn about the department and have lots of questions for them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Before we decide to bring faculty candidates to on campus interviews, we would like the search committee or department head to have met the candidate before. This used to happen primarily at the major conferences in our field for any candidates that we did not already know. Now it can sometimes happen alternatively in videoconference interviews. These will generally last about 30 minutes, but are planned a bit longer in case things go really well.
You should absolutely not have slides prepared, and you should not be tempted to refer to slides to answer questions. The goal here is to see how you interact spontaneously with other academics, how you talk about your research, how you talk about your career goals, etc. We are absolutely not interested in a canned presentation. In fact, we would prefer that your answers do not sound too well "rehearsed" or "coached" at all!
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In addition to the other, quite correct, answers, here is another perspective:
It is very unwise to disregard the clear instructions of the search committee. Even on a minor topic, this sort of behavior can reflect quite negatively on the candidate.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The only time I was asked to present slides was in followup onsite interviews. During the initial Skype interviews, I have never been asked to present slides.
The initial Skype interviews are, in my opinion, usually just to get a little more information about your background and to get a feel how well you communicate your field of work. In an academic setting, this is important, because your ability to clearly communicate your work is highly correlated to success in teaching, filing grant applications, etc...
To impress them, you want to be able demonstrate how you would fit into the department. Generally, they want to make sure that there is no overlap in the topics that each faculty is working on so that there is no competition inside of the department for funding. To the contrary, any synergies that you could propose would probably we welcome.
I think that the biggest thing that they will want to know is simply... can you fund yourself and your group. Either you have demonstrated this in the past already or you haven't. You can't change much there. Just be prepared for this question and have a good answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I've had tenure-track faculty Skype interviews that included PowerPoint presentations, and ones that didn't. I recommend you follow their instructions. In this case, they are not necessary. If there's something highly technical that you need to refer to, you could share your screen with them, but it's probably not advisable. It's not a job talk. Instead, this is an opportunity to demonstrate how to communicate your research and teaching in everyday language.
Upvotes: 1
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| 1,710
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm doing some research on my own as a side-project. In fact, I want no one from my research center to be involved in this research as I feel that they will take credit for my idea, like in past times. Nevertheless, if their involvement is completely necessary, I would consider it.
Anyways, this project requires to upload completely nonsense papers to Arxiv or similar. They are completely nonsense as they are artificially generated. The idea is to see if this is possible or how easy it is.
On the one hand, I don't want to pollute the scientific community with rubbish but in the other hand, I see that this step is necessary to continue further with this research.
My question is, how should I proceed? Should I do it and once I finish my research tell Arxiv that they can delete the files? Should I ask for permission first? Should I not do it at all?
EDIT: Just to make sure that everyone understands, this is not something that I have done yet. In fact, after seeing the responses, it is more than likely that I try to avoid publishing in arXiv. The objective is not to upload a paper to arXiv, is something else, but I was considering uploading it to arXiv as a medium for reaching another goal. Nevertheless, it is not my objective to pollute arXiv or the community.<issue_comment>username_1: "Shall I poison a well to see how many drink out of it?"
Frankly, the idea of debunking review processes is not that new, and the latest wave started with the Sokal hoax. There were a couple of follow-ups, with computer-generated papers.
The result was a scandal, a journalistic anecdote. It created attention. Been there, done that. It's no longer an original idea. We got it. You can fool badly screened journals and predatory conferences.
But ok, now, you talk about actual "research" with fake paper dissemination. That may or may not be a legitimate research question, but the fact that you talk about "poisoning" arXiv, which is a serious and expressly *not* peer-reviewed site makes it already very questionable what you are trying to achieve.
It is one thing to embarrass badly screened journals or conferences (possibly even suspected predatory ones - namely the conferences in question) which Sokal and the SciGen people did, but quite another to abuse a perfectly legitimate repository for non-peer-reviewed papers. In other words, it relies on good will and honesty of the submitters trying to submit good quality work. There are minor safeguards in place to avoid obvious scientific spam, but not against antagonistic submitters.
I do not know (and I do not want to know) what you are trying to achieve with this experiment, but the damage that you are likely to do with this can be so substantial in terms of loss of trust of arXiv and preprint services etc, that you would seriously need to pass it through an ethics committee who can evaluate what legitimate experimental parameters for such a large scale social experiment would be.
Without such a permission and clear delineation of your duties and limitations (which your institution's ethical committee has to evaluate), this research will be unpublishable in a serious journal. And frankly, your academic reputation will be finished. Damaging one of the most valuable resources of openly accessibly publications will make you persona non grata in academia.
Let me add one more thing. There are other preprint servers which have a less strong reputation. There, your experiment may do less damage, though also be less expressive. However, even there, I should believe that they rely on good will and that wilful tainting of wells for scientific knowledge is simply maximally antagonistic to the endeavour of science.
**TL;DR: I believe the experiment is highly unethical and extremely damaging. However, you may want to see whether your institution's ethics committee can identify conditions under which such a social experiment might be feasible.**
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Without more information on your goals this is highly suspect. As has been mentioned many times above, the Sokal affair and other similar efforts were designed specifically to show that it is possible to create scientific sounding papers that are accepted, either by legitimate experts in their field (Sokal) or by predatory journals who are in it for the cash. I'm pretty sure a huge number of researchers have, for fun, submitted a BS article to a predatory journal just to see how far they could take it. I know I have, but I've never bothered to pay the fee to get it actually published because, as has been pointed out above, it's been done.
So, to arXiv. arXiv is designed specifically for rapid dissemination of results with the explicit understanding that the papers are not peer reviewed. It's up to the readers to make judgments about the validity and contribution of the papers. From that perspective, you're probably going to end up getting one of three types of responses, depending on the person reading it:
1. An expert (or even someone mildly knowledgeable) will see it for what it is and probably ignore it.
2. A student who is not an expert but is trying to be will try very hard to read the paper and think they can't understand it because it's too advanced. Most likely this student will give up, or embarrass themselves by asking their advisors or someone else for help. That would be mean on your part but, it's the Internet and not really unexpected.
3. Someone from an unrelated field will come upon it, shrug at how different the other field is (thinking they don't understand because it's not their field), and move on.
The real problem I see is the damage done to arXiv, along the lines of "they'll publish anything". However, I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. There are many news articles that reference papers in arXiv as though they are peer reviewed. Researchers using the service get it, but journalists and the general public may not. The big question is whether or not polluting arXiv like this would lead to researchers not using it as much anymore. If you are reasonably sure that won't happen, then your harm is minimized (except for the poor student in point 2 above). On the other hand, if this leads to researchers having a suspicion that arXiv is not useful and they stop disseminating their research on it, that would be a terrible blow.
I think your next step is to perform a comprehensive study of researchers and their opinions on the service, what they think they would do in this situation, and then base your idea on how to proceed off of that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Any research with human subjects must go through an IRB approval process. I'd expect in this case that the people moderating the arxiv and reading the arxiv would be considered human subjects. Typically a key part of ethical research on human subjects is obtaining informed consent, which is not done in your proposed experiment. I expect it would be difficult to IRB approval for this experiment, but maybe with the right design it is possible. More importantly though, it's unethical and a serious violation of university rules (and rules of most funding agencies) to go ahead with an experiment on human subjects without prior IRB approval.
So ask your IRB, their answer is much more important than the opinion of a bunch of random people on the internet.
Upvotes: 4
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| 1,765
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<issue_start>username_0: As a 5th year PhD, I am about to submit my thesis in 4-5 months. My PhD is in computational materials science. Following are things I have done:
* I have published 1 paper and 3 are yet to be submitted.
* I have 2 co-authored publications. 1 more to be submitted.
* Presented in 5 conferences.
* Teaching assistant for several tutorial courses, grader position.
* Contributed to grant writing.
* Took part in some extracurricular activities like mentoring undergrads on presentation skills, being judge on some sessions.
So what's my question here? I just want an honest opinion about what you think about my PhD journey, because I am really underwhelmed by it. My supervisor seemed satisfied with my progress. But I feel that I will be ridiculed by my committee for the low-key research I have done.
Why do I feel like this:
* Well, I feel that I could have done all this in much less time than I have spent on them.
* I have published my research only in mediocre journals. So, I have not been very productive. My work is not mathematically intensive as my colleagues. To be honest, it is not a very technically difficult research.
* I feel that I am not hardworking enough to deserve a PhD.
My goal prior to starting my PhD was to be an academic. Now, when I am on the verge of completion, I don't know if I have the right to see myself that way.<issue_comment>username_1: "Shall I poison a well to see how many drink out of it?"
Frankly, the idea of debunking review processes is not that new, and the latest wave started with the Sokal hoax. There were a couple of follow-ups, with computer-generated papers.
