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2015/01/21	540	2,218	<issue_start>username_0: Let's say I'm a PhD student in a field, let's call it X, and my research is all based on taking the methods developed in field X and applying them to some other fields, let's call them Y, Z, and W. Let's further suppose that I do not make any contributions to the theory of X, I only apply it to Y, Z, and W. Is X the proper fit for me, or should I really pick my favorite of Y, Z, and W?<issue_comment>username_1: A PhD is meant to extend the knowledge within a field. It's obvious that you can contribute knowledge to Y, Z, and W, at least if you apply the X methods to solve some research questions in these fields. It's less clear what you contribute to X. You state that you don't contribute to the theory of X, but maybe you extend or generalize the X methods alongside applying them? If you do that, you could get a PhD in X. Otherwise, Y, Z, or W would seem to make more sense. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you are making most of your contributions to W, Y, or Z, then it probably makes most sense to get a PhD in those compared to a PhD in X. This is for the reasons given by username_1. However, if you're already a PhD student in X (your first assumption), you have to consider whether it is worth switching to W, Y, or Z. From what you've written, your department or advisor seems fairly flexible in terms of allowing you to work in different areas. Would switching to W,Y, or Z mean switching advisors or departments? Would it mean that your funding might change (e.g., if your funding is tied to a particular field)? It seems like if your research on W,Y, and Z is viewed positively by your department/advisor, there would have to be a substantial reason to switch away from that department/advisor, since the switch might result in less flexibility. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If you are applying X to Y, you can easily be in either a department of Y (where you are making a difference) or in a department of X (where you will no doubt be contributing through the adaptation of the techniques to problems in Y). The biggest factor, I think, would be where you can find the best match between yourself and an advisor and departmental culture. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/21	753	2,566	<issue_start>username_0: I am having problems with Endnote outputting a mix of citation styles (or possibly a broken citation style!) in the same document, despite applying the Endnote Frontiers Science style (official, from the Endnote website) throughout. Eg > > ...feline herpesvirus 1 (Thiry et al.) and terrapene herpesvirus 1-associated pneumonia in Eastern box turtles (Sim et al., 2014)... > > > and when I look at the final reference list I see that both references look correct and the same eg > > <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., and <NAME>. (2009). Feline herpesvirus infection. ABCD guidelines on prevention and management. J Feline Med Surg 11, 547-555. > > > <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., and <NAME>., Jr. (2014). Identification of a novel herpesvirus in captive Eastern box turtles (Terrapene carolina carolina). Vet Microbiol. > > > So I am at bit of a loss as to why one reference looks correct (author, year) and the other does not (author).<issue_comment>username_1: While I don't know Endnote in specific, I have seen this type of failure mode in other citation software. Typically, it happens because the software is treating the reference as the wrong type of reference, e.g., confusing a book chapter with a journal article. I don't know if your example is the real references, but I notice that first has volume/issue, and page/doi information, but the second does not. This leads me to suspect that Endnote is treating the first reference as a journal article and the second as something different. That may be where to start looking for the problem... Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: A few options: 1. It is possible to exclude the year from an in text citation in Endnote. So I'd check that setting. Right clicking the in-text citation should give you a few options. 2. Make sure you are showing field codes in Word so that you can confirm that you have actually inserted a citation there. Without field codes it's possible that you have written some text manually. 3. You may want to explore the style settings in Endnote (e.g., go to `edit - output styles` in Endnote and select the current Endnote style). There are a whole range of settings that you may need to explore. There might be some rules that you can tweak related to how in text citations display. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/21	735	3,341	<issue_start>username_0: One part of the work of any researcher is to referee the work of other scientists in his field. This is a time-consuming and volunteer work, that is made with the idea of service for the community. My main question: What are the standards of organization for the referee report of an article? For instance, is a "general comment" section (mostly, explaining why the paper should be accepted or rejected) and a "specific comments" (in the form of a list of precise comments e.g. "Page $2$ line $4$: typo. It should read X instead of Y") enough? Or do people organize the review under specific sections like "Typos and writing", "Missing definitions", "Scope of the paper",etc... I wish my report to be as useful as it could for the author, so I am inquiring about the best practices for referee reports. PS: It may be a field-dependant question. I am mostly interested about standards in mathematics, but answers for other fields would be interesting too.<issue_comment>username_1: I organize my reviews in the way that I would like to receive them, sorted from most important from least important. My general structure is: * First, I summarize my understanding of the the key ideas and contributions of the paper. * Next, I give my judgement and main reasons for this judgement. * Third, I have a "Major Issues" list of other scientific problems that I think absolutely must be addressed before publications * Finally, I give a "Minor Points" list of nitpicking, language issues, typos, etc. The first two sections show that I have understood what the authors are trying to say, and the big picture issues. The third gives the contributing factors, but tries to make it clear that fixing these without fixing the big picture issues won't change my basic judgement (if that judgement was negative). The final is things that will improve the paper but aren't really affecting my judgement. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: There are no standards but there is a reasonable logical progression that can be followed from the general and larger to the smaller points. I would therefore structure a letter as follows: * An introduction highlighting the merits of the topic and the study. Often this paragraph ends by stating that certain revisions may be necessary. It i snot the reviewers task to state whether he or she feels the manuscript should be rejected, under go revisions or be accepted. That should be stated to the editor only. * Following the introduction would be more general aspects such as structure, language etc. * Next larger scientific issues that concern more general aspects of the study, not tiny details. The points would concern entire chapters or sets of paragraphs and usually be the cause for significant reworking of the manuscript. * The final part, and usually the longest may be small issues or questions concerning aspects that need clarification or correction, usually pointing at the page and line where the problems occur. * The letter should be capped off by summarizing the review and making a statement as to whether you think significant or minor reworking is necessary. Note that I am not speaking about a verdict but an assessment of how much work you think is necessary to complete the short-comings you have identified. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2015/01/21	641	2,633	<issue_start>username_0: In my master’s thesis in inorganic characterization, I have a theory chapter about X-ray (powder) diffraction. This technique is almost 100 years old, and have been described in a vast number of books, articles, and web-pages. I could easily take any book about X-ray diffraction and just cite that book, but I don’t want to keep citing the same book every four sentences for basic knowledge. So I was thinking that something like the following might be suited: > > The principles of X-ray diffraction are described in a number of books [1-4], articles [5-9], and web-pages [10-13]. The theory presented in this section is just a brief summary of what one might encounter in published works, such as those cited above. > > > This way I give some sources of the principles of X-ray diffraction, and I explain that what I present could be found in the cited sources. Thus, I don’t need to cite anything in-text, and the reading is easier. Is this approach acceptable?<issue_comment>username_1: The real question is whether you need to cite anything at all. In your field, if this information is considered undergraduate-level material that every practitioner should be familiar with, then you can simply assume that all readers will be able to reference their favorite textbook if they care, and launch right into the relevant review. If you are speaking to an audience that may not be so familiar, however, you definitely do need to cite. You don't need to put in lots of citations, however: you can simply say that this is well-established information and give one citation to a good textbook: > > The principles of X-ray diffraction are well-known (see, e.g., [textbook]). > > > For example, when I am writing to a computer science audience and need to say something about the [NP-completeness of constraint satisfaction](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NP-complete), I would probably not include a citation, since this is such a foundational concept to the field at this point. When I write to a biology audience about the same problem, however, I explicitly note that these are long-established facts and include citations to basic textbooks. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: X-ray diffraction is such a common technique that you do not need to cite sources. At most I would cite a single review of the technique once at the beginning of your chapter. If you want to give a historical perspective, you could either cite a historically-oriented review of the technique, or mention+cite important discoveries made with the technique (e.g. the DNA double helix). Upvotes: 2
2015/01/21	761	3,053	<issue_start>username_0: I am writing a book, and in its bibliography I would like to include a paper whose title has the German word "Über" printed as "Ueber". As far as I know, this is an equivalent way of writing the word, but the former way is the normal way. It is definitely spelled as "Ueber" in the (nineteenth-century) journal in which it appeared - the body text uses umlauts so I assume there was some typographic obstacle with the title font. I can see three options for me: 1. Ueber 2. Ueber [sic] 3. Über I have a soft preference for (3), because I think it looks nicer. I do not like (2) because it carries the implication that Ueber is an error, which it isn't. But (1) is the original form. I could just about imagine somebody failing to find the paper because I wrote (3) instead of (1), but it seems unlikely - search services like Google "know" about the equivalence, and readers will have the volume/page/date information regardless. The publisher has asked me to follow Chicago Manual of Style guidelines if in doubt. Unfortunately, I cannot find a definitive ruling there. Am I bound to use the precise conventions of the original publication, or should I adapt to a more normal modern style?<issue_comment>username_1: You should follow the spelling of the printed publication. The purpose of the references is for others to be able to trace your sources. Obviously most search engines would possibly suggest other spellings by similarity but this is no excuse for changing the spelling in your reference list so go with your option 1. A similar effect is caused by people doing things the other way, changing umlaut spelling to a spelling without umlauts because they are not familiar with the spelling or do not have the letter on their keyboard. This can cause slight confusion in searching for the literature down the line. It is however, in most cases not a severe problem. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I would always prefer the original title of the paper (only ignoring all-caps or similar), even if it contains spelling mistakes, as this is the most likely search term, somebody is going to use (and not all search tools do autocorrections). This in particular applies to titles in spelling conventions that readers might not be familiar with. A German paper from that time might use the spelling Oscillator instead of the modern Oszillator or Maasssystem instead of Maßsystem¹ – would you also change these? As a sidenote: Uppercase umlauts (such as Ü) only came up in German in the nineteenth century and were only fully established as a consequence of the spelling reform/establishment of 1901. Thus, it’s very unlikely that Ueber was used due to typographical restrictions and one could argue that it is the more correct spelling here. Also note that nowadays, substituting Ü with Ue is only allowed as a makeshift solution and the two are not regarded as equivalent. --- ¹ Taken straight from <NAME> – Ueber irreversible Strahlungsvorgänge. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
2015/01/21	406	1,906	<issue_start>username_0: In a recent review of a paper, the reviewer suggests several solutions to a flaw, one of which was collecting more data. The other solution was to shorten the paper substantially. The editor said that the revisions needed before acceptance were between minor and major revisions. In my mind, collecting additional data is a major revision. The editor has not indicated any specific steps he would like taken. Is it acceptable to contact the editor to discuss exactly what he wants done before the paper can be published? For example, can I ask if he wants more data collected? Or if there he wants the paper shortened?<issue_comment>username_1: There is certainly no problem contacting an editor to enquire about a manuscript and review responses. It is difficult to assess the issue in your particular case but I do agree that adding new data can be a significant endeavour indeed. Shorting the paper may be a relevant point in any case but I do not see, in general how, shortening a paper would improve any lack of data although it may be obvious in the individual case. So, if you feel the advise you have received is difficult to follow or is unclear (and that seems to be the primary point), then asking for a clarification is in place. You can be constructive and also suggest some plan of action for the parts you see more clearly and then focus on the ambiguous parts in your request to the editor. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The gist may be that your claim is modest and needs further substantiation/proof. Increasing the n of samples (or including meta analysis) would increase the strength of the argument without lengthening the word count of the paper significantly. Shortening the paper will help tighten the argument, making the claims clearer, and from the journal's perspective, align the impact of the article with length of the article. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/21	886	3,573	<issue_start>username_0: I am in a situation where I have several adult students for an all-day career training program that runs for about a year. So, they and I sit in the classroom most of a normal work-week. I decide when to get up and lecture. Although I tell them to raise questions any time, they rarely do unless I ask. I enjoy speaking in front of the class, but because it is not on a particular schedule, I usually find that I have trouble motivating myself to get started. I don't have employee reviews or a mentor. My feeling in class is similar to how I have never gotten used to making phone calls: every time, it is like jumping into cold water, it never gets any easier. (I would rather talk in person. I am almost 50, by the way, and male.) How do I get beyond this basic motivation hurdle?<issue_comment>username_1: I don't enjoy lecturing either and yet my student reviews ask for more lectures even if I prefer discussion. What I've done for some classes is prepare a portfolio of 15 minute mini-lectures that are on one specific point, targeted, succint, and within the attention span (maybe) of 18 year olds. You might also want to create a similar grab bag of canned material so that when a particular topic arises, you can easily lecture on it. Otherwise, the only other way is to practice. I've realized my own aversion to lecturing is something I need to work more on, so I deliberately designed a large lecture course that was 100% lecturing, rather than the smaller seminar courses that I prefer. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Why not schedule some of them? Put up a weekly schedule of lectures based on what the students are working on. You could even brainstorm with the students on what they'd like to hear. Also, do they have preference on when they would prefer lectures? First thing in the morning, just before lunch, not after lunch (too sleepy), etc. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Your "problem" is very unusual. Most people love to hear themselves talk! Which leads me to a creative proposal. How about if you ask your students to prepare some short presentations, too? Then you wouldn't be the only one taking a turn standing at the front of the room explaining something. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: Consider you are your first student: a Latin saying says "[Docendo discimus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docendo_discimus)", or "The best way to learn is to teach" ([attributed](http://cs.nyu.edu/~dodis/quotes.html) to [<NAME>](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Oppenheimer)). I am amazed how I still find simpler or nicely illustrative ways to explaining stuff I have been teaching for years. Which in turn help me understand them better. And you can turn that into an exercise of [Learning by teaching](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_by_teaching) (allow students to prepare and to teach lessons, or parts of lessons). Or into a book? Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: Preparation (or "class prep" as many call it). Write it down. Schedule in advance when lectures will be given (perhaps on a monthly or quarterly basis). Write down notes on what you will say and present. Some people practice this in advance (personally, I just practice it mentally a bit). Keep records and write down modifications, improvements, and refinements. I often do the same for phone calls with strangers (particularly on touchy subjects). Write down a short script or some notes and read from that to get started. A little prep time always makes a big difference. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/21	737	3,121	<issue_start>username_0: I applied to several Grad schools and recently got a letter of acceptance from one of them. Should I inform the other schools about being accepted? Will it improve my chances with them or just create antagonism?<issue_comment>username_1: You don't need to inform them when you are accepted at another school. They only want to know if you are taking the course. So you should withdraw your application as soon as you are sure that you are not interested any more. You dont need to give a reason. Don't wait long. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: I can't imagine a situation where letting a program know about an acceptance to another program improves your chances of admission. To me, if I was on an admissions committee for school X and got word that you got accepted to school Y, all that would tell me is that you met a (largely unknown to me) set of criteria that school Y uses, which might share all, none, or some of the criteria that I use for admitting students to school X. By the same token, I don't think it will create too much antagonism. On a personal note, I found that communicating with different schools AFTER I received a decision helped me. For example, I was accepted to programs both with or without funding. By letting the programs that initially didn't fund me know that I was accepted to a (rival) program with funding, I was able to turn one of my offers from non-funded to funded. As others have said, once you know that you won't be attending a program, it is common courtesy to let that program know, particularly if you have an offer with funding. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: You should definitely tell any school you no longer want to attend as this will save them a little time. Any school that you would rather attend, you should contact and let them know when you need to make a decision by. Not all grad schools do admissions in an atomic manner. If a higher choice school wants you, they may be able to hurry their decision so as not to lose you. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: In general, you shouldn't notify before you have heard from all schools unless the acceptance letter from School A has an expiration date and/or you will go to School A regardless of the other offers. The risk is if you tell School B that you got into A before they make their decision: * If B feels A is stronger in your area, they may not want to risk an admissions slot and roll down to the next candidates. * If A feels as if it is superior to B, it may wonder why you're telling them this info. Are you seriously overrated in B? If you have offers in hand from both, it's certainly in your best interest to let both know. You may be able to get A and B to bid against each other for you. Admissions slots are very precious to departments. We don't want to waste then on candidates that won't come, and once we've made an offer we want to ensure the candidate will come. That being said, once you've made up your mind, please notify everyone so that we can free up your slot for someone else lower down on the admissions list. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/22	486	2,031	<issue_start>username_0: I was in an accident during college, and I graduated with a low GPA (just under 3.0 or so). I switched majors to Math and while I did well in some classes, in general I was a B/C student or so. I think if I went at a normal pace, I could have done much better. Since graduating I've worked as a statistician and a computer programmer. I don't have ANY profs to ask for a letter, but I think I have an employer reference. Can stellar GREs help me get into a Math PhD?<issue_comment>username_1: I am not a mathematician, but I think a "stellar" score on the GRE Mathematics Subject Test would be essential, especially in the absence of recommendations or undergraduate grades. To elaborate, admissions to a doctoral program are made on the basis that the student has a good chance of succeeding in the doctoral program and developing into a quality researcher in the field. This can be hard to determine for someone coming out of undergraduate (or industry), so proxies are used like grades/GRE, recommendations, undergraduate research projects. With only one of the pieces of this puzzle, it'd be a risky pick for an admissions committee. A masters degree would fill this gap, and the bar for admissions could be a lot lower. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Stellar GREs can help but they won't get you into a top tier program on their own. Recommendations from faculty who know you are very important, academic research experience is desired, and in most programs grades matter quite a bit. That's the bad news. The good news is that there's a fairly straightforward way to address the situation. In a case like yours, a masters degree can often offer a way to reset your record and give you the portfolio you need to get into a good PhD program. You'll get a chance to show your ability in the classroom, you'll presumably get some research experience, and you'll have the opportunity to get to know a number of faculty well enough that they can write strong letters on your behalf. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/22	1,847	7,870	<issue_start>username_0: Suppose a PhD student got clinically depressed and stopped producing research for a year or two. What would most PhD supervisors do in this situation? Would it be considered usual or acceptable to stop working with him?<issue_comment>username_1: Good PhD Advisors(tm) would first of all talk to the student about the issue. Large-scale depressions need to be properly treated and respected. The important thing is to find out if it is the academic work that causes the depressions and to take counter-measures if it is. Now if the depression lasts, is properly treated and puts obtaining the PhD at >90% risk of failure and all possible measures have been taken to help the student (both on the professional level and as far as applicable and feasible, on the personal level), then the student is wasting time in academia. And nothing is more depressing than that. So a Good PhD Advisor(tm) would help the student with establishing a new working life that makes use of the degrees already obtained as much as possible. This is basically the best the advisor can do to pave the way to a happier life for the student. I wouldn't call that "firing" someone. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I assume "clinically depressed" means "major depression". And I assume "fire" means "get rid of as fast as possible". --- As a very first rule I'd say, deal with depression as with any other disease of comparable severity. Would you fire a student who had a bad accident and needs a year of rehab? I mean, fire as opposed to think together with the student of how to deal best with the situation. Secondly, (at least in my legislation) a work contract does come with more duties for the employer than just to pay the wages: typically there are duties of care (? not sure about the correct English term - the German word is Fürsorgepflicht; this covers things like work safety, but also includes e.g. the duty to get an ill employee to a doctor, and about accomodations for chronic diseases, etc.). I'd say that for depression this would at least include making sure that the student receives proper treatment (don't worry about doing too much: as a third party you're most probably anyways not allowed to do much) and that the student knows the psychological emergency services of your university exist, and how exactly to reach them. In an emergency, do as you'd do with any other kind of medical issue: get the student to the doctor. Again, I really don't see much difference here to making sure your students know who's the contract surgeon in case of emergencies or attend the company medical officer's preventative screening for work-related health issues, etc. I'd argue that a PhD supervisor has at least the same duties towards the student as a normal employer. Maybe even more: the student may have agreed to do research on the supervisor's behalf at low (or even no) wage, and PhD supervisors and PhD projects are typically far more is done and difficult to change than a job. Also, [remember that agreeing to PhD supervision is not a contract about what exactly is done when, but that a grade will be granted for a corresponding level of research](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/35187/on-agreeing-on-length-of-phd-program-in-advance-and-three-year-studies). --- Chronic disease/disability may mean that some special considerations need to be taken into account, or possibly that the field of study needs to changed. Maybe even that the profession needs to be changed, as @username_1 already pointed out. But this is no excuse for initiating such changes with a kick in the ass. Consider to help finding a well-suited new field of study if necessary. As in: after accident, student now has metal implants and cannot work near the NMR machine any more => someone else carries out the experiments the student plans and analyses, student switches their focus over to data analysis, switches to other project that can be carried out, etc. For depression, it may not be as immediately clear what helps and what doesn't. It may be anything from switch away from lone-wolf experiments that need weeks in dark basements to doing things that are in a friendly environment with collaboration with colleagues to switch from computer work to doing more practical work like experiments. It may also very well be that options need to be tried out. Just as it may be difficult after a severe accident to predict how much and which work the student will be able to do when. It may also be that you decide you are not able to supervise this student as needed. But maybe you can help to find a new supervisor. Last but not least, your university may have someone who can professionally suggest what to do - just as for the hypothetical student with the accident. Ask integration office, or the psychological emergency service may be able to tell you whom to ask. --- With respect to hat, I sadly have to say that I recommend to any student to get away as fast as possible from a supervisor who thinks about firing PhD students because of a disease. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: In a situation like this, I would have a long conversation with the supervisor about what your special needs and requirements are, and make it clear how your special needs (e.g. depression) can have an adverse effect on your work. Stress to your supervisor that if they can adjust their supervision techniques sufficiently well to take this into account and get the most out of you. If they're willing to do that - then best of luck! If they're not - then they're probably not worth working for in the first place. I do sympathise with you quite a lot, OP. I am a first year mathematics PhD student and I suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, anxiety and depression. These have all had a negative effect on my work ethic and organisational skills and the first year has been an anxious experience for me, as I have been taking rather a long time to get into the mindset of being an independent researcher and only recently have I realised this. My supervisor doesn't really seem to acknowledge this (even though there is a statement of needs on file about me, which my supervisor has seen) - her solution is simply to put more time in. I am going to give this a go but there are other factors which can affect my performance which my supervisor doesn't seem to understand - so one thing I am considering doing is organising a meeting with my mentor, disability advisor and my supervisor just to make things clear. I've thought about leaving my PhD for a while - but I am going to devote a lot more time towards my research and see how it goes. If, after that course of action, my supervisor is still worried but isn't willing to take on board my personal difficulties, and appreciate that they have impacted on my performance, then I might consider switching supervisor or leaving the department. I find it unacceptable that at such a professional level, hardly anyone in academia is given any sort of psychological training or leadership credentials for dealing with students. You would think that for a job that requires guiding a student through 3-4 years of their life conducting research, that this is a position of high responsibility and not something that socially inept supervisors can treat with a pinch of salt. Although I'm not expecting them to provide therapy or anything like that, general psychological factors do play a part in the effectiveness of someone's research quality and methodology - regardless of whether academics are willing to admit it or not. Academia is a very unforgiving place towards those with mental health issues. This is why academia can be an unnecessary turbulent experience for some students, and (I feel) wrongfully so. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/22	789	3,642	<issue_start>username_0: I have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal. After two weeks of required reviews completed status I have sent and E-mail to the editor. He replied: Your paper is still under review. We need 1 or 2 more review comments and make the decision within a month. So, I have to ask... What does he mean by we need 1 or 2 more review comments? If the paper is still under review what is with the status of required reviews completed?<issue_comment>username_1: An educated guess is that the manuscript handling system by default expects two reviews. The number of reviews required for a decision can usually be changed by the editor. A reason for adding reviews is that you receive, for example and in the worst case, one accept and one reject from the two reviewers. It is therefore reasonable for an editor to search for additional reviewers to provide a better basis for a decision. Another reason can be that one or both of the original reviewers left reviews but they were deemed unconstructive and the need for additional reviews arose from the lack of reasonable feedback. There can be many other reasonable explanations as well, these are just examples. Anyway, in this case, it is possible that the editors have not bothered to change the number of required reviews to 4 (which I assume the total would be). The system then shows that all reviews are in and that the manuscript should be decided upon. So hopefully, the editor will try to get speedy reviews and get back to you with useful feedback on your manuscript. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The manuscript status shows "required reviews completed" once all the reviews have come in. After that, the paper along with the reviews could be waiting at the editor's desk for a while before he has time to look at them. This would probably account for the status having remained the same for two weeks. For many journals, the status would change to "with reviewer" once again if the paper is sent for additional reviews. Since this has not happened, I feel that perhaps the editor is not referring to additional reviews. There is a possibility that by "one or two more review comments" the editor is referring to a few additional comments by the same reviewers. One can't be sure, but perhaps the editor has found some of the reviewers' comments unclear, and has asked for clarifications, or the editor has a view slightly different from the reviewers and has asked for their opinion. If that is the case, you wouldn't probably have to wait too long, as it will definitely be quicker than getting additional reviews done. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: It could mean any number of things, as "Required Reviews Completed" is likely an automated message that the initial review requests sent out have been returned. Three possible explanations, all rooted in my own experience: 1. The reviewers are divided enough, or there's enough ambiguity, that the editor has decided to reach out to more reviewers to broaden the available opinions. 2. The editor is currently clarifying a comment with a reviewer. I have, at least once, gone back and forth with an editor a few times as a reviewer refining what I mean, giving examples, etc. so the editor can convey useful information to the reviewer. 3. Some journals have checkboxes suggesting the need for additional review. For example, many clinical journals have an entry for "This paper should be reviewed by a statistician" for methodologically complex papers. It's possible one or more reviewers suggested someone with additional expertise should review the paper. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/22	5,609	22,915	<issue_start>username_0: I am not a genius but I am a good test taker and a very practical person. I went through undergraduate school without studying much (skipping classes, doing homework, reading the books and doing some exercises the day before the test) with a 3.6 GPA in Computer Engineering from a decent school (CWRU). I know I might get angry answers from people saying that it simply cannot be done. I am interested to hear from the people in the other side of the spectrum. Can it be done? Have you done it? I want to become a college professor so a PhD is a requirement I need to fulfil. slack off = not put much effort and work in, like when you didn't bother to google that word!<issue_comment>username_1: I think it's possible depending on your definition of "slack". You have to work on your research, but if you find that part fun and therefore not real "work", you can potentially just scrape by on the other required components. The only exception to that might be writing up your results in a timely fashion. I think lots of folks find this latter part at least somewhat tedious, and there's really no way to put it off or not do it if you want to graduate. That being said, you can get minimum acceptable grades in all your required courses (if your department has any) and do mediocre on your qualifying exams and dissertation proposal (if your department requires either) and still get a PhD. As long as you're engaged with your research, getting a PhD might not be all that much like work. Now, if you research is mediocre, too, you might still get the PhD but then find yourself with mediocre grades, mediocre research, and a supervisor and other faculty with mediocre opinions of you. That might lead to mediocre, at best, and, at worst, no letters of recommendation for future jobs. It might also mean that any papers you try to write from your dissertation work are also mediocre and unpublishable, and it's not like you will have published anything along the way if you were trying to maximize your slack. That won't likely be good for your career, but at least you'll have gotten the PhD, right? Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: > > Can I slack and get a PhD? > > > Yes, definitely. I have known PhD students that graduated, which I can only describe as lazy. Now the more important question is Why the heck do you want to? If your goal is to stay in research, slacking off during your PhD time is career suicide. If you do not want to stay in research, and you are not particularly interested in the research contents, then a PhD degree will not be much more than a piece of paper to put on your office wall. A piece of paper for which you have accepted 3+ years of lousy pay. Edit: > > I want to become a college professor so a PhD is a requirement I need to fulfill. > > > I correct my point from above: "If your goal is to stay in academia, slacking off during your PhD time is career suicide". Let me put it this way - faculty positions, including those at liberal arts colleges, are typically competitive to get into. Having a PhD that shows that you are less than enthusiastic about your field will likely not land you such a job. If this is your career goal, you need to ask yourself not "What is the minimum amount of work I need to put in to get a PhD?" but rather "What is the minimum amount of work I need to put in to have a real shot at scoring a position afterwards?" (where the second effort is substantially larger than the first effort). Upvotes: 7 <issue_comment>username_3: You mentioned that you got a decent GPA with not much work. This possibly indicates that you are quite capable, and not motivated unless pressured with a deadline. There are many reasons the lack of motivation can show up during in college; from things being too easy, to not having an ownership over the work you are doing. As others pointed out, research is a different animal all together, and you might find yourself thriving doing research. If your goal is to get the degree with the least amount of work, that attitude won't get you far. However, if you are considering PhD, but you are concerned about your lack of motivation as an undergrad, then you stand a chance. Think of the reasons you lacked motivation, and how you can overcome them. And, please, don't think of yourself as a slacker, because you lacked intrinsic motivation to go above and beyond in classes that had little to do with what you are passionate about. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: > > Can I slack and get a PhD? > > > You seem to have started early in your laconic/lazy formulation of the question. Nevertheless, I know what you are asking at least in spirit: can you get a PhD without really trying, i.e., by doing the minimum necessary and having that minimum be significantly less than your peak activity. The answer is: while no one is guaranteed to succeed in a PhD program and some people get kicked out of PhD programs (including, more's the pity, some who are "really trying"), the answer is that yes, it is most certainly possible for some, and probably the average PhD student could introduce a non-negligible amount of "slack" and still complete their PhD. Now please listen carefully: The old saw But you would only be cheating yourself was made for this situation. By doing so, you will be cheating yourself out of some very valuable commodities: time, money, future employability, your own happiness and even contentment. Look, don't do it. Maybe I can express it like this: how much would someone need to offer me to get me to go back to school and get a PhD in some field I didn't really care about? I would say that for half a million dollars now under the agreement that I would stay in school until I got it and another half million dollars upon successful completion, I would have to consider it. If you do not have financial incentives of this order of magnitude, forget it. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_5: The question you are technically asking may be unanswerable. I do not know if you (personally or the more general you) can slack and get a PhD. The only way to know is to try. I'll game it out a bit based on the assumption that slacking is a higher priority for you than accomplishment and that you will do what it takes to be accepted into a PhD program. I mean no judgement here. I am interpreting this from your question. If you slack and you do not get a PhD (kicked out or you exit for whatever reason), what do you have to show for your time and whatever effort you put in? Would this be the best way to spend your time and effort? If you slack and you do get a PhD, will you be able to put that to good use? (See answer from username_1) Will you be happy with the time you spent? Will it really help you do better work/earn more money/have a more meaningful career. If the answer to any of these questions is yes, a PhD may be worthwhile for you. More specifically, you have described yourself as a practical person. Even in computer engineering, a PhD is rarely pursued because of how practical it is. Even if it's practical to have, it's extrordinarly impractical to attain. If there are masters programs you are interested in, that may suit you better. I gather that you are a good test taker (your description), can absorb material quickly, and are willing to do what needs to be done(homework, reading, exercises). If there are any PhD programs that let you leave with a Masters if you have completed a certain amount of coursework, that may let you 'have it all.' With that said, I would be surprised if this is considered an acceptable motivation/approach for applying to and matriculating in a PhD program. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: There is no "amount of work" or "trying hard" requirement for a PhD. Instead, typical programs require you to do a few things: 1. Pass qualifying exams 2. Pass a certain number of required and elective course (usually this happens in the first year or two) 3. Maintain a minimum GPA (usually 3.0 or so) 4. The big one - complete original research that advances your field. Notice that none of these requirements has anything to do with the amount of effort you spend. If you are exceptionally smart or talented at taking tests, you could probably "slack" and make it through the first three requirements. In my program there were definitely people who put in more effort than others, sometimes they needed to, and sometimes they didn't. In the end though, all that matters is that you meet the requirements, not that you spent X amount of time or effort on them. The first three requirements are easy to measure, and the bar is about the same for everyone. However, the last requirement is tricky. This is why some of the other answers are saying it's not a good idea to go in with the idea that you could slack off and get by. The reason is that judging your success at #4 comes down to the personal opinions of your adviser and your dissertation committee. Partly it is based on the number and quality of papers you publish, partly it depends on the perceived quality of your thesis, and partly it depends on your adviser's perception of your ability to conduct original research. A lot of other answers are saying that if you don't excel, then you won't get good recommendations, won't publish much, and won't get a job after graduating. It is true that there are more PhD recipients than there are PhD jobs, and so you definitely need to be on the "really good" end of the spectrum if you want to do well after school. On the other hand, even though the original research requirement is highly subjective, and can depend a lot on what your adviser's perception of your work ethic is, I think it is only fair to point out that there is no built-in requirement that you work all the time. As an example, if you took two students, one who worked 40 hours per week and produced 4 or 5 highly respected papers in a field that brought in a lot of research funding, and one who worked 60 hours per week but only produced 1 or 2 papers that weren't considered ground-breaking, I think it would be unrealistic to think that the first student (who some might say was slacking) would have a hard time getting a job. I think what the other answers are trying to get you to see is that as a general statement, "hard work" is correlated with success in research. Note that I said correlated - in the end, the research is what matters, and hard work doesn't guarantee anything, nor is it necessarily required. Luck and talent play big parts as well. In my experience, breakthroughs in research actually happen when you take time off to think. You need to put the work in to design the experiments, generate the data, and process it. But the real insights come from stepping back and thinking about things differently. You can't force that, and I have a hard time thinking of that part as "work." I think what really matters is your ability to overcome challenges. Sometimes people equate that with work, in the sense that you have to keep going even when the going gets tough. If you are considering going into a PhD program, you should accept the fact that for most people, it takes a lot of effort to succeed, and even more to excel. As a general statement, your adviser will expect you to put in as much time as you can and will not like it if you "slack off." However, in the end, all that matters is the quality of your research and the opinions of your adviser, colleagues, and committee. If you can work less and still do groundbreaking, original research, while maintaining the respect of your colleagues, then it can be done. Don't tell the admissions committee that you want to slack off, though. They won't like that. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: I don't know what you mean by "slack", but if you want a living proof of somebody "lazy" getting a PhD, here I am. I remember tales from my colleagues speaking about entire summers spent working on their PhD, even working on it every Saturday at home. I never did such a thing. I never worked in my PhD outside my working hours: I can even think a couple of really dry periods where I got really distracted and worked on personal projects instead of in my research. The whole process got 4 years (6 years including Master Thesis), although I completed all my work 1 year before obtaining the title, and I spent all that time in bureaucracy. Just by looking at the highest voted answers to this question, you can feel the general vibe of this community. My vision however is somewhat different: you don´t need to slave yourself over getting a PhD, and certainly, it is not worth sacrificing holidays and weekends for it. Also keep in mind that research is a very intellectual activity, so logically you will go through less productive periods influenced by your own mental state. As a caveat, I have to point out that I got away with it because my research group was quite lousy. I did almost all the work by myself with little supervising, and indeed this may very well be the cause that my motivation to work was so low. My takeaway message is: if you want to get a PhD and are afraid that it will be too hard on you, don't be. On the other hand, if you want to know if getting a PhD is a good way to slack for a few years, you can probably find better jobs that suit your needs. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_8: Another side of it is that you will need the respect of the academics you work with, also postdocs etc if you're to get a job at the end. They're the people best placed to spot real slacking, and one bad word from them can ruin your chances of getting the next step in your career. Depending on the group/field you may well need to be a team player which mean volunteering to take stuff on if it fits your expertise. To progress in academia you'll also need a publication record, and writing papers that are accepted isn't much like turning in undergrad work done to the best of your night-before ability. I'm not saying that every day has to be a grind, but some will. Also there will always be non-productive days or months. You need good bits in between when something you enjoy working on is going well. But it won't work out well going at it the way you think. Finally - how do you expect to write up on that basis - it's probably the most serious piece of self-motivated work you'll have seen to date. I'm not saying don't go for it, quite the opposite, do go for it. but only when you've found something you really want to be working on. After all, if all goes well you'll be working on it for a few years afterwards as well. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_9: Most of the answers so far seem to assume that the OP wants to continue as a researcher after graduating. I think that if the OP is comfortable with getting a teaching post at a low-ranked institution, then a lot of the criticisms do not apply. A professor in such a place might well "slack" their way to a comfortable, tenured career by continuing to do a decent but not exceptional set of research and solid teaching. Those places, however, do tend to pay more attention to one's teaching, both before hiring and on the way to tenure, so that aspect would still need to be quite solid, which might or might not fit with the OP's definition of slack. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: There are some interesting responses to this question, but I think the most important ones highlight the lack of understanding of what a PhD is about. A PhD isn't going to get you a better job in the long-run, a PhD is about becoming immersed in your research topic and gaining the necessary tools to conduct good research. You also don't 'study' for a PhD, you research and you write. Unlike undergraduate school where you might get away with hashing out a half-decent paper the night before it's due and get a good grade, that's not going to fly when you try to get your work published, which is one of the major things you'll need to be doing if you want to be a professor. Publications are blind reviewed, usually by other subject experts in the field. They will pick apart everything that your lecturer will skip in your 2nd year essay. Your success will be dependent on a heap of factors, including your supervisors mentorship and your examination outcome. Common PhD results tend to be Revise and Resubmits or Passes with Major Revisions. Professors don't just teach, in fact, teaching is a very small component of what they do. You need to advance your research, and while you can potentially get a PhD by slacking (depending on what you perceive as slacking) the work only gets harder when you attempt to advance your career. You won't be offered a cushy professorship upon completion, there are hundreds of PhDs out there who have heaps of publications, grants, conferences etc under their belt and can barely get their foot in the tenure-track door. You need to critically think about why you want to be a professor, and if you are ready to put the hard work into research, conferences, teaching, seminars, publications and so on, go for it. But if you want a PhD for this rather vague idea of being a professor without a clear understanding of what that actually means, you need to seriously reconsider. However, a PhD can also give you the training to enter into research in the industry/not-for-profit/government as opposed to academia (but again, this is about research, not teaching). If you want to be a professor to teach and have no interest in research, I would suggest you look into something like a trades/vocation teacher training. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_11: There is a basic misunderstanding in your question. You are thinking of a PhD as similar to a Bachelor's or MS degree. (i.e. a simple badge that you have acquire to "level up" in your career.) It's not. People will actually at least read the abstract of your PhD dissertation and your future career prospects ( in academia at least ) will depend greatly on the perceived quality of the research you do while getting a PhD. The people deciding whether you get any academic position will actually read it and a slacker's PhD is very obvious. Your PhD research is the equivalent of the "masterpiece" required of craftsman in medieval guilds. It shows how well you've learned the guild arts and will be judged to decide if you are really a master or not. If it's not good enough, you may have the sheepskin, but you will never be admitted into the guild (i.e. tenure track). Even at "teaching colleges" the competition for professorship positions is pretty fierce. Computers won't be quite as cut throat as say English Lit, but your chances of getting a tenure track position with a "slacker's PhD" are minimal. I'm quite sure it's possible to get a slacker's PhD, but expecting to get a tenure track position with one is wishful thinking. One the other hand, you could likely get a lecturer's position, but those generally only require a MS degree and are a dead end jobs. Pay is terrible and there are no prospects for career advancement. They do allow lot's of time for slacking between marathon grading sessions though... Even if you got lucky enough to get a tenure track position, that is only the start of race. You are expected to keep publishing to rise through the ranks to achieve tenure. If you don't publish enough, you'll be asked to leave and make space for somebody that does. It's a lot like grad school, except the teaching load is higher, you have no advisor and all the weak competitors are long gone. But you are getting paid almost as much as an assistant plumber. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_12: Perhaps being a college professor is different in computer science than in the humanities, but I think that the OP is not very clear on what being a professor involves. Fundamentally it is about doing research and discovering new things. The emphasis on teaching varies by institution but even in places that are heavy on teaching will still expect you to do research. While you don't have to kill yourself to produce acceptable work, you can't slack off completely. Academia has changed a lot in the past 20 years or so. It's extremely competitive, not very well paid, and tenure track positions are not as numerous as they were. Even badly paid adjunct jobs are hard to get. Try searching the Chronicle of Higher Education for articles about the job market, for example. Having a PhD is absolutely not a guarantee that you will get a job. Can you slack off and get a PhD? It's certainly possible -- I was a bit of a slacker and I still managed to finish mine. But because I didn't put in enough extra work beyond my actual research project (publishing papers, teaching undergraduates, organizing other professional events, starting a second research project, etc. etc.) there is pretty much no chance that I will ever get an academic job. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: My interpretation of the original poster's question is: If I were to do a PhD without putting in much effort into my PhD, would it be possible for me to get a PhD and become a college professor? ### Short answer Yes, it is possible; but if you work hard, it is much more likely that attain a PhD and your career goal of becoming a college professor. ### Long answer As others have noted, it is getting more and more difficult to obtain a job in academia because there are fewer positions available, and more smart people trying to attain those positions. Unless you have been gifted with an exceptionally brilliant mind (e.g. [Terrence Tao](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao)), there is no guarantee that you will be able to attain a college professor job even if you were to put in your best effort. In view of this situation, my advice to you if you are serious about attaining this job is: Be a conscientous researcher and put in your best effort, so that if you still don't attain this job, you aren't going to regret that you didn't try hard enough. What does "best effort" mean? I don't mean that you need to work 90+ hours a week and sacrifice your social life as well as physical and emotional well-being on the altar of academic achievement. I would argue that being focused and diligent and working regular office hours (roughly 9 am to 5 pm) should allow you to achieve >80% of your theoretical maximum output. This may not hold true in certain experimental fields like chemistry where my friends tell me they work 12 hours a day and half day on Sunday. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_14: It depends where you work. If you have a lot of original creative thinking you can meet research requirements easily if you don't work for a lab. Labs have routine grunt work that has to get done. Upvotes: -1
2015/01/22	765	3,463	<issue_start>username_0: I ask because I am finishing a paper and need to decide on which journals I'm going to submit it to, and I have never done a paper before. I know very little about this, but my general sense is that I want to match the interest level of my paper to the renown of the journal (Nature probably doesn't want my lame paper, but I'm also not going to submit it to a fly-by-night journal that's purely for-profit). I have a vague idea of what some high profile journals are, and a few I know to be disreputable, but there's a pretty wide range in between I have no idea about. I've heard of the concept of [Impact Factor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor), but also heard (as that article mentions) that it's not everything and just a rough guideline. I've also heard favorable things about review journals, namely that they're often understated but can actually be a great place to submit because people often look there for fresh ideas. Any advice on how to find the journal(s) that best match your paper?<issue_comment>username_1: A few steps can help. Check your reference list. Where have others writing on similar topics published? you will end up with a list of reasonable journals. The next step can go in one of two ways,, either you chose a high impact journal on the list and take a chance it will be published there or you try to assess where your paper would best fit. The first approach is high risk and if you get rejected you would take the comments and resubmit to a lower impact journal. Trying to figure out an optimal journal directly is not easy and requires experience and insight. You can, for example, ask peers what they think might be a suitable journal and why. Even if you end up with a few differing answers you will be in much better shape. To decide from the final selection might be a matter of flipping coins. You can also look at the editorial staff and see if there is someone among th editors that is very close to your topic. That can be very useful since it is likely that peson will handle your paper and treat it with insight. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Checking your reference list and discussing with your advisor and senior colleagues will definitely help you shortlist a few journals suitable for your study. Once you have this list, try to figure out the best match for your paper in terms of journal scope. Also keep in mind the study design while selecting your journal. Some journals publish only original research articles, while some publish review articles and opinion pieces as well. Go through the "instructions to authors page" of the shortlisted journals carefully. Certain journals have clear specifications about the nature of the study. For example, a certain journal might not publish experiments conducted on animals. Of course, the journal prestige and impact would also play a role in your selection. But I would focus more on finding a journal where my paper fits best with respect to the scope, study design, and author guidelines. Once you select a journal, it is always preferable to send a pre-submission inquiry briefly explaining the scope of your research and asking if the journal would be interested in it. If the editor shows interest, you can submit your paper to the journal. In case the editor is not interested in your study, you definitely end up saving a lot of time, rather than submitting your paper and getting a rejection. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/22	1,069	4,480	<issue_start>username_0: I am from india. I have a strong desire to pursue Masters in Computer Science in USA. I enjoy academia. However, I am sure that I do not want to pursue a Phd and also not attracted towards an IT Career. I understand that teaching positions are mostly reserved for full-time Phd holders and is getting increasingly tough. So how difficult it will be, post MS, for an international applicant to secure a full time instructor job? I do not want an adjunct position as I can't survive travelling from university to university. What other degrees/certificates can help tip the scales in my favour? I have seen certain Master students get a faculty position in the university itself where they completed the course.<issue_comment>username_1: > > I understand that teaching positions are mostly reserved for Full time Phd Holders and is getting increasingly tough. So how difficult it will be, post MS, for an international applicant to secure a full time instructor job. > > > In the US, community colleges (i.e., two-year colleges) sometimes hire faculty with master's degrees. At four-year colleges and universities, it's basically impossible to get a regular faculty position without a Ph.D. (It might theoretically be possible, but only under extraordinary circumstances, for example a pioneering industrial researcher who never completed a Ph.D.) So that means you would have to target community colleges. How difficult that would be depends on the circumstances, and it's important not to assume it's easy to get such a job just because the institution is less prestigious. I don't think you'll be able to get a full-time instructor position without some prior teaching experience, since you'll need to demonstrate your teaching abilities. Being an international applicant shouldn't be a big deal overall (assuming you have authorization to work in the U.S.; see <NAME>'s comment below), but it may come up in several ways, such as English proficiency. The most annoying may be that teaching experience is other countries is sometimes not taken as seriously. It can be difficult for evaluate for people unfamiliar with the system it took place in, and it may involve students who are very different from typical U.S. college students. > > I have seen certain Master students get a faculty position in the uni itself where they completed the course. > > > I've never seen that happen for a regular faculty position in the U.S. Occasionally, a master's student may be kept around for a while as an adjunct to teach low-level courses nobody else wants to teach, but this is generally not a well-paid or respected position. Someone with truly exceptional teaching skills might be retained long-term in a position with a title like "senior lecturer with security of employment" (not a regular faculty member but reasonably paid and without fear of abruptly being fired), but there are not many such positions and they are not easy to get. > > What other degrees/certificates can help tip the scales in my favour? > > > I don't think any other degree or certificate will play an important role. If you find an opening for which the hiring committee genuinely doesn't care about having a Ph.D., then teaching effectiveness will be the primary criterion. Any evidence of excellent teaching will be helpful, but other degrees or certificates are not generally a compelling form of evidence. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You're in luck! International students do it all the time! First, I recommend ignoring community colleges. You won't be able to successfully pursue your masters there. Second, how good is your English? It's potentially the largest contributing factor to landing a teaching position. If you haven't already, practice speaking with people outside of India to get a gauge of your proficiency. Third, find a few large four-year universities that grant master level degrees. Apply, and enqire about employment. What you're looking for is a Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA) position. Now, it isn't great pay - it'll cover rent and groceries... typically with a little left over each month. The great deal though is that they usually come with waived tuition in exchange for your working. So you get paid, reduced (if not free) tuition - and you get to complete a masters! Source: I'm a masters student that teachers introductory computer science. I'm not Indian - but I work with quite a few! Upvotes: 0
