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2019/07/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a current PhD student who just finished my third year in a Computational Biology program at a respected university, and I am looking for some advice. Basically, I am trying to decide whether or not I should stay in grad school.
I have finished all my coursework and my qualifying exams, and according to previously graduated students in my lab, I will most likely require 3 more years to graduate. If I left now, I would leave with my masters.
I have had thoughts about leaving my PhD throughout the years. But I have seriously been thinking about leaving the program for the past 6 months. When I first felt like quitting 6 months ago, I decided to sit on the feeling for a while because I realized that it will definitely affect my life long term. I also know that almost all PhD students want to quit sometime during their PhD, so it’s hard for me to know whether it actually would be the right decision. On a general level, I am doing well. I received my own grant and have made research progress. However, I have lately reached a point in my work where I am feeling stuck. This has increased my work load and pressure significantly, which has made me really push to think about whether the work is actually worth it, especially if I don’t want to do this in the future.
I started my PhD straight out of my bachelors degree, and I soon after realized what research actually is. I am a highly creative person who loves to dance, draw, design, teach, and cook. I do like science, but I wouldn’t say that research is my passion. I have overall become very apathetic to research, as I feel like it squashes my creativity. My favorite part of research has been creating PowerPoints and presenting work. I feel that if I left and got a job in a different field that allowed me to be more creative, I would be much happier. My current work life has triggered mild depressive symptoms and panic attacks, for which I am now seeing a therapist.
As my project is at a critical point but in a competitive topic, I am facing intense pressure to work constantly. If I don’t take time for myself, my mental health deteriorates. When I do take time for myself, I do not work as long hours and cannot meet the high expectations. This cycle has not allowed me to take a step back and think about what I would like to do instead of a PhD in this field. I unfortunately feel like I wouldn’t be able to look for jobs seriously while I am in my current lab. I have thought about taking a break from my PhD, but I know that this will not go over well with my PI. Therefore, I don’t want to bring it up unless I’m fairly certain about leaving the program.
I know that if I left, I would be leaving a big opportunity behind, as I have already dedicated 3 years and am working under a well respected professor. However, I don’t feel that losing my mental health over a degree is worth it, even in the long run. To be completely honest, I am scared to stay because of how it will affect me mentally, and I am scared to leave because I am afraid that I may not be able to switch careers as easily as I thought. Plus, there may be no guarantee that my next job won’t induce this amount of stress, and I don’t want to regret my decision of leaving for the rest of my life.
I would like to hear advice from people who actually have left their PhDs. It would even be better to hear from those who quit and changed their field or those who quit a PhD in a related field. Is it a good idea for me to stick around, or should I move on and do something new?
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Confused PhD student<issue_comment>username_1: I know this isn't much of an answer, but I have been and still going through a very similar. I will just share what I am going through.
There is/was an enormous workload on my back, very challenging project, lack of facilities, and lack of support and understanding of my project on the part of my advisor. This caused me to be very stressed constantly. I would wake up in the middle of the night extremely depressed and angry at my advisor/project and question if I should have spent the last three/four years doing a Ph.D and if I should quit.
I considered quitting but then decided that I would not be fair to myself if I did so. I had been and still working very hard compared to all my colleagues. I considered quitting a failure and something "I would regret for the rest of my life".
I decided that I will stay, tough it out and get my degree no matter what. I deserve a Ph.D. I have already invested three years and I am not leaving without my degree.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I might be the person you're looking for an answer from. I left my PhD program in 2016 and took my Master's with me into the job market. I do not regret this decision.
When I was an undergraduate, I looked at the PhD as the ultimate life challenge and the ultimate accomplishment. I wanted to prove to myself I could do it even more than I wanted to make a career out of the PhD.
My first year of graduate school was shockingly hard. I struggled to adjust to the workload and I always felt dumber than my colleagues, even though they assured me they all felt the same. After a year, I adjusted, and even began to excel. I began to recognize the patterns of graduate school, and I developed a rhythm that helped me anticipate and overcome the major challenges.
After completing my Master's thesis, I started studying for the Qualifying Examinations. This was the period where I began to consider leaving the program altogether. Aside from one exam, the second half of the program was exactly identical to the first: I'd do a bit of traveling for research, I'd spend long hours writing my dissertation, and I'd continue to TA and run summer courses.
At this point I was absolutely confident I could finish the PhD if I wanted to. I had already published three books (as a hobby, unrelated to academia), so I was certain I could complete the long-term project of dissertation writing. In fact, one night I counted out all of the pages of research I had written for articles and papers in the past two years, and the number totaled right around the average length of a doctoral dissertation in my field. Writing and research was not going to be a problem.
But completing the program would require another 3 years of my life, and I was already approaching my 30s. My fiancee had been working for years and had her career already built up. She was making real money while I was living off of TA stipends and begging random institutions for grant money. With my income, we weren't going to be able to have a family, buy a house, live the American dream, etc. Our lives were just on hold.
Then I began hearing the horror stories of PhDs struggling to find jobs. Every recent grad I knew, regardless of major, couldn't find work because our university wasn't a top 10. The only exception were the CS majors, who had no problem securing gainful employment. But my housemate, for example, a man who completed his Chemistry PhD by contributing to a new HIV drug, was unable to find a job for two years after he finished.
In the end I had to make a value judgment: was my pride worth my family's future? The answer was no. So I left. My advisor abandoned me (she won't even respond to my happy holiday emails that I occasionally send to my former professors) and some of the guys in my cohort probably considered me a washout. But I've got a happy marriage, a great job, and I'm buying a house within the next two years, so. I got what I wanted out of the experience, and I feel like I stopped at the right time.
**I strongly recommend you prioritize your mental health above everything else in your life.** Because if you don't have that, then you have nothing. All the money and job security in the world won't make you happy, and therapy might not put you back together. The thing about the PhD is that you have to be 1000% committed to that vision of your life. If you aren't really interested in research, and if you always feel in your heart that you don't want to be there...maybe you should listen.
**Before you leave your program**, consider taking a Leave of Absence, which is totally acceptable and common, especially for mental health-related reasons.
edit:
**One more question for you to answer for yourself:** Is there any additional benefit to having the PhD instead of just the Master's? Usually the MS is plenty for landing a job in the corporate sector, and the PhD is if you want to do full-time research (which you obviously don't) or lecturing as a professor (which you didn't mention).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: **If you love research and just need a better work atmosphere**, consider transferring to another lab in the same institution, or to another institution. If you are thinking of quitting altogether, you should be able to walk away from your present project and start something new. Different PIs run their labs very differently, and different institutions have very different support.
Personally, I got thrown off the most prestigious project at arguably the most prestigious lab at unarguably the most prestigious institution in my discipline. I wandered between PIs a while and then spent three years abroad at another institution. I met the person I married within the first two weeks I got there. Three years later I went back and finished my degree at my elite institution on a related project with a different supervisor who was about to fail to get tenure – we helped each other out the door. The elite degree has definitely helped my career.
**If the thing is that you've realised you loved taking tests and courses etc. but not the open endedness of research**, then maybe change to business or law or medicine, or just go into another field altogether, like consulting. Your skills and knowledge will still stand you in good stead.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I've been through something similar, left my masters (in my institution it was like a PhD since they are really prestigious and wanted PhD level on our research). I was depressed due to the workload and after finding out it wasn't what I felt happy doing, but then I regreted disapointing the professors and came back after recovery.
It really wasn't worth coming back, I started having the same symptoms. If it's not what makes you happy, you'll just be destroying yourself.
Taking some leave for health issues seems the best in your case. You should try new jobs as a part-timer, tutoring or volunteering at similar jobs that you feel like doing before lookingfor a job. It helped me to find my carreer today.
That is just my personal experience. Hope I helped.
All the best!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It seems premature to drop out. Take a leave of absence and give yourself some time to figure it out. Again, do not close any doors prematurely; if you do, you may always regret it.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I just got the reviews for the paper I submitted to IEEE TCSVT and one of the reviewers asked me to provide them with some supplementary results. I am planning the create a website for them so they can go and download the results. Any suggestions on how I can create such a website for my paper?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the best option for you might be uploading your files (videos) to
1. Google Drive, Dropbox. Share your files as links and send to the reviewers. No one else can see these files, and they are very secured.
For sharing your files using Google Drive, check <https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2494822?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en>
**I strongly suggest not to create a website for file downloading, if your are not experienced with website development.** It is much complicated for beginners. You need to find (vps, dedicated) servers, then install OS, dependencies, web servers (nginx, apaches) etc., and enable ftp or something else.
So, just upload to a google drive, and share to them.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Github Pages is the dead simple, amazing, and (kind of) permanent way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Please use existing repositories when showing your supplementary data. Department websites die more often than we'd like.
Some options include:
* [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/)
* [Dryad](https://datadryad.org/)
* [Figshare](http://figshare.com/)
See also <https://www.nature.com/sdata/policies/repositories>.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a paper by using Mendeley and I want to cite many paper at the end of a sentence such as [1-5]. But when I have inserted the citations contiguosly, it seems like [1],[2],[3],[4],[5]. How do I change the appearance of citations from plural to single square bracket?<issue_comment>username_1: With Mendeley Citations Plugin, you should be able to highlight all of the citations that you wish to merge (as long as they appear next to each other) and then select the 'Merge Citations' option from the menu, next to 'Insert or Edit Citation', to bring them into a single citation/square bracket.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Update as of 2021. In the current version of Mendeley Citation Plugin, there is no option to select 'Merge Citations'. Here's what works for me on Mac:
* Open the plugin in Word
* Select citations that you want to merge together (there should be a yellow-ish box around each citation). Make sure they are as close together as possible (you can drag them around by clicking the ... icons on the top left)
* Click on the this group of citations (may have to repeatedly click on it - it's a bit of a mystery to me) and a yellow "manual override" will pop up.
* Manually enter what you want the text to be then click save change (hint: the default text tells you which citation has been selected)
Screenshot on Mac Word:
Upvotes: 1
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2019/07/26
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a rising sophomore at a top US university, and I've become really fascinated with the world of academia over the past year -- so much so that I'm considering doing a PhD after I graduate and entering it myself. But there's something about academia that bothers me.
I'm doing a summer internship at a research center at a university where I'm in the company of several PhD students and post docs as well. I've noticed that the work culture here is a bit lazy. I understand that academia isn't the most "organized" area (unlike the corporate world), and that one great thing about academia is the flexibility you get to do your work however you want. For instance, I've spoken to professors who say they do most of their work at night -- which, obviously, is impossible in a regular job. But I've observed this getting translated into laziness. People will only come in to the center for 3-4 hours a day, and sometimes not even every day in the week. I also see people often passively sitting on their computers and not really actively doing their work.
I completely understand that academics are less "robotic" than people working corporate jobs in that they don't follow the same routine every single day, but it just seems to me that a lot of people lack the drive, intensity, and seriousness that I see in my romanticized version of the world of academia. Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: Different areas of work look differently. A mechanic, a tailor or a miner perform visible physical operations and deliver an objective and measurable result by hour. Compared with them, office work may *seem* lazy: people sit at their desks, they are not sweating, can have toilet and drink breaks whenever they want, etc. Also, the result of their work seems less tangible: we do not see goods or materials produced, only papers, and looking from outside, we often can not understand how good the result is without taking their manager's word for it.
Academic teaching and administration work is very much like office work in a company. Teaching-focused colleges and universities often seem very similar to corporate organisations (with one important difference that they have less support structures and security for academics).
Academic research work seem even less organised and the results seem even less tangible. People either appear sitting at their computers idly (while they are in fact thinking on the problem), or stay at the whiteboard scribbling unreadable equations (still thinking on their problems), or stay at home (thinking about their problems). If you look around, you will see the result of their thinking process (e.g. a computer or smartphone in front of you, as well as many many others). But the results do not jump out of their heads in the same visible way how an ore appears from the mine.
Corporate culture portraits an idealised worker as an energetic, serious man in suit. There are many, many problems with this idealised picture, for example, the fact that it is relatively easy to make such an appearance without any real skill, knowledge and desire to produce a meaningful result. Academia, partly, shares this problem: there is an idealised image of academic (a person excellent in everything, highly introvertial but excellent in communicating complex ideas to different audiences, etc etc), which has little to do with the real academic culture. Many academics visibly change their behaviour when they have to present their results for promotion or appraisal. However, in their natural habitat, they still focus on solving their problems in the way which is most effective for them, do not act to impress you or match your expectations about how this process has to look.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: Not to dismiss your concerns but I think this is a local phenomenon more than something due to acedemia specifically. I've been in industry for several years and I've seen people who are even lazier than you describe above and others who are some of the most hardworking people I've met.
You should maybe look around at other teams and see if they have a different work ethic that suits you.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Your mistake is to assume that people who are only in the department for a few hours a day are only doing a few hours' work per day. They're probably working at home, too, or in cafes.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Do not fall into the trap of assuming that "Value of work done" is proportional to "Hours spent at a desk".
Some HR departments do think this way, but it's rarely true.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_5: As someone who's done both academic and more routine white-collar work (programming) I can say that academics work a lot, but indeed at odd times, in fact basically always, you are always thinking or writing or reading. But because of the flexibility, it's a lot less tiring than working fewer but more restrictedly fixed hours in a particular office with particular people you have to interact with daily, like in industry. Academia isn't only the life of the mind, but to the extent that it is mind work it can be very flexible but also constantly hanging over your head. Some people take advantage of the lack of supervision and don't get much done, others work too much and hurt themselves, others thrive. Worse, it's hard to even tell if you are thriving because you may produce work no one pays attention to for years, and it may be poor work or it may be that years later all sudden your field takes it up.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: You asked this about academia, but since it compares academia & industry, let me start by answering your question from an industry perspective as an analyst & data engineer as the basic issue seems to be not understanding the differences between what different fields consider "work":
***TLDR;***
In industry, government, or academic work this all comes down to the old saying *"perception is reality"*. If someone has an idea of what *"hard work"* looks like and you don't fit it that person is going to assume you're not working hard and are lazy. No matter how hard your actually working or if you find academic work to be the **most challenging work you've ever done** (after five years in industry and six in government).
Work that doesn't look like work
--------------------------------
*Dmitry's answer covers most of this, so I'll just add the industry example:*
At my first industry job I might be staring at the screen [waiting on it to finish compiling or building](https://xkcd.com/303/). This was common, and I couldn't leave, because I needed to see if there was an error, but I also couldn't really do much until it finished. As an analyst, I now find that is more *waiting on my data analytic programs to finish* or *actually reading the results to see what I can figure out* but essentially - **all of it is work that doesn't look like work**.
Not working a normal 8-5
------------------------
Further, to address these statements:
>
> For instance, I've spoken to professors who say they do most of their work at night -- which, obviously, is impossible in a regular job. But I've observed this getting translated into laziness. People will only come in to the center for 3-4 hours a day, and sometimes not even every day in the week. I also see people often passively sitting on their computers and not really actively doing their work.
>
>
>
That was pretty much my regular schedule as a data engineer (or even when I was a developer just not as often). I'd have weeks where 70% of my job was either done from home or really, really early in the morning (think starting work at 2 to 4 am). This was because to work on the systems we needed *without slowing everyone else down and ensuring it just worked* when people came into work at 8 am - that was the only choice. Then from about 8-10 am, I would just be sitting there watching network traffic, real-time analytics, bug reports, and other trackers we had and if everything was working I'd go home and go to sleep. If it didn't, time to fix stuff.
FYI, while waiting on those reports (to stay awake) **we (IS department) were often accused of just standing around the coffee pot and gossiping for two hours and then leaving**. As people didn't understand the gossip was all work related and us trying to stay awake at the end of a long day.
In academia, some will always assume that you only have to do two lectures a week means you're only working 10 hours a week even if it takes you [4-6 hours to prepare for the lectures](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/103290/how-much-time-should-i-spend-to-prepare-to-teach-a-class) and you then spend another 40 hours on research for your latest paper, grant proposal, theory, data analysis, etc. or work a second job because you're just starting out in the field. Partially if you perform all of these tasks *at home*. Such as when you're only remotely collaborating with peers and have only set a single "stand-up", in person, meeting a week.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Here's an experiment you might try: Next time you see one of those "lazy" instructors staring at the computer screen, ask them how many graduate students they are advising. Then ask if you can read the latest drafts of all the theses and dissertations for each one of those students. Then ask if you can read all the latest drafts of the papers that this professor hopes to see submitted for publication in the next year. And then ask to read all of the papers that were submitted for publication in the past 18 months.
My guess is that you'll be going home with a pretty big sheaf of paper.
Next, you have to read each one of these, not just as a cursory read, and not even to the point of understanding each paper or dissertation. You need to get to a level of familiarity where you could even spot a mistake, a flaw, or an error, because once this research is ultimately presented at a conference, there's a good chance there will be fifty experts in the room trying to do just that.
Now, imagine doing all this while you are teaching one or two classes, grading 30 papers every time there is a homework assignment – hopefully fast enough so that everyone feels like they are getting the timely feedback they deserve.
Better yet, ask if you can be a grader for one of the assignments, so you can get a feel for what it's like to analyze 30 attempts at solving the same set of problems, not only giving credit for each correct answer, but also figuring out where each student took a wrong turn to arrive at an incorrect answer, and giving them the feedback each one will need to learn from their mistake.
Maybe you could offer to be a guest lecturer for one week, too, so that you can see what it's like to learn a subject well enough to stand in front of a classroom and deliver an informative, thorough, 50-minute lecture in an engaging way in front of a couple dozen students, many of whom would rather be doing something else.
I'm guessing that, by the time this experiment is over, you might start to realize there is a whole lot less "laziness" happening on campus than you may have initially speculated.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_8: Some years ago, my mathematician friend and I were talking about a world-famous mathematician we both knew, X, who had moved away from our institution a few years before to take up a prestigious position elsewhere. This happened around the time that X had published a series of groundbreaking papers developing a new and incredibly deep mathematical theory. Later the man would go on to receive many important awards.
My friend told me that his office door used to be a few doors down from X’s office during the time when X was developing his theory. Whenever he walked past X’s office, he said, he would see him there sitting at his computer playing online chess.
When the man got any real work done remains a mystery.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I've worked as a software developer in both private industry and academia. I could tell you all sorts of anecdotes of lazy folks in industry and hardworking academics. I briefly worked at one firm where several employees ran their own businesses on the side during our regular work hours. The PIs I've worked for worked just as hard as the entrepreneurs at the start-ups I've worked at, which is very hard indeed.
I worked in software development at Microsoft in the 90s. At the same time, my spouse was working on their Ph.D. Comparing notes, we were both working about equally hard in terms of hours put in, stress, and fatigue. My work had more time pressure, but my spouse had more responsibility for determining the direction of their research. In some ways the biggest difference was that I was served free soda and espresso every day, and ate catered dinners many nights, while my spouse was having to pay for and prepare her own sandwiches. And of course I was paid 4 times as much as they were.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: The question is difficult in several ways. Although you're not starting with the presupposition that people tend to be lazy in academia, you describe your observations in a way that seems to support this claim. That's okay (and that's probably why you're asking the question in the first place). But consider *where* you are asking this. I mean, let's be honest: You didn't expect responses along the lines of
>
> "Sure, we're all just slackers! Grab one of these cocktails with the tiny umbrellas in them, and join us! Research is far better than *real* work!"
>
>
>
Therefore, the arguments in the answers so far followed the patterns that one could expect as answers (here) to such a question:
* You don't "see" the work, and/or the results are not "tangible" - it's a different *kind* of "work"
* The teaching and preparation of lectures takes a lot of time
* The schedules are odd because you can do some of the "work" at any time and any place
In general: People will tend to justify what they are doing. And as a last resort, one can go down one or the other rabbit hole and start nitpicking about what constitutes "lazy", or what "work" actually means.
Fortunately, there have been some responses from people who worked in academia *and* in the industry. In contrast to people who went the straight "high school - college - PhD - post-doc - tenure" road, they *could*, at least principally, do the comparison that is at the core of the question.
I personally don't have the *direct* comparison, because I've mainly been working in "applied research". So the following may not really be an insightful answer, but rather a truism:
* There are workaholics who are extremely conscientious and industrious and work for 80 hours per week straight, without taking a vacation, until they achieve their personal goal.
* There are lazy slackers with the life goal of sitting in front of a PC with the monitor being arranged in a way that nobody else can see it, in an organization that is large enough so that nobody notices that they are essentially doing nothing.
And you find both sorts of people in academia *and* in the industry. In fact, this has been examined quite extensively: [Price's law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_J._de_Solla_Price#Scientific_contributions) states that the square root of the number of people in an organization is doing half of the work. His work originally referred to academia and the publication count, but has also been applied to companies.
So you'd have a hard time arguing whether academia has a "lazy work culture", or more precisely: whether it has a work culture that is *lazier* than that in the industry. One reason for that is (*not* an argument for any side of the debate, but just) another observation: It's *really* hard to *quantify* academic work. When filling up shelves, standing at an assembly line, or chopping wood, for that matter, you can trivially measure and compare the amount of work that has been done. The more "abstract" the work becomes, the trickier it is to quantify it: Even in the industry, at a certain level of the organizational hierarchy, people are pushing numbers forth and back, trying to quantify the revenue that can be attributed to a manager, and at some point it's certainly impossible to break this down to the individual employee. In academia, there are very few conceivable "key performance indicators" *at all*. (A distressingly common one is "publication count", but we know where *that* one leads...). There are few people in the world who could dare to "quantify" what a certain researcher has achieved, let alone make a profound statement about how much time would have been "appropriate" for that achievement.
(So, subjectively, I wouldn't say that academia has a "lazy work culture" per se. But I'd tend to say: For someone who is lazy, academia makes it *far* easier to get away with it - particularly when the person has tenure. Strongly related: [What happens to unproductive professors?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/132996/86692) )
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_11: I believe there is some merit to your observations, and I can lend some validation as to their sobriety from personal experience in academia. A bottom-line lesson is that *you* bring the drive, intensity, and seriousness with you, that are helpful towards your own process of discovery.
Notably, it requires greater **self-discipline** to work effectively in a less-structured environment than it does to work in a more highly structured one. Consequently, it is natural to find that some slip under the radar of the less-rigorous environment and probably prefer it because they can get by with ease for a time. On the other hand, freedom from the constant pressure of production demands is essential to making ground-breaking progress and toward promoting creativity and mental elasticity. If true principles are discovered and documented during this season of relaxed constraints, the next round of production may be all the more fruitful due to the increased knowledge. I personally believe that all useful work consists of cycles wherein we spend some time in rigorous or intense activity, followed by time that is more relaxed, and that both phases contribute towards our ultimate productivity.
Consider the example of tree rings in nature. During Summer, abundant light and moisture are used to promote fast growth and increase the size and porosity of the tree trunk, facilitating nutrient flow between the roots and branches. During winter, growth is much slower and the accretion is narrower, harder, and usually darker. Trees would not be as strong without the Winter season and the harder, denser wood they build during those times, but they would not be as large or as vigorous or as healthy without the growth that Summer brings.
So research and production are symbiotic. There is a significant precedent in the Biblical commandment to labor six days, and rest every seventh. There is a great deal more we can accomplish by recognizing the cyclical nature of life and by leveraging rest and relaxed times in addition to productivity-driven times, than we can by giving exclusive focus to "getting things done" or to the appearance thereof. A key is to develop and exercise the **discipline** to use each block of time for its ideal purpose. Much of academic work involves taking in new material, working with it and exercising its functions to gain experience, which experience is then searched mentally or visually for connections, patterns and themes, inviting the inspiration that leads to new discoveries.
So in short, expect some bursts of intense activity as you labor through a mathematical problem on the board or hack out a prototype or have an engaging discussion, and also expect times of apparent lull as you immerse yourself deep in thought, searching for the connections you would never find if you were moving too quickly to allow them to come into focus. Move decisively and with energy once you know what to do (but don't wait until you know everything--there are great and important lessons to be learned by moving in a direction you feel is "good" but without sure proof in advance), and also take time often to be still and ponder your next move. Don't forget to eat and sleep, but don't let rest and recreation take over--you must be very alive, active, engaged and serious to bring the best fruit to bear from your research. Enjoy much seriousness, enjoy much laughter. The best discoveries come from the marriage of imagination with hard work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: In short, no. However, I would say that it is often an *inefficient* and poorly organized work environment where people often end up overworking slightly to compensate for the inefficiency. Academia is pretty high up there in terms of being a demanding sphere with a lot of work, but there are worse industries - surgery, finance companies, certain startups can be a lot worse.
Let me touch on some misconceptions in your question:
* Just because you see people there for 3-4 hours a day, doesn't mean they are only working that much. There were times when I would come in to lab at 4 in the afternoon, and it probably looked to other people like I worked only 2 hours as I left at 6 to eat dinner (breakfast for me). However I would end up coming back later and working into the early hours of the morning. (I absolutely do not recommend doing this!) Sometimes you just want to work in peace with few distractions, and so end up working weird times like very early morning, very late evening or weekends. Sometimes you elect to do your big chunk of work on the Saturday instead of Friday, because it doesn't matter when you do it but traffic and parking are a lot better on Saturday.
* Academics sometimes "work" from home, but they often actually work from home. Reading papers, emails, writing papers or applications, grading are all things that can be done anywhere. I don't recommend this - eroding the psychological division between living space and work space has negative consequences for most people, but many do it anyway. Just because they're not *at work* doesn't mean they're not *working*.
* Research, like much creative work, is not a linear process where you can make consistent, incremental gains. It's not like clocking in every day and assembling x widgets, and you get x/y of your quota done. Sometimes you can make great progress by goofing off. Even though breaks seem like a complete distraction from work, your brain still processes things "in the background", and when your break ends you magically "get" much better ideas (in reality, you don't get the ideas, the same idea you've always had just moves from your subconscious to your conscious mind). Rest generally improves the quality of creative/intellectual work as well.
* There is a HUGE variation in how a PI will run their lab. There are PIs who genuinely don't know or care when you show up. There are those that mark the minute you came in and time your lunch breaks like a foreman. There are PIs that will chastise you for working on weekends or after hours, while others [demand it](http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/i-expect-you-to-correct-your-work-ethic.html) (that's an infamous letter and a pretty extreme example, but read that and tell me about "lazy academia"). There are PIs that have strict work-life separation, and then others who get mad if you took more than a couple of hours to answer their email at 3 am on Sunday. While there's a general trend, it is fairly irrelevant because what matters is the particular situation in the group *you* end up in. Yet another excellent reason to carefully consider who to choose as your graduate advisor.
The work culture of academia pervades all levels, but the PhD is a pretty strong early peak. What happens is that you get talented young people, who are very passionate about their work, lack perspective and maturity, have little or no actual work experience, and feel omnipotent because they have just been accepted into the PhD program - the biggest accomplishment of their life (and in their minds, of the world). These people are given enormous freedom in deciding how to structure their time (as a result, many don't). Add the inherent randomness due to working in completely unknown territory, and it creates all sorts of bizarre work styles. Many fail to see the point of doing anything besides their research, so they work till they drop, and then they do drop, then they become horrendously inefficient and just go through the motions as they recover from the burnout, then there's a break in the research or some other serendipity happens which excites them and the cycle repeats.
The "up" part of this cycle feels incredibly productive, but overall it's usually much less efficient than slow and steady work. Almost every person I've known who treated their research like a 9-5 job seemed to do better as a result. There's a saying that a PhD is a marathon, not a sprint. But young folks are always eager to sprint. Of course, in some sense trying to force a regimen on creative work is a futile effort: You either have ideas or don't. You can do some things to make the best use of the ideas you do get (keeping an idea journal, thinking things through, reading relevant papers, talking to colleagues, rotating ideas when some are stuck). But inspiration isn't really obligated to provide you with a good idea no matter how hard you squint at a problem. Sometimes, you just don't see it no matter what you do. And while there are some common ways to boost creativity, ultimately everyone has their own personal "triggers" that work only for them. That said, many academics are very far from that point of diminishing returns from being more organized. Especially for students, it's more a matter of the student having very little notion of real organization or the need for this. Due to the non-profit nature of academia, feedback on efficiency is very subtle and it takes a long time for many to learn it. In the closely allied field of industrial R&D, the feedback is much more direct - the company has a bottom line which imposes some requirement on the researchers to exercise and demonstrate efficiency. Industrial researchers often seem like some of the laziest, least organized workers in the company, but compared to academic counterparts they are much more organized.
In my opinion (based on my own experience) academia is very inefficient. People work a lot, but because the work is not structured well, a lot of their effort is wasted. They accomplish far less (which is still a lot!) than they could have. Part of the reason is lack of fiscal incentives, part is lack of experience and formal training in being organized, part of it is just cultural inertia. What this means for you is that as a prospective PhD student and academic, you should make an effort to be disciplined and organized as much as possible. You will learn the value of these traits whether you like it or not - but you have the option of learning it the easy way rather than the hard way.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_13: I'd like to add a few points that I've not seen in the other answers so far
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This may have a lot to do with the observed laziness.
* Summer is when people go on vacations, which may mean that others who need the vacationers cannot (or do not want to: they may even have promised to wait) go on with certain projects until the other is back.
BTW, this is also true in industry (e.g. closing of some production lines).
* For those who have family, summer is also the time when kindergarden and school are closed for vacations: parents may have to come late/leave early/take days off - basically looking after their kids in shifts with the partner.
The same if not more in industry.
* Summer is right after exam season. When I was working as university researcher, end of the year exams meant that many of us had to do overtime in order to get the corrections of the written exams done, and to take care of the oral exams. Also the labwork practicum protocol corrections had to be finished and marks given.
After that, people may take off the overtime they worked before.
* Research internships are part of the teaching. They usually have a net cost of time for the supervisor of the intern.
Therefore, internships are usually offered at "lazy" times: when few people are around, so noone needs the instruments and there's an office space for the intern. Also, when there is sufficient *free* time to take care of the intern.
You wouldn't (shouldn't) want to be intern as a 2nd year student during times when the group is working really hard.
* (Contrary to this, summer can also be the time to get busy with crazy side projects because the others involved with the main project or are anyways away. Or the others with whom the instruments are shared.)
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> I understand that academia isn't the most "organized" area
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@Trusty has brought up some interesting points how being more organized yourself can help tremendously in research.
That *may* be the case, but IMHO the case isn't that clear:
* I'd say that much of the work I've been doing as researcher that lends itself well to strict organization and structure could actually have been done by a technician or administrative staff. Which would be cheaper macroeconomically but for specialties of academia.
* I'm not sure how such organizational structure correlates/interacts with the creativity needed in research. To formulate it pointedly: is scheduling out-of-the-box thinking from 8 till 9 in the morning a good idea?
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Academic research allows for this flexibility, in contrast to research at governmental institutions or in industry. Thus, people who like that flexibility will tend to accumulate in academia, and people who are not comfortable with others following such flexible schedules will probably tend to leave the academic environment.
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Yes, deciding lazyness vs. efficient work is not easy for an (almost) outsider:
* Some of the most perfectly industrious (actual and visibly) lab work I've been doing, namely, aligning and calibrating instruments when starting measurement series at the same time was necessary and in a higher sense highly inefficient: Without the "academic abuse" these instruments were subject to (read: other researchers working hard), instead of a full realignment and calibration of half a day's work 15 min of measurements to show that it is still aligned and well calibrated would have been sufficient.
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* Yes they may just be lazy. An academic researcher browsing news or totally unrelated youtube videos *can* be lazy just like an industrial worker taking lots of smoking breaks. Just that it's typically a bit more difficult to decide at the first glance whether the academic is lazy or, say, looking up examples for a lecture (other answers have more examples). Like it is with industrial worker who is lazy by going for each tool extra instead of bringing a cart with all or most tools at once. Or adminstrative staff that sends back a form as soon as they find one mistake, and once that is corrected, send it back with the next mistake and so on instead of highlighting all mistakes or possibly even explaining why the form needs to be filled in differently and how.
* I certainly admit to having lazy days.
* However, I've also found that many of the "nothing really productive done at the end of the day" days were quite filled with tons of "tiny" tasks that each took quite a bit longer than I'd like them to take. (Administrative bla, phone calls, answered emails, sort some papers, ...) - that may not be the laziness you refer to, though.
* One more point that makes *seeing* whether a fellow academic is lazy when "not really actively doing their work": part of the academic work is *learning*. In contrast to the undergrad version of learning which uses a textbook that you can study front to back, lots of the learning as a professional takes place by coming across
interesting things that are more or less closely related to your field and then, instead of ignoring them thinking about them. And by coming across questions where answering challenges and then clarifies your mental model. (That's what I'm doing right now, in a meta-way of my actual work)
* There may be an inherent tradeoff: part of the personality that is required to be a good researcher is intense curiosity. However, this curiosity will usually not stop short of what is considered outside your field, and it may make researchers prone to "waste" time reading through the internet (or books/papers/encyclopedias). I personally think that this is all in all good for science. The apparent waste of accumulating "useless" knowledge is just a price we have to pay in order to increase the chance to *have* knowledge that turns out be useful when it is needed. This includes accumulating lots of loosely or unrelated (actually: not yet related) knowledge. At some point there may be something that will trigger "there may be a connection" - and this is what I need that previously "useless" knowledge for.
I may say that after accumulating such knowledge for 10 years, I started to feel efficient in my profession in the sense that for many new problems I come across in my field I can produce an idea where to look for suitable approaches quite fast. Now, after 15 years of professional experience, I'm learning as fast as ever.
* Also, it's often not easy to *see* what level on concentration different tasks require/how tiring they are and in consequence, what recovery is adequate afterwards.
Also applies to industry.
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> the drive, intensity, and seriousness that I see in my romanticized version of the world of academia.
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* Working at the utmost limit of your (intellectual or whatever) capabilities means that you'll need time to recover from that exertion. So we're again back to lazy scientists...
The intensity of work you can keep up for 8 almost consecutive hours every day will be just middling compared to what is possible for shorter times with appropriate breaks in between.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/07/26
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<issue_start>username_0: I just received an email from a student from a distant country, asking me to accept him as a Ph.D. student. I do not know this person, his advisors, his references or even the university he studied in.
His master's thesis looks good at first glance, but I cannot be sure since it is not in my field. He still wants to do Ph.D. research in my field.
I asked him to send me some refereed publications, but he replied that he has none yet, and then asked me to give him some work by which his application can be assessed.
I am very unsure about this - I am afraid to get stuck with a bad student that takes too much time to supervise. On the other hand, I do not want to block him entirely. So my plan is to give him an open problem that I and some colleagues tried to solve in the past but failed. If he fails and gives up, then he will have to look for another advisor;
if he does manage to solve the open problem, then I will be more than happy to be his Ph.D. advisor, and his solution will be a part of his thesis.
My reservation about this plan is that it might be unethical/unprofessional to give him such a difficult problem to start with. But, he asked for it, and of course he is not obliged to take it if he does not want to.
Is this plan reasonable? Is there a better plan?
UPDATE: based on the answers, I changed the plan as follows: (a) referred the student to register through my university's system; (b) asked the student what papers he has read on my research field, and what ideas he has for extending them; (c) Based on the student's answer, I decided on a research problem that was not solved yet in a publication, but for which I already thought of a solution, so that I can guide the student in case he gets stuck; (d) scheduled a video call. My plan is to start working together remotely in parallel to the registration process, and see how it goes.
Thanks a lot for all the insights and ideas!<issue_comment>username_1: If the prospective student cannot realistically solve the problem - and it certainly seems so given that you + some colleagues couldn't solve it - then it does seem unprofessional to me. One could easily interpret your reply as a soft rejection, except it's dressed up to give the student some hope. Ambiguous signals are bad (just see how many literary plots involve one party in a romantic relationship giving ambiguous signals to the other).
I suggest instead using a problem which has already been solved, but the solution is not trivial. For example, you could take an exam question from a Masters-level course related to the student's field. The student should be able to solve it, although it will take effort. You can then assess how good the student is against the other students in the course. Alternatively, you could set some minor problem that will nonetheless need to be solved before a bigger one can be attacked. For example, "write a C++ program that numerically solves [this differential equation]" is not going to be easy, but if the student is able to do it, then you can maybe use that program on his thesis topic.
I'd avoid asking for something that takes more than several hours to do. The student is likely to be applying elsewhere as well, and it's not fair to expect him to sink a lot of time into one application.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would tell them what you expect from a PhD student: prove theorems/run empirical tests/conduct human studies or all the above. If their profile is a clear mismatch, I wouldn’t bother.
I would next ask them to review two papers of their choice out of your recent publications. One page review each. The review should include at least one idea for future directions. It tells you whether they’re serious, what they want to work on, and whether they can reason about ideas in your field. It also guarantees that the problem is at least somewhat tractable (you’ve solved it after all).
If you’re happy with the write ups, schedule a video interview. You both are committing to 4+ years together, best to make sure you can discuss things together.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: From the information you have in your OP, you don't know *anything at all* about this person.
Anybody can make up a plausible looking story about an unknown university, and take of copy of someone else's thesis, change a few names on the front pages, and pass it off as their own. Don't be naïve enough to think nobody would be so stupid as to try such a thing in real life.
Interviewing job applicants in industry who (allegedly) have at least bachelor's degrees, we now give ALL candidates the following simple test:
They are taken to an empty room, given some paper and a pen, and asked to spend 15 minutes writing a one-page summary of their CV, and a statement of what post they are applying for and why.
Believe it or not, some of them can't accomplish that task. And some who can at least remember what was on their professional-looking application are incapable of writing a simple English sentence with reasonably correct spelling and grammar.
Personally, I would just file this application in the trash and forget about it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: There are two separate issues involved in the discussion to this point:
* How a faculty member should respond to a student who emails them directly asking about graduate studies
* How to evaluate the credentials of a potential graduate student
Your question is a conflation of the two issues. But I will answer the first issue by saying what I do in these cases: I write them back with polite encouragement to officially apply to our graduate program, including the link to my department's admissions web page. And then I forget I ever got the email (unless something during the admissions process reminds me of it).
I don't see any point in trying to evaluate somebody from an email when there is a perfectly serviceable mechanism for gathering information on all applicants and evaluating them systematically.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: One strategy is to query the student as to what *specific* part of your research program is of interest to him/her, and in what way is this student prepared for this kind of work, including papers (by you or others) or textbooks read on this topic.
As the path of least work is for the student not to read anything and move to a less inquisitive prospective supervisor, this should be enough to sieve however coarsely interested applicants from the “truly random” ones. It is also a nice way to start to build a picture of the candidate as follow up questions can enlarge the discussion to cover background preparation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: There are an awful lot of very fine but disadvantaged students out there who just don't have any good network to connect them into good schools. I know some excellent folks who are now top professors and researchers only because somebody decided to respond to their "out of the blue" email.
Unfortunately, there are also vastly more mediocre or terrible students who will do nothing but waste your time. Moreover, these students are over-represented in perception because they email many more people than the good ones. Even just responding to their emails is usually a waste of time.
So how do I decide if a student who writes to me is likely to be worth responding to? Simple: did they write to *me*, or did they just write to an authority figure who might be able to help them? Some heuristics that I find helpful in telling the difference:
* Does the student talk about me at all, or just about themselves?
* Does the student show some familiarity with my work beyond just the title of a paper or two?
* Does the student explain *how* their interests may relate to mine?
* Does the student have some vaguely plausible ideas about what sort of work they would want to do together with me?
If a communication passes all of these tests, then it shows that the person has spent some real time to think about this communication and that there is some real reason that there might be a potential match. It's an honest signal of effort that has been invested, and that's a big deal, because it means they're writing to *me* and not just a list of ten thousand people with Ph.D.s.
Now, this doesn't actually tell you if the student is actually any good or not---for that, things like the tests that others suggest are not a bad thing to do. But this start gives some signals that seem to be fairly reliable in helping me distinguish between "application spammers" and potentially serious candidates to work with.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: Be wary. This could be a con aiming at getting a study visa. They apply for PhD courses, get accepted, get a visa and you'll never see them again.
Due diligence is required.
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> just received an email from a student from a distant country asking me to accept him as a Ph.D. student.
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So far so normal.
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> I do not know this person, his advisors, his references or even the university he studied in.
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If you don't know his university why are you even considering this ? At the very least you should be seeing an accredited university (something that's easy to check). Not seeing this, don't go any further and forget it.
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> Advisors and references
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These should be available to check at the university. If you can find the university (!) but can't get in touch with these advisors or references (or they're not at the university) then it's a con ((or very likely one) and you just forget this.
Note : private emails and phone numbers should not be accepted. You need email addresses and phone numbers from within the university.
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> my plan is to give him an open problem that I and some colleagues tried to solve in the past but failed. If he fails and gives up, then he will have to look for another advisor; if he does manage to solve the open problem, then I will be more than happy to be his Ph.D. advisor,
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Ridiculous.
You and your colleagues (all better qualified) can't solve the problem but you expect a prospective PhD candidate to do better ? This is just setting someone up to fail. Why waste their time ?
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> My reservation about this plan is that it might be unethical/unprofessional to give him such a difficult problem to start with.
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Difficult ??? It's *impossible* as far as *you're* concerned - you can't even solve it yourself !
How would you feel if someone did that to you ?
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Give a fair but difficult test if you must, but one you at least know the solution (and a reasonable time frame for it to be solved in). This (like any test) will let you judge their competence. You cannot judge their competence if you have no idea how to solve the problem yourself or how long it should reasonably take.
However I would not give a test until you have verified the university, references and advisors and confirmed they exist and know the student.
Remember : accredited third level institutes or you could end up with a fake university telling you everything is OK.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: tl;dr : Your plan's no good; do other things instead.
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> I do not know... his advisors, his references or even the university he studied in.
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Then take a short while to read up on who those people are. Now, ok, if they're in art history and you're in chemical engineering, maybe you shouldn't bother, but I'm assuming there's at least some overlap between your applicant's former field of study and yours.
You could also consult colleagues of yours who are closer to that field, to get a basic opinion of that university and his advisors/references.
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> His master's thesis looks good at first glance, but I cannot be sure since it is not in my field. He still wants to do Ph.D. research in my field.
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If he wants to switch to your field, he probably has some idea of what he wants to work on (not necessarily true but likely). Assuming that's the case, I'd consider having a remote audio or even video talk with him, to tell you about some specifics of his own interest and why he decided to approach you to be his advisor.
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> I asked him to send me some refereed publications, but he replied that he has none yet,
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So, he just wrote a thesis but nothing was submitted anywhere? Or - did he submit somewhere but nothing's been accepted yet? If it's the latter, as for a draft and promise you will read it in confidence.
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That is a bit of a weird request, although understandable if he's legit. **Here's an idea:** You probably teach some course in your field of research, no equivalent of which he has taken so far, being from another field. Give him some reading material, then finally when he says he's ready - a homework assignment from that course, with a limited amount of time for submitting it. Hopefully he would not be able to "cheat" effectively, or at all; and it would not be too hard; and maybe it'll help you see what his thought process is like
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> I am very unsure about this - I am afraid to get stuck with a bad student that takes too much time to supervise.
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Hey, hey, you haven't committed to anything yet...
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> So my plan is to give him an open problem that I and some colleagues tried to solve in the past but failed.
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**Terrible plan.** Even a legit Ph.D. candidate would likely fail. And if he resolves an open problem that even domain experts have not been able to crack - then he doesn't need much of your supervision, now does he? I'll chalk this one up to you being an inexperienced faculty member.
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> But, he asked for it,
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He asked for something to prove his worth as a green *candidate*, not as an independent resolver of open research problems.
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Very weak argument my friend...
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> Is this plan reasonable? Is there a better plan?
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Not reasonable. Try the plan after the phrase "here's an idea" above. After doing that, consider inviting him for a visit, with him preparing a talk on the connections between your field and his old field (assuming one exists) for your research group or other such forum of people. That would be an opportunity to get to know him better. If you can, consider funding the visit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Yes, this is reasonable and ethical, **if** you are willing to give serious consideration to an attempt at the problem that attains a standard manifestly commensurate with what you would require of a PhD student upon entry. Setting a very difficult problem/task can, framed properly, be a constructive method of assessing someone's capability and commitment, as long as you take interest in the journey/method rather than the result.
Tell the candidate that you do not necessarily expect him/her to be able to deliver a solution, but you want to see what he/she can do with the problem. You may want to set a deadline (I can see arguments both ways on whether to make it subject to a deadline or open-ended). Ask him/her to send you his/her worked-out attempts, and then schedule a video interview to discuss them (the latter part is important, to verify that the attempt is the candidate's genuine work).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I'm assuming this is a European thing for students to just cold-call professors about PhD programs. In North America, you go to the university's website and fill out the application. Of course, having prior contact with interested faculty is encouraged and sometimes can be required, but the professor is not expected to make any decision not contingent on the student actually receiving an admit.
The admission committee is supposed to take care of them "materializing out of thin air". They come up with standardized admission processes so that all applicants can be judged fairly, the best talent is attracted, that admitted applicants have the best fit and that they have the best odds of success. In exceptional cases (such as students who doesn't have requisite degrees from accredited universities) they can provide alternative means of verifying the student's eligibility, or make the judgment call that students who cannot satisfy the standardized requirements cannot apply.
I would suggest you not circumvent the admission committee by inventing your own ad-hoc application process just for this student. For one, the adcom might not appreciate it. Besides, there's a reason the current application systems exist.
Collaborating with this student, or giving him homework, is up to you. This should be done in the context of general edification of the student, rather than as in exchange of guaranteed admission (do you even have the power to give that guarantee?). You can say:
* "Here's a problem we're working on, solve it with me and you can be co-author/acknowledgee".
* "Here's some open problems in the field that are appropriate for you, solve them and you can publish on your own".
* "I will pay you $x/hr to work on this problem for me, contract is attached".
* "I volunteer to educate you, here is some homework that I will check for you, and also help you on if you get stuck".
* "I volunteer to counsel you on your career, here are some books you should read and some topics you should learn, you can come ask me again about what to learn next"
You can choose from these depending on whether your goal is to actually collaborate and produce novel research, or if you are trying to selflessly help a disadvantaged student. Or if you are unwilling to commit any time, you can simply encourage him to check out the application instructions, and offer to answer any specific questions about the department and program/application process.
If you choose to associate with this student in the future, I suggest that you do this in the context of work that is itself beneficial to him. For example, if you give him a research problem, and he solves it, he can publish it. Don't make it so the main pay off is that if he gets admitted to your university's PhD program, he can become your student - then if he fails to be admitted, he has gotten no payoff for his work. Besides, once he does the work, maybe he will decide he wants to apply to *other PhD programs*. Or maybe he will dislike working with you and apply to your program, but seek other advisors. Creating a commitment to become your student seems a bit unethical and not really worth it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: You could as well request for his CV, then look into whatever you might be interested in from his background knowledge or something he has done before to have an idea into something he would like to do.
Then request a research proposal on any of two (or more) areas/topics that he is likely to have some basic familiarity with.
Access the proposal and you can ask him questions from the proposal via a Skype interview (as some others have suggested). That I think is a reasonable test of sincerity.
You might also need to ask about what motivates him most to do a Ph.D. and what he thinks a Ph.D. is like. Those things would hopefully give a clearer picture of who you would be likely working with.
Finally, you could seek to know two/three of those who have taught/supervised him in the past, then seek their opinion on his character and his level of dedication.
So many people "come from thin air" and publish very good contributions in prestigious venues. Peoples sincerity, dedication, background knowledge, interests, skills, and willingness to learn I think matters a lot in such circumstances.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: I know there are many answers to this question, and there is likely overlaps in my answer and others' but I hope to give a different perspective.
I suggest you look at it from a different angle, instead of trying to validate the university and courses and degree, try to validate the "interest". It is not feasible for you or anyone to know all credible universities all over the world. It is however very feasible to discern a dedicated and well-informed candidate from a boilerplate application.
Some useful questions to ask might be:
* "*Why do you want to work with me/us?*" - This question a lot of sense to see if the student has spent any thought on what working in your lab would give. It is especially relevant if, as you say, your current field is not immediately similar to the student's. I would say that if the answer is focused **solely** on how awesome your lab is or what the student has to gain by working with you, it's likely because the student just looked up some names and labs online, and applied to all/most. If on the other hand the student goes in to detail about your work, and **why s/he finds it inspiring**, you can get a better feel for if the student understands the key concepts in the field and has a "good-enough" prior knowledge. I feel people that have a good grasp of what they are interested in show that by their choice of words, and amount of detail they are comfortable getting into.
* "*What are your expectations for doing a PhD in my group?*" - This is a twist on the previous question, by asking for what the student has for expectations, you can see if the student is **actually well-informed** about your current (not past) research, what type of a project the student is looking forward to work on. This question also has an additional benefit of checking if the student has **realistic expectations** for doing a PhD, for example with respect to amount of supervision, publications, conferences and courses, teamwork etc... Regardless of the level of prior knowledge, getting expectations aligned would be super helpful in mitigating future frustrations both on your part and for the prospective student.
* "*What would you like to work with, if you start in my group?*" - Ask the student to pitch a project proposal. As I mentioned in the first point, by getting the student to elaborate on his/her goals you can see if they actually have a good enough grasp of the field. In order to avoid any kind of fraud, follow up on the project proposal with a skype interview. Ask follow-up questions on wherever the reasoning is "thin".
Obviously, my answer implies in taking some time into digging into the students intentions. If you feel like you don't want to invest the time to figure out if the student's interest is legit (which is fair enough since time is money) I suggest you politely decline rather than throwing tests at the student to see if s/he impresses you.
That approach is not entirely fair since if the student was capable of solving problems interesting enough for the field, it would be silly to apply for a PhD in the first place. A PhD student is supposed to be a student, learning to do science, not cheap labor for research groups produce results.
Hope that helps, or at least provides some insights
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: You will get more of these e-mails than the number of students that you are able to supervise. So, you should compare potential students to one another. It is likely that your university/department has a PhD application process; if so, refer the students to it (and then read the applications obviously!).
