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2022/06/13	280	1,158	<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Number theory following all its norms. But after submission I noticed a small mistake I made while writing a formula. The proof isn't wrong but I misinterpreted the formula in Latex.(I made a minor typo) Now I noticed and corrected the manuscript. Can I do something about it?<issue_comment>username_1: Your editor will not be pleased, but you should tell them what you discovered with a profuse apology and the new version. You are not the first one in the same predicament. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: We're all been there. Three questions: 1. Is it really a "minor typo"? 2. Does it affect the understanding of what follows? 3. Is it reasonably easy for the reader to figure out the correct formula? If the answers are yes, no, yes, then I'd leave things as they are, for the moment. There will be plenty of opportunities during revision. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes. Wait till the journal sends it back asking for revisions, and make the correction then. Or if they reject it, make the correction before you submit it to a new journal. Upvotes: -1
2022/06/13	697	2,944	<issue_start>username_0: Suppose I am a Professor working for a reputed university. Am I allowed (by the university) to make teaching videos of my courses at home and publish them on a platform like YouTube or somewhere else and monetize them?<issue_comment>username_1: This cannot be answered because there is no general agreement between universities and teachers. Whether or not you are allowed to do this simply depends on whether your university allows this or not. For your information: at some universities this is definitely allowed, but there will usually be explicit agreements about who owns the IP and who can profit from such videos. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It depends on the wording of your contract with the university. In general, professors monetize their academic work all the time. Be it through writing textbooks, consulting, patenting, building startups based on their research etc. Universities may be entitled to royalties from any such activity, though the exact amount may vary. For example, [Stanford](https://facts.stanford.edu/research/innovation/) received $114M from royalties in 2020 alone (it's worth mentioning that Google pays them royalties). If you are planning on making online lectures and monetizing it, the best course of action is probably to let the university know that you're planning on doing it. They'll help establish who holds intellectual property rights to the material exactly. Most institutions have a legal team whose job is (among other things) to protect the university's proprietary rights, and they'll know what to do in this situation. That said, they are protecting the university's interests, not yours. If you are serious about this (and not just uploading lectures for a few extra bucks off of YouTube ads), then it may be worthwhile to consult a lawyer who specializes in IP/labor laws. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Standards and laws differ (widely) from place to place. I never worked at a place that constrained me from such things, but some questions on this site imply that in some jurisdictions your entire intellectual output is claimed by your employer even when it is a university. But you can learn the specifics of your case by speaking with some legal officer of your university. They can point out what contractural and/or legal rules apply to your specific case. As an example, though not the same thing, some universities claim patent rights on any patentable material produced by faculty and may (probably will) share in any proceeds that accrue. In such cases patents are filed in the name of the university. While this seems like a bad thing it also means that the university assumes the cost of filing the patent (lawyer fees...) and defending it. These costs can be substantial. --- Note that the fact that you produce these "at home" is probably not relevant if you have contractual obligations. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/13	892	4,054	<issue_start>username_0: I have noticed i made a mistake in my work. I need to follow some steps (wich weren't real clear for me at the beginning of my PhD and my supervsior never said anything about them), and i just saw i made a mistake. I have defined those steps in the wrong order. Let's say i did step 4 before step 3. Which obviously changed the results I was getting (now that the order is correct, the results are really bad). It is my supervisor role to check if i am doing the correct steps in my work? Check if my methodology is the correct one?<issue_comment>username_1: My own opinion (and practice) is that, yes, it is the supervisor's job to assure such things. Perhaps not personally, as it can be delegated to others, but it should be done. But there are a wide range of opinions and of practice. Some supervisors are completely hands-off in such things and some are, at the other extreme, overly (looking for the right word here) intrusive. But the student also has responsibility to understand the consequences of what they are doing and proposing. So, the student doesn't get a free pass if the supervisor fails to act appropriately. Normally students study other research in their field so as to understand appropriate methodology or, perhaps, take a course in methodology appropriate to the field. Everyone, student and supervisor, need to review the work as it proceeds to look for any red flags so that the research can be redirected early enough to be effective. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: tl;dr: Do not expect your supervisor to micromanage your work; learn to do it yourself. PhD is a research degree. Although there are some rules (ethical, procedural) about how research should be done, an art of doing research is more than just a simple process of following some pre-determined steps. Research by definition is aimed at creating new knowledge and often new methods of acquiring the knowledge. As a PhD student, aspiring to become an independent researcher, you should be learning how to review your own work, how to verify the accuracy of results at intermediate steps, and how to check whether the obtained results are sensible as early as possible. A PhD supervisor has a duty of helping you to navigate your area and structure your work. However, they should not micromanage each step their student does. It is student's responsibility to understand the details of operating procedures, do the background reading, fill in the missing details sometimes (checking their own suggestions) and ask for advice when necessary. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You discovered a mistake in your protocol. You discovered the mistake on your own. You ask whether you can fault your PhD advisor for not telling you (soon enough) beforehand how to avoid the mistake. Based on your statements, you may run into an issue when you raise such blame. The protocol clearly existed independent of your advisor (because you found the mistake without input from your advisor). A reasonable retort is that you were informed where to find the protocol, and you were instructed/expected to master the protocol on your own. Alternatively said, the implicit if not explicitly stated understanding your advisor had when you started the experiments was that you would not be given a step-by-step, side-by-side (hand-holding) session to teach you how carry out the protocol(s) in detail. In summary, even as you consider to blame your advisor after the fact, consider equally how well you understood his/her expectations about how you were to master the required protocols before you even started them. Also consider how much this incident reflects on a potential lack in your ability to thoroughly deconstruct an experimental protocol to mastery before you even start it. Maybe the bigger lesson in this incident is to appreciate why you should ask in advance for a review to find possible faults in your thinking rather than waiting until the end to reap the consequences of those faults. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/13	493	1,919	<issue_start>username_0: Suppose, I need to write a research proposal for a Ph.D. application, and I have limited time on my hand as the deadline is approaching very fast. My topic is as follows: > > A novel multiscale method for driving a screw using machine learning and a screw-driver. > > > Say, I have collected around 200 research articles from 2016 to 2022, and I made sure that each of them contains the following keywords: 1. multiscale 2. driving screws 3. machine learning 4. screw-driver Now, among 200 articles 70 of them are surveys/reviews from 2016 to 2022. * Can I write my proposal only on the basis of those 70 surveys to save my time? N.B. In the bibliography, I will not mention survey articles, but the original articles listed in the survey.<issue_comment>username_1: You can consult whatever you like. But note that surveys are more likely to cover only older material so you may be missing what is known at the state of the art by restricting yourself to only that. Abstracts of more recent articles will help you fill in the gaps if there are any. Also, what you list in the bibliography should be the papers you actually reviewed. Moreover, how close you need to be to the state of the art will differ by location. Most entering doctoral students in the US have only an undergraduate degree and little research experience so less is expected than in, say, Germany. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If your purpose is a research proposal for a Ph.D. application, I do not think you would be expected to carry out a comprehensive review of the research. I think that if you were to focus on the last ten surveys and maybe ten of the most recent articles from 2021-2022 that are truly pertinent, then considering your time constraints, that should be sufficient to show that you are thoughtfully aware of the most important points. Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
2022/06/13	317	1,270	<issue_start>username_0: I would like to cite > > The United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf et al: Opinion and > Judgment and Sentence’, Military Tribunal, No. 2, 9 April 1948 > > > I am not sure the right way to do this. I assume it is not a journal but I am not sure what sort of publication it is. It exists [online](https://famous-trials.com/nuremberg/1894-opinion) as well.<issue_comment>username_1: I suspect none of the standard bibliographic guidelines or packages have an entry for this (I assume you checked). So invent something that provides the information your reader would need to find the reference for themselves. When your paper is accepted for publication an editor will make the final formatting decision. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The point of a citation is not to satisfy some abstract administrator who is intent on making sure that rules are followed, but to make it possible for a reader to find the work you are referencing. So, if the style you are using does not have a specified way to reference what you want to reference, then make something up. The guideline to follow is: Does however you provide the reference make it possible and easy for your reader to identify which document you are referencing? Upvotes: 2
2022/06/13	1,205	5,165	<issue_start>username_0: (note I work in a field were author ordering is important and is meant to reflect relative contributions). The situation is the following: Me and a colleague (who I will call C from now on) independently conceived of a research idea. I joined C and two other colleagues who had just started working on the idea. In the months that followed, I ran the majority of the experiments and wrote most of the code; C wrote some code in the first 2 days and was active in discussions / planning afterwards, and also ran two experiments (i.e. ran the code written by me and colleagues). When we decided to write up a paper, C proposed that we be co-first authors, with him being listed first. I agreed. He wrote most of the related work and discussion section, and I wrote most of the rest of the paper (in both cases 'most' meaning roughly 'everything apart from ~2-3 paragraphs'). The paper was rejected from a conference. A new person joined the project; we ran a number of new experiments and re-wrote most of the text of the paper, including most of what C originally wrote. C contributed in small ways to the second iteration (e.g. making a figure from data that I collected). ETA: To clarify, C agreed to the addition of the new person as author, and he was actively supportive of the idea of re-submitting the paper, doing new experiments, and re-drafting sections. Unfortunately we did not discuss a new author ordering before submitting the revised paper (this was obviously a mistake). The updated paper has now been accepted to a conference. I and all authors apart from C think we should probably change the author ordering (currently me and C are co-first, with C listed first; personally, I believe that I and another author both contributed more than C). ETA: The other author who I think contributed more was involved from the very beginning (and proposed the flagship experiment), not the new person. There are a few complications: * We already publicly posted the first (rejected) version of the paper on arxiv, with C listed first. * C vehemently disagrees with changing the author order * C also does not want to discuss this or talk to an external mediator * C may be having mental health issues What is the best way to proceed here? The ideal would have been to find consensus, but that seems unlikely. We are considering getting an external mediator involved even though C may not be willing to talk to them, as they may be able to provide a somewhat objective opinion and I want to avoid taking a decision unilaterally. Is there anything else we can do? A key point here is that I am worried that C cannot currently represent his case as fully as he could otherwise due to mental health issues. Some possible outcomes: * We leave the author order as-is. * We leave C as co-first author, but make my other colleague co-first author as well and change the listing order. * We make the strongest change, making me sole first author and C third * Something else?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally you have to resolve author order co-operatively since any author can refuse to let the paper be published. In reality, however, power relationships come in to play and subordinates often yield to superiors, whether fairly or not. And, since any one can stop publication, one jerk can foul up the process if they like. Trying to drop an author can leave you with plagiarism issues. You had an agreement originally. I'd guess that the best, certainly easiest, solution is to just maintain that. It gets you over the hump and you get a publication as does everyone else. Copacetic. A publication is a good thing even if you aren't as high in the author order as you think proper. Very few careers depend on author order of a single publication. And, in future, discuss these things early on and probably avoid working with C, at least. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There's a bit of a gap in your narrative around: > > A new person joined the project; we ran a number of new experiments and re-wrote most of the text of the paper, including most of what C originally wrote. > > > From my perspective outside your group of authors, it sure sounds like C got pushed out of the way and you expected them to be okay with not having the same role in the paper anymore. It seems like you did this without C's blessing or agreement. Even if they were moving slowly or someone else was itching to get things done, your original agreement with C holds until you renegotiate. The better time to negotiate this change would have been before the new person came in and did a bunch of work. You have to reach an author order that everyone agrees with, so you don't get to choose from the possible options you've listed, you only get to come to agreement with your coauthors about one of them. I'd be careful about referring to C's mental health in any of this. I don't know if you mean to imply that their mental health is somehow making them stubborn or unwilling to cooperate, or that the reason you pushed them aside is because of their mental health, but neither argument looks good for you. Upvotes: 4
2022/06/13	1,601	6,378	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a gradate student at a UK university. Today, I faced a difficult situation and I'm not sure if my decision was right, so I'd like to hear your opinions (I'm not a native English speaker so I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors). I was going to attend a valedictory lecture (the very last lecture by a retiring professor) in a building I'd never visited. I used Google Maps to get there and ended up in front of a facility with no entrance for students. Two other students were also there, confused. We then spent a long time looking for the right place, until one of us noticed there were two buildings with the identical name and we were supposed to go to the other one. At that point, we were about 3 minutes late for the lecture, and I told them we might not be allowed to come in late because it seemed to be an extremely formal event (We had been told to wear formal attire). They disagreed and headed for the right building, so I followed. However, by the time we arrived, we were more than 10 minutes late (the lecture would last for two hours), and we didn't even know which way to go in a huge building. Then I decided to give up and go back home, telling the others I personally found it rude and inappropriate to be THAT late. They went on and I don't know if they were actually allowed to join the audience. But now I wonder if this was the right decision. One reason I decided not to go was that I had never interacted with the retiring professor (although we belonged to the same department) and she wouldn't even recognize me. How would she have felt if an unknown student (or actually, three students) had joined in the middle of her last lecture? Could you please share your thoughts on this so I can make a better decision when I find myself in a similar situation in the future? Thank you so much for reading this. EDIT: We were "invited" to the lecture and attendance was not compulsory.<issue_comment>username_1: > > However, by the time we arrived, we were more than 10 minutes late (the lecture would last for two hours) > > > I'm not British, but 10 minutes is not that late. I would not find it rude - in principle - to enter a two-hour lecture 10 minutes late. However, what is rude when arriving late is walking all the way across the hall, finding a seat in the middle of the row, and squeezing in front of people. It would be fine to stand in the back, or sit only if you can reach a chair without being too disruptive. From the comments: "I am British, and slipping into the back late would seem reasonable. The problem can be lecture theatre design with the only access at the front; then you have a dilemma" Even then, I can't tell you the name of more than one person I've seen come late to a talk. I've been that person. Don't worry about it. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My opinion: You should have quietly entered the room and stayed at the back - if allowed. Do that next time. Or better, leave enough time to find an unfamiliar room. That said, I don't think your decision not to try is significant. Since you are professionally pretty distant from the speaker, it's likely that you were never missed. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Please don't worry about it. Missing the lecture was not a problem; these kinds of lectures are generally advertised to the whole university community and in particular everyone in the department. If everyone who was invited attended there might not have been enough seats for them all. Also, having several buildings with similar names is also not uncommon. It often comes from having a generous donor who made more than one donation towards buildings and get the honour of being linked to it. Your question asked about being late. This does not have a simple answer, as it often depends on the architecture of the venue in question. In all of the lecture theatres I have used there are entrances to the front by the stage and at the back behind the seats. I do notice that some students who are not familiar with new rooms can enter next to me when arriving late to class. The wily ones sneak in at the back and sit down inconspicuously. So you could have made your lateness public and suffered personal embarrassment, or you could have arrived unnoticed and learned useful things at the talk. However, even in the worst case scenario, in the UK, even those who were irritated by your lateness would have been grateful that you managed to make it. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: As a British person who both gives lectures, and who is perpetually late for everything, I'd say * < 5 minutes late: Don't even think about it. The host is probably still doing the introduction, if they've even started that. * 5-10 minutes late. Probably be fine, try not to make too much noise as you enter and either stand at the back/side or sit on the end of the front/back row. * 10-15 minutes Starting to get a bit rude. People might tut or be briefly irritated, but not enough to take note of who you are, and will probably have forgotten it in a couple of minutes. Probably worth it if you are particularly keen on seeing the lecture or need to be seen there. * more than 15 minutes. Now you really are starting to be late. For a 1 hour lecture, you've missed more than 25%. Going in can still be worth it, it is unlikely to be held against you, but I would think carefully about it. The above applies to a 1 hour lecture, so the times might be a bit longer for 2 hours, but not double. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: > > Could you please share your thoughts on this so I can make a better > decision when I find myself in a similar situation in the future? > > > If this is truly your question, I'd say you could make a better decision in the future by being prepared and knowing where you are going ahead of time. While reading your account, I kept thinking two things: 1. Why did you not prepare beforehand to know exactly where you were going, especially since it was a place you'd never been? Which lead me to: 2. You truly didn't want to attend the lecture, or didn't care either way whether you attended or not. As for your question of of "how rude" it is, I'd say it boils down to your own personal measures of dignity and respect for others. There's no objective measure. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/13	1,332	5,909	<issue_start>username_0: My Ph.D. study focused on the development of a screening platform (animal-based) to screen for interesting targets that show a certain disease phenotype, and based on this I also developed a drug screening pipeline, and lastly, to validate the results, I developed stable transgenic adults as validation for my screening method. I intended to submit this study as a small methodology paper, it is simple on paper but it still took my whole PhD to come up with the screening ideas, identification of the targets, and finally the development of the stable transgenic adult lines to validate my results. However, my PI is known to postpone publication in the hope of submitting to high IF journal (He is close to retirement age and has always dreamt of publishing big)...so he wasn't letting me just publishing it in a small journal. He insisted that I need more work before this paper can be published. At the end of my PhD due to some reasons I wasn't able to stay in that country, so I made a mutual verbal agreement with the PI that I will agree to let another new student to complete the project, but I can remain the first author and the student can be a co-first author. I thought it was fair. Anyway, some time has passed, and I just received an email from my old team that the paper is ready to publish, but I was not even listed as a co-first but was listed as the 3rd author... I found out that because the phenotypes from the stable lines that I developed were very obvious and consistent, so they have decided to ditch all my initial screening/ method development parts, but just focused solely on the adult lines and re-did the experiments that I have done, and also added some new experiments. So instead of a methodology paper, it became more like a functional characterization kind of paper with the transgenic adult lines that I developed. Do I even have a case here? :( I realize there might not be much that I can do since I have left that lab...<issue_comment>username_1: I think you have a case in that you've convinced me that you've gotten screwed over, but I don't know that you have a case in that there's much to be done about it. Authorship is something that should be agreed upon among all authors on a project, so you can certainly protest your position in the list, but you don't have much to negotiate with. The "nuclear option" would be to put your foot in the ground and say that you won't agree to the paper being published without you being first author, but this is more likely to burn bridges than actually get you a first-author paper. Other options might include trading relative positions on different papers (i.e., if authors A and B have a current project and a future project, agreeing that if the order is A,B on this one it will be B,A on the second), but that doesn't really work as well if you're not still working with the people involved on other projects. While you were promised a first authorship here, probably the new student was also promised that slot based on the work they put in, and may have spent just as many hours as you did, so while in any "battle" over authorship it should really be your advisor that loses, because they're the one making promises they can't possibly fill, instead in the event you become first author the other student loses out. They'd probably find that very unfair if they collected all the data ultimately used in the paper, anyways. Probably you should have pushed harder to get some sort of paper out while you were actively working on things; it's really hard to do afterwards, when other people are needed to take your work across the finish. As a first author, you really need to be the one doing those steps. I think in your position I'd suggest that you request to be made a "co first-author", as originally promised, but offer the other student that your name will be listed second. You can appropriately claim it on your CV as a (co-)first author paper, and the other student probably will be more open to that arrangement since even with the co-first statement, their name appears first anyways. Your advisor likely won't care too much as long as all the other authors (especially the two first authors) are on board. They may deny this suggestion based on the long time in which you haven't contributed to the paper, and this really isn't fair overall, but it's also better than not having a publication at all (which likely is what would have happened if no one picked up the project after you left), and you won't really gain much by protesting further. You certainly have my sympathy in that method development work in biology is often very underappreciated. It's difficult to publish good methods-only work at a level corresponding to the effort and intellectual quality involved. I understand your advisor's publishing strategy here, though it came at your expense. I would advise PhD students starting out that they make sure their thesis project is not limited to only method development, it can be too risky at that point in a career (not just for the reasons you've experienced, but also because it can simply fail, through no one's fault). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It sounds to me as if there are two papers. The one that you and your advisor were planning to write, and the one that got actually written after the new student got on board. That you get the third place in the list of the authors could be justified for the latter, depending on the details that I do not know and cannot judge. The problem for your advisor and you is that the first paper can no longer be written. Your advisor could argue that after the second student came on board, a reconsideration showed lack of novelty in the work that was discarded. You need to contact your advisor and ask them about the promised first paper. Maybe they have something in mind. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/14	1,020	4,401	<issue_start>username_0: I submitted an assignment in February and I recently received an email accusing me of academic misconduct. I have just finished my second year of university and this is the first time that I have ever been accused of something this serious. The accusation says that I plagiarised the algorithm from someone else. However, I did not look at anyone's code nor did anyone else got to see my code which they could've later copied. Prior the the assignment deadline, me and couple other students (who I do not know closely) attended the in-person office hours of the course's Teaching Assistant (TA). The overwhelmed TA decided to take in all our concerns simultaneously instead of private sessions and perhaps tired of our inefficient (and buggy) code implementations or solution proposals, finally got up and instead wrote on the whiteboard what he called "the most efficient and best possible" algorithm for the code. He explained every step line by line which I made sure to understand fully and then later followed his algorithm implementation to write my own code without consulting anyone else, thinking that following the faculty's instruction isn't clearly plagiarism since I've understood everything and am confident in what I'm writing. Much to my dismay, I have now received the Disciplinary Committee's email and have been asked to present a written statement tomorrow followed by a formal hearing later. I have evidence of the TA explaining the algorithm as I did take photos of his algorithm right in front of him. If I am found guilty, I'd either get a grade reduction, a straight F, or a semester-long suspension. This has me worried sick because an accusation this serious can potentially derail all my post-grad plans. Is my evidence sufficient? What other evidence or explanations could I use to strengthen my case? Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: We can’t read folks minds or predict the future, but if everything you say is true, this seems like a case where your defense would be accepted. This is just my opinion as a faculty member. I have served on academic grievance committees but not our misconduct committee. Note here that I agree with <NAME> below- it is typical to use information shared by instructors without attribution when completing assignments for that class. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: If you (or the university officials looking into the case) could secure a statement from the TA confirming your account of what happened, that will surely strengthen your case. That being said, I find your explanation already convincing enough that if presented along with your whiteboard photos, I personally would be inclined to accept it as satisfactory, and would likely not feel the matter needs to be pursued further. Good luck! Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Seems cut and dried. You explain that the teaching assistant taught everyone an optimal way to do it, and so yours will line up with your classmates. You have photos of the whiteboard, and the teaching assistant (and any other classmates) can back that up. It's not plagiarism to do what you've been taught. I don't think you'll have much problem with this. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: These are serious accusations, and if one is considering a career in academia a finding of plagiarism may look bad for some time in your career. I am not familiar with the details in a university setting, so this advice is from experience in other workplaces. 1. Get some help from real people not the internet. I am not sure what support you have. In the UK you would be a member of [The National Union of Students](https://www.nus.org.uk/) who would be able to support you. I do not know what the equivalent is where you are, but ensure their responsibility is to you not the university. 2. Say NOTHING until you are certain of what you want to say. Do not respond to vague allegations like "I plagiarised the algorithm from someone else", request in writing specific allegations and the evidence that lead to these allegations. Do not be pressurised to reply by "tomorrow", that is a totally unreasonable time frame to respond to such allegations. It sounds to me like you are assuming a lot of details, you may be right but if you are wrong you may only hurt your case by giving them information without knowing what information they have. Upvotes: 4
2022/06/14	961	3,913	<issue_start>username_0: My project was based on a famous paper, which, unfortunately, contains a major mistake, discovered by me. Since I already spent a huge amount of time on this direction, I submitted my "correction result" and presented it as a new paper. I made this decision due my advisor's advices and this [site](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/125823/69151). However, the editors just made a decision that my paper is only publishable if I rewrite it as a concise corrigendum with less than 1500 words. While I have no problem in serving the community by writing a corrigendum, I am a bit confused, because: 1. For a correction note, the authors are [usually](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/26271/who-should-the-authors-of-a-corrigendum-be) the original team (but not always). 2. For publication of comment or correction note made by others, the original authors are usually contacted by the note authors first (I have not done this). Does the current situation sound normal?<issue_comment>username_1: If you have a proof that the original paper has a serious flaw, such as using a counterexample to show that a stated theorem is actually false, and you also provide a correct theorem and its (correct) proof, then this feels to me like it is sufficient for a new paper, not just a correction. This seems (to me) to be especially true for an important paper. I'm not the one judging, of course, but it seems like grounds for a discussion with the editor. Moreover, since you make an intellectual contribution to the field, you should get authorship status on whatever is published. The "normal" action may not be appropriate. Another option is to withdraw the work from this publisher and submit it elsewhere. If your new proof is novel in some way, then I think you have both an argument to present to the current journal and grounds for publication elsewhere. But, as with most things, novelty is an important consideration and the editors/reviewers may have decided that what you have lacks that element. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Without knowing the details and reading your paper, it is hard to tell. In any case, it is your paper with you as the author, even if it is called a correction. Mathematics editors are notorious in asking for shorter versions. You need to decide whether you can comply with the editor's limit or not. If the theorem is famous, you will have made your mark. You should feel free to submit to another journal. You can also use the 1500 words to prove the theorem wrong and then publish elsewhere your version of the theorem. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Contact the original authors ---------------------------- Unless you have very good reasons for not doing so, I'd urge you to contact the original authors of the mistaken paper. If your work gets published then they will hear of it -- better that they hear of it from you first! Assuming your work is correct, they are likely (if not certain) to be gracious. They might give you useful advice, or even publicize your work for you. ([Here](https://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2013/11/23/homological-stability-for-hurwitz-spaces-ii-temporarily-withdrawn/) is an example of a mathematician calling attention to an error in their own paper, with credit to the person who found it.) If it happens that your own work is incorrect, then they are likely to catch and point out the mistake. Depending on the circumstances, the result might become known as the Them-You theorem, which would very likely be good for your career. [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunwald%E2%80%93Wang_theorem) is a prominent example, where the correction paper was published in the Annals of Mathematics! So don't sell your work short, and consider submitting to a different journal, especially if you contact the original authors and they are encouraging. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/14	2,378	10,323	<issue_start>username_0: Is it possible for one to publish high quality research papers in the aforementioned fields without attending a graduate school? I feel that you can read online material and books about research/graduate school and that would make a satisfactory substitute.<issue_comment>username_1: For most people it is very important. Graduate school is helpful both in training you as a researcher in some field and in getting your career started through contact with other (expert) researchers. It isn't essential, however, for every individual and it is possible to produce good research output as an independent researcher in some fields. Graduate school gives you a breadth of knowledge in a general field (math, say) and experience in taking the deep dive into a narrow research area. You learn a lot about what is current and about recent research trends, though in a narrow area. It is much harder to do this alone. What is available in text books is not usually state of the art. You need to read research papers. But you need to know which research papers are worth the effort. Having like minded people around in grad school or in an academic (faculty) appointment can be essential for many people to be able to produce. And without a doctorate it is difficult to get an academic appointment. But, some, a few, people have been successful without doctoral education. Not the easiest or safest path, however. And, again, it is very difficult to actually make a career in research without a doctorate. If you are independently wealthy that may not matter. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In secondary school (high school here in the USA) and even university, a "research paper" means you come up with a topic and a point of view, go to the library, read a bunch of material, and synthesize a wonderful argument about the topic at hand. This approach has nothing to do with actual research in physics. For actual research, you need to know what is going on at the forefront of the area. This is not in books in the library, but is some amalgamation of specialized journal articles, seminars with latest results, what you've seen or heard at conferences, and a healthy dose of your own thoughts and experiences. You and your collaborators come up with some new thought, figure out a conceivable way to test that thought, go carry out the experiment (lab work, simulation, theory) to see if you can test it, re-examine your thought since the experiment ended up with a different result than you imagined, and distill it all down into a journal article showing what you did was new information. The process of doing this is what you learn in graduate school. Everything from getting the needed background, identifying new areas, working with collaborators, doing the experiments, and writing a clear detailed journal article is part of it. Could you make contributions to physics research without a PhD? Well, yes, I have staff scientists with masters degrees who do quite well, including those who have been named to our Distinguished level. One important thing to note is they got some excellent mentoring early in their careers in how to do real research. But, no, reading online material and books is no substitute for graduate school. It is but one small part of performing actual research that pushes the boundaries of human knowledge. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Is it possible for one to publish high quality research papers in the aforementioned fields without attending a graduate school? > > > Yes. A tiny portion of undergraduates do this, so it happens frequently. > > Is it possible to get a job paying you to do research in physics without attending graduate school? > > > Mostly no. The other applicants have PhDs. People with PhDs are available and they are preferred. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: As alluded-to in other answers: of course it is possible... but difficult. One thing not mentioned is the "insider information" that, ideally, one gets by being in grad school with a good advisor. Many important, amorphous-but-important ideas exist primarily "off the grid", in the collective minds of experts. You'd miss out on this whole world of ideas if you just look at the more-or-less-formal literature. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Wait. You are asking about publishing research, but the title of your question is about PhD. These are two different things. To get a PhD, you complete grad studies by default. As about studying on your own to the extent that you can produce publishable research, it is possible in principle but highly improbable. Interaction is needed to make sure you got things right. Finally, it is next to impossible that you will get to publish said research unless you persuade someone (journal editors, arxiv moderators) that you are or were affiliated in some manner with academia. Edit: It occured to me that "How important is attending graduate school for a PhD" might not mean "Do I have to go the grad school to get a PhD" (which I thought), but "How important are PhD studies for (...)". OP, it'd be good if you rephrased your question in an unambiguous way. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: A lot of misreadings of the original question. OP asks: Is it possible for one to publish high quality research papers in the aforementioned fields without attending a graduate school ? Of course it is - if by non-attending grad school you include those jobs in state research labs (that you can get with a good primary degree) which allow you use of specialised equipment. You can even work on an external MS or PhD outside grad school if you have someone there willing to internally supervise. There's a few people who published after their undergrad degree and without a postgrad qualification. And some notables like Turing who published during their undergraduate studies. But the question asked by <NAME> is pertinent here: What do you want to do in future ? To that I'd add, from my own experience, the even more important question - which human environment do you want to work in ? Just because something is possible doesn't mean that the person knowing it should do it. Ask yourself where you want to go. Then plan the best route to get there. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: The title doesn't make sense because a PhD is grad school. But sounds like your question is basically "can I do important research without a PhD?" You almost certainly can. There is nothing magical that happens in PhD school. You just get some coaching as you learn all the basic aspects of research: Reading and writing papers, conferences, designing and conducting experiments, applying to research grants, teaching and mentoring junior students. At its core, research is a simple process: 1. Read about field and learn the current state of the art 2. Come up with a question that nobody knows the answer to yet (whether it's something they're aware of or not) 3. Come up with some possible answer that makes sense 4. Prove it according to the scientific method (usually with an experiment) 5. Announce it to the world (usually by publishing a paper or presenting at a conference) You can learn all of these by carefully reading existing publications, and maybe also following conferences and writing letters to the researchers themselves. The problem is that it would be a lot of reading. The average PhD student already reads hundreds of papers and goes to many conferences throughout their education, and they also have lots of professors and postdocs to nudge them in the right direction. You will have to work even harder. I'd say you'd end up reading maybe 1000 papers to get to the level of a PhD, but each paper would also take you much longer to read. And how are you finding time for all this reading? Do you have a day job, and want to get into research on the weekends? Because that will probably not work due to the sheer time and energy research requires. Or are you wealthy and thinking of becoming a gentleman scientist in your own time? That might work - but if doing that, why not just do a PhD and save yourself some trouble? Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Learning to do research usually happens under an apprenticeship model. The most typical situation is as a graduate student who works in the lab of an established researcher, who serves as a mentor. In addition to learning the technical aspects of the research methods, a good mentor will teach you how to perform research rigorously, avoid pitfalls (which may not be mentioned in the literature), write papers, respond to peer-reviews, understand the culture of your field, and write proposals for funding. You can also learn by working with more experienced students in the same lab. There are a lot of mistakes that can be made and semi-obvious ideas that many people have tried that don't work, which are unfortunately not recorded in the literature. A mentor will also help you make connections with other researchers, which can help you develop collaborations as an independent researcher. Could you obtain such mentoring elsewhere? Yes, you might be able to get mentoring in scientific research from a group leader in a government lab or from a manager in private enterprise. You might even find someone who will mentor you just for altruism's sake. However, most research mentoring happens in graduate school because academics are incentivized to train graduate students and there are some checks involved to ensure quality (PhD committees, preliminary exams, thesis defenses). Of course, you can have a bad mentor in academia (or anywhere else) who doesn't do a good job teaching you what you need to know to be a good researcher. So choosing a good mentor is a major factor in whether going to graduate school is worth the investment. Are there people who can succeed in research without such mentoring? There might be a few, but it is much harder. The apprenticeship model has been used for centuries to train neophytes in fields where obtaining good results requires a lot of experience and nuanced technique. Having someone look over your shoulder while you work (sometimes literally) and make suggestions is often the best way to learn technical skills. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/15	882	3,885	<issue_start>username_0: What recourse is there to a faculty member if the university changes its policy after a grant has been awarded? I am a tenured professor and recently won a prestigious research grant. For years, my college within the university\\ has operated under policies that provide special research incentives to faculty. Specifically, faculty who win certain grants (which I have) are entitled to a reduced teaching load and a college-funded graduate research assistant position. However, I just learned that my college has abolished both of these benefits, supposedly because of budget cuts, about the same time as the start date for my project this summer. Is there any way I can make a justification for being grandfathered into the old policy, at least for the duration of my current grants, given that they were submitted under the old policy? And, more generally, what course of action do faculty have when their institution moves the goalposts on them like this? \\ Note: my university is ranked as an R2 university (but only just). Consequently, research is not valued nearly as much as at a top-tier institution.<issue_comment>username_1: Congratulations on the grant. You can ask, politely but forcefully. One hopes with your Department Chair's strong support. If the granting agency knew about this policy when the grant was awarded that should strengthen your case. If there is a faculty union they may take your side with the administration I don't think you have any formal course of action. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: > > However, I just learned that my college has abolished both of these benefits, supposedly because of budget cuts > > > Budget cuts are pretty common, so that's a plausible reason. You should probably complain, but I see little chance of getting the decision reversed. If you get your benefit back, the administration will have to cut something else in exchange. That is unlikely to appeal to them. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: It may make a difference what you said in the grant proposal. If the reduction in other duties, to give more time to pursue the research funded by the grant was part of the proposal itself, then the university is probably obliged to either honor the reductions or give back the grant money. The key question is whether your proposal relied on the promise of reduced duties as one of its official selling points. If the grant was made with the explicit understanding that your other duties would be reduced, then your institution probably has an obligation to either provide the reduced teaching load or to give up the grant. Many external support proposals involve some commitment from the Principal Investigator's local institution. This could be cost sharing—where the local institution offers to shoulder part of the cost of the project if the grant agency provides the remainder. Or (and this is the case of relevance here) to institutional contribution could be releasing the PI from some other duties—to give the PI more time to concentrate on the funded research project. This reduction in duties could a lower (or even temporarily eliminated) teaching load, reduced service commitments, or a supported sabbatical. Grant proposal packages often involve documents explicitly stating what resources will be required to complete the funded research, and which of these resources will be provided by the PI's own institution. If your proposal had documentation from your university that, if you received the award, you would have a lower teaching load during the funding period, then there it will not generally be possible for the institution to weasel out of that commitment. If they want you to be able to keep the award (and I assume that they do), they will have to honor the commitments that they made as part of the grant proposal. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/15	6,743	29,306	<issue_start>username_0: Most of positions in academia, I am referring to PhD and postdocs which make up most of the people working in academia, are short term contracts. Why? Isn't this creating inefficiency? * Point of view of the employee (the PhD/postdoc person): You change your job every two to three years, you are always learning new things which is cool but you will probably have to move accordingly (maybe even to different countries) which makes it very hard to settle in one place and start a family. You also cannot think in buying a house or anything because you know you will not be there for long time, so you are forced to rent. * Point of view of the employer (the university/supervisor with permanent position): There is a research which usually takes longer than just three years, so you will have to hire more than one generation of PhD/postdoc and teach them more than once about the same thing, which ends up in waste of time/resources. There is probably a reason for this short-term contracts modality... My context: I am in the middle of my PhD in physics, in Europe. I am working on a project that started some years ago and it will span several years after I finish. A postdoc in this group was working on this before myself. I started very few months before his contract ended, so there was a period in which he was quickly trying to give me all the information about this project so I could continue. This happened when I had just arrived to a new country so I had other priorities such as looking for a place to live. So then he was gone and I took on with the project. Now I am learning almost from scratch a poorly documented work which is taking me a lot of time, and I cannot stop thinking: Wouldn't it have been more profitable to the owner of the money (institute/my supervisor) to continue the contract of this other person instead of replacing him by myself? And this will of course happen again when I finish my PhD, somebody else will come to continue with this project and will have to learn everything again.<issue_comment>username_1: If you don't make short term contracts, you will keep the next round of students from getting PhD positions. As universities don't have unlimited ressources, every person that stays in a position takes a PhD position away from somebody. And with the contract law being as it is in most of Europe, once somebody holds a position that is not limited term, you cannot fire them easily, which could result in people staying in their position for years and years, keeping another person from getting a PhD position every 3 years of it (or even faster, as long-term employees tend to get more expensive due to raises). This is already the situation with most professor positions - unless people chose to vacate their professorial post, they stay in office until retirement. This is one of the / the main reason(s) why so few PhD holders become professors. By making academic positions permanent, you would make it next to impossible to get a PhD or postdoc position. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A PhD position is naturally time-limited because it should end when the candidate obtains their PhD. Your question implies, but does not state explicitly, that you are referring to research rather than teaching or other (admin, technical) positions. Therefore, in the rest of this answer, I will focus on post-docs. > > Wouldn't it have been more profitable to the owner of the money (institute/my supervisor) to continue the contract of this other person instead of replacing him by myself? > > > It would, and it happens. I've met people who had been effectively¹ a post-doc for decades, chaining dozens of temporary research positions, sometimes with gaps involving short periods of unemployment — always within the same research group. I've seen a researcher in the USA retire after working with the same supervisor for 40 years, always on temporary contracts. In some countries, laws put limits on how long people can be on temporary positions. Examples include the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz in Germany or comparable rules in The Netherlands or Sweden. Among the aims of such laws is to prevent "career postdocs", with the idea that after so many years on temporary positions, the employer must offer a permanent position. The effect is rather that the postdocs leave and are replaced by new ones, leading to the situation you describe. This raises the question: why do the employers offer chained temporary positions (where regulations allow) rather than a permanent position? Most employers will only be willing (or able) to offer a permanent position if they have a permanent source of money. Much research funding is project-based, so the employer usually doesn't have a permanent source of money. Even if the professor would want to hold on the post-doc permanently, they probably can't because they don't have a permanent pot of money. It would be possible for a university to offer a permanent position to researchers, with the understanding that if money should dry up, they can still be made redundant, just like what would happen in business or industry. This approach is rare, but it exists (I seem to recall it exists at the University of Bristol, for example; and at another British university we organised post-docs trying to convince the university to do the same). In countries with strong labour laws, it would mandate the university to try to find a new suitable position for a postdoc when their contract approaches the end, although they may anyway have to do that (in EU and UK) for researchers chaining temporary positions long enough. If the professor keeps finding new sources of money, or the work in other research groups at the same department is similar enough, it can actually work. This approach is rare, probably because making people redundant is much more work than simply letting their contract expire, but I think that at least for large departments where there are many postdocs staying longer than 5–10 years, it certainly could be explored. --- ¹I use the term post-doc here loosely to mean any time-limited research position that requires a PhD. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: There are various interesting and involved aspects to this question. I'll just pick out one of them that has not yet been addressed by the other answers. Context. My experience is in Germany where (a) the university system is almost completely tax funded and (b) the vast majority of non-applied research grants are also tax-funnded. If the university system is tax funded, a major question is how it benefits the society overall. One benefit of PhD positions is that they can be used as a mean to educate highly qualified personnel for both the private sector and also certain non-academic positions in the public sector. The point here is that doing a PhD will often give you a different set of skills than most types of vocational training or training on the job. While this type of qualification will not be needed for the majority of jobs, it can be very useful to still have a significant number of people around who do have this type of qualification. From this perspective, it makes sense to have considerably more PhD candidates than permanent positions in academia: the majority of PhDs will leave academia when they have completed their PhD, which makes a significant number of highly qualified personnel available for the private sector. From the same perspective, it also makes sense to replace, for instance, a Phd student with a new PhD student after a certain amount of time. It will, at first glance, "burn" some public money since it lowers the efficiency of the project work - but actually this is an investment in making PhD positions available as a mean of education and traininig. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: > > Wouldn't it have been more profitable to ... continue the contract of this other person instead of replacing him by myself? > > > At profitable corporations in free markets, it is very common to replace employees and retrain them. The observational evidence suggests retaining employees costs more than replacing them. I see no reason why academia would be different. Contracts are finite because money is finite. Keep in mind that in many places the norm is that employment can end at any time for any reason. A one year contract is a luxury by comparison. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: (In a since-archived comment to another answer I did post a link to an [ASCB blog infographic](https://www.ascb.org/careers/workforce-issues-what-about-the-postdocs-already-swimming-in-the-pool-what-becomes-of-us/) that tries to illustrate the situation quantitatively, but doesn't explain the "why" behind it.) The claimed positive: the short-term postdocs provide a framework that lets you pick up new skills and techniques, and build your network of contacts, by working at other places before "settling down". In practice, "settling down" to a long-term career at a single institution has generally meant something like a (UK) lectureship which has a significant teaching load. It has been a long-standing issue that there is no long-term research-only career path in UK academia, hence the chaining together of short-term (1-5 yrs, in my case) contracts and even the effective permanent status stemming from the EU [Fixed-Term Work Directive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-term_Work_Directive_1999) doesn't prevent redundancy at the end of a grant (though at least it adds some extra hurdles for the employer). Recently, the notion of [research software engineers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_software_engineering) as a profession and initiatives such as the [Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers](https://researcherdevelopmentconcordat.ac.uk/) have finally started to appear. But this just points up the continued persistence of, and dependence on, short-term contracts. So why has the situation gone on so long? The reality: it keeps entry-level wages down (both within and then outside academia) and then on top of that provides a mechanism that allows junior staff to be abused and exploited(\): object to illegally working overlong hours? We won't continue sponsoring your visa. Considering complaining about harassment by PI? No time to write letters of recommendation for your next post. The Wellcome Trust report [What researchers think about the culture they work in](https://wellcome.org/reports/what-researchers-think-about-research-culture) covers this at some length, but there's nothing in there that doesn't go back decades. It's notable that in response the UK Government's [R&D people and culture strategy](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-and-development-rd-people-and-culture-strategy) has four executive bullet point actions on pulling in new people, four bullet points on getting people in from abroad(\\), but not a single one on retaining* existing skilled/experienced staff in the sector. (It's like they're afraid we might recognize bullying and call it out...) \* Reported rates of bullying and harassment in the research sector (i.e. not just universities) are about double those in UK general employment ([R&D people and culture strategy](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-and-development-rd-people-and-culture-strategy), p.26)(\\\) \\* hence the [HPI visa scheme](https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa) announced recently \\\* Note I don't mean that there is any specific intent to enable bullying and exploitation, but I do believe it's an inevitable side-effect of how vested interests have shaped, and continue to push, the sector N.B. I drafted & wrote this answer in relation to the original headline wording of this question: "Why are there so few long-term [research] positions in academia (before professorship)?" Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: In some sense, the answer to this question is just "because the system has evolved to be this way". Some factors in this evolution are: * In many (most?) countries, research funding is primarily organised around grants to conduct comparatively short-term projects with a defined set of objectives. This makes some sense: research is inherently unpredictable, and something that looks promising today may be a dead end in 5 or 10 years' time. In consequence, institutions cannot guarantee that they will have funding to support any line of research beyond a 2-3 year timescale. * Researchers are not fungible. Projects tend to require specialist skills and knowledge, and someone hired for Project A may not be well-suited to (or interested in) Project B. This counts against hiring someone on a permanent contract: what do you do with them if Project A loses funding or reaches a natural end? * Research directions are heavily dependent on the whims of individual members of staff, and not set centrally. If Prof. X leaves and is replaced by Prof. Y, there will often be a substantial change in research focus. Again, this counts against the institution making any long-term commitments to specialist staff. 'Long-term positions' do exist: they are the faculty positions. So perhaps the question could be reframed: Why don't professors do more research themselves, instead of hiring contract staff to do it? Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: In most European countries, the academic system used to work practically like this a few decades ago: in most domains, a person who had successfully passed their PhD was almost sure to find a permanent university position, if they want to have one. To simplify a bit, the change is due to two main evolutions which started around the 80s: * The progressive domination of the capitalist economic model (primarily imported from the US, adopted by the EU) and its extension to every aspect of the economy of a country. This has deeply modified the culture of academia (and virtually any other domain), in particular by introducing concepts such as competition, return on investment, Key Performance Indicators, etc. Teaching and research started to be seen not only as a public good but also as an investment for which government, students, companies should get value for their money. In research, this lead to the current project-based system: researchers compete to get funding from government-funded institutions. Since projects are funded for a limited number of years, a large part of the research is done by contractual workers. Institutions have no say in this since their recurring funding is limited and mostly pre-allocated. It's worth noting that the position called "postdoc" virtually didn't exist in some countries 30 years ago, and it was still rare 20 years ago. * The massive increase in people reaching university level, followed by the massive increase of people reaching PhD level. Giving a permanent academic position to all these people (or even to only 10% of them), would require drastically higher research budgets. Needless to say, most governments/societies don't consider research a priority worth investing so much in it. These two points work well together: the consensus is that a competitive research system takes care of eliminating the least productive people, thus solving the problem of having too many qualified people in academia. Of course, this actually works if the system can reliably evaluate research, thanks to various KPIs, rankings and bibliographic measures. It's an open question whether this assumption is true or not, in my opinion. But even if this system doesn't necessarily produce the best results, it's the one we have. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: A common type of position in academia is "tenured professor", which I'd say is pretty long term. But besides that, there are many specialties like lab manager, lab technicians, statisticians, pathologists, data scientists, software developers and so on that tend to be employed indefinitely, and sometimes even accrue advancement to seniority like other government workers do. Also, the industry, and certain research institutes (moreso in the past I'd say) also have the practice of employing researchers for multiple decades, so it is certainly a workable model. What stands out to me about many of these exceptions (except professors) is that they tend to not be in a leading role. PhD students and postdocs are usually expected to have some independent research goals, even if these happen to tie in closely with the rest of the team. When you are expected to choose your own path in life with respect to projects, it is inevitable that people's interests would change between their 20s, 30s and 40s. An older professor may also change their research interests, but at that point in their career they are not as dependent on their immediate colleagues and institutions to succeed. Whereas for a PhD student, it is very difficult to break into a field if you have no mentors who are at least tangentially familiar with it. Because of this, even if academia did offer permanent positions to younger researchers, many of them would quit and go elsewhere anyway, because as they learn more about the scientific community they'd change their minds about where and how they should fit in. Except unlike the current system where there is some expected "end" of your employment that everybody is anticipating, there would be a risk of projects being interrupted mid-way due to the researcher suddenly leaving, and resulting in a lot of disruption. This is exactly what happens in the industry with various knowledge workers who are employed "permanently" (which means they can quit or be let go any time with only 1-2 weeks warning, so it's very difficult to plan a year or more ahead). On the other hand, the historic origins of academia are more of a special society, with its own internal rituals and traditions. At the time that academia originated, it was common for people to advance through specialized ranks within the society (for example guild members progressing through apprentice, journeyman, master craftsman). Little survives of the guilds after the technological, economic and political changes of the last couple of centuries, but academia holds on to a lot of the traditions, so I suspect that is also part of why there is a ladder of "graduations" people are expected to go through. By the way, if you really want to stay in the same place through your PhD, postdoc and beyond, it's certainly possible. The PhD and postdoc are usually so transformative that people tend to end up with very different outlooks than when they began, and also many eminent academics feel that it's good for young people to go out, see the world and be exposed to different ideas. However, this isn't such a hard and fast rule, and you occasionally someone staying in the same city, same institution or even the same lab for a long time. If that is your goal I'm sure you could discuss it with your mentors and get some useful suggestions. However your question is motivated by your frustration at a rushed project hand-off. I think this has very little to do with durations of employment. The same problem could occur from unexpected catastrophes (the so-called "bus factor") or people being assigned to new projects and having to abandon old ones. I think that it's important to have a culture of transparency, accountability and documentation. When you work on any project, especially a long term one, you should thoroughly document the work in a way that would be accessible to others. That way you will never be "caught with your pants down" if suddenly someone else needs to work on it (either with you or instead of you). You should also take initiative to speak with your colleagues and evangelize your work, so that they have a good idea of what you're getting up to and why, even without reading your notebooks. These things are generally part of good research hygiene anyway: Meticulous documentation and advocacy for your ideas have often been the cornerstone of major developments in science. Sounds like the person from whom you inherited the work has been a little lax in this regard. Unfortunately it's not uncommon in the field - but hey, maybe when you're finished, you can try to do better. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: #### Consider the supply and demand factors (in addition to other points) From an institutional viewpoint, it is attractive for universities to "try before you buy". If they can hire staff on a time-limited contract then it is usually possible to successfully renew them or move them into permanent positions if that is desirable. However, if they want to get rid of a staff member in a permanent position then that is more difficult and costly. Consequently, the time limitation in the employment contract can be seen primarily as a clause that favours the interests of the university. Other answers have pointed out a range of factors relating to the conduct and funding of university research that make it desirable (from the university's point of view) to use time-limited contracts for postdocs and other junior academic staff. These are all good points, but they don't really get to the root of why universities are able to successfully enforce their desires in the employment market, when this imposes serious costs/problems on employees. My view is that this is largely a result of the supply and demand dynamics of our modern education system, where we churn out PhDs at a high rate. Setting aside very recent events, there is an abundance of PhD graduates relative to the number of available postdoc and academic positions, so universities can impose employment conditions that are not especially desirable for postdocs and still get plenty of good applications. (There have been some recent reports that "the great resignation" has limited this, but we'll see.) This is just one manifestation of the general economic principle that if you increase the labour supply in an industry then (ceteris paribus) the wage/conditions for employees in that industry will fall. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: TLDR: PhD studentships and post docs aren't best thought of as short-term jobs, though getting the dissertation done is the job of the PhD candidate and publishing articles is the job of the Post Doc. And the university and the supervisor aren't best thought of as employers. The university is a school and the supervisor is a teacher, and the PhD program is a specialized professional training program with a single aim - making new researchers. I earned my PhD in the US, so our experiences might be a bit different, but I'm pretty sure the aim and structure of the academy is pretty similar across the globe. If you were my student, I'd say that this question demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of the role of PhD's and Post Docs in the academy and the relation in which they stand to the university and their advisors. PhD programs are professional schools in which fledgling scholars undertake a course of study, which includes coursework, practicums, traineeships, direct supervision, formal and informal mentorship, participation in the peer-review process, academic enculturation, and individual research. PhD candidates are first and foremost students who are at the university in order to learn how to be academic researchers that understand the norms of the academy and their discipline, who have developed the skills needed to conduct research in their field, and who have the capacity to make novel contributions to the sum of human knowledge. At the end of this process, a new, matured researcher who no longer requires supervision and who can now, in turn, supervise new graduate students will have been produced. This new researcher serves to replace (and to build on the work of) existing researchers, as full-time academics at new institutions, as existing researchers resign, retire, or pass away. The PhD is a professional certification, like an M.D. or J.D., that signifies that the individual has met the basic criteria for performing the job of an academic. Although PhD's typically receive payment for their participation in such programs, research assistantships and teaching assistantships are typically framed as traineeships for the PhD candidate to learn how to teach and conduct research - the basic jobs of the university-based researcher. The relationship in which the PhD stands to the university and the advisor is not best conceived of as an employee-employers relationship. Naturally, there are serious concerns about the treatment of graduate student labor in the academy - as previous commenters have noted. If the university, the PI on a grant, or the director of a lab were seeking an employee, in the form of a lab assistant or project manager, it doesn't make sense to bring in a PhD candidate (although it happens), since the cost of educating a PhD is significant and the skills of a PhD are not needed for basic lab research. The B.A. or B.S. is a certification that the individual understands the basic research process or has a breadth of knowledge in a discipline that would allow them perform basic, repetitive research tasks. They are typically not researchers - they merely participate in the research process (a lit review is not "doing research"). The M.A. or M.S. certifies that the individual has specialized knowledge or skills that would allow the individual to perform highly specialized tasks in a particular research domain. Neither are research degrees and are not generally expected to conduct novel research on their own (though the UK has the M.S. by research which is a degree that might be thought of as a "PhD prep" program). It makes even less sense to bring in a post doc for this purpose. Post doc positions are typically opportunities for the recent PhD to build a network of colleagues and references and to make progress on their original research, lending credibility to their candidacy as an academic, prior to scoring a full-time, tenure track academic position. I will acknowledge that the norms are different in different disciplines. I'm a philosopher, and we are primarily a single-author discipline. So, my PhD involved no lab work under the direction of a supervisor. I didn't work on my supervisor's project. I set my agenda and picked my projects. PhDs in the sciences often work in grant-funded labs. Their research assistantships (i.e., research traineeships) often involves labor in the service of the PI and grant topic, in return for the use of a lab and supervision by the director of the lab. Work in the lab and on the grant generally contributes to the supervisor's research agenda, but the novel findings belong to the PhD candidate. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: There was a time when the majority of people holding a Master's degree or higher aspired to a "teaching position"---that is to say a job where teaching would be the primary source of their income while (possibly) leaving them enough time to pursue their research. People with such qualifications do not any longer aspire to such positions unless they are at "Research Universities" (which is to say at organisations where people are evaluated and promoted based primarily on their research contributions). * One reason is that salaries for simple teaching positions (at colleges and lower) are typically quite low and in many countries there does not seem to be a policy to prioritise education via better paid teachers. * Another reason is that as a matter of policy it was decided that funding research leads to economic growth. Hence such people should be encouraged to continue their research and prove themselves as researchers capable of being "principal investigators". * Perhaps another reason is that research in many areas has come to be dominated by projects that require extensive funding and so a teacher cannot realistically continue to carry out research without being attached to a large research organisation or university. As a combination of these (and perhaps other) factors, there is grant money that supports post-graduate research positions. It seems natural to put a cap on the amount of time in such positions so that (in principle) only the best people get funded. In many departments, there is not much grant money and post-graduate positions are funded through teaching. However, the principle of time limitation is applied there as well, perhaps to "give a chance" to more individuals, or perhaps to have a "uniform system across the university". In any case, this does lead to a "brain-drain" as people with adequate subject knowledge drop out of academia and no longer contribute to the dissemination and development of human knowledge. It may be pointed out that many of these "research-only" positions are extremely focussed and thus probably do not produce graduates who have adequate subject knowledge to be good teachers. In summary, it would appear that there is an inefficiency of this system. However, it is not at the location where the OP asks the question, which is research. Instead, it is in education where the loss is the greatest. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/15	2,589	11,205	<issue_start>username_0: I come from a social science background and have recently moved into more of a public health role. Since I was doing experimental research, pretty much every study needed a review. As far as I can tell, only studies with publicly available data (i.e. secondary analysis) that is totally de-identified can skip review. Some of our studies meet that criteria but most don't. I think even at worst, better to submit and be told it is not necessary than the reverse. Some team members are convinced that we do not need approval on primary data collection studies of qualitative interviews because they are not "about individuals", or even crazier, that it does not meet the definition of "research" based on the following: "According to federal regulations (45 CFR 46 102.d). Research means a systematic investigation (including research development, testing and evaluation) designed to develop or contribute to generalize knowledge." Thankfully they are going to go through with it but there are still people who are unconvinced. Any time you gather data about perceptions, decision-making or personal opinions- anything outside of fact-based information about institutions (eg policies), I would argue it is "about individuals." I don't even know how to counter the argument that our work is not "research" or that we don't intend to generalize results, as this seems self-evident. I have tried to illustrate using language from existing documentation but it doesn't get far. I think the real problem is that prospective study planning is a real weakness in this group, because from my perspective you should have everything you need to submit an IRB before you begin collecting data anyway. It should take an hour to prep an IRB application, not WEEKS like it takes these teams. I just don't see why they feel it appropriate to skip out on ethical oversight when we should already have everything we need to complete the application anyway before the study begins. But everything is so ad hoc that whenever they put together IRB materials, they have to change it later. I can't tell though if the arguments about lack of "human subjects" or "research" are a consequence of this or a separate issue, but I don't know how to address either by myself. I've spoken up on this many times but little progress is being made. Anyone with similar experiences able to advise? Or am I just totally off base?<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience in the US, it is rarely up to researchers to determine by themselves that their research needs full IRB review when it involves human subjects in any way. Additionally, "exempt" in the world of IRB DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN YOU DON'T NEED TO SUBMIT TO IRB, it only means that it is exempt from certain specific requirements of full IRB review, and instead can follow an expedited process. Low risk, "exempt" research must be exempted by the IRB, not the researcher. You submit a brief application to the IRB, IRB says "we've determined this is exempt, so you do not need a full application" or they say "this is not exempt, complete this process for full submission". There are other things that are not considered even "exempt" research that the IRB doesn't need to review, but even so, institutions may require that IRB make the determination in these cases, as well, and it's always a good option to the researcher even if it's not required. This includes considering things as "not research". Things that are "not research" would include internal process reviews, things that you would not consider publishing. If you conduct a poll in your office to decide if they'd prefer cake or ice cream for the department party, that is sufficiently "not research" that you wouldn't even need to do the cursory IRB submission. Other circumstances may be more borderline. I do think there are cases like department climate reviews (for example, to measure harassment or feelings of marginalization or discrimination among staff) and such where the purpose is not research and IRB need not be consulted, but these situations certainly require very careful attention to participant privacy, and should only be conducted with the involvement of HR and other institutional systems to protect staff. I assume, though, that the work you are doing involves username_4 goals in some way rather than internal ones. This is (nearly) always "research", or at least close enough to have an IRB sign off on it; I don't know how to convey this concept to people except to simply state that anything to be published in some form is research because it's intended to contribute to knowledge; the "generalizable" clause there isn't about some statistical ideal. I do not think there is any magic way to resolve this or convince people, you will need to be insistent and persistent. You may be going up against years of entrenched bad procedures, there is no quick fix. I think you can do best to lead by example. Likely your institution has some people specifically involved with research integrity, so they may have further resources or may be able to schedule trainings/seminars on the proper procedures, including helping to facilitate submitting simpler proposals for quick review. It varies from IRB to IRB, but some IRBs may be willing to approve "blanket protocols" that give you broad leeway to conduct certain types of low-risk research without further consultation. Some examples I've personally experienced are A) protocols that cover the 'research' done as part of a lab course, often where the participants are other students in the class. These will outline certain variables that are collected and certain experimental manipulations, and basically let students play around with research without having to go to IRB for every particular combination of variables they might come up with, and B) for IACUC (animal ethics committee) rather than IRB, basic tissue-harvesting protocols that allow for add-on procedures to already terminal experiments, for example to recover organs for tissue culture without getting further approval when that animal is already due to be euthanized for purposes of another study. I'm a bit surprised you are having these difficulties in a public health department. In my experience, anyone in the health sciences has had these ethical research requirements drilled into them many, many times since their undergraduate days. There's no real excuse to be unaware. The place where there tends to be less awareness is more on the tech side of things, where people trained as computer scientists or engineers find that they need input from people on their systems and designs, and suddenly find themselves doing human subjects research despite not having any training in the subject. Same thing for business fields, where internal market data analyses are not considered research in industry, but in an username_4/social science sense they certainly are. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: [united-states](/questions/tagged/united-states "show questions tagged 'united-states'") One argument I've heard before from my colleagues is "we don't need IRB permission for this study since it is 'exempt' because it fulfills exemption category here>." In the United States, the [Office for Human Research Protection](https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/guidance/faq/exempt-research-determination/index.html) notes: > > The regulations do not require that someone other than the investigator be involved in making a determination that a research study is exempt. What they do require is that there be accurate determinations so that non-exempt research ends up being reviewed by an IRB. > > > So, at least as far as the law concerned in the United States, your colleagues are correct that for exempt research, the IRB is not legally required. However, the OHRP guidance continues: > > However, OHRP recommends that, because of the potential for conflict of interest, investigators not be given the authority to make an independent determination that human subjects research is exempt. ... Institutions should implement exemption policies that most effectively address the local setting and programs of research. > > > This OHRP recommendation frequently leads institutions to enact policies that require investigators submit potential studies to the IRB for certification of exemption. My institution, for example, requires that the IRB make the determination. A quick Google search reveals many other institutions have enacted similar policies, like this (randomly selected) one from [Northwestern](https://irb.northwestern.edu/submitting-to-the-irb/types-of-reviews/exempt-review.html). So, how do you use this to convince your colleagues? 1. Check that your institution doesn't have a policy that requires the IRB to make the determination (odds are they might). 2. If there is no such policy, use the OHRP recommendations as an argument. "The Office for Human Research Protection recommends investigators not be given the authority to make independent determinations because of risks of conflicts of interest. If we make the wrong determination, we may be in violation of federal regulations." Side note: If your institution does not have a policy against investigators making their own indepenent determinations, they should. Try lobbying your IRB to push for the policy. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Simple: If you do not have IRB approval, journals can, and in my experience will, refuse to publish your work. Simply from the information that you are using "qualitative interviews" it is not possible to determine in IRB approval is required. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: [Academia varies more than you think it does.](https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/4471/academia-varies-more-than-you-think-it-does-the-movie) I work in an area without human subjects research, so I'll address the interpersonal issues of this only. First of all, I wouldn't try to persuade your colleagues that IRBs are intrinsically important, something more than a bureaucratic hurdle. It sounds like you believe this and your colleagues don't, and I doubt that you can change their minds on this. Arguments like "the dean will shut us down", "the NIH could pull our funding", etc. might be more persuasive, if true. Secondly, you say > > prospective study planning is a real weakness in this group > > > If I understand, you like to plan your research projects out in full before you begin, and your colleagues don't. This might indeed be a weakness of theirs, but are you sure? I work in a field (math) where it's common to just "dive in", and where the scope of a project may significantly change halfway through. In math, this flexibility can be a great virtue -- sometimes the final product can be much more interesting than what you were originally hoping for! In my experience, the people who have successfully changed my mind were those who first listened to me and understood where I was coming from. So, if you'd like to be more persuasive, I'd recommend investing additional time in understanding your colleagues' goals and methods. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/16	365	1,569	<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted a manuscript to the Indian journal of pure and applied mathematics. The submission was successful and the manuscript is under review (As per the shown status). But beside there a option "View reference checking results", and the following is shown there? I don't know what does that mean? Does that mean my manuscript cannot be published? [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOvED.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/BOvED.jpg)<issue_comment>username_1: They just check whether your references are correct. For example, did you get the volume right or did you spell the authors correctly. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: When submitting an article for publication, it is very important to check the requirements for submission. In this case, it appears that you have submitted a file in .pdf format, which is not supported by the reference checking system of the journal. In the diagram in [this canonical journal workflow answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/55666/43873), you are probably stuck in the "Initial Check" phase and your submission process cannot proceed without further action from you. You should probably: 1. Go back and look at the submission instructions again. If they specify that .docx or another format is required, you will need to save your article in a supported format and resubmit it. 2. For specific questions that are not answered by the submission instructions, there should be a link to contact the journal and/or the editor. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/16	2,126	8,707	<issue_start>username_0: For the past two years, I have been working as a postdoc under a new German professor with what I consider to be an atrocious work ethic: * His presence on campus is limited only to when in-person teaching is involved. The rest of the time he stays at home hundreds of kilometers away. * He is disorganized, often misses to register grades for students, or respond to their emails (I know this because they contact me instead with "what is happening here?"). * Zero research initiative. He relies on other people to put his name in papers. * No support for his PhD students; he has had one since 2016 who is supposed to defend this summer, with two workshop papers since 2018, and I have met her and she is not the problem (the field is computer science). * He is constantly delaying procedures that just need to be signed-off by him, like reimbursements for travels (I've waited for mine for over four months for something that is done in two weeks tops). Suffice to say, I have worked in universities in four other European countries and Australia, and I have always been the lazier one. So, I walked to the dean's office and I asked him what the point is of someone having a job that he can't do. He told me that my attitude is not nice, and that this is normal in German universities as they “don’t follow the US model” (whatever that means). Two months ago, I got a call by the president. He told me that I what I describe is indeed not professional behavior, but nothing really happened after that. In fact, I still see students looking for him and not finding him, missing grades, and so on. I don’t really know what my options are. The dean basically suggested me to shut up and just do my own work as if I am independent here (I don’t have to involve the professor), but I think that this is nonsense, as I’m not a slave to ignore what is going on in my environment. I would resign, but I like the city here, and why should I resign anyway for someone else? Let me know your thoughts, please. Perhaps I have been extremely lucky so far to have worked with dozens of different professors/researchers that had some baseline qualities and work ethic and now I am acting paranoid?<issue_comment>username_1: If this doesn't affect your work, I suggest, like the president, to let it go and finish your projects so that you can move on. It is their problem to resolve, not yours. Pressing it too hard can negatively affect your own future if someone in the system is vindictive, say that professor or the chair. You will find a lot of unfortunate things in academia that you have no real power to correct, especially as a junior person. If you want to do something positive, and have the time and energy, do what you can to benefit the students that you see affected. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: ### What you can do for others Professors in Germany (and other countries) are very difficult to fire. Most failed professors end up without a group, or one or two employees that are come with their professorship instead of third-party funding. They are like a permanent teaching staff with somewhat higher salary. Complaining to the department, faculty, or similar is not bad, but only if such complaints accumulate can you expect for something to happen, though even then I would not expect too much. Unless you can motivate others to complain too, you probably did all you can do in this respect. You can also warn people considering to join the group (if such people exist) about what to expect. If required, you can thinly veil this, e.g.: “In this group, you have much freedom to decide the direction of your research, but are also expected to work very independently.” ### What you can do for others and yourself If you have the capacity, use this situation to gather experience and CV points by taking the role of your professor where he is failing, for example: * Advise other supervisees of your professor in research and writing and earn authorships as well as some supervision experience. * Publish your papers without your supervisor as a co-author showing that you can do research independently. * Establish collaborations as you seem fit. * Take higher responsibilities in teaching and thus gain experience with organising courses etc. * (Basically what your dean suggested:) Organise your own time and explore your own research ideas. Ideally, when you are interviewing for a higher-ranking position, you can honestly say that you have experience with these things. What I wouldn’t do is to get involved in any grant applications as they mostly enable your supervisor to harm more advisees in the future. ### General caveat Many of the above suggestions can obviously backfire when your professor feels attacked and can muster the energy for revenge. It is up to you to judge how likely this is and how much you prioritise security over doing good and a chance to benefit from the situation. On the other hand, an escalation after a serious backfire may be what eventually brings down your professor (in the sense that he cannot find students, supervisees, or funding anymore). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Since you've already brought this to the attention of several others, you no longer have to deal with this in secrecy. So, take the time to conduct 1-on-1 chats with other people who are affected by his behavior - other post-docs and PhD candidates, and possibly junior tenure-trackers. Also talk to the relevant people in the student union. After those 1-on-1 chats, try to schedule a meeting of several of these people. In that meeting, each person should present two or three cases of "not doing the job" misconduct on that Professor's part. Summarize the meeting in a joint letter to be signed by participants, calling for action to be taken to address the situation - but without demanding specific measures (e.g. don't say "fire him"). Before sending this out, see if someone closer to him can get a draft of that letter in front of his face, so that he has a chance of offer making amends (although he might just lash out at those involved). Finally, have different people, not just yourself, mail this letter to: * The head of the department * The department council or body of senior academic staff * The student union * The graduate employee union if you have one * The senior academic staff union * The Professor himself ... and post a few copies on the bulletin boards where your research group is at. An additional measure you could consider - if the university is mulling the affair and claiming they can't do anything - is indicating this may be brought to the attention of donors and funding bodies. Of course, as I've already hinted - the more of these things you do personally, the more this is likely to gain you the reputation of a trouble-maker, or get that Professor to bad-mouth you to colleagues, or terminate your post-doc early etc. Doing the right thing rarely goes unpunished. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: In Germany (like in many other countries), professors are civil servants and it isn't easy to fire them. Therefore, all your efforts to report this behaviour won't probably have any effects. However, even if they do not have this privilege, I don't see reporting to the dean or the president is the right action. First, it is not your task unless you are directly affected (and here, you complain only about your conflict with him by following the right procedure). Second, it opens the door to many malicious complaints. Third, if the professor decides to complete only his basic duties (according to his contract that I am pretty sure you don't have access to), he is free and no one can complain about it. As a postdoc, it is recommended to stay professional and not bad-mouth your professor because you don't have the competency to judge him. It is your right not to like working with him and you can simply resign. You mentioned you do not want to do it because you like the city. Are you expecting the professor to be fired and you keep your position because you like the city? EDIT > > he has had one since 2016 who is supposed to defend this summer, with two workshop papers since 2018 > > > Since you are not a professor and I assume not habilitated, you are not allowed to supervise PhD students. How can you assess whether the students deserve the degree or not and judge the assessment of many professors (i.e. Supervisor, the examiners and the members of the PhD committee)??? > > what I consider to be an atrocious work ethic > > > Nothing you mentioned has to do with work ethics. I would rather call it "irresponsibility". Upvotes: 2
2022/06/16	415	1,904	<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a paper last month in a reputable high ranking journal, the paper was rejected with a chance of resubmission, the reviewer pointed out some anomalies in my data analysis and stated that my work can't be considered for publication. I run the experiments all over, and plotted new graphs. Do you think I should resubmit to the same journal? Are the reviewers going to question my new data? Is there anyone here who went through running the experiment again, finding new data and resubmitting to the same journal and got accepted for publication?<issue_comment>username_1: If you are sure you've improved the paper and its underlying data, you should probably resubmit, since they permit it. That would probably be the quickest way to get feedback on whether you have something worth publishing. Even if it is again rejected, the reasons may change which will give you further advice on how to proceed. Submitting to a different journal would start you at the beginning again and take longer in most cases. Provide a note along with the resubmission explaining what you have done and why it correctly responds to the earlier review. But don't waste people's efforts. Make careful evaluation yourself or within your working group. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: This is going to depend on what the problems were with the old data set, why you needed to repeat it, and what changes you made to the protocol. Were there actual mistakes that you made? Did you add controls? Do you have a larger data set? I'd go so far as to say that if you don't understand why the original data wasn't publishable and don't have valid reasons why the second data set is better, maybe you should consider not publishing. Another way to think about it is would you feel OK about presenting BOTH data sets in a publication, and defending the results you got for each. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/16	2,623	10,920	<issue_start>username_0: My supervisor asked me to prepare a presentation for each journal paper I have with him. He asked the same for each other student he has (PhD and postdoc). This seems to me (and to all other students) strange and nonsense. Why would you ask your PhD students and postdoc to prepare a presentation for each journal paper they have? I asked my supervisor and he told me because I told you so.<issue_comment>username_1: Academics give a lot of talks. Having a presentation ready to go for each paper is very unlikely to be a waste of time. You might not end up using the deck "off-the-shelf," but once you have a bunch of good slides, it's easy to slice-and-dice them as needed. Further, learning to make good slides and give good talks is one of the goals of grad school, so there's a good opportunity here to learn from your advisor. In fact, one "trick" I've learned is that instead of e-mailing someone a screenshot or screensharing a plot during a meeting, I'll take the time to copy and paste it to a slide and add a few bullets explaining what the result shows and what the takeaway is. Then when I need to form a slide deck, I already have a few key slides ready to go. This almost never turns out to be wasted effort. > > I asked my supervisor and he told me because I told you so. > > > Well, that's unfortunate. I see three explanations here. One, and the most optimistic, is that this was a bit tongue-in-cheek; i.e., you will soon see why we're doing this, so there's no need to explain now. Another option is that your supervisor is just dismissive and rude. But a third option is that your supervisor thought you were being dismissive and rude of him; i.e., he made this perfectly reasonable request and in response, the term is demanding explanations and second-guessing his judgment. (I assume that the downvotes on your question are because others here have also detected that attitude in your question and are responding accordingly.) If this happens to be the case, I would suggest re-evaluating your relationship with your advisor: you are, after all, there to learn from him (or you don't trust his judgment and should seek another advisor). Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I'll focus on why it is valuable to do such a thing. A paper in some fields, such as math or theoretical science is very detailed. The detail is essential, but getting lost in the details doesn't necessarily lead to insight. What is the "deep meaning" of this paper? Why is it important? Having written the paper, it may not be immediately obvious what the answers are to such questions. Reviewing the work and thinking about it again can be valuable if you focus on the important questions. Insight can even lead you to ideas you missed earlier that might lead to future work. A short presentation "about" the paper needs to avoid the detail to be effective and to focus on the insights that it leads to. For that reason alone it is worth doing, never mind that offending your supervisor is a bad career move. My previous group never asked students to do this, but we did ask them to prepare an "elevator talk" on their research: something that would explain the essence and importance of it in two minutes. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Previous answers are good, so I won't reiterate. I should also note that, in some disciplines (e.g. computer science), most publications come from conference proceedings and workshops, which, you guessed it, involves giving a talks. I should also note that you should be submitting to as many conferences as you possibly can. The best way to get eyes on your research is to present it to a captive audience. This helps develop your academic reputation and lends credibility to your preparedness as an academic. Also - you don't want your job talk to be your first academic presentations. I have colleagues who ran into this issue, and it didn't go well. Giving a good talk is a process of trial and error. Do it early and often. I strived for about one presentation per month while in grad school. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Other good answers. Check. I'd guess that there is the implicit issue that "preparing a presentation" doesn't mean just "being able to stand at the front of a room and explain things on a whiteboard or blackboard"... but means "prepare some slides, in advance". So, yes, preparing typeset slides is a task. Yes, there are formatting and other issues in addition to the scientific/intellectual issues. Still, apart from the formatting issue, I do think it is worthwhile thinking about content, big points versus small, and a time constraint, to "sell" your work. Extreme case (as someone mentioned) is the "elevator pitch", where you have a ridiculously small amount of time to "sell" your work to some big-shot who can offer you a job or otherwise affect your career arc. Job talks are a thing. And, yes, if you want your advisor to "promote" you when they give talks, it is reasonable for you to give them "promotional material". :) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: As every other answer here as noted, all the other answers here are great. But I'm worried about this pattern of communication between your supervisor and you: > > I asked my supervisor and he told me because I told you so. > > > Let me suggest some follow-up questions for you to ask your supervisor, best by email so that you have a documentary trail: * What format should these presentations be in? (PPT, PDF, etc.) * What audience should I prepare these presentations for? (introductory, subject experts, translational outreach to industry, etc.) * How many slides should I prepare for each paper? * Should I prepare independent presentations for each paper, even closely-related ones, or should I bundle my research into a few thematic presentations that cover multiple papers each? * Would it be sufficient for me to simply email you a soft copy of my slides, or are you asking me to prepare as if I were giving an actual oral presentation? (i.e. working out the script, patter, timings, etc.) And finally (perhaps in a follow-up email): * If this occupies all of my time for [insert number of work-weeks this will take], should I be doing that instead of [insert regular work]? Why? --- If your supervisor gives you work requests that seem unreasonable, it's not your job to work out what their internal motivation is. It's your job to defend and document why it's an unreasonable work request, and it's their job to convince you that it is reasonable. While there are many good reasons to prepare a presentation, it is a process which takes time. Every minute of a formal presentation takes between [ten](http://www.speak-simple.com/presentation-time-breakdown/) to [sixty](https://www.doingpresentations.com/prepare-diversity.html) minutes to prepare from scratch, half of which will be oral rehearsal and subsequent changes. A good academic presentation of twenty slides will usually fit a half-hour talk, and will therefore take between five to thirty hours to prepare. Let's say it takes ten. At my current career stage there are about six half-hour talks that would really sum up and showcase everything I've worked on up to now. Preparing those talks, from scratch, would take me about sixty hours of solid work (at ten hours per talk), which after the usual procrastination factors would occupy two to four weeks or work while I dropped everything else. Therefore, if I were faced with a request like that from my supervisor I would not entertain it, because I can't afford to spend an entire month on a relatively unproductive activity, and I would document that decision to explain it to whatever committee I need to explain it to. (Having said that, I have actually been presenting my work regularly, so I do have a good cache of slides built up. I'd have to do very little preparing from scratch. If I really were asked to put all my work together into a mega-presentation, I think it actually would take me two or three days to do, so it wouldn't actually be that great an imposition.) So, over to you. Work out how many slides you are being asked to prepare and estimate how long it would take you. If you run the numbers and find that you can finish it in a day or two, it may well be easiest to just get it done (and move on as soon as possible). But if you find that it would take out a significant chunk of your time from your work then defend your work and tell your supervisor -- all in writing -- that without a very compelling motivation you're not willing to jeopardize your research progress. Be ready to fight if you must. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: It's probably so that you (or him) can present at any opportunity. You might be thinking: "If there's already a paper why bother presenting it? Can't people just read the paper?" Some people are more likely to go to a presentation, more likely to pay attention to a presentation, and more likely to remember you as a person when they watch you present. Self-promotion is very important in science, and doing good talks and presentation is a great way to get your name out there and network. It's also a way for you to get some practice presenting things in general. Incidentally, when you do your PhD defense and/or apply to jobs, you will be asked to present your research, and a good presentation can go a long way. So your advisor is helping you get started on preparing for this. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: As pointed out in the other answers, having a already prepared presentation (slide, or notes for a talk on the board) is everything but a waste of time. If at the moment you prepare it, you will ask yourself "why I am preparing a presentation that I might never give?", here are a first (down to earth) reason. When you will defend your Ph.D. and want to stay in academia, you will have to apply for post-docs or permanent position. You will be more successful if you give talks and if you are "famous" (not like a super star, just that you already met and people saw you in action). Usually, you do not have so much time to prepare such a talk, for the following reason: * the delay between your invitation (or your self-invitation) is short. * You may be busy at this period (teaching, grant applications, revisions of a paper). Having an already prepared presentation for each paper you have is beneficial because: 1. You can choose the topic in function of the audience or the position you plan to apply. 2. It is easier and much faster to update some slides/notes than to start with a empty page. 3. You can make the community aware of your results and you can go everywhere to present them. 4. The more ready presentations you have, the more talks you will give and the more used to communicate in front of an audience you will be. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/16	878	3,960	<issue_start>username_0: For context, my field is physics and my situation is as follows: I did an internship a couple of years ago in a branch of physics I don’t plan on going into. The main guy over the department, who brought me on, is a very well accomplished individual in his branch of physics, and while he was generally happy with my work there, I reported to someone else mainly for my time there, and so he never got to know me very well in a professional way. That being said, he was kind enough to offer to do letters of recommendation, and he has for internships I’ve applied to in the past. Since then, I have developed much stronger relationships with research advisors who know me very well professionally, and I definitely plan on using them for letters of recommendation, but my question is as follows: Does the addition of a mildly impersonal letter of recommendation hurt my grad school applications at all? I imagine he tries in good faith to do as best as he can, but compared to other letters I’ll have, it may come across a bit generic, and I’m not sure if that carries implications with it that I can’t think of that would hurt the application at all. My first impression is that it wouldn’t have any negative effect, but I thought I’d ask to be safe.<issue_comment>username_1: An admission committee will have to make a decision based on the information provided. If the "well accomplished individual" offers you a letter of recommendation, it will presumably recite the facts. In your case, this will underline that you did an internship with him and that he likes you enough to offer writing letters. If I were on the committee, I'd rather have a letter like this than something that is so personal that I doubt that the letter writer is objective. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The best letters are likely to come from people who know you and your work well enough to say something specific about it as well as to predict your success. A letter from some luminary who doesn't really know you is actually something like hearsay evidence. The people evaluating your application probably recognize this. If the letter is one among several (say, 3) then it is probably fine, but that isn't what is going to put you over the top. But every case is different and some people write better letters than others. Ask a potential letter writer at your institution how they would advise in this case. Note that letters not only need to describe your past accomplishments but also make a prediction about your future success. Those who know you well are in a better position to do both. Letter writers should have some "standing" at the institution, also. Professors rather than lab managers, for example. But they don't need to be superstars. They need to be in a position to evaluate your likely success, meaning that they have gone through the process completely. Use letters from others only as necessary. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Whether you want the letter depends on the reputation of the letter writer. An impersonal letter from a highly accomplished and well-known scholar in your field can an exceptional addition to your portfolio of references because it shows that you can interact with researchers outside of your undergraduate department and are developing a research network, that you are probably capable of basic research, and that you know where the important questions are in the field. It also lends credibility to your academic pedigree, but you should not depend solely on this letter. Three letters are typically required. You need a personal letter from your academic/major advisor and whatever full-time professor you are closest to. Try to avoid letters from adjuncts, graduate students, or contract lecturers unless you are applying only to a master's program or a low ranked program. (This has to do with academic elitism, which is a problem, but a reality we live with) Upvotes: 1
2022/06/17	714	2,961	<issue_start>username_0: I applied simultaneously to several law schools with start dates in January 2022 and September 2022. I received and accepted multiple offers and paid for all the seats I accepted. I've now finished my first semester at the school with the January start. I did mediocre on my first semester finals. I am not on academic probation or academically dismissed. But I don't want a 2.3 GPA, and this school is expensive (I lost my scholarship due to my GPA). After finding the structural issues in my test taking, I am hoping I will do better if I could get a fresh start. So, I am planning to leave my current program and start from the beginning at one of the schools with the September 2022 start date. My new program will not know that I started and left a program somewhere else. Do I have to tell them? I do not want to transfer the grades, so from my side, there is no need to mention it. I did not lie on my application. I have researched this and cannot find any discussion about this scenario, only about transfer applications. Can I just go for it?<issue_comment>username_1: If you are going to engage in the practice of law, your conduct should be exemplary. In fact, there is often a morality clause to admission to the bar. Put yourself in the position of the second school. Will they possibly feel deceived by you not telling? For example, did they ask in the admissions process about previous studies? If yes, you definitely should tell your new school. Assume an alternative scenario, where you leave your current school after the semester (disgusted with your performance), work in another job for a couple of years, and then go to the new law school. Would that have made any difference? With other words, your decision should focus on whether you have an explicit or implicit duty to advise your new school. If you were to breach a duty, your future career might be in jeopardy. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: While your behavior doesn't seem especially honorable, I'd guess that you don't have to tell the other school what you have been doing, as long as you don't lie when asked questions. Your admittance to that program, I assume, wasn't contingent on what you might do or not do in the interim. You could have been vacationing in the south of France, or anything. They probably didn't anticipate that your situation could arise and so didn't try to prevent it. It would be different, though, if they did require you to keep them informed of what you were doing, especially academic programs, in the time before starting. In such a case, you need to tell them and likely provide transcripts. To fail in this would be an ethical lapse. It does all seem a bit "slippery" though, and feeds into the general distrust of lawyers. Accepting more than one offer was problematic if you thereby denied a slot to another potential student. Law school admissions tend to be a bit limited, I'd suppose. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/17	800	3,245	<issue_start>username_0: I got accepted to a Ph.D. program in New Zealand. For now, I have enough funding to cover only my first year of study, which is why I plan to work in that country while I study. Is it advisable to look and apply for a job there now? Or should I look for a job when I get there?<issue_comment>username_1: Two important points to consider: First, a PhD is a full-time job. Most PhD positions come with a side-job that provides funding and, importantly, some sort of tuition forgiveness. Sometimes that side-job is fully overlapping with your research work, sometimes it's a separate task (like teaching), but in either case it's a position designed for someone doing work towards a PhD, with full expectance that their time will be split between those tasks. I would highly recommend against taking any PhD offer that requires you to pay tuition and expenses. Universities may make these offers, but really they should only ever be taken by people who are already so wealthy that the cost doesn't matter. Consider them like a bribe or donation to let a rich family send their kid to a prestigious place. You really don't want to be in the financial position of paying a bribe meant for oligarchs and kleptocrats. Most other jobs, besides hourly work, will expect your full attention. You should not expect to be able to hold a job and make satisfactory progress towards your PhD at the same time. Rarely, some people may work on "part-time" PhDs, but they should expect to take much longer to graduate and need to arrange this with their institution as a specific plan to move slower than normal, not just show up to do half the effort. Second, if you're studying in a foreign country, you'll need to comply with their immigration policies. I do not know any specifics about New Zealand, but you should certainly not assume that whatever immigration policy allows you to be there as a student allows you to hold a job. It seems most likely you will (see <https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/options/study/working-during-after-your-study/working-on-a-student-visa> per comment by username_2), but you'll have to ensure that applies to you and doesn't conflict with any rules for being a student at your institution. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: First thing you should do is discuss with your supervisor, because you can't really do anything without his or her approval anyway. Getting a job will not be easy - it's not that you don't have permission from the New Zealand government to work, [you do](https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/options/study/working-during-after-your-study/working-on-a-student-visa), but rather that it is very time-consuming and that will detract from your PhD (which is also a full-time job). There's a good chance you'll get some supplementary income as a teaching assistant at your university, but it's not likely to be sufficient to live on. So ultimately you will need to find funding somewhere, and whatever you decide on you will need your supervisor's agreement. Therefore discussing with them is the first step. You can decide afterwards if you want to, e.g., convert to a part-time PhD and spend the rest of your time working. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/17	753	2,937	<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a seminar work as part of a Computer science bachelor's degree. One of the first steps is to submit the articles that the seminar work will be based on. The topic I chose is Malware Detection, and so, I have submitted some articles regarding the subject. My instructor has rejected the articles for various reasons (From Workshops and not conferences, not peer reviews, somewhat old etc) and he says over and over again that I need to take the articles from dblp, and suggested some conferences to search by. So I want to submit the following search query in dblp: > > Articles, from recent years, of specific conferences, are peer-reviewed and are on the topic of malware detection. > > > And another thing I want to know is: > > All conferences from recent years that are on the topic of Cyber Security. > > > (So that I will have more conferences to search by other than the list my instructor provided) This can all be done manually, if not possible via dblp search capabilities, but the key functionality I am missing is the free search of an article name in a context of a specific conference (i.e only from a specific conference) How is that possible? Going to dblp, I can only see a free search box with the capabilities of which I can search either by article name or a conference, but not by both. Also searched [here](https://dblp.org/faq/How+to+use+the+dblp+search.html) and found no clear solution. Example of a conference to search in: icse.<issue_comment>username_1: The functionality you are asking for is outside of the scope of DBLP. DBLP is a bibliographic database, and that does not include distinguishing conferences and journals by their fields of research. The FAQ even mentions that "it is impossible to tell where a scientific field starts or ends" (see <https://dblp.org/faq/1474671.html>). However, when your seminar instructor said that you should take the papers from DBLP, most likely something different was meant, which can be either of the following two points (or both): * DBLP tends to index all conferences in non-multidisciplinary computer science conferences of at least a moderately good reputation. While this is of course somewhat subjective, whether a publication venue is on DBLP is a fair predictor for whether the papers at the venue should "count". * DBLP includes links to the publisher's versions of papers, and not to some preprints which sometimes don't have the corrections in the final paper versions included. Note that interdisciplinary conferences and journals are sometimes included in DBLP, but not always. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Append the phrase " venue:X:" to your query, where X is the name of the conference. For example, to search for papers with the word "malware" in their title published in the CCS conference: <https://dblp.org/search?q=malware%20venue%3ACCS%3A> Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/18	1,426	5,994	<issue_start>username_0: My colleague and I started as postdocs this year in a US lab. Recently, we respectively decided to go to a conference and a workshop. The conference was planned since a long time for my colleague, so before the beginning of their postdoc. As for me, I registered for a 3-days workshop at my host institution (not in the US) after the beginning of my postdoc. I asked my PI before registering and I registered because the workshop will bring me additional technical knowledge that I want to use in the future. However, I probably won't need it for the first article of my postdoc. When I talked with my PI recently they mentioned days off and I realized they expected me to take some to attend the workshop. I asked my colleague, and they had to take days off too to go to their conference. To give more information, I am a modeler, so I spend my time programming. I work alone on the project, so I don't have short deadlines with fellow coders. My colleague and I do not have a teaching or supervising load. I am currently hosted by the university that is organizing the workshop, so I have no travel, accommodation or registration fees. I have studied in European countries (Master and PhD) where conferences and workshops are considered work and as such you don't need to take days off. But is it normal in the US?<issue_comment>username_1: > > Is this normal in the US? > > > It varies by institution and even by department. I'm guessing this "days off" policy for postdocs is the same as the policy for faculty and administrators at your university. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It certainly wouldn't be normal or usual for an academic to be docked from a "salary" for attending a conference in the field. But the work needs to get done whether you are on site or elsewhere. Perhaps the prof just used poor wording to remind you of that and to note that you may need to take some responsibility to see that there are no disruptions caused by your absence. Your salary is for your work, not your physical presence unless that presence is essential to the work. It is possible, I suppose, that if the prof is paying you out of a grant that they have a different conception of things, or even a misconception. It probably requires a conversation with them to clear it up. And be prepared to assure them that you will take steps to see that the work is carried on without disruption. It is also possible that your contract specifics a certain number of "vacation" days. Perhaps it is a request (demand?) to count the conference days against that. I would disagree with the appropriateness of that, but others might not have the same view. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: If the travel is related to the grant that’s paying your salary to work on the project you will give a talk or a poster about at the conference, then the grant should pay your expenses, within reason, i.e. getting there, feeding you, etc (whatever’s reasonable and legal, check with your department’s administrative staff). If your prof wants to pay for you to go out of their department funds some other money they have access to them. I’d say getting travel paid on grant funds is more likely, though the agencies keep coming out with longer lists of what you can and cannot pay for with grant funds (in the US), your university will have its own rules, too. E.g., in most states you can’t pay state taxes (hotel) using grant money, it’s self-serving. To answer the question: abnormal in the US. I’ve never been a postdoc, but I’ve seen them budgeted for and paid, and I think I’d know if they were paying accommodations out of their own pockets. We all pay out of our own pockets initially, but we turn in receipts when we get back for verification and reimbursement. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If the event is related to and useful for your job, you should not need to take time off, but you likely need your boss's permission. If the event is not related to your job but rather your general professional development (for example, it'll help your next job but not your current one) you may need to take time off. You may also need to take time off if your travel is not officially approved but you'd like to go anyways. It would be extremely unusual to be asked to take time off to travel if the travel is paid for through your job. I think most typically, since post docs are training positions, mentors will consider "job related" to be very broad, since part of your job is to gain breadth of experience. There may be complications when your official job/source of revenue does not encompass your entire position, for example if you are paid for teaching or for statistical consulting, but your position also involves research, it may be that you don't really have financial support for the research side of your job. This sort of arrangement is more common for graduate students, though I suppose it's possible some post docs are in a similar situation. It doesn't sound like you fit this, though. Generally from the details you give, I think this is unusual but probably not against any policy (but for that you'll have to check your institution-specific rules). It seems these are not events where you are representing your current lab, so they fall more in the discretionary area rather than "definitely part of your job" area. I think your boss is foolish to be so protective of the work hours of salaried employees, but that is likely their perogative. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: > > The conference was planned since a long time for my colleague, so before the beginning of their postdoc. > > > This is a bit ambiguous, but my impression here is that you are going to a conference to present research you did for a previous employer. It that is what is happening, it is reasonable that you be asked to take time off. In my experience, one does not go to a conference if one is not presenting. Upvotes: -1
2022/06/18	1,193	4,945	<issue_start>username_0: Is this true? ![cartoon](https://i.stack.imgur.com/mAdxo.gif) Also, are there any obligations about the minimum amount of research papers you should produce (say every year) after being tenured? What if a tenured professor does not produce a paper for say a year or two?<issue_comment>username_1: > > Is this normal in the US? > > > It varies by institution and even by department. I'm guessing this "days off" policy for postdocs is the same as the policy for faculty and administrators at your university. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It certainly wouldn't be normal or usual for an academic to be docked from a "salary" for attending a conference in the field. But the work needs to get done whether you are on site or elsewhere. Perhaps the prof just used poor wording to remind you of that and to note that you may need to take some responsibility to see that there are no disruptions caused by your absence. Your salary is for your work, not your physical presence unless that presence is essential to the work. It is possible, I suppose, that if the prof is paying you out of a grant that they have a different conception of things, or even a misconception. It probably requires a conversation with them to clear it up. And be prepared to assure them that you will take steps to see that the work is carried on without disruption. It is also possible that your contract specifics a certain number of "vacation" days. Perhaps it is a request (demand?) to count the conference days against that. I would disagree with the appropriateness of that, but others might not have the same view. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: If the travel is related to the grant that’s paying your salary to work on the project you will give a talk or a poster about at the conference, then the grant should pay your expenses, within reason, i.e. getting there, feeding you, etc (whatever’s reasonable and legal, check with your department’s administrative staff). If your prof wants to pay for you to go out of their department funds some other money they have access to them. I’d say getting travel paid on grant funds is more likely, though the agencies keep coming out with longer lists of what you can and cannot pay for with grant funds (in the US), your university will have its own rules, too. E.g., in most states you can’t pay state taxes (hotel) using grant money, it’s self-serving. To answer the question: abnormal in the US. I’ve never been a postdoc, but I’ve seen them budgeted for and paid, and I think I’d know if they were paying accommodations out of their own pockets. We all pay out of our own pockets initially, but we turn in receipts when we get back for verification and reimbursement. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If the event is related to and useful for your job, you should not need to take time off, but you likely need your boss's permission. If the event is not related to your job but rather your general professional development (for example, it'll help your next job but not your current one) you may need to take time off. You may also need to take time off if your travel is not officially approved but you'd like to go anyways. It would be extremely unusual to be asked to take time off to travel if the travel is paid for through your job. I think most typically, since post docs are training positions, mentors will consider "job related" to be very broad, since part of your job is to gain breadth of experience. There may be complications when your official job/source of revenue does not encompass your entire position, for example if you are paid for teaching or for statistical consulting, but your position also involves research, it may be that you don't really have financial support for the research side of your job. This sort of arrangement is more common for graduate students, though I suppose it's possible some post docs are in a similar situation. It doesn't sound like you fit this, though. Generally from the details you give, I think this is unusual but probably not against any policy (but for that you'll have to check your institution-specific rules). It seems these are not events where you are representing your current lab, so they fall more in the discretionary area rather than "definitely part of your job" area. I think your boss is foolish to be so protective of the work hours of salaried employees, but that is likely their perogative. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_5: > > The conference was planned since a long time for my colleague, so before the beginning of their postdoc. > > > This is a bit ambiguous, but my impression here is that you are going to a conference to present research you did for a previous employer. It that is what is happening, it is reasonable that you be asked to take time off. In my experience, one does not go to a conference if one is not presenting. Upvotes: -1
