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2021/05/27	1,071	4,645	<issue_start>username_0: I am an international student. I have received a MS admit (Fall 2021) from X University (USA) in Y department (STEM). My initial application to this university was for PhD, but I got a reject for PhD and they offered MS (thesis) instead. The fees of X University are very costly for me. X University also has a no TA/RA policy for MS students. The Graduate School of the university told me that there might be some small financial support possible from the department. Thus, I emailed the department explaining my situation. Their initial response was negative, but the Director of Master's program in my department has agreed to a brief call. I need some guidance on how to convince the department/Director of Master's program to provide me with some financial support, any amount will help.<issue_comment>username_1: It's almost certainly not possible. The grad school sent you to the department because funding isn't the grad school's job. They don't really know if the department has funds or not. The department's initial response was negative probably because they don't have funds for you. I can only guess at why they've agreed to take a call anyways, but it's probably just because you've been persistent and either a) they are having a hard time saying simply "no", because it's culturally uncomfortable to say, or b) they think you'll take the "no" answer better over a call or stop bothering them. There are no secret words; there aren't typically funds for MS students and your rejection for PhD was likely because they've offered the available funding slots to candidates they liked better for the PhD program; you're left as someone they maybe would be okay taking as a PhD student given unlimited funds, but they don't have unlimited funds, so they've offered the MS instead. A more cynical viewpoint is that they don't really want you at all, but are willing to take any student who is willing to pay the high undiscounted fees that are typically charged to international students. If you'd like to be a PhD student in the US, you are probably better off applying as a PhD student at other universities. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: If you apply for a PhD and are offered a full-fee masters, this means the department has already decided it does not want to provide financial support. In the USA, departments that offer STEM PhDs only offer full-fee masters degrees for the purpose of collecting tuition money from people who cannot get in to their PhD programs. Unfortunately, it is very likely impossible to get financial support from this university. I suggest you try applying elsewhere. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There are several most common sources of support that a department can give to their grad students: * Fellowships. * Block grant money. * GSR (graduate student research support). * TA-ships. Realistically speaking, the best that a student in your situation can hope for is a TA-ship. While the department is not going promise you a TA-ship now, come Fall, it is quite likely that they will find themselves short on TAs for scheduled classes. (How does this happen? For instance, some grad students cannot come because of a variety of problems, say, cannot get a visa, or some faculty get grants and they need to hire GSRs who are scheduled to work as TAs....) In this situation, the department will be eager to hire even grad students from other departments or, even some advanced undergraduate students. Thus, during your conversation, make sure that the department knows that you are willing and eager to work as a TA, that you have some qualification for this (tell them which, for instance, maybe you worked as a grader or you provided mentoring to other undergraduate students). Ask them to put your name on the wait-list (if they have such) for a TA-ship in the Fall semester/quarter. Assuming that this works in Fall, make sure you do a good job, so they might be inclined to offer you a TA-ship in a similar situation in the following semester/quarter. --- Edit. Of course, it is quite possible that the department routinely admits substantially more PhD students than they can support (I know some departments that do so; my own department, in contrast, is rather conservative in its graduate admissions process) and, understandably, prioritizes these over MS students when distributing extra available TA-ships. In this situation, there are always Phd students in need of TA-ships and MS students never get these. However, the right thing to do is to find out the exact situation. You loose nothing by asking questions. Upvotes: 2
2021/05/28	1,016	4,205	<issue_start>username_0: I understand that a somewhat similar question has been asked before, but my parameters here are slightly different. Essentially, I have been emailing a professor since early April about joining their lab. They have responded and inquired what sort of projects I would be interested in. They also remarked that they would be interested in meeting after the semester is over. Well, after final grades were input I sent an email and... no dice after two-ish weeks. This is no surprise, given that I know a student who got a response from them months after sending an email. The thing is, I am trying to join their project over the summer and well, precious summer days are about to start passing pretty fast. In summary, I am moving close to campus next week, and I am wondering if it would be rude or brutish to go to their office location physically to follow up. Is this a bad idea? The difference between this situation and the last person who asked is that this is during summer and COVID times. I also just finished my freshman year if that matters. EDIT: as a corollary, I could also try calling the office. Though that almost seems more incessant than showing up in my opinion. Thoughts?<issue_comment>username_1: Given that there was a tacit agreement to have a meeting sometime in the summer, an unannounced drop-in wouldn't be unusual. But the real issue is that you don't even know if they will be in their office during the summer. COVID is still forcing several campuses to stay remote and have less than full attendance. Several professors are still conducting all business from home. So are you just going to drop by their office everyday at random hours hoping that you will catch them one of these days? Your best bet is to email one of the professor's graduate students and ask them about their status. Depending on how big the lab is, you might be working with these people mainly anyway. I would do this before visiting the professor's office for an impromptu meeting. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It's not rude. It quite probably is futile. * Many faculty are not in their offices very often normally. * Many faculty are in their offices less in the summer - in particular, they are unlikely to have scheduled office hours. * During a pandemic, you might not be able to go into the building anyway. If the professor does not feel safe meeting in person during a pandemic, they'll just tell you to contact them some other way when you show up. Do not go to a professor's office if you are sick. Also, do not go anywhere, except for medical care. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Rude? probably, especially in these times of "the less people I meet, the better". Futile? almost certain, for the reasons given by [@AnonymousPhysicist](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/168307/128758) . Professors have secretary/secretaries. Call them, set up an appointment, they know the professor agenda and can tell you exactly when you should appear to talk with him, after having agreed a time. Professor are not super-humans, but they have a huge load of work and the same 24 hours/day as the others. Your request is not so important in professor's eyes, so it did not get the proper attention (i.e. time). You are on the right path to understand that talking in person will be very effective, so it is time saved for both you and the professor, but you are pursuing that meeting the wrong way. It is a good lesson to learn to show what you care for in the proper&smart manner: it is important to you, you need 15 minutes to express the importance to the professor, the professor needs 15 minutes to evaluate you and will likely allocate 15 minutes only for that, so you should prefer to have him in a good mood. Set up a proper appointment through the secretary. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: In addition to the other answers, I would suggest sending a polite follow-up email along the lines of "Professor X, I hope you are well. Would you still have time to meet to discuss summer project work, as we discussed during the semester?" It could very well be that they got distracted and just need a gentle reminder to respond. Upvotes: 0
2021/05/28	1,251	5,609	<issue_start>username_0: I teach in a university to Masters students in Science. I have taught courses from Physics, Statistics, Mathematics and Computation, and every time I finish teaching a course, I find myself unsatisfied. It is difficult to articulate what exactly I feel unsatisfied with, but it is probably a combination of choice of topics, the order in which I taught them, the total amount of depth I covered each topic to, the way I explained the concept, the type of problems I assigned for practice, the way I gave my feedback to student submissions etc. One thing that I always seem to fear while teaching is that even if I explained something, students may not have understood it. This makes me extremely conscious during the class itself, and once I start thinking about it while I am talking, I seem to forget things, which in turn leads to fumbling, and that feeling is disturbing. Over the years, I have made active efforts to improve. However as the courses that I teach seem to become more and more difficult as I progress in my career, the improvement seems to be lagging quite a lot. During my bachelor's degree, I had devoured Feynman Lectures on Physics, and that motivated me a lot to become a good teacher. Even now while reading these, I "hear" the sentences in Feynman's voice with all ups and downs of the tone. I have also read the book "The craft of scientific presentations" by <NAME>, and several other articles. Perhaps it is needless to say that I have tried to implement various strategies learned from these resources into my teaching. However, I still feel that my teaching is not up to the mark. When I think of some of the scientists I personally know, their teaching seems flawless (I have attended their actual in-person courses). Here I am not saying that each one of them mesmerize the students in the class, but that given their styles, everything seems to fall in place when they are teaching. Let it be a difficult calculation, or a complex explanation of conceptually difficult concept, they seem to get it done as if it is a piece of cake. Given this, I am looking for books or other resources that specifically talk about great teachers and their teaching methods, especially in advanced science. The books should not cover just some algorithms which should be followed but they should emphasize how teaching can be approached as an art that can be learned and excelled. Two good books (about different topics) which are of this type are "Writing Science" by <NAME>, and "Craft of Scientific Presentations" by <NAME>.<issue_comment>username_1: I would say that it isn't necessarily good to focus too much on whether you "get difficult calculations or complex explanations of conceptually difficult concepts done as if it is a piece of cake". Instead, look at how students learn. Some difficulties are actually desirable for increasing learning and a presentation that is too smooth can backfire by making things look too easy. Not that this is an excuse for poorly prepared or executed instruction, of course. Since you ask for a book recommendation, you might want to consult "Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide" by Felder & Brent. It contains many tips on getting students more actively involved in the learning process. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A little different to what you are asking about, but you may also be interested in "The sense of style" by <NAME>, which tries to motivate how to write from a psycho-linguistic and cognative science point of view. He makes a comment that the core style guides tend to not follow their own advice (even when giving that advice) because the best writers tend to instinctively know how to write and can only guess as to what rules they are following. This has helped me understand the root reason why I'm such a terrible writer. (I have no internal monologue, instead experience the world through more of a visual or kinesthetic, which possibly explains why I have a habit of using nominalised verbs.) This could be useful for making any lecture notes or slides you write clearer. Though this also suggests you should also be careful from just following suggestions from great teachers since they may only know how to teach well, but misunderstand why their lectures are great. I have also found "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by peter brown useful to understand how people learn. It tries to explain what our current understanding is regarding how learning works and also has a section at the back which tries to explain best practices for teachers/students/self-study. I have also very recently come across a quote: "Play is the act of manipulating something that doesn't dictate all of its capacity, but does limit them" which I feel has something in it (though I haven't worked out exactly what yet). It might help explain why I found it so easy to learn maths and physics compared to others in my year levels, since it was all just play to me. I've also been teaching myself some machine learning recently and so the phrase sounds like its related to finding the sweet spot in the bias-complexity tradeoff in machine learning. And ties together ideas I've heard from evolutionary biology/psychology where play is motivated by learning (which maybe can be modeled as machine learning). This last statement is fairly wishy-washy and could very well be wrong (I'm no psychologist), so feel free to ignore it if you don't trust it. Though I am somewhat curious if the idea appeared at all in Feynman's lecturing style. Upvotes: 0
2021/05/28	1,078	4,785	<issue_start>username_0: I currently finished my undergraduate studies and I plan to apply to PhD programs in the near future. In the mean time I will be starting a masters to get additional research experience and take some advanced courses in my field of interest. I plan to go into Condensed Matter Physics (CMP) and I plan to take masters courses in CMP and get research experience in CMP. During my undergrad I was a Physics and Mathematics major who had taken some classes in Engineering to get some "hands on" and "practical" experiences. I did well in these classes and learned a lot. During my time as an undergrad I also have taken some grad courses in physics; all but one were CMP-related or CMP pre-requisites and I did well in these as well. Although I did well in my Physics, Mathematics, and CMP-related classes, I originally wanted to go into a different area of Physics and so my last graduate class was in this non-CMP area. I found out during that semester that this area was not that interesting to me after all and that CMP was something I really enjoyed. This class was also stressing me out and was going to affect my performance in the other CMP-related classes I was taking. As a result, I decided to take this class as Pass/No-Credit (Covid Pass/No-Credit); this lowered my anxiety and I was able to do well in my other classes. In the end I performed well in my graduating class and received some honors and accolades from the university. During that semester it seemed to me that this was the right thing to do. Looking back now, I am wondering: will grad admissions frown upon the Pass/No-Credit in this non-CMP graduate course? Will they think I slacked off, or will my other classes counter this? Or should I not sweat it and move on?<issue_comment>username_1: I would say that it isn't necessarily good to focus too much on whether you "get difficult calculations or complex explanations of conceptually difficult concepts done as if it is a piece of cake". Instead, look at how students learn. Some difficulties are actually desirable for increasing learning and a presentation that is too smooth can backfire by making things look too easy. Not that this is an excuse for poorly prepared or executed instruction, of course. Since you ask for a book recommendation, you might want to consult "Teaching and Learning STEM: A Practical Guide" by Felder & Brent. It contains many tips on getting students more actively involved in the learning process. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A little different to what you are asking about, but you may also be interested in "The sense of style" by <NAME>, which tries to motivate how to write from a psycho-linguistic and cognative science point of view. He makes a comment that the core style guides tend to not follow their own advice (even when giving that advice) because the best writers tend to instinctively know how to write and can only guess as to what rules they are following. This has helped me understand the root reason why I'm such a terrible writer. (I have no internal monologue, instead experience the world through more of a visual or kinesthetic, which possibly explains why I have a habit of using nominalised verbs.) This could be useful for making any lecture notes or slides you write clearer. Though this also suggests you should also be careful from just following suggestions from great teachers since they may only know how to teach well, but misunderstand why their lectures are great. I have also found "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by peter brown useful to understand how people learn. It tries to explain what our current understanding is regarding how learning works and also has a section at the back which tries to explain best practices for teachers/students/self-study. I have also very recently come across a quote: "Play is the act of manipulating something that doesn't dictate all of its capacity, but does limit them" which I feel has something in it (though I haven't worked out exactly what yet). It might help explain why I found it so easy to learn maths and physics compared to others in my year levels, since it was all just play to me. I've also been teaching myself some machine learning recently and so the phrase sounds like its related to finding the sweet spot in the bias-complexity tradeoff in machine learning. And ties together ideas I've heard from evolutionary biology/psychology where play is motivated by learning (which maybe can be modeled as machine learning). This last statement is fairly wishy-washy and could very well be wrong (I'm no psychologist), so feel free to ignore it if you don't trust it. Though I am somewhat curious if the idea appeared at all in Feynman's lecturing style. Upvotes: 0
2021/05/28	887	3,808	<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at a U.S. university and after taking Professor X's class this Spring, he has agreed to be my advisor. About a month ago, Professor X asked me to read a particular recent paper of his and prove a conjecture. I have been reading his paper, and I can understand the logic in his proofs from one line to the next. However, I fail to see the big picture. I would have no answer to the questions such as "What is the motivation behind coming up with this theorem?" or "What is the motivation behind the proof of this lemma?". As a result, I feel like I don't even have the slightest idea of how to prove the conjecture he assigned me. I think I know the answer to my dilemma: just keep reading and trying until you understand. However, it is possible that he has something else to add. Perhaps he might recommend me to read another paper for more background or something like that. Would it be immature and not worthy of a PhD student to ask this question of my advisor?<issue_comment>username_1: These questions are usually addressed in the introduction of the paper. Papers are written with graduate students and professional username_3s in mind, and some of those readers are likely to have similar questions about the motivation. If you can't find the answer in the paper itself, this is an excellent question to ask your advisor. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think your situation is at all unusual and it is probably a good thing to talk over with your advisor in general terms. There is a hierarchy of mathematical understanding that goes from simple computational ability at the bottom to something that I won't try to describe here. But about 3/4 of the way up that hierarchy is true insight into a subfield or problem area. This is about the time in your career when it would be natural to be developing that, but, I hope, your advisor can assist you in this. At some point you have a a-ha moment when things fit together and you suddenly see the big picture and how the parts fit together. You can try to tough it out on your own, but if you explore the topic in general, not necessarily related to this particular paper, you might get a boost. And, the fact that you are asking if such questions are immature seems to indicate that you are within reach of the next step. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: This is a fantastic question to ask. It's where your advisor's expertise really has the chance to make a difference, and it's much more interesting to answer than "Why does line 4 follow from line 3"? Long term it's your hope to understand the big picture as well. The best time to ask questions like this is after you've first taken a stab at it yourself: you'll be in a much better position to understand the answers! As you've done this already, I'd encourage you to proceed. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: There's a boundary somewhere between 'go and read more yourself' and 'ask for additional support'. This boundary depends on the problem you're studying and your own ability in that area, and on how much time your supervisor or colleague or friend is willing to spend discussing with you. It's there in many aspects of life, as well as being a part of studying for a PhD. You can learn where that boundary is by trying; try reading one time and try asking another time. Pay attention to how well you managed to learn on your own and how willing your supervisor was to help you out. You could also ask your supervisor 'I'm trying to learn when to read more and when to ask for more help from you, do you have any advice?' As you move further along, 'ask for additional support' may start to become more like 'discuss the problem with another expert'. Upvotes: 2
2021/05/28	465	2,077	<issue_start>username_0: I am applying for various postdoc grants at the moment. They all have some section concerning Prizes and Awards. While I understand that this obviously includes things like 'best poster presentation' or 'best dissertation', I wonder whether competitive travel grants fall under this category? Often they involve the writing of a research proposal, have a low success rate and can entail large sums of money so I am sure this is relevant for applications. If not under this section, where should I mention these things? I have never seen a field specifically dedicated to travel grants and I do not think they can be mentioned under something like research grants.<issue_comment>username_1: For what purpose are you listing this? Is it your CV for your website, a job application, or something else? If this is a casual CV posting, then you can do whatever you like, and I've seen all sorts of things to make oneself unique. Funding agencies, at the other extreme, generally speaking, have pretty rigid formatting instructions (and often different names!) for CVs (aka biosketches), and you should follow those to the letter. They may or may not let you include such a grant. A job application is up to the place you're applying and will may let you apply with any CV format you like. My recommendation would be to look at any posted CVs of their current staff in the position you're applying for and shoot for a format that's pretty close to theirs. We allow the upload of two generic documents to our applications, a CV and a Letter of Interest, in any format you choose. It's up to the application reviewers to be impressed with the content they find, or not. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, travel grants belong there, in particular if there is no other field like "personal scholarships/stipendia" or similar. Also, you are probably overthinking this, as even if you find another more or less appropriate section and put your travel grant in both of them, it won't hurt you application chances in any way. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2021/05/28	314	1,319	<issue_start>username_0: I majored in math and minored in CS. My grades are excellent and I have coursework in all the core areas of CS except for Computer Systems/Computer Organization/Computer Architecture. Is this going to really hurt me in admissions to (self-funded, US-based, terminal, thesis-based) MS CS programs?<issue_comment>username_1: If you do really have everything else, then I doubt that it would have much effect for most MS programs. There are probably exceptions, but, generally, admission to a MS program doesn't imply the need for a BS in the same field. But only by applying (or otherwise asking a university) can you be sure. You may need to take a systems course as part of your MS, though. With a math degree, I doubt you'd have much trouble with it. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Unless you plan on focusing in systems, it shouldn't really be too much of an issue. Especially since you are doing a self-funded MS, though I would contact the programs you are applying to just to be sure. In some (if not all) cases, CS departments have an option for graduate students to take undergraduate courses if they are missing the background courses in certain areas (my department does this at least). If your programs require systems courses, check to see if this is an option. Upvotes: 1
2021/05/29	7,891	33,098	<issue_start>username_0: If you take a look at the various questions on Academia Stack Exchange where abusive, rude, or unpleasant situations are presented, I feel there's often a culture of dismissal. Many comments and answers always try to play devil's advocate, for example: * Trying to find a reason why a supervisor may only seem abusive but are actually just doing their job (and maybe their character is just not very friendly); * Excusing rude behavior such as harsh criticism with no constructive feedback simply because it's commonplace in academia; * Often proposing to give bad situations two, three, and more chances because giving up is shown as a lack of desire to grow in character (often for no reason but just "because it's bad to give up on a situation"). Only the most extreme situations usually result in answers that directly mention leaving the situation or going to the authorities (e.g. sexual assault). But a look at similar situations on [Workplace Stack Exchange](https://workplace.stackexchange.com/) paints a very different picture. For example, an abusive manager is never tolerated and most answers (rightly) point out that nobody should be the target of abuse and there's a general consensus to direct people to leave abusive situations as soon as there's a clear indication that they cannot be resolved properly. There is no merit in staying in a terrible workplace and fighting through it, sometimes it is just better to leave and find a better place. Why do these complaints receive such different treatments on these two sites?<issue_comment>username_1: I wouldn't say that bad behavior is "excused or dismissed" -- we can be quite harsh in castigating professors for bad behavior. Rather, I would submit that: 1. Professors deserve a little more "benefit of the doubt" than a typical boss, and 2. When professors do behave badly, students have fewer options than typical employees. With respect to the former, the reality is that most students are just starting their academic careers. Many have never had a supervisor before, and few are familiar with academic norms. Further, being a student is inherently stressful -- the long hours and poor wages, the precariousness of the position, the uncertain future, etc. -- which can warp students' perspectives. In contrast, professors have undergone a very rigorous selection process (based primarily on their own success in research) before being allowed to supervise students, and some have supervised many students successfully over a long career. So when we have only one side of the story, it is perhaps natural to consider alternative explanations rather than only accepting the student's side of the story. With respect to the latter, there is little that students can do to "punish" a tenured professor, except in the most extreme cases. Unlike industry, where leaving a job after just a few years is common and acceptable, leaving a PhD position without a PhD to enroll in another PhD program only happens when something goes wrong. Even if the student is blameless, it can be hard to find another prestigious PhD position, and one's graduation date is likely to be set back by a year or more. Similarly, leaving any academic job without a letter of recommendation from the advisor is usually seen as a red flag, regardless of the reason. Given how competitive the academic job market is, many early-career academics (quite rationally) try to "make it work" in situations where most employees would have left. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I do not believe there is any difference between academia, industry, and anywhere else in society. There are a few bad people in every group. Claims that academia is some how a special industry are common, but I do not remember seeing any of them backed by evidence. The three examples you give are all bad behavior. I have downvoted and criticized answers like those several times. More broadly speaking, assuming that the person asking the question is wrong without having any evidence to support that assumption is bad behavior. You also have a meta-question: Are the Academia and Workplace stack exchanges different? I think they are different. This site has many professors on it, or people who think they will become professors. The Workplace stack exchange, which I rarely read, is probably full of workers with few managers. If you asked a bunch of managers, or a bunch of future managers, what they thought about manager misconduct, they'd probably have a bias to excuse it. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I suppose I disagree with the comparison between Academia.SE and Workplace.SE and your three points in general, but there's an answerable question here. I also agree with username_1's [points](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/168345/37441) that we (and at Workplace) always only get one side and that perhaps a bit of devil's advocacy is alright. Here I am writing from the perspective of US/Canadian academia. --- But to get to the main issue: > > [On Workplace,] most answers (rightly) point out that nobody should be the target of abuse and there's a general consensus to direct people to leave abusive situations as soon as there's a clear indication that they cannot be resolved properly. There is no merit in staying in a terrible workplace and fighting through it, sometimes it is just better to leave and find a better place. > > > As I mentioned in a comment, Workplace is full of software engineers, who tend to enjoy a favorable market in terms of employment. This means that for them, it's often very easy to apply for jobs and find a new one in weeks. Why doesn't this work in academia? 1. If you want to stay in research, it's really hard to move at almost every stage of your career. 1. Academia is still heavily invested in the school calendar. If I was unsatisfied with my program, I would have to wait until the next fall to start somewhere. That's if I decided to leave in time to apply for another program (typically almost a year before starting; contrast this with employment). Even if I short-circuited the application cycle, I would still start in the fall. 2. And the chance of transferring to a school nearby - so as not to disrupt your life incredibly - is close to zero, unless you live in Boston, maybe. Most people, upwards of 90% have already relocated for grad school, so doing that again is a hard-to-overcome stressor. 3. Finally, PhD-to-PhD transfers are very rare and stigmatized, so people want to avoid them. 2. Leaving a studentship is much harder on your career than a job. 1. As cag points out, changing could mean delaying by a year (which is costly), but most importantly, people select programs based on their fit for their dream project. I'm speaking generally, but I came to my program because of the resources. Finding the same resources elsewhere is not the same as finding a more-enjoyable 9-to-5. 2. Do I fully support this model of academia? No, but you can see why someone would tolerate more to study something they're passionate about instead of deciding to quit running networks for Company A and instead run networks for Company B. 3. If I left my lab on bad terms, I would likely lose access to the data I have spent years building on. So poof goes a whole pile of projects. Whereas when you leave a job, those projects are someone else's problem. My career would be affected by leaving a bad situation much more than a random HR person's (just to pick on a different job). Lots of people are passionate about their jobs, sure, and they would likely tolerate a crappier boss compared to someone who just sees their job as a 9-to-5 (which is totally OK). It's that in academia, everyone is expected to be that person, and so you can see what it may seem that what's easy to quit over in industry is harder in academia. Finally, I haven't even touched on the hierarchical nature of academia. If you want to work in some field, probably your professor knows all the other professors in the same field. Upsetting them could - or feel like it could - basically get you excluded from the field of your dreams. Whereas employment networks are much larger and your line manager has much less sway over where you end up next. Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_4: Behavior is a function of consequences. Tenured professors can get away with a lot of negative behavior because they face no consequences. Thus the throwing of chalk and keys and shoes or what have you at students by prestigious professors at prestigious places is tolerated, until there is sufficient moral opprobrium. Until there are consequences, unethical and unprofessional behavior among tenured faculty will persist. This also applies to CEOs and other leaders. Look at <NAME>. He stole ideas from other people. Look at <NAME>. Did she suffer from not honoring her commitment to Macy's? Did anything negative happen to <NAME> after unethical episodes? None that anyone can see. People are motivated to overlook negative behavior as a one-time event. Also, as colleagues, they depend on each other. And professors will not express dissatisfaction with their colleagues because it damages the reputation of the department, and besides, bad-mouthing other people isn't such a good idea anyway. If someone in your department has some say in your job promotion status, what would calling out bad behavior do to you? People also seek out ways to blame the victim. Look up the "just world theory." If someone is victimized, other people tend to look for proof that the victim was complicit and therefore deserved it. I've also noticed that academics tend to idolize other academics, on top of having a higher opinion of themselves, being academics. If a researcher is very good at research, he/she can get away with more unethical behavior. This is not limited to academia. <NAME> was an anti-Semite, but the entire chess community didn't punish him because of it, because he was so valuable to chess. He also cheered for 9/11 and said that America deserved it. But people gloss over these things and emphasize his contributions to chess. An ordinary chess player would never get such treatment. Just as there are many toxic chess grandmasters, there are many toxic academics, and everyone else tends to turn a blind eye and focus on their own self-interest. A good book, for more information, is Leadership BS: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time, by <NAME>. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: To answer the question OP: Because they can, simple as that. This is basically a labor supply and demand issue and professors at this point enjoy having an over-supply of labor. It's the same reason workers in low demand industries get treated like shit. And academics go to great lengths to try to maintain their privileged position by gate keeping based upon academic standing when it comes to research. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: At the end of the day, it boils down to two reasons: * Academic jobs are very specialised. You need a very specific experience to even start a project and then you often spend up to a year to really get up to speed. Moreover, PhD students (and many postdocs) additionally need somebody similarly specialised to supervise them. * Academia projects often have a long duration with a pay-off at the end: You have to get familiar with a specialised field of research (see above), plan and conduct a complex piece of research, write a paper on it, have this paper go through an (often long) peer review, often do some more work in light of the review, have it reviewed again, and published. And only after publication it is a serious contribution to your academic CV. Something similar holds for PhD degrees: You have to finish it to be worth anything. Two half PhDs don’t make for a full one. As a result, you cannot simply switch jobs: A specialised job market is small. While this affects supply and demand equally, you almost certainly have to move when switching jobs and it may take some time till a fitting job pops up. Many people in academia start looking for their next jobs years before their old contract runs out for this reason. Also, when you have not just completed a project, you wasted quite some time from a CV perspective. Finally, your potential employers (i.e., professors) are aware of the long time it takes to get you up to speed and are understandably very hesitant to hire somebody who may not complete the project. Thus, leaving an academic position may very well be a move that ends your career (at least within academia) and may also lead to regret of not finishing a project on the long run. Therefore, many academics are more willing to tolerate bad conditions – not that this excuses them. Finally, a few words on your observations regarding advice given on this site: > > Many comments and answers always try to play devil's advocate, for example: > > > * trying to find a reason why a supervisor may only seem abusive but are actually just doing their job (and maybe their character is just not very friendly), > > > We had several situations in the past where it turned out that a complaining student severely misjudged a situation or even behaved blatantly misbehaved themselves (and just consider how often we never get to know these things). Of course there is a fine line to be walked between advising reasonable caution and victim blaming here. > > excusing rude behavior such as harsh criticism with no constructive feedback simply because it's common place in academia > > > Non-constructive feedback is inexcusable in almost any situation, but putting a high scrutiny on somebody’s work is indeed necessarily common in academia. Both my personal experience as well as some questions we received show that some people have problems with this, no matter how you phrase the feedback. > > often proposing to give bad situations two, three, and more chances because giving up is shown as a lack of desire to grow in character (often for no reason but just "because it's bad to give up on a situation"). > > > I would not phrase it like this, but as reasoned above giving up is generally a bad career move in academia. For example, enduring a few more months with a moderately bad supervisor to finish a PhD is usually sound advice. Of course, at the end, the student needs to decide the lesser evil for themself, but it would be negligent not to mention the career consequences. Also, no supervisor is perfect and given the strong individual dependence on supervisors in academia, supervisees will get to feel the imperfections more strongly (same applies for the good sides). This is different in most industry situations, where you have lesser dependences on more people. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: Just one more point I've not seen above, academia has a severe and increasing pipeline problem, with only a small number of permanent academic position compared to the number of students and postdocs. This leads to the buyers market problem as highlighted by several people, but also a strong survivorship bias, where any toxic behaviours perpetuate themselves because the few who remain in the field tend to be those who tolerate or benefit from them. Young people drawn to academia are also, in my experience, particularly vulnerable to this type of survivorship bias because often their early educational experience was to be outstanding and to succeed where their peers failed. Of course, by the time you're in academia, chances are that you are just as outstanding as anyone else. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: I am also very skeptical about the assertion that bad behavior is more tolerated in academia than in industry. Academia and industry each contain multitudes, but here are some relevant, broad differences between academia and industry. * There are different types of positions in academia: Master's student, PhD student, postdoc, junior professor, senior professor, administrative, etc. The hierarchy structure varies a lot by culture, field, university, department and situation. Much (a vast majority?) of the time, I believe there is more freedom in academia from superviors than in industry, and typically very little direct supervision beyond the grad student and postdoc level. All of my time in academia, I never felt like I had a "boss" or "manager", and when I was a student, I always felt like my supervisor was giving me advice and teaching me, rather than giving me orders. Though my impression might be very different if I were working in a lab science. Consequently, certain types of bad behavior may affect one less if you only see your supervisor once a week or once a month or so than if you have to see and interact with them daily. * The nature of the positions where you may have significant direct supervision (grad students and some postdocs) is typically quite different than in industry. PhD/postdoc roles inherently training positions, for you to learn and get qualifications for future careers, and you can think of them as vested positions, where you don't get "full benefits" until you complete a degree or project/paper. Note also that getting good letters of recommendations from advisors/senior academics is very important for finding future positions in academia. * Academic positions are less fungible. As mentioned in a number of other answers, there are relatively few academic positions, and in general it seems more difficult to change positions in academia than in industry. Note: I wrote more on the first point and put it first, not because I am saying it is the most important thing, but simply because it was the least addressed point in other answers. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Many of the answers essentially are answering this version of the question: Assuming you are a PhD student who wants an academic job, why is it in your best interest to "make it work" with an advisor you don't get along with? In that sense, I agree with many of the answers that boil down to... in normal circumstances, as a PhD student, you don't have many moves you can make to go around your advisor without hurting your academic career. However I think there are other levels on which to think about this question. One interesting level is: Why is it culturally acceptable in academia that some advisors are abusive to their students and have a lot of power in the field? I think there are many contributing factors... an incomplete list would include (a) there are people in any field (not just in academia) that treat their peers well and their subordinates poorly, and it's usually difficult for peers to "see inside" the culture of a lab, (b) research funding and promotions are based on grants won and publication records which incentivize long working hours and doesn't incentivize developing a "healthy work culture" in the same way that engineering firms are incentivized to do so (although you should also be skeptical of claims to have a "healthy work culture" in engineering firms, but that's a different story), (c) professors typically don't get management training and are not supported by their departments or funding agencies to pursue such training, (d) academic research is hyper-specialized and by the time you become a high-level expert in your area with a tenure-track faculty job, you are one of a handful of people who are qualified to do that job. Basically, academia is very hierarchical, and professors at the top of the hierarchy don't have a lot of oversight, while as a PhD student at the bottom of the hierarchy you don't have much ability to directly challenge the people above you in an unhealthy situation. Of course, ideally your advisor will encourage you to challenge them and will engage with your ideas -- mine did -- but there is no requirement that your advisor will be good. Another level is: should a PhD student put up with a work environment they find toxic? This is really impossible to answer without getting into the details of a specific situation. On the one hand, it is certainly true that that directly challenging your advisor will make your life much more difficult as a PhD student if you want to stay in your program and in academia. Additionally, life is not perfect and there are bad bosses everywhere (in and out of academia). There is often a period of transition in going from being an undergrad to working as a professional that involves growing pains where you don't like your boss and working full time, and you just need to get through this part of growing up. On the other hand, as a talented and hardworking student, you do have other opportunities for a career that are not in academia, where your career is not as reliant on one person or one organization. It's worth knowing what these options are, and you won't hear about them (or you won't hear accurate things about them) if you only talk to people who are in academia. Sifting through what is normal growing pains, what is a truly abusive situation, and what your priorities are, is a challenging process specific to the individual. Probably academic stack exchange can only help with some parts of this -- for example, you are choosing a forum where the answer-ers are academics. Context: I recently transitioned from a physics postdoc to industry. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: I can only speak about my personal experience with academia. I think it allows abuse because there is so little normalization and regulation within it. PIs don't get any instruction on how to mentor and universities have little to no incentive to teach them how, because everyone seems to be getting along well enough without funding such instruction. Programs are big enough, people are plenty enough that drop outs are well-tolerated. Honestly, I think publicly reviewing labs, like Yelp/Glassdoor for industry positions, would solve a lot of this. People don't want to look bad, and this matters more to them than promoting good training. To get the desired outcome (good training) we need to penalize hostile or otherwise poor work environments. If the sun don't shine there, we need to make it shine there. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Academia shares features with at least two other industries which are notorious for abuse of the coalface workers by their bosses: fashion and (especially) Hollywood. All of these industries run on insufficiently supervised patronage, and this is a well-worn pathway to widespread abuse. "Close" relationships between young hopefuls and their backers on the inside are required for a successful career, they're all competing for very few shots, and the expectation of this is ingrained in the culture. The relationship is obviously wholly unbalanced and the powerful side is granted fairly unconditional paternalistic trust to act, while the low percentage chance of success becomes a stick to drive the powerless. "That's the culture, this is what you signed up for, I call the shots without oversight but it's your fault when you (probably) fail". If you set up a situation like this where something as important as prestigious career prospects are dangled in such a precarious way, over naive newcomers to a seller's market by the established insiders acting with carte blanche behind closed doors, abuse is inevitably fostered. UK politics has been reported recently to foster similar bullying and harassment issues, for largely the same reasons. I fear what politicians, academics, etc. call "networking" and "reputation" is just coercion and nepotism. Roll on open science and disinfecting sunlight. EDIT: Here is a relevant site which I just found, full of sources: <https://elephantinthelab.org> Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_12: Teachers are often better people ================================ I am not in academia, nor have I ever been, so I can say it: people who have devoted themselves to either (A) teaching, or (B) discovering the secrets of the world, tend to possess specific virtues that are relevant in the kinds of scenario you describe. Namely: 1. a willingness to look for fault in themselves 2. a recognition that most behaviors are as complex as the systems in which they take place As other posters have noted, there are bad apples in every bunch. None of the above is meant to suggest otherwise: you will find assholes and prigs and boors off-campus and on. But your question is about why the people around the bad apples act differently. Well, the people around a misbehaving academic are themselves academics. Imagine a bad actor in the workplace: Where I might see an incompetent jerk who it'd be better to remove from the team, a teacher may see a person who is merely suffering from ignorance or struggling to learn and not handling their frustration well, and a scientist may see someone so passionate about their work that they've become oblivious to the social context. I will fire the jerk and forget about him. The teacher will at least look to see whether an ideal outcome can be had by some indirect but ingenious means. The scientist may tolerate a kindred spirit that is still learning how to balance intense focus with the mundane evils of human organization. And both the teacher and scientist probably do this over the deafening klaxon of their own internal Dunning-Kruger alarms, while I pat myself on the back for writing off the jerk as early as possible, do not grow, and (perversely) collect $200, thus reinforcing my devil-take-the-hindmost approach to the workplace. As other posters have described, the path chosen by an academic is neither easy nor rewarding by common standards. Those unfortunate facts act as a filter, as sure as a math test or the blood-brain barrier. As a result, we can expect to find certain character qualities concentrated on the one or other side of that barrier. It's not black-and-white, but there is a gradient and its orientation is not accidental. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_13: The problem is that the power imbalance is much higher in academia compared to most jobs in industry. A PhD student is dependent on their advisor, and can't easily switch to somewhere else unlike an employee of some company. Academia also tends to be more specialized, which results in much smaller communities. This can mean that if you antagonize one well-known person in the field, you can seriously hurt your chances everywhere else. This leads to people giving realistic advice, and not idealistic one for an ideal world. And realistic advice in these situations looks pretty close to simply accepting bad situations. In the workplace the most common advice for seriously bad situations is to change jobs, simply because as a single employee you generally can't fix a fundamentally broken workplace. In academia there are simply many more situations in which switching jobs has a very serious cost, which creates the power imbalance that allows bad behaviour without consequencese. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: The present situation results from a number of factors: * Tenure - mere incompetence in itself not sufficient grounds for dismissal. * Quasi-tenure - reluctance on part of senior faculty/university management to establish a punishment precedent for all future similar or worse occurrences by other academics within that university results in untenured professors effectively having tenure * Absence of parents, employers, wider community, teaching profession, education department from academic disciplinary committees. * Excess loyalty of academics to colleagues and professors/deans who appoint them leads to desensitization to abuse of students * Need of academics to work closely with other in relation to teaching creates a trust that may extend to other areas where colleagues' conduct cannot be seen * Alcoholism - present in many higher professions and not surprisingly also in academia. Many professors show a tolerance (if not almost an expectation) of excessive drinking in postgraduates. In some cases this is to divert suspicion of alcoholism in themselves or in colleagues. * Vulnerability of particular students, e.g. low-income background, "unconnected" parents, foreign students fearing loss of visa, career dreams and parental disappointment. * Lack of cohesion among postgraduate students - results from academics operating a divide-and-conquer policy as well as inter-student rivalries plus useless student union officers. * Lack of backbone by postgraduate students in general compared to employees in general. * Selfishness of postgraduate students who are happy to see a deranged, vain or abusive professor focus his/her anxieties on a student other than themselves. * University budget pressures tempt management to accept the (relatively low) risk of aggrieved student litigation compared to the loss of reputation, research income and quality student intake. * Total absence of a clear setting-out of what the priorities ought to be in higher education. I totally agree that university professors and students need be educated on human relationships and their primary importance in academia as much as in all other arenas of life. Every university ought to have an ethos embracing this, whatever about curriculum or research. But ethos alone is useless without a clear plan of work to achieve it in reality - and this plan of action must include dealing with those who subvert the ethos whether for ambition or to satisfy a personal vice, as well as those colleagues and management who renege on their duty to protest against known misconduct. Ultimately I think having a real-world dimension within university disciplinary processes is vital. And I see addition of parents', employers', teaching profession's and government's representatives as central to this. But in the meantime we need laws on abuse in the workplace which specifically deal with university education/employment situations. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_15: The problem I see is that many people expect the relationship between teacher and student to be based of equality when really it is not. You maybe equalls in terms of the law, but you are not equal in status in life and at the university. All teaching aims to adress an inequality in education and knowledge between people. You study, you clean the lab equipment. You do all the work that the master does not want to do and for his effort the apprentice gets training. I don't know who exactly is perpetuating this myth of equality, but we are all unequal of other people in certain ways. This is life. Your teacher may undertake to help you achieve certain academic goals or achievements, but what he/she may not be willing to do is use any of his/her limited amount of patience on people of a lower standing in life, who go out of there way to make there lives harder than what it needs to be. When the issue of your inequality is addressed and you get to a similar level in your field, then you will adress each others as contemporaries and equals, but until the apprentice becomes a master in his own right, then he really cannot expect anything in particular from the people who train him. This is the biggest problem with people of today. They expect other people who are under no obligation to do so to conform to there ways. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_16: Most of the answers here are focusing on how academia and other professional contexts are different - but OP's question also asks, at least in part, why the Academia Stack Exchange is different from the Workplace Stack Exchange. And - although I am inviting downvotes by saying this - I think it is in part due to the quality and nature of the questions posted on the two exchanges. Many questions posted on Academia turn on very specific questions about ethics and protocol, and - unfortunately - it often seems like many question posters deliberately withhold critical details about their situations that are necessary to answer the questions adequately. Sometimes it seems clear that the question posters are doing this to maintain their anonymity in the small communities of their disciplines, but many other times it seems pretty clear that they're doing it to define the question narrative in a way that makes them appear to be in the right. In other words, they are seeking in their answers not guidance but justification. The absence of needed detail and the palpable way that many questions are shaded leads people to probe for clarification. Are you sure it happened that way? Can you tell us more about the email you received? And so forth. Workplace questions seem to be more simple and clear-cut. When they are complex, the question posters more often err on the side of providing too much detail than too little. There is still a recurring problem of narrative framing being more common than being forthright, but it's much less pronounced. Upvotes: 3
2021/05/29	841	3,216	<issue_start>username_0: I was checking [a paper](https://direct.mit.edu/artl/article/doi/10.1162/artl_a_00336/101872/The-Impossibility-of-Automating-Ambiguity) that was posted on Twitter where everyone seemed to be so enthusiastic about, so I had a short check on it. Here is the first line: > > Post-Cartesian frameworks, including developments within the embodied > and enactive cognitive sciences, complex systems science, and > dialogical approaches to cognition, strongly emphasize the inherently > indeterminable nature of the person and the inextricably entangled > relationship between person, other, and technology. > > > And it goes on with: > > Automation, on the one hand, is something that is achieved once a > given process is complete, that is, it is understood, and discrete > such that it can be implemented from a set beginning to a set finish > reliably. People and social systems, on the other hand, are > partially-open, always becoming, and inherently unfinalizable > (Bakhtin, 1984). Automation as complete understanding, therefore, > stands at odds with human behaviour, which is inherently incomplete, > making machine classification and prediction futile. > > > Is it me, or is this paper obscurely written? And why didn't anyone seemingly notice it, given that it was both peer-reviewed and published? Why were people so enthusiastic about it, instead of admitting they just didn't have a clue of what it is about (or at least to understand the arguments presented in the paper)? Why is there still so much academic gibberish? Related link: <http://www.skeptophilia.com/2014/02/academic-gibberish.html> Edit: My mistake! It might not be peer reviewed. But I'm still wondering if this is very common in academia, or if it is dependent from field to field?<issue_comment>username_1: There's one of my papers, much of which is couched in seriously obfuscated language: in places, even worse than the example linked by OP. (I won't say which paper, in case I embarrass my co-authors.) In my case, I think the reasons were: * More than a decade elapsed between production of the first complete draft of the paper and its submission to the journal where it was eventually published. During that period, we changed our minds several times about some of the core conclusions; but each time, some bits of explanatory text got left in the paper that were only really apposite in the context of now-obsolete conclusions. * During that period, my co-authors and I were not in very frequent contact, and we ended up using edits to the text of the paper to communicate with each other about the science in the paper; this produced text that was sub-optimal for communicating with readers. * Despite the long total drafting period, the submitted version was finalized in a tearing hurry to meet a deadline for a thematic issue of the journal, so there was no time for a thorough pass through the text for clarity and concision. * Perhaps most significantly of all: the referees let us get away with it. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The linked paper is about philosophy - if you don't like it, that reflects upon the field of philosophy, not upon academia as a whole. Upvotes: 3
