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<issue_start>username_0: I realize that it is really not unethical or illegal for a university professor to assign their own book that they have published as the textbook for a class. However, is it unethical for a professor to assign an expensive book, then require the students to get the book personally autograph to the student, by the professor prior to the professor accepting any work from the student? This creates several issues for me:
1. Textbooks personally signed can not be sold back to bookstores.
2. Used books can be sold to other students but when they reach the class, they are penalized for not getting their own book to meet the requirement of "personal autograph" to that student, which forces them to purchase the book again.
3. Without getting the book signed, the professor will not accept work which results in a "0".
4. The professor would not allow students to take pictures of notes in other students books but MUST PURCHASE the book, explaining "because you are not paying me".
5. Essentially, this appears to be a "FOR PROFIT OF THE PROFESSOR" class. It isn't about the education of the student at all.
I feel it is unethical. Do you? What should a student do about this?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, some aspects of this are unethical. I'm surprised that a university would permit it to happen. They would, I hope, object if they learn of it. Especially if they learn of it from complaints to higher authorities.
In my personal view as a professor and author, I can, certainly, assign one of my own books in a course I teach. But I believe that ethically, I should return to the student any royalty payment that I receive from the publisher. To avoid student cheating, I can purchase their receipt for the book from them so that they can't simply return it to be sold again as new.
I think that the professor in question is trying to do something similar in part of this (autographing the book), but in an unethical way.
I would think that autographed copies can be sold back to the bookstore, but not simply returned as new. Some autographed works are worth more, actually. The professor doesn't profit from the sale of used copies, of course. Only the "first sale" results in any royalties.
I don't know how the professor "verifies" the purchase. Does he keep a list, or just ask to see an autographed copy?
But, the issue of profiting from students when you *require* a purchase in such a way as to guarantee a profit is clearly a breach. As you describe it, it sounds like a clear form of coercion that should not occur and actually can pollute the relationship between student and professor.
And obviously, most professor-authors think their own books are the best.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes I think it is unethical. If your university has an ombudsman or similar office, go to them and ask their opinion. You may be able to report this anonymously.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Textbooks are highly important resources for course work as well as for research work.
Some textbooks are freely available over internet. Some textbooks can be purchased.
Is it true that there exists secret textbooks available **only** for the students of that particular university and for no others?
I had this doubt because one of my batch mates claimed that there is a university (say X) has its secret textbook for students as well as researchers of that university only and it is a common practice for many top end universities.
Note that I am asking about textbooks only, not regarding teaching material and others.<issue_comment>username_1: Having attended two top end universities, I can say that I have never seen or heard of a proper textbook that was only for use within that university. Textbooks require a lot of time and effort, and the author (often a professor) expects to be properly compensated, which can only occur if students at many different colleges and universities purchase his book.
I did have a professor at a top university require his own properly-published book as one of the textbooks for the course. Although it was not for use only within that institution, I doubt that any other professors, whether at that university or elsewhere would use that book as a textbook.
However, at an average university, I did have a business law class where the professor had a work that he described as "your Bible", meaning it functioned as our textbook for the course. It was not a properly published textbook printed by a professional publisher, but it was 50 or a hundred pages held together with a heavy-duty staple. This was obviously not for sale to others outside the university. Whether you would consider this a textbook would depend on your definition of "textbook".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I have never heard of a textbook being "secret" in the sense that it was being kept intentionally hidden to give students of one organization an advantage.
I have often, however, encountered draft textbooks that a professor had not yet completed or published, for which students were partly acting as "beta testers." These are often not released for general use (for obvious reasons), and may be in preparation for many years, which could make them act something like a "secret" textbook.
Indeed, as the stage and organization of such documents becomes earlier and less formal, the boundary between "textbook" and "lecture notes" becomes unclear, and there are certainly some professors who are effectively writing a private textbook and just never get around to putting in the effort (or relaxing their perfectionism) to make it public.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: The closest thing to a "secret textbook" (apart from draft textbooks) I've encountered were sometimes referred to as 'compendia'. These were often glorified lecture notes, sometimes spanning multiple logically connected courses, tailored to the syllabi at a given institution. Hence they lacked the breadth that would make them useful as textbooks for others. Some of them also contained detailed instructions and information\* about lab experiments to be done during the course(s), which obviously is of local interest only. (C.f. lab manuals.) However, they were often maintained over many years by many lecturers, and semi-professionally printed and bound by the university's printing services, and purchased by students in the university bookshop.
\*I remember that at least a couple of them included reproductions of component data sheets and excerpts from equipment manuals. Given the limited distribution no one was worried about copyright issues, but a published textbook would be a different question.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I guess it depends on the definition of a text book. For one of the courses I teach, a fellow professor and I wrote the text book for that course ourselves, because we couldn't find anything out there covering the subject properly.
However, neither of us wanted to go the publication route, as that would have been a lot of extra work for a rather specialized book anyway.
It is a proper textbook, although it is limited in scope to just the course I teach. But it does fit into your description of a "secret text book", as it is only available for the students following my course. Not that I am trying to hide it from the world though, I just haven't had any great incentives to put in the work required to make it relevant as a general textbook for everyone.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Some universities have their own edition of a few textbooks. Maybe this is what your classmate meant.
For example, this [Vector Calculus](http://www.yes24.com/Product/goods/18604096) book used at KAIST, best-ranked Korean university for science and engineering. But, since the book is mentioned in the course syllabus, and you can buy it on an online bookstore, it has nothing secret.
(I had the book in my hands a few years ago, but I forgot what are the differences with the classic edition)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Something I did see: For a large calculus course, the publisher offered to produce an edition of their textbook with exactly the desired chapters in the order specified by the Math Department. This was back in the days when books were on paper, and there were no personal computers to read any other type of book.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Some publishers do offer customized texts (at least for first and second year gen ed courses) and they may only be provided to that school's book store (or only available online via publisher CMS/LMS) but I'm not sure about the "secret" part. Typically the customization choices are like "well, we have these 48 chapters basic college algebra concepts. Which of them do you want, and in what order?" and "do you want solutions for even or odd problems in the back"
Obviously the instructor prepared lecture notes or "course packs", etc. (are those still a thing) may count, but again I'm not sure about the "secret" part.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: A school I attended had "textbooks" which were just selected chapters from several other separately-published textbooks combined and bound into a single book, with the school's own cover applied, often with one or more professors from the school listed as "editors". None of the content (possibly excluding a forward) was written by anyone at the school. While these books were only available for purchase directly from the school, they couldn't exactly be called "secret", since their source material was directly copied from several other books, all of which are available separately for general purchase. I think the idea was this saved the students from having to buy half a dozen different books of which only small portions were used, but it had the unfortunate side-effect that you couldn't look up the books online since there were no other places where they could be legally purchased.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: **Yes**, as long as you remove the word "secret."
I remember a few professors who used their own private textbooks for their classes. In some cases, these textbooks were also available to other teachers and students doing another section of that same class at that same institution.
Some of them would offer copies of their own private books to the campus bookstore. Some of them wanted to save the students money and would provide a PDF copy of the book and tell the students to print it out in a computer lab - this caused friction with the computer department who managed the printers, as it drastically inflated the paper usage past their budget for it. Some of them would only make a few copies of their book and would give them to the campus library.
**I don't think this practice was a secret, but in all other ways it fits your description.**
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: I had several engineering courses where the professor had written the textbooks and required us to buy them.
The books weren't used at any other universities (with one exception), and the prices were outrageous. It wasn't secret, but it was exclusive.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_11: The only university that I am aware of, that has "secret textbooks" is the [National Intelligence University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_University) ([university site](http://ni-u.edu/wp/)). The text books are [classified](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classified_information_in_the_United_States). As a facility where all students are required to have a Top Secret/[SCI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information) clearance, I expect all of the text books to be classified at least Top Secret.
I expect other [service academies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_service_academies) and [military colleges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_college#United_States_of_America) to have classified texts.
Outside of these situations, or a research project with classified materials, I don't expect any university that you might enroll in, to have "secret texts".
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> *textbooks available only for the students of that particular university and for no others*
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I've come across text books that were prepared specially for particular universities. They were almost always a version of an existing textbook that had chapters removed for a particular professor or university. This made it virtually impossible to sell the book back after the semester. They had cheap binding and mentioned the university that they were for in huge letters on the cover and spine. I hated those.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: There are a few reasons for restricted resources (not sure if all qualify as text books):
It is quite normal for remote/online universities that some of the course material is produced for a course and only available to payers of the course fees.
This includes printed textbooks, digital text but also multimedia productions.
Some university libraries have archives with historical documents which might be unique, in a bad shape, not scanned or indexed. Access to that is sometimes restricted to staff or with special permission. This is especially true of the material is archived for an owner (like a church or nobel family).
Thesis and diploma works written at a university is archived there. Some of that material has restrictions placed on it because it might be confidential or sponsored work. In that case access is on a permission base.
Some universities publish specific books and instead of having a infrastructure for selling them they might offer them for their own course attendees only.
I am sure there are other reasons. Really secret is most likely only some historic documents in private or church owned institutions.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: How should one address people with titles Dr. and Professor from Canada.<issue_comment>username_1: Publicly, you should address them as you would their peers in your current country of residence. Privately, you can inquire as to their personal preference.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: In an email write "Dear Prof. X". If you're addressing them in their role as a professor at the university that is the preferred form. If you're addressing them outside that role it seems to be equally common to use "Dear Dr. X".
Note, that unlike in some countries (like Germany) the form "Dear Prof. Dr. X" is not used in Canada.
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m doing my masters (while working full-time) and one of my professors from last semester, who is teaching my class this semester as well, always asks me, “Did you get your husband to do your homework?” He also asks me if I'm married before giving me feedback. I wish he would just give me the feedback like he does for the guys in my class. I've told him it doesn't matter if I'm married or not but he laughed at me. I outright told him to stop multiple times and he didn't listen.
He also said, “You aren’t going to get your husband to come in here and beat me up, are you?” I think he was making a joke but I'm "on the spectrum" so I'm not sure. I just said "no" and kept staring at him. I'm very socially awkward.
I’m not married and I don’t wear any rings, I don't think he is thinking I'm married.
I was thinking of going to some university higher-up about it. I documented everything contemporaneously and they won’t be able to claim I’m bitter over a bad grade, because he actually gave me quite a good grade in my previous class. The current class has just started today so no grade yet.
I want to go to the program head or a higher up at the university. But I don't want to persecute my professor. I know there is a lot of persecution against conservative professors. I think he is just expressing the conservative view that women should be married by my age (I'm 30 - he doesn't know my exact age but can probably guess I'm 27-33). I understand the point of view, but sometimes it doesn't work out. My family believes the same and they tried to get me to married. My ex fiance and I were engaged for 10 months and ended it then, ended up for the better as we would definitely have divorced. Nevertheless, I am not against marriage. I am no liberal. I just want my professor to **STOP** asking me about my marital status but he won't listen. I want to go to higher ups but I don't want to persecute my professor either.
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**EDIT** This is not sexual harrassment. He is only asking me if I am married before giving me feedback and to know that my husband has not completed my homework (which would be academic dishonesty). Not for sex purposes. He is not seeking any relationship with me so it's not sexual harrassment. It may be sex-based harrassment since he is not harrassing my male classmates however it is not *sexual* at all and thus cannot be *sexual* harrassment<issue_comment>username_1: Without going into legal definitions of what this is exactly, the bottom line is:
**This is inappropriate, discriminatory behavior, and you shouldn’t put up with it.**
It seems like you’ve already done your best to politely stop these kinds of comments with no success. The fact that you documented everything is really great. You should approach student affairs/ombudsman/Graduate studies division and report this. Keep a record of the report.
I’m willing to bet that you’re not the first student that encountered this behavior. One could hope that you’ll be the last if you report him.
I want to tell you that your school will make sure that your grades won’t suffer and that the outcome will be that the professor will face disciplinary action. In cases like this it’s unfortunately not always the case. Even more severe cases (eg outright sexual assault) have been covered up by university officials because of their bad press repercussions. I hope your university will do better.
I’m sorry this happened...
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: This behavior is not OK in academic and any professional setting. If you feel bad reporting this behavior, consider: this professor is wasting your time, that you could have invested in self-improvement or hanging out with your friends.
That is not just "expressing conservative views" that is wasting your time and energy. To make it easier to deal with, consider what you've been doing if each time you talk to professor, he start telling you how good is vegan diet or how you need to do ketogenic diet, or how you need to eat meat to live forever. It is all the same activities that have no place in professional setting like university. You owe it yourself to report this behavior, hopefully the University will work to correct it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> He also said, “You aren’t going to get your husband to come in here and beat me up, are you?” I think he was making a joke but I'm "on the spectrum" so I'm not sure. I just said "no" and kept staring at him. I'm very socially awkward.
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I'm also "on the spectrum" and socially awkward.
One of the things that tends to happen to folk like you and me, while we're growing up, is that we get taught to blame ourselves whenever a social interaction goes badly - we get into the habit of assuming that we must have done something wrong.
It's not true, though. Sometimes the awkwardness isn't our fault at all - sometimes it's because the other person screwed up, and sometimes it's because they are an outright jerk. And that tendency to self-blame can make autistic/Aspie people very attractive targets to predatory types.
I'm not going to say that your professor is a sexual harasser... but I will say that there are plenty of stories of sexual harassment which start out with behaviour very similar to what you describe from your professor. Predatory types often use "jokes" as a way of testing where people's boundaries are - there's a sort of Schrodinger's Comedy thing where if you push back they'll fall back on "I was only joking", and try to make you feel bad for not being able to take a joke.
And when you stop pushing back, next time they will push a little further, and they will have a little more information about just how far they can push without you doing anything about it.
This guy has repeatedly done things that make you uncomfortable, even after you've asked him to stop. The awkwardness and discomfort here is *not your fault* and you have every right to take action about it.
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> He is only asking me if I am married before giving me feedback and to know that my husband has not completed my homework (which would be academic dishonesty).
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(1) This is not an effective way to detect dishonesty. If you ask a dishonest person "are you being dishonest?" they're going to say no.
(2) It would *also* be academic dishonesty if any of the male students were getting their wives (or indeed sisters, brothers, friends, ...) to complete their homework. But it doesn't sound as if he's asking them about that. Why not?
You've already made a great start by documenting things, and going to the program head or university HR would be a good next step. If you're concerned about his career, consider this: sooner or later, if not you, some other woman will almost certainly make a complaint about this behaviour, and things may not go as well for him. The earlier he learns that it's unacceptable, the better for everybody concerned.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Write down a timeline. A very detailed timeline. Bring it to the dean. Include quotes. If you want, you can bring a few people from class who have stood witness to this as backup, or perhaps just a list of a few names of students that are available for contact if there are questions from the administration.
Do not pursue this in court. But you must pursue this with the school. The behaviour damages their ability to deliver quality education and it is in everyone's interests to ensure that the situation gets resolved properly.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm an apologist of proportionality of measures. Start with simpler, less formal measures, and carry on from there. If need be, be more assertive as each measure fails.
Talk to him, but not in front of a whole class. For example, it can in a relatively empty hall of a building of a campus, or as he is leaving a class room. There must be people, if possible, but not too many. Don't isolate yourself when meeting him, and don't reprimand him in front of a crowd. This will increase the chances of attaining your goal, without much mess like some formal procedure. Go to you teacher and tell him what you're feeling when he makes those jokes about you. Tell him that you're being serious and you would like him to stop.
If he doesn't comply, and continues to behave in the same manner, then just proceed as it's described in some other answer to this question.
Without trying to the simpler measures first, and going head first with a timeline and a 'diary' of your interactions with him, you may come as somewhat 'neurotic', specially if they find out you're on the spectrum, and completely disregard your complaint.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: Well - the way he was bringing up the husband topic - **this is what we guys do if we are interested in a woman** and want to figure out the situation. So chances are he wanted to set up the man to woman frame. Or, maybe he just wanted to be more "familial" (or how would you say that in English).
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> I just said "no" and kept staring at him. I'm very socially awkward.
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Well, *he* was awkward. You felt awkwardness that he created and he probably didn't feel it. Do not blame yourself. It was a challenge for you and new situation. You didn't know how to deal with this, but now you have to face it. It is obviously a challenge, but also an **opportunity to learn how set up your healthy boundaries**! :-)
The best and most simple way is to **tell him upfront, that you don't feel comfortable him addressing your personal life.** It's not easy, I know, but here is the opportunity for yourself to learn to establish healthy boundaries. Here you have to go through the "awkwardness" feeling you mention, but it should be done before you involve any other people.
I commend you for not wanting to persecute him. For me as a European (thanks God!) it's ridiculous that people in America would persecute/sue each other without even having honest talk with each other first; it's also scary how many things can be labeled as "harrasment" and how people can be destroyed with it. I'm honestly glad the culture here in Europe is much different. Anyways, **express to him the clear, straight and direct NO to what he's doing, repeat it if necessary and if the situation doesn't improve, then I would think of involving other people.**
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: It’s true that in **some** universities, conservatives are persecuted, but I am still inclined to say “report it.” However, if you are reluctant, perhaps there is another “conservative” professor you could trust to advise you?
Unfortunately, there is the risk that your professor will retaliate with a bad grade—or even do so because you are female (since he apparently has rather strange attitudes about women).
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: I have to ask: Is your professor foreign? Indian, perhaps?
I ask because I am an Indian American and this is pretty much exactly how men in my family behave towards women who they perceive as junior to them, such as subordinates, junior coworkers, and students. If this is the situation here, you are right to identify it as non-sexual; it's not sexual, it's condescending and demeaning. However, sexual harassment includes what you consider sex-based harassment, so it's still sexual harassment even if it's not precisely sexual.
There is a reason men who behave like this frequently find themselves in meetings with HR in the private sector; in a university, they are allowed to get away with it, but they don't have to. I'd suggest simply taking your documentation and reporting it. **Holding people accountable for their actions is not "persecution", no matter their political affiliation/ideology or national background.** Any private sector company would have fired this guy long ago. No reason to go easy on him just because he's an academic (assuming he is; I'm almost done with my MS as well, and most of my professors are *not* academics - they teach only part-time).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Firstly, well done for not assuming too much about the professor's motives – now, it may *very well* be the case he has an "interest" in you, but many professors are just eccentric or come from a different culture (perhaps he is even "on the spectrum" himself, and doesn't know how to behave appropriately to female students, not that I'm exculpating him at all). Regardless, you've been magnanimous not to presume too much, and that is only a credit to your character in an age where it is perhaps fashionable to do the exact opposite.
All this aside, his behaviour is *most certainly* inappropriate in the US (or any place in the Western world I'd think), and though it sounds like you've dealt with it sensibly and appropriately up to now, you need to do something more. Since his behaviour is so persistent, you need to be more forceful with him, if you can. If you find social interactions awkward, as you say, then it may not be easy, and I have nothing but sympathy for you, but I do recommend that the next time you get a chance to speak to him briefly in private (perhaps after the next inappropriate comment he makes), you tell him straight-out that his questions/joking (to give him the username_4efit of the doubt) makes you highly uncomfortable and that he really must desist. No mincing words, so there can be no doubt in his mind – I don't know exactly how you told him before, but just step it up in forthrightness and put on your most serious tone, whilst remaining respectful/polite. If he accepts that (and hopefully apologises!), then great, you can get on with things and ideally there will be no bias against you – keep an eye out for that, mind you. If however he brushes off this direct and earnest request, then you need to tell him there and then that you don't want to make things difficult for him, but you will speak to the higher-ups in your university if need be. Then leave it there, see if his behaviour changes, but obviously feel free to seek further advice here or elsewhere if he relapses even once – basically though, the next step would be to actually follow through on your threat. Let's hope you don't have to take it that far, yet don't be afraid of doing so if the previous fails.
Good luck, and have strength! :-)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Two practical suggestions in addition to other relevant answer:
1. >
> I want to go to the program head or a higher up at the university. But I don't want to persecute my professor.
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Ok, so don't persecute: Talk to the program head informally - and tell him/her that at this point you do not wish for any formal action to be taken. Perhaps even have him/her guarantee you confidence before you tell him the details. **caveat:** @JonCuster informs us in a comment, that in some states in the world (e.g. in the USA) the program head would be legally obligated to report the case. If that's true where you live, then it's not clear what s/he would actually do. But see my next suggestion...
2. Consider consulting your your student union first - especially if you have department-level or cohort-level representation whom you know personally. It may help if *they* told your Professor to stop behaving the way he does. Again, you can do this informally; and the student union is not legally required to report.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have some high school students submitting assignments where the entire paper is copied from another source. They cited every line. Is this plagiarism? I'm sure they are just being lazy, but they are a smart lazy. I can't find anything to back up my suspicions that they should get a 0 on this assignment.
Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: This is not plagiarism, but poor work.
See [this](https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,168597.0.html) discussion on The Chronicle of Higher Education, where several instructors opined that this type of work was not plagiarism but deserved a low grade. One (polly\_mer), stated (my emphasis),
>
> I agree with Summers\_off that the grade is low for lack of doing the work. My syllabi and assignment sheets now have a comment of "**Multiple direct quotations or extensive paraphrasing with little original work will result in a low grade**" because I have had too many properly cited assignments that were all cut-and-paste with practically no synthesis.
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Plagiarism has an inherent gravamen of *dishonesty* - that the writer is *deceiving* the reader into thinking that the writing is the author's when it really isn't. Building a paper that is little more than a collection of quotations and paraphrases with corresponding citations isn't dishonest, it's just crappy work. Think of it like buying a car. If someone says that the car has been scrupulously maintained and has only 20,000 miles on it, but it actually has 125,000 and needs a new engine, that is dishonest, and quite likely leaves them open to legal liability for fraud. If someone tells you that the car they are selling is a hunk of rust and oil, then it's a literal *hunk of rust and oil* that you aren't going to pay that much for, are you? So, the student gets what they deserve - a low grade for low-quality work.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I used to have this issue.
I dealt with it by making the marking scheme cover discussion and relevant conclusions.
Once they got to grips with comments like, "good source, but how does it affect your conclusion?" then it tended to sort the issue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I’m guessing that the criteria sheet that you’re using has language that says something like “synthesises and analyses multiple data sources into a coherent, logical argument”. If they just quote and cite a bunch of sources without writing anything of their own, they’re not doing any analysis or synthesis, and you can fairly mark them down as a failing grade on that aspect of the criteria sheet (and likely a number of other aspects of their criteria sheet, too).
It wouldn’t be plagiarism or academic dishonesty, though.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I am aware that grants often only provide the earned money over a certain period of time. And if the money is not used up by the end of that period you lose access to it. Are there ways to effectively spend this money so it does not go completely to waste?
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*Note:* A previous version of this question asked about setting up shell companies, which is why some answers address them. That part of the question was removed.<issue_comment>username_1: This is not plagiarism, but poor work.
See [this](https://www.chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,168597.0.html) discussion on The Chronicle of Higher Education, where several instructors opined that this type of work was not plagiarism but deserved a low grade. One (polly\_mer), stated (my emphasis),
>
> I agree with Summers\_off that the grade is low for lack of doing the work. My syllabi and assignment sheets now have a comment of "**Multiple direct quotations or extensive paraphrasing with little original work will result in a low grade**" because I have had too many properly cited assignments that were all cut-and-paste with practically no synthesis.
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>
>
Plagiarism has an inherent gravamen of *dishonesty* - that the writer is *deceiving* the reader into thinking that the writing is the author's when it really isn't. Building a paper that is little more than a collection of quotations and paraphrases with corresponding citations isn't dishonest, it's just crappy work. Think of it like buying a car. If someone says that the car has been scrupulously maintained and has only 20,000 miles on it, but it actually has 125,000 and needs a new engine, that is dishonest, and quite likely leaves them open to legal liability for fraud. If someone tells you that the car they are selling is a hunk of rust and oil, then it's a literal *hunk of rust and oil* that you aren't going to pay that much for, are you? So, the student gets what they deserve - a low grade for low-quality work.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I used to have this issue.
I dealt with it by making the marking scheme cover discussion and relevant conclusions.
Once they got to grips with comments like, "good source, but how does it affect your conclusion?" then it tended to sort the issue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I’m guessing that the criteria sheet that you’re using has language that says something like “synthesises and analyses multiple data sources into a coherent, logical argument”. If they just quote and cite a bunch of sources without writing anything of their own, they’re not doing any analysis or synthesis, and you can fairly mark them down as a failing grade on that aspect of the criteria sheet (and likely a number of other aspects of their criteria sheet, too).
It wouldn’t be plagiarism or academic dishonesty, though.
Upvotes: 4
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2019/08/30
| 2,189
| 8,758
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm asking just about textbooks that are sold for profit, not free ones. I know journal authors can email their papers or articles free, but textbook? Is [Reddit comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/cx0cy3/logically_morally_humanely_what_should_be_free/eyj0lyh/) wrong?
I ask all subjects like finance, economics, law, not just science.
>
> Science textbooks. When a scientist gets published, he/she doesn't get any profit if the schools use it. Every textbook I've had hasn't been free, so I just email the publisher and find out one of the names (of whom was published) to email them. Since they get no money, they'll be glad to email you back the entire book, to which you can print off yourself. It's a life hack people should know instead of having to pay thousands for college textbooks. Edit: I did this with my Calculus/Geometry professor in ISU (Indiana State University) and he said that he only got one overall pay for being published with other professors, and that he would be glad to give it to me, as he would all of his students. I'm not lying.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: That quote is somewhat wrong.
>
> When a scientist gets published, he/she doesn't get any profit if the schools use it.
>
>
>
[The *typical* book published by a for-profit publisher *will* generate royalties for the author when sold](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/63619/how-much-revenue-do-academic-authors-make-on-their-published-books). (I say typical because there are books that work differently, e.g. they're given away for free or are open access.) These contracts typically tie the amount of royalties to the sales generated. If the publisher offers a discount, the authors get less. If the book is pirated, the authors get nothing. If you're interested in how much, see my answer to that question.
But this statement doesn't say the book is sold, it says "... if the schools use it". In this case, strictly speaking, they indeed don't. If a professor starts using so-and-so textbook for their class, the authors of the textbook indeed get nothing. However if the professor does that, then we can expect the book to sell more copies, in which case the authors indirectly get more royalties too.
>
> Every textbook I've had hasn't been free, so I just email the publisher and find out one of the names (of whom was published) to email them.
>
>
>
Why would anyone need to do this? The names of the authors are not just public knowledge, they're generally on the front cover.
>
> Since they get no money, they'll be glad to email you back the entire book, to which you can print off yourself.
>
>
>
Chances are the author cannot send the entire post-production book (usually - they can if it's open access, a special case, etc). They might be willing to send the draft, however. It will come down to each individual author. They might be happy if they just wanted to be read; others might react as [<NAME> did when Apple tried asking for her music for free](https://www.cultofmac.com/326931/taylor-swift-explains-bad-blood-apple-music/).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I am the author of a textbook. The book retails for $50. I get 50cents for every copy sold.
I do not own the copyright on the book and it would be illegal for me to sent you a copy, even if I had a copy to send (I mean, I have the original word documents, but the final PDF looks nothing like that).
The book has been scanned, and when it was not so old I know that copies of it did float around Pirate Bay. I wasn't particularly upset.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Textbook authors can be classified into two groups:
1. Authors who don’t wish for a free PDF of their book to exist online, available via a simple google search.
2. Authors who wish for an easily searchable, free PDF of their book to exist online.
For the record, I belong to group 2, so I make my book available for download for free from my webpage (with my publisher’s permission) - you don’t even need to email me. But if I belonged to group 1 I would never email someone I don’t know a PDF of my book, even if I were okay with just that one person getting it, since I could not trust them not to share it with others, who would share it with yet more people, essentially guaranteeing that a bootleg copy would end up on the web somewhere.
It may be that some authors belong to group 2 but for one reason or another haven’t made their book available for download for free as I have. Such an author might be okay with emailing a PDF of their book upon request.
It may also be that some authors belong to group 1 but don’t agree with my reasoning that emailing a PDF of their book to a stranger is the same as essentially expecting it to be made available for download online. Such an author may also end up emailing a student the PDF.
But I suspect that the large majority of authors in group 1 wouldn’t grant the email request, for the reason I explained (and/or other reasons, such as respecting their contractual obligations to the publisher, not wishing to forego royalties, and moral disapproval of the request for a free copy).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: That sounds like someone conflated a few mechanisms that are unrelated.
If you are working on your own paper, you are expected to cite any relevant work, and being cited improves your own standing, so authors will happily send you a copy of their papers if your university for some reason doesn't have access to the journal it was published in.
Generally if you need access to a paper you'd talk to your local librarian first, and they would check if they have a subscription for the appropriate journal, and emailing the author is a last-resort option. In some universities, that is also handled by the librarians, who will archive a copy in the local library as well then.
For textbooks, that mechanism doesn't work because you are not working on your own papers yet, so there is no direct incentive for authors to bypass the publishers. Some still do that, because having textbooks available to all students streamlines the lectures quite a bit, which produces better evaluations.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: In the vast majority of cases: **No**. It's conceivable that a publisher *might* allow an author to give away their commercial assets, but unsustainable and rare.
The author's contract assigns the publisher the **exclusive** right to the text, for use in the book, which is a creation of the publisher. The author is no longer free to give the text to anyone else for the duration of the contract.
Other elements of the book, such as images, or chapters written by others, plus editorial alterations and the typeset design, will not be the author's intellectual property.
With regard to pricing, a typical academic text book breaks down as follows:
50% of the recommended retail price (RRP) goes to the bookseller. Large book chains with clout can negotiate up to 60%. They can discount the retail price from their end, if they wish. Booksellers usually get books 'sale or return', so they can return any unsold stock to the publisher without loss.
Royalties are payable to the authors, usually 8-12% of the retail price, depending on the type of sale and book, and as pointed out in other answers, a team of authors have to share the fraction available. Royalties are usually paid as an advance on the first print run's quantity, so if the book doesn't sell, the authors still get paid.
Royalties are also payable on images used throughout the book: in a large illustrated textbook, these can be considerable.
From the remaining 30% or so, the publisher must pay for printing, distribution, warehousing. The publisher must also pay the editors, designers, salespeople, marketeers and others who work on the book, plus all the overheads of running their business before any profit is collected (probably less than the author's royalty). A publisher 'invests' in the creation of a book and takes the risk of it not selling.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: There is no unique answer, as there are dozens of subtleties.
However, in the standard situation on a non-open-access book, if the authors distribute their copies, they are likely to reduce the profit of the publisher and, by the law of most countries, may face legal claims of lost profit from the publishers.
Still, some authors send their PDF on a case-by-case basis (simply to ensure high visibility or because of a personal relationship with the recipient) upon getting an ok from the recipient that they won't distribute the PDF further. I got several books via e-mail this way, and I never distributed any book further.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/08/31
| 705
| 3,085
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<issue_start>username_0: We had a client who submitted samples for chromatographic analysis years ago to our research service lab. The client is now an assistant professor in a state university campus. The research is now under editorial review and the editors want some "cosmetic" touch ups to the chromatograms prior to publication.
We provide data processing fees since the processing of her data requires specialized software. We already sent the raw files and the plot numeric data in text format so the cosmetic processing can be done in Excel or Origin or other generic plotting software.
Yet the client still wants our lab to do the processing of the plots which can be done in Excel. Honestly I think the client is just too busy to replot the data with customized annotations themselves for their own publication.
The data processing request includes:
1) Replot the chromatograms so the more prominent peaks are better seen overall
2) Add annotations to the peaks
Honestly this is the first time I encountered such a request where the client requested something to be done by us that could be done by anyone who is publishing academically.
I mean an assistant professor who is about to publish their research should be able to plot data from a text file and do the annotations themselves...or get a subordinate do it for you and not ask the service lab to do it in Excel for their benefit...<issue_comment>username_1: 1. Payment:
Don't do it for free. Tell him what it will cost and make sure he gives you a valid charge code or prepay (if external) ahead of time.
To be diplomatic, I would say something like "We can't do this service unless paid and will charge [double whatever you are first thinking]. However as you have the raw data, please feel free to make these edits yourself."
2. Ethics/responsibility:
If you think the data modification and presentation moves you too much to making an analytical inference (and taking responsibility for it)...or for sure if it is in any way "overegging the pudding", then just decline and tell him to do his own presentations. With some diplomatic comment about your center only providing data files and presentation work being responsibility of researchers. I would also lean this way if you are worried about becoming his "secretary" (having the images sent back and forth for inevitable revisions and further touchups).
3. People:
He's probably hoping to get you to do extra work for him. There will always be people who push a bit and who try to get away with what they can. Just be calm and firm.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: He bought and paid for his data in the agreed format at the time, contract concluded on both sides.
Re-formatting his data is in his domain now and there are many programs that can be used apart from excel.
If he wants to engage your services, then it is a new contract with rates that you define at the outset for your services. You are, of course, free to say that data analysis or polishing is not part of your remit as you produce the data, not analyse it.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/31
| 616
| 2,680
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<issue_start>username_0: I know that it's a horrible thing to do. It was a professor at a prestigious University who expressed interest in my ideas. I never responded because severe conflict broke out between me and my family regarding my career choice. And that was a year ago. Conflict is still there but I'm stronger, and I sent a sincere apology to the professor, but I still want to know how bad my situation is if I want to reapply to the same University for a Masters (i don't even dare to hope to work with the same professor).<issue_comment>username_1: If it is a coursework masters, then you would have minimal or no interaction with the previous professor, unless the professor is teaching a subject in the Masters.
If it is a research masters and you are in the same department, then you would be working or at least bumping into the prof at departmental meetings and events.
Seems unlikely that there would be great animosity. Your circumstances seems very reasonable and most people would not react adversely or take it too personally. I am sure if you are in the professor's department, then you can have a casual chat and smooth over any frustrations. The prof might be able to collaborate or support you in some way as they were previously interested.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It may take time until a student is ready to actually start a thesis. Unless you promised something firmly and flaked out, I do not think that there is much personal harm done.
Of course, the professor may have become interested in other things in the meantime, and his original interest in your question could have evaporated. But it's worth getting back in contact to see how things stand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: While it depends on personalities, you might find that all avenues are still open to you. Professors, even quite prestigious ones, are still people, and most of them (us?) care about students and understand their difficulties.
But, the best way to remove issues from the past is to do so in person. A letter or email isn't enough. Nor can you evaluate the response if you just send a mail. Go to visit the professor and apologize for what happened earlier, but also explaining that you had personal/family issues that were affecting your ability to work effectively toward your future. You can remind him/her of your old work and ask if there is any possibility to continue that, or something similar, in the future.
You might be told no, of course, but if you don't ask then there is no hope. But I think that you would get a strongly negative response only if the person isn't someone you should really work with anyway.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/08/31
| 2,079
| 8,030
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<issue_start>username_0: This is a question specific to mathematics.
>
> * what is the status of the journal Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society (Proc. AMS)?
>
>
>
It seems to be a generalist journal that only publishes short papers, and has a massive output (in 2018: 12 issues on 5485 pages). The [blurb](https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/journalsframework/aboutproc) says :
>
> "*To be published in the Proceedings, a paper must be correct, new, and
> significant. Further, it must be well written and of interest to a
> substantial number of mathematicians. Piecemeal results, such as an
> inconclusive step toward an unproved major theorem or a minor
> variation on a known result, are in general not acceptable for
> publication*".
>
>
>
Yet on Scimago it is ranked below most of the journals I have heard about (in their [math/stats ranking](https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=2600) it is [#256](https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?area=2600&page=6&total_size=2011), **edit:** in the [subranking](https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?category=2601) that lists mostly pure math journals, it is still lower than most I know **edit ends**). Nevertheless, I see that very well established researchers sometimes publish there (I won't give names obviously).
So to be more specific :
>
> * do you always submit somewhere else first, and it the paper is rejected then consider Proc. AMS ?
> * or maybe is publishing there an act of "giving back to the community by promoting the AMS" ?
> * or is it mostly a journal for anybody who needs a quick publication (as the workflow seems quite fast) ?
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: *do you always submit somewhere else first, and it the paper is rejected then consider Proc. AMS ?*
I've never submitted to the journal. In general, it is true that in many respects the best math journals are the generalist journals, but if a paper was rejected for not being interesting enough, I'd likely be substantially more inclined to resubmit it to a more specialist journal, and not to a generalist journal like the Proc. AMS. That said, if one is building up a standard career, it is important to build up a CV that has at least some papers which are in journals which are generalist journals, so people don't feel like your work is so specialized that anyone outside one's own area won't be able to interact with you. This is important for hiring decisions for post-docs, VAPs and tenure-track positions.
*or maybe is publishing there an act of "giving back to the community by promoting the AMS" ?*
I don't know of anyone who publishes with the AMS to deliberately give back to them. Unless one is already tenured, having that sort of desire to give back influence where one publishes would be odd. There are a bunch of other ways mathematicians give back to the AMS, such as by writing reviews for MathSciNet, which is run by the AMS.
*or is it mostly a journal for anybody who needs a quick publication (as the workflow seems quite fast) ?*
In general in math, one rarely *needs* quick publication since one can put things up on the arXiv and math is very fond of preprints. There is a difference between a preprint that's been submitted to a journal and an accepted paper, and if one is at a particularly bureaucratic school, such a thing might even be a relevant distinction for tenure if one is borderline, but that would itself be weird. While issues with long publication time can be a problem (I have one personal horror story involving it), it is very rare to target a journal based on their review/publication time. I'm also not sure what makes you conclude that the workflow is quick. What gives you that impression?
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Scimago is a clearly false, possibly semi-fake ranking. It is very easy to check this: for instance when I clicked on your link I got the following amusing result:
*Vital and health statistics. Series 2, Data evaluation and methods research* is considered of higher ranking **for mathematicians** (!) than the *Annals of Mathematics*.
There is no need to elaborate more.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Subjectively my impression is that Proceedings of the AMS is a very good journal for short papers. Having a paper there says two things: 1) The paper is short, and 2) For a short paper, it's a good paper. No one is going to mistake a Proceedings publication for one in the Annals, but no one is going to question whether it's good work.
As for the rankings, very short papers are rarely as substantial or influential as longer papers, so it's not really fair to compare a journal that only publishes short papers to a typical journal. It would be more fair to compare it only to the short papers in another journal, but this data is difficult to find. Nonetheless I expect that Proceedings would rank reasonably highly once you compare papers of similar length.
---
I tried an alternative measure that seems reasonable, but in the end the numbers are weird so I don't think it's a great measurement. But since I have the data here it is.
One could rate journals *per page* instead of *per article*. Eigenfactor gives a nice way to do this, since the un-normalized Eigenfactor is calculated at the level of all papers published in the journal. Their "article influence" is measured by dividing Eigenfactor by number of articles (and normalizing), so we can equally well calculate "page influence" by dividing [2010 Eigenfactor](http://www.eigenfactor.org/projects/journalRank/rankings.php?search=PQ&year=2010&searchby=isicat&orderby=Eigenfactor) by [2010 number of pages published](https://www.ams.org/membership/journal-survey.pdf). Normalizing by multiplying by 10^6, this gives: JAMS 13.4, Acta Math. 8.6, Proc. AMS 7.1, Annals 5.9, Trans. AMS 4.9, J. Alg. 4.9, Adv. Math. 4.5. By that measurement Proc. AMS would be a very highly ranked journal! I think that naively just measuring per page unfairly advantages short papers relative to long ones so one shouldn't treat these numbers as too meaningful, but the numbers you were looking at unfairly penalize short papers, and the truth is somewhere in between.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Do you always submit somewhere else first, and if the paper is
> rejected then consider Proc. AMS ?
>
>
>
What kind of journal selection algorithm is this? Surely at some point you're going to want to take into account the strength of your paper, right?
Speaking only for myself, I've had papers that I thought weren't strong enough to publish in PAMS and which I submitted to more specialized journals, have had papers which I felt were strong enough to be published in significantly more selective journals, and have had a paper published in PAMS. When I decided to submit the latter paper to PAMS, I did so because I thought the paper was of broad appeal (thus meriting publication in a generalist journal) and because there was an editor at the journal that I thought would like the paper and know of some good potential referees.
>
> or maybe is publishing there an act of "giving back to the community
> by promoting the AMS" ?
>
>
>
My own opinion of the AMS journals is that PAMS is a very good journal, TAMS is excellent and JAMS is one of the top two or three journals in all of pure math. In general people publish in the AMS journals because they're great journals. The only sense in which you might be correct would be if someone were to choose to publish in an AMS journal over a similarly ranked journal published by a giant company like Elsevier or Springer. This seems quite plausible.
>
> or is it mostly a journal for anybody who needs a quick publication
> (as the workflow seems quite fast) ?
>
>
>
I've only published one paper in PAMS, and I found the journal neither especially fast nor especially slow. It was about average, I would say. (I think I received a referee's report after approximately six months.)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/01
| 7,307
| 30,150
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<issue_start>username_0: Over the last couple of years, math and programming have become a big part of my life; I know I’ll pursue a career involving CS and math (most probably machine learning) and usually, my days revolve around these two. Now, I do not have a problem with doing either of those things; in fact, I love doing math and programming. I literally can’t tell you how much I enjoy opening my number theory book and tackle difficult problems for hours, or create a neural network that plays a video game. My main issue is the things I miss - since I go to school, I only have so much free time and most of that time is spent doing math or programming so I don’t get to do anything else. No more exercising, reading books, hanging out with friends, etc. On a normal day, I do around 4 hours of math and programming and the rest of it is taking a shower, eating, just basic things, with no time to do fun stuff. So every now and then, I try reducing that 4 hours but I feel like if I study for less than 4 hours a day at least, I won’t be able to be a top tier data scientist or mathematician.
My question is, how do you manage to study and have a balance in your life at the same time? Is that even possible or do you have to sacrifice one in order to achieve the other?
A couple of things to note:
1. If it matters, I’m in grade 9.
2. One of the reasons I feel like I have to study at least 4 hours a day is because there are so many things I’m currently studying - for olympiad: number theory, geometry, and algebra; grade 10 math; competitive programming; and machine learning. I don’t study all of these in one day - I usually only do 3 of these a day but even then, if I spend 80 minutes, that’ll take up 4 hours. So maybe stopping doing one of these things is a good option?<issue_comment>username_1: **Time management and reasonable expectations**. You need to determine what, specifically, your goals are, and why. It sounds like you enjoy what you are learning, but you are letting learning take over other aspects of your life. This is bad almost always. Here are my suggestions:
1. You shouldn't be studying everything every day. This is for many reasons, but one of them is that you literally will learn better if you don't. Our brains need time to process and contextualize information. This is why sometimes leaving a problem for a while and coming back to it leads to a solution you didn't see before. Say you drop one thing per day, so now you're only doing 2 per day, not 3. That frees up an hour and 20 minutes per day, and it gives you time to think.
2. With the free time, again, prioritize. You will now have about an hour to do something else. Perhaps you choose to exercise three times per week, do some de-stressing (read, play a game) twice per week, and see friends twice per week. Don't try to do it all at once.
Finally, we get to reasonable expectations. Regardless of your age, excelling at something is not equivalent to doing it as much as possible. Practice doesn't make perfect - it makes permanent. That means a few things:
1. If you are practicing the wrong thing, you get really good at making mistakes.
2. If you spend all of your time learning things in isolated fields, you will become a walking book.
3. It's not what you put in that matters, it's what you get out.
Point 3 bears more discussion. Just because you are implementing algorithms doesn't mean you are learning anything. If I play the piano but I stick with pieces I've played since I was 6, I don't get better at piano. Choose to focus on very challenging problems. For instance, if your algorithm can play flappy bird for 2 minutes without failing, what, specifically, is required to get it to play for 10% longer? Are you focusing on really solving the problems, or are you just using someone else's code and seeing what happens? If it's the latter, don't waste your hour and twenty minutes, it won't help you in your goal.
Top-tier scientists in machine learning (for example) understand both the algorithms they work on as well as the problems they are trying to solve. They are technical experts, but that doesn't mean that they are hermits working away forever without any access to the outside world. Having a passion is important, but don't **become** your passion - be a well-rounded person with exceptional expertise. This means that you will need to accept that your progress will be slower than it could theoretically be if you only dedicated yourself to your studies. I assure you that every "top-tier" researcher I've ever encountered has had something that isn't their central problem to solve.
I think that's one of the things you will need to set an expectation for. You seem to think that it is impossible to be a top-tier researcher if you don't exclusively focus on your studies. Try...not doing that, as I suggested above, and really, honestly evaluate your progress.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it matters that you are in grade 9. It is probably a good thing that you are able to do what you like to do (math and computing), but it seems too early to focus yourself quite so much on narrow interests. The problem that might arise is that you get burned out before you are 20 years old with no backup plan for your life and also poor health and no relationships with people. That would be sad.
It is good to work intensely at something, but not quite as good to do so to the exclusion of other things. There is a lot to learn, and you are recognizing that now, at least a bit. In fact, making time for those other things, such as exercise (aerobic especially) and relaxation (reading, talking, ...) can actually make the intense study that you do more effective. At least this is true for most people, though there are exception. But, for most, continuing to push hard against an intellectual problem, say in math, can just waste time and lead to a deeper block, than taking a break. It turns out that, again, for most people, the brain/mind will continue to work on putting connections together when you are engaged in other activities, even sleeping.
But, for someone as young as yourself, I'd suggest that you think about the following priorities. First, your health, both mental and physical. Next, your relationships, both family and friends. Next, getting a lot of experience of different kinds, studying lots of things with deep study of a few of them. You seem to have the deep study part mastered, but may be missing out on the wide experience that can make the deep study more meaningful and also give you options to change direction as you grow older.
It is good to have some direction in your life, but not, yet, a good idea to exclude all other potential paths that you might follow.
As for time management, you can do it formally, or informally. If you joint a sports team or other directed activity, then your schedule will be set for you. But you can also just decide that you will ride your bike for an hour every day - preferably with a few friends. Or you can just decide, even more informally, that when you get stuck on a math problem that you take a walk in the woods for half an hour, or read a chapter in a book. Something to provide a bit of variety.
At a later stage in your life you will be forced by circumstances to specialize in something. It is good if you put that off for a while so that you have the opportunity to make the decision about where to specialize with more background knowledge and experience than you now have.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: To add on to the other two excellent answers, I want to say that you perhaps are putting too much on your own plate.
>
> number theory(for olympiad and not applied), geometry(again, for olympiad), algebra(olympiad again), grade 10 math, competitive programming and machine learning
>
>
>
This is way too much to learn at the same time, especially since you are still going to school. Even undergrad students don't do so much at the same time: they might take a few classes on different topics concurrently, sure, but they have the luxury of time. All or most of the classes they take will be on these topics that they are studying, which I bet isn't the case for you.
I would suggest **picking one thing to do at once, and doing it well**. You can't learn effectively within time constraints if you're doing five different topics at the same time. Your brain needs time to digest new information that is learnt, and you have to give it space to do so. If your brain has no space to breathe, you'll not learn effectively, not to mention that it will (needlessly) take away time from other things in life while not giving you anything good to make up for it.
In addition, don't just study a topic because you feel like you "should" (e.g. because that's what's tested in Olympiads), do it because you like it. Try out a bunch of different things and try to see what you like, instead of doing it for the sake of doing it. If you already have a strong passion for everything you're currently doing, great! Keep that up and also be on the lookout for other things on the horizon. Otherwise, find a passion in one particular item and stick to it for a while. (Note: I'm not suggesting that you abandon everything else, but you can't do everything at once. Focus on this one thing that seems interesting at the moment for a while at least--perhaps a few weeks. But don't get sucked in so much that you ignore everything else.)
Practically: don't feel "obliged" to study four hours a day, in the fields that look like you "have to" study. Just pick one thing you like, and do it as a hobby. Stick to it for a while, but it you ever get disinterested, don't be afraid to switch. You'll come out liking math better, and you'll be much better at it too (ironically). Be careful not to get absorbed, or it will suck away the rest of your life, as you observed!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It seems like you know at least as much CS/math as the average sophomore in college, and you're only in grade 9. You're well on your way to being a top-tier data scientist/mathematician... spending 4 hours a day right now isn't at all necessary. I'd recommend picking the subjects you enjoy the most and studying for roughly 2 hours.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: One thing to add to the other, great answers is that it's also important to back off sometimes in order to see how much effort you actually need.
When we're passionate enough to want to work at the highest level, it's easy to act on that by filling every hour.
But of course, if you think about it more objectively, that may or may not be best.
* As a serious student, don't forget it is a genuine question to ask if you might do equally as well - or rather well enough - with less time.
