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<issue_start>username_0: I'm almost done with my undergraduate degree (B.S. in a physical science) and, looking back, a good portion of my upper division major classes have been taught by grad students. Is this normal?
I hope the grad students are getting some sort of additional stipend for full-on teaching these courses in addition to their research since the department seems to lack professors.
Possibly pertinent info:
This is a public research university in the United States.<issue_comment>username_1: It is pretty common at the undergrad level. A doctoral student who has been a TA for several years might be assigned an undergraduate course to teach. It is probably less common for that to be an upper division course, but it could happen if they have the requisite knowledge and some teaching skills.
They may or may not (probably not) get an extra stipend for it. The experience alone is worth something and works its way into their CV.
I think that in Europe it might be very common. At least according to some of the people I've met there. But a doctoral student is probably considered a regular employee there.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It's more common to have a Ph.D student being involved in teaching advanced upper division courses than undergraduate courses. Teaching, say, student seminars on advanced topics like string theory is a task that a PhD student in that same topic should be able to handle without much problems. But you don't want to let a PhD student handle a first year classical mechanics course. Didactic skills matter a lot more when dealing with a large class of students fresh from high school.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: US News and World Report has [data](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-02-21/10-universities-where-tas-teach-the-most-classes) from 697 ranked colleges. Of these:
* 544 schools (78%) reported that no graduate students were the primary instructor of any course. These include all except two "National Liberal Arts Colleges."
* The 10 schools with the most graduate students as primary instructor were all large public research universities. These 10 schools reported that 18-26% of their TA appointments were as the "primary instructor."
Purdue University is listed as the school with the highest fraction of graduate students as instructors of record. Their [policy](https://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/sociology/graduate/current/handbook/Departmental%20Teaching%20Assignments.html) allows the department to assign courses to graduate students; it makes no reference to upper division or lower division.
As another case study, the University of California [reports](https://accountability.universityofcalifornia.edu/2016/chapters/chapter-8.html#8.1.4) that "as students progress through their academic careers and enroll in upper-division and graduate classes, they receive more consistent exposure to full-time permanent faculty and smaller classes." More specifically, the policy at Berkeley [allows](https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/coci-handbook/3.1.1) graduate students to teach lower-division classes, but they do so under the supervision of a faculty member, who remains instructor of record. However, Berkeley does [allow](https://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/coci-handbook/3.1.2) graduate students to be the instructor of record for an upper-division course, though usually in exceptional circumstances only.
**Summary**: about 80% of universities do not allow graduate students to be the instructor at all. Of the other 20%, most are large public research universities. There is less data about the courses to which these graduate instructors are assigned, but Berkeley is an example of one school that will "formally" assigns graduate students to upper-division courses but not lower-division courses.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/21
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<issue_start>username_0: Very rarely I have seen in faculty job application forms:
>
> Please list below names, addresses, and telephone numbers of references. Do not list the names of relatives or **previous employers.**
>
>
>
Why would a search committee *not* want the previous employer as a reference?<issue_comment>username_1: Answer: Employers are liable for what is said in their references, thus information should not come from the employer.
References are usually the opinion of one person who has seen that person for a certain amount of time. This person may have had several reasons to provide an unfavorable opinion about the individual, whether it be personality clashes or just personal dissatisfaction with them as a worker.
This can lead to many other complications such as people being fired unfairly due to this misinformation spread by someone else. Employers are liable for what is said in their references so information should not come from the employer. Theoretically it should also be possible to find individuals willing to say something positive about coworker's service so there's no need for negative comments either way
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Previous employers can be seen as being unable to give accurate references as time goes by, particularly if they have lots of employees or other work colleagues in the time since. By requesting current employer references, they could be seen as receiving fresher, up-to-date, more accurate detailed information, including faults not shaded by the mists of time, and part of that would include employee/employer relations when the employee is seeking to leave. For instance, my current workplace has 250 people or so working in this office. I've had over 20 different managers in around 6 years. There are several different linked offices that people get transferred to. And people may be transferred out of that as well. A manager may have had 400 or more people that they were directly supervising during that time, and that's if they hadn't changed positions during that time. Such a manager isn't going to remember the details of those they were supervising 4-5-6 years previously. A manager on the next tier up would have over a thousand employee contacts in the period.
The second factor, and not as nice, is that it puts pressure on the current employee/employer relationship to push an employee into moving towards leaving, and accepting the new position. By pushing the potential employees towards a clearer intent to leave the current position, it sets a stronger mindset on the person to depart & not window-shop for positions; and also puts a wedge on the current relationship.
Finally, it reduces the options on a potential employee to pick a more favourable employer reference. If I have 4 or 5 former employers, I'd choose the one I believe would give me the best reference.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: #### An Employer as a Reference Would Be Unhelpfully Duplicative
By a properly formatted CV, the search committee already has access to that employer, in case the committee would want the employer's perspective. Thus, including an employer as a reference would be unhelpfully duplicative: adding nothing new, only restating the employer as a source to validate the applicant.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: This is likely to be a case of 'not really saying what they meant to say'.
We cannot get inside the head of whoever designed the application form, and perhaps there is context that is missing here. However, taken literally the guidance would seem to prevent someone from (say) using their previous postdoc supervisor as a referee. This is so far from the usual practice in academia that I suspect it is a mistake. Instead, I would guess that the intention was to require referees who are:
1. named individuals who know you personally ("<NAME>, my former line manager"), not generic corporate identities ("The HR Manager, Acme, Inc."), and/or
2. people who can comment specifically on the candidate's academic credentials (so not "<NAME>, Front-of-house manager, <NAME>").
I think it is easy to see how either or both of these requirements could end up getting expressed as "not your previous employer", especially if a form has undergone several rounds of editing.
I suggest anyone filling in this application form should contact the relevant department and seek clarification of exactly what they want.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I competed for an Assist. Prof. in Greece with someone with 12+ years experience since PhD. Suffice it to say that it did not turn out well for me (4 years of experience) or other interviewees for that matter, even though many of us had the better\* research output in terms of quality, ranked venues, and achievements (3rd party grants and so on), but clearly not as many citations as we do not exist long enough in the field.
It also did not help that the committee favorite had their BSc, MSc, and PhD in that same university, and 12+ of postdoc in a partner lab in the vicinity.
But, anyway, I asked the committee the following question, which I also pose here: **At which point (if there is such a point) is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assist. Prof. position?**
They told me that the favorite had a higher citation count, so even if they were 60 years in the field they would still rank them first because of that. In my opinion, even though that might well be legal, it does not seem very ethical to me.
I am under the impression that an Assist. Prof. position is an entry level position where you are supposed to form your own lab, attract early-career grants to help you with that (which have experience-age restrictions), and work towards becoming a professor.
\*As an example, I will simply say that the position was on AI with a focus on Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, and the committee favorite had 0 articles in IJCAI, AAAI, KR, AIJ, or JAIR, whereas I had 6.<issue_comment>username_1: No sane committee is ever going to turn down a candidate solely for being 'too experienced', and it is rarely meaningful to reduce someone's CV and accumulated experience to just a few numbers. However, this comes with some qualifications:
* If someone is reaching career milestones (e.g. first Asst. Prof. job) much later than the norm, a committee might question why, and whether this is a sign that future development will be slow.
* If someone is applying for a job that is 'too junior' for them, committees might be concerned that either (i) they're not really a serious applicant, or (ii) that they'll quit as soon as something better comes along.
* By definition, if someone has more experience, then the committee has more information on which to base a decision. Junior candidates often have to be assessed in terms of 'potential for success' rather than 'evidence of success'. This can count for or against the more experienced applicant: some committees may prefer to gamble on a rising star, others may prefer the security of an established candidate.
* Hiring decisions (just as everything else) are influenced by many external factors. Everything from financial considerations (experienced candidate may cost more) through to government policy (how candidate's metrics would influence the university's ranking and hence income) may help sway a decision for or against a particular candidate.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: When an employer hires someone to do a job, in academia or anywhere else, their goal is to hire the *best person* to do that job, according to some notion that the people in charge of hiring have of what “best” means.
Now, you can reasonably disagree with someone else’s idea of what “best” means and think that they’d be making a mistake to hire person X over person Y. You may well even turn out to be right about that. But if they are operating in good faith and their definition of “best” is free of biases related to characteristics of the job candidate that have no effect on the candidate’s ability to do the job, you cannot claim that the action of hiring X over Y is unethical.
By this logic, your view expressed in the comments that “there should be a preference for people with less years of experience [...] because the position is entry-level” makes no sense. The only type of preference an employer should legitimately have is to hire *better* people. And it may be that “academic age” (time since PhD) can factor into the evaluation of who is “better” in such a way that the person with a smaller academic age comes out on top — for example some employers might quite reasonably prefer a candidate with academic age N and M published papers to a candidate with academic age 2N and M+1 papers, since while the latter has more papers, the former has a higher *rate* of publication. But the idea that a candidate should be *automatically* given preference just because of having a smaller academic age does not make any sense as a notion of “betterness”.
**The bottom line is:** it’s possible that there was some corruption or bad faith involved in this hiring decision; we cannot rule that out (or in) based on the information you provided. But the mere fact that a person with 12 years of post-PhD experience was hired for an assistant professor position is not by itself evidence of any wrongdoing or unethical behavior.
In other words, the answer to your question is “never”.
Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about hiring for academic jobs in Greece specifically. But I believe that the reasoning above will apply to most Western countries with healthy employment laws and practices comparable to places like the United States, UK, Canada etc.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Let's suppose that we grant you your premise that a person with less experience in the requisite job skills should be preferred for an "entry level" position. You do not give any justification for this in your question, but let's surmise that you take the view that it is desirable to give people with less experience a chance at entry, specifically due to the fact that they have a less competitive application than someone with more experience.
In view of that premise, why stop with hiring the PhD graduate who has a low number of years of service? Surely someone without a PhD at all has even less experience in the field, and so is in even more need of assistance in gaining entry. Come to think of it, an adolescent who has not yet graduated high-school has even less experience again (lacking experience even as a tertiary student learning the field), so surely they require even more assistance to gain entry. Young children who have not yet learned to count have even less experience in any preliminary skill in the field than a high-schooler, *a fortiori* for newborn babies who have not yet learned to hold their own heads up unaided. One observes here a *reductio ad absurdum* --- if less experience is preferrable, notwithstanding that it reduces the ability to do the job better, then what is the logical stopping point for this principle?
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> At which point (if there is such a point) is someone considered too old (in terms of experience) for an Assist. Prof. position?
>
>
>
I don't think there's a common answer to this question. All else being equal, the only real downside in hiring someone older for a Asst. Prof position is that they have a shorter time before retirement at that institution. Practically speaking, most individuals with years of experience are either near the Associate Prof. level already, or have other reasons (e.g. lack of research) that have made them un-hireable thus far and would continue to affect their hireability.
>
> It also did not help that the committee favorite had their BSc, MSc, and PhD in that same university, and 12+ of postdoc in a partner lab in the vicinity.
>
>
>
For your situation, I doubt having too much experience is relevant. It sounds like they were very familiar with the person they hired already. Many departments are required to conduct faculty searches, with an official job posting and multiple interviews, even if they already know who they want to hire.
>
> They told me that the favorite had a higher citation count, so even if they were 60 years in the field they would still rank them first because of that.
>
>
>
This sounds more like them trying to rationalize their preferred candidate rather than being official department policy. Alternatively, there are some countries where quantifiable metrics such as citation counts or number of publications are prioritized over quality.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Many years ago a friend of mine went back to school after a bit of a detour and wrapped up his PhD at the ripe old age of 31, then started applying to academic positions. One response, from a highly-regarded east coast school, was a rejection stating "we're looking for younger candidates, thank you for your interest." No doubt an outlier, but it tells you that sort of thing is out there, or at least was. This was back when one would send a letter and CV to the selection committee through the mail. Last time I visited him he still had that rejection letter hanging framed on his study wall.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am on a physics course. Often I struggle with following mathematical derivations, so I aim to scrutinize them very carefully to make sure I understand them. Sometimes I find mistakes in the lecture notes, which are harmless from the overall point of view (ie we get the same result, it won't affect subsequent lines). Nevertheless, they are wrong. Ie instead of writing J(x) (J as a function of x), lecture notes contain Jx, ie function of J times x. We mean the former, and later use the former interpretation. Or: writing exp(0-), where 0- is the limit of x as x approaches 0 from below, while the right thing which follows from the previous lines would be exp(-0-). Of course these are equal so not much harm done, but it is still wrong. Or when on the lecture it is said that "do check this at home you will get X", and I go home and check it and the answer is not X, that seems to be problematic. Almost noone bothers to check though, so it doesn't seem to be a big issue.
My usual reaction to this is to write a kind email to the professor to point these out. I thought it is useful for both of us, he gets to correct a typo, or I get to learn something new in case it is not a typo & I am wrong. I noticed though that this is not something common to do. Once I checked this on a course, and more than half of the entries on the list of erratum in lecture notes are the things I have pointed out. Am I a weirdo and I should stop pointing these out, or this is normal behaviour?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it is a good idea. While the typos you find may be harmless in their respective contexts, they can be a hindrance to properly understanding the concepts, particularly for students who find the material challenging and are not immediately able to identify when something is just a typo. A harmless typo, such as an incorrect expression that just happens to match with the correct answer for a particular problem, can lead to errors if applied to other problems. Furthermore, "do check this at home you will get X" not giving X is not harmless — students would not be sure if they did not get X because they applied a method incorrectly or because it was just a typo, which would waste time and cause confusion, as you also mentioned.
Whether you should report the typos depends on the professor. If they explicitly encourage students to report them, then certainly you should. If there is no explicit guidance, then unless they react negatively to your corrections, it would be a good idea to inform them, and as you say, get a confirmation that your understanding is correct. If you are still in doubt, you can always ask what they would prefer.
In your specific case, the fact that they maintain an erratum suggests that they see it positively. Some professors create a collection of notes that they refine and keep using for future offerings of the course, so you are probably helping future students as well. In fact, some may encourage it to the extent of [giving extra credit for finding errors](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/144955/68109).
I am not aware if it is "conventional" or "normal" behaviour in general, but I see no reason to not do this, as long as your corrections are accurate, useful, and you have the (even implicit) support of your professor.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Culturally, some physics people seem to take pride in using notation that's just sloppy - expecting the reader to figure out what was meant from the context if they understand the physics. For example, <NAME> (Nobel 1962) sometimes wrote just T (temperature) when he meant kT (energy = constant \* termperature). He also sometimes wrote "(something)/2mT" when he meant "(something)/(2mT)". He figured, if you understand the context, you can't possibly misinterpet this as "(something)/2 \* m \*T". My own grandfather was a physics professor and sometimes wrote like this too (they both studied under Abram Ioffe). I heard a plausible conjecture that some physicists who write like this, studied Hebrew as children and were taught to write just the consonants without the vowel signs, and expect the reader to figure the vowels from the context.
In my opinion, learning to decipher what the writer meant, from the context, as opposed to what they literally wrote, is still a useful skill for a physics major to learn. (Less so in other disciplines, such as economics or chemistiry, where most people aim to make their mathematical notation as readable as they possibly can.)
But there are way more than enough examples of this phenomenon in physics papers to master this skill. Helping make your class notes better for future generations is a noble goal. You also learn something in the process. Your instructors don't seem to mind (they maintain the errata). As long as they don't tell you that your corrections are over the top, you should keep going.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Some of the graduate programs in US schools require you to submit a diversity statement as a part of the application. I have looked at some resources on writing it, like [these](https://grad.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/DiversityStatementPresentation.pdf) [ones](https://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/guidelines-writing-diversity-statement).
I happen to be from a lower caste in India. Hence there are specific challenges I had to overcome to make it to college. I am not sure if I should talk about it in my diversity statement because
there are quite a few professors from upper caste community in the departments I'm applying to and I'm afraid if mentioning my struggle will rub them up the wrong way. Is it a good idea to talk about my background in a diversity statement or is it better to leave it out?<issue_comment>username_1: Your diversity statement is not about who you are. It is about why you should be admitted to the degree program. In particular, it is about your ability to work with other people in the degree program and your later career, and how this ability will advance the goals of the degree program.
If your experiences relating to your caste has prepared you to work with other people, including perhaps disadvantaged people, then yes, write about that in your diversity statement.
The fact that there are upper caste faculty in the department is not very relevant. Faculty overwhelmingly come from a higher status background than applicants. There will be many applicants discussing experiences that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable to faculty. Avoid stereotypes and personal attacks.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: ### I would recommend including it.
Please note that I haven't ever been involved in evaluating diversity statements, so take this with a grain of salt. This is just my impression based on my overall understanding of diversity statements and the factors in play with them.
While there might be a risk of a high-caste Indian professor seeing a discussion of being from a lower caste as something negative, if you're applying to an American school, I think it's much more likely that the people who analyze your application would be of European or African descent, and would likely be aligned with the Left wing of politics politically, because US academia is dominated by the Left wing in general.
Ultimately, the point of diversity statements are threefold: to show that you're capable of academic writing at the level required by the course, to show that you're willing to bend the knee to the Left wing ideology of intersectional oppression, and to help universities increase their diversity quotas by preferentially accepting students from "oppressed" backgrounds.
I don't want to get into a discussion about whether or not the groups that the Left associates with oppression actually are oppressed or not, because this is the Academia SE site rather than the Politics SE site, but I don't see how mentioning that you were from an additional oppressed group than the ones they usually consider, and that there was another axis for you to be oppressed by intersectional forces, would harm your application, though it may not help it much.
Frankly, the fact your skin is brown rather than white is more likely to be helpful to you - unless the PC brigade at that particular university have decided that Indians are "too successful" and are therefore no longer counted as an oppressed minority, like how Jews and East Asians are often treated, in which case the fact that you're Indian might count against you. In that instance, you mentioning your caste might also be a positive thing because even if they say that most Indians no longer count, then you should, because you're from an oppressed sub-group of Indians.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I hired a tutor to help me with a programming task (he did the whole assignment for me) a few days ago, but instead of submitting his own work to my professor, I changed the code from him into mine (I rewrote the codes from him into something else, I modified functions, I changed the code structure, and I tried to make sure the similarity of his work and mine was nearly zero, and when I checked the similarity report the similarity was low about 10-15%)).
Is my action considered as cheating or academic dishonesty?<issue_comment>username_1: First: That you take into account a "similarity report" sounds worrying. Of course it is possible to commit plagiarism which a similarity report cannot detect (reformulation of ideas or translations, for example). You might want to read up or ask around what plagiarism is.
Next: What you did sounds very much like cheating (if the expectation was to do this task on your own): You got the idea from somewhere else and rewrote it. It seems to me that rewriting was not the idea of the task. "Rewriting" sounds to me like "changing variable names, restructuring, exchanging loops, some functions" but not like thinking again etc.
Finally: Whether this is considered cheating (and if the assignment was "important enough" to consider some action "cheating") is up.to the prof and your university. You might want to ask them. If you don't want to, this most likely either means your prof is unreasonable or you yourself consider your action to be wrong.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'll have to guess that you have crossed a line and that what you did isn't proper. Also, your tutor served you ill by doing your work for you rather than helping you understand enough that you could do it yourself.
But the bigger problem is that you have missed out on the opportunity to learn things that might be important to know. Reading someone else's program (or math proof) is nothing like doing it yourself. Even if you "understand" the result you haven't done the necessary reinforcement work that assures you have any *real* knowledge.
I think you have made a mistake and should work to avoid making it again in the future. One way would be to talk to the prof and say that you have a tutor who "wants to do too much" by way of providing solutions and asking for help in how to establish a plan that helps you learn. It doesn't mean, necessarily, working without a tutor, but the one you are working with now is missing some things about how learning really works. You owe it to yourself to do more.
A wise professor, in answering questions of students will often respond with a question for you instead of an answer. Or they will give a minimal hint that will point you in the right direction or bring you back from a misconception. That is the sort of guidance you really need.
So, no, it wasn't really ethical. If you work harder and avoid such things in future, you will learn more.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Whether it is cheating or not depends on the rules set for the course, but if the assignment was primarily about doing that particular programming task, then it almost certainly is.
The fact that you substantially modified it does not change this. The expectation is to come up with a solution given the problem, not given another solution. The latter is usually much easier than the former, since finding a solution from scratch would involve understanding the problem, extracting key information, coming up with a suitable algorithm, deciding what data structure to use, etc., all of which is already done if you see an existing solution. Depending on the goals of the course, some collaboration might be allowed. For example, if the focus is on implementation, you might be allowed to discuss solving strategies with others, but would be still expected to write the code yourself, without looking at those written by others.
There may be certain exceptions — for example, starting from an example discussed in class or provided in the course textbook would usually be acceptable, but that doesn't seem to apply in your case.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have received an offer for an R&D position in a private company. I see that they do quality science, not differently from universities in my field, and they have awesome labs. Plus it’s a fixed term position, I would directly skip the postdoc.
Would such a path allow me to go back to academia in the future, if I will want to? Or would I have to do a postdoc?
This company publishes a lot, so assume that my publication record will be fine.<issue_comment>username_1: Sure it's possible. You just need a strong-enough CV to compare against the people who did do the more traditional postdoc route. Couple of examples of people who did it:
[<NAME>](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1973/giaever/biographical/) became a professor at Rensselaer (RPI) without doing a postdoc, but after accumulating a lot of research experience at General Electric.
[<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Ibrahim#Teaching_and_non-profit_work) had teaching positions at Oxford, Johns Hopkins University and Georgetown University without doing a PhD or postdoc, but with a lot of government experience.
[<NAME>](https://web.stanford.edu/group/moerner/cv/moerner_current.pdf) after getting PhD worked at IBM research center, served as visiting professor, and later gained tenured professorship
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you can do that. But, it might be a mistake to wait too long if that is your real goal. Moreover, consider the issue of letters of recommendation that you might want from academics in a year or so. It would be good to find a way to stay in contact with your advisor and other professors who know about your work and can recommend you highly. You don't want them to have a cloudy memory of you when it comes time to ask.
One way to start out that continuing relationship is to tell them *now* that you will probably want their help in the future and ask them for any advice they might have. Make sure they understand your long term goal is to return to academia.
Moreover, keeping in contact is a good way to keep open the possibility of future collaboration and start to build your own circle.
I don't know of any field in which a postdoc is *required* per se. What is needed is a way to buffer from the job market and build a reputation so that you compete with others for open positions. You can probably achieve that with such a position.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have just finished a paper together with a number of colleagues and collaborators from other universities.
We were about to submit it but one of the authors does not agree anymore. His explanation is that, while he thinks the paper is fine, he has a new idea and does not want to publish this as it would make his idea ‘‘less original’’ (because some parts of his idea are already in this paper).
Mind that it would be difficult to include his idea in the paper as while the methods are the same, the applications are totally different.
What would you do in this case?
I am the main contributor and another professor had the idea. He wants to cut out some other authors, including the professor who had the idea. **He’s quite a powerful and famous academic though, that’s why I think he’s feeling entitled to do so.**<issue_comment>username_1: Talk to the other collaborators who probably agree with you, and then take a unified front to tell him that holding several collaborators hostage is not ok.
Additionally, if part of his new publication uses a jointly developed idea which he intends to publish alone while blocking your joint work (that should be in the references of his planned solo paper), then this strikes me as borderline plagiarism. In any case, it’s very bad form.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Is he the primary contributor of this paper or the idea?
If he was the sole contributor of that specific idea, he has the right to withdraw from the paper with his idea. Your work is still publishable. If he soon writes a new paper partly based on his idea, you should cite his working paper as the source of idea. If no working paper comes out before your submission, then you should acknowledge him for telling you that specific idea.
This happens too many times that once researcher A mentioned a new idea to researcher B, the latter, if being unethical, may occasionally say that he was also thinking about the same idea for a while. This way, researcher A cannot claim that he was the sole contributor of that specific idea.
---
If he is not the primary contributor of that idea, then this sounds a little bit unethical. Is he going to write a solo-author paper or a new joint work with you and others?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Many journals have a policy that all authors must approve of the paper for it to be published, and if any authorship changes (for example, adding or removing authors) occur between submission and publication, all authors must agree to it. If you had submitted the paper with his name as a co-author, he might have been able to try to use that as leverage to block the paper from getting published in that journal.
**Since you haven't submitted it yet, the situation is a bit better, but still very messy:**
* (1) If it is possible to remove his contribution and publish the paper without him as a co-author, the journal is very unlikely to let him block your paper, but this might make him angry, and since he was your former PI when you were a student, this might not be a good idea. Pissing off your former supervisor can sometimes be harmful to your career (for example when you apply for things, your former supervisors can often be contacted informally, even if you haven't listed them for a letter of reference). **So preferably, you won't have to do this.**
* (2) If his contribution was essential to the paper (i.e. cannot be taken out), if you submit the paper without him as a co-author he could file an academic integrity complaint at your institution (or with the journal if you don't have an institution). If his contribution was essential, he would hopefully win in this academic integrity investigation. **So I highly recommend not to do this.**
**So what can you do that doesn't jeapordize your career?**
Two options that are better for your career in the long-term (despite not looking better in the *short-term*) are to:
* (3) Try to discuss the situation with the other professor, in a professional and adult-like way. Perhaps get the other co-authors on your side and get the senior-most one to do the talking (you said there was another professor involved).
* (4) Take a sacrifice and make a compromise with yourself: your long-term career may be more important than the short-term gains this paper provides right now, so maybe you can accept the cost of having to avoid publishing this paper, in exchange for the benefits of maintain a good relationship with this professor who you said is "powerful and famous". Hopefully the "powerful and famous" professor would be able to include you on the subsequent paper. **While this is not ideal, it would not be necessary if you are successful with your attempts in option (3).**
---
**So option (3) is the best option here, and if it doesn't work then I would in many cases recommend option (4). The third and fourth best options would be (1) then (2) respectively.** No option is perfect for you in the short-term, unfortunately. This is academia.
* I personally have settled with option (4) many, many, many times.
* **I can't count the number of times I did not publish something because a more powerful academic preferred to wait (even though that academic did not *need* to be a co-author.**
Upvotes: -1
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2020/11/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m writing a CV to apply to graduate schools right now. I’ve ran into problems translating some things in the CV.
How do I write the fact that I skipped one year of highschool formally? Should I just write -2016~2017: Highschool (skipped one year)? Or does this seem too informal?<issue_comment>username_1: High school attendance is not mentioned on an academic CV.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It also depends on the school system and on what „high school“ means in that context. The same term means different things in the UK and the USA, for example, and it is often used when translating from German school system even though it does not exactly match the system there.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you absolutely want to mention your high school with a skipped year, maybe because your CV would otherwise be a bit meager or because you went to a very prestigious high school, I would reference it as "accelerated". [Academic Acceleration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_acceleration) is a formal enough term for a CV, and most academics would probably be aware of the concept and can probably read enough into the term to understand you reference grade skipping.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: No one cares about high school once you have your college degree, either in grad school applications or in professions - it's simply not relevant. I'm currently working on my second master's degree and have been working in industry for many years, and I only recall one employer that asked about high school.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/11/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I am not from the US and my field is in the social sciences. A while back, I started collaborating with a foreign professor on a research project which is now under review and another one which is halfway through. however, I did not find these topics very fulfilling and I want to move to another area closer to my original interests (I already have two other published papers relevant to this new area). The complicating issue is that the professor has told me several times he would be very interested in having me as a PhD student. So, I guess, he may not appreciate the fact that I have decided to pursue another area with another supervisor. Therefore, it may not be very fair or wise to ask him for letters of recommendation. What worries me, however, is that if I list these papers in my CV (which I eventually have to when they get published), it may raise questions/suspicions about why I have not asked him to recommend me. I cannot preemptively tell my prospective supervisor or the admissions committee the real reason for my reluctance to ask this professor. So, I am concerned that if such questions arise in their minds, it may lead them to mistakenly assume that I have something to hide, motivating me to exclude this professor as a potential recommender.
Is this a legitimate concern?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't understand why you are concerned unless you happen to be in a place where it is common for an admissions committee to reach out for comment to others not mentioned in an application. I think and hope that such a thing is considered improper almost everywhere. And, therefore, rare.
Your application materials contain certain required items, probably including some number of recommendations. Supply those. If someone goes out to others who might speak negatively of you it would be a problem, but one unlikely to occur. If it does, then just speak to the issue.
But people are busy enough without going on fishing expeditions to see what dirt might be found on applicants. And the recipient of such a request would also be acting unethically if they give a bad "review" for such a reason.
I can't guarantee that it can't happen. But it should be rare enough that you can ignore it as an issue.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> the professor has told me several times he would be very interested in having me as a PhD student. So, I guess, he may not appreciate the fact that I have decided to pursue another area with another supervisor
>
>
>
Could be, if this person is vindictive and unethical. But if they are a decent human being they would write a gushing letter about how they would love to have you as a student, and other professors would take this as a good sign.
Unless you have a stronger reason to think this person falls into that bad category, I think they are probably one of your best potential letter writers. Someone who wants you as a PhD student is someone who has confidence in your research potential - that's exactly what you want from your letter writers.
Upvotes: 5
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2020/11/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been considering publishing the book I am writing with [Springer](https://www.springer.com/gp); specifically under the series Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics (or any related series). I believe the contents of the book would be a great addition to the related content published by Springer and I also believe it would be popular amongst both mathematicians and physicists. The issue [I believe I face] is that I lack a degree. The contents of the book do not necessarily warrant a degree, for the book is mostly on special functions and their employment. I should also mention that the book is about 90% complete (perhaps this increases my chances of publication?).
[This](https://www.springer.com/gp/campaign/chemistry-book-3) page is what I am most concerned about. I fail to be able to fill out the "Affiliation" and "Personal website" sections, for I have neither; i.e., I lack a degree and a website. Now for the question:
**Will lacking a degree in mathematics or physics prevent my book from being published?**
And a follow up:
**Would "hobbyist" be an appropriate title for the section labeled "Title"?**
I am asking such questions to gauge whether or not I should even submit my proposal. Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: Whether Springer or any other publisher wants to publish any given book is entirely up to them. I'm sure that plenty of books are published by people without degrees.
But note that first you need to attract an "acquisitions editor" who makes a preliminary determination whether it is worth their time to work with you. Convince them that you have the necessary background and writing skill: perhaps with a sample chapter. One determination is whether the material "fits" into what they think of as good things to be associated with.
Once you get into the system, your manuscript will almost certainly be sent to a few "reviewers" who will make comments on what you write and make a recommendation to the editor. If their judgments are favorable, then you will probably get published. But expect several rounds of review and re-edit before you get to the production phase.
As to your personal title, you can simply say *independent researcher*, which is probably better than hobbyist, assuming that you need any "title" at all.
But before you bother to submit anything, spend some time trying to understand the sorts of things they like to publish in your field.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: >
> Will lacking a degree in mathematics or physics prevent my book from being published?
>
>
>
It won't outright *prevent* your book from being published, but it will be a disadvantage. This stems from two things:
1. Without a degree, unless you can demonstrate exceptional achievement, you are less of an authority.
2. Without a degree, like it or not, your books will simply sell less. By extension, that means they're less profitable.
One can complain about these being unfair, of course, but the fact remains that given two books on chess theory, one written by a former world champion and the other written by an amateur nobody has heard of, it's practically guaranteed that the first book will sell much better regardless of content.
That said, not having a degree does not disqualify your book from being published. That still comes down to the publisher. Things they might take into account include "can I expect this book to sell regardless?", or "how much will it cost us to publish this manuscript", or even "do I need to maintain good relations with this author?" (if you can potentially publish more projects with them).
Since your manuscript is already mostly written, you have nothing to lose by contacting Springer. I would suggest doing it. Sample chapters accelerate the pace at which they can come to a decision as well.
>
> Would "hobbyist" be an appropriate title for the section labeled "Title"?
>
>
>
No, use Mr., Mrs., or Ms. as applicable (along with your profession).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As someone who has served as referee for math textbook proposals for reputed academic publishers, I can tell you that if your proposal were sent to me, I could not care less about whether you have a degree or what your title is. I would care about the content of your proposal and whether it convinced me that you can write a high quality, correct, and interesting book that serves a need for students and researchers of mathematics.
**However**. You should have no illusions that convincing me of such a thing is an easy standard to meet. It’s not. It wouldn’t be easy even for a professional mathematician with many publications under their belt, and I would expect that it would be doubly difficult for someone who doesn’t have formal training in mathematics at a level equivalent to at least a PhD, let alone an undergraduate degree.
But as I said, the lack of a degree by itself would not be a problem for me.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It depends what you mean by "publishing". If you want to make it publicly available, and touch as much people as possible with your book, publishing it by Springer is not always the best way to go.
As a personal experience, I'm writing [a math book](http://laurent.claessens-donadello.eu/pdf/giulietta.pdf) while having no affiliation. The "originality" is to be completely free (the [LaTeX sources](https://github.com/LaurentClaessens/mazhe/) are licensed as GNU-FDL).
Once a year I make [a summary](https://linuxfr.org/news/le-frido-et-giulietta-la-mathematique-libre) of the news about the project on a well known french open source oriented website. This is sufficient to touch almost 100% of my potential lectors.
This way I do have some feedback and people is writing emails pointing some errors/typos/recommendations.
In some sense, if you publish your book by a commercial editor, you basically trash your work since it will loose the rights to keep the book available to the community after the editor decides to not print it anymore.
An other interesting point in publishing "the open source way" is that you keep your liberty of writing what you want with your own style. My book contains illustrations from [xkcd](https://xkcd.com/538/) which would be impossible to use in a commercial product.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: *Will lacking a degree in mathematics or physics prevent my book from being published?*
No, but it would help if you show your work to established academics. If they like it, they may kindly say so to their Springer contact. (Almost every established academic has a Springer contact. They approach us as soon as they see we have not half-bad set of lecture notes online.) And then you are in.
*Would "hobbyist" be an appropriate title for the section labeled "Title"?*
No! You might as well write *crackpot*. Somebody else suggested *independent researcher*. I think that is a wonderful term in itself, but unfortunately it is tainted by the fact that this is how crackpots often refer to themselves. This is one instance where I would recommend a white lie, and say that you are working toward a BSc or MSc or PhD, whatever is appropriate in your position. (In fact, do put an application to a suitable school or college in the mail right now, so it is technically not even a lie.)
Upvotes: 0
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2020/11/23
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose Researcher A did some joint work with Researcher B. While the work was still in progress, or the manuscript was in preparation, researcher B became persona non grata in Academia, due to wrongdoing. I don't think the exact nature of wrongdoing is relevant here, but let's say it is serious, as in for example:
* faking research results (the research with A was not faked)
* severely breaching research ethics (the research with A was not affected)
* sexual misconduct towards subordinates (that Researcher A was not aware of during joint work)
What's Researcher A to do? I see four options, all of which have their ethical and practical drawbacks.
* **publish the result jointly with B as planned.** The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the practical one is that Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.
* **not publish at all.** The practical drawback is that Researcher's A CV suffers, and the ethical drawbacks are obvious: not publishing a worthy research funded by taxpayers is a waste of their money; it may hinder further progress of the field, and, for example, in Maths, if results have been announced or communicated to the community, then codes of conduct explicitly require that the details are published soon.
* **withdraw Researcher A's name.** The practical drawback is as above, and the ethical drawback is that generally nobody should receive full credit for the work that was in fact joint, and even less so as a "reward" for the misconduct.
* **ask/pressure Researcher B to withdraw their name.** The practical concern is that Researcher B may not agree, and the ethical one is that, again, Researcher A should not get more credit than their contribution to the work, and wrongdoing should not disqualify B from getting their share of credit where it is due.
So, what is the right course of action for A, ethically and practically?<issue_comment>username_1: In your question you considered the pros and contras of all approaches. For example, when you considered the option **not publish at all**, the main counter-arguments are that Researcher A does not benefit, taxpayer's money are wasted, and community does not benefit from the results. Let me discuss them in a little more details.
* Taxpayers are not benefitting from the *results* of the research directly. They benefit from the *impact* of this research: the practical outcomes, embodied in more effective tools, processes and products.
* Research community and the surrounding community of engineers, enterpreneurs, buisiness people, etc, pick up promising results and take them further towards development and impact. For this to happen, the results need to be clearly communicated, promising, and *trustworthy*. People are not likely to invest time and resources in results they can't trust.
* Researcher B commited an academic misconduct and compromised their *reputation*. The compromised reputation taints the trustworthiness of all their results, past and future. As a co-author, Researcher A might know that the results of their joint paper are not affected and trustworthy. But for the community and general public establishing the trustworthiness is not simple, and they have to rely on reputation instead. Unless Researcher A has a lot of reputational credit (i.e. they are Professor Famous), their word alone is not sufficient to wipe the negativity brought by the Researcher B being part of the team.
Perhaps, the best course of action would be not to publish the research done together with the Researcher B. Instead, Researcher A should use the skills they learnt while working on this project to obtain new results and benefit their career. Finding right people for collaboration is one of critically important skills for success in academia.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I expand on a comment by Buffy where this was hinted at:
It is a very different issue whether the misconduct was on the scientific level, which would cast doubt on the results, or on the social/moral level.
In the first case, it is difficult to trust the results if B is on the author list. Here, we have a serious dilemma. Probably OP might want to consider to cut their (and everybody's losses). Perhaps there is a way to publish it that makes it explicitly clear that this work has not been tainted by misconduct (editors note etc.).
To the second point:
Reiser's filesystem, Bieberbach's or Teichmüller's achievements are not devalued by their personal moral failings.
In this case, the research is done. It should be published. I do not know how important or impactful it is, but in principle, it's always a service to science and humanity, not just the respective taxpayer. Ultimately it's the OP's decision whether they are prepared to accept possible flak for their step. The research is separate from the authors behaviour. It's their detractors that would be trying to mix science and mores.
The only exception I can imagine for research to be suppressed for moral failures would be if the data were obtained in a clearly unethical way. The purpose of this is to discourage incentives for future breaking of ethical rules for obtaining it.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Publish under pseudonym(s)
--------------------------
One or both of you could use pseudonyms. As with all other options, this is a compromise, but in this case you're emphasising getting the publicly funded and/or important research out there, while avoiding further association with a person you don't want to be associated with, and not allowing them further credit, while also not tarnishing the research by association with their name. Of course it would be improper to force them to publish under a pseudonym, so it's still their choice, and if they didn't agree then it might be obvious who you are if you're continuing previous work.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Recommend publishing in both authors true names and modify the paper to include information to make it easier to verify the results. Make the data sets available, publish all the source code, etc. Don't hold anything back.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: **Publish your contributions as separate sole author papers**
* note this will only be possible in some scenarios, but it is important to present this option, because it is often the best one when it is possible
Remove the content contributed by the offending co-author and publish the partial work without them (most likely in a lower impact journal). This may not be possible if your independent contributions (your ideas, analyses, and writing) do not make up a significant contribution to the literature without the content from the other author. But often the partial work is worth publishing, even if not as complete as you would like it to be. Also you might be able to take the work in a slightly different direction with a minor revision.
This solution is actually quite generous to the co-author because they are then free to publish their contribution as a separate publication, alone, as well. They can build off of your work, and additionally you get a citation. Science suffers the least in this solution. The only cost to readers is the mental cost of having to read and find the work in 2 papers rather than one. While your paper may be less impactful than the original piece, a sole author publication can also be beneficial on the CV. This solution means you get to avoid the negative consequences of the association, but you ethically aren't doing anything wrong either. If you want to be really transparent you can even add in the acknowledgements that you are grateful for conversations with X on dates Y to Z. Note if Y - Z is before the scandal is revealed, it also provides evidence that these conversations occurred before when you might be made aware of the scandal. In addition, almost no one on hiring committees looks at the acknowledgements on your papers. So your reputation would be quite safe here.
You should of course discuss this with your co-author, but they might be more likely to cooperate with this approach than some of the other options. But ethically, this is the only option (besides not publishing) where you can proceed even without your co-author's permission, as long as you don't publish their contributions. Be sure to save all emails from the collaboration, so you can prove that these were your ideas.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: **Publish the result jointly with B as planned.** There is no hesitation here. If you want ethics, here's a teaching from the Bible [Matthew 22:15-21](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A15-21&version=NIV):
>
> Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.
>
>
>
Did Researcher B contribute his value to the study? Yes, he did, according to what you said.
Did Researcher B commit any crime within your joint study? Faked results, etc.? No, he didn't, according to what you said.
So, the reward of having the result jointly published with you (under his real name, for god's sake) is his, isn't it?
It's not your place to judge him or to take this from him - you are not the judge, right? Not even judge should have that right. Should all your contributions and credits be deleted when you commit a crime? Does it sound like justice?
Now, to your concerns:
>
> The ethical drawback is that it can be perceived as siding with B in
> the scandal/breaching a boycott, and the practical one is that
> Researcher A's career might suffer from association with the scandal.
>
>
>
OMG... this is based on a fear of being judged by a very sick society. Only very sick minded society would make these judgements.
You have to make a choice, if your decision shall be driven by real ethics, or fear of being judged by sick minded people.
Upvotes: -1
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2020/11/23
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<issue_start>username_0: I have possibly found a somewhat novel method of proving a famous theorem, and after some research, I found a variant of the method published as a paper. So, naturally, I reached out to the professor who wrote that and asked him for opportunities and I am waiting for a reply.
If he declines my request for help on publishing the paper, what other ways is it possible to get a paper published as a person who isn't affiliated with a university/ Has major connections?
Other than that, the process from an outsider's perspective looks a bit tedious right now, but what are the general things to keep in mind while approaching it?
My educational details are that I've passed out my HS this year.
Note: I've checked with some grad students, the result is indeed correct. The current state of whether they'll help me follow through with publishing however is a 'maybe'
Update: Got in touch with the prof and sent the tex file containing the paper to the publisher which he had published too. Hopefully gets some acknowledgment :-)
Update 2.0: Seems to have been done already [(See here)](https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1802085/317327), not sure if there exists a paper on this but that killed of the novelty.
A word from me to all the answerers: Thank you all. Turns out that my proof was posted before on MSE and I do not wish to publish something already done before. However for the actual question which I had asked, I have received many great answers and I honestly can not objectively choose a single answer which have helped me the most since all of them provided value to me in one way or the other.
As is most relevant to my individual problem of me publishing this result, I will accept Kostya's answer as they were the ones who found that the proof was done before. Again, thank you all.<issue_comment>username_1: Anyone can publish a paper, regardless of age or affiliation, provided that it meets the (rather high) standards of a journal. The standards will include things like understandable writing, but more important is whether the paper solves an "interesting" question in a "novel" way.
"Interesting" can mean new and important, or classic, or other things. "Novel" means that the approach is new, and for mathematics at least, something that might be exploited for solving other problems. A "famous theorem" is itself interesting, of course.
You don't need a professor's help to do this, but they might be able to give you some advice on your paper and how and where to present it.
But even your secondary school math teacher can probably help you with this, provided that they read enough of the literature.
But the way to get started with a publication is to submit it (probably online) to a suitable journal. You will hear from them fairly quickly if it is rejected. If they find it "interesting and novel" it will be assigned to some reviewers for deeper analysis.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd recommend not trying to submit a paper to a journal without guidance from a more experienced academic. That academic doesn't have to be a professor; anyone with more experience with the field than you should be good.
You've contacted the professor, which is a great start. If they don't reply, you can/should also talk to your teachers. Since you're fresh out of high school, there's a good chance your somewhat novel method might be wrong, or not novel. Your teachers have been in the field longer than you, so they probably know more than you; furthermore they know you personally so they'd be more likely to look at your method. If your teachers are unable to help, you could also ask friends/family for anyone with more formal training in the field.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I was in your same position in high-school, and not to come off as discouraging, but the results you have most likely do not settle the “famous” open problem you’re interested in.
In high-school, I believed I had proved P=NP by coming up with an algorithm that solved an NP-Hard problem. I even typed the solution and emailed it to a few Professors who, rightfully so, did not reply me. I had a look at that paper a few weeks ago and I chuckled at what I had wrote then. I did not understand what P, NP, correctness proofs, or even polynomial time algorithm meant, I just wholeheartedly believed I had solved P=NP.
You mention that your area is in algebra. If you have no formal training in math, the techniques you are familiar with from high-school will most likely be elementary algebra. It is likely that extremely brilliant mathematicians tried to tackle the problem, and failed to do so. Do you think they lacked your intuition or algebraic techniques?
If I were you, I would hold on to this paper for a few years and I would continue to study math. I hope I don’t come off as discouraging, it is just that peer review can be absolutely soul crushing for new researchers, and I would hate for that to happen for you when you’re still exploring Math.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Congratulations! Even if your paper contains errors, the mere experience of writing it and submitting it for evaluation by others is hugely valuable and shows superb skill and dedication from you!
Please don't stop! I'm not clear if this is something you have already written, or is still unfinished. I am not a published researcher, but I have many friends who are published academic researchers. What I have picked up from them is that papers are never 'finished' and never 'perfect'. So please, don't aim for 'perfection' otherwise you risk never completing it.
Do a rough draft from top to bottom including the end. Don't worry about formatting or grammar. This is the creative part, where you are getting your thoughts on paper and explaining how you got from A to B. Ignore any small errors.
Importantly, wait till after you have a complete rough draft to go back and polish it. Then read it again to catch out any embarrassing mistakes or formatting issues. Then ask your grad friends or a teacher you know to read it for an outside perspective. I apologise for the repetition if you've already done all this, I'm just trying to cover the bases.
As for publishing, go ahead and publish it! Another poster, @username_1, has mentioned the American Mathematical Society and others. If you're not American, maybe your country has a similar organisation.
Another place to publish is arXiv.org, an open academic publishing forum. They may or may not require you to get endorsement from another academic before allowing you to register with them to publish your paper. Using your school or college email address will help. If they need an endorsement, look for who is publishing papers most similar to yours on arXiv, and email 1 or 2 per day with a copy of your paper and a polite request to ask them to endorse you. Be sure to briefly mention your age and background.
Good luck! Getting a paper published on arXiv is a major achievement! It's not a peer review forum, but it's a big milestone.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: A particularly challenging aspect of writing a paper is the introduction. At least in my field of research, I expect this to contain a reasonable overview of related work. Context ist very important to appreciate the value of a paper. The standard is that this needs to be provided by the author, not by the reader. This was a major challenge for me for many years despite working at a top research institute where I have access to very knowledgeable people. For a newcomer this is even more challenging, since you won't have anything close to the broad overview which comes from many years of experience.
I would still encourage you to try. If you're lucky you could get an editor or referee who writes some useful feedback. And if you get it published, even on arXiv, you can be extremely proud. Just don't be discouraged if it doesn't work out.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Even if the result is not new, if your proof is short (and, by definition, does not require more than what a high-schooler knows), then it might be possible to publish in say American Math. Monthly, or similar. They accept short, nice proofs.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: The OP stated in [a comment on another answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159167/advice-for-getting-a-paper-published-as-a-highschooler#comment425846_159180):
>
> I have posted the result on MSE, see the latest question about Faulbaher's formula.
>
>
>
It looks like the question they are referring to is: [Faulhaber formula from geometric series and operators?](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3918729/faulhaber-formula-from-geometric-series-and-operators)
As far as I know, academic journals generally do not accept work that has previously been published elsewhere. According to a [Physics Stack Exchange meta post](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/a/13214/279176) by [<NAME>](https://physics.meta.stackexchange.com/users/8563/emilio-pisanty):
>
> Of course, pre-publication on Stack Exchange could make some journals and publishers refuse to publish the material, but that is a question that we cannot answer for you.
>
>
>
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: Congratulations on finding the proof!
I have looked into your comments and also your MSE post. Here are some remarks:
* **you are mis-attributing the field of your result.** It is not 'related to algebra'; modern algebra studies general, abstract features of structures. Neither is it related to operator theory as your tag suggests. If I were to name a field, it would be combinatorics, but the right venue for your proof are indeed high school/recreational math journals, like American Math. Monthly. (Although AMM is quite demanding on the quality.) Serious research-oriented journals are unlikely to be interested.
* **it is not true that posting your solution on MSE diminished your chances to publish it a journal.** In Maths, most of papers are submitted to journals after they've been already published as pre-prints on arxiv.org website. For example, [here](https://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0076) you have a paper in an area similar to yours published in AMM. Posting to arXiv requires an endorsement of your paper from someone who has regularly posted there before, but no peer-review process. Publishing to a journal is then merely a "quality stamp" (of course, if it's AMM, more people will actually read it.)
* you seem to think that what you need from academics is their "affiliation" and "connections". This is not really the case. **What you need is their expertise to decide whether the result can merit a publication, and if so, how to make a convincing case for that.** You can see from a linked example above how such articles are written. First, you need to briefly review the history of the problem and known proofs. You then need to compare your new proof with existing ones, and make sure that it is not one of them, and even not one of them in disguise, make the case about it in the paper, and ideally explain what is the advantage of your proof over known ones. (In the case of the paper above, their proof speaks for itself, in that it is just 7 lines long, and relies on an elementary identity whose proof is another 4 lines, so more elementary than existing ones.) You should also place your method of the proof in a context. Is it new? Is it a standard tool to prove identities which somehow was never applied to this particular problem? Are there other problems it can be applied to?
For an editor to give it a serious look, it shoulnd't feel like it's written by a know-nothing amateur who just came up with this proof, typed it and sent to a journal, because in that case, priors are heavily infavor of that proof being either wrong or a (variant of) something known. It must be clear that you have done your homework, know where your result stands in the context, and have a credible claim for novelty.
**UPD:** as I see now, there is an [earlier MSE answer](https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1802085/317327) with essentially the same proof as yours. I don't know if there's a published reference, but (a) I would be very surprised if there weren't and (b) it's beside the point, as it would be inappropriate to publish this proof under your own name anyway.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2020/11/23
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<issue_start>username_0: As we know from cognitive psychology that humans are most creative and learn things better when they are relaxed. I can also relate to this. I do much better in complex problem solving at home rather than in a test. Therefore, I have a hard time understanding why semester final exams are always given such importance and a student's knowledge is judged on the basis of these test results.