2022/06/18	2,516	10,493	<issue_start>username_0: Except from the goal of finding some new truths, proving some theorems, or new ideas. What is the career path for someone pursuing a PhD in pure mathematics? Continuing in research and trying to land a professor's position somewhere ? Then a PhD student should also worry about landing a post-doc before finishing his PhD ? Why do I keep hearing that : "the competitiveness in pure math is rather bad these days" and "an academic position in pure math nowadays is a tough choice" ?<issue_comment>username_1: For most of us who followed that path, if you have to ask the question then it may not be right for you and you should explore all your options before you jump. There is a saying that "You don't choose mathematics. Mathematics chooses you." For myself and many others we never thought of any other options. Yes, at the moment the academic job market is terrible. Most pure math doctorates will need to deal with it, though there are a few other options, though mostly in applications. Yes, post docs seem to be a necessary step. Not entirely pleasant but not entirely unpleasant if you meet new people with new ideas. But a lot of academics in other fields are also "idea driven". It is a great life if you can manage to get in the door. People pay you to think. Not much could be better than that. And, It is hard to predict what your career path might be several years in the future. Things change. When I started grad study the future looked extremely bright for PhD mathematicians. But the successful moon landing ended all of that and universities discovered they had already hired too many people and the faucet immediately closed. Overnight, essentially. But the opposite can also happen. Some new challenge can open doors that nobody saw before. In CS, AI and data science has had something of that effect recently. If you really love something, try to do that and try to avoid substitutes even if you need to compromise for a while as you build a reputation. --- Let me add that I'm not implying that some people are "fit" for math and others are not. That isn't true, at least in my experience. It is a matter of desire and training as well as hard work. To repeat a comment made to another answer here (and elsewhere on this site): My teachers wanted to hold me back a year, primarily for poor performance in math at about age 10 (My mom saved me from that one). My first truly positive educational experience in any area was a high school geometry class. I really liked solving those problems and bought problem books to have more to solve. I finally learned my multiplication tables after earning a doctorate in math. There were other struggles along the way, but each defeat caused a renewed effort to succeed. Luckily I had good mentors. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: While you could be born to have a mathematical mind and work as a mathematician as username_1 writes, or like someone with synesthesia has cognitive advantages in arts/music, remember a PhD in math from starting your studies to graduating with a PhD does often take 10 years alone. As a postdoc there will be maybe another 10 productive years, but at some point your job will become routine and even hinder you from inventive progress climbing up the ladder of responsibility. (It's really interesting from that perspective to read the Perelman case, who apparently had to leave Harvard to be able to focus on mathematical research or Einstein and when and where he made his biggest discoveries). My strong advise to all my students is to try out as much and different opportunities as possible during their study/PhD career. If your primal goal is to get a PhD in mathematics and a follow-up academic position, then you wouldn't have asked this question here. One would think in studies like pure math or astrophysics, why don't end mainly Perelman, Einstein, Wolfram like prodigies on professor positions, and nowadays maybe even less than a century ago? Partly and funnily because a PhD in such scientific branches is pretty much needless if you have theoretically groundbreaking ideas and can realize them (without a need of big funding sources). PhD and professort titles are side-effects in the careers of such researchers, they rather think in scientific projects before earning any degree while on academia.se one can read hundreds of questions on the ideal PhD and how to get it. (For me the best sign, academica offers to many PhD positions, but that is a side note) If you are already reasoning before starting this path how much financial or job security it guarantees you, your path is already doomed. I had a similar decision during my physics studies to make, either pursuing astrophysics for PhD/professorship as the latter is the only way to work in astrophysics apart from becoming a ESA/NASA engineer or joining a branch of physics that gives more financial security, life planning but still offers many options to do fundamental and intellectually challenging research as a physicist. And there are many and it's actually the majority of physicists that started physics for particle or astrophysics, graduated with a PhD in such, but ended doing in job life completely different things due to becoming bored by the necessary strong focusing after 10 years of studying or not hitting a job in academia. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Let me try to provide a somewhat different though not entirely distinct perspective, namely that this is a totally reasonable series of questions to ask oneself and the mere act of considering them seriously isn't some type of heretical disqualification from pursuing a PhD. But you should think very carefully about your motives. The top line takeaway is that the opportunity cost of doing practically any PhD is massive. > > Except from the goal of finding some new truths, proving some theorems, or new ideas. What is the career path for someone pursuing a PhD in pure mathematics? Continuing in research and trying to land a professor's position somewhere? > > > * The major work one produces when doing a PhD in math is finding some new truths, proving some theorems, and refining some interesting new ideas. Suppose you do not think these will be satisfying for you or you are generally have different priorities than being "intrinsically satisfied" by your work. Then the pay, working conditions/job benefits, and future opportunities provided by the job are roundly beaten by a whole host of alternative vocations which require similar types and levels of training to enter. * There are vanishingly few jobs other than being a professor for which a PhD in mathematics is an essential qualification. For those where a PhD is helpful but not strictly necessary, there are usually other preparatory jobs you can take which will also qualify you and compensate more (except for the manner of work) compared to doing a PhD. > > Why do I keep hearing that : "the competitiveness in pure math is rather bad these days" and "an academic position in pure math nowadays is a tough choice" ? > > > I've never been presented with a convincing framework that uses hard data and discusses comparative questions over time like this. By anecdote everything fluctuates wildly by sub-field and depends heavily on which two points in time you're comparing. If you are talking to someone more than 20 years older than you about the ease of getting jobs in their sub-field, it is almost a default that professorships are harder to get in it than when they got theirs because they obtained a job in the past and are fulfilling that potential demand in the present. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Is you question WHY or SHOULD? from the content of your question, it sounds like "should", but the title is too obvious. If you're not really asking, I will provide a lemma at the end. Anyhow, welcome to the club of: * "I had bad grades at school... but look at me now!", * "You don't choose mathematics. Mathematics chooses you!", * "It's a fact that physicists and mathematicians have on average a higher IQ than the average STEM or humanities academic.". * ... Actually, since STEM includes Mathematics, it reminded me of the joke that "everybody thinks he's better than average." Oh wait... it's not even a joke! But here are some good parts too: Every mathematician here decries the statement: "Mathematics chooses you". Even the ones who wrote it!! :) But some people do believe it: otherwise it didn't exist! Assume you're gullible enough to believe this stereotype: "Mathematics chooses you". Then, following the logic of it, you will not pursue Math in the first place. What does that tell you about the "average IQ" of Math vs NOT Math set of students? Therefore: it's a self reinforcing idea! QED. Corollary, the proof I leave for the reader as it's too trivial: Lemma: If you're a mathematician then you think that if someone doesn't choose to pursue a PhD in math then he/she has a low IQ. Jokes aside, if you have no better alternatives, doing a degree in Applied Math or just Math is worth it! (Example: being from Moldova and no money). Later, you can easily switch from Math to any other field: Banking, Insurance, Telecom, Bio-Chemistry, Software Engineering etc.. Mobility: It provided many people I know a legal ticket to US/EU/other and an exit from abject poverty to a rather decent life. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Ofcourse pursuing PhD in pure mathematics and applying all the innovative, creative and analytical power solving unsolved problems is very difficult task. One should not choose mathematics just for profesionality but one should choose mathematics with both affection towards it plus targetting a job. But then looking at the competitiveness market in academia might demotivate one morally. However competition is everywhere and most of all succesful researchers (PhD+Post docs) get academia job in time. The world need mathematicians more and more in every academic institutions because the language of pure mathematics as well as applied mathematics enlarge the idea of advanced world and natural sciencies are devloping continuously based on mathematical language developped by pure mathematicians. I am myself final year PhD in number theory and I am optimistic because I can see most of the seniors got academia job. So don't lose hope if you really love pure mathematics with heart not in terms of professionalism only. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/18	3,005	12,668	<issue_start>username_0: This question arises out of [this question here](https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/69247/is-there-an-english-translation-of-nicolas-de-la-mares-1722-work-trait%c3%a9-de-la?noredirect=1#comment222768_69247). Basically, I was hoping that someone could help me find an English translation of a 1722 work by <NAME>, titled Traité de la Police or "Treatise on the Police". A commenter stated they could find no such copy, and recommended another intriguing book, Grundsätze der Policey-Wissenschaften or "Principles of Policey Sciences" (that is what the webpage gives me, I'm pretty sure "Police Sciences" would be also be an accurate translation) written sometime before 1756 in German. The commenter remarks that there was a Spanish translation but that they were unable to find an English one. So, I wanted to know how much translation services were. I found a Spanish-to-English book translation service that advertised $30 a page [on their website](https://thespanishgroup.org/translations/certified-translations-for-official-civil-documents/?keyword=book%20translation%20service&gclid=CjwKCAjw77WVBhBuEiwAJ-YoJIjXKQ9Z_XH9-HjmiwGE-rJ1wVC1xCAW7yYCgU6LdcV7DvxVM_fz_RoCzc0QAvD_BwE). Volume 1 of Traité de la Police is 1,000 pages long, while Grundsätze der Policey-Wissenschaften is about 400 pages. That would be $120,000 for the former four volume set, assuming that each volume has 1,000 pages, and $12,000 for the latter book. Both of those figures are laughably out of the question for me; the former, hysterically so. Now, I really do feel these are important books, in an untold part of the story of the development of policing large cities. In addition, I know if I spoke multiple languages, and I came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun. But, don't translators get to copyright and sell their translations (if they're translating a work in the public domain)? So, it would seem there would be a financial motive to translate important past works. Of course, you could never be certain, after all, if it hasn't been translated in all these years, how important is the book? Still, the fact that I could make ANY money off of doing an activity so fascinating and that I genuinely enjoy doing would be icing on the cake. So, all of this made me wonder, is there some movement, website, or group who volunteer their translation abilities to important historical works? Or, is there any place I could suggest to translators that they translate a specific book, even if they then make money off it? Like, is there any way I could suggest to publishers that they do a translation of a certain work? Just to be clear, I am reasonably certain that neither of these books discuss police forces in any way similar to modern forces. "Policing" is just how they kept order; however, these are the differences I am interested in. Thanks for any help or suggestions.<issue_comment>username_1: There is a good reason such books are rarely if ever translated; there is almost no one who will want to read the translation. Doing a reasonably good translation is a lot of work; there is a reason why it costs so much. Laypersons will almost never care to read such books. The vast majority of scholars will know the original language well enough to read the book (which is much less familiarity with the language than is needed to carry a conversation). Even in mathematics (my field), where relatively little is lost in translation, most books in French and German, even those still in current use as references, have never been translated. Most mathematicians in the relevant areas know enough French or German to read them, since some knowledge of at least one of these languages is usually part of secondary education in most English-speaking countries (as well as other European countries). Furthermore, (especially for French) there is enough work available only in these languages (including some current research) to make learning the language well enough to read worthwhile. (In the 1980s and 1990s, there was an organized effort to translate much of the mathematics research written in Russian into English, since learning Russian is much harder for the average (native or not) English speaker than learning French or German or Italian.) In the rest of the humanities or in the humanistic social sciences (such as history or sociology, including police studies), reading the original is even more important, since much research focuses on careful interpretation of texts, and relying on a translation runs the risk that you end up studying an artifact of the translation rather than anything actually written in the original. No one who uses a text in a common European language without the ability to read (if somewhat slowly and laboriously) the original would be taken seriously. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: You say: > > In addition, I know if I spoke multiple languages, and I came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun. > > > It seems that you are seriously underestimating the effort involved in translating over a thousand pages (maybe several thousand pages?) of text from one language to another. It's a massive undertaking which could take years of focused work even if one has all the required skills. Note that "speaking multiple languages" does not give one anywhere near enough competence and expertise to translate a specialized 300-year-old text. The only people competent enough to do the task are by definition experts already well-aware of the book who don't need you to bring it to their attention. If you want to make a translation happen, the main obstacle for you isn't going to be money, it's going to be convincing an expert to devote a massive chunk of their life to translating the book. This isn't going to happen just because someone on the internet suggested it to them. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Since others have already addressed the misconceptions in your post regarding open source versus free work and the difficulty of translation, I’ll try to give a bit of information regarding the question in your title specifically: Is there an open-source translation movement? Open-source software is typically translated by volunteers in a similar manner to what you describe: people who find value in a certain work and see a need to make it available in more languages decide to donate their time and skills to localizing it (or, typically, parts of it). This is done on a variety of platforms and the process, from calls for translators to the translation work itself all the way to implementing those translations in the software, can vary greatly. Another example that comes to mind is volunteer localization of various storytelling media such as comics, cartoons and movies in the form of subtitling or image editing. This is typically not done in a legal manner, but by fans or enthusiasts that take it upon themselves to make those works available in other languages, which involves redistributing the altered work without authorization. It does however also happen legally, and one particularly interesting example of that is David Revoy’s fully open-source and crowd-localized webcomic [Pepper & Carrot](http://peppercarrot.com/). Whether done legally or not, there is certainly a will to share in those communities and the work is often done collaboratively and "in the open". A similar thing exists for video games, where I believe it is more frequent for those volunteers to ask and obtain the publisher’s permission to produce translations, in which case the publisher or developer will then provide a framework and handle the work of implementing the translations in the game, and own legal rights to the resulting work. Sometimes it goes the other way, with a developer asking for its community’s help by crowd-sourcing translations. The main difference between those examples is that localizations of free software are normally just as free/permissive as the software itself, whereas fan translations are either illicit or specifically donated to the copyright owner, and therefore not in the public domain or, as you put it, "open source". Again, Pepper & Carrot serves as an interesting counter-example here due to its licensing. More broadly, it is also not unusual to see calls for volunteers on translator job boards, mostly emanating from non-profit organizations and religious groups. Translators Without Borders and Doctors Without Borders come to mind, as well as the United Nations. I don’t know if I would necessarily call it a movement, but TWB in particular [mentions](https://translatorswithoutborders.org/about-us/) "a global community of over 80,000 translators and language specialists", so there are definitely many translators who do donate some of their time to volunteer work, but it always comes down to motivation. Volunteering is, after all, a luxury. You mentioned that if you "came across an important book in one language that has NEVER been translated to my other known language, translating it would be something I would do for fun". That is not wrong per se; talking from experience, I’ve translated someone’s biography for practice and because I wanted a relative to read it in our native language. But it’s a lot of work and there are a lot of books out there that are equally deserving, so how much time do you have and how do you choose? The challenge in your case would be to find someone who is as passionate about the subject as you are AND has the skill and time required. If not for the age of this particular book and its 3,700 pages (all four volumes combined), I would say that finding volunteers in a community interested in the subject matter to review and edit a machine translation, focusing on accuracy alone, would likely be achievable. However, I doubt you will find an MT engine that performs well with scans of 18th-century French and enough people with enough motivation to undertake something of that scale, even if it’s "just" editing. As for "[suggesting] to publishers that they do a translation of a certain work", I suppose there is no harm in asking publishers who specialize in historical works, but again they may lack the motivation to do so if there is no reason to believe it would see enough sales to offset the costs of both translation and printing/distribution. Perhaps a more likely avenue would be to find history and/or linguistics students or graduates who would have an interest in studying and translating those books as part of some research program, and applicable grants that would cover their living expenses as they do so. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There is a translation app/website called DeepL which worked quite well the one time I used it—MUCH better than Google Translate. <https://www.deepl.com/> Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Both Project Gutenberg and the English Wikisource (as well as certain Wikisources) accept user translated works. Neither seem to have built up a significant community of translators, with the translated works being chosen and done by individual translators. (There's something of translation communities around the Bible on both the English Wikisource and Conservapedia; the goals of both those groups seem quite different from yours, though.) As for your works, though, just getting them transcribed would be an issue. Distributed Proofreaders for Project Gutenberg would in theory transcribe them, as would the French and German Wikisources, but depending on volunteer labor, it would likely take years. (Transcription on the appropriate native Wikisource is a requirement before translation on the English Wikisource.) For translation, <NAME> is the most prolific translator for Project Gutenberg; he has translated Metamorphosis, Bambi, The Trial and Siddhartha, all books that are very popular but had no freely available translation, and all together maybe as long as your one German book. Looking through the English Wikisource, there are no complete user translations this long, and most of it is popular material, like Ovid or the Tao Te Ching. Project Gutenberg has digitized over 60,000 books, and has yet to get to these. A transcription is so much easier than a translation that even with an active translation community, I'd be surprised to see these translated any time soon. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/19	697	3,055	<issue_start>username_0: We submitted a paper, which is mostly experimental, to a Q1 journal. We did experiments with three different techniques. Considering this, we finished another paper which is totally different in subject than the first one. The second one is not an experimental work at all. However, in order to verify our numerical model, we validated it with the experimental results we obtained before and then continue to apply our model in the new paper with the numerical results. We send the second paper to a journal and they ask for more details on the experimental works. Can we add the previous experiments with paraphrase while they have not been published yet? If published, we can cite but I am not sure exactly what we should do. We cannot wait for the first paper to be published.<issue_comment>username_1: You should provide this question in a revised form as an explanation to the editor of the second paper. You might also want to provide a copy of the first paper, explaining where it is in the editorial process and point out the differences. From what you say, there is no reason at all NOT to reuse your experimental data. Depending on the discipline, inclusiveness is a virtue for a paper, meaning that you might actually be justified in republishing your data. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In many such situations you can use the delay in publication to your advantage. Note that very few papers are published exactly as first submitted, so you have some leeway. In the second paper you can "cite" the first informally as a submitted work with formal citation to be substituted later. If the first paper is subsequently published before the second is finalized you just make the substitution. But to make this work you probably need to have some assurance from the first journal that you will get published. So this works best if there is some delay in submitting the second after submitting the first. This might not apply in your case, I realize. And, to satisfy the reviewers of the second paper you may need to make the first paper available to them. The editor will give advice on this. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: This is just an auxiliary caution: Nature.com's [Meet this super-spotter of duplicated images in science papers](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01363-z) describes <NAME> and the "phenomenon" of inappropriate data reuse. What you describe does not seem at all inappropriate, but since [Elisabeth Bik](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Bik)'s work has become so famous in some fields (e.g. Biology) it's important to be very clear both to your editor & reviewers (and to your future readers) that you're not representing the same data twice as if it were two different experiments, lest someone assumes the worst and gives you a hard time or otherwise delays the publication process. The other answers already offer some good strategies to do so, here I'm just highlighting some potential problems if you don't heed their recommendations. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/19	5,376	22,886	<issue_start>username_0: I'm doing a PhD on theoretical physics. The last months, I'm working on a paper that my supervisor is not aware of. I'm now finishing the paper. The idea of the paper is closely related to my PhD thesis and previous research papers that I have written with my supervisor and colleagues. My question is that I do not know if I should tell my supervisor about this paper. I understand that I have been helped from our collaboration. However for all of the papers that I have written, I have done most (basically ALL) of the hard part, being the calculations in my case, and I have discussed the physics as well as writing the whole paper. My advisor did not help me at all with that. In all of my published work, my advisor contributed with comments and suggestions and I was okay with that, as long as I am the first author. The fact is that I cannot stand this situation any more. All of the papers are my work and my work only. If someone comments on my work, I will very kindly include that person on the acknowledgement section. I would like to be the single author if I am actually the single author. I do not know however if this will irritate my advisor. Has anyone else faced the same scenario? Edit: After reading all these comments and suggestions, I'm going to add some more information about what the situation is exactly. 1. There is no funding for my research. I do not get paid for what i do. I do other jobs in order to make ends meet, that have nothing to do with academia/research. Research (for me) is a side project that comes with sleep deprivation/low social activity, etc. It is still worth the struggle in my opinion. 2. In all previous articles, my advisor's name comes next to mine. 3. For the paper that I asked this question about, the advisor is not involved in any way. Or is involved as involved are any of the colleagues/people that I had conversations with in the past about something similar. The idea, execution, writing, explanation are all mine.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you should probably, almost certainly, tell them. It is courteous, if nothing else, to do so and the issue of whether they want to be, or should be, co-authors is completely separate from that. There is also the issue of whether having them (and their implied reputation) as a co-author could benefit you (or not). I'd guess that the supervisor shares things with you and it might leave you pretty stuck if they never did and refused to. But beyond that, it seems like you are putting yourself into a very small box in a field in which wide collaboration can be very beneficial. Some people can work alone and be productive, but even Einstein corresponded with and shared ideas with a fairly wide set of people. This was true before he earned his doctorate as well and was helpful in developing Special Relativity (at least). The standards for who should be a co author are fairly clear and, yes, often abused, but you haven't indicated that. Asking whether they should be is quite different from insisting on it and threatening retaliation otherwise, which sometimes happens. "Suggesting improvements" can merit either an acknowledgement or co-authorship depending on how it impacts the intellectual contribution of the paper. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: > > I would like to be the single author if i am actually the single author. > I do not know however if this will piss my advisor off. > Has anyone had faced the same scenario? > > > Yes, many people have shared this scenario. Usually, in my humble opinion, it is based on unjustified entitlement students have, and possessive and envious emotions humans have in general. The reason I say they are unjustified in general is that unless your paper is a groundbreaking piece of science that will be remembered for eternity of ages, there is almost practically no reason to insist on being the "single" author. If you feel emotionally incapable of gifting your supervisor papers that you feel he/she hasn't contributed enough to, you should start in my opinion by letting them know you are not happy with their supervision or demand to be included as co-authors. Of course, this will offend the supervisor, and may risk completely ruining your relationship with them, because like you, they have emotions of possessiveness and jealousy. EDIT: Following the comments, I add this simple practical advice: I think that in your case, for practical reasons, you can tell your supervisor that for this specific work you might want to have a single authorship because it will be nice to show you're an independent researcher. If you say that nicely and gently it may be okay and won't hurt much your relationship, but convey the boundary of your relationship in the future. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Not sure about physics but in many other fields, it is very natural to have some solo-authored papers during PhD years. My advisor is super busy with huge piles of papers on his desk, and is usually reluctant to have too much collaboration and discussion with advisees beyond his advising obligation. I personally prefer collaboration, but this is what I will do if I badly want a solo author paper: 1. During casual chatting with my advisor, say: "I recently wrote down some new findings and would like to submit a paper soon, it is about XYZ" 2. If my advisor is interested, I will ask if he has a bit time to skim through the paper. If he is not interested, I will continue the chat with topics that he has been interested in, and submit the paper by myself. 3. If he agrees to read the paper, I will put my paper on his piles with my own name on it. 4. If he indeed reads the paper and gets back to me with a lot of enthusiastic suggestions and deep ideas, then we will usual have a long, formal discussion on how this project will be proceed. We will discuss questions like "shall we split the ideas into multiple papers", "shall we invite more collaborators", "how should the works to be split if you agree to coauthor", "what are the next steps". In this case, the benefits of incorporating his contribution out-weight the benefits of solo-authoring almost surely. 5. If he is not interested enough to actually read the paper or he only provides some generic comments that are easy to deal with, then, after polishing the paper, I will send him a final version and ask him if he is fine with me just submit it as it. If this happens, my advisor never demanded to put his name onto the paper. --- Re: does a student have the right to publish independently when the advisor makes no contribution? In my humble opinion, if supervisors insist to add their name onto a paper that they made no contribution, then, another complicated question is involved: what count as contribution? In (rare) case people believe providing research fund, supplying data, providing experimental instruments count as contribution, then the supervisors contributed to the paper and naturally have the rights of putting names on it. If the PhD student is funded by department or outside scholarships, and the student did not use any resources or facilities provided by the supervisor, and the supervisor has no other contribution, then, adding their name is not very ethical in my opinion. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: > > I do not know however if this will irritate my advisor. > > > I don’t know about your particular supervisor, but if I were them, I would be irritated by your approach so far for three reasons: * You have not consulted me as to whether your new work was a worthy use of your time. What if I could have told you within minutes that you are re-inventing the wheel or that I know somebody who already attempted what you are doing and failed? What if the outcome of your work is obvious for some reason you are not considering or otherwise completely irrelevant? Or what if there are important implications of your results that you are missing? Your approach is not only inefficient but also implies a great lack of trust in my supervision. Even if your supervisor deserves this a lack of trust, you obviously want to consider whether you want to let them know this way. * Similarly to the above, your behaviour also indicates a lack of trust on my guidance on procedural questions (as opposed to subject-specific questions), such as whom to include as an author or where to submit your manuscript. For example, what if you completely underestimated the relevance of your work and thus undersold it? Or what if you neglected to include a third person as an author? * In many academic systems, you have to report to me because I am your boss in an employment sense or because of some rule of your PhD programme. You are obliged to tell me what you are doing with your work time and I need to know for various reasons. There is probably something else that I expect you to work on. So, unless you did all the work in question in your free time, why am I learning about this only now? I have worked on several solo projects leading to single-author publications while under different supervisors, and every time my supervisor knew early on that I was working on a topic of my own and what that topic was. The only exception was a very short paper that I completely did in my free time and was completely unrelated to my main work and my supervisor’s expertise. Mind that all of the above already applies if your supervisor does not insist on an undeserved co-authorship. Finding out whether they do is a delicate task (also see [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/127268/7734) and [username_3’s answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/186240/7734)), but submitting the paper without their knowledge is certainly not the best way to do this. > > However for all of the papers that I have written, I have done most (basically ALL) of the hard part, being the calculations in my case, and I have discussed the physics as well as writing the whole paper. > > > The way you are writing this has a smell of you being mistaken about what constitutes (ethical) authorship. I am by no means certain on this, but please honestly consider this and if possible consult somebody in your field on this. Particularly, it surprises me that you consider calculations the hard part of your work. While calculations may be the central and time-consuming part of your work, they are usually only legwork and not where the scientific innovation happens (though your mileage may vary depending on your subfield). Instead, the central part of the innovation is something like: “Let’s try to make progress on [overarching question] by considering [scenario] and calculating [thing].” or: “Can we use [something] to calculate [thing], which is often needed?”. You did not write who was responsible for this part of your work. Did some other publication say that somebody should calculate what you calculated? Did this arise from your PhD topic (which probably was laid out by your supervisor to at least some extent)? Is there any conceptual innovation at all? As a peer reviewer, I have successfully recommended to reject papers that contained tons of difficult calculations on the basis that they utterly failed to motivate them. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Story time. I was in the middle of my PhD when I had dinner with a friend of mine (we were both physicists). As we were chatting, she came up with an idea that significantly changed the orientation of my thesis - introducing brand new concepts and making it truly exceptional (in the sense of "very much different from others" :)). It was a 5 minutes part of our 2 or 3 hours-long chat but undeniably impacting. She was vigorously thanked in my PhD. I published two papers on that topic, I asked her if she wanted to collaborate on them. She declined (lack of time and interest) but I did thank her, again vigorously, in both papers. Conclusion: you should discuss that with your thesis director. You can say that you've been writing a paper and ask whether he would be interested to have a look and comment. You do not have to talk about co-authorship at all. If he adds his name after this review, well, you are a bit stuck because the reality of this world is that you have a lot to lose and him, not much. You can of course fight and publish on your own without his involvement but as you can imagine you set yourself for a hard time until you've defended your thesis. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: You're asking the wrong question: if you intend to publish the paper, then your supervisor will know about it. The fact that you are keeping it secret now is going to be apparent at that point. So the question really is: should your supervisor find out that you've been working independently from you, or from the arxiv/pubmed/publication repository used in your discipline? There really isn't any positive aspect from the latter, unless (perhaps) you intend to defer the publication of this paper until after you have finished your PhD and secured your next position. It is possible to publish as sole author or last author (for non-alphabetical fields) in your PhD; it is quite field-dependent (it is more common in fields with higher publication output, lower experimental costs and flatter hierarchies). But ultimately, whether it's generally "possible" or "normal" or "acceptable" is not hugely relevant in the specific case you are in. It's impossible to know from what you wrote whether your advisor is taking advantage of your work or giving you room to develop your independence, and likewise whether you're being self-reliant or petty. But I really struggle to see a scenario in which I, as a supervisor, would be happy to find out my student has been developing a "secret" line of research specifically to exclude my authorship. It is up to you to decide whether the benefits of this sole-author paper offset burning bridges with your supervisor (in a way that will look, to anyone who is sympathetic to them, spiteful). Do consider, however, that your opinions may be strongly coloured by your frustration with your supervisor's methods and that there may be healthier ways to address an incompatibility in supervision style than through a weird "secret revenge paper" ploy. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I think your university, department and supervisor have a right to know if you are publishing anything - even stuff entirely done by yourself and someone else. This is because: (1) You would be unlikely to have this work done had it not been that you were given a PhD studentship in the first place. Sure, I know doing a PhD shows you the cynical underbelly of academia. But we all still learn an awful lot in a short time in such systems. if nothing else we have free access to the university labs, libraries, hardware and software. And we should acknowledge this. It's a bit like parents: we can hate them for the values they espoused and the unfairnesses imposed on us growing up but they did raise us and we should respect that fact at least. (2) The fact that the new work you are publishing is closely related to your PhD work and papers previously published under your own and your supervisor's name makes telling your supervisor more important still. Suppose someone on the editorial board of the journal knows him and mentions your paper en passant in some phone conversation ... Academics hate being left out of the loop by any student - just like senior managers hate not being invited to promotion parties of a junior manager they originally hired. (3) If the supervisor gets mad with you over this, he'll have a lot of sympathy from the rest of the faculty. You can't go too far in academia with your department disapproving of you - at least not unless you are a sociopath or something worse. Informing your supervisor should not be in the oblique way that HighGPA suggests. It should be frank, eye-contact communication and as a separate item in the conversation. Don't try to pull fast ones on older dogs - they have the experience to corner you. On authorship, I feel you should stand your ground. If the supervisor presses for a co-authorship just ask him why and then agree to "think it over". But don't go solo on this and keep your supervisor and department in the dark. That's my final advice to you - although I used to do such things at your age albeit with a total buffoon and parasite "supervisor". Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: Curiously I generally have the opposite problem. I am a PhD student and I would like to have more co-authored papers with my supervisor to demonstrate teamwork ability and to improve the paper, but when I ask my supervisor if he is interested in being a co-author he just says he is too busy so sort it out and publish it by yourself if you wish to publish the results in a journal. I honestly find it interesting that people are so against having co-authored papers with a supervisor and absolutely insist on being the only author. This insistence is generally quite meaningless in the scheme of things (almost all of Nirenberg's papers were published with collaborators and he was one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century). Edit: To be more clear, a person does not have to be a co-author on your article if they did not contribute in any significant way. It does not matter if they are your supervisor. If they did not contribute, then by scientific integrity they should not be included. However, in a progress panel or something like this, you may be asked why your supervisor is not a co-author on paper X, so make sure you have a careful, diplomatic response prepared which you can give to this question which is not ''they did nothing apart from make some worthless comments''. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_9: Academics in a position of greater influence and seniority do abuse their position to obtain credit for work they did not do. Victims are usually junior staff and the better post-docs, seldom PhD students. There are also academics who are extremely generous in sharing credit, often leaning backward to give the younger people the best possible resume. So it is possible that your supervisor is of the first kind, and that you are a PhD student who is hard done by and at the very bottom of the academic abuse hierarchy. That sucks, but pissing people off will not always make things better, although sometimes you do have to throw your weight around to be respected. You don't want to tell your supervisor you have been working on this because...? They will want to be on the paper and that will annoy you? Or they will steal the idea and publish it yourself? You can most certainly go ahead and submit the paper. There is a chance that the handling editor and or a reviewer will talk to your supervisor, saying, "Hey, here's a person from your institute working in your field, do you know them?" - and then your supervisor (whether they are a vampire or not) will be justifiably annoyed with you. Or you might get the thing published, but sooner or later they will find out. > > All of the papers are my work and my work only. > > > You state this very categorically. If this is so, it is most unusual, but then your circumstances do appear to be unusual. It sounds almost as if you are pursuing your research entirely under your own steam, with the advisor on board only because this is a formal requirement for the PhD trajectory. UK universities have an "external track" option where a person does work equivalent to a PhD these all by themselves (often as part of their professional career) and then a supervisor/advisor from the uni gets involved only at the stage of submitting the thesis to the committees etc. at that uni. The role of the supervisor/advisor is to vouch that the work is of sufficient quality to be submitted to that system, and perhaps help the candidate with bringing the work into the required form. I am bringing this up because in this system, the quasi-administrative status of the advisor is clear, and all parties involved understand who is supposed to be doing what. You seem to be in a situation that is effectively like that, but the supervisor in a more conventional rule. I am extremely well versed in bringing such matters to a good conclusion, but with the details you furnish I am at a loss to guess what is going on here! Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: I did a theoretical physics PhD in 2006-2010 so I might be out of date on current practices but I had a similar issue. I'm in the UK btw. My supervisor wasn't around my entire 2nd year and both myself and her other student were left rather "high and dry". I resolved to do everything myself (after a bit of a dip in my motivation, to be honest) and eventually published a pretty lengthy paper solo. The total input she had was when I submitted it to a journal I gave her a copy. And I didn't mention her in it. I could tell she was surprised I'd written a paper but no question regard co-author recognition or even mention. No one else from the department raised an issue, even when I presented the paper in a weekly seminar thing we did. If you've a good relationship then I'd, personally, say putting them front and centre in the acknowledgements is sufficient if they literally did NOTHING. I don't subscribe to the "I'm your supervisor so I get co-author on all your papers". If someone has risen to the level of responsibility to be supervising PhDs then they have a responsibility to contribute. If they do that, they get to be co-author. But simply being somewhere else in the building, not replying to emails and not giving any feedback on drafts, shouldn't be "rewarded" with another paper to their name. From your description they have been involved but saying "you dropped a psi in equation 2.5" isn't co-author material, I'd expect a mate reading over my shoulder to tell me that stuff. If they said "Section 2 is an interesting direction but if you don't address ((issue)) you'll find you cannot make the conclusions in Section 5 justifiable to a reviewer. Here's my notes on that stuff" THEN you're into potential co-authorship but only if they followed through with you on that stuff. Pointing people to papers/books and saying "That's not right, try again" isn't co-author worthy IMO. It's absolutely something to acknowledge but that's different - I acknowledged my house mates in my thesis! If you struggle to even think what they actively wrote, not just told you to expand/redo, then acknowledge them, tell them of the paper when it's finished. If they're cheesed and tell you in a professional manner then respond professionally. If they don't behave professionally then you were right in the first place. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/19	1,232	5,439	<issue_start>username_0: The curriculum for the nursing program at my university regularly requires the student to write a detailed account of their [HIPAA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_and_Accountability_Act)-protected medical information. The assignments usually require posting the information on a discussion board that is open to 55 students and all nursing school professors from five campuses across Texas. We are then required to reply to and discuss two other students' HIPAA-protected information. Some assignments require us to reveal private information of family members, including mental health issues and conflicts within the family. I spoke with my professor about the first assignment, which involved a three-generation genogram. She told me that I should feel better about it because that particular assignment would only be shared with multiple professors and a small group of students. The rubrics for these assignments include loss of points for using example information instead of the student's personal information. I am appalled that these highly educated and experienced professors would trample all over the students' HIPAA rights while teaching us the importance of strict adherence to HIPAA. The practice seems to be common and entrenched in Texas nursing schools. The information we are revealing is not given voluntarily, it is a requirement. I can't afford to be the crusader who takes this problem to the top. I want to graduate. Is there an organization that addresses this type of problem?<issue_comment>username_1: My best guess is that this is under the jurisdiction your office of equal opportunity. A lot of medical information relates to mental illness, gender and reproductive health. Student organizations? Dean of students? Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This is concerning indeed. The issue is far from my area of expertise, but some ideas that come to mind are: 1. Are you part of a student union? Ask them for help. 2. I think your focus on whether the practice is unethical may be misguided, since it may well be illegal (which would make it much easier for you to argue against it). Consult a lawyer about this. 3. Ask about legality on law.stackexchange. 4. Contact national or regional associations of nurses to ask for advice/help with this issue. Good luck! Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: In your case, HIPAA does not apply. You are not divulging patient information, but you are made to divulge information about yourself and others. Since the university is not a medical provider, HIPAA does not apply, and they make you divulge. But it is certainly an intrusive practice that raises privacy issues. I can see that using yourselves as sample cases is useful for your education. Therefore, I would not expect help from professors and your dean. The university administration might see things differently, especially since they have access to lawyers who would warn against engaging in dubious practices. This would be my first attempt. Approaching it as a group and asking to keep your names secret would be a prudent measure. Your strongest point is being asked to report incidents of venereal diseases and mental diseases in your family. While it just happens that none of your family is suffering from this, you should not be asked to share this information with other students. If it is a public university, you can threaten with talking to your representative or with the trustees ex oficio. If it is a private university, you can threaten to bring it to the attention of trustees. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: YES it is unethical, regardless of whether it is legal. This is not only a violation of privacy, but also a threat of long-term harm (lowering your grades and thereby affecting your future) should you not comply. For your own protection, do not provide real personal data about yourself. As suggested by a commenter, make up any sensitive information that you feel should not be shared. They have absolutely no moral right to force you to reveal real information to other people who do not have legal access to it in the first place. Secondly, as suggested by another answer, seek help from others, including course-mates who are uncomfortable with this demand, and from the university excluding the faculty, such as the board of directors and the whistleblowing department if any. (But if you do not trust even these people to keep your complaint confidential, then do not even take this second step. Your own safety has the highest priority.) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: This is clear nonsense, perpetrated by people who might be the best-qualified in their own fields but still, have little understanding of and prolly less interest in privacy. Nursing school assignments require real data but equally obviously, there could never be a reason for that data to come from students; much less from today's or any other particular cohort… unless not the data itself, but learning the methods of gathering the data was what mattered. If there was, that would be to say that information about today's student cohort was more relevant than the last… That might be true if science had moved on, and how could that movement be guaranteed in any collection of student data? What details about however many students in today's group could be statistically significant? Upvotes: -1
2022/06/19	707	3,283	<issue_start>username_0: I contributed to a conference paper with a large collaboration where I another PhD student did a large part of the work. When time came to publish, all coauthors on the work verbally agreed that myself and the other PhD student contributed equally and the most, and should order and annotate the author list to reflect this fact. However, the submission guidelines advised against annotating author contributions (maybe this is a field where author ordering does not matter as much) and so we decided to put the other PhD student as first author, myself as last author, and put contact information (i.e. email addresses) on only our two names. In some of my professional documents (mostly CV and committee meeting reports), when I list this work as an entry in a bibliography I have started annotating my own name and the other PhD student's name with a footnote like "authors contributed equally to this work". My question is, could this after-the-fact label cause professional issues since in the article it is never explicitly stated that authors contributed equally? Or in other words, would a researcher who read my CV and saw an "equal contributions" annotation there become suspicious or critical if they then looked at the article and found no explicit indication of equal contributions? Is there a better way I should be handling this?<issue_comment>username_1: I doubt that that such a statement external to the paper necessarily implies anything at all about what is in the paper. In some fields, in fact, author order itself is a strong indicator of the participation of the authors. In other fields, it is normal to assume equal participation unless otherwise explicitly stated. If you are in one of the latter fields, such as CS, say, then such a statement in a CV would seem odd and unnecessary. If the authors are listed alphabetically in the paper, then, again, the natural assumption is equal participation, though not necessarily the same kind of contribution by each author. While it seemed to be a good idea to "boost" the students a bit by listing authors out of alphabetical order, it was probably a mistake as it has implications of contribution to at least some readers. Stating otherwise in a CV could raise questions in someone's mind even if they aren't raised publicly. It seems like you are now trying to reverse a decision made earlier. And, in fact, I question the need for such a statement. The paper speaks for itself and all authors get recognition for whatever contribution it makes. I'm also surprised that the journal let you list the authors non-alphabetically and also didn't want a statement of participation. They seem, to me at least, to be assuming author order implies "level" of contribution, whatever that means. Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't think people will be suspicious or critical. It is a minor issue. However, to be safe, I think you should make it be documented somewhere public that you contributed equally. This is like the suggestion by High GPA. For example, list your publications on your website and put the annotation there. This makes your claim less suspicious, because it is public, so everyone knows that your co-authors can see it too. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/19	2,563	10,632	<issue_start>username_0: Introduction I know there are a lot of questions about quitting a PhD and I'm sorry for bringing this topic up another time but I really need some input and would appreciate every answer! Background I am pursuing my PhD since about 1.5 years in a research institute in germany and I am really not that happy since about autumn last year. I know its normal to have some sort of crisis during this time but I really can't motivate myself any more to continue working. My advisor is not very helpful (but at least very nice) and I have a really hard time to feel included with the colleagues. Partly because most of them work from home, partly because there is no lunch time together and maybe even because most of them have a physical / chemical background. (My background is electical engineering). I am working alone most of the time and I am really, really sick of it. The topic is doable, but to be honest doesn't interest me very much. Since personally I am very insecure I have a hard time connecting with other people in the institute and I am someone who asks a lot of questions when handed a task. I wonder if pursuing a PhD is a good idea for me at all. Right now I feel left alone and feel like it's just too much self-organisation at this point. (I have reached out more than once to my advisor asking for help and regular meetings, it helps a bit, but not very much). Question I really doubt that working in academia will be fun for me later because of this experience, but I am curios to know how it felt for someone in a similar situation. Like you do not really like the topic, have a crisis and think about quitting. For anyone who has pulled through despite heavy doubts: Are you happy with your decision? Did you find a job you like? Or do you regret not quitting? Edit 23.06.22 Thank you everyone for your comments and answers! It gives me a lot to think about and I think expecially the answer from @cag51 is very solid piece of advice! TBH I am leaning towards quitting though because while thinking about the possible solutions I feel like I may not have the drive to pull this through, visit different groups or change enough so that I have fun at work again. I would like to update this question then, if it'll still be possible.<issue_comment>username_1: Not sure this answers the question, but at least I think I can provide some food for thought: Your description of the situation sounds to me as if it may be substantially worsened by Covid regulation first asking and in many places still suggesting far more work from home than previously. (I may say that this disconnect from colleagues has also affected my performance during the pandemic (whoopee, we have conferences again, in person) - but compared to you I do have the advantage that my PhD is long over and I am sure for myself that it is not a general crisis towards my work.) (Also, I've made some experience in several groups from which I learned what amount of interaction with colleagues is good for me: having a more-or-less single place in a lab, but regular coffee break with the colleagues if I liked to; when I was "promoted" to my own 1-person-office abroad, that wasn't enough connection with the people there - they also had no space for coffee together - I moved into a 2 person office, and that was very good. 3 people with back to the open door - no good. 7 person office, no good at all, I went for lots of WFH... I've worked a lot online already before Covid, but I learned that I do need some amount of offline interaction as well, and I've sorely missed the random professional discussions that happen e.g. at conferences in person, but are extremely rare online) The additional separation due to Covid may add up with the "disconnect" you describe by having a different background and the general stess of a thesis. While all three together may very well be too much, so something needs to be done, I wouldn't be sure from your description alone that quitting is the right step for you. This is something that should be considered carefully. OTOH, it is possible to move away from public research and back into academia later on. (In particular, universities of applied science (FHs) like to see their staff, including professors, to have industry experience) Now, in my experience, some groups are more "connective" than others, but I think with the substantially increased WFH it has become more difficult everywhere. There are surely groups that are still more including with Covid regulations around than others have ever been. I cannot tell from your description whether your group is particularly unincluding or not. More thoughts: * Will you be attending a conference this summer? This is not only a great way to connect to people - and if your direct colleagues are not so connecting for whatever reason, you may find a group there that is more welcoming and including. * You can also try to find out how things work out at their "home base" and try to identify a group you may visit for a small "sub-project". (You write your supervisor is nice - ask them to help with this) * Is there someone or a group of people with whom you could put in some holidays? (already 1 or 2 weeks can do a lot of good, as employee in Germany you have a right to take at least 3 weeks in a row once per year.) * Do you have a solid peer group outside work? It cannot completely substitute the lack of connectivity with your research group, but it may help sufficiently to get you along. --- > > For anyone who has pulled through despite heavy doubts: Are you happy with your decision? Did you find a job you like? Or do you regret not quitting? > > > Let's put it like this: the application problem of my PhD thesis was not something I thought would "rescue the world" - although the topic [cancer diagnostics] was sold like that - what a PhD project could do (and what improved diagnostics could do to survival) was definitively oversold there. OTOH, there were "side aspects" that are much less fancy (and much less able to get one a grant) which I still hold as very important (rather basic statistics on model validation and dealing with ever-too-small sample sizes). My heart was more in that (and after I had told my professor for 3 years that I think this important, he started to say that at conferences, too ;-) ), and I learned and developed things that I still use in my everyday work now. I also wasn't sure whether those two letters would be really that much needed. And in a way I was right: I got a job offer and moved on before handing in (many of us did). I did like science, and I stayed in research, though. I handed in my thesis years later at a different university. I'm still not sure how much that PhD "title" helps me (though I do suspect that other people look at it more than I do). (But it's not a question that bothers me one way or the other - nor was it bothering me as much as others [institute directors/professors who paid me post-doc wages without me being a proper post-doc] when I hadn't yet handed in) But the research experience gained is definitively valuable and important for my work. I found a job that I like: I stayed full time in research for some 10 years, then started my own business which is still very close to research. I don't regret anything. I even got myself a (part time) contract again at a research institution a year ago due to the described disconnect caused by Covid rules: employees could basically choose to go to the lab, but the same institutions would not allow (or strongly discourage) contractors on premise. So I decided a side job as employee (at a research institute) would be good, and it is indeed. No regrets :-) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think I've had a "crisis" as you describe, but I may have some thoughts. > > I really can't motivate myself any more to continue working...The topic is doable, but to be honest doesn't interest me very much. > > > Two pieces of advice here. The first is that research is more fun when it's moving quickly and you're getting results. If you get into a cycle of procrastination, it will seem less and less interesting. So, resist the temptation to slack off: work 8 hour days and be as productive as possible during those hours. On the other hand, there is some flexibility with how you spend those eight hours. It seems like your advisor is giving you a pretty long leash, so I would recommend you exercise your academic freedom. Follow your interests where they lead you, even if they're not directly related to your assigned tasks. Anything that could reasonably be considered "work-related" is fair game. This could mean studying a new domain, or learning a new computer language / software, or building a new widget to improve some process, or developing statistical techniques for interpreting your analysis. If you take the time to build a new hammer, you'll find lots of nails you can use it for, and some of these might even be related to your main work. And if you pursue several of these avenues over the next few years, you'll get a better sense of what you like and what you don't. > > Since personally I am very insecure I have a hard time connecting with other people in the institute....I wonder if pursuing a PhD is a good idea for me at all...Right now I feel left alone and feel like it's just too much self-organisation at this point > > > I would suggest there are two different issues here that we should try not to conflate. One is the "job of research," the other is your "degree of isolation." These are largely orthogonal: there are plenty of research jobs where you do work in teams. So, I would avoid making decisions about your career trajectory based on your current feeling of isolation. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Most PhD students have some sort of crisis. Mine was different from yours, but I worked through it for almost two years. I am proud to have finished my PhD. I left academia right after my defense and found a job in industry that makes me happy. Industry jobs are different, less lonely and other people are relying on your work as you have to rely on work of other people. The feedback cycle is much shorter and you depend less on successes that cannot be planned (science is difficult to plan). It is more just do the work and everybody will be happy. I am looking back and would not like to miss my time as a PhD student, but I enjoyed my work and my group. I don't regret to have invested the two difficult years. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/19	406	1,664	<issue_start>username_0: I got for a review one Master thesis in the field of computer science. The student mostly uses internet blogs and some lecture slides found on Internet as a source of information. This is a bit of surprise for me because in natural sciences we do not trust such sources. Typically one needs to cite a paper or a book. But I am not sure about computer sciences: what is the standard in this field? Edit in response to a question: In order to explain R² in Statistics the student uses this [blog](https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-explaining-r%C2%B2-in-statistics-6f34e7f0a9bb). In my opinion this is a rather standard stuff and some good book should be cited instead. Moreover, this suggests that the student avoids reading books.<issue_comment>username_1: I think the blogs you link to in the comment are likely to be reliable, and easier to learn from than from a textbook. Whether the level of exposition in the thesis and this kind of research are acceptable in a Master's thesis depends a lot on the context. You should ask the person who asked you to undertake the review. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would expect a masters thesis to reasonably thoroughly cite relevant scholarly literature. It should provide evidence the author is familiar with important scholarly sources and can relate them to the thesis. It is perfectly fine to cite nonscholarly sources, including blogs and online lecture slides, in addition to scholarly sources. I do not believe there is a discipline where a written masters thesis is required and citations of scholarly sources are not expected. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/20	484	2,131	<issue_start>username_0: I spent the last 7 months looking for a postdoc after my PhD graduation. My toxic PhD advisor killed my previous postdoc, as they have withdrawn their offer after his non-negative but not enough positive input. I thought seriously about removing him from my reference list, but it was unavoidable as my other references know him and always mention him as being the one that knows me the best while submitting their own letters of recommendation. I sent him two emails asking him for a meeting at his office about a month ago to discuss his negative input and to sort out things, but he never answered. He thinks that I am not aware that he sabotaged that other postdoc opportunity. I am currently applying to a better postdoc position, and I stupidly included him again as a reference. I sent a fresh email thanking him in advance for the support he is willing to provide by writing that letter, and again I got no answer at all. I am afraid now he would do the same thing for that position. How can I stop him from sending his letter, and what can I do in case he also kills my changes for that position? By the way, the other two references have already submitted their references, and they are both positive.<issue_comment>username_1: I think the blogs you link to in the comment are likely to be reliable, and easier to learn from than from a textbook. Whether the level of exposition in the thesis and this kind of research are acceptable in a Master's thesis depends a lot on the context. You should ask the person who asked you to undertake the review. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would expect a masters thesis to reasonably thoroughly cite relevant scholarly literature. It should provide evidence the author is familiar with important scholarly sources and can relate them to the thesis. It is perfectly fine to cite nonscholarly sources, including blogs and online lecture slides, in addition to scholarly sources. I do not believe there is a discipline where a written masters thesis is required and citations of scholarly sources are not expected. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/20	3,887	17,251	<issue_start>username_0: I have been working with my research group on a number of papers in a certain area of Computer Science. These papers have a certain portion which is theoretical (i.e. contains theorems, formalisms, algorithms) and a certain portion which is experimental (i.e. describes implementations and empirical results). With regard to the experimental/practical sections, my supervisor generally suggests prioritizing the information that illuminates the general thrust of the paper (i.e. the section in the paper itself along with figures, etc) over the actual implementation details like links to code. Even if he considers releasing some tangible material, he seems to prefer to release executables rather than source code. I can understand the rationale behind this because: (1) In Academia, the final paper is the most important and recognized [artifact of research](https://journals.lww.com/cancernursingonline/Fulltext/2018/01000/Research_Artifact_Real_or_Not__Only_the_Discussion.1.aspx); and (2) Releasing unpolished source code could be embarrassing, because it might contain errors which could damage the reputation of our research group. While I agree with this, I am conflicted over what this means for the value of the paper and the ethics of research. * The papers do have some theoretical content, but they do not seem to be particularly valuable. Anyone else could have come up with those ideas with a little bit of thought. * If there are no executable artifacts tied to my paper, I could just have been lying about my results. I am not, and the experiments are actually very rigorous, but this is fact is somewhat undermined * Considering that a large part of our experimental work depends on comparing with artifacts created by other research groups, it seems petty not to release our artifacts * The potential benefit of the transparency of having open source code seems to outweigh the potential harm from potential embarrassment that may result from bugs found by the community. In my experience, artifacts released by other research teams in similar areas do often contain bugs, but I still think positively of them. Please help me understand if my argument has any merit, or if I am being irrational.<issue_comment>username_1: I think you have this all correct. The world would be a better place if all papers released all of the software that is used to generate the results shown in it. And that's not just a personal thought of mine (and apparently of yours as well), it is empirically verifiable: Papers that release the software used get more citations than papers that do not -- in other words, others are also thinking that that is worthwhile. People have all sorts of reasons not to release their software, including (i) they believe that they have a competitive advantage by keeping their software to themselves, (ii) they do not trust their own software, (iii) they do not comment their own software or otherwise use good software engineering practices, and don't want the world to see so, (iv) they do not want to provide support to others who would download the software and use it. I believe that (iv) is a legitimate reason. (i) is misguided in my opinion, because at least if the software is non-trivial, others trying to use it more likely than not will ask to collaborate with the authors of the software, rather than just use it themselves; in other words, the original authors would gain a competitive advantage rather than disadvantage from releasing the software. (On this point, I speak from many years of experience.) Finally, if someone does not want to release their software for reasons (ii) or (iii), I believe this is an ethically questionable approach: If you have no confidence in your work, you probably shouldn't publish it. In any case, I believe that your arguments are correct. Whether they convince your adviser is, of course, a different question. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Check out [this famous paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01815) (in AI) by Google. It described an algorithm by which an AI can learn to play a game - in this case chess and shogi - by playing against itself only, and how such an AI can beat the then-strongest engines at the games. Google didn't release the source code. But! The papers contain enough information for someone else to duplicate their work. Using the same methodology, the chess engine community created Leela Chess Zero, and tuned it (Leela is likely stronger than AlphaZero at this point). The ripples of the new AI continue to be felt, since 1) it affected how Stockfish, the strongest traditional chess engine, was developed; Stockfish is likely stronger than Leela again, and 2) the gameplay ideas that Leela discovered (and continue to discover) have been incorporated into the repertoire the top human grandmasters. Now we can ask the question: what good is this paper if the code is not open source? How do we know Google didn't fake their results? I'm sure you can see the answers in the second paragraph above. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: While I won’t comment on your particular case, I think it’s useful to consider science as a whole. You should realize that computer scientists are uniquely able to distribute an entire exact experiment implementation broadly, instantly, to anywhere in the world by virtue of making the source code public. Anyone can reproduce such an experiment exactly, and this is (in principle) a benefit. However, for any physical or biological experiment, there is no way to transport the apparatus to everyone. The journal text, figures, published data, etc. are all anyone can hope to have to learn of an experiment and judge its conclusions and correctness. There is an implicit assumption (barring evidence otherwise) that the researchers competently performed the experiment and collected the data they describe. Trust is a fundamental component of scientific communication, and this is why malfeasance which abuses this trust (such as data fabrication) is taken so seriously. All of this is to say that every other experimental science views journal articles, with all their flaws, as having value; they have been the primary vector for dissemination of cutting-edge results for well over a century. They work because there is generally a strong culture of scientific integrity among scientists, and people for the most part take the presented data at face value even though the experimenters could be incompetent or untrustworthy. So although you enumerate reasons why journal articles are to be mistrusted, they have served science through the period of the greatest expansion of knowledge in human history. And they shall serve you just as well. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Going point by point through your issues... > > The papers do have some theoretical content, but they do not seem to be particularly valuable. Anyone else could have come up with those ideas with a little bit of thought. > > > This is undervaluing your contribution. Your paper, by definition, does have some useful theoretical basis otherwise you wouldn't be publishing it. It may seem obvious to you, but that's likely only because you've been living with this for a while. And I'll remind you that <NAME>'s response on first reading Origin of Species was "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!" What's apparently obvious after you know it may not be obvious before. > > If there are no executable artifacts tied to my paper, I could just have been lying about my results. I am not, and the experiments are actually very rigorous, but this is fact is somewhat undermined > > > And this is why it's important for other places to independently check results. It's not sexy, but it catches dodgy results produced through incompetence or malice. > > Considering that a large part of our experimental work depends on comparing with artifacts created by other research groups, it seems petty not to release our artifacts > > > And if they've got the same dataset as you and the same code, they'd get the same results if they just ran your code. The important thing isn't the code, it's the algorithm. Which is *NOT* the same thing. > > The potential benefit of the transparency of having open source code seems to outweigh the potential harm from potential embarrassment that may result from bugs found by the community. In my experience, artifacts released by other research teams in similar areas do often contain bugs, but I still think positively of them. > > > But what if the "interesting" feature of your results is actually a coding bug? Someone simply blindly copying your code will get the same results. Independently coding the algorithm though is unlikely to get the same bug twice, so they can report that they don't get the same results and your paper may be incorrect. Having the source code would let them analyse why your results were dodgy, sure, but that's less important than discovering the fact of it being dodgy. And more likely, they'll be in contact with you (or your supervisor) after they discover they can't reproduce it, and then you'll be checking your own source to find where it went wrong and publishing a correction. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: The goal of a paper is to report a novel research finding. It can accomplish this perfectly well without providing source code. It is not possible to describe empirical findings in full detail in a scientific paper (or arguably any format). It ultimately falls on the author to decide what detail is appropriate. The scientific method is not about believing observations because they have been recorded in excellent detail, but about independently verifying them. So it doesn't particularly matter whether you provide the implementation code. What matters is whether it's clear to other researchers how they would implement their own version such that it confirms the results you obtained. Your code may or may not be an essential aid for that. Some, including me, would argue that the virtue of a scientific finding is simplicity. In your paper, the more quirky things there are that have to be done "just right" - whether the algorithm works when implemented in a certain way with a certain language, or it only works on a certain kind of input - these all make the finding itself less interesting to begin with. So if your paper is really good enough to care about, the code is a moot point. I should be able to write my own code from scratch and verify your algorithms and theorems. However, beyond the primary goal of justifying a claim, there are secondary goals that are well-served by making the implementation available: * If your implementation has a mistake, it will be found sooner * If your implementation turns out to be correct but hard to reproduce, you will not be accused of fabricating results * Researchers wishing to extend on your work will have a better starting point * Non-researchers (such as those in the industry) wishing to apply your findings will have a better starting point * People trying to learn about research in the field will have better resources * The code will serve as a public demonstration of your coding ability, if required by for example job applications I personally would prefer if code was always published along with papers, but there have been many papers in CS and other fields that were published without code, and yet their claims are sufficiently credible and the findings they report are useful, so I would not consider it a hard requirement. But to your concern about the code being unpolished: It doesn't really matter. No code is perfect. Either what you have works which means it's good enough, or it doesn't work which means your paper is wrong in the first place. You have little to lose from publishing code. You also mention publishing binary executables, which is the really strange part to me. By publishing executables, you are asking people to trust that you did not introduce any malicious code (like viruses) into the binary, and also that your system and every other system in the chain (like the CDN actually hosting your binary) is secure from hackers and so forth. This is a very big claim, and completely unnecessary when you could just provide source code and completely obviate it. You are also training users to accept bad security practices. People who do publish binary code (eg. proprietary vendors) will at least take steps to mitigate the security hole, by employing security engineers and signing their binary builds. If your goal is to let people use your implementation without seeing the code, you should provide a web server so that the binary is executed on your system, or at least containerize it and provide something like a Docker image. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Unpublished papers, in and of themselves, are almost entirely worthless, like an unfilled lottery ticket, or a movie script that's never been filmed. Once published, they get a little value, like a lottery ticket that has had the numbers filled in and registered at the checkout, or a movie that has been shot. They can all now be tested, and have a chance to win. The community ascribes them value at this point, but this is equivalent to the face value of the scratchcard (a dollar, perhaps): there is a chance that the paper might turn out to be a "winner", based on correct data and correctly applied algorithms. Every panel on a scratchcard could be a winning number... or none of them may be. A movie could be a blockbuster... or a flop. Reproducing the results is the proving ground: it's how they provide value to the consumer, like when lottery numbers are drawn, or a movie is released to the public. The higher you make the bar of reproduction, the lower the chances of making any valuable contribution to the community. The lower the bar, the more likely someone reading the journal you publish in is to say "hey, this is something I can give to my student to try" or "that's so easy to reproduce, I could try that out this lunchtime..." There are those who argue "if you release the source, then people will run it and necessarily must reproduce your errors". This is very twisted logic: releasing the source saves them your entire development-cycle of time, meaning more people can work on what your paper gave. More eyes on your source can only mean more likelihood of finding errors: it is impossible for it to mean less. There are cases (like the Google AI paper mentioned in another answer) where papers that involved software have been reproduced without source code, and managed to be beneficial anyway... but these are far less common. Even in the Google case, there was only one project which went through the trouble of rewriting that code. If they hadn't got lucky, if that project hadn't picked it up and run with it... what value would that paper have had to the community, then? How much MORE value would it have had if instead, they had released the source, data, and a docker file, so countless people could have just run one command and reproduced their results? How much bigger would the field of AI be now? Would we all be driving self-flying cars? We can't tell, but we can guess that the impact of the paper would not have been at all reduced by improving the reproducibility. Assuming someone DOES reproduce your work, but gets different results... where is their error, if any? Even if you collaborate, and both use the same data to get different results... is it their error, or yours? How do they find out? What if you are not contactable? In software engineering it is considered a truism that you cannot easily identify or fix an error without reproducing it first, and if your output cannot be reproduced, it cannot be fixed. TL;DR: All papers have some value, but without reproducibility, that value is minimal and aspirational, rather than real. Maximizing reproducibility maximizes real value and impact. Source code really helps these goals. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: In Natural Sciences we should put forward boldly our hypotheses and results inviting debate, correction and, ultimately, falsification. Do publish your code. Why not clean it up, while are you at it? If for no one else then for yourself, who is the one most likely to re-use the code in the future. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: > > The potential benefit of the transparency of having open source code > seems to outweigh the potential harm from potential embarrassment that > may result from bugs found by the community. In my experience, > artifacts released by other research teams in similar areas do often > contain bugs, but I still think positively of them. > > > Let me answer from a software developer's point of view. Open sourcing the code has a huge benefits, even if it contains bugs or poorly written code. Point of being opensource is other people can contribute towards it. The code will be improved by others, bugs will be fixed and will be much more popular compared to a closed source one. So, if you are confident on results, why hesitate? Upvotes: 1
