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2023/02/24
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<issue_start>username_0: In February last year, I submitted a manuscript to a well-known Q1 BMC Journal in my (very narrow and small) field. The editor asked for some direct revisions after one week. We resubmitted the manuscript in March 2022. Since the, the status has remained "reviewers assigned" for the entire period. I contacted the journal times and they invited me to send them a list with potential reviewers. I did that 3 times. Still, they seem unable to secure potential reviewers.
I have read about comparable situations here:
[The editor cannot find a referee to my paper after one year](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/164007/the-editor-cannot-find-a-referee-to-my-paper-after-one-year)
[What happens if the editor cannot find reviewers?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12144/what-happens-if-the-editor-cannot-find-reviewers)
However, my case is slightly different. The journal under discussion is *the* number 1 journal in the field. I published comparable manuscripts there 3 times (always accepted after major revisions). Based on the previous comments, I should try another journal but is it likely that others will find suitable reviewers if the *best* journal in the field fails?
Thank you very much in advance for your input.
Edit: Nobody has every published on that niche topic before. It is very novel and what we try to publish here has - to the best of our knowledge - never examined. The field is medicine.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm going to digress a bit because you write "Nobody has every published on that niche topic before".
First, let's dissect why editors might fail to find reviewers. When editors invite reviewers, the four most common results are:
1. No response from reviewer
2. Reviewer responds saying no time
3. Reviewer responds saying the paper is out of their expertise
4. Reviewer agrees to review.
Given that you're dealing with *the* top journal of your field, the probability of #1 happening decreases somewhat. After all, everyone wants to be able to say they have reviewed for the top journal before. However, it still will happen (e.g. if the invitation is marked as spam, if the reviewer is on long leave and not checking emails, etc.) If this is the root cause of the editor not finding reviewers, from the editor's perspective, the solution is straightforward - work harder.
#2 cannot be helped; some percentage of reviewers simply will not be available (tenure review coming up, funding deadline approaching, heavy teaching load ...). However, like #1, working harder solves this problem. As long as one is identifying the right reviewers, someone will eventually be available.
Finally, #3 will also happen [some of the time](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/193135/how-often-do-editors-reach-reviewers-whose-expertise-dont-match-the-paper). The probability decreases the more meticulous the editor is, but it will still happen, especially when dealing with a paper that is out of the editor's expertise. For example, suppose there's a paper that uses method X to investigate the effect on material Y due to electrons produced by natural process Z. Do you invite a reviewer with expertise in X, Y, or Z? Ideally the reviewer knows all three, of course, but if you can't find any reviewers with expertise in all three (you probably can't; if you could then the paper would be non-novel), then it's very hard to tell which is more important. Unlike the other two, working harder does not solve this problem. If Y is most important and you keep inviting reviewers who know X, you'll just end up with a pile of "decline to review" emails and get nowhere.
Since you have said "Nobody has every published on that niche topic before", I would guess that your editor is encountering #3.
Given enough time (and enough reviewers who decline), they should eventually figure out what kind of reviewer they should look for, but until then perhaps you can help. Instead of sending them a list of potential reviewers, send them a list of what expertise is required to review your paper. Describe what you did in non-technical language, maybe indicate which fields are likely to be most impacted by your results or are most likely to be most interested, etc. (Something similar to this should already be in your Introduction.) If the editor knows what kind of reviewer they're looking for, all that's left is to put in the time to invite them.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I would recommend:
* Requesting that the journal try again.
* Then resubmitting to another journal.
Failure to find reviewers can occur:
* By chance
* When the editor is bad at their job (which is mostly finding reviewers)
* If the journal has such a bad reputation people will not review for it
Upvotes: 1
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2023/02/24
| 616
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm considering applying for PhD positions. I finished my MSc in 2021. Would it be OK to ask my supervisor for references? I feel a bit strange because I've barely seen him in person due to COVID and it's been 1.5 years. Do I just ask him for a letter/email that I can keep and use for several PhD applications in the near future or do I need to ask him for a letter for eq h individual application?
At the same time, when I graduated it was still COVID and everyone was working from home. I've been meaning to see him in person after I got my MSc and thank him for supervising me (and have a nice bottle of wine and other goodies for him). I avoided doing this before my MSc work was graded to avoid a conflict of interest and so it does not look like I am trying to bribe him. But now I feel if I go and see him and give him gifts, it looks like I'm bribing him for PhD recommendations.
Any wisdom on if I'm overthinking it or about to do a faux pas?<issue_comment>username_1: It's perfectly acceptable to ask; if it's your most recent degree and you did well in it it will presumably be a strong letter that will help your application.
It's unlikely that you will be able to ask him to send the letter directly to you as most (all?) universities will contact referees directly for their letters (for obvious reasons, otherwise candidates could just write and send fraudulent letters about themselves). When supervisors agree to write reference letters they will be well aware that they will have to send/upload the letter for each application you make. The task is not too onerous; when I do it, I write one letter for the candidate and only make minor changes to it for each application. If your supervisor agrees, you can help them out by making a list of the places you plan to apply to along with the application deadlines, so they have an idea of when the requests will arrive.
Regarding the gifts, if you are really worried about it then you could wait til you have submitted your last application; then it would also work as a thank you for the reference letters.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would suggest trying to have a conversation with your supervisor in which you explain that you want to apply to a PhD program and for which you need a letter of reference, in this way you can ask if it is possible for him to writte you with a letter in case that the answer isn't positive, you can ask him for someone who is willing to writte you a letter, but always make sure to point that the letter has to be from your supervisor
Upvotes: 0
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2023/02/24
| 1,506
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<issue_start>username_0: My advisor gave me a broad topic to research. I found a really good question and have done a big part of the work answering it but, have not finished yet, then applied to a prestigious conference to present a poster and got positive feedback and told him so out of happiness.
Before submitting my work at the conference, I sent my advisor a detailed explanation of my ideas, the key question, the abstract, and the poster for feedback. He gave me none.
I went anyway and did my presentation. And by mere chance now, I found out that he published a paper before me in some journal and he used my ideas in there and even uses my wording but cites different people as if he was the original discoverer. Now I am supposed to submit to him my drafts and I don't trust him anymore. What should I do?
Edit: The paper was accepted and submitted after sending my work to him.
My main question:
If I don't trust my advisor anymore, my work is nearly done now. How to get out of that with minimal damage done to myself and my future career?<issue_comment>username_1: I am sorry to hear that this happened to you. Successful academic relations are built on trust and it is awful to suddenly find your trust betrayed by actions of your advisor.
There is clearly an appalling (lack of) communication from your advisor's side here. Having received materials from you, he did not respond with acknowledgement and/or feedback. This is definitely not what you expected from a supervision process and it is not how this process should be handled.
Your post also implies that your supervisor might have committed an act of plagiarism by using your ideas and your wording and publishing them as his own. It is not easy to tell whether it is true or not. Bear in mind that your supervisor is an expert working in this field for many years. The ideas which you (re)discovered by yourself may have been already known and published by other researchers. You mentioned that your supervisor cites different people. Consider studying those references to see if they contain the same ideas you were presenting to him.
You also mentioned that in this publication your supervisor acts as if he was an original discoverer. It might be a bit of an overstatement, considering that he cites some prior work. Please consider reading the cited papers to get a better feel of the history of development of this topic.
Finally, check the submission date of the Springer paper. Academic papers may spend years in review. It might be that this paper was written and submitted well before your supervisor gave you the problem to consider, and has been in review ever since. In this case, of course, your assumption of plagiarism is less likely to be true.
Having said all that, I want to re-iterate that your supervisor was not right to delay his response and feedback to you. I feel that he might have shared his submitted paper with you to give you something to work on and also to mitigate any possible conflicts, such as the one you find yourself in.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: So sad you are in this scenario. Not a good space to be in.
Not sure which country this is. Not really relevant.
Since you didn't indicate supervisory committee, we'll assume you have one advisor/supervisor. Probably for masters; could be a doctorate.
Having a frank conversation tends to resolve issues. Parties get to understand where the other is coming from and forge a common approach going forward.
With or without the frank conversation, you can go the 'dispute' route. Most graduate Schools (or universities) will have
* supervisory policy (or guideline)
* thesis guidelines/requirements
* dispute policy/guidelines
You might want to read through them, and then reflect appropriately. If need be, you may take action based on options available to you in them.
Picking at random: [McGill has a collation of policies, regulations and guidelines](https://www.mcgill.ca/gradsupervision/resources/policies-and-guidelines)
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: The only thing I think might be able to salvage the situation would be if you left some sort of paper trail (real paper or electronic. As long as there's some record of accountability). You mention
>
> I sent my advisor a detailed explanation of my ideas, the key question, the abstract, and the poster for feedback
>
>
>
Was it via email? I'm not sure how it would specifically work at your institution, but you could show that to your department's oversight committee and try to get something started that way.
As Dmitry said earlier, most journals will state when a paper was first submitted and when it was actually approved. That information can help you if it's clear that you developed your work before the first draft was submitted. I would definitely look at the work your advisor cited on the publication and make sure the ideas he cites them for are actually there; if it's clear that your work is main contributing effort and your question has no cross-coverage, then it makes your case all the easier to make.
Good luck. I hope things work out for you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I was in exactly the same shoe when I was in my master's. That was a small school in the US, ranked somewhere between 200-250, which is not very good. A lot of faculty members are a little sloppy. I graduated with an M.S. degree. My "advisor" stole my idea and published it in a journal with IF > 4 (without my name), using exactly the same technique. I considered asking the chair but didn't in the end.
A lot of people may approach very differently. More for my case, I felt like I can do more than just 1 journal paper, so I thought my reputation would weigh a lot more than just a stupid paper. That was a hard call, especially at the MS level. If I had done differently, my former MS advisor would not get his current position today, more damages would have been done to others behind me, but from the damage control perspective, it was better for me to walk away instead of making a fuss out of it. Had I made reports and complaints, it would also be hard for me to apply for PhD (none of the prospective professors would take a difficult student).
Now in your situation, given that your journal paper has been published, I suggest you also walk away without making a fuss. It was more like a lesson of trust. People get it wrong all the time, not just you.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/02/25
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<issue_start>username_0: For my PhD (finance) I need access to a scientific database. The problem is that my university unfortunately does not offer this database in its library. Another university (in the same city even) does provide access to the database via WRDS.
Would it be ethical for me to e-mail the datasupport of the other university to see if they can send me the data? Or are there other options that I could explore?<issue_comment>username_1: It is probably against the rules of using the database for the other university to send you the data.
Look at the rules and find out, ask the data support department or library of the other university to see if they have any ideas (but make it clear you are not asking them to break any rules), contact the original provider of the database, or talk to your adviser.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: It is difficult to imagine how *asking* could be unethical except, perhaps, in a situation where you knew beforehand that whatever you were asking the other party to do was a criminal offense.
Many database licenses that I have seen permit the license holder (e.g., a library or institution) to grant database access only to enrolled students, or to academic staff, or graduate students, or some other specified group. Sometimes, database licenses allow access to persons who live in a particular locality ... and there are some that allow access to people who already have some other sort of qualifying characteristic (such as being enrolled at a government-funded university). So go ahead. Ask. The recipient of your request can always refuse.
You might also consider contacting the database creator to find out whether there are any options for access that they can suggest.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Nothing stops you from requesting access (per username_2's answer), but they probably won't be able to grant you access, because it would violate their license.
What you can and should do is ask your librarian for help. They can request access from the other library via an [interlibrary loan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlibrary_loan). This in all likelihood will cost money, but your library will have the budget to pay for it (i.e. you don't have to pay anything yourself). See top-rated answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/93341/if-i-request-a-paper-through-my-university-library-must-they-pay-a-substantial).
Upvotes: 1
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2023/02/25
| 2,042
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<issue_start>username_0: EDIT: Original title was "Guarantee" Nature
publication for PhD?
---
I am currently applying as a PhD student in a group at the intersection of experimental physics and engineering in a rather interdisciplinary research environment in Germany. The group only exists for about 2 years now. The group leader told me that he would expect every PhD student to be author of at least one Nature spin-off paper at the end of their PhD (Nature Physics, Nature Electronics, Nature Photonics, ...) and not "only" journals like Physics Review Letters (in my eyes publishing in the PRL family is already quite the accomplishment?). He said they would choose their research topics in such a way that these expectations would be realistic.
Are such expectations realistic? Can one "force" publications in such high-impact journals just by deliberately choosing the right topics? I have no experience with publishing my research in journals and thus do not really know what to think about this.<issue_comment>username_1: No, no one can *guarantee* that a particular research effort will result in publication in Nature or similar venues. However, someone with a lot of experience, working in an active area, can have a pretty good idea about publish-ability. Wide experience gives you a good idea about what a given journal is likely to publish.
However, when engaged in true research - a look into the unknown - there are no guarantees about what will be learned, or the time frame in which it will be learned. In some areas negative results are as valuable as positive ones, so there is less risk.
However, there is another tactic that might be at play. Some researchers are funded by outside agencies and they are very prolific. One way that this sometimes happens is as follows:
Suppose you have already done a significant piece of work but haven't yet published it. Apply for a grant to do that work, promising good results. If the grant reviewers don't know about the work, but judge it important, then you get funded. You then use that funding to do the next piece of work while you publish the results you obtained previously. This makes you successful in the eyes of the grant agencies. When you complete that new work with the funding for the old work you repeat the process. Applying again for a grant to do the work you've just completed and use any such funding for the next bit, having already completed the work for the hoped-for grant.
I don't think the above is a ubiquitous practice, but historically it has gone on.
In the current situation, you can believe the claims if that group already has a very good publishing record for significant results. They seem to know what they are doing and manage resources to aid the success of members, including students. Not a terrible situation, but less than a guarantee.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: It’s not possible to strictly guarantee publications anywhere but in some groups it is highly probable that you can get a publication in a prestigious journal. If you work in a group that publishes quite a bit in journal A, the odds are you will get publication in this journal.
The Nature family of journals is notoriously clannish: the probability of publishing there is not necessarily related to the quality of the work but strongly correlates to provenance, and your history of publication in Nature journals. Provenance also beyond the institution to personal or professional connections with the editors etc. (Some would argue that publication history in Nature journals is a proxy for quality but in my experience this is far from uniformly true.) For the main journals, papers have a certain style because Nature is primarily interested in high drama work which sell copies, rather than high quality work that advances a specific field.
For secondary journals (and at least one in physics - can’t remember which one), you can actually publish results as long as they are correct (rather than novel) and as long as someone pays the publication charges, coat-tailing on the more prestigious journals. These correct papers are still highly visible and do collect large number of citations, and but can be of quite modest quality.
For better or worse, publishing in Nature (or other very prestigious) journals has become something of a status symbol, kinda like being member of an exclusive club or having tier status on an airline. However, not all elite fliers are equal (or access the same lounges), just like not all Nature journals are equal.
Thus, while you cannot get a true guarantee, you can expect to publish in a Nature journal with very high probability. The question is: which one?
---
Comment: please note the original title of the question was:
>
> "Guarantee" Nature publication for PhD?
>
>
>
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: >
> He said they would choose their research topics in such a way that these expectations would be realistic.
>
>
>
That will not work. In physics/engineering, the only way to obtain high probability of publication in an elitist journal is to have a very large budget. I would suggest $10 million per paper in *Nature*. (If you spend that much, you would incidentally get a lot of other nice things.)
Lots of papers in journals like *Nature* cost much less, but for an individual author, those are unlikely events.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Your statement in the body of the text is slightly different from the question in the title and this difference is crucial. Of course there are no guarantees but a successful research group can have a high probability of success.
I would separate the process into two parts. First the group leader needs to find suitable problems and questions that if the solved would get a publication in a Nature journal and that their group is qualified to solve with the lab equipment they have. If the group leader is good they will manage that part.
Second the PhD student needs to successfully do the research. And here is the difference between title and body of the question. The group leader **expects** their PhD students to manage that and provides a lab and guidance that make this possible. Whether you actually manage still mostly depends on your own work. No honest group leader can give you anything like a guarantee for this part.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I would be extremely skeptical of these claims, in two separate but equally important ways:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First, I am skeptical that this can be arranged. I would not even entertain this as a reasonable possibility unless and except the professor in question has a long history of *Nature* (and spinoff) publications under both their own name and their former students' names. The former is easy to track down through Google Scholar; the second may take some digging to verify.
Second, I am skeptical of the true meaning of "expect". Does the group leader "expect" that this will happen in the sense of selling you on the idea to join the group, i.e., the expectation is theirs to fulfill? Or do they "expect" that this will happen as a soft requirement for you to achieve prior to the defense of your dissertation? The difference between the two is **critically important** for you in making your decision. As is making sure it does not change from the former to the latter during your candidacy.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Your descriptions raise a few red flags.
First, a newly established group with a 2 years history probably can't really even promise you, that you will get any publication, let alone one in a Nature journal. Is your group leader by any chance just starting? This sounds very naive to me. They haven't worked long enough as a group to have an established work flow yet. So how do they even know if you will end up observing something worth reporting?
Second, even if you end up observing something, how do they know it will be something interesting enough for that particular journal?! Again, are you one of the first phds your supervisor is working with?!
Please don't fall for such nonsense.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: Personally, I am familiar with some European groups where PIs are alumni (PhD, postdoc programs) of Northern American groups working on hot topics that got a bunch of Nature-family papers when they finished their programs. So, if the topic is hot, and there is some innovative experiments going on, a hard-working PhD can indeed expect authoring a paper in a Nature-family journal. In other words, this is quite a realistic scenario if the PI and the group have the decent background, appropriate equipment, and budget (an ongoing project that financially supports they studies).
I would even consider this not as a requirement but as an advertising from the PI, so they present working with their group as an enticing opportunity that will also contribute to the future PhD's career. A Nature-family publication during a PhD can surely help securing a postdoc position.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/02/25
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<issue_start>username_0: I finished my Ph.D in applied mathematics in a US institution last May. I have now started my postdoc position at another US institution last Fall. My post-doc is funded by the department of mathematics here (which means I have a relatively heavy teaching load) with a "formal" assigned mentor/advisor. The initial contract is for one year with the possibility of renewing for additional two years.
However, my "assigned" mentor/advisor has a totally different background from the training I got during my Ph.D and I feel like my assigned mentor/advisor is not "mentoring" at all. To be precise, my assigned mentor/advisor wants to do research and have publications in an area in which I am also very interested, but they literally spend no time on our projects. Instead, they just send me a lot of papers and tell me to read them and do the work myself.
I would prefer to spend time on other projects (some of them are with my Ph.D advisor, which in my mind is a great advisor) instead of "meeting with my assigned mentor/advisor" (as you can not expect my assigned mentor/advisor to guide you anything if you encountered questions/problems about a particular paper). On the other hand, I am afraid of telling my assigned mentor/advisor that we are not a good fit at all and we should stop meeting in the future (as I am afraid that if I do that, then my contract will not be renewed for additional 2 years). How should I approach this?<issue_comment>username_1: If you were hired by an institution rather than a specific person, then I believe you have some leeway in choosing whom you collaborate with. I suggest that on your next meeting with your advisor you discuss your plans and intentions for the postdoc. It sounds like your advisor means well, and just wants to get you interested in their field of research.
For post docs the general expectation is that they work more independently. The objective is to prepare you for a faculty position and see you take the initiative. If you show that you’re moving in that direction then it’s likely to be well received. It’s all about how you present your concerns!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I suggest you talk with the department chair to clarify your research obligations. In cases I am familiar with, when a math department hires a postdoc, that postdoc can work on what they want and with whomever they want, in the department or elsewhere. That might be the case where you are, but the mentor does not realize this.
These days, funding agencies and deans assume postdocs are too immature to seek advice as needed and require a formal mentoring plan. Perhaps you can see this mentoring plan. That might clarify things.
Be sure to find out how your performance evaluations will be done. Who is to write these, and to what standards? Look at your offer letter and your contract. Are you obligated to do research in a particular area, or with a particular person?
Upvotes: 0
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2023/02/26
| 2,202
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a graduate student in a STEM field. I collected and analyzed data for another graduate student (different PI) and they are now refusing to include me as an author on a research paper. I optimized conditions/parameters, characterized a new material with a specific instrument/technique, and processed/analyzed data.
Can I prevent the data from being used if I’m not included as an author? What I have in mind is saying "I'm not OK with this data/analysis being used if I am not included as an author".<issue_comment>username_1: I think that there are really three different questions, or possibly four. I'll begin with the very hypothetical fourth!
1. ***Is it likely that other people in your situation would feel that they had been treated unfairly by the other graduate-student/PI pair?*** Quite likely, but frequently when you (i.e., many people) invest in another person without expecting any great return for either of you, and then the other person gets a great reward (e.g., authorship), you might feel cheated. To highlight an analogue situation, consider that you've spent one dollar on a lottery ticket for your friend, and then they win *really big*! Many people in this situation are likely to feel as if they've been treated unfairly when the winnings aren't shared with them. It's human, but the feeling is driven largely by a (completely hypothetical) notion of what you yourself would do in the reverse situation.
2. ***Is it unethical for the other graduate student/PI to refuse you authorship?*** I don't think this has an answer with which everyone would agree! You indicate in your comments that *you* wouldn't anticipate being included as an author on other student's PhD thesis ( ... a completely bizarre outcome that I suggested merely to test the limits of what, and why, you feel unfairly treated). But you do feel that you should be included on a research paper, as indeed I would in a similar situation. Yet I've also been in the situation of (i) having my name mentioned only as an "also-ran" in the acknowledgements (as indeed you might hope for a mention in the student's PhD thesis); or (ii) not mentioned anywhere at all despite the significant contribution I felt I had made.
3. ***Can you really prevent publication if your name is not included?*** There are such ways, but most methods of truly preventing the publication entail enlisting the help of third parties: lawyers, university research review boards, journal editors, etc. You (wisely!) show no inclination to do any of those things, and instead say that you would "prohibit" the publication by expression your verbal prohibition to the authors, and hoping that they attend to you.
4. ***What is good advice for a person in your situation?*** There are two things. First, see what you can gain by negotiation. Second, learn the hard hard lesson and *move on*. If there is the slightest chance in future that you would want to be included in the list of authors on a way-in-the-future publication, then set aside your feelings of friendship and loyalty, and ask for a written statement to that effect.
I think that the effort of negotiating is worthwhile. Try to meet with the PI (definitely) and student and be prepared with some evidence of the facts of the input you had into the substance of the paper. Definitely stress your unhappiness at not being included as an author given your input. Be prepared to lose ... but also be prepared to graciously (yes, it's hard!) accept an acknowledgement in the paper that outlines your contribution.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Your summary might be framed this way.
I was handed a set of samples by a colleague. I characterized the samples in a specialized instrument, analyzed the data, and generated a report on the results. The only inputs that were given to me were the samples and the types of results desired. I worked independently using these inputs and turned over the report at the end. I did not consult with the colleague to decide why certain approaches in the characterization and analysis should or should not be taken. I did not enter into discussions about the interpretation of the results within themselves or in context to other findings from my colleague. Can I now claim right to co-authorship on a publication that includes the results from my report?
In the above frame, the most direct answer is no. First, the hard reason. You did not negotiate a contract on your duties and rewards before the fact. The party that got your report is under no *a priori* contractual (legal) obligation to award you co-authorship. Not simply written, not even verbal. This is not a happy situation to reach. As might be said also by others, at best, this finding can serve you as a lesson for next time.
The second reason for an answer "no" concerns the answer to the question of whether your colleague has any ethical responsibilities to include you as co-author. As you briefly framed your case, and as I have reframed it in greater detail, you served primarily if not exclusively as a service provider for the work done. You took in samples, took in a description of what was desired as the output, ran a specialized instrument over the samples, and provided the desired output result using the given inputs. Some consider the level of work just described as not being worthy of co-authorship on a publication. Some will instead consider it more responsible to be recognized only in the acknowledgement section of the publication.
The extent that the work you did deviated from the above description must be considered. Did you provide "original ideas" during your discussions, for example by suggesting different approaches to the characterization or analysis to obtain results that provided greater insights in their own right or in the larger context to the entire work itself. In addition, you will have to consider the extent that the other party carries your same ethics about co-authorship roles and perhaps even the extent that the journal enforces standards on when to acknowledge contributors to its publications. All these factors, which you have left rather unclear in your post, will dictate how much room you may have to negotiate for co-authorship or acknowledgement on the paper. If you do go down this path, you will benefit by having someone with a deeper background in your case to advise you on the best professional approach to take. Ultimately, you may find the effort so overwhelming that you simply have to allow even this level to pass as a lesson this time.
In summary, given that you have no *a priori* contract, and presuming that the ethical frame does not deviate significantly from the above, you may face insurmountable hurdles in pushing any further for co-authorship. At best, you should ask for recognition in the acknowledgement section. You should certainly do so in consultation with someone who has insights and experience to support your case. Finally, the scale to define what level of involvement leads to what reward in a publication, from being left off to being acknowledged to being a co-author, is not linear, standardized, or always agreed-upon by all parties involved. You likely have some further discovery to make beyond asking here for an affirmation.
Finally, with regards to the last part about discovery and consultation, implicitly understood in your posting is that you are working with a (different) PI. What advice does your PI give you about this situation? Was your PI in agreement with your decision to do characterization and analysis work for someone on a different project and then simply hand out the results from that work without some up-front agreement? What does your PI say to your attempts now to try to take back or block those results from publication? Your next step should be to answer these questions and follow the commensurate advice from you PI.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Before getting to a solution to your problem, you should take this as a useful lesson for future work: always negotiate authorship up-front *before commencing work on a project*. That is a useful lesson to learn and it will prevent you from getting into these types of situations in the future.
As to the present project, I would recommend that you first seek to resolve the matter through negotiation with this other student, and if that fails, arrange to have the matter reviewed and have a determination made by an appropriate third-party expert in the university (e.g., an experienced academic in the ethics office or in another department). Before negotiating the matter or raising it for review, first read some guidelines and academic literature on authorship for statisticians/data analysts (see this [related answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/119585/119722#119722) to get you started) to get an idea of the principles used for determining when data analysis is enough to warrant authorship. Your description of your work sounds substantial to me, so it is likely that it will be enough to warrant inclusion as a co-author according to relevant guidelines/literature.
I recommend against withholding your analysis, except perhaps temporarily while the issue of authorship is reviewed and considered. If you are unable to come to an agreement with this other student, the best course of action would be for you both to agree to a *binding determination* being made by an appropriate third-party expert in the university. If you are both willing to agree to this then a decision on authorship will be made and you can both proceed accordingly. (Even without agreement, the university has mechanisms relating to research ethics that can allow it to investigate and make a binding determination for its employees.) In the event that the decision is against you, I recommend you accept that, supply your analysis without any impediment, and just take this experience as a lesson in pre-negotiation of authorship.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/02/26
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<issue_start>username_0: TLDR: I am being excluded of a paper for which I worked, and I am not sure how to proceed.
Long story short, I am a theoretical physics PhD student and I was approached by experimental physicists about their experiment. They had a nice setup, didn't know what to do with it to make an interesting paper nor how to validate the data.
I worked for them for six months, writing a lot of code, doing a lot of theoretical analysis to see what was possible. A big part of it was the validation of their data.
I did the work they asked me, I was very careful and precise with my coding to be sure to avoid mistakes, and maintain reproducibility. The conclusion is that the data they gave me is inconsistent: it doesn't validate.
Before annoucing the news, the postdoc leading the project (I was mainly working with a PhD student, the postdoc being less directly involved) was already quite toxic, authoritarian, not wanting me to write the validation part of the paper or even sharing the draft, etc. It felt to me that he didn't really care much about the science, and just wanted a nice, marketable statement, to publish a paper fast, and move on.
Now that I told him about data not working, he is are pushing me out of the paper: first he ghosted me, then he told me on whatsapp bullshit emotional reasons of why we shouldn't keep on working together. After pressuring him a bit, he agreed to call, and it was basically a big mess of gaslighting, narcissistic-abuse style speech. Impossible to have a reasonable discussion.
He says that I should not be an author for various reasons, the most credible one being that they do not use my work. Well, of course, otherwise they couldn't publish it. But, even if they could, they do implicitly use all the analysis I did, as it changed their experimental choices, etc.
They will probably publish something, and this paper will be impactful because of the technical prowess of the experiment (probably Nature-level publication). Either they will not make claims/hide under the rug the validation part and just focus on the technical achievements, or maybe even fake data analysis? I don't think their experiment doesn't work, but the data they provided me clearly doesn't, and they showed very little interest for calibration runs, debugging, etc.
I have a strong feeling that they dismantled the experiment already, many hints point out in this direction.
I am not sure what to do. For me, this paper would make a significant difference on my CV. Of course, I don't want my name on something incorrect (if they do indeed make incorrect claims - I have no way to know as no access to the draft), but at the same time, it's six months of work. Above all, such behaviour should not be tolerated in science.
I might contact the professor overseeing the whole lab. Never spoke with him, don't know if he would take me seriously - I have many screenshots, and proofs of my work. He is really famous in the field, but I don't know about his character. The postdoc being the manipulative politician that he is probably made sure to be seen in a good light by the professor, so it might be hard to be taken seriously, even though I think my case stands.
I am quite afraid that if I do get in touch with the professor, then I would have some unpredictable backlash from the narcissistic postdoc - reputation destroying (made up) emails and whatnot. Even if I negotiate to get my name on the paper with the PI, the postdoc will probably feel wronged. After all, what does it cost him to do it now? There will be multiple authors already, so the effect of one extra name seems negligible to me; there is something irrational in putting my name or not.
It would feel really bad to let this go: it's my work, and it's also for all the people who might be impacted in the future by working with this postdoc who is on a good way to become a professor. I feel that it is moral duty to act against such toxic people. I unfortunately have an experience of narcissistic abuse in my romantic life, and I know how destructive such characters are.
My questions:
* Should I contact the PI?
* Should I rightfully be on this paper?
* Should I ask for it?
* How can I moderate the risk of backlash from the postdoc?
Many thanks in advance!<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it seems that you should be on the paper and should find a way to ask for it. Yes, the PI should be informed, but possibly not directly by yourself, since you have no existing relationship with them.
But, your own advisor, who should support you, can serve as an intermediary with the PI even if they are in different groups. It would be hard to turn down a meeting with your advisor and also hard to ignore the issue.
It is impossible to say how it will turn out, as department politics can get in the way of such things. But if your advisor is willing to intervene, the postdoc has little recourse and may not in any case. Good luck.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: This is a challenging situation, and I empathize with your frustration. While I agree that it is essential to contact the PI, it may be helpful to involve your advisor as an intermediary to facilitate the conversation. However, it is crucial to manage your expectations, as the outcome may not be favorable. It is possible that the postdoc prioritizes marketable papers over scientific integrity because the PI likes it that way, particularly if he is well-known and influential in the field. A professor at this level is unlikely to be deceived by a manipulative postdoc. If he is, he most probably doesn't care at all. In fact, a powerful person's endorsement can be more valuable than a Nature paper for a postdoc seeking a permanent position, particularly in experimental fields. If the postdoc is gaslighting you, it is possible that he is simply part of a "gaslighting hierarchy" created by the PI himself.
While involving your advisor can be beneficial, it is important to consider that you may be in a position of limited leverage, particularly if your work is not explicitly used in the paper. This is especially true in experiment-driven fields such as condensed matter theory or quantum optics, where theorists may be hesitant to engage in conflict with famous and influential experimentalists.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, but if I am right, this could be a good lesson for you to understand how the system works in your field.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/02/26
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<issue_start>username_0: I’ve got a sort of a dilemma in my hands and I was hoping y’all can help me out:
Although I’ve got a quite below average profile, I applied to multiple universities in the States and in Hong Kong for my Biology PhD studies. At the end of January, I received a PhD offer from a quite well-known University in Hong Kong, and I ended up accepting this offer under pressure since they gave me a two-week deadline to make a decision and because most of the universities I applied to in the States had already rejected me, so I assumed that would be my only PhD offer for this cycle. Well, call it a miracle or not, but just a few days ago I received a PhD offer from UT Austin (one of my dream schools), and I am seriously thinking on retracting my acceptance of the Hong Kong admission offer.
I understand that doing so is not a very ethical thing to do, so would you recommend me to do it? Is doing so going to carry any consequences I should be aware of? Also, my prospective PI in Hong Kong is super nice and I really feel bad to tell him that I am not gonna work with him.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't believe there are any ethical issues and unlikely to be any legal ones. You will disappoint a few people, perhaps, but they haven't provided you things of value yet, so it isn't a question of theft of services in any sense. They almost certainly have one or more backup candidates they can offer the position to.
Send a polite letter, indicating that your opportunities have changed and you have an offer (even) more in accord with your goals. You aren't the first person to send such a letter.
But your chief responsibility at the moment is to yourself and the maximization of your career opportunities. It shouldn't be a problem beyond a bit of disappointment.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: I think you need first to realize that some schools insist on early acceptance deadlines *precisely* so candidates are uncomfortable about changing their minds later on. There is nothing wrong on your part in changing your mind, simply telling them you recently received a more interesting offer.
What would be incorrect would be to accept a second offer knowing you will refuse the first, *but not tell the first institution once you have changed your mind*. What you want to do is to tell Hong Kong as soon as possible so they can reassign the resources (money, space etc) they had reserved for you to another applicant and move on.
It is unlikely you will be the first person to back out of an early acceptance: the people in Hong Kong must expect this will be a by-product of an early acceptance policy.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I had a very similar situation twenty years ago when applying for PhD places in biology. I went into the process late and the person I most wanted to work with had already allocated funding to another student. But I did manage to win a place working on a project I knew relatively little about at an institution with a good reputation.
Shortly after I'd confirmed my acceptance of that place, I got a letter from my original institution explaining that their chosen student had dropped out at the last minute, and would I like the place after all? I declined because, like you, I felt that was the "ethical" thing to do.
I figured that at such an early stage it didn't much matter how engaged I was with the project, that I could pivot toward my research interests later. But the reality is that a doctorate places high demands on you for 3-4 years of your life in exchange for relatively little money. My relative disinterest in the project showed and, combined with a poor supervisor and the fact it was (I eventually realised) a poorly-planned project, I eventually abandoned my write-up and any hope of an academic career with it.
During my time as a student I met the academic I'd hoped to work with and the student he eventually found for his project at a conference and spent a fascinating evening with them finding out about the amazing project I could have been a part of. I'm not sure academia was really for me, after all, but I wonder sometimes what could have been. I certainly would have avoided essentially wasting three years of my life and regretting it.
In short: your initial PhD project is too important to let a relatively minor quibble over politeness spoil it. Hong Kong will find another student to replace you. If your heart lies with the work in Austin, go to Austin.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/02/26
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing an article for a university assignment, and I am essentially looking for sources to support fairly surface level points. Two of the points I am searching for is evidence of diffusion models being used in the modern day, as well as how diffusion models work on a surface level.
To describe my question better, this is the paper I'm looking at in question: <https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.00796>
I can easily answer the above two points using the above paper. However, I cannot fully understand the equations in the paper, just the general gist of how the math works, enough to confidently know that I will not accidentally twist the authors' words.
Would it be ethical if I cited the paper?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it is ethical to cite the work of others when you don't completely understand it. You depend on the fact that it has been vetted by others; the reviewers who approved and possibly improved it.
But you put yourself at risk, also, by doing this. If it turns out that the original has errors that impact on your work then your work is called into question.
But some papers are correct in some ways but not in others. If you understand the parts you actually use, then you are pretty safe. But there isn't an ethical question in any case.
Note, however, that arXiv papers may not yet have much vetting, making it risky to depend on claims you don't understand. But if you use it, you have an ethical obligation to cite it.
Caveat: Knowingly reinforcing the work of cranks is a different matter. It is better for scholarship and the advance of knowledge if they aren't cited in a way implying acceptance of incorrect, especially damaging or dangerous, ideas. I doubt that is the issue here, however.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my opinion, it is not a matter of *ethics* but a matter of *peer-review* and how research progresses.
As pointed in the comments to your question, there is not enough time. It is not reasonable to assume that every researcher in a quantitative field understands the details of every paper cited, since **otherwise research would not progress**. It takes time to understand other's ideas, but it takes even more time to develop, structure and redact your own ones. Therefore, you should only focus on key aspects that are important to be understood for your own research work.
That being said, this does not mean that you are carelessly taking any *risk*, because we have two powerful tools for avoiding that: peer-review and citations. With **peer-reviewed papers**, there is some guarantee for the content of the paper (in most cases, of course there are exceptions of bad review policies at certain conferences and journals). If the paper is not peer reviewed and just a pre-print, such as the one you link, then another good indicator for the quality of its content are the **number of citations and the context in which they appear**, which in your case [are 52 for now](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Diffusion+Models%3A+A+Comprehensive+Survey+of+Methods+and+Applications&btnG=).
If a paper does not meet any of the above criteria, I'd be cautious and review it myself. But this is rarely the case, specially at the level of university assignments, it can happen when doing a M.Sc. or Ph.D. thesis.
Of course, **there might be exceptions to this**, in my own field there was one popular paper with an algorithm available in the most relevant software packages, and 10 years later another paper came showing that the algorithm was mathematically incorrect (on a detail, but it impacted results). But those are also rarities and occur at research-level (note that *another* paper was needed to explain the issue, that is, an ordinary university student would not be expected to spot it).
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: username_1's answer and caution is on point. To add one thing: one way to *mitigate* the risks associated with the citation is by being very precise about the citation wording. What are you citing the paper for? Often it is a simple statement that you actually need, so you can simply state exactly that. For instance:
* If the statement you need is "recently, researchers have investigated X", you can say that, and you will never be wrong :) This is very common in academic papers.
* If you need the paper for a particular finding, you can say, e.g.: "In the context of ABC, researchers found that X have an impact on Y." This is also fairly safe: you caveat that the researchers found ABC, not that it is necessarily true.
* Sometimes, you need a definitive and not qualitative statement: e.g., "we know that every Foo is a Bar, so we choose to implement only Bar..." Here you need to be really sure you are right and that your definitions match theirs.
* Finally, even if you need something definitive, there are cases where you don't actually know for sure that it is true, and sometimes you can say this. For instance: "Recently, researchers found that the effect Y is primarily due to causes A and B, though we are not aware whether this finding was due to any extraneous factors." Hedging like this doesn't look great, but if it is really impossible for you to figure out something from the earlier paper, sometimes hedging is the safest and most honest thing to do.
What's more dangerous than any of the above scenarios is if you cite for a large body of an existing paper that you haven't read: e.g. copying results tables or calculated data. Here it is generally wise to exercise caution and just replicate the result(s) yourself.
In any case, if you say exactly what you *know* from the paper (and nothing else), then even if (worst case scenario) the paper is later turns out to be wrong for some reason or even retracted, you won't have to change your paper at all.
Upvotes: 4
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2023/02/26
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<issue_start>username_0: My department (engineering) is hosting a day-long open house event soon, and I have been asked to prepare an ice-breaker/trivia type activity for 30 minutes between a couple of sessions. Could anyone recommend some activities of this nature that have worked well in the past?<issue_comment>username_1: Create a "Play" so that the participants are the "actors". Give each one a script, perhaps with a single "line". Perhaps their line should be repeated several times when pointed to by the "director" or another actor.
In computing I did this with the song ["There was an old lady who swallowed a fly"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Was_an_Old_Lady_Who_Swallowed_a_Fly) since it emphasizes recursion and gave each actor the opportunity to give their line several times. After each verse a new actor would join in to start the next.
Perhaps you can think up something similar with an engineering focus.
Perhaps something also recursive that goes through an engineering thought process with the anchor line "Let's get coffee."
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: My experience with engineers is going to suggest "hallway meetings" with beverages and food and a place where the people from the uni can mix with the people visiting. Maybe the uni folk wear name badges. If it's early in the day, then coffee, tea, fruit juice, and light food. Bagels and other simple finger food. If it's the end of the day then beer (with non-alcohol beverages available) and simple food like cheese or pizza etc.
If you have no budget, maybe you have to charge for the beer. Or maybe beer does not work for various reasons, depending on the culture and legal situation. YMMV.
The beverages and food get everybody in one place, near the table where you get the food. The folk who want to ask questions can do so. So after the formal session on the great-big-lab-equipment-demo, then everybody wanders in the hallway for a half hour, with a coffee and a bagel or whatever. People can walk around and say "Hi, I'm so-and-so from other-place and I was very interested to know about your research." That usually occupies at least a half hour.
If you wanted to give such sessions some structure, you could appoint some official hosts. These folk could be tasked with finding people just standing alone and idle and going over to ask if there was anybody from the uni they would like to meet. "Hi! I'm a designated host." Shows badge. "Was there anybody you wanted to meet? Or any questions you wanted to ask?" "Oh, <NAME> is right over here. Let me introduce you." "Oh, <NAME> is busy. But I see the department head <NAME> isn't busy. Want to meet her?"
When the next event is about to start, the designated hosts could act as herders, and guide everybody to the next location.
I suspect that such a scheme would work pretty well for other university departments as well. Most people like to have the chance to "hob-knob" with people working in the subject they are interested in. And having a coffee and a croissant while you chat is always pleasant.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I've attended many conferences, and in my experience, classical icebreakers are quite boring. People just stand around with drinks and snacks and might talk to people they already know, if at all.
The one exception is when we had a table tennis tournament. Which was great. Table football works too. A great opportunity to become buddies, in particular with your teammate.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'd recommend an engineer-adapted version of human bingo. Participants get bingo sheets with prompts instead of numbers (e.g. "drinks more than 3 cups of coffee a day","has seen every episode of Star Trek: TNG","can juggle") and need to put down a person's name for each one. No re-using one name multiple times; first n people to get a bingo win a free beer/coffee/candy bar. In my experience, the reward doesn't matter much: it's more about incentivising people to talk to each-other and giving them some semi-generic low stakes conversation topics (hobbies, pop culture, "nerd stuff"). You can also tailor a few questions to your local town/campus traditions- my suggested prompts are from versions we used for physics (grad) students.
Since you only have 30 minutes, I'd recommend a 3x4 or 4x4 bingo depending on the group size, with a few specific/difficult questions (e.g. "has a black belt in a martial art") if you're worried about people finishing early. Or give a bonus prize for completionists ;)
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: It depends a lot on how big the group is.
Have people pair up and introduce themselves. Then have two pairs merge and have them introduce their partner from the first pair. Let the groups get bigger and bigger.
Upvotes: -1
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2023/02/26
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing an undergraduate thesis in linguistics. My topic is about comparing politeness in English to the honorific system in Korean. No one in my school speaks Korean, neither my supervisor, but I wanted to include the language in my thesis to make the writing more fun for me. I think it was a mistake.
I am stuck with my analysis. I've chosen a book in English and the translation of that book in Korean. I chose 4 politeness techniques in English and found around 74 sentences. I wanted to compare them to Korean. However, my analysis has to contain around 100 elements that should be analysed and put into a graph for visual representation. I have no idea how to make this happen so that it makes sense and my supervisor is not helping me. I feel like I've been improvising all the way till now and now I'm stuck
I feel like I'm writing empty work that doesn't make any sense. It's making me very stressed and anxious because I have not even 2 months left, I feel like I'll fail and won't finish my undergrad because I chose a dumb topic. I have a lot of stuff written but everything seems pointless to me, as if my analysis made no sense. I wish someone would give me any advice as to how to progress, how to make this thesis better so that it makes sense. How can I incorporate those graphs, what data should I put in there? I feel so lost. What can I even do with this topic anymore, should I just give up?<issue_comment>username_1: There is possibly a way out that is actually interesting. You have undertaken a difficult task that may not be solvable, especially in the time available.
But the *reasons* that it is difficult or impossible is something that is worth exploring in any case. Perhaps you can write up the various things you have tried and can also write up the reason(s) why each approach fails. As long as it isn't trivial, this adds something to knowledge that may be sufficient for an undergraduate thesis.
You have learned *something* even if your original target was out of reach. Make that the basis.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> ... *I chose 4 politeness techniques in English and found around 74 sentences. I wanted to compare them to Korean. However, my analysis has to contain around 100 elements that should be analysed and put into a graph for visual representation.* ...
>
>
>
[*EDIT: changed the flow. otherwise, it's essentially the same content*]
Give consideration to the natural language processing levels: phonology, morphology, more importantly, those of syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Give the following a reading and apply the principles.
* [Linguistic Politiness: Japanese, AmEnglish](https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(86)90006-8)
* [Linguistic politiness in Japanese lang](https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223)
* [linguistic realization of politeness: English and Setswana](https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2007.004)
and this one from a romance language comparison.
[Romance Languages Comparison Charts](https://www.mylhcv.com/romance-languages-comparison-charts/)
Your **theoretical framework** might go a long way in shaping 'what' and the 'level' of your comparison and 'graphing'. This book might come in handy for theory and practice.
* <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (Eds.). (2008). *Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice*. <NAME>.
NB: Ensure you get native Korean speakers to work with. At least, one native speaker and one with linguistic knowledge/background.
[*addition*]
When one get 'stuck' at #analysis stage, an approach is to take a moment, step back and reflect on the #design.
PS: *I understand you indicated *mini-*thesis. The principles and approach of research cuts across all levels. The rigour increases as one advance from one level to the other.*
In the absence of indicating what constitutes or what is the rationale for the #100 elements, I can only guide along the line of research approaches.
In Hill et al., (1986), they had 22 sentences with 19 categorisation translated into Swedish. They administered to #300 across American and Japanese schools, followed by a 'ranking of politeness' plot and a correlation graph.
What is important is to approach the 'dead end' from a reflective approach.
Reconsider your elements from linguistic levels indicated earlier: those of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
---
[<NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., & <NAME>. (1986). Universals of linguistic politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. *Journal of pragmatics*, 10(3), 347-371.](https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(86)90006-8)
[<NAME>. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Walter de Gruyter.](https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1989.8.2-3.223)
[<NAME>. Comparative Linguistics via Language Modeling.](https://depts.washington.edu/uwcl/matrix/sfd/Drellishak%20-%20Comparative%20Linguistics%20via%20Language%20Modeling.pdf)
[<NAME>., & <NAME>. (2007). Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana](https://doi.org/10.1515/PR.2007.004)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In your last paragraph you ask two questions:
>
> ... how to make this thesis better so that it makes sense?
>
>
>
and
>
> How can I incorporate those graphs, what data should I put in there?
>
>
>
I think the answer to the first is to write - in English - about the questions you hoped to answer, the relevant things you found out in your comparative readings of the English and the Korean translation, and the conclusions you can draw. You may have discovered that the questions were not properly phrased, or there are no easy conclusions. If so, say so and say why. That's what research is about.
The fact that you have to ask the second question suggests that you have been given a structure you must follow, even if that structure in entirely unsuited to the nature of your research. If that's the case, and your adviser is inflexible, I think you are stuck. Do the best you can to fill in the blanks in the required form. Choose a better advisor for your next project.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: My answer here is one applicable to many questions about difficulties during a thesis: **Talk to your thesis supervisor!** Writing a thesis is *supposed* to be somewhat challenging and unpredictable — it’s a first introduction to research — and it’s the job of your thesis supervisor (or advisor, or whatever your institution calls them) to help you navigate those challenges.
Issues like what you describe — the original thesis plan meets unforeseen difficulties — are very common, and there are many possible approaches to “damage control” for them. These approaches can be fairly subtle, or very drastic — you can remove some material that wasn’t working, or you can add in some extra material to plug a gap, or you can switch to an analysis of the problems the original plan encountered, or you can switch to a completely different project but drawing on the same background reading, so that you don’t have to re-prepare from scratch… Other answers describe some of these “damage control” measures in more detail, but **the person who can best advise you on which strategy is more appropriate is your thesis supervisor — so talk to them!**
In the unusual scenario that your thesis advisor is unsympathetic or unhelpful, **ask advice from some other mentor-figure or authority figure in your department**. You can’t necessarily expect as much time and attention from someone else as you can ask from a thesis advisor, but most academics should be willing to help out a student in that situation.
In the most unfortunate case, if your advisor is unhelpful and you can’t find anyone better to ask, then come back here and ask a different question: “I’m stuck on my thesis, and no-one at my instution is willing to help me… what should I do?” But that’s a last resort: the first port of call is always **talk to your supervisor, and listen to their advice!**
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You need only 24 more Korean sentences. This is not a difficult task at all.
Get on social media, such as Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. to find Korean speakers and then ask for help by using those polite sentences in Korean that you already know. If they help you, it means you can use Korean language to some extent. This would be convincible to your advisor and the exam committee that your thesis is practical and makes sense.
My point is that we are in year 2023 now. **Use the modern tools that are available to you to conduct research.**
BTW, we do have [**Korean Language SE**](https://korean.stackexchange.com/). You can also ask users there about how to say polite sentences in Korean and the corresponding sentences in English.
Lastly, don't forget to cite the help that you get from others.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/02/27
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to know how to make the best use of survey paper? When I'm new to a particular field, I try to grab some survey paper. However, these papers just outline briefly each methods without going deep enough. And after reading the whole paper I am left with I understand a bit of everything but not deep enough, and I'm still left with ***a lot*** of question marks about why certain method is used, why certain modifications are necessary, and how particular approach works in details.
However, digging deep into each of these questions will definitely lead me to ***lots*** of rabbit holes that would never end.
This makes me wonder if I'm using survey paper the right way (i.e. to get into a new field)? If not, what are the most common/true purposes of survey papers that serve the research communities? How can I make the most and best use of these brief survey papers?
Thank you.<issue_comment>username_1: From your question, I don't see anything that you are doing wrong. If there is a problem as you describe it, then the problem is more likely with the survey papers you are reading than with you.
>
> these papers just outline briefly each methods without going deep enough
>
>
>
By definition, that is what a "survey" paper is: it gives a broad survey of a topic, not a deep-dive into any specific aspect of the topic. However, a survey paper cites relevant references so that a reader like you knows where to go to dive deeper into any specific surveyed topic.
>
> I'm still left with A LOT of question marks about why certain method is used, why certain modifications are necessaries, and how particular approach works in details
>
>
>
This is entirely a matter of the quality of the survey paper. A high-quality survey paper should not only list *what* has been done, but it should answer the *why* questions that you are looking for.
If you find the only survey papers that are published to be unsatisfactory for answering the most important questions, then there is not much to be done other than hope that an expert will write a high-quality survey. Otherwise, you might consider this as an opportunity for research so that later on, when you build sufficient expertise, **you** might write that survey paper that you wish had been available to you.
An intermediary solution might be to contact an editor of a highly reputable journal in the field and suggest that they invite a senior expert to write an appropriate review (you could propose some experts based on the most highly cited papers in the survey). Editors often appreciate such pointers because they want to publish articles that will get widely read, so an editor could take your unsolicited suggestion very seriously.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In my own experience, survey papers are **extremely useful for a bird's eye** over the particular field: they allow you to know in which subfields current and previous research is structured, get familiar with the main classical as well as state-of-the-art authors, and any special notation commonly used.
However, **they are not the best tool for familiarizing with specific methods**, specially if the field includes any form of mathematics. Unless the survey is of extremely high quality, most times there is no structured relationship or narrative when presenting the particular methods, there is abuse of notation everywhere in order to avoid overcoming the particular differences among different authors dealing with subtypes of an original method, there is not enough distinction between core contributions and more marginal ones, etc.
So, unless the survey is of high quality, I recommend to read it without being concerned if you don't understand the specifics of each method, taking note of what interests you within the new field, and then look for a book that explains it in more detail, or go the particular paper cited should it be a specific method.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I agree with another answer that you do not seem to be doing anything wrong.
I would like to add that, depending on the area, there must be already a textbook covering the topic.
They are usually lagging a few years behind, but they usually present this few-year-old knowledge very comprehensively, so, depending on the field, this might be your second choice after the survey (maybe even your primary choice).
Even if the field is very fast-moving, e.g. AI, where modern ideas didn't exist 5 years ago1, looking at a textbook can help you build the necessary foundation to avoid the rabbit holes.
1. E.g. in [this survey](https://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.13586.pdf), most of the papers are 1-2 years old
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I got a physics degree nearly 30 years ago. My goal was to understand general relativity and quantum field theory, but at graduation I still could not understand them. I then embarked on a career as a software developer.
About 10 years ago, I was reading an article and got an idea. I found my idea really helpful. Major swaths of physics that previously hadn't made any sense, suddenly did. For the first time I felt I had wrapped my head around relativity and quantum mechanics and many other aspects of physics.
I was excited about the concept and wanted to discuss it with someone: "Hey... I have an idea and want to hear what you think about it." Something, I had done countless times as a University of Chicago student hanging out in the C-Shop. However, I was totally taken by surprise by what happened next. I totally did not expect the barriers, the hostility, the ridicule and scorn I was about to encounter in trying to chat with someone about the concept.
Over the last 10 years I've attempted the following:
* **Discuss the concept online**: Any such post placed online is immediately removed / ridiculed / banned / shadow-banned. It is with great fear and trepidation that I post this here.
* **Chat with former professors**: I tried to talk to my former professors, but they were retired (or worse).
* **Chat with new professors**: I tried to talk to new professors at the U of Chicago or at UW-Madison (where I had gone my freshman year), but no one was willing to chat with me for even 5 minutes. I once offered a professor at UC-Berkeley $400 to chat with me for an hour; he refused.
* **Try to publish**: Trying to publish something or even posting it to [arXiv](https://arxiv.org/) is absolutely impossible.
* **Tried to signup for <NAME>'s help desk**: They mention I was 35th in line and they couldn't estimate if they would be able to get to me in weeks, months or years. Which I took to indicate that it is now defunct.
* **Create an iOS / macOS App**: I quickly realized that in Physics the phrase "hey... I have an idea" is an instant nonstarter. So, I shifted to the formation of an imaginary universe I call 'Universe X' and ask people to imagine what the physics of this universe might look like. I wrote an entire app that concisely explains the concept and includes numerous qualitative simulations. Unfortunately, this hasn't been any more successful in starting a conversation than anything else I've done.
A serious issue here is that the number of people that exist in the world that can actually give useful push back on this stuff is incredibly small; are there even 10,000 world wide? I have had to work on this in a vacuum for 10 years; I've had no-one who rides math rails or anyone else to discuss it with in that time. Science is littered with examples of people outside of academia making contributions to it. Given the current state of things how would that remotely still be possible?
I have an idea; perhaps that makes me a bad person; perhaps it indicates I have a mental illness and certainly, there is an excellent chance the my idea is wrong. But I think the idea is promising: it allows specific, correct calculations and is falsifiable. I am not looking for universal acclaim, I'd just like someone to seriously look at my idea and give me a reality check. How can I make this happen?