2021/05/29	777	3,062	<issue_start>username_0: My university requires that I upload my PhD thesis to ProQuest. ProQuest charges $95 for "open-access" publishing, while "traditional" publishing is free. I want to confirm my understanding here. "Open access" in this context really just means that ProQuest will make the PDF available in perpetuity for free. However, it does not mean that I cannot host or disseminate my thesis myself or use other open-access services, such as my university's library or arXiv. Does anyone know if this is correct? I’m pro-open access publishing, but I’d like to avoid paying this $95 fee. Clarifying edit: This is not a duplicate of [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51996/what-is-the-difference-between-green-and-gold-open-access). That question is about the distinction between two different grades of open access publishing. My question is about whether or not I am interpreting a specific (and massive) open-access publisher's policies correctly. I've also edited my title to be more clear.<issue_comment>username_1: According to [this page at ProQuest](https://about.proquest.com/en/dissertations/student-authors/) the author retains copyright to things uploaded. This is unlike many traditional publishers that require copyright transfer. They also permit you to withdraw your dissertation in the future. So, retaining all rights, you can do as you please in the future. Also, the $95 fee is extremely low for a service that promises to host your work "in perpetuity". There is definite cost in that sort of thing that has to come from somewhere. I don't know if they will waive the fee in some circumstances. And, it may be that your institution (or a grant) has a way to cover the fee. You can ask, of course. --- Note that I host some content (more than a dissertation, though) and it costs me around $100 per year for the "privilege". But that is about the minimum I was able to find and still keep all rights. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The fee seems on the low end, but perhaps your department has funds that can defray this expense or cover it. You won't know until you ask. Good luck. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: [Here's](https://about.proquest.com/globalassets/proquest/files/pdf-files/pqdt-authoragreement_0.pdf) ProQuest's author rights agreement for the "closed access" option (linked to from [here](https://about.proquest.com/en/dissertations/student-authors/)). As you can see, they only ask for non-exclusive publication rights. So yes, using this option would leave you free to disseminate your thesis through other avenues. In my opinion, if you can host your thesis in some kind of stable repository (e.g. one provided by your university library) for free, there's no real reason to pay ProQuest for open access publication. Of course, if you want to, or can get someone else to cover the fee, there's no harm in redundancy. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to appreciably affect discoverability through search engines. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2021/05/30	2,273	10,168	<issue_start>username_0: The potential benefit to society of good research, and the potential costs of acting on bad research, seem to be extremely high in both directions. Why is it the norm to simply peer review research, including the methodology, but *not* the norm to have the actual data collection and experiments re-run by other academics for cases where it is relatively low cost and fast to do so? E.g., where a second experiment/data collection run would take < 20% of the cost of the original research and < 3 months to conduct. If this were standard practice on inexpensive, short term studies it could improve trust and integrity in research, so why isn't it standard practice?<issue_comment>username_1: Researchers make or break their reputation on ground-breaking, innovative, and high-impact work. Reproducing the results of another group provides essentially no benefit to any individual group (even if a culture of replication could arguably benefit the field). More often than not, in my experience (in physics), reproduction of results is done as a first step in a new research project. The point of this is usually to check one's code/understanding before building up to something new. But it is not unusual for errors to be found and corrected this way. If a result is important enough to serve as a stepping stone for another research work, usually the key aspects of it are reproduced and it's not common for a visible, erroneous result to survive very long. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The difficulty with this lies in uniform application. The proposition makes a distinction between some types of research that should be verified and others that shouldn't (on time/cost basis for example). This incentivises some research at the cost of others; it would be more fruitful/lucrative to do the kind of experiment that can't be easily repeated, because then the acceptance is not subjected to verification. That provision can be gamed by adding some component to the study that is difficult to replicate. In that way, essentially all experimemts could be facetiously shown to be difficult to exactly repeat. The alternative is of course that all research be verified by reproduction; this would become unfair to those experiments that require very specialized equipment that is likely not available elsewhere. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: > > experiments re-run by other academics for cases where it is relatively low cost and fast to do so > > > The proportion of novel experiments which can be quickly and cheaply replicated is extremely small because the quick and cheap experiments were all done decades ago. There are some exceptions in synthetic chemistry where, once the right reaction conditions are found, replication is quick and cheap. When experiments can be replicated quickly and cheaply, and the experiments are actually valuable, then the experiments are, in fact, repeated promptly by many labs. Examples include CRISPR-Cas9, exfoliation of graphene, and perovskite solar cells. While this is not a "standard" practice, it does happen automatically; sometimes the replication is actually excessive. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: > > E.g., where a second experiment/data collection run would take < 20% of the cost of the original research and < 3 months to conduct. > > > Just because it would be cheaper and quicker than the original research, does not mean that the money and time are available to some other group. Other groups have their limits on money and time that they are likely dedicating to finishing their own projects. It is very likely they are trying to find additional funding and to squeeze more efficient use of their time into their own projects, not looking for ways to burn their time and money checking someone else's work. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Because not all research is interesting or important enough to other people for them to spend their own time and resources on it. Because replication is frequently made difficult when original researchers won't share their methods or data with researchers who might try to disprove or discredit their work. ("We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it.") Some journals have started imposing data-sharing requirements on contributors, but not all. So replication is often more difficult than original research where you have unfettered access to all the supporting materials. For the same reason, some journals don't like replication studies that discredit research published in their pages. (There is a humorous essay [here](https://frog.gatech.edu/Pubs/How-to-Publish-a-Scientific-Comment-in-123-Easy-Steps.pdf) that describes an example.) They don't enhance the journal's reputation to the same degree as exciting original research, and are likely to be less interesting to their customers. That makes them harder to publish. Because it may be seen socially as 'not nice' to trash somebody else's work. Many narrow research topics are 'small world' communities. You might find yourself applying to some professor for a job after previously discrediting his life's work. Or others may see a way to get preferential treatment in employment by falsely supporting a professor's work. There is scope for corruption. Because conventional measures of academic research performance (number of papers published, journal impact, number of citations) don't measure it. If published papers didn't count towards your academic record until they had been independently replicated, research would look very different! Because there is no need to check for replication before citing a paper's results in another work. Journals will allow you to depend on cited results that have not been independently verified. Because replications are less likely to be cited, (especially if it results in the original paper being discredited) and so garner less academic credit. Because there is no comprehensive systematic record of when and where papers and results have been replicated or discredited associated with the paper. (Counting reverse citations - where the original paper is considered to 'cite' the replication studies supporting or undermining it - would help.) Because a culture of 'Argument from Authority' has built up that regards peer-reviewed journal papers as a scientific 'gold standard', rather than a work-in-progress in need of verification. They assume peer-reviewers have done all the detailed and comprehensive checking needed, rather than (in many cases) an unpaid expert spending a couple of hours briefly glancing through it to filter out the crazy. This means people often don't see the need to check for replication. In summary - if people aren't motivated to replicate results by requiring it, they won't. Replication isn't required for someone to have a good publication record. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: Academia doesn't pay well enough for comparatively high qualified people to do the boring work of reproduction by default. If you want such people to do boring work on a regular basis, you have to pay them much more. That being said, scientists will often try to reproduce results they critically need, so you could say that, on the long run, natural scientific selection will actually end up probing important results for correctness over time anyway and there is no direct need to enforce that in the standard rules of operation. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: The problem here, as in everything regarding the reproducibility crisis, lies in the incentives given to academics. As long as academics have (in this case, financial) incentives to focus on their career advancement, rather than on doing good and honest work, we won't get out of it. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: I'm going against the grain here and will say that any important result does get replicated, and this happens all the time. Science and engineering are fields where we are always standing on the shoulders of giants. New science always builds upon older science. If the old science doesn't work, the new science doesn't either, so all important discoveries are necessarily verified since they can only be useful to other researchers when they are actually true, working, and correct - at least to some degree. A large body of scientific work, of course, does not get replicated. This tells us only one thing - that said research had little intrinsic value to begin with. Nobody bothers to repeat something unless it helps them further some other goal. If the work is not worth repeating because it doesn't further any future scientific goals, then it is simply a dead-end curiosity, and it doesn't really matter if it was correct or not. It's not until new work begins to depend on it being correct that people start to care about whether or not is really is - and this is when science finds its faults and corrects those old crufty theories. I suppose we can draw from this the conclusion that a lot of work is not repeated because much (most?) work in academia is either fruitless or useless and, while curious or interesting, doesn't actually contribute anything that helps the world get on with doing whatever it is we need or want to do. So nobody really gets too worked up about whether or not it was correct, because in the end many times it really doesn't matter - because nobody depends on it being correct, and nobody cares if it isn't. Some work is just not that interesting. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Papers and research in general are a proof-of-concept of a certain idea. The results must be reproducible, but not necessarily reproduced: only time will tell if the proof of concept really works. The peer-review should guarantee that the method is working as it claims to work, as well investigating if the claims are correct and the state-of-art is respected. Research being reproducible should be a (natural) consequence of research itself, it should not be the goal of research. Upvotes: 1
2021/05/30	799	3,279	<issue_start>username_0: Background: Due to COVID-19 pandemic I'm doing my summer internship on Mathematics in online mode. I'm not sure whether this will make my resume stronger. Is it possible to get good recommendation letter form this online internship or will it be frowned upon during the PhD admission as an international applicant? Also how to make most of these online internships because interaction with the professor is virtual along with professors busy schedule?<issue_comment>username_1: (I am assuming you're an undergrad. Most of what I say below might apply to a masters student as well. I am an undergrad myself). To first note, the following things *aren't affected online* - 1. Your results. Whether you get them online or in a lab, if you have verified results that means your work has been worthwhile. 2. Communication with your advisor. From what I have noticed. Your advisor will be as busy as he was if the session was offline. If the internship has promised your advisor will dedicate time to you, he or she will even though it's on a call. How comfortable you are in an online format is separate issue. 3. Resume. Going back to the first point, if you get your desired results, it will look great on your resume. Honestly there would be no difference if you got the results online or offline. I don't think anyone has that much time in hand to look into that perspective of the results. What *Might get affected* - 1. The depth of your results. If your research demands a lab environment, you might not be able to explore few aspects of your problem. I don't think that is something you will personally face given your domain. 2. Pay. All online internships pay less and provide lesser benefits. 3. Networking. This is the biggest drawback in my opinion. I don't think you will have a lot of opportunities interacting with people who aren't directly involved in your work. (If the lab has a slack group, it might be easier to network.) The only positive I see in an online environment is flexibility. I don't think people pay much attention "when" you get the work done. (Though this is in my and a couple of friend's experience). What I am unsure about is the LOR and PhD Admit. A. If you get your desired results, I don't think there is any issue what so ever. Would be the same LOR you would've gotten offline with minor differences. B. If you do not get the desired results, it depends how much effort is put in and how your advisor is willing to interpret that. The PhD panel most likely will sway depending on the above as well. (please correct me if I'm wrong here.) Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: > > will it be frowned upon during the PhD admission as an international applicant? > > > During a pandemic, reasonable people will not penalize you for doing your research online. Before the pandemic, people might have been confused by the idea of an online research internship. It's not possible to predict attitudes towards online internships performed after the pandemic. > > how to make most of these online internships > > > Communicate. It's always good to communicate with your colleagues, but when working online it is especially important. Upvotes: 1
2021/05/30	270	964	<issue_start>username_0: What is the actual meaning of a graduate program? Is it Masters? Or Ph.D. or Both? Does the definition vary from country to country?<issue_comment>username_1: > > What is the actual meaning of a graduate program? Is it Masters? Or Ph.D. or Both? > > > Both. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It means both. It just means any programme that requires an undergraduate degree (such as a Bachelors: BSc, BA etc.) to enter. It can be a taught course or a research programme, as there are both taught and research masters degrees. One has to look at the programme details to discover more. I believe the definition does not vary from country to country as it just relates to the semantics of the English word. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: > > What is the actual meaning of a graduate program? > > > It's a degree program for people who have graduated (with a Bachelor's degree) from college. Upvotes: 2
2021/05/30	1,628	6,999	<issue_start>username_0: My collaborator and I submitted an article to a special issue of a journal. He did most of the writing of the article, while I did the technical work such as running simulations, generating plots, and typesetting the article in LaTeX. After two revisions, the article has been accepted with major (one reviewer) and minor (the other reviewer) revisions needed. We were given a relatively short (3 weeks) deadline to make the revisions, due to the deadline for making up the special issue of the journal. Unfortunately, my collaborator has suddenly become unreachable by email for the last 5 days. As we're living in different cities, I have no idea if he experienced a medical or family emergency, or if he suddenly is no longer interested in the article, or is no longer alive? (He's probably alive, touch wood, my point is just that I feel quite confused with the situation, and my imagination is running a bit wild at this point.) Question: How should I proceed with a short deadline for revising our journal article submission, if I am unable to reach my collaborator? I could try to do the rewriting completely by myself, I believe this is do-able. However, is it "kosher" for me to submit the article revision, if I don't hear from him before the submission deadline? I could also do nothing, and wait, hoping that he becomes reachable again, but the longer I wait, the greater the risk that we'll miss the deadline and have to go through the entire journal article acceptance process again. I'd really appreciate some advice as this is quite confusing, and it feels strange to be so close, yet so far, in getting this journal article finally accepted and published. --- ### Update: A few days after I posted this question, my collaborator finally responded to my email. He didn't explain exactly why he was out of communication, but I am inferring that he was really busy with things on his end. We'll be working this week to get the paper submitted on time, it will be a bit tight but I think it's manageable. Thank you to everyone for your suggestions, fortunately I didn't have to use them this time, but hopefully someone else who encounters this situation in the future can use these really helpful suggestions.<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly you can start on revising yourself while you continue to try to reach the other person. If you reach them you can give them what you have done and continue from there. Perhaps you can reach them through a third party if you know of someone, perhaps someone they work with. Doing nothing seems like the worst option. But if you have to send in your own revision without help, let the editor know of the problem, Perhaps they can extend the deadline a bit. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I personally would start to write the revision. Maybe the person is just on vacation? If your co-author did most of the wrting (as you said), I think it is in his/her interest to get this article published. Basically you have these two outcomes: 1. Your collaborator answers before the deadline 2. Your collaborator doesn't answer before the deadline So think about it, in both cases it would be highly beneficial if you start the revision already. If you are on good terms with your co-author there is a very low chance that the person doesn't answer because there is no longer interest in the article. In the worst case, your co-author doesnt answer. Then you should just revise the article as necessary for the major revision and submit it. Since this is a journal article and not a conference article, I guess the deadline should be extendable if you really need it. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: (Promoted from a comment.) As well as agreeing with other posters that you might as well start working on revisions yourself, I would strongly suggest that you contact the editor now rather than waiting for closer to the deadline. You can indicate your uncertainty, i.e. that everything might be OK (co-author responds to your queries, revisions get made, everything is submitted before the deadline), but it is best if everyone knows what's going on earlier rather than later. In addition to explaining the situation, you might ask: * how strict the deadline is * what editorial policies would apply if you end up needing to resubmit without being able to contact the co-author for approval (i.e., would the editor let you resubmit without having been able to formally receive consent from all of the co-authors? This could be a "don't ask don't tell" sort of thing, but transparency is best if you can manage it ...) It won't take the editor long to respond to a short, clear, query, and there's no harm done if it turns out to have been unnecessary. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I am wondering if a call is not an option. You can also call the reception at his/her institute, one of the students, etc. The fact that the deadline for a paper you both wanted out is approaching gives you the right to try every way to contact him, in my opinion. This would also let you know if that person has problems of a sort, though their nature might be or not revealed. Actually, in most cases that would be my primary concern as for coauthors are often kind of friends. If the lack of answer is on purpose, well, you must ascertain it anyway. Once all ways to contact your coauthor failed, again is my opinion that you could proceed alone and submit. Edit after comment. I've considered it somehow implicit, but on resubmitting you should inform the editor about the situation. This would move the responsibility to the Journal. A possible outcome is that the article will appear in a standard issue of the journal. Further - when the revision is straightforward - it is standard for the submitting author to contact all coauthors and pose a very short deadline for them to answers. Then s/he proceeds anyway. There is no much ethic involved. All of them worked for and wanted the paper out. Even in the case that one coauthor changed opinion, then it is his/her duty to communicate with the others. Not revising, although has no public impact, is a sort of retraction and should motivated based on the paper content. Any other option is disrespectful of the editors and referees work, to add a point missed by other answers and comments. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Is your collaborator employed somewhere, at university or in industry? If so, he surely has co-workers, and their e-mail addresses and phone numbers can be found somewhere in the internet. Try to get in touch with one of them. Call or e-mail his secretary, a postdoc, some other co-worker. At least one of them certainly knows why he does not answer and might have more possibilities to get in touch with him. A secretary, for example, usually knows the private phone number of her boss. They would not give it to you, but they can call him and ask him to respond. Upvotes: 2
2021/05/30	1,281	5,186	<issue_start>username_0: I received a postdoc interview invitation at a prestigious group under a reputed PI. The professor works in a loosely related field "X" and is looking for people with expertise in the field. I have just started to work on "X" (since March 2021) and am planning to do more dedicated work on the "X" in the next 6 months. In my cover letter, among other things, I wrote that I have been working on "X" topic as part of my PhD thesis. Now, I am sure I received the call due the mention of "X" in my CV. However, it is evident that I don't know much about "X" and will be asked about it in detail. Now, I am scared for the interview. They might make a mockery out of me. Is there a way to address this before the interview?<issue_comment>username_1: > > They might make a mockery out of me. > > > Good employers are polite to people they choose not to hire. They know that being rude will hurt their reputation. > > Is there a way to address this before the interview? > > > No. Read their publications; but you should be doing that anyway. You could decline the interview, but I suggest that you only do that if you do not want the job. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: What you should consider is that almost everyone is guilty of overstating their skills and experiences in their job applications or CVs, especially in highly competitive fields. And prospective employers are probably aware of that, too. Telling them that you have less experience than they think you might have doesn't shed the best light on you, though. The best course of action would be to try to be as confident as possible in your interview and to highlight your other achievements (after all, they might have just as well invited you to the interview not only or not because you claim to have experience in X, but because of other things you bring to the table). When the dreaded subject X comes up, tell them that you do indeed have first experiences in that area (which is not wrong if you are already looking into it at the moment), and that you are currently broadening your knowledge on that topic. Showing initiative and willingness to learn might be just as well received as you already having a larger knowledge on the topic. It might be that they reject you because they really do need someone with a strong working knowledge of X, but better than to not have gone to the interview at all. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It doesn't sound like you overstated anything. You mentioned relevant experience in a topic that you are currently working on as part of your thesis. You never claimed to be an expert, nor did you state specific experience that you can't justify. You're worried that a reader might misinterpret that, but it doesn't sound like you've done anything to deliberately mislead anyone. Most likely, one of their first questions about your work will be to elaborate on your work in topic X. This will give you a chance to give a detailed answer. The most important thing in an interview is to be upfront. Do not downplay your work. But also, don't pretend to know more than you do. Give a straightforward and direct explanation of what you did - don't editorialize based on what you/they might think your experience "should" be. e.g. "I worked on topic X to support my research into Y. Through this work, I gained some experience with methods 1, 2 and 3. I began working on this specific topic last March and would love to pursue it further in my postdoctoral research." Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: Remember: * If you have non-zero experience in X, then stating you have experience in X is not overstating. * Do not be scared, and consider the [impostor syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome). If the skill is rare, maybe you're the only candidate with experience in X at all. In my experience, junior researchers often not only underestimate their skills, but also underestimate how rare certain fields of experience are. That won't work if X is "programming Python", but it might work if X is "sudden dimming of young stars" or "satellite data rescue". Motivation is important: * Do use your short experience in X to convince them you enjoy doing X. Even if a short experience may not be enough to jump into a topic for with in-depth experience would be preferred, it's probably enough to convince the panel that you find it interesting and are motivated to learn more. * Don't say you want to study X because you can't find a job in your own field. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I was in the position of your prof, only in an industrial context (which does not change much). I really wanted to get someone who would work on "X". Out of the people who said they had experience with "X" (while in reality they only had a vague idea about it), two stood out: * one who was actually very knowledgeable * one who clearly showed that they were not very knowledgeable but they were really, really interested in the topic and wanted to learn and improve quickly. I hired both. They still work with me and everyone is happy. You should really aim for the latter case. Upvotes: 4
2021/05/31	549	2,129	<issue_start>username_0: I am about to submit my third first author paper in the field of chemistry. Every journal we submitted to required to submit a graphical abstract along with the paper. I have some basic Photoshop skills and used it to make the graphical abstracts. But I'm not happy with my graphical work, sometimes is looks a bit childish. What are good ways to improve graphical skills? Is the graphical abstract even important?<issue_comment>username_1: I do not think there is a recipe for a good graphical abstract, but there are definitely some things to avoid. The key concepts of graphical abstracts are: * They are graphical, not textual. * They are abstracts, which means they are small and brief, not complete. Measure the size of the abstract on the journal website and design accordingly. Top things to avoid are: * Tiny text. * Graphs. Graphs are factual (What?); graphical abstracts are explanatory (Why? How?). * Combining multiple graphics into one. * Symbols and acronyms. Especially ones unique to your work. If you check top journals, you will see a majority of graphical abstracts make at least one of these errors. I quickly checked the most recent issue of Advanced Materials and found 26 examples of these faults. Here is an excellent graphical abstract I spotted in the issue: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BHqrV.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BHqrV.png) <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202007150> It's excellent because it is clear and logical, not because of graphical design skills. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: > > What are good ways to improve graphical skills? > > > Practice and show your work to a colleague who has good skills (in your opinion), asking for their criticism. > > Is the graphical abstract even important? > > > Not for researchers, afaik. I have never heard anyone complaining about a graphical abstract of a paper they found and were unable to understand due to insufficient abstract quality. Similarly, I've never heard of a paper being rejected due to a poor graphical abstract. Upvotes: 1
2021/05/31	740	3,113	<issue_start>username_0: Recently I had a Java exam at university. Usually how I prep for this kind of programming exam is studying with my best friend. We were studying object oriented programming using lists, double linked lists etc. There were three tasks on the exam, the first one was about linked lists, the other two were some random math tasks. I did the first one and my friend did all three. We both got 0 points because our first task, which can only be done in two possible ways, was too similar. The obvious reason for this is because we spent quite some time studying together and using the same syntax. I do not know what to do now and how to confront my professor without him getting mad and making it worse. I feel bad now and it hurts me much so I was thinking about dropping uni due to it's flaws. Is there anything I can do to to recover from this?<issue_comment>username_1: I think your best option is to explain how you studied to the professor. If you saved any of the work you did while studying it would help to show it. Perhaps it was just a matter of using similar names for things - which might be natural for two people studying together. But, if you haven't cheated on the exam, just continue to insist that you did not. If you don't get satisfaction, escalate it up whatever chain of authority is open to you. It would be fairly quick and easy for the professor to give you a short, possibly oral, exam to see whether you know what the test was supposed to measure. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Universities generally have a process for arbitrating disputes between professors and students concerning accusations of cheating. Ask at your department or major adviser what the process is. Typically it will go something like 1. Talk to the professor and informally try to resolve the dispute. 2. If that does not help, file a written petition explaining what happened and why you believe you were unjustly punished. 3. In some cases you will have the right to a hearing in which you can present your case to an independent panel of people other than your professor. You may even be officially entitled to enjoy the benefit of the doubt, in the sense that in such a hearing it is the professor who will have the burden of proving that you cheated, rather than you having to prove your innocence. I was once part of a panel in a university hearing of this type where a professor was convinced that two students collaborated in a coding assignment because some automatic plagiarism detection software assigned their assignments a high plagiarism score. Looking at the work, we concluded there was no plagiarism and ruled against the professor. When you pursue justice, keep in mind that no one wants to punish you unjustly, and certainly no one wants you to drop out of university. Even the professor is likely just misguided in his beliefs rather than having bad or malicious intent. He is quite likely to be open to persuasion via reason and facts. Argue your case calmly and logically and I’m fairly confident you will prevail. Good luck! Upvotes: 3
2021/05/31	3,730	16,265	<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in a PhD project which will be supervised by somebody who has never supervised a PhD student before. In fact, this research group is not yet completely established. On their website they mention that this research group is starting to work in this new department very soon (the exact date is known, but I am not sharing for the sake of confidentiality). When the department starts to be open soon, this project (advertised PhD position) will be the first project they will be working on. Although I like this project, I am not sure how risky it is to do your PhD in a newly open group with inexperienced supervisors. What are the risks? Also, are there any potential benefits apart from risks? Update 1 (based on the comment by @lighthousekeeper): On their website, they have shared a Resume of the supervisor where I could only see the section "Master thesis topics I supervised". As I did not see anything about PhD, I drew this conclusion that the supervisor may have never supervised a PhD student. Update 2 (based on the comment by @Buffy): Yes this is a new department (in fact still about to be open, so not yet completely open). The university was established 35 years ago (so relatively new). Yes, I think the department is pretty small.<issue_comment>username_1: Here are some of the risks: * Small network: established PIs usually have quite a few other PIs and groups with which they collaborate. This is very important not only for good research which will end up in high-impact venues, but also for future career options. Young PIs usually have a much smaller (sometimes nonexisting) network. * Busy with other things: young PIs may be pre-tenure, and so their focus may be more on pursuing their goals (e.g., related to running projects) than for your career. The more established PIs I know usually put much more work into making sure their students build a good career for themselves and reach their individual goals on their way to becoming an independent researcher. * Transition from postdoc to PI not completed: there can be issues resulting from the time the new PI needs to adjust from a more hands-on role of actually performing research themselves to the more guiding role of a PI. In some fields, these two can be very different, and being effective as the former doesn't guarantee that they are in the latter. * Related to the three above: no research vision developed yet. If you look at established labs with high performance, you'll find that there is a very clear focus of the lab (one or maybe two topics or questions). That makes it relatively easy for new students to become productive: when you join, you read the last 2-10 papers from the group and know exactly what is going on, and what you will be working on. Young PIs often haven't found their overarching topic yet, and sometimes this means there is no clear research focus. This can be frustrating on several levels, most importantly it means the research output isn't as good as it could be because you need to learn about a new sub-sub-field very few months. * Most importantly IMHO: you don't know what to expect because there is no data you can look at. That is, you don't have people that you can ask what kind of supervisor they are (which may or may not fit well with your expectations and personality), how long it takes for students to graduate, and so on. I joined a lab as one of the first students myself. I don't think I would recommend it if you don't (at least) know the PI from lectures etc. and know if they generally are a pleasant human being to work with. If that is the case, I would say it really depends on the career goals. Since this was all rather negative and you asked about opportunities, too: of course it can happen that as the first student you have a lot of flexibility and can help in shaping the research agenda so it ends up close to what you're interested in. But this really depends on a lot of factors, and you have no guarantee (or even an estimate regarding how likely it is) that this will happen. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: All of @username_1's points are valid, but I will try to put a couple of pros across too - I myself am in this position and have had a very positive experience so far (20 months into a 36 month programme). Some advantages can be: * You might get much more hands-on involvement (or offers of support) because it is in the supervisor's interest for the project to go well (as opposed to someone who's already supervised X other students and can blame a bad outcome on the student). * It's likely that the supervisor will seek more outside advice themselves and therefore be more thoughtful and tap into more collective wisdom than someone who's "been there, done it". At our university, first-time supervisors are required to have a co-supervisor anyway; this second adviser might be less specialised in terms of the details, but have a good sense about the broader PhD process. * If you (the student) are well organised and focussed you can possibly have more influence on the direction of reseach and in the general setting of ground rules, expectations, routines, communication, etc. Again this is in contrast to a more experienced supervisor who might say "this is how we do it" Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: New PIs will usually have strong research goals. You won't have as much freedom in selecting the direction and topic of your research, because the PI is also thinking about these things and has something in mind. Conversely the PI is normally familiar with latest research trends and has skin in the game (they need to publish and get their name out too) so it might not actually be bad to follow their thoughts on where the research should go - just understand that the PI will not be dispassionate about what you work on and have strong feelings about it. It of course depends a lot on the person, you should carefully screen them for a good fit with you based on how they see their field, what their goals are and how they plan to reach them. They will be less distanced from the nitty gritty of research so they will be more willing and able to offer you hands on technical advice. As PIs spend more time being PIs, they do less research themselves, become more interested in theory than practice, and so dealing with practical problems in your research becomes more and more your own problem. An established PI might offer technical guidance as well, if for example the technical matter in question has theoretical interest for them so they're familiar with it, or simply because it happens to be a hands on PI. So if this is important to you, you shouldn't assume based purely on them being new or not, but screen them specifically on how hands on they will be. Newer professors generally have less pull in departmental matters, conferences and grant committees. In my opinion, this sort of "pull" is a bit like credit scores - if you've got very little then many things become very hard, but you don't get much benefit as a student from your PI excelling in it. So I would say your goal is to determine just whether your prospective PI has sufficient pull to function, so to speak. They will have less experience but also more enthusiasm as far as mentoring. You may very well end up being the student with whom they make a lot of their mistake. This isn't necessarily fatal, but don't expect a new PI to be this all-knowing, infallible oracle. You'll have to learn the ropes yourself as much as they show them to you. But also over time, PIs tend to mellow out and care less about doing a perfect job with every student and focus more on realism over idealism. You can translate this into a young PI will push you more to do things they believe will make you succeed (whether correctly or not) and will have stronger feelings about how you operate. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I just finished a PhD as the first PhD student for my advisor (though she had been on PhD committees before). I found that I had a really good graduate school experience because I got more of her attention, and collaborated with her on a lot of papers. As others have noted, there's no one to talk to about whether they're a good advisor, so you have to try to evaluate that yourself—in my program, we had on-campus interviews as well as a number of phone calls before I committed and I was able to get a pretty good feel that we'd work well together (and we did). I would recommend putting a more-experienced faculty member on your committee, though—I did, and it was really helpful because he knew how to navigate the system and what the logistics were—especially helpful towards the end with comps, defense scheduling, etc. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: From the other answers, by now you should see that there isn't a specific guarantee that any risk will be present or absent. While new professors might have a more limited network, odds are they have a more dynamic set of contacts, and may even have more relevant contacts. Other items seem to also follow this pattern. When you find that the data is inconclusive, then it's inconclusive. I'd focus more on the specific professors in mind, and avoid the generalizations. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: The major risk of an inadequate supervisor is that you will spend several years working on something, and ultimately fail to get a PhD. You will end up with regrets about wasting your time, money, and energy. There are some students who do get a PhD in these circumstances - those who can do research from scratch and write a decent thesis without any help or guidance. But the others will struggle, and eventually give up. Basically, your job is to figure out whether or not your supervisor is likely to be competent. It's best to figure this out before you spend several years of your life working on a PhD. Advice: * Speak to any past students or collaborators (MSc, undergraduates, anyone). Ask who really did the work? Would they describe the supervisor as highly knowledgeable and skilled? Would they personally spend the next 5 years working with this person? * Gather as much data as you can about the supervisor. Read any papers they have written. Ask them questions about the content of the papers. Probe their knowledge. * Talk to the supervisor. Ask them specifically what you will be doing. If they say, "I don't know / you have to figure it out yourself / you can decide after the first year", this is a red flag. Likewise if they talk in general terms instead of specifics (consider "You're going to be working on special stuff" versus "You're going to implement X, gather data Y, and then do statistical comparison to Z"). Ask questions: * Does the supervisor have a PhD? If not, why not? * Would your supervisor be capable of getting a PhD if they had to do it on their own? * Get a copy of your supervisor's PhD thesis and read it. * Read any recent papers. Where were they published? Have you heard of any of these publishers before? * What percentage of prior students successfully completed their studies with this supervisor? How many switched to a different supervisor, or dropped out completely? * If you have a secondary supervisor, go talk to them. Ask them about the experiences of prior students with the primary supervisor. * How many students will your supervisor be supervising in total? How much time do they spend per week on each student? * Does the PhD require any special equipment / software / skills? If so, how and when are those going to be available? If you will need specialist training, where and when will you get that? * Who will be in your group? Who will you be working with? Will other people be working on the same things as you? Or are you all working on completely different topics? Red flags: * Supervisor has no PhD * Papers published only in niche, low volume "workshops" or journals, or own university library, or web page * Supervisor can't explain their own papers, talks only in general terms * Supervisor doesn't know specifics of what you will be doing * Supervisor has 10+ other students to supervise * Any negatives from others (though nice people are generally polite, so pay attention and be ready to probe if they do mention something). * Supervisor insists on being first author on all papers published by students, even if they made no contribution at all. (It is even possible that the supervisor has made no contribution whatsoever to any of their published papers). * Supervisor is known for fund raising - yes it's part of the job, but if the supervisor is working full time on grant applications and bringing in $millions, then the university are unlikely to care about the students. At the end of the day, a university is a business. * You will be working alone. Other students are working on completely different topics / fields of research. I realise that doing all this might sound like a lot of work, but it's worth investing time now to find out as much as you can. An incompetent supervisor can destroy a PhD and waste years of your life. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: The risk of any PhD program cannot be overstated. I incorrectly assumed the 'worst case scenario' of my program was that I would emerge effectively the same, but older. This was not the case. I regret my decisions like nothing I ever thought was possible. I now consider my phd experience to have destroyed my life and robbed me of any contented future. The central element of your program is your supervisor. All efforts should be expended to ensure the supervisor is someone that up to the task, which is monumental. I am his one and only phd graduate. I beg you to beware of the risk of your decisions. I cant speak to the upside, because i never found one. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: I tried this and it didn't work out, so that's my bias. I ended up finishing my PhD after a difficult process of transitioning to a much more experienced PI. The main problem/risk with working with someone new is that their ability as a supervisor is totally untested. Even if they have some mentorship experience, they have not taken anyone through the process, so steps that someone more experienced knows how to navigate may totally trip them up, resulting in problems for you. They also may not be up to the task, and that will also lead to problems for you, whether in terms of bullying/abuse or simply no/weak publications, too long in the program/losing funding. I think the benefit of working with someone new is that they may be well-oriented towards the most exciting problems in the field. Their training is new, so they may have the skills to tackle the up and coming research questions. The question is whether they can adequately supervise someone to take those questions on. Even someone who seems genial and kind may show a different face when you work with them. Still, they may turn out to be really good at supervising students and in that case you will really benefit (I have seen other people have this experience). What I found in my department is that there were a very few people who were excellent supervisors. They could work with all kinds of students and guide them to finishing, regardless of individual strengths. They were professional and focused on the success of the research. I ended up with one of them - while my research was unrelated to his and he had a hands-off style, we had no conflict and I was able to finish a totally new topic two years after starting with him, with two journal articles together, including one in a high-impact journal (and I hope another to come). A lot of the professors were in a middle ground - they worked better with some people than others, had definite prejudices/work styles that would be a much better fit for some people than others. Some were problematic - self-seeking, sabotaging, unprofessional, abusive. If you decide to go with someone untested, just make sure you find alternate mentors and make sure you have a sense of what success looks like for you, and the milestones you need to hit. That's important in any case, but particularly with someone untested. Upvotes: 2
2021/05/31	858	3,628	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently finishing my first year at university of Computer Science and IT, it has been a good journey so far and I have passed nine out of eleven subjects, two are left to be finished in August. I do not feel like I have learned anything except mathematical problems in programming that do not interest me because i would like to do app developing and website backend and frontend. Most of the time I spent studying from youtube or community on google more than actual professors at university. I feel empty and obligated to do my chores, both subjects I have left for August are mathematics and it stresses me so much. I don't feel like I will ever finish this university and get a job, my parents force me to get that graduate diploma which doesn't mean much as most programmers say but I never wondered if it mattered that much until now? I hope some of you could answer my question, sorry for my grammar mistakes I am just too tired from all the studying to focus on English.<issue_comment>username_1: For some jobs, yes you do. For others, not at all. It depends on the job and on what opportunities it provides. Jobs that require university education often have more opportunities in the future. But, I know that in some places, family pressures can be intense. Especially if one or both parents has misconceptions and prejudices. It is hard to resist, but it won't go on forever (in most families). This is especially the case if the family's financial support is required or if the culture simply requires it. But, I think that the family issue is more critical to you at this moment than the others. Perhaps you can change majors to something that suits you better. And, there is a lot to learn beyond programming, though programming ability is needed for web development. Math also. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Have you ever watched the movie [The Karate Kid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Karate_Kid)? In this classic American movie, Daniel, a 17 year old high school student in Los Angeles, is being trained in the art of karate by Mr. Miyagi, a wise older man who wants to help Daniel combat a gang of bullies. But Daniel is baffled and frustrated when, instead of teaching him exciting karate techniques, Mr. Miyagi asks him to paint a fence and do other menial chores that don’t seem to have anything to do with karate. Later in the movie, it is shown how the fence painting and other chores actually helped Daniel learn movements that are crucial to being good at karate and defeating the bullies. The movie is fiction, but contains a larger truth. The mathematics and other subjects you are learning at university that don’t seem to have anything to do with computer programming or working in IT are teaching you to think better. This will improve your ability to be a good programmer in ways that you can’t even begin to imagine, far beyond what you’ll learn from a course on Java or app development — just like Daniel did not appreciate at first why painting a fence will make him good at karate. On the other hand, savvy employers are well aware of the value of a rigorous education, and having such an education will open all kinds of career opportunities to you that would be very hard to make yourself competitive for otherwise. Do you need a degree to get a job? Of course not. But getting “a job” is hardly an ambitious goal to have in life. A degree will vastly improve your future ability to have a rewarding career doing things that you enjoy and fulfill your potential, either as a programmer or doing anything else. Upvotes: 4
2021/06/01	374	1,466	<issue_start>username_0: I will graduate with a BS in math in fall 2021 after 2.5 years, so I wish to enter a top math graduate program the next semester. However, after some Googling, it appears that there's no info about whether the top graduate math programs even have spring admissions. The closest I saw was a similar question about biology, but assuming that the info given there also applies word for word to math would be foolish. Also, I heard that even if a university doesn't have formal spring admissions, you may be able to pull some strings. His reasoning, loosely paraphrased, is "if I was in charge of admissions, why would I wait before admitting a good student and admit everyone in one month?" If this is true, how should I pull the strings?<issue_comment>username_1: I think very few, probably none, of "top-50" math grad programs admit people for spring semesters (in the U.S. scheme of things). Orientation, placement, TA training, ... everything... takes place in the week-or-two prior to the beginning of classes in the fall term. Many or most grad courses are year-long, so you'd be in an awkward situation... Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Graduate schools generally don't admit new students in the Spring semester You'll likely take all most or all of the top 50 schools if you apply for the spring semester. Instead. 1. Study even more for the GRE. 2. Get an internship and get paid. 3. Get paid to do research. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/01	1,601	6,904	<issue_start>username_0: I am a postdoc in math. From time to time, I have some simple questions, which I believe most graduate students know in their field. So, I email specialists to ask them. I sometimes noticed that people don't react well to my questions which means I should have known the answer. My friend suggested me to ask such simple questions using a fake email address, which is not my original email address. Although it sounds a good idea, I don't like it. I would like to know what you advise me.<issue_comment>username_1: Bad idea. I'm glad you "don't like it". Don't do it. Talk to your lab mates and colleagues. Ask your professors. Ask at [mathematics stackexchange](https://math.stackexchange.com). Use the feedback you get to figure out which kinds of things you "should have known" and which are genuine confusions it's good to get help with. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Perhaps you are asking the wrong people. Those you are asking may be frustrated to be interrupted by anyone asking questions that they think their own students should know the answers to. I don't find your need especially troubling, however, since specialization in math is very specialized and insight into math isn't general. You can have great insight into some subfield and little in others. I used to have great insight into real analysis and topology, but very little in abstract algebra - especially ring theory. But, as a post doc you probably have access to others who might know the answers or guide you to sources where you can learn what you need to know. But faking your identity is a bad practice in general except in a forum (like this one) where anonymity may be both accepted and valued. People are more likely to be unhappy with you if you do that, I think. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with both of the provided answers so far, but I feel like they are incomplete as they avoid the core issue here. The problem that you are facing is not reputational blowback. It's that you are asking questions that are received poorly. There could be many reasons the questions are received poorly: maybe you're being rude in your emails; maybe the receiver is in a bad mood; maybe there's some reason that you're asking an inappropriate person; maybe you're sending 100 emails a month to the same person. Whatever the reason that people respond poorly to your questions is, the fact that they are responding poorly is the issue that needs to be addressed. This can cause reputational blowback, but the best way to avoid reputational blowback is to not ask questions that are received poorly. Using an anonymous email address does not help with this, and will still result in irate respondants. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Certainly do not use fake email addresses. This has too many problems to even discuss here. To answer the underlying question, about getting advice from people who understand things... Well, first, especially with the advent of the internet, it is easy to find out about standard things. At least if you have some of the keywords. Wikipedia exists, and is far more reliable now than it was decades ago. In particular, many "experts" have written extensive notes about the things in which they're interested... So you could/should look at their notes, rather than asking them to repeat them for you personally. Also, many "experts" are fully busy with their own projects, their own students (grad and undergrad), and cannot reasonably attempt to respond to all emails from the whole world. Especially if the questions are about basic things, well-documented many places. For special, interesting questions, yes, people may be able to find time. But for basic questions, whose answers are everywhere, it's not an interesting investment of one's limited time. So don't think about how to "game" experts into spoon-feeding you basic things... :) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I was raised with the following principle, the "stupidest question asked, is the one that has never been asked". I understand your point of view on this point and also your justification for "faking" your own e-mail address in order to do solve your problems and not "embarrass" yourself in the eyes of the so-called experts. I do believe that you have a reason for asking the experts though. I mean that you have searched your respective books, done your google searches, asked a couple of friends if the subject is indeed "simple" and then as a last resort you contacted the experts? Because in that regard, if you contact a person you don't know THAT well on a constant basis then I may get why they could get frustrated by something like that. And it has nothing to do with the fact that they are experts or that your question is "simple". It's simply that they cannot devote the time to you. Having said that, I believe that asking is the cornerstone of understanding, which is the cornerstone of knowledge. If you do have a question and you need an answer that you cannot easily find I do not believe that you should care at all that the experts comment on your question in a negative manner as long as they provide you the answer. Because in that case, you can simply ignore their comments and move on with your life. Many people, experts primarily, do not care about what effects their comments may have on other people. They just say what they feel. Which is something like a double-edged sword. They are honest, an attribute hard to find nowadays, yet they seem so detached and cold to the others. So you just have to harden your mentality and never stop asking. Do not deprive yourself of knowledge by playing mind games with them or their comments. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: The other answers so far are reasonable, but I have an alternative take. > > Can I use a fake email address for asking simple questions to experts? > > > Do not impersonate someone else. Sending polite emails anonymously is permitted, but it is a pointless inconvenience. I answer questions from unknown strangers if I feel like it; I am doing it right now. But I usually answer questions from colleagues I dislike first. > > I sometimes noticed that people don't react well to my questions which means I should have known the answer. > > > Maybe you should have known the answer. But many people who have good questions think they should have known the answer when that is not realistic. In the absence of evidence about the questions you ask and who you ask, it is equally reasonable to assume you have asked people who "don't react well" to good questions. Keeping your identity secret will make little difference. Focus on one or both of these: * Asking good questions * Asking people who give good answers Do not be a cruel person who assumes that asking good questions is all that is necessary. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/01	1,847	7,304	<issue_start>username_0: I am new in the field of writing papers and publishing them. This is my first work. While writing my paper, I thought it would be great to explain some concepts I have used in this paper beforehand. I am also planning to include images of "how the thing works". Can I take an image from Wikipedia and use it in my paper? Will it be plagiarism?<issue_comment>username_1: There are two potential issues. * You avoid plagiarism by providing adequate references. When referencing Wikipedia, make sure to use a stable link with timestamp. * You avoid copyright infringement by examining the license for the image and using the image only within its [constraints](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reusing_Wikipedia_content). It probably is some kind of creative commons license that allows commercial use, but it's best to check for each one. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Technically you maybe can, but you shouldn't. First, if you cite correctly, it is not plagiarism. However, if you want a publisher to publish your paper, you also need to care about copyright issues. Because plagiarism is an academic concept and copyright a (mostly) commercial one, they don't exactly overlap. If a figure is published in a paper and you cannot resort to a fair use clause, it may violate copyright even if it is cited correctly. That will also depend on the license of the figure on Wikipedia, and whether the publisher will agree to having a separately licensed figure in the paper. Second, even apart from copyright/plagiarism issues, I would argue that it is often a bad idea to include figures from Wikipedia in a research paper, even if for illustrative purposes. Research papers address an expert audience and should focus on aspects that are novel for this audience. If there is a figure on Wikipedia, it is probably a relatively basic concept for your target audience. In that case, it would be better to just cite a standard textbook or similar reference regarding these concepts, and use a figure to illustrate what is new about your paper. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: This varies by the image. Be sure to check the license carefully. For example here's an image from Wikipedia: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hl3iy.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hl3iy.jpg) I can safely reproduce this because it is in the public domain. Wikipedia's page on the image is [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_II_%26_Philip_after_Coronation.JPG), and I quote: > > This work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain. > This is because it is one of the following: > > > * It is a photograph taken prior to 1 June 1957; or > * It was published prior to 1971; or > * It is an artistic work other than a photograph or engraving (e.g. a painting) which was created prior to 1971. > > > HMSO has declared that the expiry of Crown Copyrights applies worldwide (ref: HMSO Email Reply) > > > Not every image will have a similar license. You will have to check the image you want to use. Edit: here's another example, from the Wikipedia article on parallax. [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5JzrI.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5JzrI.png) This image was drawn by Wikipedia editor [JustinWick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JustinWick). I can safely reproduce this because it is CC-BY-SA, i.e. I can share it as long as it's attributed & I use a similar license if I modify it (which I have not). The license is [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parallax_Example.png): > > This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. > You are free: > > > * to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work > * to remix – to adapt the work > > > Under the following conditions: > > > * attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. > * share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original. > > > You can find more details about how to reuse Wikipedia content [here](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia) if you need them. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: It's good to explain some concepts, but it is a paper you are writing to show what you are working on, it is not a book (nor a review paper, I guess). This means that concepts has to be clear to the reader, or you provide a very short explanation and a reference to someone that presented the concept before and in detail. If you need figure to express the concept, draw them by yourself. It takes longer, but then you can reuse them on presentations, reports, talks (with minor modifications, sometimes you give up all your rights with publication...), without your presentation having a figure "taken from wikipedia", which would look like to the casual attendee of your presentation as "I put this yesterday evening from wikipedia because I knew no better"... Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Yes, you can use free images from Wikipedia. However, please validate whether the image has copyrighted. I suggest that you make your own image or modify the existing image to avoid copyright issues. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I agree with Silvado's answer "Technically you maybe can, but you shouldn't," but I'd like to elaborate an another part of this. Like it or not, if you cite Wikipedia like this in a professional paper, it will inevitably come across to many as lazy or amateurish. In my experience at least, citing Wikipedia is rare for professional articles, and common in student work. When they see this, readers will consider two possibilities: 1. The figure is simply the perfect figure for the paper at hand and using it was a principled choice. 2. The author is inexperienced and isn't familiar with standards in the field, or being is lazy. Publishing is generally pretty competitive. I don't know what your field is or where you're trying to publish, but you don't want to give readers an excuse to dislike your paper, so doing anything even make people consider #2 above is probably a bad idea. Similarly, many (correctly or not) still don't view Wikipedia as a very reliable or professional source, especially in something as formal as a scientific paper, so referencing it will inevitably wrinkle some noses regardless of the figure's merit. As a side note, I suspect it's pretty rare that #1 is actually true. In my experience you typically can (and should) customize even a simple a figure to be more tailored towards your novel work in the paper. This can help keeping the style consistent as well. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: You might not be allowed to. When your paper is accepted you will later have to sign a copyright transfer form (content depending on the publisher). Depending on the content of that form you can fulfill it or you cant. So you need to ask the publisher first if they were to accept such pictures. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/01	1,745	7,701	<issue_start>username_0: I was in a research group for my MSc. dissertation (computational work) during which I developed quite a bit of code that went on being used in a publication which I co-authored (no code was published at the time - I know how much of a bad practice this is, it was not dependent on me). Now, without changing much of the code (I would say the bulk of the code remains unchanged), my advisor wants to make it publicly accessible as part of a new publication. My advisor does not want me to be one of the authors, claiming that I do not own the code and that the code is now owned by my advisor and by the institute where she works and where I did my MSc. dissertation work. The changes were done by people who are now members of this group. For the sake of not going through too much trouble, I would be happy foregoing this whole situation, but as a matter of principle this really bothers me. I do not feel like I am in a position where this can hurt or affect me, but I fear it may happen to other people, too. What would be the usual thing to do? Is being confrontational about this worth it? Who actually owns the code in this situation and what would be the right thing to do?