You might try taking one topic or activity and cutting back it's clock time slowly
and see if you can't actually maintain the growth or success you want.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: To add on to the fantastic answers: while some of the topics that interest will stay the same (i.e. math), the 'popular' topics may change (i.e. machine learning). It is absolutely fantastic that you are practicing so young, but do not burn yourself out on a topic that may look very different in 3-5 years (i.e. by the time you are in the midst of university). It is a skill in and of one's self to be adaptable.
For example, widespread 'popular' machine learning started in about 2013/2014 (although it had been in development long before that). In another 5-10 years, there will likely be another 'popular' field (that may be describable with combinations like 'data chemist', 'deep biologist', 'data engineer for economics', etc) which may be attractive to you. So, **read carefully what others are saying**: while it is certainly advantageous to have a foundation in mathematics, computer science, etc., **the problem you apply it is also immensely important**.
What parts about life interest you? Do you like history? Perhaps you'd like to analyze historical records for trade trends, or map historical routes using satellite sensors that pierce into the earth. Do you like study the human body? While we have the most advanced medical interventions the world has known, the cause of many diseases remain completely unknown (search 'Neglected Tropical Diseases'). Perhaps you are more interested in art? Well, there is a large section of chemistry and materials engineering trying to figure out how to better preserve the historical objects in museums.
Your intense efforts so young are commendable and will likely pay off, but remember that many great researchers make achievements through passion about the subject (not to mention a heavy dollop of being in the right place at the right time). So read broadly! Examine your interests! Be open to change, and accept that your interests will likely change over time.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: A couple of ther points to consider, at least from my own experience.
1) "Study" has diminishing returns, at least in programming-related things. It's much more efficient to focus on understanding broad principles, and on where to look up the details when & if you need them.
2) Your mind will function a lot better if it's in a healthy body. And a corrolary to this is that I do some of my best problem-solving when I'm out hiking, cross-country skiing, or doing other physical things. The subconscious part of your brain will do a better job of integrating the things you've studied if your conscious mind is doing something else. Or else it's just increased blood flow to the brain :-)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: My opinion differs somewhat from the current answers (which primarily focuses on doing less and exploring more), which is why I'm writing an answer to perhaps balance things out a bit.
Some context. I worked pretty hard when I was 15 to end of 16 (I'm in Singapore which follows roughly the UK GCSE system so providing the specific age is probably more helpful here) in preparation for the O level national exams. That single exam determines your high school choices, which may affect your A level exams (at age 18), which affect your university choices, etc. So yeah, stakes were high. I was pushing myself to the point where I had my notes almost everywhere I go, to pull out and read whenever. This include family dinners, toilets, buses, you name it. I photocopied my notes so I can fold some and keep in my pockets at all times. That was more than 10 years ago, so looking back, these are my thoughts.
First, the pros. **If you persist with this for long enough, everything else is going to feel like a breeze later on.** You'll see people complaining about their long 9-6 hours and you'll go lol in your head. It translates into a strong work ethic, if only because you'll feel guilty about "wasting" time. You'll be really good at picking out lost time packets, those 5-15 minute chunks that people just dismiss. These obviously manifest itself into academic (and probably career) success later on, because what felt hard to others in terms of time devotion feels easy to you. A similar concept applies for jobs with long working hours (e.g. investment bankers, lawyers, doctors, when they're at the junior level), in that everything that comes after is going to feel trivial when compared to how hard they had to push themselves previously.
Second, **early childhood academic success frequently leads to a higher self-esteem and greater confidence in what you can do and achieve.** You're probably still going to feel self-conscious about your looks and stuff, but that positive feedback loop of working-hard=>achievement-praise-directly-related-to-hard-work (which apply in schools but may not in workplaces) is probably going to give you that assurance that so long as you work at it, you can achieve whatever you want. That you're good enough, and all that is lacking is work that you have the proven ability to commit to and deliver. This makes things like learning new hard subjects and skills easier and so likelier for you, which comes in handy. Career switches, esoteric subjects you need for your major/job, or just trying out skiing for the first time, it's fairly generic.
Third, and this is a point that may invite some disagreements. **It's easier for you to commit to such a schedule now, when your life is simpler.** I presume you don't have to worry about food, accommodation, you have splendid access to a pool of people from which it is very easy to make friends (school, common interests, stuck together during most of the day), and you kind-of only have one thing to do now to obtain "success", namely study. It's harder in the future when success is far more ambiguous and you find yourself having to perform well on several axes all at once, not all of which is evident to you until you learn it the hard way. So if you don't work hard now, it isn't going to be easier to work hard, or to figure out what to work hard on to get what you want later on.
So, yup. My advice would be this: **Continue to do what you do. Never feel guilty about spending too much time working.** (honestly, crucify me but I really don't agree otherwise. When you're 30 and neglecting your family and kids, sure. When you're 15 and healthy and your family members are healthy and there's a positive feedback effect in how success compounds itself in life? Err, no, clearly not.) Go all out for it. Put in your best shot. Exploit your potential to the max, never hold back. **Know that what you have, is precious.** Guard this motivation, defend it jealously, and exploit it fully. It will not last forever.
But.
**Take note of the cons. Mitigate them somewhat, in an efficient manner.** There's this maximisation-satisfaction idea, that you spend enough time and effort to satisfy some stuff, and then spend the remaining to maximise your performance in something else, in this case your work.
So, what to satisfy. This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, so be open to the fact that there will be others and look out for them, but otherwise here it goes.
First, **your family.** I don't have much information to work with, with regards to your family practices, so I'll just throw out a few. Try to spend time with them efficiently. Optimise for fully interactive activities that involve all, so you clear them all at once. Things like family dinners with everyone, somewhere nearby since the transport process isn't efficient for interactions. Talk to them more if you don't mind, your time is spent anyway so make the most out of it. Avoid things like long drives, movies, you know what I mean, the less efficient ones. Try to go for at least one proper dinner like this once a month. Or even family board games night, whatever works for your family. By the way, in case this is taken wrongly, I don't mean you spending this time as a checkbox thing. Genuinely interact with them. Have the mindset that you want to spend time with them, but time is limited so you'll make the best out of every second, instead of thinking of it as clearing a quota.
Second, **your classmates and friends.** Now, there are several time periods in school that is inefficient for studying, but optimal for such interactions. Things like recess, physical education classes, that sort. Make full use of them, drop those books then (maybe, decide for yourself which sessions are worth doing so **or** you want to do so) and commit fully to your friends and classmates. Again, see mindset from family, same thing here. Make friends, make new friends, but never feel obliged to go for stuff that you don't want. It's just going to breed resentment, you're going to hit the books harder because of the guilt and frustration, you'll be inefficient because of that, and yeah it just goes down from there. It's not worth it. You matter. Your choices, your decisions matter. Your time is yours, nobody has a right to them. Nobody. So, commit mostly only to those you want to go (but try to make your word count. Say no a lot right from the start, I know peer pressure, but trust me it's better than bailing later). I assure you, people care about your presence far less than you think. So, don't worry about it.
Third, **physical health.** Meh, you'll be fine, combine it with the friends time (or even family if they like that kind). PE lessons, go all out for it. Go for (some) badminton/soccer/whatever outings, you satisfy your friends/family along with physical health. Otherwise, it's mostly k, take care of your eyes, get a bigger monitor so you can increase font size/print your notes in larger font. People are going to ask why, they're going to say it's unnecessary, you're wasting paper/money. Whatever, ignore them, your eyes are worth way more. Distance matters a lot, try to increase it. Avoid strongly studying in low light. Also take note of your posture when studying.
Fourth, **mental health.** I split this from physical because it is important, even though you may not realise it now. You have to spend some time doing what you like. For yourself, not for others, not because it's efficient, not because it satisfies whatever. For yourself. Obviously don't take it to the extreme, but an hour a day on average is ok. On average, so if you're spending half a day gaming on a weekend, yeah that cuts into the rest. Two points here. First, this guy gets a free pass. If you need to extend, so be it. Console yourself by thinking that you'll be more efficient if you're motivated, and you'll be more effective. What's the difference? Being more efficient means you spend less 15-second blocks staring at the blank wall because you're bored. Being more effective means when you encounter a problem that you can solve but it reminds you you're not actually that familiar with a particular concept, you go to your book and read that section, rather than subconsciously dismissing it (you can solve it, right?). It matters quite a bit to your overall performance, more than what you might imagine, and happens more than you think. Be aggressive about filling in the gaps, but know when it's a fruitless time-sink and cut losses then.
Second point, see the above time spent on family/friends? Try to combine them, so you try to go for stuff that you genuinely enjoy, and avoid stuff that you don't. Think of it as a freebie. Viola, free time yo. Of course, if your family really wants to try that mexican restaurant but you hate mexican food, do it once in a while still.
Finally, **explore other academic areas with a view on ensuring that you're not pigeon-holing yourself due to your interests.** It's far too easy to say oh maths is really good as a college major/career choice, and incidentally I like maths. The former may be true, but you need to be aware that you're just rationalising here (but, the former **may** be true, so don't just dismiss). I'm not going to pretend that I know what the requirements for a top-tier data scientist 20 years down the road is going to need (although it sure as hell isn't geography or literature), so try to talk to some people who are in that field. Be aggressive about asking, put yourself out there, so long as you're genuine and nice and polite people will be ok with it. Send them a thank-you message/email after. Think of it as free advice, just grab it whenever you have the chance. Three points here. First, don't place too much weight on what your teachers say, they're detached from the job market, and many may never have even tried to get into industry, so they haven't gone through the what-are-they-looking-for search at all. Second, don't place too much weight on a singular person, no matter how esteemed. Obviously weight it by who they are, but don't place all your bets on a single horoscope reading (because predicting the future is). Third, trust yourself. If it smells like rubbish, it \*probably is, even if that someone assure you it's not. Unless it's a few, in which case do some research on your own. Also, don't pigeon-hole yourself into single careers. Explore a bit, try more if it's fun, especially if it's assessed in your exams. Might as well.
That about sums it up from me. In direct response to your questions, yes studying for less than 4 hours isn't going to exclude you from whatever circles you wish to join. Still, if pretending that that is true helps in motivating you, go ahead. Some circles are quite competitive. No, I don't think you should drop any. If you like them, go for it. They're all really useful skills that scale very well. Number theory is highly abstract and that mathematical mental framework helps in making many college-level maths subjects easier to gain a deep understanding, I \*think, depending on which level you're at. At a high school or US non-grad college level, yes it's quite transferable. Geometry scales well up to and incl college physics/maths, algebra scales to when you die, competitive programming and optimisation helps you understand OS/systems stuff at a deep level, machine learning is the new black (and everyone's wearing black, which is bloody annoying but whatever). By the way, and I don't mean to burn the US here, but you need to be aware that US standards for maths and related is kind of low. To put things in perspective, the singapore PSLE maths exam (which is taken at age 12) is comparable/harder than the SAT maths. Like, it's obvious it is, I'm not exaggerating. So, yeaaaaah. You can go a lot further, it's k, you're probably/definitely not so far ahead that you should stop.
**Trust, but verify.** You're a really mature and intelligent individual, your weakness is probably in experience. So trust yourself in the calls you make, but verify with some people whose opinion you trust. Some, not just one/a few, otherwise there's a tendency for selection bias. But make the call yourself, and bear the consequences yourself, you'll be fine. Dare to ask, many people (as you may have realised here from my long story) have too much time on their hands and are too eager to spew their hard-earned bullshit to anyone who would listen. So ask, accept first, and then verify, through personal research and perhaps asking others.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: >
> most of that time is spent doing math or programming so I don’t get to do anything else. No more exercising, reading books, hanging out with friends, etc.
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So, this is bothering you, on one hand, but you're drawn to go on studying, on the other hand. Consider helping your balance of motivation by adding some kind of "pull" from the non-study activities side.
For example, if there's some kind of group activity you could participate in, and you took on some sort of responsibility (e.g. simple and maybe-irrelevant example - you're the person who brings the ball to a soccer game), or be in a situation where other people depend on your attending - that should help pull you away from your studies to some extent. Or - you enroll in some group at a community or sports center, e.g. sports, theater, film or whatever: You will have officially committed to it, and although you won't be formally penalized if you don't show up, that commitment has its psychological effect.
These two examples also demonstrate how setting time-slots may help you. You don't have to make the decision "I'll stop studying now" every single time, you're just deciding on a schedule once.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Just wanted to point out your sentence that states: "I won't be able to be a top-tier data scientist or mathematician if I don't study this much every day." This is unfortunately true, unless you're a da Vinci level genius.
I would recommend re-evaluating your goals. Do you really need to be top-tier? You can be mid-tier and get an excellent job that pays well and has benefits. Keep in mind that the harder you work to get to the top, the harder you'll likely have to work at the top, as the most "successful" people generally work very long hours and sacrifice things like fun and family.
As Michael says in his comment, don't waste your life on your career. Put time into it, but don't make it your everything. It's important to diversify what brings you joy and validation and self-worth so if one thing falls through, you won't be totally devastated and depressed.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_10: There are about seven great answers to this question, so there is not a lot to add here, but still, I find this 3500+ year old quote quite interesting to mention.
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> Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
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Religious matters aside, I think it's critical to take one day per week off, distracting yourself with other matters (family, friends, sports, games, hobbies...). The main reasons are those stated in previous answer (your brain needs resting and operating in "subconscious mode"). This will also give you time to build your relationships with other people and/or to exercise.
Still, I think once a week is probably not enough. At least two more times a week it is good to have a couple resting hours to dedicate to these activities, but anyway this is up to you. You have to figure out yourself what works and what doesn't, because it's different for each of us!
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: Don't worry, if you study 2-3 hours a night instead of 4 hours a night, I guarantee that you WILL be top-tier in your field. I can also pretty much guarantee that if all you do is study and practice, you will NOT be top-tier. Your life will suffer in ways you do not currently understand. To torture some AI terms: you are overfitting. You are obsessing about a local minima and missing the larger picture that contains a more global minima. I suggest watching Are you GETTING AFTER IT too hard - <NAME>
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LWPC-jaqkY>
You are a human, programming machines. You are not a machine. Take time to be human.
It's awesome that you are so intrigued and dedicated to your studies :)
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a (maths) paper that generalises an earlier work, and aplies it to something slightly different.
The problem is, I am literally having to step through the previous paper, and point out how the more general case would differ. My paper is therefore essentially entirely based on this work (though there are substantial chunks here and there whcih are original). I am not entirely sure how to approach this case. On other SE posts, it suggests to paraphrase. That is clearly not suitable in this case.<issue_comment>username_1: I would discuss this with your adviser, but in general, you can rewrite chunks and state explicitly things like "This is the same method as Foo, but instead of inequality A here note we now use inequality B" and things like that. Another thing to do that may be useful is to split things up into separate lemmas. If something is explicitly a lemma in the original one just needs to cite it. If one has a slightly more general lemma, one just needs to say it is the same technique and say a few words about how the proof is slightly different. If the original isn't broken down into small chunks, one can make those chunks yourself and then for each say things like, "See page n of Foo" or something similar.
One thing to do also is if it is very close to an earlier paper is to make sure that that's explicitly noted in the paper. Note that it isn't just a generalization but that it uses similar techniques. Also, make sure to send drafts of your paper to the original authors before you send yours out.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You should note that you can use all of the *ideas* of the other paper, so long as you give proper attribution and citation so that you don't claim the original as your own. You can't, however, use "too many" of their actual words and must quote and cite the ones you do. The first issue is plagiarism and the second is copyright. Be sure to avoid both.
But if you write a proof that has the same structure as the other, using the same lemmas and referencing the same earlier work, it shouldn't be a problem, especially as you say you will explicitly state that the overall structure is the same.
You don't need to work to make it seem different where it isn't. For some sorts of things, especially in math, there may be, in essence, only one way to properly state something. This is recognized both in law and in practice.
However, it is possible that reviewers will suggest to you that your work isn't especially *novel* and may want to reject it on that basis. But if your conclusion is sufficiently interesting, and you support that idea by making it explicit, you may avoid that pitfall also.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2019/09/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm starting my fifth year in math PhD. For two years I've been thinking on a well known problem (well known enough to have a Wikipedia page) in my field with no success and all of a sudden I think I did solve it with a very short solution. I haven't written it down yet but I can do so in 1 week. The bottom line is that I'm in a situation that there is nothing positive about my CV except solving the conjecture. I do not have any other publications and I'm very unknown,no professional mathematician in my field is aware of my existence. I'm planning to apply for postdoc positions this coming fall but what I'm struggling with is the letters of recommendation. Let's say I'll write my arxiv version of the paper in 1 week and about 1 week it will take it for me to explain it to my adviser and proofread it. My adviser hopefully will help me to give some talks at some places (I haven't given any talks outside of my university during my PhD). I think the standard procedure is that after giving the talk I should start asking for the LOR from the people who attended my talk until I can get 2 LORs. Problem is that this procedure will potentially take a lot of time and as people require at least a month to write LORs by that time the deadlines will be passed. I wanted to ask for some ideas on how to get LORs in my situation?
I was thinking maybe I can send emails directly to the people in my field with my preprint and directly ask for the LOR but someone told me this is very unusual and might not be a good idea. What are your opinions on this?<issue_comment>username_1: Things have changed since I was about to finish a PhD a long time ago, but the fact that you are unknown outside your university would have been common then, perhaps even now.
What you suggest seems to me to have two downsides. First, you are putting all your eggs into one basket (the conjecture) and second, you are entering into a time consuming process where others will need to verify your work. But beyond that, those others don't really know much about you beyond this one thing.
I would suggest, instead, that you depend on your advisor for a very strong letter and on others (professors and such) with whom you have interacted and who can speak now to your general mathematical ability and future potential. That can all be done quickly and can get you into what may be just the first round of applications.
But don't abandon your stated idea here to reach out to those others who have seen your work and might also help with an application if the more common approach seems not to be working as well as you hope.
You can get started early and if it doesn't work out, then the longer term solution may start to fall into place for the next round.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Congrats, you are excited about this breakthrough and that's understandable. Nevertheless the only way to have your work properly evaluated and validated is to submit it to a reputable journal. Yes, it takes more time, but that's how you maximize the impact of your work.
You indicate in the comments that you can do one more year but you don't want to because you set yourself the ambitious goal of "solving one of the conjectures in [your] field in a timely manner". Well good news: you did solve the conjecture in a timely manner! You reached your goal, now you should make sure that your work gets the credit it deserves. Trying to cut corners for the short term goal of getting LORs for a postdoc position is a big risk and a potential waste of opportunity:
* If you are interested in a career in academia, it's worth taking the time to do things carefully and reap all the benefits
* If not, then why do you care about getting a postdoc position in the first place?
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/01
| 647
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<issue_start>username_0: To keep this brief, I have two new math ideas that are supporting a larger work. I want to write two small papers detailing these math ideas (plus some other details I figured out about them), publish them to arXiv, and then cite them in the larger work. The smaller papers do not have enough substance for a journal or conference.
I want to do this because I want to provide details for the interested reader which are irrelevant to the larger work.
I am still new to this, so I ask: Is this acceptable? This feels like it might be unethical self promotion / self citation.<issue_comment>username_1: Things have changed since I was about to finish a PhD a long time ago, but the fact that you are unknown outside your university would have been common then, perhaps even now.
What you suggest seems to me to have two downsides. First, you are putting all your eggs into one basket (the conjecture) and second, you are entering into a time consuming process where others will need to verify your work. But beyond that, those others don't really know much about you beyond this one thing.
I would suggest, instead, that you depend on your advisor for a very strong letter and on others (professors and such) with whom you have interacted and who can speak now to your general mathematical ability and future potential. That can all be done quickly and can get you into what may be just the first round of applications.
But don't abandon your stated idea here to reach out to those others who have seen your work and might also help with an application if the more common approach seems not to be working as well as you hope.
You can get started early and if it doesn't work out, then the longer term solution may start to fall into place for the next round.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Congrats, you are excited about this breakthrough and that's understandable. Nevertheless the only way to have your work properly evaluated and validated is to submit it to a reputable journal. Yes, it takes more time, but that's how you maximize the impact of your work.
You indicate in the comments that you can do one more year but you don't want to because you set yourself the ambitious goal of "solving one of the conjectures in [your] field in a timely manner". Well good news: you did solve the conjecture in a timely manner! You reached your goal, now you should make sure that your work gets the credit it deserves. Trying to cut corners for the short term goal of getting LORs for a postdoc position is a big risk and a potential waste of opportunity:
* If you are interested in a career in academia, it's worth taking the time to do things carefully and reap all the benefits
* If not, then why do you care about getting a postdoc position in the first place?
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/02
| 3,701
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<issue_start>username_0: It's common for students to be asked for their evaluations of a teacher/course at the end of the semester. Is it safe for the student to give negative feedback? After all, even if the lecturer will not see these evaluations until after the grading is completed, it's possible the student will want to work under the lecturer in the future as a research student, or take another course by the same lecturer.
In my experience, back when I was a student, nothing negative actually happened to me when I did this. The closest was an incident at the university housing, when I sent negative feedback about the catering. The warden came to my room threatening to expel me unless I apologized. I refused to send any more feedback when they asked for it at the end of my program.
However, [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/60108/how-to-react-to-a-student-who-provides-very-critical-comments-about-your-teachin) (and answers) is making me wonder if I got lucky. Did I? How common is it for the student to suffer negative consequences for giving negative feedback?
**Edit:** about anonymity, I recall giving handwritten feedback, which is not likely to be truly anonymous since one can compare the handwriting vs. assignments. One university had an online evaluation form, but it warned respondents that the names would be revealed to the lecturer (although it also said it will only be done when the grading was completed). Truly anonymous online feedback forms seems pretty courageous because of the [online disinhibition effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect), I can easily see [things like this](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49902/anonymous-student-feedback-moving-forward-from-abusive-comments) happening.<issue_comment>username_1: I feel there are two different layers to that - whether, and to what extent, teaching evaluations are actually username_4ymous, and if they aren't, whether it's still "safe" to give a bad one.
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> Are evaluations username_4ymous?
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On a superficial level, all universities that I have taught at had entirely username_4ymous evaluations. At no point in the process was I ever told which student gave which feedback. *However*, in a small class (say 10 students or less), username_4ymous evaluations aren't really all that username_4ymous - in such classes, I often have at least an educated guess which student wrote which evaluation. In a larger class I usually have no idea which student wrote which comment - there are usually groups of students with similar concerns and troubles, and I also don't know individual students nearly well enough at the end of a 100-students class to divine which student may have written what.
Yet, even in large classes sometimes a teacher may have a hunch which student wrote a specific comment, if the raised concern or the way of expression is sufficiently unique. For instance, in one of my introductory classes last year, one student was struggling extraordinarily and it was clear that he was working *all the time* on this course to pass (which he ultimately did). When evaluations came in and one student remarked on the almost unsurmountable workload it's easy to at least suspect that this was this student.
In short, relying on username_4ymity alone may be a dangerous game. If I were giving some really negative feedback I would try to keep it general enough that at least a handful of students could have written the same comment.
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> Is it safe to give a negative evaluation (assuming it's not, or at least not completely, username_4ymous)?
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Clearly, teachers are supposed not to retaliate upon receiving a bad evaluation, and I expect the large majority of teachers in a reputable university will not. However, professors also being humans, a subconscious bias may still taint further interactions. I guess it depends on what you mean with "safe" - there is no 100% certainty that a negative evaluation will not backfire on you, but by and large I can tell you that many students give negative evaluations in all schools I have been at, and as far as I can tell nothing bad really happens to them.
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> Anything else?
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>
>
It's not really your question, but in my experience it is almost universally a good idea to try hard to phrase negative evaluations in the same way as you would also do when giving feedback face-to-face (that is to say: fair, polite, without unnecessary superlatives, and if possible strengthened by data). Ultimately you probably want your feedback to be heard / integrated into the next course iteration, and the less a teacher is annoyed by your comments, the larger the chance that they will actually consider them. If you want to use evaluations to vent, this is certainly your right - but you should be aware that your evaluation will then have virtually no impact on the course design.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I will only supplement the great answer of [xLetix](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/135562/75368) here.
Let me note that the more radical and extreme your statements in an evaluation the less likely it will be that it is acted upon. If you have serious, negative, things to say, then another venue will probably be more effective, though it is unlikely to be username_4ymous.
I think that extreme comments are easy to ignore, both by the faculty member and by the institution. However, if a number of students say things that are similar, then they will be taken note of. They don't need to be very negative to be effective and to initiate change. "I wish the instructor had assigned more/fewer exercises", if said by three or four students is better than one person saying something over the top.
My experience with (username_4ymous) evaluations was that they were helpful, but mostly confirmed things I already knew. There were few surprises. The extreme ones might come from those who were malcontented generally, or who didn't want to put in the effort to learn and believed I could make their learning "automatic" in some way.
But sometimes we slip up in a course and it is noticed and commented on. If stated properly, then it can generate self reflection that helps us improve.
I've also had experience with public evaluations, though still username_4ymous (via an username_4ymous wiki or rate my professor). With such a system anyone can say publicly whatever they want and if it is unsupported by the other students they will be likely to say so. I never found it necessary to reply to attacks or to defend myself, since it was clear that the complaint was an outlier. But if other students agree, then you have some work to do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It is very unlikely that you will suffer negative consequences from it and there are no real avenues to retaliate against you. At best, the wronged instructor may try to do something like spread rumors against you, but honestly, with how busy everyone is, do you really think anyone has the time?
Extremely petty and irrational people may try to retaliate anyway. But these by their nature are unpredictable. They may decide to hold a grudge against you because you only rated them good not excellent. They may may be mad that you came to class 1 min late that one time. They may hate your handwriting. There's no point trying to understand the minds of madmen.
I think the tone of the feedback is more important. Negative feedback is okay in the sense of pointing out specific shortcomings and suggesting ways to improve them. Even extremely negative feedback ("this course utterly fails to teach anything at all") can be completely acceptable if phrased in a constructive way ("effectiveness of teaching would improve if the instructor did X"). You have to be giving the feedback not as a rant or personal derision of the instructor(s), but as a neutral observer concerned with pertinent factual aspects of your experience and improving the course. If you follow this principle, I don't think it really matters whether your feedback is negative or positive. What matters is that it is actionable, specific and constructive.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: There is no straightforward answer to this, since it varies enormously by institution.
Anonymous feedback can still be unmasked
========================================
As others have said already, an ostensibly username_4ymous survey may not end up being so username_4ymous in practice; it is pretty easy to guess someone's identity, especially if the class is small or if you have interacted with the lecturer on a one-to-one basis.
So, avoid *ad hominem* attacks -- be specific about the problem, and avoid assigning blame
==========================================================================================
Nonetheless, you can and should make negative comments where they are warranted. Ensure your comments are detailed (as a tutor and lecturer, there is nothing more irritating than getting a negative evaluation without any explanation of **why**) and constructive. Try not to assign blame to a specific person unless you are absolutely sure it is his/her fault. Do not make *ad hominem* attacks, but focus on the issues in an impersonal manner. Examples may include:
* "I had difficulty keeping up with the pace of the lectures";
* "not enough opportunities to discuss the assignment";
* "course content was too superficial, and failed to analyse issues in sufficient depth, meaning that I felt unprepared for the demands of the assignment";
* "the selection of case studies across the lectures seemed incoherent -- the lecturer did not make clear how they were connected to the topic";
* "the lecturer spent most of the time regurgitating feminist readings uncritically, and refused to engage with questions from students who disagreed";
* "AV facilities were so unreliable that a lot of time was wasted getting the video and sound clips to work".
Negative comments can be useful in enabling the lecturer to make a case to higher authorities for more time/resources
=====================================================================================================================
In many cases, a lecturer may not have that much control over the course he/she teaches, or may be forced to make compromises on content/resources/hours/&c. As a result, a reasoned negative comment may, in fact, be very useful in that it helps the lecturer decide how to prioritise in future (e.g.: should he/she give more contact hours in larger classes or less hours but in smaller groups?). It also provides ammunition for the lecturer to make a case to higher authorities for more resources -- here are some examples of hypothetical things a lecturer might say to the head of department **with your help**:
* "I think eight lectures is not enough time to get through the syllabus -- **in last year's evaluations, lots of students said they had trouble understanding the material and felt that the lectures were too fast**.";
* "My remit is to critically examine feminist, Marxist, and nihilist readings of late-nineteenth-century Russian literature. However, this is impossible to achieve in the three one-hour lectures I am allotted, so I tried to discuss one approach in more depth, in the hope that this would encourage students to explore the other two in the same way. Unfortunately, **as the student evaluations make clear, this strategy did not work: many students felt short-changed because I spent only half a lecture on Marxism and the other half on nihilism, and complained that my two lectures on feminism amounted to propaganda**.";
* "The situation with room bookings was a complete shambles last semester. There were too many last-minute room changes, which turned my classes into cross-campus games of tag. **Several students said that they missed lectures because they could not find the correct room. I also had several more evaluations complaining about the disruption of so many people turning up late**.";
* "Since we lost our dedicated AV technician in last year's restructure, I have found it very difficult to get the technology to work reliably in my lectures. **As you can see from the student evaluations, they were frustrated by the amount of time wasted getting the sound system to work**.";
* "Since the number of teaching assistants on the course was cut from three to one, student satisfaction has dipped considerably. Before this cut, almost everyone was satisfied with the availability of feedback on their work. **This year, a lot of students complained about a shortage of office hours and lack of individual feedback**. I realise that having more teaching assistants is expensive, but the student feedback shows we need them.";
* "I am finding it very difficult to teach according to the textbook prescribed by the department for this course -- the textbook covers only about half the necessary material. I have spent countless office hours going over misconceptions from the textbook, and **many of the student evaluations say that the textbook does not explain things clearly and assumes a lot of prior knowledge that they do not have**.";
* "I have strong qualms about teaching the course on theatre in ancient Greece again. As you know, this is not my area of expertise by any stretch, and, **as last year's student evaluations show, my lack of expertise was painfully evident**.".
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I've been teaching mathematics for +25 at all levels from high school to PhD.
Feedbacks are a good thing, but useful feedbacks are rare.
As to the original question -- I am sorry to read that there are fears of retaliation.
This obviously depends of your environment.
1. Meet the teacher in person, or a colleague of his.
2. If not possible, send him an email.
3. If not possible, come to a pedagogical session.
4. If not possible, talk to a student representative or others students attending the course. Pay attention to what he says and how he himself reacts.
If not, while providing written (especially) negative feedback:
5. Be careful about who will read it and where it will be posted.
6. Stick the issue and state it clearly.
7. Keep it as local as possible and try to sound "solutional" rather than "confrontational" . Do not use it as a forum or general rant.
8. Do not use ad hominem attacks.
9. Be honest. The aim of a lecture at the university is to... teach something. It is harder than one may think.
10. Be honest with yourself. (Some basic questions include: Have you attended the lectures ? Have you worked out the assignments ?)
One last (unsolicited) advice: keep in mind where you want to put your energy in. A good teacher is a good teacher and a good student is a good student.
Conclusion: with a minimum of "savoir-vivre" and honesty, it is unlikely that you'll suffer "bad" consequences from a negative feedback.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: In addition to the other great answers, let me add:
Use common sense.
When you had a course with a professor over a whole semester, you can often evaluate the professor's aptitude regarding teaching.
I had professors who openly told stories in which they behaved unethically towards students -- other professors openly told that they changed their courses because of student's comments, and other openly told that they do not care about teaching at all and do exactly the same course since 20 years.
This information (and similar information which you pick up "between the lines") may sometimes help to evaluate if you have to fear for retaliation.
In every case, however, write your comments professionally. See the answers above for more detail.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a masters' student. I have written an article, which was part of my thesis. This was my first article. After I handed it over to my professor, it was highly commended. My professor was not the least involved in writing the paper. He just gave me the idea, which I am sure was his.
But after a while I realized that my professor had given my paper to a colleague for submission. This corresponding author is my professor’s old student, who now teaches at another university. I never ever met him. My professor confirmed this. I am listed as a co-author of the submitted paper. As far as I know, they haven't changed the content. Meanwhile, my article has been approved by the referees and has reached the revision stage.
This is a theft. How can I tell the journal that this article was written by me alone and that nobody other than me and my professor should be authors? Can my reporting to the journal prevent this theft? As I have heard, where I live, such behaviors are commonplace. I am looking for a way to stop these acts.
**Appendix:**
After talking to advizor about it he
told me my paper was in trouble (while my paper was highly praised by him). I asked: Why didn't he tell me to correct my paper myself? (He didn't answer) And finally he said my article was rejected. (While I have seen on the Journal site the referees agree with my article and the article has reached the revision stage.)<issue_comment>username_1: Sadly, I'm going to give you advice that you will find unsatisfying as would many others. It can be dangerous to your future career to push too hard against an advisor who is behaving badly but has power over you and your future.
No matter what you do, you aren't going to change "the system." You might be able to force an editor to correct authorship to your liking, but it could be at the cost of poor, even negative, recommendations from the advisor and others in his sphere.
Make it your goal to graduate successfully and move on to another position in which you have some control over your future. This is what you lack at the moment, so I advise not making it worse. Don't think of this one paper as the only one you will ever write or that your whole future depends on it. Especially don't think that your whole future depends on getting sole authorship for this paper. You could win that battle and lose the war.
As we see in other questions here, students get stuck in such situations all too often. But the system doesn't change when it is dysfunctional and has a lot of momentum. Find a way to look to the long term and not the short. In particular, that means getting a good letter of recommendation, even if you have to bite your tongue.
Sorry that this feels *wrong*. But you have little power and no authority to change it.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would start by asking your professor, in a non-confrontational way, why he did this. Perhaps there is some reason that is not obvious to us. Maybe he felt that the paper had a better chance of being published if this third person was involved. (Not saying that he was right to do this, just that he may have had some reason.) You might say something like this:
>
> Professor X, as you know, I'm pretty new to academic publishing, and I'm trying to understand the process better. I was under the impression that only people who contributed to the research should be listed as authors. I'm curious why <NAME> was added as an author. Did he make a contribution I don't know about?
>
>
>
If you think you may publish more papers with this professor, discuss your expectations about authorship with him and come to an agreement.
**EDIT:** Several people have suggested that the phrasing above is still too confrontational. I think they have a point, but I'm not sure we can come up with a phrasing that everyone is happy with. So I suggest that the OP read the comments below for ideas on how to phrase this.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: I am a bit surprised by all these indirect answers. To my opinion you have the right to know. Therefore, write a short email (if it is a common way to communicate in your group), you can combine with other points too.
>
> Just a naive question - what exactly was A.B's contribution to this
> paper?
>
>
>
It could be that the idea of the whole work belonged to that person.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I sympathize with your situation, and indeed, in the immediate term if your professional career depends on the goodwill of your advisor, I wouldn't advise getting too confrontational at this point.
All of this said, however, there is a great service you could do to the community: If and when you become a faculty member, make sure you hold up the highest standards in publishing and in particular, managing authorship. I think that in the long term, that's the only way to improve the system.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm surprised nobody said this, but if you're certain you're being treated unfairly\*, you should at least take a look around and see if you can get a better advisor. Of course you should make sure this is doable before you burn any bridges, but [pretending it's fine](https://i.stack.imgur.com/wyRKo.jpg) will only make it worse: as time passes it will only be harder for you to change the advisor, and as long as your career depends on them, there likely will be more "favours" you'll have to do down the road.
(\*)
* one thing you should check is how publishing works in your field, perhaps it's customary to add someone on the author's list to get published in the right journal. I'm not saying that's ethically impeccable, but your adviser woudn't be the one to blame
* another aspect is to be sure the new co-author was really not involved. For instance, how do you know the idea your adviser gave you to work on didn't originate from that person?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Probably one of the biggest problems with academia is that there is no HR department, and your advisor holds a disproportionate amount of power. Especially in the flat American system, where one can become a PI by just 30 years old.
This being said, I think your best bet is to just let your advisor do what they want, and then get out of his lab as quickly as possible.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: I think there is a misunderstanding and you should understand what a "corresponding author" is. While it could be the PI, it could also be someone who is simply assigned the administrative duty of getting the paper published correctly and handling all the correspondence. As this is your first published paper the advisor may simply have chosen someone with experience.
Personally, my advice would be to say "I noticed that you made X the corresponding author. I would like to learn more about what is involved in getting a paper published so that I can be the corresponding author on my next paper"
<https://www.editage.com/insights/5-pre-submission-tips-for-corresponding-authors>
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/02
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<issue_start>username_0: My theoretical computer-science paper that I submitted to an Australian (i.e., located in Australia this year) B-level (according to <http://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks>) DBLP-listed computer-science conference was accepted 4 weeks later, but the reviews are short:
1. 5 sentences (accept)
2. 2 sentences (accept)
3. 3 sentences (reject)
4. 3 introductory sentences + 3 sentences noting weak points + 3 sentences noting strong points (borderline)
All four reviews are superficial. They partially contradict each other. The buzzwords and phrases that occur there are: well organized, good presentation, minor format errors, sound results, no theorem proofs, highly relevant, well written, convincing, weak motivation, no empirical study, no clear justification of the contribution, only theoretical analysis, no explanation of contribution, no clear structure, results useful for practicioners and theoreticians.
There is nothing beyond these high-level claims in the reviews: no page numbers, no section numbers, no quotations, no citations, no related work, no examples/counterexamples. None of the reviews substantiates any of its claims.
It's the first time I get this kind of reviews. Usually, I get longer and deeper reviews that show that the reveiwers understood the technical contents of the submission at least a bit beyond the abstract and that elaborate on a technical level at least a little bit.
My questions are:
* What is the likely cause of such short and useless reviews?
* Is the conference really serious? (The paper submission site stayed open long after the formal submission deadline.)
* Are my concerns groundless? Is what happened normal for B-level Australian conferences?
* Is there any way to extract more information, say, by writing the PC chair(s)? If so, how do I formulate the message, or even what do I ask? Or is it better to keep silent and be satisfied with acceptance?
The proceedings will be handled by IEEE Conference Publishing Services.
I know that the exact answers might be hard to tell, so I'd be happy with answers based on well-informed guesses.<issue_comment>username_1: The basic idea is simple: reviewers have no incentive to write good reviews apart from their desire to see the conference succeed. Seeing an abundance of short, superficial reviews with a high acceptance rate indicates a low quality conference.
An alternative explanation might be that this is a non-archival conference, often referred to as a workshop. In that case reviewers mostly care about the general problem the paper presents and whether it sounds interesting/relevant. Program chairs are usually those who go through the papers to see what fits (and there’s a small number of submissions).
If it’s not a workshop, the program committee/organizers aren’t well-respected researchers, and they charge you a lot of money in registration fees, I’d consider retracting.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: My field is statistics and I know that in computer science conference publications have a different (higher) standing than in statistics, so what I write may only be marginally relevant. However, I would distinguish between the high level conferences with top-level high impact publications and high rejection rates, and conferences that are in the first place there in order to foster exchange and scientific discussion, where results are also published but not aiming at particularly high impact. In statistics this is the norm rather than the exception. It doesn't mean at all that the conference is "not serious" - it may still be a fine conference. However it won't give your paper a high impact. If that's not what you're after (and I have no idea whether your paper is of a standard that would allow you to aim high), you could well be fine with that conference (of course I can't know for sure not knowing the conference). I don't believe, by the way, that any conference will have negative impact on your CV. Zero is the worst that can happen, unless you boast about that conference as if it was the pinnacle of anyone's career.
As for explanations, it may be that they use a small pool of reviewers whom they send several papers with very tight deadlines. Then that's what you get. Not top level practice but not necessarily a sign for a crappy conference either.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The fact that the conference is on an international rotation makes it at least decent. The issue here is the quality of the feedback and the frustration that the feedback has not provided more direction in your work. Unfortunately this happens. It could be the reviewer of your particular section. It could be that the conference organisers discouraged or made decent feedback difficult (as others have remarked here).
Maybe focus on getting more feedback and support at the conference itself? Write to presenters and people attending about your work. Organise a time to meet them. Attend relevant preconference workshops. These skills are important in developing collaborations and opportunities even if you are going to leave academia. Hopefully they would be happy to help and give your issues some thoughts and suggestions.
Slamming the conference and conference organisers is poor form. It could be that the conference is run by and managed by emeritus professors and this is their retirement gig. It could be that it is not as rigorous as other places. But you have to make do with the situation as it is rather than what you would like it to be. Plan to exit and platform out of your toxic environment as quickly as you can.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree mostly with username_1's answer, but let me give my own bits:
* The conference is not a good one. A B-level conference (based on CORE) means a *not a very good conference*. A B-level journal is not that bad, but for a conference the situation is different. That is, it is futile to have papers in B-rated conferences. Remember also that ratings start with A\*, A and only then B. So a B-level means third-rate!
*Conclusion*: There is no reason in my view to submit to a conference which is not A\* or A-rated since:
* You get meaningless reviews like you did.
* It does not contribute to your reputation (looks bad on CV).
* It doesn't contribute to your research (in most cases you won't meet anyone to cooperate with in a B-rated conference, unless they are also doing uninteresting research).
* It is better to submit to a good journal.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> What is the likely cause of such short and useless reviews?
>
>
>
This depends on the field I guess, but:
1. People being reviewers in multiple venues with large numbers of submissions - not enough time to do proper reviews.
2. People not taking their duty as a reviewer seriously enough (which also relates to...)
3. Lack of oversight/meta-review by PCs / PC chairs / editors of reviewers' reviews.
4. Reviewers not having the necessary background actually review the work.
5. A scathing argument for rejection which renders a detailed review of the rest of the work irrelevant (at least in the reviewer's view) <- although that should not be useless
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Senior readers will recall that in North America (USA/Canada) it was required to show a reading knowledge of another language besides English in order to complete the academic requirements for a PhD in basic sciences. It is no longer necessary now in physics and chemistry but other top notch universities like Harvard still have this requirement for a PhD in mathematics. For chemists studying electrochemistry, Russian was recommended, but for organic chemistry German was beneficial. Undoubtedly, German had the largest compendium of handbooks, factual information etc in pure sciences. Gmelin and Beilstein Handbuch were one of the largest databases in chemistry and they still are in the form of Reaxys (A database in Elsevier) since the mid 1700s.
I was writing an educational article encouraging students to explore foreign language publications in chemistry with the help of online tools. A reviewer asked if there is any knowledge difference between those who knew foreign languages and those who did not. This is a very subjective idea.
Do those that have to learn a foreign language for their PhD, especially in sciences, really benefit from being able to read foreign language paper/book/ database/patents?
(I am especially interested in German, French or Russian language literature for research in math, physics or chemistry.)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Readers, who learned foreign languages for their PhD, do you remember
> any case where you benefitted from reading a foreign language
> paper/book/...
>
>
>
I'm a (pure) mathematician in the US, and I've literally benefited hundreds of times from being able to read mathematical French. Not only are there great papers in my area that are being published in French today, but a huge proportion of my field's seminal papers were written in French during the twentieth century. (I know that for people working in other areas of pure math, German plays a similar role.) In fact, I find it very hard to believe that someone would be able to have a successful research career in various areas of pure math without being able to read papers in a language other than English. Certainly such a person would be at a huge disadvantage.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Strongly seconding @<NAME>' remarks: "even nowadays" many papers important to me appear in languages other than English, especially French, but also German. Decades ago, perhaps a majority of significant sources of interest to me were *not* in English, with few equivalents available in English, so sufficiently fluency in both French and German (and, at that time, if I'd known, I'd have studied Russian also). Fortunately, I had (by chance) studied French and German in high school and undergrad, so this was fine.
For that matter, prior to WWII the U.S. was certainly not dominant in mathematics, whether "pure" or "applied", so sources in that time would not have been in English. Whether or not *currently* papers are mostly in English, it would make me very uneasy to be unable to directly understand older sources. Indeed, when I want to see first-hand origins of contemporary things in pre-1800 sources (or early 1800's) I am happy to have also studied Latin in high school.
It would make me very uneasy to have all that stuff be incomprehensible to me. To ignore it (pretending that everything has been replaced by English-language stuff) seems to me parallel to accidentally acting as though anything not available on-line, or that hasn't been digitized, has ceased to exist. The world is just 20 years old?
So, even though the grad program in math at my university has reduced non-English language requirements, and my eventually drop them entirely, I do encourage my students to *not* ignore non-English sources. Part of the point is that "Google translate" is often helpful enough so that one can make sense of (small) non-English sources... rather than *ignore* them. Perhaps use of machine translation software as an "assist" is the best contemporary version of "sufficient fluency".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Reading German, French or Russian is a nearly useless skill for physics research. Only very old or obscure research is not published in English.
Physicists do need to be able to work with colleagues with a range of language backgrounds.
Usually that is not reading. Speaking Mandarin is an increasingly useful skill.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: This answer will be a bit different. Back when (back, way back) I needed to have a reading knowledge of any two of French, German, and Russian. I picked the first two. There were interesting current works in French (Bourbaki), older works in German (mostly translated). Russian was an outlier because of the cold war and the split between Eastern and Western scholarship at the time. Lots of things were being done independently in the (then) Soviet Union from what was going on in the US and the rest of Europe.
But I never needed any of what I learned. Bourbaki was interesting, but the knowledge was generally available in English. I didn't need historical works and the 20th century German stuff was mostly available. But recently, I wanted a translation of a mid century Russian paper and can't get it done. Machine translation for math is terrible - really terrible.
Today, just about every educated person in the world speaks and writes in English. I've done a lot of collaborations and conferences in Europe and the language is always English.
But, I'll still suggest the studying a "foreign" language is good for a math student since it trains the mind to think in a somewhat different way than studying math itself does. In fact, I think that it does researcher a lot of good to have a certain mental agility outside the strict confines of their field. A lot of mathematicians use music, actually, to provide something like that. But language study is also a "mental stretcher". I'll note that continental and Asian scholars get this skill when they learn English. It is good, likewise, just for the mental training, for native born English speakers to learn some other language.
At one time Latin was the language of scholarship. Today it is English.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/02
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<issue_start>username_0: I wanted to know what the best next step is given my situation. I have been interested in doing research with a professor, however after the initial response from him about setting up a time to meet he has not responded. Given it was summer I assumed he was busy with travel and grant proposals. Upon sending two more emails he did not respond about setting up a specific time. As such, I went to his office. He send he would send an email setting up a time. How long should I wait to hear back with a response? I understand professors are very busy, however there is a deadline to enroll in research credit. I am hesitant in sending a "reminder" as I don't wish to annoy him.<issue_comment>username_1: If you think you are on the edge of being annoying, then it might be better to wait. But, you don't have to wait passively. See what other, backup options you might have with other professors and start a conversation there. Be a bit tentative with them, of course.
And, if he is negligent about responding, note that he might also be negligent about giving you the guidance you need. So, other options are worth a look.
But, it is also possible that he is just a last-minute procrastinator sort of person, so be prepared to spring into action if you get a favorable response.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd move on and find a different professor. The person you describe doesn't appear to have the minimal communication qualities necessary to be a good mentor.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I joined for my PhD in mechanical engineering in a Canadian university almost 3 years back. I had completed the necessary coursework and preliminary exam last July. My advisor had approved my research proposal to develop a numerical procedure to predict the damage behavior of composities during a complex loading condition. It is a really challenging topic and I wanted to give my best in solving the problem. My committee members were also satisfied with my research proposal and projected timelines.
Howevever, till now, I have not been able to get any substantial progress on the research topic. I am facing a lot of theoretical issues and my research topic is very loosely related to the expertise of my advisor. As a result his technical suggestions are not quite relevant and helpful. There's no one in the department who can help me in this regard.
Last week, my advisor suggested to change my research topic to a different one within the realm of the grants objectives. The modified researh area won't require the development any numerical procedure. Instead I will be using a commercial software with inbuilt procedures to get the results. I won't be able to publish in a reputed numerical or theoretical journals and will have to settle for decent application oriented journals. I don't want my PhD to just be one where I pressed some buttons to get the answer. I wanted it to be rigorous.
I am not sure what would be the implications if I accept to my advisors suggestion. On one hand the modified direction would guarantee atleast 3 decent publications. On the other hand, I don't know if I will be able to solve the theoretical problem soon enough to generate results. But if solved, will lead to a theoretically intensive paper and a lot of learning opportunity as a researcher.
What should I do? I will be funded for 5 years. And I would like to stay in academia in the future.<issue_comment>username_1: I'd suggest, pretty strongly, that you go with your advisor's guidance and turn the original project into a longer term goal. Your research career needn't end with the doctorate and it would be good to finish with some work done on a difficult future project.
