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<issue_start>username_0: When I was a PhD student, I would sign up for 15 minute slots with my advisor, power through the meeting and be out quickly. Sometimes they ran 5-10 minutes over but generally they were highly efficient. Now I'm a new jr faculty member with undergrads and PhD students. So far I rarely finish talking with a student in less than 45 minutes. How the heck can I make these meetings more efficient?<issue_comment>username_1: I wonder whether a lot of very short meetings is "more efficient" than fewer, longer, ones. You have to keep changing focus.
What a lot of us did was schedule office hours for (non doctoral) students and let them come during those slots. Some number of hours per week was required. I didn't plan on being "productive" in research during those hours. If only one or two show up you can let them fill the time. If a lot show up you can have a group discussion. I've had a group of five or so sitting at my feet in a general exchange. You probably have to reserve some of the time available for more personal issues (grades, health, ...) that can't be done as a group but those sorts of things can be short in any case.
This may not work for doctoral students, however, and you may need to use an individual plan. I'm surprised that you say that 10-15 minutes was ok for doctoral students. Somehow the scale seems wrong. And the scale is very different in any case. It actually feels like the advisor was micromanaging, though you don't say it was a large lab in which that might occur.
For someone who has a lot of doctoral students at the same time (never my bad luck) it might be worth organizing them so that they can collectively answer their own question. Perhaps the more senior students can mentor the newer ones. That isn't a bad thing in any case.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Three principles I found useful:
1. Always have an agenda (including outcomes) beforehand. What does the student need help with? What needs to be decided for the project to move forward etc.?
2. Ask the student to submit something in writing before the meeting, even as short as a paragraph or bullet point list. Use this to define the agenda (and outcomes).
3. Stick to the agenda if possible. If new points come up that can't be resolved impromptu, schedule a new meeting and possibly ask for some preparation by the student beforehand (and of course do your own preparation).
15 minutes seems short though.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Some years ago, when I often had several PhD students at the same time (though at different stages of their projects), I would run a seminar meeting at least one day a week, and in the summertime five days a week, for perhaps two hours. This was aimed at addressing *common* issues my people would have.
It would also help them refine their own *specific* questions, for our weekly one-hour one-on-one meetings.
(I've found that in many cases there is an inescapable "human inefficiency" in PhD-student meetings, insofar as there is "life interfering with mathematics", and, in my opinion, it is important for an advisor to lend a sympathetic ear... before talking about the mostly-more-solvable problems of mathematics.)
Upvotes: 5
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2022/03/02
| 735
| 3,340
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<issue_start>username_0: There have been a few answers and comments on this site where lecturers have noted some useful practices they implement in their teaching, which they disclose in the course outline. Usually this occurs when the lecturer wants to put the students on notice of some practice they have that may differ from practice of other lecturers. Some of the ideas I have read in answers and comments on this site have been good ones, so I would like to collect this advice into one post.
**Question:** What useful teaching/administrative practices do lecturers disclose as additions to the course outline (especially where these practices differ from the norm)?<issue_comment>username_1: I will get the ball rolling with a disclosure I use in my own courses. Over the years I have found that students sometimes come to me and point out inconsistencies in my marking, where two students have given similar answers and got different marks. While I aim for consistency, sometimes I get a case where I have indeed marked inconsistently. If the lower mark is too harsh then this is a simple fix --- just raise it to the higher mark. However, if the higher mark is too generous then an incentive problem arises --- do I mark a student *down* for coming to see me with a marking inconsistency? My own view (which some may not share) is that I don't wish to disincentivise my students from raising legitimate marking queries, so I have made it a policy that I will leave the inconsistency in place, rather than marking the higher student down. If the student specifically asks me to correct the mark and mark them down for consistency then I will do so, but I won't do this unless they request it. To put students on notice of this policy, I include the following section in my course outline:
>
> #### Review of Marks and Consistency of Marks
>
>
> The course lecturer will make every effort to mark all assessment items in a manner that is consistent from student to student. If students believe that there is an inconsistency between the marking of their own work and the marking of another student’s work (e.g., they get different marks for an answer that is substantively the same) then they should raise this with the course lecturer for review.
>
>
> The only exception to this consistency principle is this: if the course lecturer finds that a student has accidentally been awarded a higher mark than should have applied for a question, or overall, during subsequent inquiry on the matter by students, the mark will not be reduced, except on request from the student. This is done in order to avoid creating any disincentive for students to discuss marking issues with the course lecturer (i.e., students do not have to worry about raising issues of consistency and then being marked down as a result).
>
>
>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I teach some advanced topics and unfortunately, there are times where some part of the class simply would not see any merit in being there. The blame often lies with whoever works on their program, we do have a back and forth with them, but otherwise it is what it is. If that happens, I explicitly give some low-effort options for getting a passing grade: it seems to me that the students end up at least a bit more engaged when having a clearly defined goal.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/02
| 2,589
| 11,283
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student and have recently accepted a review request from a (quite prestigious) journal. I wonder whether I should tell this to my supervisor. Of course, the benefit of telling them is that my supervisor might help me improve my review; the drawback is that it might affect the anonymity of the review.
Should I do that? I guess the answer depends on the field (I'm in computer science) and many other factors.
**Edit**: I actually meant whether I should tell my supervisor about the exact paper I review. (The paper is online and both of us know it.) If I do so, my supervisor might comment on my review and help me improve it.
**Edit 2**: Thank you all for your answers! I finally decided to ask the journal editor about this issue.<issue_comment>username_1: If the reviewers have sent you the review request on the condition that you will keep it anonymous, then you must keep it anonymous. They have asked your personal opinion, not a group opinion. If they want your advisor's review, they could have asked him directly.
Later on at some convenient time (when the paper has been decided), you can talk to your advisor about it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You can always say informally that you are reviewing a paper from [Researcher Name] about [Topic], but you are usually not allowed to discuss openly the contents of the paper (either with coworkers or on some forum over the Internet) nor use the contents for your own research before it is actually published. If the paper is already on an online repository such as arXiv, that does not matter anymore as the paper is already public. Finally, there is no reason you could not ask for some help to evaluate a certain part of the paper you do not really understand. Reviewing is not only about evaluating papers, but also learning how to present complex ideas in a clear way and learning new stuffs in the process. It usually gives a lot of new ideas.
However, in some fields, such as in Biology, it is well known that a review request accepted by a professor will be actually written by some PhD student or postdoc, possibly several of them. This is common practice.
Finally, some journals also make both reviews and reviewers' names public at the end.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: There is a difference between telling your supervisor about your request and involving them actively. Telling them that you received such a request does not necessarily impact the anonymity of the review, as you don't have to tell them specifics, just that you received it. They will probably be pleased that you are taking part in the peer review process, as this is something that is kind of expected in academia.
Learning how to do (good) peer reviews is a process that your supervisor may be able to help you with, and it can thus be beneficial to talk with them about it. Again, if you want to maintain the anonymity, you don't have to talk specifics, but you can still get general advice from them.
When I received my first peer review request, I told my supervisor. He was able to help me with some doubts I had (like reasons why you should recommend rejecting a paper or instead request major revisions) without ever having a single glimpse at the paper in question.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: The answer does indeed depend on many factors.
Part of your advisor's job is to teach/show you how the profession works. If you think their help or insight could substantially improve your review, then asking them for that help may be appropriate.
You could ask if they think that help would compromise the review process.
You could consider asking the editor if showing your review to your advisor would be OK.
You should not be asking your advisor for help deciding on your recommendation to the editor - just on matters of style, like a good way to suggest changes.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Yes!
Like with every other non-trivial activity which you are doing for the first time, it's best to have an instructor with you. Your advisor is able to teach you how to write a good reviewer report, and might also point out things you missed or should emphasize. Furthermore, your advisor is likely to be interested that you are doing peer review.
Involving your advisor doesn't compromise the anonymity of the review. It just means you tell the editor that the review was from both of you. You know each other are reviewers, but the authors still won't know. Potentially more concerning is if the article itself was supposed to be confidential, but that would be unusual. Many (most?) papers in computer science are posted on the arXiv before they are ever submitted to a journal.
So: no drawbacks, but there are potential benefits, so you should do it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: The only reason I would be worried about anonymity is if I thought the paper deserved a bad review and I knew that my advisor was close to one of the authors. If I were in that situation I would question myself since my advisor is supposed to be my guide to the field, and if I can't trust their judgment then what am I doing? I mean, maybe it is a bad paper but hopefully your advisor would recognize that too.
If you think your advisor would be able to give the paper a fair review then there is no reason not to share it with them.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Yes, I think you should discuss it with your advisor.
The upsides are significant and have been mentioned in other answers. The downsides are small:
* At this point in your career, it is assumed that your advisor is aware of and guiding essentially all your professional work. In other words, I believe you are not violating norms to include your advisor here and it should be expected that this would happen.
* At this point, any of your conflicts of interest are probably your advisor's conflicts also. Conversely, if your advisor has a conflict on the paper, you probably should not be reviewing it anyway as they are in a position of authority over you and at this point you are not quite autonomous. So the conflict-of-interest downsides are negligible.
* I don't think there's any ethical problem with the advisor influencing your opinion and recommendation. Conversely, your responsibility is to gather information to make the most accurate recommendation possible, and consulting an expert is a great help.
* Discussions between a PhD student and advisor are necessary for guiding you and can be kept confidential. It's like attorney-client privilege in my book.
* Anonymity has known, accepted limits. There are a number of editors who know the reviewers, possibly someone who recommended you and at least suspects you're reviewing (this might be your advisor themself), etc. People often assign sub-reviewers or sometimes reach out for help in reviews to other experts. All of these people are trusted not to share this information any further.
(The situation could be different if you were late-career and used to reviewing big papers on your own, but in that case you wouldn't have asked this question.)
---
**P.S.**
Actually, what you should probably do is tell your advisor that you have been asked to review a paper without telling them what it is. Then ask if they think it's okay to help you review it. Let the advisor decide.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: **There is no difference between the rights and duties of a PhD student doing their first review or a professor doing their 1000th.**
* You're free to tell the fact *that* you got a paper to review, and which journal that request comes from.
* You are bound by the reviewer guidelines of the journal in question, like any other reviewer.
Unless they explicitly state that fresh PhD students may do the
review with the help of their professor (which I'd consider extremely
unusual), you cannot disclose confidential information, e.g. content of the paper, to your supervisor.
In my field, we have such confidentiality requirements regardless of whether a preprint of the manuscript is publicly available or not. If a preprint is available, you can discuss the merits of the preprint as it is publicly known with your supervisor, but then cannot not disclose the fact you are reviewer for that manuscript.
* You may ask your supervisor (or other colleagues) general questions, though.
Say, you find a *dynamite plot* "summarizing" 5 data points each into a bar and standard error - and wonder whether requesting the authors to change it into a point diagram is OK or asking too much: by putting the question in such abstract terms you do not reveal the content of the manuscript.
* If you feel you are not fully qualified to do the review without asking colleagues (e.g. your supervisor) for advise *about the content*, that is typically possible by contacting the journal editor who will then give you leave to talk e.g. with your supervisor.
---
When I received my first review request, I told the fact at lunch break, and that I did yet feel qualified to judge a manuscript. My professor told me to please remember that I'm a fully qualified chemist since I graduated with my Diplom (nowadays Master), with all professional rights and duties that come along with it. And that papers are supposed to written so that they are understandable and the argumentation sufficiently clear convincing to any professional of roughly the (sub)field in question. In other words, to people like me.
IIRC, there was also an argument that already my Diplom thesis required me to critically judge the papers I studied wrt. what conclusions can be drawn from them.
Nowadays, I'd say: if a supervisor thinks their students need direct training on how to write a review, a format like a *journal club* is a very good opportunity to do so: the papers can be openly discussed to their merits in a group, and also what can reasonably be requested and to formulate this can be developed with a whole group of students. And this is possible without compromising a review process.
BTW, I suspect that I got this review request either because he as editor of the journal (of which I was not aware at the time - IIRC I did not see who the editor handling the manuscript was) suggested me or because he suggested me as alternative reviewer when he turned down the review request.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_9: I received my PhD in Molecular Biophysics ten years ago from a graduate school in Texas. Since then I have been working in industry. As long as there is no conflict of interest, such as, if the manuscript author is your supervisor’s friend or competitor, then I don’t see an issue of letting your supervisor know. To do a good peer review, you actually have to spend time looking up references and do some research, all these efforts take away valuable time for your own thesis research. So it’s reasonable to inform your supervisor what you are doing with your time. However, if you wish your supervisor to help improve your review, then I am not onboard with your reviewing it or telling your supervisor. After all, the editor reached out to you, not your supervisor. If you don’t feel qualified, then in all honesty, you should not accept editor’s request.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/02
| 1,571
| 6,622
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<issue_start>username_0: A few months ago, in our group meeting, my advisor brought up a problem in the field that might be interesting for us to think about it. Although it was not related to my PhD, since I was going for my defense, I started to think about it with another student and prepared a paper and sent it to the advisor. He saw it (one week before the deadline) and said that another student in the group (who was in that meeting) is also interested in that problem and is working on a simpler version of it with a totally different approach.
9 hours before the deadline of the paper submission, the guy who was working on the simpler version sent me a message and said that I have to add his name (and also his wife!) to our paper because he was working on the same problem and he wants his name to be on the first paper which is about that new problem. He said that in return, he will add my name and my collaborator's name to his paper (his wife is his collaborator in his paper, although her field was not related to the problem and that is why he asked for both names to be added in our paper). I didn't have any contribution in their paper and they didn't have in ours and I didn't even know what is in their paper.
I am the supervisor of our paper and adding another two PhD students to my paper (even if we could ignore the ethics!) vanishes my role in having supervision in all parts of the paper (including the code and results), and it was really hard for me. I said that I cannot do it and we will submit our papers and see what will happen. In my whole research time, this never happened to me and it is so weird to me that why I shouldn't say no and face such complaints.
I did ask my advisor about this. He said that it was our fault that we didn't communicate about our projects, but he is okay if we want to exchange the names.
Did I do something wrong? Would you please suggest the right answer for such requests? Can he annoy me in the future?<issue_comment>username_1: Working in parallel isn't collaboration. Unless the other people contributed directly to your paper then they have no right to authorship. Nor would you have right to authorship of theirs. It would be pure "gift" authorship, a form of misconduct in many (not all) fields.
Actually, though, your supervisor should have managed this better so that you didn't come to such a point within a single group. Parallel research and having someone else scoop you is bad enough (for individuals) in the general case, but it shouldn't happen in a single research group.
I don't know what you can manage politically in this situation, but the ethics are clear. Hopefully you all have something to contribute.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Did I do something wrong? Would you please suggest the right answer for such requests? Can he annoy me in the future?
>
>
>
You did not do anything wrong. In your life people will often make unreasonable requests of you. Learning to say “no” is a useful skill, and one of the elements of that skill is the knowledge that [“no” is a complete sentence](https://www.mindful.org/no-is-a-complete-sentence/). That is, the right answer for such requests is simply “no”. A more polite version of this will read something along the lines of:
>
> Hi [name],
>
>
> It’s nice that you also found the problem interesting and are working on a paper about it. About your question, I do not need to be a coauthor on your paper, and am not interested in adding you as a coauthor on mine. Thanks for the suggestion though. And good luck with your conference submission.
>
>
> Regards,
> user137927
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, this is a mess. Normally, **people in the same research group are supposed to collaborate and keep each other informed** of what they're doing. Clearly, that failed pretty badly here, and I'd say the fault is shared by you and your advisor:
* You say that the initial meeting where your advisor brought up the problem was a few months ago. It's not clear how long after the meeting you started working on the problem, but presumably it was at least several weeks ago. At that point, you should've told your advisor what you were working on, and preferably also informed other group members directly e.g. in a group meeting.
* Even though your advisor apparently only found out about your project when you sent them your finished paper a week before the submission deadline, they should still have arranged an *immediate* meeting between you and the other student(s) working on the same problem, instead of waiting for the deadline to pass.
* That said, given that your advisor didn't arrange such an emergency meeting, *you* should've taken it upon yourself to immediately contact the other student and discuss the issue.
* More generally, the fact that this whole chain of events came to pass makes it seem like communication and collaboration within your research group is pretty dysfunctional. While good teamwork is part of everyone's job, ultimately the team leader — i.e. your advisor — is responsible for ensuring that it happens.
---
As for the issue of "exchanging authorship" at hand, I agree with the other answers that you *technically* did the right thing here by refusing it, since the other student (and his wife) hadn't actually contributed anything to your paper.
That said, I would say that you also did the wrong thing in letting events get to that point in the first place. Ideally, you would've informed your advisor when you started working on the problem, and they would've arranged for you and the other student to work together, so that the resulting paper(s) would indeed have enough contribution from both of you to justify coauthorship.
Also, by refusing the offer, there's a risk that you may have made an enemy — possibly a life-long one.
The other student almost certainly didn't see their offer of "exchanged authorship" as inappropriate under the circumstances, or they wouldn't have made it in the first place. As such, they're not likely to take your "no" reply as "no, that would be inappropriate", but rather as "no, we don't want to work together with you, we'd rather just scoop you and take all the credit, f\*\*\* you very much".
That said, there may not be much you can do about that now. An honest face-to-face talk with the other student might help, especially if you start by admitting that you screwed up by not involving them in your work earlier, and that you do genuinely want to collaborate with them in the future. Or not, but at least you can say that you tried.
Upvotes: 4
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2022/03/02
| 1,424
| 5,855
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a month away from graduating in Math. I spent the last six months working on what I consider now a poor master thesis.
I was asked to discuss some connections between model theory and combinatorics.
I think this bad result was due to the topic itself, my poor organization and an even worse selection of papers that was given to me by my advisor.
In the end, I couldn't obtain any new result, and my thesis is basically a list of well known elementary theorems. I even thought on starting it all over again with a new advisor.
I am feeling very discouraged, because I think I could have produced a decent thesis with the right suggestions.
Is my academic career over? Will I be able to get a good phd in math? In general, how important is a good master thesis in obtaining a phd? Should I consider again writing a new thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: Honestly. Of course your academic career isn't over --- that is just ridiculous. Even if you *failed* your masters program, that would not prevent you from learning more, applying to and completing a PhD, and developing into a good researcher. Hell, there is at least [one person](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers) I've heard of who led a militant group conducting bombings in their own country and then later became a university professor in that same country. So no, a somewhat disappointing Masters thesis is not fatal to an academic career.
There appears to be a somewhat recurrent class of question on this site from young people who think that any minor misstep in their grades or extra-curricular activities is fatal to their whole career. It is ludicrous self-pity and has no basis in how the academic profession works. A Masters disseration is primarily a learning exercise rather than a scholarly contribution anyway, so if you learned something of value and got to build up some research skills, that will stand you in good stead for a PhD program.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Is my academic career over? Will I be able to get a good phd in math? In general, how important is a good master thesis in obtaining a phd? Should I consider again writing a new thesis?
>
>
>
These questions are not for an outsider to answer. You should instead talk to your Masters advisor, who will in all cases have a huge impact on your ability to get a good PhD in math. Paramount to figure out is if your thesis really is as bad as you think it is. I know you write that you didn't discover any new results and your thesis is just a collection of old theorems, but whether you were *expected* to discover any new results is a major confounding variable. For example, if your Masters was one year long, then you might have made real progress but simply ran out of time to discover anything that's genuinely new. If the advisor is engaging another Masters student or PhD student to finish your work, you could easily end up with a second-author publication. Still not as good as a first-author publication, but it's something, and it would indicate that your thesis isn't that bad.
If your advisor says you should not do a PhD, then it might be time to worry (what else did they say? Why do they think you should not do a PhD?) - but it's too soon to worry, let alone make plans, before talking to them.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: It looks like you learned a lot with your Master thesis, not about a topic itself but **about how to tackle a topic**.
Even more, you have one aspect that you can directly tackle and that you should focus:
>
> bad result was due to [...] my poor organization
>
>
>
You have a very strong selling point: you can show that you have an idea about the path to a better Master thesis, maybe you learned it the hard way, but it is still a learned lesson [1].
Now, the thesis in itself is not that important (as long as it does not have a strikingly bad grade, if it is graded), but sooner or later you will have to present it as part of a PhD interview. How do you present it?
Show that you learned your lesson, not by saying "I had poor organization, so thesis is crap", but by having a well organized presentation (or poster).
You will soon learn that in life the **"how"** you did something generally has a much larger impact than the **"what"** you did ... because *how* you do things dictates *what* you can potentially achieve, all conditions being optimal [2].
The fact that you did not discover anything new would be just a nice side aspect of the thesis, of course you will win no Fields'medal with your thesis.
But.
An excellent thesis shows that the student mastered the path to the results and obtained worthwhile results, a horrible thesis shows that the student didn't master the path but obtained interesting results, an average thesis shows that the student have an idea about how to get to some results and has an idea about how the results could be improved.
On average in a given year, there are more PhD positions available than excellent thesis prodcuced: good luck!
[1] Try to look deep into your aspect of "failure", the poor organization: are you poorly organized because you had some thought about the path to tackle the topic, but you still tried mostly to follow the path shown by your advisor and the literature you were given by the advisor (exogen disorganization) or was it your side (endogen disorganization)?
[2] don't think in purely rationalistic terms. For example, *How* does not mean that you should be as efficient as a computer/robot. Optimal conditions refers to your capacity of expressing your potential, maybe someone needs to sleep during the day and work at night and living isolated in a cave, to achieve his/hers potential, while someone else may need continuous discussion with peers and structured working days 8-5, Monday to Friday ...
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/02
| 914
| 4,360
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm being asked (by my advisors) to include a person I don't even know as author of my new papers, in which they haven't done anything. The reason seems to be that my work is based on source code that was written by the three of them in the past. These people have already published several papers that rely on this implementation. I don't think that if I write a different version on top of their code I owe them authorship. I have done this before using libraries and other open source software. I have never included the authors of the code as co-authors of my papers, so I don't see how this situation is different. Still, I'm worried that they might not let me use the code to complete my implementation. Interestingly, I had already started an implementation with a different version they gave me from some other student, that was too different from what I had to do, which is why I asked for this other version, but they never asked me to include this other student as co-author and they're only doing it now with this other person. Is my reasoning correct? What can I do?<issue_comment>username_1: In theory, you would simply cite their previous work implementing the software in your paper rather than crediting them as authors, especially if that software is broadly available - this is what someone else from another research group would do.
In practice, if this is software developed within a research group (rather than software made broadly available and used by others), writing key software elements of a project can be considered a strong intellectual contribution to that piece of work, even if that contribution is spread across multiple papers, and therefore may be treated as worthy of authorship. From your perspective up until now, you're responsible for the whole of the paper, but from your advisors' perspective perhaps they see multiple people working on aspects of the research question: perhaps they as the advisor/PI are setting some overall research goals/direction, someone is writing software to implement a particular algorithm, someone else (you) is using that software to test a particular theory, etc. You may not have met them (yet), but your advisors have. I've certainly had coauthors whom I did not know personally, because we've worked on different aspects of a project under the direction of someone else.
I'd say that if they have done no additional work towards your project and everything you are using of theirs has already been published separately, that would be reason to put them into the "cite them" category. If they have done additional work towards your project that has not been published, though, then I would strongly consider offering them authorship, even if they have done this work before you interacted with them. However, that offer of authorship should come with other responsibilities of authorship, including assisting in drafting and reviewing the manuscript and approving its final form. That is, they should not simply be given authorship without you knowing them, but that you might owe them the opportunity to be more fully involved in the paper before you publish.
Your advisors should help guide you on which of these choices is more appropriate, so I think it's fine to raise your concerns but to also keep an open mind to their thoughts of what is appropriate.
I think many people who post here on Academia.SE believe too much that having other authors credited on their paper dilutes their own contribution to the paper in the eyes of others. While that may be true for some fields, in others it doesn't particularly matter if you add some 4th and 5th authors. I would avoid outright "gift authorship" where people are credited as authors for added prestige or to let some senior academic collect paper trophies, but I think it can be a fair reward for people who do the trench work of building tools useful for the research that others do.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Another perspective that could be worth considering is the contributions that these new authors may bring.
You state that they have not done anything for your project, but if they agree to be co-authors they could contribute with critical reading and discussion on your manuscript before submission. Remember that the work is not finished before it is published.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/03
| 3,019
| 12,853
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<issue_start>username_0: Do research professors generally earn additional money from externally funded projects apart from their university salary? I ask because I'm wondering whether this explains why many professors – who have tenured, relatively well-paying positions – spend so much time applying for and executing these projects.
I am primarily interested in European universities, however, I would also be interested in answers that address whether things generally work the same way for researchers at private companies.<issue_comment>username_1: Government research grants would not usually offer any monetary bonus to a researcher beyond the funding that goes towards their salary. Research grants commonly cover some or all of the salary costs for the researchers in the grant, including the PI. This can lead to an *indirect* monetary benefit, insofar as a researcher in possession of grant-funding will find it easier to secure a higher level academic position than one who lacks funding. Typically, when an academic wins a major grant they will apply for promotion and get it, unless they are already at the top level. (To see why this would occur, look at it from the perspective of the university. When a university knows that a substantial amount of salary will be paid by an outside agency, they are more willing to offer a high-level position because they bear less cost in funding it. They also know that other universities will be willing to do the same.)
I'm assuming that the PI in this case is probably already a full professor, so it might be that he is already at the top academic level available. If this is the case then it is unlikely that he gets any monetary benefit from the grants. It is likely that the grants would pay some or all of his salary at the university, which would give him secure employment.
As to the case of researchers in private industry, the situation is not all that much different. The main difference is that there is no set pay scale in most private firms so there might not be a strict upper limit to the salary of the researcher. As with the university, if a researcher can win a grant that contributes money towards their salary, that puts them in a good negotiating position with their employer with respect to their position level and salary (although grant funding is unlikely to transfer with the researcher in a private company).
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: At least for the case in the United States:
Professors are generally only paid for 9 months per year by the university. If they have external funding, they can pay themselves for the remaining months -- so having grant funding increases the annual salary by up to 33%.
Second, faculty who repeatedly obtain external funding are clearly doing something right, which translates into promotions that then raise their salaries.
Third, at most universities, faculty salaries are not fixed but grow based on faculty member's annual evaluations. If someone gets a 3% raise every year, then their salary after a few years will be substantially above those who receive 1.5% salary raises every year.
Finally, if you repeatedly get large grants, you become attractive to other universities. They may try to lure you away with a negotiable salary that is higher than your current one, and your current university may try to retain you by raising your salary.
In the end, all of this leads to different faculty being paid differently. For example, full professor salaries in my discipline (mathematics) at typical research universities range between $100k and $150k for 9 months. The ones at the upper end are generally those who are good at receiving grants. But they can then also pay themselves in the summer for the remaining three months, so their salaries are in the range of $200k/year whereas those who do not have summer salary may be stuck closer to $100k/year. Both are of course good salaries in the grand scheme of things, but it is nicer to be at the upper than the lower end of that spread.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> Do they get an additional salary for each funded project, which could explain this behavior?
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As others have explained, salaries are mostly only indirectly based on grants; having grants may allow professors to fund themselves for otherwise unfunded months of the calendar year, to "buy out" teaching responsibilities to spend more time on research, and to argue for promotions.
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> Even though the job might not be as secure as academic researchers, do industry researchers earn more money in this regard?
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Industry researchers are also paid by salaries; they are on average paid much higher salaries than academic researchers but miss out on many of the perks of the academic life. This is fairly basic economics of supply and demand: there is a high supply of people who *want* academic jobs because they are perceived to be better in many intangible ways, so high salaries are not needed to attract people to those roles.
Every company can choose how they compensate their employees. Just like academics, though, this is most often going to be indirectly through salary.
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> Why do some research professors take on so many funded projects that it kills their entire spare time?
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I haven't yet met an academic researcher who was primarily motivated by money. If people are motivated by money, they're going to find a much easier time fulfilling their goals in the private sector.
Researchers in academia find their work important. When asking for grant funding, they must make a case to the funding agency that their *specific work* is more valuable than other applicants for those funds. They are not merely raising money towards cancer treatment, or number theory, or quantum physics, they are getting money to try *their specific approach* to cancer, *their specific problem of interest* in number theory, *their specific theory* in quantum physics. The more grants they earn, *the more work that can be done towards the very specific topic that they are most personally invested in*.
Grants also often go towards paying other people. Academics with a large research group need to maintain their funding to keep paying the people that work for them, and to keep attracting new students to influence the next generation of academics. Doubling grant funding in a lab doesn't mean doubling the time the *professor* works towards the grant; the more grants a professor has, the smaller the time is that they personally spend on each, but the more opportunity they have to pay others to do the work.
In addition, many academics don't see as much of a distinction between "spare time" and time spent on work: the magic of an academic position is that you have more freedom than a typical worker to *work specifically on what you want*, to do exactly the work that you would most want to spend your spare time on. I think most people still prefer some balance between pure leisure, time with family and friends, and productive work, but the relative balance towards work can be higher when the work is part of a personal investment rather than merely a means to a paycheck.
There's nothing wrong with working for a paycheck, but I would highly recommend against a career in academia if that's your primary motivator. There are much easier ways to earn an academic-level salary.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Since this is about salary in Euros, my American-centric understanding might not apply. There are several benefits this professor might be enjoying, not all are directly related to their salary.
1. As others have noted, many faculty contracts are for 9 or 10 months (but may be paid out over 12 months) and grant money can include salary for those summer months.
2. As others have also noted, bringing in a large amount of research funding will be beneficial in terms of promotion and raises. I expect that you have a very strong negotiating position for a larger annual raise when you are bringing in millions of Euros to the institution.
3. Some positions are only partly funded by the University (e.g., 50%) and require the researcher to bring in sufficient funds to cover the rest of the appointment to bring it up to full-time.
4. Some research institutions allow a professor to "buy out" of teaching a course through research funds. So a professor with something like a 2-1 teaching load might be able to buy out a course or more and have a semester where they can be more focused on research.
5. Research funding can pay for the salaries of research assistants. This can build up the number of graduate students they are working with, usually leading to more research results, leading to more prestige, promotions, etc.
6. Research grants can include money for equipment, travel, hosting of conferences, etc.
7. It might be negotiable through the department or university that the research funding can be traded. E.g., this professor's grants funds the research assistants of another professor in exchange for X amount of funds that can be used differently.
To be clear, I do not have direct knowledge of most of these activities, so I am unsure of the specifics, but through my time in graduate school and in academic research I have heard of these situations occurring.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: >
> ...[My PI's wife left him for being a workaholic with poor work-life balance]...
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There are workaholics in every profession, not just academia, and not just academics working on government-funded projects. Though, yes, strong competition for finite resources (funding, promotion, etc.) will tend to self-select workaholics (and often amplify the behavior).
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> Do research professors obtain any monetary benefit by executing government funded projects? ... Why do some research professors take on so many funded projects that it kills their entire spare time? Do they get an additional salary for each funded project, which could explain this behavior?
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You seem very keen to try to understand this purely in immediate monetary terms. It is almost as if you are asking *"We're all salaried, so why is PI putting in so many hours overtime? Does he get a second paycheck for government-project hours?"*. You are essentially asking for the rate at which your PI is trading hours-away-from-family for Euros/Dollars to explain their behavior... which is most likely the wrong frame of mind to be understanding your PI's personal motivations.
Your PI presumably views this mostly as a [deferred gratification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification) optimization problem. While working "overtime" hours in the present may not show up concretely as a larger payout at the end of the month's paycheck, it likely will lead to securing more/bigger/prestigious funding in the future and will likely influence faster promotion (be that tenure, a prestigious chair, and/or moving on to bigger and better universities) - all of which are likely to lead to larger paychecks earlier in the future based on an accelerated career trajectory. (To say nothing of non-monetary goals like prestige/standing/esteem/etc. or the ability to tackle bigger more-interesting projects with greater amounts of funding.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Why do some research professors take on so many funded projects that it kills their entire spare time?
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‘cuz they like it and this is what they would rather do in their spare time.
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> Do they get an additional salary for each funded project, which could explain this behavior?
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Maybe, or maybe not directly, but there are lots of indirect benefits, such as promotion, performance increments, travel to various conferences and meetings, and possibly the ability to effect lasting changes at various levels.
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> Even though the job might not be as secure as academic researchers, do industry researchers earn more money in this regard?
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Not sure that jobs as academic researchers are all necessarily “secure” (some positions might be soft $$, some might not yet be tenured) but this is difficult to answer in general. Some industry research positions are very well compensated, some academic positions are also very well compensated. Most researchers will have a PhD, and the private sector recognizes it needs to pay for this expertise.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: Some universities give the PI a financial incentive to apply for grants, either by giving them the opportunity to put some extra salary in the grant (e.g. with the argument that this buys them out of teaching, but it can still be a net raise), or by giving them a salary raise for the duration of certain (typically prestigious) grants, paid either from the overheads of the grants, or sometimes also from other funds.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/03
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in a research topic (say X). I see several survey papers on X, but they all date back to 2013. I can't find a recent survey paper from 2013 to 2022. I feel a need to get a recent snapshot of the X for my thesis and future research. Upon discussing it with my supervisor, he thinks we can write our own survey paper covering literature from 2013-2022. However, I have doubts about the significance of the work. For example, how should the title be justified as "A literature review on X from 2013 to 2022?" I have never seen such a title or such a review paper.<issue_comment>username_1: Most of review papers like the one you are planning to write are titled "A current overview on topic X", "Recent advances in X", and other titles along those lines.
If the topic X is still (somewhat) relevant today, then writing a review paper on X covering the last 10 years is not insignificant. It makes sense to mention in the introduction why you only concentrate on the last few years, though.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I concur with username_1 that a recent update to literature that has no surveys for the past nine years or so could be a very helpful scholarly contribution. To increase the helpfulness of such a survey, you should not take for granted that the previous 2013 survey is fully satisfactory. After doing your updated survey, you should critically consider whether the previous survey did as good a job for pre-2013 literature as you have done with post-2013 literature. If not, you might want to reassess some or much of the previous literature. However, if you consider that the 2013 survey did a good job, then you can position yourself as building upon it and then contrast the recent literature with the earlier literature.
In any case, there is plenty of value to be offered by such an updated survey.
Concerning title, I personally dislike titles that say that they are "new", "recent", "current", etc. because such titles expire very quickly--within a couple of years, they become old. You can simply say that your review is "A Review of the Literature on the Topic". Your published article carries a date, and so any reader will now how "recent" it is and it is obvious that your 2022 review is more recent than a 2013 review. There is no need to say anything about that in the title.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2022/03/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I have found by absolute chance a doctorate thesis by a foreign author dating from the 70s, having as a subject the village where my parents are from. I was able to order it and have it in my possession.
No one knew about this work in the village, and only a few people told me that they did remember a young foreign individual hanging around in the village for a while at the time. I started translating it by myself and it is extremely interesting.
I emailed the university to try and contact the professor but got no answer. I would like to hire a professional translator and make the book available to the natives (not looking for profit, as I’m thinking 100-200 copies would be enough).
My question regards to copyrights. **Ideally I would be able to contact the author and ask for his permission, but if I am not able to do it, how should I ago about it?**<issue_comment>username_1: One possibility is for you to use Google Scholar to track down other publications made by the same author, and see if they have worked in other academic institutions after completing the dissertation. If so, you might try to contact the department and see if some faculty has the author's contact. Copyright issues are dependent on the country where you live. In many countries, copyright has been extended to 70 years after the death of the author. In any case, out of caution, it is probably best for you to not get the book made without solving the copyright issues first. It's too much of a risk (an unnecessary one, as a matter of fact). Some authors might not care at all that you translated their work, others would never allow you to do it, even if you paid them.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Take the risk. You're very unlikely to be sued; if you are, you will almost certainly be able to come to an agreement. It's not as if they're losing revenue as a result of your action. If you can show that you made best efforts to contact them, then you have a good defence.
My only reservation would be if there are privacy concerns or other sensitivities that might mean the original author doesn't actually want the work to reach a wider audience.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: **Answer for the UK:** If you cannot trace the author you can obtain a licence from the IPO if you need to.
<https://www.gov.uk/guidance/copyright-orphan-works>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: The law regarding translations, fair use, and copyright duration varies by country, so it is difficult to offer a clear answer to this question. I am answering this question assuming that US law is relevant and that the work in question is under copyright. (If the work is not under copyright then obviously you do not need to concern yourself further.)
US copyright law has a doctrine called [fair use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) which allows use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. I believe that distributing a limited number of full translations of the dissertation at cost or at a loss (that is, not generating a profit) for academic research is not likely to be legally infringing. Let's look at the 4 factors involved in fair use:
1. [Purpose and character of the use](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#1._Purpose_and_character_of_the_use): The use is non-commercial academic research, which is a point in favor of fair use.
2. [Nature of the copyrighted work](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#2._Nature_of_the_copyrighted_work): Seems irrelevant here.
3. [Amount and substantiality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#3._Amount_and_substantiality): You are suggesting translating the full dissertation. This does not necessarily disqualify the use as fair but you would have an easier time justifying distributing a translation of *part* of the work. Incidentally, this would also reduce the cost of translation so you may want to go this route.
4. [Effect upon work's value](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#4._Effect_upon_work%27s_value): I believe this limited translation would increase the original work's value because it would increase its market size, so I think this is a point in favor of the translation. Note that this may change if you were to post the translation online for anyone to download.
The most legally justifiable way to publish a full translation would be to make one printed copy and get it put in a library. This used to be relatively common (I've received translations via interlibrary loan that were published this way) and I'm not aware of any legal challenges to this approach. This approach minimizes the effect on the market for the original.
Note that I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. You should ask a competent IP attorney in your local jurisdiction if you want a better answer. If you are at a university, your university may have one or more staff attorneys who could answer this question for you at no cost to you.
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Note that it still is *polite* to get permission from the copyright holder and/or author(s). I have published quite a few translations and while it is rare that I am able to contact the authors (usually the papers I translate are quite old and the authors have been dead for a long time), I am yet to encounter any author not enthusiastic about translating their work. I don't recall ever getting a response from publishing companies about translating work they own the copyright to.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted my work to journal X almost a year ago; the status of the paper remained "Assigned to Reviewers" for a long time, and despite repeated emails, no one from the editorial board responded. After my last email, they recently responded, and the status date has been changed to 22 February 2022, but the status remains the same, with the message "Assigned to Reviewers."
After such a long time, it appears that my work is losing its significance. So my question is, can I submit this work to another journal in parallel with the current journal to save time?
Is it unethical for me to do this?
PS. My question has a similar answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/137030/submitting-two-articles-to-the-same-journal-at-the-same-time).<issue_comment>username_1: To make it ethical, simply inform the first journal that you are withdrawing your paper. Wait a bit for a reply, though that isn't necessary. The paper is then free to be submitted elsewhere.
But to submit before withdrawing has ethical issues.
Reviewer time and effort needs to be considered also, here. Most journals would desk-reject such a second submission if they learn of it.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Typically, when you submit a paper to a journal, they require you to acknowledge in writing that you have not submitted the work to another journal. By almost any ethical standard, then, it is unethical to make a written promise and then break it.
If you want to go with another journal, then I would withdraw the paper first.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think it would be ethical to *send* (not "submit") your paper to a professional friend or acquaintance in your field that might have a good idea what the second journal might like or require. So this friend sees your paper, says "Yes, submit that to Journal of XYZ and they might be very interested in it."
Then tell your original journal that you're withdrawing the submission and then submit to the other journal.
I know, as a matter of fact, many academics (and other scholars) have submitted **nearly** the same paper, with somewhat different titles, with possible variation in authors and principal author, to different journals and gotten the paper published both places.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/04
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<issue_start>username_0: A paper I am reviewing very clearly originates from the US. The authors don't use SI units.
As a European, I am always put off by non-metric units and I would like to request to change the units to SI units, not only because I am more familiar with them, but also because it would make the paper more accesible to researchers worldwide living in countries where metric units are used (almost all countries).
Is this request to ask to change the units unreasonable? In a way it feels like it, because the authors did not do anything wrong or incorrect?
Additional info: the journal doesn't provide a guideline for unit use, the units in the paper are non-SI non-metric (of the pounds per square inch quality) and the discipline is specialized engineering subfield.<issue_comment>username_1: You can suggest. I'd avoid it, personally. It would be wrong to vote to reject based on that alone. The editor probably has a view and the journal may have some standards (required or suggested) that cover it.
But a statement that a switch would increase accessibility to a non-US audience is benign. And in some fields in might be more important than in others.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: If the units are crucial for the understanding of this paper, particularly for replicating results, reusing the methodology and so on, I would point it out. "Take 0.18 ounces of potassium hydrogenphthalate and dissolve in 3 cubic inches of distilled water" probably would not do.
If, on the other hand, the values themselves seem less important for the wide scientific audience to examine or less unit conversion is needed in the first place (e.g. climate studies and temperatures in Fahrenheit) - I would not raise this issue.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: The International System of Units has a universal value, and if the paper is written for an international audience then, yes, ask the authors to change the paper to conform to the SI.
Check also the journal guidelines: most journals explicitly require the usage of the SI. Should this be the case, you can refer the authors to the guidelines.
You can also point out that nowadays the US customary units are exactly *defined* in terms of SI units. Therefore, also those who use the US customary units, from a scientific point of view, are actually using the SI, because it's the SI that specifies the definitions of those units and their realizations. For instance, 1 in = 2.54 cm, where the centimetre is the SI one (for more about the connection between US units and SI units, and for a comprehensive list of conversion factors, see [this publication from NIST](https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-si-appendix-b-conversion-factors)).
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: If it's in fields I am familiar with, using *metric* is mandatory and no reviewer should let a paper through that does not use metric.
However, some metric units are not SI and may be acceptable. In many fields it is widely encouraged to use eV instead of J, amu instead of g, angstroms instead of meters, etc. Feet instead of meters or F instead of C is not okay.
You need to know the customs of your field.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: If the journal’s intended readership extends beyond the US, Liberia and Myanmar, the [only three countries in the world that officially use a non-metric system of units](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-countries-use-the-imperial-system.html), then yes, it is not only reasonable but in fact your responsibility to the journal and its readers to point out this feature of the paper that makes it less accessible to the journal’s international audience, and ask the authors to address this by using standard (SI) units.
This is assuming that the journal is a science journal. If the journal publishes, say, creative writing or some other non-scientific content that just happens to mention someone walking two miles or describes a hot weather day by saying it was a hundred degrees out, it’s appropriate to let the author keep their units.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: I have reviewed a paper covering both my field (spectroscopy) and another (diamonds). The latter uses some units that aren't really used anywhere else - carats - even in scientific writing.
The paper was in a materials journal and therefore aimed at non-specialists, so my review made a strong recommendation to provide SI conversions whenever field-specific units were used. That seemed acceptable to all parties.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I agree that the US Government and citizens should migrate to predominantly SI Units by choice and judgement and therefore requesting this of US citizens is eminently reasonable, but I’d add ‘please’, ‘you know it makes sense’ and ‘thanks for your consideration’.
I wholeheartedly agree with concepts of freedom of choice and the like, but in the units case, this must start with schools, universities, teachers and textbooks used by students, so that students firstly become familiar with SI Units from the start and have to ‘mentally convert’ or calculate to use Imperial or non- SI units. The impetus should come from a judgement that academics should choose to make in this field (or should no longer stand back from or defer).
I agree with international practices in fields such as Aviation.
The UK had similar, prevailing non SI units prior to 1970’s but the Educational system with the help of legislation was able turn it about.
Another field in which there could be world-wide conformity is in the dating system, in which dd/mm/yyyy seems more consistent or logical than mm/dd/yyyy.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/04
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<issue_start>username_0: I have noticed\* that an undergrad student in a course I teach has "female" written in the "gender" field in the university intranet database (used for course enrollment, grading, etc.), although they present themselves as male in terms of appearance and pronouns.
I would have chalked it up to a simple clerical error, but then I realized that the student's name also is of a somewhat unisex character (it's common for men but not entirely rare for women as well, think "Andy"), so there is a small but nonzero probability the student is actually trans.
Of course I could just ignore the issue completely, but that would mean the wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come, and that might put the student into all kinds of uncomfortable situations.
I'm thus trying to balance the invasion of the student's privacy by bringing this up in some way vs the invasion of their privacy caused by the problematic gender field in the database.
I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:
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> Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.
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Is there a better (read: more respectful, safer, less likely to come across as super creepy) course of action?
\*: Noticing this didn't require any investigation whatsoever. When I open the teacher dashboard for my course,I am presented with a list of students. One entry in that list looks like
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> <NAME> (F) (photo of a bearded dude)
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That's not really easy to miss in a list with less than 30 rows.<issue_comment>username_1: By the use of the word "corrected" you are making an assumption. If they haven't made any declaration then don't *act on* such assumptions.
You could just leave it alone, and if the student wants it changed they will probably act on it. But at most, tell them that they should (might want to) review their student records with the appropriate office to decide on any desired changes.