<issue_comment>username_1: The answer is "it depends," but I'll throw out some US-oriented answers that apply to me as I know it at UT Austin under US NSF funding now. The usual thing to have done would to have published the original code along with the paper and/or your Master's thesis (depending on how long ago that was) under an NSF-approved open source license, assuming that NSF funded the work. That code is probably owned by the institution you worked for when you wrote it (depending on their policies). There may be ways around giving your code away even such a situation, but that's how I'd approach it if this were my situation. Other US funding agencies take a similar approach. I would hope that you'd want to work with your former advisor to make this code open source, anyway. Any recent changes would also be published to the same open source repository as a part of the ongoing publication process for the code and its working community (even if that's just the grad students of the PI of the lab that originally developed it). You would be able to use this code wherever you are now and others out there would, too, as well as ongoing use by the original lab. Ideally, you would have been part of an original publication or so-called "marker paper" about the methods in used in the code when the repository was made public, and your thesis might have served this purpose, though I think a journal paper or peer-reviewed conference paper would have been better. Your advisor is being quite stingy with academic credit by not wanting to include you in the authorship of a current paper with a contemporary repository release. I'd fight that tooth and nail if you don't need a working relationship with her anymore. Your former university probably has an intellectual property page describing who owns what, and I'd bet money in Vegas that it's not your former advisor. She may be due a substantial cut of any licensing revenue that the university generates, but that doesn't seem like the worry here. At my university, the ownership is predetermined by who funded the work and the contracts that conveyed that funding. There's a lot of "it depends" that need to be checked. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I'll leave aside the legal side of this, other than to say that I agree with other that the likely legal status is that the university owns the code that is not in the public domain. Moving to the moral side of things. It is correct that if you developed a code base that is useful academically, you should be credited for this. But from your description in the original post it seems you have been - you were author on a paper that came out of your Master's work and that you developed the code for. At that point really the code should have been made public, even if it wasn't. At that point, by publishing, you relinquish your rights to exclusive use of the code (again, morally, not legally, and in all matters moral, only in my view). In theory anyone in the world should be able to use and build on your published work without including you as an author in the derived work (although they should cite your original publication). This includes your former advisor, and their future students and employees. What complicates this is that is the advisor appears to have kept the code for their exclusive use so they can benefit - there is no moral case that they should benefit from exclusivity while you don't. Secondly, from what I can make out from what you say, they now do wish to make the code public (is this being forced by a journal they now wish to publish in?). If the code is made public in this second paper, but wasn't in the first, this will lead to that paper being cited if anyone reuses the code, and not you. Given that the code was not made public with the first release, I think that ideal solution going forward would be for you to make the code public separately from the second paper with a license that identified you as the author and specifying that people wishing to use the code in academic work must cite your original paper. Your former advisor would then not include you as an author in their new paper, but would cite your original publication as the source of the code. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Legal aspects depend on jurisdiction, but in general the following are points to have in mind: * in most countries, computer programs are [literary works that are protected by copyright.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_copyright#National_and_supranational_laws) In that respect, it does not matter whether your code has any scientific contribution, the moment you create it you have author's rights. * there's no such thing as "owning the code". Author's rights include both copyright and untransferrable [moral rights](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights). The latter, in particular, includes the right of attribution, as well as the right to the integrity of the work. So, even if the copyright for your code belongs to the university, them publishing it without your name on it would be illegal. * there's a fair chance that you actually retain the copyright, unless you have withdrawn it explicitly, or, in some jurisdictions (US but not most of Europe), were paid to do the work. I don't think being a Master student withdraws any of your IP rights. That's the legal aspect, but there's also a separate question of scientific integrity, which I would say is majorated by the IP law - in the sense that anything that breaches someone else's authors rights is a major scientific misconduct, but not conversely. For example, ideas are not protected by copyright, but using someone else's idea without attribution is a misconduct. What your advisor attempts to do seems to be a major ethical violation, regardless of the copyright status. If they publish anything not created by the authors, they must attribute it. In practice, it is likely that your advisor has no idea about IP rights and such - she just assumes, as many commentators here, that students and junior faculty have no rights. So, if you want to stand your ground, it may be enough to write her an e-mail saying that you created the code, you believe you retain the copyright as you don't recall tranferring it, and as an author you object to them publishing it without your name on it. Of course, that might be quite a nuclear option in terms of your relationship with her. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/02	816	3,420	<issue_start>username_0: I would like to ask for advice regarding the search for postdoc. First a bit of background. I got my 3-years PhD in February in mathematics (applied math + numerical analysis). I am disappointed because I did not do anything important: I studied a specific numerical method with a code that was already developed (a very complex fluid code) before and then I used the method to study a physical problem (actually running a lot of simulations and analyzing the results). For that last part, I also used some ideas from dynamical systems but again nothing new. The approach however was new but it was not even mine. It was my supervisors. In the end, my thesis was in computational fluid dynamics. I got 2 publications plus 1 procceeding from this thesis, but they were all in engineering-like journals. Back to the present. After the above experience I had a change of heart. I want to find a postdoc in applied math where I can study a problem more rigorously, but I love working in interdisciplinary subjects like biology, neuroscience, physics, fluid dynamics. The problem is I am too much of an engineer for the mathematicians. I applied to three postdoc positions and was rejected at all three. My actual fear here is that I cannot undo the mistake I did during my PhD. How can I persuade someone to take me as a postdoc in another area/field without strong publication record? Even if I have failed I really want to continue working in research. I love science and the learning process.<issue_comment>username_1: > > I got 2 publications plus 1 proceeding from this thesis. > > > I don't understand (but Math is also not where I did research) how this would be considered a weak publication record. * Examine yourself for "imposter syndrome". It's a common feeling that you are somehow a fraud in your field, because you realize just how much there is to still learn in the field, and you feel that your learning didn't cover nearly enough. If that's you, welcome to the club, most people encounter this if they truly perform, and like most things it goes away by not fretting over it and getting down to work. If on the rare chance that you really graduated without developing the necessary skills, then still attempt the work while doing extra work to strengthen the areas you're weak in. Those are the most likely options to success, the rest of the options typically look like "bide your time hoping that things change" and "quit" Good luck, and if you got your PhD, odds are you are as competent as many other PhDs. Take trust in that; but, if you really need some skill, then shop around for the opportunities to gain that skill. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: > > I applied to three postdoc positions and was rejected at all three. > > > This is probably the heart of the problem. It's not uncommon to make 30-50 applications. A friend of mine doing physics got an offer after about 35 applications (and about 10 of those interviewed her). She was a theoretical physicist. I would also speculate that you may be better off applying for postdocs that match your current publications, (fluid dynamics?), and voicing your interest in pursuing some more rigorous applied maths work at interview. If they offer you the place they will likely be happy for you to engage in that in addition to the primary role. This would offer you a smooth transition. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/02	437	1,842	<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a paper in theoretical computer science about two closely related problems A and B and a variant of A which I call A'. I am now planning to order the results as follows: 1. Solution to problem A 2. Solution to problem A' 3. Note that solution for A' implies a solution for B (very short) 4. Same techniques as in point 2 give a direct solution to problem B 5. Different techniques give slightly weaker results for problem B in different model Now, the problem is that point 5 is one of the main contributions of the paper, while point 4 is more "for completeness" than because it would be very important (as I already got a solution to B in point 3). I still really think point 4 should be included. If it makes any difference, the paper will be slightly under 30 pages. I am worried that people will get to point 4, realize that it is not so interesting, and stop reading there. Or they will see points 1,2, will not be interested and stop reading, even if point 5 would be interesting for them. Am I right to be worried? What should I do to prevent this? What do I say in the intro to make sure people read point 5? Or is it that people interested in point 5 will see it in the abstract and then it does not matter at all what the ordering is? Or should I re-order the things despite other orderings being less natural?<issue_comment>username_1: Build the paper according to its inner logic. But you can announce/tease the main result in the abstract and the introduction/motivation, so people will know what to look for/await. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Most readers will decide if the paper interests them or not before they get through the abstract. Express the motivation as early as possible. Then write the technical part in an easy-to-undersand format. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/02	1,184	5,030	<issue_start>username_0: I am a machine learning researcher, and my field is beginning to embrace the massive, multi-institution collaborations that have become common in other sciences. For example, I am a coauthor on [this paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.12028), which has 52 authors. I am also involved in on-going large collaborations organized by EleutherAI, Google, and HuggingFace. It was recently pointed out to me that the [US National Science Foundation](https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg20_1/nsf20_1.pdf) requires disclosing all “Co-authors on any book, article, report, abstract or paper with collaboration in the last 48 months (publication date may be later); and [c]ollaborators on projects, such as funded grants, graduate research or others in the last 48 months.” (II-5e) The document also implies that people who are listed as collaborators are unable to review grant applications. It seems very possible that I will have hundreds of collaborators in the field of natural language processing over the next year. However, I worry that this will make it very difficult for me to get NSF grants, if I collaborate with a significant portion of the community that has the same interests as I do. How do researchers handle Conflict of Interest disclosures when they have hundreds of collaborators? I assume fields like physics and astronomy, which can have several hundred collaborators on a single paper, must have a solution, but I’ve been unable to figure out what it is. I am particularly interested in the NSF, but am also interested in hearing general answers about dealing with conflict of interest policies that require disclosing all co-authors.<issue_comment>username_1: The document does not imply what you say. In a section "Potentially Disqualifying Conflicts of Interest" you can see that the NSF can issue waivers. This is typical. Conflicts of interests need to be reported when they reach a certain level, but they are not always automatically disqualifying. You might contact a program officer at a relevant NSF program and ask for how this works in practice. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Your question seems misguided, it is not the research group that "handles" this conflict of interest. It's the funding body that will have to decide how to deal with potential conflicts of interest of their reviewers. To answer your question: the way large research groups "handle" this is by listing all their collaborators and co-authors as requested. And that's it. As to what happens on the NSF side, I don't know. But I'd safely speculate that no grant has ever not been reviewed just because there are not enough reviewers who haven't co-authored a paper with you! Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: As a mostly theoretical physicist with some peripheral involvement in very large experimental collaborations, I asked essentially this question of an NSF program officer a couple years ago. The program officer said that, for now, it was not necessary to list all the members of huge experimental collaboration, only those that I had actually worked with myself. However, he also warned me that this might be different from program to program, and it could change from year to year. So the only way to know for sure is to contact the program officer. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: This is easy. You list your hundreds of collaborators as required. You can potentially go to jail for issues around this -- example: <https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/us-charges-prominent-harvard-chemist-failing-disclose-china-ties> -- and you need to avoid that. Be extra careful about making sure you get your foreign collaborators right. People are finding themselves in very tricky legal situations over this in recent times. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You're overthinking this, and in particular your concern that a lack of eligible reviewers would result in your application being tossed I think has the process the wrong way round. I don't work for NSF but I do work for a US funding agency. I don't know how NSF does it, but we are obligated to review compliant applications that are submitted. While the call for applications are out on a program I manage, I am recruiting the review panel in parallel. After the review panel is assembled and applications are in, I assign reviews to panelists and ask them to check for COIs. If COIs or potential COIs arise I notify our legal counsel and ask whether this is disqualifying or whether they can still review; if it's disqualifying, I assign to a different member of the panel. If a situation arose where I could not identify sufficient panelists to complete a review of your application, I would go find someone who could. At the end of our merit review process I have to provide documentation explaining our funding selection decisions. I don't think my manager would appreciate it if one of my justifications was "this was too hard to find reviewers for so I gave up :(" Upvotes: 3
2021/06/02	1,117	4,902	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a graduate TA and my duties include preparing tutorials for an undergrad course, we are supposed to prepare the sessions based on the material sent to us by the professor. The problem is that the professor has been emailing the material 1 hour before my tutorial starts for three weeks in a row. I feel like I can't prepare anything decent in such little time. Last week I asked the professor to please send the material with more time, the professor agreed but this week she did the same thing anyway. When I saw that 2 hours before the tutorial started I had no news from the Prof, I prepared the material myself and ignored her email that was sent 1 hour before my tutorial. I definitely have to write something to her since the instructor should know what happens in the tutorial sessions, but what do I tell her? It might sound aggressive to say "if you don't send me the material with enough time I will just do whatever I want", but that is exactly what I want to say (in a different tone). Am I wrong here? If you are a prof, how would you react to something like that?<issue_comment>username_1: Talk to your professor. All professors are people, and you're not just a robot that does their bidding. Let them know what you'd like to do after receiving their direction, and how long it is expected to take. Then ask if you could get the assignments earlier, at a specific time before the class, so you can carry out your desired tasks. You might get directed to not do what you're planning, you might get congratulated for your desire to do more, and you might get something completely different. If you never ask, you'll never know. Working for a professor (or anyone else) isn't a one-direction communication channel in a healthy working relationship. You should offer supporting suggestions; but, if told your suggestions are not desired, you should deliver what you are instructed to do. Professors have a lot of demands on their time, and your suggestion should be rehearsed to be short and to the point. If you get a "No", you might also want to rehearse how you will accept it. If, after a long run of failed suggestions, maybe you need to find a different Professor or find out why your ideas aren't working. It's hard to generalize, because your brilliant idea might be known to be bad, or your professor might not recognize a brilliant idea. In any case, in this, as in life, you must be prepared for failure and success. In some cases, "yes" becomes worse than "no" when you've launched an effort you can't reliably deliver. Good luck, and start with talking to your professor. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Are there any TA meetings or does the professor/instructor have any hours allocated where you can discuss this issue in person with them? Professors are busy people and get a lot of emails to the point that your emails may occasionally slip. It can usually take multiple reminders by e-mail to get your message to stick. When I TA'd an introductory data structures course and was tasked with leading a recitation, we had weekly TA meetings where we discussed the week's events and anything that was going on, and had the opportunity to bring about any issues (that said, there were multiple undergraduate/graduate TA's, so I'd say it depends on your situation a little as well). As for e-mailing the prof about this situation, I wouldn't particularly say, "if you don't send me the material soon enough, I'll do what I want", a better way to word that specific line in my opinion would be "if I don't get the material by a certain time for the week's recitation, it will make it significantly harder for me to teach the material the way you want." Something along that line. I should note that this is something that even undergraduate students experience when taking a course (not necessarily just TA's). Occasionally students/TA's will run into problems involving lack of communication with the instructor, whether it is getting questions answered or being late on posting assignments or other material. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: First of all, you CAN do whatever you want in your recitation sections. Presumably, you know what the recitation is supposed to be about, and the professor merely sends you some materials such as example problems or theorems to go over. Recitation sessions are pretty relaxed. Also, if you are teaching a first year, freshman intro, course, it should be pretty easy material and as a graduate student you should more or less be able to wing it. You should ask the professor if she is making these materials from scratch or if she is modifying them from past years. You say this is the second year she's teaching this course and if that's true she almost certainly is doing the latter. You can ask her to send you the outdated version beforehand. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2021/06/02	704	3,151	<issue_start>username_0: TLDR: Please advise how a tech professional/working student may go about referencing co-authorship on manuscripts that were submitted to academic publications in a resume or online portfolio? Background: I'm a final year BSc student at one of the major NYC schools working in a data analyst/assistant role under a research scientist at the med school. My degree and career path is more industry-oriented than academic as an aspiring data scientist. Although my supervisor is a professor at the med school, my work is not funded by the school—I was hired on the basis of my professional experience with statistical analysis tools. I'm paid through the business of the head research scientist and main author on the studies, who independently funds the projects and is based out of another US university. I am included as a co-author on two submitted manuscripts for statistical data analysis performed for the projects. Is there an appropriate way to demo my work in an online portfolio whether or not it is accepted for publication?<issue_comment>username_1: You can definitely mention these manuscripts in your resume or online portfolio. To do that, you give the manuscript title and full author list as it appears in the submission, and mention the word submitted either in a section heading or with the reference itself. If you want to explain more about your contribution to these manuscripts, you can write a brief paragraph in which you describe the relevant points. For a resume that is not publicly accessible, you could even add specific information from the manuscript, such as abstract, figures that show your contribution, or even the full manuscript as might be helpful for your resume. However, for that you need approval of the other authors. Best would be to inform the lead author and the corresponding author which information you want to use where and ask them for approval. They can coordinate with any other co-authors if necessary. Also, you clearly need to indicate that what you show is from a submitted, not yet accepted / published, work. For a publicly accessible online portfolio, you should usually not disclose information beyond what is stated in the first paragraph of this answer. If all authors agree, it would be possible to publish the manuscript as a pre-print, and you could then link to that from your portfolio. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to [username_1's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/168532/20058), let me make a few remarks: 1. Submitted is the appropriate status for a paper that has been submitted to a journal or conference and is possibly under review. Don't specify the journal which you have submitted to, because you don't know in advance whether it will be accepted there or not. 2. Once the paper is accepted, you can modify the status as in press, and in this case you can specify the journal. Moreover, nowadays, many journals put online the final revision of the manuscript within 24 h of the acceptance, and assign already the DOI: in such a case, you can also add the link to your online portfolio. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/02	990	3,666	<issue_start>username_0: I am new in the field of writing papers and publishing them. This is my first work. While writing my paper, I am using a paragraph from an [external website](https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/replay-attack). This is the paragraph that I am using > > A replay attack occurs when a cybercriminal eavesdrops on a secure > network communication, intercepts it, and then fraudulently delays or > resends it to misdirect the receiver into doing what the hacker wants. > The added danger of replay attacks is that a hacker doesn't even need > advanced skills to decrypt a message after capturing it from the > network. The attack could be successful simply by resending the whole > thing. > > > As we can see I have multiple lines copied directly from the website. Now what is the proper way to cite the work to avoid plagiarism? What I am doing currently is that, I am citing it like this, > > A replay attack occurs when a cybercriminal eavesdrops on a secure > network communication, intercepts it, and then fraudulently delays or > resends it to misdirect the receiver into doing what the hacker wants. > The added danger of replay attacks is that a hacker doesn't even need > advanced skills to decrypt a message after capturing it from the > network. The attack could be successful simply by resending the whole > thing. [1] > > > And in the citation section, I am mentioning it as, [1] : <https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/replay-attack> Is this the correct way to cite?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, the citation is typically put at the end of the quotation (at least, according to some style guides). However, the reference needs a few more details. First, check if the target journal or conference has guidelines on how references should be formatted, especially for what concerns online works (e.g. some journals require that you specify when you last visited the page). So, a more appropriate reference could be: [1] "What Is a Replay Attack?", AO Kaspersky Lab, <https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/replay-attack> [Accessed: 2 June 2021] The above is just an example and every journal has its own conventions (e.g. Kaspersky can be also considered as the author, some journals put the [online] tag, others make the tag clickable etc.). So, again, check the journal's guidelines. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: In my opinion, there is no proper way to add citations when you are copying a paragraph like that. Just don't do it, unless it is something written in stone like the statement of a theorem (and I don't think this is the case here). You should have sufficient command of the topic of your paper to formulate these definitions in your own words. See for instance these guide styles on when to quote and when to paraphrase: * <https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/quotingsources/> * [http://www.mesacc.edu/~jerol76351/102mwf/lectures/when.html](http://www.mesacc.edu/%7Ejerol76351/102mwf/lectures/when.html) * <https://www.uhv.edu/university-college/student-success-center/resources/a-d/decide-when-to-quote-paraphrase-and-summarize/> For instance, here is a direct quotation from the first source: > > ### Should I paraphrase or quote? > > > In general, use direct quotations only if you have a good reason. Most of your paper should be in your own words. Also, it’s often conventional to quote more extensively from sources when you’re writing a humanities paper, and to summarize from sources when you’re writing in the social or natural sciences–but there are always exceptions. > > > Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2021/06/02	433	1,833	<issue_start>username_0: I have a great relationship with one of my professors(at least I think), and a few weeks ago we discussed the possibility of doing a research project together this summer. However, he never replies to my emails again after the semester ends(2 weeks already, I sent one email and a follow-up, and even a phone message), and I saw him attend an academic panel virtually yesterday. I am abroad, so I'm unable to go to his office. I have his phone number(from the syllabus). Should I call him?<issue_comment>username_1: It is probably better avoided to call. If they are busy with things, there is little they can do on a phone call but get annoyed. If you already have any guidance on the project you could start reading or whatever prep work is needed. Send another email in a few days and say you need some guidance to continue but that you've started (assuming you have). There are lots of things that might explain the delay, but ignoring you isn't near the top of the list. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Given the question was asked last summer, I would assume it is too late to answer this right now. However, I believe situations like this is quite common. Given professors using cannot have a vacation time outside of summer or winter breaks easily, it is common for them to schedule many events and travels to the start of the summer break. And since OP mentioned he had seen the professor in a panel, the professor was indeed busy on some thing. And given you seems to have a 3.5 month summer break, I would argue 2 weeks into the break is definitely not a long time yet. Also, it's common for professors to check their school email and phone much less frequently, so you might also want to try to contact them through their personal emails to remind them, if it is possible. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/03	756	3,023	<issue_start>username_0: I believe I solved an open problem in my field, but the method I used is elementary, is the result still publishable? To make it more specific, I found a problem and solved it. The method I used is neither advanced nor new. It seems that no one is trying to solve it, except one famous person in my field mentioning that it is an open question. Under this situation, will my result be worth publishing?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it's publishable. [Example of such a paper](https://www.ams.org/journals/mcom/1967-21-097/S0025-5718-1967-0220669-3/S0025-5718-1967-0220669-3.pdf). Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: What is publishable is up to the publisher with advice from a few of their reviewers. But if they don't see it, they can't publish it. So, you should consider submitting it to an appropriate journal. However, it is probably worth the effort of getting some local advice. Things may have changed since the report that it was open. Some open questions are very important and a proof would be interesting. Perhaps especially interesting if it uses elementary methods. But the reviewers and the editor will be the judge. The editor might, however, suggest that you publish it as a "letter" rather than a full paper, so be prepared for that. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It is; I just published a paper like that myself. The criterion for publishing is simply that people want to read it. If it's a known open problem, especially one with a pedigree and a famous name attached to it, it's probably of interest to a fair number of people. For that matter, the fact that the proof is elementary may be an advantage. There was interest for a while in an elementary proof (i.e., without complex analysis and results like Tauberian theorems) of the prime number theorem, for example, well after the result itself was established. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Yes, it is definitely publishable. One prominent example from recent times is the [resolution of the sensitivity conjecture](https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematician-solves-computer-science-conjecture-in-two-pages-20190725/) in discrete mathematics/theoretical computer science. It is sometimes the case that a conjecture is considered important not just because it has been open for a long time, but instead because experts believe that a resolution to the conjecture will use new methods or techniques that will prove fruitful in solving other related problems. So, while it's great that you've managed to settle an open problem in your field, moreover one that has been publicized by an expert in the area, this alone may not be enough to have it published at a top journal in your field when your solution is elementary. However, that does not mean it is not publishable anywhere. It would be best if you can contact a senior researcher in this field, say in your department, who can evaluate your work and suggest which journals have a high probability of accepting your submission. Upvotes: 4
2021/06/03	648	2,523	<issue_start>username_0: So this question is heavily related to the questions [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/7797/what-do-you-do-when-you-find-yourselves-with-an-unreadable-inaccessible-paper) and [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12334/access-to-journals-for-individuals-outside-of-an-institution/12355#12355). Specifically I would like to know if any academics out there (especially in the fields of Maths, Physics, and Engineering) know of good resources for old papers/journal articles. Most of the papers of interest to me are in German and are between the years 1900 and 1930. A lot of these journals do not exist anymore or were renamed. So, it's almost impossible to track down who holds copies of them. Is there a resource/library that specialises in these old articles/texts? Or am I better off just using the suggestions posted in the two linked questions? Note: I am not specifically interested in finding, say, digital versions of the old papers. I am more interested in knowing if there is a way to find these old papers myself before asking a librarian or asking for an interlibrary loan.<issue_comment>username_1: Actually, research librarians are trained specifically to do this kind of thing. They also have a network they use to find things. You are making a mistake by avoiding their help. It is what they are there to do. Contact a research librarian, preferably at a research university (R1 or R2 in the US) and state your need. But even my community library has someone who has been able to contact other librarians with more specific knowledge. --- Note that quite a lot of old works have been moved out of working libraries into archival storage - warehouses. Some of that has been digitized along the way. Some professional societies do digitizing of old works. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A lot of bound volumes of journals from that period have been digitized and uploaded to either Google Books or archive.org Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Are you aware of the "Jahrbuch über Fortschritte der Mathematik"? In the period 1868–1942, it performed essentially the same function as Mathematical Reviews after 1940 --- summaries and reviews of publications. It won't get you the papers you want, but it can tell you that they exist and where they were published. Also, take a look at <https://www.emis.de/projects/JFM/> . I don't know whether there are similar sources for fields other than mathematics. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/03	2,114	9,079	<issue_start>username_0: May I ask if it is a good practice for PhD students in STEM to have supervisors with no expertise in the students' field? I wonder to what extent should a PhD supervisor in the STEM knows about his/her students' research. In addition, I know some PhD supervisors with quite different fields (even in different disciplines) from their students' but they usually say that it is their students' responsibility to do research (as a completely independent researcher) without the supervisors' help in domain knowledge. I wonder if it is true. If so, why would PhD students need supervisors? Any ideas about this will be greatly appreciated. In terms of some questions from the chatting zone, I think field in this case is a sub-class of a discipline. In other words, a supervisor may have different specific research interests from their students' but they are delved into the same field and the same discipline. For example, a supervisor and his/her student are both delved into econometrics, so they at least share the same paradigm when doing research in the econometrics despite that they may face different problems in specific contexts. Please correct me if there exist some problems/errors in my statement.<issue_comment>username_1: Of course there are exceptions, but overall, the answer to your question is NO. Your supervisor has expertise in certain fields and will be more helpful if you work in that field. > > I know some PhD supervisors with quite different fields (even in different disciplines) from their students' but they usually say that it is their students' responsibility to do research (as a completely independent researcher) without the supervisors' help in domain knowledge. > > > I consider that a huge red flag and would stay far, far away from a supervisor who says that. In my experience, supervisors who say that are just trying to avoid holding any kind of responsibility or accountability. I would like to know whether any of their students manage to find good academic jobs, or whether their students enjoyed their time in graduate school. There are graduate students who lament their PhD advisor decision and say, "I was completely on my own." That is not a good thing! Being independent doesn't mean that you can't get access to a supervisor's knowledge, or that you can somehow do research without access to domain knowledge. In fact, researchers are constantly asking other researchers questions and getting help. In the acknowledgments section of a paper, researchers will say something like, "I would like to thank Person X for answering questions I had about topic Y." Yet the authors still did the majority of the thinking and work. They may have come up with the questions they addressed in their paper, and they may be exploring areas that have been neglected. They are getting help without anyone holding their hand through it - I think of that as being an independent researcher. My background is in pure math. To prove a theorem, you have to know a lot of theorems. Not all the theorems you need are written down. There will be a lot of hindrances if you can't talk to people and ask. Later on your advisor will write you recommendation letters. How will they write a good letter if they know nothing about your work? You are shooting yourself in the foot if you work with an advisor with no expertise in your subject. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: IMHO > > If so, why would PhD students need supervisors? > > > is a key to the situation. From what I've seen, there are substantial differences on how this question would be answered in different (academic) cultures. E.g. I was told/reminded by my professor early on during my PhD research\* that I was a fully qualified chemist - with all professional rights and duties that chemists have by my Diplom (= MSc; here BSc and MSc are usually prerequisites for a PhD). The formal description of Diplom thesis is a 6 months research project that the candidate performs on their own (after "guided" research in the form of obligatory research internships). Obviously, with a fresh Diplom, one isn't an experienced scientist. But I was largely free to decide my approaches and the discussions we had were typically the group-public discussions similar to the discussions with more experienced researchers (postdocs, PIs) in the group. I guess my manuscripts did need more rounds of polishing the text, though. From that point of view, *it is perfectly fine to have a PhD "student" coming from another field because* the group/larger project needs their professional expertise.** And it is also fine to expect the student to be able to get all information in their field they need (including contacting people). There are other academic traditions that see the PhD as step of the professional qualification. And in particular where you can enter a PhD program with a fresh BSc, it doesn't make sense to expect the level of professional independence I described above. I've been involved with rather interdisciplinary research, where different people are needed to bring several professional backgrounds (fields) together to tackle the project. It would be rather unlikely to find a professor who is expert in all those fields. That being said, it does not make sense if there is no relation whatsoever between the PhD researcher's profession/field and the thesis on the one hand and the professor's field/expertise and the PhD project on the other hand. But the overlap between the professor's background and the student's background may not be that large. The professor can in any way supervise the student on the general aspects of research, and can take care of their part to the project/paper. --- In a more Phd-is-still-studying culture, the student may have co-supervisors that cover the (sub)fields not covered by the expertise available in their group. --- It's certainly a difficult situation if you are in a lone-wolf position with your profession during your PhD. However, there are some professions where this is the typical working situation (e.g. for me as chemometrician this is certainly the case) and one may argue that the sooner one learns how to deal with this productively the better. (This is one of the few aspects of professional life where I think the move to online seminar formats due to the COVID situation has lasting potential for improvements - while an online seminar IMHO does not offer the same networking possibilities as an offline seminar, such a student can now at least stay somewhat connected also to their profession, whereas before the decision which conference to attend may have always had the answer "application conference" before.) BTW, I did my PhD thesis in my orginal profession (i.e. chemistry) - but the specialization into statistics/data analysis chemometrics got me to the level of what was around in the group during my Diplom thesis and when I started my PhD my professor I was not looking for guidance (as opposed to critical questions of the approach I'd chosen) in that aspect in my group any more. So from that experience, I'd say that you can easily end up in the situation described in the question regardless of matching fields. --- What is in my experience also a recipe for disaster: if the management/supervision style doesn't match the level of independence. I.e., as I said it is IMHO fine to recruit a PhD researcher because they bring certain professional expertise that is not available in the group. But that needs to be clearly communicated so the PhD researcher knows what is expected of them and it needs to be accompanied by treating them on eye level as fully qualified professional - it doesn't mix with a supervision style that would be adequate for guided research done by a student (which could anyways not be provided without domain-specific knowledge of the supervisor). --- \*in my native language, the term for "Phd Student" = Doktorand doesn't have a connotation of being a student, and indeed you are not required to enroll as student when doing a PhD. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: On top of agreeing with the other answers, I'd like to offer a bit different perspective. You might want to narrow down your specialization, because STEM as you write is very broad. In physics, most of the PhD positions are funded from research grants, and academic staff members to whom these grants are awarded become supervisors of the phd students hired within those grants. Obviously, since you have to write an strong application for a grant, you are likely to plan research in your field of expertise, and then the "field of expertise" becomes the same for the supervisor and the phd student. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In mathematics, in the U.S., I'd think that it would be irresponsible of an advisor to attempt to supervise a thesis project completely outside their scholarship, unless the student was very, very unusual. Keyword is "irresponsible", I think, though, yes, conceivably unethical... Upvotes: 2
2021/06/03	406	1,738	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently in the process of writing a research paper about linguistics. I wrote a program in python in order to be able to sift through the data and sort it out in a meaningful way (not statistically just take a bunch of words in a word document and create an excel with all the words in them). In my methods section, should I include an in depth explanation of the code I used to be able to reorganize the data? how specific should I be in my explanation? Should I include the code I wrote as an appendix? Thanks for your help:)<issue_comment>username_1: In the method section, you can describe your code in broad terms to convey the most essential aspects. In addition, to ensure transparency and reproducibility, you should make your code publicly available. If the code is brief enough, you can publish it in an appendix. If it is longer or scattered around multiple files, you could upload it in a repository (such as Zenodo) and link to it. (And no, it would not be sufficient to state that the code is available "on request". Often, this is simply not the case a few years after the research project.) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, as you describe it here, there is nothing very interesting or new about your code. The fact that it is in Python isn't relevant. It is also the sort of thing that you can do with a few lines of unix-like code and the concept has been around since the 60's (at least). Given that, I think a very brief description is all that is needed. It may seem like magic to someone in linguistics, but it is a standard elementary programming problem. Use your words on the interesting linguistics relevant things in the paper, not the program. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/04	1,014	4,235	<issue_start>username_0: Is it a conflict of interest if an examiner of a graduate thesis is a coauthor of a paper/papers with the supervisor of the thesis? Do you think that this would sway a positive or negative result or bias?<issue_comment>username_1: No, it can be unavoidable. You haven't named a country, but in the US in the sciences, it's fairly normal to have 3-4 people from your department and one from another department in the same university. If your department isn't that large, those 3-4 probably have collaborated with the supervisor, and the external member may have been brought in because they are a collaborator. Plus, you don't usually defend until you are ready. So examiners aren't often put it in the place of needing to decline to endorse a dissertation. That said, I would still say it's best practice to avoid it as best you can. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, it can be a conflict of interest. As <NAME> said, you haven't specified which country or field you are referring to. In my experience (in the UK, in physics), people who have written a paper with your supervisor are usually prohibited from being either your external or internal examiner, and the same goes for anyone you yourself have written a paper with. While it's nice to believe that someone with a close working relationship with a student or that student's supervisor could assess the student's thesis fairly, unconscious bias is always at play (which can work both positively and negatively). To avoid any such problems, choose examiners with which you and your supervisor have as few personal and professional ties as possible. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It really depends. In our system there are two referees of a PhD thesis (one for a master's thesis) and they should not be coauthors unless it is a paper with many authors and there was no close cooperation between those two. Otherwise it could indeed be considered to be a conflict of interest. (And I did not even mean large cooperations like ATLAS or CMS in high energy physics where everyone around probably is a member of the same collaboration and hence automatically a coauthor. I mean papers where they do have some actual connection to the specific paper.) The actual examination - or defense actually, the state exam(rigorosum or viva) happens earlier, even years earlier - however, is done by a stable comittee of say 8-10 members (plus the referees) and it is very common that some of the comittee members happen to be coauthors. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I am on quite friendly terms with 80% of the faculty members in my department. Does that mean I have a conflict of interest if I sit on a dissertation committee for one of their students? Will my favorable view of the advisor sway my judgment positively? What about the other 20% I’m not on friendly terms with (probably with some reason...)? Should people worry that my judgment will be swayed negatively if I sit on a committee for one of their students? If so, when would I ever be allowed to be on anyone’s dissertation committee? I know that’s not the situation you’re describing exactly, but the point is that, if you interpret “conflict of interest” in some idealized, completely literal sense, then everyone in academia has a conflict of interest about 90% of the duties they perform. Essentially, to be human is to be in a state of perpetual conflict about much of what you do professionally. This is ridiculous, and such an interpretation of what it means to have a conflict renders the whole notion of a conflict of interest completely useless. Basically you’re overthinking this. Professors are professionals, and are trusted to perform their duties ethically and impartially. There might be isolated cases of professors failing their colleague’s graduate student because of some vendetta or feud, but that’s beside the point. There are isolated cases of every sort of bad thing happening somewhere, to someone. The particular concern you are raising is at a level that’s so hypothetical that no sensible person will spend any amount of time worrying about it. So no, in a practical, realistic sense, it is not a conflict of interest. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/04	309	1,359	<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a few courses on Coursera and youtube, while watching the lectures I usually take some notes, adding extra explanations and examples on things that I found difficult to understand. Now, I am thinking that I can clean them up a little and post them on my website, but I don't know if that would be considered plagiarism or otherwise inappropriate. If I do post anything I will properly cite the course I am referring to and not post any quiz/assignment questions or answers, but also I won't really be adding any original work of my own, just a condensed summary and maybe some additional examples that I found useful from other sources. Would something like that be a good idea?<issue_comment>username_1: As long as you have appropriately cited the original sources, it is not plagiarism. You are allowed to write about topics that others have already written about. This seems like a fine idea to me. Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Reposting something very similar to the original content (e.g. summary notes they provide you) is probably where you want to draw the line. If you are adding your own notes/content/work, including effort to further clarify or distill information, I don't see an ethical problem. Worst case, your blog is so popular they request you remove the content. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/04	2,854	11,628	<issue_start>username_0: Which software do learned professionals use - LaTeX or Google Docs or Word or any other software to write their books (especially engineering level scientific textbooks)? Points to consider: * Could have diagrams, images, tables, graphs at quarter or half or complete page or in-between the text * Divided into chapters, should it be a different doc for each chapter in a Word/G.Doc like software? * Citation management should be easy<issue_comment>username_1: Publishers of books are normally pretty flexible about what they accept from authors. They don't want to put up barriers. It needs to be something that works for the author and that the production staff can work with. For textbooks there is usually a "copy editor" involved as well as a production staff. The publisher seldom (in my experience with three large publishers, though a bit dated) asks the author to produce final page proofs. Those are done by professionals. The author is, then, required to proofread those pages and quickly provide any needed corrections. What happens in the background may be LaTeX or some older typesetting technology, though probably not hot lead anymore. They might even provide professional help on preparation of images for the final copy. A publisher may have preferences, but for books, probably not rigid requirements. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: What publishers and authors choose or prefer for document processing really depends on the discipline. Your profile says you are interested in "Electronics and Communication Engineering". For that kind of technical writing I suspect LaTeX is the system of choice, both for you and for your publisher. It's easy to prepare large documents with several files. LaTeX manages citations, diagrams and images. As an author you focus on content. The publisher can then make format and design decisions that require no retyping. The folks at [TeX stackexchange](https://tex.stackexchange.com) will gladly help you. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: If you're working with a publisher, ask them. Chances are they accept virtually all major software. TeX is the obvious one for scientific text, but Word is also fine if you know how to use it. If you're self-publishing then it really doesn't matter, whatever works for you is fine. > > Could have diagrams, images, tables, graphs at quarter or half or complete page or in-between the text > > > If you're working with a publisher, this matters only if you need to refer to other pages while you are writing the manuscript. Otherwise it is irrelevant, do not worry about it. That's because by the time the manuscript's been reformatted it will not look like what you submitted and all the time you spent on this will be wasted. If you're self-publishing then whatever floats your boat. > > Divided into chapters, should it be a different doc for each chapter in a Word/G.Doc like software? > > > Again if you're working with a publisher, this is irrelevant. If you're self-publishing then whatever floats your boat. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I've written several books, maybe a bit "advanced", in mathematics, and I've used plain TeX in all (due to getting committed to plain, as opposed to La-, TeX, to be able to manage small formatting details that my publisher 25 years ago could not cope with...) But, yes, some dialect of TeX. For diagrams, I've used xypic, which is by now old-fashioned, but still adequate for my purposes. By this year, it is a bit silly to use plain TeX, since competent publishers can do whatever reformatting on their own (rather than complaining that when they print out your draft, and hold it up to the light, the page numbers don't match up... sigh...) Plain TeX does obligate one to load fonts and stuff, which, yes, I figured out how to do ages ago... at at time when, also, the RAM in many computers was awkwardly small to include the actual font files for everything, as opposed to the font metric files... and that kind of lower-level stuff. I gather that a slightly more modern, but maybe still several-years-old, graphical package for (La)Tex is "tikz"... In any case, I'd wager that 99% of academic math people in the U.S. use some version of TeX for substantive writing. Yes, I can imagine that some might be coerced to use "Word"... but I'd tend to think that with current personal-computer capabilities, the end-product of a PDF document would be viewed as acceptable, regardless of the "engine" that produced it. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Over the past few decades, I’ve written hundreds of technical documents containing diagrams, tables, and mathematics, including a 400 page book about computer geometry. Prior to starting the book, I used MS Word for everything. For the book, I switched back and forth between Word and LaTeX 3 or 4 times, and eventually settled on LaTeX. I still use MS Word or Google Docs for everything except books. It took me a very long time to get the formatting set up the way I wanted in LaTeX. The memoir package was a big help — in the LaTeX world the solution to every problem is “there’s a package”. But your publisher might give you a document template, anyway, so you’ll have no choice about formatting. Creating tables in LaTeX is ridiculously complicated, compared to MS Word. For diagrams, the TeX purists favor tools like Tikz and Asymptote, in which you essentially create a picture by writing code. I find this approach impossible, so I make pictures in drawing packages, or PowerPoint, or CAD systems, and include them in the LaTeX document as PDF. That works fine. I think LaTeX is faster for simple in-line math, but for big complex equations, I find Word faster because I can see the equation emerging as I type it, so I make fewer mistakes. In the end, I chose LaTeX because I very much like the appearance of the Computer Modern fonts, and getting those to work in MS Word was painful. But some publishers will insist on changing fonts, anyway. In research-level mathematics and physics, most people use LaTeX for formal documents like books and papers. In elementary mathematics and science, most people use Word. In engineering, I’d guess it’s about 50:50 — in academia, LaTeX use is common, but in industry it’s not. A lot of folks in the TeX/LaTeX community dislike MS Word or any other software that costs money. So, there’s quite a bit of anti-Word propaganda, some of which is out-dated folk-lore. The people in the Word community don’t have a corresponding dislike for LaTeX because most of them have never even heard of it. So, as you’re reading, you’ll probably find that Word critics are more common than LaTeX critics. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: A few years ago I was the lead editor for a business engineering textbook. Right at the beginning of the project we had to clarify the question of which software to use. In this field, LaTeX is largely unknown because everyone uses Word. But since it was already clear that the book would have well over 1000 pages and Word has problems with such large documents, we decided on LaTeX. This was also due to the fact that the manuscript had to be a unified whole in order to reduce errors in the typesetting and thus the time needed for corrections. (This publisher had outsourced its editing to a country where non-native speakers worked on it). The publisher provided us with an adapted template in which we worked. The finished manuscript in LaTeX was then converted internally by the publisher into a custom XML format, on the basis of which the typesetting was carried out. We could also have submitted data in Word, PDF, HTML, RTF or other formats; this is all converted internally by the publisher. Don't worry about what format the publisher wants, but think about what you can work with best. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: You had all kind of reasons to use LaTeX in other answers. The extra few you may want to consider: PROS: * repeatability: you can compile a LaTeX document several times and when you change a list you will not suddenly have all your headers change font (yes, I had that) * stability: the more text you type in LaTeX, the longer the compilation becomes - but you get something at the end. My good friend stopped his thesis on "(...) this equati" and then he could not neither add nor remove text. CONS: * unsung suffering when you want to change the default formatting. You really need to dive into the language. * you edit plain text so you do not have the usual hints on headers, bold text etc. (some IDEs can probably handle that) * collaborating is a real pain. No matter what, the "tracking" in Word is much better CON that is actually a PRO * between what you type and what you see there is a compilation session so it is not immediate. And this is a good thing because you know you have no influence anyway so you concentrate on your text. EXCEPT for equations, where anything more complicated is beautiful but requires a second CPU in your head to follow the `\int{\frac{a\frac{\times}{`... where am I...? Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: I sometimes help edit high-school mathematics textbooks, which have most of the requirements you mention (not citation management) and are published by an academic press that also does university textbooks, so I expect the process will be similar enough. This kind of publishing is a group project. Authors generally aren't responsible for their own layout, just for providing the words/equations. In my experience that's usually done in MS Word, using either Mathtype or Word's equation editor; I can only remember one time when an author worked in LaTeX. (NB most of the authors I work with are high-school teachers; I suspect there'd be more LaTeX users among university academics.) Other editors/etc. then format that material for house style, create diagrams according to the author's sketches, and lay it all out to generate a tidy PDF, usually one per chapter. Breaking it up into chapters not only keeps file sizes manageable, but also helps with workflow - since there will be several different people working on the same book, you don't want to have each person go through the whole book before the next person in the sequence can start. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: A little late, but I just ran across some actual data (as opposed to all the speculation and opinion in the other answers, including mine). There was a study of LaTeX usage by <NAME> and <NAME>, published in The Scientist in 2009 (Volume 23, Issue 7, Page 24). I don’t have access to the original paper, but I suppose the following table, which was reproduced [here](https://www.authorea.com/users/3/articles/107393-how-many-scholarly-articles-are-written-in-latex?commit=8db67b18f524db5a0afda38ba99f4bca06934d38) is a good summary: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QOnud.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/QOnud.png) Things may have changed since 2009, of course. Many of the other answers here are trying to tell the OP which authoring system is “best” in some sense. That’s not what he asked — he asked which ones are most commonly used. But, if anyone is interested, there’s some data about “best” in [this article](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269762491_An_Efficiency_Comparison_of_Document_Preparation_Systems_Used_in_Academic_Research_and_Development), published by Knauff and Nejasmic in 2014. In their tests, they found that using MS Word yields higher productivity than using LaTeX. YMMV, as always. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/05	351	1,475	<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in citing a paper. This paper has ~30 citations from others, which is respectable and indicates that a fair number of people have also found it worth discussing. However, a fairly prominent citation discussed in this paper is of an (in my opinion) low quality article from an undoubtedly predatory journal. My gut feeling is this is a minor issue and I shouldn't be concerned with citing the work as whole, and just do not pay any attention to the problematic citation; doing so wouldn't affect my planned work. However, I was wondering if there is something I have overlooked and should be concerned with before proceeding.<issue_comment>username_1: It is obligatory to cite works that you use in your research. This includes bad works, works with errors, works that have never been cited, works published in bad/predatory journals, and works that were never published. When deciding to cite something, the first thing to ask yourself is, "Did I use this in my research?" If the answer is yes, you need to cite it. If the answer is no, you may or may not need to cite it. When deciding if you should cite a paper, disregard a citation to a predatory journal in that paper. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: So to sum up: you are concerned that citing a paper that cites a paper that might not be of the highest standard is going to reflect on your paper. I would say your concerns are groundless. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2021/06/05	919	3,964	<issue_start>username_0: I came back to school after a long break (5+ years) and jumped right back into higher level courses (junior and senior level courses). First thing I noticed was that a professor did not lecture or hold any office hours, instead a hired part-time lecturer, who had another full time job, filled this role. Secondly I noticed that out of the 20 or so TAs in this course, at least 75% are undergraduate students who took this course during their undergrad and received a 3.7 GPA or higher. This is at a very respectable public university in WA, and in their computer science department. Any thoughts on this? When I attended a university in the Midwest years ago, all lectures were taught by professors or assistant professors, and TAs were graduate students. Have things changed? This seems very odd to me, especially for such a prestigious computer science department.<issue_comment>username_1: While a bit unusual, especially with the proportion you give, it isn't wrong per se for undergraduates to TA courses. Some students earn the responsibility they are given by hard work, and there might be financial incentives for them. I'd worry more about the quality of the TA assistance than about the fact that they don't hold any degrees. Reacting to your comment about the instructor, it is common for universities to hired part time (adjunct) faculty for some courses. Often those people are very highly qualified in the specific topic and they may hold full time employment elsewhere. If they do a good job then there is little to complain about. If they don't then you have the same issues as with full time faculty. The important thing is the quality of education, not the rest of it. My former employer had a few such people who were research faculty at large companies (IBM, say). They did it for the love of teaching and did a good job of it. This can be more true for advanced, specialized, courses than for low level ones. I haven't checked their degrees, but suspect that they held doctorates. So, it many not be cost cutting, unless it is overused. It might just be a way to tap into both outside expertise and contacts with the adjuncts' employers. That can be valuable for students on the verge of entering the workplace. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This will depend on the university/department, as well as the specific course and professor/instructor(s). Where I did my undergraduate, all my coursework was taught by faculty in my department. Between each individual course, the TA situation varied. In many of the lower-level undergraduate courses, as well as the upper-division required courses, there were recitation/lab sections that were led by undergraduate TA's, who were also tasked with holding office hours, while graduate TA work was mostly grading. This was in my school's Computer Science department, while in the Statistics department, graduate students were tasked with leading the recitations, while undergraduate students only held office hours. In the case of that department, I have seen a couple of instances of what OP described above where an adjunct with a different full-time job at a nearby institution taught a (smaller) night section of an upper division Calculus course. Some universities may do it different. I've actually heard it was the case in at least a couple of universities where undergraduates actually are able to design/teach their own course at that university. (this is unheard of at my university so I don't know too much outside of that) From my perspective, while a graduate student will have knowledge of the material, an undergraduate TA is more likely to know the in and outs of the course since they took that exact version of the course, and will likely be able to better connect with the students. In both cases, they have to demonstrate being knowledgeable and proficient of the course material before the professor can appoint them as a TA. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/05	691	3,086	<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a manuscript to a journal and recently I received the reviews. We have many reviewers assigned to the review process. One of the reviewers is asking us to perform some calculations that are beyond our knowledge. None of the co-authors know how to carry out such computations. All the other referees gave very good reviews but I'm not sure how to deal with this issue. Should we be honest in our answer to him or is there another way around? Is there a way we can avoid withdrawing our manuscript because of this request by this reviewer? I appreciate any advice in this regard.<issue_comment>username_1: I would suggest to the editor that it might be appropriate for future work and a future paper. You don't have to say what you say here and you don't have to follow up in the future unless you choose to. But, I wouldn't withdraw the paper. Perhaps the editor will agree with you and perhaps not, but the other reviewers think it is worth publishing, so I'd guess you are fine. If you get rejected then reconsider. The reviewer judgements don't need to be unanimous in most places. The editor weighs the evidence and decides. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Generally the reviewers can only give recommendations, they don't make the decision. I have seen many revisions that didn't do everything the reviewers asked for. The editor will have to balance things and decide whether the paper is good enough without this, which it may well be if a number of other reviewers liked it. Normally you'd need to response to this and the editor will decide whether this is fine or send it to reviewers again. Now indeed "it would be a good idea but we are not able to do it" isn't really a very convincing response. You may actually get away with this (publication decisions are always something of a random process) but then you may not. Can't you argue that it's generally to much to do and goes beyond the scope of the paper, or another reason why it isn't such a good idea? Another possibility, if what the reviewer suggests makes really good sense, is to look around whether at your university (or among people you or your co-authors know) could be an expert, maybe in a different department (not sure what this is about but just as an example it could be a mathematician), who has the skills to do this? You can then add a co-author to the revision, this is usually fine. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Do the suggested computations make sense? In other words, is the reviewer's suggestion valid? If they make sense or indeed, is a standard practice in your field, then you are missing a key piece of work. Otherwise, provide justifications/reasons why such computations do not help with your research aim. For example, 'Thank you for the suggested computations. However, the computations aim to shed light on X. However, our focus is on Y'. Alternatively, you can say, 'our evaluation on page-z includes a discussion on X. Hence, we do not believe such computations will provide further insights into X'. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/06	1,696	7,158	<issue_start>username_0: I am about to send emails to potential PhD supervisor. In order to show my initiative to understand their research, I am thinking of writing a precis of their recent papers and attaching it with the email. I would include the following elements in the precis: 1. background problems to be solved 2. the proposed methods to solve the problem 3. how the proposed methods are tested 4. results 5. shortcomings 6. how the papers I have read are related to each other 7. my own thoughts about how further research can be done based on the results on these papers Is this a good approach? I think the precis would be one to two pages long. Is the length recommendable? I am also thinking of putting the main points as bullet points in a powerpoint instead of presenting the main points as paragraphs in a precis. So which format is better? However, my concern is that professors are usually busy people. They would not bother to open the document and read. Also they are already familiar with their research. It seems meaningless to summarize their research and send it to them. Is it a genuine concern? Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think this is a good idea.You should aim for an email that is one or two sentences, not one or two pages, at least for your first email. You are much more likely to get a response if your email is short and contains a direct question. I presume your goal in emailing these professors is to find out if they are taking on students next year. So, ask that, and in one sentence explain why you're interested in being supervised by them in particular. Your email could read something like: > > Dear Professor X, > > > I am a student in [subject] at [university] and am looking for a PhD > position starting next year. Are you taking PhD students at the > moment? I am interested in being supervised by you as I would like to > pursue research in [common topic]. > > > Thank you and best wishes, > > > Underdog > > > Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the helpful answer given by @astronat, I would add that an additional sentence or two along the lines of your #7 could make your message stand out, but you will need to do your homework. Something like > > I read your papers X and Y and I'm especially interested in the open question you mentioned about Z. > > > If you've learned enough to really understand what the next steps of research in this direction could be, you could go a bit further. But if you don't know as much as you think, you will make that obvious, so stick to what you actually know. If you send me an email like the one in @astronat's answer, I will write back just telling you to submit an application to the program and I won't remember your name. If you add something like what I've indicated here (and it makes sense) I will make a note and look for your application in the pile. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I receive this kind of email regularly: I do not need someone to digest the contents of my own work. What you want to do is make any mention of previous work specific but short. Something vague like “I read your recent papers on underwater basketweaving and find this fascinating” is something that anybody can come up by just scanning the title. A better strategy is expand a bit (NOT 2 pages), describe how this is of interest to you, and how has your background prepared you for this topic: > > I have read your recent work on underwater basketweaving. I was quite intrigued by your data of section 3 on basket stiffness in different water salinity. I studied general basketweaving as an undergraduate, and your paper has rekindled my interest in this field etc > > > Keep it short and focused, demonstrating your interest and making it clear you are not sending a random email. Failing this your email is unlikely to be answered. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I would rethink your goals and approach here a bit. Why do you want to send these emails? Just because it's something that prospective PhD students seem to do? Or do you have specific goals in mind? See [XY problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem). The current top answer writes: > > I presume your goal in emailing these professors is to find out if they are taking on students next year. > > > I think some other likely goals here are to increase your chance of acceptance and to learn about if the advising match would be a good fit. For these goals it would benefit you to learn more deeply about the professor's research and papers. You will learn about the kinds of problems they find interesting and why. You will also learn about open problems or next steps, which could be what you work on next. The things you learn (at a deep level, not summary level) can be a good starting point for questions about the research, which can help open a conversation where you also learn more about what it would be like to be advised by that person. So you see we come back to advice in other answers about writing emails with deep and specific content, but maybe with some more principled reasoning behind why (from your perspective, not just the professor's). However, I'll end with a disclaimer that while some professors are happy to receive these emails, others are not or don't feel they have time to respond. (On the other hand, I'd expect a genuinely interesting research question/point to usually get a response no matter who sent it.) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It is generally useful to show in your application that you know the topics of the laboratory you are applying to, and show some specific interest in them, that this is something you would like to work on, maybe more than on something else. You start looking more like a human and less like a spam sending bot that pumps identical messages all over the world without caring, where are they going. However I do not think your analysis needs to be very detailed. A few correctly selected statements should be enough, respect also the time of the reader. Do not state any shortcomings you think you see and do not list proposals. Simply express your interest and put some short statement or two to show that your admiration is not script generated. Such applications obviously take much more time to prepare. You need to read at least one of they articles, and better more than one. This works the best if you really worked or has been interested in similar topic so know the articles anyway. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Don't do that. A brief statement about professor's works is enough, so they'll know that you have read their research. Also, you can refer to their research in your research plan. In your first email, briefly and politely say about yourself, your works and background, and a reason for why you choose this university and this professor; for this part, you can briefly write about the professor's works and their similarity to your research area and what you are planning to do during your Ph.D. program. Generally, you should somehow convince them that you are a potential candidate. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/06	1,613	6,798	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a final year undergraduate student. When I opened Gmail today there was an email regarding some conference and instructions on how to submit a paper to it. I never get emails like this, so I was curious. The sender was a professor in my department. And the mail was sent to `lect<EMAIL>@[university_name].ac.[country_suffix]` I checked with some of my close friends and non of them have received that email. It seems like I have ended up on a mailing list for lecturers somehow. Since there might be confidential emails circulating among the list there is a risk of me being on it. Should I inform the professor about this immediately? Since I didn't 'hack' my way into the mailing list, can I just ignore the emails and carry on without informing?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think this is a good idea.You should aim for an email that is one or two sentences, not one or two pages, at least for your first email. You are much more likely to get a response if your email is short and contains a direct question. I presume your goal in emailing these professors is to find out if they are taking on students next year. So, ask that, and in one sentence explain why you're interested in being supervised by them in particular. Your email could read something like: > > Dear Professor X, > > > I am a student in [subject] at [university] and am looking for a PhD > position starting next year. Are you taking PhD students at the > moment? I am interested in being supervised by you as I would like to > pursue research in [common topic]. > > > Thank you and best wishes, > > > Underdog > > > Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the helpful answer given by @astronat, I would add that an additional sentence or two along the lines of your #7 could make your message stand out, but you will need to do your homework. Something like > > I read your papers X and Y and I'm especially interested in the open question you mentioned about Z. > > > If you've learned enough to really understand what the next steps of research in this direction could be, you could go a bit further. But if you don't know as much as you think, you will make that obvious, so stick to what you actually know. If you send me an email like the one in @astronat's answer, I will write back just telling you to submit an application to the program and I won't remember your name. If you add something like what I've indicated here (and it makes sense) I will make a note and look for your application in the pile. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I receive this kind of email regularly: I do not need someone to digest the contents of my own work. What you want to do is make any mention of previous work specific but short. Something vague like “I read your recent papers on underwater basketweaving and find this fascinating” is something that anybody can come up by just scanning the title. A better strategy is expand a bit (NOT 2 pages), describe how this is of interest to you, and how has your background prepared you for this topic: > > I have read your recent work on underwater basketweaving. I was quite intrigued by your data of section 3 on basket stiffness in different water salinity. I studied general basketweaving as an undergraduate, and your paper has rekindled my interest in this field etc > > > Keep it short and focused, demonstrating your interest and making it clear you are not sending a random email. Failing this your email is unlikely to be answered. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I would rethink your goals and approach here a bit. Why do you want to send these emails? Just because it's something that prospective PhD students seem to do? Or do you have specific goals in mind? See [XY problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem). The current top answer writes: > > I presume your goal in emailing these professors is to find out if they are taking on students next year. > > > I think some other likely goals here are to increase your chance of acceptance and to learn about if the advising match would be a good fit. For these goals it would benefit you to learn more deeply about the professor's research and papers. You will learn about the kinds of problems they find interesting and why. You will also learn about open problems or next steps, which could be what you work on next. The things you learn (at a deep level, not summary level) can be a good starting point for questions about the research, which can help open a conversation where you also learn more about what it would be like to be advised by that person. So you see we come back to advice in other answers about writing emails with deep and specific content, but maybe with some more principled reasoning behind why (from your perspective, not just the professor's). However, I'll end with a disclaimer that while some professors are happy to receive these emails, others are not or don't feel they have time to respond. (On the other hand, I'd expect a genuinely interesting research question/point to usually get a response no matter who sent it.) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It is generally useful to show in your application that you know the topics of the laboratory you are applying to, and show some specific interest in them, that this is something you would like to work on, maybe more than on something else. You start looking more like a human and less like a spam sending bot that pumps identical messages all over the world without caring, where are they going. However I do not think your analysis needs to be very detailed. A few correctly selected statements should be enough, respect also the time of the reader. Do not state any shortcomings you think you see and do not list proposals. Simply express your interest and put some short statement or two to show that your admiration is not script generated. Such applications obviously take much more time to prepare. You need to read at least one of they articles, and better more than one. This works the best if you really worked or has been interested in similar topic so know the articles anyway. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: Don't do that. A brief statement about professor's works is enough, so they'll know that you have read their research. Also, you can refer to their research in your research plan. In your first email, briefly and politely say about yourself, your works and background, and a reason for why you choose this university and this professor; for this part, you can briefly write about the professor's works and their similarity to your research area and what you are planning to do during your Ph.D. program. Generally, you should somehow convince them that you are a potential candidate. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/06	592	2,551	<issue_start>username_0: Usually when I send a manuscript to a journal, in about 1 or 2 days, the status changes to "with editor" and after a maximum of 3 weeks the status changes to "with referee". This is the first time that a journal already spent two weeks until now to evaluate the paper for suitability before assigning it to the editor. Is it normal and what is the maximum logical time for me to wait? p.s., my field is physics and the quartile for this journal is Q1 (IF: 3-4).<issue_comment>username_1: I find nothing odd that assigning the handling editor takes a few extra weeks for some papers. Finding the correct editor to handle a paper can be harder in some case than others. It is better that the journal takes time to get that assignment right. I had a paper go out to referees and then months after submission it was given to a different editor who again sent it to referees. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right editor who could find the appropriate referees. By the way, this case involved a physics journal. Also, maybe an editor got covid or just melted down from too much working from home. We live in interesting times. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For your question, it can be inferred that your paper was submitted to one of the research journals published by the American Physical Society (most likely one of the Physical Review journals). So what I am going to say here will be, in part, based on my specific knowledge of the APS journals. However, most of this answer could be applied to a much more general situation. In short, this is perfectly normal. Most of the time, manuscripts move through the early stages of the submission process more quickly; however, there is nothing especially unusual about it taking a few weeks longer [for the status of the paper](https://authors.aps.org/Submissions/status/) to change. A modest delay is nothing to worry about and can occur for totally innocuous reasons. For example, I have had first-hand experience with submissions to APS journals that appeared to be briefly held up for all the following reasons: * There was discussion among the editorial staff of whether the manuscript was more appropriate for a different Physical Review journal. * The editors were having unexpected problems getting one of the figures to appear correctly. * One of the editors was out sick for a week. * Someone at the editorial office forgot to change the manuscript's status in their system. If I were you, I would not be worried at this point at all. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/06	711	3,298	<issue_start>username_0: I proposed to work on a problem in the proposal, but one of the referees thought that the problem had already been solved in some previous papers. However, the papers they cited do not solve the proposed problem, not even close. This has been confirmed by my colleagues. The referee themselves meant no harm, because they strongly recommended funding the proposal anyway. I believe it was just an honest mistake without serious thinking. But the decision committee took this comment quite seriously (well, I think they should), and they rejected my proposal. What could be done in this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: Overall, this would depend on the specific appeals procedures for the granting agency to which you applied for funding. I, personally, have only ever been involved with US NSF and Simons Foundation (either as an applicant or as a panelist/reviewer). In both these cases appeals based on disagreements with referee reports are not considered, e.g., NSF explicitly states, "Reviews are made available directly to the PI, to provide feedback for the purpose of improving proposed research and research methods, and to assist in preparation of future proposals. They are not intended for any other purpose." (Simons doesn't make reviews available altogether.) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: What you do is improve the proposal, so that the next time you submit it somewhere, the reviewers will not make the same kind of mistake. That's really all you can do. For proposals submitted to government agencies, there are generally formal appeals process, but those processes exist to protest against egregious conflicts of interest or other procedural errors. They are not designed or intended to deal with disagreements about the academic merit of a proposal, as determined by the reviewers and program officers. It can be extremely frustrating when a reviewer misunderstands your proposal or mistakenly discounts its importance. However, you should bear in mind that the fact that the scope and significance of your proposal were misunderstood by a reviewer indicates that the exposition in the proposal was probably not as clear as it could have been—making the reviewer's misunderstanding possible.\* The situation is very similar to what happens with peer review for submitted manuscripts (although the stakes are higher for grant proposals). In either case—and, indeed, in scientific communication more generally—you are very frequently going to be addressing readers and interlocutors who are not experts intimately familiar with the area of your research. It is now incumbent upon you to improve your presentation so that the next reviewer will not have the same misunderstanding. So the next time you submit this proposal, to the same funder or somewhere else, you know that you can add a clarification to avoid repeating the misunderstanding: something like, "Although it may appear that this question was resolved in Refs. [6—8], the general problem still remains open, because...." Of course, if you wish, you can forgo this kind of editing before you resubmit, but that is at your own risk. \*As [xkcd has noted](https://xkcd.com/1984/), communicating is never an activity that just involves one person. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
2021/06/06	1,747	7,347	<issue_start>username_0: I applied for a teaching position with a special focus on data science and artificial intelligence, these are the instructions for a presentation I will make: > > Assume that the audience is a class of 200 Computer Science stage 2 > Undergraduate students in their fifth week of term (i.e. midway > through the term) on a programming module. Give a 15 min of delivery > of a lecture as you would teach this in class. Follow this up with a > 5-minute discussion explaining the delivery approach and why you think > it is the right approach for this cohort. > > > I asked specifications on a typical weekly program and what exactly is a Programming Module, and whether I can present any topic (of any course) keeping in mind where the students stand, or whether I am obliged to choose from the list, noone specified these for me and I am afraid I need to send the presentation in 1.5 days from now. All they did was to direct me to [this page](https://www.city.ac.uk/prospective-students/courses/undergraduate/computer-science). More information about the program can be found [here](https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/459228/USCSCI-BSc-Computer-Science.pdf). But these do not answer my questions, particularly what a Programming Module is, and whether I can pick any class (Does it have to be from Stage 2 list? Does it have to be a specific course on the list? Or can I go with data science for example, and just assume the kids will be able to follow considering their programme that far?) I would be happy if you can let me know what you think if you are familiar with the UK system / computer science education.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a role-playing exercise to determine if your teaching is suitable for their classes. You do not have to create an "actual" lecture which fits with their programme or curriculum, but you could if you wished. They want to ensure that you can explain something from a computer science programming topic at a suitable level. This means you should not be delivering something at kindergarten level or delivering research results at a world class conference of peers. Something between those extremes. So clearly they state you are not teaching the freshers and they will have had a year of programming classes already. Choose a topic that would be more advanced, but still in a programming text book. Something like lambda functions, lazy evaluation, estoteric programming languages (just off the top of my head); or as @Astronat suggests some unique feature of C++ that may be new to the students. This has nothing to do with the UK system specifically, but is a standard test that you can actually teach, speak clearly, prepare class material and so on. We have just done a similar exercise a few weeks back. The fact that you have to ask in a public place might already show you do not have the capability they seek. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, I would slightly disagree with some points in the offered answer. While you could, as per the other answer, prepare for a "standard test that you can actually teach, speak clearly, prepare class material", I think you might give a better impression if you show that you have tried adapting your delivery to the specific requirements of the institution you are applying to. Following the link you included, and looking under "Structure" (of the BSc in Computer Science), I find that students have Programming in Java in Year 1, followed by Programming in C++ in Year 2. I would assume that stage 2 means Year 2, and would prepare something that follows their general description of Year 2 programming module: > > Programming in C++ (15 Credits) > > > The module focuses on introducing some basic aspects of the C++ language in a gradual manner so as to allow students to use it with confidence in follow-up modules and in their professional career. > > > For the topic, I would try to connect to their programme: * Stick to the programming language and concepts from the module description: a basic C++ concept (maybe pointers maybe exemplified with a linked list?) * However, they have a separate module called "Data Structures and Algorithms". You can show that you are aware of this by referencing something they have learned on a different module (e.g. those linked lists). * In their first year, they had "Programming in Java" (for twice the credits). So compare and contrast with that: talk about how linked lists are implemented in a language they should already be proficient (well, familiar...) with. For teaching practices, you need to make sure your example presentation covers the requirements they set to you with saying "200 Computer Science stage 2 Undergraduate students in their fifth week of term": * There are 200 students in this class. Show how you teach a big class. (And then speak about the techniques you relied on in the discussion.) A standard follow-up question might be "And how would you change your delivery if the class had only 50 or 20 students?" * They are in their midway through their term. You should take this into account in your delivery, by referencing, or even better, interacting with the "students" about past lecture material (similar to some points above). * Most UK Universities are really keen on having interactivity in their lectures (rather than the dry "I talk you listen" lecture) anyway, so I'm repeating this point separately. Finally, on role-playing: * You might be expected to role-play and pretend your committee are students. I have friends that totally get into it, while I cringe at the thought of treating a committee member as a student, even for a minute. * Best advice I got for how to cope with this is to "break the 4th wall", and instead of role-playing, announce "I would now ask the students for an answer, wait for a minute to let them think and pick somebody to attempt an answer" (or something similar). * But if you can get into it, use it. You have a 5-minute slot where you need to discuss "why your chosen teaching approach was right for this cohort". You could pretend you have a great cohort (probably boring) or a cohort that has shaky basic knowledge (due to a covid year?), or a cohort not used to public speaking (again, due to covid?), tailor your approach specifically to your pretend-flavour of cohort and explain it in your discussion. Terminology note: in the UK system, a course is usually a whole study programme (BSc in Computer Science) while a student will take a number of different modules in a semester (e.g. Programming and Data Structures are often considered "core modules"). Additional note on the topic: depending on the teaching load at the institution you are applying at (and some UK Universities have quite a high one), the institution often values the ability (and willingness) to deliver "core modules" in addition to specialised modules from one's own field of expertise. They won't hire somebody developing the next C++ standard to teach the students programming. And consequently, as most staff is expected to be somewhat familiar with the content of most "core modules", they also tend to be the easiest to target in interview presentations. Good luck with your preparation and interview. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2021/06/06	1,444	6,292	<issue_start>username_0: I'd like to understand if there could be disadvantages to submitting applications to several graduate programs within a single university system (e.g. Texas A&M, University of California, etc)? May there be any cross-communication between different campuses/universities within a system during the admission process? Are the admission decisions always made independently? If my application is rejected by one university within a system, is it more likely to be rejected by other universities within the same system? The subject is engineering, but I am not sure how much this matters.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a role-playing exercise to determine if your teaching is suitable for their classes. You do not have to create an "actual" lecture which fits with their programme or curriculum, but you could if you wished. They want to ensure that you can explain something from a computer science programming topic at a suitable level. This means you should not be delivering something at kindergarten level or delivering research results at a world class conference of peers. Something between those extremes. So clearly they state you are not teaching the freshers and they will have had a year of programming classes already. Choose a topic that would be more advanced, but still in a programming text book. Something like lambda functions, lazy evaluation, estoteric programming languages (just off the top of my head); or as @Astronat suggests some unique feature of C++ that may be new to the students. This has nothing to do with the UK system specifically, but is a standard test that you can actually teach, speak clearly, prepare class material and so on. We have just done a similar exercise a few weeks back. The fact that you have to ask in a public place might already show you do not have the capability they seek. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, I would slightly disagree with some points in the offered answer. While you could, as per the other answer, prepare for a "standard test that you can actually teach, speak clearly, prepare class material", I think you might give a better impression if you show that you have tried adapting your delivery to the specific requirements of the institution you are applying to. Following the link you included, and looking under "Structure" (of the BSc in Computer Science), I find that students have Programming in Java in Year 1, followed by Programming in C++ in Year 2. I would assume that stage 2 means Year 2, and would prepare something that follows their general description of Year 2 programming module: > > Programming in C++ (15 Credits) > > > The module focuses on introducing some basic aspects of the C++ language in a gradual manner so as to allow students to use it with confidence in follow-up modules and in their professional career. > > > For the topic, I would try to connect to their programme: * Stick to the programming language and concepts from the module description: a basic C++ concept (maybe pointers maybe exemplified with a linked list?) * However, they have a separate module called "Data Structures and Algorithms". You can show that you are aware of this by referencing something they have learned on a different module (e.g. those linked lists). * In their first year, they had "Programming in Java" (for twice the credits). So compare and contrast with that: talk about how linked lists are implemented in a language they should already be proficient (well, familiar...) with. For teaching practices, you need to make sure your example presentation covers the requirements they set to you with saying "200 Computer Science stage 2 Undergraduate students in their fifth week of term": * There are 200 students in this class. Show how you teach a big class. (And then speak about the techniques you relied on in the discussion.) A standard follow-up question might be "And how would you change your delivery if the class had only 50 or 20 students?" * They are in their midway through their term. You should take this into account in your delivery, by referencing, or even better, interacting with the "students" about past lecture material (similar to some points above). * Most UK Universities are really keen on having interactivity in their lectures (rather than the dry "I talk you listen" lecture) anyway, so I'm repeating this point separately. Finally, on role-playing: * You might be expected to role-play and pretend your committee are students. I have friends that totally get into it, while I cringe at the thought of treating a committee member as a student, even for a minute. * Best advice I got for how to cope with this is to "break the 4th wall", and instead of role-playing, announce "I would now ask the students for an answer, wait for a minute to let them think and pick somebody to attempt an answer" (or something similar). * But if you can get into it, use it. You have a 5-minute slot where you need to discuss "why your chosen teaching approach was right for this cohort". You could pretend you have a great cohort (probably boring) or a cohort that has shaky basic knowledge (due to a covid year?), or a cohort not used to public speaking (again, due to covid?), tailor your approach specifically to your pretend-flavour of cohort and explain it in your discussion. Terminology note: in the UK system, a course is usually a whole study programme (BSc in Computer Science) while a student will take a number of different modules in a semester (e.g. Programming and Data Structures are often considered "core modules"). Additional note on the topic: depending on the teaching load at the institution you are applying at (and some UK Universities have quite a high one), the institution often values the ability (and willingness) to deliver "core modules" in addition to specialised modules from one's own field of expertise. They won't hire somebody developing the next C++ standard to teach the students programming. And consequently, as most staff is expected to be somewhat familiar with the content of most "core modules", they also tend to be the easiest to target in interview presentations. Good luck with your preparation and interview. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2021/06/06	3,446	14,290	<issue_start>username_0: To begin with, suppose I want to get up-to-date with the content of Journal of Financial Economics. The specific journal has published several volumes in the period 1974-2020. So far, I 've considered strategies as the following: * The linear brute-force approach is the first to come to mind, that is to start reading all volumes since 1974 up to 2020. I suppose this can not be done and is probably naive thinking on my part. * The linear abstract brute-force approach, that is to read all abstracts from 1974 to 2020, and record all review\* papers or particularly important/interesting articles. On the second pass, read only those papers. Maybe this is more realistic. * A variation of the previous method, in which we skip the earliest decades e.g. start from 2000-2020. * Read only the last years volumes and use textbooks to gain previous knowledge etc * Read only the most cited papers\* in the journal to get the "backbone knowledge". \Unfortunately I see no "review paper" filter in ScienceDirect's UI, so I guess these must be tracked down manually. It seems that sorting with citations is also not available, so these have to be tracked manually as well. After some time I guess I was wrong to think that an entire journal is supposed to be read from start-to-finish like a textbook. Yet, I seem to have learned so much more from textbooks that provide organized and logical structures for knowledge. The knowledge in journals seem more scattered, too specific, randomly selected and without knowledge structure (e.g. ten articles in a single volume may have nothing to do with each other). Thus, I find it strange to hear that people get all their knowledge from journals and don't use textbooks anymore. Of course, I believe that journals are extremely valuable. I get it that they are the primary material from which textbooks are written. It is only due to me not knowing the exact method to approach them that they (at least at the time) don't seem useful to me. My questions on the subject: What is the right way to approach academic journals, if not to read them start-to-finish? * How do you make the transition as a textbook reader to a scholar that gains actual value from journals? * Is there a reason to spend time with papers written in e.g. the 1970-2000 era? or is it better to get this knowledge from textbooks?<issue_comment>username_1: 1. What is the right way to approach academic journals, if not to read them start-to-finish?: You read articles on a concrete topic that is of relevance to you. Journals are essentially a collection of independent texts that have undergone some quality assurance. Having said this, it's not uncommon for researchers to look at each new issue of the journals most relevant for their own work if they contain interesting articles. However, this can't be your only source of information. You have to make an effort to find relevant articles even if they are published in journals other than the main ones for your field. Google Scholar or related services are commonly used tools for this purpose. 2. How do you make the transition as a textbook reader to a scholar that gains actual value from journals?: You Kind-of make it automatically. There is really nothing wrong with textbooks. They contain an exposition of scholarly material that is optimized for accessibility to the main audience. But when you do research on a topic, you will see that the relevant textbooks leave some questions open. And this is when you start looking for relevant articles in journals (or for related monographs). 3. Is there a reason to spend time with papers written in e.g. the 1970-2000 era? or is it better to get this knowledge from textbooks?: There are of course reasons for reading original papers. For instance, the result you are interested in may not have made it into a textbook. Or, you don't trust the textbook in a detail (yes, they contain errors...sometimes). Or you need more information. Or you want to understand the motivation of the work. And so on. And then it doesn't really matter when the original publication appeared. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A journal is not meant to be read from cover to cover\. As you have rightly identified, articles in a single issue or volume of a journal are generally not connected to each other, beyond the broad scope of the journal itself. > > What is the right way to approach academic journals, if not to read > them start-to-finish? > > > The right way to approach academic journals is to forget about them. In my own field (cosmology), I would be well justified in submitting any paper I write to one of about six journals. A couple of these are slightly more specialised (or are slanted towards observational astronomy or astrophysics), so I would think about how to frame my results and the overall style and presentation of my paper if I wanted to submit it to one of those. On top of those six, there are a couple more prestigious journals (Nature Astronomy and Physical Review Letters) which have a much broader scope (PRL covers all of physics) but are accordingly extremely selective. So, unless the publishing culture in economics is far more specialised and delineated than cosmology, you don't need to stick to one journal to find papers on the subject you're interested in. > > How do you make the transition as a textbook reader to a scholar that > gains actual value from journals? > > > Do you really sit down and read a textbook from cover to cover? I applaud you if you are able to do that. In my experience, textbooks are usually used as reference works, and you might read one chapter when one piece of information is needed and another at a later time, not necessarily in chapter order. You should treat papers in the same way. Read them to get an answer to a specific question you have. > > Is there a reason to spend time with papers written in e.g. the > 1970-2000 era? or is it better to get this knowledge from textbooks? > > > and > > I find it strange to hear that people get all their knowledge from > journals and don't use textbooks any more. > > > It all depends on what your aim is. Textbooks are primarily pedagogical, and tend to have undergraduate students in mind as the target audience. Accordingly, the content is much broader and far less up-to-date than what you will find in papers. That's fine if you want an introduction to the field, but if you want to perform research yourself, you need to know what's going on at the cutting edge, which is what reading papers will tell you. Think of a newspaper -- it wouldn't make much sense to read every issue of The Guardian since 1821 to find out last week's cricket scores. To get that information, I read the cricket column in the sports section of the most recent Saturday edition. You should, however, absolutely read papers* from the 1970-2000s -- and why stop there? Perhaps it's different in economics, but some of the most important papers in cosmology were published between 1910 and 1930. You may miss a seminal work in the field due to an arbitrary date before which you declare works to be valueless. In summary, don't read journals, read papers. --- \Perhaps they were, once upon a time, but research in all subjects has diversified so much and increased in volume so much that it's impossible for any one person to be abreast of their entire subject any more. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You are vastly underestimating the degree to which scholars specialize. A professor might say that their area of research is financial economics, and of course they'll be familiar with all the basic principles of that area, but what they actually do research on is the financial economics affecting small family-sized dairy farms in Vermont. This professor might read articles on finances of agriculture, on finances of rural communities in developed countries, on financing of family sized businesses, and on agriculture futures markets. That might account for maybe two or three articles per year published in that journal, and some articles published in other journals as well. That's all. They're not actually up to date on most of financial economics. Mathematics is more hyper-specialized than most fields, but, as a mathematician, I probably read fewer papers than I write. (No I'm not reading textbooks either.) You don't need to know everything about an area of research to contribute to it, only a tiny subsubsubarea that you know very very well. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As a beginner, you should subscribe to their table of content alerts. Most journals send out the titles (and sometimes abstracts) from their latest issues. They send it through emails, if you subscribe to such alerts. Find it out for each journal you are interested in how you can subscribe to such alerts. If you find the title interesting, read the abstract. And if abstract is also interesting, read the entire paper. You don't have to read each and every issue of the journal from cover to cover. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Trying to "read a journal" is somewhat analogous to trying to "read a library" or "read the internet", or at least trying to read a selected section of the library or the internet, such as all library items with a [Library of Congress call number beginning with HG](https://catalog.loc.gov/vwebv/search?searchCode=CALL%2B&searchArg=HG&searchType=1) or all [online items resulting from a google phrase search for "financial economics"](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22financial+economics%22&filter=0). Journals are repositories of information, like the library or the internet. You don't read a journal. Instead, you read articles about a specific topic that you're currently interested in, and these articles will likely be located in many different journals. For example, unless I've miscounted, in [this answer](https://math.stackexchange.com/a/663525/13130) I give 17 journal references about a certain topic and 13 different journals are represented, and in [this answer](https://hsm.stackexchange.com/a/3083/264) I give 10 journal references about a certain topic and 9 different journals are represented. That said, for nearly every researcher there will be certain journals (usually [of general interest to those in that field](https://www.ams.org/publications/journals/journalsframework/aboutbull) or [of specific relevance to the researcher's interests](https://www.springer.com/journal/233)) whose issues the researcher will periodically browse as they are published. Also, sometimes when researching a specific topic you may find that many papers on that topic are published in a certain journal, and thus you might be led to scan over the table of contents for that journal, perhaps for an appropriate period (e.g. 1970s through 1990s). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: While the other answers are right in saying that you are not expected to read journal issues cover-to-cover, that doesn't quite reach the question you asked originally - > > suppose I want to get up-to-date with the content of Journal of Financial Economics* > > > So a starting point here is not necessarily "understand absolutely everything about financial economics", but something more like "understand what sort of material typically appears in this journal". Journals differ in the breadth of topics they cover, their degree of selectiveness, apparent prestige, and other dimensions. Some are more friendly to publishing papers of niche interest, or that present more incremental work, or that aim to give the definitive account of some research program, or survey papers, or expository papers, and so forth. Reading cover-to-cover is not needed to figure this out, but I do see value in starting with a particular choice of journal, just as a way into making sense of the research field (and being aware that it really is a starting point on a journey that will take you to many other publications). You can get a sense of what's the case by looking at: * What does the journal say about itself? Look at its submission guidelines, reviewer guidelines, "about" pages, and so on. * What kinds of paper do they actually print? This may differ from the point above, because a journal's purpose and audience can shift over time, or its ambition may not be matched by reality. By looking at recent papers, you can see whether the Journal of Gadget Studies tends to mainly print work on historical statistics of widget production, and not so much on other aspects of the field. * Who publishes in it? Or conversely, looking at people you consider to be important in the field, find out where they land their papers. * How are they assessed by experts? While journal rankings are a very contested topic, you can usually find a bunch of online opinions about which venues are good/difficult/proper/hostile/desirable/etc. for which kinds of work. Answering these questions will force you to look at the papers themselves, not necessarily in much detail at first, but just enough to tell things like "this is a theory paper", "this is a book review", "this is a position paper", and so on. You will also develop a sense for sub-topics within the journal's field, and start to recognize recurring names of people and institutions. At the same time, you are likely to notice that some topics or questions are more interesting to you than others. You might start reading those papers more closely, following their citations, seeing what else the authors have worked on, and otherwise engaging more closely with the area. Perhaps you will start to have your own ideas and questions about it - in which case, welcome to research! Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: No, don't read the entire thing cover-to-cover. That would be an absolute waste of time. A good way to find what are the more important papers to read are these: [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mUFd7.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mUFd7.png) It's not necessarily a list of the best papers, but it is a good reflection of the papers addressing important topics that many people care about or are interested in. It's an excellent place to start. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/06	490	1,997	<issue_start>username_0: I'm European and I'm about to accept a tenure-track position in the US where I will come up for tenure review after 2 years (i.e. get tenure after 3), as I have already spent a number of years in a comparable position. While negotiating, I was warned that I must obtain permanent residency in the US before they can grant me tenure, but they couldn't tell me whether the 3 years of my initial contract will be sufficient time for doing so. Apparently, this 3 years can't be extended unless I get tenure, so I better manage to obtain a green card within 3 years. This somewhat conflicts with what my US-based colleagues assured me, namely that the process of getting permanent residency is quite straightforward for professors. My question: How long did it take for you (or your colleague) to get permanent residency through the "Outstanding professors or researchers" (EB-1B) category?<issue_comment>username_1: It takes less than 2 years in average to get a green card. If the University does not help, you should hire a lawyer. It takes several thousands dollars to do that, but this is money well spent. But most Universities have immigration lawyers and they help. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: At my institution (the University of California), I believe that one can still go through the process of being judged for tenure and what happens is that if one does not have permanent residency at the time of promotion they are instead put on as an "Acting Associate Professor" for a two-year period. They would then become a tenured "Associate Professor" at the end of that time, assuming the greencard has come through. It's worth checking whether your university has a similar policy, as that would seem to solve your main problem. Your university may have an immigration lawyer who will work with you to file everything. If not, be sure to hire one. It's a complicated process but can be quite smooth with competent lawyers. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/07	3,700	16,008	<issue_start>username_0: I know this individual who has lied on their medical school application by not disclosing a disciplinary action that they received and is now about to matriculate. They explicitly told me this, in writing. Further, I know from being in the same classes that they cheated in many classes, including after the one in which they were caught. There is a question on the application asking about past incidents of academic misconduct. The student must answer "yes" to the question if they've ever received disciplinary action, to which they lied and put "no". However, the misconduct isn't noted on the transcript; but if the uni was contacted it holds records that would prove the cheating incident. This infuriates me and I feel like it's my ethical duty to notify their school of their status. Is this the right thing to do?<issue_comment>username_1: The medical school should require that the student provide their transcripts from universities where they previously studied. If misconduct should be disclosed, it should appear on the transcript. You do not have a duty to do anything if you are not involved in providing transcripts. If you do not have an official role in the enforcement of academic integrity and are not affiliated with the medical school, I suggest you do not get involved. There is considerable variation in opinion about the appropriate response to cheating if you are not involved in the cheating. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I’m personally against lying, but let’s acknowledge a few uncomfortable truths here: 1. This individual’s lie was almost certainly motivated by fear that telling the truth would hurt their med school application. 2. Even many very honest people would lie if you put them in a position of having to choose between telling the truth and being allowed to pursue their dream career (a dream which may well be motivated by noble/altruistic reasons). 3. Most people in general tell lies, including some relatively consequential ones, over the course of their lives, and especially in early adult life at the age at which one would typically be applying to medical school. 4. This particular lie might not actually be so big if the disciplinary action the individual didn’t report was not significant enough to be reported on their transcript. (Considering this, one can even turn the question around and ask if it’s ethical for medical schools to ask questions that probe into unverifiable aspects of their applicants’ lives, creating an obvious temptation for lying.) So, is reporting the dishonesty the right thing to do? That strikes me as a profoundly difficult ethics question. I don’t have an answer. [additional content from a previous version removed — see edit history for details] Edit: the question has undergone some editing since I posted the answer, and my own update to the answer was also edited by well-meaning users who nonetheless modified my answer in a way I do not endorse.\ I can’t keep up with this flurry of activity, so I’ve removed a part of my earlier answer. See the edit history.* Some content from an earlier edit (note: this references now-deleted comments so may not make complete sense): To OP: what I would say in view of the new information is that it’s still not an obvious decision, but I’ll grant that the argument in favor of reporting the dishonesty is stronger than I thought before. At the same time, I noticed that in response to another answer you wrote a whole laundry list of misdeeds this person is supposedly guilty of, and that you “know” they will be dishonest as a physician. Well, I’m not in a position to argue, and you may well be right in this assessment. However, from an ethics perspective, it seems to me that whether you should report someone for the specific offense of lying on their med school application is quite a different ethics dilemma than whether you should try to sabotage their ambitions to become a doctor because of a whole list of other bad things you know about them, whose truth the medical school would likely be in no position to assess, and about which you might conceivably even be mistaken (quantitatively if not qualitatively). Basically I’m saying, consider carefully your motivation here and whether it can ethically justify ruining this person’s career goals (assuming your actions will have that effect). There was [another question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/167071/40589) on academia.se recently where someone asked if they should report their former roommate to the academic department that hired him for being generally a bad person, lying, cheating and whatnot. There was more or less a consensus that this would be quite inappropriate. I’m not saying it’s obvious that one should never warn schools about people with a bad character - again, what strikes me about your question is exactly how non-obvious it is what is the right thing to do in such a situation. But it’s something to think about very carefully at least. \* apparently this was done out of an objection to my use of the strikethrough formatting feature, which I find strange considering that this feature is offered by StackExchange, presumably implying that they approve of its use and believe some writers would find it useful. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: You note in a comment that the violation doesn't show up on the student's transcript. What you've run into is the fact that most colleges and universities these days are completely unwilling and unable to deal appropriately with academic misconduct by undergrads. There are several reasons for this: * They're afraid of lawsuits, and unlike in a rape case, there is no identifiable victim who could also potentially sue them. * Cheating is extremely widespread (e.g., freshman physics students using Chegg on homework, or on online exams during covid). Therefore the relevant administrators would be overwhelmed if they tried to take every case seriously. * Most faculty don't want to go through the work of reporting cases of dishonesty. * There may be state laws prohibiting the school from doing anything on a first offense, or from taking action beyond minor stuff like giving an F on the assignment. With these "first time is free" rules, every time is effectively a first time, because violations never actually get recorded. What you're proposing is to do an end run around this system and report the violation directly to the graduate program that the student is applying to. While I understand and share your frustration, such an action would be problematic: * The school being applied to probably will not accept such information, nor would they have the tools to verify your reliability or the strength of the evidence. * It creates a situation where the student doesn't know that they are being blackballed. This is sneaky and dishonest. If the student knew, and felt that you were wrong or your action was unfair, they could argue their side. Keeping it secret from them means that they don't even have these options. Two wrong don't make a right. Your school has a system that has rules and checks and balances. It's frustrating that that system likely lets off almost all dishonest students with a slap on the wrist, but you can't fix it by sneaking around and playing vigilante. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: 3 questions for you: 1. Are you motivated out of personal interest or morale obligation? If you just want to see the person "punished", that is not your job. If you feel the individual will be a detriment to the medical profession and possible cause harm, then you need to act. 2. Was his behavior an isolated incident or part of a pattern? Many people been put into situations where they felt the "wrong" decision was the only one left to them. In my experience that is rare, and most people own up to it afterwards. Unfortunately, several of the discipline cases I've dealt with were repeat offenders with a pattern of behavior that required action. 3. What is your expected outcome? Are you out to punish the individual; protect the profession, open a seat for a more deserving applicant or make yourself feel better for "righting a wrong". There are many reasons to inform the medical school; make sure you are doing it for the right reason, or you regret it later. You need to decide what is the right decision for you to live with. He will have to live with the consequences of his actions. Make sure you can live with yours. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Ultimately, you're just giving the medical school more information so that they can make a more informed decision. At that point, it will be up to them to weigh the situation. They will either choose to ignore your email (possibly suspecting that you were motivated by a personal vendetta), to contact the person to obtain a clarification from them, or to revoke their admission decision. That being the case, I see very little downside to presenting this info to the medical school. This has possibly happened before, so that they have institutional experience and procedures for dealing with it. And if it's for the first time, it probably won't be the last, so they'll need to develop such procedures eventually. The other answers and commenters seem to be placing themselves in the ethical position of the medical school: what to do after hearing an allegation. And that ethical position is very difficult. (So you should not be upset or morally indignant if they ignore you, or appear to ignore you.) But I would argue that your ethical position is less complicated. It is not unethical to put a medical school in an ethically tricky situation: it should be used to facing ethical challenges. So long as you can do so without violating any privacy regulations, making an allegation is not unethical. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I would take a slightly different view. It is not your job (assuming you don't work at the university records department) you aren't the original accuser (or convector) and really have no duty to act here. and I have no opinion of wether this person would be a good physician or not (having worked admissions at my medical school it is an incredibly hard question to actually answer). But the correct person to approach is the original faculty member who brought him up on these charges at the university, to ask why these aren't on the transcript? A suspension would seem to rise to something on your transcript (since normally any break would be reported such as a leave of absence, etc). While you say you have written evidence of this, you presumably weren't the originator of the process at the university. Your doing an end-run of the university discipline process would likely be viewed as highly suspect by the medical school (given the huge competitive nature of medical school all sorts of sabotage during the pre-med process are highly common, which they would likely suspect this as) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Perform a calm evidence-based evaluation of the risk that your inaction will allow such a person to go on to become a cheating, lying, 'doctor', who treats patients badly, potentially harming or killing them for the sake of his/her own career. Take into account that others' lives are not toys. If you believe the risk is high enough, then you have enough reason to do what you want to stop such a person from getting into a medical profession. Just for example, it would have been far better for thousands of people if [this quack doctor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burzynski_Clinic) never got his medical license. If you choose to report this, you should provide upfront as much information as possible, emphasizing how to verify your main claims, because they may not reply to you to ask further (whether it is due to unwillingness to address the issue or something else). By providing all appropriate information, you minimize the excuse the school can potentially give for ignoring your report. Also be careful not to reveal your personal identity, for your own safety. And of course you have to take responsibility for your actions. But this applies whether you act or do not act. So choose what you think is the best path. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Just report it. The potential damages caused by a doctor with criminal inclinations is just too much. They come across the most vulnerable people in this profession who blindly rely on them. If their past behaviour is excusable, it's up to the School to decide. I will just mention a small story which may be (slightly) relevant. I have a friend who worked with me some time back. He was accused of inappropriate behaviour by a female coworker (stalking and eve-teasing). When reported, he merely got a slap on the wrist and everyone else instead convinced (peer-presssured) the female to "forgive" him, claiming it was a one-time thing. I don't know if he did such things in future or not (he didn't tell me himself) but currently, that guy is the manager there (after gradual promotion), and I hear that such behaviours are rampant in the office (I have left the place but stay in touch with friends I made there, including that guy). In fact, recently a new recruits left the job due to such harassments. And the guy (manager) was once telling me about how he received a complaint about one of the employees from some other group working with them in temporary partnership. He just laughed and told me that he summoned the accussed and candidly told him that this is no big dea and that he had done similar things "back in his time" so he understands. I will just say that I personally will never jump to convict someone, but hiding evidence is just promoting crime in future, in one way or another. Let the evidence be there, what the judge (School) decides is their job. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: The system you describe where: * the suspension is on the student's record, but the record isn't sent to medical schools unless they specifically request it, and * the medical schools don't specifically request this method unless informed by the applicant that it contains something worth reading seems bizarre and unlikely to me. I would first consider it a possibility that you've misunderstood how the system works. Maybe the university's department of academic integrity makes a judgement call about whether an academic infraction is severe enough to send to medical schools? If this is the case, you shouldn't override the judgement call based what you've heard: you have much less information and context than they do! Maybe some medical schools will in fact request these records no matter what the applicant says, and include the question as a sort of "gotcha". If this is the case, there is no point in contacting them. Maybe some medical schools don't want to consider this information until necessary; maybe they want to extend their students some amount of trust, and won't request the records until something else comes up. If this is the case, they still don't want you to contact them. Maybe there's something else I haven't thought of... --- ...or maybe the system really is broken. If this is the case, what's the point of going around the system in the case of one individual you've heard about? Their offense may not even be the worst offense. If the system is broken, maybe your report will mean that someone even less honest will get their spot. If you're really convinced the system is broken, try fixing the system. Contact the medical schools and the university's department of academic integrity to verify that you've understood the facts as they really are. Then point out the problem to them. (I'm making this sound easy, but it probably involves making the same argument lots of times to different people and being both persuasive and stubborn.) If you do that, there's a chance they'll treat everyone more reasonably. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/07	354	1,455	<issue_start>username_0: Background: CS undergrad applying to CS PhD FALL 2022 I am working on a project but don't think I will be able to publish it before I send out my admits. I am planning to just attach a draft on my CV. Question: 1. Is this something one should do? 2. Or should I just mention it without any draft? I am going to talk about the project in brief on my SOP. That's why I want to attach it.<issue_comment>username_1: In the CV, you can mention it under 'Working Papers', and yes, attach the document as a separate file to the application. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Many (but not all) PhD applications specifically ask for a writing sample. The exact requirements can vary, but in my experience unpublished drafts are typically acceptable. That would be an ideal approach to share your work with them. Otherwise, if they don't ask for a writing sample or allow attaching additional documents, do not try to use a trojan horse. When they ask for a CV, they expect just a CV. However impressive your paper may be, it probably won't outweigh ignoring their fairly direct instructions. If they don't provide any official way to share it, then I completely agree with username_1 and recommend listing/linking it within your CV. It's common to have a section for publications and (now that soft copies are standard) a link makes it easy for anyone who actually wants to look at it. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/07	358	1,561	<issue_start>username_0: I want to cite the author of [nearest centroid classifier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearest_centroid_classifier). However, I can find neither the author nor the time when this technique was used first. Of course, I may cite the many book chapters which explain extensively this technique. However, in general, where should I look to find the author's information?<issue_comment>username_1: I would start by talking with the librarian research specialists at your institution's academic library. They may have a discipline specialist in your field, or they may have a history of science specialist. They are very adept at using the research databases, almost for sure they can get you on tracks you would otherwise not take. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The general procedure is to look at a recent book or survey article that mentions this and see what is cited. If not the original author, then perhaps an earlier article. Then look in there, see what is cited, etc. The hard part is knowing when to stop. If I cannot find the original author after a few hours of searching I would stop unless I am finding the process interesting and I have the time. It is acceptable to stop after a reasonable length of time and just cite a textbook or survey article. You need to know your audience. I find many mathematicians love to read about a 150 year old paper in Flemish, while most physicists are not so historically minded. Nobody is right, expect Referee B who asks you to dig further back. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/07	880	3,480	<issue_start>username_0: I'm at the end of my 2nd PhD. I dropped out of my first one after three years of abuse -- real abuse -- at the hands of a project postdoc. He would shout at me over anything and was sometimes physically violent. My supervisors wouldn't help me and I eventually dropped out with PTSD (not just because of him, but because that experience was happening alongside a lot of other horrible experiences in my life). The trouble is, objectively I don't think I did anything wrong. I was recruited into a geography PhD and the postdoc was a physicist. He kept trying to make my project much harder than it was. I don't know why he was so angry, but his complaints about me were continuous. I think his standard was impossible, but nothing I tried made any difference. Academia was my dream so eventually I tried again. This time is totally different, I have tons of support, I've published two papers and have finished a third. But the truth is that every second of every day I still feel like a bad student. I feel like there's this angry critical voice pulling apart everything I do. Right now, my PhD is 95% done. I could finish it in a couple of weeks. But I just feel so bad about myself that I can't even look at it. I have a tiny bit of work on my third paper that I just can't do. I can't stop believing all of these horrible things about myself: that I'm lazy and stupid, I can't write my own code, I'm not smart enough, I'm bad at maths, I can't be trusted, my work is full of mistakes, nothing I do will come to any good. I've seen a therapist, I've told my supervisors how I feel... nothing really makes a difference. It's got to the point where they are starting to be a bit critical of slow progress too, and these fears are becoming self-fulfilling. Just wondered if anyone had any advice on moving forward.<issue_comment>username_1: It sounds like you know what you need to do to finish. Make a list of things to do and go through it to the best of your ability. Your papers and dissertation don't have to be perfect. You've published 2 papers so your work is clearly good enough. If your negative self-talk interferes with that, then seek professional help, like a therapist, before your perceptions of being a "bad student" start to really interfere with your progress. If your therapist isn't helping, you can always look for another one. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, this sounds like classic burn-out. You've been at it intensively for a long time. A lot of us went through that, though not always so close to finishing. Add uncertainty about the future on top and it is bound to cause problems. But, two things. Take one day at a time and just get done what you need to get done. Try not to compromise more than necessary, but use something like a daily plan to make the progress you need so that the end is successful. And, your education/learning/skill-development doesn't end when you get the degree. If you are a poor coder, you can change that. You can learn the math you need when you need it. You have a long time to go, yet, and the pressure is likely to ease a bit, at least for a while. I found that getting some (aerobic) exercise several times a week was a good way to cope with the stress. But, you don't sound like a bad student. Just a tired one. Investigate [Imposter Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome), though this feels more like burnout. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2021/06/07	830	3,428	<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student and will give a "virtual poster presentation" at a conference this summer. It seems like the standard templates for academic posters are not appropriate here, because: * it will likely be viewed on a much smaller screen than the standard poster-paper size * although I imagine the format is more informal than in a conference talk, the lack of in-person interaction means I guess the content has to be presented more linearly, more like a standard conference talk. The answers to [this post](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/150985/what-makes-a-good-recorded-video-poster-presentation-for-an-academic-conference#151285) indicate a much-simplified style would be better (i.e., make a poster which is like a single slide of a talk) . But the problem is that my topic is not very "visual" and, since the audience is mostly working in a different area to me, even explaining the minimal amount of context would probably make the slide so confusing and busy as to be unreadable. Some alternatives I am considering: * 'cheating' by making a set of slides and squeezing these onto a poster, so that I can go through it like a standard talk. * making an extremely minimal poster (title, key point in one sentence, the main plots showing my results) and then writing up the rest of the background/explanatory content into a very short and informal paper, which anyone interested could download as a pdf link. This option seems like it would allow for better communication and would still work if people entered the online "room" at different times, but I'm not sure if this would be acceptable. Is there a consensus on which of these options would be better? Or is there another format which might be more appropriate for such a presentation?<issue_comment>username_1: It sounds like you know what you need to do to finish. Make a list of things to do and go through it to the best of your ability. Your papers and dissertation don't have to be perfect. You've published 2 papers so your work is clearly good enough. If your negative self-talk interferes with that, then seek professional help, like a therapist, before your perceptions of being a "bad student" start to really interfere with your progress. If your therapist isn't helping, you can always look for another one. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, this sounds like classic burn-out. You've been at it intensively for a long time. A lot of us went through that, though not always so close to finishing. Add uncertainty about the future on top and it is bound to cause problems. But, two things. Take one day at a time and just get done what you need to get done. Try not to compromise more than necessary, but use something like a daily plan to make the progress you need so that the end is successful. And, your education/learning/skill-development doesn't end when you get the degree. If you are a poor coder, you can change that. You can learn the math you need when you need it. You have a long time to go, yet, and the pressure is likely to ease a bit, at least for a while. I found that getting some (aerobic) exercise several times a week was a good way to cope with the stress. But, you don't sound like a bad student. Just a tired one. Investigate [Imposter Syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome), though this feels more like burnout. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2021/06/07	1,425	6,066	<issue_start>username_0: I am a second-year undergraduate student and in autumn I'll be starting my third year and after that there is the final fourth. I've come accross someone's lecture notes on eBay. The same uni. It's several years old so some stuff will have changed. It's not the ones we would receive from the lecturers, it's own work albeit based on lectures contents. Nothing relevant to the assignments is there, only the theory. I intend to prepare during the summer to jump ahead because I want to pursue more advanced topics so it's not strictly out of laziness. I want to learn faster and I question the level of teaching, they don't care about initiative and ambition and I feel like they're holding me back. Is there anything wrong with that?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't see anything wrong. If it were answers to exam questions, or even homework, then I'd be concerned. But the notes give you an alternate explanation of many topics and that is very useful (and proper). Books do the same, of course. It is a fact that not every explanation of a complex topic is equally informative to a student. Having an alternative way of looking at topics can give you insight that you might not get from the lecture alone. It also gives you a way to prepare for an actual lecture beforehand, so that you are more likely to pick up the important points. The earlier notes can also be a source of questions for the instructor, or for yourself. But don't use it as an excuse not to attend the lectures, or pay attention. Additionally, since the act of making notes (read: actively and efficiently summarising the important points of a lecture), is, for most people, a very good way to learn, it would most likely be a mistake to buy the notes as a substitute for making your own. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: There's nothing ethically wrong with using resources outside of class for the purpose of teaching yourself the material. If anything, going beyond what you are given in the course to educate yourself is wonderful and indeed something that is expected at the graduate student level. Having said that I would just add a few words of advice. * You might want to check that you are getting the best resource for the money you are spending. If you don't want to spend money, there are lecture notes for many undergraduate (and graduate) level courses online for free that you can use. If you do want to spend money, you could also consider buying a book (or you could borrow a book from the library if you don't want to spend money). Are you sure there is material in the lecture notes you can't get another way? * Of course another set of lecture notes not used by the professor will have some differences in emphasis, notation, order of material, and so on. Ultimately you will have to turn in assignments and take exams from your professor, so you may need to translate what you learn from other sources into your professor's notation / way of thinking. * It is a good thing to be ambitious and to supplement your own education. But, generally it's not a good idea to assume your professors are not doing their best to provide a good education; even if you don't see the point in what they are teaching you at the time, as you advance you may see that foundations were being laid for later courses. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: To reiterate points made in other answers and comments: no, in terms of learning things (!!!), it is absolutely fine to make use of other peoples' prior work. It would be laughable if we all had to reinvent the wheel, etc. Yet, yes, there are some forms of academic stuff wherein there are "rules" prohibiting looking at all the stuff out in the world. The most ridiculous type is "it's not ok to use an idea not covered yet in the course". The latter concept only makes sense if "education" is an exercise in conformity to authority, rather than ... education. It's ridiculous. Nevertheless, I hear gossip that some people do ridiculous things. Incredible... in a bad way. EDIT: yes, certainly, as mentioned in comments (and as many people know), there is substantial reason to understand "what implies what", and often a sort of annihilating over-kill is far less enlightening than a more-restricted-means explanation. In fact, questions which may be extremely awkward from a too-elementary viewpoint that become transparent from a more sophisticated viewpoint are things that I myself like to emphasize to my students in graduate courses. Not everything does yield to a more sophisticated viewpoint, of course. But quite a few of the introduction-to-advanced-math questions are indeed hardly tractable from an elementary viewpoint (and this is visible historically, motivating a great deal of modern math!), but/and become mundane from our contemporary viewpoint (which was motivated by wanting to mundane-ize such questions, hm!). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree with the answers already provided in that there is nothing "wrong" with purchasing the lecture notes, but I would add one question to you in return: "Is it optimal?" Your intentions to use it as a supplement rather than a replacement are admirable but you should know that some fields move quite quickly. If it were lecture notes on, say, web technology or some software API, then I would say "Don't waste your money". That's an extreme example because web technology and some software packages move pretty quick and you often want to start your learning with the most up-to-date technology. Even "history" gets updated as new finds are uncovered, although the pace might be slower than technology. If some of the courses have changed lecturer, or been updated, you might find that ploughing through 2-year-old notes is irrelevant, confusing and a waste of effort. But you should be able to tell quite quickly as long as you're using it as a supplement rather than a replacement. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: If it is a verbatim copy of the blackboard, it might be a copyright violation. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/07	269	1,204	<issue_start>username_0: I would like to know what does "a revised version of this preprint was accepted for the journal ESD." mean? Does it mean that there is 100 percent chance that the revised version of this paper will accepted and the final paper will also be accepted? Or there is a chance of getting the paper rejected?<issue_comment>username_1: "Accepted by X" means the revised article has made it through peer review and will be published by journal X, unless some very unusual and unforeseen circumstance arises (for example if it is discovered there is a major problem that invalidates the entire paper which was missed by the referees). The accepted version may still be slightly different from the published version due to edits made in the proof stage (e.g., copy-editors may find typos or undefined acronyms). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It means that in the time interval from when the preprint was uploaded and now, the paper has been revised and this revised version has been accepted for publication at the journal. In other words, the revision and acceptance have already happened, though the journal may not (or may) have published it yet. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2021/06/07	875	3,691	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a PhD student in theoretical Physics and there is one particular field in which I'm extremely interested in for a while. This field of research is somewhat new, but seems to be very promising, with lots of relevant researchers directing their efforts towards it. I'm very interested in doing research on this field, but as I'm a beginner I'm not sure on how to do so. I believe I have the necessary background, but I really don't yet know how to find out what has to be done or something concrete on which I can start to work. One particular issue that I have is that I feel that being able to discuss the subject with other people would be nice, but I don't know about anyone who works on this field (to be honest I think no one in my country works on it, which is really a shame, given the attention this field is having internationally). That said, I think my whole issue is lack of experience and getting started in some new field is a particular skill that I consider I must have. After all I don't want to be forever bound to what I have done in my PhD. Say tomorrow something promising appears and I'm interested in it, I would certainly like to be able to switch my effort towards it if I judge it worth it. So my question here is: how do I get started doing research in some field I'm new to, considering I don't know anyone working on it to discuss the subject? Addendum: Considering the discussion in comments, let me clarify that what I'm looking here is exactly on how to start threading a path that will lead me to do serious work on the subject. I'm certainly not considering to start doing things at the same level of the experienced people working in the field for the last few years. I just want to find the right entry point, in order to start doing something simple and gradually get better in the field.<issue_comment>username_1: > > I'm a PhD student > > > This makes things simple. Ask your supervisor - they will either be able to help you, or be able to point you to someone who can help you. If it's true that nobody in your country is working on this, you might have to transfer to another university. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'd echo my brief answer to another question, though it was more about base knowledge rather than research output, the start to doing research in any field is to learn about it: <https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/133079/63475> > > mid- and later-career academics don't tend to move from field to field arbitrarily (whereas it's not uncommon to make a big jump between undergrad and grad school: you simply aren't that committed to a field at that point): they usually have some adjacent knowledge that's taking them into that area, so they aren't starting completely from scratch > > > The best way to go is to have some sort of collaboration with someone more familiar to a target field, to which you can bring some outside skill that they need. I've seen this happen several times, and eventually the people shifting fields become newly expert in that area (though this can take years and several publications). Eventually the result is a graph like this: <http://phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=2031> I know you say you don't know anyone in the field, but then that's really your step zero: you'll somehow need to expand your network to include these people if you want to move into that field. I'm not sure it's a great idea to be doing too much of this during your PhD, because that's typically a time when you need a bit of laser focus on your specific research, but you can start to reach out and make contacts for the future. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2021/06/08	2,021	8,266	<issue_start>username_0: Multiple users on this site have stated that only around 1 in 10 (or maybe an even smaller ratio) PhD students are able to successfully continue in academia, beginning with an Assistant Professor position and working their way up towards tenure. (I am unable to find links for this, but I have read it in at least 5 different answers/comments on this site.) For the purposes of this question, I am ignoring those who actively want to pursue a career in industry, and am focusing on those PhD students who wish to go into an academic career and fail to successfully do so. I wish to know why students fail to make the transition, and what exactly is the hardest part of this. For instance, is it: 1. The transition from a PhD position to a postdoctoral position: A postdoc has to work much more independently than a PhD student, and maybe people struggle with this. 2. The next transition, from a postdoctoral position to an assistant professor position, or, 3. Simply making a bigger impact on one's research field of interest, after securing a tenure-track position, and hence moving away from academia into industry. In which part do newly graduated PhD students, who actually want to go into academia, "fall by the wayside"? Or, which of these transitions is the hardest to make, resulting in students not making the transition to a full academic career?<issue_comment>username_1: Most PhD students will not have academic careers. This is not because the duties of academic careers are "hard." Academic careers do involve hard duties. But so do non-academic careers. Most PhD students will not have academic careers for economic reasons. There is simply not enough demand to employ more academics. The economic factors have the biggest impact on those who seek so-called permanent positions. Permanent jobs require a long-term financial commitment from the employer, and there is very little demand for making that sort of commitment. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The academic career after PhD starts with at least one postdoc position. In order to get a postdoc offer you need to show strong ability and talent to do research (in math it means good letters of recommendation, publications, good PhD granting department, well known and good advisor, etc.). To transition from a postdoc to a tenure track position you need more of the same. Usually only a few people with PhD can become postdocs and even fewer will get tenure track positions. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In addition to the point that @AnonymousPhysicist makes that there are far fewer postdocs positions available than there are PhD students, and far few faculty positions available that there are postdocs, there is also the up-or-out mentality: after a certain number of years as a postdoc, many people will start to think you are past it - that if you were any good, you'd already have a faculty position by now. This means there is really a limited amount of time you can spend as a postdoc looking for a faculty position, even if you were willing to stay as a postdoc. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: In my field (cond-mat physics), there are really two main reasons. First, a lot of people want a job in the industry, and they leave after a PhD. Then, if you want to find a postdoc job, chances are that you'll get it rather soon: there are many open postdoc positions (in Europe, at least) and it is usually a problem to find a candidate to fill it, not vice versa. Second, the main bottleneck is between the postdoc and the adjunct or Jun.-Prof. level. Those jobs are scarce. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I doubt there is a common answer across all disciplines. I'd highlight a few challenging inflection points, whose relative painfulness will vary. 1a. Being genuinely self-driven (work ethic). During a Ph.D., one is meeting frequently with an advisor, who may themselves have deadlines. There is at least annual reporting of progress to stay enrolled (varies a bit). So while a lot of Ph.D. students struggle a bit to buckle down and get stuff done, there's still a fair amount of regular external pressure. A post-Ph.D. but pre-tenure academic faces that less frequently, so may not make enough progress to make the cut to the next stage. 1b. Burnout, the flip side of 1a. Many junior academics, rightly or wrongly, always feel time is breathing down their necks and just find the number of hours they feel they need to put in is not worth it. This is doubly so if their personal lives deserve time too! 2. Continuing to find interesting but answerable research questions. This is what - in many disciplines - the post-doc stage is supposed to help bridge, but regardless can be challenging. Aim too high and you don't get publishable results. Aim too low and your career becomes a yawn. 3. Building teams and getting funding. More relevant for high-capital disciplines like experimental science, but also others. Even conference travel takes $, and you need to learn how to ask for it and get it! And then there are the more pragmatic ones: 4. More applicants than jobs. In many disciplines, the supply of Ph.D.s far exceeds demand, in terms of junior academic jobs. That can translate directly into no job, but also insidiously into getting tracked into not-so-good jobs, cut off from your community, with loads of service responsibilities, very temporary, etc. -- all of which impact your ability to do great research to land the next job. 5. Mobility issues - the best or only job available may be somewhere you can't go, for personal or family reasons. Oversimplifying greatly, in my experience, 4 and 5 are problems universally, felt particularly keenly where 1 or more postdocs is the norm (and so more opportunities to be zinged by these factors). 1a tends to be the biggest problem where people go from postdoc to independent researcher, where that's applicable, or Ph.D. to junior faculty member, where there are no postdocs. 2 and 3 at the more senior pre-tenure stages. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: If we leave aside financial reasons and difficulty of finding a job, it's simply difficult because most people aren't that good at doing research. I have actually thought about this a lot: I'm curious as to why my friend who was a stellar student in his Mathematics degree and got a high First (obviously seems to know a fair amount of mathematics) has really failed to make it in academia. One thing which I think people do wrong is that they don't seem to read many research papers. This really seems like a big mistake. You will have to read a lot to be able to zoom in on a section where you are able to make a contribution. Similarly, it's hard to know how to write papers properly when you aren't reading them, then you become dependent on other people to help you, and if you are dependent on others, you will probably fail at postdoc level. Another of my friends seemed to do well on his Engineering PhD and published two good papers (with several co-authors) but has struggled on his postdoc and not published anything (possibly because he now has to direct his research a bit more independently, as opposed to being told what to do). It's definitely worth trying to reflect on this a bit, try to identify what others do wrong that they fail, and so on. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: My two cents : I don't agree with your first premise: > > The transition from a PhD position to a postdoctoral position: A postdoc has to work much more independently than a PhD student, and maybe people struggle with this. > > > My experience of supervision as a PhD student : * First 2 month : 30min / 1h talk with supervisor ~ once every two days during lunch. * Following 6 months : The same, once a week * The second year : A 2 hour talk, circa every month * The 3rd year: My supervisor left and was replaced with another one. A 1h talk circa every two weeks or so. I would call this very independant work, as I was basically making all the calls, I just needed to justify them adequately with my supervisors. I did not go for a postdoc afterwards (I transitioned to industry), but I doubt a postdoc position would have left me "less independant". Upvotes: 0
2021/06/08	720	2,952	<issue_start>username_0: I've got a little less than a year left in my PhD and I intend to search for a job this fall/winter. The question is to where should I direct my efforts -- academia/research or industry? At the very least, I've narrowed it down to either a US national lab postdoc or an industry job. My field is condensed matter physics but I want to get into quantum hardware. I just don't know if I can get an industry job there without some postdoc experience. Pros and cons of the national lab postdoc: 1. Pros * Extra time to tailor and adjust my career path * Temporary 2 year segment * Opportunity to move into a staff scientist position * Independent study experience in quantum hardware that would bolster my resume * I'd be a shoe-in with my existing collaboration 2. Cons * Feeling stuck in a different form of the academia rat race * Temporary 2 year segment * Lower pay with potentially longer hours * Sometimes frustrating work with no end in sight Pros and cons of an industry job: 1. Pros * Higher pay, better working hours? * More living location choices * No need to worry about funding a project 2. Cons * Less independence * Feels like a bigger job commitment than a postdoc * I don't have a good network of people in industry * Challenging to find something I'm qualified for while still intellectually stimulating I'm sure I have incorrect assumptions about some of these. What is a mindful way to approach the next step after a PhD if you're on the fence like I am, and how can I make the right choice?<issue_comment>username_1: The decision you ultimately make probably depends not only on the general job characteristics which you have listed, but also the specific characteristics of any job offers you receive. In other words, if the only postdoc offer you receive is in a location you don't like, you may prefer to work in industry. My advice is to apply for both types of jobs, and then evaluate or compare the actual job offers that you receive. If you only receive postdoc offers, then that may be the default choice. If you have both industry and postdoc offers, you can decide between them based on the specifics of salary, location, and what you would be working on. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Your decision depends on your own values, talent, and temperament. Industry probably does pay higher. The stress can be off the charts when layoffs come and you've settled into a community, so there's that. But you're right about not having to hunt for funding in the same way as you do in academic research. An advantage many people in industry find is that, perhaps unexpectedly, there can be pretty diverse opportunities. You might discover in a few years that you're well-suited to running a group of junior scientists. Everything changes. Neither academia nor industry are the same as when some of us started all those years ago. It'll be the same for you. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/09	258	1,073	<issue_start>username_0: I am nominally in a Professor X's lab, but I work with and communicate with his PhD Student Y most of the time. Would it be looked down upon for Y to write me a LoR for grad school, since even though he knows me better, he is only a grad student/would be a fresh PhD by the time I get around to applying? Should I plan to ask X for a rec letter even though I don't directly work with him?<issue_comment>username_1: Assuming X has high reputation, you should ask X. If (s)he does not know your work already, (s)he can ask Y for details. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: A recommendation from a professor is worth more than a recommendation from a PhD student. X also has more experience writing recommendation letters than Y, and probably has a better idea of what makes a good letter from reading the letters of applicants. X may be more aware of your work than you might realize from talking to Y. Anyways, it's best to ask X to write and sign the letter, possibly with Y providing input or assistance in writing. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/09	2,782	11,352	<issue_start>username_0: I just finished my first Ph.D. interview, but the one who interviewed me is a fellow student. Next week, another fellow student will also interview me. I am just really confused. Is this a sign that I get a rejection, because normally the professor will be the one to do the interview, not the PhD students? I can't shake the feeling that they use these interviews as practice on their sides. The professor did not even reply to me. He only replied one time and after that, his students contacted me, not him. Is this bad?<issue_comment>username_1: I would not think that this immediately implies a rejection. It is normal that a professors want that new PhD students get along with other PhD students. Hence, they might have some weight in the professor's decision. If it was already clear that you will be rejected, they wouldn't bother for a second interview. I agree that it is a bit odd that the professor apparently does not do any interview on their own. But regarding the decision, I do not think that it has to be bad. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I also think it is odd, but not necessarily a negative. Indeed, the professor might be giving their students some workplace experience in this. But they might also be wanting to introduce you to them and conversely. My best guess is that the professor is very busy and wants all available inputs before interviewing you. It may also be that their small group is very collegial and take one another's ideas very seriously. There is never a guarantee about how such things turn out, of course, but if you are accepted by this professor I'd guess that it would be a good place to be - but also that you'll be asked to interview others in the future. Odd? Yes. A clear negative? No. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Is this a sign that I get a rejection, because normally the professor will be the one to do the interview, not the PhD students? > > > No. It is not logically possible for the professor to think you should be invited for an interview and yet decide to reject you at the same time, ahead of conducting an interview. A decision to reject someone can be made after the interview, or before deciding whether to interview the person, but not between those two events. If he had you interviewed by his PhD students, that means this is the process he thinks will work best for his schedule and decision making needs. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I attended a graduate school where a PhD student conducted at least one formal interview, in addition to other interviews from faculty and opportunities to meet people more informally (lunches, dinners). The PhD student interview was a part of the overall decision of acceptance, because the PhD student could gauge several qualities about the applicant: * interest in service * collegiality with relative equals * fit between personal goals and program strengths * how interests align with the current cohorts * overall curiosity and interest in the program Giving PhD students practice in interviewing was a secondary benefit; the interview was earnest, and applicants who didn't take it seriously risked rejection. They probably have their reasons for asking you to interview with PhD students. This is also true if you are ever a job candidate and they ask you to meet with students in the program. At the very least, they want to know how you interact with students. Graduate schools are rarely transparent about their exact admissions process, but it's possible to find references to meeting with graduate students in materials online: > > Grad school interviews—in which aspiring graduate students meet with prospective advisers, colleagues, and other students—are opportunities to connect, engage in scientific conversations, and get a hands-on feel for the graduate programs and broader communities. (June Gruber and <NAME>, "[To ace your Ph.D. program interviews, prepare to answer--and ask-- these key questions.](https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/02/ace-your-phd-program-interviews-prepare-answer-and-ask-these-key-questions)" ScienceMag.org.) > > > > > A more in-depth interview. This interview is the real interview that might include multiple people, and might involve a trip to campus. You will meet with several people, either individually or as a group. You might even meet with other doctoral students. ("[PhD Interviews: What Does an Interview Mean for a PhD Doctorate in Business?](https://blog.r3ciprocity.com/phd-interviews-what-does-an-interview-mean-for-a-phd-doctorate-in-business/)" r3ciprocity.) > > > > > PRO TIP #6: Talk to grad students! Grad students are going to be the most honest with you about what a program is really like. Faculty members will try to make it seem like their program is the best one in the world, but grad students will tell you the real deal. LISTEN TO THEM! ("[PhD Admissions: Interviews!](https://first-gen-guide.com/2020/12/21/phd-admissions-interviews/)" A First-Gen's Guide to Grad School). > > > Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I don't work in academia - I work in the real world (in software development). I have been a grad student twice in my life though (once, not that long ago) Interviewing with peers is pretty common in industry (at least in the software business). Your potential peers know and understand what you are expected to know and understand. They also have a feel for what kind of person may succeed in the environment they work in. By off-loading first (and perhaps subsequent) interviews to "peers", the professor gets to reduce the time he/she needs to spend interviewing folks. It's not that uncommon (in my experience) to bring someone in and find out that the sterling CV upon which you based the interview invitation is riddled with overstatements (and, if you dig a bit, it's often with someone with a family member or a good friend in the field). As @username_4 points out, one of your goals when talking to potential peers is to find out as much as you can about the department, your potential PI, etc. - even campus social life and housing. They see things from a student's perspective and are less likely to oversell the potential of the position. You'll likely get more from them than you will from the PI. Plan to be a little more humble when you are talking with potential peers than you will be with professors. Selling yourself too hard can turn some folks off. Consider this an opportunity. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: As a former academic it was my experience academics are often: * lazy * overthinkers * extremely busy * none of the above If they are lazy they will get students to do the work for them. If they are overthinkers they might have read research that suggests PhD student interviews are better performed by PhD students. If they are extremely busy sometimes they remember to delegate. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question. Additionally, while your interview is very important to you, chances are it is not to the academic. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: This is an opportunity, not a problem. I'm admittedly not quite as familiar with the standard practice in academia, but I would like to point out that this appears to mirror a common practice in industry. In industry, initial interviews will typically be conducted by a recruiter or other human resources professional, not the hiring manager. They will then pass along candidates that they think might be suitable to the hiring manager. Also, it's completely normal for potential coworkers (not just the hiring manager) to interview people. A good Manager will want to make sure that existing employees can work effectively with the candidate. This also allows you to see if you can work with the existing team - interviews are, after all, a two-way street. I strongly suggest that you use this as an opportunity to learn more about what it's like to work for the professor, what the projects are like, and how well you could work with the other students. If you find the other students in the lab hard to work with, you'll find it hard to work in that lab regardless of how much you like the professor or the work. Finally, it's good practice for interviews once you finish school and try to get a job in academia or industry. Also: > > I can't shake the feeling that they use these interviews as practice on their sides. > > > What's wrong with that? It's good experience for them, and it has a lot of other advantages too. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: It is certainly possible that the professor is not interviewing you because of his lack of interest in hiring you. It's also possible that this is his standard for interviewing potential students. Interviews are a time investment for the interviewer, and they are unlikely to interview candidates without a good reason to do so (usually that they might accept the candidate). However, and I did not see this answer given, why would the format of the interview affect your preparation or effort for it? There's a good chance that this is a real interview, and if not, how would you know for sure? Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: In one of my interviews, I was interviewed simultaneously by the professor and one of his students. I think this was both to give the student some experience (perhaps they will be interviewing others by themselves later on- perhaps for more low-key positions like student interns), and also to allow me to ask questions about what it is like to be a PhD student there. Of course, I didn't really have freedom in what to ask here because the professor was present, but I could ask very generic things about the atmosphere in the department etc. The PhD student was also a pretty cool guy, and I felt like he was trying to convince me to come. Ngl he was pretty good at selling the school- much better than the professor. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I can think of several possibilities that shouldn't necessarily discourage you to consider. There could have been (or still could be) a problem with another student's interaction with the two students you'll interview with, and to put their minds at ease and help ensure there isn't a repeat the professor decided to get impressions from them directly. Or one of these students is valuable but hard to get along with, and this is a check to see if you are comfortable with them or not. Another possibility is that the professor knows or has acknowledged that they aren't particularly skilled or intuitive at identifying who will make a good or bad student, or who will or won't work out well in the research group, and so has decided (perhaps wisely) to get input from others. Don't worry about it, as other answers point out it's an advantage for you to have the opportunity to interview current students. It's pretty normal for students to rely to some extent on each other both for research and in understanding/managing their professor :-) So your impression of them may factor in to your decision if you want to continue or not with the interview process or accept a potential offer. One step at a time. "[Never turn down a job that hasn't been offered to you yet](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/155619/69206)!" Upvotes: 1
2021/06/09	932	3,977	<issue_start>username_0: I am a second-year PhD student in management, and I've recently started working on my dissertation. The topic I got assigned is a fast-growing one. Nonetheless, I initially managed to ensure the novelty of my work by highlighting the fact that the extant literature has largely overlooked a class of specific predictors. However, while I was collecting the literature to produce a systematic literature review on this specific topic (i.e., using these class of predictors in empirical models forecasting the occurrence of a given phenomenon), I found a well-written recently published paper thoroughly covering the same topic. At the moment, the novelty of my dissertation, which was primarily related to highlighting this inadequacy of previous literature, has been seriously impaired. Now, the supervisor I got assigned is not an expert in this research field. When asking for suggestions, he can almost randomly point me in five different directions in every conversation. Having double-checked his suggestions, I realized that he merely gives me random advice (e.g., he considers "novel" predictors that have been around for decades). Considering that I only have a year and nine months left, I plan to schedule a meeting to discuss the issue. However, I was wondering which should be the purpose of the meeting. Should I convince him to assign me another topic or incorporate his (random) suggestions into my research? Considering the first option, should I approach the meeting with a potential research interest/topic already at hand? Thank you for your time.<issue_comment>username_1: I think you have to think about what you want before deciding how to approach your advisor. Here are two extreme possibilities. > > You are intent on an academic career in this area. Your thesis > will be your first piece of new work. You want it to be > well received as a significant contribution. > > > In this case you might well want a new topic. Alternatively > > Your PhD is just a ticket to a job in industry. What you really need > is an adequate thesis. Finishing the one you've started will suffice, > even though some of your ideas have been scooped. > > > In this case simply put in the not quite two years and move on. I suggest that you think about where your goal is on the continuum between these alternatives. Then prepare to convince your advisor that with his help (which seems to be somewhat casual) you have a way to reach that goal. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Given the additional information in the comments, I'd suggest that you have a broad discussion with your advisor, but be prepared to switch topics. However, it might not be required to switch much. Some closely related questions might remain. You have certainly gained some insight into the general area of the original question, so you are in a good place to be flexible. You might even find that the published paper is an opportunity to extend it. But, as you have discovered, working in a hot area is inherently risky as you can be assured there is parallel research going on as you work. I was "lucky" enough to work in an ice-cold area, actually, and only a few people in the world were much interested or could really judge it (math analysis). But your discussion with your advisor might be broad enough that you wind up with several option (several irons in the fire) so that you don't get caught again. And, depending on where you are in the research, the paper might not affect your graduation. Your advisor will know the rules. I know of one case where essentially the same thesis by two students resulted properly in two degrees with the knowledge and assent of all advisors, the universities, and the research community in general. It did, however, delay their graduation while an investigation was made. Both went on to good careers. They independently answered an important question in computer language design. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/09	1,670	7,101	<issue_start>username_0: Many philosophy journals have begun to use an alternative to accepting or rejecting a manuscript: offering the author the option of transferring the manuscript together with the reviewer reports to another journal. This seems like an excellent idea when the only problem with a manuscript is a bad fit with the specific journal. However, in the past few months I have received this offer twice when the situation was very different. In the first case, the (only) reviewer’s conclusion can be summarized as “excellent ideas, but not ready for publication.” In the second (concerning a different paper), one reviewer recommended acceptance without any changes, while another reviewer claimed that there was a fatal, irreparable flaw in the paper. In neither of those cases could a different journal be expected to accept the paper based on the same reviewer reports. So my question is: why do journals do that? Are they just being too lazy to give proper thought to whether a transfer makes sense? Or is there some reason for this that I just can’t figure out. I should add that I get the impression that it is the paper as is that would be transferred, but I am not entirely sure about that.<issue_comment>username_1: The practice of asking an author to “transfer” a manuscript to another journal for consideration for publication has been used in the medical field for quite some time. It can occur (fairly) often when there exists a “cluster” of journals managed owned by the same group. An example is the American Medical Association, which publishes the Journal of the Medical Association (JAMA) and 11 other more specialized journals under the JAMA “umbrella” (e.g., JAMA Cardiology; JAMA Dermatology; JAMA Neurology). The JAMA editor assigned to a manuscript submitted to JAMA might ask the author if the manuscript (and reviews) can be transferred for consideration by, for example, JAMA Pediatrics if the JAMA editor believes that the manuscript might be of interest to the editor(s) of that journal. The referring editor makes no promise of acceptance by the journal to which the transferred paper is sent. As indicated in a comment, there is an implicit presumption that the manuscript will be revised to address the comments of the (transferred) reviews. Sometimes the referring editor states this explicitly when asking about the transfer. The “family of journals” with the prefix BMC, which is part of Springer Nature, publishes an: > > “evolving portfolio of some 300 peer-reviewed journals, sharing > discoveries from research communities in science, technology, > engineering and medicine.” > > > The BMC family of journals has been quite aggressive in its attempt to modify the system of peer review. These are described at their website: <https://www.biomedcentral.com/about/advancing-peer-review> The things they are doing with regard to innovations in peer review include: > > • Patient peer review • Registered Reports • Results-free > review • Automated peer review • Re-review opt out • Portable > peer review within and between publishers • Expedited peer review > > > The journal that asked about transferring your paper to another journal appears to be using “portable peer review.” For the medical journal BMC Medicine, portable peer review is described as follows: > > “Portable peer-review To reduce time spent on serial submissions and > iterative reviewing, BMC Medicine offers to consider manuscripts on > the basis of reviews received at other journals. We also support > transfers of reviews obtained at BMC Medicine to other journals, > including those outside of BMC and Springer Nature. Learn more from > our portable reviews page.” > > > <https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/about> The advantage to an author in permitting the transfer is a possibly shorter time to publication. The author also has a good idea of what they will need to do to get the manuscript accepted. It is quite common to revise a manuscript based on the comments of the reviewers chosen by journal 1 (this is a good practice) only to have a whole different set of comments that need to be addressed when the manuscript is submitted to a journal 2. The advantage to a journal (or set of journals) is a reduction in the burden the journals put collectively on peer reviewers. The advantage to a journal (or family of journals) is that it helps assure a “stream” of potentially publishable manuscripts at the second (referred to) journal. If the journal that is being suggested as a referral journal is not one that you would be proud to publish your work, say no. If it is not possible (or desirable) to address the comments of the original reviewers, say no (because the paper is unlikely to be accepted unless these comments are addressed). If the journal that is being suggested as a referral journal is a journal that will charge a lot of money to publish your paper, say no. Finally, in medicine (and other fields), there has been a proliferation of “predatory journals.” The definition of a predatory journal is controversial, it is not easy to identify "predatory journals" reliably, and what is predatory to one person is not predatory to everyone. Nonetheless, it would be wise to do some digging to determine whether the referral journal might be predatory. This publication from the medical field is an empiric study that attempted to define the criteria for a predatory journal formally. These criteria might not map easily to philosophy journals. <https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-017-0785-9> Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The main reason journals (actually publishers) do this is purely selfish - they simply want to keep your paper within one of "their" journals. I am almost certain for example that the two journals you mention are published by the same publisher. Papers are sort of currency in publishing since the number of papers published per year is a key metric of the journal's/publisher's health; therefore it is desirable to keep your paper within the publisher. What the transfer does is turnover all metric data for your paper (e.g. date submitted, date revisions performed, etc.) to the other journal. What the other journal does with the data is not certain, since it's usually possible they come to a different decision even though they're looking at the same reviewer reports. It certainly isn't a guarantee that the other journal will accept your paper either (something I would suspect is mentioned in the transfer email). In your case, the reviewer reports you've received simply mean that the other journal is odds-on to reach a revise decision if they haven't already. All this said, there is also some benefit to you as the author - submitting a revision is usually much simpler than submitting a fresh paper. Also, I don't know about other editors, but I tend to prioritize the oldest papers in the system, and your paper would show up as relatively old (although it is possible that the system shows the date the paper transferred instead). Upvotes: 2