2015/01/22	3,668	15,090	<issue_start>username_0: I'm about to finish my master's thesis on a TCS topic (algorithms). I'm quite happy with my results; the most engaging part of the thesis was grappling with getting up to speed on the state of the art, then taking that and developing new and/or more efficient algorithms for the specific model I'm working on. Proving that the algorithms actually work has been very satisfying as well. However, I'm having a hard time sitting down and TeXing it all; it feels very tedious. I did write out the most important bits very soon after I had them figured out so I could give them to my advisor. Yet for the better part of the past two weeks, every day I considered getting down to it and putting it all together into a presentable thesis, eventually deciding to put it off for another day. As I'm hoping to do a PhD afterwards, I thought I should nip this in the bud so I won't be wasting time like this for too long. What are effective methods to motivate myself to do what is necessary in research as efficiently as possible so I can focus more on the actually interesting, creative parts? (I could not figure out how to tag this; feel free to edit tags) --- There is a number of great answers speaking to organization and extrinsic motivation by now; I was wondering if anyone has had any success in finding/improving their intrinsic motivation with regard to writing? Possibly a change in attitude, maybe a point of view that may not have occurred to me that makes writing appear more useful?<issue_comment>username_1: > > tl;dr: Divide and conquer. – aeismail♦ > > > ### The Balloon Analogy I used to hate writing with a passion. Trying to squeeze a 5 page paper out of me was like trying to juice a rock. Eventually, though, I figured out the root cause for my procrastination. The biggest sense of daunting I found when writing a paper is that you start with nothing, and have to end up with a significant something. So, let's look at what you have set up. You create a new Word/TeX document, and it's there. Page 1 of 1. A blank page with that blinking cursor. Pretty intimidating and most likely the reason why we push it off till tomorrow until it's due next week and then we've wasted forever. This is basically like us trying to inflate a big weather balloon. You do a little work, and it doesn't seem inflated at all. I eventually got over this intimidation by reducing the size of the problem to its individual parts. Imagine trying to fill up a dozen individual party balloons with the same amount of air as the weather balloon. Each bit of inflating goes a long way, and a fully inflated mylar balloon is much easier to achieve. ### Transforming one Big Balloon into a Bunch of Smaller Balloons A strategy that we all learned in K-12 is outlining, which actually helps more now than it did then. Now, it doesn't have to be a formal outline. However, the idea behind the outline is that it can transform into a full-sized paper much more easily than a blank slate, for little actual effort in. Stub out each individual section of your paper. If you have a glossary, add that. If you have a bunch of subsections, create them, and add the titles. Don't be afraid to dedicate an entire page to a chapter with no content, if you feel that eventually you will need it. For basically 12 or so lines of typing, you've turned a single blank sheet into perhaps 8 or so pages with a rudimentary summary of what you're going to talk about. Filling out a single page or two is much less daunting than that previous 20-page paper we were fretting about before. This dividing and conquering of pages has turned 1 very large paper into 8 relatively easy to populate short papers. ### Inflating the Balloons After that, pick a section, any section, that you want to write. It doesn't have to be the introduction if you're drawing a blank. That's perfectly normal. I rewrote my introduction all the way to the end of my paper because the rest of the paper was evolving to include additional topics. Some sections needed more meat or could be expanded, others could be shortened or removed. Now, type away at the keyboard on the section you've assigned to yourself until you fill it up or have run out of ideas. Wanted to write Chapter 5: Potatoes in Artwork? Go for it! Chapters 1 to 4 can wait until you're sufficiently inspired to do them, or have enough information from Chapter 5 to help give substance to the other chapters. When you're done with the small subsection you're working on, you should evaluate whether you feel you can do more. Sometimes, after doing a relatively easy section, I enjoy tackling a somewhat harder piece and getting that out of the way. Other times, I'll need a break, and take one. Basically, my strategy is that one shouldn't plan to, or even reasonably expect to, write the paper front to back. Breaking the paper into parts, giving them sufficient weight so that you can see the progress as you go, and slowly but steadily inflate and become a full paper. --- Author's Note: Yeah, for some reason now I write really long posts even when I don't mean to. Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I don't like writing either. It feels very clumsy. And it is hard, especially if you haven't done much writing. Sometimes it felt that I learned a lot more about writing during my PhD, than actual subject. I did find that some sections are easier to write than others. I find that describing results easier than describing the method. And describing the method is easier than writing introduction. So, I work backwards sometimes. Now, this is a funny thing, I cannot start an introduction of a new paper by just typing in. I found that using good-old paper and pencil, away from the desk, are much more productive in creating the first paragraph or two. Then it starts flowing from there. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have run into similar cases where I had to deliver written evaluations of my team members. I typically knew what each person had accomplished, their strengths and weaknesses, and areas for improvement. I could sit down with them and talk to them 1:1 and give the feedback. However, it needed to be captured in written form. I tried several approaches to getting the write-ups done, but found unless I physically put myself in an environment that offered no opportunities to do something else I just couldn't get it done. Using my laptop to draft the write-ups never worked as the laptop itself offers too many ways to get distracted (an email in instant message comes in, playing with formatting in a Word document, browsing the web for correct spelling of a word and then ending up searching for other things). Two things helped my get the task done: 1. Isolate myself from everyone and everything that may interrupt or distract me. A local library in the middle of the day is typically fairly deserted and quiet, and was ideal for me. 2. Hand writing the initial draft with pen and paper. This allowed me to avoid the distractions a computer offers, and I didn't worry about perfect grammar/spelling/sentence structure/formatting/etc getting in the way of being "creative." Once I had the hand-written draft, I was able to work much more mechanically to type up the evaluations. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: What is the form you're most comfortable with ? mind maps can be turned into text with less effort than writing text right from the start. Reading out loud powerpoints can be recorded and then written back. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: The divide and conquer approach applies to time management and writing location as well as content, in my experience. For instance, when writing up my PhD thesis I found myself rotating between my home office, work office, and the "coffice" (starbucks!), usually any two in any given day. I also gave up trying to write in the late afternoon, because I noticed that it always felt like even more of a drag, and rested instead, often having a productive evening session as a result. I probably got about 5-6 productive hours a day with this approach, but I found that to be plenty to make encouraging process day by day. I think that being encouraged by one's progress is an excellent motivator! So, in addition to all the other good advice here, try changing scenery during the day and think carefully about how you work at various times of day. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: If you often get stuck with writing, you can try two things: 1. Try [free writing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_writing). Forget about your thesis for a moment, and just start writing. It doesn't matter what you write, just keep writing. It doesn't need to produce usable material. It doesn't even have to be on the topic of your thesis, if you feel you just can't do that at the moment. But do keep writing. This helps overcome writer's block for many people. When I first heard about this, I considered it very silly, but it turned out to work for me. Very often I end up with a text that turns out to be usable after all, or relatively easy to polish to the required quality. Not having the pressure of having to write good quality material helps me be more efficient. 2. Sit down with your colleague and explain to him or her what you are going to write before you write it down. This will help you organize your thoughts and write in an easier to understand manner. It also helps eliminate the tedium and get you more excited about your work. I'd recommend talking to someone first (2.), then sitting down right away and writing down your thoughts, without the intention to use the text as-is in your thesis (1.). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Have you tried the "[pomodoro technique](http://pomodorotechnique.com/)"? It's just a form of what's called time boxing: you set aside a limited amount of time to work on something (in this case, 25 minutes) followed by a short break (5 minutes). You use a timer to tell you when the work and break times are up, and periodically take a break. There are tons of online timers, phone apps, and so on for the actual timing part. I found all the extra rules and writing down goals and stuff to be too much, but the basic method of telling myself that I only had to work on this for 25 minutes and then I could go do something else was really useful. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: Perhaps you need a different mental image/metaphor... If you were on train-tracks, and you could hear a train coming in the distance, you'd move... You'd not linger, as a pedestrian, crossing a busy highway. Now, yes, these comparisons seem to miss the long-term grind aspect of "writing a thesis", but they do aptly convey the failure-mode. The "problem" is that, happily, many people in grad school have a relatively easy-enough life that day-to-day there's no connection between sweat and food, or sweat and rent-payment, etc. I'd not advocate that people be so stressed that they see every day as a battle to merely survive. However, the (happy!) opposite extreme does seem to subliminally confuse many people, unsurprisingly. The difficulty of understanding viscerally "passage-of-time" might be well suggested by thinking of "something slipping away". Sure, at any moment, the change is small... but every moment wasted contributes to a negative situation, etc. If you're at all competitive, imagine that every moment you're not doing the write-up, your competitors are... or, at least, the best-self-disciplined of them are, and they will be the ones that get the post-docs... (??!!??) Another tack: "it's fine to be demotivated, and it merely shows that you're failing a diagnostic test..." That is, depending on your motivation and worldview, you could castigate yourself by observing that the very failure to write is not merely inconvenient, but is a literal failure of a certain academic-survival(-ist) test. "The bear ate you." Of course, among other issues, thesis-writing comes at an awkward time of many peoples' lives, among other awkwardnesses that of finding that "being smart and quick" is completely insufficient for thesis-writing, for example. A sort of smart-person's trap/disappointment. And, in the latter context, if "find motivation in previous terms" is the goal, I think there is none. Maybe some fakes, but, srsly, at some point things are not so completely "kid games" as earlier school might have been for smart, quick people. That is, there is some heavy lifting to be done, and it can't be bluffed-through so easily. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: A couple of points, which I thought might be helpful (despite being rather obvious as well as you having some great, albeit non-brief, advice in already posted answers and comments): * What people in some previous comments and answers called a "divide and conquer" strategy or "the balloon analogy" strategy, I call an "extended plan" or, better, "extended outline" approach. IMHO, it's self-explanatory. * For motivation, you have to feel excitement about the topic. If you don't have such or lost it, try to revive the enthusiasm for, at least, some aspect of the topic. * I would recommend you to write plain text first for everything (maybe with simple formatting, such as `Markdown` or similar syntax) and only then convert the content into the `LaTeX` format. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_10: A small percent of the overall effort is the creation, say 5%. The bulk of the effort, perhaps 95%, is what it takes to adequately describe the work so others can understand. The 95% is our payment for the joy of creation and for the privilege of doing it again and again. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Intrinsic motivation to write up your results can very well be a hard thing, especially if you're distracted with further consequences of your work. Here are a couple of ideas: * Further consequences of your work will likely be addressed once you start your doctoral studies, possibly leading to good papers, so it might be a good idea to postpone working on them until then. * Try to imagine teaching others what you've done using techniques you find the easiest (conversations, slides, blackboard banter, whatever). Did you like the feeling of them learning about your work? Use that feeling as a spark. (If you didn't like them learning about it, we might have pinpointed the problem.) * Try to imagine you following your own work years later. You'll know the high points, sure, put perhaps some details will get fuzzy or the reasoning for certain choices you made may be unclear. Save your future self frustration and get it all down while it's still fresh in your mind. (Like commenting code you know you'll need to revisit later.) * Sometimes the act of documenting helps you discover problems with your approach (okay, not the most desirable outcome, but better to find them now rather than later), as well as give you ideas for other directions you haven't yet considered. Good luck! Upvotes: 1
2015/01/22	5,462	23,817	<issue_start>username_0: After I had published my paper, some people asked me to share the software that I developed. At first, I was very happy that my paper attracted some attention, and I was happy to share not only the binary but also the source code, case studies etc. But looking at my software, I feel very embarrassed. My software is just horrible: the source code is just a mess, containing several of my unsuccessful attempts; I have never used design patterns, so duplicate code is everywhere; for simplicity and quick implementation, I often prefer recursions to loops etc etc. I'm always under pressure to produce new results, and cleaning those code would cost me significant effort. My question is if sharing this horrible software will give people a very negative impression of me? Would it do harm to my career if the people I share are prospect collaborators, employers, as they work in the same field.<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, you should. First, most scientific software is terrible. I'd be very surprised if yours is worse than average: the mere fact you know design patterns and the difference between recursion and loops suggests it's better. Second, it's unlikely you'll have the incentive or motivation to make it better unless, or until, it's needed by someone else (or you in 6 months). Making it open gives you that incentive. Potential upsides: possible new collaborators, bugfixes, extensions, publications. Potential downsides: timesink (maintaining code or fixing problems for other people), getting scooped. I'll be clear: I don't take either of these downsides very seriously. Upvotes: 9 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would clean it up a little and share it. I've released a lot of code over the years, and also not released code for the reasons you give. Go through it and and comment it, at whatever level you can. Leave in "failed attempts" and comment them as such. Say why they failed, and what you tried. This is VERY useful info for people coming after you. Make a README file that says you are releasing it on request in the hope it helps someone. Say that you know the code is ugly, but you hope it's useful anyway. Far too many people hold things back because it isn't perfect! Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: Yes! Especially if your paper is e.g. about a new/improved algorithm that you've implemented, or you do significant non-standard data analysis, or basically anything where reproducing your results means re-implementing your software. Papers seldom have room to give more than an outline. I know I've spent (= wasted) much too much time trying to implement algorithms from papers that left out critical (but not strictly relevant to the paper) details. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_4: I think you should share it. First of all you should do some basic clean up. (e.g.: no earlier code which is not used anymore; no code in comment; valid way of commenting and so on) Moreover if you put some "to do" in the code others can see that you were out of time and they can see your intentions. (e.g.: todo: this should be changed to enum) I also think you should share the most important part of your algorithms. When I share a code I have never share unimportant parts. Everyone can handle reading/writing of files, communication between threads, gui and so on. But don't share unreadable code. It would make no sense. So I think the middle way is the best as many times. :-) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: ¿You think your code is messy? I have seen (and attempted to work with) code that gave me nightmares: * Five levels of `if True` nested, scattered at random places through the code. * Create an array of zeroes, convert it to degrees, take the cosine, and back to radians. Then, throw away the result. * On a software under heavy development, the list of "supported architectures" is so ancient (and they do say themselves) it would difficult to get your hands on one of these computer nowadays. * Features broken or modified several versions ago, still recommended in the docs. * Code that goes from using a standard format input to some format of their own. How to generate it? No one really knows, and the developers handwave a response. * Releases that don't even compile. (Did you even test it?) * GUI menus that you have to access in a specific order. Otherwise, you get a segmentation fault and have to start from the beginning. * Hard-coded paths scattered through the code. So you have to shift through several files finding and changing all the occurences of `/home/someguy/absurd_project/working/` to yours. And, my personal favourite, a certain program of thousands of lines of code, only used comments to eliminate random bits of code, except for one: > > Here we punch the cards. > > > Still, no idea what it was doing. And this is only leaving outside the classical good practice stuff, like one-letter variables all over the code, algorithms not specified anywhere... If you are concerned about the quality of your code, it probably means you care enough to have made it better than the average. If you wait until the code is clean, it may never get out, and your scientific contributions will be partially lost. In my opinion, the important things that you should care about, in order, are: 1. Input and output formats. Use standards when available, make it simple when not. Make using your program as a black box easy. 2. Commented. Brief descriptions of the functions, quick overview of the algorithm. 3. Legibility. Using idiomatic code, good variable names... 4. Structure. This is easier when you know what you want to do, that is usually not the case in research code. Only if there is interest in the community, you may consider refactoring it. So, release your software whenever you have 1 (2 and part of 3 should come in as you are writing it). Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_6: You should definitely share your code. For sorting things, make regions of the same parts of code like make a region of a failed attempt, and explain why it failed. Also, if you develop in Visual Studio, install the “CodeMaid” extension from Extension Manager and clean your complete solution. It will remove spaces and also remove unused references making most of the things look better. If you develop in C# then share your code with me. I can also help you with sorting things out :) Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: You may just push it to [GitHub](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub) and try to maintain a project in case other people who are interested about your project can access your code easily and maybe they can help to improve your code. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Of course. The only way you are going to get better at writing good software is to get feedback (all types). If you're afraid of feedback then you won't really get very far. The three basics to writing great software are practice, practice, and practice. Now on as to the question of whether it would harm your career if people found out that your software writing skills aren't top notch. I think that no, on the contrary, they would respect you for your academic integrity. And would look forward to collaborating with you. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: Of course you should share the source code. Academically speaking, a software-based result using code that is not readily available is not very valuable, as how would other people be able to verify your claims, if needed? Do you expect them to program on their own for this purpose? Sharing binaries only is much less valuable, and often leads to nightmares for people trying to run them. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_10: Yes, you should. After all, the Linux kernel source code is quite a mess and that haven't prevented many professional developers from studying it and contributing patches and additions to it. Remember also that the Linux kernel is the base of the operating system that runs the fastest and most powerful supercomputers and most devices in the world. P.D: <NAME>, the guy who invented the Linux kernel have a very profitable and successful career which have not been affected negatively or harmed in any way by the fact that the Linux kernel source code is messy. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_11: Tangentially related, I will addresses how to share the software given your concerns (not should you share the software which you already have an answer for). Putting the failed attempts in version control effectively means that nobody will ever see them. The way I handle this is to put each attempt in a method, and each failed attempt in a separate method: ``` def main(): get_foobar(x, y) def get_foobar(): return xy def get_foobar_legacy_1(): """ This attempt did not work for values > 100 """ return x + y def get_foobar_legacy_2(): """ This attempt did not work on Wednesdays in September """ return x - y ``` As per the comments below, it may be a good idea to put these methods in a separate FailedAttempts or BadIdeas class.** This has the nice effect of compartmentalizing the various stages for the process as per actual need. I find that computer programmers often have a knack for when to break logic off into a method and when not to, but computer scientists often do not. This approach helps the computer scientists break off into a method when necessary. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_12: Share it if you want to, don't share it if you don't want to. I know this sounds snarky but I think there is too much pressure nowadays to "share everything" and people will try to make you guilty for not sharing, but really you have no obligation to share anything. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_13: Talk to some of the professors in your computer science department. See if any of them are looking for a project where students can clean up messy code to make it more presentable. For the students who revise the code, this can be a good learning experience. What happens when coders program with a results-first mindset – or results only mindset? They get to see that first hand. They also get to apply some of those best practices they've been learning about. And they might be motivated to do an especially good job knowing that other professionals are already interested in seeing the code. A professor might even make this into a contest, where teams of students all take a crack at revising the software, and the best result is shared with the rest of the world. If their refactoring efforts flop, you're no further behind than you were. If that's the case, disclaimers are a wonderful thing. Simply share the code, but add a caveat: "It isn't pretty. When I wrote this, I was trying to get my research done – I wasn't thinking it would ever go outside my computer lab. But you're welcome to take a look if you really want to." Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_14: You're asking whether sharing low-quality software would give a bad impression of you. I think that sharing software at all gives a good impression. 1. As a computer scientist, I like when colleagues make their source code available. It makes me more likely to look deeper into their work, maybe contact them, maybe cite them, because there is one more artifact to interact with (not just the paper, but also the code). 2. When a paper reports a result that is "proven" by source code, but the source code is not public, I'm often wondering whether the result is real. Looking at the source code (or just the availability of the source code, without ever looking at it) can convince me. So sharing your source code, horrible or not, would always give me a good impression of you. Now, if you want to impress even more, it would help ... ... if you react to issues or pull requests on a site like github, that is, when I see that others try to contact you and you react. ... if your code contains a readme file which relates the claims from your paper to the source code. This way, when I read the paper and want to know more, I can use the readme to jump to the appropriate place in the code. Typical phrases from such a readme could be: "The algorithm from Sec. 3.2 of the paper is in file algorithm/newversion/related/secondtry/foo.c" or "To repeat the run with the small dataset described in Sec. 2 of the paper, run "make; make second\_step; foo\_bar\_2 datasets/christmas.dataset. This run takes about 2 days on my laptop". You might also be interested in <NAME>'s CRAPL (Community Research and Academic Programming License), available on <http://matt.might.net/articles/crapl/>. It contains this term: "You agree to hold the Author free from shame, embarrassment or ridicule for any hacks, kludges or leaps of faith found within the Program". It is not clear to me whether this "license" has any legal effect, but the intent is clear: Release your ugly code, and don't think bad of the ugly code of others. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_15: A reason that no one has mentioned why you should share your code is that you might find someone who is interested in collaborating with you, but who is prepared to spend more time cleaning up the code and making it work on different systems, etc. than on doing the innovative development that you have done. Lots of people find this kind of work very satisfying and if your code is genuinely useful to them they might be happy to do it. In any case, you might find that getting feedback from people who have tried to use it, but need some kind of help, is a good motivation for you to make it more maintainable/easier to use and understand. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_16: Put up a disclaimer that the code is provided "as is" with no promises of support, etc. And then share the code. Case study: Turning a cloud of isolated points into a watertight surface is an extremely important practical problem, used everywhere from robotics to computer vision to processing data from 3D sensors like the Microsoft Kinect. Poisson surface reconstruction is 7 years old and has long stopped being the state of the art for solving this problem. But everybody still uses it to this day. Why? Because the author [released the code](http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/hoppe/proj/poissonrecon/) and it has since been incorporated into a bunch of popular geometry processing libraries. The paper now has over a thousand citations. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_17: Yes. You should release your code, probably under the CRAPL license. The goal is to build a better future - and your lousy code will help people do that. A caveat is that you should document how to successfully operate the code well enough for someone to have a decent chance of reproducing any published results. And, don't worry - one bit of research code I worked on had been developed by 5 postdocs of indifferent programming ability for a series of projects over the course of about 8 years. The list of global variables (just the names) was roughly 4 pages. Roughly one third of them were used to set default behavior to change the functionality that functioned at a given moment. Another 20% were parallel data structures - meaning that they stored approximately the same data - and therefore functions in the code pulled from the data structures more or less at random. Yes. They were sometimes out of sync. And sometimes needed to be out of sync. There were roughly 50 undocumented versions, stored in random portions of the group's server - each of which served at least one specific purpose - and only one admin kept those specific purposes in his head. It was more common than not to have people using the 'wrong' version for a given purpose. The use of incredibly complex recursive procedures to, eg, write a file, was standard. Seriously - a few thousand lines to save image results. Oh, and the remains of a butchered attempt to solve a memory leak (actually an invisible figure) by never creating a new variable. Oh, and the database, that lovely database. About half of the data was unusable owing to (a) database design errors (b) data entry errors (in automatic programs). The code to retrieve files from the database was several hundred lines of logic long... The database itself was also kind enough to contain many copies of the same data, much with broken links between tables. Constraints? No. I watched a statistician proceed from disquiet to fear to tears to quitting within a month of being entrusted with the database... There were somewhere between 0 and 1 ways to operate the software and retrieve correct results at any given instant... And yes, there were gotos. Oh, and in an effort to ensure opaque and nondeterministic operation, a series of computations was performed by calling GUI buttons with associated callbacks. Approximately 90% of any given function was, quite reliably, not relevant to the result or to debugging of the result - being composed, rather, of short-term projects inserted and then never removed. Seriously - I wrote a feature complete version that actually worked that was 1/10th the size... Significant fractions were copy-pasted inserted functions, many of which differed from each other. And, no Virginia, there is no documentation. Or descriptive variable names. Oh, and the undocumented, buggy, dlls and associated libraries - generated using code that no longer existed. All written in Matlab. In terms of Matlab coding practices, assume that copious use of eval would be the highlight of your day. Seriously, your code isn't so bad. That said, if you've done something actually useful, it might be career-enhancing to release a cleaned-up version so that other people will use and cite your library. If you've just done something, then reproduction is probably as far as you'd be well-advised to go. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_18: Lots of points in favour of publishing the code have been named in the other answers, and I completely agree with them. Hence, as the basic desirability of publishing the code has been discussed, I would like to supplement this with a checklist of further points that need to be considered. Many of these issues probably appear in virtually all academic software, so even if you cannot respond "This does not apply to my project." to all of them, you should at least be able to respond "This is a concern, but we can deal with this issue by ..." before publishing your code: * Are you allowed to publish the code? + Can you guarantee you only used code fragments that you are allowed to redistribute? Or did you possibly use code from non-open sources that you may use for your own internal software, but that you are not allowed to publish? Can you guarantee all the code that you used is allowed to be published in one complete package? License compatibility is a non-trivial issue. + Can you even reliably find out? Did you outsource any parts of your coding work, or integrate unpublished code from elsewhere? For instance, did you supervise any students during their graduation theses or employ any student research assistants, whose work was based upon your research and thus their code was added to your codebase? Did any co-workers contribute code to your codebase? Did they get some of their code from students? Did all of these people involved properly pay attention to licensing issues (if at all they had the knowledge to make an educated judgement about these licensing questions)? Can it even still be determined where which parts of the code originated? Do the people who contributed each part still know? Are they even still "within contact range" for you? + Was the code developed during working time based on third-party funds? If so, do the funding contract terms allow to publish the code, or do they include any requirements that software created within the funded project must be shared exclusively with the project partners? * Do you have sufficient resources (time and otherwise) to spend the effort to clean up the code and its comments in a way that it is still meaningful, but does not provide any information that must not become public? + Do you have any comments giving away who worked on the code? Were the people who contributed code officially allowed to work on the respective research, as per their funding? (Software developers are well aware that teamwork and reuse of components are core aspects of software development. Funding agencies, unfortunately, are typically very unaware of this and assume that if developer A is funded from project X and developer B is funded from project Y, A works exclusively on X and B works exclusively on Y, and revealing that, w.l.o.g., A spent only half an hour doing something that ended up in project Y could lead to severe consequences, such as reclaiming parts of the funding.) + Does anything in the published data give away any information about the particularities of how the work was done that must not become public? This is especially important if the whole commit history in a VCS is going to become public (or, practically, means that the commit history should never be published), but may also play a role in other situations. For example: Was any work on the code done outside of the officially assigned working times (e.g. during weekends)? Do working times give away that you worked more than the legal limit of your country for working hours per day? Do working times give away that you did not adhere to legally required breaks? Do working times give away that people assigned to other projects made contributions? Do working times provide any reason to distrust any of the statements you made otherwise about your working times (e.g. in project success reports that required a detailed assignment of working times to pre-defined work packages with certain maximum allotments)? Does anything give away that you worked in situations where you should not have been working (e.g. during a project meeting)? Does anything give away that you worked in locations where you should not have worked (e.g. from home, when your contract does not allow you to do home office, e.g. for insurance-related complications)? + Is there any secret information in the code, such as passwords, user account names, or URLs that must not be publicly known (because the servers are not laid out to handle larger amounts of users beyond a small number of select people who were given the URL for the test setup personally)? * Is the code usable by anyone else? + Will the code run, or does it require extensive configuration efforts? Can you spend the effort required to explain what configuration is necessary? + Can the code be compiled? Have you used any unofficial modified or custom-built compilers that are not publicly accessible? If so, does the code add anything beyond what may already be provided as a pseudo-code algorithm in your papers? + Does the code require any external resources? Will the code only be useful if it can access servers, libraries, or datasets that you cannot publish along with the code for one reason or another? Can at least a description of these resources be provided, or are their interfaces subject to some kind of an NDA? + Does the code make any irreversible changes to systems it runs on? For example, does it automatically change any system configuration (such as overwriting the system search path)? Does it perform any low-level access to hardware components that could, in certain constellations (that you internally avoid in your test setups) cause permanent damage to any components? Can you reliably warn users of the code of such possible unwanted side-effects? Upvotes: 3
2015/01/22	321	1,328	<issue_start>username_0: I have seen the work of previous and current students and I have done a lot more than them, and my dissertations is about 60% written already, however, my adviser seems to not be comfortable with the idea of me graduating in May (Is January now). I have asked him several times up front and he keeps evading the topic and goes around it and never confirms it. He is always on travel and is not even at my same institution anymore, so that makes things worse. I have a job lined up and he knows about it, but he seems to be holding me back. I have talked to fellow students and they feel he is being unfair to me. What should I do?<issue_comment>username_1: Most departments have a faculty member who serves as the director of graduate studies. Talk to this person about the situation. He or she will have much more contextual information than any of us here, and it is this person's job to resolve such conflicts between students and advisors. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You need to check on deadlines for your university. With a May graduation date, you may have to apply to graduate within the next few weeks, and your defense may have to occur a month or more before graduation. Your committee will have to read your dissertation, you'll have to revise it, and resubmit, etc. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/23	299	1,194	<issue_start>username_0: I currently have applications into several top tier education programs. I am a bit worried about my chances. I have about 7 years working in education, a unrelated masters and a masters in education. My GPA in undergraduate was a 3.8 and in graduate school a 3.9 from a top 25 university. I did well on the GRE verbal but poorly on GRE math. Does anyone have any insight as to what they are looking for and what my chances are? I read in another post to look for brutal honesty, so bring it on.<issue_comment>username_1: Most departments have a faculty member who serves as the director of graduate studies. Talk to this person about the situation. He or she will have much more contextual information than any of us here, and it is this person's job to resolve such conflicts between students and advisors. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You need to check on deadlines for your university. With a May graduation date, you may have to apply to graduate within the next few weeks, and your defense may have to occur a month or more before graduation. Your committee will have to read your dissertation, you'll have to revise it, and resubmit, etc. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/23	605	2,527	<issue_start>username_0: I have some idea of how well I'm doing with my research in PhD, but maybe it differs from what my advisor thinks. Is it okay to ask (e.g. at the end of a meeting) how well I'm doing with my research? Can I say "Oh, by the way, how am I doing with my research?"<issue_comment>username_1: Yes, this is a fine question to ask, although I might phrase is slightly differently: > > "How happy are you with the progress that I am making?" > > > which makes it a little more open-ended and focuses the question more on process and progress. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I think it's fine to ask this question. It's perfectly reasonable to be interested in getting feedback from your advisor. Most advisors should be okay with this kind of question as it shows a high level of interest and willingness to improve. However, I agree that you could frame your question differently. You could ask if your advisor has any feedback on your progress or if there are any areas where you need to put in more effort. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I would also agree that it's fine (even good) to ask this question, but I would suggest not throwing it out at the end of the meeting, which may lead your advisor to just give a perfunctory response - for example saying that everything is fine even if s/he has concerns because they have another meeting about to start... Instead it might be better to bring it up at the beginning of the meeting or even before the meeting in an email, which would allow your advisor to give you a more considered (and hopefully useful) response. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: First, I think it is very easy for PhD students to err wildly (from the viewpoint of the advisor and/or more senior professionals) in all possible directions in their self-appraisal, if for no other reason than having no perspective or prior experience (and friends and peers in similar no-perspective/experience situations). And, then, answers to the question may vary enormously depending on the precise wording. E.g., "Are you happy with my progress?" might tend to invite reassurance rather than critique. I think it is misguided to ask "Should I be working harder?", since in too many cases over-the-top "effort" ends up being seriously misdirected and only serves to exhaust you. Perhaps "How would you appraise my progress thus far?" if you really want some constructive criticism (and asked at the beginning of your meeting, rather than end). Upvotes: 1
2015/01/23	811	3,364	<issue_start>username_0: Now I'm in a community college and I am trying to gathering recommendation letter to apply to graduate school.(I have already got my bachelor degree). I performed well in calculus and got an A in that course. After i got my grade, I wrote a thankful email to my professor and he replied me that I am the top student in his course. I thought he is nice. Therefore I asked him whether he can write me a recommendation letter to me by e-mail but there is no-reply. I considered if he didn't see my email, so I went to his office and wanted to see him in his office hour. His office hour was posted on the wall and on the schedule he said if anyone want to see him please notice him ahead of time. So I e-mail him again to ask for an appointment. Here is the content: > > Dear Prof XXX: > It's XXX, a student who finished your calculus 1 last semester. I went to you office yesterday and record your office hour on the wall. Would it be possible to meet with you next Monday 11 am (office hour) about whether you can help me write an recommendation letter? > > > Regards > > > He didn't reply me. I almost lost my confidence. I don't know whether I need to go to his office directly. I am afraid it's impolite or disrespect. And I don't know if he don't want to do it, why he praise me in the first thankful note? Hope anyone can help me.<issue_comment>username_1: Your e-mail looks okay as an appointment mail. There are a few possibilities. The professor may be busy with some important things he has to do. He may be on vacation, not available. Please don't lose your confidence yet. You probably should wait a few more days for him to reply. It is also possible that he didn't think an A in Calculus I is good enough for him to write a recommendation letter for you. He may want to wait until you get another A for Calculus II and then write a good recommendation letter. However, depending on which field you are going to study in graduate school, the professor who taught you Calculus I may not be a good candidate to write you recommendation letters. You already have Bachelors degree. I think the recommendation letters written by the professors in the university where you graduated from, who had more working experience with you would be more helpful for your graduate school application. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Honestly, it seems unlikely to me that any level of performance in calculus could be relevant to any graduate school admission process or prediction of success/failure. For mathematics or engineering or science, it's too elementary, by far. For non-mathematical things, it's simply irrelevant. In either case, the intellectual context of "calculus" is almost always too rudimentary, uncritical (whether or not there are epsilons and deltas). That is, at most, its intellectual context is that for students just beginning college, most likely disinterested in the subject, and most likely not really needing the content, either. And large numbers of students take such a course. Thus, even a top grade in first-year calculus is not really a distinction in the first place, and is certainly not a good basis for letters of recommendation for grad school. In fact, to have such a letter might be viewed as an indicator that you do not understand what the grad programs involve. Upvotes: -1
2015/01/23	2,921	10,750	<issue_start>username_0: By "gender preferential treatment" I mean: Person A is selected ahead of Person B partly because of gender. In other words, Person B would have been selected ahead of Person A had gender not been taken into account. By "deliberate" I mean: as a matter of policy at the department or university or state or national level, or at the discretion of the committee that makes the decision. This does not include unintentional bias, which might occur as part of human nature. By ["STEM fields"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEM_fields) I mean: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. I'm interested in four stages. 1. Graduate school admission 2. Postdoc hiring 3. Professor hiring 4. Tenure or promotion decision Answers can be about any country. But please keep in mind that the question is not about why deliberate gender preferential treatment is a good or a bad idea. It is about what happens in reality. Answers should be supported by either references to publicly available policies, research, or firsthand personal experience (e.g. on hiring committees).<issue_comment>username_1: I can only provide answer about Graduate school admission. In the countries where graduate school admission is based on written exams and the student names on the exam papers are sealed when grading, the gender preferential treatment is next to impossible. In Taiwan, where I live, this was the case a few decades ago. However, the sytem has been changed to include written exams, oral exams and recommendation letters in some cases, no one knows how much bias is there. As far as I know, there are more female scientists than in the past. I will find some hard data if there is some available in English and update my answer here. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It's rather subtle trying to decide what counts as gender preferential treatment. For example, suppose the hiring committee decides to interview Bob, Carl, and Dave. As a sanity check, someone goes through the applications from women to see whether anyone was overlooked, and they are impressed by Alice's application. There's some debate about whether she looks quite as strong on paper as the other three, but the department decides to interview her as well. Alice is extraordinarily impressive in person, and once all the interviews are complete and the department has learned more about her work, she is the unanimous first choice. Does this count as preferential treatment? A male applicant might not have been rescued from being overlooked the way Alice was, but he might have been less likely to be overlooked in the first place, so it's difficult to give an objective answer (it depends on which counterfactual scenario you imagine). Gender was not relevant for the decision once all the information was gathered, but deliberate steps were taken based on gender to minimize the potential for bias in the process. In my experience with mathematics in the U.S., these sorts of steps are pretty common. In the committees I've served on (for both admissions and hiring), people have often gone out of their way to try to identify diverse sorts of candidates and make sure they are not overlooked or disadvantaged. Not everyone participates eagerly in this, but some do it out of conviction that it's intrinsically worthwhile, while others play along to keep the administration from complaining. On the other hand, I've never seen this process extend to advantages in the final decision. In particular, I haven't seen a case in which Alice was hired or admitted instead of Bob just because she was female, although the committee was more impressed by Bob than Alice otherwise. Tie breakers are the closest I've seen to an explicit preference. In graduate admissions many decisions are easy, but there's always a (small) group of comparable candidates right near the borderline for admission, where nobody can give a compelling argument for why one is superior to another. Within that group, being female could prove an advantage: if Alice and Bob are equally strong candidates in other ways, but Alice would help bring gender balance to the department and Bob would not, then that's a good reason to admit Alice. This doesn't generally arise in hiring, since few enough people are hired that there are many strong opinions and the hiring committee is unlikely to decide two candidates are truly tied. However, it can happen in admissions, which is a lower-stakes process carried out on a larger scale and with less information. I'm mainly mentioning it for completeness, since few applicants are actually close enough to the cut-off for this to matter. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_3: In Germany, women are in some instances preferred over men for professor positions, to the point of excluding male applicants at all. 1. There are scholarships and other forms of funding specifically (and exclusively) geared towards women (at all levels). A prominent example is [special funding for female professors by BMBF](http://www.bmbf.de/press/3408.php): > > [Secretary of Education Schavan:] > "There are not enough female professors, most university teachers > are men. [...] 260 new positions have been established [between 2008 and 2012] > thanks to the Female Professors Program and have been staffed with women. > This is a success - but not nearly enough. Therefore we have > initiated a second round." > > > [...] > > > Up to three [female] professor positions per university [are > possible]. [We make] an additional 150 million Euros available > for this purpose until 2017. > > Best-effort translation by myself from the German original. > > > 2. There are professor positions offered only to women¹. For one thing, there are "additional" positions like those mentioned above or e.g. at FU Berlin ([1](http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/frauenbeauftragte/foerdern/programme/w1/index.html), [2](http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/frauenbeauftragte/foerdern/programme/w2/index.html)). > > [Departments] could apply for being assigned [such a position]. [...] > [The applicants] must bring forward proof of at least one highly > qualified female applicant.² > > Best-effort translation by myself from the German original. > > > This is probably an effect of additional funds for women being available (cf 1). But also regular positions can be designated for women only, see e.g. these [commission minutes](https://www.htw-berlin.de/fileadmin/HTW/Zentral/DE/HTW/Akademische_Selbstverwaltung/AS/Protokolle/2004/144_260104.pdf) from FHTW Berlin (page 8): > > One of the two professor positions will be tendered twice as > women-only position. > > > The [Academic Senate of the FHTW Berlin] passes the motion > [with 9 yes, 0 no, 4 abstention]. > > Best-effort translation by myself from the German original. > > > Official statements regarding systemic discrimination (of men) are hard to come by (even if it is effectively encouraged/enforced by policy at times). See some press on one case [here](http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/berliner-mathematik-professur-maennerdiskriminierung-an-der-humboldt-universitaet-13006311.html) and [here](http://www.spiegel.de/unispiegel/jobundberuf/verdacht-der-diskriminierung-frauen-an-der-hu-berlin-bevorzugt-a-972145.html). 3. There are support structures available only to women, such as the concept of [Frauenbeauftragte](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenbeauftragte) (Am. women's affairs officer) (who have special roles and privileges) and often have funds spent on e.g. training seminars only open for women (which is not always enforced). --- 1. You hear stories, but there will often be no paper trail as these things can and tend to be decided behind the curtains. The way hiring of professors works in Germany, if the commission wants phenotype X, they can get it (if they play their cards right). In the gender question, this may be a result of a) policy makers demanding more female professors (by way of blocking any other choice) and b) the funding situation (cf 1), esp. in the light of decreasing funding across the board.). 2. They then say, "after the position has been assigned to the department, a regular hiring process ensues". I'm not clear if that means male applicants are admitted, or if only the process itself is a regular one. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: The University of Melbourne has instituted the sex of the applicant as a requirement for [some positions](http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/may/19/university-of-melbourne-mathematics-school-advertises-women-only-positions). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: On February 2017 Trump signed laws [designed with the purpose of promoting women in STEM](https://www.cnet.com/news/trump-women-in-stem-tech-laws/). Multiple universities have Women In Science Programs (WISP) that "promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity for women", sometimes along with ["minorities, persons with disabilities and veterans"](https://www.science.purdue.edu/wisp/). Some of these programs involve [paid internships for women only](http://students.dartmouth.edu/wisp/internships/about-internships). The Mickey Leland Energy Fellowship (MLEF) Program is an internship program for women and under-represented minority students is a 10-Week Summer Internship sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy. It is directed towards students who are pursuing academic majors in science, technology, engineering, and math. [Only women and "minority" students need apply](https://energy.gov/student-programs-and-internships). In 2016, seven global engineering and tech companies (IBM, Intel, General Motors, <NAME>, Cummins, Caterpillar, and Johnson Controls) piloted re-entry, paid internship programs for people who had taken career breaks of two years or longer. In IBM, [selected participants are all women](https://www.fastcompany.com/3057081/how-paid-re-entry-programs-can-get-more-women-in-tech). In Australia, there's the [Edith Dornwell Internship for Women in STEM](https://www.officeforwomen.sa.gov.au/womens-policy/womens-employment-and-economic-status/edith-dornwell-internships-for-women-in-stem), which is a program provides that one woman each year with three months full time or six months part time fully paid employment with an organisation whose focus is on STEM. These are but a few examples of the many programs that result in women generally being favored over men. A 2015 study demonstrated [an overall 2-to-1 advantage for women in being ranked first for the job in any STEM field](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/17/5360.abstract). Upvotes: 2