But the short term goal should be to get out the door with good letters of recommendation and enough of a push to get you into academia. What you can do after that is up to you and the possibilities you can bring to bear on your research.
For what it's worth. I have a friend who is a reputed computer scientist. Top education, works in top level industrial gigs. But he also writes poetry. In fact, for more than ten years he has written a poem every day, without fail. The deadline for the poem is strict. But he described his methodology to me as something like, starting out with high standards and expectations for the day and continually lowering them until he has something acceptable. He gets the job done, and saves the rest for another day.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> But if solved, will lead to a theoretically intensive paper and a lot of learning opportunity as a researcher.
>
>
>
The issue here is whether you have done a lot of learning and developed your opportunity as much as you can. If you have hit a the wall from the theoretical point of view then you will likely be wasting your time and have an unsatisfying thesis without any firm conclusions. Unfortunately there is no way to know this definitely from your standpoint.
One way is to expand and develop new collaborations so you can develop your theoretical understanding further. Does your institution allow for collaboration and supervision with another institution? Are there experts that can help you and would be interested in developing this theoretical issue further? Are there networks or groups that you can post and get feedback on specific aspects of your issue (without you having to disclose your whole problem and risking plagiarism)? Maths SE, engineering SE, Facebook groups etc.
Personally, your theoretical problem sounds better suited to a post doc rather than a PhD. It is too high risk and not linked to grant opportunities and practical application right away. Managing and engaging with a grant projects is an important aspect of academia. Applying for further grants and being involved is an important skill in itself. If you are keen for academia, you would need to appreciate how important this skill is. Consistency and regular and high volume publication seems to be more appreciated and valued than solving one big problem resulting in just one important paper. Even after solving the theoretical problem, you would be publishing what you call boring application papers afterwards.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Go with the advisor's suggestion. Based on your current progress, they are in a good position to make an informed decision about the feasibility of completion of your degree within the limited timeframe. Once you are in a good position to write your thesis, you can work on the difficult theoretical problem. You will have a better understanding of the theoretical problem 1-1.5 years from now. Probably you might even solve it. Right now, do as your advisor tells you.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/02
| 1,341
| 5,847
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<issue_start>username_0: I was asked by this (tenure-track) assistant professor X, with whom I'm in very friendly terms, to collaborate on a project together. X and I work in the same broad area of pure math (topology) but our subfields of expertise differ considerably. At the beginning I was very excited but I've now realized that X is at best extremely inefficient and at worst incompetent. We have been working on the project for some months now and 90% of the things that X says are wrong for very elementary reasons and the remaining 10% are borderline tautological. I'm getting very frustrated because I spend more time correcting his "proofs" (of very elementary claims, not even high level stuff!) than doing actual research. So far all we have is stuff I had proved before starting the collaboration with him which forms the base of the project we are working on. On the other hand he seems to be very keen on us working on a project together and as I've said we're friends. I don't know how to deal with this.
Should I give him some more time to actually contribute in some way to our project or should I tell him that I no longer want to collaborate with him? In the latter case would it be ethical if I worked on my stuff that I shared with him? He literally hasn't added any value whatsoever to it so far.<issue_comment>username_1: This may be too personal for a good answer here, but let me make a couple of suggestions. The big issue, I think, is how important to you is the personal relationship. If it is important enough, then you might want to just help him with his education rather than the collaboration, per se. If you are colleagues at the same institution, it might even be necessary to do something like that for your own protection.
One way would be to found a research group with a few faculty and some graduate students where the goal is just as much about pushing people up the scale as it is the actual research. If your colleague agrees to this, he might improve his own grounding in the subject.
But if you are willing to let the personal relationship go, then you can also let the collaboration go as well. It might be difficult to step away from it, of course.
But you don't really say what you mean by "collaboration". If you mean "I'll do this and you do that", then it probably isn't going to work - ever. But if you work closely together (one desk) or in the research group idea, then it might work better, as long as you don't feel used with "giving" joint authorship for things you think are really yours. But I don't really consider splitting the work as collaboration.
One way to split up is to ask your colleague how he thinks it is working out. If you think you could go faster alone, then it isn't wrong, just uncomfortable, to say so. Egos can be bruised, of course.
Ethics would only enter in if you took work of his and didn't provide the appropriate credit, whatever that might be.
I guess I should also note that in many collaborations, someone is dominant. For example, many of the people who are Erdős-2 likely felt like the junior partner. But one that is uniformly unbalanced can be frustrating as you say.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Not all attempted mathematical research succeeds. Sometimes you work on something for hours, days, weeks...and realize at the end you have too little to show for it, or that you made a crucial error that ruins everything. This applies in particular to collaborations: just because you get together with someone (or someones) and propose to work on X, it doesn't mean that you will end up writing a paper on X or even making any progress on X. (This has certainly happened to me.)
Hows is this relevant to your present situation? Well, on the one hand you seem worried about disappointing your friend, which I certainly understand, but actually you delivered on the deal: he wanted to collaborate with you, and so you have. Surely you didn't agree to collaborate *until you achieved some specific goal, **no matter what***, right? So I don't think you should feel too bad about breaking off the collaboration: all collaborations are parted sooner or later, and most by mathematicians who remain active on other projects. On the other hand, you use the word **incompetent**, which seems harsh to me. Most mathematicians lack the competence to solve (or even to superficially understand!) most mathematical problems, of course. Just because your friend can't make correct arguments *on this topic* doesn't mean they are not competent in something else. Also collaboration gives you a chance to see someone at their worst as well as their best: some mathematicians make a lot of mistakes that no one ever hears about, but people hear about their remarkable successes. (We generally respect and admire these mathematicians.)
If you are describing your friend as "incompetent," it sure sounds to me like you want to be out of the collaboration, so I would suggest that you do so, by which I mean ending the research sessions with your friend. In my opinion the "classy move" would then be to write up what you have so far and ask your friend how they wish to proceed. They may well decline to be an author on the paper. Or maybe they will accept to be an author, either because they think they brought more to the table than you do or because professional exigencies make them feel that they cannot turn down an authorship on something they spent this much time working on. This kind of thing used to bother me. It doesn't really anymore. I don't think your friend is going to get tenure "unfairly" because of this one project with you.
Of course once you have decided what to do about your joint work and that you will not collaborate anymore, you are completely free to do further work as you see fit.
Upvotes: 4
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2019/09/03
| 597
| 2,533
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in very tense situation. My supervisor is not allowing me to submit my Master by Research thesis.
I have already told him that I have some potential fully funded PhD opportunity and he initially agreed but now he is creating problems. Earlier he wanted me to do PhD with him which I refused now I feel he took his personal and creating hurdles for me.
On the other hand, potential supervisor who offered me PhD wants me to join ASAP and I can lose this opportunity if I will not join in 2months.
I am thinking to withdraw Masters and join PhD? Is it a good decision? I have spent 2yrs and worked hard for this but now he is offended and creating issues.
I tried to change supervisor but 2-3 supervisors refused after knowing name of my current supervisor..he doesn't have good relationship with other faculty members.
Please advise what I should do?<issue_comment>username_1: Perhaps you can employ a double track strategy. If the new supervisor is willing, agree to join them and do what is necessary to do so. They should be made aware that it is possible that the masters won't be awarded.
Simultaneously pursue some sort of action at your current place to "force" your current advisor to relent and let you finish. This might require a petition to higher authority with a claim of unfairness. This sort of thing can get messy if you don't have any alternatives, but in this case you have a good one.
So, rather than withdrawing, put the responsibility on your current university to do the right thing. Perhaps they will, but only if you make it a bit uncomfortable for them to not treat you fairly.
But, I would first, you could just inform the current advisor that you are joining the other. You don't need to go beyond that. Perhaps he will relent, but if not, press your case with someone higher in the hierarchy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Since your supervisor doesn't give you any reason (and according to your comment doesn't even have to), it means that he could potentially postpone your diploma forever out of spite. You shouldn't have to withdraw from your Master just because of your supervisor's ego. His behavior is obviously unfair and unethical, so I think you should consider contacting the ombudsman or director of studies in your institution. Before that ask him again explicitly, preferably in writing, why he doesn't want you to submit. If he gives you a flimsy reason or no reason at all, it will be easier to make your case with the ombudsman.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/03
| 3,415
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a fourth-year Electrical Engineering student. I have been a top-ranked student in our department. I have passed 3 courses with a professor in our department and have received a full mark in all three. I did participate a lot in all classes and had many discussions about the courses in his office hours. He knows me very well. I have also been the teaching assistant of this professor twice, for two distinct courses. I believe that I have also done a decent job as a TA for him. I also have worked in his research lab for a year now.
Recently I have asked this professor for a recommendation letter for graduate school and he refuses, arguing he has decided to only give a recommendation letter to people who have written a research paper with him. By the way, he is willing to accept me as a master student, in his group but I prefer moving to another university.
My professor is new to the field I am currently working on and I believe it is hard for an undergraduate student to write a scientific paper in this situation.
I wanted to ask whether his refusal for recommendation letters is reasonable and also ask for some advice on how to handle this situation.
PS:
Maybe "reasonable" is not the best choice of word. I mean whether only giving recommendation letters to co-authors is something "common".
I am applying to a direct PhD in the US. But I am from a different country. Direct PhDs are not possible in our country.
I Professor obtained his bachelor degree in our university and his PhD in the US.
He has also worked as a professor in the US and in Europe before joining our department.<issue_comment>username_1: We cannot say if they are reasonable. We only know the details you provide and, moreover, we are not judges.
But this is the wrong question. Why should it matter for you if we say the prof is reasonable or not? There are many unreasonable people in the world. Among those there are professors, students, astronauts, beggars, social workers, farmers,.. with one word: everyone.
So don't ask whether they are reasonable. The answer does not help you.
How to handle this: Ask another prof if available.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: **Yes, the refusal seems reasonable in general**. The professor is the one who should decide who he writes reference letters to, and if he has a policy of providing letters only to collaborators that is his right. Though unfriendly to undergraduate, it does have some merit: his letters can be trusted to a very high degree.
It is also possible that the professor does not think he can provide you with a strong letter. He already saw you in his lab, and may have not formed a positive view of your achievements at this stage. He may try politely to avoid the need to say this to you hiding behind other excuses. He may have suggested you become his master's student since he believes you are about to decline, or since he genuinely wishes to give you a second chance to prove yourself.
More importantly: any kind of hesitation from a potential reference letter writer should be an immediate warning sign that the person may not give you a good letter.
Conclusion: find another professor.
**Important note**: The OP has clarified that "Direct PhDs are not possible in my country." This means the OP is not from the US. Therefore, the Professor may not be accustomed to providing undergrads letters, only master's students, making the case even stronger for the professor to refuse a letter.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend not limiting your options. Since as you said, you are the top ranked student in your department, finding another teacher who's willing to write you a good recommendation letter shouldn't be that hard. If course it only makes sense to seek someone who you know can write you a good letter that helps your cause.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> I wanted to ask whether his refusal for recommendation letters is reasonable
>
>
>
My personal opinion is that if you worked in his lab for a year (satisfactorily), it is **unreasonable** to refuse a letter. All the more so if you had other good interactions (TAing, etc.) with him.
>
> and also ask for some advice on how to handle this situation!
>
>
>
Unfortunately, my opinion counts for absolutely nothing. You cannot force this professor to write you a letter, and would be unwise to try. All you can do is find someone else. Preferably someone who can comment on your research, or at least someone who can confirm that your advisor almost never writes letters for undergrads (i.e., vouching that the lack of a letter from your advisor should not reflect poorly on you).
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: The policy to write recommendation letters only for undergraduate students you co-authored with is not reasonable (or common).
Suppose for a moment that all professors adopted this policy. A typical grad school application requires three recommendation letters. If professors provided reference letters only to co-authors, this essentially means that an undergraduate would need to have written three papers to obtain the required three recommendation letters. I know of no fields in which that would not be an extremely rare occurence.
Of course, everybody has the right to decide who they write recommendation letters for. However, as a professor you also have the responsibility to do your part in the recommendation letter writing process. By adopting such a restrictive policy, you are essentially off-loading this responsibility on other professors. This makes such a policy very selfish and egocentrical.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: You could ask for a *letter of evaluation*, i.e. a one-page description of what you have done during your collaboration, instead of a *letter of recommendation*.
Although your professor's stand is legit, quirky and strict as it may sound, it puts you in a position of disadvantage by deviating from expected standards: for example, in those situations where a certain number of letters of recommendations are required to move forward.
You run the risk of not being short-listed, if the first pass is done bureaucratically, or of attracting more questions if you pass the first round.
The latter is not bad in and of itself, once you are able to pitch and detail what you have been able to do during your previous study: this is a valuable skill to train at any rate.
The curious thing is that, if I had cast an interested eye on non-standard application and had still been hesitating about your storytelling, I would be inclined to make contact with your professor to ask for more information. Then, should your professor not change his position in the meantime, another option is to ask him if *you can share his contact details* in your future applications for giving his feedback orally as the need arises. In lieu of the said letter, you can attach a sheet with "Professor X of institution Y ... prefers to be contacted directly at ...". At least you work around positions of principle and personal quirks proactively and reduce the risk of being short-listed in the name of raw numbers.
In the end, the important thing is that people get to know, and recognize themselves, that you are a fine candidate for what's at stake next.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: You can't *make* someone recommend you, and even if you could, a letter that says "I acknowledge that BBBB was present in my lab..." is not going to do you any favors.
Someone's passion and aptitude for research can be judged in many ways: class projects, in-class and informal discussions, and teaching/mentoring others can all speak to your prospects as a researcher. So, this policy is crazy, especially for undergrads who cannot reasonably be expected to produce *three* papers in *three* different labs in *three years*. Nevertheless, you're stuck with it.
Several people have suggested that this attitude is not uncommon in certain parts of the world. If you are in such a place—and haven't already—you may want to remind the professor that US institutions request more letters of recommendation and, consequently, expect the letter writers to have a somewhat less established relationship with the applicant. For example, I eventually published something with one of my letter-writers, but the other two mostly knew me from coursework, TAing, and general interactions in the department. Not being the only recommender might also make him feel less responsible for any future outcome. I would honestly expect a prof to know this already--or at least, know that they need to look into it more, but you never know…
As an alternative, I suggest finding a replacement and asking them, or one of your other letter writers to
* mention your work with the recalcitrant prof and
* explain the recalcirant prof's policy.
This avoids a conspicuous absence of a letter from someone with whom you've worked closely, and might apply some much-needed peer-pressure to the prof too.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I had very similar experiences when multiple professors refused to provide me recommendation letters. Including those who provided various good words about me. They gave a lot of excuses, such as they think i was a good student but since i did very bad score in masters degree and certain research entrance competitive exams so the evidence do not reflect that goodness.
(But in fact the purpose of recommendation letter is originally opposite, it is to measure the research qualities that do not reflect in an exam).
**Unfortunately the recommendation letter system is often not used as it was intended for.** Instead it is misused or abused. I must not generalise, but yes it is seemingly misused sometimes. **Recommendation letters or forms should be used to convey the psychological insight**. But unfortunately it sometimes become a battlefield of authoritative power-play, where the academia suppresses the student to be blindly obedient to the teacher to get a dazzling recommendation letter, and to a more freethinking student, the career can often be down on a "blink of eye" of professors, guides, seniors etc. So sometimes the recommendation letters tend to contain false or unknowingly wrong informations.
Also presumably many recommendation letters are not read in details. Because in an advertisement for Ph.D. admission a lot of (50, 100, 500, 1000 or more) applications arrive and a very little number of people having a versatile mentality checks those applications, and most of the applications are speedily rejected since they will fund for a very little number (usually 1 to 25) of positions. Sometimes recommendation letters written in a very mean way such as "candidate X worked in our lab for Y years, (s)he is honest, hardworking, sincere, intelligent, blah blah" as used to be in schoolday character certificate. They seemingly look for a signature and an institutional stamp. They often check for reputation and influence of the referee, and the interpersonal or inter-institutional rapport with the referee. Also the recommendation letter has the minimal role in the weightage to select the candidate, most of the recommendation process done through phone calls, in-person meetings, pannelling systems and bargaining. This is unfair, but this is real and unavoidable, it cannot yet be officially prevented, given the authority bears huge power and ego.
Also, another factor that prevents a professor from write a recommendation letter is; to writing a recommendation letter poses a risk or threat of responsibility to oneself (the referee professor) that makes them scared to write a recommendation letter say for example a the student is suffering invisible disability. Because they might think on new institute the referred student will take time to adapt and the new professors will then blame or defame the referee professor. **Referral system is such a drastic way to prune out students so that if a student earns so much trust that referee take a huge risk on oneself; omly then application could be done**.
..............................
In conditions your guide refuse to write the recommendation letter, ask other professors, ask more open minded teachers to give recommendation letter. even go to your earlier academia such as college and school. Make the issue open up. Explain why a recommendation letter is necessary for you. Carefully read brochure of your target institute that if they specifically mentions who can be your referee. If they does not specifically mention it, I think it is technically okay to take recommendation from your older academia such as your college teachers.
At the same time, you need to personally meet Ph. D. supervisors if it is legally allowed (in some academia it leads to disqualification as they call it "canvassing" whereas in some other places it is legal to just take an appointment and having a conversation). However it is difficult or impossible if the target institute is on another country, but still you may communicate using E-mails and video chat sessions. Explain them your specific problem with collecting recommendation letter and whether they can select you based on other available information about you.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: Am I alone in thinking this sounds like a not-so-subtle suggestion to write a research paper with your professor?
You've been working in his research lab for a year, do you have any results? You could write them up and show him. If you don't have any results, maybe discuss with him what he might want to write about with you.
He may not need your paper to be published, submitted, or even fully completed in order to write your letter. An "in preparation" paper may be good enough. It demonstrates that you're a self-starter in the research sphere, which is necessary for a PhD. Also, if it looks like the paper has a good trajectory and he will be getting a publication out of it, then there's something in it for him to support you.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: It is uncommon but not necessarily unreasonable as we do not know the core reason not to do so.
It could well be that this person wants to avoid a deluge of such requests and having a high bar is an easy way out.
It could be that this person feels he/she has done his/her share of writing reference letters in the past and it’s for others to step up.
It could be this person has been known to write a certain style of letter (either overly positive or overly negative) and wants to reset his/her reputation.
Writing reference letters is not an *obligation*, and at least this person was sufficiently honest to say no rather than write something negative or watery, both of which would not be terribly useful to the student. Else: who really knows why except the professor himself/herself?
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/04
| 898
| 3,905
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<issue_start>username_0: I am wondering how can I split my research into two or more research article.
I heard that there's a type of papers that called revisiting which basically relies on previous work with some enhancements.
The question is what's the **structure for the revisiting paper** and what's the **structure for the revised paper** and what are the differences between them.<issue_comment>username_1: Although you *can* split a paper in two, it is often not the best choice, known as [salami publication](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900084/).
There are, of course, papers ***revisiting*** a certain topic, sometimes tens or hundreds years after the first publication. Revisiting a topic is not the same, as simply splitting a paper in two. There is no specific structure for a revisiting paper - the term refers to its relation with previous research only.
In academic publishing, we call a ***revised*** paper a version of the manuscript which underwent a peer review process (i.e. in a journal), received feedback and was already corrected (*revised*) based on the feedback from peers. This term refers to the stage of the publication process and not to the structure or purpose of the paper.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Revisiting papers**
These are papers that are examining a topic from the past (probably years), and then providing new insights, a review, or new data/experiments/whatever that puts the old stuff in a new light. As pretty much all scienctific papers are in the business of "new insights", one might ask the question why does such a thing like "revisiting" paper even exist. In some fields there are certain topics that have been neglected, for various reasons. Then it is appropriate to do something like this. Usually the people who write a "revisiting" paper are experts in the field with years of experience.
**Revising a paper**
Just an ordinary process of peer review, that (almsot) every paper goes through. You submit a paper to a journal, it goes to review, and comes back with a list of issues the reviewers had. You *revise* the paper in order to address the issues and make the paper suitable for publication.
---
Both of these things are unrelated to your wish to split your research into two papers or more.
Some of the criteria to decide whether to split you research are:
1. Is the research in its current "one paper" form too long compared to other similar papers in similar journals?
2. Are there several main ideas in the research that each one can be in a paper of its own?
3. Is the research such that different aspects of it are relevant to researchers in different fields, such that it is appropriate for publication in different journals?
If you want to split your research just for the sake of having more papers, do not do it. It's called "salami slicing" (see the other answer here) and is usually frowned upon because it is a waste of everybody's time.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: In my research area, software engineering, the concept of "revising/revisiting article" is not standard terminology.
There is, however, a very similar concept: the publication of **extended versions**. An extended version extends a paper by adding some new material. The extended version is always published in a journal, whereas the original paper may have been published in conference or workshop proceedings (which are legitimate publication venues in my area).
Almost all journals accept submissions of extended versions. They explicitly specifiy the amount of required material for an extended version (typically between at least 25% to 40%) and the nature of the extension. Some journals may be fine with adding more details (like a more detailed proof to a theorem), whereas other journals will require substantial new contributions (like a significantly extended empirical evaluation).
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/04
| 3,677
| 14,279
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<issue_start>username_0: The last year has been ridiculously difficult. I can easily say it has been 90h weeks 12 months in a row, with the hours taken of rest being vastly overshadowed by intense guilt (over not using that time to work) and inadequacy. I produced a lot of research, published 5 new papers, and produced a thesis which is now submitted for evaluation. On the day I submitted it (about a month ago), I couldn't even read a single sentence and maintain focus - that's how severe my burnout was. My sense of not being good enough permeated every aspect of my being.
I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely. But the brain fog is ridiculously severe. I don't think I have lost intelligence, but the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway). On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day. Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less. I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do." attitude, in hopes to be kinder and gentler to myself as opposed to the whoo-tshh (whipping sounds) dictator I had employed to stay on track in my madness PhD.
I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants. I want out of academia, and this both excites and terrifies me. I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.
I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this. I mean, what even is this? PTSD? Burnout? Needing a break after excruciating intense labour and emotional distress?
*How can I deal with the life changes and the drop in motivation after having submitted my PhD? How do I deal with the remaining burnout?*<issue_comment>username_1: The first thing to do is to get rid of the 90 hour weeks, and resolve never to get back into that trap. There is a lot of experience suggesting that the maximum weekly output for intellectual jobs is produced at around 40 hours a week. Going beyond that reduces actual production, because of more mistakes and less creative thought. Your mileage may vary, but it would be very unusual for 90 hours to be optimal.
You need to accept that sleep, exercise, relaxation, and social life are all essential to achieving maximum productivity when working, and to general mental and physical health. If you feel intense guilt when not working, and cannot change that by yourself, you may need some sort of counseling to help you get a healthier attitude.
The mental issues you describe could just be because you got into a bad habit of working too long and relaxing too little. On the other hand, there could be an underlying problem that needs a professional. I am not qualified to evaluate that, and agree with the suggestion in comments that you should consider counseling.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: First of all: congratulations on submitting your thesis and on publishing 5 papers! That's a tremendous effort!
I was in a somewhat similar situation to you in that the last 9 months or so of my PhD involved ridiculous hours and a lot of uncertainty around getting results and having access to equipment etc. It can be hugely stressful, and for months one builds up this expectation that with submitting the thesis all of this stress will just magically disappear and be replaced by elation, happiness, and fulfillment. Unfortunately in reality submitting my thesis (and later passing my viva) were two hugely anti-climactic experiences.
I was suddenly without a purpose, and without a plan (with respect to my career). Ever since I was a child I wanted to be a scientist, and later this had morphed into more tangible goals like "getting a PhD" and "working in academia". After my PhD I had achieved the first goal, but I didn't really want to work in "the real" academia anymore.
After my viva I soon wanted to get back into reading non-scientific books, as that's something that was very much on the back-burner during the PhD, but I found my attention span to be extremely short and my motivation to keep reading was very low. It took me about 3 months before my hunger for reading and new knowledge came back.
Figuring out what I wanted to do career-wise took a lot longer for me, and involved many hours of often somewhat circular conversations with friends and family (plus probably hundreds of hours of soul-searching on my own) over many months.
I realise that none of this really answers your questions, but I think they're also going to be fairly individual answers for everyone. However, I found the following to be hugely helpful:
* If you can, take some time off from academia/work to spend time with friends/family and/or do something you love but you had to compromise on a lot during the PhD (for me that was travelling and spending time in the outdoors).
* Without putting too much pressure on yourself with regards to timeframes and the like, start doing some research into options that could be attractive to you (through reading interesting books, lots of long articles, etc on a huge variety of topics I stumbled across a lot of interesting options, started following interesting companies, joined FB groups, observed, thought about what it would really be like to work in these areas, etc.). I went through lots of iterations of wildly different career paths before I arrived where I am today (actually surprisingly close to my PhD, but in industry).
* Regarding the lack of industry experience: everyone was in the same boat once. I think this is about finding a company that values the experience and the knowledge you gained throughout your PhD and is willing to invest in you as a person (intelligent, educated, hard-working, willing to learn, quick at grasping new concepts, self-sufficient but able to work in a team, able to achieve long-term goals, etc.) rather than hiring an employee who can hit the ground running (i.e. a company worth investing your time and effort into). In my experience there's companies who are looking for people like us, and they're great, and there's companies that are looking for something else, and they'd probably not be a good match for us either.
Probably a bit of a rambly post, but maybe the two big take home messages from this should be:
* You're definitely not the only one who feels like this!
* It will work out! It'll take different amounts of time for everyone, but there are lots of options and lots of different paths!
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Although a mental health professional may certainly be able to help, a time-honored cure for your problem, that I think is almost *guaranteed* to be of some help, is to **take a vacation**. Two-three weeks in a nice, relaxed setting, preferably in a warm, exotic locale, will do wonders for your state of mind and help you look at your situation more clearly and think about your future, which, by the sound of it, is much rosier than you seem to think it is.
Congratulations on handing in your CS dissertation. It’s a fantastic achievement that would make most people (including those who spent the last three years in industry, I assure you) green with envy.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> I'm finding myself now getting better, slowly and surely.
>
>
>
Well, from your description - not quite. That is, not surely, and in some respects you're now experiencing the repercussions of working yourself to the bone.
>
> the lack of care I feel for my current position as a research assistant eclipses all
>
>
>
After you come back from your **vacation**, see if you still feel the same. If you do, it's time to remind yourself, or perhaps ask yourself "Why did I do this in the first place?" - and then re-assess whether you've achieved that goal; whether you want to continue following it (*not* in 90h work-weeks, nor in 50h work-weeks either); whether you want to try something else (for now or permanently).
Remember, though! You've not "lost" or "wasted" anything - except your peace-of-mind and physical health perhaps.
>
> output I know I'm otherwise capable of producing (or used to be, anyway).
>
>
>
You're not a paper mill, you're a person. Stop thinking about imaginary theoretically-producible "output".
>
> On top of that, I feel more tired than usual. I easily need 1-2 more sleep in a day.
>
>
>
When you're stressed out, in an anxiety spell, and/or depressed - your sleep suffers too. You don't sleep as well. That's why you feel you need more sleep, and at the same time - even that sleep is not enough. Consult your physician. He may or may not prescribe some sort of super-mild anti-anxiety medication if your sleep trouble is serious. In parallel, consider an appropriate physical/meditative activity; I have found Yoga to be helpful, but YMMV.
>
> Normally, I'd be exceptionally motivated to work out, and now I really could not care less.
>
>
>
"work out" sounds like something very intensive and not very relaxing, which gets your adrenaline pumping. Like I said above, perhaps something with less "grrr!"
>
> I adopted this "You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
>
>
>
... but it seems like you're beating yourself up about it. Remember this is not a binary thing; and it's not permanent. So: "For a while, you don't have to do all those things you don't want to."
Also, I'm guessing this doesn't help with the fact that you're not really sure what it is that you want.
>
> I cannot fathom a job in this field anymore, I cannot stand the endless thinking up of made-up projects to pursue research grants.
>
>
>
... which is why - after your vacation - think of what it is that you actually want to do as an academic. And if there's no such thing - then your job search should probably focus, at least partially, on out-of-academia positions. This is not "failing" - because your goals have changed.
>
> I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.
>
>
>
1. You're quite adequate - believe you me (and I'm a CSer who entered industry after academia, then back again, then back again).
2. Most industry experience is bad industry experience.
3. Industry needs people with academic experience.
4. If you worked 90h weeks, you got the industry experience of some places in industry...
5. When you leave academia you'll understand what "inadequate" *really* means.
6. Forget about adequacy - and think about finding something interesting to do in industry.
>
> I feel lost.
>
>
>
Many, including myself, have been in your shoes - and worse. Hope this answer helps a bit. Don't try to snap yourself back to full working condition at once. It's a process.
>
> I feel lost. Like there's a daily existential crisis. I don't know what to do with my life, and what's worse, I don't even know if I'll recover from this.
>
>
>
You need to keep in contact with people - not online, but physically. Visit friends and family. You don't have to repeat everything to every one of them, but try to be open to letting them cheer you up a bit about life.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> I adopted this "**You don't have to do anything you don't want to do**." attitude, in hopes to be kinder and gentler to myself...
>
>
>
So it was all worthwhile then. The value of an experience isn't always what you expect it to be.
>
> I want out of academia, and this both excites and terrifies me.
> I feel largely inadequate as a computer scientist joining industry post-PhD because I just spent 3 years of my life not getting industry experience.
>
>
>
You had your experience, and learned something from it, and now you'll try something new with the benefit of that knowledge. This is life.
If "computer science" and "industry" are in reference to programming, then you can get some more experience based on your own interests by finding an open-source project to contribute to at your own pace.
>
> I don't know what to do with my life...
>
>
>
Instead of struggling to find something to do with your life (for something new), you can focus on maintenance and preparedness. Do you have a bunch of junk to get rid of? Is your non-junk well organized? Do you have any health issues you need to address? Is your bathroom clean?
Are you prepared to receive what you only dare to dream of?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: 1. It's post coital tristesse. You shot your wad. Seriously, though. As grim as the battle is, it can be sad when the combat is over. Those 90 hour weeks had a sort of joy of the struggle to them.
2. Can't help you on academia. There are a lot of twidgety aspects to it. Can't say industry is perfect either, though. But these issues exist whether you are just done with thesis or not.
3. Take some industry job interviews. Don't even worry (too much) about getting the offer...although that would be nice. But get yourself on the market. It will change your mindset to be going after something. And it will force you to get out of your own head...because of the person on the other end.
4. Go for some bike rides. Doesn't have to be in "cardio mode". But just get out and move a little and breath the vitamin D-shine.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: it sounds like you're depressed. I've felt very much like this. In my case it was triggered by reaching a point where I thought I had achieved my major life goals, and had no new goals to work towards. You'll get better but it may take some time and some help from a medical professional.
I suggest you explore opportunities for new creative or artistic endeavours, spend time with friends, make new friends etc. In my case I took up music (writing, learning, performing, playing in a band). You may not even have to make any big professional/academic changes, but it could help to do something fresh or different professionally for a while.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/04
| 633
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently a Senior Undergraduate planning on applying to MS and PhD programs this Fall.
Between my current research job, TA position, and courses I believe I'm over committed time wise this semester (only 2 weeks in and I'm very stressed). I was looking to drop a course to free up my schedule and unfortunately the best candidate seems to be a course in my research area in which I'm applying to graduate schools.
The class takes place during night hours, it's poorly taught/structured, and I seem to know most of the material already. I have publications in the area and I feel as they should make up for not taking the course, but currently dropping the course would show up on my transcript (as a withdrawal).
*Would a withdrawal from a course in my related research area negatively affect my graduate application? If so, severely?*
Currently I am having a discussion with an advisor, but I'd also like thoughts from others who are familiar with graduate admissions processes. There are [several](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/29494/how-do-some-ws-on-transcripts-affect-phd-admissions-in-mathematics?rq=1) [other](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/40842/how-do-withdrawn-courses-in-my-transcripts-affect-my-phd-admissions-application?rq=1) [related](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/66561/would-several-withdrawals-w-affect-my-chances-at-graduate-school-admission?rq=1) questions on this site, but all seem to address a large number of W's or W's in areas not related to their proposed research area.<issue_comment>username_1: I wouldn't worry about it. You have a perfectly valid reason for dropping. Your advisor can give the best advice, of course, knowing you better than we do, and also knowing other options you might have.
But a poorly taught course won't give you much of a push toward your goal in any case.
But if your advisor is "on board" with you dropping and supports you generally, then you should be fine for the more important task of getting good letters of recommendation, which will count much more heavily than a W on the transcript.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> I have publications in the area and I feel as they should make up for not taking the course,
>
>
>
Yes, I agree. If I were on the admissions committee, I would count publications *much* more heavily than classes.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/04
| 876
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<issue_start>username_0: <NAME> has recently been appointed an Adjunct Professor in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Auckland. As you know, <NAME> is the founder of Rocket Lab, which has put payloads into space, but <NAME> also never attended college and even dropped out of high school.
How many Adjunct Professors are there in technical fields like Aerospace Engineering without any college degrees? How many high school dropout professors without degrees?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't have numbers, of course, nor even proportions, but I suspect that the number is small.
But more important is the question of how such a person would be hired and what sort of position they could hold. The problem is that a school or university wanting to employ such a person needs some assurance that the person is competent for the position. Not holding any degrees makes that more difficult in general.
But some people have excelled in a field with no formal education. That isn't especially unusual, actually, but not a lot of them will want to teach. But some will. Many will want to do it only part time and money isn't the driver for them, so a position as an adjunct can be attractive both to them and to a university. But no one will be looking at it as a career path.
I suspect that Harvard would be happy to have Bill Gates teach a course occasionally - probably not in BASIC language, though.
Luminaries in a field are probably offered such courses fairly frequently, I'd guess. But especially if the institution is looking to establish a long term relationship with future funding in mind.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A professor (assistant prof, associate prof, *etc*) has a PhD. That’s a minimum requirement making my answer “zero”.
An adjunct instructor, or lecturer might not have a degree.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Depending on the institution, country, and field, there may be various types of "professors" teaching courses. For example:
* Tenure-track or tenured faculty: These almost always have a PhD or other terminal degree in the field.
* Full time or part time non-tenure-track faculty. This category can include:
+ adjunct faculty,
+ people who were hired because of skills and expertise from non-academic careers who have titles like "Professor of Practice" or "Industry Professor",
+ people who focus exclusively on teaching and do no research, with titles like "Teaching Professor",
+ and others.Depending on the institution, it is not necessarily unusual for individuals in this category to not have a PhD.
* Graduate students may teach or assist in teaching courses in some fields/institutions. They do not have a PhD, and depending on the field, their highest degree may be a bachelors degree. They don't have "professor" in their official title, but their students may think of them as a "professor" because they are in that teaching role.
[According to the American Association of University Professors](https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf), about 20 percent of the "Instructional Faculty Workforce" in the U.S. is grad student employees, about 50 percent is non-tenure track (who may or may not have a PhD), and the rest are tenured or tenure-track faculty (who usually have a PhD or other terminal degree).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qoWcS.png)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/04
| 951
| 3,827
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<issue_start>username_0: This is probably more relevant to conference submissions than to journal submissions, but still.
Some CS conferences have recently started to employ a resubmission policy: if your paper got rejected from a prior (relevant) conference, and you are resubmitting, you have the **option** of attaching your previous attempt’s reviews and a cover letter explaining how you addressed them.
You don’t have to do this. There are very good reasons to believe that doing so is beneficial. For the authors, it offers a chance to show improvement and a willingness to improve (thus deflecting potential repeats of prior criticism). For the community, it prevents p-hacking of the review process (resubmitting until you luck out and get your paper accepted).
What are the potential downsides of making this process mandatory?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't have numbers, of course, nor even proportions, but I suspect that the number is small.
But more important is the question of how such a person would be hired and what sort of position they could hold. The problem is that a school or university wanting to employ such a person needs some assurance that the person is competent for the position. Not holding any degrees makes that more difficult in general.
But some people have excelled in a field with no formal education. That isn't especially unusual, actually, but not a lot of them will want to teach. But some will. Many will want to do it only part time and money isn't the driver for them, so a position as an adjunct can be attractive both to them and to a university. But no one will be looking at it as a career path.
I suspect that Harvard would be happy to have Bill Gates teach a course occasionally - probably not in BASIC language, though.
Luminaries in a field are probably offered such courses fairly frequently, I'd guess. But especially if the institution is looking to establish a long term relationship with future funding in mind.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A professor (assistant prof, associate prof, *etc*) has a PhD. That’s a minimum requirement making my answer “zero”.
An adjunct instructor, or lecturer might not have a degree.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Depending on the institution, country, and field, there may be various types of "professors" teaching courses. For example:
* Tenure-track or tenured faculty: These almost always have a PhD or other terminal degree in the field.
* Full time or part time non-tenure-track faculty. This category can include:
+ adjunct faculty,
+ people who were hired because of skills and expertise from non-academic careers who have titles like "Professor of Practice" or "Industry Professor",
+ people who focus exclusively on teaching and do no research, with titles like "Teaching Professor",
+ and others.Depending on the institution, it is not necessarily unusual for individuals in this category to not have a PhD.
* Graduate students may teach or assist in teaching courses in some fields/institutions. They do not have a PhD, and depending on the field, their highest degree may be a bachelors degree. They don't have "professor" in their official title, but their students may think of them as a "professor" because they are in that teaching role.
[According to the American Association of University Professors](https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/10112018%20Data%20Snapshot%20Tenure.pdf), about 20 percent of the "Instructional Faculty Workforce" in the U.S. is grad student employees, about 50 percent is non-tenure track (who may or may not have a PhD), and the rest are tenured or tenure-track faculty (who usually have a PhD or other terminal degree).
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qoWcS.png)
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/04
| 887
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<issue_start>username_0: *I've searched the Stackexchange sites and found several potentially good places to ask this question but I have eventually chosen here as here where I personally found it best fits.*
I'm an academic student and a language learner, autodidact, researcher, enthusiast and translator. Theoretically, I like philosophy, literature, culturally and mentally enriching works of writing, knowledge, books, etc and etc; but as mentioned, all just theoretically, not practically at all, and this is because of one reason, and that is I dislike reading; most of the time I just hate the idea of "what about reading that book right now" or "I must read this article on Stackexchange, it includes exactly all I need to know of a very valuable information that matters so much to me". Reading bores me way too much more than merely sitting on my a\*\* for an hour doing just nothing. Reading makes me very nervous that, no longer than a couple of minutes after I start reading something, I start scrubbing my scalp, vibrating my legs and wonder when the time will come where I would have finished whatever I'm reading. Also, I feel that my eyes start confusing the lines sometimes, and because I wear glasses, when I'm reading off a screen, I find myself reading from above my glasses because it seems it practically comforts me more, and that is not medically good of course. I think I sometimes even get heavy breathing reading because I don't have enough patience and it seemingly makes me too nervous.
Now that's exactly what I don't need in my career and my field of study, I have so very big ambitions and dreams that require me to sit still and READ, and just read; and that obviously, I can't do.
My question is, if there's a method or a solution that somebody knows, scientific (I'm physically a very active person by nature) or practical, to solve this misery of mine and save my future?<issue_comment>username_1: Practice makes many things easier. I've always read a lot, so for me the act of reading disappears, and the information flows from the page into my brain.
I suggest gradually increasing doses. Pick a book that contains knowledge you very much want to have. Begin by reading a few pages at a time, then do something else. Gradually increase how much you read in one session.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: 1. Keep a notebook and write down some thoughts about what you read. Do it very lightly, like journaling. Not with any expectation of taking action on the notes (although you may), but just so there is some way for you to interact with the work.
Make it very light and personal. OK to call something a piece of shit in your private remarks. But you can also note ideas sparked or things to bring up in other discussions--maybe circle those. But with no big pressure that you have to run everything down to ground. Don't write a lot. Just short amount, so you have some pseudo-interaction. It will be enough.
2. I also like the suggestion of just training yourself by gradually longer reading experiences and with more difficult texts. You don't eat an elephant in one meal. You don't become a champion athlete in one workout. Need to progress and persevere. If you do it long enough, you will come to enjoy it. But don't expect it to be immediately entertaining.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: All of the symptoms that you describe sound like symptoms of a reading or attentional issue. My wife has a doctorate in psycholinguistics and thinks that you're describing someone who should talk to their school or university psychologist or reading counsellor. They could give you information on how to deal with the anxiety you feel when reading and help you learn strategies to enjoy reading.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 3
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2019/09/05
| 1,357
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<issue_start>username_0: Background:
My lab (life-science) has been awarded with a grant that allows to employ a PhD student that the group should select.
We shortlisted three candidates according to their knowledge (they are fresh graduates of the master) and experience for an interview. The interview was structured the following way:
1. First a presentation of the work done by the candidates (internships, experiences...) in front of all the team
2. Then the candidates talks individually with each member of the team (PhD students and postdocs) in random order (depending on if someone is doing some lab protocol or has to go or ...)
3. Then an interview with the boss
In order to know if the candidate is a good fit for the group I usually talk more about the working atmosphere of the group. I usually focus in explaining how things work in the group; what I do (project, year of the PHD program), what I studied, what other team mates ask me to do, what the boss encourages.
Question:
What questions should I made as a fellow PhD student to know if the person is a good fit for the group?
PS: The decision is taken by the boss but highly influenced by what we said about the new member of the team.<issue_comment>username_1: I was recently in a similar situation selecting 3 PhD students and some Hiwis for a longer funded project. The answer depends in my opinion on what your goals are concerning a distinct research project and how risk-averse you are.
Having a good team atmosphere is of course fine and nice to work in. But I would not make it the primary criterion in academia. Critical and autonomous thinkers are often a bit edgy and individualists. And good scientific ideas (for projects or funding proposals) or a PhD thesis with outstanding results are often the product of such a mind and giving him time and opportunity to work autonomously. In the best case such guys are also team players if several research questions/topics in your group are interdependent (e.g. funded project), but in my experience they often focus more on their thing and ideas and don't want to have to follow a daily/weekly group plan what they have to do.
If you simply have to fulfill distinct interdependent work packages and is it already outlined what has to be done scientifically (method, object etc.), hiring a team player and specialist is probably the much more efficient and wiser choice. But as a subgroup leader seeking tenure you probably not only have a eye on the project/job getting done, but also working on some more difficult/risky ideas with great potential.
So in my case I rather looked for a good mixture of personalities (very disciplined, creative, critical, lab/computer guy...) as there is no perfect PhD student having all abilities/interest/personal traits). It's not the perfect team to fulfill the project, because I wanted to have people with overall interdisciplinary background for interesting side-projects. This means we all have to work a bit more instead of hiring specialist guys matching exactly the projects tasks. But I chose this risk and hope to be rewarded with more research options/results besides the project.
Next issue with assessment is, do you want to hire them only for PhD/project or do you want in best case someone who will stay as a postdoc 1-2 years for different reasons (knowledge transfer, efficiency...)
When you know what personalities you want to have and need, ask the according questions openly and directly to the candidates. I don't think it is efficient trying to be a hobby psychologist here, the candidates are adults and should know if they want and can fulfill such a task over several years and will only accept a very team-dependent, discipline requiring position or a rather tricky topic forcing them to work pretty much alone. The question is more to rule out guys here who just seek a job/salary, but are not really motivated.
If the person is qualified/motivated/knowledgeable to actually do the job is anyway your personal judgement as expert in your area.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> In order to know if the candidate is a good cultural fit for the group I usually talk more about the working atmosphere of the group. I usually focus in explaining how things work in the group; what I do (project, year of the PHD program), what I studied, what other team mates ask me to do, what the boss encourages.
>
>
>
Sounds right on the money to me. Sometimes it's hard for people to be self aware enough to answer these sorts of questions, but you should ask about exactly those topics:
* what sort of working environment do they operate well in (do they work best in a quiet room or a busy room? working individually or closely with another person/group?),
* level of supervision (how often do they expect to meet with a PI? do they want to work mainly independently or be given tasks to do?),
* how do they like to receive feedback, social preferences (do they like to go out after work with colleagues or head straight home?), etc.
You can then help them compare their desires with what your actual experiences are in the lab.
Ask them what their concerns are coming into a PhD program, what makes them anxious about a new working environment, etc.
Also, it shouldn't be just about asking questions but also providing information. The prospective students should be interviewing you as much as you are interviewing them. Let them know what you like about working in that lab, what you don't like, what you have been able to change or what can't be changed.
Importantly, none of these things are really about the *quality* of a candidate but rather about their *fit*. This stack is *full* of people will all sorts of problems mid to late in their PhD that boil down to them joining a lab that was a bad fit. It's important for both the lab and the student to make a good fit.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/09/05
| 1,552
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<issue_start>username_0: Context: I am an assistant professor at a small institution in the US.
Question: My significant other has the opportunity through work to travel to an exotic location over a long weekend in February, and I would very much like to join. That said, it would require that I miss both my Thursday and Friday classes before the weekend. Would it be unreasonable and/or unprofessional for me to join her on this trip?
I can easily structure my content schedule in such a way that I could cancel these classes without losing anything significant, but I'm concerned about how such an absence would be perceived by my colleagues. I have an excellent relationship with those in my department, my department chair, and my dean.
I would also be curious to hear how dependent the answer is upon my tenure status. I am tenure-track and plan to apply for tenure three years from now.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a question for your colleagues and chair. A couple of days probably isn't going to be much of an issue, but it will be frowned upon if only a bit. But people go off to conferences for similar amounts of time.
But even better if you can be available to your students via something like email or a mailing list while you are away.
I would say the equation would change if it were a week and both week ends. Now it starts to be a disadvantage for student learning.
You can also offer to do a makeup for anyone who wants - evenings or week ends or virtually somehow. Or extra office hours.
But first, ask those whose opinions you value. Especially as an assistant professor who will be judged by your peers, partly on your commitment. You might just raise the "opportunity" in the coffee room as a possibility and listen to any opinions that are offered.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: In the departments I have worked in, it would probably be considered unprofessional to leave on a pleasure-cruise in the middle of the semester. I suspect that that is universal.
In other words, this is not the image you want to project as someone who will still have to go through the tenure process. On the other hand, it's a fairly small thing -- people are gone all the time, although almost always for professional reasons: at conferences, workshops, for collaborations. So the mechanics of being gone are all appreciated in any department, such as moving classes around, giving out reading assignments instead of in-person classes, or putting a midterm exam on such a date and having someone else proctor the exam. Students also understand these things. In the end, it will be a judgment call: It comes over as "frivolous" to leave for a vacation and cancel classes over it, but it's also not a huge deal and I'd be surprised if anyone would think that you'll lose tenure over it. It's just a bad mark in your peers' perception of your professionalism.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In the departments I have worked in, this would be completely fine (provided there is no additional work to your peers). So if you need someone to cover your classes (which probably looks better than cancelling them), let it be someone who is familiar with the material and is sympathetic to you and pay the favor back. People generally understand if you take a short vacation because of a one-time-opportunity like it is in your case. This is especially the case if you are "friends" with your peers.
You might want to consider if there are any rules against this and if other people also did this. But don't be afraid to ask, especially given your good relationsship to your superior.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: First of all, I’d suggest leaving questions of *perception* aside. It is much more helpful to think whether your suggested behavior *is* unprofessional than to worry about how it will be perceived by your colleagues. But for the first question, don’t just think about superficialities like whether you have the technical ability to reschedule or cancel class or ask a colleague or TA to give it in your place. You need to go deeper than that. Ask yourself:
* Am I potentially inconveniencing my students by redesigning my class schedule to fit my own personal vacation plans? Can I really claim to have my students’ best interest at heart when I say I can “easily structure my content schedule ... without losing anything significant”? (The word “significant” here suggests to me the answer is no.)
* Is the TA or colleague whom I’m thinking of asking to cover my class while I’m on vacation equally qualified as me to give those lectures? Will the students benefit equally from hearing this lecture from the TA/colleague as they would if I were present to deliver it? (Again, I’m guessing the answer is likely no.)
* Will my absence also inconvenience my students in other ways because I’ll have to cancel or reschedule office hours, and be less available to answer their questions over email while I’m on vacation?
You can go even deeper and think about second- and third-order effects of the vacation plan:
* Will my behavior contribute to a healthy departmental and institutional climate? Do I feel comfortable with the thought that my behavior might push norms in the direction of faculty members generally doing whatever they want based on their own convenience, without oversight, without regard to university policies, and without considering the larger picture of the students’ interests? (E.g., perhaps you are acting in a thoughtful way and making sure you’re not hurting the students, but a colleague who sees you behave in this way and might be tempted to behave similarly in the future may not be as thoughtful as you.)