Also, talk to your colleagues --- they have more experience with the PhD admissions than you do.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: In most of the European Universities I know, research groups are created from the equivalent of Assistant Professors and the Principal Investigator is voted in some sort of election, where there are elections every 2/4 years. In groups with such profile I have usually seen that scientific output is low and that most of these members are not really motivated to do research and are only affiliated to these groups for CV and promotion purposes. But this is of course my personal experience, I do not state this is always like this. From the other side I know other groups that are created from scratch from somebody with a very good CV, who has a vision and ambition, and who gets all research group members not from Department colleagues but from funding he/she attracts. All group research lines are derived from her/his experience and CV and scientific output in this case and according to my experience, tends to be high. Based on your personal experience or factual evidences, what is the most optimal configuration for a new research group, the former or the latter or do you think there are other different configurations?<issue_comment>username_1: If the prospective student cannot realistically solve the problem - and it certainly seems so given that you + some colleagues couldn't solve it - then it does seem unprofessional to me. One could easily interpret your reply as a soft rejection, except it's dressed up to give the student some hope. Ambiguous signals are bad (just see how many literary plots involve one party in a romantic relationship giving ambiguous signals to the other).
I suggest instead using a problem which has already been solved, but the solution is not trivial. For example, you could take an exam question from a Masters-level course related to the student's field. The student should be able to solve it, although it will take effort. You can then assess how good the student is against the other students in the course. Alternatively, you could set some minor problem that will nonetheless need to be solved before a bigger one can be attacked. For example, "write a C++ program that numerically solves [this differential equation]" is not going to be easy, but if the student is able to do it, then you can maybe use that program on his thesis topic.
I'd avoid asking for something that takes more than several hours to do. The student is likely to be applying elsewhere as well, and it's not fair to expect him to sink a lot of time into one application.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would tell them what you expect from a PhD student: prove theorems/run empirical tests/conduct human studies or all the above. If their profile is a clear mismatch, I wouldn’t bother.
I would next ask them to review two papers of their choice out of your recent publications. One page review each. The review should include at least one idea for future directions. It tells you whether they’re serious, what they want to work on, and whether they can reason about ideas in your field. It also guarantees that the problem is at least somewhat tractable (you’ve solved it after all).
If you’re happy with the write ups, schedule a video interview. You both are committing to 4+ years together, best to make sure you can discuss things together.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: From the information you have in your OP, you don't know *anything at all* about this person.
Anybody can make up a plausible looking story about an unknown university, and take of copy of someone else's thesis, change a few names on the front pages, and pass it off as their own. Don't be naïve enough to think nobody would be so stupid as to try such a thing in real life.
Interviewing job applicants in industry who (allegedly) have at least bachelor's degrees, we now give ALL candidates the following simple test:
They are taken to an empty room, given some paper and a pen, and asked to spend 15 minutes writing a one-page summary of their CV, and a statement of what post they are applying for and why.
Believe it or not, some of them can't accomplish that task. And some who can at least remember what was on their professional-looking application are incapable of writing a simple English sentence with reasonably correct spelling and grammar.
Personally, I would just file this application in the trash and forget about it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: There are two separate issues involved in the discussion to this point:
* How a faculty member should respond to a student who emails them directly asking about graduate studies
* How to evaluate the credentials of a potential graduate student
Your question is a conflation of the two issues. But I will answer the first issue by saying what I do in these cases: I write them back with polite encouragement to officially apply to our graduate program, including the link to my department's admissions web page. And then I forget I ever got the email (unless something during the admissions process reminds me of it).
I don't see any point in trying to evaluate somebody from an email when there is a perfectly serviceable mechanism for gathering information on all applicants and evaluating them systematically.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: One strategy is to query the student as to what *specific* part of your research program is of interest to him/her, and in what way is this student prepared for this kind of work, including papers (by you or others) or textbooks read on this topic.
As the path of least work is for the student not to read anything and move to a less inquisitive prospective supervisor, this should be enough to sieve however coarsely interested applicants from the “truly random” ones. It is also a nice way to start to build a picture of the candidate as follow up questions can enlarge the discussion to cover background preparation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: There are an awful lot of very fine but disadvantaged students out there who just don't have any good network to connect them into good schools. I know some excellent folks who are now top professors and researchers only because somebody decided to respond to their "out of the blue" email.
Unfortunately, there are also vastly more mediocre or terrible students who will do nothing but waste your time. Moreover, these students are over-represented in perception because they email many more people than the good ones. Even just responding to their emails is usually a waste of time.
So how do I decide if a student who writes to me is likely to be worth responding to? Simple: did they write to *me*, or did they just write to an authority figure who might be able to help them? Some heuristics that I find helpful in telling the difference:
* Does the student talk about me at all, or just about themselves?
* Does the student show some familiarity with my work beyond just the title of a paper or two?
* Does the student explain *how* their interests may relate to mine?
* Does the student have some vaguely plausible ideas about what sort of work they would want to do together with me?
If a communication passes all of these tests, then it shows that the person has spent some real time to think about this communication and that there is some real reason that there might be a potential match. It's an honest signal of effort that has been invested, and that's a big deal, because it means they're writing to *me* and not just a list of ten thousand people with Ph.D.s.
Now, this doesn't actually tell you if the student is actually any good or not---for that, things like the tests that others suggest are not a bad thing to do. But this start gives some signals that seem to be fairly reliable in helping me distinguish between "application spammers" and potentially serious candidates to work with.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: Be wary. This could be a con aiming at getting a study visa. They apply for PhD courses, get accepted, get a visa and you'll never see them again.
Due diligence is required.
>
> just received an email from a student from a distant country asking me to accept him as a Ph.D. student.
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So far so normal.
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> I do not know this person, his advisors, his references or even the university he studied in.
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If you don't know his university why are you even considering this ? At the very least you should be seeing an accredited university (something that's easy to check). Not seeing this, don't go any further and forget it.
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> Advisors and references
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These should be available to check at the university. If you can find the university (!) but can't get in touch with these advisors or references (or they're not at the university) then it's a con ((or very likely one) and you just forget this.
Note : private emails and phone numbers should not be accepted. You need email addresses and phone numbers from within the university.
>
> my plan is to give him an open problem that I and some colleagues tried to solve in the past but failed. If he fails and gives up, then he will have to look for another advisor; if he does manage to solve the open problem, then I will be more than happy to be his Ph.D. advisor,
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Ridiculous.
You and your colleagues (all better qualified) can't solve the problem but you expect a prospective PhD candidate to do better ? This is just setting someone up to fail. Why waste their time ?
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> My reservation about this plan is that it might be unethical/unprofessional to give him such a difficult problem to start with.
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Difficult ??? It's *impossible* as far as *you're* concerned - you can't even solve it yourself !
How would you feel if someone did that to you ?
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> Is there a better plan?
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Give a fair but difficult test if you must, but one you at least know the solution (and a reasonable time frame for it to be solved in). This (like any test) will let you judge their competence. You cannot judge their competence if you have no idea how to solve the problem yourself or how long it should reasonably take.
However I would not give a test until you have verified the university, references and advisors and confirmed they exist and know the student.
Remember : accredited third level institutes or you could end up with a fake university telling you everything is OK.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: tl;dr : Your plan's no good; do other things instead.
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> I do not know... his advisors, his references or even the university he studied in.
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Then take a short while to read up on who those people are. Now, ok, if they're in art history and you're in chemical engineering, maybe you shouldn't bother, but I'm assuming there's at least some overlap between your applicant's former field of study and yours.
You could also consult colleagues of yours who are closer to that field, to get a basic opinion of that university and his advisors/references.
>
> His master's thesis looks good at first glance, but I cannot be sure since it is not in my field. He still wants to do Ph.D. research in my field.
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If he wants to switch to your field, he probably has some idea of what he wants to work on (not necessarily true but likely). Assuming that's the case, I'd consider having a remote audio or even video talk with him, to tell you about some specifics of his own interest and why he decided to approach you to be his advisor.
>
> I asked him to send me some refereed publications, but he replied that he has none yet,
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So, he just wrote a thesis but nothing was submitted anywhere? Or - did he submit somewhere but nothing's been accepted yet? If it's the latter, as for a draft and promise you will read it in confidence.
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> and then asked me to give him some work by which his application can be assessed.
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That is a bit of a weird request, although understandable if he's legit. **Here's an idea:** You probably teach some course in your field of research, no equivalent of which he has taken so far, being from another field. Give him some reading material, then finally when he says he's ready - a homework assignment from that course, with a limited amount of time for submitting it. Hopefully he would not be able to "cheat" effectively, or at all; and it would not be too hard; and maybe it'll help you see what his thought process is like
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> I am very unsure about this - I am afraid to get stuck with a bad student that takes too much time to supervise.
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Hey, hey, you haven't committed to anything yet...
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> So my plan is to give him an open problem that I and some colleagues tried to solve in the past but failed.
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**Terrible plan.** Even a legit Ph.D. candidate would likely fail. And if he resolves an open problem that even domain experts have not been able to crack - then he doesn't need much of your supervision, now does he? I'll chalk this one up to you being an inexperienced faculty member.
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> But, he asked for it,
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He asked for something to prove his worth as a green *candidate*, not as an independent resolver of open research problems.
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> and of course he is not obliged to take it if he does not want to.
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Very weak argument my friend...
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> Is this plan reasonable? Is there a better plan?
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Not reasonable. Try the plan after the phrase "here's an idea" above. After doing that, consider inviting him for a visit, with him preparing a talk on the connections between your field and his old field (assuming one exists) for your research group or other such forum of people. That would be an opportunity to get to know him better. If you can, consider funding the visit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Yes, this is reasonable and ethical, **if** you are willing to give serious consideration to an attempt at the problem that attains a standard manifestly commensurate with what you would require of a PhD student upon entry. Setting a very difficult problem/task can, framed properly, be a constructive method of assessing someone's capability and commitment, as long as you take interest in the journey/method rather than the result.
Tell the candidate that you do not necessarily expect him/her to be able to deliver a solution, but you want to see what he/she can do with the problem. You may want to set a deadline (I can see arguments both ways on whether to make it subject to a deadline or open-ended). Ask him/her to send you his/her worked-out attempts, and then schedule a video interview to discuss them (the latter part is important, to verify that the attempt is the candidate's genuine work).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I'm assuming this is a European thing for students to just cold-call professors about PhD programs. In North America, you go to the university's website and fill out the application. Of course, having prior contact with interested faculty is encouraged and sometimes can be required, but the professor is not expected to make any decision not contingent on the student actually receiving an admit.
The admission committee is supposed to take care of them "materializing out of thin air". They come up with standardized admission processes so that all applicants can be judged fairly, the best talent is attracted, that admitted applicants have the best fit and that they have the best odds of success. In exceptional cases (such as students who doesn't have requisite degrees from accredited universities) they can provide alternative means of verifying the student's eligibility, or make the judgment call that students who cannot satisfy the standardized requirements cannot apply.
I would suggest you not circumvent the admission committee by inventing your own ad-hoc application process just for this student. For one, the adcom might not appreciate it. Besides, there's a reason the current application systems exist.
Collaborating with this student, or giving him homework, is up to you. This should be done in the context of general edification of the student, rather than as in exchange of guaranteed admission (do you even have the power to give that guarantee?). You can say:
* "Here's a problem we're working on, solve it with me and you can be co-author/acknowledgee".
* "Here's some open problems in the field that are appropriate for you, solve them and you can publish on your own".
* "I will pay you $x/hr to work on this problem for me, contract is attached".
* "I volunteer to educate you, here is some homework that I will check for you, and also help you on if you get stuck".
* "I volunteer to counsel you on your career, here are some books you should read and some topics you should learn, you can come ask me again about what to learn next"
You can choose from these depending on whether your goal is to actually collaborate and produce novel research, or if you are trying to selflessly help a disadvantaged student. Or if you are unwilling to commit any time, you can simply encourage him to check out the application instructions, and offer to answer any specific questions about the department and program/application process.
If you choose to associate with this student in the future, I suggest that you do this in the context of work that is itself beneficial to him. For example, if you give him a research problem, and he solves it, he can publish it. Don't make it so the main pay off is that if he gets admitted to your university's PhD program, he can become your student - then if he fails to be admitted, he has gotten no payoff for his work. Besides, once he does the work, maybe he will decide he wants to apply to *other PhD programs*. Or maybe he will dislike working with you and apply to your program, but seek other advisors. Creating a commitment to become your student seems a bit unethical and not really worth it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: You could as well request for his CV, then look into whatever you might be interested in from his background knowledge or something he has done before to have an idea into something he would like to do.
Then request a research proposal on any of two (or more) areas/topics that he is likely to have some basic familiarity with.
Access the proposal and you can ask him questions from the proposal via a Skype interview (as some others have suggested). That I think is a reasonable test of sincerity.
You might also need to ask about what motivates him most to do a Ph.D. and what he thinks a Ph.D. is like. Those things would hopefully give a clearer picture of who you would be likely working with.
Finally, you could seek to know two/three of those who have taught/supervised him in the past, then seek their opinion on his character and his level of dedication.
So many people "come from thin air" and publish very good contributions in prestigious venues. Peoples sincerity, dedication, background knowledge, interests, skills, and willingness to learn I think matters a lot in such circumstances.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: I know there are many answers to this question, and there is likely overlaps in my answer and others' but I hope to give a different perspective.
I suggest you look at it from a different angle, instead of trying to validate the university and courses and degree, try to validate the "interest". It is not feasible for you or anyone to know all credible universities all over the world. It is however very feasible to discern a dedicated and well-informed candidate from a boilerplate application.
Some useful questions to ask might be:
* "*Why do you want to work with me/us?*" - This question a lot of sense to see if the student has spent any thought on what working in your lab would give. It is especially relevant if, as you say, your current field is not immediately similar to the student's. I would say that if the answer is focused **solely** on how awesome your lab is or what the student has to gain by working with you, it's likely because the student just looked up some names and labs online, and applied to all/most. If on the other hand the student goes in to detail about your work, and **why s/he finds it inspiring**, you can get a better feel for if the student understands the key concepts in the field and has a "good-enough" prior knowledge. I feel people that have a good grasp of what they are interested in show that by their choice of words, and amount of detail they are comfortable getting into.
* "*What are your expectations for doing a PhD in my group?*" - This is a twist on the previous question, by asking for what the student has for expectations, you can see if the student is **actually well-informed** about your current (not past) research, what type of a project the student is looking forward to work on. This question also has an additional benefit of checking if the student has **realistic expectations** for doing a PhD, for example with respect to amount of supervision, publications, conferences and courses, teamwork etc... Regardless of the level of prior knowledge, getting expectations aligned would be super helpful in mitigating future frustrations both on your part and for the prospective student.
* "*What would you like to work with, if you start in my group?*" - Ask the student to pitch a project proposal. As I mentioned in the first point, by getting the student to elaborate on his/her goals you can see if they actually have a good enough grasp of the field. In order to avoid any kind of fraud, follow up on the project proposal with a skype interview. Ask follow-up questions on wherever the reasoning is "thin".
Obviously, my answer implies in taking some time into digging into the students intentions. If you feel like you don't want to invest the time to figure out if the student's interest is legit (which is fair enough since time is money) I suggest you politely decline rather than throwing tests at the student to see if s/he impresses you.
That approach is not entirely fair since if the student was capable of solving problems interesting enough for the field, it would be silly to apply for a PhD in the first place. A PhD student is supposed to be a student, learning to do science, not cheap labor for research groups produce results.
Hope that helps, or at least provides some insights
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: You will get more of these e-mails than the number of students that you are able to supervise. So, you should compare potential students to one another. It is likely that your university/department has a PhD application process; if so, refer the students to it (and then read the applications obviously!).
Also, talk to your colleagues --- they have more experience with the PhD admissions than you do.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Publish...Publish, I am worried about publications as I don't have any yet, I just have few in masters, but was not a good quality, now in Ph.D., I am working on a new topic and to get a significant and validated results it takes times, I focused on developing a model that could really explain the phenomena which are not explained yet by any researchers.
However, as I am apart of the project, all other members are getting papers so fast and every meeting they mention, how their methods are great, I feel low and less confident, maybe I am stupid as I take time.
According to the current situation, I didn't do any success which I think my career in academia is impossible, as I see all successful researchers have tons and tons of citations.
I don't know if I should give up, I bring this to my supervisor, however, he does not care so much, he is not recognized in the field, so it is not a big deal.
I am serious, feel low and lost because of the high competition and I did not have even one good paper yet.
Should I wait or withdraw from Ph.D., I really like research and my topic, what you recommend me to do in that case?
P.S. I am also getting psychotherapy as I am suffering from terrible OCD because of the past experience, I am doing my utter best and fight, but no one knows that in my lab. I am also so ambitious and hard worker, but not intelligent enough as peers that's why I am asking whether I am wasting time in the wrong direction maybe.<issue_comment>username_1: Until your supervisor starts worrying, I wouldn't start worrying. Pure paper count isn't the best measure because some topics yield more papers and others much less. For example 2018 Nobel Laureate in Physiology & Medicine, [<NAME>](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Vq6NVkAAAAAJ&hl=en), has a h-index of 127. Meanwhile 2018 Nobel Laureate in Economics [<NAME>](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b5oj894AAAAJ&hl=en) has a h-index of 49. This doesn't mean <NAME> is 3x more accomplished than <NAME>; it just means they're from different fields. In the same way even if your labmate has published 3 papers and you have zero, it doesn't mean they're 3x as capable as you.
Your supervisor knows what is expected of a PhD student at your university. If you are performing badly, he/she will let you know (or it will come up during a performance review). Until that happens, it's not time to start worrying.
If you are *really* concerned, you can ask your supervisor if you're making expected progress, or ask him/her to set some targets for you to strive for.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Start writing a paper. Focus your efforts towards publication. If you want to have your options for after the PhD, publish as early as possible. And do not expect your supervisor to be the one who calls for action.
Do not give up, go for more.
You maybe could join research seminars, hopefully, available at your University, about how to publish, so you can start giving yourself a good and real idea of how is the process of publishing. It is not about who is the smartest or about luck, it is about a process that sometimes we are not exposed to, so we have no idea how to accomplish but has nothing do to with your intellectual capabilities which there is no doubt you have, for this indeed if it was not the case, your supervisor would have already told you.
But for the publishing part, take the ownership of the process and start writing.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: A question you might ask yourself: Do you really need to have publications for your goals? (If it is not a requirement for your phd or supervisor or if you don't want to stay in academia, maybe you don't need any.) If no, you can just work on your big project (if your supervisor is fine with it) and relax a little bit! Often the people who publish a lot are under a lot of pressure because they want to stay in academia, whereas many PhD students who know they will leave academia can enjoy their research and live a good work-life-balance.
If your big project works out, you have good material for a publication -- if not, well then at least you tried!
Don't make your happiness dependent on other people (or their success)!
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I did really well at school except for the final exams where I got terrible grades. Thoughout the years, my grades were above average but I got terrible grades in my finals(which count for 50% in my country) and that caused me to get a GPA of 2.4.
Should my math teacher talk about how/why i got bad grades in my finals? It's quite clear that I almost failed because of those grades but it's also quite clear that I was an A student before those grades.
If he doesn't talk about my math abilities(or disabilities) then what should he talk about?
Please help me, I need to send this letter next week<issue_comment>username_1: Your advisor might be limited by local law about what s/he may say about your grades. But they can probably say that your grades don't completely reflect your abilities and then comment on those abilities. But, IMO, a too-detailed letter won't serve you as well as one that is more general and speaks about your abilities. If they focus on the positive then it should serve you better, I think.
However, if you have difficulty in exams you should find a way to work on that. Perhaps it is just ineffective studying. Cramming is a poor way to learn, if that is it. Taking and reviewing better notes throughout the course is a much better way to learn.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: When students ask me for a recommendation letter, I often ask them to send me a resume and a bullet-point list of their academic and other accomplishments. For students who have been affected adversely by reasons of finance, family, or other issues, I ask them to include those as well. Assuming this is the case for your final exam performance, you should note this as well. If you have not sent over this material as a "refresher" for your professor, you should feel welcome to do so.
As a matter of etiquette, please do not request that the professor exclude what you might find as a matter of fault. It makes you human. Additionally, professors are not required to write recommendation letters for students, so please be nice to them. Otherwise, you may find yourself being refused a rec letter.
I assume you are applying for graduate school? The graduate schools you are applying to have access to your transcripts, so they will see your grades regardless of what your professor writes. Indeed, if you are applying to graduate school, it is likely that you will be taking many exams during the course of your studies. Be prepared that you will need to foster the skills to pass those exams as well.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have an article on google scholar that was published with an open source journal and also put on arxiv, however google merged these two and sees the arxiv version as the main one and therefore messes up the citation.
Is this something that can be changed?
<https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Investigations+into+the+origin+of+Einstein%E2%80%99s+Sink&btnG=&oq=Investigations+into+the+origin+of+Einstein%27s+Sink><issue_comment>username_1: Congratulations on publishing with the open access journal *Studium*, the journal looks very nice.
I believe you *can* unmerge the bibliographic records for this item at Google Scholar.
1. Go to your Google Scholar profile and make sure you're logged-in
2. Click on the paper title in question which should be in blue e.g. "Investigations into the origin of Einstein's Sink" once clicked it'll bring up a new sub-window
3. At the top right-hand corner of this sub-window you'll see two buttons. One is to edit the record, the other is to delete the record. Click the edit button
4. Choose the very bottom option to unmerge the record. (screenshot below is the final screen you should see which offers the unmerge option)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nmuyf.png)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to editing your Google Scholar profile, you may also want to update the front page of your Arxiv pre-print to indicate that you want people to cite the published version of the article. And you can include a copy of the reference. Some pre-print servers also allow you to explicitly link to the peer-reviewed version of the manuscript. I'm not sure whether this helps Google Scholar work it all out. But it should help readers work out which is the canonical reference.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: What you can do is change what displays your google scholar profile manually (it won't affect the meta data of any articles, citations etc ..) in this page:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nmuyf.png)
At the bottom, tick "Keep this article as it is now"
Google scholar will keep the arxiv version as main, but will display what you entered under article name. I had the same problem and now :
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/41UJs.png)
EDIT : It only changes it in your google scholar profile, not when you look for the article from the google scholar search :/
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Choose the `Unmerge` option to split them into two separate articles. Afterwards, you can select both articles and merge them again. At that point, scholar will ask which one should be considered the main publication.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/07/27
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<issue_start>username_0: I sent an e-mail to a professor that I did undergraduate research about 9-10 years ago wondering if he could write a letter of recommendation. He replied saying that he didn't think he would have anything meaningful to say, which is completely understandable. I didn't really do any publication with the undergraduate research, but I did something that he called a sanity-check, which was work on a coding assignment on developing a Distributed File System using FUSE. The idea was that if an undergrad can do it, then the grad students should be able to do it.
He also asked if I submitted anything to him. I sent a reply on two e-books I published. One of the e-books was referenced in a Russian Defcon (I didn't write it in Russian). I also sent him a link to my blog. After that, I asked if he could be a Ph.D supervisor.
I should have asked here before sending him the e-mail though. I'm not really sure if this is the appropriate way to go about finding a Ph.D supervisor.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think that your approach is not good.
It is always preferred to be straight to the point with direct focus on your aims and how would they fit into your potential hosting lab vision and goals.
Always, Keep It Short and Simple (this is called KISS principle).
However,
Some suggestions to enhance your odds:
0- Set your objectives and your target areas.
1- Get prepared by identifying your potential advisor' research interests by visiting his web site and his lab activities to see if it's fit to your needs.
2- Make a balance sheet between your strengths and weaknesses.
Don't be shy to identify your weaknesses, because you shall be providing an improvement plan on how to address them.
3- Try to come up and suggest some research topic that sticks with your potential advisors research interests.
Like this, your advisor will be more than glad to offer his/her expertise and embrace your proposal.
I believe by doing the aforementioned steps, you show that you are already on your way to a PhD. Such thing would be visible to your potential advisor and would be certainly appreciated.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Proper way is the simplest, no bs way. The main objective is to work in an area of research which is also of interest to the professor.
1- Indicate your somewhat broad research area of interest. (e.g quantitative finance/option pricing)
2- Point out similar research that the professor had published.
3- Sketch 2-3 ideas with specific purposes (e.g. hedging derivative portfolios with etfs), write something brief about what was done before but how your ideas can be novel.
4- Ask for a face to face meeting to discuss further details and prospective phd studies. Indicate even if it is not possible to do a phd together some discussion would be helpful. Perhaps he/she can refer to a more proper advisor.
Of course this only works if you already have a starting idea to dabble on in the following 4-6 years.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Don't overcomplicate the issue, just say what you are looking for. A potential supervisor will want to establish a number of things: that you possess the basic qualifications to do the research that you want to do, that you are sufficiently motivated to take on what is a very big personal project (and that you can finance it), that the subject of your research fits in with the professor's own interests, and that the professor can be bothered to take on another research student (grad student in American English).
Consider my own case. When I decided I wanted to do a PhD in statistics, I had not done any formal academic work for many years. Although I had graduated in mathematics, and taken masters degrees in pure mathematics and in operational research, I had no academic referees (the people who had taught me were all long since retired, if not dead).
I sent very short emails to four (full) professors whom I selected by looking at university websites to check whether they were researching in the field that I was interested in. I had four responses:
1. You must take an MSc in statistics before we could consider you;
2. I have given up taking research students
3. I cannot take on any more research students: I have too many already
4. Please arrange a time when we can talk over the telephone.
In the telephone conversation with number 4, I explained why I wanted to do research in my subject, why I had selected that professor, and what work in that field I had already done (no publications, however I had given a talk at an academic conference). He then invited me to visit him. We then discussed in more detail all the matters described above, and he took me on.
My guess is that if I had sent long emails to any of the professors I would have got nowhere: those people are very busy, they do not read long emails from people they do not know.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/27
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<issue_start>username_0: In several international collaborative projects I am working, it happens that in some cases I have to teach and do a thorough supervision of PhD students from the other groups. This is something that I like and I am motivated to do, but in such situations I think I might deserve to be her/his PhD co-advisor. I could ask this directly to her/his first PhD advisor, but I prefer better to ask the student first. What is in your experience the best way to suggest this to the student? Of course I would respect her/his opinion. For me the main advantage is that the hard work I am doing would be merited on my CV and for promotion/habilitation aspects. Besides, I do not think this would harm her/his PhD, but just the other way around.<issue_comment>username_1: I worry about the politics of it and urge a bit of caution. The relationship between the student and the formal advisor is essential to completion of the degree. The politics arises because there is the issue of the personality of the formal advisor and how s/he would interpret such a "move". I think it would be vastly different for different people. Some would take it as very helpful. Others as interference.
I think the best way is to propose it jointly to the student and the advisor and using somewhat tentative language. "I'm happy to help out there. Is there some way that we can come to a formal arrangement?"
You don't want the student to be conflicted. You don't what the advisor to be annoyed. And most of all, you don't want the student to be getting different, possibly conflicting, advice from you and the formal advisor.
However, there isn't really anything wrong with your intent. Just be sure you know the personalities and what the worst case scenario might be. Eyes open.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I could ask this directly to her/his first PhD advisor, but I prefer better to ask the student first.
>
>
>
That's the part that worries me. The student is irrelevant, and most of the time not experienced enough to be useful in administrative situations. Putting that idea in the mind of the student will, at best, waste time, at worst, backfire and drive a wedge between the student and the advisor. Bad idea all around.
Ask the advisor. They will be the only one that actually knows the lay of the land, the administrative/funding caveats.
More than that, anything academically related to my students is my business, going behind my back to one of my students proposing an official cross-institution/group arrangement would raise all kinds of red flags.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/07/27
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<issue_start>username_0: I am composing this question on behalf of someone but as a first person. I am a postdoc at a top university in the US. I had recently been requested by my PI to help with setting up experiments and getting data for the latter part of a research that was to be submitted as a paper.
I spent 3 months aggressively working on it along side my own work towards other projects. The first author went ahead and submitted incomplete work without notifying any of us and without my name in it.
I had, thereafter, spoken to my PI and it looks like he is defensive of her submitting the paper because 'she was in stress and had to graduate. Not in the right frame of mind.' Between the two of us he said that he's going to insist on adding my name when they submit the revision (the paper already, as I expected, has request for data/corrections).
**EDIT** - I have indications that he is giving excuses and is currently passing the buck/lying to get the work done. Personally I have had no papers since I started this postdoc and I am afraid if I sound reluctant the PI will take away my work in my projects. This stresses me, but I also am not getting credit for where I worked. This is like a lose-lose situation for me.
The first author agrees to send the paper and review comments but doesn't. They expect real time work as though this is my only project. I am happy to spend time with some urgency if I at least get my recognition in the paper.
How do I word my emails or communications or speak to them and politely, yet clearly establish that this work from me has to be recognized in the form of addition to the paper?<issue_comment>username_1: From what you say, the PI is on board with adding your name. Work with and through him to get it done. Presumably he has some authority.
But you may need to be careful with personal issues if the first author is under a lot of stress. That isn't a reason to back off, but just to handle it gently if possible. What is right is right. But let the PI say that.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If the situation is as you indicate and the original manuscript was submitted without the consent of *all* authors, then you have a case with the editor, although you should do your utmost to resolve this first with the thesis director.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I had recently been requested by my PI to help with setting up experiments and getting data for the latter part of a research that was to be submitted as a paper. I spent 3 months aggressively working on it along side my own work towards other projects. ... I had, thereafter, spoken to my PI...
>
>
>
Oops --- you have made the rookie mistake of beginning work on a research project *prior to discussing authorship* with the leader of the research group. That kind of mistake always has the potential to blow up in your face like this. There are a few things you should do here:
* Begin by looking up documentary standards on academic authorship. There are a few of these floating around, and they give general principles for when a person should (or should not) be included as a co-author on a research paper.
* Have a think about how far you are willing to take this matter in the event that the PI is unwilling to back you up. If you decide you want to do so, you can make a complaint within your university, seeking for a review of the conduct of the PI and the other researcher, and seeking to be added as a co-author to the paper. You could also write to the journal if you wishes, and claim that you are a co-author of the paper. These things are obviously escalations to a more formal mechanism of complaint, so you will need to consider whether you want to do those things, or whether you are willing to just lose out on authorship.
* Armed with the above knowledge and consideration, have another talk to your PI, and the other researcher, about authorship of the paper. Remind the PI that he had promised to insist on your addition to the paper when the revisions came in. If you are willing to escalate the matter to a university complaint, or to a complaint to the journal, let them know that this is your next step, and tell them that you would like to resolve the matter amicably without resort to a formal complaint. Try your best to be as amicable as you can, but be firm about what you expect, and your next steps if you are not included as a co-author.
* Whatever the outcome of the present dispute, **most importantly**, resolve never to get yourself into this situation again. Whenever you are invited to work on a research project, the first thing you should do ---before starting work on the project--- is to have a conversation with the other researchers about expectations for authorship, and make a clear agreement on what work you will do, and whether you will be recognised as a co-author on the paper. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/27
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<issue_start>username_0: When I was fresh out of college, I worked with someone who had their Ph.D who I'll call **X**. They told me that they had lunch with a person from Facebook who had told them about a Novel Algorithm Facebook had created. **X** decided to do a patent search on this algorithm, and it did not exist. Therefore, **X** decided to patent it himself as a System and Method.
My researched solution to a problem could potentially be worth millions of dollars. I don't mean to sound braggadocious or grandiose, but I have experience in the industry, and I'm aware of how potentially valuable it could be. I was thinking about doing a Ph.D on it. How do I prevent professors such as **X** from patenting my solution, or presenting it as their own idea in a publication? Since my solution could potentially be worth so much money, should I just patent it myself? The only caveat is that it is super expensive to do that. Should I apply for a grant on grant.gov? Should I write a manuscript in arXiv.org? Should I try to write a business plan and try to get funding?<issue_comment>username_1: Let me describe fairly typical practice at reputable US universities. When someone has a patentable idea, the university itself will take over the patent process, paying lawyers and fees. The university will probably be the patent holder of record, but will make arrangements with the actual creator(s) to share any income that results from exploiting the patent.
This can be good or bad, I suppose, but the good part is that the university covers the cost and also provides backup if anyone challenges the patent at any point. This can be very difficult for an individual to do on their own. The bad part is that the patent is probably in the university's name, though that may vary. Another point is that the university may take it upon itself to find ways to monetize the patent if it is awarded. Again, this can be a large expense for an individual.
But one protection for you, a student with an idea, is that if the university is, indeed, reputable, it won't try to steal your idea or let a faculty member steal it.
But faculty at the (reputable) institutions that do a lot of patentable research normally require this (or a similar) process as part of the contract with the faculty member. Such agreements might also be necessary for a student to participate in such work. And there is usually an office, full of lawyers, dedicated to shepherding such work. So a further expectation is that the university is not only reputable, but also large enough to support that office.
And the sharing arrangement may be standardized or, possibly, negotiated, so long as costs can be expected to be covered.
The situation and the rules will also probably vary by a lot in other countries.
---
For completeness, I'll note that large companies doing important research also tend to have (and require) some similar arrangements with their own researchers.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: About doing a PhD, before thinking about academics stealing your idea you might want to think about how you are going to publish papers (usually a requirement during the PhD) if you want to keep your idea secret. As far as I know you won't be able to publish anything before the patent is filed (\*), and that could take a few years. It doesn't mean that it's impossible but it might be tricky.
The alternative to the [academic route described in username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/133920/93566) is to create your own start-up first, then develop and patent your idea under the name of your company. This might take a few years and will cost a lot of money indeed. If you can make sure that your idea is viable and really worth millions of dollars, then it's still a sound investment.
The first step would be to consult with a good specialized lawyer who will advise you on how to proceed (for instance inform you about NDAs, you will probably need these). Again, it's worth the expense in order to avoid making mistakes which could easily ruin your business.
(\*) [edit] I initially thought you can't publish until the patent is *granted*, but I'm told in the comments it's actually only until the patent is *filed*... That's a good illustration of why you need a lawyer ;)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: What you describe is closer to "scooping" than "patent trolling". But actually it's just theft.
If you truly believe your invention is valuable, then you can patent it yourself. You would need to find a reputable patent lawyer. And you can expect to pay thousands of dollars in fees. (Beware of disreputable patent lawyers.) Plus you will likely need the help of lawyers again to actually collect any money from your patent, as you must sue those who infringe on your patent, or at least threaten to do so.
If you just want credit for your invention, write a paper about it and stick it on arxiv or a similar repository. The arxiv timestamp clearly establishes precedence. That means no one else can subsequently patent the invention -- your work becomes prior art that invalidates any subsequent patent. Sharing your invention like this does not immediately prevent you from patenting it. However, there are time limits. I believe you need to submit a patent within one year of making it public.
Note that your employer may claim ownership of any intellectual property that you create. For example, most universities do this. On the positive side, this means they may pay for the patent. On the negative side, they may claim some or all of the money you get from it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: *I was thinking about doing a Ph.D. on it . . . "*
I think the first question is for yourself as a person.
Which human environment do you prefer to work in ? The business environment or the academic environment ?
This is the essential question here as people in these two sectors relate and associate in completely different ways.
If you have the urge to impart and receive knowledge freely, are comfortable in situations of psychological trust with young people and not too worldly when it comes to money, maybe a Ph.D. **with the right supervisor** is a valid consideration. If you go this route, don't expect to be rich. Staff at colleges sometimes make millions from their work but no student does - unless the insights are kept secret and developed later off-campus.
But don't go into a Ph.D. just to experiment/develop an idea you want to commercialize. Campus life - and the kind of people there, good and bad - will find you out, drain your confidence and leave you feeling socially isolated. For the rapport, team-work, thrilling intensity and chillouts - these are the preserve of the private sector where the necessity of making a living fuse people's mind together. Patent trollers are a natural hazard here but you'll have support from your own company and many patent attorneys will undertake protection work on the understanding of later payment after patents are granted.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: **Edit: Sorry, misread question. Salvaging what I can of it.**
It's best not to get too carried away with the commercial potential of new ideas. It's one thing to come up with something, but something else entirely to connect that to a customer who will pay more than it cost you to develop it. And then there's the possibility that Facebook and others already know about it and are treating it as a [Trade Secret](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret). In the latter case your patent may not be worth much at all and could potentially be overturned in court.
I'd suggest thinking carefully about what your business plan would be, who your potential customers are, and how your product would be used by them. Would they license your IP? Would you work as a consultant to implement it on their systems? If the idea is just to "make millions" simply positioning yourself as a gifted developer who independently discovered **X** could be enough to get your foot in the door of some very high-paying firms. Or to put it another way, you may be worth a good deal more than your patent.
For Universities, policies will vary from place to place so you should consider consulting them directly. In Australia students generally are not required to give up their IP, but can voluntarily do so in return for some royalties and the University footing the bill for patent applications and legal protection of said patent. You'll need to assess for yourself whether the trade-off is worthwhile.
And finally, if you're worried about being scooped by Prof X then I'd strongly advise #1 not telling him and #2 documenting the development of your idea in a way that would be independently verifiable in court if necessary.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Its important to note what a university's position on IP is. At my university, all students sign the university's PI policy. That policy states that students cannot be named as inventors on patents that arise out of university supported research, only their supervisors can. By doing a PhD on your idea, you might be guaranteeing that you cannot patent the idea.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/07/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I live in the US and have been working as an engineer in industry for over 10 years. I graduated from a top UK University, with outstanding grades in a Masters degree and several university-level prizes.
I have decided that I want to pursue a PhD, as I have a strong desire to be doing more advanced and challenging work. So, I am planning to apply to the PhD program of the best university that is in my area (which happens to be a top-tier US institution). My family and I are fairly settled in the area and we have no desire to relocate.
The institution has an admissions requirement that I have to provide three recommendation letters, two of which should be academic. Therefore, it seems that I have little option but to reach out to some of the professors that I worked and studied under during my undergrad course 10+ years ago. I am planning to provide one industrial reference and two academic; however, I am concerned that my undergraduate course was so long ago that the professors will struggle to remember me, given the hundreds of undergrad students they interact with each year. So, at best, even if they do generously agree to write a letter, it will probably be fairly generic and unspecific. And of course, it won't be in any way a good reflection of the more experienced and mature person I am now.
At worst, they might simply refuse, given the amount of time that has passed. I wouldn't blame them, and in a way I feel bad asking, after all this time.
So, what should I do in this situation, given the amount of time that has passed? Is there another way I can approach this?
The irony is that, given my industrial experience and personal development over the past 10 years, I think I am almost certainly a stronger candidate for a PhD program now than I would have been straight after I finished my undergraduate degree; however, given the amount of time I have been out of academia, obtaining strong recommendation letters is going to be much more challenging.<issue_comment>username_1: In contacting your old professors you might start by reminding them of what courses you took with them and what grades you earned in those courses. It would also be appropriate to supply a copy of your full academic transcript.
I frequently get requests like this from students that I haven't seen in 10 years or more. I comment on the students transcript and grades in my courses and whatever I can remember about the student. This isn't ideal, but it's better than nothing.
Another common strategy for students who've been working in industry for a long time is to begin graduate study by taking a few courses on a part-time basis at a local university. It's much less of a commitment by the department to allow you to take a course or two than it would be to admit you as a full-time student and provide you with financial support. If you do well in those courses then you can ask the instructors for academic references.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I believe you should look for industrial references with academic experience, of at least industrial refs who have a PhD and can comment on your likely success in that endeavor.
Unless you had some special experience with a prof that provided reason to remember you, a recommendation from a generic source will not help an admissions committee. Let your transcripts speak for themselves, and find references who can help lay out your reasons for a career change to the committee.
You are an "atypical candidate". You should embrace that.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/28
| 585
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a research proposal in art history. I had a studio visit to the local artist and had a chance to ask her some questions. Unfortunately, I have not recorded it because, well, I was not even planning to interview her this time. However, in my research proposal, I want to state her personal opinion. Am I even allowed to refer to our personal conversation? Of course, for the research itself, I consider conducting a conventional interview with her once again. But for now, can this be considered as an okay source?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it would be dangerous to source an unrecorded interview with a prominent person that involves opinion. Actually, it seems dangerous to do it if it is unrecorded and the rest of the first sentence just adds additional reasons.
If the person, at some point, objects to your characterization of their words you will have some troubles.
However, you can refer to personal communication in general if you have a record of it. One way to obtain the record is to send them a message (mail or email) in which you state your interpretation of their words and ask "(a) did I get it right, and (b) can I use that in a paper I'm writing?"
But a recorded and transcribed interview would also do the trick.
However, don't use things that could possibly be disputed without any agreed upon record, or without permission.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you are allowed to cite personal conversations. [Example](https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/library/support/citations-and-referencing/apa-american-psychological-association-style/personal-communication/).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: For a research proposal, if you collected some ideas or concepts from a private discussion, you might see the expert as an educator. Therefore a possibility is to just explain them with your own words without quoting, but crediting the advice you got in the acknowledgement section. Of course make sure of not stealing or diffuse sensitive information or stepping on people feet.
On the contrary in a paper you need stronger citations. I think that a private communication can be an acceptable source only if we are talking of an extremely narrow field and you are quoting detailed explanations from a globally recognized expert on the topic. For instance I have a background in physics of particle accelerators and in my field it is relatively common to cite private communications with project leaders or other main contributors when discussing pretty obscure details which are relevant to the specific study, but are omitted in published reports.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/07/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to present a piece of work done with a former PI in a conference. If I go to this conference, I use my own funding. Do I need this PI's approval to allow me to present this work in that conference? I need answers considering the 2 different scenarios: the work is either published or not published yet.<issue_comment>username_1: That would depend on a few things, including your field. What is the custom there? If the PI is, or should be, a co-author then you would need it, ethically, I think. S/he might have other plans. If the work is partly theirs, then you need it in some places legally, if I interpret other answers on this site correctly, and ethically in any case.
I'm depending on your use of the words "*with* a former PI" here. To me that implies they have some contribution to the work that requires acknowledgement, hence approval.
But, for political purposes and keeping good relations for the future, you should probably seek it in all cases.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In case the work *is already published*, I would generally assume that **everybody** on this planet is allowed to talk about it, provided that the material is properly attributed. On the other hand, submitting previously published work to a conference is only possible, if the conference does not count as a publication itself (e.g., a typical computer science conference with published proceedings would be ruled out).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In this kind of scenario, it depends on the level of privacy and contribution of the PI to the conference material.
Another case is maybe it will be more beneficial if you just try to get the approval from your formal PI (`taking the bull by the horn`), which now depends on them if they approved it or not...
You are free to present it.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/29
| 355
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm an undergraduate student, and one of my teachers asked me & my friend to work with him in the summer break (1 month remaining) and he would award us internship certificate from his lab (paid internship), to which we agreed. Additionally, he is also expecting us to be doing our final year project with him. While working with him, we have realized that our interests do not align with the work we are doing and it is going to be a hassle to be doing our final-year in this field. Besides, I don't like the attitude of the teacher and I don't think I can go along with his attitude. How can we politely decline doing a project with him in the future, or more preferably, now?<issue_comment>username_1: Tell him the former reason: "we have realized that our interests do not align with the work we are doing". It's a reason everyone can empathize with. It's also a big problem for any would-be project: would a supervisor even want a student who isn't really interested in the work?
I would suggest waiting to tell him though. It doesn't sound like you need to decide now, in which case you might as well keep your options open (besides the next month could be pretty awkward if he knows you don't find the work interesting).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If you plan on doing a final-year project, you can quite honestly say that you thank him for the internship, that you learned a lot but you would like to try something else to broaden your experience.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/29
| 1,133
| 4,756
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to know from an academic standpoint on what steps that an amateur scientist would have to take in order to get his/her scientific breakthrough published in a major academic journal/scientific magazine.
Say that this person is outside of academia, he/she has no college degrees, and he/she has stumbled upon a scientific breakthrough by chance after years of doing self-study, research, and experiments with a particular scientific area of study. Also, say that this person has a job with a modest salary so if they will need to raise a lot of money to get it published, they will have to get it from an angel investor or from crowdfunding.
Although I understand that the odds of such a person coming up with a scientific breakthrough is very slim to none, I still would like to know the process that this person will likely have to follow if he/she wants to get it published.
For example, would the first step be that this person should take be making an appointment with a college professor in order to get a professional opinion on their scientific breakthrough? If so, what guarantee does the amateur scientist have that this college professor will not try to steal this scientific breakthrough? Should the amateur scientist insist that the college professor first sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement?
Would the second step be that the amateur scientist meet with another college professor to in order get a second opinion and again have that professor sign a NDA? What would be the 3rd step, 4th step, etc., etc.
Although there are probably many steps in the process of getting it published, I'm interested in just the major steps that will likely have to be taken.<issue_comment>username_1: The title question is answered by "write a paper and submit it to a journal". The amateur scientist [doesn't need anything special](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/45191/is-it-possible-to-submit-a-paper-to-a-scholarly-peer-reviewed-journal-without-p) to do that.
The questions in the text deal with a separate question, which is whether or not the breakthrough actually is a breakthrough. In this case getting a professional opinion is certainly going to be helpful (see [Kaveh's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/18570/84834) to a related question for the process). It's easy to deal with the "threat" of the professor stealing the idea: just establish precedence by, e.g, attaching the manuscript to an email with a timestamp. If the professor tries to steal the idea anyway, he would be breaking some deep-rooted academic norms. If it's proven that he's plagiarizing, he can get into serious trouble.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have a few suggestions which may be field specific.
First, check out [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/). It is sometimes used as a place to "park" research prior to peer-reviewed processes such as journal or conference submission. Some authors (who are usually already "big names") publish there and accrue citations, too. Although, as pointed out in comments, you may require some academic input to pass through arXiv's requirements to post. There’s also technically nothing to stop you "publishing" on your own website (or github!), but your work may receive little attention there.
Second, you must be *sure* that your contribution is novel. Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence and all. The reason you might get a desk rejection is because it’s too easy to dismiss an author with no affiliation and therefore unlikely to have access to a sizeable body of literature. Journal subscriptions can be fairly expensive. If you’re affiliated to an institution, you often get access to many journals that you wouldn’t pay for as an individual. There’s still a reasonable number of publications that aren’t open access. You might get some access via library membership (worth checking). An (appropriately) extensive literature review with citations should overcome this barrier.
Third, journals may publish your work with no costs to you, but you will probably have to pay for open access. That means you’ll sign over copyright of your work and, if you don’t have a subscription to that journal, potentially be unable to see it (unless you paid for open access - fees I’ve seen are 3-4 figures).
Fourth, you should be aware that some journals want you to recommend reviewers. There are some questions on here regarding that already, so I won’t go into the politics of that.
It’s worth getting an academic on board simply to navigate the world of academia and increase the chances of getting published. Alternatively, can you patent it? That would protect your idea even if you choose not to profit from it.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: For example, having half of the lessons taught by one professor, and the other half of the lessons taught by another professor.
If this isn't possible, why isn't it possible? Can you provide any links to further information on how it's done (e.g. dividing the compensation)?<issue_comment>username_1: I shared a course with two other professors, we each taught our own cohort of students - biggest issue is making sure you all cover the same material per week. Students ask questions that can easily cause "drift" away from the main topic - usually interesting, but the main material still needs covering as that is what is in the exam.
I have shared other courses where I covered one set of topics and the other covered a different set of topics - works fine but you have to stick to what was agreed and communicate.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it's possible, obviously. As for the details, it varies hugely between different countries and universities so you won't get a precise answer.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: For several years I taught a doctoral level course with a colleague. We were both always present for every class. Each of us took a different "perspective" with the material. One of us would take the lead at any given moment and the other would comment as he felt inclined. Students could ask either of us questions at any time.
The course was very broad, but, generally speaking, centered on *Agile Software Development*, both its technical and managerial aspects. It was a bit broader than that implies, actually.
We were both salaried, as is typical in US, and each of us got "full credit" for a course taught. The course was considered important enough by the university that the pay issue was basically ignored.
Not every university would be willing to ignore pay issues, of course, and, I suspect, no university would make a general practice of it for many courses. Few would, anyway.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student starting my second year of PhD. I don't expect any major publications to come out of this within the first year or so, but I often find myself wondering if something smaller - a measurement setup, comparison of simulation techniques, etc - is worth publishing or not.
On the one hand, my Promoter says that we as a research group should publish more. I get the feeling he doesn't say this purely from a publish-or-perish perspective - rather, we spend a year or two working on something to get one big publication from the high-ranking journals, but along the way we learn a lot of little things, or come up with new tricks for measurements - all of which could be worth sending to smaller conferences or journals.
Due to the personal self-image struggles I have, I find it very difficult to feel like my work is good or new or worth talking about most of the time. How can I improve my ability to see if something is worth sending in or not? Will this just come with experience?<issue_comment>username_1: I shared a course with two other professors, we each taught our own cohort of students - biggest issue is making sure you all cover the same material per week. Students ask questions that can easily cause "drift" away from the main topic - usually interesting, but the main material still needs covering as that is what is in the exam.
I have shared other courses where I covered one set of topics and the other covered a different set of topics - works fine but you have to stick to what was agreed and communicate.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it's possible, obviously. As for the details, it varies hugely between different countries and universities so you won't get a precise answer.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: For several years I taught a doctoral level course with a colleague. We were both always present for every class. Each of us took a different "perspective" with the material. One of us would take the lead at any given moment and the other would comment as he felt inclined. Students could ask either of us questions at any time.
The course was very broad, but, generally speaking, centered on *Agile Software Development*, both its technical and managerial aspects. It was a bit broader than that implies, actually.
We were both salaried, as is typical in US, and each of us got "full credit" for a course taught. The course was considered important enough by the university that the pay issue was basically ignored.
Not every university would be willing to ignore pay issues, of course, and, I suspect, no university would make a general practice of it for many courses. Few would, anyway.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/29
| 646
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<issue_start>username_0: Are there any valid alternatives to google scholar?
I am currently living in China. almost the whole internet is blocked, including Google. I tried to bypass the firewall, then google scholar tends to deny my access claiming that the traffic is suspicious.
Are there other valid alternatives to google scholar where I can easily search for random scientific papers from different fields and trace their citations Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: <http://xueshu.baidu.com/>
This is the Google Scholar alternative.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: For a mirror of Google Scholar:
<https://scholar.glgoo.org/>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You might be able to use **Tor** to access Google Scholar, which can be downloaded with the following link: <https://www.torproject.org/>. You'll probably need a mirror to access it: <https://mirror.oldsql.cc/tor/>.