The result was a scandal, a journalistic anecdote. It created attention. Been there, done that. It's no longer an original idea. We got it. You can fool badly screened journals and predatory conferences.
But ok, now, you talk about actual "research" with fake paper dissemination. That may or may not be a legitimate research question, but the fact that you talk about "poisoning" arXiv, which is a serious and expressly *not* peer-reviewed site makes it already very questionable what you are trying to achieve.
It is one thing to embarrass badly screened journals or conferences (possibly even suspected predatory ones - namely the conferences in question) which Sokal and the SciGen people did, but quite another to abuse a perfectly legitimate repository for non-peer-reviewed papers. In other words, it relies on good will and honesty of the submitters trying to submit good quality work. There are minor safeguards in place to avoid obvious scientific spam, but not against antagonistic submitters.
I do not know (and I do not want to know) what you are trying to achieve with this experiment, but the damage that you are likely to do with this can be so substantial in terms of loss of trust of arXiv and preprint services etc, that you would seriously need to pass it through an ethics committee who can evaluate what legitimate experimental parameters for such a large scale social experiment would be.
Without such a permission and clear delineation of your duties and limitations (which your institution's ethical committee has to evaluate), this research will be unpublishable in a serious journal. And frankly, your academic reputation will be finished. Damaging one of the most valuable resources of openly accessibly publications will make you persona non grata in academia.
Let me add one more thing. There are other preprint servers which have a less strong reputation. There, your experiment may do less damage, though also be less expressive. However, even there, I should believe that they rely on good will and that wilful tainting of wells for scientific knowledge is simply maximally antagonistic to the endeavour of science.
**TL;DR: I believe the experiment is highly unethical and extremely damaging. However, you may want to see whether your institution's ethics committee can identify conditions under which such a social experiment might be feasible.**
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Without more information on your goals this is highly suspect. As has been mentioned many times above, the Sokal affair and other similar efforts were designed specifically to show that it is possible to create scientific sounding papers that are accepted, either by legitimate experts in their field (Sokal) or by predatory journals who are in it for the cash. I'm pretty sure a huge number of researchers have, for fun, submitted a BS article to a predatory journal just to see how far they could take it. I know I have, but I've never bothered to pay the fee to get it actually published because, as has been pointed out above, it's been done.
So, to arXiv. arXiv is designed specifically for rapid dissemination of results with the explicit understanding that the papers are not peer reviewed. It's up to the readers to make judgments about the validity and contribution of the papers. From that perspective, you're probably going to end up getting one of three types of responses, depending on the person reading it:
1. An expert (or even someone mildly knowledgeable) will see it for what it is and probably ignore it.
2. A student who is not an expert but is trying to be will try very hard to read the paper and think they can't understand it because it's too advanced. Most likely this student will give up, or embarrass themselves by asking their advisors or someone else for help. That would be mean on your part but, it's the Internet and not really unexpected.
3. Someone from an unrelated field will come upon it, shrug at how different the other field is (thinking they don't understand because it's not their field), and move on.
The real problem I see is the damage done to arXiv, along the lines of "they'll publish anything". However, I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. There are many news articles that reference papers in arXiv as though they are peer reviewed. Researchers using the service get it, but journalists and the general public may not. The big question is whether or not polluting arXiv like this would lead to researchers not using it as much anymore. If you are reasonably sure that won't happen, then your harm is minimized (except for the poor student in point 2 above). On the other hand, if this leads to researchers having a suspicion that arXiv is not useful and they stop disseminating their research on it, that would be a terrible blow.
I think your next step is to perform a comprehensive study of researchers and their opinions on the service, what they think they would do in this situation, and then base your idea on how to proceed off of that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Any research with human subjects must go through an IRB approval process. I'd expect in this case that the people moderating the arxiv and reading the arxiv would be considered human subjects. Typically a key part of ethical research on human subjects is obtaining informed consent, which is not done in your proposed experiment. I expect it would be difficult to IRB approval for this experiment, but maybe with the right design it is possible. More importantly though, it's unethical and a serious violation of university rules (and rules of most funding agencies) to go ahead with an experiment on human subjects without prior IRB approval.
So ask your IRB, their answer is much more important than the opinion of a bunch of random people on the internet.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing an article for a peer reviewed journal in the field of literature, and I am wondering about the use of colloquial expressions like: "Let's take a step back", or "Let's look at the data", "Let's look at the coxtext" etc.
Would you suggest avoid these forms? Could you maybe suggest me a subsitute formula to express the same idea?<issue_comment>username_1: It is probably a mistake in extremely formal writing, but many people write as if the paper is a conversation between the author and the readier. If the material is appropriate for that view, then the form is quite appropriate.
How formal the writing should be depends somewhat on where you do it and even more on the audience.
One way to know whether it is appropriate in your own circumstance is to look at how other recent papers in your field are written. It is probably safe to emulate them.
I'll also note that historically we seem to be moving from a more to a less formal presentation style in general, but the rate isn't uniform across fields. We are, in fact, normally writing for our colleagues, so it is *fairly* normal to consider our writing as a conversation. This is especially true if, in writing, you are mentally focused on the reader him/herself, rather than the material itself. Which view is more or less natural depending on the field.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In general I don't think it's a big issue but alternatives may look better, here are a few suggestions:
* "Let's take a step back" -> "from a broader perspective"; "in a larger context"
* "Let's look at the data" -> you don't need this at all, you can just start talking about the data: "the data shows that...", "in the data we observe that..."
* "Let's look at the context" -> you don't need it here either: "the context consists of...", "to put this analysis in context, ...."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think this is frowned upon in academic writing. Personally, I am happy with abbreviated form like "let's" or "didn't", but since English is not my native language, I always need some time to extract the meaning of something like "that'd" (is it "that would" or "that had" or maybe something else?).
So I would suggest to just the full unabbreviated form: Just write "let us", "did not", "that would",...
It has exactly the same meaning, always sounds as good or better to non-native speakers (which are likely to be the majority of your readers), and is faster to parse for them.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I would avoid contractions and a too chatty manner. This doesn't mean you have to be stilted either. You can still use short sentences and short paragraphs and gutty Anglo-Saxon words. This will be enough to make your articles enjoyable to read--more so than the norm--while still passing the pompous preening set.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Last year I was offered full funding for my PhD program to TA two courses a semester for the duration of my program (education psychology). Key words, Teaching Assistant. I expected this to mean I would be working with a professor each semester and teaching a recitation section twice a week (one for each course). This was all fine and great in the fall.
Then this semester, I was told I would be instructor of record for two courses (aka, I would be teaching these two courses entirely on my own and responsible for everything).
I feel extremely overwhelmed by this workload. My research has been suffering as I've had no time to work on anything outside of TAing and coursework. Next fall I was also told I would be instructor of record for two courses again (these two courses I have never taught).
I e-mailed the person in charge and asked if it would be possible to actually TA a course as the workload was a lot to manage and was hit with
>
> As TAs progress we expect them to take on full classes
>
>
>
From speaking with other TAs in the department, this is very common at the school. I was not aware off this before taking the TAship, as at the time I thought TA meant teaching assistant and not being expected to take on a whole class. Very few are only TAing (most of my colleagues are responsible for their own classes), so from my perspective it feels like an exploitation because they don't have enough professors.
Is this a common practice? Nowhere in my offer letter does it say instructor of record. It distinctly says TA. Any advice from anyone in a similar position?<issue_comment>username_1: The load seems heavy to me also. But there may be reasons why you are "trusted" to handle it and not all are necessarily bad. I was in grad school half a century ago and one was trusted to teach a course as instructor of record only in the final years of study when you had proven yourself. But at the time, the expected time to finish a doctorate was much shorter. We treated such situations as an honor, not a burden. I think your situation is actually one of the reasons why the time to completion has extended in the interim.
Perhaps you are seen by the university/department as being especially able or already advanced. Perhaps the courses are seen to be especially easy. Or, on the other hand, perhaps you are just being exploited because the department has insufficient regular faculty to handle its obligations.
You may be stuck and just need to learn to cope if the department won't help you. Cancelling classes seems to be a no-win situation and might lead to your expulsion or withdrawing your funding. You need a way to avoid that.
Let me make a couple of suggestions about how to handle the teaching load.
Look for available materials that the department has used in these courses in the past. Another grad student or a prof might be able to provide you with working notes to ease your preparation.
Put more of the responsibility for student learning on the students themselves than on your own shoulders. At the end of the day the students learn themselves. You don't "learn them". Group work helps in some fields. Fewer, larger, projects that you monitor can help. A [flipped classroom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipped_classroom) can be a big help.