2022/06/20	723	2,936	<issue_start>username_0: Many software and multinational companies provide 'baby care' centres for their employees. It generally helps (married) women to do their work peacefully as the employees or maids in baby care centres take care of children's needs till the completion of working time. It seems to be an essential provision for couples with babies. In India, many married women drop the idea of working in academia after completing studies for baby care, and it is very rare to find such provisions in educational institutions. Without the provision, it is extremely difficult for women to take of their babies during working time. During workshops and conferences, I hear the struggles (or I can say agony) faced by several senior lady faculty in academia due to the absence of child care. As it is hard to find campuses that provide on-site baby care, I want to know the name(s) of countries where the colleges/educational institutes/universities actively provide child care centers for employees. What is/are the name(s) of countries where more universities provide on-site childcare centers for their employees? Note: In fact, I want to know the countries where the academic institutions are conscious enough and take the responsibility of providing child care for their employees to facilitate the work.<issue_comment>username_1: [Here](https://uhs.berkeley.edu/facstaff/worklife/childcare) is one example from the US: > > Childcare > > > UC Berkeley operates five centers on or near the UC Berkeley campus which serve University families. > > > Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Let me start my answer by pointing out that not only mothers need child support, but fathers as well (or rather, parents in general). Most countries in Europe have state-organized childcare that is either free or affordable, so there is no need for the employers (in this case the universities) to offer additional childcare on top. But e.g. at my university (one of the larger ones) in Germany, there is a kindergarten (child care center) on the premises, that is integrated into the normal state system, but preferably takes on children of students and employees at the university. People don't see this as much of an advantage, though, as they prefer a childcare close to the place of residence rather than at the place of work. If you e.g. work from home a couple of times a week or during semester breaks, you would have to bring your child to the uni to the childcare and have to commute even though you normally wouldn't have to. They also offer additional short time "emergency" childcare that you have to book per hour and that you have to pay a small amount of money for per hour. So from a point of view of living in a country with well organized general childcare: it is much more sensible to look for countries that offer childcare than to look for single institutions that offer it. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/21	2,744	11,056	<issue_start>username_0: I have some questions about the process of spousal hires, particularly in US academia. As I understand it, the system is as follows: when two married academics Ann and Bob enter the job market, they often wish to work in the same place. If a university makes an offer to Ann, the university might also extend an offer to Bob, even if on his own, Bob may not have received an offer for this particular job. Depending on the scenario, Bob may be given a reduced salary; in some cases, if Ann and Bob work in different departments, the department in which Ann works might even subsidize some of/all of Bob's salary. I am curious as to what Bob's status is in the university long-term, potentially years after this hiring process is over. Essentially, is Bob treated any differently from a regular academic in his position? * If Ann's job offer is tenure-track (or already tenured), will Bob's be, as well? * Assuming both jobs are tenure-track, will Bob's case for tenure depend at all on Ann's (and vice-versa)? * If Ann and Bob get divorced, or Ann leaves for another university, will Bob's job be affected? * Is the fact that Bob was a spousal hire in any way visible to the general public, in his official job description or resume? What about unofficially? * In a completely unofficial capacity, does being a spousal hire in any way hurt the academic's reputation within the field, in your experience? EDIT: I'm glad I asked this question and I'm happy to see the discussion in the comments. One big point that has been made is that no university would hire somebody who they consider unqualified for a role; it's not like Bob is obviously underqualified for the job, but rather that there's a massive surplus of completely qualified applicants, so Bob might need the extra edge. My apologies for strengthening misconceptions about spousal hires being weaker/less qualified than their partners.<issue_comment>username_1: Two main points: a) This is almost entirely up to the specific offer the university makes. There are no official rules. The university decides how badly they want to hire Anne and how generous they have to be towards Bob to make Anne sign the contract. b) There are practially no work contracts for Bob that are somehow conditional on Anne or his relationship to her. Almost anything in that direction is illegal. Bob just gets a job offer that he may not have gotten otherwise, the actual contract doesn't mention Anne or his relationship to her anywhere. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I know (2nd hand knowledge) of a case at a major US university where Ann was hired into a tenure track position, and Bob got a post doc and a "don't worry" hand-shake agreement that he'd eventually get a more permanent position. Four years later (and a year after their divorce), Ann continues in the TT role and Bob's looking for work. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The important thing to understand here is that universities will generally not hire someone whom they consider unqualified for the position. So sure, Bob might get hired in this situation when he would not have been offered the job otherwise. But, now that he is hired, a well-run department and university will treat him like any other employee holding the particular position that he holds. At least, that would be the rational thing to do (and the way I have always seen it done) - one can always imagine that in some places people don’t behave very rationally. Now, to your specific questions: > > If Ann's job offer is tenure-track (or already tenured), will Bob's be, as well? > > > It may or may not be. That depends almost entirely on Bob’s qualifications, and maybe to a very small extent also on Ann’s negotiating power/leverage. > > Assuming both jobs are tenure-track, will Bob's case for tenure depend at all on Ann's (and vice-versa)? > > > Absolutely not. > > If Ann and Bob get divorced, or Ann leaves for another university, will Bob's job be affected? > > > Absolutely not. > > Is the fact that Bob was a spousal hire in any way visible to the general public, in his official job description or resume? What about unofficially? > > > Officially, no. Unofficially, sometimes people may gossip so it’s theoretically possible that word might spread. However, most academics would regard this as irrelevant information and would judge Bob based on his own achievements. > > In a completely unofficial capacity, does being a spousal hire in any way hurt the academic's reputation within the field, in your experience? > > > No. Bob’s reputation will be determined largely by his own achievements. His reputation may get a minor boost from the fact that he has a job at a university that he might not have gotten a job at if it weren’t for the spousal hiring situation. But that will be a small effect that will mostly involve people who aren’t familiar with Bob’s actual work and are judging him based on superficial status indicators. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The answer is actually the same as any other basis for being hired. Say you got hired because of your research in a trendy field, what is your long term status if the field stops being trendy? Possibly not good, but it depends. Hiring and long term employment are different. In the first case, you are evaluating a stranger based on indirect evidence, in the second case you are able to draw on your experience of working with them. Once you get hired as "X's spouse", you have the opportunity to use the resources of your position and accrue your own accomplishments. This would secure your long term professional status independently of your spouse. In this case you would not be treated differently. Conversely, if you've been working for several years and the most interesting fact about your career is still that you're X's spouse, then it's a different story. Obviously your independent status is not great - arguably worse, because now you've had an opportunity and made little use of it. Although just as your spouse was once reason enough to hire you, they may now be reason enough to continue employing you or even promote to a more permanent position. > > If Ann's job offer is tenure-track (or already tenured), will Bob's be, as well? > > > It may or may not. This depends on a combination of how desirable a candidate Ann is, how (un)desirable a candidate Bob is, and how Ann and Bob negotiate the offers. Ann could always ask that Bob's offer be made tenure-track as well (and the hiring committee could always say no). > > Assuming both jobs are tenure-track, will Bob's case for tenure depend at all on Ann's (and vice-versa)? > > > Officially it would not, and for obvious reasons, the committee will probably not say "you did okay but let's see how Ann does, if she fails we'll deny yours too". They could possibly be biased in favor of Bob out of concern that Ann will leave if he is denied tenure, or they may be less likely to approve him before Ann becomes tenured than after. At this point it depends entirely on the personal feelings of individual people on the Ann/Bob situation (and institutional policy, if any). > > If Ann and Bob get divorced, or Ann leaves for another university, will Bob's job be affected? > > > Officially it would not, and I doubt they would fire him "because" he got divorced, but they may fire him and give some other reason. More commonly, I think what would happen is that Bob would continue in his present position. The consequences would be more obvious if Bob attempts to advance (tenure review) or if funding deteriorates and the department must choose who to let go. Then it will come down to what Bob has achieved since being hired. > > Is the fact that Bob was a spousal hire in any way visible to the general public, in his official job description or resume? What about unofficially? > > > I have never heard of any official "spousal hire" title, and I doubt it would be spelled out in the contract, as it would accomplish little besides opening up the institution to various lawsuits. There may however be rules about relationships between employees in general, so for example Bob is not allowed to be Ann's postdoc, so HR may need to be notified about the marriage (not necessarily about whether the hire was connected with the marriage). Unofficially, of course the hiring committee is aware of it, and people talk (even when not supposed to). Academics are no exception and have their share of gossips. Besides it's not like it's hard to tell when two people are married. > > In a completely unofficial capacity, does being a spousal hire in any way hurt the academic's reputation within the field, in your experience? > > > I think it's a bit like asking, "if Bob shaved his hair and grew a beard, would it help or hurt his reputation"? Certainly you could imagine ways it would do either - many of them would depend highly on circumstances. But in my experience, academics today rarely consider spouses or beards as significant factors when evaluating someone's career. So I would expect that on the whole, they have very little effect, unless perhaps the person in question blatantly disrespects social norms. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: "Two-body" issues can become VERY complex. I believe the only one of your questions that has an answer anywhere near straightforward is > > Assuming both jobs are tenure-track, will Bob's case for tenure depend at all on Ann's (and vice-versa)? > > > Unless Bob and Ann's are one another's only collaborators, this certainly shouldn't be the case. Evidence that a tenure decision was based on such issues would be a clear matter for a procedural grievance in any US university (though what filing a grievance means, or what the outcome of that process will be, is not always perfectly clear). If the couple are, in fact, one another's only collaborators, they collectively and individually don't have a very good tenure place for many universities, anyway. All the other questions are just too specific to whatever the individual case is to answer with any conviction. I've seen a number of spousal hires, and many, if not most of them, have been successful. My personal observation is that the situation often (but clearly not always) arises when one extremely competitive candidate is identified, and that candidate comes along with another academic (or maybe even just a close collaborator). How the case for a dual hire progresses then grows around how much the university wants that candidate, what's available in terms of slots and resources, and how much all the parties are willing to compromise. I think the key issue really is how important it is to the couple that both of them thrive academically, and if that is super important to them, they might think twice about accepting a situation where one of them is not likely to thrive -- recognizing, of course, that the better dual offer may or may not exist for them. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/21	300	1,308	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently full-time military, and I am due to graduate in a year with a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering, are there opportunities to do post doc work "part time"?<issue_comment>username_1: That would be unusual, but you might be able to arrange something, especially if you don't require much compensation for it. Normally, though, a post doc is pretty intense. But you might be able to arrange some sort of a collaborative arrangement with a professor without an employment contract, but just two people interested in a common project. It would be easiest if you were co-located, but not impossible otherwise. So, perhaps not a formal postdoc, but something like postdoc work as you suggest. And it might give you some publications and appropriate letters of recommendation for furthering your career if you leave the military. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Without knowing specifics (such as your country, branch of service, etc.), consider reaching out agency's research program. For example, the US Military has the [Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering](https://www.cto.mil/) that does and publishers research. Perhaps you could include/leverage some of your official military duties to create a post-doc like experience. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/21	2,153	8,974	<issue_start>username_0: I developed an innovative method about which I wrote an article (not published yet) and a complete open-source library implementing it. The field is Applied Mathematics. I showed the finished work to my two PhD advisors but I was clear about the fact that it is my work alone and that the article would contain my name only (the Hardy-Littlewood rule doesn't even apply here). One of them, which we will call A, told me it was a very good idea to do a single-author publication and that it would add more value to my PhD thesis as a whole. He was very enthusiastic and supportive about the whole thing. So that's awesome. The other one, which we will call B, was extremely grumpy about it and didn't like the idea that he was taken out of the equation (i.e. that I worked on something alone). Yet, and this is purely my interpretation of course, he never had a problem with articles where I worked alone (just like in this case) and added his name on them, his issue is thus clearly the fact that he isn't listed as a co-author. I am aware that co-authorship problems are a classic, and I know that I could avoid all of that by adding him as a co-author. But even though I did it with the previous articles (where he did 0% of the work), I refuse to do it this time. It doesn't sit right with me to gift someone credit he doesn't deserve, and PhD advisors expecting their students to always list them as co-authors should be ashamed of themselves. So I pushed forward, with the encouragement of prof A, and included my work in my PhD manuscript even though prof B was actively harassing me and trying to make me have second thoughts on including a work in which prof B wasn't involved. The dust settled after a few months, and now prof B has some academic partnership with a company called C. Long story short, he wants me to literally give him all the keys to my research (which ironically he was angry about), show him how to do every single thing I did and how to do more so that he can impress company C. He wants to do this way before my work is published, thus clearly disrespecting the fact that it's still my work. I told him it's uncool to try to copy me in order to impress company C and that I won't help him with that, and that he should show some scientific integrity and respect the fact that my work hasn't been published yet. Today he harassed and bullied me by phone. He kept telling me "it's not your research", thus clearly stating that he doesn't even recognize that it's my work, and when I finished talking he basically told me to go "f\\\ myself". His language was violent and inappropriate. Many questions here: Am I in the wrong with how I insist on ownership of my research and that someone who didn't contribute anything should not be a co-author? * My PhD manuscript has already been submitted, the jury selected and the defence scheduled. In theory prof B shouldn't be able to sabotage my defence out of spite. Is my assessment correct? * What disciplinary measures can I take against prof B for harassing me to give him something I do not owe him at all? * What actions can I take to protect myself without compromising on the ownership issue? * What do I risk?<issue_comment>username_1: No, you're not wrong to insist that only people who have authored the work should be listed as authors. I'm a bit hesitant to confidently declare that you should be sole author, because sometimes students are confused about authorship standards in their field, and discount the value of discussions that lead to and inform a work. Instead, they think that "they did it solo" because they are the person who wrote the code or collected the data or made the figures or put the numbers into an analysis program or wrote the text of the manuscript. So, indeed, if this is solely your work, you should be the only author, but do make sure it is actually solely your work. In this case it sounds like Prof A might be a good person to help provide a second opinion that indeed this should be considered solo work. If prof B is on your thesis committee, they absolutely can sabotage your thesis defense. However, as one member of the committee, hopefully they will be overruled by others, and of course it is unethical for them to do this out of spite or as leverage for authorship. Not everyone sees ethics the same way or is equally committed to ethical behavior, though. As far as measures you can take, that entirely depends on how things work in your department/institution. If there is a mechanism to remove someone from your committee, I would suggest that route rather than trying to punish them somehow. However, it seems like it is very very late to do this if you've already submitted, and especially if this person is considered a co-advisor. I think for now I would just document the conversations you have (and have had), and be prepared to use that as evidence if you need to appeal an unfavorable result with your thesis. > > I told him it's uncool to try to copy me in order to impress company C and that I won't help him with that, and that he should show some scientific integrity and respect the fact that my work hasn't been published yet > > > This episode may be justifiable, but it sounds like you lost your cool a bit and behaved rudely. People don't typically take these sorts of accusations well, even if they are deserved. It'll make it harder to make your case to a neutral third party if there are further episodes like this, so I'd try to limit your reactions. If this work is in fact your own, you don't need to do anything with prof B about it. You don't need their permission to publish it, so publish it as soon as you can. You don't need to work with company C, so don't work with company C. If you are being harassed or bullied by phone, do not answer your phone. Document when you are called and what is said so you can use it if you need to in a future hearing. It sounds like prof A is someone that can advocate for you; if you trust them, I would calmly bring these issues to their attention and ask for their advice. They'll know the local systems better than anyone here can know. Try to avoid accusations against B beyond what you can prove without a doubt: don't speculate about their motives, only discuss their actions, and focus on the things you need. Things you need might include a) successfully defending your thesis, b) publishing your paper, c) getting your next position. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is a messy, complicated, potentially emotionally charged situation. My first advice is to try to remain calm. Brace yourself for any related interaction and prepare well in advance to keep your emotional balance. Find your "happy place" and keep it in mind. username_1 gave good advice when he suggested confiding in Prof A. (If not him, then hopefully there is another faculty member you can trust.) The complexity here is such that it is unlikely to be possible to give a definitive answer with just a few paragraphs of information. Some general areas to explore are the following. What is the relationship with Prof B? Is he your PhD supervisor (advisor, etc.)? Does Prof B (or his grant, fellowship, etc.) provide you with financial support? Are you expected to be doing some particular amount of work (per week or per month etc.) for Prof B? Or is he just one more person on your PhD panel? The less Prof B is your supervisor, the less support and guidance he has given you, the less he should be trying to put his name on your work. Is the paper you wrote on your own in a topic that is strongly related to Prof B's work? Does it flow out of his work? Is it something that came about because of work you did with with him? Or is it unrelated? The less related to Prof B's work, the less he should be trying to put his name on your work. Did you tell him you were working on this idea? How do you project he would have responded then if you had told him you were? If you did the work without telling him, it's going to be a strain on the relationship. When I was in my PhD I took a course on a subject I was interested in that was completely and totally unrelated to my PhD. I did a particle physics PhD. I took a course in radiometric dating because one of the faculty in the department was a well known researcher in the subject. How often do you get the chance? As part of the class I got to "fetch and carry" while they did measurements on rocks taken from above and below the layer of rock the fossil "Lucy" was found in. Lots of fun. This class gave me an idea for a paper. So I went to my supervisor and asked him what he thought about me writing it up. He was fine with it and said he thought I should be the only author since his input was zero. I wrote it up and submitted it. Relationship with my supervisor remained strong. Sadly the paper was rejected, but it was still fun. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/22	1,920	8,103	<issue_start>username_0: I am doing a M.S. degree in a mechanical engineering program. In the previous three weeks I sent a letter inquiring for an opportunity to over 20 professors whose lab's website clearly showed Ph.D. position information. I received only 4 rejections, the others did not reply, is there any reason? Is there any way to solve this problem? Should I resend them my letter at a later time? The format of my letter like this: attachment-1:my transcript attachment-2:my cv > > Hello Professor, > > > Paragraph-1: Personal information, like my name, graduate school, my thesis topic, my publication condition. > > Paragraph-2: Where I found your position information, why I chose your labs(I indicated the interesting topics they listed in their page) > > > Paragraph-3: My qualification, like my programming level, practical experience of simulation, related courses I ever took. > > > Paragraph-4: An ending sentence, like: looking forward to your reply, have a nice day. > > > I found potential reasons to account for the lack of replies: 1. Its summer vacation. 2. I have a weak academic background. 3. Professors do not think my research field can match theirs. 4. The content of my letter is not unique, professors may think this letter can be sent by everyone. 5. I didn't put the professor's name at the start.<issue_comment>username_1: Each of the 20 professors you wrote to may have received hundreds of letters like yours. I think a quick acknowledgment with a "sorry, no" would be better than no response, but I can understand why many emails like yours are unanswered. I doubt that a second email from you would make any difference. Keep trying at schools where you think you might succeed. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: "I didn't put the professor's name at the start." This! Obviously, this is highly subjective, but whenever I get one of those emails, they go directly to the trash bin. If you cannot even find the time to insert my name, this tells me a couple of things - be they true or not, but those are the immediate assumptions I am gonna make of you: 1. You just want the degree for whatever reason, but have no actual interest in the work itself. No consideration is given whether our interests are compatible, and you are likely only vaguely familiar with my work (quoting a few topics from the website doesn't really cut it). There is nothing specific about my work that makes you want to spend the next few years with me over any other random researcher. 2. Yet, you expect me to hire you, spend days writing grant proposals to fund you, support you for years (academically, socially, mentally) and spend many hours working with me, but you do not even have the decency to find a few seconds to enter my name. This would be unacceptable even for low-qualification entry-level job applications in many places. 3. The reason you do not have that time is because you probably sent dozens of emails to any researcher you can find and expect some of them to stick. I am sorry of this sounds harsh, but I know quite a few profs who've been there, invited some of those candidates, just to find that their concerns were justified. I am of course not saying this is true of you, but please understand that after many anonymous generic applications, a lot of them start to feel like spam. So here are my suggestions for future applications: 1. Address the person by name (and title, as some might be offended otherwise). 2. Instead of showing interest in their topics, show familiarity with their work, i.e. read their papers!!, I repeat, read, and make sure you understand, their papers!! Be specific about what ideas and approaches are most interesting to you, and why. But make sure to be genuine and thorough - its their work, so they will know immediatly if you fake it because you didn't get the important ideas. 3. Make sure to suggest what you might contribute to their lab. Academic research is a high stakes, high competition environment, and taking on a PhD student is a risky investment. The prof needs to get the impression that you are self-motivated and have something new to contribute, rather than being a diligent student who just does well in classes. A PhD is VERY different from getting a Master's, so don't think of it as "going to school" anymore. At the end, it's publish-or-perish for anyone in that line of work, and that goes for you as well. 4. It's sometimes a good idea to state your reasons for doing a PhD. Want an academic career? Qualify for a senior position in industry? Become an entrepreneur? Different labs have different outlooks on that, and compatibility will depend on your objectives. 5. In some cases, especially when applying to the US, some professors might feel that you are more interested in coming to the country than the actual PhD work. I obviously don't know your background, but do check your applications to see if they might give of that vibe. I get lots of applications from Pakistan and Iran specifically that only seem to have that purpose, as their previous work has almost nothing to do with my interests, but they do talk a lot about their visa requirements. Hope that helps, good like with your other applications! :-) Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Don't send during vacation time ------------------------------- I think during the vacation time July-August nobody reads their working emails, and even if they are, they ignore unimportant stuff till later time. So I agree with your "1" it would be better to send it in e.g. September. Write personalized emails ------------------------- I would definitely spent an effort to write unique emails starting with Dear "<NAME>", instead of simply "Professor". I absolutely agree with your item "4" and "5". It is a small change, but it makes a feeling of a general letter one can ignore, rather a personal inquiry. Skill level is not crucial in the very first email -------------------------------------------------- I would disagree with your "2", "3". I would say, skill level is usually determined by the interview or direct conversation. I think to get in contact with a professor, usually plain interest with some basic background knowledge should be enough. So don't think it is because of your poor knowledge. Be polite and ask ----------------- I think very important part is to ask direct, simple yes/no questions, which people can easily identify and answer within seconds, reading your email. Also entertain the idea that website information might not always be up to date, so it is worth to ask, whether the position you have found is still available. E.g. instead of general: "looking forward to your reply". " On the website xyz42.com I found an open PhD position in your lab, which I am interested in. Could you tell, if this position is still available? I am this with that background... Please, let me know, if it possible for me to apply." HR department ------------- Another thing, that maybe not everywhere professors handle initial PhD requests. Maybe try to send similar email to the HR department? They were hired to reply to emails like yours :) So the probability of the reply is much higher. And you still can mention professors name who you find interesting to work with. Hope it helps and good luck with your PhD :) P.S. I am not from engineering field, but from physics so my judgement of professors behaviour might be heavily off Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: This depends on what country you're in, but at least where I live, it would be rather uncommon to approach a professor about a position directly via email. Open PhD positions are posted in some university-wide job application system, and there is some designated contact person for questions, sometimes multiple for different questions (e.g. a professor for questions about the research, and an HR person for questions about contracts). Applications sent directly to the professor will just get ignored, as they don't follow the required protocol. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/22	610	2,718	<issue_start>username_0: Specifically, I want to cite a blog post in a peer reviewed paper. The post was extremely helpful towards how I formulated the problem. The blog was not breaking-edge research; more a re-write of existing concepts. However I borrowed the abstractions and representations that the author made in the post. For example, I want to say: the mathematical representations herein borrow from prior work by `author`. Is it advisable to cite such sources? Should this be a footnote? Or there is no need to attribute credit at all? How would you do it?<issue_comment>username_1: Actually you must cite it to avoid plagiarism. It doesn't matter whether it is peer reviewed or not, the ideas are those of another and you need to avoid suggesting otherwise. But, using non peer reviewed material puts the burden on yourself to verify the accuracy of what was said there. On the other hand, some things are treated as common knowledge and needn't be cited. Normally, though, such things tend to appear in several places and the blog author may just have been stating things commonly known and accepted. The fact that you found them there is incidental. But if the ideas are, in any way, original with the blogger, cite them as you would any other. Citations of web material should normally include the date of last access since such things can change. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't know what you legally have to do in relation to a useful and seemingly "new" representation of existing well-known ideas. But if your own work benefited significantly from abstractions and/or representations used by a blogger - and you have not readily been able to find similar ones in good range of relevant texts - then professionally you have an obligation to acknowledge the source. Maybe you could contact the author beforehand and ask him/her if they have any research publication that briefly elaborates on and/or employs the concepts/representations used in the blog. You could then cite the approach you adopted via a reference superscript in your own paper. If no such research publication exists, I think you should cite the blog page, date of online publication and author. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: You cite anything that you didn't create yourself. If you talk to a colleague in the cafeteria and gain some insight from that which becomes part of your work, you cite it as "personal conversation". Citations are there so that others can reproduce your sources, but mostly to make sure that we can distinguish between your work and anyone else's work. If reproducing a source is difficult, the latter is still important to avoid plagiarism. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/23	408	1,479	<issue_start>username_0: Should I use `is ranked ...`, `was ranked ...`, or `ranked ...` in the awards section of my CV? E.g., * Ranked second (out of at least 11k students) in the Iranian national graduate entrance exam in AI & Robotics of 2022 * Member of INEF Versus, * Was ranked second (out of at least 11k students) in the Iranian national graduate entrance exam in AI & Robotics of 2022 * Is a member of INEF<issue_comment>username_1: For resume, depending on the resume styles, sometimes, people would prefer to briefly highlight key points, and may write: * Ranked first out of 10k students in the national entrance exam in AI * Member of INEF For cover letter (used in a job application process), people would certainly write full descriptions, and grammatically correct paragraphs such as "I was ranked first out of 10k students in the national entrance exam in AI", and "I am a member of INEF". --- BTW, this question probably fits "Workplace StackExchange" better. The link is: <https://workplace.stackexchange.com/> Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I suggest that "is" would not be correct if the exam is offered periodically. The others are fine, but a year should be specified for an annual exam. "National" might also need qualification. Which nation? In my own case, "Is ranked first among professors at xyz" would (perhaps) have been true at some point in the (far) distant past, but now would be (sadly) incorrect. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/23	1,125	5,042	<issue_start>username_0: The title pretty much speaks for itself. My supervisor and I (non-academics) submitted a paper to a professional conference and will be presenting a poster. The publication deadline was first, so we got the paper finished and submitted and are now working on the poster. My supervisor has given me feedback to include some figures in the poster that we didn't include in the paper. This seems weird to me. I would think that the poster should really just be a subset of the information in the paper and shouldn't add anything new. The "new" information isn't significant, just slightly different plots, but it still seemed odd to me. Am I right that this isn't standard?<issue_comment>username_1: If you have new useful information, why not put it on the poster? The paper documents the state of the project at a specific point in time, but you have learned more. It even makes an easy excuse to discuss how the project is evolving and where you are going next with the people who show up at your poster (which is kind of the point of giving a poster, the talking that is). Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Possibly this varies a bit by field, but I would not say there is anything wrong or weird about the poster content not matching the paper identically. If you have new information: a better way of presenting the data, a newly recognized explanation for some result, a caveat that should moderate interpretation of the result, etc, you would be doing a disservice to the people visiting your poster to omit the best information. There's also the issue that the format is different, and some aspects of figures/diagrams simply work better on a poster than they do in a paper, or vice-versa. People are viewing the information in a different way in a different medium. These days, it's also becoming more and more common (at least in my field) for people to use tablets and other devices to augment their posters and provide things like video or interactive displays that don't work in a PDF or printed paper. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't see any issues with it at all. The latest information is probably most useful to anyone interested. Some people will want to withhold some new actual results for a future paper of course, but that doesn't seem like the issue here. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Actually, adding new information -- if substantial -- can be seen as a breach of academic etiquette. Your poster paper was accepted (of course) on what was submitted. The reviewers agreed that it was sound. If you add something that would be stupid, this would reflect poorly on the conference. In real life, posters are not considered publications, even in Computer Science, but just a means to lure graduate students to a conference (from the perspective of the organizers - been there, done that) and to get some feed-back and maybe make contacts from the point of few of the presenters. Thus, poster presentations are not scrutinized as papers would be. In your case, the change would be marginal, more a matter of presentation than of substance, so that you will be fine if you do so. Also, you are not in academia, so your actions will be judged with a lot more margin. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: It depends on the nature and context of the addition. If it's telling the same story as the version that was approved, I wouldn't balk at a few extra figures or minor error fixes. But if the new content makes a significant change to the story, or if there are potential conflicts of interest involved, that becomes more problematic. As an example of where this kind of thing can go wrong, I once knew a senior researcher who had a heated disagreement with two junior colleagues on how to interpret some research data. Without getting into details, there were some major conflicts of interest involved - it was very much to his advantage and to that of his institute that the broader research community should accept his interpretation. A few weeks later, the two juniors were fired for non-specific "operational reasons". Around the same time, Senior Researcher attended a conference where he presented a poster and talk. In these presentations he promoted his own interpretation of the data, and listed the two fired juniors as co-authors. By convention this would usually imply that they agreed with his interpretation. In fact, they had never endorsed this content and only found out about it after the conference, whereupon they had to contact the organisers to request removal of their names. Poster/talk presentations get more leeway than journal papers because it's nice to have the most current material at a conference, but that flexibility shouldn't be treated as a loophole for evading checks on material that the presenter can reasonably expect to be controversial. If one's unsure, it might be an option to contact the conference organisers and give them a quick summary of intended changes from the accepted version. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/23	940	4,120	<issue_start>username_0: Should the supervisor be involved in writing parts of the publication with their students? correct parts the student writes or shoould the supervisor just submit the paper after the student has complete with writing it? which is more common in the EU CS labs?<issue_comment>username_1: It of course depends. Sometimes, the role of the supervisor is limited to finding the funding, proposing the work, supervising the work, checking the article to be submitted and correct or ask for corrections, and approving the publication. Strictly speaking, just funding and proposing the work is not enough for authorship, but this rule is probably violated a lot. There are also many cases where the supervisor is more involved. For first time authors, it is very common to underestimate the contribution of a supervisor. Since you are in CS, combined authorship is much more common than in pure Mathematics, where the rule seems to be more that everyone needs to contribute at least a result (Lemma, Theorem) and Ph.D. supervisors are usually not a co-author. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the answer to the question is that the supervisor should be involved in all parts of study design, study execution, and the writing process. That is, after all, what is commonly considered necessary to be a coauthor. That is specifically true for papers written with junior authors who surely all can use the mentoring that comes with involvement in writing papers. Of course, what I think you are really asking is "what do I do if the supervisor is not involved". But that's a different question, and one that has many previous answers on this site. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Well, it really depends on circumstances - the student, how far along in their studies they are, and on the philosophy and the workload of the professor. Based on what I do with my own students and see other professors do, I would say the most common trajectory in applied CS labs in the parts of Europe I worked in (Austria, Switzerland, Sweden) is roughly as follows ("supervisors" may include postdocs or other more senior lab members that mentor the student): * For the first one or two papers, a lot of very direct support is provided. Supervisors sit with the student frequently, give rapid feedback on short text passages (subsections or even paragraphs), and write or re-write good chunks of the paper themselves. * For later papers, the supervisors (intentionally) get more hands-off. Drafts are of course still read, but on a more coarse-grained level (say, section by section after the student has written what they believe to be a mature draft). Most, though typically not all, text in the final manuscript is predominantly written by the student. * Given that the goal of a PhD education is to train independent researchers, the hope is that by the end a student can write a more or less submittable paper without much input by the supervisors at all. Supervisors may still help polish the final papers a bit, or give feedback on a more strategic level - or they might drop out entirely and ask the by-then mature student to submit the paper alone or with other collaborators. I would say "submitting the paper" is the student's job in all phases. This is a fairly boring and, sometimes, tedious task, and I see no particular reason why it's a good use of valuable supervisor time to do that. I do sometimes sit with the student and do it together with them if they are taunted by a particularly obnoxious submission system. --- Of course there is substantial deviations from this, both between labs and between individual students. To be frank, many students in practice never learn to write well enough to ever fly solo in their PhD education, and they never leave the second phase. Some professors will start directly in the second phase, expecting somewhat mature writing from the get-go. Some supervisors have no problem with writing or revising some sections of the paper for a student, others categorically do not do that and only comment on the student's writing. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/24	857	3,454	<issue_start>username_0: Summary: I have finished postdoc #1 (it was negative experience) and started postdoc #2. I have been invited to present work performed during postdoc #1. Is it normal and expected, since it will take away time from my current job? I have finished a postdoc a few months ago. It wasn't a pleasant experience both from a perspective of human relationship with my supervisor (a fake, hypocrite, toxic and stressful person/experience, nothing like I had faced before in my whole life) and from a research project (too little challenged mentally, left alone most of the time, and badly managed: set to work on non priority tasks most of the time). I will start another postdoc in a few months, in another research group, in another city, in another topic (which I personally find much more interesting). However, I have been contacted by the 1st postdoc research group, asking me whether I would attend to a conference, to present some of our work. This would be for a few days during the 1st month of my 2nd postdoc, which would start in a few months from now. On a personal level, I do not think it would help me much to present this work (I am not involved in this topic anymore), I would rather work in the new laboratory (every working day will be extremely precious and valuable, since there aren't many). If I were to attend the conference, it would mean the 2nd postdoc would have to pay me a full salary while I would be "working" for the other laboratory. I would rather not give more details, at least for now. I am wondering whether it is common for people doing several postdocs, to "work" for previous postdocs, or attend to conferences related to previous postdocs, while it removes working time in the new postdoc.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is common to publish or present previous work while employed at a new position. Usually, the new academic supervisor supports and even encourages this. But you should of course discuss with them. If you don't want to do this, it is common practice to say something like "I'm sorry, I'm too busy with my new job and I just don't have the time." Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: If there is a chance you would be interested in presenting at the conference, consider discussing it with your 2nd postdoc supervisor. [One of the goals of a postdoc position is career development](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/148142/is-it-okay-for-a-potential-post-doc-to-send-an-email-to-professor-on-the-weekend/148162#comment393483_148162), which is not limited to the specific project you were hired for. Even if the 1st postdoc topic is different, the experience of giving the talk may be useful (and also could be noted on your CV, although this may be minor if you have several other publications). > > If I were to attend the conference, it would mean the 2nd postdoc would have to pay me a full salary while I would be "working" for the other laboratory. > > > This is not necessarily a problem. Again, your 2nd postdoc supervisor can provide guidance, and may be more than willing to support this as part of contributing to the academic community and developing you as a "whole researcher". It is routine that some "mopping up" from a previous position is done early in a new position; supervisors are often fine with this (within reason) because it enhances your general record/reputation and maintains useful connections/goodwill. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/24	2,452	10,537	<issue_start>username_0: I am working for a company as an intern. Then I proposed some ideas and drafted a paper. In the meantime, I got some help from my university PhD friends so I list them as the co-authors. I planned to submit it to a conference. However, the company told me that they want to file a patent for this work first. And then they told me I should not submit the paper unless I exclude the ones who are not related to the company (i.e. my PhD friends). But actually, he contributes a lot to this research work. Obviously, I don't want to exclude him. I am not sure. Why is it like that? Is this the company policy or the patent law? I thought paper and patent are different things.<issue_comment>username_1: Devil's advocate here. > > I got some help from my university PhD friends so I list them as the > co-authors. > > > Did they help you, or did they contribute to the final product that you want to publish/patent? If they helped you, the acknowledgments are enough for them and it is the easy escape from long legal discussion/consequences you will have (expect to loose PHD friends, though, because they almost surely helped you expecting to co-author a paper). For the future readers: if you are an intern, keep the brilliant ideas you have while being intern somewhere for yourself, develop them only afterwards (i.e., do not disclose to your intern manager, just mention it broadly when/if discussing a contract renewal...). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Ah, that is quite a mess you have made. The mistake was to bring in your friends to help on a company-owned project. I doubt that your manager at the company would have agreed to that, not least because of the IP involved. As part of your on-boarding you likely were informed that the company owned what you did for them as an intern. However, the company are now making a mess of their own, since they need to face up to the fact that work was done by people at the university. So, lots of lawyers will get involved, so tell them the truth of what happened and then let the lawyers do what they do... Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Your company has an interest in having its patent be valid. If they include work of others in the patent as indicated by authorship of the paper, the patent is less defensible. Since patent and paper are not identical, it might be possible, but the company lawyers will certainly want to avoid a problem. An alternative possibility is to get your friends to sign over their portion of the patent to the company. Then they could actually be co-authors of the patent. You might want to elevate this to the company lawyers first. Patent rights are to be taken very seriously. Usually, when it comes to a fight with another company, it ends with a compromise and mutual licensing, at least in the Computer industry. If you make a silly mistake like including other people on the author-list of a related paper, you weaken the negotiation platform. Litigation and preparation for litigation is very expensive. Finally, you are an intern. Are you being paid reasonably well? Is the paper related to your work with the company? Did others at the company contribute at all or a lot? Do you have an advisor who can get you in contact with the university intellectual property lawyers? A lot will depend on the local laws. To answer the question: Yes it is possible, but your company will be very unhappy. They might not own your work, though. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I agree with you and the other answers that this is a mess. However, I'd like to tackle the actual question: > > Can the patent and paper have different authors (assume they include the same content)? > > > Yes. Being inventor is not the same as being author. The intellectual contributions needed for a scientific paper are not necessarily the same as the intellectual contributions of the invention. You may have inventors who did not contribute sufficiently to warrant co-authorship and you may have authors who did not contribute sufficiently to warrant co-inventorship. Both authorship and inventorship can only be determined by closely examining the actual contributions of everyone involved. Inventorship is about sufficient contributions to the solution as claimed in the patent. Important differences include: * for a scientific paper identifying and describing the problem is an intellectual contribution, but for the invention only contributions to finding the solution count. If someone comes up with a formulation of the problem that makes the solution obvious (which it wasn't before), I guess it would be a contribution to the solution. If it's more like "hey, we have a problem here", rather not. * for a scientific paper, devising experiments to characterize the performance of the invented device or process is a proper intellectual contribution (assuming it's not routine work), but it is not a contribution to that invention. > > Why is it like that? Is this the company policy or the patent law? I thought paper and patent are different things. > > > We obviously cannot say anything about a company policy we don't know. Plus legislations differ. So the following is about what I know about the related legal questions in [germany](/questions/tagged/germany "show questions tagged 'germany'"). However, it is quite possible that people contribute intellectually so as to properly become co-author to the paper without being co-inventors for the patent. Example 1: I invents a new measurement device and does some basic experiments demonstrating that it works. I files the patent as sole inventor. For the paper, I teams up with a validation expert V who develops a rigorous experiment to measure the actually achieved performance of the new device, and this is published with co-authors I and V. Example 2: imagine you are in the life sciences studying a particular biological phenomenon in a team: a biologist B who is expert on the biological question and the biology side of the experiments, a physicist P who is specialist for the measurement technique, and a statistician S who contributes expertise on experimental design and does the data analysis. P invents an improvement to the measurement technique without substantial help from B or S. => P is inventor on the patent, the paper describing both the biological question and the invention is co-authored by B, P, and S. Of course, there may be separate papers about the biological question and the invention, citing each other for the respective details. Then, P would be single author on the invention paper, and B and S would be co-authors of the biology paper (possibly P also, depending on how much intellectual contribution is left after the invention is "cut out") And of course, B or S may have contributed substantially to the invention and would accordingly be inventors as well. Now, as part of their new instrument development, P may have consulted engineer E whose work contributed to the invention. Then, P and E would be co-inventors for the patent, while E's contribution to the paper may only be sufficient for an acknowledgement. --- > > I am working for a company as an intern > > > This puts a big question mark to who actually owns the IP here, so I'd advise you to get proper legal consulting also on this. Over here, an internship is not necessarily an employment. In particular not if the internship is prescribed by your university curriculum for Bachelor or Master studies. In that case it would be quite likely that the IP you produced is owned by you and neither by the company nor the university, and there'd be particular legal restrictions about contracts for handing over that IP to the company or university (due to the power imbalance). Another, entirely new level of mess would be added if you were both employee of the university and employee of the company since the legal defaults in employment contracts over here create a legal conflict - which however, is not yours but between university and company (and which is typically solved as part of cooperation contracts for joint projects) (To add to the mess, the legal procedure on claiming an invention is somewhat different for companies vs. [public] universities.) --- Whom to consult? ---------------- * There are patent information centers (about 20 throughout Germany) who offer initial consulting for inventors. They are neutral as in being neither part of the university IP management (who may be party here), nor part of the company. * Chambers of commerce and (university) business incubators offer initial consulting for people who think about starting a business, and often also initial consulting for inventors. At least the university incubator services are likely used to the very first crucial question of starting a spin-off based on some invention being whether the effort to legally disentangle the situation is worth while or whether the potential business is buried at this point;-) If they are not able to answer your questions, they will at least be able to point you to someone who is. * The university IP office likely offers consulting as well, but they may be an interested party. However, if you do not have any personal commercial interest in the patent, that is unlikely to negatively affect you. --- Personal experience: I've invented something where the patent information center people said it's likely patentable, but the legal situation with my public research institute (even without company involvement) was so entangled that I decided it was not worth while to follow up the matter. However, when people talk about inventions vanishing in drawers, I have a story to contribute now ;-) --- Further advise -------------- From what you write I think the best way for you is to treat this as an opportunity to learn, but not expect any additional outcomes. * Determine authorship the way it is always done. * Try to find out (via consulting above) + whether your friend should actually be co-inventor. If so, list them. + whether you have any obligations towards your university wrt. the invention. It may be that the practical solution to this mess is to have only the paper but not the patent: for the company, while this means they cannot keep anyone else from using this solution, it already gives them the legal certainty that also noone else can file a patent on this (forbidding them to use the invention) in the future. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/25	541	2,477	<issue_start>username_0: I'm about to submit my research paper to a journal concerning finance and investments. In the work, I say something like: > > The results show that fields/industries/companies "A", "B" and "C" > appeared to be a reasonable choice for investment during the > investigated period. > > > I wonder if I should add a kind of a disclaimer that the paper's information is not a financial recommendation? Am I supposed do it in a scientific paper? If yes, how can it be properly done?<issue_comment>username_1: Your formulation makes it clear that you are talking about the past, not the future. By changing the words to "appear to have been a reasonable choice" this could become even clearer. Scientific papers do not usually carry this type of disclaimer. They are not meant to be read among the public, but by scientific peers who would not be able to read this as a recommendation for the future. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Academic papers in finance do not usually need a disclaimer like this, since the context of academic work means that it is understood that the work is a general scientific work, rather than a specific piece of advice to a financial client. Nevertheless, if you're worried then it can't hurt to give a disclaimer, and I doubt the journal will object (unless they want to prevent the floodgates opening on the issue). Something like the following should get the job done: > > Disclaimer: The present publication is an academic paper published for general scientific purposes and is not intended to constitute financial advice to any person. The author hereby warns all readers not to rely on the information in this paper for financial investment decisions or any other financial purposes, and to seek independent financial advice from an appropriate professional. The author does not give any warranty as to the accuracy of any information in the paper to any person for purposes of financial decisions. > > > My own disclaimer: The present post is for general knowledge in academic discussion only and is not intended as legal advice to any person. All readers are hereby warned not to rely on this post for purposes of obtaining legal protections or for any other legal matter. If you want to obtain a legally effective disclaimer then you should obtain advice from an appropriate lawyer in your jurisdiction. I give no warranty as to the effectiveness of the above disclaimer. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/06/25	761	3,242	<issue_start>username_0: After the third round review of my paper, I receive the following letter from the editor of physical review journal (not PRL) > > The above manuscript has been reviewed by one of our referees. > Comments from the report appear below for your consideration. > > > When you resubmit your manuscript, please include a summary of the > changes made and a brief response to all recommendations and > criticisms. > > > Yours sincerely, > > > It seems to be different from the ordinary editor letter I used to receive, which tells me that revisions are necessary: > > The above manuscript has been reviewed by one of our referees. > Comments from the report appear below. > > > These comments suggest that the present version of the manuscript is > not suitable for publication in the Physical Review. However, if you > can provide a convincing response to the criticism, we will give > further consideration. Please accompany any resubmittal by a summary > of the changes made and a brief response to all recommendations and > criticisms. > > > Yours sincerely, > > > We are puzzled by the first letter from the editor, because the editor does not tell us whether revisions are necessary or not. What is his attitude? What does the first letter from the editor mean? Is it a major revision or a minor revision or a rejection (because it is already the third round of review)? Edit: The report from the referee is simple, it only asks about one of our figures because of some confusion from the referee's side. From our perspective that can be easily fixed. But we are quite worried because from our understanding, 3 rounds of review in APS is maximum and paper are either rejected or accepted after 3 rounds of review. Has anyone ever encountered more than 3 rounds of review when submitting to APS journal? And I understand that both of the letters are just templates. But I assume that different templates correspond to different scenarios. So I would really appreciate help from any one probably familiar with the APS journals.(For example, you have submitted articles to APS journals and received both kinds of editor's response)<issue_comment>username_1: Literally, the comments are "for your consideration". If you respond adequately to all concerns without any edits then you may be fine, depending on what those comments say and your response. But, I'd guess that at least some revisions will be necessary since it wasn't immediately accepted. "Adequate revision" is probably a better description than either "minor" or "major". I'd treat the response from the editor as encouraging, but seriously consider every reviewer comment. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It does not really matter whether it is major or minor revision. You are required to revise your paper, respond to reviewers, and reviewers will have another pass at your paper. Anything can happen. They may recommend reject your paper because they finally 'understood' your paper after clarifications or they noticed a new error. They could recommend acceptance. Alternatively, the editor could invite new reviewers. I wouldn't read too much into the letter. It looks to be a standard reply template. Upvotes: 3