There is something called the Great Firewall of China that would need to be bypassed, though. Apparently, this can be done using obfsproxy. There is a paper on usenix that goes into much more detail about it in the Circumvention section of the paper. <https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/foci12/foci12-final2.pdf>
The benefit of using Tor is you would be able to access a lot more of the internet that is blocked off except for websites that block Tor nodes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: It is not China that blocks it, it is Google. China's autonomous routing domain drops in transit all requests to the top level domain "google.com". If you access google scholar through a private VPN on a server that belongs to almost any American company (e.g. Digital Ocean in my case), then google will block your IP because apparently they are afraid their "free" service will be mined for free by an industrial competitor:
>
> We're sorry... ... but your computer or network may be sending
> automated queries. To protect our users, we can't process your request
> right now.
>
>
>
You got to use one of the lower quality free vpns on the phone with multiple rolling servers that use ips not flagged as commercial by Google. Beware though those free VPNs can scrape your personal sensitive data from your phone as well.
By the way you can still see your profile through the link
<https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=>`your scholar account id`
you just can't view who cited you or run any search.
Pity because I just want to check who is that one person who just cited one of my papers that I thought no one would ever cite...
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a grant application a few weeks ago where I was asked to list some potential reviewers. One of these potential reviewers just invited me to give a talk at their university. I would like this potential reviewer to be able to review my grant application because I feel that they are knowledgeable in the field and would have a favorable view of topic in my application. By accepting this invitation, would I be creating a conflict for this potential reviewer? Should I not accept the invitation? Should I give a talk on a different topic than my grant application so as not to bias the reviewer?<issue_comment>username_1: It's the potential reviewer's responsibility to declare or avoid any conflict of interest, not yours.
If the potential reviewer isn't asked to review your proposal (or declines for other reasons) then there's no conflict of interest.
If the potential reviewer does end up reviewing your proposal and you've declined an invitation to speak at his institution that potential reviewer might hold it against you.
If you do accept the invitation, this wouldn't by itself be sufficient to create a conflict of interest that would prevent the potential reviewer from reviewing your proposal.
Thus I wouldn't hesitate to accept the invitation.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It's possible that this person was selected to review your proposal, has begun reading it, and thinks enough of your ideas to want to learn more. It's also possible that he wants to hear, in your talk, things that were already in your proposal --- the point here is that a reviewer is not allowed to use the content of the proposal for any purpose other than writing the review, but if he also gets the same content by another route, like your talk, then he can build on it (on his own or in collaboration with you).
In any case, I don't think your accepting the invitation and giving a talk would create a conflict of interest for the reviewer, even if your talk is on the same topic as your proposal.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a first year PhD student, and there is an older (by which I mean further ahead in his PhD) student who has been rather unperturbed by me asking him to stop flirting with me. This has been going on ~6 months now after I first met him (we don’t work at the same institute but see each other reasonably regularly due to the collaborative nature of the work).
At first it seemed like he was just being friendly and we chatted a little over social media, nothing more than two friendly work colleagues. Then he started flirting, and very obviously. I told him to stop flirting and then we could just carry on having a normal conversation instead and he did. But then after a couple of weeks he started flirting again, so I again told him to cool it. He kept flirting, and I started just responding less, and flat out ignoring any flirty messages.
He didn’t seem to take the hint (unsurprisingly given that he didn’t take me outright telling him) and started messaging me repeatedly until I responded, more than 20 messages per day from him. I kept on ignoring most of them and sending some blunt messages that did not ask any follow ups when he really would not stop messaging. I have only contacted him first when it is required from a work context.
Over the course of about 3 weeks he finally started taking the hint and only messaging me a couple of times a week, but there was still undeniable flirting and it was making me feel really uncomfortable.
I have now unfollowed him on social media, something I know I should have done much earlier but the issue is he is in a more senior position than me in the collaboration and I was afraid of making a bad working relationship by angering him.
I’m worried now what will happen when he notices I’ve cut off social media contact and I have to see him in person again soon. Additionally there is a chance that shortly I will be working more directly with him, and thinking about this possibility is making me really anxious.
I’m unsure what to do in this situation as he is not in the same institute as me. I am nervous to tell my supervisor as I don’t want this to tarnish my professional reputation, I’m at the very start of my career.<issue_comment>username_1: While you seem confident that the individual's behavior is unprofessional, other people in your situation might not be as confident. If you have any doubt about if someones behavior is unprofessional, find a trusted colleague and ask them in confidence.
Once you are confident that the behavior is unprofessional, the next time he emails you, send him an email that clearly states that his behavior is unprofessional and that you feel sexually harassed. Then tell him that while you have endured it in the past, that it must stop and if necessary you will report the behavior to your supervisor, his supervisor, and any other relevant offices at your and his institutions. Finally, close with saying that you hope the behavior will stop and that this can all just be water under the bridge and that you can continue to have a professional collaboration. If you have any doubts, show the email (you can write it now), to a trusted colleague and get feedback.
If, after sending the email, the behavior does not stop (or he argues), you tell your supervisor. You can either work with the supervisor to bring the fury that is the university HR department when faced with issues of sexual harassment or a gentler back channel process. The choice is yours and anyone that would hold that choice against you is not someone you need to form collaborations with.
You want to start documenting things. This means saving the harassing emails. You also want to email him so you have a copy of what was said. Do not tell him in person (both because he doesn't deserve that type of interaction and because it gives you a record of what was said). If/when you talk to colleagues for advice or to your supervisor, do that in person or on the phone. You don't want them to feel like they are being watched. If your supervisor does not react as you hope, then follow up in writing.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I assume you are worried about possible future retaliation or other future actions.
I suggest that you don't try to handle this on your own. You need someone who you trust and who is superior to both of you in the profession to be made aware of the situation. There should be some sort of record of what has happened, with the record known to the "superior".
That person can be your supervisor or not, as you choose, but the supervisor would normally be a good person, other things being equal. It shouldn't in any just world reflect badly on you.
But having the record and a neutral third party protects you from most future problems. An alternative to a superior is just a fairly wide group of people who are kept informed and who will speak for you if the other person starts do do more "aggressive" or unprofessional things.
Whether you inform the "harasser" or not is up to you and would depend on personalities, but it might not be a bad thing to drop the hint that you've discussed these unwanted emails with X.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a master student in psychology. A year ago, I downloaded a lot of free clipart online to create my study stimuli. For example, some clipart are from this website: <http://clipart-library.com>.
I basically created my study stimuli using clipart from multiple sources. I finished writing up my thesis and plan to publish it soon. However, it occurs to me that if I publish my study with a few figures of experimental stimuli, it may incur copy right issues. I'm wondering what would be the best option for me at this moment? Should I not include any figures in my publications?<issue_comment>username_1: While you seem confident that the individual's behavior is unprofessional, other people in your situation might not be as confident. If you have any doubt about if someones behavior is unprofessional, find a trusted colleague and ask them in confidence.
Once you are confident that the behavior is unprofessional, the next time he emails you, send him an email that clearly states that his behavior is unprofessional and that you feel sexually harassed. Then tell him that while you have endured it in the past, that it must stop and if necessary you will report the behavior to your supervisor, his supervisor, and any other relevant offices at your and his institutions. Finally, close with saying that you hope the behavior will stop and that this can all just be water under the bridge and that you can continue to have a professional collaboration. If you have any doubts, show the email (you can write it now), to a trusted colleague and get feedback.
If, after sending the email, the behavior does not stop (or he argues), you tell your supervisor. You can either work with the supervisor to bring the fury that is the university HR department when faced with issues of sexual harassment or a gentler back channel process. The choice is yours and anyone that would hold that choice against you is not someone you need to form collaborations with.
You want to start documenting things. This means saving the harassing emails. You also want to email him so you have a copy of what was said. Do not tell him in person (both because he doesn't deserve that type of interaction and because it gives you a record of what was said). If/when you talk to colleagues for advice or to your supervisor, do that in person or on the phone. You don't want them to feel like they are being watched. If your supervisor does not react as you hope, then follow up in writing.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I assume you are worried about possible future retaliation or other future actions.
I suggest that you don't try to handle this on your own. You need someone who you trust and who is superior to both of you in the profession to be made aware of the situation. There should be some sort of record of what has happened, with the record known to the "superior".
That person can be your supervisor or not, as you choose, but the supervisor would normally be a good person, other things being equal. It shouldn't in any just world reflect badly on you.
But having the record and a neutral third party protects you from most future problems. An alternative to a superior is just a fairly wide group of people who are kept informed and who will speak for you if the other person starts do do more "aggressive" or unprofessional things.
Whether you inform the "harasser" or not is up to you and would depend on personalities, but it might not be a bad thing to drop the hint that you've discussed these unwanted emails with X.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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| 6,745
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<issue_start>username_0: Basic Premise
-------------
Can a microbiology professor require students to run laps on the track during class for a grade, even if the class usually has no physical component to it?
Background
----------
As part of my role as a university professor, my college requires that I advise a number of undergraduate students on the progress on their degrees in the college. These meetings are short, usually no more than 10 minutes, and act as a quick waypoint to ensure that students are on track and having success with their studies. I ask if the student has any concerns generally and sometimes advise on career options or basic life advice, etc.
This past week, I had a student inform me that he is worried about his grade in an upper division [microbiology] (not the actual subject, but represenative of the type of subject) class. This student is a pre-med student who is on track to begin applying to medical school shortly. I have spoken with this student two times prior and he is an excellent student and has done very well in all of his classes up to this point. As such, I inquired as to why he was worried about his microbiology grade. He then proceeded to tell me that his microbiology professor bases part of their grade off of what he calls "Physical Involvement." (Or something like that).
Now, what is this "Physical Involvement" portion of the grade you might ask? **Running**. As in, let's go down to the fieldhouse and run a mile before class dismisses. (More on that in a moment).
However, the student in question is a huskier fellow for whom exercising and "physical involvement" is no easy task. Simply put, he is someone that the Centers for Disease Control in the United States would [classify as obese.](https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/defining.html)
Although only very loosely connected to microbiology, the professor in question has decided that since most of his class consists of students who will become physicians,\* he wants to encourage holistic health practices in his students. Part of this, in his opinion, is maintaining a healthy body weight. He supposes that a heavyset physician cannot give advice on a patient's health without coming across as a hypocrite. Thus, this professor has made physical exercise part of the grade for the class.
Because the class is being taught on a 7-week instead of a 14-week schedule (summer class), each class period goes for 120 minutes instead of the usual 50 minutes. The professor has decided that for the last 30 minutes of the class, the class will walk over to the fieldhouse and run a mile. **For credit**. There are 20 class periods in the semester and each class period a student is given one point for running a mile at the end of class. The professor and TAs count the laps for the students. A student who completes a mile in each of the 20 class periods is given 20/20 for the "physical involvement" portion of the grade. A student who runs 9/10ths of a mile each class, but never completes the mile receives 0/20. It is all or nothing. This accounts for 20% of the grade. Hence, a student who never runs the full mile is pretty much guaranteed a B- or worse in the class. For someone who is trying to get into medical school, getting a B- in a core class is not ideal.
There supposedly (as per the student) is no way to make these runs up. In theory, there is no time limit (e.g. "You must do this in 6 minutes or better"), but the students are realistically only given about 10-15 minutes to complete the run before the professor needs to leave. The student in question here is the only runner too slow to complete a mile in that time.
Field Work
----------
With all of this being told to me, I decided I needed to see this for myself. At the appointed time, I casually appeared at the fieldhouse in my running clothes and pretended to exercise. And sure enough, here came the microbiology class to run their laps. It was exactly as described by the student. (This had to be one of the oddest things I have ever seen at a university track. Some of these students ran their laps in semi-formal pants with leather shoes). Every student completed the run (some just barely), except for the student I am advising.
The Question
------------
How do I proceed? Do I talk to the dean? Do I talk to the head of the microbiology department? The professor of the class is a long time professor at the university. He is known for being a bit zany. His class requirements seem completely irrelevant, but I'm not sure how (or if) I should intervene.
How much leeway should a professor be given to determine what "counts" in his or her class?
---
\*The class is usually taught in the Spring Semester (January-May), but the college is running a special section this summer in order to accommodate about 20 or so pre-med students who had a conflicting class last semester. Normally the class would be a mix of pre-med students, microbiology majors, pre-pharmacy students, etc.
---
Update as of 3 April 2020
-------------------------
I spoke with the head of the microbiology department last semester about this issue. The professor in question here normally does not teach this certain microbiology course, nor does he usually teach any classes in the summer. (Part of the issue was that summer classes are twice as long, which gave enough time for the running component). To be brief, the department was aware of the running requirement. Because they had not had complaints, they allowed it to ride. (Good or bad, that's how it was). This professor is actually extremely highly regarded by the university faculty as a whole and it was a sticky situation.
In the end, the husky student I was advising got an A anyway. He worked out some deal with the professor where he (the student) would show up at 6 a.m. and run/walk laps with the professor for four weeks. The professor is a real softie at heart and he does care personally about his students. He's just very quirky. And he loves running. (He ran across America, Forrest Gump style. He still has the huge hair and beard, it's just white).<issue_comment>username_1: As an outsider this seems ridiculous. I think a quick email to the chair of the department saying that you have an advisee who is worried about BIO302 (or whatever the number is) and the running component. It seems reasonable to ask if that is actually a requirement (which it clearly is, but the department chair may not know it) and if it is, what course would be better suited for a student who is not interested in running. That should get the ball moving.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: The student's health status or physique is not of consideration here. If the situation is as the student described, the prof's behavior is simply untenable -- if for no other reason than 25% of contact hours being spent on nonsense. Every student in the class should be incensed. The TAs should be upset that they're spending their time this way.
The chair of the relevant department is the appropriate point of contact. When communicating with the Chair, include that you're passing the student's story along without verification, but you felt the story odd enough that you felt compelled to bring it to the Chair's attention.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: **If the class is about microbiology, the students’ grade should depend on their knowledge of microbiology, and only on that.**
(Edit: to clarify, “knowledge” covers things like lab skills and other things that have a connection to microbiology but aren’t strictly theoretical in nature. But not running. **Definitely** not running.)
I’ll assume based on OP’s description that this is taking place in the US. Even though I’m not a lawyer I would bet money that for the professor to tie grades in an academic class to athletic performance would constitute an obvious and blatant violation of one or more US laws. It very likely would also violate various policies of your university. For example, at my university the faculty code of conduct has a concept of “failure to meet the responsibilities of instruction”, which I know for a fact would cover the case of a professor spending a large amount of the class’s time on activities that are unrelated to the topic of the course.
>
> Should I intervene when a colleague in a different department makes students run laps as part of their grade?
>
>
>
Obviously yes. You are the student’s undergraduate adviser. That makes you precisely the person positioned to help him when he is being treated in an abusive and probably illegal way by one of his professors.
>
> How do I proceed? Do I talk to the dean? Do I talk to the head of the microbiology department?
>
>
>
Either of those persons sound like appropriate people to talk to. The chair would be the most appropriate, being the person directly above the misbehaving professor in the institutional hierarchy, so I suggest going to them, unless you have some specific reason to fear retaliation or other adverse consequences if you proceed in this way.
>
> The professor of the class is a long time professor at the university. He is known for being a bit zany.
>
>
>
This is irrelevant. If the professor graded his students based on their looks, how much money they have, the number of hot dogs they can wolf down in 10 minutes, or any other similar criterion unrelated to their knowledge of microbiology, we would not be talking about the professor’s zaniness. Neither should we be talking about it in the current equally absurd scenario.
>
> How much leeway should a professor be given to determine what "counts" in his or her class?
>
>
>
Any leeway a microbiology professor should or should not be given would be appropriate to discuss in the context of how they teach microbiology, and how they evaluate students’ knowledge of microbiology. What the professor is doing here is entirely unrelated to such activities, and as such, no leeway applies. As with the mention of zaniness, “leeway” is not even a relevant factor to discuss.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I agree with the other answers that you should e-mail the department chair. Additionally, I would suggest that you advise the student that he has options to solve this himself even without your intervention. You are his advisor, so advise him, don't just try to solve it for him. E.g. your university may have an Ombudsman, suggest that he talk to them. The department/college/university may have a formal process that he could use to lodge a complaint or appeal the grade. Explain to him how this process works and send him the relevant information. Your university may have a student government or student association that lobbies/advocates for students' interests that may be able to take up his cause. And if all else fails, there is always "name and shame": a well placed headline in the student newspaper or local TV news station like "Prof flunks students for being fat" would gather a lot of interest (note: definitely use this option only if all others have failed)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: This seems like a bizarre requirement, and if I was the student in question I would treat as any other course in which I had catastrophically poor performance for whatever unexpected reason: I would drop or withdraw, and then aim to retake it later in more favorable circumstances. This is the easiest solution for your student and has the highest odds of success. The only drawback is that he might have to delay his graduation by a year. Even that wouldn't be a complete loss: If he ends up having an extra year *solely* to take that course, he can use his free time to study for MCAT, get a medical-related job, work in a lab, or do some sort of internship that helps his med-school application.
The second possibility here is to negotiate with the instructor. For the record, I see his logic but I think the requirement is ridiculous and has nothing to do with microbiology (wouldn't the university lose accreditation of their microbiology course over stunts like this?). The med school requires microbiology because they want applicants to know microbiology. Imagine what they would think if they found out an applicant got a good grade not due to their knowledge of the subject matter, but because they could run a mile! Anyways, with that out of the way:
The instructor wants to promote healthy life habits in future doctors. Fair enough - but if the student is currently obese, it should be evident that he cannot become perfectly fit in a matter of 6 weeks. Even if he could lose weight that quickly, it would be a very unhealthy thing and maybe even grounds for hospitalization. Running when you are very overweight is also inadvisable, it creates excessive strain on the ankles and knees and heightened risk of injury. These points can be made to the instructor as part of plea to find an alternative "physical" activity for the student, such as swimming, with reasonable expectations given his weight. Perhaps the student could even volunteer to see a dietitian, start a diet, and show evidence of that (maybe a food diary) to the instructor as a way of getting the credit. The instructor gets to promote healthy habits in future physicians, the student gets his grade and maybe even improves his health, and everybody wins... Except that an inconsiderate instructor gets away with making inane requirements, which is the main drawback. The other drawback is that the instructor might demand evidence of weight loss, which isn't realistic in the first few weeks of any diet, but perhaps a note from the dietitian would be helpful there.
The third option would be to leverage existing legal protections of disabilities. Obesity is not always considered a disability, but sometimes is. In this case it clearly precludes the student from running. Surely there is a separate unit in the university that handles cases of discrimination. The student can appeal there directly and ask for accommodations to be made in the course. Just as how, say, a vision-impaired student would be provided alternate ways of reading materials, the obese student should be provided with alternate ways of showing "physical involvement". Perhaps they might even require him to be exempted from the running entirely, or demand that the running be abolished altogether. If for some reason they decide to be unsympathetic, the student can see an outside doctor to get himself officially declared a disabled person. In that event the university would have no choice but to accommodate him, and if they fail, he has a slam dunk ADA lawsuit\* ahead of him, after which he would almost certainly receive a hefty payout and it would also look good on his medical application (he would be fighting for the rights of all disabled people, not just his own).
I doubt that approaching the chair or other academic superior will work. Of course it's worth a try. But it sounds like this guy is very confident and it's probably because he is well connected with the university leadership. Because this is not the first time you have complained about [outrageous special treatment for athletes in your university](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/131523/94172), I suspect that the leadership is aware of this bizarre "physical microbiology", and endorses it.
\*: I am assuming here that this is a US university, because your profile says United States, and also because in most other countries med-school is post-secondary, not post-bac. I think most countries have made discriminating against disabled persons a crime, though.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: The professors job is not to judge the student based on his ability to run a mile, but to instead judge him based on his performance in the class. To me, this seems completely inappropriate. I Think you should voice your concerns with the department in question and to make them cease these activities. I Believe it is unethical.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I observed a similar situation. Oddly, the (male) professor was in biology. The course was some sort of nutrition course for nurses (so the class was mostly female.) Part of their grade was based on how much weight they lost during the course, so there were weekly weigh-ins.
Some of the students complained and some faculty intervened. Unfortunately, the prof was a buddy of the provost, so things happened quietly. In the end, he was not dismissed for this and even became dean but was eventually dismissed for sexual assault (he assaulted a secretary).
Anyway, yes, just tell the dean. This is absurd.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: I actually agree with this. You shouldn't work in a health field if you can't be a good representative of good health. If he can't do it, out with him.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_9: As some answers have suggested, check the syllabus, if running or "minimum physical requirement" is not in there, your student wins.
On the moral side I can see some "intention" in there, although, don't get me wrong, this is completely denigrating, discriminative and can even be considered as bullying someone. If the professor has this "idea" of making sure that med students have some "decent health condition", he could make his "running exercises" as an extra, just to achieve some extra points by the end of lecture. This can NEVER be part of the program and being in bad shape cannot harm your marks, as he is not a physical exercise student, his job will have "nothing" to do with him being obese. And even if this last sentence can rise up some criticism, what is clear is that, al least, is has nothing to do with his knowledge on the subject or with his ability with it.
On the hypocrysy side, the professos itself is being one, as one answer suggested making EVERYONE run a mile without prior knowledge of their health condition is clearly faulty for someone that teaches future physicians. And, even with that, as you stated he has more than just medicine students on his class, what's the justification for those bio, pharma students also running? Funny enough I imagine he is too busy "counting" his students laps as to run himself... Which is, again, contradictory. Arbitraty rules can never determine the ability of someone to do something (is this professor able to keep concentration 2+ hours? Then is he capable of teaching that many students? As an example of another arbitrary rule)
Also, what if obesity (or any other health condition) is not because of bad habits and is related to some disorder?
Well, I think that morally there's a lot of "holes" in there. Legally also, but mainly the syllabus thing.
I would first speak to him, as after all, he is teaching at the same college as you, so as a form of "education" you should first go see him. After that, and after your conversation where you present your points, maybe a visit to the chair or dean is probably the right thing to do.
Good luck!!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: You are his adviser.
Don't cover this up, or let it go.
Advise your student to go get a doctor's note which states s/he needs a reasonable accommodation under the American Disabilities Act allowing the student any number of attempts to complete each mile, two hours to perform each mile (not the ~15 minutes provided), that s/he is not required to do it during the day (the professor or a grad student must be available in the evening or early morning when it is cooler).
You don't mention a location for this, but I see you have ties to the Eastern US... if the class is taught elsewhere let me know and I'll delete (though other countries may have similar laws).
If the instructor doesn't cave... that may be for the best, because the student has a pretty straightforward lawsuit that could fund his first four years of med school.
NOTE: I am not a lawyer (IANAL)
---
A comment stated this: (I've reordered the sentences)
>
> The administration needs to be the one to stop this, not the students.
>
>
>
***Yes***, it would be better for the administration to fix it.
But remember that this is *the same administration* that put him in charge of the class (remember he's known to be quirky... which means they are already putting up with some amount of idiocy).
>
> Making it more inconvenient for the professor to enforce his physical fitness requirement seems like an awfully roundabout way to end this nonsensical and inappropriate practice.
>
>
>
I see your point, however my suggestion has several benefits.
First, **the OP doesn't interfere** with another department.
In my opinion that may have long term negative consequences, even if OP has tenure.
Second, an ADA note means the professor has to let the student **make up** all past attempts. If the administration tell him to stop, he could just stop it from then on and give the student a grade he doesn't deserve based on uncompleted runs earlier in the course.
I know that sounds silly, but remember that the joker doing this is the same one that established a PE requirement for a microbiology class. I wouldn't put anything past him.
Third, this is a seven week course!
The student needs to *stop the clock* to prevent getting a B- (or whatever) assigned and then having to fight over a grade change (to where it should have been).
If I had a choice between waiting on an administration to do the right thing, or having that administration's lawyers make them do the right thing... I'd bet on the lawyers.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_11: Please consult someone in your university you can trust (e.g. other professors you are friends with, worker's union, ombudsman).
From another question of you, I remember that you are not so high in the career ladder and other shady things happen in your department. Unfortunately, this could mean that "pissing off a more senior professor" could be very bad for your career.
Now, I do not say that you should not help the student because of your career. But please talk to competent people before who can tell you maybe about similar situations that happend before. Hopefully they can tell you how those situations turned out and what happened to the people in question. Then, you can make a more informed decision what to do. Maybe they tell you about some anonymous processes avaiable in your university.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: It would presumably be against the university's academic policies to award grades for non-academic activities. A professor cannot, on a whim, decide to award grades for components of a degree for activities such as finger-painting, beer pong, or karaoke performances. It brings the reputation of the department, not to mention the entire university, into disrepute. To make matters worse, this is a core subject, and worth 20% of the grade for this subject.
Even if a superior, for some highly dubious moralistic reasons, decided to approve this professor's conduct, presumably the administrators of the university would take a dim view of this behavior. If they don't, then there's something more serious wrong with the institution than the information than has been provided tells.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_13: It's eccentric but I don't think it's appropriate for you to stir up trouble based on your differing opinion. This professor thinks it is important, and university teaching is degraded every time political busybodies assert power to themselves to tell other professors how to teach. The result would be bland, boring classes where the instructor merely reads from the slide decks provided by the textbook publisher. Incompetence in the instructor, tardiness, unexplained absences, etc, are reasons for administration to step in, but eccentric opinions about the formation of graduates is not a valid reason.
I object to the answer that says "If the class is about microbiology, the students’ grade should depend on their knowledge of microbiology, and only on that." Students who want to learn only the facts can do so by buying a book or downloading an online course. You pay lots of money to go to a university to get something more than the facts. Some part of that is to engage with the opinions and experience of the professors, and some part of it is being made to go through a difficult set of tasks to obtain a degree that proves you've made the effort and demonstrated the necessary perseverance to earn it. In short, the students have signed up for this!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_14: Having thought about this for a few days let me give an answer that is different from most of what is here.
My bottom line is that a professor can, carefully and thoughtfully, deviate from standard pedagogical practice. However, such deviations need to be *justifiable* in order to be acceptable. Even then, they may not be accepted. Moreover, the justification needs to exist, but doesn't need to be obvious to everyone.
I don't know, from the information given by the OP whether the professors actions are justifiable. I think that the topline question of the OP can be answered "yes", you should intervene in some way. But the proper way isn't to make accusations that that the actions are positively unjustifiable until you, or some authority knows more and explores whatever reasons the professor has for the actions. A TA isn't the person to make accusations against a professor, of course, just out of self preservation. But bringing it to the attention of 'higher authority' is certainly fine.
But let me note a couple of examples, one personal and the other not.
There is a method of teaching mathematics, the [Moore Method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_method), in which the professor studiously *avoids* teaching mathematics and forbids the students from reading about it in books and such. Nearly everything the student knows about math, beyond a few definitions, was developed by that student through a series of exercises, that I assume the student gets feedback on, but no prior instruction. The prof might give a sparse definition of the derivative, but no examples, and a lot of exercises. <NAME>, turned out a number of very fine mathematicians and others, long after his death, still use this or a modification of it. It was, and remains, controversial. But it differs radically from standard pedagogy in mathematics.
My personal anecdote is that I once announced to my class, fairly early in the semester, that I was willing to fail everyone and stop holding lectures and they wouldn't need to come anymore and could just do other things. I could "get away" with this because I was tenured, respected, and a bit "zany". It caused quite a stir in the hallways after class. My department head asked about the reasoning, as was entirely appropriate. The issue was that the students had gotten to their current stage without any particular effort and had developed no good study habits. They would likely fail in the future if they didn't "learn how to learn" more effectively. I felt they needed shock therapy to get them to see the consequences. I actually spent a bit of time in future lectures guiding them to better study habits and actually forced note taking on them, with later reinforcement. But the pedagogy, while *justifiable* certainly wasn't standard, and I don't recommend it to anyone without deep thought first.
In the current situation, I think the proper approach, probably from a dean or such, is to ask that professor "*Why* do this?". What is the reason/justification. If that reason is inadequate then it is certainly time for condemnation and an intervention. It is probably, also, in the current case, necessary to examine the actually implementation, including accommodation for those unable to participate. But it should start with questions, not condemnation.
The rather strange (to say the least) pedagogy needs justification. But start with that.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/29
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a final year PhD student in chemical engineering. Since the start of my PhD, I was clear on one personal philosophy. I will put my name only on those papers where I have made substantial contribution. And I will put my colleague's name on a paper only if he/she has contributed substantially. That's what collaboration means to me and anything else seems fraudulent.
However, my group members frequently put each other's name as co-authors in their papers even if they work on completely different topics and have no contribution in the paper. Now, this is unethical in my perspective, on the other hand, they have 10-15 papers by the time they graduate which increases their chance to secure a postdoc position or a tenure track position.
My advisor says, granting of co-authorship is entirely up to the first author and she doesn't interfere with the process.
I have experienced similar sharing of authorship during my masters degree as well. Past PhD members or postdocs were given co-authorship in spite of not contributing anything.
I will be getting 4 (first author) + 2 (co-author) papers from my PhD, which is far less than my colleagues' output.
My colleagues often say that I should have been more collaborative (i.e. share authorship without contribution) as that would have increased my publication count and helped everyone. I simply can't see myself doing that.
Have I severely affected my chance of a future in academia by not taking part in the authorship sharing practice?<issue_comment>username_1: I can tell you from the perspective of a person who was on hiring committees that these kinds of ethical indiscretions are easy to spot and are not well received. To the point, we rejected several applicants because we suspected they weren’t sufficiently independent after graduation as they weren’t lead authors on enough publications.
First of all, word gets around. If a PI lets their group slap their names on random papers, hiring committees will take notice, and will not take these applicants seriously. Second of all, we ask questions! If you obviously know nothing about papers you coauthored (yes, it’s obvious), that reflects very badly on you. Finally, if I were you I’d emphasize that on the few publications you have you are the lead author.
That said, your colleagues can partly get away with this: publishing is a numbers game and I don’t know how hiring committees think in other places or fields.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: **Fraudulant "collaboration" is caused by perverse incentives**
One of the main things that contributes to this problem, in my opinion, is having ridiculous anachronistic academic and citation metrics that do not adjust for authorship (e.g., the raw h-index). Ironically, there is a large and well-developed academic literature on metrics that adjust for authorship contribution, but this has not made its way into the practice of universities. Most universities still look at crude citation metrics that do not adjust for the number of authors on a paper, and this creates an incentive for the kind of fraudulent cross-authorship of papers.
Authorship adjustment is quite a complicated field, owing to the fact that the contributions of authors on a paper may be unequal, and the authorship order can give information on this (depending on the field). Nevertheless, the basic principle of every proper metric is that the "total value" of a set of papers to a set of authors should not be able to be increased (or decreased) by spreading the authorship in a different pattern. Even the most crude authorship adjustments remove the perverse incentive problem that leads researchers to game the system by cross-authoring papers where they haven't done the work. If you adjust authorship metrics for authorship then this problem disappears --- being the full author of one paper with 100 citations is as good as having fifteen papers each with 100 citations and fifteen co-authors (inclusive of yourself).
I can understand why you are concerned about this problem. It punishes researchers that do papers as sole authors (or in small groups) compared to similarly situated researchers who do research in large groups. Over time, it would be my hope that university practice will catch up to the development of the literature on this problem, and authorship-adjusted citation metrics will start to be used in practical decision-making (e.g., hiring, promotions, etc.) instead of the anachronistic indexes. If that occurs then you will eventually see this practice dissipate, since there will no longer be a perverse incentive to do it.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Partly it's an academic self importance problem, and perhaps something that is reflected in the perception of American individualism (see edit below).
In some ways the PhD 'clarity of contribution' is about ensuring that students 'know themselves', and it also a mechanism to simplify assessment by others (possibly the real reason).
In some areas the need for collaboration is massive, such as in engineering, or some big astronomy (see the [black hole imaging papers](https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab0ec7). The key is being able to identify your personal contribution (and hence also being distinct about the contributor elements), rather than claiming fame by 'involvement' in a mega project (as in being the tea boy/girl).
It's even worse in engineering as you rarely get published anyway, but at least ChemEng is (can be) well paid ;-).
If you are clear about who contributed what, then being a little more collaborative is likely to be beneficial as it also enhances your network of those in academia and engineering. Give credit where credit is due, and it will come back to you.
---
Edit: from comments: from a UK/European perspective, a lot of the SO/academia rhetoric, which appears mainly US based, does have an expectation of idealistic individual work without any linkage to others. The questioner stated their personal philosophy that they want to provide a substantial contribution to a paper with their name (e.g. needing say >30% contribution). This is not the same as having made a small but substantive contribution to some element of the work (e.g. 15% of 15%), hence the philosophy could be detrimental. The key is to "clear about who contributed what" to the team.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been invited to participate to a special issue of [Entropy](https://www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy) for some work that I have done in statistical physics.
I received from other journals many such invitations which looked like spam, and I wonder whether I should take this one more seriously, or consider it somehow a good one.
What are the criteria to tell whether the special issue is 'prestigious' enough, besides Impact Factor and names of guest editors?<issue_comment>username_1: Research libraries tend to have help pages that explain evaluating the credibility of journals. I'll link to the [Emory Health Sciences Library page](http://health.library.emory.edu/writing-publishing/quality-indicators/journal-credibility.html), since it has some credible steps that I'll paraphrase briefly:
* In what databases is the journal listed? (is it in the big databases for your field?)
* What is the publication history? (has it been around a long time? is it on a regular release schedule?)
* What is its review process? (peer reviewed? refereed? how long does review seem to take?)
* What is the journal's Impact Factor? (a measure of citation frequency)
Evaluating a journal with these questions require some expertise in your field, so you should do the work of answering those questions, and consult a research librarian or mentor if you have questions. In general, I'd see if I can find it in the main databases I use for research, if it keeps to a regular schedule (biyearly, quarterly, monthly), if you can find any clues to how long their review process takes, and so on.
You can also use tools in some databases to look up an article from the journal and see where it was cited. For instance, if you find an article in that journal, you can search for it on Google Scholar and see the number of times it has been cited with the search result. You can then see where the articles citing the journal are published - do you know those journals? Are they reputable?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: First things first, *Entropy* is an MDPI journal. MDPI is a rather controversial publisher - see the "Controversies section of [its Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI) - and while I make no judgment on whether it's a predatory publisher, it's preferable to know the facts so you can make an educated decision on whether to publish with them.
If you conclude that it's worth publishing with them, then factors to consider are:
* Do you have anything relevant to contribute to the special issue?
* Do you know who the editors are? Are they authorities in your field?
* How good is the journal? Have you read/cited papers published in it? If not, you can still look at the papers in its current issues and draw your own conclusions about its quality.
* Which databases are the journal indexed in? This is usually a concern, but since you mention "impact factor", that means the journal is indexed by the Science Citation Index, and that's *the* index to be concerned about. If the journal is indexed there every other index doesn't really matter.
* How much is the article processing charge, and can you afford to pay it? MDPI is an open access publisher, so you can only publish OA with them, which usually means there's an APC. It's possible they're offering you free OA (this is especially likely if you're an invited submission, similar to how invited conference speakers often have the conference attendance fee waived). Otherwise they might simply be letting you know that you might be interested in this special issue, in which case you'll probably need to pay the APC.
But in the end the final decision is up to you. If you submit, acceptance is not guaranteed, although I'll venture that your chances are relatively good. If yours is an invited submission, then you might get to list that prominently on your CV; even if not, it's still +1 to your publication count. But preparing a submission will take time, and if you have nothing really worth publishing available, that might not be time well spent. It's up to you.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: If someone would have obtained two MSc degrees from the same university for example MSc politics from UCL and MSc international relations from UCL too, how do you put that on a business card?<issue_comment>username_1: This will very likely depend on the laws of the country you are in and the norms of the business you are in (does it look complete or pretentious to list all degrees). For example, in Austria you would/could just list all titles (except if you work in an especially "young" company where you would probably not list degrees at all).
Since you seem to emphasize "from the same university", could you mabe explain why this could make a difference to "two master titles from different universities"?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally, it is up to you, but it is good to follow the customs and culture of the country and the workplace.
E.g. many universities and government positions will try to list all your titles, both of the respect to you, but also to give a better representation of the person in mind.
Many companies would also want to show that they have highly-skilled workers to their customers/partners. It is interesting to note that (at least from my experience) most companies will only include one (usually the top one) title. This is mainly done not to look too pretentious, but also to make it easier for any person who would read your business card to understand your general position without having to take a minute or two understanding how all the titles line up.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Some of the answers question why you want to include all your academic qualifications on a business card. Whether or not to do so, is very much a matter of local custom and practice. Only you, seeking advice **locally** if you wish, can decide whether you should do so.
If you want to include them then the answer is clear: you are <NAME>, MSc(Somewhere), MSc(Somewhere). Such a formulation might give rise to questions, but so what? You have a good story to tell.
You might like to check what the relevant university's exact title for your degrees is: are they both actually MSc? The exact abbreviation might differ. One of mine is in fact MMath, and another is in fact MSc, but the previous year's class got MSc(Eng).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: This is a late reply but a couple of points of possible interest:
1. Usually it's an M.A. rather than an M.Sc. in fields like politics or international relations. But obviously this depends on the universities and departments in question - it may be an A.M., M.Phil., etc. Now if the two universities/departments have different designations, that may be one possible solution.
For example, <NAME>wing *M.A. (Politics), M.Phil. (Int. Rels.).*
2. What's so bad about having double master's degrees ? Especially when the field is somewhat different.
Thus: <NAME>. *M.A. (Politics), M.A. (Int. Rels.).*
Upvotes: 0
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I am PhD student works in a computer science. I have given lots of presentations in the institute level and one or two at the conference level. I have been told by my fellow researchers that they did not get much from my presentations/talks. Even I have presented one paper in the conference also and got the same feedback. I spend more time on making slides as well practise at least two three times on the projector also. I think I am kind of person who is worst at presenting the work. **Assuming this Is there any way through which I can deliver a good talk?**<issue_comment>username_1: I'm also not great at presenting. One method I've found useful is to present to and get feedback from people who have around the same level of knowledge as your intended audience (i.e. people who are not too heavily involved in your project, but are in your research field). This means they will be able to tell you which parts you need to explain in more detail.
Also, look at other people's presentations to see what's the standard level of technical detail in your field - I've seen presentations where the focus should be on the scientific analysis and results, but instead too much time is spent on the minutia of how the analysis was performed.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I find <NAME>' [talks](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/academic-program/give-great-research-talk/) immensely useful. They offer practical advice and tips, and are catered to a CS audience. Apart from that, as @username_1 says, there isn't really much cleverness to it - just practice until you're at least a passable speaker. Solicit feedback from your peers and advisors, and don't get discouraged.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The truth is you need more detailed feedback than *"I didn't get much out of it"*. **Why**, and **when**, did you lose your audience? Did they not understand your problem statement? Did they not understand your approach? Was it a language problem? Were you speaking too fast, too softly, or too unclearly? Did you use too much jargon without explaining it? Was the talk too technical (or, much more rarely, not technical enough)? Was the talk too boring to pay attention to?
What you need is to practice your talk in front of a small audience of people who are willing to give you direct and detailed feedback, ideally slide-by-slide. Only once you know what the most important problems are you can work on resolving them.
If your problem is literally about conveying your idea (i.e., describing the technical contribution of the paper in an understandable manner) my experience is that people undervalue two concepts:
* Having a really good illustrative example. Ideas are hard to follow if they are presented in the abstract, with As and Bs and Ns. Have a good, plausible (if small) example, and show how your approach works for it.
* Having good visualizations (that are made specifically for the presentation, not just a figure from the paper). Powerpoint animations have a bad rep, but for some types of research (e.g., some algorithms) a couple of animations make it much easier to work out what's going on than a code listing or a couple of text bullets.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the process of revising my MA thesis for a publication. I am not clear whether I can just copy and paste information from my thesis and do minimal revisions, or I should paraphrase my thesis to a large extent so as to avoid self-plagiarism.
Any feedback would be appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: If your thesis hasn't been "published" in any form then you can just consider the publication as a new version and revise it as you like. It would be good, however, to note somewhere that it is derived from your thesis. The new publication will be the "first" publication.
But if you or the university has published it, then you are normally better off citing it in the publication rather than just copy/paste. However, since the work is yours, you can also quote longer parts of the original (with citation) than you would do with the work of another.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Paraphrasing something that would otherwise be plagiarism does not stop it from being plagiarism. Similarly, trying to get the same thing published twice is a problem, whether or not it uses the same language.
However, at least in the UK it is normally fine for ideas that are in a MSc or PhD thesis to also appear in a journal article. I would not worry about using the same words, when it's appropriate to do so.
If you want to be sure, you could write to the editor of your intended journal to check. Either way, it would be wise to mention the situation in the cover letter when you submit your article, just in case they run it through a "plagiarism detector".
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying to a Masters Program at a top university. I already have a Bachelors and a Masters degree, in addition to work experience. I have strong letters of recommendation and my Masters degree grades (both quant and social sciences) are excellent (all A's). Unfortunately, during my bachelors degree I had some serious personal issues with a parents health, which resulted in me not being able to handle the course load for a couple of semesters, resulting in some poor grades (few Cs and a D). My overall GPA still ended being well above average and majority of my grades were still A's.
**Should I explain this in my application or simply focus on the strengths of my application?** I will not be including this in my personal statement but there is an option to provide additional info. On the one hand, I feel like these poor grades are a blot on my record (some poor grades sprinkled among As) and not a good reflection of my potential. I basically went through a tough time where my life was so uncertain that I couldn't properly plan my course load or withdraw from courses on time. These courses were quantitative, which is relevant to the program I am applying to. At the same time, I feel like adding this info in my application might draw attention to the negatives or make it seem like I'm shirking responsibility.<issue_comment>username_1: I would suggest that you focus on the strengths, not what you might think as a weakness. You have history since the poor grades. Show in your application that you are a good candidate for success.
But, be prepared to give a reasonable answer if you are asked about the past. But what you can say in the written materials is probably limited, so focus on the positive.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You should explain.
Unlike (say) mental health problems, there is no stigma attached to having a parent in ill health. If you don't explain, people will be wondering what the reason for the bad grades was, and whether it was mental health problems or some other cause that reflects poorly on you. If you explain, they they will know what caused them and will see these bad grades in a much less negative light.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/30
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<issue_start>username_0: Something I never understood is how in so many undergrad classes North America, the students are allowed to have past exams that they are allowed to study over.
It never made sense to me because it is apparent that this practice could cause so many problems, especially as exams accumulate over the years, e.g. leading to inflated grades. I do not exclude myself from this practice.
As an example, in one of the classes, I knew only a small number of students had access to an exam around that was given around 5 years ago (literally gotten through one of the student's relatives who took the exams years before), and one of the question from that past exam was very similar to another one that was given in the actual exam. This doesn't seem very fair to me.
Finally, I always felt that my work was delegitimized with access to these resources, and over the year sort of adopted a pessimistic view on learning and knowledge, seeing that so many of my peers became arrogant and prideful despite having had access to these external resources. It was not until I did grad school much later on (where past exams are virtually non-existent) did I "let go" of those feelings and regain a bit of confidence in my own capabilities.
Should students have access to past exams or an exam bank that they can study? Why does it not constitute as cheating? My background is in STEM.<issue_comment>username_1: I think the point is, or should be, that having diagnostic question be "secret" is perverse. That is, why not tell people directly what we want them to know?
And why not let them see representative examples of what we want them to do?
Sure, some students are not so much interested in learning as in the grade... but should we corrupt the scholarly aspects by gaming merely to thwart this? I don't think so.
It is true that some of my own colleagues have "criticized" my composition of PhD Written Prelims by observing that there is no secret about the general scope of the questions on the exam, so, "gosh, people can study the stuff and then everyone passes!?!" Um, well, if you tell people what you want them to know, and if they can demonstrate that they know it... and can do things with it... what is the problem?
... do we need to have a significant number of "failures" to prove that "non-failing" is significant? I'd say "no", but quite a few people would say "yes". This becomes perverse when we have a stringent admissions system, so that really everyone admitted to our grad program is capable of doing a PhD. See what I mean?
As with sports: if one can do the thing well, good; if not, not-so-good. But to create fake/artificial strictures by withholding information is just silly. Not even an interesting game.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: As a professor, one has to assume that all past exam questions are available to students. Some student organizations debrief members after exams and capture the questions for such an exam bank.
Some professors realize this and take action accordingly, not reusing questions, or not using enough of them to matter substantially. Others think, probably mistakenly, that they can set rules forbidding the use of such "resources". The rules will be broken by at least some of the students. I don't know of any effective way to actually prevent access to old questions. So, just assume that they are available.
My own opinion is that the professor should just assume that it will happen and, if they want to make the test taking "fair" will make old exams available for study. Some even go so far as to give out the final exam on the first day of class, to be taken later, though I suspect that not many do that.
But old exams are useful for honest students to study from if they don't expect to get those questions on their own exams.
Of course, coming up with new questions each term/year adds a bit of work, but if the course is so "stagnant" that an exam from a few years ago is still being reused then the prof needs to do a better job.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: Not necessarily past exams, but practice tests with worked solutions would help. Actively discourage students from just memorizing the answers at the last minute.
Look at MCAT prep. It's basically all practice testing. If you took the SAT or ACT or AP exams, did you take practice tests?
Here are several reasons to provode practice exams.
1. Practice testing helps students learn. Students are quite literally practicing the things you would like them to know.
2. Practice tests help students gauge their level of understanding. How many times have you heard a student say, "I thought I was going to do better on that test?" That would not be as likely to happen if they took a practice test or two well in advance.
3. It is more effective than other studying techniques. A lot of students, if they don't have questions to practice with, will reread the book, flip through their notes, and say they get it. They could be fooling themselves because they don't know if they can answer questions about the subject.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If it bothers you that a small group of students had access to previous exams then you should understand that a professor is giving all students a fair opportunity by posting previous exams. If a bad student with access to unauthorized past exams gets the same score as a good student with lecture notes only, then there is a problem. If both have access to past exams then the better student will prevail. The point is that cheaters wont stop looking for shortcuts so the best option is to remove that option by making them available to everyone, but write exams that require thinking not memorizing.
Also I find it unusual that you are in STEM, but feel pessimistic about learning. I am trained in engineering and we were given past exams and dedicted tutorial sessions to do practise problems yet only a handful of students got higher than an A and many got Cs. It's so easy to twist an old problem that can't be solved by memory.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Being in a STEM field, I am sure you're familiar with *extremely* difficult examinations such as the Putnam exam and International Olympiads in Math and Physics. These definitely are exams, even though they're called "competitions". They all share the feature of having open access to all past year questions - solutions, often with multiple methods, are also posted online with alacrity by various enthusiasts.
Why, then, isn't *everyone* doing fantastically well in these exams? The answer is that the exams are of a sufficient level of difficulty and also set with sufficient creativity and originality (to distinguish them from the previous years' questions) that it's not at all trivial to just practice old papers and hope to ace the new one within strict time controls.
And that's your answer - if your exam was challenging and original enough, you wouldn't have to worry about students having access to questions from previous years. In fact, it's almost imperative that you give them that access, so that they can be prepared for an exam of that difficulty.
Of course, "standard" exams are not designed to be as challenging as competition or olympiad problems, but the same general principle applies. There are also other considerations - students will often create and distribute their own informal past year question "banks" as hand-me-downs, maybe even sell them to their juniors. These practices will make it almost impossible for you to ensure an even playing field for your students since some will have more access than others to previous questions. So, it's actually more equitable for you to simply make all your previous exam questions open to all and just focus on setting a new exam that's interesting and challenging without obvious repetition of any of your old material.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: At my university in Sweden it is common practice to have previous exams available. I would almost like to state that they are required to due to the university's rules, but I am unsure about this; I strongly seem to remember reading something like it once.
I can let you know that the passing rate is not increased at all due to this; there are still the "Moby Dicks" of courses around there, gathering some 70% fail rate each year. As someone else said, it is good to know what is expected of you.
Some professors even hand out best student answer to questions from previous exams as well to have a reference to go after.
I am also in a STEM university, MSc and BSc level so far. (Let's hope for PhD as well!!)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: There are implicit differences across fields, examiners and countries. It is not fair to test students on knowledge without them knowing precisely what you're asking. No matter how specific you think an exam's questions may be, there will be certain expectations which have not been laid out.
I came from a physics/mathematics background but studied some softer science subjects and really struggled with some exams because I answered in the wrong style. What was technically correct was not necessarily what was being asked.
If an exam asks:
* "Give an example of symbiosis in nature."
Do you give a *specific* example, referring to two named species? Does this question refer to a mutualistic, commensalistic or parasitic relationship? This was covered in the class, should I use the example given in the lectures? Do I need to include a specific definition of symbiosis or can I *just* write two species?
If an exam asks:
* "Give the Taylor series expansion of `sin(x)`."
You might happen to know the answer off-hand; is it ok to just write that? Is some working expected? Do I need to write it as a sum or can I just write the first few terms? How many terms of the sequence are needed?
You may think you write perfectly concrete exams where every question has an exact answer but I can guarantee you do not because in my experience, no one does.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: Setting rules on the ban of those ressources will only help those who won't respect them even further. After all, how would those rules actually be enforced?
Instead, professors should make exams that actually measure the students' understanding of the subject, rather than their ability to memorize previously posed questions. If a student can pass an exam by just copy-pasting answers from previous one, I'd say it's the professor's fault rather than the student's.
So, yes. As many other answers have pointed out, "exam banks" will appear whether you like it or not, so maybe it is a good idea to make past exams public so that everyone plays by the same rules. Reusing questions is, in my honest opinion, a very bad practice
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: It really depends on where you are. I have never understood why many in North American can't see past exam papers.
I did maths at the University of Cambridge (England). Most of the work we did during the term to learn things was to answer questions from past exams and have these answers reviewed by our tutors.
The last 20 odd years past exams are actually available to all from the maths department web page <https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/pastpapers/past-ia-ib-and-ii-examination-papers>
OK the examiner has to do more work to invent new questions, but the students can never learn answers by rote as they do not know what the questions will be.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: Access to past (or practice) exams is good test design
======================================================
Any test or experiment will have "noise". That is, beside the thing you want to test, there will always be other factors affecting your results. This is, of course, also true of exams.