Find a way to schedule your time better. Yes, easier said than done, of course. Your university may, however, have a counseling center that can provide advice. Most of the advice is time scheduling for students, but they may be able to offer some suggestions. In particular, find a way to take advantage of "lost moments" when you could be doing simple, but productive, things. Five minutes waiting for a bus can be productive if you carry your notes with you at all times, or always have an important book that you can browse.
One aspect that you probably aren't considering. If you set aside time for your different activities and stick to that schedule, you will find that sometimes (maybe often) you don't complete what you thought you would at the end of the scheduled time. Don't extend the session, however, but go on to the next scheduled activity. Quitting before completion will be at least partially compensated by the way the mind works. It is likely that giving topic A a rest while you go on to B won't result in a loss for A, as your subconscious is still at work and is capable of filling in a lot of things without your conscious effort.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Not to defend your high teaching load, but yes, heavy teaching loads like these are fairly common for TA's in the US in my discipline (mathematics) and in other disciplines that teach lots of students in general education courses (freshmen composition, world civilization, introductory courses in science, etc.)
Keep in mind that Ph.D.'s working as full-time instructors in the US often teach 4 or even 5 sections of such courses per semester. Thus teaching two sections of such a class at a time is roughly half of the workload of a full-time instructor. This is work that you should be able to accomplish in 20 hours per week, but you may well have to compromise your standards and carefully manage your time and effort to get the work done in that time.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I expected this to mean I would be working with a professor each
> semester and teaching a recitation section twice a week (one for each
> course).
>
>
>
Generally, yes, unless specified otherwise. Usually it also included quiz/exam grading, holding office hours, organizing field trips etc.
>
> My research has been suffering as I've had no time to work on anything
> outside of TAing and coursework.
>
>
>
This is a red flag. You won't be able to use your TA workload as an excuse for your down performance in your research project. Therefore, I suggest you talk to your project supervisor as well as your TA supervisor about this situation. I was once in a similar situation, but because I talked to both of my supervisors, we were able to come to a solution that was mutually beneficial.
>
> "as TAs progress we expect them to take on full classes". Is this a
> common practice?
>
>
>
In my experience, no. I have been a TA at two different US universities, and in both I assisted the professor with aforementioned duties. Sometimes, I had to deliver lectures when professor had a meeting or so. But taking on a full course seems like too much for a PhD student. Especially, if it just say TA on the record.
However, that being said, if you want to stay in academia, this is in reality a blessing in disguise. Time management is a great skill to be successful in academia. But I would still talk to the person in-charge of the courses about the workload and explain how it is impacting your research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: You should consult with your department, asking explicitly:
>
> How do you want to proceed, I feel like these conditions are excessive and were not part of the deal as far as I know.
>
>
>
Come to the meeting with your signed contract / TA paperwork.
I assume, your department cares about quality of the education they provide. Don't let them pin this on you, you are a student first of all. If they employ you, they are responsible for your performance as a teacher.
Other answers didn't pause here:
>
> I feel extremely overwhelmed by this workload and my depression has made this worse I've cancelled class at least 5 times this semester because I couldn't get out of bed
>
>
>
I suggest you immediately seek professional help. Your university must have services available for students (and be paid-for by university's health insurance), especially given [recent attention to mental health crisis](https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt.4089) in academia. That is your responsibility to take care of yourself. You are also a real person, not just a robot TA, don't let mental health issues fester.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: The fact that your offer letter says "teaching assistant" without defining it probably does not contractually exclude being assigned as instructor of record (although you could check with a lawyer to confirm this). It's likely that the university does have some written policy somewhere that does define "teaching assistant" to include "instructor of record." Even if they don't, using grad students as instructors is a common practice at US schools and is evidently a common practice within your program, so it would be hard to argue that you were misled by the offer letter. Is it exploitative? That's a different question.
Moral 1: Before accepting a funding offer, always ask for a detailed description of your duties, regardless of what the funding is called. Many "fellowships" come with teaching duties.
Moral 2: The best way to know exactly what you're signing up for is to go to a school where the grad students are unionized.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm PhD candidate in Applied linguistics, it's been almost 3 months since I've started but I'm seriously allowing for writing and publishing journal articles.
I have asked my supervisor about that, she said that I should devote my time to my thesis and wait until the second year and that writing other forms of papers generally interfere with the thesis.
However, I think I have enough time to simultaneously work on my thesis and also articles, also I have to indicate that the ideas that I'm willing to formulate in articles are not related my PhD focus.
What should I do? Should I wait until next year or just start working on articles and submit them as single author?<issue_comment>username_1: I disagree with your advisor. The archived journal literature is what counts. You can always pull a thesis together. Get some notches on your belt.
Furthermore, at the end of the day, your career is your career. Listen to your advisor's advice but don't follow it slavishly.
Edit: I see you have clarified that this would be a commentary article. I agree with your advisor on not bothering with that, now. Original research reports within your thesis area are a different kettle of fish. I would emphasize publications in that, once you have enough done (and well prior to and before writing your thesis).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I'm PhD candidate in Applied linguistics, it's been almost 3 months
> since I've started but I'm seriously allowing for writing and
> publishing journal articles.
>
>
>
Good going, this is a really good trait to have in academia and will be really helpful in the future.
>
> I have asked my supervisor about that, she said that I should devote
> my time to my thesis and wait until the second year and that writing
> other forms of papers generally interfere with the thesis
>
>
>
This sounds a bit bizarre to me. Make sure there was no miscommunication between you two. Since you only started about a few months ago, I am guessing you haven't started working on your thesis yet. So there shouldn't be any issue publishing now without affecting your thesis. Thesis is one thing, but it is the published articles that actually count in your profile and make you stand out from your peers. Ask her about how would publishing now would impact your thesis and get more clarification. Maybe she is right, which she should be able to explain but do ask.
>
> However, I think I have enough time to simultaneously work on my
> thesis and also articles, also I have to indicate hat the ideas that
> Im willing to formulate in articles are not related my PhD focus.
>
>
>
Explain it to your supervisor and defend your decision.
>
> What should I do? Do you I should wait until next year or just start
> working on articles and submit them as single author?
>
>
>
It depends on the policy set by your departmental or school. Talk to someone in the department before proceeding further. Some have a policy that you have to include your supervisor since you are publishing this work while in their group, unless you are publishing research from your previous degree (say from your MS). But if these ideas are your own then there might be a different policy. So do check and consult with someone in your department who might be knowledgeable about this before proceeding.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Whatever you do, you will want to cultivate a good working relationship with your supervisor, so I'd advise against doing something she dissuaded you from just because strangers on the internet told you to. Talk it out with her.
That said, not a single PhD student I've known wrote/writes a relevant portion of their thesis in their first year, and the advice I have constantly been getting from faculty is that early in the PhD is **the** time to think about publishing other things. There will most likely be a time when your thesis takes all your attention, and by then it's certainly too late to worry about publishing elsewhere.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It is certainly ok to *consider* it. And it is certainly ok to follow up on ideas for research. Whether to actually publish may be more of a political issue, however.
If nothing else, keep a notebook of research ideas and first approaches for later. But your dissertation comes first and your relationship with your advisor shouldn't be compromised.
If you publish something and thereby "prove your advisor wrong" the outcome will depend on personalities. Some would praise you. Others condemn. The answers of username_3 and nsinghs provide good guidance.
But the idea of keeping a notebook of things to pursue is a valuable life-long practice. In a fast moving field you may need to move quickly, of course, but often enough things can be set aside while you work on more essential things.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You already said that the articles would not be related to your thesis work. Can you tell that for sure? In some places a collection of published papers is what makes a thesis.
That being said, are we talking publishing in a conference or in a journal? Have you ever published in a journal?
My guess is that you probably have time to publish in a small conference. And you surely have time to write a draft paper for a journal. But publishing a journal paper requires more time and effort than you might be expecting. You'll probably be asked to provide more references than you have, which will consume time to find and read. You have to correct errors, spell check, and so on.
All of this does not happen quickly, you might submit to a journal, get refused, submit to another, be accepted but asked for corrections/improvements. Then you submit again, and it might take some more time before you are asked for further modifications. Depending on the field, this may take more than a year, thus even if you believe you'll be done in 3 months (to send the first draft), you might need to turn your attention back to this publication by your second year.
Now, everything changes if this publication's topic matches that of your PhD.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I understand your supervisor's point-of-view.
When it comes down to it, *anyone* is allowed to publish a paper. It doesn't matter whether you are doing a PhD, have finished doing one, or never have any intention to do a PhD.
But you are supposed to be studying for a PhD. Taking time to write a paper on something unrelated is only going to distract you from the work you're meant to be doing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: We try to publish material that we are expert in. To become expert, we invest time and resources.
Further, when we send stuff out to journals for review, we are impacting the opinions of our current and future colleagues have of us. If you're a student at this point, you're also impacting the reputation of your mentor.