I think that what I have learned in 3-4 months can not be properly tested in only 2.5 to 3 hours. Why are exams in general are given this much importance when we know that test results do not fully reflect a person's potential?<issue_comment>username_1: **What's the alternative?**
Exams have been criticized since before I can remember, but if someone has come up with something better I'm not aware of it, e.g.
* Oral exams would "work", except those would also be high-pressure examinations, and they are also very time-consuming. Furthermore, unless one records the oral exam, it would also be difficult to resolve grading disputes.
* Homework-based assessment is vulnerable to cheating, since the student can get 3rd-party help with the assignments and it would not be easy to catch. Students can also work in groups, with associated problems (it's quite common for a few people in a group to do most/all the work and the rest just copy them).
* Subjective assessment where the teacher simply assigns a grade to each student is vulnerable to biases (which is part of the reason why grading schemes and/or blinded assessment are common).
* Finally, there's a school of thought that if you are unable to reproduce the learned material, under pressure, you haven't actually learned it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: What matters is (or at least should be) what you know at the end of the course, not in the middle of it. Thus it is legitimate to have some form of end-of-term assessment, and expected that is should have a disproportional weight, although it need not be in the form of a single exam; one might include student projects or term papers in addition to (or in place of) a final exam.
The difficulty is in ascertaining that the work submitted reflects the knowledge of the individual student (or group of students if there is a group evaluation). For term papers there are plagiarism tools; it is possible to test the knowledge acquired during a project by having specialized written or oral questions. However, it is not always possible or desirable to proceed as so.
The easiest way to assess students in a practical manner very often remains a final exam taken under similar conditions by all the candidates. (Of course this depends very much the discipline.)
In my experience, constructing an exam where students can, over the course of 2.5 or 3hrs, answers questions in a manner that fairly reflects their knowledge of the material taught over an entire term is *not* easy, and not always successful, but a well-designed exam should allow the more knowledgeable students to outperform the less knowledgeable ones, at least on average.
Of course, some students get lucky and some have a bad day, but in a large group the bulk of the students should be coarsely ranked by their level of knowledge of the material covered in class, else the exam is a failure *of the instructor* and remedial actions might be considered.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Assessment theory is a complex and large subject.
We must ask why we are assessing students. Off the top of my head, I can think of 3 possibilities:
* To give students a target to aim for. An understanding of what it means to have learnt the subject.
* To allow both student and teacher to assess progress and best plan where a students future time would be best focused.
* To certify that a student is safe or capable of performing a particular task (like a driving test, or a professional competence test).
* In order to rank students so that an employer can choose between them.
I think final exams probably do a bad job of the first two. The can do a good job of the third if the test is well constructed to actually be examining what the student will be doing in their professional role.
But I expect that we focus a lot on the final reason (to the great determent of the education and society in general). Exams are a really efficient and clean cut way of ranking people even if not the basis of genuinely useful criteria. The question is, what are they ranking them on the basis of? Almost certainly not the exact knowledge that an employer wants. Personally I think that if an employer wants to rank people then they should set an exam that actaully tests the thing want. But that's not the world we live in. Since an employer almost certainly doesn't genuinely care about your knowledge of medieval France, but just want some way to distinguish people, exams are an easy way to do that.
Also exams are probably the least work for professors of most assessment methods.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: There are really two questions here: **"what are pros/cons of final exams"** and **"why are we using them"**, which have very little to do with each other.
The answer to the second question is **it's been traditionally done that way.** Another post here rather peculiarly says that oral exams '**would** work', when actually in many countries, oral exams **are** the main or a very common form of assessment. It is unlikely that they work better in those countries, rather, the traditions have been different. **The main source of pedagogical expertise for a majority of teachers is their experience as students.** There's very little over the course of their subsequent careers that has any chance to change that, and little incentive.
To make a point, consider an easier question: **why do we still have 45min+45min chalkboard lectures on standard courses, like mathematics for economists or electomagnetism?** They are really hard to defend. A lecture is a rigid format that goes too fast for some students and too slow for others. It is way too long; studies suggest that after 15-20 minutes, most people lose focus. It's not really interactive; 90% of students are too shy to ask questions in a large audience. It's imperfect with lecturer introducing confusing mistakes, talking to the blackboard, writing in too small letters not visible from last row. Why not replace lectures with high-quality videos, of just right length, with superb visualization, sound and text, pedagogically tested (see [3Blue1Brown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNk_zzaMoSs&list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab&index=1) series as an example)? As these are courses given every year at thousands of universities, such videos can be produced at a fraction of the cost of the current working time wasted on the lectures. Contact teaching resources can then be used in more productive ways.
Yet every September thousands of lecturers walk into classrooms, take the chalk and say "A matrix is..." Why? **Because that's the way it's always been.**
Coming back to final exams, they may have real merits, or they can be amended with post-hoc rationalizations, but that's beside the point: **even if they were rationally undefendable, they would still be widely used.**
Upvotes: 1
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2020/11/24
| 2,886
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<issue_start>username_0: I was recruited by a university to work on a research project as a research fellow and have dedicated over 8 months to it. I have maintained a schedule of fortnightly presentations with another senior research fellow and professor to update them with the progress of the research. After I shared the first draft of the paper with them, the senior fellow rewrote the introduction and added his and professor's name to the author list. He alphabetized the list by our last names stating that's the convention they are beginning t follow, which effectively puts my name at the very last. I have done all the research and I feel shortchanged. I did not like the fact that this was not even discussed with me before changing and the senior fellow will be presenting my paper, I was informed. Again, I am upset about this.
Yet, I have been in the system for 8 months, 4 more months to go before my contract is over with the institute. It matters a lot to me that my name appear first in the list of authors as I am planning to do my PhD soon and having a list of publications with my lead authorship will help me get work with the university of my choice.
What should I do? Should I let this go and not be bothered or should I discuss my concerns with the professor? The senior fellow and professor are very good friends and have been working together for over 6 years and I do not want them to gang up against me as I am new to the field. Please advise.,<issue_comment>username_1: In the first instance, I recommend talking to the professor and respectfully asking the reason why they changed the author ordering. However, unfortunately it is completely conventional in some fields to always list authors alphabetically, meaning that if your name is at the end of the alphabet you're unlikely to ever have a first author paper (note that if it *is* conventional in your field, the professors you apply to do your PhD with will also know this and hence not be surprised or worried by your lack of first authorship).
You can mitigate this somewhat when you list your publications in your CV. Consider writing a small description or footnote after the paper, saying that it was signed alphabetically and giving a brief explanation of your contribution. For example:
>
> **Publications**
>
>
> "Your paper title here", <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>lastname1, *Journal of Things*, 2020.
>
>
>
>
> ---
>
>
> 1 Paper signed alphabetically. My contribution was completing X experiments, Y analysis and writing the first draft of the manuscript.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Speaking from a field where author lists are always alphabetical: This will do you good in the long run! If you follow this convention, you will never have to argue over authorship order - take a look at the amount of questions on this site dealing with exactly this question, and be thrilled that you have the option to simply exclude that from your life.
Since I am in such a field, I also know what people do on their CV: they explain what they did for the study. You can write that you did the experiment, the analysis and wrote the first draft of the paper. This will be more informative for a hiring committee than any amount or author-list ordering principle you can come up with.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: As others have noted there are some fields (and subfields) where alphabetical ordering is the standard and everyone understands, expects, and respects that. A paper with a different ordering will stand out in some way.
But the solution in such a situation is to provide a short section in the paper itself, detailing the main contributions of each author. For the PI, it might just be providing the lab and guiding the research. For yourself it might say that you were the main driver of the research.
Such a section can come early in the paper or at the very end.
And, since you seem to imply that this professor, at least, is moving to an "alphabetical order" standard, it might be to head off such disputes in the future. But it would be hard for an individual, even a powerful one, to do this on their own. Usually it is the consensus of the majority of researchers in a field. Pure Math and Theoretical CS seem to have such a standard.
Some lab sciences do not. Especially those in which a paper could possibly have hundreds of "co-authors".
---
Let me add a bit about fairness. Yes, you can ask the professor for the reasoning, but it might be a mistake to try to argue the case, because of the power imbalance if nothing else.
But, if there are unequal contributions that can be clearly identified, then fairness suggests that they be recognized *somehow*, even if not in author order. Hence, the suggestion of a contributions section.
But it is a bit subtle. Sometimes people contribute to a bit of research in different enough, but essential, ways so that any notion of "priority" is meaningless. Other times it is clear. In mathematics, for example, it can be devilishly difficult to work out priority when people are contributing insights into a problem. A person who spends little time on a problem might just provide the key insight that makes the solution possible.
In some fields there is a clear "driver" of the intellectual content of a piece of research and other contribute, perhaps with a lot of time and effort, but the *ideas* and insights come from on person or a small group. There it is a bit clearer how priority is assigned and it should be recognized.
In your particular case, you may be able to argue for that recognition in a way that everyone is comfortable with.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I had a similar experience a very long time ago: I was working with what would be my Ph.D. advisor's group and this work and I did a long and involved calculation which was the major part of a paper. After I handed in the results and helped write up the paper I found out that my name was nowhere in the paper, and only got a thanks in the aknowledgement. I first went and found a new advisor on a different field. Next, I emailed the journal saying exactly the truth: that this was my work. I was next summoned by the head of the department, who on the one hand rightly chastized me for not coming to him first, but then held a hearing commitee with 3 faculty members, to whom the former professor admitted that his contribution was basically 0 and my work was ingenious. The commitee forced them to put my name on the paper. It was the last author, but I had what I needed and had happily moved to an advisor more in tune with my ethics.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: **Ask the group if you can be the "corresponding author"**
In most disciplines, the corresponding author is either the lead author who did most of the writing/work or the PI on the project. They handle the submission and are in direct contact with the journal. If you are marked as the corresponding author on the publication, it will be assumed that you were a major contributor to the work, even if your position in the author list is close to the back. This convention generally holds more across fields than author order - for example some applied math journals have alphabetical author lists, but they still mark a corresponding author.
Note at the end of the paper you can put a section called "Author contributions" where you summarise what everyone did. Many journals require such a statement. For journals that don't require such a statement, I have never had a journal ask I remove it [mostly general science, applied math, biology, and environmental science journals].
On a CV you can put an asterisk in front of all papers where you are the lead/corresponding author. And explain this at the top of your publication list.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: * Please check if the journal actually has a detailing section of the contributions (i think in nature or science this was in the end of the paper)
* Check the Rules of the Journal, could be that they ask for alphabetical order
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: **Name change (Yes seriously)**
My immediate thought was a name-change. I see that this has already been suggested (perhaps jokingly) in a comment @<NAME>
---
**Personal anecdote**
Some years ago I changed my surname (by [deed poll](https://www.gov.uk/change-name-deed-poll) - I live in Britain). My original surname was "Smith". I wasn't ashamed of this but got fed up with people complaining they couldn't find me in company lists. I changed my name to something distinctive that I liked - I wasn't worried about alphabetical order. It is remarkable how people react differently to you when they hear a cool sounding surname! People even perceive me as more intelligent now! (Hint: Look up [nominative determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism) - it doesn't just work on oneself).
Because my surname is unusual now - I share it with a famous film actor - people remember me.
---
**But it's too late for this paper!**
Your name seems to indicate that you are female. Just tell them that you are engaged to be married and that you want to change your name ahead of time in order to have consistency with your future publications. Get a friend to pose as <NAME>. Aardvark is perhaps a little extreme and people will cotton on, however there are plenty of "A" names out there. Personally I would go for it - academics will love or hate you for it but you can bet they will remember you!
If making the change immediately would arouse suspicions, you could change your name after publication and see it as a future investment. If you have the necessary aplomb though, there isn't much they can do.
**Long term**
Having a memorable (not to say exceptional and cool-sounding name) will be a good career move on its own merit. Having a cool name that is also early in the alphabet will double your credibility - it will be the first thing that people see. So would having a name starting with "Z" by the way. You might like to consider this - it would arouse less suspicion. The effectiveness of always being at the and of a list relates to the well-established [Serial Position Effect](https://www.simplypsychology.org/primacy-recency.html).
---
Incidentally, I'll bet that, with the new alphabetic trend, and the acceptability of pseudonyms in academic publications, people will all start doing this and eventually papers will be written by authors all beginning with "A". It's called the [law of unintended consequences](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/01/one-ironclad-rule-history-law-unintended-consequences/).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: This is very field dependent, and also can depend a lot on sub-fields within a field. I don't know what your (sub)field is, but since you say the justification is that "that's the convention they are beginning to follow", I am guessing it is not universal in your sub-field.
If that is the case then you are right to be upset. This will harm you as a young researcher, while only marginally benefitting the more senior people who have been shuffled to the front. You are also right to be upset that this was not discussed with you.
In this situation, I would send a reply to both the senior fellow and the professor, stating politely but very clearly that this wasn't discussed with you, and that you are not happy with it, giving exactly the reasons you gave in your SE post. It's quite likely that they haven't really thought about it from your point of view, and the professor may or may not be unaware that it hasn't been discussed with you. In that case I would expect that such a mail would result in a swift change.
It's important to be polite, so as not to be seen as being difficult about it, but this is a situation where you do have every right to make your view known. If the authors aren't usually listed alphabetically in your field then you absolutely should be the first author.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/24
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a nontraditional applicant for medical school and wanted to ask questions about my application here. I was previously enrolled in another MD program. I had an undiagnosed disability that resulted in some abnormal behavior, including research misconduct (data fabrication). It led to me withdrawing from medical school program, but I have spent several years recovering. I have finished a PhD. I have published many papers including a few at top journals (Cell) since then.
I maintain a strong interest in academic medicine and I am ready to take another go at it.
How might my application be processed differently? How successful could an applicant like myself be? Do you have advice on how I can present myself in the best manner? Do I have a chance?<issue_comment>username_1: Present your case: Argue that your undiagnosed disability led to research misconduct. You've since been diagnosed and recovered, and any future research misconduct would be entirely your own responsibility.
Acknowledge your misconduct, explain it was out of your control, and take responsibility moving forwards.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the road is uphill and very steep. Research misconduct is bad, but in medicine it is deadly. Literally deadly. You will need to find a way to convince people that the past isn't going to be repeated - has no chance of being repeated.
But it is difficult for a person to reassure others, on their own, that they will be good, now, where before they were bad..
I think your chances depend very strongly on what kinds of recommendations you can get from others who know you well and are aware of your past as well as your present capabilities and attitudes.
It may be that people will take your previous "undiagnosed disability" as an ameliorating factor, but even then will need assurance that it won't/can't return. Again, others can speak for you and if they are putting their own reputations on the line for you, can make the difference. But people will need to be wary, because of the possible consequences.
The same concerns wouldn't be there if you were studying, for example, CS or math. But medical research is qualitatively different.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> I had an undiagnosed disability that resulted in some abnormal behavior, including research misconduct (data fabrication).
>
>
>
The first thing you will need to deal with is the fact that this explanation sounds completely implausible. I am not medically trained, but it is not clear to me how any disability (other than a moral "disability") would cause a person to fabricate data. Unless you have some pretty convincing details for that, colour me skeptical.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/24
| 996
| 4,235
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<issue_start>username_0: My supervisor suggested that I sent a pre-submission inquiry to a journal editor about the potential suitability of my manuscript. I wrote to the editor last Friday and still haven't heard back from them. I am wondering if anyone who has previously done so could let me know how long it took you to get the response from the editor? I am hoping that I could submit it by the end of November (which is already here) and just don't know if it's worth waiting for the response or maybe just submit it anyways. Would love to hear about your thoughts on this. Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: You wrote the editor last Friday. The time that has passed since you asked that question is a whopping 1.5-2.5 working days, depending on the exact time at which you sent your message.
This is a tiny amount of time in the calendar of many academics. Buffy is right in suggesting waiting at least a week.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There are several possible reasons for a pre-submission inquiry, including at least:
1. You are still in the process of finalising the manuscript.
2. Adapting the manuscript to the journal’s requirement for a submission would be a considerable effort. This should rarely apply nowadays.
3. The journal has on a long decision process involving multiple editors for desk-rejecting any serious submission and you expect that an unsuccessful pre-submission inquiry would be faster.
4. You can send pre-submission inquiries to multiple journals simultaneously – while you can only (ethically) submit to one.
5. You avoid the psychological impact of a desk reject (and instead may only get a vaguely negative response to a pre-submission inquiry).
6. You consider it more likely that the editor responds positively to your pre-submission inquiry than to a full submission and then sticks to their decision. (Unless you know the editor very well, I don’t think you can score better than chance with this: The editor may as well be more likely to respond negatively to your pre-submission inquiry than to a submission and stick to that.)
Only you (or your supervisor) know what reason applies to your case and this determines the answer to your question.
Going from what you write, I guess it’s Reason 1 or 2.
In that case and if your manuscript is ready for submission, I strongly suggest that you submit it immediately (and probably should not have made a pre-submission inquiry in the first place) for the following reasons:
* The editor has more information to work on and thus you do not risk a vague or “wrong” response to the pre-submission inquiry, in particular the editor responding negative to your pre-submission inquiry due to lack of information. In fact, my experience with pre-submission inquiries is that they at best yield a vague response.
* In case of success, the editor only needs to engage with your submission once, which is almost certainly faster a regular submission after the pre-submission inquiry. Consider this: Most of the waiting time originates from the editor being busy with other things. Once they have time for your manuscript, they will consider whatever they have at that moment. (Therefore you do not risk interrupting or confusing the editor with a submission.)
* All of the above also means less waste of the editor’s time, which is not only more ethical but also likely improves their attitude to you.
It is for these reasons that many journals explicitly ask authors to refrain from pre-submission inquiries, when they already have a manuscript ready for submission.
If you make a proper submission, be sure to briefly mention that you made a pre-submission inquiry in your cover letter or notes to the editor (depending on the journal’s submission system), for example:
>
> Please note that we have made an open pre-submission inquiry to [editor].
>
>
>
… and notify the editor to whom you sent your pre-submission inquiry, so they do not miss it, and make clear that you do this so they have the full information (and not because you were impatient), e.g., you can write to the editor:
>
> As we now completed our manuscript, we have submitted it, such that you have all the possible information available.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/24
| 3,478
| 15,758
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student and I have to supervise two BSc students in conducting their thesis. Unfortunately, I am very (very!) frustrated with one of them.
First of all, this specific student doesn't show up in our arranged Skype meetings (without prior notice). The first time we (finally!) managed to discuss his project he seemed to have no idea of what he needs to do. I asked him his ideas about possible projects and obviously, he had not bothered to devote some time to this (please note that our first meeting took place two months after the beginning of the semester which is plenty of time to decide on a research subject). I advised him to choose a subject he likes and read a lot of papers to develop his research questions and he asked me what a research question is!
But the worst thing is that he shows no motivation to work on his project. For example, he expects ME to develop the subject as well as the research questions. I certainly don't want to tell him what to do. However, I am worried that a possible failure in his project will indicate that I am an incompetent supervisor.
What should I do with this lazy student?<issue_comment>username_1: Things like that happen. (Also, as mentioned in the comments, you might be wrong on the reason of their behaviour.)
Close mentoring
===============
1. Assign meetings, say, weekly.
2. Make it very clear, you want to see some progress each meeting.
3. Steer the student in the right direction in each meeting.
You'd need to define their topic, the extent of work, etc. early on. No freedom, no "choose your own topic" – it's already too late for this. Pick one, make sure the student is Ok with it, say "go".
What I also tend to do after the topic definition: Elaborate on the amount of work. "If you do this, this, this, and this, it's an A", "if you do only this, it's an F, I need at least that and this additionally to let you pass." Notice, that "having written the actual thesis at least okay'isch" is one of those things they need to pass. Do not forget to mention it!
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: This brings to mind the old chestnut about how you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
First, get clarity on what your duties and expectations as an advisor are. You're a student yourself; ask someone who coordinates the undergraduate thesis program for advice. I'm certain you're not the first undergraduate supervisor to deal with this.
Second, make sure you provide help and advice without taking ownership of the thesis (unless that's actually what the department wants you to do, which seems unlikely). It's one thing if the student doesn't know how to proceed and needs help; it's an entirely different matter if they don't do any work or attend any meetings. Try to break down the steps the student should follow to get started in an email, along with guidance on how to do it and where to get more information. Maybe provide examples. If the student just needs help getting underway, this will guide them. If they really aren't going to do any work at all, regardless of what you do, this will serve as evidence of your efforts. It can also be an effective motivator to write something like "On this email from X date I suggested you try a thing. It's been two weeks, and I want to check in on your progress."
You can also talk to them about why they aren't progressing. Find out if there's an obstacle that they aren't vocalizing. We all know 2020 has thrown plenty of obstacles.
If things continue to go badly you might want to reach out to your own supervisor sooner rather than later.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I suggest you:
1. **Clarify with your advisor exactly what is expected of you as a supervisor.**
2. **Clarify (again with your advisor) what is expected of the BSc student working on this project.**
3. **Communicate with your advisor about the difficulties you are having with this student. I suggest framing it as "this student seems underprepared for successfully completing this project, and also may be unmotivated" rather than assuming that laziness is the problem here.**
4. **Follow your advisor's advice about what to do with this student.**
From my understanding of your question, I would paraphrase the problem this way:
>
> I am supervising a student who is doing many things that I am unpleasantly surprised by and not doing many things I would expect and prefer. So far I have been unsuccessful in getting this student's behavior to change. I am worried this student's behavior will reflect poorly on me or otherwise make it harder for me to achieve my own professional goals.
>
>
>
My suggestions are based on two observations: First, it can be very difficult to change another persons behavior. Second, it sounds like there are multiple other issues that you can address regardless of the BSc student's behavior, and addressing these issues may reduce or eliminate the need to try to change the BSc's student behavior (making it easier to solve the problems you face).
1. Clarify with your advisor exactly what is expected of you as a supervisor.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I am worried that a possible failure in his project will indicate that I am an incompetent supervisor.
>
>
>
This comment suggests to me that you are trying to solve your problem without a clear sense of what a solution looks like. Note, your goal here is success for yourself, and your success as a PhD student-level supervisor may not be contingent upon the success of the BSc student. You should clarify with your advisor (or your department, or whoever has assigned you to supervise these BSc students) exactly what they expect from you as a supervisor.
What is expected of you may be independent of whether the BSc student successfully writes a thesis. For example, if your advisor clarifies that you are only expected to available for short, weekly/biweekly meetings when the BSc student requests them and to pay attention and give constructive comments in those meetings, then it is very easy to meet your advisor's expectations, regardless of whether the student succeeds or not. (Potentially even regardless of whether the student schedules or attends these meetings.) Or, for example, if your advisor clarifies that yes, you were expected to choose a research question for this student to do, then (even if you do not want to do this) you now know what tasks you must accomplish to achieve what is expected of *you*.
Your advisor's expectations could be ill-defined or unreasonable, or they could be straightforward and far less of a time and energy burden than what you are experiencing with your current approach. Your uncertainty and concern about how the BSc student's success or failure reflects on you suggests you do not know these expectations, and I suspect this is contributing more to your frustration with the BSc student than you might realize. Clarifying the expectations of you is a problem that you can concretely solve without depending on this student to change his behavior.
(If you have already consulted your advisor, and know what is expected of you, then I recommend editing your question to provide that context.)
2. Clarify what is expected of the BSc student working on this project.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> he expects ME to develop the subject as well as the research questions. I certainly don't want to tell him what to do.
>
>
>
Again, you can consult with your advisor (or whoever assigned you to supervise) to clarify what the student is expected to do. Is the student expected to meet with you a certain number of times during the project? Is the student expected to come up with a research question independently? Was he told these expectations? (Is there a syllabus, or a list of learning objectives for the thesis, as mentioned by user @Mark ?) Clarifying what the student is actually expected to do can put clear limits on how much effort you are expected to expend on this student, and will also be useful for talking to the student about his behavior.
3. Communicate with your advisor about the difficulties you are having with this student.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's go back to a hypothetical example: your advisor expects the student to come up with a research question independently and only expects you to be available for meetings and to pay attention and provide constructive feedback. In this case, you could share with your advisor that the student does not appear to be meeting the expectation of coming up with an independent research question, and that you have been consistently available for meetings but the student has not be attending them. Your advisor might then have suggestions for how to encourage the student to develop a topic, what resources might be useful teaching tools for the student, or perhaps explicitly tell you that you have done what you can and you don't need to spend even more time chasing this student down.
On the other hand, if you were expected to provide the research question, or demonstrate to the student how to choose a research question, then you know that the difficulty to communicate to your advisor about is the student's skipping scheduled meetings and otherwise not doing tasks that the student should be doing (while you get working on the tasks you did not realize you were expected to do).
**Communicate about this student using more neutral descriptions of the student's behavior than you have used in this question.**
When you communicate about the problems with this student, I suggest framing it as "this student seems underprepared for successfully completing this project, and also may be unmotivated for reasons that are unclear to me" rather than saying "this student is lazy."
An interpretation of laziness is "disinclination to activity or exertion despite having the ability to act or to exert oneself. It is often used as a pejorative..." [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laziness). Because lazy is often used as a perjorative, when I hear a supervisor/mentor call their supervisee/mentee lazy, I (personally) consider it an unnecessarily unkind evaluation (adding a perjorative to what could have been an objective evaluation: "this student did not put effort into completing the project"). It makes me wonder if the supervisor/mentor is unkind to their supervisee/mentee in other ways, and that line of thinking damages their reputation in my eyes. Your advisor may not share my opinion (I've gotten the impression that decent number of people consider calling students lazy perfectly reasonable), but if you are uncertain about your reputation, I suggest erring on the side of using more neutral descriptions of the student's behavior.
Additionally, note that the definition of laziness is continent upon someone "having the ability to act or exert oneself", and the evidence you have provided does not convince me that this student currently has the ability to accomplish what is expected of him. To be clear, the evidence does not convince me that this student *doesn't* have the capability, just that I did not get enough evidence to convince me either way. Why is that?
>
> he seemed to have no idea of what he needs to do...he asked me what a research question is
>
>
>
You mention in a comment that "Actually he DOES know how to conduct a research project since he has organised and conducted similar projects during his previous years in college (small scale research projects though)." This makes it all the more surprising that he asked you "what is a research question?" However, I attended a teaching workshop on helping students develop "mastery", and the lecturers discussed the issue of students needing to both learn a skill and also learn *when* (i.e., in what conditions) to use that skill.
So an alternative explanation to "laziness" is that he thinks that choosing a research question for a BSc thesis is a different, more stringent process than how he chose research questions for previous, smaller scale projects, and that he has to do things differently for the BSc. He might have expected you to teach him this "new" approach, or to do it for him, if you are an expert relative to him, and was surprised and uncomfortable when you made clear that you expected him to accomplish this task without additional instruction or assistance from you. If this student does not recognize that his previous skills and activities apply here, then the perhaps an important and helpful way to supervise him is to have a short conversation pointing out that yes, those previous skills apply, he should use them, and he should regularly bring his work to you and make the changes you suggest to slightly size up the project for BSc thesis-level expectations.
Second, your inferences about the student's capability should take into account that there could many factors unseen by you that affect this student's capability. As user @astronat mentioned, we are currently in a global pandemic, and many students are facing financial constraints, illness or death among their family or friends, loneliness, disruptions to productive routines, or general mental health strains that are making it difficult for them to work. Perhaps one or more of these issues are hindering the BSc student's ability to apply himself to this thesis. All of these issues could also be occurring even if we were not facing a pandemic. Either way, you do not know, and it will not help you to assume that this student is lazy based on the limited information you can see. I say it will not help you, because you have framed this problem as "how do *I* change this student's behavior," when there could be much more powerful forces leading the student to behave this way, and trying to push back against them could be an unsuccessful use of your time and energy and cause you even more frustration than you have already endured.
4. Follow your advisor's advice about what to do with this student.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
This returns to step #1. Let's say you clarify your advisor's expectations of you, what the student is expected to do, communicate the difficulties you've considered, and then your advisor tells you that they do not expect you to change this student's behavior. That they expect you to be available if the student asks to meet for feedback and to document the student's progress, then you have a clear solution and now you can spend more time focusing on your own research, instead of spending time worrying that this student's lack of progress will hurt your academic reputation.
If your advisor expects more from you, then you will also have opened up the conversation to receive advice from your advisor about how to solve the problem, which can help improve your academic reputation as someone who seeks out and considers advice for how to improve your own performance (you've demonstrated it here with your question, but your reputation will be better helped if you advisor gets to see this, too). You may even be able to recruit your advisor to help with this student, rather than hold you completely accountable for a difficult situation. If you end up not liking your advisor's advice, or thinking it is wrong, then I'm sure many other answers here will give you alternative ideas. But knowing what is and is not expected of you sounds like the highest priority problem to solve, rather than hitting your head against the metaphorical wall of "getting the student to change his behavior."
Upvotes: 4
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2020/11/24
| 2,052
| 8,810
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<issue_start>username_0: I was talking with some instructors, and we noticed that there is a pattern of claims about technical difficulties. I wonder if there are any rules to follow of whether to allow or don't allow students to retake exams. My university and department have not set any such rules.
For example, don't allow to retake the exam unless the server is down for all students. Or allow to retake a new and different exam, but students should share their screens with the [TA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_assistant) or instructors.<issue_comment>username_1: Unless we somehow want students' grades to reflect the quality of their home Internet connection, the quality of their hardware, and their tech savvy (or their families'), there is not a sane alternative but to take seriously essentially all claims of technical problems. No, it it not really possible to "prove" technical problems, nor is it reasonable to try to insist that people with technical limitations be astute enough to document the tech problems!
Yes, from a traditional enforcement-oriented viewpoint this is "impossible". Yes, indeed, so, manifestly, that traditional adversarial viewpoint is not really (meaningfully) sustainable in plague times. So, indeed, what instead? Very context/culture -dependent, to begin with. Are classes gauntlets to be run [meaning adversarial situations in which one proves virtue by survival]? Or do we want classes to be fundamentally educational opportunities, and helpful to the students [as opposed to skeptical and adversarial]? In plague times, at least, what are *viable* (and useful) goals?
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have been teaching online for many years and used many [LMS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_management_system) versions. In my experience, all of the mainstream systems, [Blackboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Learn), [Canvas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructure#Canvas), [Moodle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle), ... and even the older versions like [WebCT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCT) and [eCollege](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECollege) are supported via the use of a commercial quality database system. I wrote this because it has also been my experience that systematic technology problems and errors are captured in the data logs.
The result is a record that can be accessed via the system administrators, which a school could utilize to confirm widespread issues. More important though would be that any mainstream system would have online technical support that would also be used to verify and head of any issues. All that said, I don't recall ever having to check the logs or even help desk records for a systematic failure.
There is always the occasional technology issue, and the best policy is a preemptive one. In other words, plan for the event, create a policy, stick to it, and update it when necessity forces the change. Along with the policy, create a well thought-out support system with processes for the issue during testing.
Finally, in my experience, [project-based learning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project-based_learning) is the best of all solutions (a subset of problem-based learning), where testing is not relied on to measure achievement, but learners are required to demonstrate real-world solutions to actual problems.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Technical difficulties exist. More noticeable the more important the action they are impeding.
On the other hand if they only suffered a minor issue (if any), it could be great to have an excuse to retake an exam they did poorly!
The issue should be approached much earlier than the exam. First of all I would do a **full** test a few days before. And by full test I mean that it is setup exactly the same way as in the online exam. Even if it's the same platform used for the rest of the course 'with some minor changes', as those might make it no longer work. Or some intervening update might have broken it *precisely* that day. For example, it would be somewhat riskier than other to plan an important exam the second Wednesday of the month (Microsoft release Windows updates the second Tuesday).
Also, the user may not have been able to test the platform on its own. They may not be able to log in to a room like the one that will be used. The program could crash when *talking* with other people. It might work for them *except* when there are many people connected at the same time. They may not be aware that their microphone is not functioning/too low without someone at the other end.
It is also very important to make crystal clear what they should be expecting, e.g. the instructor will be sharing a screen and explaining orally what you must do. You **must** be viewing their screen, you **must** hear their instructions, your microphone **must** work (it will be tested when doing roll call at the beginning) and you **shall** share your desktop; and what they need to do if any of them fails even in the slightest way, such as calling xxxxxxxxxxx where HelpDesk (or some TA/instructors) will be ready to help them.
Some issues will be simple helpdesk calls (tell the user how to unmute/change volume, describe where button X in the new interface is located), others will depend on external factors such as their connection, and other will be even driver related such as the hardware not being detected properly (no microphone listed, sharing produces a blank screen...) up to [completely head-scratching issues](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/620899/how-to-reverse-a-wrong-headphone-detection).
As an instructor such service serves a double purpose: (a) it helps fixing the minor problems (b) documents the existence of the error. A student that calls you in the first 5 minutes is likely to have a genuine problem. Whereas one that only tells you about that a week later would be met with more suspicion. You will need to actively request errors to be reported, though. You may also want to include it in the exam as 0-point "feedback/suggestions" question (or one showed after finishing). Even if they weren't much affected, you might find things to polish/improve (e.g. setting deadlines of 23:59 rather than 00:00 really improve usability, with almost zero effort. But you need to realize the problem caused by the software showing / users noticing only the *day* it must be turned in).
Plus, it actually provides a better service and helps the students be more confident in that the technology won't ruin their exam. Then, with more data you will be able to make a better decision. Or even accommodate for the issue on-the-fly (such as having the user joined by phone).
What you definitely don't want is to discover when the exam is about to finish that several students were unable to view the instructor screen [where needed data was provided] during the exam, as they were joining via web interface -the screen only showing on the native app- since the app wasn't opening the room for them!
Even when having two identical installs, on identical hardware, you may find one user is unable to perform an action (such as sharing the screen) which works perfectly for the other. Computers are *that* funny.
PS: You suggest "allowing to re-take a new exam *but have students share their screens*" but (a) I don't think that will really avoid someone determined to cheat and (b) if it does help keeping people honest for the exams you do, that should already be happening in the original exam. Another interesting possibility would be to allow an optional re-take for everyone.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I suppose this is rather off-topic, but a different individual mentioned at the end of their post that project-based learning may be the best of all solutions. Speaking from personal experience, for whatever that is worth, I have very fond memories of my project-based curricula and indeed really believe that I learned the most from them. A project-based course in a certain undergraduate course put me on the trajectory to study that topic at the graduate-level.
By contrast, my more traditional courses – bluntly, those that taught more basic concepts that had to be mastered and recited on homework and exams – are far less memorable. Although the foundation they provided for the more advanced courses was surely useful, I do not believe that they require one to parse and understand the content as clearly and carefully as successful project-based curricula. Of course, what a successful project-based curricula looks like will vary greatly from domain to domain and may not even be feasible given the size of some classes and resources available. So I suppose this is more of a shoot-for-the-moon solution.
Upvotes: 4
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2020/11/24
| 403
| 1,660
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<issue_start>username_0: I already sent one 5 days ago and she said she was working on it. However the deadline is really close now (30/11). Should I send a second reminder now?<issue_comment>username_1: If the person is someone who would get offended by being asked for a status update, you probably don't want them writing a letter of recommendation for you in the first place.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: If this is for an application for a US graduate program, the due dates for the main application are stricter than for recommendations. The admission or review committee likely won't meet until next year. I had an advisor that had a habit of submitting these things a few days after they were supposed to be submitted and it was never a problem. Since they acknowledged your reminder email, I suggest you leave them alone. If you arrive at the due date with no submission, then you can send another polite reminder if you feel like its necessary.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Professors forget things too, but you've already reminded them, you don't want to remind them again unless you have an indicator it's been forgotten. But, it seems you don't want to remind, you just want to know when it is *sent*.
You could send them a message asking for confirmation when it has been sent.
This is common in office settings when multiple people are involved. For example:
>
> "Dear Professor So-N-So: I am very anxious about this application, I
> have forgotten to ask if you would be able to let me know when it is
> completed. Having that confirmation would be a great relief to me.
> Thank you for your time, Me".
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1
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2020/11/25
| 518
| 2,160
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in the process of writing a literature review as part of an application for a master's course and would like to cite Facebook as being the world's most active/ popular social media (or 2nd or 3rd happy with it so long as it is accurate).
Googling 'worlds most active social network' brings back multiple results from a variety of websites but no official press release of numbers from Facebook, or what I can see quotable articles. When faced with a problem like this:
1. Is there an advised, reliable way to find and cite the data? Only from a certain list of websites?
2. Is this fact so universal that it need not be cited?
Thanks in advance<issue_comment>username_1: If the person is someone who would get offended by being asked for a status update, you probably don't want them writing a letter of recommendation for you in the first place.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: If this is for an application for a US graduate program, the due dates for the main application are stricter than for recommendations. The admission or review committee likely won't meet until next year. I had an advisor that had a habit of submitting these things a few days after they were supposed to be submitted and it was never a problem. Since they acknowledged your reminder email, I suggest you leave them alone. If you arrive at the due date with no submission, then you can send another polite reminder if you feel like its necessary.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Professors forget things too, but you've already reminded them, you don't want to remind them again unless you have an indicator it's been forgotten. But, it seems you don't want to remind, you just want to know when it is *sent*.
You could send them a message asking for confirmation when it has been sent.
This is common in office settings when multiple people are involved. For example:
>
> "Dear Professor So-N-So: I am very anxious about this application, I
> have forgotten to ask if you would be able to let me know when it is
> completed. Having that confirmation would be a great relief to me.
> Thank you for your time, Me".
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1
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2020/11/25
| 3,889
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in my first semester of my applied math PhD program in the United States. The professor (potential PhD advisor) of the course I am auditing has replied to my question about the schedule for the final project:
>
> I mentioned several times in the chat box in class. Did not you attend or did not you listen?
>
>
>
I had honestly not remembered that this was done and so it is my fault for not listening properly. However, I am interpreting this reply to be quite aggressive or rude. Should I no longer consider this person to possibly be my research advisor? How does one handle such a reply?
---
Thank you all for your advice and general comments. They have very much helped me.<issue_comment>username_1: He/she is probably very busy, and has repeated the same message probably N times. Also, we all assume students will find the required information by themselves. Nowadays, I find that students simply don't spend the time to look for information. Their first instinct is to simply to message me, and hope that I will solve their problems for them; this is very similar to a kid asking their parents, can you please clean up after me? It is ok if you are 2 year old, but not OK after a certain age.
As for whether the professor should be a supervisor, you should look at whether he/she is successful in supervising students. Yes, he/she may not entertain trivial questions and tell you off, but that may mean you need to work independently and at a high level.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As an external observer, what strikes me here is:
A) yes, the answer is unnecessarily rude. Everybody can have bad days, but if this person routinely reacts aggressively and loses their temper whenever dealing with perceived "failures" from others, then they seem a poor match as an advisor for you, as they probably would continuously drag you down emotionally.
So the bigger question here is: is this a pattern of behaviour, or is this person usually supportive? Do they encourage other people, or constantly put them down? Basically: are they a bully? Open your eyes and ears and look for further clues. And maybe talk to some of their current or former students.
B) Poor organisation/communication skills. Important information like a schedule shouldn't be communicated through a chat box, or require attendance to a specific event. You would expect it to feature very clearly in some easily accessible reference written material (a web page for the course, and/or the course's introduction slides, etc.)
That's another red flag. Again, does this person seem generally well organised, do they communicate their thoughts clearly, or do they generate an aura of confusion around them, and expect other people to just read their minds? (and blame them when they fail to do so). Again, try and talk to some of their current and former students...
That second point would be the biggest red flag for me. You can grow a thick skin against insensitive comments, but you can't really work around a disorganised advisor who can't communicate.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> of the course I am **auditing**
>
>
>
One possibility is that you have (a) an overworked professor, (b) who gets asked little questions like this over & over enough to get annoyed and who (c) appreciates these questions even less from someone who is only **auditing** the course.
As I understand it (having been out of college for a very long time, but Google'd it to be sure it is still at least basically what it meant 35 years ago), auditing means you are not getting credit for the course. If the professor recognizes that you are only auditing the course, then they may well treat your questions, especially about things like project scheduling, as almost pointless since you don't have to actually do the projects!
Your intention in auditing may be to do everything in the course at a top level, as if you were taking the course for credit. But at least some people audit so they can learn the subject matter without being under any pressure and, therefore, not bother with exams and projects.
If indeed that is the case, I would expect the professor to (time permitting) respond well to a subject-matter question from you, just not to the administrative questions.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The life of a professor, as their career progresses is never getting easier, at least if they are serious about their research. There is a neverending stream of academic chores (grant writing, teaching, faculty meetings, conferences) and in between there is a little time left for research. But progress in research is critical since everything else depends on it.
Needless to say, there is sometimes a bit of frustration, and professors, in their relationships with people, may appear brusque or rude. When you have 45 seconds to respond to a mail, you may write something like:
```
It's in the chat.
J.
```
as an answer to a carefully worded and polite question about some missing assignment or syllabus, or whatever one of the students didn't understand. If you have a minute and 45 seconds, you might think that this is your third student who wrote you about this, when everyone else didn't need additional clarification. Given the additional time, you may write more, and you might be rude. Especially rude if your wife is calling you for the third time to remind you her friends are coming to dinner, so you better not be late.
Actually, you may come across as rude when answering to your own friends, whom you actually like. They call you to congratulate you on your birthday, and you cut them short saying you're running late to a class where students are not getting the syllabus, or whatever, because you're too overwhelmed with other things. Again, the other things, may be a million and they all need your time.
There are research-first professors and there are professors who put teaching in the first place. The first usually get to teach the graduate students, exactly because they tend to skimp on niceties. The second (at least in US universities) get to teach undergraduates, and they are usually nicer, and teach better.
Unfortunately, when you chose an academic adviser, you choose from the first category. Some are rude, some are just exasperated that deadlines are approaching and their postdocs/students aren't making progress. What I'm trying to say is that your perception of their email should not be the basis for your choice of an adviser.
Some others advised to check their publication record, talk to their students, and see where the group alumni continued their careers. If the atmosphere in the group is not good (too competitive environment, abusive behavior, etc.) that's a much more serious red flag than a seemingly rude email. As a general rule, look at what that guy is doing, rather than judge what they say. Think about this. Your post makes you appear entitled. But, I don't know you, and it's very possible you've only dealt with very nice teachers up to this point. "Nice" is what I was when I was teaching introductory classes. "Nice" doubles your workload, without necessarily providing significant extra value to your students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I think there is an opportunity here for you to learn something about the environment you are considering to go into. Your question shows that you are not completely aware of the academic life and the environment you may end up spending significant time in. I strongly recommend to make good use of this opportunity before you consider starting a PhD.
### What situation is your potential advisor in that would trigger such a response?
Any person in an academic setting (that is not a permanently employed technical staff) has one main objective: to publish high-ranking papers. This will add to their track record. And basically everything in their work life depends on this track record. Their finance, the finance of their groups, the size of their groups, their position in the decision making processes at their institution, the reputation among their peers, the chance of invitation to high-ranking conferences, promotions and job opportunities, everything. All other factors in academics rate *way* lower than this single factor.
### How does one achieve a high track record?
There are cases where academics build a high track record by pure luck, by making a great discovery that leads to one or more highly cited papers. There are also cases where academics are such bright minds that with little work, they can make such relevant contributions to their field that they can build a strong track record. But for most people, building a good track record involves an immense amount of very hard work. And in modern times, even all the hard work may not be sufficient for an individual to achieve really high ranking publications. In many fields its nowadays more common that larger groups of people need to work together to make significant contributions.
Mind you that in addition to their research, most academics need to spend time with teaching, reviewing papers, following new contributions in their field, attending conferences, organizing conferences, administrative work, etc.
### How does this relate to you?
Since you have been surprised by the answer of your potential supervisor, it shows that you are not expecting the "normality" academic life. You are seeing the great adventure that a PhD poses for you, and very well so. But take a chance to look behind the curtain: What does your PhD mean for your advisor and their group?
Any academic group leader is well advised to enrich their group with people that add to the track record of the group. Everyone in the group depends on it, with their academic career. There is no second place for publishing late - either you are the first, or you missed your chance. So everyone must try to constantly give their best to achieve this. All academic life is built around this competition.
With your mistake, you showed that you did not do your research about the course in time and self-dependent. Before starting a PhD I strongly suggest to re-consider if you are prepared for the academic life. Its an environment where there are no second places. If you're not willing and prepared to constantly and tirelessly give your best, or if you are brilliant or lucky, it can be a very hard life.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Personally that would make me think twice about having them as an advisor. Sure it would have been good for you to see their answer in the chat, but as a grad student you are committing ~5 years of your life to help them in research as you become a full fledged math PhD - that's a big deal and they need to have some level of respect for you that I don't think their response is displaying. Grad school is hard and you're going to hit a lot of bumps along the way and need your advisor to have your back. If this is how they responded to a mildly annoying question, how will they react when you mess up an experiment (or whatever it is you math folks do ;) ).
I'm an electrical engineering grad student and I've certainly made my fair share of small mistakes and my advisor has been very supportive. When I worked as a professional for a year before starting my PhD program I got the same level of respect and support I'm getting now. In short, what they sent seems unprofessional to me and like they have a very authoritative view of the advisor/student relationship.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: **You need to find the right advisor for *You***
This not only means learning about how the advisor behaves but also about how you react emotionally and academically to different advisor styles.
>
> I mentioned several times in the chat box in class. Did not you attend or did not you listen?
>
>
>
There are people for which this type of comment will get under their skin, it will fester in their brain, and take time away from their research. It will fester well beyond what the advisor intended, leading to feelings of self-doubt (does my advisor still like me?), rather than the student noting the error for future improvements, and moving on. This isn't a "bad" or "wrong" way to react, it just is who a lot of us are. If this is you, and I would guess it is, based on the fact that you spent all this time to ask a question about it - it does suggest that a highly critical and judgmental advisor would not be a good fit for your learning style. Advisors sit on a spectrum, they can be critical (some students respond well to blunt corrections) or encouraging (some students respond better to pointing out what's right, and inferring what's wrong), hands-on (some like lots of support, but some might find it controlling) or hands-off (some don't like the lack of support, but some might find the freedom exhilarating), etc.
It's possible this advisor just had a bad day, but learn from past students what this advisor is like, and take your feelings now, as a clue to how you might react to him in the future when you screw up some aspect of your research (and you will, we all do, it's how to recover from these mistakes that define our dissertations). So pick an advisor that is going to breed success, make you productive, and not cause you too much stress.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I'm moving this from comment section.
You seem to feel that your only fault was not listening properly, but actually, **asking the professor was rude, immature and unprofessional**. Did you really think they did not announce the final project schedule because they'd rather reply to an e-mail by every student in the class?
The only acceptable way of asking such a question is (a) make sure the answer is not in available sources: course page/syllabus/chat history search; (b) make sure other students in the class don't know either; (c) make sure it's past the time this info should have been available (d) write a very polite message indicating you went through steps (a)-(c).
If you didn't do that, and especially if your message was not really polite, they were justifiably annoyed. Their reaction to rudeness may have been not ideal, but we are all humans.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: If a superior replies to me like that I would first try to determine wrong doing on my part, if you are in the wrong the best course of action is first an apology and second a written commitment from you to do better next time. If your investigation shows no wrongdoing on your part, very briefly explain that back and express your regret that a miscommunication has occurred and also express how moving forward you will endeavour to try and minimise these incidents as you understand his/her time is precious and in short supply. If you still get a negative response this person is probably not for you. In short, treat this like a test for them
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_10: I'm going to be just as brusque as your professor.
Did you attempt to obtain this information from one of the many other sources that I would assume exist for a student to know the schedule for their class' final project? For instance, class materials and web sites, the class chat log, or other students.
If you didn't, you're showing disrespect for your professor's time. You're a PhD candidate, not a middle-schooler. By now in your life, you should be expected to have initiative, resourcefulness, and above all, consideration for other people's time in what is effectively your workplace.
If I'm honest with you, then yes, I *do* think you should consider this person as an advisor. As someone who is not willing to coddle his students, he may be able to break you of some lingering bad habits, so long as you're willing to consider his feedback as tough love, rather than just being needlessly rude.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Do not take the professor as a supervisor.
The constructive way to deal with irritating circumstances is to go ahead, not to waste time on recrimination and attribution of blame for the past.
Why did they spend time on complaining and belittling you when it could have been spent on answering the question and mentioning neutrally the normal sources of information that has been missed?
You may have acted inappropriately as some answers suggest, or the prof may have been overworked, busy and stressed, as others argue, but the incident reveals this person’s personality as recriminatory and backward-looking when pressured. Avoid them.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/11/26
| 1,441
| 6,672
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student, and I am working with a supervisor who is not expert in my research field. I am wondering what I should do to remedy this.
When I just started out my PhD program, as I was applying for a major government scholarship, I approached my supervisor to give me some guidance on my general research path that I am expected to take through my PhD program, because I needed to write my research proposal to apply for the scholarship. My supervisor gave me a list of papers to read, and the papers were heavily oriented towards deep neural natural language processing models. So I assumed that my supervisor was heavily into the application of deep learning in natural language processing, and so I picked my research direction to be deep learning / natural language processing. I identified my specific research topic, ran the experiments, and my supervisor and I tried to submit my paper to a computational linguistics conference, which was rejected.
However, as I worked with my supervisor, I realized that my supervisor's field of expertise is application of machine learning in open-ended questions in survey, and that he is not at all an expert in the deep neural language models. He in general lacks the knowledge in deep neural language modeling, and when I worked with him on my first publication, he was not able to provide any guidance/feedback on the design of my experiment or my general approach to the problem. Now I am scared that I picked a research direction that is too deviated from my supervisor's research, and I am keep wondering whether I have to tell my supervisor that I'd rather do the type of research that he is doing. I haven't talked to my supervisor about this, but I am getting an impression that he would most likely to suggest just continue working on the revision of my rejected paper.