As [others have explained](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/134073/80384), there are nuances to any question that the examiner might not even be aware of. Local academic culture, implicit biases and assumptions, the level and scope of a specific course. A student hoping to do well on a test has to take all of these into account. However, these details are usually not what you're testing for. You want to know whether a student understood and memorized **the subject matter**, not if they remember which notation a specific professor prefers.
The more noise you introduce into an exam, the more effort is required from your students (if they want to do well) to mitigate its efffects. **"Secret" tests are especially noisy** because the student, by design, cannot know which aspects of the course material will become relevant. This includes things only tangentially related to the subject matter.
>
> Did the professor choose axiom X on purpose or can I also use the more generally applicable Y? They mentioned Y in a lecture, but didn't go into detail. Do they always use this notation or only in special cases?
>
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In my experience, this often leads to **last minute "cramming"**: immersing yourself in the course material and (indiscriminately) memorizing as much as possible shortly before the exam. This allows the student to guess secondary details ("in this kind of question, we used axiom X, but we didn't cover Y so that's probably out of scope") more easily since they're fresh in their mind. However it is usually **not a good learning technique**. It is something **students adopt to cope with the uncertainties** that come with the test method\*.
You can **reduce noise** by exposing students to **the types of question**, the **expected scope** of the exam and the **answer style** you expect throughout the course. Letting them practice on old (or mock) exams will allow them to test their knowledge, assimilate the cultural details over time and concentrate on understanding the subject they're actually supposed to study.
### What if, after releasing past exams, almost no one fails anymore?
Congratulations, you have made your students more successful by allowing them to prepare better. **This is a good thing.** If you feel that the exam is too easy now, add more challenging content. You'll produce more competent graduates.
**Caveat:** This line of reasoning assumes that you prepare a "fresh" exam each time and that it is reasonably well designed to test for understanding of the subject matter in the first place. Reusing previous questions with minimal changes will defeat the purpose.
\*Yes, laziness is also a factor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_11: I think it's absolutely necessary to allow students to view past exams, at least in my subject (law). Students with good connections will get the past exams either way. It wouldn't be fair not to give the exams to everyone else, allowing those few with good connections to prevail without learning while everyone else struggles.
Past exams are also a good way of getting a feeling for what answer a professor wants to read when asking a certain question. Many professors have their very own style in HOW they ask questions if they want to hear a certain thing. It's only beneficial.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: Two points here:
**How do students prepare for an exam?**
* Read textbooks.
* Read course materials.
* Attend class and take notes.
* Review their own notes.
* *Review notes taken by other students, of the same or previous years.*
* Do homework assigned in class and have it graded.
* *Do extra exercises from textbooks.*
* *Do extra exercises under exam-like conditions.* (Regarding quantity and time, allowed materials, etc.)
Thinking back to my university days, the last was more energy than the average student would spend on the average exam. But it would be a sign of *dedication*, not *cheating*, if one did it. Now what is a legitimate source of these exam-style exercises?
**What do exams test?**
If the ability to memorize the previous half dozen exams means one can pass the next one, either the lecturer is recycling questions, or the course is really basic. In that case, wouldn't a textbook contain all the things one has to memorize to pass?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: One thing that always works, but is a hard sell with students, is that they should work out as many problems as possible without looking at solutions. I'm for having lots of problems available, I'm very much against having lots of answers available. My exams are often modified (simplified) homework questions, and so the book generally has tons of sample exam questions to begin with.
I teach Mathematics, it may be somewhat different in other fields. In math it is also common, at least in the US, to not teach the same class over and over, so being able to come up with new exams is not so bad.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: **The exam should be written with awareness of what resources the students have access to.** If that condition is met, and all students have access to essentially the same resources, there's no problem here. For example, if a professor plans to re-use a question from a previous exam, then they should either closely guard their old exams or make the exams easily available to everyone. I've had professors do things like tell the class that a homework problem was going to appear on the exam *verbatim*, but not tell them which one; since it wasn't practical for students to just memorize every homework problem with its solution, this forced the class to work hard to understand the method for solving each of the homework problems. It would be reasonable to try something similar with past exams, e.g.:
>
> Here are all the exams I've written for this class in the last ten years.
> One of the problems on the exam will be exactly the same as a problem from one of these examples.
>
>
>
It's also worth noting that exams are often different in format than other means of evaluation in the same class – homework questions are usually very different from test questions, and (at least when I teach) weekly quiz questions are very different from exam questions. But it doesn't seem fair to evaluate a student based on how well they handle a completely new style of question, if the goal of the class was to teach key concepts or techniques – to take an analogy, imagine if a student had a hard time reading the exam because it was printed on blue paper instead of white. Would the lower score they received as a result accurately reflect their understanding of the material, or just their discomfort with the way the questions were presented?
Because of these factors, I generally supply my students with past exams, with solutions, and with a "mock exam" that I write fresh alongside the actual exam. This seems to improve student success significantly – and by that I don't mean it just inflates grades, which is definitely a legitimate concern. What I mean is that my students typically demonstrate stronger familiarity with the material after preparing for my exams using resources like these.
**That said,** there's another style of teaching that would make perfect sense, in principle. If you're teaching something that would be reasonably easy to memorize, or if having to deal with an unfamiliar format is a key skill you're trying to teach, then it might make sense not to release old exams. In that case, though, **the professor would need to make sure that none of the students got hold of old exams,** because otherwise the exam would be unfair to those who didn't; that means they'd have to disallow students from taking their exams home with them after they've been graded, and they couldn't release solutions after the fact. The example you gave sounds like a situation like this going wrong - access to old exams was intended to be controlled, but that control failed, resulting in an unfair situation. In the modern era of the Internet, controlling information like that is difficult, and probably not worth it; prohibiting students from using old exams is more likely to lead to more cheating and more unfairness than anything else.
**In short, a professor needs to pick an option and embrace it.** Either make old exams available to everyone and write the exam with the expectation that students are looking at previous ones, or make old exams available to no one.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_15: I am not sure there is a universal answer to this: the correct answer may depend on the discipline, the level of the course, the number of students in the class, etc.
Amongst arguments in favour of this:
1. It levels the playing field for students: by making sure that *all* students have access to exams, there can be no subset of students with a putative advantage of having some exams while others do not,
2. In principle, if a student can correctly answer most of the questions on the previous 3-4 final exams, this student should do well on most questions of the current exam (assuming the core material is the same). Thus, past exams provide guidelines on the topics covered in the exam, the emphasis of some of the material, and also allow students to become familiar with the style of the instructor.
3. In principle it forces the instructor to produce *some* additional questions every year and thus keeps the finals more “current” than old ones.
The major argument against this is that *some* students will study the past exams rather than the whole contents of the course, so that any parts of the course not emphasized in previous exams will get comparatively less attention, and the student will have a narrower grasp of the material. This can set up *some* students for disappointment and false claims that questions are overly different from previous exams.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_16: It's best to ignore this issue, whether some students get an advantage over others at exams this way is irrelevant, because exams are at best only a very crude way to assess students' ability anyway and those students who focus too much on exams tend not to become the best experts in the field later.
So, this is just yet another aspect of the "teaching to the test" problem that should be tackled comprehensively instead of looking at one symptom at a time and trying to invent some ad-hoc band-aid for that. The best solution i.m.o. is to get rid of exams and degrees altogether. Universities should be places where students buy an education of their choice out of pure interest or to get qualified for a job of they later want to do. How does an employer find out whether a job applicant is suitable for the job? By letting the job applicant sit an exam that tests the specific skills required for the job.
The employer can then choose to outsource this to some specialized testing company, or to a university. So, universities may still end up taking exams, but this is then not directly related to the courses given to students. Students can, of course, sit voluntary exams to test whether they can be confident to pass an exam set by a prospective employer.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_17: Yes, in the current state of US university education, *every* student should have explicit, formally-accepted access to all available former exams for every class.
Why? Because of three problems.
Problem #1 - former exams are the only decent resource for studying for university-level exams.
Quoting from Trylks' answer: <http://academia.stackexchange.com/a/23128/56720> on what to do about students acquiring old exams:
>
> The questions in an exam and the exercises done before the exam should not be more different than an exam and a previous exam, actually old exams make for perfect exercises and practice
>
>
> The point is that studying the courses and making a few exams/exercises to practice should be easier and lead to greater success than checking the whole compilation of past exams, which should anyway lead to a good knowledge of the contents of the course (in a more tedious way than reading the theory and checking this with a few exams).
>
>
> Personal story: When I was in high-school the homework would be much harder than the exams, anyone making the homework (optional) would get good qualifications and the qualifications would reflect actual good knowledge about the subject. In the university there were exercises, but they were explanatory and very basic, the questions in the exam were much harder. This made the exercises useless, students needed exams from previous years just to practice in answering the questions, and I hated that.
>
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I agree wholeheartedly with Trylk's assessment of modern university exams - they are written so differently from the rest of the coursework that they are often impossible to effectively prepare for without former exams.
Professors don't provide students with any better alternative for study, so students have to rely on the tedious practice of reviewing every former exam they can scrounge up.
Problem #2 - some students will always get ahold of former exams.
They simply will.
Some frats are able to consistently find recruits on the strength of their extensive record of former exams in verious courses.
Some students have brothers, sisters, friends, etc. that took the course last year.
Some are willing to outright buy former exams.
There's simply no stopping it, and even a dedicated effort to prevent it will still only catch a few.
Problem #3 - because of problem #1 and #2, students who can find a former exam have an unfair advantage that's unlikely to be addressed
If professors upped their game in terms of coursework and exam writing, then you might not need this policy.
But, as things stand, I think that the only way to create a fair playing field is for former exams to be made available to everybody.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_18: Yes, of course.
---------------
They already are available. There were students there, present and able to remember, or keep copies. Which means, if you keep them "secret" - there will be a bias among your subjects, err, students. Those who have the old tests and those who don't. Likely there is a correlation - this bias is higher among those who either A) have money or B) have academic connections. So unless you find it perfectly acceptable that your meritocratic system (which in my view, is academia as it should be) degenerates into a nepotic or oligarchic system - you need to make that information available to all.
Besides, reusing old exams, by parts or whole, is an abhorrence of lazyness and shoddy workmanship. Be better. How can you be outstanding, if you accept such ineptitude.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: It is to ask that I sent my original article in some journal, reviewers asked me to make some amendments which I did on time. The editor then sent me an email with their decision of acceptance.
Now they have published their journal new edition, but my article is not published. Is it legal or ethical to do this?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is both legal and ethical. I don't know why you would ask about legality, unless you have paid for publication.
But there are two things here. It may just be a matter of timing and available space. Your article may be in the pipeline for a future edition, but didn't make it into the most recent. Except for a special issue, I think that is the most likely explanation.
You have a letter of acceptance from the editor, so I think that your article will appear and don't suppose an editor would pull your article after sending such a letter unless they learned late of some serious issue - say scientific misconduct.
But prior to a letter of acceptance, the editor is free to act and include or not include any article. The reviewers work for the editor, not the other way round.
You are free to ask, of course. You can send a message that you thought your article was going to be in the recent issue and would like a publication update.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If they've accepted it, they will publish it (eventually). They have nothing to gain otherwise by holding your paper. That it's not been published in the latest issue isn't a sign that they're not going to publish your paper at all - they could for example have a lot of papers that are online ready waiting for an issue, and they've hit their page count limit for this issue.
Whether the journal has the authority to reject your paper after accepting it is a separate question. In principle, they can: nothing gets published without the editor-in-chief's approval after all, and he can change his mind. In practice, this happens extremely rarely. If they find out for example that the paper is plagiarized, then it can be rejected. But to reject it because they changed their mind about whether it's publishable - that's almost never going to happen.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I would check the journal on line. The [Journal of Alloys and Compounds](https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-alloys-and-compounds) us a good example of several things that could be going on.
First, the front page is mainly about the available articles (this is a small portion of the section):
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mLiRZ.png)
The first article shown is a "In Press, Journal Pre-proof, Available online" - it is accepted, considered in press, and the proofs have not come back from the authors. But, it is available to be read by anyone and the pdf tells you how to cite it since it has a doi already.
Now, go to the issue listing near the top of the page:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3oseJ.png)
Notice that the 30 September issue is done and considered fully published. There are then three more issues listed as "In progress", being filled out with articles from the queue of available accepted papers. (Many/most journals prefer to try and balance the variety of topics covered in an issue, although some prefer to have focused issues. This impacts how long a newly accepted article might take to surface). Again, any articles listed in the "In progress" issues are fully ready to be downloaded, read, and cited.
So, go online and see what is available - your article may be there.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a non-student/private citizen and I am eager to meet with professors at universities in my area so I can ask these professors a particular question about a particular subject matter. I want to ask them the same question to see if they all will give me the same answer. Based on their answers, I will then decide whether or not to pursue writing an article to be published which relates to this particular subject matter.
I have sent emails to six local universities requesting a meeting with a professor in this particular area of study and so far I have only received one e-mail reply. In that one email reply, the professor suggested that I meet instead with one of their graduate students because his consultation fee is very high. I am still waiting for the professor to provide me with the names of these grad students.
I have decided to wait at least a week before sending follow-up e-mails, or perhaps calling them directly to ask for an appointment, because I realize that professors are busy people.
This experience with trying to communicate with college professors makes me wonder if professors, in general, like answering questions from non-students/private citizens. Is it safe to say that professors, in general, would prefer that non-students/private citizens seek answers from subject matter experts in the private sector?<issue_comment>username_1: Most researchers I know - including myself - are happy to discuss honest questions from the public. What most researchers do not particularly like, is to be part of a session where the asker either has a hidden agenda (why don't you just ask your question in an email?) or does not put any value to the time put into doing such sessions (do you really need to ask multiple professors? To me, that approach would put you directly in the spam category).
I would suggest that you simply write the question directly to the professor suggesting you to meet up with the grad student, and possibly ask him/her to forward it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: As in general, people are typically happy to be asked to exercise/express their expertise on the things they've worked their whole lives to understand.
But/and the most expert people are very busy, working on moving forward in that.
So their time is very valuable.
So an email response is much preferred, typically. The email back-and-forth, to arrange a physical meeting, is not preferred...
And if *I*, for one, found out that my opinion as a professional whatever was just supposed to be one vote out of some larger number... for the potentially misguided project of an amateur... I'd most likely not agree to spend the time. It's disrespectful, whatever you feel about that, for non-experts to think that the time of experts is at their disposal in this way, for free, etc. Be serious.
Many academics are kind and generous, but like to have just a token of respect and appreciation (rather than big bucks).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: STOP. If you have an agenda (such as asking and comparing answers) this will be rapidly known, especially if you limit yourself to a single university.
Please read a lot of relevant literature before contacting anyone: if you are not current with the literature chances are your meetings will be very short and you will be ignored as yet another crackpot amateur. Bear in mind that your chances of successfully publishing as a non-student/private citizen are extremely small.
Note: Unfortunately every so often I meet someone with an alternate method to solve a question for which the current paradigm works perfectly well. There’s no harm in this of course, but the method fails at any other problem except the original. In all cases I can remember the author had not done proper prior research and did not realize how much the current paradigm explained, and how little this new approach did beyond the initial problem. Often non-specialist fail to appreciate the level of professionalism required to perform at the research level in any field.
As a result, most non-specialists are dismissed simply because of poor background preparation. All crackpots fall in this category but not all in this category are crackpots so it is incumbent on the non-specialist to be well prepared.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Call them and ask the question. It is much easier to get 5-10 minutes informally with someone on the phone than expecting them to write a well worded e-mail. If your question takes more than 10 minutes to answer you really should compensate them in one way or another.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a master's degree (in maths) and would like to pursue a PhD in future and have at least a year in hand. So I thought of picking some new research topic by reading articles in journals. The problem is how do I know the material I am reading is of a suitable standard. I often hear (and I don't mean to belittle all researcher) rumours that few researchers publish for the heck of publishing. So I don't want to waste my effort in reading those papers. One of my criteria to shortlist papers is to look for the journal which has high brand value. But this method looks superficial to me. So can you suggest some pointer on how does one goes about finding a new research topic of which he/she has no advance knowledge (although I have the pre-requisite knowledge to pursue that topic).<issue_comment>username_1: I am nearly completed a Bsc in math, with plans to do grad school. I already have a fair amount of experience with research so far, but obviously am still rather new.
That being said, I would advise on top of looking at "high brand value" journals, find out who the big names in your topic are. IE who gets cited a lot, who receives press attention (if any), who's research is considered foundational or boundary pushing. Aside from looking at their papers and the journals they publish in, look at who they cite, and then the journals those people publish in. I think this method, while time consuming, will give you a much more complete overview of the literature than if you focused exclusively on "high brand value" journals.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: There is a complication that you should be aware of. (I'm thinking about mathematics.) Certainly in mathematics, the refereed-journal filter leads to more of the impress-the-experts writing than write-to-be-helpful-to-beginners. That is, not intentionally, but as a result of the filter, many of "the best" papers will be unintelligible to a beginner, and, worse, the degree of unintelligibility and details of what's missing are not possible to understand, either.
True, some familiarity with unintelligible things has its benefits, but not what one might have been led to expect from schoolwork.
In particular, I'd wager that deliberately-expository, but high-ish level, documents would be most beneficial to you. Certainly in mathematics. Not journal articles. And, best, get advice from faculty near you who're interested in the things you are. They can easily filter things in the direction you'd need.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: First, I think that a paper is a "good" paper if you can learn something from it. It doesn't matter what other, more experienced, people have to say. The reason for that is ....
Most serious researchers in various fields, math in particular, write for a certain audience. That audience doesn't include novices. Papers are written for other people at a similar level of sophistication as the writer and who are able to fill in details of argument without it being explicitly provided in all cases. Occasionally this leads to errors as you might guess, but it is the way of it.
But, on the other hand, most researchers also include a fairly complete list of references and perhaps an even richer bibliography. This is where the novice, even a beginning doctoral student, has to start. Read a paper that seems interesting or was given to you by an advisor. When (not if, when) you get stuck, go to the references for older papers that contribute to the ideas of the current paper. Start to read and understand them until you get stuck. Then, ... Do this recursively until you reach Euclid if necessary, or until you understand the current paper you are reading and then work forward through the stack (or the tree, actually) until you understand the paper of interest that started you on the quest.
Take a lot of notes as you do this. Don't depend on memory, especially short term memory to keep you on track.
You may need to do this process a few times until you become more accustomed to the ideas and gain insight into what is going on in that small part of math. The papers contain a lot of detail, but it is the insight, not the detail, per se, that gets you to true understanding.
But the notes you take will help guarantee that the whole (painful) process actually leaves you better off at the end. If you actually learn something, you have made a personal advancement.
I'll note for completeness that some people in science and math do write for a broader audience. <NAME> was noted for this, of course, as is <NAME>. You can learn quite a lot from such authors, but not to the same depth you get from specialists writing for other specialists.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/07/31
| 439
| 1,922
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a physics major in my second year. I do well in Physics, but math is my weak point. I struggle through it, I understand it, but my grades are poor. I am interested in studying specifically aerospace in grad school if I can (that's a separate matter). Would graduate admissions turn me down if they see poor Calc 1 and 2 grades?<issue_comment>username_1: Graduate admissions are generally based on a complete record, and depend less on the details of specific courses than they do on an evaluation of your potential for success. You need to build that complete record and a few C's are a negative factor that you need to overcome. There are various ways to do that. One is to just move on and do better, perhaps learning more about calculus on your own, perhaps just taking more advanced courses and doing well there.
If you continue to get C's in math it will be a problem. If you get good grades, especially in those subjects that use calculus it is less likely to matter.
But even more important is to impress your professors with your hard work and potential.
Short answer - the C's won't slam the door, but you need effective ways to open it wider.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Your grades in calculus 1 and 2, which are first year classes, have very little importance to graduate admissions in physics. Admissions will put more emphasis on your most recent grades. However, you simply cannot succeed in as an undergraduate physics major without mastering the calculation of integrals and derivatives. These are essential, core skills used in nearly everything a physics major studies.
So, my advice is to make sure you master those skills. This will enable you to get good grades in later coursework. I would also suggest that you take a proof-based analysis course. A good grade in that would demonstrate that you really understand calculus.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/08/01
| 3,110
| 13,692
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<issue_start>username_0: In the past when I've given presentations at my lab and conferences, I've not had to deal with this problem. But at my new institution I'm constantly dealing with the following phenomena.
**I'm constantly being asked questions that will be answered later in the slides.**
**First try**, I tried top down approach. So I started with the overall problem. I work in AI, so in my particular situation, I start off by saying this is the problem we're trying to solve, here's the overall architecture and now let's analyze the individual components. But then, I'm constantly bombarded with, well what about this component, what about this metric, can you go deeper into just that one component - I don't understand the mechanics behind it, etc. And all these questions will be answered later on. But no one seems to wait to see what the next slides are going to be.
**Second try,** I tried bottom up approach. "Here are all the individual tools you'll need to understand the overall architecture. Here are the metrics, here are individual mathematical concepts, etc. Now, let's see how these are incorporated into a larger framework." But before I can explain what the larger frameworks are, at every slide, they're constantly asking, wait, why is this being used, why are you talking about this, etc etc.
I understand questions arise and I can simply say I'll cover it in the next few slides. But there are sooo many questions being constantly asked and it completely throws off the presentation because constant tangents are being drawn and one person's question confuses another person. This isn't a classroom setting, it's more of a lab setting.
How can I get around this? The only solution I can think of is to have a little box on each slide, right about the page number that has the title of the next page.
Any advice on dealing with this would be very helpful!
**Update:** After listening to everyone's suggestion, the following tips really helped solve this problem.
1. **Preparing slides to control the conversation.** Focusing on only what I prepared instead of making all encompassing slides. For example, if I want to convey the training procedure of a neural network, then only have details regarding input, output, architecture(not every detail, just overview), and the loss functions. Stating "I used equation 'x' because it does will in situations 'a' and 'b'," instead of pasting the actual equations and inciting more questions for understanding every detail of the equation (as was happening previously). But I keep **more detailed notes in the appendix slides** in case anyone has a very specific question.
2. If someone does have a very specific question, then I can refer them to the appendix of these slides and say **"Thank you, that's a great question. I have lots of information regarding that in the appendix of these slides. But due to time constraints, let's take that conversation offline."**
3. **Sending the audience the slides and notes before your talk** so that people can review the slides before hand and better prepare their thoughts before asking random left-field questions during the actual presentation. This doesn't work in conferences, but definitely helps in lab settings.
4. When stating a key concept in a slide that hasn't been addressed previously, I **have a small textbox that says "will be covered in upcoming slides" in red lettering**. This seemed to curtail a lot of questions as the audience no longer feels anxiety over not understanding something on the slide.
5. Right after the title slide, I had a **"goals of today's talk"** slide in which I stated **"goal is not to explain every detail of a particular technique. Rather present overview and my adaptation of it."**
**Disclaimer:** the above suggestions work great if you're presenting at an internal team conference amongst peers. For example, an R&D lab at a tech company (my situation) or in an academic lab setting. Doesn't go great in a conference, but the audience are generally kinder in such public avenues.<issue_comment>username_1: Make it clear at the start that you will take questions at the end.
Then, when someone interrupts with a question, **don't** answer, but say: "please keep that question for the end" and continue.
If you stick to it then it will work, if you answer just one question you have failed...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I'm constantly being asked questions that will be answered later in the slides.
>
>
>
You have to understand that **this is a great problem to have**. There is nothing worse than giving a presentation and facing a bunch of blank stares. Questions mean that
1. People actually understand what you're talking about.
2. They care enough about your idea to actually ask.
3. The problem you're explaining is not trivial.
4. You actually have an answer to the question - later in the slides!
You mention both conference talks and lab talks. In the first case you need to be a bit more prompt (always respect the time assigned to you in a conference, you're not alone and you'll put everyone in an awkward position if you go over time): just say "this is a great question, can we wait for the next slides?" or "can we take it offline?". I have yet to have seen anyone respond to this by insisting that you answer them *right now*.
>
> But there are sooo many questions being constantly asked and it completely throws off the presentation because constant tangents are being drawn and one person's question confuses another person.
>
>
>
This is less a problem of structure than a problem of you not controlling the discussion. If there are many questions and people start discussing amongst themselves you need to take command of the room - say, "it's great that we're having this discussion, but I'd really like to move forward!", or something to that effect.
I believe that neither of your approaches (if I understand them correctly) is as effective as it can be. In conference presentations you need to focus on one big idea and explain it well - the objective of the presentation is to get people to read (and cite) your amazing new paper. Avoid giving broad overviews, and getting into every little detail. The audience needs to know why they should spend time reading your paper, and *that's it*.
In lab presentations make sure that the group knows what the big plan for today is. If there is a constructive discussion that's great. Tell them in the beginning the big points and then try to cover everything else. Give references to stuff you didn't cover so that the group knows where to look for things that weren't covered in the presentation.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I completely agree with the [answer given by username_2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/134129/5674). It is as much of a luxury problem as it ever gets in academia (maybe with the exception of having too much grant money and too few projects/staff).
To add on to that answer, I would like to give a couple of tips/insights on presentation techniques which may help you see this from a different angle.
First off, remember it **all** makes sense *for you* and for you alone. Often enough, connections and relations that may seem obvious to you will not be as obvious to someone else who has been thinking about other problems up until (and possibly even *during* your talk). So you need to take your audience by the hand and guide them through what you want to say. (Also related, but slightly off-topic, there is a saying in literature "The author is dead" meaning when you are reading something you cannot ask questions since the author is not there. However, during a talk you can very much ask questions about bits and pieces that do not make sense for you. Some people do that, and at time over zealously)
So, what *can* you do? I for one appreciate the introspection you seem to show and that you have tried different approaches. Either approach is fine, I'd say, but as you have commented neither is a solution alone.
I would suggest having some "**meta-talk**" within your talk. Overview/Agenda slides are particularly good for this purpose. You can tell people what you intend to go through/cover in your talk, how the concepts relate to each other, without going into any detail, in the beginning of your talk. That way you can prepare them for what is to come. This is also a good time to point out that some details will be revealed later, perhaps after you introduce the concepts but not their relationships to each other. This is a highly effective way to keep people interested, actually.
If questions arise, then as username_2 also pointed out, you can quickly swat them away by saying something like "*I am glad you caught that, let me come back to that in a minute*". That way you acknowledge the wisdom and relevance of the question, without getting derailed. It takes some practice to **keep your composure and stay confident**, when your flow is interrupted, especially it happens multiple times.
I am not sure if this is an issue for you, but by getting frustrated or confused you might leave the impression that you are not actually sure about what you are saying and some people (especially on a conference setting) might see that as a sign of weakness and keep prying into it.
Finally, if despite your best efforts people keep interrupting you in your own lab meetings, you can bring it up with whoever is chairing these meetings and tell them that maybe questions should be kept for the end, or wherever the belong, in order to not hurt the flow of the talk. I cannot imagine an environment where people don't care about the fact that they are hurting a colleague's flow.
After all what is the point of going to a talk if you don't allow the speaker to speak?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: When do you want to answer questions? If you want to answer questions at the end then say this at the beginning and stick to it. If you want questions asked throughout at specific moments, then perhaps have a question slide after each section and inform the audience that you will be doing this. The audience is along for the ride here and you can fill them in on the plan so they get the optimal experience.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Structure is everything!
The first rule to managing a presentation effectively is to provide an overview before going into details. This follows the classic 3 step process of
1. Tell them what your going to tell them in the presentation,
2. Provide the main presentation,
3. Tell them what you told them.
You can spend a short amount of time verbalizing step 1 while providing a succinct written agenda. The agenda will provide everyone with anchor points that you can refer to when questions come up during step 2. (It's often helpful if the agenda is always visible to the audience, either in their own copy or as a sidebar on the slides. You can get creative with this.)
If you're at a conference and time is an issue, you can safely skip step 3.
The point to doing this is that when a question of the type you describe comes up, you can plausibly tell the questioner that you will get to the subject of that question at a specific point later in the presentation (tell them where that lies in the agenda) and ask them if they wouldn't mind waiting until then. This is usually sufficient to get them to hold their questions without objection, and avoids the unwanted tangents that you refer to in your question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: One more approach you could try is a chronological presentation: describe your actual process of solving the problem. Presumably you did not work on entirely separated components and combine them only at the end (bottom-up), nor did you have such a good overview at the beginning that you could break it up (top-down).
Stepping through your progress should limit the number of "why don't you do it this way" questions, because you can easily give design rationale. Because you are building up the system as you speak, the components are directly connected to each other (unlike bottom-up), so it's clear how they relate to each other. And because the audience has an understanding of how far you are with solving the problem, they should understand that some things will only come later.
Of course, a top-down overview at the beginning and/or the end can still be very helpful.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: If you have the opportunity during preparation, one technique that helps with this is to present a draft of your talk to a test audience and get feedback about what things are confusing or seem ungrounded at the time you mention them. As mentioned in other answers, the context of each piece of information makes sense to *you*, since you already have the full picture, but by getting the perspective of someone who isn't already familiar with the topic, you can get a better sense of how to sequentially build on the information you're presenting.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: I have a love-hate relationship with **agendas** in presentations, for that exact reason.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/7mrZJ.png)
I do not like to describe what I will be talking about because, well, I will be talking about these things anyway.
On the other hand your question is exactly why I use them: so that people do not wonder whether I will mention wazii and wazaa. A well built agenda (not like the example above) can help them to cool down the excitement and wait for slide 54 where it is discussed.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/01
| 656
| 2,723
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<issue_start>username_0: A professor recommended me to take PhD program A. However, I want to take PhD program B. Would it be still OK to ask this professor to write a recommendation letter for this PhD program B despite he recommended me to take PhD program A?
He would be an ideal professor to write recommendation for me.
(I am in Germany.)<issue_comment>username_1: Yes.
And any sane person would not hold this against you. It is also reality that people often have to apply to multiple places.
(Also note that if you apply within Europe, you probably might upload the refeence letter yourself and can still decide to find another reference if the professor is insane.)
It could be different if the professor explicitly tells you not to apply to program B (but this does not seem to be the case from your question).
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Of course you can ask, *normally* the worst the person can say is "no" and that'll be the end of it. No normal person would hold it against you to go take another career path than what they recommend.
That being said, I think there might be more to this story than you let on. Just from the top of my head I can come up with multiple relevant questions:
* Does the prof even know about alternative B?
* Did you find both A and B yourself and ask the profs opinion, or did the prof suggest you to apply for A out of the blue?
* Did you ask why the prof recommends A?
* Did you ask the prof how alternative B compares to A, in his/her own view?
* How complicated is the application process, does it imply too much work for the prof to write two letters (if for example the fields are very different, or one program requires the letter to be submitted by the prof rather than you uploading/emailing it)
* Why do you not want to take option A? Is there something in the profs logic, in recommending this program, that you don't agree with?
* Why don't you apply to both and see if you **actually** get an offer from both programs?
In any case, despite the answers to the above question, I still stand by my answer: unless the prof is really old school and would make it a matter of pride, I don't see why anyone would even care which program you choose.
But pondering on these questions might make it a bit more clear for you, both about your own intentions and motivations, and how others (i.e. the prof) might see things.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes you can. Explain that PhD program A is very competitive, and you are not sure if you can get in, so as a backup, you want to apply to a few other programs, so can he please make a generic letter of recommendation, basically by deleting the name School A from it?
Upvotes: -1
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2019/08/01
| 316
| 1,404
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<issue_start>username_0: Can we submit comment paper to some other journal other than the paper's journal on which we are commenting ?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you can submit it anywhere you choose. The question will be only whether it will be accepted there. If your paper has substance then it has a better chance, but that is no different from any other paper.
The original journal doesn't "own" the ideas in any sense at all.
But make the comments substantive. If you can extend (or refute) the original paper, all the better. But bland comments won't likely see publication.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It might be allowed from journals of the same editorial group ([cf. example](https://www.spe.org/publications/journal-discussion.php)) if there's a scientific reason to frame the discussion in another journal (e.g. interdisciplinary publications and the comment pertains only one part). Aside from these cases, no.
In other journal is of course allowed to submit full fledge articles that critique or initiate a scholarly exchange with respect to a paper appeared elsewhere. The "comment" format, is specific to articles appeared in a journal and should not be placed elsewhere. It should also be timely, and be submitted within a certain time frame from publication.
You can find the rules specific of your case in the journal webpage and contacting the editor.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/08/01
| 1,359
| 6,346
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<issue_start>username_0: What would I learn as a Ph.D Student in Statistics that I wouldn't learn and vise-versa in Machine Learning Ph.D program?<issue_comment>username_1: Both are about getting answers from data, both can lead to good jobs (if you are good at them), and makes a lot of sense to take courses from both fields.
Statistics is more about theoretic foundation (in Probability theory), and methods that are consistent with that theory. Expect math-heavy coursework and dissertation. Likely branched out from Math department, more suited to academic types.
Machine Learning is more of a bag of tools, without much theory as to why some of them work. Expect homeworks and dissertation that focus on programming. Probably branched out from Computer Science; more suited to industry types.
If you are considering specific programs, look at their "placements" page, i.e. what kind of jobs their recently graduated Ph.D's get.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Statistics is a tool with many uses. It is, at its core, unrelated to machine learning, so, in a statistics degree you might never hear anything about machine learning.
On the other hand, many techniques of machine learning depend on a fairly deep knowledge of statistics, so you'd better come to such a degree program in machine learning already knowing at least the basics of statistics. In fact, the *basics* may not be enough, depending on the faculty of the program and their preferred toolset.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Doesn't it rather depend on what is the precise topic of your research? I am currently researching a subject as a member of my university's school of mathematics and statistics, but, for my subject, I need to know quite a bit about ML, and, as it happens, fluid dynamics.
Surely it is a bad idea to tie yourself into a narrow discipline prematurely.
I am in the UK, so coursework generally is not a feature of a PhD programme.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Machine learning is a quickly developing branch of technology, based on some basic statistics but also including elements of computer science, high performance computing, etc.
Unfortunately, ML/AI is currently a buzzword and many departments want to have a course on it assuming it will attract students and bring money. This means that when it comes to taught courses, there is no consensus yet what should definitely be included and how the course can be structured. There are examples of ML courses drawing significantly from the classical foundations of Statistics, courses more focused on use of software, more vocal courses with significant discussion of ethics / legal issues around artificial intelligence. Similarly, a PhD project in ML can be either highly theoretical (e.g. proving a convergence or stability of training), or highly practical (e.g. building 100s of NNs until one of them does better than others for some reason), or whatever else.
Statistics is a more established science, which has many applications. Depending on the area of applications, there may be some variations (e.g. Medical Stats may be slightly different from Statistical Physics), but the core methods are still the same, largely based on probability theory, calculus and linear algebra. I would not expect a PhD thesis in Stats to avoid maths completely (something which I can not say about ML).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: What is called "machine learning" is essentially just statistical prediction, but coming at it from more of a computer-science background, with a greater focus on non-parametric algorithms, divergence measures, and big data problems where computation issues become a concern. The field includes many standard statistical techniques, but many of the algorithms in use are complex non-parametric algorithms where the full statistical properties of the algorithms are not yet known. The field seems to have arisen as a consequence of computer scientists entering into the field of statistical prediction, and approaching that field in a different way to the traditional statistical field. There is less emphasis on foundational theory (though that is changing) and more emphasis on algorithm development and computational issues. There is a greater emphasis on non-parametric models and simulation, with theoretical underpinnings framed in terms of properties of divergence measures.
Since machine learning is essentially replicating one subject within statistical analysis, there is a huge cross-over in material between these fields, and anything in either field can be regarded as also useful to the other. Indeed, arguably machine learning is not even a new field at all; just a new approach to an old field, with slightly different points of emphasis. In any case, machine learning is likely to focus less on foundational issues in probability theory and statistics, and more on computation and programming of a particular 'toolkit' of predictive methods (e.g., sparse models, neural networks, classification algorithms, random forests, etc.). Theoretical underpinnings of machine learning are presently in development, and tend to focus on the mathematics of divergence measures, with convergence often framed in terms of 'order' arguments framed in classical computational terms.
In terms of what you are likely to learn in each PhD program, that is largely self-driven, so there is no reason you cannot learn material from one field while formally enrolled in the other. Indeed, regardless of which you pick, I would strongly recommend that you try to learn as much as possible about both. If you become a statistician (like me) then it is useful to have familiarity with the material in machine learning, and if you go into formal computer science and machine learning, it is useful to have familiarity with probability theory and statistical science. The mathematical foundations in a statistics PhD will focus more on measure theory and probability theory, and the applied work will focus more on traditional parametric and nonparametric models, whereas in machine learning the mathematical foundations focus more on broader divergence measures (e.g., Bregman divergence), and the applied work focuses on certain types of nonparametric methods that are on the fringes of traditional statistics.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/08/01
| 650
| 2,665
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<issue_start>username_0: I need to quote something from an author.
>
> ... during an economic downturn, it is no easier to find a job in a region with lower prevailing unemployment than in one with a higher unemployment rate.
>
>
>
As you can see, the sentence is a bit awkward as it does not have a parallel structure. I am wondering if in my quotation, I can edit it without changing the meaning. Are the following additions acceptable? See the following edit.
>
> "... during an economic downturn, it is no easier to find a job in a region with **a** lower prevailing unemployment **rate** than in one with a higher **prevailing** unemployment rate."
>
>
>
Mine has a parallel structure. My guide, the Chicago Manual of Style does not say anything about putting in such words to improve clarity. It does however allow changing spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.<issue_comment>username_1: Actually, a quote is just that; a quote. Unchanged, even if it has misspellings and grammar flaws. You can provide a paraphrase along with it, or include editorial remarks within it if they are clearly marked. For example, you might write:
>
> "... during an economic downturn, it is no easier to find a job in a region with a lower prevailing unemployment [rate: ed] than in one with a higher [prevailing: ed] unemployment rate."
>
>
>
It is also possible to just paraphrase with citation, rather than quoting.
You need to make your "improvements" obvious to a reader.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You are allowed to add parenthetic words to a quote, so long as your additions are consistent with what the original author was trying to say. The standard method is to use square parentheses to show an addition or replacement you have made to the quote. Thus, you can write your altered quote like this:
>
> "... during an economic downturn, it is no easier to find a job in a region with [a] lower prevailing unemployment [rate] than in one with a higher [prevailing] unemployment rate."
>
>
>
By putting the additional words in square parentheses you indicate that you have added them to the original quote. The reader will see that the original author only referred to "unemployment" rather than the "unemployment rate" in the first instance, you have added the additional word.
I tend to agree with other commentators here that this addition is probably unnecessary. If you particularly want to frame things differently than the quotation, I would recommend paraphrasing here, instead of quotation. In any case, the above is how you make additions/alterations to a quote if you want to do that.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/08/01
| 360
| 1,527
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<issue_start>username_0: We are preparing a manuscript to be submitted to a peer-reviewed international journal. We have an author that contributed significantly to our research work in which we would like to include her as a first author of our manuscript. The main problem is that she doesn't have an affiliation.
1. Our question is to advise us please under what institution should she be affiliated?
2. Can we list her as a first author without an affiliation?
3. What type of institutions other than research centers and universities could generally be listed as an affiliation on a research paper?
Thanks a lot!<issue_comment>username_1: You don't need an affiliation to publish. *Independent Researcher* or the equivalent is enough. You probably need an email address, but likely a professional one, separate from one used for personal things. That isn't really essential, but might be helpful.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: When I was in graduate school I finished up a paper that a former graduate student of my advisor had started writing (but never finished) many years earlier. I decided that what made the most sense was for us to publish the paper jointly. My coauthor had left academia many years earlier and was working for an investment bank, and so put the name of the bank as his institution. You can see the paper here:
<http://www2.oberlin.edu/faculty/blinowit/papers/hilberteisenstein.pdf>
(The last page is where our institutions and email addresses are listed.)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/02
| 847
| 3,711
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<issue_start>username_0: As part of my research I am using data was provided by hospitals to my research. The data is for medical reports, but no patient information has been identified at all. No patient privacy has been affected at all.
My aim is to make a business project from my research, which will be an artificial intelligence predictive model using that data for training purposes. (I did not declare this as it is just an idea at the moment.)
Can I build a product coming from my research and sell it? Will this have an ethics issue?<issue_comment>username_1: Make sure that you are aware of the conditions under which you were given the data. There should be some document surely somewhere were this information can be found. Otherwise you can contact the institution that provided them to you and ask them.
I shouldn't say that it is impossible for you to do this, but you need to tread very carefully. Information you and i may not judge as patient information may infact be and such. Delicate matters.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you want to start a company using data from a source you do not own, and via ideas you developed as part of your research, you have to contact your university’s legal department.
You are not the only stakeholder here. In addition to the hospital (obviously) who may have a claim to ownership we have
1. Your university
2. Your PI
3. Your funding agency
4. Other collaborators
In addition, medical data is highly sensitive usually and at least in my university more care is needed. Did you obtain IRB approval for example? To illustrate: hospitals have to obtain consent from patients in order to release their data to third parties. If the consent was for research purposes only then you can’t commercialize it.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I have to assume in the following that none of your plans require you to make any of the data you received public in any way. That all you will do with it is to train the AI.
But there are still a few questions.
Was the data released to you or to the university for which you work/study? If to you, the university isn't a party, otherwise it is. But the hospital is, in any case.
The data was released to you for a *purpose* and you are going beyond that purpose. This may be allowed or not, but given the assumption above, it would probably be allowed. But you have to ask: the hospital and/or the university. Don't assume that it is allowed.
I think that the fact that this will be a commercial product has little relevance here ethically. But other stakeholders in the data may want a share. I suspect that giving them a perpetual free license to use any future product would be enough, but that is up to them to say.
You would also be wise to use more than one dataset for training.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In the United States, research universities will generally have a commercialization (sometimes called "innovation") office that can provid expert advice with exactly this kind of issue.
In general, they will likely be able to provide help with:
* Managing any potential conflicts of interest
* Intellectual property rights around your innovation, including filing the patent/copyright.
* The commercial usage of research data and materials
* Creating a legal entity and write legal documents (like licensing agreements)
Some go so far as to provide investment into startup companies, establish talent pipelines, negotiate commercial agreements such as rent, etc.
In return they typically ask for some portion of your licensing income (for IP) or may negotiate some other benefit for start-up companies.
Upvotes: 1
|
2019/08/02
| 1,536
| 6,718
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have discovered recently that I had ADHD, and possibly some other mental condition, which explain some past academic difficulties. This gave me hope that with treatment (which I will start soon) and newfound motivation, I can improve my academic results dramatically and aim for a PhD.
My opinion for now is that the plan that gives me the best chances would be to get a second master's degree containing more theory compared to my current one (computer engineering). I'm aiming for some universities I have visited, which are quite highly regarded compared to my current one.
My results have had ups and downs over the years, and would be clearly insufficient without a very good justification, which I believe my mental health problems to be. I have documentation of the mental health problems I suffered from during part of my studies. I don't plan to use these as an argument for admission, but providing that I get better results in the next semester after getting medical help, I am hoping that the admission committee won't disqualify me instantly based on my past results, and give more importance to the next semester.
One additional difficulty is that I'm nearing the end of my current degree, so I won't have another occasion to get good results. I worry that getting good grades in the last months could be insufficient to offset my less-than-stellar record.
Is a very late mental disorder diagnosis followed by a significant improvement in results likely to save my applications to selective programs? Should I lower my ambitions for the moment?<issue_comment>username_1: I think that, given you are seeking help, and probably learning to compensate for your condition, that you can otherwise ignore it as far as seeking future degrees. I think that you will find that many people in academia are at various points on the autism spectrum. Communication difficulties are pretty common, even if no cause has been diagnosed.
But, I think you are probably learning that some compensation is possible. If you can manage that, then the question of your suitability for a degree lies elsewhere, grades and other accomplishments as for any other person.
Follow the advice of your doctor/therapist, of course.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Go ahead and apply. Say in (the middle of) your research statement that you had an issue affecting your performance in earlier years, but now you have identified it and found a way to deal with it, as evidenced by your improved performance in the recent semesters.
If possible have your recommendation letter writers confirm your story, briefly. Something like "X had a bumpy start, but recently developed the right attitude to succeed in an advanced program"
You do not have to name the issue or provide medical evidence. Instead, focus on what the new you can and will do.
PS I suggest not using the word "mental". It reminds people of stuff like schizophrenia. ADHD is not nearly as severe as that (at least in your case, I hope).
In **response to your comment**: I feel that talking too much about your condition signals that you focus too much on it, and will continue using it as an excuse for poor performance in the future. And generally, most people do not like hearing about problems of others (b/c they have plenty of their own). Instead, I suggest you focus on how much you accomplished since the issue was resolved.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: While your condition can explain some of your past poor academic performance, you still need to convince an admissions committee that (1) your condition is under control and won't interfere with your future performance and (2) you have the ability do well in their program. The fact that you now have a diagnosis and have started treatment doesn't really answer either of these questions.
One strategy would be to establish these things by taking some courses on a part-time basis in a less competitive program and doing very well in those courses.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: It's certainly a huge relief to finally know, after years or decades of struggling, what the underlying problem is. But people with ADHD tend to assume that a diagnosis and treatment is a magic bullet that will suddenly make them like everyone else. I think part of this is ADHD tendencies and part is internalizing the erroneous belief that if you just tried harder you'd stop screwing up. I don't have any first-hand experience with ASD, but the issues seem to be similar.
So here's my first observation: ***A diagnosis does not "fix" ADHD.*** A diagnosis together with medication and therapy or coaching does not "fix" ADHD. Right now you're at the *starting point* and you've been pointed in the right direction, but it's probably going to take some time and experimentation to find out exactly what you need to successfully manage advanced academic work. Expect that what you need might be really different than what is ordinarily offered in an academic setting. Don't beat yourself up trying to be like the neurotypicals the work is designed for.
My second observation: As you can see from the answers already given, many professors and programs take the attitude that learning disorders/differences are the student's problem and it's not their job to deal with them (except maybe in a very superficial legally-mandated way). This attitude might vary by country--my own experiences in the US have been pretty dismal. So even once you know what you need, and even though the law is on your side, you might find yourself fighting a losing battle against these attitudes to get it. So it's also important to be sure that you're entering an environment that sets you up for success.
I honestly don't know the answer to this second problem. I might post a related question here later to see what the ASE community thinks. I don't mean to sound pessimistic, but the fact is that the academic community is on the whole not particularly welcoming to people with learning differences, and ADHD is particularly misunderstood. The trick here is to find the exceptions who will provide the conditions you need to flourish.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> Is a very late mental disorder diagnosis followed by a significant
> improvement in results likely to save my applications to selective
> programs?
>
>
>
I do not think one semester of grades can make a huge difference. Only your doctors can predict the effectiveness of your treatment.
>
> Should I lower my ambitions for the moment?
>
>
>
No, you should apply. After you have submitted your applications is a good time to start working on your backup plan.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/02
| 1,620
| 7,321
|
<issue_start>username_0: I’m working in the area of adversarial examples against neural networks. A standard research paper generally starts off an introduction with something along the lines of the below, but probably with a bit more guff:
>
> Neural networks are increasingly used in safety and security critical applications, such as medical image recognition or facial recognition in surveillance footage. However, the networks are vulnerable to malicious attacks through the manipulation of input data. With adversarial examples...... etc.
>
>
>
Considering there are hundreds of papers which start with the same introduction, would it be acceptable to skip over writing my own guff? Possibly just reference existing papers and mention “existing uses and problems” (or something like that).
The scene has already been set by hundreds of existing papers, so why would I need to set the scene again in any of the papers that I create?
Or would something like this generally fail to pass peer review? Obviously there’s many different criteria for different journals/confs etc.<issue_comment>username_1: You need to include the introduction to **your** paper because it might be the first paper in **that** field the reader is about to read.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Your work should be standalone and not rely on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the problem setup and motivation. If you’d like you can slightly shorten the spiel and reference an overview article/several notable papers that cover this. The setup is important because
1. Not everyone reading your paper is guaranteed to know the field
2. Even if they are this gives them some framework as to what they’ll be reading about today.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your introduction should depend on the journal/conference you are submitting to as that will help define your audience. If you are submitting to "The Journal of Adversarial Examples for Neural Networks", you can probably skip over a lot of the general intro material and assume that someone reading this journal should be familiar with the common challenges you are working on here. For that type of journal, your intro should focus more on the specific limitations of prior research that your work seeks to overcome. Generally these introductions actually end up longer and/or also include a "related works" section to allow you to key in on where your work really stands out.
On the other hand, if you are submitting to a more general interest journal like "Science" or "Nature", you need to do a lot more work covering the basics and usually in a very short space. For these types of journals, the "guff" may actually be valuable information as the readers may not even be aware your field existed before reading your paper. The challenge is getting everyone up to speed in the 200 words or so they give you to talk about it.
Most journals you will be submitting to will be somewhere in between. The general rule of thumb I use is to include in your intro everything your reader would need to know that they wouldn't also need to know for every single other paper in the journal. Even if 10% of the papers submitted to that journal are in your field, that means that 90% of the readers may not be working in that area, so you should at least give enough of an intro to your field to remind them of the things they need to know to understand your paper. That doesn't mean rambling for paragraphs, just enough to set up the more nuanced points so they don't miss the importance of your work.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Begin every paper with a few words that the reader will immediately accept as uncontroversial to tell the reader what you are on about: 'The Situation'. eg 'Newton showed that gravitation was a universal force governed by an inverse square law'. Very soon after that, preferably the next sentence, state something that complicates the Situation: eg 'Recent experimental results cast doubt on Newton's theory'. You have now raised in the mind of the reader a Question: state it eg 'Was Newton wrong?'. Immediately state your Answer it. eg 'In this paper we show blah blah blah'.
If the reader has got that far, and it is only a few sentences, they will either want to know why you think that your Answer is correct or they will have realised that they are not interested in your paper at all.
That structure: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer enables you to tell your story in a way that will engage the reader throughout.