For those who asked, the app is [here](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/aexels/id935727868) and my GitHub, which inclides a 6-minute description of the concept, is [here](https://github.com/aepryus/Aexels).<issue_comment>username_1: First off, I endorse the idea suggested by @Nobody, in the comments, of seeking a way to publish a preprint paper on arXiv. However, I think that there is a greater problem that is exemplified by your overall discussion and presentation. It is simply that the impression you convey, and I doubt that this impression is actually correct, is that out of the blue you had an extraordinary vision of a way to revolutionize a well-developed area of physics and that your revolutionary idea is so radically different from everything that precedes it, that the history and context are unimportant.
Once again, I would stress that I am unsure whether that is your experience of the development of the idea, but I do think that it is the impression conveyed, and I doubt that it is true.
Most revolutionary ideas in physics and cosmology (think Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Einstein) are actually deeply embedded in the history of what preceded them and can be shown to be a logical progression from them, albeit with a *component* revolutionary idea. To get other people to attend to you, even if you manage to publish on arXiv, you will most likely need to show that you understand what has gone before, and how your idea is both logical and transformational.
And now, on a completely different note (and beware that this comment comes from a non-physicist), your remarks about a checkerboard metaphor bring to mind the cellular automata ideas developed by [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wolfram) in [*A New Kind of Science*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science). It might be worth your while to at least read a (kindly, if you can find it) review of *A New Kind of Science* and see whether your ideas do indeed have a similar flavour. If they do, that might give you at least one entry point from introducing your own ideas.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: This is not exactly an answer, but it got too long for a comment. Please don't take it the wrong way, I just want to try and give some context to help you understand why physicists may be reluctant to discuss with you.
As a cosmologist I get spam/crackpot emails about "new theories" on average once a month. I'm not remotely well known or senior, and I hate to think what the inboxes of my more established colleagues look like. I've even received physical letters in the post with crackpot theories. They are invariably from retired engineers or computer scientists who claim to have "disproven Einstein" or something similar, and want my opinion on it. These theories are almost never couched in mathematical terms which is a huge communications barrier; the authors are not even trying to speak the same language that physicists use on a daily basis.
Furthermore, it's hard enough to keep up with the "legitimate" literature in cosmology; there are around 20 new papers *a day* posted to arXiv which bear at least some relevance to my work and perhaps one or two a week which merit a close read (i.e. a few hours to go through the calculations and figures). You can see why it's nearly impossible to make time for reading about and discussing unestablished theories.
Some people see this as the scientific establishment's desire to ignore or suppress alternative ideas. I don't think that is the case; it's just more sensible to trust the work of someone with a PhD in physics and who has been teaching general relativity for twenty years than someone with an undergraduate degree in physics which they openly admit left them with an incomplete understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Think of it this way: would you be able to compose a beautiful and powerful symphony after only having listened to Beethoven's 5th a few times on the radio? Or would you need to undertake years of study in melody, harmony and instrumentation in order to achieve it, making many mistakes and writing many bad pieces of music along the way?
It's also important to realise that science does not progress via outsiders making some huge, paradigm-shifting leap once every few years. Progress is instead made in very small increments worked on by tens or hundreds of people over tens or hundreds of years. You need to ask yourself if you are truly trying to contribute to physics research, or if your greater motivation is the fame and fortune that would come with the acceptance and propagation of your theory. If the former, then the way forward for you is very clear: try to get a Master's degree and a PhD in physics. If the latter, I'm sorry to tell you that it is simply not going to happen.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: There is no conspiracy in the physics community to ignore laymen's contributions. It just extremely unlikely that such contributions are really important. However, every single good idea will be picked up eventually.
So, set up a website where you explain your idea. Then use social media to make people aware of it. If your idea has any value, it will be picked up.
Approaching physics professionals directly has a close to zero chance of success because they don't have time to waste on people who might be crackpots.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Let me pick up on the points made by @astronat.
First, I'm even less well known than they are as I only get crackpot letters every 6 months. The common thread to these letters is the authors don't even know that they don't know. Too often, these people don't even realize their understanding of a particular phrase or concept was entirely incorrect.
I have myself lectured to students who had their pet theory of quantum mechanics. Well actually their pet theory wasn't about quantum mechanics, but about some extremely narrow subproblem for which they claim to propose a solution. It's great to come up with a theory that reproduces the spectrum of hydrogen, but does this still work when you include perturbations? Does this work for the 3D harmonic oscillator? Does it predict the correct degeneracies and transition rates? *etc etc etc*. The reason a particular paradigm has survived the passage of time is not that it solves *one* problem but that the weight of accumulated evidence makes it clear it applies to a huge number of situations. No progress is made if your solution to one specific problem immediately causes a plethora of other problems, so you need to be aware of what these other problems could be.
Any communication with a specialist should demonstrate that you have an accurate, profound (beyond Wikipedia) and clear understanding of mainstream ideas in the field, not just the specific area of the problem you're trying to solve. To be taken seriously, you must be able to convincingly convey your idea accurately and clearly using the jargon of the field.
To rephrase this in the software language: if someone comes up to you with an idea for a new routine to diagonalize a special type of matrices, but cannot clearly explain how variables are assigned, would you seriously consider investing your time to check if this method works in general?
Mastering the jargon is very difficult to do unless you have quite deep background, so the first order of business is start spending your evenings and weekends *seriously* studying the classic references of the field, not at the dilettante level but at the professional level. We're talking here Misner, Thorne and Wheeler (or equivalent) as a starting point, moving up from there. This will likely require 1000s of hours and would be similar to a self-study MSc degree in this area.
The hard reality is if you don't have time to do this, nobody will have time for you.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Let me start by saying that I read your readme page and watched your YouTube videos, and I think they're very interesting. I'll give you some more details of what I think shortly.
My advice to you is: **try not to think about what your idea *might* be, and focus on what your idea *is*.**
Your idea *might* be a great tool for understanding relativity and quantum mechanics. Your idea *might* be a more or less accurate description of our universe. Your idea *might* allow us to make new accurate predictions that we weren't able to make before. Frankly, I don't think that your idea is any of these things, but it *might* be.
Well, as you've discovered through painful experience, it's extremely difficult to get anyone else to be interested in something that *might* be wonderful. I've had the exact same experience. I've come up with lots of wonderful ideas and told them to lots of people... and nobody cared about any of them at all. I've found that it's pretty much impossible to get anyone to see the same potential that I saw. (And looking back, I think none of my ideas were all that wonderful after all.)
From the perspective of the people around you, what you have is not something useful; it's not something interesting.
But the thing is, what you have is, at the very least, *something*. You have a computational model, which you call "Universe X." You have a pretty app which demonstrates some of the properties of Universe X. You've done some explorations into Universe X and you've found that it seems to obey the laws of special relativity (at least approximately). You've found that its behavior matches general relativity in some respects and differs from general relativity in some respects. I find your Universe X really interesting—not interesting in the sense that I think it shows promise as a model of real-world physics, but interesting in the sense that I would have a lot of fun playing with it and thinking about it.
So, my suggestion is that you don't go around telling people "I have this idea that I think might be a really great model of the physical world," but instead go around telling people "I have this cellular automaton that's inspired by general relativity and simulates expanding and contracting space." Lots of people are interested in cellular automata, and some of them are likely to be interested in yours too. And most importantly, if you say "I have this cool cellular automaton," *people will actually believe you*, because the claim that you're making is very modest, and people can easily see that it's correct just by watching a video.
(And let's suppose that Universe X really *is* a wonderful model of the real world. You don't need to try to convince anyone that it's a good physical model. All you have to do is get people interested in your cool little cellular automaton, and they'll explore it and find out what its strengths and weaknesses are. If—and I must warn you that I think this is very, very unlikely—but *if* it's a great model of the universe, then the people who are fans of it will start to notice.)
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: **At least you are not alone**
<NAME>: Known as the father of modern genetics for his experiments with pea plants, which established the laws of inheritance, was not widely accepted as such until many years after his death.
<NAME>: Struggled to gain recognition for his work during his lifetime. It was only after his death that his contributions to the field of electrical engineering became widely acknowledged.
<NAME>: Discovered the importance of hand hygiene in preventing the spread of disease. However he was ridiculed by many of his colleagues. It was only after his death that his work was recognized as a significant contribution to the field of medicine.
<NAME> spent a great deal of effort in his final years defending his theories. He did not always get along with his colleagues in Vienna. In the end he committed suicide. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Boltzmann>
<NAME> who wrote three books by the time he was 14 and had a PhD by the time he was 20, was friends with <NAME> and has the Wolfram programming language to his name has tried on more than one occasion to get physicists interested in his theories. He is still struggling to win their approval.
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/physicists-criticize-stephen-wolframs-theory-of-everything/>
On a personal note, I have severe misgivings about analogies with checkerboards. I would have to read more but basically there is a problem with directionality.
**So what should you do?**
One possible idea is to create your own YouTube channel and explain your ideas bit-by-bit from the ground up. Make it a series. As always, the problem is to find viewers. Unfortunately, you have to find suitable click-bait to attract attention. Look at your favourite channels and see how they do it.
You mention <NAME>. I've seen a couple of her things. If you review some of her output, simply mentioning her name as the title of one of your videos is likely to attract attention. Once you have any kind of following, you have an audience. By showing that you appreciate the ideas of others, you may find that they reciprocate. If you steadfastly ignore the output of others in favour of your own, then you can't blame them for doing likewise.
I would consider reviewing many ideas that are out of the mainstream and treating them critically but impartially.
Good luck in your endeavours!
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_7: Have you considered going to a conference (such as APS March Meeting) to present your work as a poster or oral presentation? This would give you a venue to discuss your ideas with working physicists in both formal and informal settings and might provide some valuable feedback.
One word of advice based on your post and comments: In my view, you can't really blame anyone for not understanding (or not being interested) in your ideas. As @astronat explained in their answer, there are hundreds of papers published every day which people worked very hard on (myself included), and you will have to compete against them. You will have to speak the language of your intended audience and respond convincingly to their questions and criticisms if you want their attention. If you can't pass their personal "bullshit" test, then they will quickly move on. It is simply too risky to spend time on speculative theories which may not pay off.
At the end of the day, research is a free-market of ideas. Why should people invest their time in your ideas rather than their own (or someone else's)? It is great that you created a professional-looking iPhone app, but this is not the currency of working physicists. They are more likely to care about the mathematical foundations of your idea, how it fits in with other accepted theories, and whether it can accurately predict the outcomes of previous experiments. Until you can provide these answers (or create a track record which will make others more likely to take a gamble on you), then you may have an uphill battle to fight. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: tl;dr I would like to practice problems to develop a better understanding of topics in mathematics graduate-classes, but I don’t get time off my homework (which only covers a few problems), so I need a plan of study.
As the title suggests, I am doing math and there’s too much I want to do but not enough time. I am currently a sophomore (undergraduate), but I've been taking math graduate courses (namely algebraic topology, algebra II and an independent study in algebraic geometry) for the past two semesters. Apart from this I also have a computer science workload which isn’t too heavy as of now.
While I have been able to understand a lot of concepts really fast and get a working knowledge, I feel certain topics go off pretty quickly in classes. I believe the the true way to internalize all the its and bits and be able to work with them is by doing problems; lots and lots of problems. For instance I am not very comfortable with modules (which we covered in Algebra I last semester), and so am trying to do questions from Atiyah’s commutative algebra book (also useful for my algebraic geometry) nowadays alongside my courses. However each course has homework which takes a lot of time (especially cause it’s based on stuff you just learnt) and so it’s hard to make time.
I am really enjoying all my courses, but I want to focus more on problems (such as from Atiyah) to truly get better at working with these concepts rather than just knowing them abstractly. Staying up late at night works with me, but I have early morning classes so this is often not durable. I would really love some advice on how to plan because I don’t want to do too much math without being proficient in topics I do, and believe am a foundational stage so want to be careful.<issue_comment>username_1: My advice is to change the frame of your problem. Right now, you are wondering how to cram more mathematics into the same amount of time. Instead, I suggest thinking about how you can make the best use of the time available. There are only so many hours per day, and far fewer of them that we can reasonably dedicate to thinking really hard.
First of all, supplementing your coursework with additional study is a perfectly fine thing to do. Working out problems is a great way to help learn the concepts, and using additional texts can help to clarify issues compared to looking at only one textbook. Your experience here can also help to direct your further study, when it comes to selecting topics within your degree work, and making career choices in general: paying attention to what you find interesting or boring, easy or hard, will yield good information. But burning yourself out by trying to solve all the problems no matter the cost, is obviously very bad.
Overall, "there is no royal road to commutative algebra", and we shouldn't expect it to be easy to learn. I'd like to propose to you that since the road is indefinitely long, and there are other roads to travel as well, it would be useful to do a few things to shape the study -
1. **Set concrete milestones for what you would like to learn.** There is no limit to the time that you *could* spend, especially if you are just working through a textbook linearly from front to back, and judging for yourself whether you have a sense of feeling proficient at what you are doing. Instead, you should decide on specific topics that you feel are necessary, and on success criteria that are more measurable. Rather than "achieve total godlike mastery of algebra", the goals can be more like "be able to reproduce the definition of the field of fractions of an integral domain and prove its universality property". This allows you to *not* focus on other things, and also gives you a stopping condition for the thing you *are* focusing on currently (i.e. no matter how fascinated you are by the concept of torsion submodules, you must allow yourself to stop thinking about them at some point, or you will never do anything else). Feel free to discard topics ruthlessly; you can always come back to them if need be.
2. **Take note of your short-term progress.** In pursuit of one of these milestones, at any given moment you might be stuck or making only very slow progress. It is surprisingly hard to *notice when you are stuck*. Very often, the correct tactic at these moments is not to carry on. If you are tired, hungry, etc., then you will be better off addressing that than desperately ploughing on with the mathematics. After a break you can also determine whether it is actually worth sticking with the specific problem. Maybe the right move is to work on something else, and return to the original issue later or never. You have still learned something, even if it's only that the topic is harder than you estimated. Or, now feeling fresher, you may come up with the breakthrough technique after all.
3. **Set a strict time-box.** It's tempting to feel that the key insight is just around the corner. If you are having trouble with actually disengaging, then pre-commit to setting a timer (literally!) for when you are going to leave your desk. When the bell rings then it's time to drop the pencil. At times you may feel like you're racing against the clock - but another session will come along soon enough. The point is that by budgeting your time, you are not only protecting the rest of your life against mathematical intrusion, but also being more effective at using the resources you do have - diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, when it comes to slogging away.
What this boils down to is a change in mindset. Instead of trying to cram more and more study into a finite time, you treat your time as fixed and then carefully select what to do with it. Recall that even top athletes do not train all through the day and night. They make the best use of the time available and try not to destroy themselves in the process.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think you need to do more problems. You need to figure out how to work smarter rather than harder.
Grothendieck, generally considered the greatest mathematician of the 2nd half of the 20th century, did not know (or at least it's a believable story that he did not know) that 57 was not a prime number! He had tremendous gaps in his practical knowledge.
It's impossible to know everything; there is too much. You can't internalize all the its and bits of everything. What you have to learn is how to work with concepts even when you're not comfortable with them. (There are sections of some of my research papers where I understood the ideas just well enough to write those sections and have promptly forgotten how they actually work.)
Also, modern pure mathematics is built on layers and layers of abstraction. Certainly, doing a number of similar problems can help you grasp a concept that abstracts what is similar among all these problems. It's a good way to understand a single layer of abstraction very well. However, with multiple layers of abstraction, the difficulty of this approach of understanding by doing problems is exponential. If you need 10 problems to understand an abstraction, then you need 10000 problems to understand an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction of an abstraction. (And 4 is actually a *small* number of layers of abstraction for concepts in modern pure mathematics.) You're not going to do that. You just need to get better at understanding abstraction and working with it so that you don't need to work 10 problems - ideally you can understand an abstract idea from working only a single problem so that there is no exponential growth at all.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: A math lecture typically works with the professor explaining something, and at the same time writing her theorems on the blackboard, without any Powerpoint slides. When the blackboard is full, its contents are quite close to what should be in the lecture notes.
I think this has advantages over Powerpoint slides, besides being easier to prepare: One blackboard may contain 45 minutes of information, and a reader may look at all the previous information at their own leisure during the talk if they forgot something (or decided they want to prioritize understanding a certain part of the lecture).
How can I approximate this experience in an online lecture? Ideally, I imagine something like this:
* The audience opens a link to something that looks like a PDF/Word document
* While I hold the talk, I click my mouse and this makes the next (prepared) sentence appear in real-time for my audience and me,
* In the end, when everything is revealed, those are the talk's lecture notes.
* I may still point to certain places of the already-revealed lecture notes during the talk.
Is there a tool that allows for something like this? The best I can think of is using Google Docs and copy-paste, or similar.
(Update: The talk was held to a group of academic quantum information theory researchers [I had actually misunderstood who the audience would be], and the subject was some research of mine related to that subject. I was interested in functionality that would allow me to approximate the experience of a person writing on a blackboard --- either involving writing live, or clicking to make new statements appear.)<issue_comment>username_1: Your description sounds close to the kind of videos produced by the Khan Academy for teaching students. [This video](https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering/ee-signals/ee-fourier-series/v/ee-fourier-series-intro), for example, opens with a prepared view of something (a plot of a function) but then, starting around 18 seconds into the video, the teacher begins to write on the "board".
They are probably using a [graphics tablet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_tablet) as the user interface for the pen/pencil style of writing.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A graphics tablet or a tablet computer with a stylus will let you have an approximation of the pace of writing on a board.
It's impossible to display all of the information you would on multiple blackboards legibly because a computer screen that a viewer uses is not large enough. My personal recommendation if you're concerned is to have written notes that you pre-distribute, and then also write your notes again on a tablet during the presentation.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Alright, you might not like this.
The question *"How can make the experience of an online talk similar to the experience of a blackboard talk on-site"* has the same answer as the question *"How can I make streaming a movie online similar to the experience of watching a play in the theatre?"*:
**You simply can't.**
A movie is not a play and a screen is not a theatre stage. Both media have their advantages and pecularities, but they are too different to replicate the typical movie streaming experience on a theatre stage or vice versa. Same for an online talk and a blackboard talk.
(You might be able to rescue some of the blackboard spirit if you just give a blackboard talk and stream it via a camera and a microphone. But it will still not be the same experience, and it only works at a reasonable level of quality with the right setting and equipment, which you might or might not have available.)
You say you like blackboard talks (so do I), so let's see what makes this medium so well-suited for math talks; we can check for each point to which extent it can be replicated online. A (probably non-exhaustive) list of relevant points is:
* **Pacing.** Writing things on the blackboard limits the speed at which we can discuss material in a talk. Many people seriously need such a limit (as you can see by checking what they do if they use slides, where no such natural limit exists).
This can be replicated online by writing by hand on a tablet computer instead of using text that has been written before.
Alternatively, you can use a medium without such a limit (for instance, slides), but force yourself not to put too much material in it. This is absolutely possible *if one is really committed to do so*.
* **Temporal synchronisation of speaking and writing.** When you write something on the board, you will typically talk about what you are writing right now or about what you have just written.
Again, this can by replicated online by writing via hand on a tablet.
It can only partially be replicated by using pre-written text that is revealed piecewise as you give the talk. This solution is imperfect (and requires much more work to prepare, in particular if you want to do it really well, i.e. not only reveal things from left to right and top-to-bottom). It should be noted, though, that some people do not like such overlay mechanisms ([link 1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/185428/software-for-creating-hand-written-slides-that-are-revealed-gradually#comment499178_185428), [link 2](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/185470/135841)). Some other people though (including myself) get seriously annoyed if such overlay mechanisms are not used (e.g., not using them has typically the consequence that I am, as a member of the audience, unable follow which points the speaker is currently talking about. Using somekind of pointer to resolve this does typically not work well, in my experience.)
* **Geometrical synchronisation of speaking and writing.** At a blackboard, the speaker will often be physically close to the written content they are currently speaking about, and increase the distance now and then during some elaboration that is not written on the blackboard. A good and experienced speaker can use the distance to the board to direct the audience' attention and to modulate the "density" of the presentation (e.g., move away from the board and insert a number of less technical sentences now and then in order to give the audience time to relax mentally a bit).
I see no way to replicate this online.
* **Using gestures and movements to keep the audience engaged.** One great things about blackboard talks is that somebody is really *moving* at the blackboard. Personally, I find myself much more motivated to listen carefully if I see that there is something going on phyiscally and in three dimensions.
This cannot be replicated online. Putting your camera on during the talk, so that people can at least see you talking, is probably better than nothing, but very far from the experience in a lecture hall or seminar room.
* **Ability to correct a mistake.** If you write something on the blackboard that turns out to be wrong, you can easily correct it.
This can be replicated online be *some* media, but not by others. Generally speaking, writing things on a tablet computer by hand gives you the opportunity to correct things. Whether pre-written text can be fixed on-the-fly depends on the details of the technical solution that you use.
* **Keeping large parts of the text available during the talk.** This is a point that you mention as very important in your question. I'll argue that it actually consists of two important points:
**Availability for the audience:** As you say, somebody in the audience can just look at another part of the blackboard to recall what, say, "Assumption 1" was. The main point here is that it typcially takes very little time (and thus distraction) to look this up.
I claim that this can be replicated online only to a very limited degree. The only thing that you can probably do is, as you have already suggested, to send the entire document to your audience before the talk.
I think there are two major caveats, though: (i) Looking something up in those notes will often be more distracting for someone in the audience than it would be one the blackboard (because they might have to scroll through the document, and if they use only one screen, then this will cover the talk itself while they do so.) (ii) I strongly suspect (without having checked empirical evidence for it, though) that people are more easily distracted during online talks anyway, and this adds yet another distraction.
**Availability for the speaker:** This refers to the possibility that the speaker can refer back to results, assumptions, properties, formulas, and so on, from previous parts of the talk.
At the blackboard this is possible since everything (or much of it) is still there; it is also easier to follow since the speaker can move (phyiscally) to the point of reference and point there also physically, for instance with their hand or a stick (just in case that somebody finds the idea of a stick "old-fashioned": if something is located to high for your arms and you have the choice between using a stick or a laser pointer - *please* use the stick, it is so much easier to follow than those tiny points of light.)
I'll argue that - and that's the part that you might not like - it is not possible to replicate this online.
Going back in slides is, as you have already observed, extremely confusing. If you use slides, don't do it.
If you use a longer document - say, one which you write by hand via the talk - and scroll down during the talk, you might try to scroll up to refer to something that you have written earlier. I have done so in the past now and then, but my impression was that it does not work well during lectures for students - and it does not work at all during research talks, since the density of the material is typically much higher there.
So the situation is from my perspective as simple as that: if you give an online research talk, you are not allowed to go back (no matter which technology or software you use). If, say, "property (a)" is no longer on screen, you are not allowed to refer to it; instead, you have to put it there again (either by writing it by hand again, or by revealing a prepared version of it). This is the only way to ensure that many people in the audience will be able to follow you.
(In case that this seems like an exaggeration: no, I'm dead serious - *Don't go back!*)
**Bottom line.** An online talk is not a blackboard talk, and you won't be able to generate the same experience for your audience.
So rather than trying hard to achieve something which is not possible (with a high risk of messing it up), I suggest to choose an online medium which you think is most suitable for your presonal way to give a talk, and then **adjust your talk such that it works well with that particular medium**.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Sharepoint access and a copy of Microsoft Word for everybody could do that. So could Google Docs.
Both systems provide simultaneous viewing of a document being edited. And both provide equation objects you can add to the document which take a modified form of LaTeX math syntax for keyboard entry. It might take a lot of practice to get fast enough to do a lecture but it's sound enough to use for notes and coursework in my experience.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It's not mathematics, but I use [OneNote](https://www.onenote.com/hrd) for writing my notes on the screen and displaying it.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zKS41.png)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I find a document camera combined with pen and paper is a good way to create a naturally paced writing experience in an online lecture. It allows you to use any kind of writing tools, such as differently coloured pens, a ruler, etc., and in my opinion tends to look better than most methods for handwriting input to a computer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: ### Tactile tablet with blackboard app
If you have a graphic tablet, there exist apps specifically to emulate a blackboard. These can be linked either to a video-projector, if you ever need to teach in an amphitheater that has a video-projector but no blackboard, or to a video-conference call.
Usually, these apps are designed so that you can "turn the page", which has the same effect as erasing the blackboard, except the previous blackboard is saved, and at the end of the class you have a multiple-page pdf compiling all the blackboards you've filled during the session. You can distribute it to the students.
### Jupyter notebook
Prepare a Jupyter notebook before the class. A Jupyter notebook is a document that can be opened into your browser. It consists in a series of cells; each cell can hold either markdown, or latex/mathjax, or python code (or code in some other programming language).
You can prepare the cells in advance, and leave some cells blanks to fill them during the class.
* The markdown is super useful to have structure, with titles and subtitles, enumerations and bold.
* The latex is super useful for all the math equations.
* Both latex and markdown work almost-exactly like on stackexchange, so you will feel at home.
* You can use pre-written python code to graph functions, plot probability distributions, and a lot of stuff.
* You can also include pictures.
The reason I like Jupyter notebooks so much for math class is that they give the perfect balance:
* You can prepare the document in advance;
* You can edit the document live, in front of the students;
* At the end of the class the document is available to the students; they don't even need to install Jupyter on their computer, if the server you use can handle Jupyter notebook. Even github handles jupyter notebooks, so you can host the document on your github and the students will be able to read it without installing anything on their computer.
When I prepare the document in advance:
* At the beginning of the document, I use latex's `\newcommand` to define shortcut that I know I will need to be able to write latex fast during class, such as `$\newcommand{\P}[1]{\mathbb{P}\left( #1 \right)}$` if I'm doing probabilities or `$\newcommand{\N}{\mathbb{N}}$` if I'm doing arithmetic;
* If I have exercises to solve, I will prepare the text of the problems in advance, and leave blank cells for the solution;
* I'll prepare the titles and subtitles in markdown.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: While re-iterating username_3's exhortation to "embrace the medium" of online lecturing, it is worth noting that since this medium is novel, the technology is evolving.
Thus, you may wish to keep asking for and looking for features that give you and your audience the engagement that is being sought.
In particular, multiple mechanisms for keeping the material available for the speaker and the audience are possible.
1. Links: One can use hyperlinks. How such a link works depends on the software used to create it *and* the software used to display it. The actual display could merely pop-up as a small box on the screen almost like one would walk to the relevant place on the board and point out the relevant portion. Alternatively, the link may directly go to an earlier slide. Such a mechanism does not exist in Google's Jamboard (for example), but one could ask them to create it!
2. Audience access: As <NAME> has mentioned there are tools that can make slides available online for the audience, even as they are written. In one talk I attended, the slides were "minified" and placed at the top of the screen still (more or less) legible. This successively reduces the available screen space, which may also be a good way for the speaker to realise that they are "using up space and time"! Again, it would be nice for such a feature to be added to various tools that are currently available for online talks.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: I like to build presentations using LaTeX and the beamer package. The result is a PDF that, when viewed fullscreen, looks just like a normal slideshow. You get an incredible level of control over the output, though. I build mine where content is progressively revealed as I'm talking. I probably hit the spacebar every 5-10 seconds to reveal the next bullet point in the list or the next step of an equation. That gives a more chalkboard-like feel, where it's more like the slides are recording what I'm saying and less like I'm reading the slides to the audience. Besides progressive display of a page, you can also have page elements appear and disappear, highlights and colors can change, etc. Since the output is a PDF file, you get all the advantages that format brings (your last two bullets).
There's [a question on the LaTeX user's Stack Exchange site](https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/26987/show-a-frame-step-by-step) that demonstrates how to do it. It's a bit odd the first time you try it but once you get the hang of it, you can build some very impressive-looking presentations.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: >
> How can I approximate this [black board] experience in an online lecture?
>
>
>
There is a low-tech answer to this question that is not covered in the other answers.
**Place a webcam in front of the black/white board.**
This way you can more or less keep teaching as you normally would in the classroom if you had a group of students in front of you. I did this in my teaching throughout the pandemic with great success, and it is now my go-to for online teaching. All the points listed in @username_3s answer are retained in this method. I therefore do not agree with their assessment that *You simply can't.*
I teach language and linguistics, so my requirements may be slightly different from those in mathematics.
Some things I learned from experience with this method:
* *You need a high resolution camera.* Otherwise things you write on the board will not be clearly visible in the image. I use the built in webcam on my MacBook Pro. Colleges that have tried this with laptops with lower quality webcams have had problems with the resolution. My university has cameras at the far end of some lecture halls for this very purpose, but they are too far away with too low resolution for things written on the board to be visible, so I ended up not using them.
* *A decent every-day bluetooth headset will do.* I use my Bose QC3 that I bought for listening to music. The sound quality of the microphones is not fantastic, but it is good enough. The wirelessness allows me to move around as I would in a normal lecture. I have also used the inbuilt microphone on my laptop (MacBook Pro), which works well provided that the laptop is on the table in front of me.
* *Place the camera/laptop at about chest height in front of the board*. This gives the best framing and perspective. If I can't adjust the height of the table in front of the board I simply put a chair on the table with the laptop with the webcam on top of that. This also allows you to have a (somewhat) natural view and emulated eye-contact with the students in the zoom room. (Natural interaction with students and the reading of their reactions is the bit I think you really cannot fully compensate for. I often ask student to exaggerate body language by nodding and using thumbs up and the like for me to read it better, but it still of course is not the same thing.)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: The most effective online lectures I've seen (actually some of the best lectures of any sort), have had the lecturer standing behind a glass or plexiglas screen. As they spoke they wrote on the screen. But wait! Won't the writing all be mirror reversed for the audience? No, it was all perfectly legible.
At first I marveled that the lecturer had taught themselves to mirror write in real time. Then I realized that the producers had simply mirror transformed the video in post-production.
It may sound like a cheap trick, but I thought the end product combined the best aspects of recorded talks and live talks. I had the ability to stop and rewind at points that seemed unclear and I could time shift viewing to a time that was convenient for me. It provided the engagement of a live chalk talk while avoiding the perennial problem of the lecturer talking into the board and loosing eye contact with the audience.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: If you are quite tech-savvy, you can achieve the desired effect in a [RevealJS](https://revealjs.com/) presentation with the [Chalkboard](https://rajgoel.github.io/reveal.js-demos/chalkboard-demo.html#/) plugin, run from a touchscreen-enabled PC. Combine this with the [Multiplex](https://revealjs.com/multiplex/) plugin to allow viewers to follow on their own devices, and author the presentation in [Quarto](https://quarto.org/docs/presentations/revealjs/presenting.html) to add on LaTeX rendering and, if you're mad enough, responsive cells coded in Python or Julia.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/02/27
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<issue_start>username_0: In an Elsevier journal, after some long time, I looked at the status of my paper on the tracking system and I realized that one of the two reviewers did not even accept the review invitation. One of the reviewer submitted the report.
Now, I see that the paper is in "Decision in process". Is that a bad sign? Can we say that the editor has seen the one negative report and decided to reject it?
Edit: I got a very harsh (and unjustified) referee report. This is why the editor decided with only one referee report.In this sense, the question was a logical one.<issue_comment>username_1: It is not uncommon to receive a decision based on a single reviewer report. I experienced this with several respectable publishers (e.g. Cambridge UP, SAGE).
In your case all you need is patience.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The editor has to make a decision and the decision has consequences for them as well as you. They don't have a lot of information on which to base a decision unless they happen to be knowledgeable in the field, which is certainly possible.
But with little information, they are likely to be a bit conservative in their decision making. If the one review is "meh" then it is a bad sign. If it is "marvelous", and they trust the reviewer, possibly having history with them, then it is a good sign.
Wait for a report back and respond appropriately when it does.
Even a paper with a "meh" review might be salvageable if the single reviewer suggests changes that would bring it up to something like "marvelous". Patience, grasshopper.
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
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2023/02/27
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<issue_start>username_0: In three years time, I will have (hopefully) finished a biochemistry degree at the ETH Zürich. I'm thinking about moving to the USA/Canada after that to study Vet Med. In most places I've read, there are so many requirements that I'd be surprised if any international students actually get accepted into those programmes. The most common requirements are: having taken enough English courses (mainly literature); having completed a 4-year Bachelor's degree and having completed one year of undergrad studies in the USA (this last one is especially bothersome when applying for an MD).
Are there any common paths for international students that I've missed (the requirements seem impossible)?
On a side note, what's funding like for non-residents (grants ...)?<issue_comment>username_1: Veterinary medicine degrees in the US, like human medical degrees (and graduate degrees in law or terminal masters programs), are considered professional degrees to prepare you to earn a relatively high professional salary. Most US veterinary medicine students pay their way with loans that they plan to pay back while working in the US as a vet. Programs at state colleges and universities may be subsidized for residents of that state, but not international or out-of-state students.
Knowing some people who have gone down this path, a DVM is a tough career path. The education costs aren't much less than an MD, the pay is substantially less, and the hours can be pretty intense, with lots of time spent on call on weekends, overnight, and holidays. I would not recommend it unless you are passionate about caring for animals, and certainly would not recommend a US DVM education if you do not plan to work in the US unless there is another place with comparable salaries. That said, while the financial aspects of the job tend to be a target of complaint, the actual job itself seems to be very rewarding.
There are a handful of grant/scholarship opportunities for DVM students, but it's not something you should plan to rely on. Your specific admissions qualifications are better directed to individual programs. I expect that European 3-year programs will substitute for US 4-year bachelor's programs; specifying "4 year" is meant to make clear that a 2-year US associates degree is not appropriate, they just aren't outlining all the different possibilities for international students, the programs likely have too few international applicants at all to bother with a country-by-country breakdown.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Veterinary school in the United States is intended to prepare students to be licensed as veterinarians in the United States. As an "international student" without a visa to work in the United States, you have no use for a license that is not valid elsewhere. There are plenty of domestic students. That is why veterinary school is not set up to admit international students.
Some countries give residency to international students who earn certain degrees. The United States does not.
Canada has a completely different education system.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in the beginning of my third year in a 3-4 year PhD program in the UK, in a STEM field.
Long story short, there is a misalignment of interests and skills between my advisor and me. My advisor is aware of the misalignment of skills but he most likely underestimates the amount of interest misalignment. My PhD hasn't been very productive, mainly because I'm not interested in the topic at all (not only the *exact* topic, I've become tired of the entire sub-field).
My advisor cares deeply about their students and has always been very kind. At the same time, I have struggled communicating disagreements because he has greater assertiveness than me. He is extremely assertive and I'm extremely unassertive.
I need to finish as soon as possible meeting the bare minimum requirements to graduate. How should I communicate that, taking into account that a) he is way more assertive than me, b) due to my lack of communication skills, he has no clue that this is what I'm thinking right now, and c) I really don't want to lose his respect and professional contact. I just want to graduate and move on and do something in the same field but completely unrelated. I'm grateful to him for the opportunity but I just need to stop doing this before going insane.
I'm on risk of burning out without having published much. Realistically, I think I could get to the very lower bound of publications of what's typical in the field and university during this year. At the same time, PhDs in the UK are not supposed to run for much longer than that.
Apart from the communication, I'm also wondering if you have any tips on guidance on how to execute a "rush exit". I'm totally used to academia times, so I understand that accelerating my graduation perhaps just means advancing 1-2 months the graduation date; well, every single day I can spare from doing this will be very welcome. I just want to graduate asap whatever it takes, even if the resulting thesis is mediocre.
Another possibility I've considered is to ask to move to a part-time arrangement and work on the side, officialy 50-50 but in practice doing more like 75% work, 25% PhD, but that might be unwise.<issue_comment>username_1: The simple thing to do is to ask for a face-to-face meeting with your advisor and simply ask them what you still need to do to finish. You don't need to express much of the background you give here, unless you think it would help. That latter requires an analysis of their personality that we can't make here, but you can. You can make suggestions to them in that conversation, of course, even saying that some suggested things won't work out for you.
Every advisor should be able to respond to such a request with more than "we shall see" or the equivalent.
But ask for a detailed list or program for getting to the end. If the program is reasonable, from your standpoint, send them a memo afterwards so that you both have a record of what they believe you still need to do.
If it is a reasonable program, then do that, avoiding other commitments as much as possible. If it is unreasonable, then explore other life options that might be open to you.
But it needs to be face-to-face, I think.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You don't quite state what you would like to go on to do after your PhD. My feeling from reading what you have written is that you'd like to stay in academic research, but not in this field/subfield. Wanting to work in industry is also congruent with what you've written. This difference is quite important, because it informs what finishing will look like.
It's generally a not very well understood fact amongst graduate students that the meeting the minimum requirements for a PhD as laid out by your university is almost certainly a substantially lower hurdle to cross than the disciplinary norm for what a PhD thesis should look like. If you want to stay in the academia, you need to be aiming for the disciplinary standard, if you want to leave academia, then aiming for something more like the university standard might be a better choice.
Thing is, the people who make the decision as to whether you get a PhD or not are the examiners. Some examiners will be willing to award a PhD if it meets the expectations set out by the university, some will require it to meet the disciplinary standards. The person who understands whether your work likely meets both the university and disciplinary standards, and is familiar enough with a range of potential examiners to know who will hold you to which, is your supervisor (and possibly an advisor, but they don't get to pick the examiners).
Given your supervisor has the power to pick examiners that will aid you in your goal, and will know what the minimum might look like to meet that goal, you really do need your supervisor's cooperation to make this happen. If your supervisor really does care about their students (as people, and not just as researcher units), and is always kind, then they will understand if you want to finish as soon as is practical.
Given the difficulties you have in talking your advisor, i'm going to disagree with username_1, and suggest that you might start this process by laying things out in an email. Say that you would like to finish as soon as is practical, and that ideally that would be considerably before your deadline. Tell them what your aim post PhD is, so they know the goal you are trying to achieve with your thesis. Say you would like to meet and discuss what a plan for getting to that point is. You may or may not want to say why you want to finish ahead of time - you'll have to judge that using your knowledge of your supervisor. Hopefully doing this ahead of time will 1) Nullify your supervisor's assertiveness advantage 2) Give them time to get over any initial feelings of disappointment.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Does your university have PhD mentors or contacts outside the research team that can assist with these conversations? If so, set a meeting with them and explain that for personal reasons you need to graduate as soon as possible, and would appreciate their guidance on (a) getting to the minimum expectations asap, and (b) how to have this conversation with your advisor.
If you don't have such people - I suggest that you set a meeting with your supervisor, sending them an email in advance that lays out basically that due to things in your personal life you need to submit as soon as possible and do what is necessary to meet that minimum requirement. I would recommend setting out your goals for the PhD given this, and what you want after. You need to make it clear that you understand that this could mean you are not competitive for postdoctoral positions, and that you are ok with that. Email followed by in person means that your supervisor isn't blind sided, you can get out your key points without interruption (you don't need an essay - just a few points so they know what you want to discuss), and you are still having the discussion in person.
Ask them to help you prioritise to meet the minimum to submit. They will have the best understanding of what is needed in your field, and hopefully where you are at.
My general advice for needing to submit asap is spend a little time identifying the minimum path. What hurdles are there and what are the specifics? For example, our students must have a paper *accepted* in a peer reviewed publication to submit. My field has peer-reviewed conference papers that focus on preliminary or small case studies - these meet the administrative requirement and are typically reviewed and accepted on a much better timeline than most journals - as well as taking a lot less time to write. Some places require that you must have a set number of papers accepted or *in submission* - in that case I advise not submitting papers until your thesis is ready to submit to avoid delays dealing with reviewer comments while trying to submit.
Then work through your thesis plan, figure out what parts are close to done - and prioritise getting those completed. Take out any stretch goals you aren't close to meeting already.
Take a look at critical paths and blockages - work out what you can do in parallel and what will hold up other things. Being careful of where you put your time when can make a huge difference. Have some brain dead tasks identified for when critical thinking/writing is not going to work or when you are stuck waiting on others (tidy up that reference list, write your acknowledgements etc).
If you are worried about the impact on your supervisor of not submitting publications, you can offer to hand over your work to a research assistance / project student to take your thesis and turn other chapters into papers with you not first author.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/03/01
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm planning a PhD in Russian history at an Australian University in the next few years. However, there's a strong chance I won't have access to the Russian archives due to the War in Ukraine, visa complications (there are stories of British Doctoral students being deported due to using a tourist visa - a humanitarian / scientific visa sounds impossible and long to get) upon absolutely no Australian companies offering travel insurance, and the possibilities of breaching my scholarship due to sanction law. Grim.
However, there's a company based in (I think?) Armenia or Uzbekistan where someone will visit the archives on your behalf and take photocopies. Would this be okay? I'm happy to visit archives in Turkey, Serbia, Greece or the United States (these are relevant to my thesis) but there may be documents crucial in St. Petersburg. Would supervisors be okay with this?
Thanks for any feedback.<issue_comment>username_1: Ethically there is no problem with this. It is part of research process to have some paid assistance for some tasks. It is pretty ubiquitous in some science research, for example. Whether a supervisor would agree, however, is up to them, and I can't predict.
But if you give a "service" close supervision and you are able to see and judge the actual results yourself, there is no fundamental reason that there should be any problem.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Ask your advisor about university policy, their comfort with the proposal and discuss the optics. The news headlines could be quite detrimental to the department if it looks like you're paying people from poor countries to go do research for you in a place deemed unsafe for you to travel.
I don't see an ethical issue with having third parties collect data for you in general, especially if that is their business. And Russia needs to remain a topic of study. But I am concerned by the "it's not safe for me, so I'll send a poor person instead". Now these specific might not be poor - but the countries, in comparison to Australia, definitely are by considerable margins.
Your work will definitely require a foreign interference evaluation by your university - this will also provide oversight for you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: Ask your university's legal department.
=======================================
It's possible that this might constitute violating sanctions on Russia, since you're paying someone to visit Russia, and they might well wind up needing to pay for access to the things you want them to research for you. As such, I would recommend talking to your university's legal department to ensure both you personally and university as a whole won't get in legal trouble for violating sanctions if you engage in this scheme.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: That's a tricky question with hard-to-predict risks. For instance, currently, Russian citizens even with most innocent dealings with foreigners can be designated "foreign agents" and prosecuted. Depending on your topic, access to archives can be restricted by the Russian government. Sanctions could limit payment options; foreigners from neighbouring countries may avoid travel to Russia and so on.
One possibility could be for you to contact a Russian historian (eg a recent emigre) or similar based at an Australian or another western university for advice. Also, there could be digitized archives available outside Russia if these are sufficient for you.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/01
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<issue_start>username_0: We are preparing a big European (HORIZON) project application (more than 10 million Euro) and with several partners. The deadline is in two months. Two partners are required to write their parts of the proposal, but they do not respond at all, or they say "yes, I will do it. Same answers after many requests. They are risking the project. We talked with them many times about this issue. We are thinking about getting rid of them directly. But before that, what would to do?<issue_comment>username_1: There are two things to consider here: You application (which they are jeopardizing) and your long term relationship with these partners (which you might jeopardize by ditching them).
You need to find a way to rescue both, ideally. If that's not possible or needed, then go for damage control.
So: Are these partners you only got on board for this application or are they people you will run into later? Will they be your reviewers or competitors? In either case you will probably never pick them as collaborators again, because now you know that they don't deliver when they need to.
Assuming you are the coordinator, you are well within your right to say that in order for this to work you need all partners to actively contribute as needed. If you can afford to lose them (or replace them), then it's better to do that now that it is still early days, using the argument above.
This is assuming that you have set clear deadlines and sent at least a gentle reminder. You final warning can be this: write the text by dd/mm/yy or we will assume you are no longer interested and take you off the application.
But also: Is the application viable without one or both of them? If they have a strong position (i.e. they are needed because of reason X), then they have the upper hand. In that case you might have to pick up the slack and do their work for them. This is, unfortunately, what happens a lot in these cases.
Fair? No. So up to you to decide what weighs more heavily.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: username_1' answer makes some useful high-level suggestions on how to approach this in a general sense, to which I'll add a different practical suggestion:
Get into the same room as them. It's much harder to ignore someone across a desk than it is to ignore an e-mail! This can be with each challenging partner individually or all together, but meeting with them for a day with the explicit goal of getting the core of their part of the proposal written could effectively get things unstuck.
You don't necessarily need to phrase the objective of the meeting in quite those terms, of course, and meeting in-person to coordinate large grant applications is not uncommon. Indeed, our university even has funds set aside explicitly to support such meetings for large grant writing.
If they say they can't possibly find even a single day to discuss the grant, then that may be a stronger indication that you should consider how essential they are to the proposal, as suggested by the other answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In addition to the other answers, I will mention that getting the proposal written is only the first step. Assume it gets funded: Then you are on the hook for actually doing the work. And you have to write project progress and final reports. When you accept a grant, you basically sign a piece of paper saying "Yes, I will do all of that".
If you have collaborators who cannot spare the time to help with writing proposals, what is your confidence in them being able to do the actual work? If you can't be confident in that (or if they can't assure you of it), this is not the right collaboration for you. It will give you the prestige of having won the grant, but it will make your life miserable in the future. Think twice -- and discuss this point with your collaborators -- whether that is worth anyone's emotional energy and in some cases friendship.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: If you really, really want it, you can proceed as follows:
* Write the whole project proposal, and send it to them with 'I prepared an possible outline of the project, see if you can use it as a basis for the proposal, or if you want to make changes'
* Make sure that your project promises do not depend on the output of that group. Like having a fallback solution to demonstrate your output.
If I read you text correctly, the total number of participating groups is 3 and 2 of them dont reply. Forget it.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: The other answers already here are excellent, I would add (from experience) that putting pressure on senior academics via their admin or contracts teams might be successful if writing to them directly has failed.
Hopefully your own finance/contracts office will have contacts with the collaborating institutions teams, and they want the grant as much as you do so might have levers to getting things done.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: Suppose, I am an examiner in an oral exam. I have done my best to [design and conduct the exam to reduce students’ anxiety](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/82591/7734), but it just didn’t work: The student has a panic attack that makes it impossible to continue the exam in a regular way. **How can I rescue the situation, if at all?**
Some clarifications:
* The student is not just nervous, but is in some anxiety spiral, freezes, cries, etc. They obviously cannot think straight anymore or answer questions in a manner that would allow a reasonable assessment. Any attempt to just continue the exam would only exacerbate the situation.
* Of course, every panic attack is different. I am aware that I need to weigh the alternatives depending on the specifics of the situation. This question is asking for the toolbox; I still need to select the right tool myself.
* Assume that, before the panic attack, the student has not yet demonstrated sufficient skill, knowledge etc. to pass the exam. (Usually, because the exam only took a few minutes so far.)
* **This question is not about prevention**. While that is certainly the preferable way, it doesn’t always work and we already have a question on that: [How to help reduce students' anxiety in an oral exam?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/82591/7734) That question is about what can be done in preparation or while staying “examination mode” such as asking very basic questions or switching the topic. This question is about when that has failed.
* The baseline option (i.e., doing nothing) would be to let the student fail the exam and re-take it as far as permitted by the pertaining examination and accommodation rules. I acknowledge that this may be the best option in many cases, but it is still dissatisfying as it is a lot of work and effort for everybody involved and the situation may just repeat.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all: if your university has a support unit for disabilities and/or mental health issues, contact them and ask the same question. They are the professionals here; we are just keyboard warriors on the internet.
In any case, here are some possible ideas:
1. Wait 30 minutes for the panic attack to pass (and then asking a different question); this may already solve the problem.
2. When you resume, have the student *write* their answers, even if it is an oral exam. This may reduce the stress.
3. Do you have the option to adjourn the exam without it appearing as failed? If so, I would prefer that. Treat it as a medical emergency.
I have experienced the effectiveness of (1) and (2) in the past (as a third person, I was neither the student nor the professor).
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: First, you might want to check if there are rules about this topic in your university (e. g. about medical emergencies in exams). There might be rules or a "teaching help center" which can answer this question to some extend.
If there is not and you are free to do whatever you want, I would count this exam as if it never happened and reschedule it (I'd do the same if some other medical emergency happened or if there would be a fire alarm). As you describe it, a normal exam is not possible in your circumstances. Failing would not be an accurate measure of the student's knowledge.
If your structures allow this, I would talk to the student afterwards (maybe in the next days) if this happens often and if the student wants some adjustments (e.g. a friend present at the exam, drinking water at the exam, more writing instead of speaking etc.).
Since, in my experience, this does very rarely happen, I'd say it's okay to reschedule and meet their adjustments (as long as they are reasonable and fair). If this happens often at your university (or you believe some students fake it to cheat somehow), do talk about this topic in a faculty meetings and try to invite experts on panic attacks to give input.
However, if this happens only once and you are not sure if the student might fake this - I'd say it's much better to let the "guilty student" alone as to punish a "non-guilty" student.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: During my final exams at my school we had a case like this. One girl was completely incapable of taking any verbal exam. But it seems there was no fixed rule who had to take the exam and where.
So while this student was waiting outside the exam room sitting on a bench, another teacher sat down besides her, talked to her, asked about her preparations, then various questions about the subject, and so on. Last question was reportedly “Are you afraid of that test?” “Yes.” “No need, you passed.”
Not quite the same situation, but you could check if a subterfuge like that is possible and legal.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I think this should be seen as a medical reason to postpone the exam.
Like a student stumbling and breaking their leg after the first question, or becoming unconscious.
I know that after the start of the exam, you have to be careful about medical reasons because of possible cheating, but I think you can trust your judgement here.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: You don't mention the exact context of the exam, but I recommend doing everything you can to avoid calling it a failure, or officially recording it as such in any official capacity. Just treat it as an unavoidable testing irregularity, similar to how you would have likely handled a fire in the building.
I recommend working with the student, the department, and any relevant powers that be to create a testing situation that would satisfy the requirements and not trigger a panic attack. Maybe a situation where the examination committee reads the documents involved, generates a list of questions, gives the student enough time to formulate written answers, and then the committee can have an oral component for follow-ups to the answers, if an oral component can't be avoided.
Another possibility would be holding the exam over zoom, with the student in familiar environments.
Maybe even just having the committee hold "practice" sessions with the student, to get them used to the idea of an oral exam, would be enough to alleviate the situation.
All of the options are more work, but we do that for our students.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: ### If you have no warning that the student is prone to this, then mark them as if they did not attend (or failed)
It may sound harsh, but this is a standard principle in all academic settings I'm aware of. If a person has a recognised condition or disability, then provision is made for this ahead of time. This provision may be anything reasonable such as environment, assessors, extra time, breaks, or anything like that. The student contacts the school/department, and reasonable provision is negotiated so that their condition does not disadvantage them.
If a person has not contacted the school/department and negotiated provision for some condition or disability, any assessor ***must not*** give them any extra benefits, regardless of what happens. The school cannot risk an overly-lenient assessor giving out bonuses to students just because they feel sorry for the student, regardless of how justified it may seem. Also remember that you'll likely have a couple of dozen other students to assess, all waiting for their turn, and you can't disadvantage them.
All schools do have provision for dealing with unforeseen emergencies though, for instance if a student has a heart attack mid-exam. Perhaps the student has never had a panic attack before, so this was genuinely unexpected. In that case the student would follow the appropriate procedures for this, and the school can figure out what is best to handle the situation. This may be a second exam, assessment based on existing work, assessment based on teacher feedback over the year, or something similar.
### If you have been made aware of this, then follow the rules
If the student has told the school/department that this is a possibility, then you should have a well-defined rule book to follow for them. That's the point of the student making people aware ahead of time - precisely so that someone such as yourself isn't left winging it, with a severely distressed person on their hands, and quite likely getting severely distressed yourself.
One of the most common provisions, by the way, is that they should have a carer present (or nearby) who can be called in if/when this occurs. So the typical response if this does happen will be to get the person who knows how to deal with it, and you shouldn't have to.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Something like this happened to me in a music exam.
I knew that my sight-reading was deficient. As the exam progressed and the sight-reading got near I had the weirdest symptom. My eyes began to shake! When the score was put in front of me I simply said to the examiners "Are my eyes shaking? I can't read anything". They looked puzzled and passed over that part of the test. Luckily my score was high enough in other sections and I passed.
Had they insisted, I would have probably run out of the room or my symptoms would have got worse.
The point was that, in my case, my physiology came to my rescue to cover for my lack of mental ability.
**Conclusion**
Real (not faked) physical symptoms can occur if a student isn't sufficiently prepared or believes they are not. In my case, as soon as the pressure was removed, I was embarrassed but physically back to normal.
**What to do?**
Skip over the difficult patch. I suggest learning some simple grounding exercises and suggesting the student go through them.
When they are calmer, ask them for some feedback on what the problem is. Point out that nobody is expected to be perfect at everything.
If you get to the stage where they need the skipped part in order to pass, then be upfront and tell them. Ask if they now feel capable of at least trying and that they will likely get some credit even if not as much as they hoped for.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: #### Consider multiple redeemable assessments for this item (or some rehearsals), to give additional "exposure"
Another answer here recommends that you should assess without any special consideration unless there is a prior accommodation agreed. That seems reasonable to me, partly from a procedural standpoint, but also because a major part of the reason for assessment is diagnostic. For situations like this, one approach that can be useful is to give students multiple "bites of the cherry" by having multiple redeemable pieces of assessment. This allows the student to perform the assessment and get back a mark, but it also means that bad performance on an individual assessment item is not fatal to the overall course mark. In cases where there is difficulty with a particular type of assessment (e.g., involving presentation or public speaking) the approach of using multiple redeemable assessments can also give the student greater exposure and practice of that type of assessment; hopefully greater exposure lessens anxiety and panic over time. A variation on this is to have sessions planned specifically for *rehearsal*, where students will practice speaking to their course lecturer or the class as a whole, to get used to speaking to an audience in a formal setting. (In this case the rehearsals would typically be non-assessable but they would still give some opportunity for practice.) Obviously this is something that should be planned in advance and described in the course outline, so this is more a solution for future cases rather than a way of dealing with the present case.
I notice that there are a lot of answers here that recommend various ways of alleviating the student's poor performance by allowing substitute assessments or other accommodations in the assessment, or by treating this as a medical intervention akin to a heart attack or loss of consciousness. However, one thing to note in relation to this your assessment is that oral presentation and public speaking are highly useful professional skills; these are skills that a university should teach its students and give them assessed opportunities to practice. Because of the importance of oral presentation in professional work, there is *pedagogical value* in a student being placed in a pressure situation where they practice speaking and conversing on an academic topic to a small or large group, and they are judged on the quality of their exposition. There is also pedagogical value in ensuring that the result of the assessment effectively performs its diagnostic purpose --- i.e., failing a student who is not yet competent at giving an oral presentation.