I'd guess there are students of university age struggling with who they are. To some extend we all experienced that, perhaps.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: You are seeing the tip of a tree, but there is a forest that you need to burn down as fast as possible: **why are students' genders recorded?**
The student can take care of themselves. Maybe it has already been done, and maybe they will be a female in three months, who knows. Maybe they already are, and this is none of your business.
You can start a movement to ban the recording of gender in students' registers.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> an undergrad student in a course I teach
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Your job is teaching this student. The gender in the university records has no relevance to that job that I can think of. Don't do anything unless the student asks you for help with the record.
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> wrong gender would keep being shown to dozens of other teachers for years to come
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That's true, but I do not see what is has to do with your responsibilities to the student. Sensible faculty know that student records are full of errors, and quite frequently lack student's preferred names, such as Andy instead of Andrew.
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> Is there a better course of action?
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If you want to address students by their correct pronoun, invite *all* of them to identify their pronoun at the start of the course.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: If you [must do something](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism) (an assumption I would encourage you to question), then probably the best way to help the student avoid uncomfortable situations, without actually putting them in exactly the kind of uncomfortable situation you are trying to spare them, is to alert your university’s registrar to the potential error. The registrar would be in a better position to check whether this is in fact a clerical error or something that is in accordance with the student’s wishes. And the student would probably perceive an email from an anonymous registrar staff member discussing the option of correcting an incorrect entry in their university records as a lot less creepy than a similar email coming from their professor.
**Edit:** *see also the comment by @niemiro, who said that “The registrar could send an email containing every field in the database for that student and ask for confirmation that it’s all still correct”. If/when you email the registrar, you can suggest to them this approach to minimize any creepiness factor and avoid a risk of accidentally outing the student.*
Other than this idea, doing nothing is a viable, and, in my opinion, completely satisfactory approach to handling a “problem” that you neither know with certainty is actually a problem, nor falls anywhere near your actual professional duties with respect to the student in question.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: Sometime every year, the central admin at my university asks me (faculty) to check the correctness of the various bits of "information" they have for me. Sure, address, phone, next-of-kin (in case of accident?), and mostly mundane-though-personal things. This also includes expressions of preference about whether bits of info will be publicly accessible, or not. In the past, the default seemed to have been that lots of stuff was public, but not so much now.
Assuming that students have the same option to adjust/update their "personal information", you should just give a blanket encouragement to students... for gender-related but many more... reasons, to be sure to look at the univ's "personal info + preferences" file for them, and update as needed.
I think this approach would avoid a lot of the invasiveness and potential insensitivity/presumption about dealing directly with the specific possible issue-at-hand.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: The intent is good.
I would find a way to do it that’s less likely to be professionally dubious and to the student, alarming/creepy/distressing, though. Which is the likely outcome, handled that way.
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> I have noticed that an undergrad student in a course I teach...
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This is the key, and it’s **all** that is needed.
If you teach in person, then good, ask them to hold back a moment after a class or supervision session. If not, consider if it’s better to email or ask if you can have a word (adding also "it’s nothing bad, a course admin thing I need to check").
Then simply say something like this:
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> Hi! It’s nothing big. I wanted to double check what pronouns you want me to use when we talk *[or work/during supervisions/whatever, pick one as appropriate]*. It matters to get them right and I’d like to be sure rather than make a mistake.
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>
>
That way you’re using a legitimate reason, that they are your student and you will at some time have to communicate to them, or with them, or about them, to **someone** or other, be it written course correspondence, exams, informal, educational Q&A, discussions with other staff, whatever. So you want to double check what's right, to not make a hurtful thoughtless mistake.
That’s legitimate. It comes over well. And it doesn’t sound like you trawled records. They’ll probably like and appreciate the care involved, which indeed you show.
If you feel this could be an issue affecting others, it’s also not a bad thing to ask all your students at some convenient time, and let them know its okay to advise of pronouns if they wish. Treat it like any admin thing, as routine as letting them know next class time or handing out coursework.
>
> Hi! Before we start, I have a small administrative thing. I'm updating my records, and I like to check along with names, if anyone has pronouns that they want to let me know. For reference, mine are [whatever]. If anyone wants to make sure my records are correct, please catch me some time or drop me an email. And now, back to (subject).
>
>
>
The people, to whom it matters, will very much notice the invitation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Very hidden [in the comments](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/182978/potentially-trans-student-misgendered-in-university-records-what-to-do?noredirect=1#comment491620_182978) to the question, the OP states
>
> "the student uses male pronouns."
>
>
>
There you go. You absolutely do not need any other information, and if you feel the urge of taking actions, simply write to the maintainer of the database or to the relevant office and point out there is a typo in that database field, but as other already pointed out, it is best to leave that to the student themselves.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: I suspect that what has happened here is that your student doesn't realise that their registered gender need not match their passport/ID card/birth certificate. So when they filled out the form, they put down the gender they thought they were obliged to use, even though actually they could have picked the right option.
There is also a non-zero chance that some years ago, when they filled out the form, they weren't sure, but now they are more settled. Statistically, an undergraduate is right in the age band where that can happen, and testosterone acts very fast. It might only take a year to acquire a good beard.
Either way, I agree with the answers that suggest a blanket email rather than targeting this student. Is there an LGBT organisation at the university? Maybe you could ask them to send an email around explaining that;
* The university welcomes folks of all gender, and respects the gender that students self-id as.
* Any student is welcome to change their gender marker in the university database. It need not match any other documents.
* That can be done by going to `https://.....` and clicking on `blah`
If your student is actually trans it's reasonably likely they open an email with something like "encouraging gender self-id" in the header. Of course, it may be that they don't read their email much at all, but we must live in hope.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: >
> I was thinking about sending them a short e-mail along the lines of:
>
>
>
> >
> > Dear Student, I have noticed the university records show your gender as female. Should you want to have that corrected, contact the
> > Department of Student Affairs. Feel free to ignore this message if it
> > is not relevant, I don't expect a reply.
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
This is a good approach, but I might tweak the wording a little, e.g.:
>
> ...You may already be aware of this, but if not, Student Affairs would be the department to talk to about updating that information.
>
>
>
You're right to take this to the student first and only. Never ever out somebody as trans or maybe-trans without their consent. Let Andy decide whether to take this further.
For a variety of reasons, it's possible that Andy is aware of the record and either doesn't want to change it, or isn't able to change it. Sometimes it's hard, expensive, or even impossible for trans people to get gender markers changed on official docs (e.g. the university requires amended birth certificate, but issuing state refuses to amend).
There can be safety considerations here — Andy might not feel comfortable having such a request on record, or might not want his parents seeing letters addressed to "Mr. <NAME>".
There can also be administrative reasons, e.g. I know of trans men who've had insurance claims for health services denied because the insurer had a hardcoded rule saying that men couldn't have pap tests.
So, by all means let the student know what's on the record, but don't assume they haven't considered changing it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: 99% of students see themselves as either male or female. Among bearded blokes named Andy the percentage may be higher.
A simple question to the person: “Hi, according to the student database you are female. Is that correct?” will give the student an opportunity to either tell you it’s correct, or to fix a mistake. And there’s the possibility that the wrong picture ended up on the database.
And please nothing like “should you want that corrected” - here you are making assumptions. A simple question makes no assumptions. If I was Andy and you said I was a “potentially trans student”, I’d be very annoyed about you making assumptions. PS. I know a lady whose complete name is the same as mine except for one letter. Had we been at the same university, any mixups wouldn’t have been too surprising.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/04
| 705
| 3,128
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<issue_start>username_0: I am aware of the ethics around submitting papers to multiple journals simultaneously. I know some people have also asked about submitting [simultaneous papers to the same journal](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/85796/submitting-multiple-distinct-papers-to-the-same-journal). In that case, there is hope that maybe they'll all get accepted. I am instead concerned with sending multiple papers to the same journal sequentially (i.e. a month or two apart) when none of them have been accepted.
I am in a situation where I have a large database that I use for analysis (healthcare related field). My collaborators often want to shoot for the same top journal in our field. I have been rejected multiple times already from this journal (all desk rejections), and worry that I could generate a negative reputation with the editors ("Oh, another article from \_\_\_\_\_, reject it.") even if some of our later studies/findings are more impressive (though to be clear, the prior studies have all been rigorous, asked distinct questions, and were not "salami" science). My collaborators are largely different for each project though so I don't believe they share this worry.
Is this fear warranted? Do editors even remember individual submissions? (my dataset is somewhat unique so I have at times thought they would remember me because of it).
Edit: I spoke with an associate editor of a journal who suggested there was not much to fear in repeated rejections and that we should aim high, and that most decisions from the top journals are desk rejections. It seems opinions vary on this.<issue_comment>username_1: Well, they might get annoyed by the same person trying to push "hopeless" results there, but it is not too uncommon and also quite unlikely that will influence their future decisions enough - if you paper is a good fit, they would consider it.
Asking yourself what do you misunderstand about either the scope of your papers or the journal itself would be a good thing to do, though.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The "bad reputation" would be local, with the journal, and not global, but, yes, multiple desk rejections will result in added editorial skepticism of future submissions.
You need to find a more appropriate venue and/or "up your game". Not every paper is suitable for *Nature*. At some point your submission becomes noise and you might get rejected in future for something worth consideration.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You should exercise care. Not only will editors remember that you had multiple unsuccessful submissions, but the submission system of the journal might even keep track of that electronically (e.g. rejection rate for corresponding author). That is, even if they don't remember or the manuscript is handled by a different editor, they might know about it. In turn, such a knowledge will certainly not work in your favor, as it might bias them towards assuming that also this paper is likely to be rejected (potentially causing e.g. desk rejects or a tendency to reject in case of unclear reports).
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/04
| 3,026
| 12,767
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a female undergraduate student and in a bit of a situation here.
Last semester, I had a male graduate teaching assistant for one of my classes, and I got the very strong impression for months that this TA was romantically interested in me because of his behavior. He'd turn others away from office hours if it was just the two of us, often brush up against me or touch my arm when there was no need, offer unprompted help to me with things outside of class, and generally pay me more mind than other students in the class either by calling on me more or conversing with me more than others. Other people also got that idea and I was recently asked by a former classmate if we were sleeping together because of his perceived preferential treatment of me.
So I had to explain that no, we weren't, which was very awkward and humiliating (my peers think I slept with him for an A - that's a gross feeling). And I sorta flipped out on the TA and sent him an email essentially calling him out for those behaviors. I also figured it would be best to create some distance between us so as not to feed the rumor mill. I didn't want to cut ties with him because I did like him as a person and a friend; losing that has been really devastating, but I thought that was the most practical response since I didn't know how serious that kind of rumor was or if it could hurt either of us professionally.
The TA hates me now, my peers still think I slept my way to an A, and I feel in over my head. None of that really feels dealt with or *better*.
Do I need to be worried about a rumor like that? Might there ever be a way to salvage the relationship with the TA someday? Should I do anything else?<issue_comment>username_1: To anyone who asks or implies an improper relationship, just deny it. "Nope, didn't happen."
It is unlikely that there would be any ill effects unless the TA starts lying. If that happens and the instructor gets involved, you may have to make a more formal appeal, but you don't suggest it is going that way.
It seems the other person behaved badly, but you can't change that. If you have a safe opportunity to ask the other person, perhaps they will do the same, but you need to analyze the situation before trying that. "Nope, didn't happen."
If your closest friends are aware of the truth, perhaps that truth will spread.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Echoing @username_1's advice: no, don't attempt to "take action", just respond to questions or accusations with "no, it didn't happen".
This sort of thing all too easily arises... even with innocent intentions, etc. That's why the advice I give TAs (=teaching assistants) and other people is to avoid even/especially the *appearance* of impropriety.
When the less-powerful person is not actively soliciting a "special relationship", but/and the more-powerful person seems to be hinting at it, intentionally or not, but for public view, it is a bad thing. All the worse because the less-powerful person can't do much about it in any direct way. One of these "when did you stop beating your wife" sort of questions.
There is also the unfortunate tendency of many human beings to find interest in gossip and scandal, so often finding something where there's nothing. (Not to mention conspiracy theories... sigh).
In summary: a very unfortunate situation, but probably best dealt with by leaving it alone. I hesitate to recommend anything like "in the future be really cold and standoffish to everyone..." to pretend to avoid such situations...
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: It sounds like this incident has run its course and there's not a whole lot left to be done. This can be hard to accept: we as humans have a real need for closure, and we like everything to be resolved fairly and on good terms. But not all things work out so well.
With respect to your relationship with your TA: it sounds like the way he treated you was so over-the-top that your entire class suspected that you were sleeping together. This suggests *major* boundary violations on his part, which he has not even acknowledged. Do you really want to be friends, given this? Perhaps you could have handled the situation more calmly, but he was in the position of authority, so this is really on him -- he "should have known better." Absent some recognition of wrongdoing from his part, it is difficult to imagine that a friendship could continue.
In any case, being accused of sexual misconduct is *incredibly* serious these days, and so he is probably terrified that you will cause major problems for his career. Regardless of guilt or innocence, accusing an instructor of sexual misconduct will almost certainly immediately and permanently end the relationship. And in this case, it sounds like that's a good thing for you, though losing a friend is never easy.
With respect to your relationship with your peers: I agree with the other answers that you should just deny it when asked. There is not much you can do to clear your name, and trying to fight the rumor mill is a losing battle. It is highly unlikely that vague rumors at such an early stage of your career will have any lasting impact. Good luck.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: I'll offer a different viewpoint for your consideration, but it's just a theory and I don't necessarily advocate it.
I almost didn't write this after reading all of the comments, but as a Stack Exchange answer it may contain something helpful to future readers even if it doesn't apply in this specific case.
>
> He'd turn others away from office hours if it was just the two of us, often brush up against me or touch my arm when there was no need, offer unprompted help to me with things outside of class, and generally pay me more mind than other students in the class either by calling on me more or conversing with me more than others.
>
>
>
You mentioned that you got an "A" in your class which means you're pretty good in this area!
It *might be* possible that the elevated attention was academic; intended at least to give a student with particular promise encouragement and support in a still-sexist academic world.
For this theory to work, the only thing that doesn't quite fit is the "brush(ing) up against me or touch(ing) my arm".
These days most people who are expressive physically know to "self-censor" and not touch someone else in an academic or any workplace situation.
Straight men will sometimes ignore that and touch other men because they feel it can't possibly be misinterpreted, gay men may tend to touch other men less for fear it might be misinterpreted as a sexual advance or "gratuitous groping". On the other hand gay men might feel more comfortable touching women the way two women colleagues sometimes touch because they think it's "understood" that it's not an advance.
Basically the politics of touching is complicated!
Perhaps the brushing and touching was not meant as a sexual advance, and all of the elevated attention was meant to encourage a promising student.
And perhaps he simply likes you as a friend, is lonely, and would like to be your friend outside of class in a nonsexual way. *Men and women can be friends!* It does happen.
That might help explain their strong reaction to your email.
And of course *everything could be exactly as you suspect as well!*
---
>
> ... - what do I do?
>
>
>
Much of the advice here is of the "leave it alone and move on" variety and that certainly could be seen as the prudent thing to do, and if there are personal safety issues it would be bad to advise to the contrary.
But if this misinterpretation theory feels like it might ring true then getting to the bottom of it might be something to consider. But that's really a secondary concern and depends on your judgement of the situation.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Your relation with the TA or the lack thereof is simply none of anyone's business. If someone asks you about it, you should refrain from outright denying it, simply say that it's none of their business. If people think that you cheated with the help of the TA, then they are free to file a complaint based on evidence for the misconduct. But because you didn't do anything wrong, such evidence does not exist, so no complaint can be filed.
By explicitly denying that you had a relationship with the TA, you are taking a defensive position, giving up ground to people making unfounded accusations. By instead refusing to engage with people on this topic, you stand your ground which is psychologically a much healthier way to go about things. If people accuse you of having obtained an A from the TA in an inappropriate way, then tell them to file a complaint instead of bothering you with these accusations.
---
As pointed out in the comments, what I'm proposing seems to be problematic. But the goal should not be to try to communicate something about the relationship to the class, rather to firmly defend the red line about your private sex life.
People are free to believe anything they want, it's just that the details of the relationships are none of their business. Making that clear may be interpreted as admitting to having a sexual relationship, but that's what anyone is free to assume anyway.
Instead of saying "It's none of your business", one can also say: "Why are you asking me about this again? Are you going to disclose the details of your sex life to everyone? If it makes you feel better to assume that I have a sexual relationship with the TA, then why not assume that I did, and stop asking me about it?"
By being firm, what is going to happen is that people will stop harassing you about this issue. People may gossip, but on the longer term you'll gain respect from people for having been firm about this issue. No one wants their sex lives to become a public issue. But people do like to gossip about such things. The urge to gossip is a short term issue, on the longer term people will be able to see that they would not like to be in a situation where their sex lives become the subject of a public debate.
At heart this is really a case of sexual harassment. But it requires the student who is harassed to make it very clear that these questions are not appreciated, and if they persist that she will file a complaint. There exists a process for students to address cases of cheating. If they have any evidence of cheating, they should follow that process. Harassing someone they accuse of cheating is not the right thing to do.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I am sorry you've had to deal with this so early in your academic career. Your predicament is a good illustration of why nowadays instructors, of any rank, are widely forbidden from pursuing relationships with their students. Your TA should have known better.
What to do? You did the right thing. If it makes you feel any better, consider that you did him and everyone else a favor by calling him out. It's better that he gets a reality check from a friendly, well intentioned victim such as yourself, before he does much worse to himself and others. If he is the nice and well-intentioned guy you believe him to be, it is understandable that he would be upset by your email but he should come around once he's had some time to reflect on it.
As for what to say to your peers? Consider venting your frustration at being put in this situation. It might remind your friends that you need them on your side, and if not, it still feels good to vent.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Last semester is very recent, and this situation is really very simple.
This is what sexual harassment looks like exactly. This may have been the first time you experienced it, but sadly, it is unlikely to be the last.
The best thing you can do is to report this person to the appropriate channels at your institution right away. This is important, because if they continue to be put in a position of authority (TA) there is substantial risk that the misconduct will continue in one form or another with other students, making further negative impact. Sexual harassment usually is related to a pattern of behavior with others.
One of the many reasons that sexual harassment is taken so seriously is that when it goes unreported, it is the victims who bear the consequences of the perpetrators actions. It is *you* who are currently in the position of explaining away the misconduct of this person while other students have been denied resources on account of it. They aren't your friend, because a friend would never compromise you the way they have. Reporting their behavior and disengaging from them is the best thing you can do for yourself and for others. This can be done anonymously.
Upvotes: 3
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2022/03/05
| 1,048
| 4,476
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<issue_start>username_0: I am pretty sure anyone can publish an article in a mathematics journal as long as the editors accept it.
In order to publish research or a study that is somehow related to medicine, what do the journal editors require of the persons submitting or credited as authors of the paper?
Or are the requirements more related to there having been regulatory oversight from some accredited body?
But does that mean there is a legal definition of what is and is not “medical research”? For example, if you study the effects of a drug, is it specifically illegal to give someone a substance and then have them fill out a questionnaire? Or is the legality of the study only dependent on the legality of the actions undertaken; for example, is it illegal to perform a surgery on somebody even if they give consent, but you can do research on a legal herbal supplement with no restrictions, for example?
Thanks very much<issue_comment>username_1: >
> In order to publish research or a study that is somehow related to medicine, what do the journal editors require of the persons submitting or credited as authors of the paper?
>
>
>
No reputable journal will reject a manuscript because of the identity of the authors. In my opinion, that would be unethical discrimination. Editorial decisions are based on the content of the manuscript. The only exception might be if the author has a record of retraction for serious misconduct like fraud.
>
> Or are the requirements more related to there having been regulatory oversight from some accredited body?
>
>
>
Regulatory oversight usually applies to institutions, not individuals. The only exception I have heard of is that individuals may be temporarily banned from getting government funding if they committed grant fraud in the past.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You certainly don't need a PhD specifically; most medical researchers would be MDs rather than PhDs. As to the more general question, academic journals do not impose degree requirements or other accreditation requirements on authors, but depending on what you have in mind as "medical study" you might need some kind of accreditation or position to actually perform the substance of the research.
Institutions that have access to medical data and patients (e.g., hospitals, govt health departments, etc.) usually only give access to these things if they are satisfied that a researcher is appropriately qualified to use them. Similarly, most legal jurisdictions have laws against "practicing medicine" without a license, and this could potentially impact on giving someone drugs or performing surgery on them. Again, most of the people who are allowed to do these things are MDs, not PhDs.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: 1. You do not need a specific degree. However, you do need oversight by an IRB. As noted in the comments, the IRB might not approve the study if the only investigator lacks credentials. Some institutions may require a “medically accountable investigator.”
2. Also, you cannot do anything you are not otherwise allowed to do just by calling it research. So you cannot perform surgery or give medication without a medical license. You might be able to ask people questions about things that are otherwise taking through an acceptable mechanism- for example an over the counter medication they were going to take anyway. If they already took it, you might get an exemption for market research. I.e “Take this and then answer my questions” is a no, “In the past 2 weeks did you take Tyleaspivil for a headache? yes? Would you answer some questions about your experience?” might get an exemption.
The guidelines for what will get published in a reputable biomedical journal are in part set by the [International Committee of Medical Journal Editors](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142758/). On human subject protections, it says in part
>
> When reporting experiments on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000
>
>
>
There will also be local and national laws in your jurisdiction. In the USA, human subjects research is governed by [45 CFR Subtitle A Subchapter A Part 46](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-45/subtitle-A/subchapter-A/part-46).
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/05
| 403
| 1,728
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<issue_start>username_0: Do you have any tips for students interested in 2 or 3 areas in the same department but not in the same area? For example, I'm in computer science phd admit in the USA interested in both cryptography and natural language processing. I need to choose now which area to pursue, so it's difficult for me to make a decision. Any tips?<issue_comment>username_1: Pick an advisor you like to work with, and work in whichever of those two areas that advisor works.
In general I think interest in broad fields is overrated, you'll be able to find problems that interest you in most fields. If you like it well enough to be considering the field then you'll certainly like it well enough to find problems that appeal to you. The only other factor I'd consider is whether one field is significantly better for industry job options, but since CS isn't my field I can't speak to that.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: If you entered with a bachelors only, then you will have plenty of time to narrow it down. Your first task is likely to take the advanced coursework that will enable you to pass qualifying exams. You don't really need to pick a topic until you are done (or nearly done) with that task. Look at a lot of faculty as potential advisors and choose on more than just a narrow area. For example, the helpfulness of various potential advisors.
You might also be able to take a course in each area and perhaps with those advisors.
If you enter with a masters it is much harder as the time is shorter, but take some time to look around first.
You can always change your research focus later if you are able to obtain permanent employment. Your dissertation need not determine your life.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/06
| 631
| 2,404
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a researcher on physics and I was invited to a conference as a speaker at the [1st European Conference on Engineering & Technology ECETECH 2022](https://ecetech.org/). The full expenses (round trip flight tickets, travel insurance, and hotel accommodation booking) will be paid by the organizer of the event. But I am expected to pay 650 euro as a registration fee in advance. My concern is, is the event real or scam to take money from researchers?<issue_comment>username_1: It is shady at very least. Covering a wide range of topics, with barely any mention of the organizing committee or keynote speakers - there is hardly any information to go by at all! Even the information for authors throws a 404.
Another shady bit is the venue - they say it will be in an hotel (and quite nice one at that!), however, this hotel website does not show anything close to be usable as a venue and the photo of the conference room apparently comes from a page of a much larger hotel... [In Nigeria](https://www.trip.com/hotels/lagos-hotel-detail-3920931/eko-hotels-and-suites/?city=783&checkin=2022-03-06&checkout=2022-03-07&adult=1&crn=1).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: If the list of topics spans a page, you should already be suspicious. Conferences that have no focus typically imply that they are not where people with deep knowledge in a reasonably well circumscribed area of research tend to go, and that they need to draw from a much wider pool of people.
If there are shady aspects of the conference description, then you should be suspicious. For example, the description says "Only Invited Speakers (Incl. Spouse/Family or Co-Author's) are entitled to Free Round-Trip Flight Tickets, Accommodation and Feeding throughout the conference (courtesy of our sponsors)." That's just bizarre: Why would a conference pay for *spouses and family* to fly to the conference?
Pretty much everything else about this conference strikes me as odd as well. In the end, whether it's a scam I don't know -- it's quite possible that they will actually run the conference, but it seems almost certain that it will be a waste of your time and money: You're going to be surrounded by people who are not in your field and not at the top of their respective fields, so you're going to learn very little and you're not going to get very much credit for speaking there as well.
Upvotes: 4
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2022/03/06
| 225
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<issue_start>username_0: If an external reviewer is invited to review phd thesis, will it be considered as (conflict of interest) if the reviewer was previously the applicant bachelor thesis supervisor?<issue_comment>username_1: It is just something that should be revealed. If you are the student, then ask your current supervisor first. If you are the external person, just communicate that you have a prior relationship and its nature.
An external review isn't an adversarial role. It is an attempt to verify good work.
Attitudes matter, of course. If you had an attitude that you had to "bring down" the student at any cost, then it is a clear conflict. Erring on the opposite side is also possible. But that isn't normal or expected.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Inform the people asking you of the possible conflict of interest and they can tell you their rules. In circumstances I’m familiar with, this scenario would not be a problem at all.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/06
| 1,738
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<issue_start>username_0: So that they can do better next time. There's usually no transparency or explanation of why they were rejected.<issue_comment>username_1: You generally won't know. That's frustrating because you don't know what to improve. All you know from rejection is that your application “wasn't good enough compared with the other applicants”.
The usual way to figure out what you need to improve is to give your application documents to someone who has been on the selection committee a few times and can give you feedback on what they see as your deficiencies.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Ten years ago, towards the end of my first year as an Assistant Professor, I applied for an NSF (National Science Foundation, the main US grant funding agency for natural and social (but not health-related) sciences) grant. It was rejected. I got some comments, but they weren't really all that helpful. As another agency funded a similar grant (albeit at a much lower funding level), I did not apply for a grant the next year. This gave the NSF a perfect opportunity to give me feedback; they invited me to sit on a panel evaluating grants.
What I learned from sitting on that panel is that I simply don't have good enough ideas and haven't done sufficiently groundbreaking research to get funded given the competition and the funding rates, even if I could propose research that would be, in an ideal world, worth funding. I have never applied for another NSF grant since.
Sometimes the only feedback is that you're doing all the things you should and can, but you're just a third-division footballer trying out for a first-division team.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I disagree slightly with [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/183037/15762)'s answer that a rejection always means your application "wasn't good enough." The question also assumes that it's theoretically possible to have transparent rankings--and improve them.
Merit certainly matters, but decisions are often subjective and not under your complete control.
### Hiring
For example, in many departments, students are selected by an admissions committee. These committees certainly consider recommendations, grades, etc but they also try to select students that will fit in well with department, balance the cohort across subfields, etc. If your (prospective) advisors doesn't have money/room for more student--or is just on the outs in departmental politics--there's not much you can do. Consistent with this, I think many people find that their "success rate" for grad school apps is only somewhat correlated with the ranking of the department. While these matter less for individual positions, interpersonal factors might matter: someone may fit in well with one group, but not get along with another. Having or being eligible for outside funding can certainly tip a decision. Finally, you may just get unlucky and face particularly tough competition.
Feedback isn't usually offered for PhD and postdoc applications, but if you've spoken to an individual prof, you can certainly ask (I would not bother if it was at the committee stage). People do sometimes get useful feedback. The other common option is to ask a mentor to look over your application. If you can, I would ask several people and focus on common themes.
### Grants
Grants are a bit different in that you *often* get some kind of feedback or summary statement, but these can be tricky to interpret. A sufficiently motivated reviewer can find a flaw in almost any proposal: it's impossible to forestall every possible criticism in the 6-12 page format. As such, you need to read between the lines to determine whether the reviewers are making a specific technical critique (that you can fix) or are merely justifying their overall lack of enthusiasm for the proposal. Feedback from others can help, and you may be able to get some information from the funder's representative (e.g., the SRO at the NIH). Seeing other successful grants, either by asking colleagues or serving on review panels, is really helpful.
Still, the process is incredibly noisy. The primary reviewer may love your proposal or hate the entire subfield with a fiery passion. As with grad school apps, people have stories of a proposals that went from "not discussed" to top-ranked.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: **My answer is specific to Grants:**
I don't fully agree with Alexander on classifying scientists into leagues and those of the premier league deserve funding. Like in football or in soccer, this categorisation is very subjective as the selection. This applies also to research papers, where borderline papers (which in my opinion represent the majority of submitted papers) need luck more than anything else to be accepted.
A few years ago, I was working with a professor with an outstanding profile and I used to write proposals for him and under his name. The quality of these proposals is bad and both the content and desired outcome are vague but most of them got funded (millions of €). The review comments are usually around:
>
> The applicant seems to have all ingredients to make this proposal successful.
>
>
>
The outcomes of most of these projects were very modest.
I decided to write my own proposal after that, which took me one year to write and I wrote it more carefully than one would write a paper. I sent it to top experts in my area and they loved it in terms of writing style, content, motivation, planned outcome, etc. However, the proposal got rejected without any justification. I presumed that not my proposal which was not competitive but my profile, which is completely normal I think.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: About 30 years ago, I sat on a grants advisory committee for the university's science faculty (physics, chemistry, math, computer science). We would not make the formal decision (that task lied with the board), but our recommendations were usually followed by the board. (Most of the board consisted of professors, but there were also two seats for ph.D students, one of them I occupied).
The major deciding factors on whether you are rewarded a grant? 1) How much money is available in this round, and 2) how many applications are there. Typically, we'd filter out applications which were below par (not many would be below par), then sort the rest. Where the cut-off point would be depended on the amount of money available (but that would be determined by the board).
As on how to sort applications? Lots of bickering and superficial things. People from the chemistry/physics department: "nah, he isn't good enough, he's never been a first author". Math/CS people: "that's because his name starts with a W, and in our field, we tend to sort authors by name" (Yeah, that discussion we had each and every meeting). People had the tendency to count number of publications (because that's easy), but that's just quantity, not quality. And number of publications would favour older applicants over younger ones. People would look far more into what an applicant has produced than look at the application itself.
And people on the committee would be far more favourable to applications from their own department than to applications from other departments. Let's just say that this was because it's easier to understand an application from your own field than a foreign field, and it has nothing to do with "the more money which flows to our department, the better".
Feedback was not given to the applicants. And I think they were better off.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/07
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<issue_start>username_0: Is there some sort of secret trait or skill I can develop to become a more successful researcher?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know of any trick. But, I started to get better at my research, by trying to understand and replicate what people far more successful than me were doing.
The number one thing is to start collaborating with the successful people. But, that's not easy since most want to collaborate with them. As a student or postdoc you can try to apply to vacant positions in their groups. As a senior researcher, your best bet are successful people who are young and will be likely influent in their communities in a few years.
Once you get working with these successful people, you need to keep up, or you'll fall behind. So you have to be prepared to put in the hours and the work that's needed.
Then you start paying attention to how your successful collaborators actually work: some organize themselves very well, some know how to get most out of the strengths of their group's members, some are good at politics, at grant writing, and some are good when it comes to choosing and solving research problems. You need to see what others do better then you and understand why.
But, as someone who has asked many successful colleagues this exact question, don't expect a recipe type of answer. Each of us has their own recipe for success and very few of us know how we developed it. You need to look at others and select only what works for you.
A second thought about success is that people who choose hard and important problems to solve and come at them with everything they've got (including collaborators), become successful, but only after they learn to be more realistic about what can be actually solved within their means. Setting out to solve an important problem and having a degree of success is the surefire way to start collaborating with successful researchers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends on what you mean by success.
If you seem to have trouble converting ideas into publications and gaining visibility - and given that you want to achieve just that - become more "product-oriented". To do more research, you would need more resources; that ultimately boils down to securing funding and having enough time for work. To get said funding, you presumably would need prestigious publications, so in this mindset, producing actually great research matters less than producing lots of things in agreeable quality. As soon as your work passes a certain threshold, promote it heavily, make others fill the gaps, salami publish... All these practices are not particularly popular and ethically dubious, but if you want to run your research as a business, they are a way to go.
If you are aiming for something more balanced and harmonious instead, still consider that you need to communicate your results, and have mid- and long-term goals reasonably clear to you. Make sure to stay well-connected: this is probably the only inhibitor preventing you from ending up being considered one of the top experts in your field if you just work long and hard enough.
Good work ethic, good networking, clear goals. The rest is just talent and luck.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/07
| 910
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<issue_start>username_0: I showed my research statement for applying to postdocs to my advisor, but that's it. Also the recommendation letter writers looked at it (they requested it, anyway) but have provided no feedback/suggestions. How can I tell if my research statement is too long or too short, if the research proposal is significant, if experts think it's too hard, etc.?
Is there a checklist of criteria (i.e. a rubric) for a good research statement? It appears to me that researchers know what makes a good research statement but want to keep it secret. Would it be a good idea to ask researchers for their research statements so I have an idea of what it should look like?
In general, I have the impression that successful researchers help "groom" some early career researchers, but only some. Those graduate students/postdocs get all the help and everyone else is left out. The ones who get the help are the ones who get the jobs. I don't want to be left out. That's why I am asking here.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't know of any trick. But, I started to get better at my research, by trying to understand and replicate what people far more successful than me were doing.
The number one thing is to start collaborating with the successful people. But, that's not easy since most want to collaborate with them. As a student or postdoc you can try to apply to vacant positions in their groups. As a senior researcher, your best bet are successful people who are young and will be likely influent in their communities in a few years.
Once you get working with these successful people, you need to keep up, or you'll fall behind. So you have to be prepared to put in the hours and the work that's needed.
Then you start paying attention to how your successful collaborators actually work: some organize themselves very well, some know how to get most out of the strengths of their group's members, some are good at politics, at grant writing, and some are good when it comes to choosing and solving research problems. You need to see what others do better then you and understand why.
But, as someone who has asked many successful colleagues this exact question, don't expect a recipe type of answer. Each of us has their own recipe for success and very few of us know how we developed it. You need to look at others and select only what works for you.
A second thought about success is that people who choose hard and important problems to solve and come at them with everything they've got (including collaborators), become successful, but only after they learn to be more realistic about what can be actually solved within their means. Setting out to solve an important problem and having a degree of success is the surefire way to start collaborating with successful researchers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends on what you mean by success.
If you seem to have trouble converting ideas into publications and gaining visibility - and given that you want to achieve just that - become more "product-oriented". To do more research, you would need more resources; that ultimately boils down to securing funding and having enough time for work. To get said funding, you presumably would need prestigious publications, so in this mindset, producing actually great research matters less than producing lots of things in agreeable quality. As soon as your work passes a certain threshold, promote it heavily, make others fill the gaps, salami publish... All these practices are not particularly popular and ethically dubious, but if you want to run your research as a business, they are a way to go.
If you are aiming for something more balanced and harmonious instead, still consider that you need to communicate your results, and have mid- and long-term goals reasonably clear to you. Make sure to stay well-connected: this is probably the only inhibitor preventing you from ending up being considered one of the top experts in your field if you just work long and hard enough.
Good work ethic, good networking, clear goals. The rest is just talent and luck.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/08
| 4,105
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<issue_start>username_0: After PhD and a year of postdoc in mechanical engineering, I accepted a position of a scientific editor with a publishing company. The pay is decent but not great. I have been working in the new role for the past 9 months.
So far I have been finding the job quite interesting though not as enjoyable/stimulating as a industrial research (which I did during postdoc) or my research during PhD.
A part of me wants to explore this career option to the fullest. Being a publisher or project manager/data analyst/strategy director for the publishing company. Acquire skills for making progress in my career (PMP, scrum master certificate, study data science, etc).
On the other hand, I miss being relevant in research and academic fraternity. An industrial research scientist position will be a good middle ground between academia and my current job. However, there are not many permanent R&D industry jobs in the country where I live. And I don't see myself as an academic at the moment. I am just not smart and hardworking enough to be one.
This is making me feel that I have chosen the easiest option. I should have struggled a bit more before settling with the current prospect. I am probably harming my potential by not seeking postdoc positions or applying to tenure track positions.
I am not sure what career decision I should take. Staying in my current role longer would make transitioning back to academia or research impossible. Also, though I enjoy research, and might get a position in future if I try for it long enough. I don't know if I have it in me to keep struggling.
I feel judgmental tones from my PhD colleagues or other friends when they hear I am not doing research at any capacity and working as a scientific editor. This makes me feel "lowly", "unaccomplished" and "settled" with my decision.
Is it normal to have such thoughts after leaving research and academia?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is normal to feel conflicted after any major life decision. You gain some things and you give up some things. There is a phenomenon called [Buyer's Remorse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buyer%27s_remorse) that is related to this. (I bought the Ferrari, but I shoulda got the Lambo.)
Your friends have made different decisions and are evaluating you based on that, rather than on your needs. Hopefully you can remain friends, but it is unfair of them to judge.
Your life is what you make of it. Try to base such big decisions on whether they are right for you, not on externalities.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: First: the chances to transition from a PhD to a permanent research position are increasingly small. You are just anticipating the choices that 99% of your colleagues and friends will have to take.
If you had a time machine and you would propel yourself 5 years in the future from now, you would see how very few of these colleagues and "friends" are helding a research or even an academic position.
Second:
>
> academic fraternity.
>
>
>
vs
>
> And I don't see myself as an academic at the moment. I am just not
> smart and hardworking enough to be one.
>
>
>
*Hardworking* is just the other side of the coin of *exploiting*.
People under exploitation and hardships tend to form a closed circle, negating the deep pain they are being inflicted. Have a look at the behavior of people being part of religious sects (you can find many academic references).
The reaction of your colleagues and "friends" is the classical reaction of sect-members to the voluntary exit of one member.
I do not want to state that all academics or all the academia world is like this, there are many decent people ... but surely not the majority.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: I felt triggered to answer because I am in an exact situation like yours with slightly different details.
In the past few days, I was watching many videos on youtube and reading a lot of articles/posts on how to leave academia without this bad feeling that I cannot give a label. You will find a lot of people sharing their experiences:
>
> How/Why I left academia?
>
>
>
Many of them give advice and talk about how working in the industry is amazing and academia after PhD is waste of time. In contrast, you will find a few successful academics judging those who are asking how to leave academia and that one needs to fight for his dream.
Honestly, I was disappointed with both opinions because they are trying to generalize their experiences to everyone, while everyone has a specific path in life with its particularities.
Despite your ambitions and main goal, you definitely have other small and side goals that are important. Also, there are factors in your life that are specific to you:
* Am I happy in my current position?
* Can I survive this pressure of limited contracts and waiting for grant and paper notifications?
* Is this pressure affecting my social life and mental health?
* How money is important in my life? (given that an industrial position pays better)
* What about other responsibilities (e.g. family)?
* If I want to stay in academia and it does not work, how difficult will be to transit to the industry?
* If I quit, can I accept the fact that I am not a researcher?
* What are my chances to get a faculty position given my progress and the progress of my peers? Here, note that a lot of factors must be considered.
* Can I transit back to academia if I want?
* I think there are more.
I know your question was about how to overcome the guilt feeling after leaving but I want to start my answer one step earlier.
If you analyzed everything and you found that industry is the right career path, then go for it and do not care about any judgment because no one knows your life and needs better than you. I will quote a passage from username_2's answer to another question:
>
> But then, who cares? you are you, they are they.
>
>
>
Feeling guilty and sad is normal because academic research is like a drug and something you (and I) have been doing for a long time with passion and stress hoping that it will pay off someday. However, only a few people are meant to get faculty positions after their PhDs, not because they are smarter than you or better than you but most probably their circumstances are better (Of course assuming that you worked as hard as they did).
I have the same feeling as you after 2.5 years being a postdoc and 2 years as assistant professor, where it becomes very hard to get a position in the industry and at the same time, I don't know whether I should risk my family's future hoping that I will get a faculty position in the future (despite that I publish a lot and have funded grants). I decided to balance between both (my life and my family from one side and my career goal). I got an offer in the industry after hundreds of rejections and I decided to go for it and *temporarily* leave my career goal because I have responsibilities that are more valuable than my personal goal. *temporarily* because I still hope and work to come back if possible. Otherwise, I will be satisfied with the fact that I have tried and failed.
I hope sharing my experience helps you overcome this feeling.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Guess what? Those feelings of a missing limb don't go away.
I left academia in 1990. I joined industry. My income has gone up substantially. Since 1990 I have had exactly 2 days unemployed. And that was because I chose to have two days between jobs when the company I worked for was bought out. Most of the time the work has been interesting, if somewhat mundane compared to what I did my PhD in.
But the world does not need many people doing topologically massive gravity. So my thesis did not get me a job in academia. Explaining to the guy who interviewed me for a job in industry that "long hours do not scare me" got me a job.
A few years ago, one of the profs at a local university suggested I apply for an academic position. They have been having difficulty attracting qualified individuals in the specific field of my work in industry. If that suggestion had come in 1992 or 1993, I would have been massively happy. But it came in 2015. When my income had reached a point that would be equivalent of quite a senior prof. And I had an established career. With about 100 calculation reports in the document database of the company.
But my teeth hurt when I gritted my teeth and said no. If I didn't have a mortgage then, I would been severely tempted go back to fresh-caught prof wages.
The path not taken is always a pang. Anybody with more imagination than last year's sneakers has felt this. If not for academic career passed by, then for something. A passed up lover, a passed up trip somewhere, that lottery ticket you didn't buy. Any opportunity passed up is going to make you wonder.
Don't think that way. Your life is what it is. It is what you have made it. You have choices *HERE*. You have decisions *HERE*. Make those the best way you can. You can become somebody in your current job. The amount of work, the difficulty of the work, the grind, is similar in industry to academe. You have to apply to some upper-manager for funding instead of a granting agency. You can still be creative and productive.
And yet, I'm still on Stack Exchange trying to answer questions in my former discipline.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: As someone who left academia and was begrudged by peers for having done so, I deeply sympathize with you. For context, I have left research in physics after my Ph.D. for a job as a programmer in a completely unrelated field, which had just a requirement for a Bachelor degree in any IT-related field.
>
> This is making me feel that I have chosen the easiest option. I should have struggled a bit more before settling with the current prospect. I am probably harming my potential by not seeking postdoc positions or applying to tenure track positions.
>
>
>
I have struggled with the fact that I had "thrown away" five or more years of my life just to leave and start anew, and that I was considered "lesser" because of that. I originally thought about it as a complete failure to hold up to my original goal of becoming a full-time researcher.
I needed some years to overcome that feeling, realizing that my current occupation, while not as prestigious, has given me other things I was desperately in need for (i.e. a more decent sleep schedule and some stability in my life) and that those research years weren't wasted, as my Ph.D. experience helped me overcome a lot of stuff my job threw against me.
I don't know if answers from personal experience are okay on this Stack, but I would suggest you to try to focus on the positive aspects of your current situation and on how your path led you to this point w.r.t. the tools that you have gathered and you are still using. It's not "the easy way out", it's a life choice that happened to work well for you.
If you are happy with your current job, you don't *need* to care about what your peers said about you (even if you will probably keep mulling about it). If they can't accept it or just look down on you, probably they weren't good friends in the first place.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Your question is very evocative, not just to people in academia but to anyone who has ever felt compelled to sidetrack to something other than what they really want to do.
Firstly, whatever your colleagues and friends (?) may say, you are not doing anything wrong in getting a reasonable job for someone of your skills: we all have to make a living and provide for ourselves and our dependents.
Secondly, the job change you are making now - you call it career change - is not an EITHER/OR junction. It will **not** preclude you from going back to either industrial research or indeed university work at some point in the near future. Of course if you remain in the role of scientific editor of a publisher for over 10 years, do little other independent research work and lose your existing contacts then it would be hard to go back into these milieux.
So, as I see it, during your current editorial project(s) you need to make a note of things that you come across that you think may be of interest to people in both academia and/or industry. This can cover quite a lot.
* If you work with a textbook publisher trying to make more readable and coherent what may otherwise be disjointed nonsense, this will not only give you a direct input but will also allow you to consult with researchers and teachers across the spectrum. Hopefully such engagements will provide you a chance to cultivate your own educational/training values and impress them on others.
* If you work with a journal publisher, you will gain an advance view of developments in your own field of interest. I am not suggesting that you start peddling your influence here with a view to a future job elsewhere. But the perspective you would gain in such a role would better inform your decision on any return to research that you may make.
* If you work for a larger market publication, e.g. ASME's *Mechanical Engineering Magazine*, you can hopefully improve the standard of writing by the journalists on new innovations so people with a general technical background get a clear idea of it while specialists can find most of the more precise answers they need.
This new job need not be only a possible career in scientific publishing. It can also be a means of broadening your knowledge of what is going on in academia, industry and state research funding organizations. It will certainly expose you to a wider cross-section of the scientific and administrative community, vastly improve your social and communicative skills and provide you with a means to obtain insights you might otherwise miss.