If it is not already clear from what I have said above, my answer to your question is that you do have to set the scene - that is what the Situation and Complication do, but you write them in a way that sets the scene for your work that you go on to describe, namely your Question, your Answer to that Questions and your reasons for giving that Answer.
If you plunge in then why would anyone want to read your paper? You have to tell them quickly whether the paper is for them. We all have huge numbers of papers that might possibly be relevant to our work. The reader needs to know really quickly whether yours is worth the trouble of reading.
If you say, 'Ah, but that is what the abstract does', then by all means write an abstract on the lines I suggest. If you do that you will question whether you need a section of your paper entitled "Introduction", you could move into more details of the Question (such as previous work on it) and your Answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think it's important to have some precise (but maybe concise) introduction to make sure that you and the reader understand the notions, definitions, problems the same way.
Different people think differently, and an introduction would create a common background knowledge/undestanding for correctly understanding your main claims in the following paper.
(Of course, writing and often reading these sections has seemed terribly boring to me, but after some experience as a reader and some little experience as a writer, I came to the idea I explained in this answer above.)
So, whether an introduction is good is whether it helps resolve some misunderstandings/ambiguities concerning your personal viewpoint in your work. There may be some controversies in your field concerning some basic notions and goals, and in the introduction you claim which side you select in a short way, so that no further discussion is due.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I somehow disagree with the other answers: I am of the same belief that too much of papers or memoirs are inflated with useless information. They are not curriculum books.
The introduction of my PhD thesis was just a few lines more or less stating that if you need an introduction to the problem then you should probably not read the thesis, or have a look at book A and book B before reading.
This was absolutely not intended to show what a genius I am and how uninformed you, the lowly reader, are, but rather to filter out people who will **lose their time** reading my thesis and expecting some kind of introduction to thermodynamics. I made sure to explain this in these few lines.
This was a thesis and not a paper, but my published papers where similar: the introduction was even shorter.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/08/02
| 1,482
| 6,671
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing a scientific paper and I want to add the contribution of a book in my paper. Generally, we use to write like that way ''authors in this work present [1].....'' but this is the case when we are writing about any other scientific paper. But for the first time I'm using the reference of book, could you kindly elaborate how do I add the book reference that makes my work relevant.
Thanks in advance...<issue_comment>username_1: You need to include the introduction to **your** paper because it might be the first paper in **that** field the reader is about to read.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Your work should be standalone and not rely on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the problem setup and motivation. If you’d like you can slightly shorten the spiel and reference an overview article/several notable papers that cover this. The setup is important because
1. Not everyone reading your paper is guaranteed to know the field
2. Even if they are this gives them some framework as to what they’ll be reading about today.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your introduction should depend on the journal/conference you are submitting to as that will help define your audience. If you are submitting to "The Journal of Adversarial Examples for Neural Networks", you can probably skip over a lot of the general intro material and assume that someone reading this journal should be familiar with the common challenges you are working on here. For that type of journal, your intro should focus more on the specific limitations of prior research that your work seeks to overcome. Generally these introductions actually end up longer and/or also include a "related works" section to allow you to key in on where your work really stands out.
On the other hand, if you are submitting to a more general interest journal like "Science" or "Nature", you need to do a lot more work covering the basics and usually in a very short space. For these types of journals, the "guff" may actually be valuable information as the readers may not even be aware your field existed before reading your paper. The challenge is getting everyone up to speed in the 200 words or so they give you to talk about it.
Most journals you will be submitting to will be somewhere in between. The general rule of thumb I use is to include in your intro everything your reader would need to know that they wouldn't also need to know for every single other paper in the journal. Even if 10% of the papers submitted to that journal are in your field, that means that 90% of the readers may not be working in that area, so you should at least give enough of an intro to your field to remind them of the things they need to know to understand your paper. That doesn't mean rambling for paragraphs, just enough to set up the more nuanced points so they don't miss the importance of your work.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Begin every paper with a few words that the reader will immediately accept as uncontroversial to tell the reader what you are on about: 'The Situation'. eg 'Newton showed that gravitation was a universal force governed by an inverse square law'. Very soon after that, preferably the next sentence, state something that complicates the Situation: eg 'Recent experimental results cast doubt on Newton's theory'. You have now raised in the mind of the reader a Question: state it eg 'Was Newton wrong?'. Immediately state your Answer it. eg 'In this paper we show blah blah blah'.
If the reader has got that far, and it is only a few sentences, they will either want to know why you think that your Answer is correct or they will have realised that they are not interested in your paper at all.
That structure: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer enables you to tell your story in a way that will engage the reader throughout.
If it is not already clear from what I have said above, my answer to your question is that you do have to set the scene - that is what the Situation and Complication do, but you write them in a way that sets the scene for your work that you go on to describe, namely your Question, your Answer to that Questions and your reasons for giving that Answer.
If you plunge in then why would anyone want to read your paper? You have to tell them quickly whether the paper is for them. We all have huge numbers of papers that might possibly be relevant to our work. The reader needs to know really quickly whether yours is worth the trouble of reading.
If you say, 'Ah, but that is what the abstract does', then by all means write an abstract on the lines I suggest. If you do that you will question whether you need a section of your paper entitled "Introduction", you could move into more details of the Question (such as previous work on it) and your Answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think it's important to have some precise (but maybe concise) introduction to make sure that you and the reader understand the notions, definitions, problems the same way.
Different people think differently, and an introduction would create a common background knowledge/undestanding for correctly understanding your main claims in the following paper.
(Of course, writing and often reading these sections has seemed terribly boring to me, but after some experience as a reader and some little experience as a writer, I came to the idea I explained in this answer above.)
So, whether an introduction is good is whether it helps resolve some misunderstandings/ambiguities concerning your personal viewpoint in your work. There may be some controversies in your field concerning some basic notions and goals, and in the introduction you claim which side you select in a short way, so that no further discussion is due.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I somehow disagree with the other answers: I am of the same belief that too much of papers or memoirs are inflated with useless information. They are not curriculum books.
The introduction of my PhD thesis was just a few lines more or less stating that if you need an introduction to the problem then you should probably not read the thesis, or have a look at book A and book B before reading.
This was absolutely not intended to show what a genius I am and how uninformed you, the lowly reader, are, but rather to filter out people who will **lose their time** reading my thesis and expecting some kind of introduction to thermodynamics. I made sure to explain this in these few lines.
This was a thesis and not a paper, but my published papers where similar: the introduction was even shorter.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/08/02
| 1,468
| 6,643
|
<issue_start>username_0: Many top universities in north America accept international ph.d. students and pay their tuitions, insurnace and other funds. To get visa, international students should convince the officer that they will go back to their home countries. I am wondering why universities should accept international students and what are the benefits for universities and the destionation universities?<issue_comment>username_1: You need to include the introduction to **your** paper because it might be the first paper in **that** field the reader is about to read.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Your work should be standalone and not rely on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the problem setup and motivation. If you’d like you can slightly shorten the spiel and reference an overview article/several notable papers that cover this. The setup is important because
1. Not everyone reading your paper is guaranteed to know the field
2. Even if they are this gives them some framework as to what they’ll be reading about today.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your introduction should depend on the journal/conference you are submitting to as that will help define your audience. If you are submitting to "The Journal of Adversarial Examples for Neural Networks", you can probably skip over a lot of the general intro material and assume that someone reading this journal should be familiar with the common challenges you are working on here. For that type of journal, your intro should focus more on the specific limitations of prior research that your work seeks to overcome. Generally these introductions actually end up longer and/or also include a "related works" section to allow you to key in on where your work really stands out.
On the other hand, if you are submitting to a more general interest journal like "Science" or "Nature", you need to do a lot more work covering the basics and usually in a very short space. For these types of journals, the "guff" may actually be valuable information as the readers may not even be aware your field existed before reading your paper. The challenge is getting everyone up to speed in the 200 words or so they give you to talk about it.
Most journals you will be submitting to will be somewhere in between. The general rule of thumb I use is to include in your intro everything your reader would need to know that they wouldn't also need to know for every single other paper in the journal. Even if 10% of the papers submitted to that journal are in your field, that means that 90% of the readers may not be working in that area, so you should at least give enough of an intro to your field to remind them of the things they need to know to understand your paper. That doesn't mean rambling for paragraphs, just enough to set up the more nuanced points so they don't miss the importance of your work.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Begin every paper with a few words that the reader will immediately accept as uncontroversial to tell the reader what you are on about: 'The Situation'. eg 'Newton showed that gravitation was a universal force governed by an inverse square law'. Very soon after that, preferably the next sentence, state something that complicates the Situation: eg 'Recent experimental results cast doubt on Newton's theory'. You have now raised in the mind of the reader a Question: state it eg 'Was Newton wrong?'. Immediately state your Answer it. eg 'In this paper we show blah blah blah'.
If the reader has got that far, and it is only a few sentences, they will either want to know why you think that your Answer is correct or they will have realised that they are not interested in your paper at all.
That structure: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer enables you to tell your story in a way that will engage the reader throughout.
If it is not already clear from what I have said above, my answer to your question is that you do have to set the scene - that is what the Situation and Complication do, but you write them in a way that sets the scene for your work that you go on to describe, namely your Question, your Answer to that Questions and your reasons for giving that Answer.
If you plunge in then why would anyone want to read your paper? You have to tell them quickly whether the paper is for them. We all have huge numbers of papers that might possibly be relevant to our work. The reader needs to know really quickly whether yours is worth the trouble of reading.
If you say, 'Ah, but that is what the abstract does', then by all means write an abstract on the lines I suggest. If you do that you will question whether you need a section of your paper entitled "Introduction", you could move into more details of the Question (such as previous work on it) and your Answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think it's important to have some precise (but maybe concise) introduction to make sure that you and the reader understand the notions, definitions, problems the same way.
Different people think differently, and an introduction would create a common background knowledge/undestanding for correctly understanding your main claims in the following paper.
(Of course, writing and often reading these sections has seemed terribly boring to me, but after some experience as a reader and some little experience as a writer, I came to the idea I explained in this answer above.)
So, whether an introduction is good is whether it helps resolve some misunderstandings/ambiguities concerning your personal viewpoint in your work. There may be some controversies in your field concerning some basic notions and goals, and in the introduction you claim which side you select in a short way, so that no further discussion is due.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I somehow disagree with the other answers: I am of the same belief that too much of papers or memoirs are inflated with useless information. They are not curriculum books.
The introduction of my PhD thesis was just a few lines more or less stating that if you need an introduction to the problem then you should probably not read the thesis, or have a look at book A and book B before reading.
This was absolutely not intended to show what a genius I am and how uninformed you, the lowly reader, are, but rather to filter out people who will **lose their time** reading my thesis and expecting some kind of introduction to thermodynamics. I made sure to explain this in these few lines.
This was a thesis and not a paper, but my published papers where similar: the introduction was even shorter.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/08/03
| 1,787
| 7,907
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a post-doc in the USA and was a teaching assistant in the same university. During my TA appointment, I attended a one-week course outside the city. Prior to leaving, I got permission from the head TA, e-mailed the course instructors, and got one of my colleagues to cover my class and office hours.
One day before my return, I got an email from the instructors asking why I was absent from the classes. I apologized and explained everything, but they were furious. A week later, I got an email that I was terminated. No reason was given, and I got no reply to my e-mails. I even called HR and got nowhere, but was told that I would be financially compensated.
I feel that this was unfair, particularly since another TA had done exactly the same thing and nothing happened to her. I do not think they should get away with this. My research PI wants to get involved since he thinks I was not treated fairly. **What should I do next?**
UPDATE: I took permission from the head of TA.. instructors told us in the orientation that she is the one in charge. I had one of my colleague who did the same and was not fired! I got one of my fellow TAs to cover my discussion section in exchange to cover her grading which I did! They treated me unfairly as I told them even to take the salary from me for that week. When I mentioned that another colleague did the same and I feel I am biased against, they did not reply. I asked her and she also took the permission from the head of TAs. I do not want money from them but this might show up on my record in the future and I never had any red flags in my resume and I feel I am discriminated against!<issue_comment>username_1: You need to include the introduction to **your** paper because it might be the first paper in **that** field the reader is about to read.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Your work should be standalone and not rely on the assumption that the reader is familiar with the problem setup and motivation. If you’d like you can slightly shorten the spiel and reference an overview article/several notable papers that cover this. The setup is important because
1. Not everyone reading your paper is guaranteed to know the field
2. Even if they are this gives them some framework as to what they’ll be reading about today.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your introduction should depend on the journal/conference you are submitting to as that will help define your audience. If you are submitting to "The Journal of Adversarial Examples for Neural Networks", you can probably skip over a lot of the general intro material and assume that someone reading this journal should be familiar with the common challenges you are working on here. For that type of journal, your intro should focus more on the specific limitations of prior research that your work seeks to overcome. Generally these introductions actually end up longer and/or also include a "related works" section to allow you to key in on where your work really stands out.
On the other hand, if you are submitting to a more general interest journal like "Science" or "Nature", you need to do a lot more work covering the basics and usually in a very short space. For these types of journals, the "guff" may actually be valuable information as the readers may not even be aware your field existed before reading your paper. The challenge is getting everyone up to speed in the 200 words or so they give you to talk about it.
Most journals you will be submitting to will be somewhere in between. The general rule of thumb I use is to include in your intro everything your reader would need to know that they wouldn't also need to know for every single other paper in the journal. Even if 10% of the papers submitted to that journal are in your field, that means that 90% of the readers may not be working in that area, so you should at least give enough of an intro to your field to remind them of the things they need to know to understand your paper. That doesn't mean rambling for paragraphs, just enough to set up the more nuanced points so they don't miss the importance of your work.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Begin every paper with a few words that the reader will immediately accept as uncontroversial to tell the reader what you are on about: 'The Situation'. eg 'Newton showed that gravitation was a universal force governed by an inverse square law'. Very soon after that, preferably the next sentence, state something that complicates the Situation: eg 'Recent experimental results cast doubt on Newton's theory'. You have now raised in the mind of the reader a Question: state it eg 'Was Newton wrong?'. Immediately state your Answer it. eg 'In this paper we show blah blah blah'.
If the reader has got that far, and it is only a few sentences, they will either want to know why you think that your Answer is correct or they will have realised that they are not interested in your paper at all.
That structure: Situation, Complication, Question, Answer enables you to tell your story in a way that will engage the reader throughout.
If it is not already clear from what I have said above, my answer to your question is that you do have to set the scene - that is what the Situation and Complication do, but you write them in a way that sets the scene for your work that you go on to describe, namely your Question, your Answer to that Questions and your reasons for giving that Answer.
If you plunge in then why would anyone want to read your paper? You have to tell them quickly whether the paper is for them. We all have huge numbers of papers that might possibly be relevant to our work. The reader needs to know really quickly whether yours is worth the trouble of reading.
If you say, 'Ah, but that is what the abstract does', then by all means write an abstract on the lines I suggest. If you do that you will question whether you need a section of your paper entitled "Introduction", you could move into more details of the Question (such as previous work on it) and your Answer.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think it's important to have some precise (but maybe concise) introduction to make sure that you and the reader understand the notions, definitions, problems the same way.
Different people think differently, and an introduction would create a common background knowledge/undestanding for correctly understanding your main claims in the following paper.
(Of course, writing and often reading these sections has seemed terribly boring to me, but after some experience as a reader and some little experience as a writer, I came to the idea I explained in this answer above.)
So, whether an introduction is good is whether it helps resolve some misunderstandings/ambiguities concerning your personal viewpoint in your work. There may be some controversies in your field concerning some basic notions and goals, and in the introduction you claim which side you select in a short way, so that no further discussion is due.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I somehow disagree with the other answers: I am of the same belief that too much of papers or memoirs are inflated with useless information. They are not curriculum books.
The introduction of my PhD thesis was just a few lines more or less stating that if you need an introduction to the problem then you should probably not read the thesis, or have a look at book A and book B before reading.
This was absolutely not intended to show what a genius I am and how uninformed you, the lowly reader, are, but rather to filter out people who will **lose their time** reading my thesis and expecting some kind of introduction to thermodynamics. I made sure to explain this in these few lines.
This was a thesis and not a paper, but my published papers where similar: the introduction was even shorter.
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/08/03
| 724
| 3,031
|
<issue_start>username_0: Suppose there is Al and Bob.
* Al is a frustrated graduate student who is lacking in the creative department and can not establish any new results in his field. He has some trivialities in the thesis and will most likely get his degree but it is unlikely he will ever land a tenure-track position. Al really wants, however, to get tenure in a research university but that is impossible without papers in great journals. Al is competent enough to read papers in his field and he can give a reasonably good presentation based on a paper he has read. Al could rewrite a given paper in his own writing style should he need it.
* Bob is a smart person with tenure who does not have much difficulty producing new results. Bob's university does not provide significant financial incentives for him to publish more and better papers. Bob would like to make a few bucks.
How can Al and Bob make their lives more enjoyable? Al pays a certain sum (say, 100,000 USD) to Bob for Bob to write some good papers for Al and then Al with his impressive research portfolio gets tenure (the contract can be spread over time as necessary). Bob got his money, Al got his tenure (and eventually he will get some money too because salary).
Q: is there a common name for this kind of transaction? Are there any websites or organizations facilitating such transactions?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Q: is there a common name for this kind of transaction?
>
>
>
Fraud.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: **This is not how it works.**
Before someone is given tenure, there are often several years of working as a "tenure-track" in which one has to repeatedly demonstrate the research capacity. It is close to impossible to hide the fact that Al is not the person writing the papers.
Furthermore, if the papers Bob is writing for Al are sufficiently good and influential to attain tenure, why would Bob just give them to Al? Bob can keep the papers and get promoted or awards, which are potentially worth, over the years, more than 100000 USD.
Hiring committees do not judge applicants merely on the basis of their research portfolio. There is usually a presentation to the department, in which Al would probably perform poorly if he was not the person who did the research and wrote the papers. There is a teaching philosophy statement, research statement, ability to teach and supervise students, etc. People are hired based on their international standing in a research field. Just having papers with Al's name on them are not sufficient. Al needs to have networks of collaborators, people who can write recommendation letters for Al, reputation gained during presentations at conferences, etc. It is close to impossible to fake it.
Even if Al can make a somewhat believable illusion that he is a real researcher, applying for tenured (more likely tenure-track) jobs is a gamble. Some jobs have more than 100 applicants. Paying 100000 USD for something that has a 1% chance of getting is a stupid gamble.
Upvotes: 4
|
2019/08/03
| 776
| 3,202
|
<issue_start>username_0: As I've contemplated the future over the past year, I have returned over and over again to the idea of becoming a doctor -- specifically, a neurosurgeon. However, I recognize that as a 28 year old Physics BS who would need to take a year of postbac courses before even applying to medical school, I might face unreasonable challenges should I choose to pursue this goal. I recognize that by the time I would be ready to apply, I would be 7 to 8 years older than the typical medical school applicant. My main fear is the idea of getting partway down the road to becoming a doctor and then being unanimously rejected by the institutions (schools, residency programs, employers, etc.) based on my age, rendering my efforts fruitless. Is this a likely outcome?<issue_comment>username_1: Being a few years older is definitely *not* a problem for entering medical school.
I know people who have gone off and done other professions before figuring out that they actually wanted to be a doctor. The difference between being 20 and being 30 just isn't that much, and you even may have an advantage in some ways from having more maturity and a better understanding of why you want to be in the profession.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In the US, being 28, 30, or even 40 is not a problem for getting into med school. I was 26 when I was admitted, and I was far from the oldest in my class. In fact, by my senior year, they had admitted a couple of students older than my current age at the time! If you haven't been slacking off in between college and now, it could make you even more competitive because you can point to past successes and have interesting stories for the interviewing process. A typical medical school in the US could easily fill each class with biology and chemistry students fresh out of college with high GPA's and MCAT scores. Someone older might have all of those, plus the strengths of a rigorous career or valuable experience outside of medicine. You can differentiate yourself from the rest of the pool.
Now, to the main issue of age. By the time you finish the pre-reqs, ace the MCATs, and finish 4 grueling years of medical school, do you think you'll have the energy or motivation to do an even more intense additional 7 years of neurosurgery? Neurosurgery is competitive enough that they can pick whatever candidate they want. While not a given, you will likely face some "soft" age discrimination for intense/competitive residencies and fellowships. For this stage, you'll have to work extra hard to convince them you can physically compete with the youngin's, much less complete/survive the program. Once you finish your neurosurg training, you won't have problems finding a job. Once you're board eligible/certified, no hospital cares what school you went to, how old you are (to a point), or what you did in the past. All that matters is what you can do for them, ie increase billing by a zillion dollars.
You can get more detailed responses and support from the forums.studentdoctor.net website. There's even a sub-forum for the "non-traditional" applicant, which honestly, isn't so non-traditional anymore!
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/04
| 1,698
| 7,110
|
<issue_start>username_0: For faculty lack of funding, how to find conferences that allow people to sit in without paying? For those that don't allow officially, will they check attendees' badge?<issue_comment>username_1: Conferences might give a discount for people from developing countries, for students, and for people who are early in their career. Otherwise discounts are not given. Even attendees who are invited to receive a cash award usually do not get free admission.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would advise against crashing sessions. In my field (CS/ML/AI) organizers may be sticky about registration. I suppose that you can just try and wander in and sit down at sessions. However, you may well be asked by the organizing staff to leave if you don’t have a badge. Since the objective of attending a conference is to a great extent mingling and networking, getting thrown out will have the opposite effect.
If you have a paper/workshop paper (the latter is much easier to get accepted), then you can talk with organizers about the option of a discount which they may give depending on your circumstances. If you’re willing to volunteer they may offer a discount for example.
As an aside, conference fees seem to be rising dramatically over the years, which I think is a serious issue.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: There are a lot of reasons why conferences generally don't allow people to just wander in to sessions without notice or registration. They need some way to assure that the venue will be safe for attendees and an open door policy doesn't permit that. There are liability issues, I assume.
If you just try it, you may get by for a while, but will probably be "caught" and escorted out, probably by police, in the US, anyway.
But there is a "low cost option" for students at all levels. Most ACM conferences, and possibly many others, depend on student volunteers to do some of the work of running the conference, including checking badges at the doors to sessions - both large ones and small.
Here is an example: <https://recsys.acm.org/recsys19/volunteers/>
You can look for similar things at other conferences, or just search. This was turned up by googling "Student volunteers at ACM conferences".
Note, however, that travel and lodging are not covered. Many volunteers are from local universities, making it moot, and some students who need to travel share rooming and even car travel. Some conferences arrange sharing of hotel rooms (evidence is from other questions on this site).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I’ve never seen an official list of such conferences: who would register if it were advertised you can go for free? In addition going to a conference for the actual talks kinda misses the point: a conference is not an obligation to go to every talk, but an occasion to meet people so short of avoiding contact, the first thing people will ask is who are you, your affiliation etc and will rapidly discover you are not registered.
It is not pleasant as an organizer to see people crashing the conference: there is a real cost to organizing an event and common courtesy would be to ask the organizers for a discount or a free registration: the worse possible scenario for you is to travel somewhere and be blacklisted from the event after getting there and arranging accommodation.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Association conferences sometimes have scholarships or low cost opens as others have mentioned. Also, there may be sponsoring organisations for the conference that you might be able to approach. Otherwise, sometimes offering to volunteer or help organize is an option as well.
"Sitting in" is very against the culture and intention of the conference. Conferences though expensive are usually run as a lost. Venue hire, staff, etc are all very expensive and basically that is what all the money goes to. Most of the presenters are likely to self-fund their travel except the famous keynotes, etc.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: It depends on the conference. In recent years, the College Art Association, an annual conference for art historians and artists, has instituted a ["Pay-What-You-Wish"](https://www.collegeart.org/news/2019/02/05/pay-as-you-wish-is-back-for-caa-2019/) option. This was instituted after many adjuncts, students, and others expressed their inability to pay fees to attend an integral conference in their field. I mention this in case you are a member of an organization that holds conferences. As a member, you may be able to make your voice heard through elections and other ways that can foster a greater awareness of the high costs of attending conferences for underfunded faculty members. Hope this helps.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I can't answer how to find conferences as this will depend heavily on the field (or even subfield) that you are in. However, in many fields there are websites/mailing-lists where conferences are announced.
As for finding conferences that will allow you to attend for free. Your starting point will always be the conference announcements. There are several options:
* Some conferences/meetings will not charge registration fees at all. These are usually smaller meetings (< 100 attendees).
* Some conference organisers may be willing the waive a fee if you ask nicely. (You are asking for a favor, so be nice!). Some points to consider if doing this.
+ Smaller conferences are more likely to waive your fee. For big conferences, (part of) the organisation is often out sourced to a commercial company, making a waived fee less likely.
+ For the same reason, look for conferences that are hosted by a university or research center, rather than at a commercial conference venue. (Again organisers are then more likely to have the flexibility to waive a fee.)
+ Conferences organisers are significantly more likely to waive a fee if they feel your presence will be an enhancement to the meeting. It helps, for example, if they have heard of your work before and it fits with the goals of the meeting. So look for conferences organised by people that you have interacted with scientifically. At the very least, have a plausible reason for wanting to attend this particular conference.
+ Look for conferences that are somewhat local. Flying half-way across the globe for a conference does not lend your appeal for a waived fee much credence. In particular, avoid conference that would require you apply for a travel visa. (There are just too many people for Visa invitation letters for conferences.)
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_8: I have to say that I can't remember ever having my badge checked at any conference. In fact, by the second day, i've often lost my badge. What does sometimes happen is having your badge checked to get onto the campus in the first place. Also, people often have greeters at the door during registration.
I've "sat in" on plenty conferences before when they have been happening on my campus anyway. I'm not sure I'd risk travelling to one on that basis though.
Upvotes: 3
|
2019/08/04
| 1,287
| 5,124
|
<issue_start>username_0: I will soon submit my PhD thesis. The thesis is written in Latex and version controlled with git. I want to add a license file, but don't know what to choose. For my software, I choose the permissive MIT license, but I have no clue if that is suitable for a thesis as well. Searching on the web, I found that many use the Creative Commons (CC), but I don't know why. And there are also several types of CC. What I want is: everyone can
* use the knowledge in the thesis even for commercial purposes, supposing that my work is cited
* use, modify and redistribute the helper tools (files for compilation, document format, etc.) supposing that the original license is kept
EDIT
----
Finally, based on your suggestions, I chose the [CC-BY 4.0 license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and set the repository containing the sources to public.<issue_comment>username_1: CC-BY seems to be the industry standard license for open access papers, see [Why CC-BY?](https://oaspa.org/why-cc-by/) for a discussion of the reasons. It's a well-known license, that allows various kinds of later use (including commercial), and hence it's a good choice for papers and (I think) theses as well. The BY part requires "appropriate attribution". For academic reuse you can pretty much count on the attribution coming in the form of citations.
Note, however, that CC-BY is not a "viral" license. That is, modifications don't have to preserve the license. If you want that property, there is the CC-BY-SA (share-alike) variant, but my understanding is that it can make it problematic to create repositories of documents. This is one of the reasons for recommending CC-BY for papers. However, you could always put a CC-BY license on the thesis, and a stricter one on the helper tools.
Just make sure that whatever you choose is compatible with any copyright policy imposed by your university. Places I'm familiar with just request non-exclusive distribution rights to put it in their online library databases, but I imagine other places can be more restrictive.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Copyright only applies to the way ideas or information are presented, not the information itself. That's why you were able to just cite other researchers in your thesis without asking them. Therefore, you don't need to use any special license to make the information in your thesis usable by others, for any purpose at all.
The auxiliary files are more like software, so you can use either CC-BY-SA or GPL.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: There's no need to release the *source* of your thesis (i.e. the LaTeX files). Doing so is probably of more benefit to those who wish to plagiarise than to anyone else. The actual thesis (the final PDF) is published by the university, and you'll need to take into account their restrictions. You'll also need to take into account restrictions placed on any literature figures you may have used.
As you don't say where you are, [here's](http://ethostoolkit.cranfield.ac.uk/tiki-index.php?page=Copyright) a summary of the UK situation when theses are published online through the British Library.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> What license to choose for my PhD thesis?
>
>
>
Ask your PhD advisor. There could be legal constraints (e.g. imposed by some research grant contract funding your PhD work) you might not be aware of. But he/she certainly could redirect you to the knowledgeable persons (e.g. your University lawyers).
In Europe, for [H2020](https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en) or HorizonEurope funded PhD work, some [Open Content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science) policy is required (e.g. at my [CEA/LIST](http://www-list.cea.fr/en/) institution, it should be published under [HAL](https://hal-cea.archives-ouvertes.fr/)).
As an European taxpayer I dislike the idea of increasing profit of [ScienceDirect](https://www.sciencedirect.com/) (probably mostly owned by american retirement funds) with the money I pay in taxes (most H2020 PhD work are 100% funded by the European Commission), so I approve such policies.
Alternatively, you or your advisor might not care at all about legal constraints. At Paris 6 University, they did -in practice- vary a lot from one year to the next one in the previous century, depending on the government directives given to the university rector
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The following applies to dissertations in the US:
* You can own the copyright to the dissertation itself. At the point where the dissertation is bound you should be offered the opportunity to register the copyright for a small fee (last I knew it was $50).
* Any software may fall under the auspices of intellectual property agreements with your university and/or any institutions which funded your work. Practically speaking you can say it's under Some License and be fine but if there is any hint that it may be worth money and have commercial potential you will quickly find yourself in an ... undesirable position. Speak to your advisor before proceeding!
Upvotes: 2
|
2019/08/04
| 509
| 2,139
|
<issue_start>username_0: Would love to hear stories if anyone has followed this path!<issue_comment>username_1: Admission to a "really good" PhD program in the US depends much more on what you do than on where you do it. If you do well and can show aptitude for research, you will have a good chance at many excellent universities.
Admission, however, is very competitive and there will be many people applying to top programs who have nearly perfect academic records. That will be the biggest issue, not the institution at which you study. Make sure that you can get excellent letters of recommendation by the time you wish to move on.
As for "common", however, I don't really know, but suspect it is about as common as applying from good institutions (like Dresden) from any other country.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Having done my doctorate in both the U.S. and Germany, I can vouch that this is indeed not uncommon. However, you will likely have to "start from scratch" in the U.S., since most programs are a masters/PhD rolled into one. I knew many European students, with European masters already, who spent two years more than they would have liked taking classes and passing exams in U.S. doctoral programs, before they could start real research.
You have to also consider your long-term goals. You're more likely to get a job where you've spent time building connections. If you want a job in the U.S. long-term, then a Ph.D. there would be good; if you want to return to Europe, however, then it's probably better to get the doctorate in Europe. You could of course also consider exchange programs, visiting a professor for a few months, or a dual degree if you'd like to get a mix of both.
To more directly answer your question: of course it's possible to get into a "really good" U.S. graduate program with a masters from Germany. But "really good" is ultimately relative to where you want to be, what you want to do, and how novel your own research is. Rankings and perceived prestige don't matter nearly as much when you're competing for jobs and trying to settle down somewhere.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/04
| 1,017
| 3,979
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have just graduated 2.1 in a bioscience subject and have been offered an MRes / MSc(Res) (masters by way of research). I really want to do the MRes because I want to test my aptitude for research, publishing and continuing to a Ph.D.
It's a well-worn trope, but I had also hoped to build upon my 2.1 by earning a distinction to make potential applications (in/outside academia) more competitive. I believe I would be capable of that given my performance on a final year lab research module.
However, during my application I learned that the MRes as offered in my department is “unclassified” - it is only pass/fail. It does not attract the classic masters classifications of pass/merit/distinction.
I am in my mid-thirties. I am **split** 50/50 between my heart (using the MRes to continue to a Ph.D) and the pragmatic (exiting academia and applying for a bioscience-based postgraduate scheme or job so I can start earning while I learn). My aptitude for staying in academia is something I intend to get a feel for while doing the MRes.
**Will the fact the MRes is unclassified mean that I am not appreciably increasing competitiveness of my application for positions outside of academia?**
To take one example, the NHS Scientist Training Programme has a minimum entry standard of 2.1. However, someone on the admissions committee tells me that 2.1’s are screened out in favour of 1st class degrees. In that scenario, a masters with distinction could patch that up.<issue_comment>username_1: It will be entirely a matter for the potential employer. If you really do want to apply for the NHS Scientist Training Programme you need to have a frank discussion with the people who run that programme. They will have their rules, but, I hope, ought to be open to reason that takes them beyond box-ticking.
Early in my career I had the opposite problem: I was theoretically qualified to apply for a UK Government job with the Master's degree that I held, but was told that it would be better, in my own interests, to apply after getting a PhD.
Bureaucrats might be faceless, but sometimes can respond helpfully to questions.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If you has a 2.2 or for some other reason did not meet the requirements for a position you are interested in, then having a classified MSc would be very helpful. Vary rarely do positions require a 1st. Automated culling of applications based on a 1st or 2.1 generally doesn't happen. Someone will still look at your application if you have a 2.1 and an unclassified MSc. If they see good research, the 2.1 will not matter anymore.
That said, a student with a 1st is looked at differently then someone with a 2.1. If at the start of the course, you were given the option for a classified or unclassified degree it would make sense for you to choose the classified degree. If you are choosing between equally *ranked* courses that will both offer you identical learning and research opportunies and one is classified and the other is not, the classified one has the potential to help you more. The benefit, however, is tiny and differences in opportunities, subjects, and/or personal preferences, will offset any benefit between a 2.1 and a 1st.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: This may be discipline and location specific, but it might be useful to someone: in Scotland at least, it is nearly impossible to get ESRC or AHRC PhD funding if one doesn't have a first/distinction on something. If you don't have it on your undergrad, you need it on your master's. There's literally a set of boxes to tick on the candidate evaluation and you can't tick the top box if the applicant doesn't have a 1st/distinction. An uncategorised MRes would mean no box ticking.
Granted the last time I did ESRC PhD proposal review was about 3 years ago, but the situation hasn't improved. We basically tell students that if they don't have a 1st it almost certainly isn't going to happen.
Upvotes: 0
|
2019/08/05
| 2,159
| 9,560
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have attended quite a few large conferences in mathematics where experts from different fields participate. Naturally I talked to some people and asked them a very basic question: what they are working on. In some cases the answers were not very precise and even rather misleading. I had the feeling that these people tried to make an impression that they work in one field while they work in another one.
One of the worst examples of such discussions was as follows. The person said that he works in interplay of random series and quantum fields. I never heard that there is a connection between the two subjects and asked to elaborate. His explanations were chaotic: he started to explain on random series without any mention of quantum fields. I asked again how it is related to the latter. He said something about quantum field without mention of random series. After a couple more questions he continued to jump between the two subjects without explaining the relation. The funny thing is that after this discussion I found his list of publications and realized that all his publications belong to a third area which has apparently nothing to do with the two above topics. To my greater surprise, this person is actually a respected mathematician from a good math department.
>
> My impression is that the situations as above are not exceptional. Am I wrong? How typical they are? Is there any rational explanation of such a behavior?
>
>
>
My question might be non-appropriate for this site, sorry about that. Personally I find the situations I have been in quite strange, and I would like to have any comment if it is something typical in academia (at least in mathematics) or not.<issue_comment>username_1: What you get in such situations is the "elevator talk". Some basic suggestion of what the person is "thinking about" that can be "explained" in the time length of an elevator ride. It isn't very well formed. If it were well formed then it would probably be already a publication or one in process and you would get conclusions, not speculations. They are ill-formed thoughts that come prior to the insight necessary to put it together.
Doctoral students are advised to have an elevator talk prepared in advance about their research so that they don't sound so disjointed as the example you give. This is because the people you meet might have some small suggestions to help with those insights. But mostly just so that you don't stutter when asked, casually, what you are working on.
It may also be that in the case you describe the person was talking about his/her long term goals, not something considered to be imminent. That would explain why the published work seems quite different. You are being told "I think there is some relationship here, but don't really see it yet. Looking hard, though." Chaos may be entirely normal at the early stage of a new exploration. If it weren't, math and science wouldn't be as hard as it is.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Part of it is the imperfection of human nature amplified by the imperfections of society. In an ideal world, the answer to the casual question "What are you currently working on?" would be "I'm currently stuck on this particular lemma" followed by the formulation a decent graduate student working in the field would easily understand. Then it would be your turn to channel the conversation into various ways from "What do you want to use it for?" to "What partial cases can you solve?" to "What techniques have you tried and where is the difficulty" to... depending on how good/bad your erudition, understanding of the subject, technical skills, and the ability to think on the fly of a new topic are.
The imperfection of the human nature is that one often wants to make a good impression more than to convey the information, so one starts with some "big" picture he believes his work fits in and tries to justify the importance of his project and, in the worst case scenarrio, of himself too. It takes some courage to openly declare that no human being and/or project have any particular importance or value in the grand design of this Universe, so we'd better drop all pretense and just try to cooperate in the most efficient ways to achieve something before our time as individuals or species runs up. One often perceives the question "What are you doing?" as "How can you justify your existence?" and tries to answer that instead as if the asking person were a prosecutor on the Last Judgement.
The society imperfections amplify this in several ways. First, there is an objective problem of allocating limited resources to competing individuals. This leads to direct comparisons of really incomparable things and, since no really meaningful comparison can be made (or, rather, too many justifiable comparisons exist with contradicting results), the pseudo-measures like "importance", "general interest", and many others abound. The worst case scenario is that they are measured on scale from 0 to 10 and the points are then added up with some fancy weights. There is nothing one can do about it until the supply exceeds the demand (which is not going to happen soon), so one is constantly kept on guard in academia and elsewhere as to how he is going to present his work, where to submit his papers, what to do to get good student evaluations, etc. This insecure feeling may easily extend to the cases where there is absolutely nothing to fear of, hide, or fight over, like casual conversations about science. However, this is only half-evil because this insecurity can also serve as a drive to do something instead of lying on the sofa and spitting at the ceiling.
The real "root of all evil" is the oxymoronic expression "intellectual property" and the whole convoluted culture around it. Some people will never openly tell you what they are really working on just because they are afraid that you may "steal their ideas" (as if an idea, by its very nature, were not a subject for sharing to the extent that sharing it is the only way to support its very existence), or may "want some share of credit", or for other equally non-sensical reasons (IMHO). This is how many people perceive it even if their scientific reputation is beyond any need to defend at each corner. It also gets reflected even in popular publications about science. I recall the passage about <NAME> somewhere, the sense of which was "Now he had a difficult task to find a person who would be able to help to fix the gap but not take the whole credit for the proof" (<NAME>). The [NY Times article](https://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/31/science/how-a-gap-in-the-fermat-proof-was-bridged.html) puts it less bluntly but you'll easily see that the underlying meaning is there. This creates extremely distorted attitudes towards the meaning of the whole endeavor (again, IMHO), which are rather widespread.
At last, there are fashions. You have as many people who want to boast about working in fashionable fields as those who want to wear fashionable dresses and haircuts. That usually is responsible for various "buzzwords" in introductions to mathematical articles or on hiring committee discussions (currently it is "big data", before that we had "mathematical biology" and "nano-science", I'm not trying to predict what comes next) and can spill even into casual conversations when two people are sniffing each other for the first time. As any fashions, the mathematical ones may make sense or make no sense, but they are all destined to come and go. Unfortunately, we'll see the distilled product our generation of mathematicians produced only 50-100 years later, which is beyond the lifespan for most of us.
So, I would say, make nothing of that conversation except the usual conclusion that when *you* are asked the same question, try not to behave in the way you disliked. I'm not saying "Try to be always straight and honest": if you ever write a grant proposal, prepare a file for promotion, or try to convince other members of the hiring committee that your candidate is "the best", you'll find that this is plainly impossible in this world if you want to get something more than to preserve your "integrity" (the latter is possible in principle but the price is the one Grisha Perelman paid and there was a lot of misunderstanding there on both sides as far as I can tell). Just try to impose some limits on stretching your conscience and look at the mirror now and then before judging others too hard (I certainly will plead guilty myself to whatever "crime" I described in this long rant if somebody wants to bring the charges).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: There is nothing strange about this. Not everyone is good at translating the very technical problems they are working on, without advance preparation, on demand and at a moment’s notice, into a polished speech that a random person they encounter (mathematician or not) will find understandable. I think the correlation between what you observed and the quality of this person’s work is essentially zero.
As for the fact that you found his description “misleading” because his papers suggest he usually works on other topics: well, he may be trying to do new work in an area he hasn’t worked on before. This is often my situation, and my own answer when people ask me what I’m working on (especially if the question is posed in the present tense as in your description) will occasionally have little or nothing to do with anything I’ve published.
Upvotes: 4
|
2019/08/05
| 1,396
| 5,519
|
<issue_start>username_0: We are four social scientists working on a dataset that is in a secure server accessible via remote desktop. We have a shared folder where we put our code and datasets:
```
root
-functions
-data
-documentation
-output
```
Right now all we have done is to:
```
git init
git add --a
git commit
```
At the root of our shared folder. We have also edited a `.gitignore` file to keep git from tracking images and non-plain text files.
This way, whenever one of us edits a file we go:
```
git add editedFile.r
git commit
```
Which can erase the changes if the previous person who edited the same file didn't stage and commit it. Not all of us are fully conversant in git and it is likely that the more skilled will have to periodically check the status of files, stage, and commit them for the ones who don't git yet.
Each of us also has our own private folder on the same servers. We potentially could have each our own local repository in our private folders, and treat the shared folder as a remote. Then we would:
```
git pull
git add editedFile.r
git commit
git push
```
As we go by our workday.
Which one would work better for the situation described: fork and pull (each one with our own repository and the shared as a remote) or all work on the same repo in the shared folder?<issue_comment>username_1: **(The question has been edited twice since this answer was written, it may no longer be relevant.)**
You want to use git and either:
>
> clone[ a shared folder] to our own private folders
>
>
>
or
>
> all work on the files in [the shared folder]
>
>
>
For the former, you needn't use git, so surely the latter is the only option that makes sense.
>
> The advantage of keeping all the code in one place...
>
>
>
All the code is in one place (your git repository) regardless of which option you pick.
>
> ...the ones who don't git won't have to bother learning it
>
>
>
It is hardly complicated to learn:
* git pull (before you start work)
* git commit (to locally backup)
* git push (to share)
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I pretty much agree that you've got two options:
Work as is, all in the same directory on the same system.
---------------------------------------------------------
There are a lot of problems with this approach.
* If multiple people are working at the same time modifying source files you'll step on each other's feet a lot. Two people can't edit the same file at the same time. You'll deal with annoying "that file is in use by another process" messages all the time.
* Someone might make a change that affects the behavior of a function and it'll come as a surprise to someone else.
On the other hand, the issues you'll run into are fairly easy to recognize and plan around. If you all aren't familiar with Git, and expect to be making actual code changes fairly infrequently, the cons aren't too big of an issue.
I would avoid this at all costs. I've worked on projects before where multiple people were working on the same files in the same directory on a remote server and it's *awful*. Words almost cannot describe the frustration that it leads to.
Multiple versions of the repository
-----------------------------------
Set up the filesystem to look like:
```
user1/
--root/
----/functions
----/data
----/documentation
----/output
user2/
--root/
----/functions
----/data
----/documentation
----/output
user3/
--root/
----/functions
----/data
----/documentation
----/output
user4/
--root/
----/functions
----/data
----/documentation
----/output
```
Each user should have a directory that contains it's own clone of the repository. This lets you avoid stepping on each other's toes when working at the same time, and lets you emulate a "normal" git environment.
From there it's just business as normal, and as long as y'all can overcome the initial learning curve it'll work out much better than if you're all working in the same space.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I've been through similar in a small research group. As you identified in your second option, to make git work usefully you you need to be working on your own copies of the repo. These might be on your own PCs or on a network drive, but there needs to be only one person using each copy.
You then need a way to keep everybody up to date.
* The minimum for this is people shouting "hey, I committed something, everybody pull from me". This is probably not going to scale well.
* The "ideal" is probably using something like github, Bitbucket or gitlab, either in the cloud or locally hosted, as a central repo that everybody pushes to and pulls from. If you're academic then private repositories are free from the major cloud providers but sensitive data, institutional policies, or some other reason might prevent you from using them.
* If this isn't feasible for whatever reason, you can set up a similar central repo on a network drive - but this wants to be a "bare" repository, where there's only the behind-the-scenes .git structure and no "working copy". Otherwise if somebody edits that working copy, you'll get in a mess. Best to consult a git expert on how to set this up.
If your team aren't familiar with git, then this is not a quick or easy thing to set up; and more importantly, to make it work usefully your team needs to *become* familiar with git basics and be prepared to put time and effort into using it right. This isn't going to work unless everybody is "on board".
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/05
| 1,382
| 5,774
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<issue_start>username_0: I graduated around 3 years ago with a degree, from a Russell Group university, in Mathematics. I had some mental health issues in my final term which essentially bombed my grade. Since I had no previously reported issues with anxiety, my extenuating circumstances were denied, (despite me having a panic attack in the middle of an exam and going to A&E since I thought I had some sort of food poisoning.)
Luckily, I was on track for a high 2:2/ low 2:1 so I did still pass my degree overall and obviously this was around 3 years ago and I have been doing well in my career etc. so this isn’t about how to find a job with this grade.
I don’t like having this grade and I know I can do better and I was just wondering: **does anyone knows a way that I can increase my grade (post graduation)?**
I’m working full time and don’t want to go back to university full time, but I’m open to taking night classes/extra courses. I wouldn’t mind taking something more related to the work I’m doing now rather than mathematics, but most of the courses I’d be interested in are closely related to my original degree. (e.g. coding, cyber security, finance)
Living and working in London
---
To update anyone who is reading this in the future and was feeling the same as me - pretty bummed about my grade. I have received a job offer recently for an incredible position. The position usually would require a 2:2 or higher, but due to my 3+ years of experience in industry they offered the job (not just as basic pay but with an experience and skills bonus). To everyone who answered, thank-you! - You were all right and it's not something I need.<issue_comment>username_1: There's nothing you can do to change your grade on a completed degree. What you can do is do well in your job so that no one cares about your old grades, which it sounds like you've done. So congrats on that! The real issue here isn't your grades, it's that you're still feeling a lot of anxiety about your college experience. I'd suggest talking to a therapist about that. You can't change your grade, but you can better understand the feelings you're having about your college experience, and you can change how you think about those grades. I wish you all the best.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I doubt that anything you can do now will change the past. But you can prepare for your future if you figure out what you want it to be.
The old grades will stand, but if your future includes study and another degree you can work there to improve your prospects.
Your past will be evaluated differently by different people and for different situations. No one can control that. But if you have an acceptable explanation you can move on, generally speaking. Your past isn't an immutable indicator of your future. But your path forward may be a bit twisty, depending on your goals.
Once you have a goal in mind, it would be good to talk to someone knowledgeable about it for advice in moving forward.
And note that most people evaluate recent work as more relevant than older. So, once you establish that you can succeed, you can move past the older experience.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The grades in your first degree cease to matter as soon as you can establish some success in a subsequent career, as you seem to have done.
If it really bugs you that your degree class was lower than you think you were capable of, then by all means take an Open University degree to prove that you can do better. A close friend of mine who has never accepted his second class degree, 40 years ago (despite a subsequent PhD!), has now accumulated no fewer than three first class Open University degrees.
But don't expect employers to be particularly interested in your undergraduate degree class once you have a few years work experience under your belt.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: If you're in your career now it will eventually get to a point where your experience and past employers matter more than your University grades. What matters isthat you HAVE that degree. It's a bummer, i know, but it is not the end of the World.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: I feel your frustration. I was aiming for the *highest honours* rank for the University-entrance examination in my country and, due to extreme stress during the examination period, I almost miss the *high honours*. Not that it really matters, but it bothered me and stressed me for a long time, and friends teasing me didn't help.
A grade is just a picture of your abilities in a given subject *on a given day*. And not a fully accurate picture either since the professor has to choose a sample of problems to try to represent the whole subject. Because of extenuating circumstances, you couldn't perform at your full capacities during these examinations. In short, **your grades does not represent your skills and knowledge**.
That's sad but you cannot change it. What you can change is what you think of yourself. Instead of telling yourself "I got poor grades and despite of it, I was fortunate enough to be offered a good job.", say
>
> (Despite of extenuating circumstances), I was able to graduate, and I landed a good job where I can show I am skilled in my subject.
>
>
>
You can repeat the above sentence (or another one that motivates you more) whenever you feel down. You can tell that to people when they ask about university. It is the truth and by repeating it, you will slowly convince yourself of it. Remember that many people, in similar circumstances that you faced, may have failed their examinations and dropped from university.
Ultimately, if this is a too heavy weight to carry, you should seek help from a specialist.
Upvotes: 1
|
2019/08/05
| 554
| 2,386
|
<issue_start>username_0: My manuscript was rejected without sending to peer review, of course the editor whom I sent my paper is an expert in my field and he rejected it without any report. (it took one and half month with editor). Just the editor in chief told that the editor can not recommend this paper to publish in Journal X. Now I want to ask about sending another email to Editor to ask about his suggestions on my paper. For example, if he recommend another journal or some advice on improving my paper? Can I send such direct email to him?
>
> The editor who rejected my paper is the editor of several journals, what about sending my paper to him through other journals' which he is on editorial board as well?
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: Editors don't read every paper completely before sending to potential peer reviewers. Asking him doesn't help you. Either the formal style (english, figure quality) or topic (abstract, introduction) or impact was not matching quality and socpe of this journal. At this point you have to ask and talk with your advisor and co-authors, not the editor.
Top-tier journals have acceptance rates below 10%. There is no time to advise authors of not reviewed papers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Re "For example, if he recommend another journal or some advice on improving my paper?": I think both questions are totally fine. It sounds like the editor is a very busy person, so don't be discouraged if they don't reply, but I see nothing wrong with asking these questions.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not the editor’s job to give you advice on how to improve your paper or where to submit it. And it *is* the editor’s job to do lots of other things, which usually keep them pretty busy. So at the very least, you’d be imposing on them by contacting them with such questions. You might get lucky and get some advice, but be aware that you are essentially betting on the editor being willing to spend time answering a question from a random person they don’t know and whose question they have no professional obligation to answer. If you lose the bet (or even potentially if you win the bet) it might not leave the best impression.