Now I am a bit frustrated that my supervisor made me to read deep natural language processing papers when I applied for the scholarship. I think it would have been more reasonable for him to recommend me to read something that is related to his research, which is the statistical analysis of open ended survey questions. When I told him the type of research problem that I would like to work on, he encouraged me to pursue it, but I think it would have been much better if he stopped me at that stage.
Can I still be a successful PhD student if I pursue deep natural language processing on my own without getting much help from my supervisor? I feel very insecure because I suddenly feel like I am taking up on this all by myself without getting any guidance from anyone. Usually students who publish their paper at top computational linguistics conferences/journals are a part of natural lnaguage processing lab lead by a renowned professor in that field. I don't think I can compete against these students who are a part of active natural language processing lab.
Should I try finding external collaborator? or should I just tell my supervisor that I'd rather do the research that is closer from his domain? I feel like I am doomed and I am depressed. If I am to find an external collaborator, I am not sure how to do this since I do not have any personal contact in this field.
Any advice should be highly appreciated,
Thank you,<issue_comment>username_1: It seems you have unrealistic expectations of what a PhD is supposed to involve. Who cares if you don't publish in a top journal? It seems your goal is not to do actual research.
You are the one who is supposed to pick a research topic. Your advisor simply advises you how to attack it.
You are doing original research, which, by definition means nobody is an expert on it! If the advisor was an expert on the topic, there would be no research since the topic would have already been solved.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: **Can I still be a successful PhD student if I pursue deep natural language processing on my own without getting much help from my supervisor?**
The core task of a PhD supervisor is not necessarily to be an expert on the *content* of your research. Sure, it will help if there is some overlap, but even if you pursue a research direction that is well aligned with your PhD supervisor, it is very likely that you will surpass their knowledge within the first year of your PhD. Key is, that your supervisor can provide you with a tremendous amount of help on *how to do research productively*. If you get stuck, which strategies are available for overcoming the obstacle? How does one balance reading, programming, writing (everyone prefers some of these tasks over others, but you'll need to overcome your instincts to spend the bulk of your time on your preferred tasks because the other tasks also require time investment) such that publications result? Once the experimental results are in, how does one convert the programming and experimental results into a publishable manuscript? How many citations are enough?
Your questions is best answered when taking two distinct approaches to two halves of the question. "Can I still be a successful PhD student if I pursue deep natural language processing on my own?" Yes. "[...] without getting much help from my supervisor?" It is probably most productive to reframe your thinking about this: you *will* get much help from your supervisor, just not in the way you imagined.
---
**Should I try finding external collaborator?**
This depends a bit on your personal style, and the preferred working style of your supervisor. I am always more than happy to have my PhD students interact with more experts in the field; it's good for the network. In fact, your supervisor may have people in their own professional network that may be helpful in this matter. Consider discussing this with your supervisor: the first paper that the two of you have worked on has been rejected, and you think that the work might benefit from bringing in outside experience. Would your supervisor be open to opening up the collaboration to more NLP researchers?
---
**What should I do?**
This is impossible to answer, since it involves you caring for your personal wellbeing in the specific circumstances in which you find yourself. You write that you feel doomed and depressed; you should definitely talk to people, whether those people are mental health professionals, or 'just' friends and family. Asking the question here is a healthy thing to do, but you may also consider finding out whether your university has support groups for PhD students; social events, mailinglists, other ways to interact informally with your peers. Sharing experiences can be very illuminating.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/26
| 1,480
| 6,231
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying to a European university for Ph.D. Candidates are encouraged to contact their potential advisor before submitting the application. I did that and had a discussion too. I have submitted my application now.
Now I am confused if I should email the professor that I have submitted my application? Can that somehow be seen as negative? Too eager/aggressive?<issue_comment>username_1: I would follow up with the supervisor - files can get lost in the shuffle, and it's always nice to know that a candidate has followed through on their promise of an application by actually applying. I would make it a short e-mail.
(For what it's worth, if a supervisor is going to get angry about a short, polite administrative update such as this, they are probably not going to be a good supervisor)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **Short answer**
Yes, send a succinct follow-up.
**Long Answer**
There's always this hesitancy among students, candidates, and applicants throughout the academic world (and likely all hiring processes) about this fine-line topic: how much contact is too much, not enough, and *most importantly* just right?
Well, I think it's safe to say that if *any* PhD advisor/supervisor considers a handful of professionally written, concise, and professionally-motived emails to be excessive, then that's a red flag about the (poor) degree of availability you should expect from them as one of their students.
I recommend every student applying to graduate school who is encouraged or required to work with a specific advisor/supervisor to engage this individual at least 3-4 times:
1. **Initial outreach.** Introduce yourself and indicate a desire to discuss the potential of joining their lab/program. Typically this is done via email and involves requesting to meet over the phone or in person (e.g. at an upcoming conference). Always indicate your availability *to them* instead of playing email tag!
However, cold-calls on phones prevent being ignored for long periods of time and allow you to each get a more personal feel for one another -- a big positive for the extroverted among us. (but be prepared to jump right into #2 below if you go the phone route).
* I would never recommend leaving a phone message. they're scary and never hearing back will create a TON of awkward anxiety! Try the cold-call first and email as a follow-up -- this additional "effort" might reflect well (and will never reflect poorly).
+ `"I tried calling your office the other day and must have just missed you. Could we schedule a time to meet....I'm available..."`
* You might even consider reaching out to current grad students to info-gather and to generate recognition prior to reaching out to the PI/supervisor.
2. **Substantial discussion.** Aim to do this over the phone (or in person). Be able to seamlessly discuss their work, your work, and what you bring to the table (e.g., support existing efforts, expand current efforts in a related but novel way, bring new tech to the lab, etc.).
* Don't be afraid to ask poignant questions you can't find answers to online.
3. (-4). **The follow-up(s).** this is (or these are) such an important contact point to keep your name on the top of the individual's head and to indicate that "you're all in." YOU SHOULD ALWAYS FOLLOW-UP!
* I always recommend to add a bit more depth to any follow-up beyond "I've applied" or "I'm still interested." *While remaining succinct*, follow-up with an additional achievement, update on your CV, etc. if you can (especially if any updates make you look better for the position or demonstrate your dedication/interest).
* Depending on the timing of your application and the timeline for decisions, I'd recommend 2 follow-ups (only 1 if a short turnaround time is expected).
1. One shortly after applying (as you're interested in doing) to indicate interest and to keep your name fresh in their mind.
+ remember, if they plan on selecting you, they probably like enough about you that they're interested in you. A simple succinct email won't rub them the wrong way!
2. The second follow-up is more dependent on the timing of events:
+ If you submit your application long before the application window closes, you might follow-up again the day or two after the window closes.
+ If you apply in the fall for a position that won't be decided until the spring, I'd start off the spring semester with a message to keep you fresh on the supervisor's mind.
+ Perhaps both of these seem necessary in your circumstance. If they do, then I'd definitely be sure 1 or both of them provide an update from you about a recent submission, publication, presentation, etc that makes you look like an even better candidate!
* You might also ask in your initial in-depth conversation with them when decisions are likely to be made (i.e., shortly after the application window closes, over winter break, 6 months form now, etc.). This might inform the best timing for a stretegic follow-up message.
* Again, if a supervisor is annoyed by this 1 or 2 emails sent likely months apart, then you probably don't want to work with them anyway. Supervisors/advisors get 100s of emails from the same individuals every month, so getting 1-2 from you (*that are professional and succinct*) is likely not going to make the typical supervisor despise you. (the common lack of response to such a message is usually due to the 100s of other emails they get bumping yours out of sight/mind and not their displeasure in seeing your email).
+ Note that any follow-up on your behalf does *not* professionally necessitate a response from the supervisor. In fact, you'll *often* not get a response to your follow-ups. If the suspense is too much to bear, then you might consider including a concise, poignant, and well-formulated follow-up question in your follow-up message to try to encourage a response. If such a question seems pertinent to your decision to choose their program, then you following-up again due to any lack of response on their end will be professionally relevant and seem less uncomfortable for you.
*(but then, perhaps you'd be inching ever closer to that fine line... :P)*
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/27
| 1,171
| 4,960
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<issue_start>username_0: Continuation of [this post](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159167/advice-for-getting-a-paper-published-as-a-highschooler).
Basically, I emailed a publisher and two profs, asking for help on a paper I had written but not submitted. Turns out the method was not as novel as I thought, as an MSE post containing pretty much the same derivation was posted in 2016. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to break the news to them.
Off the top of my head, I considered saying "actually found it's been done before", but not sure how good that sounds. Probably this is as bad as I think it sounds, but any advice making it sound the best?<issue_comment>username_1: Don't worry, we do that all the time (figuring out something has been done/shown before). It actually shows that you do your work.
Maybe give a link to the other solution/work as well in case they are interested (though this is coming from a very different field).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This happened to me as well and is absolutely not uncommon in my field (maths). It did not prevent my paper to be published. So I would not worry at all. Actually, this is great because it is very unlikely that you both have exactly the same results so you may even be able to enrich your own results with new light on a similar problem.
You could add a discussion (which can potentially be just a couple of sentences) in the paper that goes along these lines:
" A similar approach was derived *indepedently* in [?]. However, blabla"
where blabla = some difference in the approach itself, in the observations about this approach, in the applications of this approach or provides a simpler/different proof, etc.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Leibnitz and Newton independently developed calculus, so you are in good company. Just inform others that you *independently* developed a solution. This happens all the time.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: You have done due diligence and are honestly reporting that it has been done. Sad for you, but straightforward to explain.
Say that you unfortunately discovered that the method and proof is already known. You could express regret to have imposed on their time.
On the good side, you have shown that you are trustworthy, honest, thorough and that you have been able to prove something that is true. It's not as good as a paper, but it is definitely not working against you, just the opposite. You have shown yourself to be a professional.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: This is actually excellent - it shows you're doing due diligence and that you're willing to be wrong. I would expect the professors to be legitimately impressed.
I would write something like 1) sorry for the hype the original email included, because 2) I found out it's already been done before and here's the link, and 3) thanks for your time. Who knows, they might say your derivation is publishable anyway.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: Answering somewhat generally. Having derived the method independently, you're now in the unique position of having all the necessary mental machinery to think deeply about the problem:
* Does the preexisting work leave gaps?
* Are there extensions to the approach?
* Are there alternative routes that would provide the same result. Sometimes it's useful to prove the same thing [in many, many ways](https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicians-will-never-stop-proving-the-prime-number-theorem-20200722/)?
* Can you apply the technique to solve some applied problem?
* If the problem is computational, can you achieve better performance by substituting some components?
* If the problem is algorithmic did the previous authors release the source for their implementation? (If not, were they even doing science?) Venues like [JOSS](https://joss.theoj.org/) provide a place to get implementations reviewed, even if the method has already been published somewhere.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Don't worry about it.
Results and methods are rediscovered many times over and in many different fields as well.
When you find it out, what you can do is to add some note "I was made aware of this person having previously done somthing similar" and then you **cite** them in your papers. Quite rarely the formulation is exactly the same so even if you rediscovered something similar or almost the same, maybe you had a different approach leading to the same conclusion.
In many things science the results are not the most important question, but how you get there.
Maybe you derived your method through an algebraic approach while someone else used a statistical techniques to reach the same result or develop the same method. It can be valuable to add both these approaches to the body of knowledge as often in science it is the concepts and approaches rather than results or methods which are very valuable in discovering new things.
Upvotes: 2
|
2020/11/27
| 906
| 4,048
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am going to offer an elective course which I am free to design. The topic is a bit special, but we can assume I give a robotics course. I will teach a fair amount of probability theory which I need to solve problems in robotics. Therefore I have to teach both and there are, I think, two ways:
**1. Teach probability theory first, then robotics.**
This is what all my professors did as I was studying. The problem here is, that there is no concrete application to robotics at the time I teach probability theory. Examples are "made up" and so is the homework.
**2. Teach robotics and introduce the necessary probability theory when needed.**
The students see immediately why it is necessary to learn probability theory. They can directly apply the theory to solve their real problem in robotics. However, it interrupts the robotic topic. The first time I need (parts of) probability theory takes two weeks. Then we would do robotics again and apply the new concepts. Then, after 2/3 of the course comes probability theory again, as we need a further different topics to solve more problems. Maybe once more.
Are there any good resources on howto teach courses like this?<issue_comment>username_1: I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The evidence-based approach is to do both: If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Context always helps me to learn something. By giving the robotics topic first, you provide context on the probability, which makes it less abstract and easier to understand, which is very useful for the practically minded learners.
For the theoretical learners, switching contexts from robotics, to probability and then back to robotics should be easy enough.
The biggest problem I had in my university education was always "why". By showing the context first, you address that for free, and can use examples that your students should understand.
Also, if you give something to get started with on robotics, an excited student can carry on with that in their own time while also learning probability, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the robotics part, resenting that they have to do the theory first.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Motivating the students to learn probability theory is important, so if you can do it well, I think the "just in time" method (option 2) is the better method. There are challenges with teaching a subject like probability theory in a piecemeal way, but you might be able to teach the parts you need effectively using examples in robotics. If you can do this well then the robotics course might even serve to whet the appetites of your students to learn probability theory more systemtically in a full course.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/11/27
| 706
| 3,210
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<issue_start>username_0: I have submitted my manuscript to one of the peer-reviewed journals of chemistry and the decision was 'recommended for publication subject to minor revision'. I have submitted the revision but two weeks have passed and the status is still showing that the manuscript is in peer review in scholar one. Please suggest future steps.
Thank you<issue_comment>username_1: I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The evidence-based approach is to do both: If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Context always helps me to learn something. By giving the robotics topic first, you provide context on the probability, which makes it less abstract and easier to understand, which is very useful for the practically minded learners.
For the theoretical learners, switching contexts from robotics, to probability and then back to robotics should be easy enough.
The biggest problem I had in my university education was always "why". By showing the context first, you address that for free, and can use examples that your students should understand.
Also, if you give something to get started with on robotics, an excited student can carry on with that in their own time while also learning probability, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the robotics part, resenting that they have to do the theory first.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Motivating the students to learn probability theory is important, so if you can do it well, I think the "just in time" method (option 2) is the better method. There are challenges with teaching a subject like probability theory in a piecemeal way, but you might be able to teach the parts you need effectively using examples in robotics. If you can do this well then the robotics course might even serve to whet the appetites of your students to learn probability theory more systemtically in a full course.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/11/27
| 948
| 4,291
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm a computer science master student, and I'm planning to graduate in spring 2022. In Finland, doctoral programs specifically state that applicants need to find a supervisor before applying. The supervisor has be be willing to mentor the applicant, and the research proposal, which is submitted with the application, also has be approved by the supervisor. I know that writing a decent research proposal takes a significant amount of time, which is why I have to get in touch with prospective supervisors well in advance. The question is when? My studies are approximately 30% completed, by the end of this academic year I will be done with everything except for my thesis. I don't have any solid idea about my future thesis yet. However, I have certain academic interests in machine learning and robotics.
Should I wait until I know the topic of my master's thesis next fall? Or should I start contacting doctoral programs next spring? The messy thing is that some universities have rolling admissions, while others have application periods once or twice a year. I have also been hopeful that by contacting professors at home university I could get to write a master's thesis connected to their research, would it be appropriate to ask them about such opportunities? I have taken several courses with some of them but I'm unsure they remember me since we normally have anywhere from 50 to 100 students in each course.<issue_comment>username_1: I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The evidence-based approach is to do both: If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Context always helps me to learn something. By giving the robotics topic first, you provide context on the probability, which makes it less abstract and easier to understand, which is very useful for the practically minded learners.
For the theoretical learners, switching contexts from robotics, to probability and then back to robotics should be easy enough.
The biggest problem I had in my university education was always "why". By showing the context first, you address that for free, and can use examples that your students should understand.
Also, if you give something to get started with on robotics, an excited student can carry on with that in their own time while also learning probability, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the robotics part, resenting that they have to do the theory first.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Motivating the students to learn probability theory is important, so if you can do it well, I think the "just in time" method (option 2) is the better method. There are challenges with teaching a subject like probability theory in a piecemeal way, but you might be able to teach the parts you need effectively using examples in robotics. If you can do this well then the robotics course might even serve to whet the appetites of your students to learn probability theory more systemtically in a full course.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/11/27
| 905
| 4,041
|
<issue_start>username_0: Regardless of the field or subject, is there a website or organization that has rules on how to section and sub-section a document? I have a document on which I have randomly chosen a layout.
project document outline:
```
1. Define Goals to stakeholders
2. Product/ Objective/ Expectations
3. Scope
4. Time Frame with phases and processes
5. Project Budget
6. Risk and Benefits
7. Team members and organizational chart w/ roles and responsibilities matrix
8. Rules of Communication
9. extra docs include:
a. action and issue tracker
b. project charter
c. project organization
d. project roles and responsibilities
e. project plan
f. project budget breakdown
g. stakeholder matrix
h. risk log
i. project communication plan
j. scope statement/requirement specification
k. change request tracker
l. design document
m. possible obstacles & problems
10. Full visualization of organization and process.
```
This layout is completely a guess, and I am wondering if there is a guide to how to section and subsection, some law or rule to do sectioning or sub-sectioning the proper way that anyone from any field can follow<issue_comment>username_1: I assume you know your students better than I do, but this would depend to a certain amount on what sorts of things they expect. At base, it seems like they are expecting/wanting a course in robotics. Starting out with something different might disappoint them and turn them against you in a way that could be hard to "make up" later. This implies doing statistics/probability "just in time".
However, students who are used to, and comfortable with, highly theoretical courses might be fine with "basics first."
But another alternative is to give them, early on, a set of readings on probability that you advertise as being essential a bit later in the course, while you focus on the robotics part. The better students might spend some time scanning, at least, those readings, making it easier to do the probability stuff when it becomes essential. You might even be able to find a vehicle for responding to questions on the readings without cutting too much into the time you spend on robotics early on.
And, of course, if their expectation is that robotics is just "applied probability" then theory first would likely be better.
But, think first of the student expectations and work to satisfy that as much as is reasonable.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The evidence-based approach is to do both: If you teach something early and teach it again later, students will build long term memory.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Context always helps me to learn something. By giving the robotics topic first, you provide context on the probability, which makes it less abstract and easier to understand, which is very useful for the practically minded learners.
For the theoretical learners, switching contexts from robotics, to probability and then back to robotics should be easy enough.
The biggest problem I had in my university education was always "why". By showing the context first, you address that for free, and can use examples that your students should understand.
Also, if you give something to get started with on robotics, an excited student can carry on with that in their own time while also learning probability, instead of twiddling their thumbs waiting for the robotics part, resenting that they have to do the theory first.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Motivating the students to learn probability theory is important, so if you can do it well, I think the "just in time" method (option 2) is the better method. There are challenges with teaching a subject like probability theory in a piecemeal way, but you might be able to teach the parts you need effectively using examples in robotics. If you can do this well then the robotics course might even serve to whet the appetites of your students to learn probability theory more systemtically in a full course.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/11/27
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<issue_start>username_0: What should I do with my papers in progress? I have several with a few co-authors. It's been known that things in my department have deteriorated considerably, and that many of the newer faculty are looking to leave.
Do my papers in progress get abandoned?<issue_comment>username_1: You can complete the papers and should if your co-authors would be disadvantaged by your quitting, assuming that it is possible.
But, a fair amount of work gets abandoned, or put on the back shelf for various reasons. If you really don't have the time to continue work on the paper(s) come to an agreement with your co-authors that permits them to continue without you. The agreement should include something about authorship, but definitely should include your permission to publish.
If you all agree to abandon the work, put it in a notebook that you might want to return to later after things settle down. You can't predict the future and should keep flexible and ready for changes.
Your statements in comments seem to imply that you are angry with the department. That is natural, but don't take actions that primarily disadvantage yourself or the colleagues you work with. "Don't cut off your nose to spite your face" is an old adage.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: They're still your papers (unless your institution has very unusual and draconian IP policies), and they will "get abandoned" if, and only if, you choose to abandon them. You'll have to decide for yourself what to do about those projects, based on what is of value to you and to people you care about. If you want to keep working on them on your own time (or as part of your new job), you can certainly do so.
Things you could consider:
* Is the project intellectually interesting to you?
* Will you still have the resources (equipment, funding, etc) that you would need to work on it?
* Would your new employer let you work on it as part of your job?
* Do you have coauthors and/or students for whom it is important (for career reasons or otherwise)?
* Might it be valuable to your future career path, or help you keep open an option to return to academia?
But you can leave your current department out of the analysis. The "benefits" that a published paper provides to a department are pretty minimal to begin with, and drop to near zero if the author is no longer at the institution. (For instance, they can't really point to it as "great work our faculty are doing" if you're no longer on the faculty.) So they really won't be impacted by your decision one way or the other.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/11/27
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been invited for an interview for a tenure track assistant professor position. The interview will be conducted virtually. At the beginning of the interview I am supposed to give a five minute presentation by way of introduction. Very little was provided by way of instructions for this presentation, apart from the time limit.
I don't really know how best to use this time. They have already seen my application materials (research plans, teaching philosophy etc), and will presumably have them to hand, but should I give a summary of what I consider the most important points of those? Or should I give a summary of my career so far emphasising the most relevant experiences? Or should I be trying to introduce some new information that they won't have seen in my application?<issue_comment>username_1: Five minutes is pretty long, so I would at least ask your interviewers if they expect you to cover completely new ground. I don't know if academia is much different to the real world, but in the real world quite often the interviewers haven't done their homework and going back over previous ground is not unusual. Not only that they may have reviewed so many people that they think you are someone else. Often they think they have the star candidate in front of them and the worst thing you can do is let them know otherwise
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: ### Welcome to [Toastmasters](https://www.toastmasters.org/)
(I am not an officer (except at the volunteer/anyone can do it Club level), employee or stockholder of Toastmasters. Just a very satisfied member since 2014. I get absolutely nothing out of anyone joining.)
This is a Toastmasters **Ice Breaker** speech. 4-6 minutes about yourself. (Which is shorter than most other Toastmasters speeches.) I've given 3. First speech for every Toastmaster. Consider visiting a club. Almost all enjoy having guests, and all are virtual now (a year ago, that was against the rules, now it is required!), and since they're worldwide you can certainly find one to fit your schedule. One of the best things I've done in a long time was join. Worthwhile even if you don't have to actually give speeches often.
Most Toastmasters speeches are designed to work on specific skills - vocal variety, gestures, presentation software, humor, research, etc. There are a set of different "Pathways Paths" that have different types of speeches. But every Path, and also the former Competent Communicator program, starts with an Ice Breaker speech. A speech about yourself. There are many different ways of giving this speech, and since the first Ice Breaker is your first ever Toastmasters speech, pretty much anything goes! There are a bunch of different styles:
* Personal History/Timeline
* Focus on one specific aspect of your life - career or a particular hobby or interest
* Why I decided to go Toastmasters - a bit of a cliche, but sometimes actually interesting
* Family History
etc.
Obviously this speech, like any other, might be tailored a bit to particular situations. Your family history probably won't be a good choice for your current situation. But maybe the story of how/why you got interested in your academic field. Or perhaps a story about how some previous teachers influenced your life and motivated you to go into academia. They may well have left it open-ended specifically to see what different people can come up with - if they wanted to know specific facts they would just give you another questionnaire.
Try Toastmasters. Even if you only go for a little while, you may get some inspiration and/or useful advice. If you do stick around and join, you may find the benefits in learning how to be a better speaker really pay off in the long run, whether as a teacher or as a researcher.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: We had an exam and got the results 2 weeks later but I got slightly less points than I expected and we could not check the corrections yet. I was a bit impatient and wanted to see where I could have got it wrong, so I asked one of my classmates, who got maximum points, to send me what answers he got so I can compare them. I want to point it out again, it was clearly 2 weeks after the exam, so I did not have any unethical advantage from it. But still, I am a bit afraid that we did something "illegal".
Is this action considered to be academic misconduct, or since it was after the exam, students are allowed to share their answers with each other?<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly it wasn't illegal in the technical sense and it is very unlikely, though not impossible, that some local rule would prohibit it. In fact, it ought to be entirely permissible for one student to aid the learning of another in this manner.
Even working together on "possible" exam questions before the exam should be permitted, even encouraged, IMO.
The point of it all is learning, not grading. There shouldn't be secret information.
On the other hand, there are some things that are best learned through struggle and not by reading answers. On a math test, for example, seeing the answer is very different from generating it. As a learner, you want to strive, as much as possible for insight, especially in those subjects that you are most interested in. That insight comes from hard work.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: For rules, only your university can answer that question. But if you are asking about ethics, it is surely ethically permissible to discuss anything with someone if doing so can no longer possibly affect any grading under normal circumstances, **and** you both commit to abiding by this principle. That is, there should not be any further component to the exam in question (e.g. oral defense), and you both commit to not discuss the exam question or anything at all to do with that course with anyone else unless they commit to the same principle stated above.
Why do I say this? Suppose you have two friends A,B. A has taken the exam and got full marks. B has not taken the exam yet, for whatever reason. You have taken the exam, but got one question wrong and do not know why. However, you have studied together with B, and so it is possible that you may be able to guess whether B would answer the question correctly or not, *after* your discussion with A. For example, perhaps after discussing with A you realize that you used some theorem wrongly because you had the theorem written down wrongly in your notes that you copied from B. You would now be in a sticky situation. Do you tell B that the theorem there is an error in that theorem you copied? Do you want to be in such a situation? That is why the second part of the above-stated principle is important.
Ultimately though, since you only asked about rules, you have to ask your course instructor for that.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: There's absolutely no reason this would be "illegal". The whole point is to learn isn't it? The test was over. You are supposed to learn how to solve the problem properly afterwards to learn from your mistakes. How can you learn if you can't see what your mistakes were?
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a PhD student in my own country. I am also applying to PhD programs in the US right now. My intent is to try and work for both degrees simultaneously because I am worried about the current political climate and want to have a back-up plan in case something goes very wrong in some way in my home country in the coming years.
I have seen cases when people go to a foreign institution, study there full-time and defend their doctoral thesis back home using the research done abroad (of course, their home institution agreed to that). May this lead to problems in the future? For example, may the US institution retract the degree it granted if it becomes aware of the student having been a student at a different institution simultaneously?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it would be a serious mistake to try and deceive either institution. You could wind up ostracized by both and expelled. If both agree that you can do this then the only problem is being able to accomplish the task.
But, of course, you would need to work on separate problems as you can't get two doctorates for the same work. Your advisors in both places need to have the possibility of contacting one another.
All in all it seems like a poor plan. If your home country is in turmoil, make an exit plan, certainly, but this doesn't seem like the correct one.
And one doctoral research program is usually plenty for anyone.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with the others that it is a very bad idea to try and do this under the table. However, you have another opportunity.
**Joint PhD programs are a thing**. Rather than violating regulations, ask your university if it is possible to find an agreement with the other institution for a joint program that would give you a double degree. I have mostly seen them between European universities, but that is a possibility.
I can foresee difficulties if the two universities have very different 'status', though.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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2020/11/28
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<issue_start>username_0: I notified a journal prior to publication that there were errors in a paper. This was submitted around 3 weeks ago, the review process was quick. On Thursday I was given 24 hours to make a list of corrections to the final version I was sent. These were done but then I noticed a few errors after and emailed a revised version along with a document outlining and explaining changes. I had an email today to say the paper has been published (early access version) but its the version with the errors.
The email states changes to text can no longer be made. But they published this after I notified them of errors. This seems to have been rushed.
I emailed back within a few minutes of getting this email today but I expect I won't get a response until Monday now, so I have a weekend of worrying. I didn't expect the paper to be published at a weekend, it makes communication more difficult.
What is likely to happen now? Are changes likely or will these be denied?
I didn't see the version after they made edits, which their communication led me to believe I would, particularly as they were asking me to make a lot of changes. Nonetheless I emailed them before this was published to correct errors. It puts me off publishing with that particular journal again.<issue_comment>username_1: You have probably done all you can do at the moment. What the journal is willing to do is up to them.
But it may be that the "early access" version can't/won't be changed but a later *final* version will have the corrections.
Longer term, if you still have issues with the errors it may be possible to at least have an errata page published.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If an error/mistake may affect the results/interpretation of the study (based on the comments) it often cannot simply changed without the editor and maybe even the reviewers' input.
Whether such an error is small and not part of the main findings, and of no effect on the outcome of the study, isn't something a layout editor is allowed/willing to decide.
Let's hope the editor catches your request on time and can have a look at it before final publication - he/she will have to decide whether you can just change it, or whether it needs to go via the reviewers again (which might be quick if it's small and unimportant). Otherwise you can discuss with the editor whether you need to submit an errata or retract the paper (unlikely, given your description).
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a course instructor. In my courses, which are now online due to the pandemic, I have optional live sessions. In those live sessions, I give examples of how to solve problems (it's a math-based course), and answer student questions in a group setting.
This design comes as close as possible to pre-pandemic settings: students were never required to attend my lectures, but were always encouraged to do so.
Lectures have never been recorded.
I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend. I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect. However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.
Other instructors: do you record your live sessions? If so, why, and if not, why not? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?
**EDIT (clarification as asked for in a comment):**
The institution I teach for has emphasized the importance of teaching time management skills to first year students. These are first year courses, and so I am expected to teach time management in addition to math.
**Additional notes of clarification requested in other comments:**
All of the content I discuss in the live sessions has also been provided in multiple other formats: text, linked videos, etc. I think the value of the live session is the fact that it is live. When I was in undergrad, if I didn't attend a lecture, I didn't understand the content. Some lectures were recorded, but since I couldn't ask questions in real time, I couldn't benefit in the same way. There are already videos of this content - why would recording my live sessions add value if this is the case?
**Adding another point to the discussion**
Does anyone have any concerns regarding intellectual property? At my institution, all course materials created (including any assessments, posted lecture notes, lecture videos, etc.) are the property of the institution as far as I know. How should intellectual property rights factor into this discussion, if at all?
**And another point**
My understanding of the goal of putting instructional materials online was to preserve the "in person" experience as much as possible during the pandemic. If there is no live component that is unrecorded, that doesn't hold true to the pre-pandemic experience.<issue_comment>username_1: I do provide recordings. At my former university it was a policy to do that, but I had started it already before when I didn't have to. Where I am now I can decide whether I want to do it, and I do.
A major reason why I'm doing it is because students love it - at both universities, as long as it wasn't obligatory, students in the feedback always asked for recordings where they were not provided, and seemed always to be happy when they were provided, and I mean fairly big numbers of students and a striking majority of those who wrote anything about it (I think I have only ever seen a single student writing anything critical about it, and I have seen lots of student feedback).
Now I accept that we shouldn't do things just to make the students happy, but on the other hand I think it is somewhat partronising to not do something they ask for that I could easily do and wouldn't affect my overall didactical concept much. I have the attitude to give the students responsibility for their own learning (I do tell them what I think is reasonable but if they want to do things in a different way it's up to them), and I want them to show up in my class not because they have to (due to withholding of resources that I could easily give) but because they decide to do so and they want to be there. My experience is that providing recordings makes students' presence go down a little bit, but really not a lot (let's say 90% attendance with recordings relative to without, but I haven't systematically counted so this is a guess), and I am under no illusion about whether students who'd be there otherwise would properly concentrate on the lecture all the time - in fact in the old pre-Covid days there were student groups that annoyed me quite a bit by obvious lack of concentration and listening in presence. My impression is that the handful of students who don't come because there is a recording largely belong to the bunch that didn't get much out of being there either.
I have occasionally revisited recordings of presentations I attended, so I see where the benefit is. As others have already written in the comments, a student can go through an argument slower and more than once, or may remind themselves of something they missed in real time (we should not think that students listen all the time during live sessions - I once learnt that it is extremely hard if not impossible to keep attention up for more than 15-20 minutes). There is definitely some use in having recordings, so not only do I listen to what the students want, I also see a good reason why they want it.
A potential disadvantage is that some students may not ask questions or contribute to the class if they know there are recordings out of fear to come over as stupid. I never heard any student admitting to this for themselves, but I have heard and can imagine that this is an issue for some. My impression is that student participation hasn't gone down significantly because of recordings, but these "data" are very noisy and I'm actually not totally sure.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: It may well be that some students cannot attend the “live” lectures.
International students who could not travel on-site may face a significant time-zone difference. There might be bandwidth issues: some students who share internet connections with brothers or sisters might not be able to tune-in for live lectures.
These are exceptional times: pre-pandemic settings may apply to most but are unlikely to apply to all: there are students at a real disadvantage because the usual logistic support they get on campus is not possible where they live.
I do record my lecture (I have to do so this year because of the pandemic). It requires minimal extra work: uploading a file on a server. Attendance to live lectures is down from previous years. I would prefer they tune in “live” but students know best their schedules and obligations, so it’s up to them to choose if they can or want to attend the actual live lectures; the recordings gives them additional flexibility in this matter.
As a final observation: if this has taught us something, it is the value of in-person lectures where the instructor can interact with students, get a “feel” from the reaction of the class to this or that part of the material. Students uniformly prefer the in-person format, so I doubt the job of any half-decent instructor is in danger.
There is already plenty of on-line stuff on pretty much anything, but it’s mostly used as complementary material. Students who regularly showed-up pre-pandemic were obviously not satisfied with this format, so why would your school do away with the competitive advantage of a good faculty giving engaging lectures?
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: My answer is an extension to [username_2's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159398/should-live-sessions-be-recorded-for-students-when-teaching-a-math-course-online/159406#159406).
Even pre-pandemic there were a variety of reasons why students might have difficulty making classes. It could be commute related, it could be conflicts with their job(s) that they need to pay for their classes, it could be trying to take care of their children, etc. Even though your optional lectures were potentially better for them, by not posting videos, you were still inadvertently putting these types of students at a disadvantage.
Now, for something important you should reconsider:
>
> I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
>
>
>
I used to have the same perspective. But it's not our job to teach students time management. They are adults, and are responsible for taking care of themselves. Learn to accept this and your job will be less stressful.
Now, to be fair, some students were never taught anything about time management and don't realize it's something important. If you really want to help those particular students, then include some time management resources in your syllabus and emphasize it on the first day of class.
So here's where I am personally with designing courses that can be taught entirely online:
1. Prerecord lecture materials and post them early. Doing this gives me a chance to edit them for conciseness, fix errors, and change examples or explanations that I realize don't work well.
2. Lecture hours are flexible and optional. If students want me to teach concepts in person, I can do that. Otherwise I use it to answer questions. Then if there's time, I can use it for one-on-one help
A course I've helped teach as a TA for several years switched from in-person to this format for the pandemic (the lecture hours are online as well), and it's been really great and the students love it. This format is nice because if your videos are good, then you can just reuse them in the future, which saves you time that can be used for more one-on-one help time for students.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts, and why?
>
>
>
Let's go through them:
>
> I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, **more students** would not bother to attend.
>
>
>
Common sense dictates that if you provide an alternative to attendance, fewer students will attend. So this is the one part I agree with.
This part suggests that you already have some students not attending. This is a problem, because you:
>
> strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding
>
>
>
It's a problem that, as far as we can tell, you are not addressing. This makes me inclined to disagree with any explanation you might give for other problems you have in your course.
>
> I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would **not bother** to attend.
>
>
>
Writing this off as students "not bothering" is patronising, as has been said in a comment on another answer. Students already had legitimate problems outside of their education before the pandemic disrupted everything.
Another way of looking at it: If the students really were just lazy, they probably wouldn't have attended anyway, recordings or no recordings.
>
> I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect.
>
>
>
This is probably true for some students and not others. It's up to them to determine that.
>
> However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
>
>
>
Apparently "proper time management" is defined as fitting in with an instructor's arbitrary schedule for supposedly optional activities. I disagree with this definition.
In any case, your job is to teach math, not time management. Of course, you should encourage good time management, but not at the expense of teaching math. So, if posting recordings creates time management problems for some students, but helps other students learn math better, then it's the right thing to do.
>
> There are already additional posted videos to help students who may be struggling with the content.
>
>
>
You seem to be suggesting that some videos are OK and some are not. I disagree with this, especially since you haven't explained why.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Some instructors feel strongly about doing what they can to encourage attendance and some feel strongly that one should just offer students tools for learning and let them choose how to approach it. I believe the efficacy of these two approaches depends a lot on both the culture and maturity of the students involved as well, the goals and content of the course, and the way in which one runs the class. Consequently, there's not one "right way" to do things. In normal times, I personally require or strongly encourage attendance in some classes, and don't care in other classes. However, my experience is that on this site, there is a strong bias towards the "let students choose" opinion. See [my reasons to require attendance in some classes](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/65894/19607) (which apply in covid-times as well), and then compare with some other answers there.
During this pandemic, there are two conflicting issues: (1) it is especially hard for many students to be disciplined and focus on their courses, and (2) there are lots of extenuating circumstances that may hinder live attendance (internet connection, noise at home, illness, ...). Some of my colleagues (typically those teaching lower level math classes) do not record live sessions and they have found this greatly improves participation and attendance so helps with (1). That said, I think the general consensus is that "synchronous learning" (live only) classes puts certain students at disadvantages because of (2).
The point is you should try to find some sort of balance, which may depend on your class. I personally use both pre-recorded lectures and live non-recorded discussions. At one point I asked students to let me know if they wanted to record discussions, and no one did---recording does make some people more shy.
My advice is to be especially mindful of (2) in these times, and consider other tools to help keep students on track with the lectures: e.g., regular quizzes or require them to answer a couple of simple questions about each lecture within a few days. If there are clear notes/text or other videos students can easily follow if they miss the live class, maybe recording videos is not too important. But if not, maybe recording at least some videos will be helpful.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I'm going to address this from a student's point of view. I was recently a mathematics student and I was involved in department meetings on this exact subject. I have little in the way of a direct answer, but there are many things that I think that I can bring up that you will not have considered.
For reference, I think that I've lived through the full spectrum of lecture attendance:
* In my first year, I only ever missed a single lecture.
* In my second, I missed them only when I was too far behind to benefit from the lecture or just too busy to attend it.
* In my third year, I picked up the habit of simply leaving a lecture if it was covering ground that I already knew. For some courses, I give the lecturer a fair chance before skipping all of their lectures.
* In my final year, my apathy peaked, making for many cases where I left the third lecture of many of my courses and never returned.
So, here are some benefits of recorded lectures that I believe that you may have not considered:
* In my department's experience, most of the student's uses of recorded lectures were during the pre-exam revision period. I recall being told that there was evidence to suggest that this was not cramming and that the use patterns suggested that students were watching specific lectures to cover where they were weak.
* From personal experience, it's a fantastic way to check the lecturer's published notes for errors. I'm sure that you can imagine cases where shy students will read your notes, see something that they don't believe, and write it off as an error. When they check your lecture's recording and see the same "error", it's a major red flag that warns them that they've missed something significant. This leads to learning.
* Sometimes a lecture just doesn't sink in. The benefits of being able to relive it are obvious.
* I find mental illness is extremely common in student cohorts. Many such students will benefit greatly from avoiding the strain of being surrounded by hundreds of others. This includes allowing would-be disruptive students to exclude themselves (regardless of their mental health).
You've cited poor time management as a reason against providing these recordings. **I could not disagree more**. I know what you mean. You mean that publishing these recordings will encourage students to cram it all at the last minute. In practice, I have never seen this. In fact, I have seen the opposite - students being saved time by the recordings, reducing their need to cram. Have you considered the time management benefits of a student **not** attending your lectures?
* If you're covering ground that a student knows. A student in your lecture will probably turn their brain off, or worse, chat and ruin the lecture for somebody else. A student watching your video will simply forward through it or increase the playback speed. This benefit is particularly pronounced in practical sessions. I simply do not care about the long conversation that you're having with the student who is stuck on a problem that I solved in 10 minutes. I'm waiting for question 8d.
* You probably can't speak as quickly as you think. One of my mistakes in my final year was that in week 7 of one of my courses, the quality of the lecturer's online notes dropped dramatically and I had to rely on the recorded lectures to make sure that I understood everything. When doing this, I discovered that I could understand the lecturer's speech at beyond 2x speed, slowing down only when absolutely needed. This meant that I could absorb an hour long lecture in about 20 minutes and without the tedium of listening to somebody speak in the familiar slow academic tone. Over the course of your course, this will save your students hours and the benefits to your student's concentration are obvious.
* The time saved by not attending lectures is dramatic. No travel time (this could be as much as half an hour there and back), no 5 minutes waiting for the lecturer to set up, no 5 minutes to leave, no hour lost to a "quick coffee" with your friends after the lecture, and no wasting time on campus when you've not got your next lecture for many hours. The time saved attending to your hygiene is another benefit (no shaving, no ironing...), but that comes at a clear cost.
Of course, some of these benefits no longer apply when every attendant is online, but you can see my point.
As a final note, I always recommend that mathematics students attend as few lectures as possible. However, my reason for this has never been related to lecture recordings. It's been about lecture notes. In my time, I have only met a handful of lecturers who were so much better than their notes that their lectures were worth attending. The vast majority of the time, the lecturers were clearly inferior to their own notes. By trade, mathematicians are authors, not orators. Sadly, it shows.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: >
> I think that if I were to provide recordings of these live sessions, more students would not bother to attend. I strongly believe that attendance at these sessions is pivotal for understanding, and that watching posted videos of these sessions will not have the same effect. However, some students have indicated that they strongly prefer recorded videos, so that they can watch them in their own time. I specifically do not want to allow this, as I think it discourages proper time management and may lead to problems down the road.
>
>
>
I understand your fear, but I question your assumption that all students *could* attend these sessions if they were forced to: sometimes there are conflicting time constraints. Here are some reasons I can think of:
* I have often been in situations where I was doing fine in course A, but falling behind badly in (very important) course B, and felt the schedule didn't give me enough time to advance. I made the compromise of skipping the A lectures, spending more time to meet B's deadlines, and catching up on A with all material I could find when I was under less pressure. Unavailable lectures and exercise sessions increased my stress and difficulty by a lot.
* Most universities have non-traditional students who have other obligations. Assuming that all students have only school to worry about during the work day will make life harder for these particular students. I know people who've had to take unpaid days off to attend classes, for whom these published videos are a life-saver. I imaging passing would be next to impossible if attendance were required all the time.
* There are people who just can't choose when they work efficiently. As someone with a (mild) learning disability, it helps me immensely to have access to all course material whenever my brain decides to work better (or when I'm medicated, which can't be all the time, and is best done in the evening when I'm most productive). Granted, this isn't an excuse not to attend the lectures, but it at least enables me to focus on what's being said instead of struggling to keep notes of everything, and missing out on the interaction anyway.
In these situations, following the course asynchronously may be worse than attending, but since attending is impossible or impractical, it's the best compromise. It seems to me that recording and publishing lectures would be a very small effort for the instructor. **Should serious students who would benefit from this be thrown under the bus to force less-serious ones to attend sessions they aren't interested in?**
For the same reasons, don't assume that a student who misses the lectures is "not bothering" because of laziness. Some work differently or need to balance school and other obligations.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I'll write mostly from the perspective of a **student** but also as **TA**. My university moved most classes online during the pandemic and overall, it's worked out pretty well. Not every class took the same model for how to do lectures;
* One of them just has prerecorded lectures, one big one per week. There is also a Q&A hour. Half the time the lecturer is there, the other weeks only the TAs. There are only two required assignments, the deadline for the second is approaching rapidly but we haven't had feedback on the first yet. This class is not very well-regarded.
* The second course has a prerecorded lecture every week, as well as a homework set that can be completed mostly by just attentively following the prerecorded lecture. (Maybe 20% extra reading/online research needed.) There is also a Q&A session which for me is at an awkward time, so I rarely attend it. The homework is due in a batch every three weeks so I sometimes go a week without watching the lecture and then catch up when the homework deadline approaches. Overall this strikes a very good balance between letting students manage their own time, but giving them some guardrails.
* The third course has a prerecorded lecture every week cut up into thematic chunks of 12-30 minutes, which works very well for people using Pomodori time management methods. It's also hugely convenient when you need to review a particular detail. The course also has a mandatory lecture time where students have to critically present papers (and others have to attend). The TAs for the course are quite active in coaching the students that have to present and the level is unusually good in my experience. There are four individual assignments where we have to implement a technique explained in one of the video lectures. These assignments are small but quite challenging and you really need to grasp the topic to be able to implement them.
* The course I'm TAing has a couple of individual assignments based on lectures. These lectures are recorded and students can re-watch them. The students have to implement some techniques given in the lectures.
I think by now you see the common thread here. The most effective video lectures are the ones that are useful to students, mostly to complete assignments. Re-watching a lecture, or a key segment of one, multiple times to grasp a complicated bit is extremely useful. As exams approach, I expect I'll also be re-watching most of the lectures again to refresh my memory.
I agree that *naively* switching to recorded lectures poses a time management risk. But I question whether the pressure towards effective time management was really all that good to begin with, if this is all it takes to pull the rug out from under it.
I find that you get the best time management when homework has these traits:
* Deadlines aren't too far into the future. This usually means multiple assignments instead of one big one.
* Predictable deadlines. Try to publish all deadlines at the start of the semester. It's pretty hard to manage your time if some teachers suddenly dump surprise work on you.
* Reasonable size. Remember that your course isn't the only one people are taking. You don't teach people time management by overwhelming them, or forcing them to choose between your course and another one.
* Sufficiently rewarding. If homework is only a small percentage of the overall grade and a lot of work, then a student with limited time should actually *not* waste time on it and instead concentrate on more rewarding study activities. Good time management includes watching the return on investment for doing homework for your class.
Overall this means that homework should be challenging enough that it forces students to pay attention to the lectures, but light enough that it has a favorable effort/reward rate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: I'm answering this question, like others, from the perspective of a student. The start of university for me represented a large change in my life and I struggled mentally to adapt to the new environment. I'm not going to go into too much detail but lectures were particularly difficult to attend. Lecture recordings allowed me to keep up with the class in a safe space. If there weren't lecture recordings I wouldn't have made it through University, simple as that.
**Recordings help to make University more accessible.**
Let me also just say, trying to predict the outcomes of a particular change on the behaviour of students through nothing more than hearsay/anecdotal evidence is pretty weak. The fact of the matter is is that you have no idea what will happen until you've tried it for a few years. You should base your decision on what you know WILL happen, not what you think might happen.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/11/29
| 817
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<issue_start>username_0: I am Ph.D. candidate, and my advisor got his tenure about 9 months ago and called me on zoom and said no one could fire him anymore, and that was the last time we talked. Since then, he has completely ignored me as his only Ph.D. student. He does not read or comment on my papers(2 paper drafts were sent five months ago). My results get continuously beaten, and I have to make changes to keep my papers state-of-the-art constantly. He refuses to set up a zoom meeting since no one is going to school; that is the only way to meet him. He was active with fundings, papers, and proposals before he got tenure. He responds to my emails with irrelevant suggestions, or he says he will read my papers sometime next week(he expects 2-3 papers to graduate me). He is not supporting me financially anymore since his fundings are over, and I pay for my Ph.D. from pocket. School officials can not do anything, and changing my advisor after four years of hard work will result in a complete reboot. I'm an international student and can not just quit. My goal is to get my OPT and a job. It looks impossible to graduate with this advisor... What would be the best option to do in this situation.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm really sorry to hear about this situation.
>
> School officials can not do anything, and changing my advisor after four years of hard work will result in a complete reboot.
>
>
>
This surprises me. Every university differs, but in general you should bring these sorts of issues to your Associate Chair/Director, etc. of Graduate Studies in your department. If they aren't able to mediate with you and your supervisor, or aren't willing to, in most universities that I'm familiar with you should escalate your complaint. Perhaps you have an Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, or if there is a Faculty of Graduate Studies, there is somebody that you can consult there.
Barring this, you should seek advice from either your graduate students association. There may be informal avenues of support that you can pursue.
Most universities have policies around the change of supervisor, as this happens more commonly than you may think.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is of course atrocious. I can show you a list as long as my arm of former PhD students who will all sing my praises in the "always being there for them" department. So I have a right to state what I think of such a supervisor. But I won't, as it is just a string of very bad words.
Now, a good PhD student should actually be able to produce a top-notch thesis with literally zero input from their supervisor. However, not all PhD students are *that* good (why it would seem that *most* of them aren't) and supervisors do have a duty of care toward their students.
Your department may have procedures that allow for a "no fault" ("least said soonest mended") supervisor switch. Discuss this option with the departmental senior academic tutor.
A kind word of warning: you are unlikely to get your own back with this supervisor. In the fullness of time "the system" will have its own way of dealing with this sort of attitude, but this will only happen many years after you have left the department. So please stop expending any further thoughts or emotional energy on this \*\*\*\* right NOW.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/29
| 815
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<issue_start>username_0: One month ago, I have submitted a paper in a journal under Taylor and Francis. 3/4 days later after the submission, the status changed to "under review" and till now the status remained unchanged. I am in a hurry and need to get the final decision as soon as possible. What can I do to speed up the process? Should I send an email to the editor? How long it will be in "under review" stage?<issue_comment>username_1: You cannot speed up the process. Everyone’s in a hurry to get their stuff published so your own situation is repeated with pretty much every submission.
More importantly, what are the odds the manuscript will be accepted as is, with no revisions? Be ready to quickly make revisions, and be sure to address all concerns of the referees, and this will speed up the process.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> 3/4 days after the submission, the status changed to
> "under review" and till now the status remained unchanged. I am in a
> hurry and need to get the final decision as soon as possible.
>
>
>
If you are in a severe hurry, then consider whether or not you can post it to an e-print repository such as arXiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, or even GitHub, or your own website. If you're in a hurry because you want to claim that you were the first to discover your findings, then this will solve your problem, except if the journal does not accept papers that have already been posted online (many journals these days allow pre-prints to be released with no negative consequences though). If the journal does not allow you to post it to a pre-print server, then consider re-submitting to a journal that does allow it, or if none of the journals in your research field allow it, you will have to consider what is more important: getting the paper published in a journal, or the hurry with which you need to claim credit for the work.