It is perfectly natural to feel bad for someone who is panicked by this situation (see the [classic Seinfeld joke on public speaking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ6giVKp9ec)), and to want to alleviate the situation, but by removing or nullifying the thing that causes them panic (but which they will encounter later in life after university) it is likely that the student will not gain exposure and practice for that skill with realistic feedback on their lack of competence. It is a generally accepted psychological principle that exposure lessens anxiety (which is the basis for [exposure therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy)) so this may be a situation where a failed assessment, augmented by later attempts at the same type of assessment, will be a valuable learning experience for the student.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: I was a teacher for 8 years, so I'm going to offer my two cents which may prove to be an unpopular opinion, but that's nothing new. I always managed better than average success on my exams and had plenty of students go on to be very successful using my methods, to take from that what you will.
My experience with "test anxiety" is that 99.99% of people who claim to have it, are anxious because they aren't skilled and knowledgable enough to perform well on the test, and they know it inside.
The first question to be honest with yourself with is: "Is this oral exam environment even remotely reflective of the environment the student will be expected to perform in for the future, if they were to pass?". If the answer is yes, you need to fail them and they need to sort out this issue. You can't pass a student who A) didn't demonstrate the required knowledge and skills, and B) get's so overwhelmed by a situation where they are required to demonstrate their knowledge that they have a meltdown. You aren't doing a student any favours by passing them along before they are capable of meeting the outcomes of the course, it will catch up to them eventually, better now than later.
Secondly, accommodations are well and good, but you can NOT accommodate to the point that the fundamental outcomes are no longer being properly assessed. I assume that you're using an oral exam because that's reflective of the required skills in your course, and you've stated that you've already done your best to design the scenario to reduce anxiety, so that's the YOU part of the scenario taken care of. The THEM part of the scenario is seeking the help to deal with their anxiety/panic in whatever ways might be necessary. That's not something you can do for the student.
At the end of the day, you may have to accept the reality that some people simply don't have the knowledge and skills to be successful in a particular field. You can't alter your standards to make them appear successful. You get to set the bar, and provide students with the resources to clear it, but you can't lower it when they fail.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_10: If I were in charge of the situation, I'd just declare the situation "adjourned", no matter what the ambient administrative rules... Next, try to take all steps for the welfare of the student.
Later, think about rescheduling, ... and have a calm talk with the student about the business of oral exams. And/or possibly have a university office recommend some sort of "accommodation", for anxiety...
In contrast to some other remarks: no, in my observation (mostly about grad-level oral exams of various sorts), panic-attacks are not about incompetence, but are manifestations of sometimes-chronic, sometimes-acute mental health issues.
No, I do not pretend to have any way to "solve this problem". My approach for many years, with my own research students (in math...), was to do endless *rehearsals*, with them at the blackboard, me sitting in "the audience", playing various roles as "heckler", or, with "time-out", to give advice on how to deal with the heckler... At that level of things, "endless rehearsals" seemed effective in de-sensitizing people.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: First and foremost you need to know the rules of your institution. If the flexibility was there - I would say pause the exam and see if the student is able to return to assessment in a reasonable period of time (say no more than 30 minutes). If they can continue - I would continue in the same way (without modifying the assessment, including without avoiding the questions that preceded the panic attack)
If the option existed to return to the exam another time without academic penalty (and option A wasn't suitable) - then I would take this. I would encourage the student to seek medical attention and submit necessary paperwork for any accommodation required, which would be managed by the relevant office at the institution, who can ensure that accommodations are reasonable and fair.
If I have to complete the assessment, and make a determination - I would use the appropriate code for an incomplete assessment and note the medical episode. I would iterate my willingness to be rescheduled for the assessment.
At the end of the day - if the student is unable to complete the assessment then they cannot pass the assessment. Hopefully, the institution does not have a one-shot assessment process. I would not modify the form of the assessment without it going through a formal, documented, process for accommodations.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: Fail them unless they have a disability plan.
=============================================
If they have a disability plan with the university's disability services team for their panic attacks, then follow whatever accommodations they are given as a part of that.
Otherwise, fail them. The point of exams is to assess skills, and for oral exams, one of those skills is public speaking. They've clearly demonstrated that they're lacking those skills, so they deserve to fail. Just go down the marking rubric and mark them appropriately for their performance (or lack thereof).
If you're feeling compassionate, maybe make them aware of your university's disability services in private afterwards.
Upvotes: -1
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<issue_start>username_0: The question is mostly addressed to those ho have *crossed to the other side* (i.e., left academia): what are the options for career growth outside of the academia?
Note that the question is not about *"what kind of job I could do outside of academia with my degree"* - I have successfully handled that part (I am a physicist-turned-computational biologist/bioinformatician). Rather it is what are the possibilities for further growth: is acquiring managerial experience the only option? Could one advance by broadening or deepening one's expertise in a particular field (like becoming a solicited expert/consultant)? Are there other options?
Or perhaps, the premises of my question are wrong, and are still influenced by my past in academia, where the career paths are pretty well outlined: PhD student -> postdoc -> junior professor -> senior professor -> perhaps branching into going along the administrative line (department director, provost) or collecting academic honors (up to a Nobel Prize) or getting plenty of research grants (all of which possibly accompanied by switching to ever more prestigious Universities.)<issue_comment>username_1: Many large companies have separate tracks for technical people and for managerial people. You can rise in both directions, and so if management is not what you aspire to, you can focus on the technical track. People high up in this direction often have technical oversight over projects, and provide their long experience, without having to do the human resource side of managing people.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I've posted this before. "Get Good!"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blSXTZ3Nihs>
Life advice in a video game metaphor.
Keep your eyes open for parts of industry that do research in your general area. Maybe you can change jobs. Maybe you can get contracts. Make contacts. Go to conferences and chat up other people in your industry. Find out what they are doing that looks interesting.
Keep building skill sets. Find ways to be more valuable to your company. Management is a possibility. But becoming the local expert in something your company does will make you valuable. They will be eager to do things that make you want to stay.
And keep your eyes open for the thing that "glimmers." If there is some aspect of your industry that you are motivated to work on, get into it. Whether it's fun or just the kind of problem that you just naturally work on. If you are motivated, you will work longer, harder, more attentively.
Keep in mind that it takes time to become an expert in anything. So don't expect to become a "big shot" over night. Still, keep looking for progress of some kind. If you are stuck, look for changes that could get you un-stuck. Different approach, different projects, different division of your company, even a move to a different company.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a first-year MS student working as a part-time student researcher in a lab. Earlier this year, I received and accepted an internship offer as it was my top choice and my goal is to work in the industry. However, when I told my research manager about this during a meeting, it was not taken well at all ... nor was it taken well by the research director later on.
My role isn't a contract position and there are no written conditions that you have to be in this role for a set time. The expectations of me being here in the summer were never stated during the hiring process until now when I mentioned the internships.
I guess despite the prestige of the internship, how I gave them a heads-up about the summer role instead of waiting, and how I've taken on so many tasks/overworked myself as an assistant (and will be working harder to get more things done before I leave in the summer), I'm just surprised people are really unhappy with me. I know my team is in the process of hiring summer interns and the only issue I see is them having to spend time training them with equipment, and maybe they thought an internship meant I wouldn't be back in the fall; but I didn't expect this to go horribly even though I said I'd only be gone for three months.
This never happened with my undergraduate research position, so is this common or am I in the wrong? Just trying to get a clearer perspective on things.<issue_comment>username_1: You didn't do anything wrong. Some people are petty, and everyone has a chance to feel upset when their expectations are violated, whether it's reasonable or not.
Hopefully they won't take it too hard in the long run, but if you want to work in industry anyways their recommendations won't be as important as the relationships you build during your internship. Congratulations and good luck!
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You have the right to choose what you do and don't want to do with your social, professional and academic life. It's as simple as that. If you want to take a job, you can; if you don't then don't. If the hours from that conflict with some of your research, review any contracts you may have in place if need be, but ultimately: make your own decisions to put yourself in a place you'd like to be.
The reality is a lot of crucial decisions aren't easy and you can't keep everyone happy all of the time, but you should work towards making yourself happy and that's something you can control much more easily than someone else's happiness. Sure it might have inconvenienced your research team because they wanted to work with you more, but they should be happy with what your choices are and if they want to be unsupportive that's up to them.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: Yesterday I emailed a professor inquiring about a research opportunity. He replied within an hour, told me to follow his profile to find the open position, and that he would be pleased to receive my application as I was fit for the position. I followed his profile on LinkedIn and emailed him that I would love to submit my application for position A.
Now comes the awkward part, he wanted me to apply for position B, not position A. I think I seriously messed up this opportunity. He hasn't responded to my mail yet. My research area is better suited for position B. And the deadline he mentioned in his first email was for position B, too.
Anyway, should I tell him I didn't know about position B since I am considering applying to it? (I didn't see position B. He posted position A two days ago and position B one week ago. I'm dumb. I hate LinkedIn now).<issue_comment>username_1: Perhaps you could apply for both and indicate which you'd prefer. Or, since it is a bit unclear, apply for the one you really want and indicate somehow, perhaps in a note (email) that you have additional interest in the other.
If the skill set for the two positions overlap, you are probably able to be considered for either.
Alternatively, just ask them which they think you are more suitable for, assuming you are more or less neutral between them, which may not be the case.
To be honest, this doesn't seem like a blunder on your part, just odd interleaving of times.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> I followed his profile on LinkedIn and emailed him that I would love to submit my application for position A.
>
>
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After you have been invited to apply, an email saying "I would love to submit my application for position A" is just noise that will be quickly ignored/archived. I would not expect a response to that email (what would the professor respond to that anyway?). At this point, he is waiting for an actual application, so just send that.
It is also not a blunder to apply for position A. If you are interested in both positions, then mention that in your application, stating your preference if you have any.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Just explain everything to him:
>
> I just realized that I was looking at another position (A) with a different deadline, when I sent you my earlier email, before I noticed that there is also position B. I think my research area is better suited for position B, so I will submit an application for that. Sorry for any confusion!
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I don't think you messed up anything, by the way. It's just a minor mistake.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Ignore his advice to you that you should apply for position B.
This is an old trick by hirers who do not want to give a plain refusal to applicants that they do not want for often unspoken reasons. They usually speak about a very attractive other vacancy about to arise in the near future that they feel would be much more suitable to someone of an applicant's obvious talents and other such flatteries.
Once you apply for position A you are now in a situation where you would have proffered yourself for position A by email and position B by formal application. This puts your motives in doubt.
And if you just let your decision to apply for position A ride for long more, you'll be deadlined out of consideration for it.
So ignore position B.
Put in a formal application for position A, as you had intended from the outset. But don't be surprised if your application is ultimately unsuccessful.
Ultimately I think you will be well rid of this professor.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: Given that your professor seems to be of the type to encourage people, his heart is probably in the right place. If so, then I think if you simply explain the situation to him in a forthright manner, as you have to us, you'll find that he'll simply say, "Oh, of course, that makes more sense!"
If you can do it in person without being a bother to him, you'll likely get the best results. People are typically much warmer and much more facilitating towards a face in front of them than they are to a block of text on their desktop.
Also, most people who aren't horrible will appreciate humility. Showing that you are willing to say you think might have goofed up tends to be an endearing quality.
Personally, when hiring people, I like it when people are willing to admit ignorance or to point out a mistake they've made. It shows that they aren't prideful and won't stubbornly refuse to admit they're wrong some day in the future when it's crucial to know it so we can correct the problem they've caused.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I know that journals approach the second round review for a revise-and-resubmit paper differently. Sometimes, new reviewers are assigned. I find this kind of case very unfair to an author. We all know that reviewers can be very subjective, and they may or may not agree with the initial reports. I wonder if it is even ethical for journal editors to invite an author to revise and resubmit according to some comments, at the same time knowing that new reviewers will be assigned and they may not agree with the previous comments.
Or should the second round review be based on the previous comments and the revisions, at least heavily so? Otherwise, it would be more like just another round of review.
What do journal editors usually do in this kind of case?<issue_comment>username_1: Sorry, but you are thinking of it as a "game" that needs to be "played" on a "level field". Scholarship isn't like that. The goal isn't fairness to authors but the extension of knowledge. And sometimes that is hard to achieve.
If you want to publish a BIG result in some field, then you need to expect that it may (will?) need to be vetted by many (many) people so that obscure errors don't invalidate the result. Even then, it sometimes happens.
There have been a few papers, one at least in the past couple of years, that were held up until there were hundreds (IIRC) of reviewers and a mountain of comments.
Editors should work to assure high quality work. If there is doubt of any kind after a set of reviews then getting new eyes on the problem may be the only way to assure that what is published has real value and helps form the foundation of moving forward.
In mundane cases this probably doesn't need to occur most likely.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: By **R&R**, you're referring to **revise and resubmit** right.
>
> We all know that reviewers can be very subjective, and they may or may not agree with the initial reports.
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Reviewers ought not be *subjective*. Unfortunately, it happens. Sometimes, some are just 'pedantic' regarding methodology and/or methods. Nonetheless, reviewers are not compelled to agree with the initial reports.
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> I wonder if it is even ethical for journal editors to invite an author to revise and resubmit according to some comments ...
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Handling Editors are free to invite new or additional reviewers even during R&R. I've had manuscripts sent my way for review, and I can see that the manuscript is at the second or third review stage. For such, I have the liberty of seeing and deferring to comments from earlier rounds. However, I normally review as if I'm the reviewer of the first instance. When I'm done, I then check earlier comments.
In summary, there's nothing unethical about inviting new reviewers for R&R. Having said that, I know that most handling editors will invite earlier reviewers except where the reviewer had clearly indicated non-willingness to review subsequent resubmission of the manuscript.
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> Or should the second round review be based on the previous comments and the revisions, at least heavily so? Otherwise, it would be more like just another round of review.
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As I indicated, the second (or even third) round need not be based on previous comments. The norm, though, at least in the three disciplines I'm into, is not to keep shifting the goalpost. A reviewer should read through the manuscript thoroughly and comment appropriately. It is out of place for a reviewer to keep raising new 'issues' at each R&R rounds. Where there was an oversight initially, nothing preclude the reviewer from apologising and raising them. Just not the norm.
In any case, the interest should be advancing/contributing to the body of knowledge and ensuring quality articles.
>
> What do journal editors usually do in this kind of case?
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>
Simply put, in my own experience, the unavailability or inability or unwillingness of previous reviewers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: As editor, in most cases I'd invite the previous reviewers. Sometimes a previous reviewer is no longer available. In this case I may invite a new reviewer if the case is complex enough that I want a further opinion. In some exceptional cases I may invite a new reviewer anyway. It can happen that I was unhappy with an earlier reviewer for some reason and want to replace them (this may play out in favour of the author because the reason may be that the earlier reviewer was overly negative). It also can happen that the way the authors respond to the earlier reviews raise some new issues and I want to bring in some new expertise because of that. Generally I agree with @username_1 that the ultimate aim is quality, and if a new reviewer with new comments can increase quality, this is ultimately a good thing, although I can see the point of the TO that as author one reacts to the initial reviews, and it can be a bit annoying if new issues are raised.
So I'd say it's rather exceptional but occasionally there are reasons to do this.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: **No standard formula across all journals/publishers; up to editor discretion**
The editor could reasonably send the manuscript back to the original reviewers (because they've already read it and can review faster, because they are more likely to be interested, because the author wrote a response specifically addressed to them ...). The editor could also reasonably send the manuscript to new reviewers (to get a fresh perspective, to get a third opinion, because the original reviewers said they don't want to see the manuscript anymore ...).
That said, here's the relevant policy for MDPI, which should be pretty representative of what you might expect to encounter when resubmitting.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/okFWy.png)
(ME stands for managing editor and is one of the more senior roles in the journal)
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XVBD4.png)
(Presumably "but unchecked" in (1) means they haven't checked the author's revision before the reject-and-resubmit decision - compare (3) in the second section.)
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/02
| 460
| 1,828
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<issue_start>username_0: There seems to be a trend with science and math classes especially, where target distribution for the absolute grades are somewhere in mid Fs. But then the curve brings all the students with 30s and 40s into high Bs or even As.
What's the rationale here? Isn't it effectively the same as having assignment weights sum up to over 100% sans the stress aspect?<issue_comment>username_1: You seem to assume that percentage of correct answers is independent of the questions asked.
Any experienced exam writer can manipulate the median / mean in a wide range. Sometimes, it is more important to give difficult questions and expect a good student to solve a quarter of them then to give easy questions and expect a good student to solve over 90% correctly.
You seem to be complaining more about the stress level caused by not being able to answer questions. That shows probably a lack of communication by the instructor in charge.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The conversion of numbers to grades is entirely arbitrary. For example, in England the norm is something like:
* 40-55 = C
* 55-70 = B
* 70-80 = A
* 80-85 = A++
* 90 = you should be teaching not me
* 95 = you should get a Nobel Prize or the equivalent
* 100 = I am repenting of all my sins because you must be the Second Coming
Learning flexibility as to conventions is an important life skill. Setting the scale as it is has some useful meaning to the instructor. (For me, 1 point on an exam = what a student who basically knows how to do this problem can do in 30 seconds.)
Also, doing different multiples can relinearize the scale in different ways. If you want to require that an A student gets twice as many points as a C student, you can't do it simply by multiplying all the points as extra credit.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2023/03/02
| 582
| 2,279
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<issue_start>username_0: At first I suggest readers to look [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/193943/how-to-handle-a-coauthor-who-is-very-late-in-finalizing-a-research-paper). My current question is related to that.
In [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/193943/how-to-handle-a-coauthor-who-is-very-late-in-finalizing-a-research-paper), I said that my coauthor is not replying/submitting the paper in arxiv.
Now the issue is that I have prepared another paper in which I need to cite our joined paper. So unless my coauthor submit that joined paper in arxiv, I can not cite it. (Is there other way to cite a paper, which is neither in a jounal nor in any online database arxiv ?)
Since I am not getting reply from my coauthor, I have the following options:
* I can submit the paper in arxiv without my coauthor's consent but adding their name ?
* I can submit the paper in arxiv without my coauthor's consent but without adding their names ? Would arxiv moderators considers adding a new coauthor without any revision in the content ?
Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not really understanding all the surrounding issues here, but fairly simply:
You should not post to a preprint server or submit to a journal any work unless all the authors have agreed to submit.
You should not post to a preprint server or submit to a journal any work that fails to include an author who should be an author.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: At least in math, in the bibliography, you can put anything you like with a note "preprint, in preparation" or "preprint, available upon request" or just "preprint." Sometimes it leads to undesirable results (if the cited work never materializes, but this is, hopefully, not your case). If journal's referee asks you for that preprint, explain the situation and send them what you have, explaining that it should not be shared because of an issue with your collaborator. I had such a situation with my collaborator: It took several years for them to agree to post a joint paper on the arXiv and few more years after that to submit to a journal. In the meantime, I had to apply for jobs and share the preprint with my recommendation letter-writers. Sigh...
Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
|
2023/03/03
| 476
| 1,765
|
<issue_start>username_0: It is common for PhD students (at least in Europe) to spend some months in a different institution. Can this be later included on CV as *visiting scholar*?
It seems the definition varies depending on the University.
[Harvard](https://hls.harvard.edu/graduate-program/visiting-scholar-visiting-researcher-program/) considers professors as visiting scholars and the others as visiting researchers.
[UChicago](https://provost.uchicago.edu/handbook/clause/visiting-academic-appointment-categories) considers professors as VISITING PROFESSORS and the others as visiting scholars.
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visiting_scholar) says that a visiting scholar is a "scholar (fine, but what is the definition of SCHOLAR?) that is visiting a different institution.
How do people put this on CV usually?<issue_comment>username_1: It isn't proper in academia to make up titles that weren't awarded. If you work at a place and they give you a title then you can use it. In general, titles are awarded by others, not assumed by individuals. You aren't a *knight* unless the Queen (or King) makes you so.
But a line in a CV to *describe* your role is fine if it won't be assumed to be a title. Sadly "visiting scholar" or, especially, "Visiting Scholar" does sound like a conferred title. Saying you spent a year studying and researching at institution X has a different sense. But if X gives you that title you can use it.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: At least in my field (Europe, Physics), what you're describing would be listed as "Visiting Student" on a CV. The only exception I can think of is if you won some notable position/title/fellowship for the stay that comes with its own name (like @username_1 said).
Upvotes: 4
|
2023/03/03
| 996
| 3,913
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<issue_start>username_0: A **majority** of academics (from assistant-full professors) at The [Faculty of Computer Science](https://www.mimuw.edu.pl/en/pracownicy_i_doktoranci) in my university are working as adjuncts.
Why do they stay as adjuncts and not move around too in the EU or other developed countries to find a permanent position? I saw many [small universities across the border](https://www.b-tu.de/en/university/career/job-vacancies) in Germany offering permanent positions.
Secondly, how do adjunct teachers sustain their lives? I mean, the adjunct salary must be minuscule.<issue_comment>username_1: The biggest factor that makes people less interested to move around is:
* The presence of a spouse or children. If the spouse has a job, then they can't easily move. Similarly, moving would mean having to find a new school for the children. Moving also means leaving all of one's friends behind, which is a major cost.
Other factors are:
* Owning property. If you own property in City A and move to City B, what happens to your house in City A? Do you sell it? Do you buy a new house in City B? Property is illiquid (i.e. it is not easily converted to cash), so moving has a serious cost.
* Time. Moving is extremely time-consuming. You need to find a place to live, a place for food, a place for daily amenities, a new dentist, etc.
* Visa issues. Only applicable if you are moving to another country, but if they're present, they are another major hassle. It's possible the target country wants you tested for tuberculosis, or certificates of good conduct, etc.
* Language issues. English is the language of academia, but if you move to a country where English is not the main language (e.g. Germany as in the OP) then communication with others (especially non-academics) can be hard.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: To supplement the [answer of username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/193986/75368), some people serve as adjuncts as a part time position because they have very good full-time employment as a researcher in industry. They just love to teach and associate with academics, but find their "day job" more important.
The place I last taught prior to retirement had some of these and they were highly respected and taught upper level courses in their research specialty. This could occur partly because of geography, with a number of universities and a number of top level research organizations located in easy commuting distance from one another.
Not all adjuncts are desperate.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: @allure lists all but one of the reasons that I had in my mind as well. The last one is this:
* Moving around to other places and jobs only makes sense if you have a reasonable belief that it will lead to a better outcome than what you have right now.
I'm not sure that is true for many. There is fierce competition for permanent positions, by the best people in a field. You have to be quite good to get such a position, and not everyone is certain that they are or that they are willing to put in the amount of work necessary to be competitive. If you're not convinced that you can compete for these few permanent positions, then what's the point at uprooting yourself and your family every few years?
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I do not know how you calculated that majority of academics of that faculty work as adjuncts, and I'm not sure it is true, but let me point to a possible source of confusion: "adiunkt" is a Polish word that means (roughly speaking) assistant professor, and has nothing to do with English adjunct professor.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I do not know about the EU, but in the USA many adjunct faculty are unable to find permanent jobs at universities. Universities are unwilling to offer permanent jobs because they have an adequate supply of cheap adjunct faculty.
Upvotes: 4
|
2023/03/04
| 681
| 3,014
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<issue_start>username_0: I am talking in terms of values. Is there any difference between these two when it comes to the weight they add to a CV? Is a paper presentation better than a poster presentation?<issue_comment>username_1: This probably depends on the field, but in CS, at least, a paper presentation is much more valued than a poster. Moreover, conferences are thought of as more valuable than journal publications due to the sorter time scale between submission and the conference vs submission and final publication.
A paper presentation almost certainly gets more review than a poster, even with short time scales. Posters may be most valuable to students looking to get a start on making their, not quite ready, work visible and getting some feedback from conference attendees.
Moreover, it may be (or not) that the papers are published in the proceedings or an associated journal that doesn't include posters.
For some purposes one can do both, actually, even at the same conferences. The paper is expected to be more refined and complete, however.
---
You asked another question concerning literature. That field might be quite different. If you are a student then a professor in your field can probably give a tailored answer.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think that a lot of the effect of poster and paper presentations, in terms of their later (general) reputational value, depends on two main things.
1. *The number of people of importance and influence who would come to your paper presentation versus a poster viewing.*
2. *The way in which posters versus papers are reported in any subsequent summary of proceedings*.
Some post-conference publications include author-edited versions of the papers that were presented; when that happens, the posters are often not mentioned at all. The consequence is that when you cite your *paper*, people can read what it was about; but when it comes to citing your poster, the best that you can rely on is a line in the pre-conference agenda!
However, if there is no post-conference publication of papers, then it seems to me that there is little potential difference between a paper and a poster. You are really relying a lot on the conference attendees themselves to be the diseminators of your ideas (see point 1).
The Computer Science field is very good at publishing conference papers. I have no idea about the English Literature area.
In terms of CV weighting, my experience in the area of experimental psychology is that posters and conference papers tend to be treated much the same ... low!
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm distant from your area... but, in math, in the U.S., a "poster presentation" is sort of a nice thing for undergrads or beginning grad students to do, but rarely is of any consequence.
Presentations, either of papers or free-standing, are much more substantive, to begin with... and are much higher status, CV-padding-wise, as well. You'll have an actual audience, to begin with!!!
Upvotes: 3
|
2023/03/05
| 554
| 2,322
|
<issue_start>username_0: I submitted my revision two months ago and emailed to inquire about the status of my manuscript, but I have still had no response. The editor had set a deadline for the revision to be submitted. I was given a little shorter than two months so I prioritized revising the original manuscript to turn it in on time. But for two months I had no information at all.
So, I just got to be curious about the process and the deadline's raison d'etre.
If the journal editors are not doing something regarding those revised manuscript soon after the submissions, why are there deadlines? Or would it be not possible at all to inform those who submit manuscript of roughly how long it will be taking to have the review done?
I am just curious...<issue_comment>username_1: Mainly to keep the authors thinking about their manuscript and the journal orderly. Some number of authors [will not respond forever](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/143982/no-reply-to-the-referee-report-from-the-author-of-a-manuscript) - effectively withdrawing their manuscript by never submitting a revision. In these scenarios the journal can see that the manuscript is several weeks/months after the revision due date, assume it will not be revised, and remove the submission from the system (more precisely, archive it or mark it as withdrawn).
If you find the deadline is too short you can always ask for an extension, and expect that the extension will be granted.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Different journals have different processes, of course, but one reason for a (soft) deadline is as a courtesy to reviewers that they might want to return a new version to for another look. If there is too much time between reviews, the reviewer has a harder time, needing to bring themselves up to date on the paper as a whole.
Editors also like to keep the pipeline filled, giving themselves maximum flexibility for putting an issue together. This might be especially true for "hot" topics of the day.
But, likely, it is a variety of factors including the prod to authors as mentioned by [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/194036/75368).
Special issues are a different matter of course, since they may have a fairly firm schedule for publication. Likewise conference submissions.
Upvotes: 2
|
2023/03/05
| 3,240
| 13,917
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm interviewing for a university faculty position. I would like to ask the committee why they are interested in me.
I would like to learn about the possible implications of this question.
My initial motivation for asking this question is that faculty positions (especially in multidisciplinary fields) have complex requirements. At the same time, my CV also contains many diverse aspects. Sometimes it is not obvious why they consider me an eligible candidate and which of my skills they care about. I hope to learn more about the department and its needs.<issue_comment>username_1: I guess I'd suggest that you hold that question until later. At least until you get an offer, but maybe even after you accept it.
It would be uncomfortable for an interviewer who wasn't wildly enthusiastic about your application to reply in the moment without pausing for a bit, trying to come up with something, anything, to get out of that position.
It also doesn't project confidence, though that would depend a bit on how you ask.
Instead, for a multiple-discipline position, ask about the various aspects and if there are others you haven't noticed. This gives you useful information that you can use in making decisions about any offer that does occur.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I think a more traditional way to phrase it would be for you to ask what they are looking for *in a candidate* for the position or what they expect this position to add to their department. I'd expect answers to include both aspirational and practical goals: e.g., the type of person they want to work with versus they need a body to teach Basketweaving 101. You might learn they are expanding the department to cover a particular research area, or that this is a replacement position after someone else has retired or left.
It's up to *you* to communicate how you might fill those needs.
Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: A reasonable approach to asking questions is to wonder "why do I need to know" and "how does this lead to action".
For your question, I can see that it would stroke one's ego to hear why a department is interested in oneself. But it fails the two questions above: You've clearly been selected as one of the better qualified candidates, and you're unlikely going to learn anything beyond that. And whatever you get as an answer has no actionable consequences. So I would skip the question.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If you ask your interview committee "Why are you interested in me?", your question could be taken very poorly in at least one way -- which recommends against asking it at all.
Most universities publicly list the members of any faculty, department or school on their websites. Together with Google Scholar (or other tools), this means it should not take more than a day's work to (1) look through a list of all the faculty members you will be working with, and (2) determine what their areas of interest are, and how your areas of interest will intersect with theirs, leading to potential collaborations and benefits to the department.
Your interview committee will probably assume you have done this, and at least one other candidate to your position will have done this. So if you ask "why are you interested in me?" your interview committee may take this to mean that you haven't "done your homework" in working out what your potential department will look like (which you will have to do eventually, when e.g. giving a trial introductory lecture). This will give your interview committee a very poor impression of you.
Your question can be better asked more specifically (to show that you *have* done your homework). For example:
* I noticed that <NAME> is coordinating three courses, out of curiosity, would you be particularly interested in me helping with their course in Introductory Basket-Weaving?
* I can see that Dr Whichowhat is interested in coral reef restoration. Do you think they would be open to working together on underwater basket-weaving for producing coral polyp-beds?
* I happened to find your department's "My Thesis, but Interpretive Dance" videos online. Are any of your students interested in dance-weaving as an addition to their thesis?
In general, anything that makes your question more specific and therefore makes it clear that you have done research will be better than "Why are you interested in me?" -- especially if it also stokes the interviewers' ego by painting their department in a good light.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: You say you are considering this question because you want to know more about the department and it's needs. In which case ask this directly. Or find a question that will directly tell you what you want to know.
Perhaps ask about freedom to set your own research agenda, or how they'll prioritise projects for you, which courses they are keen to be filled, which new directions they are interested in taking. Or if you absolutely need some facility for your research you could ask about that.
The question "why are you interested in me" is likely to get the answer "you meet the person spec for the job". Worst case it would seem like you are questioning your fit (which you would be), which could make the panel question your fit.
Final thought, "not going to cause trouble" is quite an important criterion for many job interviewers, so asking questions that might lead to awkward exchanges is best avoided, when there are other ways to find out what you want to know.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: **You simply need to choose the wording carefully**
Other answers seem to assume that you will bluntly ask, "Why are you interested in me?" Then they go on to say that is a bad idea - which it is.
However you have already told us what you want to ask:
>
> "... faculty positions (especially in multidisciplinary fields) have
> complex requirements. ... my CV also contains many diverse aspects.
> ... which of my skills [do you] care about. I hope
> to learn more about the department and its needs."
>
>
>
What you need to do is to find a concise form of words that covers all of the above and takes into account their point of view. You don't have to ask one long, complex question. It is quite possible to split this into a few one-liners.
1. Start by putting their needs first
2. Ask in general how they chose candidates for interview - are they looking for a precise profile to fit into an existing project or are they looking for an individual to suggest and explore new avenues.
3. Depending on their answer to 2, lay out your skills but not in a boastful way. Say, I have done X so I'm guessing that would be useful for your requirement Y.
4. Make it a conversation with clearly defined questions rather than a blunt open question that requires them to do all the work to answer.
**Example questions**
(These are hastily concocted off the top of my head. You should invent your own)
I have been looking at some of the work your department is doing at the moment (make sure you have read at least one paper by each person on the panel that interests you and name some of it\*).
I'm wondering which of those areas I could contribute to most if I'm appointed.
What sort of person are you hoping to find?
Are you looking for someone who will slot nicely into an existing project or are you looking for someone who is self-directed and will explore new avenues? I am capable of doing both.
---
Personal note: I'm retired now but I speak as someone who did very well in interviews. I failed only once and that was where I was an external candidate and they had already chosen an internal application but had, by law, to advertise generally.
* To know who will be on the interview panel, phone up the department's admin department and ask them nicely. Say you would like to read up on some of the panel's work so as to be prepared. Have a smile in your voice. Thank them. If you don't your reputation for being rude will precede you. Everyone (and I mean everyone) you talk to in a department is part of the interview process and gossip gets around very fast.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: There's another angle that's not covered by the other answers, which is that the question has value in and of itself. How an organization looks at candidates speaks volumes about how they look at the people that work there. I'd like to know in advance about how my *prospective* employer will see me as a person, but lacking a crystal ball in good working condition, I think this question is the next best thing.
In that light, the question is, in fact, the exact counterpoint to the standard "why do you want to work here", and in fact, I'd expect any organization to have a prepared answer for the question as well. And just as an answer to the tone of "I just want to work somewhere" would probably be frowned upon by the interviewer, I would equally dislike it if said interviewer replied with "we just need a warm body to fill the seat".
(More or less a propos, there's a Groucho Marx joke where he retracts an application to a club stating that he would not want to be part of any club that would accept him as a member.)
That said, yes, the tone and phrasing of the question are important. Ideally, I would want it to mean that just as they are interviewing me, I'm interviewing *them*, and they need to sell themselves just as much as I need to sell myself. To that end, it's important to project confidence and a bit of a challenge when posing the question, and to **not** sound like you're asking for confirmation that it's really you they should be talking to. In that regard, asking about "a candidate" seems a bit weaker, and ultimately less informational, than asking about myself specifically.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: **No you certainly should not ask that question.**
You applied for this job and weren't headhunted. So there were criteria for the position described on the job advert - criteria that the hiring staff clearly feel you meet, at least to a large extent.
You haven't said whether or not the job is at your current university, e.g. the university where you have been working as a fellow until now. Obviously this would have a bearing on your application for a faculty position since you would already be known - at least professionally and to some extent personally - to the faculty there. The fact that you have make the first 'cut' shows that this *may* have advantaged you. But do not see this as the only possibility: you may also be included as a makeweight, as a sop to 'one of their own' who might sulk were he not at least interviewed, as a comparison candidate to gauge unknown but equally well-qualified candidates, etc.
The foregoing answers detail a shoal of reasons why asking that question would give a bad impression. I agree with many of them, particularly the fact that you should have parsed the job spec, explored the research & teaching profile of the department's groups and considered for yourself the matchability of your own candidacy. That's the *prima facie* answer: take it or leave it. If you adjudge yourself to have *not* met these criteria but applied anyway and somehow got a first round interview, then it is not even a question.
That brings me to perhaps the greatest reason for not asking the question. It is that by asking this you are showing yourself to be the sort of person who always tends to look behind the veil. And this naturally says something adverse about your own character and socio-professional outlook - something I daresay that hiring faculty would prefer to avoid: academia already has an ample proportion of such people and their nature does not help collegial relations. While there are times when we all have to lie, few lies/false fronts are constructed for altruistic reasons or towards a happier end state of human relations: they are said for the advantage and satisfaction of the teller.
If I were you, I'd wait till the initial interview was complete and hear some additional criteria that the committee perhaps might not have seen as wise to include in their job advert: it might attract the wrong type of candidate or deter those they might want to hire. For example, in applying for a Research Assistant + PhD programme position once it was said at the interview that the institution would train me in electron microscopy so I could better support existing researchers 9 - 5 Mon - Fri while I could work evenings and weekends on my own project. This training would be superior to that available commercially for ~ £10k - £15k. Obviously, if this were listed in the advert the institution would likely hire someone whose intentions were simply to take the training and then move elsewhere without completing their PhD project.
So go to the first interview even if you don't now see the fit entirely. There may well be more to this job that they can describe in the advert.
And do not ask that dumb question !
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: As someone who has sat on hiring committees (a very junior member, I might add), I have observed that candidates who have seriously read the job description and tailor their responses to the description are favored highly compared to those who do not do their homework. This question would be interpreted as you not doing your homework.
I suggest carefully studying the job description and seeing how each part of it applies to you. Then, during the interview, try to sell yourself using those details.
In other words, they did not invite you to interview for a specific thing on your resume, it was exactly the fact that you have "many diverse aspects" that caused you to be invited. I could speak more about STEM R1 hiring and what specifically they look for, but I'm not sure that if that is applicable to your specific situation.
Upvotes: 0
|
2023/03/05
| 814
| 3,357
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<issue_start>username_0: I am excited to have been accepted to a few PhD programs in public health. The two top contenders have both offered me full tuition remission, a stipend, and health insurance, but there is a difference in the stipend offers of about 4.5K between the two (with the lower amount being a bit more than $27K). The program with higher stipend offer (which is perhaps a bit less well-known in the field) is also applying on my behalf for an additional university scholarship to augment my stipend. In conversation with my prospective adviser at the program with lower compensation I was told that the stipend amount was limited due to federal regulations, but I am wondering how I have been offered a higher amount at the other program, which is also funded through an NIH grant. I will be speaking with the adviser about whether there's any wiggle room in the compensation, but wanted to get perspectives on 1) what factors might underlie this difference, 2) what I might ask for to offset this difference should I want to accept the lower paying offer, and 3) what discretion the university and adviser may have to help me out.<issue_comment>username_1: Don't forget to consider cost-of-living. [$27k sounds like the standard NIH PhD stipend.](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/salary-cap-stipends) Institutions can supplement NIH stipend levels if they want, but may or may not have the funds to do so. In high-cost areas, they may feel it's necessary to offer more to everyone because it's not possible to live near the institution at the NIH rate. That said, an extra $4500 a year probably isn't going to cover the cost difference between living in, say, NYC versus Champaign, IL, and the smaller number could actually be the more comfortable living.
Another thing to look at is any fees you are required to pay: ordinarily if you're on an NIH-funded stipend you're going to have tuition remission, but there may be separate fees that graduate students still need to pay out of their stipend. When I was a student these were in the range of $500 per semester, but vary by institution.
There's rarely room for negotiation beyond what is offered, though I've known some programs who have a little "slush" money they can use to woo candidates they are especially interested in. Any substantial money available would likely be used in other ways, though: admitting another student, for example, or to fund students near graduation when other funding falls out from under them. I don't think it's bad to ask, especially if it will contribute directly to your decision making process, but it's also not a place where you want to use the negotiation strategies advertised for people taking jobs in industry.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Just to add a bit more detail, my institution sets stipend bands for graduate students, with higher rates for "experienced" students, in our case, ones who are on PhD candidate status. My department negotiated to pay *all* students the highest rate that the university will allow them.
You might look into the specific university's pay regulations to see if there are university/college rules that will constrain your PI. If they are already maxed out, there's not much your PI can do.
Academia likes to build in layers and layers so everyone has someone else to blame.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/06
| 490
| 2,107
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a question regarding on how to list this specific activity in undergraduate school.
I have helped many students (for free) in my undergraduate school with their graduation research by guiding them, reviewing their work and making sure everything is correct.
How do I list this in my CV?<issue_comment>username_1: Graduation research might be the uncommon term for this. That being said, you can just list that and explain what you mean by that term or use the alternative term that is more common. You do not need to use your university term and there is no rule that you can't have the explanation in your CV.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: I would first choose a common term for whatever it was you did. It's not clear exactly what that was. Maybe "editor", maybe something else. "Research assistant" doesn't seem to fit. Also "graduation research" isn't a common phrase. Do you mean you helped them with their undergraduate dissertation or final project? If so, you might want to be sure that this is OK to do before listing it!
I was a statistical consultant for people doing their PhD dissertations, but I made sure to tell each of them that they had to get permission from their committee. This was rarely a problem.
Then, I would describe what you did.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: You don't list this on your CV.
The only items that belong on your CV are accomplishments, as determined by 3rd parties. For example, work history as evaluated by employers (or paid clients, if you were, for example a consultant), educational history as determined by a diploma granted by a university, publication history as determined worthy by peer-review, etc.
Any item for which you evaluate yourself does not belong on your CV, and that includes help you gave fellow undergraduate students and which you consider valuable. This would also include self-published books (ie vanity presses), articles in predatory journals, etc.
If we all listed on our CVs every instance of helping someone out, every academic CV would be hundreds of pages long.
Upvotes: 2
|
2023/03/06
| 852
| 3,462
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<issue_start>username_0: I have written a manuscript which is based on some results of a preprint. I have submitted it to a journal and it is under review. Will the reviewers also verify the results of the preprint?
One thing worth mentioning is that my result is groundbreaking (if it is correct!), it seems to me that any reviewer should also verify the results of the preprint to prevent errors.
**Edit**
The preprint was not written by me. I just apply the results of it. I tried to verify the preprint but my knowledge is not sufficient.<issue_comment>username_1: The academic review process is prone to errors and has a wide quality range, despite being in general pretty good. This means that individual experience will vary a lot and no-one here can predict what the quality of review will be.
Strong statements demand strong evidence. This means that a reviewer is much more likely to look carefully at the preprint that you are using if you indeed have achieved a "groundbreaking" result.
A competent reviewer will in any case try to assess whether you applied the preprint result correctly.
I am a bit concerned that you might be using the review process as a way to check your result. This is really the author's task. I hope that I just misinterpret the tone of your question.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Because [peer review is random](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115231/why-is-peer-review-so-random), the answer is "maybe".
If your reviewer is diligent, has free time, is a *real* expert in your field (i.e. they might already be familiar with results adjacent to the one you got or can quickly understand the preprint), etc. - then they might check. See [example](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/93341/if-i-request-a-paper-through-my-university-library-must-they-pay-a-substantial).
Conversely, if your reviewer is pressed for time, is in a bad mood, is distracted by other upcoming deadlines, etc. - then they might just assume the other manuscript is right.
There might also be cultural/field-specific reasons as to how carefully reviewers are expected to check a manuscript.
Ultimately there is no way to predict what your reviewers will do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Here is what I would do if I were a referee (my field is math):
1. Take a quick look at the preprint you are referring to.
2. If I see that it is clearly wrong, then reject your paper.
3. If I see that it is clearly right, then continue reading your paper.
4. If I cannot easily conclude, ask an expert in the area what do they think.
5. If after step 4 it is still inconclusive, then reject your paper without further reading.
There are some known exceptions to this strategy, e.g. when the preprint in the question is the work of Perelman or Thurston.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: For me, the answer is "yes, but".
Before recommending acceptance, I would consider it necessary to check correctness of any preprint on which the paper critically depends.
However, I would not attempt to do this until I am completely convinced that the paper in question is otherwise correct. If there is anything that needs fixing before I can be sure of this, I will just recommend revisions and defer any attempt to check the preprint until the next round. It is possible that the preprint will be an accepted paper by that stage, in which case I can assume it has already been checked.
Upvotes: 0
|
2023/03/06
| 679
| 2,963
|
<issue_start>username_0: What is the best way to inform my preferred university that I got another offer?
What type of reply I can expect iff I am a top candidate?
Position: Tenure track
Country:USA<issue_comment>username_1: A warning, and maybe an answer.
Telling them is very unlikely to boost your application and might sabotage it. If you aren't already the top candidate they won't put you ahead of others. But they might just figure that you may not accept their offer, no matter what you say about preferences. You'd have to assume that they would believe you and you are dealing with a committee of individuals with their own preferences.
I wouldn't bother to tell them unless you have an action item based on their response. For example, if you have to make a decision soon on the other offer you can ask for information.
Actually, you can ask for information about the time scale in any case, even without revealing the offer.
If you do want to communicate, then you don't need to say that the reason is another offer, but that you have decisions to make and a looming deadline.
But by speaking of an offer you are rolling the dice. If they think the other place is lower on the scale then they won't think better of you than they already do. I they think it is higher, then they might doubt that you would accept an offer and put their efforts elsewhere.
Nothing is certain here, of course, but I advise caution. Ask if you have a need to know. But don't ask if you think it is a goad to increase your chances. That seems unlikely to me.
Serendipity sometimes happens, but don't lose track of the fact that you aren't in the driver's seat until you get an offer.
---
Your other option, which may be more fruitful, is to work with the place from which you have the offer to assure you have enough time to make a good decision. Carrying on discussions over compensation and such can sometimes be fruitful, though not always. And asking for a reasonable time in which to make a decision is sensible.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: This answer assumes that you have already been interviewed and likely flown out at the preferred university...
The general rule is to match the other parties’ preferred correspondence style if you want a fast reply. If the search chair has conducted most of their correspondence with you by phone, then use phone. If by email, then use email.
You should emphasize (if it is true) that you would strongly consider a reasonable offer from them to avoid some of the game playing that username_1 is concerned with. You might also refrain from saying where the competing offer is from to avoid this type of thinking.
You can expect that if you are their top candidate they will tell you and work internally to expedite their process of making an offer. They may also push their first candidate to decide more quickly if you are ranked second and they are worried the top candidate may not accept.
Upvotes: 2
|
2023/03/07
| 521
| 2,018
|
<issue_start>username_0: I need to send these items to a high-impact journal. However, I don't exactly know where I can find these pieces of information.
>
> The names, affiliations, h-index from either Web of Science or Google
> Scholar Citations, and full contact information including email
> addresses of six to ten leading researchers as determined by
> publication of important journal articles in the subject area of the
> paper outside of your circle/region as a Word file. They should not be
> your advisor, advisee, research sponsor, research collaborator, or
> someone with a conflict of interest. They can include senior
> researchers cited in your paper. Please disclose potential conflicts
> of interest if any.
>
>
> Who are the top 10 researchers in the world in the subject of the
> paper as determined by publication of impactful journal articles in
> the subject area of the paper? Please provide their name, affiliation,
> email address, and h-index from either Web of Science or Google
> Scholar Citations as a Word file. This will indicate whether the
> authors are familiar with the latest development in the field and
> their paper extends the state-of-the-art.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: You can do this (sort of) with Web of Science. Put in your search term, then check the Authors tab on the left. It gives you the names of the people with most publications matching that search term. To translate that to most cited, you'll have to check them one-by-one.
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/50C6e.png)
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you want the most highly cited researcher in the field of "optimization", then you can search `label: optimization` in Google Scholar and you'll get the following results:
[](https://i.stack.imgur.com/O7PiJ.png)
For a different field, just change `optimization` to the field of your interest.
Upvotes: 0
|
2023/03/07
| 821
| 3,681
|
<issue_start>username_0: I had an interview for a postdoctoral position with a group with a big grant, who later rejected my application, the official reason being that "some [...] important aspects of [the project] might require intensive
cooperation and supervision" and that "the supervision capacities of the PIs are limited" even though "[my] background [...] fits well to several of the research directions" and they were "overall positive about [my] application."
It so happens that the county in which one of these PIs is located has a call for individual postdoctoral grants. As is customary with these grants, I am to find a host that could support my application.
Would it make sense to write an application for this grant focusing on the aforementioned project's "research directions" to which "[my] background [...] fits well" with this PI? Assuming they were honest in conveying their evaluation to me, this idea seems somewhat reasonable, but I do not know if I can take their response at face value; it would a waste of time if they actually think that I am good for nothing.<issue_comment>username_1: Sure, if you have the time for it, why not make another application. They can tell you no, again, of course, and it is pretty hard to predict the outcome. So effort spent here might well be wasted.
You will need to address their stated reasons for rejection as well and if you do that it is possible (possible) that they will reconsider.
But your time and effort might be better spent elsewhere.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Let's our imagination run wild.
* Suppose you decided to apply to them again with your own grant and they supported you (well, hardly anyone won't accept a postdoc coming with their own grant).
* The PI capacity is limited, so you are left to your own devices to write your application, while your competitors have training sessions provided by their potential hosts and significant help from their prospective PIs in improving and contextualising the proposal. But you persevere and put a lot of your own effort in it. Eventually you finalised and submitted a proposal.
* Your competitors got colourful letters of support from their hosts, explaining in details how their proposals match and extend the research done in the department, how the postdocs will be supported by PIs and the Department, what training and resources they are going to receive, and how this project will transform them into a world-leading PI. Maybe also a promise that on successful completion of the grant they will be offered a permanent position in the Department -- a line that took quite some effort from the Head of Department to push through the resistant University HR. You also got some letter of support, which your busy PI adapted from some other template for you, with a small typo in your name, perhaps.
* Despite all odds, your proposal idea is brilliant and you've got the funding! Yay!! Now you can pack your stuff and go work with them on the research you proposed.
Ask yourself -- do you really want to? If your idea is so outstanding that it wins funding in a tough competition with other brilliant postdocs-to-be, and without much input from your busy PI, do you really want to bring it to fruition in a research environment which only values your ideas if you bring your own funds to execute them? If they are happy to take you with an idea and a pot of money, but not ready to take you with an idea, what do they really value here? If the PI is so busy to support you based on the idea you bring, what are the chances you will have decent supervision when you bring your funds (which the PI won't get, actually)?
Upvotes: 0
|
2023/03/07
| 972
| 4,199
|
<issue_start>username_0: I worked at a university the UK, at the end of 2010s and left on good terms with the research group. Thought boss was a nice guy and was appreciative of being able to use him as a referee. Just yesterday I happened to come across an article published 8 years ago with his, his boss’ and other researchers’ names on, which is mainly on the work I conducted over the 2 years I’ve worked for him. He gave authorship to students who contributed to a minority of the results in the paper, but completely missed me out. Some of the work done by someone else was on bacterial mutants I produced. That was 2 years of my life including many weekends and evenings. I can’t believe he did this to me. The paper reads like he copied my lab book. I always thought it was a shame the work never got published and had to explain to some interviewers for jobs why. All the time my boss and his group were taking credit for 2 years of my work. I might have missed out on jobs or a PhD position because I had nothing to show for the work I did there, and I still don’t as I can’t be referenced for my own research and can’t state the article is of my experiments. I have contacted my previous boss, now working elsewhere. I don’t hold up hope he’ll respond, let alone admit it’s my work. Unfortunately I had to leave my lab books at the university when my contract finished. I have contacted them to ask if I can come in to photograph the pages. No one had a clue and kept passing me on. I don’t hold out hope that they’ll let me see my lab books. Anyone had experience of this or have any advice please?<issue_comment>username_1: Sure, if you have the time for it, why not make another application. They can tell you no, again, of course, and it is pretty hard to predict the outcome. So effort spent here might well be wasted.
You will need to address their stated reasons for rejection as well and if you do that it is possible (possible) that they will reconsider.
But your time and effort might be better spent elsewhere.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Let's our imagination run wild.
* Suppose you decided to apply to them again with your own grant and they supported you (well, hardly anyone won't accept a postdoc coming with their own grant).
* The PI capacity is limited, so you are left to your own devices to write your application, while your competitors have training sessions provided by their potential hosts and significant help from their prospective PIs in improving and contextualising the proposal. But you persevere and put a lot of your own effort in it. Eventually you finalised and submitted a proposal.
* Your competitors got colourful letters of support from their hosts, explaining in details how their proposals match and extend the research done in the department, how the postdocs will be supported by PIs and the Department, what training and resources they are going to receive, and how this project will transform them into a world-leading PI. Maybe also a promise that on successful completion of the grant they will be offered a permanent position in the Department -- a line that took quite some effort from the Head of Department to push through the resistant University HR. You also got some letter of support, which your busy PI adapted from some other template for you, with a small typo in your name, perhaps.
* Despite all odds, your proposal idea is brilliant and you've got the funding! Yay!! Now you can pack your stuff and go work with them on the research you proposed.
Ask yourself -- do you really want to? If your idea is so outstanding that it wins funding in a tough competition with other brilliant postdocs-to-be, and without much input from your busy PI, do you really want to bring it to fruition in a research environment which only values your ideas if you bring your own funds to execute them? If they are happy to take you with an idea and a pot of money, but not ready to take you with an idea, what do they really value here? If the PI is so busy to support you based on the idea you bring, what are the chances you will have decent supervision when you bring your funds (which the PI won't get, actually)?
Upvotes: 0
|
2023/03/07
| 1,917
| 8,251
|
<issue_start>username_0: Almost all U.S. states have [mandatory reporting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_reporting_in_the_United_States) laws, that specify certain professions, especially those dealing with children, as being obligated to report evidence of abuse **to a state agency**. These laws vary by state.
Usually these laws prominently specify that teachers are among the mandatory reporters. For example, from a summary page on the [New York State government](https://www.ocfs.ny.gov/publications/Pub1159/OCFS-Pub1159.pdf) website:
>
> School official, including (but not limited to):
>
>
> * teacher
> * guidance counselor
> * psychologist
> * social worker
> * nurse
> * administrator or other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or certificate
> * full or part-time compensated school employee required to hold a temporary coaching license or professional coaching certificate
>
>
>
My question is: Are college instructors generally considered mandatory reporters in the U.S. (i.e., in most states or jurisdictions)? I suppose for the NY State example, it hinges on whether "colleges" count as a "schools", whether "professors" count as "teachers", etc.
I am not currently in a situation where I have any evidence of abuse, nor do I think I ever have been. However, more than once I've had a conversation with someone (usually a grade-school or high-school employee) who make the assumption/assertion that like them, I'm a mandatory reporter -- and my hunch is that's incorrect. I'd like to be prepared in advance if the issue ever does arise, and also to set expectations in conversations like these.
I'm hoping this question is answerable -- possibly with a clearinghouse site that's studied the issue, some professional association or major union guidelines on the issue, or a case finding from a federal court proceeding.
I'm limiting the question to the U.S. because I think it may be troublesome enough with different state laws around the issue.
I'm also most interested in reporting obligations **to a government agency outside the school** (aside from the fact that some institutions set their own *internal* reporting requirements). That is, do U.S. college instructors usually need to call to the same state agency that grade-school teachers are required to contact in these cases (e.g., in NYS, the [SCR](https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/cps/central-register.php))?<issue_comment>username_1: In many cases, by institutional policies, faculty are mandatory reporters.
Some institutions have policies that exclude faculty as mandatory reporters, but those institutions run a legal risk- if a faculty member or other employee becomes aware of a reportable matter (under Title IX, Title VII, or the Clery Act, federal laws with mandatory reporting requirements) and then doesn't report it, the institution could be in legal trouble. Individual states can also have mandatory reporting requirements. The conservative way for an institution to avoid this problem is to make every employee a mandatory reporter.