2021/06/09	661	2,888	<issue_start>username_0: Recently I have finished my big project, which is basically PDP8 Computer simulation made in C. I was thinking about uploading it to Github because I hope it may help me get a job in future after I show my big projects to the owner of a company I am trying to work for. Considering I am at the first year of Computer Science and IT university, do you think I should upload these kinds of projects on Github? Will it help me get a job in case I want to show my past work to the boss hiring me?<issue_comment>username_1: If it's solid work, you're proud of it, and you don't mind sharing it with the world, then sure! Having examples of past code to point at is always helpful, especially when you're very early in your career and have little else to distinguish yourself with. It's even better if you think that someone else might find use in the thing. That is... assuming that it's a personal project, or otherwise somehow unique to you. If the "big project" you're referring to is effectively homework for a class, and everyone else in class is also producing a PDP8 Computer simulation in C, then it's a lot less interesting. Additionally, it's probably a good idea to keep adding projects to your account as you go. Being able to show progression to your potential employers when you go for your interview is great. Having the only example of your code be the thing that you bodged together as a freshman is not so great. ...and for the next project, you could even start out with the thing on github, and use it as the source control tool it's meant to be. There's a number of kids out there your age who don't really understand about source control, and having a low-key way of indicating that you're not one of those, without making a thing about it is all upside and no downside. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It can basically never hurt you by making your code public on github. The thing is most repositories are never used. If you want your code to get attention you need to write papers about it and give talks about your code. There are literally hundreds of millions of repositories, and a search of any keyword will give thousands of results. Typically, for any well known problem/use case, there are already several prominent repositories, in addition to the many hundreds of repositories that receive essentially 0 attention. If you want your code to stand out, it needs to do something that none of the existing repositories can do. This is a nontrivial task. Probably the easiest example of something that would "stand out" would be to implement a method in a well known paper, when there are currently no public implementations of that paper's method. So in short: it won't hurt you to post your code, but it also probably won't help you unless your code can do something notable and unique. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/09	445	1,966	<issue_start>username_0: I received this message form the editor "Thanks for note. We have tried 11 potential reviewers to date and have one review at hand and another that is promised. We will be in touch once the second review is acquired". What this meant? May be he rejected the submission if can't find the second reviewer<issue_comment>username_1: You have two lines of text, and that's really all there is: You can try to parse tea leaves, but you will never know. So sit back and relax: the decision will ultimately come, whatever it may be. To be more to the point, the editor really just says what is happening: They're having difficulty finding people willing to review the paper. One could come up with a number of reasons why that might be so, but you really don't know, and speculation isn't going to get you any closer to the truth. The only way you could find out why they have difficulty finding reviewers is to ask the editor, who may or may not want to talk about it. You could also suggest possible reviewers in a reply to the editor, which the editor may or may not want to consider. In the end, you really can't know what is happening from just these two sentences, and it is unproductive to spend your brain power in coming up with possible scenarios. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It's just three sentences but it's quite revealing: * They invited 11 reviewers * At least two reviewers agreed to review the paper * One of them has already submitted the review * The other has a review due date that's sometime in the future, and the editor believes that the reviewer will actually submit a review Your editor isn't having trouble finding reviewers - he/she has already acquired one review and another is promised. On the other hand it's impossible to tell if your paper is going to be rejected, since after all it's impossible to tell what the contents of the review actually are. There's nothing to do except wait. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/09	503	2,108	<issue_start>username_0: I am a master's student, I started my degree in 2018. I wrote my thesis and sent it to both my main supervisor and co-supervisor a month ago and ask them to read but my main prof did not have time to read it. My co-supervisor reviewed it and he sent his feedbacks privately without including the main supervisor (it felt weird to me). I emailed my main supervisor a few times and asked him to read it, and when he noticed that the co-supervisor is giving me feedbacks privately, he got annoyed. He (the main supervisor) then said that I can go for defense with my co-supervisor's revisions, and he does not have any revisions. He still does not want to read it. I have a tight deadline to submit the final version. However, I would like to have his feedback, since he is my supervisor and knows my work more than my co-supervisor. How do I get him to read the draft? Is it not rude to not consider his feedback? What should I do in this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: If there are places you feel need improvement ask about those only. Ask your advisor if you're ready to defend. Make the changes suggested by the co-advisor, then ask your advisor about specific areas. Finally, ask both advisors if you're ready to defend. Hopefully this will make your current advisor realize where you are in the process, and maybe get you some attention. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Your goal is for this thesis to fulfill graduation requirements. Although having your supervisor read the thesis is probably helpful to this goal, it is not necessary for graduation. Ask if your advisor has any objections to it before you schedule your defense. You can't force your advisor to read the thesis, but scheduling the defense is usually done by the student if the advisor doesn't object. It is the advisor's job to prepare students for their defense, and it's an awkward situation for the advisor if an unprepared student attempts to defend. If your advisor will approve your thesis for graduation, then it may not be necessary to convince your advisor to read it. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/10	410	1,778	<issue_start>username_0: Is it okay to send my MA thesis for an internship I'm seeking to apply for (they asked for it among other documents) even if the thesis is not published yet?<issue_comment>username_1: Send it along If they asked for it send it along. They aren't publishing it (right). While your thesis will be "published" by the university, what that means is they will make 1 copy and stick it in the basement of the library where no one will read it after you defend. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If the status is 'finished but not published/defended/graded/...' then send it with the notion that is hasn't been published yet but is finished as a whole. If you're still writing the thesis or waiting for feedback of your supervisor, then send it with with a note that mentions this fact and the expected finalization date, and possibly check with your supervisor if they expect major revisions will be needed. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are the sole author and you still hold copyright (likely since it isn't published), then you can send it. It is your work and you own all rights. However, whether it is wise to send it or not is another question. I suggest that you talk this over with your advisor so see what the downstream consequences might be, especially if you intent to extend this work in the future. Some work should be held confidential for various reasons and you should get some advice on that. It may be that a brief abstract or description of your work might do just as well for the internship and you might also explore that possibility. But get some advice from someone more experienced who also knows your work. --- If you are not the sole author, then you need permission from the other authors. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/10	2,479	11,176	<issue_start>username_0: We are a small group of researchers and we meet 6 times a year as a whole group. During these meetings, lab members talk about the current status of their projects. However, from my point of view, these presentations are always a bit too shiny or perfect, instead of talking about one's own insecurities (e.g. about the methodology used) or work in progress. Like this, we get to know what others currently are working on, but there is little exchange and we can hardly benefit from the knowledge and skills of the others. I assume one option would be to meet more often, and of course, it is good to set a good example and talk about one's own project in a transparent manner. But what other features of a regular lab meeting could promote a culture of learning, where participants present and share their ideas openly and courageously? Does it need a certain structure or, on the contrary, just as little structure as possible?<issue_comment>username_1: Group meetings are an important and useful tool in academia, and you're right to try and improve yours. I think you've already hit on two key points - meeting more frequently, and modelling good behaviour, and I'll add a third. 1. If your group meets every two months, there's a long time for everyone to forget what you're working on. Weekly meetings can be effective because they get built into the rhythm of the week, but some people find them too much. However, I would say a weekly meeting where one person presents is better than meetings every two months where everyone presents. We have a weekly meeting slot, and people volunteer to talk each week, without a rigid structure. Some weeks we cancel the meeting, if there is another deadline looming. And some weeks we start chatting with no agenda, and end up continuing for hours discussing an interesting problem. 2. Modelling good behaviour is key - allow yourself to be vulnerable, ask for advice, show results which are not perfect but for which you need the insight of others. It's difficult to tell people they need to ask for help, but if you ask for their help, they will be less reticent to come to you. Explicitly ask for advice on future directions, conferences to present at, journals to publish in etc. 3. You also need everyone in the group to take the meetings seriously, especially the group leader (which may or may not be you - I'm not sure!). This can be tricky with those who believe they are too busy or too infallible to need to discuss their work. We managed to get a group meeting going over the pandemic by pointing out the lack of informal interactions, and I hope it continues when we are back in person. This might still be a reasonable excuse where you are! Some more ideas for ways to use a group meeting: * Discuss a new paper in your field, one that you don't understand or where you think the results are particularly important or controversial. * Invite someone from outside the group to discuss their work informally, or invite an outside expert to discuss your work. * Talk practice before a big conference - after the talk, provide detailed feedback on the presentation, speaking style, figure clarity etc. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: "During these meetings, lab members talk about the current status of their projects." - are you sure that everyone is interested in everyone else's work? If that's not the case, these meetings are very annoying for people without an interest to a particular topic. Actually, the entire thing is overrated and misevaluated. I understand that sometimes (quite often) researchers want to discuss their problems with other people. For instance, you want an advice from someone who's an expert in A and so you find such an expert and ask your questions on A. In doing so, you address two things: (1) you get quality feedback because that person is an expert, and (2) you make sure that the topic of your question (A) is interesting to that person. Both of these things might not work if you're doing this via group meetings. There might be no experts in A among the attendants of the meeting, and also, people might be uninterested in what you're talking about, so it becomes a waste of time for both sides. That was about presenting your work at group meetings for the purpose of learning. Another thing is when you use a group meeting to practice a talk. In doing so, one should realize that they are actually asking for a favor of giving feedback from everyone else, not blessing them with your infinite shiny knowledge. So the speaker is not supposed to await questions from the audience but conversely, ask the listeners whether this and that was clear, if something could be explained better and so on. It's not easy to do, actually. When I started doing this, I got very little feedback because not everyone was understanding what did I want from them. Yet, after a few times I could see benefits for myself and my presentations. Bottom line: rather often group meeting become a venue for "boasting" about your scientific results, and they really should not be. Ask yourself if this is really the case, and in case of doubts, discuss it with the other group members. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I applaud you for desiring an increased level of engagement and 'realness' in your meetings. In addition to meeting more frequently, I recommend structuring part of your meetings from a formative feedback perspective in which all participants are provided a natural avenue to voice their struggles/concerns in a way that fosters growth instead of judgement. As one example, you could ask every participant to share their greatest successes experienced since the last meeting and the greatest challenges faced since the last meeting. Or, you could ask each participant to share what 'big questions' the group could ponder or ask participants to all share their most substantial unanswered questions. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I once tried to bring such group meetings in an academic group I was affiliated to and unfortunately I failed to. I should mention that at that time I had very little experience in research and in industry. The people attending the group were first or second year PhD students or masters students. Each of the students had their own issues and concerns which were more important than attending a research group study. One had to do course work and did not have time to read papers for the next session. The other was busy with providing proposals to receive scholarships for their studies. The other was under pressure to submit a paper in a deadline. So everyone has their own concerns which may prevent them from focusing on a voluntary group meeting. Based on my experience, these may help a group study to succeed. These should not be relevant to your seniority level or research group but reading these may help you shape your group: 1. Group members can set mutual interest goals for their meetings. Just meeting to read a paper may not encourage everyone to spend sometime for a voluntary work. But, if they feel that if they read that paper and do some research, program some codes, etc and the result will be some sort of report, publications or a paper, which will benefit their resume; this may help them pay more attention to the group studies. This may even appear by exchange of skills. If they feel that they do not receive sufficient information from the group, they may pay less attention to it. But if they feel that if they teach something to the group, they will learn something new in return, this may encourage them to actively participate in it. 2. Having a very big goal may not encourage group members to participate. For instance, if you have a goal to publish in a high impact journal, some group members may have weaker resumes, some other may not have experience of group work to publish, some may feel discouraged that they can not understand study materials the same as the senior members. So breakdown the hard tasks like reading a tough paper, publishing to journal or conference, reading a book, developing a code, etc to smaller tasks and assign them wisely to group members based on their understandings and seniority. Make them feel motivated and feel they have something valuable which is needed by group. 3. Do not set tough regulations. Be flexible on the schedules, task achievements, members problems, etc. If somebody has lower interest in a topic, be flexible to change as much as possible or give them time to find and bring topics they like to the group. 4. Do not act like a boss with 'must' keyword! This is bad trap a group organizer may fall into. More senior and established people like post-docs and professors may not have this problem but when it comes to fresh researchers, they 'may' show such behaviors which may be discouraging to the other mates. Choosing a group leader who is more appreciated by the members also helps. For instance first year students may not feel so responsible to a student at their own level but they may respect a postdoc more. 5. Use technology as much as possible. There are very good online tools and software which may help you shape the group. Define tasks. Assign mates to each task. Share files and topics. These tools may increase group mates participation and their courage to contribute to the group. Please note that I am writing this answer based on my experience with research students. So, for a group of senior researchers and professors, the environment may be much different. Their mutual goal may be advising junior students, applying for funding and writing papers instead of learning new skills and topics. So, each group may have his own problems and interests and you should adjust group with his own specific interests. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: I've met two entirely different types of talks at group meetings: 1. Talks where the speaker presents their work: besides providing an overview to everyone what is going on where in the group, here the audience may provide guidance to the speaker, but they usually don't learn that much for themselves. In te context of thesis research (which has an element of an exam, or really whenever the speaker expects to be judged on the content they present), these talks may be prone to be very polished in terms of showing results without discussing obstacles. You can encourage the guidance to the speaker element e.g. by asking all speakers to include not only a summary of what they did but also a slide with questions to the audience (I've been to a small conference that did this, and it was rewarded by very good discussion.) 2. Talks where the speaker is asked to teach a topic. Here obviously the goal is that the audience learns something specific from the speaker. I've met this in annual retreats or as the need arose rather than in the regular group meetings - but there really isn't any reason not to have such talks also in normal group meetings. I'd say if you want to have a talk of type 2, you'll need to explicitly state this - otherwise people will assume you want a talk of type 1. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/10	442	1,873	<issue_start>username_0: When you apply for funds from a research council for a postdoc position, and the potential host is a university/organization that you don't know, do you share your research proposal with the PI of that university/organization beforehand? I want to avoid plagiarism, so I'm planning to have a quick chat with the PI only, or simply apply for funds first, and discuss with the PI later if I get the grant.<issue_comment>username_1: If you don't share the proposal with the prospective host, you are missing out on the chance of getting feedback from them. Detailed expert feedback on a grant application is not easy to get, and very useful. If I would distrust a colleague so much that fear of them stealing my ideas outweights this potential benefit, I'd be very, very reluctant to consider them as a postdoc mentor. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Seconding the answer by username_1, I'd like to add that if I'm an academic staff member at the host institution, I want to know in detail what a postdoc is going to do in "my" group before any non-reversible actions are taken. To the very least, I want our research interests to be aligned (to some extent), and to verify this, I'd absolutely need to read a proposal of the applicant. If I learn that the applicant does not trust me enough to show me their proposal, that would be a clear no. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: All the calls for ad hominem postdoc fellowships that I've seen require, as part of the application pack, a letter of support from a senior person at the proposed host institution, and a copy of the host institution finance team's detailed estimates of the "indirect costs" associated with carrying out the project at that institution. I can't see how that could be done without people at the host institution seeing the proposal. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/10	835	3,705	<issue_start>username_0: Not sure if this question is a bit weird... I'm still a young researcher. I was wondering if it is okay to co-author papers with one's friends who are also doing research in a close field to one's research. Having friends who conduct research (even if it is at another institution) that is close to one's research is a really motivating factor, and being on close terms with someone, in my opinion, may really improve the workflow and the harmony in the work. In your opinion and from your experience, what do you think about this?<issue_comment>username_1: By all means, go for it. As always when co-authoring: agree on the order the names on the paper beforehand and explicitly. This prevents conflicts. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Working with friends can be a lot of fun. It can also be an unpleasant experience, and everything in between. Your experience will depend on your personality, your friend's personality, and luck. * You may feel more relaxed about sharing ideas because you are talking to a friend. Alternatively, you might find you feel more self-conscious, because it's not solely a professional relationship. * Your friend may feel more inclined to put time and effort into the project, because they enjoy working with you and value your friendship. Alternatively, they may feel more able to miss deadlines and drop balls, because 'you will understand'. * You may feel less pressure, because your friend 'will understand' if you miss deadlines or drop a few balls. Alternatively, you may feel more pressure because you don't want to let your friend down, or because you feel obliged to pick up their slack. * You may find it easier to assert yourself when dealing with someone you know well. Alternatively, you may feel you have to accept your friend's way of doing things, because you don't want to create trouble. * You may be able to disagree vehemently on some aspect of research, yet still spend a convivial evening together in a bar. Alternatively, you may find that professional disagreements spill over into the personal sphere. * You may be able to have a blazing row with your friend about their political views, yet still work respectfully together. Alternatively you may find that personal disagreements spill over into the professional sphere. * You may feel more able to walk away from a project that's not working for you, because the relationship is bigger than the project. Alternatively, you may feel compelled to flog a dead horse because you don't want to disappoint your friend. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: TL;DR: Having a clear differentiation between first and second author helped us a lot After authoring a paper with a researcher from a pretty different field I became friends with the first author (I was a co-author). What we actually did was to write two papers: One for the other researcher's field (biology) and one for my field (statistics). Then both got a first-author paper out of it. In my experience it helped a lot that it was clear who was the one responsible for the respective research paper and who was the sidekick. The first author did most of the writing and setting up the experiment structure and so on - setting the plan if you will and being responsible for the respective paper/project. The sidekick focused on their part. For me it helped to not argue about things and to have clear responsibilities. The last thing I want is to get into a inter-personal conflicts. Research is hard enough. So, it turned out to be actually good that one of us clearly put in more work and that this was the first author and that this was fixed before starting to work on the project. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/10	675	2,988	<issue_start>username_0: I sometimes get asked to give recommendations / opinions about students by potential employers or third party HR Firms. Is it acceptable to share the opinions with the students once I provide them? What is the typical recommendation about this? Mostly the companies promise they will treat them as confidential from their side but that does not prevent ME from sharing my opinions with the students, right? Just wanted to know the pros and cons of this. My interest is transparency. For the sake of concreteness let's keep this to US University jurisdiction.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you can share them, and probably should. The company is correct in promising confidentiality, but that is because the words aren't theirs, but yours. But since they are yours it is fine to share them with students. In fact, if you have to say negative things, it is best to discuss that with the student before you write the letter so that they have a better idea of where they stand. On the other hand, I don't think that sharing them is required or expected. But I would consider sharing to be a good practice. I would probably object to being told that I couldn't share a letter with a student, though it hasn't ever happened to me. I suspect, however, that some governmental agencies dealing with national security issues might require not informing the student. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It is surely acceptable. There are reasons to do it, I don't think it's "wrong" in any sense. Personally, however, I'm not so keen on it, because I don't want to encourage students to discuss the contents of recommendation letters (I perceive discussions about our subject area or even general advisory and personal issues as much more constructive and a better use of our time), or to "shop around" to find recommenders whose letters they like most. Generally I think that students tend to overrate the impact of recommendation letters, and I like to adapt the time spent on them to the very limited meaning they have in my view. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I would keep it private. The perception, whether accurate or not, is that private letters are more honest. Probably no way that would get back to the target of the letter, but it might circulate among students who in turn may, accurately or not, gossip about who is the favorite. No real good comes of that. There shouldn't be any useful feedback to a student in a recommendation letter. If you have positive feedback for a student, the sort you might put in a letter, share it with them as it comes up, don't wait for a letter ask. If you have negative feedback for a student, don't put that in a letter unless you intend to sabotage them (either stick to the positives or decline the request). Share it with them early and in a productive fashion that helps them improve. If you do these things then a student should know what they are getting when they ask you for a letter. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/10	794	3,416	<issue_start>username_0: I want to know > > Question: Do all research grants (funds) for (under)graduate students lead to high quality (Q1 or Q2) research papers? > > > How do institutions trust (under)graduate students so that they do not misuse this grants? How they choose from many talented students? I am asking this because one of my friends has very limited budget for giving to talented (under)graduate students and they don't know how to deal with these issues. I would appreciate your assistance.<issue_comment>username_1: No, it isn't reasonable to expect undergraduates to do high quality research on their own. They are too inexperienced and need to learn a lot about process as well as the topic of the research as they do. I think that funders recognize this and treat the funding as a kind of training, not a way to get the highest quality results. But, to manage the students and assure that there is no misuse, someone, a professor probably, needs to keep involved with the students to assure that they keep on track. Another problem with undergraduate research is that it is difficult to take on any open-ended questions since the time for the project is most likely very limited. This can be true even at the MS level. Doctoral research is intentionally open ended so that important questions can be asked and some definitive result obtained, though with less control over length of the project. I'll note that in some situations in which a student gets some funds to join an existing research project in which papers have multiple authors, it might be possible for the student to make faster progress and (jointly) produce a higher quality product since there is probably more mentoring in such a situation. But, don't expect much if you just give undergraduates money and don't keep involved in their work. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, most projects led by undergraduate students do not result in high-quality research papers, or even a paper at all. Undergraduate students can often work well under the frequent supervision of a graduate student, and I have seen many undergraduate students earn a second-author spot on a good paper. Some graduate students will be able to write high-quality papers, but others will not. It depends on their skill as a researcher, and since they are a graduate student, they are usually still developing those skills. Overall, I don't see many students misusing these grants. Most commonly, I see students who are unsure of what to do, or who underestimate the quality of work needed to achieve a journal publication. This can happen even to talented students who lack research experience. Having a limited budget for funding is a common experience to most supervisors. It's hard to define a metric to find the "best" student, and the "best" probably varies for each advisor anyways. Qualities like relevant technical skills, motivation, and perseverance are probably useful to look for. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the purpose of (funded) research by undergraduates is to give the participants a taste of what real research mathematicians do: think in good company about interesting questions that no one yet knows how to answer. If a high quality paper (or any paper at all) comes out of this work, that's a big plus. But it's not how to measure the success of the endeavor. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/10	599	2,483	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a physics-majored undergrad student studying in the U.S. and I'm looking for some graduate programs in the UK. In my university, most graduate students are directly enrolled in the Ph.D. programs after completing their Bachelor's degree, but I'm not sure if this works the same in the UK. If I will eventually pursue a Ph.D. degree, do I need to first apply for the MSc programs? Is it possible to directly get into a doctorate program? Thanks!<issue_comment>username_1: Most go straight from a Bachelor's degree (and that would be considered quite normal). Some have a Master's degree (which wouldn't be thought of as a negative) and an increasing number enrol in combined MRes/MPhil + PhD programmes (which involve doing a Master's before progressing to a PhD at the same university in the same field). Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: You can certainly start a physics PhD in the UK with just a BSc. Your application would be strengthened if you have a final year dissertation as part of your degree (typically 5000-8000 words) as these are standard in the UK and help students get a bit of research experience. However, the majority of applicants to UK physics PhDs will have what's called an "integrated Master's", usually designated as MPhys. These are four year degrees where you do not graduate after three years with a BSc but go straight into a fourth year, which will comprise more specialised courses and a longer dissertation project. They're not quite as research heavy as an MRes or MPhil, which are purely research-based Master's. Their closest equivalent is BSc+MSc. I recommend you apply to PhDs and Master's at the same time -- you may well be successful with your PhD applications but if not, you certainly will with your Master's. However, you will still have to apply for PhDs once you have started your MSc -- you cannot upgrade or convert your enrollment to PhD once you are in (this may be possible with an MRes/MPhil but you would need to check the individual university's regulations). Note that funding for an MSc must be found by the student -- you will not be able to earn money as a TA as is common in the US. UK students can take out a postgraduate loan from the government but I don't know if this is available to international students. Bear in mind that physics PhDs are competitive and you should apply to ten or more universities to increase your chances of acceptance. Good luck! Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2021/06/10	1,471	5,359	<issue_start>username_0: [[This post has been retitled once and edited twice. This is the second edit. The original post had a sample reference that was faulty for purposes of having the question answered. For this edit, I added a "good" example of a reference and explained the difference between the examples. I felt this would be helpful to sustain context for the entire thread.]] Per APA 7, if an article has an article number, you should use that instead of a page range. The university insists on compliance with APA 7. If an article number is not self-evident in the PDF, on the article's web landing page, or in the citation download, you are expected to dig a bit further. I have discovered several indicators that an article number is likely (not always, but likely) to exist: * a page range that starts with "1", or * a single page number of any value instead of a page range, or * a paper by a popular seminal author. I have also found some publishers who make it easier than others to find the article number, if one exists. The easiest ones are published on the web page below or near the article title. Some are more elusive and can only be found such as by * comparing a page "range" with only one value to the DOI; * inspecting the URL before and after clicking on a DOI; * downloading the recommended citation (not to be confused with an APA 7 compliant citation, even if tagged that way); * clicking on various links on the DOI landing page, and sometimes following a link; and * inspecting manuscript headers, footers, and margin notes. There are, no doubt, other ways to find elusive article numbers. The fact that an article number cannot be immediately or easily found does not mean the article number does not exist. Again, the question is: Do Taylor & Francis publications have article numbers that are hidden but can be found if one only knows where to look? At Taylor & Francis, I am hampered because I do not have access to the full articles. Might article numbers be lurking in the PDFs? If the answer is typically "Yes, and here's where to look for it," then that is helpful. Or maybe article numbers lurk behind a little-noticed button or link on the DOI landing page? For those who have read this far and want a crack at it, here are two examples of citations in the student paper (the paper has mostly T&F sources). The citations seem to be candidates for a hidden article number for different reasons as noted. *Example 1:* This is a reference provided by the student. The page range starts with the number 1 and the article is fairly recent. In my experience, either or both of those factors are often (not always, but often) a clue that the paper has an article number. === <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2020). Mental toughness in sport: The Goal Expectancy-Self-Control (GES) model. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 7(3), 1-17. <https://doi.org/10.1080/10413200.2020.1808736> === ***Example 2:*** This is a reference provided by the student. Although the article is very old, the author is seminal and popular. Given that publishers have a backlog of articles that are being encoded for online access, then this seems a good candidate for having an associated article number. === <NAME>. (1990). Perceived self-efficacy in the exercise of personal agency. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 2(3),128-163. <https://doi.org/10.1080/10413209008406426> === Comment: Note that I am editing a paper and not its author. I strive for accuracy and to decrease the possibility a paper will be returned for noncompliance.<issue_comment>username_1: I looked at the citation information available for that article and others in the journal, and there are apparently no volume, issue, or article numbers. They want you to cite it by using the DOI as its unique identifier. This is explicit at the bottom of the linking page for downloading citation information: > > To cite this article: > > > <NAME>, <NAME> & <NAME> (2020) Mental toughness in sport: The Goal-Expectancy-Self-Control (GES) model, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/10413200.2020.1808736 > > > Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The article you gave appears to be an example of advance online publication, prior to the article being assigned a volume and article number. According to [this link](https://libguides.massgeneral.org/c.php?g=994965&p=7199518) (you may have a more authoritative source), such articles should be cited in APA 7 as <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (2016). Knowledge and attitudes towards human papillomavirus (HPV) among academic and community physicians in Mangalore, India. Journal of Cancer Education. Advance online publication. <https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-016-0999-0> Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As others have mentioned, that particular article is an advance publication, so does not yet have such a number. However, I do have access to the PDFs, so I did a bit of digging. I looked at some older papers, and it appears that on publication, they do (or at least did) acquire page ranges, not article numbers - the page ranges are listed in the journal table of contents, and the PDFs and webpages contain no hint that I can see of any kind of article number. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2021/06/10	915	3,841	<issue_start>username_0: I currently hold a TT position at school A. My spouse's job (not in academia) is at a 4 hours commute from school A. We underestimated the hassle it would bring when I accepted the position at School A. Now, there is an opening at school B which is very close to my spouse's workplace. Since the 4 hour commute is not sustainable, I want to apply to school B. Both schools are in the same state school system (if that matters). There are two things that I'm concerned about. 1. I don't want school B to think I'm unreliable. I want to settle into one position for a lifetime. How do I convey it in my application? Do I write it in my cover letter? If so, any example would be really appreciated. 2. I don't want my current school (A) to find out that I'm applying for positions (That's why I did not ask my current colleagues for a reference letter.) Again, should I mention in the cover letter to keep it confidential? How should I say it so that it doesn't convey the wrong message? Overall, any tips in this situation would be helpful; especially from fellow academics who have experienced it personally or have seen someone else handle it gracefully and cautiously. Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: I'd think that a sober presentation of your situation, especially your desire for a sustainable, long-term situation, would explain to people that you're not "flighty" or "unreliable". True, there still do exist academics who seem to believe that infinite self-sacrifice is the baseline. You might try to assess whether your desired school's people manifest that sort of craziness. And, truly, that'd not be a positive about other features, but, yeah, maybe that's subordinate to spending several hours a day in traffic. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: For most two-body problems, the advice is to not mention the issue in the cover letter as the hiring committee might feel an extra burden if they were to hire you. For your situation specifically, there is no extra obligation on the school because your spouse does not work in academia. In this case, I don't think there's any disadvantage to mentioning your two-body problem to the hiring committee. It explains why you want to move without making you seem "flighty" and makes you seem more likely to take the job if offered one. (Hiring a candidate who is applying as a backup school increases the risk of a failed search.) Moving for a spouse is a perfectly understandable reason to move. It sounds like it's too late, but you could probably find some faculty at your current institution to write reference letters if you explained your reason for moving. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This is hard to answer since the outcome depends on people we don't know. But, my advice would be to not mention the two-body issue unless asked. There are two reasons. First, is that you want to project that your interest in the new place is strictly professional and that you really want to build a career there - all other issues aside. The message is "I want you." Second, is that you don't want to be thought of as someone who doesn't need to be courted and enticed or someone who is an easy backup if no one else accepts the offer. The message is "You want me." In different circumstances I'd suggest that you leverage current colleagues to help you switch, but you seem to have already ruled that out. As a backup, you can always jointly consider places with a lot of opportunities for both of you or regions with a shorter commute. I live about an hour or so (by bus) from my previous university and it was no burden since I could make those hours productive with things that needed to be done anyway. An hour, with public transportation, can cover a pretty wide area with lots of universities as well as other institutions. Upvotes: 0
2021/06/11	789	3,274	<issue_start>username_0: During my master's work, when I was trying to solve the problem the advisor assigned to me, I solved another problem. I got an idea and it worked, I tried to talk to him about it, he refused. So, I went to present it in a prestigious conference and now I will send it to a journal. Now, the advisor knew and offers to revise it and put his name on it. I don't need revisions! If I told him no then, I might not get recommendations when I apply for PhD programs. What do you advise me to do?<issue_comment>username_1: My first bit of advice is to suggest that you recognize (as I think you do) that you may be being abused here. I would need to know more to be sure, but "male domination" kind of sticks out a bit here. If the advisor has something to add to the paper (and you agree that it does) then co-authorship of a revised paper would be proper and possibly even advantageous to you, depending on the general reputation of the the advisor. But if the "revision" is just "moving the chairs around" then it is clear abuse to insist on co-authorship. But, my second, and more important, bit of advice is that you do what you need to do to make the advisor happy enough that you get a good recommendation and get away from his influence if the request is, in your view, improper. You suggest that you don't want to press it to higher authorities. I can't disagree with that, though I think it would be a proper course to do so. Sometimes you just need to protect yourself and your future career. While a sole author paper is good, any paper at all is also good and can be a positive point in getting your career going. Think long term. Think strategically. Don't take any action that will come back against you. Life ain't fair in many ways. People with power often abuse it. In Tai Chi we would rather side-step an attacking opponent than counter attack. The point is to remain safe. --- Caveat. In some fields, advisors are accepted generally as co-authors. I don't particularly like that standard, but it happens. People in that field understand what is going on so it is, in that world, acceptable. A contributions section in the paper can, then, be used to clarify who did the work. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I've seen similar conflicts between students and advisors here before. Sometimes the question seems along the lines of "should you sacrifice your career to spite an abusive/unethical advisor?" You can certainly choose to submit the paper by yourself, but is it best for your long-term goals? For an established professor, missing out on coauthoring one more paper is a minor loss. For you, your advisor being a coauthor is expected in many fields (I don't know about yours) and carries no disadvantage. I know you don't believe you need revisions, but positioning a paper in context is often as important as the results, and a MS student is usually not yet an expert on publishing. Getting a good recommendation letter is helpful for your future too. In summary, I think there are several advantages to working with your advisor here. Overall, only you can decide what the best choice for you is, but my advice is to weigh the long-term advantages and disadvantages in your decision. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/11	1,557	6,651	<issue_start>username_0: I am writing an article for publication in a journal, and I couldn't find the answer here on Stack Exchange or in the journal guidelines. The field in question is electrical engineering. As I'm writing my introduction, I would like to tackle different parts of the problematic in a very clear way. I'm thinking about something in the likes of (not necessarily in order): * Formalizing some definitions and variables that will be used; * Context of the problem; * Brief review of models used in the literature (to justify my model of choice); * Review of parametrization methods for models similar to mine; * Review of papers tackling the same problem (and therefore the "holes" that my paper will fill); * Objectives of the article and a brief explanation of the structure (e.g. Section II will show...). I think that if I write all these points a single section, it will be a huge block of text (even with proper use of paragraphs and writing), and some readers may not pay attention to some important points. So I thought about breaking down my introduction in subsections, as it seems a logical solution to the problem. I saw some articles doing this, but the majority of journal articles I have read on my area don't do this. Do you guys think it is an acceptable solution to use subsections on an introduction? Can it impact positively or negatively a review process?<issue_comment>username_1: Reserve the introduction for * A very brief background necessary for understanding the next three points * Summarizing your research question and findings * Explain how your contribution relates to the existing literature * Outline the remainder of the paper. These are four to six paragraphs. All of your literature review should go into a separate section, after the introduction. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I'm going to suggest that you don't do so much in an introduction. I suspect that reviewers will say the same. Most of what you have listed should be sections of the main part of the paper, not the introduction. If the intro is so long that it gets boring, then readers may not get to the more important stuff. I recognize that you are trying to be "logical", but that can be a mistake in an introduction. What you want to do is tell the reader why they should read the whole paper, not present most of the paper itself. But your sections seem to include nearly everything except the results and conclusions. The key in the intro is to say what problem is being attacked, whether the methodology is standard or innovative, and what we can conclude in general from the research. Put the rest of it in sections of the paper itself. What you seem to be wanting to do is write half or so of an extended abstract in the introduction. I'd suggest not doing that. Capture the reader's interest in a few sentences. If the various sections of the paper itself are properly named and set off, then there is little need even to write what amounts to a table of contents in the intro. Let the paper's structure do that. Point to things that are unique/innovative/interesting in the intro, but not a general outline. The good will get lost in the ordinary if you try to do too much. --- Personal note: I once wrote a lesson for students that was so perfectly logical, complete, and elegant that no one understood it at all. It was beautiful, but useless for my purpose - and theirs. Logic and precision are often needed (this was Statistics) but understanding is also required or the logic is distracting and gives little insight. --- However, for something sent to a journal as a first draft you can structure it pretty much as you like. Very few papers ever get published in their original form. If no one objects to your structure, then it is probably fine, though you should also consider the ultimate reader, not just the reviewers, who may have more background than the typical reader. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: When writing the paper, think about how others will read it. Here is how I typically read engineering papers: Typically I'm looking for papers on topic X. I usually have a long list (10 - 100) of papers that may or may not be relevant. I can't read them all in depth, I have to "triage" them to determine which ones to spend time on. So first I read the abstract. If that sounds interesting, then I skim the introduction and conclusion. If that sounds interesting, then I glance through the figures. If I'm still interested, THEN I start reading text in depth. I don't know if this is how others read engineering papers, but I suspect many would (at least, I know for sure that none of my colleagues magically have more spare time on their hands than I do) With that in mind: * Structured papers with well organized sections, subsections, etc: good, makes it easily skimmable * Long introduction: bad, I won't read it all anyway unless I've already decided that your paper is relevant based on process above. * Suggest that your first figure or two should serve as a "graphical abstract". Something where a quick glance at the figure will give a sense for what the paper is about, even without reading any text. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: You certainly do not want six introductory sections --- that is excessive and it will bore your reader to tears. It should be possible to include all the things you have set out here in two sections: (1) an initial introduction without formal definitions/models that gives a non-formal introduction to the the problem and its context, the relevant literature, and what you will do; and (2) a section formalising the problem and expanding on the details of the models in the literature and how your model departs from these. If you find your explanations so long that you feel you need to break these into subsections, that is a sign that you are being insufficiently parsimoneous in your explanation. You should be able to cover all the points in your post in two sections, and it should generally be possible to cover this without so much text as to require breaking into subsections. > > 1. Introduction > > > Here is a general problem and its context > > > Here is some literature about the problem > > > Here is what my paper will do, with a brief justification > > > 2. Defining the problem > > > Here are formal definitions of variables, models, etc. > > > Here is more detailed discussion of models in the literature that are similar to mine > > > Here is how my model will differ from those in the literature, and more details on the justification > ... > > > Upvotes: 2
2021/06/11	1,671	7,080	<issue_start>username_0: How does an exchange student go to another country for a year when the language of education is different? Doesn't the exchange student attend any lecture or course during the visit? Except for negligible exceptions, the language of education is the local language, and almost every country has a different language. EDIT: 1. I feel the comments/answers are based on the large countries (e.g., many students can speak German or French). Consider small countries like Latvia, Estonia, etc. I doubt anyone learns those languages unless you already have a connection (e.g., a parent is from there, philology student). I think the purpose of exchange projects is to stay in/experience places you normally don't. 2. I doubt if basic language skills learned in school is sufficient for understanding a course/lecture. 3. If your choice is based on the language you speak, (formerly the UK), Ireland, (possibly The Netherlands) should be flooded with exchange students (or at least demands). As a side note, I read somewhere (I will look for it), the popular destinations for Erasmus students are cities with beaches regardless of the country's language or the university's reputation. A popular destination country is Turkey. I believe Erasmus is a cultural programme rather than an educational one. My question is how education quality assurance is managed/guaranteed.<issue_comment>username_1: Exchange students follow lectures in the receiving institution (apart from partying, which they of course also do). They do so by either: * knowing the language before going there (the number of bilingual and multilingual students has often surprised me) * Learn the language when they get there. The purpose of an exchange year is to immerse yourself in the new environment after all. * Limit themselves to courses taught in English. A lot of universities offer at least some of their courses in English. Most exchange students will try to learn the local language. Whether it is enough to follow courses in that language is another question. But there are enough cases where that is certainly feasible: This is easier when the student already learned the language in secondary school, or when the language is similar to another language they already know. But some students are just very good at learning new languages (I can only envy them). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Erasmus students attend lectures and are evaluated like any other student at the host institution. Their home institution converts their grades, when they return, to the local grading scale. For bachelor degrees institutions seem to mostly use the local language, but for masters degrees there are a lot of options in English. My school doesn't even allow Erasmus while doing your bachelors. --- There are limits on how many students each institution receives. At my home institution, for instance, during the application period we're given a table with possible destinations and the amount of slots available for each degree. For example, we could have 2 slots for computer science and 3 slots for mechanical engineering at Institution X, 2 slots for computer science at Institution Y, and 5 slots for aerospace engineering at Institution Z. The home institution decides who goes where. If there are 2 slots for CS at Y and 10 students want to go there, they'll rank those students somehow and pick two for the available slots. --- Why a student wants to go to a particular institution is going to depend on what that student wants: a university with good reputation, a city/country with beaches nearby and/or interesting places to visit, the availability of courses they like, maybe the opportunity to improve a second language they already speak, and of course money. Money is important. For a cash-strapped student going to a cheap location (country where wages are low) might be the only option. Courses for what I've seen you get some leeway when choosing. A CS master student might be allowed to take not only master-level courses but also bachelor-level courses (maybe they have machine learning at the bachelor level and you didn't at your home institution). This of course needs to be approved by both home and host institutions. I've had colleagues taking courses because they found them interesting. And I've seen others take courses they thought were easier to pass thus giving themselves more free time for traveling. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: For what it's worth, here's my experience studying abroad: Background ---------- * I'm French. * I was studying in France, in order to become an engineer. * I was able to speak English at an intermediate level. * I could not speak any other language. * Thanks to the [T.I.M.E. network](https://timeassociation.org/time-members/), I had the opportunity to get a [double-degree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_degree) from any partner university. * Studying in an English-speaking university would have been the easy choice. * I wanted to get the most value out of this experience, so I decided to study at the [Universidad Politécnica de Madrid](https://www.upm.es/), and learn Spanish there. * I had a few months to learn Spanish in France, but I'm really bad at learning languages in a classroom. Abroad ------ * I arrived in Madrid 2 weeks before starting my studies there, with a very basic vocabulary. I could count from uno to diez, and... that was about it. * I explicitly avoided hanging out with French students (not too easy in Spain), or with anyone speaking English decently (that was much easier, at least 15 years ago). * So basically, I tricked my brain into having to learn Spanish. I had to travel, find a flat, buy food, and get myself understood, all in Spanish. It was hard at first, but many people were really helpful and patient. * I spent as much time as possible with Spaniards, or people speaking Spanish well. * I had heavy, literal headaches at first, but they slowly disappeared after a month. I could then understand most of what people told me. To be fair, French & Spanish have many words in common. * After less than 2 months, I had no problem getting myself understood. Once again, I simply had no choice : lessons were all in Spanish, and I had 14 exams waiting for me at the end of the year. * After a year, I was basically fluent, and some people didn't notice I was a foreigner during a short conversation. * I studied with many Erasmus students : the difference is that they flew back right before the exams. They didn't have to pass anything, I had to pass all my exams or I would lose both my French & Spanish degrees. Afterwards ---------- * With the same goal of tricking my brain into learning a language, I went to Berlin after my studies, and learned German there. * Many German people speak English well, and are prompt to switch to English. That's really nice of them, but I explicitly asked them to speak German to me, slowly. * I had the exact same headaches as in Spain, and they also disappeared after a month. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/11	1,200	5,115	<issue_start>username_0: There is a small study project at university Z if someone did it and wrote a report, will be award an extra certificate. The project can be done as group work. The project was started with 2 person X and Y. Student x wrote the required codes in one programming language. Due to many troubles, it had to be written in another language by Student Y. However, Student Y hired someone to translate the codes to the new language. My question is: Is it ethical? Especially, Student Y seems to not have any intention of acknowledging this in the report? How it can affect the future of other students, if they decided to continue a career in academia?<issue_comment>username_1: Outside of a course context it would be ethical. People doing research can hire specialists for many tasks. However, within a course context it depends on the rules in place and it should, at the least, be revealed to the professor who assigned the project. Done in secret, however, it is possibly problematic since the learning objective of such a project is the important thing, not the final result. And it could well be that getting the programming "right" was one of the key learning objectives of the project. And not acknowledging it would seem to be a clear ethical lapse. It might be necessary for other students in the group to disassociate themselves from the "offender". But a joint discussion with the professor and everyone else might make it clear and provide an acceptable outcome for most or all of the students. But, again, it is the learning that is important. Don't lose track of that. You weren't asked to do the project (in almost all cases) because the professor needed the results, but so that you would learn. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: > > My question is: Is it ethical? Especially, Student Y seems to not have any intention of acknowledging this in the report? > > > It’s ethical precisely if the contribution of the hired party is acknowledged in the report. Otherwise it’s plagiarism, a form of academic misconduct. All students who signed their name to the work will be regarded as guilty of this offense, including the ones who didn’t actually hire the outside contributor (although their offense might be deemed more minor, and hypothetically speaking they can try to deny knowing about what their group member did; whether that defense would work, I can’t say). > > How it can affect the future of other students, if they decided to continue a career in academia? > > > Being found guilty of plagiarism is not necessarily a career killer, but it can definitely result in some bad consequences including major setbacks to your academic career, and potentially expulsion from school. It’s also possible that you could get off with very minor consequences, but I wouldn’t recommend (to put it mildly) trying to find out. Here are some suggestions for how you could handle this awkward situation: 1. ideally, convince your group member to report to the professor what happened (including the explanation of why it seemed necessary to hire someone, while acknowledging that that was a mistake to do it without getting the professor’s approval first, and apologizing for their display of poor judgment). 2. if the group member cannot be convinced, you can inform the professor of what happened yourself (i.e., be a “snitch” — in most places there is a stigma associated with doing this, and it’s true that you would be violating the other student’s trust, but since your own reputation is at risk, there is an argument to be made that that’s an appropriate thing to do). 3. A third, more diplomatic option is to go to the professor, explain that you encountered irreconcilable differences with one of your team members, without elaborating, and ask to be given an alternative assignment that does not involve working with that person. 4. Finally, there is the option of going along with the misconduct. I think that’s a terrible idea and significantly less preferable to each of the above three options. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: IMHO, that depends on the exact scope of work done by the translator and whether the translator has been compensated for it by student Y. Indeed, if I need to read some mathematical paper in Chinese, I can send it to the translation services, pay standard fees, and then, if I use some ideas from that paper in my project, I am obliged to acknowledge the paper itself, but not the translator work because I have already compensated for the latter according to the standard agreement (though, of course, I can consider mentioning the latter as an option). If that is what has happened (i.e., the code was blindly translated from, say, pascal to C++ for a fee without any attempt to improve it or to make it work properly), then I see no ethical problem whatsoever. The ethical problem will arise, however, if the translator took an active part in the correction or further development of the code. In that case he/she has effectively become a co-author of the final product with all consequences it implies. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/11	1,778	7,576	<issue_start>username_0: I'm wondering generally how can I identify the authorship of a paper? Some papers might have specific signs such as an asterisk or a dagger after an author's name, but for those who don't have any signs, is the name with first authorship usually listed at first also? Here's an example I found on PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS: <https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.230404> [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oTJkP.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/oTJkP.png) Who is the first author, and who are the second of this paper? Update: I'm asking this question because I want to know if the order of authors matters. Usually the first author is listed in the beginning, but if I want to assign all of my collaborators as the second author (there are 5-6 of them), do I need to worried about the order their names appear on the paper? Thanks for the help!<issue_comment>username_1: There are many conventions and they are mostly field dependent. I'll try to list a few of them, along with a bit of the possible reasoning. I'll also give some personal preferences about such questions, but they are, perhaps, influenced by my own education and career. In pure math and theoretical computer science, authors are generally listed alphabetically. The intent is to say that all contributed equally to the ideas, if not to the (quantity of) work itself. A seemingly minor comment in a meeting can lead to a big insight in a paper. My experience in those fields is that advisors don't add themselves to the list of authors, though I'd guess there are exceptions. Perhaps many. I'm very uncomfortable with a convention that the advisor is always an "author" even if they contribute very little. My personal practice (math, CS) is that I won't be a co-author with a student on their thesis work, even if I contribute the problem and give them extensive advice along the way. The work that solves the problem is theirs. And while I prefer alphabetical listing of authors in work I contribute to, I've been on at least one paper that followed a different convention since two of the group were the clear drivers of everything in the work. And the person among us who actually put the words in place was not one of the "first" authors, just the best writer. Note that collegial relationships such as I just described makes it desirable to work with those same authors on future work. So, while I might be a "minor" author on a work, those people are happy to work with me in the future. In some lab sciences author order is considered very important but the convention varies. In some, the advisor is always listed last in order, but some people assume they did all the "real" work and just carried the other along. In some fields, the advisor is listed first, with the same idea behind it. In those fields that list advisors on student works it is sometimes justified by noting that the paper may get more visibility if a prominent name is among the authors. The association with that person might also have some value. But such can also be indicated in other fields by having an acknowledgement section, thanking advisors or others who helped but are not authors. In those fields in which the advisor adds themself by convention, it may make sense or not. If the field, such as a lab science fundamentally depends on grants written by and labs managed by PIs, it may make sense since many of the ideas developed in such a lab may flow from meetings in which the PI is a fundamental participant. Note, however, that it should be the case that the authors are the ones that contribute ideas to the papers, not just "work". Someone can spend a lot of time and effort on a paper that is actually driven by the ideas of others. But I think that idea is not especially well followed, certainly not universally. In those fields that worry about and fight over author order, relationships can be destroyed when people bicker over priority. It is, in my view, a selfish attitude. However, having said all that, looking at a particular paper, it can be difficult to know from the list of authors alone who was the primary driver of the ideas. A few of the authors in a longer list might have been more or less equal contributors. Some fields will explicitly list "co first" authors if they feel it is important, though it may not be obvious from the listing and you might need to get the paper to see if it has a section or note on contributions. It should also be noted that there are several papers with thousands of "authors". The list of authors is longer than the paper itself. CERN produces such papers, for example, just by the nature of the work there. --- I hope I didn't go too far off-topic here, but these are things that I think a new academic should consider. Be generous with your colleagues. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: "Does author order matter" is one of those questions best answered "sometimes". There is variation between [fields](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2467/17254), and sometimes subfields. Since you're asking about a PRL, I will assume you're asking about conventions in physics. There e.g. high-energy theory tends to use alphabetical order, whereas e.g. condensed matter and AMO do not. You probably know what's the case in your subfield just from reading relevant papers. Assuming alphabetical order isn't used, as has been pointed out in the comments, and assuming no co-first authors etc., the author who's literally listed first (second, third, ..., last) is considered the first (second, third, ..., last) author. The first and last author positions are special - the first author is typically the author who's been the driving force in carrying out a project (often a student or postdoc), while the last author is more likely to be a supervisor or the principal investigator who may have proposed the project. At some point during a career you may [transition](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/82059/17254) from having mainly early author positions to more late-author positions. So what about the positions in-between? Well, there are diminishing returns. Having first-author papers can be a big deal, so the concept of co-first authors (e.g. designated with a footnote along the lines of "these authors contributed equally") is fairly common. However, beyond that, the benefit or perceived difference between being second, third or fourth author is rather small. Often it's possible to pick out who made the second biggest contribution to the project, but further down the list it's hardly an exact science. As a result, physics has not developed any tendencies to listing co-second or co-third authors. (I'm told some other fields have.) Thus there'll be a range of middle authors, but they won't all be called second authors. As a rule of thumb, junior authors and especially those who contributed most to the results tend to go early in the author list, and supervisors last. In between is an area for people who maybe contributed a smaller part. If you're writing a paper with 5-6 co-authors, and this isn't clear to you, it may be best to ask your advisor what they think the author order should be. Other times it can be useful to just propose an author order and see if people are happy with it. (Again, usually people don't care too much whether they're third or fourth author.) Of course, in reality there's sometimes various "political" pressures that can affect the author order too in ways unrelated to contributions. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/12	225	976	<issue_start>username_0: Elsevier launched new NeuroImage: Report as a companion journal to NeuroImage. What does companion mean here in terms of publishing content, cite-score and impact factors.<issue_comment>username_1: Companion journals are separate journals on the same topic. The content and bibliometrics, including impact factor, are different. Usually, the newer journal is considered lower quality. It has different editorial standards. An example of three companion journals: * Nature (1869) * Nature Communications (2010) * Scientific reports (2011) The purpose of a companion journal is to increase the revenue a publisher gets from publication charges without decreasing the quality of the original journal. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think Companion journals are new journal published by an older journal because the old journal could not publish all articles submitted to it due differences in scopes but doesnt want to lose them. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/12	783	3,406	<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a Ph.D. in a university in New Zealand. I started 3 months ago and am about two years away from finishing. Since they do not issue visas (due to the pandemic), I had to start online and paid one year of tuition. For the next year, it looks like I will have to do the same thing. Now I got admission to a different PhD program in a slightly different subject in Europe with funding. Can I study for two PhDs at the same time? I am confident I can handle the workload (already finished much of the work for the NZ program). I am not asking whether this is a good idea, just whether it is allowed / legal.<issue_comment>username_1: It is unlikely that any law would restrict your earning two doctorates simultaneously. That doesn't seem like something any law would be concerned with. However, the funding from the European institution might well come with restrictions about what sorts of outside activities you can pursue while accepting the funds. In particular they might regard the funding support as "full time" and thus disallow some other activities. You can explore that with them. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Short answer: Read the PhD candidature rules for those two institutions; at best, they might allow you to go part-time at each institution. A better option would be to apply for suspension of candidature in NZ. --- Longer answer: Most PhD programs have a set of rules for students that set out rules/expectations for the amount of hours the student will commit to the program each week. In cases where this is specified, usually the stipulated hours will be commensurate with a job ---i.e., a full-time candidature would be approx 36-40 hours per week and a part-time candidature less. Usually there are specific rules for taking leave from the program, and you get about the same amount of leave as in a job. In some cases, approval will be required for outside study or work that impacts on the student's ability to meet the required time commitment. Even if specific approval is not required, it would usually be considered to be a breach of the rules if a student does not put in the stipulated hours when they are not on approved leave. If such rules are present in one or both of these programs then it is difficult to see how you could do both programs full-time. You might be able to apply for part-time candidature at one or both of the institutions in order to cut down the hours, but it would probably be difficult to get approval for this. In view of your circumstances, let me offer an alternative. Since you are prevented from attending the university in New Zealand, your best bet here would be to apply for a suspension of your candidature for one year, so that you don't have to pay tuition for that year. Suspension of candidature means that you do not lose your place in the program, but you take a temporary break with the expectation that you will return to candidature afterwards. In present circumstances, where the pandemic is preventing you entering the country, such an application would probably be viewed favourably, and I suspect it would be granted. A one-year suspension of candidature would allow you to attend the other university for a year and see which you prefer. If you decide you prefer the program in Europe you can then apply for withdrawal from your university in New Zealand. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/12	774	3,448	<issue_start>username_0: I am an incoming freshman to college. I am majoring in physics and math with the intention of one day becoming a professor specializing in theoretical physics. My question is: how should I go about deciding what exactly is my passion for research? Something I wouldn't mind spending so much time on. Specifically, something I would actually enjoy spending all my time on. Thank you for your answers<issue_comment>username_1: The best way is to get involved in research as early as you possibly can. Since you are about to enter college this fall, as soon as you can, get involved with whatever project that seems most interesting to you. It may not be directly related to what you will eventually research in your graduate studies, but by getting involved in undergraduate research earlier, you will know what you may be interested in, as well as what you may not be so interested in. You may have to jump around a few times to find out what you are interested in, and you'll also learn the great and not so great things about academic research in the process as well. It is somewhat less common for freshmen to get involved in research, but before you know it you'll be a sophomore, junior, senior then graduating college. So make sure to get involved in your classes first (by asking questions and going to office hours, or OH), this way you'll get to know your professors. If you find yourself interested in their research, read up on their papers, then go to OH and ask about what their research is, as well if you could possibly assist with it in some way. (From my experience, finding out what you are most interested in, like many things, take some, if not a lot, of trial and error) Also, while at it, also get started on crafting a statement of purpose or essay about your research interests. While graduate applications are a (seemingly) long way down the road, since you haven't even entered college yet, many summer REU or research internship programs (great opportunity to gain research experience especially if there aren't many such opportunities at your university) will want some kind of essay component as part of the application process. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would also recommend doing a weekly trip to the univ library, and spend a few hours reading the abstracts from various journals. Make plenty of notes in order to clearly understand what are the latest developments in your field, what kind of interesting research is being done at the moment, what are the latest problems that need to be fixed/solved/researched, etc. By doing this regular background work, you will probably be intrigued by certain papers or research approaches, and you might find yourself inclined to know more about a certain topic. You can either contact your professors during office hours to know more, or even send an email to the corresponding author of the paper to ask for more info (just be as polite as possible and don't ask for too many things, keep it short and simple!). The fact is, that unless you take a bite out of all/most of the various dishes being offered in a menu, you will never know which dish you like the most. The same applies to finding a research topic that intrigues you and motivates you. Try doing various little things, usually after a month or two you can tell whether a certain research topic is right for you or not. Do not procrastinate and good luck! Upvotes: 2