2015/01/23	1,268	5,419	<issue_start>username_0: Do most professors value their PhD students, or do they see them as easily replaceable by fresh, new blood? If a PhD student stops working, will the professor try to fix things, or replace him like a cog in his machine?<issue_comment>username_1: Most PhD advisors invest a great deal of time, money, and effort in their PhD students. This is a sunk cost. If the advisor acts as a selfish rational decision maker, he/she would evaluate the prospective (future) costs of continuing to work with the student, the likelihood of the student becoming productive again given some level of intervention on the part of the advisor, and the benefit to the advisor if the student becomes productive again. Other contributing factors may include the cost to the advisor's reputation of having a failed PhD student and the impact of a failed PhD student on the advisor's promotion prospects. Based on these parameters, a selfish rational player could evaluate whether it is in his/her own best interests to try and "fix things" or whether to cut his/her losses and "replace him like a cog in his machine." In other words, there is no single action taken by "most" advisors here - the best response of even a purely selfish advisor depends on the parameters of the situation. Finally, most of the PhD advisors I personally know also feel some level of affection for their students and personal interest in their future, and would not necessarily make the strictly selfish decision described above. Rather, most PhD advisors I know would make an irrational decision that would consider the students' interests in addition to his/her own selfish interests. Depending on the situation, it may or may not be in the student's interests to be "fixed." Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: As others have mentioned, it is not at all universal that grad students or postdocs are "helping" their faculty advisor. That is, often the relationship is more teacher-student than boss-worker, to say the least. Yes, hopefully the discussion takes place with content at a far more interesting level than absolutely routine teaching might. Yes, such discussion can be stimulating and edifying to the advisor about the advisor's own larger enterprise. The model is that, for example, the advisor has a certain research program, a grad student or postdoc expresses some interest in the content, and the advisor is happy to spend time explaining and talking about it. Grad student or postdoc does a related project, and generates a PhD thesis or paper or... In such a context, there are at least two relevant sorts of "dysfunction", which I do put in quotes because it's only a very qualified sort. The first, and most relative, is that the student/postdoc (rationally/justifiably or not) loses interest in either their own sub/related-project or in the advisor's larger enterprise. That's fair. This is not a "problem" except in the most practical terms, about whether it is feasible for the student/postdoc to significantly change course given whatever funding-and-time constraints they have. A very different sort of problem is student/postdoc's personal crisis/situation not generated by the work, such as (mental or physical) health difficulties, living-situation difficulties. Of course, very often such things have a huge impact on the work. Most advisors are not so callous as to be able or inclined to hold the student/postdoc culpable for the vagaries of fortune... So, at least up to a substantial point, I think most advisors try to be sympathetic, indulgent, hoping that things heal up well enough to allow return to a more "normal" role. There is also a caricatured situation that according to substantial gossip seems to be perceived as relevant by, for example, grad students: the alleged scenario in which grad students are expected/required to be near-geniuses, are gradually discovered not to be, and thus are branded as failures, tossed aside in favor of other genius-contenders. I think this fantasy-scenario is not relevant to actual events, but can play a negative role in the mental-health aspects of students/postdocs... The point is not that the scenario takes place, but that people worry about it: hopefully the advisor offers appropriate reassurances of the irrelevance of that little myth. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I have seen it go in both directions, and which way it goes seems to be strongly correlated with theoretical vs. experimental science. The more that a professor's research requires lots of "lab tech" work, the more likely that a student may find themselves treated as a lab tech rather than an independent researcher in training. I think that has been significantly driven by the economics of funding, since a) many funding agencies have become progressively less willing to support lab techs, and b) a good lab tech can easily cost 2 to 4 times as much as a student, depending on field, cost of living, and how a university does its accounting. Another place where I have heard of things going particularly badly is with foreign students (and postdocs) in the US, where an unscrupulous professor can use the delicacy of visas to exploit students. In the end, however, the strongest determinant is the individual professor: in every field, there are both excellent people to work with and horrible people to work with. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/23	1,370	5,708	<issue_start>username_0: I'm writing a contribution for a double-blind submission system. Since I would like to supply more data than I could show on a small number of pages, I'm looking for a way to reference supplemental data in my manuscript, such as software scripts, figures or databases. I could upload on GitHub, RPubs, Figshare and Zenodo, but all of these would expose my real user name (and I don't feel like making a throwaway e-mail account with a new repository for every anonymous publication that I intend to write). Is there any way to get the above services to do what I want? Or is there a similar service that would allow anonymous hosting of research data? It would be even better if I could later (e.g. after publication) declassify the information, with the link from the manuscript still being intact.<issue_comment>username_1: What you could do is to host your data on Dropbox. When you try to share a file, you will get a link that you can put into the paper. It seems as if the recipient of the link has no way to see the dropbox user account name/e-mail address of the person who shared it. After acceptance of the publication, you could move the file to your institutional website. Equally important, when using Dropbox it will be clear for the reviewer that you cannot see any server logs -- if you referred to a link on a server that you manage on your own, you could use the information to de-anonymize the reviewer (to some extent). Other cloud service providers may also be suitable. I have no experience with them, though. EDIT: This answer is indeed partially outdated, as noted in a comment to this answer. If you open the shared link anonymously in a browser, then you can click on any shared file and on the right hand-side click on "File Information". This shows the sharer's name. It may be necessary to open a new Dropbox account with a proxy name. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Most journals allow (and even expect) you to upload supplementary data with your submission, which can be accessed by the reviewers. If you are submitting to a journal, this is the best way to make it accessible as part of the reviewing package, as well as to ensure long-term storage of an archival copy of the relevant data. On the other hand, if you are submitting to a conference (which typically have strict page limits and discourage supplementary information), it is often considered sort of cheating to have your paper depend critically on supplementary information. The reviewers would be acting reasonably if they did not choose to read your supplementary information in any case. I would thus recommend for a blinded submission to not include it, but instead say "[link omitted for blinding]" in place of the archival URL you will use for the final submission. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: If an author is very concerned about keeping their data private and anonymous until the last moment before publication, the workflow would be like this: 1. The authors deposit their data in a private repository while they are finalizing the manuscript, before submission. They ensure that the documents and files they upload to the repository do not have their names on them. 2. The authors obtain a 'view-only' link from the repository. This link will give anyone access to their private repository in a way that hides the repository metadata so that the authors of the repo are not visible to people using this link. 3. The authors insert this view-only link into the text of their manuscript, for example in the data availability statement. Then they submit their manuscript for peer review. Their data remains private on the repository. 4. Anyone with the manuscript, such as the editor and peer reviewers, can click on the 'view-only' link in the paper to download the data. The peer reviewers can anonymously inspect the data on the repository, and they do not see the names of the authors on the repository. 5. Once the paper is accepted, the authors switch their data repository from private to public, and the 'view-only' link is removed from the manuscript, and replaced with the DOI to the public repository of the data. The editor or copyeditor checks that the paper now has a DOI, because the 'view-only' links typically expire after a few months. The repositories that I know support this workflow are: * [Open Science Framework](https://help.osf.io/hc/en-us/articles/360019930333-Create-a-View-only-Link-for-a-Project) * [Figshare](https://knowledge.figshare.com/articles/item/how-to-share-cite-or-embed-my-data) * [Dataverse](http://guides.dataverse.org/en/latest/user/dataset-management.html#private-url-to-review-unpublished-dataset) * [Zenodo](https://ineed.coffee/post/how-to-disclose-data-for-double-blind-review-and-make-it-archived-open-data-upon-acceptance) (not exactly as I describe above, but very close) There may be others I don't know about! Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: If you don't need the reviewer to see the data during review, you can use zenodo's reserve doi feature. Here you can reserve a doi (so you can put the url in the paper) but it's not public untill you decide the publish the data so anyone following the url doesn't know who reserved the doi (untill you want them to). Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: If your "supplemental data" can fit in a Github repository, you could use [Anonymous GitHub](https://anonymous.4open.science/), which allows you to create links to browse the contents of a Github repository while making it anonymous and censoring certain information. It doesn't work with files larger than 8 MB, so this is mostly intended for code rather than large datasets. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/23	1,574	6,426	<issue_start>username_0: Are there guidelines or best practices for adding references to a research PowerPoint presentation? For example, should I put the full citation at the bottom of the slide? > > <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>., <NAME>. (1998). Fullerene Pipes. Science, 280(5367), 1253–1256. > > > If you have even a couple references, this slide starts to look really busy. I've seen quite a few presentations with truncated references (just first author, journal, year), like so: > > <NAME>., et al. Science (1998) > > > Is this shortened reference alright? It looks cleaner on the slide, but at the expense of the ease of the viewer locating a reference. Any other solutions? If it makes a difference, this would be for the engineering/science fields.<issue_comment>username_1: My preferred way to do this is to put a short reference on the slide, perhaps not even a formatted citation (e.g. "Liu, et al. show that ..."), maybe use a numeric cite (e.g. "...[1]"), and then have a slide or two at the end listing your citations, in full form, as taken from the paper that the talk represents or will represent if the talk is discussing a work in progress. This moves the distracting stuff to the end of the talk and allows anyone who wants to go look up the citation to do so assuming you or the conference makes your slides available. If you don't intend to make the slides available, then putting a short cite like your second example in a footnote on the slide where you first cite it is probably best. That's short enough to be remembered or jotted down by an audience member for later look up. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would strongly recommend against putting the full citation at the bottom of the slide. The problem is, when you are actually presenting, it will both a) make the slide look very busy as you note, and b) distract people away from the rest of the slide. Another problem is that few people will actually be able to copy down the citation (unless you linger on the slide for a very long time). Truncated references deal with all of these problems, generally giving just enough information for a quickly scribbled note that will give the reader the ability to track down the cited paper with a little bit of work. In addition, however, if you will be making the slides available for others to read at their leisure, there are two other good places to put references: 1. A "bibliography" slide at the end, before or after where many put the funding/acknowledgements slide. 2. In the "notes" field associated with the slide on which the truncated reference appears. This is especially good when dealing with funding agencies, who like to pull slides out of your deck for presentation to their own higher-ups. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Don't put a full citation on the slide. That's too busy and distracting. It will distract some members of the audience from your main message. Personally, I recommend against putting citations on the slide at all, in most circumstances. Many people adopt a text-heavy style, where their presentations are full of text and bullet lists with text and text text wall-of-text. There's a lot of evidence that this is not good for comprehension. Instead, try minimizing the amount of text on your slides. It takes more effort, but it can lead to much more effective communication style. Try to write less on your slides. Less is more. Finally, remember the goal of a presentation. The purpose of a presentation is not to present every last detail of your work. Instead, the purpose of a presentation is to tell a story, a narrative, that conveys the main ideas and intuition and takeaways. Details belong in the technical paper. And citations are typically one of those things that belong in the technical paper. When you're preparing a presentation, you shouldn't try to "cover" everything in the technical paper. Instead, think of your presentation as a lecture where you teach people about some idea, or an advertisement to read the full paper. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I generally agree with the sentiments already mentioned (that is, avoid putting full citations on individual slides; there is usually a better way to handle it). That said, I occasionally find myself wanting to do so for some reason, such as when I'm likely to reuse the presentation a year from now, and want to easily recall where the quoted information came from, or when I want to have the full citation available on the screen in case I'm asked about it during my presentation. When this has been the case, I've often handled this by including a full citation, but I use a color that is very similar to the background color of the slide – perhaps a light gray if my background is white, for example – and make the font very small. Here's an example, the slide on the left has a reference, while the slide on the right has the same reference in a more "subdued" color and smaller font: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/rfZIM.png) This allows me to put the reference on the slide when I want to, but avoid having the reference be a distraction to the live audience. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Just to add perspective and context, [D.W.’s approach](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37437/7734) is good for exactly what he asserts – “a live presentation to a group of folks that conveys the main ideas and intuition and takeaways”. However, with more presentations being presented online via courses or other means, citations are imperative. In particular, where images or other media are being used. In order to responsibly address copyright and fair use, the presenter must give a reasonable citation on every slide where they use media that isn’t theirs. [The options username_4 offers](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37446/7734) are excellent ones for just this purpose – the aesthetics are attended to as well as the obligation to cite work used in a presentation that could possibly be distributed beyond the intended audience. While the most common presentation is still “live”, as we move forward into the uncharted territory of conventional tools – like Powerpoint – being accessed online, we will have to find better ways to protect the integrity of the media we use to support our efforts. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/23	339	1,263	<issue_start>username_0: I am corresponding via email with an industry researcher regarding an internship. He always signs off his emails with his first name, Bill. Still, I have addressed him as "Dr. X" for several emails now. I realize that if I am offered this internship I wouldn't want to keep calling him this and would prefer to be on more casual terms. Should I just abruptly switch to his first name, or wait for him to actually tell me to use his first name?<issue_comment>username_1: Since he is academically your superior and you are trying to get a research position, I'd continue addressing him as Dr. X. I'd continue doing this until he directs you otherwise. Now, if you get the internship I would continue addressing him as Dr. In person, at least initially. Eventually you may notice other people who work under him that call him by Bill. That would be a good time to say "I notice everyone else addresses you as Bill, would you prefer I address you as Bill or Dr. X.?" Either way, don't get in a hurry to be on a first name basis. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Easiest solution, ask him. > > Dear Dr. X, > > > [Rest of the email] > > > P.S.: do you prefer me to call you Dr X, or Bill? > > > No mistake possible. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/23	4,156	17,697	<issue_start>username_0: I started my PhD in one of the very well renowned institutes in Germany. Unfortunately, in the middle I was forced very much to manipulate the data. I was extremely upset and did not know what to do. My supervisor has enormous amount of grants and he was very ambitious to prove all his hypotheses correct and he had to show the data to the grant givers as well. He starts forcing the PhD students in the middle of their PhD so that they can't leave. And he also doesnot allow somebody to simply graduate without publishing the manipuated data. So even for degree one has to publish that and afterwards if that person gets caught then the phd degree is gone and then the people would say that he/she should have reported the case when he/she was forced. It is a circular process , once you enter it is hard to get out. I went to the University Higher Authority and told them indirectly(not very bluntly but slightly) about this problem. They gave me the feelings that they were helping me but it was actually leaked to my supervisor. He made my life even more difficult and finally I had to leave my Phd at the end of third year. I had three path: 1) to continue with dishonesty 2) To give him a full fight 3) To simply leave him. I chose the last option. Afterwards, I started applying again to different places and everywhere I was asked that why I left my position. Initially , I told to the places I was called for an interview that I was not motivated in the project (without talking anything negative about my prveious lab) but this answer was not very well- accepted. Then, in one of the places I tried to tell about the real problem what I faced and I was given the feeling of committing a' grave crime of 7 murder cases' by one of the members of the Graduate School Selection Committee. I seriously felt like that after talking to them that leaving a PhD in between is a CRIME. I am still applying to different places , it is almost going to be a year and now I am in real conflict that what is wrong and right? I left my Phd for not compromising with ethics of science and after leaving it people are giving me the feeling that not finishing my Phd is wrong. 1)I would like to ask you that what should I do and in what way I should approach other supervisors at this situation for a Phd position? Or I have to simple leave academics? Although I do not want to leave it because I have not done anything wrong or violated science ethics. Kindly help me and provide your suggestions. P.S. My previous supervisor is not also giving any good recommendation so that is another big problem.<issue_comment>username_1: My following opinion is all hindsight. If I were in your initial situation of being forced to falsify data, and I had proof of that, then I would have taken all my proof and found a lawyer and asked him for his legal advice on how to proceed. I think this whole problem should have been confronted immediately at the beginning. Falsification of data is one of the most serious offenses in academia. It doesn't surprise me at all that this is taking place per my own, different and past experiences in academia. This is an extremely difficult situation. If you want to get into a new program, you have to answer their questions, but you can't make accusations without proof. You might just be forced to say that you had serious ethical conflicts in your prior program and that you are seeking an institution that in no way resembles your prior institution's appearance regarding ethics. Hopefully nobody has any proof that you may have participated in data falsification. Perhaps you should think about obtaining legal advice. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: You could say the following > > "I left due to reasons in my personal life. This issue has now passed > and I am excited to get back into research." > > > This is not a lie. Your ethical convictions and how you handled a difficult ethical situation is personal. Personal life as defined by the lead sentence in Wikipedia "the course of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity." Your situation seems to be a quintessential example of that. If they inquire further, you can say: > > "It is personal and I am a private person. I wish not to discuss > the details." > > > Try to get off the topic quickly. Don't lie but don't give them any real information either. Focus on the positive things you bring to the table. Basically you need to convince them you still have an enthusiasm for research. I know this is kind of dodging the question, but saying you weren't excited about the project or explaining the situation in detail will look worse. People have all sorts of personal problems in grad school and it is very reasonable to not want to discuss them. I think the University you are applying to will assume a far better excuse than the one you give them, so basically don't tell them anything. Of course this isn't ideal,; it would be better to have a well thought out answer that makes you look great. Unfortunately you cannot give them one with the information you supplied us. Your goal is to let your research and enthusiasm shine and hope they take a chance on you. If they ask you, "why didn't you reenter at the school you left?" You could say > > "The personal problem occurred in city X and I found if very > traumatizing. While I have put it past me, I would like a fresh > start in a new city, so I can focus on research without any > distractions." > > > I think the bigger red flag is that I assume your former advisor will not be writing you a letter of reference. Don't bring it up, but if they ask you about it you can say > > This personal problem affected my work. I wish I could go > back and change the way I responded to the personal problem, but > unfortunately that is in the past, all I can do now is focus on my research. > > > Unfortunately, all of what I have suggested will hurt your chances vs. a well crafted explanation as to why you left, and it may even sound evasive, but it might read better than opening a can of worms by talking about your past advisor relationship. Even if you talked about your relationship very carefully, as others have suggested (both Anna's and anonymous mathematician great answers) you could accidentally slip in the spontaneity of an interview (you seem strong in your ethical point of view and convictions - if you are upset slipping would be very easy). I believe my above answer is the "lowest risk" option, although the careful explanations possibly carry a higher reward, if executed perfectly. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Then, in one of the places I tried to tell about the real problem what I faced and I was given the feeling of committing a 'grave crime of 7 murder cases' by one of the members of the Graduate School Selection Committee. I seriously felt like that after talking to them that leaving a PhD in between is a CRIME. > > > Leaving your PhD position isn't a crime, but you've made a dreadful accusation in a terribly awkward way. If what you say is true, then it should mean the end of your former advisor's career, and there is no reason why you shouldn't return to graduate school. On the other hand, maybe it's not true. There are any numbers of other explanations: maybe you're crazy, maybe you don't understand how research is supposed to work, maybe you're trying to cover up your own misconduct or incompetence, etc. I don't mean to cast doubt on your story, since you have no motivation to lie to us anonymously, but the admissions committee has no way of knowing whether to believe you. The only way to find out is by a careful investigation, which the committee is in no position to carry out. (It's not their job, and they don't have the time or resources to do it even if they wanted to.) As soon as you explained the accusation, they couldn't possibly admit you. The difficulty is that admitting you would come across like an endorsement of your accusation, since nobody would dream of admitting a student with a history of false accusations of fraud. But nobody is going to endorse a career-ending accusation without strong evidence, which you haven't provided. I'm not surprised the committee members were upset, because you put them in an awkward, no-win situation. How did you expect them to react? Were you hoping they would simply believe the story without evidence? Did you think it didn't matter to them whether it was really true? It sounds like they were harder on you than you deserved, which is too bad, but it makes no sense to offer an explanation without having in mind a plausible way in which it could lead to being admitted. You can't offer fraud as an explanation unless you are willing to make a formal complaint. It sounds like you weren't direct enough last time: > > I went to the University Higher Authority and told them indirectly (not very bluntly but slightly) about this problem. > > > If you believe you could help investigators find evidence of fraud, then I'd recommend making a detailed formal complaint to the university and funding agencies. It won't be a pleasant experience, but you'll be doing the research community a valuable service. If the investigators conclude that your accusations are true, then you'll have a great explanation of why you left graduate school. If you don't think anything can be proved or you would rather not try, then you should avoid talking about fraud. One option is to admit to the conflict without discussing the underlying issue of fraud. For example, you could try something along the lines of "Unfortunately, my former advisor and I developed a serious personality conflict. Our working styles turned out not to be compatible, and our interactions became difficult enough that I eventually withdrew from the Ph.D. program." This will hurt your chances of admission, since it raises the possibility that you have a difficult personality and might run into conflicts with other people in the future. However, it's a reasonable explanation, and it's close enough to the full truth that you could comfortably answer questions (which you should expect to get). It also helps explain why a letter of recommendation from your previous advisor won't be useful. > > Initially, I told to the places I was called for an interview that I was not motivated in the project (without talking anything negative about my previous lab) but this answer was not very well accepted. > > > One possibility is that your answer sounded evasive, like you were making an excuse to avoid talking about what happened. But even aside from that, it raises the question of why next time will be different. What makes you think you'll be better able to build/maintain motivation to work on a new project? Not addressing this is worrisome. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any great way to handle this if you can't back up a formal accusation of fraud against your former advisor. The fact that you spent three unsuccessful years in graduate school is going to worry admissions committees, and they will often prefer candidates without this history. Perhaps you'll have better luck if you lower your standards and apply to weaker Ph.D. programs? An advisor who would normally find it difficult to attract a student at your level might be more willing to take a chance on you. I am sorry to make this suggestion, but you might prefer this option to a career change or a formal accusation of fraud. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: I think that your problems roots before your tentative to enter another PhD program: it seems that your institute authorities have not made their job. Your accusations are serious, but as you say in comments there are several previous PhD students that were willing to tell you, at least, about the same misbehavior by your advisor. The fact that several students quit this advisor in a relatively short amount of time is enough evidence to start an investigation: there should be a disciplinary committee investigating the data published by your advisor over the years (forged data can in many cases be proved so), hearing you and the other quitting students, and of course hearing your advisor. If what you say is right, and I assume it is, then your advisor's career should be terminated, he should be prosecuted with fraud, and a public statement should be available to back up your tentative to reenter a PhD program. Unfortunately, I am not surprised by poor handling of such a case by academic authorities: they tend to think that it reflects poorly on their institution and have an interest in covering them up. If you have a way to file a more formal complaint about your former advisor, it might be a way out your situation -- but the timing is definitely against you. Short of that, I do not see a good solution, you might want to use the tangential one of WetLabStudent. Oh, and something else: if the truth about your advisor comes out in a few year, and you managed to enter academia, you might prefer to be one of those that made it right, rather than one of those that covered it up. I am not promising that it would be a more comfortable position with respect to your colleagues, but since you obviously value ethics, it would be more comfortable with respect to yourself. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: You can tell the committee that you and the PI were not a good fit. That you tried to make it work for a while, but, as you reached a stage where you were ready for more research independence, it became increasingly clear that your two research styles were incompatible. For example, you had differences in opinion on which data were trustworthy enough to merit a publication. After a number of attempts to reach a common ground, you concluded that the best course of action is to start another PhD elsewhere. You are sad that you have lost some time, but overall, you were doing research and that's what matters, and you don't mind putting in a few extra years if that means you can do what you love. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: Here in the Czech Republic, it is customary to approach your future advisor in person before applying for PhD. At least in my faculty, if the future advisor wants to accept a student, the selection committee usually does not object. Talk in person to whoever you think might become your advisor. Ask them if you could join their research group to work on (... enter your thesis proposal here...), or if they could recommend one of their colleagues to turn to. Be pretty concrete; if you think of using some specific lab equipment, ask if the department has it. Who would not like to take on a student that has a clear vision of his thesis? It the faculty member you are talking with shows interest in accepting you, it's time to show hesitation and tell them about your previous study (along the lines suggested by [Ana](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37604/28693)). Explain that you understand that taking in a drop-out is a risk that not everyone is willing to take. If your chosen advisor thinks that this would be an obstacle to accepting you, ask them if there would be any other way to become part of their research group so that you could prove yourself. You might work as a lab technician, do some (boring but necessary) data analysis, prepare a review of literature on a selected topic that your advisor would be interested in but does not have the time to read in detail. If that is so, indicate that you would not mind doing one of these things for free until the next application deadline. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: After seeing your post, I also think I should tell my story. I also worked as a PhD for around 2.5 years in a very famous institute in Germany and I also faced the same problem. I do not mind revealing the name of the institute as I have no respect for it after my weird experience. I worked earlier in memorial Slaon kettering cancer center , USA and also National University Singapore (NUS). Fortunately nowhere I was forced to manipulate the data and it is only in this German institute where I was forced. If I tell my entire story it will take 4-5 pages. I also went to the people who are members of ' Scientific Ethics Committee' gave me the feeling of 'great ' help but actually did not help. They told me neither they can help me changing my supervisor nor getting a reference letter from him. But if I can bring the proof, they can take steps against my boss. Ofcourse being a foreighner I was not willing to fight a case(or take any trouble) rather I prefer to fight anonymously. I left my position and started applying. Everywhere I faced the same question and I also did not have any answer. But finally after 9 months I talked to a group leader and he knew my previous boss. I started the conversation without talking much about my previous boss but I had the feeling that he also didnot have a very good impression about my previous boss. And I told him about what has happened to me and he really did trust what I said. I joined his group after 2 months and now it has been already 2 years in this lab I have been working with him and everything seems good. May be in my case ,my current PI knew my previous boss and probably he heard something similar about him. So my case might be different but I still believe that there would be some people who genuinely understand your real problem and it will serve as a filter itself. So do not loose your heart and try applying outside Germany as well . Upvotes: 3
2015/01/23	522	2,185	<issue_start>username_0: I'm interested in knowing if/how to properly cite a personal communication within a reference and if credit should be given to the primary source (the personal communication), the secondary source (the reference that cites the personal communication), or both. Hypothetical example: There is a textbook which has tabular data that I would like to reference. The textbook cites the tabular data as being from a personal communication with another author. I see this as a quandary since: (1) If I reference the textbook without the personal communication, I am not giving proper credit to the original author (even though they never published the data separately in its own right) (2) If I reference the personal communication, this would be incorrect and perhaps fraudulent as it was not between myself and the author, I am only a third party, and I would not be giving proper credit to the textbook authors, which is how the data was published. (3) If I reference both, that is somewhat awkward as that would imply that I found the data from both sources independently, even though I only found it in one. What is the proper way to reference this?<issue_comment>username_1: This is a very odd situation, and you may want to consider carefully whether to use the source, per <NAME>'s comment above. If you do want to use it, however, I would recommend citing the textbook, but mentioning their original source in prose: > > blah blah context context, per the table in [citation of Textbook], as attributed to [their source]. > > > This way you give the citation and appropriate credit, but do not assert you have personal communication of your own. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I would not put the original source ("<NAME>, private communication") in my bibliography, because, as you noted, it gives the false impression that I was the direct recipient of the communication. Rather, I would include the textbook ("<NAME>, "Introduction to Astrology", Predator Press, 2010") in the bibliography and then write in the body of the paper something like "Table 17, due to <NAME> and published in [Roe, 2010] ...." Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	1,659	6,619	<issue_start>username_0: I know that, in North America, the opportunity is given (and often mandated) to take on teaching assistantships while in a PhD program. I knew that, often, European PhD programs pay you to do RA from day one. But, in European PhD contracts/programs, are there countries, or universities even, that set conditions under which you have to TA? Or can you even TA in the first place?<issue_comment>username_1: > > But, in European PhD contracts/programs, are there countries, or universities even, that set conditions under which you have to TA? Or can you even TA in the first place? > > > The European universities I am well aware of generally don't distinguish that strongly between TAs and RAs. In reality, in my current university in Switzerland, the "formal" job title of each employed PhD student (which is to say, practically all of them) is German for "Teaching And Research Assistant". Everybody is expected to teach a little, and (clearly) everybody needs to conduct research, so this job title seems appropriate. What courses each student is responsible for, and what they are expected to do, is typically assigned by the professor / lab head (sometimes after extensive negotiations / arguments within the group leading up to the start of the semester). Typically, PhD students are expected to only "assist" in the running of a course done primarily by a designated lecturer ("Dozent") or professor. However, in practice, often a large part of the actual work is done by TAs. in my old university, it was also possible to essentially become a lecturer already during your PhD, and from then on do courses officially on your own, without involvement of a professor. It is not possible to "take on" additional TA jobs to improve one's monetary situation (but then again, standard salary is already around 60.000 Swiss francs for a first-year student - other universities outside of Switzerland pay less, but still substantially more than the stipends that are common in other places of the world). Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In France, the possibility to teach during a PhD is pretty much ruled by the nature of your contract (and not the nature of your funding). For a regular contrat doctoral, you are not allowed to teach unless you sign an additional clause. This clause stipulates that you are now authorized to dedicate some time (with a maximum of 64 hours\* a year) to teaching. Now if your goal is to pursue an academic career, you should also know that by the end of your PhD, you need to pass a qualification: your profile is examined by the Conseil National des Universités. I guess there is no need to say that without teaching experience, your chances at passing the qualification are lower. Note: In France universities, one hour doesn't weight the same depending on the nature of the class: * 1h of lecturing = 4/3 hour * 1h of tutoring = 1h * 1h of practical work = 2/3 hour Now when I say 64 hours a year, it's 64 hours of tutoring. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: In Austria, the Netherlands and Germany at least some amount of teaching is quite often expected from a PhD student, as in the USA it may be required for the stipend. In the UK, this varies by departments and universities, and is normally capped e.g. at 10 hours a week, since your PhD (if funded) is meant to be a full time job. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: UK perspective ============== In UK institutions, teaching is not considered part of the PhD qualification itself, so it is possible to do a PhD without ever teaching. However, if you intend to pursue an academic career, it is highly advisable to do some teaching, since teaching experience is very important for a lot of academic jobs. Opportunities to do so vary considerably by institution and even by department; some PhD students do teaching at a different institution. In respect of funded PhD students, there may be restrictions (for example, a maximum of 6 hours per week for AHRC-funded students) or even obligations (typically, this would apply in the case of students funded by the university itself) as to the number of hours one can teach. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: In Austria, there are many third-party funded PhD students (by the FWF, probably the largest organization for funding in Austria) who are only funded for doing research. Indeed, it is possible for them to teach classes - they get payed extra per class then (as it should be). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I don't know if you refer to Turkey when you say "European." but I will explain anyway. I know it is different than North America; it may be similar to European programs. In Turkey, doing Ph.D. is your education; it is not working. So, you can be an instructor if you have done your masters and have working experience in the field. Instructors not obligated to do Ph.D. but, most of them do. There are two types of instructors present: 1. Units directly related to rectorship like Turkish Education, Ataturk’s principles and History of Turkish Revolution or theoretical & applied research centers, and other central organizational units. 2. Instructors who run courses as himself/herself and an employee of the department as a subsidiary of the faculty deanship. Or you can be a research assistant as I am and you run the laboratory parts of the courses with a faculty member or lecturer (mostly lecturers run their laboratory exercises). You help reading homework and quizzes, cannot run courses your own until you finish your Ph.D. You are obligated to do masters or Ph.D. while you employed and you expelled after 1 year when your Ph.D. finished. You have a constant wage no matter what are you doing in that semester or holiday. You assist some administrative work in the department and contribute research. You do most of the work with your advisor who responsible of you other than department chair. You have rights as a government employee with retirement, medical insurance, and annual leave in both types of employment. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_7: In my experience, in Physics in the UK, teaching wasn't an essential part of your PhD, but you could be employed by the department to work as a Teaching Assistant in the labs. I did this for two semesters while working on my PhD, helping students set up and run experiments. Others in the department did similarly in the computing labs. The pay was generally considered to be quite good, at around £13 per hour, with lab sessions of three hours taking place once or twice a week. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	531	2,261	<issue_start>username_0: Is it possible to get a job in industrial mathematics with a Masters in math but no work experience and no PhD. Or would one be limited to only nonresearch industrial math jobs? How about the type of jobs listed here: <http://www.siam.org/careers/thinking/solve.php> ?<issue_comment>username_1: PhDs are usually preferred for research jobs, since a PhD is literally 3-5 years of training how to do research. However, if you did research during your Masters, you might be considered. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: Students with master's degrees an applied mathematics (and statistics, OR, actuarial science, mathematical finance, etc.) often find work in industry doing applied mathematics, but this work is not typically "research" of the sort that results in publications in research journals. If you want to do publishable research, then complete a PhD. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: The link in your question lists many possible job opportunites of what applied mathematicians have. They all look exciting to me (and possibly you) and they are useful to human society. However, you probably will have some difficulties when you apply for those jobs. There are two things you don't have yet: Math knowledge in depth (you don't have PhD in Math) and domain knowledge (you have no work experience). For example, How might disease spread in populated areas in the event of a bioterrorism incident, and how would it be contained?. Do you have enough Virology background to devise algorithms to simulate this? Do you have enough Math knowledge to solve the math problems behind the algorithms? Another example, How can you allocate an investment among various financial instruments to meet a risk/reward trade-off?. How much do you know about Finance? How much do you know about quantitive finance mathematics? You need to have at least one of them, either math in depth or domain expertise. Without either one of them, the best you can do is a research assistant or simply a programmer (to implement the algorithms other scientists and mathematicians devise). My advice to you: either pursue a PhD in Applied Math or a masters degree in an area that suits your most interest. Upvotes: 1 [selected_answer]
2015/01/24	969	4,021	<issue_start>username_0: Suppose you are introducing a new concept, and you start with (what you think is) a toy example. Is it okay to refer to your example as a "trivial problem?" Does this depend on the field and/or level of the class you are teaching?<issue_comment>username_1: Context matters. If you say, "Let's start with a trivial example" and then you do start with a trivial example, that's good. You've put your class on notice that you starting with something that's stripped down and you're going to build on it. If you say the same thing but immediately introduce something that's moderately complex (even if it has been simplified as much as possible) then "trivial" was the wrong word. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: "Trivial" often means "too simple to be a real problem". For example, in an class on optimisation methods years ago, the lecturer said "for our first example, we're going to study the problem of maximising the number of ones in a binary string of length n". My thought for most of the class was "well, that's bloody obvious—you just write n ones in a row—why are we looking at this". I eventually realised that it was being used because it made it easy to describe how the algorithms worked, not because it was a challenging problem in any way. I think that's a good example of where the word "trivial" is good shorthand—the problem isn't of any importance, but it is being used to illustrate a point. This is similar to how trivial is used in a lot of pure mathematics, where it often means "the simplest example that satisfies the definition" (like "the trivial group"). As with all such jargon, though, it is worth explaining to students what you are going to be meaning by the word "trivial" and why trivial examples are worth looking at at all. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I personally would not use the word "trivial" to describe a simple example. Instead, I would call it a "simple" or "toy" example. The reason is that, to me at least, calling something trivial means it is not just simple, but degenerate in some way, and that there is therefore no insight to be gained from it. The examples that one uses in teaching are often very simple, so that they are able to be worked in real-time, but anything but trivial: instead, a good example is typically very carefully crafted to reveal particular interesting aspects of the material from as simple a situation as possible. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: It is useful to recall what "trivial" means. It derives from the seven medieval liberal arts, and refers to the [Trivium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium), or the "lower three" arts: grammar, logic and rhetoric. After the Trivium, students would study the [Quadrivium](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium), or the "upper four" arts: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. The idea was that the Trivium provided the student with the tools needed to address the Quadrivium. In this context, calling something "trivial" essentially means that this was either already addressed in a lower-level course, or can easily be understood using tools from that lower-level course. It does not mean that the "trivial" problem is easy, or boring, or useless. Keeping this bit of etymology in mind, I'll happily call something "trivial" that fits this definition. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: No. The other posters have based their responses primarily on the meaning of the word. Mine is based on the impact on students. Students may be offended or hurt if you call something "trivial" which they do not feel is trivial. Students may not view the word with the connotations you, or other posters on stack exchange, anticipate. In addition, you cannot anticipate in complete detail what academic backgrounds your students might have. Maybe they were sick the day they should have learned the basis for your "trivial" concept. I consider the word unwise to use unless given a specific meaning first. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	794	3,518	<issue_start>username_0: Say I work as an AE for an international journal. I managed to find only two reviewers for a manuscript submitted to the journal lately. Personally, I don't find enough contribution of the manuscript, but it is not fair to not base my final decision on the reviewers' comments. For the first round review, both reviewers recommended a minor revision of the manuscript. Reviewer A appears to be more impartial than Reviewer B (who is positively biased). The same decision is delivered to the authors. However, during the second round, Reviewer A suddenly changed his mind to a major revision, which according to himself/herself is due to the failure of the authors to address his/her comments. For this particular journal, there is usually only two rounds of review, and I don't think a third round will help improve the manuscript anymore. I am inclined to agree with Reviewer A and thereby reject the manuscript. However, it seems unfair to the authors and is hard to justify Reviewer A's change of mind in the second round. Now I am inclined to reject the manuscript, but it has to be based on solid grounds. Solid grounds can be found (if I write the review myself, I can certainly make one), but the reviewers did not give me one: if the recommendation is minor revision for the first time, how can it be major revision for the second time? Therefore, it seems to me both the authors and the reviewers did a poor job. So, how should I make the decision here? If I choose to reject, how do I appear fair to the authors?<issue_comment>username_1: First, you should not reject a paper/journal because you don't like its "research taste", you should look at the facts the paper/journal provides. Second, as an individual researcher any other review's decision; should not effect your decision anyhow. So, if you really do not find the contribution satisfactory based on the journal's factors then reject it; but, if you find it do be in the gray area, give it a major correction and see how the authors will respond to your demands. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_2: The reviewers make recommendations to you, not judgements. As the associate editor, you have to decide how to interpret those recommendations, taking your own judgement into account. I think that it is actually reasonable for a reviewer to become peeved if issues that they think are important were not addressed, and therefore judge a paper more harshly. Usually that goes Major->Reject, rather than Minor->Major, but if it was borderline for the reviewer before, it's not bizarre. The real question is: do you agree that those issues are important? If you disagree with the reviewer, you can recommend minor revision or acceptance. If you agree with the reviewer, however, that this paper has some real issues that need to be addressed before it get published, then it's entirely reasonable to request another revision, even a major revision. In your editorial statement, you then say something like: > > In particular, Reviewer #1 points out that the following issues in the original manuscript have not been addressed in the revision, and these must be addressed for this paper to proceed toward publication: [key issues] > > > Now the authors have a clear editorial directive for what exactly must be done in their revision. If they follow this directive, all well and good and they get published; if they refuse to follow it, then you have reasonable grounds for rejection. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2015/01/24	1,391	5,873	<issue_start>username_0: I've applied to several graduate schools in the US for a physics PhD. As I currently have some free time, I'm willing to travel around and visit graduate schools that I've applied to. My current research advisor (who is also one of my letter writers) can possibly establish contact between me and some of the people I have expressed interest in at different schools. My question is that whether in your opinion this is something that can actually boost my chances of getting admitted (provided a meeting with a person of interest goes well). Could pursuing this plan be advantageous?<issue_comment>username_1: Yes! Most definitely seeing your potential supervisor will effect their decision. Also, it might effect your decision in later stages, when more than one will accept your application. Remember, to also look at their environment they conduct the research in; as well as having a talk with one/two of his/her current Ph.D. students. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer depends a lot on the department. A POI at one department explicitly said that, at his particular department, visits had little to no effects. Then again it's an Ivy League physics dept, top-20 in the US; I wonder whether there is a correlation between program prestige and the impact of a visit. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_3: One of my students (I think my top undergraduate student ever) did, indeed, visit his top choices of graduate departments (all of which had already accepted him and offered financial support). I think that the three departments even paid airfare for him to come. So, I guess, this was not about improving chances of being admitted. This was those departments trying to improve their chances of getting the student. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: It depends when you are visiting. At my department, we welcome visits in the Fall semester -- before the applications are due. I'm not sure if these visits are that useful -- a few times, I've been much more intrigued; but many more times I've been convinced that the applicant is not suitable after an in-person visit. If you do come, come well prepared (i.e., knowing which faculty you want to talk to, what questions you want to ask, and what impression you are seeking to make). (see FN1) In the spring semester (after applications have been handed in) we tend to disincline visits initiated by candidates. (See FN2 and FN3) --- FN1. I do think that campus visits are very useful for candidates. You get to meet faculty and see what they're like and more importantly - talk to other graduate students. In many cases, you can glean insight about the department that can help improve your application. FN2. We interview all candidates by skype or telephone in the third round. We tend to fo2llow the same protocol for all such interviews so as to keep the playing field equal. FN3. After we have made offers to finalists, we then again welcome visits so that we can convince them to come to our program. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: It may not give you an advantage at being admitted, but it could help in other ways. I visited my first-choice program (also in physics) around Thanksgiving of my senior year, and scheduled meetings with two PIs I wanted to work with. The first stood me up, but the second took several hours to meet with me and show me the lab, and at the end of the visit he told me "If you get in and want to start early, let me know and I could probably give you an RA for the summer". This ended up being a big help -- the visit made clear who would be better to work with, and also helped me get started with research shortly after graduating. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: During my last semester of undergrad, I happened to be driving by a department I was applying to on the way back from an out of state trip, and decided I'd stop by to check out the digs. The administration evidently saw this as me gaming for admission, and were not very welcoming. They promised me a tour and then left me in a waiting room for a couple hours, before finally telling me that the advisor did not have time and I should go home. I ended up going off on my own and meeting some of the professors there who I would have wanted to work with. That part was fun. I got to have some cordial conversation with legends in my field. One of them had heard through the grapevine that I'd just published a paper with his coauthor, and requested a preprint, which I emailed to him later. I think this may have improved my chances for admission; however, the experience of networking with these professors was surely of greater value (and non-conditional). After hanging around for a few hours, I ran into a couple of grad students, and took them out for a beer. They told me that the cold and dismissive treatment I'd gotten from the staff was actually just how they acted all the time. I learned that, internally, the department refers to itself as an engine in a factory school, and that many of the TAs felt undervalued and exploited, rather than just "roughing it" on a low stipend. The whole experience painted a picture of a department that has abandoned common courtesy and respect, which I personally place a lot of value in, so by the end of the day, I decided I would turn this school down, if admitted. And as it turns out, I never had to, because they never sent me a decision letter one way or another! (I did call to ask check my application status once, just out of curiosity, and was put on hold until the system hung up on me. Go figure.) I might have been very upset by this if I'd never stopped by, but since I had, I felt free to accept an offer from another school without concern for this loose end. So, sometimes it can be very worth it to visit a department, whether it improves your chances or not. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	515	2,351	<issue_start>username_0: How protectionistic are PhD admissions? Here, protectionism means to favor residents of the country (or state) the university is in, as far as PhD admissions are concerned. Usually, protectionism arises due to funding restrictions or other burdens of a financial nature (e.g. tuition waivers). But how much of a disadvantage are foreign students at, when it comes to PhD admissions? I understand that the answer differs from a country to another, and from an institution to another within the same country. And even different fields within the same institution have different standards, so please pay attention to context when providing answers.<issue_comment>username_1: Basically, admissions decisions follow from two main issues: * government policies regarding funding and immigration * the available pool of applicants For instance, recent policies in California made it very difficult for the University of California system to enroll international graduate students. This was not the result of internal decisions, but rather something imposed upon them by the government. Similarly, a visa embargo applied to a particular country would make it impossible for a university to bring in students from that country. Other than that, I think most graduate admissions groups are looking for the best available talent, rather than having a specific quota of domestic or international students. They might do some recruiting domestically if they're not getting enough domestic candidates (compared to any "targets" they might have), but I don't think they're going to admit domestic candidates that are unqualified just because they're domestic. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: In the UK, in STEM areas without industry funding (where I have most experience), funding restrictions typically meant there are at least 10 places restricted to home (or in some cases EU) students for every place open to students of all nationalities. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: In Germany, PhD positions are often awarded individually by the Professors. So if you know your Professor well, you have an extremely higher likelihood of getting a PhD with him. However, if you have really outstanding talent/grades, you can still beat these personal relationships, only it is very much harder. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/24	1,074	4,431	<issue_start>username_0: I finally got the revision of my paper, but one of the reviewers complained that `the paper is not anonymized`. Since I'm not the native english speaker, it's quite strange to me. Does it mean that I should remove authors names from the paper? If so - what for, and why should I do this?<issue_comment>username_1: Some conferences and journals do "double blind" peer review in which the reviewers are anonymous to the reviewers and the authors are anonymous to the reviewers. In that case you are expected to submit your manuscript without author names (or any other identifying information.) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: To add to @Brian's answer, in double blind review besides submitting your manuscript without author names, you should eliminate any information about datasets, affiliation or previous works that may betray your identity. E.g. for an Elsevier journal [here](http://www.journals.elsevier.com/social-science-and-medicine/policies/double-blind-peer-review-guidelines/) instructions for double blind review to authors say: > > Besides the obvious need to remove names and affiliations under the > title within the manuscript, there are other steps that need to be > taken to ensure the manuscript is correctly prepared for double-blind > peer review. To assist with this process the key items that need to > be observed are as follows: > > > * Use the third person to refer to work the Authors have previously undertaken, e.g. replace any phrases like “as we have shown before” > with “… has been shown before [Anonymous, 2007]”. > * Make sure figures do not contain any affiliation related identifier > * Do not eliminate essential self-references or other references but limit self-references only to papers that are relevant for those > reviewing the submitted paper. > * Cite papers published by the Author in the text as follows: ‘[Anonymous, 2007]’. For blinding in the reference list: ‘[Anonymous > 2007] Details omitted for double-blind reviewing.’ > * Remove references to funding sources > * Do not include acknowledgments > * Name your files with care and ensure document properties are also anonymized. > > > Of course, this hiding of information is limited only during the review rounds and after your work gets accepted, the camera ready copy of the publication should include all the relevant information , that was hidden / anonymized during the review rounds. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: While [Brian's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37496/14017) and [username_2's answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37498/14017) have accurately described how to anonymize a submission and how to find out whether to do it, I would like to add an answer to the concrete question asked: > > If so - what for, and why should I do this? > > > The assumed benefit of a double-blind review, in which the reviewers do not know who authored a given submission, is an improved fairness toward submitters. Reviewers are supposed to judge a submission entirely and exclusively based on its contents. They should not take into account the reputation of the authors or their institution (or lack thereof), as verifiable and clearly described results are to be considered equally valuable coming from a reputable as well as coming from an unknown institution. Likewise, while one can hope for reviewers to behave in a fair way, keeping submitters anonymous is another safety measure to prevent any personal biases based on culture, gender, or other personal factors from playing a role in the judgment on the submission. Lastly, secondary effects of the judgment might be avoided. If submitters are known to reviewers, reviewers might have external incentives to provide a good or bad review. While direct conflicts of interest are generally excluded by review organizers (someone reviewing their own submission, for example), indirect interests of conflict (someone being promised a position in exchange for a favourable review; someone writing a bad review to prevent a direct competitor from publishing etc.) may not be apparent to those organizing reviews. With all of this in mind, not all conferences conduct double-blind review for various reasons that are discussed in [another Academia SE question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8891/why-dont-all-disciplines-follow-a-double-blind-review-system). Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	1,533	6,636	<issue_start>username_0: I have just received a decision letter for my submitted manuscript to an Elsevier journal. It was a revise and resubmit (R&R). Two reviewers comments were included in the decision letter. One of the reviewers suggested minor revisions. The other reviewer on the other hand recommended rejection and his comments were really unfair. Evidently, he hasn't bothered reading the manuscript completely. I am really disappointed and don't really know how to even respond to his comments. what do you recommend me to do? I am really frustrated.<issue_comment>username_1: Most journal articles are often a revise and resubmit before they get published.The final article that you see in journals is often never the first submission attempt but rather, crafted through continuous revising and editing. You should revise and resubmit, you would be doing yourself a disfavour if you don't. The editors had two very contrasting reviewers for your piece, one who suggested a minor revision and the other an outward reject, so a Revise and Resubmit is a pretty good outcome from that, but also highlights a stark contrast of views. When you receive harsh comments, it's good to take a step back for a few days and let the anger and frustration that you undoubtedly feel to disappear. At the moment you might feel like it's a bit of a personal attack, and have used language such as 'it's unfair' and 'he hasn't read the article completely.' These are emotional responses and are not helpful for your success. Why are the comments unfair and how can you determine whether they've read the article completely? When you are ready, sit down and read them with fresh eyes, highlighting what you can do to improve the article. There will be things in there (difficult to find) that you can utilise to strengthen the quality of your article. You don't have to address everything the second reviewer says but you might be surprised that once those personal feelings die down, the number of things you might find helpful from that second reviewer. When you do your revision, you'll need to prepare a summary report regarding all the comments, highlighting what you changed, and what you didn't. The things you do not change you provide justification for in your summary report. You would be surprised by the number of academics who never bother to revise and resubmit a paper to a journal, the numbers are outstanding. Revising and resubmitting allows for you to continue to improve your ideas and produce something of high quality. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: Yes, you should revise and resubmit, if you still want the article to be published in the journal you originally targeted. > > Evidently, he hasn't bothered reading the article completely. > > > This may be true, but once you've waited a day or two and digested the comments, look at it again. This kind of review might highlight that some readers of the journal would not understand your paper properly! Even if you think the comments are unfair, be sure to include them in your response. Treat them thoroughly, with evidence from your article and the literature, or include supplementary material with the response letter. Then, ask a co-author or trusted colleague to read over the revised article and response, to check the tone. Good luck! Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: > > one of the reviewers suggested minor revisions. The other reviewer on the other hand recommended a rejection and his comments were really unfair. > > > Welcome to peer review. Yes, it sucks to have a reviewer criticise your work so much, especially if you feel the comments are unfair. However, both, the editor and the other reviewer seem to give the manuscript a chance. You cannot throw your work away as soon as somebody disagrees with it. As a sidenote, try to get a bit perspective and figure out why the second reviewer hated the paper so much, without thinking that (s)he is just an idiot. The reviewer didn't bother to read the paper to the end? Yes, that's bad form, but clearly your paper wasn't exactly compellingly written either. The reviewer didn't "get" the paper at all? Maybe your descriptions are not that great. The reviewer thinks your contribution isn't strong enough? Explain better how your paper improves the state of the art. Oftentimes, the most negative comments are the ones that help you most in improving your research, even if they are clearly the ones that hurt the most. > > Should i revise and resubmit? > > > Yes! Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: First, remember reviewer's "verdicts" are only recommendations. The handling editor evaluate these reviews along with your original submission to see what is a fair balance. Deviating reviews are not uncommon. Editors have two solutions at their hands, either, as in your case, make a decision based on the two, or to add a third reviewer to the mix. The former will likely happen if the editor has good insights into the topic, the latter if the editor may require more input to feel safe with a decision. After all, the editor is chosen to have broad knowledge but will not master everything. So, you have received a revision decision which means the manuscript is very likely accepted if you provide a good set of revisions and a good account of how you have treated the comments from the reviewers. A "bad" review, can emerge from a nebulously written manuscript so if you think the comments are unfair or even rude. Take them with a grain of salt and focus on whether or not they emerge from some misunderstanding or unclear writing and revise accordingly. The editor should have given you some pointers on how to view the reviews but this does not always happen, You are then left to your self to handle the revisions. Important is to not dismiss any of the reviewers just because they disagree or criticize your work. You need to consider their comments and provide a rebuttal to the editor so that any grounds for disagreement is firmly described. So carefully revise the paper, provide a detailed and polite letter outlining your actions, make sure the revision fulfils all the journal's instructions for formatting and resubmit on time. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I would revise and resubmit. Not only that, I would implement as many of the harsh reviewer's comments as feasible and truly warranted. At least it will show that you are taking the journal and its personnel seriously. Remember, only one of the two said "reject". Show a good faith effort to satisfy both of the reviewers. Keep up the effort my friend! Upvotes: 2