2022/06/25	2,267	9,226	<issue_start>username_0: I had clinical depression. Because of that, I lost 5 years of my life. To put things in perspective - I am starting as a Ph.D. student this year, but my undergraduate classmates have already completed Ph.D. plus one postdoc. If I want to become an academician, how can I recover this lost time? Is increasing the impact factor a way forward? What else can I do?<issue_comment>username_1: You can't recover the lost time. It is gone forever. But it doesn't restrict your future. Do what any beginning doctoral student needs to do. Pay attention, work hard, take a lot of notes, talk to a lot of people, especially professors. Find a good advisor who can give good and timely advice. Work with them to find a good problem to attack. Onward. Looking back isn't going to get you anywhere. And if there are lingering effects from the depression, keep in touch with a professional so that it doesn't become an issue again. --- Edited to add: When it comes time to evaluate your tenure application you will, perhaps, be a bit older than the average candidate. But you will be judged by people older still and the most influential might be very much older for which your age at that time is completely irrelevant. You will be judged on what you have accomplished, not your age. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Here are my advises that could be helpful for you: * Don't look back, don't overthink about these things. You are lucky and strong ... at least to start your PhD research. * Focus on the next step. A PhD study is a big project and you will need to prepare for that and devote your time, money and energy. Keep in mind that you have to be very hard-worker and patient, otherwise you'll learn that along the way :-) * Don't take the example of your classmates that finished their PhD as a bad example, instead you should make that as a motivation (if they had done that, I also can do). And don't think it's easy path, you should ask your classmates about their sacrifices ... {Successful PhD study ---> costs a lot of blood, sweat and tears}, but at the end you'll be proud. * Yourself is your first enemy. If you listen to your demotivating thoughts, you will never do anything in this life. * and finally, don't look for the perfectionism in your research ... do it first then make it perfect I wish a good luck to you "our future Dr." Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Obviously in the immediate term you cannot "make up lost time". All we can do is make the remaining time as good as possible. On the positive side, you will have far greater self-awareness now. You'll know how your mind works and how not to over-strain it. These are important things over the duration of a doctoral programme. You will also be aware of the need to balance life and work - however well work may be going or however frustrating it becomes. What you have learned about life and yourself will be very useful over the next years. Apply it wisely and ignore the follies of your professional contemporaries but experiential juniors. It might be good to link up with some mature doctoral students in your department or around the campus generally (regardless of country of origin) as we all have an emotional connection with our own age group. Focus on quality of work, not speed or quantity. Try to give a little back to the system you work in, time permitting - and in an even-handed way - to those around you. In the long term the quality of our remaining life is what determines if our "lost" periods were truly lost or not. It is very important to get rid of this "catch-up" mindset prior to starting a PhD. If you find it hard to shake off, especially even after some sessions with a therapist, I think it would be wiser not to go into the programme just yet. Maybe a 9-5 RA job for a while or something outside academia. I say this because there will be younger researchers rushing around and maybe trying to generate a competitive dynamic to assuage their own doubts and anxieties. Sadly, there are always some faculty who cultivate competition between postgrads. You don't want to be part of this madness. So you need to be clear and strongly firm - on bad days as well as good - on your quality of work and life mindset before taking on any serious research programme commitment. Please discuss all this with your therapist. Also look your would-be supervisor in the eye as you tell him/her that work - however interesting and rewarding, however important success is for the department's appearance in the eyes of research grant givers - is not all there is to your life. In the situation you are in, a down-to-earth supervisor with an "ordinary" project would be far wiser than a pushy supervisor with an "exciting/topical/heavily-funded" project: you'll have more time for TA work, colleague engagement and learning by doing - all things that are vital for your development and self-confidence. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Work harder. Put in more hours, e.g. by working on Saturday (or every alternate Saturday). It's the only thing you can do that's within your control ("get lucky" is not actionable). Just be careful not to burn out, and to avoid a relapse of the depression. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: You seem to have the assumption that as an academic, you will be evaluated based on your scientific contributions put in perspective with your age, i.e., from birth. This is in many ways inaccurate. For example, countries and their education systems vary greatly in when people typically start a PhD and how much time they take to complete it. What you may feel is a late time to start a PhD might be considered a very usual time in a country where it is common that some people work in industry for a few years before deciding to start a PhD, or waste years applying for a grant before starting their PhD. Academia varies a lot, so the "norm" is not as clear a concept as you'd think. In my small experience as a young academic, just in my discipline, I've both met people that were 5 years younger than I was when they completed their PhD, and people that were 3 years older. Apart from the 40 years old age cap for Fields medalists, the only age limits I am aware of (from my small corner of academia) tend to be time limits "from PhD". For example, some grants can only be awarded to people that received their PhD in the last 4 years. Since your five year career gap did not occur after you received your PhD, none of those apply to you. Also, at least some of those grants actually are designed to take into account career gaps, like time taken off of your career for medical reason and maternity/paternity leave, which can sometimes be subtracted from the 4 years time limits. This will also be true of your scientific contributions. They will mostly be judged not based on your age, but your 'age since PhD'. So, as someone said in the comments, do not think in terms of age: you are part of the cohort of people starting a PhD this year. Then, general advice on how to succeed in academia applies. In particular, as many PhD students experience some amount of psychological distress during their PhD, keep your mental health a priority, and reach out if the conditions of a successful PhD are not there (this website contains quite a few stories of people that changed advisor or subject). Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: Publishing high-impact papers may expedite your rise up the academic ladder (then again, it may not, since we live in a strange world and heads of department hold inordinate amounts of unchecked power\); all else being equal, one does better as one's papers are higher-impact. So in that sense, yes, good idea. What is strange is that you should think that "high impact" is the answer to "making up for lost time" - as if you would not consider high impact as a priority or a smart thing to aim for if you had remained "on schedule" and not lost so much time. From a strictly logical point of view, your question "is high impact the remedy for lost time?" is on a par with "is doubling my IQ the remedy for lost time?" In both cases the tentative answer is something like: yeah, it probably cannot hurt, but it seems odd to think that this* might be the answer to that. The time people spend post-docking is highly variable, and even among roughly equal quality people in the same field one can get tenure years earlier than the other. So if luck runs your way, you could easily make up the lost time during the post-doc phase. The best you can do in any case is just, merely, your best. There is one respect in which "high impact" as an aim or priority can be counter-productive. This happens when academics "safe up" results and findings in hopes of all their loose ends somehow aggregating into a Nature/Science/PNAS paper, rather than being published bit by bit in the decent journals on the tiers below. It is unusual and probably counterproductive for a PhD student to develop this particular neurosis, but I thought I should warn you anyway. \*) Yes, you may find yourself out on your ear after publishing in Nature and PNAS, just because your HoD felt belittled. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/25	776	3,406	<issue_start>username_0: A 28 year old friend wants to go back to school for an undergrad degree to become a social worker. She dropped out of school 10 years ago within the first year. She'd like to start fresh and not transfer any credits. Does she have to transfer from her previous school in another state, or can she apply directly and simply leave out she previously attended another university? She does not want to transfer any credits. She didn't do well 10 years ago, and is concerned and considering not going if she has to transfer her bad grades. The universities website does not say you have to transfer grades, just that you can, and doesn't say how GPA is calculated based on that. Can she simply apply and leave out her old college, or will this torpedo her chances of being accepted? She's applying to a middle-of-the-road state school. If this is not possible/wise, how should she approach admissions given she doesn't want to transfer credits? Edit - she will call admissions on Monday She's going to call admissions Monday. My guess is the credits won't transfer due to age. I'd be surprised if the credits didn't transfer but the GPA does. EDIT Admissions said she should apply and disclose she previously attended a university. They said they would have found out when she filled out FAFSA assuming she filled it out at the previous university. The credits won't count because they are too old, but she'll probably have to provide an official transcript to show she doesn't owe money to the previous university. Her GPA will be based only on credits earned at the current university. They said that was a pretty standard policy nationwide.<issue_comment>username_1: Almost everywhere (in the US) requires that you submit academic records of all previous education. It would be a sort of fraud if you don't do that. But for something ten years out of date it is unlikely that poor early performance will be much of a negative factor in admissions. People change and other people recognize the possibility. Prior credits may not "transfer" in any case, both because the grades might be low and the age of the transcript. So, it is better to be honest. If necessary, explain somewhere why the past has been overcome as needed. Most such things can be accommodated, whereas discovered dishonesty is harder to deal with. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In the US, it is nearly a universal policy that institutions compute GPA based only on courses taken at the specific institution. Grades from courses taken at a previous institution are not included in the GPA computation. Based on grades in courses taken at a previous institution, a student might be awarded transfer credit. This is often limited based on the specific course (e.g. a specific course might or not be acceptable for transfer) and the grade (e.g. only grades of C or better might transfer.) If your friend has any transferrable credits, then it is probably in their best interest to take advantage of the credits. Your friend's past record might influence an admissions decision at an institution with selective admissions but probably wouldn't have any negative impact at the vast majority of institutions that have open or relatively open admissions. Not supplying required transcripts could (if discovered) lead to expulsion from the new institution. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2022/06/26	1,185	5,084	<issue_start>username_0: I want to write a scientific master thesis. I dont want it to look like a technical report. I had to configure a system: It contains roughly 2 chips. Then this system has to send data to another system with same architecture. I had a lot of work to programm one of those chips. Looking at other scientific theses, I don't see that they even mention how they programmed their chips. I want to show the difficulties of programming it. Maybe only some important code.What do you think about it? I dont understand the scientific way of writing a thesis. So maybe you can explain it easy. --- I tried to look at other scientifc work: E.g. a white paper shows everything in one page, or [here](https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1806/1806.08025.pdf) on three: For a normal human being, it would not be possible to recreate this, without the basics and also test environment. Its like someone crazy on the street tells me what they have done. For understanding I should recreate their experiment. This would take a lot of time. E.g a [thesis](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/224741175.pdf): It looks the same but bigger. It is also not possible to recreate it without knowing more basics. But I already saw that the author points to some literature. But it is like someone on the street tells me, what they have done and tells me I can look into books to find out, how to do it in real. [structure](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NOmGN.png) Is it right to use language like:" (...)we have already discussed in section (...)" Shouldnt it be like" (...)it was already discussed (...)"? UPDATE: I am reading a book about scientific writing: The work shouldn't show the chronology. It is no experience report. It is a result oriented summary. So keep in mind that you choose a logical structure, that has no repetition of results. Don't structure it in that way that you need to present results before they are done in the thesis. The process of creating the thesis means often that you work iteratively, with trial-and-error. *The steps are irrelevant* only the planned methods how to do it and the results are relevant. Only present results in text that are relevant. The whole work process/effort doesn't play a role. Talking to people, reassembling a working peace or reproducing components are not relevant for the result. Same is for long looking for an error in the program code. A big effort is usually treated with little to no scope in the thesis. The advisor will take it into account....<issue_comment>username_1: I'm interpreting the question here, for the sake of potentially being useful to other situations, to be: "How does one write an academic report on a project whose major output is a piece of software?" 1. You mention that this is a thesis. You should have a thesis adviser. It's a tired trope, but you should ask your adviser first for their view. 2. Your target audience is not "someone off the street", it is specifically the person examining your thesis, and more abstractly someone who is reasonably acquainted with your field of study but does not know about the specifics of your project. A common and useful piece of advice is to imagine that you are writing a document that would convey as much useful information to yourself before starting the project as clearly as possible, and within the space requirements. 3. For software based projects, it's typical to have a written report (that is, your thesis) which explains how the software works at a high level, why it was made, any novel contributions compared to the state of the art, discussion and interpretation of specific results etc. One then accompanies it with an implementation. There are different levels of robustness you'll find for these across disciplines. In an ideal world, an implementation is comprised of open-source software an interested reader could obtain and use themselves, including documentation that would allow them to use the software. Separately one provides data inputs and software which uses the implementation to reproduce any results or re-perform any tests mentioned in the written report. In practice, unfortunately, many researchers provide just the software they used but not in a form usable by others, along with any output data products presented in the report. Some provide no code at all and just the output data products, which seems to have been a standard for many years that thankfully seems to be changing. Part of the training you're receiving in a Masters degree is learning to communicate about technical subjects in a way other people can understand. This is not easy. Code is written in some language that has been developed as a compromise between what a human writer and a computer reader can process. English is usually more efficient for human-to-human communication. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A technical report states how something was done. A scientific report states a hypothesis and how it was tested. Your explanation so far does not state a hypothesis. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/26	1,915	8,666	<issue_start>username_0: I am a student in the second year of a university majoring in mathematics. I am trying to publish scientific research. Of course I know that it will be very difficult to do it at this level of study. At this level I try to prepare myself to do it. I try to study anything in detail with the proofs, and to solve some diverse and difficult problems that are often from IMO. Since I started doing this I have noticed that I find it very difficult to combine rigorous self-study with solving very hard problems. It seems that it is better to do one thing. By this I mean either I try to study without going too deep and without knowing the details, with solving difficult problems, or I try to study in depth without trying to solve very difficult problems. As a note, by hard exercises I mean Olympic exercises, not medium-difficult exercises like the one in "calculus" Spivak's book. My question is this: * Do you need to be good at solving difficult problems or just enough to understand everything you have studied, in order to be creative in mathematics? * From your experience in scientific research, what is your advise for a student who is still trying to hone their skills to enter the field of research?<issue_comment>username_1: Frankly, you are just at the beginning of your career in Mathematics and should give yourself more time. Hopefully, your program of studies will teach you how to make and formulate a valid proof. Once you get into these classes, your professors will take note of you if you have the exceptional capabilities that you ascribe to yourself by wanting to solve difficult problems. Hopefully, you can find a mentor this way. If you can, take the Linear Algebra or Algebra classes early as they will give you an introduction to how modern Mathematics works and will also give you some idea how big Mathematical knowledge now is. Also, notice that you need mathematical creativity in addition to problem solving skills. When you do a Math Olympiad problem, you know that there is a solution and you just need to find it. Finding a handle on an unknown field requires more creativity. Finally, if you want to do research NOW and independently of others, you need to find an area that has not been mathematized for centuries like algebraic number theory, algebraic geometry, or complex analysis of several variables. In this areas, even a genius will need a few years to understand what has already been done. It used to be relatively easy for amateurs to make contributions to Graph Theory, but I am not sure that this is the case any more. Some other topic in Combinatorics might still be fresh enough. If you are good at programming, you might want to look at some aspects in applied mathematics. Modeling biological systems probably still has some low-hanging fruits. You might also look into adjacent areas. Algorithms in Computer Science is a rather Mathematical topic, but there is more to discover there. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Focusing on some terms in your two questions ... * Problem solving is honed through disciplined practice. While some folks may have an inherent ability, most if not all folks benefit by focusing time on improving the practice itself independent from the need to solve a problem. * The chances of solving a "difficult" problem in a reasonable time by randomly applying everything you understand at any given moment are far smaller than the chances of solving the same problem by disciplined practice in problem solving. * "Difficult" problems do not continue to exist because we have too few smart folks who understand enough about everything that we can know to connect their knowledge with successful answers. Difficult problems continue to exist because the steps to connect one field of knowledge with another require both the fullest mastery in the fields and the ability to apply careful, rigorous problem solving to make the connections between the fields in a robustly acceptable manner * At any point in life, everything you may have studied to that point could be only a subset of everything you will need to comprehend to solve a particular problem. Hence the phrase behind the practice of life-long learning. * Creativity without discipline can fall / fail to anarchy. * Understanding has various levels of meaning in theory and practice. Find references on the Bloom taxonomy for but one case (know, comprehend, apply, analyze, synthesize, evaluate). So, to your questions directly ... * Creativity in any discipline is near the top in the taxonomy of mastery. Before you get to that level, you must build your confidence in your knowledge and your ability to analyze problems on hand your knowledge. Creativity has nothing to do with just solving (difficult) problems or just understanding (comprehending) everything you have studied as an either-or choice. It is the application of both to analyze wide ranges of problems. * Hone your ability to analyze problems that test your comprehension of the knowledge you currently have. Hone your ability to report on the results of your analysis in a way that others can also comprehend what you have done and apply your method to their own needs. In summary, difficult problems will still exist a few years from now, and they will not be the same ones as now. As second year undergraduate student, this may not be the best time to try to find fields that have "difficult" problems. Rather, it can be the best time to explore to find your best skills, greatest abilities, and deepest passions. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: While problems from mathematical olympiads can be fun and rewarding, I would claim that at your stage, they do not really prepare you for research.¹ These problems are very specific in their structure. By their very nature, they generally have an intended solution that is less than a page and uses nothing but high-school knowledge and some tricks that in principle can be taught to any gifted student in less than an hour or two. Contrast this to mathematical research, which often builds upon material that takes years of university lectures to assemble all the required concepts and often involves proofs that in total extend along many pages, where the difficulty rarely consists of finding some clever trick, but mostly of splitting the problem into the right steps and sub-problems that then can each be solved using some standard methods. This splitting into sub-problems is something you can best learn from an advisor, e.g. when writing a thesis. It is something that can rarely be put into the form of a problem, as there often is no clear right or wrong way to do it, just a better or worse one. So to learn this, it is best to have a guide, who at each step can tell you the problems with your specific approach and point you in a better direction. Now, if you are not at the level of having an advisor yet, the thing you can study on your own is the other prerequisite mentioned, application of the standard methods. And by this I mean methods from university topics, so you will not find those in the IMO-problems but in the same medium level textbook exercises you mentioned. ¹Just to make sure that I am not misunderstood, there are indeed many brilliant mathematicians who did well in the IMO. But apart from the problem of reversing causality, they studied IMO-problems when they were in high-school, which helped them by introducing them to mathematical thinking earlier than most. But at a late undergraduate level, you should already know mathematical thinking well enough. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Math can be very useful in many fields of scientific endeavor, statistical analysis, and engineering. It can be useful in some fields of computer programming, but not as much as some would think. So my answer would be: It depends on what 'science' you want to do, and whether you envision graduate studies in pure math, applied math, physics, engineering. I would advise you to study 'Numerical Analysis' on a computer, as most of these fields (except possibly pure mathematics) will use that extensively. I myself have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering(EE), and a solid grounding in 'Fourier Analysis' can get you far in EE. Also, you are very young yet, so over your lifetime you may switch course many times. I got my degrees in EE but now am exclusively a software engineer! One thing is to try to appreciate general concepts such as design, documentation, research, and how to analyze a problem (e.g. convert a story problem to a math equation). Hope this helps, best wishes for a bright future. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	2,019	8,997	<issue_start>username_0: I am a Ph.D. student. I recently have an issue with authorship on the paper where my advisor was the first and the corresponding author, I was the second, and our Dean was the third. I felt very frustrated and would like to have your ideas. I am not sure in such a case I could claim being the second author of the manuscript. My advisor constructed the idea and we developed all the materials for the project together. When we started our project, we decided that he was the first and the corresponding author, and I was the second author. After we have completed data collection, my advisor invited our Dean to be the third author, responsible for data analysis. At this time, I initiated the idea that the we needed to be clear about our responsibility to the manuscript writing. In my private meeting with my advisor, I told him that I would write the methodology, data analysis and result sections of our manuscript to fulfill the role of the second author. He agreed. Then, I learned from my advisor that the Dean would write the data analysis and results sections, which makes sense as he worked with data analysis. However, my advisor suggested I should write the literature review but I refused as I believed that, him, being the first and the corresponding author should make the most contribution to the manuscript. This means I assume that he should write the literature review and dicussion, the two sections central to the manuscript. So, I told him that I was more than willing to write the introduction, implications, and conclusions. However, after I told him my plan, I got this reply: "Thanks for letting me know you that you are unwilling to write the literature review. I have other plans for the sections you mentioned." "As you did not contribute more than the third author in the manuscript writing, you are NOT the second author". Later, my advisor told me "the other plans" we had was asking some of his students, possibly the RAs to write the rest parts of the manuscript. This makes me feel very uncomfortable, as I felt that he was trying to claim the first author without making the first-author contribution to the manuscript writing. Following is the information about my role in the project: 1. My advisor conceptualize the project, and I constructed the experiment materials for project by working with my advisor. 2. I played a leading role the data collection by working with 2 undergraduate RAs and 2 postgraduate RAs. I assisted all the 4 RAs in the course of data collection as they are still new to our experiment. Apart from that, I independently collected 50% of the data. 3. I have written the methodology section of the manuscript. 4. I cleaned all the data and coded the data for the Dean's analysis. My questions: 1. In general, does the second author have the right to choose which sections he writes for the manuscript? 2. We have agreed the sequence of the authorship but my advisor is inviting more people such as the RAs who did not made much contribution to the experiment (expect for data collection) to write the manuscript. This means he will only need to write the abstract and the discussion sections of the paper. Is this ethical that he still claim to be the first author? 3. I will not write the literature review but I have agreed to write some other sections of the manuscript. However, it seems that I could not be the 2nd author unless I write the literature review. May I know how to solve this issue?<issue_comment>username_1: In general, there are no special privileges associated with being a second author. The ordering of authors and their contributions follow conventions of the field and of the culture. For example, in pure Mathematics, all authors are in alphabetical order. Computer Science has developed some customs according to which the most important student author goes first. You are not giving your field or your country, so there is nothing I can tell you about whether this ordering is unusual. (1) As a second author, you do not get to decide which sections you get to write. This is a collaborative job, and in academia, your advisor is the one who calls the shots. (A smart advisor will listen to the collective wisdom of the rest of the students.) (2) Anyone who makes a substantive contribution to the paper can become an author. A first author has not necessarily done most of the work or written most of the article. If you advisor thought of the project and supervised you, there is a point to be made that he was most instrumental in getting the paper written and therefore has a right to be the first author. The data collection you supervised might or might not have been of a technical nature that a lot of other people could have done as well. An advisor is supposed to let students write parts of an article so that they learn how to do it. The advisor is supposed to supervise them closely. (3) If you do not write the literature review, then you will not be the second author. If you want to be second author, you write the literature review. The literature review is after the introduction the most read part of a paper for review. It shows that the authors understand the field and are not re-inventing the wheel. If you are asked to write the literature review, then this means that your advisor judges you capable of writing it, meaning that your advisor thinks that you have mastered the literature. It might very well be that in a more just world, you would be first author or the second author contributing according to your wishes. However, when you entered academia as a student and when you picked your advisor, you agreed to be supervised and guided. This means that you might have to defer to their judgment. Also, you seem to be trying to pick a fight with the very people (advisor and dean) who will referee this fight. Do not expect to win this one. I cannot tell for sure whether your advisor is acting unreasonably or not. It seems to me however that you are underestimating your advisor's role as a guide and decision maker, and more importantly, the rest of the faculty in the department might see it this way as well. Too long to read: Not knowing the field and country, we cannot tell whether your advisor or you are acting unreasonably. It does not matter, because if you fight your advisor, you are not likely to win, but will destroy the relationship with your advisor and make a reputation for yourself as a difficult student. Difficult students make it through a program if they are brilliant (or very close to it). Are you brilliant? Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Based on your description of events, I don't think your advisor has followed good practice here. Authorship is something that should be negotiated based on project contribution (as you did at the outset) and changes in the contributions give rise to legitimate opportunities to renegotiate authorship. I do not believe it is fair for one author to make a unilateral decision to "demote" the authorship order of another author simply because they refuse to take on more work than was initially negotiated. What should have happened here was a discussion between you and your supervisor (and possibly also the Dean) to reallocate work on the manuscript and determine whether the reallocation of work justifies a change in the order of authorship. This is something that ought to be done by negotiation in the first instance, with some kind of outside adjudication in the event of insoluble disputes. If you feel that you have been hard-done-by on the authorship of the paper, and you want to take this further, you might consider telling your supervisor about your concerns and asking that they be resolved by adjudication by an outside party (e.g., another academic in the Department). It is reasonable to expect that if you undertake the work that was negotiated at the outset then you should receive the authorship credit that was negotiated at the outset, unless there is some compelling reason to the contrary. This situation is complicated a bit by the fact that it occurred within a supervisory relationship. In general, it is normal for a supervisor to allocate work to a student, even including allocating additional contributions to a project beyond what was first anticipated. Part of this occurs because in addition to writing a paper, you are also in training for research work, so your supervisor probably wants to ensure that you have practice in all aspects of research. It is generally not good practice for a research student to refuse to do the work allocated by their supervisor, since the latter will generally have a good idea of how to effectively train their research student. The interaction between this and the authorship question is somewhat complex. I don't think that either you or your supervisor have covered yourselves in glory here, and both of you should rethink your approach to matters like this in future. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	1,620	6,974	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate doing research in STEM. I'm in a US research university. I'm genuinely confused as what to expect from a Ph.D. advisor in general. To start off, should the student propose the research topic, or should it be expected the advisor assigns a topic to the student to work on? I know the answer to this may not be black and white. In my current situation, I feel it's more like my advisor gave me a general area, and I find some specific research questions within the area to work on. Still, I feel my advisor is able to offer little concrete help, except maybe point to a few papers. Is this normal? To be completely honest, I do not completely trust my advisor's judgement, since they have co-authored a paper in this area which is fundamentally flawed. And despite my advisor having acknowledged the mistakes I've pointed out in that paper, they did not seem to take any further action. I know this is concerning, but the fact is I have already tried working with several (2-3) faculty members at my institution. All seem to be able to offer little help. One faculty did not seem to know the literature very well and gave no useful advice, with another faculty I witnessed the birth of another erroneous publication. I genuinely don't know why this is happening, my institution is supposedly not terrible (say, top 10 in most grad school rankings of the department I'm in), and these faculty members have published in top-tier venues. Can someone perhaps shed some light in my situation? Should I basically expect no help from my advisor, and perhaps merely treat advisors taking the role of 'project managers'? In daily communications, should I just report my work, instead of expecting meaningful technical advises? (I might add that my current research is more mathematical. )<issue_comment>username_1: If you have an idea for a research topic, by all means discuss the idea with any potential advisor to see if they can offer support and assistance (both are important). In some fields a doctoral student integrates into a well established research program and the advisor may have a lot to say about the topic, but even then, some flexibility might be possible. In other fields, math and some theoretical CS, each student works on an independent problem within a fairly narrow range of topics of interest to the advisor. Some students are also much more able to carry on independently from the start, though, again, in some fields this is rare, especially in the US. Advisors should have the ability to suggest problems at least. If they don't then they are probably a poor choice for supervision. But the topic will need to seem "interesting" to them if they are to offer any advice. Along the way a good advisor should be able and willing to review your work and make suggestions, especially when the going gets rough, though in some fields this can be delegated to, say, postdocs in the lab. There are some places in which a small number of faculty with similar interests will hold a periodic seminar (weekly, perhaps) in which common ideas are discussed. This can take the form of a discussion group with the advisees of those faculty welcome or required to attend. It is a good way to get feedback and also to broaden your view of the research possibilities. If you don't have an advisor (dissertation advisor might be distinct from academic advisor) figure out what the interests of several faculty members are. Approach someone and be honest about your needs and ability. Some might turn you down, but that is a favor. You need some mutuality of interests to be a success. More senior faculty are more likely to have a lot of ideas, though recently tenured faculty might have more energy. Either can work. I recommend against untenured faculty as their own interests are likely to overwhelm what they can do to help as their tenure decision nears. It is also possible, with untenured faculty, that they will not get tenured leaving you in an uncomfortable spot. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: It seems that your question is really: how do I find a PhD advisor, and as I start working with them, how do I establish myself as a member of the group? That is a very common struggle faced by graduate students in the US (or in places with American-style PhD programs), where the student has to find an advisor after joining the PhD program. In other countries (e.g. most of Europe) PhD students are almost always hired directly into a research group, and the advisor-student relationship is entrenched from the start. In the US, the trouble is that when you're talking to professors, you're not "their" student yet so they have no responsibility towards you. You may also feel like you have to impress professors so that you can "get in" to their group, and this can be an obstacle to effective communication. This is one of the downsides of the US-style graduate school system, and there is no easy solution. Some students are manage to find an advisor immediately and hit the ground running. Others may end up awkwardly bouncing around between research groups, effectively wasting a few years of time in the process. You should simply be direct, and make it clear that you're looking for a project to do. "What is expected" of a PhD student varies widely, of course, but as a general rule, PhD students (especially in their early stages) are not expected to independently come up with original research ideas. So don't feel embarrassed if you don't come up with ideas yourself, and ask you advisor to give you ideas. If they only give you a list of papers to read, then read them! Again, don't feel like you need to come up with a research project yourself (if you start to get ideas--then great!) If you don't have new ideas, be honest about that, and just be prepared to discuss the papers your advisor gave you. In terms of choosing advisors, you may want to choose a "less competitive" research group. In most departments, you will find groups with well-known professors that everyone want to join, along with some less popular groups. If you've been aiming only for the big name professors, maybe you should reach out to lesser known professors in your department instead. As a last resort, you can go to your department for help. Typically there is a professor (or multiple professors) involved with administration, usually with some title like director of graduate studies, etc. Talk to them and explain your predicament. In the way that most American graduate schools work, no individual professor is obligated to accept you into their research group, but the department as a whole does have some responsibility towards you. After all, they admitted you to their program, and they don't want you to drop out. If you truly felt like you put in a good effort into finding an advisor but it somehow hasn't worked out, your department should be able to help. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	1,166	5,205	<issue_start>username_0: I am an undergrad student studying in the last year of my bachelor’s. I have written one paper in number theory discovering one new elementary method. I want to publish it. For mentorship I went to my mathematics department and asked for help, but the professor whom I met wants his name on my paper as a co-author. He has not done anything. I just asked him for guidance and to review the paper format. He even said that without the name of professors some journals don’t consider accepting papers. Is that true? This is my first paper so I have no knowledge about anything. I desperately want this paper to get published. This is my five-year long research and could be a good paper which may change the perception of people working in that field. Can someone give some suggestions? Should I do as that professor says?<issue_comment>username_1: If you have written the paper on your own and another person has made no intellectual contribution to it, then they have no claim at authorship. I don't know of any journal that requires a professor to be the author of any paper, but I can't rule out that such might exist, but it wouldn't be true for most reputable journals at least. Note that there are math journals dedicated to student work. You might consider submitting there. But also note that you might be overestimating the importance and impact of what you have done. Advice from someone more experienced can be valuable, but this professor seems to be unethical about authorship, given what you say. If they help you with the presentation of the ideas then they might be due an acknowledgement, but the standards for authorship are pretty high and especially true in maths. If you submit to a journal, you will get some feedback. If the paper doesn't meet the expected quality standards then it will probably be quick, but not especially valuable. If it is a good paper, then the feedback will take longer but be more useful. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I agree with username_1 that going through a paper does not constitute authorship immediately. However, I will defend the other case. You can benefit greatly by including a professor in your paper. For one, by including him you will not be losing much. There are non-critical benefits such as bringing an established name (if they are known in the field) which could open opportunities to publish in better journals. They might be able to identify well suited journals which could save you time. However, more important is once they are in as an author, they are duty bound to ensure your paper is factual, they might also identify representation and presentation issues, find problems with the writing and so on. While theoretical work and the idea are the most important parts for a paper, you cannot publish it, if it is not represented well. You cannot expect a professor to review your paper multiple times (my top review count is 12 for a single paper) without compensation. I was in a similar situation during the first year of my PhD. I have decided to go to the professor of a lecture with my idea that I thought I would publish in a conference. We ended up publishing in a very good journal. Finally, this might be the start of a fruitful collaboration. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: For the first, there is no journal that requires to have a Professor as a co-author. However, if you want your paper to be published... this will be extremely difficult. You've asked for guidance, have you? I am following just what you are saying - that you are new in that, in publishing articles, right? So that's why I am saying that it would be extremely difficult for you, because you are already asking the others what to do. When I was young, I tried to send my first article to the highly reputed journal, and I did not ask anybody how to do that! And I won - I received three positive references at once and got published! Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_4: I've never heard of a journal requiring that a student author include an academic co-author though my field is the biological sciences. Nonetheless, I see little downside to simply submitting your paper to an appropriate journal. Follow the instructions (if you can do original research in math, I full expect that you can follow formatting instructions) and send it in. If your work has merit, the reviewers and editor will provide the guidance necessary to see it published. There aren't many academics who'd claim that the process is perfectly straightforward and there are plenty of examples of good work that doesn't get published or only after excessive efforts. There are certainly many more examples of papers that are submitted with serious issues ranging from fundamental flaws to inadequate citations to atrocious writing. Frankly, your professor/mentor probably could help you avoid most of these...and co-authorship, while not strictly necessary, may not be unreasonable. Your post suggests that you don't think your professor's efforts merit co-authorship, but accepting his/her advice and taking them on as a co-author may be the most expedient way to getting your work out there. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	580	2,494	<issue_start>username_0: I am serving a 1 year bond in my company that paid the expenses for my masters program, which stipulates that I have to serve the bond for a year on the date of my completion. It has been 3 to 4 months since I have completed my studies and I wonder when would be the right time to approach potential supervisors of a different University, as I have another 8 months left to serve the bond. The PhD application is open throughout the year. I am wondering when would be the right time to approach the supervisor since realistically I could only join in only 8 months later? Should I approach when I have another 2 months left to serve the bond, maybe sooner, or maybe I could correspond with the PhD supervisor even now?<issue_comment>username_1: Before you contact prospective supervisors you should first have a look at the preferred practice in the university you are going to apply to --- some universities discourage contact with prospective supervisors prior to program entry and others require it. Assuming that contact with prospective supervisors prior to entry is okay, it would be perfectly fine (even desirable) to have early contact. A period of eight months prior to entry is desirable since it gives the prospective supervisor time to interview you, scrutinise your work and proposed research, seek revisions, and contact your referees (again, universities vary on these practices). Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: When a PhD position is open, it is expected to be filled as soon as possible. However, as soon as possible means at minimum 4 months (opening the positions, receiveing applications, screening candidates, interviewing them ....) more realistically 6 months. Assuming you apply now and that you are called for an interview in one month from now, it would not be unusual you will be asked "when will you be available to begin the position?". Unless your answer is "in 2 years starting from now" it is quite likely that saying in "~7 months from now" is not going to have influence on the decision: if you will be the picked candidate, they know you will be available in 7 months, and that's all. To clarify the matter, you can contact the secretary or other similar-HR position, since it is a rolling open position, they should be able to provide an answer, without you bothering the professor. You may discover the PhD has teaching duties so there are preferred starting times (thanks @GEdgar). Upvotes: 0
2022/06/27	743	2,951	<issue_start>username_0: I have a research paper that I want to upload on arXiv. Almost all the papers I have seen on arXiv are written in Times New Roman. I understand scientific papers are written in that font mostly. But I have seen papers from DeepMind and other AI labs writing in a wide variety of fonts including Trebuchet MS. I've written my paper in Trebuchet MS because it is an easily readable font. Do I need to change my font into Times New Roman or will Trebuchet MS be fine with arXiv? I was unable to find a clear answer onlibe or in the submission guidelines.<issue_comment>username_1: If you have trouble with a specific product (i.e. arXiv), you should write first to the product maintainers (i.e. [Contact section](https://arxiv.org/help/contact)). How are you producing your document? you can submit to arXiv only in 3 family of formats (in order of preference): 1. (La)TeX, AMS(La)TeX, PDFLaTeX 2. PDF 3. HTML with JPEG/PNG/GIF images Regarding pdf, [they clearly state](https://arxiv.org/help/submit_pdf): > > You must ensure that all non-standard fonts are included and that > outline (TrueType/Type1) rather than bitmap (Type3) fonts are used. In > Adobe Distiller and many other products this is referred to as > compatibility mode and will ensure that the PDF document is as > portable as possible. > > > So it boils down to: * do you have the rights to share a document with Trebuchet? do you need permission from the copyrights'owners? * can you technically bring the font in your LaTex or PDF or HTML document? Good luck finding [someone to endorse you](https://arxiv.org/help/endorsement) (since you state you are a high-school student...) and good luck with your research work! Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: > > I understand Scientific papers are written in Times New Roman font mostly > > > Regarding this premise, it is probably not correct for arXiv papers. As you may know, arXiv covers a range of topics but mainly invites papers on mathematics, physics, computer science and related areas. These papers are written mainly in LaTeX. The default font in LaTeX is Computer Modern. > > I've written my paper in "Trebuchet MS" because it is an easily readable font. > > > Many modern fonts are "better" than Computer Modern in one way or another. However, note that Trebuchet MS is designed primarily as a web font that should render well in browsers. Research papers typically are distributed in pdf, and benefit most from fonts that are designed for printing on paper. A web font may be nice and readable on screen but appear poorly on paper when printed. During arXiv submission you will have an opportunity to check the final pdf as it will appear for readers. You may simply submit paper to arXiv and see if you encounter any issues during the submission. In case of any problems it's best to approach the arXiv support team for instructions. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2022/06/27	2,904	12,773	<issue_start>username_0: Suppose I am a Ph.D. student in machine learning and have an idea about developing a model that I presume to be more efficient than existing models. Although I have a broad idea of coding to some extent, I don't know to code my model on a deeper level and it will take much time. In order to publish a paper on the model, there is no need to prove the efficiency of the model mathematically. It is sufficient to show empirically that my model performs better than the existing ones. As undergraduates have more machine learning programming exposure due to the lab sessions, project works they handle, etc., they can do coding much more easily compared to Ph.D. students. I have three options, either ethical or unethical: 1. Use an undergraduate student and ask the person to code by giving them all my requirements. Then publish the paper with me as the first author and the coder as the second author. Although many of my fellow students use this option, I don't like it. [Coding alone generally does not fit to offer authorship](https://www.springer.com/gp/editorial-policies/authorship-principles#c17450256) as packages in Machine learning generally have the inbuilt functions and my model can be developed using them. 2. Use an undergraduate student and ask the person to code by giving them all my requirements. Then publish the paper with me as the sole author. I personally don't like this idea as a rule of my institute says that a Ph.D. student should be the first and most significant author in the papers they publish. And I am aware that I cannot publish my idea quickly without the help of an undergraduate person. So I am feeling that it is not a complete contribution on my own as I need the help of the person for executing all my intermediate ideas in developing the model as I am not well aware of the functions provided by the package. 3. Learn coding by spending time and then do it on my own and then publish the paper as the sole author. I am biased towards the third one as it is ideal and ethical to do. But the only issue is that the option is time-consuming. It can take so much time to learn to code and then develop my model. There is a chance that some others may publish the same idea during this time. I am confused about the first two options. To be honest, In the situation, I am discussing, coding seems to be an important resource than the idea. Because many ideas in machine learning papers are easy and publishing papers also does not need any mathematical proof, so the implementation is a key factor for publication. In this context, I want to know whether options 1 and 2 are ethical or not.<issue_comment>username_1: Nuances are important here. Learning programming to implement your idea is probably too time consuming. If the programming is a standard task at the level of a programming assignment in the third or fourth year or something contracted via the mechanical turk or a similar website, then the programmer would work essentially as a handy-man. If you were a 19th century physicist, you might go to a glas-blower in order to have a tube in which you can create a vacuum. Any result of the research would not have the glas-blower as its author. Similarly, a programmer that translates your ideas into code makes no intellectual contribution to your research. Both the programmer and the glas-blower are absolutely essential and without them, you cannot be successful, but they are not intellectual authors. Of course, programming is an intellectually challenging endeavor. The situation changes the moment that the programmer would go beyond translating your ideas into code. Depending on the amount of contribution, the programmer would then become an intellectual author. Thus, sole authorship (and thanking the programmer explicitly) would be most likely the more realistic way of publishing your method. Allow me to add a warning: You seem to be somewhat inexperienced in research. You might need to have a mentor for your project. Also, do not underestimate the costs of programming. You will have to pay the programmer a reasonable rate and most non-programmers underestimate the time it takes to develop good code. In addition, you need to spend some time to write good specifications of the code. When you do this, you might find out that you did not think out your idea well. In view of this, finding a student colleague who can program and can act as an interlocutor for you so that they contribute materially to the paper and become second author might be preferable. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Let me at least add to the [answer of tschwarz](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/186445/75368). Long term if you want to stay in this field you need to learn the necessary tools to be successful. This would seem to me to include programming. The problem is that if you simply specify a program you may not know when it is done whether it is appropriate for your situation or not. If you can't evaluate it you can't really depend on it to give accurate results. This might be especially valuable if you are comparing a new model with existing models. For the current situation, I'd suggest that you are at least first author. But ask yourself whether it would be important for those evaluating your work to have access to the code you use. If you expect that it should be published along with the paper or that interested parties are likely to ask for it, then the programmer is most likely an author as well. The quality of the code can subtly affect the outcome. My guess is that in this case, readers will want the code. And you will need to work closely with them to assure that it actually represents your model ideas. However, if the code is simply something like standard statistical measures (tabulating and descriptive statistics) then, like the linked answer, there is little creativity in it and the code isn't necessary to publish, leading to sole authorship (with thanks to the programmer). But, you still need to be able to verify it's correctness and you are on shaky ground here if you can't do that. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: This question seems to mix up a number of different threads. Much research is collaborative in its nature. A project may involve multiple individuals who each bring different things to the table. There is nothing wrong with deciding that the most efficient way to execute a particular piece of work is to bring other people on board. There are many reasons one might do this: sometimes it is because they have knowledge or expertise; sometimes it is because they have access to particular resources; sometimes it's simply about having spare time to work on something. However, having other people involved creates new problems. It is important to make sure that everyone is on the same page about 'what they get in return for their involvement', and that expectations align with community norms. This involves many questions that we see here all the time, such as: * Who will be an author on any papers? Who will be first/last/etc author? * Is anyone expecting to be paid for their involvement? What about reimbursement of costs? Where is the money coming from? * Is anyone expecting to submit the work to be examined/assessed for any purpose? What do they need to do and when are the deadlines? Will it be possible to isolate their contribution sufficiently from anyone else's? So, there is nothing intrinsically wrong in having an idea and asking an undergraduate to help you implement it. However, you need to: 1. Be clear on 'what they get out of it': are they getting course credits for it? Are you paying them? Are you just offering 'experience' and 'warm fuzzy feelings'? 2. Make sure everything is above board. If they are getting credits: congratulations, you are now a supervisor! Do you and the student both understand what is required, when it has to be completed, and how it is marked? What paperwork needs to be done? How are you going to make sure they get a fair opportunity to demonstrate their skills and get good marks? What happens if the project doesn't go as well as you hope? If you are paying them: where is the money coming from? What are your obligations under employment law? 3. Make sure everyone understands the position regarding authorship on any papers, and that this aligns with the norms of your field. Generally, writing all the code would seem to meet the test of 'substantial contribution' to a paper, and merit co-authorship. The situation is more complicated if you are hoping to submit this piece of work as part of your own portfolio for an examination (e.g. as part of a PhD thesis). You need to check the rules and regulations at your institution. As a matter of general ethics, you cannot pass off the undergraduate's work as your own. You need to make sure you clearly identify which parts of a project are "your" contributions, and that these are substantial enough to merit inclusion in your thesis in their own right. So, for example, you might write: > > In this chapter I show that volume of a U-basket is proportional to its dimensionality.... [several pages of maths]. To test this formula, simulations were performed for the 3 dimensional case (<NAME>, Undergraduate thesis, Bigname University, 2022) and results are summarised in Fig. 1. We see that... and this supports the results developed in this thesis. > > > Bear in mind that supervising someone else to do research is often harder than doing it yourself. You need to make sure they understand what is required, and then you need to convince yourself that what they actually did matches what you wanted them to do. You need to make sure you understand how to use their code to produce publishable results, or you need to coach them to produce publication-quality figures for you. And you take on the risk that they misunderstand the task, or their code has bugs, or they turn out to be an idiot, or they get bored halfway through and walk away. So perhaps learning to write your own code isn't so bad after all! Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: This whole situation is completely, utterly baffling. After reading the exchange in the chat, it seems apparent that you, a PhD student in machine learning of all things, do not feel comfortable around standard packages such as sklearn or PyTorch. This is bad. Really, really bad. That the professors are not interested in getting up to speed with the newest research is unfortunate, but you can not - should not! - accept this as a "natural order of things" and follow their example. They have likely secured their place in life. You have not. Even if you get very lucky with long-term collaborations and people who could cover the implementations, your joint projects would still benefit immensely from you learning to code a thing or two. Yes, if you had an authority and have previously demonstrated a deep understanding of the subject, you could then assume a command over an army of students, but you are not at that stage of the career yet. Students have ideas of their own, in a few short years they will reach your stage and you will end up being far behind. Truly, by being reluctant to learn now, in (probably) the fastest-moving field to boot, you are endangering your entire future career. I can not overstress how important it is for you to catch up on tools of the trade. As soon as possible. Further, it is extremely unlikely for that idea of yours to strike a gold vein and for the student employed to not realize that immediately, and with possibly better understanding than you will have - kaggle trains people to think about these things. In no universe stating "oh it was just coding, all the important ideas were mine" would be ethical: either you can not be sure the results were correct (and you should not be publishing them then), or the person employed did a substantial amount of intellectual work not just putting them together, but analyzing and verifying them. All in all, the best strategy would be humbling yourself, acknowledging you will need some basic coding skills in this career, and possibly even attending the same classes undergrads take as an auditor or enlisting outside help otherwise. Collaborating on a paper is possible, too, but they will have to get co-authorship, and there are many additional concerns @username_3 has listed in their answer. I am sorry for the strong wording in this post, but also... not really. I firmly believe that following your professors' example would do you an enormous disservice here, so get to learning - painful as it might be. I know firsthand it is daunting, but it can be done and, in your case, definitely should. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	1,439	5,761	<issue_start>username_0: Before submitting my predictions paper, I spotted a paper with alternative methods for the same predictions. It appeared two weeks ago online-first in the same journal I'm submitting to. Digging into it, I found several issues. To validate predictions, the authors cherry-picked empirical results from the same table of another paper. The results' type and time period, clear from the table, were not the ones assumed for the predictions, which essentially invalidates comparison. The paper's code is on GitHub, but not the scripts for input filtering; so no reproducing the results. The model stated in the paper is commented out, and the one in the code is trained on both training and validation sets, contrary to practice and the paper. If assessed fairly, the predictions would be rather less impressive. And it is hard to tell how they were actually obtained. Q1: What should I do about these issues? There are similar questions, such as [1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27147/what-is-the-correct-procedure-to-report-typos-or-errors-in-journal-articles), [2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/137982/how-whether-to-correct-a-wrong-paper-published-in-a-prestigious-journal), [3](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/47207/can-i-challenge-a-paper-already-published-in-a-peer-reviewed-conference-journal), [4](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/84951/what-to-do-with-gaps-in-mathematical-papers), [5](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/18911/what-should-you-do-if-you-spotted-a-non-trivial-error-in-a-highly-cited-paper), [6](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/97795/when-a-professor-commits-scientific-fraud-are-the-journal-reviewers-and-editors). However, the usual answers --- to move softly and slowly, or just park it --- is probably not the way to go: a flawed paper on public health in a major journal can have consequences. I've doubts about emailing the authors as I'm not sure how honest their mistakes were and why they would respond. (Surely, authors would triple-check this type of papers? Literally, "we publish; you perish".) I guess I could open code-related issues on GitHub, and see whether the authors engage. At least people using their code might take notice. Q2: How should I proceed with the submission? This journal is the best place for this research, and for many reasons I'd like to submit as soon as possible. The reviewers would probably request me to compare predictions with that paper's, which is fair, but not in the circumstances. Shall I just submit without mentioning the other paper? Or should I attach a diplomatic letter describing the issues? I don't think the original reviewers are at fault: the issues are hard to spot without manually cross-checking numbers and references and digging into the code base. Still, would it be wise to make some requests, so that my paper be reviewed fairly?<issue_comment>username_1: My suggestion would be to submit your paper without additional comment. Making comments initially will only slow down the process. If you are asked about your view of the other paper by an editor or reviewer then respond at that time. At most, point out that you come to different conclusions than the other paper and believe your methodology to be superior, resulting in better predictions. But submitting your work will get it into the review process. --- Caveat: Note that there is quite a lot of "opinion" in this answer and a weighing of likely outcomes. It is the editor of the journal who's opinion carries weight here. Other "solutions" might work. I suggested the above to get the quickest feedback. Or at least get appropriate questions asked early to help guide later actions. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: My suggestion would be to prepare your paper for publication ASAP, which you would have done anyway. You raise a very good point about correcting the record, especially when it comes to public health. In your situation I would distill the disagreement between your results and theirs into as few words as possible -- one sentence for the biggest difference in results and one sentence for the biggest flaws in methodology -- and then stick it in the appropriate place in your paper. For example: > > Kaufman (1924) predicts that widgetitis will only infect one American a year, while our models project anywhere between 2000-4000 widgetitis deaths annually instead. We attribute this significant discrepancy to Kaufman's likely inaccurate estimate of population densities and demographics at the county, state, and national level, as well as improper training procedures of the HAL9000 neural network, which we discuss in the Supplementary Information. > > > Then include a brief summary of your own replication findings in the Supplementary Information. The best cure to a wrong study is to make your study infinitely more citeable -- putting a lengthy critique in the SI probably doesn't help, right as it may be. You could set up a GitHub Page (or even Code Ocean page) presenting your counter-analysis in more detail and then link to that. If you follow this course, you can request to the editors to not ask Kaufman (in this case) to review your paper, since there would be a natural conflict of interest. I don't know about norms in your field, but in my field I would almost certainly email the authors to let them know that I was about to raise issues with their paper in mine. You can easily send off that email and then continue working on the paper; if they respond, you can continue discussing with them as needed, and if they don't, it's on the record that you tried to discuss this matter more collegially. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/27	1,124	4,721	<issue_start>username_0: It is often the case that you want to make a similar point compared to what you made in previous papers, but in a different context. But you can't use the same figure that you used in a previous paper because that wouldn't be considered original work (it could be called "self-plagiarism", but I don't much like that term). I'm not interested in the legal (copyright) perspective, which has been covered in this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/4881/61971). I'm interested in it from a research conduct and ethics perspective. If I adapt a figure for a new context, what makes it original? Changing the layout? Changing some labels? Changing axes ranges of plots? Adding some new data along with the old? Or must it be all new data?<issue_comment>username_1: In the end it is up to the journal whether your work is original enough for their purposes. However, to avoid self-plagiarism concerns all you need to do is to make clear the relation to prior work. If a figure is reproduced wholesale (which is often appropriate, especially in review articles), state from where it is reproduced (and secure permission to do so). If the layout is changed, state that the figure is adapted from the original. If some of the data in the figure was previously published, clearly state its origin and make clear what data is new. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Self-plagiarism is reuse of material without appropriate attribution. It is entirely ethical to reuse a figure from a prior paper as long as you attribute the content of the figure. I have found the phrase "reproduced from" (for exact copies) and "adapted from" (for redrawn or otherwise adjusted material) to be useful here. For example, if you were publishing a follow-up paper on an experiment with a new analysis of its data, you might include a diagram of the setup taken from the first figure with a caption like: > > "The self-operating napkin apparatus was set up in both the full specified configuration as a control condition and in reduced forms omitting either the parrot (E) or the rocket (K), as specified in (Goldberg, 1931). Figure reproduced from (Goldberg, 1931)" > > > Copyright, as you note, is an entirely independent question. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: In the context of publishing, editors want original figures because previously used ones are copy-righted. As far as self-plagiarism is concerned: First, this is a concept that covers two different fields: (1) Student work submitted for evaluation and (2) academic articles. The prohibition of self-plagiarism for (1) is the impact on the evaluation of student work. For (2), it is about someone inflating their work (usually for self-promotion) by publishing the same idea multiple times. Using criteria from context (1) for context (2) is misleading (even though I will get down-voted for this opinion). Therefore, witty formulations from the introduction copied from one work to another without marking them as such is self-plagiarism in context (1) and not in context (2). Using exactly the same idea to write to entirely different articles should be self-plagiarism in context (2) but is usually not in (1). Of course, there is a very large gray zone here. In the context of your question: Figures can be very complicated and involve art work. I am thinking of a figure showing the different style of bronze age axes between two different sites. That figure should not be copied from one work to another without clearly marking it. Second, figures can be very utilitarian. Assume you have one data set that you use for both papers. You create a scatter graph using mathematica or matplotlip.pyplot. I do not think it is self-plagiarism if you end up using exactly the same figure. The creative novelty is in the data, not the depiction. Changing minor things such as colors or sizes does not change the original sufficiently, but it will make your editorial house happy because it is now harder to claim a copy-right violation. Should you mark this clearly? The US patent law uses a fictitious "competent engineer" to test for the novelty of a potential invention. A similar standard should appear here, because otherwise terse academic writing will be filled with (adapted from) notes that are entirely superfluous. A figure is often just a way to describe data. If the same data is reused, that reuse needs to be flagged. But changing fonts on a simple scatter plot is silly. To give a final example: You compare the population of Uruguay and Burundi over the last century from raw data. You cite the data source. The drawing of a graph is so simple that the drawing is not cite-worthy. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	447	2,046	<issue_start>username_0: I am trying to evaluate how much truth the statement has "Research output is proportional to the amount of funding the institution gets". On the extreme end I see it is absolutely true because for certain research like that of chemistry, quantum computing etc, research would be really hindered without the researchers having access to actual facilities for conducting experiments and such.. but what about for those abstract topics like pure mathematics or theoretical sciences, do the research output of such topics also depend on the amount of funding which institutions relating to them gets?<issue_comment>username_1: The statement is too strong as it posits an exact relationship that doesn't exist. But it is true that funding and (quantity and quality) of research output are positively correlated. But there are many other factors. In the US, most R1 (research) universities are also strong in teaching, especially undergraduate education. Some large state universities have over 40,000 students, mostly undergraduates. That all gets funded, both from tuition and from tax revenue. A lot of research also means a lot of grant writing and grant funding, both from private and government (tax) sources. And, specifically for math, the undergraduate program is very important, so funding is arranged somehow. And mathematicians also apply for and get grants. The university, especially a research university, is a very complex place with a very diversified mission. Research funding is an important part, but not the only factor. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This is not a complete answer, but if you don't have any research funding, you have to make a living in some other way. In many cases -- at smaller, not so research active universities, for example -- that means that people have to teach more than at those universities where people have more research funds. As a consequence, people without research funding also have less time for research, and that affects their productivity. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/27	1,199	5,154	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently working on a Unity 3D FPS game. and I was wondering if I write a detailed paper on what a made in a specific part and steps to replicate it like a documentation .Would it qualify to be a research paper considering I had to research a lot of topics mainly about unity engine to make it? and do I have to publish it in a journal or I just put it in a personal website/Blog?<issue_comment>username_1: A "research paper" is a document presenting some novelty to practitioners in a certain topic of a certain fields. (side note: counterintuitively, a review paper is also presenting some novelty: the review itself.) Your question is if the product you build can be presented as a research paper. Of course, the product itself is a novelty and it can be presented in a scientific way. However, the fact that it can be presented as a research paper does not automatically mean that it would be interesting to the research community. The research paper goal is to share research results with researchers that may further build up on the tool itself. Let's take the Python module called NumPy (Harris et al., 2020): it exists since almost two decades, it has been used intensively in the last two decades, but it has been presented in a research paper only in 2020. Moreover, it is not even the NumPy itself presented, rather NumPy and its application (the title of the paper is "Array programming with NumPy"). But in the previous two decades there were user's guide, blog entries, technical notes about NumPy. Try to look for software similar to yours, try to see if anyone published a paper (a research paper about DOOM? that would have been cool!) ... I guess your product can, in the best of the worlds, follow the NumPy way: available, manual published, 20 years later if succesfull finally published as a research paper. Maybe someone will blend your FPS with a ML-driven robotic proton guns shooting at singular cancer cells, with the surgeon carefully checking the robotic gun job using 3d VR-glasses, who knows? Ref.: <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME> <NAME>. et al. Array programming with NumPy. Nature 585, 357–362 (2020). <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2649-2> Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Perhaps an old example will help clarify things. One of my professional interests (before retirement) was languages and compilers. One of the issues in some languages, like C, was, and remains, memory management. Some important programs can require more memory than the architecture provides, so memory needs to be recycled during execution. Some languages avoid the issue by using a run-time feature called garbage collection. This frees the programmer from making sure that memory is used efficiently. But efficiency is relative. At one time, garbage collectors provided a benefit to the programmer but were very slow. One version resulted in measurable delays in the progress of a computation while the garbage collector took over the processor and returned now-unused memory to the pool of available locations. There was a great need for faster and non-disruptive garbage collectors and it was, for a few years an important research area. Even a small advance was considered enough to earn a student their doctorate. But, research proceed as follows. A proposal would be made about the possible structure of a more efficient GC scheme. Then, the student would spend a year or so building an implementation and refining it. But that wasn't enough for the awarding of a degree or the publishing of "research papers", though they were clearly conducting research. What resulted in the degree was the analysis of the behavior and efficiency of that implementation (or, more generally, the underlying algorithm) in a variety of useful cases. If the new software could be shown to be measurably and reliably more efficient than existing approaches, even by a small amount, say 3-5%, then the student would earn their degree, publish the results, and be praised by the language research community. The dissertation was not the code listing of the garbage collector, though it would include at least some high level description of it (with source possibly available). The important part of the dissertation was the analysis that led one to treat the approach as superior. That was the research contribution. If the software failed to show an advance, then the student went back to work, even though some valuable things might have been learned. In a few cases, it might have been possible to publish the fact that a certain "interesting" approach actually fails to work, but not a lot of that happened. Short version: the software had to show a measurable and reliable advance over existing practice to be seen as a worthy contribution. I'm guessing that what you have done has none of the above characteristics. It might be an interesting "case study" for someone wanting to do something similar and wanting some guidance in how to go about it, but as research it seems to be lacking that "advance over current practice" that is normally expected in software research. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/28	1,314	5,536	<issue_start>username_0: I currently hold a full time teaching position, and recently accepted another full time teaching position at another university. Is there any reason I can't teach for both schools since the workload is mostly online teaching? (note -- I have been teaching for multiple universities for years, just never holding two "full time" positions). Location- US. Also, it is the norm in the US for Adjuncts to hold multiple positions at various universities, often teaching over 10 courses a term. But they are not considered full time.<issue_comment>username_1: I am not sure where you are based, but in Germany (and I assume in many other countries) you have to disclose any other parallel employment in detail to the respective other employer for tax reasons. Not to disclose this second job is thus not only "frowned upon" or unethical, but illegal. There are also laws in place how many hours you are allowed to work per week (these laws are in place to prevent people from being overworked) and having two fulltime jobs (around 8 hours/day) definitely exceeds that limit (I believe it is 48h/week) by a lot. So another reason this would be illegal. On top, teaching does not only entail giving lectures, but preparing them, giving exams and correcting them, in some cases being a (co-)supervisor of bachelor or master theses etc. While it might be somehow possible to hold all lectures online for two full-time positions (but that only works out if there is absolutely no overlap), I highly doubt that it would be possible to satifactory fit all those other duties for two full positions into the time one person has. I believe that if either uni were to know about the fact that you took on another full time position with another employer, they would not be happy about it and seriously thinking about terminating your contract. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: In the US, the expectation for a full-time teaching job is generally somewhat more than 40 hours a week, accounting for a couple hours of preparation and grading time per hour of lecture, plus some service. Unless you are working for disreputable institutions, it is probably impossible to do both jobs simultaneously to a level of quality comparable to your colleagues. Putting aside whether this is an unethical behavior toward the institutions, it seems almost certain that this is unethical behavior toward your students. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Unless it's illegal, holding two full-time teaching positions isn't something bad by itself. Sure, it may be difficult to do both jobs to a satisfactory standard, but if you actually do, then what's the problem? Some people will say it's not good for the work-life balance, but it's up to you to decide on your work-life balance, after all. And if you truly enjoy teaching, then why not to fill your life with what you enjoy? Some will say you can't do both jobs to a satisfactory standard, but it's up to your employers to decide whether your teaching is good enough. Your teaching is good enough as long as they keep you employed. And yes, you can do two full-time teaching jobs to a good standard. Preparation for lectures doesn't really take time if your have already taught your courses before. Likewise, grading doesn't really take time if you use automated grading systems in, e.g., Google Classroom. You say that your teaching jobs are online, so you don't need to spend your time commuting to work. Lecturers are not hired to spend 40 hours a week. They are hired to deliver good teaching. How many hours per week they actually spend preparing for lectures and grading isn't and shouldn't be anyone's business. If I saw someone's CV saying he or she has been holding two full-time jobs, I'd say, "Wow, you must be very smart and effective to do two full-time jobs to standards satisfactory to both employers!" In short, don't be afraid to do what you want as long as it's legal, and be confident to explain things should people ask you questions about it. --- UPDATE: To avoid a misunderstanding, the main point of my answer is that it is okay to to have two full-time teaching jobs if the quality of your teaching for each of the two jobs is good enough. But this is a very important if! Of course, if your teaching is bad because of you having two jobs, this is not good. You will be eventually fired then, and before this happens, students will suffer. To accept two full-time teaching jobs, you must be sure you can do both jobs to standards acceptable by the employers! My point is that having two full-time teaching jobs isn't bad per se; what matters is the quality of teaching for each of the two jobs. And if everyone is happy with your teaching, it's not their place to ask you what you do outside your job and whether you have a second job. The quality of your teaching is the ultimate criterion. And I personally believe it is quite possible to do two full-time teaching jobs to a good standard. I am speaking from my own experience of studying at a university and making a lot of money by privately tutoring at the same time. The students whom I tutored were very happy with my tutoring and gladly paid me after each lesson. Had they been not satisfied with anything, they would have quickly found another tutor. My friends wondered how I managed to study and do so much tutoring at the same time. If you love what you are doing and exercise reasonable self-discipline, you can do much more than expected by other people! Upvotes: 1
2022/06/28	2,748	11,962	<issue_start>username_0: I am reviewing a paper for a conference. The paper contains a lot of work, and from a high-level perspective seems good. But when I go into detail I can't actually parse the paper. I don't understand many things, even if the paper is within my field. I am a 2nd year PhD student that writes papers within the field. The paper is very close to my research topic. Some of the causes that block me from correctly reviewing the paper might be: * My impostor syndrome when seeing overly mathy papers. * Their math formulation is not the traditional one and they do naming and formulation variations. Even though they can be properly defined. * Over relies on the appendix to understand the content of the main body of the paper. * The paper content is very dense. I have spent already 3 days reviewing and I am not understanding it. The paper might be good/bad but I can't tell. What review should I give? Push for acceptance, even if I can not tell if the paper is flawed/bad/good? Push for rejection when the problem might be that I don't understand it myself?<issue_comment>username_1: I would suggest giving the paper a general fairly positive review, or a lukewarm review, based solely on the high level introduction (if that's what you feel), while providing the lowest confidence degree (if that metric is available), and writing to the editor in the "note to editor (wouldn't be revealed to author)" that you understood the high level but not the details or technique and couldn't verify the proofs/arguments. If you don't understand anything in the introduction, I would write that as far as you see you couldn't understand the merit of the paper from the current presentation (still specifying low confidence degree), and explaining that this is due to either inadequate exposition or your own misunderstanding (e.g., "I couldn't understand the overall merit..."). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I do not agree with Kohan that a 2 years PhD student cannot review papers at least in my field (AI & ML). PhD students are often assigned by the PC members as sub-reviewers or directly as PC members by the SPC when they have papers in the same (or better) conference level. Back to the question of the OP; as an author, I NEVER felt that the reviewers have understood my papers to a very high extent (especially when there is a detailed mathematical formulation) and as a reviewer, there are often disagreements between reviewers. In very few cases, I noticed reviewers trying to understand the math behind the papers they review and when they do, they are most probably PhD students because they are keen to read every word in the paper. In contrast, senior researchers have a lot of duties and usually a lot of papers to review so I do not believe they would spend one day per paper. Please note that I am not saying that senior researchers do not review papers seriously but they trust the authors in the mathematical formulation and their reviews are from a higher level perspective (you usually understand what is the role of the equation by understanding its context in the text). As a reviewer, you are not supposed to understand everything (better if you do) but you need to write the reviews from your perspective and mention to the SPC that you have low confidence in your review. Note also that there is a deliberation in the end and you can adjust your review based on the discussion with the other reviewers. If you are worried, you can write to the SPC and put him/her in the loop and follow his/her suggestion. EDIT After reading the comments, I think I have missed something in the OP's question. The OP mentioned that the paper was assigned to him without giving him the chance to accept or reject the invitation (As far as I understood from the comments). I find this an unusual situation (or the OP did not understand the invitation email) because the common practice in all conferences and journals I know is to send an invitation with the title and abstract, based on which the invitee assesses whether the paper is within his/her scope of expertise. If not, The SPC/PC/Editor expects the invitee to reject the invitation. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: As mentioned in the comments, odds are you are too junior to be reviewing this paper. However, you also mention that they're using nonstandard notation, which is not a good sign. You could return the paper to the editor and say you can't understand it, but there's an easy option: ask your supervisor. They're there to mentor you after all. Your supervisor can help identify if the paper is an obvious reject, and if not, they might be able to point you at resources to understand the paper. It's possible your supervisor will also tell you not to review the paper because you are too junior, but even in this scenario, asking your supervisor is much quicker than asking the editor, so it makes sense to do that first. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: To convert my comments to an answer: Return the paper to the editors and say that you have hard time reading the paper and suggest they ask a more senior mathematician to evaluate it. Personally, I would never ask a 2nd year PhD student to referee a paper. (However, in the past I did solicit referee reports from PhD students close to completion of their degrees.) PS. Sometimes, the right answer to a question is "I do not know" or "I cannot do this." Knowing own limitations and being able to acknowledge these, is a sign of mathematical maturity. For all you know, by writing a lukewarm report, you might set up for rejection a great paper, written by an outsider to your research area, bringing nonstandard (for you area) tools and terminology. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Publishing papers is not just about getting work out there, it is also about making other people understand the work done. As a 2nd year PhD, you are already part of the target audience of papers in your field. As a reviewer, it is perfectly fine to come to the conclusion that a paper is not properly presented. Do not hide such a conclusion just because of the conclusion itself. If your general impression is good, then a weak accept may be appropriate. If you are basically guessing the content, then a (weak) reject is no shame either. --- > > * My impostor syndrome when seeing overly mathy papers. > > > This is really where you should put your focus on. Is the paper hard to understand because you generally struggle with mathy papers? Is the paper hard to understand compared to the usual mathy papers? In a proper review, you can rate you degree of confidence. If you generally struggle with such papers, then a low confidence score is appropriate. This allows other, more thorough reviews to take precedence. > > * Their math formulation is not the traditional one and they do naming and formulation variations. Even though they can be properly defined. > > > This seems like a clear shortcoming of the paper. Using obscure formulations – be it for math or prose – can hide veritable errors or blunders. At the very least, it makes it needlessly difficult to understand and/or reproduce the findings – one of the key goals of publications. If you are feeling unsure about this point, check the paper's references. Do those use the same formulations? Is there a consistent formulation for key points that the reviewed paper deviates from? > > * Over relies on the appendix to understand the content of the main body of the paper. > > > This depends strongly on the field and publication formats. In some it is perfectly fine to use the appendix for background and explanations that is already known to scientists in the field. In others an appendix is more of a technical addition to thoroughly reproduce a paper. If you are unsure about this, note it as a comment to the editor. There may be formal rules about the appendix that have not been communicated to you. > > * The paper content is very dense. > > > This ties in with some of the above points. Is the paper very dense compared to usual papers? Does the denseness make the paper needlessly hard to understand? Try and identify specific points where content seems either superfluous or too short. It is fine for a review to suggest that some parts should be dropped in favour of expanding others. Take into account the appendix as well; it might be acceptable in the field to have a dense paper and supply lengthier explanations extra. --- Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Well, I have a Master's Degree (not a PhD) and I've reviewed dozens of papers in my career, and I think I was more than sufficiently qualified to review them (even when some were written by PhD's). I don't believe the degree (or lack thereof) is the real problem -- a 2nd year PhD candidate should have more than enough academic knowledge to review technical papers. If the OP has not spent any time outside of school (i.e., from BS & MS directly to PhD), then it may be more a matter of lack of experience in the "real world" where they could have been exposed to more work being done in that discipline. *Please don't take that as a criticism; it's more of a potential explanation of why they may be having some difficulty. As far as reviewing papers is concerned, I use these general "rules": A paper to be presented at a conference or published in a journal is a way to present the results of some research or study to the world so others can benefit from that knowledge. The key is: COMMUNICATING the work done and the conclusions drawn from it. The subject (problem statement, proposed approach, assumptions, etc.) need to be communicated clearly enough for a practitioner in the field to understand, even when they aren't "experts". In this case, it sounds like that paper isn't doing well on this point. * There should be enough explanation in the paper to allow a practitioner in the field to replicate the analysis described (although the data itself may not be accessible), and should include a sufficient level of detail on how that analysis was done. Obvious and common methods (like how to do ANOVA, for example) shouldn't be needed, but constantly referring to external references in the Appendix without providing specifics to more involved methods/tools does make it difficult for the reader to follow what the author is describing. It also doesn't allow the reviewer to determine if the author actually understands those methods and knows how to apply them correctly, specifically in the context of the paper. * Also, if the author is not following standard notation or methods used by other practitioners in the field, then it undermines the 1st bullet (communicating clearly) as well. There is nothing wrong with saying that major portions of a paper are unclear and confusing -- I've met many people who were clearly technical experts in their field, but were extremely poor communicators. That's made even worse if the author is writing a paper in English, when English is actually their second language. I know they can't help that themselves, but it is up to them to seek out a native English-speaking colleague to proofread and provide feedback before submitting it for a formal review. If that is the kind of review you're doing, then the feedback you provide is that much more important. If it's really beyond your level of knowledge, there's nothing wrong with saying that you're not sufficiently qualified to do the review. But DON'T just approve it to get it off your desk (there's far too many "junk" papers out there that should never have been published because some reviewers were a little lazy). At the same time, rejecting something just because you don't understand it may deprive others from being able to benefit from that research. That's just my opinion, but I hope my perspective helps you decide what to do. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/28	909	3,431	<issue_start>username_0: I recently left an full-time academic position in the UK for industry and the department wants me to continue to teach a module I have been in charge of as a visiting lecturer in future. I do enjoy teaching this module to my students and I also think it's a good for me to keep links to academia this way. However, the visiting lecturer pay is less than 1/30th of my full-time annual salary before I left, while I probably spent 15-20% of my time teaching this module last year. Although I don't do this for the money, I do feel that the contract pay is too low to the point where I don't feel my time and effort in teaching this in my spare time is respected. Also, since there is no one else in the department that can teach this, I think I'm doing a favor by just agreeing to teach in the first place. In short, while I'm inclined to accept the visiting lecturer position only for maintaining relations and not for the pay, I do feel a bit shocked at how low the pay is. Would you negotiate pay in this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: > > I recently left an full-time academic position in the UK for industry and the department wants me to continue to teach a module I have been in charge of as a visiting lecturer in future. > > > Just say no. That is not a reasonable request. > > However, the visiting lecturer pay is less than 1/30th of my full-time annual salary before I left, > > > That's not a reasonable offer. > > Also, since there is no one else in the department that can teach this > > > That is not your responsibility. > > Would you negotiate pay in this situation? > > > No. It is pointless to negotiate an unreasonable offer. > > I also think it's a good for me to keep links to academia this way. > > > It is better strategy to develop new links with a different university. That is how you develop your skills and reputation. You left your job for a reason. Stick to the plan. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Usually, remunerations for visiting professors are fixed and geared towards people who love to teach and have the time. You can ask, but do not expect any movement on their side. You might end up in a situation where both sides think that they do the other side a big favor. If this is the case, hurt usually follows. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I don't know what is possible in UK, so I'll assume for this answer that it is. Laws and regulations and union negotiations and such might make this impossible, of course. But, assuming it is possible, there is no reason not to open a negotiation. If the course is important and you are the obvious person to teach it, and there aren't viable alternatives, then the administration will have an incentive to work with you in the short term, though they will likely want a different solution in the long term. This isn't like a course that any part-timer is likely to be able to cover adequately. That adds value. I would start by asking for a prorated stipend based on your last salary. If teaching was 1/3 of the job and six courses were required of regular faculty, then the stipend for a course would be something like 1/18 of the last salary you earned. I once had such a relationship with a university in the US for a couple of years for just the above reasons. And, as suggested, it was temporary. As long as it is possible, you lose nothing by asking. Upvotes: -1
2022/06/28	919	3,602	<issue_start>username_0: I have been through a 4-year PhD program at my home university. In these 4 years, I have performed several research projects, authored several articles and passed qualification exams. After that, I left for a 3-year academic leave, and found myself ineligible to return to my home university to complete my PhD. I have an option of becoming an external doctorate student at my home university, which will require me to re-take qualification exams to complete my PhD and earn a PhD degree. However, I am also considering becoming an external graduate student in another country, if this is possible. By saying "external graduate student", I mean a program where non-affiliated scholars might come to a university, present the evidence of their expertise in the field (research articles and a thesis / dissertation), take qualification exams and earn a PhD degree. Is this an accepted practice in European countries? Are there rules allowing or precluding foreign students from taking these positions?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, in Europe it is possible, but be ready to contact many professors. The ideal path is to get a PhD with a cumulative thesis, where you "collate" your paper, write a nice frame around them as introduction/conclusion and then you discuss it in front of a comitee. You must however wade through doctoral's program rules, often written in local language, so it is a long journey. At best, you get in touch with secretaries and official persons in the universities, they may be able to provide details or not. Rules regarding eligibilty of papers and their format (must they have an internal co-author? the advisor? do they need a translation of the abstract in the local language?) are decided at the each university, so no general answer can be given. Europe is a continent, I bring here some sparse facts about one of the countries, Germany. In Germany you would aim at a „kumulative Dissertation“, the example of the rules are here: [Promotionsordnung](https://download.uni-mainz.de/verwaltung-sl/ordnungen/PromO_02_05_06_07_09_10_aktuell.pdf) (from the University of Mainz) and although there are 122 pages in the documents, the relevant ones are just the first 22, many things are in common among german institutions. In the remaining 100 pages, there are specific rules for almost each faculty. It may be worthwhile to get in touch with the german exchange service DAAD, they may help you (I guess you do not need a full funding for your PhD's closing, but nonetheless having some sort of stipendium would open you more doors in German universities). Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In Germany, PhD admission and PhDs in general are handeled differently than lets say in the US: the only thing you need is a professor to supervise you (and the approval of their department, which is normally a given if you fullfill the basics: MA, good grades and a topic fitting the department your supervising professor works at). Look at [this canonical question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/176908/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-country-x/177050#177050) for more info. So you could try to find a prof in your field and try to convince them to take you on as a PhD student by presenting your previous work during from the 4 year program. If you are purely looking for supervision (and even have done a large share of the work towards the PhD already) and not for funding as well, chances are that somebody might agree if the quality of your work so far is high enough. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/28	657	3,038	<issue_start>username_0: I proved two lemmas that I need both in two different papers. The two papers will be submitted in the same period. Is it justifiable to include the SAME proofs of the two lemmas in the two different papers, instead of including the proofs in one and then referencing to the other<issue_comment>username_1: This would depend on the length and complexity of the proofs. You would have to cross-reference the lemmata whether you include the proofs or not. Since Math editors are experienced people, they will understand your problem. The argument against including proofs in both papers is redundancy. The argument for including proofs in both papers is self-containment. Sometimes, you can compromise and give the proof-idea in one paper and a full proof in the other. Your situation is complicated because there is no guarantee that both papers will be accepted. In Computer Science, we could solve this with a tech report. These days, arxiv will serve you well. Thus, you would publish a preview of both papers that you then can withdraw once your papers have been accepted. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to the issue of self plagiarism, which is solved via citation, there is the possibility of copyright issues. Normally when a paper is published the publisher takes over the copyright, yielding a license for some things back to the author(s). So, when the first paper is published, containing the proof of the lemma(s), the copyright is now held by that publisher and even the author needs to respect that, limiting how much can be copied from the first paper into the second, even with citation. The issues are less if the same publisher publishes both papers, but even then some permission is probably required. If both papers are to be submitted simultaneously (or nearly so), you may need to finesse this a bit. For first submissions, include everything in both papers, but give notice to the editor that changes will need to be made if the other paper is published first. Once the first paper is published (unlikely that such would be simultaneous given how publishers work) provide an updated version to the second paper with the proof removed and the reader referred to the first paper for details. This would give the reviewers complete information on which to base the review and not result in either self plagiarism or copyright issues. Short version: Use the time to publication to your advantage to make both papers consistent with all applicable rules. It might be useful in some ways to delay submission of one of the papers until you get some indication from the publisher on the likelihood of publishing the other. You then have more information on which to proceed. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: A standard approach that solves this problem is to upload the papers to arxiv.org at the same time you submit them to a journal. Then you can include the proofs in one paper and cite them in the other, and reviewers will have access to the proofs. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/28	3,562	15,279	<issue_start>username_0: I am at the very end of my PhD, and my PhD advisor has been repeatedly inappropriate and overstepped boundaries that would probably fall into "mandated reporter" territory, if I were to tell anyone. I do not say this lightly, but I literally feel traumatized by the majority of my PhD experience. I also worry my professor might be mentally or medically suffering, and they might need serious help. tldr; I am confused about whether I should tell anyone at my university about my advisor's behavior or just walk away, as soon as I can graduate. tw: Substance abuse and sexual harassment (?) While intoxicated, my professor told me in detail about their sexual history (including detailed description of specific sex acts), while I was at a work event with them, which has made me incredibly uncomfortable (I tried to change the subject and then walked away). It was completely unsolicited and off-topic. I really hope they don't remember telling me these things, but I feel very disturbed. It didn't seem like they were propositioning me, but more of uninhibited exhibitionism. My advisor also pressures people in the lab to drink at lab events (while they themselves get intoxicated: entire bottles of wine or several bottles of beer/hard liquor) and to do unsafe things ("don't wear a seat-belt" while on group trips, insisting on driving after several drinks, and telling us we have to tell white lies to cover for them when they break university policy). I have tried to change the lab culture around this, by always bringing and offering non-alcoholic drinks and other distractions. My advisor has also pressured us (PhD students/postdocs) to stay overnight at their house or share a hotel room with them at conferences, for various reasons. I sincerely don't think they have gone so far as to ever assault anyone, but I am the only student of theirs that has not staid overnight at their house, which I feel caused a social divide and stigma towards me. It is super awkward, at best, to share sleeping arrangements with a drunk advisor (sometimes, they are an angry drunk). There have been other major behaviors that would be too identifying to describe, but they are very abnormal, threatening, controlling, and/or point to mental instability or some kind of illness that seriously impairs judgement. I have experienced extreme stress in response to these cycles of instability, and it has taken a toll on my mental and physical health. My plan has always been to graduate as fast as I can, try to have the "best" relationship I possibly can with my advisor, move on, and forget all of this. I feel ashamed, because I wish I listened to my gut and switched labs, the first time my advisor used threatening language towards me and/or behaved in ways that made me feel very uncomfortable, years ago. I have a next job lined up, and I'm just waiting for my advisor to give any final edits on my complete thesis and sign-off. This last part has been a huge struggle and has been dragging on for a very long time. The thesis is in good shape (it is "ready to submit to journals" according to my committee), but it still needs to be published as several separate manuscripts (which requires extended collaboration with my advisor). I am worried if I talk to someone at my university about these concerns, it will be career ending for me (I will not be able to get a letter for any future fellowship or job applications from my PhD advisor, which will "raise a red flag," and my papers will be in jeopardy). My advisor has tenure, so I don't know if it would even have any proactive or mediating outcome. I recently learned, however, that another student has also been experiencing extremely similar verbal/emotional abuse as I have, and I am especially wondering if I should say something to someone. This other student is extremely emotionally distressed and worried about their professional and financial future. I also feel worried about the several more junior students in the lab that I will leave behind. Does anyone have any advice/experience in such a situation? * Who should I talk to, if anyone: Should I talk to an ombudsman? Should I talk to my department head, but only share a selection of these issues (leaving out things that could fall into mandated reporter territory, ie sex and otherwise; things I didn't write about here, but are worse)? Or should I tell someone everything? I tried talking to my thesis committee, but they stopped me and told me there were mandated reporters (so I decided not to proceed in asking for their advice). * When should I talk to someone? After the ink dries on my graduation papers? After my publications are accepted? After I get my first non-trainee job offer? What should I do if their behavior gets worse in the meantime? * Is there any way my career can recover, if I am transparent about my experiences to someone who is a mandated reporter? I am not so naive to think "reporting" my concerns would actually change anything or make my situation better: it would be throwing myself under the bus, to potentially generate awareness or encourage this advisor to get help, if I'm lucky. * What special care can/should I take, if I worry this behavior might be driven by substance abuse or some other untreated medical issue? Thank you to anyone who read all the way through, this hot mess. I really appreciate it.<issue_comment>username_1: Most universities have an anonymous tip line. Use that and let someone else come to you to ask questions. This way, you're not the one who tipped the university off (i.e., nobody will know that you did), only the one who answered questions in the same way as hopefully some of your colleagues will. Be specific and detailed in your initial, anonymous report to make sure the university cannot just dismiss it as "he said she said". You are probably right that there is a price you will pay, if only that your adviser can no longer write letters of recommendation if they are removed from their position. You can mitigate this by making your report only after you have found a different position. On the other hand, you gain peace of mind that the next generation of students does not have to go through what you have gone through. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Short term concern: > > I will not be able to get a letter for any future fellowship or job > applications from my PhD advisor, which will "raise a red flag," > > > you stated as well that > > I have a next job lined up > > > So who cares about the reference letter from your advisor. Let's build a worst-case scenario. You do nothing, no one does nothing. You get your reference letters, you build your career, your advisor keep on behaving then 10 years down the road someone reports your advisor and you are then put in the spotlight "look, he/she was referenced by them and he/she build a career" ... good luck with pushing your me too connections then to save your face. Ok, back to reality, you are a lab PhD under immense pressure (even with the best advisor, because productivity increased 5000 times in the past 50 years, in research as well, but PhDs are still pushed to perform the same breakthrough science like if they were the lucky 0.01% of the population, while now they are the 1% and growing). Unfortunately many labs groups have a "collegial" style, and this plus the practical attitude required to "get s\\t done" make people forgetting they are humans and behave like animals, because if the time of the people has to be dictated by the machinery/lab equipment, they will start as well behaving like machines and not like humans. Ok, enough with philosophy. If you do not know to whom you should address your concerns, you are already in trouble: it means the institution is not pro-active in preventing such behaviours, so whatever you will do, it will almost for sure retort against you. You mention "university policy", is there an anonymous way of reporting? Since your advisor is tenured, they will not go full power against him, but after they collect enough anonymous reports, they will start doing something (something ultra mild, like writing them "please adhere to the rules" ... but that is not your duty, although it is something you can escalate) You should speak with the students representatives, without specifically naming the advisor, but being transparent about their acts, or you can speak with the department head, asking to have a private chat. Then you can speak with the head, mentioning your advisor had some erratically behavior that made you very uncomfortable. However, you do not need to be precise on the behavior, at first. But you can open the discussion. The remarks I can leave are * yes, you have to do something for the next students; * yes you may professionally suffer in the process (you already suffered a lot at the private level, this is just a small drop, not suffering at the professional level or even benefitting from your advisor at the professional will not make up for the personal suffering you had, unless you are ready to have personal disorders in the medium-long term...) * no, things will not change in the short term, so you have to best assess your way out from this group, consider that you should not have any relations with them after your graduation. In short, you have to decide how much more personal pain you are ready to accept to benefit professionaly from this relation. Professionally speaking, having a PhD in STEM is a sure thing to get a job. Without your advisor support you will not get the profesorship at Cornell, but if the single reference letter from your advisor is so important, it means you do not have so good contacts so you will not become the next big shot (sorry being blunt). Good luck, you have all my sympathy and probably the sympathy of many people in the lab, although you feel the stigma ... animals move in herds. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You have lots of options here, so you will just have to figure out which option is best for you. Also, in relation to potential career damage, it is primarily your advisor who is in danger of serious career damage, not you. From what you have described it sounds like your supervisor has a problem with alcohol and has bad judgment in relation to some social matters (especially while inebriated). Your best course of action depends on a number of factors relating to your view of your supervisor and your preferred approach. --- Option 1: Report the problems to the university One option here is to report these problems to the university and let the university work things out using its usual disciplinary policies. Since there are multiple students witnessing these behaviours it should be possible to establish those behaviours with evidence, and this is likely to lead to some kind of requirements being imposed on this academic. The consequences will depend on the university and their approach; it might lead to termination, or it might lead to some lesser response like a period of detoxification and some requirements for reforms in his work behaviour. In any case, once you report the issues and provide relevant statements, the university will do the rest. If you were to take this approach, it might negatively affect your ability to get a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (or it might not, depending on his attitude). Even if this were to occur, it is likely that the university could provide you with some reasonable alternative, such as a letter of recommendation from another academic or the Dean of the Department. (For example, the Dean might supply you with a form letter stating that your supervisor was removed for disciplinary reasons and this has led you to be unable to get a letter of recommendation from that supervisor through no fault of your own.) The university will feel some responsibility here since it has placed you under the supervision of someone who is not behaving himself, so it should not be difficult to get something that can act as a reasonable substitute for a letter of recommendation. As to any other possible career damage to you, I think that is unlikely. If you can get some alternative to a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (e.g., a letter from the Dean) then this ought to function perfectly adequately. (Also, I'm not sure there is any such thing as a "mandated reporter" for sexual harassment unless you are a minor. Sexual harassment against other adults is something that can be reported, but I'm not aware of anyone having an onus to report on behalf of another adult.) --- Option 2: Write your advisor a letter It sounds like you still sympathise with your advisor despite the problems you've described. It also sounds like you want to do something, but don't like the idea of reporting the behaviour to the university. In view of that, one option you have is to wait until you've graduated your program and then write your advisor a personal letter setting out your thoughts on the problems you've raised. To maximise the chances of this being received in a postive spirit, you could frame this as a thank-you letter where you thank him for his work supervising you and set out both the good and bad points relating to his supervision. When you get to the bad points, raise the problems you are concerned about and tell him that these detracted from the quality of supervision and made you uncomfortable. You should note that you have observed that he appears to have problems with alcohol and you think this has caused him to display some bad judgment in some cases. You might also mention that you had considered reporting these issues to the university, but you have decided to just talk to him about it instead. I may be naive, and I can't really say how a person would react to this type of feedback, but I would think that there is a pretty good chance that a supervisor hearing about these problems would be pretty embarrassed and want to reform their behaviour (and probably also cut down on the drinking). You mentioned that your supervisor asks students to cover for him with the university, so he's aware that he's doing the wrong thing. He might be labouring under the illusion that his behaviours are okay with the students, and your letter could break that illusion. --- Option 3: Do nothing You are at the end of your PhD program now and you have obviously already put up with this behaviour for a substantial amount of time. Therefore one reasonable option you have is just to finish out your program and go on with your career elsewhere, without ever resolving things with your supervisor. This has the advantage of being an easy course-of-action, but it also has the disadvantage that it doesn't fix anything for other students who come in to be supervised by this supervisor later on. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Im in a similar situation and talked to the responsible person, after years of gathering courage/self gaslighting. The name of the person u have to talk is „ombudsperson“. I created an alias and wont gibe information unless the uni does something, also because he would guess it was me. You got this. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/29	2,355	10,269	<issue_start>username_0: I am an independent researcher (no academic affiliation). If I submit a mathematical research paper to a journal or conference, how do I get any subsidies, grants, or funds for this work? Are you supposed to write a grant proposal? What exactly would be the best course of action for an independent researcher to take if they would like to publish their paper and get paid a salary?<issue_comment>username_1: Most universities have an anonymous tip line. Use that and let someone else come to you to ask questions. This way, you're not the one who tipped the university off (i.e., nobody will know that you did), only the one who answered questions in the same way as hopefully some of your colleagues will. Be specific and detailed in your initial, anonymous report to make sure the university cannot just dismiss it as "he said she said". You are probably right that there is a price you will pay, if only that your adviser can no longer write letters of recommendation if they are removed from their position. You can mitigate this by making your report only after you have found a different position. On the other hand, you gain peace of mind that the next generation of students does not have to go through what you have gone through. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Short term concern: > > I will not be able to get a letter for any future fellowship or job > applications from my PhD advisor, which will "raise a red flag," > > > you stated as well that > > I have a next job lined up > > > So who cares about the reference letter from your advisor. Let's build a worst-case scenario. You do nothing, no one does nothing. You get your reference letters, you build your career, your advisor keep on behaving then 10 years down the road someone reports your advisor and you are then put in the spotlight "look, he/she was referenced by them and he/she build a career" ... good luck with pushing your me too connections then to save your face. Ok, back to reality, you are a lab PhD under immense pressure (even with the best advisor, because productivity increased 5000 times in the past 50 years, in research as well, but PhDs are still pushed to perform the same breakthrough science like if they were the lucky 0.01% of the population, while now they are the 1% and growing). Unfortunately many labs groups have a "collegial" style, and this plus the practical attitude required to "get s\\t done" make people forgetting they are humans and behave like animals, because if the time of the people has to be dictated by the machinery/lab equipment, they will start as well behaving like machines and not like humans. Ok, enough with philosophy. If you do not know to whom you should address your concerns, you are already in trouble: it means the institution is not pro-active in preventing such behaviours, so whatever you will do, it will almost for sure retort against you. You mention "university policy", is there an anonymous way of reporting? Since your advisor is tenured, they will not go full power against him, but after they collect enough anonymous reports, they will start doing something (something ultra mild, like writing them "please adhere to the rules" ... but that is not your duty, although it is something you can escalate) You should speak with the students representatives, without specifically naming the advisor, but being transparent about their acts, or you can speak with the department head, asking to have a private chat. Then you can speak with the head, mentioning your advisor had some erratically behavior that made you very uncomfortable. However, you do not need to be precise on the behavior, at first. But you can open the discussion. The remarks I can leave are * yes, you have to do something for the next students; * yes you may professionally suffer in the process (you already suffered a lot at the private level, this is just a small drop, not suffering at the professional level or even benefitting from your advisor at the professional will not make up for the personal suffering you had, unless you are ready to have personal disorders in the medium-long term...) * no, things will not change in the short term, so you have to best assess your way out from this group, consider that you should not have any relations with them after your graduation. In short, you have to decide how much more personal pain you are ready to accept to benefit professionaly from this relation. Professionally speaking, having a PhD in STEM is a sure thing to get a job. Without your advisor support you will not get the profesorship at Cornell, but if the single reference letter from your advisor is so important, it means you do not have so good contacts so you will not become the next big shot (sorry being blunt). Good luck, you have all my sympathy and probably the sympathy of many people in the lab, although you feel the stigma ... animals move in herds. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: You have lots of options here, so you will just have to figure out which option is best for you. Also, in relation to potential career damage, it is primarily your advisor who is in danger of serious career damage, not you. From what you have described it sounds like your supervisor has a problem with alcohol and has bad judgment in relation to some social matters (especially while inebriated). Your best course of action depends on a number of factors relating to your view of your supervisor and your preferred approach. --- Option 1: Report the problems to the university One option here is to report these problems to the university and let the university work things out using its usual disciplinary policies. Since there are multiple students witnessing these behaviours it should be possible to establish those behaviours with evidence, and this is likely to lead to some kind of requirements being imposed on this academic. The consequences will depend on the university and their approach; it might lead to termination, or it might lead to some lesser response like a period of detoxification and some requirements for reforms in his work behaviour. In any case, once you report the issues and provide relevant statements, the university will do the rest. If you were to take this approach, it might negatively affect your ability to get a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (or it might not, depending on his attitude). Even if this were to occur, it is likely that the university could provide you with some reasonable alternative, such as a letter of recommendation from another academic or the Dean of the Department. (For example, the Dean might supply you with a form letter stating that your supervisor was removed for disciplinary reasons and this has led you to be unable to get a letter of recommendation from that supervisor through no fault of your own.) The university will feel some responsibility here since it has placed you under the supervision of someone who is not behaving himself, so it should not be difficult to get something that can act as a reasonable substitute for a letter of recommendation. As to any other possible career damage to you, I think that is unlikely. If you can get some alternative to a letter of recommendation from your supervisor (e.g., a letter from the Dean) then this ought to function perfectly adequately. (Also, I'm not sure there is any such thing as a "mandated reporter" for sexual harassment unless you are a minor. Sexual harassment against other adults is something that can be reported, but I'm not aware of anyone having an onus to report on behalf of another adult.) --- Option 2: Write your advisor a letter It sounds like you still sympathise with your advisor despite the problems you've described. It also sounds like you want to do something, but don't like the idea of reporting the behaviour to the university. In view of that, one option you have is to wait until you've graduated your program and then write your advisor a personal letter setting out your thoughts on the problems you've raised. To maximise the chances of this being received in a postive spirit, you could frame this as a thank-you letter where you thank him for his work supervising you and set out both the good and bad points relating to his supervision. When you get to the bad points, raise the problems you are concerned about and tell him that these detracted from the quality of supervision and made you uncomfortable. You should note that you have observed that he appears to have problems with alcohol and you think this has caused him to display some bad judgment in some cases. You might also mention that you had considered reporting these issues to the university, but you have decided to just talk to him about it instead. I may be naive, and I can't really say how a person would react to this type of feedback, but I would think that there is a pretty good chance that a supervisor hearing about these problems would be pretty embarrassed and want to reform their behaviour (and probably also cut down on the drinking). You mentioned that your supervisor asks students to cover for him with the university, so he's aware that he's doing the wrong thing. He might be labouring under the illusion that his behaviours are okay with the students, and your letter could break that illusion. --- Option 3: Do nothing You are at the end of your PhD program now and you have obviously already put up with this behaviour for a substantial amount of time. Therefore one reasonable option you have is just to finish out your program and go on with your career elsewhere, without ever resolving things with your supervisor. This has the advantage of being an easy course-of-action, but it also has the disadvantage that it doesn't fix anything for other students who come in to be supervised by this supervisor later on. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Im in a similar situation and talked to the responsible person, after years of gathering courage/self gaslighting. The name of the person u have to talk is „ombudsperson“. I created an alias and wont gibe information unless the uni does something, also because he would guess it was me. You got this. Upvotes: 0
2022/06/29	1,715	7,001	<issue_start>username_0: I've heard that after the first email, I need to switch from Dear Dr. X to Dear Firstname. I've also heard that "Dear Firstname" is only for the professor that I actually met in person. The "rule" I use depends on how they address me and how do they sign the email. If they call me with full name OR they sign the email formally with their full name, then I will use Dear Professor Lastname. If they use "Dear Firstname" to address me and they informally sign their email with a simple firstname, I will email "Dear Firstname" back. However, most professors go down to the informal "Dear Firstname" and signing with firstname in the first round of email exchange. I am not sure if I should follow it right away after the first email or not. If I continue to use their formal title, would they be not amused?<issue_comment>username_1: Your rule is valid. If I call you "Dear High" and sign with "Thomas", I am proposing to go on a first name basis. If I call you "Dear Ms. GPA" or "Dear Ms. High" (because I am confused about your name), I am not expected to be addresses as "Dear Thomas". If you are in a conversation chain, you can also just ask. Finally, going to a first-name basis wrongly is more dangerous than staying with "Dear Professor". Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The "rules of etiquette" about titles in academia are highly local (both geographically and in terms of the field), and even then they are at best rough guidelines with a lot of variation from person to person. So there simply is no "correct" rule when to use Dr., Prof., last name, or first name. Your best bet is generally to observe how formally the other side writes and adopt based on how you see them behave (maybe erring on the side of slightly more formal, if you are unsure). My personal rule of thumb is "if the other side signs with their first name and/or addresses me per first name, I also use that - as long as the other side remains highly formal, I do the same". Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: I was a computer science professor at two different west-coast universities for a total of nine years. Here are my thoughts on the matter: * I almost never got a letter starting with "Dear". Maybe it's a west coast thing but I would find using the introductory prefix to be a bit odd and overly formal. * My preference for opening correspondence was to start with their title (i.e., either "Professor" or "Dr."). Technically, students should aim for "Professor" over "Dr." since it's a higher mark of distinction but that nuance is lost on most people. Plus, any professor who cares that much is probably a bit of a jerk and should be avoided. * Getting to your original question about how to address: You can always go with how they sign their name. If they drop down to their first name, you may respond in kind. If they respond with something formal, continue to be formal. However, even if they respond with their first name, it's completely fine to continue to address them using their formal title. I never got upset with someone using my formal title and actually found it to be somewhat charming. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: A rule that works universally is to reflect back what's sent your way. When in doubt, go with formal. But like, if the prof uses your first name and/or signs with their first name, then it's more likely to be ok to use their first name. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: This might also be a culture or language issue of confusing formality with familiarity. In a language with, for example, different pronouns for formal and informal it might be considered rude or stilted to not switch to the informal form at some point. Using someone's first name isn't informal, it's familiar. You are only on a first name basis with someone if you are close to them, either personally or professionally. Family or friends or direct coworkers are familiar. Or they may specifically tell you to use their first name. If someone is explicitly a professor (not "another professor") I don't think that counts as closeness, especially given the possible power dynamic. So you probably should include last name in almost all forms of address as a given. Whether Dr or Professor is appropriate is more subtle. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: In contrast to some of the other answers, let me suggest that, unless you are a peer of the other person, that you stick to the formal address until explicitly invited otherwise. Don't make any assumptions at all. I always preferred that my undergraduate and masters level students addressed me formally, and never by first name. This was to emphasize that we weren't yet peers and their relationship to me was one of student and teacher. On the other hand, with doctoral students (those already in the program) we, the faculty generally, tried to insist that students use first names. This was to emphasize that they were now "peers" in the sense of collaborative researchers, if not formal rank. Some students from more formal cultures resisted, but we were mostly successful. But if you are a supplicant in some sense, such as in seeking an advisor, then the formal is always safe until the informal is invited, no matter how one signs their name. For peers, on the other hand, these assumptions are generally benign. Yes, I realize that I'm very old, but I'm also quite informal myself and times are changing. Nowadays youngsters might refer to parents by first name, though it would have been unthinkable when I was younger. Mom was always "mom", never "Liz", and for the same reasons as above. We weren't peers and emphasizing that can be important in learning. So, call me "Dr. Dog" until I invite "Call me username_6". And note that a lot of the people you will be addressing are closer to my age than yours. It isn't (just) a matter of respect for the person, but one of respect for the nature of the relationship. --- I have no real advice on the "Dear..." aspect. Even for me it seems archaic, though I doubt that most people even notice it anymore since it is just a bit of boilerplate without much meaning. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: This is going to depend on region, but in the US I'd wait until you get an email back signed with a first name, which can fairly be interpreted as an OK for a first-name basis. Otherwise, simply "Professor" would be less formal than "Dr. X", but is acceptable Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_8: Never. It's a professional relationship, not a personal one. You'll see other staff occasionally firstname each other but that is between them. You'll hear some students and fellows firstname their supervisor. But don't compound their folly by imitating it. Also be aware that much of your communication with academic staff will be within earshot of others in the department, i.e. office staff, other students, other faculty, etc. You are setting an example. So make it a good one. Upvotes: -1