>
> What should I do to speed up the process? Should I send an email to the editor?
>
>
>
The only thing you can do to speed up the process is to email the editor, but the editor will not be very delighted to see you rushing the process when the "normal" amount of time has not even passed yet, because papers take weeks to months (and sometimes over a year) to get published. You will come across to be demanding in a highly unusual way. Emailing the editor is an appropriate way to speed up the process when, for example, the journal says that referee reports will take on average 4-6 weeks to arrive, and after 7 weeks you still haven't received anything. It is very unlikely that rushing the editor right now will get your referee report produced within a few days: please accept that the time scale is usually best measured in "weeks" rather than "days".
>
> How long it will be in "under review" stage?
>
>
>
If you tell us the journal, we may be able to help answer that for you.
If you don't want to tell us the journal, you can browse their website, perhaps under the "guidelines for authors" section, and see if it gives an estimated turnaround time for referee reports. If they don't give that information, you can ask ***politely*** to the editor, what the typical amount of time would be, but please understand that the amount of time you've waited is not an extremely long time in the journal publication world.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/29
| 923
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an integrated master student doing a rather short project of only 4months in the lab (due to covid). The project is quite a weird one as it either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't I have no data at all cause it is a cell based project. I'm about a month in and my cells keep dying and I have no data. I am super concerned that I'll have nothing to show or write up at the end of my project. I want to ask my supervisor if I could simultaneously work on something that would generate data fast as a backup project if this fails to generate any data but I'm not sure if it would look like I'm "giving up" on this project. Also, I have only 3 months left to start a new project. I'm not entirely sure how to deal with the situation. Additionally, I am currently applying to PhD and would need my current supervisor's to act as a referee.
Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: You cannot speed up the process. Everyone’s in a hurry to get their stuff published so your own situation is repeated with pretty much every submission.
More importantly, what are the odds the manuscript will be accepted as is, with no revisions? Be ready to quickly make revisions, and be sure to address all concerns of the referees, and this will speed up the process.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> 3/4 days after the submission, the status changed to
> "under review" and till now the status remained unchanged. I am in a
> hurry and need to get the final decision as soon as possible.
>
>
>
If you are in a severe hurry, then consider whether or not you can post it to an e-print repository such as arXiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, or even GitHub, or your own website. If you're in a hurry because you want to claim that you were the first to discover your findings, then this will solve your problem, except if the journal does not accept papers that have already been posted online (many journals these days allow pre-prints to be released with no negative consequences though). If the journal does not allow you to post it to a pre-print server, then consider re-submitting to a journal that does allow it, or if none of the journals in your research field allow it, you will have to consider what is more important: getting the paper published in a journal, or the hurry with which you need to claim credit for the work.
>
> What should I do to speed up the process? Should I send an email to the editor?
>
>
>
The only thing you can do to speed up the process is to email the editor, but the editor will not be very delighted to see you rushing the process when the "normal" amount of time has not even passed yet, because papers take weeks to months (and sometimes over a year) to get published. You will come across to be demanding in a highly unusual way. Emailing the editor is an appropriate way to speed up the process when, for example, the journal says that referee reports will take on average 4-6 weeks to arrive, and after 7 weeks you still haven't received anything. It is very unlikely that rushing the editor right now will get your referee report produced within a few days: please accept that the time scale is usually best measured in "weeks" rather than "days".
>
> How long it will be in "under review" stage?
>
>
>
If you tell us the journal, we may be able to help answer that for you.
If you don't want to tell us the journal, you can browse their website, perhaps under the "guidelines for authors" section, and see if it gives an estimated turnaround time for referee reports. If they don't give that information, you can ask ***politely*** to the editor, what the typical amount of time would be, but please understand that the amount of time you've waited is not an extremely long time in the journal publication world.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/29
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a tenured faculty member and am applying for a lateral, mid-career move at University of X. Unlike a normal search that would be handled by a department, it is for a prestigious research position and the search is thus being handled by University X's Office of the Provost. They'll shortlist candidates and then the successful candidates will end up essentially as bonus positions for departments.
My question thus has to do with using a reference for a position at University of X *from* a professor at University of X.
I have been a long-time collaborator with a full professor at University of X. They often write me reference letters for fellowships, awards, nominations, etc. Normally, this colleague would write me a letter.
But, I am applying to work at his university! Given it is a lateral move, would it be weird to draw on a reference from this collaborator when applying to the University of X? On the one hand, it would be an opportunity to highlight the great fit I might bring to several faculties at this university. On the other hand, they might be seen as having a vested interest as a new line for their department would be, well, a new line.<issue_comment>username_1: Sorry, I don't see an issue for you. If you ask for a letter they might say no, of course, and they might want to game a new position (of course), but that is out of your hands. Letters from collaborators are a good thing, especially if they are also well respected academics.
Ask, and see what happens. If anyone thinks there are ethical or other issues, they aren't on you.
Or at least ask them for advice on whether a letter from them would be good or not.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A letter written by someone the reader knows is likely to be more credible than a letter written by someone unknown. So it makes sense to get a letter from someone at X when you know the reader will be at X.
>
> they might be seen as having a vested interest
>
>
>
Most letter writers have an interest in the success of the person they are recommending. A writer who works at X will have additional knowledge of the interests of the whole university, which could result in a more useful letter.
>
> would it be weird to draw on a reference from this collaborator when applying to the University of X?
>
>
>
No.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> Unlike a normal search that would be handled by a department, it is
> for a prestigious research position and the search is thus being
> handled by University X's Office of the Provost.
>
>
>
First of all, since your username is "Canadian Humanist" I thought I might point out that it's not unusual for a Canadian university to handle faculty applications through the Provost or VP Research Office, even for some entry-level assistant professor positions, for example [University of Ottawa does this](https://www.uottawa.ca/vice-president-academic/faculty-relations/faculty-recruitment/openings), but at [University of Victoria, even Canada Research Chair positions are processed through the department](https://www.uvic.ca/opportunities/faculty-librarian/current/chem_phys_270_128.php).
>
> They'll shortlist candidates and then the successful candidates will end up essentially
> as bonus positions for departments.
>
>
>
Usually the departments are involved quite closely in the process, even for the most prestigious positions such as Canada 150 Research Chairs, which often involve several million dollars of start-up funding.
>
> My question thus has to do with using a reference for a position at
> University of X from a professor at University of X.
>
>
> I have been a long-time collaborator with a full professor at
> University of X. They often write me reference letters for
> fellowships, awards, nominations, etc. Normally, this colleague would
> write me a letter.
>
>
> But, I am applying to work at his university!
>
>
>
It can be helpful if an inside-member with whom they're already familiar as a colleague, writes a strong endorsement for you, but people could also be trying to help their close friend/collaborator join their department by writing a strong letter, so **you may wish to have arms length reference letters too.** If you're applying for a Canada Research Chair position, then you will ***need*** to have at least one arms-length letter of reference (and not too long ago, you actually needed all three of the letters of reference to be from arms-length referees, meaning that your "long-time" collaborator would not have counted, no matter their university). In fact even the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships in Canada require arms-length referees, so if you're going for a prestigious position in Canada you may wish to keep this in mind.
You could use the fact that you have an "inside" letter of reference, to give a fourth letter of reference (if they're asking for only three). I know the advertisement for the position probably says that only three letters will be considered, but it will not hurt you if you were to write to the office of the provost saying that you wish to include four letters because one is "internal".
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I would discuss it with the letter writer e.g. ask the letter writer how they think it would appear in their institution. That person is going to know the culture and politics of their institution better than you do. That person should probably put some thought into how they would address this in a letter. I think it would be strange not to at least briefly add a preamble or postscript saying that they have been one of your writers before.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/11/30
| 3,834
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<issue_start>username_0: This might be a silly question to ask, but I initially had a great research ideas in mind during the early part of my PhD program but due to the unexpected circumstances I now think that I have to abandon them and start searching for new ideas from scratch (2 of my ideas were taken by other researchers in my field recently and I don't think I have capability to work on my other idea), which I find really depressing.
Does this normally happen for PhD students? If so, how do they cope with it? Do they just start all over again from the literature search and brainstorm for ideas?
Thank you,<issue_comment>username_1: Not only does this happen frequently to PhD students, it also happens occasionally to experienced researchers. Many research projects are embarked upon in a somewhat speculative manner, where we do not really know what the answer to a question will look like until we get there. Sometimes we get stuck and cannot get the answer to our research question, sometimes we get the answer but it is so trivial that we realise we were thinking about the scope of the problem incorrectly, and sometimes we get the answer and we then find out that others have already figured out and published the same answer before us (which is something that does not always show up in your initial literature review).
It is less common for experienced researchers to completely abandon projects, because we have pretty good *a priori* judgement of what will work, and we are also good at salvaging work if it does not turn out as planned. Moreover, many academics tend to put unsuccessful projects "on hold" and come back and think about them periodically to see if they can be changed in some way to give fruitful research. During my own PhD candidature and my subsequent research career as an academic, I have started and done work on several topics which I have subsequently "put on hold" or altered to such a degree that the initial topic was essentially abandoned. I have had other topics where I did a whole lot of research, even wrote up a paper, and then subsequently found that I had merely rediscovered results that were already in the literature (under a name I was not familiar with). I also have probably ten or twenty started ideas sitting around and stalled because I have encountered some roadblock that may or may not be fatal to the future of the project. As you will see from some examples below, I have had some absolute doozies.
Mine have come about because I did initial literature reviews that were flawed, and I didn't realise that my research ideas were things that were already well-developed in the literature (under technical names I was not familiar with). In terms of how you cope, well, you look at the silver lining --- often these aborted projects show that you are "on the right track" in terms of your ability to come up with interesting ideas, even though these do not pan out into publications. If you are developing projects that are good enough for other researchers to "take them" then that means you are on the right track. (In my case, other researchers were nefarious enough to steal my ideas and complete them decades before I was born!) It is depressing when you think you have a great idea and then it turns out not to lead to anything, but you look on the bright side --- it is better than having no good ideas at all.
---
### Some (kind of embarrassing) examples from my own research career
**Rediscovering the theory of identifiability:** When I was in the first year of my PhD in statistics I came across an interesting problem that I thought would be a wonderful PhD topic and I spent many months solving it and writing up an academic paper for a journal. I was extremely happy with my paper and thought it would be a big deal, since it seemed to me that I had developed an important concept that would be a great addition to statistics. A couple of weeks later I got a desk rejection from the journal, and the editor was kind enough to gently inform me that while my paper looked very interesting, and was well written, my ideas "look a lot like the theory of identifiability" (a term I had not heard of at that time). Using this new term I did another quick literature search and discovered a *huge* literature; my own paper had essentially rediscovered an important mathematical/statistical concept that was already developed and published in about the 1950s-1960s. I had managed to get through my undergraduate degree without hearing this term, and so it had not shown up in my initial literature search, and my supervisors also did not alert me to it when I showed them what I was working on. So, I have the "distinction" of being one of the discoverers of the theory of identifiability (never published), which I discovered about fifty years after its original publication! It was depressing at the time because I had done a lot of work on it, but now I look back and laugh about it.
**Rediscovering the theory of constrained optimisation via penalty functions:** This one came a bit after I had finished my PhD, when I was an early career academic. I had done a bunch of work on constrained optimisation (Karesh-Kuhn-Tucker method, etc.) and I had thought of an idea of an alternative way of doing constrained optimisation that I thought was novel. Again, I tried searching for it in the literature, but I used the wrong words so it didn't show up. (I think I was calling the method "optimisation via augmentation" which is not its standard name.) I spent my Christmas holidays working on a paper on my method, and was happy with how it developed. When the paper was almost finished, by accident (when looking at another problem) I found a reference to a paper that led me to another paper that alerted me to the literature on optimisation via penalty functions. I had a look at the papers I had found and boom --- another project destroyed. From memory, this stuff was done in about the 1970s, so this time I was a mere forty years late to the party! In this second case I did not submit my (almost finished) paper, so it sits on my computer as a fun little reminder of my Christmas rediscovering penalty function methods.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: As a field ecologist, I've seen this happen multiple times. You could imagine any field-based research project is at the mercy of the elements and is often fraught with random variables that might turn out too unwieldy or unpredictable to control for effectively. At best, a field-ecology PhD student may determine after a single field season that the project won't work out (or won't result in easily publishable outcomes) and they switch gears. At worst, this could take multiple years to become apparent (especially if the subject of study takes a long time to grow or the research project relies on periodic or climatic occurrences). I've even seen a student start 4 different projects during one PhD!!
In most cases, I've simply seen the student cope by extending the length of their PhD additional years.
* If the "bad" field season occurs in year 1, then I think a lot of the time no additional length is typically needed, and the student simply changes gears and works efficiently for their remaining 4-5 years.
+ This could involve redesigning the study, "retrying" in the 2nd field season with the new improved design, and working their tail off to finish on time
* If it occurs in year 2, I think there's still usually enough time to jump into another equally-involved project and extend the length of the PhD for another year or two.
* If it happens in years 3-4, I've seen the student shave off a much less interesting aspect of their original question and involve a much simpler sampling design. In fact, I've seen on a handful of occasions where the student scrapped their own field component and simply analyzed available existing data or shifted to more of a metanalysis approach.
+ In doing so, the student still typically adds 1-2 years to their PhD, but they finish in a "reasonable" amount of time (for a field ecologist :p).
In any scenario, especially after a bust field season in year 2 or beyond, I don't think it's too unusual for the student to switch gears to a degree and try piggy-backing on another lab project or extending a previous lab member's work in a novel way. In either case, most of the infrastructure and knowledgebase is available, so they can move on at a more accelerated pace compared to "starting over."
Don't get me wrong: this is a frustrating (and professionally "scary") occurrence for any student or researcher. But take solace in the fact that through the process, most students typically still have completed any necessary coursework, passed qualifying exams, built a committee of (hopefully) useful individuals, and have developed a professional and social circle by the time of their project abandonment. (I hope this can be said of you, too).
* These processes account for a large part of what a graduate student typically needs to accomplish (i.e., they accounts for a lot of the initial time and stress in the early years of a PhD), so having accomplished these "tasks" means that you have additional time *and support* (not to mention personal knowledge and experience) that you didn't have when you first started the PhD. This means that you can hit the ground running, work efficiently, and hopefully tackle a "new" project much quicker and more effectively than your first abandoned project.
Ultimately, many of us want want our dissertations to be hugely influential or to define us in some significant way so when we leave graduate school we can find that amazing job. This is fair and certainly works for some individuals. However, you, like many of us, will likely still bounce around 1 or more post-docs, assistant professor positions, or industry jobs prior to landing your "dream job." In other words, you've still got time to define yourself and increase your research cred beyond your dissertation. Make the best of the situation, and focus time on forming strong professional relationships through conference meetings, symposia, committees, outreach, etc. Often times having a strong professional network (and demonstrated ability to pick yourself up, work your tail off, and still accomplish a goal) will still help you land a job somewhere.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This has happened to some friends of mine (in Organic Chemistry) - who had a target of part of a natural product to synthesise, using some novel methodology. Less than 3 months into starting, several papers were published using the same novel methodology on the same products. Fortunately though (despite PhDs being only 3 years in the lab here) this was not such a setback as their PI had other targets and ideas in mind; and they sucessfully defended within 4 years of starting.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: *2 of my ideas were taken by other researchers in my field recently and I don't think I have capability to work on my other idea*
Please detail what you mean by *idea* and how much input your supervisor had on what your research plans were. I'm not suggesting you blame your present dilemma on your supervisor - but you must realise that you have to take more charge of the selection decisions yourself from here onwards.
Most theses are loosely defined at first since they will follow a course of their own depending on support expected (but not always delivered) from outside partners and also on the success of your research (not always what we expect - sometimes a dead end).
What most people I know did (and to some extent did myself) was to try and use as much as possible of the work already done, e.g. experimental data, analysis, techniques learned, reading done, perspective adopted, etc., in the new course you chart for the programme.
Talk about ideas for a new (actually amended) programme with others in your research group and with anyone with whom you enjoy a good understanding on life in general.
It's hard to be more precise than this in the absence of what you are actually doing. Buona fortuna.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I positively invite you to keep track of the development of these ideas as your brainchildren. Please do reflect at a meta level on when, how, and possibly why they came about.
A selection of questions. What made you feel it was worth pursuing them? Which connections did you envisage? Why did the path across the dots appeared self-evident and alluring? Which hypotheses did you test and which not? Which positive/negative state of mind did the situation stimulate? Where did you insist banging your head on in spite of adverse hints? Where did not you crossed an already open door? And so on, and so forth.
Keep a log of your research. Revisit your failures, turn them into the conscious development of your own method of exploring stuff. They are no failures, more a blessing in disguise. Blessings in disguise are seldom time-efficient.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I'm an early career researcher in my second year of PhD — but by all accounts this is the rule not the exception. I had a strong PhD research proposal which earned me a scholarship (and that I was very attached to) but to my surprise all my supervisors and some other academics really pushed me to explore beyond that idea — ultimately with me developing something far more unique which was only tangentially related to my initial proposal. However, where I landed is far closer to a deeper line of inquiry that ultimately brought me to academia in the first place. In many ways, I'd developed my initial research proposal because I thought it made a "strong research proposal" — but I'd neglected to consider how deeply it engaged me. My supervisors kept questioning "who is this research for?" and "go wild" and offering that the best new knowledge comes from deeper and perhaps more personal lines of inquiry.
Read the literature for inspiration, don't get obsessed looking for "the gap" or you'll never see it. Eureka moments don't occur under duress. Sometimes when you feel like you've been left with nothing, you're in a more optimal position to take more risk. Risk is the most liberating thing for finding new knowledge. Good luck!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: It is not exactly a rare occurrence but it is certainly a major mistake that could have, nay, should have been identified by your advisors. One of the primary roles of an advisor is to ensure that their students are building their doctoral research on a solid foundation. This is a crucial responsibility as the propagation of errors, which could have easily been rectified, resolved, or circumvented with early intervention, can easily undermine years of rigorous and fastidious research and analysis. l
Other than a waste of your time and their money, however, the only major consequence is demoralization. The severity of the issue and what it will take to redress the situation to get back on track is hugely dependent upon several factors. The discipline and specific area of research, the proportion of prior research that can be repurposed once you've formulated an alternative focus, how quickly you can rebuild your momentum, but mostly it will depend on your own creativity. I don't think your advisors have served you well up to this point but perhaps they could finally make themselves useful, ask them if you can do a cursory examination of any unpublished data generated by former pupils.
I was very creative and hard working in my PhD program and I used the same approach as I always do in life, which is the three-tier strategy. I had work that was bland and boring but would surely satisfy all the requirements for publication but would require dozens of pages of bullshit jargon to church it up enough for a thesis. I also had a very promising project that was novel, interesting, and had the potential to help a lot of people. The third project was what I played around with on the side, used my own money to fund it, and it was a "<NAME>" pass; high risk but very high reward. I realize you've put all your eggs into one basket and your advisors forgot to mention that you can't do a thesis if someone else is already doing it. Perhaps it'll help shift your perspective on how to approach goals, have preformed contingency plans & exit strategies, and how you shouldn't trust the advice, work, data, or conclusions of anyone unless you've personally verified its veracity. If you walk away from this with that paradigm shift then I would suggest that you've learned more in your PhD than most. Good luck, go find some smart creative people in your field and do some brainstorming and you'll be back to the grindstone in no time at all.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: In my country (India), there are several implicit norms that almost everyone is expected to follow.
One of the important norms is that *juniors do not address a senior by their name*. It happens students' circles as well as in faculty circles - thus, even junior professors would not address senior professors by name.
Recently (in the US), a female assistant professor addressed a male associate professor by his name. This was the first ever time that I saw an incident like this. I even thought it was offensive to the male associate professor.
I am wondering whether it is a norm in the US to address seniors as "sir" or any other respectable salutation instead of addressing by name.
Note: The question is broader than only addressing a professor.<issue_comment>username_1: **No,** in the US, it's usually not rude to address people you know more than in passing (e.g. are colleagues, classmates, or in their class) by their first name. **NB:** The question isn't "How should I address a professor?" it's about general rules and behavior, especially (my interpretation) the same university.
In the US, **professors, staff, and PhD students** would address everyone on their own "level" by their first name. In every department I have encountered, anyone in any of those groups would address each other by their first name, but as others have pointed out, occasionally Master's students maintain a bit more formality.
Occasionally, *some* professors prefer their undergraduates (especially in large classes) to use their title, whether "Professor," "Doctor," or "Mister/Miss/Mrs."
All undergraduates would use first names, and would almost always use first names with staff and graduate students they are familiar with.
However, **it's typically considered polite to *start* using the title** (for faculty, and maybe staff) and to only use their first name when invited, which most people in academia in the US do right away. **Often, the convention is people sign their emails how they want you to address them.** In my experience, it would be a raised eyebrow to use a first name where it was "incorrect," but would really only elevate to "rude" once someone has consistent disregarded someone's expressed wishes.
In regards to your example, it would strike me as incredibly rude if a professor took offense at another professor by using their first name.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I understand what you mean. In India, junior faculty usually address all senior faculty (especially those in administration such as Deans and Directors etc) as Professor X etc. But faculty, staff and students of **similar age** would refer to each other by first name.
However, in the USA, it is the norm that faculty, staff and students of **similar position** would refer to each other by first name. Among faculty, the distinction among professors, associate professors and assistant professor is rare and each refer to one another by first name.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As US native who has been in university more than once and has also lived abroad, I'm very familiar with this question.
It's understandable to think that there is no formality around names at all in the US because it is common to find people using personal names and not family names or titles. You can probably find examples of people using personal names with superiors or teachers in any institution.
However, in truth it's taking it a bit too far to say a person should just use personal names and there are no rules.
The current majority culture in the US does have fewer clear, strict rules around social hierarchies than many other cultures.
But it certainly does have respect for seniors. And how it operates is through conventions around paying attention to what is expected.
.
When you first enter a new institution or organization, you absolutely should first address people much older or more senior than you as "Mister" or "Ms" or a job title where there is one ("Professor", "Doctor", "Sergeant"). (corollary - US English culture does have job titles, just very, very few of them for some reason)
They will tell you if they want you to use a first name instead. You might still "forget" to use their first name a couple times to be sure.
When meeting someone that may be only a little older or more senior than you, introduce yourself first and then ask them how you should call them.
When learning about someone indirectly, such as in a meeting, you need to observe how others address them, or even ask your peers how to address them.
We might add that written communication may be different, especially for an official purpose, and you should seek out examples of what may be the best way to address people.
.
Through all of this, you may end up using personal names much of the time. But the rule isn't to ignore respecting seniors, it's to show respect by following the local conventions, just like anywhere.
The conventions in US majority culture in some ways are actually more complicated than in cultures with strict hierarchies. They may also be less consequential.
But they are still present.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: No, in this year, it's not really "offensive" in U.S. academia to address one's seniors by their given names...
But that literal question is probably misleading, and/or invites incomplete descriptions of the situation.
For one, in some contexts it is a "matter of custom/form" that everyone addresses everyone by given name. How to know whether one is in such a situation or not? Watch others. To my perception, sometimes there is the exaggerated display of familiarity by addressing serious people far more familiarly than there is any possible justification for. This game is not only played in academia, of course.
And, for that matter, telemarketers and solicitors seem to use given names...
And medical people with their patients. When I was younger, I was tempted to both address them by their given name, and "correct" them to address me as "Professor X" rather than "given name". :)
But to my ear, though I'm some decades removed from current culture, use of given names with people who aren't one's intimates is ... ridiculous.
When grad students in my dept (quite considerately) ask what form of address I'd like, one of the diagnostic questions I pose is "do you address your grandparents by their given names?"... and of course they don't. For that matter, my partner only addresses me by my given name to make some sort of rhetorical point. Ditto my kids. :) (So we have a quite nice symbolic compromise, that many address me by my initials...)
And, as I say to grad students, tone of voice matters far more than the literal words.
Not a clear answer, I know, but hopefully informative... :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Offensive? Generally not. Awkward might be a better description.
You talk about addressing *seniors*, but that can be interpreted as referring to age or to rank. The culture in some parts of the US default to using title + last name for anyone a generation or more older than you, while in other parts of the country this custom is on the decline. In some places you might even hear title + *first* name as the local custom. Because of this inconsistency such habits are considered *polite*, but aren't necessarily expected. There aren't large-scale cultural rules like that regarding position or rank (military schools notwithstanding). You tend to see relatively consistent habits within a department or university, but the school in the next town over might do it completely differently. My university even had one department that did it slightly different than the others. They had several instructors with the same last name so they used title + first name (tradition was less important than practicality).
The general rule of thumb is to use whatever name/title that person wants you to use. If you call someone by first name and they respond by indicating that they'd prefer you use their title and last name - or vice versa - then that person won't typically be offended. You didn't know what their preference was and you made an honest mistake (it happens to everybody). When people tend to get offended is when they tell you how they want to be addressed and then you continue to call them something else. That comes across as an intentional disregard for their wishes, and people might take offense as that.
The other thing to keep in mind is the audience. Instructors (regardless of official title) might normally address each other by their first name. When in a group with students present, however, they'll typically use whatever form of address the *students* would normally use. It's generally less confusing that way, as students may not even remember an instructor's first name if that's not what they use to address them.
In your example, the assistant professor addressing the associate professor by first name would be perfectly normal in most cases, at least in private or with other faculty members. It would be unusual and awkward in mixed company (faculty and students together), but not seen as *offensive* unless it was clear that the speaker was *intending* to offend the other person.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I believe it's also where you're from. when i was young, my parents had several friends that they called by their given names. I didn't just call him "Frank", that would have been far too familiar, but Mr Frank was perfectly acceptable. now that I'm older, when I meet kids for the first time, i introduce myself as Mr username_6. My wife is <NAME>.
You'll find this a lot in the southern USA.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: There isn't really the same concept of "seniority" in general US culture as there is in other cultures. (I say "in general" because there are different varieties of US culture. Southern culture is more formal than Northern. Different ethnic groups are going to have different norms. Groups like the mafia probably enforce status differentials more than the general population does.) There are very few cases where using any name would be considered rude. Maybe if you're in court, the judge might consider it rude to refer to them by their name rather than as "your honor".
There are cases where it's considered proper to refer to people by their last names. And referring to someone by *just* their last name generally comes across as casual; in formal situations one uses a title or honorific before the name.
There are two general categories of where last names are expected: a formal situation where *everyone* refers to each other by their last names, and a situation where there is a large hierarchical distance where the "higher" person is addressed by their last name.
Although the Harry Potter books takes place in a British boarding school, so it's more formal than the general US social situation, it's an example of different norms that you might see in place. You'll notice that all the students address their professors as Professor Lastname, and the professors address the students by just their last name, while in conversations within just students or just professors, you'll see first names. So between professors and students, the interactions are formal, with the difference in social level being marked by the students using the title "Professor", and professors just using last names.
In the US, prior to college there is a clear gulf between he social status of teachers versus students, and teachers generally refer to students by their first names while students refer to teachers by honorific + last name. The honorific will usually be Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms., but if someone is teaching high school despite having a PhD, they might have the students refer to them as "Doctor". In the other directions, in less formal/"progressive" schools, the students may refer to the teachers by their first name.
During college, there is less of a gulf, especially in graduate schools. Whether a doctoral students addresses their adviser first name will depend on their relationship, although they will probably *refer* to them by their last name, even if they are *addressing* them with their first name. A TA will probably address the professor they are working for by their last name, but if the professor is less formal, the TA may address them by their first name. Students will generally address, and a TA who asks their students to refer to them by their last name will probably be seen as pretentious.
However, you have more leeway for asking people to refer to you by your last name if you also refer to other people by their last name; then it's an issue of formality rather than relative status. An associate professor is indeed a more prestigious position than assistant professor, but it's not enough of a status difference to justify last name status. Unless they refer to assistant professors by their last name, an associate professor who asks assistant professors to use their last name is going to be considered a pompous jerk. In US culture, marking someone as being a lower status is a faux pas more often than not marking someone as being a higher status is.
The military is one area where there is a rigid hierarchy. From what I gather, people will generally be referred to by their rank and last name, but in some cases they'll use just last name, and in casual settings they'll refer to each by their first name.
Also, never refer to a woman by her first name if you would not, in similar circumstances, refer to a man by his first name.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: It's also worth noting that outside academia, things tend to be more "casually formal" in the South, compared to the North (where "The South" means from Texas to the Atlantic and from Virginia down to the Gulf of Mexico - "The North" is just about everywhere else (give or take)). In the South, people regularly address each other casually as Sir and Ma'am. In the rest of the country, this tends to bring odd stares.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for PhD in physics, and realized that a lot of schools have the option to provide "diversity statements" or "personal statements". As a foreigner, I can't seem to grasp what I should write about...
Can I write about my ADHD and how it influenced my study, along with how it made it hard for me to make friends because of a cultural thing called "*nunchi*" (reading the atmosphere of the room)? Or will mentioning something like ADHD at all put me in a negative light? I know that in Korea, if I mention this, it wouldn't go well... But I heard that diversity is kind of taken very seriously in America so was wondering if it would help me or not... or is ADHD even considered "diversity"?<issue_comment>username_1: Just like the rest of your PhD application, the diversity statement is not about you. It is about why you will be a good PhD student.
You certainly could write about your ADHD, or any other disability, or membership in any other represented group. When doing so, you need to explain why you will be a good PhD student. For example "My experience with (identity) will help me (collaborate with/teach) people who (have some need)."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you should bring a positive spin and explain how it would help you to become a better student and how you will be beneficial to the university.
Something like "Due to my ADHD, I had to work extra hours and develop new teaching aids. Further, I have worked with other students with similar disabilities and it has helped me collaborate with a wide variety of researchers. ..."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Look around, but I think @username_1 is right that this isn't about you but about how you will handle diversity in your interactions with the university community you are likely to encounter if you are hired as a PhD student at this school (and maybe as a Teaching Assistant (TA)). See, for example, Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching's definition of what their [Diversity Statement](https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/developing-and-writing-a-diversity-statement/#what) expectations are.
In that case, I would say that you should weigh your own personal experiences as a person with ADHD against others who are different races or from other countries or ... against what you have experienced before bringing it up. It's unlikely to be considered relevant, in my opinion.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: A couple of things:
>
> have the option to provide "diversity statements" or "personal statements"
>
>
>
Usually, a personal statement is *required* along with a "research statement." Often, a diversity statement can be supplied if you want room to talk about your unique experiences. Increasingly, it is required. You don't have to provide one, if you don't want.
>
> As a foreigner, I can't seem to grasp what I should write about...
>
>
>
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm, but the point of a diversity statement is to explain how your experiences are different from the majority of people in the field. For physics in the US, this is [white](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/data/tab22.pdf) [men](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/data/tab16.pdf), equally distributed between [US nationals and visa holders](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/data/tab17.pdf) (warning: PDFs). Often, these statements contextualize your experience to people who lived a different life from you. But they can also explain how you'll bring a different perspective to your field of study. I don't know exactly what that might look like in physics, but different perspectives are needed in fields like psychology, or [image processing](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882408/google-racist-gorillas-photo-recognition-algorithm-ai).
But diversity doesn't need to be race or gender. Parents of people with PhDs are way [more educated](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/data/tab33.pdf) (PDF) than the average American. So one could write about how growing up with a less educated family affected your approach to education.
To your specific question, writing about your ADHD (**especially** in Korean culture) would be totally appropriate. It doesn't have to be woe-is-me, but it serves to contextualize to your experience. Presented with two equally qualified candidates, one having worked through ADHD might be a stronger candidate for graduate school ([data](https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsf18304/data/tab28.pdf)).
Also consider the university environment. If classes, the program, etc, have all been designed around people without attention deficits, having more people with ADHD join the program/university will force them to improve their practices. (You don't *have* to be the guinea pig for this, either.)
**Tl;dr**: You don't *have* to write about your ADHD (or anything), but if you think you can answer the prompt appropriately with it (you didn't share the prompt, so I can't say), then it would be a good choice IMO. But I also agree that it's unlikely to make or break your application.
Upvotes: -1 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: During most of an aspiring academic's schooling one (at least in my experience) is repeatedly told that quoting/reproducing other works is fine, *if given credit*. As long as you cite your sources, all is good. And of course this is true, in the sense that you will not get penalized for plagiarism.
But today I was left wondering... **is** it true? I had a think and in my field (computer science) I can not recall any quotations or reproductions of graphs/tables in essentially any of the works I have read, other than perhaps some quotes at chapter starts for entertainment value.
Whenever one references another work in my field one always seems to reword or summarize the reference, even if a direct quote is perfectly functional. Which leaves me wondering, is there an unwritten rule against quoting literally in some fields?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, but it is better described as an "unwritten custom" instead of an "unwritten rule."
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Remember, we don't only make citations to provide proper credit, we do it to build an argument. Every true statement in a paper is necessarily either (1) an established fact that can be cited, (2) a direct observation made by the authors, or (3) a logical consequence of other true statements in the paper. **Providing references allows the reader to follow the “chain of evidence” back through the literature.**
Most of the time in the sciences we don't quote the exact words of the original author, we restate the (presumed) true statement that was made, using our own words to keep the flow of the text. **It is the true statement, not the words to express it, that are important.** We generally only use direct quotation when the actual words are important, or particularly felicitous. *Maintaining standards in programming languages is “how to win big”, as <NAME> would say.*
In the humanities, we tend to use direct quotations more often because the true statement we are making is **the fact that the statement was made by the other author**, rather than the particular claim that the author is making. For example, even if someone so eminent as <NAME> says that *“mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence”*, one need not agree in order to quote it.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Personal background
-------------------
I'm currently in my thirties. I began my math path with self studying some of the university courses while in high school thanks to the guidance of a prolific mentor at the university ( he passed away a few years ago in a tragic accident). Then it continued a bit backwards and by the time when I entered university I started out with PhD and masters level courses in pure mathematics. Mainly because those were the interesting courses that kept my motivation high. I took the more mantatory courses towards the last years as "fillers".
I was in the process of starting out with my 4th year thesis in my third year of studies (older type of Master degree) when my PhD programe application that I had good letters of recommendations for got rejected. This rejection together with becoming a bit burned out and feeling a bit of general social abstinence from the solitary nature of my self studies led me to abandon pure maths. Instead I started to study applied maths. I got into finance/insurance without a thesis where I'm working ever since with mainly mathematical modeling.
Current situation
-----------------
Maths has always been my passion. I generally feel motivated by my work but there's a longing for some more of an intellectual challenge. I opened some of my old books in Algebraic Geometry during the COVID-19 quarantine and noticed how much I actually remembered from back then. This lit my spark in a way I have not experienced with my otherwise mundane work. My motivation other than the pure interest I have in the subject is that I feel that not having a thesis is a failure that I want to remedy. It will also be useful for future work prospects I believe. I don't think I will become a researcher because I don't have the time and dexterity with two kids or the brain plasticity at this age. It's a long road after all.
I'm currently self studying algebraic geometry from the "bible" Hartshorne amongst other books. I have a past PhD course in algebraic geometry but since it was so long ago I'm attending a masters level course in the subject. I'm also thinking that completing it will help convince potential advisors that I'm serious and that I'm not just talking.
I have enough credits from my past studies for a masters in pure mathematics. The things I lack is a thesis. Two actually, one B.Sc which is a prerequisite for a M.Sc these days.
Questions
---------
* Given my perhaps a bit unorthodox experience with mathematics and the fact that I don't have any degree. How do I approach professors and ask them to take me on to write a B.Sc thesis? I feel like my age and long hiatus might put many of them off. Normally I would probably visit them in the office and talk, but these COVID-19 times when everyone's working from home that's not possible. I don't want "anyone" as a supervisor because I'm not doing this only for a degree but because I see it now as my hobby. So I want to write it about a subject that I will enjoy.
* When I was in the process of thinking what I want and how I asked a few professors about supervising a M.Sc thesis (even though I don't have an actual B.Sc degree yet, I didn't know this was required) through mail. Everyone of them replied that they didn't have the time in the coming period but that I should ask professor X. Did I burn my bridges with them?
* Taking a semester off from work for the B.Sc (I will take time off once I get to the M.Sc, however), is not an option and I do fine currently with studying on the side of my other obligations. I want to combine my work and writing the B.Sc thesis by planning to write most of it during the summer and some as I am on parental leave with my our newborn next year. This seems very specific and might put off many potential advisors. How do I touch on this subject in my contact?<issue_comment>username_1: You have a lot of advantages, actually. First, though, ignore the age issue. It isn't something you can change and time moves on no matter what you do.
You seem to have contact with appropriate academics in your field. You can probably exploit that. But, since you are a bit non-traditional, for someone to take you on they might be concerned about whether you would be a burden or not.
Let me suggest a path, though there are others, certainly. Find a project that you think has merit in your field. Write up an outline of a thesis and fill in some parts of it, such as the literature search. Include a few ideas that might be developed into theorems, but which aren't currently known (yes, hard, I know). If you can't do that much, at least name one or two "threads" that might be pulled.
Take that to some professor that you have contact with and ask whether they think this has promise, first, as a bachelor's thesis. If yes, then ask whether they will guide it and get you over that first hurdle. It might be that a second thesis can follow the first along the same lines. Spell out your academic needs and background as you have here. A period of burnout after intense study is pretty common and many of us will understand that and have possibly experienced it.
But the outline will show someone that you are serious and the existing personal relationship will assure someone that working with you will be relatively easy and not a waste of time.
---
Even if the professor doesn't normally teach at the B.Sc level, they might be willing to work with you if you make their task easy. Note that I'm assuming that the bachelors thesis is an absolute requirement that can't be avoided. If so, tackle it first, even if your paper is more advanced than would normally be required.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: *Everyone of them replied that they didn't have the time in the coming period but that I should ask professor X. Did I burn my bridges with them?*
No, not at all, but... Can I be perfectly frank with you? You come across as a worrywart who could easily soak up massively quantities of time without anything to show for it in the end, and given the non-standard circumstances, this perceived personality type is a big factor.
I sincerely and deeply apologise if you are nothing like that in real life. But I am building a picture of you in my mind based on what you write here.
So, what to do?
If you *can*, just write that thesis, or your best stab at a first draft, and attach it to future correspondence with putative supervisors. Then as a recipient, I would definitely have a look and decide *either*: This person has potential, I'll see if I can take them on or guide them through my institutions programme / guidelines for such cases, *or else*: This needs more supervision and correction than I have time for.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Let's say that I wrote my research paper and then I published it as a preprint on the ArXiv, and I got citations for this preprint. Afterwards, my same paper has been peer reviewed by a journal then published, so, how will search engines count the citations? Will they do a sum or union or consider them as two different papers?<issue_comment>username_1: This obviously depends on the indexing service used. Typically, the records for different versions of the same paper are merged, and the service will provide the sum of the references.
For example, on [google scholar](https://scholar.google.com/), you can click on "all versions" to see all versions of a paper included in their record. For example [here](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=9463658171864037215&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5) are the 222 versions of the LIGO GW150914 discovery paper, included in Google's record.
(I am not sure how the extremely rare case that a single work references multiple versions of the same paper is handled. But this should indeed be very rare.)
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Conventional "search engines", that is, services which index papers to count citations etc., such as Web of Science etc., will not count citations to preprints, nor citations in preprints. Similarly, they don't index all journals, but only certain ones (though, of course, the idea is that it covers the majority of journals, and in particular the relevant and established journals). Thus, all those citations are lost. (Though, of course, they might decide at some point to index additional journals, or the arxiv, and they might decide to do so retroactively.)
Google Scholar, as mentioned above, indexes both the arxiv and the journal version, and usually merges them (which means that citations which appear in a journal and a preprint of the same paper are usually only counted once). On the other hand, there is no official protocol as to what and how Google Scholar indexes things, and they might change this at any time, so in that sense this is less transparent (though it does not mean it gives worse citation data).
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I just finished my first semester teaching. The class average was about 88% +/- 9. This seems high to me. The class is normally taken by third and fourth year students. I don't want to push the current grades down, but I don't know if I should make the class just a little more difficult next time I teach it, or how to make it more difficult if I should.
I don't have a lot of information about how the previous professor ran the class, but based on his syllabi I probably covered about twice the number of topics he did. So I assume he spent more time on each topic and covered them in more detail. I don't know how much I could do that, I feel that it's important to introduce the topics I covered, and attempting to add more detail to each topic would take up time I might not have.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to know if a class if difficult enough, and how to adjust the difficulty?<issue_comment>username_1: You are asking the question incorrectly. The grades alone don't tell whether the course is too easy. After all, upper division students have already proven themselves in earlier courses and the ones still there should be better "on average" than those in the first courses.
To improve the question, ask yourself what it is necessary for students to actually gain and *know* from your course. Ask how you are measuring that. Ask whether the students, by your own measurement techniques actually have demonstrated that knowledge. If the answer is that they are learning the material then giving out lower grades "on average" just disadvantages many of them for no reason at all.
But if their answers on exercises or exams indicate that they aren't learning the material then it might be that higher grades is disincentivizing them to study hard. In that case you need to provide proper incentives. That might be things that lower the average, but it might be other things as well.
For some, but not all students, a bit of "stick" will get them moving. For others, carrots are much more effective.
But the point of it all is learning, not grading. If your grades don't measure learning then you have a bigger problem than you think you do.
But the main question is answered by comparing your syllabus to the requirements of the course and the field and making sure that you are fairly measuring that the students are able to demonstrate competence.
And, if you do conclude that it needs to be more rigorous, then the ways to improve things is to give more assignments, readings, exercises, whatever, depending on the field. Make them harder, require better solutions, etc. Learning requires hard work, just as does excellence in, say, athletics.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Whilst learning is the desired outcome and is therefore the primary consideration (rather than any particular set of grades), you are correct that an unusually high average grade can be an indicator that a course is presently too easy for the level of the students that are taking it, and there is scope for more ambitious learning expectations. You may be able to get some guidance by looking at other courses, and especially by speaking to the "Head of Education" in your faculty, or in the university overall. Bear in mind that a high average mark can have other causes, such as especially strong or hard-working students, or particularly good teaching of the material. Nevertheless, if you look carefully at the content of your course and the quality of the students, you may be able to determine whether you are giving them material that is insufficiently challenging.
One effective method you can use to diagnose whether a course is difficult enough is to simply **ask your students** how that course compares with their other courses. I have used this method very effectively over years of teaching, both during and at the end of my courses. In particular, after your course is completed, and the grades have been sent out, you can ask your students how their grade on your course ranked compared to their grades on their other courses (e.g., was it their highest grade?) and ask them their impressions of how easy/hard they found the course compared to their other courses. The advantage of this comparison is that it "controls" for the students and their general effort level. There can be some logistic difficulties in contacting students after the course is completed, but you can send out a message and hope for response.
I use a method like this to calibrate my assessments appropriately to the class. At the end of every class-test I do a straw-poll where I ask the students to tell me whether they felt that the section of the course they just completed (and the assessment that went with it) was: (a) easier than expected; (b) at about the level they expected; (c) harder than expected. For timed class-tests I also ask them whether the time allowance for the test was: (a) too short (i.e., they wanted to write a lot more); (b) about right; or (c) too long (i.e., they had left over time they could not use effectively. A simple show of hands lets me know the general consensus of the class, and this has been very useful for me to recalibrate assessments, etc., in order to get my courses to the level of difficulty that I want.
Assuming that you decide you want to add more to the course, you will first need to decide whether you want a *broader scope*, or *more detail* within the existing scope. Personally, I generally prefer to give high levels of detail at the expense of scope (to avoid superficial presentations of topics) but I have seen some courses where the lecturers go the other way. Any change you make to the course is going to require your time, so ultimately you will have to determine whether your time is well spent on this exercise. In my experience, if you are teaching a course again and again, a high initial time investment can pay off in the long term. (Contrarily, if you are teaching a course that will soon be discontinued then it probably is not worth the effort.)
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/30
| 951
| 3,965
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<issue_start>username_0: I completed master's of mathematics in Asia in June 2020. I had written to some professors for PhD positions in number theory in December 2019 . One of the professors in France said yes to me but he said that I should look for other sources of funding as his university didn't have PhD funding at that time. So, I began to look for some funding options but I missed applying for a funding opportunity that is open to anyone whose university would be in that region of France. (I came across on it on web at a date after last date).
Then there was a scholarship application from my country and I began applying for it in mid-March of 2020 but for that a confirmation letter from my prospective guide was required that I was selected for the PhD program. When asked for the letter, the professor didn't reply to my emails, but I can understand that happening due to COVID.
So, then I thought that I would apply to Europe again in December and began studying more topics to improve my knowledge and didn't contacted that professor.
My questions:
1. Is it common in French universities that a professor says yes for PhD but tells the student to look for funding opportunities by himself?
2. Is it common in European universities that a professor says yes for PhD but tells the student to look for funding opportunities by himself?
Please guide!<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know what "normal" means but I have done it, and I'd expect that it is common practice. There are many universities that admit but don't fund PhD students, or only fund a handful but are open to admit more if they come with their own funding. (I have never worked in France though.)
On the other hand it's not *the standard* - Europe has many countries and even in a single country there may be big differences between regions and universities (private and public in particular).
Just to give you some stats - I have worked for four universities in Europe. Number 2 and 4 funded most of their PhD students (actually that was the standard way to do a PhD there), although number 2 would admit students who had their own funding, number 1 hired them as research assistants as a standard, meaning that they'd have money but would be expected to work part time for the department, besides of students who came with their own funding (maybe a third up to half of them), number 3 had a few (three or so) funded PhD positions each year but far more PhD students, so the majority was self-funded. Funding regimes change a lot over time though.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Its certainly normal in the UK. Very few universities fund any PhD students themselves (where would they get the money from?). Most students are funded on government scholarships. How these are awarded varies from field to field and I don't know what the norm is in mathematics. In biology they are awarded to centers called Centers for Doctoral Training (CDT/DTPs), which often cover several universities. Each year professors compete for the right to recruit a student, which they will then advertise for.
Until now, these scholarships have only been open to "home" students (that is British or EU students). Any overseas students have to obtain a scholarship from their own government, or an NGO or charity of some sort, or pay themselves out of pocket. Most profs will take most students who can bring funding/pay their way.
This year things are changing. CDTs/DTPs will now bed allowed to offer up to a third of their scholarships to overseas students. BUT, they will only pay "home" fees, which are generally less than overseas fees. How this difference is handled is varying from Uni to Uni. Some will say that they will charge full overseas fees to overseas students recruited to these scholarships, and the student would have to find the difference (on the order of £10k a year). Other universities are offering to waive the extra overseas fee.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2020/11/30
| 1,372
| 5,929
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<issue_start>username_0: I occasionally get students who submit their assignments, but I only notice that they've submitted the wrong assignment when I begin grading. I can think of three possibilities to explain this:
1. They made an honest mistake
2. They are trying to buy some time to submit their assignment by making it seem like an honest mistake
3. They didn't do the assignment at all and are trying to get some kind of credit
Sometimes I allow students a few hours or 24 hours to resubmit the correct assignment (is 24 hours too long?). If they don't, then I usually assume they haven't actually completed it. Other times, I'm just tempted to give them a zero.
The student in question submitted an assignment that was submitted previously in the semester.
Is there a better way that you know of to confirm whether they're being honest or not?
By the way, I'm looking for a general answer that can apply across multiple situations. In this specific situation, due to many different factors, I decided to allow the student to resubmit. She resubmitted right away, which seems to demonstrate it was an honest mistake.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think anything but #1 is a reasonable assumption. They submit *something* and presumably that took time and effort to prepare.
Is there any reason *not* to be generous here? Especially since you say it is occasional.
The time you give them would depend on the assignment, of course. But I doubt that a day is too long.
It might be different if the same student does this repeatedly. Then you should explore more deeply into why it is happening. It is even possible in such a case they have something like dyslexia that makes it hard for a person to manage things accurately.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The fact that you're left guessing at unknowable motivations suggests a deeper problem to me. I always found guessing games like this very frustrating when assignments are due; giving students the benefit of the doubt sounds harmless... unless you're a student who scrambled to meet the deadline, while your peers took advantage of the professor's good will. This is especially true if the class is curved.
The policy I use now leaves my opinions completely out of it:
1. Give clear due dates and turn-in proceedures
2. Give students a "budget" for late assignments. I like to give three 12-hour tokens they can use at their discretion, no questions asked. If they turn something in late, I automatically use whatever tokens they have left to cover the time.
3. Anything beyond that requires an issue serious enough that we're probably involving academic affairs as well. Things like serious illnesses and hospitalizations, for example.
4. Anything turned not turned in on time, or within the scope of one of their "late tokens", gets a daily penalty added onto the score.
That way you're never faced with trying to ascribe motivations to what students are doing, and the rules are laid out clearly for them, which I find students like.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Personally I always just tell them to make sure it doesn't happen again and let it go at that unless I see a pattern.
I think to get to the right answer here (which I believe mine is) you have to ask yourself what the purpose of grading homework even is in the first place and why does it matter if they turn it in on time. I mean, unlike exams, homework isn't really a good measure of student ability and even if it was it's not like anyone is spending all the time between assignment and submission working on it.
In an ideal world (and in some grad school courses) student grades would purely be based on mastery as shown in exams or projects. Unfortunately, at the UG and lower level we need to assign and grade homework as an incentive to keep students from just leaving everything to the last minute and never learning the material. In other words I'd argue that graded homework is a necessary evil done to keep students from hurting themselves (and why I usually allow students course grade to be just their exam grade if it's better).
As such if a student goes to that kind of length to get more time on hw I figure they are mostly just hurting themselves (but I also give extensions liberally as long as it doesn't become a problem for keeping up).