Without knowing much about you, I'd suggest that it's more likely than not that you're not sufficiently expert to publish something not perfectly within your own research area, and thus you might be hurting your reputation by packaging up a paper and sending it off to a section editor. The time you put into such efforts might be better put into honing your expertise in your own area.
If you feel like you need to be writing, I recommend starting to write a paper on your current topic of research. The paper will form somewhat of an outline of your research, and will show you what you need to "fill in" before the paper should be published. The paper will be ready to go out the minute you have the data to support it. I wouldn't think of this process as "writing a paper", but as more of a statement of research. It will drive productive discussion between you and your mentor.
At this point, I don't think the advice you've been receiving from your mentor is bad. She signed up to guide you through your early career, and you should give her her shot at it!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Along with others, I understand one possible rationale for her advice: the concern is that it will delay your agreed upon PhD thesis work. Your supervisor may not want you to add your name to the growing number of ABD's. Having said the above, history, culture and norms of your dept environment also play a role. I published as an undergrad as well as a grad before I finished my PhD thesis and it never occurred to me to seek permission once I obtained a PhD supervisor. So, I recommend, as others have, that you should discuss it with your supervisor and discover why she feels that way? That seems to be the information you are missing (or we are missing, in order to advise you). Best of luck to you.
Upvotes: 0
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| 1,041
| 4,502
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<issue_start>username_0: I've been wondering this for a while.
I'm currently doing the first year of my PhD in Frankfurt. Originally from New Zealand.
I'm not complaining about my situation but if anyone asks me I'll honestly say I would have preferred an English-speaking country.
I'd actually applied to about 9 PhD programs in the US and all rejected me. Yet I was accepted to a (supposedly far more competitive) fully funded European PhD, and rather quickly - accepted late last year and already working now.
It has me wonder. I had very strong letters of recommendation from professors that are well known in my field. I had also published a paper (which has now been cited in Nature) out of the fruits of my research Master's.
My GPA is about 2.8-2.9 by US standards (hard to convert, my school was a "we grade harshly, rarely give out As and we'll make you sweat for a B" style system). Professors at home told me my grades were irrelevant with the strong letters.
People say that I was likely discounted because I had a research master's already and I'd probably see doing more course load as beneath me? That doesn't seem to hold water.
I really don't know. Any thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: It is sometimes difficult for admissions committees to evaluate applicants coming from universities or university systems that they don't have direct experience with. This is especially true if they also don't know your letter writers. It can help to apply to universities where someone in the dept. has some connection to the country you're applying from. Since someone at Frankfurt knew one of your letter writers, that person may be better informed about your letter writers, the quality of your school, and the meaning of your grades.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Many Universities have GPA cut-offs where they don't look at applications below a particular GPA threshold. The cut-off is generally much lower than the average admitted applicant, but can still be quite high. Universities vary on this, some don't do it at all, some have strict transparent GPA requirements, and some do this in practice but don't say so in writing. Most programs that use these sorts of GPA cut-offs would probably have a cut-off of 3.0 (or even higher for elite institutions). So your application may have not even been read if your official GPA conversion translated to 2.8 - 2.9!
If you want to avoid getting your application thrown away before it is even looked at, one strategy is to contact a professor in the department that you want to work with. If you convince them that you would be a great student under their supervision they can often contact the admissions committee and ask them to look out for your application. In this scenario, you still might not get admitted, as the committee does usually have the final say, but your letters of reference will at least be looked at, and the professor at the university you are applying to can send the committee a note about how tough your university is and how well respected your letter writers are in your field.
Your friend's explanation about your research masters is almost certainly wrong. I doubt many programs would reject you just because you already had a research masters.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Your existing related master's does make a significant difference in most US schools. Somebody that already has a master's will usually skip coursework and go directly to research because the school cannot grant a second master's in the same or related field.
This means you bypass the stage where you're being a TA and taking classes and consequently, there's no opportunity for you to get to know professors and their labs. On the flip side, there is no period for groups to assess your work before they invite you in.
Practically, in the departments I've been in, this means a student with a master's needs to contact professors prior to application review and find a group that is willing to accept them. From that point, the application is a mere formality.
As you have found out, there is little chance if somebody goes through the normal application route. Those applications tend to get stuck in a pile that PIs don't read.
The strongest way to do this is having your existing professors send an e-mail, especially to somebody they have a working relationship with. In any case, good recommendations are required with research background. Courses and grades aren't really that important.
Upvotes: 1
|
2019/04/11
| 1,822
| 7,858
|
<issue_start>username_0: Recently I came across a paper on a topic I'm interested in. I started reading the paper and realized this was a later version of a paper I reviewed roughly 6 months prior. That paper was rejected then due to a large amount of plagiarism that I identified, mostly in the introductory sections.
Despite the plagiarism, I tried to be as helpful as possible to the authors, recommending a different approach than what they used. Turns out that they quite liked parts of my approach as they made many of my recommended changes to their paper. They even liked how I described it, because roughly 3 sentences were copied nearly verbatim from my review. There was no mention of the help of an anonymous reviewer either.
I contacted the journal, who so far has refused to acknowledge that plagiarism occurred. I've received two somewhat contradictory responses (paraphrasing the journal staff):
1. Plagiarism can only occur if the copying was from a published source. As my review was not published, the alleged copying can not be plagiarism.
2. The passages I highlight are not similar.
Point 1 is absurd. A student would fail an assignment if they tried that one. Point 2 is also absurd as the sentences I highlighted are near verbatim copies, and there are many ways the same points could be made. I was really surprised when they made that argument.
What are my options at this point? I'd like for the plagiarized passages to be rewritten, but the journal staff refuses to bulge on that.
It's worth noting that this was published in a reputable journal. The paper is outside of the field of the journal in my view, but the reputation of the journal in general is good.<issue_comment>username_1: **Contact the editorial board**. It sounds like the journal's staff aren't very familiar with academic norms, so they don't know what to do; besides they likely won't do anything without the editorial board's approval. So approach the editorial board, probably the editor-in-chief, with evidence of the plagiarism.
I should say it further sounds like the paper has been published, which narrows the options available. They can't send the paper back to the author for revision; they can't recall the copies that have already been sent to subscribers and/or printed. If the editors agree with you that the paper is plagiarized, their most likely action is to retract the paper.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think this actually falls into a bit of a gray area.
Attributing things to (anonymous) referees is a more modern practice. I personally vary rarely see such things in papers from several decades ago, while it's extremely common to see in papers from the last few years. I doubt reviewers have become radically more helpful; rather the culture has changed. I think to a lot of people, reviewers are (still) presumed to be voluntarily offering up what they say for direct use (in a way, that's one of their functions), and the authors only have to recognize their assistance if they choose to do so. And with doing so being a professional courtesy to avoid awkward feelings and reactions, such as your own, or feeling compelled to acknowledge a very significant contribution (e.g. providing a proof of a significant new theorem).
The exact culture here will also vary between fields, which may be relevant to your situation as you say the paper is "outside the field" of the journal. It's not quite clear if you feel the paper and authors are well within your field. But if not, the authors may come from an academic sub-culture where the attributions you seek are abnormal.
On the other hand, the legal reality is perhaps a bit more clear. Unless the journal had you submit a transfer of copyright form along with your review, then you both have and retain the copyright on your review. Whether or not it was published is irrelevant. The acquisition of the copyright is immediate upon the works creation and does not require you to disseminate or share it in any way, nor is it necessarily lost by doing so.
So you could in principle elevate this to the legal theater, though this would be a drastic move that is likely to burn a lot of bridges. You'll have to ask yourself if a fight over this is worth that. And as with most legal matters, it can be difficult to predict the outcome: if there's a jury involved then that's always got a random element, or a judge might rule that your work is not adequately original, etc.
You mention in some comments you have contacted the Editor in Chief (EiC). If you've provided your review and journal it was provided for, and he does not take action you find favorable, then there's not much more you can do, beyond the aforementioned elevation to the legal theater. The offer to submit and publish a response to the paper may be worth seriously considering. Some people even go to the lengths of talking about such issues on social media. Though note this may carry some bridge-burning risks, too.
If these risks aren't acceptable to you, the best thing you might do is make a note of who the authors are and decline to review papers for them again in the future (you generally do not have to specify why you decline to do a review, and it is generally wise to not specify). You may also opt to stop reviewing for this journal, if you are convinced this is a serious issue with the journal itself.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I know of one reviewer who convinced an editor to force some authors to acknowledge in a paper he was reviewing that the core idea for a paper came from a conference conversation they'd had with him, the reviewer. I think whether you can do this sort of thing obviously depends on your standing with the editors and the editors' attitudes, but more concretely that there needs to be a specific suggestion about a way forward. Why waste your review and the authors' efforts? Think of a way to make the improved paper publishable. They should at least acknowledge an anonymous reviewer, and possibly you could reveal your identity (or suggest a relevant citation) if you really think that makes the situation better.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Beyond what was mentioned in the other answers, here's what I did:
* I sent a DMCA take down notice to the host of the journal. [username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/127978/31143) suggested legal action would burn my bridges with the journal, but as far as I'm concerned the journal staff and editor burned the bridges. While they did not capitulate entirely on this, they were now willing to get the authors to acknowledge the contributions of an anonymous reviewer. I'd recommend this in the future if someone in a similar situation finds a journal to be stubborn on plagiarism.