2015/01/24	468	1,939	<issue_start>username_0: I got three recommendation letters from three of my former school teachers (professors A, B, C). On 20th Jan, I got an email from the graduate school that I had applied to. In the email, they told me that they had received the confirmations from professors A and B, but are still waiting for the confirmation from professor C. My application will be considered as successful on condition that they have received the confrimation from professor C before 30th I have sent at least ten emails to professor c for the past few days, but not seen any replies from him. I have got the phone number, fax number, and address of his office in my former school. Since my former school is a few hours by bus away from my house, and I can not reach him by emails, I am thinking to call him directly on his office phone number, but I am wondering if it will make him very angry or I may be getting scolded by him. What shall I do?<issue_comment>username_1: I think you have made a mistake sending him so many E-mails. Nevertheless, its always okay to call someone and ask something politely (If the prof. C is sane you should be okay). Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: There are a couple of possible scenarios at work: * Instructor C is very busy, but has seen the emails and will write the recommendation in time. * Instructor C's email program flagged your emails as spam, and has not actually read any of them. * Instructor C has not read your emails for whatever reason. Regardless of which case applies, a polite call to instructor C during normal business hours (whatever those happen to be for the university) would be considered perfectly acceptable. If you cannot get a hold of the instructor directly, perhaps there is an administrative assistant who can help you by flagging down the instructor, or setting up a time for you to talk to the instructor directly. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]
2015/01/25	1,524	6,171	<issue_start>username_0: As I was thinking about the question [Can I slack off and get a PhD?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37341/can-i-slack-off-and-get-a-phd), I realized that I wanted to say in my answer > > If you want to slack off, > the best time to do so is after you have received tenure > as a college professor, > because at that point you can't be fired > except for egregious offences. > > > I am not yet even an assistant professor, so I don't know whether the statement above is really true. Question: What could the negative consequences be for a professor who has just received tenure, if he were to put in the bare minimum effort needed in teaching just to achieve average teaching performance, and were to just stop doing research and publishing papers? Note: I don't plan to slack off if I were in the future able to get a tenured position, but I am just curious what happens to those professors who do.<issue_comment>username_1: I believe the consequence question has been answered here: [In practice, how secure is a tenured position in the US?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/185/in-practice-how-secure-is-a-tenured-position-in-the-us/186#186) I'd just like to add that I believe the overall, industry reaction to "tenured slackers" is that tenure track positions are rapidly declining. Nobody, but nobody wants to be saddled with a slacker for life. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Some consequences may be: minimal raises; more teaching assignments; administrative duties. Perhaps it is not a desire to "slack off", maybe they just lost the "spark" (or the funding) for research. And they are eager to pull their weight by doing other things. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: I think the first question is, what does "slack off" really mean? Many professors do change their priorities after tenure for a slower paced approach to their work more in line with their own intellectual values. Many things that might be perceived as "slacking off" in a pre-tenure professor actually do have value and are much easier to pursue post-tenure, e.g., dedicating more time to students and teaching rather than research, or taking a slower pace to try to figure out an angle on deeper and harder to address issues. But let's assume that our hypothetical professor is just saying, "I got mine, and I'm going to do the absolute minimum hereafter!" Here are some of the non-firing consequences: * Not getting grants, it will be hard to have students. * Their professional prestige will plummet, and anything they do want to do will get harder. * They may get stuck with unpleasant scut-work tasks for the department, and will have more responsibilities foisted on them because "they have the time" that their harder working colleagues do not. * They will not get promotion to higher academic ranks, nor the accompanying pay rises. Some people may actually be comfortable with this, and having a person who's given up ambition and embraced a comfortable position as the organization's reliable clean-up detail can actually be a good thing, as it takes those tasks away from others who have more ambition. But what if the slacker professor really doesn't care, and does a poor (but not quite enough to be fired) job at all the tasks they are assigned by the department? Well, every organization has ways to make a person's life hell without firing them. In the next departmental reorganization, the slacker professor might find themselves getting moved to a small lightless basement office, the administrative staff may ignore requests for assistance, colleagues may simply treat the person as a pariah. Few people last long in an actively hostile workplace, and it may be harder to fire a person than to make them quit... Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Their students will suffer. And, their ranking on ratemyprofessor.com will most certainly go down causing people to avoid their classes. Probably not the type of answer you were looking for, but true nevertheless. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_5: Teaching In general, schools have no way of measuring performance or effort in teaching. They can try to do it by using student evaluations, but student evaluations don't actually measure effort or performance. People get good evaluations by giving high grades and giving polished presentations. If you've taught freshman calculus a dozen times, and all you do is walk into the classroom and deliver the same canned lecture year after year, your teaching evaluations will be fine, even though you're putting in zero effort. Another way to get good teaching evaluations is to give scantron tests and tell your students what will be on them. There is some good material on this topic in the book Academically Adrift, by Arum and Roksa. They cite an implicit contract between teachers and students: "I'll leave you alone if you'll leave me alone." Research I think this varies quite a bit from school to school. First off, not all schools really care about research. For example, California has a three-tiered system, consisting of UC, Cal State, and community colleges. At community colleges, research is neither expected nor supported. At Cal States, some research is required in order to obtain tenure, but over all there is very little emphasis on research. So at many schools, the consequences of ceasing to do research are zero. Other answers have suggested that if you slack off, you will not receive promotions and pay raises, and will be stuck with scutwork. Again, this depends on the school. At my school, promotions and pay raises are on a set schedule, which is negotiated by the union and depends only on seniority and education. In my experience, people who avoid working hard on their primary responsibilities of teaching and/or research are the same people who avoid committee work. In summary, my experience is that external incentives tend, if anything, to be anticorrelated with the quality of one's work as a tenured professor. People who do a good job and work hard are doing it because of their own internal motivations. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/25	1,110	4,637	<issue_start>username_0: I was trying to access [this article](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2013.769198#.VMRlNC7B6ar) and was told this journal is "embargoed" for more than a year. This is the first time I have seen the term embargo used in an academic setting. [This answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/34136/2692) talks a bit about the idea of journal embargoes. [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_embargo#On_articles_in_scientific_journals) has more information but I do not find it helpful at all. As I read (on Wikipedia), it seems embargoes in journals are for future stories (and not for everything ever published). The article that I am seeking is from two years ago. [This question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/11193/2692) implies that embargoes deal with the relationship between publisher and author, which does not make sense in the context of my request. [This answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/29477/2692) implies that embargoes are about limiting access electronically, but, again, it seems I can buy the article for $40 so clearly it is available electronically. So, what exactly is an embargo (in this context)? Does it really mean that I simply have no access to this through my university account? It looks like it is available to the general public (if you pay) but not to those of us with access through university subscriptions.<issue_comment>username_1: So far as I know, your understanding of the typical use of "embargo" for journals is correct: it is when a journal wants to be the "first to press" with its article, and so places a gag order on the authors and their institutions so that they don't go talking to the press first. There is another place where journals also often want to be "first to press," however, and I suspect that this is what "embargo" refers to in this case. It is often the case that a journal makes its content available through multiple routes: immediately through the publisher for a premium, and with time-lag through larger accumulations, such as PubMed or ScienceDirect. Thus, I think that what is probably going on here is that your institution does not judge this journal important enough to subscribe to directly, but gets it as part of a time-lagged "package deal." You should check with your librarian how long the time-lag is, and then decide whether it's worth waiting or if you want to ask a colleague to help you get around the paywall... Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Some journals have adopted a model for open-access whereby the published version is pay-to-view for a fixed period (e.g. the first year) and becomes freely available after that embargo period. However, in this particular case, as other people (including me) have no trouble in accessing that particular article, it looks like your institution has restricted access, either to that article or that journal. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Embargo is often use when an academic journal authorizes the publication of its articles (usually author-versions rather than publisher-formated version) in an open repository, but only some time after publication in the journal. So, during the embargo, only paid subscriptions give access to the article, while after the embargo one can also access the article or at least a version of it on some repository (assuming that the author took advantage of this possibility, or that the publisher does it itself which is rarer). This is much discussed when talking about green open-access (i.e. open access via author deposit on open repositories), but it may not apply to the case you describe. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_4: Within this context it sounds like your library doesn't subscribe to this journal directly and none of the databases they subscribe to includes the current year. Journal publishers can make deals with the database publishers so that one database vendor has priority access by creating a one year embargo to a journal such that only that vendor can publish the current year, but often will offer a subscription to a set of years that has a one year delay to other database providers. The library typically pays for access to print serials, databases that host print serials, and various library consortia that provide access to interlibrary loaning services but it seems that none of these options provides access to the current year. The issue is not that the electronic access doesn't exist, but that your institution doesn't have any subscriptions or consortia connections with the vendor that made the deal. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/25	368	1,548	<issue_start>username_0: I'm finishing my M.Sc. thesis and I sent it to my supervisors so that they can read it. In the final version, I would like to insert an acknowledgements page where I thank them. Should I include it in the last draft that I will send them, so they can read it? Or should it be included in only the final version, without their knowledge?<issue_comment>username_1: There is no need to remove the acknowledgement in the final version. I know students have done so and for very different reasons, they want to "surprise" someone, they are not on friendly terms with an advisor and does not want the advisor to see it before it is printed. etc. The "surprise" aspect is, I would argue, greatly overrated. To not provide it because of a conflict is not likely to help the conflict. So, even if the reason is non-controversial, not including it might raise an eyebrow of a sensitive advisor. In the end, this is something that should not matter but some people are overly sensitive so ask yourself, are you confident that you will reach your intended effect by doing what you suggest, then go ahead, but if you do not feel so, avoid it. You will sometimes be surprised how much is read into a benign text such as an acknowledgement. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: I would include the proposed acknowledgements in the last draft. I would also include those that net-positively helped you even though you may not be on the best terms with them. By doing so, you will be taking the "high ground". Upvotes: 0
2015/01/25	707	2,824	<issue_start>username_0: I’m currently a computer science (and mathematics) B.Sc and M.Sc student in my third year (since I started my B.Sc). At the second year of my B.Sc studies, I have started to work on research (in computer science) and I have two (amazing) advisors, I have written (i.e, submitted) a couple of papers so far and currently working on a few more. One of the papers I have already submitted was quite big and accepted to one of the top conferences in my field, so my advisors suggested it will be my master’s thesis. As I’m still finishing the B.Sc courses (and the M.Sc courses at the same time) I have two options after finishing the courses: 1. Submit the thesis, get the B.Sc and M.Sc and sign up as a PhD student (signing up will be more of a technicality as I’m [obviously] staying with the same advisors and our current work will be a part of the PhD anyway). 2. Not submitting the thesis and signing up to a “direct PhD” program, which I don’t know much about, but it should basically mean doing the same as an M.Sc and a PhD minus submitting the master’s thesis. My question is, is there any reason for me to choose the second option? Are there any benefits to having or not having a masters degree? (My thought of this right now is: Maybe the direct program will be faster if it is not allowed to include the masters thesis in the PhD thesis and then going in the direct program will allow me to include that paper in the thesis?)<issue_comment>username_1: Given how hot the computer science field is and will remain, I think you should get the M.Sc. Let's say something happens to you and you can't complete the PhD, at least you'll have the M.Sc. It seems to me that a lucrative job will be waiting for you even if getting the PhD via this route takes a little longer. It sounds to me like financial success is easily in your future with or without the PhD or the time it took to get the PhD. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you want to stay in academia, you cannot rely on getting a PHD degree faster, based on that one (possibly very good) paper done during your undergraduate years. You need to have as many equally good or better recent publications as possible, during your PHD years. Otherwise, some people might think that this paper was more your advisors' work than yours, since you could not back it up with equally good publications during your PHD years, when you worked more independently on your own. In this sense, this paper should not help you get a PHD faster if you cannot back it up with better publications during your PHD studies. And if you actually manage to write those better papers, you will not actually need this paper to get your PHD faster. Listen to your advisors and stick to the slower BSc + MSc => then PHD route. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2015/01/25	2,484	9,776	<issue_start>username_0: I've had my IQ measured on multiple tests over the past several decades. The first time was in middle school and it was measured at 120. I guarantee you that I didn't care about the result when I took that test as a kid. I probably wanted to get it over with. Much later in life, and consistent with another time later in life, my IQ was measured at 138. I am a believer that these measurements can vary with motivation, health, alertness, sleep deprivation, and other psychophysiological factors. Based on my measured IQ range of 120-138, I'd like to see an answer to the following questions: What is the probability that I could complete a PhD in Mathematics or Physics? What is the probability that I could contribute at least slightly significantly to either of those fields over the long term as a PhD? One of my "best" qualities is that I'm very tenacious regarding problem-solving. I might not get there the quickest, but I don't give up until I do or the pursuit begins to interfere with other aspects of life. People might accuse me of being physically lazy, but there's no way they can accuse me of being problem-solving lazy. I'm the kind of person who will hire a home maintenance technician as a last resort only because I don't have the tools. I'm pretty frugal. I feel pretty inferior to many of the people who have posted comments on StackExchange.<issue_comment>username_1: IQ is only part of the question. Determination, wisdom(how you apply your intelligence), and other factors also enter into it. You don't have to be a genius to do good PhD work. Remember, 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration... and a bit of good luck never hurts. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: IQ is a terrible test for anything but certain types of pattern matching and to aid in educational intervention, and [its limitations are well understood by actual psychological practitioners](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/200910/intelligent-testing). There are correlations, but the correlations are pretty loose. With all those caveats, [according to Wikipedia, you are totally in a reasonable range to get a Ph.D.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Real-life_accomplishments). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: As others have said, IQ isn't the best predictor of academic success. The IQ test is criticized for focusing on a quite narrow band of intellectual skills. Traits like creativity, collegiality, and tenacity are just as important as one's "intelligence," as measured by the IQ test. Since you asked specifically about math/physics, one of the better examples would be <NAME>, who was a Putnam fellow while at MIT and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with <NAME> and <NAME>. Many sources have claimed that Feynman self-reported his IQ as a "merely respectable" 125. So, while Feynman did have a relatively high IQ, his accomplishments in math/physics cannot be ascribed to his IQ alone. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: Others have given the right answer several times over, but there are still some nuances that I would like to hit. Most importantly I would say: IQ tests are neither administered by the post K-12 academic community nor used for them by any purpose. They are -- sometimes, anyway -- given to children to identify them as being eligible (or not) for certain "Mentally Gifted" programs. In this way, I took an IQ test when I was seven years old. I did it because my best friend had taken one and got to spend one day a week in a special "MG" classroom. I walked by the classroom one day and -- well, this was a while ago, but the way I remember it, I saw a big room which did not have individual student desks and a bunch of kids milling about in it. I knew it was the MG room because my friend was there. Some other kids placed a crown made of brown construction paper on his head, and he was grinning from ear to ear. So I asked my parents to arrange for me to take the test, took it, and some of my other friends followed suit and got to spend one day a week with a special MG teacher doing much more fun stuff. Sometimes it was on the brainy side: I remember learning about prime numbers there, for instance. But there was also a bit of what I would identify now as a Montessori-style emphasis on manipulating and building things. I did this in the second through the fourth grades, then I went to a different middle school with no such program, and then when I went to my high school those same test results allowed me to take a few special "MG" courses, including creative writing. (Looking back on this it all seems a bit unfair.) They also kept our test records in a big file cabinet in the "MG room" (as before, a fun place to hang out), and one day when everyone else was gone, I decided to sneak a peek. I remember being a bit disappointed at my score: I think it was in the 130's, just like the OP. Once someone is a college or university student, I see no point whatsoever in taking IQ tests: rather famously, the academy administers plenty of tests of its own, which we largely do believe determine students' potential and suitability for future study. Should you get a PhD in math or physics? Who cares what your IQ is: assuming you went to a partway reputable institution, what matters is how you did in your coursework there. Wondering how you'll measure up against other ambitious aspiring mathematicians? Take the math subject GRE. This is not telling you everything -- and certainly, whatever it's telling you should be calibrated against your prior training and education -- but it's telling you a lot more than an IQ test, and whether you believe that or not, many graduate admissions committees do. I feel like a few of the other answers are assuming that IQ is measuring how "academically smart" you are. I really don't think that's the case at the tail end of the spectrum that you're talking about. I mentioned my IQ above: it's in the top 2%, I guess. (Allow me to omit the ritual reading of the CV, but:) My academic intelligence is considerably higher than my IQ test would indicate. By this I don't mean to imply that the IQ test "got me wrong" or anything like that: my spatial reasoning skills are average at best; I have never completed a crossword puzzle in my life; I am only moderately quick at solving the kind of logical puzzles that appear on the LSAT. But I have a big vocabulary and can read and write quickly and well; my memory becomes much sharper and clearer on anything academic than, say, political or financial matters; and I can learn and do mathematics quickly and easily (relatively speaking, of course: if the [famous plastic philospher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO0cvqT1tAE) had actually said "math is hard", she would still have gotten in trouble but she would not have been wrong). So I want to be honest and say that I do believe in academic intelligence -- though I heartily agree that it is not everything, and again in a certain tail end of the spectrum it ceases to be very important -- but I just don't think it's the same as having a "high IQ". I think that the probability of academic success of anyone with an IQ of, say, 125 or above does not depend on their IQ in a meaningful way. It's really one of the last things you should be thinking about in making a career decision of this kind. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: I think that variations in IQ (at least on the higher end of the scale, where the OP is) would have very little relevance to the ability to earn a PhD. First, IQ tests measure one's ability to answer questions that the test writer already knows the answers to. A PhD measures one's ability to answer questions that nobody knows the answers to yet. So nobody (not even the people who write these tests, whoever they are) is qualified to write an IQ-like-test that would simulate earning a PhD. Second, IQ tests take a matter of minutes or hours whereas earning a PhD takes years. The ability to think quickly is important for an IQ test but less so for a PhD. On the other hand, perseverance is important for a PhD but less so for an IQ test. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: Haven't read all the other answers but what I can say is that your IQ score doesen't exactly predict nothing. It could estimate your maximum level of academic achievement as it has correlations, CORRELATIONS, no relations of causation to academic achievement. > > One of my "best" qualities is that I'm very tenacious regarding > problem-solving. I might not get there the quickest, but I don't give > up until I do or the pursuit begins to interfere with other aspects of > life. People might accuse me of being physically lazy, but there's no > way they can accuse me of being problem-solving lazy. I'm the kind of > person who will hire a home maintenance technician as a last resort > only because I don't have the tools. I'm pretty frugal. > > > I feel pretty inferior to many of the people who have posted comments > on StackExchange. > > > This may be more important than a score to predict anything. IQ, the number, alone can mean nothing. Say someone has an IQ of 160, next day is hit by a car and dies, had 5 years. Isn't the next Einstein. Life is extremelly complicated to a "factor" of "sucess" determine anything. Intelligence is a complicated subject, your IQ maybe have helped to got you where you are now, but your house, your city, the world economy, a lot of factors too. <NAME>, <NAME>-Contemporary Intellectual Assessment\_ Theories, Tests, and Issues-The Guilford Press (2012) <NAME> Outliers: The Story of Success Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/25	1,749	7,456	<issue_start>username_0: After a series of unethical incidents that affected me directly in my previous academic institution, I managed to move to a higher ranked department in my field about seven years ago. I am now in the hiring committee in my current institution and one of the candidates who is being considered is from my former institution. There are two unethical practices that the candidate performed that I am aware of. One is that he managed to squeeze in as a third author on a finished paper and he thus made no contribution. I did most of the work for the paper and the paper was finished when my co-author added this person's name and submitted it. The second incident is that the candidate has announced in the past how he has changed his research results before submission to please the editor of a top journal in my field. He did this in the early years of his career. There are others in my former institution who know about it but they find this to be no big deal. I am considering doing one of the following: 1. Discuss this with my current dept. 2. Keep quiet and stay in the committee. 3. Keep quiet but step down from the committee For your information, I am a foreigner whose work is appreciated by everyone. However, I feel that I will not get much support if I open up. I had tried this in my previous institution and I realized that only a couple of people supported me. What should I do?<issue_comment>username_1: If you're on the hiring committee, then your job is to evaluate the candidates. I see no need to back away from that (and by the way, I can't see what your being a "foreigner" could possibly have to do with any of this). One has to exercise some restraint in repeating "hearsay" in official matters: unless you can find evidence about the changed research, I would hesitate to bring it up because it's hard for everyone else to independently evaluate. On the other hand, if you are a coauthor of a paper with the candidate in question, then your colleagues should be very interested to hear your take on that. I think you should certainly describe the candidate's contributions -- or lack thereof -- honestly to your colleagues. I might avoid putting the banner of "unethical behavior" on it: the ethics of it are really for your colleagues to evaluate as well, right? In general I think that in these kinds of matters it is more collegial and also more convincing to provide information which is factual rather than subjective or purely evaluative. There is also the issue of why you, as the first author of a paper, allowed a coauthor whom you feel did absolutely nothing. Isn't that at least arguably unethical behavior on your part? I think it's better not to open that can of worms, but rather say that in fact the candidate's contribution to the joint work was minimal and that you do not feel like he should get much credit for it. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: If you make an accusation about any individual(s) you must have proof. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people get accused of things without proof. I myself have been accused of things I haven't committed. It's unethical to accuse without proof. Also, I personally believe the proof must be complete and infallible. Accusing someone of falsifying data is one of the most serious accusations that can be made in academia. Now, if you yourself are certain about the person's guilt beyond any doubt in your own mind, then I believe you are well within your right to step down. You can explain to the others that you are ethically compelled to step down. If your "bosses" demand an explanation, then you can tell them that although you don't have proof about something committed by someone, you are personally 100% certain it took place. That way, if the unethical person gets hired, you will be blameless for that decision. If you say you are stepping down for ethical reasons, I think it will generate great curiosity among your colleagues. They may demand an explanation. It seems to me that saying anything without proof that prevents a person from getting hired is legally risky. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_3: If committee members had to step down just because they knew something about a job candidate, no one would ever get hired (or at least no one good). My impression from serving on a hiring committee is that prior knowledge of the person's professional/research activities is a good thing, since it allows you to make a more informed decision about their merits. It would be appropriate to step down (or refrain from discussion of this candidate) if you had non-academic dealings with this person that might color your judgement (e.g., a romantic relationship, a business venture, a childhood friendship). Of course, you should clearly differentiate between evidence-based facts about the person and your own opinions of them, but I don't think it's wrong to mention your opinions to the committee. That said, the two examples of "unethical behavior" you give seem quite different to me. Getting a third-author credit on a paper without doing much work doesn't seem like much of an ethical breach to me, unless the means by which this was achieved were themselves unethical (e.g., bribes or threats). I'm not sure what you mean by "changed his research results", but if you mean "falsified his data", then that sounds seriously unethical. If you have evidence that the candidate has done this, you should definitely share that with the committee. If you don't have direct evidence, but you've heard the candidate himself admit to it, that's worth sharing too. If you've just heard secondhand rumors where other colleagues suggested the candidate had done this, that could be mentioned, but you should make it clear that you're only reporting about how the person is perceived by their colleagues, not anything you know for certain they actually did. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The first question I would put is: 1. He is smart/competent enough for this position? 2. Is he a hardworker who will contribute? Come on man, everybody makes mistakes. Just get over it and make sure it does not happen in the future. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_5: The failure to act against an unethical act is a breach of ethics in itself. 1. If you have any evidence to suggest that he falsified the results, DO NOT step down. You will have failed your duty as an academician. You must report the facts. Whether or not he is chosen by the committee after that is a collective decision. It would definitely be wrong to deprive them of this very relevant information. 2. If you disapprove of the way he nudged into your paper at the last minute, you must try to objectively decide if your disapproval is a result of your own prejudice. If you find that hard, you could consider consulting your co-author and seek to clarify the issue. If he fails this test, you are obligated to report this too. (Although, try not to colour it with your perspective. Cold, hard facts only.) I disagree with an answer here that suggests you need 'infallible' proof. If you have reason to believe there is something wrong, you must share that intuition. It is what separates a hiring committee from an automatic resume-ranking tool. Be sure to separate the facts from your personal judgement. If you must err, do it on the side of caution. (Inform the committee, but let them know you aren't confident) Upvotes: 3
2015/01/26	345	1,485	<issue_start>username_0: I would like to apply for a Master degree. I'm looking for a major that study both Computer and Maths. Can anyone tell me what such major are?<issue_comment>username_1: As an example, the University of Oxford (UK) as an [MSc program in Mathematics and the Foundations of Computer Science](http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/graduate/courses/msc-mathematics-and-foundations-computer-science), which not only has courses in computer science and mathematics, but in particular also offers courses on the interplay between these areas. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: If you like applied, Computational Mathematics could be a good option. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: Many scientific fields nowadays rely heavily on computation (physics, statistics, biology, etc). You could go into any of these with a computational focus in mind (develop new computational methodology, algorithms, improve speed/performance of existing algorithms). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: I'm not sure what your prior experience/work is, but if you have a little experience in Computer Science, another option is Cryptography. Though it's usually not an explicit major, one typically studies it through a given Mathematics program, and if you concentrate on the applied side of things (i.e., writing actual algorithms and performing time/space analyses of them), you'll be deep enough in the weeds to be forced to learn more Computer Science along the way. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/26	1,687	6,423	<issue_start>username_0: I need to download the following PhD Thesis: "<NAME> - Large deviations of the asymmetric simple exclusion process in one dimension" However [this](http://search.proquest.com/docview/304606557) website forces me to pay for it. I think it is possible to download the thesis from the Columbia Library ([link](http://clio.columbia.edu/quicksearch?q=Large%20deviations%20of%20the%20asymmetric%20simple%20exclusion%20process%20in%20one%20dimension&commit=Search)), but as I am a PhD student based in the UK, I don't have access to it. So how can I access an American PhD thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: There are a number of ways of accessing American PhD theses. Many, possibly most, US PhD theses are are archived at [ProQuest](http://www.proquest.com/) (cf. this [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/28693/is-proquest-a-reputable-company) for more about them). In some cases there may be an embargo period before which the thesis will not be available. Some universities have subscriptions to ProQuest allowing you to download the theses from them for free. If your university does not have a subscription, you can purchase the thesis directly from them. Most US universities have archival copies of all recent theses in their libraries. If you search the library catalogue (as you did in the question), you may find a link that allows you to download the thesis for free (or a fee). If not, it should provide enough information to allow you to make an inter-library loan (ILL) request. If for some reason you are unable to buy the thesis from a place like ProQuest and you library cannot arrange for an ILL, you can also ask someone at a university with a less inept/cheap library to download, or make an ILL request, for the thesis. Note, however, that this may not be legally allowed by the licensing agreements. Finally, note that the main site of AC.SE is not the place to make such a request, but you could try in the chatroom. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In general, one could also just write a polite e-mail to the author of the thesis requesting the file (and making it clear that you need it for your research). Unfortunately, in this particular case I was not able to find the author's e-mail by googling. As a truly very last resort one could try to contact the thesis advisor (which in this particular case can be found through [this link](http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=46312)) and very politely ask whether he could either pass your request to his/her former student or even provide you with the file of the thesis. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: You could use ProQuest for free at the British Library. > > Obtaining theses in the Reading Rooms: North American theses > > > ProQuest Dissertations & Theses is available online on the electronic > resources terminals in Humanities - Floors 1 and 2. > > > <http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelprestype/theses/hrrtheses/theses.html> Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: The same way you can access almost any other publication that does not seem to be available online: ask your local university library. Interlibrary loan works very well, also internationally. Most likely you can get fairly quickly photocopies or scans of the thesis. You do not need to locate a copy of the thesis yourself; you do not need to browse any library catalogs or anything of that sort. Just tell your own library what you want, and they will do everything for you. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I agree entirely with Jukka. Your institution pays librarians to do this for you, go give them something to do ;-) (Plus, theses are interesting and librarians like a challenge. I much prefer getting a request for a thesis, or something like a pre-revolutionary Russian publication, than for an article in a recent journal...) So as to add something useful to this comment rather than just "+1, me too", here's a worked example of how the librarian will try and find your thesis, assuming they don't have ProQuest: 1. Google it. You'd be amazed. I've had people shyly ask for something deeply obscure which they assumed was near-impossible, and then discover in two minutes that the author put it online years ago. 2. Nail down the author, date, and institution - and correct the title if needed, as a surprisingly high proportion of thesis requests have the title garbled. (Why this is more common than for journals is an interesting question). Then double-check our own catalogue in case we have a print copy. You never know. [For a British work, I'd now try the EThOS service, but that's UK only] 3. The original institution's repository. New York University has a repository (archive.nyu.edu) - these are always worth checking, as they're not always indexed well enough to be picked up by step 1. 2000 is a little early to make it into the repository, but you never know. Sadly, we draw a blank in this case - it's not quite clear if the repository covers theses at all. 4. Nearby libraries. Occasionally, copies of theses get acquired by other institutions, and these can usually be borrowed without too much trouble. In this case, COPAC reports no copies in the major UK libraries, and a separate check confirms there isn't one at the BL. 5. The original institution's library. Checking the catalogue, they have both microfilm and print copies, as well as a link to Proquest (very helpful). Digging around on their website, they do accept ILL requests from overseas, and (praise be!) they will loan bound dissertations (see <http://library.nyu.edu/services/lending.html>). They also hint they'll do copies but don't go into detail. Some institutions are exceptionally generous and will scan entire theses on request without charging; others will charge a standard fee but we have an ILL budget for just this reason. Copy found, and if we're lucky it could be in the post by the end of the day... [Steps 6 onwards would be various forms of "look for the author", but not needed here] Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: Just to ad there is also "Search NDLTD" <http://search.ndltd.org/index.php> which is the nearest thing to a global PhDthesis/dissertations index. Sadly not comprehensive and this one, again, draws a blank. Tip: encourage your own library to get their theses indexed in Google and/or added to Search NDLTD. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/26	875	3,509	<issue_start>username_0: With the academic job situation so tight and uncertain, I am thinking of jobs outside academia (after a PhD in Computer Science). There are plenty of programming jobs that require an undergrad or even no degree. I tried some of them and they are so routine and so narrow that one gets frustrated easily. They also involve 8-5, M-F drudgery. Can anyone suggest better alternatives. How do companies advertise for research positions? I haven't seen many ads for those. BTW, I live in Southeast of US and due to family reasons can not relocate far.<issue_comment>username_1: If you're finding boring (to you) jobs, you're not looking in the right places. Off the top of my head I thought of SAS, which is located in North Carolina. One possibility is to look for companies that were spun off from university research. Ask your professors--where did other master's and PhD graduates end up, if they didn't go into academia? Talk to the career center. Even though they may be focused on undergraduates, they may have some ideas. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: There is a large and active demand for computer science Ph.D. holds outside of academia. Some of the main classes of positions: * Contract R&D organizations like [IHMC](http://www.ihmc.us/) (near you in Florida) or [my own employer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBN_Technologies), work a lot like soft-money academia. * Government laboratories are much the same, though the money works differently. * Government agencies need Ph.D.-level people to help manage their R&D portfolios, either directly as program managers or via private-sector contractors like [Booz-Allen](http://www.boozallen.com/). * Giant companies like Lockheed-Martin, Pfizer, or Ford have high-tech or internal R&D sections that do Ph.D.-level computer science work. * Near any major tech university, you will find lots of startup companies and consulting firms and other odd niches. * Finance companies and hedge funds will offer you lots of money in exchange for your immortal soul. These are just a few of the more typical routes: the research ecosystem in the US is actually very complex and has a lot of strange niches; I don't have solid numbers, but I suspect the outside-of-academia R&D world is actually much larger than traditional academia, and that's even before we start counting non-R&D positions like hedge funds. Some of these sorts of jobs, you can find via ordinary online job listings. You'll likely do a lot better, though, if you reach out through your professional network and research community. Your advisor and other faculty are one good place to start: they'll likely have former students and other colleagues to put you in touch with outside of academia. Another good step is to go to the big conferences in your area, especially those with a more applied flavor, and look for the industry people there. You'll likely find quite a number of good opportunities, especially if you are a US citizen. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I have found LinkedIn to be pretty good at recommending jobs for me, both with its own algorithms and with the occasional 'inmail' from a recruiter. Sometimes it's enough to make me wrestle with leaving academia, for the reasons you cite in the question. Make sure you use it to its full potential by (signing up!), updating your profile and making it look amazing, following companies, joining groups, connecting with people you know, and connecting with tech recruiters. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/26	528	2,294	<issue_start>username_0: After sending a faculty application online, should the applicant send an email to check if all documents were received and whether the application is complete or not? Some suggest to send an email, while others suggest not to, since sending unnecessary email to the committee could raise a flag.<issue_comment>username_1: I think it's okay. Just make sure you are emailing someone who knows where to get the information you seek. Otherwise, it may "get buried" and disregarded. Email is an accepted and efficient method of communication and should not offend somebody's sense of etiquette. If I were the one receiving your email, I wouldn't be offended in any way unless you were bugging me frequently. Just a couple months ago, I received an email request from a friend to be a reference for him. I thought nothing of it. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming that you submitted your application to the human resources office of the university, then it would be appropriate to check with them to make sure that the application was received and was considered to be complete. I would not send a query to faculty members of the search committee (if you could even figure out which faculty were on the search committee.) Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: Try to find out the staff person who is responsible for helping the search committee. Usually this is the person who you addressed the initial file to (our senior admin here is used to getting e-mails addressed to Prof. Lastname, it tickles her sense of humor). The staffer usually has the best sense of where things are in process. All of the files are at his or her fingertips, whereas a member of the search committee may not be able to recall all of the first-round cuts and the search committee chair may be too overworked or stressed to respond. If your file was incomplete, the search comm members may not have even seen it. Annoying the staffer has little influence on your file, so that person is the safest person to bother with questions like this.(FN1) FN1: I won't say it is entirely risk free. If you are truly obnoxious to our staff, then the faculty may view this is as a sign of your future collegiality. So act within reason and professional behavior. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/27	871	3,776	<issue_start>username_0: Assume there are 3-5 teaching universities near each other. What would be a good answer for an interview question : why you want to teach at this teaching university? To me I see no difference and it does not matter which teaching university to work at.<issue_comment>username_1: I can see many things to factor in when choosing among several similar schools. Disclaimer: I am only a student. * What about the atmosphere? * What impression did you get after speaking to the other faculty? Do they seem enthusiastic and make you want to work with them? * What about the campus/building you might possibly be at for the next 20+ years? * Did you get a chance to talk to students? * Do most students live on campus or do they commute? (From personal experience, this makes a big difference in student involvement!) * Department size? * Class size? * What courses will you be expected to teach? * Which has better food? * What non-teaching requirements/opportunities will you have? Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Let me elaborate on xLeitix's comment. Applicants sometimes feel anxious about interview questions with hidden meaning or context. The stereotypical example is "What would you say is your greatest weakness?", which is not a request to confess something awkward or damaging. Instead it's a test of social competence, of whether the applicant can offer a smooth, natural response that sounds like it is addressing the question and avoids disclosing anything problematic without sounding arrogant either. These sorts of questions are less common in academic interviews, so you can usually assume a question means more or less what it says. In particular, this question is trying to gauge how well you would fit into the university and department. Teaching universities can be really diverse in how they function, which students they serve, or what they consider their mission. They are looking for someone who will participate enthusiastically and help make the department a better place, not just someone who is willing to teach there (or, worse yet, will feel bitter or resentful about not having found their dream job). The worst case answer is "Gee, I don't know. You have students, and I can teach. What's not to like?" That basically amounts to announcing that even you don't think you're a particularly good fit. Your comments sound uncomfortably close to this, like you really don't care or see any relevant differences between these schools. If that's the case, then you need to spend some time looking into them online or asking your friends or colleagues. Unless you've applied to an extraordinarily narrow range of universities, I can't really believe they are indistinguishable. And if they are, then you must have targeted this type of school intentionally, so you just need to explain why. username_1's answer provides a nice list of criteria you could keep in mind, and there are also big-picture issues. Are these schools public or private? How do they present themselves to the world? Is there anything distinctive about their history, such as a religious or social mission (former or current)? Is there any special focus, such as technical or liberal arts education? What sort of student body do they serve? There are no right or wrong answers here: one person might prefer to teach diverse and economically downtrodden students, while another might be excited about working with exceptionally well-prepared students from the elite. What's important is that your answer should reflect some genuine resonance between you and the school. If it sounds like you are saying something generic or canned, then it won't really help your case, but anything insightful or heartfelt could help. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/27	2,352	9,857	<issue_start>username_0: The first slide which follows the title page of my presentation is the overview slide. It has the title for each section to follow in the talk (thank you Latex!). My question is how much time is to be spent on the Overview slide, given the talk lasts twenty minutes? Should I talk about each section's one-line-synopsis to let the audience mull it over? If the answer is no, how do I transition smoothly from the Paper Title Slide to the one on Motivation for the talk (For example : Why I love Science?).<issue_comment>username_1: I often skip the overview slide in short talks. Instead, after giving motivation I simply say what the talk it is about: This talk will introduce you to Nutella, analyze its deliciousness, and compare it to peanut butter. Finally, we will talk about Nutella extensions - chunky Nutella, with chopped hazelnut. In general, the overview slide allows the listeners to pace themselves, and understand where in the presentation you are. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: I think the overview slide is the most important slide in the talk. I like to use my overview slide to encapsulate the whole talk in a single diagram. A heuristic that I find holds true is that in a good <1 hour talk, you can say one idea: that idea might have a lot of different elements and side points as part of its explanation, but it all really anchors down to one core statement if you want the talk to hang together tightly. And that's what's on my overview slide. You can tell it to the audience straight, too. I like to say, "Here's my talk, summarized in a single slide" and then explain the ideas. It's also good to give people the "punchline" of your talk right up front too, and then promise that by the end of the talk they'll understand how it works / why it matters / whatever. One important further thought: I strongly recommend that your overview slide be very diagram/image-driven. Have people listen to your words, rather than read them, and a diagram will stick with their minds much better. Edited to add Per request, some examples of visual overview slides from talks that I have recently given: ![Aggregate programming overview talk](https://i.stack.imgur.com/4OIMD.jpg) ![BioCompiler talk](https://i.stack.imgur.com/dQFha.jpg) ![Fast consensus algorithm talk](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fh7wH.jpg) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It depends on what you mean by "Overview" slide. If it's an opener slide that introduces and communicates the core idea(s) to the audience, this is likely the most essential part of a talk; this is where you have to engage your listeners, it should motivate your whole talk. If, however, the "Overview" slide is basically just a bunch of headlines ("Table of Contents"), I would consider this slide a waste of everybody's time. Instead of boring the hell out of your audience reciting headlines, your narrative should be easy to follow without ever presenting a ToC (in German, I would refer to that minding your "roter Faden"; I guess it's called "Golden Thread" in English?). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: A good overview slide is part of a road map that allows the audience to know where they are in the presentation. The overview itself provides the initial road map, and then as you get to major sections, you should have signpost slides that indicate where in the road map you are. This helps the audience in a number of ways. * It gives them a good idea for what to look for in your presentation, particularly if they are only interested in part of it. * It helps them understand the relevance of the earlier slides. This is particularly important if you have some earlier section that may not seem directly related to your point but is necessary to understand it; but even without that, the signpost slides combined with the overview can help put the different pieces together. * It provides some structure, similar to how bulletpoints in this list make it more readable; with no signposts or road map it is like freeform text with no paragraphs. Without that overview slide, the audience has to spend some effort figuring out how to put all of those bits together. Do the work for them, give them a road map, and let them spend their effort understanding your important points instead! Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: I never use "overview" or "agenda" slides. They basically show what you will be talking about, which you will repeat afterwards anyway. When you read a book, do you expect to have an overview of what will be happening? Or a movie? Or at a concerto would the pianist stand up and say "I will be playing the piano and the guy over here the trumpet"? Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: This may somewhat depend on the field and maybe I am a bit biased, but I have not seen a single overview slide (following the title) that was not a total waste of time so far. [Eloquent Science](//eloquentscience.com/2011/02/is-your-outline-slide-really-needed/) agrees with me. Essentially, there are two flavours of useless overview slides: * The overview slide and what the speaker says alongside it tell me that the talk has a more or less standard structure. To give an extreme example: > > First, I will give an overview; then I will present my methods; then I will present my results; finally, I will draw my conclusions and give an outlook. > > > Nothing of the above helps anybody to follow the talk better or in any other way, as they already expect something along the lines of this to happen. If there are deviations in the detail, this is nothing they need to know at this point of your talk. Even, if your talk has some very unorthodox structure, e.g., if you start with the results and then have the methods follow, you can mention this when you start describing the results and do not need an overview slide for this. * The overview slide and the speaker tell me something about the actual content, such as > > I first introduce the problem of banana transmogrification. Then I explain our latest progress on flux compensators. Finally, we will report on our results on transmogrifying bananas with flux compensators. > > > The problem here is that most people attending the talk know next to nothing about flux compensators or banana transmogrification and thus will have forgotten that flux compensators are going to appear in this talk halfway through your first slide on bananas. Sure, there will be one or two people in the room who read your recent paper on apple transmogrifications with flux compensators, but those are not the people who need your didactic attention – they would probably even understand the talk if you went through the slides backwards. This does not mean that you shouldn’t explain that the reason why you are talking about flux compensators is that you want to use them for banana transmogrification, but that’s something you should do when you transition from banana transmogrification to flux compensators. In general, you have to remind the audience again and again why you are doing things, explain connections to what you have said before and guide them through your talk with this, but that’s something that happens during the talk, not in the beginning. As already said, this may be somewhat field-dependent. So, you are probably best advised to think about what you are going to present on this overview slide and take the point of view of the audience to consider whether it really needs and understands this information at this point of the talk and is not better said later in a more fitting context. Also, there are a few occasions where some general sort of overview slide can be a good idea. For example: * In a long talk that is separated into several large and seemingly unrelated chapters, you might give a brief overview after the introduction to the general topic. * If you address several aspects of something that are at first separate. For example, a colleague of mine once gave a talk where he “took a tour through the parameter space” of a system and regularly showed an overview diagram of the parameter space like a tour map, indicating what places were already visited and what came next. --- > > If the answer is no, how do I transition smoothly from the Paper Title Slide to the one on Motivation for the talk (For example : Why I love Science?). > > > How would the transition from an overview slide to a motivation be more smooth than from a title slide to a motivation? That being said, I do not think that this transition needs to be smooth at all. The transition from whatever happened before you started talking to you talking is very unsmooth already, and thus it won’t be any worse if you dive straight into the big important reason why you are doing what you do. However, often something relevant to your motivation appears in your title and you can build a transition on this. For example: > > As you probably guessed already, I spent some time on transmogrifying bananas and you probably wondered why anybody would want to transmogrify fruit in the first place. > > > (I intentionally ignored your example topic, as in this case the whole talk would be a motivation.) Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: [Including a sidebar](https://brushingupscience.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/skip-the-outline-slide-use-a-sidebar/) is a far better option than using an outline slide (see example below). As noted in other answers, the audience already knows the order your talk will follow. A sidebar, however, is useful in that it gives the audience an indication of how far through your talk you are. (If I had a dollar for every time I wondered how much longer a talk would go for…) [![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8IDxO.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8IDxO.png) Upvotes: 0