Besides, from a fairness POV there is really not much harm if some students get some extra time. I mean that's just noise compared to the unfairness inherently present in time to work on homework between students who need to take jobs and who don't and besides that extra time comes out of the time needed for the next assignment.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I announce a policy at the beginning of the semester that **the course staff will only grade the work that is actually submitted, before the deadline, for each assigned homework problem.** So if a student submits a solution to the wrong problem, for any reason or no reason, they can expect a grade of **zero**, exactly as if they submitted nothing at all.
(Behind the scenes, I tell my graders that they are welcome to swap obviously misplaced assignments if it's easy, if they have time, and if they want to, but they are absolutely *not* required to.)
On the other hand, I also drop the lowest 25% of homework scores before computing final course grades. For example, in a class with 32 homework problems, only the highest 24 scores for each student would count toward their homework grade. (A majority of the grades in my classes are based on exams.) I also announce this policy at the beginning of the semester.
So in practice, if a student submits the wrong homework, they've burned one of their free drops, and they don't get feedback from the graders, but it has no significant impact on their overall course grade.
For similar reasons, I never give homework extensions. The deadline is the deadline is the deadline.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/11/30
| 930
| 3,973
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<issue_start>username_0: Last year in the course *Computer Networking*, the teacher invented a relatively creative course lab to replace the legacy [Wireshark labs from UMass](http://gaia.cs.umass.edu/wireshark-labs/), to let us write programs implementing some networking algorithms. Despite the lab idea itself being new and innovative1, everything after that was a complete joke.
The teacher told us, in the class that he announced this new lab, that he had instructed the TAs to provide lab docs and test cases "as soon as possible". In the next two weeks, fellow students had asked TAs in the group chat2 about ETA of the lab document, which should convey what to do and how to grade. The TAs *did not even respond*. The teacher, during this period, once told in a casual tone "Have they (TAs) provided the tests (test cases)? I'll ask them to expedite.", but didn't say anything more about that. It was only after two weeks of waiting, during which the teacher did not assign any other homework or lab, that the TAs published their first version of the document. Needless to say, it was plain horrible. A structure (`struct` in the C language) contained several fields of no clear purpose while lacking obviously required fields (e.g. `length` for a message). The TAs "went dead" for another week, forcing us to continue to ask for clarifications before they "were resurrected". A revised version of the document only introduced extra absurdity, and no one knew when the TAs were going to publish the test cases as promised.
During the next week after the revised document, I, according to my own understanding of the lab description, wrote a demo program, a starter framework wrapping up all parts the algorithm uses, and a set of test cases built on top of the framework, as well as documentations for these things. Only an hour after I turned my GitHub repository to public, one of the TAs contacted me expressing the interest in using my framework, test suite and documentation as official materials for the course, which I happily accepted. It wasn't hard to imagine that the TAs went dead again for a few more weeks, however, while I answered questions and provided support about the lab for fellow students.
Now I'm trying to populate my CV to include this experience as a demonstration of my productivity when the teacher and all TAs played dead. It's unmistakable that I should be professional on this (my CV), but I found it hard to word and describe this whole thing while avoiding being too disparaging or derogatory to the teacher and the TAs. I wonder if this is even possible as I want to show how I stood out in the disaster.
---
(Not directly related to my question)
This very professor was already known for misconduct as a PhD supervisor, and this teaching incident only added to his infamy, which I only learned after the course concluded, from the section for sharing experiences of our school BBS.
Footnotes:
1. The lab is "innovative" at least compared to the WS labs that our CS department has employed for several years.
2. It's a common practice in my area that group chats are used for communication and is considered a formal method.<issue_comment>username_1: You can talk about what you've done that is positive, but don't talk about the failings of anyone else.
Sounds like you have a public GitHub with something you're proud of. Feel free to link to that and explain how this work demonstrates your readiness for whatever you are applying for. Keep the rants about a course you took between you and sympathetic friends.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> During the course *Computer Networking 123* you developed on your own an opensource framework [link], test suite [link] and documentation [link] for the course materials, that were more suited than the originally provided materials, to the point the course instructors adopted them -with your permission- as official materials for this course.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/01
| 614
| 2,236
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<issue_start>username_0: I would like to ask whether it is possible to quit a *wissenschaftlicher mitarbeiter* job based on a TVL13 contract in the middle of probation period? Or do I have to wait until I finish it?
I have found [the law](http://www.tarifvertragoed.de/tv_l_paragraf_30) corresponding to the different notice periods *after* the probation period is over, but I am not sure what is allowed *before* it is over. If I am not wrong, the employer can fire me without notice during that period.
In [this](https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/tv-l/allg/kuendigungsfristen.html) website, I found the following:
>
> until the trial period expires 2 weeks to the end of the month
>
>
>
Is this information reliable? It seems to be referencing the same law, so I'd say yes. But, I would like to double-check.<issue_comment>username_1: It seems your information is correct. Both parties may cancel the contract with two week's notice at any time.
My rough translation (and my emphasis) from [this article](http://www.bund-verlag.de/zeitschriften/der-personalrat/leseprobe/PersR05-2015-Leseprobe-EPaetzel-Regeln-zur-Probezeit.pdf) of "Der Personalrat", a trade journal for labor representatives in the public sector:
>
> The legislator lays down a special notice period for the probation time. This right
> applies to both parties of the work contract. The period is shortened from four to **two
> weeks**. Moreover, **notice may be given at any time of the month**, while usually the
> contract may only be cancelled at the end of each month or at the 15th day of each
> month.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you want legal advise, then you need to talk to a lawyer or your union representative. It is a bad idea to trust random people on the internet on such issues.
My experience in Germany is that if you want to leave you don't go through that process. Instead you talk to your supervisor. (S)he will express regret and want to know why, but in the end (s)he will not want to keep someone who wants to leave. So together (with the HR department) you will make a contract that terminates the existing contract at a convenient time for both regardless of the notice periods.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/12/01
| 1,119
| 4,801
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently in the process of applying to different PhD programs. As part of my application, I am required to upload a CV. On my CV, I have included hyperlinks to my GitHub home page, my Google Scholar page, and to other GitHub projects that I have worked on. More precisely, my CV was written in LaTeX and uses the `hyperref` package to create these hyperlinks. I submit these CV's in PDF format with the hyperlinks embedded in them.
Once I upload my CV and preview it, for some universities, the hyperlinks work fine after I upload my CV and preview it. However, for others, the preview seems to remove the hyperlinks from the CV. I use sentences like "see `here` for details." in my CV, where `here` is hyperlinked, so removing the hyperlink makes this sentence meaningless. Note that different universities have different methods of previewing the CV, such as opening the CV in the Adobe PDF viewer or in a non-Adobe PDF viewer in another window. Hyperlinks usually work if the CV is opened using the Adobe PDF viewer.
Are people on the graduate admissions committee able to see these hyperlinks and download my CV in PDF format regardless of what the preview looks like?<issue_comment>username_1: It's obviously impossible for us to know whether the software used by certain universities preserves the hyperlinks in your pdf. However, if they're not shown in the preview, it's safer to assume that the hyperlinks will not be present in the final version seen by an admissions committee.
What can you do instead? The safest option is to rephrase your sentence to say something like "see Github repository for details: `www.github.com/myrepo`", including the url in full. You can use the \url{} command in LaTeX to hyperlink the url even when it's written out in full. This preserves the original functionality, while ensuring that the information is not lost with a hyperlink in the body of the text.
Furthermore, from an accessibility standpoint, it is generally considered better practice to write urls out in full, as those with visual impairments who use screen readers may not be able to properly interpret the sentence "more details available here" where "here" is a hyperlink.
As mentioned by @avid in the comments, inevitably someone who reads your documents will want to print them off and look at the hard copy. Again, a hyperlink in the text is useless to them, but the full url will at least let them know where to look.
Finally, as noted by @stephanmg in the comments, make sure that when you add these urls to your CV or other documents, they link to a stable site. For a CV it's not too much of a concern, as it will likely only be needed for a couple of months while the committee considers the application, but bear it in mind for future documents that may be updated less frequently. Hosting documents and other extra information about yourself on your own website could be a good workaround to this.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The issues you point to are real and good to pay attention to, but links are too useful to simply not use them in situations like this. Here is how I approach this issue:
1. Definitely use links (unless there is an explicit prohibition or a guideline discouraging their use), where appropriate. They add a lot and can be very useful to showcase your work and projects (and general tech savvy and resourcefulness).
2. Don’t use the “click [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com) for blabla” format for links in a PDF document. This would be confusing to someone reading the document on paper or on a PDF from which the link has been stripped. Instead the link text should be equal to the URL it links to (although it’s okay, and may be preferable, to strip the “https://“ header). Example: “see [academia. stackexchange.com](https://academia.stackexchange.com) for blabla”.
3. In general, don’t assume that any reader can or will visit the link. The document must stand on its own and make sense even if the links end up being stripped out. So, consider the links as extras that can add useful context but don’t use them to communicate any critically important information.
4. Link text should be styled (color, underlining, monospace font etc) so it’s easily seen and understood as a link.
5. Don’t point to web pages with very long URLs that clutter up the page and will lead to visually jarring line breaks (which LaTeX’s hyperref package doesn’t handle well). If the URL is somewhat long but not too long, consider putting it in a footnote and shrinking the font size.
6. Don’t use URL shorteners to get around the issue of long URLs. They obfuscate the link destination and require the reader to visit the link to find out where it points to, which is an annoyance and a security issue.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/12/01
| 504
| 2,000
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<issue_start>username_0: I am asking about some kind of standard well known and complete ethical codex with versions of strictness (a list of rules comparable to the creative commons licenses in the field of software/art publishing).
It seems to me that every journal has its own ethical codex stated, although all of the codexes seem to be almost the same (with minor differences). It seems a little bit silly to me.
I would like to know about something usable like:
* to tell my team: "all publishing should be done according to the ethical codex XY v1.x", or
* I would like to state in my hypothetical journal: "the journal complies with the ethical codex XY v2.x"
What am I missing? Where I can find it? Does some open ethical codex standard exist? If not, why not?<issue_comment>username_1: The [Committee on Publication Ethics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_Publication_Ethics) (<https://publicationethics.org/>) "is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to define best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing and to assist editors, publishers, etc. to achieve this."
They have many documents; you can probably start with their [core practices](https://publicationethics.org/core-practices). These cover:
1. Allegations of misconduct
2. Authorship and contributorship
3. Complaints and appeals
4. Conflicts of interest / Competing interests
5. Data and reproducibility
6. Ethical oversight
7. Intellectual property
8. Journal management
9. Peer review processes
10. Post-publication discussions and corrections
(Note that this focuses on *publication ethics*. If you want *research ethics* then that would be a separate question.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The German national funding association "DFG" publishes a codex of good scientific practice that is legally binding for all research funded by DFG. You can find an English translation online. Switzerland has a similar document. You can try the US "NSF" site next for further search.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/01
| 4,277
| 16,215
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in the field of computer science (more specifically robotics), and as I am writing, I must actively avoid using the words "however", "therefore", etc... every few sentences. This is especially an issue in proofs, as I feel like every other sentence follows from the previous.
For example, I am tempted to write something like the following:
>
> This constraint is satisfied because... However, if blah blah..., then blah blah. Therefore, something something. However,.... (and I can go on forever).
>
>
>
Often, I can just delete some of the "however" or replace "therefore" with words like "consequently". I can also sometimes change the wording to use "then", "so", or "but". However (see I can't even help myself), I feel compelled to use words like "however" to help with flow.
How can I avoid using words like "however" so many times? Is this bad writing? Is this normal?<issue_comment>username_1: Both are perfectly normal in academic writing. You can mix things up by using:
However
-------
* nevertheless
* nonetheless
* X notwithstanding
* This is not always/seldom/never the case for...
* ..., yet, ...
Therefore
---------
* Thus
* Ergo
* Hence
* Accordingly
* For this/that reason
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Let me suggest an alternate view. This is in regard to writing proofs and other very technical things. You want, above all, for your intent to be clear. It may be that "however" and "therefore" are the best available words and that they clearly express the flow of the argument.
After all, if you were writing the proof purely symbolically you would "overuse" certain logic symbols in order to be exact.
And, don't let "fancy words" get in the way of your readers deep dive into the ideas themselves. Sometimes the most obvious word is the one that is most quickly understood to express your intent. This might be especially important for those who know your subject, but are not native speakers of your language.
OTOH, I haven't actually seen your prose. If an editor or reviewer objects, then you can change it to suit, of course.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: EDIT: My answer here does not directly address your problem, but I see it is useful to look for synonyms sometimes, at least we avoid to use same words repeatedly.
I would suggest to consider this website to find synonyms ([www.thesaurus.com](https://www.thesaurus.com/)). For example, I have looked for synonyms of "therefore".
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ki04V.png)
As you can see in the results, there are a number of synonyms, sorted by relevance. You can check the meaning of each word by clicking on it. You can also see examples showing how the words are used in sentences.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It sounds to me like you're actually doing everything that you need to do already.
In fact, when you are initially writing a paper, I would suggest that you not worry about it *at all*. Write things as they come out most quickly and naturally, focusing only on conveying the substance of your argumentation.
Only at the very end, when you are polishing before submission, is it worth worrying about the wording. At that point, you can read the paper out loud to yourself and see if you start feeling repetitions or stumbling over sentence structure. Reading out loud is valuable because it slows you down and forces you to really hear what you have written. If your words feel uncomfortable when you read them out loud, then fix them just like you are doing already: deleting when you can, and substituting synonyms when you can't.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> I must actively avoid using the words "however", "therefore", etc... every few sentences
>
>
>
**Says who?** There is nothing wrong in repeating the same linking word every *few sentences*, in my view. Don't let the language majors guilt-trip you into thinking otherwise. That rule is way overrated.
If you are writing about matrices, you wouldn't look for synonyms to avoid repeating the word "matrix", would you? Just use the clearest and most appropriate words, and raise your threshold for how much repetition is 'unacceptable'. Unless every third word in your text is "however", I wouldn't worry.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Aggressive Pruning
------------------
I agree with other answers that your repetition of however and therefore might not be a problem in this context. However, I would like to point out another option. These words are usually included as signposts for the reader, but do not change the meaning of the text. Therefore, I suggest omitting them. For example,
>
> I agree with other answers that your repetition of however and therefore might not be a problem in this context. I would like to point out another option. These words are usually included as signposts for the reader, but do not change the meaning of the text. I suggest omitting them.
>
>
>
Just try removing the offending words in each sentence where you feel it might be getting repetitive. In most cases, you'll find you can remove "therefore" or "however" without impacting the argument. If the transition of ideas is jarring, leave the words in.
You mention that you remove instances like this already, but you may not be aggressive enough. In your question, you state
>
> Often, I can just delete some of the "however" or replace "therefore" with words like "consequently". I can also sometimes change the wording to use "then", "so", or "but". However (see I can't even help myself), I feel compelled to use words like "however" to help with flow.
>
>
>
To me, the "however" in the last sentence is optional. You add it to emphasize contradiction with the previous statement. You could replace with
>
> **Unfortunately**, I **still** feel compelled to use words like "however" to help with flow.
>
>
>
I would suggest an exercise where you remove all "however"s and "therefore"s and then **wait an hour or so**. After the wait, re-read your text and re-add the words where necessary. The time gap will give you time to forget where the words originally appeared and username_11w you to read with a fresh perspective. This should help with more aggressive pruning.
Rephrasing
----------
As regards to synonyms, sometimes rephrasing the sentence works better than rarely used synonyms like "ergo". For example,
>
> I agree with other answers that your repetition of however and therefore might not be a problem in this context. I would like to point out another **alternative**. These words are usually included as signposts for the reader, but do not change the meaning of the text. **When this is the case**, I suggest omitting them.
>
>
>
Rephrasing can also emphasize contradiction and support in the same way that "however" and "therefore" do. For rephrasing, the same exercise as above can help, but I also find proof-readers invaluable. They often find ways of stating the same thing more succinctly and elegantly because they have a fresh approach to the text.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: In other answers, people have suggested using synonyms, rephrasing, or omitting the conjunctions. I would like to add some extra insight on this.
I believe that “**however**” and “**therefore**” should be treated differently.
“**However**” serves the important purpose of preparing the reader for a contradiction or a problem that will arise following the conjunction. Therefore, it is hard to omit. The solution for avoiding the overuse of “**however**” is to use synonyms or to rephrase the sentence.
As for “**therefore**”, it shows that the next phrase or sentence follows from the previous one, and it can often be omitted. Of course, the other options are also possible.
Example
-------
I will illustrate with a random example I came up with:
>
> The constraint is satisfied because the *Σ*-value is *1.5*. **However**, we need to be careful since the standard deviation was quite high. **Therefore**, the experiment needs to be repeated for improved reliability.
>
>
>
>
> I recommend repeating the experiment while changing the value of *Ψ* to *3* so that the results will be compatible. **However**, setting *Ψ* to *3* might affect the consistency of the results due to *Ω* being *5*. **Therefore**, I also recommend changing *Ω* to *4*. This solves the consistency problem, **however**, precautions should be taken since this value for *Ω* is quite low.
>
>
>
Now, I will rewrite this text without using “**however**” and “**therefore**” at all. You don’t need to go this far in reality.
>
> The constraint is satisfied because the *Σ*-value is *1.5*. Although this is within the acceptable range, we need to be careful since the standard deviation was quite high. For this reason, the experiment needs to be repeated for improved reliability.
>
>
>
>
> I recommend repeating the experiment while changing the value of *Ψ* to *3* so that the results will be compatible. This introduces a new problem, where setting *Ψ* to *3* might affect the consistency of the results due to *Ω* being *5*. Since this may undermine the experiment, I also recommend changing *Ω* to *4*. This solves the consistency problem, but precautions should be taken since this value for *Ω* is quite low.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Consider the argument structure in the paper.
---------------------------------------------
I find that I have the however/therefore problem when I'm writing in flow-of-consciousness narrative voice, rather than making an effort to structure my arguments.
So I write something like:
>
> * Premise P1
> * Therefore, Conclusion C1
> * However, Counterargument to C1
> * Premise P2
> * Therefore, Conclusion C2a
> * Therefore, Conclusion C2b
> * However, Counterargument to C2a
> * Therefore, Counterargument to C2b
>
>
>
Given this experience, here are some structural things I try to consider.
**1) Give back-references.**
Would "Therefore"/"However" be better replaced with a simplifying restatement of the point that the arguments are building upon or tearing down?
>
> * Premise P1
> * Given P1, Conclusion C1
> * Despite P1, Counterargument to C1
> * Premise P2
> * Given P2, Conclusion C2a
> * Given C2a, Conclusion C2b
> * Despite P2, Counterargument to C2a
> * Given C/C2a, Counterargument to C2b
>
>
>
**2) Consider the flow of points.**
Looking at the sequence of premises and arguments you have in the paper, is it the clearest way to communicate your point? Would it be better split into separate sections? Perhaps "premises/assumptions", "conclusions/inferences/extrapolations", and "counterarguments" sections?
>
> * Premises
> + Premise P1
> + Premise P2
> * Inferences
> + Given P1, Conclusion C1
> + Given P2, Conclusion C2a
> + Given C2a, Conclusion C2b
> * Counterarguments
> + Despite P1, Counterargument to C1
> + Despite P2, Counterargument to C2a
> + Given C/C2a, Counterargument to C2b
>
>
>
**3) Maintain a consistent direction or thrust.**
Heavy use of "however" may indicate that you're regularly flipflopping between each side of an argument, rather than presenting one side in full, then presenting the other in full.
**4) Reserve them for building up or tearing down a point.**
If you're using "therefore" in a way that doesn't build upon prior information to form a further conclusion, or "however" in a way that doesn't present a counterpoint, then examine why you're using it.
Compare this, which neither builds on, not provides a counterpoint, but appears to do both:
>
> * We gathered the data.
> * However, this was not easy, as we were in the field.
> * Therefore, we only took a few readings.
>
>
>
to this, which avoids that appearance:
>
> * We gathered only limited data, due to fieldwork limitations.
>
>
>
**5) Don't thesaurize.**
Contrary to other advice, I wouldn't advise trying to conceal this issue by changing the words to synonymous terms.
You can't build a good wood-framed house without knowing exactly what the solid foundational posts are, the exact position of all the beams from foundations to lintel, and exactly how the joints tie each one to another.
You can't write a good paper without knowing exactly what the solid foundational premises are, the exact position of all your conclusions from premises to final, and exactly how the arguments tie each one to another.
That means knowing when you really mean to use "therefore", rather than spackling over all your joints to hide them behind weak weasel-word phrases like "and", "so", "then", "but", "yet", "though".
Like a good joiner makes the joints a visible feature of their work, make those words a feature of your writing, calling out its structure.
**6) OK, maybe sometimes thesaurize, but deliberately.**
This is an edge case, but perhaps worth mentioning.
Sometimes, we use different bullets at different levels, to avoid confusion:
1. blah
* blah
* blah
2. blah
In a similar way, it can be useful to thesaurize in order to separate subarguments from the main argument flow. Be careful, it can end up a mess, but it's worth trying:
>
> * Premise P1
> * *Therefore*, from P1, Conclusion C1
> + Note as an aside that tangential premise Pt1
> + *And so* tangential conclusion Ct1
> + *But* tangential counterpoint to Ct1
> * *Therefore*, from C1, Conclusion C2
> * *However*, Counterargument to C2
>
>
>
It's almost always better to slice the tangent off into another section, an infobox, or even leave it out completely, though.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: Very often, you use a "however" because you're describing some developing process of thought. Thoughts change or turn to something else, and this reflects on earlier assertions. But **a written document is not a speech** - your text does not have to be chronological relative to your thought processes (certainly not relative to your original thought processes). You can also use structure and visual appearance in your writing, which an oral presentation can't have.
Let's take your example:
>
> This constraint is satisfied because... However, if blah blah..., then blah blah.
>
>
>
You could make it:
>
> Let us now consider the whatever constraint:
>
>
> * **blah1** : The constraint is satisfied because ...
> * **blah2** : blah blah
>
>
>
This is usually a good idea. But, as other answers point out, sometimes the "however" makes perfect sense and the narrative sounds reasonable/engaging/exciting with it in place.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: This is an answer that could be applied to almost any question about writing style, and may get dinged for that, but I'm going to add it anyway: Look for examples to follow. When you read papers, take note of ones that are a pleasure to read, and then read them again to see how they do it. People have given some good answers with examples, and I think they are helpful, but they are made-up examples. It's really valuable to see how actual problems of exposition have been solved in ways that are clear and satisfying to you. Maybe they turn out to use "however" rather frequently, and maybe they don't. You will learn from what you see.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: An option is to use grammar checking tools. Most LaTeX editors do not include this, but you could, for example, copy & paste a paragraph into a word processor and see what synonyms it suggests.
I also have good experience with Grammarly, but it isn't cheap and may not be worth it. But it both tries to tell you when your text is repetitive, and you can click words to see synonyms. Just really make sure that you do not blindly accept and suggestions, as it sometimes wants to replace technical terms with something that's no synonym in that context. On the other hand, it works well with LaTeX, which is a big plus.
In the end, I think some online thesaurus and word processor features are suitable for native speakers. Non-native speakers may consider using a more costly tool, especially when your reviewers notice that you're not a native speaker.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: *Some context: I was intrigued by a short discussion in [another answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159491/159499#159499) relating to dealing with late submissions of work by students, where [Jeff](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/57314/jeff) suggested giving students a limited number of 12-hour "late tokens" that they can use at their discretion when submitting work late during a course. The idea of this is to give each student a "budget" for lateness, so that mild sporadic lateness would be okay, but repeated or extreme lateness would break the budget. This seems like a very clever idea to me. Hence, the purpose of this question is to solicit information on any other unusual/innovative practices lecturers use to deal with late submissions of assessment in their courses.*
**Question:** What kinds of unusual/innovative methods do lecturers use to deal with late submission of assessment?<issue_comment>username_1: My father tells of a class he took at Harvard Business School where the weekly case study write up was submitted through a mail slot in the department office, falling into a basket. At 5PM on Saturday, it was the janitor's job to push the basket away from the slot. On Monday morning, if your paper was on the floor you got a personal invitation to visit with the professor.
One result was two students getting in a fender-bender out front of the building at 4:50pm, each leaping out of their car to race in and drop their assignment in the slot, before going back outside to argue about who was at fault.
Perhaps not the best practice...
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In an effort to avoid whining and prolong the lives of grandmothers, I experimented with giving students a bank of "late days" which they could use to defer submission of homework. In an effort to teach some time management, I made the students responsible for telling me that they intended to use late days *before* the due date of the assignment.
That did not work. "I'm sorry my assignment was late, but...." turned into "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going to use late days, but..."
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in my first semester at a Master's level program in mental health counseling, and I have aspirations of perhaps eventually getting my PhD. I'm presently working on a project for a class about PTSD and after about a day of digging, I found a plethora of theoretical models; some of which are older, some of which are newer and have been built off of previous ones. Traumatology is a much larger and more developed field than I had initially thought, and there are numerous complicating issues, one example being the interaction and overlap with dissociative features/disorders and developmental pathways and models.
I'm starting to get overwhelmed by all the connections I'm seeing and all the articles and books I want/have to read in order to do a half way decent job, and it doesn't help that I'm on a time crunch.
I have had this experience in my undergrad a bit, but managed to scrape by with a research paper that didn't end up amounting to much. I was not satisfied with that outcome, and don't want to repeat that in any of my Master's level courses, but I find myself uncertain of what effective research even looks like or what to expect from myself.
I have 3 questions, the first two are iterations of the same question.
1. How could I orient myself in the literature of any given field without "getting lost" when pursuing a research project, an overview, or even just a rudimentary understanding as the basis for a question in a different field that has some interactions or influences with the one I am investigating?
For instance, perhaps I decide in my PhD to develop a project on topic x and want to include perspectives from fields y and z, which I have a good foundation for but am not intimately familiar with the literature or theoretical models of the fields themselves.
2. How do I know when I'm trying too hard to understand/give an account for a phenomenon that is not immediately and directly relevant to the topic of my paper?
For instance, if I'm really interested in doing a paper about the relationship between some particular feature of the interactions between pathology A and B, but I get caught in the weeds in trying to understand/explain to the reader competing behavioral models for understanding A and contrasting the cognitive and behavioral models for B.
3. How do you deal with feeling overwhelmed when doing research?<issue_comment>username_1: Start with well-written review papers. These are designed to do exactly what you ask: to orient a reader to the state of knowledge in some field. If you are working on something multidisciplinary you may need a separate orientation for each discipline if there isn't a good review that already makes the connection for you.
Then, once you are oriented, you can start to dig. Try to discipline yourself towards pursuing a specific goal in your literature search. When you find offshoots, label them as future places to dig but don't start excavating them quite yet.
Other than that, try to stay organized. Organize your thoughts by writing down what you are learning, make concept maps if they help you, or start organizing references into nested bulleted lists. Be open to reorganizing as things develop.
---
*I want to add an addendum concerning your specific field of research. Published science in biology and medicine, and even more so in areas related to mental health/psychiatry/counseling, may contain a lot of conflicting information. These fields deal with some of the most complex systems humans know of, and our core knowledgebase is extremely lacking. If you're used to reading textbook descriptions of "how things are", the actual academic literature is by comparison extraordinarily muddy (this is true of all fields, no doubt, but I think especially the ones I've mentioned). It may help to know to accept this, and to not treat any one paper as Truth. There are competing models and competing hypotheses and competing approaches to treatment because none have yet "won".*
*Adding from a comment:* if you are wondering how to find review papers...
*There are some journals that only contain reviews. Some of these are good journals (and since reviews tend to get cited a lot, you can often discover them by their very high impact factors), some are not (these will tend not to be cited much). Some indexes, like PubMed, allow you to filter for only reviews (I don't know how accurate these filters are). Otherwise, adding "review" to a search string will help. You won't get all reviews, but many of the top results will be.*
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The first answer by username_1 is excellent. I only add a few points.
1. Apart from review papers, also good contemporary papers that are close to what you are interested in can give you some orientation by how they survey the literature in the introduction and maybe in some more specialist parts connected to what you want to work on. This will also give you an idea how much the experts think should be taken into account (note though that often papers are cited that those who cite them have not fully read - maybe they just had a very quick look and have decided that this serves as a reference for a specific issue they want to highlight).
2. It is important to acknowledge that there may be so much literature that is related in one way or another that the task of reading and understanding all would be too much to ask for everyone. Even the top researchers ignore some stuff, just because they have to, there's too much out there. A good attitude could be to restrict oneself to a well defined small "subproblem" and to consciously take some things for granted that are backed up by good recent literature. It is important to define limitations of the area of interest and to leave some issues out (and rather stick to one position that is taken by some literature even if some others disagree with that), but at the same time to not forget there is more and to remain aware of the limits of the approach you are taking. You don't need to present your material as if you knew everything, you can say things like "there are other approaches but I don't consider them here; they could be topics for further research". Sure, you may miss something important, but with a modest enough way of presenting/writing, whenever somebody makes you aware of what could be beneficial to take additionally into account, you do not have to defend that this was ignored but can rather say, "thank you, good hint, I'll have a look at that". Surely at masters stage and early in the PhD, people should understand that you can't know it all.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It can also be useful to quantitatively analyse the literature from the information in databases such as scopus. For example, a few lines of code in the `bibliometrix` package in `R` (I'm sure there are alternatives) can tell you the most cited authors, papers and other useful info very quickly. If you have the time you can even take this a step further and look at the whole citation network that shows you clusters around research groups.
It can also be helpful to keep track of search terms you have used and also to tell databases to notify you of publications that contain some keywords as they are published.
This is more targeted at your first question in addition to the answers already posted :)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: It seems like question 3 (**How do you deal with feeling overwhelmed when doing research?**) is still mostly left unanswered. I can offer my suggestions as a PhD student in the US between computer science and media studies, and encourage others to post theirs.
I often think of the short-term (e.g, day-length) feeling of overwhelm as indigestion. The parallels are pretty apt. It implies the process of absorbing difficult research information is a lot like 'digestion' - slow and mostly unconscious. (A good walk also helps both.)
With that said, there are techniques I use occasionally to make sense of what I'm reading. Most beneficial is annotating the paper with highlights and comments. Oftentimes it's an informal reaction ("Wow!", "Boom!", "WTF?") and sometimes it's longer ("Same idea as that Blascovich personal space paper"). I also have spreadsheets of papers with some sort of categorization. Oftentimes, though, I'm more distracted by trying to find the right way to organize the papers that I miss the details in the papers themselves. Your experience may be different, though.
It was helpful for me to accept that I'm not going to understand the paper at the first pass, I'm not going to remember everything I need, and that's OK. Someone spent at least six months on this work - usually much longer. The work is complicated and strange and new (or at least was at the time the paper was written).
The long-term feeling of overwhelm is a different problem. I'd suspect you're still acclimating to knowledge having a frontier and questions not having satisfying answers. It is a hard process to begin to trust that something can't be known right now and, relatedly, to build the skill of judging whether it is knowable or not. In my experience and what others have told me, this is a rite of passage for academia. Congratulations!
Perhaps the most practical piece of advice when you're just starting out is to pattern-match other papers. Depending on the venue we submit to, we may have zero, one, or 3-5 theoretical perspectives in a paper. Oftentimes they exist to show you've done your literature review, you're a legitimate researcher, and that it's relevant to previous work. I have never felt 100% confident that the theory I've chosen is absolutely the best theory to reference, or even felt 100% confident that the theory is 100% 'right'. As username_1 said in his addendum, "These fields deal with some of the most complex systems humans know of, and our core knowledgebase is extremely lacking." Of course, it is still useful to learn these methods deeply - but as you point out, the trouble is knowing how much is too much. Paper-writing is more of an art than a science, and if you feel uncomfortable, ask for feedback.
Another tip for addressing overwhelm is to talk to others about the research. It's easy to forget how far you've come and what you've learned when you're immersed in it. I hope you have a handful of friends that also enjoy learning for learning's sake with whom you can discuss what you're finding.
All in all, these are good questions to ask but difficult questions to answer. As you do, you'll be building your skills as a researcher.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Use your supervisor as a reality check
======================================
Part of the journey from bachelor to master to PhD is becoming a more independent researcher. But you're not a PhD graduate yet, you're not expected to be fully independent yet. (Amazing: as a kid you're forever told that you'll be completely independent at 18.)
Of course it's not the job of your supervisor to tell you exactly what to do and do your searching for you. But they should know your field better than you and can give you some boundaries. They can help you make sense of the big mass of literature if you ask questions like:
* Is there a paper or author that you recommend I absolutely read? Is there a good paper to start with on the tangent I ran into?
* I read this paper but I'm not sure if I agree with it, what do you think about it?
* I found these five papers that seem to cover the issue, is there anything major that I overlooked?
* I got this surprising new experimental result/I ran into this technical obstacle, and I think I need to investigate this tangent a bit more. Or maybe I think I need a technique to solve this problem. Which direction would you look into?
The literature for most fields is like a vast mountain range and you need a guide, to have any idea what the possible destinations even are (and which ones are feasible for you to climb, at your current skill level and within the timespan of your education program).
The ultimate goal is that you learn the territory yourself so that you don't need a guide anymore. But that's something you learn over time. Most of it will be because you spend a lot of time reading, and eventually a bigger picture emerges. The role of the supervisor is as a guide in this territory, but not as a guide who shows around a tourist once, but as training a new guide.
Read effectively
================
Also, make sure you're reading papers in a pragmatic way. This [video lecture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=733m6qBH-jI) by <NAME> gives a very actionable explanation of the technique of reading academic papers. Some key topics in there that I think are useful:
* How to "investigate" a single paper to determine if it's useful to you. It's something most of us have been told various times, but may not have needed until we started reading multiple advanced papers, at which point just brute force reading isn't efficient enough anymore.
* How to read a lot of papers over a year; what he calls the "Saturday morning problem". You get a real understanding of a field not by working hard for a week, but by chipping away at it patiently for months.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Two years ago I failed my comprehensive exam at the US PhD program, although my advisor was happy with my results. Then, I started to work at one of the top companies, but, I have never ever given up my desire to finish a PhD.
I want to apply to PhD programs again. **How should I address the issue of failing my comprehensive exams?** Basically how to convince them that you are able to finish their program.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is possible to do this.
First, there are lots of reasons for failing qualifying/comprehensive exams, one of which is just burn-out.
It is even possible to move to a higher ranked institution when you do so and to be successful there. (Yes, I have anecdotal evidence.)
But, to do so requires an advocate who can assure the new institution that you have what it takes for success; knowledge, drive, skills. Your current advisor might be the person to do this for you but they will be putting their own reputation on the line to some extent so they need to be sure and *you* need to be sure that you will do what it takes to succeed. They will need to use already existing professional relationships to get another institution to give you the chance you want. This will probably limit the places you could move to in order to make it happen.
Another faculty member, not your advisor, might also be able to do this for you if you have a good relationship along with their respect.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It certainly is possible; I too have anecdotal experience.
There's really two main items at question here.
* Why did you fail your qualifying exams the first time?
* What will you get out of completing a PhD?
My experiences are as follows -
First, I failed because I took them too early and was not professional about my studies as I should have been, plain and simple. At that point, I was locked into a rigid timeline for a retake which I attempted to negotiate with the department. They pushed back and I passed 2/3 retakes, but that was not enough. I did great research, my advisor totally had my back (and is still incredibly disappointed with the department and the handling of my situation), the only reason I didn't continue was because I did not pass the qualifiers.
Based on the fact that you are at a 'Big 4' consulting firm, you probably have a good career ahead of you. I was in industry for a while before returning to academia after undergrad, so I totally understand that academia provides truly unique opportunities. For me, it allowed me to re-orient myself from a management career track to a technical career track. And in the process, I fell in love with the process of finding research problems and having the freedom to really dig in and become an expert. Academia is really the only way for me to pursue the topic that I want to pursue, and to continue to develop myself as an independent researcher.
You really need to think hard about both of these questions. I did, and I knew that I wanted to continue. I worked hard to develop a relationship with another PI. And honestly, I'm working on problems which are more interesting to me in a niche field that is on the cusp of some very interesting results at the intersection of theoretical results and application.
There was another member of my cohort who didn't pass the qualifiers in the same round. They already had a master's, and decided that getting a PhD just wasn't in the cards for them.
---
On the practical side of things, you're giving up 3-5 years of, I am guessing, a 6-figure salary with good retirement package. That's a LOT of money, not to mention bonuses, raises, etc.. On the other hand, the golden handcuffs are likely not too tight on you yet, so now would be the time to take them off without too much pain.
In the end, this all really falls on you and how much you want to get the PhD - at this point, I would say it's not just want, it's how much you *need* to get it, for personal or professional reasons. There's plenty of ways to work on interesting projects doing what you want to do without a PhD. My biggest recommendation: exhaust those options before jumping back in.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: There are a number of other questions about dealing with non-response or the length of the review process and some here about burnout in academia. I'm in the end of getting a paper accepted, but (thankfully) the reviews have been reasonably prompt.
I just sent in a finalized manuscript, which is the fourth version of the paper I've turned in. (Maybe this is normal and I just had unrealistic expectations?) After this I also anticipate receiving a typeset version to review, as well as dealing with any correspondence on the figures or tables from the paper. I'm just feeling quite burned out by the process and wanting it to be through.
What advice do you have for dealing with a long, intensive review process? How do you approach each phase of the process with a healthy mindset?<issue_comment>username_1: I can suggest two things. The first, and probably most important, is to have other things to occupy your mind and your time while the process goes on. Don't wait for replies on submitted work, but get the next thing into better shape.
The other thing is just to accept that the system is out of your control for all practical purposes. Editors and reviewers (especially) have their own work schedules and you have no control over that. The quality of the reviewers is not something you have any say over. When you do get a reply, respond promptly, of course. And if you find long delays between communications, ask about the status and ask for an estimate for completion of the current stage. But just accept that it is a fact of life, not unlike the weather.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with the excellent advice given by [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/75368/). One more thing that might be useful is to use the long review as an opportunity to self-reflect and see if you could have done better drafts earlier in the process. Ideally, with experience, we should all be getting better and better at making great first drafts that require very little revision. So ask yourself if ---in hindsight--- your first draft had deficiencies that you should have fixed before initial submission. I know I have got back some submissions where I see the comments and think OOPS!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You can save a lot of work by not doing the work the journal is supposed to do. E.g. in Elsevier journals you don't need to bother with the style guides, the formatting of the references etc., but many authors do stick to the journal guidelines. Elsevier earns lots of money from their subscriptions and they pay that out for their staff for typesetting the articles according to the journal's specifications, so there is absolutely no need for authors to do this work.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Anecdotally, I've heard that it's easier to get tenure in UK/Canada than in the US.
I've also heard that some departments have a reputation for denying tenure.
Are there statistics about this? (related question: [Tenure and tenure denial rates by universities](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/139969/tenure-and-tenure-denial-rates-by-universities))
How can a job seeker determine how difficult it will be to get tenure when weighing offers from multiple departments?
EtA:
* For instance, are there polite/coy ways of asking about this? Would students or post-docs know and be in a more honest position than the profs? Are reputations widely known and so just asking some senior people would likely give you a good sense?
* Another aspect of this question: are there regional differences, as I alluded to?<issue_comment>username_1: Let me mention some aspects not covered by the other question.
I think that for an individual case it is nearly impossible to make a prediction with any validity. Even if you can determine the historical record for a given department, things change. Things always change.
The decisions on tenure are based on both the needs of a given department, which evolve over time, and the actual record and performance of an individual candidate. Nothing in this is very predictable. You can do a "good" job that isn't "quite" good enough as measured by the evaluations of your peers. You might be a bit unlucky in your research production or your teaching evaluations. Or you might be especially lucky. It varies.
Worse than that is the question of changing economic and even political situations. A legislature may decide to reduce funding for a university or for a specialty just as it becomes a factor for you. Economic conditions might be especially good or bad for bringing new students into the university (or your department) at just the point at which decisions are made.
There have been situations in which a department recommends a person for tenure, but the university says no, due to decreased or even uncertain funding. After all, tenure is a long term commitment that may be difficult to make in uncertain times.
And, of course, a pandemic might hit.
While one can gather statistics about such things over time, such things are essentially meaningless as a predictive measure for an individual. You take a chance. You work hard. You hope for the best. But also, you keep flexible if you are wise and look at how your current trajectory is going with respect to the trends developing around you.
The one thing you can do is try to match the stated priorities of an institution to your own skills. If you are a better teacher than researcher, then a teaching college will almost certainly be a better "bet" than a research focused institution. But that, I assume, is obvious. But be realistic about your self evaluation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It is a game-theoretical exchange, of sorts. The university (or institution offering tenure) does not really want to offer tenure. However, since other institutions ARE offering tenure, it has to match. It will tend to offer tenure if they believe a) you would bring more prestige (and grants, etc) to the institution than it will pay out over time and b) there is a chance some other institution coming to the same conclusion. Supply, nice to see you again, have you met my friend Demand yet?
In being that - it is basically as any other job - but tenure being as it is the assessments and the appetite for risk are likely different.
Thus we can conclude - if you are a stellar intellectual it is easier to get tenure at lower rank institutions than higher, if the grant/patent/prestige economy is volatile it will be more difficult and if there are several candidates available to the institution per field it will be more difficult. Questions to ask to assess the likelyhood of tenure would be as to the financial health and prestige of the institution, the "hotness" of the field in question, the grant/patent economy of the field and finally, what is the competition like.
Upvotes: -1
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2020/12/03
| 1,084
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<issue_start>username_0: My paper is accepted at MNRAS and in the stage of editing.
There is a section where I wrote an equation using the Greek letter π as to indicate the mathematical constant π.
The editor wrote:
>
> Author: When used to mean the numerical value `3.14`, the Greek letter `pi` must always be written in roman. Please check all the notations throughout the text carefully
>
>
>
I think this request is canned, so I doubt there is any typo or similar here.
What exactly is π in roman? Shouldn't it be written in Greek? Is it a mistake of the editor or a misunderstanding from my side?<issue_comment>username_1: They are referring to the *upright* version of pi. In the picture below, you can find on the left an italics version and on the right an upright one.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TS21u.png)
If you're using LaTeX, you can obtain the upright pi with the `upgreek` package and the command `\uppi`, see [this Q&A on TeX SE](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/54166/upright-lowercase-pi).
More details on this convention can be found in the [IUPAC Green book](https://iupac.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/IUPAC-GB3-2012-2ndPrinting-PDFsearchable.pdf), which follows the ISO/IEC 80000 standard. From p. 7 of the linked document:
>
> The overall rule is that symbols representing physical quantities or variables are italic, but symbols representing units, mathematical constants, or labels, are roman.
>
>
>
And from p. 8:
>
> The symbols π (3.141 592. . .), e (2.718 281. . . , base of natural logarithms), i (square root of minus one), etc. are always roman [...]
>
>
>
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: ### They mean that it shouldn't be written in italics.
Basically, they weren't referring to the Roman and Greek civilizations, but to typefaces.
Quoting from the [Encyclopedia Brittanica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/roman-typeface):
>
> Roman, in printing, one of the three major typefaces in the history of Western typography (the others being italic and black letter, or Gothic) and, of those three, the face that is of the greatest importance and the widest use.
>
>
>
So, basically, by specifying that pi should be roman, they were specifying that it should be written using a particular sort of typeface, without using italics. Some of the other answers have talked about how to do so using LaTeX, but since none of them have explicitly stated what "roman" means in this context, I figured I'd write an answer explaining it.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Specifically at MNRAS, they actually provide an upright (i.e., not italic) version of π in their LaTeX class. To cite [the manual](http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/mnras/mnras_guide.pdf):
>
> There are several options which can be added to the document class line like this:
>
> \documentclass[option1,option2]{mnras}
>
> The available options are:
>
>
>
> * ...
> * useAMS– adds support for upright Greek characters \upi,\umuand, \upartial (π,μ and ∂). Only these three are included, if you re-quire other symbols you will need to include the amsmath or amsymb packages
>
>
>
I believe the request for the upright π can be inferred from their *[General Instructions](https://academic.oup.com/mnras/pages/General_Instructions#6.2%20Spelling,%20grammar,%20punctuation%20and%20mathematics)*:
>
> **Mathematics**
>
> (...) Differential d, complex i, exponential e, (...) are roman (not italic).
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5
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2020/12/03
| 1,595
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<issue_start>username_0: As the title suggests, it's not clear to me the actual difference between a postdoc and research fellow, especially when looking at the typical academia road. I understand that (maybe?) there is a difference between how the two are funded, but which one that (naturally) shows more qualities that can be appreciated when looking for a job as a lecturer? Qualities like 'Independent researcher that can design and lead high quality research programs'.
Edit:
If it helps, I am talking specifically about the UK system.<issue_comment>username_1: **Q: It's not clear to me the actual difference between a postdoc and research fellow, especially when looking at the typical academia road.**
Correct. Often times there is not a difference.
Titles are institution specific (e.g., universities, national labs, funding agencies) and often sub-division within institutions (e.g., departments, even specific PIs based upon how they hire people with their institution's hiring mechanism).
Sometimes a title including *post-doc* or similar title (e.g., post-doctoral fellow) requires the person be within *X*-years of their terminal degree.
Conversely, as noted by others, *research fellows* or similar title can be permanent positions, be programs or even titles for experienced scientists, or be visiting programs for distinguished faculty and researchers from other places.
For example The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has a [Fellowship Program](https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-technology-policy-fellowships/become-st-policy-fellow) for people (ranging from recent grads to tenured faculty) to gain experience applying science to policy.
You ask about demonstrating *Qualities like 'Independent researcher that can design and lead high quality research programs'*.
Rather than looking at title, demonstrate these qualities through outcomes.
For example, your CV might include (order the text based upon your CV's target such as a research or teaching school):
>
> **Position title**, Place Name, supervised by Dr. Smith (2019 -2020)
>
>
> Developed new widgets theory resulting *X* publications (depending upon your CV format, perhaps cross-ref here, e.g., Jones et al. 2019, Smith et al. 2020). Wrote grants for $XX,000 and managed the widget research project. Mentored *Y* peons. Presented results at *XYZ*. Developed and taught new course, Widget-ology. List other relevant outcomes to the position you're applying for.
>
>
>
Of course, list your grants, presentations, and publications in their own, respective sections of your CV.
Depending upon your subfield, the **Place Name** and the **PI** you worked under can be given a lot of weight or little weight compared to your outcomes (e.g., pubs, grants, technical skills).
Sometimes **Position Title** can carry weight, but these are usual for hard to obtain fellowships that are also captured in other parts of your CV (e.g., a US NSF Postdoc Fellowship that you obtains as the PI would also be listed under *Grants* on your CV).
Compared to a position's **nouns** (e.g., titles, places, PIs), actions usually carry more weight.
For example, **publishing** a first authored paper in *Science* or *Nature* would outweigh where you had your post-doc fellowship.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In the UK system, there is a difference between a Postdoctoral research assistant (PDRA) and an independent fellow.
A PDRA is, in general, an employee of their PI. They often work on project designed by the PI, probably funded by a grant the PI obtained. While they are often given a lot of independence, they are, in the final analysis, hired to do a job.
In the case of an Independent Fellowship, such as the MRC's Career Development Fellowship, the BBSRC's David Philips fellowship or the Wellcome Trust's Sir Henry Dale fellowship, the postdoctoral researcher *is* the PI. They may work with a mentor or institutional sponsor, but they devise the research program, obtain the funding, hire any staff (although its less usual to have a research team beyond the fellow and maybe a technician), and have signing off rights on purchasing authority. A fellowship is the first step on the faculty ladder, and a much sought after one because a fellow is generally excused from any teaching responsibilities.
In biology, where authorship order matters, a PDRA would be expected to be the first author, a fellow the last or corresponding author on any publications.
Or another way of looking at it - for a PDRA the researcher applies to an advertised job vacancy and competes with others to win the position from the university. In contrast, universities will compete to host a fellow. Many universities will promise a fellow a permanent position after their fellowship ends if they agree to undertake their fellowship at that university (a so-called proleptic appointment).
In UK science at least, career paths look a bit like:
PhD (3-4 years) -> PDRA(2-3x, 2-3 years each) -> R&T Lecturer (5-10ish years) -> Senior Lecturer -> Prof
OR
PhD (3-4 years) -> PDRA(1 or 2x, 2-3 years each) -> Independent Research Fellow (R only, 5 years) -> R&T Lecturer/Senior Lecturer -> Prof.
OR
PhD (3-4 years) -> PDRA (3 years) -> Independent Research Fellowship (R only, 5 years) -> Senior Research Fellowship (R only, 3-5 years each, as long as you keep getting lucky) -> R&T Senior Lecturer/Prof.
You normally apply directly to the funder. You will need to nominate a host when you do, and will need a letter of support from the host institution, so you should approach potential hosts first.
One biological example of a research fellowship is the Sir Henry Dale fellowship:
<https://wellcome.org/grant-funding/schemes/sir-henry-dale-fellowships>.
Here is what Leeds University (not my uni) has to say about its support for people applying for fellowships: <https://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/2000/research_and_innovation/699/fellowships>
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2020/12/03
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<issue_start>username_0: In the exams for the course I am taking, **all questions are full credit or zero.** Specifically, each exam has only 3 questions (approximately 30 points each). The professor only looks at the result. So, if you have a minus sign wrong in your final answer, you get 0 points. **Further, any student who does not get 30/100 on the midterm is "banned" from taking the final exam** and automatically fails the course (this is a policy the professor invented himself, and only he does it). Due to this, lots of people fail this course every year.
Normally in a year it is expected 100 students take this course (this is an obligatory course), but since many people fail, there are 200+ people taking this course every year (and this is the only course like this. Most of people fail it). And he is the only professor doing this. (I think it is some kind of a mobbing.)