Since this varies by institution, and might also vary depending on the particular circumstances under your institutional policy, you should learn about the policy at your institution and ask questions if it's unclear.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Laws in the US vary by state. I question the value of determining "generally", as *generally it depends*, and for any individual it matters most whether it applies to *them*.
Generally I'm familiar with the phrase "**mandatory reporter**" referring to people mandated to report suspected abuse/maltreatment of ***children***. There may be other things that it is *mandatory* to *report* but that doesn't necessarily imply the same thing as "mandatory reporter".
In my state, there is a statutory definition of mandatory reporter that would include a lot of university employees that interact with children, including employees that work in healthcare or childcare.
There is also an [executive order](https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/executive_orders/2011_scott_walker/2011-54.pdf) that makes university professors, administrators, and other employees who are employed by the state mandatory reporters as well. This would not apply to professors at private institutions.
For compliance with other reporting requirements, it seems my institution avoids using the phrase "mandatory reporter". For example, Title IX comes with reporting obligations, but there the people-who-are-mandated-to-report are called "responsible employees". There are also state requirements for reporting sexual assault that apply to all campus employees; that doesn't make them "mandatory reporters". Other examples I can think of would include requirements to report violations/leaks of HIPAA/patient information, or requirements under animal or human subjects protocols from IRB/IACUC. All of these comes with non-optional reporting requirements, but they don't make anyone a "mandatory reporter".
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: *Note: This answer relates to mandatory reporting laws in relation to child neglect and abuse, not "mandatory reporting" imposed by employee requirements in Title IX or other instruments. There is often some confusion on this site about these distinctions.*
As a general principle, laws imposing mandatory reporting obligations on teachers in "schools" generally includes primary and secondary education but not higher education or professional accreditation (e.g., universities, technical colleges, professional association, etc.). The reason for this is that the latter institutions are primarily created for adults (though they do sometimes enrol minors). This means that legal obligations imposed on "teachers" in "schools" do not usually apply to lecturers, tutors, etc., in universities or technical colleges. Some legal instruments refer specifically to academics and university lecturers as a separate profession (see e.g., laws relating to qualified persons to act as justice of the peace, etc.) and this adds weight to the interpretive difference. For some references to case law on this matter you might be interested in this [entry in Black's Law Dictionary](https://dictionary.thelaw.com/school/). In some statutes that impose mandatory reporting you will find a dictionary that includes interpretative information for the terms in the statute, and this might include a definition of "teacher" or "school". However, these are not always included and so judicial interpretation is used.
As an example, the NY mandatory reporting law you refer to is [Section 413, Title 6](https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/SOS/413) of the NY Social Services laws. The school personnel covered by the mandatory reporting requirement are the following:
>
> § 413. Persons and officials required to report cases of suspected
> child abuse or maltreatment.
>
>
> 1. (a) The following persons and officials are required to report or cause a report to be made in accordance with this title ... school official, which includes but is not limited to school teacher, school guidance counselor, school psychologist, school social worker, school nurse, school administrator or other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or certificate...
>
>
>
This legal code also contains a dictionary of general definitions ([Section 412](https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/SOS/412)) but that dictionary does not define "school" or any related terms. Nevertheless, the above section refers to "other school personnel required to hold a teaching or administrative license or
certificate", which suggests that the previous references to teachers, etc., is for those required to hold a license or certificate. This augments the general interpretive principle that "school" does not include higher education by a university, technical college, professional association, etc. This would exclude lecturers at a university.
(Note of course that people who are not mandatory reporters are still able to make reports of child neglect or abuse through the same reporting channels as mandatory reporters; they are just not under a legal obligation to do so.)
Upvotes: 3
|
2023/03/07
| 783
| 3,370
|
<issue_start>username_0: This post is an extension of this previous situation that I discussed a few years ago here: [Supervisor has said some very disgusting things online, should I pull my name from our paper?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/162544/supervisor-has-said-some-very-disgusting-things-online-should-i-pull-my-name-fr)
That advisor contacted me (and the other collaborators of that paper) today, saying he's submitting his PhD dissertation this month, and that one of the requirements is getting signatures of all co-authors related to the dissertation. My natural inclination is to not sign anything involving him, however I'm not sure how strict this requirement is, and whether or not my not signing would significantly impact his dissertation.
Personally, I think his views are at odds with his field (psychology), and I would prefer that he doesn't earn such a degree and gain that level of influence. However, I'm obviously hesitant to do anything that would stop anybody's life's work; I'm not in the business of ruining lives. These two preferences are opposing, which is frustrating.
Ideally, signing/not signing his dissertation would have no impact on anything, and then I can happily not sign it and continue to distance myself from him. But I don't know enough about academia to determine if that is feasible.
My question is therefore, do I run any serious risks to the advisor or myself by not signing his dissertation?<issue_comment>username_1: In the end, the relevant question is what it is you are signing. If you are signing an affidavit that the thesis contains some data you have collected and that you are ok with it being published in this way, then that is a technical certification that you probably are legally obligated to sign, but that regardless does not pose ethical problems because you are certifying a *fact*. [1]
If, on the other hand, you are asked to sign an *endorsement* of said candidate, then that is an entirely different situation, be it as a statement of the candidate's scientific abilities or of the correctness/novelty/relevance of the thesis. Here, what you are asked is to provide your *judgment* of something, and it legitimate for you claim that *in your judgment*, the bar is not met.
---
[1] You should think of this in the same way as a tax official certifying the tax exempt status of a not-for-profit organization once they have filed an application and paid the application fee, and have made credible that they really are not for profit. The organization has satisfied the requirements, and the official is required to sign the certification. The fact that the organization espouses white supremacist views is not a part of the decisionmaking.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: I expect that the thing that you are being asked to sign is merely a declaration confirming the applicant's own statement regarding the relative contribution of different authors on jointly published work. That would be fairly typical in situations where work with collaborators forms part of the material that is being submitted for the degree of one of those author-collaborators. I also imagine that a refusal on your part to provide such a declaration would be an irritation to the university and the applicant, rather than any real impediment to the applicant receiving a degree.
Upvotes: 1
|
2023/03/08
| 1,067
| 4,438
|
<issue_start>username_0: I know that a straight F semester sounds despicable, but hear me out please. I got hit by a car and that alone caused me hospitalizations that led me to a straight F semester.
I'm a physics/ astrophysics major, econ minor. I love physics so much. I don't know what year as I've transferred programs a few times. I'm probably year 3-ish :) Anyway, I got into a major fight with a biology prof last semester. He basically set me aside for bullying because I am a student with disabilities, having been hit by a car and all. I've since had to escalate the matter in ascending order, from profs I confided in to the department head to the assoc. dean. However, no one holds any remorse, even though the individuals with a conscience all feel really bad about what happened. Since then, I've been going to dark places. My trust in others has been shattered. I really want to change universities, but I'm afraid that the chances may be slim to none based on that one straight F semester.
I'll add that I'm a more mature student who's run businesses and held lots of real-world musical experience too. I'm again just so distraught that, no matter how kind the physics and especially math profs are at my school, I just want to get out of here. I obviously need to get a master's degree, at least, to become employable in physics too. (It's a rare person who can get a physics-related job with a BSc alone, but congrats to those individuals, nonetheless).
Has anyone heard of such a situation? I've had strong academic semesters too. I'm thinking that I'd have to speak with a dean to explain the fact that I'd been hit by a car and that had caused me straight F's.
EDIT: Thank you everyone for any valuable feedback and advice. I've read your comments and I'm taking them into serious consideration. A few things I would like to add please:
* I will change the name after 30 days because I cannot change it before then. Additionally, I would never write a professor's name online but I accept responsibility for a lack of anonymity at this time, being new to this website and such. (I've lurked in the past).
* I go to a Canadian university, so grades matter, but only by so much. This is a top 10 institution in the country, but we don't really have rankings or prestigious classes of universities such as Ivey Leagues up here. Still, I feel it might be wishful thinking to apply elsewhere with F's.
* Lastly, for now, this is a bio prof who knows how I've complained about him as I forwarded him all documentation in fairness to the process. I don't have to see this prof again, but I do acknowledge that it can be shaky grounds to burn bridges with a professor around my institution. I just feel that the alternative of suffering in silence would have been quite unbearable.
Thanks again for responses or feedback.<issue_comment>username_1: Honestly I think your chances are slim unless you can resolve the issues with your current university. The medical issues leading to failures should be one that can be fixed in any reasonable place.
A fight with a professor might be more serious and might make it difficult to get good letters of recommendation unless resolved. One possible resolution is to sidestep an unreasonable faculty member through the department, though they may be due an apology, depending on how the "fight" played out. You don't (and shouldn't) describe that. Your comment that no one shows remorse is troubling, however, and something you need to resolve.
You might even need to sit down with a dean along with a lawyer and discuss what options there are. I'm not suggesting a law suit, but advice from a lawyer might be needed.
Some places will also have an office that advocates for students. Perhaps they can help. The best case is to get the failing grades erased and to reach a state of peace with the faculty member. That will put you in a very different place.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you have a straight F semester as the result of a car crash, I would investigate the possibly of applying for a “retroactive administrative withdrawal” for that semester. This is something that the Dean of Students office would handle (or be able to refer you to the correct person to handle). This would replace the F grades for that semester with W grades on your transcript. Such a transcript adjustment would likely make it easier to apply elsewhere. Good luck!
Upvotes: 2
|
2023/03/08
| 1,302
| 5,373
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<issue_start>username_0: I am currently a master's student in the second semester of my first year. I have just returned to graduate school after taking several years off due to the pandemic. Last semester I had two classes that required book reviews. The book I picked met the criteria for both classes and at the time, I figured "work smarter, not harder" so I turned in the same review for both classes. I received good grades from both professors and nothing ever came up about it. Today, approximately 4 months later, my current professor mentioned how using the same work for two classes is considered self-plagiarism. The moment she said this my stomach dropped and after looking it up on the school's academic misconduct policy, I realized I had messed up big time. Now, I am at a loss about what to do. Do I come forward and admit my mistake? Do I vow never to repeat it and hope it doesn't come up? I consider myself a highly ethical person, I have never plagiarized in the past, and this topic never came up in my undergrad. Please give me some advice!<issue_comment>username_1: First and foremost, please stop panicking.
Second, you have no reason for questioning your ethics, because you were not aware of the rules.
There exist things that are obviously gross -- like forging lab results or plagiarising other people's work. Cheating on exams is not good either. All this is evident, and there is no need to explain to anyone how wrong these things are.
The use of the same work for two classes is less obvious a misdemeanor on the part of a student uninformed about the rules. In my opinion, what you have done was a mistake, and not an act of deliberate cheating.
So, whatever your decision, don't castigate yourself too harshly. Calm down, to begin with.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Nothing. If there are two assignments that are similar to the extent that the same text can satisfy both and that text is your own work, then all you need to do to get completely clear of any plagiarism accusations is to explicitly say in each text that it was also submitted to another class (plagiarism is using the ideas *without proper reference*, not just reusing them; if we weren't allowed to reuse the ideas (our own or somebody else's), the science would come to a screeching halt in no time) but even that is necessary only if somebody around you believes in "self-plagiarism", which, IMHO is an oxymoron. It is ridiculous to expect that you will come up with two completely disjoint in terms of ideas, conclusions, trains of thought, or even passages texts when writing two reviews for the same book. Most of the stuff would be the same or, at least, similar anyway. So, I see no ethical problem with submitting the same work for two classes if it can satisfy all requirements and if it is your own. The rule that you cannot do it *can* be put forth by the university for other reasons or "just because", but trying to base it on the *plagiarism* considerations or any *ethical* issues is an abuse of the notions of plagiarism and ethics as well as of the common sense IMHO.
So just relax for now and continue studying.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I mostly agree with Michael\_1812's answer: This is relatively low on the scale of seriousness of academic misconduct, and you weren't aware of the rule, which mitigates somewhat. However, you *are* now aware of the rule.
While you have so far 'got away with it', it's entirely possible that it is discovered later on. If that were to occur, your excuse of not knowing the rule may not be believed. It's always better to own up to a mistake before someone else discovers it.
I would suggest you speak to a member of staff about this. If you have a 'personal tutor' or similar who is responsible for your welfare, they may be the best person to speak to. Otherwise, you may directly speak to the two instructors concerned. In my opinion, owning up to such an error would reflect extremely well on you.
Based on my personal experience, such an infraction would not be harshly punished, although you may be scored zero for either or both the assignments you submitted, and it is possible your university policy requires some formal reprimand. However, the consequences are likely to be worse if it is discovered rather than admitted to.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: So far you have two kinds of answers here. Let me summarize. One sort of answer (that I agree with) is that you have no real ethical concern if you honestly didn't know it was a violation. It was technical, but not intentional, plagiarism.
The other sort of answer (that I also agree with) is that the ethical question being settled doesn't lessen your risk if someone learns of the "violation - not violation" and complains about it.
So, I suggest that you think about the risk and whether you should come forward (hat in hand) and explain to people what happened and vow to "sin (not sin)" no more. That requires something about your knowledge of the professors involved.
No one here can really help you balance that risk since we don't know either the people or the procedures. My best guess is that you are safe to ignore it, but I don't know.
In terms of your own feelings of self worth, I think you can relax. You made a mistake that didn't feel like a mistake when you made it. Life is life.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently handled a paper where the peer review process ended with two minor revision reviews and two reject reviews. The disagreement was pretty fundamental - the two reviewers recommending rejection think the authors should do X, but the authors disagree, and it's extremely unlikely they are going to agree with each other.
The handling editor decided to accept the paper. Journal policy in this situation (where there is at least one outstanding 'reject' review) is to involve another member of the editorial board. The new editor is asked for an opinion & an explanation of that opinion, which is shown to the original editor to see if the two editors can come to a consensus.
Here's my question: Journal policy is also to not reveal the names of the two editors to each other. The stated reason is to maintain the anonymity of peer review, thereby allowing the editors to speak freely without fear of retribution from the other editor. Is this normal? I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with it, but intuitively it still seems rather weird.<issue_comment>username_1: In my experience, the name of the board member would NOT be revealed to the associate editor, and this report is otherwise treated as a regular referee report.
Now to be perfect precise, in case of split decision, the journals I know go to a “senior referee” or member of an “advisory board” or some other such designation, not to another editor as they are sufficiently busy as they are. Moreover, correspondence comes through the office so a senior referee would not know the name of the associated editor.
This is the procedure in at least two journals I regularly interact with.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In all but the most bizarre cases, neither of the two involved editors have a stake in the outcome of the process, and as a consequence there can be no "conflict" of interest in knowing the other person's name because there is no "interest". So my personal opinion (as a long-time editor and editor-in-chief) is that the anonymization is not actually necessary.
That said, in my publishing career, I have been fortunate to work with people who put little of their ego into the job. (But I have also worked consciously on making the editorial board work more like a collective.) It is interesting to me that your journal has an explicit policy when in the environments I work in, we would have handled these situations with ad-hoc processes between colleagues trying to figure out what the right outcome is. I do recognize that that is not always the case, but that there are environments in which people have entrenched opinions they want to defend, rather than come to consensus, and in such situations anonymization might make it easier to come to agreements.
There is of course also the issue that in defending the decision to authors, being able to point to a written policy is useful. Since anonymization always makes procedures appear more sound and serious, this then is more defensible than an ad-hoc process would be.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2023/03/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I was waitlisted by my top choice (got into 2nd choice, though), and somehow I received an interview for an external PhD fellowship (something like NSF, which is not linked to the program or school that I applied to). The results of the fellowship will be out before April. So my question is, should I inform the admission committee about this, and would winning the fellowship help me get off the waitlist? Does anyone have a similar experience?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, it's possible that an external fellowship can help you get admitted. I got an NSF fellowship while I was applying, and one school mentioned this to me in their acceptance letter (in fact, that's how I found out I got the NSF! that school found out before I did). I don't if I was on the waitlist before this, but it seemed clear that affected their decision.
However, it really depends on the department and the situation: are you on the waitlist because they don't want to admit more than X students, or they because can't fund more than X students? That said, I agree with astronat's comment, and wait to find out if you get the fellowship or not, assuming you don't have to reply to your 2nd choice before that. Then you could check in with your top choice, and mention this fellowship.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you should inform the committee, but it is unlikely to have an immediate effect. In particular, if others, not on the waitlist, have been given offers, none of those will be withdrawn for this reason. But it is likely that not all offers will be accepted and so it might put you in a better position on the waitlist and increase the likelihood of an offer in the next round.
I think most people would see withdrawing an offer for person A because of some change in person B's situation would be unethical.
So, you remain on the waitlist most likely, but in a better position. That is a positive with no downside.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/03/09
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<issue_start>username_0: I live in Germany. I've just recently finished my M. Sc. in computer science and I'm now thinking about pursuing a PhD. I've been offered a full-time position on a topic which I'm quite interested in (related to my Master thesis). The contract would be for five years and well-paid, so I wouldn't have to worry about finances. But I am still very hesitant to accept, since I'm not sure if I can handle the stress associated with a PhD. Driven by fascination and harsh self-criticism, my studies went quite well and I've always received positive feedback on my performance. But I took much longer than average to finish and by the end I was close to a burnout.
I'd like to continue research on the topic of my thesis, but I'm not really interested in another academic title. I believe this is a great opportunity, but I'm also aware that I need to consider my well-being after exposing myself to way too much stress during my studies. I'm currently thinking about negotiating the contract from 40 hours down to 35 hours a week. An hour a day might make a significant difference in terms of stress. However, this obviously means there would be less time to develop, implement and test research ideas. Is thinking about work-life balance in a PhD a good idea? Or is it a sign that I'm not fit enough and I should go to the industry straight (where I know I'll end up in the long term, anyway)?<issue_comment>username_1: Let me start by saying that I find it crazy that we as a society are so brainwashed into thinking that only those who are willing to spend a majority of their time working their butt off are really serious about their career and fit for doing their job. Of course you do not have to be a workaholic to be fit for doing a PhD, especially if you don't want it to take over your life. Especially in Germany where A) the right to work part time [is guaranteed by law](https://www.haufe.de/personal/arbeitsrecht/wann-arbeitgeber-den-anspruch-auf-teilzeit-gewaehren-muessen_76_409898.html) and B) the route to a PhD is often less structured and less time sensitive than in other places.
[There are even studies](https://phys.org/news/2023-02-four-day-week-boosts-employee-well-being.html) that hint to a 4-day work week being just as productive as the status quo 5-day work week that has been so firmly implanted into our brains as being the only way to go. In some countries this concept [is already tried](https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/02/23/the-four-day-week-which-countries-have-embraced-it-and-how-s-it-going-so-far).
On the flipside (as said by some commenters), it often happens that people put in a lot of (unpaid) overtime while working on their PhD. If that were the case in your institution, reducing the hours *on paper* but not in reality would just lead to you getting paid less for working more or less the same. Talk to your future supervisor and ideally to other PhD students about this to find out if that is the case.
So, if you feel better with working less hours per week, are OK with a little less money and have the guarantee that it will not only be less hours on paper, go for it. It will not make you less of a PhD student. It will probably won't even make you less productive, as you will have more time to recharge and relax in between working hours.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Doing a PhD is not a normal full-time position (40h/week) but usually considerably more (>60h/week). But it is also not like a normal job - it is more like being married to your thesis topic without fixed working times at an immense pressure. In order to survive in academia you have to put everything you have into your projects.
Even if your potential supervisor agrees to reduced working hours (which is unlikely) you might still have to work considerably more than the hours you're being paid and you the run the risk of not being able to finish your PhD and you will certainly not be able to start a competitive career in academia.
To answer your question from above: It is most likely not a good idea for you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: In my group in Germany, there is a fellow Phd student who has an 80% contract by choice and usually doesn't work Fridays. As far as I can tell, that person gets their work done just as well as the rest of us, judging by objective measures such as submitted publications. Of course, there are some phases, especially right before submission deadlines, where we are all working regardless of whether we usually would. Our supervisor encourages us to take time off afterwards to balance this out.
However, I strongly encourage you to talk about this with your future supervisor and especially future fellow Phd students, as they will be able to tell you about the group's culture with respect to these sorts of things. Phds in Germany are often highly individual relationships between supervisors and supervisees and a lot will depend on what your supervisor expects. In contrast to the experience in my own group, I also know Phd students, where it is expected that they work weekends and long hours.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Please consider the answer of @username_2. Unfortunately, that was exactly what happened to me in my PhD in Italy. And according to my experience, it was the case for *most* PhD students all over the world.
If you manage to give your supervisor the number of publications they want from you every year, they will have a more flexible approach towards you, and will most probably not care about how many hours per week you work exactly. If not, they will push you to your limits. They will do it to try and get something from you and justify the money the University/research center is spending on you. But mainly they will do it because it will not make sense to them to supervise a PhD student that does not produce new publications *for them* each year and therefore doesn't improve their curriculum.
Remember, PhD students are actually cheap (actually the cheapest) disposable publications-producing machines in academia. That's how academia sees PhD students, everything else is secondary. They are disposable because the vast majority of them will leave the university/research center where they worked producing papers for their supervisors, while the supervisor themselves will stay, waiting for new PhD students to squeeze for other 4/5 years. I repeat, I think this is the case the majority of times in Accademia. In Industry it's different.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Thinking about work-life balance is a good thing for a PhD, and something that many people have to painfully learn during it. Someone working 75% of the time but at full efficiency is going to run circles around folks spending 16 hours a day totally exhausted but not stopping to catch a breath.
But ultimately, you should ask yourself whether you actually can do a specific PhD at less time at a pace sustainable for you.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this: Both official and practical working hours depend strongly on the specific domain, university/lab and advisor.
With the way funding works in Germany, your salary is directly tied to the official working hours. Often, the official working hours will be set according to the salary funding available, not the actual work hours expected/required. Cutting back on work hours may not even be feasible since the funding must to be spent.
Regardless of your own preference, **talk to your potential future advisor** whether working reduced time is even feasible and how official versus expected work hours align. You gain nothing by asking yourself whether you are fit for a situation that doesn't actually exist.
In many domains, you are not actually paid to do your PhD. The salary you get is for "service work", such as contributing to general tasks in a scientific collaboration, working on a practical project that is merely the use-case of your research, teaching, supervision, and so on. Actually working on your PhD is then your own business and time; you primarily get paid by your institution so that you are close to your research peers and don't have to worry about finding a job elsewhere.
As far as I am aware, a 100% employment over 5 years in Computer Science in Germany is practically guaranteed to be paying you for *significant teaching work*. Unless you are working in an absolute niche, *there will be competition* that does not mind working extra hours or churn through several people.
From the way you describe your M.Sc. the driving force is not *your employment* but *you*. So ask *yourself*: If you are overworked and may feel that you must keep up with goals set externally, will you stop yourself from working that extra hour per day?
Because that is what you may have to do if you pursue a PhD in Computer Science.
---
It may be worth keeping in mind that a disparity between official and working hours is not exclusive to academia/science. Especially software development and other work related to CS is notorious for being an industry with wildly different work-life guarantees. You might not want to think of this as "industry vs academia", but rather weight the offers you actually have – that may include looking for other offers so that you can make an informed decision.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: You write that you were on the verge of burnout at the end of your studies. You did not have fixed working hours during your studies. Ask yourself what made you put in more time and effort than was healthy for you. Was it the feeling that others were working harder? That your results were not good enough? Ask yourself whether a reduced contractual working time would really solve your problem.
I'm a PhD student in Germany and I've also been faced with the question of whether it's possible to do a PhD with the normal workload of a full-time job.
In Germany, there are two types of doctoral funding: a scholarship and a staff position. It sounds like your offer belongs to the second category. Ask your supervisor how much time you would have to spend each week on work unrelated to your PhD, e.g. teaching. Talk to PhD students in the research group about how much they think they have to work and how much they actually work. The actual working time of PhD students depends very much on the working culture of the particular group. (If there are people with disabilities or PhD students with small children in the group, this could be an indicator that not too much overtime is expected). Then you can consider whether you can cope with the workload and whether reducing your contractual hours would mean you actually work less.
My solution, by the way, was this: I made it clear in the interview that I could not work more than 40 hours a week in the long term, which my supervisor accepted. Then I saw my doctorate as a 8 to 5 job, which worked well for the first 80% of the doctorate. Now I am working more to finish my dissertation, but for a limited period of time that is fine for me.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_7: *Is thinking about work-life balance in a PhD a good idea ?*
Absolutely !
And not only a good idea but a vital consideration since a balanced outlook in general helps us to look at a topic from different points of view, make indirect connections between phenomena and so on - factors that, all other things being the same, will have a strong bearing on original and substantial findings that you will make during the programme.
*Or is it a sign that I'm not fit enough and I should go to the industry straight (**where I know I'll end up in the long term, anyway**)?*
This is the main question in your situation, I feel.
Every research workplace, i.e. university, research institute, contract research organization, consultancy, industry, has its own ethos, its own predominant type of people and its own ambiance. This is regardless of whether most staff in the research group abide with the prevailing ethos or not: they **are** supposed to and success in that arena demands it.
From your post, I think it's clear that your main attraction to the M.Sc. programme was that the topic was very interesting to you. You were probably a "straight-through" postgraduate (no time working after your B.Sc. degree) so you didn't see the downside of academic working environments as clearly as the upside. Your work drained you a bit.
The feeling that you will end up in the industry eventually reads a bit ambiguously. It could mean you feel this is your preferred milieu or that you feel you may not be "good enough" (or suitable) for academia.
If I were you I would ask myself which of these interpretations applies to you. But either way, I think you would benefit from a year or two in a non-academic research job if only to recharge your batteries and find which way you want to go.
By the way, I think 35 or 40 hours a week is not the real question here. Personally I and my contemporaries worked double that but loved the work *per se*. It was the unusual human environment and odd (non-) relationships people in academia had with each other that goosed us.
Wishing you well.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: >
> Is thinking about work-life balance in a PhD a good idea?
>
>
>
Not only is it a good idea, it is **absolutely crucial** for your success that you take care of yourself and build an environment and lifestyle in which can thrive as a researcher.
In my experience, those who are most productive are not those who work the most, but who have the ability to take, say, 2 or 3 hours a day -- at a time that works best for them -- to set aside all distractions and focus on a key goal in their research project. Anecdotally, I spent large portions of my PhD (sometimes weeks at a time) accomplishing essentially nothing, and other weeks accomplishing an unbelievable amount in a short amount of working hours. Taking a break has few downsides and is often a great idea to boost your productivity.
So to answer your main question:
>
> Are reduced working hours in a PhD a reasonable idea?
>
>
>
Absolutely yes.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: Worked hours vs contracted hours
--------------------------------
In general, the process of research as such and PhD in particular is unstructured enough that there is not an exact match between worked hours and contracted hours.
You should definitely care about managing your workload and work-life balance, however, I feel that "negotiating the contract from 40 hours down to 35 hours a week" will have no impact whatsoever on how many hours you'll actually work in a given year, as all kinds of other factors (external, personal, psychological) will have a much larger impact on that than anything that contract says, so the only thing this negotiation will achieve is that you'll get paid less for the same thing.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/10
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<issue_start>username_0: Some students are so eager to publish something that they do so without their supervisor (advisor) knowing. They publish work that was supervised by the supervisor with the supervisor's name on but the supervisor didn't know it's published in journal xyz until later. In that case, what is the best course of action to get such work withdrawn or revised if it was already published in a journal or at a conference? If the editor/publisher doesn't agree to take any action, what should the supervisor do? Let's discuss about the solutions to the following different issues that might appear in the publication and that need to be revised/added:
1.part of the authorship, contact details and acknowledgement is wrong or lost
2.some published results are wrong<issue_comment>username_1: If your name was put on an article without your permission, then the other authors presumably lied to the editor since they presumably had to sign a declaration that they were authorized to act for all authors. Many journals will automatically inform all prospective authors about a submission, but that can be circumvented by giving a wrong / old email address.
If this happened to you, you can either accept the submission after giving the students a good talking-to and not do anything more, or you can go to the editor and ask for your name to be removed. It is up to the journal to decide how to react, either by publishing a retraction of the article or by providing an errata that disassociates you as an author from the article. If this is not a print journal, updates are of course easier.
If the editor does not do anything, then you can go to the publishing house because then the editor would be violating academic principles. Since your career might be damaged by a bad article, you could try to pursue civil damages if neither the editor nor the publishing house reacts, but for that, you need to look for competent legal advise.
Students are free to publish, but as long as they are students, they also fall under an academic discipline, which can restrict this right. They are never allowed to put someone else's name on it without permission and are engaging in serious misconduct if they do so. This goes way beyond a courtesy authorship.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: As the paper has already been published, it would probably be a retraction and not a withdrawal (which is for articles that are in press).
When your name was added to an article that you did not write, this is a valid ground for retraction.
For instance, [Elsevier states](https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-withdrawal) that bogus authorship claims are grounds for article retraction. For [Taylor & Francis, guidelines are similar](https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/after-publication/corrections-to-published-articles/).
It is important to note that even after retraction, papers will often still be online, but with a retraction notice. So it will still be findable.
If you would rather correct errors in the paper and keep the publication, that can also be an option. In that case, you would contact the editor and ask for a correction. A correction notice may be published alongside the paper. But, [as username_1 also wrote](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/194243/33097), it is possible that the editor and the publishing house do not react, or only very slowly.
Additionally, you may want to consider talking to the board of your institution, to see if the student should be reprimanded. A violation of scientific integrity like this, should maybe result in consequences for the student.
**Edit:** Journals may never respond or outright refuse to correct or retract an article (e.g., [see this example](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/159394/journal-paper-published-without-correction-of-errors), [this article](https://www.science.org/content/article/journal-declines-retract-fish-research-paper-despite-fraud-finding), [and this one](https://www.science.org/content/article/journal-will-not-retract-influential-paper-botanist-accused-plagiarism-and-fraud)). I'm not sure what would be the best steps nor what rights you have. Perhaps the best advice would be to seek legal council.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/10
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a physicist currently doing a master's degree and I have a background in programming with a knowledge of computer science — not on the level of someone who studied computer science but I would still say a bit above average.
As I program a lot for physics and astronomy applications, I have become increasingly interested in how to further expand software and scientific software to be more usable for natural sciences and physics in particular. Now I would like to know whether there is a specific sub-field that addresses this.
Examples of what I am interested in include:
* how to include units in a standardized way in file formats specifically made for storing scientific data (e.g., HDF5)
* whether it would make sense to create a programming language with the specific intent of making scientific calculations easier (including units and measurement errors standardly)
* how to create better plotting solutions that can be edited after they have been created. (Similar to Matlab .fig files but not proprietary)
It would be super helpful if anyone knows something here.<issue_comment>username_1: Upgrading from my comment, a don't think you'll find a scientific or academic discipline that aligns perfectly with your goals.
You seem a little bothered by my description of your description as more "entrepreneurial". Don't be. It's not meant as an insult. There's nothing wrong with an entrepreneurial pursuit. Plenty of great things happen because of clever entrepreneurial people. You may not be planning on making money, but I suggest even the person with the purest motivations in the world needs to eat and keep the lights on, and if one can't find a way to do that while making the world a better place, then one needs to keep thinking.
The reason why I call what you want to do as entrepreneurial is that you seem interested in provided a service or tool to people in scientific or academic pursuits.
That said, there are some academics (I think) that do some work in the visual representation of data, like Tufte (<https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi;> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte>) Note though, that I don't believe Tufte was into making his tools available to academics. There are, however, many companies that have incorporated many of Tufte's ideas and recommendations into their products (SigmaPlot, Prism, ...) They do this to make their business models work.
Now, think about how tools get to investigators. I believe the most frequent models is that somebody does work, becomes expert in it, and then build the perfect tool for them and their group. They find a way to make it available (think ImageJ, or just about every R module). If it's a good enough tool, with enough of a user base, maybe a company will pick it up, and package and sell it. The people that develop the tools from the ground up usually aren't in the business of tweaking the tools. In fact, no academician would want to be saddled with packaging, distributing, and (perhaps hardest), *supporting* the application. That requires a business, with a staff, a budget, the logistics, ... -- repeat *business*.
I'm not even beginning to imply that you can't have an absolutely marvelous and rewarding career doing what you describe. I just think you'll have the highest likelihood of making it work as a business model. I'd encourage you, if you want to pursue this area, to actually build a business model, figure out who your customers would be, the size of the staff you would need, how many instances you would need to sell, what you would need to charge for them, how much seed money (diluting and nondiluting) you would need to set up this business, where are you most likely to find this money, how long before your company would have a positive cash flow, etc.
Alternatively, you can find a company already in the area, or *close* to the area, and see if you can find employment in there. Convince that company that with the right sort of hire, they can maybe expand their customer base with little risk if they expand their product line, and then do your magic on their dime.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, attempts to standardize scientific software fall into this problem:
<https://xkcd.com/927/>
When you're doing research, it's really difficult to have a set of standards that actually apply to everyone, because everyone is asking a slightly different set of questions, and those questions may not be compatible with previous solutions in how to organize a problem or organize data.
The easiest places to address are where specific equipment used in a field dictates a particular format. If everyone is using the same machine that produces output in a ".sci file", there will be a need for software that operates on ".sci files". The same happens if there's a particular open source software that everyone uses. I doubt, though, that you'll find anything standard to "physics" or even "astronomy"; rather, you'll find standard usage within a specific subfield of physics or astronomy, where people are asking and answering related questions and sharing data amongst others working on the same problems.
Besides that, there's always going to be a trade-off between ease of use and flexibility of use.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You are, in fact, asking about applications of certain fields, including CS, to a certain class of problems.
It is natural, in applied fields, to bring a variety of tools to bear depending on the needs of the specific problem. Those tools may have (probably have) a theoretical basis, but the problem at hand may be very messy.
So, the fact that you may need programming in some general or specialized language, statistics, graphics, human factors, etc. etc. etc. isn't at all surprising. Teams of people with different backgrounds and skills is often a productive way to proceed. CERN, for example, has lots of specialists in lots of specialities and their expertise is brought to bear, or not, according to the needs of the day.
If a class of problems (applications) is both important and recurrent, then specialized tools might arise in solving one that might be used in other, similar, problems, but the world as we know it is still messy and requires some ingenuity to deal with.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There is the [Scientific Python](https://scientific-python.org/) community:
>
> The Scientific Python ecosystem is a loose federation of community developed and owned Python projects widely used in scientific research, technical computing, and data science. This website is part of the Scientific Python project, which aims to better coordinate the ecosystem and grow the community.
>
>
>
At least for the examples you provide, there are existing and actively developed software solutions. A very incomplete list:
* [xarray](https://docs.xarray.dev/en/stable/) "[...] makes working with labelled multi-dimensional arrays in Python simple, efficient, and fun!" It is used widely in climate science, and comes with [Dask](https://www.dask.org/) support out of the box.
* [Pint](https://pint.readthedocs.io/en/stable/) and [Astropy](https://www.astropy.org/) provide physical units. Integration of Pint with Xarray is actively developed further.
* [NetCDF](https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/) and [NeXus](http://www.nexusformat.org/) specify how to store units in files. Both are formats built on top of HDF5, as per your question.
* [Scipp](https://scipp.github.io/) supports multi-dimensional data arrays with labeled dimensions in a manner similar to Xarray. It is a Python library enabling a modern and intuitive way of working with scientific data in Jupyter notebooks. It supports units out of the box.
*Disclaimer: I am the lead developer of Scipp.*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I think what you are looking for is "Research Software Engineering" (RSE). Currently this is more of a job title than a discipline, but RSEs are starting to organise more and more like a discipline: they have their own conferences, learned societies and journals, etc.
Its a concept that started in the UK within the last decade, but is spreading internationally now. See <https://society-rse.org/>
For institutions that buy into the model properly, there is often a separate RSE team or lab. In my university this sits within the CS department, but most of those in the RSE team started as domain experts in something else, like Physics, Chemistry or Biology and had been involved in code based research in those disciplines.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: The closest thing I can think of as a discipline or field would be computational biology, but it's still not really getting at what you're thinking about. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about the same things as you: making better tools for scientists. And username_1's answer really gets at what that looks like in many cases. Scientists have a project idea, and a tool comes of it as a side-effect, and sometimes they try to share it with others. I've used a lot of these tools, and often, they have a lot of room for improvement. In my field (ecology), there are definitely job opportunities for developing and/or improving research software at all levels (non-profits, business entities, academic research groups, and local/state/federal government agencies). This is what I do right now; I volunteered to develop and publish a software package some years ago as a side project during my PhD, and now I'm employed part-time by an academic group to continue developing and improving it, as well as have a contract with a government agency to add some novel features to it. The funding from the academic group came in part from a research grant that specifically supports developing research software, and now we are working on getting an NSF grant that would support me full-time for a few years to keep working on the same software. There are tons of research grants available for this type of work; it's just a matter of finding the right research group to work with.
In the meantime, I have some software side projects that I work on in my free time that are aimed at addressing other issues I see that aren't really specific to a discipline. Some are small and aren't really big enough to warrant funding; they are more just fun toy projects that will help to build out my portfolio, and maybe a few people will find them useful. But I have a big one that's kind of generic and might be a little harder to find a research grant and group to focus on (if I wanted to go that route). Instead, I'm hoping to turn it into an entrepreneurial opportunity down the line when it is more stable.
I've also considered applying for jobs at businesses that do this type of work. A good example is Posit (formerly RStudio). They don't just develop an IDE, they develop a ton of R packages and other tools with a focus on improving scientific computing. Then there are other businesses that develop software with more specific scientific applications in mind. The only reason I haven't gone this route (yet) is more related to why I got into programming in the first place (long before I did any kind of scientific computing) and my desire to develop my own ideas.
But I do have one piece of advice: be careful about thinking you have "better" solutions (like file formats, plotting, etc). First, we all live in a bubble and often don't see many things that already exist, so there's a good chance someone has already had the same idea and implemented it somewhere, and you just haven't found it yet. Second, it's really hard to convince people to try new things; it can take a lot of time and effort for people to learn new tools and modify their workflow around them. Even if the long-term payoffs are worth it, budget limits, other deadlines, and just plain other things they'd rather do get in the way of your new software gaining traction.
I say this as someone that has had tons of ideas related to programming language design (I have yet to encounter a scripting language that I like using for scientific computing), file formats, data management, plotting tools, etc. I toy around with these ideas with the hope that maybe some of them are novel (or at least a better implementation) and people will use them someday, but I basically assume that they don't have value until they exist and are widely used. In the meantime, as I said, I depend on working with research groups to develop more specific tools to keep me funded.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Apropos "creating a language", there are two aspects here:
* Representational languages
* Computational languages
The dominant trend these days is for newly coined representational languages to be based on XML, often zipped, the practicalities of which are thoroughly "applied CS". The details of this- the *schema* etc.- are highly application-specific, and are likely to be very different for e.g. 3D particle tracks captured at CERN vs statistical analysis of broadband noise on a communication channel.
There are of course exceptions, and I'd highlight the work that Lenat has done representing ontologies etc.: I'd not like to attempt to comment on whether that could have been done using e.g. PROLOG.
As far as computation goes, there is a regrettable tendency these days to assume that Python is adequate for all possible cases (obligatory xkcd: <https://xkcd.com/413/>), even if when one scratches the surface one finds that all it's doing is pulling in some decades-old FORTRAN.
However there are a couple of cases which *might possibly* justify either a custom language or compiled-in extensions to an existing one:
* Where it is desirable to specify attributes such as units at the language level rather than using an existing type system or as strings to be parsed at runtime.
* Where practitioners are so used to their custom representation that they are extremely resistant to any language which doesn't support it directly.
As examples here I would offer the PostGIS extensions to the PostgreSQL database, plus of course the continued use of PROLOG in certain fields of knowledge manipulation. However my opinion is that both of these benefit from being able to be embedded in or intermingled with a conventional procedural high-level language such as C++.
So I think that might possibly suggest some areas for research, but the fundamental issues are the structure of the data being manipulated and the expectations of existing workers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Upgrading one of my comments into an answer, in two parts:
First, several other answers mention visualization as a sub-sub-sub-field of computer science. That's correct: Data visualization is a subset of computer graphics, which is a subset of computer science in general. However, even sub-sub-sub-fields of computer science can (and do) support vibrant research communities. One can obtain a PhD with a focus exclusively on data visualization, and there are several respectable conferences in the field every year.
That said, I don't know that Data Visualization gets you fully where you want to be. It's certainly an area to investigate, though. And DV tends to be interdisciplinary (data does not exist in a vacuum, and it helps to understand the challenges of another research field before you go charging in trying to solve their visualization problems for them) which may be a definite plus for you.
Second, the notion of trying to include units (I think you mean physical units) into software brings to mind the last well-publicized push in that direction, at least the last one I recall: [The Fortress Programming Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(programming_language)). It was a major effort which, alas, did not pan out. It was shut down about ten years ago. Surely these issues are faced all across many industries, as well-- mechanical simulators, electromagnetic simulators, astronomical software, particle physics software, etc. Unfortunately, I do not know anything at all about how they handle it.
But there are areas of computer science dedicated to programming language design and compiler design. And that's just a sub-field, not a sub-sub-sub-field. These will also be related to "scientific computing" at large.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: TL;DR:
------
The field involved in development of software for the purpose of research is called Research Software Engineering (RSE). In the USA one resource for more information is <https://us-rse.org/>.
Details
-------
I can't speak to *standardizing* research software. I'd caution that any attempt to standardize research software is fraught. After all, if we knew exactly what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research.
That said, there are definitely *standards* to developing research software, at multiple levels. For context, I have worked as an RSE and currently work as a research computing facilitator. I have built or facilitated a wide variety of research software solutions. The list that follows comes from my personal experience.
1. Numerical computing. The field of mathematics involved with understanding the behavior of approximate mathematical calculations in the context of finite representations of real numbers, i.e. floating point numbers. Practically, this informs us how to develop mathematical algorithms that will converge to an error tolerance as quickly as possible, rather than compounding floating point errors.
2. Software engineering best practices. Things like version control, unit and integration testing, issue tracking, developer and user documentation, minimize complexity, maximize readability, appropriate abstraction, assert pre/postconditions and invariants, code reviews, continuing education, etc.
3. Verifiability. Does the code produce outputs that are expected? This is distinct from unit and integration testing. The goal of testing is to check parts of the code do what they are intended to. The goal of verification is to check that the software output matches what the science says the output should be. This can be deceptively hard!
Each scientific domain may have a different approach to verification. Some may have multiple approaches, which can be a research subfield in its own right. Some may have not developed an effective means of verification.
Some may use rigid comparison of results to know values. Some may use stochastic comparisons, i.e., checking a distribution of outputs matches a known distribution. Sometimes a sensitivity study is suitable, i.e., varying inputs in a systematic way to observe the behavior of outputs. Very much like a Design of Experiments. Some may have to compare to proxy models.
4. Reproducibility. How easy is it for someone else to set up and reproduce your results using your code? There are myriad tools for this at different levels. RNG seeding, Anaconda environments, containers (Docker and Singularity), workflow managers (Snakemake, Nextflow, Pegasus, etc.), version control.
All of these are things Research Software Engineers should be aware of. Many of them will touch all of these at some point in their career, if for no other reason than they solve a lot of problems and make software engineering and deployment work easier.
If this sounds like the type of thing you are after, then you are absolutely looking for Research Software Engineering.
Physical Units Management
-------------------------
There may be various packages out there that manage physical units, and there may be some proprietary libraries used by groups in mission critical domains (Aerospace, Medical) to avoid costly (or deadly) errors.
For high-throughput applications, automatic unit management at runtime may be an unnecessary burden. For statically-typed languages, the types could be used to check unit errors at compile time, which could be fantastically helpful for catching errors early. However, you'd need to design a lot of classes (or use something like template metaprogramming) to allow changing types through multiplication. This is definitely possible in, for example, C++, but the up-front design and maintenance costs may be substantial, and it adds burden to developers.
Oftentimes in practice it's easier to use a modified Hungarian notation like the following block.
```
width_mm = 3
height_mm = 2
area_mm2 = width_mm * height_mm
mm_to_m = 10^-3
area_m2 = area_mm2 * mm_to_m^2
length_cm = 100
volume_mm3 = area_mm2 * length_cm
```
It should be immediately obvious from the variable names which lines are correct and which have errors. I'll leave it to you to figure out how to denote negative powers of units.
Bonus Information!
------------------
If there is any chance your research software will need to scale up, be sure to consult with your local Research Computing (RC) or High Performance Computing (HPC) staff before and during development. Most academic institutions have some amount of RC/HPC staff. They can help you design your work to ensure less friction when scaling up.
RSEs often work closely with RC/HPC folks for exactly this reason.
It may be helpful to read this recent blog post on what research software is: <https://upstream.force11.org/defining-the-roles-of-research-software/>. It has a categorization of research software into seven different types. The blog post goes into greater detail on each.
1. Component of research instruments
2. A complete research instrument
3. Data analysis pipeline
4. Data presentation or visualization tool
5. Integrates components into a whole (glue code, workflow management)
6. Is infrastructure, a platform, a framework, a library, a language, etc.
7. Facilitates research-flavored collaboration
>
> Summary
>
>
> It is clear that there are many different types of research software, fulfilling many different roles and functions. This huge variety makes it hard to come up with a good classification that captures all aspects and does justice to all the hard work done by the developers of the software. Nevertheless, we hope that we have succeeded in proving a bit more insight into the value of research software, the importance of sustaining said software, and recognizing the people involved in developing the software.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: >
> Is there a field which specifically addresses how to develop new software specificaly for natural sciences?
>
>
>
>
> ... further expand software and scientific software to be better usable for natural sciences and physics in particular
>
>
>
What I understand you're alluding to is #***reproducibility***, alongside #*reliability* and #*validity*
As a role, these are scattered across: computational biologist, computational physicist, computational scientist, lab scientist, research scientist, research engineer ... even software scientist.
Of late, they are 'morphing/converging' into research software engineer/scientist with a path to research technical manager.
Consequently, this also brings in 'new field/discipline' loosely referred to as Research Software Engineering.
[For me though, it might be inconsequential if it's research software engineer or research software scientist].
RSE as a discipline is getting well entrenched in the UK, in the States and the rest of the world catching up fast. Invariably, it's gaining ground globally.
In that regard, RSE are known as people with a specific set of skills that combine the research knowledge and software engineering. A fear I have is RSE becoming 'just' another SE in a 'vertical industry' (which just happened to be Research or R&D) and hence loosing out the research software scientist or the science/research of the research software.
A paper on RSE -
[<NAME>. (2022). Why science needs more research software engineers. Nature.](https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01516-2)
Alliance/funding org for RSE - [ReSA](https://www.researchsoft.org/#)
Bodies for RSE:
Aligning together internationally [International Council of RSE Associations / Research Software Engineers International](https://researchsoftware.org/council.html)
* [UK/'global': Soc-RSE - Society of Research Software Engineering - UK](https://society-rse.org/)
* [US-RSE - The US Research Software Engineer Association](http://us-rse.org/)
* [BE-RSE - Belgium Research Software Engineers community](https://be-rse.org/)
* [DE-RSE - Society for Research Software in Germany](http://de-rse.org/)
* [NL-RSE - The community of Research Software Engineers in the Netherlands](http://nl-rse.org/)
* [NORDIC-RSE - Nordic Research Software Engineers Community](http://nordic-rse.org/)
* [RSE-AUNZ - The RSE Association of Australia and New Zealand](https://rse-aunz.github.io/)
* [Danish RSE - Danish Research Software Engineers Community](https://dighumlab.org/danish-rse/)
In the UK for instance, apart from university research centres, RSE abound in places like [STFC](https://www.scd.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/RSE.aspx), [DiRAC](https://dirac.ac.uk/) ...
"*Software is the ubiquitous instrument of science.* - <NAME>, Professor of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK"
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: ### Do not invent a new language
The idea that a different language will save you is a popular misconception from CS. Sure, you can add features to a language. But it doesn't buy you anything over adding a library to do those things.
And by the very definition of creating a new language yourself, you've limited the number of people who will ever use it to one. Yourself. Software engineers have had 60 years to write languages, and you're highly unlikely to find a new niche *and* get critical mass of new users. The surest way to guarantee no-one else will ever use your work is to invent a new language for it.
### What's wrong with making these features a library?
You're describing having units and tolerances/uncertainties attached to a value. This is literally a beginner's C++ exercise for writing your first class. If you're not aware of OO (object orientation) principles, I strongly recommend reading up on this. It's key to how pretty much all modern languages work.
### What's wrong with existing languages?
Industry overwhelmingly uses C++ or C# for historical reasons, and because they run fast. Rust is a new entrant in the same area, and it may pick up enough to get popular since it was adopted by the Linux community, but it's still well behind. For server-side work, you'll meet JavaScript. In the maths/science community there's a strong user base for MATLAB, again for historical reasons (and because it does what it does very well). You may also meet R and Julia in academic maths/science stuff, or Fortran for older stuff, although they're less common. And Python is popular everywhere for writing programs quickly, but it runs slowly (because it's an interpreted language).
When you know enough about those languages to know features that are missing from all those languages,**and** you know they can't be added as libraries, **and** the language maintainers reject your request for those features, then you may have a case for writing your own language. I'm going to say that's pretty damn unlikely though.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently submitted my thesis and also defended it successfully. But then I found mistakes in the statistical analyses of my research.
When I was doing my bachelor's there was no biostatistics in my curriculum. So I didn't have a grasp of statistics at that time. That is why during my research my co-supervisor did the statistical analysis of the data. I started doing an online course on biostatistics, and decided to check the data of my thesis. And I found that my supervisor had made mistakes while doing statistical analyses.
After this discovery I contacted my supervisors and they told me that, "you shouldn't worry because nobody is going to read your thesis." But the real problem is that I am going to apply for masters at different universities, and the admission committee of universities will definitely ask for my thesis. What if they read my thesis? Should I make corrections in the soft copy or not?<issue_comment>username_1: Upgrading from my comment, a don't think you'll find a scientific or academic discipline that aligns perfectly with your goals.
You seem a little bothered by my description of your description as more "entrepreneurial". Don't be. It's not meant as an insult. There's nothing wrong with an entrepreneurial pursuit. Plenty of great things happen because of clever entrepreneurial people. You may not be planning on making money, but I suggest even the person with the purest motivations in the world needs to eat and keep the lights on, and if one can't find a way to do that while making the world a better place, then one needs to keep thinking.
The reason why I call what you want to do as entrepreneurial is that you seem interested in provided a service or tool to people in scientific or academic pursuits.
That said, there are some academics (I think) that do some work in the visual representation of data, like Tufte (<https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi;> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Tufte>) Note though, that I don't believe Tufte was into making his tools available to academics. There are, however, many companies that have incorporated many of Tufte's ideas and recommendations into their products (SigmaPlot, Prism, ...) They do this to make their business models work.
Now, think about how tools get to investigators. I believe the most frequent models is that somebody does work, becomes expert in it, and then build the perfect tool for them and their group. They find a way to make it available (think ImageJ, or just about every R module). If it's a good enough tool, with enough of a user base, maybe a company will pick it up, and package and sell it. The people that develop the tools from the ground up usually aren't in the business of tweaking the tools. In fact, no academician would want to be saddled with packaging, distributing, and (perhaps hardest), *supporting* the application. That requires a business, with a staff, a budget, the logistics, ... -- repeat *business*.
I'm not even beginning to imply that you can't have an absolutely marvelous and rewarding career doing what you describe. I just think you'll have the highest likelihood of making it work as a business model. I'd encourage you, if you want to pursue this area, to actually build a business model, figure out who your customers would be, the size of the staff you would need, how many instances you would need to sell, what you would need to charge for them, how much seed money (diluting and nondiluting) you would need to set up this business, where are you most likely to find this money, how long before your company would have a positive cash flow, etc.
Alternatively, you can find a company already in the area, or *close* to the area, and see if you can find employment in there. Convince that company that with the right sort of hire, they can maybe expand their customer base with little risk if they expand their product line, and then do your magic on their dime.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, attempts to standardize scientific software fall into this problem:
<https://xkcd.com/927/>
When you're doing research, it's really difficult to have a set of standards that actually apply to everyone, because everyone is asking a slightly different set of questions, and those questions may not be compatible with previous solutions in how to organize a problem or organize data.
The easiest places to address are where specific equipment used in a field dictates a particular format. If everyone is using the same machine that produces output in a ".sci file", there will be a need for software that operates on ".sci files". The same happens if there's a particular open source software that everyone uses. I doubt, though, that you'll find anything standard to "physics" or even "astronomy"; rather, you'll find standard usage within a specific subfield of physics or astronomy, where people are asking and answering related questions and sharing data amongst others working on the same problems.
Besides that, there's always going to be a trade-off between ease of use and flexibility of use.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: You are, in fact, asking about applications of certain fields, including CS, to a certain class of problems.
It is natural, in applied fields, to bring a variety of tools to bear depending on the needs of the specific problem. Those tools may have (probably have) a theoretical basis, but the problem at hand may be very messy.
So, the fact that you may need programming in some general or specialized language, statistics, graphics, human factors, etc. etc. etc. isn't at all surprising. Teams of people with different backgrounds and skills is often a productive way to proceed. CERN, for example, has lots of specialists in lots of specialities and their expertise is brought to bear, or not, according to the needs of the day.
If a class of problems (applications) is both important and recurrent, then specialized tools might arise in solving one that might be used in other, similar, problems, but the world as we know it is still messy and requires some ingenuity to deal with.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: There is the [Scientific Python](https://scientific-python.org/) community:
>
> The Scientific Python ecosystem is a loose federation of community developed and owned Python projects widely used in scientific research, technical computing, and data science. This website is part of the Scientific Python project, which aims to better coordinate the ecosystem and grow the community.
>
>
>
At least for the examples you provide, there are existing and actively developed software solutions. A very incomplete list:
* [xarray](https://docs.xarray.dev/en/stable/) "[...] makes working with labelled multi-dimensional arrays in Python simple, efficient, and fun!" It is used widely in climate science, and comes with [Dask](https://www.dask.org/) support out of the box.
* [Pint](https://pint.readthedocs.io/en/stable/) and [Astropy](https://www.astropy.org/) provide physical units. Integration of Pint with Xarray is actively developed further.
* [NetCDF](https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/) and [NeXus](http://www.nexusformat.org/) specify how to store units in files. Both are formats built on top of HDF5, as per your question.
* [Scipp](https://scipp.github.io/) supports multi-dimensional data arrays with labeled dimensions in a manner similar to Xarray. It is a Python library enabling a modern and intuitive way of working with scientific data in Jupyter notebooks. It supports units out of the box.