2022/06/29	916	3,873	<issue_start>username_0: Recently, I applied for an associate professor position in a high rank university. I cleared 3 stages, document screening, presentation/lecture, and a long interview. But, I received a rejection email stating that I have so many Journal publications but I don’t have enough conference publications. It is really disappointing that they already cleared me during document screening, and this is something they should have told me during first stage. The rejection email didn’t say anything about presentation/lecture or interview. Should I ask them to give a better reason or feedback on interview? Or should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time, I travelled 250KM twice.<issue_comment>username_1: You seem to be very angry. Obviously, it is a very bad idea to contact them as long as you feel that way. Take some time off to let this cool down before you do anything with it. As to the reason they gave for rejecting you: If this was a good university, then they probably had multiple good candidates to choose from. You were apparently one of those good candidates and you can feel good about that. It is easy to find a good reason when choosing between a good and a bad candidate. Finding a good reason to differentiate between two or more good candidates is a lot harder. That is when small differences start to matter. I guess that is what happened in your case. "should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time" You voluntarily chose to invest your time and money for a chance to get that job. If they offered beforehand to pay for example travel costs, then by all means, take it. If they did not offer it, and you still applied, then it was your choice to gamble that time and money. This time, the gamble did not pay off. That can happen when you gamble... Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: While it is annoying not to get a job you really wanted, the basic fact is that we do not have a right to be hired by anyone even if we think that we are well qualified. As a consequence, you can complain all day long, but the complaints are not going to change the basic facts that the university decided not to hire you because, presumably, they found someone who on balance of all criteria considered, was a better fit for what they wanted. Any complaints can only have one result: That you are considered unreasonable in your community, and that you are burning bridges you might want to keep. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: > > they already cleared me during document screening, and this is something they should have told me during first stage. > > > You seem to be assuming that the document screening was pass/fail, and you passed, and so your documents should never have been considered again. But here's another scenario: on the basis of your document screening, you were ranked second or third. The top three candidates were then invited for an interview, where your good performance (or another candidate's poor performance) might have changed this ranking. But all three candidates interviewed well, and so the rankings were unchanged. > > The rejection email didn’t say anything about presentation/lecture or interview. Should I ask them to give a better reason or feedback on interview? > > > This is exactly why most rejection letters just say "thank you for your time; unfortunately, we chose someone else." It is very kind of the department to take the time to give you individualized feedback. It is absolutely not an invitation to second-guess or debate their decision. > > Or should I ask them for the compensation for wasting my time, I travelled 250KM twice. > > > If you go on a date but don't get a second date, would you send them a bill for wasting your time? Better to assume that you got a fair shot and it didn't work out. Better luck next time. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/29	443	2,018	<issue_start>username_0: What happens if I don’t have prerequisite classes for grad school admissions but am in the process of taking them. The application deadline for a graduate school I am interested in is December 1, but grades for the two pre-requisite courses I am missing won't be available until December 20th. Should I tell admissions that I am currently in the process of taking them? Edit: My school is in the United States.<issue_comment>username_1: You do not state the country of the school to which you are applying. However, most universities are aware that there are students in your situation. You should provide them with the information that you are currently taking these required classes and, depending on the country, proof of enrollment. The admissions office is the best one to answer this question. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Have a look at your transcripts, which will typically be submitted with your application... In my experience, these include in-progress and registered courses for the current and subsequent semesters. In the US, it is totally normal for students graduating in spring 2023 to be applying for grad school for fall 2023, with applications due around December 2022. When applications are due, students will typically have all courses they are taking/will take on their transcript as either in-progress or registered for the next semester. There won't be any need to separately call out these courses as in progress, it'll be obvious and as expected from the transcripts. Possibly you can mention separately your planned enrollment if your institution doesn't include these on transcripts. If you are admitted for grad school, your admission will likely be contingent on completing your degree and the coursework you planned to complete at the time of application, but it's totally normal and expected that not all requirements for admission (in particular, completing a bachelor's degree) are complete at time of application. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2022/06/29	1,609	6,694	<issue_start>username_0: I study at a university in Europe and recently received an e-mail from the exam commission regarding the submission of my bachelor thesis. I am under suspicion for plagiarism and to be honest I don't know what to do, as the consequences are severe and I had no intention of committing plagarism. To give you some background information: I intend to start the Master Accountancy after summer and all I need to do now is pass my thesis. My supervisor got sick a couple of weeks before the deadline and therefore our final meeting was postponed until only a week before the deadline. In this meeting she told me that my thesis was too complex and it would be difficult to efficiently use SPSS. She adviced to change a lot of stuff and I eventually had to rewrite big parts of my thesis. Due to the limited time until the deadline I had left, I used an old student's thesis for inspiration (as we partially had the same research question and often made the same references). I had no intention of copying or being inspired this much by this thesis. As I said, my own research questions reflected his a lot and I read the thesis many times through. Naturally then, it took up a large portion of my working memory during these days and I appearantly was disproportionally influenced to the point my thesis started to reflect the paper too much. I now need to send an e-mail back to the exam commission with an explanation with what happened. What scares me the most is that should the exam commission decide that I plagiarized my thesis, I am not allowed to resit the thesis for one whole semester (6 months) after the students who failed the resit re-do their theses. This would mean that I would be restricted for the thesis for 1.5 years. This would be such a shame, as I finished everything else, and already was planning to start my Master in a couple of months. All of this is really starting to affect me mentally. Does anyone have any idea what is best to do next? Please keep in mind that I am under ''suspicion of fraud'' for now. I am not sure what to respond to the exam committe and how to convince them otherwise. It was never my intention to do this, but it was done unintentiolly in the rush of the nearing deadline and having to re-write a big part of the thesis in a short time span (due to my supervisor not being available for feedback, due to illnes). I now see that my thesis indeed reflects the paper disproportionally. I am out of ideas on what to do. I ideally want to convince the exam commission that it truly was not my intention, so that I don't have to wait 1.5 years to start my master's. I would be glad if I can convince them to reduce the punishment.<issue_comment>username_1: Tell the truth. It depends on how much you copied and how whether what you wrote here will count as an excuse or not. There is nothing else you can do. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Hard to say without knowing your thesis, the other thesis, and how you referred to this earlier thesis. But - working on a similar topic and therefore having a similar story and references isn't plagiarism, even though some automatic systems might set off a warning. My suggestion, assuming that you didn't plagiarize and referred to other people's work accordingly, would be to (a) explain that you understand their concerns given the closeness of topics/questions, and (b) offer your availability to meet and cooperate in figuring out whether or not you crossed a border or not. Before the meeting, if you get one, make sure to work through both your thesis and the earlier thesis and identify sections that could be seen as plagiarized, but also make sure you know where your work is different and unique. Be critical of your own work, but at the same time defend it (if you think that it is defensible) using scientific arguments, not emotional ones. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In general, we are not judged by our intentions, but by our actions. What you are describing sounds an awful lot like plagiarism (though as others point out, this is hard to tell without actually seeing the two works). You may not have intended it; you may not have realized you were acting in an unprofessional manner; you may have come with the best intentions. Ultimately, you took someone else's work and heavily relied on it (not sure whether your definition of "inspiration" means that you copied their words, or just their content) and it's also unclear whether you acknowledged the other thesis by citing it. The best thing you can do right now is to be honest, explain what happened and hope that the disciplinary committee appreciates your honesty enough to let you graduate in time. I personally am a lot more lenient with students who show genuine remorse and understanding of where they were wrong, rather than wasting my time with disciplinary proceedings. Perhaps your institution works in a similar manner, and you will be allowed to write your thesis again with no significant delays. In that case - make sure you do things right! Ask for deadline extensions rather than freak out and do something you'll regret. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Devil's advocate here. First: tell the truth. Based on what I read in your question, I assume you copied large part of the previous thesis, so either you are a poor poker player, or you are very clumsy and instead of defending yourself you are putting even more suspicion on your acts. You have nothing to loose by saying the truth, but by saying something that is percevied false, you have a lot to loose: please remember it is not a trial, but it is a commitee "judging" you. In fact, they must come to a decision based on what you wrote and how you will behave in front of them. I see two possible outcome: * you will be judged as a student under a lot of pressure that may have copied, or * you will be judged as a liar and a plagiarist that tries to cover up the fact of copying from a previous thesis. Second: 1.5 years is NOTHING In that span of time you can learn a foreign language (spanish?german?Python?sql?) sufficently to be professionaly proficient in that language. So in 1.5 years you will have a lot of open doors, and even more after your master. Yes, you may need to work at McDonald for 1.5 years to sustain yourself. That is not absolutely wrong, you will start to get a couple of things about how big companies address account problem, and how the divide between affordable (and healthy food and working poor salaries is getting larger and larger. Good luck, please remember that rules are often in place to protect someone from him/her/themselves ... Upvotes: -1
2022/06/29	554	2,306	<issue_start>username_0: this is maybe a silly question. But my original submission was sent back for technical corrections. I went to check the status in Editorial Manager and clicked 'Edit Submission' just to see the files I had submitted; my intention was not yet to re-submit the manuscript. Then, when returning back to the main menu, I noticed that my submission was moved to 'Incomplete submission' from 'Submissions Sent Back to Author'. Did I do something wrong? Will the editor still notice that I re-submit the manuscript, or did the process started all over again? :( Will the co-authors also be sent a note when I have done the submission?<issue_comment>username_1: It just means you've started to edit the submission but have not resubmitted it. The status is similar to if you start filling up a job application but have not input all the necessary details, so the system does not register the application as submitted. Viewed another way, if a system allows you to save your application with a 'save as draft' button, then after you click that button, the status is the same as 'incomplete submission'. So: nothing to worry about, keep doing what you're doing, and when the paper is ready for resubmission edit the submission again and resubmit. Will the editor notice? If they are looking at the journal, yes - the current status of each manuscript is prominently displayed in Editorial Manager (but they are not likely to do anything, since this status indicates that the ball is in the authors' court). Can the process start all over again? Probably not. Even if you submit the manuscript as a new manuscript rather than a revision, Editorial Manager should flag your manuscript as a duplicate. The editor should then be able to merge the submissions. It's possible an editor inexperienced with the software will not know how to do this, but the publisher should be able to help. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: "Incomplete" is there to remind you that you did not submit. > > Did I do something wrong? > > > No. > > Will the editor still notice that I re-submit the manuscript, > > > Not until you complete the resubmission. > > Will the co-authors also be sent a note when I have done the submission? > > > Not before you complete the resubmission. Upvotes: 2
2022/06/29	623	2,579	<issue_start>username_0: I am an undergraduate studying engineering in the USA. I took classes with a professor, 3 undergraduate, and got A in all of them. I applied for graduate studies last Summer for September admission and used him as a reference for 3 schools and was admitted to one of them. Unfortunately, the one I was admitted to lost the funding for my attendance due to the pandemic and I could not attend. I would like to apply again this year as the pandemic situation has stabilized. I applied to a program, which I did not complete the application for and they sent reference requests anyways due to computer error and he denied it. I did not get a chance to email him about it beforehand. Do you have any advice on how to ask, explain, write an email or how to handle this situation? Should I ask another professor? I did not take 3 courses with any other professor however. I did take 3 courses with him so he is very familiar with my work. But I do not not want to seem unprofessional here.<issue_comment>username_1: Ask him again. Remember that writing the first reference letter is complicated and time consuming. Writing the second is much easier and takes minimal time. Thus, unless the person needs to start all over again because your circumstances have changed a lot, it generates less work overall to ask him again than to ask someone to do an entirely new one. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You should ask him again. There is nothing but upside here: * if he agrees, then that's great * if he doesn't agree, then no matter, things will continue largely as they are now. > > Do you have any advice on how to ask, explain, write an email or how to handle this situation? > > > Concisely and clearly. No need to grovel. Just tell him the three things: (1) you are aware that he received a recommendation request for you "out of the blue", but this was a technical error, you had not intended for this request to be sent without explanation, (2) but indeed, your funding fell through and so you need to reapply to graduate school, and so (3) you are writing to ask if he would be willing to provide you a letter of recommendation once again. I recommend doing this in one e-mail; this will simplify things. Actually, if you can do this in person, that's even better....but you don't want to get into a strange situation where you're trying to schedule an appointment without disclosing why, even though you both know why...so, if there's no natural way to do this, you're probably better off with e-mail. Upvotes: 1
2022/06/30	266	1,103	<issue_start>username_0: [NSF has in person meetings](https://www.nsf.gov/events/advisory.jsp) as part of the peer review of grants. How far ahead of time are the participants recruited? I am looking for a general rule of thumb, like three to four months, not an exact answer that might depend on the panel or the program manager.<issue_comment>username_1: Looking back at my records, I have had about a month and a half between my panel invitations and the panel dates. This timing is consistent across pre-COVID in-person panels and the remote panels and ad-hoc reviewing I have done since the pandemic started. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: A NSF program officer reached out to me for a panel informally about two and a half months before the proposed panel meeting dates. The formal invitation (after I had confirmed, in response to the first inquiry, that I was available on the dates in question) came a couple of weeks later—about two months in advance of the panel dates. This was all well before the pandemic, however. I don't know how things may have changed since then. Upvotes: 3
2022/07/01	2,180	9,878	<issue_start>username_0: I had a paper that went through a long peer-review process (~1 year). One of the reviews seemed to obviously be from a specific individual who strongly disagreed with the paper because it critiques their work, although they didn't sign the review. Less than 24hrs after the paper was published, that specific individual posted a pre-print criticising the paper, which brings up some issues that were addressed during the review, but also several issues not mentioned during the review (e.g., a typo in one of the results tables). Speculatively, it seems like they were using our data/code and withholding issues they spotted to prepare their own pre-print while reviewing my paper. The pre-print even includes a link that only appears in the draft that was used in the review process, not in the published paper. What are the ethics of this type of behaviour from a reviewer? It seems sketchy, but I'm not aware of official guidelines around this. Edit: I did not post a pre-print of my own. So the first time my data, code, and results were made public was at the time of publication.<issue_comment>username_1: This seems very unethical as you describe it. I would write immediately to the editor, informing them of what has happened. The editor knows who the reviewer was, of course. It is possible that you have the wrong individual in mind and the critique was generated outside the review process, especially if you have released a preprint. But if your guesses are correct, it is pretty clearly unethical. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There is not necessarily anything particularly unethical going on here. Sometimes as a reviewer you will disagree with the arguments/methods/conclusions of a paper you are reviewing without there being anything objectively wrong about the paper that should stop the publication of this paper. Peer review ultimately is not the best place for an extended scientific debate. In such a situation it is often a better idea for the reviewer to let the paper be published and write their own response to the paper. This seems to be what has happened here. Of course, technically what they should have done is wait for the final published version to be released and base their response on that. But, they can hardily be blamed for starting this after submitting their final review (presumably some time has past between their final review and publication). In any case, the preprint appeared after your paper was published. It is technically possible they simple stayed up all night to write the response in 24 hours. (Incidentally, avoiding these types of ethical gray areas is one of the reason that I only agree to review papers that are already available as preprints.) You infer the reviewer has purposefully withheld comments from the review to base their own paper on. This it not necessarily the case. As an example you mention them remarking about a typo in your results, but it is at least plausible that they spotted the typo, only after submitting their final report. (Personally, I would consider pointing at typos in other people's work in a preprint the epitome of pettiness, but that is a separate issue.) They may also have concluded that some of their comments were irrelevant to whether or not your paper should be accepted for publication (in which case they would have no place in the referee report). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: This is an interesting question and I think it depends on which ethical framework you are operating under. If you subscribe to a [consequentialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism) ethics framework, then you would judge the ethics of this reviewer's actions by what the consequences are likely to be. If the reviewer did notice an error in your paper, but chose to withhold that information from you, then the foreseeable consequences include a paper possibly being published which contains one more error than it would otherwise. That's a bad outcome for the wider pursuit of knowledge (and for you as an individual), and the outcome is a foreseeable consequence of the reviewer's actions, so the reviewer has an ethical duty to inform you of the error via the review process. On the other hand, if you subscribe to a [deontological](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontology) ethics framework, then you would judge the ethics of this reviewer's actions by what rules the reviewer was supposed to be following, or what the reviewer's responsibilities were. The purpose of a review is to make a recommendation to the editor regarding whether the paper is suitable for publication in that journal. If the reviewer honestly believes that the paper is unsalvageable, that fixing every error would not result in a paper suitable for publication, then their ethical obligation to make a sound recommendation using their best judgement does not entail mentioning every error they noticed in the paper. Keep in mind that although the review is sent to the author and the author is expected to respond to it, the purpose of the review is to help the editor make an informed decision about whether to accept or reject the paper. Note: I've answered by assuming the premise of the question, which is that the reviewer did notice these particular errors before submitting their review to the editor. It's quite possible that they noticed later, in which case the question is more hypothetical. There is still a related question of whether they have an obligation to inform the editor about minor errors they discover after submitting their review; I'm not sure what the standard practices and norms are in such a situation, but even a consequentialist might say that if the reviewer sincerely believes that the editor will reject it based on their recommendation, then as far as the reviewer knows, informing them (and you) of additional minor errors would be inconsequential. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I am not sure the reviewer's behavior is unethical. Technically, they did not violate confidentiality as their preprint was published after publication of your paper. > > it seems like they were using our data/code > > > But again, they did not publish anything before your publication. After that, a preprint using your data/code looks OK (if your work product is properly cited). They probably were preparing their preprint before your paper was published, but I am not sure this is unethical, as the preprint was published after your paper was published. > > it seems like they were ... withholding issues > they spotted to prepare their own pre-print while reviewing my paper. > > > I assume the reviewer recommended rejection of your article. As others wrote, the reviewer could just make arguments that they believed were sufficient to warrant rejection. > > The pre-print even includes a link that only appears in the draft that > was used in the review process, not in the published paper. > > > If, as I assume, the link is accessible to general public, providing it does not violate confidentiality either. In general, you criticized the reviewer's work, they published an objection as soon as they could. I would say, this is understandable. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: There are three separate issues here that I can see, and two of them suggest a problem with peer review in your case. First, most (all?) reputable journals and conferences have policies requiring confidential peer review. That is- reviewers are not allowed to share the work or discuss the work with until it is published. This gives the author the opportunity to present their best possible work to the community, and prevents low-quality work from entering the academic discourse without the validation of peer review. If your work was shared outside of the peer review system, it indicates a major breach of protocol. Second, most (all?) reputable journals also have policies about conflict of interest in peer review. At a minimum, all such conflicts need to be declared to the editors involved, and ideally anyone with a conflict should not be a reviewer. This is not always possible, such as when the topic concerns a very narrow specialty, but at a minimum it is a sensitive situation that the editors should have known about. In order for this person to have gotten your work, it would seem that one of these two best practices was not adhered to. If your field is actually incredibly narrow in scope then perhaps the review was allowed to be conducted by the person you were critical of. It is certainly worth a letter to the editor and they certainly should not be surprised by it. The third issue is the timing. This is not a problem, except as it implies a breach of protocol in points one or two above. Once the work enters the public discourse then it is free game for comment. The person you are critical of did the right thing by delaying their publication until your work was published, and that is all you can really ask of anyone. If we are to have confidential peer review then there must be a point at which the restriction of confidentiality drops (in part because the reviewers are often the best qualified people to participate in the public discussion that follows the private review). You can see this especially with high-profile papers when they are published- all of the people who you think would normally be commenting are silent, then suddenly the paper is published and they all give a big sigh of relief and say, "OK, now I can talk about this." As an author you might understandably want your work to have a "grace period" where it can be discussed freely without rebuttal, but as far as I know that's never been a thing. If you have to pick a point in time to drop confidentiality, then the public publication seems to be the best. Upvotes: 2
2022/07/01	723	3,023	<issue_start>username_0: Recently I had a paper sent back to me (rejected) with two referee reports. This is not that surprising as this was a very good journal. The problem is that the identity of one of the referees is revealed even though it's supposed to be a single-blind system. This wouldn't be too much of a problem usually, but the identity of the referee turns out to be one of my letter writers, and someone I've worked with closely. This creates a very awkward situation for me. Any advice?<issue_comment>username_1: Let it go. They were doing their job. If their commentary was fair there is nothing for you to do here, but forget about the incident. This is a rather explicit case, but in the future there will be many cases where you can quite accurately infer the identity of a referee. Some of those referees will be people you know, some reports will be negative. It something you have to (learn to) deal with. If their comments where exceptionally harsh to the point of them clearly not respecting you or your work, then it may be better to remove them from your list of letter writers. (As an aside, if they are writing letters for you, it would probably have been better if they had recused themselves from reviewing your work.) Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: username_1' answer properly addresses how to feel about the referee. As for the broken anonymity, could this be a case where the referee signed their report? Some journals will respect a referee wishing to break anonymity in this way. If that is not the case and the journal inadvertently leaked the referee's identity then I would suggest pointing this out to the editor in case they can take steps to avoid such situations in the future. (The fact that only one of the referees' identity was included rather than all makes a signed report more likely.) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: The review is single-blind, so the reviewer had nothing against reviewing your paper knowing you were the author. In their eyes, then, there is nothing awkward. In fact, if the review was fair, there is no issue. The double blind is in place to avoid bias, but if the referee did a good job (i.e. a fair review, without bias) then no problem. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: There is a good rule: "If in doubt, do nothing." Other people believe that you should notify the editor. I wouldn't do that, as you cannot be sure the editor would not notify the referee, and that would be more awkward :-) I don't see how the current situation is awkward for you, unless you let the referee know what you now know. Actually, you just obtained some valuable information. If we knew what other people say about us behind our back, we might lose some illusions, but I am not sure this would be a bad thing :-) The only thing you may wish to do is consider if you should ask this person to write support letters for you, although you cannot be sure other potential letter writers say nicer things about you behind your back :-) Upvotes: 2
2022/07/01	1,023	4,359	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently applying for a PhD position in mathematics and during the corresponding interview, I am supposed to give a short 10 minutes talk about my research proposal. In my particular case, my proposal basically aims at generalizing a (very) recently published result from a mathematician of the department I am applying to (who I would like to have as a supervisor). More precisely, my proposal aims at trying to prove the same statement by weakening the requirements, which, however, requires new tools from the beginning. Since 10 minutes are rather short, I have the following question(s): As far as I know, a talk given in a PhD interview should usually aim at explaining the things on a rather basic level, so that also non-experts of the field can follow the basic ideas (am I right?). So, since 10 minutes are rather short, I will have to explain some of the basics first. Afterwards, I should probably explain the recent work, since in the end my proposal aims at generalizing this paper. However, all of this is already quite dense, so I won't have to much time to explain my actual proposal, i.e. the steps I have planned to prove the stronger statement. > > So, is it fine when most of the presentation is on more basic things, > aiming at explaining the basics, the current literature as well as the > paper on which my work will be based, or should I shorten this part > and work out more the steps I planned in order to achieve my objectives > (which is rather hard, as I only have a vague plan, since the precise steps will come when actually working on the project as a PhD student)? > > > EDIT: This question is not duplicate to [PhD interview - short (!) presentation](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/62475/phd-interview-short-presentation?noredirect=1&lq=1). My question is about a presentation for a proposal, whereas the linked question is about a presentation on an already completed research project. These are two totally different things. In the latter case one can obviously talk about obtained results, which is not possible when presenting a proposal.<issue_comment>username_1: There are other ways to handle this, so treat this post as nothing more than something to consider. Note, however, that the person you most want to appeal to already has the background. Consider starting with the original theorem and say that you see the possibility to generalize it by extending the work on the prerequisites. Then, having set the tone you can work backwards to the underlying theory. In other words, invert the presentation, starting with the conclusion and working backwards from there. In fact this might actually work in a more general case. Then, if the clock cuts you off you will have already stated the most important things, rather than the least. And, practice your presentation with a colleague so that you have a good sense of the time limitations and what you can do. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it's not possible to "explain the basics first", and fit it into 10 minutes. It is just not possible to explain anything non-trivial to "outsiders", in a few minutes. I'd recommend stating precisely and very succinctly what you propose, without any background at all (after all, some people in the room will understand it...) ... promising to explain that background "as time allows". And, before "giving definitions" at all, succinctly state the "prior art". Then... oop, the time will be up. Yes, that is frustrating, and may seem perverse, and, well, it kinda is perverse, but I think that what I described is the sanest reaction. Trying to "explain" is doomed, anyway, plus, you'll not get around to telling anything about your actual idea. And, in any case, do not go overtime. Stop a few seconds early, just to show that you can! :) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Not sure if it is good for maths, but in other subjects you could describe first how important the field of work is. Like out of what the original research started, how many first tier papers are published. Then what the grand vision is: why is this interesting? Like if we could do that and that we can prove riemann hypothesis. Then you can zoom back in on the latest result and explain a little in which direction you aim to extend it. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/02	661	2,703	<issue_start>username_0: If we submit a research paper to a journal in Elsevier, then the status will be 'with editor' for some time. Later, the editor invites reviewers. The number of reviewers depends on the manuscript and in general 3 [according to Elsiver](https://www.elsevier.com/__data/promis_misc/Reviewer%20FAQ-9.4.20.pdf). After inviting the reviewers, the status changes to 'under review'. > > How many reviewers are assigned to a manuscript? > > > The number of reviewers often varies by manuscript type. Most papers > receive feedback from three peer reviewers. Shorter papers, such as > brief reports or current issues, may receive feedback from two peer > reviewers. Some journal submissions such as commentaries and book > reviews are reviewed by AJPM editors and do not undergo external peer > review > > > When Elsevier provides the tracking link, it mentions a field Review invitations sent. If it says more reviewers than the recommended then what can one infer from that? Suppose my paper is assigned six reviewers then can I need to infer that my paper is complex enough that need more reviwers?<issue_comment>username_1: The editor can send extra invitations. If 3 are required, it is not entirely clear that 3 out of X will answer, some will reject. I caution it's generally bad form to send huge volumes of requests, but an occasional exceedence is not terrible (for example, if you need 2 reviewers, asking 3 at the start strikes me as very reasonable). It is not uncommon for reviewers to reject an invitation (depending on journal prestige), so one would not want to "waste" acceptances or tarnish the journal's reputation by putting massive burdens on authors to respond to N+ reviewers. I note this is particularly common as far as the filing system that tracks this information is concerned. If reviewers do not properly select "reject" then it may be the case that there invitation is still 'outstanding' though it is clear that they will not review. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think you can conclude anything without actually asking (and you may not get an answer). It depend on the paper and where it fits in the general literature at the time it is submitted. I suspect that if you were to provide a paper yielding a definite conclusion to the [Riemann Hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis) that it would be sent to something like 20 or more reviewers. Probably more. Something like this actually happened not long ago, though I don't remember the details. It was, like Riemann's Hypothesis, a long standing and important question. Perhaps someone still active in math can give a reference. Upvotes: -1
2022/07/02	576	2,391	<issue_start>username_0: I find a few typos a few days after submitting a paper in the field of applied math (mathematical social science). The typos are in the proof to the main theorem: I've wrongly written some variables "j" as "i". Some formulas were supposed to contain both i's and j's, but some of them were switched to the other one. So I guess this could be a decisive factor. I've checked two similar questions here; the answers are suggesting "Don't worry. Typos are not decisive factors". However in math, it is usual that the referees have a high standard of rigidity, and say that they cannot understand the proof, because it is mistaken. Shall I email the editor as soon as possible? The status is "under review".<issue_comment>username_1: Typographical errors can be dealt with during the proofing phase of an article, even after it is accepted for publication. There is no need to contact the editor in this case; reviewers may point out typographical errors, but they would not usually be determinative of a recommendation on a paper. If you receive a revise-and-resubmit then you can deal with the typographical errors then, and even if you receive an acceptance, you can deal with them during the proofing stage for the article. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: How major are the typos? If they are minor and do not affect comprehension - e.g. if you spelled "typo" as "tpyo" - then there's no need to email the editor and you can fix the error during revision or production. On the other hand, if you e.g. used the wrong symbol in an equation - then the typo can potentially confuse the reviewer. It's a more serious problem, and you should email the editor to save the reviewer's time. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Why not contact the journal? I cannot think of a downside. I personally hate having to correct typos in an article I am reviewing. It makes me feel like the author is simply careless and is inappropriately relying on the review process to get things right. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: A few misplaced symbols in a few equations seems too small to bother the editor with. If your paper is well written, with examples in addition to theorems and proofs, the referee will probably work around these mistakes. After all, for every mistake you notice, there are probably three you have not noticed. Upvotes: 2
2022/07/02	407	1,782	<issue_start>username_0: I submitted a cover letter through the journal's website contact form (which has no option to upload a file) and recieved an email confirming receipt by the editor who stated their interest to read the manuscript and thanked us for the submission and that they will get in touch after four weeks. Next, My supervisor advised me to send the manuscript since the editor replied via email and so did I. Six weeks have passed and we haven't received the initial decision yet. Does this indicate rejection?<issue_comment>username_1: This seems like an unusual process for a journal. I hope it is a reputable one. I don't think it would be a rejection with no notice. The more likely reasons are a miscommunication and the editor doesn't have the paper for some reason, or an inefficient review process. You should have received some communication from them; at least a note that it has been received. And you should probably ask for a status update, just to make sure they have it and it is in process. Journals estimating time are notoriously bad at it, you should note. But, also see the canonical question here on such issues: [What does the typical workflow of a journal look like? How should I interpret a particular submission status?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55665/75368). This situation seems to be outside the common practice, though. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: No it does not indicate rejection. It just indicates that they haven't made a decision yet. Assuming the editors are active, then the most probable reason is the reviewers didn't submit a review in time. Whether reviewers will submit reviews in time is not something they can predict when they said "four weeks". There's nothing to do except wait. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/02	1,517	6,712	<issue_start>username_0: Hi i am from a developing country but for some reasons can't reach the university for now and i want to know if i really can have access to (let's say) a developed country grade education (solid bases) : * Is following a curriculum from a university a good way to achieve my goals? * If the answer to question one yes i tried to follow the curriculum to have a well rounded knowledge but don't find the resources to study the said topics(for example i tried to learn civil engineering from Auburn university i don't seek to become a civil enginner just want to have somewhat a deep look) but i get only the name of the courses with their number but when searching for them online i find nothing useful, how should i proceeds? * I already learned some programming and find the ecosystem open and free? is it the same for other branches of science (apart from computer science)?<issue_comment>username_1: It's certainly not always free. Rules vary around the world. Here in the US, there is usually no requirement that course materials be made publicly available. The instructor is generally allowed to publicly post any materials that they created themselves, if they wish to do so, but if they used copyrighted third-party materials like textbooks, then they cannot post those. These days most US universities use learning management systems (Canvas, Blackboard, etc), and by default they restrict access to students who are registered (= paying tuition fees) for that particular course. If the instructor wants to make something public, it requires extra steps. In some cases, the university may have a policy of encouraging faculty to make materials available, perhaps providing support or incentives for them to do so. [MIT OpenCourseWare](https://ocw.mit.edu/) is a notable example. But even there I don't think it's strictly mandatory. So in general, you can't assume that every course in the world will have materials that you can access. You'll have to look around to find materials that you find suitable. And of course, their quality can vary, and it will be up to you to evaluate that. And even when you do find good materials to study on your own, you may end up learning the material well, but you won't get any instructor feedback on your work, nor any grade or other evaluation of how well you learned, nor any official credential such as a degree. Those do require actually enrolling with the university, and paying whatever tuition fees they might happen to charge. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: This is from the perspective of someone who mainly studies' through the internet. > > Is online education really free? > > > In theory, yes but in practice no. You pay for the online education by paying for the device you access material on, the internet and finally with the time you spend going over the material. > > If the answer to question one yes i tried to follow the curriculum to have a well rounded knowledge but don't find the resources to study the said topics(for example i tried to learn civil engineering from Auburn university i don't seek to become a civil engineer just want to have somewhat a deep look) but i get only the name of the courses with their number but when searching for them online i find nothing useful, how should I proceeds? > > > The trick is to find a textbook. Just search any introductory civil engineering textbook and study from that, the part you do get stuck, just check other places. There are of course MIT OCWs, but I feel that they show limited information at times which would otherwise be standard in a textbook. In my opinion I think if you are outside of a university, then the idea of confining yourself to a course/course material is pointless. A textbook and course may give you direction, but don't try to take more from it then that. If you don't get certain part from a book or a course, then just check something else. Don't force yourself to understand specifically from that place. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: There are well-known universities, companies, and non-profit organizations that have made large efforts to make large amounts of university-level educational content available for free. Examples include [MIT OpenCourseWare](https://ocw.mit.edu/) and [Khan Academy](https://www.khanacademy.org/). There are undoubtedly many others you can find with a google search. That means that it should not be difficult to find free and reasonably high quality content for most mainstream undergraduate education topics. For more specialized topics it will be more hit or miss. For some topics you may get lucky and find good content some professor was kind enough to make available, for others you won’t. The main problem has to do with your first question: > > Is following a curriculum from a university a good way to achieve my goals? > > > Well, we don’t know what your goals are exactly. If your goals are getting a university degree, one big problem is getting someone to certify the knowledge you’re acquiring via tests and other assessments, and eventually award you a diploma. That’s usually not free. And another big problem is that even if you just want the university education rather than a degree, most people don’t have the discipline and other skills required to study all the material for a college degree on their own even if it is available. A true university education consists of more than a one-way consumption of knowledge (even very high quality knowledge), but rather is a two-way interaction in which you go to a campus, sit in lectures, ask questions, talk to your peers, and do many other things that involve interacting with your fellow students and with the teaching faculty, all of which facilitate the learning process. A university is like a very large [positive feedback loop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback) in which thousands of students and professors all reinforce each other’s motivation and intellectual progress. By consuming all the material online on free education platforms, you will miss out on this very significant aspect of what a university education is about. That being said, the education platforms are used by millions of people who find them beneficial. They’re quite good in lots of ways, and certainly are infinitely better than getting no education at all. And some people - I would say a very small fraction of people - are autodidacts who truly have the ability to learn difficult material entirely on their own with no feedback from others. Those rare individuals can probably get as much benefit from studying free online content as from attending university in person. Upvotes: 2
2022/07/03	606	2,661	<issue_start>username_0: I am an early-career researcher in mathematics. In general, after submitting a paper to a journal, it is advised to wait six months before requesting information about the status of the review process. In other words, in mathematics peer review takes a lot of time. Having said that, I tend not to fully understand why a reviewer would take 3+ months before recommending to reject a paper. Certainly there are cases where this is inevitable (e.g., if the paper is highly technical), yet I would expect reviewers to keep a manuscript for more than 4-6 months only if they are willing to recommend acceptance. So my question is. Is it ethical/generally accepted for a reviewer to recommend rejection after months from receiving the manuscript?<issue_comment>username_1: Actually, time isn't the important variable here, quality of the paper is, as well as the required correctness, of course. And authors are warned about the time in any case. Every reviewer should be willing to accept every paper when it arrives. They should also be willing to reject every paper. But reviewing isn't the first priority of people willing to review. They have their own work. They have their own students to attend to. And, to do a good job on a paper likely requires work of its own along with several readings. In fact, in mathematics, and perhaps other fields, it is busy people who you want to be the reviewers: active mathematicians with a deep interest in the field, not novices with time on their hands. What wouldn't be ethical is to agree to review a paper and then ignore it completely after receiving it or to come to a conclusion and not communicate it to the editor. But, otherwise, there is no ethical concern about the time of a review, whether the paper is recommended for acceptance, revision, or rejection. The goal is to get good work published, not to win a race. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I can understand why you are upset. However, you do not know all relevant facts. It could have been that your reviewer only took a couple of days, because the first reviewer had a problem and could not review it, such as an illness, and the reviewer then was a replacement selected by the editor. It could be that the reviewer was the original reviewer, but something such as an illness or a similar catastrophe delayed the review. That should not oblige the reviewer to recommend acceptance. It could be that there was an accident relaying the review such as an unsent email. There are many possibilities other than the reviewer deciding to sit on the manuscript to make your life harder. Upvotes: 0
2022/07/03	684	3,074	<issue_start>username_0: I am working for a research organization where a senior member, holding a coordination role, <NAME>, gives reference letters to people that he does not know well. It is a large organization and John has written tens of reference letters within the last year. Everyone seems to know this and accept it, it seems to be not John's modus operandi, but something that is expected from someone in his position. When I asked letters to professors I worked with, they got calls from people interested on me and they got asked further questions about me. This makes me think that in order for someone to write a reference letter, that person needs to be well acquainted with the work of the person for whom the letter is. I am not sure what is going on here. Is this a dishonesty case? Do I have a lack of understanding of what a reference letter is? Should I ask a letter from John, when he does not know me, despite John might be willing to write it on my behalf? Is this acceptable everywhere else in academia?<issue_comment>username_1: Assuming you mean a recommendation letter for graduate study or an academic job, a letter from someone who can't personally attest to your suitability for the position is just about worthless. They are easy to spot unless the writer lies in some creative way. Letters, at least in the US, are an important way for organizations to make a confident prediction about the likelihood of success of a candidate. They are less important (and generally meaningless) in some places. If you have access to writes who are both themselves credible witnesses (professors, say) and who has knowledge of your specific skills and capabilities then ask those people. The expectation from the reader is that the writer puts their own reputation on the line for the candidate. It is literally OK to ask a senior person who doesn't really know your work, but it is sub-optimal if you have other options. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Asking someone you do not know to write a letter is okay. Writing a letter for someone you do not know is okay. People do not do this because, in theory, you will get a better letter from someone who knows you well. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: One does not have to be familiar with your (whole) body of (scientific) work to write a reference letter. This can be due to * you worked with the person in an interdisciplinary project (e.g. informatics - physics), but he can very well therefore judge your project management abilities and innovativeness, also the person is of different education in another branch * you managed together infrastructure or the acquainting of funding for it * you have other complementary historic common experiences with this person not appearing in the other recommendation letters (therefore often several letters for a candidate are asked for to cover this professional spectrum) Modern research is a lot of hard management, teaching, proposal writing... innovative ideas in a field often lay on the street to be picked up first. Upvotes: -1
2022/07/03	1,564	6,489	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a M.A. student in Art History looking to apply to PhD programs in the Fall. I have heard that it is important when choosing an advisor to pick one that is good/efficient in getting their students academic postings/postdoctoral work. I'm not sure what the validity of this statement is given that it came from a fellow graduate student, but the person seemed very adamant that it is really your advisor's job to get you an academic posting after your PhD and not your own responsibility. I am wondering if this is true? Also, if it is true that job placement is important in picking an advisor, I am wondering where/how I would find out specific advisor's job placement rates?<issue_comment>username_1: There are a lot of factors to consider in choosing an advisor, including this one, but this isn't the overriding concern. You need to do good, publishable, work in a doctoral program and you may (probably will) need guidance and assistance in that. So, the more important considerations for an advisor is their knowledge and helpfulness in guiding your progress. This requires that they spend some time and effort in their advisement. But even when an advisor is very instrumental in getting you a postdoc position, after that it is pretty much up to what you produce (even before that, actually). I'll agree that an advisor has responsibility to help you get into the marketplace initially, but to say that it is only their job is a mistake. It is, fundamentally, your job, though at the start you are only a novice at it. I'll also guess that, generally speaking, advisors who have a good track record at placing their students also do a good job on the other aspects. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: > > that it is really your advisor's job to get you an username_2 posting after your PhD and not your own responsibility. > > > This strikes me as extremely naive. It is certainly your advisor's job to help you, and some advisors do a better job of this than others -- but ultimately your career is your own responsibility. I recommend that you look before you leap. There are likely to be far fewer tenure-track jobs available in art history, than there are strong candidates. (You do not want an adjunct position, at least not in the long term.) Are you dead-set on academia? Are there other jobs you might enjoy doing? Would you enjoy doing a PhD in art history, even if you end up at a job that is not directly related? You might get lucky but you probably shouldn't count on it. The narrower your career ambitions, the more cautious you have to be. Looking for career placement rates is an excellent idea. Probably a good first step is to try to find CVs of professors in your target department. These often have lists of former graduate students, and you can do a little google-fu. This is nowhere close to foolproof, but with some internet sleuthing you can often end up finding out where some of them ended up. This is a good idea independently of your advisor choice: it will give you a sense of what some of your long-term options may be. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: > > the person seemed very adamant that it is really your advisor's job to get you an username_2 posting > > > They are wrong. > > Is job placement an important factor in picking a PhD advisor? > > > Yes. Those advisors whose former students have jobs that appeal to you will be able (but not necessarily willing) to help you meet the people who are hiring for those jobs. > > I am wondering where/how I would find out specific advisor's job placement rates? > > > Check their website. You might find that information there 10% of the time. If you are not getting your PhD in computer science or one of a very small number of similarly fashionable fields, your chances of becoming a professor are extremely small. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Others have discussed the question of who is responsible for your career. I endorse those answers and have thumbed-up them. I want to discuss a means to attempt to find where a prof's students have gone after their degree. In physics there are some magazines with titles like Physics Today and similar names. They are non-technical magazines giving such things as creation of new departments at different universities, who has been hired, what conferences are happening, changes to grant agencies, new journals or changes in journal staff, and many other related items. One thing they often have, possibly only once per year, is recent graduates at MSc and PhD level, and where they have gone on to. So you can get back issues of such magazines and find out where profs have sent their students. Yes it is your responsibility. But if a prof has sent his last five students to a similar sort of career, it's a good indicator of how you should expect to proceed if you get a PhD working with that prof. If 4 out of 5 are now in tenure track positions, that means something. If instead 4 out of 5 are doing something else, that is probably indicative. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: It is certainly not the advisor's job to get a PhD graduate a job placement after they finish. They should be big and ugly enough to look after themselves by then. What a supervisor should do is be willing to provide a timely letter of reference and reference for job applications, and be willing to provide general career advice to the extent of their knowledge. In some cases advisors might be able to open doors for their graduates through their own professional networks, but this is not obligatory (and not something you should rely on). As to the broader question, I think it is a bit sad that an incoming PhD student would look at their choice of advisor in this way. An username_2 program to get a PhD should be driven by love for the subject matter, interest in the field of study, and the degree to which an advisor's work and approach inspires and assists the student with respect to the substantive field. Ideally, the career prospects of the student should then be determined by their skills and the quality of their work, not the professional network and glad-handing of their advisor. It is certainly a shame if job placement is an overriding concern for an incoming student. That is not a criticism of you --- I know you didn't invent the tough job market for art history doctorates, but it is still a real shame to look at things this way. Upvotes: 0
2022/07/04	782	3,343	<issue_start>username_0: Until now, I never engaged in presenting a conference paper. In the near future, I may likely need to give a seminar on a conference paper. In order to gain knowledge about conference presentations, I watched videos of seminars given by authors of accepted papers of previous years which are available on YouTube. I can classify the seminars based on the type of questions asked by participants into 3 categories: 1. No questions from participants; 2. Questions solely based on the contents of the presentation; 3. Questions about research that happened a long time ago (say 20 years) that might be related to the presented paper. The questions of category 3 are generally from domain experts. The questions are along the lines of: > > The technique used by your published conference paper (say, on page no:3) seems similar to the technique that has > been used in some other paper titled \_\_\_\_\_\_ by \_\_\_\_\_. How is your idea > different from their techniques? > > > In some cases, if the corresponding author, who is presenting the paper, encounters such questions, other people from the audience, probably other authors, responded to the questioner since the corresponding author was not necessarily aware. In this context, is it proper etiquette to prevent such questions by saying something like the following? > > I will gladly answer any questions about the contents that > are present in my presentation slides. > If there are any other questions, feel free to email me. > > ><issue_comment>username_1: I suggest that you don't try to restrict questions in any way. Among other things it might be resented, but probably just ignored. Welcome any questions. Feel free to answer with "I've not thought about that, sorry." But a better "answer" is to invite the questioner to discuss the issue off-line. It is an opportunity to expand both your scope and your circle of collaborators. You don't/can't know everything, but you can learn from others. Deep questions are fine, but it is hard, even for an expert, to give a good answer with the time constraints of conference presentations. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you are starting from a wrong premise. Why would you want to restrict such questions? It is useful for you to get them. If you find out about relevant research from 20 years ago that you did not know about, you learn something new. Maybe it contains useful techniques for your next paper. Maybe it can help you focus on a different problem. Are you afraid that you might get questions you don't know the answer to? There is nothing wrong in answering "I did not know about this paper. Could you send me a reference?". There is no shame in that. Even if it is something you should have known about, it is a learning moment, and you will know the next time. Even if you solicit questions via e-mail, maybe people will not want to take the time to send an e-mail to you, and you have lost that knowledge. By restricting questions on your presentation, you give the impression of someone who is not interested in feedback, exchange of opinions, and learning something new. We all have things we should know but don't. Embrace it and don't be afraid. If you hide your head under the sand, you will not become a better researcher. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2022/07/04	1,458	6,435	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently pursuing my PhD in mechanical engineering in the US and currently working (as part of a team of graduates) with my advisor on a research project. At this stage, we are in the modelling phase which requires us to perform weekly meetings where we perform short presentation about recent literatures and discuss what challenges we might face and brainstorm several ideas. Recently, my advisor established contact with another team for collaboration from the engineering department of country X to take part in the modelling phase. The issue is that country X has been regarded a sworn enemy country from my native country Y in which country Y forbids to even make contact with any individual from this country. I myself never been interested in politics and have never prompted any conversation regarding this matter with anyone in my academic studies. Moreover, I don't believe in any form of hate or discrimination including any bias towards any nationality (even people from country X!) However, my main concern is my academic reputation in my native country which will be challenging to confront and illustrate to individuals there especially since my country is always in a heated political turmoil and having said this my academic career in my native country Y would be put to jeopardy. My main question: > > How should I properly inform my advisor of the conflict of interest that I am facing? How can I briefly discuss the consequences that I might face in my native country without sounding too much political? > > > While the project itself requires huge amount of work and dedication from our team, I fear that by informing my advisor that I will not to pursue it anymore would either add more obstacles to our modelling progress or it leave a negative impression on me from my advisor. Note: the term "enemy" is based on what my country states in the media when referring to country X.<issue_comment>username_1: > > ...my main concern is my academic reputation in my native country which will be challenging to confront and illustrate to individuals there especially since my country is always in a heated political turmoil and having said this my academic career in my native country Y would be put to jeopardy. ... > > > How should I properly inform my advisor of the conflict of interest that I am facing? How can I briefly discuss the consequences that I might face in my native country without sounding too much political? > > > It would certainly be a sad state of affairs if people view you negatively merely because you collaborate (on a project with positive social value) with a person who is a national of a hated country. If the team of engineers you are proposing to collaborate with are people who do bad things to Country Y, or are going to use their robot for military purposes against Country Y, then I can see why people would have objections. But if they are just civilians doing engineering work on civilian projects with positive social value, it would be unfortunate if this is viewed negatively. If this is indeed a serious risk to you, your advisor is likely to sympathise with your predicament, even if they can't do much of value to solve the problem. As to how to explain it, just be open with your advisor about the problem at hand and the reputational risk you may face in your native country. Be clear about the culture in your native country and be prepared to explain the kind of problems you might encounter, to assist your advisor to understand your predicament. Your advisor obviously cannot change the underlying attitudes of people in your native country, so cannot solve the underlying problem. Nevertheless, they might be able to offer some options that would give you some choice in how you want to proceed. One option would be to excuse you from the project. Another would be to have you continue on the project anonymously, which has the drawback that you won't get credit on the papers coming out of the project (though your advisor could still specify that you worked on them in letters of reference). Another option would be to continue on the project and accept the reputational risks. Your advisor might be able to counsel you on your decision, and give you some idea of the academic issues arising from the matter. Finally, there is no reason to be concerned about "sounding political" (in a broad sense) when the issue you are explaining is inherently political. The consequences you face here are political, so clearly articulating those consequences is going to be assisted by providing an explanation of the political dynamics at play in your native country. If you are concerned about "sounding political" in the sense of taking a political stand yourself, then you can avoid that by focusing solely on explaining the exogenous effects of the relevant politics on your career, without expressing support or opposition to the political positions you are explaining. (But having said this, you seem keen in your question to differentiate your own views from the antagonism that is prevalent in your native country, so it sounds like you want to "sound political" after all.) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think a reasonable advisor would accept what you say here. "I'll be in danger, personally and reputationally, if my name is associated with country X in any way." People understand that the world isn't a perfect place and that people are constrained in what they can safely do. Just say it. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Sadly, we live in a broken world. Your advisor can't stop you from withdrawing from a project, but you will lose advantages. I would not be afraid of discussing the situation with them. They might well have some helpful insight. But ultimately, your choice is between the loss from your advisor if you withdraw, and the loss from the rest of the world if you participate. I know someone who was in a similar position regarding "politically incorrect" research. It didn't involve a foreign nation, but (completely legitimate) scientific research in an area that has been (illegitimately) politicized. The research was quite significant, but went against what's generally perceived as "politically correct". It's a bit like going against the church was in the old days. For what it's worth, the person in question abandoned the research, against my advice. Upvotes: 3
2022/07/04	710	3,133	<issue_start>username_0: I am looking for postdocs in computer science in the US. My spouse and children will not be able to move. So I have decided to look for positions at universities very close to my city. This puts me in the slightly strange position of having to look for postdocs in areas not very connected to my thesis. (FWIW, my thesis is on a specific area of machine learning (manifold learning), but I am open to positions in ML applications for healthcare, explainable AI, computer vision, natural language processing, collaborative computing, human computer interaction, etc.) With my location constraints, I am confused about how my research statement can cater to professors in all/most of these areas with minimal rewriting. Or do I have to tailor the statement for every application to reflect the defined current research focus of each lab? I understand that the part of the research statement that talks about my previous accomplishments will remain the same, but other than that, tailoring the future plans part for each lab seems like a lot of effort. (I have identified around 20 labs so far.)<issue_comment>username_1: Look at it from the point of view of a lab director. They will want someone who can be productive right away, because post-doc funding does not provide for an extensive training period. They will want someone that is enthusiastic and has new ideas so that things will get done (papers written, grants submitted, students graduated). You do in fact have to tailor your research statement to each lab and you do have to do some homework trying to figure out what type of person they are looking for. The better a job you do, the more chances to you have of getting a position and of actually fitting in well. A narrative of: "This is my specialization". But "I want to be more of a generalist" / "I want to branch out into this sub-field and this is what I can contribute to it" / "I want to apply my knowledge to a specific area and this is what I can do for you" would be more successful than just asking for a job. Luckily for you, there are many industrial positions that pay quite well, so that there will be less competition for post-docs. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Since you are geographically constrained you actually have the opportunity to go and talk to several people who might be interested about how you might fit into their work. And also, how you might extend their scope to fit with yours, something they might consider. I suggest you don't pander to their (guessed) needs, but ask them what they actually might get from your skills. Your area is hot at the moment, so you have something to give. And, your postdoc doesn't necessarily need to be an extension of your "thesis", so think more broadly, which you seem to have done about applications at least. Note that some teaching might also be important in some places and it might be another bargaining chip if you have those skills. Longer term, however, work toward figuring out how to make the geographical constraints less binding. This is joint thinking for the whole family, of course. Upvotes: 2