* The journal staff had earlier suggested that I write a reply to the article since I also had technical issues with it. I said I'd be willing to do that *if they removed the plagiarized passages*. That wasn't acceptable to them. It seems the best I'll be able to get at the moment is the acknowledgement, so I'll take the additional opportunity to criticize the article. I'm not doing this as revenge. The plagiarism is really just the tip of the iceberg. The technical problems are not as obvious.
Update: I've been periodically checking the article for the changes I requested, and so far I haven't seen the plagiarized passages removed. However, as of today (2019-04-26) the article was removed entirely. (404 error.) It's still listed on the journal's website, but the abstract and PDF file links from before do not work. I'm not sure what to make of this. I don't think that it's a response to my DMCA request as I sent a followup saying to cancel the DMCA request and never received a reply, but perhaps they are particularly slow and never read my followup message?
Upvotes: 3
|
2019/04/12
| 2,587
| 10,362
|
<issue_start>username_0: As I transition to faculty, I have increasingly gotten requests from people who want to do PhD's with me or want postdocs in my lab.
Often these emails are extremely generic and don't suggest they know anything about my research. The descriptions of themselves suggests they've mostly studied completely unrelated topics to my research field (even as broadly defined as the topic at even the department level).
I probably get at least one of these emails per day now (during graduate student application season), so it would be too cumbersome to send out a personalised response email to each one. And I imagine the volume will only increase if/when I become more established.
Most faculty surely just ignore/delete these types of emails, but I feel bad that these students appear to have gotten terrible (or no) advice about how to contact a prospective advisor, and I want to be helpful. How should I reply?<issue_comment>username_1: What I currently do is save the following text on my computer, and simply paste it in an email response every time I receive this type of email.
>
> I'm sorry to say that this email is too generic for me to consider you as a future PhD student working with me. Unfortunately, it doesn't demonstrate that you know what topics I work on. I'd recommend in the future sending only a few emails. Focus on max 10 or so potential supervisors that really fit your specific research interest. Explain what specifically drew you to them as a supervisor. Explain what you want to work on with them. You should have read one of their papers or at minimum read a description of their research from their webpage. The type of email you wrote will get very few responses because we receive several such emails. I hope this doesn't come off too harsh. I hope you might take this advice and improve next time if you send more emails in the future - because I really do want you to succeed.
>
>
> Here is an example of what I sent to my prospective PhD advisor 10 years ago. I only emailed 6 professors, because I really wanted to spend a lot of time tailoring my email to their interests and convincing them I wanted to work on the things they worked on.
>
>
>
> >
> > "My name is \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and I am a senior majoring in Applied
> > Mathematics at UC Davis. I am interested in working in your lab during
> > graduate studies because of my broad interests in theoretical ecology.
> >
> >
> > Your website especially stood out because you state that you encourage
> > independent research and teamwork. Currently, I am collaborating with
> > six other students modelling plant population dynamics in fragmented
> > landscapes. We defined our own research question, and although it was the toughest part of the project it was the most rewarding.
> >
> >
> > During this project, I first came across your early work on
> > the population dynamics of plants with a dormant life stage - and
> > further reading some of your newer papers in epidemiology, predator
> > prey dynamics and evolution, I really like the diversity of the
> > problems in your lab.
> >
> >
> > Specifically, I am interested in doing research in spatial ecology and
> > understanding how populations spread. This is because spread is not
> > only a fundamental process in ecology but also because it is at the
> > heart of controlling environmental pests and diseases. ***I think your
> > work on integral projection models will be especially relevant to the
> > spread models I want to study (integro-difference equations).*** I am in
> > the beginning phase of drafting an NSF graduate research fellowship
> > application on how to best choose the locations of pest control when a
> > pest species spreads according to such equations, and think you’d be
> > an ideal supervisor for the project.
> >
> >
> > I was wondering if you will have any openings for new graduate
> > students in your lab this coming year? Any comments or feedback would
> > be greatly appreciated."
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Note the parts about teamwork and independent research are specifically on this professors website that talks about qualities he looks for in graduate students. I didn't put this sentence in any of my emails to other professors (in fact all the sentences except for the first one are very different for each prospective professor). For most professors, I wrote shorter emails that focussed on how their work related to mine. For example, sentences like the bolded one in this email.
>
>
> cheers,
>
>
> -Dr X
>
>
>
The goal is to provide them with useful advice that they might take and become more successful in the future. Often these students come from disadvantaged backgrounds or from developing countries and I think it is really important to try to help them and not just ignore their emails. Of course, as one becomes more well known, even this strategy might prove to be cumbersome.
Over this past graduate student application season, nearly all of the students I sent this email response to were gushing with gratitude for the advice.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Interesting question. I went through the application process a few years ago, and quite a few professors never responded, and to be honest I think that's perfectly okay, and have told many of my friends to expect no reply when applying. If you really want to, I'd keep it brief and say basically that you're looking for students with a clearer idea of their research topics and ones who know better what you are studying. and then tell them best of luck.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Life is about setting goals and priorities.
If your goal is to be a saint, then spend time helping these random unknown individuals to fulfil their ambitions. If not, just hit "delete".
Nobody can *tell* you whether to aspire to sainthood or to winning a Nobel Prize for your academic work (or something in between those extremes), but history suggests that trying achieve both simultaneously doesn't work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In our department, we forward those emails to the department administrator, who replies with a polite but generic e-mail encouraging prospective students to apply via our normal procedure. However, that’s a bit above and beyond, and I realize many departments don’t offer such a service to their faculty.
In lieu of that, if you are a Gmail user, I recommend the “canned responses” feature, which is even easier than the copy and paste approach IMO.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: If I am not especially interested in the student's profile, I simply delete the email. If no effort whatsoever was spent by the sender to address an email to me personally, I don't feel like I have a duty to respond to it.
If I am interested by the student's profile and they have just been clueless about how to get in touch with potential supervisors, you can answer generic advice as suggested in @username_1's answer, or you can write a one-line generic answer like "Thanks for reaching out. What would specifically interest you in working with me?" and give the student a chance to be more specific.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: It seems like the consensus here about replying to generic emails with canned emails. I have nothing to add to the existing answers, except a technical solution to make the process of copy-pasting the emails easier. Two software I can recommend for Windows users are [PhraseExpress](https://www.phraseexpress.com/ "Autotext - Text Expander for Windows - Snippets Manager") and [AutoHotkey](https://www.autohotkey.com/ "AutoHotkey"). The former has a GUI and can sync with your phone, the latter gives you more flexibility.
For AutoHotKey, use:
```
:*:cemail::
SendRaw,
(
text text text
)
return
```
So every time you type `cemail` (shorted for "canned email"), `text text text` will be auto-typed. If you need to customize the text, use this template:
```
InputBox, string1, What to type?, Suggestion 1`, 2`, 3
InputBox, string2, What to type?, Suggestion a`, b`, c
SendInput text text %string1% text %string2%
```
The box will be like this:
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: >
> How to politely respond to generic emails
>
>
>
Don't. If the email is unsolicited, you're not obliged to answer.
I know that this goes against our inner moral compass, but think of it this way: sending email is quick and easy. Too quick and too easy. Those people most likely have put less effort into sending such email than the effort you have put into reading it! It's you who's at disadvantage here. Responding is nothing short of letting yourself to be robbed of even more time against your will. That's why your colleagues just delete them. Don't feel bad for ignoring bad mails.
In fact, feel bad for replying! If you reply to bad mails, you're only showing that their strategy is working and encourage them to keep sending more. **You're helping by ignoring.**
You want to be helpful. But they're not asking for your help, they're asking for a specific favor. What you're currently doing is [unsolicited advice](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/freedom-learn/201012/unsolicited-advice-i-hate-it-you-hate-it-so-do-your-kids), as unsolicited as their spam. And like most unsolicited things it only makes everything worse. You'll be seen as condescending and patronizing. You're basically saying "be more like me and less yourself". Nobody wants to hear that. You're not helping anyone, you just make yourself feel better about being yourself.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: You should be careful to spend no more time replying to an email than was spent sending it. Don't feel bad about deleting an entirely generic email, but if I have time or the email has any merit I send a one-sentence email asking for details about how this relates to my own work, or if it is an undergraduate asking for an internship with a good email, I suggest in the future applying for a PhD with a proper connection to the work of the person they choose to contact. You can also write a web page about what you want written in PhD or postdoc "cold" applications (or saying that these are not welcome) and then just send the URL when you get these emails.