2021/06/12	2,927	12,962	<issue_start>username_0: I'm in a bit of a tricky situation and I'm not sure how to proceed forwards in accomplishing my goals. I think I am a bit of an information addict especially in regards to physics. I can't stop reading about the fundamentals of reality and it gives my life an insane amount of meaning. However it's not feasible to do that in my current life situation. I graduated from college with a degree in chemical engineering and I currently work in the battery industry. As many of you have probably experienced a 40+ hour work week isn't conducive to learning difficult topics. It's especially difficult now because my next steps are developing a deeper understanding of General Relativity and Quantum Field theory from a geometric, gauge theoretic point of view. I want to complete reading Peskin & Schroeder's An Introduction to Quantum Field Theory, Carroll's Spacetime and Geometry as well as Mathematical Gauge Theory With Applications to the Standard Model of Particle Physics. I've made valuable progress in all of these books, but I'm still at the beginning of each of them. To tell the truth reading these subjects feels like intellectual masturbation. It's interesting, pleasurable and meaningful but it doesn't get me closer to any of my life goals. Ideally I would be able to pursue these ideas, especially the mathematics and philosophy in a full time career. But in order to do that I need to have an advanced degree of some kind to have enough experience and confidence in publishing to contribute something valuable to physics. Reading alone doesn't make it more likely to be accepted into a graduate school. You have to have a provable track record, and I don't right now. In undergrad I had extremely serious mental health problems. Extremely so. I also didn't give a damn about anything I was learning (with the exception of classical thermodynamics) whatsoever. I did no research and graduated with a 2.97 GPA. This is an very big mistake and I don't know the best way to rectify it. It is my life dream to publish on the foundations of quantum theory and the propagation of quantum effects to macroscopic levels, but I feel like without a proper degree and in a suitable academic environment I could easily become just another crank emailing their pet theories to professors. I have some ideas about how to move forwards, mostly involving trying to get a masters degree but I'm not sure how feasible they are. I've pondered developing a quantum chemistry type simulator as well as creating 3blue1brown type videos about QFT. I am very uncertain about the feasibility and value of these things. Has anyone else been through similar situations who can comment? In short, how can I pursue my intellectual ambitions in physics without favorable conditions? Thanks you for the replies in advance.<issue_comment>username_1: Professional physicists who study quantum foundations are a tiny portion of professional physicists. I've met a lot of physicists, and I have yet to meet one who studies foundations, though I have read their papers. I'd suggest that the chances of getting such a job are very low, but might be increased if you would like a job that involves teaching. The best way to get information on niche fields is to read profiles of people who work in those fields. You can also do informational interviews. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am going to answer this question from the perspective that you are looking to start a traditional academic career as a physicist, given the background in your answer, and try to give some perspective and practical advice. However, I want to emphasize that what I am not telling you is how to evaluate whether following this path is really the best thing for you when you consider all of the factors in your life and happiness; only you can make that decision. The only way I know of to become employed full-time to write physics papers is to become a physics PhD student and get a PhD. The mainstream track at that point is to become a tenured professor (which itself requires several steps: typically 2-3 postdocs and then a 6-year term as an assistant professor before a tenure review). You should be aware that as a professor your job is not only to write papers; in fact most professors spend only a small fraction of their time doing research themselves, and much more time supervising their students and postdocs (who are in turn spending most of their time on research); writing grant proposals and reports; serving on academic committees; and teaching. In some fields you may be able to get a PhD and then do industrial research, rather than become a professor. My background is in theoretical astrophysics/cosmology/gravitational waves, so I am not super familiar with quantum foundations specifically, but you should research the realistic job options in the field you want to pursue, including salary, location, probability of obtaining a position, and whether these options appeal to you. You should also be aware that the pandemic has had an impact on academia in terms of available funding and positions, and the long-term impacts of this are unknown. To get into a physics PhD program in the US [this may not apply in other countries], the typical route would be to get a physics undergraduate degree and obtain good grades, do research, get good scores on the GREs and Physics GREs, and have good letters of recommendation from professors familiar with your work, from research or courses. Of course you don't have all of that, and you don't need all of it, but you should know that your competition for limited places in PhD programs will have those things, and you will need to show that you have similar promise by being strong in other areas. I think, as others have said, a good route would be to pursue a Master's degree. Typically you pay for a Master's degree, while a PhD program should cover your tuition and provide a stipend for you to do research (many students in the US go straight into the PhD program without a Master's degree). You should never pay tuition for a PhD program yourself, or feel you must have an additional job to support yourself (though you certainly can make money on the side if you want). So, with that in mind, on the one hand getting a Master's means you will need to pay for tuition. But, on the other hand, you are paying the University, rather than them paying you, so this tends to work in your favor in the admissions process. I also genuinely think that pursuing the Master's is worth it, since you will have a chance to study the subject, get good grades, get involved in research, and meet some professors who can write letters of recommendation for you. I cannot emphasize enough how important this last point is. You need allies who is at the professor level who will write you strong letters. Your goal during your Master's should be to get to know your professors. Go to their office hours and ask them about their research and ask them questions about the course material. Ask to do research with them. Do well in their courses. Taking courses and doing research is very difficult and time consuming, and of course you won't make as much progress on research during the school year as you would if you were only focused on research, but carve out a substantial fraction of your time (10 hours / week) to do what you can. Spend the summers doing research. It sounds like you know what field you want to pursue. In this case, you should focus your energy on the best possible preparation for that field. Do not get a degree in anything that is not directly related to quantum foundations. I actually don't know exactly what field you mean (you should clarify this for yourself), but I suspect quantum foundations is interdisciplinary enough that depending on exactly what you are interested in, you could find departments that cover this field in physics, computer science, chemistry, and maybe others. Look at departments before you apply for your Master's and look for places that have experts doing research in the aspects of quantum foundations that you are the most interested in. Write about these people in your application and be specific about how your interests overlap with theirs. Other advice for applying to the Master's program: study for the GRE and physics GRE and get good scores. Reach out to former professors whose courses you did well in and ask if they would be willing to write a letter of recommendation. Spend some time crafting a personal statement which explains your drive and ambition and demonstrate to the committee reading your application your passion about physics by explaining self-learning activities you have undertaken. If at all possible, find someone -- ideally in the field you are interested in (a friend, former professor) -- to look over your materials and give you critical feedback before you send it. Finally I would stop studying QFT, GR, and gauge theory. These topics are not relevant for quantum foundations, so you should drop them to focus on things that will help you more directly. Perhaps there are some areas where they overlap, but this would be a super niche research area and you need to triage and focus on learning the basics on what you are the most interested in. Based on the comments, it also sounds like you may have gaps in your knowledge of classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and electromagnetism (although you were good with statistical mechanics). You must learn all of these subjects at the undergraduate level very well; this should be where you focus your effort in self-learning. These subjects are foundational and are assumed knowledge for any physicist. More to the point, you will need to demonstrate knowledge of these topics to succeed at the Master's level -- you will need to know this material to do well on the Physics GRE; to do well in the Master's level courses you will need a strong background so you aren't starting from scratch; when you start doing research, you will need background in at least some of these topics to be able to build and understand the topic you work on. You can't walk before you can crawl, and it makes no sense to read advanced topics in quantum foundations (or for that matter, GR, QFT, and gauge theory) without a strong understanding in these subjects ("strong" meaning "you can solve the homework and exam problems correctly and in a timely way which are given in a good undergraduate course.") --- I'm adding a few recommendations that came up in the comments. * The OP clarified that their interests were in "many body localization" and "the mechanism that propagate quantum effects to macroscopic levels". This is not at all my area of expertise, but I recommend some keywords to search for these topics would be "condensed matter physics" and "Anderson localization". I think superconductivity is an area that is very active with a long history and very much related to coherent quantum effects with macroscopic amounts of matter. * For electromagnetism, I would actually advise against using Jackson as a textbook. It's famously painful. There are other books that are good, such as Zangwill. * It's not necessary to work through books written at the graduate level (those books are the foundations of a master's degree). Basically you want to be able to do the homework and exam problems of good undergrad courses. * Here's a link to an excellent MIT undergrad QM course as an example: ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-04-quantum-physics-i-spring-2013/ * <NAME> has an excellent series of lecture notes on many topics in physics, which always start with an annotated bibliography: damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/teaching.html I'd focus on the things that will come up on the GRE and Master's courses: Classical Dynamics, Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetism, and Statistical Physics. – username_2 13 hours ago * The Physics GRE isn't a breaking point especially since you can take it multiple times and send your best score. But it is important to do well on it and it also will give you a sense of what topics you should know. (You need to know things in a bit more depth than what's asked on the GRE, but I think to do well on the GRE you need to know things at more depth than they are asking, given the time constraints...) It is a bit of an annoying hurdle and isn't representative of physics research at all, but take it seriously. * In general (especially for self-study) it's best not to rely on one resource, but to have at least two from different perspectives so (a) if the explanation in one resource doesn't make sense you can get an alternative explanation, and (b) so you can increase the robustness of your knowledge by avoiding "overfitting" to one way of looking at things. In a lecture course, the lectures and the textbook already provide two different sources, but even then it's better to look at more. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/13	1,240	5,245	<issue_start>username_0: I am a leader of my undergraduate thesis team and we have 3 members. My team performance is lower than every others team in my class (i.e, they will need more time to complete a task than anyone). Because of that reason, when working with them, I don't rush them or set too many deadlines, instead, I just usually ask about their progress and help them solve their problems. But the deadline is coming, and I ask a member that "Can you give a day that you think this task will be completed?". He said that "why you keep rushing me, how about your work, have you done it?" and after I told him my progress (does not finish), he said, "Instead of rushing me, why don't you finish your works?". And after this, it is a conversation of him question what I have done so far. The problem is I do not rush him, I just want to know the time he estimates it. About this member, he often gets angry if the task is hard and has to do it by himself. He usually judges others' works and when they ask how to do it, he just says google it by yourself, this is your task. How can I handle this situation? How can I help him stay calm and listen to everyone when working as a team? Update: To answer @Lewian's question: * This project is our final thesis for the undergraduate. * We formed the team by our choice. So after we formed our team, they chose me to become a team leader for this project because I have more experience in research and works. * "How these "teams" are organized?" - I don't really understand this question but each team will do a different thesis topic, each team will have 2 - 3 members and work with a supervisor from the faculty. * "How can you know that "my team performance is lower than every other team"?" - Because our class size is small, we usually learn together in almost every course. I worked with them on some course projects so I know how they work and can compare their performance with others students in our class. * "To what extent is your course result dependent on how your team members work?" - The course result will be graded by our faculty committee, they will judge on our overall results and each member's works. * "On previous tasks (if they exist), to what extent was your performance affected by the teammate this question is about, or actually your own work?" 1. So his task is like DevOps (he will install all the libraries, packages, etc), we need him to make everything available so we can work on the algorithm. He did this before on our computer so now, he does it again on our university server (because we need a more powerful machine). 2. I said the deadline is coming means the research paper submission. We need to run many experiments on our university server to have some results for the paper. So if he doesn't finish the installation, we cannot run anything and we may not submit our paper on time.<issue_comment>username_1: Assuming this is not a course on management or psychology: Teaching students how to treat each other politely, or how to manage stress, is not something that students need to do. It is something faculty need to do. Ask your instructor for help. If this is a final year thesis, maybe this student is having a hard time learning those skills. Do "lead by example" by being patient and calm. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I should first say that there's quite a bit of speculation in this answer - I don't necessarily believe it is as I say, I rather offer this as a possibility to potentially understand the situation. "How can I handle this situation? How can I help him stay calm and listen to everyone when working as a team?" It seems to me that in this setup he doesn't have any incentive to respect you as a leader, at least not when you do something that annoys him. You probably have to accept that. It may be that you have a different interpretation of the "leader" role - you seem to think that some real responsibility and authority comes with it, whereas I suspect he just sees you as an equal who doesn't have any particular right to "lead" him. He may think that there's a "leader" just because there has to be one (somehow maybe enforced by the way this assignment is run in the class), but he wouldn't want to be "led" anyway. Maybe it goes against his pride. Unfortunately the problem is that it seems that in this setup you don't have any particular power. You can only "rule" as far as the others are fine with your rule, but if this person disagrees with your authority, you have no way to enforce it. I'm assuming that you are "leader" only for the limited time of this assignment, and there is no need in the long run for him to respect you as authority. "Help him to stay calm" - I'm afraid that this cannot be your job realistically, as long as he doesn't want it to be your job. Ultimately I agree that asking the instructor for help is pretty much the only thing you can do; otherwise you maybe need to accept that being "group leader" really doesn't mean that much here, and you will have to live with his way of working and communication for the time being. (Hopefully you are not constrained to have him in your group for a long period and several tasks.) Upvotes: 1
2021/06/13	437	1,878	<issue_start>username_0: In industry, when someone is hired, it's typical for the employer to pay for the flight costs of the new employee. But when grad students and postdocs are moving to different countries, typically they have to pay with their own money. Why is this the norm in academia and not industry?<issue_comment>username_1: The premise of the question is incorrect. Both industry and academia use a variety of strategies for funding moving expenses. The strategies are largely based on niche economic conditions. In my experience, moving expenses are provided for many postdoc positions, but my experience is not a random sample. The dollar amount varied greatly. Positions that are easy to fill usually do not come with moving expenses. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: As others have said, practices vary considerably. A couple of factors may be at play when academia doesn't pay relocation costs: 1. Salaries for grad students and postdocs are often derived from grant funding. Typically, funding organisations impose detailed rules about what can, and cannot, be paid for using their money. It may not be possible to pay for relocation from grant funds. Alternatively it may be allowed, but only if the PI thought to include it in the budget when they applied for funding. 2. Typically, national tax authorities impose strict rules on relocation payments (to avoid them being used as a back-door to paying 'golden handshakes'). Academic institutions tend to be risk-averse and may decide to err on the side of caution here. Cynically, a third factor may be: academic hiring is a buyer's market. Most applicants for PhDs and postdocs aren't negotiating from a position of strength, and won't see a lack of relocation expenses as a dealbreaker. That being the case, why not spend the money on upgrading the oak panelling in the Dean's office? Upvotes: 3
2021/06/13	3,850	15,891	<issue_start>username_0: How do people pay for a Bsc without taking massive loans? Is there enough time in a waking day to both study and financially support yourself with a job that is relevant to your field of study? Is it possible to 'slow down' the degree to allow more work hours? EDIT: In the united states, as a person with barely any savings.<issue_comment>username_1: If you can land a part time job that pays about $60,000-$80,000/year it would be possible, but few exist and fewer young people would be qualified for them. If you can land a fully paid scholarship and can live extremely modestly, or with family, it might be possible. If you have a well paid spouse and an established residence it might be possible. If you can spend ten years or so as a part time student it would be possible, though work would be pretty much full time. If you can go without sleep for four years it might be possible (provided you live through it). Jobs that are "relevant to study" are hard to obtain for most undergraduates. There are a few (very few) other possibilities, but generally it is no longer possible to manage this. --- While loans may be necessary, there are a few strategies to minimize them. First, of course, is to avoid predatory lenders. You can possibly continue to live at home, supported by parents while attending a local community college for two years. Some of these are excellent for the low level courses. Some have highly qualified faculty, but qualified as teachers, not researchers. You can attend a state university rather than a private one, though, some private colleges will have scholarships available that make the cost difference quite low. Sadly, even state university tuition is far too high and reflects poorly on the priorities of legislators. You can have a part time job, but something that pays more than minimum wage. If you have certain skills, such as programming, you might be able to find something. And with a job, you will need to carefully manage time so that you meet your main goals. And don't neglect your health. Get enough rest and enough exercise to maintain balance. Some campus jobs may be better than outside jobs. Some might come with tuition reduction. Some might come with housing in a residence hall. Avoid expensive habits of all kinds. People laugh when I suggest that you don't ignore the "rich uncle" option. Maybe someone in your family thinks highly enough of you and has the resources to provide some support. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: The question seems to ignore other kinds of financial aid that can make it possible for a student to complete a degree with minimal or no loan debt. Some sources of non-loan financial aid to consider are: 1. Federal Pell Grants. 2. State scholarship programs. Several states have scholarship programs that cover the cost of tuition for residents. For example, the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship pays 100% of tuition for New Mexico high school graduates at public institutions. 3. Institutional financial aid. Many colleges and universities have scholarship programs that can provide more help. An important consideration is the cost of tuition in various states and at various institutions within a state. You could be in a state with high tuition costs, but you should check. Also, public community college tuition is usually much lower than tuition at four-year colleges. Thus one way to save money is to start at a community college and transfer to a four-year institution after two years. Until you've considered all of these factors, you really shouldn't jump to the conclusion that you can't afford to go to college. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In the US at universities with competitive admissions (e.g. state flagships, prominent SLACs, ivies, etc.) the expectation is that college is paid for by parents, grants, and loans, with student jobs paying a relatively minor role (typically enough to pay for books and spending money). In particular, if your family income is in the bottom half of US incomes and you get into a competitive university, a very large proportion of your tuition, room, and board is covered by "need-based financial aid." To give two examples, at the state flagship that I work at, people with family income between $30K-$70K typically graduate with $16.5K in debt (quite below what the "sticker price" for 4 years is), while at the Ivy I went to for college if you make under $65K/year then college (including room and board) is completely free. Of course, there are important caveats to this, most notably students with rich parents who are bad at finances, students with families to pay for, families with substantial non-liquid assets, etc. I don't know the situation at other universities (including 2-year universities) as well, so I won't try to comment on them. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Scholarships have higher rates of return than jobs If you're able to get good scholarships through keeping your grades up, it can be way more lucrative than a job. If it takes you 10 hours to apply to 10 scholarships and you only get one worth $1000, you just made $100/hour. If you spend 100 hours (2 and a half weeks full time pay) at a similar ratio, you'll get $10,000 in scholarships. Many scholarships are renewable, so you can keep getting that money through college and not have to apply each year. I went to college in 2012, was fortunate enough to get a full ride freshman year through ROTC. But I dropped ROTC, so I lost the scholarship. Thankfully, I had good enough grades that I applied for a bunch of smaller departmental scholarships and earned enough to pay for tuition & fees in 1-10k increments for all 3 remaining years of college. Most scholarships at the university (not country wide) are only applied for by a handful of students. Often times a department will have like $5000 worth of scholarships available and only 10 or so students apply. If you happen to be a minority or interested in niche areas, there are scholarships that only have a handful of people who can apply. I applied for a scholarship meant for secondary education majors who wanted to coach sports. Surely only 3 or 4 people in my entire college applied for that scholarship. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Many schools nowadays offer substantial need-based scholarships. My alma mater (an Ivy-level school), for example, offers full ride need based scholarships to any student who shows no ability to pay (of course, parental help is assumed if they're able to by the federal standards, so this doesn't necessarily help students who have parents able but unwilling to pay) and even includes room and board and books for those with very low family incomes (and assets). This is becoming more common from top schools - who don't want to lose any students that should be there, and have extremely substantial endowments. And that's a full ride with no loans! If you're in that tier of college, don't assume you won't be able to go there without massive loans, and don't be too scared off by the price tag (my alma mater is over 50k/year for undergrad, just tuition!) - that price tag is meant for the rich, not for the rest of us. Apply to where you want, and then talk to admissions and financial aid after to figure out what you will need to pay. Odds are if you're a strong candidate, they'll do everything they can to help you attend. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: As someone who graduated debt-free from a private undergraduate institution with a STEM major, I would like to add a couple points. Some of these options are case-specific, others are more generally accessible. Of course, scholarships, scholarships, scholarships. While these are very important and what you will need to spend a large amount of time applying for, it is still not guaranteed you will get all the scholarships you need. The options for applying to scholarships via the different colleges you applied to have already been well-addressed in the great answers above. However, there are some scholarships online you can apply to. These are small and hard to get, but it could be worth it. Small scholarships that are easier to get are local ones in your hometown, businesses or organizations wanting to support students in their local community. In addition to hunting up scholarships, there are a few things that are almost entirely under your control that you can do to reduce the amount of money you spend on a college education that are not as well known as they should be. 0. This only applies if you are still in high school: Running Start or ACE programs provide high school students the opportunity to take college courses at a hugely discounted price, one that is not unreasonable to pay for out of pocket. These are available to homeschool as well as traditional high school students, can be done through the high school or through the college itself depending on the programs available in your area. You generally don't have to meet any other requirements other than to have the necessary prerequisites (e.g., to take calculus you will need to have had pre-calc). 1. CLEP tests: depending on what college you go to, if you can study the material on your own and test out via CollegeBoard CLEP tests, you can get many of your general requirements out of the way. I know someone who tested out of 30 credits with their undergraduate institution this way; that was basically an entire year of college out of the way for them and instead of costing the annual sticker price to go to college and take those classes, it cost a few hundred dollars. 2. Taking GenEd requirements at a community college; depending on what you want to major in/how transferable the credits are, you can do a lot of your general requirements at a local community college for way cheaper and just transfer the credits. You have to be aware of what does and does not transfer to your target college(s). (Note as mentioned above this can also be done with online school. Some colleges actually have online programs specifically for this reason. Some colleges actually partner with local community colleges with an agreed upon set of classes that are transferable, helping students save money.) 3. Live off-campus. Many colleges charge way more for room and board than you would pay if you lived in town and bought groceries at the store. I think the trade off here is: do you want to have the convenience of living on campus and pay more debt off later, or can you get a job now and pay rent month to month (if possible sublet in the summer if it is okay with your landlord). Upperclassmen often do this in the last year or two of college. Be careful, though, some colleges require one to live on campus for the first year or the first 2-3 years. 4. (Hard to do and very rare) If you are required to take a course by the university but you know much of the material already, you can petition the university to take a test administered by the professor of the course. If you pass it, you pass and get credit for the course. This is more of an uphill battle than just taking the CLEP test route, but it's something you can try. A late late edit: I just discovered that you can apply to so called "work colleges." There are about ten of them around the country and they require that all students participate in work-study programs. In exchange, tuition is free. I believe most, if not all, of them are religious-based, though, so if that is a factor in your decision you should be aware of this fact. The acceptance rates, though, are very low (for obvious reasons). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: As someone who has recently graduated with a 4-year undergraduate degree, I can confirm that it is possible. But - and this is very important - it depends on the cost of living where your university is, and it also requires you to choose a university that is actually affordable. For me this came down to two things: 1. Scholarships 2. Making the most out of your time on school breaks (Like getting a summer job). For the first point, many others have talked about scholarships, so I will just note that there are scholarships available in many different places, such as your high school, local community, as well as the university you are applying to. Try your best to get as much as possible, as username_4 mentioned, "Scholarships have higher rates of return than jobs". Second, if you want to pay your own way, you will have to get a part time job, of course, but you will also need to work as much as you can during the summer months and possibly even weekends. These savings, if used wisely, can last you through each year. If you are anything like me, the idea of working that much while still trying to make decent grades sounds horrible. Don't let that discourage you, because it actually isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. I had a few part time jobs while I was in school (and I will note that the best part time job I had was at the university itself. The "minimum wage" that they paid student workers was higher than most local jobs), I cleaned rental houses at least every other weekend, and I had at least two jobs during the summer. Through all of that, I would say that the impact to my studying was very minimal, although it requires some self discipline. The impact to my social life was also very minimal, because most people I knew were already spending a lot of their free time working and studying. Again, this is all dependent on the university you choose. Actually, I went to two different universities. The first was a "prestigious" (code for extremely overpriced) private university, and the second was my local 4-year university. To make a long story short, I wasted ALL of my scholarship money on the private university, and despite that it still accounts for 90% of my student debt. If I had chosen to attend the more affordable, and in my opinion superior, university then I would be debt free today. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_8: I worked my way through my BS in engineering without taking any loans. I had $1000 in support from my family total for the course of my degree, other than that I did not have any scholarships (as a total idiot, I missed the application deadline for the full-ride scholarship I qualified for, and I don't qualify for identity-based scholarships). I started at a community college and took a job that was basically just answering phones so that I could do homework while I worked. My state has pretty low tuition rates, so I could pay for tuition by working full time through the summer and part-time during the school year (~20 hours). I transferred to a four-year school with low tuition rates. Once in my program, I got a job doing undergraduate research, which paid better and was more in line with future prospects. Any kind of skilled labor you can do to pay your way also helps make the math work out easier. I had friends who would do door-to-door sales through the summers and that would pay for everything (they were good at it). I lived in the cheapest housing I could find, and never ate out. I would budget meals to find the absolute cheapest ingredients I could buy (lots of potatoes/rice), and cooked everything myself. It could be really stressful to manage everything. I almost had to take a loan a couple of times. I graduated in 2015. For some people, this is an option that works. I don't recommend it for everyone, though. My standard of living was pretty low, and my grades definitely suffered from working through school. If you have to decide between work and a degree that will pay for itself, go for the degree. I didn't take a break, but taking a break from school also makes your grades suffer, as you lose some information throughout the break. It also commonly results in dropping out. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/13	1,045	4,686	<issue_start>username_0: I have done about one year and nine months of my PhD (in the UK) and have got a paper published, one waiting to be submitted, and another reasonably-sized project completed. I have written up three chapters of my thesis corresponding to the previous three papers/projects. For the past three months or so I have not done any meaningful research, because my supervisor didn't give me any project to work on. I tried to find some research projects on my own, but failed miserably. Given that I am not interested in academia, I have instead spent my time learning about other technical/programming knowledge to prepare for my future career. I am a little bit worried that I have not done research in a while, but I don't really know what I should do about it, and spending time to prepare for my career seems to be worthwhile. Is there anything better that I could do?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't see a particular problem as long as your supervisor is OK with your progress, especially since you don't aspire to a career in academia. Learning other things is good. The only issue is to assure that you make sufficient progress toward graduation that you aren't delayed. Your goals don't need to be the same as every other student's goals. Be true to yourself, but make enough progress to finish. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Coming up with new research ideas isn't trivial. Finding promising ones is even harder. For both, you need to know and think a lot about the current state of the field, past developments, ideas currently floating around in related fields, etc. The way to make progress here is to read a lot of textbooks and papers. Textbooks give you deeper knowledge of the fundamental methods of your field. As there are many different textbooks in every field, you should read multiple ones in parallel on a particular subject to get different views of the same matter. (Reading different textbooks also helped in an unexpected way: I found an older but very broad textbook with an unusual approach to many questions in my field, and it has been an invaluable source of inspiration.) Reading current articles then helps you identify what kind of questions people in the field currently are interested in. If you go through the details of what other people do, you can use the methodological knowledge you gained from reading textbooks to identify cracks in their current approaches which are worth investigating. The specifics will obviously depend on the field. In technical areas, you will want to go through the mathematical derivations, maybe implement some of the equations yourself to play around with them, and so on. During this "playing around" you will get hands-on knowledge which you will need when you are working towards a specific goal later on. This is the approach I used during my PhD, and it helped me come up with a few ideas which (after I convinced my supervisor that they were worth pursuing) eventually led to some nice publications. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: You should really talk to your supervisor about whether you have enough for a thesis or not. Most universities have a set of criteria for what makes a PhD. These may include: * Forms an original contribution to knowledge in the field * Shows evidence of systematic study and of the ability to relate the results of such study to the general body of knowledge in the subject. * Is publishable (or is in part publisable) You've clearly demonstrated the final part. I'd guess your demonstrated the first as well. Some universities quanalify these things with something like "contains a reasonable amount of study as can be expected in 3 years of study" or some similar (my university does not have this requirement, but, for example, Cambridge does). Its not impossible that what you have done in 1.75 years is as much as others might produce in 3, but you'd better check that with your supervisor. If that is the case, then you might like to think about your goals. You can probably submit after 2 years (or 2.5 yeas, depending on your university's requirements), but this might also be a good oppotunity to get access to things you would otherwise not have access to. If you wish to go into industry, is there some way your work can be made interesting to a company so that they might like to collaborate on an extension? Can your work be commercialized? These might offer you opportunities to form collaborations, and therefore network, with people that might be value contacts in the future. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: That is fine — three months without doing research is not an "extended period". Upvotes: 0
2021/06/13	1,705	6,872	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently an undergraduate student in math, but this question is already bugging me, because I am about to start an undergraduate research project that will likely become my Masters degree as well. I learned Algebra on my own, and really seemed to enjoy Galois theory. I've even made an inquiry on Math.SE ([Is there active research in Galois theory?](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3809884/is-there-active-research-in-galois-theory)) to see if I could still study it more in depth. The thing is, not a single professor on my university works on this area or anything related directly to it. Since I also loved the rest of Algebra, my project will be on something else (ring theory, linked to a research group on the topic), but I still can't shake away the desire to learn more Galois. So how do I actually go about studying something nobody else seems to be studying at my university? I know this can be done, because every research group began at some point with a first person interested in the topic (in fact, I know about professors who have created their own research groups relatively recently), but I really just don't know what I can do as an undergraduate/early graduate student. Thanks in advance! This is sort-of (but not entirely) related to the following thread, which inspired me to write this one: [How realistic it is to change to a different field of mathematics after PhD?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/81373/how-realistic-it-is-to-change-to-a-different-field-of-mathematics-after-phd)<issue_comment>username_1: This is harder to do for most undergraduate students since they don't have sufficient experience to get by without feedback on what they study. Normally learning requires both reinforcement and feedback. Reinforcement comes from applying what you study in some way, exercises for example. Feedback normally comes from a professor evaluating what you produce. Both of these seem to be missing, so the task is harder. But, people can, and do, study and learn on their own, using books, say. Galois theory is well represented in the literature, but you need to find one or more that provide some way for you to apply what you learn. Professors learning a new topic will do this, but they will also seek out others with whom they can raise issues. Perhaps one of your professors, while specializing elsewhere, can answer your questions as they arise and give you feedback on some of your attempts to solve problems or pose questions. Perhaps they have an external colleague that is more specialized and who they can put you in contact with. That has value in its own right, actually. But you will need to depend, primarily, on existing works, but not on reading alone, which provides too little reinforcement to give deep learning. Eventually most mathematicians learn to do this. You are starting a bit early and from a smaller base, but it is possible. Alternatively, focus hard on what you can get the most help with (Ring Theory, say) and delay some of the other topics of interest until you have more experience and the opportunity for more help. You don't need to learn everything this year. You can also keep a notebook of questions on what you study. Review it periodically to see if you now have answers to those questions. Such a notebook can also be a source of ideas for research as you get more experience. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I didnt know there are universities that do not offer a module on algebra which includes Galois theory, this seems a bit troubling. Generally: don't do it. Pick only a topic which is known at your university or switch to a different univerisity. Your argument that new research groups are founded is not valid, since this either happens by hiring somebody from somewhere else (where there was a group) or it is a new subject. In a new subject a trained researcher can make progress. In an established subject you cannot. You need guidance about what is an interesting problem on which you can work on and you need to have meaningful discussions. Also no professor will give a topic for Galois theory if no one is working on that. (Lets assume for a moment somebody will though, then how is anybody grading it?) Long story short: change topic or university. PS: just to add: it is great you found a topic which is highly interesting to you. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The Short Version: ================== Question: > > ### How do you study Galois theory at a university where no-one else studies Galois theory? > > > Answer: > > ### You apply to attend a different university and switch schools after you complete your bachelor's degree > > > --- The Long Version ================ Use Google to find living experts in Galois theory. Get these people's email address. Talk to them. The best way to get into graduate school is to find a professor you want to work with. You can ignore most aspects of the school itself. Also, most professors can sponsor admission of graduate students. I do not mean that professors will pay money, or pay a student's tuition. I mean that after you fill out an application, the office of admissions will say "yes." Your SAT scores, etc... will not matter too much if their is a professor who says, "I want <NAME> to be my student." Tuition is not usually a problem, because graduate students are paid a stipend to work as either: * teaching assistants * research assistants. The higher the tuition, the higher the stipend. For example, Notre Dame is a very expensive private school located in Indiana (There is a different Notre Dame in Ireland) pays graduate students (masters students and Ph.Ds) more than 30,000 US dollars per semester. After you finish your bachelor's degree, begin studying at your new University. You cannot transfer credits per se. However, if you finish the baccalaureate degree, then you will not have to transfer credit hours. If you only need 6 credit hours to complete a bachelor's (baccalaureate) degree, then you will NOT be able complete the remaining 6 credits somewhere other than where you started. You cannot usually complete a baccalaureate at the University you've barely began studying at. You do NOT need to transfer credits if you finish the baccalaureate degree. After that, it's like starting from scratch, but for a masters or doctoral degree. 1. Find an advisor (at a different University) who studies Galois Theory. 2. Email the Galois Theorist. 3. Finish your baccalaureate degree at the University where you are now. 4. leave your Alma Mater and make a new home at the University with people who study Galois theory. Find a university with more than one expert on Galois theory. That way, you can switch advisors if you hate the first person you work with. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/13	1,248	5,158	<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently finishing up my undergraduate degree and I will soon start to apply for graduate school. I'm gonna apply to some schools in Europe (mainly Germany), but one thing I'm very worried about is funding. As I understand, European universities do not offer TA positions for international students. And I haven't been able to find suitable scholarships. I will most likely have to work, and this is what I want to ask about. How is the job market for people with a physics degree, say in Germany? Can I find a job to sustain myself during my master's study? Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: For Germany in particular some answers: 1. It is not correct that German universities do not offer TA positions for international students. It is relatively common that M.Sc. students conduct tutorials for B.Sc. students and get paid for doing so. But this does not help you much. These "HiWi" positions are very poorly paid. Also, you basically have to start your M.Sc. studies first and then check each semester whether you will snatch one of these positions. Not a good starting point for somebody who has to prove that he/she can support herself/himself before getting issued a visa (note that there is no such thing as an offer letter for a HiWi position, so they cannot be used as a proof of funds in visa interviews). Oh, and if the language of instruction in the B.Sc. is German, then you need to be proficient in German. Oh, and of course priority will typically be given to those students who excelled as a participant of a previous iterations of the course. 2. How good the job market is depends on (a) where exactly you go, and (b) what you skill sets are. If you, say, want to study in Berlin and are an excellent programmer, you most likely will have more problems finding a flat to live in than a job to pay for that. If you study in a city without companies whose primary working language is English, you will have a harder time finding a job. But note that even if your visa allows working on the side while studying, there is a legal maximum of 19 (or 20?) hours per week of working for many aspects (such as health insurance) because after that it's not working on the side while studying but studying on the side while working. Do not expect your visa type to allow the latter (if you need one - EU nationals have it easier here). 3. Scholarships are rare in Germany. Now for international students, the database by the German academic exchange service (DAAD) [appears to be quite well-filled....for German standards](https://www2.daad.de/deutschland/stipendium/datenbank/en/21148-scholarship-database/?status=3&origin=&subjectGrps=&daad=&intention=&q=&page=1&back=1). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Here is some more insight concerning the situation in Germany: * A lot of people I used to study with and a lot of the students I work with now have at least partially or often fully financed themselves while studying by working on the side. This is very common, and since you don't have to pay tuition fees it is also feasible. The amount of money you will have at your disposal will be at the lower end, and probably some frugality might be in order, but it can work. * As username_1 already stated, there is a limit of 20h/week that you are allowed to work while officially being a student. As a German, or EU-citizen, you could opt for being a part-time student and work more, but if you enter Germany on a student visa, you probably will not be able to do that. You will be required to maintain the official student status. As suggested in the comments, I will add the following: the 20h limit applies only during the semester. In the 2 months summer break and about 1,5 months late winter/early spring break, you are allowed to work full time and can thus use these periods to earn extra money to make it through the semester. * If you work and study at the same time, the schedule of your courses will dictate when you will be able to work - at least when you take your studies seriously. This is preventing most students to take on "regular" part time 9-5 jobs. They rather work: in bars and restaurants, as sales assistants in shops, etc., that is in jobs that have more irregular hours and allow you to work on weekends, but might have nothing to do with your degree. * You can also work at universities, but as DCTlib already said, the chance you will get hired right away is low, because regularly, students that are already known for their skills from previous semesters get the job. A good alternative, though (especially for a physics graduate), is to look for student jobs at a non-university research institute: in Germany, there are Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Leibnitz-Gemeinschaft or Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. They are all renowned research institutions, and have many institutes all over Germany. Depending on which city you decide to study in, the scope of one of their institutes might fit, and they often have student jobs available. Working at such an institution, you might even have the possibility to write your thesis there and do some research on your own. Upvotes: 3