* Will taxpayers in my state feel happy hearing about my behavior, should it get covered by a local newspaper? Can my behavior conceivably cause reputational problems for my department or university?
* Etc.
The bottom line is that to behave professionally is to show yourself as a person who understands that they are being paid to perform a job, and that that job entails certain responsibilities that must be taken very seriously. If you can consider all the questions I listed above and come up with serious, sincere, well-thought out answers to all of them that demonstrate convincingly that your vacation plan is not going to create any inconvenience or negative effects for your students or anyone else, I for one will be more than happy to say you’re acting professionally and to wish you a fun vacation.
That being said, based on how you phrased your question, I feel it’s premature to conclude that you’ve really taken all the effects of your vacation plan into account in the way I’ve suggested.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/05
| 3,719
| 15,748
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<issue_start>username_0: During my last year of MSc. studies, I was part-time employed on the university project. The project was related to my diploma thesis, and my task was to create a data-mining software and run experiments using this software.
I've finished the software, run the experiments in it, successfully graduated, and finished the studies. It was a huge success for me and for the university as the diploma thesis was awarded in a student's competitions, being top 10 among 2000 diploma theses.
Despite this success, the software I developed is not production-ready, rather just a prototype. For my experiments I considered only happy-case scenarios and if there are some unexpected inputs from the user/from connected systems/uploaded CSV files do not match specification, etc., the software crashes and cannot be used.
My supervisor wants to use the software usually twice a year. When he runs into some troubles with it, he emails me to deploy fixes so that he can run the experiments. In the first year and a half after I finished the project and the software, I did it three times. Now he is asking again to debug the problems in the software and fix them. I do not want to do it, because:
1. I have no time for it because of very time-consuming projects in my current job.
2. I am working in a different industry now and during two years I forgot many things from the software development and specific solutions I used.
3. I already lost accesses to the production environment at the university, so I am not able to deploy fixes.
4. I feel stressed out by the requests. As this was a prototype I did not set up logging, and I usually struggle to find and fix the error cause. I sometimes even cannot reproduce the errors locally and then I really do not know how to fix it.
I wrote these reasons to him, but he insists that I should still help them with it. He offered me they will pay me again some hour rate to support the software, get production accesses again, etc. But the money is no matter for me; I just do not want to continue with supporting the tool.
I feel there was some misunderstanding from their side about what are difference between diploma-thesis prototype and production-ready software. We never agreed officially that I would support it. We just once talked about that I would support it "for some time if some problems occurs", which I believe I did (three bugfixes and approximately three months of work during a year and a half after I graduated).
Is there a way how to politely refuse while still keeping good relationship with the supervisor as he is always very nice and polite?
I was thinking to offer him a one- or two-day workshop for some of the current university employees where we could go through the code on GitHub, and I would officially hand it over to the current employee. But it would not be a solution for him, as there are only a handful of postgraduate students in their group, and they are not programmers, so they cannot take the software over.
And I feel bad about writing to him: “I do not have a solution, I do not want to continue with that, and I do not care that you cannot use the software any more...”<issue_comment>username_1: I think you are being generous and, given what you say, should be able to step away from the project with a clear conscience.
If he needs the software he should be willing to find a way to pay for support, maybe not you, I think, but some support person.
I would see him if possible or send an email giving much of the information you've given here. The fact that you are doing very different things now and that support is disruptive to your main goals should be definitive.
But I agree that it is good to find a way to keep a good relationship with him if you can also achieve your main goal.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: The typical answer over on Workplace.SE would be to say "I'll do it if you pay me X" or "I can only do it if you pay me X". You pick X high enough that you don't think they'll accept (shouldn't be too hard in academia) and high enough that you'd actually be happy to do the work in case they actually do accept it. Unless you actively want to do the work, the amount should at a minimum match what you'd get by spending the same time on your actual job.
It's possible that this will make the professor angry and impair your relationship. However, based on what you write, why do you need to keep him happy? You're in industry now, and what you describe sounds like a very one-sided relationship - you do work, and at best you'd be offered to be paid a small amount. (Or so I assume - academic salaries are typically a bit lower.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: He has had your work for free 3 times already.
If he was serious he would have offered some reward the first time...
Unless you get him to commit to paying upfront, then he won't pay. He should have continued the project with other students since you left but did not, I suggest he won't be able to fund you for your continued work or other students as he cannot get any more funding for that project.
Get out and stay out is my 2 pence worth...
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I have mixed feelings about this question, and I wanted to write an answer simply because it would be too long for a comment.
While I agree with the general sentiment that if this was asked on workplace stackexchange the typical advice would be that you do not owe him such service, I also understand that academia is a very different context, where programming is often a side-effect of the research rather than the 'main product' as it were.
The problem with this, as you're coming to realise, is that there is a lot of 'bad code' in academia. And one needs to clarify what 'bad code' means here: it does not mean that it does not do well what it was designed to do. It means that it is devoid of any of the software engineering good practices that typically make code flexible, maintainable, supported by tests covering specification and edge-cases, versioning, documentation, etc. In other words, what you call "production-ready".
There are good and bad reasons for such "bad code" in academia, but at the end of the day, the fact is that the code is bad *by design*. You *decided* it was meant to be prototype code rather than production-ready, and accepted that risk given your use-context and intent at the time. In that, your code was *designed* to not be maintainable, supported by tests, documentation, etc, because you had a very particular problem in mind to solve which you felt did not require or justify these features for the allocated time. I have mixed feelings about this because, as you're coming to realise, typically this is technical-debt that tends to catch up with you exponentially, but, it is what it is, what's done is done, and that's what you need to deal with now.
Therefore the crucial difference here, is that when your supervisor talks about 'bugfixes', these are not actually bugfixes as such. They are "features". He is in fact asking you to add functionality and extra work that was not part of the original intent and "design". He is effectively asking you to do *new* work (and boring one at that), that you have neither interest in, nor pays market rates (even if you cared to do it). The fact that this work is tangentially related to something you've worked on the past has no bearing on anything.
Your supervisor, especially if he's not programming-savvy, may not understand this crucial difference (or in the words of Upton Sinclair, it may be impossible to make him understand it, if his work depends on him not understanding it). But, however you decide to tackle this issue, part of your reply to him must make this point clear: that what he's asking you to do is, to use a car analogy, a lot less like performing trivial standard maintenance\* (e.g. doing an oil change), and a lot like him expecting your machine to act like a proper general-purpose car, when it was only supposed to serve a single route, for a single individual, on a particular day. You need to impress on him that if your supervisor wants to make 12 trips in this 'car', it's not a case that if a route has problems you'll make some small adjustment for him, you're literally gonna have to design 12 routes for him, each one from scratch, because that 'car' was never supposed to be able to go on a general route to begin with, nor is it the right kind of machine for that task.
And if what he wants is a general purpose, production-ready car, really the only viable, long-term solution is for him to get (i.e. pay) someone (i.e. a professional) to build it for him.
---
\* and even if it were, it would still be inappropriate for him to be asking you to commit to such maintenance for life anyway, however trivial.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: Check your employment contract. Often, if you're working in IT, there will be terms that state that your employer owns all software you produce while working for them - which would also include all new features you produce for this previous software, even if you're working on it in your spare time. If you have such a term in your contract, you can simply tell your previous professor that unless he is willing to allow your employer to take ownership of the software and pay them a licensing fee, you will be unable to continue working on the software.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Generally speaking, I agree with Tasos's answer. But I'd like to emphasize the long-term aspects of your response. Are you still in academia? If you are, or even if you are not, it'd be beneficial for you to make sure that you maintain a good relationship with your former advisor. And to ensure the long-term life of something which you yourself describe as 'a huge success'. Rather than keep it as a vanishing line on your resume, ensuring that this becomes a useful tool that's recognized as such and widely used can only be good for your career in the long term.
So sit down with your advisor and have a talk with them about how this tool can become more generally useful. It's already in a github repository? Great. Is it public? Before you talk to your advisor, and before you do any actual further work, how about making it more ready for prime time?
Can you take some time and improve the github presentation? First, make a list of what would need to happen to make it more viable, maybe making them formal issues. Can you explain better how it works up front, throw in some comments about assumptions, reasons to do things one way or another? Can you throw in at least an example of what format(s) you expect the inputs to look like?
Then try to negotiate not doing any actual fix yourself, but helping someone else do them, filling in the doc as needed. If you need access to the university's production environment to simplify the task, I'm sure your advisor can arrange that with the IT department. And you have a whole university to work with, a listing in the job center should scare up at least a student to take up the project. If you can find an actual staff member to help, you'd be better off, as your training would be more useful in the long term. But even a student would do, as it'd force you to be more explicit in comments/documentation.
In any case, finding a successor should be your advisor's problem, not yours. You should limit yourself to vetting and training the successor, and that is already being a very good software owner.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: It is my subjective opinion. If I were you I would be glad that someone is interested in and actually using my work. I don't know about other people but I find such events rare in my life. Everyone is just interested in themselves.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: If your current company does any kind of development that is sold to clients, I would see if your company could provide him such service.
You mention that you are now in different industry, but even though it would be a peculiar decision to hire a company that made microcontrollers for waste collection systems that have nothing to do with data-mining software:
* The supervisor would probably be happy to choose that company, as long as you were there
* Your company would be happy to sell a product to a new client, as long as he pays adequately for that.
if that worked out, and you were assigned to this, you would have to be freed from (some of) your current time-consuming projects, and you would be working there on work hours (your leisure time is your own!). So, it could be a solution that pleased everybody, if your reasons are just the circumstantial ones those stated above, and not a dislike with the program itself.
You would probably need to spend time refreshing things, and maybe even to rewrite many things from scratch. As long as the client (University) is ok with paying the needed hours at the wage agreed with your company, that's good for your company.
Note that while you seem to consider yourself unfit, you probably still are the most suited person to do it. Refreshing that prior knowledge is likely easier than learning and understanding everything for someone else.
There are many reasons it is unlikely that would actually work out (even if your company *does* services for other companies): the wages the University may be willing to pay are probably quite lower than the fees of your company, your supervisor may not have the needed funds for such a project, your managers may not with to enter into an unexplored business marked, your current projects may be much more profitable than anything the University could pay, etc.
However, if your supervisor can't reach an agreement with your company, it should no longer bother you, as you *did* present a solution but they didn't take it.
(maybe he would claim it wasn't affordable by them, but if someone wants a service that he cannot pay for, he is not entitled to have someone do it cheaper/for free, is he?).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: Just say no. He can get omeone else to fix it or even rewrite it from scratch. Or even (if needed) to go over it line by line to understand it (e.g. if they need to keep doing followon comparisons). None of these is as convenient (meaning cheap) as you continuing on. But you're not being adequately compensated for the hassle factor.
Fact of the matter is academia, while it has its good points, also has well known inefficiencies. Non-production code. Students graduating and advisors who just put names on papers. Samples that get thrown out. Apparatus that morphs or dies. Work that never gets published. Etc. Etc. But it's not your job to fix that. You did your duty. Move on. Let the PI worry about it. It won't be the only hassle of this kind that he has.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: Be honest and tell him you struggled to find a resolution that would satisfy everyone involved but finally realized it was beyond the limit of your abilities at which point you reached out for help and received much valuable feedback and that you would be grateful if it were to be improved on further by the inclusion of his own perspective and insight at [Supervisor wants me to support a diploma-thesis software tool after I graduated](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/135725/supervisor-wants-me-to-support-a-diploma-thesis-software-tool-after-i-graduated?newreg=a44ebcc466b14c03af6bc698484697ef)
The fact of his seeing this helps ensure finding a course of action that results in the most good for the most number.
Also, better that you be the one to tell him now than he find this some other way.
Upvotes: -1
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2019/09/05
| 825
| 3,426
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<issue_start>username_0: I have noticed from time to time that some PhD students at good, sometimes top, universities (who must have shown promise at some point) start to act as if they're gone a bit crankish. Say, they speak cryptically about how they are working on [insert famous research problem here, like quantum gravity or the Riemann Hypothesis].
As an advisor, how would you deal with such a student? Clearly there is a risk for the advisor's reputation if this gets out of hand (e.g. the student suddenly posts a patently wrong preprint purporting to solve that famous problem). But how long to wait, and how much efforts to do, before thinking seriously about terminating their contract?<issue_comment>username_1: I assume that you mean that they turn into a "cranK" prior to graduation. There are some famous cases of this happening later, though the seeds may have been there before graduation. One famous case is [The Unabomber](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski) who holds a doctorate in mathematics from University of Michigan. Had his "career" as a crank been started earlier, the proper response would be to contact the police.
But in the more common situation, people can just drift away, not needing action from the advisor. Large universities usually have some sort of counseling available and people drifting into abnormal behavior can often be referred to them, though privacy laws might prevent that from happening. It is available if the person her/himself notices it.
And, don't forget that some "crankish" graduate student might just succeed in solving some long standing important problem someday, though the likelihood in individual cases is small.
Also being crankish takes many forms. Some are benign. Everyone is different. Your crank may be just my brilliant, but socially awkward, sister.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my opinion, every smart theoretician should take a crack at the major open problems in their field, at least for fun. Often the key to "solving" such problems is to not actually bang your head through the same wall everyone else has been stuck by, but to change the perspective or cheat the problem somehow. Even if you aren't smarter than everyone else, perhaps you can think of an outside-the-box idea others haven't. And as <NAME> put it, we aren't as smart as we think we are. If I remember correctly, he said this when interviewed about Fermat's last theorem, which was unsolved at the time.
Of course if someone actually is "smart" enough to continue in research, they will be able to tell if they have failed. And they will be able to make a rational assessment of risk versus reward in pursuing such a path where the likelihood of funding and career success would be low. Hence pursuing such problems isn't all that different from pursuing other very-high-risk ideas. Just a little farther out on the spectrum.
One situation where this risk-reward assessment breaks down, of course, is mental illness. A manic person might think they are superhuman, for example. And there are some professors that I really wonder about. But mental illness is beyond the scope of sites like this, and I'd note that people with diagnosed illnesses can still function normally (or better) and be very successful in research.
The short answer is if you can't prove (rigorousy) they will fail, you can't prove they are fools for trying.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/09/06
| 513
| 2,278
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a Ph.D. student and my advisor has asked me to write a few paragraphs about the history and the existing literature of a relatively new line of research (the first paper on this topic was published in 2014 and there are only 3-4 major papers on this topic) to be included in a grant application. Since this is my first encounter with grant writing, I would appreciate any help with what to include in these paragraphs given that there are only a few major papers on this topic.
Thanks a lot in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: Your goal isn't to write a history per se but to support future research funding. Keep that in mind. There may be only a few papers, but there may be many ideas. I suggest you focus on those ideas and, especially, what they suggest for the future.
Some things in the new field have been settled, but, I suspect, many questions remain unanswered, suggesting future lines of inquiry. Mention both of these things - what we know now and what we need to explore.
So, focus on the ideas, not the specific papers that contain them.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The answer to your question is it depends.
Every grant giving organization is different and every grant assessing panel would have a different focus. What is the aim of the grant? Is there a marketing angle for the organization? That would mean that your story would need to have a public interest angle or be interesting to the media. Really spend the time to understand and look at the previous grants and applications that the organization has given in the past. Ideally, if you know any previous successful grant applications, try to get their application and go through it. Its the same as any class at college, every professor running the class is different and though generic advice is great, getting the past exams is gold, tailoring your approach to the professor's likes and quirks is far more effective than the generic college advice.
I do like this [Clarivate blog](https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/blog/important-things-maximize-chances-securing-funding) though. There were some useful pointers compared to the others. I couldn't find anything in this SE that seemed helpful though unfortunately.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/06
| 410
| 1,626
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a scientific paper and compare my results with those of other studies in several tables and figures. When presenting the data, I have one column in the table/ one axis in the diagram, where I provide the sources of the data (with very low space). The other studies I can abbreviate with the reference, e.g. [31].
Does anyone have a good idea how to abbreviate the reference to my own data? I could write "t.s." for "this study", but it seems strange to me.
Best regards
Wilko<issue_comment>username_1: A common approach in my field is to refer to studies by the initials of the authors. Suppose you and your coauthor are <NAME>, and Supervisor, B. The other study is <NAME>., and <NAME>.
In EA, it was shown that ..., however, in AB, we show that...
I find this to be a bit more formal than "t.s." and can be applied to all studies in a consistent way. Of course, this does require adding a short explanation of this naming convention.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: As already indicated in my comment, you can use a symbol such as an asterisk to denote the work at hand. Then, explain the meaning of this symbol in the table caption where you should have the space therfor.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: * It is not actually necessary to abbreviate. Writing it out is the best solution.
* In a table column containing references, a blank cell would clearly indicate "this study." I suggest putting your own data at the end of the table, separated by a rule.
* When referring to data, "own" is a brief synonym for "this study."
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2019/09/06
| 1,371
| 5,864
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<issue_start>username_0: As a PhD student nearing the end of their degree my Prof invited me to write a review with him. A decently well known journal had asked us to write a review on a topic that is only tangentially related to our labs area of study. My prof thought this was a great idea since it "guarantees a publication" for the lab and would help get me a first author publication, but I was extremely hesitant at first because I have 2 parallel experiments running and neither the prof nor I were experts in the field. At first I was super optimistic that we could write the review but the more I researched the more realized just how in over my head I was.
Thing is that my Prof. said other grad students in our lab also wrote reviews at similar stages in their PhD degree but looking at their reviews it was clear that the their topic was either something they were actually directly studying, or something that my Prof. was an expert in. Both of which is not true for the review I have to write.
With only a year left in my PhD, I am really worried if this review is a massive waste of time, since all my experiments will need to be put on hold while i read countless numbers of papers in a field that I'm not really an expert in. Should I tell my Prof. that this review is a bad idea and cancel it?<issue_comment>username_1: Your prof is thinking long term. You are thinking short term. Both of those are appropriate. But don't think *too* short term. Within a year you will want your horizon to expand and both the good opinion of your advisor and a publication will help.
But, I didn't read you as implying that this must become the first priority over a period of time. I don't see why your experiments need to be put on hold while you read papers (probably fewer than countless).
But, if your advisor wants to do this as a joint project ("write a review *with* him"), then you should be able to manage it as long as it isn't all dumped on you. I suggest you set a schedule to work together on it and lay out a plan.
And maybe the new field will prove interesting and even valuable in your future.
Of all these things, I think the good opinion of your advisor is the most important to manage. If you can do that somehow other than agreeing, then there is little downside. But there might be upside to agreeing. Your call, of course.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Discuss it with your professor. At some level one's supervisor is responsible for one's academic well-being during the PhD. He's supposed to guide you to what's best for you if you're not sure what that is.
It's certainly possible whether you should write this review varies depending on your motives. For example if what you want is to graduate as soon as possible and then move to an industry job, then having an extra first-author publication might not mean much. On the other hand, if you want to move to a new field that's related to this one, then you'll have to spend time reading about it eventually anyway, so you might as well do it now. On yet another hand, perhaps writing the review will contribute towards the things you need to complete before graduating.
Your professor will know more, so discuss it with him/her.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Your professor should be taking the lead and getting a decent team of reviewers as well as you. If this is not happening, then map out the work and the materials that would need to be covered. Ask whether there are anyone that your prof would like working on the various parts. You may need to suggest people or highlight authors in the those fields. Depending on politics and who your professor is familiar or like/trust, will determine the workload required. Learning how to co-ordinate a team of writers and delegating and holding people accountable is an important skill and this is a great opportunity for you.
>
> if this review is a massive waste of time,
>
>
>
The review is not a waste of time and will unlikely not be. Invited reviews by a journal is a privilege and does not occur lightly. The field has been determined by the journal and their editors to be important even if you may not appreciate it now. Even if you don't perceive yourself or your professor as "experts in the field", the editorial team has deemed you both to be best placed to articulate the field at the moment. It could be that you both have been effective in communicating the complexities of other areas? Also realize, that your current frustrations may well be reflected by the field and outlining the difficulties will make it easier for every newcomer to the field. Reviews also have the unique opportunity to predict and map out the research landscape.
>
> since all my experiments will need to be put on hold while i read countless numbers of papers in a field that I'm not really an expert in
>
>
>
Ideally, you should be able to concurrently run your experiments or extend your PhD so you can do both. Or reconfigure your PhD so you can graduate and continue with your experiments as a post-doc. It would be unlikely that you would be able to incorporate a broad review into your PhD though as you did not have the original idea etc.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: A good scientist should always have more porjects to do than time to do them. As a soon to leave the nest scientist, you've learned to think about prioritizing your time. Please pass on this project. You have better things to do. It's a nice to have, but even for your advisor, it's just an extra feather...not something critical.
Just say you are too busy or not interested. Don't debate or give some long explanation. Just politely say no. He'll get over it fine. He has other projects also. Or can write it himself if he really cares to. (Sounds like no. Wants someone else to do most of the work.)
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/06
| 1,074
| 4,630
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to get into a top university for graduate school, specifically in computer science. Would taking the non-required mathematics subject based GRE test make my application more competitive? Since it's not required, would the people doing admissions even consider it as a data point?<issue_comment>username_1: No one here can speak for some admissions committee. They might look at it, might not. If they have strict rules they might even need to ignore it. It won't do you any harm, though and there is an outside chance it will make some small difference. But focus more on the things that they do ask for.
And, for what it's worth, the competition at top schools is fierce. Get good letters of recommendation.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: While there exists a small chance that an excellent result on a **non-required** GRE Subject will increase your chances to get admitted into a graduate school, I am not convinced it is worth the time and money.
The time to prepare and take this take could be more efficiently spent into preparing a better statement of intent, getting good letters of recommendation, or polishing your CV. I would consider doing some research/teaching-related volunteering as a better way to take a chance to slightly improve your graduate school application, which might be reflected in all three aforementioned documents.
Totally agree with @username_1's answer: it's hard to say about a particular admissions committee; however, the expected impact of you having this result is very small. And the graduate school applications have a lot of items you can focus on anyway, and those items really make the difference.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Many things that impress one committee member will not impress
others. I suspect it will not help much, and possibly could hurt your chances a little in some cases. What is most important are: letters of recommendation, academic records and experience.
1. Many people going into top CS programs are strong in math, so it doesn't really help to set you apart too much (except see 2), which is what you need to do to get in to the really competitive programs. Even for math programs, your score on the GRE is not really considered much. (The math on the GREs is not that advanced--it's mostly used as a way to weed out people who definitely shouldn't be going to top math programs.) To impress committees with your mathematical abilities, you should take some advanced math classes, or at least math-heavy theoretical CS classes, and do really well in them. Or you can do really well in the Putnam or similar.
2. Second, people might wonder *why* you've take the math GRE and sent this info to them. The first thing people will probably guess is that you are also considering going to grad school in Math. For many people, this won't be a concern, but maybe if you're on the borderline, depending on how the rest of your application reads, some committee members may worry that CS isn't your first choice.
Disclaimer: I'm in math, not CS, so it's possible my impression is mistaken, but if so, hopefully someone will correct me.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Would taking the non-required mathematics subject based GRE test make my application more competitive?
>
>
>
It doesn't matter whether it will or not. In my opinion, you're fetishizing these tests.
>
> Would scoring well on a non-required GRE Mathematics Subject Test make me more competitive?
>
>
>
Well, IMHO you're already too focused on competition. I respectfully suggest you focus more on what kind of *actual research* you're interested in, rather than your "score" against that of others, or the "score" of your future university against that of others etc.
If you had a potential subject you could contact relevant research groups directly.
If you're not sure what you want to pursue, scientifically, also consider the possibility that it might not be right for you to go into a graduate program right now (at least not one which is research-focused).
Many people - myself included - have made the mistake that graduate school is simply the next phase of undergraduate studies, with research being a sort of tougher homework; if this is ringing familiar to you, then - you're in for a rude awakening a couple of years down the line. A lot of graduate students experience anxiety and depression, often because of going in with the wrong motivation. Maybe this won't happen to you, but still - take your time thinking about these questions before you head off to some grad school.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/07
| 1,145
| 5,001
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<issue_start>username_0: Firstly, I am not specifically talking about PhD supervision. I think that's less relevant for my question since a PhD supervision is usually a mutually beneficial arrangement, as the professor gains a PhD student to help them with related research.
My focus is more on supervision of bachelor and masters theses. In these, there is less benefit to the professor to act in a supervisory role.
So with that in mind, if a student contacts a professor because they need a supervisor for their bachelor or thesis project (something which is a *requirement* in order to get the degree), is the supervisor obligated to accept this role?
I don't think the answer is yes, since people usually say that if you want to get a supervisor, you should *ask* your professior if he/she *wants* to. So the words imply that the professor has a choice and could turn you down.
And so if the answer is indeed no, how does the system then work? What happens if nobody wants to supervise one particular student? Is that student then just screwed?<issue_comment>username_1: Professors mostly have a choice. Especially concerning individual students. Students shouldn't really want to be mentored by someone that doesn't want to mentor them.
Of course, department policies may intervene, either explicitly or implicitly. In the long run, a professor who refuses to mentor any students is likely to get some pressure from the department for not doing their part. Some professors provide their department excess value in other ways and might get away with doing less. For earlier-career professors, supervising theses can contribute to tenure or promotion.
I'd also challenge the idea that only PhD students can do something productive for a professor, though: the junior students might need more direction but can still do good work.
Especially if a thesis is a degree requirement, I would expect the department or program to ensure something can be done to get a student some sort of supervisor, but it may not be their first choice and they may not be able to choose their project. I'd expect the students who are most stubborn about their interests or are otherwise difficult to work with would be most likely to run into problems.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The exact answer to this is likely to vary from one university to the next, depending on local rules and terms of employment. In general, the position is likely to be: professors are not required to agree to a *student's* request for supervision. However, it is generally advisable/mandatory for professors to accede to 'requests' that come from higher up in the management hierarchy.
If students are required to complete a supervised project as part of a course, then it is the university's responsibility to ensure that an appropriate supervisor is made available. If a student reported that they cannot find a willing supervisor, this would likely result in management applying increasing amounts of pressure and/or incentives until someone agreed. However, in such circumstances, the student is likely to be left with [Hobson's choice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice) - the project offered may not be a close match to the student's preferences.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: For *research* students, that is, PhD and research master's, professors almost always **have a choice** naturally (excluding rare informal pressure made on them due to unforeseen circumstances).
For *taught* master's degrees, as well as bachelor's thesis, professors mostly **do not have much choice to supervise pre-allocated students**, because if a student already was accepted to study in the department the student must complete such a dissertation in their final year. However, the way that such mandatory taught supervision tasks are allocated to professors varies from place to place.
For a bachelor student actually suggesting to a specific professor to become their supervisor, most chances is that the professor **has a choice to decline** because this was an initiative of the student, and not part of an administrative scheme made by the department to allocate students to professors.
Of course, this varies from university to university, countries, continents etc.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: There is lurking here a possible problem for departments. I am talking about US universities.
Of course the professor is rewarded for advising students, perhaps merely as one of many considerations for promotion and raises.
But it could be a problem if that reward to the professor is more when the student does great work and less when the student does average work. That arrangement will encourage professors to decline the weaker students. I have advised students of both types; the work for me was much more when the student was weak.
If a department wants to be friendly to students of all types, it should take care to fairly reward professors who take on weak students.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I have M.Sc. in mathematics, and I was/am working on a PhD for almost 10 years now (on and off), but I haven't published a thing. I have many results (most in a single field) and potential paper drafts, but I never finish up and publish, because I always find something new to learn or a new problem to research. I left the university eventually and got a part-time job as a data scientist, but I was never satisfied about leaving things open. I was working completely alone and didn't get along well with my adviser.
Today, while I have the time, I lack the discipline and environment to finish. None of my close friends are mathematicians, so I can't really talk about math with anybody (besides Internet forums). I love math very much, and I'm learning new things all the time, and I want to have my results finally out there and have my resume match my skills.
I will be glad to hear any advice, if anybody was in a similar situation. Any help will be appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: Do not get distracted and focus on completing a thesis rather than publishing. After 10 years, you should have enough material to write a decent thesis, even though what you have done may not be publishable. Get support from your supervisor and anyone supportive from the your department to achieve this. Otherwise, self-fund or reach out for coaches or mentors are able to achieve this aim. Ideally people that know your area and can help support you to focus on your thesis rather than the publications.
I understand and respect that publication is important especially in mathematics. Publications is the focus for an academic career but you have already invested 10 years of your life and it does not sound like you are going to be hitting a string of publications soon. Also, if you are already working part-time, it seems to me, getting the PhD and then working full-time is a very reasonable and respectable career goal.
Recognise that you get a high every time there is a new challenge. Every one does. It is far more exciting to mov from one exciting topic to the next. Every new challenge has a buzz to it. You have to decide whether this buzz and excitement is more important than completing your PhD. Going over old material and old "stuff" would be drudgery and probably your previous traumatic experience (as you remember why you were not able to achieve publication), but it is important to swallow your pride and decide whether completing a thesis and your PhD is more important than achieving the goal of publication.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You may or may not have already ruined your chances of completing the degree by missing time limits established by the department. You may or may not have ruined your relationship with your advisor. However, the department and your advisor would probably prefer to have a Ph.D. graduate rather than have someone who dropped out of the program, so there is still some chance that you can finish this.
You should start by talking to the director of the graduate program or the chair of the department if there is no director of the graduate program. What formal requirements for the degree have you completed? What have you not completed? Is there a time limit for completion of the degree? Are you still in the program or will you have to apply for readmission?
Next, talk to your advisor. Explain that you really want to complete the degree. Are they still willing to work with you? Is your research that hasn't been written up yet sufficient for a Ph.D. or do you need to produce more results? What should your next step be?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You get a PhD for completing a thesis, not for publishing papers (apart from specific courses that require it). It is possible to graduate with a PhD before you publish papers. A supervisor will often encourage you to publish as well but bear in mind that this is often not a requirement of a PhD course (this should be clear in your university guidelines). However, a successful thesis and a publication face many of the same challenges.
They are both subject to scrutiny by examiners or reviewers. Examiners will generally determine whether the thesis presents original research of publication quality (whether it has been peer-reviewed yet or not). This is one of the reasons that experienced examiners, including external and international examiners are used to ensure that it meets international standards for a PhD to be awarded. Generally a novel technique or application is sufficient, it doesn't have to be Nobel Prize worthy.
A thesis must also be *coherent* and present a logical argument on your topic. If you have several related projects, you must write your thesis is a logical manner that shows how they are linked to address a specific research topic (that you've developed expertise in). Your supervisor should be able to guide you here but it is your responsibility to complete projects and send them draft versions of thesis chapters in a timely manner to get their feedback.
The order *will not* necessarily be the order that you did the work. Most PhD candidates try many different research directions and need to focus their thesis on a particular topic. You can show some of the directions that you tried that gave unexpected results and motivated the direction that you ended up taking. What's most important is that you can demonstrate that you had an original idea and performed the research yourself and developed the skills necessary to be an independent researcher.
You need to consider carefully whether your work meets this criteria and whether it is worth writing a thesis in your situation. No one can decide that except you. The requirements for a thesis are *different* to a peer-reviewed publication but they are related. You may need to consult an expert in your field to discuss whether your results would meet this criteria. You could also present the results you have so far as a seminar or at a conference as your audience will bring up concerns that examiners or reviewers will expect you to have addressed.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Ok. I'm going to be blunt, because I see only one root cause for your situation, and since you wrote yourself that "*...I never finish up and publish, because I always find something new to learn or a new problem to research.*" and "*Today, while I have the time, I lack the discipline and environment to finish.*", I think you too know what the problem is.
Your lack of self-discipline.
There's no magical cure for that, none of us here can do no more than to say (as the other answers have more politely done) that you just have to commit fully to finishing what you have started, and get it over with. That's it. Should that be, or actually seem impossible, I bet there are support groups for people in similar situations within your reach.
Not knowing the specifics of your situation it's hard to evaluate how far up or down the S creek you are, but just start paddling.
I do apologise if the previous offends you, but I think you deserve to hear this version too. Believe me, you'll make it. You are the only person who can stop you if you decide to finish your PhD.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/07
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<issue_start>username_0: Okay. SO here is the thing.
I got national overseas scholarship from my government. The scholarship almost covers everything. My question is how will professors view those who are admitted under scholarships, other than institute scholarship?
I heard that PHD guides always prefer to spend more time with those who are admitted under institute scholarship, cause there is always a pressure from institution to professors about the scheduled time.
In my case, my scholarship covers stipend for 4 years and the pressure is on me to finish it in 4 years. Will I be given the same importance by professors?<issue_comment>username_1: It's all good: You heard wrong, or the people you heard from were poorly informed :-)
From both the department's and the advising professor's perspective, students who come with their own money are the best of all cases: They don't have to work on anything other than their degree, and nobody else has to work to make sure they're paid either. As an adviser and as the department, that's great. You're likely going to be more productive than students who have a teaching fellowship (for example). Potential advisers appreciate that. There is no reason to believe that you'll be treated with any less respect or with less effort by anyone than locally supported students.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer is based on my experience as faculty at a UK university (engineering).
**Officially**: There is no discrimination between institute or externally funded PhD students (either from the UK or their home country). There are strict rules and a logging and management system that ensures all students get the same number of guaranteed supervision hours.
**Reality**: Our school management actually is biased to support **more** students with international scholarships. The reason is that they bring a lot of money into the school directly through the huge amount of fees their scholarship pays.
**Other info:** Supervisors (incl. myself) tend to bias towards stronger students in the long-term (no matter their scholarship). When a student generates a lot of results and writes many high-quality papers, then I am inclined to support the student more than the minimum required (review papers, have more meetings, work more closely, etc.).
The first 1-1.5 year I support weaker students slightly more than the “guaranteed” to give them a chance to catch up. If a student is weak after the first 1-1.5 year, then I tend to provide them with the minimum required supervision while spending more time with the stronger students.
The reasoning is that spending 100 hours extra with a strong student might lead to 3 strong journal publications while with a weak student 100 hours extra might lead to an average journal at best. Since my progression is heavily based on academic track record, it’s natural to bias towards the most beneficial use of my time. Note that these are extra hours in addition to the “guaranteed” by the regulations supervision.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/08
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm not in the habit of scaling exams, although I'm aware that the practice is widespread and highly recommended in some circles (such as grading on a curve). To my recollection, none of my college instructors scaled exams or wrote any policy about such on their syllabi. I'm wondering if one did commit to an official policy of scaling exams, what would a reasonable written policy look like?
The goal here would (hypothetically) be similar to Krantz in *How to Teach Mathematics* (Sec. 2.10): "My main goal in formulating my grading policies is to make the greatest number of students feel that they have been treated fairly (and, not incidentally, to reduce student complaints)." Secondarily (and again hypothetically), to defend against possible future administrative complaints that the instructor is not matching some recommended grade proportions (same section by Krantz).
Please assume that the individual exams are adequately fair assessments themselves (not broken, vague, or overly-hard questions, cover same topics covered in class and homeworks, sufficient time permitted, significant advance time taken assessing questions and grading rubric, etc.).
Background: I'm at an open-admissions community college where high failure rates are historically common, often half or more of many math or computing courses. Among the things I'm worried about if I started doing that are: Would there be any lower bound to what might wind up being passing work?
For example, I had a colleague at a different university (top-20 in U.S.) who got in trouble a number of years ago in that, when pressed by students on his scaling policy, said that if every single student got a zero on a exam, then the scaling process would turn all of them into 100% marks. Surprisingly, the students successfully organized a total boycott of the final exam, and my friend followed through and gave 100% marks to everyone as per his word. (This turned out to be quite embarrassing for him.)
So I'm wondering what kind of formal, mechanical policy for scaling would prevent no-lower-bound situations similar to this one?<issue_comment>username_1: Each grading policy serves a different purpose, and I think that's the key question you want to answer.
The most common policy I have seen, which happens to also be the most opaque, is actually not about exams but about the grading cutoffs for final grades:
>
> Exams will count for x% of the final grade, homework y%, et cetera. Final grades will be given with cutoffs no less generous than
>
>
> A: >93% , A- : >90%
>
>
> B +: >86% et cetera
>
>
>
The benefit of this policy is that you don't have to scale or curve exam grades at all but can still change cutoffs to give a fair distribution of grades, while still giving minimum requirements for making sure you pass or get an A. This policy is meant to fix grade distributions overall in the fairest way possible, but doesn't mess with the weighting or scoring of individual assignments or exams.
For individual exams I have also seen the policy
>
> It will be possible to replace your lowest exam score with the grade of your final exam if it would increase your overall score.
>
>
>
This policy is good to make the exam a less variable and lower pressure affair, since it takes out negative noise in the midterm exams. However, it implicitly makes the final exam higher pressure/stakes. In general this is a good policy if you're trying to make midterms lower stakes but don't want to entirely drop an exam and weight the final higher.
Rarely have I seen a class where there is a written policy about scaling, except to say in the syllabus that the instructor reserves the right to change grading when necessary. In general if you are trying to curve/scale an individual exam it is in response to a poorly written or poorly timed exam. For example, this can happen when the exam turns out to be much more difficult than the instructor intended it to be, or if it turns out to be much longer than expected. When those situations occur the most common things I have seen (in order of frequency):
1. More generous grade cutoffs at the end of the course.
2. Making particularly difficult questions a bonus, so as to improve the general average while still rewarding the ones who got the question right
3. Grading exams out of fewer questions. Typically done more in written exams with partial credit, but for example where an 8 question exam is graded out of your top 6 questions. This again is meant to blunt some of the bottom end of the distribution while still evaluating students
4. Adding x points to everyone's grade. This is usually at the cost of more generous cutoffs at the end, but many instructors like it because more generous cutoffs usually mean that either homework or exams could be at a lower standard, and this is usually in response to a particularly difficult exam.
In general I think the policies are rarely written down except to assure students that you won't make their grades worse (which I have heard happening in very competitive classes, but have never experienced) or to let them know about dropped grades, and not all scaling/curving answers the same question, so which one you choose depends a lot on what you're trying to accomplish and the culture of the department and school.
In general I would say one of the best policies I have seen was using the first approach with grade cutoffs and then saying "Here is what I look for when I give each grade, roughly":
>
> A: You can apply the material in novel situations and in non-straightforward ways
>
>
> B: You can apply the material in contexts taught and in complicated multi-step ways
>
>
> C: You can apply most or all the material in straightforward ways in the contexts taught
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In general scaling is a mistake as it introduces uncertainty into the student's calculations. But some adjustments are proper and you can publish statements about them.
First, you can agree that no one will "miss" the next grade by a small percentage. This is better done overall, than on a per exam/paper basis. But if it takes 90% (overall) to get an "A", then, at the end of the day give the A to someone with 89. This merely recognizes that your grading scheme isn't perfect and may disadvantage people in small ways occasionally.
Second, agree that your grading rubric is clear that you are allowed to adjust upward when you think it justified. Mine would say something like, "If you get 80% you will get *at least* a B". This is just a reinforcement of the first point.
Third, permit people to do work over if they have fallen short. Regrade it for "most of" the lost points. My policy was 90%. If you lost 30 points on an assignment you could get 27 points (max) back if you re did the assignment properly. My policy was generous, permitting several attempts. The repetition was good for the students and worked to assure learning.
Fourth, at the end of a course, look at how the students did overall and compare it mentally with what you think they really learned in the course. If you think the learning was actually better than the distribution shows, bump it a bit. This will push a few students up to the next partial grade, say from B to B+.
Finally, avoid marking using only a few high-risk exams, but spread the marks over a large number of tasks. All or nothing final exams eventually leads to trouble, even in less extreme cases than the one you mentioned. This leads to a practice of continuous study and learning rather than "cramming" for the big one. Cramming results in more memorization (short term learning) and less deep learning.
My students all knew everything about the above policies. I seldom got complaints about grading. I could be as demanding a professor as I felt necessary (students viewed me as *very demanding*). At the end of the course surprises were always happy ones and students felt good about themselves and encouraged to continue.
Finally, let me note that strict scaling, making the course distribution into something like a normal curve is, IMO, always a mistake. It turns the course into a zero-sum game for students who can only win if someone else loses. In theory it should be possible for everyone to do well, even full marks, based only on their own work. Such scaling is also unjustified as it assume that a given sample (your students) perfectly match a population (all students). Statistically that is a serious error to make unless your scale is huge.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Scaling or "curving" grades so that a fixed proportion of students get each grade is unethical. [There is extensive evidence that student cooperation helps students learn more.](https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.1374249) If you fix the proportion of students that get each grade, then you incentivize students to stop cooperating. This will reduce how much your students learn.
@PatriciaShanahan is right that this grading approach is also incorrect because your student body does not remain the same across semesters.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: A system I have used successfully in the past: pick an upper segment or quantile of the class (e.g., top 5% or top 5 students). Compute the average combined mark of these students, and scale everyone else's grade by this value (i.e., if course marks are out of 100 and the average of the top 5 students is 95, multiply everyone's mark by 100/95). Some of the advantages of this system:
* it's mechanical, clear and transparent; even though you can't say in advance what the final scaling factor will be, you *can* tell students as they go along what the *current* scaling factor is, and they can do their own "if the scaling factor stays the same I need to get xxx on the final to get a grade of yyy" calculations to their hearts' content
* in my experience/as far as I can tell the upper-quantile students are generally getting their scores honestly (and are less likely to collude in a grade-gaming effort); in particular, the scores of cheaters are unlikely to have a big impact on the scaling factor (unless there are lots of them and they're extremely good at cheating)
* this system automatically handles assessments that were unintentionally made too difficult: if the best students lost a lot of points, then everyone gets a bonus
* the top few students automatically get 'perfect' (after rescaling) scores, but averaging by the top quantile (rather than, say, the maximum) is reasonably robust
* it *doesn't* pit the mass of the class against each other; the distribution of the lower 95% of the class has no effect on the scaling
This would obviously break in the "whole class cooperates to break the system" scenario, but that seems extreme to me. With regard to the "all of the students boycott the exam to get 100% marks" scenario: (1) I do this for large (>150) classes, where the odds of successfully organizing a boycott seem remote (I don't know how many students were involved in the scenario described by the OP); (2) this marking scheme applies to the overall mark for the whole term, not just the final — so students would have to boycott/collude on **all** of the assignments in order to break the system.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/08
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| 2,506
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently reading a book on a research-level science topic. But there are some concepts that aren't properly explained in the book and are stopping me from proceeding. I have tried the following:
* Searching the Internet and the library for these concepts
* Asking about these problems online
But these attempts haven't been very useful. And I am quite desperate now. I am now considering writing an email to the author asking for clarification directly. Yet I don't know if this is an inappropriate or rude thing do? And if I do do that, how to avoid being impolite?<issue_comment>username_1: If a work (book or otherwise) is assuming you know a concept, yet you can't find information about them elsewhere, then it's likely that either you're missing something fundamental or else the concept may itself be problematic. I had an experience of the latter sort once reading a book about "holons" that all sounded very nice if you were just sort of reading causally but ultimately turned out to be basically pointless handwaving.
In either case, it's always OK to write to the author of a scientific work to ask about their work. Don't expect them to teach you a course, however. Instead, you can say something like:
>
> I'm reading your book "Weasel-Taming in but a Single Fortnite", and although I find it very interesting, I'm not familiar with some of the things it assumes as background. Would you be willing to give me some pointers on where to learn about the Voight-Kampff test or how to temper chocolate?
>
>
>
substituting the appropriate nouns, of course. If your email doesn't get lost in their inbox, most authors will be more than happy to at least give you a hint for where to go learn about their favorite subjects.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it probably depends on the nature of the text. Most authors of papers would be happy, or even enthusiastic to engage with people who have questions about their work.
On the other hand, textbook authors not so much.
I don't really know about monograph authors, as I don't really know any - my field doesn't really do monographs.
If you choose to go ahead and contact the authors, I'd definitely avoid phrases like "there are some concepts that aren't properly explained". I'd avoid anything that might sound like a criticism of the author. Also, like a good SE question, I'd include in your email things you have tried in order to fill in the gap yourself.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/08
| 1,478
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<issue_start>username_0: I wrote a paper, which I would like to submit to a convention. I've never written a paper before. I'd like it to be thoroughly reviewed, not to say edited, before I submit it. I'm willing to pay for a reviewer. Where can I find a reviewer? The orientation is mathematics related to computer science (specifically formal methods).<issue_comment>username_1: It seems that you are not in academia.
If you are convinced that your work migh be publication worthy but somehow feeling an advice is necessary, then you could contact an expert, preferably in your area.
S/he probably won't edit your paper, but a general opinion is something less time consuming and you could get one. It really depends on the manuscript itself. A minimally known professors might receive garbage from outside, spanning from totally nonsense to rediscoveries. Not that I suspect your manuscript belongs to those categories, but perhaps you could have clarify why your question have raised.
For putting the paper in a final linguistically clear form then look for someone offering translation services and the like.
If you are in academia, then is not particularly easy to answer as the situation would point to an isolated researcher not fully aware of situation / not sure about his/het work.
I wasn't sure to answer also because review and edit can overlap but can be totally different tasks.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your best bet is offering a graduate student a lot of money. In most cases this is going to be an unpleasant job. In most cases, the paper will be some combination of incorrect, incoherent, and uninteresting, but the author will usually be very resistant to hearing that. (I don’t know you, hopefully this doesn’t describe you or your paper, but whoever you hire also isn’t going to know you or your paper.) So you’re going to have to offer a lot of money to compensate and offer it to someone who doesn’t have a large salary. Something like $100-$150/hour with the first two hours paid up front would probably be enough for a graduate student to overlook that it’s likely to be an unpleasant job.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, the first step would be to get through the basic checklist yourself: is this novel enough; do I follow established order; do I cite the relevant papers (say 20-ish with at least some recent ones). If you are doing it on your own initiative, you have a blind spot regarding first point, believe your flow is better than what is in other papers and almost surely cite (and have read) far too few papers. You should fix that yourself, especially regarding citations.
Once you have basics sorted out, you should call anyone that could be somewhat interested to look at your paper. If you are a researcher in a field not very well covered by your university/faculty, you should find some people from the general subject (say someone from algorithms if you are writing about a novel sorting one). Most likely that will be a professor (that will usually delegate to his PhD student or a postdoc). It could be a friend that went for PhD in a somewhat related area. Don't expect a thorough review, but a lot of people are nice enough to quickly skim through what you wrote to point you in the correct direction for nothing more than a beer.
If you get a response that your approach seems OK and the paper doesn't need A LOT of revision regarding these basic bits, you have 3 main options:
1. Offer joint paper - they edit it to the best of their ability and get their name there. This is likely the best option for you, as having a name of someone relevant will increase your chances of acceptance, and it doesn't cost anything.
2. Offer money to review, as in Noah's answer.
3. Submit and hope independent reviewers give you some "fix XYZ" pointers. Even if you get rejected, this will help for the next submission. If you are unable to solve those comments yourself, revert to options 1 and 2. If comments are along the lines of "incorrect/pointless/trivial/...", options 1 and 2 again. Note that you will almost surely "burn" that particular conference/journal/... and will have to find another one. Plus your paper will be surely worse without assistance and will end up in a lesser journal/conference/...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: If you want an editor who's checking only for English, there are plenty of options available, e.g. [American Journal Experts](https://www.aje.com/services/editing/) (you can Google for more results as well). I have not used these services, but I did freelance for one of them in the past, and they do what they say they do: they edit your English until the manuscript is no longer being rejected for bad English.
These services do not review the content, however. If you want someone to review the content, you'll very likely have to pay for it. Your best chance is probably to approach someone who's working in the field of that paper - e.g. email graduate students in the field as suggested by username_2, since they probably have more time + more need for the money.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: (Academic editor/copy editor here, though not in your field)
A review will happen after you submit: the publication/conference will check that it fits their vision, which may mean a thorough technical review, and may not, but you don't pay for it.
What you can do to improve your chances is to employ an editor if you don't have access to either tutors or peers you can exchange work with. Many freelance editors/copy editors will be happy to work with individual authors. The best ways to find them are through word-of-mouth in your department, if you have one or through reputable organisations like [the EFA (Editorial Freelancers Association](https://www.the-efa.org/hiring/) or [the sfep (Society for Editors and Proofreaders, UK-based)](https://www.sfep.org.uk/directory). I'm also impressed with the overall quality of editors listed on [the CE-L (Copyediting Mailing List) Freelancer directory](http://www.copyediting-l.info).
It's still buyer beware, but you stand a better chance than hiring through a service that promises cheap and fast (but which does not necessarily provides the math skills).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2019/09/08
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<issue_start>username_0: I've recently finished obtaining my PhD in a non-English speaking country. All of my papers have been published locally, so I've never felt the need to translate them into English before. Now I'm looking to continue my career as a postdoc in an English-speaking part of the world. One of the basic requirements in Universities abroad is to provide samples of your previous publications. I wonder what my course of action should be.