2015/01/27	828	3,378	<issue_start>username_0: I am not a fan of heavy/text-infested slides and hope my audience also second my opinion. I did resort to the healthy image-text ratio in most of the slides and am relying on my speaking skills during my first presentation! In this context, how should he/she adapt himself to suit the interest of audience,dynamically? If I realize that a couple of sides have turned out to be cumbersome or "boring"\\, how should I seamlessly switch over to the next section and regain the lost interest. \\boring = Many example slides are available as follows : 1. Example 1 :Slide which talks about the approach of simulation, when actually results of the simulation are the "meat" of the talk. 2. Example 2(The first few slides of the talk) * Hypothetical Talk : Thumbdrives have changed the world, Jan 2003 * Motivation Slide, 1 : End of the road for Floppy Disks(3 Bullets) * Motivation Slide, 2 : The Storage Roadmap(Image), the arise of the PenDrive(3 Bullets) * The News Slide, 3 : Ascend,ManDisk and Watergate 3 News Clippings + 3 Images * The Cool Feature, 4 : Pendrives = 1K X Floppy Disks, they are Reusable CDs * Paper Starts , 5 : How I used the cool features efficiently to build something even cooler?<issue_comment>username_1: In your talk, every slide tells a story. That story can be as short or as long as you want. Just like the [overview slide](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/37630/what-is-the-significance-of-the-overview-slide-in-a-presentation) tells the story of the whole talk in a single slide, each section of the talk and even each individual slide can be presented at multiple levels of resolution. Familiarize yourself with the story you want to tell at these multiple different levels of resolution, and you can change the pacing to match the interest level of the audience. For example, let's say you've got a slide explaining the details of how you performed a simulation. You might present this same slide at three radically different levels of detail: * High detail: explain each of the parameters and why you chose it * Low detail: "To study this in simulation, we selected these parameters. The important choices here are ..." [explain the critical choices] * Minimalist: "We studied this in simulation using these parameters, and ..." [move on to following results slide] If you are concerned that you are boring your audience, you can shift to a lower detail presentation without actually disrupting your narrative. This is also a good technique for managing your time, to ensure that you don't go over-time or badly under-time, and can help you customize your material for different audiences. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You can adapt the order of your talk, putting the boring details towards the end. So, you briefly state your simulation, show the cool results (and why should we care about your simulation at all), and then, once you have hopefully convinced your audience that what you did was meritful and worth paying attention to, explain the details of the choice of parameters. Another advantage of this approach is that you can keep more people engaged for longer. The moment you start talking about the details of the parameters you will loose most of the people non expert on the topic, and you are unlikely to get them back in time to hear your results. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/27	2,128	9,158	<issue_start>username_0: I started working on my PhD few months ago and I am trying to solve a problem in a particular topic. The topic is quite specific and many people have already worked on it before. I am stuck at the following two scenarios: * I would like to extend the topic in some particular direction which I think is interesting and new. How will I know if people have already worked on that 'new extended topic'? I google hoping to find something, but I don't. I read some review papers (but most of them are old) and they don't cover any. Also, I think it is very difficult to read all recent papers related to the topic of research in a hope to land on my specific topic. * I would like to solve an existing specific topic in a new way, which may be quite simple, but looks efficient. But, I have the feeling that people should have already solved the problem in 'my new way'. How will I find if that has been done? I use google again and land up in quite interesting papers but it still do not solve my problem. How do you tackle the above situations? I think one way is to do a very extensive literature review of the topic, but how will you achieve that? Review papers? Reading 'all' papers in that topic? I tried to do that right at the beginning, but I realized I can not and should not know everything, but should have a very rough overview of the topic and in depth knowledge in my way of solving the problem. Edit: My research is in the topic of Computer Vision, in the field of Computer Science. My very specific topic is the topic of marker-less augmented reality.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, finding 'a state of the art' of a research area will take some time! You can do the following while searching for papers: Quantity Check: Who did publish more papers/journals for the last 5 years in your field. This is a little tricky, because if your field is more on the theoretical side, then you might even need to go back and check the last 20 to 50 years. Quality Check: Who did publish more high rank journals. This is pretty strait forward, from the list you made in the first step, check what journals they published, and the ranking of each journals. This step, will definitely give you a clear idea, who is doing the real contribution in your field. Other factors: There are other common sense factors, you can check on them. For example, who is more involved in the conferences in your field; or who has more of an active research group. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Among the papers you have found, there will be some that most papers in your research direction would reference, such as foundation papers that define the sub-field and its terminology. Look for recent papers that reference them. Pick out the ones closest to your proposed direction. Recent doctoral dissertations in your general area can be particularly useful. One of their purposes is to convince the committee that the student is familiar with existing research in the area. They typically have a substantial "related work" section that is, in effect, a small survey paper. Similarly, select the journals or conferences to which you might submit your papers. Your supervisor should be able to give guidance on selecting journals and conferences. Examine their tables of contents for the last few years, looking for papers related to your direction. You now have some recent papers that are at least a little bit related to your research direction. Read them, and look at papers they reference, always trying to move in a direction closer to your ideas. If your field is one with commercial implications, you should also attempt a patent search. However, this is very difficult because patents often use different terminology and seem to me to be designed to be unreadable. It will be a little easier if you use the paper trail to get the names of people working in the area. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: What I find most critical: figure out the nomenclature. Look for articles about your research question in your own words and create a list of keywords that are frequently used. There is usually no consensus, so you will end up with synonyms. Once you know the words used by the community in your field to describe the concepts and problems, literature searches get a lot easier. My usual approach is to use a large database of publications (in my field Medline is good, I guess your field has its equivalent) and look for the few keywords I listed. Now, don't read all articles of course, do a selection based on the title first, then on the abstract. There is a lot of redundancy in published papers so you will be able to weed out a majority of the papers at this point. In some fields, senior researchers sometimes write review articles that list the 'open problems' in the field. Even if they don't give such a list, good review papers give an overview of the state of the art and are a great source of secondary citations. Of course, discuss the matter with your colleagues and adviser, read prominent blogs and if possible go to (a) good conference(s). Conferences are great to grasp what others do and don't, and they help to make sure you don't reinvent the wheel. Finally, I think you shouldn't worry too much at this point, here are a few words form my answer to this question [Is there any research on the prevalence of academic theft?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/27472/10643) > > The chances that your idea is absolutely original is close to zero. Concepts, ideas and theories are almost always due to an > intellectual environment in which many researchers are present. Even > theories traditionally attributed to a single individual [...] were the result of > inputs from several individuals over several years. > > > The chances that your state of research, access to resources and previous intellectual work is similar for someone else is very small. > Research breakthrough are a result of the right coincidence of > opportunity, resources and intellectual maturity. > > > Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: First of all, note that proving a negative is often practically impossible. This includes proving that noone had your idea before. If you find something, then you prositively know that someone else had the idea already. If you do not find anything, there are several possibilities: * you're really the first one. * You didn't do your homework properly. * It has been done & published, but under some name that you did not find. I've made this experience (actually more than once): e.g. thought about a problem, eventually solved it. Knowing the solution lead me to further search terms which in the end lead to literature in a not too closely related field (remote sensing vs. spectroscopic tumor recognition) but even retrospectively, I wouldn't associate the remote sensing name of the method with my description of problem and solution: some key term of the remote sensing nomenclature is used already with (several!) different meanings in my field. You may be lucky and find the "unknown" search term mentioned in an introduction section of an article you find via "your" terminology. But I've experienced it twice that came across the "unknown" term by accident - hadn't found a paper giving the link, and even after asking around on conferences for several years whether someone knows (of) a solution for ... * It may be that the key terms are not really suitable for searching. One part of this is the already mentioned overlap in terminology. For the example above, we now have a 4th meaning of "soft" in chemometrics... Or, while the precise search terms do not yield results, widening the search may lead to impractically large numbers of papers to wade through (see below). Point 1 obviously is what you hope for, while point 2 is what you fear. Points 3 and 4 I'd say come under the general risks of research life: shit happens, and IMHO it is an illusion to think it possible to prove the absence of a particular idea in the scientific literature. So I'd recommend to document that the negative results are not due to your negligence. This may be slightly unusual, but e.g. I told my supervisor that I did not find any previous work for something (report the search terms you tried), but that I'm not absolutely sure it was not done as it was not feasible to read through the details of the >80000 pubmed records that list the "parent" method just to ensure that noone has done what I did before under a totally different name and that I gave up after >100 abstracts hadn't yielded anything. I'd guess that it is good to have numbers if you follow this line of argument. --- For the literature search, if your reviews are old, do not forget to check which articles cite these reviews. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: have you consulted with the reference librarian at your university library? this person can most effectively help you in finding the appropriate data bases to search and assist you in formulating the proper search query (ies). Google is NOT the answer. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/27	277	1,204	<issue_start>username_0: I received help with some aspects of my PhD thesis from a tutor (proofreading and graphics). Of the help I received, some mathematical notation they provided made it into my thesis. However, I did not acknowledge the tutor in the PhD thesis for this help (since received). Is there anything I could (or should) do to rectify this?<issue_comment>username_1: You might be able to edit the acknowledgement section of the electronic version of you thesis. Contact the university library yourself or through the postgraduate student service. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: If ever the thesis is published elsewhere, say as a paper in a journal or a conference, or perhaps as a technical report, include the name of the person there. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: It's probably not a huge deal. Not many people read theses and probably even fewer scan the acknowledgements. In the worst case you might figuratively have stepped on the persons toes. I would send them an e-mail or perhaps a postcard with apologies for forgetting to mention them. That probably suffices — their career is not going to depend on you mentioning them in the acknowledgements. Upvotes: 4
2015/01/27	4,313	17,046	<issue_start>username_0: My paper is successfully accepted in a very prestigious and reputable conference, to be presented orally in one of the presentation sessions. This is my first time that I am going to give such a talk in a large academic conference. My previous experiences are my presentations for my class projects and my bachelor's and master's thesis presentations. In my previous talks, I had reviewed my presentation slides more than five or six times before the presentation and had a bottle of water beside my laptop, but still I was too nervous. I am a little nervous about giving a presentation talk in front of a large number of students and professors. I am sure that in the day of the presentation, I will be in trouble and my hands will start shaking and my voice will be vibrating when I am going to talk, because of my stress. How should I decrease my stress on the day of my paper presentation and better control my nervousness in my presentation? My research paper is perfectly done; I don't want my nervousness ruin my first academic presentation in a conference and the huge research my co-authors and I have done in the research paper.<issue_comment>username_1: Remember that the main key players at this conference, liked your idea and accepted your paper. So you are welcome there. Here what I did and worked for me: 1. First know your slides very well (material, flow, etc.) 2. Second, one or two weeks before the conference give the same talk to the research group your supervisor is supervising. 3. Third, give the same talk to your close friends. 4. Fourth, the day before the talk give the talk to yourself. Also, make sure you sleep enough hours. Basically lots of repetition of the same talk. 5. Fifth, go to the conference, set up your machine earlier if possible, bring your laptop charger, a backup USB, and also email the slides to yourself (for the worst case). Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: > > I don't want my nervousness ruin my first academic presentation in a conference and the huge research my co-authors and I have done in the research paper. > > > You being nervous will not ruin your research. Everybody knows that PhD students (or professors!) are often nervous when speaking at big conferences. No sane person will look at you being nervous, and hence deduct that your research has to be somehow faulty. Of course, everybody wants to be perceived "cool" in research talks, and it is certainly easier to do a great conference presentation when one is not too nervous (a little bit of tension helps, though). However, you should never forget that very little actual damage is being done if the audience sees that you are a bit nervous. > > How should I decrease my stress on the day of my paper presentation and better control my nervousness in my presentation? > > > The best remedy for being nervous are (1) knowing your material / presentation really well, and (2) having a lot of practice (not just for this specific presentation, but of presentations in general). You do not sound like you are very experienced giving talks, so some amount of nervousness is not troublesome at all. Prepare your talk early and do at least 2 to 3 test talks in your department, until you have convinced yourself that your talk is good. You'll probably still be a bit nervous on the big day, but don't be too hard on yourself - a bit shaky hands are not going to be any problem. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: Despite having given more talks than I can remember, I still get quite nervous, with the nervousness exponentially rising as I come to the last moments before the talk. I find that, past a certain point, intensive studying and recitation actually make things worse for me. Once I feel generally comfortable with the material, it's better to take my mind off of things, so that I don't focus on the bad. So I crack jokes and make conversation. There's always a little setup period, while you're making sure that your slides are showing right, etc. During that period, I chat with the audience, saying nothing much of consequence, but just getting myself warmed up. That way, when I'm ready to start the talk, I'm already feeling conversational and my nervousness has broken. Edited to add: One more benefit of "warming up the audience" is that some people may start smiling at you. When I give a talk, I let myself notice the people who are smiling or nodding along. There's nothing that relaxes me faster than somebody in the audience who is smiling at what I'm saying. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: In my experience it is always the hardest just before the beginning (e.g. when the person before you is about to finish their talk, or when you are walking up, or are just about to introduce yourself), however, once I start talking I usually loosen up considerably and by the end of it, I realize that it is really no big deal. Therefore, I pay the most attention to the details of the introductory few sentences of the presentation. Once that is down, the rest flows naturally. So, my advice is: 1. before the talk: be clear how to start your talk, practice it, so that the nervousness doesn't hinder you. at the talk: Take a deep breath, focus on your voice (in order not to squeal, stutter, shout, etc.), introduce yourself and your work in a few sentences. 2. before the talk: summarize what you are going to talk about and in what order, and here I don't mean learn the whole 15min talk by heart, but a few (I find usually 3-5 enough) guidelines of at most a sentence long defining the most important parts of your work. The most important thing here is that you can develop a narration to connect those guidelines. Here are the slides also of great help. at the talk: focus on delivering the audience a relaxed version of the paper. You know what you are going to say (the guidelines), just connect them with a story. This approach deals very good with my nervousness, to the point at which I no longer practice my talks. I make a mental concept of the most important points while preparing the slides and focus on the introduction. Essentially, I just needed a way to overcome the initial anxiousness and start talking, after all, it is my work which I enjoy and love to talk to others about, in that sense a large audience is not that different. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: When I was still new to presenting, I used various theatrical warmup exercises to get ready for big events. The ones that worked best for me were: * Breathing exercises. Controlling my breath focused my attention away from my nervousness. * Clenching and unclenching my fist together with breathing control. You can find other exercises if you do some google searches for "theatre warmup exercises" or for "public speaking nervousness". Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: I recommend: practice, practice and practice again. Practice giving the whole talk so many times that you could do it off by heart. It's hard to be both bored and nervous :) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_7: Well done for getting your paper accepted! I don't think I can add much advice about the talk itself that hasn't already been offered. A few other things I always do: * Visit the room beforehand so that I don't get lost and can visualize the presentation. * Read the instructions on A/V very carefully. If the presentation system is managed, go to the preview room and make sure that my slides look right. * Attend the entire session in which my talk is placed. * Introduce myself to the session chair when I arrive. I once did a whole conference presentation with my left leg vibrating wildly - it hasn't happened before or since - and nobody seemed to notice! Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: Practice! I used to be very nervous, not so much anymore. I remember preparing for my first conference talk, and it was nerve-wracking. I rehearsed the poor talk to death. The practice really paid off! The first few minutes were overwhelming - you are trying to grasp the audience, microphone, screen, and everything at the same time. The words were just unconsciously flying out of my mouth during these first few minutes while I was grasping the situation. The talk was good. Now, I am not so nervous, but I still memorize the opening. It helps me start smoothly until I get into steady pace. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_9: As others have mentioned, practice will help. If you are really really nervous with public speaking, there may be a Toastmasters group nearby and they are there to help. But, to give you a personal anecdote. My first big presentation was as an undergraduate at the APS March meeting. This was back in the dark ages of hand-written vugraphs and an actual, wooden, pointer. I barely heard the session chair introduce me, placed my title vugraph on the overhead projector, picked up the stick, and turned to point with it at my title as I introduced myself. Well, the pointer went flying out of my sweaty hands, fortunately landing in the corner of the room instead of impaling someone in the front row. At that point, and I still remember this clearly, the thought went through my head that, well, the worst that could happen had just actually happened. Nobody laughed, the earth did not open up to swallow me, and I walked over to the corner, picked up the pointer, and calmly went through my talk. After giving many talks and lectures, I now think it is a lot of fun to be up and talking about stuff that really interests me. So, practice your talk, realize that everyone can and will get nervous at times, but also remember that it will be just fine in the end. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: Fun fact: you can trick your body out of a flight-or-flight response by sucking on a mint or hard candy or chewing on some gum. When you're nervous like you are when you're about to give a presentation, your sympathetic nervous system is kicking in--that is, you're basically having a fight-or-flight response. If your body thinks you're eating, it kills the response. It kind of figures, "If I'm eating, there's clearly no real danger; if I'm fleeing a saber-toothed tiger, I'm not going to be munching mammoth jerky while doing it." Chewing gum or sucking on hard candies or mints tricks your body into thinking you're eating, thus your body figures there is no danger and no need to pump you with adrenaline. Fun little trick I use all the time. Doing so also supposedly increases your mental clarity/concentration...at least according to all my teachers in high school who used to give us hard candies before tests. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_11: There's a ton of material online for how to prepare a presentation. Practice your presentation just as you'll give it. Arrange your space as much like the stage as you can. I had a large TV in the room where I practiced, I'd put the presso on that so it was behind me, so I could get used to working iwth it back there adn a 'presenters view' in front of me. Don't read your presentation - you want to be like a stage actor delivering lines they know, not like the school principle reading a notice. But you should know exactly what you're going to say - not memorized, but 'now I'll say my uncertainty calculations were done by the XYZ method' . Going over your slides 5-6 times is not enough if you're not a practiced speaker. Actually say it, out loud, over and over until you find yourself bored to death and find yourself daydreaming while giving it to the walls over and over. Before a major talk I find myself giving the talk over and over when driving, cleaning house, etc. Near the time I deliver it, I'm hitting my timing marks within a few seconds. Then invite a couple friends (fellow grad students are ideal) to listen. I regularly give talks before large audiences at computer conferences, and the only solution to being scared is to be so thoroughly prepared that there's nothing to be scared of. I have a couple little rituals. One is that I contact the organizer and find out if they'll introduce me or whatever, cause I hate that little awkwardness at the start of gthe talk. The other is that I mentally say 'I love you, you're wonderful, you'll give a great talk' to myself right before I speak. It's incredibly doofy feeling, but does work. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_12: Well, you are going to hold a talk before a large audience first time. So you are going to be nervous. Accept it. If you feel like you are going to make your talk incoherent, you can tell the audience in advance "well, I am not yet used to giving talks, so if you feel that any links are missing, feel free to ask". Note that if this is your first talk, you'll likely be bad at estimating how much time you need for what. Holding a talk in your living room will help to give a good estimate, but particularly if you allow the audience to interrupt, you should substructure your talk into more and less important subissues and put a timeline next to them. If you see yourself falling behind, you skip less important stuff or details: the important thing is that the spine of the talk gets delivered. Obviously, you want to do that kind of prioritization in advance since you don't have all that much organizing capacity available at talk time. Particularly if you are going to be nervous. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_13: Agree completely with <NAME> - would add a few thngs, though. I'm myself extremely nervous when speaking in public, even a presentation to my close collegues at work gives me sleepless nights. But - once the talk starts and You are allowed to concentrate on the speech the nervousness generally subsides. Just remember to talk slowly as one tends to speak fast when nervous (to get over with it, I presume) and that makes it hard to follow as a listener, which makes some people increase non-verbal (or even distracting verbal) signs of disattention which in the speaker leads to more nervousness - a vicious circle. Slow - Loud - Clear The presentation should not distract from the speech but underline it - no sentences in the slides, but keywors You use in the speech. One keyword every one or every two sentences. And try not to let it sound like print, better to construct the sentences around the keywords naturally, maybe even changing the sentences a bit every time You rehearse - the flexibility You gain will help You not to get stuck when You don't remeber the exact sentence You tried to learn by heart. Just a look at the slide and You'll remember what to say. Don't forget to look at the audience, not only to Your manuscript (which in my case now only contains the keywords) and finally: rehearse a lot, alone and in public (family, friends, collegues, research group). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_14: I voted you up because I empathize with you and completely understand how you feel. I don't have an answer for you but I wanted to write this to let you know that your nerves can't possibly be worse than my nerves. I thought that simply saying this to you might help you. Also, there's at least one great stage actor who suffered from it. > > Capua, Michelangelo. <NAME>. <NAME>.: McFarland & Co., 2006. ([Link](https://books.google.com/books?id=mAllHF9-7ZYC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=yul+brynner+stage+fright&source=bl&ots=GaiAqo9MQp&sig=ZqS4M0biBgaxacZrjMQ43Zif4RQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=d4PJVMzgNbWAsQSEqIDwCA&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=yul%20brynner%20stage%20fright&f=false)) > > > I simply can't present to large groups of unknowns. I've never been to a psychologist, but I'm certain I'd be diagnosed with "Glossophobia". When you get to my level and you would prefer death to giving the presentation, you are in a world of hurt. Nausea, cold sweats, the shakes...all the norm for me. It has literally prevented my achieving optimum success in life. I have been living with it for about 35 years. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_15: As a musician, I've had a lot of experience with nerves. One thing I didn't see mentioned here is that getting nervous has an up-side. When your body gives you more adrenaline, it makes you a bit of a Superman/Wonder Woman. Without that spurt of adrenaline, the music or the talk is not as compelling. Slowing your breathing (like in yoga) is helpful. But you need to practice a little bit every day. Put one hand on your chest and one hand on your tummy. When you take your breath in, feel your whole torso fill up like a balloon. Make sure your shoulders remain relaxed and low as you breathe in. Count the seconds as you are breathing out, and try to make each successive exhalation last longer than the one before. If you find that your fingertips or your face start to tingle, that means you have hyperventilated, and you should inhale from and exhale into a small paper bag a few times. This will keep you doing the slow deep breathing that will relax you, but you won't be taking in too much oxygen. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/27	953	3,858	<issue_start>username_0: I have applied to 4 PhD applications in Computer Science and I have sent an introduction email to a professor in each of the schools I have applied to. In this email I first introduced myself and then mentioned one of their papers I'm interested in, and at the end asked them for any time they can give me to meet them in person and talk to them about my future plans. But, I just heard from one professor and the rest have not replied my email after two weeks. How could I write an email to remind them about my old email I sent them? I googled and did not find a concise answer. Any help is appreciated.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, most academics are busy people who do need to research on the top of the all the other duties they have at the university. So, some academics do reply late or even don't reply if their answer is no. Therefore, here for you it is important to get their attention and have an answer from them (either yes or no) before you send more emails/reminders with the possibility of no response. The best bet to get the attention of a busy academic is send an email to the secretary of the research group, the academic is working for. In the email tell the secretary what is the best way of communicating with the academic, as you sent him/her an email and he/she did not reply to you. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: Generally speaking, I would recommend that you don't. I think it is perfectly fine to send such an e-mail in the first place, but you should remember that these professors don't owe you a response. Admissions (at least in the US, in mathematics -- I would guess CS is the same) are typically handled by a committee, and many professors might prefer to wait until the committee has decided whom to admit before trying to recruit prospective graduate students. However, you might send similar e-mails to other professors in the same departments. At least in my field, it is a good idea to study at a department where there are several professors with whom you would interact scientifically. In the fall, such e-mails are more likely to get a response, since professors are trying to encourage strong students to apply. As it is now, since you have applied already, I would recommend waiting for an official response and following up if you are accepted. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: As a busy professor myself, I personally appreciate getting a reminder email. I fully intend to reply to every email I get from a prospective student, even if only to say "Sorry, your research interests do not seem to be a good match for the work we are doing in my group." But in practice, life gets busy. I'm traveling. Or I'm booked solid with meetings and so I don't have time to immediate answer the 50 or so daily emails requiring responses. And so some emails fall through the cracks. Thus I appreciate receiving a single reminder email. Such emails help me do something I want to do: namely, be the kind of person who gives every serious inquiry the courtesy of a response. (A second reminder email is not necessary. If I haven't replied the first two times, there is likely a reason.) As for what to write, anything short and sweet and non-accusatory should be fine. Personally, I prefer the polite fiction that perhaps I did not receive the original email. You know it's not true, I know you know it's not true, but in phrasing your note this way we agree to mutually overlook these facts. I'd suggest something very simple, such as the following. > > Dear Prof. X, > > > I wrote you a letter a few weeks ago, but given the uncertainties of > email I do not know whether you received it. Thus I am resending my > note just in case. > > > With my best regards, Joe > > > [and then append the earlier letter here] > > > Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2015/01/27	997	4,123	<issue_start>username_0: I got an email from professor M asking me if I will have time for a tea with her on Friday, and then I came up with this question: Even if it is an important email from your professor (e.g. select your thesis or advisor), when you need some time to think before you make the final decision, how fast should a student reply to the a professor's email before the student is considered a lazy student, or a student who tries to slack off in studies? If I write the reply to my professor's email after 3 days, will she get angry or even unfriend me?<issue_comment>username_1: This is more business etiquette than anything else, but you should try to respond to your superiors within 1 business day -- even if it is something such as "Thank you for the invitation, I need to check with my schedule/partner to see if this is a possibility. I'll write back later in the week to let you know." Responding quickly is clearly best practice, but there's a great deal of latitude depending on your relationships with your advisor (casual vs. formal); your advisor's own expectations of you (lateral vs. hierarchical); the criticality of the request; department culture; and so forth. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: There isn't really anything special about academia in this regard. If someone sends you an email that needs a response, it is always courteous to respond as quickly as you are able. It doesn't matter if it's to a professor or a student or a friend. Anyone might get annoyed with you if you take a long time to respond to an email to which they need a quick response - not just professors! But there's no magic number - you can't say that 71 hours is fine but 73 hours is excessive. Some messages are urgent and need a quick response, others are not. If someone is expecting a quick response but you need more time to make a decision, you can certainly contact them to let them know you are considering it, and ask when they need your answer. As a general note: several of your recent questions seem to be written from the assumption that academia has its own special unwritten laws for everything, and if you can only find out what they are and obey them, everything will be fine. For better or for worse, that's not generally the case - there are no such objective standards. The key to successful interactions, in academia or any other job, is "act like a decent and professional human being". Upvotes: 7 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: An addendum to other answers: prompt response is always good... even if you don't immediately know the answer to a question, it is helpful to all parties to send a quick email saying exactly that. In the case at hand, perhaps "Thanks for the invitation, I'll check the details of my schedule and get back to you as soon as I can. Sincerely, ..." I would think that the same could apply for research or educational issues: in effect acknowledge the communique, and indicate as best you can how soon the other party could expect a definitive response. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: At the time of letters a reply took time and was generally granted. At the time of emails and smartphones with 24h-internet-access one can assume that the email, if not instantly, is read at least the next morning. So a reply, if no further work on the answer is required, is awaited on the spot - 24 h seems a good time-frame. Not only in academic field but in everyday life, also. Unless You are on holiday abroad, where internet-access is expensive. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: I can only use my personal experience as a guide. I check my own email at least twice per day. I'm married, so any social engagements or other appointments have to be run by my wife. Getting that settled with my wife will take at most several hours. Most of the time it only takes minutes. Getting back in touch with someone, in most cases, should take less than 24 hours. There are rare instances when it could take more than 24 hours and then an explanation for the delay would be polite regardless of whom is making the invite. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/27	1,304	5,860	<issue_start>username_0: Many university in North America or in Europe offer fundings for masters program . But it only for those students who have a good CGPA in undergraduate examination .I have completed my bachelor degree in computer science and engineering . I have a very poor cgpa . Is there any possibility that I can get myself admitted in those institution for masters program with fundings . I have heard that a good GRE score will help a lot . Is it true ? Can I get funding if I have a good GRE score once again I repeat I have a very poor cgpa .<issue_comment>username_1: Before I begin to answer your question, let me elaborate that US and European universities typically do not have much funding available to students participating in a masters degree. Most funding options (in some universities all of them) are reserved for PhD students and for the universities that do offer funding for master students, it is usually awarded to a selected few. Furthermore, it is less common for European universities to offer funding (when compared to the US) but study cost in Europe can be much cheaper. A poor undergraduate GPA alone does not prevent you from being accepted to a masters program. One can even hope to receive full funding if he can satisfy the admission committee that he is a fully capable student and his grades do not reflect his potential for being a graduate student. However to be applicable for a fully funded masters program you will most likely need more than a good GRE score. Having the following can significantly increase your chances: * Good letters of recommendation from professors whom you've worked with and can vouch for you * Having related research experience (preferably with published results in a peer-reviewed journal) * Finding a professor (for your graduate supervisor) who has a highly matched research interest as you * Having related industry work experience * Preparing a compelling statement of purpose, providing convincing reasons for your poor undergraduate performance * Having a high TOEFL/IELTS score (for international applicants) In computer science, having valuable achievements in an internationally recognizable contest like the "ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest" can tremendously boost your chances of getting accepted (and funded) at even the top schools. However, even qualifying to participate in such a contest requires a strong background in programming and algorithms. Final note. From my understanding, European universities are more sensitive to bad undergraduate GPAs and many have hard cut-offs which will eliminate you from the admission process without considering your application as a whole. Therefore, it is my personal recommendation to apply to US and Canadian universities alone as it will improve your chances and save you time and money. Unfortunately even by having exact and complete knowledge of your GPA (which I don't), there is no way to be sure what your chances will be and parts of what is said above can be deemed opinion-based. The graduate admission process, from what I understand, is a complicated and nonlinear process with many different factors playing their part. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I agree with the existing answer. In the US (I will restrict to that), funding is scarce for master's students under the best of circumstances, in large part because in many fields one does not need a master's degree to enroll in a PhD program, and thus master's students are often characterized by a limitation of their interest, commitment, ability and achievements relative to PhD students. I suppose every department must have its own philosophy on which master's students to fund. In my department (mathematics, UGA), we are likely to fund master's students we think will (in particular, can) become PhD students: in fact, in many instances the student applied for both programs and we decided to start them in the master's program to give them more time and funding overall. I don't know what you consider a "very poor" GPA to be and I'd like to. I will assume that you mean that your GPA in your major is under 3.0. In my opinion that will make it extremely difficult for you to get funding in a master's program in the US: as above, such funding is scarce and competitive, and your undergraduate performance is really not. The other answer gives a lot of things that would mitigate/amelioriate a poor GPA, but in my opinion most of these are not really enough to get you serious consideration. I think that to have a real chance at getting funding in this situation you should have (i) some exceptional research-related achievement -- in my field, a paper that you wrote on your own and got published in a reputable journal would count -- and (ii) a convincing explanation for your poor GPA. Let me discuss the second point. After some years of undergraduate teaching, I will cheerfully admit that student grades are not perfectly correlated to student understanding and ability: a large percentage of students are simply not committed / serious / mature enough to get the grades that their command of the material should warrant. Presumably any plausible candidate for master's funding with a poor GPA is in this situation. But there is an inherent awkwardness there: what you'd like us to believe is that you're very strong and talented and just couldn't get it together to get the coursework done as well as lots of other students who didn't want to go on to graduate study. So you haven't committed to your undergraduate studies...and now you want us to commit our money to your graduate studies. Well, there's no logical contradiction there, but it's a pretty tough sell. I would indeed concentrate on making a convincing argument for this (in your personal statement and/or cover letter). Upvotes: 3
2015/01/27	773	3,395	<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently in my second year of teaching English at the secondary level, and I'm wondering if it's better to pursue a Master's in English (I have a Bachelor's in English Lit.) or Education. Is there a strong advantage to one or the other in terms of professional development for teachers? I also see myself teaching at the college level someday.<issue_comment>username_1: In general, college-level instructors are expected to have much more in-depth knowledge of their subject areas than someone teaching at previous levels of education. Therefore, it would seem imperative to have the strongest possible degree in the field in which one wants to teach (or a closely allied field). So, in this particular case, a degree in English would be more useful than education. If "secondary" means "high school," the calculus changes quite a bit, as what is expected often will vary from state to state or even school district to school district. You should see if an education degree is required, or if a lower level of proficiency (such as some form of certification) is sufficient. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: Assuming you are in the U.S., a master's degree in English may qualify you to teach at a community college (but there are enough unemployed Ph.D.s in English that the competition is tough for those with only a master's degree). It would definitely not be enough for a regular faculty position at a four-year college, but it could be a step towards earning a Ph.D. A master's degree in education could be a valuable credential in secondary education, depending on how your school system handles it, but it counts for nothing if you'd like to teach English at the college level. (Furthermore, it doesn't qualify you to teach in a department of education, which would require a doctorate.) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: With regard to your professional goals, I would hazard the following: A master of education can offer state teacher certification, allowing one to teach in public schools and abroad. This qualification is of utmost importance to public schools but of comparatively limited importance to private or independent schools. Nearly all public schools will consider the credentials equivalent for the purpose of pay increases, so long as both masters are regionally accredited. In private or independent schools, a master in discipline will generally be given substantially more weight by hiring authorities than a master of education, unless the latter was earned at Harvard, Columbia, or other similarly prestigious institutions. Teaching at university (and increasingly at community college) will de - facto require a PhD, unless you possess truly extraordinary, publicly acclaimed research or teaching experience, or you know the hiring authorities personally and they are disposed to offer you a position typically granted to PhD recipients. A U.S. master in English will likely not be available by distance learning and may be extremely costly to pursue without a TA, which at programs of distinction would very likely be offered to PhD students. Certain DL options from the UK exist (I reference in particular Birmingham and Wales Trinity Saint David), but unless backed by a PhD from a leading university would be unlikely to lead to university employment in the U.S. except for adjunct or non tenured roles. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/27	1,698	7,603	<issue_start>username_0: I've created an improved textual parsing algorithm, as a part of my hobby project. In comparison to existing ones, it provides better performance and memory efficiency. I haven't published my project yet. The question is, is there any way I can convert this research to a PhD? Or anything else I can do to improve my scientific karma? (I'm not a professional scientist, just a programmer with bachelor's degree). How much bureaucracy does this involve?<issue_comment>username_1: If you think you have done some research, just show your work to a professor in your department who has similar research interest to your research project and ask him your questions about your research. That professor can tell you whether you really have done some valuable research, whether it can be published or you can work more on your research and improve it. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: What you should do right now depends on the nature of the improvements that you have made: * If your new algorithm achieves its improvement due to some shift in how you represent or think about the problem, then it's probably worth publishing. You don't need to be in any special position to publish: anybody can write a paper. Look at where the competing algorithms that you outperform are published, and how they are presented and evaluated in those papers, and you've got a good template to start from. * If your new algorithm is mainly an improvement because of a whole bunch of little tweaks and optimizations, or because of how you've coded it, then it's probably not worth publishing, but definitely worth sharing as a software engineering artifact. It may not be scientific karma, but it's definitely computer programmer karma. Getting a Ph.D. is a whole different matter, which involves a lot more than just doing a piece of research (though that's certainly part of it). If you want to pursue a Ph.D., it will be a multi-year process with a lot more scientific contributions involved. This work that you have done, however, could definitely be helpful evidence of research ability and help you get admitted to a program. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: The short answer is that you may be able to, but it's unlikely. In more detail, performing academic research requires much more than an interesting finding. Researchers requires domain-specific expertise, familiarity with past research (both successful and unsuccessful), ability to actually perform the research at hand, knowledge of how to write, submit, edit, and respond to comments for an academic journal, among other skills. From your post, it appears that you may have found an interesting text parsing approach. How does that fit in to the current approaches described in academic literature? Are others doing work similar to it? Has it already been proposed? What are the pros and cons relative to other work, both past and current? From the perspective of a PhD thesis, you would have to not only be interested in the algorithm itself, but finding the answers to most of the questions listed above. At that point, you could see whether your algorithm may be able to lead to a thesis. If that's the case, then you'd have to go through the trouble of getting accepted to a graduate program which is host to a professor doing similar research, getting into said professor's lab, and working through related coursework, yadda yadda yadda. Basically, it's possible, but it would be a long haul. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_4: Is it really novel and useful? ------------------------------ A big issue is if the contribution (algorithm in this case) is actually academically novel and useful. This is a nontrivial question to answer and requires an expert in the field or a serious review of academic literature to find out what exactly is the state of art for this problem. When people have made an improvement "in comparison to existing ones" then usually, sadly, it means "in comparison to widely used existing ones". The criteria that matters is "in comparison to the best results ever published anywhere" - for research to be publishable you'd have to reasonably claim that you already know everything that has been tried before for this problem and are comparing against the best approaches known to other academic experts in the field. If you haven't verified this, then it is quite likely that the same thing or something offering much better results have already been published elsewhere Common knowledge, textbooks, widely used toolkits, etc usually lag the 'bleeding edge' by years or even decades. If someone else has done and published this before (doesn't matter if you knew this), then it's not novel research relevant to a PhD thesis even if most people are not aware of it and are using something inferior. Academic publications --------------------- If it is novel and useful, and you want academic credit for it, then this credit is measured in citable publications. Blog posts and public source code don't really count as that. In Computer Science, the usual venue is respectable academic conferences and publication in their proceedings (for an 'improved textual parsing algorithm' <http://idibon.com/top-nlp-conferences-journals/> may be relevant). Respected venues tend to be rather competive with low acceptance percentages. As an alternative, a solid academic-style paper on arxiv.org may be appropriate. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: I'm also "just a programmer with bachelor's degree". I've been having a hobby project for several years. Some time ago I realized that my project could be interesting from the scientific point of view (it's not a groundbreaking result, but it has some novelty and it's somewhat surprising). I wrote a paper as an independent researcher and submitted it to a relevant conference. The paper was rejected, but I got very meaningful and valuable feedback from the reviewers. After a lot of work I had the second version of the paper. This version was much better and it was accepted to a good ACM conference. I'm not sure if I'm going to pursue a PhD, but as far as I understand, a published paper is definitely a plus for a PhD admission. I didn't encounter too much bureaucracy (nobody was concerned about my lack of academic affiliation), but writing a paper is a lot of work. Also be prepared to pay $$$ for a conference ticket if your paper is accepted. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: There are some Master's Program, like Concordia, that call themselves "life experience" Master's Programs. I think they lean towards documenting professional experiences, but if your hobby experiences are sufficiently documented, perhaps that will count. For the first time, I've seen such degrees on a CV for a very special kind of instructor's position. I think it got the person through the door, and the person got the offer. When we found out it was a life experience Master's nobody on the search committee-- including me -- seemed to mind. Human Resources is having an interesting time with it, but I think that correctly used such degrees can have value. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_7: Rather than aiming at a Ph.D you might do better to look for a suitable M. Phil programme. It may be possible to achieve an M.Phil purely on the basis of a dissertation, but even if there are other requirements, it may be possible to enrol in a distance learning scheme which would give you access to mentoring etc. and allow you to focus what was previously your hobby in a more academic direction. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/28	306	1,291	<issue_start>username_0: I have reviewed the theoretical trajectory of my research topic and I see gaps that I would like to fill with my own proposed theory. Is it too early in my career to put forward a theory? I am just a PhD student. If I can put forth a theory at this stage, what is the best way to go about it? Will the fact that I am a junior faculty member and a student affect the reception of my theory in the international scholarship community?<issue_comment>username_1: of course. that is the nature of a PhD. Of course, if it is anything contentious then you need to have arguments and evidence. And of course "extraordinary theories require extraordinary evidence". That said, coming up a hypothesis or two is evidence of critical thought. Be prepared to defend it. And do so with courtesy and good will. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A theory (assuming you mean hypothesis or idea, not proven theorem) is the start of the process. You might come up with one at any time! Of course it will probably be wrong: this is nothing against you, its just that most interesting theories turn out to be wrong. The interesting challenge, and most of the work, comes next, when you try to show that the theory is true or false, either empirically or analytically... Upvotes: 3