But it will not provide you with your own lab, fellow researchers beside you and the buzz/stress of that environment. If you need to keep a hand in here, you might want to consider offering consulting services (perhaps on a free and friendly basis at first to existing contacts) on a part-time basis. There must be some companies in your country that would benefit from your expertise. Even if you gain little financially at first from these involvements, you will get some satisfaction from being part of a successful project.
So I see no reason for feeling guilty, inferior or too disappointed in your current position. Naturally there is an adjustment period to get used to the new environment but do not rationalize this as an indicator of a wrong decision. You have a respectable, if not ideal, job and you have the means in it to return to research proper.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I personally left academia, worked in industry, came back to academia (a mistake) and wound up working outside academia. One's first duty for employment is to provide for oneself, any family, and any pets, etc., plus whatever charitable obligations one feels.
For career fulfillment, I am currently doing meaningful work that helps people.
If you like your current situation, then go with it, and try to improve your standing in that community.
If you don't like your current situation, then try to return to academia, but I did it and it isn't easy!
NOTE: As various responses imply, don't let judgement of others shape you. If there is something to learn from what they have to say, follow it as best you can, however.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Academic positions themselves are great; the process of getting them is a godawful nightmare, and it requires a substantial amount of luck. It's fine to be unwilling to burn that much time and energy and opportunity cost for a slim chance at that kind of position, just as it's fine to avoid paying for a lottery ticket even if you'd enjoy the million-dollar prize. (The judgmental tones you're describing are certainly real, but they're not anything you need to bother paying attention to.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: >
> I miss being relevant in research and academic fraternity
>
>
>
Being in your case some 25 years ago, I had a hard, cold look at how I am "relevant" to research and I found out that I was not really.
Academia was great, I knew that I would have a pretty straight track through the food chain but I would never get a Nobel Prize or make a discovery that would shake the world.
I would have, of course, done all kinds of small discoveries that would have pushed human knowledge by 10^-13% but I decided that industry would open brand new horizons.
I will not be a CEO either (because I do not want to) but the change was great on many aspects that overshadow the bad ones.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/08
| 353
| 1,591
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<issue_start>username_0: I've come across several documents that say something like "please use the following reference to the whole report:," or "reference to this report may be made in the following form:"
Maybe this is a dumb question, but is it necessary to abide by these suggested references, or are they simply examples that lay out the components of an accurate reference? Incorporating them into my bibliography as-is without context seems like it will raise eyebrows.<issue_comment>username_1: They are suggestions and requests, not requirements, provided that they refer to the form and not the content. Some content requests should probably be honored, such as the order and spelling of author names.
Some such names might be related to cultural norms, such as the relative placement of family and personal names. Other things, such as author order, might be deemed important in some fields.
It is probably best to honor these things unless there is a reason to deviate, just out of respect for the authors.
One reason that you might need to deviate is to conform with the requirements of a journal for specific formatting style if you include such a citation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It doesn't mean the format or referencing style. As you say, it is just laying out the components of an accurate reference, or the components they want you to use.
For example if there are several possible URLs for a paper, you should use the one they give. ~~If a conference name can be abbreviated or written in full, you should write it the way they suggest.~~
Upvotes: 4
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2022/03/08
| 1,986
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<issue_start>username_0: **Summary**: I am a shy/introverted PhD student and I have a collaborator at another university. They are setting up a meeting for me with an important researcher in the field. What should I even say in a meeting like that? How can I make it productive?
---
I am a PhD student and I have a collaborator from another university which invited me to visit. I came here and this collaborator suggested me to meet with one quite important researcher there in the field we work, with whom he works as well. By the way we had a very brief interaction once and he is very nice.
Now, I would certainly like very much to meet such an important researcher, but the thing is that I have no idea what to say in a meeting like that. I'm pretty much a beginner, and right now I don't have any bright ideas to put forward nor any useful comment.
In that case I feel pretty much confused about what to do. I feel like not going to such a meeting might be losing one opportunity and, moreover, might feel very discourteous. On the other hand I'm afraid of going, having not much to say and just being in an awkward situation.
Given that I'm a visiting researcher in another university and I'm invited to meet some other important researcher in the field, what should I even say in a meeting like that? How can I deal with this in the most appropriate way to not lose this quite nice opportunity and also not being in an awkward situation?
One small detail about myself: I'm *very shy and introvert*, so I'm not much the talkative type really.<issue_comment>username_1: Rather than put forward your own ideas, which might still be a bit naive (as you suggest), ask for advice. Let the superstar take the lead. If you've read any of their papers, you can mention that.
But, for a beginner, it is enough to express some interest in your own areas, even if that is different from that of the other.
You can always ask questions about what interesting research threads you might want to look at over the next year or so.
But, don't present yourself as something that you are not.
And if the meetings are informal, the discussions might well turn to non-academic topics: in the US, the drama of the impending baseball season, for example.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You should tell from your current research, so that the other person get an impression on what you work and how far in the process you are. He might think of you in the upcoming months and you can profit from this. It could be a recently published paper by a third party, he might mention you in a meeting with somebody else, you might be able to write him a question later on.
Often they have questions, as they know the field and they want to clarify what route you are heading for.
Beside that, just let it flow. He might be telling something, your contact might drive the discussion, or you are ending up just getting known each other without too much talk about his or your research. He might be a star in your field, but never forget he is also human. He might be shy, too.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: DO:
---
Try to keep up with the ideas and look for openings where you could potentially contribute something interesting.
Take this intimidation caused by a perceived power and skill imbalance out of the equation and focus on the content of the research instead.
Realize we all start somewhere and this one encounter would not make or break your career. People tend to overestimate the importance of such singular events and then the impostor syndrome kicks in.
Believe in yourself. Others (your collaborator) do. They think extending the collaboration might be fruitful - so, in a sense, you are "deemed worthy". Instead of questioning it, try to accept it and move on to, well, the actual research.
DON'T:
------
Pretend you understand something you do not. It gets you nowhere and more often than not is blatantly obvious anyway.
Over-prepare for the meeting. This can be outright creepy; some may find joy in this flattery but it is way more often than not bound to be a faux pas.
Retreat into the "coziness" of being timid and borderline subservient. Prefacing nigh every sentence with the likes of "Of course, I could not possibly understand this on the level you do, but maybe..." is disastrous and totally unacceptable for a topic you are actually working on. This is only potentially useful to establish some knowledge boundaries in interdisciplinary research and even then is more annoying than anything.
Hang onto this conversation long after it is over. See above: you might describe this event as life- or career-changing in some 30 years or you might forget about it entirely in a couple of weeks. You might even end up not having much in common at the end of the day, and clinging to this possibility for the sake of possibility is highly unproductive.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Preparing:
----------
If you are anxious about a meeting like this, make sure you are prepared. Some things you can do in preparation
* Be prepared to explain what you are working for your PhD. What is the overall goal? What have you found so far? For an initial explanation try to stick to the big picture. Initially try to be concise (i.e have an [elevator pitch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevator_pitch) ready). Also be prepared to adjust the level of technical detail of your explanation. Just because the person your are talking to is a big shot in your field, doesn't mean that they are up to speed on the nitty gritty technical details of the work you are doing. Therefore start at a relatively low technical level, and adjust the level based on the question they ask and the amount of interest they show.
* If you have produced nice figures that illustrate some of your results or particular aspects of the approach you are taking, it is a good idea to have them somewhere you can easily access them (possibly on your phone, or on a tablet/laptop if you happen to be bringing one to the meeting).
* Read up on what the person is working on. Look through their recent publications.
* Be aware of the major achievements of the person (e.g. look at their most highly cited papers).
During the meeting:
-------------------
* It is OK to let the person you are meeting and your collaborator lead where the discussion goes.
* Don't feel pressured to ask a highly technical question about their work.
* To keep the conversation going, some fairly standard "small talkish" questions to ask, include asking them about what they are currently working on. In general, this is the favorite topic of most scientists. (Although, in some fields people may be more tight lipped about ongoing research.)
* Remember that despite their reputation the person you are talking to is also a human being.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I want to add something that I think is implicit in the other answers (which are good):
I would not expect a particularly "productive" first meeting. I would definitely not put pressure on yourself to make the meeting "productive" in any concrete sense.
It sounds like the researcher is happy to meet you and get to know a bit about you. That's probably all they are expecting, and it will be easy to meet those expectations -- just be yourself. On the other hand, if you set ambitious goals like starting up a research collaboration or saying something impressively smart, that's more likely to backfire and create unnecessary pressure on yourself.
Sure, it's a good idea to be prepared for some possible topics of conversation. You should know how you're going to describe your history and what you're currently working on. You can be prepared with some questions, even simple ones like "what are you currently interested in?" But I wouldn't expect any concrete result other than you two getting to know each other a little, which is "productive" or useful to both of you in a long term sense.
The other possibility, I guess, is that the researcher has a particular idea or project to pitch to you, but if so, you'll find out -- no particular prep is likely to help.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Imagine their situation. Would you like to get praised the whole time? Perhaps not. Treat them as a human being and not as an important researcher. Have a conversation on eye level. Ask how they are doing, how their travel went etc. If you're unfamiliar with small talk, copy what your colleagues say in such situation.
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<issue_start>username_0: I had an interview for a Ph.D. Biostatistics program at a US university. Later, I received an unofficial rejection email from the interviewer after I asked him about my status. However, during the interview, he mentioned that my profile was better suited for the Ph.D. Epidemiology program. When I asked him whether I can be considered for that too, he said that it was too late as the process has been wrapped up already. Nevertheless, I reached out to the Epidemiology Ph.D. director and she said that she was wrapping up but will take a look at my application. The last I heard from her was almost 20 days ago, and she said that she has read my application and was then trying to arrange interviews with the faculty members of my interest. I have followed up twice since then but she hasn't responded. The last follow-up was 8 days ago.
I know that people were shortlisted even before I reached out to her. Hence, it confuses me as to why she said she'll check my application. Since this is a very unusual scenario, I am wondering whether she still remembers the correspondence we had. Should I reach out to her or wait it out? I don't want to annoy her and seem desperate, but I also don't want her to forget about me.<issue_comment>username_1: You didn't formally apply, you're past the deadline for applying, you've followed up twice already. It sounds like you have done everything you can. In my opinion, it's best to just move on. Following up again sounds like a dead end. Maybe you will get a nice surprise in the mail at some point, but I wouldn't count on it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You should not hold your breath for this school. At this point I would encourage you to apply for other schools. If biostatistics is what you have a passion for, then stick with it. Just because someone thinks you are a better fit with epidemiology, doesn’t mean you actually are going to enjoy it or do well in it.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am 29 years old and have majored in political science and obtained a B.A. degree with it.
I'm asking this question since I want to ask for some advice about in what case would there be any possibility for me of getting into a graduate school that majors in mathematical biology.
The reasons why I am hoping to pursue a PhD in a topic unrelated to my BA degree are the following:
1. I am a great fan of mathematics, especially discrete mathematics.
2. Working in a field related to biology seems to me a promising career since knowledge related to biology should be needed more and more to our humankind.
3. I want to be a great farmer someday. Also, if I can be a biology researcher in addition to a farmer, I want to make some food that grows well so that could may assist to reduce some poverty issue throughout our world. (In my opinion, the issue of poverty to our humankind would be getting worse and worse over next 30 years. Maybe much closer than 30 years.)
Everyone can have a dream, so I've just listed inspirations that lead to my dream. However, we all know that what matters are the realistic issue, such as, why would a college and a professor related to Mathematical Biology would choose me as their student?
So I would like to list some of my weakness and strength to explain my situation.
1. I am not from the top school in my country. However I've graduated with some university that is for some top 2% student in my country. My university is ranked within world top 100 or at least top 200 from any of the magazines which deal with the world university ranking.
2. I can speak two more languages other than English. Those two languages are from highly industrialized medium-big size countries which can be assumed as economic powers. I can prove that I'm good at those three languages with some certified test scores, and have no problem with reading and writing English.
3. My GPA is 92.5/100 (I assume it is translated to 3.25/4.00 in my country but I am not sure). It is not high, however I've got demonstrating scores on language classes (the languages which I've mentioned above) and political science classes. I can prove that I am good at studying languages and political science with some certified test scores (which is national authorized). Also I can prove that I am good at dealing with the study of history.
4. (Edited to be erased)
5. (Edit after the comments) I've studied microeconomics and macroeconomics. So I can say I know basic calculus and linear algebra. Also I have some scores related to economics which can be assumed as national authorized. I really don't want to go back to my university, since I don't want to let my community in university to know that I'm pursuing some unrealistic dream for most of people. However I may try to get some recommendations from professors on economics.
I am sure that the list I've enumerated above are not enough to appeal to my possible advisors. So I'm thinking of the following. I want ask for your advice, that, would any of the following wish lists would be helpful, or hopefully, being crucial to increase of my chances for getting into the college.
1. No matter in what country (among English speaking countries) I would be studying, I'm thinking of taking GRE from the United States, including [GRE subject test in mathematics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRE_Mathematics_Test) to prove that I have basic knowledge to mathematics.
2. While studying discrete mathematics(especially some topics with combinatorics and related algebraic structure to those combinatorial topics), I've noted myself with some ideas that I've keeping them myself for a possible future publication. Actually I have more than twenty of separate ideas that deals with some different topics to each other. I'm hoping to publish at least 1~2 of those ideas to some low-hurdle journals in mathematics.
It would be grateful if someone could give me some honest advice on my situation.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, try to get admission in MS for biology. If you can do so then complete the MS. After this many thing will be clear to you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I am sorry to say but I do not think you have a realistic chance to get admitted to a competitive PhD program in mathematical biology without any previous record of knowledge in biology and mathematics.
I think you have a few misunderstandings:
* You say you know basic calculus and linear algebra, since you have studied microeconomics and macroeconomics. So have I during my Bachelor studies. And working as a biostatistican today, I can tell you that the amount of mathematical details that is covered in the standard introductory lectures in microeconomics and macroeconomics is extremely little compared to what e.g. a student of mathematics studies in the first weeks of an introduction to calculus I. If I was in the PhD committee, I would infer from this that you underestimate the complexity of math required for the program.
* Wanting to become a "great farmer" is a rather unusual motivation to study such a theoretical branch of biological sciences.
* Language skills (except for intermediate skills of English) are usually irrelevant.
* The academic background of your professors is most likely irrelevant. (and analytic philosophy is rather far from computational biology)
There is a shimmer of hope if you can turn your interest and knowledge in discrete mathematics in something more formal. If you would actually be able to publish a paper in a non-predatory mathematical journal, you would have definitely proven your mathematical ability. You asked for honest advice: most likely you will not be able to achieve this, because you lack the formal education. Conducting serious mathematical research is something that very few people can do without several years of formal training and professional supervision. If you are one of the few exceptions, though, I am optimistic, that many PhD programs will happily admit you.
The safer route would be to do a related Bachelor's or Master's program, that provides you with formal skills in mathematics and/or biology. For example, you might have good chances to get admitted to a Master's program in Applied Mathematics or Statistics, where you can further specialize in biological applications.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I too have a social science background and am now in a biological science field. Here is my advice:
1. Email the graduate coordinator or department head for graduate programs you are interested in, and ask them how best to prepare yourself to apply.
2. Consider doing a post-bacc degree or filling the gaps in your transcript (eg. statistics, CS, life science classes) with continuing education courses.
3. Get research experience, ideally in a biological science or CS lab at an academic institution.
Points 2 & 3 will give you letters of recommendation from people in the field and experience doing the work, making you a more competitive applicant. Some programs may allow you to make up the gaps in your transcript after being admitted, but if you do it on your own beforehand you will have more choice for programs, and a more concrete sense of what exactly you want to research in your graduate degree. These programs care less about what inspired your desire to follow this path and more about what experience you have and what, specifically, you want to research. Additionally, doing this work before applying will show that you are committed and that this isn't just a passing fancy, something anyone switching fields needs to demonstrate.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Your motivation points seem to be a bit all over the place.
The crux of the issue will be funding. You are unlikely to be admitted into a decent PhD program over someone with a lot more fitting background; the situation in academia on the whole is not great already.
Instead, I would try to apply for an industry job. If you want to be a farmer, why not get some hands-on experience in that sector? You may find a startup with close ties to academia and weasel your way in or even end up deciding against it. But either way, you would already be learning new things and, with any luck, doing R&D not terribly different from what you would have in a PhD program and arguably more fitting your background and preferences.
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<issue_start>username_0: I have two accepted papers X and Y. I listed X as a reference for Y. I used "To appear" in front of X in the reference section of Y. But it has not published yet. How can I add volume details of X, while it seems that X will be published after publishing Y?<issue_comment>username_1: I think it is possible under one of the following options:
1. If possible and allowed by the publisher, you publish a preprint of X (e.g. arXiv or PubMed) and you cite the preprint (which is a very common practice nowadays). When X will be published by the publisher, most of the bibliographic indices/platforms will link it to its preprint and make two versions of the same paper.
2. You cite X without mentioning the volume and page range, which is also normal and common. There is no standard rule telling authors how to cite and up to my knowledge, no publisher has specific requirements on how to cite. E.g. for the sake of space, I abreviate journals and conferences' names.
Please refer also to [I have two papers in an up-coming conference. Is it appropriate to cite one in another?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8443/i-have-two-papers-in-an-up-coming-conference-is-it-appropriate-to-cite-one-in-a) and [How could two papers which were both published in the same year and same conference cite each other?](https://www.quora.com/How-could-two-papers-which-were-both-published-in-the-same-year-and-same-conference-cite-each-other)
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don’t know what your field is. I did my PhD in Molecular Biophysics ten years ago. It was customary to just list your paper X as “in press” and the corresponding journal name, if it’s cited in your paper Y reference.
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to know whether I can visit lectures in German universities as a listener (without being enrolled at the uni). For example, I wish to study in Heidelberg University but want to talk to the people there, but first and foremost go to some lectures in physics or mathematics.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not familiar with Heidelberg in specific, but from [this page](https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/de/studium/studienorganisation/beitraege-gebuehren/gebuehren-fuer-gasthoerer) (in German), it seems that you have to pay a fee to attend lectures as a guest. For instance, if you want to attend a single course that runs for 4 hours a week for one semester (4 SWS, actually 3 hours because German "lecture hours" last 45 minutes) you'll need to pay 51€.
If you are an EU citizen, you can also formally enrol as a student for [171.80€/semester](https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/de/studium/studienorganisation/beitraege-gebuehren/studienbeitraege). If you plan to live in Heidelberg, it might be worth enrolling just to qualify for a student season pass for public transport.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: If you want to attend a lecture at a German unversity, just go there. Most of the cases, there's no attendance check or anything of that kind. If you want to be nice and/or it is a very small class, talk to the lecturer either beforehand or before/after the first lecture to say that you are not a student but interested in attending. Generally, this will be just fine.
(Of course, as long as you are not enrolled as a student there will be no way to earn credits or the like.)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You already got two answers and several comments, but I think that a somewhat more detailed answer might be helpful.
**Context.**
* For this answer I'm specifically referring to mathematics, since this is one of the two fields mentioned in the question and this is the field I have most experience in.
* I am explicitly referring to the situation without any Covid specific restrictions in place. University policies with respect to Covid tend to be somewhat diverse and can change very quickly.
**Reasons to attend a mathematics lecture without being enrolled as a student.**
From your question the reasons for your plan don't become completely clear, and I can think of at least two different types of motivation to attend a maths lecture without enrolling as a student:
(1) You are actually interested in enrolling as a student, but before choosing a subject you would like to get a feeling for the "taste" of the subject by attending a few lectures on just one or two occassions.
(2) You do not intend to enroll as a student (maybe because you have other obligations, or for any other reason), but just want to learn something about the subject.
**Case (1).**
If your motivation is (1), then the most common course of action is to just attend a typical lecture for first year students (in mathematics this would typically be "Analysis" or "Linear Algebra") on one or two days. If it's not the very first lecture in the semester, you probably won't be able to understand much (because you then missed the contents of the previous lectures), but it will most likely give you a certain impression of how a math lecture at a German university works.
Please note that in such a case, it is certainly not necessary to register as a "Gasthörer" and pay money for it. The polite thing to do would probably be to talk to the lecturer just a few minutes before the lecture begins and ask if it's ok to attend today, and maybe also on another day. With very high probability the answer will be "no big deal, just take a seat" - simply because faculty have a very serious interest in prospective students getting a good impression of a math program before joining in the next semester.
It should also be noticed that such lectures in Analysis and Linear Algebra tend to be quite large (though there might be some exceptions). I have never heard of any first year math course at a German university where it is checked who precisely is in the lecture hall, so if you decide not to ask the lecturer whether you're allowed to attend and if the audience is sufficiently large, chances are that the lecturer won't even notice that you are there - so again, no big deal.
**Case (2).**
This is a somewhat different situation, and I would indeed suggest to you to register as a "Gasthörer" (and pay the required fee) if you want to attend a lecture for the whole semester (although, again, at many universities it's not particularly likely that anybody will even notice if you attend a first semester lecture in mathematics without registering).
But anyway, there are a number of things that I would like to point out since you might not be aware of them (simply because many mathematics students only learn about them after enrolling, and you are not enrolled):
* If you do not have significant preliminary knowledge about mathematics from another university, the only courses that you can reasonably attend (unless you are much - really much, much, much - smarter than most other people) are the courses that are designed for students in their first semester (these are often "Analysis 1" and "Linear Algebra 1", although there might be some university specific deviations from this).
Often there will also be specific math lectures designed for first year students of physics, or engineering, or computer science; attending those might also be an option, depending on your specific interests.
But in any case, there is absolutely no use in attending a more advanced math course without having first learned the preliminary stuff - you wouldn't be able to understand anything.
* A math course for first year students does not only consist of the lecture, but has a number of further components which are just as important: (a) There are weekly exercise sheets which you are supposed to solve and which typically get marked; (b) There are often (though not always) exercise courses where these exercises (and their solutions) are discussed; (c) there might also be further tutorials held by more advanced students, where you can ask questions or try further exercises.
While in most cases nobody will really care whether you attend a first year lecture (simply because these lectures tend to be large and your presence will not cause any costs to anybody), things might be different especially for the marking of the exercise sheets and the tutorials - because both require valuable resources at an individual level. I am not even sure whether it is possible to subscribe for these activities as a "Gasthörer" (this might actually depend on the universitiy and on the people responsible for the course).
In this context it is very important to note that doing the weekly exercises is one of the most important parts of attending such a math course. Simply attending the lecture and thinking about its contents is very unlikely to teach you much in the long run - on the contrary, experience shows that most people can only reasonably learn math if they do it theirselves, and this is the role of these exercises. So just attending a math lecture without participating in the exercises (or without getting feedback on your solutions) is unlikely to be a fruitful activity.
* On a similar note it is also important to have reasonable expectations regarding the necessary time investement to get something out of such a course. A typical Linear Algebra 1 or Analysis 1 lecture will consist of two 90 minutes slots per week. But in addition to that the time for the exercise course and/or tutorial will take up one or two more 90 minutes slots. The most time consuming part, though, is typically your work on the exercise sheets. I tell my first year students that 6-8 hours work per week in order to solve the weekly exercise sheets is a completely reasonable time frame (though some are a bit slower and some are a bit faster, of course). So all of this easily adds up to much more than 10 hours per week - and this is just for one course.
So it's important not to confuse "I'll attend some math lectures" with "I'll put reasonable effort into actually understanding their content."
**One small remark about physics.**
I have never taught a physics course, but I took physics as a minor when I was a student - and according to my experience from back then, the effort for a typical first semester course in physics is just as high (or higher) as for a typical first semester maths course. In addition, it doesn't make much sense to attend such a course without attending, at the same time or before that, a first semester maths course for physics students. The math that you've learned in school probably won't suffice for more than a week or two in such a physics lecture (depending on the lecturer, it might not even suffice for the first 30 minutes).
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<issue_start>username_0: Several years ago, when I was taking an English language course, one of my teachers said that one of her acquaintances did a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and became a Headmaster in a Bilingual school.
At that time, I didn't think much about that information. However, since, I am preparing for a Ph.D. entrance, this question has become a sticking point in my mind. However, there is no way I can find this particular teacher and ask the question.
**Why might someone work in a non-STEM field after completing a Ph.D. in STEM?**
Let us define a STEM position as a position in which using STEM knowledge is the *primary* job responsibility.
For example, A Biomedical Engineer (BME) working as an entrepreneur in a biomedical engineering firm can be considered a STEM job. A Biomedical BME working as a teacher to teach Biomedical engineering is a STEM job. However, the same person working as an office administrator at the same department in the same college is not a STEM job, let alone working as a receptionist, etc. Also, a BME working as a patent lawyer **is** a STEM job.<issue_comment>username_1: There are several potential reasons, some of them coming together at the same time.
Earning a doctorate takes a while, longer in some places than others. People's desires might change over that time period and yet they complete the degree since they have invested a lot in to it and it offers an opportunity.
For some an unexpected opportunity arises near the end of the degree program and it seems to them at that moment to be preferable to continuing in STEM.
For some, an industry position might draw on their knowledge of some STEM field but not be directly connected to it. Management of a product development group in an industry is a possibility.
And, for some, the marketplace for their skills just collapses at the end of their student days. Again, time is a factor and the economics changes. It is a particularly hard time at the moment to obtain an academic position in many fields.
I'm sure thee are other possibilities. Some even return to a family business after earning a degree.
I know of one person who has an undergraduate (not doctorate) degree in CS and who is an excellent crime fiction writer. I await his latest book each year. And I don't actually recall CS being part of any of his books. But, he "scratched an itch" at an earlier point in his life.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The most common reason is that management jobs pay better than STEM jobs.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Update: I have to admit that I do not quite understand where exactly OP draws the line between STEM jobs and non-STEM jobs, and why. Since the comments may vanish, to sum up their position:
STEM:
* chemist working in archeology or museum/art restauration
* teacher, e.g. physicist teaching physics
* patent lawyer
non-STEM according to OP
* someone working in goods logistics where they apply the optimization techniques from their STEM profession
* business consulting by an engineer about product lifecycles
---
Some points that have not been mentioned so far:
### STEM teachers
Well, even bilingual schools need STEM teachers!? And teachers are the population that headmasters usually come from.
* I also know physics PhDs who became teachers. Guess what subjects? Physics and math...
* When I was in school, we had a few teachers with PhD. My recollection is that at least from grade ≈10 - 13 one did realize that they had a substantially better knowledge of their fields than the average teacher. Which does not say that there weren't also good and knowledgeable teachers without PhD. But it does say why a school may consider someone with PhD suitable as teacher.
* Where I am, STEM teachers are particularly scarce. It may be easer to hire someone from a STEM field (possibly with academic teaching experience) and train them to become teacher than to tell a non-STEM teacher to learn, say, physics or chemistry.
There have been state programs here that hire in particular STEM people
and give them pedagocical training to become teachers.
* Side thought: the headmaster's office back then did a lot of what I'd nowadays describe as solving optimization tasks with lots of boundary conditions.
* BTW, where I am, headmasters usually continue to teach.
### STEM work in non-STEM fields
There are large numbers of STEM people working in non-STEM fields (with e.g. the department on their business address not hinting at them being STEM) *in their original profession*.
* Many non-STEM fields need e.g. statisticians, engineers, etc.
* A chemist may work in a museum *as chemist* (e.g. analyzing paints or glues so that objects can be properly restored) or in archeology (working on questions like possible falsification/fraud detection of artifacts, what paints/technologies were used etc.).
* Patent lawyers: according to OPs comment non-STEM. Under that definition, every [German patent lawyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_attorney#Germany)) is a STEM professional who left for a non-STEM field (and the [German Wikipeda page says most of them did a [STEM] PhD before starting the legal training](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patentanwalt_(Deutschland)#Wege_zur_Zulassung)): over here, a full university degree in either a natural science or engineering (plus working experience) is prerequisite for the training to become patent lawyer.
*(did later on become an "upgrade" to be considered STEM work)*
### Problem solving and analytical thinking skills
Doing a PhD gives not only professional experience in one's field, but also in certain ways of problem solving, analytical thinking etc.
These particular skills of a STEM PhD are useful in many other jobs as well. It may be labeled a non-STEM field, but it is really something closely connected to their profession.
---
### Management
Someone starting to work in their STEM profession may drift more and more into management. This even happens inside academia: many of the group leaders/professors basically do management and administrative jobs (professors have to do a minimum amount of teaching, though) and do not have time to do research themselves. Similar carreers happen in industry.
For the question at hand, the answer would then depend on whether we consider someone who's sitting in an office, doing lots of administrative work, grant writing and management (of STEM people) as STEM or not.
IMHO: not that much of a difference to the "STEM fraction" of the BME entrepreneur's work, or the patent lawyer's.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: In part it is because multidisciplinary activities are all the rage, especially as of late. Sometimes people stay in STEM and change the field, sometimes they go to non-STEM to notice some problems that are trivial to them but pretty much nobody else around. So it is a low-hanging fruit, and people would often feel more appreciated and accomplished for picking it instead of banging their head on a wall at the forefront of research.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: *Why did <NAME> move into politics after being a film-star? Why did <NAME> move from modelling into stockbrocking, into homemaking? Why did <NAME> leave the NFL to go into acting?*
The answer in all these cases, is that people often have diverse interests, and they may be attracted to another field even after receiving training and experience in a different field. Sometimes there is a symbiosis between the fields, because they require similar skills or characteristics, but sometimes there is quite a disparity. You will find many instances where a person trains in a field, and maybe even works in a field for a substantial time, before transferring to a different field (some examples [here](https://www.businessinsider.com/successful-people-who-made-a-big-career-change-2016-4?r=AU&IR=T)). Doctoral level education can open up some doors, but it is not a career-prison-sentence --- if you do a PhD in a field, it does not oblige you to practice in that field for the rest of your life.
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an international applicant to a graduate program in Canada. I found out last week that at least one domestic applicant already received an informal email from the admissions team informing them that they were nominated for admission, and that they would get the official decision letter through the online application portal within two to three weeks.
My problem is that I have not received any such informal email, and I have to decide tomorrow on a job offer that restricts me from taking a study leave for at least two years. In other words, I have to choose between graduate school and a new employment opportunity, but I cannot make an informed choice until I know the result of my graduate school application. I already emailed the university about my problem earlier this week, but the admissions officer just asked me to wait two to three weeks for an official result or decision letter.
So, my question is: if I did not get an informal notice of admission from the academic department when other applicants did, can I assume that my application was probably denied?<issue_comment>username_1: It depends on the department and institution. In my experience, informal emails regarding admission usually come from PIs and in that case you may or may not receive one. In other cases, a graduate admissions committee may send such informal emails to their top applicants, direct admits, or those nominated for fellowships etc. Plus, for programs with rolling admissions you may not get a first round offer but you could get a second or third.
I would say don't give up hope on this institution yet. Ask for an extension on deliberation time for the job offer. Worst case scenario, take the job and if you get an offer of admission you can resign. It isn't ideal, but people leave jobs all the time for a variety of reasons. Presumably, you won't be applying for the same position when you finish your graduate degree.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It means nothing. The funding model in all provinces favours domestic applicants so it is usual for programs to prioritize domestic over international applicants. Admission for international applicants also depends much more critically on available funding at the department and researcher level.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the final stages of preparing my dissertation. I've noticed that former graduates from my department have included the text "© [student's name]" at the bottom of their title pages. Is this necessary to include in a dissertation? What would be the consequences of not including it? (I'm in Canada, if it matters.)<issue_comment>username_1: In most parts of the world this isn't necessary as copyright is automatic on creation of a work. There are some exceptions, but in Canada it won't be necessary. There is no reason you can't, but it is typical to add "All rights reserved" as part of the statement when needed.
Many years ago you needed this, and you also needed to register the copyrighted work with the government providing a copy (or large parts of it). But it became automatic many years ago.
See: <https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr02281.html>, and especially the FAQ at the end for the specific answer to your question.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is not a matter of copyright; it's a matter of your university's dissertation format rules. Check those. If they say you have to include it, then include it. I've seen sillier formatting rules enforced on PhD theses.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: 'Needed' - no. People add it because they see others adding it and they can assume the others know something they don't. It's a form of cargo culting - following a ritual without understanding the meaning.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: As others have pointed out, a copyright notice is not strictly necessary.
But:
1. If your thesis includes graphics, text, datasets, software, etc. from others, then you should retain their copyright notices.
2. You should mark the remainder of your thesis as belonging to you. This helps anybody that includes your content in their work.
In the software engineering, it is common for every project to have a [LICENSE](https://fossa.com/blog/apply-license-open-source-software-project/) file. If a project includes another project as a dependency, the dependency's LICENSE file is kept intact.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/09
| 606
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently graduated with an MSc in nuclear physics, and am having a hard time finding appropriate entry-level openings for a job. I have looked at multiple openings at several national laboratories as well as private contractors, but everyone seems to either want a full doctorate for a post-doc position, or a bachelor's/masters with 5+ years of experience. Is there such a thing as a position similar to a post-doc but for master's degree graduates? If so, where could I find such a thing? If not, is there any advice on where to look for openings that I might qualify for?<issue_comment>username_1: Unlikely. Post docs are academic positions and someone with only an MSc is unlikely to be qualified for any similar position. Postdocs are a way for those with doctorates to get a bit more experience, usually research, so that they can get a more permanent position.
That isn't to say you couldn't be hired by some academic lab as an entry level employee, but it wouldn't be likely to be similar to a postdoc. Postdocs have a certain amount of independence in setting research agendas (not always) that you would be unlikely to have. CERN probably hires quite a lot of technicians. Some experience in field might be valuable. But not a lot of places work at that scale.
If you want to work in academia or a national lab, your best path is probably through a PhD.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Once upon a time labs would hire "research assistants", which someone with a master8s degree would be very competitive for. Such positions do still exist, but as funding levels have diminished in recent years, and numbers of graduate students has gone up, RAs have tended to be the first positions cut from grant proposals, while maintaining postdoc positions. They do still exist though.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: We regularly hire masters graduates as research assistants at my institute. We often advertise for a 'postdoc / graduate research assistant' and if the best candidate has a PhD, we have a postdoc, if not, they're hired on a research assistant salary. Often, our research assistants end up transitioning to PhD student and then graduate with a great research portfolio.
Usually this happens if, for example, we need some heavy mathematical analysis done on a medical dataset, but all the PhD-holding applicants are from a biological background and the only one with a maths background is finishing a masters. The maths master is more useful than the biology doctor in that case.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/10
| 303
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been asked to give a small presentation as a part of the postdoc interview. The general guideline is that the presentation should foster ideas, roles and vision in the upcoming project. Basically, I have discussed the scientific ideas concerning the project, however what could I add to make it even more effective?<issue_comment>username_1: Without knowing anything about the specifics, good general advice often given to me is 'Present it to your mum / partner / dog'.
Our top professor gave feedback on a talk recently saying that he has seen many talks that are too complicated that he couldn't follow. He has never seen one that he thought was too simple. If you aim to make your presentations understandable by a lay audience, you'll probably hit about the right level of complexity for experienced researchers.
The worst thing possible is that you make it too technical and the panel don't understand what you're talking about.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The presentation is supposed to be given to highly technical and professional people, not to lay audience. Your presentation should be full of technical knowledge and really impressive. It should reflect depth of your knowledge about the field and your potential.
Make the audience believe that you are the best candidate for this project. You are not there to increase the knowledge of the audience but to get hired for a paid job.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/10
| 381
| 1,676
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<issue_start>username_0: I had been interviewed for a research-based master's position two weeks ago. Since then, I have submitted two papers to top-tier venues in my field.
Additionally, a few days before the interview, I had taken up an industrial role. However, this never came up in the interview. As far as I know, the advisor isn't aware of these updates.
My question is, should I send a mail to the potential supervisor with these updates, given that I will almost certainly be attending if accepted (almost, since I am waiting to hear back from a few other programs)? Or should I wait for the decision without further communication?<issue_comment>username_1: If somehow you inform your potential supervisor about these updates and also your industrial role, it might be helpful. It is better than feeling sorry later on.
My son applied for Masters (which later on led to Ph.D) but he got a rejection email. He sent an email to the graduate school about his training and industrial work. He was interviewed again and got acceptance.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I have two worries. The first is that "submission" isn't really an accomplishment, though finishing up on the work might be.
The second, a bit more serious, is that having accepted another position, you might seem to be less interested in the program you interviewed for.
I'd definitely let the second slide and only mention the first if you get some positive feedback on the submissions.
However, a note that you are making progress on some current work and nearing the end is a positive thing that you might mention if another opportunity to communicate arises.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2022/03/10
| 366
| 1,611
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm looking to download some papers from a reference list in an Excel file which consisted of all the basic info about a paper (e.g., author, year, title, publication, etc.) but unfortunately not the DOI. I've looked into many methods for batch downloading papers, but they all require the DOI to work. I've also looked into searching for DOI using the title of the paper but to no avail, as all the programs I've came across does the reverse, i.e., use the DOI to retrieve the rest of the metadata. I would greatly appreciate any pointers anybody has.<issue_comment>username_1: If somehow you inform your potential supervisor about these updates and also your industrial role, it might be helpful. It is better than feeling sorry later on.
My son applied for Masters (which later on led to Ph.D) but he got a rejection email. He sent an email to the graduate school about his training and industrial work. He was interviewed again and got acceptance.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I have two worries. The first is that "submission" isn't really an accomplishment, though finishing up on the work might be.
The second, a bit more serious, is that having accepted another position, you might seem to be less interested in the program you interviewed for.
I'd definitely let the second slide and only mention the first if you get some positive feedback on the submissions.
However, a note that you are making progress on some current work and nearing the end is a positive thing that you might mention if another opportunity to communicate arises.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2022/03/10
| 711
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<issue_start>username_0: As far as I understand, there are two types of faculties in the universities/colleges:
1. Research + teaching faculties
2. Teaching-only faculties
Do teaching-only faculties get tenures (i.e. permanent employment) in the universities/colleges?<issue_comment>username_1: That depends on the university. There are colleges that focus primarily on undergraduate education in which the research "requirement" is very modest. It is more "keeping current" with your field than advancing it. In these places, yes, tenure is the norm.
Other, primarily research universities, such as Duke, Stanford, CMU, and some others have two types of faculty. The "normal" research faculty who do some teaching but likely mostly advanced and graduate courses. Some of those, such as the ones named have a separate classification, sometimes called "Professor of the Practice" in which their focus is on the undergraduate program. At some of these, at least, tenure is not available, but people work on long term contracts and have some of the protections of tenure but no guarantee of permanent employment. I know quite a few folks like this. Most have doctorates, most do "some" research, but it may be more pedagogical than strictly field related.
At Duke, for example, long term contracts substitute for tenure in some sense. I don't have specifics about the others.
It may be quite different outside the US, but here, most universities are able to set their own policies for such things. So tenure might be available or not.
Some of the people I know would create a huge gap if they were to leave their jobs for any reason. They are highly valued, provide a good undergraduate education, one of the stated goals of nearly every university, and free the research faculty from a lot of lower level tasks. Win-win mostly.
Note also, that the teaching faculty at such top universities do more than teach. They are in many ways responsible for the design of the undergraduate (especially the lower half) curriculum. There are the usual meetings and such as expected of other faculty. These positions have quite a lot of responsibility.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: From a U.S. perspective, in math: there is no clear dichotomy between "teaching" and "research" faculty. Yes, there are some faculty with "professor of the practice" title, or, lower status, "lecturer", or "adjunct", and so on.
Also, unsurprisingly, at four-year colleges, inevitably "teaching/mentoring" is a bigger part of faculty roles.
At "research universities", at this moment in time, in many places the definitely-not-research roles are not tenured, but only have long-term contracts. I have not witnessed any of these arrangements "blow up", but I'd suspect that it would be not publicized, anyway.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/11
| 2,376
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm 5 months into my 1st data science postdoc and I already feel overwhelmed, intellectually isolated, and now unmotivated. Is this what a bad lab fit means? Let me elaborate below.
I just completed my Phd in CS. The project was heavy on method development with application in Biology. For my postdoc, I wanted to continue this but in a different biology field.
My current lab arrangement is strange. All my team mates are biologists, 1 PI is a MD, the other is data scientist. I've been given lots of small projects to work on while I familiarise myself with the field. Now I'm given yet another dataset, but was told to come up with the biology questions to answer myself. I feel very much out of depth and place but was told I need to *show some leadership* as I am a postdoc, not an RA. I'm beginning to suspect I'm in the wrong lab, but since I'm new, I also wonder whether this is what a postdoc is all about and that I should stop moaning.
Intellectually isolated. Apart from my data science PI who is also very biology focused, I found myself not able to banter with anyone else about data science/CS ideas or findings. It's like the enthusiasm is no longer there as they're all only interested in biology. Very often, I end up falling back to my PhD team and bantering ideas with them, constantly looking back at the good old days of trading just pure mad ideas or discussing about new discoveries.
Is this a bad fit? Or am I just moaning and being very unfair about the lab? I suspect it's the first and that I need to move on ASAP, but I am not sure to be honest.<issue_comment>username_1: Well, it looks like they wanted someone to do their data science for them and are expecting you to make yourself useful. That is, to solve biology problems with data science: what else is data science for if not for solving problems in various fields?
You, on the other hand, seem to want to discuss the data science itself, compare approaches, examine properties of data... And it seems that you would not find it in this lab indeed.
I would say I have not seen this arrangement anywhere except for CS/ML labs which act as a workshop for an entire department or even university, and they often deal with a huge range of problems, sometimes from social sciences to geology. Industry has more specialized ML-focused groups, but in natural sciences within academia, ML is not yet seen as something warranting dedicating an entire subfield or a lab to. In part it is because the interpretable AI is still rather weak, and without it, data science usage is limited to methodological aspects. To put it bluntly, it is "just" advanced statistics, and you do not need a dedicated Lab of Pearson Type VI Distributions in Plant Biology: instead, you have a Plant Biology lab which brings their statistical problems to statisticians.
If you want to do data science with applications in X, two main options exist: you either join a lab specializing in X as a specialist in data science and largely handle data science problems solo (which is the situation you are in right now; I am in a similar arrangement, but content with it) or you join a data science lab and pester labs in field X for collaboration. The latter option seems to fit your profile better.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think your boss expects you to use new data to generate testable hypotheses. After all, data science is a tool. That said, I am a bit puzzled as to why you chose this academic lab instead of industrial postdoc in any of the three public cloud companies. But I think your motivation for coming to this lab is that you want to use data science to contribute to biological science.
I can’t tell you if this is a bad fit as you described, but I think the questions for you to consider are: are you able to use data to create hypotheses? Does the data indicate things or evidence that doesn’t fit conventional wisdom? What experiment (ie, knock out genes, ligand binding site mutation) can you propose to validate your hypotheses? Can you build a classifier or tree from data to categorize these observations? And does the tree recapitulate or defy known biological principles? These may yield valuable research topics (speaking bluntly, grant proposal). I think these are what your boss is expecting you do deliver.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I have seen people who have been "scientific outsiders" in their labs or work environments in the sense that their interest and expertise was in some way only loosely related to what the others do. Sometimes this kind of thing is required because a lab may need this kind of expertise occasionally, but most if not all people there can't really relate to it.
Now you can say that this is a "bad fit" and look for something else, but I have seen people who have managed to "cultivate" such a position in some often creative ways. This usually involves contacts to people working elsewhere (surely at least to avoid intellectual isolation) who may be closer to what you want to do. Chances are as a postdoc of whom personal initiative is expected, you can well work on collaborative projects with people who do not belong to the lab. This may comprise people who develop ML methods, or people who provide you with biological problems that you can contribute to. Obviously the first candidates would be those you already know from past experiences, but you may get into contact with other people doing stuff of which you have an idea what you could contribute.
I also wonder whether you could just interpret the "show some leadership" demand as a license to do what you're good at. Would it be a problem if you focus more on methodological work, as long as you can make an at least weak case that there are biological problems where this can be applied? Maybe you need to look around a bit for such problems, and maybe with some creativity you can connect this to the data set that you are apparently expected to do something about.
One thing that I recommend strongly is to collect some information about what "counts" for your lab, like publications in specific journals, grants etc. In many places you have a lot of freedom if you just produce something that counts. You could maybe spend 80% of your time on projects that you have chosen more or less freely for yourself as long as you contribute to the lab's output in a way that serves the lab. (Chances are it won't be like that everywhere, you've got to find it out.)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: The situation you are describing looks to me like a somewhat clumsy attempt at trying to do multi-/inter-disciplinary research. While your situation is "whole lab working in X while I have background in Y", and the one I have experience with is "a couple of people in X, Y and Z each", the effects seem quite similar -- team/lab members feel intellectually isolated and miss "scientific banter" while questioning whether this environment is helpful for developing their research profile in the direction they want to take it.