I have translated all the annotations, keywords, reference information and short summaries of my works into English - but is that good enough? Should I also translate the texts of my most important works and perhaps even my PhD thesis (which would take an enormous effort, to be frank)?
Or should I focus instead on writing more articles on the topic of my research and publish them in international journals? How valuable would my translated articles be to potential employers if they weren't published in an English journal in the first place - would they be taken into account when considering my candidacy for employment?
Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Research is done in English
>
>
>
I'm from CS, that guides my opinion/answer. Also, that's my personal opinion, I know plenty of people that disagree with it, and that discussion is a bit beyond the point. I just wanted to say that because in all likelihood your publications will be ignored, translated or not, especially the Ph.D. dissertation (even in English, almost nobody will read it. Maybe parts, never the whole).
They will be ignored because since they were not in English, the venues are not 'top venues'. If I have to choose between a candidate with 1 good English publication (CVIU, PAMI, good IEEE) versus 10 local ones *not in English*, the former will win, hands down. Why?
* I expect my team to write in English (even while I was in Brazil), not only publications but code comments, documentation, even internal technical notes. Research is about dissemination, by choosing any other language, you are effectively reducing your potential readers. And I would have no idea how you would write in English from non-English papers.
* It is considerably harder to get one paper in a good venue than 10 in local ones. I'd trade all my publications for one paper at Nature in a heartbeat (not that I have a lot, but the point remains). After a while, you know which conferences will publish bad papers, and you just remove them from the list. Even if your paper is the good outlier.
My suggestion would be: do translate the titles/abstracts. Maybe make a short document (4-8 pages) summarizing the best results from that corpus. **Then share the English paper that you are currently working on**. Personally, I'd give bonus points if nobody else reviewed it because that would be an accurate sample of what you can currently do by yourself (make that redundantly clear, if that's the case, so they adjust expectations).
Additionally, include links (at least) to the original publications, in case someone on the committee can actually read them. Committee diversity is a thing, and it can work in your favor there.
---
Some fields consider publications in other languages, but it not as highly. Some math can be published in French or German. Some other fields might have similar exceptions.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Just list them. Put a translation of the title into English in parentheses.
It is what it is. Not the end of the World, but sure English is probably better in general. Has become the scientific lingua franca (sorry Francophones).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It depends on the language
==========================
The accessibility of academic publishing is **not** a binary of English vs everything else. Rather, one can think in terms of a continuum, with major world languages towards one end, and languages with limited global reach at the other. Moreover, this continuum is highly dependent on geography (e.g.: French is spoken widely in Africa; Spanish is spoken widely in the Americas) and context (literature, area studies, and linguistics are obvious examples, but by no means the only fields where languages other than English are very important). In assessing whether the language in which you publish is a "major" language for your purposes, consider:
* is it one of the handful of languages used very widely in large parts of the world?
* is it used widely in the publication's sub-field/specialism?
* is it used widely in the field/specialism of the job/position for which you are applying?
I am based in the UK, and most of the literature I cite is in English, **but** my field has a lot of important literature published in German, to which I make reference (like many scholars in my field, I can read German reasonably well, although I would not describe myself as fluent). Some of my colleagues have published articles **in German** despite being native English speakers.
The point I want to make here is that publishing in English is **not** automatically more prestigious.
For the purposes of applying for a job in an English-speaking university...
===========================================================================
* it is important to demonstrate is that you are **capable** of publishing in English in a medium **subject to peer review**, and...
+ ...translating your existing publications would be one way of demonstrating that, **if** you then publish the translation in a peer-reviewed medium (in my field, it is quite common for collected volumes to include chapters that are translations of work published originally in another language -- usually, these translations are done by a third party, such as the editor of the volume)
+ ...writing a new article/chapter/book and getting it published in a peer-reviewed medium in English would be another way of demonstrating that, with the added bonus that you are enlarging your publications-list
* publications in English are more accessible, but publications in other languages are still valuable, and...
+ ...providing an English-language abstract is an excellent idea (in some fields, [there are scholarly databases that do this for you](http://www.rilm.org/abstracts/))
+ ...there is still a good possibility, if the language is used widely, that the publication will be read. When applying for a particular position, you could scrutinise the profiles of your prospective colleagues. It may be the case that one or more of them has published in your language, reviewed literature in your language, or translated literature from your language to another language. If so, there is a good chance that somebody would be able to read your publications.
* so-called ["internationalisation" is very fashionable in UK academia at the moment](https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/individuals/strategic-priorities/internationalising-higher-education), many British academics take their obligations as global citizens seriously, [and engage with non-English publications](https://ianpace.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/musicological-observations-3-multicultural-musicology-for-monolingual-academics/) and...
+ ...may value a colleague who has a track record of working and publishing in multiple languages (as long as English is one of them)
Conclusion
==========
Since you have already written English-language abstracts for your existing non-English publications, my advice would be to concentrate on writing new publications rather than spend a lot of time translating existing ones. Having said that, if you have a particularly significant/groundbreaking paper, it may be worth translating that one into English (and into other major languages), ideally with view to publishing the translated version in a peer-reviewed medium (when you do this, make sure that you get credit as the translator of your own work). You may need to get permission from the publisher of the original version, but any decent academic publisher should be accommodating (provided that all parties sign a licensing agreement).
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing an analytical summary on Meditation II of Descartes from the compendium we have been given at school. We have been told to use this as our main source. Nevertheless, there is this specific part in section 12 of that meditation which I don't quite agree with:
>
> [...] something extended, flexible and movable.
>
>
>
As per *<NAME>* in *Descartes' Dualism* [[Source](https://books.google.no/books?id=-qSvoR5tWIYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_vpt_buy#v=onepage&q=movable&f=false)] in page 93, this is a poor translation.
The reason I looked this up was because the word didn't quite fit the context, and then I saw other people had translated it as mutable, which is also a correct translation for the french/latin word.
Complaining about the poor translation in the summary makes little sense to me, as it's not part of the context, and I have a limitation of 600 words to care about. Nevertheless, I am citing from the source of a document which uses the "movable" word instead of the "mutable" word.
How should I approach this? Should I make a *postdata* explaining why I have done what I did?
For reference, I am using the APA referencing style.<issue_comment>username_1: I ended up adding a footnote to the page, with a numeric mark. In this, I referenced the source which explained why it makes more sense to change the words.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: To preserve a comment made by <NAME> as an answer, since comments should not be used as answers and can get deleted at any moment:
If you want to make an editorial change to a direct quote because you want to shorten something or fix a dodgy translation, the word(s) you change should be put between [square brackets]. This is to indicate that this is a deliberate change you made to the original text.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Write:
>
> [...] something extended, flexible and [mutable].
>
>
>
You might like to elaborate in a footnote, e.g.,
>
> The compendium poorly translates *original word* as *movable*, but *mutable* is more appropriate, as noted by <NAME> in "Descartes' Dualism," page 93.
>
>
>
(Depending on the style, you might like to replace *in "Descartes' Dualism," page 93* with a citation.)
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: There's a professor at my school that claims to be writing a book. He is requiring students to sign a [non-disclosure agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-disclosure_agreement) (NDA) before certain lectures because he wants to maintain certain ideas of teaching his content part of his intellectual property.
I think that part is reasonable (to an extent) since he is protecting his ideas.
What I think is unreasonable is the fact that he requires all students to sign these NDAs, and offers no alternative presentation of the subject matter. Thus if a student does not wish to sign, they end up missing out on lectures that they have already paid the university to receive, and they have a potential of missing out on graded content that is "covered" by the material that the professor is restricting.
Students have no notice that this will happen prior to entering the class and thus are forced to sign if the don't want to withdraw.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know what your university regulations are, but there must be something in there that says that a professor cannot refuse teaching to their students, no matter what you sign or don't sign.
It's time to ask your student union/representatives/whatever you have to reach out to your dean and demand a different solution.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: **No**. It’s not appropriate and this is an obvious, blatant abuse of authority. I have a word in mind to describe this professor, but unfortunately am not free to disclose it as I am under an NDA. (It starts with an “i” and ends with a “t”).
**Edit:** to those asking “why not?”: teaching the class is the professor’s job. He is literally (in the literal sense of “literally”) *required* to teach the lecture and to allow any registered student who isn’t being disruptive to attend it, without setting any preconditions. And of course this swearing of students to legally binding secrecy is even more absurd than other types of conditions, considering the students are there to acquire knowledge they’ll need to use later in their studies and career. The whole “I’ll teach you but you have to promise not to tell anyone about it” thing reads like something straight out of Catch-22.
Upvotes: 9 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The instructor is paid to teach, not write a book. If the book gets in the way of his/her teaching duties, either s/he give up teaching OR give up the book. Moreover, I doubt this instructor can prevent random people walking in his/her classroom so the whole NDA is 100%-proof shhhhhhhhugar.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: He may or may not be "protecting his ideas", but, in fact, *teaching* has as a goal the dissemination of ideas. If one wants to keep secrets or have proprietary stuff, don't pretend to teach a friggin' class! :)
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_5: It probably depends on where you are, but the University, where I used to teach (and to my knowledge it is quite standard here in Europe), had it in the contract that everything you did while working for the university belonged to the university. That means that the professor can't exclude members of the university to the knowledge he acquired while working in the university.
Furthermore, having lectures which often require to be uploaded on-line would serve as a basis to protect his rights on the ideas (for patents, books, etc.).
NDAs are required to protect your know-how and patent-able ideas. No book ideas. Uploading the course on-line, would allow him to actually use his ideas and prevent patents to block him.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: This NDA paranoia contradicts the very idea of teaching.
Imagine that some company hires you to do some job. And at some moment you discover that that job requires you to use knowledge given to you on that NDA-protected lecture. What must you do? You must tell your customers: "Please wait, my NDA expires in 16 months?"
In addition, I think that the professor over-estimates the readiness of the society to accept his ideas, whatever they are. For example, Java 8 introduced streams. By that time, that technique was known for more than 2 decades.
I do not know what he proposed, but I can tell you what he will get in response:
1. it is too exotic
2. it is not needed
3. it is too complex
4. who will use it? it is too different from what people are taught
5. there is no practical use
6. the problem that it solves is no problem
7. the problem that it solves already is solved with existing methods
8. no, I do not see any advantage
9. why did not you use the traditional notation?
10. it does not work in the general case
11. the part X of your proposal is described as bad practice in the book Y
12. you said the word X, how your work is related to Y X Z? (If they are not related, why did you use the word X that already has a meaning?)
On the other hand, it is possible that his contribution is just the organization of the material (this may range from explanation in simple words to things like vector/matrix maths, a notation that really simplified thinking). In this case, a NDA on the way of thinking is just unfair to the students.
Either way, there *should* be no NDA. But what you can do may depend on your country.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: What is it, exactly, that the Professor is trying to protect with this NDA? Is it the course subject matter itself, the method of teaching or the specific text of the course materials (lecture notes/slides)?
The first case would be clearly nonsensical. If he is teaching a University course, the subject matter is almost certainly generally-accepted mainstream science that was likely published many years ago and so is in the public domain anyway. So, it is unlikely that he has any particular claim to the subject matter (unless he has single-handedly developed all of the theory for that entire field). In any case, this goes against the main goal of academic research, which is to *publish* research findings to add to the cumulative knowledge of humanity, not to keep them secret for one's own benefit.
In the second case, can a *teaching method* be considered Intellectual Property? It seems highly unlikely he would be able to apply for a patent for a teaching method. Patents are typically reserved for more concrete inventions and innovations. Besides a patent, the only way it could be considered intellectual property would be for him to intend to keep the teaching method secret. However, his intention to publish a book about it would seem to contradict that. Also, as with the first point, this seems to go against the grain of academia, since teaching methods are also an active area of published research.
For the third case, as alephzero points out in the question comments, the *specific text* of lecture notes, presentation slides and/or a book can be protected by copyright. However, the Professor should not require students to sign an NDA to do this - simply make it clear to the students that the course materials are subject to copyright. These things are already protected, without the need for an NDA.
In summary, the course materials are protected by copyright anyway, and it seems very unlikely that any NDA would be enforceable to protect the subject matter or teaching method. So, you probably don't have too much to worry about by signing it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: One of the main purposes of teaching is to prepare students for research or real-world by presenting the latest ideas, methodologies, and tools. If you have something that you intend to present it in a book or a journal paper, just do not teach it yet.
Perhaps the professor is protecting his lecture notes before publishing them as a book. While this is reasonable as the OP suggested, presenting no other alternative is not acceptable. As a teacher, your first responsibility is to teach and not write books. If you want to protect your material, you should adapt your lecture notes. It's just lazy to provide no alternatives and ask students for signing NDAs.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: A non-disclosure agreement only protects information that is not generally known. I seriously doubt that standard lectures can be protected information. I don't see how an NDA is appropriate in the case outlined in your question.
Why would you pay for information that you are then not allowed to use?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: I'll take the minority stand.
[NDAs are now a standard in the startup ecosystem](https://startupnation.com/manage-your-business/non-disclosure-mistakes/). Getting students readied for this reality may have been an unintended result of the professor's request.
I have come across a professor who was conducting sponsored research. He could describe the intent of algorithm he was developping, but was not allowed to describe the solution he was implementing.
The ability or willingness for professors or students to require or sign NDAs can widen the scope of university corporation cross collaborations where protecting a competitive advantage is a requirement.
I can see how some ideas may need time to be refined. In this case the professor would provide a peek in his research yet to be completed or even validated.
I would sign up the agreement knowing the book publishing would release me from the NDA terms.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_11: >
> Management: "This student says you walked him out of your class, what happened?"
>
> Professor: "He refused to sign my non-disclosure agreement"
>
>
>
I don't think the university will take very kindly to your professor's arrangement. Unless he has received prior clearance from the university to do this, I can see it getting him into trouble.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: IANAL, but this NDA is likely not worth the paper it's printed on.
1. An NDA requiring students not to disclose information they were taught in class will be likely found onerous by a reasonable court, because it clearly conflicts with the purpose of teaching and lessens the value of education received, and invalidated if the professor ever tries to enforce it.
2. An NDA can only be applied to information which is held confidential by the owner. A reasonable court will likely rule that information presented as a part of curriculum in a school loses its confidential status, thereby invalidating the NDA.
3. If the judge has a sense of humor (which is admittedly rare), they may rule that taking the exam on the course constitutes compelled disclosure, which also nullifies NDA protection.
I don't advise you to sign this agreement, but if you already did, there's not much to worry about really.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_13: It is not appropriate to withhold material from a student for failure to sign an NDA. That said, it is appropriate to remind the students of the value of intellectual property, and that they are not the copyright holders of the provided material.
By way of explanation -- the work at issue is protected by copyright. There may be some debate about who is entitled to the fruits of that copyright, the author or the institution, but many US institutions will cede to the author. In any case, it is NOT the student.
The way this is handled at my institution is that it is covered in the Academic Honesty policy.
>
> The sharing or distribution of course materials for purposes of giving
> or gaining unfair advantage in a course is prohibited. Students must
> further respect the requirements of copyright protection for materials
> that are made available for instructional purposes.
>
>
>
All the students read, and sign, the academic honesty policy upon entrance, and generally receive reminders at each course on the first meeting. Also, if the prof has any non-obvious course policies on honesty, such as how students are allowed to collaborate on teamwork, this is also shared on day one, as well as in the syllabus.
Thus, any unapproved sharing of lecture or other material is treated like any other violation of academic honesty policies. There is no "Cease and Desist" to the student (but any site hosting the material might get a request to take it down, and if non-responsive, might well get a Cease and Desist, or it's equivalent), but there may certainly be ramifications. For example, if the student has a previous major violation on record, such as cheating on an exam, a case involving unauthorized sharing might even result in separation (though a lowering of the course grade or failure in the course might be the more likely scenario).
I don't know that this would preempt the professor from pursuing independent legal action. For example, if a professor spent five years writing a textbook for the publisher, and found the entire preprint online prior to publication, and had real financial damage, I don't know if university policy would preclude a copyright violation lawsuit.
To summarize, the work is already protected by copyright, whether an NDA is signed or not. Asking students for an NDA, and refusing to distribute material to students unwilling to sign, is inappropriate. Some universities (maybe even "many") include copyright violation in their academic honesty policy, and students might experience penalties for traceable violations. There is also a possibility that students may be subject to the same legal actions that any copyright violator is exposed to.
Addendum: The University of Maryland has had their lawyers write up a treatment, which largely confirms my assertions, at <https://president.umd.edu/faculty-course-materials-strategies-dealing-commercial-use>. The situations where this comes up most often of late is when students upload course materials and exams to services like CourseHero or Chegg, but all the concepts apply for any unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_14: **Is this his IP/data, or does it belong to a third party?**
First of all, in an American university this would be highly irregular. Behavior like this should be escalated to a department chair or dean--unless it falls into one of two narrow exceptions.
**Exception 1 - Controlled Data**
Some entities release data for scientific or educational uses, and they have contractual agreements with the recipient that the data is only to be used in those circumstances.
If the lesson includes such data or reports from third parties, the professor cannot use it legally without permission, and such permission is usually contingent on NDAs.
Even if this is the case, the professor should be very clear about which documents are covered, who owns the documents/data, and what are the penalties for noncompliance with the NDA.
**Exception 2 - Sensitive or Copyrighted Materials**
Sometimes sensitive documents or otherwise unpublished copyrighted material (including source code) are distributed for educational purposes. This is less common than controlled data, but some schools have close relationships with private sector partners.
All of the same caveats apply here. It is the professor's responsibility to identify clearly the protected material, the owner, and the consequences of breaching the NDA.
**His methods and data.**
If this is some sort of overblown attempt to keep his materials protected, it needs to be escalated.
The professor will own copyrights on any material he produces in the absence of a university policy to the contrary.
If this is pre-publication material for a textbook that he authors/coauthors, then both the publisher and the university should be aware of it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: Asking students to sign an NDA in order to take your class is absurd.
Some points I haven't seen in other answers:
* Non-disclosure agreements are ***legal documents***. In theory, each student should discuss the document with their lawyer. In practice, most college students aren't going to have their own lawyer, or have spare cash lying around for paying a lawyer to review an NDA. Forcing a non-disclosure agreement on each student places an **undue burden** on them.
* The NDA would create legal and bureaucratic headaches for the students and university. For example, say that the professor engages in personal misconduct during class. Can the students report this to the university without violating the NDA? Worse, what if the actual subject matter of the lesson violates university standards/ethics? Taken to an absurd extreme, what if the professor starts teaching racism and holocaust denial, or instructing students in how to build a bomb?
* Lastly, the lasting implications of the NDA are confusing. Does the NDA mean that the students can't apply the knowledge from the class to future classes or careers? This might be answered in the wording of the NDA, but that again relies on the student having access to a legal professional to fully explain all ramifications of the NDA to them.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_16: I think this violates the basic trust and respect towards a student. These processes may be technically successful by introducing fear and feeling of liabilities, but at this cost the student losses the sincerity and spontaniety to do willfully for oneself and for the lab and the guide.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_17: Professor can ask for NDA on pieces of his teaching material. Imagine many classes on business or law use-cases that might be on ongoing cases or certain non-critical issues with engineering consulting that professors might refer to so they can help the students without revealing too many details but still subject to the much broader NDAs professor have with such firms.
However, if the professor simply is blanket-bombing the full content of his lectures without offering an alternative on other textbooks or lectures with an NDA then it will be problematic. However, such an NDA will not carry so much weight when it comes to enforcing and penalizing the breachers anyway in the court of law. I should add I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but something I heard a lot from people who have gone through it.
All being said, as other responses mention, it is generally a terrible practice to bring in those red tapes to the academic setting for personal gains.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_18: If this class is about some new cutting-edge research, the NDA may be reasonable, or may even be legally required. If it's a "run-of-the-mill" class, an NDA would seem more unreasonable. It also depends on how long the NDA extends. You should be allowed to talk about it after a reasonable amount of time, such as after the book is published or the patent is filed.
The professor may be talking about something that he plans to file a patent on once the research is at the point where it's patentable. You cannot file a patent on something that's already publicly available (it's called prior art). In this case, he **must** require an NDA before telling you anything about the project.
Similarly, if it is a research project, it sometimes cannot be published once the information is out there, and even if not, he may worry about being "scooped" by other researchers.
So the choice here from the professor's perspective is: he can either choose not to educate his students on the latest and greatest research at all, or he can educate them under condition that they don't pass on that information.
And for you as a student, the choice is similar: if you don't want to sign the NDA, you can't learn about this particular technology.
Depending on the exact circumstances, it seems to probably be perfectly legitimate.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I need some help writing a polite email to a professor from a different department at my university. A while back I emailed him because I was interested in doing graduate studies at his department (I'm at a department in a pretty similar field). I asked him about the entrance exams and all the subjects I would be required to take before officially applying to do graduate studies. He answered back very politely recommending me some courses and also telling me which courses I would be required to take before officially applying. Unfortunately, it was far more than I'd expected, and I realized I'd have to do an extra year of undergraduate studies in order to do it.
Since I'm currently in a field that's very demanding, I think I wouldn't manage to pass all those extra courses (there's more than 10), and would probably just end up having a burnout.
Now I don't know how to politely and considerately tell him I appreciate all the effort, but that I've changed my mind and I won't be applying to do graduate studies at his department. I feel like I just wasted his time because he seems to have put a lot of time in this, discussing it with his colleagues at the department and answering all my questions shortly.
I should say I'm at a small and not at all famous university in Europe, and they probably don't get many admissions or questions about graduate studies...<issue_comment>username_1: The important part is to thank him for his interest. Beyond that just say what you say here, that you now think it better to ... whatever. I suspect that he will just wish you luck and move on himself. Not every contact with a professor results in an advisory situation. He doesn't expect that.
He may be sad you aren't coming, but is unlikely to be angry. Don't obsess over it. Thanks... wish me luck...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As others have said, keep it short and straightforward. Like this:
>
> Dear Professor,
>
>
> Thanks for all the info, I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, this list of courses is far longer than I expected. Given my other commitments, I'll probably not be able to pursue this further. Still, your response was very helpful in making an informed decision, thanks for taking the time.
>
>
> --Name
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it okay to just say "I know what I know, and I'm not gonna try to learn anymore, because I'm already so exhausted as it is"? I'm asking this because this is basically how I feel right now, and several other times, I don't know if I'm even gonna make any more progress. Has anyone ever been in a similar situation? What do you end up doing? What would you recommend?<issue_comment>username_1: If you cram right up to the moment of the exam you will probably perform sub optimally. You will probably remember only what you studied last, not what you learned overall. Give your mind and body time to decompress before the exam. A day might be appropriate. Your mind won't quit working just because you aren't trying to drive it unmercifully.
In general, take regular breaks if you have a long study regimen such as for a qualifying exam. An hour or so every few hours. Use some physical activity to get your blood moving and to get you breathing hard. Then you can return refreshed to study.
It isn't giving up. It is just using your capabilities more efficiently.
This sort of thing has been studied extensively.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Hmm, I wonder about the "I don't know if I'm even gonna make any more progress" more than about the being "exhausted". It might be helpful to rethink how you study, well, more than whether it's okay to stop when you are exhausted (sure, but this doesn't mean that studying this way is a good overall strategy, nor that you will pass if you continue to work this way).
It's a trite saying to "work smarter, not harder" but I think this YouTube Video of <NAME> covers this issue well: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0>
It's something I wish I would have had during my time as a student.
And hey, given the age of this question — did stopping (or not stopping) work out for you?
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I'd like to submit a paper to a conference in computer science. The conference's submission guidelines state 14 as the maximum number of pages. Should I take it at face value? My paper is 20 pages long (19, if you disregard the bibliography). If I submit it, can I expect an automatic rejection for being too long? If I'm able to cut it down to 14 pages, but the bibliography spills to page 15, will it count as eligible?<issue_comment>username_1: It will vary from conference to conference, of course, but expect the committee not to be too lenient unless the paper is extraordinary in some way. You can and should just ask. But 15 is certainly going to be easier for them to agree to than 20. You can expect that others are asking the same question, of course.
If the conference uses good reviewers prior to acceptance you might get suggestions for how to shorten it and if you accept the advice it would make it more likely to be accepted.
But I think a paper nearly half again as long as expected isn't a good candidate for acceptance. Unless it is extraordinary.
But the conference chair can give you the accurate answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: None of the CS conferences I have ever submitted to had ever been lenient on page limits. There are often automatic checkers that will not allow you to upload a paper that exceeds the page limits. Conference guidelines are usually very clear and unambiguous, go and read them. Some conferences allow an appendix or a link to additional material that reviewers can read at their discretion.
Regarding splitting the papers - if you can do so in a clean way, and both parts make sense (tell a compelling narrative, have meaningful results) then sure. Otherwise, expect two rejections.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: My supervisor got his PhD in the 1970s while having two kids and a house. He spent 25k on the house. Everyone from that era, even the 80s or 90s, said that their degree was dirt cheap and they were very easily transiting from academia to work life post graduation.
Fast forward to the present day, my graduate wage is 25k/yr (most of which is spent on tuition) and the housing prices in my city are 70k-100k for tiny small apartment. Almost all the housing prices are rising due to speculation and price for even basic daily necessities such as food or even a hair cut is rising.
I am going to a conference but I can't go because the plane ticket alone cost $1000 dollar. Uploading a paper cost $100, an additional one cost $300. Registration $300. All the conference prices are rising and many students are frustrated but the conference organizer insist on places such as fancy resorts or islands. It feels like a hustle.
How do academia rationalize the reality that the cost of living has risen dramatically, yet graduate wages are stagnant, making the graduate degree nowadays a very costly and risky journey. How do academic advisors support students in these times when their students are all living around the poverty line, the same bright students who could easily make 100k-200k working as a programmer?
I sometimes wonder if the only reason I am admitted is that I am from a third world country and people assumed we are satisfied with less and unequal pay. Not unequal with respect to other graduate students, but unequal with respect to people who has citizenship with the same skill.<issue_comment>username_1: Cost of living differs dramatically from city to city and country to country. So the problem you describe is not as uniformly present as your question suggests. The way the payment is organized (stipend versus salary, tax rules that apply, health insurance, etc. etc.) differs a lot from country to country and over time. Such changes could easily lead to a (hard to see) improvement of the situation of PhD students, instead of the deterioration you report.
However, it is generally true that as a PhD student you will earn less during their studies than if you started to work immediately. However, those with a PhD degree tend to get on average slightly better labor market outcomes (slightly higher pay, less unemployment, etc.).There is some indication that a PhD degree on average pays of in terms of life time income, but I don't think the advantage is large. Again, this differs a lot from discipline to discipline and country to country. Depending on the specific circumstances you could easily be one of the persons that would have earned more during their entire life without the PhD degree. So if you are doing this for the money, then it is not quite as bad as you describe, but there are probably better investments you could have made. However there are other advantages: For example, if you want a career at a university or a research position outside university, then a PhD degree is pretty much required. Those are the things that you "buy" by excepting the lower payment now. Whether or not that is a worthwhile "purchase" depends on the kind of jobs you want to pursue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: 1. It's supply and demand setting wages, not socialism, not "living wage". As long as they get slaves, oops grad students, coming in at the bottom of the pyramid, why worry about the wages? If they need to raise wages, they will. If they don't, they won't. You already see this with postdocs or even grad students from field to field. Those where it is harder to attract students pay more. In general, engineering > science > humanities.
2. Immigration. Massive amounts of imported grad students. Some departments of U.S. science and engineering are more than 50% non-native.
3. Articles in APS and ACS about encouraging kids to do STEM, when hard science Ph.D.s struggle to get desirable jobs. Big lab profs are in the business of staffing grants. As long as they get the grant, they won't stop a project because the grads don't get hired.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Following is a US only perspective.
In most fields, advisors have no control whatever over the conditions of either their grad students, nor the general economy. In a few scientific disciplines in which advisors hire their students, usually from grant monies, this can differ, but university policy may still put limits on what can be paid.
What an advisor may be able to do, is to try to make the length of the doctoral program as short as is feasible, getting people out more quickly. But, since scientific breakthroughs can't be scheduled, this is an aspirational policy only.
Universities may also be limited in what they are able to do, for complicated financial reasons. Legislators have not been especially generous in funding education in the US at any level (actually it is rotten). Funds are limited for most disciplines and the funds increase slowly if at all. But a certain number of grad students are needed to provide TAs to make the undergraduate education system work at all. The tradeoffs are difficult to manage. We could pay graduate students better if there were fewer of them. But then (a) you wouldn't be likely to get a slot in a grad program and (b) the undergrad program would also suffer. Hard choices and no effective way to overcome them.
But if you are in a doctoral program for any reason but love of the discipline and a burning desire to live your life there, then you are probably not in the right place. Money is seldom the main driver of those who seek PhDs.
As other here note, the living cost in many places in the US is insane. Near Stanford it is so expensive to live that it is difficult for the university to attract faculty, much less graduate students. But the value added by an education there is worth it for many. And note that it is also true that Stanford had something to do with creating the conditions that led to that cost of living by fostering the rise of major tech firms. This is one reason that young faculty can be (many places) judged primarily on their ability to attract grant money that keeps the whole system in (delicate) balance.
Long term (lifetime) if you want to make a difference, support spending public funds for education at all levels. The alternative is to guarantee a poorer future for everyone. An uneducated populace isn't an especially productive one.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: This might prove controversial but I'm going to reverse the question: why do PhD students accept being underpaid? As long as academic institutions find candidates willing to be underpaid, they have no reason to raise the wages. If the PhD students themselves don't defend their claim to a better compensation, who will?
In some countries PhD students are staff with a proper employment contract (I'm aware of at least Germany and France, probably others as well). The advantages of this system from the PhD student perspective are:
* Access to health, pension and unemployment benefits in accordance with the country regulations
* The PhD counts as a professional experience
* *The salary is usually indexed on some public employment salary scale*
* Symbolically improved social status, e.g. when being vetted for an apartment or a mortgage.
Obviously this option is more costly for the academic institutions, which means that they had to reduce the number of PhD students hired in order to increase the salary.
In France, the transition from student stipend to work contract happened at the beginning of the 2000s. The movement originated from the PhD students themselves and was driven by the *Confédération des Étudiants Chercheurs* (*students researchers federation*, later appropriately renamed as the *[Confédération des Jeunes Chercheurs](https://cjc.jeunes-chercheurs.org/)*, *junior researchers federation*). The central claim was that even if PhD students are researchers in training, they actually carry out productive research work, as illustrated by the fact that 50% of scientific publications have a PhD student as first author. Therefore legal cases were brought that their work qualifies as regular employment, and that the student stipend system was simply illegal according to labor laws. Institutions and funding bodies reluctantly complied over the next decade or so, for fear of legal challenges and/or bad publicity.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: [Parallel Computing journal](https://www.elsevier.com/journals/parallel-computing/0167-8191/abstracting-indexing), according to their website, indexed in SCI. However, [master journal list](http://mjl.clarivate.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlresults.cgi?PC=D&ISSN=*0167-8191) (MJL) indicates that the journal is indexed in SCI expanded. Is it possible that the journal moved from SCI expanded to SCI but MJL has not update the information?<issue_comment>username_1: Clarivate decides what to index in the Science Citation Index, so their "Master Journal List" is going to be authoritative. Elsevier's list is likely to be less accurate.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Per the answers on [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/26656/22733), there's not much difference between SCI and SCI Expanded in the first place---in fact, I had never even heard of the distinction before your question. Instead, I've generally just heard people using "SCI" to refer to being indexed by the company at all, not bothering to distinguish between the two classes.
Thus, as @AnonymousPhysicist notes, Clarivate's list will be the definitive one. Elsevier, however, is probably embracing the more generic usage, as it avoids needing to draw the (potentially unfavorable) distinction.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: [Preprints.org](https://www.preprints.org/about) is a new site for sharing preprints of papers.
[arXiv](https://arxiv.org/) is one of the longest standing, stable and mature places for many people.
I'm wondering where to upload a paper (which is already open access on [GitHub](https://github.com/Robinlovelace/integrating-gat), but not very visible).
One downside of arXiv: Google Scholar seems to direct people to the arXiv and not the latest versions.
One upside of arXiv is that it is open, stable and mature.
In summary, where should I put my preprint for maximum benefit?
Update
------
Thanks to the first link in the 'correct' answer below, I think I've discovered the OSF affiliated preprint services. See here for more info: [Preprint services other than arXiv (for other fields)](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/84/preprint-services-other-than-arxiv-for-other-fields)
Check it out (and potentially submit your preprints) here: <https://osf.io/preprints/><issue_comment>username_1: If the use of arXiv in your field of science is common, that is probably the better option for you personally. For example, subject specific abstract indexing services (like inSPIRE or ADS for high energy physics and astronomy) will automatically link their entries for the arXiv version to the journal version. Consequently, you will easily be able to obtain combined citation counts.
However, there are some limits to arXiv. One of the foremost is that they accept pre-prints only for a limited number of subject areas (essentially physics+astronomy+mathematics+(some) computer science with maybe some cross-over into other fields). Consequently, for some fields arXiv simply is not an option. (There also some subfields for which arXiv would accept pre-prints, but the use of arXiv is not so common). In this case, alternatives could be interesting.
Personally, I have never heard of preprints.org. One potential worry I would have is that it is owned by a (commercial) publisher. So, even though it is currently run as a non-profit with free access, I am not sure what safeguards there are against them changing their usage policy in the future. I would certainly try to find out before submitting anything.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You should generally use the service that most people in your [field](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/84/17254) uses. In my subfield of physics people follow the daily postings on arXiv, so that's the natural choice for me. I imagine a preprint would be effectively invisible if posted elsewhere, except to someone who happens to be browsing my Google Scholar profile, ResearchGate profile or website. One could perhaps post to both arXiv and Preprints.org for wider dissemination, but that might confuse e.g. Google Scholar's citation counts so I'm not sure if it's a net benefit.
Advantages of Preprints.org
* **Much** wider [field coverage](https://www.preprints.org/subject).
* Can assign DOI to preprints. (Given that arXiv identifiers play essentially the same role, I personally don't think this is a large advantage, but some [people seem to have a preference for DOIs](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/69521/17254).)
* Has a comment system. (The closest thing on arXiv would be emailing the authors.)
Disadvantages of Preprints.org
* No flexibility with license. All Preprints.org preprints are posted under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 license. This makes some sense as Preprints.org is designed with open access journals in mind, but really limits the set of journals the manuscript can be published in.
* It's not clear to me how Preprints.org would handle misleading comments. One might prefer not to have those on the same page as the preprint.
* It's run by [MDPI](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDPI), a publisher that's been rather controversial in the past. Although they claim that Preprints.org is run on a not-for-profit basis, it remains fully funded by MDPI, which may or may not be a sustainable and lasting investment. (Compare e.g. the discontinued [Nature Precedings](http://precedings.nature.com/).) In contrast, arXiv is operated by Cornell University (which at least I consider a more respectable entity), and has proven to have lasting power.
Unknowns
* One can volunteer to [screen preprints](https://www.preprints.org/screen) on Preprints.org. Is that more or less robust than the screening by [arXiv moderators](https://arxiv.org/help/moderation)?
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been a tenured faculty member at a math department in the US for a few years. Recently two colleagues of mine asked (apparently independently) why I do not have PhD students. I honestly explained my reasons to each of them. Also I added that despite that, if it is necessary I CAN take students. Neither of them commented my answer.
Should I take these two questions at face value? Or did the colleagues try to let me know in an indirect way that I am expected to have students? Is there a way to make sure whether my department is unhappy that I have no PhD students?<issue_comment>username_1: It is impossible to read their minds, of course, but I think that they are at least expressing surprise that you don't have doctoral students. There may be a (very) mild rebuke in it, especially if it is thought to be a necessary element of the work.
But, there may be an implied warning, that, although they can't sanction you for not having students, there might be long term negative consequences for your career if you *get by* without accepting students. You don't say whether you have been asked to be an advisor and you don't say whether you have turned people down. If either is true then the warning, as well as the rebuke, might be a bit stronger.
But whether there are consequences or not depends on local custom at your place of employment as well as your other contributions to the profession.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: By and large, mathematicians have a tendency to express themselves logically and literally, much more so than the general population. If your colleagues asked you why you don’t have PhD students, it is reasonable to assume by default that their intent was to find out why you don’t have PhD students. That explanation is not the only conceivable one, but is at least as likely as any other.
As for any underlying subtext, hidden motives, subtle hints, passive aggressive behavior, a twisted sense of humor, or any number of other reasons why people (even mathematicians) sometimes say X when they mean Y: you’ll just have to ask them.
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I completed my PhD 3 years ago from a university in the UK. Today I was looking for some papers in google scholar. I found a patent in China. The patent was written in Chinese however, all diagrams/figures and equations were exactly same as one of my PhD research papers, which was also part of my PhD thesis.
I translated Chinese text to English I found that work is exactly....same as my PhD thesis and research paper. My research paper was published 1 year before the patent was filed. When I translated the inventors name. I found one of the inventors is my PhD supervisor, who is Chinese but works in a UK university. I couldn't believe it. This patent was filed by a power company in China with my PhD supervisor as one of the inventors.
I am fully aware that the research paper is an open source idea anybody can use it. However, this is the case of copyright infringement. I have full right on text, diagrams, figure and tables in my research paper and my PhD thesis. They have copy-pasted diagrams as well. These diagrams are scientific diagrams nobody can reproduce them without the data.
Now, I am not sure, where should I complain?
1. should I first confront my supervisor directly as he is one of the inventors? or
2. complain to the university, because if this paper is a patent then only the university has first right over it before a power company in China. I never gave any consent to sell my research work or file a patent of my work without me being the inventor.
3. Another issue is that I did research at a UK university. This patent is filed in China. What actions I can take?<issue_comment>username_1: This sounds like a clear-cut case of a violation of academic ethics to me - if he’s willing to steal work from you, how could anyone trust anything he’s ever published? I’d strongly consider going to talk with the head of your faculty, school, or department, depending on how your university’s hierarchy is structured, so that the university can begin academic integrity proceedings against him, and I’d also consider talking to the university’s lawyers about what your legal options to dispute the patent are, and if you would be able to file one in the UK.
Upvotes: 8 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not a lawyer but this is my understanding of patent law...
Another consideration is that a patent is granted on the understanding that the object or idea covered by the patent was not publicly disclosed prior to the patent application. Such a public disclosure constitutes "prior art".
If your paper was published by a journal, or your thesis was deposited in an online university repository, then relevant prior art was publicly disclosed, predating the patent application. As such the patent should not have been granted in the first place and would be unenforceable if push came to shove in a court. So your university (his employer... perhaps shotly to be his ex-employer) should have a very easy case to get the patent set aside. They will have the legal firepower available to do this, you won't be able to afford what they can afford to protect their reputation. Talk to your research organisation.
Even if the system in China rejects the complaint, the holders won't be able to register a patent anywhere else in the world for this substance / process and anywhere else in the world will be free to use the substance / process so it will seriously devalue the theft of your IP.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: China does not have a good history of enforcing IP rules. This is a widely-covered topic ([Stanford legal blog summary](https://law.stanford.edu/2018/04/10/intellectual-property-china-china-stealing-american-ip/), [CNBC study](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-stole-their-ip-within-the-last-year-cnbc.html), [google search on the topic](https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese%20theft%20of%20intellectual%20property&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS848US848&oq=chinese%20theft&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.5478j1j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)). This topic has been a focus in recent international politics, as IP has been a [non-insignificant focus in larger trade talks](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/us/politics/intellectual-property-trump-xi.html). While President Xi has claimed that he's cracking down, things still [aren't that great](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/what-s-intellectual-property-and-does-china-steal-it-quicktake).
To that extent, you're simply now experiencing pain that many others have felt. Unfortunately, there aren't many resources available for you to remedy this problem.
As you say that your advisor works for a UK university, you might be able to do contact the UK university and see if they can assist in policing this in some way. It is unlikely they can for the patent to be overturned or rewritten to acknowledge you, but there may be some other pressure they can exert on the professor. Similarly, if anyone tries to claim rights to your invention outside of China, it's highly likely you could claim prior art.
Lastly, while certainly suspicious, I wouldn't take it as proven that your advisor was responsible, at least not based on what you've written.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Three issues together with a TL;DR:
* Science ethics (talk with your Uni)
* Copyright (largely irrelevant as it's China, unfortunately)
* Patents (dito)
The "patent" aspect would be your least worry. I assume that you do not actually want to use the idea of your paper in *China*, but maybe in a western country. In that case, any western court should make that very much possible for you. Patents are all about *invention*; the entity acquiring a patent must prove that they invented it, and if a challenger can prove that the thing was extant before, then it's a moot point.
The "copyright" issue is a big headache for you, but it does not hurt you, really. You did a paper anyways, so it is out there, and in western countries which respect the idea of copyright, that's it. You can easily prove, by comparing the dates on the documents, that you are the copyright holder. If you, say, want to rework your paper into a book, or something like that, you can easily do that (in the west).
"Ethics" is really only applicable here because your supervisor is in the UK as well. If you want to go that way, sure, your uni should have contacts for you. It won't change anything in China, but maybe it creates enough repercussions for that person so something changes... which will be more for your own peace of mind than anything else, I guess.
Except for notifying your uni, I'd let it go, frankly. Unless you have very concrete plans to actually use your paper in aspects of copyright/patentability, you'll not gain anything except gray hair and gastric ulcers... and even then - what I called "easy" up there would still involve lawyers and a lot of time and possibly money depending on whether the chinese company has a dependency (or a vested interest) in a western country.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I, too, am not a lawyer, but know enough that patent law varies considerably across the globe. It is even possible that a patent granted in China won't be recognized in the US, though I have no specific knowledge of that. But, among other things, the standards about what can be patented are likely different in different locations. Certainly the process is.
The proper course is to talk to a patent lawyer who can give valid advice. Your university, if it is a large one, probably has access to such lawyers who can advise you and even file for a patent (say in the US) on your behalf and that of the university.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Legally, you don't need to do anything, you lost nothing and don't need to worry.
Ethically, well, others answered that adequately I think. Obviously it's not ok, but you don't even know for sure your advisor was involved. I would just like to add that you should keep in mind the cost to yourself of taking any action and whether you really want conflict in your life when you aren't actually threatened.
Details about the legal aspects:
--------------------------------
In general, getting a patent is meaningless. The patent registry does *some* research to verify validity, but only as much as their fee pays for. States don't enforce patents in general, so the people who filed the patent would need to sue you. Then you would trivially win, because I assume you had your thesis published in a reputed place which can vouch for the publication date and it's such a blatant copy (which thus isn't novel, and that's *the* basic requirement for patents all over the world).
You yourself couldn't get a patent on the idea anyway (in most countries), because you published your paper and thus destroyed novelty (yes, patent law really works like this - you need to file for a patent *before* you publish anything).
Next, Chinese patents only have any effect in China even if they are legal and enforceable in (Chinese) court. Because of the exorbitant cost of patents and the questionable enforce-ability in China, you probably don't want a patent in China anyway unless you are Chinese or otherwise based there.
If, next time, you wanted to get a patent yourself you should talk to your university early on. Often they will get a patent for you (but also own the patent) or help you get a patent (depending on your contract with them).
(I passed a 2ECTS course on intellectual property at a good university recently, but that's all of my credentials)
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: Patents are only useful in the case of a dispute. And a patent dispute will really only occur when there is competition. If nobody competes with the company that "stole" your patent, then in the big picture, the patent is meaningless. If the corporation that filed the patent is state-owned, then it is likely that it will never face meaningful competition to begin with. At that point, the patent almost certainly provides prestige value only.
It is hard to see how anything of value has been taken from you unless you intended to productize your Ph.D thesis inside China. However, there *is* a way for *you* to possibly extract value from the patent that even the patent holder cannot. You should simply advertise on your C.V. that your thesis is already being implemented in China, and refer to the Chinese corporation and its patents as proof. This certainly validates your ideas more strongly than not having a physical implementation. If you really want to take it to the next level, you should contact your adviser and make them give you a fawning quote about your work and how it made possible the glorious Chinese patent for the good of the Motherland (or is it the Fatherland?). Unless acknowledging your role would somehow cause a loss of face for your adviser, this seems like a win-win situation to me.
Even if acknowledging your contribution *would* cause a loss of face, making your adviser balk, you can simply turn the screws by letting your adviser know that you will be contacting his corporation's legal department to advise them of the provenance of key patent data. That should remove any hesitation to give you the well-deserved acknowledgment, which could easily be written in English, in a place that few people in China are likely to see or look for.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I'm not a lawyer and I don't know much about Chinese law, but much of this has been missed by other posters so far and I've done a bit of IP work in the past.
China is a "First to File" country
==================================
My country is a "first to file". ie if your boss files a patent for something you invented, he has full right to it and you might actually not have any rights over it at all. From a quick google search it appears that China is also a "first to file" country. If your supervisor filed the patent correctly, it should go through if you don't do anything.
More Chinese patent law from my quick google search
===================================================
In china there are three types of patents: invention patents, utility model patents, and design patents. This might be an invention patent, but I'm not sure. Now, I believe according to this [site](https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr04329.html), there would be a 6 month grace period where you would have been able to contest this patent since it was first made public in an academic setting. However, according to this [site](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=244758d0-c12a-42fe-a29a-4d70fca53e0a), China has no patent opposition procedure. You can still try to beat this by filing an invalidation application as outlined in the same site. It doesn't seem to me that the patent itself is invalid though.
What can you do?
================
1. If it is important to you, file a patent in the UK and in any other country you want to do business in/want your ideas recognized/want to be involved in litigation in (ooh fun!, not).
2. Talk to your supervisor and ask him to add you as an inventor.
3. Consider speaking to a patent attorney.
Copyright and Patent are two different things
=============================================
If you wrote the paper and made the figures, then perhaps you are right and you automatically have copyright over that stuff. Be aware that some journals actually take copyright from the authors and some uni's do the same. Neither of those things invalidate the patent itself. I know it sounds strange, but it's patent law - it's all strange. I do not know which of the above is the case though. It is very difficult to determine who wrote the paper this far from the actual fact. Your supervisor may very well have thought he did sufficient work to be the inventor and/or have written significant portions of the paper.
Ownership and inventorship are not equivalent
=============================================
Even if you were listed as an inventor, you don't necessarily have ownership over anything. So let's say you were able to get yourself listed as an inventor......you are still in the same boat, but now you have bragging rights. You still couldn't sell something based on that paper in china without infringing on their patent. If your intent is to make money off of this paper in China, then I would honestly say it isn't worth it. There are other countries where your paper is not patented and where you could engage in rampant capitalism at your pleasure. If you intend to do that, it's an easy, albeit expensive, journey of several thousands of dollars for each patent.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: According to this [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_law_of_China) inventions that are not new are not patentable in China since 2009. The article also mentions two ways of initiating an opposition procedure.
One of them, is at the CNIPA which has a rather comprehensive English website: <http://english.sipo.gov.cn/>. I'm pretty sure that calling them would at least give you some answers as to what actions are available. The site also contains translations of Chinese patent laws.
There is also another option for you. You can contact the power company that filed the patent. Or threaten your supervisor with that. It is very likely that he received compensation for the invention from that company. In this case, that would mean he committed a crime as the invention was unpatentable and he sold them something that wasn't his.
If the power company filed the patent without even your supervisor's knowledge, it might be a little more difficult. Power companies in China are state-owned mega-corporations with... well... a lot of power. You would need a little more noise to make them give up the patent. I doubt that is the case here though. They don't really have competition. It doesn't make sense for them to try to patent open source ideas.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Are you sure that the officer knew that the patent is just a translation and piracy of your work? Like sending them an complaint or something. I really think it is possible that they just failed to cover some PhD paper in English.
I can help you in the translation the Chinese.
Also, as far as I know, patent is to gain protection by disclose of the technique. So the Chinese government will no way benefit from such patent(because it should be open to everybody due to your published paper). It matters only with your supervisor's profit.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_11: It is unfortunately common to hear stories similar to this with regards to graduate work. There are no proven damages you list, so there is really no way to sue. It would also not be very beneficial in this circumstance, as it is very difficult to influence or otherwise enforce international intellectual property rules on other countries in general.
The most promising way forward here is not a legal solution, but a social one. Contact the supervisor associated with the publication, and explain that you found your paper filed as patent in China. It is possible they were also unaware, but that isn't necessarily relevant. The relevant issue is to see if they can help correct the patent filing to include you as an inventor.