Upvotes: 1
|
2019/04/12
| 498
| 2,044
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have been one of the co-authors of a published paper 8 years ago. In those years I was an undergrad student. So, I had no significant scientific contribution to this paper. I have just finished my Ph.D. and I do not want this paper listed in my publications.
Is it possible to remove my name from this paper via a correction?
**Clarification:** I have concerns about the quality of this work. It was carelessly written and the quality is low. So I do not want my name to come together.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it possible to remove my name from this paper via a correction?
>
>
>
No: You cannot change historical record.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When you say "listed in my publications", who is doing the listing? While changing the past isn't going to be possible, it's certainly possible to downplay it. Obviously, on any listing you control (e.g. your CV or personal website), you can mention it or not.\* As for any professional website (e.g. your company or university's website), they'll probably ask you for what publications you want listed.
If the only reason you want to distance yourself from the paper is that you feel like you didn't 'deserve' to be included as an author, I would say that your co-authors apparently felt that you did. If you still feel like you don't belong on the paper, you'll just have to downplay any questions about the paper. (E.g. "Oh, the team felt that I played a significant enough role in the collecting of data that they included me as an author. Personally, I'd rather have been mentioned as an acknowledgement, but they insisted, and, especially as a junior member of the research team, I didn't want to seem ungrateful.")
But, that's only going to happen *if* someone asks you about that particular paper. How often is that going to happen?
\* If not mentioning it in a "Publications" section seems like a falsehood to you, branding the section as "Relevant Publications" or the like may be the way forward.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2019/04/12
| 1,068
| 4,190
|
<issue_start>username_0: Below is a part of the guidelines from a grant:
"Research assistants (RA) shall not be appointed from amongst members of immediate or extended family of the researcher."
I know it's to prevent professors/researchers from misusing it for personal benefit.
But what if the two researchers (principal investigator and potential RA) are in the same field, doing and discussing the same project; and the potential RA is among the best in the field; and no other people/students here are capable of doing that project?
I've seen similar question in [another thread](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115875/is-it-appropriate-for-a-pi-to-appoint-someone-who-is-a-family-member), but it's quite different.
Here, we are talking about deep theoretical research; with lots of advanced mathematics and application to a field that is really rare even among researchers in the world. NOT about technical jobs or plain research tasks that anybody can do as long as we train them.
And the topic is quite hard, require extensive mastery - and already mastered by the potential RA through his extensive years of research. Note that the RA here is not a student, but rather has a history of working as a research scientist in a great research institution. The topic of the project itself was proposed based on the discussion between the PI and the potential RA.
Of course anybody can train but takes lots of time and effort, but the students here lack even the basic knowledge of the topic. So those students needed to study from scratch for months or even years. So it wastes time and effort to hire and guide student who don't know anything, and PI need to chase the project's deadlines too. The project will succeed more when working with the researcher who already mastered the topic.
Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the most suitable available researcher as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?
(Isn't this kind of guidelines is an injustice towards a very good potential RA, but s/he is dismissed just because s/he's a family member of the principal investigator? Or is it possible to be amended if being discussed case-by-case with the higher-ups?)
There're also spouses, or fathers and sons/daughters who are doing the same researches together. It's sad if they're being discriminated by this 'good' rules. Moreover, there're lack of research jobs for postdocs/phd graduates, hence come the two-body problem in academia.
Of course it should be discussed directly with the university/institute, but any enlightenment is very appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> [T]he guidelines from a grant:
>
>
> *Research assistants (RA) shall not be appointed from amongst members of immediate or extended family of the researcher.*
>
>
> ...Isn't this...an injustice...? Or is it possible to be amended...?
>
>
>
Everything is negotiable: A case can be made to the funding agency.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the most suitable available researcher as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?
>
>
>
Finding the most suitable candidate is a very hard problem, so lets be a bit more precise:
>
> Is it inappropriate for a PI to hire the researcher (s)he feels is most suitable as an RA, just because s/he is his/her family members?
>
>
>
Now the problem becomes clear: Can the PI be unbiased when determining which one is the most suitable candidate if one of them is a family member? My suspicion is that for most people the answer is no.
There are lots of other, more practical, reasons why it is a really really really bad idea to hire a family member, but those are discussed in the question you linked to.
One of these that you should consider is to protect the reputation of the RA/family member who would be hired. Scientific communities are like villages: people gossip a lot. If you are hired by a family member there will always be the suspicion that you were hired because you were a family member, i.e. you weren't good enough to make it on your own. Once you got that stigma, it is very hard to get rid of it.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2019/04/12
| 313
| 1,397
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am writing my bachelor's thesis at a university of applied sciences in the Netherlands.
The university has provided me with a document outlining some of the guidelines I should follow (like what format of citations is expected and what the document should look like overall), but it does not specify anything about, for example, fonts, font sizes and color schemes.
What is the correct approach to formatting in this case? Do things like fonts and font sizes matter very much or can I make that choice as long as it is reasonable?<issue_comment>username_1: I would check other submissions and ask your mentor / supervisor. In any event, I would choose a font with spacing etc. that is clear and easy to read with suitable line spacing.
Some "cursive" fonts look nice but are not "easy" for extended reading.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In general If the university did not specify a guideline for a particular issue, it is fair to assume you can make whatever reasonable choice you want for it. There is usually a step where the university checks the formatting of the final version (at least in the US), so be prepared to make some changes at that point.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Ask your supervisor and if you do not get a satisfying response than use a style similar to the most respected journal of your field.
Upvotes: 0
|
2019/04/12
| 267
| 1,148
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am first year post-doctoral fellow. I have been asked to carry out some marking duties by my PhD supervisor from another university which I am not currently affiliated with, but where I got my PhD from.
Can I mention this marking duty under my teaching experience on my academic CV?<issue_comment>username_1: I would check other submissions and ask your mentor / supervisor. In any event, I would choose a font with spacing etc. that is clear and easy to read with suitable line spacing.
Some "cursive" fonts look nice but are not "easy" for extended reading.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In general If the university did not specify a guideline for a particular issue, it is fair to assume you can make whatever reasonable choice you want for it. There is usually a step where the university checks the formatting of the final version (at least in the US), so be prepared to make some changes at that point.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Ask your supervisor and if you do not get a satisfying response than use a style similar to the most respected journal of your field.
Upvotes: 0
|
2019/04/12
| 630
| 2,287
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm trying to find some documentation on how are the rights of academic workers defined and protected by law in my country. Unsurprisingly, all I found is strictly administrative stuff related to degrees and diplomas, but nothing specific on actual academic worker rights.
I want to know if US and western EU have defined within their laws what an academic worker is and what are their additional rights and obligations compared to other types of workers, if academic freedom is in any way protected by law, or not.<issue_comment>username_1: In Germany and Austria academic freedom is part of the constitution.
German Art 5.3 GG:
>
> Kunst und Wissenschaft, Forschung und Lehre sind frei. Die Freiheit der Lehre entbindet nicht von der Treue zur Verfassung.
>
>
>
translated to English:
>
> Art and scholarship, research, and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.
>
>
>
Austrian Art. 17.1 StGG:
>
> Die Wissenschaft und ihre Lehre ist frei.
>
>
>
translated to English:
>
> Science and its teaching is (sic) free.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I suggest you look at the [Wikipedia entry for Academic Freedom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_freedom), which has specific information for many countries.
In particular, in the case of the US it says that the accepted principles of academic freedom are not bound by the law:
>
> **United States**
>
>
> In the United States, academic freedom is generally taken as the notion of academic freedom defined by the "1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure", jointly authored by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the Association of American Colleges (AAC, now the Association of American Colleges and Universities).[24] These principles state that "Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject."[24] The statement also permits institutions to impose "limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims", so long as they are "clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment".[24] The Principles have only the character of private pronouncements, not that of binding law.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 0
|
2019/04/12
| 1,435
| 6,053
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am an academic at a large university. I have been asked to produce some videos to be used in an online component of a departmental service course. This is a course I am currently teaching, and the videos are meant to be used in future iterations of the course (which I will probably not be teaching) to reduce the number of weekly lecture hours.
I don't have a strong opinion either way about whether this plan is good for the course, but I do not want to appear in the videos for reasons of personal privacy. I am a very private person, and I have always tried to keep a light online footprint with minimal social media activity. The idea of hundreds or thousands of students whom I don't know watching videos of me for years to come makes me very uncomfortable.