As a general rule, it makes more sense to discuss these sorts of questions with your adviser, a mentor, or a colleague you are on friendly terms with.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/05
| 490
| 2,105
|
<issue_start>username_0: I've read that in Belgium academic salaries are based on years since PhD. If this is the case, is this always the case? Are there special cases where someone would be paid more than their "years since" rate? Like, for example, if an early career scholar brings in a very large research grant: still the "years since" rate? It would seem difficult to keep talent with such a system so perhaps I am misunderstanding something.<issue_comment>username_1: Editors don't read every paper completely before sending to potential peer reviewers. Asking him doesn't help you. Either the formal style (english, figure quality) or topic (abstract, introduction) or impact was not matching quality and socpe of this journal. At this point you have to ask and talk with your advisor and co-authors, not the editor.
Top-tier journals have acceptance rates below 10%. There is no time to advise authors of not reviewed papers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Re "For example, if he recommend another journal or some advice on improving my paper?": I think both questions are totally fine. It sounds like the editor is a very busy person, so don't be discouraged if they don't reply, but I see nothing wrong with asking these questions.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: It is not the editor’s job to give you advice on how to improve your paper or where to submit it. And it *is* the editor’s job to do lots of other things, which usually keep them pretty busy. So at the very least, you’d be imposing on them by contacting them with such questions. You might get lucky and get some advice, but be aware that you are essentially betting on the editor being willing to spend time answering a question from a random person they don’t know and whose question they have no professional obligation to answer. If you lose the bet (or even potentially if you win the bet) it might not leave the best impression.
As a general rule, it makes more sense to discuss these sorts of questions with your adviser, a mentor, or a colleague you are on friendly terms with.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/05
| 1,418
| 5,932
|
<issue_start>username_0: For the first 11 years of my career, I worked as an academic in my home country. I moved to the United States two years ago to begin a new faculty position at a flagship state university. During these 13 years, I have used my full name as my "academic" name (as would be the usual practice). However, I have noticed that a number of my English speaking colleagues find it hard not to snicker at my name. And I do not entirely blame them. They do not mean to be impolite: my native language name sounds like a rather crude phrase in English.
Although this is not my name, the Korean name <NAME> 유석범 (You Suck Bum) is an example of such a name. (Unfortunately, my name sounds like a much more vulgar phrase in English than just "you suck bum.") I have considered going by my initials, however I have had a few journals that still would highly prefer I use a non-initial name to identify myself ("for indexing purposes"). Furthermore, my initials plus my surname create only a slightly less crude variant of the vulgar phrase my full name sounds like, so the issue is not fully solved.
My latest idea is to begin using an English name that sounds good with my surname. However, I fear that this will create confusion as to my academic profile. I have numerous papers and connections in which I am known by my actual name. I do not want to lose 13 years of academic name recognition (not that I am *that* famous).
How should I handle having an academic profile built on a name that sounds like a vulgar phrase in English? Should I just proceed forward and embrace the fact that my name sounds like I am spewing an obscenity, or should I try to build a new era of my academic career with a new name?<issue_comment>username_1: One alternative is to just accept it and try to educate your colleagues that the whole world doesn't revolve around them. I have a friend from Vietnam whose name is <NAME> (family name then a two syllable given name). It is a very common name there, actually, and has an unfortunate English pronunciation. In everyday life she goes by the other part of her given name (Y) only as a sort of nickname, but professionally she used (retired now) the whole name. As with many people from Asia, she has a three syllable name - as the Chinese typically do. In China, of course, using only part of your given name would be thought improper, I understand.
Westerners will "eventually" get it, one hopes, but only if they are exposed to the richness of the whole world.
For the record, Phuoc (or, more properly, Phước) means roughly "blessing" or "lucky".
However, I encourage academics to keep a stable public image, including their professional name. I actually recommend that anyone with a hoped-for academic career choose that "persona" before graduating from their baccalaureate. This puts all official records under the same name, making future applications easier. This isn't possible for those who consider it later, of course, and many people change names relatively frequently compared to others. I've kept a name, other than my birth name, for such reasons and my "desire" to go back would be very disruptive if implemented. I realize that moving from one culture to another makes this sort of issue difficult, of course.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: A difficult question to answer as, ultimately, this is quite personal. It is "what are you willing to put up with" mixed with "how much of your own personal identity do you ascribe to your name"?
I have a colleague who has had (at least) three different names during their academic publishing career and no one knows how to cite their work: do we convert publications under old names to new names? I also constantly have to tell students and other scholars "that's the same person...". It isn't great. Perhaps if you have a colleague that has changed their name due to marriage or other circumstances, you might discuss with them their experiences of building a profile anew.
One thing is for certain: if you don't change the name you use, you'll be memorable to the readers of your work. You'll come to mind before <NAME> and <NAME>.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: From another perspective, consider that a lot of names that native English speakers in the US have could be embarrassing out of contexts.
Surnames like Fuchs and Butts, Dick as a nickname for Richard, potential references to male anatomy like Johnson and Peter, and combinations of all of the above. A well known baseball player and coach is named <NAME>. I'm sure there are many others that have an additional meaning if you also consider other languages.
Adults are expected to deal with these names professionally. I won't claim that they do, nor claim that more "foreign" names are not more susceptible than others to a snicker. That said, anyone who made such a comment out loud would embarrass themselves more than anything.
You might consider initializing a "middle" name even if it's really part of your given/surname as a less drastic step or to use a nickname when instructing students, but otherwise I think it's fine to keep a name that might imply a particular phrase. Ultimately, though, the choice is yours.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Well, women academics end up dealing with this often, as many more women take the name of their husband upon marriage (and tend to go back to their birth name after a divorce). Persons who transition from one gender to another also have this problem if they change their first name to match their presenting identity.
We do have ORCID-IDs now, a number for an academic so no one cares how many names they have had. I would choose a first name that "fits", tell everyone about it, make sure you have all your publications listed on your home page, and include a sentence about "former name" perhaps in your application.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/05
| 1,181
| 5,296
|
<issue_start>username_0: In research work, I'm guessing that the primary product you want to create is some sort of publication. But what happens if you don't get you published? Does that mean the research you did is invalid / you can't reference what you learned in any future work?
For example:
Let's say someone gets a grant to research a question. The research is good/accurate, but for whatever reason, they can't get it published or they run out of funding. On the other hand, they get a different grant to do similar research where research from the first project would be useful. Only thing is, it isn't published. Can they still reference it in their new work? I guess another way to ask it is: Is publication the only way researchers can validate their work?
I currently work in development, but I'm interested in how research-heavy projects work. So sorry if this is a simple question.<issue_comment>username_1: If you are doing true research then there are no guarantees and you either keep trying or you scale back your goals until you find some success, even if not the one you strove for.
Research is examining the unknown. You can't schedule it. You can't predict it. You can just keep looking. You can broaden your scope, or narrow it, or redirect it.
The examples you give aren't necessarily terrible if you are working on a hard problem. But is good to get advice about whether your field of study is "ripe" for solving the problems you are working on. That is where an advisor is useful.
Normally you don't "reference" unpublished work, but you can include relevant parts of it in new work.
However, don't think that "failing" to get the result you thought you would represents actual failure. Knowing that something isn't true is knowledge just as is knowing that it is. Knowing that certain approaches fail to settle a question is also knowledge.
And don't start out researching "toward" a result you "want" to be true. That is always invalid. You are trying to find out what is true, not trying to prove a point. The latter is propaganda, not research.
But if you submit a paper and it is rejected, be guided by the reports of the reviewers. Normally they are quite knowledgeable about the area and about what can and should appear.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In academia it's true that by "publication" people often mean "**peer-reviewed** publication", that is a publication which has been checked and validated by other researchers and consequently accepted in a more or less reputable journal or conference (see below for the "more or less"). Peer-reviewed publications are the only ones which matter in terms of academic career and in any kind of academic evaluation.
However there are plenty of other options to publish: pre-prints, technical reports, books or even simply putting a document on a webpage, all of these are valid publications which can be cited, even if they are not peer-reviewed. Of course they wouldn't be considered as valuable publications in the academic world (unless they get cited a lot, but that's not common), and for good reasons: non-peer reviewed publications can be full of mistakes or claim that the Earth is flat, since by definition they haven't been evaluated by the expert community. Anyway, this implies that it's virtually impossible to be unable to publish a research work because it gets rejected.
Even if we assume that the author wants to publish only in peer-reviewed journals/conferences, they would still have a lot of options to choose from and it's unlikely that they can't get accepted anywhere: in every field there are venues which are known to be very reputable and consequently very selective, but there is also a spectrum of journals/conferences which range from "very competitive" to "desperate to receive submissions". Of course publishing in a bottom tier venue is not going to boost an author's track record, but at least it's reasonably easy.
Finally, even in decently reputable journals/conferences, any serious research work can always be accepted... eventually. It might take a very long time, but if the methodology is correct, the state of art is properly covered, the motivation for the work is demonstrated, etc., in short if there is a real scientific contribution then it's very unlikely that the work would be rejected everywhere. Even in the case of negative results, e.g. the author attempted a new method and it failed, there is a legitimate contribution: provided it wasn't already done and the method makes sense (that's part of the scientific ground work), it's useful for the community to know that this method doesn't work. Additionally every rejection comes with reviews which explain why the paper is rejected, and normally addressing the shortcomings identified by the reviewers makes the paper more likely to be accepted next time.
>
> "Is publication the only way researchers can validate their work?"
>
>
>
Not necessarily but the other ways I can think of are more specific to the field. For instance in computer science developing a software system which turns out to be successful in the scientific community or even beyond would actually prove the value of the work and certainly contribute to the author's reputation.
Upvotes: 3
|
2019/08/06
| 403
| 1,701
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have passed several loops of evaluation by a professor, who would like to be my future advisor. He told me that he made his final decision on me and was pleased to offer me a RA position in his lab. He asked me to submit my application and he could expedite the application so that I could get the admission quickly. But I have a weakness of undergraduate GPA(3.01/4, he didnt ask for any transcript information during our connection). I'm waiting for the admission information but very uptight about the result. I'm super worried about being rejected by the graduate school because of my undergraduate gpa.<issue_comment>username_1: If the Graduate School has the final say, then you will have to wait for their decision - we cannot guess their response, and probably neither can the professor.
However, if the professor has the final say and the Grad School just processes his acceptance then you should be fine, assuming there are no hidden things...
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The best thing you can do is to ask the professor. Tell them you’re worried that you won’t be accepted because of your GPA, and whether it’ll be an issue.
My guess is that if a professor suggests that you join the program, and says they’ll expedite it, they know what’s the admission process and requirements. Send your application to them before you submit and ask if it looks ok, they’ll know what to do. In many departments the word of a professor who really wants someone to join carries a lot of weight, so I wouldn’t worry too much. But bottom line: communicate with the person whom you’ll be discussing many issues with for the next few years.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
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2019/08/06
| 939
| 3,636
|
<issue_start>username_0: I had an academic interview. During the interview, some panel members showed positive body language. In the end, they asked me for a reference. After that, the main interviewer said that they had some more applicants to interview and would get back to me after a few days. I wonder if that means that they are not interested in me? Is that a bad sign?<issue_comment>username_1: It's not a bad sign at all. If they have more interviews arranged, they wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't interview them. They don't just hire the first person suitable for the job. They hire the *best* person for the job! This may still be you - or it may be the next person to be interviewed.
Be patient, and they should let you know one way or the other!
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It is what they mean...it not bad or good.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: While it's true *on average* that they're probably saying exactly what they mean, it's all about
Context
=======
Depending on how well you came across, how well *you* interviewed *them*, their manner when they say it, it could be a *good* sign. Or bad.
The unspoken part might be:
>
> *(We really want to hire you now but)* **we have other interviews to conduct and then** *(we can talk about when you can start)*.
>
>
>
Of course, if they're not nudging you and winking obviously, then it might instead be:
>
> *(We don't think you're that great but)* **we have other interviews to conduct and then** *(we'll know if there's someone better suited to this job)*.
>
>
>
But I have to complain you buried the lede... When an interviewer says they'll call in "a few days", ask them to be specific. Your reasoning might be that you have other offers to consider, other interviews to attend (possibly out of town?), and so on. Be polite and positive, naturally. But it looks like in this case, their vagueness is the all the context you need. Keep trying!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As an interviewer, we have been instructed that we must never say in the interview whether we're going to take them or not.
Suppose we do want them. The interview process also includes the manager, the technical interviewer(s) and the HR representative all comparing notes afterwards, and possibly then passing the best candidate's details to the next level of management for sign-off. We can't do that with the interviewee present, and we can't very well make them wait around. And if the interviewee has gone through an agency, technically the request to hire has to go through them.
And suppose we don't want them. If we say straight out in the interview that we're not going further, we're leaving ourselves open to the candidate getting unpleasant with us. We don't want our staff getting abused or possibly attacked during an interview. So rejections happen at arms' length, by phone or post.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> The main interviewer said that they had some more applicants to interview and would get back to me after a few days.
>
>
> Is that a bad sign?
>
>
>
It is not a bad sign. Quite the opposite! It is a *good* sign. It is an indicator that their hiring process is well-designed.
Think about it: Would you really want to start working at an institution where your future colleagues were hired on the spot, without the institution looking at the other candidates?
Concerning your chances at this institution, it is not an indicator at all. But even if it was – you shouldn't concern yourself with that. All that matters for you is the final hired/not hired response.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/06
| 720
| 3,011
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<issue_start>username_0: After reading [this post](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/81625/787) and [this post](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/121439/787), and after I also encountered a production team that made many unwanted edits in my paper (such as changing words and numbers in the text itself, removing separating lines in tables, etc.), I would like to know if there is any way to prevent this from happening in advance. I.e., after my paper is accepted and before it is sent to production, is it reasonable to contact the production team and say something like:
* "Please do not edit the text of my paper. If you think there is a grammatical error that must be edited, please notify me in the author queries and I will fix it myself".
* "Please do not remove the separating lines from the tables, as they convey important information".
?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is there a way to prevent the production team from messing up my paper?
>
>
>
Production teams don't want to mess up papers; the ones that do are performing poorly. Unfortunately, poor performance seemingly occurs amongst all publishers, regardless of prestige. So, you cannot prevent the production team messing up your paper.
Requesting that the production team, *do not edit the text*, makes the team's job impossible. Attempting to pre-empt mistakes, e.g., by instructing that they *do not remove the separating lines from the tables, as they convey important information*, won't help much, since you cannot pre-empt all mistakes. Moreover, such contact with the production team will suggest that you have a low opinion of them, which isn't in your favour.
Following the publisher's prescribed style may reduce errors, since the production team won't need to make as many edits.
All is not lost, since mistakes can be fixed before publication, albeit this is expensive (in terms of time). In addition, preprints or technical reports (which aren't edited by the production team), can be made public.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally, publishers will send you a version with the changes introduced by the copyeditors, and ask for your approval. Did they omit this step? If so, if it were me, then personally I would be very upset, enough so to complain to the editor-in-chief. Although standards differ in different disciplines, I concur with <NAME>'s comment that this was extremely rude of them.
If it is not too late (i.e., if the paper has not yet been physically published), then I would instead recommend that you contact the journal and request that they start over. I would also request a detailed list (or annotated version of the paper) explaining every change that was introduced.
In general, you can't reasonably ask copyeditors to not edit the text of your paper. But you can certainly ask that they send you a copy of the edited paper, complete with a detailed list of changes, and that they await your corrections or approval before proceeding.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2019/08/06
| 1,200
| 5,072
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<issue_start>username_0: I completed a masters in Chemical Engineering long ago. I have since done some research which I think suffices to achieve a PhD. Can it be done (and how)?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How and where to get you research work assessed for PhD?
>
>
>
The first person to evaluate if the work is sufficient to warrant submitting it for official PhD evaluation is the PhD supervisor. Therefore you need to find a supervisor first.
>
> I have since done some research which I think suffices to achieve a PhD. Can it be done (and how)?
>
>
>
These things vary a lot by country and by institution, but it's common nowadays that the requirements for passing a PhD involve:
* validating some classes (in particular about general scientific methods, ethics, etc.)
* having published a few papers in peer-reviewed journals or conferences
The question doesn't specify whether the work has been published/peer-reviewed or not? If not, it's a bit risky to assume that it is sufficient for a PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your best bet will always be to contact the administrative department at a university (or universities). Which ones you decide is up to you; whether you want to try a smaller local university or a more reputable one. The point is, they will be able to give you a real, factual answer, which is more likely to be correct compared to un- or semi-qualified comments from people on forums. As the advice you receive from the admin will also be what you will need to follow, it also carries more 'weight' than comments here.
That said, it can depend on the institution. In Australia (Specifically the University of Southern Queensland) there is a 'Master's of Engineering Science'. This is intended for predominately international students who have completed a Bachelor's elsewhere, and allows an internationally recognised Bachelor's equivalent. It is still 2 years of full time, or 4 years of part time work, although the work is more project related and less course-work. I know of no PhD equivalent to this Master's.
It has become more common in recent years (at least in Australia) for a PhD by publication. This requires 3 years of enrollment (as per a typical PhD.) with a number (typically three) publications produced during this enrollment. These publications must be fully peer reviewed and the journal of sufficient ranking. Supervisor's opinions of PhD by publications differ (mine dislikes them) but one theory is that since the work is already peer reviewed, it means any examiner's comments on that work carry less weight if they dispute the results. If you choose to do a PhD by publication, it's thus advisable to find a supervisor who agrees with the system.
So unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, there's no way out of doing further research. No reputable university is going to 'give' you a PhD based on previous work. In all likelihood, your work may be innovative, but will have lacked the level of detail required to be PhD-worthy (a preliminary appointment with a potential supervisor or two will quickly answer this question). On the plus side, the fact that you've demonstrated innovative work in the past likely means you're capable of doing a PhD; the university enrolment process will definitely take this into consideration. Try and find a supervisor with a passion for the field you've demonstrated innovation in. They'll likely be interested in letting you continue your current work, and will advise on how to bring it up to a recognised PhD depth of research. It's likely to still be 3 years of study, but this way you'll have a big head start with a topic you're already very familiar with; those 3 years will be spent gaining deeper insight, which is what the examiners at the end of 3 years will look for.
It may be an aside to your original question, but if you're considering options then look into a Doctor of Professional Engineering (D.Eng) or equivalent for your field. This is typically industry-based (you work for a company doing innovative work for them, while reporting to the university.) and is typically 6 years of part time study. Something like this may be of benefit to you, although once again, contacting a university administration, presenting them with your qualifications, and asking for a list of supervisors you could organise a consultation with is going to be your best bet.
Information on the USQ D.Eng can be found [here](https://www.usq.edu.au/study/degrees/doctor-of-professional-engineering). Directly quoting from that page:
>
> Have a passion for engineering and want to further your knowledge? USQ’s Doctor of Professional Engineering is designed to expand your knowledge in technical investigation and innovative design and analysis, as well as take your research skills to a higher level.
> Your studies will include 8 units of discipline-based coursework and research methodology studies, before embarking on 16 units of independent research in a specialised field of your choice, contributing to our future world.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/06
| 3,370
| 14,162
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<issue_start>username_0: Say I have written code that performs a physics calculation. After this, I get a paper published based on the results of the code. In the interest of advancing the progress of science, I upload the code used for the paper on, say, GitHub. I also post a link to my code on GitHub on my website. I do this to facilitate discovery and use of the code by those who are interested in my results. Imagine that someone, in the process of reproducing my results (using the aforementioned code), discovers a flaw in the logic of the code. Correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.
Will this lead to retraction?
Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?<issue_comment>username_1: If the main idea in the paper has been invalidated by the correction in the code, you would do well to try to retract the paper yourself. This is just a point of professional ethics. It also protects you in a way from future claims if people don't examine everything thoroughly.
The journal may not be able to actually retract the paper, but might be able to post a note (printed or online) that the paper has a flaw (noted by the author, hopefully).
But others, relying on the original thesis of the paper might be misled in their own work. You really don't want that to happen.
Honesty in science is assumed. Make it so.
You might also be able to publish a better paper, based on the corrected code. Work toward that end.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: @username_1 is certainly right that Science itself gains a lot if people publish their code. Papers without code (the norm in many scientific areas) are hard to reproduce or build upon.
But you ask what you gain from this, or if it might harm your career.
First of all, it is unlikely that somebody finds a major flaw in your program and it is even more unlikely that a journal will retract the paper because somebody else (not you) requested this. Most of the wrong or doubtful results just stay in the literature.
What is much more likely: Somebody will actually use or extend your results, and help you improve them. So he/she will cite you or work with you on a future paper. This is definitely something you want.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Will there be any positive gain thanks to the publishing of the code to me?
>
>
>
Publishing the code is necessary to make the calculation reproducible and the results verifiable. If I were the referee of your paper I would likely insist that you publish the code. So the “positive gain” would be that your paper will not be rejected outright. It will also help your reputation and build up other researchers’ impression of you as a serious, careful scientist who understands what it means to do good science.
Besides, what you are asking is essentially “is there a positive gain to behaving honestly”. I’m not going to enter a philosophical discussion about honesty and its benefits here, but just think for a second about what you’re saying. Even in a specific context of academic research, your question can be rephrased as “I am thinking of hiding information about the way I did my research that would be essential for other researchers to verify my results. Is there a positive gain from not hiding this information?” Again, think about what you’re asking.
It’s clear from the question that you are in fact a person who is motivated by a desire to advance science and wants to do the right thing. That’s great, and the conclusion is that it is your duty to disclose the relevant information about your research that would enable other researchers to check your results. If the results later turn out to be invalid, then you and the journal you published in would need to deal with it in an appropriate and responsible way, either by issuing a note pointing out the error, or (which typically would happen only in really extreme, egregious circumstances) by retracting the article. Honestly I don’t think this is something to worry about too much. As long as you’re acting in good faith and doing your best to do good science, you are adding to the sum total of human knowledge and your work has value. That’s what matters, and that’s what you will ultimately be judged on by your peers in the community.
---
**Edit:** my opinion about requiring authors to make code available as a condition for publication generated some controversy in the comments, but I find the arguments for allowing authors to withhold code to be quite weak. I suggest that people think more about this issue, and consider in particular the fact that the [Nature Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Research) family of 148 journals has exactly the requirement I suggested as part of its [official policy](https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/reporting-standards):
>
> **Reporting standards and availability of data, materials, code and protocols**
>
>
> An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. A condition of publication in a Nature Research journal is that **authors are required to make materials, data, code, and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications**. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed to the editors at the time of submission. Any restrictions must alsobe disclosed in the submitted manuscript.
>
>
> After publication, readers who encounter refusal by the authors to comply with these policies should contact the chief editor of the journal. In cases where editors are unable to resolve a complaint, the journal may refer the matter to the authors' funding institution and/or publish a formal statement of correction, attached online to the publication, stating that readers have been unable to obtain necessary materials to replicate the findings.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Will this lead to retraction?
>
>
>
With due respect - that is the wrong question. You've said that, in your scenario:
>
> correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.
>
>
>
That's not possible. Either the central idea is valid, or it isn't (let's not quibble about a logical "excluded middle" or semi-validity etc). Publication doesn't validate or invalidate it (and again, let's not quibble about Schroedinger's-cat considerations). If it's valid, then a flaw in the code only means that the code doesn't prove/establish the idea. If it isn't valid - then it is imperative to, well, humanity, that an article claiming its validity not be published as though the idea were valid. Wouldn't you agree?
>
> Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?
>
>
>
This phrasing of the question comes off a bit selfish. There are obvious positive gains, generally, from publishing the code. Why does it have to be about the benefit for you personally? You're a scientist, my friend - put your ego a bit to the side here.
But, yes, several gains (not by order of significance):
1. Your result/finding will be better and more widely accepted.
2. The potential for future collaboration with you will increase somewhat.
3. Working on the code and getting it to a releasable state may yield additional results, or perspectives on the same result.
4. Other scientists would be better able to conduct research based on your results (yes, that is a positive gain, despite the potential for others "stealing your thunder")
5. People will think somewhat more highly of you as a researcher - you can "put your code where your mouth is".
6. Someone might figure out a flaw, allowing you to retract your paper (yes, this too is positive - you certainly don't want to have a baseless paper on your record, do you? Retraction is better than living in infamy, so to speak.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: If they really did find a bug that completely invalidates your results, then indeed the paper is invalid. You might as well retract it. In a perfect world you could then fix your code, analyze the correct results, and write a new paper - but in reality the journal may not be interested in another submission on this topic.
This is no different than if you measured a tower as 123 m tall, dropped some objects and concluded that g=2.9 m/s^2. If it was later discovered that you mixed up your rulers, and the tower is actually 123 **ft** tall, what do you suppose should happen to *Experimental Evidence of Extreme Gravitational Anomaly in the Vicinity of Tall Manmade Structures*?
It may seem like posting code on Github is bad because it creates a risk of such a disaster, with no corresponding upside. This is false. We can follow the analogy above - what if your experimental paper omitted the Methods section because "somebody might realize my methods are ill-suited and don't work"? What if you just didn't publish at all, because "there might be errors in the paper"?
* If your code really is that wrong, it is better to retract ASAP. The longer your paper is out there, the longer Gravitational Anomalogists will read and debate it. It will gain visibility. Even if you try to hide the flaws, they will eventually be found, at least when somebody tries to reproduce your work. If you retract much later, there will be many more people who care about the paper and maybe even relied on it, who will now be pissed off. Your reputation could suffer much more from a day 5 retraction than day 500 retraction. Showing code is your friend here.
* Without code, your paper is arguably irreproducible, hence it is not even Science. Showing code is your friend here also.
* If you put your code up even before you publish, maybe after submitting a preprint, you can detect the errors early enough to prevent the retraction in the first place. Again, showing code is your friend.
* If you have put your code up and it *doesn't* have a fatal flaw, people can be very confident that it is correct, because they can *read it themselves*. But if the code is not up, the only logical conclusion is that it may or may not be flawed. Nobody can trust your paper fully because they haven't seen the code. They may even assume you *must* have some flaw, because why else wouldn't you show your code? Showing code prevents all this.
* If you make your code available, other people can write their own code *based on your code*, or even analyze their own data *using your code directly*. Then showing code is a **very** good, because you don't just get a publication, you get a *citation*.
Furthermore, there are [ways of verifying your code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing). They're not perfect, but they can help catch a lot of bugs. Generally, you should aim to be careful and meticulous in your work so that there aren't huge flaws in it. You shouldn't publish things that have countless buried "surprises" just waiting for your fellow scholars to discover. So in reality, it shouldn't be that likely that your code is completely wrong. Therefore, by putting it on Github, you are risking very little (well, there's long tail) but you stand to gain a great deal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Let me give you an answer that does not appeal to the grand ideals of science, like reproducibility and advancement. You are asking "what is in it for me", which I - as a person who spends most of my time polishing and publishing simulation code - think is a very fair question, as this is something that will take up a lot of your time. After all, when you publish your code you will have to deal with:
* Making your code readable - you don't want other people to look at your spaghetti, so a fair amount of time must be invested.
* Writing documentation - no code is good without it.
* Tech-support - should you be so lucky that someone will use it, they will require support.
* Update schedules - you will certainly update your code, and you must now also update your public code. Without breaking existing features. And be backwards compatible.
As you can see, this is something which can take an awful lot of your time. So is it worth it? Yes, I think so. Otherwise I would not do it. Publishing your code allows other people to actually use your work. In my case, I am doing theoretical work. Publishing code allows people doing experiments to download my code and compare my theory to their data, without needing me. That gathers citations and reputation - something a young scientist needs. It also means that, since they can toy with the code themselves, they do not need me to understand their specific setup, in order for me to provide a calculation suited for them. This makes the calculation more precise than what I could ever do myself - again without me having to do the work.
Now, what happens if someone discovers a mistake? This is of course unfortunate, and it happens. Usually it does not lead to retractions, as few 'code bug' type of mistakes invalidates a whole paper - if it did, you did not do a through enough job of checking your calculations against common sense before submitting!
I have grown to like bug submissions. It means that someone else did the painstaking work of going through your code, and actually found something you did not find yourself. In the end it makes your results better, and without you needing to put in the effort.
All in all, it is a large investment to publish your code - but the returns can also be grand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I do not know much in your field. In computer science (e.g., machine learning), I think no one can ensure the code is 100% correct.
To my point of view, I think two most important things in research are (1) idea and (2) presentation. Once you can clearly convey your idea to your audiences, I think that is the good article, which has its own value. As such, that paper should not be retracted.
However, we need to try our best to ensure all the reported results are correct (to the best of your knowledge) before the submission.
Upvotes: -1
|
2019/08/06
| 3,263
| 13,715
|
<issue_start>username_0: I understand that depending on the department and the school the duration of the TA funding for a Phd student can vary. However, I’m interested in learning whether it’s common for departments in STEM field to have less than two semesters of TA funding for the same student in US.<issue_comment>username_1: If the main idea in the paper has been invalidated by the correction in the code, you would do well to try to retract the paper yourself. This is just a point of professional ethics. It also protects you in a way from future claims if people don't examine everything thoroughly.
The journal may not be able to actually retract the paper, but might be able to post a note (printed or online) that the paper has a flaw (noted by the author, hopefully).
But others, relying on the original thesis of the paper might be misled in their own work. You really don't want that to happen.
Honesty in science is assumed. Make it so.
You might also be able to publish a better paper, based on the corrected code. Work toward that end.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: @username_1 is certainly right that Science itself gains a lot if people publish their code. Papers without code (the norm in many scientific areas) are hard to reproduce or build upon.
But you ask what you gain from this, or if it might harm your career.
First of all, it is unlikely that somebody finds a major flaw in your program and it is even more unlikely that a journal will retract the paper because somebody else (not you) requested this. Most of the wrong or doubtful results just stay in the literature.
What is much more likely: Somebody will actually use or extend your results, and help you improve them. So he/she will cite you or work with you on a future paper. This is definitely something you want.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Will there be any positive gain thanks to the publishing of the code to me?
>
>
>
Publishing the code is necessary to make the calculation reproducible and the results verifiable. If I were the referee of your paper I would likely insist that you publish the code. So the “positive gain” would be that your paper will not be rejected outright. It will also help your reputation and build up other researchers’ impression of you as a serious, careful scientist who understands what it means to do good science.
Besides, what you are asking is essentially “is there a positive gain to behaving honestly”. I’m not going to enter a philosophical discussion about honesty and its benefits here, but just think for a second about what you’re saying. Even in a specific context of academic research, your question can be rephrased as “I am thinking of hiding information about the way I did my research that would be essential for other researchers to verify my results. Is there a positive gain from not hiding this information?” Again, think about what you’re asking.
It’s clear from the question that you are in fact a person who is motivated by a desire to advance science and wants to do the right thing. That’s great, and the conclusion is that it is your duty to disclose the relevant information about your research that would enable other researchers to check your results. If the results later turn out to be invalid, then you and the journal you published in would need to deal with it in an appropriate and responsible way, either by issuing a note pointing out the error, or (which typically would happen only in really extreme, egregious circumstances) by retracting the article. Honestly I don’t think this is something to worry about too much. As long as you’re acting in good faith and doing your best to do good science, you are adding to the sum total of human knowledge and your work has value. That’s what matters, and that’s what you will ultimately be judged on by your peers in the community.
---
**Edit:** my opinion about requiring authors to make code available as a condition for publication generated some controversy in the comments, but I find the arguments for allowing authors to withhold code to be quite weak. I suggest that people think more about this issue, and consider in particular the fact that the [Nature Research](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Research) family of 148 journals has exactly the requirement I suggested as part of its [official policy](https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/reporting-standards):
>
> **Reporting standards and availability of data, materials, code and protocols**
>
>
> An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. A condition of publication in a Nature Research journal is that **authors are required to make materials, data, code, and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications**. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed to the editors at the time of submission. Any restrictions must alsobe disclosed in the submitted manuscript.
>
>
> After publication, readers who encounter refusal by the authors to comply with these policies should contact the chief editor of the journal. In cases where editors are unable to resolve a complaint, the journal may refer the matter to the authors' funding institution and/or publish a formal statement of correction, attached online to the publication, stating that readers have been unable to obtain necessary materials to replicate the findings.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Will this lead to retraction?
>
>
>
With due respect - that is the wrong question. You've said that, in your scenario:
>
> correction of this logic flaw leads to invalidation of the central idea of the paper.
>
>
>
That's not possible. Either the central idea is valid, or it isn't (let's not quibble about a logical "excluded middle" or semi-validity etc). Publication doesn't validate or invalidate it (and again, let's not quibble about Schroedinger's-cat considerations). If it's valid, then a flaw in the code only means that the code doesn't prove/establish the idea. If it isn't valid - then it is imperative to, well, humanity, that an article claiming its validity not be published as though the idea were valid. Wouldn't you agree?
>
> Will there be any positive gain to me as a result of publishing of the code?
>
>
>
This phrasing of the question comes off a bit selfish. There are obvious positive gains, generally, from publishing the code. Why does it have to be about the benefit for you personally? You're a scientist, my friend - put your ego a bit to the side here.
But, yes, several gains (not by order of significance):
1. Your result/finding will be better and more widely accepted.
2. The potential for future collaboration with you will increase somewhat.
3. Working on the code and getting it to a releasable state may yield additional results, or perspectives on the same result.
4. Other scientists would be better able to conduct research based on your results (yes, that is a positive gain, despite the potential for others "stealing your thunder")
5. People will think somewhat more highly of you as a researcher - you can "put your code where your mouth is".
6. Someone might figure out a flaw, allowing you to retract your paper (yes, this too is positive - you certainly don't want to have a baseless paper on your record, do you? Retraction is better than living in infamy, so to speak.)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: If they really did find a bug that completely invalidates your results, then indeed the paper is invalid. You might as well retract it. In a perfect world you could then fix your code, analyze the correct results, and write a new paper - but in reality the journal may not be interested in another submission on this topic.
This is no different than if you measured a tower as 123 m tall, dropped some objects and concluded that g=2.9 m/s^2. If it was later discovered that you mixed up your rulers, and the tower is actually 123 **ft** tall, what do you suppose should happen to *Experimental Evidence of Extreme Gravitational Anomaly in the Vicinity of Tall Manmade Structures*?
It may seem like posting code on Github is bad because it creates a risk of such a disaster, with no corresponding upside. This is false. We can follow the analogy above - what if your experimental paper omitted the Methods section because "somebody might realize my methods are ill-suited and don't work"? What if you just didn't publish at all, because "there might be errors in the paper"?
* If your code really is that wrong, it is better to retract ASAP. The longer your paper is out there, the longer Gravitational Anomalogists will read and debate it. It will gain visibility. Even if you try to hide the flaws, they will eventually be found, at least when somebody tries to reproduce your work. If you retract much later, there will be many more people who care about the paper and maybe even relied on it, who will now be pissed off. Your reputation could suffer much more from a day 5 retraction than day 500 retraction. Showing code is your friend here.
* Without code, your paper is arguably irreproducible, hence it is not even Science. Showing code is your friend here also.
* If you put your code up even before you publish, maybe after submitting a preprint, you can detect the errors early enough to prevent the retraction in the first place. Again, showing code is your friend.
* If you have put your code up and it *doesn't* have a fatal flaw, people can be very confident that it is correct, because they can *read it themselves*. But if the code is not up, the only logical conclusion is that it may or may not be flawed. Nobody can trust your paper fully because they haven't seen the code. They may even assume you *must* have some flaw, because why else wouldn't you show your code? Showing code prevents all this.
* If you make your code available, other people can write their own code *based on your code*, or even analyze their own data *using your code directly*. Then showing code is a **very** good, because you don't just get a publication, you get a *citation*.
Furthermore, there are [ways of verifying your code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_testing). They're not perfect, but they can help catch a lot of bugs. Generally, you should aim to be careful and meticulous in your work so that there aren't huge flaws in it. You shouldn't publish things that have countless buried "surprises" just waiting for your fellow scholars to discover. So in reality, it shouldn't be that likely that your code is completely wrong. Therefore, by putting it on Github, you are risking very little (well, there's long tail) but you stand to gain a great deal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Let me give you an answer that does not appeal to the grand ideals of science, like reproducibility and advancement. You are asking "what is in it for me", which I - as a person who spends most of my time polishing and publishing simulation code - think is a very fair question, as this is something that will take up a lot of your time. After all, when you publish your code you will have to deal with:
* Making your code readable - you don't want other people to look at your spaghetti, so a fair amount of time must be invested.
* Writing documentation - no code is good without it.
* Tech-support - should you be so lucky that someone will use it, they will require support.
* Update schedules - you will certainly update your code, and you must now also update your public code. Without breaking existing features. And be backwards compatible.
As you can see, this is something which can take an awful lot of your time. So is it worth it? Yes, I think so. Otherwise I would not do it. Publishing your code allows other people to actually use your work. In my case, I am doing theoretical work. Publishing code allows people doing experiments to download my code and compare my theory to their data, without needing me. That gathers citations and reputation - something a young scientist needs. It also means that, since they can toy with the code themselves, they do not need me to understand their specific setup, in order for me to provide a calculation suited for them. This makes the calculation more precise than what I could ever do myself - again without me having to do the work.
Now, what happens if someone discovers a mistake? This is of course unfortunate, and it happens. Usually it does not lead to retractions, as few 'code bug' type of mistakes invalidates a whole paper - if it did, you did not do a through enough job of checking your calculations against common sense before submitting!
I have grown to like bug submissions. It means that someone else did the painstaking work of going through your code, and actually found something you did not find yourself. In the end it makes your results better, and without you needing to put in the effort.
All in all, it is a large investment to publish your code - but the returns can also be grand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I do not know much in your field. In computer science (e.g., machine learning), I think no one can ensure the code is 100% correct.
To my point of view, I think two most important things in research are (1) idea and (2) presentation. Once you can clearly convey your idea to your audiences, I think that is the good article, which has its own value. As such, that paper should not be retracted.
However, we need to try our best to ensure all the reported results are correct (to the best of your knowledge) before the submission.
Upvotes: -1
|
2019/08/07
| 434
| 1,846
|
<issue_start>username_0: My class decided to bunk today's lectures. Because there is so much chaos in my city due to heavy rain and blockage. Many student can not come and some of them are not coming due to their parents not allowing them to go. So we executed our plan.
Now, our class teacher want us to meet HOD and take permission from him and then only we are allowed to sit in next lectures.
So, my question is how should we handle this situation?
How should we put ourselves in front of him?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> our class teacher want that we should meet HOD and take permission from him and then only we are allowed to sit in next lectures.
>
>
>
Your teacher wants\* you to meet the HOD, so meet the HOD.
\*Given the context it seems the teacher has *demanded*, rather than merely *wants*.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Preparation for meeting the HoD will depend on the individual student's situation.
Students who attempted to warn the teacher of their non-attendance should document their efforts to do so.
Students who really could not attend should document the road closures and transit cancellations that prevented them from attending.
Minors who were told to stay home by their parents should get a note from the parents taking responsibility and explaining their reasons for keeping the student home.
Anyone who did not attend without a good reason needs to think about the wording of an appropriate apology.
Students who could not attend and made at least some effort to notify the teacher are in the strongest position. Even those should be apologetic about the group non-attendance if they encouraged it.
At the other extreme, I don't see anything other than an apology for a student who could have attended, chose not to, and made no attempt to notify the teacher.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
|
2019/08/07
| 2,059
| 8,883
|
<issue_start>username_0: The situation is as follows:
1) I and supervisor dont understand each other
2) supervisor keeps the PhD group fractured
---
What it means ?
The supervisor is way off from my research area. But I know that happens. Unfortunately, he is the one speaking the most during meetings. To me it seems he want to prove himself as knowledgeable. This led me to ignore his advice, as it is usually inapplicable, since he doesnt understand my research. (I want point out, that I know this happens, that the supervisor may not be able to provide a profound advice, due to the differences in research interests. But what I consider a bit odd, is a lack of interest in listenening, as he needs to be the one that talks.) Therefore, I dont have a supervisor that would give a hand in research.
The other thing really bothers me though. We have never held a full PhD group meeting (there is about 5 other PhDs I barely know). Furthermore, there are "secret" projects among the PhDs managed by the supervisor, which fracture the relations and communication even more. This actually happens in very exclusive way. They just switch into their native language, right in front of me (including the supervisor), when such topic is discussed (I am international student).
For me this is both personal and professional problem.
On personal level, there is loneliness and the feeling of being different, as explained by the language exclusivity.
From professional/academic level, I have no ground under my feet. I need to progress on my own, without the feedback from supervisor or other PhDs.
---
Questions:
How do I progress on my own ?
Do I search advice from other professors ? Do I try to connect with other PhD groups on my own ? Is this practically manageable, to force myself into other groups ?
Is it sustainable to manage PhD stress AND to put quite an amount of energy to "join" other people just to sustain myself from psychological point of view (this situation is very heavy on mental state) ?
And maybe on more personal level, is this a very bad situation to continue the PhD ? Does the academia really look like this ?
Lets say I would change supervisor/university/etc. What could I expect from regular similar supervisor, BUT that can manage and keep the PhDs in touch ? How much does this helps in PhD ?
---
**P.S.** This is a long term situation, lasting more than a year and half.<issue_comment>username_1: Speaking generally, this does not seem like a workable situation for you. Your PhD supervisor seems to neither match your topic nor your personality, and it seems unlikely that they will support you through to the end of your PhD. Even if you did manage to produce a passable PhD without your supervisor's support, they don't seem to be someone who would be going out of their way to help you network into a position or write recommendations for post docs, etc. This does not sound like where you should be.
Step one would be to tell the administrative/departmental powers that be that you are considering leaving your programme. Don't make it personal, say that you do not believe that there is a research topic and research culture fit between you and your supervisor. They may be willing to discuss new supervision for you at that point (my UK Uni would, losing students messes up our stats).
Meanwhile, where SHOULD you be? Whose research out there influences your own? It might be worth getting in touch with scholars who more match your profile. In some circumstances, Unis can secure external supervision for a PhD student by, well, just paying that person to do it. This is far from a guarantee, but we secured an external supervisor for one of my PhDs (edit, I mean one of my PhD students, I'm the supervisor) during my year of parental leave because we felt no one else had the specialty she needed.
Caveat, I'm in SocSci/Humanities so this might not fly in your discipline, but it really is rare to get through a PhD with no support and much antagonism.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There seems to be a mismatch between you and your advisor. You could change that by supplementing your current advisor with another co-advisor, changing your advisor within your current department, or change your university (basically apply elsewhere and when you get a new position resign from your old one). The first step is to start talking to maybe the head of the department, maybe there is an ombudsperson for PhD students at your university, maybe someone else. That depends on the exact structure of your department and university.
Apart from that, also consider your own expectations: you moved to another country and expect to be informed about everything and integrate socially without learning the language. That is not going to work. When they talk to one another in their native language, they are probably not trying to exclude you, or keep things secret from you. They are just effectively communicating with each other about things that don't involve you. If you spoke the language and understood what they were talking about, you would probably loose interest after the first couple of words. It probably does make you feel excluded, but think about it the other way around: why should they always speak a foreign language when they are not talking to you? The obvious solution is to learn the language. Even if you are not good at it, the fact that you are trying will get you a lot of good will and make it easier to integrate socially.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Let us dissect your complaint a bit.
>
> We have never held a full PhD group meeting (there is about 5 other PhDs I barely know).
>
>
>
But is there an official "group" as such here? Just because these "5 other PhDs" have the same supervisor does not mean that you are supposed to be one big "group". And, even if there were one big "group", that does not make whole-group meetings expedient nor necessary (maybe your supervisor thinks that whole-group meetings would be an inefficient use of everyone's time — "too many pointless meetings" is a very common complaint in many institutions).
>
> Furthermore, there are "secret" projects among the PhDs managed by the supervisor, which fracture the relations and communication even more.
>
>
>
Nothing irregular or wrong here. An important facet of doing a PhD is developing research independence as an individual. This means that each student **should** be doing his/her own individual project, even if he/she were working under the auspices of a larger network/"group". As for collaborative projects, there is nothing wrong with a given project involving only a subset of a network/"group". In fact, modern publication ethics require that people not making an intellectual contribution to a project should not be given authorship credit.
>
> This actually happens in very exclusive way. They just switch into their native language, right in front of me (including the supervisor), when such topic is discussed (I am international student).
>
>
>
Assuming the "native language" is also an official language spoken in the territory where the university is located, you have no cause for complaint. As another answer has already said, the onus is upon you (as the "international student") to learn the local language.
>
> On personal level, there is loneliness and the feeling of being different, as explained by the language exclusivity.
>
>
>
Well, that comes with the territory of being an international student, to be honest. It is challenging, but, with a bit of effort, you should be able to find plenty of formal and informal avenues for support (many universities have non-academic staff employed **specifically** to assist international students with things like learning the local language, finding accommodation, cultural excursions, &c.).
>
> From professional/academic level, I have no ground under my feet. I need to progress on my own, without the feedback from supervisor or other PhDs.
>
>
>
To some extent, you are **expected** to develop independence as a researcher and take the initiative. Have you done this? If so, you are certainly entitled to expect feedback from your supervisor (in general, there is no contractual obligation on other PhD students to help you, although some collegiality in academia is expected, but this goes both ways). Having said that, it is unfortunately true that some supervisors give little/no feedback. If, after having done some serious work and made serious good-faith attempts to get your supervisor to engage with it, you may want to consider changing supervisor (it is difficult to make any generalisations about this process, since systems vary even within a country; besides, since I am fortunate in having excellent supervisors, I have never felt any desire to change supervisor).
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/07
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<issue_start>username_0: For masters degree, I have contacted one of the professor of university of Tokyo. He told me in his 1st email reply that he would not like to have students only for 2 years. He wanted a student for 5 years(MS+Phd). Then I emailed him saying that I am ready to study for longer time. He replied for the 2nd time writing that, he is very happy to hear it, that I want to pursue both MS+Phd. But next he asked me if I have a concrete plan for my financial support as there is no salary paid by the PI or University.
In my first email, I didn't mention about any scholarship.
What should I write to him now? How should I ask him for University recommend MEXT scholarship?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Dear Professor X,
>
>
> Thanks for your email. Regarding your question about financial support, I am planning to apply for a MEXT scholarship. If I receive this scholarship, it will provide me with [explain the terms of the scholarship]. Would you be willing to support my application for this scholarship? If so, I would need [explain what you would need from him].
>
>
> If I do not receive the MEXT scholarship, I would plan to finance my graduate education by [explain your backup plan].
>
>
> If you are aware of other funding opportunities, I would be glad to hear about them.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> [your name]
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: What’s wrong with just reply describing your situation:
Dear Sir, In regards to your question on financial support I do not have access to funding now,
OR
Dear Sir, In regards to your question on financial support I already have access to funding for the next xxx years.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/07
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<issue_start>username_0: Recently I served as a Program Committee member (=reviewer) in several conferences in computer science. In these conferences, there is a "hierarchy" of reviewers: there are "PC members", "senior PC members", "area chairs", and the "PC chair".
Do I need to do anything in order to "advance" in this hierarchy? Or should I just wait until some PC chair in the future decides to "promote" me?<issue_comment>username_1: This is something you should explore with a conference chair. I'm not especially familiar with any "hierarchy" other than "chair" and "member", but suspect that, where it exists, the definitions and requirements differ.
A PC chair, of course has a lot of responsibility, both in organizing the program and in finding other members, It can take quite a lot of time and effort unless you already have a large set of collaborators and others in your field who know and respect you. I assume that position is invited by the Conference Chair.
I also don't know what effect it will have on your professional standing. How is "Senior PC member" a bonus over just "PC member". Both contribute and show activity in the profession. Chair is a step beyond, of course.
But if the Conference Chair of a given conference rotates among a fairly close set of people, then get yourself associated with them and known to them. Offer to help. Offer ideas for improvement, though carefully. But just saying you want to be more involved will probably be enough. Finding willing people is a major task.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not sure if this is the same in your field, but in mine (software systems) PC member and senior PC member are actually different roles with different tasks. It's not so much an honour badge to be a senior PC member than being assigned for a different job in the selection process (typically, PC members do most of the reviewing while senior members do less reviewing and more "meta-reviewing", similar to an Associate Editor for a journal). It's also not the case that, once "promoted", you will always remain in that role - every team of program chairs is free to assemble their own PC, and they invite people to the different roles. This often, but not always, includes re-inviting previous committee members.
I know of cases where people who used to be senior PC members were asked to serve as regular PC members in the following year (or not at all). Also, many senior PC members are actually more junior (in terms of academic age or rank) than some of the regular PC members. This has to do with PC composition - you want to have good coverage of all topical areas that you receive contributions in, and of course past performance and the subjective impression (of the PC chairs) of the different people plays a big role as well.
---
That is all to say that there typically is no defined promotion process between different levels in a program committee. You need to do good work in previous years and gain sufficient notoriety in the community that the next batch of PC chairs sees you as somebody who they trust to oversee the selection of papers in a specific niche topical area.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In my field (TCS/ML/AI), there is a seniority difference between PC and SPC, and in some instances tenure cases (at least their service parts) would place some weight on SPC/PC distinctions.
The easiest way of becoming an SPC is to ask: for instance, if you attend a conference, usually the chairs of next year’s conference are announced, approach them and mention that you’d love to be more involved in the next iteration in a more serious capacity.
Another approach is to initiate other activities to show your readiness to be involved. For example, initiating tutorials or workshops.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I have just finished my bachelor degree and I will be entering a PhD program in mathematics. On the home page at my schools (and others) I have seen that there are various groups, composed of teachers and students, who study a subfield of mathematics. For example, I have seen "Mathematical Logic" groups, "Mathematical Physics" groups, "Dynamical Systems" groups, etc. What are these groups for? My view of a PhD was like this:
1) You take a couple years of classes and pass your exams.
2) You find a professor and do a thesis.