And he seems so much closed to communication. He denies everything and always tells that "you are not studying, this course is not that hard!" But logically it cannot be true. Because there must be "some people" studying the course.
Last year nearly 200+ people took the class, but only 50 people could manage to pass it.
And most of the students "failed" the course because of his 30/100 threshold. They were banned to take the final exam.
**So how could I deal with this problem?**
---
Clarifications:
* As I know he was dismissed to give lessons for a while due his behaviors before. Many people informed his behaviors to central authorities, but nothing changed. (As I know last year some students wrote mails to authorities to inform about the situation.)
* Students do not have representatives that interface with the university administration. I do not know If it is brought to department council as a big group or not but everybody in the department is "aware" of this situation for years. And some other professors condemn him during their own lectures.
* I am not blaming my professor. I just explained the situation I am into and asked for suggestions. Now as majority suggested, I will study more to this course. However in my country only top 5% of high school students are admitted to engineering degree. So at least in my country, a "German system" of classes with very high failure rates does not make sense.
* This is not a subject area where mistakes could have lethal consequences
* The rector of the university is "friend" of this professor. So he is some sort of "untouchable". And people are scared to get stigmatized by him.
* The professor is the department chair, so complaining to the department chair is not an option<issue_comment>username_1: I think that if the university permits this sort of thing that you have little recourse.
You could complain to their superiors, of course. Perhaps you could drop the course.
If I were the department head over this person, or a dean, I'd want to have a talk with them to see how they might justify this. I think, personally, that it would be hard to justify, but it might be possible, depending on the subject matter and field. If you are studying math, for example, I don't see much possibility of a justification. But if your knowledge and behavior in your field might put other people at serious risk in some way, then there might be some argument for a very severe filter.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This may be almost too obvious to be worth mentioning, but one idea you could consider is to study really really hard for this class in order to make sure you do not end up in the group of people who fail it, large though that group may be. It sounds like it’s not impossible to do well in the class, just more difficult than you are used to. A relevant idea to keep in mind is that you have control over the outcome: the belief that you can adapt your behavior to the situation and achieve a successful outcome is what is known as a [growth mindset](https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/). It’s a powerful idea and very worth thinking about, both in the current context and for anything else you aim to do in the future.
That being said, it’s possible that the professor is unreasonably harsh in his grading methodology. Failing that many students by setting standards that are so high as to be nearly unattainable does not benefit either the students or the university (or future employers of those students), and results in a waste of resources and a drain on the students’ morale. Certainly preventing students from taking the final exam because of poor performance in the midterm is a rather extreme step, and contradicts much of what I know about best practices in education.
So, at the same time that you are working hard to succeed in the class, it’s completely reasonable to try to get the university to see that there is a problem and put pressure on the professor to change these policies. Some avenues that you can explore are to bring the matter up with the dean, the university ombuds person, your student union, or other types of student advocates that may be available. A local student or town newspaper or news website may also take an interest if this is an issue that affects a large number of students. If you are savvy with social media, you could drum up interest through Facebook or other social media, and attract support for your cause.
Good luck!
**Edit:** based on the discussion in the comments, many people seem to think my social media idea is a really bad one. I don’t completely understand their objection (the main reasoning given is the idea that social media are a “cesspit”, so it may simply reflect a dislike of social media in general and a belief that you shouldn’t use it for any purpose), but it’s possible they have a point, so keep that in mind. In any case, my suggestion is not meant to be understood as an endorsement of social media in general, only as a suggestion that social media may be useful as an advocacy/campaigning tool in a specific situation like yours.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: All of the things you have mentioned are just difficult aspects of the assessment requirements for the course. So long as the assessment rules and standards formulated by this professor are within the scope of university assessment rules, then it is within his academic discretion to do this. (You do not mention your university or even what country you are in so it is hard to offer a view on the likely state of the assessment rules.)
Imposing a requirement to pass a midterm exam in order to be able to sit the final exam is an unusual practice, but it is really not so different from imposing prerequisite requirements between separate courses --- in this case he is effectively splitting his course into two parts, and successful completion of the first half of the course is a prerequisite for sitting the assessment in the second half.
Many academics on this site will regard this kind of harsh assessment structure as bad practice; whilst it is not how I would structure my own assessment, I'm more agnostic about this --- I certainly don't think it is the worst thing in the world to have some courses like this impose intermediate "hurdles" which are hard for students to pass. It is desirable to allow some variation in assessment practices to give scope for innovation, so I think it is best not to put professors on too tight a leash. It sounds like this professor is satisfied with his assessment practices, notwithstanding the dissent expressed to him, so I see little value in trying to lobby for change.
Another thing to consider here is that some early courses in degree programs can act as a "filter" to ensure that only high-quality students proceed to the next phase of the program. In programs where early courses are too easy, this often leads to low quality students coming into later courses without the requisite level of knowledge and prowess in the subject. This is extremely frustrating for the lecturers of those later courses, since it is something that makes their own teaching substantially more difficult. As someone who has been in that position, I prefer lecturers of early courses to err on the side of making their courses too hard rather than too easy, so this guy would be welcome to teach courses that feed into mine!
My recommendation would be to accept that this professor has the discretion to set the assessment for his course how he wants (presuming it is within the university rules) and that he has made a decision with knowledge that many students do not like his assessment structure. Concentrate your efforts on studying hard and trying your best to pass the midterm and final exams.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The honest answer to your question "how to deal with..." is to work hard and study so you will score the required minimum 30/100 on the midterm. And then continue working hard so you learn the material well enough that you can correctly answer many questions on the final. Good luck!
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I don't know what the topic of the course is, and making midterm success a necessary prerequisite for the final exam is questionable.
But requiring you to get only 30% of answers right seems quite generous to me. It means that of 10 tasks you are allowed to get 7 of them wrong, and still pass the exam.
In the engineering industry, anyone failing 70% of tasks would long have been fired. And in industry you have to get the final result correct. There typically is no reward for getting it half-correct. So, the all-or-nothing approach is not inherently wrong. It prepares you for "real life" (although in industry, you don't have to solve a lot of small tasks within a few hours, you typically have big, complex tasks and weeks of time).
This type of exam teaches you to double-check your results, to concentrate on quality more than quantity, and that's a very important competence. I can tell you from personal experience that the industry already has too many engineers taking quality lightly.
Having said that, I never experienced a course with a 75% failure rate myself. To me, this is an indicator that the criteria are too harsh. I can't believe that those 75% can't become successful engineers.
P.S. I'm an electrical engineer myself, holding a PhD degree.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: This is a frame challenge because it seems to me, from reading the comments, that the problem is the marking scheme, not that you are not allowed to take the final due to poor marks in the mid term.
Comments indicate that a small number of questions are asked and only the final result of the answer counts. I assume this means calculation or math based questions. So if you are given three questions and make a minor mistake in each one you get 0. Getting the correct answer gives you 33%. The only way to get above 30% if to answer at least one question perfectly, although in fact it seems that you just need to get the answer correct so errors like taking an overly complex approach wouldn't matter.
Under that grading scheme if you can't pass the midterm you are unlikely to pass the final. The solution isn't to persuade your professor to allow you to attempt the final even though you failed the midterm but to have a more reasonable marking scheme, in which a good student won't care if they are required to pass the midterm because so long as they know the material sufficiently well to pass the final they will pass it anyway.
Pointing out that this grading scheme gives the exact same grade to someone who never even cracked a book and someone who knows the fundamentals but still makes minor mistakes stands a better chance of getting something changed. Complaining that you have to get 30% in the midterm to be allowed take the final isn't because that is going to sound pretty reasonable to a lot of people.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I had a professor that did the same thing (in the 80ies), and when asked, his explanation was:
***"If you become an engineer, and design a bridge, a single error in a long calculation might result in the bridge crashing, killing lots of people. Are you going to tell them 'it was just a small error'?"***
His point is that in real life, a small error is often still a full fail, and you get trained for real life.
You might not agree with him, but he is not completely wrong either. Many students nowadays have forgotten that university is supposed to teach you for your work life, and a degree is supposed to confirm that you can handle its challenges, not that you can game your way through its system. It is not always easy to find the line between unfair, realistic, and useful education.
Update: for reference, you needed 25% correct to pass his exam, which had typically four to six questions, in four hours. If you knew your stuff, you could be done in one hour with 75 - 100%. So it wasn't unfeasible.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: Check what the stated teaching goals in the course description are. If "doing flawless mental arithmetic" isn't in there, even if there are no strong guidelines on how exams are to be designed, this practice should be hard to defend.
username_6 wrote in his answer that you can "[point] out that this grading scheme gives the exact same grade to someone who never even cracked a book and someone who knows the fundamentals but still makes minor mistakes", but this can be strengthened further: Even if you *perfectly* know all course materials, if you have a non-negligible chance of introducing general arithmetic errors in the calculation, you are effectively bound to fail. The exam as designed therefore fails to test the actual course contents, but instead tests something else. If that something else isn't relevant or unfairly disadvantages some people, you have your point of attack. (At least if you local laws support that - you're not stating where you are.)
So check if there's a student with something like dyscalculia or other documented disadvantages. You should be able to make a case that this method of grading unfairly discriminates against them - especially since this is a required course, they'd effectively be unable to finish that degree. Then, for just about any alternate grading method that's proposed, you can argue that it gives them an unfair advantage since everyone else also occasionally makes arithmetic mistakes. And then (assuming there's at least some reasonable people involved) you should (hopefully) be able to reach the point where everyone gets the same altered grading scheme.
(This worked to improve a similarly harsh grading scheme of a prof at our university. I don't know how much of a threat you'd need to build up in your case - from mentioning that this is discriminatory, over mentioning that someone could lawyer up, to actually hitting them with a lawyer - in our case, talking to & working with the disability advisor and letting them talk to the exam board and prof was enough. Give it a few months though - don't expect a quick result in just a few weeks.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: The posted answers address the professors habits, but not how the student should deal with them (aside from study hard.) It seems like the more appropriate response would be for the student to approach the tests differently based on the grading criteria.
Since the requirement appears to be that at least one of the midterm questions must be 100% correct, it would appear that the best strategy would be to read through the three questions to determine which one the student was most confident in answering correctly, and then spend as much time as necessary to answer that question without any errors. Carefully checking each answer may not leave enough time to answer all of the questions, but should provide the best chance of getting credit for whichever questions the student has time to answer and check.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: You're being cagey about the topic of this course. I can think of plenty of real-life scenarios where 'You need to be 100% on these basics or we can't allow you to carry on' is acceptable, necessary even. Like learning to fly an aircraft. 99% on safety basics isn't good enough. 'But I got most of the working right!' is no excuse when you make the wrong decision and the plane crashes. You need to be 100%, in stress-free exam conditions. Circumstances beyond your control will add the errors in the field.
OK, no-one dies over a college course. But the principle may still be valid. Being required to get one out of three questions completely right isn't a high barrier. There's no points for 'nearly' in real life.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: Your professor is being decidedly unreasonable. It is (from your description) neither a life threatening course nor a doctors position where you have to perform these mental gymnastics.
I too have experienced an unreasonable professor- first exam, class average 13.5. 9 and below an F. 65% of the class failed. The final was 3 hours- at the 1.5 hour mark he stood up and told everyone to turn their tests in because if they didn't know the material/solved it they weren't going to finish.
All you can do is organize and file complaints with the uni, with the other students, and lobby for the removal. But if he's an untouchable it's going to take a lot more work.
Your best bet is to pass it and realize there are complete and utter unreasonable people in positions of power. Learning to navigate that will help you in life. Sadly. Unless there is a mass threatening of refusal to take the class with severe financial repercussions for the university nothing will change for that professor.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/03
| 831
| 3,488
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<issue_start>username_0: Some time ago I wrote a few Wikipedia articles covering a rather obscure event I was interested in. I did it more or less completely out of interest and was not paid in any way. Although Wikipedia is fundamentally collaborative, most of the text is mine - the other editors have largely only added results tables, logos, and such.
The organizers of the event noticed the articles and have since been forwarding me requests by a professor saying things like:
* You should cite this article. It's good for publicity!
* You should write about X, Y and Z. Right now the article doesn't cover them.
However from my point of view, because Wikipedia is fundamentally collaborative, I don't actually own the articles, and if anyone (either the professor or the organizers) want to add those things they are free to do so themselves. That's not to say that the addition will be welcomed - any Wikipedia editor can dispute the addition - but it is something they are free to do. Certainly asking me to do something they can do themselves feels rather improper.
I am wondering if my point of view is reasonable, and if so, how I should communicate with the organizers & professor. I certainly don't want to offend them, since they can make it harder for me to watch the event.<issue_comment>username_1: I suggest you open a "Talk" page on one or more of your articles and ask the question there. Note that I haven't done this myself and don't know the mechanism, but it is possible.
I also suggest you use your conscience as to what would be right and proper. You seem to be suggesting that you think it improper. That is probably the right attitude. Skepticism, at least.
Don't feel bad if you just want to ignore the request.
And, no, you don't become an owner or otherwise "responsible" for the things you write on Wikipedia. Nor do you become a maintainer of the page. You need to be accurate and stay within the rules, of course.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you think the additions are useful, consider adding them. You thought your time well spent building the pages in the first place, so I would think you probably have some interest in improving them.
If the changes seem to you marginal, or time consuming, write a polite letter to the proposer reminding them that you don't own the page so they are free to improve it. If you're polite and appreciative you probably won't cause offense.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It is not good practice to have people self-cite in Wikipedia. This may be different in Scholarpedia which has a responsible editor and full disclosure and transparency. So the professors may not want to self-cite. Requesting from you to be cited may be content-wise relevant, but it is self-citation by proxy, so you would be in the right to decline, and it indeed smells slightly off.
As for asking you to write on something else, unless you are on their payroll, they can ask, and you can choose whether you want to do so. You feel it's improper. Indeed, it is a bit intrusive. While you started it, it's not your page and you have not promised maintenance and you shouldn't (and actually cannot be expected to) on Wikipedia.
Since you are looking for how to respond, you may say that you were happy to set up the page, but now you essentially consider it released it into the "wild", i.e. the public domain, and hope for someone else to take over the task of maintaining it further.
Upvotes: 1
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2020/12/04
| 509
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently left academia. A former student of mine asked for a letter of recommendation for graduate school applications. I've typically seen references sign with their title, to provide context. Should I sign mine as follows?
>
> My Name
>
> Former Thisorthat Postdoctoral Fellow
>
> Former Institution Name
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: In your case, write on personal letterhead. As <NAME> has said, the first paragraph should be something like this: "I'm writing in support of the application of username_1 to your doctor of divinity program. Bob was my student when I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Close Cover Before Striking University." Then you go on to explain briefly your qualifications to make the recommendation and in more detail why Bob would make an excellent and successful DD student.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Per helpful suggestions in comments on the question, from [@Alexander-Woo](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/34050/alexander-woo) and [@user111388](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/111388/user111388), I described the context within which I worked with the student, and then later left academia, in the first paragraph:
>
> It is with great enthusiasm that I recommend Student for Grad Program
> in Research Field, at Your University. Student was an outstanding
> contributor to the team that I led as a postdoc at My Former Institution.
> Although I have since left academic research to work in industry my
> research experience with Student demonstrates her excellent fit and preparation
> for a career in Research Field.
>
>
>
And amended my signature (also in the question statement), to clarify I meant my most recent academic institution, at which I worked with the student:
>
> Sincerely,
>
> My Name
>
> Former Thisorthat Postdoctoral Fellow
>
> My Former Institution
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/04
| 1,428
| 5,959
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<issue_start>username_0: **The background:** In the grand area of Mathematics in which I do research, there is a famous Professor, let us call him 'A', who started a joint project with another younger colleague, let
us call him 'B'. 'A' gave the main ideas and they produced an initial draft. However, after a while 'A' perhaps lost interest or was busy with other things and stopped communicating with 'B'.
'B' could not manage to move the project forward by himself, and it stayed put. After many years,
on the initiative of a third colleague, let us call him say 'C', and with both the approval
of 'A' and 'B', I joined them on this project and started working with 'B'. After, say, two years, 'B' and I managed to have a paper, which we think is quite good.
We have sent it to 'A' to hear his opinion. However, he never
returns our email messages. We have also contacted his secretary, and she has been very helpful, but we don't seem to get any reply from 'A'. Because of the pandemic, travelling and meeting 'A'
in person is not an option.
'B' and I would like to distribute and eventually publish this work. We have spent quite some
time and energy on it. Moreover, the results are interesting and could be used by ourselves in other projects, as well as by other researchers. If we wait too much, there is even the risk
of our paper becoming old and superseded by other people's work.
Of course we cannot post this work publically without 'A's name, as he was who gave the key ideas. On the other hand, posting this work with his name could also upset 'A', say, he
could think there are mistakes in the paper and he would not want to have his name associated with it.
What is the ethical way to solve this?
**Edit**: Thanks for all answers! They really add to the discussion. In view of your comments, I feel like adding some more details to the story and making more clear our position.
It is not that A just gave some vague ideas. He really contributed technical stuff during the first year or so of his collaboration with B.
What I did with B, in the past two years, was cleaning up the Mathematics
and adding some interesting applications. I think we have really turned the draft into a (quasi?) paper. I believe our manuscript is polished.
A is well known for his irresponsiveness in the community of researchers in the field. Indeed this is the reason why there has been the hiatus in the work on the paper, until I joined forces with B.
B and I met A in conferences in the past two years. He was nice and seemed interested in finishing the work. However, on those occasions there was
little time to collaborate with him, as he is a busy person.
B and I are fine with whatever course of action A thinks it is appropriate. We do not require him to check our calculations. We are fine to include him as an author, indeed we would like very much to have him as a co-author. We are fine to leave his name out, if he prefers so. But I have the impression he wants to be included.
Oh, yes, we certainly want to keep a collegial relation with A!
Anyway, we cannot proceed without his response!<issue_comment>username_1: I can't answer definitively without much more information (which I am not asking you to provide).
I suggest writing the paper with a substantial description of (and thanks for) A's contribution, and sending A a copy with a request for comments before you submit for publication.
If A answers, you can negotiate credit. If not it's reasonable to publish.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Rather than asking A for specifics on the paper, ask them for advice on how to proceed. They may just tell you to go ahead, listing them as co-author.
You need their permission to proceed, but you don't need their further participation. If necessary, stress your need to get something out there for your own career(s).
But if you make their task harder than they are willing to work, then you will possibly stay stalled for a long time.
If they give permission to continue with their ideas included just, as a courtesy, send them updates as you go along.
You have to include them to avoid plagiarism in this case and, including them, their permission to publish is needed. A reputable publisher will probably require this, in any case.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: When dealing with extremely busy people, you want to formulate your emails in a way that makes it as easy as possible for them to give you what you need.
Providing one's opinion on a paper is a complex, open-ended process. Even more so if you are a coauthor - you need to not only read and think about what is written, but also consider what else could have been written to make the paper better. In a situation as you describe, I'd consider it perfectly normal for the professor to take a few months to get back you even they seriously intend to do so. Thus, your request is not a good choice.
Instead provide them with a straight-forward way out that works for you. Thus, complete the draft and makes sure it is completely polished. Make a plan regarding what you want to do with it. Then send it to the professor, pointing out that you and B agree that the paper is finished, and that you want to submit it to the arXiv/Journal X, and that you just ask for their consent to proceed. If the contribution of the professor is very limited, you can consider also stating merely acknowleding them as an option. If C or anyone else respected by A has read the draft and also considers it ready, include this information. Overall, you want to make it very easy for A to just respond "its fine, go ahead".
If this doesn't work, there is one way to escalate further, but I'd consider this borderline from an ethical perspective. That is to let A know that if they don't object within eg 2 weeks, you will consider this as permission to go ahead with the plan. Only ever think about this if your draft is really, really done.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2020/12/05
| 1,690
| 6,656
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<issue_start>username_0: Can you please elaborate on these two tendencies separately? The quotation assumes that your PhD alma mater differs from the university where you first taught. First, why less prestigious than PhD alma mater? Second, why less prestigious than the university of the first teaching position?
>
> In 2005, thanks largely to his field experiments, List was offered a tenured professor position at the
> University of Chicago, perhaps the most storied economics program in the world. This wasn’t supposed to
> happen. **It is a nearly inexorable law of academia that when a professor lands a tenured job, he does so at
> an institution less prestigious than the one where he began teaching, and also less prestigious than where
> he received his Ph.D.** <NAME>, meanwhile, was like a salmon who swam downstream to spawn, into the
> open water. Back in Wisconsin, his family was unimpressed. “They wonder why I’ve failed so miserably,” he
> says, “why I’m not still in Orlando, where the weather is really great, instead of Chicago, where the crime is
> really high.”
>
>
>
<NAME>. *SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance* (2009). P 118.<issue_comment>username_1: This is called the "law of descending prestige."
* Most universities hire the most prestigious faculty they can.
* The number of PhDs from the top universities is larger than the number of job openings at universities.
* Therefore, so long as PhDs seek employment at universities, most of them will get jobs at less prestigious universities than their PhD university.
It is not "inexorable," just probable.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Let's pick a real world example. MIT produces around 500 PhD graduates a year. At the same time MIT hires around 50 new professors per year. <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309283/>
That means *at most* 50 MIT PhDs can find a job at MIT. 450 MIT PhDs will have to find a job somewhere else... Which answers your question! Obviously, MIT is not the only prestigious school in the world (or Cambridge, MA for that matter...), but this argument is independent of how many schools are included in the prestigious circle. It all boils down to the fact that (on average) each professor will graduate way more than one PhD student over their lifetime.
This example illustrates what happens in an academic job market in a steady state as is approximately the case at the moment.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Supply and demand. There are way too many phds for the university jobs available. Top schools want top PhDs, And so on down the line, until the excess go teach at a community college or work for the government.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: When you write your PhD, you receive important help and guidance. So it is no proof that you by yourself are capable of something that important. Also, the standards for a PhD, even from a very good university, are not as high. A PhD will be accepted even if it is not a very important contribution to science.
In your first job, you are perhaps still just following the lines of thought you already learned from your teachers and associates at your school. For most researchers, this slowly gets drained and leads to fewer and fewer new results. So, are you one of those few who can continue to learn new important things on your own, when separated from your original teachers? Not so many can!
After a while, if you yourself alone produce results equal to or better than your PhD, if both your PhD and your later self-generated results are way above the average Phd standard, you will be invited back to an equally prestigious school, perhaps.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: **Regression toward the mean.**
Basically, if you're already at the top, the only place you can go is down. It is well known that over many trials, individuals who perform very well in early trials will tend to perform worse in later ones. This doesn't suggest that the individuals themselves are getting much worse, but instead reflects some aspects of the random nature of success. An illustrative example can be seen in baseball, where players with the highest batting averages in one season tend to have lower batting averages the following season. That doesn't mean that all the top-performing players have all gotten worse; instead it's a reflection of the fact that *almost all individuals* have worse batting averages than the best averages from any one year. There's some element of random chance in being "the best", and it's simply unlikely to consistently come out on top.
We can view this scenario as a series of trials, where individuals earn their degree, get a professorship, and then become tenured. It's simply unlikely that someone who succeeds at the first step will succeed at all three. Even if you've earned a degree from the top 1% of academic programs, you still have a very low chance of getting a professorship at the top 1% of schools. Unless all graduates of a top 1% school earn a tenured position at a top 1% school, it must be the case that top 1% graduates, on average, get tenured at worse universities. Conversely, if you earn a degree from the bottom 1% of academic programs, practically any professorship you earn will be at a better school.
The overall scarcity of tenured professorships exacerbates this problem, but the phenomenon would likely still exist even if there was a tenured position for every PhD graduate. By chance alone, graduates of "the best" PhD program will become tenured elsewhere that's worse, while graduates of "the worst" PhD program will become tenured somewhere that's better (or not at all).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Large and successful and rich institutions have a lot more assistant professors than can get tenure there. They are hired for their research expertise.
"Rural" universities do a lot more teaching, and sometimes little or no science. If someone got a doctorate there, he's likely to want to go somewhere prestigious afterwards for postdoc and assistant professor. Has to, because the prestigious places have more money and projects to hire him on.
So when tenure positions are open anywhere, the applicants generally come from well known universities.
The specifics vary a lot between countries, of course. The scale from "top" to "rural" is wide and continuous in the US, in Germany you have a hundred full universities, which don't give each other much (~~some~~ all claim they do), and 300 "Fachhochschulen" where you can't even get a doctorate.
Upvotes: 1
|
2020/12/05
| 1,172
| 4,873
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<issue_start>username_0: My last Phd work was submitted to a high impact journal (IF >35). The manuscript came back for revision with 2 positive comments and 1 no-suggestion on my last day in his lab. Given its positive comments, I expected to go for next round of review as long as the comments are fully addressed. The comments requested simulations and experiments, which I supposedly would not be able to perform as I graduated and was leaving the next day. So my advisor threatened me on my last day to submit to IF (~5) journal or share my first authorship to someone (person X) who was not involved in the project at all. For the later, he reasoned that X needs to commit full-time ~ 4 months just for revision and stop all other works. Although I explained to go through comments first and discuss and that I can revise, he did not agree any of it. He asked me to choose 1 of his options, no negotiation (like giving co-first after X shows to put significant effort). I agreed to give X co-first authorship under the condition that major revisions will be done to address all reviewers' requests and convince them. Then my advisor privately told X will be the co-first and to revise none, minor, or major; choice is up to X. They spent 1.5 months only for quick revision, without addressing all comments. I told X about the problems with the revision, but no any reply. It was rejected directly by the editor. (At this point, they already broke the deal.)
Then they submitted to another journal, got rejected by the editor again.
Another journal (IF >10) finally passed the editor and came back for revisions. All 3 reviewers are positive. Yet the editor asked for all the comments/experiments to be fully addressed. My advisor did not even notify me about this decision. X told me that they wanted to submit to IF ~5 journal because too many experiments need to be done for the revision. X said need ~ a month or more to revise, and my advisor wants X to focus on looking for a job. So X asked if I am okay with this decision to submit to IF ~5 journal. (This is how I know there is a revision requested.) I am very mad because how X can deserve a co-first if they did not even put in effort and time! The revision comments are very positive, but they said they think it will not go through. (I am basically #w$%t&f?)
Similar things happened repeatedly during my PhD in his lab. I am very mad, but I am helpless. I used to hope this work would help my faculty job search if it gets published. This time, I did not want to "waste" this work while it originally even had the chance to go through IF>35 journal, but they messed it up since then.
Note: My advisor is a complete a\*\*o who used to call/write bad recommendation letters for those who were against him.
Any suggestions on how to handle this?
UPDATE 1: So they agreed to submit a revision. Knowing that they will not treat it seriously like last time again, I revised the majority myself, incorporating old experimental data. There are still many simple experiments (~ 2 weeks worth of time) needed to be done. How can I make sure they will do the job and do it right?<issue_comment>username_1: These are your options:
* Focus on your new project in a new lab working with better colleagues.
* Do the revisions yourself.
* Let the former advisor do whatever they want.
>
> I agreed to give X co-first authorship under the condition that major revisions will be done to address all ...
>
>
>
You agreed to the co-first authorship. You should not break that agreement. Unfortunately, revisions being "done" is subjective so you cannot punish the other party for breaking their part of the agreement. Next time, only agree to someone's authorship *after* they have earned it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Go back to your first principles of your own personal ethical code. Your situation is complex so calmly apply the question is that right or wrong. If it's wrong then decide will I let it go or will I act on it. If you decide to act on it you will know you're acting on principle and are in the right. Also try to think, what is the other person's point of view. Do they think they're right and I'm being unreasonable. When you're calm, try to speak to the coauthor as it sounds like the supervisor is not a good avenue for you. Get it published, out of your hair and draw a line behind it. It's not that big a deal about the impact factor and impact factor is currently used inappropriately as a standalone ranking. Read up on that, you may be using/ thinking of the impact factor in a way it was never intended to be used. Co- first author is also no big deal, try not to be egotistical, if the other co-author gets this over the line and it gets published then you've been spared that work. Try to be relaxed, these things happen literally the whole time in academia.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/12/05
| 1,003
| 4,175
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a Ph.D. student on a student residence permit in Germany, currently in the middle of my second year (out of three, but the project may be extended).
There's a woman in the laboratory who gradually became more and more aggressive towards me, screaming at me and banging things against the table when I made mistakes. **ETA**: I have not observed her attacking anyone else, so either she is good at being alone with her victims, or I somehow present a special interest for her.
Around a year ago I tried to have a talk with her; since she doesn't speak English well and my German was only A1 at the moment, I asked my effective supervisor (the laboratory head) to translate, which he did. This seemed to help for a while: we were able to interact in a solidly professional manner for some months. Interaction with her is unavoidable, by the way, since she's responsible for ordering all the chemicals and she knows where everything is stored.
A few days ago the problem returned: she started by making nasty remarks about my underperformance and underattendance and described my experiment as "hopelessly contaminated" (despite my supervisor later agreeing that the levels of contamination were well within acceptable limits). Yesterday she screamed at me for using the wrong kind of qPCR plate, took it from under my hands and threw it in the trash bin despite most of the plate having been taped off (as customarily done in the lab) and available for reuse. When asked why and to stop screaming, she cited lack of time.
My supervisor, when contacted about the incident, told me that he "understands her", since the plates are expensive. I am not handling this well. What should I do?
**ETA**:
Should I start walking around with dictaphone running? Last time I tried it, we've already had the talk and she stopped attacking me, so I didn't get any useful evidence. My supervisor "knows" that she attacks me, but there is no paper trail. (yet?) And even if I get any evidence, who should I submit it to? My supervisor, again, hoping that he'd understand me this time? Someone higher up the chain? Even then, what should I be hoping for, with that evidence? Getting her fired (which I don't find desirable or expect to be possible in the first place) would certainly be a pyrrhic victory, making my supervisor want to dispose of me -- and he'd find a way.
Should I try to leave the place (as recommended by [Sutton, 2017](https://www.bobsutton.net/book/asshole-survival-guide/))? As an international student on a residence permit, I can always go home, but that would wreck me psychologically. Is it even possible to change labs for an international student on a government stipend in Germany?<issue_comment>username_1: It happens in all kinds of work environments, the only way to conduct yourself is to consider this:
1. you owe her/him no obligations but to be professional;
2. he/she is a human being just like you, so he/she has plenty of vulnerabilities;
3. try to watch for the weaknesses in its compartment, then to leverage with your professionalism and your acknowledgements of his/her weaknesses.
This takes time.
If you will be a good person and not trying to be revengeful this will pay-out in future's work environment's equilibrium.
4. Endure and forgive; all the bad things you are thinking or doing in payback will return to ruin your peace.
5. If anything else doesn't work, man up and confront that dude!
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I understand that British universities have a duty of care towards all their students and that it is the responsibility of the university to investigate and deal with such issues. Is Germany so different?
Does the university have a postgraduate student support system? You seem to describe a problem that involves staff, supervisor, and you as student. If the issues are not solvable within that departmental group, you are reasonably entitled to ask the the general support system for help. It is not reasonable to expect a PhD student to deal with issues of staff behaviour. You are there to pursue research and it is the duty of the university to support you.
Upvotes: 1
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2020/12/05
| 526
| 2,196
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<issue_start>username_0: I have heard that, in mathematics, there might be several difficulties in changing one's field once one has a tenured position. **I am wondering what those difficulties are. Is it possible at all?**
Let me mention two difficulties I heard about.
1. Obviously, one has to learn a new area of math on a professional level, which is not easy.
2. These days, there is a strong pressure to get grants and, hence, to publish regularly. If one does not yet have a reputation of a serious expert in the new field it will be difficult to get a grant. This pressure is weaker if one has a tenure, but it still exists.<issue_comment>username_1: This can be a tough situation. If you're in a research position with pressure to publish, it can be very difficult, unless you have some background in the new field or fall in with a research group that can help you get up to speed. Tenure will offer some protection, but it will be a lot of work (most likely).
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I found changing fields after tenure to be not much of a problem as a tenured mathematics professor. The threat of losing some funding for a while is a serious issue if one has an expensive lab. If one is doing theory, then grant funding is not so critical. A sabbatical is a great time to study up on a new field.
I should add I am talking about moving to fields that have some connection with the old. If there is no overlap in people or background theory, then this might be more challenging.
The greatest difficulty is the bruising of the ego. The new field may not be open to your ideas, and you are essentially heading in as if you are a graduate student without an advisor to make the introductions. You need to realize that it might be years before you get invited to the right conferences or get referees who really read your papers.
It can take a few years to really switch fields, but if one has tenure and a decent sabbatical program, it can be worth the effort. One can keep some side projects in the old area to keep some papers coming in and to get excuses to meet your old friends at conferences at exotic locales (someday). Coauthors are great for this.
Upvotes: 4
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2020/12/05
| 946
| 3,648
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a question regarding the use of fantasy books in a PhD thesis. Imagine for example that I'm writing an example motivating the use of databases. Can I design e.g. a database composed of Game of Thrones characters and put it into the thesis? I noticed that some people put some fake examples or examples from Greek mythology so I'm wandering if it is legal to put examples from different books.<issue_comment>username_1: This isn't a definitive answer, as I'm not a lawyer. And laws differ over the Globe. But such things are a matter of civil, not criminal, law, generally, so the question comes down to whether a "rights holder" would object and file suit. This is more likely in some cases than others and, if a suit is filed, it is very expensive to defend.
But, just a guess here, that if the characters you wish to use are covered by *Trade Mark* that you would be on shakier ground than otherwise. I, personally, would avoid the use of Disney characters, for example, as I think they are all trademarked and the trademark holders can be very sensitive about repurposing those characters.
Once those rights expire, however, they are fair game, and the only questions would be about whether this adds to or subtracts from the paper you want to write.
Presumably you are associated with a university. Many of them have an office of intellectual property rights that can give you actual legal advice on your question. I haven't looked at the trademark question for GoT characters, but would guess that they might well be covered. Such "properties" can be very valuable and the rights holders want total control. They also have a legal team that might overreact.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with Wrzlprmft that, assuming the names are trademarked, mere use of the names as hypothetical entries in a database would not constitute trademark infringement.
And names cannot be copyrighted. See Circular 33, US Copyright Office, "Works not protected by copyright" which states on p. 3 that "The name of a character" cannot be copyrighted. Online at <https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ33.pdf>
But suppose that somehow, somehow the GoT people found your thesis and sued. Your thesis would instantly become internationally known. You can't buy publicity like that. ;-)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am not a lawyer, but I doubt a court would consider your proposed use a violation of either trademark or copyright:
* Individual names are generally not able to be protected by copyright.
* HBO has trademarked [a whole bunch of GoT-related things](https://www.theiplawblog.com/2019/05/articles/ip/although-the-battle-of-kings-landing-is-over-and-the-game-of-thrones-has-ended-the-war-to-protect-hbos-intellectual-property-rages-on/) including character names, but simply *referencing* a trademarked name is not a violation. In essence, trademark law boils down to "are you trading off somebody else's reputation/brand?"
As a point of data, Alison Green's advice column "Ask A Manager" [frequently uses GoT character names](https://www.google.com/search?q=cersei+site%3Awww.askamanager.org&oq=cersei+site%3Awww.askamanager.org) to conceal the identities of letter-writers and their colleagues when describing workplace dilemmas.
AAM is a fairly well-known column, successful enough to have a compilation book published. It's more visible than most PhD theses will ever be, and as far as I can tell the use of GoT names has never been an issue. If it flies there—which apparently it does—it's unlikely that doing something similar in your PhD thesis is going to cause problems.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/12/05
| 1,044
| 4,349
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently doing Master of Technology (M.Tech) in CSE from IIT Kanpur, and here each and every assignment is like a mini project in itself. For example in my Advanced Computer Architecture course, in one of the assignments we have to build and simulate cache from the scratch and thereby analyze the entire experiment. It is more like a project than an assignment. So can I cite these works as my project in my resume?<issue_comment>username_1: Unless your resume format is prescribed by some external entity, then you can put pretty much anything you want on it. But, don't oversell these as they were all, I assume, a year or less in duration.
And again, unless you are required to use a specific format for some reason, there is no reason for a "Project" item.
Just be clear and honest in any CV.
But perhaps you mean that your institute requires you to produce such a thing for graduation and they set the format. In that case, seek guidance locally about what is accepted and what is not.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I have seen several students add something like this to a resume. If you don't have any significant work or research experience to list, this can show off some skills. My only suggestion is to be very clear that these are class assignments. If you call them "technical projects" or something it's ambiguous as to whether it's work, research or class. Be very clear that this is classes
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> "Can I claim my assignment solutions as mini projects in my resume?"
>
>
>
You would be better off putting research-level projects with professors or industry professionals if possible, or even independent projects that you've done in your free time and posted online (for example on GitHub). But if you don't have anything like that, you can of course put down major assignment projects in your resume, but I'd recommend not to oversell these as some type of project done as a contractor for a company in industry or as a paid research internship with a professor.
Since the example you gave was for a course on computer architecture, most people looking at your resume these days will be familiar with GitHub, and for someone with a lack of "formal" project experience, it may not hurt to list some of your bigger GitHub projects, which may include projects you did for your academic courses.
>
> "Like in my Advanced Computer Architecture course, in one of the assignments we have to build and simulate cache from the scratch and thereby analyze the entire experiment. It is more like a project than an assignment."
>
>
>
Sure, it's not a small assignment, but it's also still a student-level course project whose purpose is only pedagogial: It's a generic assignment which seems to be the same for everyone in the class, and has been solved several thousands of times, so there is nothing "novel" like what would be expected in a research-level project. As an undergrad, the end-of-term project for an advanced 4th year course on quantum computing, I wrote a review paper on a topic of my choice in quantum computing for which no review paper had existed.
Likewise for the final project for a 3rd year undergrad course in numerical methods for differential equations, [I wrote a review on "Linear Multi-step Methods" which didn't exist at the time, and after posting it on arXiv it has received 6 citations on Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=13464848608706484246&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5), including in some people's PhD theses.
In summary: some undergrad courses can involve quite substantial work for the assignments, ranging from generic problems to solve which may be challenging but have still been done thousands of times by other students, to full-fledged research projects like the ones described above, where it is really more of a "research project" than a generic assignment question.
Another good example is the [project <NAME> did for the MIT course Physics 6.845 taught by <NAME>, which turned out to become the first canonical survey of QMA-complete problems](https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.6312). You can see at the end of the paper, that it says
>
> "Much appreciation goes to <NAME>, for whose excellent MIT 6.845 course I prepared this paper."
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2020/12/06
| 664
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<issue_start>username_0: It came to my attention that one university limits the number of PhD students each professor can supervise simultaneously. The policy makes a vague reference to "legislative and regulatory requirements".
Is this an accepted and widespread practice in academia, or is it a weird quirk?<issue_comment>username_1: I checked the regulations at the places where I've worked.
Two out of three ([UCL](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/academic-manual/sites/academic-manual/files/chapter_5_part_a_research_degree_regulations_2020-21.pdf) and [The University of Plymouth](https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/18/18598/Research_Degrees_Handbook_2020_FINAL.pdf)) have limits of the type discussed; one (The University of Cambridge) doesn't. That makes me lean towards "yes" as the answer to "is it accepted and widespread".
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In India, University Grant Commission (UGC) limits the number of students that a faculty can supervise simultaneously. [An example is given below](https://cfr.annauniv.edu/research/regulation/PhD-Regualtion-2015(R).pdf)
>
> The Professor who is a Supervisor shall guide only a maximum of 11
> (Ph.D./M.S. (By Research) put together) scholars as Supervisor/Joint
> Supervisor at any time. The Associate Professor who is a Supervisor
> shall guide only a maximum of 8 scholars and an Assistant Professor
> shall guide only a maximum of 5 scholars as Supervisor/Joint
> Supervisor at any time.
>
>
>
Private universities in India also have this criteria. [One such example is given below](https://pec.ac.in/sites/default/files/uploads/phd_rules.pdf)
>
> A Faculty member can be allowed to singly guide PhD students after two
> years of completion of his/ her PhD degree; however joint supervision
> is permissible in the initial two years after completion of PhD
> degree. A faculty member can be assigned a maximum of 5 PhD students.
>
>
>
Even in top institutions such as the IITs, there are unwritten rules to limit the number of students a faculty can guide simultaneously. The students are normally paid by the government through fellowships and faculty do not pay students through projects (like in USA). If there is no limit, all students joining the department may prefer to join the most prestigious faculty in the department leaving no students for other faculty in the department.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: My lecturer uses powerpoints as a teaching material. During the first class she told me that we are using a book as resource for our class. But one day I realised that some parts are not from the book. So the question is: should she provide the reference she use? IMO, she should tell us what she is basing her teaching on.<issue_comment>username_1: For a few reasons, a lecturer *should* let students know the source of their teaching materials. But not everyone will and some might actually have reasons not to if they are trying to guide students toward some things but away from others. That should be rare, I think.
But the issue can be a bit subtle. Is the use of materials intended for teaching without citation a form of plagiarism? Is it a form of improper "publishing"? People will answer differently.
Plagiarism is about ideas, not their explicit expression. If the instructor is teaching well known things (common knowledge) then there is no implication that the things taught are the ideas of the instructor. Hence it is hard to claim it is plagiarism. It is known, even if not known to you and the other students.
Publishing the work of others without citation is an offense, but against copyright. But is teaching a form of "publishing"? And is there an implicit license for teaching materials to be used in teaching? It isn't always obvious.
So, I find the legal and moral issues a bit cloudy and would, therefore, defer on those issues to faculty in most cases. Not all. Most. But since the issues are (IMO) on the borderline, it is probably better to cite them than not to cite them unless there is some firm reason not to.
But, there is an educational reason for making the source(s) of materials available to students. Especially conscientious students will, perhaps, occasionally, want to follow up with those sources and thus enhance their educations. I applaud that when it can be made to happen.
But there is an action item here. You can, perhaps, ask her for her sources. I suspect that you will likely get them. If she refuses, you can validly ask why. But to save yourself from some grief, ask in a non-confrontational way. Perhaps she is happy to share them. In fact, if you have already been given a list of resources for the class, as some instructors provide, you might even find the materials there.
And, of course, some slides and such are produced by the instructor herself, based on her knowledge, though it may be common knowledge, the source of which she has long forgotten.
---
For some materials used in advanced courses, there is probably a stronger case to be made that not citing them is a violation of plagiarism standards, copyright, or both. I've assumed above that this is not the situation here.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As with writing, anything presented in a class without citation should be either the work of the presenter or common knowledge. Your teachers are supposedly experts in the fields they teach, and so should have amassed quite a lot of the common knowledge in their fields. For example, I'd happily describe the Bell-LaPadula model and its applications, mentioning Bell and LaPadula by naming the model, but without further citation.
For those courses I taught that had a textbook, I organized classes around the textbook, but certainly presented material not contained therein, often without citation, because, as username_1 has written in another answer, "It is known, even if not known to you and the other students."
If I had used only the textbook publisher's slides, I'd have felt I was cheating my students. If a student had asked me the source of material in the lectures but not in the textbook, I'd have said, "Right out of my head unless specifically cited." I expect your professor might answer the same way.
If the textbook were sufficient, professors could announce it on the first class, then say, "I'll see you in three months for the final exam." The role of the professor is to explain, elaborate, and expand. The latter two necessarily go beyond the content of the textbook.
With all of that said, I'm not sure I understand the goal of your question. Do you believe there's a "secret source" that's somehow being hidden from you? I doubt it. More likely, there are many sources, accreted over years of study by the professor.
If you're looking for material to supplement the textbook, *ask.* Professors want you to learn and if there are accessible supplemental resources, they should tell students about them.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: Google scholar is an excellent service for looking at basic metadata about publications (e.g. authors, title, abstract, and papers it cites). But they do not offer an official API (free or otherwise).
Is there also a non-commercial database of such publications? I'm wondering because this is something that perhaps libraries in universities would require to organize information about publications across disciplines.
Since there are non-profit systems like [doi.org](https://www.doi.org/) and [cross-ref](https://www.crossref.org/) which let publications get an identification numbers, I'm wondering if all disciplines use them. Or is it the case that universities get this metadata from a variety of publishers (like Springer, Elsevier, etc) and there is no single central index?
To avoid bikeshedding on what a "major discipline" is, we could limit ourselves to what's already found on google scholar, or perhaps to what top 100 (or choose your number) university libraries in the world might index.<issue_comment>username_1: For a few reasons, a lecturer *should* let students know the source of their teaching materials. But not everyone will and some might actually have reasons not to if they are trying to guide students toward some things but away from others. That should be rare, I think.
But the issue can be a bit subtle. Is the use of materials intended for teaching without citation a form of plagiarism? Is it a form of improper "publishing"? People will answer differently.
Plagiarism is about ideas, not their explicit expression. If the instructor is teaching well known things (common knowledge) then there is no implication that the things taught are the ideas of the instructor. Hence it is hard to claim it is plagiarism. It is known, even if not known to you and the other students.
Publishing the work of others without citation is an offense, but against copyright. But is teaching a form of "publishing"? And is there an implicit license for teaching materials to be used in teaching? It isn't always obvious.
So, I find the legal and moral issues a bit cloudy and would, therefore, defer on those issues to faculty in most cases. Not all. Most. But since the issues are (IMO) on the borderline, it is probably better to cite them than not to cite them unless there is some firm reason not to.
But, there is an educational reason for making the source(s) of materials available to students. Especially conscientious students will, perhaps, occasionally, want to follow up with those sources and thus enhance their educations. I applaud that when it can be made to happen.
But there is an action item here. You can, perhaps, ask her for her sources. I suspect that you will likely get them. If she refuses, you can validly ask why. But to save yourself from some grief, ask in a non-confrontational way. Perhaps she is happy to share them. In fact, if you have already been given a list of resources for the class, as some instructors provide, you might even find the materials there.
And, of course, some slides and such are produced by the instructor herself, based on her knowledge, though it may be common knowledge, the source of which she has long forgotten.
---
For some materials used in advanced courses, there is probably a stronger case to be made that not citing them is a violation of plagiarism standards, copyright, or both. I've assumed above that this is not the situation here.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As with writing, anything presented in a class without citation should be either the work of the presenter or common knowledge. Your teachers are supposedly experts in the fields they teach, and so should have amassed quite a lot of the common knowledge in their fields. For example, I'd happily describe the Bell-LaPadula model and its applications, mentioning Bell and LaPadula by naming the model, but without further citation.
For those courses I taught that had a textbook, I organized classes around the textbook, but certainly presented material not contained therein, often without citation, because, as username_1 has written in another answer, "It is known, even if not known to you and the other students."
If I had used only the textbook publisher's slides, I'd have felt I was cheating my students. If a student had asked me the source of material in the lectures but not in the textbook, I'd have said, "Right out of my head unless specifically cited." I expect your professor might answer the same way.
If the textbook were sufficient, professors could announce it on the first class, then say, "I'll see you in three months for the final exam." The role of the professor is to explain, elaborate, and expand. The latter two necessarily go beyond the content of the textbook.
With all of that said, I'm not sure I understand the goal of your question. Do you believe there's a "secret source" that's somehow being hidden from you? I doubt it. More likely, there are many sources, accreted over years of study by the professor.
If you're looking for material to supplement the textbook, *ask.* Professors want you to learn and if there are accessible supplemental resources, they should tell students about them.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/12/06
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<issue_start>username_0: Is it possible that a staff member (Asst. Prof.) offers their help to a PhD student even they are not their co-supervisor ?
How involved (if solicited) could Lab members (mostly Asst. Prof.) be in the research of PhD students.
Thanks for the clarification.<issue_comment>username_1: For a few reasons, a lecturer *should* let students know the source of their teaching materials. But not everyone will and some might actually have reasons not to if they are trying to guide students toward some things but away from others. That should be rare, I think.
But the issue can be a bit subtle. Is the use of materials intended for teaching without citation a form of plagiarism? Is it a form of improper "publishing"? People will answer differently.
Plagiarism is about ideas, not their explicit expression. If the instructor is teaching well known things (common knowledge) then there is no implication that the things taught are the ideas of the instructor. Hence it is hard to claim it is plagiarism. It is known, even if not known to you and the other students.
Publishing the work of others without citation is an offense, but against copyright. But is teaching a form of "publishing"? And is there an implicit license for teaching materials to be used in teaching? It isn't always obvious.
So, I find the legal and moral issues a bit cloudy and would, therefore, defer on those issues to faculty in most cases. Not all. Most. But since the issues are (IMO) on the borderline, it is probably better to cite them than not to cite them unless there is some firm reason not to.
But, there is an educational reason for making the source(s) of materials available to students. Especially conscientious students will, perhaps, occasionally, want to follow up with those sources and thus enhance their educations. I applaud that when it can be made to happen.
But there is an action item here. You can, perhaps, ask her for her sources. I suspect that you will likely get them. If she refuses, you can validly ask why. But to save yourself from some grief, ask in a non-confrontational way. Perhaps she is happy to share them. In fact, if you have already been given a list of resources for the class, as some instructors provide, you might even find the materials there.
And, of course, some slides and such are produced by the instructor herself, based on her knowledge, though it may be common knowledge, the source of which she has long forgotten.
---
For some materials used in advanced courses, there is probably a stronger case to be made that not citing them is a violation of plagiarism standards, copyright, or both. I've assumed above that this is not the situation here.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As with writing, anything presented in a class without citation should be either the work of the presenter or common knowledge. Your teachers are supposedly experts in the fields they teach, and so should have amassed quite a lot of the common knowledge in their fields. For example, I'd happily describe the Bell-LaPadula model and its applications, mentioning Bell and LaPadula by naming the model, but without further citation.
For those courses I taught that had a textbook, I organized classes around the textbook, but certainly presented material not contained therein, often without citation, because, as username_1 has written in another answer, "It is known, even if not known to you and the other students."