*Disclaimer: I am the lead developer of Scipp.*
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I think what you are looking for is "Research Software Engineering" (RSE). Currently this is more of a job title than a discipline, but RSEs are starting to organise more and more like a discipline: they have their own conferences, learned societies and journals, etc.
Its a concept that started in the UK within the last decade, but is spreading internationally now. See <https://society-rse.org/>
For institutions that buy into the model properly, there is often a separate RSE team or lab. In my university this sits within the CS department, but most of those in the RSE team started as domain experts in something else, like Physics, Chemistry or Biology and had been involved in code based research in those disciplines.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_6: The closest thing I can think of as a discipline or field would be computational biology, but it's still not really getting at what you're thinking about. I actually spend a lot of time thinking about the same things as you: making better tools for scientists. And username_1's answer really gets at what that looks like in many cases. Scientists have a project idea, and a tool comes of it as a side-effect, and sometimes they try to share it with others. I've used a lot of these tools, and often, they have a lot of room for improvement. In my field (ecology), there are definitely job opportunities for developing and/or improving research software at all levels (non-profits, business entities, academic research groups, and local/state/federal government agencies). This is what I do right now; I volunteered to develop and publish a software package some years ago as a side project during my PhD, and now I'm employed part-time by an academic group to continue developing and improving it, as well as have a contract with a government agency to add some novel features to it. The funding from the academic group came in part from a research grant that specifically supports developing research software, and now we are working on getting an NSF grant that would support me full-time for a few years to keep working on the same software. There are tons of research grants available for this type of work; it's just a matter of finding the right research group to work with.
In the meantime, I have some software side projects that I work on in my free time that are aimed at addressing other issues I see that aren't really specific to a discipline. Some are small and aren't really big enough to warrant funding; they are more just fun toy projects that will help to build out my portfolio, and maybe a few people will find them useful. But I have a big one that's kind of generic and might be a little harder to find a research grant and group to focus on (if I wanted to go that route). Instead, I'm hoping to turn it into an entrepreneurial opportunity down the line when it is more stable.
I've also considered applying for jobs at businesses that do this type of work. A good example is Posit (formerly RStudio). They don't just develop an IDE, they develop a ton of R packages and other tools with a focus on improving scientific computing. Then there are other businesses that develop software with more specific scientific applications in mind. The only reason I haven't gone this route (yet) is more related to why I got into programming in the first place (long before I did any kind of scientific computing) and my desire to develop my own ideas.
But I do have one piece of advice: be careful about thinking you have "better" solutions (like file formats, plotting, etc). First, we all live in a bubble and often don't see many things that already exist, so there's a good chance someone has already had the same idea and implemented it somewhere, and you just haven't found it yet. Second, it's really hard to convince people to try new things; it can take a lot of time and effort for people to learn new tools and modify their workflow around them. Even if the long-term payoffs are worth it, budget limits, other deadlines, and just plain other things they'd rather do get in the way of your new software gaining traction.
I say this as someone that has had tons of ideas related to programming language design (I have yet to encounter a scripting language that I like using for scientific computing), file formats, data management, plotting tools, etc. I toy around with these ideas with the hope that maybe some of them are novel (or at least a better implementation) and people will use them someday, but I basically assume that they don't have value until they exist and are widely used. In the meantime, as I said, I depend on working with research groups to develop more specific tools to keep me funded.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Apropos "creating a language", there are two aspects here:
* Representational languages
* Computational languages
The dominant trend these days is for newly coined representational languages to be based on XML, often zipped, the practicalities of which are thoroughly "applied CS". The details of this- the *schema* etc.- are highly application-specific, and are likely to be very different for e.g. 3D particle tracks captured at CERN vs statistical analysis of broadband noise on a communication channel.
There are of course exceptions, and I'd highlight the work that Lenat has done representing ontologies etc.: I'd not like to attempt to comment on whether that could have been done using e.g. PROLOG.
As far as computation goes, there is a regrettable tendency these days to assume that Python is adequate for all possible cases (obligatory xkcd: <https://xkcd.com/413/>), even if when one scratches the surface one finds that all it's doing is pulling in some decades-old FORTRAN.
However there are a couple of cases which *might possibly* justify either a custom language or compiled-in extensions to an existing one:
* Where it is desirable to specify attributes such as units at the language level rather than using an existing type system or as strings to be parsed at runtime.
* Where practitioners are so used to their custom representation that they are extremely resistant to any language which doesn't support it directly.
As examples here I would offer the PostGIS extensions to the PostgreSQL database, plus of course the continued use of PROLOG in certain fields of knowledge manipulation. However my opinion is that both of these benefit from being able to be embedded in or intermingled with a conventional procedural high-level language such as C++.
So I think that might possibly suggest some areas for research, but the fundamental issues are the structure of the data being manipulated and the expectations of existing workers.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Upgrading one of my comments into an answer, in two parts:
First, several other answers mention visualization as a sub-sub-sub-field of computer science. That's correct: Data visualization is a subset of computer graphics, which is a subset of computer science in general. However, even sub-sub-sub-fields of computer science can (and do) support vibrant research communities. One can obtain a PhD with a focus exclusively on data visualization, and there are several respectable conferences in the field every year.
That said, I don't know that Data Visualization gets you fully where you want to be. It's certainly an area to investigate, though. And DV tends to be interdisciplinary (data does not exist in a vacuum, and it helps to understand the challenges of another research field before you go charging in trying to solve their visualization problems for them) which may be a definite plus for you.
Second, the notion of trying to include units (I think you mean physical units) into software brings to mind the last well-publicized push in that direction, at least the last one I recall: [The Fortress Programming Language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(programming_language)). It was a major effort which, alas, did not pan out. It was shut down about ten years ago. Surely these issues are faced all across many industries, as well-- mechanical simulators, electromagnetic simulators, astronomical software, particle physics software, etc. Unfortunately, I do not know anything at all about how they handle it.
But there are areas of computer science dedicated to programming language design and compiler design. And that's just a sub-field, not a sub-sub-sub-field. These will also be related to "scientific computing" at large.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: TL;DR:
------
The field involved in development of software for the purpose of research is called Research Software Engineering (RSE). In the USA one resource for more information is <https://us-rse.org/>.
Details
-------
I can't speak to *standardizing* research software. I'd caution that any attempt to standardize research software is fraught. After all, if we knew exactly what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research.
That said, there are definitely *standards* to developing research software, at multiple levels. For context, I have worked as an RSE and currently work as a research computing facilitator. I have built or facilitated a wide variety of research software solutions. The list that follows comes from my personal experience.
1. Numerical computing. The field of mathematics involved with understanding the behavior of approximate mathematical calculations in the context of finite representations of real numbers, i.e. floating point numbers. Practically, this informs us how to develop mathematical algorithms that will converge to an error tolerance as quickly as possible, rather than compounding floating point errors.
2. Software engineering best practices. Things like version control, unit and integration testing, issue tracking, developer and user documentation, minimize complexity, maximize readability, appropriate abstraction, assert pre/postconditions and invariants, code reviews, continuing education, etc.
3. Verifiability. Does the code produce outputs that are expected? This is distinct from unit and integration testing. The goal of testing is to check parts of the code do what they are intended to. The goal of verification is to check that the software output matches what the science says the output should be. This can be deceptively hard!
Each scientific domain may have a different approach to verification. Some may have multiple approaches, which can be a research subfield in its own right. Some may have not developed an effective means of verification.
Some may use rigid comparison of results to know values. Some may use stochastic comparisons, i.e., checking a distribution of outputs matches a known distribution. Sometimes a sensitivity study is suitable, i.e., varying inputs in a systematic way to observe the behavior of outputs. Very much like a Design of Experiments. Some may have to compare to proxy models.
4. Reproducibility. How easy is it for someone else to set up and reproduce your results using your code? There are myriad tools for this at different levels. RNG seeding, Anaconda environments, containers (Docker and Singularity), workflow managers (Snakemake, Nextflow, Pegasus, etc.), version control.
All of these are things Research Software Engineers should be aware of. Many of them will touch all of these at some point in their career, if for no other reason than they solve a lot of problems and make software engineering and deployment work easier.
If this sounds like the type of thing you are after, then you are absolutely looking for Research Software Engineering.
Physical Units Management
-------------------------
There may be various packages out there that manage physical units, and there may be some proprietary libraries used by groups in mission critical domains (Aerospace, Medical) to avoid costly (or deadly) errors.
For high-throughput applications, automatic unit management at runtime may be an unnecessary burden. For statically-typed languages, the types could be used to check unit errors at compile time, which could be fantastically helpful for catching errors early. However, you'd need to design a lot of classes (or use something like template metaprogramming) to allow changing types through multiplication. This is definitely possible in, for example, C++, but the up-front design and maintenance costs may be substantial, and it adds burden to developers.
Oftentimes in practice it's easier to use a modified Hungarian notation like the following block.
```
width_mm = 3
height_mm = 2
area_mm2 = width_mm * height_mm
mm_to_m = 10^-3
area_m2 = area_mm2 * mm_to_m^2
length_cm = 100
volume_mm3 = area_mm2 * length_cm
```
It should be immediately obvious from the variable names which lines are correct and which have errors. I'll leave it to you to figure out how to denote negative powers of units.
Bonus Information!
------------------
If there is any chance your research software will need to scale up, be sure to consult with your local Research Computing (RC) or High Performance Computing (HPC) staff before and during development. Most academic institutions have some amount of RC/HPC staff. They can help you design your work to ensure less friction when scaling up.
RSEs often work closely with RC/HPC folks for exactly this reason.
It may be helpful to read this recent blog post on what research software is: <https://upstream.force11.org/defining-the-roles-of-research-software/>. It has a categorization of research software into seven different types. The blog post goes into greater detail on each.
1. Component of research instruments
2. A complete research instrument
3. Data analysis pipeline
4. Data presentation or visualization tool
5. Integrates components into a whole (glue code, workflow management)
6. Is infrastructure, a platform, a framework, a library, a language, etc.
7. Facilitates research-flavored collaboration
>
> Summary
>
>
> It is clear that there are many different types of research software, fulfilling many different roles and functions. This huge variety makes it hard to come up with a good classification that captures all aspects and does justice to all the hard work done by the developers of the software. Nevertheless, we hope that we have succeeded in proving a bit more insight into the value of research software, the importance of sustaining said software, and recognizing the people involved in developing the software.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: >
> Is there a field which specifically addresses how to develop new software specificaly for natural sciences?
>
>
>
>
> ... further expand software and scientific software to be better usable for natural sciences and physics in particular
>
>
>
What I understand you're alluding to is #***reproducibility***, alongside #*reliability* and #*validity*
As a role, these are scattered across: computational biologist, computational physicist, computational scientist, lab scientist, research scientist, research engineer ... even software scientist.
Of late, they are 'morphing/converging' into research software engineer/scientist with a path to research technical manager.
Consequently, this also brings in 'new field/discipline' loosely referred to as Research Software Engineering.
[For me though, it might be inconsequential if it's research software engineer or research software scientist].
RSE as a discipline is getting well entrenched in the UK, in the States and the rest of the world catching up fast. Invariably, it's gaining ground globally.
In that regard, RSE are known as people with a specific set of skills that combine the research knowledge and software engineering. A fear I have is RSE becoming 'just' another SE in a 'vertical industry' (which just happened to be Research or R&D) and hence loosing out the research software scientist or the science/research of the research software.
A paper on RSE -
[<NAME>. (2022). Why science needs more research software engineers. Nature.](https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01516-2)
Alliance/funding org for RSE - [ReSA](https://www.researchsoft.org/#)
Bodies for RSE:
Aligning together internationally [International Council of RSE Associations / Research Software Engineers International](https://researchsoftware.org/council.html)
* [UK/'global': Soc-RSE - Society of Research Software Engineering - UK](https://society-rse.org/)
* [US-RSE - The US Research Software Engineer Association](http://us-rse.org/)
* [BE-RSE - Belgium Research Software Engineers community](https://be-rse.org/)
* [DE-RSE - Society for Research Software in Germany](http://de-rse.org/)
* [NL-RSE - The community of Research Software Engineers in the Netherlands](http://nl-rse.org/)
* [NORDIC-RSE - Nordic Research Software Engineers Community](http://nordic-rse.org/)
* [RSE-AUNZ - The RSE Association of Australia and New Zealand](https://rse-aunz.github.io/)
* [Danish RSE - Danish Research Software Engineers Community](https://dighumlab.org/danish-rse/)
In the UK for instance, apart from university research centres, RSE abound in places like [STFC](https://www.scd.stfc.ac.uk/Pages/RSE.aspx), [DiRAC](https://dirac.ac.uk/) ...
"*Software is the ubiquitous instrument of science.* - <NAME>, Professor of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK"
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: ### Do not invent a new language
The idea that a different language will save you is a popular misconception from CS. Sure, you can add features to a language. But it doesn't buy you anything over adding a library to do those things.
And by the very definition of creating a new language yourself, you've limited the number of people who will ever use it to one. Yourself. Software engineers have had 60 years to write languages, and you're highly unlikely to find a new niche *and* get critical mass of new users. The surest way to guarantee no-one else will ever use your work is to invent a new language for it.
### What's wrong with making these features a library?
You're describing having units and tolerances/uncertainties attached to a value. This is literally a beginner's C++ exercise for writing your first class. If you're not aware of OO (object orientation) principles, I strongly recommend reading up on this. It's key to how pretty much all modern languages work.
### What's wrong with existing languages?
Industry overwhelmingly uses C++ or C# for historical reasons, and because they run fast. Rust is a new entrant in the same area, and it may pick up enough to get popular since it was adopted by the Linux community, but it's still well behind. For server-side work, you'll meet JavaScript. In the maths/science community there's a strong user base for MATLAB, again for historical reasons (and because it does what it does very well). You may also meet R and Julia in academic maths/science stuff, or Fortran for older stuff, although they're less common. And Python is popular everywhere for writing programs quickly, but it runs slowly (because it's an interpreted language).
When you know enough about those languages to know features that are missing from all those languages,**and** you know they can't be added as libraries, **and** the language maintainers reject your request for those features, then you may have a case for writing your own language. I'm going to say that's pretty damn unlikely though.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm in year 2 of my PhD, and have a fairly good idea of what papers I'm planning to get out of it by year 3. Is it too early to start writing the full introduction to the PhD? Or is it a good idea to get started early if I have a fairly good idea of what to work on?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think that there are any hard and fast rules for this, irrespective of the discipline. I do think that the discipline might make a difference, but so too does the writer.
Like many writers, I find that writing helps me to *discover* what think. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I only really know what I think once I've written it down, decided that what I have written isn't quite right, and altered it to mean something closer to what I (think?) do think. A consequence is that I find it helps me to begin writing very early. I'm typically a very very slow writer. I rework sentences until I'm happy with them, rework paragraphs until I'm happy with those too ... but once I've finished as much as a paragraph, I find that it is likely to remain that way even if I don't use the paragraph in quite the place that I thought I would.
By starting to write early, I gain two things. First, I get ahead of the delay that my slow writing speed would otherwise cause. Second, I get paragraphs that I'm pretty happy with and can use *en-bloc* when I construct the final version of an introduction.
Other writers are very different. There are people in some (particularly empirical/experimental) disciplines who wouldn't dream of writing the introduction before writing the whole of the methods and results sections. They'd just see the writing of an introduction as a waste of time until the other sections are settled. I, on the other hand, find that even with empirical papers, doing something on the introduction helps me to formulate the kind of argument that I want to use to drive the whole thesis/paper, etc.
My suggestion would be that you take less notice of specific "start early" vs "wait" advice about writing an introduction and instead look *particularly* to your own history of writing.
In your undergraduate writing, in what order did you typically write things, be they essays, lab reports, or whatever? Which parts did you typically find hard? Are you a fluent, fast and easy writer, or do you congratulate yourself (like me) when you manage to write more than 150 words in a day?
Perhaps the best advice is to write whatever you can, whenever you can. Finishing a PhD can be hard. If you have bits of writing stored away, you will either be able to use what you have written in your final PhD ... or else the process of writing them will have provided you with good practice that will make writing easier later on.
Good luck!
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: It may matter what field your dissertation is in. I have just finished my dissertation, which comprised of 4 peer-reviewed articles, with an additional general introduction and general discussion, which are not peer-reviewed. I finished the four articles first, and then wrote the general introduction and general discussion in a couple of weeks. I used these sections to make a clear connection between the four articles. If I had written the introduction in an earlier stage, I would have probably had to rewrite virtually everything. For me, leaving it until the end was a good route to take. I had enough other stuff to focus on in the writing process.
Still, it could be a good idea to start the introduction now, if you think it would be beneficial for writing your papers later on, and if you are not yet able to start writing those. Even if you later on decide to scrap big chunks of what you've written now, they can be useful in deciding your direction, finding out what doesn't work etc. However, I personally would not prioritize your introduction before your papers.
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: This is cross-disciplinary conceptual research on existing engineering solutions that could be employed for the new industry, 10-15 years from now. These ideas about future tasks are discussed in popular science but lack fundamental academic research yet. This is the third journal that accepted our article for peer-review.
**Reviewer 1** (report):
* Checked all the 'Yes' (accept) boxes,
* Copied the sentence from article's Abstract.
* Added "The paper is intersting [*spelling error*] and prospective, "
* And copied half a line from the end of article's Introduction.
**Reviewer 2** (report):
* Checked all 'Must be improved' boxes.
[*I copied most of the Reviewer 2 report as is*]
"
This manuscript is not a scientific work. It is an accumulation of information without any actual scientific contribution. ... . The authors do not even cite the actual scientific papers.
"
---
The email title: "Declined for Publication ... Encourage Resubmission ..."
There was nothing in the email from the editor, just a template sentence.
---
Review reports from our previous journal submission did say that this is a well written article that puts forward important ideas. But they criticized the overall article's structure and some of the used references.<issue_comment>username_1: Having your paper rejected is no fun. It’s especially bad when you feel like the reviewers didn’t even read the paper.
You have very little leverage. Instead of thinking about how to change this editor’s mind, reformat for the next journal.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: You have no leverage other than to make the work better fit the journal. You seem to describe a bunch of "blue sky" ideas that might work out in the future if explored. There is value in that, but those ideas are only the beginnings of research, proposals or research questions, not results. This journal wants more.
The editor has rejected the paper, implying that they agree with this review. It isn't a statement, necessarily, about the quality of your ideas, but a statement of the focus of the journal and what sorts of things they choose to publish. I interpret it as they want evidence of the value of these things, not just proposals.
Other journals may have a different focus and different requirements, but if you want this particular journal to publish then you have a lot of work to do I think. Happily, though, they didn't say "go away and don't come back".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: The editor in charge clearly choose to consider the short referee report. You can always escalate to the editor-in-chief, but unless there is a technical error or you can rebut in details the majority of the points of the referee it’s unlikely the EiC will overrule the handling editor. After all, by construction editors make a *judgement* to accept or reject a manuscript, so you better have solid reasons to challenge that judgement.
If you feel poorly treated by the journal, the only real leverage you have to not to resubmit to this journal just like if you don’t like a restaurant the leverage you have is to go elsewhere.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: In answer to your question "What leverage does an author have ... ?" , I would say, "Fortunately, none!".
That probably sounds harsh but if it were the case that you had "leverage" then so to would everybody else, suggesting that it would be leverage, rather than merit, that resulted in papers being published.
It is the job of an editor to cull through hundreds and hundreds of submissions and to select from among those submitted, the few that best fit the goals of the journal. It is the job of a reviewer (and I used the words "job" very very loosely since most reviewers are unpaid) to assist the editorial team to do *their* job. Because the number of papers submitted to a journal usually far exceeds the number that can be published (or even read completely), the first task of a reviewer is actually the exact opposite of what you might think. It is to read enough of each paper to be able to decide whether it is **unpublishable**. Since the vast majority of papers reveal themselves to be unpublishable fairly quickly, a reviewer can devote more time to the few papers that are (double negative here) *not unpublishable*.
It is ***your job and yours alone*** to ensure that the alarm bell for *unpublishable* is never sounded in the mind of a reviewer. Again, my comments might sound harsh but a brief digression will illustrate my points so far.
A colleague of mine is a major review-handler for a funding agency. Because a funding agency gives money away for nothing, the number of submissions is high and funding-reviewers face a worse nightmare, with even tighter deadlines, than journal reviewers. My colleague conducted a double-blind experiment over a few years. To one group of reviewers, she sent only the first 150 word abstract of each funding application and asked for an "accept/reject" decision. To the second group of reviewers, she sent the entire grant applications, again with requests for "accept/reject" decisions. There were ***no*** funding applications that got a rejection based on the 150 word abstract yet received a positive rating on the full application. In other words, out of a 5000 word application, most could be rejected on the basis of the first 150 words.
I know from harsh experience how annoying, frustrating, and downright discouraging it can be to receive so few comments, or such contradictory comments from reviewers, that you cannot see how to overcome the apparent impediments to publication. But while I understand how nice, helpful, useful and encouraging it would be to receive detailed information on improving your publication, you have to understand that ***no one owes you***. The system is not broken. It is not an obligation of the reviewers or of the editors to try to understand or improve your paper, nor even to help you to improve it. It is your responsibility to make it so clear why your paper is worth publishing that an editor will be doing everything they can to get your paper into print.
### Extended response to your comment
I hesitated over responding to your comment because I don't wish to offend you. I do understand how extremely frustrated you are with feedback that has not so far enabled you to get your paper published. However, there are things in your original post and your question that shed light on at least some problems.
First, and as a somewhat minor issue, I assume that you are writing for an English language journal and that you are not a native English speaker.
Second, and far more important than the native-quality of your English, is that your ideas are not, in my view, expressed clearly. Consider, for example, two sentences (one in your original post, one in your comment) that relate to the same issue.
* Original post sentence: *Review reports from our previous journal submission did say that this is a well written article that puts forward important ideas. But they criticized the overall article's structure and some of the used references.*
* Comment sentence: *This paper was ***accepted by 3 journals***. Two of them were pretty high ranking.*
When I read your comment I initially thought that I must have completely misread your original posting. I thought "Wow, this person has already had their paper accepted by three journals and they're still unhappy!" But I had not misread your post. Instead, you have not *consistently expressed yourself clearly*. That might be connected with your successive rejections! If I have pieced together the information correctly, what you really mean is something like the following:
>
> We have now submitted our paper to three journals, two of which are fairly high ranking, and we have had the paper rejected by all three journals. In each case, the paper has gotten through the editor's "desk check", without being rejected, and has then been sent out for peer review. After having been peer reviewed (now three times!) we have received rejections from the journal editors, accompanied by mixed reviews.
>
>
>
From this, you have some useful information. The opening of your paper expresses itself sufficiently clearly to make three editors think that it will not be a complete waste of time to ask other people to read the remainder of your paper carefully. What then has gone wrong? From what you have written, I don't know! Instead, I have made some guesses, and made suggestions. The guesses are not in any particular order.
1. As I argued above, the evidence is that you do not consistently express yourself clearly. Solution: have an experienced author (not necessarily an engineer) read your paper and give you feedback about your writing.
2. Your paper might simply be a poor fit for a particular journal, in which case, continue your search. I think, from some of your remarks, however, that this is not the problem.
3. You *oversold* your ideas in the first 150 words of the paper and it appeared to be more interesting initially than it later turned out. The editor was impressed by the initial sell, but the reviewers saw "hot-air" rather than real substance.
4. You can express yourself very clearly in your native language and might also be a very good speaker of English but you are not so good at expressing complicated ideas in English. Solution: if necessary, pay a native English editor to help you improve your paper.
There are numerous other possibilities. I suggest that you also read [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/170784/how-can-i-improve-my-scientific-article-when-the-peer-review-process-was-so-shor/170817#170817) (which reflects struggles that are similar to your own) ... and this [answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/170817/104266).
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I call myself an "independent researcher", however, I have no relevant academic degree in the field in which I do research (physics, especially relativity, and electromagnetism). I just have some articles published in peer-reviewed journals and some self-published scholarly books. I do have a BSc in Civil Engineering. **Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher? If so, where can I find it?**<issue_comment>username_1: It is unlikely you will find an academic research position. There is already an oversupply of PhDs with postdoc experience doing mainstream physics, and by your own admission you will have a very hard time competing with those. Unfortunately for you, relativity and electromagnetism are both well understood: most of the recently published papers in those areas deal with teaching or some pedagogical aspects of the topics, and any independent theory is extremely likely to be ignored. There are some independent researchers in physics, but they all have PhD degrees and publish in mainstream journals.
You may be able to find a teaching position which will allow you enough spare time to continue your independent work, but it’s unlikely to be in a university, again because universities can afford to hire people with PhDs.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: From a legal perspective, I can tell you that you must have a PhD to get a position at a German university related to research (apart from graduation positions of course).
And generally, for the many *postdoc* position, you obviously need a PhD.
But having said that, if you have some solid publications under your belt, and if you are probably known in the community, why not approach some potential supervisors and do a PhD? Doing a PhD is research, so it is a job as a researcher. That you already have produced results and your experience with the publication process might help you to finish it faster.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: >
> "Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher? If positive, where can I find it?"
>
>
>
It's certainly ***possible*** for you to find a job as a researcher, so ***let's focus on the second question***, which is where you can find such a job.
Universities
============
Your [StackExchange profile](https://i.stack.imgur.com/qvxbk.png) provides links to five published papers and two books, all single-author. One of them was [published in 2021 and has 9 citations on Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=rVr1dFIAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=rVr1dFIAAAAJ:Tyk-4Ss8FVUC) by two mutually exclusive groups of co-authors apart from yourself. Based on those details alone, your application for a ***job as a PhD student researcher*** could be very well received provided that the other parts of your application don't have bad red flags. What you have done on your own demonstrates ***a strong work-ethic, nearly unparalleled motivation to do research, and an immense passion for your subject***, which are all things that are exactly what a potential PhD supervisor wants to see. A PhD can be a very big commitment though: It typically takes many years, the pay is usually not as high as in other places, and you might be required to do a lot of course work, comprehensive exams, assistance with teaching, etc. An alternative would be to try to find a job in a university as what is sometimes called (among other names for it) a "research technician", but such jobs are extremely rare, and it is even more rare for them to be advertised. In both of these cases (PhD student or "research technician") you would almost always be working under a supervisor, meaning that ideally your research interests would align. Apart from these two positions, the likelihood of you getting a research position (such as a professorship) without a PhD is close to 0.
Other academic institutions
===========================
Various other academic institutions (especially ones in which the primary function is to publish papers in academic journals) also hire full-time researchers. Probably the largest employers of academic researchers outside of universities are government labs (e.g. NRC in Canada, NIST/LANL/etc. in USA) but just like in universities, you would very likely have to work under a research supervisor and your research topics would almost certainly need to align with theirs. Independent researchers or research leaders at such institutions, are much like professors at universities in that you would almost always need a PhD to get such a position. What I have said about universities and government labs also applies to most other research institutes (e.g. Perimeter Institute or MILA in Canada). A different type of academic institution in which you're more likely to find a job as a researcher (especially in your field, which is physics), is at academic start-up companies (99% of what they do seems to be research that gets published in academic journals), such as Zapata, Xanadu, 1Qbit, etc. **This is where you are most likely to find a job as a researcher in an academic setting**, but once hired your research topics would usually have to align with the institution employing you, even more-so than in the above cases.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring committee people.
1. The lack of a PhD degree is a strong (usually, fatal) point against you at good universities or labs, a weakly negative point at low-profile ones.
2. Having self-published scholarly books is a *very* strong point **against** you at any school or lab worth its salt. The people will suspect that publishers refused to accept your books. Even if your books were not self-published, it would matter a lot whether they appeared at an established mainstream academic publisher or at some trashy company that accepts anything. Just as self-publishing, so publishing with such omnivorous companies looks suspicious.
3. As for your journal papers -- it depends, again, where exactly they appeared. If in Phys. Rev. or other top-notch journals, people take you seriously. There exist, however, journals that are scientific or peer-reviewed only in name. A paper published in such a journal is a resume-killer.
4. There are plenty of PhD`s on the market.
In the light of this, even at a low-end institution your CV will not be likely to get shortlisted.
This said, I know some people without PhD, who are working successfully at government labs. However, these people were hired either after they received their BS degree in a relevant area, or after they combined their BS degree with a subsequent experience in industry -- which experience was of interest to the goventment lab that eventually hired them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm sorry for writing this but I think your chances are close to zero. That's because of the content of your papers. For example in the [link](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=rVr1dFIAAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=rVr1dFIAAAAJ:Tyk-4Ss8FVUC) given by username_3:
>
> The mechanical motion of a system consisting of simple springs is investigated from the viewpoint of two inertial observers with a relativistic relative velocity. It is shown that the final displacement of the springs is not measured the same by the observers. Indeed, it is demonstrated that there is an incompatibility between kinematics and dynamics in Einstein’s relativity regarding the force transformation.
>
>
>
This is the kind of thing which will ring immediate warning bells, because:
1. It challenges Relativity, which has met and passed all sorts of experimental verifications since Einstein conceived it;
2. It seems to demonstrate that you don't actually know relativity well. For example, that different observers measure different displacements is obvious, that is just length contraction. You also refer to "force transformation" although it is also unclear what that is (relativity is a theory of space & time, so force is not something people associate with the theory in the first place).
Then add the fact that the only citing authors citing your work appear to be other people with similarly off-the-mainstream paper titles like "The existence of a universal frame of reference, in which it propagates light, is still an unresolved problem of physics", and I suspect you have no chance of getting a career as a researcher.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: >
> Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher?
>
>
>
Simple answer. Yes, it's possible (as academic researcher). Would it be a walk in the park. Most likely not.
You have about 10 publications on your GS: 10 if we count those in parts - I, II, III
NB: in some parts of the world
* It is impossible due to regulations/law
* it is difficult due to 'tradition'
* it is possible but depends on discipline
>
> If so, where can I find it?
>
>
>
Your obvious choices would be universities, research centers, R&D units/organisations, ... policy research organisations
Before, you proceed, you might want to give thoughts to
-------------------------------------------------------
* the quality of the research outlets/journals (you published in). PS: I've not checked. In any case, apart from outright predatory journals, quality is subjective.
* formalising your 'research' by pursuing your doctorate through the **PhD by Publication** (**retrospective**) route. Though the prospective route is common (or integrated into traditional PhD), the *retrospective* isn't in certain parts of the world. From my (ongoing) research (of 90 UK universities), there are more than 16 universities offering PhD by Publication to all. A large number offer to their staff only or to their staff and alumni, and rest extends to those having close research association with them.
NB: for PhD by Publication, you'll need to show rigour, theme (golden thread) and coherence through a commentary/critical analysis ...
* seeking research assistant post (as a 'leg in')
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/11
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm dealing with Springer about a monograph proposal. My draft was 80,000 words and they asked me to make it 85–100,000 words. I don't want to bother the editor with a question that is just out of curiosity. But, why do they need to expand it? What difference are 5,000 words going to make?<issue_comment>username_1: This is probably an economic decision based on the balancing of input effort/cost and likely return on investment. But you *should* ask the editor to see whether it is a "hard" rule or not and if you ask that, then you might as well ask why. I don't know if they make exceptions.
An exception might be "above the pay grade" of an individual editor, or not.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Here's an educated guess based on my experience with other publishers. They ran an analysis to see which of their monographs are most profitable (or receive the most citations, or whatever other metric they care about). It turns out that there is a correlation between length and profit. Therefore they ask for a certain number of words.
It's almost surely not a hard requirement, they'll probably accept an 80k-word monograph if you adamantly refuse to lengthen the manuscript.
Upvotes: 4
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2023/03/12
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<issue_start>username_0: Let's say that at a British university, there is a chemistry exam. The exam describes a person performing a chemistry experiment. This person leaves the experiment sitting there for a fortnight. After a fortnight, the person comes back to see the results.
The question asks the students to describe what the student in question will most likely see.
But let's say there are Americans studying at this university, and they're taking this exam. In America, the word fortnight is not used, and most people don't understand what it means.
So if these students got this question wrong, could they complain about it? Is there anything that can be done to help their grade on the exam?
What it it's a foreign professor who is teaching at a university in America, and the student doesn't realize this word is not used over there? What if the student's exam contained this question, and the whole class got confused by it?<issue_comment>username_1: During the test, the student can ask about the exotic non-technical word, and the proctor can clarify on its meaning.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: First off, I am not a native English speaker. This is the first time I heard of the word "fortnight". I had to google for its meaning: two weeks. Am I right? Or wrong? Could it also mean half a month? (if it means half a month, it's 15 nights to me)
If I were a student sitting in the exam, I may take the word "fortnight" for a "*battle night*" because "fort" means a military building to me. So, I would take "fortnight" to mean just one night of the battle for the experiment.
There is a comment and an answer saying that the student should ask to clarify the meaning of the word. But, why should I ask for the clarification if I think I already know its meaning without much doubt?
I think the answer to the question should be to give the students reasonable marks in their best interests. What should be the reasonable marks depends on the exam and the instructor.
My point is, the instructor should be precise when describing the problems in an exam. Why not writing fourteen (14) nights in the first place? This way no one would be confused and the exam would be fair to everyone. After all, the students are there to learn chemistry (in this case), not English Literature.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: **Students are (usually) expected to understand the local language**
In general, students are expected and required to be competent in the language in which they are taught and - yes - this includes knowing the local version of that language. An American being educated in the UK needs to take the effort to learn the differences with British English. For an absolutely common bog-standard word like "fortnight" it's entirely reasonable to expect students to know the word and if they don't, well, that's their problem (which they can ask the invigilator about and they'll likely help with).
**Academics teaching outside their own country need to be careful with language**
But this also goes both ways. An academic in a country that they're not from needs to consider that their language is different to where they are now. This may be particularly difficult for academics moving to countries which apparently speak the same language - for example, it'd have never occurred to me that "fortnight" wouldn't be universally understood by English speakers - but the onus still lies on the academic to deal with it. If it becomes apparent after setting an exam that a mistake has been made, there should be appropriate flexibility in marking the answer according to common misunderstandings.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> could they complain about it?
>
>
>
Yes, they can raise their concern with faculty. A glance at a typical instructor's email inbox will confirm that this happens. Certainly, if a student wants their instructor to be aware of something, then telling them about it will be more effective than not telling them.
In this scenario, a student faced with this problem *during the exam* could also write on their exam paper: "As an American, I am hopelessly confused by the word 'fortnight' and I am assuming it means ten days. On that basis, my calculation is [...]". Or they need not be quite so explicit; if it's clear that they understood the chemistry but plugged in the wrong number for the time period, people doing the grading would ordinarily give due credit.
Another answer suggests asking the invigilator. This is practical if the question is clearly not to do with the subject-matter of the exam (e.g., you wouldn't expect them to explain what titration is), and if institutional policy allows them to give an answer. Universities can have rules about giving mid-exam clarifications, in the interests of fairness and avoiding student stress. (When I was an undergraduate, we had one exam which featured a succession of contradictory clarifications, finishing with the announcement that the entire question would be scrapped. This was very stressful for everyone.) This can also be harder if it is an online exam, and doesn't work if the exam is already over.
In some cases, clearing things up during the exam may well be hopeless. Suppose the subject is physics and the lecturer has set a problem involving the trajectory of a cricket ball, referring to such things as the popping crease, the wicket, being hit for six, and so on. Someone innocent of cricket may find the setup totally bewildering, and the exam hall is not a great place to explain cricket from first principles. The best option here is for the student to proceed as best they can during the exam, and raise the issue afterwards as swiftly as possible through the proper local channels.
However...
>
> Is there anything that can be done to help their grade on the exam?
>
>
>
The processes for this differ between the UK and the US. In America, the professor commonly has very wide discretion to assign grades. British universities will have a different set of methods, with second-marking and oversight by external examiners. But either way, this sort of grading issue is very hard to appeal after the decision is made - there is an academic judgement call, and that is generally that. Student concerns have to be raised within a fairly narrow timeframe, in order to be taken into account.
Students who would like their overall mark to be higher *could* dedicate their efforts to worrying about a wording issue on a single exam question, and lobbying for a change in grade. Or they could spend the same amount of effort learning more about the synthesis of alkanes, say, and hope to get a higher overall mark in their next module. There is very little institutional appetite in either country for entertaining lengthy disputes about this sort of thing. Matters might be different if the student could show that they were significantly disadvantaged as a result of the grading decision, but this single question will not be the determinative factor that gets them a 2:2 instead of a 2:1.
Overall, even though assessments *shouldn't* contain hidden cultural assumptions - because then they're not assessing the right thing - the extent to which they can be challenged will vary depending on the seriousness. I have seen universities on both sides of the Atlantic take student feedback seriously, but generally with more focus on improving assessments in the future than on wrangling over ones which have already happened.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I can offer some suggestions that may help but probably aren't a complete answer, nor one that can be applied everywhere.
But first, the instructor needs to become aware of the issue *somehow*. Perhaps it is brought to their attention by the student, or by a confusing answer on the exam. Otherwise the "what if" is that the student suffers.
Next, the instructor needs to recognize this is a failure on their part if their language in exams isn't clear and precise and understood by all. In the instant case, if they have never used *fortnight* in a lecture and have non-native speakers in the class it is their issue, not that of the students. So, part of the larger solution is to change the language for future classes so the issue doesn't continue to arise.
I'll assume that the instructor has noticed the problem too late and they are looking at an exam paper. There are two things that might be done, though they apply narrowly to a case like this one. Perhaps they give some guidance to a wider set of cases. Or not.
If you can understand, by asking the student, how they interpreted "fortnight" (four nights, forty nights, whatever) then you can grade the student based on what the reaction would have been in that time period. If they interpreted it as forty nights and give a consistent answer then mark it correct.
Second, if no such solution is possible, you can, perhaps, remove that question from the marking for that student. So, supposing a 100 point exam and they missed this one for such a reason and the question was worth 10 points, mark their exam based on 90 points instead to get a "percentage" correct. This still disadvantages the student, though less, since they may have spent unfruitful time on the question. But 65/90 is much nicer than 65/100.
The educational philosophy here is I'm not perfect and I don't expect you to be perfect. But learning is more important than grading and that's why we are here.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: In Germany foreign students are allowed to use dictonaries during exams (like French -> German). This solves the problem quite well.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: I dealt with this exact issue just a few months ago.
I was invigilating an exam on deep learning, at a British university where ~60% of the students are international. One question asked something like,
>
> Give your verdict on the accuracy of the model.
>
>
>
I had at least two Chinese students put their hands up and ask what "verdict" meant. Since it's a computer science exam, not an English exam, I gave them a definition:
>
> A verdict is like a final opinion, or conclusion. For example, in court, when the trial is over, the judge makes a verdict, which is the final decision about the case.
>
>
>
This is part of the job of the invigilator. "Verdict", like "fortnight", is a common English word, and not technical either. It is not unreasonable to use it in a normal sentence or an examination, and if someone doesn't understand it, that's their fault, not the examiner's...but since it isn't part of the technical content of the exam, there's no reason to not tell them what it means if they ask.
If they don't ask, then they can't complain; they had the opportunity and knew that that's what the invigilators were there for, yet chose not to.
If this particular word becomes a recurring problem, then it might be worth not using it in the future. But to simplify all language usage because international students are not fluent in the host language is unreasonable.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_8: This is just a particular case of the more general problem of what happens when the meaning of the statement of a question is somehow ambiguous (because of dialect or because of anything else). I usually use two ways to solve it:
* Students can ask during the exam, and clarification about the statement can be given. That includes telling the students anything except the knowledge being tested or its prerequisites.
* In case this is not possible - because of the invigilator not familiar with the question or the subject, or because a clarification can't be given without telling about the answer, or because of any other reason - tell the student to state clearly how they understand the question and answer accordingly. Here, if the question was actually ambiguous, and the student's understanding of it was reasonable for anybody having followed and learned the curse, grade it accordingly to that interpretation - as much as possible.
Of course, making test statements not ambiguous is the perfect solution, but sometimes you don't realise your statement can be misunderstood until your students start misunderstanding it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: **Sometimes it is a language evolution issue**
In taking a [Professional Engineer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering) (PE) exam (Electrical Engineering - pre 1995) was the first time I read [Siemens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_(unit)). Even with a clear understanding of [mho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_(unit)#Mho), the context of the question was enough to warrant a clarification.
Since the 8-hours exam allowed one for bring reference books, (it was amazing how may some folks brought), my good dictionary readily addressed the issue: *Siemens* is about the same unit of unit of electric conductance as *mho*. The dictionary was the best reference I brought to the exam.
So even being a native English speaker, the lingo of the industry had *evolved* from using *mho* to preferring *Siemens*. PE exams often happen [years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering#Licensure_and_regulation) after college. (Also I suspect my college was not up-to-date in the small regard.)
---
>
> What if a student doesn't understand a question because of differences in dialect?
>
>
>
Such issues like this are foreseeable and the resolution should be clearly stated beforehand.
Have the policy known prior and test takers have to live with it - or can seek alternatives beforehand.
If developing a policy, I'd favor simplicity most of the time. Allowing exceptions will propagate exceptions.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Here is my complete guide:
Before the exam
First, if there is no indication at all that such a scenario is likely to happen, don't worry about it, it is absolutely unlikely. This is evidenced by the fact that you chose the example "fortnight" and "chemistry exam" (and could not come up with a better example). It's hard to believe a chemistry teacher to use this word in an exam instead of "14 days".
If, on the other hand, in the lecture from time to time the lecturer uses words not common in your locale, inform them that they are not common and ask for their meaning. This should tell the instructor that there is some discrepency between your languages and that they should be careful when creating the exam. Maybe even tell them that you worry about the exam - most likely, the instructor will tell you a solution (like "in this case, just ask during the exam" or "I will make sure to go through the exam with a local collague").
If the instructor speaks competely ununderstandble (eg speaks in mediavial English), treat this case like the professor would speak a different language (which some of my professors at some point did). I don't know how it works in your school, but a good way would eg be to first talk to the professor, then your student union, then higher-ups.
During the exam
If there is a word you don't understand, just ask. Most instructors will clarify non-technical words (or, for importantbquestions, even words you need to know to be able to answer the question even if you should know them).
If for some reason, you cannot ask, treat the question like any other questions where you don't know an important word. Eg do the other questions before, think logically what the word could mean; if you must make a guess write something like "The word is not known to me, I assume it means 12 days."
After the exam
If your answer was marked incorrect because of the word (this includes the case where you thought you know the meaning but the meaning is different in your and the instructor 's dialect) and you are allowed to debate it, discuss with other students to find out if the word was really uncommon. Try to find proofs that it is not a British word and tell the professor.
If this doesn't help, do what you usually would do if you'd see a question as unsolvable. This could be doing nothing because there is no effective way of complaining in your institution or go the "chain of complaints" (eg starting with the student union).
There are a lot of answers here and my answer is relatively long. This may seem like there is a lot to think about - I'd say it isn't. Don't worry and just use common sense.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: I would split this into 3 different parts.
And whether the time period of 14 days is relevant to the answer or not.
I mean if it were absolutely relevant that it was that long, then it's very important point to get right.
I would ALSO factor in if the student could ask for a clarification of the word in question during the exam. If, yes and they were able to get a 'real' answer (i.e. a fortnight is 14 days, not, a we can't answer that question or a 'non-answer' answer), then, I would treat it more as a failing on the student's part -- they could have asked, but didn't. However, if not, I would treat them more leniently.
Part 1, the student didn't understand the word:
In this case, I would grade the question based upon the understanding of the question that the student had.
E.g. If the student said I didn't understand "a fortnight" and assumed it was this time period, I would base it upon that time period.
Could the student complain about it:Yes, they could, especially if it's not a particularly common thing.
Part 2, the foreign professor using a word/phrase that's not common:
I would treat it similarly to Part 1. Base the grading on what the student understood the question to be asking.
Could the student complain about it: Yes.
Part 3, everybody got it wrong:
In this case, I would throw out the question, because since nobody got it right, something must be wrong with how the question was worded -- and since there was the issue, it's not fair to grade on that question.
Although, I would, as the professor, make sure it was the question that was the issue and not an issue with the class not getting the concept in question.
Could the student complain about it:No, because the question would be a non-factor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: I am French and somehow heard about the word *fortnight*. Since I do not know what this means exactly I would have asked during the exam. From a teacher perspective, this is a completely normal question.
It would have been a different situation if
* the word was *tetra-fluo-carbo-monohydrate* because this is the name of a well -known chemical molecule, and a student passing the exam **in English** is expected to know it no matter what his mother tongue is. (full disclosure: I am an ex-physicist and completely made up the name)
* a word that has a completely different meaning between variations of English (not a false friend as we have many in French-English; but a word that means, say, "clear" in British English and "cloudy" in Singaporean English).
This would have been way more complicated because on the one hand the exam happens in the UK so British English is the reference, but it is not a matter of lack of knowledge of English, just a different English.
This can happen even with casual words. We have in French the word *prochain* which means *next* (*mercredi prochain* = *next Wednesday*). In some regions, however, *prochain* means *the one after next*. In other words, if today is Monday and and I say *mercredi prochain*, some people will understand *the closest Wednesday, that is in two days*, and others *the Wednesday after the closest one, that it in 9 days*.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/12
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<issue_start>username_0: Back in my original cycle, I applied right out of undergrad for a couple of programs that I initially thought could fit my interests well. All of them ended up falling into two fields, Engineering or Earth/Climate Science, and I got into some good programs for earth science (e.g. Stanford and Berkeley). I ended up deciding to go to UPenn for Engineering since I thought I might enjoy the work there better but as I'm going through the motions, I feel like I'm not as into the specific research area my advisor is dealing with as I thought I'd be. I'm beginning to think I'd have enjoyed going into climate science instead a lot more, which is probably not the best conclusion to come to at this point...
My current department doesn't have a whole lot of faculty working in this specific area anyways - even the climate science department doesn't seem like it has a ton of projects I'd be interested in. I'm thinking of Master-ing out and potentially reapplying to some climate science programs instead. I haven't consulted my advisor on this yet. Additionally, I'm keeping up on my current research project/classes, and I intend to continue to do so until I officially leave, so it's not like I'm underperforming/slacking.
I'm wondering how exactly one would fare in this whole reapplication process. I presume my undergrad application was strong enough that I got into a couple of good programs so I would think a Master's plus additional research would surely add to that. I am worried on two accounts, however:
1. How exactly would my current advisor take the news that I'd like to explore a different field altogether? Let's assume I continue to do well, make good progress in terms of research, and get good grades, blah blah: would they be pissed? Should they be pissed? How should I break the news to them while ensuring the letter isn't tainted by some sort of vendetta?
2. How should I mention this on my application? And how should I approach the application process in general? A simple Google search tells me that most new programs I'd apply to would eye my application rather suspiciously if I do not have a "good reason" for leaving and that advisors might be wary of taking me on if I Master'd out since "what's stopping me from doing the same when I get to their program". Is it really that big of a hurdle? I'd like to think that changing interests, especially to a field that is not *too* far off from my current one, is a decent reason but I'd be curious to hear opinions.<issue_comment>username_1: During the test, the student can ask about the exotic non-technical word, and the proctor can clarify on its meaning.
Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_2: First off, I am not a native English speaker. This is the first time I heard of the word "fortnight". I had to google for its meaning: two weeks. Am I right? Or wrong? Could it also mean half a month? (if it means half a month, it's 15 nights to me)
If I were a student sitting in the exam, I may take the word "fortnight" for a "*battle night*" because "fort" means a military building to me. So, I would take "fortnight" to mean just one night of the battle for the experiment.
There is a comment and an answer saying that the student should ask to clarify the meaning of the word. But, why should I ask for the clarification if I think I already know its meaning without much doubt?
I think the answer to the question should be to give the students reasonable marks in their best interests. What should be the reasonable marks depends on the exam and the instructor.
My point is, the instructor should be precise when describing the problems in an exam. Why not writing fourteen (14) nights in the first place? This way no one would be confused and the exam would be fair to everyone. After all, the students are there to learn chemistry (in this case), not English Literature.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: **Students are (usually) expected to understand the local language**
In general, students are expected and required to be competent in the language in which they are taught and - yes - this includes knowing the local version of that language. An American being educated in the UK needs to take the effort to learn the differences with British English. For an absolutely common bog-standard word like "fortnight" it's entirely reasonable to expect students to know the word and if they don't, well, that's their problem (which they can ask the invigilator about and they'll likely help with).
**Academics teaching outside their own country need to be careful with language**
But this also goes both ways. An academic in a country that they're not from needs to consider that their language is different to where they are now. This may be particularly difficult for academics moving to countries which apparently speak the same language - for example, it'd have never occurred to me that "fortnight" wouldn't be universally understood by English speakers - but the onus still lies on the academic to deal with it. If it becomes apparent after setting an exam that a mistake has been made, there should be appropriate flexibility in marking the answer according to common misunderstandings.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: >
> could they complain about it?
>
>
>
Yes, they can raise their concern with faculty. A glance at a typical instructor's email inbox will confirm that this happens. Certainly, if a student wants their instructor to be aware of something, then telling them about it will be more effective than not telling them.
In this scenario, a student faced with this problem *during the exam* could also write on their exam paper: "As an American, I am hopelessly confused by the word 'fortnight' and I am assuming it means ten days. On that basis, my calculation is [...]". Or they need not be quite so explicit; if it's clear that they understood the chemistry but plugged in the wrong number for the time period, people doing the grading would ordinarily give due credit.
Another answer suggests asking the invigilator. This is practical if the question is clearly not to do with the subject-matter of the exam (e.g., you wouldn't expect them to explain what titration is), and if institutional policy allows them to give an answer. Universities can have rules about giving mid-exam clarifications, in the interests of fairness and avoiding student stress. (When I was an undergraduate, we had one exam which featured a succession of contradictory clarifications, finishing with the announcement that the entire question would be scrapped. This was very stressful for everyone.) This can also be harder if it is an online exam, and doesn't work if the exam is already over.
In some cases, clearing things up during the exam may well be hopeless. Suppose the subject is physics and the lecturer has set a problem involving the trajectory of a cricket ball, referring to such things as the popping crease, the wicket, being hit for six, and so on. Someone innocent of cricket may find the setup totally bewildering, and the exam hall is not a great place to explain cricket from first principles. The best option here is for the student to proceed as best they can during the exam, and raise the issue afterwards as swiftly as possible through the proper local channels.
However...
>
> Is there anything that can be done to help their grade on the exam?
>
>
>
The processes for this differ between the UK and the US. In America, the professor commonly has very wide discretion to assign grades. British universities will have a different set of methods, with second-marking and oversight by external examiners. But either way, this sort of grading issue is very hard to appeal after the decision is made - there is an academic judgement call, and that is generally that. Student concerns have to be raised within a fairly narrow timeframe, in order to be taken into account.
Students who would like their overall mark to be higher *could* dedicate their efforts to worrying about a wording issue on a single exam question, and lobbying for a change in grade. Or they could spend the same amount of effort learning more about the synthesis of alkanes, say, and hope to get a higher overall mark in their next module. There is very little institutional appetite in either country for entertaining lengthy disputes about this sort of thing. Matters might be different if the student could show that they were significantly disadvantaged as a result of the grading decision, but this single question will not be the determinative factor that gets them a 2:2 instead of a 2:1.
Overall, even though assessments *shouldn't* contain hidden cultural assumptions - because then they're not assessing the right thing - the extent to which they can be challenged will vary depending on the seriousness. I have seen universities on both sides of the Atlantic take student feedback seriously, but generally with more focus on improving assessments in the future than on wrangling over ones which have already happened.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I can offer some suggestions that may help but probably aren't a complete answer, nor one that can be applied everywhere.
But first, the instructor needs to become aware of the issue *somehow*. Perhaps it is brought to their attention by the student, or by a confusing answer on the exam. Otherwise the "what if" is that the student suffers.
Next, the instructor needs to recognize this is a failure on their part if their language in exams isn't clear and precise and understood by all. In the instant case, if they have never used *fortnight* in a lecture and have non-native speakers in the class it is their issue, not that of the students. So, part of the larger solution is to change the language for future classes so the issue doesn't continue to arise.
I'll assume that the instructor has noticed the problem too late and they are looking at an exam paper. There are two things that might be done, though they apply narrowly to a case like this one. Perhaps they give some guidance to a wider set of cases. Or not.
If you can understand, by asking the student, how they interpreted "fortnight" (four nights, forty nights, whatever) then you can grade the student based on what the reaction would have been in that time period. If they interpreted it as forty nights and give a consistent answer then mark it correct.
Second, if no such solution is possible, you can, perhaps, remove that question from the marking for that student. So, supposing a 100 point exam and they missed this one for such a reason and the question was worth 10 points, mark their exam based on 90 points instead to get a "percentage" correct. This still disadvantages the student, though less, since they may have spent unfruitful time on the question. But 65/90 is much nicer than 65/100.
The educational philosophy here is I'm not perfect and I don't expect you to be perfect. But learning is more important than grading and that's why we are here.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: In Germany foreign students are allowed to use dictonaries during exams (like French -> German). This solves the problem quite well.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: I dealt with this exact issue just a few months ago.
I was invigilating an exam on deep learning, at a British university where ~60% of the students are international. One question asked something like,
>
> Give your verdict on the accuracy of the model.
>
>
>
I had at least two Chinese students put their hands up and ask what "verdict" meant. Since it's a computer science exam, not an English exam, I gave them a definition:
>
> A verdict is like a final opinion, or conclusion. For example, in court, when the trial is over, the judge makes a verdict, which is the final decision about the case.
>
>
>
This is part of the job of the invigilator. "Verdict", like "fortnight", is a common English word, and not technical either. It is not unreasonable to use it in a normal sentence or an examination, and if someone doesn't understand it, that's their fault, not the examiner's...but since it isn't part of the technical content of the exam, there's no reason to not tell them what it means if they ask.
If they don't ask, then they can't complain; they had the opportunity and knew that that's what the invigilators were there for, yet chose not to.
If this particular word becomes a recurring problem, then it might be worth not using it in the future. But to simplify all language usage because international students are not fluent in the host language is unreasonable.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_8: This is just a particular case of the more general problem of what happens when the meaning of the statement of a question is somehow ambiguous (because of dialect or because of anything else). I usually use two ways to solve it:
* Students can ask during the exam, and clarification about the statement can be given. That includes telling the students anything except the knowledge being tested or its prerequisites.
* In case this is not possible - because of the invigilator not familiar with the question or the subject, or because a clarification can't be given without telling about the answer, or because of any other reason - tell the student to state clearly how they understand the question and answer accordingly. Here, if the question was actually ambiguous, and the student's understanding of it was reasonable for anybody having followed and learned the curse, grade it accordingly to that interpretation - as much as possible.