It has been pointed out to me that the university already records lectures, and that the videos that I'm now being asked to make are if anything better since they will help me produce them in a recording studio and I can do multiple takes. This is a fair point, though I am also not so happy with the current lecture recordings (it may be technically possible to opt out but is not practically possible since students would complain). But I still think the videos I'm now being asked to record are more invasive of my privacy. The lecture recordings only capture audio and the projector/document camera, and are only accessible by the students in the course I teach. The videos I'm being asked to produce will show my face and be uploaded to the university youtube channel, and remain as a central component of a large course for years.
I realize that it's always been the case that certain careers require being recorded (politician, actor, professional athlete, news anchor, journalist), but I didn't think of academia as being one of them. To what extent are academics public figures / performers that should be required to make recordings of themselves?
Am I being unreasonable by refusing to appear in these videos?<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, I think it's a terrible idea to make people participate in recorded lectures against their will - it won't come out as good, and you may well not have them.
The answer to your question really depends on the kind of relationship you have with your colleagues, and the kind of relationship you want to have in the future.
Do you have any clout in the department? If you say no, what repercussions will you face? Are you willing to face them?
If you refuse you may be perceived as not being a team player, which may or may not hurt your prospects in the department. If yours is a teaching position, it may well be argued to be part of your responsibilities. If you are a research faculty, then perhaps you have more of a case. If this is a key to you getting a promotion/being the face of the school for some initiative, it may be a good idea to forgo your privacy policy in favor of a career boost.
If you really don't want to do it, you can purposefully do a terrible job during the recording. After one day of awful takes (and the subsequent waste of money paid to the studio), I'm sure that no one would consider taking you on for this role! Plus, I can't really see how anyone would fault you for this, you had already said that you didn't want to do it, perhaps pushing you to do it made you do it really terribly...
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This answer will be complex and may take more than one edit.
First, you have a moral right to refuse. Whether you also have a contractural right or not you haven't said.
Second, if you make these recordings for future use, you first need to work out the compensation for doing them. Ideally you should receive a royalty for each showing and it might also involve the size of the audience. If they offer nothing, they you are just being exploited. I assume that you will hold no copyrights on the produced materials, so you need to protect yourself with a contract. If the content is at least partly yours and not created entirely by other people, then I would insist on royalties, not just a one time payment. The contract might even have an expiration date after which it needs to be renegotiated.
Third, examine why you don't want to do this. If it is just that you are "uncomfortable" then I recommend that you find a way to become more comfortable. But if you have a principled objection then be sure that you can express it so that others can understand. I would, personally, support such an objection, but my opinion on the matter might be overridden.
Note that by overcoming it, I don't necessarily mean that you should force yourself to do it. But if it is fear or over-shyness that makes you reticent to do this, your career would probably be enhanced by coming to a more neutral stance. Otherwise you can be driven by feelings that aren't necessarily in your best interest. If you can take-it-or-leave-it then you can examine the reasons more explicitly.
Such videos can, in principle be very valuable. But since they are being monetized, you have a right to share in that system. You could, of course, choose to donate your efforts, as anyone could, but I don't believe that it should be required of you.
(I may want to update this as I think a bit more about the issue.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The answer to this question is extremely simple and clear-cut. No, you are not being unreasonable. You don’t want to appear on YouTube, so don’t - this is not a job requirement for a professor (or [for a graduate student](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/111505/40589)) anywhere. You don’t owe anyone any explanations. Do not let yourself be guilt-tripped or manipulated into giving up more of your privacy than you feel comfortable doing. And do not get drawn into a debate about the nuances of precisely which careers require agreeing to be a public figure and which don’t - this just opens the door for other people to try to manipulate you with irrelevant sophistry.
Just say no.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Would it be beneficial to mention the names of potential collaborators in my research statement?
Over the last year I have been discussing future collaborative work with research groups from other Universities. We have not submitted any grants and there is nothing official yet, but it appears that both of us would definitely pursue this if/when I start a faculty position. Would it be appropriate to mention this?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally speaking, yes, it is actually expected from the faculty position applicant to include this kind of information in your research statement. However, that being said, because you are not alone in this process, make sure your collaborator agrees with you including your collective idea in the application.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I presume this is job interviews in academic positions.
The appropriate place to mention such possibilities is only in your proposed research plan. When you do state names, state where the person is located and what role that person is to play in the collaboration.
Example
=======
Defining the Role of Cats in Human Mental Health
------------------------------------------------
For this project, I will ... bla ... bla ...
* Potential Research Collaborations
+ Dr. <NAME>, Sociology Department, Pet Friendly University, Cat Heaven, USA (123) 456-7890, j.smith@...
As a renowned cat psychologist, Dr. Smith will contribute his expertise to evaluate whether the cats are happy during the study. We plan to jointly supervise the graduate student on this project.
+ Dr. <NAME>, ...
* Potential Research Funding Sources
+ The Society for Improved Mental Health (SIMH)
+ ...
Certainly, you will have vetted all of your statements that you make with each of the potential collaborators BEFORE you submit your document for the job applications. We on the other side of the interview will be contacting Dr. Smith as demands warrant!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Personally, I would mention that you're working toward the goal of establishing collaborations, and you are currently in discussion with Drs. X, Y, and Z (after contacting those people to make sure it's OK with them). I think this is useful information to a search committee.
Beyond that, I don't see a need to have anything like a section called "potential collaborators", as the phrase can mean just about anything, from "we're applying for a grant together" all the way down to "I read that person's last paper, and thought it was interesting". At best, the committee won't know how to weight the information, and at worst, they'll get ticked off for having such vague information in an application package.
Perhaps the best advice would be to actually move on starting the collaboration, so the issue just goes away, and your package looks that much better.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Can I accept a PhD offer and later withdraw from the program before it even starts? Is there an etiquette for that?
I really want to do a PhD but they have put a deadline in accepting and I am currently interviewing with companies. Please advise.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Can I accept a PhD offer and later withdraw from the program before it even starts?
>
>
>
Yes, of course you can. They won't force you to enroll and they won't come after you legally. It's certainly not worth anyone's time. However, it does harm the department's planning because they might not be able to fill your spot. For more discussion, see the comments on this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/67170/37441).
>
> Is there an etiquette for that?
>
>
>
Yes, the etiquette is to not do that. It's rude and you will burn bridges. A spot that could have been offered to another student may be lost. But if you're quitting to move to industry, you probably don't care anyway.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It's a little snaky, but not the end of the world. If you can give them notice before SEP class starts, they will appreciate that. Maybe they can't fill the slot but there is a chance they can. Also it's better than just not showing up on day 1.
I did that personally and will share the story:
Accepted at one, local, school while interviewing. The timing is difficult to 100% do this in parallel and I was torn. So I explored both options and wanted to have 1 grad school lined up if it was hard to get a job (was during a recession).
A couple years later, I ended up leaving industry and going to a Ph.D. (at a different school). But even the one, I had jerked around before, was still willing to have me, again.
Of the 6 schools, I had earlier been accepted to, 5 of the 6 were willing to take me again 2 years later. It wasn't a big deal and I just portrayed it positively (had been productive for 2 years, but still had a yearning to do more than basic engineering, blabla). Anyhow 5 of the 6 bought that (true, but positive spin) characterization. I guess 1 of the 6 didn't. Also, I did end up finishing the Ph.D. later, doing well, yadayada. IOW I ended up being a good risk.
Note: I'm not justifying this (can anticipate the scolding). Just want to share the practical experiential datum on having actually done it and how it worked out.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/04/12
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a third year PhD student in an area of theoretical CS that would like advice for a difficult situation with my advisor.
My advisor is not involved in my research projects at all. In particular, I have come up with all of my paper ideas, and have executed the papers alone. However, she always insists on adding her name as a co-author. This has started to increasingly bother me, as I work very hard on my research and believe I should get credit for that. Note that in theoretical CS, there is no PI is always last author just because of funding tendency, all authors are considered equal and are ordered alphabetically. This makes it particularly bad to just add her, because it is completely ambiguous how much each of us has done.
For my most recent paper, I brought up how I didn't believe she was meeting the IEEE or ACM guidelines for authorship, and told her that I believed I should be sole author on my paper. She agreed that she shouldn't be an author, although she was visibly angry. She said that I was a "weirdo" for doing this, and said that everybody already knows that advisors take credit for their student's work and that publishing with your advisor is the same as publishing alone (this is absolutely untrue). But most importantly, she told me that she would not approve my proposal/dissertation if I did not add her name to several more top-tier papers because then I "have no ties to the university" since I am not working with a professor, and therefore cannot receive my PhD. She also made a lot of other threats, but that was the most relevant to me.