2015/01/28	1,405	5,892	<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently in my second semester of college at university in the United States, and am currently majoring in Computer Engineering. I passed a lot of AP tests in high school, all of which gave me college credit. Because of this, if I take only the bare-minimum of required classes for my major, I'll end up averaging ~10 hours per semester for the next 6 semesters. Due to the way pre-requisite classes are set up, it's impossible for me to graduate early. And besides, I have a full scholarship, so I don't want to graduate early. My question is this: I can take as many credits outside of my major as I need inside my major. How can I make the most of this freedom? I plan to pursue a career in robotics (Ideally at NASA, but that's a long shot), so I want to use my next three years to help that dream. The way I see it, there's a few obvious options: * Dual Major. I could probably get a dual major with any other engineering major if I was determined enough, but Computer Science or Electrical Engineering have enough overlapping classes that they would make the most sense. * Triple major. This sounds pretty ridiculous, but it is an option. I could potentially major in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and still graduate in the normal 4 years while taking a maximum of 18 hours per semester. Of course, this would be pushing it a little. If I had one conflict of two different classes being taught at the same time, I wouldn't have room to fix it. And then there's the problem of stress: I'm taking 18 hours now, and have loads of free time, but half of those hours are freshman-level courses. I think I'd be able to handle 18 hours of junior- and senior-level classes, but I can't know until I try it. * Take interesting classes. There's a lot of classes that I'd like to take that aren't required by my major (artificial intelligence, digital image processing, intro to relativity). However, there's not really enough to fill the amount of space I have. * Take fewer hours and get a job or internship. This is not much of an option, because my scholarships require that I take at least 15 hours per semester, which still leaves a lot of empty space in my schedule. * Start a Master's degree. My university allows undergraduate seniors to begin working toward a graduate degree if they are taking few enough undergraduate credit hours. My goal is to attend a different school for a Master's degree, but that plan will probably change several times between now and when I graduate. (I'm a teenager. We make stupid decisions.) * Research. I go to a fairly large university, so there's plenty of research opportunities. * Study abroad. This is fairly low on my list of priorities, but who knows? That may change. It's always an option. The idea of taking a lot of classes solely because I'm interested is very appealing, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't add as much to a resume as, say, a dual degree. And I am very interested in the material in my major, so it's not as if I'm going to have to suffer through my required classes. So, in summary: I have room to take an entire second major's worth of classes in my next 6 semesters of college. What should I do to best further my dream of working as a NASA robotics engineer?<issue_comment>username_1: I am surprised not to see getting involved in research projects on your list. At many schools, you can get academic credit for research. It is often no good for satisfying requirements, but that sounds like that's not a problem for you. Getting involved in research is an excellent way to further your dreams, especially in getting on the track for graduate school. It can also introduce you to lots of interesting material that you would never encounter in a class. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering should have a ton of overlap, and depending on course structure, EE might even be better suited for robotics at your university. Your instincts are right: Computer Science would be the next logical thing to major in, and in addition to being useful for robotics, it's very useful in general, should robotics not pan out immediately. I'm not sure I'd recommend triple-majoring in your case, largely because you know what you want to do, and the above dual should get you there. Concerning the 18 credit hour question, I can but give you my experience when I foolishly took 21 during senior year: the stars aligned to make every project from all classes due on successive weeks (rather than being bunched up at once). Were it not for that happenstance, things would have been a lot harder to organize. You'd likely be able to handle 18 of upper level classes, but it may well come down to factors out of your control. If you can do an internship in a related field, that'd likely open more doors for you without the commitment of a Master's degree. If that doesn't pan out, research would be a great next thing to do. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: A double major in CE and EE would be pretty cool (sounds like 5V isn't enough for you, anyways!). Instead of triple majoring with CS, maybe fill the rest of the free space with some useful math (or physics) courses. As far as math goes, I assume you will take at least one differential equations course and one linear algebra course. Try to take another of each, if you uni offers it. Other courses to consider: * vector analysis * numerical analysis * discrete math A pure math course or two like combinatorics couldn't hurt, either, especially for artificial intelligence. Computer science courses that could be useful would be courses that you may have already taken for CE, such as * microprocessors * computer systems and assembly language Basically anything relating to control engineering would be helpful in your case. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/28	2,268	9,578	<issue_start>username_0: I'm a math grad student in my first year, which means that I have not yet taught a class (in my program first years grade or provide one-on-one tutoring for students who struggle in calculus). I have facial aphasia, which means that I am completely unable to recognize people's faces. After a while (upwards a year) I can reliably recognize someone based on how they move, dress, wear their hair and so on. Before that I will just have a vague feeling that I recognize someone, but I can't put a name to them . It happens that I can't recognize people I've lived with for several years, or, on a few memorable occasions, my own family members. This causes some problems on occasion, but nothing I haven't been able to work out. However, up until now the people I've been expected to learn to recognize have been friends, or coworkers I see every day that I can explain my problem with faces to. My question is: How do I handle teaching when I can't recognize my students and it would take me a year minimum to learn their faces? I know from my own experience that good instructors / TAs learn their students' names and faces and this helps motivate the students to learn, because they notice that their teacher cares about them. How can I compensate for my facial aphasia? EDIT: Thank you for all the great responses! I feel a lot more confident that I can do well as a TA with all these ideas to work with :)<issue_comment>username_1: Unless it is too embarrassing to you, you might actually consider simply telling your students about your facial aphasia at the beginning of the semester. You can explain that even though you care about them and know who they are as people and students, you won't be able to recognize them by appearance. A more familiar condition you might make an analogy to is color-blindness. You might then ask them to identify themselves by something that you will be able to recognize them by. For example: * If it's a small class, you might make name tags to sit on students' desks in front of them during class. * In a large class, you might ask students to say their name when they ask a question. You know your condition best, of course, and what things will work well for you. You are, of course, admitting a weakness and some of the nastier undergraduates might attempt to use it to play pranks on you or to cheat in some way. I suspect, though, that at that age in most cases it may be better to play it straight and people will respect you more for doing that than for attempting to hide it. Upvotes: 6 <issue_comment>username_2: How about learning from a seating plan? If the class have designated seats, take a note of where each student sits in the class with their corresponding name and then learn that. It may take a while but it will take much less than a year to master. For me, this idea spawns from waiters in a restaurant, they have to learn the floor plan extremely quickly, and remembering a customers surname when serving 10 tables at once will be very difficult. So having the customers name assigned to a table number makes it much easier to manage. Good luck in your teaching and I do agree that you should be honest with your students and tell them that you do have this condition. Hopefully they will understand you are trying and support you throughout! Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: I am absolutely terrible with names and faces. I simply can't remember them. I will forget the name of my next door neighbor of eight years. I have a friend who has facial blindness and I know that there is a difference with what she has. My own version is closer to facial aphasia (recognizes face but cannot recall name) rather than blindness (cannot recognize face), so please take my comments in that context. I am upfront with my students about this at the beginning of the semester. I tell them I will forget their names repeatedly, but it doesn't mean I don't care about them. They do get confused because one week I will remember their names and then the next week, it'll be an utter blank. It then becomes a little bit of a running joke in the class but that's ok. I try not to stress too much over it. Note that there are different strategies for lectures (i.e. big classes where there is minimal expectation that you will have to remember names) and for seminars and discussion groups (where some students will expect you to remember their name). Finally, doctoral students in your own lab will also expect their names to be remembered, but since those are a longer term presence, this can be less of an issue. Here are some techniques that can be useful for larger classes and for seminars: * As some have mentioned, some course management systems have "photo rosters." I don't find these useful because 1/4 of my students go by nicknames or middlenames that don't show in the CMS. And the photos are very old. And if I could remember someone's name by looking at their face, I wouldn't have this problem to begin with. * You can ask students to always sit in the same seat each day. For seminars, during roll call, I write down the seating arrangement of the students in my roll call chart. In some schools, students have assigned seating. And so instead of recognizing the face, I can associate the seat with the name -- so I ask Jillian-who-sits-in-the-back-left, not Jillian-who-has-a-face-I-can't-remember. * I have asked students who look very similar to sit apart. They giggle and think it's a joke, but after a while they realize I really do have a problem and generally comply. * I ask students to try to wear the same distinctive item. For example, I remembered one student because of the eyeglasses that he wore. The frame stuck better in my mind than his face. When he changed his glasses, 'poof' it was gone. * I ask students for mnemonics. One student named Steve, I only remembered because he was Japanese-American and made a peace sign, so 'V' -> Steve. Some students can come up with good mnemonics, others can not. * You can ask students to have name placards, although most lose them in the first few weeks (and for me, my problem lasts longer than that). * You can ask them to always say their own name when speaking up. In seminar, you can have them say their own name as well as physically say the name of the student who preceded them in a comment: "This is Charlie, I want to follow up with what Alice just said there...." * You can make it a running joke so that the students know that they have to help you constantly. Students are usually surprised when I forget the names of even the most active students in the class, that's when they recognize that it's equal opportunity facial aphasia and that they need to step in to help me. * You can have your teaching fellow help you. For example, if I talk to a student after class and forget their name, I ask my TF to tell me. * In seminar, I occasionally nominated a student to go around the table saying all of the names. It helped when I realized that the students only knew half the names. Better than me, but still it showed that we are all fallible. It also encouraged the quieter students to be more vocal if they wanted to be remembered by their peers. * You can design your classes so that it isn't important for you to have instant recall of their names. * Ask for things in writing. I have trouble remembering the names of students who come up to me after lecture asking for a variance on their grade or attendance policy. I ask them to send such requests to me by e-mail. * You can schedule your office hours so students have to sign up with their names in order to see you (i.e., avoid an 'open door' office policy). That way you can greet them by name (and look up their records) before they come. * For your advisees, you can keep a portfolio on your computer where you record their name, face, year, identifying characteristics (student who always wears a vest, is a smoker (recognize by smell), etc.), and then things about their academic and family life that you'll need the next time you meet them. In summary, it's not the end of the world and many faculty have difficult with this. Students recognize that they're just one in many. They also recognize the difference between professors who forget who they are because they are apathetic, and faculty who care but genuinely have trouble with this issue. One or two students will consistently raise it in my student evaluations at the end of the semester, but there are enough more positive comments to overwhelm them. Again, you'll find many faculty with some version of this. You can ask your learning and teaching center at your school for other tips and techniques. Note: You may want to register this as a disability with the disability office. As a student, you may be able to get some support (i.e., an assistant teaching assistant). As a faculty member, it might be helpful to have this in your file so that student complaints about this do not count against you when you are reviewed for promotion and tenure. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: In my experience, students tend to pick a favorite seat and stick to it unless forced to move around. I suspect that if you made a chart of your students favorite positions in the first week, it would be pretty accurate for the rest of the term. Making this chart could also be a good opportunity for you to explain your situation to your students and to ask them to stay in their locations, without making them feel that you are assigning seats as in grade school. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/28	1,361	5,687	<issue_start>username_0: I've interviewed for a few positions, one of which has made me an offer. I'm very pleased with the offer, but I prefer some of the other positions. I have the luxury of being able to take a lot of time to decide whether or not I accept this offer, so I'm certain I will hear back (either positively or negatively) from the other positions before a decision is required for the offer I've received. I'm trying to decide between two courses of action, and I want to choose the one that will best help my candidacy with the positions I've yet to hear from. Plan 1 is to do nothing and simply wait to hear back from the other positions for which I've already interviewed. Plan 2 is to be in touch with the other positions to let them know I have an offer, and ask where I stand with them. Would Plan 2 make me a more desirable candidate with the other positions, as they might see my offer as further validation of my credentials? Or, might initiating with the interviewers in this way be detrimental to my candidacy, perhaps making me seem pushy or self-centered? If so, I would rather just wait for them to run their course of action (Plan 1). As I've said, I have plenty of time, so I don't want impatience to hurt me. If there is a good chance that my meddling will be detrimental, then I'd rather be hands-off here. However, if it's more likely that informing the other interviewers of my offer will give me a boost, then I'd want to do so. Thanks for any clarity you can provide! Edit: For a bit more information and context, the position I've been offered is a non-academic research position that my advisor has described as "prestigious." The other positions for which I've interviewed (and which I prefer) are mostly academic teaching-centered positions (visiting assistant professors, tenure-track at smaller four year institutions).<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, congratulations! I think you should take Plan 1 at least for now, that is to do nothing and simply wait to hear back from the other positions for which you've already interviewed. The reasons are, 1. You prefer some of the other positions 2. You really don't know Plan 2 (to be in touch with the other positions to let them know you have an offer) will be helpful or harmful for you to get the other positions 3. You still have plenty of time to think about it. During this waiting period, you may want to find more information about the organization who offered you the research position. Is the offer truly good? Would you be happy when you work there? (It seems to me you like teaching better). In the mean time, if any of the teaching position offers arrives, you can make a smart decision then. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The argument for plan 2 is that if you have an offer from employer A with a particular deadline but you would prefer to take a position with employer B, then if you don't say something, employer B could take too long to decide what to do and you'd be forced to take offer A before employer B gets around to making you an offer. I've been on the employer side of this (as both employer A and employer B.) Keep in mind that once a search committee has completed interviews it has to meet to decide on who should be offered the position and then this has to be reviewed by higher level administrators (deans or vice presidents) and that the process can take time (days or weeks.) It may be possible to expedite this process if there's a particular deadline, or it may not. I think that if you've decided that you'll take offer A by a particular deadline if you have no other offers (and that you wouldn't break your contract with employer A after accepting the offer), then you should tell the other potential employers about the offer and the deadline (I wouldn't mention employer A's name or the specific amount of the offer.) It's not likely to hurt your chances with these other employers, but it could help motivate them to get an offer out to you in a timely fashion. I have received this kind of information from job candidates in the past. Unfortunately, I've always had to say that (because we had other candidates scheduled for on campus interviews) that we couldn't make an offer before the deadline. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Would Plan 2 make me a more desirable candidate with the other positions, as they might see my offer as further validation of my credentials? > > > This is a bit of a crap shot, I am afraid. How this may be perceived also depends on whether the other institutions perceive your offer as less, about equal, or more attractive than their own position. Case 1 - less attractive: They will probably not care too much about your other offer. They assume that you will likely take theirs if you get an offer, and the fact that you have an offer for a position that they assume is easier to get won't fundamentally change their assessment of you. If the other offer is perceived as much worse they may question why you have even applied for this, and wonder whether you think yourself that you are very unlikely to get their position. Case 2 - about the same: In this case, I think this may make you seem like a better candidate. At least it will show that other people also think that you are good enough for the job you are applying to. It may be a minor factor, though. Case 3 - more attractive: They will probably assume that you will either take the more attractive alternative option anyway (and hence will be much less likely to offer you a job), or that you will negotiate very hard. Both are not exactly plusses for your application. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/28	1,545	6,601	<issue_start>username_0: Given that it's a very broad question I'll try to create some context: I'm in my first year (just started) and at the moment my task as PhD student is closer to learn the techniques and technologies used in the department than to real work. Almost in a weekly basis I receive small tasks which, once completed, are reported and then substituted by a new small task. However, sometimes the task is completed and no report is due (for whatever the reason) so I'm stuck with no excuse to go to my supervisor's office and no work to do on account of not going to my supervisor's office. My supervisor is a very busy person and so I have always the feeling I'm intruding when I 'request' (by mail or simply going to his office) to talk to him. I would like to build some cofidence with my supervisor, but I don't really know how to approach him in the first place. Any tips? Ps:I was sure someone would've asked this before, but I couldn't find anything so I would like to apologise in advance just in case it has already been asked.<issue_comment>username_1: Just talk to your advisor when you feel you need his input. All of the busy people I know (myself included) want the people they work with to let them know if things are ahead of schedule. When I supervise a student, someone has to be moving things along. If the student takes responsibility for that, and can be counted on to come to me when he/she needs my input, it's much less work for me than the students I have to monitor more actively. Having said that, there are several things that can also help: * Ask your supervisor to discuss the "big picture" with you. This way you'll understand what these small tasks are getting at and can make a reasonable guess as to what the next task will be. This will help with your problem and will also help you develop your skills as an independent researcher (which is what you're training for, after all). * Develop your own research interests (either side projects, or related to the work you're doing with your advisor) and work on those when you're "blocked" waiting for your advisor. This, too, will also help you develop your skills as an independent researcher. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: At this point you should assign new tasks to yourself. If you don't know what to do, reading books or papers in the field may be a good start. If he's already given you a real research question, you should start thinking of things you can do to solve it yourself, without him feeding you the way to do it. Lots of people can carry out tasks that other people assign, but you'll stand out if you contribute your own approaches to solving the problem, and show that you're an independent researcher. Alternatively, you can email him early and see if he replies, and while you're waiting you can work on other things. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: Across the course of your Ph.D., you are expected to develop into a independent researcher capable of formulating and pursuing your own independent research agenda. Right now, you're behaving like an undergraduate waiting to get your next problem set, rather than like a scientist. This is pretty common for new Ph.D. students, but you're going to have to grow past this point if you want to be a researcher. A good way to think of these small tasks that you are being given is as "training wheels," feeding you a research agenda one incremental step at a time, in the hopes that you will start to figure out how to choose the next step on your own. When you finish a task, try to figure out what the next interesting thing to do in pursuing this research might be, and do that until your next meeting with your advisor. Then, when you meet, you can say you finished the task early, and tell about what you did next. Your advisor will likely be very happy that you are showing initiative, and can give you feedback to help you learn to make more and more productive research choices on your own. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: You can either use the suggestions offered above, which are fine, and both offer paths to moving on to a new task, but I offer an alternative which might apply. Think about whether you're really finished with the task at hand, and consider if there are ways you could do it better, learn about it more, extend your research .... On a smaller scale, if you're using Pomodoro time management, and you finish your task in the middle of a Pomodoro, you don't stop, or rest, or move on to the next task. You finish better. You cross every t and dot every i. On a larger scale, when somebody brings be a program that they said they "finished" that has an involved user interface, I'll sit down with them and hit wrong buttons in the interface until its crashed. Then I explain about rigorous testing, failure mode analysis, etc, and tell the coder to bring it back to me when its bulletproof. If the program controls big pieces of moving equipment designed to move research subjects, I tell them that when they think the code is ready, they can be the first rider! This is just a suggestion for consideration, and sometimes the approach could be valuable. Other times, you really would be wasting time if you took this approach. Use it judiciously. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You can either treat it as if you were seeking an audience with Kublah Khan in which case you should approach your supervisor with decorum and due reverence whilst being careful not startle him. Then receive some sign that they have acknowledged your presence and then wait for some further indication that you may approach. Or Accept that you are a Ph.D student on merit deserving of his time and attention. If you find him awkward try formally booking a meeting slot but be respectful of his time and never request more time than is really necessary. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: I would suggest sending an email to an account you know he uses frequently and say something like the following using a subject line; Subject: Assignment Completed Dr. Name, I've finished the "whatever assignment" you gave me the other day. At your convenience, let me know when you want me to speak with you again. Contact me at this address or at this cell number. Thanks, Name Sending a very short email like this is not intruding, and, if he gets upset by this, be prepared to be saddled with a lousy (personality wise) supervisor for quite some time. Getting irritated by that very short, humble, informative email is completely unreasonable. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/28	1,380	5,988	<issue_start>username_0: I am writing my master of science thesis and I am not sure whether I should add some of the code I have written: they are not proper programs, but more like input files to be fed to a commercial program (Nastran) very popular in my field. My concerns are related to the fact that I am not making any discovery, just applying the things I have learned reading the manual. Still, I feel the code will make the effort I put into the thesis to also learn this language clearer.<issue_comment>username_1: Making your code available along with your thesis can be very helpful to other researchers who are trying to reproduce your results. I'd encourage you to do this. However, you should not simply insert a printout of your code into the text of the thesis, since that will make it difficult (practically impossible) for someone to use the code that they obtain from a printed copy of the thesis or even a .PDF of the thesis. Rather, you should put the code into some online repository (such as e.g. github) so that others can download the code from the web. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: @username_1's answer is sound, and it sounds like it would apply best in your case. However, if you used a particularly interesting or novel algorithm to generate your input files (that is, you had unusual insight into how best to solve your problem that might help others), then in addition to linking your code to an online repository, you could provide a pseudocode description of that algorithm in your main body or an appendix, depending on flow. (If you're not sure if your process is sufficiently interesting, ask your advisor.) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: My take on this -- in a physics PhD -- was that code that had a bearing on the results should be included in the appendix. I read in the entire source of my data-processing routines (using the listings package in LaTeX) and included them. But I skipped bits like 40 consecutive lines of assigning defaults to variables (0s for later incrementing) or writing a default config file: ![Skipped lines](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6fd3Y.png) (check the line numbers in the example) This is easy to do in listings, as is setting monospaced fonts and code highlighting. I'm not saying this is the right way of doing it, just a sensible way. I may not even have implemented this approach as well as I could have done. Of course, this will depend on your field. In my case the code was an important processing step in the results of some tricky new experiments. No-one is realistically going to want to replicate my code, checking some aspects of it is another matter. And yes, I do have every intention of making it available as well -- but it would be of limited use given that my coding style could at best be described as "scientist, self taught in Python". Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: In computer science, I am very much used to (and encourage) theses that contain any noteworthy code snippets as floats. In fact, as theses provide virtually unlimited space, there is no need for the extreme brevity of papers and a Concept chapter that describes the rationale for design decisions in the developed concept is usually followed by an Implementation chapter that can describe the implemented version in depth, including (but not limited to) showing presentation-worthy excerpts of the source code. In most cases, this does not mean that whole source code files should be printed. This is usually referring to a few lines of code, or single methods that implement a specific algorithm. For input/output files, things are similar, and they may be even more important than code snippets, as they may explain the handling and actual output of a prototype developed as a part of the thesis. *Contrary to various other answers here, I advise against* putting any source code in the appendix in the usual case. The appendix is for extensive information that may be needed for further reference, but which is too "boring" to integrate in its entirety in the main body of text. This implies that the information in the appendix should be optimized so it can be taken advantage of in a meaningful way. In other words, the appendix in a (printed) document may be good for human-readable questionnaires or sets of tables, but full source code files should always be delivered in digital form (and in universities I am familiar with, (at least CS) theses have to be handed in as printed documents that are accompanied by a CD). Source code snippets that go into the main body of text as floats serve the same purpose as figures, tables or formulas in the main body of text - they illustrate something which would be too cumbersome to describe in the text.** Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_5: Adding code snippets in the text achives two goals: first, it shows the implementation details and, second, it documents the code. The two goals are of course closely related and complement each other. In order to be valuable, however, the code should be split into parts (called chunks) that come in logical order in the text rather than in the order they are executed by a computer. (Thus no full code listing in an appendix.) In this way the code becomes an integral part of the text. This is an old idea of Don Knuth, known as [literate programming](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming). There are programs such as [noweb](http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/noweb/) that automatically extract the code and the human readable text from one source file. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_6: I think you must contact your supervisor for a proper answer for this question because he/she will be the person who is going to evaluate your thesis. If your course is more into technical stuff you might have to add more code than for a theoretical MSc. My personal advice is to contact your supervisor/lecturer/tutor and get their opinion. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/28	385	1,812	<issue_start>username_0: I applied to a few US universities last year and they rejected my application because of my low GRE scores. Now I want to reapply again to the same universities. Can you explain the process to reapply? My concern is about application fees. Is it required to pay application fees for the second time?<issue_comment>username_1: Generally, there is nothing special about a reapplication; you apply just as if you were applying for the first time. You will submit all the required materials again. Of course, you will submit updated transcripts and scores, and you will probably have revised or rewritten your application essay, so you'll submit the updated version. Letters of recommendation will also need to be resubmitted; you should ask your letter writers to update their letters to reflect whatever you have been doing in the last year. And yes, you do have to pay another application fee. Most institutions will give your new application a fresh look; the fact that you have previously applied and been rejected should not prejudice them against your current application. (However, people are human, and if some of the same people are still on the admission committee, they may have some memories of the weaknesses they saw in your previous application.) Of course, to have a better chance of acceptance this time, you should have made yourself a stronger applicant! Hopefully you have better GRE scores and stronger letters of recommendation, and can report some additional helpful and relevant coursework or work experience in the year since your last application. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In short? Yes. Application fees cover the administrative costs of reviewing your application. Every time you apply to these schools, you will need to pay the fees. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/28	390	1,616	<issue_start>username_0: I am organising a conference. This will take place in 6 months time. One of the invited speakers works on a topic that is highly related to my research interests. I would like to propose a specific collaboration to this professor, but I feel that the fact that I invited him to the conference (I am paying for his accommodation, expenses ...) may induce some pressure to accept my invitation to collaborate. I wonder whether I should just wait after the conference to tell him about this project or if it is OK to tell him now? The reason I want to tell him now is that I would not like to wait for another 6 months to start this project.<issue_comment>username_1: I don't see any ethical dilemma here unless you threaten to retract his invitation. Don't even hint at it. You liked his work enough to invite him to speak, you should feel free to invite him to collaborate. If he declines, thank him for considering it and tell him you're looking forward to his talk this summer. If he shows interest in collaborating, keep the email conversation going, set up a phone call, etc, etc, and see where it goes. You might be able to use his visit to get some real work done (write a paper, write some code, write a grant, etc) if you're already agreed to collaborate. Don't waste your time between now and then. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I don't think it's so much an "ethical" issue as just "personal awkwardness"... If I were on the receiving end of this, I'd feel a bit put off, and I think I'd never propose such, especially to a more senior person in that situation. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/28	959	3,932	<issue_start>username_0: I work at a University Library in Canada, we've recently produced a promotional video for a book scanner. In the video, we demonstrate the use of the book scanner using a random book off the shelf, but the focus is always on the scanner, never on the pages of the book (though there are some shots where you can see pictures, and at least one where you can read a title on the page). One of the Librarians is under the impression that we need to cite the book and give attribution to the author. Originally we thought we could probably pass this off as incidental use, but according to the Librarian it's not, because we deliberately used that book as a prop. I've never heard of attribution being given to authors of books used as props, is this really necessary?<issue_comment>username_1: I cannot imagine it being necessary or even appropriate to cite the book. Citation is used to acknowledge the intellectual contribution of an author. No aspect of that intellectual contribution was implicated in any way in your choice of that book over any other book in the library: that book could have been replaced with literally any other book, with not the slightest difference in the intellectual content of your video. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I am not a lawyer and not familiar with Canadian copyright law, but here are some thoughts that should apply to any reasonable copyright law, might be convincing even without citing a law or that might help you on your research: * Just attributing the author should not pose any legal benefit unless for works is published under some licence (such as some Creative Commons licences) that especially requires it. So, if you actually have a copyright issue here, attributing won’t help unless the book is under such a licence. * Copyright protects creators (and copyright holders in general) only from certain things, most importantly the unwanted reproduction of their intellectual content. I find it questionable that what you did falls in any way under something that copyright law protects anybody from. For more detail, have a look at the law itself (in particular [here](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/page-4.html#h-3) and [here](http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/page-16.html#h-21)). * What you did might fall under [fair dealing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing_in_Canadian_copyright_law). If I understood it correctly, you are not showing more of the book than, e.g., is permittable for the purpose of review. However, the situation is a little bit different as you are not reviewing the book. * If I understood it correctly, there is little difference between what you did and, e.g., any documentary where somebody is interviewed in an office surrounded by hundreds of books, maybe some of them lieing plainly on the table, so you can see the cover. If legal issues were involved in making such films, people would be interviewed in plain boring rooms much more often. * You are probably seeing more intellectual content of whoever designed the cover of the book and made those images than the author of the book (though this might be the author). So why attribute the author? Finally, from the ethical point of view, I do not see any problem: The author of the book did not intelectually contribute to your video in any way. The author is not harmed by what you are doing. If at all, there is a slight benefit as you are providing free advertisement. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_3: So I actually emailed my question to [<NAME>](http://www.michaelgeist.ca/), who is a professor of law and happens to be one of the foremost experts in Canadian copyright... in the whole world. He was gracious enough to reply: > > "No. That sounds de minimis to me and does not require permission or > attribution." > > > So the answer is no, they don't need attribution. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2015/01/28	623	2,843	<issue_start>username_0: I am curious to hear some words of advice on how to select a publishing community for multi-disciplinary topics. Your contribution is that methods in area A, which is your main area, can solve problems in B more efficiently than traditionally used methods from area C. Where do you publish, A, B, or C? You are contributing a new application domain to your main area A, along with theory that supports the bridge between A and B, but your reviewers are not familiar with domain B and do not find it relevant. You are contributing new tools to the problem domain B. Finally, all of the related work is in C. This is CS research, if that helps.<issue_comment>username_1: Where you publish depends on what you are trying to do with a particular publication. From my own experience with interdisciplinary research, I would say: * Work focusing on the nature of the techniques goes to community A. These are good for building up your credibility in your home community, building your tenure case in a department of A, etc. * Work focusing on the value and contributions to the application area goes to community B. These are good for getting your work into use, building collaborations, extending into new areas, building a tenure case in a department of B, et. If your topic is something that many are thinking about, then there will also likely be some explicitly interdisciplinary AB meetings. These are often less prestigious than the single-discipline venues, but much better for networking and getting feedback on your work. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The answer of username_1 seems pretty good to me, but there is another option (to be considered with care, as the line between wise publishing and salami publishing is rather thin): to publish two papers in both A and B. The first paper would describe in depth the technique of the method and could assume knowledge in A; the second paper would assume the conclusion of the first paper (proofs and evidence and technical discussions being there) and would explain how good the method is for the B-problem you are considering, i.e. it would focus on the application of the method. The point of publishing two papers is that community B might have a hard time getting into the technical details of the A-heavy method, while you need to have them documented somewhere. The first paper might only get published in a lesser venue if community A is not appealed to much by it, but I guess that if community B is excited by your work you might be able to publish the second paper in a first-tier journal or conference. And, as mentioned in a comment, it might be that you have a good starting point for a career in B -- one need not stay in the same field for 40 years, and switching can potentially happen anytime, given the opportunities. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/29	1,264	5,632	<issue_start>username_0: I was wondering if my institute can use a figure which I made for a paper that has been published and crop it slightly and use it for press releases, etc., and instead of putting my name underneath the figure, they just put the institute's name. Is it generally OK for them to do so, or should they give me credit?<issue_comment>username_1: It depends. If (1) you once signed a contract that allows the university to do so, and (2) they contacted your publisher to obtain authorization for duplicating the figure, this may be legally allowed. That depends a bit on the laws in your country, which often differ in such matters. It is certainly bad style, though. Also, PR offices that are careful enough the think of condition (2) will typically also contact you prior to publication of the press release - especially since cropping of the figure occurred. Also: Don't attribute malice to a deed when other possibilities exist. For example, they could have asked you advisor, who said that this would be fine (whether this is OK by the advisor to do so is a different question). Also, replacing your name by the university name could have been the work of an unexperienced intern in the office, etc. Perhaps you can contact them and ask if this is a mistake. If you want to go the easy route, you could just mention that you are concerned that the figure violates the publisher's copyright and that cropping the image may not be covered by the agreement they gave. In the same mail/call, you could offer help with this potential problem by provide them with the needed source information for a proper "image citation" and helping with obtaining authorization by the publisher (if needed). You could also express genuine concerns that potential future collaborators on research questions related to the figure could use the information of you being the source to establish contact, which would potentially be beneficial for both your career and the future reputation of the university (by strengthening the research done at your institution). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: This depends a lot on your arrangement with the university, as well as the context of the figure: As [username_1](https://academia.stackexchange.com/users/7390/dctlib) has already pointed out in [their answer](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/37792/14017), first of all, the copyright legislation this is subject to has an influence on this, both with respect to you as well as any publishers of the paper. The legal side of this may also be related to whatever may be stated in any contracts you signed. Now, concerning the question whether this is a "good way" to do things, I am used to arrangements where the unspoken agreement exists that any graphic produced by an employee of the university during their work is free for PR people and similar to use in presentations. Your mileage may vary, though I personally always perceived that as extremely convenient, as that means I had more time for my research and less time being bothered by requests to help with public relations of the university or the department. There are people being paid for doing that PR work, and I am glad about every second they save of my time. Things get critical if there could be a considerable benefit by mentioning your name (that you expect to be absent if only the university or department name is mentioned). * Is the figure embedded in a press release that targets an academic audience, possibly specific to your topic? In that case, it could indeed be crucial to provide direct contact info. On the other hand, if the target audience is really that specific, I would wonder why you were not asked to write the text yourself in the first place, as PR departments are not normally specialized in accurately conveying very specific information on research. + And even if this is the case, consider the goal the university is trying to achieve - is it meant as a here-and-now info (so getting in touch with you is realistic), or is it supposed to say "This is what we did in field X in 2015.", which will then be provided as a proof for the permanent activity in your field when applying for a project grant long after you personally have left that university? * On the other hand, is the press release rather for a general audience? In such a case, figures are often not expected to be understood in depth, and are rather meant to convey a general sense of awe for the "pretty colourful things that are produced at the university". Note that this includes both public settings (newspaper articles for everyone) and professional settings (funding reports that will be checked by financial people who do not have the slightest idea about the actual content of the research and who just want to see that something is being done that justifies the expenses for staff and equipment). Lastly, it can be considered a very similar situation to how other products are attributed. Have a look into the About boxes of Microsoft Visual Studio or Google Chrome - they only say that they're by Microsoft and Google, respectively. Likewise, product description websites such as [this](http://www.softenergy.de/en/produkte/screenshots.html), [this](http://www.accentosoftware.com/en/our-products.html), or [this](http://www.torrid-tech.com/rp_screens.html) merely provide the company name as the only form of attribution along with the screenshots. The single developers or designers are not listed, but if there is any reason to contact them, that contact can certainly be established by contacting the indicated organization. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/29	987	4,216	<issue_start>username_0: I wrote my Ph.D. thesis without copy/pasting any of my prior published articles. Now that the university library got hold of my Ph.D. thesis; I'm wondering who owns the entire publishing rights of my Ph.D. thesis?<issue_comment>username_1: Did you sign an agreement to transfer copyright to someone else? Does your university policy ([example](http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html#sub3)) or employment contract specify that someone else holds the copyright to your thesis? If the answer to both questions is "no" then you, as the author of the thesis, hold the copyright. In the US, most university students retain the copyright for their thesis. Often they are required to grant the university and/or ProQuest a non-exclusive license to distribute the thesis, but without giving up copyright. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: You do, until you sign the rights away. This is regardless of whether you have a copyright page, thanks to the Berne Convention. Note that depositing it in the library does not waive any of your rights. You do transfer some rights when you deposit it through ProQuest but 1) you didn't mention doing so, 2) the form you would have signed if you had done so would have made what rights they wanted explicit, and 3) ProQuest does not request exclusive rights to publish and distribute your dissertation in any case , so you can publish parts or all of it in other venues without their permission. Note that some publishers are hesitant to publish monographs based on dissertations accessible on ProQuest but this is a business decision not legal one. They fear the availability of the ProQuest version is a market threat that draws away from the salability of a monograph based on the dissertation. As a result, some students have asked ProQuest to embargo the dissertation for a few years, which is something ProQuest is happy to do. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: A priori you own the rights. But you may have transferred them to the University (when signing a study agreement) or to a project (e.g. when you thesis is e.g. financed by an EU project) or to a company financing your thesis. Most Universities do, nowadays, give the copyright to the PhD student. Upvotes: 0 <issue_comment>username_4: I copyrighted my Ph.D. dissertation as soon as I was awarded by degree. I am the only copyright owner. The dissertation was archived through a well known group in Michigan (Dissertation Databases ProQuest Dissertations & Theses). I did not sign over or transfer my copyright to them for their archives. Anyone who wishes to use material from my dissertation must contact me for copyright permission before doing so. Anyone who publishes work using any of my original data or ideas must also cite my dissertation in their bibliography to avoid copyright infringement or plagiarism claims. I was disappointed to learn that my thesis advisor who was not a co-author of my dissertation decided to publish my work in a peer reviewed journal without my knowledge or permission. He named himself author and did not cite my dissertation in the bibliography. Neither the journal nor NYU cared to intervene on my behalf to correct and restitute me with authorship and citation as I was entitled. The only recourse a student has against the theft of their dissertation in the absence of granting copyright permission to another person who wishes to publish work from the dissertation is to apply for and obtain the copyright first. This does grant legal rights to the copyright owner in case of theft or wrong doing on the part of another person who appropriates material without permission. Graduate students should insure a written agreement or statement from the university,their mentor or their Dept. guaranteeing them authorship rights to their original dissertation research prior to beginning a lengthy Ph.D. program.....otherwise they will become unpaid slaves for five to six years and end up with nothing to show for it in the end if these rights are not secured before they begin. A word to the wise but filing for copyright ownership is a form of security should they require legal protection down the road! Upvotes: -1
2015/01/29	938	4,070	<issue_start>username_0: I am currently working at a university of applied sciences, in the field of Computer Science. Recently there has been formed a section that is in charge of giving stipends related to research. This group has put as a rule that they will only fund research that is indexed in Scimago and in Scopus, but that this could change over time. They have in mind that this would help the institution for increase their visibility in terms of research. My question is, for our field, should there be other criteria considered, such as if the publication has been indexed in ACM, IEEE Xplore, or DBLP? I mean, there are some conferences that are not considered in Scimago or in Scopus, but that have a good reputation. How to propose that change? What do you think about considering these indexing venues also?<issue_comment>username_1: Computer science is typically badly under-represented in the "traditional" citation indices, which do not consider conferences to be peer-reviewed publications. As any computer scientist knows, that is a bad joke: many computer science conferences are much more stiffly reviewed and difficult to enter than most journals. It is for this reason that DBLP was created, to actually index relevant and reputable computer science publications. I believe that DBLP should cover everything in ACM DL and IEEE Xplore, so getting just that accepted by the university should be sufficient. Unfortunately, what you are seeing is another instance of a long-running and frequently waged fight. Take heart, however, that this fight has already been won at most top institutions, and can be won at yours as well. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: In addition to username_1's answer, let me address the "How to propose that change?" question. Surely the requirement to have work indexed at Scimago and Scopus was instantiated to have some "measurable" guideline -- the initiators of the project probably wanted to avoid any discussions on what papers should count and what shouldn't later. While this is understandable, it has the problems of (1) giving people an incentive to game the system, and (2) keep people away from supporting new publication venues that are not yet on a list. So all you can do is to have them make the list of acceptable publication venues as inclusive as reasonably possible - and you will need to follow their "visibility in terms of research" line of thought to have strong arguments. Here is one idea for doing so, although it means a lot of work. 1. Check how many venues that are not already in Scimago and Scopus have been used to present research that was mentioned in connection with the Turing medal. Surely, if venues that had such an impact are missing, your request for making the list more inclusive would be reasonable. 2. There is a [CORE conference ranking](http://www.core.edu.au/index.php/conference-rankings) - Quite a lot of effort has been put into assembling it and it is or was used somehow for research funding allocation in Australia (someone else may know more about that). While such rankings are not unproblematic (and this one is based on the Australian perspective), publications in conferences ranked "A" in this list should surely count. If you find some conferences on the list that are ranked A and are not indexed in Scopus or Scimago but are indexed on DBLP, this makes a reasonably strong case for the inclusion of DBLP. You may also need to provide evidence that conference papers are so important for computer science. I think that publications on this matter have been mentioned here at academia.stackexchange, so you should also be able to find them. --- On a related note, I'm not sure if all IEEE Xplore publications are indexed by DBLP. There used to be quite a significant lag between IEEE Xplore publication and addition to DBLP (>6 months), which is very late if the data is to be used for scholarship allocation. Also, IEEE Xplore used to contain proceedings of some "spamferences", but they may have kicked them out in the meantime. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/29	542	2,367	<issue_start>username_0: I am not sure about some side-topics related to my thesis. During the development of the results I have to rely on some other mehods which are not the main topic of the thesis but since I used them to derive some approximation I then implement in the analysis I think it is useful to explain how this methods works so any reader can understand what I did and also because I spent time learning them. I was thinking to put these extra-info in an Appendix not to cause confusion in the main topic, but I am afraid they will be considered as off-topics.<issue_comment>username_1: If the methods that you are considering including in the appendix were necessary to arrive at your final results, then they certainly aren't "off topic". Without knowing your field of study or your topic of research, it's hard to give a more direct answer than that. I'm in the social sciences, and we often include mathematical proofs in our appendices in order to save space in the main text (as well as not distract from the substance). Nonetheless, given the importance of transparency, we include our proofs for review by others. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: This answer relates to my field (business) and it might be different for other fields. The guideline I have always followed, and recommend to all of my students, is that you should consider the overall "flow" of the document. That is, if you are discussing the results and what is important is the results, then focus on the results. Of course, the methodology would be included but any kind of back-story would not belong in the text because it would distract from what you are really trying to communicate. You want to avoid distraction to keep the reader's mind on topic and that is why we have appendixes. The back-story may, or may not, belong in the appendix. You should not assume that anything that does not go in the body goes in the appendix. Some information simply does not belong there at all (for example, your musings about the secret connections between Plato's early work and the shape of a doughnut). The only things which should appear in the appendix are things which are referenced in the main text. If there was no easy place to refer to it in the main text, that is a sign that you should not put it in the appendix either. Upvotes: 2 [selected_answer]
2015/01/29	583	2,416	<issue_start>username_0: I have been reading a few Q/A about plagiarism, but I still have a doubt about the use of books and papers to explain the method I am applying in my thesis. I mixed up the infos I found in a book and in a paper to explain the method (because some parts where better explained in the book and some others in the paper), of course I cited them at the beginning and I put them in the bibliography. Is this considered plagiarism since I am not using "my words" to explain it? EDIT to be clearer: I am not doing copying and paste: I am following the same flow of ideas to present the method, some parts where omitted in the paper, therefore I had to rely on the book to take care of every aspect And at the beginning I wrote:"the method is fully explained here [1][2] and it is here reported for completeness<issue_comment>username_1: If you are using somebody else's words, you need to make this fact clear and explicit via quotation/block quotation; to do otherwise is clearly plagiarism, even if you are splicing together multiple different sources into some sort of Frankenparagraph. If you are making a complex remix of two sources, proper quotation may feel very choppy and incoherent, however, so you are probably better off paraphrasing into your own words instead. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: The short answer is "you have to be careful"; as with everything, style matters, and there might be style restrictions about how you cite that your discipline imposes. For maximum protection, one thing to keep in mind is that, because you've interleaved text from two different sources, it's a bad idea to copy those things verbatim since each part would need to be directly quoted and cited, and that interrupts the flow. Instead, paraphrase or reword the blending. You'll still need to cite, but how you do it would depend on the size of the text. Absent any other direction, I'd recommend the following. * If you have a paragraph of now-blended text, at the end of that paragraph make your citations for the two different sources. * If you have, say, half a page or more of now-blended text, then introduce it in the beginning of that text as "The following approach comes from [1] and [2]:". (Replace [1] and [2] with whatever the citations are supposed to look like.) In any case, always make clear what didn't come out of your head. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]