Of course, making test statements not ambiguous is the perfect solution, but sometimes you don't realise your statement can be misunderstood until your students start misunderstanding it.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: **Sometimes it is a language evolution issue**
In taking a [Professional Engineer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering) (PE) exam (Electrical Engineering - pre 1995) was the first time I read [Siemens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_(unit)). Even with a clear understanding of [mho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemens_(unit)#Mho), the context of the question was enough to warrant a clarification.
Since the 8-hours exam allowed one for bring reference books, (it was amazing how may some folks brought), my good dictionary readily addressed the issue: *Siemens* is about the same unit of unit of electric conductance as *mho*. The dictionary was the best reference I brought to the exam.
So even being a native English speaker, the lingo of the industry had *evolved* from using *mho* to preferring *Siemens*. PE exams often happen [years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering#Licensure_and_regulation) after college. (Also I suspect my college was not up-to-date in the small regard.)
---
>
> What if a student doesn't understand a question because of differences in dialect?
>
>
>
Such issues like this are foreseeable and the resolution should be clearly stated beforehand.
Have the policy known prior and test takers have to live with it - or can seek alternatives beforehand.
If developing a policy, I'd favor simplicity most of the time. Allowing exceptions will propagate exceptions.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Here is my complete guide:
Before the exam
First, if there is no indication at all that such a scenario is likely to happen, don't worry about it, it is absolutely unlikely. This is evidenced by the fact that you chose the example "fortnight" and "chemistry exam" (and could not come up with a better example). It's hard to believe a chemistry teacher to use this word in an exam instead of "14 days".
If, on the other hand, in the lecture from time to time the lecturer uses words not common in your locale, inform them that they are not common and ask for their meaning. This should tell the instructor that there is some discrepency between your languages and that they should be careful when creating the exam. Maybe even tell them that you worry about the exam - most likely, the instructor will tell you a solution (like "in this case, just ask during the exam" or "I will make sure to go through the exam with a local collague").
If the instructor speaks competely ununderstandble (eg speaks in mediavial English), treat this case like the professor would speak a different language (which some of my professors at some point did). I don't know how it works in your school, but a good way would eg be to first talk to the professor, then your student union, then higher-ups.
During the exam
If there is a word you don't understand, just ask. Most instructors will clarify non-technical words (or, for importantbquestions, even words you need to know to be able to answer the question even if you should know them).
If for some reason, you cannot ask, treat the question like any other questions where you don't know an important word. Eg do the other questions before, think logically what the word could mean; if you must make a guess write something like "The word is not known to me, I assume it means 12 days."
After the exam
If your answer was marked incorrect because of the word (this includes the case where you thought you know the meaning but the meaning is different in your and the instructor 's dialect) and you are allowed to debate it, discuss with other students to find out if the word was really uncommon. Try to find proofs that it is not a British word and tell the professor.
If this doesn't help, do what you usually would do if you'd see a question as unsolvable. This could be doing nothing because there is no effective way of complaining in your institution or go the "chain of complaints" (eg starting with the student union).
There are a lot of answers here and my answer is relatively long. This may seem like there is a lot to think about - I'd say it isn't. Don't worry and just use common sense.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: I would split this into 3 different parts.
And whether the time period of 14 days is relevant to the answer or not.
I mean if it were absolutely relevant that it was that long, then it's very important point to get right.
I would ALSO factor in if the student could ask for a clarification of the word in question during the exam. If, yes and they were able to get a 'real' answer (i.e. a fortnight is 14 days, not, a we can't answer that question or a 'non-answer' answer), then, I would treat it more as a failing on the student's part -- they could have asked, but didn't. However, if not, I would treat them more leniently.
Part 1, the student didn't understand the word:
In this case, I would grade the question based upon the understanding of the question that the student had.
E.g. If the student said I didn't understand "a fortnight" and assumed it was this time period, I would base it upon that time period.
Could the student complain about it:Yes, they could, especially if it's not a particularly common thing.
Part 2, the foreign professor using a word/phrase that's not common:
I would treat it similarly to Part 1. Base the grading on what the student understood the question to be asking.
Could the student complain about it: Yes.
Part 3, everybody got it wrong:
In this case, I would throw out the question, because since nobody got it right, something must be wrong with how the question was worded -- and since there was the issue, it's not fair to grade on that question.
Although, I would, as the professor, make sure it was the question that was the issue and not an issue with the class not getting the concept in question.
Could the student complain about it:No, because the question would be a non-factor.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_12: I am French and somehow heard about the word *fortnight*. Since I do not know what this means exactly I would have asked during the exam. From a teacher perspective, this is a completely normal question.
It would have been a different situation if
* the word was *tetra-fluo-carbo-monohydrate* because this is the name of a well -known chemical molecule, and a student passing the exam **in English** is expected to know it no matter what his mother tongue is. (full disclosure: I am an ex-physicist and completely made up the name)
* a word that has a completely different meaning between variations of English (not a false friend as we have many in French-English; but a word that means, say, "clear" in British English and "cloudy" in Singaporean English).
This would have been way more complicated because on the one hand the exam happens in the UK so British English is the reference, but it is not a matter of lack of knowledge of English, just a different English.
This can happen even with casual words. We have in French the word *prochain* which means *next* (*mercredi prochain* = *next Wednesday*). In some regions, however, *prochain* means *the one after next*. In other words, if today is Monday and and I say *mercredi prochain*, some people will understand *the closest Wednesday, that is in two days*, and others *the Wednesday after the closest one, that it in 9 days*.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/12
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<issue_start>username_0: In my final year research project, my supervisor sent me a random research paper of 20 pages and told me to translate it to my native language, using all of the commonly known translation techniques. That was in the field of colonialism and its aftermath of natives. My question is: Does such a thing (translating a research paper) exist internationally in other universities and count for final year research project?
I aske this question because it seems to me unusual that translating a random research paper and counting it as final year research project. The usual idea in my mind is that when a student reaches the final year, they should look for a topic in any field and start their research journey?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't think this would be common, but if your supervisor thinks that it is appropriate then there should be no reason why it should not be allowed. They think you will learn something about the paper that is deeper than you would get from just reading it.
If you are taking a deep view of a topic you may gain some insight that would be hard to get otherwise.
You may even need to read, if not formally translate, some other papers to understand this one, say, the papers it cites.
Most people won't really count this as research, but reading and understanding the literature is a necessary first step. I would probably ask for more, such as an analysis of the paper (at least), but can't disapprove of your supervisor's position.
A doctoral dissertation usually starts with exactly such a step, though probably not with a written translation.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the key issue is that there is no universal standard rules for what a 'final year research project' is supposed to be. Your university has a list of requirements to award a degree, I assume in your case a bachelors degree. This list of requirements includes a final year research project and presumably some rules on what does or doesn't count for such a project at your university. As username_1 pointed out, the specific rules often depend on your department as well and are not the same even across your university.
So I would recommend to check within your university and department what the rules for a final year research project are and to ask around what other students at your university have done for their research projects. I don't think there are any general rules that can decide whether translating a paper would count at your department and unviersity or not.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes, it is uncommon, at least at the place I currently study, if you are only expected to translate the work without adding input to it. Usually, this comes in the form of annotated bibliography or literature review (which you might need to read more works) in order to incorporate with your research or projects. That being said, some instances of translating previous work are considered appropriate.
In defense of that, translating the work can be viewed as the demonstration of the understanding of the work and the necessary knowledge in both field knowledge and communication to translate the literature, which might make this appropriate. That being said, there are other ways to assess this comprehension.
Nevertheless, consulting the university guideline and department policy would help you understand what to expect as others have pointed out that there are no general rules for this.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/13
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<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a mathematical paper where I (re-)state a well-known theorem, followed by several corollaries. One of these corollaries is my main result and, naturally, it is somewhat lost in the text, while I would like it to stand out to the readers without them reading through all the running text (where it is described as the main result). What is the best way to highlight it? Putting a box around it or make a gray background/shading seems like an overkill, but maybe this is the way to go? Any suggestions?
(Sometimes, stating the main result in the very beginning as a theorem is the best way to go, but in this specific paper I would like keep the order of the statements, since I like the corollaries coming after the theorem they are based upon and they also build on one another.)
*Remark:* I first posted this question on Tex Stackexchange, where it was off-topic. I am not sure whether it is on-topic here (I did check the help center, where I would argue that it fits the "academic writing and publishing" topic). If I am wrong, please tell me nicely and suggest an alternative. :-)<issue_comment>username_1: You can use both the Introduction and the Conclusion to point out the significance of any part(s) of your paper. Since most mathematicians will automatically jump to the conclusion that if you call a thing a Theorem and another thing a Corollary that the former is more important. But, as you note, it ain't always so.
The Introduction can note that some "apparently" lesser thing is really the "big bang" and the Conclusion can give the consequences of that.
Actually those consequences can also be alluded to in the Intro.
Likewise, if you provide an abstract, while you mention the "main" Theorem, include words that point to the Corollary as more significant.
And, of course, you may be wrong. If the corollary "follows easily" from the Theorem, then it is more than possible that the Theorem has additional consequences that make it especially significant.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: If I understand your situation correctly, your paper has a well-known theorem (proved by other people) and a number of corollaries which are your results. One of these corollaries is your main result and you would like to highlight it more.
A simple solution would be to just rename the main corollary a theorem.
Then your paper would have two theorems, one in the introduction and credited to other people and one in the main part which is your main result. A result doesn't need to have a difficult proof to be considered a theorem instead of a corollary. If it is important in itself that makes it a theorem.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I don't recommend using visual formatting to accomplish this (other than the normal formatting that applies to all the theorems and corollaries). I also don't recommend delaying the highlighting of your result until the introduction is finished, as another answer suggests. Instead, use words to explicitly communicate the structure and story of the paper to the reader. For example, at the very start of the paper, something like:
"The Lasser Theorem, proved in the seminal paper [1] and stated as Theorem 1.1 below, is known to have many significant applications in this field. Many of its corollaries are stated below, including the important Corollary 1.8 about the non-semisimple Noetherian case. The purpose of this paper is to provide a (new/shorter/more insightful/less dependent on deep theorems) proof of Corollary 1.8."
Then right before stating Corollary 1.8: "As mentioned earlier, the following corollary also follows from Theorem 1.1; in this paper we provide a new proof of the corollary using (model theory/numerical differential equations/similar triangles)."
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If I'm understanding correctly. I think moving the 'well known theorem' part to a section called 'background' would solve your issue, As it removes the extra background stuff from your results. This will mean your actual new/interesting results are by themselves and not 'lost in the text'. Also it just makes sense, since it's well-known it is (nearly by definition) background and your paper is building upon this theorem.
Though with your ordering requirement, I would admit that it may be slightly strange to have a background section immediately preceding the results section. I would just put it in its usual spot though, you can reference back to it if you think it makes sense.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: If you worked as a postdoc, on a grant for example as many do. A situation where it's basically felt to be a glorified continuation of your PhD, with the same routine of checking in and giving progress updates to your PI (who has just replaced your or literally is your old supervisor), are you still able to consider that school your *alma mater*?
A post doc is usually a situation where you're not technically a student, though you retaining the same rights (auditing classes, expected 1 on 1 with professors, etc). Enough of to be a nourishing mother, or just a stretch?<issue_comment>username_1: That would be a stretch. It is nice that you have such a nice experience with your first (in some countries, second) real job. In your future jobs you will continue to learn, and hopefully feel a sense of belonging to those employers as well. But calling them an alma mater would just be confusing.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There are, AFAIK, no regulations governing the use of the term "alma mater". The relevant definition on dictionary.com is:
>
> a school, college, or university at which one has studied and,
> usually, from which one has graduated
>
>
>
and the relevant definition of "study" is
>
> to apply oneself to the acquisition of knowledge, as by reading,
> investigation, or practice
>
>
>
which is definitely something a postdoc does. Since "usually" (with repsect to having graduated from the institution) does not imply "necessarily", I think yes, you can call this institution your alma mater.
Upvotes: -1
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2023/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: I enrolled in a master's program in mathematics a while back and finished my coursework and comprehensive exams with good marks. I had difficulty finishing my thesis since I had no motivation doing it as it was in a field that I am not interested in. I had a full-time job while my thesis was still in progress. Now that I have maxed out the allowed time to finish it, I can no longer finish the degree.
I still wish to pursue a PhD in math, but with what has happened, I feel like my chances of getting accepted in North American programs is very slim. What can I do to improve my chances significantly or is there still anything I can do?<issue_comment>username_1: Please start focusing on your MASTERS thesis, with this you can develop interest in the research area and definitely you will end up with great motivation, which you need at the moment. For a PhD a strong motivation is required, and I wish you achieve a great opportunity for a PhD.
Second option, you can find MS leading PhD programs.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Restart the master's degree when the time feels right for you at a place that will enable you to pursue your real interests.
I have a colleague (in a field other than mathematics) who did a very similar thing. They completed all of the other requirements for their master's degree, but got an excellent full-time job and never handed in their thesis. Many years later, they wanted to resolve the loose end and possibly continue to a Ph.D., so they applied to a master's degree in the same field at a different school. They completed the MA and proceeded to the Ph.D., which they also finished.
Explaining this carefully in your statement of interest is necessary - a department will need reassurance that you'll be able to finish the master's degree the second time around rather than just repeating your own history - but it's doable.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You won't know about how your portfolio is viewed until you apply.
PhD students are a very big commitment for a department and an investigator. If a student doesn't finish, the resources the department put into that student are lost.
For this reason, one of the primary concerns for admissions committees when making choices about students is "if we admit this student, will they finish".
Toward that decision, an incomplete Master's degree is a pretty big red flag. I advise that your application should thus try to mollify the committees concerns over the issue, convincing them that if accepted, you'll be in for the long haul. FWIW, I don't think the "I wasn't interested in the work, so I didn't finish" is particularly compelling toward making that case.
So, where does that leave you. There may be programs in your field that don't go by the "let's not lose any students" narrative. They may provide almost nothing in the way of resources until you pass a qualifier exam and find a mentor. Programs like that often eliminate a good portion of there graduate student population at the qualifier. I think your chances for admission are best at an institution like that. Be warned, my perception is that schools have been moving away from that admissions model.
You should also apply to schools that you consider your 2nd or 3rd tier, but with a strong mentor in the area you want to work in. They may not have the same size or quality of applicant pool as your top tier schools, but you'll still get a fine education.
Note that the burden of reviewing the application and admitting a graduate student goes up for nondomestic students, because of the visa issues. Most schools that routinely admit nondomestic students probably have this well in hand, but I do think admissions committees from top tier schools may really try to make offers to only the cream of the crop from the foreign applicant pool.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Given that you don't normally fail a PhD so much as fail to complete a PhD I would have severe questions in your ability to complete a PhD as you struggle to do it for a much much shorter masters thesis (A PhD is in most cases an exercise in perceverance)
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: How would you call an award given by students to their favourite professor/instructor by voting? *"Favourite professor award"*? Any other suggestions?
This is not about how a new award should be named, but about how to properly identify this type of award in, say, one's CV.
The students gave the award a particular name ('<NAME>') but, finally, the medal they prepared had the inscription 'Best Teacher [of a given degree]'.<issue_comment>username_1: My former institute has a "Teacher Talent Award" for junior lecturers, the teachers are nominated by Faculty Student Councils. A name like this may make clear that there might be a distinction between popular, nice, and *good/talented* professors. If that would be something you'd like.
My former institute also has an award named after a former rector magnificus for senior teachers, for that prize they use student evaluations (as well as some other metrics), not direct voting. Still, using the name of a former professor that was exceptional at your institute might be a nice idea.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Given the extra context provided, what about this?
*"Best Teacher students award"*
as in "Best Actor Academy Award".
Upvotes: -1
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2023/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: It's a finance paper. Is there any problem with adding somebody with a Master in English as a coauthor, since he could help me correct the grammatical mistakes and make the paper more readable?<issue_comment>username_1: Helping you polish a paper is not earning co-authorship, unless they have substantive contribution to content.
You can thank them in the acknowledgement, or pay them for language editing service, but authorship is not a suitable compensation.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Co-authorship is based on contribution, not credentials. If someone participated significantly in the content of your paper, then they should be credited, even if they have an unrelated degree, or none at all.
However, editing is form, not content. A person who helps you with the mechanics of writing a paper, such as editing, formatting, transcribing, translation, etc., but not with the subject matter content of the paper can be given acknowledgement, but doesn't warrant co-authorship. General rule: if you can get someone from Fiverr to do it, it's probably not co-authorship.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: It should be noted that there is a difference between editing and writing. If they wrote several paragraphs from scratch, found relevant references, and contributed conceptually to the presentation of the manuscript, in many fields that is an intellectual contribution that warrants authorship. However, if someone only edited your existing paragraphs, then this does not warrant authorship in pretty much any field of academia I am aware of. Payment for their services, or if they are a friend and don't want payment, a meal or gift is a nice gesture. If you don't pay for their services an acknowledgment in the paper is ethically obligatory in my opinion.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/14
| 1,214
| 4,759
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<issue_start>username_0: My field is mathematics. I am editing a preprint for submission to a journal and one requirement is an abstract length of 150-250 words. I find it quite surprising that there is a minimum length for the abstract. My abstract has 60 words and three statements: The result, the method, and the halfway point. I also see similarly short abstracts in many other math papers.
What is the likelihood that I can safely ignore the minimum-length rule?<issue_comment>username_1: Your question has 82 words, 35% more than what you claim your abstract has. If you claim that within that length, you can adequately express the content of a paper, your expectations of your audience are probably too high. Surely it is not asking too much to outline your work in a way that is accessible to not only those who have thought about the field for years and understand the relevance of a work from the statement of a result. Instead, spend some time and space thinking about how you would explain what you do in the paper at a level that is understandable to a second-year graduate student. I think that, generally, writing research papers so that they are understandable to second-year graduate students is the right level -- and that would then include also explaining why they should care (e.g., what a result *implies*, how it connects to other knowledge, what one can do with the result), rather than just dropping a true statement onto your reader.
There you have it -- in 179 words.
---
What I write above is of course not an answer to your actual question. It is a justification for why the limit is there to begin with: Because in pure math, there is a tradition of brevity to the point where it is essentially impossible for outsiders to a field (including those second year graduate students) to understand what the *point* of a paper is: The paper is simply the statement of a result, without any context. Minimum abstract lengths are an attempt of at least requiring authors to think about explaining themselves slightly better.
In practice, it is possible that no-one is going to call you on that unless there is a part of the online submission system that counts words and will only let you submit the paper if you meet the minimum requirements. But I think you ought to *consider* changing your writing style by taking into account the *point* of publications: Namely, to *teach*. Papers aren't repositories of facts (or at least they shouldn't be), but they are a way of teaching others about what you discovered. You write them for *people*, not machines, so take into account how others will *read* your papers and *learn* from them.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: What I would do in this case is to submit the paper as is. Most likely, your paper will be recommended for acceptance or rejection based on its content, not on the length of the abstract. If it is rejected, then you might be resubmitting it to a different journal with a different set of requirements.
If the managing editor objects to the abstract, then expand the abstract. There is a very good chance that nobody on the editorial board really cares about this restriction, as it is coming from the publisher that uses this as a requirement for all its journals regardless of the area.
For the record: my area is pure math and I have about 100 published papers, many of which were initially rejected. But it was never on the basis of some formal requirements such as the length of the abstract.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: My purpose here, is simply to relate an amusing story that supports the suggestion by @MoisheKohan, that you send your paper as it is, with an abstract of the length you think is appropriate.
In his book, *Tracking the Automatic Ant*, <NAME> (p. 28) tells the tale of these two papers:
>
> Anning, <NAME>., and <NAME>. Integral distances. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 51, 598-600 (1945). [MF 12821]
>
>
>
>
> <NAME>. Integral distances. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 51, 996 (1945). [MF 14475]
>
>
>
that describe the [Erdős-Anning theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s%E2%80%93Anning_theorem).
The second paper, which was a mere 143 words long, improves on a result reported in the first paper.
According to <NAME>, the subsequent review in *AMS Mathematical Reviews* of the second paper was actually longer than the paper itself (by four words!) because it included the introduction: *"The paper read as follows:"* So there you have a paper of 143 words, and a review of 147 words ... both of which are shorter than the (supposed) minimum abstract length that you are facing.
Take a chance! Take [@MoisheKohan's advice](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/194285/104266).
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/14
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<issue_start>username_0: In my pure math thesis I have an important lemma and I want to name it. The statement is quite technical so I will omit quite a lot of details.
I want to call this lemma “the adding lemma”. My supervisor thinks it should be “the addition lemma”.
I feel like it should be “adding” because there are other results like the pump**ing** lemma (formal languages) or the lift**ing** lemma (polynomial algebra). Both pumping and lifting have -ing suffix and they somehow describe the “action” the lemma performs (pumping lemma: a string can be *pumped*—that is, have a middle section of the string repeated an arbitrary number of times) (lifting lemma: ...root can be *lifted* to a unique root modulo...).
The lemma in my thesis basically allows us to add objects to a structure. I will disregard plenty of details. If I have a formula which satisfies something, the lemma asserts there is exactly one witness which satisfies something. Thus we can add the object expressed by the formula to our structure.
I feel like “the adding lemma” follows the same logic as the names of the pumping and the lifting lemma.
Should it be the adding lemma, or the addition lemma? This is more about the English language and less about math.<issue_comment>username_1: Addition would seem to imply a numerical action. Adding can mean that or other things; adding carrots to the soup. But there are other possibilities with other words.
How about "insertion lemma" since that seems more descriptive, though there is already something with that name: <https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.13543>
But you might think a bit more about the "best" name, not the one that came to mind first.
And, fighting with your supervisor is seldom the best career move. It really only matters if this lemma is significant enough that the idea can be generally applied and is likely to be adopted by others.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally, when a theorem is about a particular action or operation, it's named with the noun form of that operation.
The verbs "pump" and "lift" don't have special noun forms, at least not that I can think of, and so English defaults to using the [verbal noun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun) (aka gerundial noun) to describe the corresponding actions. These are usually formed with "-ing" like the present participle, so we have *pumping lemma* and *lifting lemma*.
The verb "add" does have such a form, namely "addition". (Apparently this is called a [deverbal noun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deverbal_noun)). So when talking about this action as a noun, we would normally prefer that form.
As other examples, we would say *existence lemma* instead of *existing lemma*, *extension theorem* instead of *extending theorem*, and so on.
I would agree with your advisor and prefer to use *addition lemma* in this case.
(As another example, if you rewrite this answer replacing "action" by "acting", and "operation" by "operating", it sounds very strange.)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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2023/03/15
| 782
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<issue_start>username_0: As in the title. The relationship between two countries seems to go towards a colder climate and actual war scenarios are discussed (slightly) more openly.
What are possible implications for academia in the long-term? This includes:
* Chinese student admission to the US (and their tuition fees)
* Hiring of Chinese nationals at American universities
* American college campuses in China (e.g., NYU and Duke)
* Scientific collaborations between universities in different countries
* Scientific publishing
* Conference attendance (in the US and worldwide)
Concretely, (no matter how silly this may sound) I am organizing a conference and I am wary of inviting too many Americans and Chinese into one room.
I know, for comparison, that many Iranians are admitted to live and work in the US, despite the very icy climate between the two countries. But I don't whether Americans travel to Iran to the same extent, and there has never been open warfare. On the other hand, many Western academic systems have reportedly toned down or stopped their scientific collaboration with Russia over the last year (see also, e.g., [Nature](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00552-w)).<issue_comment>username_1: Addition would seem to imply a numerical action. Adding can mean that or other things; adding carrots to the soup. But there are other possibilities with other words.
How about "insertion lemma" since that seems more descriptive, though there is already something with that name: <https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.13543>
But you might think a bit more about the "best" name, not the one that came to mind first.
And, fighting with your supervisor is seldom the best career move. It really only matters if this lemma is significant enough that the idea can be generally applied and is likely to be adopted by others.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally, when a theorem is about a particular action or operation, it's named with the noun form of that operation.
The verbs "pump" and "lift" don't have special noun forms, at least not that I can think of, and so English defaults to using the [verbal noun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_noun) (aka gerundial noun) to describe the corresponding actions. These are usually formed with "-ing" like the present participle, so we have *pumping lemma* and *lifting lemma*.
The verb "add" does have such a form, namely "addition". (Apparently this is called a [deverbal noun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deverbal_noun)). So when talking about this action as a noun, we would normally prefer that form.
As other examples, we would say *existence lemma* instead of *existing lemma*, *extension theorem* instead of *extending theorem*, and so on.
I would agree with your advisor and prefer to use *addition lemma* in this case.
(As another example, if you rewrite this answer replacing "action" by "acting", and "operation" by "operating", it sounds very strange.)
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a university professor in Europe and was recently invited by my alma mater in the Middle East to give a talk on a topic of my choosing. Excited to accept the invitation, I traveled to the university to deliver my lecture. Upon arrival, I discovered that my talk had been scheduled in a small room, in contrast to the larger main halls used for other talks in their guest speaker series, including those given by graduate students from other institutions. This disparity left me feeling disrespected and considering declining the invitation.
Additionally, I noticed a cultural trend in my home country where accomplishments are often exaggerated. For example, a first-year PhD student's biography might seem more impressive than mine, despite my more extensive experience. I'm unsure if this detail is relevant to the situation but wanted to mention it for context.<issue_comment>username_1: If I was you, I would feel slightly surprised and puzzled for a few seconds, and then forget about it and carry on.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Cultural and local differences aside: As long as there are a few people in the audience who really care about what you have to say, it is worth it to give a talk.
I have talked for an audience of 6 and for an audience of 600 - and they can both be great talks and great discussions (usually better discussions with a smaller crowd). So I would not be too hung up on the room size (actually, as a host I always try to book a room that is easier to make look full, which is then by definition a smaller room so it doesn't feel too empty if the audience turn up is smaller than hoped). Let us know how the talk went!
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Audiences for in-person events are much smaller post-COVID. Many people attend events online. Our department seminars are typically less than half as big as they were in 2019 because many more students and faculty work from home. And, during the February one we held in-person (we asked people to come in if they could to make the big name person feel appreciated) several people got COVID. I am guessing that the next ones will be smaller again.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I disagree with your underlying notion that the size of the room has anything to do with the importance of the speaker. There are many perfectly normal reasons why you might be scheduled for a smaller room:
* You were added late to the roster and the larger rooms were already booked.
* The larger room has some sort of special equipment or resources that the grad students need for their presentation but that you do not (or vice versa). For the same reason, some presentations may get recorded, and will necessarily end up in whichever room has the A/V equipment set up.
* Some rooms (large or small) get reserved for presentations that are part of a series, where audiences can easily sit through multiple talks on connected topics. Whether or not your presentation fits one of those series can dictate where the presentation takes place.
* Student presentations could be expected to draw large crowds of friends, fellow students, etc., that would necessitate the larger room.
The last time I gave a conference presentation, the organizer put me in a smaller room because he was particularly interested in the topic and the smaller room meant that it was easier for him to hear me since there wasn't a microphone/loudspeaker involved.
All said, I wouldn't think twice about the size of the room that they put you in. Unless you have reason to believe you'll draw a crowd that's beyond the room's capacity, I don't think it's worth mentioning at all.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: Conference organizers usually assign room sizes for presentations based on how large of an audience they expect.
Some topics attract large audiences, others only small audiences. But just because the organizers expect that the topic of your talk to be aimed at a niche audience does not necessarily mean they consider the topic or the presenter less important.
Note that conference organizers do not always have the best intuition regarding how popular each talk is going to be. I was on conferences where I couldn't join talk A because the small room was already full, so I went to another talk B in the great hall instead where only the first 3 ranks were filled.
Upvotes: 0
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<issue_start>username_0: I am looking for some advice on how to take notes effectively when the professor reads off their lecture notes or presents slides with marginal explanations. My preferred format is to have textual notes that I took myself, as I find that writing things down helps me remember and understand the material better. However, in these cases I struggle to keep up as I have to both write down stuff and follow the explanation, while the professor instantly has everything written down and only has to explain it. If this can be of any help, I am the first year of a PhD in mathematical economics, and I usually use a notetaking app and a tablet with a pen to take notes.
The two situations I encounter most often are:
* The professor has really good lecture notes and reads off them while lecturing, writing some stuff on the whiteboard, adding explanations but not changing anything major from the notes.
* The professor has really good slides and presents them and writes notes on them using an electronic whiteboard.
In the first situation, I find it challenging to decide what to write down and what to leave out since the professor is essentially reading from their lecture notes. Moreover, while the professor adds some explanations, they are usually marginal, and the bulk of the material is already in the notes. On the other hand, if I do not write down anything, I am afraid I might miss some crucial details or examples.
In the second situation, I find slides to be space-inefficient so I would prefer not to take notes on the slides. However, the professor can present complex mathematical formulae and derivations without writing them down, which makes it hard for me to follow and understand the material if I have to first copy the formulae and then write notes around them. Sometimes I screenshot the formula and paste the screenshot in my notes, which is not too uncomfortable to do on my tablet, but I still find it quite inefficient.
I would appreciate any advice on how to take effective notes in these situations. How can I avoid copying everything down (or not avoid it, but do so efficiently) and still capture the essential material?<issue_comment>username_1: I would ask the professor to make their slides available the day before the lecture. If they agree then download them as necessary and print them out.
If they permit it, you can also record the lecture (voice only, perhaps).
During the lecture, use the printed slides as your notebook, writing on them as needed.
But the key is that after the lecture (same day if possible), review your notes and extract the key points from them in another, cleaner, notebook. Annotate these with page numbers from any available text.
The summaries become your main review documents, but keep the messy slides you annotated for reference when needed.
Recording alone may be enough if they won't publish the slides.
But explaining to the prof how helpful the slides would be for learning may be enough to get them to go along. Even if they make last second changes to the slides the previous version would still likely be helpful.
Note that the revision step aids learning. We learn (deeply) through repetition (along with feedback).
---
If getting slides beforehand is impossible, another technique is to read the material from a textbook prior to the class, making notes as you go about what isn't totally clear. Then use those notes to guide your listening and note taking during class, perhaps asking the prof when your prepared questions don't get answered in the lecture.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Here is what worked for me (20 years ago when tablets were not yet invented):
If a professor used slides, I would print them "4 up" and take notes right on the slides. That way, it wasn't very space-consuming but still leaving me enough space for all the notes I wanted to take. Plus, I could easily identify the important slides afterwards: typically, the amount of notes on a slide was correlated to its importance.
If a professor had a script or book that did not leave enough space for notes, I took some blank sheets with me and only took notes on those, always adding a reference to the book or script (chapter, page, formula, whatever seemed appropriate). Of course, having a pyhsical book / script and physical sheets allowed me to place them at approximately the right place, so I would stumble across them when revising. I can't tell if your tablet and notetaking app allow for something similar.
In general, I tried to take as much notes as possible without losing track of the lecture, because taking no notes often made me lose focus. However, I would never copy stuff that was already in the lecture notes or slides, as that was what I considered inefficient.
Have you tried different apps? I have only recently started using a PC with touchscreen during my teaching, and the first thing I did was to try different programs that allowed annotating PDF documents with a digital pen because the differences turned out to be huge.
Finally, you might consider not only downloading the slides before the lecture but also skimming through them and taking screenshots of the larger formulae ahead of time. That way, you could focus on actual note taking during the lecture and not on technicalities.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: I want to describe my situation first. I was employed in a German institute as a PhD researcher with a contract. I had to go through a six-month probation period. However, since the first day in this group, I’ve been experiencing overwhelming pressure and anxiety from high load of work without proper supervision from the supervisor (he is just ‘too busy’ to teach me except for asking me to do this and that).
I’m not complaining about the group and the professor here as I attribute this to a mismatch between myself and the group. Thanks to the probation period, I can opt to quit the group after five months of working here to prevent further harm to both sides.
But still, I have a strong will to pursue a PhD to do further research. I’m just wondering if my experience in this group would affect my further application. I don’t want to be dishonest, so could I properly describe this experience in my CV and to my potential future supervisor?
---
Edit: it seems inevitable to expand some of my experience in my previous group. First of all, I'm not against independent studying and thinking, but I spent a lot of time solving most problems all by myself, and the supervisor only said something like "try your best" without even a single word hint!
What is more, I got almost no feedback from him and I only needed to do whatever I was asked to do. I seldom have a chance to talk about my idea, and my opinions are worth nothing. If the supervisor thought I was wrong then that was it, there was no room for discussion.<issue_comment>username_1: There shouldn't be any particular issue in the US, provided that you meet the criteria for acceptance. It seems likely that you will, but note the importance of letters of recommendation here.
You will need to mention this educational experience and provide any transcripts and such in the US, but having left voluntarily and on good terms shouldn't raise any particular issues.
See the answer for the US (and elsewhere) to [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/176908/75368) for more on applications. Note that in the US, acceptance is by a committee of faculty, not by individual PIs. And, admissions can be quite competitive.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer to the title question is quite certainly "yes". I'm not aware of any regulation anywhere that would prevent you from doing that (although of course I don't know all places).
It's hard to say whether stating in a straight way that you have left your earlier program in the probation period will harm your chances. Of course you can say in one or two sentences that the specific work environment in that group didn't seem to be a good fit for you, but don't expand it too much. I suspect that in Italy where I am it won't be a problem, as applications are rated by a points system and as far as I'm aware such a thing is covered in hardly any point scheme (these have to be decided before applications come in) if at all. I suspect that wherever formal criteria have to be fixed before receiving applications this kind of thing won't feature in the criteria, which is good for you.
There will always be a subjective component in assessing applications, in some places more, namely where there are relatively lenient minimum formal criteria and beyond these potential supervisors make personal decisions, in other places less (any formal system can be "played" to some extent, for example to favour a subjectively preferred candidate). It is hard to say how much of a problem your issue is in this respect. I'd expect that occasionally somebody may want to shy away from such a candidate but more often than not it won't matter much (although it can make a difference if there is competition that is otherwise equally qualified), but that's just speculation.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: My supervisor said to me that a supervisor isn't expected to help a student with such problems as errors in statistical packages (R, etc). I suppose it refers to all sort of data managing questions. I asked him, what if I am stuck, what should I do? Go to a stats teacher or do it on my own and he said do it on my own (Google it, etc, etc).
While I understand that I can't expect my supervisor to sit with me all day, I'm lost... Is it okay? Like, aren't there situations when you're just lost and need help? Especially when for him it will be a five minute solution while I can sit there for days and weeks, frustrated and helpless.
This attitude of his makes me anxious and self-doubting even more. Now I hesitate every time I want to ask him something.
I really don't know how to deal with this. I wonder if I'm just not suited for academia since I "can't work independently enough".<issue_comment>username_1: Your supervisor is correct. Most supervisors don't help at this level of detail. You have some options: take a class in that particular programming language/stats software (sometimes there are things like summer workshops you can enroll in), Google and get responses from listserves or somewhere like StackeExchange, or ask a peer.
One of the benefits to being a student is that there are usually peers or older students who you can form groups with. This is the benefit of sitting in a lab or PhD student offices - you will make friends and be able to help each other with these mundane roadblocks.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> a supervisor isn't expected to help a student with such problems as errors in statistical packages (R, etc).
>
>
>
This is correct. Your advisor should look at your results, give you feedback on them ("this looks buggy!"), and suggest next steps. Or, even better, should discuss next steps with you. Getting from one wicket to the next is your job.
>
> Especially when for him it will be a five minute solution while I can sit there for days and weeks, frustrated and helpless.
>
>
>
Don't be afraid to own your time. If you don't know much about software fundamentals, you can devote a couple of days or weeks to studying the topic. This may save time in the long run.
If you know the fundamentals but still can't solve something (even after many attempts), it is totally OK to ask for help. Seeing someone else's workflow can be very useful to you. But, the person you ask for help might not be your advisor -- it may be another student or post-doc. Some advisors haven't touched code in 20+ years and couldn't help you if they wanted to. Hopefully you can identify someone; having to figure everything out by yourself is really challenging, since you "don't know what you don't know."
>
> I wonder if I'm just not suited for academia since I "can't work independently enough."
>
>
>
This is an overreaction; if you could already work independently, there would be no need to attend graduate school. It sounds like your advisor has thrown you in the deep end a bit, expecting you to learn how to use unfamiliar software to solve difficult problems with minimal guidance. This is mostly OK, so long as he understands that things will move slowly while you are getting up to speed. If he is pressuring you for instant results and insulting you for not already knowing these things, that's poor supervision on his part.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Read the documentation of the packages. Test the packages - not only check if they provide a sound result (e.g. in comparison with NIST's [Statistical Reference Datasets](https://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/strd/index.html)), but to get familiar *enough* to work with them. Consider attending user group meetings in your area (a [directories](https://benubah.github.io/r-community-explorer/rugs.html), [R-Ladies](https://www.rladies.org/), or the [RUGS program](https://www.r-consortium.org/all-projects/r-user-group-support-program)), or joining a discussion group - either linked to the program (like [r/rstats](https://www.reddit.com/r/rstats/) on reddit), or "just statistics"/ agnostic to the software you use like [crossvalidated](https://stats.stackexchange.com/)\* - even if your *initial* intend might be to listen / read only, they may be a source of inspiration (like the [R journal](https://journal.r-project.org/)) and help.
If you are a beginner in R, perhaps the starter workshops [Programming with R](http://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-inflammation/) and [R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis](https://swcarpentry.github.io/r-novice-gapminder/) by [software-carpentry.org](https://software-carpentry.org/) help you to get started. There equally are many recordings of tutorials/conferences on sites like youtube, too.
\* Said sibling site cross-validated offers to tag questions with `R` for which `R` is "considered as a critical part of the question or expected answer" but [the question is] "not *just* about how to use `R`". So far, the page hosts 28k+ questions and answers. With a [minimal reproducible example](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_reproducible_example), there are good chances to obtain help *specific* to the statistics.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: There are multiple layers to the answer:
First, tools evolve fast, and when working at the cutting edge, your advisor can't reasonably be expected to know everything. Other answers are correct: find a community of other students with similar interests. Some papers will also include open source code, as a knowledge base that can help learn from those who came before.
**However**: that doesn't mean that your advisor or department is powerless. Many big schools are developing ways to help: semi-official orgs (like [Software Carpentry](https://software-carpentry.org/)) offer workshops in programming or stats tools, run by and for students. Some departments will also have dedicated stats or methods consulting: either through a local employee who helps with coding questions, or another department. (where I am, several stats groups have "consulting" hours where they invite interesting mathematical problems for potential collaboration) Ask around.
My rule of thumb: even if I don't know the answer, I try to build a collection of learning resources that prior students found useful (oreilly has some good introductory R books, for example- your library might even have a way to read them free online).
I've seen too many faculty cover for lack of knowledge with bludgeons like "it's easy" or "if you're smart you'll figure it out". If a tool or skill is critical to your group, expect to get asked this question more than once, and help foster those connections that make a training program come alive.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: One faculty I know used an "order of magnitude" approximation for when to go for help, loosely based on salary.
Suppose a faculty member is paid $50/hr, the graduate student is paid $15/hr, and the undergraduate is paid $8/hr. Actual numbers certainly vary on time, field, and location. Then, the grad/undergrad ratio is 1:2, the faculty/undergrad ratio is 1:6, and the grad/faculty ratio is 1:3.
Your advisor certainly can solve many of your problems, and probably quicker than you can, but doing so is not always the best use of resources. You are paid as a student to solve problems on your own, because what your advisor really needs is independent effort. If a grad student thinks a 1 hour meeting would solve their problem, it still might make overall sense to have the grad student grind away at it for 2-4 hours instead of taking up an hour of their advisors' time. An advisor might want their undergrad to work for an entire day without making progress before they come and seek out faculty time. Conversely, if you know this is a 20 hour problem for you, but a 1 hour problem for your advisor because you have genuinely different skill sets, then calling them in immediately might make perfect sense.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: As a rule of thumb the concrete, low-level help from supervisor to student is inversely proportional to the seniority of supervisor and student. A bachelor student will need more help while a PhD student will be expected to work largely independently, for example.
Crucially, there's a point at which "you're the expert now" and there simply is no-one else to ask. Much of university/higher education aims at getting you there.
So it is usually not really about how long it takes an *expert versus you to get the job done*. Most of the time, it's about how long it takes *you to learn the skill* to get the job done; getting the job done is a nice side-effect and learning opportunity but not necessarily the goal itself.
In this regards, try and see both experts and supervisor as tools – just like a book on the topic, or Google, or forums, or peer groups, or courses, or similar. Notably, human experts and supervisors are a much more limited resource than, say, an instant search engine 24/7 available. As a rule of thumb, your first instinct should always be to start at the more available resources and move to more expert resources as a) your grasp of the topic increases to narrow the issue down and b) the necessity for expert advice to solve the issue becomes clear.
So yes: You should try and do it on your own. Only if that fails, then go ask an expert.
---
That said, your supervisor should not just be an elusive mastermind that you do not dare talking to. Learning to work independently includes learning when you are at your actual limits. Your supervisor might want you to push your limits to improve them but the point is not to ignore those limits. So:
>
> This attitude of his makes me anxious and self-doubting even more. Now I hesitate every time I want to ask him something.
>
>
>
No matter where you are in your studies, *this is something to talk about with your supervisor*. That is not about putting blame on them or you, but about making you learn how to deal with such a situation yourself. Be honest, be upfront, ask for their advice and make them aware there is a problem that keeps you from working independently.
Ultimately, your supervisor is not there to give you a fish. They are not there to teach you how to fish. They are there to teach you how to teach yourself how to fish.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: Is this your degree, or your supervisor's?
If the answer is the former, why are you expecting your supervisor to put in effort to complete your degree for you?
Their job is to guide the direction of your studies, **not** babysit you through the day-to-day minutiae involved in them. If the concepts that you are having problems with are something you can reasonably be expected to already know or figure out on your own as part of your degree's focus, it's *your* responsibility to put in the effort to master them.
Upvotes: 1
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<issue_start>username_0: For context I am an electrical engineer and this is a paper for an electrical engineering conference.
I am currently writing my first research paper, and there have been many papers published in the area but I would say that with the exception of one, none of them had any direct influence on the research that my colleagues and I did. Essentially we made improvements to a seminal paper, and really only focused on this paper during our research.
In giving a historical overview of the problem I feel it necessary to mention the influential papers on the topic, although I am unsure as to whether to cite anything else as we only looked at their papers to make sure what we did had not been done before, or that something obviously better did not exist.
So I am wondering how do I decide which papers to cite? Is there any sort of politics involved that I should be aware of in terms of which papers I should be citing?<issue_comment>username_1: #### First figure out the *purpose* of what you want to do
Step back a bit and ask yourself: why am I giving a historical review of the literature at all? You say that there is one seminal paper in this field and you are extending it in a way that is not related to other papers in the field. If that is the case, ask yourself what context you actually need to give to present this improvement in the literature. Is there some reason it is helpful to your reader to give broader historical context on other things done in the field? Are there other innovations in the field that your reader would want to know about to help to understand your work in this paper?
Without knowing the details of your research project, I don't know what the answers to these questions will be. But once you answer those questions, it will tell you what you are actually trying to give your reader, which will then give you a sound basis for deciding what parts of the literature are relevant to what you want to do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Any paper that you touched across the entire project should be cited. Yes, it sounds a lot, however that is your “proof” that you did research about the topic and also your justification for your new development. For instance, when you are presenting your lit review or conclusions about the findings you can cite those previous studies as reference, and showing the added value of your work or contribution of what they did. I hope it helps!
Upvotes: 2
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<issue_start>username_0: I read this: "All types of literature reviews including systematic reviews, integrated reviews, bibliometric reviews, content analyses, hybrid reviews, etc., as long as they are not descriptive, are encouraged". I only knew about descriptive reviews.<issue_comment>username_1: #### First figure out the *purpose* of what you want to do
Step back a bit and ask yourself: why am I giving a historical review of the literature at all? You say that there is one seminal paper in this field and you are extending it in a way that is not related to other papers in the field. If that is the case, ask yourself what context you actually need to give to present this improvement in the literature. Is there some reason it is helpful to your reader to give broader historical context on other things done in the field? Are there other innovations in the field that your reader would want to know about to help to understand your work in this paper?
Without knowing the details of your research project, I don't know what the answers to these questions will be. But once you answer those questions, it will tell you what you are actually trying to give your reader, which will then give you a sound basis for deciding what parts of the literature are relevant to what you want to do.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Any paper that you touched across the entire project should be cited. Yes, it sounds a lot, however that is your “proof” that you did research about the topic and also your justification for your new development. For instance, when you are presenting your lit review or conclusions about the findings you can cite those previous studies as reference, and showing the added value of your work or contribution of what they did. I hope it helps!
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/15
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<issue_start>username_0: I contacted a professor and asked him for a PhD supervision, his reply was:
>
> Dear XXX,
>
> I will retire in 2 years.
>
> Best regards
>
>
>
How could I reply to this email? Is it ok to have this professor as my PhD supervisor and to find another professor who will be my second supervisor, can I talk to him about this?<issue_comment>username_1: He is telling you no. If you reply at all, just thank him for his time and wish him the best on his forthcoming retirement.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I once asked a professor to marry me - more precisely, to *perform a marriage* because he was a minister of the [Universal Life Church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Life_Church).
He used a similar retirement argument, pointing to a younger professor who had similar credentials. I referred to his seniority and acclaim as the reason I'd consider only him, he found it sufficiently *amusing* and/or complementary, and said okay.
To
>
> I will retire in 2 years.
>
>
>
I would first congratulate well, then say "I won't bother you further, but because of your X, Y and Z I think that *even a short time interacting with you* would be an incredible experience for me, and this way you won't have to bother with all the paperwork and aggravation of the graduation part."
It's just possible the first "No" is not the final, and may just be a check to see just how serious you are and how willing you might be to change primaries later.
***However*** you may want to do a quick check to make sure they currently have students. If it looks like they've emptied their nest already, or nearly so, then maybe it doesn't make sense to ask again.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think that username_1's assessment of your professor's intention is almost certainly correct, but I slightly disagree with his recommended course of action. I think that both
(a) the professor is *almost* certainly declining to be your PhD supervisor, and
(b) it was slightly inconsiderate of him to leave any ambiguity at all in his response, which he has done - especially given factors like the power imbalance, the high stakes (for your career), and the fact that as a beginning graduate student, you are unlikely to understand the implicit norms and context that make it clear that he is saying "no".
In order to remove that last shred of ambiguity, I would suggest responding to the professor and explicitly stating your understanding. Something like: "Thank you, Professor. I understand your response to mean that you are not willing to take on any new students, since you will retire before they could complete their dissertation. If I have misunderstood, please let me know. Otherwise, thank you for your time and enjoy your upcoming retirement."
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/16
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted an article to one of the JAMA network specialty journals. I asked for my article to be referred to a second specialty journal if not deemed acceptable for publication by the first. However, the editor of the first journal did not send it out for peer review and thus it was not referred to the second specialty journal at all.
I still think my manuscript could be a good fit for that second journal. Does anyone know the policy for re-submitting since it was technically not reviewed by that second journal?<issue_comment>username_1: Broadly speaking journals aren't aware what other journals are doing, even if they're operated by the same publisher. In fact unless you are in the (very rare especially for large journals) case where the same employee is assigned to both journals, the second journal is not likely to even notice.
You can just submit your manuscript to the second journal.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you have a clear statement from the editor/publisher that the paper has been rejected, then you can submit it anywhere you choose. Different journals, even with the same publisher, have different policies about what they will publish.
If you have formally withdrawn the paper with a written statement to the editor/publisher, then you can also submit it anywhere you choose. An email is all it takes.
But the rule is "one journal at a time". Editors frown (pretty deeply) if they learn you have multiple concurrent submissions. Don't go there.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: I have recently become editor-in-chief of an open access journal (Statistica) that works on a platform provided by OJS. In the web editorial system, the word "decline" is used for what I'd normally call "reject", i.e., we "decline" a submitted paper. I don't think I have seen this elsewhere, as far as I'm aware it is always called "reject".
The meaning of the word "decline", as far as my English goes, fits here, so I don't feel confident to say that this is wrong, but it is unusual at least.
Unfortunately I can't edit all occurrences of the term in the system manually without contacting support. I'm in fact not sure whether this term comes from the original OJS platform or whether the open access publishing team at my University (Bologna, Italy) is responsible for this (non-native speakers).
My question is whether you think "decline" is just fine and correct here (even if unusual), or whether it's worth the hassle to get it changed to "reject" (this for example concerns the text in decision letter templates, i.e., it will be used in decision letters to authors unless the individual letter is manually changed).<issue_comment>username_1: "Decline" and "reject" have very similar meanings, with the former having a connotation that some sort of deliberation went into it, whereas the latter lacks any empathy. I decline to accept your low-ball offer to buy my house. A machine rejects the broken egg coming down the conveyor belt. Most people will likely consider the two words interchangeable in most circumstances.
My take is that that is probably not the hill you want to die on, though there is little harm in changing the word if you want -- "reject" *is* the more commonly used word in the publishing process. You will likely find that that is among the less consequential things you have to decide upon in your new role as editor-in-chief.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it matters much.
I just browsed through a couple rejection notices I've received (everyone thinks these are bad to receive, but here I've found a positive use for them!) - none contain the word "reject" or a derivative of that word. Instead the phrasing is things like "cannot consider further" or "suggest publication in a different journal" for a desk-rejection, along with a softening language such as "we decline a majority of manuscripts received". It's possible the word would have shown up in the submission portal someplace, but not in the emailed notices from editors.
I would focus instead on making sure your decision letters to authors are **clear about the next steps**. For example, consider language along the lines of "We will not consider a resubmission of your manuscript" rather than worrying about the distinction between declining and rejecting. I don't recall ever encountering ambiguity about this, but this is the sort of message that seems most helpful to people who ask for interpretation here on Academia.SE (especially those communicating in a language different from their native language).
@Anyon has a great link to a blog from Science about the phrasing in rejection notices: <https://www.science.org/content/article/we-regret-inform-you-your-scientific-manuscripts-will-be-rejected> which provides a direct response to the question asked here:
>
> There’s a word they’re dancing around here, and it’s “reject.” Journals will never say they reject your article, only that they’re unable to accept your article. The gentleness of that sentiment might be reassuring if it weren’t so disingenuous. I mean, “unable to accept” doesn’t technically mean your article is unacceptable, only that they lacked the ability to accept it at this time—maybe, I don’t know, their computers stopped working. But deep down you know it really means they could have accepted your manuscript, but have, in fact, chosen not to.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
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<issue_start>username_0: Let's assume your article has been published and is now available. What do you do you next? Notice it and move on? Celebrate with your team? Read it again ? Print it?
I notice that my own behaviour towards my own work has changed quite a lot recently. In the very first years, I would print every single article, talk to my peers about the publication, etc... While now, the "excitement and joy" are no longer the same, it became "business" to some extent. Did you (senior colleagues) experience the same?<issue_comment>username_1: I've always felt acceptance is the more major milestone, and is the natural time for congratulations and potentially celebrations. After publication is a good time for book keeping, i.e. updating CV, website, institutional repositories and so on. Depending on the paper, promotion of the results may be in order. Reading it again right after publication is very optional, and something I'm rarely inclined to do if I was involved in the proofs stage. Overall though, getting your first article published is of course more of an event and much more exciting than getting the (N+1)th article published... You can probably think of other events in your life, where the first instance was very significant, but following instances normalized it.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: After the appropriate celebratory period, it depends where you are in your professional life.
If you are student then probably you are asking your advisor what next? Probably you were "rabbiting away" on the paper pretty single-mindedly. Maybe this completes your research quota for your degree and it's time to write the thesis. Or maybe you will do the next version of the research with "go-faster stripes."
If you're a post-doc or junior prof, look around for something new and exciting. Not necessarily immediately following on to the current work, but probably related. You are building a base.
If you are tenured prof, what's next in the research queue? And if no queue, get busy making a queue. You should have a program of ideas and possible research topics and tasks. If you are a senior type, you might even have several queues with more or less connection between them. If you are in a place where you have students, go walk around and ask each of them how they are doing and if they need some kind of push to keep them making progress. It's a time for a deep breath or two before getting back into hard work mode.
Maybe you have time and attention to look to your personal life with more than usual concentration for a week or two. Maybe that special somebody would be glad to have your full attention for a bit. Vacation? Even a small one to something local?
Ask yourself if this is the time to do "that" research. You know, the juicy one you've had in your back pocket for years. The one you have not told anybody about. Do you have time and stability to get into some new big thing with some speculation and risk connected to it?
Read through the "gossipy" journals in your research area and see if there's any "new big thing" you would be curious to expand into. The kind of journal that has "Today" in the title.
Anything you want to apply to or for while your head is out of research space? Grants, conferences, funding for a research fellow, funding for new equipment, funding for etc. I find filling in those forms spoils my mood for concentrating on the interesting stuff. Get it done now if you can, while it won't be distracting you from doing research.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: No matter how many articles you publish, I think it is good to try to maintain that feeling of excitement and happiness at having a new article accepted. Personally, whenever I have an article accepted for publication (which is the bigger milestone than when it is actually published), I treat myself by going to the movies. That is quite a small little treat, but it is something nice to look forward to as I'm slogging through the submission and revisions process. It also gives me a break from work where I can just enjoy the accomplishment of having had an article accepted, think about how it adds to the discipline, and feel thankful for having developed a useful skill that is manifesting in published work.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: I think a brief moment of celebration is fine (especially if it's a really good journal that you have always wanted to get into etc.)
But you shouldn't spend too long celebrating as you probably need to start thinking about the next piece of work. If you want to become a senior researcher, you probably (or let's say definitely) need to sort out some ''research programme'' which basically supplies you with the next thing to work on and think about.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: If you're on social media (you should be on social media), publication of the work is the best time to advertise it to potential readers. In my field, most people read preprints rather than publications, but even then, the official publication date would be a good time to bring in new readers. You can try spreading the news via your university or department's media.
You might also take a few seconds to update your "List of Publications" on your CV, tenure packet, etc.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: Don't read it again, unless you want to find errors in it.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: 1. Make sure that your published paper is among those listed under appropriate searches under the relevant phrases and filtered for most recent first.
2. Obtain the URL of the paper in the publishing journal so it may be easily sourced by those aware of it but unable to get it online. You can add this link to your resumé's publications list.