Obviously, I need a new advisor. However, there is really no one in my department in my research area. Switching research areas or departments are not options. So the remaining options are the following:
(1) Add her name to several more papers. I do not like this idea because it is unethical, and there is no guarantee that anything is even gained in this option. She could simply refuse to recommend me in the end after I got her a bunch of papers.
(2) Ignore her threats, and continue working towards my PhD, assuming that she will have to let me graduate. The reasons I don't believe she can stop me from graduating is because (a) I already have a good publication record and my papers are only getting better (b) I have funding independent of her through a fellowship and (c) our dept makes is difficult to kick out graduate students for no real reason. The downside of this is that she won't give me a letter of recommendation, but she doesn't have many connections anyways so this might not be too bad. On the positive side, I will have a bunch of single author papers.
(3) Try to convince a professor in an unrelated research area in my dept to be my advisor, emphasizing that I am independent and can do my work alone. There are a few theory professors in my dept, although they are totally different areas. I have no idea the chance of this working out.
I am also planning on talking to the chair about my situation. But I just wanted to get more of an opinion, what do you think I should do?<issue_comment>username_1: You describe behavior that is certainly unethical and should be grounds for dismissal. One doesn't threaten graduate students or try to bribe them (with graduation) for what is in CS, in the US, anyway, improper co-authorship.
That said, your options are limited. I think the best option is to start with the department chair and see where you stand. If the chair is willing to act ethically you may have a solution, but otherwise you may just need to try to do whatever is necessary to accelerate your graduation and move on.
One option that the chair might suggest is a mediated meeting with your advisor and either he chair or another faculty member. Your ideas about working independently and getting someone else to sign whatever is needed to graduate might be worth pursuing.
The problem will then be finding proper letters of recommendation to move you to your next position. That will be difficult unless you cultivate opportunities around you.
I'm going to also suggest that if the chair isn't supportive that you explore opportunities elsewhere. If other faculty aren't available, it might be worth looking at other institutions. It might actually be less disruptive to do that and someone with a publication record might be seen as a "catch" by another university.
But I'll guess that your option (2) is the worst.
---
Note to readers. Co-authorship by advisors is not the norm in CS and mathematics in many places. My advisor (math) never would have thought of it even though he had substantial contributions to the work, and I never would have considered it for my own students (CS). It would have felt "icky".
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with @username_1, this does sound like an unethical situation, but a very tricky one for you to handle carefully. As you mentioned, you are working independently and you probably will never work with her for your entire degree. So I think your best bet would be to seek another faculty in the department, even if they are not in your area of interest. As long as you are working on your own, that shouldn't matter. You can try convincing them that you just need to supervise you and sign formal documents.
I believe changing supervisor is better than patching things up with your supervisor, because your relationship has already been ruined, and their is no guarantee that it will be smooth in future either. I would suggest talk to your chair about helping you find another advisor. Ultimately, you are going to need few letters of recommendation, which I am almost certain that you won't get from your current supervisor. If you get a new advisor, you can build rapport with them and maybe contribute a little bit in what they do.
Your option 1 is bad because it is just unethical and without guarantee that you will get letters in future. Option 2 is no good either because even if you end with a bunch of single author papers, that is not the whole game. In job applications, papers have a certain weight, but they are certainly not the only thing that matters. Without a letter from your supervisor (or a bad one) your employer might perceive it as a sign of bad team player. Therefore, I believe you have a chance of option 3 working in your favor. If nothing works, then try to expand your reach and find somebody else at another institution. That might be easy/difficult depending on your funding/family/personal situations.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Sounds like you are in a bad situation.
Let me just expand on what previous posters have suggested. I strongly suggest that you find another adviser. If you have peer-reviewed publications, you should be able to find someone who will allow you to graduate even if they are not in your area. Moreover, I don't think it is a big loss, since it sounds like your current adviser may not give you a good recommendation even if you stay with her.
You should be able to find a postdoc position based on your publications even without a letter from your current adviser. Your postdoc adviser can then write you a letter. Other suggestions for getting a letter include:
* The adviser you switch to can write you a letter -- even if they are not in your area, they can comment on working with you, on your communication skills, and the quality of your publications. They can also explain the situation (i.e., why you did not work with the person in your department in your area).
* You can bring in an external expert for your thesis committee. This allows an expert in your area to get to know you and your work.
* You can meet people at conferences who might be likely to read your paper anyway (because they are working on related things) who might then be willing you write you a letter.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have paper with very new contributions but it needs at least one month to finish perfectly. I am afraid that someone eat my launch and publish on the area. My advisor suggests adding the paper to Arxiv. but the title may change later. is it okay?
Also, I have just checked that changing authors when replacing a paper is technically enabled. Is it okay to add authors later?<issue_comment>username_1: Arxiv is just a preprinting service which is [generally] non peer-reviewed. The whole point of publishing there is to just put your idea out there (it gives you the copyrights) and to get feedback from your peers who are eager enough to read your draft. It is very common practice to update the title and author list for final publication in a journal. I have done it personally without any problem. That being said, all authors, who will be on the final publication, should be included in the arxiv submission, and not just the first/submitting author.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Neither change is against arXiv's rules. The title is often changed during the review/publishing process anyway, and arXiv supports that. Adding authors [also works](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55165/17254), but posting a draft that omits authors you know should likely be there doesn't exactly sound like best practice. At a minimum, I'd try to figure the authorship issue out first.
Also keep in mind that people might well *read* your draft. If it looks like a sloppy, incomplete mess or minimally complete work... well, you can guess what impression that'll give. While you're at it, also guess whether that'll increase or decrease the chances that a semi-interested reader will look at future, more complete preprint and published versions. That is, you want to make sure you're not making it public *too early*. How early is too early ultimately it comes down to a combination of how polished the draft is, how afraid you are of getting scooped, and how important being the absolutely first over the line is. Usually some leeway is given because everyone recognizes that it takes time to do the work and write the paper. If someone posts on the same topic a couple of days late, it will usually be considered an independent discovery.
You might want to consider using this to your advantage by keeping an up-to-date and fairly polished version of the preprint, while finalizing the author list and working on the last pieces. If some other group posts a similar preprint, you can put yours up too quickly enough. If no one does, you can keep polishing the paper and then have a nice work to show the community. On the other hand, if you post an unfinished version, you might well push someone else to post their more polished version.
Also consider reading [Immature papers on arXiv](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/49370/17254) and [What to do when you spot a paper on arXiv with the same essential material as yours?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/27271/17254).
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student in mechanical engineering in The Netherlands, with four months left on the 4-year contract, writing my thesis. I have sufficient content to be able to submit the thesis by the end of the contract, as far as my supervisor and I are concerned. It is going to be a collection of papers that are either under review or have been published.
Although it seems the thesis can pass, I am not entirely happy with the whole as a body of work. For various reasons, I have obtained results relatively late in the process. I feel that a proper reflection and utilisation of these results would require 4 - 6 additional months, in order for me to be able to process and write it down.
Though there is funding, my university is generally not willing to extend PhD contracts. It would likely be possible, though, after submitting my thesis, to continue as a post-doc and work on publishing said results.
Up to this point, I have felt inclined to work on delivering a very good thesis, and considered working on it without pay for those additional months. Upon reflection, it seems that this is largely due to my emotional investment in the PhD project.
Is there any reason career-wise (I am still debating an industry or academia career) that it is better to work on my PhD thesis than to take the post-doc position and publish the papers after the thesis?
(Obviously, financially, the post-doc option is highly preferable.)<issue_comment>username_1: You can always revise and extend your old work. Make your dissertation work as good as you can in the available time and then move on. If the problems you work on are sufficiently interesting there is always room to continue.
Whether you continue the work with your advisor or not may be a question that depends on the expectations of your field.
Most doctoral students hopefully finish with a notebook full of problems that were interesting but couldn't be completed during the graduate program. The ideas don't die just because you graduate.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Ah, somebody with the exact same situation as mine. I am done with my postdoc and publishing though. From your explanation, it seems like you will be spending about the same amount of time for both scenarios. If that is the case, I would choose to do a postdoc and write papers. For one, postdoc makes more sense financially, and you will have more time at hand to finish papers without any distracting deadlines to finish your PhD. Secondly, I personally felt much relaxed and confident at writing once I was done with my PhD. Although it is good to have a wonderful thesis, I would not spend any extra time on it. So try to do your best to improve it, but do it in a given time frame you have.
Honestly speaking, I personally feel that thesis/dissertation are just a degree requirement to document what you did, but the sad reality is nobody will read them (some might disagree). Ultimately they just become a book and represent your magnum opus (giggles) in your literature collection. If you can publish it in the form of journal articles, that should be the priority because that is what gives you the exposure outside of your university walls.
Long story short, I will take postdoc and finish writing papers instead of worrying and spending too much time on making your thesis look great.
Upvotes: 0
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