It is possible to correct the names of inventorship for a patent in China. Given that you approach this from an inclusive stance as opposed to a combative one, you may have some luck there.
>
> According to the The International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI), *"the inventorship of a patent application can be corrected after the filing date in China upon request with related statement of agreement or evidence."*
>
>
>
As for the request, make sure that you can provide some sort of documentation to the supervisor for them to present. China's patent office will require some proof of inventorship when filing a correction.
>
> The inventorship of a patent application can be corrected after the filing date in China upon request with related statement of agreement or evidence.
> Under the current Patent Law of China, where the request to make a change is due to failure to fill in the name of inventor or his wrong name filled in, the certifying document signed or sealed by all the applicants (or patentees) and all the inventors before the change shall be submitted;
>
>
>
Short of them consciously making the decision to include you in this list of inventors, it is highly unlikely you will see any beneficial outcome from being forceful here.
There is also the counter argument which may hold some weight regardless of being entirely accurate. If your supervisor were to argue that they directed the effects of your research only to the extent of organizing your work, then you would not be considered as an inventor in China.
>
> The Patent Law of China does not define inventorship based on any particular part of the patent application. Anyone who makes creative contributions to the substantive features of an invention should be considered as the inventor of the application. On the other hand, a person who is responsible only for organizational work, who offers facilities for making use of materials and technical means, or who takes part only in other auxiliary functions, is not considered to be an inventor. While, from a legal
> perspective, the “substantive features” refer to those features that distinguish the invention from the closest prior art and thus render the invention patentable, in practice they are generally considered as the act of proposing the original idea of the originally claimed invention.
>
>
>
---
- Source for citations: <https://aippi.org/wp-content/uploads/committees/244/GR244china.pdf>
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a bachelor pass out of 2018. Electrical background. Currently i am working in R&D in an automobile company for the past year. PhD is something I have always wanted to pursue (mainly because I want to be a professor). But the PhD scenario here in my country makes me really uneasy towards it. So pursuing it in Europe seems like the best option (lesser tuition fees than USA).
Now the main issue is that I don't have any technical publications. This is maybe just an excuse but during college i was mostly reinventing the wheel. So I never felt like I could write one. Although I have worked on so many different kind of projects that no matter the field, i have worked on it (at least as a beginner). I am working on some patents at my current job. But it'll be a while before i can apply for the patent.
So my question is, is there any chance I can get into doctorate program of any European college with no technical paper and just a bachelor's degree. And if not then is there a chance of getting into MS?
I looked at entry criteria into universities, but they generally don't mention anything about technical papers. Educational criteria are easier to find.<issue_comment>username_1: Your chances of getting into *some* PhD program are not too bad (assuming that your transcripts are good). Getting into top programs is probably going to be more of a challenge without some outstanding credentials (publications, references from top researchers etc.), since the competition is really fierce. In these programs, the entry criteria are almost meaningless - most applicants easily pass them. However, you are competing against really qualified applicants, which means that even really good people do not get accepted.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: 1. Europe consists of several countries with different educational systems.
2. Typically you should have a master's degree before applying for a PhD degree. I would suggest searching for opportunities to get a master's degree first. But there probably are exceptions: see point 1.
3. Not having publications is fine in the disciples I know of. If you have publications before a PhD, that makes you a very strong candidate. If not, then you are just like everyone else on that matter.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I can only speak for the UK, but I spent a few years in industry before my PhD, and although I did get a co-authorship in that time, the subject of publications never even came up. My masters (MPhys, so a 4-year first degree rather than an MSc) was relevant mainly for the paperwork. Instead what mattered was what I could bring to the PhD from my industrial (R&D) role.
It depends heavily on the supervisor: some will dismiss non-academic experience without a second thought, but those that work on projects with industry are much more willing to give some weight to the skills picked up in industry. Unfortunately the undergrad->industry->PhD route is uncommon, so while your experience will be a benefit during a PhD, it may get in the way of some applications processes that don't expect you. An MSc in comparison will be fairly easy to get into if you meet the academic criteria (and these may be lower in the first place)
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a faculty job seminar coming up in a few weeks. Since this seminar will be attended by most faculty members in the department, I am wondering if it would be good to start the first slide (after the title slide) with an introduction of myself. That is it would be a brief bio of myself, where I got my Bachelor's, Master's, Ph.D., postdoc experience. It is highly likely that the department members already know or have this information. ***Would it be a good way to start the talk with such an introduction of myself (on one slide)?***<issue_comment>username_1: I would advise against it.
Everyone in this room is there for one reason - to judge whether you are a good fit to the department, and whether you are a good enough researcher, who's able to convey their research effectively. You have already submitted your CV, what's the point of putting that blurb up?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Methinks this is a bad move. The attendance will want to know about your research, so stick to the agenda. The time to introduce yourself 1-1 is in the individual meetings, either with members of the hiring committee or with non-committee members who are on the meeting list.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: No.
1. Most people know it. So you are wasting time. Don't do that. Time is short. Get bang for the buck with the lecture time.
2. It is odd and non-standard.
3. You will almost certainly be introduced. (This IS standard.) If not, you can introduce yourself. Very subtly please. Something that segues into the talk and shows human interest, not a resume recitation. Like:
"Today, I'm going to be talking to you about my research in optical recognition. Hopefully, I will convince you what a fascinating area this is with several big problems on the horizon of solution. I didn't always feel this way. During my undergrad, I concentrated on pure math. But after this talk, you will see why I moved into optical algorithms."
[Don't worry...you will not have to reformulate your straight research talk to be about your journey, versus the topic. But it gives a nice humanizing "hook" for the audience. Even the smartest CalTech scientists still have a bit of a caveman sitting around the fire, listening to a story about killing the boar, inside them. Provided that you present WITH GUSTO, that will be enough to show them why your heart moved you. Or perhaps the research has some natural places where different parts of your background converged--there's usually something.]
4. There is also nothing wrong with giving your sponsor some notes to introduce you. Make it bulleted and short. Not the whole bio or resume. If there's something non-intuitive about your background that you want emphasized, feel free to let him know.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I've always found that successful applicants to positions (myself included) are able to work their biography in to their discussion of their research. Rather than have a potted CV slide, casually mention the important aspects of your CV as you present relevant parts of your research and your research plans. When this is done well it is very effective.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I am going to go against most other answers here and say **do it... as long as you can present some added value on that slide**. I agree with the general sentiment that a slide where you say "I obtained my diploma X from place Y at Uni of Z" - it bores the audience who could've found it in your CV as well.
What this means for me, in practice, is that I put a map of Europe on that slide with pins in the places where I did my studies and other research activities. I use that slide to explicitly talk about the following points as well:
* I am familiar with the academic systems in 4 different EU countries. Therefore I will be able to better advise students on their mobility options.
* I have established professional and collaborative connections internationally during my early research career. I name those people when relevant (and put pins on the map for their institutes too).
I also find style advantages to having an introduction-map as opposed to a text-based slide (both slide and presentation style):
* You can put any amount of pins on the map and your slide will not look cluttered nor will it turn into a block of text (which looks boring).
As you progress with you academic career, you will find that just naming all the places takes more and more space.
* You have more freedom regarding how much time to spend talking about each of the "pins".
I find that with bullet points, I always try to visually balance them, and end up adding details to less relevant past experiences just for the visual text balance. With pins, I can say as much or as little about each location as I want.
Additionally, if you do get an unexpected introduction from your host, you can adjust how much to say on the go, dealing with several hypothetical cases.
* I find it easier to connect those experiences, rather than just list them chronologically, when looking at a map as opposed to a ... chronological list.
I can say things like "My MSc work at Uni of X (point at the map) put me in touch with the research group Y (point at the map again), enabling me to go for a research internship at Uni of Z which eventually lead to me obtaining a PhD from the same University."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: It depends upon the convention of your field.
Personally (to expand upon [another answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/135947/33210)), I would tactfully include this information, but not as its own, direct, slide. I have seen faculty do this and have used a similar approach for my current research job. You might start out describing how your undergraduate research or experience led you graduate school. Then transition, to summarizing your graduate projects and your postdoc project. For your faculty talk, describe how you will continue your research line (and including undergraduates or graduate students depending you what type of university you are applying to).
For example, an intro to my talk might look like:
>
> Broadly, I am interested in natural world and studied biology for my undergraduate major. I had a research project focusing on X, which led me to go to graduate school for Y. My master's project, I studied Z and then followed up studying A for my PhD. My postdoc project focused and B. During my talk, I will be going over A and B before describing how I will continue to do develop this research into C.
>
>
>
I've seen people also include a photo from their undergrad or childhood if it ties into their research. For example, one of my new colleague showed a childhood picture of her on the study river she would be studying for her permanent research position. She got the job, so it didn't hurt her. If anything, it helped make her more personable.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: In 1873, Johns Hopkins University was started with an inflation-adjusted [$144.5 million](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johns_Hopkins_University#The_philanthropist_and_the_founding). In 1884, Stanford University began with an inflation-adjusted [$139 million](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Stanford_University#Origins_and_early_years_(1885%E2%80%931906)). Meanwhile, in 2009, [KAUST](https://www.kaust.edu.sa/en) was started with [$10 billion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Abdullah_University_of_Science_and_Technology#History). There's a difference of two orders of magnitude.
Why did it become so much more expensive to start a university in modern times?<issue_comment>username_1: I suspect that you’d probably need to look at the budgets for the institutions in question to get a definitive answer, but I can think of a few potential causes:
1. Increased administrative and bureaucratic costs. In the days when those universities opened, HR departments weren’t a thing, and there was significantly less regulation on businesses in general.
2. Increased cost and quality of facilities. Technology marches on - and the cost of building a university building before indoor plumbing was a thing is radically different to building a modern university building with electricity, running water, IT infrastructure, projectors and cameras for the lecture theatres, and all the inspections and certifications being done to make sure that all the work is being done in accordance with code.
3. Computers, in general. That’s an entire field of costs that didn’t exist back then - not only do they need the physical infrastructure and desktop computers for the staff and students to use, but they also need to pay for licenses for all the software that the students would use for their classes, for the university website, for their online learning system, for their class and room allocation system, for their centralised marking and enrolment system, etc.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Besides all the factors that the other answer already lists, the elephant in the room is that KAUST has explicitly been designed to be a world-class university (rather than organically growing into one, as was the case with your other examples).
In short, it is not so much more expensive nowadays to found just any university - in fact new universities get founded all the time, virtually always spending considerable less money than $10 billion - but founding a university with the expectation that it will compete with the best in the world in a very short time frame is expensive. You need to compensate for all the natural growth in budget and prestige that established universities had over the last one or two centuries.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I would add two other factors to the good answers already available.
1. Growth of science into multiple fields and disciplines have resulted in increased costs. Back in the day, for example, mathematics was considered one field. But nowadays, there are many diverse subfields within mathematics (e.g., pure maths, statistics, computational math, etc). Creating a university with various departments and faculties results in more human resources cost as well as facilities and equipment costs.
2. To make scientific and technological advances possible, research has become more relient on expensive lab equipment in the late 20th century and 21st century in comparison with the early 20th century and before that.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: 1. Instruments and reagent price is on drastic rise. I purchased students grade compound microscopes at Rupees 7000 (each) around 2010, whereas at 2019 the same instruments costs more than Rupees 20,000. (each) This is immense. Previously if a college or university lacked a facility to provide it to students, it was easier to provide it. Whereas in recent years it is much harder to purchase any instruments except plastic vials or centrifuge tubes or micropipette tips.
2. Unlike household objects like computer, phone, sewing machines etc; there has been no visible effort to drop the price of scientific instruments. The price is ever rising.
3. Often a lack of mentainance drastically increases the cost. Say a part of building is damaged. While it could be readily repaired, due to carelessness of authority it is not repaired until and unless some devastating thing happens. Same for electrical wire mess, garbages, household appliences that provides electric shock, etc. Although it may not be the global scenario, inaction or showoff to hide the problem, actually increases the hidden costs.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: Education inflation is currently running about 7-8% ([source](http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml)). I don't have any data on what this rate was a century ago, so I'll just assume it's been constant. The general rate of inflation in the US for the last century has averaged about 3.2%. This means that education inflation is about 4% in real dollars. If you compute 1.04^100, you get about 50, i.e., about two orders of magnitude in a century. This is pretty much the size of the effect you describe in the cost of starting up a new university.
The deeper question would be why inflation in certain areas, such as healthcare and education, is so much higher than the general rate of inflation. I don't think economists have a universally agreed upon explanation for this. My understanding is that there are several explanations, all of which are probably true:
* Goods and commodities can always go down in value. The cost of a book, for example, is many orders of magnitude less than it was in the middle ages. But services can't become cheaper without bound. Services are provided by humans, who need to live. Therefore there is always a tendency for the non-service part of the economy to shrink in proportion to the service economy.
* In most countries, healthcare and education are government monopolies, or nearly so. In such a setup, people are using something that they don't pay for, so there is no tendency to restrain their use of the resource.
* In healthcare and education, people don't or can't make normal decisions on cost and value. For example, if the price of Greek yoghurt gets too high, I can decide to stop eating Greek yoghurt. But if education gets super expensive, I don't just tell my kids not to go to college.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I emailed a professor, saying I'm looking for a position. I introduced myself and wrote about experiences that I thought would be relevant to his work. I read on his website that he was recruiting students in a few research fields, and I cited the two in which I was interested, and said I would like to know more about them.
After 20 minutes I received this: "welcome". What does that even mean? Should I take it as a simple "no"? How do I reply to this?
I'm interested in his work, but there are also other professors in this school with similar areas of research. Should I move on to them without replying to this professor?
EDIT: I did ask for clarification. I asked if I could look forward to a position in his group, and he replied with "yes, you can". However, I find it kind of strange because he didn't ask for any additional information or give any instruction. I don't know what I can make of this. Any suggestions on how I can proceed?<issue_comment>username_1: I wouldn't read it as a "no". But it might have been an automatic reply, given the timing. It probably has the same meaning as "Thanks for your interest". Your next step should probably be to ask how you can formally apply for a position. You can also explore, separately, the school's admission requirements.
But I would take it as a positive signal, not a negative one.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: It means there was likely human error on the professor's part. The single word doesn't convey any message. Most likely explanations could be the professor replied to the wrong email, or accidentally pressed send before finishing his reply.
I'd suggest writing back and asking for clarification.
**Edit**: to answer your edit - you've asked for clarification and he comes back with another ambiguous answer. This isn't a good sign. If you're really, really keen to work with him I'd suggest writing back again asking if you should do anything next; otherwise I'd just assume he's not really interested and look elsewhere.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: On the basis of your edit, you should double check that you sent the emails to the correct address - confirm this by looking for the contact details of the professor on the department website.
If the email address on the professor's website and on the departmental website are different, try the other address and let the professor know that there may be an error on their website. If these are the same, there may be a phone number for the professor on the departmental website, which could be worth giving a ring.
Failing that, try emailing the department secretary (or local equivalent), say that you've been having trouble contacting the professor, and ask for their help, since the other methods of contact haven't worked satisfactorily.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'd be a bit wary of working with this person if this is really them and is really their communication style.
20 minutes is plenty of time to determine a student is *not* a fit and to politely deny them. 20 minutes is not really enough time to commit to supervising a student.
This level of communication might be typical from some professors, but I think those are the worst to have as advisors:
>
> "What do you think of my research ideas?"
>
>
>
"Good"
>
> "Where should we try to submit this paper?"
>
>
>
"Journal"
>
> "I'm worried I'm not making progress towards my thesis"
>
>
>
"Ok"
---
I would look at the admissions process for this university. If the process is such that you need to have some professor's sign off to apply, then maybe that's all they are trying to convey: that you get their sign off, and they aren't putting more effort in because the application process tends to winnow students.
In that case, clarify they are willing to sponsor your application, and go ahead and apply, but make sure you get a chance to meet further with this person before you take them as an advisor, and continue to apply elsewhere: you should not take this as a sure thing by any means, nor should you be sure yourself. If there are other people there you are interested in working with, by all means contact them.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> 1: received gladly into one's presence or companionship
> was always welcome in their home
> 2: giving pleasure : received with gladness or delight especially in response to a need
> a welcome relief
> 3: willingly permitted or admitted
> he was welcome to come and go
> — <NAME>
> 4—used in the phrase "You're welcome" as a reply to an expression of thanks
>
>
>
<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/welcome>
The fourth definition doesn't fit, as you didn't do anything for them. This leaves the other ones, which all are variations on "received gladly". Given just that response, the professor appears to be is admitting you into the position. It is rather ambiguous, especially since apparently there is more than one position, and it also indicates a low degree of selectivity. You certainly should get more clarification, but it appears to be a positive response.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: It seems, especially from your comment that "I was hoping that they would advocate my admission", that you were hoping that based on a cold email the professor would go out of his way to help you. You mentioned two research areas and said that "I would like to know more about them." What were you hoping for here? That he would reply with a detailed explanation?
You asked if you could look forward to a position in his group, and he replied with "yes, you can". Here's one possible thing it might mean: "If you apply to my university, are accepted, enroll, pass your qualifying exams, and make a positive impression, then I would be happy to take you on as a student."
It is difficult to guess exactly what the professor meant. My best guess is that he wants to be encouraging, but is trying to steer you to "normal" channels: to apply to his university for admission using whatever standard procedure is in place, to read his papers if you find them interesting, and if you have any questions to ask them more directly.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: All you can conclude from this is that this professor does not give reasonable responses to e-mail.
How to proceed: **not by e-mail**. If it is feasible to visit him in person, that is ideal. If not, you could request a phone call to discuss further. Either way, your response should be very concise. "Great! Could we have a phone call this week to discuss? When would be a good time for you?"
If you succeed in getting a meeting, you can assess whether he would be a reasonable colleague from there. Conversely, if you cannot get a meeting after a reasonable amount of effort, it's probably better to walk away.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: I would say that's a "No", and I would move on because this professor hadn't shown the signals which are sent from a typical "eager" professor to an applicant in whom she is interested. An interested professor often gets into details fast. Namely, she may: ask about the details of your research; show her curiosity about your background (which would be critical for your research) by asking about the related courses you have passed; ask about your potential funding resources to make up her mind about your needs to financial support. This list can be easily continued...
To my experience, if you look like the "right person" to a professor, she would not give you such kinds of short telegraphic responses encouraging you to pursue the way through official channels (The exception would be the professors affiliated with super famous schools in which the admissions are essentially committee-based). Professors are often competing with each other in attracting good students. So, if a professor finds someone who looks like a great fit to her requirements, she would try to show her interest. In fact some PIs often return to candidates by these kind of short not-so-expressive answers in favor of their institutions! In particular, if a professor is not in need of recruiting someone, she may not explicitly express her point. Instead, those kinds of short answers keep the applicant hopeful for basically nothing. Thus, he applies to that program thinking that those "welcome"s or "yes"s were positive signs toward success. But the whole point would be the application fee paid by the applicant; the money that would not be steered to the university's pocket if that PI had been clear to the applicant about the lack of any interest in his case.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: I think "welcome" means he is happy to welcome you into his group. This is supported by the statement "yes, you can." Perhaps the professor is under the impression that you already have admission into the university and are simply looking for a guide.
If you want to work with the professor, you should email and ask how to proceed further. How should you apply, where do you get funding etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: As others have noted, this is ambiguous and somewhat confidence-lowering.
In your next interaction, be sure to ask an open-ended question, not a polar yes-no one, and get a reply that is satisfying to you. Specifically you should really ask:
>
> What are the next steps I should take?
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Back in 2011, my roommate received similar email: 'yes plz aply' (with single p). He was disappointed, but still applied (was not admitted to that university though). I decided not to send any email to professors. We both applied through regular admission processes and got accepted.
Many years later, after several years in academia, I understand that this response does not mean anything. Well-known professors receive dozens of such emails, and have to save their time.
Just apply.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: "What's the next step?"
Remember that question when interviewing for a "real" job. Don't wait for the professor to make the next move, take the initiative to push the process forward. At some point, you need his offer in writing in some form, I've had people verbally offer me jobs that were more about their wanting to work with me than their authority to hire me.
In grad school, I was offered 3 assistantships; the prof who gave me a payroll sign up form got me, "This education brought to you by a grant from Exxon Corp." Offers can come in strange forms!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently PhD student, and giving lectures to undergrad students (4 semesters). Is it legit to write about this activity in the CV separately. If yes, then how (i.e. lecturer)?<issue_comment>username_1: If *lecturer* is an actual title in your location, as it is in many, and you don't actually hold the title, then it would be a mistake to suggest otherwise. If you have full responsibility for a course then you could provide a list of "courses taught". But if you are just a guest lecturer in a course taught by another, you could provide a list of "presentations" with a bit of detail.
Don't say things that others might consider misleading.
You could also seek advice from your current department/school as to how to properly present yourself. Likewise, a professor that you worked for in such courses can provide some guidance.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: When you write your experience section, use subheadings to split it into Research, Teaching, and Administration. This lecturing goes into the Teaching section.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: **I think it is legitimate to add this to your cv , but under the title: Additional academic work.**
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: In the United States, if you taught an entire course and did the grading, then you should use a phrase like
"Teaching Experience as Instructor of Record"
followed by a list of the courses. This would be under teaching experience. In some other countries this might not be understood.
If you are teaching as a part time job, I would suggest not listing that as employment, but this is a matter of personal preference.
You may need to adjust the way you write this depending on your audience.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I (as a Ph.D. student) supervised a masters project.
In particular, I defined the problem statement and prepared a sketch of the solution, that is, the steps which had to be done to achieve the solution. The masters student basically followed those steps which were mostly programming implementations. I composed the paper. Now, the paper is ready to be published, and I'm in a dilemma in selecting the first author of the paper.
On the one hand, I feel I am the right one because I solved the critical part of the problem, and the student just implemented what I had already planned. On the other hand, he may want to apply for a graduate position later, and I understand that he would morally expect to be the first author as this paper is his only serious research output. My supervisor left the issue to me by stating that my opinion would be his.
We unfortunately didn't set any specific set of expectations beforehand, particularly regarding papers and authorships.
According to a neutral mind, who most deserves to be the first author?
PS. The field is electrical engineering.<issue_comment>username_1: It would, perhaps, be generous of you to do so, but not necessarily wrong. In math and CS, listing authors alphabetically would probably be appropriate with little or no attention to "first" authorship.
But an academic being seen as generous is not a bad thing. Too many questions here are just the opposite, demanding first authorship, sometimes properly and sometimes not. But such generosity is more typical in a professor with an established reputation than in a current grad student.
But a serious consideration would entail looking at whether the student made a significant intellectual contribution to the work. If not, then first authorship is probably overly generous and might set a bad precedent in the mind of that student.
I'm with your professor on this. Your call. But the advice in comments (BrianH) on setting expectations at the start is good - even essential.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I work in an engineering field, and my PhD students often do what you described. In my opinion, you should be the first author because
* you have set the problem;
* you have set the outline of the solution and supervised the student;
* you have composed the paper.
To grant the first authorship to a master student, she usually needs to
* at least contribute to the development some novel ideas;
* take most of the writing burden.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Since the work would not exist at all without the contributions of either one of you, in my view, it would be entirely appropriate to share first authorship. This is done by placing an asterisk by each of your names pointing to a footnote indicating "these authors contributed equally".
This reflects positively on both of you and does not detract from the contributions of either one. You can both list the paper in the "first author publications" section of your CV, and it costs nothing to do.
Also, in my experience, one cannot usually implement an entire solution of any complexity without contributing intellectually to it in a significant way.
In my field first authorship normally goes to whoever actually did the work.
However, my opinion has always been that credit is a thing best distributed as widely as possible, within reason of course.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: *This answer assumes that we are not talking about the Master's Thesis of the student here, just some project during your and his time at uni, which stems from the line of inquiry \*you\* are following in your PhD studies.*
According to your question and subsequent comments, you clearly did the intellectual and editorial work, presumably you wrote all natural language sentences; the student clearly provided the (relatively) menial task of writing the code. Without the student's contribution, your paper might still have valid meaning as a purely theoretical piece (or you could have done the programming yourself if you had the time). Without your contribution, there would be nothing at all. You were the "owner" here.I also don't get the vibe that you had regular meetings with the student on an equal footing, as a "sparring partner", but it was a clear top-down relationship.
Of course the student wants to have primary authorship, but that does not change the fact that he has not been the primary author. If I understood you right he authored nothing of the *paper*, only the source code - which probably is not the thing that's printed in publication and consumed by avid readers.
If you are not inclined to deny his request, then you can of course play the "equal authorship" card (which would certainly be nice of you, but... not correct, neither factual not moral). Unless you have formal limitation of what to write there, you could say something like ("$ME (first author), $THEM (programming)") or something along these lines. But in all honesty, you should put it the way it happened. You did author the paper, so you are the primary author. You can still go out of your way to praise the efforts of the student in a personal foreword, which may have equally large benefit for the student.
At the end, the advice of your supervisor is the most important: *you* have to decide. I could well imagine that he intends it as an exercise for *yourself*, to work on your moral compass and/or leadership skills, and maybe to drive home the point that these kinds of things should be specified beforehand.
(By the way, I think "moral" is the wrong word here; "ethics" would be the one. And in this context, above all, this is about honesty and objectivity, not about favours. That should be the nucleus of your own answer...)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: If you defined the problem and did all of the mentoring, you could argue that you should be the *last* author on the paper (in some respects, a more prestigious position than first author as it traditionally represents the mentor/advisor). Is your advisor OK with that arrangement?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: When in doubt, go with alphabetical order.
Having said that, you (OP) said in one of the comments:
>
> Regardless of what my advisor thinks, I don't believe that the last position would benefit me as a graduate student.
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>
>
If your advisor is even 'hinting' that you should take last position, then why are you even arguing?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: In my field (biology) usualy the author who actually writes the paper is the first author. The one who leads the writing, the one who gathers comments from others and is responsible for the final text. So according to this it should be you.
Could it be that you have a fear of claiming what belongs to you? Out of a fear of disappointing him.
Some journals do allow to specify the equal contribution of first two authors.
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<issue_start>username_0: Related: [What does "Publish or perish" really mean?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/9173/58912)
The issue of "Publish or Perish" is pretty much an accepted reality in Academia nowadays. When I look at history, however, I see that the Medieval university was far from this - that the average, say, 13th century academic was more invested in passing degree examinations, [applying logic against the classics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism), and mastering pedagogical techniques (how to teach your own students) than in finding something truly new about the world and racing his ~~rivals~~ colleagues to publication.
*At what point in history* did "Publish or Perish" become a *reality* for the majority of academics? In no way am I challenging the concepts, only asking about the timeframe. Could an "average" academic in 1800 build a career by gaining advanced subject matter knowledge (e.g. being really really good at integrating by parts, balancing chemical equations, or identifying known species of birds by looking only at their feet), being good at debate, passing a lot of exams, etc., without discovering much (if anything) that was new in his field? What about 1850? 1900? When was the changeover?
My hypothesis would be that there was some sort of watershed event, perhaps similar to (or identical to) the [radical change in admission requirements for US undergraduates](https://history.stackexchange.com/a/49742/21290) that happened when large numbers of returning World War 2 veterans all wanted to (and could afford to) "go to college" at the same time.
<NAME> made a good point about PhD awards exploding in the 1990's. The PhD degree itself might also be related. Since the PhD is inherently a *research* degree that requires a substantial original discovery (as opposed to other degrees that may be focused more on subject matter knowledge, professional practice, or pedagogy), an answer might consist in discovering when it became rare for someone to gain a professorial appointment *without* a PhD. This could be an example of Creeping Credentialism - that when everyone and their dog has a PhD, suddenly a PhD is required for all sorts of teaching (or even research) jobs that used to only require an MA or even a BA or below. The question would be, when was that? Could you become an English professor at Harvard in 1765 by walking in off the street with no degree, passing an advanced professor-level literacy test, and completing a six-week accelerated course in Ye Olde Modern 18th Century Best Practices in Contemporary Literature Pedagogy?
From a pop cultural/literary perspective, I was recently reading some of <NAME>'s fiction from the 1920's and 1930's and was shocked at the frequency at which his academic-background characters intentionally "lose" their research (oops) or at least don't seem to mind that they have lost years of potentially groundbreaking research. At some level I feel that he is intending to imply extreme gravity to the situation - that unleashing the knowledge of eldritch abominations upon journal readers is simply so unthinkable that it's worth *shooting one's own career in the foot to prevent it*, or whether his characters reflect a different era, one in which research was more of a fun diversion for academics bored of teaching (and thus not truly necessary to gain or keep a faculty post).
Note that I am not asking when regular journal publications or the practice of peer review first developed, I am asking when they became the *sine qua non* of Academia, that is, when one could no longer reasonably expect to achieve tenure if the only real publication one had was a degree thesis or dissertation.<issue_comment>username_1: In mathematics, in the U.S., until the 1950s it was almost entirely the case that math departments were service departments to engineering and chem and physics. Teaching loads were high, and there was no expectation of "research" at all. Some people with M.S.'s were faculty, and some people with PhD's had "done no research" except their thesis.
In the early-to-mid 1950's, coinciding with the post-sputnik, post-Hiroshima era, apparently many math depts argued that individuals' teaching loads should be greatly reduced... so they could conduct research that would help "beat the commies" or whatever other enemies... and, concommitantly, they'd need lots more faculty lines.
Of course there was a boom time, perhaps of a decade or two, but then the pretense caught up with us all. E.g., <NAME>'s multi-volume book(s) on differential geometry were published by "Publish or Perish" press.
Nevertheless, at a relatively high end of things, even into the 1980's, in math, in the U.S., it seemed and does still seem to me that people were judged more by their scholarship, reputation, insight, etc., than by paper-count. Yes, part of this was the considerable difficulty of creating a readable document pre-PDF, pre-TeX, pre-most-things. And, yes, pre-internet. Presentations at conferences, even without associated preprints, could make a person's reputation.
Many breakthrough results were first made public at conferences (in the lack of arXiv or internet generally), and, again, such stuff was what reputations were made of. "Publications" were mostly after-the-fact.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Using Google Ngrams to search for the phrase ["Publish or Perish"](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%22Publish+or+Perish%22&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2C%22%20Publish%20or%20Perish%20%22%3B%2Cc0), we see that the phrase seems to have entered reasonably widespread use in the late 1940s and peaked in the mid 1960s:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/h18sY.png)
Searching Google Books for the phrase turns up a number of earlier uses, but many seem to be mis-identified by Google (e.g. they suggest that Nature vol 362 is from 1869, whereas it was actually published in 1993).
However, Google Books did point me to this, published in 1935 in the [Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand](http://rsnz.natlib.govt.nz/volume/rsnz_64/rsnz_64_00_005110.html):
>
> One of the aphorisms of Professor <NAME>, whose death was referred to at an earlier meeting to-day, was “Publish or perish.” Davis applied the remark to individuals, for he went on to say, “If it is worth doing, it is worth printing!” If no opportunity to print is afforded, then the well of inspiration dries up. It may also be applied to societies, for this generally disconsidered function of such a society as this is really the main stimulus to a vigorous existence.
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So even if the phrase wasn't invented by Davis, it was in use, without needing detailed explanation, in the 1930s; but was still considered a relatively new concept at the time, since it could reasonably be ascribed as a quote from a single individual.
(Also, though it's hard to tell, this early use seems to be more positive than we're used to seeing.)
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish) claims that it first occurred "in an academic context" in 1928, which fits with this timeline.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Harvard studied this issue in 1938, which was of course published, as: [Report on some problems of personnel in the Faculty of arts and sciences by a special committee appointed by the president of Harvard university](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001451858):
Quantitatively, 60 faculty testified that they were under undue pressure to publish, while 90 considered that such pressure was not undue or that they were not under such pressure.
The publication anonymously includes quotes from 28 of the 60:
>
> The following statements and phrases are culled from the replies of twenty-eight men of these sixty, distributed among the several ranks as follows: assistant, one; annual instructors, nine; faculty instructors, eight; assistant professors, ten. They represent Biochemical Science, Physics, Biology, Anthropology, Economics, English, Far Eastern Languages, Fine Arts, Government, Music, Romance Languages, Psychology and Philosophy.
>
>
> "Quantity rather than quality"; "forced-draught production"; "pinpoint studies of obscure and third rate authors"; "to attract attention outside the University"; "spectacular fields of research"; "early quantitative evidence of scholarly activity"; "problems which will give definite results in one or at most two years"; "a book is a book"; "mechanical fact of acceptance by a publisher"; "listing off with great fanfare the books and articles published by the department in each year"; "obviously mistaken emphasis upon mere yardage."
>
>
> "The 'publish or perish' legend . . . has led me to publish material that could have been improved by further research." "This 'pressure' — and it cannot be described by any better word — I hold to be completely detrimental in both substance and manner." "I consider the pressure being brought to bear to publish at all costs a professional crime."
>
>
> "\_\_\_\_told me that a recommendation . . . must be well reinforced with publication. ... Its chief result has been to lead me to defer fresh complementary constructive work germane to [a] course ... in favor of revision of already completed manuscript." "The current opinion on the necessity of publication held by junior members of the teaching staff approaches the hysterical. . . . There must be some provocation for it." "I have come to the conclusion that to publish quickly and frequently is a necessity. A great deal of 'forced' scholarship is ground out of Widener these days."
>
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> "The indefatigable search after truth, which is surely a primary justification of the scholar's profession, is inconsistent with the hur-
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> [page 58]
> -ried, unsound, and imperfect results which so often obtain in forced publishing."
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> "Pressure to publish oppresses us all, even though it is not necessarily brought to bear in any form as concrete as a friendly tip or hard-boiled condition of permanent tenure. This pressure is without any question harmful to intellectual development in most cases."
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> "Very certainly it is now the common belief, whether justified or not, that one must publish if he is to win promotion. . . . Inevitably, then, my contemporaries resort to reports and accounts of fact finding which in the majority of instances are or very little value. . . . Their publications can only be described as printed matter and, being no more than that, they lie dead along the paths of literary study, exhaling a lethal atmosphere which is most disheartening to that particular kind of enthusiasm which should attach to the humanities."
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> "Within the last month I have received three letters from two distant universities asking me whether it was true as reported that Harvard . . . was hereafter demanding at least one book every three years."
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> "Emphasis on publication by the University is likely to increase quantity at the expense of quality." "I gather that number of pages published is the only general criterion of success." "This pressure on able young men to publish forces men to follow the sort of work done by their elders." "The announced policy of the administration was responsible for my embarking upon a special research project which promised to yield immediate results and did not." "Thus it was in friendship for me as well as in the effort to serve the department, that its chairman . . . used to call me into his office at intervals and give me what I can only describe as a kind of 'fight talk.' ... At the time, I thought he was right, took his talks all to heart, and in consequence . . . had a period of morbid self-accusation and self-distrust . . . which did my work less than no good."
>
>
> "Publication of incomplete investigations merely for the sake of a title." "Volume is the thing that seems to make the most favorable impression." "It is my belief that the general pressure for publication which certainly exists at Harvard University is definitely harmful because it tends to force the substitution of the practical goal of professional standing ... for the much more important one of worthwhile contribution to knowledge and the jealous maintenance of intellectual integrity and rigorous scholarship."
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> "A man who is not doing much in the way of research or creative contribution to his field will not do anything worth while simply as
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>
> [page 59]
>
>
> a result of being told that his promotion depends on it; the most this will achieve is the wholesale production of potboilers." "The real aim of research is lost sight of in the rush to publish." ". . . repeatedly and unpleasantly urged to publish."
>
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>
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently talked with a professor about his offer to me a postdoc position. Later on I was notified about an interview for a tenure-track faculty position. So, I am wondering, if I have accepted the Postdoc offers, can I still proceed with the faculty position interview? I don't want to lose the postdoc offer, and also the opportunity of the faculty position. How should I deal with the situation without causing any ethic issues?<issue_comment>username_1: If you haven't yet accepted an offer you can search and evaluate other offers freely. If you get an offer but haven't accepted it, that doesn't change. But ethically you should cease efforts after you accept an offer unless you also ask the PI to let you explore something that might be better. That puts you at risk of having the offer withdrawn, of course and bad feelings all around. And accepting an offer may be legally binding in some cases, depending on various things.
But until you accept an offer, even if it is offered, you are still free to explore all options. It is actually wise to do so.
In the current situation, if I understand it correctly, the professor may not be able to make you an offer adequate to your needs. In such a case it is more important that you keep your options open.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My understanding of the norms in academia is that tenure-track and tenured positions are generally accepted to be rare opportunities, and that taking those if offered is the right thing to do. As such, it is perfectly acceptable to attend an interview for a tenure-track position, and to accept it if offered, even if one has already accepted a conflicting postdoc. In such case one should, however, be apologetic to the snubbed postdoc mentor, and do ones best to minimize the inconvenience to them.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I have a suggestion that might win you the best of both worlds. Why not accept the postdoc position for a fixed term, say for 6 months or 1 year as convenient to all parties. Then, in case the tenure track position works out, you can always give (or negotiate) a join date for right after you finish your postdoc position. The additional experience of a postdoc just before you start a faculty position can be invaluable for getting a smoother transition from being a graduate student to being a professor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: My 2 cents (alas no guarantee for success because it depends on the externals as well).
It depends a bit on the professor, but they are academics and they know the game. I would be frank and open to them. Everybody knows a ternure-track is a superb opportunity for someone at postdoctoral level.
I think the main thing here is to see what the time scales are (and I think it is ok to ask the other group what their expectations on the duration of the process are).
If it's short, you may arrange with the postdoc-prof that you take some time to think about the acceptance, or you could ask the other group to delay the hiring a bit. It's a long-term position anyway so funding running out is probably not an issue. Also, they probably have to take into account that people move in from far away, needing them to organise stuff which takes time. This meanse there could be some time in their process that you could use to get a decent postdoc job done.
If it's going to take half a year to a year, you can just start the postdoc and happily continue the application process.
Yes, this could get the offer withdrawn but starting a search is quite some work as well so if you and the professor have a cooperative attitude finding a solutions should be doable.
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been a postdoc for a year and half with a good number of publications. I feel it is the time for seriously exploring the TT faculty positions. However, my mentor wants me to work for a few more years in the current position. Though I have good rapport with my mentor, I dont know if it is ethical and practically possible for me to proceed with applying without taking his reference. Advice will be appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: It's your future and not that of your adviser, so I'm surprised that an adviser would say that they want you to work as a postdoc "for a few more years" -- which sounds far beyond the usual 3-year postdoc period.
My recommendation is essentially the same as for at least half of the questions on this forum: Communicate with your adviser. Have an honest talk about your future, why you desire to look for tenure track jobs, what you need from him in this regard, etc. You will very likely need your adviser's support (through letters, introductions, and in other ways), and the only way you'll get that is if you have honest conversations about what each of you want to get out of your current relationship.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it is ethical for you to seek a permanent position. And it is unethical for your advisor to hold you back. If s/he can provide you with a path to a more suitable position then it is less of a transgression. But preventing you from moving on is a serious breach.
The practical issue is harder. Your publication record may be enough without a strong letter. And if your advisor chooses to write a letter that subverts your chances then it is another very serious ethical breach. But someone reviewing your record can probably figure out the situation when there is a contrast between a strong publication record and record of productivity against a "sour grapes" letter of recommendation.
I suspect that your advisor has come to depend on you too much and hates to see you go, expecting a drop in productivity on their own part.
Some people will apply for a position and ask that the application be kept confidential in the short term until the institution starts to approach the decision stage. Most people will understand that such things are sometimes necessary for just the reasons you give here.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I wrote a paper intended for a conference in computer science. Before submission I hired an expert to review and edit my paper. Do I need to mention them? If so, in what way? As a collaborator? In a footnote? In a special "Thanks" section? Would it be unethical not to mention them at all?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> If so, in what way? As a collaborator? In a footnote? In a special "Thanks" section?
>
>
>
In the **acknowledgements section**, if at all.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer will depend on the significance of the editing done.
The one extreme would be significant intellectual contributions to the work -- for example, shaping the overall narrative of the paper, making major decisions on the information being emphasized and de-emphasized, and organizing how the information is packaged into different sections and parts. Such editing would qualify for authorship. The ethical thing to do would be to offer authorship to the editor. If she declines, it would be necessary to at least mention her in an acknowledgement.
The other extreme would be sentence-level editing, like correction of typos and grammar quirks. Such editing would surely not quality for authorship, and it would be up to you if you mentioned the editor in the acknowledgement.
The middle ground between both extremes really is somewhat of a gray area.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Someone graduated from a university few months ago. She asked for certificate but university staff informed that it will take around 9 months to be ready and stamped from authorities. They offered to give Graduation Letter signed from university only and transcript.
The degree is in Arabic Literature.
Can she use this letter for registration in another university for post-graduate studies or finding jobs as a teacher. she is looking to study/work in another country.
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Can she use this letter for registration in another university for post-graduate studies or finding jobs as a teacher?
>
>
>
**Yes**, but, whether it will be accepted depends on the recipient. You could check with the recipient to be sure.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The situation is quite common - for instance, in Spain, higher degree certificates are signed by the king. And that takes a while. So these letters of degree completion issued by the university on behalf of the king are quite accepted, at least on the European level (see. e.g., [here](https://www.universityadmissions.se/en/All-you-need-to-know1/Applying-for-studies/Documenting-your-eligibility-for-studies/Instructions-for-Masters-applicants/Specific-requirements-for-my-country1/spain/)).
Whether the person in question will be able to use the letter depends a bit on where she applies. As one example, German universities will use an official database to check whether the degree credentials are sufficient or not. For the case of Spain, the database will list such letters as officially recognized, and hence they are sufficient.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have completed my PhD this month, but this month also marked the completion of 8 years of my PhD journey. Standing on the new road ( and long road) of establishing myself as an academic. I wander if it is really worth of putting the efforts. Will the fast or productive publication from now on be enough to save me in establishing in the academic world? I do have three publication under my belt which formed the basis for my thesis. Any comments would be truly appreciated. THANK YOU.<issue_comment>username_1: It is hard to give an answer with so many variables going into "suitability", but I think that the time it took is probably overbalanced by the productivity you show and the promise you have for the future. And you won't know about your future chances until you get into the market.
At worst, it might depend on why it took longer than you think it should have. But if you have "reasons" for that then it shouldn't be much of an issue.
If your professors are happy with you and give you good (great) letters, then it will be eased considerably.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Try getting a postdoc position first, if it works you will have a couple of years to see how it feels and decide what's next. If it doesn't work, at least you gave it your best so you won't regret anything.
After 8 years of PhD it's worth trying the academic path for 1 or 2 more years if that's what you're interested in:
* it's an opportunity to improve your academic profile
* it gives you a better understanding of what working in academia really means and whether it's something you'd like
* it's a valuable experience to have in your CV when applying for industry positions anyway so you wouldn't be wasting your time
* it pays better than a PhD
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: This might sound like quite a basic question, but the answer has eluded me for the past couple of years. I'm from a computer science background, but the question is probably relevant outside this discipline.
Please forgive if my register for the rest of this question is quite frank. I'm coming to academia stack exchange instead of colleagues in order to talk about this matter candidly. I'm also sorry if the question is a bit long-winded, but I think it might be necessary to get past the stock answers.
The edict of "publish or perish" is a standard rejoinder, and beyond that the onus is for works published to be highly visibility, and of good quality. What this **actually means** is debatable though.
Most research cannot be reproduced, provides no code, and in practical terms is only useful for the purposes of citing (e.g. X et al. tried method B and got results F, but we don't have access to that data set, they don't say if they tried other, simpler methods, and what results they got, if they did indeed try these methods). Very often complexity seems to be pursued for the sake of complexity, whereby approaches are obfuscated with roughly annotated formulae written in Greek, standard methodologies that everyone knows are superfluously provided (and explained badly), and really convoluted approaches are adopted and are to taken as so, by the reader (an example would be a Bi-directional 5 layer CNN-LSTM-CNN-LSTM-LSTM for an NLP task with an explanation of "this obtained the best results"). Actually useful research material... blog posts, how-to guides, stack overflow answers, discussion group records, are all of zero academic merit.
I find myself trying to ape the aforementioned papers, but I am struggling to make them complex enough (certainly from a visual point of view). So the content itself is a challenge, because content has to be original, and the main way people appear to be guaranteeing their originality is by heaping one complex method upon another. Maybe if you are part of a big team this is feasible, but I'm just one person essentially working by myself.
Which brings me to the second aspect: visibility. There is such a baffling array of conferences and journals. Some of them are bogus, and one can filter those out. There are a couple of "top" conferences that everyone flocks to, which consequently makes acceptance a crap-shoot (if they accept 200, and 3,000 apply, you are likely going to have a lot of "good" material not make the cut simply due to the numbers game). All the rest (hundreds, if not thousands of peer reviewed conferences etc.) are really difficult to measure. Look up the ranking of a conference on one site and it's B1, and on another site, it's C. There is not only an opportunity cost here, but a temporal one - having anything submitted and accepted takes several months, and making the wrong decision can be costly on both fronts.
So the standard advise of "publish good work through peer-reviewed avenues" is only half the answer, but I'm unsure how to make my papers more liable to be the ones that are cited.
Sorry if this post comes off as cynical, it's simply trying to be both realistic and practical. I feel as if there's an approach that should be obvious to me to pursue, but at the moment it seems that I am missing out on the vital ingredient to turn from meh to Michelin.<issue_comment>username_1: It is hard to give an answer with so many variables going into "suitability", but I think that the time it took is probably overbalanced by the productivity you show and the promise you have for the future. And you won't know about your future chances until you get into the market.
At worst, it might depend on why it took longer than you think it should have. But if you have "reasons" for that then it shouldn't be much of an issue.
If your professors are happy with you and give you good (great) letters, then it will be eased considerably.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Try getting a postdoc position first, if it works you will have a couple of years to see how it feels and decide what's next. If it doesn't work, at least you gave it your best so you won't regret anything.
After 8 years of PhD it's worth trying the academic path for 1 or 2 more years if that's what you're interested in:
* it's an opportunity to improve your academic profile
* it gives you a better understanding of what working in academia really means and whether it's something you'd like
* it's a valuable experience to have in your CV when applying for industry positions anyway so you wouldn't be wasting your time
* it pays better than a PhD
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: My PhD research is about AI and the topic I choose is relatively new.
As far as I know, the only organisation that has worked on that area is Google.
by searching this topic there wasn't enough info of that it was done, techniques, methodology, statistics, etc.
I wonder if there is a certain process to follow so I can get access to Google's research?<issue_comment>username_1: Google's publications are available here: <https://ai.google/research/pubs>.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If Google haven't made this particular research public, you'll need to talk to them about it. They might not want to say anything. They might only be prepared to talk under an NDA. If so, your university will have policies for dealing with this kind of thing. As with all things PhD-related, your advisor's job is to advise you about this. It's very common for research with commercial partners to have this kind of restriction, especially in the natural sciences and engineering.
Note that it's perfectly possible to produce publications based on NDAed material. However, you have to be careful not to disclose the things you said you wouldn't disclose, and you may need to clear the paper with Google before submitting it anywhere.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/09/12
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<issue_start>username_0: While working on a research paper with a coauthor, I found an unpublished paper in arXiv and discovered out that the technique we developed in our paper can be used to improve a result in the unpublished one. Specifically, we can design a superior algorithm to solve the same problem solved in the arXiv paper.
If we publish our results, then the author of that arXiv paper will have a hard time publishing his paper, since some journals will not consider his algorithm once a better one is available.
Of course, we cite the arXiv paper and there is no law against publishing improved results, but this may harm the author of the arXiv paper. Is there a way to publish the new result without creating enmity?
One potential option could be to combine the work and submit a joint paper. However, the papers do not "mix" very well since our paper is mainly about a different technique - the improved algorithm is only a usage example of it. Combining the papers will create a very large and inconsistent paper.
Another option is to wait until his paper is accepted for publication and only then publish our paper with the improved result. However, it seems unscientific to withhold results that we already know.<issue_comment>username_1: I disagree with the premise of your question. “Publishing superseding results” is basically the same as what’s known as “publishing”, since all papers build and improve on the existing literature in some way and push some older work slightly toward obsolescence or irrelevance. The extra twist in your situation that you are improving on *unpublished* work is of hardly any consequence and simply not worth worrying about, for the following reasons:
1. As others have said, the authors of the arxiv preprint still have precedence and will get credit for making their contribution at the time they did, *before* your subsequent improvement was discovered. Referees and journal editors should (and almost certainly will) take that into account, within reasonable limits.