3. Obtain a private PDF download of the paper for yourself and others.
4. Print out a few copies of the PDF version of your paper. If color printing is required to highlight figures/diagrams/images/etc, spoil yourself and take the expense do it.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/17
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<issue_start>username_0: During my research, it appears that I have managed to stumble upon a new kind of solution for a problem that our lab has previously worked on. My classmate in the lab worked on that problem prior to me and developed and implemented a solution to that problem.
To clarify, I was not deliberately aiming to address that particular problem. It just turns out that the primary problem I was working on included this particular problem as a sub-problem, and it was almost immediately solved as a consequence.
The solutions are distinct, but presently, I am leaning towards mothballing my results for this particular problem. There are no personal conflicts presently, but I am worried about the possibility that this might engender some negative feelings in the lab. What is the best course of action?<issue_comment>username_1: #### Go ahead and publish --- advance the science
I recommend you proceed with research and publication for this result. If the result is new and advances the field (and it certainly sounds like it would) then it is desirable for the advancement of knowledge that it be developed and published. Depending on the overlapping research by your classmate, there might be scope for a fruitful collaboration, or it might be best to go ahead and publish your existing result without further input. The ideal ethos for science is one that recognises the value of that knowledge as being something above the importance of personal advancement and careerism. We all need to get used to the fact that scientific advancements may occur in ways that retard our own personal career advancement, but which give broader social benefits. Your classmate will have to get used to this fact, and there is no better time to start getting used to that than now.
If you were to mothball your result in the interests of keeping the problem open for your classmate then you will be delaying a scientific advancement in your field, purely on the basis of careerist considerations (albeit for him, not for you). There is no guarantee that your classmate will rediscover your solution, and his work might not be as good a solution as your own. The longer the publication of a valuable solution to the problem is delayed, the more time and efficiency is lost when others encounter the problem you have solved. It is also a loss of efficiency if your classmate continues working on his own solution without becoming aware of this new solution, which might render some of his research redundant, or set him on a path to further improvements. Publish your solution and give him the chance to adapt his own research to the new state of the science, without delay.
It is likely that your classmate will indeed experience some negative feelings about having someone else solve a problem he had been hoping to solve. It is perfectly natural to feel disappointed when you work hard on something and the output of that work turns out to have less value than you thought it would. (I once spent a summer researching and solving a problem that I thought waas a big deal and would be a great paper; to my disappointment, it turned out that I had rediscovered an old result.) Your classmate will need to adapt his own research to take account of your solution, which might or might not set him back in his PhD candidature, but which will give him an opportunity to advance further from a higher state of knowledge. If he is mature enough to see the bigger scientific picture then his negative feelings will be limited to his own disappointment, and will not manifest in any negativity or ill-will towards you.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: First thing I'd do is to talk with the classmate and your supervisor. It may benefit all of you to put something together that can become potentially even better than any single approach seen as isolated. Science is collaborative by nature.
Furthermore, there may well be space in the literature for two different approaches to the same problem, and the community may learn from them both, although of course this can't be assessed without knowing and being expert in the field. One more reason to talk.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: A similar issue arose in CS several years ago. Two students from different universities worked on exactly the same important problem independently and finished at the same time. They actually knew one another (conference meet ups) and their advisors knew one another quite will. But nobody on either side knew of the work of the other. There wasn't even any hint that either "should have known" of the work of the other.
There was a fairly long investigation when this came to light, but the end result was that it was determined that the work was independent. Both students earned their doctorates.
And they published a *joint paper*. That may be the solution you need here.
Your problem is a bit different if you have extended their work but it might be worth having a discussion between yourselves and the advisor(s) about how to maximize the outcome for everyone.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
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2023/03/17
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<issue_start>username_0: The question [Choice of personal pronoun in single-author papers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2945/77701) has a good discussion of the motivation for using first-person plural pronouns ("we") instead of first-person singular (“I”), especially in math-type papers.
But here are three edge cases where the first-person plural seems a little funny for a single-author paper (but not as flagrantly wrong as thanking "our wife" in the acknowledgments):
1. To (our/my/the author's) knowledge, this result is new.
2. (We/I/the author) performed a careful review of the previous literature, but did not find any examples of X.
3. (We/I/the author) believe(s) that this method is easier to employ and more illuminating than the method outlined in the previous section.
Any thoughts on which is the best option for these three constructions?<issue_comment>username_1: Fashions change, and there is no hard and fast rule ... but I agree that to use "we" in any of the situations you have described would be odd.
The use of "we" seems reasonably well suited to cases where the pronoun is intended to include the author and the reader but the three situations that you describe are not like that. It is *you* who have done a literature search, *you* who are or are not aware of previous results, and *you* who found a particular method easier.
The use of the passive (as an alternative to any first-person pronoun) is still common but increasingly unfashionable ... and all round, "I" seems very well suited to the situations you've described.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: #### Try using "the present author"
For academic writing, I also like using "we" instead of first-person singular, when discussing findings, proofs, etc. I have always thought of the "we" as referring to the reader and I, embarking on a journey of discovery together. We find that there is evidence for A, we find that the present method works well on problems of class B, we can see that the proof of Theorem D can be extended to deal with generalisation D, etc.
r
However, as you note, there are instances where one is making a statement that only applies to the singular author and which should not be attributed more broadly. For these cases a useful construction is to refer to yourself as "the present author" (see related answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/188301/192970#192970)). This leads to the following framing for the cases you note, all of which sound quite pleasing and maintain the formality of academic writing.
>
> To the knowledge of the present author, this result is new.
>
>
> The present author performed a careful review of the previous literature, but did not find any examples of X.
>
>
> The present author is of the view that this method is easier to employ and more illuminating than the method outlined in the previous section.
>
>
>
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I usually remove the speaker entirely in these cases. Certainly I would not use 'we' in any of those situations. 'We' is used in proofs because the author and the reader are (hopefully) both proving the result together, it isn't just the author. Indeed, if the author wrote "and then I see that (1) implies that the lemma is true" it sounds very much as if the reader *won't* see it!
"The author(s) believe(s) this result is new" is absolutely fine, but I normally solve it by using "This result appears to be new". So your three examples in your question become:
1. This result appears to be new.
2. A careful search of the literature did not find any examples of X.
3. This method seems to be easier to employ and more illuminating than the method outlined in the previous section.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I do not like "we" at all in single author papers. In my view, "we" implicitly says that the author expects all readers to agree and basically synchronise themselves with what the author is doing, and this in my view is patronising.
Personally I don't have much problems with "I" as I think that in this way the author takes personal responsibility for what they're writing, and I think this is appropriate. I do however accept that "I" can come over as arrogant and self-centered, so I'm very careful with it. I have no issues with "I" in the three cases provided in the question, however I'd probably say "this method seems easier" in case 3. In case 2 one could say "A careful review did not..." (your sentences there seem longer than needed and the "I/we" could be removed as a side effect of shortening).
I do think avoiding first personal personal pronouns as far as possible without becoming too awkward is a good thing. <NAME> wrote somewhere that a reader, in order to properly appreciate and understand a mathematical proof, needs to do the steps themselves and observe the consequences, and he stated that the imperative is the best form for this, which I found very convincing. So in proofs I'll write "Assume... set... get... observe..."
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: In a single author paper, it does not matter much if one uses the royal “we” or the singular “I”. I tend to go with what is more common in the journal.
What is important IMO is proper attribution.
It makes a difference in a thesis for instance, or in other situations where the author has to be clear on who did what. A thesis written entirely using “we” could be problematic as it becomes impossible to identify the contribution of the candidate, especially if the candidate has published with collaborators. An interview talk where the presenter only uses “we” could also be problematic if the person was part of a team.
In your specific examples I would probably use “I” as I can’t see using the royal “we”. *You* did the literature review, and it’s difficult to see how you can attribute this to someone else or draw the reader into thinking they are involved in this review.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: To be honest, unlike the other answers, I wouldn't bat an eye if "we" were used in any of these three examples in a math paper (they seem more jarring out of context, but in context it's just a convention of the discipline). That being said, if one wanted to avoid both "we" and passive constructions, I think "the author" works just fine.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: For pure math: to counter most of the other answers here (except username_6's), I still find the use of first-person singular in research papers strange (excluding perhaps some special acknowledgements), simply because it's not the norm. To check this, I just browsed the new arXiv posts in my area (Number Theory), and all of the single-authored papers there use "we" including in situations like yours where it doesn't make traditional grammatical sense (e.g., abstract starts with "We describe...").
My thoughts are:
* first-person plural is perfectly fine in your examples; to me it's also a little more direct and less stiff than "the author", so preferable
* in general don't mix first-person singular and plural forms to refer to yourself
* try not to mix first-person pronoun usage and "the author" in nearby areas of text
* it's of course a matter of personal style, and as far as I know, there are no pure math research journals which would prohibit any of the options you give based on their style guidelines
Upvotes: 4
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a similar situation as in this [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/82646/easy-proof-of-a-big-conjecture-based-on-possibly-faulty-paper-what-to-do). I can prove a big conjecture by combining results from literature.
However, the difference is I want to maximize my credit. I tried to come up with a different proof. I have come up with a slightly different proof, but the proof is longer and it seems it has no new insight or new techniques. If I want to maximize my credit, should I just publish the easy proof, or the longer proof, or both on the same manuscript?<issue_comment>username_1: If your "longer" proof has value for application to other problems then it may have value in itself, never mind maximizing credit. In math it is fairly frequently the case that a proof is more valuable than the theorem it proves if it gives wider insight.
There is also value in short proofs for important conjectures, especially if they have been around for a while. I'd love to see a short proof of the Four Color Theorem that doesn't rely on computers.
If reviewers would consider both proofs, then that might be best. If you can stay within page limits then a first submission might include both and then look at what the reviewers say, but be sure to explain why you have both proofs.
Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: This is not an answer to the post itself, but a commentary on the title of the question, "Maximize the credit vs. easy proof for big conjecture":
There are no "easy proofs for big conjectures". If there were such an easy proof, someone would have written it a long time ago. "Big conjectures" are, by definition, the ones a lot of people care about and many good people will have considered the question. They will have thought deeply about coming up with proofs, and will have brought their decades of experience to the task. Experience in the mathematical community shows that, typically, when someone claims that they have a "simple proof", they are usually wrong about their claim. As a consequence, I would suggest that before wondering how you can maximize your credit, you spend a good amount of time convincing yourself that you are the exception to the "usually wrong" rule.
Upvotes: 3
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm a relatively newly-minted PhD (in math, algebraic geometry specifically, if that matters) approaching the end of their first year in a TT position at a smaller teaching-focused state school.
Like many people that I know, my thesis question was suggested to me by my advisor. As a result I didn't get much experience or guidance on how to go about developing a research program and finding good questions to tackle. Further, since I (for better or worse) skipped the postdoc phase of an academic's life, I feel as though I missed some sorely needed scholarly-development.
My current position requires a very modest amount of research for tenure, and so I find myself in a predicament where I need to produce publishable research, but I am having an enormous amount of trouble finding questions that I can actually tackle in the small amount of research time available. I know that the standard advice is to start with follow up questions to one's thesis, but my thesis resolves a handful of remaining cases of a question in my subfield, so there is very little to nothing left to extend or follow up on. Recently I felt as if I had a good question, but some recent digging on my part has me doubting that the project will turn out anything at all. While I accept that this is part of the research process, I really can't afford to spend 6+ months working on something to have it not pan out, since I already have so little time to devote to research to start with.
My question and hope is that some of you would be willing to share your process of finding a question that eventually turns into a publication.<issue_comment>username_1: It comes down to being curious and asking lots of questions. Some examples:
* Is there a relationship between X and Y? If so, do they share the same properties? If not, then which properties are equivalent and vice-versa.
* Has anybody answered a research question you have in mind?
* Is this property known, true/false? Why is this true/false?
* Why is this problem hard?
* ...
Sooner or later you will find a question that has no answer. You then have to find out whether it is a significant question. If yes, then set forth a plan to answer it. Otherwise, move on. There are some questions that are not within your reach. In that case, you may want to find a low hanging 'fruit'. If you are this stage or research direction, you tend to find many open questions.
Many researchers have a pre-set of questions in mind; equivalently, they have a 'taste' for certain type of research questions.
Some researchers have a 'hammer' in mind, and their goal is to look for 'nails'.
I'm sure there are many other strategies.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: As you have discovered, such things are very difficult to do alone.
I suggest that you work to develop a circle of collaborators over time. Find a way to have regular conversations within your circle throwing around ideas. In a large department, that can often be with other local faculty, but it probably means going outside the local institution.
Attend conferences as often as you can and talk to people. Then keep talking to them.
Your doctoral institution may have some people who will be happy to talk to you, assuming a large department. Your advisor might be willing to introduce you to their own circle.
If you have funds for it, or can get them, arrange for people in your field to come visit and talk to students. Use the opportunity to talk to them about "stuff" that might develop. Or, get invited to talk elsewhere, paid or not, and start those conversations with people there.
And, keep notes. Lots of notes. Keep them in a form that you can easily review them. I like notecards for such things as they are easy to carry, sort, revise, discard. But keep at least a notebook of ideas that occur to you or that come up in conversations.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/17
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<issue_start>username_0: I have a lot of single author contributions/articles (e.g. 30% of my total papers). This is uncommon in my field, medicine. The reason is that I regularly write commentaries/letters for 2 specific journals. Yet, I also have some original articles (secondary data analyses) I did on my own.
My supervisor advises against this (we have a good relationship and he is about to retire soon). He says it could suggest a "lone-wolf" attitude to others, e.g. evaluation committees. My colleague says its fine, as it demonstrates independence.
May I ask your opinion about it? Should I care?
Unlike [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/133229/personal-contribution-in-n-author-articles-vs-single-author-articles), I am not asking about the impact on tenure, etc.<issue_comment>username_1: I'm not in medicine so things may be different where I am, but I am very sure that in my field 30% single author papers are not too much, very far from that really. In fact I have worried, being in commissions, about applicants who don't have any substantial single author paper, because that makes it more difficult to assess what they actually have done in the research. As long as you have a substantial number of collaborative papers I don't see any issue, not even in medicine, as you have quite something to show your ability to collaborate. I may suspect a "lone wolf" behind a list of publications that has 9 single author papers out of 10.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Based on the clarification in the comments that these are typically editorial/commentary types of submission rather than research (and are clearly identified as such) then I would see no problem with this.
Even in medicine a lot of these types of articles are single-author, and don't carry the same expectations of collaboration as research articles. They likewise don't carry the same CV weight as peer-reviewed research articles so they'll likely not be a highly-weighted positive factor for committees either, but so long as you have a decent profile in your main research area I can't imagine these being viewed as a negative.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: It is true that solo papers are rare in medicine, and in biology in general. That's because most biologist and medical researchers work in teams (labs) and share authorship. So your advisor's concern would be correct if we were talking about research reports: even a couple of single-author papers could bring suspicious about lone-wolf type of difficult personality. But you seem to be instead writing commentaries and letters, which are usually authored by one or two people at a time. Just make sure you don't end up like this guy <https://retractionwatch.com/2023/07/24/meet-the-author-who-has-published-more-than-500-letters-to-the-editor-in-a-year/>
Upvotes: 0
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2023/03/18
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<issue_start>username_0: I am in the UK and I am looking to contact a supervisor about starting a PhD.
First, I know the area that I want to focus on but I don't have a defined research project just yet. I'd like to define the proposal once I know who my supervisor will be and I would look for his input into the proposal. I can come up with a proposal myself now but I think this is sub-optimal. Should I indicate this in the email? Something like:
>
> I am looking to do a PhD in field X. While I have ideas about a
> research proposal, I would value your guidance in producing the final
> proposal.
>
>
>
Second, I don't really need funding. I'm a working professional and I wouldn't need a stipend. Should I indicate this in the email? I don't want to be distasteful and talk about money at the beginning. At the same time, I don't want to get a "No" from a supervisor that I like because they don't think they'll get funding for me.<issue_comment>username_1: Regarding the second question ("I wouldn't need a stipend. Should I indicate this in the email?"), from experience I would suggest *no*.
I have a family member who let slip similar information in an interview for a PhD position (U.S.) and the effect was that they were eagerly admitted and then indefinitely delayed in being able to graduate (and so, contributed to the department's income stream out-of-pocket as long as they were there). After an extended number of years, they were compelled to drop out of the program and switch to a different department at the same university, from which they ultimately did receive a PhD (after several more years).
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: >
> Q2: Second, I don't really need funding. I'm a working professional and I wouldn't need a stipend. Should I indicate this in the email?
>
>
>
Two things here. Are you contemplating **part-time**. Your "I'm a working professional" would be construed as seeking PT.
There's no rule, AFAIK, that stipulate indicating outright from the onset.
Nonetheless, often, if a potential supervisor is interested in you, (s)he/they will set up a short session with you. Both parties will get to engage on interest and key areas. Issues of stipend can be engaged on here.
Be it as it may, whether you indicate in your '*introductory*' email or not, keep it succinct and polite as you can.
>
> Q1: ... *Something like:
> I am looking to do a PhD in field X. While I have ideas about a research proposal, I would value your guidance in producing the final proposal.*
>
>
>
In my view, there's no clear cut approach.
You may consider along the line
I'm looking at PhD in field X ...
I have looked into subfield X.1 ...
I have researched into subfield X.1
... ...
Your work in subfield X.1 caught my interest and I'm keen engaging further on subfield X.1, X.1.1, X.1.2 ...
... ...
In essence, simply mentioning I've ideas in X without a 1 or 2 sentence of what that/those idea(s) is/are might not suffice. Of course, you are not compelled on specifics: you can be broad (within field X).
Just to mention:
In the UK, some universities list
* studentship (with awards/stipend)
* open PhD research projects (funded or unfunded)
* units/centres research areas/interest
PS: Each has its own dynamics within the interested candidate and potential supervisor/advisor.
In certain instances, not all, for competitive studentship, the dept/doctoral school/college might request you submit a formal application. Post interview and upon acceptance, the proposal writing process takes place with (possible) supervisor/advisor.
One writes and submits around the studentship's research topic
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: The correct answer to the first question will depend on the field. In more science oriented fields, particularly lab based sciences, then the answer is no, you shouldn't have a fully worked out research proposal in mind. It is likely that the supervisor will only want to put the work into supervising a student who can work on things they at the supervisor's priorities. This is particularly the case where the research will cost money.
However, the tone of your post suggests to me that your are not thinking about lab sciences. In which case I think it might be slightly different. I think here, you will want to have more of an idea about what it is you want to do. I'm sure a supervisor who decides to take you on will help you hone and polish the idea, make it more specific. But I think you should have at least some idea of what it is you want to do.
For your second question: Yes, I think you should tell the supervisor up front. Generally being unfunded rules somebody out, and I throw emails from students who don't say how they will funded their students straight in the bin without further consideration.
Be aware that as well as a stipend, funding also includes tuition fees, which will have to be paid, as well as, in some subjects "bench" fees (which are supposed to cover the cost of the research).
I wouldn't be too worried about @DanielRCollin's point. In the UK, students must *successfully* graduate after 4 years (or the equivalent if part time). Failure to graduate or graduating later than 4 years is a black mark on a supervisor's record, and if more than 20% of students fail to graduate in 4 years, the department by be blocked form taking government funded students. There is a strong incentive not to do this.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Taking it from a computer science/information systems background I would say that in your case (without a very clear idea of what you really want to do) it is better not to have a full proposal. Instead you should identify a supervisor/supervisors that you are interested in and contact them (this must be specific and details relating to this professor). Then you can work on looking at a proposal (and whether there is a "click").
Overall the vast majority of student PhD proposals are not fit for purpose, but they may convey the message that you are very stuck to the topic or approach chosen. This may disqualify you for many supervisors (either because of the topic or method mismatch, or because they think that you are set on a way they don't believe in). It is better to work with the supervisor to actually get a workable proposal that fits shared interests. This is especially true if you are not actually that invested in a specific topic.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/03/18
| 1,111
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<issue_start>username_0: Two days ago, I accepted a desired faculty job offer and cancelled an on-campus interview at another university that was scheduled for three days later. I wanted to be honest and not waste their time. However, the university has asked me to pay for the flight ticket they purchased for me due to the cancellation. Is this normal? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: Certainly it is fair. The choice was yours. It wouldn't be fair if they had cancelled. They made the purchase in good faith in this situation with little opportunity to avoid it.
I suspect it is pretty normal, though maybe not universal.
What I think is more common, perhaps for exactly this reason, is to ask the candidate to make their own arrangements for travel and to promise reimbursement after the visit. Many object to that policy, I think.
And, an alternative you had, but didn't exercise (or think of, probably) is to tell them you were very unlikely to accept any offer and ask if you should still come. If they had said no, then you'd have a case that they should just absorb the cost.
I don't know, actually, whether you are bound to reimburse them. They might actually let you off the hook if you just say you are sorry, but are unable to provide the funds.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_2: Actually I don’t think it’s right of them. *If* you had gone to the second interview you would have wasted everybody’s time in addition to hotel and meal expenses for your stay at the second place.
Part of the cost of advertising a position is that some candidates will change their minds at the last minute, or will have to reschedule because of some unforeseen event. I can understand the 2nd institution not being happy about you cancelling but you did the right thing by telling them ahead of time that you would not accept their offer. Moreover, it’s usually possible to get a travel credit even on non-refundable tickets so the cancelled fare is not an entire loss.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: When any potential employer offers to pay for any of a job candidate's interview expenses, they accept the risk that the candidate won't accept the offer. Suppose you had gone to the interview and then declined to take the job. It's very unlikely that they would have asked you to refund your plane ticket. You're simply reducing the time delay between the time when they buy your ticket and the time when they learn that you won't be accepting the job.
In the highly unlikely scenario that they *would* have asked you to refund your plane ticket even if you had done the full interview process and then declined the offer, then they're being consistent in asking you to refund it in this situation. But that would be such a significant departure from the usual norms of job interviews that the onus would be on them to clearly convey that fact *before* they bought your plane ticket, and to then ask you whether you still wanted them to buy your ticket, knowing that you would be expected to refund it if you later declined their offer.
I think you should politely decline to refund the ticket.
**Edit:** After writing that answer, I came across two near-duplicates at [Travel reimbursement for interview after accepting another position](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/130179/travel-reimbursement-for-interview-after-accepting-another-position/130180) and [Interview not reimbursed if offer is made but not accepted (UK)](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/131420/interview-not-reimbursed-if-offer-is-made-but-not-accepted-uk). The answers to those questions seem to indicate that it is more common than I had previously understood to decline to reimburse interview expenses if the candidate declines the job offer, especially in the UK. So I am now a little less categorical in my answer. I still think that the university's reimbursement policy should be the same whether or not the person actually attends the interview, but now I guess it's more of an edge case as to whether it's reasonable for the university to decline to cover the travel expenses in either case. Either way, the university should have clearly conveyed to the candidate *before* buying their ticket that the candidate would be on the hook for travel expenses if they ended up declining the job offer.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: Succinctly
* Your original acceptance of attending an interview was made in good faith.
* They accepted the expenditure involved, knowing that you may not be offered the job.
* Going to the interview would have cost them MORE money.
* So, not going was the lowest cost option.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/18
| 1,048
| 4,033
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<issue_start>username_0: I have two scholarly books self-published in the field of physics. However, some parts of my books have previously been published in peer-reviewed journals and the editors of my books have academic positions.
If I can succeed in republishing more parts of my self-published books in peer-reviewed journals
* does this implicitly indicate to the reader/buyer that the books have somehow been peer-reviewed?
* Do these in any ways improve the significance of my self-published books, considering the fact that excessive self-citation is a red flag to many academics?<issue_comment>username_1: **Almost surely not**
Because the material has already been published before.
Reprint volumes (i.e., collections of works by some famous author, e.g. [this](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5241846-bernhard-riemann-collected-papers)) are generally not very valuable, and also not very profitable, which is why publishers don't often do it unless the person whose work is being featured is *very* notable. If you are self-publishing, then chances are you are not one of these very notable people, and a collection of your works is not likely to be a "valuable scholarly book".
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In the **context** of your 'question', **beware of the path**.
Nonetheless, regarding the *content*, the following comes through:
>
> ... *two scholarly books self-published* ...
>
>
>
Self-published or otherwise, there are two fundamentals: what is **scholarly** and what are **scholarly books**.
Irrespective of many opinions, a fundamental remains that scholarly pertains to academic and research. The elements, amongst others, are validity, reliability, rigour, ethics.
These are what reviews ought to safeguard.
Scholarly books ought to have these at their core, however in different shades unlike articles.
Scholarly books can also be books for teaching discipline subjects or can simply be monologue of collections. Are they scholarly, well they are. Do they extend/contribute to knowledge, they might. Would they be scholarly in the context of validity, reliability, rigour, ethics ...; That would comes through like a ... *the proof is in the pudding*
>
> *republishing more parts of my self-published books*
>
>
>
I'll say, explicitly so, what you are republishing (as an article) cannot and shouldn't be those parts of your self-published books that were "*previously been published in peer-reviewed journals*".
If however any of these *previously been published in peer-reviewed journals* is/are to be republished, the word and the **process** is not that of 'republishing' but rather of publishing through the manuscript, review, publish process.
>
> does this implicitly indicate to the reader/buyer that the books have somehow been peer-reviewed
>
>
>
First thing first, it is either it's been peer-reviewed or it's not been peer-reviewed. There's no '*somehow*'
Secondly, it must be pointed out that peer-reviewed referred to the '*object*' and not the '*form*'. So, if the book and the chapters are not peer-reviewed as a collective entity, then it's not peer-reviewed. It's that simple. It's immaterial if post book chapters are peer-reviewed afterwards, it's immaterial in so far as the '*peer-reviewness*' of the book itself is concerned. The post publication actions do not validate the already published book. It is inconsequential and nullity, as would be said in law; regarding the *peer-reviewed*
>
> Do these in any ways improve the significance of my self-published books...
>
>
>
I'll say emphatically ***NO***
Nonetheless, I'll still say, **significance** here is subjective. In any case, in the context of your 'content', the focus should shift to
* are others referring to the books and/or its chapters
* are the books being embraced
* are the books being scholarly engaged; whether critique, critic, complement, reconstructive, progressive...
* are works been derived from the books by others apart from yourself
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/19
| 699
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<issue_start>username_0: I understand that in US PhD programs, students are often labelled as a "PhD Student" until they pass their qualification exams and begin working on their dissertations, at which point they can be called "PhD Candidate".
What is the convention for Oxford DPhils and other European PhDs, given that there is no coursework? At Oxford, students are admitted as a Probationer Research Student and must pass 2 milestones, the Transfer of Status and Confirmation of Status. At which point, or after which exam that is passed, can one refer to themselves as a DPhil Candidate?
I'd like to know to avoid misrepresentation of my background as there are certain opportunities and/or visa and residential statuses reserved for those who have completed all requirements but their dissertation (ie. PhD Candidates).<issue_comment>username_1: The [General Regulations for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy](https://examregs.admin.ox.ac.uk/Regulation?code=grftdodoctofphil&srchYear=2022&srchTerm=1&year=2022&term=1) make the official position very clear. Students are admitted as Probationer Research Students. In due course, they then make an application to the relevant faculty board to become 'Students for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy'. If this application is successful (or, colloquially, if they 'pass transfer of status') then they can call themselves DPhil students.
Confirmation of status is - as the name suggests - just a check that things are as they should be. As long as this is successful, the student continues to be a DPhil student. If the confirmation process is unsuccessful, "the board may approve his or her transfer to the status of Student for the Degree of Master of Science by Research or of Master of Letters, as appropriate."
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I did some more research and came across a post on Reddit with a similar question but for Australian PhDs.
It states that "the first-year milestone in Australia is called 'confirmation of candidacy', and basically proves you have a strong enough concept to carry out the rest of the degree. People in the program before this milestone call themselves 'students', while after passing confirmation you are then a 'PhD candidate'. You retain this status up until you submit your thesis for examination."
Another comment for the UK states that "you're on probation for the first year, then you sit an examination (a report + defense). Then they back-date your enrolment and you're officially a candidate."
This leads me to believe that the Oxford Transfer of Status serves as your qualification exam, and once you pass this examination, you would be able to label yourself as a "DPhil Candidate". Time-wise, this about matches up with US programs (after 1st year in a 3-4 year UK PhD program vs after 1st/2nd year in a 4-5 US PhD program).
Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
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2023/03/19
| 1,767
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<issue_start>username_0: First of all, I know that academic writing is ordinarily not a place to jam-pack in large quantities of literary, theatrical, film, or other pop-culture allusions, references, or parodies, but sometimes one or two references, tastefully done, can add some levity to content that might otherwise seem quite dull.
Now clearly, if I am writing a paper *about* a work of literature (or film, etc.) and quote or paraphrase material from that work, I need a citation. My question is if I am referencing a work solely for *effect* and not for the *content* of the work, do I need a citation?
For example, consider the following hypothetical literature review:
>
> The prevailing authorities on translongitudinal hypotheosis remain Smith (1987) and Myers & Johansen (1997), but several more recent researchers, including Jones (2006), McGivers et al. (2013) and <NAME> (2020), refuse to recognize their authoritah and instead propose that the hyperspacial gradient when n < 3 is not bounded to the translongitudinal apex rotary, citing certain data sets which Brown (2022) asserts are spurious and tainted by multiple methodological and ethical infirmities.
>
>
>
For the above, is it necessary to cite [Parker, Stone et al.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKJprZqU_oU) or would I only cite if the subject of my paper actually touched on the content of South Park?
Similarly, if I am writing a paper on cetacean nutrition and decide to drop in one or two *Moby Dick* allusions just for effect, do I need to cite it?
Or, maybe something like this:
>
> The work of Hernandez et al. (2017) is a pathway to findings many would consider tainted by precognitive bias and postreticular smoothing.
>
>
><issue_comment>username_1: I suspect that the consensus answer in academia is:
**Don't do it in the first place.**
The standard writing style in academia avoids unnecessary ornaments, and aims for a detached, objective tone. Allusions that require a shared culture beyond the norms of the academic field risk making the text less accessible, less understandable.
If you do it anyway, adding a citation to the sample text would be misleading to an unethical extent: It would make it sound as if South Park directly commented on the reception of Smith (1997) etc. On the other hand, not saying anything makes it even less comprehensible for people unfamiliar with South Park (or whatever else gets referenced), and at least for some allusions like this there might indeed be a sufficient stylistic contribution that giving credit seems necessary.
As such, if you insist on having such allusions in your text, my suggestion would be to have a separate list of "Memes invoked" or similar, and then point to that rather than the bibliography here.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: Bringing up a litarary or movie allusion requires a citation, unless the saying is known to anyone, see an example below.
While generally it is **not** advisable to bring such allusions into scientific texts, there exists one notable exception where this is permissible: mottoes, both to articles and to separate sections.
In one paper, I saw a section presenting some derivation in such a painful detail that it would be more appropriate to a textbook. To justify this, the authors equipped the section with the motto: *" What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."
(<NAME>)*
Another paper contained a section devoted to an extremely slow astrophysical process related to the formation of planetary systems in the universe, over timescales from millions to billions years. That section had a right motto: *" The mills of God grind slowly..."* -- and without a reference to the source, because this saying is known to everyone.
Aside from mottoes, I would **not** recommend you to use literary or movie allusions.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Without a citation, many references to current entertainment culture, especially things like TV shows, will be simply lost on many people, especially those from a different culture. They might be left puzzled as I was by this and by some things at [XKCD](https://xkcd.com).
If you want to make a humorous reference to current or local culture, remember that your audience may not have the same set of experiences that you do.
I'm not so strong on whether you should or shouldn't do this, but if you do, make it clear. Let your grandma in on the joke.
---
Instead of the link and naming XKCD, suppose I'd just written "some references made by Randall". Or even "<NAME>", though the latter would make a Google search easier.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: To give a personal example, I simply assumed that "authoritah" was a typo and I kept waiting to find the allusion you mentioned, and it wasn't until I clicked your link that I even understood what you were talking about. I also have no idea who <NAME> et al. are.
By the same token, even having read <NAME> a couple of times, I have no idea what the allusion is in your second quote.
In other words, there's a very real risk of alienating a considerable part of your audience with things like that.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: I disagree with other answers, and think making the reference is itself benign (and may amuse some people), but the one thing you should *not* do is explain it.
username_4 suggests there is a risk of alienating your readers. I disagree, because the people who don't recognise the reference won't know there was a reference to recognise, so won't be alienated. And this is not a problem, because they lose nothing (from an academic point of view) by missing it. You should just treat it as an Easter egg. What *might* alienate people is having a footnote basically telling them "there was an amusing[citation needed] reference here, but you missed it".
The alternative is to lose a reference that some people may appreciate, without any benefit to anyone else. Physics would be slightly duller had [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann) never made his gratuitous James Joyce reference, and I say this as someone who would not have recognised it. (Gell-Mann did feel the need to add a citation of Finnegan's Wake here, although his earlier "eightfold way", itself an allusion to Buddhism, went unexplained.)
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Just about every policy on plagiarism I can find exempts "common knowledge" from citation.
I suppose the example you cite suggests that the SouthParkian "authoritah" has reached the status of common knowledge (or you wouldn't be using it in that way), and therefore, it arguably does not require citation.
My own suggestion here would be to stick to the facts, and not try to funny it up.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/19
| 422
| 1,751
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<issue_start>username_0: I am trying to understand if a 6-year long position of "researcher for habilitation" (called "Habilitationsstelle"), and that is offered in German universities, would be a junior position (just after the PhD) or with some level of seniority (maybe after 4-6 years of postdocs).
Other way around, what could be the average age for people who start the "Habilitationsstelle" in Germany ? Maybe just after the PhD, or after several years of postdocs ?
Also, could the "Habilitationsstelle" be equivalent to an Assistant Professor?<issue_comment>username_1: One is not supposed to be employed on temporary positions at German universities for more than 6 years after the PhD. While there are exceptions to this rule, this indicates that such a position should be available to recent PhDs.
Such a position shouldn't be considered equivalent to a US-style Assistant Professorship, because of the lack of independence. It is a postdoc position.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In Germany (and countries with similar systems) the route to becoming a professor requires\* an additional qualification above your doctorate. This process is known as [Habilitation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation). So a "Habilitationsstelle" is the position / job that you will do while working towards this even higher qualification. Same as a Doktorstelle is the position / job you will hold while working towards your doctorate. So yes it is postdoctoral, but not really equivalent to the way the US or UK systems work.
\* Thanks to the commenters who have clarified it's not *strictly* required, it's also possible to have your body of work judged to be equivalent to having completed a Habilitation.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/19
| 545
| 2,374
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<issue_start>username_0: I was working on a project related to the biological domain at a German institution. I have created ontology and knowledge graphs using public data from [DSMZ](https://www.dsmz.de/). After working on the project for two years, I was fired due to slow working speed (the original reason was different).
I am thinking of writing a paper on an ontology graph which I built. Is it possible to write and submit the paper? Is there any legal issue if I submit a paper after leaving the project?<issue_comment>username_1: 1. It is possible to write and submit a paper. Depending on the journal there may be issues if you currently have no affiliation. The editor's decisions may also affected by a lack of affiliation.
2. The legal aspects depend on your employment contract, in particular any language in it concerning intellectual property (IP). Often all IP created during your employment belongs to your employer, which would mean that you may run into legal issues with publishing your work.
Generally, legal issues should be addressed by speaking with a lawyer. Answers on an internet platform like StackExchange provide no warranty.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: That's always tricky.
I assume (please correct me if I am wrong) that you worked with other people on this project. Commonly, there is at least a PI (primary investigator --- i.e., project lead) and there might have been some Master/PhD students/Post-Docs helping with the workload.
If it was collaborative work, you need to at least inform them.
Most likely: you need to add them as co-authors (anyone who contributed).
You should be aware that many things can be a contribution: library access, equipment access (i.e., your working machine), ideas, feedback, data, funding, and the work of people.
Depending on how important the contribution is, the contributor needs to be an author or can be mentioned in the acknowledgments.
Note, that this goes both ways. If they write a paper about the stuff that you did, they need to acknowledge you too.
So, the chances are significant that you need to acknowledge them somehow.
Safest would be to let them know and add the PI as a co-author.
Note: This is how it is handled commonly in academia and maybe an ethical point of view. Legally, I would recommend looking for legal advice regarding intellectual property.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/20
| 6,196
| 24,266
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<issue_start>username_0: Every so often a journal I edit receives papers with some kind of claim that, if true, would break mainstream physics. For example, a paper could claim that waves in dark matter can travel at v ~ 1014 m/s.
Because relativity has met every experimental test we've thrown at it, and because relativity has a hard limit on velocities at the speed of light (3×108 m/s), any paper making this kind of claim is immediately suspect. One doesn't need to know what else is in the paper to be pretty confident it is wrong.
However, it is also known that relativity is an incomplete theory because it is incompatible with quantum mechanics. It's conceivable that whatever theory eventually supplants these two theories could allow velocities greater than the speed of light.
Question: Is it fair to desk-reject the above paper based solely on this one sentence? Like, there's a 99.99% chance (maybe even higher) that the paper is wrong, but there's still a nonzero chance it could be correct. If it is unfair, what else do I need before it becomes fair to desk-reject?<issue_comment>username_1: If they don't address the issue in the paper or claim this suggests an issue with their assumptions that should be addressed in future work then I'd say it’s fair. In addition, this is an extraordinary claim and so there should be some extraordinary evidence/reason to accept it, though experimental work might have a lower threshold than theory to avoid a desk reject.
Don't forget, to not give a desk reject to a paper that has clear issues with it is unfair to the reviewers since they will probably just come back with the same issue you had initially, but they have now wasted time reading the article.
It’s also possible they had a typo in the paper such as the number really being v^2 or got the exponent wrong where it should have been 10^4 rather than 10^14. If you are worried about the desk reject being unfair you could perhaps ask the authors for clarification or make the reason very clear during the reject so that if there was a mistake then it’s very easy for the authors to contest the desk reject in an appeal (depending on your journal's policies).
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: #### That procedure would remove the ability to overturn incorrect mainstream results. But the author should explicitly address the issue
Whilst I appreciate the Bayesian reasoning involved here (high *a priori* probability of invalidity), the suggested process has the drawback that it could never allow publication of a correct idea that overturns an established (but false) rule of physics. As you say, it is contrary to "mainstream" physics, which is usually, but perhaps not necessarily, synonymous with correct physics. Ideally, the peer review process ought to operate on the merits of ideas and arguments rather than dismissing them without review if they are contrary to the "mainstream". This would allow challenges to the mainstream view to be considered on the merits, and would mean that it is possible for incorrect positions in the mainstream view to be overturned with peer reviewed literature.
Obviously this has a time cost, but hopefully a reasonably modest one. Desk *rejection* requires a desk *review*, so I think it would be wrong to reject on the basis of that one sentence, notwithstanding that it makes an assertion that is contrary to mainstream physics. Ideally, the initial editor should undertake an initial review of the paper to see if it is understandable, and may make a positive contribution to the literature. If it provides novel results, is understandable, and you can't see any critical flaw that would invalidate it (even if you think there must be one, because the result is implausible), then it is probably a candidate to proceed to referee review, or at least a more comprehensive deep-dive review by the initial editor. For a deeper review, obviously one of the things you are going to look for is for the author to provide an explanation of the implications and counter-arguments to their position. If the result would indeed "break" mainstream physics, then it would behove the author to give some explanation of how to resolve the breakage, or in what position that leaves the field (e.g., are the empirical results in other literature still correct, but for another reason, or are they incorrect for some reason).\*\* It might be useful if you have a few referees available who are happy to take on reviews of "implausible results" and have the patience to look deeply into the arguments, notwithstanding the implausibility of the conclusion.
One reason that you might legitimately desk reject a paper of this kind is if a claim made tangentially in the paper so fundamentally contradicts an established law of physics that that claim ought to be the topic of the paper. For example (hat tip to [<NAME>](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/30987/) in comments), for an assertion that a thing travels faster than the speed of light, that would be a major discovery in itself (with large implications), and it ought to be the topic of the paper. If it is mentioned only tangentially as an aspect of study of something less important then that is a serious deficiency of the paper, and may warrant rejection (with an instruction to the author to check if the result is correct, and if so, write the ground-breaking paper focused on that result).
One of the reasons I take this position is that one of the critiques one sometimes hears of academic peer review is that it is a closed shop that assesses ideas based on popularity rather than merit. Adopting the procedure you are suggesting seems to me to go down the avenue of validating this type of critique --- a paper is immediately dismissed because it makes a claim that is not "mainstream". (This criticism of academia is not entirely without merit, but I'd hope that the procedures of peer review would mean it is a marginal phenomenon at most; we certainly shouldn't be adopting practices that explicitly incorporate an initial rejection criterion for results that contradict mainstream understanding.)
---
**Update (10 April 2023):** In relation to this topic, you might be interested in a recent case where a published paper asserted a result that called standard physics models into question, only to be subsequently questioned itself as potentially erroneous. [Aaltonen et al (2022)](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abk1781) analysed a 2011 dataset from a large hadron collider at [CDF](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collider_Detector_at_Fermilab) to infer the weight of the W-Boson. The paper found it to be substantially heavier than expected under the standard model of this type of particle (see related report [here](https://www.sciencealert.com/boson-discovery-contradicts-our-current-understanding-of-the-universe)), which would have implications for whether there are additional hidden objects that are not in the standard model. However, CDF researchers examining the same dataset with an alternative statistical model find that the inferred weight is in accordance with standard model, and think that the unusual result may be due to inadequate statistical modelling (see report [here](https://www.sciencealert.com/shock-boson-result-upending-physics-was-a-miscalculation-scientists-say)). This episode is somewhat similar to the issue you raise here, and it looks like it is a case of inadequate statistical modelling causing a published "world breaking" result. Even assuming that the original published paper turns out to be wrong, there may be some residual value from having both published analyses of the data, since they show the effect of better specification of the statistical model for the data.
---
\*\* Don't be too demanding here on resolving the breakage --- finding an error in mainstream understanding of the discipline doesn't mean you know all the implications just yet, but the author should at least address the issue, outline their understanding of the implications, and respond to obvious counter-arguments.
Upvotes: 8 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit introduced the electron spin in a model that would require the electron to spin faster than the speed of light. Yet they were right although their model of a classically spinning electron was wrong.
So: breaking relativity should not lead to an immediate reject.
The story of this “error” can be found in
>
> Electron Spin and Its History, <NAME>,
> Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science 2012 62:1, 133-157
>
>
>
and available [here](https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-nucl-102711-094908#:%7E:text=2.-,THE%20DISCOVERY%20OF%20ELECTRON%20SPIN,really%20begins%20in%20January%201925.). The salient part (with relevant actors properly identified) is as follows:
>
> Discouraged by Lorentz's criticism, Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit told Ehrenfest that they wished to withdraw their paper. However, Ehrenfest had already sent it to the publisher. He told Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit not to worry: They were young enough to be forgiven for their stupidity! The short paper was published in Naturwissenschaften in November 1925 (13), and an even shorter version, in English, appeared in Nature in February 1926 (14).
>
>
>
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: No, this isn't a situation in which a desk reject is appropriate unless the editor can see a fatal flaw in the paper themself. It is actually, in that case, a situation in which you bring in the "big guns" to look at the arguments.
There is a misconception by many, possibly including some editors, that the "real world" somehow *conforms to* or *obeys* a set of theories. In fact the real world is what it is and our theories, including relativity, are just our (feeble) attempts to understand and explain that within a theoretical/computable/mathematical context.
The fact that "all available evidence" (if true) supports relativity doesn't mean that there isn't some better, more inclusive theory in which it sometimes fails. Don't suppose that "all available evidence" is the same as "all evidence". We haven't, certainly been able to examine all possible phenomena in such a complex world. It is hubris to assume otherwise.
In particular we have lots of limits on what is visible to us, both at micro and macroscopic scale. Likewise on long and short term time scales.
Of course, an editor would/should be skeptical of claims made in such papers and errors can be missed by the best researchers, but there is still a lot to be examined and understood about the real world. Not all possible phenomena are apparent to us. That is one reason that it took Einstein about ten years to come up with (even) special relativity and he did so in the face of opposition of the scientific establishment of the time, who were pretty generally committed to the theory of the aether. And his results weren't IIRC immediately endorsed and accepted by all.
Big world.
Quoting from [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei)
>
> Galileo's championing of Copernican heliocentrism (Earth rotating daily and revolving around the Sun) was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture.
>
>
>
Don't do that.
---
Yes, I do realize that the Inquisition of 1615 were, indeed, the big guns of the day. Oh well.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: My suggested approach can be summed up with Sagan's standard:
>
> **Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.**
>
>
>
Or rather, Laplace's original formulation:
>
> The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.
>
>
>
Note that the maxim is not "Extraordinary claims should be desk rejected to save everyone time, because they're almost certainly wrong". They are almost certainly wrong, but there's a non-zero chance they might be true, which is why they need the proportionate amount of evidence to back them up.
If an author is submitting a paper which makes an extraordinary claim (e.g. that relativity is broken), it's incumbent on that author to provide the extraordinary evidence that it's not a whole lot of hogwash -- that is, to provide sufficient evidence that the claim is valid. It's your job as an editor to provide the first-pass assessment of the provided evidence, and see if the extraordinary-ness of the evidence is proportioned to the extraordinary-ness of the claim.
How much evidence is needed is somewhat topic and field specific. As mentioned, the needed evidence is proportional to the strangeness of the claim. The more fringe and unexpected the claim, the more effort the author needs to go through to prove that the claim is valid.
Generally speaking, a decent scientist who knows the claim is extraordinary (and who ascribes to Sagan's standard) will put in the effort to back up the claim. It will be rather obvious that they're doing their best to back things up. (They will make some effort in that regard.) On the other hand, if someone is not aware that the claim is extraordinary, or if they don't care about the standard (e.g. if they're a crank), the paper will be tissue-paper thin on the point. In these latter cases you can safely desk reject with a note they'll need to spend effort backing up their claim.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: I don't do physics, but if I, as editor, come across results that look implausible, my first impulse is to see how good the rest of the paper looks; in most (or even all, see below) such cases I easily find other issues and then I have a good basis to desk reject. One sentence alone shouldn't be enough if the thing looks well done otherwise. If I remember correctly, I never needed to reject a paper based on one implausible result alone; there was always more to be found.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: As mentioned in comments, phase velocities exceeding c are perfectly normal in relativistic wave theories. Group velocities can also exceed c when there is anomalous dispersion. Recessional velocities in cosmology can also exceed c. Without context, it's not clear whether the claim in the paper is related to any of those, but I hope that before rejecting the paper you'll consider the possibility that the claim isn't as extraordinary as you think.
Of course, the authors should make that clear. But if they mention that the velocity is a phase velocity, or mention anomalous dispersion, I wouldn't expect them also to say that it doesn't violate causality, since the intended audience would understand that. I think the paper wouldn't be improved by adding an explicit disclaimer in those cases.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: One should be very clear about what it exactly means that a theory violates Special Relativity (SR), because there exist at least three classes of situations where "violations" of SR are harmless.
1. In relativistic quantum mechanics, the magnitude <**x**| \exp{-iHt} |**x=0**> of a free particle is positive definite *everywhere*. So the particle can be located, with some probability, *outside* its forward light cone. Does this violate SR mathematically? Yes, big time. Does it violate SR in actual physical experiments? No way. Because it is impossible to localise a particle to volumes less than the Compton wavelength λ. (Such an attempt would boost the energy uncertainty and generate a multi-particle state.) In short, a single-particle theory is inconsistent with the SR causality. Thus, if a violation of SR happens within a less-than-Compton volume, it may be ignored. For it will not enable you to send superluminal signals.
2. Similar is the situation with quantum entanglement. Does the entanglement violate SR mathematically? Sure. Does it violate SR in real life? Never. Because quantum entanglement does not enable superluminal signal transmission.
3. In cosmology, inflation permits for patches of the manifold to recede from one another faster than light. This, however, does not imply superluminal signal exchange.
To conclude, we should be tolerant to the violations of SR that are purely mathematical.
If I were an editor, I would ask the authors of SR-violating theories the same question: does the "violation" imply the possibility of superluminal exchange over longer-than-Compton scales? If no, then the theory can be considered for publication. If yes -- then the author must, at the very least, discuss the extent of the violation, and its consequences.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_9: >
> Is it fair to desk-reject the above paper based solely on this one
> sentence?
>
>
>
My claim: Under no circumstances, is it fair to reject [heretic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xFLjUt2leM) claims based on their contrarianism alone, without going through the reasoning. It may still have to be done due to other constraints of time and effort, but it is never fair.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May I request you to have a look at three case studies that I have compiled to beg review of the antithetical expression *established knowledge*. **The point is that contrarian claims should never be discarded solely on the basis of their contrarianism alone.** These historical examples underline that the presumption of *established knowledge* can be unfair to contrarian thinkers.
The following three counter-examples are a case in point as to why desk rejection mainly because of heresy may not be a good idea. It only intends to provide a proof by counterexamples; to complement other answers which are well written and cover all of the important points.
Evidence
--------
Case 1: [Pulsars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar)
-------------------------------------------------------
[Th<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gold) (1920 - 2004) was a brilliant contrarian scientist and a professor emeritus in the Department of Astronomy at Cornell University.
As a consultant to NASA in 1955, Gold conjectured that "*the Moon is covered by a layer of dust resulting from the ceaseless bombardment of its surface by Solar System debris*" ([Bondi 2004](https://www.nature.com/articles/430415a)). He was opposed by many of his colleagues, but was eventually proven right when the crew of Apollo 11 returned with samples of lunar rock and regolith in 1969.
Astronomer [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell) along with her doctoral adviser [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Hewish) (1924 - 2021) discovered a regularly pulsating source of radio waves in the sky with a pulse width of 0.3 seconds and a period of 1.337 seconds, later called as a pulsar ([Hewish 1968](https://www.nature.com/articles/217709a0)). <NAME> hypothesized that pulsars are vigorously spinning neutron stars emitting radio waves from their magnetic poles ([Gold 1969](https://www.nature.com/articles/221025a0)). This was considered so outrageous that he, a Cornell University astronomer and a NASA consultant, was not even permitted to present it at the first international conference on pulsars ([Dermott 2004](https://baas.aas.org/pub/thomas-gold-1920-2004/release/1)). This incident begs the following question: **Is any idea ever outrageous enough to exceed the outrage of not allowing the idea to be talked about in the first place?**
The experience of Thomas Gold is not uncommon. Contrarian thinkers challenging the consensus narrative have always faced unfair, sharp, and inconsiderate rejection from the mainstream thinker community as well as the public at large.
Case 2: [Rogue Waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave)
---------------------------------------------------------------
For centuries, sailors had reported witnessing extremely large, sudden waves, over 30 meters high, that seemed to come out of nowhere. Such waves became known as rogue waves or monster waves. Scientists almost universally believed the rogue waves to be a myth for hundreds of years.
When the renowned and respected explorer [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Dumont_d%27Urville) (1790 - 1842) confirmed experiencing such waves in his expeditions, which was corroborated by his co-travelers, it was ridiculed even by the then French Prime Minister [<NAME>o](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Arago) (1786 - 1853) who was also a well respected scientist and mathematician ([Levine 2018](https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201801/history.cfm)).
In 1994, the Draupner E oil drilling platform was constructed in the North Sea, 160 kilometers off the coast of Norway. It was designed to withstand waves of 20 meters height, estimated at that time to occur once every 10,000 years ([Levine 2018](https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201801/history.cfm)). On 1st January 1995, the platform was hit by a 26 meter high wave in a relatively calm sea with no storm in the vicinity, thus conclusively establishing the existence of rogue waves. It is now believed that rogue waves are much more common than previously thought, with many of the strange unexplained maritime incidents in history now being hypothesized as having been caused due to rogue waves ([Groch 2022](https://www.smh.com.au/national/scientists-thought-these-monster-waves-were-myth-now-they-re-racing-to-understand-them-20220609-p5asla.html)).
Case 3: [Quasicrystals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasicrystal)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Shechtman) (born 1941), a professor of materials science at the Israel Institute of Technology, was studying rapidly solidified alloys of aluminum with the transition metals, a major class of metals based on their chemical properties. He discovered quasicrystals in 1984 while on a sabbatical at the John Hopkins University.
It was believed at that time that the solid state of matter can show only two fundamentally distinct states of arrangements of the molecules: crystalline and amorphous. In the amorphous solids, like glass for example, the arrangement of the molecules is aperiodic and disordered. Aperiodic means that the pattern does not repeat itself over space; disordered means that there are no simple rules governing the pattern, meaning that the unseen portions of the pattern cannot be predicted over a significant range. In the crystalline solids, the arrangement of molecules is periodic and ordered, meaning that it is repetitive and predictable.
The quasicrystalline state of arrangement of molecules, discovered by Shechtman, is characterized by patterns that are ordered, but aperiodic. In other words, the arrangement of molecules is predictable, but not repetitive. It was an unexpected discovery, and Shechtman faced enormous backlash from the scientific community.
The paper describing his research findings was repeatedly rejected, getting published only after more than two years. After the publication, the head of his research group at the John Hopkins University called him a disgrace to the group and asked him to leave ([Jha 2013](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/06/dan-shechtman-nobel-prize-chemistry-interview)). [<NAME>ing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Pauling) (1901 – 1994), a strong contender for the title of the greatest chemist ever, one of the founders of quantum chemistry and molecular biology, strongly rejected Shechtman’s findings, saying, "*There are no quasi-crystals, just quasi-scientists*" ([Jha 2013](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/06/dan-shechtman-nobel-prize-chemistry-interview)). Shechtman was eventually vindicated and even won the [Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2011](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2011/summary/).
Upvotes: -1
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2023/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: The grade I received for Fall 2022 semester was not the grade I feel like I deserved so I emailed my professor as soon as I saw it. The professor did not respond to my email or any follow-up emails until the start of the next semester. A week after the new semester he agreed that we’d meet to discuss the grade.
We came to the conclusion that my grade would be changed.
It's now halfway through the new semester and no progress has been made to change my grade. I've messaged the dean of the department about it (with whom I've been in contact since the beginning), who recently started ignoring me along with the professor. I've since messaged the dean of all of the science colleges, and I am still waiting for a response.