2015/01/29	1,067	4,519	<issue_start>username_0: I noticed that I have more and more serious problems keeping focused, and despite my efforts to fix it the problem is just getting worse over time. When I'm in a research-related discussion with someone, my mind easily wanders, and I won't be able to recall the last thing other person was saying so I have to politely ask them to repeat it. Usually this is because I'm still thinking about the last idea they mentioned instead of continuing to listen to them talk, but sometimes it's just as if my mind just turned off for the duration of a sentence of two. At least when I'm talking to one person, I can always ask them to repeat what they said or ask them to slow down. But when it's a group discussion or a lecture/talk, this is not possible. When I was an undergraduate and attended lectures regularly, I didn't have this problem. Am I alone with this problem, or do others encounter it too? What strategies can one use to improve concentration and comprehension? How can I train myself to focus better? I am very concerned about this problem as it affects my academic work and performance.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a common issue I have when attending a talk or discussing on some intense topic with a collaborator. Since English is not my first language, I also happen to spend some time mentally translating it to my internal language (which is a mix of many by now). Personally, some mental homework and meditation has helped me focus. Looking at the abstract and author bio (if available) before the talk helps. Experience gained from attending more and more talks has also helped. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I think it helps to ask as many questions as you can reasonably get away with asking, about whatever parts of the talk you are able to formulate questions about. As well as helping you understand the thing itself that you are asking about, it slows down the talk (which might be appreciated by others as well as by yourself) and also may help to keep you engaged. (Of course, the number of questions that you can reasonably get away with asking may depend on the speaker, the type of talk, and the audience.) Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: What you describe sounds remarkably like burnout (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_%28psychology%29>) - the effort and amount of material and time involved after undergrad are often greater than during undergrad. It may not be possible, but downshifting or taking a break for focusing on other avenues could also help - if it is burnout "pushing through" can exacerbate the situation (you note that it seems to be getting worse). If it is not possible to take an actual break or temporarily reduce workload/hours, it might help to enforce personal time to focus on other tasks (for instance reading a book for pleasure, going on a hike over a weekend, playing a video game, volunteering at a local charity, etc.). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Snap a rubber band on your wrist. If it is a lecture, take notes. You could use the program Lumosity to improve your brain's attention span, memory, etc. Ask questions, but only good ones... Don't annoy people, or they will hate you forever. Not really, but still. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: I find that writing - note taking - helps me greatly. If I'm just listening then my mind wanders (problems of middle-age: one's mind is not as flexible as once it was!) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_6: You should first attend to any lifestyle factor that may be disrupting your ability to focus and maintain short-term attention. Most important is sleep. Make sure you have regular, consistent sleep of sufficient quality and quantity. This means going to bed at the same time each night, and waking up the same time each day. Avoid alcohol and caffeine after 6pm. Get some exercise or activity (20 min. walk) each day. Second is to avoid "multi-tasking". Stop doing two, three, or four things at once when you study, read, or attend class. TURN YOUR PHONE OFF. Be in a completely quite place. No other screens or activity on around you. If you are working on your computer, turn off your email and your messaging apps. Don't look at them for hours. Finally, start writing notes *BY HAND* when you attend lectures and group discussion, and you should aim to catch *ALL* important comments and points. If you put this level of attention into written notes, then it's hard to allow space for your mind to wander. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/29	2,456	10,555	<issue_start>username_0: I am an amateur mathematician. I am writing a research monograph in the field of abstract mathematics (general topology, specifically). Should I publish it traditionally or self-publish? There are many benefits of self-publishing (e.g with [Lulu](http://luli.com)) an academic work: 1. No need to tremble awaiting my book to be rejected by a peer review. No responses like "first publish in articles, only then make a book". I am in full control what I want to publish. 2. I don't pay the publisher 80-90% of my revenue. (This also may make AdWords marketing of my book profitable and thus I can do a rather huge advertisement of my book myself using AdWords. I suspect, this may over-perform traditional publishers in the number of sales.) 3. I am in a full control of my book. No forced need to change something, if an editor's opinion differs from my own. 4. No need to convert it to LaTeX, I can use my preferred software such as [TeXmacs](http://www.texmacs.org). 5. The book goes into Amazon and other distribution channels anyway. I can pay a professional scientific editor to edit my book for paid, as a kind of business investment. Peer review is intended to choose which books are published and which are not. I can do fine without peer review, allowing the buyers of my book to decide for themselves. Well, a potential buyer may prefer books published by a big publisher, but it (in my opinion) can be well replaced with big red letters "Edited and checked for errors by professor XXX." Drawbacks which I know: 1. It may not be as good for my academic carrier as traditional academic publishing. (It does not matter for me anyway, as I am not a professional academic.) 2. Not sure if my book goes into university libraries (please comment on this issue). I've pointed many benefits of self-publishing. What are drawbacks (except of pointed by me)? --- And one more specific question: Is the number of books sold if using a traditional publisher, likely to greatly overperform the number of books sold if self-publishing? If yes, why?<issue_comment>username_1: Your mathematics might be wrong, and since you're too close to it and too steeped in it, you might not notice. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: > > I've pointed many benefits of self-publishing. What are drawbacks (except of pointed by me)? > > > 1. The scientific community will very likely ignore your contributions. That is, your book will have approximately zero impact. The combination of "I speak in a bold voice" and "I did not let my work get peer-reviewed" screams "crank" to professional mathematicians. 2. Your business plan of "I get 100% of the profits instead of 10%, hence I make a lot more money" is a bit naive. If your book is not distributed and advertised by a known publisher, you can also expect to sell much less copies, so it is no clear that you will make more money (if any at all) using self-distribution. 3. Relatedly, it is true that "the book goes into Amazon and other distribution channels anyway", but there is a large difference between "is hidden somewhere on Amazon" and "is advertised by Springer". 4. You are in full control over your book, but you also don't get professional feedback. You seem to falsely assume that peer review is a mechanism to somehow suppress books and ideas. This is not the case - largely, peer review improves published work by forcing an author to take comments of other, independent researchers from the field into account. You seem to think that this is a bad thing, but most people would probably disagree. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: > > Should I publish it traditionally or self-publish? > > > Why do you want to publish at all? You answered > > I write the book to store down my research results and to spread my new knowledge. To make money is not the main aim, but it would be nice. > > > Given that: the answer is that you should certainly not self-publish your work. You can store your results and spread knowledge by having the material freely available on the internet, as I believe is already the case. The arxiv is one nice place to put work, but it is not the only one: you could put in on github or any number of other repositories. You can just put it on your own website and make sure that google indexes it. That means that billions of people can access it at any time. Let me be clear with you: you are not going to make money self-publishing works of mathematics that you have not been able to publish traditionally. It is exceedingly rare for any mathematical text beyond the undergraduate level to make a profit that is worth the time taken to write it. (Maybe a few of Serge Lang's books qualify; probably not.) If you go self-publishing rather than traditional publishing, you will lose money, and what you're paying for is the vanity of being a published author. The bar for interest by the mathematical community is much lower than the bar for the type of public interest needed to generate any real sales. The thought that you have "My ideas are too bold for the mathematical community, so I need to take matters into my own hands; they don't know the value of my work as well as I do" is not only crankish but actually specifically damaging to you: it makes you ideal prey for predators of various kinds. You told us in a previous question that you literally fell prey to a diploma mill and thereby lost money. The same mindset that you have now is going to cost you more money in the future. I'm sorry to tell you this, but this has been going on for several years now, so I feel I should be plain: no one in the world has found your work to be of significant mathematical value. This means that, with probability slightly less than one, that your work does not have significant mathematical value. But in the unlikely event that your work does have value, you're not doing what is necessary in order to show it. Mathematical research is not about simply writing down structures that generalize other structures and proving results about them. You have to solve old problems or pose new ones that are of interest to the community. Bold statements of superiority would be a positive thing if they are specific and factual: for your work to be "superior", it should solve at least one problem that others have posed. If you've done that, please explain yourself properly and then your work can be published in the mathematical mainstream. If you haven't: please start to be honest with yourself about the value of your work. Your livelihood is at stake. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: I don't have time to look at your work in detail, but I have at least skimmed through parts of it. I would recommend against self-publishing if you hope for mainstream acceptance of your work (but if you don't care about that and self-publishing would make you happy, then go for it). What you write looks like mathematics, not the sort of nonsense one sometimes sees from amateurs, and it might plausibly be correct, but the motivation is absolutely unclear to me. To put it bluntly, I can't think of anyone who would want to read it, since I can't identify what they would learn or get out of it. I imagine this is the reason traditional publishers are reluctant to publish it, namely that there's no apparent market for this book in its current form. Of course this doesn't mean your work isn't good. I don't know, since I haven't actually understood it, and it is possible that there are good reasons why it should be more popular than it has been so far. However, if you'd like your ideas to spread and be used by others, then you need to communicate them more compellingly: 1. If you can address problems or topics other people have cared about in the past, in a way that couldn't be done without your work, then that will attract readers. 2. It's important to give interesting or beautiful examples, whose attraction does not depend on already having an emotional commitment to this work. 3. If you can't give great examples or make connections with previous work, then it will be difficult to attract readers, but at the very least you need to give clear, intuitive explanations of the concepts you deal with and why they are important. In its current form, I don't think your book does any of these things. If you self-publish it, I do not expect it will sell many copies at all, and almost exclusively to people who are unlikely to contribute to mainstream acceptance of your work (such as friends or family). I would expect it to sell zero copies to professional mathematicians, and I'd be very surprised if it sold more than a handful. One major contribution the publisher can make is to enforce clear and well-motivated communication. You are too close to the work to be an objective judge of this. You've spent years thinking about these ideas, so deeply that they now feel comfortable and natural to you, but nobody else has developed this perspective on them yet. If you want other people to take up these research topics, then you need to attract their interest. Reviewers or editors might be able to help refine an already attractive manuscript, but they can't add motivation from scratch (you have to convince them before they can help you convince anyone else). Until you reach the point where a traditional publisher would accept the book, I don't think it will have the impact you desire. So the fundamental questions are whether you can reach this point and whether you want to try. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_5: If you publish traditionally, you make it much more likely that the audience with the background to understand your work and an interest in the topic will find it and read it. The very fact of making it past the gatekeepers of traditional publishing serves as an advertisement of the quality of your work. I say this based on personal experience from years of publishing philosophy non-traditionally. You can potentially reach a general audience outside of academia if your work is truly of broad general interest, but if you want to reach the experts in your field (or if you're working in a niche that is only accessible to the experts!) you 100% need to publish in the places they publish. For a field like mathematics, even amateurs are unlikely to take a chance on reading something not peer-reviewed. If you disagree, ask yourself a question: When is the last time YOU purchased a self-published mathematics text by an unknown author? Upvotes: 3
2015/01/29	703	2,570	<issue_start>username_0: I need Matlab code of a method to compare it with the results of my proposed method. The method which I want to use happened to be available online by a research group in a university in US in 1997 [[see here]](http://www.crpc.rice.edu/newsletters/win97/news_NBI.html). Unfortunately, when I click the [corresponding link](http://www.caam.rice.edu/~indra/NBIhomepage.html) of the method, it gives a server Error message. I've tried to email the person who seems to be responsible for [this page](http://softlib.rice.edu/NBI.html), but I didn't get a reply. [This page](http://softlib.rice.edu/nbilicreg.html) also returns a server error. As I urgently need this code, what should I do to contact to this research group? Also, how can I convince them to give me the code?<issue_comment>username_1: PhD students come and move on, so if you are looking for code that isn't exactly brand new then contacting the responsible professor is usually your best bet. That being said, I would not get my hopes up too much that you get your code "urgently". There is a good chance that even the responsible professor will need to do some good ol' digging before (s)he unearths this material, if at all (and then there is still a good chance that nobody knows anymore how to make it work, or that it does not run anymore on today's platforms). Assume that this is going to be a bit of a project on its own. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The [MATLAB R13SP2 Model-Based Calibration Toolbox](http://uk.mathworks.com/help/releases/R13sp2/pdf_doc/mbc/cage.pdf) (hopefully the link works without a MATLAB license/account) contained the NBI algorithm: > > To understand the options for the NBI algorithm, some limited understanding of the algorithm is required. For more information on the NBI algorithm, see the NBI home page at the following URL: <http://www.caam.rice.edu/~indra/NBIhomepage.html> > > > While the NBI link is dead, it is the same link you are asking about, so it is potentially the same algorithm. MATLAB R13SP2 (6.5.2) was released in 2003 so is not quite as old as the original link, but it is still old. I cannot find any documentation which says that newer releases of MATLAB contain the NBI algorithm (but nor did I find any documentation that it has been removed). My Mathworks account and license allows me to download R13SP2. The [system requirements](http://uk.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/release13/index.html) suggest it should work on Windows XP or 32 bit Linux (you might need an old kernel and glibc). Upvotes: 2
2015/01/30	687	2,659	<issue_start>username_0: I left University early (during the final year) and was only awarded an associates degree (one level below a full bachelors) in Computer Science. I've been an IT professional for a few years now (development and consulting) and I'm looking to fix my broken educational record. At this point, I could enter a bachelors programme in the final year and upgrade my associates degree to a full bachelors OR I can go straight into a Master's degree. Several Universities have offered me entry to their part time Master's degree in computing off the back of my associates degree and work experience. I'm at a loss as to what I should do? I've always wanted to do a PhD in software engineering project methods or maybe something more comp sci based but I fear that a masters without a bachelors won't be good enough to be accepted anywhere. What do you think? Thanks<issue_comment>username_1: PhD students come and move on, so if you are looking for code that isn't exactly brand new then contacting the responsible professor is usually your best bet. That being said, I would not get my hopes up too much that you get your code "urgently". There is a good chance that even the responsible professor will need to do some good ol' digging before (s)he unearths this material, if at all (and then there is still a good chance that nobody knows anymore how to make it work, or that it does not run anymore on today's platforms). Assume that this is going to be a bit of a project on its own. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: The [MATLAB R13SP2 Model-Based Calibration Toolbox](http://uk.mathworks.com/help/releases/R13sp2/pdf_doc/mbc/cage.pdf) (hopefully the link works without a MATLAB license/account) contained the NBI algorithm: > > To understand the options for the NBI algorithm, some limited understanding of the algorithm is required. For more information on the NBI algorithm, see the NBI home page at the following URL: <http://www.caam.rice.edu/~indra/NBIhomepage.html> > > > While the NBI link is dead, it is the same link you are asking about, so it is potentially the same algorithm. MATLAB R13SP2 (6.5.2) was released in 2003 so is not quite as old as the original link, but it is still old. I cannot find any documentation which says that newer releases of MATLAB contain the NBI algorithm (but nor did I find any documentation that it has been removed). My Mathworks account and license allows me to download R13SP2. The [system requirements](http://uk.mathworks.com/support/sysreq/release13/index.html) suggest it should work on Windows XP or 32 bit Linux (you might need an old kernel and glibc). Upvotes: 2
2015/01/30	2,225	8,978	<issue_start>username_0: I am having difficulties in math, and every time I try to go to my math professor's office hours she always seems annoyed. When I ask her a question she always says something to the effect "I don't understand what you are asking," I understand being precise with math but it's as if she purposely feigns confusion. I can ask a professor a math question in another one of my classes who barely speaks English and he seems to understand what I mean just fine. In short, this prof always talks down to me and is rude, I am struggling with the math, and am just trying my best to understand it. What should I do in this situation?<issue_comment>username_1: I think you should ask your question somewhere else first. Is it too obvious to suggest the math.stackexchange? If the question gets ripped to shreds for imprecision, you should rework it before asking that professor. If not, then she's just prickly and you might well choose not to pursue your relationship with her. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It's possible that your professor just doesn't want to help you: in that case, obviously, you need to find somebody else. Or it may be that she just has bad interpersonal skills and comes across as rude and patronizing when she's just trying to be efficient. In any case, I'll assume that she does want to help but genuinely can't understand your questions. Most likely, it's because you're asking the "wrong" question. A common phenomenon is the so-called "X-Y problem", where you're asking about the wrong thing. For example, you've tried to solve an exercise but you couldn't do it. There are two basic possibilities: either you used the wrong method, or you used the right method but got stuck somewhere in the implementation. In the X-Y problem, you start asking detailed questions about how to fix your implementation of the method when, in fact, your problem is that you used the wrong method. There's a great [post about recognizing and dealing with the X-Y problem](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem) on meta.stackexchange.com. A related phenomenon is asking questions that only make sense to people who share a particular misunderstanding of some other topic. You don't understand X so, of course, you're asking about X. However, the root cause of this is probably that you don't understand Y. Because you don't understand Y, the way you think X works just doesn't make sense: your question only makes sense in the context of your misunderstanding of Y. Random (and slightly silly) example. Suppose a student of automotive design notices that the tyres are black and the steering wheel is black, too. He decides that all wheels have to be black so there must be a reason for this and builds up some elaborate theory in his head about how black things rotate better or something. And then he sees that his friend's car has a beige steering wheel. The next day, the student goes to his professor and asks what mechanisms the friend's car uses to compensate for the deficiencies of its beige steering wheel. This question makes perfect sense to the student but is total nonsense to anybody else. The solution is to work backwards through your assumptions with your professor, to try to find the step where you misunderstood. Student. What mechanisms does my friend's car use to compensate for the deficiencies of its beige steering wheel? Prof. Er... I don't understand your question. Student. Well, cars need to have black steering wheels because they rotate better. My friend's car seems to steer fine so it must have some way of dealing with the bad rotation of its beige steering wheel. Prof. Why do you think that black steering wheels rotate better? [Note that slight differences of phrasing in this question can make the professor seem much more or less sympathetic. "What makes you think that..." can come across as being annoyed, for example.] Student. I'm not sure but maybe it's because [whatever]. But the tyres and the steering wheel are both black so there must be reason. Prof. Actually, that's just a coincidence. The tyres are black because they add carbon to the rubber to make it stronger, and the steering wheel is black because the designer thinks it looks nice. Student. Ohhhhhh. I get it, now. It may be that your other professor is better at answering your questions because he's better at figuring out what the root cause of your misunderstanding is. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_3: While I may be downvoted for this, you should also be aware of (the possibility of) your own subjective bias in regards to the gender of the professor. I noticed that you said the female professor was not helpful ("confused" and "annoyed") while you were much more generous to the male professor. The analysis of RateMyProfessor (<http://benschmidt.org/profGender/#>) shows clear gendered variations between student ratings of professors along the lines of gender. Using the keyword "confused" yields this chart: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/r979C.png) and "annoyed" also shows a much stronger bias towards female faculty: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/kDKTY.png) whereas the keyword "brilliant" shows that men are rated more highly for this attribute: ![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/zssMj.png) while this data from <NAME> is not peer reviewed, there are peer reviewed articles that also note this: * Centra, <NAME>. and <NAME>. "Is There Gender Bias in Student Evaluations of Teaching?" The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 71, No. 1 (Jan. - Feb., 2000), pp. 17-33 * Bennett, <NAME>. Student perceptions of and expectations for male and female instructors: Evidence relating to the question of gender bias in teaching evaluation. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 74(2), Apr 1982, 170-179. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.74.2.170> Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_4: I suggest trying to figure out if the problem is with you, her, or merely the mixing of the two. One of the other answers mentions TAs. That might be a good suggestion, but TAs rarely have the same sort of personality and outlook as professors. If you're concerned about this professor being rude and unhelpful and how to deal with that, it might not be helpful to talk to TAs. What you may want to do is seek out another professor, possibly one from a previous class you took, and ask them the same question. I wouldn't mention anything about you feeling the professor is rude/unhelpful (unless you know this other instructor very well), but you could easily make up a story. Missed your professor's office hours, another student suggested them, felt you needed to hear it from someone else to understand it, whatever. Most of these probably wouldn't even be lies. You should, however, definitely mention who your current professor is, and pay close attention to the non-verbal response. Usually the other faculty are aware of bad apples and, in my experience, make little effort to hide their feelings. Once you've got their attention and agreement to give you a few minutes, ask the exact same question(s) the exact same way. If this instructor responds similarly, it might be the questions you're asking or how you're asking them. If the other instructor is helpful, it's possibly your professor at fault. You could also draw on previous experience. Is this the first class you have had issues with? The first instructor to act this way? In my experience as an engineering student, I only encountered one person who was outright dismissive of questions and condescending as you seem to be experiencing. While of course it will vary with university and discipline, if you've experienced this a lot, it might also suggest it's the way you're approaching the interaction. If this is an outlier, the problem probably isn't with you. Sometimes you just have to acknowledge there are bad teachers out there. They might very well not want to be teaching a class, or teaching a class at the level / in the subject they are. Or they might just be garbage at teaching. In that case, you have a few options. * Find someone else to ask. Many universities offer tutorial centers. Maybe as I suggested, another professor will help. Maybe the TAs are more useful. * Drop the class and take it with someone else. * Find a source of information you understand better. Youtube videos, websites, Math.SE / etc, even shop around for another textbook. What isn't going to happen is that you make a bad teacher a good one. It's also not worth it to try to get some sort of revenge for being mistreated, at least at the mere degree of what you have described. Most universities do, however, offer ways for students to review professors at the end of the semester; use that, and let their superiors address it when the time for that comes. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/30	3,559	15,810	<issue_start>username_0: A student emailed me after a recent exam, complaining about not having enough time to finish the exam. Out of all the students, most managed to finish within 2/3 of the provided time. I wonder what might be some possible ways to respond to this kind of complaint? (This is my first time teaching a class of my own -- I only TA'd before, so I've never had to deal with this type of issue in the past). More details: Some people asked about the student's performance. The student's grade was between 60-70%. This is actually a pretty good grade: our system is such that 70%+ would be considered a top-level grade (similar to an A in the US), though grades of 70%-90% are not unusual. Such a grading scheme is typical here; I do not think it is likely that the student interpreted their grade incorrectly.<issue_comment>username_1: Simply reply something like: "I believe that with respect to the test enough time was given and have not heard many similar complaints. Yet, if while grading the exams it will be visible that most of the students had trouble finishing the test in the given time I'll grade the exams properly." This makes you seem understanding of his complaints yet basically tells him that if he is the only one who had problems with the time then the problem is his and not yours. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: The more I teach the more I realize humans in general either complain about something or blame someone for their lack of achievements. Here, you have the opportunity to teach this valuable lesson to the student. I would do the followings: Notification: I would send an email to the student, and tell him/her to meet me at my office to discuss this issue. Discussion: During the meeting, I would honestly show him/her, the overall statistical point, that shows, most students did well and he/she did not. Then, he/she has two choices that needs to make on his/her own about reality of life and studying at the university. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: While running out of time could be indicative that the exam is too long or difficult, it would appear that is not the case if most students managed to finish early. However, I would check their grades too, as finishing early can also occur when students do not know the material or struggle with it so much that they give up. Assuming this student is an outlier, it could be worthwhile investigating why. Perhaps this particular student has unusual difficulties, health issues or some other reason for not managing to finish in time. It may be necessary to refer the student to appropriate student support services for advice and assistance. This includes study skills and/or exam-taking techniques. Be firm, but fair; show kindness and understanding as warranted. Give the student the benefit of the doubt, initially, but look into the facts insofar as that is possible. Arrange a meeting with the student and point him/her in the direction of appropriate assistance, based on your investigations and what you learn during the meeting. Finally, be clear on what is the student's own responsibility. You are there to help, but not to carry people. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: Give them more time (within reason). Everyone doesn't work at the same pace. Unless you are specifically trying to test a pressure situation (in which case you have failed to apply that to the faster students) then time should not be the major factor. Allowing more time won't suddenly give the knowledge/skill you are trying to test if they don't have it. You might even find that with the extra headroom that student won't get flustered and finish quicker. Apart from that, look at why they are having trouble and how you/they can work to improve it. It is a bit dissapointing that both the existing answers are about how to leave that student behind. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_5: When I was a TA for a large artificial intelligence class, we frequently had this complaint from students. The reason was that, due to the nature of the class, many of the problems could be worked out eventually from first principles (or from the book or notes, since these were often open book as well) by somebody who didn't understand the material, but could only be worked out efficiently by a person who knew the material. We thus tended to end up with most students finishing well before allotted time, but a noticeably minority who did very bad work right up to the end, and felt "if they'd just had another hour or two" they could have done everything right. Our response was to explain that the test was looking not just for the ability to solve the problems, but for facility with the problem-solving techniques. Thus, speed really did count! This was also borne out by the distributions: it really wasn't a problem for the stronger students. I would thus recommend first looking at the distribution of the grades: if the strong students mostly finished early, then you probably have a weak student who was trying to work things out from first principles, hazy recollection, or source material (if you're open book). You can then explain something similar, that you are testing not just the ability to solve problems, but facility with the concepts, and if they are weak with the concepts, it is likely to show up in slow test-taking time. Now, it is also possible that the student has a medical impairment, such as dyslexia, that genuinely means they cannot work quickly. If this is the case, then most universities have services that can help to evaluate them and plan appropriate accommodation, which can be communicated to you for application to future exams by the responsible personnel. Don't just take a Doctor's note, because an M.D. can only detect the existence of a condition, not calibrate an appropriate educational adjustment for it. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_6: My usual response to this complaint is to agree that there is a problem, reassure the student that they are not alone, and to provide them with as many tools as possible to address the problem on future exams. I strongly suggest working with (not just copying from) a study group, attending office hours and discussion sections, posting questions to Piazza, reading carefully through homework solutions, and most importantly, not being afraid to ask "stupid" questions. I try to probe for specific topics that the student is struggling with, and offer additional resources for those (usually prerequisite) topics. I suggest specific time-management strategies for the kinds of exams I write. (For example: Read the entire exam and understand every problem before consciously thinking about how to solve anything, much less writing anything. Never spend more than five minutes staring at the same problem; if you're stuck, jot down what you're thinking, turn the page, and come back later.) I offer to set up additional meetings with the student to go over their future homeworks before the submission deadline. (They almost never take me up on this offer.) I mention that there are well-oiled official channels for students to request additional time or other accommodations, but the request must be made well in advance. I suggest that if they decide to drop the class, that they continue attending lectures and discussions and submitting homework, as a dry run for their next attempt. What I do not do is accept that student's "lack of time" as evidence that the exam was too difficult, that the student was treated unfairly, or that I should change that student's exam grade. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_7: There are many excellent answers here which raise points I agree with. @JW correctly points out potential underlying alternate needs issues and the role of student support services. @username_5 correctly points out that more complete understanding of the material permits the better students to move directly to an answer, and the purpose of some questions is to make that distinction between students. @username_6 shows his experience in being a supportive tutor. I relate to all these points as an experienced tutor with responsibility for students with alternate needs. This question (and the answers) may be read in the future by students who feel aggrieved and new staff who may be less experienced, so I wanted to ensure an important part of academic/university processes was mentioned. Sometimes we are so familiar with our own internal mechanisms we forget to explain them to outsiders (like students). Less experienced staff may also have not become aware of the different ways students react to these situations. Firstly, let me mention academic processes of quality and scrutiny. I do not have experience of the procedures in every continent, but in the UK, all examination processes are overseen and monitored by an external examiner. I myself am an external examiner for other institutions. Usually the exam questions, the marking scheme and the sample answers are submitted, scrutinised, and moderated by such an external examiner. This helps ensure comparable levels of quality and difficulty across the sector. A reputable department would have internal moderation and scrutiny processes in place to remove basic errors and typographic mistakes at an early stage, and should have some form of level checking in place (i.e. are the questions set at the right level). Many students are not aware of this and think the Professor just threw the paper together to torture them personally. The next stage of scrutiny is during the marking and grade determination. It is good practice for answers that are qualitative in nature (and thus the grading is judgemental) for there to be a double-marking processes. Usually this might be by statistical sampling of scripts or it might be a full double-bind re-mark depending on the need. The final grades are then submitted to a board of examiners that makes the final decision based on the evidence available with the support of the external examiner. The full statistical information of the mark profiles and distributions would be available to the examination board and these would indicate and papers that appeared to have too high or to low an average. There is often a mitigating circumstances panel (that meets in camera) and takes into account any submitted mitigation and alternate needs. The decision that results is a decision taken jointly by the combined examiners. It is thus, not an arbitrary and ephemeral decision of the on the part of the Professor as some students might imagine. Failure to communicate effectively with students on the quality processes in place can result in adverse publicity as this [media report](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-31057005) might indicate. Also, if your department or institution does not have such quality processes in place you are not achieving best practice; but then I am departmental quality officer too! The last part, for the less experienced, is knowing that different students respond in different ways to being challenged by learning experiences. See articles on [The Theory of Mind](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind) and how this can affect Undergraduate Behavior ( [Disruptive behaviour, avoidance of responsibility and theory of mind](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/026151000165517/pdf) ) and theories of [high conflict people](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201205/high-conflict-people-drive-disputes-home-school-work). Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_8: I want to push back a little on the comments some have made about the relative value of solving the same problems at a faster/slower pace. I don't mean to say this is necessarily the case in OP's circumstance, but anyways. Pacing can be hard to prepare for, especially going into the first exam of the semester; this can be exacerbated if you don't know how many questions there will be and you aren't working closely enough with other students to be aware of where you fall in the pack on pacing. In the absence of information which makes clear the pace at which you'll be expected to deliver correct answers and a way to know where you stand now, it's perfectly reasonable for a student who is able to complete all homework and practice materials without significant difficulty in an amount of time that doesn't feel onerous to assume they are prepared for the exam. I'll give an extreme example of how this can go wrong: In a class where we had weekly vocabulary quizzes, our final included pairing a few hundred words and definitions. We were all prepared for this. But the semester of training we had matching words with definitions was relatively useless when we discovered all of the words were in a single bank, and all of the definitions in another. Knowing each word well enough to pair it with a definition on a short quiz wasn't anywhere close to knowing it well enough to sort out the correct pairings among many similar words and definitions. Even using flash cards and giving acceptable definitions--one of the primary ways we study vocabulary--was woefully insufficient preparation. The only way we could've possibly prepared to complete the task in the given time was knowing the full scope of what we'd be asked to do and the time we'd have to do it. All of us make tradeoffs when it comes to how we allocate our time based on our goals--and we all inevitably make mistakes allocating our time when we're short on information. I figure it's worth documenting here a few policy/design things you might be able to do to hedge against pacing issues in the future: * Allow any student extra time on an exam in exchange for a penalty (assuming your schedule allows). * Build tests which are hard to complete but allow a student to skip up to N unanswered questions; students who go over can either get bonus or simply dilute the per-question risk. * Include information useful for pacing or even explicit recommendations at the beginning or throughout the exam. While it's true that self-pacing is a worthwhile skill, pacing can be tricky if parts of the test vary substantively in the time they'll take. Imagine you flip through an exam, note there are 40 questions, estimate the pace you'll need to hold, and think you're doing well to hold just under the pace for 20 questions until you hit a block of 10 questions that take three times as long to complete. * Include pacing recommendations with any practice tests or study recommendations. Think not just, "be prepared to answer these types of questions", but, "in order to complete the exam, you should prepare to solve problems like the ones in this section at a pace of N minutes per question." * Intentionally scale up the amount of time you intend a test to take up over the semester, and clearly communicate this to students. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: I have had timing issues with exams all my life. Recently I found out that I have dyslexia. Now, when I use a special font for dyslexic people, I can read and solve problems in literally half the time. I wish someone would have suggested me looking into this many years ago - my two cents. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_10: A major problem with exams is when you're tested on something that isn't the focus of the course. EX: I once took an exam in an EE class where I had to do all the calculations by hand within the given time limit. It became not an exercise in the topics we covered but in algebraic manipulation under time constraints. I would suggest you change exams to test knowledge of the material or give additional time for problems which require a lot of mechanical operations which are not the focus of the course. Upvotes: 0
2015/01/30	487	1,770	<issue_start>username_0: I have graduated from Russian university after 5 years of education and got a Specialist degree (Engineer in Computer Science). [According to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_degree), Specialist is a four-tier degree and stands right above Master degree in some specialities. But despite graduation requirements and due to the duration, I suggest, it can only be put right above Bachelor degree. So the next step I should take is to continue my education to then get Master degree. Is my suggestion right? Or do I think about it wrong way? If it helps or is necessary, I'm planning to continue education in Canadian university.<issue_comment>username_1: I am in a German masters program, and one of my Russian classmates has a specialist degree (in applied mathematics). I cannot say in generality (i.e. Canada), but it was taken as equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree around here. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: Since [1997](http://int.rsue.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175&Itemid=209#Degrees), having a Russian (or rather "Soviet"-style) 5-year [Specialist (специалист) degree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialist_degree) is formally recognized as the equivalent of holding a Master's degree (cf. [Mutual Recognition of Qualifications: the Russian Federation and the Other European Countries](http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001298/129839eo.pdf)); Judging by the fact that, [in Canada, one can typically directly enter a PhD program without e.g. doing a Master's degree course beforehand](https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/14662) (as is typical in e.g. the USA), you should have no problems fulfilling the formal requirements to enter a PhD program there. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]
2015/01/30	1,689	7,087	<issue_start>username_0: When contacting universities, in many cases, I find the replies to my emails extremely well detailed and helpful, therefore in such cases I find a simple "Thank you" to be just insufficient. For example, when you have already applied to a program, and then you email the department to ask a simple question about supplementary documents, but they put SO MUCH effort in their response and even analyze your application before the application process has even started and they tell you that they are very certain that you will be accepted. How would you react? Is it rude to say something like: "I'm very glad to hear that." In such situations, I do not really know how to best answer the person to show them that I really appreciate their email very much.<issue_comment>username_1: Politeness never hurts. "Thank you for your very detailed and positive information" could be one option or something along those lines. I am sure most people providing this type of response do not expect much in return (not that they do not deserve it). But as with many other instances, keeping the thanks short and concise is necessary, do not overwork it because that just seems suspicious. Remember that the person is doing their work (well) and should be praised for just that. If the school to which you are applying is large then it is not very likely you will be remembered and so the response will have little significance other than to show appreciation. In a smaller school, however, your politeness may be noticed and can help you build good relations with administration for the future so politeness never hurts. Upvotes: 5 <issue_comment>username_2: My advice is to examine your own feelings, and understand what exactly you want to express. Then words should come more naturally to you (at least if you're fluent in English). If you just say "I'm very glad to hear that" (I don't know if you meant you would write only this sentence) it sounds to me like you are at least reasonably happy you will likely be admitted, but you're not specific expressing gratitude for the effort they put into your inquiry. In this case, I presume you want to do two things: show excitement/enthusiasm about the news and express appreciation for their effort. For example: "That's great/wonderful news! I really appreciate all of the effort you took to personally examine my application." Or: "I'm excited to hear that. Thank you very much for taking the time look at my application in detail." Note: It appears Peter is Scandanavian, so he may be more reserved than a classless American like me. Anyway, I don't think you need to restrict yourself to 1 sentence. Two or three is fine, though I agree that you should be brief. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: I'm going to start by not answering your question: you have no need to express extreme gratitude in this case. The staff at the university are simply exhibiting good customer service: remember that they want you to come to their university and not take your custom to a different university instead and, accordingly, they have taken the time to answer your query effectively. This is doing their job not going above and beyond as you seem to think. Given this I think the appropriate response is simply a polite thank you rather than any effusive expression of extreme gratitude which I would think is likely to come across as a bit odd. To answer the question you actually posed: it rather depends on the country the university is in. In the UK, for example, we tend to find overly exuberant displays of gratitude rather odd and even a bit uncomfortable so you'd want to adopt a relatively mild tone, whereas - judging from the students from that region that I interact with - in the Middle East it is normal to thank people much more effusively. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_4: One thing my English Language and Literature teacher taught me was, "if you want to say it then just say it". I would suggest therefore you put your thanks into written form as I would like to express my most sincere gratitude and appreciation for ... Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_5: Consider saying thanks twice, not jsut for the information, but also for the time they spent putting it together for you. Also, like most gifts, people appreciate it when they know you've actually used the product of their effort - it wasn't wasted. So an enthusiastic, but still professional, thank you might be similar to the following: > > Thank you for all this great information. I really appreciate the time and effort you've given me! > > > The article on [subject] was particularly enlightening, and is proving helpful as I make this decision. I will be careful to [x], [y], and [z], this advice has really clarified a few things for me. > > > Thanks again! > > > Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_6: If you can, I would suggest sending a thank-you card through snail mail in addition to a thank-you e-mail. Both should be short and concise, but the paper card can be a little longer. The key thing is, while it's very difficult to express the emotion of being especially thankful in words, sending a card is relatively rare these days and carries additional weight. It will not come off as unprofessional or awkward like a poorly-written thank you would, but it will convey your thanks more deeply. Considering that you're sending this note as one professional to another, I would recommend either writing the letter on your current university or company's stationary or writing in a very simple thank-you card that does not have anything pre-printed on the inside. If you would like some advice on what to include in your thank-you note, I recommend these websites. Again, your email response will likely be very short; I would recommend writing just the card like these sites suggest. * <http://www.hallmark.com/thank-you/ideas/how-to-write-a-thank-you-note/> * <http://www.themorningnews.org/article/how-to-write-a-thank-you-note> Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_7: Rather than look for the most extreme adverbs and adjectives to heighten your thanks, another strategy would be to describe clearly and specifically what you found so helpful and why. Extreme expressions can be used insincerely but specific details show you have actually thought about it. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_8: A simple "Thank you" is definitely insufficient. It shows lack of understanding of how they may have spent significant time answering your questions. On the other hand, responding with almost religious adoration is also ridiculous. Using words to suggest that their response was "the best thing that ever happened to you" is absurd. Here is a general example that will point you in the right direction: "Thank you very much for your response. I'm pleased to receive such a detailed and helpful answer. Your timely efforts are greatly appreciated." Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_9: This isn't complicated. > > I really appreciate your help with this. Thank you! > > > Upvotes: 0
2015/01/30	931	3,776	<issue_start>username_0: Being an editor of a journal can be [time-consuming](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15893/what-is-the-work-load-of-a-journal-reviewing-editor), but has obvious [benefits](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9506/why-become-a-journal-editor) (especially if one enjoys reading and reviewing manuscripts). So I expect many academics have a desire to become an editor. I have never seen an advertisement for a position on an editorial board, which leads me to believe that most positions are not filled this way. How do most people become editors, and how might a person wishing to become an editor achieve this (without [setting up a new journal](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8708/how-is-a-new-academic-journal-born))?<issue_comment>username_1: Open positions in journal editorial boards are frequently not advertised (though that happens). Instead, when a vacancy appears, the chief editor will typically look for people with the required expertise and ask them whether they would be willing to serve. Often, editors will have different specialties. So an editor who is stepping down would need to be replaced in his specific area of expertise. Given that he is an expert and should have a good overview of his specific field, he will most likely be asked to suggest possible replacements. Chief editors will usually be "elevated" from among the non-chief editors, since these already know the journal and its specifics. --- So, how to go about to be invited as an editor? Two things: * Build a reputation as an expert in a specific field. Submit good quality papers to the journal you are most interested in (and others), go to conferences etc. * Build a reputation as dependable and articulate. Hand in reviews promptly, and write good reviews. Editors remember people who write good reviews. Of course, this is not a guarantee of being asked for an editorship. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: There are in general two types of editors, and their role is quite different. First, you have the editors-in-chief or editors-in-charge. There is usually one of them for a journal, sometimes a small group (if the journal has dozens of issues a year). These "run" the journal, but are not responsible for the scientific quality of the papers. They can be scientists themselves, but quite often they are not active in science and their editorial job is a full-time. Second, you have the communicating editors. There can be tens of them. Each of them is usually responsible for communicating the papers in some sub-field of the journal's field; so in a graph theory journal, you'll have someone for dealing with graph algorithms, someone for Ramsey theory, etc. These are supposed to be active scientists in their field since only then they know the right people to review the paper and they can have a good level of judgment over the paper's quality themselves. --- So, the hiring process differs a lot. If a non-scientist is sought for, a standard competition will usually be held, the position announced through various means (mailing lists, job advert sites, LinkedIn, etc.). You can simply join the competition, send your CV and other required documents and hope. On the other hand, if a specialist scientist is sought for, then usually what username_1 describes is the case: the editor-in-chief will look for people based on the journal's experience with the people and ask them on a personal basis. --- Remark: The terminology may differ from journal to journal, and also the actual situation may differ. Especially with small journals, even editor-in-chief need not to have it as a full-time job, and he can do research himself. It just depends. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/30	447	1,680	<issue_start>username_0: I know that you can distinguish two ways of referencing scientific work in the Harvard (or author-year) citation style: 1. You cite the idea or work in general: "Recently, a new approach for SOME STUFF was demonstrated for the first time (Author, year)." 2. You cite the author: "Recently, Author (year) demonstrated SOME STUFF for the first time." However, what is the correct way, if you want to state that something was mentioned in a certain work? "...as explained in Author (year)..." or "...as explained in (Author, year)..."? My personal opinion would be the second option, because the idea is not located "in" the author, but "in" the work he published. But in our group opinions differ strongly on this one. Can anyone provide a reliable and authoritative resource?<issue_comment>username_1: In the second option you suggest, the sentence is not complete. If you would leave out the part between (), the sentence would not make any sense. You should, as also @Peter Jansson suggests, write sth. along the lines of "As author (2013) explained, ..." Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: A useful reference is <http://www.staffs.ac.uk/assets/harvard_quick_guide_tcm44-47797.pdf> which shows the use of both styles. It suggests that a reference to the body of work is followed by (Jones, 2015) while an active description: > > Jones (2015) argues the opposite > > > Has the form author (date) This makes sense, intuitively. And the your second option becomes the preferred on since it refers to the body. But as others pointed out, perhaps a slightly different turn of phrase would make the problem go away more naturally. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/30	467	2,018	<issue_start>username_0: I've noticed that several faculty members (both in my institution and beyond) are affiliate professors in some other institutions (beside being a professor in their own institution, of course). What caught my attention is that the vast majority of them wasn't in any way affiliated with the institution prior to holding the affiliate professor title (the source are their biographies). Afterwards they naturally collaborate on a regular basis. Example: The professor did their BSc and MSc at my university X, went to university A in the US for a PhD, returned to my institution X (where they are now) and became assistant professor but in the same year became an Affiliate Professor at university B. So, how does one become an Affiliate Professor?<issue_comment>username_1: A wide range of "Affiliate" and "Visiting" titles are often used to simplify bureaucracy in a long-duration academic interaction. For example, you may have a collaborator who frequently visits, and want to give them access to buildings, networks, and other resources so that their visits are less of a hassle for everybody. A "Research Affiliate" or "Affiliate Professor" or such status allows the institution to officially put the person into the system so that they can be issued keys, ID cards, access permissions, etc. The mechanism for actually doing this is typically that a sponsoring professor just calls the appropriate department or fills out a form, and it just happens. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: The most frequent use of Affiliate Professor appointments that I have seen are for people that have another primary occupation than research. Typically in the medicine field, for doctors who conduct research besides their clinical work in a university-affiliated hospital. These people need a formal appointment with the university to teach, supervise graduate students, etc. Now this holds for North America, it might be that things are different in your country. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/30	463	2,139	<issue_start>username_0: My math paper recently got accepted and I was told that I will be sent a proof soon. It's just four lines I want to add.. is it OK to add it to my paper? It's additional explanation of something, and I would tell the editor about it. But is it commonly done or done at all?<issue_comment>username_1: It is not uncommon to make some changes to articles while they are in press. However, there are a couple of things you should be aware of. First, you ought to contact the editor, to find out whether there is time to insert anything. After a certain point, the publication schedule will probably not permit any changes. After that point, the editor may be willing to delay your paper until a later issue, or they may not. The second thing, which is more specific to mathematics, is that the editor may not want to make any change that involves the actual mathematics without sending the article back to the referee(s). Mathematics journals have good reason to be very picky that every symbol and argument that appears in a final publication has been subject to the proper peer review. Additional background or explanatory material will probably be fine, but any change to how you calculate or prove something may not be possible without additional refereeing. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: In general no. There may be some circumstance when it can be necessary but the proofing stage is too late for any substantial changes. The manuscript should be published in the form it has been accepted and it is an authors responsibility to provide a final version of the manuscript which ideally should not require any changes once type-set and provided in the form of a proof. Changes that are acceptable are changes that do not in any way change the science of the paper. If any major changes are done to the paper at proofing, the editor will likely decide whether or not these are permissible. What would happen if anyone tries to push substantial changes altering the core science of the paper probably varies, but in the worst case the paper might have to undergo new review. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2015/01/30	652	2,346	<issue_start>username_0: I've noticed recently that colleagues, friends, and others seeking employment, have shown, among other things, their Erdős number on their resume/CV. I've also seen some put down their h-index, or their publication with the most citations (the running tally of citations for that publication), or the Impact Factor journal that they have ever published in, etc. *I know there is a [question](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17990/should-i-put-my-h-index-on-my-cv) on just h-index in a CV/resume (so please do not mark as duplicate), but this is a broader* question about other figures of merit, especially Erdős number.** I realize that having a CV/resume that stands out is important and can give an edge to getting that coveted position, but is listing these types of things appropriate? Let me just make clear that I am not endorsing doing this or saying that I have done it, I am just asking if this is common, acceptable, or purposeful.<issue_comment>username_1: As a mathematician, I don't view an Erdős number as a sign of merit in any serious way. It's more of a cultural in-joke. There are over 9,000 people with [Erdős number 2](http://www.oakland.edu/enp/thedata/), and far more than that with Erdős number 3, so it doesn't really set you apart. So, if you published with Erdős, that fact will be clear form your list of papers, and if you haven't, your Erdős number tells very little about you. My own Erdős number is 3 (two ways), FWIW. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: Reiterating "username_1"'s remarks: probably everyone in the world has an Erdos number that's a single digit, for roughly similar reasons to the fact that, statistically [sic] everyone in Western Europe can (maybe...) trace their lineage to some king of France 900 years ago... but not in any interesting, informative, or "special" way. Only slightly less silly are the "bibliometric indices"... Conceivably, if you are applying for jobs with nincompoops, they'll be moved by silly things, so by all means crank it up. On the other hand, if your desired employers are not nincompoops, they'll at best think you're young-and-naive to mention such stuff in any way other than as humor. Time-and-space on CV's and in interviews is vastly better spent not kidding around and saying silly things. Upvotes: 2