How are these groups involved here? Are they just for students in the same field to hang out and talk in general about the field?<issue_comment>username_1: Mathematical research groups are, as you seem to have surmised, just groups of faculty members and students (i.e., graduate students, postdocs, tenure track and tenured professors) whose research interests all involve some common subfield of mathematics. Thus a number theory group will be composed of number theorists and perhaps faculty members whose main interest is in some other area of math (e.g., combinatorics) but involves number theory in a substantial way. Continuing with the example of a number theory group, at some schools all of the members of the group will be involved in the same *flavor* of number theory (e.g., the group might be biased towards arithmetic geometry), while at other schools the group might have people representing many different area of number theory (algebraic, analytic, arithmetic geometry, etc).
So what is the purposes of these groups? Well, they're just as much for the faculty members as they are for students. As you mentioned in your post, students in a research group are likely to hang out and talk math with one another. (You'll also be taking a lot of topics classes with the other students in your research group.) The same goes for faculty members. If you're a professor working on a project it's very nice to have someone who works down the hall from you that you can ask fairly technical questions to. (Or perhaps "stupid" questions whose answer you don't know but feel you should.)
Research groups will also generally have their own weekly seminars. Sometimes these seminars have a lot of talks by the faculty and students at that school, while other times the speakers are primarily visitors from other schools. This gives graduate students the opportunity to see what sort of problems people are working on at the moment and a bit of perspective about the nature of their research area that goes beyond the particular problems that the local professors are studying.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The groups are a bit more serious than what you suggest. Generally they consist of a few professors and their doctoral students. All are interested in some fairly narrow range of questions. Often they are led by a senior professor. They pose research questions to one another (long term research ideas, not simple exercises) and explore approaches. Often the doctoral students get their research problem ideas from the seminars held by these groups.
Perhaps they discuss papers and work in progress. The currency here is ideas, approaches, insight.
It is a good idea to get attached to one of these relatively early on so that you get some sense about the research that is done and how people approach it. Don't wait until you've passed qualifiers to start narrowing your focus to a professor and a potential topic. These "seminar" groups can be valuable for that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Just adding to other answers and comments: it'd be unfortunate in several ways if a PhD student didn't talk to anyone other than their own advisor. For one thing, they'll need a PhD committee of 3 or 4 people who're willing/able to endorse the thesis, and also hear the defense.
Oh! And the letters of recommendation to get a job!!! You'll need at least 3, and after your advisor that leaves 2 more. If you've never talked to any other faculty at your home university (or anywhere else) you'll get lukewarm letters. Truly, you'll want some other faculty to be aware of you and what you're working on!!!
And getting a broader education/exposure in your general subject is a good thing... and perhaps the most convivial for beginners is a seminar run by and given by beginners... "from your group".
Finally: as with many human activities, while one may find reason for it, to be "without a group" is generally dangerous... since one has no support, no encouragement, no validation, no sanity checks...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Groups are exactly that: clusters of people usually with common interests. They can be important for graduate students as it can allow students to share expertise, try ideas (of proofs if you are in math) and broaden the knowledge base if only because others will have a different background, will have read different books/papers etc.
The same holds for faculty. Some groups will have specialized seminars and share in the cost of hosting such seminars (formally or not) etc.
Basically it’s an easy way of pooling resources to the benefit of all.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/08
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<issue_start>username_0: Would it still be possible today to go from relatively unknown to a respected figure in physics by writing some spectacular papers being outside the academia?
(Just like Einstein did)<issue_comment>username_1: There is nothing that prevents you from doing so. It's just very hard for a couple of reasons:
* Without working at an academic institution (or something similar), you lack the environment to exchange and work on ideas with peers.
* Similarly, you need to discuss recently published results with peers to develop timely and relevant research directions.
* Every field of research has a certain publication culture. Without any advice on it, publishing is much more difficult. While you could get help from elsewhere, it's certainly a lot easier to get it from your advisor if you have one. If your results are obviously break-through and you know roughly how to write understandable scientific documents, this may not be so relevant, though.
* In case of experimental research, you often do not have access to the necessary laboratories and its equipment.
* Funding may also be an issue. In the experimental sciences, you may need to buy equipment or consumables for experiments. As another example, in computer science, you may want to publish at conferences, which comes with participation fees and travel costs.
* A good institution name can help to get you in contact with other researchers more easily.
* Access to publications is often easier as many universities have subscriptions.
There are probably many other reasons which I forgot.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: My impression is that the likelihood of this is proportional to how theoretical the field that you have in mind is. In math or theoretical physics, it's at least imaginable for an outsider to produce an important new discovery. In High Energy Physics the idea alone seems outlandish.
That said, even in math the ratio of cranks (deluded amateurs who are convinced they have made an important discovery without having actually done so) to actual amateur geniuses is almost infinite to one. If you want to do research, in any field, the winning strategy is to study under a respected member of the community and learn how to produce, evaluate, and communicate your ideas in this way.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I am not sure about the other fields, but with respect to Computer-Science/Engineering/Security-Research, you can easily do something on your own and become established. My personal path was somewhere along those lines. I dropped out of University to take a position doing research for the government full-time. It is worth noting that there seems to be a shortage in the field at large and so it isn't such a big deal to not finish college before you start working professionally. Not sure what the "ecosystem" of other fields of study are with regards to commercial vs academic.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Everyone's hedging, but essentially the message seems to be "not really." I say go for it. Research can help you find yourself, can sharpen your skills, and if it fails can lead you on new paths -- or if it succeeds can lead you to the next plateau, or to a resting place until you can figure out where to go next (if anywhere). Research is a luxury in that most people can't afford to take the time to do it. If you have the time and money, there's nothing stopping you. In fact, it's probably better than academia because there's no funding pressure or restrictions -- besides those you impose on yourself.
I think whether inside academia or out, research is a form of therapy. If you can stick to your objectives and not get sidetracked (or get sidetracked in a way that's constructive), I think you can discover much about the world. You shouldn't be looking for recognition, though. It should be about pure discovery. If you can get published, treat that as a bonus.
There's always the option of becoming a part of academia to further your goals. If you can afford to conduct research, you can afford tuition, and if you have the makings of a first-class scientist, you should have no problem getting into the college of your choice. I think this might be the most realistic option. Even if you're older, better late than never.
If you have money you can set up a foundation, to pay others to do the type of research that you think is important. You get name recognition that way. You can also donate to universities, provided they accept your patronage.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: It does not matter how great the paper's discovery is if you are publishing regularly in important journals in your own field of research. The quality and number of revisions of your data is not as important as being published many times over in high quality peer-reviewed journals. Being published in quality journals automatically implies that some contribution has been made to the field.
Think about your aims before you start. Why do you want papers in the first place? Why not publish to trade magazines and businesses? Or where do you want to perform research? How would you measure success? You ought to think on that first. Having clear goals will make it apparent if your work will be viable without having access to academic resources. Academia and academic publications have become full of negative incentives, and not being part of it will make some goals difficult but not impossible.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: I think it *is* possible just like it *is* possible to win the lottery. Unfortunately, the odds are so massively stacked against the possibility that it is unimaginable.
To author some "spectacular papers" whilst being outside of academia would require some knowledge of the field itself? Otherwise, how are you to know if it has been done or examined before?
Being frank, I would say this is more of a fairy-tale or a future movie rather than a reality.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: It does happen albeit very rarely, and the relatively recent story of [Lubos Motl](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubo%C5%A1_Motl) (a noted contributor to Physics SE) comes close to what the OP describes.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: Bell Labs researchers have won, collectively, nine Nobel prizes for work done outside of academia.
If a Nobel prize winner doesn't count as a "successful researcher", I don't know what does.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: Yes, it is possible. There are enough people in the scientific community who *actually value great ideas* that, if you have one, won't care what your background is.
Of course, the idea would have to be *new* and *useful*, logically valid, and either theoretically compelling or backed up with plenty of evidence. There are a lot of skills required to do this with sufficient rigour. And it might take a lot of communication skills and perseverance to gain traction.
>
> Would it *still* be possible today...
>
>
>
Have a look at [The Structure of Scientific Revolutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions). Science goes through phases, spending most of its time in "development by accumulation", but very occasionally being completely shaken by left-field ideas or solutions to confounding problems.
Development-by-accumulation typically needs very in-depth knowledge of a topic and often access to specialised equipment/resources/etc. But creative new ideas often don't rely on precise details of the *old* way of thinking. In fact, approaching things from an outside perspective can be an asset.
I don't agree with the "chances are tiny" way of thinking about this. If you selected someone at random then yes, the chances are negligible. But you're you, and need to be judged on your own drive and skills. Just **don't have illusions.** There is a reasonable chance you won't succeed.
One last thing—if you don't find that you frequently succeed at coming up with ideas about topics that you're not an expert in, you probably don't have what it takes.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: If I became financially independent and wealthy (say by winning a few million pound in the lottery), and decided to spend my time learning physics and writing papers, even if I had considerably more talent than I have, my chances would be slim. You might look at a financially cheaper subject, like maths or computer science. The chances are somehow better there. And in these subjects, the limit is your imagination, not the real physical world around you.
But you asked “outside academia”: You may find a company that pays you well to develop products, and some might lead to papers that make you well respected, without being in academia.
And if you asked say the population of the U.K. for the name of a well respected astrophysicist, I think the name “<NAME>” might be quite close to the top.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_11: Actually, it is much more suitable today for an "outsider" to contribute than before. Via the internet, the tools of information technology, the processing power of personal computing technologies, global and open access to scientific data and opinions, fairly inexpensive and reliable transportation. If you have the means to add time and finance to those, there is a real possibility of spectacular contribution in science.
That kind of achievement is easier/more probable in some particular fields like biology and geology. In these kind of fields, the size of the research area is huge and you can make invaluable contribution on a relatively small and less influential topic (small and less influential in regard to the whole field).
But that kind of achievement is less probable in some fields of science like physics, as you will need access to specific, sophisticated instruments and/or raw data. Even not impossible, it will be very hard.
But, necessity of instrumentation doesn't affect theoretical works and assessments on the data which are provided by other researchers. Because of the open nature and architecture (in general) of science, every researcher is like a colleague of others. As long as you can access necessary data and raw data when needed (obtaining raw data isn't very probable in most situations), you can do original research.
I feel a personal connection with your question, because of my similar thoughts and assessments on biology years ago. guess that either you don't want to be in academia for various reasons or you don't have the personal means (time, money) for this. I didn't want to be in academia in my country and hasn't finished master's degree program.
I think, for a special scientific contribution at last, you have to start with small steps and aim a research that will produce a synthesis of previous research (think a review paper). We can't ignore the possibility of a breakthrough research done by a researcher which isn't a part of the academic establishment.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: In brief: Nowadays is not possible for many reasons. Decades ago was possible since there were few people in research and the evaluation of the research was made following other criteria.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I and my coauthor wrote a paper and the project involved creating a (small) software library. Part of the novelty of the paper is the output of the code, which is a digital object not intended for by-hand manipulation. The code (open source) would ideally also be useful for others. One journal to which I was considering submitting this requires double-blind peer review, but the GitHub repo where the code is stored, referenced in the paper, identifies one of us simply by looking at the username in the url. We can of course obscure our identities in the paper as authors, but really need to cite the code repository.
I've not had to do double blind review before, and so it's not clear what we should do. My coauthor is going to run into more problems of this sort as they continue research with a similar mix of code-and-paper as output.
Is there anything we can do, at least as a first attempt to soothe the journals worries?<issue_comment>username_1: Censor out the repo's name, and provide code to the referees as an auxiliary file.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: * Make a copy of the repository available at an anonymous URL, e.g., using Google Drive with a fresh account.
* Submit a copy of the repository with your manuscript (if permitted by the journal), alternatively, send the repository to the editor by email.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm literally in the same situation as you right now, and came across this repository/service on GitHub a [few days ago:](https://github.com/tdurieux/anonymous_github). Since your code and names are already public, it only provides a basic level of obfuscation. However, as long as reviewers are being honest and not actively trying to find out the names of the authors, then it should keep them from accidentally discovering who you are.
Beyond that, the most effective approach is not releasing it publicly until after review, and instead providing the code/documentation/whatever privately through the journal. My concern with this approach is that it depends on removing any name association from the material. So what happens if a reviewer rejects the manuscript, then publishes the code or parts of it as their own before you? The lack of a public record on your part could make it a bit of a headache to resolve.
Ultimately, there's not much you can do about reviewers that intentionally try to circumvent the anonymity. Even without your name anywhere, if you've published before, someone could potentially still get a pretty good idea of who you are through the content and patterns in the manuscript itself.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The simplest thing to do (which I'm surprised has not been suggested before, and is reasonably common) is to create an anonymous GitHub account and duplicate your code there (upload the code in a single commit, don't duplicate the repository itself as you don't want your real username to be present in the commit history).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: There is Anonymous GitHub, a proxy server to support anonymous browsing of Github repositories:
<https://anonymous.4open.science/>
Usage:
>
> 1. Fill the Github repo URL.
> 2. Complete the list of terms that will be anonymized. The anonymization of the content is done by replacing all occurrences of words in a list by "XXX". The word list typically contains the institution name, author names, logins, etc.
> 3. Define if you want an expiration date for your anonymized repository. You can keep it for ever, remove the repository after a specific date or redirect the user to the GitHub repository.
>
>
> As result, a unique url is created with the content of your repository, for example, <http://anonymous.4open.science/repository/840c8c57-3c32-451e-bf12-0e20be300389/>.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3
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2019/08/08
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<issue_start>username_0: Referencing my question [here](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/141743/are-children-a-reason-to-be-rejected-for-a-job?noredirect=1#comment458198_141743) and the multiple suggestions to ask here as well.
What could be the reasons for (so far) only getting rejections on my applications as Doctoral Candidate?
Are there some special differences applying for jobs in the industry compared to academia (all applications were the same as I would apply for a job in the industry, which was always really easy and successful - max timespan from sending the application over the interview to job offer was about 1-2 weeks)?
**Short background**
I finished my master studies in 2014 and after 5 years of working in the industry, I want to change in an academic environment. My CV and skill set matches the positions I applied for pretty well, but I got only rejections.
During a short phone interview for one position, I was asked if I considered it well to take such a position because of the workload - for at least the next five years - and taking into account that I have two kids (that I mention in my CV - in Germany it is common to mention personal points in your CV). I wouldn´t have applied for such a position if I didn´t consider everything regarding this step.
I really want to change to an academic environment because I´m really unsatisfied working in the industry (although I´m rather successful and good in what I´m doing), but everything around the job - management and how it is handled and the politics around it, and everyone placing their own interests (in middle to upper management) above the product, the way the work is handled and how to improve the quality, product and the company. This (I think/hope) is way better in academia.<issue_comment>username_1: Without knowing more about your specific case, here are some potential reasons (in no particular order) why you might not be getting the job(s) you are applying to:
* your profile/prior experience is not as relevant as you think it is for the position
* they already have somebody in mind
* they might think, having been in the industry for some years, you will look into doing research as a "9-to-5 job" (for better or worse, in most countries academia is different than industry). I am guessing this is what you refer to, with mentioning kids? I have plenty of colleagues with small children, that alone is not a problem.
* they are concerned you do not fit the rest of the team
* they found somebody better than you
* they might be concerned about your reasons for switching to academia
Without more information it's impossible to say which one, if any, or which ones apply to your case. Your best bet to ask for feedback when you are given a rejection. It's important, and I cannot stress this enough, to **be polite** when you do so. The idea is to get meaningful feedback so you can improve your chances for your future applications, and definitely not to get a justification for their decision. They have absolutely no reason to justify their decision to each individual applicant.
What kind of feedback you get back will ultimately vary, sometimes you get a meaningful message with relevant feedback, other times you will get the boilerplate "*we regret to inform you...*" and not much more than that. Most often you will get something that is general enough, but with some nuggets of feedback.
For example, I recently got a rejection from a consultancy company I sent a general application to. I was introduced to them for the first time last year, when they were attending a career fair part of a conference I helped organize. I asked for some feedback, and in between the typical corporate HR BS, there was the indications that they had pivoted away from the areas where my skills would be valuable to them. So my take home message from that is that this company is not relevant for me anymore, even if it may have been last year. And yes, even if the job description fits my CV really well, they are not looking for someone like me.
I am giving this example only to serve as an example, I am sure your situation will be very different. But the point is, try to read into whatever feedback you might get.
Lastly, if I were you, I would try and see if there are any possibilities to get some career coach or something like that. It would be good to get some recruiters point of view on your CV.
---
**EDIT:** I noticed that I didn't address some of your questions
>
> Are there some special differences applying for jobs in the industry compared to academia?
>
>
>
Well, yeah... I would guess that academia would put more weight on your prior education, what courses you have done, whether or not you have published anything etc.
Industry, I reckon, cares more about your prior work experience, i.e. what you have *done* before.
The core difference is that academic positions are aiming at you developing your skills, learning new things, acquire a critical understanding of complex subjects. Industry positions primary require you to do something, have a contribution in the value chain in whatever the company is selling to its customers. You improving your skills, learning new things etc is a secondary concern. You being critical of your own, others' or even your superiors', work would not fly as well in industry as it does in academia, I would guess.
>
> all applications were the same as I would apply for a job in the industry, which was always really easy and successful - max timespan from sending the application over the interview to job offer was about 1-2 weeks
>
>
>
How many jobs have you applied to? Think of it as a sports stat, if your 3-point percentage is 1/1, sure it's 100% but you are hardly league's best 3pt shooter. :)
In general, I think academic positions are not filled as quickly as industrial counterparts. There are many things that need to be cleared by the dept/faculty/university admissions etc. Also the positions need to be open for a minimum of X working days, depending on the institution.
TLDR: Stay patient, ask for feedback, keep trying
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all note that the timescale for any bureacratic process in the German (semi)-public sector is much longer than that of a comparative process in industry. Academic hiring processes typically take months not weeks.
Second, note that your intend path into a doctoral position is non-standard. The typical profile of candidates applying for doctoral students is somebody just completing his/her masters with good grades and (hopefully) some recent relevant research experience. It is therefore extra important to explain in your application how you particular path makes you more suitable for the position than a "standard" candidate.
In particular it is important to convey that you have a good grasp of the research that you will be doing. (Has your experience in industry helped you prepare for the research? Has it given you a unique angle?)
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: For example in Cambridge website of math department, it lists [University Academic Staff](https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/people/utos.html) and [Research Staff](https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/people/nutos.html). What is the difference?<issue_comment>username_1: Research staff in this context are mostly people who don't have permanent positions, rather they have fellowships that last x number of years or are hired post docs on projects. Hence the general age difference between the two groups.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: In the UK academic staff and research staff are typically used to circumvent funding regulations that limit many fellowships to individuals who do not have, nor have ever had, a permanent academic staff position. The fundamental distinction is that academic staff are on permanent contracts and research staff are on fixed-term contracts. Academic staff generally are on teaching and research contracts, but some can be on teaching only or research only contracts. I have never meet a member of research staff that wasn't on a research only contract.
Things get hazy because often research staff have two contracts. A fixed term research only contract and a permanent research and teaching contract dated the day the research only contract ends. If they then get a different fellowship, they tear up the research and teaching contract and get a new one with the new date. This allows them to continue to be research only and qualify for fellowships.
While there are obviously differences across institutions, looking at the provided pages for Cambridge, every member of academic staff I looked at had a academic rank (e.g., lecturer or professor) and non of the research staff did.
The tenure track is not really a thing in the UK anymore. Permanent contracts usually come with a 3 year probationary period. The requirements to pass the probationary period could be as little as do not screw up, but could also have publication and funding requirements. I am not particularly familiar with the publication requirements, but they are likely focused on the REF framework. Departments generally have a group For non-academic staff on fixed term contracts that have most of the same privileges as academic staff. Often this is the Research Staff group, but sometimes RAs and post docs get dumped into the research staff label. As I said above, these select non-academic staff people on fixed term contracts often have a permanent contract waiting for them if there is a lapse in their funding so for all intensive purposes they have tenure.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am still waiting to get an answer from my prospective Ph.D. supervisor.
On July 15, 2019, I have sent my master transcript and initial statement of research upon his request, and a week after I sent him another e-mail in a very polite manner to make sure that he could open my file without difficulty, but there was no reply. As the university located in New Zealand I am sure they are not in the mid-semester break, I told them that I am going to apply for July 2020, I do not know what to do now. Should I dismiss this case and go for another supervisor, or send him another email to see what is going on? or should wait a little bit longer? At first, he showed his eagerness and told me that he had to talked to his colleagues about my research proposal and interest and then let me know about the outcome. Thank you guys for your answer.<issue_comment>username_1: Remember your prospective supervisor is only human, with their own personal life, obligations, and work load. Semester 2 started in New Zealand around 22 July and I imagine it is a very busy time for whoever you contacted. They likely have a very full inbox.
It's been long enough for a polite email asking if they saw your previous message and if they would like any further information from you.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Academics tend to get a ton of email, and their attention tends to be split lots of different ways. My guess is that the supervisor plans to read your email carefully and then reply, and hasn't done so yet. Alternatively, the outcome might depend on external factors (e.g. availability of funding), and the professor might be waiting on that.
If the application deadline is soon, or for some other reason you need a reply soon, then you could send an email asking about the status. Otherwise, I would recommend waiting a bit longer.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I have two ideas (manuscripts) that I am working on, both in the field of physics.
The first is theoretical, mathy and generalized. It is steered toward computer vision. Probably if finished, would be published in a multidisciplinary journal for physics and computer science.
The second is a mix between theoretical physics and experimental physics. It is steered toward astronomical physics only. It applies one of the results found in the first manuscript.
Is it ethical to submit these two papers separately? How can I cite the papers if they are both under peer review?
**Note:** The two manuscripts do not hold the same goal and do not have identical results. If I am going to put a percentage on how much 2# uses from 1#, I would put 20%. Further, if I would put a percentage on how much different 2# from 1#, I would put 90%.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is it ethical to submit these two papers separately?
>
>
>
Typically, yes. Having a methods papers and one (or more) applications paper isn't at all uncommon.
It's sometimes appropriate to send them to the same journal (or same publisher), but that is more a matter of convenience than ethics. If you submit both to the same publisher, they might ask the same reviewer to referee both papers, for example. On the other hand, if one paper fits better with the scope of another journal, then sending it elsewhere is the appropriate choice. On the ethical side the only potential concern I see is that you might be perceived as "salami slicing", i.e. spreading a small amount of content into multiple papers, but if both papers are "meaty" enough then that shouldn't be an issue.
>
> How can I cite the papers if they are both under peer review?
>
>
>
In the fields you mention, it is standard practice to put preprints on the arXiv. The best approach for you would likely be to do exactly that before submission to the journals, and then cite the preprints as appropriate.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it's fine, but you should tell the editors of both journals that there is a second manuscript. It is always expected and better to disclose that fact than to face complaints later.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: If you already have funding, is TA-ing (i.e. being a teaching assistant) worth the opportunity cost of doing more research?
What are the relevant considerations?
I've always heard that focusing on research is a better use of time for boosting one's CV for applying for competitive and research-focused faculty positions, and that they really don't care very much about teaching experience. But recently, I've heard a lot of people saying the opposite.
I'm sure it depends on the field somewhat.
I'm in machine learning, some characteristics of the field which seem relevant are:
* It is fast-paced and highly collaborative.
* Professors often act more as project managers and don't do as much research.
* Successful grad students often publish several papers a year.
In particular, I'm curious about how it looks on a CV, not about other benefits (e.g. learning useful skills)<issue_comment>username_1: Most people who TA don't have an option as it is what pays the bills and allows them to study. It is less valuable if you can pay your own way.
But it isn't entirely without value. I once held a full fellowship for study (multi year), but it still required that I spend one of those years doing the equivalent of a TA. The feeling was that it is valuable experience for any academic, even at an R1 university. And, FWIW, I actually made more progress after the fellowship ended and I was a "lowly" TA.
But not everyone winds up at an R1 and elsewhere, teaching is more highly valued. And a variety of skills on a CV is, IMO, an advantage, though others may disagree.
Additionally, having something to do other than your research is a useful way to let your mind rest and integrate ideas, which is a key part of learning. And a variety of experiences can be valuable in keeping yourself flexible for the future. And "more" research doesn't necessarily equate to "better" research.
Most doctoral students get along quite well having some duties, such as a TA position, in addition to their research.
But whether it is worth the opportunity cost or not is a completely personal thing. Maybe yes, maybe no. Think about your own needs and resources.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Being a TA during a PhD is not beneficial. The downsides are:
* A longer PhD at low pay
* Reduced research output
The advantages are:
* Building teaching experience. However, since almost everyone has it, TA experience is not meaningful on the job market. You need to have experience teaching entire courses to be competitive.
* You will learn to teach better. However, most universities are not bothering to properly train their TAs. Investigate what training opportunities your university has.
* You might enjoy it.
My overall advice would be to seek out opportunities to teach an entire course instead of being TA.
Now, if you have the opportunity to be a TA before you get your PhD, that might help you get into a better PhD program. This could be a much better deal.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: **Absolutely yes**. If you have teaching experience on your CV, you can claim that you're good at presenting, you know how to mentor juniors, you have worked with people from other cultures, you are able to work in groups towards a common goal (if you didn't teach alone, which you probably don't as a TA), you know how to manage disputes, and so on. Plus you probably get a lot of examples that you can use to illustrate your skills in an interview.
Of course it's possible the job you're going into don't care about these things, but I can practically guarantee that if you ever need to apply for an industrial job, these things will matter.
For these reasons I'd have TA'ed for free even if my department didn't pay me.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Generally if you can't get the R1 job you expect, the "backup plan" in academia is to move down the rankings, which will increasingly want teaching. This means they will probe you about your teaching experience and preparedness, and at some point places will start asking you to deliver a class to students (which needs to be more than just a one-way lecture of content).
Many answers already address this alternative plan. But fields like CS and statistics have a more common alternative career in industry, with very good reason. So you should consider which direction do you want to have as your backup. In your field it may currently be very easy to get tenure *somewhere* if you play your cards right. Or you could earn a stupid amount of money, which may be an opportunity you don't see again for a generation. In which case you should look at the TA'ing "cost" as time you could have spent finishing your doctorate up, rather than doing yet more research.
As for the R1's, I'd say the trend is all about funding, far more than teaching.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: In answer to your very limited question, in evaluating CVs for competitive research focused faculty positions, no one cares if there is a teaching line on your CV. But to the extent that your teaching statement/philosphy is part of your CV, then being able to point to your teaching experience in your teaching statement matters a lot. The vast majority of competitive research focused faculty positions require your to submit a teaching statement/philosophy. While most search committees for competitive research focused faculty positions don't really care about the teaching statement as long as you don't make a fool of yourself, not being able to highlight personal teaching experience is a sure fire way to write a crappy teaching philosophy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I know you said that you are only asking this in relation to the CV appearance, not in terms of skills learned, but the two are fairly interchangeable (depending on where you are applying) Being a teaching assistant teaches you different things from what additional research would.
* It teaches you more about a subject. It is easy to think "oh yeah I know SQL/ intro to microbiology/ microeconomics/ whatever", but you will likely have forgotten much of the theory and niche applications of whatever course it is. Teaching it forces you to revise the subject and gain a greater appreciation of it.
* Being a TA gives you experience of how to relay ideas to others. It goes without saying that this can have vast real world applicability.
* Being a TA can give insight on how to be personable, how not to alienate others, how to engage effectively. This is separate from just coherently explaining an idea (like above), it is doing so in a way that does not sound patronising. This is one of the areas, in my domain, where I see most TAs commonly fall down.
* TA work usually involves corrections. This can give you a clear insight what areas inexperienced people in this domain repeatedly fall down in. If something is unintuitive for your students, it is probably unintuitive in the real world too (even if they shouldn't you may see the same mistakes crop up in industry).
* More advanced TA positions may involve management, even perhaps to the extent of developing assignments and course material. This level of responsibility has clear benefit in terms of work experience. As a side note it will also give you insight into how people think, and what can be demanded of subordinates (junior TAs) and of students.
Of course this all presupposes that one learns from the experience.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: **TAing is great, but it's a law of diminishing returns.**
If you have never been a TA, or have only done so once, you may well want to do so again. Having something concrete to point to when the discussion turns to teaching will help your CV. Others point out that TAing will have many benefits besides your CV, though your question specifically excludes such considerations.
On the other hand, if you have already been a TA a few times, your CV will gain very little from additional TA experience. Being the instructor of record would be more significant for your CV. Getting additional high-quality publications would be even better. Though extra time will not linearly correlate to more publications, it certainly won't hurt (that's why pre-tenure faculty at R1s usually try to negotiate teaching release).
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I've recently gotten a job as lecturer and economics course module developer at a new university this fall. The position is intended as permanent. There is opportunity for funded research but that isn't an objective of the chairs due to the newness of the university.
What is strange is that the position is called "Assistant Professor" which makes no sense due to the size of the institution and the lack of research required by it (It is a private university).
I am currently enrolled in a PhD program but have some time to defend my thesis. I'm wondering if it's fair to call myself an "assistant professor" or not being that I haven't been endowed with my PhD yet.<issue_comment>username_1: Academic titles are not something you award yourself. In the US, Assistant Professor has a specific meaning and is assigned by a university. Other places it may have no meaning at all.
But, I think people would react poorly to you doing that. Your title is Lecturer, as you state. Use that, and only that until you are *awarded* a different one.
Even if you have a PhD you aren't an Assistant Professor unless a university says you are. And if you leave that university you lose that title. Caution is advised.
Since the question was edited, just ask the institution what you can call yourself. But note that the title doesn't carry with you and other institutions might not accept it. Again, caution, especially in job applications and such.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> the position is called "Assistant Professor"
>
>
>
If you hold an appointment as an assistant professor, then you are an assistant professor. Still, I understand your concern....
>
> kinda makes no sense due to the size of the institution and the lack of research required by it...however this is a bit of a no-name brand institution
>
>
>
Context is everything.
* I agree it would look foolish or pompous if you use your title in a way that gives the impression you are a professor at an R1. When meeting colleagues at different institutions, you may wish to describe yourself as a lecturer or say "my title is assistant professor, but it's mostly teaching" or something unambiguous like that.
* On the other hand, everyone at your home institution should understand what an "assistant professorship" at that institution entails, so there is no issue with you using the title internally.
* Similarly, non-academics don't know or care about the subtle differences in academic rank, "I'm an assistant professor" is fine in such contexts.
Regardless, your PhD (or lack thereof) is irrelevant.
Sadly, such overloaded terms in commonplace in Anglophone academia. Many of us with doctorates select the salutation "Mr./Ms." to avoid being confused for an M.D. ("real doctor"). Those with PhDs from online schools face a similar dilemma.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> Can I call myself an assistant professor without a PhD
>
>
>
I think the problem here is that **you don't get to choose what to "call yourself"** (in professional contexts, particularly in your CV). Your job title is chosen by your employer. What you have control over is whether to take the job or not. If you took a job that has the title "Assistant Professor", then you are now an assistant professor, and it would be dishonest to represent yourself otherwise in a CV, email signature, business card, or similar professional communication. So yes, not only you can call yourself that, but in fact you cannot really *not* call yourself that.
At the same time, while your concern that this would look strange seems legitimate, to me it seems that the signal that you would be sending by presenting yourself as an assistant professor without a PhD is not so much that you are being dishonest or misleading, but rather that the institution you are working for has low standards for the professional qualifications of its professors. So perhaps I would suggest that when you tell people about your job, try to make sure that "assistant professor" is always accompanied by "[name of university]" so that no one has reason to suspect you of empty boasting. Hopefully if you explain your situation in a matter of fact (and accurate) way without appearing to be either boastful or apologetic, then instead of getting a bad impression, the person you're talking to will actually take away the fact that you are an industrious and ambitious person who is not only working his way towards a PhD in economics but also manages to have a steady full time job teaching at a local university while doing so. That's not too shabby if you ask my opinion.
**Edit:** to clarify, in casual conversation it is not entirely necessary to parrot the official job title. So for example as an answer to a question about your job, you can say “I teach at [name of university]” and not “I’m an assistant professor” if that makes you more comfortable. You probably shouldn’t use the word “lecturer” though, since at least in United States academia that means something very specific that doesn’t quite fit your situation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: In some countries, an academic that is just an MSc holder can get to the ranks of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor. When you have a PhD, you're addressed as Assistant Professor Dr. XYZ, Associate Professor Dr. XYZ, Professor Dr. XYZ. This varies from one country to another. Just follow the specificities of your location.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: "Professor" is a courtesy title so your official offer letter is the official arbiter of this, along with whatever the campus directory lists you as. If your offer letter says something like "... the position of Assistant Professor in ... " then you are a professor, if it says "... the position of Lecturer in ..." then it wouldn't be appropriate to be called a professor. For example, when I taught a class as a graduate student style of address came up and I told the students if they wish to address me as professor in or out of the classroom they can, but *X* or *Y* would be more correct.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: It is general that most of the journals now a days publish article in online first and later give the volume and year name when they print it.
I have many papers in such case. However, I am confused to list them in recent publications. For example,
I had published 2 papers in 2012 which were in online until 2014. Then the print version came and I could see the volume name as xyz and year name as 2014.
Now I need to highlight my last five years publication in an academic form and that is also in online. As it is a mandatory case to provide volume name and year name, so my old papers are getting highlighted in my recent achievements.
I am wondering how the selection committee will look into them?
In general which year should I write while listing those old papers in my CV?<issue_comment>username_1: Academic titles are not something you award yourself. In the US, Assistant Professor has a specific meaning and is assigned by a university. Other places it may have no meaning at all.
But, I think people would react poorly to you doing that. Your title is Lecturer, as you state. Use that, and only that until you are *awarded* a different one.
Even if you have a PhD you aren't an Assistant Professor unless a university says you are. And if you leave that university you lose that title. Caution is advised.
Since the question was edited, just ask the institution what you can call yourself. But note that the title doesn't carry with you and other institutions might not accept it. Again, caution, especially in job applications and such.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> the position is called "Assistant Professor"
>
>
>
If you hold an appointment as an assistant professor, then you are an assistant professor. Still, I understand your concern....
>
> kinda makes no sense due to the size of the institution and the lack of research required by it...however this is a bit of a no-name brand institution
>
>
>
Context is everything.
* I agree it would look foolish or pompous if you use your title in a way that gives the impression you are a professor at an R1. When meeting colleagues at different institutions, you may wish to describe yourself as a lecturer or say "my title is assistant professor, but it's mostly teaching" or something unambiguous like that.
* On the other hand, everyone at your home institution should understand what an "assistant professorship" at that institution entails, so there is no issue with you using the title internally.
* Similarly, non-academics don't know or care about the subtle differences in academic rank, "I'm an assistant professor" is fine in such contexts.
Regardless, your PhD (or lack thereof) is irrelevant.
Sadly, such overloaded terms in commonplace in Anglophone academia. Many of us with doctorates select the salutation "Mr./Ms." to avoid being confused for an M.D. ("real doctor"). Those with PhDs from online schools face a similar dilemma.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> Can I call myself an assistant professor without a PhD
>
>
>
I think the problem here is that **you don't get to choose what to "call yourself"** (in professional contexts, particularly in your CV). Your job title is chosen by your employer. What you have control over is whether to take the job or not. If you took a job that has the title "Assistant Professor", then you are now an assistant professor, and it would be dishonest to represent yourself otherwise in a CV, email signature, business card, or similar professional communication. So yes, not only you can call yourself that, but in fact you cannot really *not* call yourself that.
At the same time, while your concern that this would look strange seems legitimate, to me it seems that the signal that you would be sending by presenting yourself as an assistant professor without a PhD is not so much that you are being dishonest or misleading, but rather that the institution you are working for has low standards for the professional qualifications of its professors. So perhaps I would suggest that when you tell people about your job, try to make sure that "assistant professor" is always accompanied by "[name of university]" so that no one has reason to suspect you of empty boasting. Hopefully if you explain your situation in a matter of fact (and accurate) way without appearing to be either boastful or apologetic, then instead of getting a bad impression, the person you're talking to will actually take away the fact that you are an industrious and ambitious person who is not only working his way towards a PhD in economics but also manages to have a steady full time job teaching at a local university while doing so. That's not too shabby if you ask my opinion.
**Edit:** to clarify, in casual conversation it is not entirely necessary to parrot the official job title. So for example as an answer to a question about your job, you can say “I teach at [name of university]” and not “I’m an assistant professor” if that makes you more comfortable. You probably shouldn’t use the word “lecturer” though, since at least in United States academia that means something very specific that doesn’t quite fit your situation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: In some countries, an academic that is just an MSc holder can get to the ranks of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor. When you have a PhD, you're addressed as Assistant Professor Dr. XYZ, Associate Professor Dr. XYZ, Professor Dr. XYZ. This varies from one country to another. Just follow the specificities of your location.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: "Professor" is a courtesy title so your official offer letter is the official arbiter of this, along with whatever the campus directory lists you as. If your offer letter says something like "... the position of Assistant Professor in ... " then you are a professor, if it says "... the position of Lecturer in ..." then it wouldn't be appropriate to be called a professor. For example, when I taught a class as a graduate student style of address came up and I told the students if they wish to address me as professor in or out of the classroom they can, but *X* or *Y* would be more correct.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been asked to consider being a second supervisor on a Ph.D. project for a doctoral candidate at a U.S. university. As I am in the Netherlands, this does not fall under my normal employment. Does anyone know where I might find information about the normal fee for this type of supervision?
Thanks in advance for any assistance.<issue_comment>username_1: As far as I know nothing.
I've never heard of outside supervisors (in industry or academia) ever getting paid anything.
You should talk to your employer, if he is willing to donate some of your time for this supervision. (Depending on the research being done, there may also be some benefit for him.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I really don't know about the US, but in Sweden there is at least an option to get paid if you are the official, on-paper, second supervisor for an extended period of time (e.g., multiple years). You would not get rich and the university won't like it (because of costs, and more importantly, required paperwork). As a data point, being second supervisor of a PhD student is valued at about 5% of a full-time job at my current university, so you could expect about 5% of your yearly salary as an official external second supervisor.
That said, much, much, much more commonly external people are asked informally to help out without any explicit agreement and without monetary compensation. These are essentially being paid in collaboration opportunities and papers, not in money.
**In that sense I would ask, but expect that the answer will be 0$.**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I, too, don't know about the US but in the UK we paid someone an honorarium of about £250 for serving as supervisor to my part time PhD student while I was on maternity leave. So that was for a calendar year of part time supervision, equivalent of serving as supervisor for 6 months. Pretty poor compensation if you ask me, but it was formal with a contract.
In the neoliberal university you are likely to get no money unless you ask for it as the powers that be will hope you don't ask. Determine what you would consider to be a fair rate and start there.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Certainly here in the UK the answer would be $0.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: Could/should scholarly book chapters and published theses (dissertations) be included in the literature review as sources?
In theory, those are scientific publications, right? However, those are also usually based on previously published work.<issue_comment>username_1: (Almost) everything is based on previously published work! But I think maybe you are referring to what we call the "secondary literature", which is review articles, books etc that don't present novel research (the "primary literature") but rather summarise or package up other research articles.
Yes, secondary literature can certainly be included in a literature review, especially if it gives ideas/opinions that have not been prominent elsewhere. However, if you refer to particular results then these should always refer back to the primary literature, even if you also give a mention to how those results have been described or discussed in the secondary literature.
(Note that dissertations/theses very often fall under the category of primary literature, in fact in some areas it is a requirement that they include novel research)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, book chapters and theses are valid for a literature review.
You did not explain in your question why you questioned they might be; perhaps it is because they are included less frequently than journal articles and conference articles in literature reviews, so you might question their appropriateness. Here are a few practical reasons I can think of why they tend to be included less frequently:
* Journal articles and conference articles are much better indexed in scholarly databases, and so are easier to find. Book chapters are especially hard to find since they are rarely available online for free. (Theses, though, are relatively well-indexed these days, and they are usually freely available, unlike many journal articles.)
* The peer review standards for journal articles and conference articles are usually stricter, and so, in general, their quality tends to be higher on average than for book chapters and theses (of course, exceptions abound). In particular for theses, the better ones are often republished as journal articles after going through significant quality improvements in the peer review process. However, this is probably not the case most of the time--many theses are never republished as journal articles: some disciplines prefer publishing them as scholarly books, and some PhDs do not eventually republish their thesis in journals for various reasons.
* Theses are much longer and thus harder to read; so, expecially considering the fact two prior points, they are not worth the extra effort looking for (except if you know somehow in advance that the relevant thesis you seek actually exists somewhere).
However, despite these points, if you find book chapters or theses that are relevant to your literature review topic, do not hesitate to include them in your literature review.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/09
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<issue_start>username_0: As an administrative assistant at a major university, I regularly field questions from prospective applicants and students. Occasionally, in response to my reply the author will address me as "Professor" or "Doctor".
What is a concise yet polite way to reply with regard to this (in my case) misattribution? I am flattered to be sure, but my flattery is exceeded by my concern for honesty in advertising – I'm neither a PhD/ScD/MD, nor a professor. On the one hand, if I just ignore it I feel I'm tacitly accepting the misattributed title, on the other hand if I reply with a correction, I fear that I misrepresent the values of our community as being overly obsessed with titles and protocol. Any suggestions for a tactful and honest way of addressing this kind of misattribution is appreciated!<issue_comment>username_1: In the U.S., I think just don't bother to directly respond.
Your email signature probably accurately indicates your position, and if people don't understand the hierarchy of universities, it doesn't really matter. Their respectful form of address is just recognizing that you can give authoritative opinions on things... whatever your precise title/degree...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: No need to correct explicitly, but ensure you include title (Mr/Ms/Dr/Prof./&c.) in your signature
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To an outsider, it is often unclear:
* whether the designated contact is an academic or an administrator; and
* whether the designated contact has a doctorate (in the UK, many people working in academic administration **do** have a doctorate).
The lack of clarity is exacerbated by the fact that many university websites and web profiles do not spell out titles and credentials prominently.
Given that it is a far bigger *faux pas* to address somebody with a doctorate as Mr/Ms/&c. than it is to address somebody without a doctorate as Dr/Prof., the general advice for an outsider is, "if in doubt, assume the designated contact has a doctorate".
If you are concerned about anybody being misled, the best solution is to ensure your electronic-mail signature includes your title, credentials, and position; for example:
>
> Ms <NAME>, BA (Ebor.) MA (London)
>
>
> Secretary for Research and Postgraduate Programmes, Department of Futile Studies
>
>
> University of St Kilda
>
>
> +44 1632 960555 *[this is a [fictitious number](https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/information-for-industry/numbering/numbers-for-drama), so calling it would not disturb anyone]*
>
>
>
But if it really bothers you that much, you could add a brief note just below the salutation in your reply; for example:
>
> Dear <NAME>,
>
>
> **[Please note that I do not hold a doctorate, so I am "<NAME>"]**
>
>
> Thanks for your enquiry about our postgraduate programmes. We are certainly willing to consider applicants with a degree in a different subject, and your background in philosophy looks like it would be compatible with the prerequisites for our Master of Futile Studies programme. I should observe, however, that it is very windy on our campus, so your proposed enquiry into [whether a falling tree makes a sound](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/#4) may be tricky to ascertain reliably. We should also warn you that, in order to avoid replicating the mistakes of [Easter Island](http://www.marklynas.org/2011/09/the-myth-of-easter-islands-ecocide/) and [Donal Rusk Currey](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accidentally-killed-the-oldest-tree-ever-125764872/), we have a rigorous policy to protect the trees on our campus, and you will require a special permit and ethics approval to fell any of our trees for research purposes. You may find it helpful to [make a campus visit](https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/st-kilda/planning-your-visit) before committing to your project.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Be sure to list any minor title that might apply to you in your signature when replying by mail: as an administrative assistant you'll likely have at least some formal letters you can tack onto your name, however ridiculous. That will clear up the problem without drawing further attention to it. If this occurs in spoken communication, you can just interject something like "I wish" or "a bit premature" but in written communication it's hard to lend it the necessary non-importance.
Not parading one's minor titles may have the consequence that some people may err on the side of caution then: after all, it's just a title. And this kind of mistake happens to the best:
[Mistitulation example](https://i.stack.imgur.com/EYIEk.jpg)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In some countries, it is usual to either add some titles to people vaguely linked to academia, or to "upgrade" their title.
I was often addressed as "Professor" when everything about me said "Doctor" (business card, letter, signature, ...).
So depending on the country these student write from, it may be a normal thing for them to do and you should not bother (and not feel flattered, and have your signature up to date which it I am sure is). Correcting them will bring more problems / misunderstandings than it is worth.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/09
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<issue_start>username_0: Long story short, I have some ideas regarding the field of psychology and I looking into ways to validate them with people with experience.
Options I see:
1. Submit a paper and wait feedback from a journal. I understand the hurdles that come with this option. I'm wondering if this is totally unrealistic for non statistics based psychology.
2. Contact people in the academia. I'm not sure If anyone would even listen. Moreover, I am not very familiar with the jargon and I can't quite communicate my ideas in a casual conversation.
3. Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach but may be more feasible considering how revolutionizing was Eric Ries and Lean Startup in the field of management.
I appreciate deeply any insights, personal experiences or comments.<issue_comment>username_1: First, I am not from the field of psychology, but I assume that the research rules are equally applied to all fields.
A general comment: any idea you think that it is new -in any research area-, it is more likely to collide with the fact that it has already been explored and patented -if you have a small experience in the field of course-.
Validating your idea does not necessitate a direct involvement in academia. However, it is important to know the academic process, that consists of:
1. Reviewing the state-of-the-art sufficiently. This means, reading the recently published papers (mainly from reputed journals and proceedings) and books by using specific search engines (e.g. google scholar) and references/cited-by of the publications you know. Please be aware that key-words might be different across different communities.
2. If you are not directly involved in research, you may contact researchers interested in your topic and idea. Btw. your assumption that they wouldn't even listen is wrong. Researchers and academics (regardless of their research area) are always open to new ideas. We (a CS research group) do this all the time, where we discuss with companies and individuals about new ideas and collaborations.
3. If you don't prefer contacting research groups and labs or you don't get an answer for any reason (which I don't it would happen), you can write the paper by yourself following what you have learnt in reviewing similar works (you can also check tutorial how to write a good paper). You will need to follow the journal or conference instructions (e.g. number of pages, etc). You then submit the paper and wait a couple of months to get the first decision.
Now regarding your assumption:
>
> Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach ....
>
>
>
It is incorrect if you aim to publish a scientific book. Generally, good publishers won't easily publish the work of unknown authors unless they publish it in a series which requires the acceptation of its editor. Here also, the work has to be proved by the editor to has the chance to be published.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Try publishing on trade and industry magazines. Some do have a sort of review process.
Especially if your psychology ideas are interesting to marketing they might be picked up, and do write a book, it will be just for copyright, though.
Remember that academia is a vicious cycle full of insidious incentives to publish as many random papers as unnecessarily as possible, which is why a lot of practical research is being done outside of it now.
Upvotes: -1
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2019/08/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to clarify a writing style issue concerning separating related work from my own work:
Does the related work section need to be strictly about other work only? Or may you also explicitly explain the relevance of the related work to the text at hand?
That is, should you avoid explaining why a given related paper is related to your work and just report on the paper itself, or is it okay to also explain, WHY that paper is relevant while you talk about it? For example
**Related work**
*[...]
Someone et al. (2010) report that "X -> Y". Someoneelse (2011) however found evidence for "not X -> Y". It is not entirely obvious where this difference in findings results from. That is why I study "X" in regard to its influence on "Y" in more detail in this thesis.
[...]*
A version of this statement would also find itself in the introduction and possible the abstract, but imagine there to be more surrounding explanation in the related work section.
Is that permissible writing style? Or is the *That is why I study "X" in regard to its influence on "Y" in more detail in this thesis.* part out-of-place in the related work section?<issue_comment>username_1: The objective of related works is to, well, show how other work is *related* to yours. It’s not only reasonable, but also expected that you say how other works are positioned with respect to yours. When I read the related work section I also want to understand exactly that “why” of relatedness. Doing so explicitly would really help your readers.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Previous work related to this paper
-----------------------------------
Usually in papers discussion of related work comes *after* you have introduced the context of the problem and defined some bounds of it, so in many cases it's obvious how and why it's relevant - but if it isn't, then you definitely should explain the relevance. However, it's not the place for in-depth comparison; if your paper proposes some novel method that should be compared with earlier work by Smith et al, then in 'related work' you introduce Smith's work; then you have chapter(s) talking about your method in detail, and *only then* (IMHO) you can properly compare and contrast the methods.
Your previous work counts as well
---------------------------------
It's worth noting that your own previous papers are likely to be in the 'related work' section. In "related work" you describe the state of art in the field before *this paper*, not before you first became a researcher; and it's plausible that a proper description of the state of art in your subfield includes some of your earlier papers.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I completed my undergraduate degree in engineering at the best university in my country of origin, almost a decade ago. I completed the undergraduate program with a 2.9 CGPA on a 4.0 GPA scale, which roughly equates to an overall B grade (74.5%). Owing to my very difficult personal circumstances at the time, I had to repeat 6 failed courses and completed my degree in 5 years instead of 4. I later completed a master's degree at a mid-ranking UK university - a former polytechnic, albeit one with a very good history and a good reputation in my subject area - with an overall distinction and an A1 grade in my dissertation. I had the opportunity to start a funded PhD at that university at the time, but I wasn't really interested then.
Since completing my master's program, I've worked in the industry for nearly 8 years. Now, at 35 I would like to apply to a good PhD programme at a top ranked university next year. I'm very passionate about my research topic and have drafted a very good research proposal. Will my undergraduate record have any bearing on my application?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, but exactly what, won’t be known until you submit the application(s).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This is discipline specific to some degree and you haven't specified your discipline. I'll answer for my general fields (social science and humanities) as I suspect it is roughly similar across the board.
Your top master's result will go a long way to negating your okay undergraduate result, at least when it comes to research council PhD funding. There's a tick box to tick on the evaluation which pretty much gets ticked if there is any first at all. However, to get PhD funding from a UK research council you must be a Home or EU student, which you don't say if you are. If you aren't Home/EU things are a bit more dire.
Indeed, it's dire for everyone: the biggest shift I've seen in the 8 years since you were offered a funded PhD place is a huge reduction in the number of funded PhD places available in the UK. This may not have stretched to every discipline, but I'd be surprised to find one that didn't have some reduction in that timespan. I started my PhD in 2006 with a 2:1 in both my undergrad and masters and I got funding via an oxbridge college. I can't see flying now.