I don't know what to do in this situation. I have never experienced this before. But it seems like the professor and now the dean of the department are waiting on me to "forget" about it. I'm so lost. This has been giving me anxiety since December and nobody seems to care but me. What more should I do? Since I've come to a "resolution" with the professor, I'm no longer eligible to submit a formal grade appeal for a "board meeting" since we are too far into the new semester.<issue_comment>username_1: Your story indicates one of the reasons why it is always worth following formal appeals processes if they exist. Formal processes create audit trails that make it hard for anyone to deny the existence of conversations or agreements that were made. ... and very frequently, formal appeal processes resolve quickly with simple solutions such as exam re-sits, or re-marking of examination papers.
However, in your case, I would still investigate the possibility of a formal appeal, despite your remarks about a "resolution" with the professor and the apparent passing of the deadline for a formal appeal. I suggest that you go to your university administration and take with you any correspondence that supports your contention that you and the professor reached some sort of agreement about your grade. If there is evidence that is consistent with your claim that you talked to the professor about a grade adjustment and/or that you reached some kind of resolution, that might well be sufficient for the administration to ensure that the professor keeps the agreement that was made.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It seems you reached a phase where administrators see additional emails as significantly annoying and thus prone to be ignored.
Instructors (at least all those I know) have a marking scheme or grid so you need a good reason - better than *"I deserve better"* - for them to review your copy. No instructor (at least none that I know) will agree to review your case on the basis of how you feel about your mark, else final marks would be assigned after a long series of quasi-endless negotiations to please individual students.
Just imagine for one moment that 100 other students didn't get a mark they don't feel they deserve and they all start emailing everyone in the administrative chain, and you can see why how the process is slowed down.
You seem to have resolved the issue with the instructor. What was the outcome of this resolution? Indeed if there is a resolution then what more do you expect the instructor or dean to do? Do you have a formal email clarifying how the situation has been resolved? If no you should ask for one. If none is forthcoming, then I would suggest you start a formal appeal anyways, as there is no record of this resolution.
Upvotes: 1
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2023/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted an abstract to a journal that is on the predatory list of publishers. It has been accepted within hours, but I only now learned that publishing there involves fees and that the journal is on the predatory list. What can I do to protect my chapter? I have not sent the full manuscript as yet.<issue_comment>username_1: Usually with journal publication there is some kind of publication agreement, and until there has been a publication agreement between author and journal, the author may withdraw the paper. The obvious way to proceed here is to let the journal know that you have decided to withdraw the paper, and then *don't send them the manuscript*. (Make sure to be polite in your correspondence; you have previously started a publication process with them, so it is appropriate to be polite and cordial in now withdrawing your submission.) If they don't have the actual manuscript then this substantially limits their ability to proceed, and if you don't yet have any contractually binding publication agreement with them, then they would have little recourse. Depending on the ethics of this particular predatory journal, at worst they might publish your abstract without an article, but that won't really help them or harm you much.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Money is the great motivator for predatory journals. If you write and tell them that:
1. You do not wish them to publish your abstract
2. You will ***not be paying*** them anything
3. You will not be sending them the manuscript
then it is very unlikely that they will publish even the abstract. The only reason for doing so would be so that they could pretend that you owe them money.
Since they won't have the manuscript, they will be unable to publish that part of your work even if they wanted to.
Upvotes: 5
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2023/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm about to give my first conference presentation, in historical linguistics. (In case it matters: I'm an undergraduate presenting at an undergraduate conference in the UK). My presentation and results are the result of corpus analysis using Python and pandas. I want to share my code (in a public Github repo), but at the moment it is fairly rubbish - messy, disorganised, and full of half-working things, tangents I abandoned, etc.
My question is: **how far should I re-organise my code before I share it?**
Should I:
1. Write a `reproduce` script, which draws together the different bits of different files (e.g. `.py` files, Jupyter notebooks) that I ended up actually using, and spits out the results I discuss in my presentation. Not share the previous versions, attempts, unused scripts etc.
2. Leave the repository as is (i.e. with the results for different questions coming out of different scripts in a somewhat disorganised way), but delete unused code and write a `README` which explains which script does what.
3. Leave the repository as is, including all the guff. Write a `README` which explains which bits do what and which bits are guff.
4. Do something else entirely.
My initial thought was option 1, but then I read [this question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/13726/should-i-supply-code-along-with-my-paper-submission) and specifically [this article](https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003285) which suggest that the right thing to do would be option 3 - including all previous versions etc.
It's worth noting that it is not massively complex (it's a corpus linguistics study, not computational linguistics/NLP, and probably only runs to about 300 lines in total, most of which are applying `regex`es and looking at frequencies of particular patterns in the corpus), and I imagine not particular technically impressive to future graduate applications committees or employers :)<issue_comment>username_1: I want you to imagine yourself in a few years from now. You're writing up your PhD thesis and need to check that result you presented in that undergraduate conference back in 2023. You can't really remember what you did, so you want to reproduce the calculations. You also want to remake the figures with nicer formatting. You comb back through your Github, find the repository, and, with bated breath, open it.
What would you *want* to see at that moment?
Is it a) a repository full of random, messy files with a script that reproduces some of the old work; b) a repository with a few files and a README that explains what some of them do; c) a repository full of random, messy files and a README?
Hopefully your answer is: d) none of the above.
Messy, undocumented code is of no use to anyone; and since chances are you're going to be the only person using this code you're shooting yourself in the foot by leaving it that way. You've got a big job ahead of you to clean it up. In future, you will know to do these things as you go along instead of at the end of a project.
My advice:
* Sit down and structure the code with a pen and paper. Which scripts/classes/functions depend on each other? Which order are they executed in? Which parts do what?
* Remove defunct/unused parts of the code.
* Add docstrings to all classes and functions. These should explain very clearly what each class/function does, and list all the variables in the functions and their types.
* Add comments to any line of code where it's unclear from the code itself what it's doing (if you have good variable and function naming conventions this shouldn't be too many).
* Commit the changes to the repository *little and often*. Much better to clean the code incrementally than do it all in one go and accidentally delete a vital script.
* Related to the above, in future make sure you know how to use git efficiently. It sounds like you could have done with making some branches for those tangents you abandoned, rather than leaving them on the main branch.
* If you really want to work on it, see if you can synthesise your code into a proper package rather than a collection of scripts. Your idea for a "reproduce" script would be akin to a Run() class for the package.
* Write a Jupyter Notebook which reproduces every result the code spits out. Take advantage of the markdown cells to write a few sentences/paragraphs about each one. Commit the executed notebook to the repository.
* Share your nice, clear code with the world without shame.
With these steps, the original, messy version of the code will still be visible in the commit history. But the latest version will be clean and well-documented. This means that it should work out of the box three+ years down the line, but you will also be able to go back and look at those deleted tangents should you need to.
A good way to learn how to write nice, well-documented code is to look at the best piece of public code in your field and examine its structure, documentation and commit history. When you write code in future, follow that example. An even better way is to starting modifying such public codes e.g. to add new features, and submitting pull requests so that other people will review your changes, and in the process, your code.
Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You should do number #1 if you can. Doing #2 is better than nothing.
A combination of #1 and Number #3 is something you should do for your own records, but you don't need to share. Think you this as a computational lab notebook.
Upvotes: 0
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2023/03/20
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<issue_start>username_0: I just finished my master's thesis and my supervisor agrees that my work could be suitable for a publication. He suggested to:
* write the article independently, and as the only author
* have him correct and review my article, he will be a co-author in this case
What are pros and cons of each venue?
For instance, could it be that in the second case, it might be more difficult to have the article published? I imagine that he will not want to have the article published in a less prestigious journal/conference, should it not work out for the ones he usually targets.
At the same time this would be my first publication, so that I definitely could use the advice from an expert.<issue_comment>username_1: If you will be first author on a joint publication there are few downsides and a minor upside. Your advisor's reputation might ease the review process somewhat and if they have a high reputation it might get you a few more readers.
Note that in some fields, there is no real notion of "first author". I don't know about yours. In pure math, authors are normally listed alphabetically. But even when there isn't any such notion, there is sometimes a "contributions" paragraph in the paper that provides details. That is somewhat analogous. In some fields, all authors are assumed to contribute equally. That may be your case, or not.
Getting their advice also counts for something for your first (or any early) publication.
A sole author publication carries a bit more weight long term, but, collaboration is more and more accepted as a valuable thing.
However, if your advisor insists on being "first" author then it is being unfair to you if you have actually done the work in the thesis. I suspect he is being ethical here, however, having given you the choice.
Remember, though, that no single publication is likely to make or break your career. There are exceptions, of course.
But, you can write it up as best you can and then make the decision. Submitting it is likely to get you valuable feedback unless it is immediately rejected.
Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Think of the choice you are being given in these terms:
* You can go it alone, doing all the work, even that part of the work you don't yet have experience (let alone expertise) in, in exchange for all of the credit.
* Or you can obtain expert help in checking things over, writing and editing the results in ways that your chosen venue will accept, in exchange for a co-author credit.
I myself would take the deal and give the co-author credit in a heartbeat, even though I have a number of first-author credits already. (No 'only author' credits.) I would do it because it means less work for me and more expertise in the publication in exchange for something that costs (in my field) essentially zero. (And when I was a grad student, there were exactly zero papers where my advisor's advice did not merit a co-author, so it is also morally correct.)
This applies also to your question about venue quality. No one can really answer that question except your advisor. But if you have a good relationship with this person, I would strongly advise you to stop thinking of it in terms of your advisor causing venue-related problems. Instead I would think of it in terms of helping you avoid bad venues and elevating your publication to the highest venue it can reside.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I think there is a significant (and permanent) advantage to writing a solo paper, in that it will be clear that it is all your own work. If you write a joint paper with your supervisor, it will not be clear how much they contributed. People evaluating your CV may imagine that the paper would not have been possible without your supervisor's contribution. Note that in math there is no concept of "first author", and even if there is a space to specify "contributions" this is not going to help unless someone actually reads the paper.
On the other hand, the experience of writing a paper together with your supervisor may be very valuable. (I think you would be wise to look at the writing in some of their recent papers before upgrading "may" to "will"!) I don't think you should worry about journals. Your supervisor will have a good idea of how high to aim, and presumably have enough papers that they don't need to worry about the odd one being somewhere lower-ranking, especially if it is co-written with a masters student - papers that come out of student projects are always a plus for the supervisor. There are even journals that specialise in such papers. Perhaps your supervisor will want to avoid really dubious journals/publishers, but then you would be wise to do that too.
Your supervisor will probably be happy to advise on choice of journal even for a solo paper, of course. I suspect that the fact that they give you an option of a solo paper is an indication that they think that would be better for you, since the co-authorship would clearly be better for them.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: I wanted to mention that from my perspective as a professor and thesis advisor in theoretical mathematics, I don't really agree with or understand what the OP's thesis advisor is telling him.
To explain: I and most other theoretical mathematicians I know don't view "correcting and reviewing" the work of someone else to be sufficient for coauthorship...unless the corrections were highly significant, of course. But moreover this work came from the OP's master's thesis, which I would have expected his thesis advisor to have "corrected and reviewed" already. The impression I get is that the advisor seems to be willing to put in the work expected of a thesis advisor only in exchange for a coauthorship credit, which I find strange.
Also in my experience: a lot of mathematician advisors do not really want publication credit on the thesis work of their students for reasons similar to those that the OP mentions -- although the work may be publishable, nevertheless it may not be up to the standard of the advisor's work in the field, with the outcome that such a publication might help the student and might not really help the advisor. In fact, I honestly believe that the most typical state of affairs is that the thesis advisor gives *somewhat more intellectual aid* to their student than just "correcting and reviewing" and still chooses not to be a coauthor for the same reason.
The way I can interpret the question that squares best with my experience is: the advisor knows that the student's work was essentially mathematically valid and it was written up well enough to make for an acceptable master's thesis, but it was not written in such a way as to make an acceptable submission for a journal or conference. Moreover the advisor knows that this rewriting process would take the student significant time whereas they themselves would handle it more quickly, but you can only rewrite someone else's paper so much if you are not a coauthor.
Anyway, I think the situation lacks clarity. Another answer suggests that the advisor knows that the solo publication would be better for the OP while the joint publication would be better for them and that is why they are offering the choice. But as a thesis advisor myself, this sounds like a strange game to play: why not just *advise* the OP to do what is better for them? In my view, one need not deal with a thesis advisor like a Delphic oracle where you ask everyone else you know what they think was meant: you should be able to go back and get more clarification from the advisor themself! I advise that the OP does so.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/21
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<issue_start>username_0: I am a first-year PhD student in machine learning at a reputable university in the UK. Over the past six months, my work has consisted of reading papers that I find interesting, studying textbooks, and experimenting with code. Although this may seem like a typical first-year experience, I have come to realize that my supervisor lacks proficiency in my field (I have had to explain fundamental concepts), which has made our meetings and my work less productive than anticipated.
Our meetings go something like this: I attempt to explain a paper I have read and then discuss possible incremental improvements, and the meeting would end with my supervisor telling me to go test my ideas. Although experimentation can be an essential part of research, coding every idea that I have is time-consuming. If my supervisor was more proficient in the field, I believe I would receive better direction and save a lot of time. They could immediately identify issues with my ideas or suggest other works that address the same problem.
While I understand that the PhD process should be student-led, I feel as though I don't have anyone to discuss ideas with.
I don't have experience with other PhD supervisors, so what is the role of a PhD supervisor? And what should I do about my situation?<issue_comment>username_1: If all the experts in a field know what the "result" will be, then there is absolutely no value in the research. Research is about finding the answers to questions we (we being all humanity) do not know the answers to.
If you read papers and have ideas about how to improve them, those ideas are only interesting and useful if they would require some sort of test. If your advisor recommends that you test your ideas, that's because that's how research works.
If you don't understand *how* to test your idea, that's something you should discuss with your supervisor. If you've tested your idea but aren't sure your test actually shows what you think it does, that's something you should discuss with your supervisor. If you have lots of different ideas to test, you might ask for advice on prioritizing them. Ultimately, though, you're going to have to test some ideas.
In other fields, there may be much higher barriers to testing a theory than writing some code: you may need to do weeks or months of experiments, or go through time-consuming regulatory steps for research in animals or with humans. In that case, you likely want to do a bit more refining before doing any single test.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I had the same experience when I did my Ph.D. in the UK.
I worked on distributed computation and operating systems and neither my first nor second supervisor had a good understanding of what I was doing.
To be frank, it was frustrating as there was no good academic exchange, debate, or collaborative work.
A lot of my co-PhDs had the same feeling.
You will learn to live with it. You need to take the lead on your research earlier. You will decide what route you follow, and what ideas to try from the start (now). The supervisor's feedback will be mostly on the methodical and publishing side.
My supervisor's involvement improved when I had results. I guess, it will be similar on your end. As soon as you apply your machine learning research to the field of your supervisor, they'll get more involved.
My advice is to go to conferences and look for people who do something similar.
Stay in contact with them and collaborate. This is something I should have done earlier in my PhD.
Alternatively, you could look for an academic in your institute/uni that has more experience in machine learning / your area of interest and collaborate with them more.
Generally speaking: A supervisor should guide you a bit with your research, and help with how research is done. Ideally, you want one where the research group works in close alignment, but a lot of young supervisors get PhD students with very different focuses, which makes collaboration within the group very difficult. More seasoned supervisors tend to get PhD students that share a common focus. The second supervisor (in the UK) is often just a formality and is, in most cases, not involved in your research.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: If you really want to be successful in academia, it is important that you have your own ideas and make progress on your own.
Your advisor seems to be open to letting you explore your own ideas and is not forcing you to do exactly what he wants, which is a fairly rare opportunity.
Also, unless your advisor is insecure about his lack of knowledge and prevents you from discussing ideas or learning from other groups, you can just try to collaborate or learn from others. Conferences, collaboration, whatever you like.
The impression that I get from reading your post is that your fear over your own ideas not working out makes you want to blame your advisor for not helping. If you're really so concerned that a specific idea is good, then go find a friend in the field and see what they think. (But show them in the form of a small written writeup of the idea so it's harder for them to steal it.)
Upvotes: -1
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2023/03/21
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<issue_start>username_0: I have been a retired Emeritus Professor for 10 years. Thus I have no university email address anymore; I only have my personal email address. Google Scholar has pages and pages of my articles listed, and I am trying to verify my personal email address (the only one I use now) on my profile page. Unfortunately, only institutional email addresses are accepted there.
**Question:** How can I verify my personal (non-institutional) email address on my profile page on Google Scholar?<issue_comment>username_1: Google Scholar only allows you to verify corporate email addresses. As a retired professor emeritus without an institutional email address, you will not be able to verify your personal email address on your profile page.
But you can try
1. Make sure your posts are correctly listed on your profile page. (can be added manually or with ORCID)
2. You can add a link to your personal website or academia.edu profile on your Google Scholar profile page. (will help establish your authorship and make it easier for other users to find your work)
you can also contact Google Scholar support and explain your situation.
Here is a link to a similar discussion. [Alternatives for when your institution doesn't provide you an e-mail address](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/120126/alternatives-for-when-your-institution-doesnt-provide-you-an-e-mail-address)
Maybe you will find useful information about technological solutions
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: To convert my comment to a proper answer:
Since you are a (professor) emeritus, you should ask the current chair of your former department to reinstate your old email address: Having an institutional email address is a usual curtesy extended to all emeriti.
Personally, I never heard of the situation at a US university where an emeritus would not be allowed to keep a university email address. Providing emeriti with institutional email addresses is a common practice at my university and at two other places I randomly checked (Ohio State and Princeton).
For (some degree of) confirmation that it is a common practice in general, see the accepted answer [here](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/71215/do-some-or-most-universities-allow-retiring-faculty-to-retain-their-faculty-emai). (Even though the linked question was closed since "the answer to this question strongly depends on individual factors," no actual examples of denial of email addresses to emeriti were given.)
If a departmental Chair cannot figure out how to proceed with such a request (or declines the request), then escalate the request to Dean's office.
Upvotes: 3
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2023/03/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I do not fully understand which interest a supervisor has in their student's work. Is the Ph.D. student somebody who the supervisor should teach, a colleague, an employee, or an independent researcher who is given advice when and how they feel like?<issue_comment>username_1: That depends on the field. Often (but not always) in the sciences the supervisor will have a number of research themes on the go, and a PhD student will slot in to one of those and act as a junior member of a team working on a larger problem, becoming more senior as they gain more experience. In the arts, and mathematics, it is more common for the PhD student to be closer to an independent researcher from the start. There are no hard and fast rules though.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The ideal is for the student/prof relationship to involve a degree of professional trust. They should each be striving to give the other any information that is required to proceed correctly. There is a lot covered by that, and many complex situations arise. But the usual principle should be that everybody should be striving to treat the other person with due respect and consideration. If they don't, it's a problem of some kind.
The exact nature of the relationship will depend on the university, and the specific department in that university. Different schools have different standards and cultures. The way a PhD candidate "fits in" to the school will be very different. Even individual profs will treat their PhD students very differently.
This is especially true when a particularly famous prof has many students so that they can say "trained under" about the famous person.
I recall a story about the Great Man of Science (GMS) and how he ran his group. One of his PhD students gave a talk to the department on the progress of his research. And GMS was in the front row of the audience, asking interesting and useful questions. And everybody was quite happy with the results of the talk. And at the end of the talk the following occurred.
GMS: That was a good talk. Your research is quite interesting. Who is your supervisor?
PhD student: You are, Dr. S.
GMS: Oh! Oh! Well, we should talk tomorrow, this is good work.
As well, to some extent, it will depend on the kind of relationship the PhD student desires and makes possible. If you want a more direct relationship, with more interaction, it may be possible you can arrange this simply by asking for it and showing up in the prof's office more often. If you need financial support you may be able to get this by asking for it. Maybe, if the prof or the department has funding. You might need to do TA work or something. If you prefer a less "hands on" type of relationship, you might be able to arrange that. It would depend on how good you are at working on your own with infrequent meetings and guidance.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It's good if the relationship is friendly and respectful but often the relationship between Supervisor and Ph.D. students is essentially a master / slave relationship.
I was lucky enough to have a supervisor who was kind and respectful so in my case it was more similar to the relationship between two employees in a company where a more senior employee shows the junior employee how to do things that he needs to do in order to complete his work but otherwise basically just leaves him alone and lets him work on his own.
Someone I know well had a supervisor who used the Ph.D. students as slaves to write papers for him. He refused to let her graduate, even after she had exceeded all the requirements, because she was producing papers that helped his career. He did that to all his students and they had to lobby the head of department to force the supervisor to let them graduate.
Professors at some universities are under tremendous pressure to publish. When they have Ph.D. students, who are also under pressure to publish, and those students are required to write the supervisor's name as a co-author on their papers, it's like they get papers for free without having to work for them. Of course some Ph.D. students require a lot of support from the supervisor so it's not necessarily "free" but in the case I cited above, the supervisor would just give a suggested research topic and then leave the students on their own to write the papers and do the research. If they spent a year getting no results, or if they failed out of the program because they didn't publish anything, it wasn't the supervisor's problem.
My ideal supervisor (from the student perspective) is someone who has great ideas about what research to investigate. He or she assigns you a topic or gives you a choice of several topics to investigate. He or she then suggests some journals articles to read to get up-to-speed on the topic. Once you've done the reading, the supervisor gives some suggestions about experiments you might try, gives advice about how to conduct the experiments, gives suggestions about the statistical methods to use to analyze the results, and then suggests a journal or conference in which to publish. After submitting, a great advisor would consult with you about the feedback you got from the journal reviewers and advises you about how to proceed (fix your paper to follow the suggestions, try publishing in a different journal, or abandon it and work on something else).
Basically, a good advisor is someone who is more helpful and less selfish. And it's important to get a good one because a really selfish one can make your life very painful. When you join a Ph.D. program, you're committing 5-8 years of your life to it, and if you fail, you probably won't get another chance. So if you're 4 years in and you realize that your supervisor is taking advantage of you in a harmful way, you have a serious problem. You can apply to change to a different supervisor within the same school if you have proof that the supervisor is doing something wrong, but if he or she is just being cruel and selfish but not actually breaking any rules or laws, you might be forced to decide whether to accept a kind of temporary slavery or drop out of school. That's a hard decision and most people I know chose slavery.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Ideally the PhD student starts as a student and leaves as a colleague. In reality, it depends a huge amount on the individual supervisor and student.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: It completely depends on the advisor. I've seen treatment range from "colleague who I check in with once every month or so" all the way to " 'employee' who should do exactly what they are told without 'talking back' ".
Your program likely has certain standards or expectations (either implicit or explicit) around how PhD students are to be treated. They are often found in the student handbook or formal program requirements if explicit. It is another matter entirely, however, if your dean or department head will actually take any action when a supervisor violates these standards.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I think the above comments are all correct in terms of the sentiment, and especially the one warning prospective graduate students to choose their advisor wisely is very very good (speaking as a PhD advisor myself).
But PhD students are /students/ first and foremost. The degree to which they take on employee-like characteristics varies by field a lot. In the US at least, in STEM fields there tends to be more of a sense of students being "employees" because very often (most of the time) the advisor is literally winning grants to pay the salary of the student to do some work on a federal grant which will want reports on that work. This can tend to make things more 'contractual' than they would be ideally. A good advisor will try to resist thinking about it this way, as much as they can, to give the student room to explore, make mistakes, and grow. But it's not easy given the pressures faculty are under as well. In Europe and many non-US settings it is different, as most PhD programs are government-funded (in STEM at least, which is all I can speak to), and because bachelor's programs tend to be focused (not liberal arts), so PhD students abroad will be more likely to be independent and have a more 'traditional' mentor/mentee relationship compared to the US.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I have met professors who think students working on their research are
1. Cheap labor. But students would work their ass off and graduate in the end.
2. Assets: each graduate student who works with them will add more to the body of research, and in a certain way make said professors look good. So, both win.
3. Cheap tools: a certain professor would get students to do not only the work but also as cheap secretaries. As the work was about to be published, and they were about to defend their thesis, professor would then have students start a new project. Then he would complete the last details, and write the paper without putting the student's names in them so he could also hold them hostage (you are not graduating until I decide you are ready to defend your thesis), specially given he only hired foreign grad students. Said professor has been known to call the immigration on the students if they disagreed with the arrangement.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I'm wondering how can I download the videos in the supplementary information section on nature.com ([here](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-93915-0#Sec9)).
My professor adds them in the slides so I know that is possible to do it, but it's a bit tricky.
I tried from the developer tools of chrome and firefox, but no way, in the media section there isn't a link to the video I'm playing.<issue_comment>username_1: That depends on the field. Often (but not always) in the sciences the supervisor will have a number of research themes on the go, and a PhD student will slot in to one of those and act as a junior member of a team working on a larger problem, becoming more senior as they gain more experience. In the arts, and mathematics, it is more common for the PhD student to be closer to an independent researcher from the start. There are no hard and fast rules though.
Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The ideal is for the student/prof relationship to involve a degree of professional trust. They should each be striving to give the other any information that is required to proceed correctly. There is a lot covered by that, and many complex situations arise. But the usual principle should be that everybody should be striving to treat the other person with due respect and consideration. If they don't, it's a problem of some kind.
The exact nature of the relationship will depend on the university, and the specific department in that university. Different schools have different standards and cultures. The way a PhD candidate "fits in" to the school will be very different. Even individual profs will treat their PhD students very differently.
This is especially true when a particularly famous prof has many students so that they can say "trained under" about the famous person.
I recall a story about the Great Man of Science (GMS) and how he ran his group. One of his PhD students gave a talk to the department on the progress of his research. And GMS was in the front row of the audience, asking interesting and useful questions. And everybody was quite happy with the results of the talk. And at the end of the talk the following occurred.
GMS: That was a good talk. Your research is quite interesting. Who is your supervisor?
PhD student: You are, Dr. S.
GMS: Oh! Oh! Well, we should talk tomorrow, this is good work.
As well, to some extent, it will depend on the kind of relationship the PhD student desires and makes possible. If you want a more direct relationship, with more interaction, it may be possible you can arrange this simply by asking for it and showing up in the prof's office more often. If you need financial support you may be able to get this by asking for it. Maybe, if the prof or the department has funding. You might need to do TA work or something. If you prefer a less "hands on" type of relationship, you might be able to arrange that. It would depend on how good you are at working on your own with infrequent meetings and guidance.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It's good if the relationship is friendly and respectful but often the relationship between Supervisor and Ph.D. students is essentially a master / slave relationship.
I was lucky enough to have a supervisor who was kind and respectful so in my case it was more similar to the relationship between two employees in a company where a more senior employee shows the junior employee how to do things that he needs to do in order to complete his work but otherwise basically just leaves him alone and lets him work on his own.
Someone I know well had a supervisor who used the Ph.D. students as slaves to write papers for him. He refused to let her graduate, even after she had exceeded all the requirements, because she was producing papers that helped his career. He did that to all his students and they had to lobby the head of department to force the supervisor to let them graduate.
Professors at some universities are under tremendous pressure to publish. When they have Ph.D. students, who are also under pressure to publish, and those students are required to write the supervisor's name as a co-author on their papers, it's like they get papers for free without having to work for them. Of course some Ph.D. students require a lot of support from the supervisor so it's not necessarily "free" but in the case I cited above, the supervisor would just give a suggested research topic and then leave the students on their own to write the papers and do the research. If they spent a year getting no results, or if they failed out of the program because they didn't publish anything, it wasn't the supervisor's problem.
My ideal supervisor (from the student perspective) is someone who has great ideas about what research to investigate. He or she assigns you a topic or gives you a choice of several topics to investigate. He or she then suggests some journals articles to read to get up-to-speed on the topic. Once you've done the reading, the supervisor gives some suggestions about experiments you might try, gives advice about how to conduct the experiments, gives suggestions about the statistical methods to use to analyze the results, and then suggests a journal or conference in which to publish. After submitting, a great advisor would consult with you about the feedback you got from the journal reviewers and advises you about how to proceed (fix your paper to follow the suggestions, try publishing in a different journal, or abandon it and work on something else).
Basically, a good advisor is someone who is more helpful and less selfish. And it's important to get a good one because a really selfish one can make your life very painful. When you join a Ph.D. program, you're committing 5-8 years of your life to it, and if you fail, you probably won't get another chance. So if you're 4 years in and you realize that your supervisor is taking advantage of you in a harmful way, you have a serious problem. You can apply to change to a different supervisor within the same school if you have proof that the supervisor is doing something wrong, but if he or she is just being cruel and selfish but not actually breaking any rules or laws, you might be forced to decide whether to accept a kind of temporary slavery or drop out of school. That's a hard decision and most people I know chose slavery.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Ideally the PhD student starts as a student and leaves as a colleague. In reality, it depends a huge amount on the individual supervisor and student.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: It completely depends on the advisor. I've seen treatment range from "colleague who I check in with once every month or so" all the way to " 'employee' who should do exactly what they are told without 'talking back' ".
Your program likely has certain standards or expectations (either implicit or explicit) around how PhD students are to be treated. They are often found in the student handbook or formal program requirements if explicit. It is another matter entirely, however, if your dean or department head will actually take any action when a supervisor violates these standards.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I think the above comments are all correct in terms of the sentiment, and especially the one warning prospective graduate students to choose their advisor wisely is very very good (speaking as a PhD advisor myself).
But PhD students are /students/ first and foremost. The degree to which they take on employee-like characteristics varies by field a lot. In the US at least, in STEM fields there tends to be more of a sense of students being "employees" because very often (most of the time) the advisor is literally winning grants to pay the salary of the student to do some work on a federal grant which will want reports on that work. This can tend to make things more 'contractual' than they would be ideally. A good advisor will try to resist thinking about it this way, as much as they can, to give the student room to explore, make mistakes, and grow. But it's not easy given the pressures faculty are under as well. In Europe and many non-US settings it is different, as most PhD programs are government-funded (in STEM at least, which is all I can speak to), and because bachelor's programs tend to be focused (not liberal arts), so PhD students abroad will be more likely to be independent and have a more 'traditional' mentor/mentee relationship compared to the US.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: I have met professors who think students working on their research are
1. Cheap labor. But students would work their ass off and graduate in the end.
2. Assets: each graduate student who works with them will add more to the body of research, and in a certain way make said professors look good. So, both win.
3. Cheap tools: a certain professor would get students to do not only the work but also as cheap secretaries. As the work was about to be published, and they were about to defend their thesis, professor would then have students start a new project. Then he would complete the last details, and write the paper without putting the student's names in them so he could also hold them hostage (you are not graduating until I decide you are ready to defend your thesis), specially given he only hired foreign grad students. Said professor has been known to call the immigration on the students if they disagreed with the arrangement.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/22
| 2,617
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<issue_start>username_0: I submitted my master thesis two years ago and I got a passing grade. Now I got a call from the university stating that my supervisor has found plagiarism in some pages of the thesis. They told me that they will send me a letter and I have to give my statement, and then the case will be submitted to the committee and they will decide what to do.
My question is: what are the criteria for grading a master thesis? If the supervisor already passed me two years ago, did he not check for plagiarism then?
I don't know what to do.<issue_comment>username_1: >
> what is the criteria for grading the Master Thesis?
>
>
>
You'll have to refer to the rules of your university. There are no universal criteria.
>
> If the supervisor already passed me two years ago, did he not check for plagiarism then?
>
>
>
Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't really matter. The author of a thesis would be liable for plagiarism in it, no matter how or when it was discovered.
>
> I don't know what to do.
>
>
>
I would recommend finding someone to advise you who is familiar with the disciplinary process at this particular institution. Something like an Ombuds or Student Affairs office might be able to connect you with someone. Or if there is another faculty member or administrator there whom you trust.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: What happens next depends on the policies of your institution. However, it's likely within their power to revoke a degree for substantial academic misconduct; they may also have options for lesser penalties. No one but the committee evaluating your case can make a determination of what your consequences will be.
If you didn't plagiarize, you will have to make a strong case in your favor.
If you did plagiarize, then that's your fault. Just because you got past your advisor the first time without being detected doesn't absolve you of misconduct. You can argue that you made a mistake, or didn't understand what you did was plagiarism, or that the plagiarism was a minor part of your whole work, but it's up to the committee to decide if they believe you and if it matters.
It's important to know that plagiarism means taking the words/ideas of others without credit. Plagiarism is not a "similarity score" or similar automated document comparison algorithm. If words/phrases in your thesis overlap with another document because they are standard phrases in your field or coincidental matches, that isn't plagiarism unless you actually took the phrases without credit (citations, quotations). Similarly, if you took another document and edited the sentence structures or replaced words with synonyms but did not credit the original document, or simply failed to acknowledge the source of ideas in your thesis, it's possible to plagiarize without *any* text overlap.
Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: I have my own views on plagiarism and they are not universally shared.
I believe that *true* plagiarism needs to be an *intentional* act. I read something and *decide* that I want to present it as my own original thoughts. That is pretty hard to prove. But it must be avoided if scientific principles are to be followed. Among other things, it breaks the chain of context provided by the original, which can lead to errors later. That is independent, however, of whether sanctions are warranted.
This follows a general rule that *ethical* transgressions require intent.
One reason that it can be hard to prove is that it is about *ideas*, not words. It is possible to plagiarize using exactly none of the original words. The intention can be invisible. So, in particular, paraphrasing an original doesn't make plagiarism go away.
But there are also two kinds of "apparent" plagiarism. They are problematic, but don't involve the same sort of intention. And they may be sanctionable or not.
The first is not knowing the rules at all and so not knowing that you have broken them, even if you do something so bold as to copy-paste actually expression (which can also fall afoul of copyrights, but that is a different issue). In reality, if this is the case, someone has failed in teaching you the rules. It is a "we don't know what we don't know" sort of situation. Some people just grok the rules, but others assume that everyone groks them and so this sort of unintentional, obvious, "apparent" plagiarism can be easy to charge and hard to avoid.
And note that copying words can easily make this sort of apparent plagiarism look like a blatant, intentional, act, when, indeed it was, but the "intention" wasn't actually to break an *unknown* rule, just to copy words blindly.
This sort of thing is what plagiarism checkers look for - copied words, never mind the ideas.
As an aside, I've had student not know some things that seem blindingly obvious to others and that should have been taught. In this case the student's misunderstanding was also reinforced by other factors. But at base, it was bad teaching that led him to error. He hated me for a while for correcting his issues, thinking I was lying to him. And it took me a while to understand that the underlying problem wasn't his.
The other sort of "apparent" plagiarism is just sloppy research practice. "Yes, I know the rules and intend to follow them, but messed up in my writing (focused on other things) and missed the necessary citation. Oh, expletive, I messed up." Sloppy research is, in my view a somewhat (not a lot) lesser offense than deliberate plagiarism. It leads to other issues as well as this one, of course.
I don't know, of course, what you did, or what is being charged. Whether it is deemed serious enough to cancel your degree or not is up to the committee. I expect, however, that at a minimum you might be asked to re-write the thesis taking better care to avoid sloppiness and to follow the rules.
When some publication appears to contain plagiarized material, even if that was unintentional, it needs to be corrected. Sometimes removal is required, sometimes editing might suffice. But, even with "benign" cases, it is important that the public record itself be corrected. But, as I said earlier, it is vital that the "chain of context" be maintained in scholarly writing and even unintentional and "apparent" plagiarism requires correction.
However, and this is why I write this post, I think it is incumbent on any research advisor or supervisor to assure that their students understand the rules. It is simple enough to promulgate them, but students don't coming into a degree program knowing everything that others think they should know. Make a specific point of teaching the rules of the game before you start to play.
---
There is also another possibility that doesn't involve plagiarism of any kind, but might be misinterpreted as such. That is, the author had no knowledge of the earlier work at all, and reproduced it independently and innocently. That is pretty incredibly unlikely in case the words match, of course. It is also possible that it is a case of sloppy scholarship. "Ah, I shoulda, coulda found that if I'd looked harder."
Independent *simultaneous* work is pretty common, since the state of the art in a field advances on a front that is known to many. So many might be asking the same questions simultaneously.
---
Some commenters have suggested that I make a recommendation about what you should do in this situation. It is hard to be definite, since we don't know what is actually being charged or whether it meets the definition of true plagiarism or not.
Once you know more you have some options.
If you did (intentionally) plagiarize you can beg forgiveness, and (hopefully) honestly promise to do better. But the judgement may be harsh if the evidence is strong.
If you (honestly) didn't know the rules you can state that, though whether it would be accepted or not is up to the committee of judges. In that case, they may share blame, but are unlikely (sadly) to acknowledge that.
If you were sloppy in your research or writing, then you can admit to that and it may (or not) gain you a bit. Sloppy research isn't terribly rare, sadly.
In any case, you need to correct the thesis, though that may be moot if the committee rejects any appeal.
You may just have to accept the consequences. Sorry. But you have little control here.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I have been involved in a similar situation. A student plagiarized portions of their thesis in ways that should have been obvious to the major professor, but this professor likely didn't carefully read the thesis and the committee passed the student. I'm not really sure how this happened because the thesis was a bit of a mess and had numerous other problems unrelated to the plagiarism, but somehow they passed the student. A couple years later the plagiarism was noticed and an institutional ethics committee from the university requested a meeting with the student. They required that the thesis be revised to remove the plagiarism and the student was given a two-month deadline to submit a revised thesis. This was difficult for the student since they had moved on to another job, but they did complete the revision and, later, a second revision requested by the committee. Finally, the committee accepted the second revision and the student kept their degree.
As others have said, this procedure will likely vary among institutions, but this is one example of what can happen.
Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: This can be scary. You need legal advice from an attorney who has dealt with such cases, preferably at the same university.
You need at least two items from your university. You need to review their definitions and standards for plagiarism. You also need to review their procedures for reviewing cases of alleged plagiarism. Both of these should be obtainable from a Dean's office or other administrator.
Don't try to second guess the specific claims. Wait until you get them and review them yourself and then with your attorney.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Assuming that you did not plagiarize, it's best to not engage with this process at university and instead start a legal process against the university. Years after students have left university, they cannot be expected to take part in any proceedings at university. The university should be required to have a far greater burden of proof to take away your degree than a mere suspicion that you committed plagiarism and you not willing to take part in their proceedings.
While this should be a slam dunk legal case, it's best to consult with a lawyer. The lawyer can write a letter to the university making the threat of legal action against the university should they go ahead with their proceedings and take away your degree.
Upvotes: -1
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2023/03/22
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<issue_start>username_0: I recently obtained my PhD in physics from one of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany. Unfortunately, I only barely passed with a "rite" grade (the lowest passing grade here in Germany). This is despite my supervisor (and head examiner) going through my thesis with me during the writing process and giving me corrections and advice along the way which I duly implemented. Before handing the thesis in, my supervisor remarked that this was a very good thesis and will likely obtain a good mark.
However, I was told in the exam that both my thesis and oral exam had been graded poorly, even though my presentation was on time and was aimed well (according to my colleagues, director of the institute and day-to-day supervisor who was also in the room). I could not answer some questions in the oral exam simply because they were outside of my field, for example I was asked about stellar formation and ion drives despite me being an experimental physicist working on MBE (molecular-beam epitaxy) crystal growth. To add insult to injury, my supervisor said he was disappointed in me and that I should have done better, despite his previous comments.
It is also worth noting that my supervisor and I did not have the best relationship: he once said that a mistake I had made in an APS talk would "destroy my career in science" and that when I began to suffer from severe mental health problems from the stress of my thesis and a close family bereavement, he refused to let me take time off, forcing me to get a doctors note for me to take time off.
I am currently in a new postdoc position at a reputable research institution in Germany, and my new supervisors have both said that the grade does not matter since I have the position and what matters now is my publication list. But I have seen conflicting things online regarding this. What is your opinion? In your experience, does this matter at all? I would particularly like to hear from scientists.
Thank you in advance.
(P.S. It is also worth noting that I received no corrections to my thesis, which I have been told is very unusual)
(P.P.S Just to respond to some of the questions or comments given in prior answers. I am English so my original intention was to return to the UK and look for a research position, I am not interested in a Professorship. My university shows the grade on the doctoral certificate so there is no real way of hiding this at all. I have tried contacting my supervisor to ask for his logic regarding the grade he awarded me but I have so far heard nothing back.)<issue_comment>username_1: Not sure about Europe, but in the US or Canada no one will ever know about your grade -- and no one will be interested to know it. The quality (and, let us face it, the quanity) of your papers will really matter, as well as the rank of the journals where you publish. And, of course, reference letters. Also your visibility at high-profile professional conferences. These are the only relevant parameters for any hiring committee. I suspect, in Europe it will be the same.
In short, just forget about that negative experience, and move on.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Following up on the comment stream, I doubt that you have anything to worry about. A doctorate is a (near) terminal degree (yes, I know about habilitation in Germany) and having it is usually enough.
The general assumption (by most folks) is that your faculty was happy enough with you to grant the degree and they were the ones best qualified to make the decision.
The reputation of your advisor and your university has some small repetitional value early on, but grades, even for a dissertation, much less.
After that, as your supervisor says, it is up to what you do (publications and such) after you finish.
It isn't impossible that it would have a negative effect if known but not universally and also, not likely to be known. Not widely known, anyway. Relax.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Answer: It won't matter in most countries
=========================================
My PhD (which was in a similar field to yours) was from the UK and afterwards I worked at universities in Japan, Singapore, USA, and Canada (plus I did long research visits in other countries), and yet I've never heard of a PhD thesis having a "grade".
Therefore, if you apply for a research position in any one of those countries (and likely many others!), it is very unlikely that you would be asked for your thesis "grade", and what will matter the most is your list of publications, your reference letters, your research proposal (for cases in which it is required), and perhaps your relationship to the person making the decision (for example if you're applying to work as a post-doctoral researcher that is supervised by someone that loves interacting with you at conferences).
Comments: On some of what you said
==================================
>
> "However, I was told in the exam that both my thesis and oral exam had been graded poorly, even though my presentation was on time and was aimed well"
>
>
>
The fact that your presentation was "on time" does not shield you from getting a bad grade.
>
> "It is also worth noting that I received no corrections to my thesis, which I have been told is very unusual)."
>
>
>
You are right. It is very unusual for a thesis to pass without any suggested (or required) corrections. However, if they asked you to make corrections, they would have to (at least in principle) look at your thesis another time to verify that they have been made in a satisfactory way, and since you "did not have the best relationship" with your supervisor, and the examiners didn't seem to like your thesis as much as you had hoped, it is possible that they all wanted for the entire ordeal to end sooner rather than later.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: It won't have any impact on your career
=======================================
So first I should say congratulations on finding a postdoc, and this is the reason I say it won't have any impact on your career. I should also say, I've been living in Germany for the past few years doing a post-doc and this is the first time I heard that there are grades for PhDs here.
The role of the PhD is to teach you how to do research and to make you a world renown expert of a very specific sub-field of your discipline. The role of the post-doc is to let you develop your brand of research, get a wider sense of what is going on in your field, build your academic network, and to check you didn't just "get lucky" regarding your successes in your PhD. Given that you have a position already the most likely (though I would still judge it as unlikely) point where a "rite" grade would impact your career has already passed. Now people will be looking at your papers to assess if your expertise is what they want to hire, and checking that you can be productive in multiple research groups.
Regarding grants, I doubt they'd be able to judge you on having a "rite" grade, mainly because it would be discriminatory and the grading for investigators tend to be about papers published, which journals they were published in, and students/postdocs supervised (when reaching an appropriate level). Keep in mind that if you and me put in for the same grant I could have just barely passed my PhD and because my PhD was ungraded they can't apply the same standard to me as they would be applying to you if they struck a mark off you for this "rite" grade. Since I believe Germany is unusual in grading PhDs, how other countries do this will dominate the importance of the grade, in-fact you could probably just leave the grade off unless the grant application document specifically says that grades must be included if given.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The thesis grade has 0 importance, period. Nobody will ask you about it. Really: nobody cares about this, and I don’t recall this ever being a topic of conversation.
I can’t recall my grade and I’m not even sure I got one. I’ve been on PhD examination committees and I can’t remember ever formally assigning a grade. This hasn’t stop me, any colleague, anyone I’ve supervised or anyone whom I’ve examined of continuing in physics.
What matters is what you did, as witnessed by your publication record and your letters of reference.
Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: **For an academic career in Germany, this is a big deal.**
Having received a *rite* for your doctorate is going to be a huge blow for your chances to ever be appointed to a professorship in Germany. Picking you over someone with *summa cum laude* would just open up the selection committee to all kinds of appeals.
As many of the other answers have pointed out, this is probably not too much of an issue abroad. However, there is always a chance of someone in the committee knowing that German doctorates have grades, and those ought to be either *summa cum laude* or *magna cum laude*. I'd certainly consider a *rite* a dark orange flag in a job application, and I am not at a German institution.
Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_7: I consider most of the existing answers to be a bit short-sighted:
Yes, most other countries do not have grades on PhDs (and not ask for them either) and even in some hiring processes in Germany, you might get around revealing your PhD grade. But in those hiring processes, there will be something that replaces the PhD grade, because at the end of the day, people want to have something more than your interview performance to base their hiring decision on. In many systems, what replaces the PhD grade are reference letters, and a typical reference would be your PhD advisor. **If your PhD advisor contributed to giving you a *rite* on your PhD¹, he will likely not give you stellar references either.**
Now, you can rely on other references and other demonstrations of your skill like your publication record. But having to do that is an extra challenge and could eventually be what tips the scales in favour of another candidate. So, having a bad PhD grade or bad relationship to your PhD advisor, respectively, does have an influence on your career.
That being said, you already took the most difficult hurdle in such circumstances, namely getting your first postdoc position. (As you mentioned, this position was granted to you before your PhD defense, so this doesn’t necessarily reflect the importance of your PhD grade.) Your postdoc supervisor(s) are of course alternative sources of reference letters.
As already mentioned in some answers, German hiring processes are different and might require you to have a good PhD grade by law (see [this answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/139558/7734) of mine for details).
For example, I almost certainly wouldn’t have gotten my current position with a *rite* PhD, even with everything else being equal.
I also interviewed for many positions for which a *rite* would have clearly disqualified me.
Finally, let me note that *rite* is almost absurdly bad. This grade is very rarely given, not only due to grade inflation but also because the respective people usually drop out of their PhDs. It also usually reflects poorly on the advisor because it suggests they did not properly train you, etc. This can actually work in your advantage: For example, if I received an application from you with a *rite* PhD, I would assume it as likely that your supervisor/committee made a mistake as that your grade was actually deserved. The odds are even better if you have a decent publication record or anything else demonstrating that you have the skills a PhD grade should reflect. I would probably try to contact your supervisor and if he doesn’t give a solid explanation for your grade (which is not that easy), I wouldn’t give much on it.
---
¹ It is worth checking your PhD examination rules on how the grade is determined. For example, in most rules I know, the supervisor’s is responsible for half the grade, but yours might differ.
Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: **This grade might appear on your graduate school transcript and therefore might be seen by a hiring committee that asks for such a transcript. However, outside of Germany, it's probably unlikely to have much of an impact and may not noticed or understood.**
In applying for faculty jobs in the US and Canada, I have been asked for graduate school transcripts (and, a few times, undergraduate transcripts). Usually, the postings that ask for these transcripts are for teaching-focused positions, but not always (I was asked for them for a few research-focused positions as well).
I have no idea what a German grad school transcript would look like or if it would include this grade. A grade for the PhD defense, even if present on the transcript, might be ignored by hiring committee members from outside the German system because they wouldn't understand it (especially if it is untranslated) or because they wouldn't expect to see it (if such a grade doesn't exist in their academic culture). Unless the committee had someone trained in the German system who knew what to look for, a hiring committee in the US (or many other places) would probably not bother to try to understand what the "rite" on your German transcript meant.
In any case, I'm not sure how much these hiring committees care about any graduate school grades, even the ones who ask for graduate school transcripts. Presumably it's considered together with a lot of other documents and might only have an impact if it's a very teaching-focused position, there are other red flags in the application, or there are two candidates of exceptionally similar competitiveness for the position.
Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: It might depend on the country, but outside of Germany I can't see this making a difference for most countries (possible exception being other German-speaking countries).
I'm fairly certain from my experience of studying and working mostly in the UK that no-one will know about your grade if you apply for a job in the UK. I'm not sure they would even understand the meaning if you tell them about the grade.
If applying for academic jobs in non-German-speaking countries I would just say you got your PhD on your CV and leave it at that unless anyone asks for more information.
Your rite grade might disqualify you from continuing further in the German academic environment, however, but I assume you already knew that.
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/23
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<issue_start>username_0: I am an undergraduate student who has been conducting research with a professor for the past year. Unfortunately, I have been feeling defeated lately because the professor I am working with is extremely callous and patronizing. Every time I interact with them, I walk away feeling like the dumbest person alive. Although we initially got along for a couple of months, things changed after I made a minor mistake. Since then, this professor has been really hard on me. They even threatened to write me a negative recommendation letter for grad school as a result of my mistake. Whenever I ask them questions, they respond in a condescending manner, as if I should already know the answer.
To put it simply, it feels like the professor has thrown me into deep water and refuses to help me stay afloat. I am really tired of being treated this way. Even though I am trying my best to do well, things are starting to feel really heavy. I dread interacting with this professor and sometimes feel like quitting. I don't know why I am writing this, but I guess I am asking for suggestions on how to proceed. Should I confront the professor in a mature manner? Should I tell another professor or someone in a position of power at the school? I am at a loss.<issue_comment>username_1: 1. You have a right to file a formal complaint. To this end, you should document several cases which, in your opinion, reflect her arrogant or unfair attitude.
Before filing, certainly make sure to discuss this issue with your mentor or/and with an ombudsperson at your university.
However, always mind the old rule: pick your battles. Often, it is easier to simply disengage from dealing with an abusive person, and to cut all the ties. I understand that you have invested a lot of time and effort into this collaboration, and it may be difficult to interrupt it. But on the other hand, your health and your psychological condition are more important than your achievements. Your academic or professional success is only second to your health -- please keep that in mind. Always.
2. I am aware of a situation where a student filed a complaint about a professor simply because the professor was exceptionally tough and demanding in regard to research. His standards and requirements were extraordinarily high. On that occasion, my sympathies were with the professor.
Your situation, however, looks different. If she becomes, as you describe, frustrated when you ask her questions, and if she responds to you as if you should have already known the answer -- then this is a bulletproof indication of her **not being qualified to supervise undergrads**, no matter how good a scientist she may be.
3. I cannot help from recalling a wonderful quote from <NAME>:
"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."
At the earliest stage of your scientific career, you got an opportunity to discover that in academia, as anywhere, there are people of all sorts. This lesson is bitter but valuable, because it has prepared you for meeting and dealing with (and, when possible, avoiding) such characters in your future life.
This said, try to disengage from that person, if your circumstances permit you to do so, or if you feel that this is damaging to your psychological wellbeing. Put your health first.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: *wish I could just quit*
Can't you? Be very wary of the sunk cost fallacy here. I reckon that eg trying to get a good recommendation letter and some research experience out of this project is ultimately going to be fruitless and a harrowing experience. There are great mentors around, try to find one!
As far as formal complaints are concerned, in most cases you wouldn't be the beneficiary even if things go well (but rather, future generations). An exception is if this is an obligatory research project, and a complaint might lead to you being assigned a different mentor. To see whether this is worthwhile, look into your department's stance on bullying, hostile environments etc. Unless they are very proactive on this issues, a complaint is probably not going to get you anywhere (after all, she is "just" mean).
Upvotes: 2
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2023/03/23
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<issue_start>username_0: Here I'm not referring to research topics on that specific country (e.g. a study on high school in New Zealand would be very likely conducted by New Zealand researchers, for obvious reasons). An example of the kind of topic I'm thinking of is gravastars in modified gravity. ([Gravastars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravastar) are a hypothetical astrophysical object.) Google Scholar finds [a thousand results](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=20&q=gravastar%20modified%20gravity&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5), but every paper seems to be written by Pakistani or Indian researchers.
Why might a research topic like this be confined to two countries? Why might researchers from other countries not be interested in this topic?<issue_comment>username_1: It is an aspect of the [Pareto Principle.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle) That says that 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes. (Different situations will have different ratios.) The idea is, some people in any organization will be much more productive than others. This is sometimes called the [Mathew principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect) for a line in the Christian bible in the book of Mathew. Roughly it says, to those with much, all will be given. From those with little, all will be taken.
There may be a Great Person of Science there who is working on the topic. And around this person are a group of "pretty good" people of science. People are clustered around the GPS because they produce a lot of ideas that then produce publications. People are always hungry for publications. So if the GPS likes a topic, the people around will tend to write about it, at least some of the time.
This then feeds back. Granting agencies (and various other bodies that hand out research money) will look at the group and think they deserve more money next year because they are so productive.
There are other feedbacks. Once the group is established, any time anybody wants to know about that topic, they will find they are looking up papers from that group. So they will want to visit that group, or get people from that group to visit them. They will be sending preprints for review. Their own granting agencies will be looking at the big name group for examples of good research on the topic. If there's a news publication (Astronomy Today or like that) looking for a quote they will find this big name group and try to get it from them.
And when bright young students look for a place to study, or a PhD supervisor, if they know a topic they will naturally want to go where that topic is most studied. So the group starts attracting strong students and expands their name that way.
Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: In my experience, big research funding agencies are often interested in developing infrastructure and knowledge in a certain topic that they feel like it worths being expanded in their geopolitical area.
Some examples:
* In Europe, there is an interest in developing high-performance computing centers in the hopes that these centers might help economic growth down the line. Thus many research projects related to using HPC will get funded, and productivity in this research field will appear to spike in Europe.
* In the US there was always an interest in nuclear physics because among all else, it can be utilized in energy production, and – okay, I'll say it – for national security. The same goes for countries like France and nuclear research.
* Yet other countries are rich in a certain mineral or oil, and they'll fund research related to that natural resource.
* Where I come from, solar panels are en vogue due to the generally sunny weather.
Finally, as mentioned by other writers above, sometimes it so happens that a big name simply lives in a location. Because they are productive, other researchers flock around them, etc.
Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: At times, a research concept is born from a specific location. You might then have
* local expertise built up
* academic teaching in the topic in the locality (#preference)
* methodological preference built up in the locality
* slow uptake in other areas
* national interest (dynamics)
* regional agenda (political or research-politics)
In a global, fluid world as we have, some of this factors are not strong enough to force or warrant localities.
Regarding **gravastars**, I see well cited authors from New Zealand. I also see a strong pull around Pakistan (as you've indicated).
For *gravastars modified gravity*, there're diffusion towards Türkiye, Spain, States, Japan ...
Given what I see *gravastars* to be, is there perhaps a contending force of duality and alternative/replacement at play?
* gravastars vis-a-vis black hole
Upvotes: 2
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