If I had used only the textbook publisher's slides, I'd have felt I was cheating my students. If a student had asked me the source of material in the lectures but not in the textbook, I'd have said, "Right out of my head unless specifically cited." I expect your professor might answer the same way.
If the textbook were sufficient, professors could announce it on the first class, then say, "I'll see you in three months for the final exam." The role of the professor is to explain, elaborate, and expand. The latter two necessarily go beyond the content of the textbook.
With all of that said, I'm not sure I understand the goal of your question. Do you believe there's a "secret source" that's somehow being hidden from you? I doubt it. More likely, there are many sources, accreted over years of study by the professor.
If you're looking for material to supplement the textbook, *ask.* Professors want you to learn and if there are accessible supplemental resources, they should tell students about them.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently pursuing a master's degree and I am one of two students working on one project. This project takes a team science approach to answering a question, which normally one would find invaluable. However, this dynamic has proven to be more of a strain than a benefit. Rather than a healthy partnership, this feels like a competition and I am constantly walking on eggshells around this other person. In theory, we have two separate theses with differing questions and paths, but it is not turning out that way in practice at all. Sometimes she asks questions about topics related to my thesis in her committee meetings (without asking me about it) and she has creative input over parts of the project I am working on while I am excluded from other facets of the work. It is to the point where the faculty see us as a unit. Presentations I have made for class have been skipped over because this other person did a similar things and work I do is often dismissed by partners. It makes me feel like I am not worth the time, to be honest.
Furthermore, due to unfortunate circumstances beyond anyone's control, I was the only out of the two of us capable of doing field work and other tasks this past summer (during a pandemic to boot). This put a huge strain on me in general. I am starting to feel like this other student is getting a free pass (is this feeling even justified?!) They present the work others have done at meetings and get acknowledgements for it. It seems highly inequitable, but all of this is disguised under 'team science'.
Trying to accomodate this other person is putting a huge strain on my mental health. I feel like I can't do anything right, have no creative liberty or ownership, but also no guidance at the same time.
I have not brought up all of these things with my advisor. I don't want to be the one to cause drama, but I am at the end of my rope. I have thought about leaving the program multiple times over the last few months. So with that in mind, some questions:
1. Am I being overly sensitive? Is this a normal part of graduate studies?
2. Should I just let this all go and move on enough to get that diploma in hand and call this a wash? How can I deal with the mental load?
3. Are there any helpful resources for dealing with this kind of thing?
Thank you so much!<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Is this a normal part of graduate studies?
>
>
>
No. Good research management would clearly delineate each person's responsibilities and assign appropriate credit.
However, nothing is normal this year.
>
> Should I just let this all go and move on enough to get that diploma in hand?
>
>
>
The purpose of a masters degree is for you to learn. Focus on that. You are not in a competition with other students.
>
> How can I deal with the mental load?
>
>
>
Consult a licensed mental health professional if you feel distressed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: **TL;DR**
Start by talking to your advisor. Especially if you feel like you are past the point where you can talk to your colleague.
Resolving conflict professionally is the exact opposite of "causing drama".
---
I think there are some good points in [Anonymus Physicist answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159730/4249), and I will repeat the first bit of his answer here:
>
> Good research management would clearly delineate each person's responsibilities and assign appropriate credit.
>
>
>
What I want to add to this point, however, is that many academics never *set out* to do management, they set out to do research. *Research management* becomes a necessary part of the job; academics got training in research, very little in management.
I would say that an important characteristic of a good adviser is that they want to facilitate a good research atmosphere. So even if your advisor is not the best in research management, keep in mind that they might not have gotten an opportunity to learn to do it well yet.
Ideally, you would first try and resolve this with your colleague. But that might not be possible (any more, in this situation, or for any other number of reasons).
I also notice that you are using (my preferred) term *advisor* rather than *supervisor*: it implies that person is somebody that can give you professional *advice* (from experience) rather than *supervise* (your day-to-day research activities). **Go ask your for advice from your advisor.**
The reason you give for not talking to your advisor until now is:
>
> I don't want to be the one to cause drama, but I am at the end of my rope.
>
>
>
You seem to have a conflicting situation with your colleague and peer, which is clearly impacting both your research/study performance, and your mental health. If you already feel that you are past the point where you can try and resolve it directly with the other student, the advisor should help mediate the situation.
A lot of (at least research and academic) interviews nowadays include some variation of the question *"How do you deal with conflict?"* It should not come as a surprise that *"I keep it all in until I can't take it any more."* is almost equally as bad as *"I shout at the other person until they submit."*
A good way to deal with conflict is **to be objective and constructive**. When you go have that conversation, bring in specific points and propose solutions:
* When you do presentations in class, she always goes first because *her name comes first alphabetically* (or whatever), and since she introduces the topic most of the discussion happens following her presentation.
Would it be possible to reverse the order of presentations (e.g. alternate between alphabetical and reverse alphabetical)?
* Because of *circumstances* (hopefully, your advisor knows this reason), you took up the brunt of what was supposed to be joint field work last summer/semester. This left you with comparatively less time to focus on the research itself.
Is she able to do some analysis, sample sorting, sample labelling, or other work that might benefit both your projects. Ideally, something on the data that you collected. Real team science -- everybody benefits.
* You do not have the same opportunities as your colleague to get additional information about the project, and have creative input over it's direction (as you are not invited to the same meetings).
Could you both get invited to the same meetings? Alternate between who presents your project? Or have organised discussions (with or without your advisor) where you share what you learned that might be of interest to both your project. You may also use these meetings to decide on the respective directions you want to explore next, to avoid overlap.
* The advisor might ask you whether you brought this up with the other student. Ideally, you would have. But, if you haven't, you should offer a good professional reason as to why you didn't.
Perhaps you have tried initiating discussions about your project more generally with her previously, which has not been successful? Perhaps this is why you feel you can not communicate efficiently with her, and are asking your adviser to help facilitate a conversation? Perhaps you actually want to try to talk to her first, but you would appreciate some advice on how to do it professionally first?
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a high schooler who lives in the vicinity of many premier research institutions and am very interested in going into STEM. I know that I will have to ask a lot of professors to let me work under them before one agrees, so I was wondering how I could go about asking several professors.
I know that I will need to write a proper email for each one, not a mass email that I can just copy-paste. Another issue I thought about is if by some chance two professors agree to have me. What do I do then? How can I avoid that situation?<issue_comment>username_1: I guess you should not ask everyone simultaneously. Ask sequentially/serially, waiting for a response (or, after some waiting period, a non-response) from one before you email another.
As you already speculate, you should absolutely customize your communication with each person. After all, not such a huge cost for what you hope! :)
I should say that I myself tend not to respond positively to emails that are apparently boilerplate, or bulk emails (using bcc), or ...
We can all understand the apparent economy of "bulk emails", but it will also, correctly, be perceived as spam. So, self-defeating if/when you are dealing with serious people.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It might be better, if you can arrange it, to have one of your teachers help you with this. It may well be that one of your STEM teachers went to one of these universities, or has some contact there. If so, they can help you make contact, vouch for your seriousness, and ease the way.
This is much harder now in the pandemic, but perhaps it can be arranged in virtual space. A phone call from a teacher to a professor before you make contact will make all the difference. Even if none of your teachers have any contacts, a mail from them, introducing an "interesting student" will make your contact much more likely to bear fruit. Make sure that your teacher can say some interesting things about you and your interests and skills.
This should avoid the "bulk" problem and you can approach it one step at a time.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Write an email to each professor like this:
Subject: High school student looking to intern in your lab.
Body:
Dear Prof .....
My name is ..... I am a highschool student at ......
I am really interested in your work on (Clear specific details about the work taken from their college website)
I have read your papers ...... (Pick one or two open access papers that you can download for free).
I have the following questions .... (Ask some good questions)
I would really like to do a short intern project in your lab working on .... (topic from papers) possibly doing experiments ...... (Suggest some experiments similar to the ones in the papers).
Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear back from you.
Best Regards
.....
It's a high bar, but it's your best shot. Remember quality is better than quantity. Five Good emails like this will do better than 100 boilerplate emails.
Also don't get disheartened if the professors don't reply, they are very busy and probably didn't open your email, or possibly don't have the space to take on a high school student.
Also remember that it's not required for high school students to have work experience in labs. You have to demonstrate that youre really good to get an intern project as a high school student. Most people who go on to do STEM degrees and PhDs didn't get work experience in a lab as a high school student.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/12/07
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<issue_start>username_0: I am wondering how a mathematician can find a sabbatical in the US. More specifically is it necessary to have people interested in a collaboration with them in the department they wants to visit? Is it possible to find a department for sabbatical in order to start working in a new field?<issue_comment>username_1: The main thing to keep in mind is that from the host department’s point of view they aren’t inviting you to come “do a sabbatical” - that’s not an official status at any US department I know. They are inviting you to come and do a certain kind of work (usually with a title such as Visiting Professor/Researcher/Scholar, which is usually but not always unpaid), whether it’s teaching or research or some combination of the two. The fact that you’re on sabbatical from your home institution (as opposed to some other status like being on leave) is immaterial.
>
> is it necessary to have people interested in a collaboration with them in the department they wants to visit?
>
>
>
I think it’s fair to say that it’s necessary to give the department a *reason* to invite you. They need to have some concrete expectation that your presence will be beneficial to them. The most common such reason (in my very anecdotal experience) is that you will collaborate with some of the department’s faculty, but if you’re offering to teach, run a seminar, mentor graduate students etc, those could all be useful things that might make the department receptive to inviting you. And a collaboration might not necessarily be very concrete - it may be that you are simply an expert in some field that’s of interest to someone and they feel that having you around would be nice for them and their grad students, postdocs etc, regardless of whether there is an official intent to collaborate.
It could also be that you are a famous researcher at the top of your field. In that case I doubt you will need to offer anything concrete. Just say “I was wondering if it would interest your department to have me visit next year”... Your reputation will do the convincing for you.
>
> Is it possible to find a department for sabbatical in order to start working in a new field?
>
>
>
I don’t know, but I don’t see why not. Again, the key is that you have to give people a reason to want to have you around. If you want to expand from field X to field Y and the department has people who are experts on Y but are interested in learning more about X (or about techniques from X that might help them attack the problems of Y) and think you could help them, I think that could be a win-win for everyone and a perfectly good reason to invite you for a visit.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Let me complement the [answer of username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159760/75368) with some information from the other side, for those who may not have it: the home institution. And, this may apply only in the US.
A Sabbatical originated in Jewish Agricultural Law. The land should lay fallow for one year in seven and the farmer should take the year off. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbatical) will give some background on the origin, but not much on the current practice.
Academic sabbaticals aren't universal, but they are pretty common. When available at an institution they may be a contractural right or not. They may be for a full year or a shorter period, say one Semester. They may be fully paid or not. There may be expectations or not. A lot of variation is possible. Some institutions won't offer them at all, though an occasional year without pay, funded elsewhere, is usually a possibility, though that isn't really a sabbatical.
The ideal is that you are more or less entitled to one every seven years, but need not take it. Fully paid with all benefits paid. Few if any expectations about what you do for the year. Earning additional income permitted.
A year in the south of France is possible under the ideal, tasting fine wine, even if (especially if?) you are a mathematician. Starting up a company based on your research is fine. Moving to a new place and working with new people is fine and is hoped for by the home institution.
You may, however, need to arrange it so that continuing work gets carried on in your absence. The lab may not be able to be shut down. Doctoral students still need to be served.
But that ideal isn't open to everyone. To a large extent it depends on the financial position generally of the home institution and how solid their planning is. Having 1/7 of the faculty not "producing" anything is pretty expensive to maintain.
So, more realistically, you may have to negotiate a bit and you may not get a sabbatical every seven years. You may have to make an application. You may have to explain how you will be productive during that period. You may be required to file a report at the end detailing your productivity. There may be some restrictions about teaching at another institution. There may be an expectation that your research will continue. Changing sub-fields is unlikely to be restricted, but changing fields entirely might be an issue.
And you probably have to agree to return to the home institution for at least one year after a sabbatical, even for the ideal model. The institution hopes to get something back from you in productivity or renewed vigor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: One common option for sabbatical leaves in mathematics in the US is to spend a semester or year at one of the NSF funded mathematical sciences institutes. There are currently 9 such institutes, see
<https://mathinstitutes.org/institutes/>
For semester-long visits, these institutes will typically provide housing and some funding for travel expenses.
I've done semester-long sabbatical leaves at IPAM and ICERM. I've also visited for shorter periods at IMA.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a postdoctoral with governmental grant, means that it is not a grant from a research supervisor for a specific research project. Of course, when I was applying for this grant I was asked to connect with one of the professor in university X and I provided a research proposal. During working on the research related to my proposal, I am working on some other aspects which are not far from my proposed research in cooperation with some other scholars and professors outside of my university. I would like to ask your opinion on whether it is normal for postdoctoral researchers to have collaborations with other people as well?<issue_comment>username_1: How independent a post-doc can be depends on a lot of things, but funding is one of the more important ones. Since the institution you will be working at isn't funding you, they have little (but not zero) control over you.
However, and very important, is that collaboration is a good thing. A very good thing. It can boost your future prospects tremendously, both for getting a permanent position and for continuing to do good research.
But, you don't need to feel that you must submit to the views of others if you differ in some way. But those sorts of relationships are destructive potentially in any case.
Think of your colleagues as collaborators, not superiors or inferiors. Share ideas. Build a backlog of ideas for future research. Build a large cohort of collaborators. But, you have the freedom to set your own path.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I would like to ask your opinion on whether it is normal for postdoctoral researchers to have collaborations with other people as well?
>
>
>
Our opinions don’t matter. The professor in charge of your grant is considered your supervisor, and whether it’s okay for you to spend significant time on outside collaborations depends on, and only on, the *professor’s* opinion. It’s likely okay, and yes it is somewhat normal at least in some disciplines (e.g. math), but you should simply ask them.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
|
2020/12/07
| 4,562
| 19,152
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<issue_start>username_0: The fact: my students write badly. The source of the problem is, most likely, low quality primary and secondary education, with little emphasis on essays.
Long term solutions are beyond the scope of this question. My focus is on the short term, as a teacher of a course that asks for essays and reports. **How can I help my students to improve their writing skills, even if just a little, during the course of a semester?**
A potentially relevant fact: there is no awareness among students (and I would even say, among teachers) that good writing is important for their future.
Other context: I'm in a business department. My class has an average of 20 students. They come from high school. I'm new to the university so just getting to know the type of student.
[This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/19756/how-can-we-promote-better-writing-skills-in-academic-education) (or its answers) seems focused on graduate students, with many examples from lab work or theses, which is not my case. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/731/how-to-improve-technical-writing) is about us, academics. The focus here is on undergraduates who will not develop an academic career, but require such skill nonetheless, and unfortunately my university is not providing it, at least not systematically.<issue_comment>username_1: Several thoughts.
* Give writing assignments (goes without saying). Probably more short
ones rather than fewer long ones.
* Make sure students know that form matters as well as content. To
encourage students who start from a disadvantage, count improvement
as well as mastery.
* Collect and critique first drafts before grading the final work.
* Allow students to resubmit essays.
* More problematical: have students critique each others' work before
submission. Those critiques could even be private, so that students
wouldn't be calling each other out before the teacher, only noting
when some argument was unclear to them.
Of course this will be time consuming for you and for them. To do it properly you may have to revise the course objectives to include work done to improve writing - at the expense of "more content".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You should look into [Writing across the curriculum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_across_the_curriculum). Even if you get no support from your school, there are things you can do as an individual instructor.
You should discuss your writing remediation plans with your "management" (assistant chair or someone "in charge" of your course) in advance, so they would not be surprised. You should not introduce any new requirements in the middle of the semester.
Assign work where the students will have to write about the material in your class. Several short narratives (5-10 sentences) will work better than one long essay per semester. If their writing is not to your satisfaction, then make corrections (note that will be **a lot** of work for you if done properly) and ask the students to re-write and re-submit.
Make sure that the poor writing in the final version does not affect the class grade, but a failure to submit the work will affect the grade at least 1 notch.
Consider using one of the automated tools that detect plagiarism in student writing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Here is a specific recommendation/suggestion. It depends on pairing and peer reviewing. It assumes that you don't really have the time to do adequate multi-level, multi-version review yourself.
Create a double assignment. Two different things assigned at the same time. Give a pair (self selected, random, you select, ... ) the two assignments. They decide among themselves who is responsible for which one. Each writes up one of the assignments and asks their partner for advice on it. They then rewrite, maybe more than once.
Decide on a grading scheme before you start. One way is to give them both the same grade on the assignment. Another is to give out, say, 90% of the grade yourself and let each student give the remaining points to their partner. Those points are specifically for the quality of the feedback received. Expect, of course, that almost everyone will give full points to their partner, or none. The latter result gives you a chance to advise them about teamwork, which they might not otherwise get.
If they want to "cheat" and work on both together, fine. Let it happen. It is an additional skill that will serve them later.
But, the [answer of username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159747/75368) is the basis of any good scheme. Repetition with feedback is the only way it can be made to work. If you can give the feedback yourself, given the scale, and you can permit resubmissions in some form, then do that.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: This will require effort on your part, but it's a system that has systematically improved my writing from a D grade on average to an A grade. Often times I see professors engage in 'feedback overload' with each assignment, and your target student will typically take that feedback, understandably not know what to do with it exactly, and continue writing poorly.
Much of your work starts at the beginning of the semester if you want to improve writing in your students. When you grade papers, you need to be looking for *specific* systematic flaws that persist in an individual
s writing --- if you're lucky, enough students make the same mistake and you can address it all at once to the class in a single document.
For example, suppose you have a student that abuses non-specific language. This might take the form of a paragraph like:
*Big yellow dogs are preferable to big red dogs because big red dogs are lucky (Clifford, 2020). They say that big red dogs are better, but they don't account for the fact that big yellow dogs tend to be passed over for their appearance, but often have great personalities.*
The abuse of 'they' in this paragraph is a common example of students being non-specific in their language and it's often systematically in their writing. Who is 'they' after all? Is it Clifford? Perhaps it's the red dogs? Maybe it's the editors at the Wall Street Journal? Who knows. But if you focus your feedback on bringing the students attention to this same one or two repetitive problems then you make the feedback digestion process more manageable for the students.
So in editing their work you want to bring their attention to at most 1-2 systematic problems that are persistent in each assignment. By focusing on just 1 or 2 systematic problems, the next assignment *should* have a majority of those habits improved. Then on the next assignment you pick 1-2 things that are systematically wrong in their writing and you keep 'layering' this procedure over the semester. You might recognize multiple systematic problems, in this case, I still suggest you show restraint on addressing all of them at once.
As a result you end up with a compounding interest problem and you will see improvements *over time* by being incremental and targeted in your feedback. Of course, you can only do so much, a lot of work rests on the shoulders of the students and you should not bare their burden more than you need to.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Writing is learned by reading
-----------------------------
Maybe give them some easy papers to read during the course of the semester and have them write summaries. If they don't know how scientific literature is supposed to be worded, as a start, having them read some good examples is likely gonna be more helpful.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: For us in the French system we had a very rigid way of writing which ended up being pretty handy. I think it's *the* thing that taught me how to write well. You could teach your students how to write in this way. I will present the method and after say how it was taught to us.
So, the method is the following, and I'll try to be quick. You take the question you were given and analyse its keywords. Do some brainstorming on how to answer.
For the **introduction**, you give a general idea to catch the reader's interest. Then, depending on the question, you give context and/or definition of keywords. You may also explain why the question is interesting. Then, you reformulate or just write the question again, and you announce the big ideas your development.
For each **big idea**, you make a "part". You start by a logical connector (first, secondly, etc.), then by providing a summary of your idea, then by announcing the sub-ideas it is made of.
Then, for each **subidea**, you start by a ~one phrase summary, then the bulk of your argument, then your examples, then you either summarize again or just explicit how the examples are relevant, and then you transition for the next subidea or idea.
For the **conclusion**, you summarize and maybe then you "open" the question.
Now, the thing is, to teach us this, the teacher went by parts. So every week (which is possibly too much for uni) we had to turn in something.
It could be only the introduction, or only one big-idea, or just the structure (so the "titles" for the big ideas and so on). And we had a clear barometer of which things we weren't doing well (conceptualizing the question, organizing our ideas, etc.).
And also, with time I have incorporated some things of this method into my "normal" writing, but not everything. It can be a bit too boxy.
Also, I was kind of quick here. If you want more information, let me know.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: To expand on [username_6's](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159777/6223) answer on text structure and [username_1s](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159747/6223) answer on form, provide them with instructions. Maybe even spend one lecture on this. We had a course called 'study-qualities' in my first year and writing was a large part of it. But if your university does not have such a course, you have to make do.
The instructions should be hands on, and include pointers like:
* divide your main text in paragraphs
* paragraphs have headings but headings are not part of the text: the reader must understand the paragraph without having read the heading
* start each paragraph by explaining in one or two sentences what you will say in the coming text
* end each paragraph with re-iterating the points you made in said paragraph
* run a spell-checker
* have someone else read your text before turning it in
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: I have a couple of suggestions. My background is that I'm an engineer. I graduated about 40 years ago with my bachelor's degree.
Back in the day, our department had two "writing" courses: "Tech Paper 1" and "Tech Paper 2". Each was a single credit course, and in each course, the papers were due a little less than a month into the semester. For each paper, there were very strict rules. Each had to be less than 10 pages, double-spaced (back in the day when we used typewriters - I don't know how many words that might be).
The papers had describe a technical problem in the "Problem Statement" (aka Introduction) section. Then they had to propose two or more possible solutions to the problem - including data, feasibility, etc. Finally, there was a Solution section that explained why one of the possible solutions was chosen.
The papers also needed a clear, less than 100 word abstract.
I can see something similar being done with management students. The problem wouldn't necessarily be technical (it might be choices for a product launch, for example).
In those days, the department's standard grading ended up with <10% A grades, maybe a little less than 40% B. The rest were Cs, with a smattering of D grades.
The rules for tech papers were special. If the student got an A or a B on the first submission, then the course was finished (though B students could resubmit and try for an A). Otherwise, the student needed needed to take the comments on paper, incorporate them into a new submission and present that. An A or a B on the second try lead to an A or a B. Otherwise, there was the possibility of a third submission (I don't think A was possible at that point). I believe that the grading on the last submission was a bit tougher (for example, if you had a C and didn't noticeably improve the quality of the paper, you could possibly slip to a D (I think - it's been a long while)).
The idea was to get students writing like professionals, not like coddled high school students. The grader's comments were nearly all in the area of making the paper more concise and more focused (well, as well as improving grammar, spelling, etc.). The idea of multiple submissions was to make the student understand that his/her work would be reviewed out in the real world, and that re-work was pretty standard. The grader's expectations were said to be in the realm of what a supervisor's expectations would be once the student graduated.
There was some allowance made for students who were writing in a language that was not their primary language (and, in part because this was in a Canadian university, papers could be submitted in either English or French).
I thought then, and still think that this was a great way to get students to write clearly.
====
Since that time, I've been working in industry (with the occasional detour into graduate school). I've mentored several of my co-workers on their writing skills.
As other people have mentioned, the best way to learn to write is to read a lot. But, I go further and say that when you find something whose style you like, you should read it out loud, and listen to what you are saying when you do that.
Then, when you write, you should always read what you have written out loud. Listen to what it sounds like. See if you run out of breath before you finish a sentence. See if you can muddle through that 50-60 line paragraph without forgetting what the point was. When you read out loud, you will hear the fact that you included the same word in the last three sentences.
I'd like to think that having students read an excerpt of their work out loud to the class would be a good idea. However, that would be unfair to non-native speakers as well as those who really don't do well in public speaking. But, if you decide to pair students up to review each other's writing, having part of that review being done out loud might be a good idea.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: One of the struggles that I've always had is getting students to understand how badly they write, and why it matters. If they don't understand that, why would they work at improving anything? (For context, I'm coming from a maths background, so the specific things I do may not help you, but perhaps the idea can inspire something?).
What I like to do is essentially a peer-review exercise, but the review element is more about the students using what's been written - they have to interact with it on a deeper level, so that they have to struggle against the consequences of poor writing.
For example, I divide students into teams. Each team gets a box of lego. In the first session, they have to design a model and write instructions for how to build it. They are not allowed to draw pictures. The idea is that the sequence of precise instructions mimics a mathematical proof. In the second session, they get a different team's instructions. They don't just have to read the instructions and assess them. Instead, they are challenged to build the same model as was originally designed by following the instructions. This is the point where they *really* understand how unclear the instructions were and why it's a problem. (If a mathematical proof isn't repeatable, it's not much of a proof!)
Could you find a similar sort of exercise that models what your students could be expected to do in the future? Where they produce a document, and that document has a purpose and whose success is affected by the quality of the writing?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: The best approach I saw to this was to provide examples. One of my philosophy subject tutors wrote four different short essays (<1000 words) on the same topic. They were of varying quality with respect to structure and evidence. So the good essay was organised logically, each paragraph concerned one argument and gave reasons for the position. On the other hand, the bad essay was a mix of assertions without evidence, inconsistencies, related ideas very far apart etc. All four essays were given to the tutorial class and they were asked to grade them (in groups) with reasons for the grading.
The bad essays took him a lot longer to write. Instead of writing bad essays, I imagine you could find some examples in one of the 'homework assistance' sites and then work your way up to write the better ones.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: Be ready, you will face a surprisingly strong resistance. By forcing them to write on a level which should be the most basic requirement after the secondary education, it is something which is very alien for them.
On the superficial level, their reaction will be that they do not understand what do you want. In the reality, they will actively work on to attack you back. Because it is an attack for them.
This is a radical thing. The word "radical" is coming from the latinic word for "root". Because you grab - and fix - the root of the problem.
Be ready: the problem will attack back. Imagine the worst possible attacks, like:
* "Sorry I have dislexia" (this will be a lie in 99% of the cases)
* "Sorry I did not know that I need to write well here" (crap talk)
* "It is a ... class and not a grammar class" (pseudorandom scratch on a paper is still not an essay, furthermore literacy is a must-have already for the secondary education)
* They will likely attack you indirectly, partially through their parents, and through the University administration.
It is not about politeness, it is not about beautiful suggestions. It is about that if the student is incapable to formulate round sentences, then you have nothing to grade. You might try to understand his writings - a little bit -, but honestly you are not an elementary school teacher.
I remember as I both laughed and hated the teachers who forced me to write in a good quality. Now, many decades later, that I see that a large part of the University students are in fact [functional iliterate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy), I know that they were right and I would do the same, yet more vehemently.
So, the first important thing, be ready for sneaking counterattacks.
Second important thing, you need to have a hard hand.
Third: you will likely lose. Do not count with radical results, but target them. You have a good chance for a little improvement in the short term. But they won't write correctly, it does not matter how strongly do you "motivate" them, and you can not let fail the whole class. Your gain will be:
* You will know that you did your best.
* You made the Humanity a little bit better.
Upvotes: 1
|
2020/12/08
| 1,621
| 6,042
|
<issue_start>username_0: If you go on the [recent pages](https://arxiv.org/list/cs.CY/recent) (now, 8th December 2020, 19:24 Italian time), there is for example the article "Exploring the Usage of Online Food Delivery Data for Intra-Urban Job and Housing Mobility Detection and Characterization".
This article is under the heading "8 December".
But if you [click on it](https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.03739), it was "Submitted on 4 Dec 2020".
Why there is a lag between submission time and the header under which it appears for recent publications?
I guess the arXiv staff have to approve the article before is being published .... is my guessing correct?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I guess the arXiv staff have to approve the article before is being published .... is my guessing correct?
>
>
>
Yes, arXiv [moderates](https://arxiv.org/help/moderation) all submissions before posting them (there is some description of this [here](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/)). This is not anywhere near as rigorous as peer review; rather, someone just flips through it to ensure that the submission is (1) not complete junk and (2) classified correctly. This approach is used by many pre-print platforms (SSRN, socarXiv, etc.).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To complement the other answer. All submission to ArXiv pass through a rudimentary moderation process, which checks that submitted manuscripts satisfy the ArXiv's basic technical and content guidelines. In general, this process is quite fast and this by itself does not account for the 4 day lag observed.
In general, submissions before 14:00 (Eastern time US) appear online at 20:00 the same working day. Note that no new articles are announced over the weekend, so some of the articles appearing on Monday were submitted on Friday.
| Publish time (Eastern US) | Submission time |
| --- | --- |
| Monday 20:00 | Friday 14:00 - Monday 14:00 |
| Tuesday 20:00 | Monday 14:00 - Tuesday 14:00 |
| Wednesday 20:00 | Tuesday 14:00 - Wednesday 14:00 |
| Thursday 20:00 | Wednesday 14:00 - Thursday 14:00 |
| Friday 20:00 | Thursday 14:00 - Friday 14:00 |
In fact, since the articles appear in order of submission time in the daily digests, some authors make appoint of submitting directly after the cut-off time. This ensures that their article appears at the top of the list of new articles for the next announcement. This means that it is common to see articles that were submitted Friday at 14:00 + a few seconds in the Monday new articles.
The specific example given by the OP appeared on a Tuesday at 14:00 and was submitted on Friday at 15:18:37. So the usual delay does not account for the 4 day lag in this case.
Some submissions (about 15% according to [this blog post](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/)) are flagged for additional moderation checks. There are various reasons for a submission to be flagged. Some common ones include one of the authors having a problematic previous submission history, and the submission being flagged by automated plagiarism checks. This must have happened to the example given by the OP, most likely due to it being a PDF only submission (which means that some of the automated checks done for TeX submissions are not available).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is mostly, but nor entirely, because of the weekend.
The real delay from moderation is very short: you need to submit before 2pm Eastern time in order to be included in the following day's mailing. However, since there are no mailings at weekends, that means you need to submit before 2pm Eastern on Friday to be included in Monday's mailing. So it is quite normal for a paper to be submitted on a Friday afternoon (e.g. 4th Dec 2020) and appear on a Tuesday (e.g. 8th Dec 2020).
In this case, however, the paper was submitted on Friday *morning*, so would normally have appeared on the 7th, and there must have been some other reason, specific to this submission, for the additional one-day delay.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The other answers are correct that articles are reviewed (moderated) by humans, but [only about 15% are flagged for additional moderation checks](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/) which take more time, and this reasoning doesn't explain why "trusted users" who have submitted many papers to arXiv with absolutely zero problems, don't get a fast-track process.
The first time you ever submit to arXiv, someone has to "vouch" for your paper, which is a manual process that takes a lot of time. After that, the amount of time spent on moderating the articles is extremely minimal (I've been involved in the process in the past). [One answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159810/93303) has said that articles submitted before 14:00 EST appear online at 20:00 the same working day, which means only 6 hours delay. ***Many articles are not even looked at, or barely looked at*** during those 6 hours, because the articles don't need to be "vouched" for. There's many tags such as "quantum physics" and "discrete mathematics", and the moderators on each tag will vary a bit in how strict they are in monitoring whether or not the papers are appropriate for the tags, but there's certainly some tags for which the papers are barely looked at.
So 6 hours seems reasonable for articles that need to be examined, usually because the user has very little history of submissions in the past, or because they are submitting from a hotamil email address rather than a princeton.edu email address (for example), but what about all those articles that are not really being examined much? I don't know if arXiv has made any public statement about the reason for the 6 hours in those cases, but ***I sure like the fact that the paper doesn't get published online immediately, because I do find myself wanting to make last-minute changes after a couple hours,*** so very much like the extra hours of leeway, but that's just me.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/12/09
| 2,161
| 8,303
|
<issue_start>username_0: I've recently started a PhD position in a university and I figured out that many aspects deject me. At the moment I'm employed in a test phase of a few months, and this has led me to think of leaving this position if it didn't fulfil me by then.
With that in mind,
* Is it ethical/professional/acceptable to ask my references for additional recommendation letters, again, for the new positions I'm going to apply to?
* Is a sign of lack of commitment and interest (and therefore, unprofessional)?
I appreciate your opinions.
---
**PS**: Even though I have accepted this position, it never was among my top choices. In fact, my decision was very much affected by the situation of COVID in my country and the market recession.
UPDATE
======
The main reasons unprofessionalism strikes my mind are the following. I hope it clarifies my situation more.
1. I'm in the very early days of my PhD, the *transient phase* so to speak. So any extrapolation of my current situation to the future isn't reliable. I'm afraid that I'm making my mind during this transition time, before adjusting myself or tasting the research as much as I should.
2. As far as I can feel, the non-academic aspects of my unhappiness outweigh the academic part; For instance, the cold environment of the campus and the city, the depressing atmosphere of the only accommodation I could find, as well as my flatmates (please look at PS2) who are desperately are looking for jobs in the wakes of the pandemic, all transfer a sense of stagnation to me. Although some of these issues can be solved, I believe they need an immense amount energy and time, probably comparable to the effort I need to put on my research.
3. I accepted this position with one vital side goal in mind, which (to be honest) is as important for me as the PhD degree if not more: *learning the local language (until B1 level)*. Learning a new language is though, especially alongside a PhD. I know it needs extra focus and perseverance. But with all I have to face (summarized in the previous number), and knowing my personal mental capacity, I'm seriously sceptical about being able to achieve this.
I believe these are decent arguments on a personal level, but maybe not academically. I'm afraid that Academic institutes may find this chain of reasoning unsatisfactory, a set of excuses, or a sign of unreliability. As I'm barely a researcher at this point, I'd be grateful if you can shed more light on these arguments and resolve their (lack of) pertinence to the academic world to me, as an experienced outer observer.
---
**PS2**: My flatmates are good people. However, I'd rather like to be surrounded by people who are trying to push forward a meaningful protect with passion. That kind of people whose perseverance inspires others. And I'm not talking about superman; For me, any other PhD candidate is a good example of such a group.)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> I guess the arXiv staff have to approve the article before is being published .... is my guessing correct?
>
>
>
Yes, arXiv [moderates](https://arxiv.org/help/moderation) all submissions before posting them (there is some description of this [here](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/)). This is not anywhere near as rigorous as peer review; rather, someone just flips through it to ensure that the submission is (1) not complete junk and (2) classified correctly. This approach is used by many pre-print platforms (SSRN, socarXiv, etc.).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To complement the other answer. All submission to ArXiv pass through a rudimentary moderation process, which checks that submitted manuscripts satisfy the ArXiv's basic technical and content guidelines. In general, this process is quite fast and this by itself does not account for the 4 day lag observed.
In general, submissions before 14:00 (Eastern time US) appear online at 20:00 the same working day. Note that no new articles are announced over the weekend, so some of the articles appearing on Monday were submitted on Friday.
| Publish time (Eastern US) | Submission time |
| --- | --- |
| Monday 20:00 | Friday 14:00 - Monday 14:00 |
| Tuesday 20:00 | Monday 14:00 - Tuesday 14:00 |
| Wednesday 20:00 | Tuesday 14:00 - Wednesday 14:00 |
| Thursday 20:00 | Wednesday 14:00 - Thursday 14:00 |
| Friday 20:00 | Thursday 14:00 - Friday 14:00 |
In fact, since the articles appear in order of submission time in the daily digests, some authors make appoint of submitting directly after the cut-off time. This ensures that their article appears at the top of the list of new articles for the next announcement. This means that it is common to see articles that were submitted Friday at 14:00 + a few seconds in the Monday new articles.
The specific example given by the OP appeared on a Tuesday at 14:00 and was submitted on Friday at 15:18:37. So the usual delay does not account for the 4 day lag in this case.
Some submissions (about 15% according to [this blog post](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/)) are flagged for additional moderation checks. There are various reasons for a submission to be flagged. Some common ones include one of the authors having a problematic previous submission history, and the submission being flagged by automated plagiarism checks. This must have happened to the example given by the OP, most likely due to it being a PDF only submission (which means that some of the automated checks done for TeX submissions are not available).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is mostly, but nor entirely, because of the weekend.
The real delay from moderation is very short: you need to submit before 2pm Eastern time in order to be included in the following day's mailing. However, since there are no mailings at weekends, that means you need to submit before 2pm Eastern on Friday to be included in Monday's mailing. So it is quite normal for a paper to be submitted on a Friday afternoon (e.g. 4th Dec 2020) and appear on a Tuesday (e.g. 8th Dec 2020).
In this case, however, the paper was submitted on Friday *morning*, so would normally have appeared on the 7th, and there must have been some other reason, specific to this submission, for the additional one-day delay.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The other answers are correct that articles are reviewed (moderated) by humans, but [only about 15% are flagged for additional moderation checks](https://blog.arxiv.org/2019/08/29/our-moderation-process/) which take more time, and this reasoning doesn't explain why "trusted users" who have submitted many papers to arXiv with absolutely zero problems, don't get a fast-track process.
The first time you ever submit to arXiv, someone has to "vouch" for your paper, which is a manual process that takes a lot of time. After that, the amount of time spent on moderating the articles is extremely minimal (I've been involved in the process in the past). [One answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159810/93303) has said that articles submitted before 14:00 EST appear online at 20:00 the same working day, which means only 6 hours delay. ***Many articles are not even looked at, or barely looked at*** during those 6 hours, because the articles don't need to be "vouched" for. There's many tags such as "quantum physics" and "discrete mathematics", and the moderators on each tag will vary a bit in how strict they are in monitoring whether or not the papers are appropriate for the tags, but there's certainly some tags for which the papers are barely looked at.
So 6 hours seems reasonable for articles that need to be examined, usually because the user has very little history of submissions in the past, or because they are submitting from a hotamil email address rather than a princeton.edu email address (for example), but what about all those articles that are not really being examined much? I don't know if arXiv has made any public statement about the reason for the 6 hours in those cases, but ***I sure like the fact that the paper doesn't get published online immediately, because I do find myself wanting to make last-minute changes after a couple hours,*** so very much like the extra hours of leeway, but that's just me.
Upvotes: 0
|
2020/12/09
| 462
| 2,069
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<issue_start>username_0: All my experience in academia in western countries is that if you're an enrolled student or affiliated faculty, you get an email address from that university. Are there countries where this is not common practice? And if so, is there a good reason for not providing one?<issue_comment>username_1: No, it's not standard.
It's the same as with all institutions everywhere - if you are employed by that institution, you get an email address that makes it clear you are affiliated with that institution. This means you can send emails that immediately identify you as a member of that institution. Once you leave the institution, you will also lose access to that email (or you will get another different email address), which again makes it clear that you are no longer a member of that institution. This has obvious advantages such as making it harder to spoof others.
This applies for not just universities, but also companies big and small.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Many universities, especially private universities, in India do not provide an email address to its students. This is due to the cost of maintaining email server, ensuring confidentiality etc. Even in top universities in India such as the IITs, where everyone is provided with an email address, the email server is suspect and fails.
While I was teaching a graduate class, I circulated a sheet in which they were supposed to write down their email address. I would then make a group and circulate any class related notes or ideas. I noticed that 90% of the students gave gmail or yahoo address and not the institute email address. When I inquired further, I was told they never had an institutional email address at their undergraduate university and are not accustomed to it.
Many faculty in Indian universities also do not use official email address due to reliability problems. You can notice this from noticing their publications. The address of the corresponding author refers to an university while the email address is generally yahoo/gmail.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I wrote a math paper a while ago which was initially mainly for my own attempt to understand a topic/theorem in algebraic geometry. The methods and results are kind of folklore (not well-documented in literature). Although the ideas presented in my write-up was sketched in a recent and well-known conference report, the details and the proof of the main theorem were not given. My write-up did the job to give a detailed treatment of the theory and gave a proof of the main theorem. So this is kind of something between expository and research (I think?).
Now I'm wondering if this paper is worth to be published?
P.S. The main result was also proved by someone using a different approach and got published in a good journal this year.<issue_comment>username_1: I would definitely put it on the arxiv because it could help other people.
Whether it is publishable in a journal is a question which you should probably discuss with other experts in the field.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the proper action is to submit it to an "appropriate" journal. The editors and reviewers will decide whether it is "worth it" to publish, as they will see what you have written.
Having a proof of a conjecture is valuable, but the nature of the proof is much more valuable. If your method differs sufficiently from the published proof and if it has potential to provide new insights, then it is certainly worth publishing.
Sorry, but I can't recommend any specific journals.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Folklore has no scientific basis.\* The "recent and well-known conference report" does. You've taken that further by adding details and formally proving results. Congratulations, you've advanced science.
In parallel, "[t]he main result was also proved by someone using a different approach." You've been scooped. Some of your work's novelty has been lost.
Nonetheless, given that the published work appears in "a good journal," we can infer that the folklore (in this instance) was worthy of formally establishing in science. Whether an alternative approach is similarly worthy, we can't know for sure, only opinions can be offered. I suggest asking the journal's editor whether they'd consider publishing your alternative approach. E.g.,
>
> Dear <NAME>,
>
>
> To my dismay, I discovered my work on ABC has been scooped by <NAME> et al. in their article (entitled "*DEF*"), published in volume N issue I of Journal Name, over which you preside.
>
>
> Perhaps all isn't lost: Prof Y et al. use approach blah, whereas I use approach blah-blah. I wonder whether you'd consider publishing my work as an alternative approach (subject to peer-review, of course)?
>
>
> If not, could you perhaps suggest an alternative venue?
>
>
> Many thanks for your support,
>
>
> Disheveled scoopee
>
>
>
---
\* Details matter. Yet, folklore (and, more generally, story telling) omits, looses, or never possessed details. Folklore has no scientific basis. If folklore sufficed, we'd have no need for science. "Nevertheless," <NAME> [notes](http://math.andrej.com/2012/09/28/substitution-is-pullback/), "if some younger person is so presumptuous as to write out a proper proof and attempt to publish it, they will get shot down in flames." A theorem, by definition, demands proof, without such it is but an idea, a conjecture at best. "The ossification of a caste system – in which one group has the general ideas and vision while another toils to realize that vision – is no way for a subject to flourish," [remarks](https://ncatlab.org/nlab/files/BarwickFutureOfHomotopyTheory.pdf) <NAME>. Maybe I'm naive, perhaps ivory towers unassailable. That'll tarnish science. Building upon complaisant folklore will lead to failure, there's no rigor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: There are also some reputable (= not predatory) journals (but mostly with not very high impact factor), which are specialised also on publishing such results.
Exemplary (but not from your area), [European Journal of Physics](https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/0143-0807/page/About) publishes, among others, "Original insights into the derivation of results. These should be of some general interest, consisting of more than corrections to textbooks." I can imagine that there are also mathematical journals which such a scope.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/12/09
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<issue_start>username_0: Context: At the end of the methodology section, I explain that I will apply an ANOVA to check if at least one condition is different, then I will investigate using multiple comparisons.
The reviewers argue that I am giving away some of my results. Since I mention that I will do multiple comparisons, I am indicating that indeed at least one of the conditions differs.
How can I reformulate my analysis plan (or change my write-up) to accommodate the reviewers? Alternately, what could I answer the proverbial reviewer #2 if I want to keep the same write-up?<issue_comment>username_1: This is a ridiculous request (*edit: eh, maybe not quite so ridiculous; comments suggest that my 'however' paragraph below applies in this case, but I'll leave the rest of this answer as-is*). For one, even before you have run any tests you should have a plan for post hoc testing.
I would respond that it's not possible to correct this without moving statistical methodology to the results, and that the authors feel strongly about keeping this methodology to one section. I can't imagine an editor having a problem with this response, and if the reviewer feels strongly that the boundaries between sections of a paper are sacred then this speaks to their preference directly as well.
However, make sure you aren't saying things you don't need to say if it will help please the reviewer. For example, if you write something equivalent to "we do ANOVA on apple oranges and banana models" and then say "for oranges, we then did post hoc test xyz corrected for multiple comparisons", you can drop oranges from the second section, writing "if significant, we then did post hoc test xyz corrected for multiple comparisons". It doesn't matter that you ran these tests on oranges, it matters that you planned to do this post hoc testing for any significant omnibus ANOVA results, no matter which class of fruit.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Without seeing the reviewers' exact comments, it's hard to say, but I suspect that they may simply want to you be clear about what you *decided to do before performing the experiment*, and what you *decided to do after performing the experiment*. In "run-of-the-mill" science, we form a hypothesis, design an experiment to test the hypothesis, and then perform the experiment. The order in which these things happen is very important when interpreting the strength of the results. Usually, the "Methodology" section in a paper describes the design of the experiment: i.e. the stuff that you decided to do *before* performing the experiment. If you put stuff out of chronological order, then it can be difficult to determine whether you decided to do activity X before or after previewing the results.
I'm not suggesting that it is absolutely crucial that you organize your paper in this fashion, but I think that this is the crux of your reviewers' concerns. So, you can probably appease them by adding clarity surrounding the chronology of events: If you have hypotheses that you formed before the experiment and hypotheses that you formed "during" the experiment be clear about this; if you changed course in your experiment because of preliminary results - be clear about what the original plan was, what the amended plan is, when in the experiment the amendment occurred and why.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I was asked last year to set up a completely new course, far from my expertise (say, you work on differential equations but they ask you to teach general relativity). The department did not give me much space/resources to do so but anyway I did it very successfully and on a very short notice (based on student's evaluations etc.)
* Does the department have the right to take all the material I developed and give it to a new instructor, say next year?
* Do they need my agreement and do I have the right to refuse to do so?
* Can I take the entire developed course in, for example, a new institution in case I move away? Or the department can claim that it was part of my paid job so it is theirs?
On an ethical level I find it unfair that I had to put an insane amount of work only for the department to come and claim my work and give it "for free" to a new instructor. But I am not sure if legally I can do anything about that.
For what is worth, I am in an academic institution in the Netherlands. I am assistant professor (UD) and, according to the rules (at least in my institution) my job is not to develop new courses, but only to deliver/maintain existing courses in the curriculum.<issue_comment>username_1: I can't address the legal questions you ask (nor do people usually on this site).
Are they claiming such rights, or are you just worried that they might?
My experience in the United States with material I've developed is that I'm delighted when anyone wants to use it. I make it available to my colleagues at my school and elsewhere, and can take it with me to use and revise if I change jobs.
When I have turned such material into a textbook I have owned the rights and royalties (although I always arranged not to collect royalties when I assigned my book to my students).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a question that really depends on local custom and policy. At my institution, there's a clear policy that I own the copyright to materials that I produce for my teaching unless those materials were produced with extra institutional support (e.g. I'm paid extra to develop the course or the institution provides an instructional designer to help in developing a course.)
I'm aware that at many other institutions in the US, instructional content (course syllabi, lecture slides, assignments, etc.) are considered to be work for hire and owned by the institution. This is very helpful when a course is frequently taught by contingent faculty.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I will limit my answer to what is customary among academics. If you want to know what is legal, read your employment contract. The contract is what is enforceable.
* Does the department have the right to take all the material I developed and give it to a new instructor, say next year?
Academics feel the instructor owns the course design they made, so no.
* Do they need my agreement and do I have the right to refuse to do so?
Yes they need your agreement, but the ethical and customary thing to do would be to agree.
* Can I take the entire developed course in, for example, a new institution in case I move away? Or the department can claim that it was part of my paid job so it is theirs?
Yes, you can take the course materials with you to use with a new employer.
Upvotes: 1
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2020/12/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently taking an elective course on renewable energy that is open to undergraduate seniors and graduate students. Our class project is to design a solar power system for a community in a developing country (including simulations with HOMER and HelioScope) and write a final report targeted for government officials in the country.
A professor from another university has been advising us on this project over Zoom (at the invitation of the course professor), providing us with background information on the community we're designing the system. My group believes the advising professor has a vested interest in the success of this project after we found a recent contract awarded by the government in the developing country to a consulting company to build a solar power system similar to the one we're designing.
There is no direct link between the advising professor and the company since there is very little publicly available information about it, but:
1. The company is called \_\_\_\_\_ Technologies, where the blank is the nickname used by the advising professor.
2. The company has two offices listed on their website, one within ~15 miles from the university the professor teaches at and the other in the developing country we're designing the system for.
3. The system we're designing has the same capacity and is intended for the same location as the system specified by the contract awarded to the company.
Throughout the entire semester we have been reminded that our final reports for this project may be selected to be read by government officials in the developing country. There hasn't been any disclosure regarding a personal stake by the advising professor, and the course professor introduced him a subject matter expert who is helping out by providing advice regarding the project.
How should we approach this? The advising professor is a friend of our course professor, and we don't know if our course professor is aware of the contract.<issue_comment>username_1: No special approach is required. This is an excellent educational opportunity.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Science is actually supposed to benefit industry. This is perfectly fine as long as it is not coming across ethics.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: You are raising two interesting issues. The first is that you are concerned that a professor is misusing university resources (students' time) for personal benefit. The second is that you aren't being paid to develop these technologies, nor are you engaged in a formal employment contract with the professor.
Usual disclaimers - I'm not a lawyer, do not make decisions based on advice from strangers on the Internet.
1. Can your professor use university resources to advance their own company? This strongly depends on the agreement between the university and the professor. It may well be that the professor was granted prior approval to do this and you weren't told. It could be that the company is a non-profit/a subsidiary of the university or one of a million other statuses that allow these kinds of interactions. The point is that if the professor is actually misusing university resources to advance their research, your unhappiness is the least of their trouble. Universities are very sticky when it comes to intellectual property and their cut of profits from researchers' private enterprises, and you would not want to tangle with the expert team of lawyers that most of them employ for *the sole purpose of protecting the university's IP*. Thus, I don't believe that your professor would do something so blatantly stupid (at least if you are based in any North American/Western European university), that would cost them their job and a ton of money.
2. Should the professor engage you in some kind of employment contract? Here's my hypothesis: you are overestimating the degree to which your project is going to be used as-is. You can think of the project as an "interview" process, and if the professor thinks you're any good, then they'll sign you on to their company, and more importantly, get you to sign an NDA.
With all that being said, if you are worried that something shady is going on, then you should approach your university's ombudsperson/HR regarding the matter.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Assuming the professor's intentions are indeed as presumed, I think this is a problem for two reasons:
* The students did not consent to being used as workforce.