The take-away for me is that running interdisciplinary research, projects and teams well is difficult; it's often difficult for people from different fields to communicate efficiently, the projects identified in the cross between the two often seem like "toy problems" to both sides, and it is very difficult for somebody with background in X to pose a hypothesis in Y.
That said, a good postdoc should include a component that is outside of your immediate comfort zone. The skills obtained during your PhD should allow you to get to grips with a different research area. It is an opportunity to widen your horizons and diversify your profile. The perfect ratio of familiar to completely new will vary from person to person, and you need to figure out what yours looks like.
To see whether this is a bad fit, I think you should re-examine your priorities, pros and cons of staying v leaving, and then make the decision accordingly:
1. **Staying**
As mentioned, real interdisciplinary research is hard. However it can have far-reaching consequences in one or multiple research fields. If you want to have a interdisciplinary profile, obtaining results from such a project is a very big step in the right direction.
On the other hand, I believe the key to doing this successfully is communication and collaboration. A researcher with a background in X can not be expected to produce a research question in Y. In fact, the hypothesis to look at should come from *both* X and Y.
If you go down this route, I would suggest trying to establish a new dialogue with your current advisors. You are the authority on CS/DS (that's why they hired you); with very little background in biology. You need to come up with research questions *jointly* with your advisors, who have a biology background, and a *joint* plan for dissemination -- you probably want to consider journals they've never heard of, and the other way around too. Pulling off a successful interdisciplinary project must surely count as a *show of leadership*.
2. **Leaving**
If your goal is to find a place to do good interdisciplinary research, well, that's not easy. A number of positions will feel intellectually isolating, and actually feel like "X engineer with applications to Y" rather than "research in X", similar to your current position. The other side of the medal is real research in X, applied to Y, led by somebody from X, which sadly doesn't seem directly relevant to Y to most Y researchers.
It is likely that all interdisciplinary project will likely present a similar challenge to a varying degree (or exactly the opposite problem). Additionally, if you're looking specifically for a marriage between fields X and Y, your options are much more limited than a recent PhD in "just" X.
Finally, it is worth considering whether you actually *want* to do interdisciplinary research in applications of X to Y. Which aspect of it attracts you the most? If it's just that improving Y has e.g. a direct and beneficial social impact, consider applying X to any field of high social importance. If it is that Y just provided interesting challenges, consider continuing doing research in X, unbounded. But if it is Y specifically, you might need to get background knowledge in an area different to your current background even if it means stepping far out of your comfort zone.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/11
| 763
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<issue_start>username_0: This coming year I'm going to be starting a quantitative post doc in the United States after finishing a PhD.
Is it typical that I will be expected to fully stop all of my PhD work while I'm at the post doc so that I can focus on the new work there? If not, to what extent? For example, is it often considered inappropriate to maintain a pre-existing collaboration?<issue_comment>username_1: Your question has several aspects and I am answering for each of them separately:
1. Maintaining pre-existing collaboration is welcome in academia if not mandatory to get tenure. When applying for new positions, you might even be asked how large is your network and how it can help us.
2. You cannot just cut off your PhD work of your area of expertise. You spent years of research and you pushed the state of the art further to deserve the PhD and you got a postdoc position on this basis. You are required to use the knowledge you gained to develop new ideas and push the state of the art further and further.
3. You did not mention whether your postdoc position is in a project (paid by the grant) or paid by the university. For a university position, you have more freedom and independence in doing research but for a project position, you need to accomplish what is promised in the project proposal. However, there is always room to do independent research, which is highly recommended for postdocs. I have no doubt that your supervisor would support this idea as (s)he is supposed to care about the progress of his/her team members and because it opens new research prospects
4. If your area of research in your postdoc time is different than that of your PhD, it is even better because as a postdoc, you are still building a career and a research profile and it can be in an interdisciplinary field.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Not sure how all of the points generalize, but from my experience
* If you're in the mid of an unfinished project (paper), you should tell your new advisor about it. Depending on the priorities both of you agree on, either you keep spending most of your time on that, or you do it at the side of the new main topic you're working on. Offer the new advisor authorship and involve them, even though they may refuse in the end.
* For subsequent papers with your former advisor as a collaborator the same holds, discuss with the new advisor what they want you to spend your time on. It is nice to retain the collaboration and remain on good terms with them, but the one who pays your salary decides how to spend your working hours (they might be limited in this by a project grant from which you're hired). Things may be more flexible if you obtain your own personal grant.
I think it is normal for a postdoc to work on multiple projects at the same time, so for example an ongoing collaboration can be combined with other ones.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: When I started my PhD I was in the middle of my MSc project which we had not finished.
I spoke to my MSc supervisor and he suggested that it would be better to stop the MSc work and start focussing on the PhD work. I imagine the situation is similar here, so you basically need to ask your PhD supervisor what he/she would like to do next.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/11
| 816
| 3,405
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<issue_start>username_0: I received an offer from a top US engineering Ph.D. Program. Let's say this is Program A. I also have another offer program B. Currently, I am waiting on program C's decisions. The potential advisor from C is very positive he will have full funding + offer for me soon. All A, B, and C are my TOP choices and TOP engineering Ph.D. programs in the U.S.
My preference is as follows with a 'confidence value of my preference' estimated in brackets.
A\_offered (0.90) > C\_waiting (0.87) > B\_offered (0.83)
My dilemma is that the advisor from A emailed me that they want to know my decision a couple of weeks before the 04/15 deadline. An official offer letter was attached to that email.
Though I am leaning toward program A, I am still looking into program B and waiting on program C's offer.
Would it be okay to respectfully ask the advisor from A that I will need more time to make my decision?
And, if I do ask him for more time, is there a possibility that he will rescind my official offer?<issue_comment>username_1: Deadlines are deadlines, sometimes they can be bent, but I would not expect a significant extension. After all, the advisor from A needs to submit their decision as well, starting your work together by missing deadlines is surely not the most professional thing ever.
The ball is in your court: you have all the information from that advisor and it is clear you may wait until the start of April to make that decision. They have nothing to gain from the extension: either you apply to A anyway (why would you need an extension then?) or you decide to go with C (why spend time and resources and go out of your way for them to specifically bail on you?). It just makes no sense!
From your description, the advisor has handled the communication so far very professionally. You should live up to that standard, too. There are times when you have to make decision based on incomplete information and cannot guarantee that the course of action is the best possible one.
What you could do is to inform the advisor at C that you have a hard offer which imposes a certain deadline on you. Do not mention where you got this offer from nor the deadline itself: instead, state a deadline of your own (say, March, 25th). This passes the ball on and if the advisor at C drops it, well, not much you could do. If they really want you in their lab, they should make a counter-offer with some way to guarantee you it would work out. "We will have funding sometime soon, promise" is not the way to do any business together, much less long-term commitments. Maybe "I have talked to all the people responsible for the funding and they have promised me it will be allocated" is enough, but "I am sure I will manage to get it" is not.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you can absolutely say you need more time. The April 15 deadline is the only real deadline here. It may be that it would be convenient for the faculty member to have you decide earlier, but they should not be pressuring you strongly for an earlier decision. It is okay for them to ask, but not to push.
You can say something like - you are waiting to hear the details of one more likely offer and would like to weigh it fully. You can also offer to let the faculty member know as soon as possible (can keep this vague) after you receive the details of the final outstanding offer.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/11
| 425
| 1,766
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<issue_start>username_0: I appreciate the prompt reply.
I sent out my phd application in epidemiology to NYU , but got short listed to interview the department of social and behavioral sciences at NYU, because they sensed my application fits this department better.
I did an interview, and the chairs of the social and behavioral department were so happy with my interview and asked me if i was happy with the shift in the departments for my application.
Two weeks later, (today) i receive an automatic reply from the NYU portal saying that I was rejected from the phd in epidemiology department (one that i have not been interviewed for!)
What should i do! I am so nervous!!!!!<issue_comment>username_1: If you would be happy in the new department then keep following up with them. The other one is apparently closed to you. The rejection by one department is unlikely to have any effect on the other.
But, until you get an actual acceptance, keep other options open.
You seem to be still under consideration by Social and Behavioral Sciences and will be told of any outcome when decisions are final. Anything else would be improper. If you are feeling uneasy, you could ask them for an update.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: But you didn’t set out to apply for Social Science. There are big differences between it and epidemiology. I am puzzled by the school’s action to pick majors for applicants. It is very odd; and if that’s a new way for school to reject applicants, then it’s a pretty slick one.
I hope you examine your passion and career goal for epidemiology, and have applied other schools. Social Science did not grant you admission either. So I think you would be well advised to look at other school with Epidemiology program.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/12
| 1,079
| 4,714
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to ask if it is possible to be a mathematician (while also being a computer scientist reseaching in a mathematical related field).
I really love mathematics, specifically analytic number theory. For example I would like to create algorithms to solve problems in number theory and I already talked with my professor who supervises my PhD (which is in computer science field) about this. The professor seems okay with the choice. I would like to ask if it is possible or even okay to be both a mathematician and a computer scientist in this sense.
The mathematics part that I would like to go deep into are mathematical theorems about number theory. That may include finding large primes (from the use of an analytic approach) in computer part, and also maybe the study of the proof or the calculation to verify the elementary theorem involving Riemann's hypothesis.(This one is what interests me the most)
I need to further study about mathematical theory that may not have any application in the real world (even in computing). So I am not sure if it is a good choice to start and if it is possible to be such a person by attending a PhD in computer science as I mentioned.<issue_comment>username_1: What exactly do you mean by 'working as a mathematician'? From your post you are currently writing your PhD thesis in a computer science department. You can definitely write a very math heavy thesis, especially if your advisor supports it. You can also submit papers to mathematical journals, provided the topics of your articles are suitable. Journals care for the content of your papers not your academic credentials. You can also collaborate with mathematicians, do joint projects and write joint mathematical papers.
Once you have your PhD thesis you can apply for postdoc or lecturer positions in math departments. If you research fits to their needs a computer science PhD will be just as good as a math PhD. It might be a little less obvious why you would be a good fit for a position but if you can argue that you are they wouldn't exclude you because of a PhD with a different title.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Actually, anyone can "work as" a mathematician. You don't need any degree at all. You can also publish as degrees aren't required for that. But if you want to *get paid* for that work then you need to get hired into an appropriate position and while CS overlaps with math, the overlap is actually quite small.
Unless your CS education, generally, was unusual in some way then there are probably vast parts of mathematics that you don't have any experience with. This makes it less likely that you have general insight into math, though it isn't impossible.
If you only want to work in those parts of math that are covered by the overlap, then getting hired for a CS position will serve about as well as any other, and you can, as an intelligent person, expand your understanding of the rest of math - which is a vast landscape. People do change fields and some are competent experts in more than one.
Going the other way is a bit easier, actually, since a deep understanding of math gives an equally deep understanding of some important parts of CS, such as, say algorithmics and computability. Much of the rest can be learned.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> The professor seems okay with the choice.
>
>
>
This is very important, but I think there is an equally important issue you need to pay close attention to. To successfully do a PhD in a topic X, especially at the level that would position you to pursue an academic career, it is *really really* important to have an advisor who is not just “okay” with your choice but who actually has the knowledge and expertise in topic X so that they are able to guide you towards good research problems and successfully completing work on them.
So, if you want to specialize in analytic number theory (even if it’s mainly computational aspects of number theory), and your advisor is not an expert in this subject, and you don’t have anyone else aside from your advisor who does have that expertise and who is able to mentor you in a way that involves a significant time commitment (for example as a co-adviser), then **your plan is not a good plan**.
Summary: yes you can be a mathematician with a specialty in analytic number theory, and whether your formal PhD is in computer science or math is in a sense immaterial. But what is a lot more critical is if you have access to a mentor/advisor who has the knowledge to train you in this specialty. If you don’t, then even if you were in a math graduate program I would advise you to rethink your plan.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I am soon going to move from India to Norway. I own multiple reference books that will be relevant to my work in the future as well and I plan to move with my books. Several of the editions that I own are marked "for sale in the Indian subcontinent only". One of them bears a sticker "ILLEGAL for sale in USA" and inside the book, in two places, contains a sticker "It is ILLEGAL under Indian Law to export this book from India."
Question: will I get into trouble at any point because I own books with these labels/stickers? Have other academics faced any problem possessing these books outside of the Indian subcontinent?
[For background information on International Edition](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14318/difference-between-international-edition-of-a-book-and-a-non-international-one)<issue_comment>username_1: The vast majority of academics will not mind that you possess books marked in this way. This is particularly true if you bought them in India.
This site is not for legal advice. You might look at <https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/52035/legal-issues-regarding-a-recent-amazon-purchase/52050#52050>
<https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/2059/why-were-books-never-published-with-a-eula>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The goal of such "rules" isn't to prevent scholars from moving with their libraries, but to restrict the potential practice of commercial brokers from taking advantage of regional discounts and immediately reimporting them into place without those discounts.
It might even be questionable whether "ILLEGAL for sale..." could be enforced in any case, though copyright restrictions need to be observed.
I think the worst that would happen is if some customs officer "raised an eyebrow" if you carried a few books across a border. But the eyebrow raising would likely be followed by a smile.
It might be technically illegal for you to resell books in some places, but there would really be no one to enforce such a "law" for a private sale. It would be a different matter if you had a hundred copies of the same text, of course because now the publisher might take notice.
And such laws are much more likely to be civil in nature, requiring a lawsuit and not a criminal matter.
There is a general principle in the law, though it is informal: The law does not concern itself with trivialities.
But, I'm not a lawyer. I try to judge such things with common sense.
Note also that the standard boilerplate printed in the front matter of most books (in the US, say) imply that you have fewer rights than you do. They don't, generally, mention fair use exceptions. "No part of this book may be reproduced in any form..." That is really wishful thinking on their part, not actual law or regulation.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am interested in the field of Bioinformatics in the USA.
As far as I know, a Research Assistant (RA) is a Ph.D. student or postdoc fellow working in a funded project under a research professor, assisting them in executing experiments and publishing research papers.
Am I correct?
What else do/can they do as a research assistant? I.e. what other responsibilities may they have?<issue_comment>username_1: The vast majority of academics will not mind that you possess books marked in this way. This is particularly true if you bought them in India.
This site is not for legal advice. You might look at <https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/52035/legal-issues-regarding-a-recent-amazon-purchase/52050#52050>
<https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/2059/why-were-books-never-published-with-a-eula>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The goal of such "rules" isn't to prevent scholars from moving with their libraries, but to restrict the potential practice of commercial brokers from taking advantage of regional discounts and immediately reimporting them into place without those discounts.
It might even be questionable whether "ILLEGAL for sale..." could be enforced in any case, though copyright restrictions need to be observed.
I think the worst that would happen is if some customs officer "raised an eyebrow" if you carried a few books across a border. But the eyebrow raising would likely be followed by a smile.
It might be technically illegal for you to resell books in some places, but there would really be no one to enforce such a "law" for a private sale. It would be a different matter if you had a hundred copies of the same text, of course because now the publisher might take notice.
And such laws are much more likely to be civil in nature, requiring a lawsuit and not a criminal matter.
There is a general principle in the law, though it is informal: The law does not concern itself with trivialities.
But, I'm not a lawyer. I try to judge such things with common sense.
Note also that the standard boilerplate printed in the front matter of most books (in the US, say) imply that you have fewer rights than you do. They don't, generally, mention fair use exceptions. "No part of this book may be reproduced in any form..." That is really wishful thinking on their part, not actual law or regulation.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: There is a trend in STEM: things get more and more complicated over time.
There seems to be two things that are not matching up with the pace of our time: page limit, and page format.
**Page limit**: for example, to me this is anti-interdisciplinary. As results concern more disciplines, it is necessary to introduce background of many disparate fields. But due to the page limit, how can one reasonable do this? A picture is worth a thousand words, but how can we fit these pictures into our publication if there is a tight page limit?
**Page format**: for example, suppose you have very long equation (that runs across an entire page) or very large amount of data, how is it we are suppose to fit them into, say, two columns?
Does anyone have similar concerns or have seen how publications deal with them?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes. In particular, page limits have caused many authors to design terrible figures that contain many tiny, unrelated graphs packed close together. This makes scientific papers harder to understand.
Upvotes: -1 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You choose the appropriate journal for your research. In my experience, and field, journals with page limits are for rapid dissemination of results. The article would usually have deferred a lot of methodology to other papers or the put the details into a supplementary section which doesn't count towards page limits. More in depth and longer papers end up in different journals. If when writing a short paper I realize I need more space than is available I would just reconsider which journal to publish in.
At the same time, there is a skill to writing a short paper and sticking to the point. You have a message you want to convey to a reader so stick to it. Many papers I've read just keep going and going and really should of stopped at an earlier point.
You ask about the figures. Have you considered whether you need so many separate figures? Plots can often be consolidated and perhaps if you thought about your data differently you would need less figures. Or long equations? Either it's important to the paper so you include it, or it's not that important and you don't include it (perhaps just referencing another work where the equation is important).
Why put lots of data in a paper? Show a short summary and point to an online storage system (like Zenodo) which can store the data for you in machine readable formats. One of the most annoying things I find is people putting long tables in papers that a) serve no purpose to the narrative b) can't be easily copied from the final PDF. When I'm reading your paper I don't need to see the tables showing you did lots of work. I only need to see the tables if and when I'm reusing your work and that will occur at a different time to when I'm reading your paper. So don't make me have to skip over lots of data when it's not needed.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a manuscript to a journal, and the status changed from Awaiting Reviewer Selection to Awaiting Reviewer Confirmation. It has been 1.5 months with no change in status. I'm curious if we are still waiting for reviewers to accept the review of the manuscript, like Awaiting Reviewer Invitation, or it's different, and the reviewing process is started already.
Another matter is the process of peer review from the aspect of a reviewer. Does a reviewer start the review just after they accept to review it, or they must wait until enough reviewers to accept the review and then the process begins?<issue_comment>username_1: It may depend on the journal. I can't say much about the first question because the journals I have been involved with didn't make this distinction. I'd think "confirmation" means a positive reply from enough reviewers that they'd do it, but I'm not sure. Note that it may only change after *all* reviewers have accepted, so it may mean they're still looking for a second or third reviewer after one or more having accepted already. It may even be that ultimately the editor decides to go with the reviewers they have, so that this status may change if the editor decides to not use a further reviewer (even having requested one earlier on), rather than another reviewer agreeing (as handling editor I usually invite one reviewer more than I really need, so that I have one to fall back on if one drops out; this means that occasionally I can finish the process before the last reviewer has even accepted).
Generally I wouldn't read too much into these status statements; under some circumstances they may have a quiet erratic relation to what really happens (in case editors use the system in a somewhat unorthodox way, which can happen).
"Does a reviewer start the review just after they accept to review it, or they must wait until enough reviewers to accept the review and then the process begins?" - A reviewer does not have to wait until there are enough reviewers, but this absolutely does *not* mean that they immediately start to review. People have other stuff to do, and reviewing is unpaid and doesn't count much on the CV, which means that reviewing has a rather low priority for most reviewers. Some do it in time, some start a day before the deadline, some need a number of reminders after the deadline, and some who have initially agreed even drop out, so that somebody new has to be found after quite some time into the process. The time it takes to collect all reviews has a *huge* variance.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If the editorial management system (EMS) is distinguishing between the two, odds are "Awaiting Reviewer Selection" means the reviewers have not been invited yet, and "Awaiting Reviewer Confirmation" means the reviewers have not agreed to review the manuscript yet.
There are some reviewers who don't agree to review the manuscript until after they have finished writing their review, but they are few. Generally speaking, no response to invitation after 1.5 months is a strong sign that they will never submit a review, and it's a good time to nudge the journal.
Finally, as to whether a reviewer can start reviewing before all the reviewers have agreed, the answer is usually "yes". Fast is good; there's no reason to wait.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: The thing I'm most concerned about is that whether PhDs who working on traditional project will find a good way out after graduation compared to those working on hot direction.
Also, for the traditional project, I'm familiar with most basic techniques used since I used them in my undergrad, so I can directly start to do the project. While for the hot direction project, I need to spend some time learning new techniques from scratch.
Both supervisors are nice, are willing to guide PhD students in detail and care about students.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a personal choice and depends on your tolerance for risk. My standard advice to students in similar situations follows.
Working with an established researcher in an established subfield is probably going to result in success. And after graduation, people will know how to respond to you and what you do. Collaborators might be easier to find.
The other is risky, and you should understand all of the dimensions of risk. First, working in a "hot" area leaves you open to getting scooped by parallel research elsewhere. If you do get scooped local rules will determine whether you can actually use that research to get a degree or if you have to keep going, potentially getting scooped again. I know of a case in which two students working independently solved an important problem simultaneously. It took a year and an investigation to determine that both could finish and that there was no misconduct. I think both have done well since.
The second risk, assuming that the other potential advisor is untenured is that they may suddenly discover that their own progress is more important than yours and that they have to focus on their own publications, leaving you to founder. There are some other questions here that mention that sort of risk. Depending on how self directed you are this might not matter, but for some people it matters a lot. Some, a few, I think, actually prefer a hands-off advisor. But many require more support. It isn't an impossible situation, necessarily, but it is a risk.
And today's "hot" topic may be quite cool (in the bad sense) in a few years. There is no guarantee about the job market you will face in 3-7 years. Right now it is very tough.
You might also want to consider whether there is a difference in funding between the two areas, both short and long term.
Taking risky research ventures is much easier if you can do so from a secure position. Many people change their research focus several times over a long career. Your dissertation doesn't lock you in to a narrow slot.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't work in condensed matter, so some of my experience may not apply to you. But in some fields, it is common to work on two projects at the same time. A safe project to guarantee timely graduation. Then a hot, high risk project to have some fun, or find interesting career, etc.
I am working on two projects. The high risk, hot project will not be completed in time, but I learn a fair bit from the experience. I really glad my advisor insist I also work on the safe project, so I can still graduate with publications.
So if you are interesting in the hot topic, ask if you can have a backup safe project.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Assuming funding is not an issue with either lab, you may want to ask each lab’s alumni or current members for objective information. I received my PhD in Molecular Biophysics ten years ago from a research university in Texas. As an applicant we got chances to meet several lab’s students. One guy literally told me do not join that lab because the boss is irresponsible when it comes to mentoring or driving students forward.
For me, it was important to make sure students defend and graduate in a timely manner. That shows the lab Principal Investigator (PI) is serious and committed to helping you grow. I have seen students doing their PhD thesis in Nobel laureate’s research lab or Howard Hughes lab but PI really don’t care if you are stalled in your progress.
Also consider transferable skills that you will have when you graduate and look for a job. Will your education paint yourself to a corner, or does it give you more leverage to succeed?
Remember, getting out with a PhD is just a beginning. Your next gig will surely require more learning and explorations. I did not answer your question about if you should pursue “hot” topic, but as I see it, I think what I said here should be important for your consideration too.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I just got some great news that I have been offered a full studentship on a PhD program that's currently my second most favourite option. I have only until March 16th to accept it or reject it. In the meantime, my most preferred option has not gotten back to me yet, even though I even emailed them explaining that I have a time-sensitive decision to make about another program, and that I would love to know what my chances of getting an interview invitation are. Even if they respond, I'm probably not going to know anything for sure before the 16th.
The potential supervisors at my second best option (and currently only certain one) are wonderful people - both of them got super excited that I got in, sent me the most supportive emails and well wishes, and are clearly looking forward to working with me. They also supported me quite a bit during the application process. I really like them, I really like the project too,but I would still want to hear back from this other option (which is at a more prestigious university).
I cannot get an extension on my current offer - the studentship is pretty competitive. If I reject it, they will be offering the PhD to someone on the waiting list. I can't help it but feel that the right thing to do is accept the offer now and then wait and see how the rest is going to play out - if I get the other (dream) PhD, I fear that I'd have to cancel my current offer later in the year and that the supervisors - albeit really nice people by the looks of it - might hold it against me. It will probably create some administrative hassle for them anyway..
If it does come to me being offered the other PhD (with funding), I don't really know how I'd have to approach my current supervisors. I know this is all hypothetical at this stage, but I can't help but overthink all possible scenarios anyway. I'd love to think that I will then just be able to be completely honest with them, explain my reasons and end on a respectful note. I don't want to ruin my relationship with them and I wouldn't want them to hold my decision against me. However, many people tell me that going back on an accepted offer looks really bad, that I will burn bridges, that it will be damaging for my future career in academia because I am likely to see and meet these people again, and that I should just accept my current offer and be happy that I got a fully funded PhD that >100 other applicants were apparently hoping to get. I haven't mentioned anything to the supervisors yet, as my other options are at best unclear, so it didn't really make sense to mention anything as yet. I was very motivated to get the PhD that I got too, and I think they see me as someone who is super motivated to start this particular PhD. While this is somewhat true, it's not entirely the case.
Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you approach your supervisor/team, were you honest? If some of you have been in a similar position a while ago, do you feel you have suffered any negative consequences as a result? Any advice would be extremely helpful, also from people who have not necessarily been in that boat but would share their opinions and insights. :)
Many thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: Whatever you decide on March 16, I sincerely hope you think about how your decision impact your credibility. I do not recommend you negate your decision once you accepted the offer.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Not an answer, but too long for a comment.
I would think hard before trading this kind of support
>
> The potential supervisors at my second best option (and currently only
> certain one) are wonderful people - both of them got super excited
> that I got in, sent me the most supportive emails and well wishes, and
> are clearly looking forward to working with me. They also supported me
> quite a bit during the application process. I really like them, I
> really like the project too.
>
>
>
for the prestige at the other place.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Couple thoughts:
1. Ask for an extension to make your decision on the offer you have.
2. It is a mistake to assume that a prestigious institution will give you an advantage in any way simply by nature of being prestigious. This may be true for undergraduate work, but as a PhD student you will be judged on what you have produced during your PhD and truly, no one cares about the name of the institution. So if the other school gives you better access to resources that will advance your research or better funding, thats one thing, otherwise it doesn't really make a difference.
If you cannot get an extension, ask yourself what it is about your top choice (other than prestige) that makes it better than the option in front of you, and do your best to weigh whether that is really worth turning down this offer for. Understand that you may never get an offer from the other school.
Accepting an offer and then turning away is unprofessional and ill advised. Keep in mind that if you are in the sciences and these labs are both in the same subfield, the supervisors are potential future collaborators and it would be a mistake to spoil their impression of you at this stage with actions that would make you appear unreliable and unwilling to follow through with your commitments.
At the end of the day, remember: a bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I have received a reviewer comment that is not understandable. Specifically, the comment asks that I show that X is true, but I never mention X in the whole paper and X is not even related to my work. What should I do in this situation?
Should I:
1. just ignore that comment? or
2. ask for clarification when I submit my revised manuscript? or
3. ask for clarification before submitting my revised manuscript? or
4. try to respond to the comment even though it is not related?
The other comments by the reviewer are legitimate comments fully related to the submitted work, it is only this one comment that is a problem. I do not know the identity of the reviewer and can't ask them for clarification outside of the review process.<issue_comment>username_1: If the reviewer is asking you to show that X is true but X is not related to your paper, then it sounds like you received the wrong review - in the sense that the review is actually intended for another paper. This should not happen in a properly configured editorial management system. If it does happen my guess is that the reviewer uploaded the wrong review.
Hence #3 is probably the best option. Chances are the reviewer did write a review that's applicable to your paper, but you need to know what the review is to respond to it.
**Edit**: since the question was edited to say the other comments are relevant - in this case, the reviewer definitely submitted the right review, but they misunderstood your paper. In this case you should [improve your paper to remove whatever was causing the misunderstanding](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/5933/) (option 4). Depending on what X is, you could also say it is out of scope of the current paper, is not relevant, or even it is something you will be saving for the future. You definitely do not want to ignore the comment - this will aggravate both the editor and the reviewer since you don't seem to be taking the review seriously.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You should not ignore the comment --- just respond to it in a polite and sober manner and state the facts. If the comment doesn't make sense to you then it is likely that it also won't make sense to the editor, so you should feel free to say that.
>
> **Disagree - no revision:** Unfortunately we were unable to understand this comment. The comment appears to want us to demonstrate that frogs experience chemically-induced hallucinations during mating, however our paper is about monkeys; it makes no mention of frogs or their mating habits, and we do not see an analogy that would benefit our paper. We do not propose to make any revision to the paper in relation to this comment.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The reviewer may be asking you for a natural extension of your data that you haven't chosen to make. If this is the case, you might say something like
"Reviewer X ask for Y. Unfortunately, we feel that our data does not directly address Y, and we wish to not address this point at this time."
Alternatively, ""Reviewer X ask for Y. Our data peripherally addresses Y, and we now include discussion on this point"
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I would say option 3, but keep in mind that asking for clarification can be difficult, as miscommunication is often due to assumptions on the part of one or more party that are not shared by the other, and requests for clarification often result in responses that continue to be based on that assumption, rather than explicitly presenting the assumption so it can be challenged. For instance, if the wrong paper got sent to the reviewer, the reviewer is likely to present an explanation that assumes that you are the author of the other paper, and will continue to not make sense without that assumption. In trying to resolve the miscommunication, you'll be faced with the task of trying to get the other party to make explicit the assumptions they have made that they may not be aware they have made, or are not aware aren't shared.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Tell your reviewer that you can't understand the essence of the question because it's not related to your paper. And if they insist on your giving the answer, try to find right words, if it's possible.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Firstly, if the reviewer got the wrong idea about your paper you have to seriously consider whether you are to blame. Play devil's advocate. Did you write something in the paper that led the reviewer down the wrong path? Could you revise the manuscript to make it clearer? It is often possible for the reviewer to make a wrong suggestion which comes from a misunderstanding that you could prevent in the revised manuscript.
If that doesn't help, then you should consider using the magic words "X is beyond the scope of this work". This is a polite but firm way to refute a comment. Even better is to offer some small token, like mentioning X as a possible future work. See the example below.
>
> We thank the reviewer for the suggestion that we consider X. While it
> is an interesting suggestion, unfortunately, it is beyond the scope of
> the present work because XYZ. We have added a sentence that mentions X
> as a possible future work in the conclusion of the revised manuscript.
>
>
>
The problem with outright ignoring the comment (your option #1) or seeking a clarification (#2 and #3) is that you open a can of worms. Now there is the possibility of a big email exchange about the topic. Assuming you got "minor revisions", the revised manuscript usually only goes to the editor for the final decision. So your job is not to convince the reviewer. Your job is the convince the editor that you read the comments, you understood the comments, you took the comments seriously, and you made a reasonable response.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: In this situation, it's helpful to remember a few things:
1. Peer review is often an iterative process. You submit a manuscript, reviewers make suggestions, you improve the paper based on their suggestions, they may have additional suggestions after seeing the revised version, and so forth.
Knowing this, your goal is not to make sure that you can provide a final, unchanging response to each question or request from the reviewers. Your goal is to identify what changes will actually improve the manuscript and to make those changes, and then respectfully address the other comments. And if a reviewer's request is unclear, it's fine to state that and ask for clarification.
>
> The reviewer has asked for data on average rates over time. In context, we are unsure whether they are interested in average hatching rates or average daily velocity. If the reviewer can clarify what rates they are interested in, we are happy to provide the requested data.
>
>
>
2. Editors are often scientists as well, and they have discretion to decide whether you have adequately addressed the reviewers' concerns. They are also (generally) capable of judging whether a question is confusing or off topic.
I've had many times when a reviewer's question either didn't make any sense in context, or where the meaning and the requested change was ambiguous. In those cases, I've tried to make clear what about the question was confusing and to express a willingness to further edit the manuscript if the question can be clarified. In nearly every case, the editor has accepted the manuscript without going back to the reviewer for another round of comments.
>
> This question concerns the migratory habits of starlings, while our focuses on the feeding habits of seagulls. We are unsure how the reviewer's proposed modifications fit with the aims of the manuscript. If the reviewer can clarify the changes they would like to see, we would be happy to update the manuscript accordingly.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: 1. You kindly explain to the reviewer what they misunderstood.
2. You raise a private complain to the program chair/editor if you think it negatively impacted the reviewer's final score.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I've been working hard on research with my advisor, and he seems to be happy with my progress. I would like to get an RA position next semester.
Should I tell my advisor that I'm going to cut back a bit on my research time in order to encourage him to give me an official RA position? I've been putting in a lot of time because I want to impress him, but I also have TA responsibilities to deal with, and I've been feeling worn out.
**Edit:** Perhaps a more positive framing: This is my first year, and I feel like the pace I've set for myself is not sustainable in the long run. I want to cut back slightly on the average number of research hours I'm putting in each week. Should I be honest with my advisor about this, in hopes that it will strengthen my case for funding, or should I just slow down a bit without saying anything?<issue_comment>username_1: I suggest to tell him that the combination of TA and research is very heavy, and although you would prefer to do research you have these TA duties and ask him for advice/what your options are. This gives him the option of proposing an RA position is if he is willing and able to do so.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would just be upfront and ask for what you want. Ask if he is able to support you on an RA and tell him the reasons why you would prefer it to a TA position. Being passive aggressive is rarely well received, and this isn't much of a threat anyway as you will only be hurting yourself by focusing less on your own research.
Keep in mind as well that being an RA means that you will be working on a project for your advisor that is not necessarily your own, amounting to a similar amount of time as a TA position. So while it has advantages, you may not end up feeling like you are working less than you are now.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This seems to me a very very very bad idea. Think about it this way: What is your response going to be if the professor says: "You feel you can't keep up and need to spent less time on research? OK". What will the professor "lose" and what will you lose when (s)he says that? In short, your bargaining power is not in the amount of time you spent doing research.
The best case scenario I can come up with is that your professor responds "Awww, how cute. A student who tries to negotiate for the very first time. I will spent some time tutoring her/him on how to do that." Most of the professors I know would be (mildly) annoyed, and just say no. However, most of the professors I know do take career development of their PhD students very seriously, and if you just discuss your concerns with them, would be very willing to work with you and see if a solution can be found.
---
Response to your edit:
I would recommend discussing this openly with your advisor. A dissertation is more like a marathon than a sprint, so you should pace yourself. Helping with things like time management and finding a work tempo that is sustainable is also part of a advisors job. Not all advisors are equally good at it, but it is a legitimate topic to discuss with your advisor. Even the best advisor cannot read your mind. So if there is something bothering you, then you need to tell them. Otherwise, the advisor won't know, and thus cannot help you.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I noticed that so many field experts in different disciplines (politicians, lawyers) become part-time teachers (next to their full-time job). I'm just wondering, how does (building up) teaching experience actually help them to become more successful?<issue_comment>username_1: There are other reasons to teach besides gaining skills for an ancillary profession. Nevertheless, I'll take it that this could be a partial motivation for teaching in some cases, so I'll try to answer your question on that basis.
The discipline of teaching a specialist subject generally requires one to have a broad and detailed knowledge of the subject, with good recall of key facts and reasoning for core principles. Forcing yourself into a situation where you are expected to have this knowledge and recall it under questioning is good practice for ancillary work in that field. Most teachers learn more about their own subject in the course of preparing for and teaching that subject --- teaching a specialist subject usually gives rise to at least some issues that you have not previously considered in depth, or it gives rise to questions that you have not previously encountered in your practice of a profession.
In addition to developing better knowledge of a subject, teaching also involves practice in communicating ideas to others and defending those ideas under questioning. This is useful in any profession, but it may be particularly useful in adversarial professions such as politics and law. Teaching involves contemporaneous responses to unpredictable questions, which is a particularly useful skill in adversarial professions that require the ability to put forward an eloquent argument for a position under time pressure.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Every person have different motivations for teaching. Some reasons include
* Some people enjoy teaching (as noted by Buffy).
* Intellectually, some people find teaching to be stimulating (e.g., <NAME> as described in this [link](https://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000qV#:%7E:text=Teaching%20is%20an%20interruption%2C%20and,%27). However, as a counter point, another well known physicist, <NAME> realized later in life he did not want to teach, as noted [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer#Postwar_activities)).
* Closely related to the above point, teaching material helps people to better understand the material for research or application. Feynman talks about this in one of his books (Sorry, I don't have time to look up which one).
* Teaching can build credentials and reputation. For example, if somebody adds to their bio "I taught at *Prestigious University*" this helps them appear to be an expert in the field. Likewise, this is another reason some people write books ([e.g. this blog post](https://mattstauffer.com/blog/why-i-wrote-my-book-with-oreilly/)).
* For former politicians, teaching helps them connect to a younger generation (e.g., [this story](https://www.diverseeducation.com/faculty-staff/article/15087139/politicos-turned-professors)). This can also be a resume filler while they figure out if they want to do something else.
* If the politician or political appointee was controversial, a faculty position may be a way to put some space between themselves and their controversy and re-build their reputation (e.g. do more research on [this linked story](https://today.ttu.edu/posts/2009/07/texas-tech-profs-oppose-hiring-of-alberto-gonzales)).
* For current politicians, they may do so for any of the above reasons. For example [Mark Rutte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rutte#Personal_life) still teaches. The linked article does not include his motivation. (Thanks to [MSalters](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/20869/msalters) for the link.)
* Some more reasons, adapted upon a comment from [avid](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/183241/how-does-teaching-experience-help-field-experts-to-become-more-succesful/183247?noredirect=1#comment492623_183247)
+ Teaching allows people who may have moved into high-level positions to stay in touch with the fundamentals.
+ Teaching provides an opportunity to identify and recruit upcoming talent. Personally, I have encouraged students in my guest lectures to apply for internships I have and I have also seen faculty advertise for grad and postdoc openings during seminars and technical talks (e.g., science meetings).
+ The teacher gets an attractive compensation and support packages. The institutions benefit from being able to advertise big-name *faculty*. Personally, I have a friend who gets paid ~$10k to teach a week long summer course in his field of study at an Ivy League School and both parties like the agreement because he's done it several years.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: It's a sad thing to work very hard to gain new knowledge only to find it's impossible to share. Teaching provides feedback. You learn if your explanations work. And sometimes, just sometimes, you learn you didn't know what you thought you knew.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: **Deeper knowledge of a subject:**
I learned a heck of a lot more about differential equations by teaching the courses than I ever did by taking them. I expect that in other disciplines this is similar.
**Better technical communication skill:**
Most (almost all?) professions benefit from more skilled communication. Teaching helps build these technical communication skills. On my project, team work is so important that an engineer with good technical communication skills is often more successful than better technically qualified engineers with poor communication skills. In fact, one could argue that good communications skills are so essential for success they are a job requirement.
**Enjoyment and passion for a subject:**
A lot of us teach by answering questions in our fields of expertise on the Stack Exchange sites with no compensation. I've learned a lot of Astronomy by answering questions on that site, but that learning is a tangential benefit. I mostly just like answering questions!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: If you plan to teach something, it's not enough for you to just have an understanding of the discipline. You must have an in-depth knowledge to teach, and while you do it, you continue improving your mastery and background knowledge. Teaching also requires the individual to continue self-development. I think the answer is quite obvious.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: It is not until we try to relay our own learning to others, so to teach, that we get to fully explore how to articulate our opinions and to truly appreciate the opinions of others.
It is generally accepted that you have not mastered a martial art, until you have instructed someone else to mastery status. (technically by that definition no one can ever be a master) This same concept applies to all fields, if you only have a vague level of understanding it may be enough for you to bungle through your day to day tasks, but if you are not challenged in the field to do something else, you will not know if you can meet that challenge until it presents itself.
To instruct others is to open yourself to their criticisms and be challenged before you may need to in the field. You must formulate your arguments or instructions in ways that others can understand them, it is not enough to state facts, or recite doctrine, for many students you will have to find different ways to explain phenomena and theory. Through the journey you yourself will be challenged and forced to view the same material from different perspectives, gaining a much deeper understanding in the process.
Having teaching experience will not necessarily make you a master or successful in your field, but if you are a master of your field and have the ability to be able to teach others, then you can more easily become successful as you will increase the understanding of the team around you. With a team of people that you can effectively communicate with and can relay instructions and ideas, then together you can achieve great things, these great things will become the external measure of your success.
**You however, should judge your success based on the success of those who you have taught and inspired.**
*I couldn't find a specific article to cite, but the [Four Stages of Learning](https://www.kdplatform.com/four-stages-learning/#:%7E:text=%20The%20Four%20Stages%20of%20Learning%20%201,The%20fourth%20stage%20of%20learning%20encompasses...%20More%20) is pretty close to what I was looking for, teaching being the fifth stage*
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I've finished masters and I've worked on my independent research for few years but never published anything nor I haven't posted any of my research work in public. The reason I did not publish is that I was working on the project and now I am about to finish it.
Now, I want to apply for a PhD position related to the field I worked in. My question is, should I make my work public first (post it on arXiv and on my personal website and github) or apply to PhD group and send them a paper of my work? I've pondered over both options.
With the first option I think the advantage is that I can secure my idea and no one can steal it. I worked really hard on the idea but is there any good way to secure it, though? The disadvantage might be that no one gave me feedback on my work and a mentor will help me polish my work/paper. Also, when it comes to disseminating and publishing my work I think people will take me more seriously if my work is within a PhD group? I am also wondering what will happen if I send them my paper and then they reject my PhD application.
What's your opinion on this matter and how I can make my work more accessible to other researchers? I do not care much about publishing it if there are other ways researchers can see my work and give me feedback whether my idea is worthy.<issue_comment>username_1: First, you don't "own" ideas even when you publish them first. You are owed recognition, but people always build upon the ideas of others.
Second, the act of "stealing" ideas is quite rare, though it does occur. If you talk to people about some insight and never publish it, people will probably either build on it or rediscover it independently leaving you with, at best, a citation.
Third, if you publish incomplete work on arXiv then you are in about the same situation as in the second point. People will think about it, use it, extend it, etc. You will get a citation but not a published paper. Note that arXiv is intended for preprints of *finished* work, precisely to give other scholars early notice so they can begin to start to think about and extend the ideas.
Instead, in your situation, I would just put a section in the CV for "Work in Progress" and list the projects you have been working on. Perhaps you can use working titles of papers for this. Somewhere you can promise to provide more information if requested. Work in progress is a good thing for any scholar.
Worry a bit less about other people's potential plagiarism (yes, it does occur) and more about presenting your work honestly, including its current state. The people you come in contact with as part of an application process are probably the least likely to try to scoop you, though even that happens.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If your idea is feasibly patent-worthy, consider going that route.
If it is not all that practical, I would not worry about it at all unless dealing with dubious ethics, and in some cases probably even then.
My bigger concern would be the intellectual isolation you are in now. Even if you are very bright and work very hard, it is likely that someone not as skillful or hard-working would accomplish more by simply having more people for the job. Few would care about your results then, and the inability or unwillingness to work in a group is more of a damning quality rather than a redeeming one.
Finally, if you are able to pursue the research independently without worrying about funding - I envy you. If not, however... Publish more frequently, worry less about the ideas being stolen and more about being too slow and with nothing to show for your efforts.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student in an Applied Math program. Recently, we received our TA assignments for the next quarter. To my surprise, I was assigned to TA a graduate-level class that I had never taken before which covers material I have very little experience with. I wrote an email to the DGS to ask if this was a mistake and if I could maybe switch to another class I'd be more comfortable with TAing, but he responded that the department currently has a TA shortage and some graduate students have been assigned to TA courses that they have not taken before. He also mentioned that all TA assignments are final.
So it seems like I'm stuck TAing a class with material I have little knowledge of, and I'm really nervous about the upcoming quarter. I do not think I'm going to be very helpful to the students in this class unless I put in a lot of effort to learn the material and spend way more hours than we're supposed to be spending on TAing each week. I am also not confident in my abilities to correctly grade assignments, but I suppose this will be something I need to discuss with the instructor. Does anyone have any advice for someone in my situation? Should I escalate this to someone higher or just accept that I will have to TA this class?<issue_comment>username_1: It's likely they felt a Ph.D. student should be able handle most any reasonably standard undergraduate course, regardless of whether the student had actually taken the course. Maybe you could try to find someone TA'ing a course they are also not comfortable with, but you would be, and see if you can switch courses with them. I don't see how the DGS could object to this, as it would not affect the issues the DGS is concerned with. [DGS = Director of Graduate Studies? Doesn't really matter here, I suppose.]
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, discuss the duties with the instructor. For some TAs the work might only include grading according to a rubric provided by the professor, which should be do-able. If you have to lead small groups, however, you need to be more creative. In particular, don't present yourself as the source of all answers, but perhaps, the organizer of discussions.
You may actually need to attend the course lectures to make a good go of this, but that isn't necessarily unusual. You will certainly be expected to review course materials.
But, I asked a question on another site here and the answers given may help, though it was directed at instructors, not TAs: [How do you teach something when you don't know it yourself?](https://cseducators.stackexchange.com/q/4379/1293).
As a professor (hopefully in your future) you will occasionally be put in such a situation. If you are honest with the students (and your instructor) you can come out ok.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: I would just try to connect with the instructor as soon as possible and be honest with them about your concerns. I'm sure they have dealt with having TAs that haven't taken the course before and so they will have a good feel for if you will be able to "survive" or not and what you might need to do to prepare.