2021/06/14	779	3,320	<issue_start>username_0: So I recently did my PhD project approval which is the process where I agree my objectives with my supervisor and present a short overview to a review panel. All that went well and my project has been approved and I can finally make a start on the work I need to do. I'm feeling a bit swamped and unsure about how to proceed tackling the objectives we need to achieve and this has left me feeling quite overwhelmed and overworked. My supervisor sent me a one line email last week basically saying "do objective 1 now" but I wanted to spend some time with them discussing the theory and devising a suitable way to do this objective. I know it's all about independent work but I feel I could benefit from a short meeting just to straighten up my work plan and ensure we're both on the same page. To clarify, the problem isn't that I don't understand the theory- I just need to clarify what my workplan should look like. Would I be dumb if I asked for a sit down to talk through the objectives and clarify what I should be working on? I feel very out of my depth<issue_comment>username_1: No, it would not be dumb: it is absolutely crucial for you and your supervisor to have clear expectations about each other, as early as possible. It is well-known that the majority of problems during a PhD result from miscommunications between student and supervisor. So send your supervisor an email as soon as possible, saying something to the effect of (note: check transitionsynthesis' comment below this post): "I apologize if this is burdensome, but I sincerely feel like I need to have a short meeting with you in this early phase to help clarify my workplan, because I've been struggling with it recently". I'm very confident that your supervisor will be 100% fine (unless they are the kind of people who abandon their students from day one, in which case you should not have selected them as supervisors in the first place). I also strongly recommend you to read as soon as possible the book "How to get a PhD: A Handbook for Students and their Supervisors" by <NAME>, which will be of great help to you. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In a worst-case scenario, your choice is between * asking your question and looking dumb now or * not asking your question and looking much dumber later, after you've wasted time going in and out of dead-ends I would always opt for the first choice, except for one catch: It's a good idea to spend some time trying to figure out a questions by yourself. Not so much to avoid looking bad in front of your supervisor (best to leave behind such a debilitating attitude), but because every interesting question is a learning opportunity. However, here's a more realistic scenario: Your particular question seems to be one where you need high-level guidance by someone with practical research experience. You can't possibly acquire that kind of knowledge on your own by a few weeks of reading and poking. That is why you have a supervisor. Also, your supervisor is an adult, and "no" is a full sentence. If they think your question is not for them to answer, they will (should at least) simply tell you, without thinking badly of you. That's how you learn which questions to ask and which ones to solve alone. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/14	735	3,114	<issue_start>username_0: The research area is related to CS/Bioinformatics and Biology/Biochemistry. The possibility of cooperation is between the Faculty of CS&Math and the Faculty of Chemistry. If I complete a Ph.D. from an interdisciplinary doctoral school, can I work as a professor in CS/CSE? What is the main purpose of getting a Ph.D. from an interdisciplinary doctoral school?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is possible (in the US, at least). You need to get hired, so you need to meet the needs of a faculty position, both in teaching and research, but having an interdisciplinary degree doesn't rule that out. Some places will be more receptive to the idea than others. Some universities value cross discipline collaboration and have, say, undergraduate programs that value cross discipline study. Applications of CS to other fields is fairly popular, though not universal. Some large faculties have a few members who have quite diverse interests. But, a person would likely have fewer opportunities with any degree that isn't, somehow, mainstream. And, you also need to be able to earn tenure if you want a career. And once you do, you have the opportunity to expand diverse interests in the institution. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The interesting part about Computer Science as a field is that it has many applications to other fields. From my experience, I have seen people with doctorates in many fields become CS faculty, and vice-versa. At my undergraduate CS department, there are quite a few faculty who changed fields this way: * They did their undergraduate in a different (but usually related) field such as mathematics, statistics, or linguistics (for NLP/AI) before switching to CS for their MS and/or PhD (most common) * OR they did their entire education in a different (but also usually related) field, then joined a different department at their next university (not as common, but it still happens; heard of one professor in the Applied Mathematics dept at my university who did his PhD in CS, then initially was an Assistant prof at another university in CS, joined the Applied Mathematics department at my university) Getting an interdisciplinary degree can definitely open doors in this regard, but of course this will obviously depend on your specific research interests. If you're thinking of switching fields, you'll obviously want your interdisciplinary interests to kind of be related to what you are currently studying, as well as what you plan on doing in the future. Keep in mind that this doesn't necessarily just apply to Computer Science, or necessarily even academia. My multivariable calculus professor was able to go into computational science (slightly related to CS, but not exactly the same as CS) after finishing a Chemistry PhD (they had also studied mathematics during their undergraduate). In industry, while the instinct of most undergraduates is to get a job at Google with their BS in CS, there are also people at such companies with PhD's in Chemistry, Physics, or other fields that also get jobs at such companies. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/14	3,256	12,233	<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing a paper on the Front de Liberation du Quebec; a homegrown Quebec terrorist organisation in the 1960s. As research, I've extensively studied a book by one of the intellectual leaders of the organisation <NAME> called 'White (n-word)s of America'. Given the rather alarming title, how might I properly cite quotes from the book?<issue_comment>username_1: It is what it is. You aren't responsible for that. I suggest that you cite it as you would any other work. Presumably you aren't endorsing racist views. You aren't being "kind" by hiding history. The people targeted by such words know they exist, their meaning, and the intent in their use. Scholarly discussions don't contribute to racism unless they are specifically designed to do so. Treat words as words. Treat people as people. --- If you feel you must, then put a footnote somewhere disassociating yourself from racist views. --- Please see: [The Idea That Whites Can’t Refer to the N-Word](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/whites-refer-to-the-n-word/596872/). Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: Is this for a class? If so I would ask your teacher directly for advice (the way you wrote this question seems appropriate for such an email). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: An academic paper published in 2017 had to deal with this issue because it examined this exact work. "The Struggle of Others: Pierre Vallières, Quebecois Settler Nationalism, and the N-Word Today" by <NAME> was published in Discourse, vol. 39, no. 1, 2017. In the notes Cornellier states: > > I explain later in the > essay the reasons I decided to redact both the English and French versions of the > N-word from this essay, with the exception of parsimonious references to the full > titles of the book (in French and English translation), for citational purposes only, > in endnotes and once in my introduction > > > So the standard Cornellier sets here is to redact the slur in the text of the piece, while leaving it in the citation. The explanation alluded to in the above note is found on page 35 > > Before I proceed with my analysis of Vallières’s text as a textual > trace (then and now) of such hegemonic settler structure of feeling, > I must offer clarifications about my use of terminology. Vallières’s > own admission that he actually meant the English N-word—and > not what is often defended by French speakers to be the less derogatory and more acceptable French word nè\\\—explains in part > why I decided to redact both the French and English versions of > the N-word from this essay. Indeed, French users of the term have > too often found solace in the convenient ambiguity provided by > the French language between, on the one hand, the inflammatory > and unequivocal N-word and, on the other, something assumed > by white Francophone speakers to be less so by attaching the word > nè\\\ to something that would be more akin to the antiquated English term “Negro”—or, by any measure, to mean nè\\\* as a term > that could be used to mean the English N-word but not necessarily. > My decision to redact all uses of the term is not an attempt to sanitize Vallières’s text à la recent editions of Huckleberry Finn, nor am I > necessarily requesting that further reeditions of Vallières’s text also > be altered accordingly. Rather, I do so in solidarity with black colleagues and other critical race scholars who have asked that I better > situate myself, as a white Quebecois settler, in relation to this term > but also to take a stand against the cavalier alibi found by my fellow > white Francophone Quebecois seeking immunity in the (French) > language they use to produce and designate blackness for themselves and without black people. In other words, I consider such > strategic recourse to the ambiguity of the French word nè\\\* a way > for white Francophone Quebecers to use or imply with ease—when > convenient—the N-word and get away with it. > > > My interpretation of this paragraph is that it is the redacting of the French form that is explained, without noting why its unredacted in the sources, implying that may be an editorial standard that doesn't need discussion. Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_4: If it helps, at the time of this post, this particular work has been cited 210 times (per [Google scholar](https://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?cites=8947691172456179539&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en)) so you have 210 examples of what other academics have done when citing this book. My own view is that it is preferable to state the title without redaction, but redaction might also be acceptable so long as the citing author clearly states that the title has been redacted. Whilst practices may differ from field to field, I know that in the field of linguistics ---where scholars commonly deal directly with racial slurs (e.g., examining their etymology, history, etc.)--- the standard practice is to state the word under use without censorship. (In that particular field they also tend to italicise the word under discussion, but that it not relevant here.) One issue of possible importance here is that the slur in the title is important in identifying the class of people that the book is about, so a full redaction is going to entail a genuine loss of information about the subject of the book. In some cases a slur word in the title of a work is not important in conveying information about the content of the work, but that is not the case here. If the subject of the book is "white niggers" and you change this to "white [racial slur]s" (as suggested by another answer here) then the scope of the subject matter of the book arguably becomes unclear. One possibility is to use partial redaction of the form "white [n----rs]" or "white [n-word]s" (the latter being your suggested formulation), which blunts the slur but allows the reader to "guess" the original word and so properly understand the scope of the book. That is probably a reasonable redaction if you choose to proceed by that route. Personally, I would not do any redaction; my view is that it is useful in academia to create an atmosphere where adults can engage in open discourse about topics, without falling apart if they hear a nasty word. This is encouraged by citing works like this without redaction. In any case, if you decide to fully or partially redact the original slur word in the title, you should make sure that the reader understands that this is your edit. Using square brackets for your redaction, plus an explicit statement alerting the reader to the redaction (e.g., "[Title partially redacted]") will be sufficient to ensure that you are not misleading your reader about the true title of the work. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Maybe sic would help here: > > The Latin adverb sic ("thus", "just as"; in full: sic erat scriptum, > "thus was it written")[1] inserted after a quoted word or passage > indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated > exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous, > archaic, or otherwise nonstandard spelling, punctuation or grammar. It > also applies to any surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other > matter that might be interpreted as an error of transcription. > > > The typical usage is to inform the reader that any errors or apparent > errors in quoted material do not arise from errors in the course of > the transcription, but are intentionally reproduced, exactly as they > appear in the source text. It is generally placed inside square > brackets to indicate that it is not part of the quoted matter. > > > Sic may also be inserted derisively or sarcastically, to call > attention to the original writer's spelling mistakes or erroneous > logic, or to show general disapproval or dislike of the material > > > source: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic> (note: Take into account <https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/25/noah-snyder> comment, I know nothing about writing papers in Humanities context) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: It should be the case that a published title is an established fact, to be debated on its merits. That's supposed to be a crucial part of the difference between academia and the mundane. Since in today's world, politics has become at least as important as any kind of research, you should be taking this Question and all its ramifications up the chain of command in your department particularly, as well as to your institution generally. Right or wrong, both either have or badly need detailed procedures for this hugely important Question. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Throwaway for obvious reasons: > > a homegrown Quebec terrorist organisation in the 1960s. > > > I would thread carefully here; the judicial system does not agree with the label you used. That might stir more controversy than the choice of words you end up using to quote a text. And of course discredit you, your advisor and your lab quite badly. Of course, if you possess new evidences, the police would be the correct place to disclose it, not an academic paper. But unless you are capable of obtaining a conviction, I would abstain from such a term. As for your question, that highly depends on your audience and who you are. If it's an undergrad paper that will only be read by your professor just ask him, otherwise it's best to bring it up with your advisor. Ultimately, he or she should know enough about the field and the journals to know what's appropriate. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_8: While looking at things like Vallières' book, I think it's important not to be projecting 21st century American values onto a situation in early/mid 1960s Quebec. As the 1960s started in Quebec, the frustration of the majority French-speaking population with the economic and political situation in the province and in Canada began to boil. Since the British takeover 200 years earlier, economic and political power were concentrated in the hands of English-speaking businessmen. After <NAME> died in 1959 and the Union National was defeated by Jean Lesage's Liberals in 1960, there was a feeling that change was coming. To some, though, change wasn't coming enough. From what I remember (I was in grade school at the start of the Quiet Revolution, but politically aware by the time the October Crisis arrived), Vallières's intent with that title was poke a stick in the hornet's nest, not to be racist. The book came out in 1968, at the peak of the civil rights movement in the US. Vallieres definitely wanted attention, he wanted to offend, but did not want to offend others who were part of the "struggle". It was intended to signal that he felt that the cause of French Quebec had echoes of the US civil rights movement. Others identified with the struggles of blacks in southern Africa (in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa). The situation in Rhodesia was often cited (white farmers in Rhodesia owned most owned most of the land and controlled the economy). You can see this in the symbol that "Westmount" became. Westmount is an inner-city suburb of Montreal - if you walk across the street from the old Montreal Forum (downtown, where all those Stanley Cups were won), you are in Westmount. Upper Westmount is also where rich English businessmen traditionally have their mansions. In the 60s, Westmount and Rhodesia became synonyms: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpDV2E6dKLg>. When the FLQ planted bombs in mailboxes, Westmount was a favorite target. Before I moved the US, I new that race was an important topic here. It was only after I immigrated 30 years ago, though, that I understood how race shapes a significant portion of American history and contemporary American society. If you grew up in Montreal (particularly if you are my age and lived through the 1960s and 1970s there), you understand how language shapes Quebec history and contemporary Quebec society. Yes, the domination of the French-speaking majority by a small English-speaking business class doesn't compare to slavery, but it can define a "struggle". Upvotes: 2
2021/06/14	4,937	20,513	<issue_start>username_0: It has happened in many instances in my education that my male advisors or professors get very uncomfortable around me and some refuse to take me as their student. They tell me that in a decent way, but it is not on the basis of competence since I am always at the top of the class and my CV is shining. I suspect it has to do with the fact that I look physically attractive, although I never act unprofessionally and I am conservative in my behaviour. But many times I have had instances where male mentors were interested in me romantically and it made me feel uncomfortable. I am starting to feel I am losing chances for absurd reasons. How should I address this problem? Edit: I am a master's student in Italy and am about to pursue a PhD in STEM. I am conservative in how I dress and this actually comes from the fear of seeming unprofessional or wanting to be noticed for anything else rather than my competence.<issue_comment>username_1: As you may imagine, there's no silver bullet for your situation. My best suggestion is to use the advice of trusted friends and colleagues, as well as sites such as Rate my Professor to establish a list of advisors with whom it may be worth contacting for mentoring your research. Your network can also be expanded by doing conferences, volunteering to help organize symposiums or forums, etc. By making efforts to maintain and expand your network of colleagues and contacts, you increase the chances that you may successfully find a suitable place for you (although unfortunately nothing in life is guaranteed). It's important to look at the bigger picture, since there are students who are not dealing with your specific problem of physical appearance, and yet often find themselves shunned/disregarded by mentors and supervisors for many other reasons. In other words, finding a decent mentor can often be hard in general, due to various factors (including the one that is affecting you right now). Despite your situation, all I can say is: 1. maintain a positive attitude and your sense of humor at all times if possible (despite the way things look right now!), and maintain your productive work ethic, do not allow the current situation to psychologically drag you down; 2. explore your network of colleagues in order to outline a list of potential mentors who would be likely to give you a fair treatment, and start contacting them whenever possible; 3. keep/maintain updated backup records in your computer of all communications with colleagues and mentors (just in case someone tries to be a bit more forward than they should); 4. Check if your university (or nearby universities) has affiliate groups or teams devoted to improving inclusivity in your field, and see if there is a way for you to get involved, or benefit from their advice; 5. Maintain a portfolio of work done in your free time, which is available for other people to check on the internet. If you feel that opportunities are dwindling within your immediate surroundings, then it pays to have a professional website and a professional email account that can project your work to as many people as possible, and help you to make more connections. 6. Contact accomplished female scholars in your field by email or in conferences, they might be able to help you out in some manner. I wish I had better advice, but this is all that occurs to me right now, and I'm sure others will add their voice as well. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: ### Just keep looking and don't get discouraged ### (Most male academics can behave themselves around pretty ladies) I suppose this shows the kind of spectrum of variation that men have when encountering an attractive woman in a professional setting. Some men exhibit their romantic interest (sometimes to an extent that is unwelcome), and some go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and act in a very stoney-faced and awkward way to make absolutely sure that no romantic interest is conveyed. Obviously both reactions can be annoying in certain cases, so I sympathise with your plight. In fairness to the men you are dealing with, I would say that it takes quite a bit of practice and courage as a male to learn to be comfortable around attractive women, without exhibiting too much or too little interest in them, relative to what is appropriate in the situation. Many academic men were "nerds" growing up, and even in adulthood, some are not particularly polished in their interactions with women. There are also external pressures that apply in professional settings, which can punish men who err too much in the former direction, so they compensate by retreating into excessive stand-offishness. Alternatively, for people who are single, some (quite reasonably) see their professional setting as a place where they might be able to find a romantic partner, and it is not unusual to hear of couples who met through attendance at university (even as supervisor and student). In terms of trying to find an academic "mentor", this is usually done through the supervision process for a research degree. Your post does not specify whether you are an undergraduate or postgraduate student, but most academics are time-poor, and many would be reluctant to mentor an undergraduate (irrespective of any of the issues you raise) simply due to the time cost and low reward. If you are a higher-degree research student then you will need to find a primary supervisor for your research work and a larger supervisory panel, and that may lead off to getting an academic "mentor". I recommend you wait until you are pursuing research work, and then approach some potential supervisors who are interested in the same topics as you are. Supervision relationships can sometimes lead to more general "mentoring" roles, though not always. Unfortunately I do not have any brilliant solution for the general problem you are encountering — it is a complex cultural issue that is impacted by a number of external pressures and internal shortcomings of human-beings. I suspect that if you continue your search you will find plenty of male supervisors who are confident around attractive women, who are able to interact with you comfortably without romantic interest or its antipode. And of course, you can also look for a female academic as a mentor as an alternative. The kinds of problems you describe should not be the norm, so keep looking and don't be discouraged. If you would like to find a good academic mentor, then it is worth pursuing a research degree (if you are not already doing this) and casting a wide net until you find someone you are comfortable with. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I'm sorry you're in this spot, and through no fault of your own what-so-ever. I wish there was an obvious answer, but here's a few thoughts: * Look for a female mentor. This may be hard depending on your field and country, since many academic departments skew male. Even if you find someone who isn't directly related to your area of interest, they may be able to help guide you through how they managed academia successfully. * Find a women's group in your field, or at your university. My department has all sorts of groups like this, and there are some in my area not tied to the university as well, e.g. women in programming * Take advantage of the COVID era and deliberately arrange a mentor remotely, relying heavily on email and your existing work. * You don't mention your country or region, but if circumstances permit, you might try to look for a department in a country with different social standards regarding this. I'll avoid mentioning details, but I've worked in two very different parts of the world, and one of them was unequivocally far more accepting of inappropriate behavior toward women than the other, though neither was by any means perfect. * Lean into it. I hate even giving this as an answer, but as other posters have said, we're not going to be able to solve misogyny, sexism, inequality, and awkward/inappropriate male professors all in a SE post. It's grossly unfair if the way others behave toward you due to physical appearance hinders your career. So, the only practical option for you, right this moment, may be to do the best you can with what you're dealt. If a professor is "merely" being awkward (as opposed to being grossly inappropriate), can you just roll with it and continue working with them? It should get easier as time goes on, as they learn that you're a normal person and successful candidate in your field. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: @Nadine first let me say I am sorry that you are experiencing such sexism and inappropriate behaviour from superiors at your university. I would try contacting the equal opportunities officer of your institution — at least in my country, they exist — and talk to them about your problems. As trained professionals in creating an equal and inclusive studying environment for all, they might be able to help you navigate this situation and get you the academical guidance you need an deserve. Looking at the answers of [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/86952/is-it-ethical-to-have-a-relationship-with-a-student-after-my-supervision-of-him) it is generally rather not appropriate / ethical for supervisors to have a relationship with a student, especially if they are the ones initiating it (given the power gap) and making you — the person they should be teaching — uncomfortable in the process. What they are doing is treating you differently because of your gender (and your appearance, too from what it sounds like), creating a toxic work and study environment for you (and probable other women, too). This is not OK, and in many countries not legal (although things like that are notoriously hard to prove and often do not result in consequences for the offenders). Moreover, if they refuse to mentor you, they are not doing their job — especially if you have the grades and skills. They are supposed to mentor students, not male students. So even though this might not be the easiest way, I would try to collect as much evidence as possible that you are not treated equally to your male (or less attractive) fellow students. Talk with other (male and female) students, ask if they ever had to face similar problems, and if not, ask them to write a statement that they haven't, or if they would be willing to support you and accompany you when making a complaint. With all this info go to the above mentioned equal opportunities officer and talk about strategies to confront the supervisors in question about their behaviour. Although this might be the hard and uncomfortable way to go, if those treated unfairly don't speak up, things will not change, or only change very slowly. And those treating others unfairly will not be held accountable. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Something which makes no sense but I have noticed is that in mostly male technical majors, female students who fit in tend to look like tomboys. They'll generally not wear make-up, perfume or nail polish since they were never interested in that stuff and never learned. Sneakers or flats, jeans and a T-shirt, no-nonsense haircuts, a backpack, no purse... . Women's dress codes are just a maze. A female department secretary can be made-up and slightly sexy; professionally many women are supposed to work hard on their appearance. Female professors (in mostly male fields) have a completely different set of rules for students to take them seriously. But for no reason female students in technical fields don't feel right if they seem to care about their appearance. I can remember female students who wore old tight T-shirts and no bra. That was fine -- they seemed like serious techies who don't have time for girly stuff like dressing nicely. But the few female students who confirmed to upscale womens' style just didn't feel quite right, like maybe this field wasn't really for them. It's completely unfair. Any man can go into Electrical Engineering and it seems normal, but if a women wants to be there something must have put her off female professions -- maybe her parents wanted a boy, or she's a stubborn non-conformist who thinks make-up is part of a plot. So maybe look around at other women in your field and see if you stand out as far as grooming and wardrobe habits. As far as the rest, very, very few professors will actually hit on grad students. Cheating on your wife, sure, that happens. But with one of your students is unethical. I've known more male professors who were simply a bit uncomfortable with female students who gave out the wrong vibe. I've also had no problem with stunningly beautiful female students, even being alone with them, as long as they had either black nail polish, or possibly cut their own hair, or liked wearing spandex biking shorts and a vintage sweater -- anything that wasn't "professional woman making an effort to look good". I don't think general attractiveness is an issue. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: OP is aware of his attractiveness to males (in principle it could apply also if OP was a male, I honestly think the gender tag is misplaced). Let's stretch the situation, drawing the two end members: 1. Male advisors and professors are intimidated by beauty; 2. Male advisors and professors are aroused by beauty; Regarding 2, there is not much to do, your beauty will only trigger their looking for a romantic liaison at the very onset of your working relationship with them. They would look for a romantic liaison even if you would not be so beautiful, because they would find you intellectual stimulant, at a later point of your working relationship. So your beauty is a good way to filter them out. You do not need to hide it. Regarding 1., I feel that the relation that builds up when you meet these persons is not so linear as you present it: you are aware of your beauty, you are somehow trying to hide it (I do not mean you are wearing a burka, I am just trying to depict a "conservative dress") ... and that unconscious message you have in yourself is passing to the professor, who is a human being and apart from your CV is evaluating you as a person and the feeling he (or she) would got is that you are uncomfortable with a part of you. To say it bold&plain, every man has a dick, not every man wants to use his dick with you. They would recognize you are beauty, it would be just one of the many physical attributes, you are smart enough to realize when someone will try to hit on you, get over your beauty, do not hide and do not show it, focus on your brain. I am not very helpful, I know, I am all against the body positivity messages (fat people are beauty and can do anything!) as well as to offensive messages (fat people are ugly and can do nothing!) and I am very lucky that I manage to say the balanced (you are fat, or thin, or normal-build, it does not matter, you can do what you can do, which is extreme rare to coincide with what you want to do). Disclaimer: mid-50s, western country, accepted myself, ready to accept positive discrimination against me and against my (2) sons, to fix the crap me, my "boomer" peers left, without forgetting that past choice are not set in stone, they are perpetuated with every-day decisions... Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Let me note something that the other answers seem to have ignored. You describe the things that have been your experience in the past, up to now. But you are moving to a new situation and you have some power to arrange the parameters of that, since you have a stellar academic reputation. Don't, for example, assume that you can't change institutions, or even countries. Not every male academic is either so insecure nor so predatory as to make them unsuitable. Some of us can actually deal with students properly. Not every academic is male, of course. Since you are on the cusp of changing institutions (I suspect), you can look for places that are more welcoming, either with an advisor (male) who doesn't give off weird vibes or with a woman. Another option that might have potential is to set up co-advisors so that weirdness is less likely to get triggered. I don't know if it is possible in Italy, as it is in US, to join a program and only choose an advisor later. In that case, you have an opportunity to look around and make some judgements as well as get advice, possibly from other women among students or faculty. It is even possible, perhaps, to have a mentor who is not your advisor. The mentor can give you advice and to keep aware of things so that you wind up with better experiences. I had such a person, who was in a different specialty than I was. I didn't have any of the same issues that you did, but he was both helpful and a powerful role-model who helped shape me. But, the main advice is to cast a wide net for a program in which you can feel comfortable and do good work. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_8: One of the underrated issues is the fear of accusations. If the male advisor would be accused of sexual misconduct by a female student, especially one that's not unattractive, everyone would believe her and his career would be over. It is really difficult to never meet with your advisor one on one in places without audiovisual monitoring. And even if advisor manages to do that, he will not have an irrefutable proof of not meeting in such circumstances if accused. His career can be over whether he is actually guilty or not. Males are removed from jobs without a court finding them guilty thanks to #metoo movement while females are not (most famous example — <NAME> and <NAME>) If you want to alleviate this fear, you really have only two options: 1. Only ask male professors that know you for some years and find you trustworthy or 2. Try looking for female advisor I'm sorry we have to live in a world where male professor mentoring female student has legitimate reasons to fear losing his reputation and position, and I'm sorry you hurt from it. Sadly, that's how it looks like. Outside academia is not really better. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_9: It's hard to deny that this type of "activity" is a nuisance and a shame if it leads to a capable person being denied a fair run at academic research in a progressive field. We all know that the presence (or even strong semblance, e.g. an engagement ring) of a fiancé will put a stop to this phenomenon very quickly. But we also know that you can't rush true love. All you can do here is take sensible precautions when choosing a department in which you will take your PhD, have a frank discussion with the putative supervisor on the matter and plough on in faith and hope. If matters tend to go the wrong way, you have to reconsider. Please do NOT pretend-love some guy in the department just to make the work easier: that would be creating an even bigger wrong. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_10: A small auxiliary, perhaps practical, answer. The context for my comments is that I've been in academic math in the U.S., at research-oriented places, for almost 50 years... though in earlier years I did not think in terms of the explicit or implicit biases in the milieu. And, yes, such nasty craziness is all too common. My point would be that some "older" mathematicians may have "moved beyond" the adolescent idea that people of a suitable sort are targets for "hitting on". In particular, they may view 20-something kids as more like their own children (in a very positive emotional, protective sense), rather than as sexual objects. But, yes, "sometimes age brings wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone"... Similarly, but differently, surely some younger faculty have a different social viewpoint, in which not all co-workers are potential targets... A failure of this I've seen is that quite a few of the grad students are still in such an adolescent frame of mind that their outlook is pretty unreasonable in this regard. I would have hoped that ambient progress would have had some impact on this issue, but it may well be that even greater push-back is necessary to counter rather crude instincts. I have no idea. Anyway, in summary, look for "grown ups", perhaps likely to be a bit older, with some visible experience in "human relationships"... though the latter does not guarantee sense. Lack of experience may make sense unlikely, though. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/14	425	1,892	<issue_start>username_0: Do I write my undergrad institution as my affiliation or no affiliation, or my company or both?<issue_comment>username_1: How did you get the position at this company? Is this through a partnership with a professor at your university or is it a job that you got on your own? There are many factors at play in this, so it is hard to tell if you should list your undergraduate institution and/or the company. Most important is who you worked directly under, and if this person and/or the research that you are doing has any affiliation with your undergraduate studies. You could maybe list the undergraduate institution as an affiliation (and you should especially if this is sponsored by a professor there), but it may be better to mention affiliation with the company instead if there are other factors at play (like you work at this company full time or in the long term). So it really could go either way depending on your specific situation. TLDR, "rule of thumb": * If this is more affiliated with your undergraduate institution (including through a professor is how you got this opportunity), use your undergraduate university * If you are directly, formally employed with the company (and especially if this is not related to any research you are doing with faculty at your institution), you could maybe list affiliation with your undergraduate university BUT your affiliation should be primarily with the company Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The guidelines are * When the work reported in the paper used resources and support from the university, your affiliation is the university. * When the work reported in the paper used resources and support from the company, your affiliation is the company. In cooperative projects, a dual affiliation could be listed. One of the co-authors (the primary author) should direct you further. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/14	669	2,672	<issue_start>username_0: I have submitted my essay via Turnitin. Subsequently a similarity report was generated where all similar bits in my work were flagged up with the work of others. There is one bit flagged up where I did not cite. Is it considered plagiarism? This is what I wrote: > > This theory is applicable to educational institutions where students have limited exposure to L2 culture, for instance they do not live in an area where L2 is spoken. > > > Below is the source which Turnitin compared my words with: > > Visual media can provide a valuable source of > authentic input for students who do not live in the country where the L2 is > spoken. > > > The words in bold are the bits flagged up by Turnitin. On a side note, 'this theory' in my sentence does not refer to the same argument in the source. In my opinion it is just that the author of the source and I happened to use the same expression to describe people who do not live in an L2-speaking area. When I was writing this essay, I did not even know the existence of the source! I hope it is not considered plagiarism. Although the same phrase was used, the two sentences mean different things!<issue_comment>username_1: It is unlikely to be considered plagiarism or improper in any way. It would be unreasonable to claim that it is. It actually highlights the limitations of tools like TurnItIn. Such short phrases have little to do with plagiarism, which is the misappropriation of ideas. There is no complete thought in the phrase that TurnItIn flagged. Moreover, plagiarism is necessarily a conscious act. You didn't plagiarize if you were unaware of the other text. That doesn't, in general, prevent a claim of plagiarism, but it would seem not credible here. Relax. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: There is no reason to see this is plagiarism. Turnitin just found two phrases that also appeared in other documents before. I would like to stress that services like Turnitin cannot detect plagiarism. They are essentially "dumb" programs that just try to find the same phrases in other documents it was fed. This can assist in finding documents a text was copied from. But on the one hand it will frequently flag things that in the end are just more or less common expressions or phrases (though the developers try to minimize this), and on the other hand you can definitely plagiarize by e.g. rewriting things in a way that this service will not detect. So please do not equate plagiarism with getting a flag from a service like this. It is merely a tool but it does not replace a human who can actually understand what you're saying. Upvotes: 2
2021/06/15	541	2,501	<issue_start>username_0: I am a high school student and in grade 9 and 10 I conducted research for my science fair project at a recognized university under the mentorship of a professor and his PhD student. I designed and carried out experiments in the university lab during this time as part of my research. I think this would be beneficial for me to mention on my applications to universities, especially my first choice university (which is not the university I conducted research at). However, I'm concerned that mentioning another university in my application to other universities may harm my application. I really do want to mention this though because it is relevant to the programs I'm applying to. Do you think this could harm my application and is it worth mentioning? Is there a way to mention it without harming my application?<issue_comment>username_1: Definitely mention it. Any research experience will set you apart from your peers, regardless of the caliber of institution it was conducted at. In your application, you should focus more on highlighting what you did rather than where you did it anyway. In general, no university should penalize you for doing work at other institutions, especially as a high schooler. Some individuals may automatically equate your work value to the caliber of the institution (an unfortunate reality), but this really only matters a little when applying to graduate school, and more so when applying to postdoc/faculty positions. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: People do research at other universities all the time. This includes whether as part of a high school program in affiliation with local universities or other research institution, or as part of a summer internship program or REU program (sometimes because they didn't have much opportunities for research at their home institutions). Mention your research. It will definitely put you a leg up at any competitive university. In some cases, it can help provide a perspective in terms of why you may want to attend a certain university over another institution. Note that this also applies to applying to graduate school (and potentially postdocs, as username_1 mentioned). In general, it's a good idea to get different perspectives so you have a better idea of what you want down the road, so you should definitely go to different universities for undergraduate and graduate education, although in some sense this applies for undergraduate admissions as well. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/15	4,710	20,277	<issue_start>username_0: I'm attending a graduate lecture at a university in Europe. Two lecturers, both PhD students, are giving their first lecture. One of the PhD students is senior and another just recently enrolled in the PhD program. Technically, I'm not so sure if it is legal or acceptable (within EU education system) that having PhD students organize the whole course when the professor never show up. The lecture is a completely new lecture not given before at this university. As the lecture is new and domain wise narrow, there isn't any remotely related lectures I can find in other universities, thus hardly any reference material is available through the internet. So practically, the only references are their slides. Personally for me, the material/slides given by them are insufficient to solve the assignment. According to university regulations, the course requires theoretically not more than 6 hours per week on it, but practically, I have spent more than 20 hours every week re-watching the lecture video and re-reading the slides, yet still struggling for the assignment. I asked for help or hints from the lectures when stuck in an assignment, but got always rejected with "NO, given materials are good enough, fill the gap yourself." Other conversations are like: "function X is not mentioned anywhere else other than slide Y, it looks critical to our assignment, but no other references or examples can be borrowed. Could you provide some hints on what is it actually?", the lecturers response with "It can be easily inferred from the name, we don't give any more information other than the slides." Such questions are never answered, let alone getting "hints" from them. As much as I don't enjoy the way they teach, they are not bad people to me. Perhaps their expectation to students is largely biases as their research topic are pretty narrow and unpopular. They simply don't have a good image of how students (statistically wise) like for those who are not doing research in their direction , and expect every audience is like them 5/10 years younger. Of course none of this was mentioned on course website or prerequisites. The difficulties are not about understanding a brilliant paper, or improve some obscure algorithms, but to implement programs in a certainly constrained way they propose. An analogy to the coursework requirement would be, to implement heap sorting or ray tracing in CMake script. You would understand how weird this is if you study computer science. Thus for sure, there is no reference or any other material we could use. I tend to believe as they lack formal teaching experience, they set an unrealistically high standard for students. More than half of the students dropped out half way through the course already, now there are only less than 10 students left. After talking to these students, most of them agree with my impression that it is too demanding as a non-major course and also struggle a lot with the deadlines. I don't want to fail the course, and I will stay and suck it up anyway. But other than "sucking it up", what are other (diplomatic) actions I can do at the same time to secure my chance of passing this lecture? Updates: * The professor in charge of this course replied to my email that he won't discuss with an anonymous email address, and that he could perhaps set up a meeting including these two lecturers if I resend the email with my university account. I'm afraid exposing my identity would fail me for the course (I am just not comfortable with this after my previous attempts to discuss this with the lecturers were rebuffed). * I contacted the student union with an anonymous email. They are willing to investigate the matter, and collect students' opinion on it, then possibly talk to the lecturers as a student group.<issue_comment>username_1: You seem to have set the parameters here such that your only options are to drop the course or to do your best on the assignments. You've closed off communication, insisting it be anonymous. I'll note that in some situations, saying something intelligent on an assignment is worth something, maybe a lot, even if you don't come to a full solution. Leaving things blank is never a good strategy. I once won a lot of "points" on an oral exam by explaining to the questioners what my block was and where my analysis was going wrong. The actual solution was very simple, but I just wasn't seeing it. I (and the rest of us here) can't judge if you are making an accurate assessment of the difficulty and lack of help, but, even in the most generous analysis, the situation you describe might be intentional - a goad to get you to learn to learn on your own. A less generous interpretation might suggest that you want things to be easy with mostly pro-forma assignments that simply give back the presented material in a different form. For unimportant courses in fields about which you care little, that may be enough. But gaining insight requires hard work. I didn't start to gain insight into mathematics until I started to do things beyond what the instructor demanded. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: A few suggestions: Gather some allies This is a problem that is unlikely to be solved by anonymous complaints. But in particular, if you are afraid to be singled out for repercussions, try to convince some of the other students to talk to the supervising professor together. This also helps to convince them that you are not a lone complainer, but that there might be an actual problem. Similarly there might be some student organisation in your faculty or elsewhere, part of whose job description is being the students advocate in such cases. Even if you do not officially want to involve them, it would be good to inform them and to get some of their advice. In particular they may be able to tell you how the professor will react, based on previous experiences. Seek conciliation not confrontation Since you are starting the discussion, you have the chance to set the tone, so use this to your advantage. If you immediately demand that the class should be made easier, then you will immediately be dismissed as someone who instead of doing his classwork rather spends all his time complaining about it, maybe even rightfully so. Instead try to pose it as a common problem to be solved together. E.g. tell them that you appreciate their work and understand that the classes are demanding, because the topic is demanding and that while you are not opposed to doing more work than the regulations say, there are other classes as well and simply only so many hours in a week. Don't ask them to dumb the class down, instead ask for more office hours or additional repetition classes. And in regards to these two, if you get them, use them. First of all, not doing so will make you complaints look bad and secondly, these also help them to gauge how the class is going. Personally I've taught more than one class, which I thought went well, until I've had to answer the students questions one office hour later and noticed that I completely failed to get the point across and had to change my approach for the next class. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Most probably, the teachers are overzealous and overambitious in how much they want to teach you. In practical terms, you have two options: either to find motivation to soldier on, or to reveal your identity and have a meeting with the teachers and the professor. I will go through them one by one. Motivation to soldier on. Think about it that way: inexperienced and overzealous teachers tend to choose assignments they find interesting, instructive and challenging. They take you to higher levels of the [Bloom's taxonomy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_taxonomy#/media/File:BloomsTaxonomy.png). So, if you do them, you will learn a lot. If you are not motivated to learn a lot about this particular subject, note that you will also enhance your problem-solving skills. If you end up in an intellectually demanding job (academia or not), the problems you'll need to solve will be nothing like spoon-fed exercises at the end of a polished textbook chapter. More often, you'll need to summon all your knowledge to look for the right approach, search through scattered, incomplete and poorly written sources without any idea what you are looking for. The assignments you get might be a good training in exactly that. Reveal your identity. This may be over-idealistic, but I don't think that the risk of retaliation is as high as it appears. Most people are enthusiastic about teaching their first course. At this stage, they are ambitious about being good teachers, and probably have some notion that they need to accommodate feedback. If they have self-esteem, they will also try not to retaliate - they will realize that your only fault is that you are too weak compared to their dream student, but ambitious to finish the course and assertive. No-one reasonable will hold you at fault for that. That said, you want to be careful not to hurt their egos. This is non-trivial, since you've come to their boss over their heads to complain. So, if you go to the meeting, don't in any circumstances mention their lack of experience. Say what good you can say (e. g., lectures are interesting etc.). Be factual - state how much time you spend on their course, how it compares to previous courses you have taken, etc. You may humbly bring up your previous grades and prerequisites. Believe in yourself - you are a good, motivated student, but you are struggling. Be non-confrontational, solution-oriented: it's nobody's fault, there's just a mismatch between the audience present and the course level, that has to be addressed. Of course, it will be much better if you convince one or two of your peers to come out with you. Of course, if everyone comes out, there's less even risk individually, but it may force the teachers on the defensive. This is a generic advice, you may want to take into account the culture in your country, and whatever you know about personalities involved. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: > > The professor in charge of this course replies my email that he won't > discuss with an anonymous email address, and could perhaps set up a > meeting including these 2 lectures if I send it with university email. > I'm afraid exposing my identity would fail me for the course. > > > You absolutely need to get over this latter concern, as it's simply not rational. You must have a frank, open discussion with your professor at this time. Being "known" to your professors in graduate school is both a base-level expectation and a completely positive situation. You won't be able to advance in your discipline without a professor lobbying for you, guiding your research, helping through rough spots, writing recommendation letters, etc. It sounds like you may be operating under some level of [John Henryism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henryism) syndrome: > > <NAME>ism (JH) is a strategy for coping with prolonged exposure to > stresses such as social discrimination by expending high levels of > effort which results in accumulating physiological costs... > > > The term was conceived in the 1970s by African-American epidemiologist > and public health researcher <NAME> while he was investigating > racial health disparities between blacks and others in North > Carolina... > > > James' hypothesis was that African Americans sometimes attempted to > control their environment through similar attempts at superhuman > performance. The expression of this superhuman performance may not > necessarily involve a steel hammer. It may involve working harder at > the office or working long to prove one’s worth. The end results, > however, may still involve the same negative consequences that befell > <NAME>... > > > As noted, the JH theory was developed in reference specifically to African-American experiences in academia. Personal note: although I'm a white man in the U.S., I come from a rural "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" culture, and the first time I read about JH I was stunned at how much it illustrated my own experiences in grad school (Master's level). Did I ever go to my professors' office hours (or reach out to other students) for assistance? No, I did not. Did I go on to achieve the PhD? No, I did not, and I think that oversight at the time is largely to blame. (Parenthetically, it's common in some institutions to have a requirement that student inquiries only get replies if sent via in-system email. Your professor may not have any choice about that limitation. I am in a department with a similar mandate.) Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: 1. Spending 20 hours a week on a graduate level course is not necessarily excessive. This is basically the upper limit of what I would consider reasonable in graduate school. If the subject is useful to you (even tangentially) in the future, your future self will be grateful that you took a more rigorous course that gave you a better foundation. 2. It's not necessarily unusual for more than half of the initial enrollment to drop. Probably many people thought the course is too hard and aren't interested in the subject, they would rather take something easier for an equivalent amount of credits. 3. It is a red flag that the instructors don't want to help you. If you are going to office hours, and showing the instructors where you are stuck, they should be able to give you hints or point you in the right direction. Are you asking questions in the office hours or just asking over email? Because you should not expect responses over email. If the student teachers aren't holding office hours, or aren't answering questions in office hours, those are legitimate grievances you should discuss with the professor in charge of the course. 4. It is a red flag that phd students are teaching the course. This is doubly true if it's the first time the course is being offered. Both situations are conducive to less effective teaching. 5. It's unlikely that anything you do will change the difficulty of the course. The homeworks and lesson plans are probably already planned out and will be unlikely to change when the course is already underway. Depending on the current course progress, it may actually be impossible to change the course content based on time constraints. Your best strategy here is to work together with the other students in the class. You say you have already talked with some of them, if you all agree the homework is difficult and time consuming you should all be pooling together to solve the homework together. As other responses have already pointed out, don't try to communicate anonymously. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: > > I'm afraid exposing my identity would fail me for the course. > > > It might be helpful if you think about this anonymous email issue from the professor’s point of view. Professors are used to students complaining that the material is too hard: this literally happens to them all the time (even when the course is at a perfectly reasonable level), since practically every course will have some weak students who will struggle, or even decent students who just like to complain. Knowing the identity of the person complaining is the minimal mechanism a professor has to even begin to evaluate the credibility of such a complaint — even with that knowledge it can still sometimes be quite difficult to know how seriously to take it. Now, by using an anonymous email, you take away even that relatively weak mechanism. This undermines the professor’s ability to make decisions to support effective teaching. You also send a signal that you are ashamed or embarrassed of struggling in the class, which suggests that you potentially know or believe your own complaint to be frivolous. Considering all of this, I cannot say I find it surprising that the professor is being dismissive — I might very well do the same in their position. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that your fear of exposing your identity is not rational. I can imagine situations in which it would be rational. However, at the end of the day, this is a fear you simply need to get over. Graduate school is a professional environment in which people are expected to behave professionally and maturely, and to work with others around them to achieve a shared goal. Hiding your identity is not compatible with those expectations. Finally, none of this is to indicate that your complaint itself is unsound or invalid. My suggestion is to try to enter a good faith dialogue with the professor and share your concerns, taking my feedback above into account. Hopefully he will be reasonable, listen to what you have to say, and instruct the lecturers to be more helpful and/or make some other adaptations to make the class more survivable. Good luck! Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: When studying CS with a side-dish of maths, I heard a course about Abelian Groups; this was for senior students, i.e. in the later semesters. It started out simple enough, you know, plenty of definitions, theorems etc.; it had no prerequisites except "the usual" (familiarity with mathematic principles, basics from Linear Algebra etc.); all mathematical structures were laid out from first principles, clear and plain, with complete derivations written on the whiteboard. Before I knew it, I was way over my head. I could follow along with the lectures just fine, I remembered most of the theorems and definitions, but had not a single clue of how to tackle any of the assignments. Turns out this lecture was based around the principle that students are supposed to study the topic. In contrast to me, the other students would spend hours and hours sitting at home or in a library, reading books on the topic, repeating the proofs for the theorems, tackling them from other angles, discussing them in small groups maybe. That was before the bachelor/master system was introduced in my country, and at my uni there was no measure of how many hours of additional study was required. Needless to say, I let go of that particular lecture and found a more interesting (to me) one which for some reason I "groked" without any particular effort. It could well be that this is what's going here. It seems to me that the courses are designed to spark self-study. University is not school, some profs see it as their job to give students a kind of guidance into a field, with the students doing the main work. Your teachers saying that the "name of the topic implies the solution" looks to me like they think you'll either read books, do online searches, discuss it with your fellow students, etc... Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: As the others have already said before: Do not fear to reveal your name and get in touch with the prof asap. I have been working on a European university for many years now, and I have never encountered a situation where a student failed because the teachers did not like them and wanted to punish them. (On the contrary, sometimes a teacher really wants a student to pass just because they do not want to see this student in their course again next semester!) Of course, if you have to encounter the prof and the two PhD students in a meeting, this is a scary situation. If possible, try to find other students that are not happy with the course either so that you are not alone. But in any case, get an appointment with the prof. In this appointment, try to be as neutral as possible**. If you accuse the PhD students of being incompetent and rude, the prof will defend them. Of course you are angry and disappointed, but do not show these feelings. Do not be aggressive or whiny, this does not help. Instead, try to concentrate on you and your problems with the course. You want to pass this course, but you have severe problems to understand what they teach you. You need help, and so far nobody has helped you, that is why you are here. Profs are usually interested in students passing their exams, so if you concentrate on the help you need, you will most likely get it. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/15	902	3,772	<issue_start>username_0: I have been involved with the Quantum Optics group in my institution. I have a lot of interest in Circuit-QED and thus is (broadly) the topic for my Master's thesis. Now, I have always been inclined towards experiments, and would like my PhD to be in experimental physics as well. Now, the reason I joined the theoretical group is that there isn't any full fledged research in fabricating 1-D transmon resonators or working with a cavity like there is in a few other universities, and the experimental faculty who do fabricate them do so for completely different purposes. To make the long story short, is it possible for me to shift to Experimental Physics if my master's thesis is in theoretical physics?<issue_comment>username_1: You actually asked two different questions here: > > Is it possible to apply? > > > Yes, of course. Anyone can apply, even if your background is not remotely related to experimental physics. > > Is it possible to be admitted? > > > My advice (and this applies to most PhD applicants) is to try contacting professors who you'd like to study with. You can ask them over email whether they would accept someone with a theoretical physics background. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I am just answering because I myself did exactly that. I did a Master's degree & thesis on theoretical high-energy physics (some B meson decay at CERN...) and then a purely experimental PhD building a lab for a cold atom trapping machine. So yes. It's possible. First year PhD students are generally not supposed to have any "work" experience in that specific field. There are some countries, e.g. Germany, where a PhD student has usually already done many internships (some of them along side their studies during term time) within the group that eventually hosts their PhD. Also in Germany, your courses become fully elective and specialised so that you can essentially only study the subject that you'll end up doing your PhD in. In the UK (my case) on the other hand, this is not quite the case. You can do 2 month summer internships and maybe a final year project, but nothing "long term" where you already start working alongside more senior Lab members helping them in the day-to-day operations that may not immediately help your thesis/report. Just accept that you will have a somewhat steeper learning curve than, say, other PhD candidates that have already undergone coursework, experiences, and trainings in that specific field. As @username_1 said, check with the PI of the Lab if they would even accept someone with your background, because maybe student supply is so high that they would only consider people that can hit the ground running. This will depend on the size of the group and on the amount of immediate work that needs to be done, and potentially on how many PhD/Postdocs there are that are "free" to train you (i.e. not busy writing PhD theses or applying for jobs). Hence why you should ask the PI in question. Just make it clear that you are motivated and determined to learn. And that your background will, eventually, make you even more valuable than a pure experimentalist (speaking from experience). Back in my day, I went on a two week internship in my PI's old group in Germany to get some work experience in the field, e.g. how to use a laser for the first time. This was not part of my degree, so I didn't have any pressure to "produce" results, and I was a sponge trying to absorb jargon, techniques, principles, that I could go on and read about later on. I had food & accommodation paid for, so I only really "volunteered" my time. If you wish, you could try and volunteer for a similar opportunity to see if that would bolster your chances. Upvotes: 1
2021/06/15	730	3,188	<issue_start>username_0: I am a Msc student planning to apply to a Phd program and need reference letters for that. But when I applied to Phd programmes and asked my supervisor to give me reference letters, after the 4th reference he told me (in front of my colleagues) that it is a shame that he gave me so many reference letters and I still wasn't able to go anywhere. I am trying to avoid this situation. Apart from not asking this person again for a reference letter, what can I do? (I am now having another supervisor, so at least he can help me out.) How many reference letter is okay to ask? Should I also ask my teachers or a reference from a supervisor is the absolute best? // edit: some people commented that my supervisor might not have a bad intention and he meant it a good way. English is my second language, so I couldn't translate it well. What he said was rather something like 'you weren't accepted despite my efforts, shame on you'<issue_comment>username_1: Actually, I think you may have misinterpreted the comment. It might have just been a reflection on the sad state of the job market. I wouldn't try to avoid the situation, but to talk it over with the supervisor, especially if they are supportive. He may already well understand the situation and may be almost as frustrated with it as you are. It doesn't hurt to have backups, of course, but four letters is essentially nothing. A hundred (more) might be needed in this market. He may need a way to manage that, potentially using staff, but don't give up. However, if you aren't being accepted into doctoral programs, perhaps you have an ineffective search. The most common one seems to be applying to only the "top" institutions in the field, which makes admission hard (to impossible) since there are relatively few positions in those few places. Another would be applying to places or in fields for which you aren't really prepared. Widen the search. But a discussion with the supervisor can help here. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: > > Apart from not asking this person again for a reference letter > > > If you are worried about bothering people, then you should definitely ask references to people you have already asked them from. They already have a document ready with your information & life story to which minor changes need to be made as you have more experiences. It would more "bothering" for someone else to start from scratch with a reference letter for you. I don't even ask my old referees if they are willing to provide a reference anymore. I used to for the first 3-4 applications. Now I just e-mail them saying that I put their name down. Just because I know they have a letter ready and it's just a matter of changing the date. What you may want to start thinking about is the following though: the stuff your referee is saying about you - is that helpful to your applications? Have they known you when you did a piece of exceptional work that they can write about? Have they supervised a project that was brought to completion? Or are they just writing a "standard" letter with no personal touches and examples about your exceptional abilities? Upvotes: 2
2021/06/15	382	1,683	<issue_start>username_0: Initially, it took a very long time for the editor to finally screen the article and invite reviewers. My concern is that some reviewers will decline to review, and the editor will not invite new ones quickly at all...it seems like they check in the system very infrequently (once every month or two). If the status date is not changing while under review, could it be that reviewers haven't accepted? This is the Elsevier system.<issue_comment>username_1: Like for so many other questions about the status of submissions on this forum (search!), there is just no way for you to know. It may be that the editor has found the requisite number of reviewers but reviewers are taking their sweet time to get their assessments written; or that the editor is sitting on their hands and not doing much; or or or. You just can't know, and it's a waste of your time and energy to wonder about it. Relax, move that paper to some archive storage place in your brain and be productive on something else until the paper comes back for something you actively need to do. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer to the title question is "no". Many editorial management systems will not change the status date unless the status itself changes. If reviewers decline to review and the editor invites new reviewers, the status stays as "under review", and the status date stays at the date at which the first reviewers were invited. > > My concern is that some reviewers will decline to review, and the editor will not invite new ones quickly at all. > > > Even if this is the case, you can't do anything about it. There's nothing to do except wait. Upvotes: 2