2022/07/04	1,540	6,693	<issue_start>username_0: I am in an advanced stage of my phd, finishing next year. I have 2-first author publications in which I used data from my group. My research group has different datasets stored in `MySQL` server, in which each researcher accessed their relevant dataset. In my 2 previous publications, I exported my dataset into a `csv` file and worked with it. During this data export, I had to perform a couple of table join operations, involving filtered data in a kind of "summary" table, joining it with a table containing original raw data. Last week, I was working on my third review paper, and I needed to get some statistics from the `MySQL` server, when I discovered that the dataset I used in my previous research was actually incorrect. Incorrect in the sense that I had an error in my data filter SQL query (used to export it), therefore the exported dataset was incomplete, kind of a "subset" of the actual data. All my conclusions in previous work were drawn from this incorrect data. I am in panic, and don't know what to do. I am not sure what the reactions of my supervisor would be, if I explain this problem to him. He is such a person that expects "near perfect" from his students. I am now sure how this will affect my PhD. The years and efforts invested are likely in vain. What is the best course of action?<issue_comment>username_1: Oh no! This is bad news for sure, but try not to panic. The main thing is to rerun your analysis with the corrected dataset. Hopefully, you have been organizing your work in such a way that you can just replace the csv file, push the button, and have results quickly. If not, this is a good opportunity to improve your old code such that you can quickly reproduce the old numbers and then produce the new numbers. If possible, I would try to do this quietly (i.e., before telling others of the potential problem). Once you have these results, you'll be in a better position to talk to your advisor. If you are lucky, your results will be the same (or even better, since you have more data) and it is just a matter of updating the paper without changing your conclusions. This shouldn't be too much of a problem. You should still tell your advisor, as a corrigendum may be required, but his anger should be limited. You should also consider approaching this from the other side -- what claims did you make in the paper about your dataset? If you claim to have used, say, ImageNet, then there is not much wiggle room. But if you claim to have used "500 original datapoints from a medical database," then you might be able to simply replace this with "300 original datapoints from a medical database" and there is no need to change the papers' results or conclusions. Of course, it's also possible that your bug biased the dataset in such a way that your conclusions are no longer valid. This would put you in a much more serious situation for which there is not much advice to give -- all you can really do is tell you advisor, show him the before/after numbers, and hope that his reaction is reasonable. The way forward will depend heavily on the technical details of your paper, so only your advisor's advice is really valuable in this case. Good luck. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Don't worry, everyone makes mistakes. Identifying and correcting mistakes is a crucial component of academic research and developing new theories. From my experience, as long as you correct the mistake in a honest way, the journal will not retract your paper and your PhD will be unaffected. 1. Most papers are force-retracted because of ethical problems or political problems. No paper from my knowledge is forced to be retracted due to honest mistake (unless you require it) 2. If mistakes are identified, the best scenario is that you correct it by yourself. The second best scenario is someone else find it first and correct it for you. 3. Even if someone else find your mistakes, your paper will usually not be retracted. For example, see this example in the most rigorous journal in economic statistics: <https://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/kasy-and-sautmann-econometrica-2021-proven-wrong/page/16> Here is what I would do: 1. I would use the corrected dataset to rerun all the analysis and start writing a corrigendum or addendum. 2. For some results that still hold, I would write that those conclusions are verified with the new dataset. 3. If some new results are different from the old results, I would update the new version of the results in paper, explain why the new results are correct in this scenario, and write a short discussion on under which scenarios would the old results likely to hold and under which scenarios would the new results are likely to hold. 4. Finally, you can post your addendum/corrigendum online and send it to the same journal. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: First of all, don't panic. This is not necessarily a fatal flaw. You said that the analysis was done on a subset of the data. Rerun the analysis on the full data set. If the conclusions still hold and follow from the hypothesis, your work will not be substantially affected. You can revise the paper even after its been published. Mistakes are happening in science. This happens particularly in the more difficult fields like theoretical math, where the results are very difficult to understand (even by experts). The only way you are in trouble is if the conclusion is changed. In any case, its better to find the mistake yourself than to have someone else find it and rub your face in it. Regardless, you are going to have to tell your advisor. These things happen though. You aren't the first person to have this happen to them. At least you are still in your PhD program. You can at least fix everything before publishing your thesis. You need to go about this the right way. The worst thing you could do right now is to go into a full blown panic and start calling everyone you know, including the journal and telling them you made this terrible mistake. Take some time and understand the mistake. Try to understand if it can easily be fixed or if the entire paper is going to change. Once you do that, then go to your advisor first with the complete analysis of the situation. Due to the highly political and sensitive nature of the academic world, you need to handle this correctly and carefully. If this is a minor error, it can likely be corrected with a simple revision and it should not be blown out of proportion. I would recommend going through the appropriate channels and deferring to those that have more research experience on how to correct this mistake correctly. Upvotes: 3
2022/07/05	3,895	16,092	<issue_start>username_0: A year ago we submitted a manuscript to a high-profile journal. I was a co-author. The review process for this journal is single-blind—that is, the authors do not know who the referees are, while the referees know who the authors are—and we got two referee reports, one positive and one negative. The latter seemed to have been written by someone who hadn't had time or energy to do the job properly. Using some arguments that we found rather shallow, he argued that our research findings were not significant enough to warrant publication in that journal. Reading the negative report carefully, I noticed there a few non-standard expressions, typed them into Google, and found two of them in articles by one and the same guy, including a single-authored article, and nowhere else on the entire Internet. The guy is a prominent scientist in our field of research. Knowing he would never want to alienate our research group, we submitted a rebuttal letter abounding in references to his articles so as to make him realize we knew who he is. To strengthen the effect, the list of references added to the revised manuscript consisted almost exclusively of papers authored or co-authored by that guy and was explicitly provided in the rebuttal letter. We wrote our rebuttal letter politely and respectfully in order to make it look like we wanted to pay respect to him and his research achievements by citing his articles. We addressed all his criticisms in a friendly and factual way. Our idea was that he would think, "The authors seem to know who I am, and they as a large research group are going to referee papers by my group in the future, so it's a good idea to be friendly and reasonable towards them just in case." His second report was very short and said we had fully dispelled his concerns and properly revised the manuscript. It got accepted and published. As time goes on, I wonder more and more about the ethical aspect of what we did. On the one hand, we used open source information to figure out who the referee is. No one told us his identity. On the other hand, we were not supposed to know. How ethical is what we did? --- P.S. I don't know whether I deserve harsh comments, but I was an undergraduate student at that time and have posted my question here in order to learn what is ethical and what isn't. I don't want to do anything unethical in the future.<issue_comment>username_1: Edit: A moderator changed the question. > > Reading our rebuttal letter, the referee must have realized we knew who he is. > > > I am skeptical that you know who the reviewer is, but if you do, it is not a problem to know it or to inform the referee that you know. It is a problem if you incentivize the reviewer to write a positive review, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, do not cite irrelevant papers written by the reviewer. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Even though you state that the cited papers were not irrelevant to the contents of your paper, citing them just to let a reviewer know you found out their identity (and implicitly nudging them towards voting "accept" by doing so) is the unethical thing here. Not the fact that you made them aware that you know their identity. You should only cite papers that are relevant to your publication, and the only reason for chosing papers to cite should be that they are as relevant as possible and never who the author is. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Our group leader says that referees usually don't drop criticisms of [the "research findings were not significant enough" kind] like that. > > > Speaking from experience (having seen hundreds of reviewer reports before), this is actually not that uncommon. Yes, sometimes the reviewer will maintain that the paper is not significant enough, but quite a few reviewers change their mind. It's possible your response was convincing, or it was simply a peer pressure effect (they saw that the second reviewer was happy with the paper, in which case they felt they shouldn't hold it up). You cite a third possibility, which is that the reviewer saw that your paper now cites lots of their articles so they are happy to accept it. It's possible, but from the outside, there's no way to tell. I think the more important questions are: was the reviewer's criticism correct (viewed another way, they are saying that you did not link your work to the literature at large adequately)? Can you truthfully say you addressed that concern? Would you have cited the reviewer's articles if you had been aware of them, to address this concern? If you can answer all these questions with 'yes', then I don't think there's an ethical issue. After all, the reviewer is always going to be most familiar with their own work, and if their work can have an impact on yours, it's normal to ask you to look at their work - and that will necessarily involve citing their papers. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Given your description it sounds like your group actively tried to intimidate the referee with veiled threats of retribution. If this is indeed the case, then, yes, this is extremely unethical behavior. Upvotes: 8 <issue_comment>username_5: Since in a [comment](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/186660/is-it-ethical-to-make-an-anonymous-referee-realize-we-know-who-he-is/186667#comment502998_186662) you state > > the message we wanted to send him with such a rebuttal letter was > like, "Hey, we know who you are, and you know that we as a large group > are going to referee many papers from your group in the future. Let's > be friendly and reasonable towards each other." > > > I second the answer from @username_4, you and your group have been extremely unethical. Implicitly threatening someone by suggesting "we know who you are" is reminiscent of criminal gang behavior rather than scientific collaboration. Though you are not solely personally responsible in this case because you're acting as part of a group, you can still change your thinking in the future. Though this behavior may make you short term gains, it may make others unwilling to collaborate with you if they perceive your behavior as "dirty" or unethical. Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_6: I thought that some answers were very harsh, until I read one of your comments about the rationale for the form of your rebuttal: to tell between the lines to the reviewer > > Hey, we know who you are, and you know that we as a large group are going to referee many papers from your group in the future. Let's be friendly and reasonable towards each other. > > > This looks very much like the beginning of a [cartel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel) and it is not pretty. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_7: It is always better to keep up the pretence that you do not know who the referee is and argue strictly on the basis of sound arguments and objective facts, as best you can. The "we are a large group and you will need us as friends in the future" argument, can be regarded as a veiled threat. Gangsters tend to say this sort of thing, too. As a reviewer, and when dealing with this sort of author group, I always leave a few breadcrumbs(\) that identify me as... someone else! And sure enough, these someone else's subsequently received overt threats from the authors, justifying my camouflage. (\) Turns of phrase, references to previous work, etc. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: You submitted your manuscript to a journal with single-blind reviews. This means that the reviewer is ensured by the journal that their review will remain anonymous, even if they know who the authors of the manuscript are. While this creates an imbalance of anonymity between authors and reviewers, this is the mode of operation that the editors have decided to be in the best interest for the journal. By submitting to this journal, you accept these terms. You (=the OP) tried to learn the identity of the reviewer by googling for revealing passages. This means that you didn't accept the terms that the journal editors set for journal submissions, i.e. that authors of a submission will not know who the reviewers were. It's unethical to violate the terms of a journal as an author without good reason and without informing the editor. If you only googled for the revealing passages to satiate your curiosity, I'd consider this a rather minor violation after all. It's not unheard of that authors have a good idea who the reviewers are in single-blind reviews, and it's not unheard of that reviewers may suspect the author's identity in a double-blind review. Sometimes, the group of people working on a specific topic is just small. For as long as this doesn't affect the process (i.e. for as long as the review is not biased because the reviewer suspects that they know who the authors are, and for as long as the authors don't react differently to the comments because they know who the reviewers are), I don't think it's a huge deal. But your (=the group of authors) reaction to the reviewer comments did change based on the breach of anonymity that you (=the OP) deliberately committed. Not only did you tailor your response based on the information that you obtained about the identity of the reviewer so that they would be satisfied by your response, you also constructed your response in order to manipulate the reviewer's response in a certain way. This manipulation not only affected the handling of your manuscript, you intended your manipulation to be understood to have a potential effect that extends into the future, as it may impact future manuscripts submitted by the reviewer. It's somewhat unethical to break the anonymity of the reviewer. It's even more unethical to use the this information to increase the chance of having your manuscript accepted. And it's immensely unethical to use the this information as a threat to future submissions by the reviewer. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Let's put this in another context: My daughter was failing a high school math class. I found out that the teacher's son is going to my university, majoring in a department I co-chair so I made numerous references to his son so that he knew if looked out for my daughter, I would look out for his son. Was this unethical? YES. Yes, it is unethical to subvert the anonymous ref system and do exactly what it was designed to prevent. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_10: First of all I commend your desire to learn from your mistakes. That takes courage and shows the right attitude. I agree with others that the behavior you described on your part was highly unethical regardless of whether it was ultimately the reason your paper was accepted. A good test for this sort of question is to put yourself in the reviewer’s place: how would you have felt if you had been trying to give an honest review, confident in the fact that you had the freedom to be honest because your review was anonymous, only to receive a rebuttal that passive-aggressively outed you in a way bordering on creepy, appearing to send a very strong “you’d better accept this if you know what’s good for you” message? I’m guessing you would feel wronged. I’m not saying this to beat you up, just to suggest a helpful tool to use in situations like this, preferably before taking the action. The tool only applies in one direction of course—just because you’d be ok with someone doing something unethical to you doesn’t make it ok for you to do it, but it can help you see the negative impact of your own actions on someone else and better understand that it is wrong. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: As pointed out in the other answers, what happened was unethical. Whenever you feel that sticking to the rules would put you at an unfair disadvantage because the referee is not sticking to the rules, you should address this problem to the editor instead of trying to get even by violating rules yourself. Your response to the referee report is sent to the editor, there is room there to make comments that will not be sent to the referees. If you instead act in a way that amounts to manipulating the referee process, the editor may see what is going on and then intervene by rejecting your article. The referee may also contact the editor to attend the editor about what is going on. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_12: Making any effort to find out the identity of a referee is unethical. Sometimes you may already have a good guess or know who a referee is without doing anything; this is unavoidable. Otherwise, you should avoid knowing who the referee is. Typing non-standard expressions from the report into Google was already unethical. There is no way to recover from that. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: It's hard for us to gauge the ethicality of this situation which you have really only half-sketched out. Personally, putting myself into the shoes of someone who - unlike you - was a freshly completed PhD, I would find the action you describe as not ethical in general but maybe good enough in the circumstances, i.e. * PhD researcher having expended > 100% of their physical, neurological and financial resources plus a lot of goodwill from family and friends * Doctoral research work that may be worthy of publication in a top-rank journal * A career and life plan that may not allow for much delay due to a perception by employers' of being left behind * Possible implications for visa/work permit if the PhD was a foreign national * Possible sense of failing parents' and old teachers' time investment by PhD * A resentment by PhD of unfair rank-pulling by a senior colleague * Resentment of editor's almost sublime sense of a 'right to be wrong' and get away with it * A clear sense that those to whom one should be able to turn to for matters like this were evidently indolent or corrupt towards such matters But of course your own circumstances were not that far advanced. You did this work in your final (?) undergraduate year and most primary degree students do not get published - not unless they are like Turing anyway. *Using some arguments that we found rather shallow, he argued that our research findings were not significant enough to warrant publication in that journal.* This might merely mean that this editor thought your work would be more suited to another journal, probably one of lower regard but nonetheless publishable. You will have to judge the ethicality yourself from honestly examining the full circumstances yourself. But I sense that you now realize that you cannot always rely on a combination of smartness, group support and - I have to hand it to you - pure balls in dealing with academic challenges like this in the future. You do. Because, whether you stay in academia or go into industry or wherever, you will soon be dealing with this sort of activity yourself - whether it's justified by your managerial behavior or not. You have to be able to say that this needn't be done as we have a process for resolving disagreements like this, a process that is tested and proven to have adequate robustness and integrity. And you will have to work hard to establish such a process - not just sit back, shrug and groan that it isn't already there. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_14: To reiterate other good answers, for clarity: NO N O Don't do this kind of thing. Whether or not you mean to make a threat, it can easily be interpreted as a threat. What you say is certainly true, that other people need to cultivate your good-will, or at least be confident that you will behave reasonably toward them... that is more to the point. But, wait, shouldn't you behave ethically regardless of how others behave? Although I am indeed aware of a degree of gangsterism in academe, I'd not recommend people allowing themselves to be sucked into thinking in those terms. Even if there is much visible evidence of gangsterism, if one thinks in those terms, and makes choices based on that, it'll be bad. Upvotes: 2
2022/07/05	1,428	6,196	<issue_start>username_0: I am a 2nd year master's students in Pure Mathematics. I am interested in knowing how should I compare the research of 2 pure mathematicians working in same field, say topology. I want to work with one of them for my master's thesis. Both have the same specialization. This will also help me to know which is better for PhD applications. One way I do this is, I go to their Google Scholar profile of Prof A and Prof B and see who has been cited more. The more someone is cited the better. But, I am not able to think of any other parameters. One can think of who has published more papers and divide each paper by number of co-authors and then do a total. I am asking this assuming both work in same branch of pure mathematics.<issue_comment>username_1: It's complicated. This exact same problem is encountered when universities have to hire a new professor, choosing among several candidates. The only satisfying solution people have found is having a committee with several experts in the field (say geometry/topology) review their work, interview them, and spend a nontrivial amount of time in the process. Often there are disagreements. If universities could replace all this work with a simple Google Scholar search, they would do that in a heartbeat. :) Bibliometric indices can help you tell a poor mathematician from a great one, but when ranking people of similar level there are so many confounding factors that they become unreliable. In addition, as the comments note, "which one has the better research output" is a very different question from "which would be a better advisor". So unfortunately there is no short answer: read about them and their research, check their website, ask around to other students and faculty, and try to form an opinion based on this. But unless you find major visible differences, the answer is probably going to be that they're both good choices for your future. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Go and talk to them (each one separately), and have a conversation about your interests, their interests, and what kind of Master’s thesis projects each of them might be able to supervise you to work on. Also, if you are able to talk to their former and current students, get their take on what each of the two professors is like to work with. That sort of feedback could be very valuable. Remember, you are trying to find the best thesis adviser, not the best researcher. Those two qualities are far from identical and do not necessarily align. Thus, the professors’ publication records will not necessarily help you and may even mislead you to make a drastically wrong choice. At the end of the day, it’s probably best to go with your gut about which prospective adviser’s attitude and skills are the best fit for you, after doing the research I’m suggesting above. The relationship between a student and adviser depends closely on psychological factors which cannot be captured by how the two professors look “on paper”. Finally, it’s good to keep in mind that the professors too may be evaluating your fit to be their student. Don’t assume that you necessarily get to choose, or act entitled like you’re interviewing them for a job and they need to impress you with how cool they are. (It may in fact be more helpful to adopt the mindset that it’s you who needs to impress them. But mainly you should approach the conversation as a professional interaction in which two people are considering helping each other reaching a shared goal. In other words, act neither entitled nor obsequious.) Good luck! Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The kind of reductionist task you are attempting is quite dangerous. Researchers are also persons and you want to consider (if only in the abstract) the pros and cons of working with a well-cited researcher who happens to have issues when dealing with others and/or graduate students. In research and in graduate studies, personalities matter because research is done by humans and not by drones (at least not yet). I suggest you consider talking with current and former students to find out the atmosphere in the group. Does this or that person send graduate students to conferences, and how often? Do they send graduate students on academic visits or summer schools? Do they encourage students to meet with guests, or guests speakers? Do they “promote” the work of their students of keep the spotlight for themselves? Do they have transparent guidelines and expectations for the funding of students and their activities? None of these would show up on a Google profile or in a citation index. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It almost sounds like you are trying to optimize a career path, rather than start a research career. If so, I think that's quite misguided, from almost any angle. If you aren't fundamentally guided by a passion for something in math, and make your choices on that basis, I doubt counting citations is going to help you. In my experience, I've seen very few mathematicians focus on career path and come away happy and successful. Math research isn't a corporate hierarchy. Many of the most successful researchers I've known, just worked very hard, often for years in relative obscurity, pursuing an original program. The payoff came when they had interesting results, not when they had enough social connections and bullshit to fill their resume. How do you imagine the number of times a professor has been cited, to affect your work? Are you hoping that you'll hitch to the bandwagon of a hot, emerging field? I've known a few highly talented students who ended up with illustrious, Fields Medalist, advisors, where it probably backfired from a career view. The problem is that being a Fields Medalist doesn't mean being generous with students, writing compelling, or even fair, recommendations, having realistic expectations, encouraging or advising well, or being an engaged advocate. I'm sure most people who've sat on a hiring committee have read stellar recommendations for mediocre students with generous advisors, and mediocre recommendations for stellar students with arrogant advisors. Upvotes: 3
2022/07/06	1,087	4,734	<issue_start>username_0: I have recently submitted some work we did with one of our PhD students to one of ASME's Journals and the editor rejected the paper on the spot (without sending it for review) because the submitted paper did not cite any paper from their journal. The editor was arguing that we should include recent papers from their journal so that they could find a suitable reviewer. I would argue that this is likely just an excuse for getting the journal's impact factor up and I have strong ethical concerns with this journal if that is their practice. The editor should not have such editing power and that should be at the discretion of the authors. If they need a list of reviewers, I am happy to provide that, as is common practice in other journals I have submitted papers to in the past. I did oblige in the end and added a few references and I am currently waiting for the outcome (interestingly, none of the references (all published in 2022 except for one which is from 2019) we included in our paper did cite any work from the same journal, which makes this request even odder, i.e. it seems this is either a new policy they have or our work is being singled out). I was very surprised initially and did not want to publish in that journal anymore given these poor academic practices but did not do so as this would just mean more work for my PhD student to reformat and resubmit the paper to a different journal which would be unfair on him. If that would have been my own work, I would have made it very clear to the editor that I disagree with this practice and that I would not be interested in getting published in their journal. I am just wondering if other researcher had similar experiences and what they would do (or have done) in this situation? There must be some ethical standard that this goes against (?!). Either way, my take away message is that it is unlikely for me to consider ASME again in the future for publishing my work unless they improve their standards.<issue_comment>username_1: Ultimately editors can reject for whatever reason, including "because it doesn't cite other papers from the journal". You could argue that this is a poor reason to reject a paper, or that it is unethical. It sure gives the impression that the journal just wants to boost its impact factor after all (although there's a limit to how many self-citations a journal can have before it gets delisted by Clarivate, see e.g. [this](https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/essays/journal-self-citation-jcr/)). But there are also more benign interpretations. The one given by the editor is such an interpretation, although it's a rather lazy reason, since one can still find reviewers, it's just that one has to register them in the system first. Another benign interpretation is pointed out by Louic in the comments. If your paper is so unrelated to the journal's other papers such that none of them are worth citing, are you sure the journal is still a good fit? Like, suppose I submitted an astronomy paper to a food science journal. Obviously I won't be citing any food science papers, which results in the editor rejecting without review ("because it does not cite other papers from the journal"). Even without such a glaring mismatch, it could still be that your paper is more suited to another journal - for example, suppose your work builds on someone else's work. Perhaps you should submit to the journal that published the original work (why didn't you by the way?). For your specific questions: * I've never encountered this. * I'd probably submit to another journal. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Editors can do whatever they want, pretty much, so long as they don't get the publisher angry. That said, if you're writing a major paper and you haven't cited any papers from the journal you're submitting to, you might take a step back and ask yourself if you're submitting to the appropriate journal. Note also that your paper was not rejected out of hand. It is now in review. Presumably, you could have simply recommended appropriate reviewers that the journal has interacted with before, perhaps with the same outcome. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: > > The editor was arguing that we should include recent papers from their journal > > > Publishing in a journal that blatantly inflates its impact factor is bad for your reputation and bad for academia. Withdraw your paper and take it to a better journal. > > so that they could find a suitable reviewer. > > > Finding a reviewer is really the only responsibility the editor is accountable for, in practice. This editor is announcing their incompetence by claiming they need help finding a reviewer. Upvotes: 3
2022/07/06	623	2,741	<issue_start>username_0: I am an Indian physics student, studying mathematical aspects of quantum field theory and such. Over the years, I have realised that I do not enjoy the mathematical hand waviness that goes into theoretical physics. I often find myself asking about the validity of theorems stated by authors in general. Looking at myself now, I think I care more about the abstract mathematical structures built on very strong foundations (I loved taking a proper mathematics course in Linear Algebra a few years ago). My grades are excellent and my research profile (in theoretical phys.) is decent. Given that I am currently in physics, is it a practical idea to transition into a graduate program in mathematics? Of course, I am not as good as someone who actually studied pure math as an undergrad, but with some hard work, I think I can catch up. Any help is appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: What is "practical" is a judgement call that only you can make. But it is possible. The road might be longer than you like, however. It's not a good life choice to make a career out of things that you don't enjoy. I suggest that you go to the maths department at your current institution and ask them what they think it would take for you to switch fields based on your prior education. If that seems reasonable to you, even if hard, then you can apply to some programs that might accept you. You might have a lot to make up, however, depending on which math courses you have already taken. The exploration can be easily done. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, people do go from other fields into PhD study in mathematics. Doing this may mean some "remedial" course work: writing proofs, or learning parts of mathematics that you didn't cover before. If the math program is large, then there would likely be other new PhD students doing this also. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: If the question is whether it's possible, the answer is yes because I can cite a concrete example: myself. In my case, I had a personal connection to the math research group in which I ended up being a PhD student (I had been a student worker there for a while) and the math department made me take some pure math courses as a condition for ultimately being allowed to defend my PhD thesis, but other than that there were no conditions: Apparently they believed that I was good enough mathematically. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: There are theoretical physicists who do mathematical physics, i.e. develop theories rigorously. This is also the case in quantum field theory. Maybe that is middle way that would suit you. It is then just a matter of finding such groups and get accepted there. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/06	579	2,511	<issue_start>username_0: An old research article of my PhD supervisor with his previous student who worked in cancer is retracted due to similarity in images. My supervisor was the corresponding author. I was not a co-author. If my supervisor suffers reputational damage, how would this affect my own career? Can there be difficulties publishing my own work with my supervisor, given that they had a paper retracted before?<issue_comment>username_1: It can happen to good people that they make a mistake and have to retract an article. (Somewhere on youtube is a talk by a statistician who points to a retracted article by himself. There was a problem in entering data into a spread sheet.) Voluntary retraction of an article would actually speak to the academic virtue of the retractor. Under such circumstances, you should not expect any disadvantages of publishing with your advisor. Being a corresponding author does not mean being responsible for everything. If your co-student fabricated research results, then your advisor might not have been in a position to detect this before submission of the article. In this case again, no blemish on your advisor and you should not expect some disadvantage of publishing with your advisor. If however your advisor was grossly negligent or dishonest, then any of your advisor's publication might draw much more scrutiny (as the academic community in a special field tends to be small and therefore more cognizant of trespasses) and this would be to your disadvantage. However, people will also realize that you were not involved in this incident and that changing advisors can be difficult. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: > > If my supervisor suffers reputational damage, how would this affect my own career? > > > Probably not at all. "Image similarity" in medical research often means there was fraud. Most people will not judge you based on your supervisor's former student's behavior. > > Can there be difficulties publishing my own work with my supervisor, > given that they had a paper retracted before? > > > Probably not at all. Publishing decisions should be made on the content of the paper, not the identity of the authors. To do otherwise would be unethical. If your supervisor happened to commit grant fraud, that could be a real problem. Usually scientists who are caught committing grant fraud loose their funding and are banned from getting new funding for a period of time. Then they cannot pay their PhD students. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/06	774	3,206	<issue_start>username_0: Vague question, I know. But allow me to explain it. I'm a second-year undergrad student in Physics. I entered in the pandemics, and, due to laziness and some personal issues, up to this point, I don't have a stellar record. Not any actual failures or anything of the kind (although I might have one this semester), but, overall, it's a mediocre record. Didn't do homeworks, for example, and that was what gave a hit on my grades. I still have a lot of more advanced courses to take, obviously, but, realizing my situation, I'm not that excited. My question is: Given that, can I turn my school record around? Obviously, I don't mean excluding anything (it wouldn't be called a record then), but, really, turning it around. Meaning, when I try to enter grad school, and they see not so great results in those opening stages, but, in the deeper levels, overall good records, how would that possibly be taken? I just turned 20, so it does feel ridiculous to ask if it's too late for anything, but academia is a whole different world. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: It can happen to good people that they make a mistake and have to retract an article. (Somewhere on youtube is a talk by a statistician who points to a retracted article by himself. There was a problem in entering data into a spread sheet.) Voluntary retraction of an article would actually speak to the academic virtue of the retractor. Under such circumstances, you should not expect any disadvantages of publishing with your advisor. Being a corresponding author does not mean being responsible for everything. If your co-student fabricated research results, then your advisor might not have been in a position to detect this before submission of the article. In this case again, no blemish on your advisor and you should not expect some disadvantage of publishing with your advisor. If however your advisor was grossly negligent or dishonest, then any of your advisor's publication might draw much more scrutiny (as the academic community in a special field tends to be small and therefore more cognizant of trespasses) and this would be to your disadvantage. However, people will also realize that you were not involved in this incident and that changing advisors can be difficult. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: > > If my supervisor suffers reputational damage, how would this affect my own career? > > > Probably not at all. "Image similarity" in medical research often means there was fraud. Most people will not judge you based on your supervisor's former student's behavior. > > Can there be difficulties publishing my own work with my supervisor, > given that they had a paper retracted before? > > > Probably not at all. Publishing decisions should be made on the content of the paper, not the identity of the authors. To do otherwise would be unethical. If your supervisor happened to commit grant fraud, that could be a real problem. Usually scientists who are caught committing grant fraud loose their funding and are banned from getting new funding for a period of time. Then they cannot pay their PhD students. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/06	1,652	7,043	<issue_start>username_0: I have two post-doc offers from universities in the US. Option A is better for me than option B in terms of my interests, however, option B pays slightly more than option A. I want to negotiate my starting salary in option A with the prospective PI via email. 1. Any tips on how should I proceed and compose my email? For instance, should I propose a specific amount that I expect more? 2. What should I do if the PI does not accept? Given that I want to choose option A. 3. Can there be any downfall to this and how to avoid them?<issue_comment>username_1: I made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt of this type before taking my current position, and as long as you're polite and reasonable I can't imagine negotiating being taken poorly. But a few thoughts: 1. On salary: This can be challenging to negotiate for even in labor markets with a supply-demand balance much more favorable to the seller. Welcome to being a junior academic: You probably do not have the leverage to get a higher salary. Salary discrepancies have internal political baggage on top of raw fiduciary constraints. As you can see from the comments, it does not help that many senior academics also believe as second-nature that financial exploitation of their junior colleagues is acceptable. 2. You can also consider other possible job benefits that could be within scope for your manager. Office space, guaranteed travel funding/professional development funding, funds for lab equipment, etc. Travel funding, particularly, is almost raw income if you enjoy the travel. 3. I personally also tried to negotiate my teaching load, namely some flexibility with it. Ultimately you should temper your expectations of getting much anything. There is simply much more supply than demand in this market. As usual in any professional setting, if you negotiate, do not convey promises that you do not intend to keep. So in particular, I'd err on the side of conveying that you are torn between competing offers when discussing this and avoid implying that if conditions are met then you will definitely accept something. Unless of course that's true. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Always negotiate all job offers, unless there is strong evidence it is futile. You will have less success negotiating a postdoc contract than many other kinds of contracts because the person hiring you often does not have the power to grant your request. > > should I propose a specific amount that I expect more? > > > Yes, but call it a request, not an expectation. You can request reasonable things that are not money, such as a longer contract. > > What should I do if the PI does not accept? > > > Negotiate after you have a complete, written offer. Then you can choose to accept or reject the offer. That choice is based on your personal opinion. Negotiation can be futile if, for example, the terms are prenegotiated by a union or set by law. Read those rules carefully; they may have loopholes where you can negotiate. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I concur with @AnonymousPhysicist that there is usually not much space for negotiating postdoc salary: these are usually set by the funding agency or at the University/School/Department level, and the person offering you a job usually have little marge for negotiations (unless they are good friends with the dean or something like that). One can try to negotiate for additional perks, such as regular conference trips, possibility of teaching, status (being called Assistant research professor or something of the kind), supervision of students, etc. On the other hand, negotiation remains negotiation - both sides may draw conclusions from it and act accordingly. I have known people to see the job offers withdrawn in response to their aggressive negotiations stance (both at the postdoc and the professor levels). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Academic year salary is generally the hardest thing to negotiate, so do look to other factors as well. What is the length of these two postdocs? With a two-year postdoc you need to start actively applying for your next job about 14 months from the start. On a three year post-doc you can apply for a few great jobs at this time and then apply more widely during the final year. It might be possible to get a two-year offer extended to three. Summer salary can sometime come from a different source. If the salary is an academic year salary, you can ask for some summer salary. It is possible this can be found from another source than the grant funding the postdoc and is a way around the limits on the grant. Moving costs. For a short-term position, this can be important. If you move as a postdoc every two years the moving costs can be brutal. If they offer no moving costs, ask for a few thousand dollars, perhaps. As other's mentioned, do these require you to teach? It is possible the grant funds are supplemented with teaching funds, and these may come from outside the grant. They could be more or less flexible. Travel funds? If you want a permanent job, you really will want to go to conferences. Look into other research expenses. Do you write papers with someone else? Can there be funds for them to visit? As to the cost of living, there are online resources to sort out costs of rent and food. As to health insurance, ask the two schools what portion you pay. University jobs can have surprisingly large deductions out of the paycheck and these are not uniform across schools. Grants in the US are not like bank accounts. Moving funds between categories is subject to opaque rules. You want to prompt the PI on the grant to think creatively of all possible ways to get you money. I suggest you signal to the PI that you know rules on funding are tricky, and suggest you want to work with them to see if they can hire you as a postdoc without your going too broke too fast. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I think this is a "can't hurt to ask" situation. The professor(s) who want to work with you are, I would hope, generally on your side. Although they may have constraints. I suggest telling them about your competing offer and briefly mention any arguments or comparisons in your favor, such as if cost of living is higher at A, or it has a longer commute or anything like that. It's nice if you can point to specific differences and quantify them, $xxxx/year in housing, etc. I would then suggest asking "if there is any flexibility in the salary". You could say something like "I am very excited about your offer, and an increase would make my decision easy [or easier]". Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_6: I have hired many PDF. Asking may give you an indication of whether the PI is a reasonable, fair minded person in general. In common with other replies, it may be feasible for the PI to confirm a travel allowance/moving allowance/professional development account etc. beyond simple salary. If you get an outraged response, think carefully about accepting the position. Upvotes: 1
2022/07/07	1,260	5,210	<issue_start>username_0: I am starting my PhD this September in the UK. And I am thinking about taking up a part-time job. But I am not sure if I should discuss with my supervisors and ask for their permission first? The part-time job is from the same university, research-related, and in the same domain(but the technical skills will be different from my PhD). It takes 14 hours a week. My PhD contract allows me to do 20 hours part-time job. So admin-wise, it won't be an issue. I am considering taking that job because of 1）although I have a PhD stipend, the money is very little. Additional income would help a lot and 2) I worked a while before starting my PhD. I want to keep my previous job experience "alive" by doing this PhD. 3) the project management skills in this job will benefit me in the future. I am not sure if I need to get approval from my PhD supervisors first.<issue_comment>username_1: With the edit to the question, this seems like a matter of etiquette, rather than anything else. It also seems like a "part time PhD" if 20 hours external work is permitted. If it were me (US) I'd appreciate knowing that you had other duties, but wouldn't object. In fact, knowing this might help me advise you better. It might also get me thinking about other alternatives that might serve us both well. Given that, it is a matter of personality and your judgement of the reaction you might get. Do you want to hide this for some reason? Would revealing it affect your relationship? Can you integrate both things in some way? How intensive is the work needed for the doctorate? Is that your first priority? --- Note that all of my own doctoral students were employed in regular jobs. We dealt with it and organized the program around that fact. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The excellent answer by [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/186728/4249) definitely also holds from the UK perspective. I would encourage you to discuss this with your advisor, specifically so they can help advise you better (at the very least, adjust the workload and expect results accordingly). Additionally, you say you have not yet started a PhD programme, and will start in September. While the contract allows you to take up additional 20 hours of part-time jobs, you might want to discuss possible effects on your PhD. If your PhD is indeed a part of a regular 3- or 4-year UK PhD programme, it will likely be difficult to finish without dedicating to it full-time. As funding often can't be extended, taking up additional work may result in a lower quality PhD (finished in time) or a longer PhD (with a part of it potentially unfunded). Not trying to dissuade you, just saying there might be more factors to consider. However, I also want to say that good advisors should discuss career options with you and offer you support in your choices. And while there might be some advisors applying undue pressure on their students to stay in academia, I have not actually met many (any?) of these. Most of my colleagues are fully aware that only a small percentage of all PhD students will end up getting a permanent academic job (or even taking up a research position within academia as their next job). A vast majority of PhD students end up working in industry; the PhD just opens the doors to a larger pool of positions in industry (one would hope, better paid). I don't think aspiring to an industry position after your PhD should be a barrier to speaking to your advisor: they should be able to explain your (industry) options following a PhD better (maybe offer an opportunity for a collaboration with industry you have not previously considered?), and if they are not supportive of your plans for professional development and growth, it may be better to find out sooner rather than later. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You should discuss it with the supervisor, because it is a big thing and it wouldn't be a good idea to keep it secret. And be prepared that they might say that they think it is too much time per week. You can then argue that it is in the same university and related to research (this is preferable to it being in some company that they know nothing about), you want to keep up your skills from work, and you are not sure yet whether you want to work in academia or industry after your PhD. You could also say that you are in your 30s and the basic stipend is rather low. But this is not such a strong argument, and the supervisor might say that is what being a PhD student is like and other people manage to cope with that amount. They might also say that you should do part-time teaching in your department instead. I think that is what most PhD students in the UK do to supplement their incomes, and the supervisor would definitely be comfortable with that idea, and it would be less than 14 hours a week. Could you negotiate the other job to be slightly less than 14 hours, or could you do it at certain times of year such as in the vacations? Could you do the work in less than 14 hours even if that is the official amount of time? I think if you can be flexible or think of different ideas, it will be helpful. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2022/07/08	1,612	6,835	<issue_start>username_0: May seem obvious, but don't strike me as such. I'm a undergrad physics student at University of Campinas, in Brazil. From what I took out of my professors, I noted that most, if not all, of them did their graduate education (mostly PhD or/and Post-Doc) in great universities in NA/EU, but, they obviously didn't stay. I'm, obviously, talking about a part of the professors here, since there are a lot of europeans, and some north americans who teach here. I don't see much people from SA being able to secure extensive positions there, and I do wonder why it is so hard to do so. Obviously, it's already difficult for someone already from there, but it seems to be even harder for us here. I'd like to understand, generally, what exactly could be the explanation for that, the fact that it's usual to see good south americans students being able to do a part of their education in those well-known unis, but being absurdly rare to see one stay. Seems like a vague question, but maybe there's something in the structure of the processes that could point out to it. Because, as far as undegraduates go, it's not really much different from NA/EU (when talking about the best universities here, which are not a lot).<issue_comment>username_1: South America has about 5% of the world's population. It's certainly true that elite universities do not draw their people at random from the world's population, but no matter how they select people, there will not be many from South America. Culture, language, and arbitrary bias (including visas) are big factors in academic immigration. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The way you formulate the question seems to imply that when one does a PhD or a PostDoc in NA/EU then will try to secure a position there simply because of the geographic factor (i.e. staying in NA/EU). If your plan is to stay in a specific region of the world (it can be a region as big as North America or as small as Copenaghen), the ratio benefits/efforts is strongly against academia and strongly in favor of the private world. Additionally, you are only seeing the subset of people from SA that are now professor in SA. If anything, it tells you that in SA there are way less PhDs and PostDocs opportunities than what are needed. You should check what are the career of this SA professors from SA peers, so you should check their fellow PHDs that were in the EU/NA at the same time and check where they are now. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Trying to make a link between the number of professors at your university with a graduate education in Europe or North America and the chance of these persons to get a faculty position there does not seem well-founded. If you want to evaluate the chance of researchers from South America to get faculty positions in Europe or North America after doing a PhD or post-doc there, you will need to look at the respective ratio of PhD graduates to professors within Europe and North America and compare that according to region of origin. Formulating your observation the other way round, it seems that few or maybe none of your professors got their graduate education locally. To find possible reasons for that observation, I would more look into the local education conditions or the recruiting strategies of your university than to how foreign universities recruit their professors. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'm not sure the question even holds statistical water. I believe that in essence you say that the fraction of South American students in the US who end up being professors in the US is smaller than the fraction of European students who end up being professors in the US. Whether that is true or not can almost certainly not be determined without having actual statistical data. Since the fractions are small for both cohorts, and since everyone's sample is biased towards people like yourself, I doubt that the observation in the post is reliable. But in addition, there are also many other factors. These may include: * Do you have family in your home country you want to be close to? (The "pull" of the home country.) * Does the culture you're from expect you to live close to your family? (Not so true for northern Europeans, for example, but very much true for Italians and in many Latin American cultures.) * What is the standard of living you can expect if you go back to your home country? (If I went back to my home country Germany, for example, I would have to give up rather little compared to my home in the US now, and so there is not very much "push" from my home country to stay here. But if I had been from, say, Albania or now Ukraine, I might have good reasons not to go back to my home country.) * What is the political situation in your home country? (If you're a political scientist originally from Russia, this may not be the time you feel a great pull to go back.) In other words, there are a million reasons that could underlie the assertion -- but I am not convinced that the original assertion is even true. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Similarly to other answers it's difficult to give you the right answer without statistical data. One number that striked me is the statistical fact that in Germany from 100 students (whose parents were already acedemians) 10 graduate with a PhD, and only 1 student with no academic parents. In other words, academia is a highly socially selective branch, especially in Germany. You will not find many professors with a lower class ancestry. Of course you can further analyse and argue, students of lower social class have worse starting conditions than in middle or higher class. But, the IQ and education is actually in german quite equally and normally distributed and in a branch like academia people from lower class should actually have higher chances to move up to higher positions than in industry. Though, this seems not to be case empirically. Professors mostly come here from middle or high academic class also because the selection and hiring of new professors is in my opinion very conformstic and the right social reputation expected. Scientific or academic excellence alone don't guarantee you a professorship, social soft skills and networking are extremely important, more than in any other job branches. These kind of social mechanisms and selection can also be strong factor why applicants from poorer countries might not be the first choice among the rich NA/EU unis?! (Of course I expect strong critics here, but actually as the IQ is largely normally distributed among the population and social classes, one has to really ask and look for a good argument and strong factor, why academia is actively or indirectly socially discriminating so much, much much more than in other job branches.) Upvotes: 0
2022/07/08	1,366	5,826	<issue_start>username_0: I'm 27, and currently in my first year and first semester at a community college, fully online. The professor in one of my classes has, on multiple occasions, made mistakes in regards to grading or feedback, and each time I have emailed him about it. Twice he has made right on the issues, but I don't get the vibe that he is happy about it. I believe the problem is that he is using material from a different professor, and his expectations do not align with the instructions from the other professor. He will mark down for doing something the wrong way, while the material itself states to do it that way. Or mark down for not doing some specific "stated instructions", when those instructions are nowhere to be found. There just seems to be a complete disconnect between him and his own assignments, obviously because they are not his (they have a different professor's name on them). It just happened again on an important assignment, and I sent a relatively long email asking for clarification. It's only a small difference in the grade, but at this point it's the principle more than anything. He has yet to respond and I'm over thinking myself a bit. I feel like im the crazy one, even though I scoured the hell out of all the instructions before sending. In this email I responded directly to his feedback and mentioned not seeing those instructions anywhere, stated my reasoning for doing what I did (or didn't do), and ask for clarification. I did my best to give him the benefit of the doubt and stay on neutral footing, but I feel like my frustrations might be starting to show in the email. It's still professionally written and calm, but I can feel my tone of irritation within it. More so, I really just dont like getting on people's bad side, especially my professor, and Im worried these emails will do just that. Am I crazy? Does this happen a lot? Do professors copy other professors assignments? Am i sending too many emails? I really don't want to be that guy, pissing off my professors throughout my college career...<issue_comment>username_1: Sounds like a lazy instructor. Not so unusual, unfortunately; many (not all) community college instructors do not have a permanent position and get paid only a few thousand dollars per course, and so they may have to teach many courses just to get by, which often results in rather poor teaching quality. Since you are still in your first semester, you may want to find out whether such poor quality is normal for your institution, and if so, consider other institutions. In any case: if you have questions or concerns about grading, it is altogether reasonable to ask about them. It's true that some instructors may respond poorly to this, but that is not on you. > > I sent a relatively long email...it's the principle more than anything. > > > I would tread carefully here. Many students think they could do a better job teaching than the instructor, and in some cases they are right. But sending lengthy e-mails to argue about negligible points and make unsolicited suggestions for improvements may not a productive use of your time, and it will certainly alienate the instructors. Instead, I recommend sending extremely short, clear e-mails. For example: "Dear professor: I noticed that I lost 10% because I didn't follow the 'stated instructions'. Could you clarify where those instructions were? I spent considerable time looking for them and could not find them. Thanks, -Name." Anyone who would be annoyed by a concise, reasonable request like this is themselves unreasonable. Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Almost like you, I got into college very late in my life... I started in a community college and made it all the way to a top Ph.D. program. I came with a baggage of industry experience where adults dealt with adults. In college, however, most of the time it is one adult (instructor) and a bunch of young minds (students) who most of the time silently accept any kind of treatment and style of teaching. Once, I was in class with another dude who was even older than me. I could see him often clash with an instructor. Often the dude was completely right and most of his clashes resulted in improved policies and a better learning experience for everyone in the class. Older students, especially those who pay from their own pocket and not with their parents' money tend to voice concerns more often because they look at school from a very different and mature perspective. I also have to emphasize that the dude was also an experienced student! He was a 3rd-year undergrad with GPA of 4+. So whenever he got involved in a polite argument he knew the rules of the game. It is clear that you do care about your success. However, it is only your first semester. This means you still don't know all the rules of the game and still figuring out what constitutes a good assignment or well-written argument. It is possible you are overcomplicating things and just annoying your instructor. Give yourself some time and try to avoid arguing with instructors. Also, try to understand how your peers are dealing with this issue. Do they get their work right despite instructional inconsistencies? Or do they suffer from the same problem? If your answer is "yes" to the latter, then it is not your problem anymore. It is the instructor's problem. Leave it be and just try to keep up with other hard-working students. Regarding reused lecture notes: This is unfortunately very common and I dealt with that in my grad school (at a university not community college!). While it does signal some level of laziness it is also an attempt to not do the same work twice. Often lecture notes by well-established professors get reused by younger professors. There are many reasons for that. Upvotes: 0
2022/07/08	2,166	9,133	<issue_start>username_0: I realise similar questions have been asked previously, but I believe the circumstances here differ in some respects. My former boss and I worked as practitioners in a particular field for several years, and I was invited to work as a research assistant to do a qualitative assessment of the work we did. We are now working together on a book on the subject. Over the years, I believe we have developed a strong working relationship based on mutual respect, despite his many more years of senior-level experience. So far, I have written the majority of the work, including background and empirical material. I have also done an extensive literature review and provided a draft theoretical framework which I have begun to connect to the empirical study. Roughly speaking, I have written over 25,000 words of my own, and highlighted potential conclusions including my reasoning. He has written about 2,000. I recently asked my boss if I would be included as coauthor, but was given the answer that the publisher might not accept a coauthor without a post-graduate degree. I previously wrote an article together with this person on a different topic, and was given the same reasoning that the journal would only accept my boss as the sole author. I was instead included in the acknowledgments. Having researched the publisher, I can see that they may reject the book if the author is not deemed "qualified", for which previous publication is an expectation. I am certain that he will be deemed qualified, but I am unsure how they would look upon me. I am currently completing a Master's degree but won't be finished until next year, at which point the book might be ready. I did, however, work extensively as a practitioner on the topic, in a supporting role to my boss. I do not necessarily expect co-authorship, but surely there is something such as supporting author or another title that is more appropriate than a mere acknowledgment? Should I accept the reasoning that the publisher might reject the book proposal? What can I expect in terms of authorship acknowledgment? Should I put my foot down and demand that publication is put on hold until I have completed my Master's degree and published something? --- Thank you so much everyone for your insightful answers. They've been helpful in understanding the typical modus operandi of publishers and confirmed my own grasp of the situation. I have made it clear to my boss that I expect coauthorship, and I will have to wait and see what he replies. Will come back to you with the results. EDIT: Since raising the issue with my boss, I have been included as cowriter with no damage to our professional relationship. In fact, my contribution to the book has, as a result of the methodology we've chosen, risen to be even more substantially acknowledged. Many thanks for your answers and help, truly insightful. We will see if there is any push-back from the publisher, whose answers I will make sure to verify for myself.<issue_comment>username_1: > > the publisher might not accept a coauthor without a post-graduate > degree. > > > It depends on the specific publisher. There are no general rules. Even the same publisher may have different arbitrary criteria on the authors' CVs for different publications/collections. I would suggest that you contact the publisher directly with a general enquiry (I would even suggest to do this anonymously to avoid the possible discomfort of discovering that the publisher is a very small one and your former boss is the only customer at the time). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If your contribution is substantial, then you are a co-author. Given the amount of work you have already done, it would only qualify as unsubstantial if it were of a clerical nature. (For example, retyping tables would not qualify for co-authorship.) This gives you the right to demand co-authorship. If we look at the reasons for the reluctance of your primary author, the concern with the editor does not appear to be very valid. It is possible that both of you are victim of a predatory editor. (I get invitations to write a book or become editor of a book composed of individual chapters from suspicious sources, and so do most people in academia.) A serious editor will evaluate the credentials of the team of authors. While you might not be able to publish with this editor based on your lack of a title, your primary author has the credentials and seems to be directing you. The concern of your primary author might very well be genuine, but is only founded in fact if the editor is not following academic usage. There is still a personal problem you might be facing if you insist on being a "named" co-author, appearing on the title page. This is something which a forum like this cannot address. If your primary author is really unwilling to make you a co-author because of irrational fears or because of another reason, there is ultimately only so much you can do that will not result in a rupture in your relationship. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: (I used to work in academic publishing) A book in which you are the sole author might run into this issue. A book in which you are a co-author is not. You can probably request to be a co-author and the publisher will not object as long as your boss is also listed (they might also ask for your boss to be listed as the first author). I once published a book where one of the authors was the primary author's wife (she apparently did a lot of proofreading for the author). It's not usually a problem as long as there's a senior name in the list of authors as well. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: > > Over the years, I believe we have developed a strong working relationship based on mutual respect, despite his many more years of senior-level experience. > > > Hmm. I feel rather terrible to be the bearer of this sort of bad news, but your belief seems rather strongly contradicted by the facts. In fact, the reality seems to be that you are in an abusive and exploitative relationship with your boss. Denying you coauthorship for work in whose writing you have played a very significant part is nothing like what “mutual respect” looks like. > > I do not necessarily expect co-authorship, but surely there is something such as supporting author or another title that is more appropriate than a mere acknowledgment? > > > The only title that’s appropriate given your description of your contribution is that of a coauthor. > > Should I accept the reasoning that the publisher might reject the book proposal? > > > No, the reasoning sounds approximately 100% invalid to me. Regardless, even if there is possibly a publisher who would take such an illogical stance, your boss’s insistence on excluding you is unethical. An ethical boss would look for, and almost certainly find, a path towards publishing the work with you getting the credit you deserve. > > What can I expect in terms of authorship acknowledgment? Should I put my foot down and demand that publication is put on hold until I have completed my Master's degree and published something? > > > I cannot say what you can expect, or what you should do. It’s a sad fact that there are parts of academia where corruption is rampant and people have no good choices. But at the very least, in order to make good decisions you should have a clear picture of what’s going on. And what is going on is that your boss is exploiting you, I’m sorry to say. It’s not right, and I sincerely hope that you will find a way to get the proper credit for your hard work. Good luck! Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: If the facts are exactly as you state them, then your boss is exploiting you. Clear and simple. There must be a department at your university where you can file a complaint. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Have a look at this [book](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/skewnormal-and-related-families/4B9A3CD9D58EB6022FC1D21E1E08A10E): If you look it up in google scholar, you will find that the book is credited to a single author. If you look at the cover page, one name is written with large letters and then with smaller letters but immediately below, it is written "with the collaboration of ...[2nd person]" If you open the book, there are short bios for both persons If you look at the copyright page, both persons are named after the copyright symbol. In this specific example, both persons are professors, but my point is that "co-authorship" is not a single situation -it can have "degrees", which could provide some sort of solution for your case. I am not going into whether you should be "equal" or even the prime co-author, because it would require much more detailed examination of the matter. I am currently writing an academic book with a co-author, and we have agreed that I will be the actual key-stroking writer, in order to maintain a homogeneous writing style throughout. But that does not make the book mine, not even me the "prime" author, because they will contribute in other important ways. Upvotes: 0