I was in a similar situation and ended up being ok without it taking more than my 20 hrs per week I was supposed to be working on it because the instructor had good grading rubrics, I could typically just tell students if I didn't know an answer and research it and get back to them, and for the discussions, like username_2 said, I was really just as a facilitator and not there to give the students the answers.
Connecting with the instructor as soon as you can will hopefully remove some of this stress and worry! Also, you likely are qualified to teach it...you are a PhD student in the department!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I was expected to be a professor of courses I had never taken. Needless to say, it didn't go particularly well. During the interview, one professor promised to help me. From my POV, that didn't actually happen.
In any event, sometimes as a TA, all I had to do was grade homework. On the other extreme, the TA can do everything, with only minimal supervising by the professor. So find out which is your situation.
As others have said or implied, probably, you will need to attend the course lectures, study the materials, and learn the course work. (See other answers and also comments on this page.)
Depending on your POV, this could be a positive learning experience!
Most PhD's are expected to do self-teaching at some point, but staying ahead of the curve while learning a course you are teaching IS a very real challenge!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Your TA position is for X hours a week. The professional thing to do when you are given a work assignment, even one you feel unqualified for, is to enthusiastically say you will do whatever is needed to perform the assignment competently, including spending time acquiring the skills and knowledge needed for the assignment, within the limitation of X hours a week. If you have a concern that that won’t be enough, express it clearly and let the people making the decisions make whatever decision they want to make in such a situation. Since you have documented your concern, they will also be the ones responsible if any problems arise later.
I suggest sending the DGS an email along the following lines:
>
> Dear [name of DGS] (cc [name of course instructor]),
>
>
> Thanks for your reply. I understand that my assignment is to TA the underwater basket-weaving class, and that you are unable to grant my request for an alternative assignment.
>
>
> To be clear, I am excited about this opportunity to broaden my mathematical horizons, and will do my best to perform this assignment within the X hours a week allocated to my TA position.
>
>
> However, to reiterate the concern I expressed earlier, I estimate that because of my lack of familiarity with the course material, it will take me about Y hours a week just to learn the course material at the level needed to competently work on TA duties like grading. I am concerned that this won’t leave enough time to actually finish those duties, which might create an awkward situation for [course instructor]. However, as I said, I will try my best in any case.
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> weighted sum
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: You write that the course is an upper level/PhD course.
You should check how much work you will have (esp. homework) with your professor, but in my experience with undergraduate courses, the higher the level of course the less the TA has to do.
The low level, introductory type courses are usually huge and packed with students from other majors who have no particular love of math and maybe not even much math background. That's a lot of homework that needs to be graded and a lot of students who need a lot of individual help (and often a large number of students who specifically do *not* want to be taking the class and can be very trying about it).
By the time you get to upper level classes, particularly in math after the first proofs class, all of the students have specifically chosen to be there and are at least somewhat proficient in what they're doing. The class sizes are usually a lot smaller, as well, so less homework (although homework can be more complex/nuanced).
In a PhD course that may not entirely hold, there may be some students coming from a non-math background who need more help, but they have at least chosen to be in that class and are willing participants.
Often all the help students really need is someone to talk calmly and provide very generic guidance. I got a lot of mileage out of phrases like, "I don't know, but can you explain what you're trying to do and I'll see if I can figure it out..." It's a sort of mathematical Socratic method (/rubber duck debugging, etc.) where there's a pretty good chance that by explaining the problem well enough they will figure out the answer on their own.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: There's at least one *advantage* to teaching a subject you aren't yet familiar with. When teaching a subject in which you're already an expert, it's hard to judge how difficult various topics are to someone who's learning it for the first time (especially for those topics that are exceedingly difficult right up until you "get it", after which they're trivial). But if you just learned the material yourself, you have an idea of what parts might give students trouble (admittedly, you know this from a sample size of 1, but it's better than nothing.)
And you may be overestimating just how much extra time it takes to teach yourself the material: a lot of what you need to do to teach yourself can be reused to teach the students.
I was once called on to TA a topic in which I had very limited experience (for first year grad students, if recollection serves), and had to take the approach of teaching it to myself and staying a week ahead of the students. Each week, I would teach myself the material, and then to verify that I understood the material, I designed toy problems that I could solve using the newly acquired knowledge. By writing programs to solve these problems, I had...
1. ...verified that I did, in fact, understand the topic at least *reasonably* well.
2. ...designed a set of problems that test the material. Thus, I could create homework assignments merely by writing out the problem specifications more formally (and I knew for a fact that someone who just learned the material last week is capable of doing these assignments, because I just did exactly that).
3. ...written a set of tests and sample solutions for each assignment, which is prep-work I'd need to do for grading anyway.
So all that was left to do was answer questions (and the material was certainly fresh in my mind) and grade assignments. All in all, it didn't take *that* much more time than any other course I hadn't TAed before would have. Some adjustment to this approach will be necessary, based on the specifics of the course, but for applied math, something similar should be practical.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: First of all note that this is a *labor* issue. You are an employee of the university, given a certain work assignment which you are unable to properly fulfill, but expected to do so anyway. Even though the university cloaks it it the garb of "student" affairs.
Secondly, note that the university is linking your being a PhD candidate - a junior researcher - with teaching, to the extent that the junior researchers are, as they see it, obliged to teach whatever the university/department deems it necessary for them to teach. This is not problematic in itself - assuming you're not required to teach things you are not academically mal-equipped to teach; and provided your entire activity as a PhD candidate - research + teaching + administrative duties etc. - is considered altogether as your breadth of employment. In a typical US university, that is not, unfortunately, the case.
So now that we've established the scenario, the question becomes: What is a semi-uncrecognized, disenfranchised, employee for a large (academic) institution to do when demanded to perform tasks s/he cannot properly perform?
Unfortunately, many junior researchers bow their head down, swallow their pride and try to teach / TA the course as best they can. The result is a reinforcement of their collective servility, a deterioration in teaching quality, and indirectly also a push-down of employment conditions, since the university, when faced with lacking of qualified teaching staff, is under no pressure to offer better employment conditions so as to be able to recruit (especially on short notice).
Now, what I would like to be able to tell you is: Go see your academic staff union representative. The union should be raising hell on this kind of demand, calling out that DGS and threatening both collective action and initiating academic-disciplinary procedures against that DGS.
However, most US universities are not unionized, and even if yours was - the fact that this can happen means that the union is weak or co-opted (or both). So, what you should *really* focus on doing is **unionize junior academic staff at your university**. I know that is a tall order, and certainly it is not a matter for a single individual, but it is an absolutely necessity, and such struggles do succeed when carried out consistently.
Lacking a union - you need to find an officer or an organization which would be interested in putting **counter-pressure on that DGS**. Options could be:
* The instructor in charge of the course.
* The university's student union, or more specifically its departmental officers/representatives.
* Your advisor.
* Some Dean or vice-Dean in charge of teaching, as opposed to graduate studies.
* A senior tenured professor whom you have a close relationship with.
* Your cohort of junior researchers at the department.
These were not listed in order. The question of who to approach depends on your relationship with them, your assessment of their interest and willingness to act on this matter, their backbone, their ability to withstand pressure etc.
About the last option - it is the most relevant if there are *multiple* junior researchers who have been met with this demand. **Try to locate a group of people in the same predicament**. You would be amazed at the difference in effect of even 3-4 people coming to see the DGS together, to explain how they cannot ethically teach courses in material they are themselves not fluent in, relative to a single person coming to complain or ask for leniency. It would be even more powerful if that group could get a few more PhD candidates to tag along, fill up the DGS' room, and look seriously dissatisfied.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: As part of my PhD studies, I re-discovered a bunch of areas in physics that I thought I knew or thought I did not know.
All this thanks to teaching - that was a **wonderful** experience.
You can rest assured that you will always have that one weird student who already knows more than you on a topic. If you are lucky they will just go though. If you are lucky they will come to you directly during open hours to address a problem you have no idea how to address but at least you suffer alone.
And then if you are not lucky they will ask the question during your course and you will have to do some belly dancing to get out of that difficult situation. The experience is invaluable for your future career.
Oh, how much I miss teaching! (I am in the industry now and teaching was the best exerice I got from academia).
---
Anecdote time: I was asked a question during my PhD defence, from the public. The sociologically impaired asker asked something of which I understood all the words, but not when they were all together in one sentence. My shirt got wet from the sweat and I had to say I have no idea. The president of the jury sighted into the microphone and said
>
> *This is very sad, Mr username_9, that a PhD candidate does not know this. I am disappointed.*
>
> *Dr IdiotWhoAsksSuchQuestionsDuringADefense, please explain to Mr username_9 the answer*
>
>
>
To what Dr IdiotWhoAsksSuchQuestionsDuringADefense said
>
> *ah, I do not know, I though he would*
>
>
>
The room was roaring with laughter and I finally got my PhD (that was one of the most crazy defenses in our department, but this is a story for another time. It involves mud, tongs, a wandering magnifying glass and the words *fucking notes* said in the microphone)
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: I did a virtual campus visit interview for tenure track assistant professor positions in an R1 university in the U.S. I think that I aced a job talk and was good with one-to-one faculty interviews. My supervisor told me that they had not reached out to him for a letter of recommendation even before the campus visit (They requested only a list of three referee contact information at application). It is a bad sign?
My supervisor said that this is not any sign, but the dean emailed and said they hope to finalize the decision in two weeks, and now it is over two weeks, which worries me. This is my dream job. I will wait for one extra week and am thinking of emailing them after then. Does some university hire a junior faculty without reaching out to references?<issue_comment>username_1: Hiring practices can vary widely by departments. In my experience hiring in industry, generally no news is good news. Though a bit of a tautology, the idea that "you are not rejected until they reject you" holds here. I don't think not asking for references is therefore a bad sign.
Even the claim that they want to get things done in two weeks (and more time passing since with no news) is not necessarily a deal-breaker. Often, people involved in hiring underestimate the red-tape and admin issues. Delays are common.
My guess is that you are still a candidate, but you may not be the top candidate. Since you were given some semblance of an expectation (two weeks), it's not unreasonable to write with a brief follow-up restating your interest in the position and asking if you can provide any further information. I don't know if it'll make a difference, but it's possible you will get more information. If you get another offer, also let them know.
Beyond this, there is little you can do besides wait. Perhaps do some things to take your mind off the stress, too.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Let's consider only academic positions within US higher ed.
The administrative requirements vary on what documents must be in place at any given time during a hiring process for an academic position. At a minimum, all paperwork requested in the job advertisement must be on file before any negotiations can begin on a formal letter of offer. This typically includes the CV, transcripts, and letters of recommendation (LoRs) as well as teaching, research, and possibly diversity statements. Colleges or departments are generally at liberty to put their own spin on what documents have to be in place in advance. With regard to LoRs, one position may require these to be on file before they even set up a virtual interview, another may only ask for them during the virtual interview, and another may ask for them by example only on the top three candidates after conducting a virtual interview with ten applicants.
Federal hiring guidelines restrict that colleges or departments are not permitted to request any additional documents that are not officially or indirectly required by the publicly posted job advertisement. What is an example of an indirect requirement for documents? Suppose a job advertisement states that a PhD in field XYZ is required, but the advertisement also does not directly ask for transcripts as part of the application file. Be assured with this language that you may (and likely will) be asked later to submit graduate transcripts to prove that you have a PhD in field XYZ before any negotiations will be initiated with you on a potential offer.
Until the position is filled, the standard reply to any request by an applicant for information on their status is the equivalent of "The position is still open and processing on applications is still on-going". In other words, you will never hear that your application has been declined, only that the position has been filled or the search has been closed. By example then, a third-ranked applicant in a list of top three from ten in a virtual interview has the distinction to be on hold until after the first applicant or the second applicant either accepts or declines an offer (or until a decision is made to close the search without filling the position).
Upvotes: 3
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2022/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: I was taught as an undergraduate to be very careful when using and citing reprints of older books because they were frequently edited, abridged, or even censored. I was specifically warned not to use the "For Kids" editions of Shakespeare that removed all of the sex jokes and that failure to use the "real" versions would be punishable by ~~catapult~~ significant grade reduction if caught.
It occurred to me that I've never heard of censored editions of journals or articles cropping up. Are they a thing in academia at all? I did find a [mention](https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/06/02/political-censorship-in-academic-journals-sets-a-dangerous-new-precedent/) of journals choosing to censor *themselves* for political reasons, but I'm looking for cases where there are both censored and non-censored editions of a journal or article floating around. For example, I can imagine a "China Edition" of a geology journal in which "soil samples from Taiwan" has been edited into "soil samples from the Taiwan province of China" and in which a certain political dissident has been removed from the authors list. Similarly, I can imagine alternate editions of an educational research article in which literacy test scores in Crimea are alternately aggregated into Russian or Ukrainian statistics.
Do examples of censored journal publications exist, where there are both censored and non-censored versions floating around libraries and labs around the world and where knowing which one you have obtained a copy of might be important?
Cases such as the one I linked above, where a journal chooses to *only* publish a censored version of research everywhere in the world, do not count. Only cases where there are both censored and uncensored versions floating around (probably in different countries) count.
In response to Anonymous Physicist, I am asking specifically whether "censored alternative journals" exist in cases where a government (or university, faculty association, angry armed mob, etc.) would otherwise completely ban academic publications for political reasons. Such "alternative" journals would have omissions, additions, or changes to conform the research to political expectations (e.g. don't mention the human rights abuses happening in X City or don't acknowledge the scientific contributions of Y Persona Non Grata) while trying to preserve as much of the scientific message as possible.<issue_comment>username_1: Mostly no. People who want censorship are interested in popular movies and music. They subscribe to things like Christian movie streaming sites. They do not read scientific journals.
In countries where [large portions of the internet are blocked](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/133984/alternative-to-google-scholar-in-china), that includes academic journals and means of locating them. But there are not censored alternative journals.
The internet has defeated most forms of censorship that impact academics who know how to use a VPN.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Presumably a censored version of an academic article would only constitute a separate "edition" if a non-censored version has also been published. After all, if the only version of the article is the one where the censorship has occurred then that is the definitive article, and anything else is just a draft copy. Consequently, if you are looking for cases of censored versions of articles, I'd look for cases where there is a published pre-print of an article that looks different to the version in the academic journal. Draft pre-prints are a common practice in academia (e.g., on pre-print servers, university webpages, personal webpages, etc.), but I'm not aware of any instances where there are separate editions of entire academic journals containing earlier pre-prints or different versions of the articles. So no, there are not any non-censored versions of academic journals, but there are servers containing pre-prints and earlier versions of articles.
If you are trying to identify earlier non-censored versions of academic articles, you will need to go back and look at pre-print versions or other published drafts and compare them on a case-by-case basis. One complication in considering this topic is that there are some parallels between conventional ceonsorship and the peer-review process for publication. In both cases the author submits their work to a gatekeeper who makes a determination on whether the work can be published in its current form (the distinction here being that a censor determines whether the work can be published *at all* whereas the peer-review process only determines whether the work can be published in academic journals). The gatekeeper makes an assessment of what authors can and cannot validly assert in their articles. Consequently, if one were to draw a broad meaning of the concept (which would be consistent with your contextual usage), one might argue that *any* instance of a peer-reviewed publication that differs from a pre-print version is a kind of "censored edition" of the article.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: My MSc advisor gave me an idea that was already done and was not expecting me to add anything new but I found new insights, he was not convinced, he never helped or gave me motivation but, I continued anyway and wrote a paper, presented it at a conference, and gained positive feedback and I will publish it but now he changed his mind and want to put his name on the paper!
Is it even ethical to do that?<issue_comment>username_1: What is ethical and what is possible might differ here. Given your description it was probably improper for him to ask. Perhaps not, depending on how "mature" the idea was when you got it.
But telling you to, for example, read a paper for insight isn't a real contribution to the resulting paper you wrote.
But it is often a career killer to go against your advisor in such things. If you are beyond his control the decision is yours alone, but if he is in a position to hinder your career you might have accept it. And move on ASAP. Tread carefully until you escape.
---
I've assumed you aren't in a field in which advisors are always added no matter the contribution or lack.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It might not be ethical, but it might be common practice and the expected behahiour in your team/lab/department/college/university. There are many unknowns here and it's difficult to give a specific, applicable response. Nevertheless, here are some things that you might want to consider:
1. If you go ahead and publish alone over your adviser's instruction, there is the possibility that the adviser will write to the journal and contest the authorship of your work. Then it gets really messy. For example, visit COPE's database, which is full of case studies. I searched on the key word "supervisor" and came up with some interested parallels:
<https://publicationethics.org/guidance/Case?t=supervisor&sort=score>
2. There might be other, less direct costs to you and your future career if you proceed against your adviser's instructions. You need to weigh this yourself. For example, any future association with your adviser will have this hanging over it. This may or may not be relevant to you. For example, you might be moving on to a corporate job and not heading to academia.
3. Whatever you choose to do, you need to be able to live with the consequences of your actions and your sense of integrity and fairness. If your personal ethical stance is one of moral absolutism, then your path is clear. If it isn't then what parts of the context or consequences are bothersome to you?
4. I would be careful about broad statements like "he never helped or gave me motivation". Your supervisor will probably have a different view on this. I'm not saying that it's not true. I'm saying that it's very hard to provide evidence of absence.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: All of the items on my application for a postdoc position was completed around 2 weeks ago. The prospective PI told me he will take a look over everything and gets back to me in a day or two, he did not get back to me and I sent a follow up email, he replied very quickly with a nice message and said he could not take a look and I should remind him again on the weekend. I reminded him over the weekend and he got back to the Monday afterwards, he again sent a nice message and apologized and said he still could not take a look but he will do it today or tomorrow, but it did not happen. I again send a follow up email on Thursday and he replied to me quickly and said he is just left behind and he needs to take a look over everything just one more time and that he will do it the same day, however he did not get back to me. How should I navigate this situation? Is this good sign or a bad sign? Any tips on how to follow up? Thank you!<issue_comment>username_1: My guess is that he is just incredibly busy. I'd suggest you be patient for a bit. Don't give up on other opportunities and he should respond in time.
However, also take a look at what this might mean for the long run. Being very busy can be good or bad. Sometimes it implies productivity which can benefit you.
But unless you have a reason to need to know quickly, let it go for a bit.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In certain points in the academic calendar, my own respinsibilities and priorities are this heavy. I have every intention of reviewing an application, but other things get in the way. Sometimes, I don't even have time to write an email, eat a meal or even sleep!
Trying to read signs in situations like this is no better than reading tea leaves -- you will see what you see. Until you receive a final answer, I suggest taking the PI's message at face value and send a follow-up email. It doesn't have to be long or circuitous:
>
> Hello, Dr X. I contacted you yesterday about my application. You
> responded by asking me to check in today. I was wondering whether
> there was any progress.
>
>
>
That the PI didn't respond to your last email might be due to several factors, not all of which are related to your application. In that case, I would write something like
>
> Hello, Dr X. I didn't receive a reply from you and wanted to check
> that you received my email about reviewing my application for position
> yyyyy. I'm still interested in the position and will wait patiently
> for your reply.
>
>
>
Good luck.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> and I should remind him again on the weekend.
>
>
>
Huge red flag, potential PI is a person that think he will do *whatever unrealistic goal of the week* by Friday noon, then understands they will not manage, so why not extend the working days to the weekend (just for this one time, of course ... which translates to "hey, sometimes I work on the weekend, but I care for my personal wellbeing and I do so only once per week!").
Potential PI is putting his/her own free-time below your anxiety for getting considered for a Postdoc position ... 3 months working with they and they would unconsciounsly expect the same from you.
Do not follow up, let the process go on its own, my reccomendation is to consider any submitted application to job/academic position/research grants as rejected unless proven contrary ... I know that statistically I am right, plus it will leave you constantly thinking for a realistic plan B/C/D/.../Z which is the only sane thing to do in an high-risk (in terms of opportunities and satisfaction) working environment as the academia.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: The question **is** pretty vague, of course. But what I'm trying to get is if that has some influence at all.
To put it into perspective: I'm a Physics undergrad student at University of Campinas, which is, undoubtely, alongside University of São Paulo, the top university at Brazil, likewise South America.
I personally don't really care about rankings, but those are obviously not high-ranked unis **worldwide**, which is not difficult to understand, and a good example of how rankings don't tell you much of the story. It's not even designed to serve such purpose, so, yeah.
What I want to understand is how the academy at US/Europe, or other generally good unis alongside the world look at these ones I've quoted, in the sense of, how much that would influentiate a student's *curriculum*, if he was trying to get into a undergraduate, graduate, masters, PhD (and so on) education. Does it count for much?
Using me as a general example, I would guess that the fact that I'm a South American who probably wouldn't even have the money to go live in another continent at the time I was getting out of HS should be taken to consideration. And, of course, it's not particularly easy to get and stay in those unis that I've cited.
Naturally, the student's grades, projects, or anything intelectually, and maybe academically valuable is probably what matters the most. But this question is focused on the *university* itself.
That's pretty much it, any honest (and substantiated) response will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: In general, it helps a lot (**Edit:** at least in the US, and I suspect for at least parts of Europe too). Why? What do we try to assess in admissions: your preparation and your likelihood of success. For this, your university record and letters of recommendation are key.
If you are getting great grades in advanced-sounding classes, but from a university nobody has heard of, we won't know how to evaluate the rigour of the program and your preparation. But if it's one of the top universities in your country, then your transcript will mean a lot more.
Similarly, if you are getting recommendations from strong researchers, especially those who are familiar with research universities in North American and Europe (and this is much more likely to be true of professors at top schools), the letters will have much more weight.
The main problems I have in evaluating many foreign applications are no one on the committee knowing how to interpret transcripts (in my department, there are people can interpret transcripts from top universities in South America) and reading letters that are not very helpful (many faculty at non-research-intensive schools in many countries do not know how to write letters for US grad schools).
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: If you do well at a top school and your professors will put their reputations on the line to affirm it then it is a plus. But if you are a mediocre student at a top school you won't get any benefit at all.
What you do dominates where you do it. Just make sure that your accomplishments are known to the faculty and that they are willing to write good letters on your behalf (probably more important in US than elsewhere).
For two students with equal records, one from a "top" place and the other from a more modest institution, there will be a small benefit, but other things could easily dominate that bit of a boost.
This was long ago, but I went to a small, not especially highly ranked, place for undergraduate studies. There was a small faculty in math who didn't do a lot of research. But I was invited to doctoral study at an R1 university due to a conversation between department heads. I doubt that happens any more, but I worked hard and had a good, but not perfect, record. Had I gone to, say, Yale as an undergrad it wouldn't have made much of any different, I think.
However, I seriously (seriously) doubt that having studied in South America will be any disadvantage. Academia is global in these times. Do good work. Get local recognition for it.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am marking an exam for a course I tutor. One student has given two answers for a particular question in the exam – one answer is fully correct, while the other is completely wrong.
Each answer has full working and explanation of how the answers were derived. It appears that the student wasn't sure which method they should use, and so hedged their bets by attempting both and hoping one of them was right. (The student presented their answer as "it is either X or Y", and in later questions gave parallel answers depending on whether X or Y was correct - I don't believe it was reworking that they forgot to cross out.)
How should I mark this question?
* Full marks since they produced a right answer?
* Partial marks because they are "half-right"?
* Or no marks because they haven't demonstrated full understanding of the problem?<issue_comment>username_1: Sounds like the student has demonstrated partial mastery of the material: they were unable to select the correct method but were able to correctly apply the method once selected. So, absent other information, partial credit seems appropriate. The amount of partial credit to give will depend on the relative difficulty and importance of method selection vs. method implementation.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The wrong thing to do is give full credits. Imagine a much simpler question that can be answered with *yes* or *no*, with a student providing both those answers. In such a case, I would not award any points.
Answering a question correctly does include choosing a correct way to do it. The student clearly failed at that. It is not fair to others who chose one way to solve the problem they deemed to be the right one (and ended up chosing the wrong one). If the student had chosen the wrong answer out of the two, they would have been awarded no points. To not be able to chose the right answer shows an inability to solve the problem at hand, so it would be completely OK to not give any points.
Otherwise it is an incentive to just write down any possible answer that comes to mind in the future (for questions where the student is unsure about), hoping that because the right answer might be somewhere among them, they will get at least some points.
But no matter what you do, I think it is a good idea to present your suggested way of dealing with it to your professor as Roland suggested, asking if they agree.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: There is another option: Always grade the first answer (excluding those crossed out) and ignore any of the subsequent ones. Ideally it should be announced as a consistent policy beforehand. It can sometimes be hard on the student, but it really drives home the point of giving just one answer. It also avoids quite a bit of discussion.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As a student, sometimes I notice at the end of the exam that I still have time and try to redo a task that I believe I have done wrong. Or do it in a different way to be certain. Of course it is usually expected that students clearly mark which answer is supposed to be graded, but I do not think it is fair to, as other answers suggest, assume by default the stance of "this student wanted to cheat the system by providing multiple answers".
If the goal of the question was to see whether a student is able to find the correct answer, then the student managed this and deserves full points - perhaps minus a few as a gesture that they should in the future clearly mark which answer is correct.
If the goal of the question was to see whether the student is able to choose the correct approach among of few, and from their solutions it is not obvious (to them) which one must have been the correct one, it is not as clear and I would understand deduction of points. However, keep in mind that you generally don't want to punish students for writing down more - you want them to demonstrate what they know, after all. And in my opinion having one correct answer and one wrong answer is still better than having only a wrong answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: **Edit:** *OP edited the question to clarify the situation, and with the edit it looks like the scenario I’m proposing below is not what happened. So my answer is no longer applicable. I’m leaving the answer up rather than deleting it, since it may be applicable in other cases that are of interest to future readers of the thread.*
---
>
> It appears that the student wasn't sure which method they should use, and so hedged their bets by attempting both and hoping one of them was right.
>
>
>
This is a possible explanation for what happened, but not the only one. The student might have written the wrong answer first, and proceeded to solve other questions in the exam. Later in the exam they might have suddenly understood what the correct solution is and written it down. In their haste (and because of nervousness, time pressure, sloppiness, or some combination of those things) they forgot to cross out the previous, incorrect solution.
If you think such an interpretation is not unlikely, giving full or almost full points is something to consider. Think of it as a case when you’ll be applying the [principle of charity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity).
Note also that I’m only suggesting this course of action because the correct answer includes a full explanation of its reasoning. Awarding full points to someone who wrote multiple answers without at least one of them having a full and correct reasoning would be wrong, among other reasons since it would give an incentive to students to try to game your exams by trying to make multiple stabs at guessing the answer without having any understanding of the material you’re asking about.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: Not an answer, but too long for a comment.
In the best of circumstances the student will provide an explicit meta answer too, something like
>
> I can solve this problem two different ways. Here they are. Since the
> conclusions disagree, they can't both be right. I am pretty sure the
> first one is, because ... but I can't quite see where I might have
> gone wrong in the second.
>
>
>
I would award extra points for an answer like that.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: Such things need to be clarified beforehand. Now you need to read the grading rules in detail, apply what is applicable, and probably do so in favor of the student.
For the next time, you should add a rule about this. A common rule is:
>
> When more than one answer is given, the answers are not graded. Please make clear, e.g., by striking out the other answer, which answer should be graded."
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: I was in this situation before, on the student side. I had time left after finishing the exam and I re-worked a problem that I had trouble with. In my excitement over solving it the second time around, I forgot to indicate which solution was my official answer. My professor called me over after the next class session and said something along the lines of "it looks like there's two different sets of work here. Was that intentional? Or am I reading this completely wrong?" After a brief facepalm moment, I explained what happened and indicated which version was intended to be my official answer. He didn't dock me any points for the confusion.
The professor was certainly under no obligation to do any of that, but as the student I really appreciated his effort to ensure my score was a reflection of my understanding of the material and not of my ability to draw a big "X" over old work. I suspect that he wouldn't have been as generous if I wasn't able to instantly indicate which answer to use (someone trying to game the system wouldn't have an answer for that question and would likely pause to think before responding).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_9: In this situation the only question for me would be to see if the student is being sneaky by putting in both answers or if they genuinely are unsure which one is correct. This can be judged by talking to the student usually. In the former case marks must be deducted (50% maybe) because the grading is supposed to reflect what the student has learned and they clearly haven't.
In the later case I'd give full marks because trying things shouldn't be penalized.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I will first look the matter from the Student's side and hence I will give full credit for the correct answer. Regarding the wrong answer, I will be still happy for the wrong answer because the student is developing his/her analytic power to give a different argument, in other word, the student is trying to be creative. He might be wrong somewhere which led him/her to an astray but I will praise it. There can be multiple reasons as well behind the two answers. It might be that the student wanted to impress the tutor with two different argument of the same question. But I can not presume. So I will go for the student.
So I will give full marks to enhance and motivate the student.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_11: I would not give many points to the student. This incentivizes guessing and just putting multiple answers.
Extreme case: Calculate 2+3
Student answers: 5, 6
Now, if the student gets many points for that, they might start guessing entirely and provide ansers like 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and hope that whoever grades the exam will pick the correct answer.
On the other hand you could also argue that the student answering 5, 6 has executed two different approaches of what to do with two numbers: addition and multiplication. This shows that the student masters these two techniques, but it also shows that the student did not understand the fundamental part: what is the question about?
So in your case you could give some points for successfully executing two different approaches, but I would subtract a substantial amount of points for not even understanding the question correctly.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: The wiser approach will help students to develop good habits of cleaning up their mess. In the long term the other approach leads to lower productivity for everyone including yourself. Don't give full credit.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_13: If the exam was "you are in front of a fire, what do you do to extinguish it?"
What mark would you give to someone answering:
* I put some fuel on the left side of the fire and I put some water on the right side of the fire.
?
You have a student that provided two answers and could not decide which one was wrong and which one was right ... so for what it matters, the student did not understand anything about the question, because in their mind both answers could have been correct.
After your comments, I am still thinking you could have awarded full marking for giving only the correct solution ("I throw water to extinguish the fire"), some marking for the correctly motivated wrong solution ("I throw fuel on the fire so it burns quickly and it exhausts the oxygen available in the sealed room where it happened") and still no points for both.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_14: Between the bounds
==================
If the student was clearly unsure, then:
* Lower bound is whatever they'd get for selecting the incorrect method but otherwise showing correct workings, etc: ideally they should get more than that, unless there's a very strict existing rule for "only first answer counts".
* Upper bound is whatever they'd have got for using only the correct method; they should get less than that.
* Either way, subsequent questions' grades shouldn't be affected by using the incorrect values from this question: any penalty should be applied only once.
Rubric suggestion
=================
S - any score for "showing workings" or other stylistic points. A base value that is given even with an incorrect selection of methodology, so long as they show good workings for *some* methodology.
C - any score for giving the correct answer. S + C should be the total points for this question.
N - number of guesses.
P - Problem space untouched by their guesses. Assume a value of 1 for now (very large problem space).
The rubric would then be S + P(C/N).
In the degenerate case where there are no style points to be had, P is 1, and they made only two guesses, you'd give 50%. They're not "entirely wrong", even if the wrong answer was the first; but they're not "entirely right" either.
P is, more correctly, the portion of incorrect problem space left untouched by their guesses. For large problem-spaces like "what method should you use for this question?" you can treat it as 1. But in a multiple choice question of A/B/C/D, with A correct, the incorrect problem-space is only three items long, B/C/D. So if they guess "A or B", this would use a third of the incorrect problem-space, giving P=2/3, for a total P(C/N) score of only 33%. And if they guess both possible answers in a true/false question, then P=0, so they get 0%.
Alternative possibility
=======================
It is possible, however, that by writing "it is either X or Y", the student was instead asserting "the question does not give sufficient information to select between these two approaches, both of which could be considered valid depending how you read the question."
If that might be a valid opinion about the question (if the question *could* be read so that the incorrect case *might* apply) then you'd most likely need to award full marks, *plus* extra credit for being the only one to spot that.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: I think the second answer should be seen as a correction of the first, so the **second answer replaces** or overrides the first, and only the **second answer is graded.**
A simplified example, in an oral conversation:
Question: "What is 40 plus 30?"
Answer: **"That is 80. Oh, wait, that is 70!"**
or just:
Answer: "80 [2 seconds pass] 70."
This assumes that there is no feedback from the asking person, like body language, that could indicate that the first answer was wrong. This is the case with a written exam.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I’m an undergrad researcher at a lab. I started to work with my mentor, a PhD candidate, last year. She was nice at the first, and I learned a lot from her. Quickly, like in 2 weeks after starting my research, I became very independent and started to do experiments and collect/analyze data without her. I work around 40 hours per week for this project. I cherished this opportunity and I made huge progress. I see a positive result, but when I tried to report some updates to our PI, she didn’t let me talk, and she just pretended she found those things instead of me.
In addition, I found out for that very long time, she just “pretended” to work and did her personal things in the lab while I was conducting our project and doing experiments.
Our project is ending, and we are probably going to have a paper. I think I deserve to be the first author, but as an undergrad I really don’t know a lot about academia. Could you give me some information to help me? Or do you have some opinions? I would appreciate it very much.
My contribution:
90% data and data analysis;
95% experiment;
20% experiment design<issue_comment>username_1: You say you don't really know a lot of academia. I think what you need to learn about it for this situation is quite simple -- good academic practices are founded on **good communication**. It may be that the PhD candidate you are working with is not particularly good at it, which is even more of a reason for you to lead by example (of good communication) in this case.
As far as I understand, you have not yet discussed the possible paper resulting from this research with your PI. **Take initiative in discussing this with your PI.** Some advice for this discussion:
* Come prepared with facts, not opinions.
So *"I designed experiments X Y and Z and contributed to the analysis by performing A B and C"* is good, but *"I became very independent"* is an opinion which you'd like your PI to reach based on the facts you present, and not something to say.
* Especially if you're unsure about academic practices, phrase things as questions.
Conventions on author order [differ from field to field](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2467/4249) -- a lot. But a practice that is/should be universally encouraged is *discussing it before work on the paper has started*. So after presenting your contributions *to date*, ask about the authorship conventions and discuss your place (and the meaning of your place) in that list.
* Remember that the work is not done -- writing is a skill.
This is the key. While discussing the authorship, ask *what should be your contributions going forward*, related to the write-up. While it seems like you have done a substantial amount of work to date, maybe your PhD student co-author can make up for some of it in the writing phase.
* Be open to the possibility that you are not correctly interpreting your contributions so far.
Being talked over is certainly not nice, as is somebody misrepresenting your work as theirs (in fact, that is called plagiarism, but that's a whole other discussion). But I still prefer to assume good intentions (while still being careful) from other people. This is why preparing for this meeting with facts about your specific contributions will help.
However, I don't know from your question whether this PhD student had separate meetings with the PI about the project. Did they contribute to conceptualising the research direction, or experiment design (maybe even before you joined?). So be prepared to listen and change your opinion about your relative contributions if new facts are presented.
Finally, there is a possibility that you take initiative, initiate good communication, however both your PI and your PhD co-author are not cooperating. Sadly, even if you deserve first authorship, while discussing it is certainly worth it, entering an argument over it isn't. Any undergrad publication is already a huge boost to your profile, regardless of where you are in the author list -- and if you can elaborate on your contributions when asked, that's how you can really shine. If *any* authorship is on the table rather than *first authorship*, and you do not believe the discussion went well (i.e. no facts were presented to convince you the other person was the primary contributor), take what you can get and look to move away from this PI in the future.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: It is the "raison d'etre" of peer review. Researchers do not have time (and might not have the facilities) to verify other's research. They rely on field experts "testing" a paper before it is published.
An academic paper offers a hypothesis with supporting evidence. So, how does a researcher identify appropriate evidence? A paper published earlier is usually part of that evidence. Selection requires testing a number of sub-questions. The provenance of the author, do they have a track record of publications in the research field is one of those questions. The presumption is that an author who has published in the field for twenty years has "more expertise" than a researcher publishing their first paper. Initial paper research is essential to test that the hypothesis is unanswered. And, this will identify the established field experts. Initially, the student is named last, they graduate, supervise their own students and rise to second name. When they hold a professorial chair, theirs is the first name. A short time span for this process suggests growing respect for their expertise. It is an effective system that reduces risk for student, department/laboratory, providers of research grants, the academic community at large.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted to a journal a manuscript that raises issues about a previous paper published before by the same journal. My submission got rejected but made no mention of our concerns about the previous paper. So I wrote to the editor to suggest that maybe they had overlooked that aspect of our paper and to ask what their policy was when claims like ours are made about a previous paper in their journal. A few days later I received an e-mail saying that an appeal had been filed and that my manuscript would be reconsidered in two weeks.
To begin with, I did not explicitly ask for an appeal to be filed (I had even prepared a submission to another journal already). What I really wanted was an acknowledgment of the issues we raised about the previous paper, and either they would look into them in more detail or they weren't convinced that our concerns are legitimate. But every e-mail I received from them was just a canned response that made no mention of the previous paper, including the one about the appeal.
So what does it mean that they filed an appeal? Is it just an automatic procedure triggered by my e-mail, with little chance of success? Or is it possible that they realized that our paper deserves a more thorough evaluation? Their generic evasive responses are driving me crazy.
Update: The journal editors discussed our manuscript and told us they would ask an external expert to evaluate it. The appeal was not just an automatic procedure.<issue_comment>username_1: Some journals welcome corrections to work they have published. I think many are automatically defensive. Perhaps the fact that your paper has generated an appeal (whatever that may be in this case) means they will actively pursue the questions you raise rather than just stick with the rejection.
I think you will have to wait and see what happens. In the meanwhile, try to manage the crazy making generic evasive responses.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Thanks for your question.
This is fairly easily answered. In the journal I help edit, the fact that you've raised an issue about a previous submission on which a final decision had been made constitutes an appeal. In this setting, an "appeal" doesn't mean that we're reviewing our decision to reject your submission, although that might be included in the discussion. What that means is that a new deputy editor has been assigned to look over the issue your raised and determine a suitable response. In my journal, the decision of this "appeal deputy editor" is then discussed by the full editorial committee in a manuscript meeting. Then, this results in a response sent to you.
I'm sorry to say that, if this had been submitted to us, you would also have received canned responses. This is because of the editorial management system that we use, which is a clunky old system called ScholarOne. To be honest, though, I don't know of any journal in my field and many others that is quite naturally (or pre-emptively) personal in their replies.
Depending on the frequency of the manuscript meetings of the journal, a suitable reply may take a while. In my journal, manuscript meetings are held twice a week and appeals are specifically resolved and communicated one or two days after the meeting. We have NEVER not addressed an application for appeal. I hope that this is not the case with your journal, too.
Good luck.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I have come across this [iGRAD-Plant](https://www.igrad-plant.hhu.de/application-igrad-plant-class-of-2022) PhD program for early career scientists in plant biology, which is a joint effort of the Heinrich Heine University, Research
Center Jülich and the Graduate Program in Genetics at Michigan State University (USA).
It is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), as [International Research Training Groups 2466
Network, exchange, and training program to understand plant resource allocation (NEXTplant)](https://www.dfg.de/en/funded_projects/current_projects_programmes/list/projectdetails/index.jsp?id=391465903&sort=nr_asc&prg=GRK). The DFG is entirely state-funded.
It differs from the usual German graduate school program, as far as I know it, in multiple ways:
1. As an early career scientist program, it allows bachelor graduates to be admitted to a PhD program.
2. It comprises of a 1-year qualification period followed by a 3-year doctoral research period. During both phases obtaining a M.Sc. is possible.
3. It denies students holding a master’s degree from entering this program.
Point 1 is unusual for the EU, but usual for the US. Gaining a M.Sc. during your PhD studies is also not uncommon in the US. However, even in the US programs, I have never seen any admission bans on master degree holders.
Stackexchange questions [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/177415/do-us-phd-programs-prefer-applicants-without-a-masters-degree) and [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/177415/do-us-phd-programs-prefer-applicants-without-a-masters-degree) suggest that having a master's degree might devalue your potential as a budding researcher. Earning multiple PhDs is also not commonplace in Europe, with most PhD programs excluding any PhD holders.
In this program aimed at young researchers with greater potential, the opportunity to start a PhD program as a bachelor graduate is already quite uncommon in Germany.
1. **Why would this PhD training program explicitly exclude master degree holders from applying?**
2. **Would this be considered discriminatory against master degree holders?**
3. **Is this kind of early career scientists PhD program commonplace somewhere else in the world?**<issue_comment>username_1: This is a general answer from a US person but it attempts to give perspective on such things and some of the thinking behind them, though not from a specific German perspective.
The normal doctoral program in Germany requires a masters at entry. The aren't open to those with with only a bachelors. This turns it around.
But the general principle here is if the funding comes from a governmental agency, then they probably want it well spent and not wasted. The structure of the program likely includes those things that other students would learn within a masters and the resources for that would be wasted on those who already have those skills and that knowledge.
It may be that the program is highly structured without a lot of options, so it is open only to those who are most likely to benefit from it.
In the US, most doctoral students enter with only a bachelors. Those with a masters aren't closed out, but follow a different path and the path isn't highly structured in general. Take some advanced courses, pass qualifying exams, write a dissertation. A masters student on entry may be ready for the exams so their path is shorter from that point. But this wouldn't be possible in a highly structured program. Your point 2 suggests that there is a lot of structure.
For those with a masters in Germany, the normal path to a doctorate is still open. They just choose this as an alternative and don't want to dilute it. I suspect that it is an experiment to see how students in such a program will turn out compared to the normal path. So, the system in general, isn't discriminatory.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: A reason to exclude Master's degree holders is if the international graduate school is planned to only accept those with a Bachelor's degree as highest academic degree.
The money for this graduate schools comes from the DFG, which has a set of rules regarding what can be applied for. [This document](https://www.dfg.de/formulare/52_15/52_15_en.pdf) lists what can be applied for in the scope of the module "Research Training Group". Point 1.4 are "Qualifying Fellowships" that are limited to one year and intended to be used for those with a Bachelor's degree already (which, somewhat surprisingly, is only written in the [German version](https://www.dfg.de/formulare/52_15/52_15_de.pdf) of the document).
So in their grant/training group proposal, this module has been applied for and it got funded by the DFG. Now, money for these qualifying fellowships cannot be used for other purposes, such as financing those that have a Master's already, without the DFG agreeing to change of fund usage.
However, for everything that is applied for, there needs to be a compelling (scientific) reason for why the DFG should fund this. If they now fund a substantial number of doctoral candidates/students that already have a Master's degree, the original reason written in the grant application can easily be questioned later. This is not great when trying to get grants in the future (such as for a second funding phase of a graduate school).
Of course, they could just return some money for the DFG for unused qualifying scholarships. But if they planned the graduate school in cohorts with joint activities, the members of the training group then do not do their work in a synchronized way - some students will still be in their qualification phase, while others already started their three-year core research phase. This may interfere with the scientific concept of the graduate training group.
Finally, returning money to the DFG means that some overhead funds also need to be returned, so from the point of view of the university, they are then wasted (but the taxpayer certainly doesn't mind).
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: (I have seen multiple questions about how to share datasets in general, but none of them seems to involve the criterion of an open contributorship.)
I want to share a dataset to which *anyone should be able to contribute*.
What would be a suitable platform for such purposes?
The platform should be:
* free
* use open licenses (e.g., Creative Commons)
* render datasets citable (e.g., perhaps with a DOI & related metadata)
* allow others to contribute in a trivially easy way (e.g., a Git-based system might be too difficult for many to use)
* guarantee mid-term longevity (e.g., not based on primarily commercial considerations)
* every contribution should be made transparent (similar to GitHub)
Thus, the following are *not* suitable:
* GitHub
* ResearchGate
* Academia.edu
* Google Sheets
Now it seems that there is an overhwelming plurality of platforms that might be suitable for my purposes, such as [Zenodo](https://zenodo.org/), [Figshare](https://figshare.com/), [Dataverse](https://dataverse.org/), [Dryad](https://datadryad.org/), [OSF](https://osf.io/), institutional repositories - - but it is difficult to discern their features and to get a good overview if I haven't used any of them yet. May I thus ask you for your experiences or recommendations?<issue_comment>username_1: My suggestion: use a simple wiki for the part where people submit contributions to the dataset. There are [many systems to choose from](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software). It can be hosted on your academic website or some external provider. You (and optionally a few trusted people) can administrate it. This is important otherwise your dataset risks becoming a mess, and people will quickly stop contributing. In particular the administrators should take care of:
* Preventing any spam or irrelevant content,
* Preventing any damage/deletion,
* Ensuring the quality of the data submitted and the consistency of the format,
* Periodically releasing an official new version of the full dataset
Most wikis are easy to use, and you can have help pages explaining how to contribute. The regular release of the official dataset can be made available on one of the sites that you mention.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: If you want these two criteria:
>
> allow others to contribute (and access) in a trivially easy way
>
>
>
>
> every contribution should be made transparent
>
>
>
You need to build your own website with a custom database that suits your contributors and data quality process. Anything else will not be both transparent and easy.