2. In general, when you improve on earlier work you show that it is interesting and relevant enough for other people to follow up on. This is actually flattering to the authors of the earlier work, even if you imagine that it is *unflattering* (it’s also true that an improvement can sometimes portray earlier work in a slightly unflattering light, but my point is there would still be a separate flattering aspect that I think you are ignoring, and which in most cases will far outweigh any supposedly unflattering aspects).
3. The publication status of the earlier work is simply not your concern. It is up to individual researchers to submit their work for publication and otherwise promote it in a timely manner. If they fail to do so, they have only themselves to blame, and they should not expect others in the scientific community to delay their own follow up research, at the cost of hurting their own careers and slowing down scientific progress, out of pity or charity.
To summarize, I think the idea that you will make enemies by publishing honest work that you did in a STEM field, regardless of the specific circumstances, might make for a cute plot element in a satirical TV show or novel about academia, but is not a realistic thing to worry about in real life.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with what username_1 writes in his answer. I write only to address a different aspect (implicitly addressed in his answer too), which are the notions, that seem to me specious, that ArXiv papers should be treated as "unpublished" and that "unpublished" materials should be treated differently from "published" materials.
An article on the ArXiv (or any other online repository) should be treated the same as an article published in a refereed journal for purposes of citation and judging priority. The word "publication" should be treated as a synonym for "dissemination", the only possible qualification being accessibility (and ArXiv papers are far more accessible than paywalled "published" articles!).
The purpose of citation is recognition of priority, acknowledgment of intellectual inspiration, and facilitation of consultation of related work by a reader. None of these objectives is much conditioned by the publication status of an accessible resource.
If a (correct) result is in a paper on the ArXiv, that establishes priority in the same way as if it had been published in a traditional journal. Likewise, a paper on the ArXiv can and should be cited if it would have been cited were it to have appeared in a published journal.
The distinction between prepublication and publication is archaic, a thing of the previous century, and the more so in mathematical areas where dissemination in traditional journals can take years.
Some authors do not cite work on the ArXiv for strange reasons - they haven't checked it, it hasn't been refereed, etc. - but this seems to me mostly just laziness or dishonesty - we should check what we use and never trust that the refereeing process eliminates errors.
As for what to do when your work improves on someone else's work - be glad you will probably have an interested reader and a competent referee for your work. Be generous in your acknowledgment of their work and they will likely react favorably. Don't worry about possible "damage" to them - journals are happy to publish work that has already been cited.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I wouldn't sweat it, other than being gentle in the wording of the comparison.\* While the other technique may have worse results, it may still be preferable in some use cases or may still be publishable as an alternate method. Even if worse at oil reserve calculation, it may work better at...sales force optimization. Or there may even be cases where your techniques don't work at all and theirs do (e.g. algorithms that need large amounts of training data or combnation of results feedback with physical insights.) And even if their method is worse for everything, it still might have some spark of an idea, by using a different approach, that helps someone else with some different approach).
But big picture their stuff will be what it will be. Given that it's on arXiv, not published, this shows something about it (not dispositive, but Bayesian, if you get me). Also, if they plan to publish, it might already be on track and may even be easier for them if they don't know about your competing results now (and have to deal with it). After all your paper hasn't run the gauntlet yet either.
\*It sounds like the comparison wasn't even per se the driver of your work, so you could even just note it as an alternate method. More in the spirit of giving a citation to the other crew and giving the reader benefit of your lit search. Of course, you have to use your judgment on how important it is to emphasize the performance battle. But given you found it late, in arxive, I doubt it's critical. Plus you did ask how to avoid antagonizing. And this is the way. And much easier than trying to coordinate, warn, collaborate, etc. (which could all slow down or derail your paper).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree with @username_1's answer, but I have a few things to say about this part:
>
> The publication status of the earlier work is simply not your concern. It is up to individual researchers to submit their work for publication and otherwise promote it in a timely manner. If they fail to do so, they have only themselves to blame, and they should not expect others in the scientific community to delay their own follow up research, at the cost of hurting their own careers and slowing down scientific progress, out of pity or charity.
>
>
>
Indeed the OP should not delay his own work because he built on work that others made public on the arxiv. (That it could be built upon as soon as possible is *why* they put it on the arxiv!) I hope though that no one will construe this to say that the authors of the original paper have some kind of moral or professional imperative to publish their results before the OP does. (In part I worry about this because of some other answers and comments on this question that seem to imply this.) That's simply not the way the publishing industry works in my experience: papers can be rejected, or can be delayed for years, due to reasons that are entirely out of the authors' control.
If you would not have known or thought to put X into your paper until you read Y's paper then you are not *competing* with Y, you are *building on Y's work*. I think the OP should write his paper to make absolutely clear that Y has priority on X and that X is in the paper **because of** Y's paper. This really should make it easier, not harder, for Y to publish their paper, and if it doesn't, then it is definitely not your fault.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Let's be practical:
1. Talk to the author of that paper. Tell them about your improvement, tell him you want to treat their work with the respect it deserves, and ask them what they feel would be fair/appropriate.
2. The author of the arXiv work could have a note or a brief section, either with or without your participation, mentioning how the result can be improved. He can then update his section of applications to take the improved result into consideration. That makes his paper not-superseded.
3. You can minimize your description of the improvement on his result, so that nobody can understand what you're talking about without reading his paper. You could even do that while showering some praise on his paper and nudging your readers to go read that one.
Like others suggest, however, I wouldn't delay nor refrain from publishing the improvement.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am working as a research engineer for my professor. He told me to write a conference paper from the master’s thesis of one of his graduate students, since I am working in the same field. After reading the thesis and analyzing the student's results, I found that most of the work is of low quality and does not justify a publication. I told my professor that there are several inconsistencies in the results and several misleading claims, but he told me to continue writing the paper to the best I can given that “I have experience with paper writing and that I can present the work in a light that could get the paper through peer review”.
Now that I am almost done with the draft, I don’t want to be an author of this paper given the facts. How can I talk to my professor asking him to **not** put me as an author without sounding rude?<issue_comment>username_1: To elaborate on the comment by Roland.
If you wrote the paper and analyzed the results, you have a strong claim of ownership on the paper (along with the graduate student who got the initial results). Depending on the depth of your analysis you may well be the lead author so it’s your call by right.
If your professor is pushing for the result to be published then your name has to be on it. If you refuse it can’t happen. If they choose to publish without you it’s ethical misconduct and grounds for retracting the paper from wherever it’s submitted to.
The only diplomatic avenue here is that you push to correct the issues and then submit. Otherwise, politely say that you think the paper is not ready and that it is not publishable in its current state.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Let me suggest something a bit different. I can't, at this distance, suggest whether it would be successful or even recommended. But, consider the following.
Suppose that you were the student's professor instead, seeing what you now see. What would you want to do ethically and properly? Suppose that you give the student a draft of a paper, but include in it (using a distinct typographic "callout") all of the problems you see in the paper and the work. For example, when you mention a result, you could include a parenthetical comment that the foundation is experimentally weak or flawed. These can be done inline or, perhaps, as a summary. Inline is probably more dramatic.
You could, then, as the professor, suggest that the student address all of the flaws in the paper and then suggest s/he write a sole-authorship final paper for publication, using whatever they like in the draft.
A professor could do this properly, of course. I don't know if you can. It is a serious matter to oppose your professor as he has a lot of control over your future and (as an employee) over the present.
This "draft" with suggestions can be sent to both the student and your professor who can then make a judgement. You might be able to make it clear to the professor that the work isn't ready for prime time.
But, you need to judge whether it is worth the effort and the level of risk it entails. The latter depends on the personality of the professor, I think.
But if the student takes your draft and does the right thing with it, all will benefit.
---
As to your topline question, it is only "rude" if the professor thinks it is rude, and, again, that is a matter of personality. Ideally, raising objections to the content and your association with it *shouldn't* be seen as rude.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: May I dedicate a paper to two persons in different ages on the occasion of their birthdays? For instance, "dedicated to John on his 70th birthday, and to Steve on his 60th birthday." I appreciate it if you could help me with finding a proper sentence.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> May I dedicate a paper to two persons in different ages on the occasion of their birthdays?
>
>
>
Yes
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Maybe something like
"Dedicated to John and Steve who celebrate their 60th and 70th birthday."
?
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You should check the feasibility with the journal. Most of them don't like it unless the people to whom you would dedicate the work are well reputed at least in the area covered by the journal or unless the entire issue is dedicated.
Edit: the comments below the answer weren't visible *to me* at the time I wrote this. Otherwise I wouldn't have answered but just up voted them. Indeed, normally dedications are "to the memory". Dedications to very prominent researchers when they retire or get indeed old are even more rare.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I was wondering about the acceptability of submitting two papers to the same journal at the same time. (I see some similar questions here, but they don't quite address my particular situation.) My area of interest is Media Studies. The two papers would be related but stand-alone, and I would be the sole author of each.
Rather than explain further, I'll give an example. One paper might be something like "Race Relations in Star Trek: Discovery." And the other might be something like "Does Star Trek: Discovery perpetuate some social stereotypes?"
The two papers would be on a somewhat similar theme and would share some references but would, I submit, be different enough to warrant separate treatment in two separate papers. So I would hope they would not be seen as salami slicing or duplicate publication.
Does that sound right? And would it be acceptable to submit them to the same journal at the same time (e.g. to a journal similar to Television Quarterly, which, lamentably, ceased publication a few years back)?<issue_comment>username_1: It is acceptable in general, but an editor might question the similarity of the two papers and wonder whether you are just trying to pump up a CV. It would be up to them to decide whether to send either or both out to review.
But if you do it, I suspect that the doubts of an editor would be reflected back to you with advice and questions.
The further apart the papers are the less questions might be asked. It is a judgement call for the editor, but your downside isn't very deep.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It is absolutely unremarkable to submit two related papers to a journal in parallel.
In fact, it is often better to have them submitted to the same journal than to separate journals, so that they can be handled as a "package" of related work by the editors.
My one key suggestion is to make sure that you explicitly call out that you are doing this in the cover letters for the papers, and to have the papers refer to one another in their related work sections. This will give you a chance to make your case to the editor and reader that the papers are indeed each able to stand alone. Moreover, if you are up front about this and the editor disagrees, then they are likely to ask that you merge the papers rather than rejecting them or getting upset about "salami slicing".
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I work at a regional university in the United States. Several years ago (before I arrived) our department admitted five years of doctoral students (approximately 50 students) as general admits to a distance doctoral program without assigning chairs.
Now those students are reaching comps and the dissertation. Four faculty left in the last year which is stressing our already over-capacity workloads.
Many students are interested in topics for which we have no faculty experts. We are going to hire a new faculty cohort in the next five years but there is no guarantee those faculty interests will match our students’.
Are faculty obligated to work with and graduate students we did not admit?
Is there a precedent for such a situation?<issue_comment>username_1: Even if it's not "distance learning", there is an obvious hazard in admitting doctoral students that do not fit into the capacity of the faculty. It's irresponsible to the point of immorality. Ok, but/and once they're in your program, yes, *your program* has an ethical and even moral obligation to serve them well.
There is the complication that, if the students are by-accident allowed to toooo freely choose topics, that it is manifestly infeasible to properly advise them. Someone "should have" explained this to them at the outset. In doing a PhD, "distance" or otherwise, one cannot choose a topic first, and somehow insist that the faculty in the immediate vicinity supervise it. (Nor, of course, is it sane to try to do a project independent of an advisor, or significantly outside one's advisor's expertise. It's hard enough to do a PhD project even when one's advisor is an expert on the topic.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Unfortunately this is not unprescedented. Usually, what happens is:
1. Too many students are admitted.
2. Something of value is extracted from the students. Maybe they pay tuition or they serve as TAs for low pay.
3. The students who do not have supervisors all fail their comprehensive/qualifying exams.
If your department is doing this by accident, my only advice is to stop doing it. If your department is doing it on purpose, then my advise is to start looking for a job in a different university that treats its students better.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Are faculty obligated to work with and graduate students we did not admit?
>
>
>
That's a good question which I can't answer for the US but can sorta answer for the UK so I'll put what I have here in case someone has the same question for a different location.
In most UK universities, with some subject specific variation, you can be assigned PhD students that you did not admit and did not agree to supervise, either by your line manager or by your head of subject/school/college, etc. You have the ability to protest, but in a situation where faculty have left, students have been abandoned, and there are a lot of students that need supervision, you risk appearing uncollegiate because, really, everyone is going to have to take one some of those people. Appearing uncollegiate will likely have an effect on your performance review, on your promotion pathway, and how your colleagues feel about you. Also your line manager and the higher ups, to some degree, get to tell you what your job is and if they tell you your job is supervising some PhD students, unless your contract is very specific, your job is supervising some PhD students.
Indeed, if you ask the University, they will likely say that PhD students are guaranteed *supervision*, but are not guaranteed supervision by experts in their exact topic. Students often are quite shocked to be told this when it comes up; faculty, of course, hate it too.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently graduated with my bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and started working in industry. During my undergraduate work, I had always planned on going back to school, but it wasn't until shortly before graduating that I realized that I really wanted to pursue academia and become a professor. I only applied for the graduate program at my own school during senior year, since I didn't have connections anywhere else at the time. I wasn't accepted, but I recognize now that I'm not quite ready for grad school.
Now that I'm in industry, I've been working on goals to help prepare me for grad school in 3-5 years from now. I've been going over my old math courses to crack down on the basics, reading academic journals in my area of interest, and using my remaining free time to study and work on projects in areas that will make me more knowledgeable.
This is something I’m really driven to reach, and willing to put in the hours to accomplish. What other things can I be doing in this time before reapplication to better prepare me and make me a more competitive candidate for grad school? (Besides the obvious, like a good GRE score)<issue_comment>username_1: If you haven't, reach out to your adviser and/or other professors at your undergraduate university for two questions. Can they give you any insights into why your application was unsuccessful? Do they have any suggestions? The second question could be expanded into--do they feel you have any particular weaknesses or strengths? What universities do they think would be a good fit for you?
Possibly taking programming/computer science classes might be useful. If there's a university close by, see if you can take a grad-level or senior-level ME course as a non-matriculating student. If you plan to apply there, make sure that it won't adversely affect your curriculum if you end up going there.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Building a strong GPA is one of the best ways to be academically competitive. Most graduate schools of strong repute expect to see at least a 3.6 in relevant coursework. At that point, you may compete with other factors.
Time in industry does mean a lot, but it will need to be put forward properly. Make sure to show places where you excelled or where you were passionate. Where you were and what you did will certainly play a large roll in the significance of your field work.
In addition, experience with integrating computer systems will strongly contribute to being competitive. Proficiency in using either Raspberry Pi or Arduino to build systems which include sensors and which place data in the cloud will be very beneficial to any application in your field, academic or otherwise.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a mathematical paper. Since my English is not perfect, i am borrowing sentences from English-speaking authors. I have some questions about copy and paste from other papers to my paper. As you know, one needs some definitions and theorems from other papers. I cited all of papers that i used either definition or theorems from them.
1)Can i copy and paste the original either theorems or definition from the papers to my paper or i have to change them?i mean writing somehow that is not as same as original one. Because i have seen English-speaking authors often change original theorem or definition in their papers. On the other hand, i have seen someone does not.
2)As i mentioned, i am borrowing sentences from English-speaking authors. When i look it my introduction, i see this sentence from that paper, that sentence from that paper and ... It makes scene. My supervisor read it and he said it is okay( it is not ambiguous) but i'm scared that referee rejects my paper.<issue_comment>username_1: Please do not borrow sentences
==============================
Instead, borrow sentence structures. If the original sentence is, "Our results also have implications on the study of öhkömönkiäiset.", you might write "Our main result also has implications on öhkömönkiäis-studies."
First, this way you are not copy-pasting. Second, this forces you to think about the language and therefore learn it, thereby reducing the need to copy and making writing a lot easier.
Also, go ahead and improve your English. There are many free resources online, but simply reading a lot is a great help. For more specific advice on how to learn the language, <https://languagelearning.stackexchange.com/> is a fine place to ask. For specific questions about the English language, maybe ask at <https://ell.stackexchange.com/>.
(The easiest improvement to the English in this question would be to capitalize "I".)
Quoting definitions and theorems word-for-word
==============================================
For many basic definitions, there are only a small number of ways of writing them clearly and compactly. Just use an established way of writing.
Sometimes, if a definition or result is complex or not yet established, there are better and worse ways of writing it and maybe even several variations that define slightly different things. In this case, cite the source, since the exact definition matters.
Usually you are somewhere between these two cases, in which case I would recommend you to write the definition or theorem by yourself, so that you are more likely to write it in the same way as your other results and to use the same notation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There is nothing wrong with something like:
'blah' was defined by <NAME> [reference] as 'blah blah blah', in this paper we adopt that definition. - You give credit to the author of the definition, you do not give the impression that it was your idea.
If the definition is very well known in your field you might get away with 'blah' is usually defined as 'blah blah blah', but only if that is actually true.
Or you could equally justifiably say, 'we have restated Fisher's definition of 'blah' as 'blah blah halb' to take account of ...'
But there is something very wrong with:
The definition of 'blah' is 'blah blah blah'. - You give the impression that you thought up that definition when in fact you just copied it.
The simple question to keep in mind is: if I wrote that, would the reader assume that it was my own work? If it isn't your own work then don't write it in a way that might mislead a reader into believing that it is.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am sympathetic to the problems in writing effectively in languages other than one's most native language.
Still, you should never just copy-and-paste. Period.
Nevertheless, yes, if/when you know well-enough some standard definitions/concepts, you will appreciate their highly optimized forms, and see that it is best to essentially say the same thing.
Yes. But don't "say the same thing" by copying-and-pasting. It should be that "the same thing" is what you yourself say, simply as the optimized description of the thing.
If the optimization is recent, yes, cite. If the optimization is 50 years old, and the idea is universal in your milieu, don't cite, unless you are making historical points.
Summary: never copy and paste, in any case.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I will be applying for PhD in USA this year, so I will be needing recommendation letters. Can I ask a DST INSPIRE faculty who used to work in same lab as me (apart from my principal investigator)? Will US universities consider this reference because I don't know if they are aware of what is a DST INSPIRE faculty. Will it pose a problem because DST INSPIRE faculty have a tenure of 5 years and I don't know if will they become permanent after that. Also, they are not given the designation of an "assistant professor" and are call "DST INSPIRE faculty" so I had this question?
DST INSPIRE faculty: It is a scheme by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to offer an opportunity to young talents in India through contractual and tenure track positions for 5 years in both basic and applied sciences area. And INSPIRE means Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research.<issue_comment>username_1: In general, any mentor with good scientific or academic qualifications can be a good recommender. It's always better to have somebody who can speak strongly about you, even if they're in a "non-standard" academic position.
That said, it's important that your letter-writer make it clear who they are and why their opinion should be taken seriously, especially when writing to an international recipient who may not know their system. That might include explaining what a "DST INSPIRE" faculty position is, or it might just mean pointing at the letter-writer's own CV of scientific accomplishments.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: National grant in country *X* are, in general, not relevant to people in country *Y*. Please assume that when writing to people in country *Y*, you have to clearly and concisely explain what are your country conventions&the likes. If they are too complex, it is probably worthless to explain them anyhow.
In your cover letter, briefly introduce the recommendation letter writer, mentioning any relevant grant and title he has in a way that is relatable to the receipent background.
Which means:
**no)** "DST INSPIRE faculty"
**not yet good, but better)** fixed-term faculty appointeed under the highly competitive DST INSPIRE national program (acceptance rate [1~10%](https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/a-scheme-that-draws-scientists-but-leaves-them-in-the-lurch/article22500337.ece))
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I work in Italy on a research group working on the conservation of cultural heritage analyzing artworks. I had some discussion with my lab on what job or project the university shouldn't accept to avoid overlapping with the private market as unfair competition.
For instance, in my field, many papers are written as a case study where artworks are analyzed by the laboratory with **conventional techniques and procedures** and the results are published. In fact, there are small companies and freelancers that provided the same service and I think this is a case where the university might be guilty of unfair competition because it offers the same service for free. Of course some times there isn't the money to perform the service while the artwork could benefit from this research for their conservation so this practice sometimes could have a positive impact on the society.
I am aware that in this specific case we are not committing any crime but I wanted to reason about the role of the university.
Are there any guidelines, or law related to the role of the university and what is considered unfair competition? Where I can ask for clarification?
**This is not restricted to my particular field because I've found the same problems also dealing with other disciplines.**<issue_comment>username_1: I think your assumption that the university and private evaluators "offer the same service" is flawed. A private analysis will be delivered to a client and not to the general public. Being private, it may give some competitive advantage and so has monetary value. The university, on the other hand provides an information "service" to the general public so that all can benefit.
To "forbid" the university from doing some sort of research so that the possible results could be locked up for private rather than general benefit seems to be a pernicious idea.
And, the "service" of the university isn't actually free (as in beer). Resources go in to it that are paid in a variety of ways, sometimes from public monies since the public benefits. But the information it provides *is* free (as in speech).
---
But for your question about *law*, note that laws vary from place to place, and not all laws are wise.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This is not unfair competition.
[Unfair competition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfair_competition) is an outright crime, such as monopolistic practices, fraud, or libelling the competition.
Giving away a service to a few clients is not one of those things. Also, you are not giving away the lab's services. Somebody is paying the lab to provide these services. You just didn't tell us who is paying.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Keep in mind that universities are typically either government-run institutions or non-profit organizations; in either case, their principal purpose is to benefit society in some way, rather than to earn a profit for their owners or shareholders. I think it's pretty well accepted for such organizations to provide goods and services for free or cheap, for the purposes of creating a social benefit, even if there are commercial businesses that also sell those goods or services. This is fundamentally different from typical "unfair competition" where a business sells goods at low cost for the purpose of eliminating the competition or getting customers locked in.
You can think of many analogies which most people find totally uncontroversial:
* A local government funds a public library, where people can come and read books for free, with the goal of helping educate the population. Is this unfair competition with local bookstores?
* A church opens a soup kitchen which gives away free meals, with the goal of helping the needy. Is this unfair competition with local restaurants?
* The government operates and subsidizes a bus or metro system, funded mostly by taxes, whose fares don't cover the full costs of construction and operation. The goal is to help people get around, reduce traffic, and promote economic activity. Is this unfair competition with taxi companies?
Here, your university is providing expert analysis, presumably with the goal of increasing knowledge about art and preserving important cultural artworks. You aren't doing it to earn a profit. I don't see any problem.
Of course, this may depend in part on your political and philosophical views about how economies ought to operate, capitalism and socialism and free markets and so forth. But I think what I've said is pretty mainstream.
If you want to know whether your activities are legal, you should ask your university counsel rather than the Internet. But I'll be very surprised if there is any problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: EU law prohibits (or at least limits) states from giving businesses an unfair competitive advantage through subsidising them. These rules may come into play when universities offer services that compete with commercial players. This has been the subject of discussion in cases where universities would offer to do contract research for third parties, and would charge only for the the man hours and not for general overhead, allowing them to offer the research much cheaper than competitors.
I think (but I am not a lawyer) that this should not be an issue for the case at hand, since the university is offering the said service for free. I.e. they are not gaining any (direct) commercial benefit from offering the service. If the university were charging money for this service, it might be different.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Every year rankings are published that list Oxford, Stanford and the like at the top, while many(most?) universities in continental europe share ranks well beyond 100. I myself am a Phd student at a technical university in Austria that is ranked somewhere beyond 300 and I don't quite understand what makes the difference.
Some things that occupy my mind:
* Like my own many european universities are free to enroll, which means a lot of candidates and also unfortunately many drop-outs (especially in STEM), which affects the score negatively as I understand. I assume that top-universities, that rely heavily on expensive enrollment fees, take more action to keep their students. Am I correct in this assumption?
* Do top universites have simply more money to make better research?
* Are the people there actually much smarter? Is there a different mindset that leads to more/better research? A fellow student of mine who spent some time in the USA told me that the people there are not "more knowledgeable" than us here in our bad university but I don't know which university it was.
We do have a lot of satisfied business partners here so I don't think our research is "bad". On the other hand my kinsmen always say "those rankings are arbitrary bullshit anyway", and Austrians like to sugarcoat reality a lot. We often hear some self-praise about how our institutions are well regarded but then there are those rankings, wich makes me very doubtful.
I've only ever seen this small academic world of mine as I never had the chance to study abroad because of my family so I am hoping that someone who knows both sides can shed some light. Am I missing a chance to become so much more than I currently am because I'm at the wrong university?<issue_comment>username_1: To be honest, I don't much like the idea that some people suggest there are "mediocre" universities. Good research can be done just about anywhere in many fields. Caveat: Some fields require funding beyond what is available at other than the biggest, richest, universities.
But there are several things that go into the rankings. I suspect that most of them are cumulative in some way. A lot of great research gets done at Oxbridge because of its size and history and attractiveness to scholars (and funders). Other schools don't have the same features. But the ranking is due as much to the *quantity* of good research as to the quality, as the quality can be good anywhere, but the resources available don't support as much of it.
A larger university has an advantage since it can more easily support working groups that can collectively produce great research. A smaller place leaves its faculty more isolated (less true today than historically - but history is part of this) with less opportunity for sharing and synergy.
Some of it is just luck over time. Good faculty attract good faculty. Researchers attract researchers. An older university, if well managed, has an advantage over a newer one. It takes time to build reputation. The magnetic attraction of a good place increases over time. [Harvard University](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_University), like most others, had a modest beginning. Its founders would be unlikely to recognize what it has become. Certainly its mission is quite different than it was originally.
A good reputation attracts students. Often it attracts far too many students. This lets such a place choose really good students who wind up having really good careers, adding to that reputation. And for some of those graduates it means wealth and for some of those, contributions back to their university. Harvard graduates tend to be pretty smart. But they were already judged to be pretty smart before they went to Harvard. Ubiquitous? Maybe.
Resources matter a lot. Especially today, with a more mobile pool of researchers than was possible in the past. For example, Europe is largely without borders and the links between Europe and the Americas are strong. So people can go where there are other compatible people (and good funding). So reputation tends to build on reputation.
But not every brilliant researcher or teacher wants to put up with the constant pressure of a "top" university, so it is possible to find that brilliance spread out. Just because you happen to be at an R2 or a teaching college doesn't make you mediocre. It can make you sane, actually. Hence my objection to the "mediocre" characterization.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The ranking quite often depends in the university's attitude. All ranking are done by metrics and you can (and some universities often do) game the system. One example I remember is that one of those metrics, supposedly, had library working hours as a criteria and a university decided to keep a working hall open 24 hours just to register as if the library were open 24 hours.
If a university cares about its rating then they might try to increase their rating. But you must understand that everything has a cost and name of the game is cost analysis. Some required changes might cost a lot and even can be counter productive. Impacting both teaching and research. From what I see, European institutions care more about their national (or within EU) image rather than some arbitrary metric. I certainly have seen some universities in a country ranking higher than some of the elite universities of that country. Still it does not make a single difference. 99% of the candidates still regard the elite colleges higher and society deems graduates from these elite universities much higher.
What I suspect dictates the general phonemea is that American public (or at least candidate students) value these metrics. Furthermore it seems these metrics are often designed with focus to the American system. As of 2020, in THE rankings, India does not have a single university in top 300. This is a country of 1.3 billion. I would be suprised if they didn't have a single university that is worth a top 300.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The answer is possibly simple: university rankings are simply **false**, and some are **allegedly fake**.
University rankings produce false data (i.e., rankings) based on self-invented metrics that are dubious, and some are even speculated to fake their results.
Their falseness is two-fold:
* The parameters they measure are invented and subjective, and do not necessarily reflect inherent quality of any sort, or reflect personal preferences. E.g., "international outlook".
* Assuming the parameters are accurately measured (and this is doubtful), the falseness of the rankings is in the use of the term "ranking". This term presupposes a linear (total) order on universities' "quality". There is no justification to assume such a linear ranking exists.
Their alleged fake-ness is:
* University rankings are speculated (though I don't know if this is verified anywhere) to **calibrate** their data based on pre-conceived rankings. For instance, a ranking may calibrate its parameters ("play with them") in order to result in Oxford being number one. This is allegedly done for two reasons. The first being to convince the ones doing the ranking that their parameters are calibrated "correctly". Hence, resulting in a ranking that pre-supposes what they set out to find in the first place! Second, it is allegedly done in order to gain reliability and popularity in the public, by exploiting the pre-conception of e.g. Oxford as being number one.
*Proof of falsehood*:
Take any two rankings. You will see that many university, say 30%, rank completely differently in them. One being say 100 in ranking A and 250 in ranking B.
*Possible indication of fake-ness*:
Although universities that are less known may have extreme discrepancies between them exhibited in two different rankings, 90% of those universities that are perceived as top lack this discrepancies. Hence, Oxford would rank 1 in ranking A and say 3 in Ranking B. While lesser known university x would rank 100 in ranking A and 250 in ranking B.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/13
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a tenure track position at a European university. Owing to some serious health issues in my family I will move to be closer to them.
I will resign before the term is over (but will try to keep on 1 day/mo to contribute to a small project and hopefully keep my title, I’m about to be promoted to Full Professor but I’m not sure how the faculty will react once they learn this).
No one knows this.
What’s the best way to move forward to preserve my relationship with the faculty?<issue_comment>username_1: The future is unknown. I suggest that you accept the promotion and also offer to continue your associations as much as possible given the family constraints you are facing. I don't see it as sneaky, as you have earned the promotion. It would only be sneaky, I think, if you had pre-planned every aspect of it.
I suspect that people will be reasonable, even if they are disappointed to lose some of your participation.
You might ease the shock a bit for them if they know that there is a situation beyond your control that you will be forced to deal with and that will require changes.
But, perhaps you can contribute more than you think, given today's communication capabilities. You needn't be "on site" to have an impact, I suspect. Time may be the biggest issue, rather than distance, and that would be the case even if you don't relocate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming you have a good relationship with the faculty at the moment:
I would discuss the situation honestly with your head of department or other appropriate person. It sounds like you have a good reason to want to be closer to your family. It also sounds as though you genuinely want to maintain links with the university. Those are reasonable goals, and if your department values you they will try to support them. Maybe you can keep a day or two a week, maybe you can work remotely, maybe you can visit for a week every two months... hopefully you can explore options and find something that works for everybody.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently writing my thesis where I have two underlying sources where one says that a variable (has the founder of a kickstarter project backed other projects?) has influence on the dependent variable, while another source says it doesn't. What do I do in such a situation?<issue_comment>username_1: The future is unknown. I suggest that you accept the promotion and also offer to continue your associations as much as possible given the family constraints you are facing. I don't see it as sneaky, as you have earned the promotion. It would only be sneaky, I think, if you had pre-planned every aspect of it.
I suspect that people will be reasonable, even if they are disappointed to lose some of your participation.
You might ease the shock a bit for them if they know that there is a situation beyond your control that you will be forced to deal with and that will require changes.
But, perhaps you can contribute more than you think, given today's communication capabilities. You needn't be "on site" to have an impact, I suspect. Time may be the biggest issue, rather than distance, and that would be the case even if you don't relocate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming you have a good relationship with the faculty at the moment:
I would discuss the situation honestly with your head of department or other appropriate person. It sounds like you have a good reason to want to be closer to your family. It also sounds as though you genuinely want to maintain links with the university. Those are reasonable goals, and if your department values you they will try to support them. Maybe you can keep a day or two a week, maybe you can work remotely, maybe you can visit for a week every two months... hopefully you can explore options and find something that works for everybody.
Upvotes: 3
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2019/09/13
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a faculty interview for a Canadian university coming up some time in the next week. For this interview I have to prepare 2 lectures.
I still havent received the date, nor the lecture topics. So I havent even booked time off work yet.
How much advanced warning is expected for this sort of thing? I feel that I would need ample time to prepare and with working full time elsewhere, it might be right. Or maybe Im just overreacting and stressing out.<issue_comment>username_1: It's totally reasonable for you to want to plan your schedule at least a week ahead.
Contact them and ask if they have the date yet, or if not, when they expect to have it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: *"How much advanced warning is expected for this sort of thing?"*
The answer is that it varies between departments, schools, faculties, universities, countries, etc., and even between different recruitment rounds within the *same* department.
Although it is not helpful for the candidate to get this information very late, it is certainly not uncommon for interviews to delay decisions about dates, topics, instructions etc. to the last minute due to administrative reasons. For example, if the department is in a rush, or they have multiple posts, etc. The best way of course is to contact the department by email and ask.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a student from China, and I want to apply for (pure) math PhD this fall, in the USA. Now I have a TOEFL score which has 102 points in total but only 20 points in speaking section. I am hesitating to take another TOEFL test.
What I want to know is, how important the TOEFL speaking section score is. Does a 20 speaking score will make me rejected? Also, I want to know how the professors view applicants' TOEFL scores. Some universities, such as the UCSD, said that "Our department also looks critically at the speaking scores of the TOEFL and IELTS. It is strongly recommended to have at least a 23 speaking score on the TOEFL and a 7 speaking score on the IELTS.". Does this means I have no chance to be admitted? Should I try to get a 23 score in TOEFL? I think it is not very easy to me, and a TOEFL test is somewhat expensive...
Another question that I really want to know is, even if the university said that they only require a minimum score in total score of TOEFL, will a low speaking score undermine my possibility of being admitted?
Anyway, I will appreciate anyone who can help me. Any advice is welcome.<issue_comment>username_1: They will tend to look at the speaking score in terms of you making presentations at conferences and also teaching classes as well as helping in workshops etc.
So they will take it into account - may not be the only thing looked at but still part of the application.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: The level of the TOEFL or IELTS speaking score is important as a hard criteria for admission to graduate schools in the US because it is an effective first step for the university, the department, and the advisor to police against allowing specific situations to go wrong.
You may be supported by the department as a teaching assistant. In this case, you will have to interact with undergraduate students in labs, in recitations, or as they visit you to discuss their homework assignment or grade. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly is critical in all of these cases, but especially in the first two. Otherwise, the students will evaluate you as being unable to carry out your duties as a teaching assistant because you are unable to speak English.
You may be supported by a faculty member as a research assistant. In this case, you will be required to provide your advisor with verbal reports on your research progress and likely also to give oral presentations about your work. Here again, you ability to communicate coherently and clearly is critical. Otherwise, your advisor may evaluate the situation and decide not to continue to support you because the extra effort he or she requires to communicate effectively with you in English will delay achievements on the project beyond reason.
As a graduate student doing research in the US, you will be expected if not required to be able to communicate the results of your work to the community of researchers in the US in English. This means you will be asked if not required to give oral presentations at local, regional, or national conferences. Your ability to speak coherently and clearly will reflect positively on you. The inverse case is often more dire. When you cannot speak well in English, the net result will reflect poorly on you but can also be taken to reflect badly on your work or the quality of your project.
Graduate programs in the US also require students to take courses. The teaching approach in US graduate courses often if not always demands that graduate students interact verbally with the instructor and with their peers. Your ability to communicate effectively in English can and often absolutely will determine your level of success to complete homework, do project assignments, and pass quizzes or exams.
In summary, you must meet the required verbal score because not doing so is a sign that you can and likely will fail at one or another of your required duties to communicate effectively in English as a graduate student in a US degree program. Universities, departments, and faculty are not interested to support such cases of potential failure. They have enough applications that meet or exceed the speaking requirements that they do not need to waste their time on those that do not.
One possible exception to the above must be acknowledged. In some cases, the admission criteria to the university could state that verbal scores below the cutoff may be admitted but that, in such a case, the applicant (you) will be required in the first year to pass courses offered at the university in English as a second language. In such cases, university policy may disallow you to be supported as a teaching assistant until you pass the courses. Alternatively, faculty may not wish to support you on their research funding until you have passed the courses. The English language courses may run for a full academic year.
In conclusion, as one who has reviewed many applications to graduate programs in science and engineering, I offer you little to no hope to continue your application process until you bring your TOEFL or IELTS verbal score to the levels that are demanded in the admission requirements of the universities where you intend to apply. The best alternative is to have a faculty member in the department who will make the case to the department and the university to support you as an exception to the rules.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2019/09/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I have strong publication record in my Ph.D. and 1st Postdoc that went for two years. Got 4 TT interview calls before last year.. but not successful in any. Last year did not apply, but this year, after fixing a few shortcomings noticed in my previous interviews, started the search again. In the meantime I published a couple of top journals as the corresponding author. However, I am not in harmonious professional relation with the present postdoc advisor. I am working for a little over one year in this position but did not yield any journal publication. I am sure that this advisor's reference will have negative impact on my search, if at all he agrees to write one. The only best way for me is avoid this advisor's letter, since I can arrange the required number of good letters from my previous affiliations. If I proceed with out my present advisor's reference, will it have any bearing on my chances? Expecting some suggestions from the people having experience in search committees.<issue_comment>username_1: In my view, strong letters are extremely important. You certainly don't want any letters from people interested in sabotaging you in any way. Even poorly written letters can be a setback. So can letters written by non-native speakers who may not grok the nuances of certain phrases.
There is the concept of *Damning with Faint Praise* that can be absolutely deadly in a letter. It can be intentional or not, actually.
Get letters from people who know your potential and are willing to speak for it. They need to know about your past work, of course, but people will be looking for potential and how it relates to a particular position.
If you have any doubts about what a person might say, ask them about it, or go elsewhere. In certain situations (non-native speakers, say) you might even request that a letter writer check their letter with a neutral third party, such as a department head. This would have saved me tremendous grief long ago.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There is no problem in asking other people than your postdoc host to provide letters for you. It is *you* who decide who to ask, and recruitment committees will probably not even notice, nor will care whether your postdoc host is missing (unless there exists a special relation between a committee member and the host, in which case you can still not ask the host for a letter).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend having someone from your current institution write a letter showing that you are good to work with.
I have served on several search committees. I read letters not for information on research productivity (which is better shown in the CV) but for indications of how the candidate would be as a co-worker. I do not want to hire a jerk.
For someone in your situation, I would notice that you did not have a current reference and I would be concerned that you might be a jerk. If a co-worker, preferably someone who is more senior than you, can speak to what it is like to work with you and perhaps even show that your advisor is the problem, that letter would make me much less concerned.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I missed the PhD application deadline (Physics), and apart from applying late, what can I do if I get no position and I have to wait another year?
I would like to keep doing what I was doing for the Master thesis, and so spend a good amount of time staying in research somehow, so I won't feel like I'm wasting my time. Are there some alternative paths to follow?<issue_comment>username_1: In my view, strong letters are extremely important. You certainly don't want any letters from people interested in sabotaging you in any way. Even poorly written letters can be a setback. So can letters written by non-native speakers who may not grok the nuances of certain phrases.
There is the concept of *Damning with Faint Praise* that can be absolutely deadly in a letter. It can be intentional or not, actually.
Get letters from people who know your potential and are willing to speak for it. They need to know about your past work, of course, but people will be looking for potential and how it relates to a particular position.
If you have any doubts about what a person might say, ask them about it, or go elsewhere. In certain situations (non-native speakers, say) you might even request that a letter writer check their letter with a neutral third party, such as a department head. This would have saved me tremendous grief long ago.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There is no problem in asking other people than your postdoc host to provide letters for you. It is *you* who decide who to ask, and recruitment committees will probably not even notice, nor will care whether your postdoc host is missing (unless there exists a special relation between a committee member and the host, in which case you can still not ask the host for a letter).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I recommend having someone from your current institution write a letter showing that you are good to work with.
I have served on several search committees. I read letters not for information on research productivity (which is better shown in the CV) but for indications of how the candidate would be as a co-worker. I do not want to hire a jerk.
For someone in your situation, I would notice that you did not have a current reference and I would be concerned that you might be a jerk. If a co-worker, preferably someone who is more senior than you, can speak to what it is like to work with you and perhaps even show that your advisor is the problem, that letter would make me much less concerned.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently came to know that one of the patent we filed in my previous organization has been abandoned. I am currently preparing my resume for PhD applications. I am confused whether to specify the abandoned patent in resume/CV considering the effort involved in coming up with the patent.
I thought of specifying like this in resume
"Patent Name", "Inventors:....", "Application No....","Status-Abandoned"<issue_comment>username_1: I'm assuming you mean abandoned in the sense defined by the USPTO. A patent (application) is abandoned if the application is never completed for some reason and *cannot* move forward to registration. In that sense an abandoned patent is *not a patent*, so it would seem to be a mistake to include it as anything other than incomplete and abandoned work.
Perhaps you can find a way to include the work in another way that is more positive. Did it result in any publications, for example?
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You can include anything you want in your CV as long as you use precise language. Your “abandoned patent” sounds like it’s not actually an abandoned patent but is an *abandoned patent application*. Personally I don’t think it will be of much, or possibly any, value on your CV, but whether that’s the case or not would depend on the specific nature of the invention you tried to patent and the reason for abandoning the application. I can imagine hypothetical (though unlikely) scenarios where it might be worth mentioning. And even if you don’t mention it on your CV, the story of the abandoned application can still make for a nice anecdote to mention in an interview or a statement of purpose.
Regardless, whatever you do, *do not* use the word “patent” to refer to something that has not been *approved* as an official patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office or some other national or international patent registration agency. The correct phrase to use in your situation is “patent application”. A related term that people sometimes use for applications that are under review by the patent office is [patent pending](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_pending), but that only applies to applications that are still pending, and yours isn’t since it’s been abandoned, so you shouldn’t use that term either.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: A huge number of patent applications - and patents - are of questionable scientific value, and are often just "IP grabs" by large corporations. In fact, probably most patent applications and possibly even most patents are like that - AFAICT. They are definitely not peer-reviewed contributions.
I have no idea how they are considered when it comes to PhD track applications (and possibly they don't matter that much at all) - but I'd be careful about up-playing your work on patents overmuch. Specifically with respect to that abandoned patent application - perhaps you should focus on the actual innovative aspect of your work rather than on whether or not a patent was formally registered.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/14
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<issue_start>username_0: When designing an exam, would you mention the maximum score per question or not? Is it common practice?
In my view this promotes cherry-picking. This could be seen as a way to prioritize or to satisfice (leaving questions open since "they are not worth it").
Is there any scientific proof/pedagogical insight this is a "must", "nice for students " or "making it easier for students"?
Any thoughts on this (from professors and students)?<issue_comment>username_1: The policy where I am is that the points for each question are shown.
This is fine, because (and only an example):
1. small questions can be worth 1 or 2 points,
2. short answer questions can be 2 or 5 points,
3. longer questions ie involved calculations, can be 5 or 10 points,
4. essay type questions can be 10 or 15 or 20 points
All of these can be adjusted or combined in many combinations to provide an exam with a variety of questions which still challenges the students.
Note 5 or more small questions can be grouped to make one larger question worth more, but then the question is are those “sequential”? Ie if you get the first part wrong then all the other parts are wrong or are they 5 disparate questions clumped together so the exam author can say “all questions carry the same points”...
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It is true that telling how many points each question is worth would allow "gaming" the exam. Ok, but *not* telling, that is, keeping the grading system secret, is quite strange and dishonest, since you are not telling the target that the students should aim for.
Anyway, I think it's not a serious worry, if (as @username_1 sugggests) the lower-weight questions are commensurately easier.
In my own practice, both for undergrad and graduate courses, as well as Written Prelims, I just make all questions equally weighted (and the questions, perhaps grouping together smaller questions) are reasonably comparable in time-required-to-respond.
Although your concern is obviously legitimate, I think this issue is, yet-again, one of those where to really squelch "gaming the system" would be inappropriately punitive for those students who are earnest and acting in good faith.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: There’s nothing wrong with cherry picking because (presumably) not all parts of the course have equal importance. Indeed one could argue that assigning greater weight (and declaring this weight) to questions connected with “core concepts” will better recompense students who have mastered these important concepts rather than less important parts of the material, all the more so as exams are typically time-constrained.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: My thoughts: this is based on the norms in your department. Simply ask your colleagues what they do and what students in your department are used to. Then do it.
As for myself, I give the marks for each question because this is the policy in my department. I have never seen any student gaming the exam though. They all try to do everything.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: You should give the marks for each question - it informs the student as to how much time to spend on a question.
See this [related question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/123593/in-a-yes-no-question-student-gives-the-right-answer-and-a-unnecessary-but-wrong). If the maximum mark had been anything other than 1 point, it should be clear to the student that something more than a yes/no answer is expected. If the maximum mark had been 10 points, it should be clear to the student that a full paragraph of explanation is needed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: If the maximum score per question is not disclosed, a dishonest professor can retroactively change the scoring scheme to advantage or disadvantage particular students.
As an (exaggerated) example, suppose that Professor Wormer really hates Blutarsky, one of the students in his class. Wormer gives an exam with 10 questions but does not say how many points each question is worth. When the exams are handed in, he sees that Blutarsky has correctly answered every question except #4, which he got completely wrong. Wormer then decides that Question 4 will be worth 91 points, and the remaining questions will each be worth 1 point. Wormer can claim that these were the point values he intended all along; Blutarsky may be certain this is a lie, but he has no way to prove it. Blutarsky flunks the exam, fails the course, loses his draft deferment, and is sent overseas as army cannon fodder.
By announcing the maximum score per question on the exam, the students can be assured that this particular sort of malfeasance won't be possible.
(Of course there are plenty of other ways a malicious professor can abuse grading authority, but eliminating a few of them seems desirable in any case.)
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_7: Examinations are time-limited, so time is a scarce resource that students need to economise. Stipulating the marks allocated to exam questions has three main purposes:
1. **Objectivity:** The stipulated marks creates a more objective assessment, insofar as the weightings on the questions are fixed by the stipulated marks. This prevents students from being unfairly penalised by subjective re-allocation of marks.
2. **Time allocation:** The stipulated marks allows students to economise their time by allocating it in a manner that gives appropriate levels of time relative to the marks available for the question.
3. **Implicit expectation of detail:** Ideally, marks should be allocated roughly commensurately with the time the question will take to complete if done properly. This gives the students an understanding of the proportion of time that each question should take, and so it allows them to diagnose whether they are taking too long on a question. This also means that the allocated marks gives the student an implicit hint as to how much detail they are expected to give in a question --- low mark questions usually do not require large amounts of detail.
In your question, you seem to be taking the view that it is bad for students to economise their limited time, and that this incentivises students to eschew answering entire questions. So long as there is sufficient time available in the exam, this should not be the case. (A useful rule-of-thumb I heard for exams was that the course lecturer should be able to complete the exam in 1/3 of the time limit for an undergraduate exam, or 1/2 of the time limit for a postgraduate exam. This should be done under conditions where the course lecturer first "forgets" the answers to the exam, and has to figure them out in the time limit.)
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_8: As a general rule, I think it's good to maximize transparency in your procedures to the students.
This includes clear expectations for coursework, grading formula, etc. They should be able to compute and double-check their current grades at any time. Likewise, having points stated on exams is standard and expresses a truth that there's really no good reason to skip out on. It's an added signal that you're being fair, equitable, and transparent.
Moreover, it forces you to plan out in advance exactly how you will be grading it later on. In so doing, you might realize that one or more questions are problematic to grade to a certain scale and change them. (Or that the total for the exam could be changed to something more convenient.)
That said, I don't think that it's a mortal sin to not have it. If the instructor is for some reason very short on time in their first semester, making an exam at the last minute, then maybe they'll figure out the points later (again, the transparency is in regard to any currently well-defined procedure). On the other hand, an even better gold-standard would be to have a complete grading rubric and/or answer sheet worked out in advance.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: Failing to provide the mark value of questions sabotages both your students and yourself.
Exams are provided to determine how well a student understands the course work, with questions weighted by the import of their subject matter. If the value of the questions is hidden, it...
* prevents students from prioritizing questions on higher-priority matter; Time management is a valuable skill - "cherry-picking" the most important tasks in a time-constrained situation is *essential* for students to learn, and not to be discouraged.
* adds randomness to (potentially critical) exam results; It is unreasonable to expect students to reliably guess your thought processes on question valuation, and will inevitably require some degree of guessing. This disproportionately harms students who are slower test-takers, as well as reduces their autonomy. Note that this can easily lead to resentment.
* reduces the information you gain from the exam; Did Alice skip Important Question A because she didn't know how to solve it, or because Worthless Question B was easier, and she had no way of knowing which was more valuable? Does Bob intuitively understand what concepts are crucial, or was he just lucky?
There are very few, if any, situations in which the benefits of hiding question values outweigh the numerous costs.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Aside from the fact that exam rules should be transparent in order to be fair to the students, I would outline that the ability to prioritize work in order to maximize the number of points is not just an irrelevant side skill. It requires accurate self-assessment with regards to the knowledge a student has on each particular topic. A student which knows their strengths and weaknesses will be able to better adapt to the work they have to do, and make better choices regarding their career or field of study.