* Regardless of the extent of their contribution to the final product, the forced use of any uncompensated workforce means somebody who is qualified to get hired and do the job will not be getting hired, removing jobs from the market.
From a legal point of view, the professor may have every right to do what he is doing. If not, that is a problem on its own, and has been addressed in @username_3's answer. Otherwise, all the secrecy surrounding the matter was not necessary, and had he been more transparent, I highly doubt that any of the students would refuse to do the assignment.
For reasons of my own, this reminds me of the [consent crisis](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/health/pelvic-medical-exam-unconscious.html) surrounding pelvic exams performed by medical trainees on women under anesthesia. Perhaps since decades, it was considered ok for medical students and trainees to do such pelvic examinations. However, when the recipients found out about it, they felt exploited. Same here. There is a very fine line here: most women actually tend do provide consent to such practices if discussed prior to the procedure, but when found out about it afterwards, most find it shocking. The professor could have been more transparent, which would have had the additional benefit of helping the students feel not violated.
As an example supporting my latter point: in the United States, most universities typically have policies to limit the voluntary presence and participation of visiting scholars from other countries in research activities. This is because there are plenty of talented individuals from other countries who are ready to pay out of pocket to come to the US to progress their careers. It is easy for a primary investigator to run their lab relying on this freely acquired talent and preserve their grant money for other things. However, this prevents everybody (US citizens and foreigners alike) from actually getting paid research positions in labs. Policies as such aim to prevent this from happening and is for the benefit of everyone.
As far as you are concerned, some of you who graduate from your class may be potential employees for the professor in question, and if he keeps getting things done with free talent like yourselves, well, he will be needing you less. Future employment may be a very valid concern to approach your professors with.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> [You are to] design a solar power system for a community in a developing country...and write a final report targeted for government officials in the country [under the guidance of a professor you believe] has a vested interest in the success of this project...There hasn't been any disclosure regarding a personal stake by the advising professor...How should we approach this?
>
>
>
As a wonderful opportunity!
Instead, you seem to be developing a conspiracy theory. Somehow believing the professor is exploiting you for their own personal gain. Rather than a more humble objective: Sharing their vast knowledge with you, allowing you to engage with a real problem facing this particularly developing nation.
I'm sure there exists a group of students that can do better than the professor, the developing nation, and other stakeholders; you need only look to some of world's best entrepreneurs. Perhaps such greats are amongst your group. That's statistically unlikely though. I'll leave it to you and your group to speculate.
You consider the professor shady for not disclosing any interest they may have, for using a pseudonym. Yet, the professor is likely bound by a confidentiality agreement, forbidding them from talking more freely.
I suggest you make the most of this opportunity, without confronting the professor. If you must, ask guarded questions, e.g., *Professor, perhaps you're unable to directly answer such questions, but, if I may, are we discussing the [nation] government contract for a solar power system*? Perhaps following up with, *the one awarded to [X] Technologies?* Thereafter maybe even, *can you talk freely or are you bound by confidentiality?*
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: This is a tricky question and I do not have a full answer. For purposes of advice, I will assume that you are correct in your suspicions that your work is going to be used for commercial purposes by the company of this professor. One thing to consider here is that you may automatically have some intellectual property rights to the work you do based on standard legislative rules. Therefore, if you have no contract with this company where you transfer those rights away, there is a danger *to the company* that you and other students can have a valid legal claim to (possibly partial) ownership of the IP of the device that is developed. If you later find out that your work has been used to produce a solar system that was sold to a government, one thing you could certainly consider is to get advice from an IP lawyer to determine what rights you may have in relation to the IP. It would be important to document your contribution to the project (though that is probably going to happen anyway just through your written communications on the project).
Upvotes: 0
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2020/12/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I completed a four-year Aspirant course and successfully defended my Aspirant thesis<issue_comment>username_1: Apparently you don't have a Kandidat Nauk degree (otherwise you should have wrote about it), so by no means it is equivalent to PhD. Aspirantura without a Kandidat Nauk is not valued even in Russia.
---
Traditionally, Kandidat Nauk dissertation and degree was almost the only outcome of study in aspirantura. However, completion of aspirantura by itself did not automatically result in dissertation defence and awarding a degree. There were and there are a lot of people who do not submit and defend a dissertation while in aspirantura, so they would complete aspirantura without getting a degree. In this case they usually would not even get any diploma. (Some of them would defend a dissertation later, some would outright drop.) There were no final exams in aspirantura, and often no advanced curriculum; and in this sense, aspirantura was more kind of a bureaucratic device that allowed to get funding, give 'legal status' to aspirantura students, not an education institute itself. The main aim of aspirantura was not to give education to students, but to allow them to do research.
However, in recent years, Russian government (Ministry of Education, I suppose) decided to fit aspirantura into the main framework of Russian Federal Law on Education. In particular, AFAIK, aspirantura students are now awarded some diploma on successful completion of aspirantura. It is not tied to Kandidat Nauk dissertation, and has much less requirements, and mainly signifies that some person has indeed studied in aspirantura, and completed some aspirantura courses, and maybe some simple final exam. Even some thesis may be required, but I guess that requirements for such thesis are much lower than for a candidate dissertation.
This aspirantura diploma is not really valued in Russia. (On contrary, it can be a somewhat negative signal, because successfull aspirantura students will defend a Kandidat dissertation and thus will have Kandidat Nauk status, so if somebody has only aspirantura diploma and not a Kandidat Nauk one, this means that they tried and failed). The only use case of aspirantura diploma that I have heard of is when one has to prove that he had received a specific number of *years* of education, usually when they apply to some position in another country. For example, I've heard it used when one applies to European medical PhD programs. They require that applicants have, e.g., 8 years of medical education (the figures are approximate), while Russian medical universities only provide e.g. 6 years, so additional 3-4 aspirantura years make for the difference.
So if you only have an aspirantura diploma (and defended some thesis required for this diploma), then it is not a Kandidat Nauk degree, and thus absolutely not a PhD equivalent.
Disclaimer: I do not have any direct relation to Russian science in recent years, so my knowledge is based on rumors and information from my friends, many of whom are still working in scientific institutes, and some study in aspirantura, and so the information above may be not exactly correct.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As soon as you defended the Dissertation, the Dissertation Panel awards you the Kandidat Nauk title. It shall be later vetted by [VAK](https://vak.minobrnauki.gov.ru/main) (the Higher Attestation Committee), which actually issues the Diploma to confirm your Kandidat Nauk title, but technically speaking you bear the title from the moment the successful defence is announced.
Anyway, as soon as you have a Kandidate Nauk diploma, you can apply to PhD-level jobs in Russia and abroad (including USA). As with any PhD and any graduate degree in general, some people pay a lot of attention to which institution has awarded this degree (e.g. some would seriously consider only applicants with PhD from top-10 universities in the world), and some people/organisations do not have any preferences and are happy to accept any candidate with PhD from a University of Obscure Neverland. Some USA universities may require your Diploma to be notarised and officially recognised, some may accept it with translation you made yourself. You need to check with each University what the rules and expectations are.
Upvotes: 0
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2020/12/10
| 950
| 3,698
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently finished my PhD. I am going to have a Zoom interview for a postdoc position (in life sciences).
My postdoc goal is to get a better experience in Research and become independent in R&D -project management. Mostly, after postdoctoral training, I would move to the industry.
I love this lab research project, mostly similar to my PhD project. So I will easily get adapt to the methods and I am happy to learn new techniques.
However I want to know their lab culture, importantly how supportive this PI for career development.
During Ph.D. I had to be in a toxic environment, I felt almost trapped, where no support was given, mentally abused.
So, I don’t want my next move going to be in the same environment.
What kind of polite, professional questions I can ask this Professor during the interview?
My main concern is how much he supportive of career development and giving opportunities?
Also, what are other questions I should be ready to answer and ask him during the interview?<issue_comment>username_1: The interview is not a time for the job applicant to directly gather information. You can do that after you get a job offer.
When you get the opportunity to ask questions:
* Do not ask questions that you could have found the answer to with Google.
* Do ask questions that show you have researched the employer. This shows you are motivated.
* Ask easy questions. You might have studied up before the interview, but the person interviewing you did not. Do not embarrass them.
* Ask questions that will give you an opportunity talk about why you should be hired (don't be too blatant).
After you get an offer, you can ask the supervisor the real, tough questions, whatever they might be. Also ask people who have left the group; not all supervisors are honest.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: During my own post doc interviews (and PhD interviews), I asked what the situation would be like.
I've included examples for your questions:
>
> What kind of polite, professional questions I can ask this Professor during the interview?
>
>
> My main concern is how much he supportive of career development and giving opportunities?
>
>
> Also, what are other questions I should be ready to answer and ask him during the interview?
>
>
>
Ask the Professor how they run their research group. Specific question might include:
* How many people are in your group including post-docs, grad students, undergrads, and technical staff?
* How do meet with your research group? One-on-one regular meetings? Weekly meetings?
* What is your management style? Are you hands-off? Hands-on?
Ask how the professor has mentored previous post-docs.
* What do they view the goal of a post-doc to be? Do they view it as mentorship role? Do you they view you as a labor source?
* Where do their previous post-docs end up?
* Do post-docs get the freedom to ask their own questions? Are you only limited to the PI's question?
Ask what the professor wants from you.
* For example, do they expect *X* publications per year?
* Ask what they expect from their post docs on weekly basis. Do people work 40-hr weeks? 80-hr weeks? Are they expected to be in the lab on weekends?
For more ideas, I suggest checking out the [Ask the Headhunter newsletter](https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/).
He offers good tips for interviewing.
Last, reach out to current post-docs in the lab and ask them if they would be willing to have a call about what it is like to work for the professor.
Other answers on this page such as [this one](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/66928/33210) describe what you ask the previous and current lab members.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2020/12/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a math professor. Several of our midterm questions were posted to Chegg. We found some students who clearly used them and gave them zeroes for the exam. We also had two students where I kept going back and forth. Most of their work was fine but, in each case, there was one answer which was surprisingly close to Chegg but not so close that I thought it couldn't be a coincidence. I kept sitting on the edge and finally decided to let it go.
I've been thinking, after all grades are in, of writing these students and saying "If you were cheating, you came very close to getting caught. You should be scared about how close you came and make sure you don't do this again; you clearly know enough to pass without it. If you weren't, than I am very sorry to have suspected you." Good idea or terrible idea?<issue_comment>username_1: No, you should not single them out. If you have *evidence* of cheating, then charge it. If you have *suspicions* then you should swallow and ignore them so as not to prejudice the students in the future.
If you want to announce to the entire class that there were a few other cases that were *suspect*, not naming names and not singling out any individual, that would be fine and the message would be delivered.
Some people would take such a singling out very badly. Psychologically. Especially if they didn't cheat.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: If you suspect cheating, one option is to ask the students directly to explain how they got answers that were so similar to the online source. In my experience, this often results in an immediate confession on the part of the students. If they come up with a story that's hard to believe, but you don't have enough evidence to get through the disciplinary process, then you can drop the matter.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Let's say I'm the student suspected of cheating and look at this from my perspective:
**Case 1**: I cheated, and receive this email warning me I came close to being caught. This should be a good result. It would act as deterrence - after all, next time I might not be so lucky. Only thing to pay attention to here is to not reveal the evidence against me, since otherwise I might be tempted to cheat again except this time also to cover any tracks.
**Case 2**: I didn't cheat. In this case the warning is irrelevant to me. Like, the conditional is false, so whatever follows it is irrelevant. After all, the statement "if you cheated then pigs fly" is true! The allegation would only become a nuisance if I had to invest time and effort to fend it off (which I presumably don't in this case), or if it became public (which it doesn't have to, if you send private email).
If you are very worried about case 2 (which is reasonable), you could try looking around to see the effect of false allegations in online forums such as StackExchange. We do for example have [rules against multiple accounts](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/57682/how-should-sockpuppets-be-handled-on-stack-exchange). One can never actually be sure that two accounts are actually the same person, which will invariably lead to false accusations and possibly investigations. I don't actually have the statistics on how people react, but perhaps a mod will be able to say. My experience elsewhere is that people get annoyed if they have to mount a defense, but if it's just being told they've been suspected, they might even react with laughter.
**Edit**: Based on the comments, different people come to different conclusions on this because they interpret things differently. I for example would consider the proposed email closer to being exonerated than being accused, but many others don't. Clearly the dividing line between the two very different reactions is extremely fine. If you do send the letter, you will have to word it very carefully. At that point, it might be better to just sidestep the potential quagmire entirely and not bother.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: Actually, I wonder why this is a problem at all.
Especially math is about understanding and solving a problem. And not about how well you can find external information.
If exam questions are testing understanding and solving, it won't help your students when they are looking up the answers somewhere else. Therefore it doesn't matter if they look up answers. So I think you are fixing the wrong thing here.
Edit:
For me it was not clear the questions were posted during the exam. That makes a bit of a difference. When remembering my math exams: besides the answer I had to give an explanation why the answer was correct. Without explanation you got only a fraction of the points. Depending on the teacher, even with a correct answer.
When cheating was suspected you had to clarify your explanation. Which you are not able to if you cheated.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: If you ask Chegg, they would supply student data they hold. This includes not only those who asked the questions but also those who viewed the answers. If you have the right clauses in the honor code preventing students from seeking unauthorized help, then you can take students to the disciplinary tribunal with the evidence you obtained from Chegg.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/11
| 2,003
| 8,790
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<issue_start>username_0: I did my PhD topic in mechanical engineering. A decade later, I agreed to review an article on the exact same topic, that has a great number of similarities with mine. OK, that can happen.
The authors do cite my PhD manuscript (not the related peer-reviewed articles, by the way) but only once throughout the paper and in a short misleading sentence. Let's say my PhD was about counting from 1 to 20, an analogy would be to say something like "X managed to count up to 2 [ref]". OK, reading too fast can happen too.
The main thing I am uncomfortable with is that the submission is supervised by someone who was in the jury of my PhD defense ten years ago and knows my work well and acknowledged it is a strong text. I am certain that this conduct is intentional. I see several reasons why they would try to minimize my work:
* Their article brings nothing new (the novelty claims have all been already addressed during my thesis);
* I proved that the scope of the article should be achieved computing some certain quantities, and they never did that (because it is much more difficult). They have several possibilities. Manage to compute the quantities: they apparently do not want to. Disprove my claim: very unlikely. Ignore my work from the literature review: dangerous. Inappropriately cite my work: what they chose.
I am convinced that they purposely omitted nearly all of my PhD thesis to have a higher chance of having their article published. They have been citing my articles inappropriately every couple of years, but the consequences were minor (in terms of science).
What would you do?
**Edit** One comment and one answer indicate that whether this behaviour is intentional or not does not matter at all. That is precisely what is not clear to me. When someone submits wrong data supporting a claim in an article, if they just plotted the wrong curve it is a *mistake*. If it they made up data, it is *fraud*. That makes a difference to me...<issue_comment>username_1: If you are certain the article is not novel, you should recommend to the editor that the manuscript be rejected. Give detailed references in your review.
It is impossible to know if the poor citations are deliberate or accidental. It also does not matter at all.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: You certainly can request in your revision that articles that should be cited, because they are highly relevant, be cited when they are not. You are also completely entitled to request that peer-reviewed articles be cited instead of PhD theses where such articles exist. They are the official original publications of the facts (at least that is usually the case) and very often better accessible, or at least it is more certain that they will remain accessible in decades to come. Also, they generate citations and h-index for their author, but that, even if relevant in life, is not relevant for the review.
If they claim that they did something novel when such a thing is in fact already published, you should certainly point it out in your review. If it makes the whole paper not novel enough, you can recommend rejection. Sometimes reviewers miss important differences from previous existing works, but in that case it is the task for the author to point out the differences clearly.
It is hard to prove that they omitted the article citations intentionally o that they misinterpreted their content intentionally so I would be careful with a claim that they did so. Claiming a priority for a scientific discovery, that is already published, is wrong or dishonest, but it is hard to prove the intention.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I see OP mentions in comments and his clarifying edit that the core of the question is whether it makes a difference if this was a *mistake* or *fraud*.
I have to agree with other answers, and elaborate: **it does not matter for a reviewer**, *from a practical point of view.*
Missing a piece of related work happens all the time, and *can* be an honest mistake. A story of every paper is constructed to present the strong points of the proposed approach. Misleading citing, omitting citations, and similar dubious practices *can appear exactly the same*. If a reviewer spots the lack of novelty, context or a false claim, **it means the review process works**. The reviewer can then recommend revisions as required or a rejection all together if the work is not salvageable. If the editor then conditions the publication in including all the missing literature, and correcting all the false claims, the reviewer gets further re-assured in the quality of peer-review for that journal. If the editor rejects the reviewer's claims, the review might re-consider their opinion and confidence in the research published in that journal.
If all problems get fixed in the review process and the paper is deemed correct and a novel contribution, it doesn't matter what the original intentions of the authors were (besides, getting published). If a problematic paper gets denied publication, again, the original intentions of the authors don't matter.
You may equally replace "a piece of related work" with "a suspicious looking data point". The story is exactly the same.
And this is where the question ends from the "reviewer" perspective.
---
From a broader perspective as a researcher and a member of your research community, the scientific community and an active member of society, the *mistake* or *fraud* becomes a somewhat important question *if the false claims get published*.
If the work is somewhat false, and somewhat inconsequential, it will likely get ignored. If the work is substantially false and has important implications, it will ideally get debunked and hurt the reputation and credibility of the authors in the long run. This might happen directly, but this is somewhere you, as an ex-reviewer, but also somebody in a close research field, can contribute to: talk to the colleagues in your community about how journal X ignored the reviewers recommendations about bad science, false data, or plagiarised work. Publishing in dubious journals doesn't help credibility.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: ### Recommend that the journal reject for plagiarism.
If you feel that an article that you're reviewing is plagiarizing your work, then the answer of what to do is simple: recommend that the journal reject for plagiarism, probably accompanied with a citation of the work you feel that they're plagiarizing. Plagiarism is a clear violation of academic ethics, and recommending a work be rejected for it seems like it would be straight-forward.
If a student in one of your classes plagiarized some of your research in one of their assignments, you'd reject their work and refer them to your university's academic integrity board, right? Why should you be more hesitant to recommend the rejection of plagiarism when it's done by your peers?
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Act as if you were not the author of your PhD thesis or the related article, just some random reviewer with excellent knowledge of your work:
1. Point out that both or at least one of your works should be discussed in the literature review as they are relevant for their article.
2. Make clear that the cited work contains more of relevance for the reader and must be explicitly mentioned.
3. Further point out, that the article makes it not clear what is achieved beyond these works. An article has to claim something novel (either explicitly or implicitly).
Every single point is valid criticism. Non contains hurt feelings from you.
You can reply to the editor, that you are not sure whether you should recommend a major revision or a rejection, as you don't see the novelty of the work until point 3 is resolved.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: There are two sides to this for me.
* They are missing / omitting / misunderstanding parts from a reference, which makes their work less relevant.
* This reference is *your* work.
Is your thesis publicly available? It does not matter, but if it is, the offending matter could have been found by anyone else. If not, you are on a thin ice about the reviewer's anonymity.
I suggest you list all the problems in your review. Typical review forms have two parts, "blind comments to the authors" (the actual review) and "comments to editor" (typically blank).
I would definitely write a comment to editor. It is your thesis they belittle. You happen to know the authors personally. Your reviewer identity might be compromised. The editor needs to know of all this.
It might happen, that you will be considered in a conflict of interests. But I doubt very much this paper would be accepted by the editor, if all the above issues are communicated to them.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently writing a paper together with an exchange student of an international academic internship program. As it is common practice, I disclose the research grant, which funds my work. However, the student is paid by the exchange program. He did most of the work and is first author. I am his supervisor and continuously guided his work, though.
Would it be required or is it good practice to disclose the source of his payment or is the grant of my superordinated research project sufficient?<issue_comment>username_1: It's good manners to acknowledge all sources of funding, and in some cases, may actually be mandated by the funding body. It also costs nothing to add a sentence in the acknowledgements, so overall you should certainly acknowledge the student's funding.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It sounds like you've benefitted from this internship program (it brought you a student who does successful work who you didn't have to pay!).
Not only should you acknowledge this funding as good manners and perhaps a required policy, you should be eager to do so as a way to credit the program for this benefit!
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/11
| 797
| 2,737
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<issue_start>username_0: One can manually browse through scholarly publishers' websites and see the number of journals they publish, such as:
* Elsevier: ca. 4.330 journals
* SAGE: ca. 1.200 journals
* Inderscience: ca. 430 journals
* Cambridge University Press: ca. 380 journals
* Emerald: ca. 350 journals
* Hindawi: ca. 230 journals
* MDPI: ca. 200 journals
However, a manual search risks leaving out certain publishers, is prone to mistakes, and is quite time-consuming.
I would thus like to know: Is there already a comprehensive list of large academic journal publishers ordered by the number of journals they publish?
**EDIT**: I am not intending to crowdsource a full list here; such an approach would be flawed as well. The background for my question is that I would need precise data about academic journal publishers for a specific analysis, and before I go on to design a time-consuming data-collection method, I wanted to ask this question here.<issue_comment>username_1: There are a large number of predatory publishers who publish 300+ journals of no real value. So there is no way to include all publishers.
However, if you would be satisfied with scopus indexed journals, then you can download the [excel file](https://www.elsevier.com/?a=91122), sort it based on publisher and filter it. Thus, you will get a list of publishers with the number of journals. Of course, the list will be confined to scopus indexed journals (around 40000 journals by 4000 publishers).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As I could not find a satisfactory answer, I tried an alternative approach. This is what I came up with:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vku6g.png)
The methodical approach was, first, to obtain all publishers names that had supposedly at least 15 journals according to either *DOAJ*, *Publons*, *Scopus* or *<NAME>*. Secondly, I webscraped the journal portfolio of each respective publisher. Finally, I ordered the publisher by journal count.
More details in this [paper](https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-04-2022-0083) (where the table is taken from) or on [GitHub](https://github.com/andreaspacher/academic-publishers).
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: If we talk about the top academic journal publishers. Taylor & Francis, Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley come to mind. I don’t really keep up with the mergers and acquisition shenanigans in the publishing world so some of those might have been gobbled up by the others since the last time I looked.
[Here is the list of major academic publishers in the world in 2022.](https://phdtalks.org/2022/06/top-academic-journal-publishers.html)
Upvotes: 0
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2020/12/11
| 646
| 2,750
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a fourth-year data science Ph.D. student and my professor always tends to send bonus payment at the end of November for all of his Ph.D. students.
This year, all of my teammates got the bonus, even the newly admitted students (I asked them indirectly). Some of my colleagues' behavior is so frustrating as they keep talking about the issue.
I don't know if he decided not to pay me intentionally or he just forgot me. My performance is considered excellent and he is satisfied with my publications. Should I send him an email and ask for the bonus?
Update: I got the bonus. The professor forgot to send me an email that I will get it. I just got them in my bank account without any emails or notices... I also asked to meet my professor yesterday and today we meet and discussed my thesis table in general. He is more than satisfied with my work and performance. I did not ask or open the topic of the bonus.<issue_comment>username_1: I think you need a more serious conversation with your advisor. You need to know if he is unhappy with your performance and if there are things you need to do to improve it. If the answer is no, then you can bring up that you didn't get a bonus. Perhaps it was a clerical issue or an issue in the delivery. But if you are not meeting expectations it would be a time for reflection.
But asking about your performance rather than your bonus would show some sense of seriousness about your work.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would definitely have a meeting with your advisor to weave this into the discussion. Many years ago (1974) in graduate school I received a poor grade on a test, lower than other classmates. Our marked-up exams were returned to us and a friend and I compared our marked-up exams; mine had fewer negative comments than hers. I met with the professor, took in my marked-up exam, and asked about the grade. Turns out she had mis-recorded the grade (an honest mistake), apologized profusely, and change my grade.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is most certainly a mistake. I doubt that you could possibly go from "excellent performance" to being the only one not receiving a bonus in just one year. And if somehow you managed to mess up this severely, then there is no way your advisor did not communicate this clearly to you several times (There might even be legal implications in this case). So no need to worry.
Talk to your advisor or send an informal e-mail, and simply state that you did not receive the bonus and kindly ask him to check if there was any error in the processing. In contrast to what other answers suggest, there is no need to completely question your self-assessment of your performance.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a physics undergraduate. We were working on a summer research project, while this idea unexpectedly came up. We worked on it for some months and developed a low-cost alternative for one lab equipment that we were using for our project. We have performed various standard tests on our equipment, and in all of them, our equipment fares well, mostly on par with the commercially available equipment. We have done the literature review, and ours is a novel idea.
We are not much interested in patenting or marketing the product because of the huge time and resources involved. To clarify, our equipment does not have any 'breakthrough' technologies involved, it is just a handier and a more affordable version of otherwise expensive equipment, but it gets the work done.
We want to share this idea so that it may help others like us, but at the same time get us some credit for it.
We are new to this kind of research, hence do not know what to do next. Ideally, how do you go about publishing such a topic?<issue_comment>username_1: You might try talking to your university's intellectual property commercialization people, anyway. I think what you want is a patent. That's a non-academic publication, which although not peer reviewed should still command a reasonable level of academic respect. You don't even have to form a spin-off company as suggested in the comments or partner with one. Your university will probably have a mechanism for this already, at least in the US. You don't have to market or enforce your patents, and you can commit/pledge your patent to the public domain so that others may use or extend the technology, which they could do anyway if you just published it in a journal.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Have you tried [Review of Scientific Instruments](https://aip.scitation.org/journal/rsi)?
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: One option is to describe your device in detail in the next publication making use of it to acquire data.
The major drawback of that strategy is that outstanding experimental design is only a minor plus for reviewers. You still need some interesting results/analysis to publish it, which may not be easy to obtain. It is therefore possible that you publish very late, or not at all, if this is a short-term undergrad project.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Just curious about this.
On the one hand, I feel like it's a bit heavy-handed to say "And these interests relate to your research interests because of XYZ." It sounds like you are trying to sell them on something.
On the other hand, it is important that advisors feel your interests align.
Note: These are advisors whose interests do pretty obviously overlap with mine -- it's not a stretch.
What is the consensus on this?
UPDATE: So I had two advisor interviews today (back to back, same dept). The first thing both possible advisors asked me was something like "What are your research interests *and* why did you apply to X department at Y school to study with my group in particular?" (emphasis mine). So that made it a little easier because they explicitly asked for the link.<issue_comment>username_1: You **are** trying to sell them on something: YOU! You want this position, right? You still have to make the "obvious" apparent. If you don't tell them about your interests when asked so that they can see the obvious, they won't know, so, yes, tell them, but maybe you don't have to beat them over the head with all the ways you and they are aligned.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This is different enough from the [answer of username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/159905/75368) that it should probably be factored out of comments. An alternate consideration for you in any case.
The question you ask is subtle. Maybe the approach should also be subtle. Start out assuming it will be obvious and see where that goes. You can always make it more explicit.
If it is immediately clear that the prof "groks it" then you don't need to do anything else. If they are confused, make it clearer. Because if they are confused then it needs to be made clearer.
Upvotes: 2
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2020/12/12
| 818
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<issue_start>username_0: I was offered a PhD position from university X with a research assistantship from company Y both in U.S., but I could not attend because my US visa application got refused. Now I am wondering if I can put that in my CV. And if so, how?<issue_comment>username_1: Say you were offered but declined, e.g.
**Fellowships**
* Bigger Name Fellowship (2019-2020)
* Big Name Fellowship (declined)
Do note that simply being offered a PhD position or a job is not especially prestigious; in fact I don't think I've ever seen either in a CV before. Add it if you don't have better things to put in your CV, but remove them as soon as you do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would not do it. Only list things you actually did, not stuff you turned down.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The combination of unpredictably tightening immigration policy, and then COVID, has unfortunately made this far from unique. Therefore, **old conventions don't really apply**.
I've recently been reviewing resumes on the borderline between academia and industry (tech-related). I've seen three approaches being used in the CV itself:
1. Listed in the **Employment/Experience** section with a notation like
>
> University of Atlantis, Blorfindal Lectureship, 2020 (offered, not accepted)
>
>
>
2. Turned into an item in the **Honours/Prizes/Fellowships** section.
>
> Offered Blorfinal Lectureship at University of Atlantis, 2020 (declined)
>
>
>
3. **Polite silence**, with (optionally) a **placeholder** in the CV if the gap is felt to be provocative.
>
> Independent researcher, 2019-2020.
>
>
>
In any case, state the facts (and emphasize achievements) in the CV, don't provide excuses. **Hiring committees understand** what's going on. If you feel it's important, you can provide brief **context in your application letter** instead.
To the extent you can, demonstrate your resiliency by highlighting elsewhere in your CV and/or application how you **kept on ticking in spite of the challenges**. So mention "draft, in preparation" papers you might otherwise have censored out (or have finished and submitted by now if you had been able to take the position), or the course you taught at a local school, or even the completely unrelated job you took for 6 months. If, conversely, you aren't able to do this, that's fine too: committees understand as well that conditions have been tricky, and in some parts of the world, everyone just needed to move down a few levels in Maslow's Hierarchy. That **shouldn't explicitly penalize you**, though unavoidably your competitive position will be somewhat disadvantaged versus those who had the privilege to be able to continue to be productive.
All of this is what to do now, while we're in the thick of things in 2020. Hopefully, your career will get back on track soon, and the **next time you need to update your CV, you will censor all this out** and focus on your more recent accomplishments, not the paths you were unable to take!
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2020/12/12
| 1,603
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<issue_start>username_0: As a program director for a Masters degree in a business school, I am curious to know about higher education policies regarding disciplinary sanctions for plagiarism. This is for both official rules and in actual cases.
I am most interested in the cases where the characterization of plagiarism is not a black and white situation (as is often the case), but the stakes are not minor. To imagine an abstract case: plagiarism committed on a part of a final dissertation. How can disciplinary sanctions scale, before going all out with suspending or expelling the student, while remaining deterring?<issue_comment>username_1: Not seeing the details and relying only on your description, let me suggest that if it isn't a "black and white" case then the correct action is an educational one, not a disciplinary one. The paper should be corrected and the result evaluated after discussing the issue with the student.
But a clear case of plagiarism, when the "stakes are not minor" would be to reject the paper altogether and let the consequences flow from that depending on other policies. It might result in expulsion or it might require the student to start over, but that is a separate issue.
Another [recent question here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/159873/75368) is similar. What should be done about "suspected but not proved" cheating. My answer was to ignore it. Without proof, a disciplinary action is unjust. (Note: ignore the potential "infraction". The paper itself in your situation probably can't stand without correction.)
For someone who is not a student (i.e. a professor or researcher) the penalties for plagiarism can be quite severe, because professionals should know the rules and have been expected to practice them in all situations. Student's, however are not yet professionals, so their misdeeds need to be treated in an educational context. That doesn't mean ignored, but you need proof of intent to "bring down the hammer".
Students can't be expected to "just know" these things, nor to have practiced them enough to avoid sloppiness.
If you handle it correctly, as an opportunity to educate, you might just save someone from ruination, now or later. The paper almost certainly needs a change if it isn't rejected, of course.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If you wait until the very end of the program when a student submits a thesis to check for plagiarism, then you've set up a situation where a student can cheat through the program and then gets caught at the very end.
An alternative approach would be:
1. Teach students about plagiarism and other academic honesty issues early in the program. Give them fair warning that plagiarism can result in their being expelled from the program.
2. Include assessments of students writing throughout the program and check this writing for plagiarism. If you catch a student committing plagiarism on one of these assignments, give them a strong warning and perhaps penalize their grade.
3. Require students to submit draft versions of their theses for evaluation and feedback from the supervisor. Check for plagiarism starting with the first draft.
4. Some central office should keep track of incidents of cheating so that penalties can be increased for repeat offenders. This is particularly important because otherwise a student might cheat in classes with different instructors and receive warnings from each of them.
The basic idea here is that the consequences for misbehavior should be explained in advance and punishments should escalate with each new offense. If a student has been warned and suffered a grade penalty on the first offense, then failed a course and had to retake it on a second offense, then it should come as no surprise that they are expelled from the program for a third offense.
Since the potential consequences are quite severe, it's also important to offer students a reasonable opportunity to appeal their punishment for cheating. There might be a committee charged with considering student appeals.
My institution and many others in the US have systems like the one that I've described above. In my experience, many students who receive a strong warning on a first offense take that warning to heart and have no further problems. Other students become chronic offenders and suffer the full consequences.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> characterization of plagiarism is not a black and white situation (as is often the case)
>
>
>
In the systems I am familiar with, you do not scale discipline based on the quality of the evidence. If there is proof (beyond reasonable doubt, for example), you discipline. If there is not proof, you do not discipline.
Typical discipline for plagiarism is any of:
1. Lowest possible grade for the assignment.
2. Failing grade for the course.
3. Expulsion.
Most important is to apply the discipline consistently.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: ### In compliance with whatever your university's policies are.
Most universities should have a formal policy governing academic integrity and plagiarism, as well as how to handle academic integrity complaints. This could involve formal tribunals, specific processes that the professors should follow, a student honor code, or other such administrative details. These are typically designed to preserve the university's integrity as an educational institution (and thus the value of their degrees), while also protecting the university from lawsuits from aggrieved students who feel that they were punished and denied their degrees or expelled without due process.
As such, I would ensure that any rules and processes you put in place for your program are in compliance with your university's formal rules and processes. If your university doesn't have any formal rules and processes, I would recommend having a discussion with other high-ranking staff at your university such as the dean and other program directors about creating them.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: In addition to what others have described, it is worth analyzing the cause of plagiarism. Some examples.
* Plagiarism as a mistake, e.g. missing reference
* Inadvertent plagiarism due to different traditions/cultures
* Plagiarism due to laziness/stupidity, e.g. copy-pasting a relevant passage from the coursebook instead of rephrasing and referencing it.
* Purposeful plagiarism, e.g. asking another student to write a section in their dissertation
The first two could be solved by reminding/educating students about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. And, perhaps, reducing their grade or asking them to write a short essay to analyze how they have used others work.
The latter requires a more severe action, kicking them out or suspending them until the next year to submit their dissertation.
Upvotes: 1
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2020/12/12
| 1,620
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<issue_start>username_0: So I'm new to university and have written like 5 papers in my life, please help!
So basically the scenario is, I have a paper about a certain topic which I know nothing about. So I do some research on it. After reading a lot about the topic I form an opinion on it. The problem is that my opinion was formed based on reading a lot of other people's opinions. For example, I will read a lot of academics argue one thing, and I will think "oh that makes sense, I agree!" so when I write my paper I will be of the same opinion.
So the question is, do I have to cite the sources that led me to my opinion **when I state my opinion**?? Or phrased differently: Do I have to cite the people that agree with my opinion?
For example, if I write:
X because of Y. And this specific author also agrees with this. <- in this case, do I have to use in-text citation for the first sentence?? Should I write something like:
X because of Y (author, year). <- because I feel like in this case it does not sound like I also agree? It just sounds like I am describing what "author" thinks. How do I add my own opinion to this?
Please keep in mind that these are undergraduate level papers. Up until now, I have been writing entirely descriptive papers (with "someone argues this and someone argues that" and my grades have not been great :( ) without offering my opinion because I was so scared that it would be plagiarism to agree with someone's opinion without citing (since it may be considered to not be an **original** opinion). Again, I will cite the other authors that agree with me after stating what I think, but my question is if I have to in-text cite them **when** I state my opinion.
I am a confused and lost freshman and with the pandemic I can't even go to campus and talk to a librarian about this, so if anyone could help me I will owe you my life, thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: As you present this, it seems as if the answer is yes, you need to cite your sources, probably including those you *don't* agree with with as well.
Plagiarism is presenting the ideas of others as if they were your own. It is considered to be serious academic misconduct and most professors who recognize it in a student's paper will mark it down pretty severely if they accept the paper at all.
And, since you are an undergraduate, it might be especially important to get into the habit of this.
Note that you don't need to copy the words of others to commit plagiarism. It is about the ideas, not the specific words.
You can "weigh" the ideas of others to come to an original opinion, but you need to be specific about the sources.
And if you must err a bit on one side or the other, citing too much is not usually a problem, but citing too little always is. So, tend toward over citation, especially as you learn this stuff.
---
Example:
>
> <NAME> in the July 2020 issue of International Basket Weaving asserts ... A ... and gives the following reasons....
>
>
>
>
> In contrast, <NAME> in the April 2019 issue of the same journal suggests ... B ... and asserts...
>
>
>
>
> I conclude that the correct solution is B *because*...
>
>
>
It is the things that follow "because" that are your contribution. It can include the weakness of A, the strength of B or other factors not considered by either.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would reexamine what you mean by "agree with my opinion." Consider for example:
>
> Einstein proposed the Theory of Relativity, which has been widely accepted by the scientific community and has withstood a battery of experimental tests over the last century [cite]. I agree that this theory is correct.
>
>
>
This last sentence is a little bit ridiculous -- your opinion is altogether irrelevant (unless you are an esteemed physicist). The is true in other fields -- saying you, as a student (or even me, as a professional in a different field), agree or disagree with <NAME> or <NAME> or <NAME> is almost comical.
On the other hand, facts are facts regardless of who says them, and you are entitled to an "academic opinion" even now. So consider, instead, this much stronger paragraph:
>
> Newton's laws of kinematics were widely accepted for hundreds of years, and have been experimentally verified many times [cite, cite, cite]. However, Einstein's recent work argues that Newtonian kinematics does not apply at very high speeds [cite]. Recent work with cathode rays [cite] seems to support Einstein's findings.
>
>
>
So in this case, you are clearly *arguing* that Einstein is correct and Newton is wrong (i.e., "your opinion" is that you "agree" with Einstein), but you do it with facts and logical reasoning, without ever mentioning "agreement" or "opinions."
Now you had asked specifically about making a choice -- what to do when experts disagree. Even in these cases, you can present your analysis without ever mentioning "agreement" or "opinions." Consider:
>
> "Jones argues A [cite] while Smith argues B [cite]. While there is no clear answer, Adams makes a compelling case for B [cite], noting that \_. Indeed, in light of Adams' arguments (particularly his ontological argument), Jones' position seems wholly untenable.
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In the above, it is clear that you "agree" with Adams and Smith, and your claim that Adams' case is "compelling" is very much an opinion (one that you will need to defend in the paper). But you never use the words "opinion" or "agree," and the citations take care of themselves.
Nor are you limited to discussing others' ideas; you can also raise your own ideas:
>
> "Jones argues A [cite] while Smith argues B [cite]. While there is no clear answer, the only verifiable evidence is the exponentially rising CO2 levels. Recent results [cite] have only strengthened this body of evidence. Given the extraordinary success of this prediction, Smith's position seems superior to that of Jones.
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In the second and third sentences above, you are presenting your own, novel ideas or analysis, and there is no need to cite anyone. Again, you are very clearly agreeing with Smith, and you very clearly have an opinion, but you never use those words, and the citations take care of themselves.
Upvotes: 3
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2020/12/12
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<issue_start>username_0: According to [Dr. <NAME>](https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/0446393738), each person has his personal definition of success. Therefore, you can't argue with anyone regarding their personal definition of success. My personal definition of success is to have a Ph.D. in CS and become a teacher in a university. To me, not having a Ph.D. is like living as an incomplete human being. I have become so obsessed with the idea of having a Ph.D. that I have already sacrificed various things for this ambition, and I am prepared to sacrifice more.
Now, for me the problem has been, due to my undiagnosed clinical depression and, apparently, insufficient math background, I dropped out of two Masters in CS programs from two different EU universities. Now, I am taking the medication regularly, and in a stable situation.
I never wrote a thesis before, and don't have any publications.
What should I do now to go ahead and restart my aspirations to become an appropriate candidate for [a Ph.D. program](https://www.cmuportugal.org/universities/)?
1. Do I need to go return and complete my MSc degree in order to get accepted into a Ph.D. program?
2. If I must go back to an MSc degree, would [a 1-year MSc suffice](https://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/graduate/cmpe/information) given that the MSc programs I dropped were of 2 years in length?
---
A comment by ***Peter*** caught my eye:
>
> *obviously, I can't tell with certainty because I don't know OP but mental health issues, an obsession with completing a degree just for the sake of the title, and subpar math skills are not a promising combination.*
>
>
>
I would like to reply this.
Firstly, if I were not stuck with my health issue and math skills, I wouldn't have come to academia.SE, and probably would be answering this type of question for others. academia.SE is here to give suggestions.
Secondly, I am having my medication regularly, and I am having good health now. That is why I am thinking about restarting my journey.
Thirdly, I have been studying college and graduate-level mathematics for the last three months. I have been improving. Probably, I will sit for the GRE Math subject test at the end of this year.
Fourthly, yesterday, **I have received a national scholarship from an EU-country to work on a research project.** So, I think, I still have something in me.
Fifthly and finally, [read Nap<NAME>'s story about Line of Fate](https://www.answers.com/Q/What_did_napoleon_say_at_the_time_of_drawing_fate_line_on_palm_by_sword). This is probably a fictional story, but you get the idea.<issue_comment>username_1: Your post does not explain the broader motivation for your goal to complete a PhD program, and it also sounds like you have some problems that are going to make that an arduous (and possibly unsuccessful) journey. Candidature in a PhD program is often difficult and stressful even for the most elite students with no accompanying clinical depression. For that reason, I recommend you take a moment to reflect on whether you really need to complete a PhD in your field in order to achieve your broader life goals, and whether this period of your life is the appropriate time to do that. Nevertheless, I will take the premise of your question as given, and try to give some basic advice on how to achieve your goal.
As with the acheivement of any goal where you have already made failed attempts, it is important to identify the impediments that are presently preventing success, and then overcome those impediments. Your post identifies two impediments to your success: (1) depression; and (2) insufficient maths background. I will leave it primarily to medical people to assist you with the first, but I will just mention that you might find some wisdom and assistance in reading some of the philosophy of the Stoics (particularly Epictetus and maybe also Seneca the Younger). As to your insufficient math background, the simplest way to improve this is to undertake revision on all your previous mathematics courses, with particular attention to the mathematics you encountered in your previous MSc program.
You mention that you do not have any academic publications, and I think it is premature to attempt this. However, once you have learned some more of the base material in your field you could start out by trying to publish small posts about it on relevant websites. Since you are already using StackExchange, once you learn some more mathematics you could attempt to answer some questions on [Math.SE](https://math.stackexchange.com/) or [CS.SE](https://cs.stackexchange.com/). Another possible activity here is to write some blog posts explaining the mathematics you have learned to other students at your level. These are all "publications" in a minor sense (though not academic publications), and they are a reasonable way to practice making public posts about mathematics that can be subjected to critical feedback from experts.
In these circumstances, where you are already struggling, I think it would be beneficial to complete your MSc program before attempting entry to a PhD program. The main reason for this is to give you an opportunity to complete postgraduate level coursework and improve your skills (including your math skills) up to a level that would make you competitive for entry into a PhD program. A secondary reason is that you may then obtain some ideas for possible research projects (and supervisors) that you could pursue as a first attempt at academic publication.
To finish, I will just make two last points. It is possible for weak students to improve and later be competitive students for higher-degree programs. That is usually a long and difficult process, but it is certainly possible for a student with sufficient diligence and commitment. Having said this, it is also important to ensure that you are setting reasonable life goals that are actually going to lead you where you want to go. Some students (and I am certainly not saying you are in this category) look at the PhD program as a kind of elite social-proof and they pursue it as an end in itself, rather than taking a realistic view of what it will actually add to (and subtract from) their career or life. Take some time to reflect on your broader life goals and consider what you really need to be successful in your life. Good luck.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: username_1's answer covers just about all the main points. Motivation and rationale are crucial considerations for undertaking a PhD. Your desire to become a teacher in your comments is an important consideration. The other concerns about your math's skills is also an important aspect that username_1 raised. I worry that the level of maths skills needs to be quite advanced if you are going for the usual CS PhD rather than a pedagogically focused CS PhD.
Even in a pedagogical CS PhD, your writing skills would be also another very critical consideration that you have not seemed to have emphasised. Writing blogs and even these SE posts etc is a great way to improve and gain helpful feedback, but really consider doing academic writing courses and blogs. Since you are keen on PhD level teaching, remember there is an overemphasis of a very formal and a highly nuanced form of writing that other forms of teaching may not. Informal teaching or high school teaching would be fair less critiqued by peers or students. Your PhD thesis and publications are more likely to undergo harsh criticism especially peer reviews as well. So are you keen or motivated enough to increase your written and spoken skills to this expected level?
With respect to your two Master's attempts, do the Master's cover essential knowledge or skills that you need in CS or for a CS PhD? I suspect they do, especially since you seem to indicate that you have an insufficient maths background, so it sounds like a Masters program would be very helpful for you to gain the knowledge and to improve your written and spoken proficiency as well? Also start taking care of your mental health more so now too. Tablets are great, but also seek therapy and online help to increase the range of your strategies for when you get stressed and unwell. Your health is always worth the investment when you are well, to prepare you for the stressful times with deadlines and pressure.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Something to consider (I wanted to leave a comment but am too new to be able to), the Math GRE subject test is VERY hard. I know people who came from top undergraduate math programs and said it was very hard and did not do well. If you are able to do well on the GRE Math Subject test, I would assume you have enough of a math background to do a CS degree (since the test is for Math Graduate School). However, if your math background is not strong enough for a CS PhD, it is probably not strong enough for the Math Subject Test either. To put things in further perspective students who come have technical industrial engineering backgrounds can do the math needed in CS without a problem but not necessarily the math needed for Math graduate school.
The being said having a MS is always a way to fill some doubts an admissions committee may have about your candidancy (and take some time to build your skillset). Getting a MSc can only help your case, and if you have the money, applying 2 years in a row won't hurt. It is very hard to start a PhD program when you don't have an adequate background that happened to me and I ended up adding a year to my PhD to take "remedial" courses, but some programs can't absorb that cost and you will be dismissed from the program. Not to mention the stress that comes with being completely overwhelmed. Have you thought of applying to PhD programs and then checking the box that you are willing to be considered for MS programs as well. Then you can have full information about your options. Also, if you enroll in a MS with a thesis option you can start building your research career and potentially stay with the same advisor for your PhD (ultimately graduating faster). These are all options that will allow you to hit the ground running instead of starting from behind.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: If its just about the qualification - you can get one of those by mail order.
What about the actual research you want to do?
What does being a successful graduate look like in the area you want to work?
What kind of capabilities do you need to succeed in that area?
I would start by thinking about what area of research you would like to specialise in and work back from there.
Upvotes: 1
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2020/12/13
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<issue_start>username_0: I had sent a manuscript of mine to one of the IEEE Transactions journals a while ago. After the first round of revision, I received some comments of two reviewers (let's call them A and B). But after the second round of review, the new comments I received obviously indicated that the two new reviewers (say, C and D) were not A and B (both C and D had explicitly noted that in their comment letters). The comments of C and D were mostly contradictory to those of A's and B's. The weird thing was that both C and D complained about some changes which I had applied to the manuscript according to what A and B had requested. Yet, the most perplexing thing, about the most-recent comments I received after the next round of revision, that is, the editor apparently sent the new revision yet to a new pair of reviewers (here, E and F)! Again, their comments are no where close to something harmonious with what the former pairs had asked before.
Now, I am confused to understand the strategy of the editor. To me, a review process has to be closed just like a loop, in that those who comment on a manuscript should assess the resulting revision. Otherwise, anyone else would pose new sets of comments and ideas which may simply contradict the former ones.
Can one explain how this way of review moderation yields convergence to a decisive result?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> To me, a review process has to be closed just like a loop, in that those who comment on a manuscript should assess the resulting revision.
>
>
>
So you submit a first version of the paper. The editors invites some reviewers to submit reviews, and Reviewers A and B accept the invite. When Reviewer A accepts the invite, they have no way of knowing how the process will evolve. They know that they have to submit a review within a fixed amount of time, upon which three outcomes are possible:
* accept as is;
* reject completely;
* recommend to revise and resubmit.
The first two outcomes mean that the process ends there. But consider what happens when the third outcome happens. An amount of time X will pass for the editor to make a decision, and Reviewer A has no way of knowing how much time, particularly since Reviewer B may be late with their review. Then, the editor will give an amount of time Y to the authors to perform their revision. Maybe you, as author, are very eager, and you only use an amount Z
* whether any number of revisions would be necessary;
* how much time X+Z would be.
Maybe Reviewer A finds themselves overloaded with teaching tasks when the invitation for reviewing the revision lands in their inbox. Maybe they had set a month apart for redecorating their house. This is why reviewers cannot, in general, be asked to commit to reviewing more than one iteration of a paper at a time.
---
You have run into bad luck to have been confronted with a completely fresh slate of reviewers twice. It is not nice to have to chase after a moving target. The prudent thing to do is to summarize the conflicts in the feedbacks, and send a message to the editor. It is their responsibility to resolve such issues, but they may not be aware that any issue exists. So you should make the editor aware.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Most probably what happened was the invited reviewers declined for whatever reason (too busy, on holiday, etc) and the editor is inviting a new set of reviewers because it is journal policy to only accept when they have two accept reviews (or they simply aren't confident enough to evaluate based on the original reviews). It is rare for this to happen four times, but it's not inconceivable.
Either way it's obviously not ideal for the authors. I'd suggest asking the editor for guidance. You can't outright tell them what to do, of course, but you could point out that the reviewers are contradicting one another and you are unsure what to make of it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: When reviewers contradict each other there shouldn’t be any additional problem because the algorithm is the same as with one reviewer: you either agree with someone’s position and then edit your manuscript accordingly, or you disagree and then explain why to the editors and reviewers. Either case it’s just positions to consider. It doesn’t matter if there are contradictory positions. Having 6 reviewers should strengthen your piece.
Upvotes: 1
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