Examples:
<https://icsd.products.fiz-karlsruhe.de/>
<https://oeis.org/>
If you do not care about ease of reading and writing the database, then Git is the solution you want. I would not assume any single Git hosting service will have longevity, but Git does not require you to use a host.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a [Bulgarian](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Bulgarian#Adjective) PhD student in Germany. I am Muslim, but not religious. Our group is international and most of the other students are from developed countries.
Since the day I started my PhD, there is one student (she is not German) in our group who has always made me feel bad. My country, my religion, the material I investigated was constantly being made fun of. Every time I felt inadequate and bad. I informed our advisor of her behaviour.
Our advisor told me that she would not talk to her, then said that she was very surprised, then wanted time to think. I should point out that this student behaves very well to profs in our group. If I were a prof, I might had been surprised as well.
Afterwards, our advisor may have talked to her, because she told me 'sorry', but she did it for herself.
I did not know the terms mobbing, racism, discrimination, etc. before. I learned that these are referred to as microaggression.
Despite all this, I don't feel well at all, because I was hurt, humiliated, but she was just warned.
I didn't behave bad to anyone, but it was me who was injured. I even think that I am seen as a sensitive person who causes problems by my advisor. I don't want to be seen as problem child or cry baby. This is also bad for my career.
Should I mention this at the group meeting? Or should I talk about this with my advisor?<issue_comment>username_1: You are right to be offended by this behavior. You seem to have done the right thing so far. This is a problem for your advisor/PI to fix and they may have taken the first steps.
I would avoid bringing it up in a group for the present to see how it develops. If it continues you may need to. But you can also develop friendships with others in the group (and generally) so that if the behavior continues you will have allies who can vouch for your concerns.
But making it a public issue will most likely harden those improper views, not lead to a correction. Keep your advisor informed. The attitudes may not change, but the behavior might. Some people will actually get satisfaction from pushback.
As you move from one culture to another you will find people who are extremely xenophobic and feel that they are "obviously" superior. It is best to ignore them if you can do so without it resulting in actual harm to yourself or others. You would probably find the same thing in other countries as well (the US, for example). But universities are a bit better at this than other environments.
---
And, for the record, it would also be offensive behavior if you were religious.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I recommend keeping a diary or list of every "micro-aggression." Include dates, times, and witnesses, and keep a copy of any abusive comments that are in written form. If you remember the details of any specific incidents after the apology, you can include those as well. Write down the quotes verbatim (as best as you can remember them); no need to add any comments.
Depending on what this list looks like, you can decide what to do. If there are only a few borderline comments after a few months, maybe the issue is resolved. If there are many egregious comments within a short time period, then it's worth sharing the list with your advisor.
If you do end up discussing this further with your advisor, you can simply present this list. Do not attempt to summarize or comment on the list; there is no need to use words like "micro-aggression," "mobbing," or "racism". Instead, focus on the concrete details of each specific incident. For example: "The list shows that in the past month, she has used the N-word four times, and on nine different occasions, she commented on my religion, using the words: 'A', 'B', or 'C'."
American universities are obsessed with inclusiveness. It's usually pretty hard to fire someone from a university due to interpersonal issues, but an infraction of this sort could absolutely lead to getting fired. I do not know if this aspect of academic culture is the same in Germany, but I suspect that this sort of thing would be taken quite seriously there as well. Good luck.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: The answers here are good especially as regards American academia where terms like micro aggression have taken root and are very much in. I'm not exactly sure about Germany, but Europe in general is much less understanding regarding these (real or perceived) slights. What you describe is certainly not mobbing (which would be bullying of an individual by a group) but might be racism (assuming you're a different race from the other student) or just general discrimination/xenophobia. It might also just be personal antipathy or misunderstanding of some kind.
Based on your description this is one student of a group who is being verbally insensitive to you. In Europe professors are usually not particularly used to dealing with interpersonal problems between students especially ones at the PHD level. They treat them as adults and expect them to be able to handle their interpersonal problems on their own unless the conduct very clearly violates social norms or threatens to be legally problematic. You don't actually specifically say what happened and so it's hard to judge, but given the way you describe your interaction with the professor so far, it is quite possible you have already been labeled a crybaby and/or problem student. I'm basing that more on how the professor reacted than what you did.
Now what to do about it. This depends a lot on the exact details. I strongly second the advice to find peers in the group and become friends with them. This allows you to have someone that can support you in any further confrontations and also to possibly get an opinion of someone else on what is going on and be able to shape that opinion to exert peer pressure on the student you are having problems with. Unless the violations are quite egregious I would strongly advise against bringing them up in the group or going over your advisors head. While this might work in the US I think in Europe it's still more likely to make problems for you than the other student especially since she's female and seems to be in good standing with the establishment.
As a side note I wrote this assuming you are yourself female, if you are actually male it's much more complex and much more likely to be problematic for you. In Europe males are still mostly expected to be able to deal with their own problems and shut up about it.
I realize this answer is probably not going to be very popular, but I think it's a much realistic take on the European situation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Do not bring it up in the group meeting. This will only reflect negatively on you, and puts the other people involved in a position where an open discourse about the issues is not possible.
You have taken a few steps towards mitigating the issue, and talking to your PI is certainly an option. Your PI seems to have had a chat with the person in question, and a warning is all that is possible without a diary of what happened and when.
There is one more person in your institution that I would strongly encourage you to talk to. The confidential adviser. Every university in Europe will most certainly have one. It is their job to be there for you if you encounter any type of harassment, be it from a superior, fellow PhD student, whoever else. They can provide counsel, but also advise you on how to take further steps without burning bridges.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: Evidently, your advisor has talked to her and she has apologised to you. It is not clear to me why you characterise her apology as inadequate, but if you think it's inadequate or insincere, you are certainly free to view it that way. There are two issues in tension in this kind of situation. On the one hand we want people to interact nicely with each other, particularly when working in small groups, and to that end we often want people to avoid upsetting each other in relation to sensitive topics. On the other hand, we also want people to have the freedom to voice their opinions on practices pertaining to countries, religions, etc., and to have the general academic freedom to criticise (or even mock) ideas and practices they don't agree with. University is a good place to expose students to the fact that others may be critical of their religion, their country, their research work, etc., and they should consider that criticism analytically and use it to build up a better knowledge of their own beliefs and ideas.
It is a natural reaction to feel bad when you hear criticism of something personal to you, so I don't think anyone is going to consider you a "cry-baby" for bringing it up. It's also not clear from your question how far things went, and maybe she crossed the line. Nevertheless, rather than seeing these events as an injury, I would recommend that you take the route of the open-minded-scholar and look at this criticism as a thing that you can analyse, and that can help you to understand the world better. Either you will conclude that her criticisms (e.g., of Islam) have no valid basis and reject them, or you will conclude that there is some validity in those criticisms and incorporate that knowledge into your ideas and beliefs. This is one of the benefits of a university education and the academic environment more generally --- you are exposed to ideas/arguments that run counter to your own beliefs (often on very personal subjects) and if you receive these criticisms analytically, this strengthens your understanding of your own beliefs and the world.
I have noticed that in the younger generation of students there is a tendancy to retreat from criticism of personal things and treat this as a form of abuse, rather than treating it as an opportunity to learn and strengthen your own character. When I was a student it was more common for us to have late-night "bull sessions" where students would argue passionately over all sorts of sensitive issues --- theism-vs-atheism, Christianity-versus-Buddhism, communism-vs-capitalism, criticisms and defences of this country, that country, our own country, this religion, that religion, this group, that group, etc. Sometimes you'd even play Devil's Advocate for a view you didn't agree with just to keep the conversation interesting and tease out the argument. This was usually quite interesting and it tended to hone your ability to understand and defend your own views on a topic, while also exposing you to some critiques that you could use as food-for-thought in developing your own ideals later. If we'd been beholden to the idea of "microaggressions" back then, I think a lot of that learning would have been lost.
If you decide you'd like to talk more about this, I'd encourage you to consider talking directly to this other student rather than to your group, advisor, etc. I'd also recommend that you approach it from the perspective of learning and strengthening your own knowledge. See if you can understand why this student finds your country/religion/work worthy of mockery, and subject her reasoning for this to your own logical scrutiny. You might then find that you can come up with a reasonable counter-argument (and maybe even some zingers to return fire) that gives you a strengthened knowledge of your own religion, work, etc. University years are a great time in life to do this.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: It's very hard for an adviser to deal with these things. Where I work there are people who simply don't get along. One of my group members, for example, shares an office with someone who hates him. I have no idea why, because they hated him from the first day he walked into the office. In any case, I have tried to find a solution to the conflict, I talked to both people and to my superiors and I couldn't do anything. And these aren't graduate students, they are senior researchers.
The one doing the microaggressions (or full scale aggressions whenever they are in a bad mood) is the first colleague. When I talked to them, they told me my group member was opening the office window when they wanted it shut, that they speak too loud, or they close the door too fast. I have witnessed and stopped some screaming matches and I personally believe my first colleague is at fault here. I have not gotten to the bottom of why is everything happening, though I have a few suspicions.
It's been two years since this whole thing started and both of them have reached some kind of truce. That's the best we could do within the boundaries of our workplace. The truce happened because my group member started to push back on the bullying. I have the feeling that my influence and attempts at making peace between them had very little effect on the evolution of their relationship.
I have witnessed even worse situations. One of my colleagues got bullied until she quit and sued my institute. She won. The bully was a former boss of hers. It started with microaggressions and it went on over many years, until she got fed up and reported him. The bosses did nothing because they were friends with that guy.
The microaggressions either come from insensitive people, or from people who just want to hurt you. The latter know that it's hard to prove them, and they can always say you're making stuff up. In families, in my country, this is the preferred form of war between mother in law and daughter in law. Whoever starts, eventually they both hurt each other in this way.
I personally deal with microaggressions by simply sucking it up or ignoring them. "Yeah, whatever" is my preferred answer to those. In my case, it works always. Some of my friends simply call the microaggressor out. If it really gets to us, we complain to our friends. A good venting session always helps.
In conclusion, my recommendation is to find an outlet for all that stress you accumulate when dealing with this person. Friends are the best at taking your side. Then, when your head is clear, you should think seriously about escalating the issue further.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Not detracting from any other answer, it seems to me that you should try to find additional sources of emotional support/affirmation outside your research group. That is, suppose you were back in your country, surrounded by friends and perhaps family, and some person would make derogatory comments about you. It's likely you would tell your friends this, or your spouse, or your family, and they would reply "Who does that woman think she is? Where does she get off making these comments? You know, something similar happened to me, blah blah blah" and you would have a conversation about it. But as a foreign PhD candidate, you might be mostly alone out of the workplace, or perhaps mostly interact with people with whom you're not close enough to share these things with. That increases the severity of being offended, because your research group are almost all of your "emotional surroundings".
I would also recommend some physical activity for general emotional welfare, but that's regardless of your specific circumstances.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: You were offended several times by a person within your group (ironically also a foreign student, just like you) and all you got from your supervisor was doubt and delay - and eventual extraction of a *pro forma* apology to you by the offender.
You feel that more should have been done, though you don't say what your preferred action would be. If I was in your position, I would also see the supervisor's action as inadequate: a sort of supervisor-sanctioned hypocrisy designed to save his/her own face so they may carry on without loss of confidence while silently suggesting that you were simply being overly sensitive.
Effective work groups (and this does include research groups, whatever some vain academics may otherwise think) have to communicate easily. They must also work to serve the group's objects rather than individuals' goals - and those group objects should be clearly written down and adhered to. Person to person trust is vital in this process. And this is especially so between supervisor and student.
I feel that your supervisor needs to internalize this.
It may be time that you went to your Head of Department and discussed this matter and the unconvincing behaviour of your supervisor in this.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I have an engineering degree and work in a giant business corporation. I am currently doing my MBA (in the last semester).
Sometimes the fear of not getting the degree bugs me (I have to present a thesis); maybe it will be really bad and all the effort was in vain.
How do you cope with the fear of failure? For example, fear of failing the thesis defense many times.<issue_comment>username_1: From a tactical standpoint, you want to get feedbacks from someone who can critique your thesis. During oral defense, your advisor’s role is being your advocate. So you should work with him or her to prepare for it. From the emotional perspective, having a mentor or a talk with alumni would help. Without any more details about how well you are doing academically and juggling time for work school life balance, it’s hard to offer specific advices. But as this is your last semester, the end is near.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This is something I struggled with throughout my PhD, and having a good Director of Studies and having other PhD colleagues around me made a difference. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with the so-called "impostor syndrome", but I think the key is to surround yourself with people who are supportive, are able to give you positive yet constructive feedback and who can listen to you in moments of struggle.
Something else that can help you is keeping a journal where every day or every week you write down the things you have accomplished. Doing research and being in the industry/academic sector surrounded by very successful people can sometimes feel overwhelming and make you feel small. I did this journal activity in order to force myself to see my accomplishments and it did really help. Otherwise, I always felt life got in the way and all I was able to see was the X, Y and Z that still needed to get done, and not everything else that I had managed to finish.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: As academics, professors and researchers possess a high level of subject matter expertise. However, many a times this knowledge is not accessible beyond small circles of people.
In such a scenario would academics be interested in teaching highly specific live online cohort based courses to external audiences and be monetarily rewarded for all the work that they put in?<issue_comment>username_1: That happens. Two examples of this happening are:
* Some summer schools get instructors from different universities and countries together. The instructors get some money from the summer school. This could range from a (partial) reimbursement of costs to a substantial fee, depending on who is organizing and who the intended audience is.
* Large organizations, like companies, government agencies, or international organizations have a budget for training their employees. Some hire academics to teach specific courses. This can be quite lucrative. There are agencies that specialize in bringing organization that want such courses and academics willing to teach those courses together, e.g.: <https://statisticalhorizons.com/>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally speaking, yes --- academics generally welcome opportunities to share their knowledge more widely than their formal classes, and they are also often under pressure to find external funding for their work. There are companies that offer professional training courses in government, industry, etc., and sometimes they make use of academics for this training. The financial upside for academics is not trivial, but it is certainly not "massive". In my experience, some companies pay enough to attract academics, but some provide a lower rate-of-pay than an academic salary, so they have trouble attracting academic specialists.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I've heard drug companies routinely pay physicians, including professors, substantial speaking fees.
Examples: <https://www.denverpost.com/2013/03/25/colorado-doctors-take-big-speaking-fees-from-drug-companies-data-show/>
Many professors will teach a short course for a small fee if the audience appeals to them. Many would not do it for a large fee if they did not like the sponsor and audience.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Yes they are, another example is open-source software developed by professors and their departments, there are multiple instances of courses and presentations as well as projects where the professors are the teachers or the one providing support in using the codes.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: Thank you for your question.
I want to address the issue of financial remuneration which, in your question, you suggest to be quite substantial.
This is pretty common in some academic disciplines. In others, it might be unusual.
An academic can accept fee-for-service consultancies, but they need to done within the regulations and policies of their university. Such consultancies, which may include the delivery of learning and teaching activities, is often covered by these policies. At the very least, some form of permission is usually sought from the academic's line management.
In specific cases, entering into a consultancy relationship with a specific company or industry may cause more harm than good institutionally. The classic example is receiving money from tobacco companies subsequently jeopardising access to grant funding opportunities. In these cases, there are clear institutional guidelines that the academic must obey.
The division of any "spoils" may also be under some rule. It is often very difficult, at least in my institution, for the payment to be received in whole by the academic. This is because the academic is already under salary. In most situations, nominal fees or perks may be passed off quite effectively as "reasonable expenses". For example, paying or reimbursing an academic's flights, accommodation and meals, or a small gift given at the end. In my institution, academics may also receive an honourarium, but this is capped and any excess is absorbed by the university.
Some academics have tried to get around these restrictions quite creatively. For example, one academic in my institution established a shell company and directed all payments to that company. Then, once the check cleared, she asked for personal leave and delivered the content in her own time. In this way, all the earnings were hidden from the university. Or so she thought. Once the university found out, she was fired for breach of contract, for misuse of the university name, and for misrepresentation of her status.
In the end, while a large financial inducement is quite flattering, there will probably be rules in place for this that an academic will consider and the university will certainly be involved.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I occasionally teach courses in a workshop-like settings and hugely prefer that to more "traditional" ones spanning a whole semester or two. Sometimes it could be lucrative, too - even better!
Some of these offers I still decline if I feel the organizers do it to be able to put a checkmark somewhere, with clueless and unmotivated students and my name attached to it. Or when I am simply out of capacity.
So yes, absolutely, these offers are great as long as they are made sufficiently in advance and the students care about the material at least a tiny bit.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been accepted as a doctoral student (aerospace engineering, US). The email I received suggested that I get in touch with the faculty of my interest to discuss funding and research. I did try contacting two of the professors but have not heard back.
Do you have any suggestion on how to reach out to professors for funding?
The university is my top choice and I have two more professors whose research really connects with what I want to do.<issue_comment>username_1: Potential graduate advisors get many, many emails from prospective graduate students, so it is not surprising you may not have heard back after contacting them just once.
I would suggest following up with an additional email after two weeks. Don't feel bad about following up as the worst they can say is "no, I'm not taking any students" and then at least you have an answer and you won't keep bugging them!
I would also suggest trying to contact them in a method other than email as emails can get buried in a busy inbox. Some of the best advice I got when applying to grad school (in my field you typically have to reach out and connect with potential advisors and ask about funding before applying, so I did this part first) was to send actual SNAIL MAIL letters to professors. I was told by several of these professors that I ended up connecting with that that made me stand out. You could also try calling and leaving a voicemail if they have a phone number listed on their university landing page.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Easy.
Include a greeting of choice and then something along the lines of "My name is X and I am a recently admitted student to the X PhD program."
Next, make sure you show in a material way *how* you are interested in their work. Ask a couple questions about their recent publications or briefly indicate to them your research interests (be as specific as possible) and how you think you could be a good fit for their program. Ask for a meeting to better understand what they are currently working on.
Then you could ask if they are planning to take on another graduate student in the autumn. If they don't have funding to do so, they will usually tell you right away. Often it is still worth meeting them, since they might end up on your committee.
The thing here is to show concrete understanding of their work and that you are a possible match, but keep it short. Leave the rest for a subsequent in person or zoom meeting. Presumably, if this is the structure of the program (admit first, then find a lab), they are expecting this type of email. Keep in mind that it is spring break right now for many institutions and you are unlikely to get a response during spring break week.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
|
2022/03/17
| 649
| 2,793
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a student of an Asian country who completed the 2nd year of masters last year and I am applying for PhD positions in Pure Mathematics in Europe.
I know about [this scholarship database website](https://scholarshipdb.net/scholarship-scholarships/Program-Undergraduate) which list open positions for PhDs, but I don't think that the list is complete by any means.
Can you please let me know of some websites that have a list of open PhD positions in Pure Mathematics in Europe?<issue_comment>username_1: Potential graduate advisors get many, many emails from prospective graduate students, so it is not surprising you may not have heard back after contacting them just once.
I would suggest following up with an additional email after two weeks. Don't feel bad about following up as the worst they can say is "no, I'm not taking any students" and then at least you have an answer and you won't keep bugging them!
I would also suggest trying to contact them in a method other than email as emails can get buried in a busy inbox. Some of the best advice I got when applying to grad school (in my field you typically have to reach out and connect with potential advisors and ask about funding before applying, so I did this part first) was to send actual SNAIL MAIL letters to professors. I was told by several of these professors that I ended up connecting with that that made me stand out. You could also try calling and leaving a voicemail if they have a phone number listed on their university landing page.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Easy.
Include a greeting of choice and then something along the lines of "My name is X and I am a recently admitted student to the X PhD program."
Next, make sure you show in a material way *how* you are interested in their work. Ask a couple questions about their recent publications or briefly indicate to them your research interests (be as specific as possible) and how you think you could be a good fit for their program. Ask for a meeting to better understand what they are currently working on.
Then you could ask if they are planning to take on another graduate student in the autumn. If they don't have funding to do so, they will usually tell you right away. Often it is still worth meeting them, since they might end up on your committee.
The thing here is to show concrete understanding of their work and that you are a possible match, but keep it short. Leave the rest for a subsequent in person or zoom meeting. Presumably, if this is the structure of the program (admit first, then find a lab), they are expecting this type of email. Keep in mind that it is spring break right now for many institutions and you are unlikely to get a response during spring break week.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
|
2022/03/17
| 644
| 2,807
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am teaching a class on introduction to academic research. The papers that I've written have mostly been according to a style that I "just picked up" from reading academic papers, and most of these were CS/math type affairs that involved a lot of *theory* and not much *science*.
**Is there a common formula for structuring a paper that involves collecting and analyzing data with basic intro-statistics techniques (inferences about a mean, univariate OLS regression, etc)?** Examples of well-written papers comprehensible to a broad audience illustrating these guiding principles welcome.<issue_comment>username_1: Style will depend on your their field. There is no one style across academia. In science, the most common structure is the following:
1. Introduction - what we already know and where is the gap/issue we
are addressing. The question you intend to answer and hypotheses
(if hypothesis driven) are also in this section, usually toward
the end.
2. Methods - how we collected and analysed the data,
where it came from, including statistical methods. Aka 'why you
should believe my results'.
3. Results - the output, often
statistically interpreted but not "what it means".
4. Discussion - what we think it means bringing together the intro,
methods, and results to make an argument. How it addresses the
gap/issue/questions from the introduction. If relevant, was the
hypothesis supported or not.
The complexity or simplicity of the tools used (statistical or otherwise) doesn't change the overall structure.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: For structuring the paper specifically - no, I do not believe it is the case. The overall structure of the paper is common (and described by The\_Tams), section titles themselves vary from journal to journal.
Importantly, the techniques used and statistical tools are not universal, either - in social sciences, a p-value of .05 is still considered "good enough", while in HEP a threshold of 5 sigma is the Holy Grail. This is why there is a separate course (or several!) in statistics, on what techniques to employ, how and when. Sometimes, answers to those questions get very in-depth, so it is most likely outside the scope of what you are teaching. I would even argue that a blanket "use the t-test because 87% of papers in the field do so" is actively harmful. They should be made familiar with the tools of the trade, but in more detail and most certainly not on a "how to do research" kind of course.
You could do your students a service, however, by showing them a "hands-on" approach of how would one start working on a paper in any given journal, showcasing your thought process while reading the "Information for Authors" and eventually mocking up the entire paper with some imaginary "results".
Upvotes: 0
|
2022/03/18
| 1,397
| 6,204
|
<issue_start>username_0: Many months ago I informally explained to another PhD student of my chair the main idea I was working on. Today, 6 months after, I discovered that he submitted it to a minor conference, got it accepted and published. In the meantime, I have submitted a long paper to a major journal, where this idea is one of the key components. The paper has gone through the main revision and is expected to be published in around 3 months.
In the conversation with this person it was only the two of us, and from the deadlines of the conference he applied to, I can see that his submission was before mine. In any case, I have mails with the co-authors of my paper during our work on it, that show that this idea was already fully developed many months before submission. To be exact, I have drafts of this method as early as 6 months before the conversation between the other PhD student and I.
I am worried that since I cannot prove that he took the idea from me, this could backfire in case that is a "him versus me" situation and we look at the proven facts (this is, the submissions dates). My first questions is if the e-mails of my draft are a solid enough proof for avoiding me being accused of actual plagiarism if the situation scales. Also, does anyone has ideas of what is the best approach here for finding a fair solution?<issue_comment>username_1: First and above all: congratulations on your paper being accepted! Let's look at the half-full glass: it is such a relevant progress in your field that one peer of you found it so relevant that he decided to work on the same topic/approach on its own.
**R**egarding your question, first the malicious thinking, that your peer stole the idea from you. From an external observer, both of you are innocent until proven guilty, but the same facts you expose here can be easily turned the other way around.
If I were your malicious colleague, I would claim that I planned and submitted the work to the conference as soon as it was announced (way before conferences submission deadline, usually even minor conferences are announced one year before), and that I had informal discussions with you during our day-to-day interaction and that you stole the idea from me.
How to protect yourself?
You have a solid trace of your work, which is the mail discussing the work with your co-authors dating before the discussion with your colleague. The colleague of yours can claim they started working on that idea many months before your discussion, and either one of the following:
* the idea sharing with you never took place;
* he presented the idea to you and you stole the idea from him.
To protect yourself from such an occurence, you should signal to your co-authors that unfortunately someone from your group took inspiration on the main idea of your paper, because you discussed informally with them during day-to-day interactions and presented it at a minor conference. Forward them the contribution to the conference of your colleagues and give them an estimate of the time schedule. Plagiarism is (luckily) taken more and more seriously, better to prepare all of you from such an occurence.
Please also signal the situation to your PhD advisor (in person, not via email, this is a confidential topic and you do not want to put yourself in trouble because a misunderstood sentence or an ambiguous sentence that you wrote). You must have had some internal presentation and discussion on the topic before submitting the paper, before discussing the topic, has your fellow PhD similar records of his interest/involvement on the topic?
I unfortunately foresee the chances of your PhD advisor thinking it would be a good idea you start to work with your PhD peer on a follow-up paper on the topic: prepare yourself to defend your ground, stating that such a thing must be obviously discussed with the other co-authors.
**H**owever, I would not discount the possibility that your peer was stuck in a rut, thinking about problems to be solved in your field and he found the discussion with you so inspirational that he started using your approach, discussing it with other colleagues in your department (who are his co-authors?) and by affinity in sources, he ended up with a very similar research process and conclusions to the one you reached, along the process forgetting the casual discussion he had with you.
**In short**: I unfortunately see no good outcomes from this situation. Try to avoid as much as possible interactions with this PhD student.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A few things, I think:
1. You do not report having evidence that distinguishes whether your academic sibling simply lit upon the same idea independently other than a single "informal conversation". People independently develop similar ideas at the same time with serious frequency, so it does seem like you're jumping to conclusions on this point. Make sure your email record doesn't get auto-deleted by a system and move on with your life for now.
2. In my field (applied mathematics), your only responsibility would be to add a citation to your colleague's conference paper (if you get the chance before your paper goes to press), note its contemporaneous and independent development, and briefly note how your manuscript is distinctive. Your paper sounds significantly more expansive than your colleague's and it sounds like the journal you submitted to has already accepted it.
3. You almost certainly need to talk to your chair (adviser?) about this situation urgently if you haven't already. Do not accuse your colleague of "stealing ideas" as you don't actually seem to have evidence of this. You may want to be particularly polite, I'd call this situation seriously neglectful on their part.
Having a duplication come from the same PhD adviser would come across as a bit odd in my experience, and it's *them* who's likely to be asked about it if someone external ends up caring. They also have to write both your and your colleague's rec letters at some point and need to get their story straight. You have the longer paper presumably with other co-authors, it's your colleague who's probably in the worse situation.
Upvotes: 2
|
2022/03/18
| 1,596
| 6,894
|
<issue_start>username_0: I hope all is well,
I find myself in a situation where one student keeps a grim face when I teach. It seems he is not happy with the way I deliver the material. This makes me feel uncomfortable and it affects my mood.
I tried to be nice and accomodating. I also tried to explain why I could not run the session the way he pleased. However, instead of understanding, he used the arguments I provided against me to my senior colleague who took his stand and started to point out the problems and the negative feedback I received and ignore the positive ones.
I understand that there is room for improvements, but it seems that dealing with a superior whereby he takes an extreme view of one student is very emotionally challenging and is causing me mental distress.
My senior colleague is a perfectionist typed individual who likes everything perfect. It is tricky first to teach a particular class to make things perfect from the first time. However, my colleague does not seem to be kind in pointing this out or appreciating the positive feedback. It is tough to impress him. I need to impress him so that he does not write a negative comment on my performance. I can say that I am learning a lot, though and I appreciate both the comments of my senior and that of the student.
However, the student does not want to give details on what is staggering him with the teaching. He does not like my teaching and delivery, but he does not want to engage or inform me what is puzzling him or how I could help him or improve my delivery. He just wants to complain.
I tried sending him an email as a gesture that I was willing to hear him and informed him that I stood by his side, but he decided to ignore my email and my presence during the session entirely.
Although he comes to class, he completely ignores my presence, smiling and laughing with his colleagues. All is fine, but it came to the point where he spoke to my support colleagues, discussing lets say not nice stuff. This annoyed me, but I kept my patience to understand how to deal with such challenges in academia pedagogically.
I have many students who mostly are happy with my module and delevery, but some are not, which is normally the case in any module. I really tried to be helpful, but he is not engaging, and I do not know how to approach him anymore.
Any advice would be appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: There are two issues here, an educational issue and a political one. They may be at odds.
For the educational issue, I'd let further communication with the student go until it becomes necessary. Not every student will be pleased with you no matter what you do since there are differences in how individuals learn. A brilliant student might not actually need any lectures at all. But there is little point in arguing with them, and making changes to suit a single person will likely displease others.
I'm a bit more concerned about your senior colleague. If they have power over you then you may just have to go along with their (misplaced) ideas to some extent. However...
There are very few students who will learn anything with a single "perfect" statement of it. I have evidence from my own long history that it just doesn't work. Anything with any complexity at all requires reinforcement. Some of that reinforcement is just saying things in different ways and using analogy and metaphor to give a general idea along with the technical. Another reinforcement mechanism is student exercises that the student gets feedback on. Not just grades. Perhaps your senior colleague doesn't understand any of that, though I can't diagnose at a distance.
Your job (IMO) is to teach every student. What that means is setting the conditions in which learning can occur if the student is willing to put in the effort. Not all will, and some will prefer that you do things differently. Setting the conditions means more than just providing information. Wikipedia does that sort of thing pretty well, but is inadequate for real learning - especially for novice learners.
(Note that a previous US vice-president used "setting the conditions" as a euphemism for torture. I think about that sometimes.)
As an example, from mathematics, of the perfect being the enemy of the good, the formal definition of the derivative of a real valued function is incomprehensible to students on first reading, though it is perfectly concise and correct. It takes even good students quite a long time to *grok* it properly. Why does it have this structure? What are the implications? What does it tell us about the behavior of functions? It is a magic incantation for a while and takes a lot of work to sort it out. True, a student can memorize it without understanding, but that isn't learning.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As a perfectionist who is sometimes someone's senior colleague... You have been told you're not doing a good job. Your question makes it sound more about your struggle and less about the issue at hand, which, I believe, a perfectionist would have a huuuge issue with. "It is hard" is not an argument that lands well with people like myself. Sure, it is hard, so what? Do you outright refuse to work towards that goal? Well, this is precisely what bad reviews are for! There is nothing inherently bad in getting one, by the way -
you are free to choose to spend more effort and get a good review or spend less effort and get a bad one, if you decide that the demands are unreasonable.
To deal with the senior colleague, you would need to provide an outline of how are you going to respond to this issue. The one they will approve of - that will also potentially be a big learning opportunity for you. If they actually have brought up the authority/seniority card before, even better! They would almost surely love to pass their experience on, and hate being argued with. Do not think poorly of it based on the interaction alone - their knowledge is often bona fide very valuable.
In the process of doing so, **leverage your senior colleague to deal with that student**. Instead of assuming a defensive stance which is unsustainable - indeed, the biggest problem listed in your question is "he just wants to complain". Say that you are willing to work with this student. Try your best to help them. Evidently, approaching them directly did not help. Ask your senior colleague: "I would like to help, but I do not even know where to start, I do not know what are they unhappy with and how to accommodate them better. What would you do/What should I do?" Try to be cool-headed and not let emotions heavily impact your first responses. You are not getting anywhere by shielding yourself from further interactions and being dismissive.
And if anything, if your colleague's approach also fails, it would be a lot harder for them to blame it on you.
Upvotes: -1
|
2022/03/18
| 1,603
| 6,907
|
<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the jury of a PhD thesis in a small institution in Canada. The candidate has been a part-time PhD student here for about ten years, and is also the founder of a not-for-profit that aims to disseminate the results of his research. Apparently, he received a MPhil degree from the University of Cambridge in 1986. I've seen no indication on his web site or anywhere else that he has any continued relationship with that institution.
Now (2022), he will present some of his current PhD research in a workshop, where he listed his affiliation as University of Cambridge.
To me this looks very dishonest: he should claim affiliation either with our university, or with his not-for-profit organisation. I suspect a fancier institution might have been a way of sounding more important and improving his chances of acceptance (this was just a paper proposal based on an abstract, not blind peer review).
Question: Is there any "rule" that says which institution you can claim affiliation with? Is this just bad form or clear academic dishonesty?
Secondly: I have a feeling that there is some misbehaviour here, but should I allow that to affect the evaluation of the thesis? (I mean, after follow-up and checking what the situation actually is)
Update: The thesis supervisor indicated that the Cambridge affiliation was used to obtain a participation grant, which was only available to members of certain universities. The conference people apparently thought it was ok to use his alumnus status as affiliation.<issue_comment>username_1: (Caveat at end) While I believe that claiming an affiliation in such a circumstance is dishonest, I think you should evaluate the thesis on its own merits. It is the scholarship that should matter here, not the ethics of the writer unless they affect the work itself.
It is possible, of course, that the person has, in fact, maintained a formal connection to Cambridge. If not, they could claim a "former affiliation".
On the other hand, a note to the person that this seems improper might get a response, but that is separate from the quality/value of the thesis. But, since you are judging the work, it might be improper for you to make a public issue of it until your evaluation is complete.
For more general usage, claiming a past affiliation as current can get a person in trouble. Especially if the institution might object. The claim of affiliation needs to be mutually acceptable. If it is acceptable to Cambridge for its former students to claim affiliation then it is proper as noted in a comment by user *erstwhile editor*.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The rule is that you put your current affiliation and any others where the work was done, or just the ones where the work was done, or perhaps just the one where most of the work was done. You can't put a past affiliation just because it looks good, even if that university regards its graduates as members for life.
~~I would say this case is halfway between bad form and academic dishonesty, because the rule is not formal or universally agreed.~~ I changed my mind about this and I agree with username_3 that it is dishonest. But the person is a student so I would be slightly less harsh on him.
It shouldn't affect your evaluation of his thesis. The workshop and the affiliation he used are separate from the thesis. But do ask him about it and point out the problem.
EDITED TO ADD: The update at the end of the question changes everything. It looks like there was a special reason to use the old affiliation and the conference organizers knew and approved it.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> Is there any "rule" that says which institution you can claim affiliation with?
>
>
>
Yes. The rule is that words in the English language should be used in a way that’s consistent with their accepted meaning. Especially in situations in which using them in a non-standard meaning results in you being given money or something of significant monetary value.
This rule was violated in this case, it would seem.
>
> Is this just bad form or clear academic dishonesty?
>
>
>
See above. It’s not *academic* dishonesty — misrepresenting facts to gain access to money sounds like plain old fashioned dishonesty to me.
>
> I have a feeling that there is some misbehaviour here, but should I allow that to affect the evaluation of the thesis?
>
>
>
No, you should do your job as member of the jury and evaluate the thesis impartially based on its contents. If the thesis itself contained any misrepresentation of facts or other shady behavior, that would be fair game to take into account. But knowledge that the candidate behaved dishonestly on a matter not directly related to the thesis, while it may be cause for concern and/or taking action to alert people who were hurt by this behavior, should not affect your evaluation of the thesis specifically.
As for the dishonest behavior, it sounds like the people in charge of disbursing the participation grants were aware of what the student meant by “affiliation”, and decided to give him the grant anyway. That is their decision and not something you can or should do anything about. If they were not aware of the misrepresentation, it would be appropriate to alert them of the situation and let them think what to do about it.
It’s also appropriate to have a negative personal opinion of the student based on this incident and allow that to affect your future relationship with them, for example not agreeing to write them a letter of recommendation, etc. Although you should probably be very sure that your judgment is correct and not based on a misunderstanding of some sort.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: * affiliations should represent the responsible institution for funding and monitoring the research and publications and ownership of the data - so no, skipping the institution which officially awarded you the PHD title for the research is IMHO not possible if the presentation/publication refers to results supervised by the PHD supervisor. (no matter how serious the supervisor took their job, it's their signature).
* The situation in the case of "founded non-profit, but was part time PHD student" is probably quite tricky. Probably it's best to consult the Ethics/Compliance office of the involved institutions. If there was substantial direct or indirect funding via the former university (e.g. master research together with the non-profit), they may want to be mentioned in a specific way.
* I don't see a problem with multiple affiliations if the work spanned several institutions, however AFAIK PHD theses have only the supervising institution listed (the standards for the thesis are set by the awarding institution).
I also think it is shady. Evaluate the content of the thesis and refer this formal question back to the institution.
Upvotes: 0
|
2022/03/19
| 788
| 3,457
|
<issue_start>username_0: I recently found out that a research assistant had made unconsulted plans to present, and possibly publish, a paper as a single author on the basis of a study conducted for their principal investigator. The research assistant was not involved in the original research design and worked under specific guidance from their PI.
Should they be able to publish a paper based on a study that is not theirs and be named as sole author? Could they do it with permission from their PI?
What would have happened if the RA had been listed as co-author in a paper with their PI? Would this then give them the right to publish further papers based on the same research?
The question, in sum, is who owns the research? And under what terms can this ownership be shared? And what are the limits of such shared ownership?<issue_comment>username_1: Ethics in short:
* Taking the PI's idea and presenting it as their own without giving any credit (sole authorship) = textbook plagiarism.
* Building upon previous work (providing attribution in form of citations) =
fine from an ethical standpoint, but might be going against the expectations of the work culture in a lab. Research output is why the lab exists in the first place, one would expect such a major thing as a paper to be collectively discussed.
* Deciding that the contribution was not significant enough to warrant an authorship and/or acknowledgements is valid, but needs to be agreed upon by all parties. If the PI and RA in question disagree on the merit of the research design, this is problematic from the professional ethics standpoint, not even specifically academic one. Likely not in favor of RA as well.
So, the people who did the research "own" it. If the PI made a significant intellectual contribution by designing an experiment and RA ran off with it, that would be a serious breach on RA's side. RA is completely entitled to use their own ideas to produce new research and publish it solo or in collaboration with someone outside the lab. If they are using lab facilities to do so, PI has to know. It is also prudent to let them know regardless; they would not "own" that research, but they "own" lab members' working hours, which makes it really unproductive to get into an argument.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: The OP is indulging in the "begging the question" logical fallacy. Their clarification is circular in reasoning.
By the Vancouver Convention, authorship requires a genuine intellectual contribution, amongst other things. Simply being a PI, general supervision of the lab or providing the funds does not qualify for authorship.
These things need to be examined closely, and in the context of any working contract, but it is entirely possible that the PI does not have any claim on authorship, in which case they should be an acknowledgement. It is possible that they made enough of a contribution to warrant authorship. The initial judgement here is, of course, the first authors. In cases of dispute, the university should mediate.
If the PI declines authorship, then it is usually quite acceptable for them to be dropped down to an acknowledgement.
Essentially, depending on the specifics, it could go either way. Without more information, which it would be inappropriate to provide here, no judgement can be formed.
In a general sense, the idea that PI's are entitled to authorships is wrong. They must earn their authorships.
Upvotes: 0
|
2022/03/19
| 489
| 2,059
|
<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD student in computer science at a German university, working remotely on the PhD. I do not get much support from my professor (anymore) in terms of time for discussions and I have little to no relation to the other PhD students. Before Covid-19 I would travel to the city in which the university is located, but even those (few) travels have stopped. I would like to discuss scientific questions and topics with other researchers, as in having sparring partners. What are other ways to find groups or individuals, e.g. online? I am not aware of options.
---
PS: I am not sure what good tags are for the question, maybe someone can help.<issue_comment>username_1: Professional societies often have "Special Interest Groups" (SIGS) that focus on a particular area. They also sponsor conferences around the world. In the US, the [ACM](https://www.acm.org) has many such groups.
But for your purposes here, those SIGS also often have mailing lists in which people ask questions and share ideas. The people who post regularly on such lists may be the people you want to communicate with. I don't know specifically of German equivalents, but the ACM is open to everyone and has a worldwide membership.
You can communicate on the list, of course, but many of these lists include the email addresses of writers with their posts, so you can move to more private communication if desired.
And student membership may come at a discount as it does with ACM.
Here is a [list of ACM SIGs](https://www.acm.org/special-interest-groups/alphabetical-listing). Perhaps one or more will interest you. Other professional societies may have something similar.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that using educational forums for this purpose makes sense. You're certainly not the only person, searching for other researchers, so why not try finding like-minded people on the internet. Use search operators to find the relevant website faster. Enter inurl:forum, intitle: [the necessary keyword] and check the results.
Upvotes: 0
|
2022/03/20
| 1,695
| 7,398
|
<issue_start>username_0: A PhD student I know is having trouble with their academic advisor. Their advisor is very hands-off (to the level of being neglectful) and has a very sink-or-swim mentoring style. To be clear, the advisor gives next to no mentoring advice and is unwilling to help their students with anything that doesn't directly benefit the advisor (e.g., a paper where the advisor is a co-author) or is something that otherwise of direct interest to them (i.e. might lead to a paper for the advisor). This leads to a recurring problem in the lab where students graduate...and they don't have the skills necessary to survive on their own in academia. The student has been with their advisor for their undergraduate, Master’s and now their PhD (which feels rough – I was always urged myself to attend different programs for each of these steps, not work with the same advisor).
To top things off, the advisor has very narrow research interests and has a very rigid idea of how they want things done, so students are often trained to work on very specialized topics that don't lend themselves to further study and the advisor isn't willing to change projects if the initial concept doesn't work out. The advisor is not open to novel ideas or avenues of research unless the advisor came up with it. The advisor doesn't do anything that feels illegal they just...provide the bare minimum of assistance. This has led in the past to students burning out or quitting without completing their projects, including PhD projects.
The student is starting to feel that they aren't going to get their lab environment to change, and it's not worth burning their academic bridges, so the best thing to do is finish their degree and get out. On the side, they’ve been working on a number of smaller projects in the hopes of broadening their research interests and experience in the hope that once they graduate they will not be stuck in the hyper-specialized field their advisor is in, which has very limited opportunities for funding and advancement.
In this process however, the student has run into a number of problems essentially trying to build their career on their own:
* The advisor has done next to no work in helping the student make connections in the field or help them identify job/grant opportunities, etc. The advisor has been using their students to perform research, write papers, and nothing else. The student has tried to make academic contacts on their own, but without the advisor introducing them most researchers and even most grad students won't talk to them.
* The student is trying to circumvent some of these issues by working on small papers on their own, to try and build up a healthy CV. However, to complete the research they need grant money, but most of the available small grants for graduate students require letters-of-recommendation from their advisor. Similarly, research in our field may require visiting archives, libraries or museum collections that one needs advisor recommendations to get access to research material, which the student often cannot get from their advisor (Again, if it doesn’t track into an output for the advisor, the advisor doesn’t care).
* The student is in a position where they cannot easily leave the lab group. The student *especially* cannot afford to burn bridges, in our field if any student parts from a lab under unusual circumstances it is almost immediately assumed the student is damaged goods. The student has been in the same lab group for an undergraduate and a graduate degree; leaving now is challenging at best.
* The student has tried to work out the matter with their advisor and made no progress. They also tried to let other faculty at the university know and made no progress. The department basically knows what is going on but doesn't want to say anything. Part of this is because while this lab's atmosphere isn't healthy, the advisor hasn't done anything illegal or overtly abusive.
I've been providing a sounding board to this student for years but even I find this quandary complicated. I realize there's not much I can do on my end besides be supportive and provide what little help I can, but I'm more wondering what someone should even do in these kinds of situations. How exactly does one build a career when they can’t depend on assistance from their advisor yet can’t simply go somewhere else?<issue_comment>username_1: >
> How exactly does one build a career when they can’t depend on assistance from their advisor yet can’t simply go somewhere else?
>
>
>
I hate to be pessimistic, but maybe it just can’t be done? The situation you’re describing seems almost maximally stacked to ensure the student failing. Well, it’s hard enough to build a successful academic career even under the most favorable circumstances — many who try even that will fail. Why would you think that there is some trick that makes it possible to do under the *least* favorable circumstances?
If the student wants to be successful, they need to find a way to put themselves in a position that’s conducive to success. Being in this lab, under this advisor, sounds like the opposite of such a position. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s the picture I’m seeing here. And best of luck to the student.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I am leaving a very similar situation. The way I got out was elevating the topic to the director of the graduate program. Even better I did it in a way that what I told the director was seen by the advisor. Nothing bad, just the pure truth about lack of direction to progress, etc. We three met and they simulated that I would be looking for a different advisor. At the end, the one advisor I identified would not take me either (once I showed he would not be able to profit from me as the previous one and that he would actually have to give a serious thesis topic). So my old advisor took me back, provided a silly thesis topic which I have finished.
Ultimately, this kind of people won't do anything if it's not in their benefit. But it's in their benefit that you graduate and it's in their benefit that you don't talk openly about their behavior.