I don't see why you think this skill is worthless and should not be rewarded (or even punished).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: >
> In my view this promotes cherry-picking. This could be seen as a way to prioritize or to satisfice (leaving questions open since "they are not worth it").
>
>
>
You pose this as being a problem, but I don't see any problem. If you design the exam in a way that gathering 51% of the points is sufficient to pass, then there will be people that get 51% of the points and pass, be it by cherry picking or by not knowing nearly half of the material.
If you don't want people to pick the questions they like best, I guess that is because you want people to know the subject more broadly (and less in-depth) rather than knowing only a part of it (but very in-depth, to get full points on those questions). If that is indeed your true aim (rather than preventing cherry picking), then you can design your exam to reflect that. You could ask a larger number of questions to cover a broader section of the material, or make points easier to obtain (making the questions easier) and requiring they gather 90% of the points to pass.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_12: With phrases like you fear "gaming the system", I presume you worry a student may skip something that is essential, but maybe can't be worth a ton of points?
Required Fields
---------------
If may be possible to declare a question a "required field", just like many forms do. So even if it's only worth 10 points, and the student has decided they'd be happy with a B or C, if you want to be SURE that a student can (for example) definitely demonstrate they know which example shows plagiarism vs correct citation, then I'd mark that question REQUIRED.
### examples of various similar strategies over a whole semester...
I used to do a similar thing in my English classes. The research paper itself was "only" worth 20% of the grade, but my syllabus and assignment sheets made it clear that a non-passing grade on the research paper would mean the class requirements were NOT met, and it was an automatic failure. Basically it was a GATE, not merely a quantity.
Other profs in my department had similar "gated" systems. In order to achieve a C, a baseline level of requirements must be met. In order to achieve a B, those had to be met AND the next level of requirements. An A required all of the things. This was to prevent people who were "naturally good writers" from skipping over the process and class-interactions.
BlackBoard (our LMS) allowed assignments to be hidden unless the student had achieved other dependent requirements, and I think there were a few Econ professors who used that to good effect -- you had to score X on a comprehension test to open up the assignment details. You had to have submitted a draft before the link to submit the final would open up.
Rubrics!
--------
If parts of your exams are mini-essays or paragraphs, make sure you have a clear **rubric** - a guided checklist of what you want. This helps you focus on the content (were all terms used accurately? Did they give the key exception?) and not get distracted by good or bad style.
TL;DR
-----
Back to your exam: Discuss with others in your department about the norms and expectations, but **feel free to explore alternate formats besides pure numerical, as long as they are fully disclosed.** Set students up to succeed, but make sure that you're also getting the proof *you* need as an instructor to indicate sufficient mastery.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: TL;DR
-----
In some cases, not mentioning *all* the grading details can be acceptable
---
Aside from all the very good answers already given, I'd like to provide another point of view. You did not mention where you teach (or I missed it) and many answers assume classical university.
From my experience in the French "classes préparatoires", the points for each question were not given explicitly; take a 4h math exam for example: we had like 3 big problems, each worth some given amount of points and consisting on many questions that built on one another. But in each problem, the questions were not stamped with individual amount of points, you were simply required to assume that "later questions are worth more points".
Of course, this is a particular case and I don't know if this apply to you; these exams were a preparation for the engineering school, which select students on a contest system. It was not expected of you to **finish** the exam, in a way **clever cherry-picking** was encouraged so that you can maximise your amount of points.
Upvotes: 2
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2019/09/14
| 1,101
| 4,603
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<issue_start>username_0: I started my terminal Master’s degree program in Fall 2017. My plan was to graduate Spring 2019, and if successful, enter a Ph.D. program Fall 2019. My Master’s program is a more general program and not one that is necessary to obtain in order to proceed to my specific Ph.D. program, however, some like myself, use it as a stepping stone especially if we come from other fields (I hold a B.S. in biology which is not my current field).
In short, I did not obtain my Master’s. Due to the fact that I was immersed in a highly toxic, dysfunctional (no one has integrity and conducts unethical research) and borderline abusive department, and that both my thesis chairs left in the process, my graduation date was delayed. There were also 3 others in my cohort who didn’t graduate, and many others dropped out along the way—all for similar reasons as I. I was accepted to my top choice Ph.D. program in a different state, and thus decided to not stay behind and try to complete my Master’s (which was my back up plan). My new school does not expect me to complete my Master’s; in fact, I’d almost say that they don’t care, as they did not ask 1 single question about my program nor seemed remotely interested about it during my interview. Not needing my Master’s was confirmed by both the Admissions Department and the Records Office at my new school, and after this, I formally withdrew from my former school. My experience was so negative that I have zero plans to return to complete the Master’s at a different time. Also, at my new school, you earn a Master’s (which is in my specific field and credit based) along the way, which is nice.
My question is, is it necessary to mention my Master’s program on my CV? I’m assuming the answer is ‘yes,’ but I am unsure of how I would go about mentioning it on my CV. I was 3 credits away from getting my Master’s, and while I’m not ashamed of it, I am unsure of how I should handle it when it comes up in convos, esp. when applying to internships, etc. Do I say “degree not conferred” or is there a better way to convey this?
I’d appreciate any tips and advice. Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: You don't need to emphasize or even mention such things unless asked to account for the time you spent. In general, it is a poor choice to mention things you think are failures. In any application you want to emphasize your suitability for the position and the high likelihood that you will be a success at it. Stress the positive.
But be prepared to give an honest and sensible answer if asked what you were doing for a period of time longer than a few months. It is probably fine to say that you pursued a dead end and changed course, which sounds accurate. It is also fine to say that you escaped a dysfunctional environment after being caught up in it for a while. But that isn't something for your CV or your SOP.
You will probably be asked to supply transcripts of all academic programs in some applications. You need to do that, of course. But you don't need to characterize the situation as a *failure* unless the institution considered it so.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with username_1 that there's no need to list/mention incomplete studies unless specifically asked; I'd only add that it might seem worth mentioning if you had any relevant and unique training while you were at that program that you might like to acknowledge for job applications down the line. If that's the case, you could always put a line on your CV (below and separate from your EDUCATION section) that says ADDITIONAL STUDIES, and maybe list a few relevant courses that you took. But I'd only suggest this if such training significantly adds value to your CV/you'd like to be able to reference that training in the future, like in a cover letter or job interview. If not, I wouldn't worry about it. At the end of the day, job search committees (academic ones anyway) are most interested in the terminal degree.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: I would treat it like a transfer from one program to another. Once you were accepted into a new doctoral program that includes a masters along the way, the only sensible thing to do was to get started as quickly as possible. That would be the case even if your original masters program was great, and not dysfunctional.
Transfers are fairly common and happen for a lot reasons. When it involves going to a stronger program, though, it does not need much explanation on its face, so there is no reason to feel uncomfortable about not finishing the first program.
Upvotes: 0
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2019/09/14
| 711
| 3,123
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<issue_start>username_0: My academic research supervisor is asking me to write a patent that he is self-funding, with potential private commercial interests and benefits. I am also directly involved in the work that is related to this patent. However, this work was funded by my supervisor's research grants from our country.
Upon me questioning his motives, he told me that researchers have a right to the intellectual property of projects funded by the government.
Is such a claim regarding patents and/or intellectual property generally considered as ethical in academia?<issue_comment>username_1: It is certainly true that some research funded by some grants in some universities in some countries can be patented. The university should have an intellectual property policy (and the funded may have one). That's the document that will tell you the answer to this question. That policy should also give you some idea about appropriate sharing of the rights between the researchers involved in the project (it's not clear from your question whether you were involved in the research supporting the patent application). And there is possibly a commercialisation group within the university who would be involved in patent applications too.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In the US, the [Bayh-Dole act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act) explicitly gives intellectual property rights for federally funded research to grant recipients rather than the federal government.
The argument in favor of the act was that most of the federally-owned patents originating from university research were not used commercially. The act gives incentive for university researchers to commercialize their work, presumably contributing to economic growth.
The first "dibs" on patent ownership go to the university, typically with some agreement to share the benefits with the inventors in some way. However, institutions can also waive those rights and let the individual inventors own the patent.
If you were in the US, it would be up to your institution's policies to determine who has ownership.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: In *Germany*, the right to the invention would first be with the employer (university).
* The employer can then decide whether they want to file a patent or whether they "free" the invention. The inventors will receive some compensation iff the university manages to license the patent and achieve a net gain.
* If the invention becomes free, the inventors can personally decide to file a patent.
* For public institutions (such as universities) there's a 3rd possibility which is to tell the inventors to file if they are interested to do so (i.e. the university doesn't want to pay the fees) but compensate the unviersity iff there's a net gain.
If you are directly involved in the invention work, you should have known about this before because you should be named as co-inventor in the internal description of the invention. Check whether your university has a similar policy and whether/what has been submitted for this internal procedure.
Upvotes: 1
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2019/09/15
| 2,410
| 10,015
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<issue_start>username_0: I've submitted more papers for review than I've reviewed myself. I try to review as much as I can, but it's limited by incoming requests. Publons says I'm somewhat above the median (of 0.3 reviews : 1 publication), although this data is incomplete.
>
> [](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rS99H.png)
>
>
>
It seems there must be people out there who are reviewing far more papers than they're submitting for review. But who?
**Question**: Who are the people reviewing far more papers than they're submitting for review?
I'm just after some mental picture of who is receiving, accepting, and completing large numbers of review requests. I can't imagine it's high-level professors, who seem constantly busy. Nor do I expect it's early-career researchers, because they're unestablished and unlikely to be thought of when editors email reviewers.<issue_comment>username_1: Authors in developed countries tend to review much more papers than they submit, while the three biggest countries for which the reverse is true are China, India, and Iran.
[Source](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06602-y)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HQbKz.png)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: First, that ratio is based on published papers, not submitted. But the principle is the same. I was given advice several years ago that you should be reviewing 3 or 4 times as many papers as you submit.
Think about it this way; if papers need 3 reviewers and half of the papers don't get published, then the break even point is 6 reviewers per published paper. If you are in a field where 3 authors is typical, then all authors would need to review 2 papers per paper. But not all authors are able to review equivalently, so 3-4 seems to work for my discipline.
An editor would be able to give you the best information about who they ask, but senior postdocs and low to mid level academics seem to be the ones reviewing in my discipline. On the other hand, I checked publons and the highest count is actually a semi-retired professor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I can't imagine it's high-level professors, who seem constantly busy.
>
>
>
If you want something done, ask someone who's constantly busy.
>
> Nor do I expect it's early-career researchers, because they're unestablished and unlikely to be thought of when editors email reviewers.
>
>
>
I can't point to specific posts, but I've seen enough references on this site to the scenario that I believe it's not uncommon for the editor to ask the high-level professor and the professor to delegate to an early-career researcher in their department.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: This is just a theory: The most active reviewers are editors of low-ranked journals, who assign the reviews to themselves.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Before retiring I worked for a company that (inter alia) did paid research for industrial companies. We had little incentive to publish in the peer refereed literature. There was some incentive to publish in the trade literature, but not much - we were very well known among potential clients. We did participate in industry and regulatory groups as contributions to the "greater good" for the industry. I and many of my senior colleagues reviewed many more papers than we submitted; I can't speak for my colleagues but I regarded it again as contributing to the "greater good".
Edited to add:
Similarly, I had no interest at all in recording my contributions in Publons, which Wikipedia describes as (my emphasis) "...service for **academics** to track, verify, and showcase their peer review and editorial contributions...".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: People who submit good reviews are asked to do more of them, and then more, and more, and....
Let me tell you about my own refereeing history. My research profile is not stellar, but it is adequate for a tenured theoretical physicist at a middling R1 institution; I typically publish something like two to five papers per year. On the other hand, I referee something like ten times that number of papers, and the refereeing work ends up being a major component of my professional service. In the last couple of years, I have won refereeing awards from several major journals.
Over four years as a post-doc, I got one paper per year to referee. Around the time I was established enough to get a tenure-track job, the number jumped to about one paper per month, and it has continued to increase (roughly linearly) in the decade-plus since. Unlike some of my colleagues, I try to referee practically everything I am sent that I am qualified to evaluate, and as I have built up a relationship with some journal editors, I have both been sent more papers and have been assigned to adjudicate more complicated situations, such as cases where previous referees have disagreed or appeals submitted by the authors of rejected papers.
Frankly, this does cut into some time that I could probably be usefully for research. On the other hand, I feel that, in a certain sense, I owe the professional community my expertise; I want to do at least my fair share. I work in a somewhat niche area, and there are not a lot of people who are able to give complete evaluations of research in this area. That means both making sure that papers with fundamental mistakes are not erroneously published, and making sure that the good papers are properly vetted and corrected, to maximize their usefulness. Recognizing the unacceptably bad papers quickly is a skill, but once the serious problems with a manuscript have been identified, writing a rejection recommendation is not too time consuming. Checking through good papers for minor elisions and errors, on the other hand, can take quite a bit of time, and that is where there is probably a real tradeoff between refereeing work and research output. However, as I said, I am happy with where I am currently situated in this regard.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: I suspect a major factor is that ratios will vary significantly by field. In my field (pure math), a typical paper has 1-3 authors and will get reviews from two people (more if it gets rejected post-review and sent to another journal, although overlap of reviewers in that case is not uncommon). So I'd expect the median ratio there to be somewhere around 1. Mine is 1.3 FWIW (I am not on publons but keep records for my own interest).
In other fields the typical number of authors per paper could be much higher without the number of reviewers per paper significantly increasing, so I would expect a much smaller ratio. 0.3 seems reasonable for fields where 10+ author papers are the norm.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Actually the most reviewing is, *in my field and related ones*, done exactly by the two categories that you wanted dismiss.
A reputed professor receive a large number of invitations, so that the ratio is high in spite of refusals.
A successful and young researcher receive relatively few but s/he tends to accept all as it is a new and certainly formative experience.
I suspect, as another answer points out, it's very much field and subfield related. I do personally reviewed much more papers than those I've published.
While a researcher in synthetic chemistry publish and might be invited by a few good journals, one in material science can do that in a broader range, spanning from physics and chemistry to dedicated publications. When preparation of new materials is involved, basically all papers are getting interesting and reviewing becomes a way to stay tune.
Similar scenario is plausible in many applied sciences.
In my field the number of reviewings *largely* exceeds that of the submitted/published papers for literally every graduate researcher that I ever met.
Also a ratio as those given in your Q, if not individually calculated, would block research publications. Simple maths suggests that ratio lower than one would be a big problem in the current procedure, except perhaps in fields where having about ten authors or more is common (still some of those fields have also more abundant literature, e.g. medicine).
Also having the name in a author list doesn't make you a referree, at least not one of first and even second choice for a good journal.
Edit 1 after the comment.
Edit 2: Stimulated by this I've finally registered on Publon. While importing most of my papers was a simple click, the thousand review I have done in the past will never show up. So at the current stage I have contributed X papers to literature without having been referee at all.
I've overlooked the fact that OP inspiration was Publon. Basically she can be confident of how much she is reviewing (not enough in my opinion, as for what I and others have written above) but in general one should be highly skeptical of those data, independent of their actual significance.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I am one of your mystery reviewers. I work in research in industry, and I have gotten a positive reputation in my field for my work. As such I am frequently requested to review journal articles and since my combination of fields is relatively rare, I generally feel a duty to help ensure the quality of the contributions in that field through reviewing articles (which I frequently do on my own time).
On the other hand, submitting articles is more of a secondary (or even tertiary) function of my job. Any publications have to be cleared through our IP team to determine if we need to get a patent filed first or even try to protect the knowledge as a trade secret. When I do publish, it is usually to establish the value of a product or it is part of an academic collaboration I have been engaged in. As such, I only publish about once a year to every other year.
Upvotes: 3
|
2019/09/15
| 2,293
| 9,693
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<issue_start>username_0: About three months ago I sent an email to ask a professor about postdoc position under her supervision. Her feedback on my cv was positive and she told me that she intend to apply for grant this year and consider me as a potential postdoc. She also mentioned that she keep me informed if the appîication for grant be successful. Indeed, she told me she will inform me, but because of the fact that professors are busy people, I do not know she remember me or not?
I do not know whether I send another email to ask her about the status of availability of grant or not? If so, what should be a proper context of email to ask that.<issue_comment>username_1: Authors in developed countries tend to review much more papers than they submit, while the three biggest countries for which the reverse is true are China, India, and Iran.
[Source](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06602-y)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/HQbKz.png)
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: First, that ratio is based on published papers, not submitted. But the principle is the same. I was given advice several years ago that you should be reviewing 3 or 4 times as many papers as you submit.
Think about it this way; if papers need 3 reviewers and half of the papers don't get published, then the break even point is 6 reviewers per published paper. If you are in a field where 3 authors is typical, then all authors would need to review 2 papers per paper. But not all authors are able to review equivalently, so 3-4 seems to work for my discipline.
An editor would be able to give you the best information about who they ask, but senior postdocs and low to mid level academics seem to be the ones reviewing in my discipline. On the other hand, I checked publons and the highest count is actually a semi-retired professor.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I can't imagine it's high-level professors, who seem constantly busy.
>
>
>
If you want something done, ask someone who's constantly busy.
>
> Nor do I expect it's early-career researchers, because they're unestablished and unlikely to be thought of when editors email reviewers.
>
>
>
I can't point to specific posts, but I've seen enough references on this site to the scenario that I believe it's not uncommon for the editor to ask the high-level professor and the professor to delegate to an early-career researcher in their department.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: This is just a theory: The most active reviewers are editors of low-ranked journals, who assign the reviews to themselves.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Before retiring I worked for a company that (inter alia) did paid research for industrial companies. We had little incentive to publish in the peer refereed literature. There was some incentive to publish in the trade literature, but not much - we were very well known among potential clients. We did participate in industry and regulatory groups as contributions to the "greater good" for the industry. I and many of my senior colleagues reviewed many more papers than we submitted; I can't speak for my colleagues but I regarded it again as contributing to the "greater good".
Edited to add:
Similarly, I had no interest at all in recording my contributions in Publons, which Wikipedia describes as (my emphasis) "...service for **academics** to track, verify, and showcase their peer review and editorial contributions...".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: People who submit good reviews are asked to do more of them, and then more, and more, and....
Let me tell you about my own refereeing history. My research profile is not stellar, but it is adequate for a tenured theoretical physicist at a middling R1 institution; I typically publish something like two to five papers per year. On the other hand, I referee something like ten times that number of papers, and the refereeing work ends up being a major component of my professional service. In the last couple of years, I have won refereeing awards from several major journals.
Over four years as a post-doc, I got one paper per year to referee. Around the time I was established enough to get a tenure-track job, the number jumped to about one paper per month, and it has continued to increase (roughly linearly) in the decade-plus since. Unlike some of my colleagues, I try to referee practically everything I am sent that I am qualified to evaluate, and as I have built up a relationship with some journal editors, I have both been sent more papers and have been assigned to adjudicate more complicated situations, such as cases where previous referees have disagreed or appeals submitted by the authors of rejected papers.
Frankly, this does cut into some time that I could probably be usefully for research. On the other hand, I feel that, in a certain sense, I owe the professional community my expertise; I want to do at least my fair share. I work in a somewhat niche area, and there are not a lot of people who are able to give complete evaluations of research in this area. That means both making sure that papers with fundamental mistakes are not erroneously published, and making sure that the good papers are properly vetted and corrected, to maximize their usefulness. Recognizing the unacceptably bad papers quickly is a skill, but once the serious problems with a manuscript have been identified, writing a rejection recommendation is not too time consuming. Checking through good papers for minor elisions and errors, on the other hand, can take quite a bit of time, and that is where there is probably a real tradeoff between refereeing work and research output. However, as I said, I am happy with where I am currently situated in this regard.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: I suspect a major factor is that ratios will vary significantly by field. In my field (pure math), a typical paper has 1-3 authors and will get reviews from two people (more if it gets rejected post-review and sent to another journal, although overlap of reviewers in that case is not uncommon). So I'd expect the median ratio there to be somewhere around 1. Mine is 1.3 FWIW (I am not on publons but keep records for my own interest).
In other fields the typical number of authors per paper could be much higher without the number of reviewers per paper significantly increasing, so I would expect a much smaller ratio. 0.3 seems reasonable for fields where 10+ author papers are the norm.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Actually the most reviewing is, *in my field and related ones*, done exactly by the two categories that you wanted dismiss.
A reputed professor receive a large number of invitations, so that the ratio is high in spite of refusals.
A successful and young researcher receive relatively few but s/he tends to accept all as it is a new and certainly formative experience.
I suspect, as another answer points out, it's very much field and subfield related. I do personally reviewed much more papers than those I've published.
While a researcher in synthetic chemistry publish and might be invited by a few good journals, one in material science can do that in a broader range, spanning from physics and chemistry to dedicated publications. When preparation of new materials is involved, basically all papers are getting interesting and reviewing becomes a way to stay tune.
Similar scenario is plausible in many applied sciences.
In my field the number of reviewings *largely* exceeds that of the submitted/published papers for literally every graduate researcher that I ever met.
Also a ratio as those given in your Q, if not individually calculated, would block research publications. Simple maths suggests that ratio lower than one would be a big problem in the current procedure, except perhaps in fields where having about ten authors or more is common (still some of those fields have also more abundant literature, e.g. medicine).
Also having the name in a author list doesn't make you a referree, at least not one of first and even second choice for a good journal.
Edit 1 after the comment.
Edit 2: Stimulated by this I've finally registered on Publon. While importing most of my papers was a simple click, the thousand review I have done in the past will never show up. So at the current stage I have contributed X papers to literature without having been referee at all.
I've overlooked the fact that OP inspiration was Publon. Basically she can be confident of how much she is reviewing (not enough in my opinion, as for what I and others have written above) but in general one should be highly skeptical of those data, independent of their actual significance.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I am one of your mystery reviewers. I work in research in industry, and I have gotten a positive reputation in my field for my work. As such I am frequently requested to review journal articles and since my combination of fields is relatively rare, I generally feel a duty to help ensure the quality of the contributions in that field through reviewing articles (which I frequently do on my own time).
On the other hand, submitting articles is more of a secondary (or even tertiary) function of my job. Any publications have to be cleared through our IP team to determine if we need to get a patent filed first or even try to protect the knowledge as a trade secret. When I do publish, it is usually to establish the value of a product or it is part of an academic collaboration I have been engaged in. As such, I only publish about once a year to every other year.
Upvotes: 3
|
2019/09/15
| 2,577
| 11,100
|
<issue_start>username_0: Doing PhD in new field that does not have enough resources in it. Most of the information I find are articles written in websites such as medium.com.
I really feel awkward citing a website article, as I feel it is not good enough. It is not from university, it has just the author name, not much info about him/her, and the way it is written is for non-academic purpose.
Is it ok to have many of these articles as the source of my information in my PhD? If it is not ok, then what can I do? there is no reliable resources! The field is Artificial Intelligence.
To be more specific: It is not about AI in general, it is about a topic in AI that has not been explored thoroughly, the only place that has done that is Google and they keep the research they have done private and not accessible for public, i have contacted them but they rejected to help with their research
Edit : I know that there are millions of AI researches in the internet. but there isn't anything I was able to find on the area i am studying. google has a product and they are selling as a service and they are not publishing the research they have done on that area, i have contacted google and they did not allow me to look at their research.. there are other researches on other areas may touch that field but none i found on that field specifically.<issue_comment>username_1: From the way you describe, this sounds really strange especially since there is a lot of real research in AI.
I cannot believe you could only use those articles. However, your supervisor is the right person to ask - most likely, they alone will decide whether or not your dissertation is enough.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I can suggest a case in which it might be appropriate, but in general, it would be risky. As you say, the sub field you are exploring is new and little if anything has been published.
Suppose you find a claim in an article that you can base your research on - either proving it or refuting it. The "idea" for the research comes from a reading of the article. Research that refutes a published claim might be stronger than supporting the claim, I think. This is because the person(s) making the claim may have done unpublished research and have some "proof" that it was correct. If you merely confirm it, you are just following, not leading.
But, you also don't say how far along you are in your research. If you are at the beginning, things may change and other publications may speak to the same issue before you finish. So, the question may be moot. But if you are near then end then you do what you can.
Certainly a "green field" topic will find little to cite other than the general literature on the larger domain.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I find the entire premise of the question quite odd. First of all, to answer your question: I’d say that in most cases I’ve encountered the answer would be no, you can’t use popular science articles as a primary source.
That said, I seriously doubt that they’re all that’s out there. Google works on this problem: they came up with it and no one else ever heard of it or studied it? How did the popular media hear about this amazing idea that has somehow eluded the entire AI research community except Google and your advisor? I feel like you’re either looking at the wrong sources, your advisor is not pointing you in the right direction, or something else is off.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Answering for anyone who comes across this question from social science etc. as it is a bit different. We can use popular media sources, but only for certain things.
As someone who uses popular press articles as a "source" for my research, and who advises students who do the same, there is an important distinction to be made and a significant amount of methodological explanation required before you can use much popular media.
The distinction: you can use popular media as a source of *information*: of facts, or, perhaps, as a source of contemporary public commentary around a subject. You cannot use popular media as a source of analysis. So, for example, you could use popular media articles from the time period, in conjunction with legislative records, to understand the details of and popular sentiment about a change in Australian tax law in 1980. You can't (only) use a post on medium as a sole source of analysis as to why that tax law change was academically significant.
The explanation: you have to indicate that you are fully aware of the drawbacks of using popular media as a source of information for analysis, that you have considered the issues with doing so. You then have to show why it is methodologically necessary to use the media source. I use a lot of local Latin American crime reporting in my research, which I cross reference with government records that I have access to. The local reporting adds context, flavour, and a bit more detail to the government records, sometimes revealing types of information that don't exist in official reports. Media sources also provide names of people that I can follow up with. I note this when I explain my research methods.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: With all due respect, I believe you are mistaken. There is **a lot** of published research on AI, including the work done at Google. Of course, they don't publish every piece of work they've ever done, but there's a lot out there. For example, if you were interested in something related to AlphaGo, you should look into
>
> <NAME>, et al. "A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go through self-play." Science 362.6419 (2018): 1140-1144.
>
>
>
With that said, I see a lot of people, especially those new to the field, finding the papers hard to read, or hard to track down the paper that answers their question. If one wants to learn about how to *use* a particular implementation of a particular method, I've heard many times now that it's much easier to read blog posts than to read research papers.
If that's what you're doing, that's fine; technical papers aren't always the best place to learn "Hello World". In whatever paper you write, you generally don't cite the website that taught you how to use the package you used, but rather the paper associated with the package you used. For example, if you are using TensorFlow, you should cite
>
> <NAME>, et al. "Tensorflow: A system for large-scale machine learning." 12th {USENIX} Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation ({OSDI} 16). 2016.
>
>
>
rathe than citing
>
> <https://www.tensorflow.org/tutorials>
>
>
>
even if that's where you learned how to use the code.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: There's nothing wrong with using popular articles as a source of information - for example if I were trying to get a sense of a new field, Wikipedia is one of the first resources I make use of. But using these as *primary* sources is very iffy. These popular-level articles are written by people who read the research works and then simplified them for laymen. If you're working at PhD level, surely you can read and understand the research works too.
The situation you describe is rather weird. If you're just looking for a reference for "Google has done this", then it'd work as a source. However if you want something more substantial, and if Google is holding some private information which they're not telling others, then the popular-level articles aren't going to help. They won't contain the relevant information either, and you won't be able to duplicate their results using only those. What are you hoping to get out of them then?
In any case your advisor is the best person to ask about this, because he/she will have a better idea about what research question you're hoping to answer, and how to go about answering it. It is plausible that your advisor wants you to reverse engineer Google's product based on the popular-level article, and if that's indeed your goal, then the answer to your question is "yes".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: It sounds to me that there's a confusion between two things:
* Motivations of the research: imho it's completely fine to use non-academic sources to justify **why** the research is being done, especially in the case of a new application/domain. This part can even require a thorough analysis of what it would be used for, by whom and what are existing solutions (for instance commercial solutions available). Such work might even qualify as a (probably small) contribution by itself, in the form of some preliminary work to introduce a new application for example.
* The actual research contribution, i.e. **what is being done and how**: it's quite unlikely that a non-academic source would provide all the necessary background (especially theoretical) on which the application is based. Even if it did, its scientific validity could be questioned. So for this part it's difficult to imagine a case where one doesn't rely mostly on regular academic sources, typically in the form of a literature review of existing related works. Note that related works don't have to address the exact same problem: as long as they share some similarities (e.g. similar method for a different task), they are relevant. In this part it's important to provide details about the similarities and differences between the existing work and the contribution.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_8: Let me provide an example that may be analagous to your current situation.
GPGPU (general purpose GPU) programming first started taking off in its current form when NVIDIA released the GTX 8800 graphics card family and the CUDA programming language back in 2006 through 2008.
This represented a step change from the previous GPGPU techniques in that it was the first true dedicated programming environment that didn't require a connection to a traditional graphics rendering pipeline.
The details of the GPU hardware architecture were not well understood and the only material available on the details were some marketing materials from NVIDIA.
Various research papers started cropping up at the time that attempted to work out the details of the underlying hardware architecture. Basically, they tried to take proprietary NVIDA R&D, understand the how it was done and explain it to the academic community. A good example of this is this paper:
>
> Hong, Sunpyo, and <NAME>. *"An analytical model for a GPU architecture with memory-level and thread-level parallelism awareness."* In ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 152-163. ACM, 2009.
>
>
>
These early papers tended to reference two major sources of information:
1. Marketing and technical publications from NVIDIA (in your case, from the Google product / service)
2. General technical material on GPUs, hardware architectures and specialized programming languages (in your case, AI in general and the math or other techniques your specific AI applications build on)
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: So in the Summer, I was offered to work on a paper with a doctor at my local university. The main goal of the paper is to try and predict the amount of displacement when pressure is applied to a 3D-printed ball of titanium using machine learning. The thing is that the main focus of the paper is about 3D printing with titanium but machine learning is used to achieve some of the results that couldn't be simulated easily.
Fast forward a couple of months, my work ended and I did what I was supposed to do. The other day, the doctor I was working with called me and told me I did a good job and offered me to work on it during the school year as well. The thing is, I have to put quite a few hours into it and I go to school so I don't want to do it if it won't help me that much in the future. So my question is, how would working on this paper, which is mainly about something I won't do in the future, help me later?
By the way, I'm a freshman in high school.
Thank you so much in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I'm a freshman in high school
>
>
>
And you’re already sure about what you’ll do in the future? I’m impressed. In any case, you shouldn’t worry too much about what your future research topic would be. I was sure I’d be a chef and ended up with a PhD in math. People’s interests vary wildly over time.
What does matter is that you have the capacity to do research at a very young age, which is impressive to anyone reading your CV when considering you for undergraduate programs or hiring you for a job. If this is a legit opportunity I’d take it even if it’s not 100% within my field of interest.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: username_1 gave a really good answer above, but I want to note another aspect: not only are you young enough that you might not know what you want to do or might change what you want to do, but the experience of research in general will be helpful. This will be helpful in at least two ways. First, and most cynically, it will look good for college (and later grad school if you choose to go that direction). Second, some of the skills from research apply to research in general, or to related areas; if you are working on a project that involves both hands-on work as well as machine learning then that means you are likely both learning good lab habits as well as getting exposure to programming and related topics. It may also help produce a good general approach to research.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> how would working on this paper, which is mainly about something I won't do in the future, help me later?
>
>
>
You did not really hint about how distant this machine learning and 3D work is from the field you are interested in. The skills and relationship with the doctor would be helpful in helping you differentiate yourself from your other high school colleagues. However, I suspect you are similarly accomplished in the field that you are interested in and would be likely doing relevant projects instead. If that is the case, then maybe spreading yourself thin may not be a good idea.
It also depends on how competitive the field that you are interested in is as well. If you can easily get into the course that you are passionate about, then diverting your time and effort to challenging work is definitely worthwhile. However, if your course requires jumping through and having strong scores in high school, then maybe this distraction may not be as beneficial...
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I applied to a funded advertised PhD position about 7 weeks ago... I heard nothing between then and a few days ago when I got an email from them saying that they “wondered” whether I would be willing to self-fund my research. I let them know that I wouldn’t be able to do that and have heard nothing back from them since... The issue here is that I don’t know how to take this.
I’m under the impression that my application was well above average (I had it looked over by several academics I know) and I’m pretty sure that I was one of the first people who applied, if not the first.
I just want to know if I should take their question to mean that they are not willing to fund my research. Is this standard practice? And if it is, what does it mean?<issue_comment>username_1: Only they know the meaning and implication of what they said. You will have to ask to know if you are in contention or not. Perhaps, since the position was intended to be funded, that they are thinking of bringing in more than one person with only one funded.
My response would be to simply ask them what are the next steps you should take to complete your application and what is the time scale for them to make a decision.
But I would also not give up on any other opportunities that you have or that you could explore.
The question asked of you was a bit strange, even a bit improper. Maybe it was just awkwardness on their part and maybe something worse. But don't make assumptions or take actions that might be wrong and that might disadvantage yourself.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Answering for the UK and for not-STEM: YMMV in other locations or subjects.
In such a situation it is very likely that you have not been given the funded position. If I were to speculate here, the internal decision about the funded position was likely made and whoever contacted you assumed you had already been notified that you did not get it. However, it is certainly acceptable and appropriate for you to ask about the status of that application and you need not hesitate.
However, to put things in perspective, my subject area recently had over 100 applicants for 4 funded PhD positions (and 86 applicants for a single post doc position). It certainly didn't matter at all who applied first as no one looks at the applications until the closing date, and we don't look at them in the order they come in. While you might believe your application was strong, and it might be strong, if you are facing a similar applicant to award ratio, your prospects aren't good.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Do you need a problem to find a new discovery? Are there any publications that solely exist to classify parts of existing theories without targeting a real-world problem?<issue_comment>username_1: Feynman noticing the periodicity of wobble and rotation of a dinner plate. The fractional quantum Hall effect. HTSC cuprates. Initial discovery of superconductivity. <NAME>. Many discoveries of new plants and animals. Penicillin. Teflon. The discovery of the Americas.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Probably very common in mathematics, e.g., the Radon transform which was first described in 1917 and found its major applications in the 1960s with the invention of computer tomography.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: It is a bit unclear what you mean or whether you are only interested in *applications* of research when you say "real-world".
Almost all research starts out without a well defined problem that is known in the literature. There are classic unsolved problems, of course, and people work on those, but graduate students are advised to avoid them. If a problem has been known for a while it has probably been worked on and the solution is (a) likely pretty hard and (b) the field hasn't yet developed the base to make a solution accessible. If hundreds of people have looked at a problem without a solution it is probably pretty hard.
The *Four Color Theorem* is instructive. Can you color every planar map with only four colors so that adjacent regions have different colors. The theorem has now been proven, but until computers came along the proof was pretty inaccessible. The proof is also unsatisfying to many mathematicians, since the analysis of a large set of cases that the proof requires looks pretty boring. Perhaps someone someday will have the insight for an elegant proof. But for a doctoral student to stake his/her future on finding that proof would be a tactical mistake.
Most research starts out with someone simply wondering about a question they have based on their readings. They don't find the question stated somewhere most likely, but they are puzzled by something and wonder if they can resolve their puzzlement somehow. "How do people balance themselves?" "How do bats find insects in the dark?" "Why do large dinosaurs have holes in their skulls?" "How does the local behavior of a real valued function affect the global behavior?"
A lot of research (doctoral level) starts out with an advisor giving a recent paper to a student with instructions to read it and then answer the question "What do you think about that?". Not very well formed. A research question might arise from their discussion. Is it correct? Can it be extended? Can it be combined with this other thing? Suppose look at what happens if we change *this* assumption?
The research grows out of those questions by finding some methodology that can get close to an answer.
But if you are only interested in applications, I think that the original researchers in most fields don't think much about that. Some do, of course, but more are interested in the pure knowledge that can arise.
The original researchers about bat echolocation weren't thinking about radar and how to catch speeding automobiles. That came later.
Most pure mathematicians study math for the ideas. My own dissertation was so esoteric that I assumed (not quite fifty years ago) that it would never find application in the real world. My results were *unique*, but not useful, most likely.. After thirty years or so, I was proven wrong when someone else found a "real world" use for what I did purely for the intellectual challenge (and the degree, of course). And I was surprised to see the application appear.
Applied mathematicians, on the other hand, do start with a given problem, but, again, it is probably a problem that they formulate themselves, rather than one that they found already fully formed in the literature.
Likewise, people in product development start with an idea for a useful product and work to create it. But that is a bit different from research as an intellectual activity. But no one looked in the literature for the problem "How do you create an iPod?" back in the day. The creation of the problem itself was an important part of the process. \_
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: The example that popped into my head was the discovery of the [muon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon), about which I. I. Rabi famously quipped, "Who ordered that?" No one had predicted that any such particle would exist, and we still have no idea why it exists (more precisely, why there are three copies of all of the fundamental fermions). They were looking for [pions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pion), which happen to have a similar mass but are otherwise unrelated.
Since their discovery muons have seen a few practical applications, such as [muon tomography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon_tomography).
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: My paper has been accepted in a conference related to computer science.
I need to prepare a Poster for presentation. This is my first time, I tried to find some good templates but ended up nothing. I am confused. Could you please advise some good templates where I can prepare a poster? and please give some suggestions to prepare a good poster. Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: There is no “one size fits all” presentation template...
List the headings for what you need to say and cover then go from there.
So:
1. Bio
2. Intro
3. Etc
You need to anticipate what questions may be asked and that helps focus on what you should cover. Usually the issues and solutions are interesting...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Definitely worthwhile looking at previous posters from your conferences and other plus hunting around for posters from your department and team. There are some good sites that go through the background and with more concrete suggestions.
For a more traditional style of poster - <https://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design/>
There has been a spate of new poster styles if you are feeling adventurous - [London School of Economics](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/05/11/how-to-design-an-award-winning-conference-poster/)
-
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: My paper was in "Reviewer invited" state for close to 7 months and recently changed to the status "Under Review". Why did it took 7 months for a reviewer/reviewers to accept to review, or find one who accepted? Is this generally a bad sign? and how much time it may on the "under review" state? Is it recommended to wait further for the review process to complete? Its an inter disciplinary math journal, to which both engineers and mathematicians contribute.<issue_comment>username_1: There is no “one size fits all” presentation template...
List the headings for what you need to say and cover then go from there.
So:
1. Bio
2. Intro
3. Etc
You need to anticipate what questions may be asked and that helps focus on what you should cover. Usually the issues and solutions are interesting...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Definitely worthwhile looking at previous posters from your conferences and other plus hunting around for posters from your department and team. There are some good sites that go through the background and with more concrete suggestions.
For a more traditional style of poster - <https://colinpurrington.com/tips/poster-design/>
There has been a spate of new poster styles if you are feeling adventurous - [London School of Economics](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/05/11/how-to-design-an-award-winning-conference-poster/)
-
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: As a fifth year PhD student, I am currently finalizing my manuscripts for submission having worked on them for over the past two years. However, everytime I am editing my manuscripts based on the feedback from my advisor, I feel disgusted with the quality of work done. I feel that I have done a really poor non-rigorous job and I should have worked harder or in a different topic to make the work more worthy of getting published. I also feel that the work presented in the manuscript won't get accepted anywhere and I have just wasted my time.
Is it something everyone experiences or am I suffering from self-esteem and confidence issues? How to overcome this feeling?<issue_comment>username_1: Having a strict deadline looming over you is really effective in overcoming those feelings and replacing them with total panic instead. But to be more serious, it is best to realize that most, if not all of us felt something like this at some point. It is just another part of the usual impostor-syndrome. Talk to your colleagues as a form of group therapy. Also there are two things are good to keep in mind here:
1. Personal growth: Why do you know now that you could have done better? Congratulations, it's because you improved so much that what was hard to get right back then now seems terribly obvious to you.
2. Don't waste time on things you cannot change. Worrying about what you did not do does not change your previous work, it only takes away time from other things you could do now, so focus those.
Finally remember all the published work you read while working on your PhD. How much of it was truly perfect? And how much of it was badly written, full of incomprehensible sentences and small mistakes? If the underlying ideas are good enough it will still get published (and worrying about that is your adviser's job). You might not get it accepted on the first try, in your favorite top journal, but again that happens to everyone.
So in short, just try to "get on with it". (But as a footnote of course don't be afraid to look for professional help if those feelings start to impair your work.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your feelings might also be connected to a lack of experience in writing/publishing papers. You as a true expert in your field (I assume you are one after 5 years working on it) of course know what still could be added to your research. But a single paper does not have to save the world. If your results are good enough to answer your hypotheses, it will be a valuable contribution to the community even if progress is rather incremental.
One thing that often happens during a PhD is that results are somewhat different than expected. Then I often see that it is difficult for the students to re-formulate their hypotheses, they rather cling to the original ones. This inevitably results in a hard-to-read manuscript. But as soon as they start to rethink open-minded what their results really tell them, and forget what they expected their results should tell them, the texts become readable and their feelings towards their work improve a lot.
Maybe you can find a peer who is not involved in your work who can discuss your results with you to add another perspective? This can be done in addition to your advisor's advice which you could/should also seek.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am about to submit my MSc thesis which is written in the shape of a paper manuscript plus introduction, extended conclusions and the appendix. My research group encourages this format to streamline the publication of research results. I now have to chose an appropriate title for both the paper manuscript and the thesis itself.
Would it be ill-advised to choose the same titles here? On the one hand both works deal with exactly the same topic and I initially put the same titles, on the other hand it might be weird to end up with two publications of the same name once the paper gets published somewhere (considering search engines etc). This whole format is fairly new to me (and my supervisor) so I am interested in opinions and experiences from the community.<issue_comment>username_1: I think this is a tricky issue faced by many people today. In the past, a publication with the same name and overlapping content would be fine, since the dissertation wasn't published in any formal sense. Today it is quite different. You need to avoid two things. The first is self plagiarism. This is using your old words/materials without citation. The second is having double publication of the same ideas with the intent of getting two publications for the "price" of one. Even if that isn't the intent, it can be so charged, to your detriment.
One way to avoid the problem, I think, is to consider the paper and the dissertation to be two versions of the same work, not two independent works. This works especially well if the paper is published first and the advisor and committee agree that the dissertation is "an expanded version" of the paper. The two versions reference each other.
If that is acceptable, then the paper notes that an expanded version will appear as the dissertation. And the dissertation notes that it *is* an expanded version of a previous paper (published or submitted).
To make it easy for people reading the paper to find the dissertation, give a citation. I think that naming it the same is a less important issue than that the two *versions* point to one another. But if both wind up published, then having similar but not identical names is probably better.
The problem with self plagiarism (and double publications) is that each version contains some context that is missing from the other. A scholar will want to see all of the context, including references and citations made, and so will want to be able to find the other version reasonably easily.
---
Note, importantly, that I've intentionally used tentative language here. Opinions may even vary by field.
In some fields a cumulative dissertation is pretty standard. A dissertation there is a collection of a few published papers with some introductory material and conclusion. But it is clear to everyone what it is. Make it clear.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with username_1 that this is a bit tricky. One could argue that using two different titles (or even two different texts sharing the same thoughts) for two documents with practically the same content is an effort to give the impression that you want two "publications" for one. For this aspect, the title or the text themselves are not so important, but the ideas are. In this sense, all thesises with results published in a paper share the problem with you. But I do not recall that this was ever discussed as problematic, so I see no fundamental problem here. But the discussion here already shows that there are different opinions.
In my experience, it is extremely rare that an MSc thesis is good enough for me to publish as it is. I usually have to improve the discussion a lot to be completely happy. So you can be proud of yourself if your advisors will pass your text including the exact same title to peer-review. Have they said that they will do so without major editing?
Self plagiarism might be an issue, if your university has a policy on that, but I have not yet really understood why this term exists at all. However, you should check the copyright situation in general with the journal you select. Many journals allow to use the contents of the paper for thesises and the like, but you might have to ask for permission. Or you could go for open access.
By the way: I know many people who change titles for instance when they present the same results at different conferences, just to make it look better on the publication list. I would not call this good practice. username_1 hits a point when encouraging you to make things transparent.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am planning to apply for Engineering PhD programs in the US this Fall; however, I am a bit confused as to whether US Engineering grad schools typically conduct interviews for PhD applicants.
I had assumed that most of the institutions that I am interested in would be conducting interviews of PhD candidates, to help gauge the personality/cultural fit. This view was reinforced by a friend of mine who did a PhD at one of those schools a few years ago, who told me they were interviewed.
However, I have spoken to another source that I consider to be reliable (basically, someone closely connected to the faculty of that school), who has given me the impression they don't do interviews for their grad school - they base everything off of the paper application.
I was a little surprised to hear this and so I am wondering if it is typical for fairly high-ranking US grad schools not to conduct interviews? Is there a general trend, or does it vary quite a lot from school to school?
**Note:** I have edited the question and title to take a step back from the apparent misconception(s) I seem to have had, and ask the question I probably should have started with in the first place. Hopefully it won't affect the validity of any of the answers.<issue_comment>username_1: I have not seen anything to indicate that PhD programs no longer interview candidates. I was interviewed in person by many (~75%) of the schools I got into for my PhD program in 2015. I doubt this has changed in 4 years. In fact, I helped interview several candidates in 2017 and 2018 at my school. I was invited to tour and interview at several well regarded schools in my field.
Note that some schools do not interview candidates. This is especially true of *lower -tier* schools in my anecdotal experience. But I had colleagues who interviewed at some rather prestigious schools in Massachusetts.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This may be discipline-specific within engineering. Most of the top industrial engineering programs don’t interview PhD applicants (I can only think of one exception, though there are probably others). They’ll still bring folks to campus for a visit day or weekend though after they’ve been accepted.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I applied to several R1 (top 25) programs for a Ph.D. in the hard sciences 20 years ago. None of them did interviews.
This contrasted with my undergrad application experience where many (but still probably less than 50%) of good schools did have an interview. I suspect the difference had to do with less interest in the "whole person" ideal of fluffy undergrad schools (cute personality and the like) and more interest in just getting strong candidates. In addition, the huge percent of admits coming from overseas (mainly China) made interviews a difficult part of the process.
Probably in addition, just the logistics of departments versus undergrads. If "Ivy" lets in 1000 kids per year, they probably can support doing interviews around the U.S. easily, using their alumni network (every one I had was local to me and via an alumni). This is harder logistically for a department letting in ~20 kids or so.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for the NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, and I noticed the [guidelines](https://www.nsf.gov/mps/dms/MSPRF/MSPRF_Application_Instructions_FY20.pdf) say the following:
>
> The Project Description should be written with both specialists and non-specialists in mind.
>
>
>
I am not sure what exactly "specialist" and "non-specialist" refer to. Suppose that in my application, my proposed research objective is to solve the Navier-Stokes equation. (This is just an example!) Will all the reviewers be experts in PDEs? Or at least in analysis? Or is the most I can assume that they are mathematicians (possibly working in areas like algebra or topology)?<issue_comment>username_1: I have not seen anything to indicate that PhD programs no longer interview candidates. I was interviewed in person by many (~75%) of the schools I got into for my PhD program in 2015. I doubt this has changed in 4 years. In fact, I helped interview several candidates in 2017 and 2018 at my school. I was invited to tour and interview at several well regarded schools in my field.
Note that some schools do not interview candidates. This is especially true of *lower -tier* schools in my anecdotal experience. But I had colleagues who interviewed at some rather prestigious schools in Massachusetts.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This may be discipline-specific within engineering. Most of the top industrial engineering programs don’t interview PhD applicants (I can only think of one exception, though there are probably others). They’ll still bring folks to campus for a visit day or weekend though after they’ve been accepted.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I applied to several R1 (top 25) programs for a Ph.D. in the hard sciences 20 years ago. None of them did interviews.
This contrasted with my undergrad application experience where many (but still probably less than 50%) of good schools did have an interview. I suspect the difference had to do with less interest in the "whole person" ideal of fluffy undergrad schools (cute personality and the like) and more interest in just getting strong candidates. In addition, the huge percent of admits coming from overseas (mainly China) made interviews a difficult part of the process.
Probably in addition, just the logistics of departments versus undergrads. If "Ivy" lets in 1000 kids per year, they probably can support doing interviews around the U.S. easily, using their alumni network (every one I had was local to me and via an alumni). This is harder logistically for a department letting in ~20 kids or so.
Upvotes: 1
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