2015/01/30	922	3,986	<issue_start>username_0: I picked a very unique topic for my Masters Thesis, only to find out that there is a Dissertation on the same topic, from 2008, in French. No other books have been published on this topic. Ugh... I really really wanted to do this. What should I do? Can I do the same topic in English? I can't even translate what the other person wrote.<issue_comment>username_1: You can still write on the same topic, you just need to expand the knowledge that's already there and offer some new, original insight to the issue. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It was not clear to me that whether you know French language or not. If you know the language, so spend some time to read the publication. May be the topic is so similar to yours, but it has a different solution or methodology than the one you have in mind. A. Change your thesis topic Talk to your advisor to see whether you can change your thesis topic or not. There may be some regulations in your university which may allow you to change your research topic in such case that happened to you. B. Work on this topic You can work on this topic but try to develop a new method to solve the problem, work on other questions related to your topic, apply existing methods you have seen in the literature to solve your question. If somebody else has worked on the same topic does not really mean that you should not. As an example, many scientists have tried to solve the system of equations of motion, but they have different methods to do so, some go for numerical solutions and some other go for analytical methods and applied mathematics. Suggestions So if you think that you still want to work on the same topic, here are some of my suggestions: 1. Review the literature related to your topic carefully; * Read that similar thesis you have found and the references to which it is referred. If it is in a language which you do not know, you can ask for help from a friend who knows the language or at least take a look at the equations, it's abstract and summaries, graphs, tables and etc.; also, the authors may have published some journal or conference papers after the submission of the thesis. Search for their name in the internet and take a look at their publications. These publications may be in English and help you get familiar with their work. * Try to find books and papers which have worked on the same topic; * Try to find solutions to similar problems to yours, think about whether you can apply their methodology to your own question or not; 2. Consult your advisor about how you can apply the new methods you have found to your problem. He may advise you that some methods may not lead to a solution and some other have chances to solve it. He may also encourage you to read some papers which you have not seen or found in literature. Warnings Here are some warnings about your case which come to my mind; 1. Do not be upset and control your emotions; you are a researcher and research is not always an easy process. Do not become too angry or too upset. If you think you have problems on this, it will be a good idea to consult a doctor about it. 2. Please do not think that the solution or methodology which is presented in that thesis is the only way to solve the problem, free your mind and precisely search and think for newer and innovative solutions; 3. Do not loose time, as a student you may not have unlimited amount of time to spend on your research; based on the regulations of your university you may have a year or two to submit your final report; * If you feel that you have to change your topic, consult your advisor, find a better topic and change your topic; * If you think that you found a newer methodology to solve your problem, work on it, but if you see that you are wasting your time on this newer method, do not stop; consult with your advisor, look for another solution, read more papers; don't stop, move forward. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/31	939	4,115	<issue_start>username_0: I am not familiar with the graduate interview process. Are there signs during and after the interview that student will be able to tell whether he or she will be accepted or rejected in into the research group? More importantly, how would an applicant know if the graduate interview was a flop. For example, if the professor doesn't follow up with a letter after the interview, is that a sign that the student will probably not considered to be a part of the group?<issue_comment>username_1: You can still write on the same topic, you just need to expand the knowledge that's already there and offer some new, original insight to the issue. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_2: It was not clear to me that whether you know French language or not. If you know the language, so spend some time to read the publication. May be the topic is so similar to yours, but it has a different solution or methodology than the one you have in mind. A. Change your thesis topic Talk to your advisor to see whether you can change your thesis topic or not. There may be some regulations in your university which may allow you to change your research topic in such case that happened to you. B. Work on this topic You can work on this topic but try to develop a new method to solve the problem, work on other questions related to your topic, apply existing methods you have seen in the literature to solve your question. If somebody else has worked on the same topic does not really mean that you should not. As an example, many scientists have tried to solve the system of equations of motion, but they have different methods to do so, some go for numerical solutions and some other go for analytical methods and applied mathematics. Suggestions So if you think that you still want to work on the same topic, here are some of my suggestions: 1. Review the literature related to your topic carefully; * Read that similar thesis you have found and the references to which it is referred. If it is in a language which you do not know, you can ask for help from a friend who knows the language or at least take a look at the equations, it's abstract and summaries, graphs, tables and etc.; also, the authors may have published some journal or conference papers after the submission of the thesis. Search for their name in the internet and take a look at their publications. These publications may be in English and help you get familiar with their work. * Try to find books and papers which have worked on the same topic; * Try to find solutions to similar problems to yours, think about whether you can apply their methodology to your own question or not; 2. Consult your advisor about how you can apply the new methods you have found to your problem. He may advise you that some methods may not lead to a solution and some other have chances to solve it. He may also encourage you to read some papers which you have not seen or found in literature. Warnings Here are some warnings about your case which come to my mind; 1. Do not be upset and control your emotions; you are a researcher and research is not always an easy process. Do not become too angry or too upset. If you think you have problems on this, it will be a good idea to consult a doctor about it. 2. Please do not think that the solution or methodology which is presented in that thesis is the only way to solve the problem, free your mind and precisely search and think for newer and innovative solutions; 3. Do not loose time, as a student you may not have unlimited amount of time to spend on your research; based on the regulations of your university you may have a year or two to submit your final report; * If you feel that you have to change your topic, consult your advisor, find a better topic and change your topic; * If you think that you found a newer methodology to solve your problem, work on it, but if you see that you are wasting your time on this newer method, do not stop; consult with your advisor, look for another solution, read more papers; don't stop, move forward. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/31	849	3,640	<issue_start>username_0: Should a scientific paper have copyright? I guess not. It seems to me that science and copyright are not compatible. Let's say I wrote a very important paper in, say, cell biology. Suppose I have the copyright for the paper(I think so under the copyright law of the US). Then I also have the [derivative-work copyright](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work). Can I exercise the right? For example, can I refuse other people to use the original idea of my paper? Or can I forbid them using an original technical procedure described in my paper? Or what about copying graphs or figures?<issue_comment>username_1: Copyright does not protect ideas, just how they are expressed. Copying text generally violates copyright (although there are exceptions in which quoting is permitted), but copyright places no restrictions whatsoever on using ideas. > > For example, can I refuse other people to use the original idea of my paper? > > > No, using your ideas is not enough to turn another paper into a derivative work. > > Or can I forbid them using an original technical procedure described in my paper? > > > No, copyright is not relevant. It keeps people from copying your description of the procedure; instead, they have to rewrite it in their own words. However, copyright has nothing to do with using the procedure. Patents could be relevant, if the technical procedure is patented, but that's completely different from copyright (and there are no automatic patents, the way people automatically get copyright). You could certainly debate whether patents are a problem for science, but this has nothing to do with copyright. > > Or what about copying graphs or figures? > > > Copyright does prohibit reproducing graphs or figures (again with some exceptions, such as [fair use](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use) in the U.S.). However, it's OK to create a different graph/figure that conveys the same information. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: I really do not understand this purpose of your question. Do you want to copy verbatim from someone else? Do you want to forbid other from expanding your work presented in one of your papers? Both these have easy answers. In case 1, do not do it. In case 2, do not publish a paper. Then your idea will be all yours for ever (unless someone else publishes the same idea before you and then you lose). Publishing papers is about sharing results and ideas. Everyone can then expand those ideas as they wish. For protecting novel ideas there are patents and publishing scientific papers is not the way to do it. You also forget what citation is all about. I can say in my paper a short summary (in my own words) of what you first told in your paper in my related work section if I cite you. I can refer to your results if I cite you. I can compare my results against yours (including those presented in your figures), if I cite you. I can expand your results if I implement your method and improve it significantly, if I cite you. All these are fair uses of your scientific work. If you do not want any of these, do not publish a scientific paper. UPDATE: The tone of my answer is a bit hostile but two questions on the same day, one basically defending <NAME> and the other one basically suggesting copyrighting ideas on scientific papers (most probably for profit or fame) shows a complete misunderstanding on how science and scientific publications are supposed to work. In that case, it is better for people (including the OP) to stay as far away as possible from things they do not really understand or "get". Upvotes: 3
2015/01/31	861	3,542	<issue_start>username_0: Some time ago, a course I visited had final exams, and the time announced to the students in advance (several weeks earlier via email by the instructor) was 3 hours. Rather shortly after the students began to write (about 20 minutes), it was announced as a clarification that the room was booked for 3 hours, while the test itself would only take 2 hours. I did not take part in this exam (I took the second one, which had similar conditions), but I'm sure the students were quite surprised. The exam itself was of average difficulty, had it been 3 hours, but very tough in only 2. This was reflected in the results: 90% failed, instead of the usual 30-50%, and the best grade was only a "B-". I'm interested if this sort of thing is less unusual than I would think, or if there is a protocol how to deal with it as a student?<issue_comment>username_1: I would hope this is unusual because it's not very nice to the students. Students deserve to know in advance how much time will be given for the exam. And in my experience, they usually do know this quite far in advance. It doesn't make sense to me that the figure mentioned in the instructor's e-mail would refer to how long the room was booked (which is not something that the students would care about) rather than how much time would be given for the exam. Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is why, when the instructor realized that the students thought they would have three hours for the exam, he didn't just keep quiet and let them have the three hours. However, I don't know what you mean by a "protocol how to deal with it." You could certainly let the instructor know that you are unhappy about this aspect of the exam. But is there something that you think the instructor should do at this point to improve the situation? Also, what does it mean to say that 90% of the students failed the exam? It's not necessarily a bad thing if 90% of the students got a numerical score below 60% on the exam, but it would be a very bad thing if 90% of the students got an 'F' grade in the course. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: First, I think this is unusual, but I doubt that there is serious data about how common things like this are. But the more important question seems to be: Can/Should I take action? What action? This clearly depends: First, there may be a policy how the conditions of final exams have to be announced. At my university many "moduls" (i.e. courses) have a description where it is written "final exams according to the instructors announcements" and there is a general rule that this announcement has to happen in the first week of the course. Also there are general rule that say how long written exams can be. So if the announcement or the time constraints do not fit the actual conditions there could be room for an action to be taken. What would happen if you (or a group of students) would file a complain to, e.g., the dean of student affairs (or somebody similar). I expect that the dean would talk to the instructor and asked what has happened. The instructor may answer respond that it was obvious that the exams time had to be shorter than the announced 3 hours and that he planned the exam for two hours. The dean may still be suspicious because of a high fail rate but this may also have other reasons. So in short: The instructor may get into mild to mediocre trouble but anything beyond that is unlikely. In an extreme case there could be a chance to rewrite the exam… Upvotes: 2
2015/01/31	2,437	10,207	<issue_start>username_0: I'm currently writing my thesis in computer science. My work contains a large amount of equations to do with linear algebra, data transformations and calculus. On receiving feedback on my first draft from my supervisor, he has told me that I am reusing symbols all over the place. So I am going back over things, but I'm finding that I'm running out of both English and Greek characters and I'm having to constantly search back through the text to see if the symbol I want to use has already been defined. For example: ``` Take two vectors X and Y with lengths m and n respectively. ``` All of these symbols have previously been used. So my question is, once a symbol has been defined once, can it not be reused for the whole thesis, and how then should I deal with this problem. Thanks.<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, consider using indices for related objects. E.g., in your example: > > Take two vectors X\_1 and X\_2 with lengths m\_1 and m\_2 respectively. > > > (I use \_ to indicate a subscript as in TeX). On a related note, you can employ boldface and italics to distinguish among the symbols for different objects. Also, as you are in computer science and probably use some flavor of TeX or LaTeX for writing your thesis you can use nonstandard alphabets and symbols it permits (see e.g. [this list](http://latex.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_LaTeX_symbols) or [this one](http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/LaTeX_symbols.pdf)). Second, in the unlikely case the above advice does not completely solve your problem, you fairly safely can redefine the meaning of a symbol once you begin a new chapter (assuming that your average chapter is more than just a few pages). Third, as a truly last resort, you can use nonstandard alphabets like Hebrew or Cyrillic. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: A symbol used before can certainly be reused, in particular when it's meant to represent something very generic. For example, a length n on page 15 and a length n on page 21 may both refer to an arbitrary length, without any implied or otherwise statement that both lengths are the same. The issue in your case is: Your supervisor doesn't like this. There are, however, ways around this. A common way is to distinguish your symbols by subscript texts: * For generic symbols, you can use running indices, e.g. n1, n2, etc. * Alternatively, as that might mean quite high (and arbitrary-seeming) numbers in later pages (x34 = y198 \* z12 might look a bit weird), you can add something specific to the chapter, the formula, or the figure (whatever the maximum scope of the symbols is supposed to be), and just a running number within that context. This would mean that symbols based on n in chapter 3.4 are named something like n3.4,1, n3.4,2, etc. * As soon as your symbols are not meant to be entirely generic, but have a certain particular meaning or significance, a good way to name them is to use explicit indices that state the purpose of the symbol. So, you start working with nMethodX-input, nJohnDoesCoefficient and nresult(algorithm1). Depending on future plans for your text, you may even want to consider preferring such subscripts over any Greek characters or formatting variations (cursive, ...) in the first place, as the subscript variant can be flawlessly transformed/represented in contexts where little or no formatting is available (plain text files, unformatted e-mails, instant messages, hand-written paper or boardwriting, ...), and possibly (depending lastly on how you name your symbols) even with only ASCII characters that can be processed and recognized almost everywhere. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Running out of symbols is a fairly common scenario, and it is usually caused by assigning symbols too early without due consideration to the amount of work yet to come. As such, the main thing to do is to ### Restructure Think about the entire set of symbols you're using. * For which ones is the specific symbol in use crucial for the clarity of the text? There will usually be a core of symbols that you really don't want to reassign, but this is probably smaller than you think. Earmark those symbols for these concepts, and disregard other occurrences (even if they happen earlier in the text). * Keep this core small. Use variations on the symbols (upper/lower case, primes, subscripts) to fit as many variations of the concepts into the key symbols. * Serialize. If you have some sequence of objects which you initially called a, b, c, d, ..., use an appropriate subscript or parenthesis notation to collapse them into a single symbol. Over-expansive naming of sequences of this sort is probably the number-one reason for running out of symbols in the first place. The other thing you should do is ### Encapsulate It is perfectly OK to have the same symbol appear twice, with different meanings, in the same extended piece of work, as long as there is no confusion between them. This is particularly easy to do if the symbols appear, for example, inside the proof of a theorem. Thus, if at some point you use the symbol x in a context like > > Proof. Let x be ... ... ... . ▮ > > > then it is probably OK to re-use the same symbol in a similar encapsulated environment, as long as (i) you clearly define the symbol on its first appearance in each environment, and (ii) you don't (excessively) reference the symbol once you're outside of the encapsulated environments. Similarly, it is usually OK to reuse symbols in different chapters as long as the topic of the two chapters is sufficiently different compared to the similarity of the symbols and the amount of weight you put into the choice of symbol. This is a very common practice: look at any linear algebra textbook and you'll see the symbol v used a number of times, to refer to vectors that are not necessarily compatible. The techniques they use to avoid confusion are forms of encapsulation. From the phrasing of your question, it seems that this is partly the problem with your supervisor. One way to go about this is to step up the encapsulation, either by being more clear with the text, by introducing formal environments, or even using graphical means like boxes around examples to make it clear that the symbol choice is local to that environment. If all else fails ### Some amount of creativity is OK This includes things like multi-letter symbols for important context, though you should be careful with how you typeset them (usually in upright script). However, you should avoid using letters from non-standard alphabets, as they will only further the confusion: few of your readers will know how to pronounce them (which then extends into how they internally vocalize them while reading, and makes it harder for your readers to discuss the paper with each other), and it makes it harder for others to adapt and extend your notation. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: My supervisor says not only that I do not must repeat two time the same symbol, but also that I can not use a symbol like `AB` because someone could read it like `A \cdot B`. In my last paper, for example, I have used `P_{P_E}`. So, in my opinion, when you define an object with a name (e.g. x, y, z) you can not reuse this name for any other parameter. --- EDIT The code, of course, is TeX. ;-) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You are writing a thesis in computer science. I can use my own personal experience as a guide in answering your question. Rarely, if ever, have I seen symbol repetition in a single college textbook on anything science/math related. However, across different subject matter and their associated different textbooks we do see symbol repetition. A college textbook on calculus might very well use similar symbols as a college textbook on physics. Your thesis will get confusing if you use X for this and X for that in a single thesis. In my estimation, you have to come up with a way to clearly convey the differences to the readers. You shouldn't confuse the readers in your thesis. It's counter to conveying the fact that you have a mastery of your subject matter. All that being said, I don't think it will be difficult to differentiate all of your symbols. There are many different combinations you can use to convey differences consistently through your thesis. --- This may be a longshot suggestion, but perhaps you could start incorporating symbols from your computer's "Character Map" GUI. For example: Ǟ ź Ǥ Those three are all from the Arial selection from "Character Map". There are many others. --- I don't see any problem whatsoever with re-using a symbol that represents the same thing throughout your thesis. That is done everywhere and in every college textbook I've ever seen. For example, if "D" means density throughout the thesis then you should be able to use it whenever density is discussed. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: I am surprised that no one mentioned the keyword "scope" here, especially since there is some connection to computer science. Nor "global variables", nor "name spaces"...!?! It is true that some effort is required to be clear about scope of variable names, and that there are local and global namespaces, and that sometimes it's not clear, which is a bad thing. I'd think that all variables (=variable names) should be local by default, rather than global, and to re-use something say "as earlier in section XX" rather than having an implicit global namespace. That makes everything easier to read, in any case. Yes, there are strong arguments in favor of have a few global names, especially if those are standard conventional names anyway. And try to avoid global names that are violently contrary to standard conventions... Very possibly the issue is not really about symbols per se, but about ambiguities in references/namespaces, so revision of the writing itself (to make such things clearer) is the problem. But, by accident, a critical appraisal may sound like a literal objection to the ambiguous use of symbols, while that's merely a symptom, not the whole problem. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/31	2,340	9,811	<issue_start>username_0: When applying for a faculty position, usually there will be an request to fill a self-identification form about things like race and disabilities. The request will mention that it is a “voluntary” form and will not affect the application. My question is whether applicants should spend some time and fill out all such requests or maybe just the ones for schools with which they have an interview?<issue_comment>username_1: First of all, consider using indices for related objects. E.g., in your example: > > Take two vectors X\_1 and X\_2 with lengths m\_1 and m\_2 respectively. > > > (I use \_ to indicate a subscript as in TeX). On a related note, you can employ boldface and italics to distinguish among the symbols for different objects. Also, as you are in computer science and probably use some flavor of TeX or LaTeX for writing your thesis you can use nonstandard alphabets and symbols it permits (see e.g. [this list](http://latex.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_LaTeX_symbols) or [this one](http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/LaTeX_symbols.pdf)). Second, in the unlikely case the above advice does not completely solve your problem, you fairly safely can redefine the meaning of a symbol once you begin a new chapter (assuming that your average chapter is more than just a few pages). Third, as a truly last resort, you can use nonstandard alphabets like Hebrew or Cyrillic. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: A symbol used before can certainly be reused, in particular when it's meant to represent something very generic. For example, a length n on page 15 and a length n on page 21 may both refer to an arbitrary length, without any implied or otherwise statement that both lengths are the same. The issue in your case is: Your supervisor doesn't like this. There are, however, ways around this. A common way is to distinguish your symbols by subscript texts: * For generic symbols, you can use running indices, e.g. n1, n2, etc. * Alternatively, as that might mean quite high (and arbitrary-seeming) numbers in later pages (x34 = y198 \* z12 might look a bit weird), you can add something specific to the chapter, the formula, or the figure (whatever the maximum scope of the symbols is supposed to be), and just a running number within that context. This would mean that symbols based on n in chapter 3.4 are named something like n3.4,1, n3.4,2, etc. * As soon as your symbols are not meant to be entirely generic, but have a certain particular meaning or significance, a good way to name them is to use explicit indices that state the purpose of the symbol. So, you start working with nMethodX-input, nJohnDoesCoefficient and nresult(algorithm1). Depending on future plans for your text, you may even want to consider preferring such subscripts over any Greek characters or formatting variations (cursive, ...) in the first place, as the subscript variant can be flawlessly transformed/represented in contexts where little or no formatting is available (plain text files, unformatted e-mails, instant messages, hand-written paper or boardwriting, ...), and possibly (depending lastly on how you name your symbols) even with only ASCII characters that can be processed and recognized almost everywhere. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: Running out of symbols is a fairly common scenario, and it is usually caused by assigning symbols too early without due consideration to the amount of work yet to come. As such, the main thing to do is to ### Restructure Think about the entire set of symbols you're using. * For which ones is the specific symbol in use crucial for the clarity of the text? There will usually be a core of symbols that you really don't want to reassign, but this is probably smaller than you think. Earmark those symbols for these concepts, and disregard other occurrences (even if they happen earlier in the text). * Keep this core small. Use variations on the symbols (upper/lower case, primes, subscripts) to fit as many variations of the concepts into the key symbols. * Serialize. If you have some sequence of objects which you initially called a, b, c, d, ..., use an appropriate subscript or parenthesis notation to collapse them into a single symbol. Over-expansive naming of sequences of this sort is probably the number-one reason for running out of symbols in the first place. The other thing you should do is ### Encapsulate It is perfectly OK to have the same symbol appear twice, with different meanings, in the same extended piece of work, as long as there is no confusion between them. This is particularly easy to do if the symbols appear, for example, inside the proof of a theorem. Thus, if at some point you use the symbol x in a context like > > Proof. Let x be ... ... ... . ▮ > > > then it is probably OK to re-use the same symbol in a similar encapsulated environment, as long as (i) you clearly define the symbol on its first appearance in each environment, and (ii) you don't (excessively) reference the symbol once you're outside of the encapsulated environments. Similarly, it is usually OK to reuse symbols in different chapters as long as the topic of the two chapters is sufficiently different compared to the similarity of the symbols and the amount of weight you put into the choice of symbol. This is a very common practice: look at any linear algebra textbook and you'll see the symbol v used a number of times, to refer to vectors that are not necessarily compatible. The techniques they use to avoid confusion are forms of encapsulation. From the phrasing of your question, it seems that this is partly the problem with your supervisor. One way to go about this is to step up the encapsulation, either by being more clear with the text, by introducing formal environments, or even using graphical means like boxes around examples to make it clear that the symbol choice is local to that environment. If all else fails ### Some amount of creativity is OK This includes things like multi-letter symbols for important context, though you should be careful with how you typeset them (usually in upright script). However, you should avoid using letters from non-standard alphabets, as they will only further the confusion: few of your readers will know how to pronounce them (which then extends into how they internally vocalize them while reading, and makes it harder for your readers to discuss the paper with each other), and it makes it harder for others to adapt and extend your notation. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_4: My supervisor says not only that I do not must repeat two time the same symbol, but also that I can not use a symbol like `AB` because someone could read it like `A \cdot B`. In my last paper, for example, I have used `P_{P_E}`. So, in my opinion, when you define an object with a name (e.g. x, y, z) you can not reuse this name for any other parameter. --- EDIT The code, of course, is TeX. ;-) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: You are writing a thesis in computer science. I can use my own personal experience as a guide in answering your question. Rarely, if ever, have I seen symbol repetition in a single college textbook on anything science/math related. However, across different subject matter and their associated different textbooks we do see symbol repetition. A college textbook on calculus might very well use similar symbols as a college textbook on physics. Your thesis will get confusing if you use X for this and X for that in a single thesis. In my estimation, you have to come up with a way to clearly convey the differences to the readers. You shouldn't confuse the readers in your thesis. It's counter to conveying the fact that you have a mastery of your subject matter. All that being said, I don't think it will be difficult to differentiate all of your symbols. There are many different combinations you can use to convey differences consistently through your thesis. --- This may be a longshot suggestion, but perhaps you could start incorporating symbols from your computer's "Character Map" GUI. For example: Ǟ ź Ǥ Those three are all from the Arial selection from "Character Map". There are many others. --- I don't see any problem whatsoever with re-using a symbol that represents the same thing throughout your thesis. That is done everywhere and in every college textbook I've ever seen. For example, if "D" means density throughout the thesis then you should be able to use it whenever density is discussed. Upvotes: -1 <issue_comment>username_6: I am surprised that no one mentioned the keyword "scope" here, especially since there is some connection to computer science. Nor "global variables", nor "name spaces"...!?! It is true that some effort is required to be clear about scope of variable names, and that there are local and global namespaces, and that sometimes it's not clear, which is a bad thing. I'd think that all variables (=variable names) should be local by default, rather than global, and to re-use something say "as earlier in section XX" rather than having an implicit global namespace. That makes everything easier to read, in any case. Yes, there are strong arguments in favor of have a few global names, especially if those are standard conventional names anyway. And try to avoid global names that are violently contrary to standard conventions... Very possibly the issue is not really about symbols per se, but about ambiguities in references/namespaces, so revision of the writing itself (to make such things clearer) is the problem. But, by accident, a critical appraisal may sound like a literal objection to the ambiguous use of symbols, while that's merely a symptom, not the whole problem. Upvotes: 1
2015/01/31	706	2,916	<issue_start>username_0: I've failed to finish my master thesis, I thought this was attributed to the minimal supervision of my adviser - he/she wasn't an expert in the domain of thesis and didn't give me any kind of insights or help - only general advice - and I was let to do all the work alone and I failed to finish a good thesis (Another reason I thought was the lack of my background courses and again I had to study everything from start without focus on the target which took too much time). Now I have a chance of interning at a good research lab, the problem that I face now is that I'm afraid that I don't have the ability/skill to do a good research. Does research require a certain kind of personal abilities or is just a matter of hard work?<issue_comment>username_1: I had the same problem with my MSc thesis which I will have to hand in this month: The topic was too broad and complicated, the supervisor gave me a topic which was actually supposed for another PhD student. So I failed (will not get very good grade). But I dont think any conclusion can be drawn for my future work, my other thesis and seminars went all excellent. If you just failed on this one thesis (and otherwise have good results) and the people at the other lab like you, they will certainly help you so you will succeed. The supervisor is I think more crucial than the actual topic, because if you have a nice supervisor he will always help you and with the team together you can succeed. Upvotes: 4 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Although the question is vague, the implicit distinction in it is perhaps the whole point: being able to focus and genuinely work hard over long periods of time, in the face of fatigue, frustration, etc., is itself a particular talent. To explain, consider Mozart in music: it's not that he could magically play and compose, but, rather, that he was able to practice a crazy amount starting at an early age, and acquired profiency... So, a significant part of the "talent" was the capacity to practice long-and-hard. Yes, one can argue that also the ability to benefit from long-and-hard practice is important. And, all the more resoundingly, long-and-hard work is necessary, although one may fail to benefit from it, even if one does manage it (or is forced by parents or other circumstances). No, it is not normal to be able to focus on anything at all at an early age, and perhaps even later it would not be normal to be able to entertain a multi-year project. To be able to do so \_at\_all\_ I think (upon some observation) is a talent. To be able to succeed to some degree is a further talent, and there is an element of luck involved in "high success". But the latter "test" is not often reached. An example of sufficient focus but lack of other necessities is "crackpots" or "cranks". Even so, in some cases they are eventually vindicated! :) Upvotes: 4
2015/01/31	481	2,032	<issue_start>username_0: A person I know applied for a time-limited position (i.e. a post-doc) somewhere in western Europe. [Xe](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xe#Pronoun) gets invited for an interview. The next day, xe receives an informal e-mail, We will recommend HR to send you a formal offer. However, we are still waiting to receive recommendation letters from your references before we can do so. And I thought the content of recommendation letters were essential. In this case they are apparently a formality. Is this indeed very unusual, or is it more common than I think?<issue_comment>username_1: Hiring for a limited-term position like a postdoc is a much lighter decision than making a tenure-track offer. Often, there is an urgency to the hiring as well, as many postdocs are tied to specific contracts with specific tasks that need to be executed on a fast time-frame. As a result, "ordinary" postdoc hiring can sometimes run a lot more like corporate hiring than academic hiring: a fast process where it's more about the person's ability to fill defined responsibilities and less about their long-term potential as a researcher. In a case like this, references are still important, but are more like a corporate hire, where they are confirming the candidate is what they appear to be, rather than causing them to be noticed in the first place. It sounds like this is the case for your acquaintance. That's great, if the position is one that they want. Nothing is certain, however, until the offer is in hand: just as easily as an informal offer can be extended, so can it be retracted if the circumstances change. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_2: In the UK, or at least at my University, recommendation letters are not used in the hiring process of tenure track positions. For some reason after a department decides to hire someone, HR requires recommendation letters. For PhD students, we request and use recommendation letters. HR is not involved in that process and they are not employees. Upvotes: 3
2015/01/31	934	4,000	<issue_start>username_0: In any academic paper dealing at least in part with math, the authors have to make a choice how much explanation to actually give the math. It can range from pretty much no explanation: > > Given a foobar of 12, a ackbar of 57, and general frobnosticating > parameter of 9, the resulting nyan level will be 8. > > > To belaboring the obvious > > The first three people went into the city. Later, four more people > went into the city. This meant that seven people had gone into the > city which is derived by adding the first three people to the next > four people. We add because people are individual units and moving > them to a new location neither combines or divides those units. > > > How does one decide the appropriate level of explanation? Is there any sort of standard that can be appealed to decide when something is clear enough? The actual background for this question is that I've looked at a paper for a colleague. It is in a non-mathematical subject but does engage in some mathematical reasoning. I think the paper doesn't explain enough, but my colleague disagrees. I have to work at figuring out what calculations were done in the paper and the justification for many of the inferences he draws. That indicates to me that the explanation is insufficient, but is there a less subjective standard I can appeal to?<issue_comment>username_1: I'm guessing the author thinks that putting too much math into the body of the paper might disrupt the paper's flow. On the other hand, as a reader, you don't want to have to reconstruct the calculations to satisfy your curiosity that everything is correct. If both of those assumptions are true, perhaps some of the math can be included in an appendix at the end of the article, with a brief reference in the main body. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: I find that the choice of how much explanation to give math is generally a three-way negotiation between three factors: 1. Your estimate of the audience: different communities will need radically different levels of explanation for the same mathematics. 2. Adjustment based on the opinions of the reviewers about what needs more or less details 3. Any length constraints on the paper. Of this #1 is really the important thing: you really need to understand your audience in order to decide how in-depth to go with your mathematics. For example, I recently published a paper which spent several pages explaining a mathematical formulation in depth for its target cross-disciplinary audience. The reviewers requested further expansion of the mathematical explanation (which I was happy to provide). Were I writing for the community from which the mathematics came, however, I would instead spend several pages explaining the context of the problem, but then the math itself would be covered in just a few sentences. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: > > How does one decide the appropriate level of explanation? > > > Know your readers. There are fields, or subfields, of several applied and experimental sciences where equations, long derivations and mathematical explanations are definitely unwelcome. In fields like mathematics or theoretical physics, equations, theorems or proofs can be the main topic of a paper: the proof of a theorem can be the most interesting part. In other fields equations might be interesting, but their applications much more; and the proofs are frequently considered a nuisance. Tell me how to use your mathematical ideas, what are the benefits and the weaknesses, but please, really please, put all the proofs, derivations and detailed explanations under the rug. The rug, in this case, can be either an appendix -- but even there avoid too many details -- or, if you think that your proof is worth per se, write a paper in a journal whose readers might be interested in, then cite it. And sometimes, in a few cases, you can even get away without a proof... Upvotes: 3
2015/01/31	561	2,121	<issue_start>username_0: Which math departments in the U.S. have people known for their contributions to [Lie-admissible algebras](http://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/index.php/Lie-admissible_algebra)? (I asked [this question](https://math.stackexchange.com/q/1127343/128568) on Math SE, but it was voted off-topic there. I hope it's not too specialized of a question here.)<issue_comment>username_1: This seems to be a highly specific area, so you might want to consider a little broader area (Lie algebras in general?) of study. In the process you can of course study these specific areas, but forcing yourself into a uncommon area of interest might make the job search later more challenging. Though, this does not mean you have to go to a place that doesn't study Lie-admissible algebras. The best to find places that actively study the subject is to look up the most recent papers to see who the authors are and their associated university. This can give you a selection of universities where you'll find a potential adviser. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: You can try searching for "Lie admissible algebra" on [MathSciNet](http://www.ams.org/mathscinet) and the [arXiv](http://www.arXiv.org). There are a few papers each year that mention this topic, but it doesn't seem to be a major research area in its own right. If you are thinking about topics for graduate school, this seems to me to be way too specific to narrow down to before choosing an advisor. (I assume you aren't already working in this research area yourself: if you did, you'd have more information about who else is.) As for math departments in the U.S., two of the authors of references in the article you linked to (Benkart and Osborn) are emeritus professors at Wisconsin, and Myung used to be at Northern Iowa but has since died. You could try looking up the authors of papers on the topic that excite you, but this won't give you a wide range of schools in the U.S., especially now that Benkart and Osborn have retired. Instead, I agree with username_1 that you'd be better off considering a broader area. Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]
2015/01/31	2,101	8,724	<issue_start>username_0: I sent my students a feedback form (I'm a TA) and I got three responses. While they were helpful and informative responses, I am not sure how to interpret them, because there are only three of them and they all disagree with each other. What is the best way to get feedback from students? Should I enter them in a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card?<issue_comment>username_1: That might work, but I think the best way to make sure they fill in a feedback form is to print it out, hand it out in class and tell them that they can't leave unless they hand you a filled in form. (This is from personal experience as a student). Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: A method which I learned quite recently is the [Start-Stop-Continue](http://www.bu.edu/ceit/teaching-resources/start-stop-continue/). I think it is a great method, as it is quick, and it does not require much effort both on your part and your students. You will need to distribute three small pieces of paper (e.g. Post-it) to each student, ask them to label Start, Stop, and Continue, respectively, on the top of each paper, and then ask them to list on each paper, according to the label, what they think you should start doing, stop doing, and continue doing. Ask them to submit their papers before they leave. Upvotes: 6 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_3: I agree with username_2 about taking class time to ask students to write down what they would like you to keep doing and what they would like you to do differently. We often do this in my department. Asking for specific feedback on your teaching methods, rather than general feedback, lessens the likelihood of your getting comments about your appearance or other things you cannot easily (or should not have to) change. If you absolutely can't use class time, some ideas are: * Offer to bring treats if at least X% submit the survey. Send updates about the progress toward that goal. * Offer credit for turning in a survey, either toward homework, class participation, or extra credit. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Something that I've used a few times is [Poll Everywhere](http://www.polleverywhere.com). It's fairly easy to use, and as long as you can phrase a question in the form of multiple choice, you can ask just about anything. Every once in awhile, I'll stop my lecture and use Poll Everywhere to ask a conceptual question, or I'll simply ask "Do you think you understand this?" Based on the responses, I decide what to do. As mentioned in the other answers/comments, one issue is student apathy. I rarely get 100% participation, but overall I think I get enough participation that it is useful. Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_5: Giving students very guided, specific feedback prompts during class time (as others have suggested) can be very helpful. Here are a couple of specific techniques. These are from a book I am reading called "[Teaching What You Don't Know](http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0674066170)" by <NAME> (which is about situations like the one described in [How to teach a class that I've never taken?](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3210/how-to-teach-a-class-that-ive-never-taken) - but the advice on assessing your teaching applies more generally). ### The one-point raise Pick one aspect of the course on which you want some feedback. Ask the students to get out a blank piece of paper. Then ask them to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 10. After they've done this, ask them to write down an answer to the question "What would raise that rating by one point." * Make sure to define the endpoints of the scale, so students have a common understand of what 1 means and what 10 means. Use extremes, e.g. "A '1' means you wish you were getting a root canal instead of sitting in this class and a '10' means you wish this class was on YouTube so you could watch it again right now" * Many students will write something that is their own responsibility - i.e., "My rating would have gone up a point if I had gone to sleep earlier last night." On the other hand, for things that are in your control, you'll get immediate, actionable feedback on things that really affect your students' experience. This evaluation is helpful because it's quick to administer, and quick for students to fill out, so you can do it in class and you can expect a high response rate. ### Two-column form Give out a form in which the heading of the first column reads "I like the way the instructor..." and the heading of the second reads "I would like the instructor to..." Then in each column, put practices you want feedback on. Students can check off the practice in the first column if they like it, and/or indicate in the second column if they want more or less of it. For example, you might put in the first column ("I like the way the instructor...") \_\_ Solves example problems during class and then in the second column ("I would like the instructor to...") Solve more/fewer example problems during class. You can put up to ten specific feedback items in the columns. At the end of the form, you can still ask for open-ended feedback - but it is likely to be much more directed now, since you've asked for very specific feedback on specific practices already. This form is helpful because it's quick to administer, quick for students to fill out, and models how to give helpful feedback (not all students know how, and this could be preventing some of them from giving any feedback at all). ### Small group analysis This is a more time-consuming, but very powerful technique, and practically guarantees that you will get useful feedback. However, you'll need to have an outside facilitator who's trained in the technique. (My university's teaching center offers this service to faculty and graduate students who are teaching - check if yours does.) In small group analysis, you invite a facilitator (who is trained in SGA) to observe the class. At the end of the class, the instructor leaves the room while the facilitator asks students for feedback about what is most useful to their learning in the course and for suggestions for what might improve their learning in the course. After the class, the facilitator prepares a report and meets with the instructor to review the results. You can then discuss with the class and tell them what changes you will make based on their feedback. --- Also, here are some general comments on making the feedback you collect more effective: 1. If you plan to collect feedback often, start early in the course (first or second week) to create a culture of feedback. 2. Don't collect more feedback than you can handle. This doesn't apply so much to you because your class is small. But if you are teaching a large course, ask for feedback in small, manageable chunks. You don't want to get into a situation where students believe you are ignoring their feedback, just because you got so much feedback that it takes weeks to read and think about it all. 3. Close the feedback loop by telling students what you have changed based on their feedback. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_6: While there are many answers here, I will add one more. My lectures are driven by slides so at the end of every deck (which marks the end of the session) I include a slide which says: > > On a 1/2 sheet of paper, answer 3 questions: > > > 1. What was the most useful / interesting idea today? > 2. What idea did you least understand today? > 3. Any other comments for your teacher? > > > Bring the paper to me on your way out. > > > The reason for being the final slide every session is as @username_5 wrote, it is important to create a culture of feedback. After the second session they begin to expect this slide. Do I get 100% participation? No. But I do not need 100%. What I do need is significant participation which I get because I give them the time at the end of class (usually 5 minutes is enough) and because they see it every time, and they see everyone else doing it, those "sitting on the fence" will usually do it, even if they say "nothing" for question 3. Every session I get a lot of repeat comments (like, "I least understood xxx") and that really helps when I teach the same subject the following semester. At times it has even caused me to send some extra material through email to clarify a point about which many students had an issue. This also helps: Show that you actually care what they write by doing something about their comments. That goes back to the culture issue. I have used this technique with class sizes between 20 and 100 but believe it would work with all sizes of classes. Upvotes: 3
2015/02/01	423	1,902	<issue_start>username_0: I study in a field that is not related to languages. Should I put languages that I can speak into my CV? Other than English, I can speak my native language, and two other languages that I've learned through classes (at an intermediate level). Might it be seen as irrelevant and hurt my CV?<issue_comment>username_1: It is completely acceptable to display this kind of information on your CV and I can't think of any situation where it can hurt you professionally or socially. However, I would not recommend putting this kind of information on the resume you send out for specific positions (or even proposals) *unless it is important to the job (or proposal) you are applying to. I say this because your CV is a more complete profile of your professions and abilities and listing another language (preferably near the bottom somewhere above hobbies) will not be deemed as a bad thing and in many cases it can actually have a positive effect on how others perceive you. However, a resume is more tailored for specific needs and listing irrelevant information can always have a negative impact on the opposite person. EDIT:* In my personal line of work/study (computer science), speaking another language usually does not help you directly, but is is seen (by many) as an indication of your potential abilities. Speaking another language (and speaking it well) is not an easy task and those who are capable of doing so, show above-average motivation and determination. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Yes, put it. I've gotten positions for strange reasons before (as in: "many of the other candidates were qualified too, but I chose you because you had additional quality X"). Maybe your future employer speaks that language and wants to speak it with you. Or maybe they're just impressed by polyglotism. In any case, it can't hurt. Upvotes: 1
2015/02/01	1,176	4,404	<issue_start>username_0: Are there other widely used academic pre-print repositories other than ArXiv? My interest is especially towards mathematics and physics. If possible, one characteristic that I'd like to find in other pre-print repositories is the possibility to update the paper without leaving the older versions online and a better organized "author page" (and, as a note, I personally don't like Research Gate or Academia.edu, which also, as far as I understand, shouldn't be considered pre-print repositories).<issue_comment>username_1: In mathematics and physics arXiv is by far the most used and reputable. Of course, there are thousands other ways to self-archive your paper using not dedicated solutions (like personal website, GitHub, etc) and some general (like FigShare). Yet, when it comes to pre-print services, they only one I am aware of is <http://vixra.org/>. It has policy of accepting everything; however, it has reputation of crackpotism (as arXiv is popular and editors rarely reject from it, so for the majority if researchers there is no reason to choose viXra (unless as a protest or something)). Upvotes: 5 [selected_answer]<issue_comment>username_2: Try the PeerJ Prepreints. <https://peerj.com/preprints/> Here is what I copied from their website: > > A PeerJ 'PrePrint' is a draft that has not yet been peer reviewed for > formal publication. Similar to preprint servers that already exist > (for example arXiv.org), authors can submit draft, incomplete, or > final versions of articles they are working on. > > > Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_3: One archive that seems to be gaining some traction (possibly more so in Europe) lately is [HAL](https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/) (mentioned in Taladris' comment above). I don't use it personally, but I've been finding a few preprints in my area there recently. Here is their English description: > > The open archive HAL > > > HAL is an open archive where authors can deposit scholarly documents > from all academic fields. > > > For the attention of the authors > > > > ``` > The deposit must be made in agreement with the co-authors and in the respect for the policy of the publishers. > The deposit is subject of a control, HAL reserves the right to refuse items that do not meet the criteria of the archive. > Any deposit is definitive, no withdrawals will be made after the on-line posting of the publication. > Text files in pdf format or image files are sent to CINES for long-term archiving. > > ``` > > While it seems you cannot get rid of old versions, it has what I think are somewhat better "author pages" than the arXiv, e.g., [this example](https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/search/index/q/%2A/authFullName_s/Claire+Voisin/). (You can differentiate people with the same last name and first initial, unlike the default in the arXiv.) Upvotes: 2 <issue_comment>username_4: Shamelessly copy from <https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/295/14341>, just tailor it a little bit. The OSF provides a general open preprint infrastructure that is connected to a range of preprint services. Importantly, it is not owned by a commercial publisher. It supports a number of discipline-specific preprint services many of which use the ArXiv name under licence. The list of preprint services is growing over time. For further information go to: <https://osf.io/preprints> In general, no matter what the discipline you can post to OSF preprints: <https://osf.io/preprints/> More discipline-specific preprint services using the OSF framework are being added on a regular basis: <https://cos.io/blog/public-goods-infrastructure-preprints-and-innovation-scholarly-communication/> ### Useful features of OSF-based preprint services * Strategy for long term archiving * Integration with Google Scholar * Integration with OSF projects which allows you to link other materials such as data, code, and materials * OSF is a not for profit entity run by academic researchers (contrast this with SSRN, Figshare, ResearchGate; i.e., no ads and goals aligned with academic community) * The functionality of OSF preprints is improving on a regular basis. See [features road map](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SocElbBjc_Nhme4-SJv2_zytBd1ys8R5aZDb3POe94c/edit#gid=1340026270) * You can choose a licence * You can link to the DOI of the subsequently published manuscript. Upvotes: 2
2015/02/01	1,421	6,044	<issue_start>username_0: How harmful is it for a PhD student to work with a supervisor whose ambition is greater or lesser than that of the student? I can imagine that if the supervisor aims much higher than the PhD student the experience could be nightmarish for the student (and frustrating for the supervisor). Similarly if the supervisor aims too low (something like: "Just generalize this theory in way X, that should be enough for a PhD") the work could feel meaningless and the time spent on it wasted, when more challenging and maybe even more important questions could deserve the attention and resources. Background: I am interested in a career in research. I am worried that if I aim too low in my PhD project it will hurt my career afterwards. PhD takes years and so one would ideally make most of the years spent doing it. Some supervisors are more ambitious and knowledgeable than others. I would imagine that a PhD with a more ambitious researcher (with talent and education to match) would improve one's chances of a career in academia than with a less ambitious one. I have read that the best thesis is a finished one, but surely one should think about how the PhD helps to further a post-PhD research career. Could the difference be great enough to justify changing programs? Even if the funding is good?<issue_comment>username_1: Ambition is only one dimension of the complex relationship defining whether a student and advisor are well-matched. You can have a complete mis-match in that dimension that still turns out to be a good working relationship. For example: * A highly ambitious student with a low-ambition but supportive advisor can have a chance to shine early, and to learn how to develop their own independent research identity even while still in graduate school. * A low-ambition student with a highly ambitious advisor can be a "valued employee" who faithfully executes on the advisor's ideas. Note, however, that you can't necessarily judge the ambition of a supervisor from the scope of a project that they plan with you: project scope depends on both their ambition and their judgement of what you are capable of. No matter how ambitious, a wise supervisor would not plan to put you on a more ambitious project than they think you can accomplish. And if you turn out to get better results faster than expected, adjusting goals and scope is easy. A final note: research is hard and unpredictable. No matter how ambitious your goals, you will almost certainly be side-tracked in one way or another, just by the nature of basic research. Upvotes: 3 <issue_comment>username_2: It does not make much sense to me to compare the supervisor's ambition for herself to the student's ambition for himself: the supervisor is probably older (more often than not, significantly older) and certainly more experienced and accomplished than the student. If a student feels competitive with his thesis advisor in any direct way, something has probably gone wrong. Students should take on advisors that they view as distinctly wiser and more knowledgeable in the main topic they're trying to learn! (The notion of a student who is comparably knowledgeable and skilled as his advisor is something which appears in the premise of a question on this site at least once a month. Strangely, I have never seen it in real life.) "Ambition" isn't exactly the right metric, because it aims at the future, and some very successful, eminent researchers are not pushing hard for the future: they've done plenty already. Such "big old dogs" can make great thesis advisors. On the other hand, some advisors are much more ambitious than others in their expectation for their students. This is an important thing to take into account when choosing an advisor, and too great a mismatch in either direction is going to be a problem. For instance, it is likely that at some point in the relationship the advisor will say "I want you to do X, and when you do it you'll have a PhD." If the student thinks that there is no way in hell that he is going to get anywhere near X it is worth a conversation ASAP, and if X really needs to be attained to get a PhD (probably not, by the way, but just for argument's sake) then the student should look elsewhere. On the other hand, if the student can (or does) do X in a month or two and the advisor says "Great -- now you have a PhD!" then the student may want to start over with someone who is more ambitious on his behalf. Upvotes: 4 <issue_comment>username_3: I will introduce another dimension to your dilemma. Have you ever thought about the relative weights of: * a lukewarm recommendation letter from a big name advisor, vs. * an enthusiastic recommendation letter from a medium name advisor? The former can kill a career. Also think about these questions, with regard to both current advisor and potential new advisor: * how much heart does the advisor have? * to what degree do you feel fascinated by the advisor? * to what degree do you feel respected and valued by the advisor? * to what degree do you feel that you and the advisor are on the same natural wavelength? * does the advisor have good judgment, so that s/he can prevent you from investing a lot of time on tangents or dead-ends? * does the advisor have a good nose for what will make a splash, and for realizing when there is a risk that someone else will publish on your topic before you do? Take a good look at the potential advisors' publication lists. Also, have some frank conversations with them about yourself, what you are interested in, to find out if the person will be truly supportive of you. I would not change programs if you are more than a year and a half into your research, unless something is really wrong with your current set-up. If an advisor has invested time and energy in you, it would not be ethical to jump ship just because the grass looks greener elsewhere. The dean of the graduate program in your department is probably someone you could talk to about your dilemma. Upvotes: 2
2015/02/01	745	3,205	<issue_start>username_0: Scribd is surely a huge website, but I was wondering if there are some data on its usage in the academic world as a means for sharing lecture notes or research notes.<issue_comment>username_1: This is a very hard question to answer, as everyone can only give their viewpoint. I can therefore give you one viewpoint. I am a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, and until seeing this post I'd never heard of this website. Having just gone to the website, it seems to just be a book subscription service, which costs $8.99 a month, with no obvious academic purpose. I can't see why you would expect me to use it, and I certainly don't intend to start. Upvotes: 1 <issue_comment>username_2: I use it a little, and one of my colleagues uses it a little, but I don't get the impression that it's widely used. The application I used it for was the following. I have written textbooks for use in some of my courses. They're available for free online. About 70 other people are using them. At a certain point, I decided I wanted to do a fairly major revision, which would completely break compatibility with the earlier versions of the book. (There's a different order of topics, for example.) I didn't want the old versions cluttering up my web site and creating confusion, but I also didn't want to force my users to switch immediately to the new version (or at all, if they liked the old version better). So I just put the old ones on scribd. One of my colleague uses scribd for his course notes, for a somewhat different reason. He simply doesn't want the hassle of maintaining his own web site, paying for webhosting, etc. For both me and my colleague, one of the considerations was that our school's computing resources are flaky, inadequate, and Windows-centric. People might also prefer not to use a school server for something like a textbook that they want to make clear is not the intellectual property of their employer. One of the problems with using scribd for these purposes is that scribd has been searching for a business model that will allow them to make a profit, and therefore they keep changing their rules and the way they present themselves publicly. For example, I've heard complaints from people that (at least at one point in time) scribd seemed to be trying to force them to pay money or contribute materials in order to access files. It is probably not realistic to think of scribd as a permanent place to store documents (cf. arxiv.org or archive.org, where there is some expectation of permanence). Another educational purpose for which I use scribd is illegal according to the laws of some countries. There are a lot of classic papers in my field that are very important and useful educationally, but are still under copyright in many countries. Some of the old ones are not even available from the publisher in digital form if you're willing to pay; they haven't been digitized, and the only way to access them is by going to the basement at a big university where they keep very old journals. Sometimes when I go to the trouble of obtaining one of these papers, I scan it and post it on scribd. Upvotes: 3 [selected_answer]