The second key thing is to build "any" connection outside of that lab and university. I've heard stories by very top guys in my field on how they actually found their thesis topic on an internship, came back, defended thesis, then came back to the same internship place and built their career from there. In my case, I have previous education location were they know me. But this does not apply to your mentee.
A last piece of advice that worked well in my case. As username_1 puts it, your mentee won't get much out of his advisor. Following my strategy he will get a thesis topic to get out. This means the advisor knows something about the topic (to get rid of the student). Publishing a couple of papers on the topic will show something that it's ultimately more important in a career: people know that your mentee now knows a bit of what his advisor knows. Since knowledge is power it matters little whether he got that knowledge from a good and wise advisor or from an idiot.
One thing my mentor told me that helped me a lot (in particular in pasting the name of the advisor on my papers) was, do you think people in your field don't know how your advisor works? And indeed, of course they know.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: In 2015, I enrolled in an MSc in Computer Security program with the aim of getting a Ph.D. However, I dropped out of that program as I didn't like it. Then I enrolled in a MSc Machine Learning program in 2016 but again dropped out of that program because it was too hard for me, apparently because my proficiency in statistics was not sufficient. So, my Ph.D. dream was shattered by the end of 2016.
After much struggle, I was able to draw the attention of a research professor in bioinformatics because: (1) even though I dropped out of two programs, I did a lot of self-study out of curiosity and sheer interest; and (2) I have outstanding computer programming skills from my Bachelor's years.
This research professor has offered me two scholarships: one is from the National Science Council and another from the faculty; we published two papers; and finally, I have been accepted for a Ph.D. position this year. Therefore, everything is looking great for me.
I was even able to forget my previous two failures in the form of dropouts. This memory is giving me no pain anymore.
However, I have become old. My age is 41 years and 7 months. To put things in perspective, my classmates have already become professors.
Also, I am unemployed and surviving on scholarship money. Although my professor has taken me on many research projects, they are not a steady source of income; they are like **bursts** of money. My wife and only child are being taken care of by my parents. I have also been suffering from depression.
At this age and reality, a PhD does not seem to be a success anymore, although it has been my lifelong dream to have a PhD.
What should I do about this?<issue_comment>username_1: It looks like you have the curiosity and enthusiasm to start ambitious projects, but you also tend to get easily bored or discouraged. It would probably be good for you to understand why this happens and how to be more persistent in your efforts. This is quite important if you start a PhD: it's a long and challenging process, so practically everybody doing a PhD faces obstacles and discouragement at times.
I don't know you so I don't know if this is your case, but I observed that perfectionism is a common cause of giving up in academia: people who are perfectionist have great hopes about what they want to achieve and how they imagine it, then they face the mundane difficulties and the imperfect nature of the research process and get deeply disappointed, sometimes to the point of dropping their goal. In case you feel familiar with this, it's important to manage your expectations and accept that nobody is perfect. Don't hesitate to seek professional psychological advice, it can help you achieve your goals.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually, though it might seem odd to you, I'd suggest that the best solution is to celebrate your current success and just let the past be the past.
There is nothing wrong with leaving a program that you learn you dislike. You want to organize your life so that it is pleasant overall.
There is nothing wrong with leaving a program that you find, too late, that you are unprepared for and don't want to live in eternal catch-up mode.
You have found a successful and enjoyable path. Yay. Exploit that.
Lots of people have "stumbles" in their past. Not everyone successfully moves past them as you seem to have done. You are both lucky and persistent, not being defeated by setbacks.
There are, however, some hints of [imposter syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome) in your post. You might explore that, and you might want to talk to a professional about it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I can give you some points that could be helpful:
1. Don't look back and think about the past, especially overthinking about the two past failures, actually they are the stepping stones towards the success. I heard about many people that didn't know what to do in this life, and they tried many things to find their passions, and hit many walls but they didn't stopped, they continued until the problem was resolved.
2. The science study and research does not have age limit. I saw one time at the university, an aged man that got a medical diploma studying computer science with young students, and guess what ! he finished and got his CS diploma. So, if someone could make a balance between all his duties, he can manage well his life.
3. The most important point is to believe in your capabilities and understand what you want/like to do.
4. When it comes to financial side, I think that you could find many opportunities for part-time jobs since you are in computer science field (e.g, consulting, freelancing, etc)
Finally, I see your experience as an inspiring example, so good luck
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: When I saw the title of your question, I was expecting someone much older. Forty-one is not especially old for a PhD candidate, and if you can complete your degree in the standard time you will not be especially old for a PhD graduate. You can find data on US PhD graduates in the [Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED)](https://sedsurvey.org/), including the median time to completion across different fields. Although the most recent [SED Report](https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22300/report/about-this-report#top) does not report the average age of PhD graduates, it does report the median completion times, and fortunately programs in computing tend to take less time than in other fields.
It appears from your question that your disappointment stems from an idea that holding a PhD at a reasonably young age makes a person a success, and failure to have achieved this by that time renders you unsuccessful. It also appears that you are allowing comparisons to other younger graduates to get you down, which again suggests an unhealthy preoccupation with questioning your status relative to others. I don't think that's a particularly fruitful way to look at a PhD candidature. Rather than looking at it through the lens of status (or whatever that is) I recommend you look at it in practical terms. Completion of a PhD in a computing field will give you solid research skills in that field, sufficient to do independent research as a scholar in the field. Assuming you can graduate by, say, forty-five, you will have over two decades of professional life (maybe even three) to apply the benefits of that training.
As to the practical problem of supporting a wife and child with only small bursts of money, that is a problem, but it is temporary, and it doesn't sound like such a terrible circumstance to me. The big upside of the circumstance you describe is that it allows quality time between your child and his/her grandparents; you might look back on that later and be glad that your child/parents had that time. In any case, the earnings of PhD graduates in computing fields are quite good, so you should expect to have a reasonable salary bump once you graduate your PhD and move into the profession. At that time you should be able to financially support your wife and child without parental assistance, and you'll have plenty of time to repay everyone involved for the support they're giving now.
>
> What should I do about this?
>
>
>
So long as you're still interested in research, I recommend you forget about all the downsides and focus on making the most of your PhD program and graduating successfully. Put aside concerns about your age, status, money, etc., and be glad that you have a supportive family who can enjoy each other's company while you work to complete your program. This can be a great time in your life if you let yourself enjoy the intellectual challenge you're presently undertaking, enjoy the benefits of the closeness of your extended family, and appreciate the time that is granted to you to do this. Enjoy your research work and your family and put your concerns about money, etc., on hold. Most importantly, ignore issues of "status" and just focus on your own self-development, at whatever pace that is achievable.
It's not clear from your post whether your depression is a response to dwelling on adverse circumstances (and vastly overestimating them) or if it is something more serious. Whatever you do, don't allow these kinds of circumstances to push you into depression, leading to an adverse impact on your work progress and family life. Depression often begets failure, which begets further depression. Contrarily, cheerfulness and stoicism often beget success, which begets further cheerfulness. As a first step, I would suggest you try looking at your circumstances in a more objective manner and examine all the success you have had and all the great things you've achieved (and read some [Epictetus](https://www.amazon.com.au/Discourses-Selected-Writings-Epictetus/dp/0140449469/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1665314698&refinements=p_27%3AEPICTETUS&s=books&sr=1-1&text=EPICTETUS) to put your problems into perspective) and see if this alleviates your depression.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: In 2019, I graduated with a PhD. (I am no academic so that was a massive achievement for me). I had started writing an article on the research however, due to personal circumstances, this was delayed. And then along came Covid. The discipline I did my PhD in was challenging under Covid as it was dependent on international travel. This necessitated having to re-focus my career in-country. One consequence was the article received less attention. I have recently thought about whether I can still submit the article for publishing or is it too late now. Is there an accepted time limit to publish PhD research?
And to add to the mix, during this time, I have had some further post-PhD insight/refinements that I would like to include in the article which wasn't part of the PhD. Are these okay to include in a delayed article?<issue_comment>username_1: There is no general time limit. Reputable journals will however only accept new results in the sense that they are not published elsewhere. So as long as nobody else has published the same results you are going to publish, there is no problem.
And of course you can include additional findings that are not in your thesis. The journal publication is a document on its own (standard citation rules apply).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You can publish work in a journal whenever you want, as long as it's not be published before. One thing to think about us whether there are now new papers that should be cited or discussed in your work. It's only been a few years but you might need to reframe your introduction if your field has moved forward alot and thus place your work in the current context of the field rather than what the field was several years ago when you wrote the article.
Upvotes: 5
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2022/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: If you disagree with most of the research community about some methodological questions\*\*, how should you act as a reviewer of a paper?
**Should you review as most reviewers would? Or should you follow what you think is scientifically correct?**
More details on the disagreement. The typical paper in my field is something like this: An algorithm is described (for solving an optimization problem), the algorithm is tested on one of the four famous data sets, the results are reported and discussed (in the sense that: "if there are more than 4 required hubs and the number of sources and sinks is over 100, then my algorithm is 50% faster, otherwise not"). So I have concerns that the algorithms are overtuned to the famous data set, and that they might be less strong if one applied them to data sets of different structure.<issue_comment>username_1: As a peer reviewer, you should offer your own assessment of the manuscript at hand. This way, you contribute to and possibly advance the field. If you just followed what others did common mistakes would just propagate, and this would be undesirable, of course.
However, do not expect that others must follow your advice. It is also conceivable that you are wrong, always consider this as a possibility. Editors and other reviewers might come to a different conclusion than you. (Leaving your example aside)
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: If you are willing to put your differences/reasoning in writing to an editor then there is no reason not to judge the paper according to the principles that you think are important and correct.
I question, however, whether it is a dominant view that the training and test data can be the same. Separate random selections from a large enough set would be a different matter.
But some "views" diverge into crankery so you need to be willing to justify your own.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Separating test and training data is necessary to confirm that the algorithm can predict unseen data. If the claim is made that the algorithm, presented with the parameters they used, can predict unseen data, then they need to split the dataset. If that claim is not being made, the case can still be made for it, but it's more nuanced than 'YOU MUST DO THIS FOR EVERY ALGORITHM'.
In my opinion, it's all in what claims are being made of the algorithm. If you feel that the claims being made are not supported by the methods, it's your choice to recommend they either:
1. dial down their claims so that they reflect the evidence in the paper
2. perform more analysis to support their claims
It's fine to give the authors the option
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I would approach the issue with an open outcome: Don’t demand that the authors do *X,* but ask them why they don’t do *X* and request at least a justification for not doing *X* (in the manuscript). For an issue like in-sample optimisation, you can possibly refer to some suitable paper, that while not from your field is sufficiently general to apply to your field.
You will probably not achieve that the authors actually do *X,* but you will likely achieve that the authors write a sentence (about why they don’t do *X)* that is not very convincing or comfortable and reduces the value of the manuscript. This also raises awareness of the issue for the readers and maybe for their next work, the authors will consider improving on this very aspect. And of course there is the possibility that the authors can bring a good reason for not doing *X,* in which you will learn something (and they should likely bring the argument in the manuscript).
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: So you are saying, what to do with papers which follow best practices of your field, but you think (with good reason) that these best practices are not very good or insufficient. I think trying to change the community by rejecting papers/forcing authors to follow your ideas is not the way to do it; especially since it is quite random which papers reach your desk. So you should:
* Do the peer review following best practices of your field without pushing your personal agenda; you might mention your concern, but not enforce it; maybe the seed will grow in the researcher
* If you think you cannot do this, then do not accept peer review requests
* If you want to change the community: publish papers on that subject, show what has been overlooked, show how crappy some of the celebrated algorithms are on other data, hammer the message home at every conference. Also offer a viable path for research in your field continue, i.e. positive messages, not 'dont do...' but 'do a, b, c, d)
Edit: To clarify: It is not the right way to change a scientific community by imposing standards on publication when you are the only one seeing a problem there. The right approach is to change it through scientific discussion. Peer review is not (well it is a little) scientific discussion, worst it is not public and there is a power imbalance.
Apart from that not being the way, it is also inefficient.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Should you review as most reviewers would? Or should you follow what you think is scientifically correct?
>
>
>
I'm not convinced this is a binary choice as you describe it. A good review probably isn't either of these.
Your review is sought, to check the papers adequacy and caliber. As part of that, if they wanted "most" reviewers views, the editors are more than able to ask other more typical reviewers, or a wider range of reviewers, to review it. Therefore you should assume they actually want your view, not a mere echo of what you perceive to be a popular view.
But giving your view need not be idiosyncratic or fringe-y either.
* If the field's methodology is weak or flawed, there are, presumably, reputable papers that say this. You can allude to those papers, and state that you have concerns that the paper is prone to/may have suffered from the weaknesses X, Y and Z, as described in [list of cites], because [reasons]. You ask the authors to address these concerns as usual.
* If there are no such papers, or they are not seen as significant in the field (or overlooked), then describe that you see a possible concern that the algorithm may be so tuned to the specific data, that it is unclear if it has general interest, because the authors do not appear to show its performance against **appropriate** general data. (And if needed: the data they do test against cannot in your view be considered appropriate as a test with general data, because (reasons), notwithstanding that it is a widely used dataset). That too, is a sensible, professional statement.
Really, your review is to state what, in your view, needs to be addressed, in order that the paper become acceptable, adequate, and professionally worthwhile publishing (if not already so). So you are not advocating a view, so much as identifying **possible** inadequacies (as you **personally yourself** feel they may exist), that you convey to the authors so they can address them - subject to the editors overriding judgement on the need for this and willingness to publish.
Because you are recounting possible issues to check, rather than advocating a position, you should find that there is a wording that allows you to state you have a concern, without adopting a fringe-y position in doing so.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I know the professors are a busy tribe. I would like to save them some time by writing a letter of recommendation myself and sending them for approval.
Would that be seen as impolite as I am evaluating myself and therefore it is biased? It could be regarded as me trying to cheat.<issue_comment>username_1: Professors do not form a homogenous group. So it is hard to tell if the ones you ask to write a letter of recommendation for you will perceive a draft that you send them as impolite. I know some who regularly ask for detailled input for their letters because they think they cannot manage otherwise to write a timely letter. Others strictly do not want any input and would not use any that they might get. Anything between these extremes exists.
I think there would generally be no harm in asking if you can support in any way, and then do as the letter writers suggest. This also saves you from wasting time to prepare drafts that are then just ignored.
As a side note: The letters I have seen that were written by the recommenders themselves were usually much stronger and more convincing. If a professor wants to write a letter based heavily on your input, it might be wise to look for alternative letter writers.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: When asking a person for a letter of recommendation then also ask if you should send them a "draft" for the letter as well. This draft should be in an editable format so that the person can adjust sections he/she doesn't like easily - this is how most people I know do it.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think there is some danger that a professor might be offended if you offered the letter unasked for. But, you could, offer to provide a draft of a letter, or a set of bullet points, if that would be helpful.
I'd guess most people prefer to write their own letters and some institutions "forbid" candidates to write their own recommendations, though there is no way to prevent it.
But I wouldn't assume that the professor would see it as a positive thing, even if they are busy.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I would like to suggest you ask this professor, if they would be willing to write a strong recommendation for you. Then you would know from their response as to their preference. If they are willing to do so, you may ask if they need anything, your transcript, CV… etc. and if they want you to draft one yourself, they will let you know.
That said, I remember at one time in certain Asian countries, it was usual to do exactly as you suggested. But in the United States, I don’t think that’s the norm.
Ideally, you want a faculty who knows you and your work well enough, such that writing a recommendation letter with evidence of support or vouch for your qualification and potential should take very little time.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I would personally never sign such a letter and would look disapprovingly on anyone taking such an initiative.
It is part of my job to agree to write reference letters, and if I commit to do so I do this on my own. Sure: I will often discuss multiple aspects of my letter with a student, to make sure there is no misunderstanding between their objectives and what I want to highlight.
However, my name and hence my reputation is literally on the line and this is NOT something I let someone else do on my behalf. Conversely, I would immediately stop trusting recommendations from a colleague should I learn he or she allowed a student to write a LoR on their behalf.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: It is alright if the professor ask you to do so, because the professor will read the recommendation letter before signing it. If there is any exaggeration then the professor will amend the letter before sending it to destiny. Otherwise you should not do it. However, there is a positive side of this method, as well, in the sense that the recommendation letter often depends on the specific project (research project or PhD or academia job etc). So depending on the project, the candidate is much associated with the project, and hence the candidate, often, is in better position to express the letter.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: I believe providing a *draft* letter is absolutely fine, provided you ask your recommender if they would welcome that, dropping the idea if they do not, and make it perfectly clear that they can edit it or throw it out, as they see fit.
In fact, only YOU really know what your entire application portfolio looks like, and only YOU really know what part of your portfolio you'd like each letter writer to validate, so drafting a letter actually makes sense.
You're not "sending it to them for approval". They are the letter writers, and they get to do whatever they want to do with your draft. In case there is any miscommunication in your original question, it is NOT OK to send in the recommendation on their behalf, posing as the recommender. That's a very serious falsification.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: This sounds somewhat unethical to me. I don't think you can literally just send them the letter and say 'I've done the letter for you, just put your name on it'.
You could instead send them a coherent 2 - 3 page summary of your work (past, present, future) along with your CV which will help to strongly guide them in writing the letter of recommendation.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: As explained in other answers, this is not a good idea. However that doesn’t mean you can’t do things to make your letter writers lives easier by giving them well-prepared summaries. To give one example, for tenure and promotion in my department we send the letter writers an “annotated bibliography” with paragraph about each paper. This kind of concise summary of your work can be very helpful for letter writers, just don’t do it in the form of a recommendation letter.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: I think it is extremely impolite.
Letters of recommendation are things they write (or dictate) all the time.
It is better that they phrase it themselves.
I think it absolutely outrageous that you would ask a professor to sign off such a pre-drafted letter.
If I were made such a proposition I'd be of a mind to refuse.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I plan to apply to graduate programs to get a master's degree. My undergraduate GPA isn't impressive (3.067, can I round that to 3.1 on my résumé?). I completed a certificate program in geographic information systems at a community college, and my GPA there was much better (3.84).
My low undergraduate GPA makes me anxious about my chances of being admitted. Is it worth working with application consultants to shore up my application package? ([examples](https://www.google.com/search?channel=tus5&client=firefox-b-1-d&q=graduate+school+application+consultants))
fwiw, my friends who went on to grad programs say my work experience is an advantage despite my low GPA. And my GPA over my final 60 credits, which is a criteria I see listed on some program pages, is 3.37.<issue_comment>username_1: These consultants help you navigate graduate school applications, which is otherwise a complicated process. In return for your money, you save time researching the application processes at different schools, get help choosing which schools to apply to, advice on choosing recommenders, help with managing any exams you must take (like the GRE), and a lot of other little stuff.
That's not to say you can't compensate for their work by putting in more time yourself, but you can't compensate for their experience.
If you can afford it, if you are working full-time and have less time to spend on applications, or if you are keen on getting a position *this year*, then I'd say it's worth it. If the cost is a real barrier, if you are currently unemployed or have lots of free time to do the research yourself, or if you have a good plan B if you are rejected everywhere this year (i.e. if you are OK failing this year and trying again next year), then you can consider saving the money and going it alone.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming you have a bachelors in engineering and want to get a master in engineering to increase your pay, I would suggest your best course of action is to gain work experience that will help you get into a high quality masters program. Skip the paid consultant.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/21
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<issue_start>username_0: Summary: I am a successful tenure-track assistant professor, but want to move to another department/institute or industry
---
I’m an assistant professor about halfway through my tenure clock at one of the top universities in my field. I am good at my job: my group publishes, my students are doing great, I’ve raised millions, and have delivered above and beyond in terms of department service and teaching. My tenure case would probably sail through.
However, I deeply dislike where I am. The administration is totally dysfunctional, my department is consumed by feuds and grievances, academic standards are almost nonexistent, immoral behavior among the faculty is widely tolerated, etc. Plus, my spouse and I don't particularly like where we are living.
I like being a professor, but don’t see a future in this department. The only question is what to do.
I understand the norm is to wait until ~tenure, then try and move universities. This has an element of risk: while I'm reasonably well-regarded, I'm not a "superstar," so can't just write my ticket anywhere, and it's not guaranteed some other equally strong department would want me. Also, I don’t know if I could stand another 2-3 years here.
I could go work in industry immediately and get paid 3-4x more than I make right now, and live in a more desirable area. But, this would be a one-way ticket out. Also, if I wait until tenure to try and get an industry job, I’m worried I’ll be seen as a 39-year-old washed-up assistant professor.
I wonder if any academics who experienced my situation, or a similar situation, could comment on what they chose to do and how it worked out. Or, any advice in general would be most welcome.
(throwaway account for obvious reasons)<issue_comment>username_1: >
> Plus, my spouse and I don't particularly like where we are living.
>
>
>
So your spouse is staying with you in a place none of the two like, because of your career, while you are clearly not satisfied with it and the prospects are not good, apart from waiting 5 years and winning the professorship lottery (somewhere else, I hope for you).
All this because you feel you deserve to be a professor, your skills are what will bring forward progress and science.
In short: run!
You are just showing how selfish is the academia, you have only one life, technology and progress will move forward, with or without you, however the more you stay in that department the more you will become bitter and a-empathic like your dept colleagues ... and there is a good chance your spouse will became like you and like them, by osmosis.
Or, in turn, you will get fed up with all the immoral standards and you will immolate yourself. Most likely for nothing.
Run run run!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I think <NAME> got it right in his [Stanford commencement address](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM&t=66s) when he advised that to do great work, you must do what you love and that if you haven't found it, you must keep looking. To his advice, I'd add my observation that the most important factors in all our outcomes in our lives tend to be all the other people in our lives. Only the most foresighted are able to choose their parents. But sometimes we do get to choose and it's important to choose wisely.
It sounds like you do love being an academic but you don't like where you're living or the people you work with. I would try to find new people somewhere you'd like better. Forget about your clock. A lifetime is a long time. Two or three years invested someplace you don't like is a sunk cost. And it's nothing out of a career of 45 or so. But why spend one more minute of it with people you don't like if you could spend it with people you do?
So, check out the alternatives. Maybe there's a dream school dying to hire you. Or maybe you look around and come to the dismal conclusion that there genuinely are no decent academic alternatives but discover Google is ready to make an offer you can't refuse, showering you with cash and a dream job in industry. Or maybe you decide that compared to the alternatives, where you are now isn't that bad after all.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Treat finding a position you love like a research project. Do homework and be organized. For example, Think about what you like about being a professor. Is it mentoring students, research, teaching, academic service? Look for positions that meet those needs and possibly create your own new position.
I do not know your field, but consider a government research lab or center. On a regular basis, my center hires academics. The pay is likely better and possibly 1.5 to 2 times better than you currently position and work life balance is also better. I know people who work at DOE National labs or have gone back to academic from DOE labs.
Likewise, consider other positions that meet your needs. You have a job, in fact, a prestigious job, which helps you look for another position. For example, look for industry R&D, NGO, or government position. See what might meet your needs and then make connections with people at those locations. Lastly, I encourage you to read resources [<NAME>](https://www.asktheheadhunter.com/who-is-the-headhunter) who has a free newsletter about looking for and creating positions for yourself.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> I could go work in industry immediately and get paid 3-4x more
>
>
>
Let's assume that's true.
You should leave at the end of the current teaching period, but after you have a new job.
Do not sacrifice your income and personal life for an institution you do not believe in.
Do not assume that high paying industry job will always be there when you want it. A recession can happen at any time.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The state of the Department in which you serve probably answers this question but have you broached on any of the issues of your present job with the current Head of Department ?
If the answer to this is negative or "no point" then you have to go as soon as a viable alternative shows.
Going into industry may or may not be a good thing for your subsequent return to academia: a lot depends on the next university's approach to industrial experience - some desire it, others do not though they may fall short of admitting this - plus the research you do in industry will normally not be publishable.
Going to work in a government lab offers better publishing opportunities and this would help your resumé enough to get back to top-rank academia as a Research Professor at least, if not as a tenured staff member.
Going to work for a lower division university in your own country - preferably a young department with a dynamic new Head - whose research and teaching ethos embraces your own would be wiser for you (and Madame) on a personal level. It is easier to be a big fish in a small pond. Obviously it is hard to say how top-rank universities will regard your term in such a post should you want to return to one of these.
These options apart, maybe the best thing is to consider opportunities in foreign universities that are consistent with your present (or preferred) research interests. We don't know which country you are in so I can't suggest which countries would be options language-wise.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: File this one under general advice and observations:
There are several assumptions in your outlook, the two main ones relate to salary expectations in industry, and administrations in academia:
A 3X to 4X jump in salary sounds really high, and finding that kind of a salary increase is probably quite difficult, depending on your field. In the US, you're more likely to get an extra 50K to 100K / year, unless you find a role at Google or some other (bio)tech giant.
Your other main assumption is that the administration at an other academic institution will not be totally dysfunctional, that there won't be feuds and grievances, etc. When the budgets are small, people fight over the crumbs. Are administrations and department politics all that different between universities?
Your "work-lifestyle" will be very different as well: summers are regular working months, your manager will keep closer tabs on you, and your projects will likely have many short term milestones. It's a different kind of pressure than academia. If it's an R&D role with emphasis on Development, you'll have less freedom to pick what you want to work on, and how to work on it, and you might miss that.
Being half-way through tenure at a top university in your field is outstanding, so there are good reasons to grind it out a few more years, depending on the toll on your mental health and relationship. You could also try to improve the culture at your current institution.
Find out where the top 50 universities in your field are, intersect that with where you want to live, visit, and look at the price of housing there and other quality of life factors that are important to you. Then combine an industry search with a search for a position in academia in that area. There are no guarantees that such a move will improve all factors, but you probably won't regret it. Make sure to talk to current assistant professors about the environment in their university.
If you end up happy at a new institution, restarting the tenure clock is an acceptable price to pay. You'd regret restarting the clock in an equally unpleasant environment.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: I think the other answers are great advice. I'll just add one thing that I didn't notice in them:
To start your search, talk to some senior academic (or more than one) whose advice you respect. This might be your thesis advisor, or someone you've worked with, or contacted at a conference, or someone in your current department. Express your concerns as you did in this question, and ask if they know of any other department they think you'd like better who might hire you. They'll know something about what's going on in other similar departments, and they'll be able to spread the word that you're looking if you want them to.
In my experience, academic hiring at your level is very calendar-driven. It's probably too late to be considered for jobs that are open this year, so you've probably got until near the end of the year to decide what to do.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: [CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy)](https://casrai.org/credit/) offers 14 roles that, when enumerated alongside a mult-authored publication, renders individual contributions visible.
Here is a simple example from [this paper](https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00158) (involving three authors):
>
> AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
> --------------------
>
>
> <NAME>: Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Visualization. <NAME>: Software, Data curation, Writing—review & editing. <NAME>: Conceptualization, Supervision, Project administration, Writing—review & editing.
>
>
>
Now if a journal *requires* an "author contribution statement" based on CRediT, then does it make sense to provide one if I'm the sole author?<issue_comment>username_1: If the journal requires it, then yes, you must provide it. You are, in effect attesting that you are, indeed, the sole author and no one else should be.
>
> Did you *really* do all this yourself? Yes. Yes I did.
>
>
>
It is a formality. It details those things that might rise to the level of authorship, though not in every case. It is a helpful checklist to think about contributions of any collaborators. But if it is required, then provide it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: For many journals, author information is provided not just in the human-friendly rendering of the article as a PDF or webpage, but also in machine-readable database form in order to better support indexing, search, citation analysis, etc.
Thus, if the journal is going to be able to provide this information about complex multi-author papers, they need to populate the database with the appropriate information for all of their papers, including single-author papers.
Furthermore, just because you are the only one playing the roles doesn't mean you're playing *all* of the roles in the paper: for most papers, many roles go unfilled.
Bottom line: it may feel a little bit silly, but it's easy, doesn't take long, and is valuable for the journal.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: There is a high chance, that you not did all 14 roles. For examples a PhD student often does not the funding acquisition, resources, or supervision. If some roles are missing, it is an indication, that there are larger structures behind the author, he could rely on.
This might help to distinguish researcher outside of academia and industry, that lack such structures. And it can help young fellas to recognize the amount of work related to these roles.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: Given a sentence.
>
> We can use A,B,C or other methods.
>
>
>
How would each of A,B and C be cited.
like this
>
> We can use A (Citation A),B (Citation B),C (Citation C) or other methods
>
>
>
or this
>
> We can use A,B,C (Citation A; Citation B; Citation C) or other methods.
>
>
>
or
>
> We can use A,B,C ((Citation A), (Citation B) and (Citation C)) or other methods.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: I think
the 1st way is OK
the 2nd way is better (especially if there are exactly three methods and three citations), because it is more uncluttered
the 3rd way is wrong, because it has too many brackets.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would write something like
>
> We can use A,B,C (respectively Citation A; Citation B; Citation C) or other
> methods.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I thought about my failure in the course a thousand times and could not think of any solution that could have helped me to pass the course successfully.
**Introduction**
In 2017, I was studying a graduate course named "Computer Architecture" ([syllabus](https://www.scribd.com/document/565973052/Computer-Architecture-Syllabus); [overview](https://www.scribd.com/document/565960671/Computer-Architecture-Course-Intro); [sample questions](https://www.scribd.com/document/565958710/Computer-Architecture-Sample-Questions)). The [prescribed book](https://www.pdfdrive.com/computer-organization-and-design-third-edition-the-hardware-software-interface-third-edition-the-morgan-kaufmann-series-in-computer-architecture-and-design-e187744131.html) had 684 pages. The course was divided into lectures and Lab sessions.
Each week, students had to go to labs and had to solve the assigned problems in MIPS and x86 assembly languages. The points were assigned on the basis of the number of problems they could solve in 4 hours out of the given five problems.
**The challenges**
The first challenge for me was to find appropriate learning materials for learning MIPS and x86 assembly languages.
I learned the MIPS assembly language from [this youtube channel](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5b07qlmA3P6zUdDf-o97ddfpvPFuNa5A) (this tutorial was amazing).
For x86, I don't remember which material I used. However, I remember that the challenge was to find a debugger with GUI as GDB was a total inconvenience. It took me almost a week to find [SASM](https://dman95.github.io/SASM/english.html) debugger GUI.
The final and most damaging hurdle was to find concise reading material, and ultimately I failed to find any. For me, reading a 684-pages book was out of the question. I simply had no time as other courses had a similar amount of loads.
**How I failed**
I learned the two programming languages very keenly. Solved all of the Laboratory problems, and completed the projects very well. However, I miserably failed the written examination.
The final project was a hard problem (image recognition via MIPS and x86), and it took a lot of time for me to solve the project. I think, other students just solved the problem by seeking help from their elders and friends who passed the course already. And, most of them actually failed to solve the project. Some of them scored partially.
I found out that -
1. some other students were solving lab problems by uploading the solutions to the server the previous night. I.e they were cheating all the way. As a result, they saved a lot of time and utilized that time to study for the written examination.
2. some other students had been maintaining a database of old questions in a shared online repository. They only solved the older questions and successfully passed the written exam.
**Did I talk to the instructor about my problem?**
Yes, several times. However, his directions were limited to prescribing a book and referring to some URL links. He even failed to prescribe a proper debugger tool for x86 except for GDB.
Besides, the supplied sample questions were totally different and mostly unrelated to the questions that came in the examination.
**My personal opinion**
In my personal opinion and tell me if I am wrong:
1. if there was not any custom reading material supplied, the course syllabus was too broad for a 4-months semester and MIPS and x86 should have been mutually exclusive;
2. the instructor should have provided a concise reading material instead of an entire 684 pages book if he really wanted to teach both MIPS and x86;
3. supplied sample questions were absolutely misleading, those shouldn't have been supplied;
4. the instructor should have kept a tutorial session for GBD and debugging.
In my opinion, the instructor was indirectly encouraging cheating by throwing a gigantic and unachievable load. Guessing and learning cannot take place at the same time.
**The question**
What was the appropriate way for me to successfully pass the course?<issue_comment>username_1: Since you ask for the student's perspective, this:
>
> As a result, they saved a lot of time and utilized that time to study
> for the written examination.
>
>
>
They learned one of the most fundamental skill in life: time management. It does not matter if you use the saved time to enjoy your hobbies, to do drugs, to prepare for your exams.
If you learn how to save time, you are ready not to be crushed in life because time will never be enough (ah, those biological limits), what you will do will never be enough (the mandatory increase in productivity required by the western world, always!).
Without knowing you, since you state
>
> I learned the two programming languages very keenly. Solved all of the Laboratory problems
> However, I miserably failed the written examination.
>
>
> The final project was a hard problem
>
>
>
your issue is not learning how to use a tool, but how to build something with that tool. The final project was hard but somehow a "cool" topic (image recognition), the instructor surely thought "the students have been exposed or have interest in that topic, let's challenge them".
There would be much to say about using past exams to learn a topic, surely someone can chip in or point out to other qustions/answers here on the site, bottom line is "when they ask you to perform the calculation 6\*7, do you calculate every time 42 or do you answer 42 by heart"?
EDIT AFTER READING THE COMMENTS TO ANSWERS:
>
> GDB was like an added pain in the a\*\*. Debugging without a GUI, not
> my cup of tea
>
>
>
GDB is the foundation stone of whatever debugger, to understand whatever programm you write. You even stated
>
> "It took me almost a week to find SASM debugger GUI."
>
>
>
... well if you managed to survive MIPS through an youtube channel, you can learn to do something with GDB in a week, do not understimate yourself, stop looking for cheap&quick short-term solutions that costs you a lot of time in the long term. Time managment, again.
<NAME> may (or may not) have said “ Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” but you are spending the first four hours in looking for tricks "how to avoid sharpening the ax while having a working ax"!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> "He even failed to prescribe a proper debugger tool for x86 except for GDB."
>
>
>
GDB is a proper tool which many use to great success. Being able to use it makes you better prepared for industry jobs, if anything. Growing accustomed to nonstandard tools imposes a higher bar on the quality of your work: the team has to adjust to you, it is time and effort (=money), so your work better be good. That is not to say you never ever should do it if something else works for you better, but I really do not see how this would be a teacher's problem and not yours.
It is still expected people can and would read (or at least sift through the text), as opposed to finding an online video tutorial, which is a massive waste of time most of the time. Working with good ol' text is a skill people are expected to have in engineering jobs - eye-candey GUI and pretty visuals are neat but they cost resources and, most importantly, time to develop; technical papers have an advantage of being easily searchable. There is no way you would find a great explanatory video on each electronic device, coming with full annotation in order to be able to even remotely compete with someone just using Ctrl+F on the pdf coming with that device. Sometimes you have wade through the sloppily written README.md, if even that. Also, sample problems don not have to be similar to the exam problems, sorry.
My point is, after you complete this course you are expected to do some (many!) of these things on your own. In any given month, be it industry or academia, I would easily have to go through hundreds, if not thousands of pages of documents; in any given year - have to learn tools I am not very comfortable with or seek alternatives (in your case, that was GDB). This all comes with the territory. Some people choose to be heavily mentored as they continue their careers, but that is very, very limiting. Professors usually do want to better accommodate their students, but at some point, it comes to the point of sink or swim. Better now, while you still have a modicum of support, than as you are kicked out to that cold world, starting your career and not getting as much mentorship as you were hoping for.
EDIT: This is largely a professor's perspective still, but at least personally, I has very similar views being a student and I believed that my professors knew what they were doing. So I pretty much always had a mentality that it is my responsibility to find supplementary material if the course alone does not suffice, that my fellow students are in the same boat and that I should not look around for what others have done differently and blame my failures on that, rather focus on finding what works for me. Maybe it is something others do, maybe it is none of it. Reflecting a bit on "is it normal" is a good thing to do as long as it does not prevent you from just putting more work in when it is needed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Set your goal. If you want to pass the exam, then always keep eye on what others are doing. Be friendly with old students who were taught by the same teacher and get old notes, old exams, solution manuals of you text book or even get tips how to pass this course. Later on, only grades matter, not how you get them. Learn from other students and instead of considering them cheats, follow their footsteps to success.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: #### YouTube videos do not a tertiary education make
The elephant in the room here is the fact that there is a prescribed textbook for the course and you didn't read it. It is okay to try to use alternative learning sources in cases where there is reason to believe that alternative learning materials are more succinct but are also sufficient to cover all the topics and skills you are learning. However, if you go down this path and then experience course failure, it worth considering whether your choice not to use the primary materials may have caused or contributed to that failure. It is a bit of a worry that you do not identify this as even a *possible* cause of your problem, and it is certainly a problem that you consider reading the prescribed textbook to be "out of the question".
It sounds like you have already made some good progress in learning some skills from video instruction, and so you probably already have a smattering of useful knowledge for this course that you can build on. I would recommend that in your next attempt you take the time to work through the prescribed textbook to ensure that you are learning all the material, and all the details, in a systematic fashion. You will typically find that autodidactic learning can give you useful knowledge, but it is often a bit patchy and non-systematic. One of the benefits of formal education in university courses from academic experts (supported by detailed textbooks) is that they generally cover material in a systematic fashion that ensures that you get all the core knowledge of a subject without any "gaps". Consequently, I would recommend that you reconsider your stance and try to work your way through the textbook for your next attempt at this course. If you break this down and do some reading each week, you will find that you are only reading about 50-60 pages per week, which should not be too onerous. (Since you will need to repeat the course, you can even get started on the reading prior to restarting, which will get you a head-start and reduce the per-week load even further.) More generally, take advantage of the readings prescribed to you by your course lecturer.
With regard to the cheating of other students, you need not let this prevent you from learning and understanding the material as well as possible. It is certainly disheartening when other students cheat on exams and get passing grades in courses as a result, but it need not prevent you from passing on your own merits. In the long-term, there are significant advantages to learning university material in-depth and succeeding in your degree without cutting corners. If you approach things this way then you will find that in a few years, you have significantly more knowledge of your subject matter than students who rely on cheating. By eschewing cheating when others are doing it, you are already developing good character, which is something that is just as valuable as the academic material you are learning.
To supplement this advice, I cannot help but comment on some aspects of your post that indicate possible misunderstanding about the realities of tertiary education. Firstly, a 684 page textbook is quite long for a university course, but not so much as to be a substantial outlier. (For example, for some discussion of reading requirement for law school, see [here](https://theartoflawschool.com/how-much-reading-is-there-in-law-school/).) If reading a book of this size is "out of the question" in your education, you might need to rethink whether you actually have the time and inclination to undertake tertiary education right now. YouTube videos are well and good for learning certain things, but these types of materials are presently insufficient to give a student an entire tertiary education.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I have upvoted answer by Imtar.
Just want to add, professors have a typical style of teaching, quizzes, mid term and end term. Most students, if not all, try to catch up with that, rather than really study the subject for its own sake.
If professors keep things too simple, they will be seen as adding less value.
If they keep things difficult too many will fail and their own teaching incompetence may be blamed partially.
Thus for clearing exams, the pattern recognition helps.
My advice to people in similar situations is to look hard and see if you are sure to pass the course (judging by the load you feel, time for assignments etc). Sometimes other students are just more prepared already or are devoting most time to this course.
For myself, I have dropped several elective courses after a few sessions when I got the hint.
When it was not possible, I tried to follow other students.
And your question is helpful. Every one thinks differently. What tool appears great to one can appear intractable to others. And often, for me, alternative textbooks have been saviours.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: In order to understand why you failed the course you have to understand what exactly the requirments for passing the course are. Partially solving the lab problem and doing better on the written exam is good enough for passing.
Is a written exam representative of how things work in a real work enviornment? I'd say no. Most of the written exams I had in university are more of academic value and find little application in a office or programming job.
Is a lab problem that you have to solve at home more representative of how things are in a real work environment? I'd say yes. Doing the actual prgramming is of more use in your future job than actually just knowing the theory behind it.
Courses in university tend to lean more towards the academic and therin lies your problem. Your approach of trying to understand and try to apply said understanding on a problem is very commendable. But it was not what is necessary to pass the course...
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am only starting to learn the French, but I already need to read 1971 French mathematical book (<https://mathscinet.ams.org/mathscinet-getitem?mr=0344253>), others wanted to read it too.
I am considering the idea about my pet project in which I could translate parts of this book in the English language and put them into some blog page (I can make my personal blog page for this). But I have many concerns. Is it ethical to do this, because it will not be the professional translation (this is math monograph and that is why it requires a bit less translational art than other domain, so, it can be less of concern)? What about copyrights? And can comeone provide me with Latex source (author is deceased, I am not sure that Springer keeps Latex source for 50 years old books) in which I can update the French text and keep the formulas and (category theoretic) diagrams intact.
I am aware that I have to open separate questions (in their respective Stackexchange sites) about copyrights, about Latex source and maybe about French terms. That is OK and I may do this.
But this my question is about the idea itself - is such pet project acceptable, can it succeed, are the publishers and authors open to such ideas? I.e. this question is about the problem - whether to start such pet project at all or I just need to learn French and to do private translation and disregard any benefit to the community which can arise from such public translation project.
This book is only one example. I have several other (more recent) books that are very interesting but in French and whose English availability could be great.<issue_comment>username_1: A book from 1971 might still be under copyright. One of the normally retained rights is that of translation. You need to settle this before you publish anything, including on a personal web site (blog).
If Springer holds the unexpired copyright then you need to contact them. They might well give you permission to translate it and, perhaps, have Springer do the re-publication.
Note that a lot of copyright law changed after the publication date of this work. Some of those changes extended the life of copyright.
LaTex is unlikely in any case.
And, if the copyright has expired you can do what you like.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I did something similar with an old French language paper I wanted to make available to a broader audience so I translated to English. The translation is available on [my web page](https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/%7Eromik/riemannxi/). I have not gotten in any trouble for doing this, and from an ethical point of view I am at peace with my decision. I am motivated by the desire to make the world a slightly better place.
I can’t advise you what to do, but this is what I did, for what it’s worth.
P.S. LaTeX did not exist in 1971, so be prepared to typeset your translation from scratch.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You might start by asking the likely copyright holder, the publisher, if they’d be interested in an English translation of this work. They’re probably not, but they might agree with you that there is a market for it, and ask for a proposal. If they say no, you might ask if you can do one as a project and promise not to distribute your final result.
Everyone else is right. This was likely typeset by hand, and you’ll have to redo the mathematical typesetting in LaTeX yourself.
If you really want English speakers to have access to a free copy, I doubt you’ll get it for free from the publisher. But I do encourage you to ask.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I see no ethical issue with this, provided you are clear about the roles of yourself and the original author and publisher (which you would surely do anyway). I fail to see what difference it makes whether it is “professional” (assuming there is such a thing as a “professional” translation to begin with).
There *is* a copyright issue, though, which you should resolve before doing anything else. This is well-covered by other answers.
If you are in a position to do so, consider paraphrasing the book and releasing your work under a [Free Culture License](https://freedomdefined.org/Definition#Defining_Free_Culture_Licenses), which avoids copyright issues for both you and those who wish to further build on your work. In particular, you will not have restrictions on what you can do with your own work, as you probably would if you made an agreement with the original publisher.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: In an accepted paper, I have written my acknowledgments to the funding entities and now I want to also acknowledge the fact that this work was mostly carried out in X place thanks to an internship Funding. However, I am not sure if I should phrase it like that or if there is a typical sentence in these cases.<issue_comment>username_1: A book from 1971 might still be under copyright. One of the normally retained rights is that of translation. You need to settle this before you publish anything, including on a personal web site (blog).
If Springer holds the unexpired copyright then you need to contact them. They might well give you permission to translate it and, perhaps, have Springer do the re-publication.
Note that a lot of copyright law changed after the publication date of this work. Some of those changes extended the life of copyright.
LaTex is unlikely in any case.
And, if the copyright has expired you can do what you like.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I did something similar with an old French language paper I wanted to make available to a broader audience so I translated to English. The translation is available on [my web page](https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/%7Eromik/riemannxi/). I have not gotten in any trouble for doing this, and from an ethical point of view I am at peace with my decision. I am motivated by the desire to make the world a slightly better place.
I can’t advise you what to do, but this is what I did, for what it’s worth.
P.S. LaTeX did not exist in 1971, so be prepared to typeset your translation from scratch.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You might start by asking the likely copyright holder, the publisher, if they’d be interested in an English translation of this work. They’re probably not, but they might agree with you that there is a market for it, and ask for a proposal. If they say no, you might ask if you can do one as a project and promise not to distribute your final result.
Everyone else is right. This was likely typeset by hand, and you’ll have to redo the mathematical typesetting in LaTeX yourself.
If you really want English speakers to have access to a free copy, I doubt you’ll get it for free from the publisher. But I do encourage you to ask.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I see no ethical issue with this, provided you are clear about the roles of yourself and the original author and publisher (which you would surely do anyway). I fail to see what difference it makes whether it is “professional” (assuming there is such a thing as a “professional” translation to begin with).