If you are not a Home/EU student, you'll likely be dependant on internal Uni funds and you're likely to find less of those lying around compared to 8 years ago. Since the same number (or more) people are competing for less internal Uni funding, things like a lower undergrad result will likely come in to play.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/10
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<issue_start>username_0: In terms of success as a PhD-level researcher either in academia or industry, what are the pros and cons of doing a PhD after 2 years or more in industry following undergrad.<issue_comment>username_1: I worked in industry for 3.5 years before starting my PhD. I believe I've been more successful because of this experience. However, there are advantages and disadvantages.
Pros:
* You will be more mature and have a better idea of what you want in life (which may not include a PhD).
* Better understanding of the needs of industry which can influence your research choices
* Connections and business soft skills (being able to sell your research effectively is very important for example)
* Often a better work ethic (ie. used to working regular hours, etc)
Cons:
* It can be difficult to go back to being a student after making a real salary
* Rusty study/exam writing skills
* You will be older than your colleagues
* If your goal is to remain in academia you may end up getting on the tenure track later with potential consequences for stability, starting a family, etc.
* If your goal is to return to industry, the 5+ years of work experience you will miss out on is often worth more financially/promotion wise than a PhD (but this can be field dependent)
* You will need to maintain connections with suitable academic references. As time goes forward they may not remember you very well. Strong references are important for getting accepted to top schools.
Many of these things will depend on what you do while in industry and what you want to get out of doing a PhD.
My biggest piece of advice for time spent in industry: take care of the people part - make connections, work on networking, learn to be effective in meetings, learn to sell ideas/products, how to deliver for clients. Watch and learn from senior people (directors, CEOs, etc). These things will help you be successful in academia and business. Don't just sit at a desk coding.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that you might be observing selection bias.
The likelihood of someone being a highly successful academic correlates with them liking to do research in that field. This means that there’s a good number of researchers who are not going to industry because research is their passion, and you tend to do well if you have a passion for something (and possess the relevant skill set).
Industry can be really tempting, so once people (talented as they may be) go there they often stay; thus, even if you have the potential to become an outstanding researcher it’s unlikely that you’ll be working at a job that fosters it. Most industry jobs do not reward you for pursuing research; even those who do tend to focus on stuff that’s relevant to the company (or keep results proprietary) which somewhat limits your capacity for a free and outstanding research career.
On a somewhat unrelated note, many researchers in ML/AI are actively (and aggressively) wooed by industry. In some cases academic institutions are unable to compete with the benefits afforded by industry, resulting in outstanding researchers leaving academia for industry.
Two years of relevant experience can be very beneficial. It gives you an eye for what problems are ‘real’, and what models are likelier to be adopted. If it’s only two years (rather than, say, 15) it will be a minor issue in terms of adapting to an academic environment again, though your salary will drop obviously... One of the key difficulties I’ve observed with students who had gone to industry is a certain aversion to theoretical research (which is avoidable if you want to focus on empirical work), and disappointment in the lack of immediate rewards (while you do get stuck while coding at times, it’s less common for you to realize that 3-6 months of work were a complete dead end). If you’re ok with these issues I think you’ll be fine!
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/10
| 2,557
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<issue_start>username_0: I am starting a PhD this Fall, and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm nowhere close enough to the "frontier of knowledge" to enable me to do quality research.
For background purposes, I have a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BSc in Pure and Applied Mathematics. I finished both of these simultaneously in a 4 year span, as my philosophy was always that I need to be as efficient in my learning as possible and race to that mythical place where the edge of knowledge resides. The issue, however, is that it's now all too clear to me that I'll never be quite where I initially envisioned I would be before starting my PhD.
It is also clear that I have a lot to learn before being able to contribute significantly to the project I'm being placed on, and I worry that I'll spend too much time taking classes and learning what's already known, and not enough time exploring what is not known. This is all made worse by the fact that my PhD will be mostly theoretical in nature, so I feel that the lag time between when I am done "training" and when I can start publishing papers is significant. I did a lot of experimental research in my undergrad, and it was clear to me there that this problem does not exist in as dire a form as the path I chose to go down (and that I am actually excited to go down).
To be clear I am not expecting to make monumental revelations in my PhD, and I don't think anyone is really expecting me to do that either. I am just wondering how someone that carries out theoretically/computationally focused research decides when "enough is enough" and stops taking classes. In sorting out my class schedule for this Fall, I am worried that my addiction from undergrad of taking as many courses as possible will interfere with my research, and at the same time I am not confident that I know enough to conduct research of any sort at the moment.
So if your PhD was largely theoretical and computational in nature, I guess I'm wondering how you were able to balance learning and researching? Anything you wish you did differently? Is it normal to spend a couple years accruing knowledge and not publishing much? Do you have any books/resources you recommend that deal with this sort of dilemma?<issue_comment>username_1: I sympathise completely with your situation, as I went through exactly that thought process when I began my PhD. I am in my second year.
I did not begin my PhD with a tightly defined research question, and I would guess that you are not doing so either. I did have an idea of what general area of research interested me and spent a lot of time looking at published papers. Sometimes, while reading a paper, I realised that I needed more general understanding of that topic, and then read text books, or attended classes.
I also attended seminars and such like, to get some idea about how other researchers in my general field go about their work. And I volunteered to give talks on quite general subjects in my broad field, on the basis the best way to learn a subject is to try and teach it to somebody else. I have been surprised by how much of that haphazardly gathered learning has turned out to be helpful in my own very specific research - sometimes directly relevant but more often by suggesting ideas to me about a way of looking at a problem.
I thought, and still think, that it would be a mistake to take classes and read textbooks until I was at the frontier of knowledge, because I would never reach the frontier that way.
What I did instead, after reading, more or less deeply, a few hundred papers, was to realise that none of them really addressed a particular question that I was interested in. Having, almost inadvertently, identified a specific research question, I could then conduct a very intense literature review to confirm, or otherwise, that nobody else had researched that question.
Guess what! I had reached the frontier of knowledge. I am now in the process of seeing if I can push the frontier further out.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Unsurprisingly, there is no one-size-fits-all method for balancing the tasks of acquiring knowledge and producing knowledge. It is a very common concern for starting PhD students like you, but in the vast majority of cases things work out fine. I'll try to explain why and how:
Acquiring and producing knowledge are not mutually incompatible tasks. In fact, they are often fruitfully combined with each other. For example, one may read a paper which gives them an idea for a new approach in their work; conversely, one may stumble upon a problem in their research and switch to discovering how existing works deal with the same kind of problem. The balance is achieved by keeping a flexible goal-oriented approach, by this I mean that it combines two aspects:
* Nobody can know everything in their field, so researchers don't try to achieve that. Instead they focus on the topics which are susceptible of contributing to their own research. That's the **in-depth** aspect of acquiring new knowledge: choosing what one needs to know in order to progress in their own research goals and study every detail of it.
* On the other hand, researchers need to keep up to date with the major discoveries in their field. But for that they don't need to know or even understand every detail of every single new paper, they can skim through abstracts/papers and select whether they want to dive deeper depending on their goals (or depending on how soon their next deadline is). That's the **in-breadth** aspect.
Naturally figuring out one's methodology, for example recognizing the papers of interest, takes some learning. Well, that's exactly what a PhD is for: a PhD student is a researcher in training. It's understood that they are not immediately operational and that they need to acquire a lot of new knowledge, both in their specialized field and in general scientific methodology.
It's very common to spend at least the first year (often more!) of PhD learning and exploring around the research question, sometimes a bit randomly. During this time it's frequent not to actually produce anything, and even occasionally spending time exploring something which turns out to be irrelevant. It's fine, mistakes are entirely part of the research process.
What is important is to keep a main research objective in mind: at the beginning it's often a very general and vague objective. Then progressively, by getting a better understanding of the state of the art and discussing with your advisor, you will start zeroing on what will become your specific research contribution.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I'm wondering how you were able to balance learning and researching?
>
>
>
You seem to be under the impression that one day a switch will flip and you'll know everything there is to know about your field, thus allowing you to start pushing that boundary of knowledge.
The good thing is: there is no such switch! You will not stop learning at all during your PhD, and there will never come a point where you know everything. The key thing is to recognise when you know *enough*, and your supervisor (if they're good at their job) will help you in this regard.
>
> Is it normal to spend a couple years accruing knowledge and not publishing much?
>
>
>
Yes. There's an old saying: a PhD is three years of training in how to do a PhD in six months. It sounds like you're in the USA, so that timescale is likely going to be a bit longer, but no one is expecting a new PhD student to be churning out papers. That's not a healthy way to do science. You need to get the lay of the land first; not know and understand everything there is to know, but to be able to identify the key open questions in your field and the ways in which they can be addressed.
>
> My PhD will be mostly theoretical in nature, so I feel that the lag time between when I am done "training" and when I can start publishing papers is significant.
>
>
>
From my experience, theoreticians publish papers far more quickly than experimentalists. In my department, it's common for the theory people to finish with 3--4 papers; observers (I'm a cosmologist) with only one or even none. However, try not to fall prey to the "publish or perish" trap. Yes, it's important to publish your work, but don't rush it. Make sure you do good science and write it up really well.
for example, I started my PhD having already done a Master's degree, i.e. I had some experience of research and the literature in my field. I still spent at least three months just reading papers when I started, and only began to feel like I really knew what I was doing about 18 months in, when my first paper was published. This is normal. Just be patient and be open with your supervisor about your worries from the start.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'd rather like to give you some practical tips. In my view a big part of a PhD is **learning how to learn and to deal with the huge information overload** that might exist in your field of research, especially nowadays. Reading a 100 papers is warning signal in my opinion. Most PhD thesis only contain 100-200 references. Overflying a 100 is ok. This points me to the suspicion you are analyzing and reading the literatur not efficiently and this is of course a matter of time.
So, if I would start doing a PhD again, I would like someone to tell me how to select and what to read. My suggestions now after PhD are:
* Start with a review article published in the past 10 years instead of reading the most cited current papers, which will not help a lot, as those are very specialized research reports, often in letter format.
* If you don't understand most of the content, read a text book covering the topic, if you still don't understand you have to switch to university courses, lectures, seminars
* after reaching some understanding look for open questions -> search google scholar with
>
> "intitle:opportunities/advances/roadmap" AND "your field"
>
>
>
as these articles look into future, list open questions or methodological gaps. Simultaneously you should visit conferences, workshops and summer schools if you can and talk especially with PhD students which are at the end of their odyssey and discuss open questions.
* then you have to decide what you can and would like to do, where sits the expertise of your advisor, your colleagues and you and what facilities do you have (intellectual, experimental, computational ... you have at all). This will narrow down a lot what you actually can do and running into too many dead ends, which you have to risk in fundamental research.
The rest is the PhD. And when you are able to come up with new correct and interesting questions to your peers in your field your supervisor could not think of, this is a very good sign you have become an independent researcher, which is the main goal of a PhD.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/11
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<issue_start>username_0: Following a question on [here](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/507932/chinese-names-in-english), I also decided to reflect on my referencing skills. My style guide APA Harvard 6th wants names as Last, First. But with Chinese names I have this problem: do I reverse their name or has it already been reversed?
And do all Chinese authors follow this last name-first name convention, so because of this ambiguity is it correct to cite all Chinese names e.g. *Xiu* **Ling**, with the italics always being the last name?
>
> When writing academic articles or essays, espeically in the bibliography, I also have trouble deciphering which to use for Chinese authors and what I do is tend to reverse it, because I know authors would not be aware of the Last Name, First Name convention in the west \*\*\*, especially if the Chinese authors in question do not have a big online presence (a name format set out by the authors themselves). And espeically if the style guide wants it a certain way e.g. APA Harvard wants it: Last, First too even for Western names e.g. <NAME>. Roberts, Julia. etc.
>
>
>
\*\*\* and if Westerners cite the wrong format e.g. Xiu Ling and they have to write it in APA style they may write it as Ling, Xiu incorrectly.<issue_comment>username_1: In publications outside China, I would expect Chinese authors to publish in the same format as other authors, "given name family name". Of course it is possible that the authors made a mistake, but ultimately you cannot necessarily account for that and I would suggest that it is not particularly likely.
However for Chinese publications, even those Chinese journals published in English, the order of the names may well be written in the Chinese format of family name first. Another thing to remember is that the vast majority of Chinese family names are one character/syllable, while given names may have multiple characters/syllables. So if there are authors with multiple syllables in the name, there is a good chance (although not 100%) that this is not the family name.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: We are all living in one world. Giving names is different. So are Chinese names given in Singapore different from mainland Chinese names. If the family name precedes the given name, the original order of names is used in all kinds of references. There is no need of a comma since the order is not reversed. Also, everyone has to cite the full name as there is a limited number of family names for many people and the given name may help to really identify the author. No worries, the names will still be short. I find the ignorance of Chinese scholars unbearable and all these APA-style abbreviations not well thought for academic writings outside the psychlogical field. This needs definitely an update soon.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/08/11
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a math PhD student in North America about to enter my second year. Last week I attended a conference and was interested in a research presentation by a professor at another school. The presentation was about some of his current (unpublished) methods and results to attack a problem in combinatorics. I am thinking of writing an expository post about his talk in my personal blog.
Question: Should I contact the professor to ask for permission to write about his research? My concern is that he hasn't published the results and so might not want to put them in public yet. I have seen people writing expository posts about talks or papers that they read or hear about (for example [here](https://cameroncounts.wordpress.com/2019/08/02/bcc-at-birmingham-days-4-and-5/)), but I'm not sure if they need permission from the original author(s) to do so.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think you strictly *need* permission, but I would recommend asking the speaker anyway, out of simple courtesy. People are aware when they give a talk that they are making the information public, and that the audience members may share what they have learned, but putting it on the Internet may speed up that process more than the speaker is expecting. Posting about the talk without the author's consent, or at least notifying them, isn't unethical, but it is sort of "bad manners".
If the speaker asks you to wait, I would suggest you honor that request: partly out of general professional courtesy, and partly because it isn't good politics as a PhD student to get on the bad side of senior people, especially if you work in this area. You may be applying for a postdoc with this person someday. I would guess that at most, they might say something like "We plan to post a preprint in a few weeks; could you hold off until then?"
As a possible side benefit, when you contact the speaker to ask if it's okay with them, they might also volunteer some other information for you to use in your writeup: copies of their slides, further details, a preprint, etc.
If they say it's okay, then as a further courtesy, you may want to send them a copy of your writeup before you post it, to see if they have any comments or notice any errors. Or at least send them a link *when* you post it, and be ready to respond to any feedback they may have.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: The general way to proceed has already been addressed in Nate's answer.
However, you should note that there are also conferences which have policies which explicitly forbid public use of information communicated at the conference (with the goal of fostering open exchange of unpublished results). The examples I know are the Gordon Research Conferences/Workshops, see. [their policy](https://www.grc.org/about/grc-policies-and-legal-disclaimers/). Thus, make sure to check whether the conference has such a policy in place (in the cases I remember, this policy has also been clearly communicated at the beginning of the conference).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: ### tl;dr: No, it's fine (but send him a link).
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> My concern is that he hasn't published the results
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But he *has* published his *approach* - by giving a presentation about it. And you can only write about what he talked about in that presentation.
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> Question: Should I contact the professor to ask for permission to write about his research?
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As long as you don't misrepresent what he said in his presentation - there's really no need.
As a courtesy, however, I'd email him a note about your blog post with a link to it. If anything bothers him, he can write you.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: When the NSF decides to fund a project, they post an abstract of the project, but they do not post any of the material that the project's PIs actually wrote. Why not?
Some good reasons for publishing these proposals are:
1. It increases transparency, so that the public directly knows what was funded with tax payer money.
2. It would help future PIs find example successful proposals in order to create better proposals.
Edit to make the question a bit more concrete: Has the NSF ever published a justification for not publishing accepted proposals online?<issue_comment>username_1: I think the simplest way to address your question is to note that you have asked it upside down. Transparency is not the default option now, has not been in the past, and it is at least uncertain as to whether it might become the default in the future. So then the question is, why has an agency like the NSF not changed their practices to be more transparent and open, given that the default is opaque and closed?
Put this way, the answer is quite simple: it is because no person or group has exercised the will to make the change; there has been insufficient interest or ability to change the status quo of closed by default. It is not that people have not called for increased transparency in government, and there have always been arguments that the NSF should be run by civil servants and professional administrators/managers, with decisions explicitly made in favor of social welfare or public interest.
Most actions, both governmental and non-governmental, are generally conducted on a need-to-know basis. And in the US at least, most institutions are not set up to be direct democracies quite intentionally, as masses of people were feared to be ignorant, short-sighted, temperamental, and easily manipulated. This is even more true of organizations like the NSF, part of whose design and organization was intended to allow scientists to engage in autonomous decision-making to advance basic understanding across a wide-variety of fields without insisting upon any particular idea of return on investment, popular political sentiments, etc.
At least, that seemed to be the [political reasoning that is reported to have won out originally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation#1940%E2%80%9349). The changes since then seem to be towards a direction of more non-scientist involvement in the process of review and grant-making, which has included major cuts to social science, banning of funding for political science, political criticism of what is funded and what isn't, legislation that sets funding requirements for different directorates, etc. One may see these as good or bad, which presumably will strongly color your opinion on whether the changes that brought them about were good ones or not!
So it is not that openness has not and was not ever considered - it was considered and rejected, historically. This doesn't mean that things cannot or should not change in the future - but one must also remember that interventions in complex social processes always bring complex effects. More tax payer awareness can mean more attempts to manipulate and misinform, including adversarial attacks meant to direct research away from sensitive or valuable areas. Less obstacles to involvement can result in centralization of power to the most socially powerful, as power in one area is used to gain power in another, rather than decentralization and devolution of power to the many.
Currently, the main thrust of transparency movements seems to be in wider-ranging policies, such as the [Freedom of Information Act and its many amendments](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Information_Act_(United_States)). As noted in comments, [the NSF has policies publicly stated that allow people to make requests to receive documents such as successful grant requests](https://www.nsf.gov/policies/foia.jsp). The requester and provided documents are themselves logged and made publicly available. It may be seen as socially weird between scientists to request such grants without contacting them directly, but the depths of social weirdness in many common human interactions is beyond my ability to quantify :)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Why do funding agencies like the NSF not publish accepted grants?
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> Has the NSF ever published a justification for not publishing accepted proposals online?
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While it is correct in a technical sense that the NSF "does not publish accepted proposals online", I think this framing of your question is a bit misleading. The NSF [*has a process*](https://www.nsf.gov/policies/foia.jsp) for allowing the public to access awarded proposals. This process, based on the Freedom of Information Act, is designed precisely to balance the public's need for transparency in government spending with other important things, such as the government's need to function properly (which is why even FOIA won't gain you access to top secret military information, for example), and the completely legitimate desire of researchers to pursue their research plans on their own timeline without undue stress or fear of having their ideas scooped and exploited by others.
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> Some good reasons for publishing these proposals are:
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> 1. It increases transparency, so that the public directly knows what was funded with tax payer money.
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As I was saying above, the key word here is "balance". You can't have *maximal* transparency, because all sorts of things would go wrong if you try to have it - researchers would protest loudly, and/or eventually start including less and less useful details in their proposals, making the evaluation process more difficult and the outcomes less meritocratic; and/or eventually seek alternative funding sources or try to get by without NSF support, with detrimental results to their research. On the other hand, no one is advocating for complete secrecy either - note that the current system is already a compromise between privacy and transparency: researchers do understand that their proposals will be reviewed by a panel of experts in their fields, and accept whatever small risk of scooping/misuse of ideas may exist given this situation. Writers of proposals also understand that in the end their proposals can in fact be looked up by curious members of the public, journalists, and people in Congress, who may end up [accusing them of wasting government money on useless research](http://www.moorepants.info/blog/nsf-congress.html) or other unpleasant things. Everyone accepts that when you take public funding it comes with some strings attached, including a certain amount of public exposure and some level of disclosure of your research ideas. So again, I think your framing of the question is slightly loaded, as it risks painting an exaggerated picture of the grants process as being shrouded in secrecy, and of researchers as somewhat paranoid people who are always fearful of having their ideas stolen. The truth is much more balanced and reasonable than that.
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> 2. It would help future PIs find example successful proposals in order to create better proposals. The current system of asking friends for copies of their proposals is super frustrating and seems like it is likely fostering an atmosphere of cronyism.
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I am not aware of any "system" of asking friends for copies of proposals. That's something that some people do and others don't (I didn't). And calling it "cronyism" seems like a huge stretch. In fact, I think it's rather the opposite; from my experience with the grants process (including serving on several NSF panels), while the grants process is far from being without flaws, it is as meritocratic a system as anyone has been able to come up with for a complicated process of handing out several billion dollars a year to many thousands of people based on a very messy and noisy dataset. And yes, it's true that the process is very competitive and can be frustrating for many people. That would remain true even if all awarded proposals were made publicly available.
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> Has the NSF ever published a justification for not publishing accepted proposals online?
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The NSF page I linked to above offers an explanation of how to request access to proposals, and what kind of access will be granted:
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> National Science Foundation policy is to make the fullest possible disclosure of information, subject to restrictions imposed by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and Privacy Act, to any person who requests information, without unnecessary expense or delay. [...]
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> Copies of awarded proposals are available upon request, there may be applicable fees. Personal and proprietary information will be removed from the proposal documents before they are released.
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The reference to personal and proprietary information provides some justification for why the process works the way it does.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Grant proposals must go into some detail, which the reviewers are forbidden to use or divulge, but which would be highly interesting for other scientists, and would allow those competitors with enough free money and the right staff on hand to gain an unfair advantage.
You might even put unpublished stuff in there, for example results from diploma theses, which would otherwise not be easy to find. The grant proposal gives everything, the result, and the name of the freshly graduated student which could just be hired away to some more illustrious institution.
Two years later, when students have shown posters on conferences and the first papers are published, that info is mostly stale and outdated. I don't know why the proposals are not published then. Probably because nobody would be interested any more, or because it would often embarrass the proposers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In addition to other good points made... if everyone writing proposals had in mind that whatever flights of fancy... or novel insights... they were inclined to put into the proposal would potentially be quickly public, I'd think this would too much inhibit many people. On another hand, it could inappropriately encourage people with crackpottish impulses, since they could get potentially get publicity without having to have actually done the work, if only they could make a convincing case.
Also, related, this could give a way for people to claim priority on "ideas", even if they hadn't made them work, because their proposal was funded (=peer review/approval) and made public.
And, again, to avoid scooping (which does happen...) it seems best to wait a year or two after the award of the grants.
(Also, really, the notion that someone wants to improve their chances of getting a grant by imitating the grant proposals of someone else seems problemmatical. Will imitators cite? Will imitators give a share?)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I can think of a number of reasons why it is not done, most already covered. Adding to them (apologies if I missed them above): i) a scientist may be hesitant to have preliminary findings published. Preliminary means that they may be wrong, or misinterpreted. ii) She or he may also not feel comfortable with retrospective examination of what was proposed and what was done (novel findings may steer the work in an unexpected direction). iii) Because a proposal is confidential, the ability to patent an invention described in the proposal is preserved.
If we are talking about publishing the meat of the proposal (project description), there are several reasons why it may be a good idea. In addition, it would be worthwhile to publish the reviewers comments and perhaps the authors' post-review commentary. The reasons why this would be useful are:
1. Proposals represent a considerable part of a scientist's scientific output. They encompass preliminary observations, ideas, hypotheses, and proposed experiments. Without publications they could and will most likely be lost.
2. A proposal might document important scientific ideas and help establish proper timeline of scientific innovations.
3. As mentioned, other scientists might benefit from access to successful and unsuccessful examples.
NSF could publish the proposals in a journal-like format. NIH has already a few real proposal examples. These are extremely useful. Last, publishing should be voluntary on the part of the PIs.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a master's student outside the U.S., and I plan to contact professors in U.S. universities for PhD applications. I have a bunch of email addresses available, and I don't know which one is the most appropriate for communication.
My main objective is to make sure my email **doesn't get lost in the spam folder**, and a decent first impression would not hurt.
My options:
**(1)** `<EMAIL>`: Email given from the current institution where I attend.
**(2)** `<EMAIL>`: Alumni email from the university where I got my undergrad degree.
**(3)** `<EMAIL>`: Email from a well known U.S. university where I spent a year as an exchange student.
**(4)** `<EMAIL>` : Private email address
My question is, do you think the possibility of getting a response depends on the email domain? What email domain should I use?
A friend of mine who ended up at a top-5 grad program suggested me to use **(3)**, saying that it could increase my chances of getting a response. However I am cautious that it may look pretentious or delusional, considering I had been there some time ago.
**Am I overthinking this?**<issue_comment>username_1: * Personal email is OK, as long as it doesn't look too unserious (`<EMAIL>` is bad). Gmail looks more professional than other providers, but not by much.
* Avoid email addresses that will expire soon. Unfortunately, many university addresses are like that. An expired address means you won't get late followup answers (and trust me, there are emails threads in research that span decades).
* Avoid anything with `alumni` in it. Many people have a delete reflex when they see the word "alumnus", as it mostly appears in the context of panhandling by alumni orgs.
* There is nothing pretentious about .edu addresses.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You may be overthinking it, but everyone who wishes to communicate by email needs to find a way of avoiding spam filters.
Having been in your position a few years ago, namely wishing to engage the attention of professors who would never had heard of me, my strategy was to use an obviously personal email address, a very clear but brief subject, and a very brief email message (in impeccably grammatical language) with a clearly stated question, such as "Would you be willing to consider me as a possible graduate student?".
Brevity is crucial, but for a counter-example consider Ramanujan's unsolicited letter to GH Hardy. Ramanujan stated theorems that were very exciting but not so exciting as to suggest that he was a crank. Unless you are offering material of that quality, I advise a short clear statement of what you want from an honest personal email address.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I suggest you use your current email address, i.e. option 1 with `<EMAIL>`.
The reasoning is that this is the email address that reflects your position. Writing with another email address from a different university does not really tell the person who you are. Especially if you are listed on the homepage of your current institution.
The second best option is to use your private address, but as username_1 stated in his answer, it should look serious.
Finally, to answer your question: As long as you use either of the two options (current institutional address, "serious" private address) **your mail domain will not matter**. You are probably overthinking.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: You are overthinking and your professor will probably not even read your address when your mail programm adds a real name to the from field, but there are two things you should consider:
*Spam rating:* When your e-mail ends up in the spam folder, you probably won't be noticed. GMail should not have a problem with this.
*It should be a permanent address:* This is the address, that the will be used *forever*.
It is rather common, that someone will start typing your name and use the first address that is suggested by the mail program, disregarding that you changed institutions and have a new primary mail address. So you probably should have a forward when you use an address that will change, or it really needs to bounce. When the e-mail is delivered to a mailbox that you do not read anymore, you will miss out on important mails, even when you told him the new address.
In addition, you may want to use an address that can guarantee to conform to data protection regulations. For your personal e-mail it is your personal risk, but when you start working for the professor and you exchange details about students, it may be a problem to use services like GMail. A university usually provides better data protection in their e-mail terms of service.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently writing my master thesis. I'm a bit conflicted with what I do... Reference stealing.
So let's say article A talk about something that was reported from X, something else from Y and Z.
I talk about article A and I find that X, Y and Z are actually really good too so I end up referencing them too.
Is this considered plagiarism?
Also, let's say I'm really inspired by the introduction of a paper on the subject of my thesis. Is it considered plagiarism to take the reference of an article and use them to introduce the subject in a similar fashion, e.g., this field allowed to do that? I don't copy what is said but I use (some) of the references.
Is there such thing as reference plagiarism? From a google search, it seems that references are indeed checked (% matching) but it's mostly at the discretion of publisher/not something thoroughly enforced. Tbh I feel that it'd be difficult to enforce that even if I think it's bad. Sometimes you find sources from an article that are impossible to ignore.
I'm wondering what people do with that. Part of the research is finding an article that concern you and then you continue your search from the references so you naturally "steal" references...<issue_comment>username_1: The general advice is to go to the *primary* source, where possible, and reference that. However, consider that each citable (published) source should add some sort of contribution to knowledge. So, it’s ok to "cite a citation", as it were, if you are also using that particular knowledge.
For example, take review papers or experimental review papers. These often have extensive bibliographies, but usually identify commonalities, trends, themes in many publications (lots of people doing similar research simultaneously). Review papers are great starting points for study but they are a product of their time and, in fast moving fields, sometimes out of date by the time they are published. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel and cite every reference from that bibliography, but if *some* of them support your (novel) idea, and the review paper was instrumental in you having that idea, then of course you should cite all the primary sources, including the review paper (plus any subsequent papers that you’ve found). Review papers certainly do garner citations.
In theory, it’s possible to have two papers with identical bibliographies but entirely different contributions to knowledge. You should cite all relevant literature, including any papers that you used as a source for your reading list.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Put simply, plagiarism is fraud: it happens if you present material as if you had discovered it, when, in fact, you had not.
If you cite A, then you are certainly not committing plagiarism, because you are saying, in effect, "I did not discover this: A did." But what if it is not true that A discovered it? A might just have been quoting X, Y, and Z.
If you cite a paper by A, then you are claiming to have read it. If A's paper said, in effect, "X, Y, and Z report that ...", then you have a choice. You could read the papers by X, Y, and Z, and cite them, or you could legitimately cite "A, citing X, Y and Z".
In my opinion, if you have not even seen the papers by X, Y, and Z, you cannot legitimately cite them, but you can cite A's citation of them. You have to decide whether to rely on A's summary of the work of X, Y, and Z. If it is either tangential to your work, or so well known in your field that, in a sense, everyone knows it, then you do not need to trace the theory back to its origins. For example, if you are writing about the theory of gravity, it is not essential to cite Newton, I (1666), or whatever, but if your work seeks to overturn X's theory of blah, then you have to cite X's original work - and, dare I say, actually read it.
By way of a footnote: 'self-plagiarism' is something else entirely. It is recycling but in a bad way.
A further footnote: you cannot necessarily trust other authors' summaries of earlier work. I once found it necessary to translate a paper from its original French to make sure that it did say what other authors who cited it claimed it said: it did not!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I've been looking up some PhD students' websites, and there are people who somehow got 10~30+ total papers with 5~10+ first author papers. Many such students are in computer science, but there are a few in fields like bioinformatics. **Some garnered 100+ citations before graduation.**
How did they do this? This makes me uneasy about my chances for a tenure track position in the future. I just finished my 3rd PhD year at a decent US institution. My field is closely related to bioinformatics, and I am aiming for a tenure track position in a similar field. But if my *top* competitors are of such caliber (10+ papers 100+ citations), I'm guessing my chances are slim.<issue_comment>username_1: First, that's not a useful question to ask, primarily because it's nothing you can control in any reasonable way.
Second, just because *some* graduate students have somehow come up with such statistics does not imply that your *average* competitor has. It's a bit similar to the average physicist not having published three papers at the age of 27 all of which could have gotten a Nobel Prize on their own -- even though Einstein did. You will always have people who are *far* better than everyone else, and they will likely get positions somewhere, but they're not going to fill *all* available positions.
Finally, publications are just one measure search committees use to determine who to hire. There are many questions on this forum that discuss the many many other criteria used, so I won't repeat them, but you might want to read through these other posts to see that publications are really just one of many criteria.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: There are some institutions where there is common practice to put ones peers as co-authors even if they had nothing to do with it. On top of this, there are these "paper-producing factories" where the main objective is just to produce paper after paper.
I'm not saying that these individual geniuses with these citations honestly doesn't exist, but personally I'd be cautious about just accepting them right away as the truth and instead consider a bulk of them to be untruthful.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: As someone who got 6 publications during their PhD - it's often because they are of low quality. I (wrongly) placed a large focus on quantity over quality and it resulted in a rather lacklustre thesis.
Some people are able to get large numbers of high-quality publications, but they are so much more rare than people who get large numbers of papers that will never be cited or even read by anyone of note.
It's good to have some publications - but it's better to ensure that the research you are doing is of value to the field!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I think at least part of the answer lies in different cultures across fields. I did my PhD in computer science/artificial intelligence. There a huge focus is on conference papers which tend to be smaller contributions. Often incremental progress on a single project is reported in multiple conference papers and it was expected that a paper corresponds to several months worth of work. Frequently you would publish in a conference and then have an extended version appear in a journal. All in all, 5 first-author papers upon PhD was not exceptional. Also we had a lot of within-group collaboration so I got to e.g. run a few statistical routines on someone else's data, help write the manuscript and become a coauthor for about a week of work. I ended my PhD with 23 publications, 8 of which were first-author - this was above average in my group, but not exceptional.
Now I do bioinformatics and collaborate a lot with biologists. Their papers are usually longer and for any result you need a lot of tedious manual work in the lab. In turn, the papers represent years worth of work. Many people - even brilliant ones - end their PhD with 1-3 first-author publications. I've heard in some areas, publications are even harder to come by. In other words, the number of publications is not a very good proxy for brilliance, especially when you are ignoring quality and comparing across fields.
As for the 100+ citations - my best bet (since you mention bioinformatics) is that this is because the students co-authored some software/tool/protocol that ended up being useful => cited. (tool papers tend to be the most cited ones). This is obviously a success, but once again does not necessarily imply that failing to produce useful tools is a sign of non-brilliance.
Example: DeSeq2 software for comparing gene expression across samples [has > 10 000 citations on Google scholar](https://scholar.google.cz/scholar?cluster=16121678637925818947&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5) while the first detection of gravitational waves has just above [6 000 citations on Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.cz/scholar?cluster=9463658171864037215&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5).
Also me and some of my colleagus have landed reasonable jobs with roughly 0 citations (excluding self).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: >
> How did they do this?
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One possible explanation is that people sometimes stumble over a **vein of gold**. You make a small breakthrough with a new idea that you can then expand in different directions, apply it to and combine it with other phenomena, often in collaboration with experts for those phenomena.
The obvious follow-up question is to find such a vein of gold. Luck might be an important component here, but a good intuition might play a role as well -- sometimes, the intuition of the involved advisor and collaborators. For the collaboration aspect, an advisor with a strong network, as well as good networking skills of the PhD student can help.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: There are some topics which are inherently good for publications and citations. If you need a specific dataset for your study, this is quite often very difficult to build up. So if one does the work, a lot of people will use and cite your dataset. Even more so, if there are only limited ways to gather such a dataset, especially if you need patients with a specific disease or something like that. In these cases the academia is happy for any dataset they can have, and therefore it gets easily published.
If you look at the published papers, there will certainly be some paper on "here we made this dataset, feel free to use it and cite us", then after this comes the "we now evaluated this dataset with our methodology" sometimes followed by "with this methodolody we made this workflow and product" and so on. Sometimes accompanied with some more datasets, and then you have 10 publications in short time. Each of them building on a reputable and much cited dataset. So these paper gather good traction also.
I was at conferences where half the people just presented new datasets of gazes, pupils, fingerprints, smiles whatever. A lot of tedious work to build up, but it may be a good thing to build up reputation.
Sadly in the current times, reputation in numbers (citations, papers, etc) are sometimes regarded more worth then the content of these numbers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: This is highly dependent on your research topic, publishing culture, and local standards. I will try to answer from personal experience.
As a PhD student I have published 15 papers. Roughly the same amount of manuscripts came from work developed during PhD, while others derived of work done as an undergrad and Master student. All of which were published in reputed peer-reviewed journals, though mostly low-tier journals.
This is how I achieved this: (i) passionate about research; (ii) passionate about writing and editing papers; (iii) some equally passionate co-authors; (iv) working like crazy; (v) being stubborn like a mule; (vi) prioritising descriptive reports within a small research niche; (vii) getting completed work published.
I had finished my PhD with roughly 60 citations. I don't think I have a good citation record nowadays, but I have published many papers.
Did that help me in my career? **Sure it did**. Academia is *hungry* for publication counts almost everywhere, and prospective postdoc supervisors assume you'll earn them at least that. Most PIs are scared of unfinished projects, and depression-stuck collaborators.
However, how such numbers are seen varies between different academic cultures. Therefore I cannot say whether I'd specifically recommend this path to anyone. You wouldn't believe the stress (and politics) involved in pushing things forwards, especially if you work with rather laid-back mates.
The key point to keep in mind is: how can you show value? Focus on that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Citations are not always the best of indicators. In my post-doc position I was co-author on a paper that had a "whacky new" idea. We didn't really develop it too much. We just said "hey, you can use this thing here to solve that problem over there, isn't that interesting?"
So this has resulted in a lot of people saying "yes, and if you tidy it (Reference [1]) this way and add this feature, you can get an interesting variation on it like so." Where [1] is the paper I was co-author on. Some thousands of papers have done some such thing. And I was alphabetically the first author. Though I was quite clearly the least contributor.
So I technically have an excellent citations stat. But I left academe after my post-doc, and barely remember doing this work. So I'm absolutely not good material for being a prof. Both my co-authors have distinguished careers. But they were both established before this paper.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an international PhD student in an engineering department in US and was fully funded for all two years, but just two weeks before the fall semester (without any warning), my advisor informed me that he cannot support me, apparently he lost all the funding sources this July. He is quite happy with my research and wants me to pay this semester at least half of my tuition and live on half of the monthly stipend. He informed me that after this fall he will find a TA to support myself.
Now, my problem is that my work is experimental and needs constant funding. While TA will cover my expenses, it will not cover the experiments. Even he does not know how and when the funding for experiments will come (he didn't look confident at all). Should I think of changing the advisor now? I am personally thinking of taking an MS with my current work and looking for a funded lab for PhD in the same university.<issue_comment>username_1: If your advisor can't support you and your research, find another advisor as soon as possible. Your department/grad program should be able to help with this and talking to them should be your next step - it's also possible they can do something to get you funded in the immediate term. In fact, this should have been the advice your advisor gave you instead of suggesting you try to float around for a semester.
You might be able to keep your current advisor as a co-advisor or something, but frankly the way they handled this situation (waiting to tell you until now) is absolutely horrible and unprofessional (and selfish): they would have known long ago that funding was expiring and if they were waiting on some pending grant applications they needed to inform you then so you could line up other support.
I wouldn't be able to trust that person again.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Either find your own source of funding or another advisor.
**If you work well with your current advisor, then I would advise you to keep your current advisor** and try to find funding some other way. Maybe you can apply for research stipend or scholarship or maybe some deal with your university where you can work part time teaching BSc / MSc courses at the same or neighbouring department. This is not a very uncommon solution, at least where I'm from.
Being able to work with a wise advisor who you are compatible with can be worth **A LOT** to you in the long run. Not only during your studies but easily as long as at least 5-10 years afterwards.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Unless there is a unique situation, if your funding was coming through a grant (private or government), there is a very specific set of rules governing how that money arrives at the university and the "chain of custody". At the vast majority of universities, there is an award contract between the grantor and the grantee, administered by an office of sponsored research (or sponsored programs). That office (and very frequently the school of engineering, the specific department, and the principal investigator, in this case, probably your adviser) knows the exact terms of the contract, including end date, expected work product, equipment budget, students to be funded, etc. Usually, the money goes directly to the university, who then distributes it to the appropriate people/organizations in whatever form necessary (e.g., to a departmental account, as a tuition waiver or from the treasurer to you in the form of a paycheck). There are also university policies governing who in that chain needs to be informed of changes or updates. Your adviser is definitely one of them but you may not be.
If everything is as you described, I can only think of a single scenario in which either your adviser or the department or both did not break any internal policies by telling you so late: funding was pulled because of a major violation of the grant terms (or much less likely, something nefarious). This would be very serious however and even if it partly explained your adviser's desire to "keep this between you", the department and university have a moral obligation to explain it.
All this being said, it is absolutely in your best interest to open conversations with other potential advisers as well as the head of your department, if not the school of engineering. It is likely there are funds to be found somewhere, especially in engineering but it is not likely you can be added to some other grant before next semester, even on what they call a "no-cost extension". If there are no teaching or research assistantships, there may still be one or more department "projects" that you could work on. I wish you luck.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an undergraduate student in the field of computer science, researching on my own. I have completed writing a paper for my recent research project and all set to submit it to a relevant conference. Since I worked on the paper and project by myself, I am a bit unsure about some parts of the paper, technical as well as presentational.
In my faculty, no one works on this topic so I am left a bit alone on the entire process, including reviewing the paper before sending it to peer review. Is there a practice in academia where I can send some other professor, not affiliated with my work asking help with the paper and some feedbacks on it, sort of a pre-submission peer review?
Is it a good practice? And what would be a good way to do so, if it is done?<issue_comment>username_1: If you are an undergraduate and this is most likely one of your first papers, then yes, it is a good idea to have someone check it.
Even if none of the professors or colleagues you work with are familiar with your specific topic, they might still be able to give you advice regarding style and dos and don'ts in your field.
I would suggest to ask around, ask your advisor, ask others from your lab. That should have a higher chance to succeed than contacting a random professor who doesn't know you; they tend to focus their energy more on their own students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, getting feedback from experts is a good idea. But there is no standard process for soliciting that feedback. Most people you ask for feedback will not provide it. Even journal editors have a hard time finding formal peer reviewers.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: In my subfield, there is a highly regarded journal. I just finished a manuscript, which I thought would be suitable and ‘good enough’ for this journal.
Coincidentally, another manuscript that I had originally submitted to the journal two years ago, after long periods of waiting, revision, etc. just got accepted by this journal.
Should I adapt my plans in any way? Does it seem like I am ‘journal-hogging’ or gaming the system if I submit a new paper literally days after the last one has been accepted?<issue_comment>username_1: With one paper every two years I don’t think you will be seen as gaming the system.
Go ahead and submit.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If your submissions to the journal are being accepted, there is nothing wrong with submitting more papers to the journal: It means that your submissions are up to the standard of the journal, and you should feel free to submit further papers to that journal at the rate at which you can produce content of that quality.
It would be different if your submissions keep being rejected at that journal. In that case, you should reconsider whether your work is suitable for that venue, and if you submit to the journal at a too high rate, this might well annoy the editors.
As to which rate of submissions is acceptable (in case they are rejected), this is highly dependent on the field and journal, so it is hard to give a conclusive number. (In my field, one rejected a paper every two years even in a top journal wouldn't be seen as an issue by most people.)
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm working on my final thesis for a CS grade course and I want to use a common sorting algorithm ([quicksort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicksort) for the curious ones). Do I need to include a reference to this algorithm (cite or quote)? Or it is so common that I don't need to? Take into accout that it was first published on 1961 and it is extremely used and known by almost anyone in the CS world.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Do I have to cite common CS algorithms?
>
>
>
**No**.
The fact that *it was first published [in] 1961* isn't relevant, you needn't cite it because *it is [widely] used and [well-]known by almost anyone in the CS world*.
That said, although a citation isn't necessary, you can provide one at your discretion. Such a citation is probably more important for a *final thesis* than for an academic publication, since it may be considered important for students to demonstrate they can cite.
Beyond citing the original source, you may like to cite your favourite textbook(s) on the topic (rather than citing the entire volume, reference a particular section, e.g., `\cite[Chapter 4.3]{Textbook}` in LaTeX).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If the specific use of the algorithm is important to the work, then you should cite what specifically you used or implemented, and also citing the broadest/oldest class of algorithms would be strictly optional. Using the example of quicksort, there are many dozens of varieties of it that have the same general idea but have different characteristics and performance. If you used the 1961 paper as a reference for your implementation, then of course you would cite it. If you used the Java or C++ sort function (which are different and have changed between versions - mergesort, timsort, hybrid, etc.), you would just say so and don't need to hunt down what that was based on.
On the other hand, if sorting is not an important part of the work (it matters only that it was sorted, not how you sorted it), it is common and accepted not to bother citing every last little detail like this. In most cases how something was sorted is so unimportant that it isn't even mentioned in text at all, but of course if your work is on sorting algorithms (and in a thesis) you should be more detailed and cite liberally.
As this is not for a conference but for a thesis, and possibly part of a graded course, you should probably just cite it anyway, possibly both the original and whatever source you actually used for reference (textbook, code library, whatever). Especially at the less-than-PhD level, instructors are much more likely to prefer heavy use of citations, and I've known many professors to ding for lack of citation of things that one would not bother to mention or cite in an actual paper.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: No, if the algorithm has a well-known name that means that it is assumed that you are not the author and that readers can get familiar by using that name as a reference. In a similar way when you are writing a math paper, you don't need to create a reference every time you use terms like Hamel basis, Lagrangian, Gaussian distribution, Fourier transform, etc., because it is well known like QuickSort, TimSort, simplex method... using a specific name is enough reference for the reader.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: "Quicksort" today rarely refers to the 1961 version; the algorithm has been improved since then. If you're going to cite, you should of course cite something that's relevant to your thesis. As others stated, if you just needed an algorithm to get things sorted, that doesn't need citing. But if your thesis did depend on the details of sorting, then is suddenly becomes important to cite, and cite right.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I'll take what appears to be a surprisingly contrarian position on this:
**Yes, you need to cite the *implementation* you used, in a scientific paper.**
It is far too common that scientists working elsewhere trying to reproduce results fail to do so, and waste a lot of time trying to make sure their setups and steps are just the same as what they're trying to replicate. Too often, the issue comes down to a particular bug in a software package that one lab or the other is using, or a different choice in an implementation detail nobody knew mattered. By citing the specific implementation you used, **including the version number** of packages where available, you can eliminate a potential source of frustration (and/or false fraud accusations!), at relatively little additional cost when writing. (Note that sometimes, that "other lab" may be a future you!)
If you are using a quick implementation found online, citation may also be required by the license on the source. For example, you could say "I used the Java implementation of Quicksort found at <https://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=Algorithm_Implementation/Sorting/Quicksort&oldid=3562350#Java>" (note use of the "oldid" parameter to tie to a specific version; click View History and then the latest date to get that in the URL). That attribution is arguably [required by the license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/); similar story for what you find on Stack Overflow.
This also provides a means of credit for those who may have spent a lot of time (that they could have spent on something else) writing a software package that is useful for the broader community. The credit aspect is probably more important for academic developers than commercial ones. In those cases, there may be a paper announcing or describing the package, which you can and should cite for this purpose.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Do I have to cite common CS algorithms?
>
>
>
### Generally, and in a thesis, yes.
Why?
* You may consider it common, others may not; not everyone is in the same sub-field of Computer Science.
* You may be using a variant of the algorithm which is less ubiquitous; or a specific implementation, as @username_5 suggests.
* If you're using terms from the definition or specification of the algorithm, it may be useful for the reader to have access to some textbook for reference/inspiration/whatever.
* Actually, it's rarely a bad idea to find an excuse to refer to a nice textbook. Pick a good one!
* It's a thesis, it's not as though your pressed for space or anything.
* Better to err on the side of caution with citations.
Specifically for quicksort - mmm, maybe not, can't say for sure; depends on the specifics.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: If your results depend on some property of the quicksort algorithm, for example on its typical or worst-case performance, then you should cite a paper that demonstrates that the algorithm has those properties. For example if you deliberately chose an algorithm that works well when the data is already sorted, it might be best to cite some paper that compares sorting algorithms and demonstrates that quicksort is a good choice in this scenario. (I don't recall whether that's actually true, it's just an example).
If any sorting algorithm would do, then you don't really need to justify your choice; indeed, you don't really need to say what algorithm you chose.
Personally I don't think you need to cite a paper that explains what QuickSort is; it's more relevant to cite something that explains why it was the right choice for your particular application.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I took the GRE for the 2nd time recently and unfortunately, after 4 months of studying (again for the 2nd summer in a row), received the exact same score overall as my score last summer.
Last summer, I got a 157 on math, 154 on verbal, and 5 on the essay. Recently, I got a 157 on math, 153 on verbal, and a 6 on the essay.
Is it worth sending both GRE scores to the graduate schools I'm applying to (I know they all, for the ones that accept the GRE, accept multiple scores). Even if they don't superscore, I feel like it may show that I tried to increase my score and went out of my way to take it a second time...also a higher essay score may be worthy to show for. What do you think? It's a very small matter, but I feel that it may be slightly beneficial at best in terms of my overall application, so why not?
By the way, I'm applying to biomedical neuroscience PhD programs that focus on disease therapeutics.
Thanks for your input!<issue_comment>username_1: I actually think that sending both tests would be detrimental for your application:
* it decreases the ratio of signal to noise in your application
* [opinion based] it shows the lack of improvement in your math and verbal scores over the year (which would be my interpretation if both results are sent) as opposed to your intent to show the will to improve
* generally adds confusion
Since your most recent result is in all aspects better/equal (I don't count 153/154 to be different, while 6 on the essay is much better than 5) than the previous one, I strongly suggest sending only the newest GRE score.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Anyhow, on the day of the test, you would have given the names of 4 Universities to which you want ETS to send your scores. You would have done the same thing during your second attempt, and most probably you would have targeted the same Universities. So nothing to worry. The Universities will have both your scores. Moreover, since there is no difference in your scores, please send both. Essay scores will not matter much. The Universities will specifically look for research experience in the same field of study that you want to do your Phd
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I doubt anyone will see multiple attempts as some kind of evidence of initiative. Unlike grades, standardized tests aren't supposed to be based on your preparation and effort, they are more meant to be a kind of IQ score that predicts how much potential you have to succeed in advanced studies. So multiple similar scores suggest the estimate is a more precise one. On the other hand, a big jump in scores may seem a bit suspicious. We can't be sure why that happened and which is more meaningful.
And personally I find the GRE quantitative test to be a great predictor of students' performance in STEM areas. The verbal test and analytical tests used to be even better (as long as the quantitative was good, which meant a perfect score for STEM), but international students generally bomb these other tests so we hardly look at them anymore.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Differences in GRE scores verbal or quantitative scores which are smaller than three have no meaning. For analytical writing, differences of 0.5 are meaningful. Therefore your second score is better. However, for your field of research, the writing score is probably not given much weight.
I do not find Anton's arguments convincing, so I conclude that sending both scores or only sending the last score are equally good options. The prices are also the same.
Reference: <https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_reliability_sem.pdf>
Upvotes: 2
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