There *is* a copyright issue, though, which you should resolve before doing anything else. This is well-covered by other answers.
If you are in a position to do so, consider paraphrasing the book and releasing your work under a [Free Culture License](https://freedomdefined.org/Definition#Defining_Free_Culture_Licenses), which avoids copyright issues for both you and those who wish to further build on your work. In particular, you will not have restrictions on what you can do with your own work, as you probably would if you made an agreement with the original publisher.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/22
| 1,467
| 5,334
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<issue_start>username_0: The source I would like to cite introduces a new concept, and when doing so, the term used to describe this concept is written in quotation marks – however these quotation marks are used for emphasis rather than citing a specific source.
I.e. The source, written by (Example, 1999) says something like
>
> In the early 20th century, sharp rises in productivity lead to the institution of mass consumption. This mode of production is called "Fordism".
>
>
>
Now, I would like to introduce Fordism in my own writing, and to do so, I would like to cite the first occurrence of the term Fordism, so it is clear to the reader where I got it from.
I.e. I write something along the lines of
>
> This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example, 1999, p.5).
>
>
>
How do I properly use quotation marks in my writing in this example?
Technically, double quotation marks in the original text should be printed as single quotation marks when citing, according to APA guidlines, which would mean I have to print
>
> This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "'Fordism'" (Example, 1999, p.5).
>
>
>
Which, to me, looks a little awkward. Does anyone know the correct APA-way of handling quotation marks in cases like this?<issue_comment>username_1: It's true that APA format is one of the most-detailed specifications of any publishing style. However, despite its intricacies, there are a few basic underlying principles, one of which is to give credit where credit is due and to allow a reader to find the source of non-original material. A second principle is "Do not make life hard for the reader!".
Your aims should be to:
* indicate that the word *Fordism* is a [neologism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism), whether or not it is widely used or accepted
* say, or show, that the neologism was created by someone other than you
* indicate who it was that created the term ... or at least point the reader to a source of description of the term.
With those ideas in mind, you should write exactly as you have in your second example:
>
> This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example, 1999, p.5).
>
>
>
A further thing to bear in mind is that you are not simply quoting the word "Fordism"; you are also referencing the source of the idea as well as the word.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: #### Either quote or paraphrase --- don't quote a single word in a paraphrase
You need to decide if you are going to quote the cited source or just make a paraphrased assertion based on that source. At the moment you are mixing these two things and it is getting you into trouble. If I have a source Aitken (1980) that says "Monkeys like bananas" (p. 5) then I could quote it:
>
> According to Aitken (1980) "[m]onkeys like bananas" (p. 5).
>
>
>
or I could paraphrase it:
>
> There has been some previously literature suggesting that monkeys like bananas (see e.g., Aitken 1980, p. 5).
>
>
>
but it will look silly if I paraphrase it but use a quotation only around the object under discussion:
>
> There has been some previously literature suggesting that "monkeys" like bananas (see e.g., Aitken 1980, p. 5).
>
>
>
Observe that adding quotation marks only for this single word creates confusion ---this formulation makes it sound like I'm using [scare quotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scare_quotes), as if I'm sceptical as to whether the things under discussion that like bananas are really monkeys. The reader will look at this and wonder what these "monkeys" (in scare quotes) actually are.
---
Turning to the case of interest to you, by the same token, you can either quote your cited source or you can paraphrase it. If you quote it (and apply the APA rule on internal quotation marks) you get something like this:
>
> Example (1999) notes that "In the early 20th century, sharp rises in productivity lead to the institution of mass consumption. This mode of production is called 'Fordism'." (p. 5)
>
>
>
Alternatively, if you paraphrase it you will get something like this:
>
> This new mode of production, which creates an imperative for mass consumption in order to realize profits from increased productivity, is called "Fordism" (Example 1999, p.5).
>
>
>
In the latter case, you can refer to "Fordism" (in quotes) by virtue of the fact that you are paraphrasing a source that refers to this thing. The quotes you are using serve the same purpose they did when Example used them --- i.e., they show that you are referring to a neologism that is not in common use in the language. This is just the same as being able to refer to monkeys when paraphrasing a source that refers to monkeys. As before, if you directly quote this single word, and thereby add an extra set of quotation marks, it creates confusion. In the present case you end up referring to "'Fordism'", which creates a kind of [second-order mention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction) of a concept.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/22
| 486
| 2,080
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<issue_start>username_0: If a professor shares their office phone number on their website, can I make a call and ask them about postdoc positions? What should I say to them?<issue_comment>username_1: Personally, I wouldn't attempt it. If you interrupt something they consider serious they won't like it much. And, what can they say but to look for published announcements? Do you think they want to listen to your qualifications in real time? It is just to easy to hang up, as you might do for any marketing call.
A short introductory email would be preferable. Say who you are. A sentence about your interest. A couple of sentences about your qualifications. Offer to provide any additional information needed. Ask for a reply.
The email can be handled asynchronously, which is much easier. If it is short then it might be read.
But, I suggest saving phone calls for people you already know and who won't mind being interrupted.
And a long and tedious mail will get put on the back burner, maybe forever. Don't include CVs and such in the initial contact. Wait for a follow up request.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a horrible idea!
What is stopping you from emailing him/her?
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: In this day and age, it is almost never appropriate to cold call anybody. This includes (but is certainly not limited to) any potential future employers.
Phone calls are a very intrusive way of trying to contact someone, and best reserved for urgent communication that requires an immediate reply. By choosing to cold call someone, you are effectively asserting that your call is urgent. When it turns out it is not (like enquirying about a potential future post-doc position) this is likely to annoy whoever it is that you are calling.
TL;DR Do not cold call people.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Other answers advise against, which seems very reasonable.
Another option is; do it and pay attention to how people respond. This way you will learn by experience whether you think it's a good method or not for next time.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/23
| 1,437
| 5,570
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<issue_start>username_0: In an academic paper, a colleague and I wrote that we "used Python (v3.8.8)" to perform a certain calculation.
The copy editor has asked us to provide the company name and location to complete the citation as "used Python (v3.8.8, \_\_, \_\_)."
We got a similar request for the Python scikit-learn package and the open-source audio editor Audacity.
As far as I can tell, the journal has its own citation style, but it somewhat resembles APA.
(I was able to find an address for the Python Software Foundation, but it seems that this entity exists to promote Python, not develop it.)<issue_comment>username_1: The copy editor might just never have heard of Python/has no idea what it is and therefore asked for the details with a sort of standard request. You can react as @MassimoOrtolano suggests in his comment:
>
> You don't have to comply with all copy editor's requests. When something does not apply, reply to the query by explaining that it doesn't and why.
>
>
>
I would also advise to look into the documentation of the packages you used how they would like to be cited. For example, [scikit-learn asks for](https://scikit-learn.org/stable/about.html):
>
> If you use scikit-learn in a scientific publication, we would appreciate citations to the following paper:
>
>
> Scikit-learn: Machine Learning in Python, Pedregosa *et al.*, JMLR 12, pp. 2825-2830, 2011.
>
>
>
Together with the version number, citing as requested should give enough context so that it is absolutely clear what it is that you are using, and the copy editor should be happy.
---
There is a relevant old question here already: [How do I reference the Python programming language in a thesis or a paper?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/5482/how-do-i-reference-the-python-programming-language-in-a-thesis-or-a-paper). The answer by @Dexter links to here:
<https://docs.python.org/3/faq/general.html#are-there-any-published-articles-about-python-that-i-can-reference>
There you find some info from the Python Software Foundation on how to cite. On the same page, you also find:
>
> Where in the world is [www.python.org](http://www.python.org) located?
>
>
> The Python project’s infrastructure is located all over the world and is managed by the Python Infrastructure Team.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I understand your hesitance to use the Python Foundation, but as they also handle distribution, in addition to promotion (<https://www.python.org/downloads/>) and the official documentation repository(<https://docs.python.org/3/>), I'd say it's the correct reference.
According to the legal documents on the python site (<https://www.python.org/about/legal/>)
>
> Except where otherwise specified, the contents of this website are
> copyright © 1990-2014, Python Software Foundation, 9450 SW Gemini Dr.,
> ECM# 90772, Beaverton, OR 97008, USA. All rights reserved.
>
>
>
That would certainly be a defendable, if not correct, location to use.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The best way to reference a software is to reference its manual (which hopefully exists). This can of course be problematic if the "manual" is some lose collection of web pages or the like. It is quite simple if the manual is compiled into a pdf. In the case of Python there are suggested references given by [this python citation suggestion](http://citebay.com/how-to-cite/python/). Please note that your can enter the reference yourself into the format that you see fit. In the case of additions to python it will be a question of sourcing similar references to manuals or find some established source URL.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: As a general rule, if you use the code, you should cite the code. Citing papers *about* the code, or random instruction manuals, or even the official documentation doesn't help people reproduce your results, and can actually steal credit from the people who wrote the code, because the papers/manuals/documentation may be written by a very different set of people.
For [OSS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software) packages like you're talking about, location doesn't make any sense, and the journal is probably quite capable of dealing with this fact. Rather, citing OSS packages generally involves citing the full name of the code and specific version you used, and where the code came from. Increasingly, OSS authors are coming to realize that it is helpful if they use things like [CITATION.cff files](https://citation-file-format.github.io/), and mint DOIs along with their versions. If they don't, you can usually request such a thing, and often get it. (My guess is that cpython hasn't done this because they don't know how to handle the author list.) But even when this isn't possible, you can usually find a permanent link on sites like github and pypi, and just cite it like any other URL. These are usually short citations; even the date is optional once the version is supplied.
If the authors specify (like [scikit-learn](https://scikit-learn.org/stable/about.html#citing-scikit-learn)) that they want you to cite something else, you should *also* cite that. This can also be important, because a lot of academic work may have gone into developing the techniques used by the code, which also deserves to be cited. But if there's any divergence between the code described in that reference and the actual version of code that you used, you need to supply more information in the form of a separate, specific reference.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/23
| 477
| 1,985
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently reviewing the proof of an accepted paper for its publication. I have noticed there is a figure whose colors I have chosen very poorly: one of them is yellow and cannot be seen very clearly and when printing the paper in gray scale it is invisible. Also, there is a Figure in which the order of the legend is not the best possible.
Can I change these two figures without the paper going back to the editor? I would of course only modify the colors of the Figure and the order in which legend appears.<issue_comment>username_1: If you want to change it, there is no harm in asking for this in the proof response (make sure you supply the new figure you want to update it with). The change might be considered to be merely stylistic, in which case the copy-editor could approve it without needing further guidance from the higher editor/referees. While editors don't usually like changes in the proofing stage, if it improves the readability of the paper then they might actually be glad you raised it. In any case, you won't know if you can change it if you don't ask.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Nowadays there are less and less printed papers.
A potential reader of your paper will most likely go through the electornic version of your paper.
Then, if the reader decides to print the paper it would be to read the text, readability of the figure will surely have an impact, the reader will curse you and the journal copy-editors for not spotting the issue and he will read the paper, trying to access the figure electronically.
So I would say "ask if you can, but don't bother yourself too much".
Said all this, I hope you learned your lesson (and that your lesson is learned also by others) about readability of plots.
Final remark: colormap jet is crap, damned shall be Matlab and Matplotlib for making it the default colormap for almost 15 years
<https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/10/16/how-bad-is-your-colormap/>
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/23
| 1,140
| 4,878
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<issue_start>username_0: I was interviewed a few days ago for a master degree and the interviewer asked me questions about the degree and the school in general. Some questions were about the learning method they use, the number of people in the class, the internship rhythm, etc. I wasn't able to answer some questions like "do you know the name of our partner?".
We did a debriefing and he told me that he was frustrated that I didn't know some pieces of information. He said that other students went to the school open day (knowing I live 500km away) or called the school a few times (I saw all the information I needed on their website).
As I want to prepare my interview better next time, is this case common? And how does it affect an admission?
Side note: I'm in France.<issue_comment>username_1: If you apply for any position in any institution, you're expected to be prepared, i.e. to know about the basics of the institution and the position/program.
The examples you mentioned fit well into that scheme. Why would you want to apply for a program if you don't know key concepts like
* the learning method they use,
* typical class sizes,
* the internship system applied?
The interviewer tries to assess
* whether you understand the learning culture at that school,
* whether you will be a good fit for the institution, someone who will graduate successfully with some probability.
A master's degree demands more than just being there on time and doing what some instructor tells you to do.
So, for the next application, I'd recommend that you try to answer the following questions ahead of time:
* Is this institution/program a good fit for my expectations?
* Am I a good fit for the institution's expectations?
This probably needs some research, but it will save you and the interviewer from wasted time and travel costs.
And if there are things you really can't find out on your own during this research phase, don't hesitate to ask, preferably before the interview, but it can also be done in the interview, showing your interest in the institution.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The answer by username_1 is completely correct in my opinion. I would just like to add one aspect.
As was mentioned also in the comments, it is custom to do some research about the school/university/company/etc. you apply to. If an applicant is not prepared, it might be that the applicant simply does not know about this custom. When a high school student applies for a summer intern, I would be lenient. But among applicants for a graduate program, it may be fair to assume that it is actually more likely being a sign of a general attitude.
In this way, being unprepared for questions about the school is comparable to wearing joggers. So I can understand the frustration of the interviewer, even though you may actually belong to the other group of persons.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I can't see any reasonable basis for "frustration" on the part of the interviewer **unless the application process provided all introductory info on the Department and advised applicants to familiarize themselves with it.**
I detect a note of vanity in this place.
Even if applicants had read all what the Department said about itself, its teaching and research approaches, its partner organizations, etc - I see nothing odd in applicants being healthily sceptical on some of the wilder claims, e.g. "excellence", "cutting edge", etc. Universities are rather human places after all.
Maybe you should reflect on whether you want to go into a place with unreasonable expectations or one that lacks essential modesty, humanity and self-perspective.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> Some questions were about the learning method they use, the number of people in the class, the internship rhythm, etc. I wasn't able to answer some questions like "do you know the name of our partner?".
>
>
>
A hypothesis that other answers have not explored is that the institution might consider that these are their strong points. In other words, they might take pride in being different in these regards and they might expect good candidates to apply because of these.
OP points out that they "saw all the information (they) needed on the institution's website". Assuming that the information was available somehow, it is a red flag from the interviewer's POV. I mean, if OP is not aware of all these good things they offer and no one else does, why is OP applying at all?
I'm not saying that this was the case, but for some niche institutions it might as well be. Also, I don't think that it's OP's fault. If this is really a niche institution with a very particular way of doing things and the alleged advantages did not seem important to OP, then maybe there simply wasn't good cultural fit and OP might be happier someplace else.
Upvotes: 0
|
2022/03/23
| 550
| 2,404
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<issue_start>username_0: I've written an article which is 32 pages long, (including 1.5 page of references and 3 pages of appendices). I intend to submit it to a conference which accepts 20-page long articles including references and excluding appendices, with at most an additional 10 pages for appendices.
The obvious way to proceed is to move some parts of the original article to the appendices. Indeed, some proofs are *very* similar to proofs published in former articles (which are of course, cited throughout the proofs). Thus, it's no big deal if they were to be moved to the appendices, since the original proofs are, to my opinion, what makes the article interesting.
However, the article will still be 32 pages long. A possible fix is to simply remove the previous appendix of the article. This appendix is a proof written in a previous article (which I'm not affiliated with in any way). The goal of the appendix is to show that this proof can still be applied to the more general context the article deals with. The proof is essentially the same: at the exception of some trivial tricks in the equations, the only thing that differs between this proof and the original one are the equations.
However, I'm quite embarrassed to simply say "trust me, do the same proof and it'll work". A solution I've thought about, since the article is already an eprint available on Internet, is to cite this eprint in the conference version of the article. Something along the lines of "This proof can be found in the full version of this article [1]".
Is it ethical, and likely to be accepted by the editors?<issue_comment>username_1: Referring to the full version (technical report) of a paper in a conference publication of the same paper with a strict page limit is completely standard, at least in computer science.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Actually, it might be essential to cite an earlier version, if it is or will be published. If you imply that the two works are independent then you are being dishonest and open yourself to charges of self plagiarism.
Presumably the longer/earlier paper has a more complete context a reader of the new version may well want access to that context without guessing that the earlier version exists.
Yes, cite it.
And be aware of any copyright restrictions that may apply if you have given up rights to a publisher.
Upvotes: 4
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2022/03/23
| 1,206
| 5,071
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<issue_start>username_0: I've fortunately gotten a placement to do supervised mathematical research over the summer. The field is probability/statistics. My research topic has already been given to me. I'm planning on asking this in my next meeting, but I'd like to gather some thoughts ahead of time on what success means in such a project.
In general, what does success look like in an undergraduate research project? The timespan is relatively short (6-8 weeks), and I'll have to learn and apply my knowledge quickly. So what does success mean? How can I ensure that measurable achievements come out of such a project? What kinds of measurable achievements are there to aim for?<issue_comment>username_1: Consider both internal and external success.
At this level and for such a short duration, external success might be quite modest and defined by your supervisor. It is probably too short to result in a publication, but anything is possible. If it is graded, that will also measure success. Even if the results aren't publishable, a written (and maybe oral) report at the end is good experience. If the supervisor is happy with the work, then you have an item for your CV when it comes time to apply to graduate school or some kinds of industry work.
In between, developing a good relationship with the supervisor is a kind of success that might help you along a bit later.
Internal success, however, can be quite broad and deep. If it introduces you to research process and if it helps you decide whether you want more of it then it is a plus. But diving quickly into a research topic and immersing yourself in it can have a profound effect on your mind. That is harder to measure objectively, but you will know it if it happens.
Getting some collaboration skills is also a good thing if it is part of the project. Teamwork is valued in lots of later career positions.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I have mentored NSF funded REU students through a math bio program.
My collaborators described our experience in a paper, [Using a Summer REU to Help Develop the Next Generation of Mathematical Ecologists](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-018-0405-7).
Here's my answers to questions given my experiences mentoring over 3 summers over the past 7 years:
>
> In general, what does success look like in an undergraduate research project?
>
>
>
For the students, learning about research through doing research.
I have had students discover they want to go to grad school.
I have also had students learn they do not want to go to grad school.
Both outcomes are successes because they positively shaped the students' lives.
An added bonus is that I have had 2 student first-authored papers from their projects.
However, the mentorship was my greatest personal success.
>
> The timespan is relatively short (6-8 weeks), and I'll have to learn and apply my knowledge quickly. So what does success mean?
>
>
>
Be organized.
Plan out a schedule before you start.
We treated our REU like a mini-biology master's program for 10 weeks.
* We spend about 2 weeks in a coding and math/stats/biology boot camp. This ensures all students have the skills they need.
* We then gave the students a focused project, usually in groups of 2-3.
For some students, the project would take all summer.
But, they would have something to present at future meetings.
These projects could be simple questions we had about data or existing models.
Or, they might be recreating an existing paper.
We selected projects given our (the mentors' interests) that also naturally lent themselves to bigger questions.
For stronger students, these projects would springboard into bigger questions they would discover on their own.
* We would spend the last 2 weeks winding down. The students would create a poster of their work. This gives them something to share at their home university. We also would send students to a national meeting to present after the REU. Also, we would do a de-brief with the student.
Throughout the REU, we would have guest speakers talk about the softer sides of science and research.
For example, we have regular speakers on careers in science and also people talking about how they got their jobs.
We also ensured our REU students' research was impactful and novel because we applied the models to new systems used by managers.
For example, we would have the students work on problems US Fish and Wildlife Service biologists could use the results from for their management.
Thus, even if the math and statistics were not new, the biological application were novel and impactful because agency biologists could use the results for decision making.
>
> How can I ensure that measurable achievements come out of such a project? What kinds of measurable achievements are there to aim for?
>
>
>
Look at the paper I shared.
My collaborators did formal pre- and post-REU assessments.
These allowed them to describe how they changed students likelihood for going to grad school and learned about science.
Upvotes: 3
|
2022/03/24
| 697
| 2,934
|
<issue_start>username_0: My PhD advisor recently agreed to fund my research visit for a conference. What is the etiquette for submitting expense bills for reimbursement?
Should I submit bills for all the ubers taken, meals eaten, etc? Or should I mainly just ask for reimbursement for the flight and accommodation?
I am comfortable spending a couple of hundred dollars for meals and ubers, and don't want to come across as "cheap".<issue_comment>username_1: Submit them all. Your advisor is a grown-up and can figure out how to break the news if only some of your expenses can be reimbursed.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As long as you think that the costs are well justified and they are within the rules of your institution I would submit everything. Ideally, we joy attending conferences and meeting colleagues and it may not feel like work but ultimately it is part of our job and should be treated as such. If you worked for a company you would not ask twice but simply assume that your business trip is covered. The same should apply to academic conferences. At least this is what I tell my PhD students and I would reimburse everything without hesitation as long as they can justify it and it is within the official limits.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You should ask your advisor what does the grant cover. Some grants cover more than others. You certainly do not want to submit everything without asking first.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Most universities have some kind of online administrative system to handle reimbursement of work expenses. Typically, this would involve you submitting a request into one of the online systems and attaching relevant receipts. Things might be different if your supervisor is funding out of a grant, but there is usually still a system for this. So in this situation, a good first step would be to email your supervisor to ask where/how you should submit your reimbursement request.
Usually reimbursement for work-related trips would include payment for the flights, accommodation, taxis/buses/etc., and meals. Sometimes there is a *per diem* rate payable for meals and daily expenses in lieu of cost-reimbursement, to alleviate the need to keep receipts for small expenses. Your supervisor should be able to give you guidance on the process and the items that are reimbursed.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: You should find out what the rules are from your advisor/institution, get receipts for everything, and preferably avoid spending a penny of your own money. **Conferences are work and should be paid for by the grant/institution**; you are not being cheap by ensuring that you are not doing this out of your own pocket.
The important thing to do is to find out exactly what the rules are before you go so that you know the score rather than being surprised later or missing out on money you should have claimed back.
Upvotes: 3
|
2022/03/24
| 529
| 2,300
|
<issue_start>username_0: I have seen many articles with the "Survey" tag. What exactly does a (survey article consist of? Does it contain all the history and work done related to the particular topic?
**My concern:** Is it ok to write an article as a survey? What are the chances for the acceptance of the article in a journal?
**P.S.** My research field is Mathematics.<issue_comment>username_1: Surveys (more commonly known as "reviews") give an overall introduction to the field. They don't necessarily contain *all* the work that has been done in history, if it is an old field, but they should contain all relevant recent work and present the state of the art. See e.g. [this source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4548566/) or [this source](https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/writing-your-paper/how-to-write-review-article/).
It's pretty common for review articles to be invited papers, where the journal's editorial board asks some famous researcher to write the review. But you can definitely write your own. The peer review process is similar to standard research articles. You submit it, the journal reviews it, and returns a decision. One cannot really talk about "chances of acceptance" - that's completely dependent on how good the paper is.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: By definition, a survey paper is not required to provide an original contribution (in the usual sense of some new result). However it must cover its topic very well, present it with a relevant and insightful structure, etc.
So it's neither easier or harder to get a survey paper accepted, it's just a different kind of task:
* The focus in a regular paper is whether the contribution is original, relevant to the field and scientifically correct. As long as these criteria are satisfied, an omitted reference or a small methodological issue may be considered as minor shortcomings by a reviewer.
* The focus in a survey paper is how well it presents the existing work in the target topic. So it's crucial not to forget any relevant work and to show a deep understanding of the field, preferably presenting it from an insightful perspective which helps the reader understand the similarity/differences between different works.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/24
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a PhD graduate and I supervised a Master's student in a research work that lead to a publication. The Master student is the first author, then it is me, and then is the name of our advisor. Since I had an equal contribution to the paper, does stating me as an equal contributor affect my supervisory role of the work?
Because I am planning for a post-doc position and I think it may be important to have a paper in which I supervised another student.
p.s. I am publishing in the field of computer science (ML, Computer Vision)<issue_comment>username_1: Making two authors to equally contributing ones does not imply anything explicit about their roles for the research, just like the author order which does not follow any real rules. There are some field-dependent conventions, but also those are subject to interpretation.
A way out would be to include an author contribution statement to your paper where you explicitly state the roles of all authors. You could for example use the [CRediT system](https://casrai.org/credit/) (and I encourage you to do so) which also includes the contribution "supervision".
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Honestly, I have an itchy feeling about this, especially in a field like CS. There are those that will assume that a PI/advisor/supervisor did all the work when they appear in the list of "authors", rather than in an acknowledgement of other contributors. In math, and it was my practice in CS as well, to not consider any sort of authorship on my student's research output. And yes, they got some help from me, just as I did from my own doctoral advisor.
Having you as joint "first" author clouds the picture even further. If you want to emphasize that you were the advisor then let the student be sole first author (I won't suggest sole author, though it would be my practice).
Write an acknowledgements section in the paper that lists yourself as a contributor.
The difference for one publication between first and second authorship is so small as to not be worth polluting the space. And if the student objects to not being sole first author, then all the more reason to let it go. If you want to be a great advisor then boost your students.
There is something special about a student's first publication. Twenty years from now your generosity will be remembered. Forty years. Etc.
Upvotes: 1
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2022/03/24
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<issue_start>username_0: I was just wondering if a short survey on the literature belongs on a conference paper (10 pages max). Is it an option to submit the short survey (focuses specifically on an area) to a conference and later on the fully developed survey (focuses on all aspects) to a survey journal? Or would it be more prudent to extend it fully (30+ pages) so it belongs on a survey journal paper. The short survey would be on the limitations of a technique frequently used in cloud computing. The extended version would include a more thorough description, taxonomy, use cases, limitations, etc. The landscape in the field changes very quickly, hence my question of whether it belongs in a conference.
More specifically, the conference does not mention that they don't accept surveys. Here's what the conference says:
>
> IEEE CLOUD is a flagship conference focusing on innovative cloud
> computing across all "as a service" categories, including modeling,
> developing, publishing, monitoring, managing, delivering
> Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) in the context of various types of
> cloud environments. IEEE CLOUD invites original papers addressing
> all aspects of cloud computing technology i.e., infrastructure,
> applications, management and security solved using technologies of Big
> Data, Artificial Intelligence, High Performance computing, Distributed
> computing etc.
>
>
>
Thanks for your advice!<issue_comment>username_1: I would focus on the following sentence:
>
> IEEE CLOUD invites original papers addressing all aspects of cloud computing technology [...]
>
>
>
To my understanding, this excludes survey/review papers because they are no original papers.
---
See also: [What are the differences between these kinds of articles: original, review, letter, and short communication?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/59066/what-are-the-differences-between-these-kinds-of-articles-original-review-lett)
---
As @username_2 explained in his comments, my understanding is not necessarily the same as intended by the description of possible conference contributions. Attitudes may vary to what is understood as original research, see for example: <https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/8/e029704>
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: You should email the conference chair (or preferably the track chair, if you have identified a specific conference track for submission) and ask them directly. That is the only way to answer your question. One conference might accept survey articles in one track, and another conference might not accept them for a similarly-themed track. The same goes with a journal. Not all journals accept survey or literature review articles. Unfortunately, the conference or journal description is not always sufficiently clear on this point because most researchers, even senior researchers, who do not right survey articles do not typically think of this special genre when they develop their conference or journal descriptions. So, email the chair (or journal editor) directly and they should clarify you.
Upvotes: 0
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2022/03/24
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<issue_start>username_0: "No pronouns please" was the first line in the academic's bio after their name—it was included in an invitation to attend their presentation. No other data.
What if you slipped and used a pronoun when you were addressing them? How could you handle it?
It turned out after the event that the person self-identifies as non-binary.<issue_comment>username_1: First, saying “no pronouns please” is such a vague request that I wouldn’t even know how to begin to comply with it. So I wouldn’t worry much about “slipping”. I respect people’s wishes when they make requests of me about how to refer to them, but I need to understand the request first in order to comply.
Second, based on your clarification, what I’m guessing happened here\* is that the academic was filling a web form in which they entered their presentation details (title, abstract and so forth), in response to a request from a seminar organizer. That web form has fields to fill for a name, bio, and apparently pronouns as well. The academic didn’t know what to write in the pronouns field, or perhaps is opposed to the inclusion of pronouns as part of one’s description of who they are, or simply misunderstood the question, so they wrote “no pronouns please”. This ended up through some automated process as an event listing (sent as an email or displayed on a departmental seminars web page) that shows “no pronouns please” appearing after the academic’s name, with no context to indicate what that’s supposed to mean.
To summarize, this seems to be nothing more than a small misunderstanding. I would treat this person as I treat any other person who hasn’t expressed a special wish to be referred to in some specific way, and not spend time worrying about it.
\* **Edit:** My guesses turned out to be wrong. Oh well, it happens. Whether that means the above answer is worthless or still interesting is in the eye of the beholder. Feel free to vote according to your opinion on this issue.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Just apologize. Send them a note and tell them that you realize you made a mistake on their pronouns since they asked you not to use them, that you are sorry and you'll do better in the future.
How do others refer to them in third person? Do they not go by "they"? I find this a little confusing, so if you are also confused, you could take the opportunity to clarify how they prefer to be referred to in third person, so you can avoid another mistake.
Misgendering someone or otherwise flubbing pronouns is embarrassing, but it means a lot to people when you take the opportunity to recognize the wrongdoing and apologize. It signals that you take the matter seriously and you respect their wishes. What you definitely do not want to do is behave as if their transgender status is something to be hush hush about or as if pronouns cannot be discussed openly.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: #### Take account of the cultural context
Based on present cultural context, presumably this academic does not literally mean that you need to avoid using pronouns --- presumably he just means that he does not like it when speakers "state their pronouns" when they introduce themselves and so he is choosing not to in his bio. There is nothing you have to do about this, other than being aware that this person is one of the many dissenters against the practice of stating one's pronouns in introductions and biographical information. Honestly, the kind of obtuseness required to pretend that this is all a mystery ---that this academic literally wants you to avoid all pronouns--- strikes me as part of the orthodoxy. It is what Orwell referred to as "Crimestop" or "protective stupidity".
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: Without knowing that the person identifies as non-binary, I would have been at a loss to understand the request.
Having that information, the request can most likely be taken by its literal meaning. The person asks the attendees to refer to them by their name only, without pronouns. For example: "As John was saying..." rather than "as he was saying..."
It's tricky. I just used "them", because pronouns can be hard to avoid, but of course the polite thing to do is to honour the request. When directly interacting with the person, it's probably easier. If you accidentally slipped a pronoun, most likely it's no big deal. If the person takes offense, just say "sorry", and that's it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: There are not that many reasons why guests or listeners to a seminar or other presentation would actually talk about the presenter using pronouns with the presenter themselves. It would be more relevant to the chair introducing the speaker who might deliver a short bio overview and then the "no pronouns please" would mean to say "John (Doe) received the PhD degree at ...: instead of "He received his PhD degree at..." or "They received their PhD degree at...".
Should the name be repeated too much, one can mix in neutral noun expressions such as "our guest", "today's speaker" or similar.
Of course, when the attendees discuss the presentation among themselves, they face the same issue. Did they like "his talk", "their talk" or "<NAME>" talk? If they are aware of the "no pronouns please" request, they should use the third option.
If you just want to have a talk with the presenter, there is not that much risk of doing anything wrong if you just call <NAME> as John or as <NAME> or perhaps prof. Doe and use the "you" pronoun to address this person directly.
I do agree that likely this information was directly received from some form the speaker filled, but I do not think it is wrong. If we want our speakers to be able to state their pronouns, they should also be free to say "no pronouns please", it is their choice. Also, it is not that complicated to follow that request. It does not really matter whether they are cis or trans.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: As a non-binary person (albeit one who does use pronouns - they/them), this is not a common choice, but neither is it terribly unusual (it's probably about as common as someone requesting the pronoun it, and both are much less common than a non-binary person requesting they/them pronouns, one of the more common sets of neo-pronouns, or a mix of pronouns).
In such situations it would generally be preferred to choose your phrasing so as to avoid the necessity of third person pronouns, or to use the person's name. This of course does not come naturally to many people, and it usually takes a lot of practice before people can do so without slipping up fairly often.
Regardless of what specific pronouns (or lack thereof) a person has requested, best practice if you make a mistake is usually to simply correct yourself and continue. Making a big apology, either at the time or afterwards can draw attention to the mistake that third parties might otherwise have missed, or feel like you're putting pressure on them to assuage your guilt.
As this is an especially uncommon request, the person who made it will doubtless be used to people slipping up, and will be aware that this will happen more often than with someone making a more common one.
All reasonable non-binary and trans people I know do not generally begrudge the mistakes of people who make a good-faith effort to use our pronouns, and so you likely have nothing to worry about if you do make a good effort to avoid pronouns even if you do occasionally slip up.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: It's becoming more and more common in bios and other places to see people specifying the pronouns you should use to refer to them:
* "he/him"
* "she/her"
* "they/them" (known as "singular they")
* "xe/xem" (and other neopronouns)
* "she/they" (meaning either the "she" set of pronouns or the "they" set of pronouns)
(The format sometimes varies but two pronouns separated by a slash is the most common way to see it written.)
In the context of this developing culture, where more and more people identify as something other than their birth sex, "no pronouns" is unambiguous. It means that the person doesn't want to be referred to with any of the pronouns above. The reason for that will vary from individual to individual, but shouldn't ultimately matter. Try to respect the request, as for some people it is very important.
Instead of using "he", "she", etc., use the person's name, nickname, or a noun phrase like "my colleague" (as appropriate).
If you mess up, that's understandable because of how English is. According to what I've heard, you shouldn't make such a big deal out of it: just correct yourself and continue. It's certainly not easy, but you can make it a little easier for yourself by practicing not using pronouns ahead of time.
To clarify, you will still address a person like this as "you" when in person, "we" if you're collaborating together, or even "they" when it's a group including that person and others. It's just that you should avoid using 3rd person singular pronouns (or singular they) for such a person. (It also indirectly means you shouldn't use gendered nouns either such as "woman", "son", and so on.)
See also [What do you do when someone doesn’t use any pronouns?](https://pflag.org/blog/what-do-you-do-when-someone-doesn%E2%80%99t-use-any-pronouns)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Ask your professor. This is a life skill you should master. Speculating and asking other people what someone means--rather than directly asking them yourself--is inefficient and ineffective. It demonstrates a lack of candor and professional skills in dealing with others.
Upvotes: -1
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2022/03/24
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<issue_start>username_0: I have, unfortunately, ended up working with a truly awful co-author on three separate projects. The problem with this co-author is easy to summarise: he contributes almost nothing to the projects, and yet he wants to make all the decisions. As you can probably guess, he is fairly senior (and substantially more senior than me).
To give an example, let me tell you about the second project we worked on. The co-author played no role in coming up with the idea of the paper. He played no role in designing the experiment on which the paper is based. He did none of the data analysis, and also didn’t write the paper up. In fact, he only saw the paper well after it had been circulated for comments! His only ‘contribution’ has been to take the completed paper, and then make some (terrible) edits to the finished version, thereby making it slightly worse.
Given his lack of contribution, you might think that he would feel lucky to be listed as a co-author at all. Unfortunately (for me), he doesn’t exactly feel this way. Instead, he thinks that he gets to make all the important decisions, including the decision of where and when to publish the paper. Moreover, he decided that we need to run some extra experiments before he will ‘sign off’ the paper for submission. That was over a year ago — and we still haven’t submitted the paper.
I could you about the other projects, but the story is the same. He contributes nothing to the paper until it is finished, at which point he makes some terrible edits. He then thinks that he gets to decide on everything — including whether his terrible edits can be altered and (more importantly) when and where we submit the paper.
You might ask why I ever agreed to work with him. The answer is that my friend (who contributes a lot to the projects) persuaded me to — and this coauthor is my friend’s employer. This makes it very difficult to resolve the situation.
I should perhaps add that this co-author co-owns the data on which the experiments are based. I think this probably makes it impossible to remove him as a co-author on the papers. In fairness, one could also view this as his contribution to the projects (he co-owns the company that has been running the experiments).
I really need some advice about what to do. On the one hand, I want to tell him how I feel about what he has put me through over the last two years. I have also considered contacting my university (and his university) to escalate my complaints. On the other hand, I feel pretty powerless here. What he has done is not exactly plagiarism, and he does co-owns the data which we use in the papers. In addition, he is fairly well known and could retaliate by trying to sabotage my career.
I should also explain the very specific conflict we have currently. We have recently finished our third (and final) project together. He has done his usual thing of making some terrible edits, right at the end and once the paper is completed. I now want to submit. However, he wants to delay submission (he won’t give a timeline), mainly so he has more time to make edits. Hence the conflict.<issue_comment>username_1: I suggest that you do what is necessary to get to the end of this project, even if it is somewhat unsatisfactory and just move on. If they have made some "decisions" on the structure of the project/paper then they probably can claim authorship and can probably just demand it in any case.
I assume that you also have valid authorship and can't be removed. You could, yourself, refuse to permit the work to be published, but I don't recommend that (actually recommend against it).
You can't prevent what this person will do to your friend no matter your course of action.
But move toward the exits and salvage what you can from this burning edifice. Don't bother to complain to him. It won't help anything. If he tries to remove you and publish without your authorship you can then complain to the publisher.
Sadly, this isn't a unique situation.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I have, unfortunately, ended up working with a truly awful co-author on three separate projects.
>
>
>
Well, that's the problem right there isn't it; that number is two too many.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: This sounds very familiar. I once worked for a PI who behaved in a very similar way, down to the total lack of participation, the terrible edits, the arrogance, and the insistence on being in charge. In one case, the edits consisted of some wording rewrites and adding his name in various places in the author contributions where it didn't belong. He then finished off by sending us (his co-authors) a lecture on grammar by email.
The project I was working on (two of them) were both sort of derived from his "intellectual property". And I think one of the projects used data he provided.
I don't think I have much advice to offer except to say that it sounds like there is little if anything you can do about this. Your problem person realises, I'm sure, that he has leverage, and that there is little you can do. Also, based on my experience of academia, complaining will almost certainly be useless, and possibly worse than useless, if your co-author learns of it. Sorry.
I also imagine this sort of thing is not uncommon, at least with PIs dealing with his/her own students/postdocs. It might even be common. For obvious reasons, data about such things is hard to get. My experience on working in collaborative projects is that "senior" people are extremely disinclined to do any actual work on the project, though they are more than happy to have their name on it. My impression is that this is how (some) people get ahead in academia, by taking credit for other people's work. The capitalist analog is obvious.
Your case is different, in that you are dealing with a colleague's employer. The good news is that because this is the case, you can get away from it relatively easily.
I suggest finishing the project with him, if you can, and I also recommend that you avoid, if possible, starting new projects involving this person in the future. Because the stress is probably not worth it. You say you've worked on three different projects with this person. That seems like a lot, and I would avoid a fourth unless there is some truly compelling reason for it. Also, I would not stress about the unfinished project. It sounds like there is little you can do to speed it up without creating more friction, and it's probably not worth it. But don't withdraw from the project either. It sounds like it will probably move forward and get published eventually.
Upvotes: 2
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2022/03/24
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<issue_start>username_0: In general, it's fairly difficult to get a funded PhD position in the UK, if you're an international student.
An international grad student in the UK has essentially a few options, such as: (1) ultra-prestigious scholarships like the Rhodes scholarship, (2) external funding, e.g. from industry or their home country's government (this is common for students from many Asian countries), or (3) compete for a *very* small number of department or university funded positions/scholarships open to internationals.
This is very different from the situation in the US and most of continental Europe, where a PhD position *always* comes with a salary, and where there's typically no discrimination between domestic and international applicants.
Are there historical reasons why the UK PhD system is like this? It seems strange, especially given that the UK is a wealthy country strong in scientific research. Why don't they reform their system to better attract international talent?
(My field is physics, but I think the same is true across other STEM subjects.)<issue_comment>username_1: Funding of international students in the UK is a lot more difficult than places like the US because the UK research organizations (UKRI and the various research councils underneath it) have very strict rules about which type of award can and cannot support students, and how the money should be allocated to students.
The first major difference is that grants from the UK research councils (such as EPSRC/BBSRC/ESRC/etc.) can not be used to fund any student fees, so when a professor gets a new grant, they can't use it for students they have to use it for research staff (such as post-docs) [1]. This is very different from the US system, where grants from bodies like the NSF/NIH can be used to fund students.
Instead, the UK research councils have special "Doctoral training" grants and "PhD Studentships" that are meant for funding PhD students. Even these are limited though, with the current UKRI rules [2] saying that no more than 30% of the UKRI-funded portion of a cohort on a training grant (e.g. Centre for Doctoral Training, training grant programs awarded to universities, etc.) can be international students, and even then, the UKRI-provided money can only be used to cover the amount of the home fees for the student. This means that those international students still must pay the difference between the international and home fees amount (although the university can cover the difference from other sources, such as internal funding or company support).
Both of these restrictions means that the main funding source available to support PhD students in countries like the US (e.g. government grants and centers) is not easily available to support international students in the UK, forcing the reliance on the private programs and university-level programs where the individual charities/universities set the rules and not the government.
[1] RGC 4.5 in <https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/UKRI-170821-FullEconomicCostingGrantTermsConditions-Aug2021.pdf>
[2] <https://www.ukri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/UKRI-170321-InternationalEligibilityImplementationGuidance.pdf>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Different countries give different answers to the basic question
>
> Why would a society (country) fund someone from outside that society
> for getting some academic degree?
>
>
>
Some of the reasons can be:
* pure altruism,
* seeing it as development aid (which will be politically desirable),
* expectation that the person will stay and work for a domestic company, thus strengthening the economy,
* strengthening the domestic research community (in international competition),
* lack of own personnel capable of doing important research.
Alas, societies often are only willing to invest resources (money) if the can clearly see a good return-on-investment. And the UK seems to be a bit more sceptical here than other countries.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The big difference between the UK system and some other systems is that in the UK a PhD student is primarily regarded, at least by the system (even if not always by the supervisor) as a *student* who is there to learn, whereas, at least in the EU system, PhD students are primarily regarded as *researchers* who are there to perform a role.
The OP asks "Why don't they reform their system to better attract international talent?". This assumes that students are regarded as something you want to attract in order to benefit the country. But officialdom in the UK regards students as people who take benefit, rather than give it. A student is receiving a service, not providing one. To a British official, asking why they don't fund overseas PhD student is the same as asking why they don't pay for the undergraduate tuition fees of international students.
So, the British government sets aside a certain amount of money each year from its education/training budget to train PhD students. As it sees its job to educate British people, it would usually only pay for the PhD education of British people - it is other people's governments' job to pay for the education of their own people.
All of this is at least partly related to the superiority of the Arts and Humanities in British culture as the place where real intellectuals come from - at least in the minds of those in power, who almost without fail have humanities degrees from elite universities. In the arts and humanities, this view that PhD students are not part of a research workforce is closer to the truth.
All of this should not be taken as an endorsement of this situation, which I think is terrible.
All hope is not lost though. While with the UK leaving the EU, students from the EU became international students, the government has partially offset this by saying that up to 30% of students recruited to the main government-funded PhD programs (UKRI DTPs/DTCs) can be overseas students. In practice, I've found that this cap hasn't been a limitation, and we've been able to admit all the overseas students that ranked high enough in open competition in our DTP.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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2022/03/25
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<issue_start>username_0: My dissertation advisor (committee chair) just informed me that he is severely ill and will leave the program very soon. His physical condition does not allow him to continue with any kind of advisory work, and that's happening all of a sudden.
We have been on this dissertation topic for almost 10 months, and I have drafted the proposal. The data has been collected and transcribed (not like we collected the data before the proposal but the data was already there and I transcribed them for partial sample analysis in the proposal). The original plan is to propose on April or May and do the defense by the end of summer.
Now I am still in the middle of shock and I don't know what to do next.
--
Add: My department is a relatively small one, with a limited number of faculty members and each having really their own expertise. This makes the situation even more complicated as if I am going to switch to another advisor within the department-which I ultimately will have to-their expertise will not be a match to my advisor's and mine. This worries me a lot.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a question for your director of graduate studies (DGS) or chair.
I would not anticipate any poor outcomes for you with regard to the defense specifically. In other words, you aren't going to be asked to come up with a new proposal that aligns with your "new advisor"'s line of work.
Of course, losing your advisor is a different story, but I'm sure the department will try their best to keep you on your schedule. (Although only a few months between proposal and defense? Is that usual in your department?)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Compatibility with research scholar and research supervisor is important for a successful research career. As you say that you work in a small department, see the available choices of supervisors, and choose the one who best matches with your research interests. Then discuss the research proposal with the new supervisor and either keep it or polish it or change it to an altogether new proposal as suggested by the new thesis supervisor. I was blessed with a great thesis supervisor in US and he allowed me to choose my own problem in control engineering, which was an open problem.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: If you have some close collaborators, it might also be possible to have them as your advisor. I know a few students who have scientists from national labs as their advisor.
Upvotes: 0
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